Incline Your essential mods

[Lemming42]

As in, mods that you don't play the base game without, or prefer over the base game.

For Doom I really find that Doom Delta is a big improvement, keeping very close to the original feel without going off in stupid directions like Brutal Doom does. Combined wtih the Doom The Way Id Did map pack, which recreates the original game but just... better, you're in for a good time.

For Heretic, Wayfarer's Tome is pretty much mandatory for me now. Weapon and enemy rebalance that makes the game so much smoother. Don't play without it!

For Tomb Raider 1 and 2, Sabatu's Tomb Raider is incredible. Reimaginings of the original games in a way that makes the levels far more complex and challenging, improving on the already-superb originals. I have trouble going back to the original games after these.

Also I'll throw Ash a bone here and say that I have a hard time playing the original Deus Ex after playing with GMDX's improvements.

What are your ESSENTIAL MODS?

 

[Beans00]

I find mods to be very autistic. So I generally don't play any mods unless they are total conversions, or if they restore cut content(stalker soc, kotor 2).

 

[Avonaeon]

Infiltration 2.75 Extended 1.05 for Unreal Tournament. I'm a total sucker for it and even made a couple of maps tailored for it.

 

[octavius]

SCS for Baldur's Gate.
PlugY for Diablo 2.
HD-Mod for HoMM 3.

 

[Ezekiel]

I find mods to be very autistic. So I generally don't play any mods unless they are total conversions, or if they restore cut content(stalker soc, kotor 2).

I don't get it. Why do you care if it's autistic? How does that affect you?

 

[randir14]

GMDX and the DX10 renderer for Deus Ex
OldUnreal patch for Unreal Gold
Temporal Super Sampling for Elden Ring (adds DLSS to the game which drastically improves the image quality if you use the DLAA preset).

 

[JarlFrank]

Any Total War game is meh in vanilla compared to what mods do.

Not gonna pick one specific mod, there's several very good ones for every TW game.

 

[Vic]

 

[Hell Swarm]

I find mods to be very autistic. So I generally don't play any mods unless they are total conversions, or if they restore cut content(stalker soc, kotor 2).

I don't get it. Why do you care if it's autistic? How does that affect you?

I agree with beans. You can spend weeks modding a game or you can just play a different game. Instead of trying to balance Bethesda's broken shit with 20 mods to fix everything you can play a game with the features you already want and enjoy the game with the time other wise wasted on wrangling mods.

 

[Vic]

I agree with beans. You can spend weeks modding a game or you can just play a different game. Instead of trying to balance Bethesda's broken shit with 20 mods to fix everything you can play a game with the features you already want and enjoy the game with the time other wise wasted on wrangling mods.

baby wants to be spoon fed perfect games. well, they don't exist. mods allow you to tweak the game to be more to your liking.

 

[Hell Swarm]

I agree with beans. You can spend weeks modding a game or you can just play a different game. Instead of trying to balance Bethesda's broken shit with 20 mods to fix everything you can play a game with the features you already want and enjoy the game with the time other wise wasted on wrangling mods.

baby wants to be spoon fed perfect games. well, they don't exist. mods allow you to tweak the game to be more to your liking.

Only a Bethestard would make an argument like that. After proving you're a fucking loser who plays porn mods because no one likes you lol.

 

[Ezekiel]

I find mods to be very autistic. So I generally don't play any mods unless they are total conversions, or if they restore cut content(stalker soc, kotor 2).

I don't get it. Why do you care if it's autistic? How does that affect you?

I agree with beans. You can spend weeks modding a game or you can just play a different game. Instead of trying to balance Bethesda's broken shit with 20 mods to fix everything you can play a game with the features you already want and enjoy the game with the time other wise wasted on wrangling mods.

But that's a reason. Beans doesn't have a reason. Okay, so you're saying that when he says "autistic" he means that it wastes a lot of time? I don't know that. Either way, self-imposed. Just grab what you want and stop. Or does he mean he is autistic? Makes no sense.

 

[Hell Swarm]

I find mods to be very autistic. So I generally don't play any mods unless they are total conversions, or if they restore cut content(stalker soc, kotor 2).

I don't get it. Why do you care if it's autistic? How does that affect you?

I agree with beans. You can spend weeks modding a game or you can just play a different game. Instead of trying to balance Bethesda's broken shit with 20 mods to fix everything you can play a game with the features you already want and enjoy the game with the time other wise wasted on wrangling mods.

But that's a reason. Beans doesn't have a reason. Okay, so you're saying that when he says "autistic" he means that it wastes a lot of time? I don't know that. Either way, self-imposed. Just grab what you want and stop. Or does he mean he is autistic? Makes no sense.

He can only speak for himself but I think we're along the same lines. Grabbing a fan patch or a quick drop into folder fix is fine. Playing an entirely new game in the form of a total conversion is fine. But the weird middle grounds where you're adding realistic horse dicks, better quests, better combat, better dungeons all to Skyrim.. Why not just don't play skyrim? It will take you hours of searching for mods and then installing them, then fixing any problems. If so much needs fixing why not just play something else?

 

[Vic]

well, some people find it fun to mod their game, maybe even more fun than actually playing it lol

 

[Hell Swarm]

well, some people find it fun to mod their game, maybe even more fun than actually playing it lol

Only autistic losers who play porn mods because no woman will ever touch them and they can't move on and accept Bethesda games are unplayable garbage and walking sims have surpassed them in story and content.

 

[Vic]

well, some people find it fun to mod their game, maybe even more fun than actually playing it lol

Only autistic losers who play porn mods because no woman will ever touch them and they can't move on and accept Bethesda games are unplayable garbage and walking sims have surpassed them in story and content.

I don't get it. Why do you care if it's autistic? How does that affect you?

 

[Lemming42]

I didn't mention Bethesda games in the OP partly because I knew the thread would end up becoming about that anyway and partly because I legit can't think of any mod I'd consider "essential" for any of them. There's a small handful I use on every playthrough for those games but I'd also not miss them. Funnily enough the only one I'd call truly "essential" in that sense is a very small mod for Fo3 which lets you persuade the two enslaved women in Paradise Falls to escape and/or take up arms alongside you before you assault the place, which is just something that should obviously have been in vanilla to start with.

If we're doing Bethesda games, then I probably won't play Morrowind without Bonk! installed, which allows for stealth knockouts. Also Tamriel Rebuilt is an obvious one; there's never a good reason not to play with it installed, especially since it's frankly head and shoulders above Morrowind itself, which looks a bit shit and basic in comparison. If I do care to start up Morrowind these days, I tend to just go directly to the mainland and ignore the base game.

Anyway, another mod I use is Elite Force for SWAT 4. Another one of those mods you just can't go back to the original game after playing with, and which is so good that you can't even remember what was added by the mod and what was vanilla.

 

[Humanophage]

Top-tier large mods:
Civilization IV - Fall From Heaven 2 (+modmods)
Crusader Kings 2 - Geheimnisnacht
nuXCom - Long War
Eador: Genesis - New Horizons

Minor mods:
Witcher 3 - first person camera mod
Pathfinder games - autobuff
Rimworld - unplayable without mods, too many to mention

 

[Beans00]

I find mods to be very autistic. So I generally don't play any mods unless they are total conversions, or if they restore cut content(stalker soc, kotor 2).

I don't get it. Why do you care if it's autistic? How does that affect you?

I agree with beans. You can spend weeks modding a game or you can just play a different game. Instead of trying to balance Bethesda's broken shit with 20 mods to fix everything you can play a game with the features you already want and enjoy the game with the time other wise wasted on wrangling mods.

But that's a reason. Beans doesn't have a reason. Okay, so you're saying that when he says "autistic" he means that it wastes a lot of time? I don't know that. Either way, self-imposed. Just grab what you want and stop. Or does he mean he is autistic? Makes no sense.

I have a reason, I just got bored when typing it out replying to you and I did something productive instead. I'll probably reply tomorrow morning .

 

[KörangarTheMighty]

I use mods to make good games better, not make bad games good. If you don't see the base value in vanilla no amount of modding will ever change that perception and you likely wouldn't embark on the task to begin with.

Off the top of my head some essentials would be:

KotOR Community Patch for K1
The Sith Lords Restored Content Mod for K2
Project Mersey for Witcher 1
Unofficial Patches for The Battle For Middle Earth II and RotWK

 

[Azdul]

nuXCom - Long War

+ LW Rebalance

Mod is being updated every 2 weeks for the last 8 years. At this point - almost every aspect of the game is properly balanced.

 

[Gandalf]

Fanmade HoMM3 HD mod allows me to run the game in higher resolutions than the standard 800x600 pixels. It's pretty cool.

 

[Alienman]

Final Mod Pack for OG X-com. It makes the original campaign so much better, while keeping to the theme of the original. However, the mod is a bit outdated now, and some stuff does not work with other mods, so I use a modified version that I edited myself.

Otherwise, maybe Project Injury Reaction for Arma 3. Makes the game grittier, and I think the first aid addition is much better than the standard game.

 

[Baron Dupek]

Diablo 1 - The Hell1 HD, not available anymore anywhere thanks to OG creator kindly asking to remove it citing some issues than never happen to me

 

[JarlFrank]

Instead of trying to balance Bethesda's broken shit with 20 mods to fix everything you can play a game with the features you already want and enjoy the game with the time other wise wasted on wrangling mods.

Ok but nobody is making games with the features I already want so the best thing I got is mods for 20 year old games.

Not talking about modern Bethesda games tho - Morrowind is still their best, and one of the very few games out there doing exactly what I want.
With Total War it's the same, mods for Rome and Medieval 2 are so much better than any of their new games.
Nobody has yet made a game that can even remotely compete to Thief in the stealth imsim department, so I play Thief fan missions. Oh wait, there's also The Dark Mod... a mod... for Doom 3...
Same with classic Tomb Raider. Modern Tomb Raider has nothing to do with the old ones gameplay-wise, and nobody is making these classic exploration-puzzle focused 3D action adventures anymore, so I gotta go on trle.net and download fan-made levels.
Doom and Quake have tons of fan-made maps that are just as good as, if not better than, modern indie boomer shooters.

Mods are just as good, if not better than, whatever other games you may find out there.