One technique that I see often used but not often discussed : staggered tiles. The idea is using a block made of for example 2x2 tiles, seamless on the right and left edges when you lay them horizontally, but vertically you make them seamless when they are offset by 1 tile.
The "pattern" is no longer a square (or a square rotated at 45°), in this case it's a parallelogram where one axis is horizontal and the other is 22.5° from vertical.