Any problems you have with expansion packs ? What could been better

Oh boyyyyy. The answer is....yes.

Get to Work:

Careers, have too many goals. Sims should be "free" to do whatever interaction they want, but each interaction would either lower or improve work performance. I really don't think the event system was a good option for them, at all.

Regarding retail, it shouldn't have been merged with active careers and it shouldn't have been separated from Dine Out period, craftable items for sale shouldn't have the restock option unless you have a similar object in your inventory and I also wish the retail interactions had more distinctive animations when trying to sell something to the costumers.

Also, I'm still waiting on those damn shopping bags EA and I was strongly hoping for escalator stairs, was I setting myself up for disappointment ahaha. The AI...well the AI is a mess in retail lots and I wish sims could buy clothes from clothing racks, but then, I wish sims wouldn't have access to everything from the wardrobe. Finally I don't know if it's common to have tablets in local stores and such in America, it's not in my country and I would have liked for sims to do a line behind the cash register, at least as a default and tablet checkouts as a perk.

Get Together:

There couldn't be a more pathetic attempt at Nightlife, although to it's credit some of those elements were already in the base game, which honestly they could have prioritized on something else and added bars and such to this EP.

The Clubs are a great feature, but perhaps something I would put in a Freetime or sports pack, not in the Nightlife pack. Get Together didn't have a lot of content to me, at least I hoped there was more to it and the theme was kind of all over the place. I wish they had fleshed out the influence system more too, or, I wish they had made it into an actual system like in TS2 and TS3, with social points and everything.

City Living:

This one has to be the worst EP in the entire game series in my point of view.

I hate everything about it. The "ethnic" sims that spawn to no end, the stuck up city whose buildings are stuck, with lot traits that are stuck, with festivals that are stuck, there's barely any sandbox play in this EP, almost nothing ports over to other worlds. The festivals also use a lot of the base game assets. There's nothing really new to see in festivals for me, it's all just recipes, fireworks and random boring shenanigans. The city isn't even attractive to me as it's all too shiny and bright. It's just a bunch of set dressing for 40€, and I payed half the price because I waited for a sale., honestly I should have waited for it to become free.

And the lot traits themselves? Meh, it's mostly skill boosts, there's one or two handy ones but none of them add anything really new in terms of gameplay. Imo they shouldn't have made this feature free, and have packs to introduce new lot traits like they introduce new club activities, but what's done is done. This EP just doesn't have any content I would hold onto.

Cats and Dogs:

I'm honestly yet to see how cats and dogs in TS4 are all that superior compared to the past PETS expansion packs. CAP is great, yey color wheel we can't use on our sims, but gameplay wise, I'm not seeing it. I don't understand why they couldn't have waited and put at least birds and rodents into the EP.

Get to Work:
- retail system is just inferior in almost every way to Sims 2's
- the 3 active careers were an underwhelming main feature. Now, if every career became active, this would have been great
- the promenade was too small
- not making Sixam a regular neighborhood for aliens only, was a missed opportunity
- locking the hospital/police world to just the active careers was a weird decision

Get Together:
- there just isn't really anything in this pack in terms of gameplay. The clubs reuse everything that's already in the base game
- a pack centered around parties, for a base game that centered around parties. ...did we really need this?

City Living:
- it's basically just a world pack. The only new activities are karaoke, basketball, and festivals that reuse base game features.
- many clothes and objects are stuff from other packs/base game with new textures. We had like, 5 new hairs and one of them was a base game ponytail with a head band. Nothing changed with the actual ponytail.
- a politics career added on the same month as the US 2016 election was so cheesy
- the apartments are the worst we ever had. Sims 2 had the best apartments

Cats & Dogs:
- the pets themselves don't really add much to the gameplay
- no small pets or horses
- MY FIRST PET

Seasons:
- shipped with way too many bugs

Seasons is the only EP that I consider a must-have for the game.

Get to Work:
(1) It should have expanded the base game careers and added a few more careers instead of waiting for other expansions.
- Enabling sims to get raises without actually being promoted to a new position.
- Making it difficult to get promoted, thus resolving to earning raises through completion of certain tasks (Daily/weekly tasks).
- It should be realistic in scheduling.
(2) It would be better if overtime was introduced and in some cases mandatory, especially for positions up to level 7.
- This could give your sim the option of accepting promotions understanding the demand or accepting a smaller raise instead.
(3) The world is too chopped for you to do anything useful with interactive careers. Detective is particularly annoying.
- Loading screens, right?
(4) I was puzzled by the addition of retail and why Dining Out wasn't the one that carried it under a different title .. like .. "Retail".
- People can offer many complaints about the Retail business but I'm actually enjoying it. It's the only thing that makes this expansion worth it.

Get Together
(1) Useless.
- Would have been better if it came with a University Expansion Pack or as a Game Pack after University is released.

City Living
(1) I honestly don't understand this EP.
- It doesn't have enough content for me to be impressed by it.
- Need to fix the glitches. Sims come and go even when at work ...
(2) Renting should have been an option since the base game given how expensive it is to buy a house.
- Some lots should have an option to rent as well as purchase.
- Rent should be separate from utilities .. seriously.
- Renting and having utilities should be more expensive than owning to encourage you to buy your own place in the future.
(2) The politician career should have been added to Get To Work because Politics exists even in suburbs.

Cats and Dogs
- Honestly, why just cats and dogs?
- No, seriously ..

Seasons
- Amazing game .. some bugs.

Get to Work
- Retail is useless they gave us no reason for our Sims to go shopping in Sims 2 if you wanted clothing you had to go shopping to unlock them there nothing new or unique offered in the shopping experience not even cologne jewelry nothing
- No cash registers or clothing racks I must be missing out on modern shopping experience purchasing clothing off the mannequin
- Active careers are beyond boring and should of been made part of the world why cant my Sims go to the hospital

City Living
- Feels nothing like a city
- Festivals are boring base game content people avoided really did not offer anything new just reuse these items at a festival
- Apartments should of been made useable in all worlds
- Basketball net should of had the option to play a game together

Get Together
- Should have offered more new group activities besides that a great pack

Cats and Dogs
- Pets are boring not enough to do with them beyond watching them
- Birds fish hamsters and so on should have been added
- Dog House

Seasons
- Snow depth
- An American Santa suit hate the one they added.

Get to Work

- Really restrictive and repetitive active careers. With such specific tasks that it even tells you to what specific colleague you have to talk to and about what specific topic :|
- Adding police to the game but only for your sim to work as one was a really missed opportunity. Having a sim world where police doesn't exist and there are no crimes (no burglars) but where your sim can go to a special hidden lot and be a cop/detective is just really weird
- Same goes for hospitals, having a hospital in a hidden lot where unless you work there you are only able to visit if your sim is in labour is a really weird choice
- Sixam being accessible only with the portal is a shame
- Aliens' abductions went from happening too often to then be twitched so much that I haven't had a single one in years (real years, not sim years)
- Retail is very repetitive and lacks animations.

I have no love for this pack at all actually. It is the opposite of sandbox and felt really underwhelming. I like all the new collectables though.

Get Together

I love this pack and even though there are some flaws, it is by far my favourite. The club system rocked my world and Winderburg is stunning! It's a shame that at the beginning they tried to sell it as a party pack and many people still think of it as Sims 4's attempt at Nightlife when it is far from it.

City Living

- Apartments are extremely restrictive in every possible way
- Festivals recycling base game features instead of bringing new things was a shame
- No lift animation
- Basketball is wonky and can't really be played. They only shoot the ball

Apartments should have been the star of the pack but they weren't...

There are some things I really love about this pack: CAS/BB and the amazing new recipes and food stalls are two things I couldn't go without in my game. But it is an EP and it should have been a lot more than that.

Cats and Dogs

- Beautiful yet extremely boring new world
- The fact that you can't select your pet on the UI not even to see their traits, how many days they have left until ageing up, their skills, their family trees, nothing
- too many strays and pets in non active households always looking dirty and sick
- the vet career is a combination of the already flawed active careers + the already flawed retail system. No improvements were made
- the missed opportunity of adding a normal vet career where your sim doesn't need to own a clinic
- dogs "going to the toilet" on the porch
- not being able to teach pets by reinforcing good behaviours but only by scolding them (I still wonder to this day why they didn't take advantage of the Parenthood system)
- too many silly costumes
- kids not being able to walk the dog
- no dog houses
- not enough items for the pets themselves

Not enough focus on the pets, actually

I am sure I forget many more. The CAS and Build mode were good and I like having pets overall since it feels more real and the game feels more whole but the pack could/should have been so different from what we got.

Seasons

- Too many bugs
- The way they did the new clothing categories was to me a mistake. It doesn't work and I think there would have been better solutions. The fact that there is no rainwear is weird. I think it should have been a new rainwear category and then have us mark each outfit from each category as hot, neutral, or cold. That way we could have a winter PJs, a winter sports outfit, a summer party outfit, and so on. It would make so much more sense
- The snow has no depth, the leaves look like painted on the floor, the rain doesn't really fall on anything or from anywhere, it just looks like a screen filter that gets our sims wet suddenly
- There are not enough holiday activities to choose from nor icons to make holidays really feel different and personal
- Nothing added to swimming pools, nothing at all. NADA
- Water balloon/mud/snow fights animations are lacking
- Things like walking the dog, jogging, going to festivals, etc are now way harder because of the weather
- I wish sims could hold the umbrella while walking the dog, also toddlers have no protection against the rain at all. Again, we need a rainwear more than we need hot and cold outfits

Weather was necessary at this point and I love many aspects about this EP. Having flower arranging was a dream of mine for a long time and now we finally have it! There are really nice additions like the toddler's pool, bee keeping, Patchy, swings, all the new harvestables, the gardener career, but I feel like the focus was a bit all over the place. Trying to make the calendar and holidays the big new thing makes me feel like the seasons and their activities were a bit underdeveloped.

Overall, since the beginning, EPs have been underwhelming considering their price. There are great things in almost all of them but also many missed opportunities or focus on the (in my opinion) wrong things.

Get to work feels repetitive and ”pets” was god-awful. Like sure the customization is cool but why would u ever give us foxes and raccoons over rodents, bunnies, lizards, hedgehogs or horses? Also I wish we had a pet store lot. The gameplay is also very shallow.

I wanted the small pets to be part of the Pets pack, just like in the older games.

Get to Work is boring/rigid and glitchy with the careers, though I appreciate the concepts of active careers. The retail is boring and not as good as Sims 2’s retail expansion. (No home businesses, either.)

Get Together has a great club system, but not much else. (The world had been giving me problems like my sims getting late to work, glitchy cafe, etc.)

City Living was okay, but I wasn’t excited by some festivals (which came by so suddenly and so fast).

Basically, with the expansions, they were okay, but I wanted some more content like we had in past Sims games.

I loved Seasons, though. :smile:

- Get To Work.

I'm in the minority when I say the repetitive aspect of careers don't bother me that much (I especially like the Detective and Scientist careers. I mean, traveling to another planet is just flat out cool, even though I've already done it a few times.) likely because I tend to spice it up with user-created careers. However, I feel that retail could be less... Restricted. If that is the right word.

Maybe it could've been something environmental based, what kind of sims does your sim want to attract in their store? The Rich? Middle class and lower? Thirft/antique store with items your sim has made? A workshop that repairs broken items? Granted, you can kind of do this with the prices already, but in the end, sims are likely to flock to the lowest priced items first. Unless you work them up into a tiresome epiphany to buy something. On the employee side, perhaps a sim could raise through ranks depending on what they are better skilled to do, as in Charisma, Handiness, Creativity, Cooking, Logic, even Mischief to name a few (I'll never see the point of why a 'degree' is used as deco, that could be used in order to actually own a business and not as a reward, but I digress). This cuts out training altogether and may even become boring/repetitive, but it's a more straightforward approach. Maybe throw in a few thieves now and then as well. For the 'lolz' at least.

And the potential for my sim to get pneumonia, which would sound horrible in other cases, lol. Or a flu shot to protect them from sickness.



- Don't own Get Together and probably won't until Sims 4 has officially ended. If then. Nothing about it really screams interesting (though the completist in me says otherwise).


- City Living is that toy you're excited about getting next week, only for it to rather lose its charm in a few days. Okay, that was a little exaggerated. But it hardly felt like a bustling city. The supposed 'culture shock' of different sims didn't feel so different than what I saw in other neighborhoods. Yet, I still love most of it, especially when my sims have recently aged up and moved out to the 'big city'. I desliked that my pets couldn't really be 'Let Out' while inside, but that was a minor preference issue. My only wish is that there were a couple stores/performances to check out (imagine seeing the actual circus, lol), in oppose to waiting for the festivals to arrive which has become bland. I do like the karaoke machines. Watching your sims go from talent less hacks to pretty cool singers never gets old for me.


- Pets.

While not bad, imo, not particularly great either. As I've said in another thread, the pets feel more like aesthetics. Then again, Sims 4 is loosely based on this.

Anyway.

The only things I would've wanted added to this is vermin, like roaches and mice when a house was filthy (in 2) or 'infested' (in 3), dog houses, pets being less attention hogs, and children able to walk pets. Honestly, I can see why they may not have added larger animals or even wild animals. I don't know about the rest of you, but in my Sims 3 saves, while a nice touch, they were a definite resource hog and caused a fair amount of routing issues. I understand missing horses, though. I wouldn't mind just having them if it were possible.


- Seasons.

I generally like this and didn't get most of the bugs others did. Then again, I waited a bit before buying...

I do wish they had more rain centered attire, though, with the rain itself not really effecting sims, I don't think it matters too much. For me. I wanted to see sims react more to different weather changes, not simply talk about it and react to their first snow a hundred times. They always need to rush inside or risk dying or whatever. Just wish they had toned that down a bit and sims were able to really enjoy the environment without feeling miserable.

~

Overall, I found something to genuinely like about them, why would I buy it if I didn't? More immersion is always appreciated, it is what it is, but maybe not always worth the price. I notice a lot of people (not referring to the one's commenting in this thread, so breathe, but other sites and such) tend to buy a pack as soon as its released and then run to complain before anything is actually given the chance to be fixed. But that's just my two cents. Have a nice day. ~ ;)

I agree that the retail in GTW should have been combined with Dine Out. That way retail stores could operate without you having to be present, giving more time for creating items for sale. Maybe require one or two days a week to go keep tabs on the employees. And GTW could have focused more on the active careers and better developed aliens. Another issue with retail and restaurant ownership is that you spend all that time at the store but it doesn't count as being employed. They could have added a "Self-employed" option to GTW for Sims that don't have a regular job but make money with writing books or selling paintings or finding collectibles to sell, and that could have covered retail/restaurant management as well.

I still don't get how GT gets the reputation as a pack about parties -- I can count the number of parties I've thrown on one hand and I've had all sorts of different clubs. Currently I've got a club for Mean Sims to work out together so my Sim can get to the top of the Criminal career. I do have a group that goes out dancing every so often, but that doesn't make it a "party" pack. And Windenburg itself makes up for some of the game flaws.

Not being a builder I'm apathetic about the lack of buildable apartments in CL; I do find the town to be a bit clunky in places, and I've had the recurring bug with festival objects not totally despawning so when the next festival hits you get items spawning into each other (like food stalls spawning on top of selling tables at the Flea Market). And currently the festivals are getting ruined by inclement weather, like a thnderstorm during Geekcon or a blizzard at the Spice Festival. And I wish some of the lot traits were available for general use; I'd like to add a Needs TLC trait for some of my cheap houses in Oasis Springs (and get the mice and roaches).

I've barely scratched the surface of C&D (my mother-in-law passed away at the time it released so I really didn't have the time or the heart to play much) but my main bugaboo with the pack is that individual Sims in a household have to each train dogs in commands. If a dog learns Sit or Shake Hands from one Sim in a household, only that Sim can command them -- any other Sim has to go through the effort of training the dog. And after a time, the pet should be smart enough to be able to find their own food and use the litter box/go outside to do their business. I'll get the alert that "Fluffy is hungry" only to find they have a full food bowl sitting a few feet away, and I have the top of the line litter box that never needs cleaning (laser beams zap away the poop) and my cats still ask for a clean litter box.

As for Seasons, other than bugs like the stinky leaf piles in public areas and not being able to travel on holidays without my household returning from work/school early (though I can incorporate that in my storyline, like a minimum day at school and work shutting down for the holiday) I'm pretty content with it. I've already mentioned the issues with Seasons and the CL festivals, and I hope there'll be a solution. Don't really have much to quibble about though. Currently playing with 2 week seasons but finding they're almost too short for what I want so thinking of switching to 28 when Spring rolls around again since I play on Long lifespan; I want to send a Sim to Granite Falls to start work on Herbalism but best time to do it would be Summer and I just can't seem to find the time.

"Sigzy05;c-16726102" wrote:
Oh boyyyyy. The answer is....yes.

Get to Work:

Careers, have too many goals. Sims should be "free" to do whatever interaction they want, but each interaction would either lower or improve work performance. I really don't think the event system was a good option for them, at all.

Regarding retail, it shouldn't have been merged with active careers and it shouldn't have been separated from Dine Out period, craftable items for sale shouldn't have the restock option unless you have a similar object in your inventory and I also wish the retail interactions had more distinctive animations when trying to sell something to the costumers.

Also, I'm still waiting on those plum shopping bags EA and I was strongly hoping for escalator stairs, was I setting myself up for disappointment ahaha. The AI...well the AI is a mess in retail lots and I wish sims could buy clothes from clothing racks, but then, I wish sims wouldn't have access to everything from the wardrobe. Finally I don't know if it's common to have tablets in local stores and such in America, it's not in my country and I would have liked for sims to do a line behind the cash register, at least as a default and tablet checkouts as a perk.

Get Together:

There couldn't be a more pathetic attempt at Nightlife, although to it's credit some of those elements were already in the base game, which honestly they could have prioritized on something else and added bars and such to this EP.

The Clubs are a great feature, but perhaps something I would put in a Freetime or sports pack, not in the Nightlife pack. Get Together didn't have a lot of content to me, at least I hoped there was more to it and the theme was kind of all over the place. I wish they had fleshed out the influence system more too, or, I wish they had made it into an actual system like in TS2 and TS3, with social points and everything.

City Living:

This one has to be the worst EP in the entire game series in my point of view.

I hate everything about it. The "ethnic" sims that spawn to no end, the stuck up city whose buildings are stuck, with lot traits that are stuck, with festivals that are stuck, there's barely any sandbox play in this EP, almost nothing ports over to other worlds. The festivals also use a lot of the base game assets. There's nothing really new to see in festivals for me, it's all just recipes, fireworks and random boring shenanigans. The city isn't even attractive to me as it's all too shiny and bright. It's just a bunch of set dressing for 40€, and I payed half the price because I waited for a sale., honestly I should have waited for it to become free.

And the lot traits themselves? Meh, it's mostly skill boosts, there's one or two handy ones but none of them add anything really new in terms of gameplay. Imo they shouldn't have made this feature free, and have packs to introduce new lot traits like they introduce new club activities, but what's done is done. This EP just doesn't have any content I would hold onto.

Cats and Dogs:

I'm honestly yet to see how cats and dogs in TS4 are all that superior compared to the past PETS expansion packs. CAP is great, yey color wheel we can't use on our sims, but gameplay wise, I'm not seeing it. I don't understand why they couldn't have waited and put at least birds and rodents into the EP.

This sums it up perfectly for me. I will add with seasons I think there is lots of little things that bring the EP down. The most basic feature in the world being you cannot look up the weather for other worlds prior to travel. It makes no sense and its just annoying. Even the weather channel feature in the game is useless.

When it rains or storms it does it. All. Day. Long. My sims constantly want to go out and play in the rain regardless of their traits. Would a snob sim want to run around in the rain? I'm not convinced. Cats and dogs don't care for the weather elements. Also not a huge fan of the calender and the fact that holidays are more checklists for your sims to complete and the same animations are re used constantly. Sing about Winterfest, sing about new year, etc Share holiday spirit. I know the answer is to do a holiday without the traditions but it just seems a bit pointless otherwise. I just don't like the idea of telling my sims how to behave on a holiday which is essentially what the checklists I mean traditions do. Once you have seen one " Talk about random holiday of the week" you have seen them all. The festivals can be ruined by the weather if its raining and your sims still get invites to parties at the bluff when its raining. Makes no sense.