Welcome to a comprehensive vanilla+ enhancement mod that refines, expands, and rebalances Minecraft's mechanics without breaking the experience you know and love. If you've ever felt like certain parts of the game were left unfinished — or that the balance quietly drifted somewhere it shouldn't have — Neatly Better is here to fix those logical inconsistencies, add depth to overlooked mechanics, and do it all without you ever feeling like you've left vanilla behind.

The difference is subtle, yet powerful. Combat (optionally) snaps back to the fast-paced, cooldown-free feel of the pre-1.9 era, with reliable sword blocking and satisfying sprint crits restored to where they belong. But don't let your guard down — the world has grown smarter around you. Creepers wait to sneak up from the shadows, spiders return to their classic leaping attacks, and hostile mobs can now parkour across gaps to reach you. An optional rebalance datapack further overhauls loot and progression, so victories in this harsher world feel genuinely well-earned.

Beyond combat, everything flows more naturally. Harvest and replant fully grown crops in a single action, watch your fields thrive in the rain, and swap armor sets directly from a stand without digging through your inventory. There's room for creativity too — chart territories with a Map Builder, revive fallen wolf companions through a special collar mechanic, or push your style further with emissive and pulsing armor trim effects.

And underneath it all, the small stuff matters. Bug fixes correct things like the off-center crosshair you've quietly tolerated for years, while client-side HUD additions bring your coordinates and potion timers into view without any extra mods. No clutter, no bloat — just every overlooked corner of Minecraft, neatly better.

There is only a small number of features listed in the description you just read, complete list of features is down below.

🎯 Design Philosophy: Neatly Better doesn't ask what to add — it asks what feels wrong, and why. Logical inconsistencies get ironed out. Old mechanics that were taken away get restored. Overlooked systems get finished. Verified bugs get patched. The result is a game that feels complete without feeling too different.

🌿 Farming (Click to expand)

🌱 Crops

• Right-Click Harvesting — Right-click to harvest any fully grown crop and it automatically replants itself. Using a hoe harvests a 3×3 area at once.
• Rain Accelerates Growth — Crops, sugar cane, bamboo, cocoa beans, and sweet berry bushes grow faster when it's raining and exposed to the sky.
• Bonemeal Expansion — Bonemeal now works on sugar cane, cacti, and nether wart.
• Grass Seeds — Placing wheat seeds directly on dirt block automatically converts it to grass block.
• Farmland Protection — Feather Falling boots prevent players from trampling farmland.
• Sapling Auto-Plant — Fallen saplings plant themselves before despawn timer runs out.

💩 Composting

• Poisoned Potatoes and rotten flesh can be composted.

⚔️ Combat & Player (Click to expand)

🗡️ Legacy Combat

Legacy Combat brings back combat from older versions. This feature is optional and is disabled by default in common config.

• No Attack Cooldown — Attack cooldown has been completely removed.
• Sword Blocking — When holding down right mouse button with a sword in main hand blocks 50% of incoming damage.
• Sprint Crits — Players can deal critical damage while sprinting and attacking an entity.
• 0 DMG Knockback — Entities hit with a snowball/egg will get knocked back.
• Sweeping Attacks — Requires sweeping enchantment perform sweeping attack.
• Legacy Attack Damage — Attack Damage of pickaxes, axes and shovels has been set to their old values.

🛡️ Shields

• Raise Delay — The delay before a shield activates is fully configurable (default: 0, instant). (configurable)
• Explosions Disable Shields — Direct explosive hits will knock your shield down. (configurable)

🔮 Enchantments

• Protection Overhaul — Protection enchantments are less powerful overall, making armor progression more balanced, this makes specific protections more pronounced. (configurable)
• Resistance Overhaul — The Resistance effect gives 10% reduction per level instead of 20%, so Resistance V does no longer grant invincibility. (configurable)
• Mending Overhaul — Mending can now repair items across your entire inventory or hotbar, not just held items. XP-to-durability conversion rate is also configurable. (configurable)
• Light as a Feather — Feathers deal no damage but apply knockback, feathers can be optionally combined with knockback enchantment at anvils.
• Step Up — Step-up is a new enchantment that allows user to step up blocks (hence the name), can be disabled by sneaking. (configurable)
• True Infinity — Infinity enchantment does not require arrow in the inventory to function. Infinity can be combined with mending.
• Loyalty Improvement — Tridents enchanted with loyalty that are thrown into the void will return to the user.
• Better Impaling — Tridents enchanted with impaling now deal additional damage to mobs touching water, under rainy sky to bring it up to bedrock parity.

🪽 Elytra

• Disable Firework Boosting — Optionally disable firework rockets from boosting elytra flight. (Off by Default)

⛏️ Other Player Changes

• Totem Cooldown — Configurable cooldown after using a Totem of Undying (default: 5 seconds). (configurable)
• Sleep Mode — Choose when sleeping is allowed: always, never, or only after defeating the Ender Dragon. (configurable)
• Hunger Mechanics — Modified hunger makes regeneration at full HP slower, scaling with difficulty. (configurable)
• Mining XP Reward — Earn XP by mining non-ore blocks like stone and deepslate. (configurable)
• Building XP Reward — Earn XP from placing blocks. (configurable)
• Farming XP Reward — Earn XP by farming any vanilla crops. (configurable)
• Armor Stand Swap — Shift + Right-Click an armor stand to instantly swap your worn armor with it.
• Armor Quick-Equip — Right-click armor in any inventory screen to instantly equip or swap it.
• Leggings Bush Damage Protection — Any equipped leggings protect the user from taking berry bush damage.
• Switching Resets Mining — Switching to another item in the hotbar will no longer cause mining progress to reset. (configurable)
• No Equip Cooldown — Switching to another item in the hotbar will no longer cause use cooldown to happen.
• Emissive Trims — Armor with any trims can be made emissive through applying glow ink sac in smithing table. (Does work with Elytra Trims, Trimmable Tools mod)
• Pulsing Trims — Armor with any trims can be made pulsing through applying an echo shard in smithing table. (Does work with Elytra Trims mod)
• Container Access Through Blocks — Players can now click through signs, wall banners and item frames to access containers behind them. Shift Clicking signs will allow you to dye or make them glow. (configurable)
• Torch Hot — Attacking any entity with a torch in main hand will ignite the entity for 4 seconds.
• Death Drops Sorting — Items dropped upon death are restored to their previous slots upon pickup. (configurable)
• Persistent Death Drops — Items dropped upon death do not despawn after the despawn timer runs out.

🍲 Recipes

• Cheaper Trim Duplication — Trim duplication recipes are inverted, now they cost 1 diamond instead of 7.
• Utility Recipies — Alternative recipes that make crafting items like dispensers, special minecarts & repeaters easier, among other things.
• Slabs Uncrafting — Slabs can be converted back to their respective block variants.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Entities (Click to expand)

💥 Creepers

• Sneaky Creepers — Creepers will sneak up behind the player when they are out of line-of-sight, only beginning their fuse when player spots the creeper. (configurable)
• Walk While Igniting (Normal Mode) — Creepers continue approaching while their fuse is counting down. (configurable)
• Orbiting (Hard Mode) — Creepers orbit around their target during the fuse countdown. (configurable)

🏘️ Villagers

• Fence Gate Opening — Villagers can open fence gates. (configurable)
• Follow Emerald Block — Villagers will follow players holding an emerald block.
• Farmer Replants — Farmer villagers will re-till dirt tiles that should be farmland when replanting. (configurable)
• Global Curing Discounts — Curing a zombie villager applies the trading discount to all players on the server for that specific villager. (configurable)
• Infinite Curing Stacks — Curing discounts can stack beyond the vanilla cap. (configurable, off by default)
• Book Level Cap — Librarian villagers only offer enchantment books at max level I, limiting easy book farming. (configurable)

🦴 Wolves

• Wolf Improvements — Tamed wolves follow owners faster, attack faster, defend their owner from potential attackers, and regenerate health while sitting. (configurable)
• Wolf Collar on Death — When a tamed wolf dies it drops a Wolf Collar. Strike the dropped collar with lightning to revive your companion. (works if Wolf Improvements are enabled)

💘 Hostile

• Spider — Spiders now have bigger knockback resistance and are faster, they also use a more responsive leaping attack pattern reminiscent of early Minecraft versions. (configurable)
• Vex Dies with Summoner — Vexes die instantly when their summoning Evoker is killed.
• Mob Parkour — Vindicators, Piglin Brutes, Zombified Piglins, Husks, and Zombies can jump over 1-2 block gaps to get to the target. (Hard Mode Exclusive)
• Ranged Shield Holdoff — Skeletons, Piglins, and Pillagers wait for an opportunity to shoot instead of firing directly into player's shield. (Hard Mode Exclusive)
• Crossbow Retreat — Pillagers strafe backward while reloading their crossbow.
• Witch Poison — Witches throw shorter-duration poison potions. (25s instead of the usual 45s)
• Phantom Rework — Phantoms now spawn in the end dimension by default. Phantom spawns can now be also disabled completely. (configurable)
• Ender Dragon — Ender Dragon does not take knockback from any attack anymore. (Not Working RN)
• Wither Skeleton — Wither Skeletons no longer drop their stone swords upon death.

💚 Passive & Neutral

• Sheep Flee Wolves — Sheep will run from wolves within 16 blocks. (as they should)
• Iron Golem Block Repair — Iron Golems can only be repaired with Iron Blocks, instead of ingots.
• Piglin Trim Respect — Piglins won't attack players wearing armor with a gold trim or a snout trim pattern.
• Ground Item Breeding — Animals will consume dropped breeding items from the floor, not just items held by players. (configurable)
• Immediate Animal Tempting — Animal tempt delay has been removed.
• Jockey Variants — Strays on Polar Bears, Zombified Piglins on Zoglins.
• Persistant Parrots — Parrots stay on the player's shoulder when jumping from non-lethal heights. (Shift + Right-Click with empty hand on a block to drop them)

🥩 Tamable

• Teleport Distance - Increased distance at which tamable animals get teleported to the owner.
• Water Teleport - Tamable animals get teleported to owner even if the owner is in water.
• Friendly Fire — Owners cannot harm their own pets. (Disabled while sneaking)

⚒️ Misc

• Minecart Linking — Use an iron chain to link minecarts together into a train. Linked carts follow each other.
• Infinity Arrows Pickup — Arrows shot from infinity bows can now be picked up by the owner but will not recieve any items in their inventory.
• Shulker Bullets — Shulker bullets despawn after their shulker dies.

🎁 Items (Click to expand)

🆕 New Items

• Map Builder - Left-Click to mark one corner, Right-Click to mark another, Shift + Right-Click to set zoom level — creates a filled map covering the selected area.
• Chest Key - Locks containers, allowing only the owner to open them (intended as multiplayer feature).
• Wolf Collar - Dropped by tamed wolves on death, can be used to revive them by dropping the collar on the ground and letting lightning strike it.
• Quiver - A new neat item container for upto 4 stacks of arrows.
• Milk Bottle - Obtained by right clicking an empty bottle on cauldron filled with milk. Removes 1 negative potion effect from the user upon drinking - has cooldown of 60 seconds.

🧪 New Potions

Potion	Effect	Recipe
Haste (3:00)	Haste I	Awkward Potion + Diamond
Long Haste (8:00)	Haste I	Haste Potion + Redstone
Strong Haste (3:00)	Haste II	Haste Potion + Gold Block
Strong Long Haste (8:00)	Haste II	Strong Haste + Redstone
Glow (3:00)	Glowing	Awkward Potion + Glow Berries
Long Glow (8:00)	Glowing	Glow Potion + Redstone

💫 Item Improvements

• Glistering Melon Slice - Glistering Melon is now edible and will heal the player for 2hp.
• Glow Berries - Glow berries apply 10 second Glow Effect.
• Trident - Tridents can now be repaired at anvil using prismarine shards.
• Potion Stack Size - All Potions now stack up to 16.
• Throwable Potions - Splash & Lingering Potions have 1 second cooldown after they are thrown to prevent spamming.
• Filled Maps - Filled maps now properly work in nether - displaying blocks at player's Y coordinate. Player icon is shown even when the player is outside of the map frame.
• Gold Mines Gold — Golden Pickaxes can now mine gold related blocks.
• Persistent Recovery Compass — Recovery Compasses now stay in inventory upon death.
• Tipped Arrows - Potion area cloud is released upon shooting a tipped arrow into a block

🧱 Blocks (Click to expand)

✨ New Blocks

• New Stairs: Smooth Stone, Calcite, Quartz Brick, End Stone, Smooth Basalt, Terracotta & Concrete with dyed variants.
• New Slabs: Calcite, Quartz Brick, End Stone, Smooth Basalt, Terracotta & Concrete with dyed variants.
• New Walls: Polished Granite, Polished Andesite, Polished Diorite, Stone, Smooth Stone, Calcite, Quartz, Quartz Brick, Smooth Quartz, End Stone, Purpur, Smooth Basalt, Prismarine Brick, Dark Prismarine, Smooth Sandstone, Smooth Red Sandstone
• Charcoal Block, Rainbow Wool, Rainbow Carpet, and Rainbow Bed — Wool can be obtained by shearing jeb_ sheep.
• Glow Torch - A new type of torch crafted with glow ink sac and a stick. This torch can be placed underwater and emits light of 15.

🛠️ Anvils

• No Rename Cost - Renaming items on the anvil costs no XP levels. (configurable)
• No Italic Rename - Renamed items keep their original text formatting (no forced italics). (configurable)
• Color Code Support - Use & formatting codes to add colors and styles to item names. (configurable)
• Remove "Too Expensive" - The 40-level cap on anvil operations is removed. (configurable)
• Combine with Feather - Knockback enchantments can be combined with feathers in the anvil. (configurable)

🚨 Beacons

• Soak Effects — Players gradually build up beacon effect duration the longer they remain in range, max level beacon can give upto 4 minutes of effects. (configurable)
• Extended Range — Configurable beacon range, up to 512 blocks (default: 75, vanilla: 50). (configurable)
• Saturation Effect — Players can now choose saturation as a secondary effect in the beacon menu - requires diamond/netherite base. (configurable)

🪄 Enchanting Tables

• Lapis Reserve — Lapis Lazuli placed inside of an enchanting table remains there after closing the GUI.

🪜 Ladders

• Unsupported Placement — Ladders can be placed without supporting blocks behind them.
• Faster Climbing — Climbing on ladders (and other climbable blocks) while looking up or down will make player climb faster. (configurable)
• Holding On — When player opens inventory on ladder (and other climbable blocks) it will force the player into sneaking position. (configurable)
• Ladder Extension — Player can now extend their ladders by Right-Clicking on them with another ladder to extend them above or below while shifting. (configurable)

🥣 Cauldrons

• Milk Placement — Milk can be stored inside of cauldron.
• Dyable Water — Water inside cauldron can be dyed just like in bedrock edition. Player can then dye lether, wolf armor and other blocks/items by right clicking the water with the item.
• Cauldron Cleaning — Cauldrons can clean off filled maps and glowing/pulsing effects from armor with trims applied.

🔧 Block Tweaks

• Harder Netherrack — Netherrack, Crimson Nylium, and Warped Nylium have increased hardness to prevent instamine with efficiency IV. (configurable)
• Magma Spawns Lava — Mining a magma block without Silk Touch spawns a lava source block. (configurable)
• Sponge Absorption Radius — Configurable sponge water absorption range (default is larger than vanilla). (configurable)
• Dispenser + Cauldron — Dispensers can fill and empty cauldrons using buckets. (configurable)
• Double Doors — Opening one door automatically opens the adjacent matching door. Hold sneak to open only one. (configurable)
• Scaffolding — Scaffolding drops are constrained to avoid spreading them further than 3 blocks in radius.
• Crying Obsidian — Crying Obsidian is now a valid portal block - Can be used to build a nether portal.
• Grindstone — Disenchanting items at grindstone will return 50% of the xp instead of a random percentage.
• Raised Banner Pattern Limit — Banners support up to 16 layers of patterns instead of the vanilla 6.
• Invisible Item Frames — Item Frames can be made invisible (Pernamently) after being splashed with a potion of Invisibility.
• Vines — Vines can be sheared with shears to prevent them from growing.
• Charcoal from Logs — Burnt logs have a 50% chance to drop charcoal as an item.
• In-world Dyeing — Wool, Carpets & Beds can be dyed by right clicking them with any dye item.
• Bubble Column Grate — Bubble columns flow through copper grate blocks.
• Invisible Signs — Signs can be made invisible by Right Clicking them with a phantom membrane, only the text will stay visible.
• Block Gluing — Blocks like Doors, Trapdoors & Fence Gates can be glued using a slimeball while holding shift to make them non-interactable causing them not to open/close. Glued blocks can be "unglued" by Right-Clicking them with an axe.
• Vaul Re-open - Vaults & Ominous Vaults can be opened again after a cooldown expires. (configurable)
• Fancy Carpets - Banner Patterns can now be applied to wool carpets.

☯︎ Rebalance Datapack (Click to expand)

This optional, yet enabled by default datapack rebalances the game to be harder so your victories actually feel well-earned. Players can disable the datapack in world creation screen or in-game by typing /datapack disable "neatly-better:rebalance_datapack" and then /reload.

💎 Loot

• Loot Overhaul — Loot in all vanilla structures is overhauled to make it relatively balanced.
• Totem of Undying — Evokers drop Totems of Undying only if killed in the mansion.
• Warden Loot — Killing the Warden now has 50% chance to drop Silence Armor Trim Template.

🫕 Recipes

• Eye of Ender — Player now needs Wind Charge, Echo Shard, Prismarine Shard, Blaze Powder and Ender Pearl to craft Eye of Ender.
• Recovery Compass — Recovery Compass now requires only 4 Echo Shards instead of 8.
• Rail — Crafting Rails now yields 32 instead of 16.
• Powered Rail — Powered Rails now Yield 12 instead of 6.

🏔️ Generation

• Structure Rarity — Structures like Mineshafts, Ocean Monuments, Ocean Ruins, Pillager Outposts, Ruined Portals, Shipwrecks, Villages are now rarer. (not by much)
• Village Haybales — Haybale Blocks in all village variants are removed. (so that player has to find food him/her self)
• Ore Generation — Coal ore can now spawn under height 0 more frequently. Copper, iron & redstone has slightly decreased generation chance. Diamonds are now way rarer, but generate in bigger vein sizes and are generating also way more when not exposed to air.

🐞 Bug Fixes (Click to expand)

MC-259387

• Button Highlights — Buttons and sliders no longer remain selected after clicking on them.

MC-252486

• Piglins Excessive Sounds — If a Piglin cannot reach an item they admire, they no longer play the retreat sound multiples times at once repeatedly for a short time.

MC-157252

• Uncentered Crosshair — The crosshair in the middle of the screen is no longer off center by a few pixels.

MC-263293

• Respawn Sprint Toggle — Dying no longer causes toggle sprint to untoggle.

🖥️ Client-sided (Click to expand)

These are the client-side only features of this mod.

⌚ HUD

• Coordinates Display — Shows your XYZ position on the HUD when compass is in the inventory or ender chest. Displays compass button in inventory to hide it. (configurable)
• Time & Day Display — Shows the in-game time and current day on the HUD when clock is in the inventory or ender chest. Displays clock button in inventory to hide it. (configurable)
• Status Effect Bars — Adds a progress bar to the effect HUD element. (configurable)
• Hide Air Bubbles — Hides the air bubble bar when Water Breathing or Breath of the Nautilus is active. (configurable)
• Player Hunger Bar on Mount — Shows player's hunger bar when riding any living entity.

💬 Tooltips

• Potion Effect Icons — Status effect icons are shown in item tooltips for potions & foods instead of plain text. (configurable)
• Map Preview Tooltip — Shows a map preview in the tooltip.
• Shulker Preview Tooltip — Shows a preview of shulkerbox contents in the tooltip. (configurable)
• Tooltip Guides — Helpful interaction hints are shown on relevant items. (configurable)

📰 GUI

• Stonecutter Re-Craft — The stonecutter now has Re-Craft button.
• Recipe Book Quick-Craft — You can now Quick-Craft items using recipe book. (CTRL + Left Click to craft 1 instantly, CTRL + SHIFT + Left Click to craft a whole stack)
• Recipe Book Modes — Choose between SHOWN, HIDDEN, or AUTOHIDE (closes with the crafting/inventory screen). (configurable)
• Framerate in Menus — Menu screens run at the user's set framerate limit instead of a fixed low value.
• No Lan Cheating — When the world has set commands to false the open to lan screen won't show the option to enable cheats.
• Longer Chat History — Removes the chat history limit of 100.
• World Playtime — World Playtime is displayed in World Selection List.
• Worlds to Trash — Delete button in world selection screen now moves world files into trash instead of deleting them entirely.

🛠️ Utilities

• Swing Through Grass — Attack entities through tall grass and other non-collidable blocks. (configurable)
• Auto Refill — Automatically refills your hotbar slot when a stack runs out. Supports: bottles, buckets, bowls, equipment (except armor), and fishing rods. (configurable)
• Copy Screenshots — Screenshots are automatically copied to clipboard. (configurable)
• Disable Telemetry — Completely disables Mojang telemetry. (configurable)
• Logarithmic Volume — Volume sliders use a logarithmic curve for more natural audio control.
• Seamless Music — Music now continues to play even if the player quits to title screen or loads a new world from title screen.
• Durability Numbers — Remaining item durability is displayed as a number in GUIs on top of the item. (configurable)
• Accidental Placement Fix - Block placement of items in off-hand while eating is denied. (configurable)

👁️ Visual

• 2D Item Rendering — Dropped items render as flat 2D sprites instead of spinning 3D models. (configurable, off by default)
• Void Fog — Re-introduces the Void Fog feature from the pre 1.8 era. (configurable)
• Potion Glint — Potions with effects show the enchantment glint. (configurable)
• Instant Eye Height - Removes camera transitions when changing eye height - f.e.: sneaking, swimming, elytra flying. (configurable)

📜 Title Screen

• Legacy Layout — Restores the title screen layout from previous versions. (configurable)
• Clean Branding — Replaces the "Fabric/Modded" branding label in title screen with clean vanilla-style text. (configurable)
• Hide Realms Button — Optionally remove Realms button from the title screen. (configurable)
• Hide Accessibility Button — Optionally remove the extra accessibility button from the title screen. (configurable)
• • Hide Language Button — Optionally remove Language button from the title screen. (configurable)
• Resource Pack Compatibility — Suppresses resource pack version mismatch warnings. (configurable)

"A lot of these features are configurable and have been inspired by minecraft's community suggestions or mods with similar features."

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