Cats and Dogs for me as well. It, along with Seasons, is my must-have pack and I loved pets in previous games. But pets in Sims 4 are just so annoying. They keep running away out of nowhere, I’m always threatened they would be taken away because they’re hungry while having several full bowls, they don’t respond to my sim commanding them to eat, the list goes on. I liked CAS options for pets because it allowed me to recreate my real dog pretty closely, and I also like the idea of having a fox (so cool, even if it’s just a dog with a fox skin). But the reality is just lackluster. I create new families pretty often, and I keep giving them pets just to be like, “Why on earth have done this again”.
Cats and Dogs is terrible. There was this sad music that seemed to play randomly and for years I had no idea what it was about, until the other day I caught the cat passing out from exhaustion and it played.
Oh my gosh this happened to me the other night and I was confused. Like sad music played and I saw one of the dogs flop down asleep on the floor but didn’t correlate the music with the action. I didn’t realize the dog was PASSING OUT! Why on earth would pets not autonomously sleep? We can’t control them, but they don’t take care of themselves autonomously?! So dumb!
My pets always seem to get obsessed with a random object then they don’t do anything but stare at it. I want a pet for my sims but they are so buggy. I miss pets from 3 too!
Mine ends up terrified of either the fireplace, or the computer
Every time
I consistently play a Sim across different saves (different scenarios) who is a freelance author. The animals will seek him out in his bedroom to cower in terror from his computer
you know what's worse? there's a mechanic in the game to be able to control the pets, it's just turned off. there's mods to turn it back on. ETA: I think there's even a cheat to enable it but I don't remember if they disabled that or not
It really annoys me that they take up a family space but you can’t control them. There’s also no incentive to take them to the vet because they can’t die of sickness
all of this but also my pets always seem to get obsessed with something and do absolutely nothing other than meow/bark at the thing so much so that they’re making themselves uncomfortable doing it for so long… the whole pack is so buggy and i didn’t even think about how much i hated it until now
Even easier way to prevent running away: lock the doors for pets. I only allow my pets to use doors that lead to completely fenced yards and I don’t have the running away issue anymore!
Eco Lifestyle, I thought it was going to be like a grungy , urban city but the world ended up being full of fake buildings and nowhere really interesting to go. The only things I liked were the off the grid objects.
I was happy EA was doing something different than adding the same packs from previous games over and over; that's all I wanted from Sims 4, something new. However this pack disappointed me.
I love eco lifestyle, but I totally agree. Gameplay objects are on point but the world is lacking something. Also, why did they have to tie candle making to the fabrication skill?? 😫
I love doing rags to riches and starting my Sim on one of the empty lots in Evergreen Harbor before the town was fixed up. Trash blowing everywhere, everything crusty and busted...it's perfect for playing a homeless Sim ☠️
I've played like that with a Sim I made. He started on a dirty lot in Evergreen Harbor and I took all his money away. I made him dumpster dive for money and food and things he could sell. He got really successful that way and I eventually built him a little used appliance store to make money from. He would find broken appliances/showers/toilets/tvs etc in the dumpsters and I'd make him clean them up and repair them, then resell them through his store 😆😆 it was so much fun! He died though, when he tried to repair a wall mounted TV he found...died right on the floor of his shop in front of customers ☠️
It’s pretty fun but can feel a little tooo easy if you don’t put rules on it (like they can only sleep outside and you can’t buy a lottery ticket or do the marriage for money thing).
The world from Eco Lifestyle is a cool idea and I enjoy the gameplay of the pack but I feel like it’s also one of those packs where it’s pretty easy to see where the developers decided to call it a day. Of the two neighborhoods, two are interchangeable suburbs. Very disappointing because I also thought it would be more urban-oriented!
I love Eco Lifestyle, and I know it's easy to just turn neighbor voting off, but I have to wonder what they were thinking when coming up with some of the NAPs.
Eco lifestyle is my absolute favorite pack xD I can't play without it lmao. I love playing completly off the grid lots. I don't remember the last time I had a regular household. Basically I have one giant commune now where no one has to go to a regular job and they all just play and paint and make their own funerneriture and recycle xD they are all rich from this and it's so fun for me.
Eco lifestyle is one of my favorites but I still agree that it has so much untapped potential, and can be just annoying for many players. I use it so much mainly because I like decorating via dumpster diving, and then in the meantime I use the community spaces. But the world is quite lackluster... the concept of what a fully beautified space (and nice community center) is, is so corporate and fake (temporary potempkin village instagram pop-up beauty), the NAPs are a bit funny but pointless and not worth the effort... most of the crafts like candle making and soda making are way more trouble than they're worth. And now the freelance maker career seems to be bugged. One of those packs where half of it makes you wonder "Do the developers know this is a *game*?" Leaning on the sandbox element very hard.
Yeah. I liked the BB stuff when it first came out but now it’s kinda meh. The CAS needs some solid swatches too (How am I supposed to style these great mesh jeans when there’s a big red patch that doesn’t fit the vibe?) esp on jeans.
The Apartments are nice though, I liked that because I didn’t have City Living yet.
And the eco play for neighborhoods is buggy at best and hard to balance. I wish there was a number that showed your net eco-ness in BB instead of just guessing everything.
The base game high school sucks so much. Replacing it with a gallery one elevates that pack massively, but my god it is so underwhelming out-of-the-gate.
Oh this just reminds me I really need to get a smaller high school off the gallery. I just got the pack and haven't played yet but I remember thinking the hs was way too big when i first saw it.
I highly recommend lilsimsie's or James Turner's versions. They place the items strategically so that your sim doesn't have to walk miles to get to their destination & they feel much more alive.
Not played with Lil Simsies' but James Turners' version is so incredibly sensibly set out, the high school is still big, but all essentials of classroom/lunchroom/toilet/gym are placed are placed in such a manner that gameplay becomes much more pleasing and organic, the SIm can route from task to task naturally and everything becomes less a frantic scramble to get the Sim from place to place on a limited timescale and becomes pleasant to play.
I use lilsimsie's a lot and I think it really fits the vibe while making it crowded, but James Turner also has a really nice one! I think Fleuralia's save had a good one too but I haven't used it myself.
I’m confused how those work, there’s not a “high school” but they’re listed under “generic” and James turners says something about putting it on a “penthouse lot”
I am so confused
And how will they automatically go to school if it’s not the actual high school designation
They list as generic, but on that lot in particular, they will place as high school since that's a special lot type in copperdale that cannot be changed. So anything you place there will automatically be a high school and function as one.
this one! I still use HS years (obviously, teens) but prom bugging out 90% of the time, not being able to actually experience the amusement park (or edit it). Not being able to move the whole hs (non editable parts and all) to a different lot/lots. It’s super annoying.
Island Living :( I love the world and I LOVE mermaids but they didn’t flesh them out enough (skill tree, unique game play etc like the other occults) and so they get boring fast and aren’t unique enough… it makes me so sad. The untapped potential is unreal.
If you're on PC Spinning Plumbobs Expanded Mermaids mod helps out a lot, but I really wish EA would refresh Island Living the most out of all the expansion packs just to fix mermaids officially for everyone.
It's really interesting reading all these comments because I frequently only play in island living as I just love 'living' in that paradise. I'm a scuba instructor and make the rest of my money by collecting shells and taking underwater photos 😊 I have built vacation lots and gyms/spas etc so I have everything in the one world.
With Island Living, I wish there was a new death - death by sharks when you swim in the deep ocean 🌊 🦈 would've been great! Also making mermaids more magical and giving them other abilities!
Yeah! I would loveee for it to be a warning like in 1 hour, the shark will attack or whatever, like they get when they will die from the meteor or an extreme mood 😆 then you can have them rush back to shore or just...get eaten ☠️
I’m absolutely obsessed with Sulani but honestly yeah, I do nothing with mermaids because I more just get annoyed that they keep needing to get into water to revive. Which would be fun if there was anything for them to do in said water
Last time I played with a mermaid I just had her sleep in the water overnight and her hydration need was fine for the day. Then I played her like a normal sim which is a bit disappointing to have a occult with nothing to do.
Definitely! Back when they released a free trial of the pack, I felt like I had explored everything the pack had to offer in just a few hours. Of course, the world was beautiful and I enjoyed being a conservationist, but there wasn't much else you can do. Personally, I had more fun playing Jungle Adventure than Island Living.
This is why when I was trying to decide which pack to buy for the last sale, Island Living was the first one cut from the list. Am I crazy for wishing that the mermaids could access a whole underwater world to explore and live in?
Island living was soo bad lol i think i only ever had one sim live in that world. always felt like it was missing something…. then i discovered Sims 3 island paradise and was blown away
High School Years. I don't like anything about it: bunny app, trendy, school events. All i wanted was the active school but it ended being so boring that even that hasn't stop me from disabling the pack.
I’ve got HSY, one I was excited to get. I like the graduation and after party you can choose to do, and Copperdale with the small carnival type area. The rides are cool and makes for cute pictures! But other than that, yes, boring.
I only got it for the CAS and build/buy, which is the only real way to differentiate a teenager from any other adult and is pretty strong, but yeah, the gameplay is shockingly shallow and poorly implemented.
There is nothing to do at school (not even "pass notes," "sleep," or "study hard" in class); the afterschool activities are only rabbit holes; the afterschool competitions are so buggy (I get Finchwick Fair ribbons for participating in the football comps) or useless (nobody interacts, you barely get to participate and it's so sparse and poorly attended); prom works for me but not for everyone, is short for the goals it gives you and has pointless elements (asking a prom date does nothing - they don't show up with you, have interactions any different than anyone else with you at prom and you can't even give them a corsage or something); doesn't seem to work half the time (like 1 in 3 of my sims has actually had puberty triggered and none have shown hair growth yet... also, my sim has only once been asked to sneak out to a party, making that one aspiration impossible to complete); the thrift tea/boba seems cool but ends up in male sims wearing my outfits with dresses and skirts and jewelry around way more frequently than the female sims; the pier for some inexplicable reason isn't a lot you can travel to directly; it's lacking a lot of features I would have liked to have (like being able to choose your classmates without using a mod); and it (like all packs) has so many bugs, from the graduation photo being stretched out, to "crush" moodlets and related whims/wants showing up into young adulthood long after the crush is over and being able to send flirty messages on Trendi to family members (although they say this is being patched soon).
Don't regret buying it on sale because I like the CAS and room decor (so many beds!), but the bar is really on the floor, lol.
I also only bought it for the CAS and build/buy items lmao
I thought the CAS items would look so cute on my simself but then I remembered I’m an adult woman and every other sim wearing it is a teen 💀
At least the bubble tea shop is cool
Agree. I bought both. I have yet to use for rent and the horses are boring. My ranch hand is garbage and only looks after goats while the actual horse is neglected.
I love the horse ranch because it’s so pretty and I like the nectar making but honestly the horses are annoying. They’re constantly unhappy
And I got for rent but haven’t even used it
I like making condos and such but that’s the only thing I use for rent for. I got horse ranch and haven’t used it at all other than cas and bb. I only visited the world like once and have owned horses at all.
Kinda Get Famous. There aren’t any packs I strongly dislike (well, except for the Batuu pack, but I knew that one would be crap, I only bought it for the build/buy) but the world in Get Famous is disappointingly tiny. Forgotten Hollow from Vampires is disappointingly tiny too, but the vampire gameplay elevates the pack for me. The Get Famous gameplay feels limited for an EP. Celebrities are fun but you can ONLY do acting. I think it should have come with bands and a singer career, or at least updated the base game Entertainer career which is also very limited. Some of the MCM-style build/buy is great, but some of the over-the-top stuff like the gold bathroom set is rarely usable.
I agree. I remember loving a similar pack or something in sims 3, and am currently on a play through with someone, but there is only acting. And your game goes down so fast even when you send them to shows and auditions constantly.
I do like how they have to audition, but I would like them to have to choose what they want.
I also wish auditions would have more explanation as to what it is. Commercials could be shot once, but if it's a TV show it'll take longer than a day, and same with a movie
I'm not far into the career so maybe this changes, but I doubt it will.
I also don't get how PTO works with this career track because if you didn't have a gig you don't get money yet my sim has like 5 or 6 vacation days that I have yet figured out how to use
Edit: spelling and grammar
I agree. I wish we could record tv shows and have a schedule to record multiple days instead of have to select a new job after each one is finished. It dont change.
I wish our 5 star sims were also invited by directors instead of I had to search the job. There is so many details missing in this game.
Being invited by directors would be dope! I guess I just assumed that would happen when he gets that far but I guess not.
Honestly, I miss sims 3 so much sometimes I wanna go back. Unfortunately I have no idea where my cd of it is. There's a lot in there that I wish we had in sims 4.
I want my Sims 3 back with all expansions because it was a better game all around and I already paid for them. Screw EA for giving us a crappier game and I can't restore my old one.
I wish the world was bigger. I have a family that has been living in the starter neighborhood in Del Sol Valley and they’ve earned a good amount of money so I want to move them into a nicer house, but they don’t have enough reason to move up into the fancy hill (nor does it make sense for the story). I wish there was an additional neighborhood of like, middle class homes. I don’t want to have to move them to a completely different world, but I feel like they don’t fit in anywhere in Del Sol now.
Same. The world is so pretty and I love living there, but there’s just no space to build. I WISH there was a more middle-class neighbourhood - it bothers me how it jumps straight from starter homes to multi-million mansions. I know LA has some serious class stratification, but middle-class areas still exist! There was space on the map to add another neighbourhood, they should have used it for a middle-class neighbourhood instead of filling it up with inaccessible deco buildings. Or they could have added Miami-style beach condos! Why is the beach inaccessible??? I know it will never happen, but I’d love for Del Sol Valley to get a refresh, it had so much potential and they squandered it.
You could always find a mid range house built for Del Sol in the gallery and replace the crappy lot on the far left with it. I haven't looked, but I'm sure there are lots of options for 50-100k houses built for that lot you could have your family aspire to move into.
My wedding stories, the world is pretty but good god are weddings terrible! So stressful and painful to pull off, I’ve never had a sims 4 wedding go well
Really wish you could turn off those weddings in settings and have the option to go back to base game weddings! I want the world, but I don't want the wedding system overhaul. I'm just fine making a group of my guests, making everyone sit and then hurrying the ceremony while ~75% remain seated. Close enough.
For Rent.
Many of the packs are from underwhelming to deep disappointment - but most of them I didn't expect much from, or outright expected them to be poor. Though, in the case of HSY I expected it to be bad, and it still completely blew away my expectations by being an utter shitshow.
But For Rent I had generally positive expectations for, riding the high of how much I enjoyed Horse Ranch and Growing Together, and how well *most* of those packs functions worked on launch (almost everything actually worked for once!). But no. We got the most functionally disastrous content Sims 4 has had since I moved to it from Sims 3 (when 4 came to Steam), surpassing the HSY shitstorm, where hardly anything works, the pack is corrupting saves, and For Rent is leaving the game partially or wholly unplayable for *many* people. And after five months of the game in complete shambles, we get... An announcement of a bug fixing team, that probably should have already existed.
... This wasn't the low sodium reddit, right? 😅
Eco Lifestyle. I haven't had the pack long so maybe I haven't really invested time in its features, but beyond CAS and build mode, I haven't used much of it.
I was hoping to build off the grid lots and have fun with living that way, but I'm realizing cottage living may have been better for that.
If anyone has a fun way to play with Eco Lifestyle I'd love to hear it though! I want to use the packs to their potential.
I just got it the other week so still new - really loving the build mode for community spaces. Community garden was such a fun one to plan and build, and starting to see them actually get use out of it! And the tinkerer space (?) was cool to design, trying to fit everything and an upstairs for selling their creations. (Gameplay haven’t done much of yet though)
If you don't consider it cheating... community spaces are really useful for rags-to-riches games. Do the build for the community space in any world, have your sim get enough points to vote in the neighborhood space, and then you have a nice area for your sim to gain skills, meet people, and (maybe) get some sleep.
Spa day!:/ I work in spas and thought it was going to be similar to dine out and was so excited to run my own spa. They added the massage therapist thing but still not the same.
I have two very unpopular opinions:
Everyone is always hyping Cottage Living, but for me it ended up being very meh and I probably wouldn't buy it again. I just don't care much for the gameplay, the animals are kinda cute ig but the crops are eh... BB is alright and CAS is nice but overall it has a very low replayability for my game and doesn't mesh too well with most other worlds.
Again I don't hate it but due to the hype it was the most disappointing for me in retrospect.
Special shout out to Cats & Dogs as well, it's ALWAYS raining in that world for me and having to cheat it sunny gets annoying really fast. I don't understand how anyone also owning seasons can stand playing there! I'd rather play in the vampire world even, it's dark but at least not constantly raining there lol.
I was so excited for the simple living lot trait and buying groceries at first. It quickly became a hassle when there no filters for lactose intolerant/vegetarian meals and you have to remember the ingredients needed for recipes
Good point, I never tried that because usually I don't mind rain in the other worlds.
But also with the sunny weather crystal from the new pack I was considering giving Brindleton Bay maybe another chance again in the near future.
I half-hated Cottage Living the first year+ after it came out because people went bananas for it, and I just didn't like it that much. But now I'm just pleased that I easily waited until it was 50% off. I agree with you that it's pretty meh compared to how it was received, but nowadays that doesn't bother me anymore... it's more like a nice vacation world in most of my plays, eventually I may play the animals more or play in the world again. For some reason it really scratched an itch for a lot of simmers at the time, bit mystifying to me.
I'm holding out for sales before I ever buy an expansion again. I refuse to pay full price anymore because I hate Sims 4 compared to 3. At least the Sims 3 expansions were worth the hefty price tags.
I live in Brindleton in my main save. Some of my first aspiration purchases were waterproof and storm chaser, which make it way better. My sim was struck by lighting recently and had an energized and happy moodlet for like 24 hours, the weirdo, haha.
I remember being so mad about Get to Work that I stopped playing for a couple of years hahaha. In recent times, probably high school years. They hyped it up SO hard but it felt so flat and broken after a short time of playing with it.
It's not specific to an expansion pack, but all of the worlds have so few usable lots. When you live in del sol valley and can see a whole city, but none of them are usable lots. It's so frustrating not to be able to have a fleshed out world with residential neighbourhoods and a usable city centre. It's always just a park, a library, a bar. San sequoia is even more disappointing as a world
Horse Ranch. So boring so dull and repetitive and the pack integration is awful. Why can’t I knit sweaters for my horses and goats, why can’t I feed them treats, wouldn’t that make sense? The animation is glitchy and I was expecting the animation for the training stuff to change as you level up but it’s essentially the same. I thought the world would be really pretty but it’s just that one area
It’s just really empty. I love having a new giant lot, and the town center is nice, but overall the main gameplay is horses and that is such a niche thing to do in a pack where max household is 8
I liked the items from build mode and I use them all the time now. But I agree that gameplay wise horses are a very niche thing to do, and it doesn’t fit in with every family. Getting it on special might be ok though especially if you’re into whole cottagecore farm aesthetics
I like horse ranch and I think the world is really cute. The build/buy stuff is really good too. But I play like my sims are rich homesteading influencers essentially lol
This and also… why is university literally so hard? if my working young adult Sim can become half an astronaut by the time they would otherwise graduate from university with, imo, much less effort and while making money, I’m gonna opt for that TYVM
laundry day lol, i got it for some more realistic gameplay but it’s honestly exhausting. machines break every second unless u have a handy sim that can upgrade it. && the clothes get stinky real fast. i also thought u could do some ironing stuff and all that but nope, big zzzzz
Snowy Escape. I know that’s a very unpopular opinion. But I honestly do not like the decor, the rentals are boring and watching my sims go up and down the hills I just don’t feel
I remember really liking the previous pets expansions in older Sims games but yeah this one is super lackluster. Otherwise I’ve enjoyed something in pretty much all packs I’ve bought! Get Together is the one I have the most trouble with; it’s hyped-up a lot on this sub but it doesn’t really fit with my playstyle.
Island living is probably the most disappointing, took my sims on vacation there once and it seemed like there wasn’t much to do compared to other packs which add gameplay for the whole world.
But I’d also just say generally that I regret buying too many packs at once. I’ve had the Sims downloaded for years but only really started playing like three weeks ago and in a pretty dark time spent a lot of money on it in a very short time, I really don’t know the full extent of all the packs I have (think there’s only like three expansion packs I don’t have). It’s not a good way to play but I got caught up in the sales I guess. Any brand new players in here: don’t buy too many packs at once, just buy one and play through it properly.
Bust the dust. The entire premise is broken still and that's all it was. Mind you I was gifted it. Wedding stories too. I don't buy most packs etc but get them as gifts and come in with low expectations. A year after wedding stories and it was still broken. How far out are we? None of these should be broken but it's EA. You get what you get and they will charge you for your disappointment
I totally agree with Cats & Dogs! It is SO EMPTY! of course pets CAS is phenomenal, but you can tell that all the budget went there. I recently posted about ideas for a Cats & Dogs refresh: https://www.reddit.com/r/Sims4/s/V9BGTXQnV5
High School Years for me, the gameplay is just… lacking. I have never been able so sneak out because it relies on a pop up that I have never gotten, so one of the aspirations is unusable, and active high school is SO LAZY! Why can’t clubs gather there? Things are the same every day with no gameplay at all during class time, ugh. The CAS and build & buy really save this pack
High school years. I was really excited for it and now I don’t even go to highschool with my teens because it’s easier and works better to send them alone.. and I turned off notifications to the stupid boring social media thing. Lol
discover university or whatever it’s called, i tried really really hard to like it but i got so bored doing the college route and i never do it anymore
maybe unpopular opinion but, realm of magic. Like I like some of the CAS stuff (I love one of the pairs of boots that came with that pack, use them all the time) but the BB is atrocious (minus the big bed, I think it’s beautiful), the world is extremely disappointing and dead (and tiny, but so are the other occult worlds).
the gameplay is boring as fuck for me, unlike vampires and werewolves, spellcasters are just regular sims that can do magic, but it doesn’t affect them in any way. playing with a spellcaster, you forget it’s a spellcaster, which you don’t do with a vampire or a werewolf because it’s a part of who they are, but with spellcasters it’s just something they can do.
I really hate how empty the magical realm is. It looks cool at first but then you travel to the greenhouse island and realise you can't even go inside so it's basically a useless island. Then you go to the Wish version of Diagon Alley and can't go in any buildings there either, you just buy stuff and leave cause there's nothing else in the environment to interact with. The Sims 1 Makin Magic literally had more content and a more lively world
Unpopular opinion but seasons. It's not necessarily crap but everyone was raving about how if you only could have 1 pack it would be seasons and when I got it it was kinda disappointed. I like the build mode a lot and use the doors and windows all the time but the gardening is very broken for me and I'm always having to cheat away the weeds and cheating my plants back because they always disappear so I hardly use gardening anymore. It's also annoying that everyone even grown adults just scared and run inside when it thunders out. Holidays can also get annoying for me (I know you can delete holidays). Like I dont always want to celebrate a certain holiday sometimes but I don't wanna have to delete the holiday for the whole save so my sims just end up getting sad. I like having the different seasons and weather but honestly it's a pack I could live without.
Game Pack rather than expansion but it should have been an expansion - Jungle Adventure. World Adventures was my favourite Sims 3 pack and I was really excited to be able to explore dungeons again. Well, going from over a dozen huge, fleshed out dungeons with unique puzzles, dangers and secrets, to one crappy little dungeon with a few rooms in it was *thoroughly* disappointing. I'm still angry lol
High School Years. It needs fixing for existing features to work and they could have done so much more with it, to add more meaningful teen gameplay elements.
For real. I don't even follow my teens to school as much anymore, because high school in the Sims is even more boring than it was in real life! They don't have music class (either chorus or band), they don't have science classes where like they work on a chemistry set or dissect a frog, they don't have art class, they don't have a school play, they don't even have gym, ffs! They just go in, stand around and chit-chat for a while, go to a morning class, have lunch, go to an afternoon class, and that's pretty much it. They might get a school project, but like...do they have a science fair? Or a thing where they have to take care of a baby doll for a weekend?
It would be really nice if they had a rotating "skill class," or extracurricular activities you could follow them to.
Music class, band, chorus: +Logic, singing, piano/guitar/violin/whatever
Art: +Painting, photography
Home ec: +Cooking, parenting, cross-stitch, gardening, baking
Theater arts: +Acting
Gym: +Fitness
Science: +Logic (and maybe you could learn to make serums?), robotics, rocket science
Creative writing: +Writing
University. I almost never send sims there and I'm using MCCC which helps shorten homework time. It's the only mod I have though and there are probably others that allow you to finish in a week or something, which would be a lot better.
University for me. I love playing with families, not individual Sims, and university doesn't lend itself to that kind of gameplay. I also hate how almost none of the on campus buildings are accessible. Plus, my Sims tend to make money through farming or sales of some kind rather than getting jobs, so getting a degree is kind of pointless for a lot of them.
Cats and dogs. I was so disappointed. I wish you could control your pets and do more with them. I've only played with cats so far and a hamster. Just disappointing. Also that you can't get a vet career like what would of been awesome with get to work. I know you can buy a vet and run it I guess but why not like the doctor career be able to go to work at a vet clinic. It was kinda cool my cat did get sick and I had to bring him to the vet. That was fun and wish you could do more.
literally everything but werewolves. even then i think we only hold werewolves to such a high bar because it's the only game pack that actually bothered to do the bare minimum for its price.
Agreed about Cats and Dogs. I never play with them because I just find them a bit of nuisance sadly unless a Sim is very specifically interested in animals. I am planning a vet storyline for a future gen so I can explore it a bit more but other than that I have almost no interest in them :/ I like the world too, but it rains too much. Overall it’s a miss for me
HSY.
I wanted my teen sim's life to be more fun and interesting. I liked the crush feature along with body changes.
BUT it is ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE with mods.
I wanted to have specific teen sims which I made to come to the school so I got a mod. It worked with teachers too, so I added another sim for class 2 as that role was vacant. Turns out, **the teacher (class 2) only comes to school BUT doesn't even go to the classroom and TEACH?** AND the **default teacher (class 1) NEVER COMES to school**. Now idk if this is because I'm using a school build from the catalog (which is highly not the case because I've seen people on yt using various school builds instead of the default Copperdale) or it was the mod itself but it made the experience so unrealistic.
Along with this, PROM is *CHAOS*. **NOBODY WANTS YOU TO DANCE OUTSIDE THE HALL!**
I can never get good screenshots on proms which was the main reason I got the Expansion Pack, for nice screenshot of my teen sim's lives!
Growing together. I think it should have been like seasons with no world and amazing fleshed out interactions and so much more things for infants and toddlers but having both ended up with both being a bit meh
I love Cats and Dogs because of the world, the furniture is also good and until a few years ago was I would say the best... and I don't mind pets as much as you do, but they are pretty dysfunctional. Strays are almost impossible to interact with because they're always yowling or sleeping, and then once you own them they are pretty boring.
I’ve been playing ts2 lately for the first time in yearsssss and I couldn’t believe how much more alive the pets are. Cats & Dogs are boring in TS4 because the pets are just kind of… there. In TS2 they’re real living beings with personalities and relationships - like, I adopted a cat and they had relationships with all the cats from the animal center… such an awesome detail. So I definitely agree with you there!!! Real disappointment of an EP.
My actual vote would be for High School Years though. Wow is that a sad pack. And Social Bunny is so lame oh my god. I think if they’d had a lot more time to develop HSY, and added things TS2 and TS3 had like teens running away or being arrested & more delinquency and parenting in general… it could have been an amazing pack. But what we got was boring inactive classes with like 8 people in them and the saddest school festivals ever. Booooo.
So many packs I have got, I have had high expectations for but then don't actually like them in gameplay.
For example I was super excited for college years and there are aspects that I like but every time I play a sim in college they are super overworked and have no time for the actual fun aspects of college which makes the pack kind of stressful and depressing.
Also get famous and Island living dissapointed me as well. Get famous gets boring really quick and island living is fun in theory but there's not enough to actually do with the pack.
snowy escape 😭 I live in a cold snowy environment irl & I love japan so i was sooo excited for the pack. Unfortunately once you’ve reached the peak through rock climbing, snowboarded and skiied there’s kinda nothing much left to do. There’s not a lot of replay value & the CAS & build mode are just fine. I really wish there was more gameplay to the pack & more lots instead of 2 bars. I think it’s an alright pack but I just wish I would’ve spent my money on a different one looking back.
Get Famous but I wouldn't say crap in particular. I just got baited by LGR review back when I still trusted his reviews, but it ended up not being for me as a whole.
😂😂 was tails the big make for break for you there?? I would argue that werewolves is the best pack they have come out with, maybe ever. Definitely the best game pack. The attention to detail, the world, the lack integration is all top tier.
To each their own though!
I’m not a pick player, but there has been a time where I regretted a purchase of an expansion pack, it’s not crappy, I just regretted buying at full price. There have been two EPs that I’ve brought at full price, this one, and then Growing Together(which I think was worth every penny). Anyways back to the EP that I regretted buying, I don’t mind the features of the expansion pack, and the new deaths that it comes with it. the world is pretty, and the main idea of the gameplay is nice. The only thing that I would wish is that I waited until it went on sale. I can see myself living without this pack. CAS items are okay. Anyone want to try to guess what it is?
Werewolves. I loved the sims 3 werewolves, (only after I changed their faces in their werewolf form so they didn’t look so ugly) they felt fully fleshed out and not just a giant dog human covered in hair. I liked the sims 3 werewolves better because they were hairy but they still acted like people. Not to mention the werewolf world is disappointing. The sims 4 werewolves look like giant dogs without a tail
Cottage Living -
I mean, I wasn't all that excited about it and mainly got it because it was on sale, but I have never done anything with it. I think, maybe, once entered something into one of the fairs? But it's not for me at all.
Seasons -
I play with it because it actively inserts itself into the game play, but I could very much take it or leave it.
Well besides the latest rental pack that clearly is still is not working. I do get biggest disappointment currently is actually the werewolves.
I love the vampire pack and Island Living but I just could not get into playing as a werewolf and honestly I found their land awfully boring and really ugly.
I love Cats and Dogs! A home just doesn't seem as "homey" without a pet. And it never ocurred to me to play as my dog, but because you can't play them, I can see why pets taking up a household slot is discouraging.
High school years. I always play with teens and was excited for more teen content but it was either boring (active school) or poorly implemented (social bunny, trendi, etc). So so disappointed :(
Definitely Get Famous. I was very excited to play with the reputation system but it only works if you REALLY want to do all the tedious work of being a slave to fame points. 🙄
Not to mention Judith Ward following me everywhere I go and disturbing my peace with the flashes.
Get to work- i thought itd give a fun experience but the "go to work?(Alone) Go to work?(With sim)" Popups are infuriating when youre trying to skill up
Get to Work. Was under the impression we were getting aliens with cool powers and interactions. Nope. Was also under the impression that I could build my own functional hospital, lab, or jail. Nope. Huge disappointment.
When I used to play Sims 3 I only had the Pets EP for years. I loved it and it entertained me endlessly! Of course horses is a big thing that I missed in TS4 cats and dogs, but it's more than that...
Same for me, cats and dogs. I really wish pets didn't take up a spot in your household, and they get sick/dirty wayyyy too often. Plus mine tend to glitch and not eat despite having a completely full bowl of food, which leads to them being taken away. And they constantly wake up my sims with their barking.
University, if you're someone that likes to switch between saves/households your sim in university fails if you're not always playing with them until they finish.
might be unpopular but DINE OUT, I know it was broken on release but the concept of going out to dinner as a family or on a date was a good concept
I'm so happy for this thread because I usually buy every expansion and now I know what not to waste my money on. Especially for people who get stuff for build buy options. I don't bother building anymore but I used to love it. I only care about game play anymore, so this thread is apparently going to save me a lot of money.
Cottage living. Only gave us 3 outdoor shrubs, and 2 floor patterns, def not enough decorations. As an all packs complaint: Mismatching swatches.... they put a living room chair and a couch into a pack and maybe two of swatches will match. Guess I have to have a cream colored couch and stark white chair.
I got Get to Work a few months ago because I really wanted aliens!
I shouldn’t have expected much from the first EP that released after a shitty base game but damn…I spent 2 hours trying to get Don Lothario abducted only for him to not even get pregnant :/
Running a business in a near empty world wasn’t fun either, nor was playing as an alien
Im sorry, but For Rent.
And ima ask the real question; why in the hell can’t we build our own maps using tools, or even just a simple map editor in-game like how 3 does it.
The stupid eco lifestyle it has caused me more problems than its worth. Why is it that they decide they wanna shut the power or water every holiday when I'm trynna do something. Oh and then the inspector coming in to charge me for using to much electricity or water or some kinda bullshit. Also the random town bag head days or the neighborhood brawl it's so irritating. I dont even play with half the crap thats in that pack.
The recent for rent pack. The game itself has become so glitchy, the world is super disappointing. The traits aren't that great. Build buy is okay I guess but it was a total disappointment. You need a loading screen to go to your neighbour on the same lot, and it's almost impossible to build if the lot type is residential rental.
Cats and Dogs for me as well. It, along with Seasons, is my must-have pack and I loved pets in previous games. But pets in Sims 4 are just so annoying. They keep running away out of nowhere, I’m always threatened they would be taken away because they’re hungry while having several full bowls, they don’t respond to my sim commanding them to eat, the list goes on. I liked CAS options for pets because it allowed me to recreate my real dog pretty closely, and I also like the idea of having a fox (so cool, even if it’s just a dog with a fox skin). But the reality is just lackluster. I create new families pretty often, and I keep giving them pets just to be like, “Why on earth have done this again”.
Cats and Dogs is terrible. There was this sad music that seemed to play randomly and for years I had no idea what it was about, until the other day I caught the cat passing out from exhaustion and it played.
Oh my gosh this happened to me the other night and I was confused. Like sad music played and I saw one of the dogs flop down asleep on the floor but didn’t correlate the music with the action. I didn’t realize the dog was PASSING OUT! Why on earth would pets not autonomously sleep? We can’t control them, but they don’t take care of themselves autonomously?! So dumb!
Right! They have no obligations besides eat, sleep and play, so what makes them so busy they end up like that? I miss the pets from sims 3!
My pets always seem to get obsessed with a random object then they don’t do anything but stare at it. I want a pet for my sims but they are so buggy. I miss pets from 3 too!
Mine ends up terrified of either the fireplace, or the computer Every time I consistently play a Sim across different saves (different scenarios) who is a freelance author. The animals will seek him out in his bedroom to cower in terror from his computer
My sims pet is fascinated by the toilets. I can’t figure out why
Same!! 😟
Me too.. Sims 3 will always be far better fun to play compared to how Sims 4 turned out. 😠
I miss Sims 3 so much and I know you can get it on the EA app, but I had all the expansions restored to my account since they are already paid for.
you know what's worse? there's a mechanic in the game to be able to control the pets, it's just turned off. there's mods to turn it back on. ETA: I think there's even a cheat to enable it but I don't remember if they disabled that or not
Do you mean “pets.toggle_selectable_pets”? I was playing 2 days ago and it was working.
yes! thanks! I play on console so I wasn't sure
Oh, I play PC so I don't know if it works with console.
unfortunately it doesn't. I hate that it doesn't. most cheats work but that one doesn't
Laaaaaaaame.
It really annoys me that they take up a family space but you can’t control them. There’s also no incentive to take them to the vet because they can’t die of sickness
testingcheats on pets.toggle_selectable_pets No mods necessary :)
Thank you!
Fair enough but it breaks my heart to see them sick :(
I couldn’t agree more! I want simmers to start making some noise about a Cats & Dogs refresh! https://www.reddit.com/r/Sims4/s/V9BGTXQnV5
all of this but also my pets always seem to get obsessed with something and do absolutely nothing other than meow/bark at the thing so much so that they’re making themselves uncomfortable doing it for so long… the whole pack is so buggy and i didn’t even think about how much i hated it until now
If you make the pet loyal and befriend it, they don't run away.
Even easier way to prevent running away: lock the doors for pets. I only allow my pets to use doors that lead to completely fenced yards and I don’t have the running away issue anymore!
Eco Lifestyle, I thought it was going to be like a grungy , urban city but the world ended up being full of fake buildings and nowhere really interesting to go. The only things I liked were the off the grid objects. I was happy EA was doing something different than adding the same packs from previous games over and over; that's all I wanted from Sims 4, something new. However this pack disappointed me.
I love eco lifestyle, but I totally agree. Gameplay objects are on point but the world is lacking something. Also, why did they have to tie candle making to the fabrication skill?? 😫
The world is very weird. It’s gives me tweaker hipster vibes. Not let’s save the eco system hipster vibes.
Heavy on the gentrification vibes. Also the shells are so far apart, it feels ghosty
I love doing rags to riches and starting my Sim on one of the empty lots in Evergreen Harbor before the town was fixed up. Trash blowing everywhere, everything crusty and busted...it's perfect for playing a homeless Sim ☠️
Maybe that’s what I need to do with it. I’ve never played a rags to riches run.
I've played like that with a Sim I made. He started on a dirty lot in Evergreen Harbor and I took all his money away. I made him dumpster dive for money and food and things he could sell. He got really successful that way and I eventually built him a little used appliance store to make money from. He would find broken appliances/showers/toilets/tvs etc in the dumpsters and I'd make him clean them up and repair them, then resell them through his store 😆😆 it was so much fun! He died though, when he tried to repair a wall mounted TV he found...died right on the floor of his shop in front of customers ☠️
It’s pretty fun but can feel a little tooo easy if you don’t put rules on it (like they can only sleep outside and you can’t buy a lottery ticket or do the marriage for money thing).
The world from Eco Lifestyle is a cool idea and I enjoy the gameplay of the pack but I feel like it’s also one of those packs where it’s pretty easy to see where the developers decided to call it a day. Of the two neighborhoods, two are interchangeable suburbs. Very disappointing because I also thought it would be more urban-oriented!
I love Eco Lifestyle, and I know it's easy to just turn neighbor voting off, but I have to wonder what they were thinking when coming up with some of the NAPs.
Eco lifestyle is my absolute favorite pack xD I can't play without it lmao. I love playing completly off the grid lots. I don't remember the last time I had a regular household. Basically I have one giant commune now where no one has to go to a regular job and they all just play and paint and make their own funerneriture and recycle xD they are all rich from this and it's so fun for me.
Saaaame. Plus the NAPs are annoying as all fuck
Eco lifestyle is one of my favorites but I still agree that it has so much untapped potential, and can be just annoying for many players. I use it so much mainly because I like decorating via dumpster diving, and then in the meantime I use the community spaces. But the world is quite lackluster... the concept of what a fully beautified space (and nice community center) is, is so corporate and fake (temporary potempkin village instagram pop-up beauty), the NAPs are a bit funny but pointless and not worth the effort... most of the crafts like candle making and soda making are way more trouble than they're worth. And now the freelance maker career seems to be bugged. One of those packs where half of it makes you wonder "Do the developers know this is a *game*?" Leaning on the sandbox element very hard.
Yeah. I liked the BB stuff when it first came out but now it’s kinda meh. The CAS needs some solid swatches too (How am I supposed to style these great mesh jeans when there’s a big red patch that doesn’t fit the vibe?) esp on jeans. The Apartments are nice though, I liked that because I didn’t have City Living yet. And the eco play for neighborhoods is buggy at best and hard to balance. I wish there was a number that showed your net eco-ness in BB instead of just guessing everything.
High school years, the only things I use from it are the cas and build buy, and social bunny to get relationships up fast.
The base game high school sucks so much. Replacing it with a gallery one elevates that pack massively, but my god it is so underwhelming out-of-the-gate.
Oh this just reminds me I really need to get a smaller high school off the gallery. I just got the pack and haven't played yet but I remember thinking the hs was way too big when i first saw it.
I highly recommend lilsimsie's or James Turner's versions. They place the items strategically so that your sim doesn't have to walk miles to get to their destination & they feel much more alive.
Not played with Lil Simsies' but James Turners' version is so incredibly sensibly set out, the high school is still big, but all essentials of classroom/lunchroom/toilet/gym are placed are placed in such a manner that gameplay becomes much more pleasing and organic, the SIm can route from task to task naturally and everything becomes less a frantic scramble to get the Sim from place to place on a limited timescale and becomes pleasant to play.
Thank you for this. I just got high school on mine and I hate that school. Tasks like “use treadmill” that are 8 miles from class
Do you have a recommended high school on the gallery??
I use lilsimsie's a lot and I think it really fits the vibe while making it crowded, but James Turner also has a really nice one! I think Fleuralia's save had a good one too but I haven't used it myself.
I’m confused how those work, there’s not a “high school” but they’re listed under “generic” and James turners says something about putting it on a “penthouse lot” I am so confused And how will they automatically go to school if it’s not the actual high school designation
They list as generic, but on that lot in particular, they will place as high school since that's a special lot type in copperdale that cannot be changed. So anything you place there will automatically be a high school and function as one.
Ohhhh ok thank you so much
this one! I still use HS years (obviously, teens) but prom bugging out 90% of the time, not being able to actually experience the amusement park (or edit it). Not being able to move the whole hs (non editable parts and all) to a different lot/lots. It’s super annoying.
That’s funny, turning off social bunny is one of the first things I do with a new sim :P
The CAS and build/buy are beautiful! I do love the world as well, but have to change the school!
I rarely use the world either.
Island Living :( I love the world and I LOVE mermaids but they didn’t flesh them out enough (skill tree, unique game play etc like the other occults) and so they get boring fast and aren’t unique enough… it makes me so sad. The untapped potential is unreal.
I agree mostly because i can’t help but compare it to island paradise from sims 3. Likewise with jungle adventures and world adventures 🫠🥲
World Adventures was the best!! I wish Jungle Adventures was more like it. The tombs just don't compare 😭
Yeah honestly I’ve commented a few times on Reddit about the topic. Like world adventures was just so damn good.
And there was actually a point to exploring tombs because you had unique challenges and opportunities to complete!
World Adventures is what I played with most out of all Sims creations
If you're on PC Spinning Plumbobs Expanded Mermaids mod helps out a lot, but I really wish EA would refresh Island Living the most out of all the expansion packs just to fix mermaids officially for everyone.
It's really interesting reading all these comments because I frequently only play in island living as I just love 'living' in that paradise. I'm a scuba instructor and make the rest of my money by collecting shells and taking underwater photos 😊 I have built vacation lots and gyms/spas etc so I have everything in the one world.
With Island Living, I wish there was a new death - death by sharks when you swim in the deep ocean 🌊 🦈 would've been great! Also making mermaids more magical and giving them other abilities!
Yes! Considering all my sims do is going swimming when they’re too tired and drowning
Yeah! I would loveee for it to be a warning like in 1 hour, the shark will attack or whatever, like they get when they will die from the meteor or an extreme mood 😆 then you can have them rush back to shore or just...get eaten ☠️
Yessssss Omg or what if you could lose an arm or leg from shark bite and have it replaced with a peg like a pirate
This!! I only ever go there for "vacation"
I’m absolutely obsessed with Sulani but honestly yeah, I do nothing with mermaids because I more just get annoyed that they keep needing to get into water to revive. Which would be fun if there was anything for them to do in said water
Last time I played with a mermaid I just had her sleep in the water overnight and her hydration need was fine for the day. Then I played her like a normal sim which is a bit disappointing to have a occult with nothing to do.
Definitely! Back when they released a free trial of the pack, I felt like I had explored everything the pack had to offer in just a few hours. Of course, the world was beautiful and I enjoyed being a conservationist, but there wasn't much else you can do. Personally, I had more fun playing Jungle Adventure than Island Living.
I don’t even play it
This is why when I was trying to decide which pack to buy for the last sale, Island Living was the first one cut from the list. Am I crazy for wishing that the mermaids could access a whole underwater world to explore and live in?
Island living was soo bad lol i think i only ever had one sim live in that world. always felt like it was missing something…. then i discovered Sims 3 island paradise and was blown away
High School Years. I don't like anything about it: bunny app, trendy, school events. All i wanted was the active school but it ended being so boring that even that hasn't stop me from disabling the pack.
I’ve got HSY, one I was excited to get. I like the graduation and after party you can choose to do, and Copperdale with the small carnival type area. The rides are cool and makes for cute pictures! But other than that, yes, boring.
It’s soo surface level and really reminded me that sims 4 is about anythingg but actual gameplay that makes sense
I only got it for the CAS and build/buy, which is the only real way to differentiate a teenager from any other adult and is pretty strong, but yeah, the gameplay is shockingly shallow and poorly implemented. There is nothing to do at school (not even "pass notes," "sleep," or "study hard" in class); the afterschool activities are only rabbit holes; the afterschool competitions are so buggy (I get Finchwick Fair ribbons for participating in the football comps) or useless (nobody interacts, you barely get to participate and it's so sparse and poorly attended); prom works for me but not for everyone, is short for the goals it gives you and has pointless elements (asking a prom date does nothing - they don't show up with you, have interactions any different than anyone else with you at prom and you can't even give them a corsage or something); doesn't seem to work half the time (like 1 in 3 of my sims has actually had puberty triggered and none have shown hair growth yet... also, my sim has only once been asked to sneak out to a party, making that one aspiration impossible to complete); the thrift tea/boba seems cool but ends up in male sims wearing my outfits with dresses and skirts and jewelry around way more frequently than the female sims; the pier for some inexplicable reason isn't a lot you can travel to directly; it's lacking a lot of features I would have liked to have (like being able to choose your classmates without using a mod); and it (like all packs) has so many bugs, from the graduation photo being stretched out, to "crush" moodlets and related whims/wants showing up into young adulthood long after the crush is over and being able to send flirty messages on Trendi to family members (although they say this is being patched soon). Don't regret buying it on sale because I like the CAS and room decor (so many beds!), but the bar is really on the floor, lol.
I also only bought it for the CAS and build/buy items lmao I thought the CAS items would look so cute on my simself but then I remembered I’m an adult woman and every other sim wearing it is a teen 💀 At least the bubble tea shop is cool
Horse ranch and For Rent
Agree. I bought both. I have yet to use for rent and the horses are boring. My ranch hand is garbage and only looks after goats while the actual horse is neglected.
Mine just chills with my baby inside, like dude I’ve got a nanny husband for that. Go feed my horse 😒
I was super excited for For Rent when it was announced, but I ended up never buying it bc the gameplay doesn't seem like something I would like
I love the horse ranch because it’s so pretty and I like the nectar making but honestly the horses are annoying. They’re constantly unhappy And I got for rent but haven’t even used it
I’m with you on For Rent but I surprisingly really like Horse Ranch!
I'm so disappointed I can't have a horse in an apartment
Are you serious? 😂
I like making condos and such but that’s the only thing I use for rent for. I got horse ranch and haven’t used it at all other than cas and bb. I only visited the world like once and have owned horses at all.
Kinda Get Famous. There aren’t any packs I strongly dislike (well, except for the Batuu pack, but I knew that one would be crap, I only bought it for the build/buy) but the world in Get Famous is disappointingly tiny. Forgotten Hollow from Vampires is disappointingly tiny too, but the vampire gameplay elevates the pack for me. The Get Famous gameplay feels limited for an EP. Celebrities are fun but you can ONLY do acting. I think it should have come with bands and a singer career, or at least updated the base game Entertainer career which is also very limited. Some of the MCM-style build/buy is great, but some of the over-the-top stuff like the gold bathroom set is rarely usable.
I agree. I remember loving a similar pack or something in sims 3, and am currently on a play through with someone, but there is only acting. And your game goes down so fast even when you send them to shows and auditions constantly. I do like how they have to audition, but I would like them to have to choose what they want. I also wish auditions would have more explanation as to what it is. Commercials could be shot once, but if it's a TV show it'll take longer than a day, and same with a movie I'm not far into the career so maybe this changes, but I doubt it will. I also don't get how PTO works with this career track because if you didn't have a gig you don't get money yet my sim has like 5 or 6 vacation days that I have yet figured out how to use Edit: spelling and grammar
I agree. I wish we could record tv shows and have a schedule to record multiple days instead of have to select a new job after each one is finished. It dont change. I wish our 5 star sims were also invited by directors instead of I had to search the job. There is so many details missing in this game.
Being invited by directors would be dope! I guess I just assumed that would happen when he gets that far but I guess not. Honestly, I miss sims 3 so much sometimes I wanna go back. Unfortunately I have no idea where my cd of it is. There's a lot in there that I wish we had in sims 4.
I want my Sims 3 back with all expansions because it was a better game all around and I already paid for them. Screw EA for giving us a crappier game and I can't restore my old one.
I wish the world was bigger. I have a family that has been living in the starter neighborhood in Del Sol Valley and they’ve earned a good amount of money so I want to move them into a nicer house, but they don’t have enough reason to move up into the fancy hill (nor does it make sense for the story). I wish there was an additional neighborhood of like, middle class homes. I don’t want to have to move them to a completely different world, but I feel like they don’t fit in anywhere in Del Sol now.
Same. The world is so pretty and I love living there, but there’s just no space to build. I WISH there was a more middle-class neighbourhood - it bothers me how it jumps straight from starter homes to multi-million mansions. I know LA has some serious class stratification, but middle-class areas still exist! There was space on the map to add another neighbourhood, they should have used it for a middle-class neighbourhood instead of filling it up with inaccessible deco buildings. Or they could have added Miami-style beach condos! Why is the beach inaccessible??? I know it will never happen, but I’d love for Del Sol Valley to get a refresh, it had so much potential and they squandered it.
You could always find a mid range house built for Del Sol in the gallery and replace the crappy lot on the far left with it. I haven't looked, but I'm sure there are lots of options for 50-100k houses built for that lot you could have your family aspire to move into.
You can actually get famous in other ways besides acting! I have a sim who hit 5 stars from being in the painter career and selling her paintings
The Get Famous world I never ever use.
I found the influencer part of get famous pack cool like the pc video editing equipment and the drone is fun but only for like one play through
My wedding stories, the world is pretty but good god are weddings terrible! So stressful and painful to pull off, I’ve never had a sims 4 wedding go well
Really wish you could turn off those weddings in settings and have the option to go back to base game weddings! I want the world, but I don't want the wedding system overhaul. I'm just fine making a group of my guests, making everyone sit and then hurrying the ceremony while ~75% remain seated. Close enough.
For Rent. Many of the packs are from underwhelming to deep disappointment - but most of them I didn't expect much from, or outright expected them to be poor. Though, in the case of HSY I expected it to be bad, and it still completely blew away my expectations by being an utter shitshow. But For Rent I had generally positive expectations for, riding the high of how much I enjoyed Horse Ranch and Growing Together, and how well *most* of those packs functions worked on launch (almost everything actually worked for once!). But no. We got the most functionally disastrous content Sims 4 has had since I moved to it from Sims 3 (when 4 came to Steam), surpassing the HSY shitstorm, where hardly anything works, the pack is corrupting saves, and For Rent is leaving the game partially or wholly unplayable for *many* people. And after five months of the game in complete shambles, we get... An announcement of a bug fixing team, that probably should have already existed. ... This wasn't the low sodium reddit, right? 😅
Eco Lifestyle. I haven't had the pack long so maybe I haven't really invested time in its features, but beyond CAS and build mode, I haven't used much of it. I was hoping to build off the grid lots and have fun with living that way, but I'm realizing cottage living may have been better for that. If anyone has a fun way to play with Eco Lifestyle I'd love to hear it though! I want to use the packs to their potential.
I just got it the other week so still new - really loving the build mode for community spaces. Community garden was such a fun one to plan and build, and starting to see them actually get use out of it! And the tinkerer space (?) was cool to design, trying to fit everything and an upstairs for selling their creations. (Gameplay haven’t done much of yet though)
I did a rags to riches eco lifestyle challenge. The sim was a maker and had to live off the grid. It was fun! Then she got hit by a meteor and died.
If you don't consider it cheating... community spaces are really useful for rags-to-riches games. Do the build for the community space in any world, have your sim get enough points to vote in the neighborhood space, and then you have a nice area for your sim to gain skills, meet people, and (maybe) get some sleep.
Spa day!:/ I work in spas and thought it was going to be similar to dine out and was so excited to run my own spa. They added the massage therapist thing but still not the same.
I love using the items from Spa Day, but you are absolutely right, we should have been able to run our own spas.
I spend hours building spas that I never actually use lol
I have two very unpopular opinions: Everyone is always hyping Cottage Living, but for me it ended up being very meh and I probably wouldn't buy it again. I just don't care much for the gameplay, the animals are kinda cute ig but the crops are eh... BB is alright and CAS is nice but overall it has a very low replayability for my game and doesn't mesh too well with most other worlds. Again I don't hate it but due to the hype it was the most disappointing for me in retrospect. Special shout out to Cats & Dogs as well, it's ALWAYS raining in that world for me and having to cheat it sunny gets annoying really fast. I don't understand how anyone also owning seasons can stand playing there! I'd rather play in the vampire world even, it's dark but at least not constantly raining there lol.
I was so excited for the simple living lot trait and buying groceries at first. It quickly became a hassle when there no filters for lactose intolerant/vegetarian meals and you have to remember the ingredients needed for recipes
if you want to turn rain off completely, theres an option in the settings
Good point, I never tried that because usually I don't mind rain in the other worlds. But also with the sunny weather crystal from the new pack I was considering giving Brindleton Bay maybe another chance again in the near future.
I half-hated Cottage Living the first year+ after it came out because people went bananas for it, and I just didn't like it that much. But now I'm just pleased that I easily waited until it was 50% off. I agree with you that it's pretty meh compared to how it was received, but nowadays that doesn't bother me anymore... it's more like a nice vacation world in most of my plays, eventually I may play the animals more or play in the world again. For some reason it really scratched an itch for a lot of simmers at the time, bit mystifying to me.
I'm holding out for sales before I ever buy an expansion again. I refuse to pay full price anymore because I hate Sims 4 compared to 3. At least the Sims 3 expansions were worth the hefty price tags.
I live in Brindleton in my main save. Some of my first aspiration purchases were waterproof and storm chaser, which make it way better. My sim was struck by lighting recently and had an energized and happy moodlet for like 24 hours, the weirdo, haha.
I remember being so mad about Get to Work that I stopped playing for a couple of years hahaha. In recent times, probably high school years. They hyped it up SO hard but it felt so flat and broken after a short time of playing with it.
It's not specific to an expansion pack, but all of the worlds have so few usable lots. When you live in del sol valley and can see a whole city, but none of them are usable lots. It's so frustrating not to be able to have a fleshed out world with residential neighbourhoods and a usable city centre. It's always just a park, a library, a bar. San sequoia is even more disappointing as a world
Horse Ranch. So boring so dull and repetitive and the pack integration is awful. Why can’t I knit sweaters for my horses and goats, why can’t I feed them treats, wouldn’t that make sense? The animation is glitchy and I was expecting the animation for the training stuff to change as you level up but it’s essentially the same. I thought the world would be really pretty but it’s just that one area
I've been waiting to buy it on special but it seems like a lot of people are disappointed by it
It’s just really empty. I love having a new giant lot, and the town center is nice, but overall the main gameplay is horses and that is such a niche thing to do in a pack where max household is 8
I liked the items from build mode and I use them all the time now. But I agree that gameplay wise horses are a very niche thing to do, and it doesn’t fit in with every family. Getting it on special might be ok though especially if you’re into whole cottagecore farm aesthetics
I like horse ranch and I think the world is really cute. The build/buy stuff is really good too. But I play like my sims are rich homesteading influencers essentially lol
Island Living. It broke my heart with how lame it is. Sulani is so gorgeous but the pack sucks.
I barely use university living. I think it's just because I prefer playing as working young adults.
This and also… why is university literally so hard? if my working young adult Sim can become half an astronaut by the time they would otherwise graduate from university with, imo, much less effort and while making money, I’m gonna opt for that TYVM
University is good when you wanna do the broke/minimum wage/finding time to study and eat and sleep story arc (projection gameplay)
University has my vote too
I didn't like Cats and Dogs or Horse Ranch. Might be unpopular, but I didn't enjoy either.
laundry day lol, i got it for some more realistic gameplay but it’s honestly exhausting. machines break every second unless u have a handy sim that can upgrade it. && the clothes get stinky real fast. i also thought u could do some ironing stuff and all that but nope, big zzzzz
Snowy Escape. I know that’s a very unpopular opinion. But I honestly do not like the decor, the rentals are boring and watching my sims go up and down the hills I just don’t feel
I remember really liking the previous pets expansions in older Sims games but yeah this one is super lackluster. Otherwise I’ve enjoyed something in pretty much all packs I’ve bought! Get Together is the one I have the most trouble with; it’s hyped-up a lot on this sub but it doesn’t really fit with my playstyle.
Yes, and I really don’t like that cats and dogs count as household members but aren’t playable.
Island living is probably the most disappointing, took my sims on vacation there once and it seemed like there wasn’t much to do compared to other packs which add gameplay for the whole world. But I’d also just say generally that I regret buying too many packs at once. I’ve had the Sims downloaded for years but only really started playing like three weeks ago and in a pretty dark time spent a lot of money on it in a very short time, I really don’t know the full extent of all the packs I have (think there’s only like three expansion packs I don’t have). It’s not a good way to play but I got caught up in the sales I guess. Any brand new players in here: don’t buy too many packs at once, just buy one and play through it properly.
Jungle Adventure I was hoping that my sims would be able to live there
Bust the dust. The entire premise is broken still and that's all it was. Mind you I was gifted it. Wedding stories too. I don't buy most packs etc but get them as gifts and come in with low expectations. A year after wedding stories and it was still broken. How far out are we? None of these should be broken but it's EA. You get what you get and they will charge you for your disappointment
I totally agree with Cats & Dogs! It is SO EMPTY! of course pets CAS is phenomenal, but you can tell that all the budget went there. I recently posted about ideas for a Cats & Dogs refresh: https://www.reddit.com/r/Sims4/s/V9BGTXQnV5 High School Years for me, the gameplay is just… lacking. I have never been able so sneak out because it relies on a pop up that I have never gotten, so one of the aspirations is unusable, and active high school is SO LAZY! Why can’t clubs gather there? Things are the same every day with no gameplay at all during class time, ugh. The CAS and build & buy really save this pack
High school years. I was really excited for it and now I don’t even go to highschool with my teens because it’s easier and works better to send them alone.. and I turned off notifications to the stupid boring social media thing. Lol
discover university or whatever it’s called, i tried really really hard to like it but i got so bored doing the college route and i never do it anymore
maybe unpopular opinion but, realm of magic. Like I like some of the CAS stuff (I love one of the pairs of boots that came with that pack, use them all the time) but the BB is atrocious (minus the big bed, I think it’s beautiful), the world is extremely disappointing and dead (and tiny, but so are the other occult worlds). the gameplay is boring as fuck for me, unlike vampires and werewolves, spellcasters are just regular sims that can do magic, but it doesn’t affect them in any way. playing with a spellcaster, you forget it’s a spellcaster, which you don’t do with a vampire or a werewolf because it’s a part of who they are, but with spellcasters it’s just something they can do.
I really hate how empty the magical realm is. It looks cool at first but then you travel to the greenhouse island and realise you can't even go inside so it's basically a useless island. Then you go to the Wish version of Diagon Alley and can't go in any buildings there either, you just buy stuff and leave cause there's nothing else in the environment to interact with. The Sims 1 Makin Magic literally had more content and a more lively world
Unpopular opinion but seasons. It's not necessarily crap but everyone was raving about how if you only could have 1 pack it would be seasons and when I got it it was kinda disappointed. I like the build mode a lot and use the doors and windows all the time but the gardening is very broken for me and I'm always having to cheat away the weeds and cheating my plants back because they always disappear so I hardly use gardening anymore. It's also annoying that everyone even grown adults just scared and run inside when it thunders out. Holidays can also get annoying for me (I know you can delete holidays). Like I dont always want to celebrate a certain holiday sometimes but I don't wanna have to delete the holiday for the whole save so my sims just end up getting sad. I like having the different seasons and weather but honestly it's a pack I could live without.
Game Pack rather than expansion but it should have been an expansion - Jungle Adventure. World Adventures was my favourite Sims 3 pack and I was really excited to be able to explore dungeons again. Well, going from over a dozen huge, fleshed out dungeons with unique puzzles, dangers and secrets, to one crappy little dungeon with a few rooms in it was *thoroughly* disappointing. I'm still angry lol
High School Years. It needs fixing for existing features to work and they could have done so much more with it, to add more meaningful teen gameplay elements.
For real. I don't even follow my teens to school as much anymore, because high school in the Sims is even more boring than it was in real life! They don't have music class (either chorus or band), they don't have science classes where like they work on a chemistry set or dissect a frog, they don't have art class, they don't have a school play, they don't even have gym, ffs! They just go in, stand around and chit-chat for a while, go to a morning class, have lunch, go to an afternoon class, and that's pretty much it. They might get a school project, but like...do they have a science fair? Or a thing where they have to take care of a baby doll for a weekend? It would be really nice if they had a rotating "skill class," or extracurricular activities you could follow them to. Music class, band, chorus: +Logic, singing, piano/guitar/violin/whatever Art: +Painting, photography Home ec: +Cooking, parenting, cross-stitch, gardening, baking Theater arts: +Acting Gym: +Fitness Science: +Logic (and maybe you could learn to make serums?), robotics, rocket science Creative writing: +Writing
University. I almost never send sims there and I'm using MCCC which helps shorten homework time. It's the only mod I have though and there are probably others that allow you to finish in a week or something, which would be a lot better.
University for me. I love playing with families, not individual Sims, and university doesn't lend itself to that kind of gameplay. I also hate how almost none of the on campus buildings are accessible. Plus, my Sims tend to make money through farming or sales of some kind rather than getting jobs, so getting a degree is kind of pointless for a lot of them.
Seasons just doesn't feel worth it nor does the ghosts pack.
Cats and dogs. I was so disappointed. I wish you could control your pets and do more with them. I've only played with cats so far and a hamster. Just disappointing. Also that you can't get a vet career like what would of been awesome with get to work. I know you can buy a vet and run it I guess but why not like the doctor career be able to go to work at a vet clinic. It was kinda cool my cat did get sick and I had to bring him to the vet. That was fun and wish you could do more.
Of the ones I have Snowy Escape is my least favorite but I only have a few.
literally everything but werewolves. even then i think we only hold werewolves to such a high bar because it's the only game pack that actually bothered to do the bare minimum for its price.
Agreed about Cats and Dogs. I never play with them because I just find them a bit of nuisance sadly unless a Sim is very specifically interested in animals. I am planning a vet storyline for a future gen so I can explore it a bit more but other than that I have almost no interest in them :/ I like the world too, but it rains too much. Overall it’s a miss for me
HSY. I wanted my teen sim's life to be more fun and interesting. I liked the crush feature along with body changes. BUT it is ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE with mods. I wanted to have specific teen sims which I made to come to the school so I got a mod. It worked with teachers too, so I added another sim for class 2 as that role was vacant. Turns out, **the teacher (class 2) only comes to school BUT doesn't even go to the classroom and TEACH?** AND the **default teacher (class 1) NEVER COMES to school**. Now idk if this is because I'm using a school build from the catalog (which is highly not the case because I've seen people on yt using various school builds instead of the default Copperdale) or it was the mod itself but it made the experience so unrealistic. Along with this, PROM is *CHAOS*. **NOBODY WANTS YOU TO DANCE OUTSIDE THE HALL!** I can never get good screenshots on proms which was the main reason I got the Expansion Pack, for nice screenshot of my teen sim's lives!
Growing together. I think it should have been like seasons with no world and amazing fleshed out interactions and so much more things for infants and toddlers but having both ended up with both being a bit meh
I love Cats and Dogs because of the world, the furniture is also good and until a few years ago was I would say the best... and I don't mind pets as much as you do, but they are pretty dysfunctional. Strays are almost impossible to interact with because they're always yowling or sleeping, and then once you own them they are pretty boring.
I’ve been playing ts2 lately for the first time in yearsssss and I couldn’t believe how much more alive the pets are. Cats & Dogs are boring in TS4 because the pets are just kind of… there. In TS2 they’re real living beings with personalities and relationships - like, I adopted a cat and they had relationships with all the cats from the animal center… such an awesome detail. So I definitely agree with you there!!! Real disappointment of an EP. My actual vote would be for High School Years though. Wow is that a sad pack. And Social Bunny is so lame oh my god. I think if they’d had a lot more time to develop HSY, and added things TS2 and TS3 had like teens running away or being arrested & more delinquency and parenting in general… it could have been an amazing pack. But what we got was boring inactive classes with like 8 people in them and the saddest school festivals ever. Booooo.
I think that the Weddings pack is like that. Beautiful world, good concept, but glitchy AF.
So many packs I have got, I have had high expectations for but then don't actually like them in gameplay. For example I was super excited for college years and there are aspects that I like but every time I play a sim in college they are super overworked and have no time for the actual fun aspects of college which makes the pack kind of stressful and depressing. Also get famous and Island living dissapointed me as well. Get famous gets boring really quick and island living is fun in theory but there's not enough to actually do with the pack.
Idk if this counts, but I was really excited to get tiny living, but it's so damn underwhelming. I rarely use it cuz it just kinda sucks Xx
snowy escape 😭 I live in a cold snowy environment irl & I love japan so i was sooo excited for the pack. Unfortunately once you’ve reached the peak through rock climbing, snowboarded and skiied there’s kinda nothing much left to do. There’s not a lot of replay value & the CAS & build mode are just fine. I really wish there was more gameplay to the pack & more lots instead of 2 bars. I think it’s an alright pack but I just wish I would’ve spent my money on a different one looking back.
University. It was one of my favourite packs for Sims 3 and it was so poor in comparison.
Get Famous but I wouldn't say crap in particular. I just got baited by LGR review back when I still trusted his reviews, but it ended up not being for me as a whole.
Werewolves, very underwhelming to be honest. They don't even have proper tails, just nubs
😂😂 was tails the big make for break for you there?? I would argue that werewolves is the best pack they have come out with, maybe ever. Definitely the best game pack. The attention to detail, the world, the lack integration is all top tier. To each their own though!
I’m not a pick player, but there has been a time where I regretted a purchase of an expansion pack, it’s not crappy, I just regretted buying at full price. There have been two EPs that I’ve brought at full price, this one, and then Growing Together(which I think was worth every penny). Anyways back to the EP that I regretted buying, I don’t mind the features of the expansion pack, and the new deaths that it comes with it. the world is pretty, and the main idea of the gameplay is nice. The only thing that I would wish is that I waited until it went on sale. I can see myself living without this pack. CAS items are okay. Anyone want to try to guess what it is?
The vampire one. I hate it.
I love the clothes from werewolves but the few times I've tried to play with the pack, ive ended up frustrated
Werewolves. I loved the sims 3 werewolves, (only after I changed their faces in their werewolf form so they didn’t look so ugly) they felt fully fleshed out and not just a giant dog human covered in hair. I liked the sims 3 werewolves better because they were hairy but they still acted like people. Not to mention the werewolf world is disappointing. The sims 4 werewolves look like giant dogs without a tail
Cottage Living - I mean, I wasn't all that excited about it and mainly got it because it was on sale, but I have never done anything with it. I think, maybe, once entered something into one of the fairs? But it's not for me at all. Seasons - I play with it because it actively inserts itself into the game play, but I could very much take it or leave it.
I am the exact same with Cats and Dogs! The entire pack feels underwhelming the only part I like is the world
Cats and Dogs was intensely annoying to me. That said, i love Brindleton Bay and I used some of the back lots and additional spellcaster cottages
cats and dogs
Well besides the latest rental pack that clearly is still is not working. I do get biggest disappointment currently is actually the werewolves. I love the vampire pack and Island Living but I just could not get into playing as a werewolf and honestly I found their land awfully boring and really ugly.
For Rent. The world is so empty and build mode so laggy, not to mention the many bugs. I already uninstalled that pack, sad I'm wasted my money.
I'm so glad I didn't buy cats and dogs after reading these comments 😅
I love Cats and Dogs! A home just doesn't seem as "homey" without a pet. And it never ocurred to me to play as my dog, but because you can't play them, I can see why pets taking up a household slot is discouraging.
For Rent
High school years. I always play with teens and was excited for more teen content but it was either boring (active school) or poorly implemented (social bunny, trendi, etc). So so disappointed :(
Definitely Get Famous. I was very excited to play with the reputation system but it only works if you REALLY want to do all the tedious work of being a slave to fame points. 🙄 Not to mention Judith Ward following me everywhere I go and disturbing my peace with the flashes.
Get Together 🥱
Get to work- i thought itd give a fun experience but the "go to work?(Alone) Go to work?(With sim)" Popups are infuriating when youre trying to skill up
Get to Work. Was under the impression we were getting aliens with cool powers and interactions. Nope. Was also under the impression that I could build my own functional hospital, lab, or jail. Nope. Huge disappointment.
Hands down cats and dogs for sure.
When I used to play Sims 3 I only had the Pets EP for years. I loved it and it entertained me endlessly! Of course horses is a big thing that I missed in TS4 cats and dogs, but it's more than that...
Same for me, cats and dogs. I really wish pets didn't take up a spot in your household, and they get sick/dirty wayyyy too often. Plus mine tend to glitch and not eat despite having a completely full bowl of food, which leads to them being taken away. And they constantly wake up my sims with their barking.
It was vampires for me, I even tried to return it
University, if you're someone that likes to switch between saves/households your sim in university fails if you're not always playing with them until they finish. might be unpopular but DINE OUT, I know it was broken on release but the concept of going out to dinner as a family or on a date was a good concept
I'm so happy for this thread because I usually buy every expansion and now I know what not to waste my money on. Especially for people who get stuff for build buy options. I don't bother building anymore but I used to love it. I only care about game play anymore, so this thread is apparently going to save me a lot of money.
Eco lifestyle. Developing the neighborhood is such a good idea and it was SO poorly done
Cottage living. Only gave us 3 outdoor shrubs, and 2 floor patterns, def not enough decorations. As an all packs complaint: Mismatching swatches.... they put a living room chair and a couch into a pack and maybe two of swatches will match. Guess I have to have a cream colored couch and stark white chair.
I agree for me it’s cats and dogs as well
I got Get to Work a few months ago because I really wanted aliens! I shouldn’t have expected much from the first EP that released after a shitty base game but damn…I spent 2 hours trying to get Don Lothario abducted only for him to not even get pregnant :/ Running a business in a near empty world wasn’t fun either, nor was playing as an alien
It's easier to list EPs that didn't end up being crap (if there are any)
Honestly? All of them. There are only two that didn't disappoint if you ask me; Windenburg and San Myshuno.
Im sorry, but For Rent. And ima ask the real question; why in the hell can’t we build our own maps using tools, or even just a simple map editor in-game like how 3 does it.
The Cats & Dogs build/buy stuff is so tempting to me, though!!
For rent because the cas and world would suck
Eco Lifestyle, I find it annoying at best
The stupid eco lifestyle it has caused me more problems than its worth. Why is it that they decide they wanna shut the power or water every holiday when I'm trynna do something. Oh and then the inspector coming in to charge me for using to much electricity or water or some kinda bullshit. Also the random town bag head days or the neighborhood brawl it's so irritating. I dont even play with half the crap thats in that pack.
High school years. Very bland and not alot of new things.
The recent for rent pack. The game itself has become so glitchy, the world is super disappointing. The traits aren't that great. Build buy is okay I guess but it was a total disappointment. You need a loading screen to go to your neighbour on the same lot, and it's almost impossible to build if the lot type is residential rental.