Mods that Drastically Improved Games (to the point they became "Essential")
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Try playing Aliens: Colonial Marines without the mod and typo fix.
www.moddb.com
www.resetera.com
TemplarGFX's ACM Overhaul mod for Aliens: Colonial Marines
Experience Aliens: Colonial Marines how it should have been when it first released. This mod includes fixes to AI, Weapons, Graphics, balancing and more for the Main Campaign, Statis Interrupted and Bug Hunt in SP and COOP.
Aliens: Colonial Marines AI fixed by a single letter
In a recent thread recommending the PC version of Aliens: Colonial Marines for less than $3, a post happened to single out an announcement made on the ModDB page for Aliens: Colonial Marines. A passionate modder who has made it his mission to overhaul aspects of the absolutely dreadful Colonial...
www.resetera.com
KNOSSOS, the Freespace 2 mod* to make it playable on modern systems and support modern peripherals comes to mind.
Oh, and of course the Vampires: Bloodlines unofficial mod/patch.
I would also love to namedrop a couple of total conversions for other games that are "must-play" every bit as good as the games they were based on (Archolos for Gothic 2) or in some case decidedly better (Ultima V Lazarus for Dungeon Siege), but I don't think that's what the OP is asking for.
*more like an aggregation of several different mods offered as alternatives, really.
Oh, and of course the Vampires: Bloodlines unofficial mod/patch.
I would also love to namedrop a couple of total conversions for other games that are "must-play" every bit as good as the games they were based on (Archolos for Gothic 2) or in some case decidedly better (Ultima V Lazarus for Dungeon Siege), but I don't think that's what the OP is asking for.
*more like an aggregation of several different mods offered as alternatives, really.
Well. Your loss.
Me neither. In fact (and we may disagree here) I think I prefer "vanilla" War of the Chosen over any other modded version of XCOM 1 or 2.
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For many years, the only way that Kingdom of Amalur was enjoyable to play to the end was with the Heartcore mod. The company disbanded before they could balance the difficulty and the game was waaaaay too easy.
They re-released it a few years ago with some balancing adjustments, but that mod was fantastic.
They re-released it a few years ago with some balancing adjustments, but that mod was fantastic.
Yep. I was in a party fighting the beetles out in Sauromugue one evening and one of the people in the group was talking about how their friend is about to release a windower for the game, and nobody believed him. A little bit of time went by and it had been released. We all broke the party to go download it and try it out. Unfortunately the first release did not work with gamepads but he got that fixed pretty quickly.
To provide some context for people, the original FF11 windower was needed because you could not alt-tab from the game at all without it closing. So you'd have people who would alt-tab and drop from parties, or just hit their windows key and that would immediately kill their game. It got to the point where people were recommending windows key blockers to prevent that form happening. Of course, later on Windower got more features, things like TParty to see your party members' TP and things like that came along in version 2.0. But even before that, it was an essential program for any PC player.
That ongoing process has been, in a mild internet way, controversial. They've moved on from legit, pretty clear bug fixes to doing implied bug fixes. Not to uncommon to see people salty they decided to "fix" necromage in Skyrim.
Though I agree the mod and the work behind it is downright amazing, it does the most obnoxious thing some of the coolest conversion mods do... assume everyone is a fucking pro at the game. The base game AI cheats for sure, but at least it tries to hide it. Third Age tells you it cheats and you get to watch it cheat in front of you. Some of the coolest mods for Empire at War have the exact same issue and I can't stand it.
Now this I can agree with. I know I certainly can't go back to the clunky UI of the base game.
good luck playing the sims 2, 3 and 4 without certain mods that fix errors, bugs, broken features and population management. also modded worlds that fix pathfinding issues in 3
the sims games are one of the few games where no matter how you feel about mods, you need the essentials.
Any mod that fixes ultrawide display on games is considered a QOL for me.
Flawless Widescreen software is an essential modification to have many (mostly older) games to run ultrawide/super ultrawide perfectly with adjustable FOV and better screen ratio. Not many games are in the list which needs to use alternatives like Cheat Engine or fixed EXE or patch.
Though it's also sad that many modern games also don't utilize ultrawide display very well, which have to depend on external patch or software like above.
So, if you play on ultrawide monitor, it is important to search and hunt down many of individual patches for games that you want to play and has Flawless Widescreen software prepared, or you might suffer a bad FOV, stretched or pillarboxed screen like in cutscenes.
Flawless Widescreen software is an essential modification to have many (mostly older) games to run ultrawide/super ultrawide perfectly with adjustable FOV and better screen ratio. Not many games are in the list which needs to use alternatives like Cheat Engine or fixed EXE or patch.
Though it's also sad that many modern games also don't utilize ultrawide display very well, which have to depend on external patch or software like above.
So, if you play on ultrawide monitor, it is important to search and hunt down many of individual patches for games that you want to play and has Flawless Widescreen software prepared, or you might suffer a bad FOV, stretched or pillarboxed screen like in cutscenes.
A little more than just mild, I'd say, at least within the modding community. The particular individual leading the project is especially infamous at this point, and has been banned from spaces just for how sheerly inflammatory and shitty he acted towards anyone who dared question any of the patch's overreaches - and not to mention how he fervently tried to block VR users from using the mod, and threw his influence around trying to shut down any mod that competed with his or altered the unofficial patch to be more faithful. (And this is all before you get into the fact that the dude has some... let's just say less-than-amazing views, which were bad enough he nuked his old forum and excluded it from archive.org's wayback functions to hide it all.)
A lot of the changes are even worse than necromage at this point - going into the realm of correcting what the author feels are 'lore inaccuracies' and other subjective tweaks, as well as restoring cut dragon voicelines with atrocious fan voice acting, which is one of the most egregious oversteps imo that goes beyond just fixing bugs. It's become less 'let's fix all of skyrim's bugs' and more 'i know skyrim best, so i'm going to enforce my weird specific vision of how it should be through my ubiquitous mod'
It's to the point that many - including myself, are hoping that the next few Bethesda games will have definitive unofficial patches that don't have the one author's involvement. It might be too late for Skyrim, but I am hoping a better bug-fix mod does come out some day, unlikely as it may be at this point.
Oh god yes, I just can't ever go back to vanilla Sonic Adventure DX after the Dreamcast restoration mods. I'd even recommend modded SADX over the original Dreamcast game since it's 60fps and the quality of the mods is just that high.
Cities Skylines has many mods that have become essential like traffic manager mods and unlocking more than 9 tiles.
I would say the Moguri Mod for Final Fantasy IX on PC is pretty much essential as it does the art of the game justice:
sites.google.com
HOME
What's Moguri Mod ? Moguri Mod is a faithful revamp of the PC version of Final Fantasy IX helped by deep learning techniques (ESRGAN). The most important changes are in the background arts, that are now cleaner, more detailed and higher resolution. Moguri Mod also includes a custom implementation
sites.google.com
I'd go on to say that FFNx for FFVII and FFVIII as well as SYW for FFVII and the analogous mod for FFVIII are just as important.I would say the Moguri Mod for Final Fantasy IX on PC is pretty much essential as it does the art of the game justice:
HOME
What's Moguri Mod ? Moguri Mod is a faithful revamp of the PC version of Final Fantasy IX helped by deep learning techniques (ESRGAN). The most important changes are in the background arts, that are now cleaner, more detailed and higher resolution. Moguri Mod also includes a custom implementation
Ah I never replayed FFVII and FFVIII with mods yet but I'll note these for when the time comes, thanks :)
There are some wonderful QOL and UI mods available for Civ 6….things like 'Quick Deals' and extending the UI in policy cards to show how much impact enacting them will actually have.
Sounds silly but I run about 12 of them and couldn't play without them now.
Sounds silly but I run about 12 of them and couldn't play without them now.
Stuff to make Geralt's life easier is almost essential for playing The Witcher.
forums.cdprojektred.com
[TW1][mod] Stuff that make Geralt's life easier!!
[TW1][mod] Stuff that make Geralt's life easier!! This Mod will add 3 quest items to your inventory ( in the quest item panel of course), these are for people who got frustrated with certain aspects of the game and wouldn't mind 'bending' the rules. ;)1- Meditation : I always hated the fact...
forums.cdprojektred.com
Daikatana's 1.3 Patch makes the AI companion system less prone to soft locking the game, which is very important.
https://daikatana.fandom.com/wiki/1.3_Patch
https://daikatana.fandom.com/wiki/1.3_Patch
VTMB was the first one that came to mind as I read the thread topic, but OP already mentioned that one. New Vegas is the next one I associate with a must mod experience.
I have never understood the hatred for the Fade.
I have never understood the hatred for the Fade.
Skyrim's Alternative Start mod became essential to me because there's no way I'm sitting thru that default intro willingly ever again
For The Sims 3 the Smooth Patch and NRaas Overwatch/MasterController are pretty much mandatory to have the game run decently with all packs installed. There's also that one mod that fixes boat houses in Island Paradise that prevents the one world it added to be rendered completely unplayable because of the insane lag they caused
For The Sims 3 the Smooth Patch and NRaas Overwatch/MasterController are pretty much mandatory to have the game run decently with all packs installed. There's also that one mod that fixes boat houses in Island Paradise that prevents the one world it added to be rendered completely unplayable because of the insane lag they caused
The Tain » Myth II: Soulblighter » Misc » Detail Texture Megapack
The Tain: File archive for the Myth Series
tain.totalcodex.net
Does this count? T_T
These two.
DSfix simply made the game run better.
Windower was outright needed to play the game on PC, you couldn't alt tab out of the game as it would instantly crash the game, and you couldn't run the game in windowed mode either. It later added extended support for other QoL stuff but it wasn't as crucial. I wouldn't have played FFXI if Windower didn't exist.
Thanks for this, I had no idea of it's existance.Circle of Eight and later, the Temple+ mod for Temple of Elemental Evil.
Circle of Eight mod for The Temple of Elemental Evil
A bugfix, rules compliance, and expanded content modification for Troika Games' 'The Temple of Elemental Evil.'
Temple+ mod
Temple+ is an engine enhancement mod for Troika's Temple of Elemental Evil, including: Fixes for hardcoded bugs, Engine Modernization, UI improvements, and brand new Features!
Blizzard just 'reworked' the default UI and it is still miles behind what people made in a cave with a box of scraps 10 years ago, it's truly baffling how terrible the default UI is. The new patch just broke an addon I've been using since forever that automatically groups items in your bags so you don't have to scour through 150 slots looking for that magic carrot and I feel lost without it (AdiBags).
The fact that they even admitted that they are designing the hardest raid/dungeon encounters assuming that people use the addons for tracking mechanics, and then reworked their UI without including these functionalities is just absolutely mind-blowing. How the hell can they possibly have such a bad UX in 2022 I have no idea. That's even without getting into how spell alerts are inconsistent and for some procs you get a big notification in the middle of your screen, some make your abilities glow and some give you a buff that you can't see unless you're specifically looking at your buff list.
View: https://youtu.be/NZP4UEUWS9g
I quit this game a few hours into playing at launch and now it's my favourite since HG/SS. Unlike other games in the series it was built in Unity so it's extremely moddable. A few years down the line we'll see total conversions into brand new games, it's the GBA romhack scene successor.
Gentlemen of the Row mod for Saints Row 2. Original release is effectively unplayable on a lot of hardware. Volition has said they will put out an official patch to fix the issues, but since the main person working on it has passed away it remains to be seen if it will ever be finished.
I've just started the PC version of FF7 remake and its a stuttery mess, does that game have any good mods at all?
The style switcher for Kiwami 2 for sure. It adds in 4 fighting styles that originate from 0 primarily, but also adds a proper dragon stance that closely resembles Kiryu's Yakuza 5 self. It also tweaks enemy AI, health, adds a couple of moves from Lost Judgment for Heat Climax mode etc. and also adds Majima's stances back as well (because his part in Kiwami 2 was a piece of shit before, this makes it... less so).
It cant fix some issues with Kiwami 2 unfortunately, but its the best way to play the remake by a long shot, the modders did a vastly better job than RGGS did that's for sure.
It cant fix some issues with Kiwami 2 unfortunately, but its the best way to play the remake by a long shot, the modders did a vastly better job than RGGS did that's for sure.
My brother is in awe about this:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mrb3FH4crI4
In a way it's almost a fan made sequel, since the mod is so big.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mrb3FH4crI4
In a way it's almost a fan made sequel, since the mod is so big.
Sure thing! I've posted this before, but here's an overview/history of the patches:
Temple of Elemental Evil and the Mods that Saved it | Dungeons & Dragons | Musings of an Idiot #4
The Temple of Elemental Evil was one of the first adventure modules ever released for Dungeons & Dragons. The video game adaptation of it isn't great. Let's ...
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The Keep on the Borderlands (and it's Video Game Mod) | Dungeons & Dragons | Musings of an Idiot #10
The Keep on the Borderlands is here and it's on your PC.GET THE MOD HERE - https://co8.org/community/forums/the-keep-on-the-borderlands.55/The music for this...
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JSawyer mod for Fallout: New Vegas, the mod from the game's director, Josh Sawyer. I never play New Vegas without it
All the custom high detail skins, animations, wads, decals, and modes. Shame Csgo killed it mostly off because Valve wanted lootbox money.
Is there a point where 'traditional' overhaul mods that might have taken on much older titles (eg Deus Ex/System Shock) either lapse out of conversations like this (even if they did count, once) or are the titles they are for simply forgotten?
I mean, Skyrim when it was new was a wee pup regards to mods in comparison to its contemporaries. I once went looking for mods that went into the scale we are used to now, for much older games. Not sure if the ones I was keen on were still maintained, simply because of the game's age or maintenance required for increasingly obscure titles.
I mean, Skyrim when it was new was a wee pup regards to mods in comparison to its contemporaries. I once went looking for mods that went into the scale we are used to now, for much older games. Not sure if the ones I was keen on were still maintained, simply because of the game's age or maintenance required for increasingly obscure titles.