for me, Eco is still worth playing, and not everyone has the glitches or the same glitches. And what be a major glitch to you may be minor to someone else. Despite the glitches, I believe it is still one of the best packs they put out. All packs have glitches and it will always be that way. I think you would be waiting for a long time.
@SisterGloomy, that is entirely up to you. 🙂 However, until some of the bugs get fixed I am only playing new Save Game files so that any bugs will not mess up any long time save games of mine. 😉
@RavenLure, usually glitches are just things that happen to your game and probably can't be replicated with any consistency in anybody else's game. This would include things like Sims randomly getting stuck and need to be reset.
Bugs, however, are things that usually apply to most people, at least if they meet the right conditions. (There is even a Bug Report forum here on AHQ!) For example there was a long period of time that many of the plants at the Romance Festival (City Living) would be in odd areas, some floating in the air or spawning under tables. This bug has been fixed, but while it was active it happened to everybody who went to the Romance Festival. 😉 Here are a couple of pictures showing misplaced plants and dirt piles for those not in season.
@RavenLure, I agree, I am enjoying the Eco Living pack so far.🙂 I do wish it had a bit more explanation, but I have been having fun discovering things as I play! 🥳
@SisterGloomy, I've been having problems with Sims cancelling what they are doing for well over a year. I guess you are lucky that you are only having problems with it now. As for the other things you mentioned, I haven't had them occur yet in my game. So far I haven't had the Sharing is Caring NAP enacted, and the only negative NAP I have had is the Roughhousing one. But once I realized that if our Sims have enough influence points we can vote more than once, I haven't had any problems with getting the NAPs that I want and keeping the ones I don't want from being voted through! 🙌
I do realize that some people are reporting that NAPs enacted in other neighborhoods will bleed through to theirs. So far this hasn't happened to me.🤞 This might be because for each household I play I play with an entirely different Save Game file. Maybe that doesn't make a difference, but it seems to be the only explanation I can think of for why this hasn't happened to me yet. 🤔🤨 I might have to test that out soon! 🤓
As for the pets that go missing, I haven't had that happen either, but I have been avoiding playing pets since the pre-pack patch, with the exception of one household where I needed to use a pet to test a friend's house that she made. So far the dog has not gone missing. But that is the only house I've played a pet in since then. 🤔
@Psychotps, I haven't tried all the new items yet, but so far the fabricator and the fizzy juice maker are working just fine! 🙂 The Eco footprint may be broken, but I also wonder if I just expected it to work a certain way and that I've been wrong in assuming how it would work.🤨 I do wish they had given more explanation in how some of the new systems and items work in this pack.
@Psychotps, I did have the Fabricator audio bug but only in one house. In my other house and on the community space I didn't have the audio problem for some reason 🤔, and this was before the patch from this week. So far I have not had any problems with the fizzy juice maker.
They have been addressing bugs a lot more in the last 10 or so months than they ever have before. They just have a lot to fix so it is going to be slower than what we would prefer. And yes, everybody wants bug fixes to be done ! 🤞
I understand, but the problem is, they're all broken. I mean, look at the major features of ECO Living. What are they?
ECO Footprint - The ability to make lots "green", "Industrial", and get benefits from this.
N.A.P.s - The ability to add new policies to hoods that add cool new neighborhood actions.
New off-the-grid power and water generation items - Makes off-the-grid living actually viable! Generate and use your own power and water to go even more green!
Fabricator - Create your own items from scraps
Juicer - Create your own fizzy juices from your own plants!
New Planters - Hydroponic auto-watering planters and vertical planters!
(I would list the new broken billing system that was released with ECO, but technically that's an update for the base game and not a part of the pack. And if I listed ALL the bugs in the base game too, we'll be here for weeks...)
I really wanted this pack to work. There are so many things here I wanted, solar panels and turbines to make bills cheaper and actually play an off-the-grid lot... the ability to actually change the neighborhood, make it better or worse. More crafting options...
But none of it works. None of it.
@Psychotps, I'm still not sure if the Eco Footprint is broken, or just that it doesn't work like we would expect it to. I see evidence for both.
I have not had that problem with the NAPs. But like I suspected and @kreatora confirmed, that is probably because I've been playing only one household per save file. 🤔 This is how I play 98% of the time anyway. I've been playing that way since almost the beginning since I didn't like playing the rotational way. I'm planning on doing some tests with me playing more than one household in a save so I can better understand what other people are dealing with. 🙂
I've had mixed results with bills and the wind turbines and dew collector, and solar panels. On one household It reduced my bills but on 2 others if didn't. But I can see how having no appliances and having the power saving equipment increasing your bills would be a failure in this area!
I still have yet to have problems with the Fizzy juicer. I had one family use it everyday (sometimes more than once) for 2 weeks and haven't had problems with it yet. 🤔🙂
I did have the Fabricator sound bug on one of my family's lots, but not on my other family and not on the one at the community Maker Space lot. I've had them break down a few times, but I had used them a lot before that happened. Nothing out of the ordinary.😎
I have only used the vertical planters (other than having garlic in a single pot ) so far. I was playing with new Sims so their gardening skill isn't high enough to Sell All just yet. But so far I haven't had problems with them. Have not tried the hydroponic planters yet, but yes, by definition they should waler the plants! 😞
And while you didn't mention it , I did have some problems with the bug boxes. I can usually keep one alive, but if I have 2 of them one always dies. Still, I can usually get one harvest of bio fuel or cricket flour, or beetle nuggets out of the one that ends up dying.
I haven't had any problems with the candle maker or the machine that gives you Bits & Pieces so far.
I've also been able to successfully apply some eco upgrades to existing appliances! 🙌
@Psychotps, yes, I didn't think about if moving Sims might cause or at least aggravate the NAPs overlapping from different neighborhoods. I don't move my Sims too often, and I don't know if moving Sims is more common with other people or not. It can be rather tedious is you want to keep your furniture and then replace it, so I was guessing that most people avoid it if possible, or at least if they do move, they just sell all their old furniture and download a house from the Gallery that is already furnished.
Anyway that is something to consider! I can see how that could convolute things. 😞
I wouldn't want to eat bugs either, but many cultures in the world do either out of necessity, nutrition, or because they like how they taste! 😉 In Mexico City they sometimes eat grasshoppers and ant larvae -- it is considered a delicacy! I had a friend who was from Kenya and they eat termites there. She loved termites and would sometimes get a craving for them! She said that the ones in the states were too tiny and that the ones in Kenya tasted like bacon! 🙌 For me, while I might love the taste of termites if I ever were to eat them, I don't think I would like the texture of them! 😞
Perhaps cricket flour like the game has wouldn't cause me texture issues?🤔 I still wouldn't want to try it though! 😃
I need to try the hydroponic planters myself. I just haven't gotten that far. I haven't noticed a problem with Bits & Pieces disappearing yet, but I will be on the look out for that.
The reason I know my eco upgrades worked is because I had that NAP enacted so I had to upgrade my appliances, and the inspector seemed satisfied and didn't charge me after i upgraded them! (Before I upgraded them I got fined! 🤨 I didn't consider the bill when upgrading appliances since that wasn't why I was upgrading them in that save. That could still be an issue🤔, but the issue I was doing them for worked! 🙌
i am also still waiting for a huge update that fixes several bugs. its unplayable if you have some demands
@PugLove888 I know I have seen positive energy bills in my game since installing Eco Lifestyle but to be honest I never paid much attention to the details before, so I decided to do some controlled testing today.
To start my testing I chose a small starter home in Grims Quarry. There were no NAPs (I have NPC voting disabled in my game options), no lot traits, no upgraded appliances, and no renewable energy sources. I kept my appliance usage steady during the test so I would not see any changes from something being on or off. The house is small and much of it is from the off-the-grid list in Build/Buy. Here is how it looked at the start of the experiment:
I tested each day at noon for 3 days and the Rate of Change was steady at -32.80. There were no changes with the weather, which made sense to me because I had nothing on the lot that should have been reacting to wind or clouds.
The next change I made was to add one ground solar panel and two ground wind turbines. On the first day it was sunny with no wind and my Rate of Change had improved to -16.50. It seemed like having these renewable energy sources had made a big difference in reducing my energy bill.
- Day 2 was cloudy with no wind and the Rate of Change dropped slightly to -17.8. It appeared that the solar panel did not work as well in cloudy conditions.
- Day 3 was clear and windy. The Rate of Change increased to -15.4. The solar panel and the wind turbines appeared to be working better under more ideal conditions.
- Day 4 was windy but snowing. The Rate of Change dropped again to -17.0 apparently the solar panel was not working as well in the snow.
None of these weather conditions had a large impact on the Rate of Change, but the effect they did have made sense to me.
For the next step of the experiment I upgraded my appliances to energy-efficient and upgraded the gearboxes on both wind turbines, all using Eco Upgrade parts (my Sim's Handiness level is too low to upgrade the wind turbines with regular parts). That day was cloudy with no wind but my Rate of Change improved to -6.6. That's much better than the -17.8 Rate I was seeing under the same weather conditions with no upgraded appliances or wind turbines.
To save a little bit of time with my testing (and while I had the cloudy with no wind weather conditions) I added two Roof-mounted solar panels to see what they would do for me. Here is what I got for my Energy Bill update:
So for this house at least the overall Rate of change improved from -32.80 to +2.85 by installing green upgrades to my appliances and adding a total of 5 renewable energy sources. For my next test I will try a larger approx. 60k Simoleon house in Brindleton Bay. I'm not trying to say this stuff will work for everyone who tries it because obviously I have no way of knowing that. I'm just saying for this one controlled test the energy bills and green upgrades/renewable energy sources seemed to be working as designed.
One other thing I noticed is that although Grims Quarry's Eco Footprint had dropped to Neutral at some point before I began my testing (I have been playing this save for several weeks now) but by the end of the test it had improved back to Green again. The only real changes in that neighborhood during that time were the green improvements I made to my Sim's house so it seems that in this case at least they made the expected difference on the Eco Footprint.
I hope this helps :D
@PsychotpsI need to try the shipping container house. I keep getting sidetracked! 😃
I've heard about the spawning lumps of clay... they are linked to one of the NAP where you have to do fun things. And since Sims were addicted to the clay even before this patch and EP, I can just imagine how it would be worse with a NAP like this! 🤨
I rarely move my Sims because I start to see their house as an extension of that family. I am more likely to expand their house than to move them. I do have some save files where I have played a rag-to-riches type gameplay, but about 20 years of playing the Sims I am tired of that kind of scenario, and only play it in a few saves.
Usually, I will place a family on an empty lot, do the free real estate cheat and then move them. This way I can try out houses I download from the Gallery and don't have to wait a long time to be able to play with those houses! 🙌 And this cheat is perfect for testing other things in the game so I can focus on what I'm testing, and don't get distracted by trying to advance quickly in a career so I can get a decent house. 🙂
As for eating bugs, I doubt I would ever do that intentionally in real life. I don't like bugs in general, and the texture would be a deal breaker for me. However, I much rather my Sims eat bugs (something that many parts of the world do , and it is nutritious) over dumpster woo hoo, which is an actual health hazard! 😞🤒
@RandomBuzziness, thank you for the detailed experiment (with pictures, no less!) 🤓 ❤️ of the eco power/bills feature of this pack! 🙌😇 In your game, not only were the solar panels and wind turbines working, they were responding to the weather! Also nice to see that the eco upgrades also worked. I had only tested them for compliance to my local NAP, and didn't pay attention to the bills since I had plenty of money to pay the bills, and I just didn't want to get fined for non-compliance! 😃
I think, perhaps this is more in line with what @kreatora was talking about, although he was more focused on the Eco Footprint of the neighborhood and most of @Psychotps discussion focused on the bills aspect, like yours did! 🤔
I don't know what exactly is causing these discrepancies. I don't use Mods or CC, so my lack of problems in many of these areas can't be attributed to those. I suppose some people might have individual glitches that others don't have, but then that can't really be considered a bug. Bugs usually happen to all people who meet the same certain conditions in the game, so either we all aren't' meeting those same conditions, or else it is something other than a bug that is the problem. 🤔
I haven't had most of these problems so far, and while I will be on the lookout for them just in case, I do feel better knowing I'm not the only one who isn't having a ton of problems so far! 😇
