If we count any mod then it's got to be Too Many Items (father of NEI, grandfather of JEI)

If talking about content mods, it's harder and depends a lot on personal taste but I'd personally pick Thaumcraft. Back in the day there really was nothing remotely like Thaumcraft 4, and even now 10 years later while there's some very good mods in their own right that take a few pages from its book (no pun intended), they're still so far away from it. It's one of the only mods you could just have entirely on its own, nothing else installed, and still have an incredible experience with it.

IC2 gave us gregtech, thaumcraft gave us thaumcraft 4. None other mods could really be an answer
twilight forest might be there too, but the mod is only complimentory to other mods, not much by itself

Well TIL. Apparently a a big inspiration for Factorio was in fact these minecraft mods.

Jei doesnt count or else it would obliterate every single mod ever no question

Which is why both should be included in a modpack lol.

Love those two mods, I’m playing with the both right now in the 1.12.2 pack by tekkit.

I'd always download this, the mod that shrinks you down, and little blocks. It was so much fun to build arenas and let them duke it out.

if we're talking about just stock minecraft with only one mod: sodium. modern minecraft runs like garbage without it

REI and its peripherals (REP, etc.) are better if you're using fabric (fabric is much better for performance). JEI, etc., are all ports from the forge. The performance difference isn't that great, though, to be honest, and they do look slightly different.

Such a good backpack mod. Very useful in any stage of the game, removes the hassle of inventory management by being able to carry massive amounts of items, amazing utilities with upgrades, and it felt like finding my first diamond all over again when i found a jukebox backpack zombie playing creator :)

A must-have cuz it doesn't have any cons, only pros:

1. Compatible with EVERYTHING
2. optimazes gameplay
3. Makes the game smooth
4. Doesn't affect vanilla gameplay, a pro cuz if you want diffrent behavior, use different mods

Edit: as a reply to yall i dont play on mod packs (only craftmine) so its not that important for me

If I could only pick one mod, it would have to be MouseTweaks. I am so used to it by now, it feels very wierd when I play without it.

I think libraries are a given, like you get one mod, and you are able to run it

i agree, but for players like me that returned to the game years later it’s tedious to go back and forth from Minecraft to the wiki to look at craftings

i had to manually download JEI because for some reason, when I was tryna download it via Modrinth App, it didn't show one for Neoforge 1.21.1 (latest Create update is for Neoforge 1.21.1 for some reason)

honestly imo its more fun to just discover stuff, and recipes and stuff normally

Litematica is a must if you like redesigning your builds in creative

Dynamic lights is nice to have

The aether, although a great mod, doesn't really add anything "must have"

There are 3 mods that i missed when I moved from modded to vanilla, mouse tweaks, inventory sorting and apple skin

Other that I miss and would love are backpack mods on vanilla but they would need to come with a complete update on minecraft inventory

no mods are must have. apart from some performance mods I never play modded, and even performance mods I dont use often since they take a while after an update gets released to adapt to it.

Where is that guy that always says "play the game however you like"

There are so many mods that imo should have been implemented in vanilla years ago. Mouse tweaks, appleskin, and the mod that sorts your inventory with the middle mouse button, these are an absolute must. I haven't touched vanilla minecraft in years because modded is simply better in every way.

modded minecraft is the best thing that happened to the game industry

honestly, a big part of why i never got super into tech mods back when i picked up modded Minecraft was that it felt like a lot of magic boxes? yeah, like, multiblock magic boxes, but still. imagine showing circa 2014 me Create contraptions. 

Oh buildcraft was great. That and IC2 were my go-to mods

Not to mention with the way minecart java is set yup you can just play older editions so any older mods still exist.

11yo me was struggling to render tekkit classic rofl

buildcraft my beloved

I run bmc4 and rlcraft on a beelink ser8 minipc. I highly recommend. High ram, powerful cpu, and 1 tb storage.

wtf you doin 550 mods what are you doing 

I host servers on dedicated hardware, currently running a ATM server with 500 mods no problem, I sell basic hosting via EBAY but for a large Modpack like that you are looking at £20 per month for hosting.

Breakdown:

Base rate £5

6x CPU cores + 16gb Memory £15

Your own box... just a crappy PC, seriously, less than 8 years old, and buy a domain for $12. Then PM for the rest for the steps. Its easy, fun, and cheap.

It feels like a whole other game. I love the overgrown feel and isolation travelling in dense brush gives me. It is awesome. I am playing with The Wasteland mod, Better Biomes for 7D2D and The Descent - Procedural caves. The decent is amazing because it doubles the game. You have the overworld POI's and then the underground POI's. It fantastic.

wow I installed both mods and holy crap, the forest now feels like a real forest! Best of all im on steam deck and it doesnt lag down my system at all! Cant wait to find some caves next, but the main world's vegetation at least in the grassy biome is so filled with vegetation that are so diverse and randomized that it really feels like when I go for walks in a local preserve.

Can you install the Better Biomes on top of Darkness Falls (DF) without breaking DF?

And the procedural caves are actually POIs? I miss the old school caves from the early alpha days, I definitely need to check this out!

Looks sick. Whats the status bars mod?

It is awesome, designed to be end game though (tier 5+) but you can dip your toes into it, just don't go to deep or else.

I would swap iron chests with danks, sophisticated storage or storage drawers(depending on what factor you value more) and instead of Ad Astra maybe advanced rocketry(I know a little outdated, but imo way cooler).

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Cobblemon/Pixelmon

Kid named goat man, the man from the fog, night dweller

Buildcraft and Immersive Engineering

I remember trying to make my own pack before Forge existed.

I spent about 10 minutes reading about how to resolve conflicts between mods, and then gave up.

When you consider that FML and OreDictionary are also parts of Forge, I have to agree. Also don't forget that Forge is what does this stuff when you join a server. It was supposed to be in the official API, but it never happened.

Forge is truly the greatest mod.

EDIT: I stand corrected. Right in my screenshot it says that it is "Brandon's Core" that does this, not Forge. Oh well, I'm still impressed by Forge.

Buildcraft.

First mod that could move items from one spot to another and could pick up items. Completely revolutionized both modded and vanilla

Thaumcraft. No mod has immersed me so fully into it. It's really beautiful with by far the most gorgeous and well-done book, really amazing textures and models that to this day blow most mods away and just a really nice overreaching theme to the entire mod. And it all feels cohesive together with well-done mechanics that seamlessly interconnects every part of the mod. A lot of magic mods I've tried feel really confusing, unclear or some parts of the mod feel "one-up"py with super furnaces and end all armor sets, but all of Thaumcraft's mechanics and features always felt thematically "right" to me. I would suck Azanor's actual dick I could.

JEI. Without its recipe viewers, modded Minecraft and new mods would be virtually impossible to get started in.

1.7.10, 1.12.2, 1.16.5, and 1.18.2 are the most popular atm. I suggest looking through available mods in each version and choosing the one with the mods you like. I personally prefer 1.16.5

I mean, everyone just plays modpacks, so pick a modpack you want to play and it will be on a certain minecraft version?

The vanilla content in most modpacks is incomparably insignificant relative to the modded content anyway. Just pick a modpack and play! Or, if you want a specific mod/version of a mod, pick based on that!

That's fair, it has one of the largest repositories 9f mods in existence, many of them being extremely high quality.

1.16 was king for a bit there, but it actually looks like 1.18.2 is giving it a run for its money, and I am here for it!

We got back Botania, ProjectE, Tinkers, Mekanism, Immersive Engineering, RFTools, Thermal, BoP, BYG, Minecolonies, EnderStorage, Mystical Agriculture, Pam's Harvestcraft (kinda, some of the recipes i havent managed to get working, but i know the modules for it are still being ported over!), and even Ender IO is working on coming to 1.18.2!

I'm sure there are tons more I'm forgetting as I'm not in front of my PC atm, but if you haven't tried 1.18 modded, now is a great time to jump in! Valhelsia is a great kitchen sink style pack to check out if you wanna get a feel for what's put there. It does have create, but you can ignore it entirely (. . . On curseforge anyway, drama going on with other launchers and stuff, that I don't wanna get into because I'm trying to stay positive!)

I'm sure I'm missing some other greats, but I know that many of my 1.12 faves are in my packs for 1.18, and new mods are coming in that are pretty awesome on top of it like Corail Woodcutter (which I swear should just be a vanilla feature as it fits in so seamlessly)

Now if we could get Draconic Evolution & Thaumcraft on 1.18.2 I'd be a happy, happy girl!