do you play stardew vanilla or modded & why?

[Melody]

as title suggests, I'm curious if you play modded or vanilla version of stardew, what's your reasons and what kind of mods you're using?

[Katus49]

Vanilla. because i don't know what mods could i use.

[Amberbaum]

Modded. Because it's fun, adds QoL changes and brings in some fresh content or atmosphere. I use all kinds of mods.

[✨Lola ☽]

i tried some quest mods, unfortunately i found them a little confusing (you don't know where to go or who to speak -in order- and you can miss some features or cut scenes because of this problem). so i deleted all of them and now i play vanilla.

[LuckySara]

I actually only use one mod, and that's to darken some areas, :P so I mostly play vanilla otherwise!

[Queen Droxxanna]

I played thru 11 game years with vanilla, then I discovered mods, and got my son to show me how to use them. Now I have about 100 mods in my game, and its a whole new game.
Although I have spent a lot of time updating lately, I'm enjoying all the changes I have installed.
Once you install SMAPI, its not hard to learn to install mods, the directions are there on Nexus.
See my post on RICH FARM SUCCESS AND PROGRESS to see some of the great results.

[Naterdamus]

Same way I like my iced cream, nilla all the way.

I think the base game is really well done, balanced and offers more content than I've gotten to yet despite my likely hundreds of hours of playtime.

My favorite mods historically - the Fallout 2 one that "unlocks" Black Isle created quests and the Sim City 4 one that implements the super well done by Maxis traffic system - are really more "fixes" than modifications.

I could see looking into mods for this once I've exhausted the base game, but that chocolate game is likely going to drop before I get through all of that.

[Moniboi]

Only have like 64 hours currently. Still haven't discovered all that much even in the base game, so not going for modding at least yet.

[Ilucie]

Almost 600hrs and I mod the hell out of this game.

[esturias]

Played 4 years vanilla. Don't like the scull cavern (time pressure tasks in an otherwise relaxing game is quite off-putting for my taste) and the dodgy combat, so I'll use mods to make it more relaxing again. Might add a few more mods when I'm at it.
Didn't find the time and motivation to continue playing though. Due to the patch chaos, I'll most likely wait until after Christmas.

[Shevanna]

vainilla

[Nakos]

Usually just vanilla. I might think about some cosmetics at some point, some alternative (or additional) crops. But I don't usually like to change the base mechanics.

Unless there are mods that make it harder:

That said, I do always like all the space I see in the screenshots that soaringfreedom posts. Her farms always look so vast and open.

I'm an Explorer type gamer, so ... "more to explore" always interests me.

[Ryvaken Tadrya]

Lightly modded. No new content, but I play multiplayer and we all agreed that the per day time limit is just too restrictive to be FUN. Doable, yes, but not FUN. Other than that, we run mods that add information to the game that would either be too annoying to track (which cow did I milk?) could just look up in a wiki (what gifts are loved by Lewis?) or are nigh impossible to track when real days pass faster than game days (how long until that tree bears fruit?)

[ChrillBill]

Mixed bag here. My first playthrough was pure vanilla, and after that I got into mods. I'm telling you, once you have stepped into the "dark side" the rest of you will get sucked in very easily xD Jokes aside. I've had a couple of vanilla playthroughs after the first as well, because I like variation. But I mostly play with mods and the reason for it is because they make the game more fun, interesting and also beautiful :> You can mix a lot of visual mods for example to give the game a very individual look and especially if you are into editing assets which is quite easy once you have got the hang of it. All you need is basically a good editing program and some skills with that program. It's really fun and I am planning on learning how to create mods from scratch one day, which is a lot more work than many people realize! o.o The modding community is really friendly, dedicated and very helpful.

I am currently playing with around 90 mods, with two large expansion mods called:
*Ridgeside Village[www.nexusmods.com]
*Stardew Valley Expanded[www.nexusmods.com]

The latest engine update to the game has made it so that the game can utilize more memory which is really good news for us who wants to play with mods. I am also a big fan of visual mods and a couple of favourites are:
*DaisyNiko's Earthy Recolour[www.nexusmods.com]
*Medieval Buildings[www.nexusmods.com]
*Gwen's Medieval Craftables[www.nexusmods.com]
*Way Back Pelican Town[www.nexusmods.com]

These give the game a very cool and toned down look which is really cute and nice on the eyes. The vanilla bright color scheme is wonderful but sometimes it can make my eyes a little @.@ But that is very individual. I like that there are mods that also take into account things like having a difficult time focusing on bright colors, if you know what I mean :>

I am also a huge fan of decorating and designing so there are a lot of wonderful mods for this very purpose as well. Such as:
*Industrial Furniture Set[www.nexusmods.com]
*Industrial Kitchen and Interior[www.nexusmods.com]

There is also a large amount of different farm maps to try, big and small. And don't even get me started on the QoL mods such as:
*Tractor Mod[www.nexusmods.com]

So yeah, there is a lot of reasons why I love and play with mods ^.^ But I will always appreciate the vanilla experience as well :D Edit: Typo!