[EBN] Enchanted by Nature is the first EP I've truly regretted purchasing.

I literally logged on to make this exact post. I wasted money when I purchased this. Number 1: Even turning off the balance and imbalances... MY SIMS ARE CONSTANTLY AFFLICTED BY AILMENTS! I've never hated a pack more than this, not even wedding stories. The only good things that came with this pack is the ability to evolve all plants at once and a new world. I paid the equivalent of a brand new AA video game price for a DLC that ruins my gameplay. At this point it's got to be a sickness to continue purchasing anything for this game. And I've never even played as a fairy yet!

That's funny, I don't seem to recall complaining about the hunger bar. Are you trying to to draw a parallel between having to eat when you're hungry and having to wait a day to do things you might like to do because some luck goddess isn't smiling favorably upon you that day?

Look, if you enjoy limiting mechanics, you do you, but you might've considered that other players might not be down with that sort of thing before writing what reads a lot more like lecture to other players than it does an offering of well-meaning advice.

The game isn't "dictating what you have to do" by offering you content that has a feature that has consequences, and then the feature happens, and there's consequences. 

Your sim wakes up and is hungry. Is the game "dictating what you have to do" because now you eventually have to feed them? C'mon.

Intern Waffle, what you've described and the way you've described it doesn't sound like engaging with game mechanics so as much as it sounds like being slavish to them. 

There's the imagination/storytelling aspect of the game to consider here. The game mechanics ideally should allow enough wiggle room for a player to freely construct whatever narrative(s) they choose to create for their households at their leisure. When the mechanics are loose enough to allow for that, then the player can embrace the mechanics that do exist and incorporate them into their narratives. 

But when the mechanics become too intrusive and stifling, that all goes out the window, and you have the game dictating what the player needs to be doing at every turn, essentially turning it into a checkpoint/objective driven game. 

Besides, it's perfectly possible to introduce new and satisfying gameplay mechanics without slapping yet another system onto the already mile-long simology panel (with all packs and everything enabled). They did it most recently with Businesses & Hobbies by introducing small business gameplay, and they did that without imposing another system on us.

If they're going to continue expanding this game, then I'd much prefer they'd continue along the lines of B&H rather than struggle to come up with yet another new system-based pack. It's getting ridiculous. At this point, I'm half-expecting them to introduce a new "skin dryness" system wherein if you're not applying moisturizing lotion at least five times a day, your Sim will dry up and turn into dust.

It may be a new game vs existing game discrepancy, but if that were the case, I'd have expected the current ratio of players complaining of rampant ailments to players indicating that they've seen little to no ailments to be completely the other way around. 

Even though I am in the high frequency statistic for getting ailments, I also like the chaos (sometimes keeping them for the 3 days, it is too easy getting positive moodlet stacking) to liking the management by having a Naturopath/Apothecary Skilled Sim and Spellcaster Sims to manage the effects (Repairo the broken/burnt things upgrading the low luck quality items, etc.). But it turned my life is easy as a Spellcaster play to high maintenance—a mid range between would probably be best in the long run even for my gameplay style.

One thing that may account for this is that the Sims Team does testing. 

Certain aspects of the game...are modified for certain players in different "testing groups". While the tuning is the same, something deeper in the game files tells them to behave differently. I believe this pack has 4 testing groups- so there's 4 sets of people out there with 4 different sets of rates and such on this sort of thing.

When they said they will be looking into this in the last laundry list, they meant "We have analytics on how these features are behaving and will be picking the most reasonable looking set and go from there". I wish they were transparent about this.

I have heard now 2 different players (including you) saying they are not contracting ailments but mostly I hear they are non-stop contracting/infection. I wonder if existing vs. new games play a part?

All my new games have been getting ailments but my household do have multiple occults (spellcasters, not fairies, though). So I wonder if occults are more likely to contract. I always head to HQ in the Magic Realm for several days to learn spells. etc. And within 24(Sim)hrs all of them are with an ailment. Within days the Sages are getting the ailments and it just spreads from there.

I also wonder if single Sim households reduce incredibly chance of ailments as well.

I've been playing for countless hours on multiple households since the launch of this pack with the balance and luck mechanics both disabled. In all that time, I haven't once seen a sim spontaneously contract an ailment, and so I'm genuinely mystified by comments I've read with players reporting that ailments are rampant within the game even with those gameplay mechanics disabled.

The only time I ever see sims with ailments is when I'm playing on my Sim in the Naturopath career, and only when she chooses to treat clients at her home (because at that point, the game will randomly choose a sim to be a treatable client and force an ailment on that sim).

The only major issue I've come across is that the option to prevent fairies from turning up in worlds outside of Innisgreen in their fairy forms doesn't seem to work.

Have you guys tried engaging with game mechanics?

If you have bad luck...don't do things that are affected by bad luck. It's a video game, that's the challenge, you have bad luck today- sorry, probably shouldn't go fishing or try to craft stuff or cook. Order out. Raise a skill that won't be too impacted by luck. Work on something else. Or use one of the *multiple* in-game ways to raise luck. Call in to work and go beg the gnome statue for help, ask Spruce Almighty, or see if Todd has a cure. Todd doesn't have a cure, but you found an aura bush seed? Well what luck, because the aura bush has a luck boosting aura. Put it by your Sim's bed and every night at 2am when the Luck resets, it'll help you out.

Bad balance? Do activities that increase balance...

Ailments? Go to the naturopath- it's a phone interaction/rabbit hole. Costs 1500 Simoleons. Too expensive? Go to Todd and buy cures. He doesn't have the cure? Learn the skill and make your own. Wait a day and check his stock again. Don't like waiting? Build a store with Get to Work or Businesses and Hobbies that stocks them. Half of the ailments have positive effects, anyway! Utilize their positives while dealing with the negatives! Ailment cures are dirt cheap. Stock up and put a medicine cabinet of them in your home somewhere. Tada, ailments are solved forever.

There are solutions to all these things- you just have to actually PLAY THE GAME and ENGAGE WITH ITS CONTENT to find them. People jump way too quickly to "This needs to be nerfed and made easier". They finally give us harder content to engage with and all anyone wants is to have it removed, instead of engaging with it. Your sim is sick, you go to the doctor. Your sim has an ailment, you...? 

Here is a guide on Balance and Luck:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/133966349

Here is a guide on Ailments:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/134030814