@Summer123451144You're right, there aren't many (any?) quest-related things in the game. It's mostly as you said, fulfilling needs.
The largest quest-type things in the game would be Strangerville where you attempt to figure out all the weirdness going on there, and Journey to Batuu, which you join one of three Star Wars factions.
Strangerville works fairly well but once you play it (2-3 hours long if you stretch things), you'll never be back.
Batuu is about just as long but it's very broken at the moment. It adds a LOT of decor, furniture and building things but they all look extremely out of place away from Batuu, and you can't build IN Batuu so they are all pretty much useless.
ECO Lifestyles had a decent idea with eco living, but it's SEVERELY broken. Same with Snowy escapes.
In fact, most of the packs are broken. I'd recommend just staying away from most of them. Save your money.
Get Famous works very well though. It's my personal favorite. The acting career is awesome, I just wish we could build on the studio lots.
Some others like Get to Work are decent if you have mods compensating for the completely broken careers. If you don't want to use mods, I'd stay away from that too.
The BEST sims game ever, if you want quests, would be Medieval. It has a few bugs but works very well. And it's based upon Sims 3 and not Sims 4, so the game engine is superb.