Sims 4 high school years

@0Rang3Pumpkin Good question, I'd like to know the answer to that too. I was about to add it soon but there are so many bugs in my game already that I'm concerned about doing so. I didn't add it when it came out as I usually give it time for them to fix as much of it as they can first.

If they fix the broken console controls for console players then this would probably be the next thing I'll add because I've got most packs now and high school and more teen content is lacking in the game without it. But I'm concerned about bugs and playability.

So let's see what players think of it!🤔

I really do enjoy high school years but the pack has mixed reviews.  It tries to do a lot of things and some of them miss.

+ the CAS and build and buy are superb.

+ introduces some of the best premade sims in the game.

+ gives teens more to do and improves teen life stage quite a bit.

+ the boba shop and the new world is good, like a high school drama setting.  Not the best world but it’s good.

+ thrift system and after school stuff can be fun.

+ prom is good but it is short.

+ great pack to take screenshots and tell stories.  One of the best.

- there were some bugs but I didn’t run into anything bad, just kids getting up during exams etc.

- school is only one customisable lot fixed in place, it looks so sad and empty until you edit it and there’s not many pupils unless you use mods. 

- there’s really not much to do at school, one of the weakest parts of the pack.  Your sims only use one classroom, the cafeteria and a really basic gym.

- pier is nice but it’s only rabbitholes. Sports field isn’t usable.  

- the sports day and career day aren’t very interesting.

- cannot customise the experience (which teens at the school, what day is prom, jobs at career day etc) without mods.

- a lot of the features like social bunny and school and pillow fights become repetitive really fast.

Personally I recommend this pack because the CAS/bb, environment, townies and better teens.  But it’s good not great and not nearly as good as it could be if school was better.  I don’t regret buying it full price but you might wish to wait for a sale.  I would buy it again though, I really enjoyed playing around with it.  Just be aware the school isn’t anywhere near as good as the trailer or screenshots make it look.  

If your expectation is 6/10 or 7/10 then you shouldnt be disappointed.  For me it’s an 8 as I play lots of teen sims but it will depend on what kinda player you are how much you will enjoy this.

As always, this depends on your playstyle. I like being able to go to school with my teens! but also it gets repetitive after a while. I'm also mostly using Social Bunny as an exploit; 20 friends for Friend of the World? just add 20 people to Social Bunny. Also if you want to maintain relationships with extended family Social Bunny is your friend. That said, yeah, the actual app is SUPER REPETITIVE; the same canned messages over and over.

If you're all about the family gameplay, this pack will probably please you, though! Before this pack I didn't find teens particularly well-rounded and felt they didn't have a lot to do. If, instead, you're all about adult gameplay and careers, Discover University might do better for you because of the advantages it gives your Sim in their career.

If you're mostly about the CAS or BuildBuy, I'm probably not the best person to ask 😉 but there are a lot of items and they're good! Gameplay-wise, there are some annoying bugs and some parts that get old if you do them all the time, but it's mostly fun. Some of this is that I mostly play goody-two-shoes well-behaved college prep Sims LOL and there are a lot of troublemaking/pranking aspirations and features I haven't used much (although yeah some are bugged--sneaking out of the house for the Live Fast aspiration, etc.). BUT, with all that said to manage expectations I think it's worthwhile.

(I, er... bought it in a fit of gratitude after they removed some items from the Gallery that were... um... inappropriate, especially towards my particular cultural group. So my expectations were not incredibly high, but they were met.)

@0Rang3Pumpkin   I completely agree with the reviews by @xochiquetzl_xkvn and @justinb113 especially justin's comment "Just be aware the school isn’t anywhere near as good as the trailer or screenshots make it look."  It is a great pack and I've enjoyed it but it definitely falls short of the expectations I had based on the marketing.  The only other thing I would add is that your opinion on what you think you might enjoy will possibly change once you play the base game and see what the game has to offer.  If you like playing teen sims and wish the options for them were more developed, then the HSY pack will definitely fit the bill.  However, when you start playing the game, you may find other things are more interesting. 

High school does function okay on console and always has.  I think a lot of the major bugs were related to clashes with CC and mods.

The only real bug that is consistent is sims getting up during class.  But this is a bug you see elsewhere in the game.  Whenever a need goes yellow or another random sim wants to chat they’ll just get up and wander.  Asides from the ‘be seated’ MWS, the game struggles to get sims to sit and focus on something for a period of time.

There was a bug with graduation not appearing but I believe this is resolved.

PC mods can improve the experience - adding more sims to the school, adding more tasks for sims in the school day, setting which teens show up, making it so prom isn’t weekly.  These things would have all improved the experience for me.  But it’s not bugs so to speak, it’s just been designed this way.  

It’s honestly an okay pack on console in terms of how it runs and I think people’s only concern should be if they’d like it or not.  If you regularly play teenage sims it’s a worthwhile pack.  If you don’t then it’s skippable.  I do get a lot of use out of it personally.