allegedlymarco

"Reliable" indeed. It works, and it works great. The perfect Block Swap upgrade, enabling significantly more fine-grained customization with an arguably easier syntax (although the ability to directly migrate Block Swap's syntax shows the deep level of care put into this mod). Like other projects of this author's, Reliable Replacer is the best of its kind that I have found so far and showcases an attention to detail which makes it an absolutely necessary tool for any modpack developer's arsenal. About the only criticism I have is that some rules can't be nested in certain ways, which I'm not even sure is an actual complaint considering I'm usually trying to do things I'm not supposed to when making modpacks.

Objectively, it's probably the best Minecraft mod ever made. Create is so polished and expansive that it's arguably capable of delivering as much content as the vanilla game, while maintaining a consistent and impressively high standard of quality.
What sets Create apart from other mods is how basic tools and components interact in exceedingly intricate and fascinating ways. Vanilla Minecraft is an exercise in this philosophy: redstone is wonderful in its simplicity and simultaneously absurd in its depth. Pistons move blocks, Hoppers move items, Redstone Lamps turn on and off. Despite Minecraft's commitment to having fundamental constituent parts that anyone can understand, redstone can be leveraged to build anything from a door that opens automatically to a computer that can run Minecraft inside of Minecraft.
Create feels like taking this same design concept to its logical conclusion. Rarely does a block or item in Create perform a complex function all by itself; instead of a magic machine which produces Cobblestone and automatically outputs it to a neighboring inventory, Create has drills for breaking the blocks and novel ways to move items around and flexible filtration systems for ensuring your Cobblestone goes where you need it to. There is sincere thought put into how each available tool can be used in myriad ways, and how those tools interact in an exponential explosion of possibility. That is the key word which defines this mod: Possibility. It's all well and good that Create is exceptionally-made, with beautiful textures and a genius in-game documentation system in the form of Ponder, but it is also enormously interesting in that rare way where the possibility space is so large that imagination genuinely is the limit.
This is a point which is unfortunately missed in many of Create's derivatives. Many add-ons to the mod are antithetical to its design; they give solutions rather than tools. Create is frequently overshadowed by simpler mods which combine its multi-step contraptions into single blocks. Due to its popularity (and, being honest, its near-incomparable quality), many large contemporary modpacks include Create without giving it the treatment it is asking for, leading to players blitzing through the "progression" of the mod when that is not the primary purpose around which it is constructed. It is surprisingly feature-complete on its own, and it's difficult to get bored of innovation. Install just Create and let your ingenuity run wild, and see if you can't make something unique.

Honestly speaking, FTB StoneBlock 4 is a pack I didn't expect to like as much as I did. The original StoneBlock, released in 2018, was a novel idea and something of an unusual twist given the extreme saturation of the skyblock genre (no doubt exacerbated by the popularity of SkyFactory and Project Ozone). Since then, many packs have come out which use the same [something]Block formula, and a disappointingly large number of them are derivative. The same resource acquisition methods, the same rough progression, the same suite of popular mods, and a thematic coat of paint depending on the setting.
I mostly started playing StoneBlock 4 because it was a 1.21 pack that was relatively complete. While I thought the pack might be too directionless for me, its progression was pleasantly unexpected. The new methods of resource acquisition aren't too tedious (at least compared to the dreaded sieving) and somehow the pack manages to include exploration, a feat which saw me bored of digging tunnels and yet still enjoying every quick jaunt to a dungeon or hidden grotto. By far the most competent aspect of StoneBlock 4's progression is the way it branches, converges, and branches again in order to give the player multiple options but not force them to go too far down one path. One of the pack's various gimmicks is the World Engine, a stationary machine which is used for various crafts and which the player slowly upgrades as they progress. A World Engine upgrade or important craft acts more as a checklist of obtainable items which come from different mods; this allowed me to pick and choose the order in which I wanted to pursue the subcomponents of the next goal. This might not sound like much (and I can see someone who prefers linearity getting overwhelmed), but it's what kept me playing instead of being faced with the mandatory next task and just closing the game instead.
Speaking of overwhelm, though, this pack suffers from the same issue that plagues most large kitchen-sink packs: repeated content. Several mods are included that I barely, if ever, touched during my playthrough. Integration is minimal and often focused on the central progression; recipes which are not pursuant to a World Engine upgrade, for example, are usually untouched. For some reason AE2 and Refined Storage are both included, when I can't imagine a situation where I would use both. I pursued Malum, Ars Nouveau, and Occultism only because one item would be required for something else I was trying to do. I didn't even think about Hostile Neural Networks because Apotheosis spawners are exponentially more powerful. Mekanism and Oritech were my main technology(-themed) mods; Immersive Engineering seems like a formality. I'm not sure I ever actually used Create. Productive Metalworks is riddled with bugs and a very frustrating requirement; XyCraft is incomplete. The mod selection is somehow nearly the same as OceanBlock 2 despite the different locale, and this is where the earlier critique of similar packs with different aesthetics comes rushing back in full force. The parts of StoneBlock 4 I enjoyed most were those unique to the pack itself: the World Engine, the custom dungeons with compasses which lead you to them, the bespoke resource generation. There were some sticking points in the regular gameplay loop (I found the "events" so obnoxious I had them all turned off before I even had a proper base set up), but the quests felt mostly balanced with one another in terms of how much they asked the player to accomplish.
I would recommend StoneBlock 4 to someone looking for casual yet consistent modded experience on a newer Minecraft version. It's a fine pack for someone who enjoys automation, light exploration, and open-ended progression which doesn't expect the player to use every available mod.