Best "Vanilla Overhaul" mods you know about

[Saldrone]

Mention mods that actually improves the intented design of certain games without making them bloated and/or deviating too much from the core experience. Since some people need to not waste time downloading fancreated junk.

 

[Losus4]

No overhaul based on the tastes and preferences of others modders beats simply modding the game yourself based on what you want and prefer.

 

[Lemming42]

I made a similar thread recently, mine are:

Doom Delta with Doom The Way Id Did for Doom. Doom Delta is very lightweight and all of its changes are positive ones, DTWID is a superb map pack that really dramatically improves E2 and E3.

Wayfarer's Tome for Heretic. Simple weapon/enemy damage rework that massively improves the game.

SWAT 4 Elite Force for SWAT 4. Mostly changes to AI and weapons that are universally good.

GMDX for Deus Ex. Does all kinds of stuff.

Tamriel Rebuilt for Morrowind. Basically just a new landmass with near-universally better content than the base game.

Arcane Dimensions for Quake (you may consider this "bloated", some of the maps are a bit much)

 

[Lagi]

Wayfarer's Tome for Heretic. Simple weapon/enemy damage rework that massively improves the game.

Arcane Dimensions for Quake (you may consider this "bloated", some of the maps are a bit much)

Wayfarers is also an episode (mappack). a much MUCH better than vanilla.

Arcane Dimensions is superb. One may say that lack of linear level progression, and hub level selection is too much deviation. Levels are more difficult too ( to navigate, and for combat) so its rather complete vanilla then go for this pack.

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Beyond Earth Codex - i didnt play vanilla. But as someone has written: "it makes garbage game, semi decent". Basically, make the pretty models playable for graphic whores. [this game is not even close to AC].

Dawn of War Pro - very neatly balanced gameplay. With QoL features better zoom on map, grid hot keys. Making many ingame tools (units, upgrades) useful. And avoiding adding bloating units, novelty. Plus AI is using all elements and is very demanding.

 

[actor]

Witcher 3 Enhanced Edition Redux: https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/5802

 

[Butter]

JSawyer.

 

[Gregz]

Prophesy of Pendor
Median XL
Daggerfall Unity

 

[ind33d]

FCOM Oblivion is one of the best games of all time

 

[cretin]

AMK 1.4 for STALKER shadow of chernobyl. It's pretty close to a perfect mod in that it merely enhances what was already there without altering the gameplay loops.

I'd have to think of a more modern example. AMK is still perfectly playable but there are a few more modern packages for SOC that everyone ignores in favor of the latest OGSR based slop.

 

[gurugeorge]

Ghost Mode for Twitcher 3.

 

[cretin]

Witcher 3 Enhanced Edition Redux: https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/5802

I dont think EE meets the criteria. It pretty dramatically overhauls the systems in the game. You could of course argue for the better (I would), but its certainly not an as intended or vanilla like experience at all.

 

[Jvegi]

Scs.

 

[actor]

Witcher 3 Enhanced Edition Redux: https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/5802

I dont think EE meets the criteria. It pretty dramatically overhauls the systems in the game. You could of course argue for the better (I would), but its certainly not an as intended or vanilla like experience at all.

Then I suppose this thread is more "vanilla plus"

To me "vanilla overhaul" implies an overhaul... If the vanilla game. So no additional narrative content or assets, just rebalancing the gameplay.