Depth or Variety?

Go deep. Always. The variety will come out on its own once you buy several packs and mix them together in your game.

I say depth because, while variety is nice, shallow features just can't hold my interest. Depth is what makes meaningful content and therefore creates variety by itself because you then have more ways to utilize said content. E.g. I'll take these in-depth vampires and werewolves any day over a pack which would introduce 3 totally lackluster occults.

Definitely depth for me. I find myself playing the same game over and over because there isn’t enough depth in some packs to completely immerse yourself in a storyline - like in sims 3 you could live in a medieval town or on a pirate island or in a city filled with movie stars and rock stars. One of the (many) frustrating things I find with Sims 4 is that the “worlds” blend together too much and no matter where you go you see the same people in the same clothing (or worse, randomly generated attire that an infant could tell you is wrong). Even in the jungle you run into one of the Calientes!

I would prefer for the focus to always be on in depth gameplay over everything else.

I prefer a pack that is focused Get to Work was terrible because it was all over the place and no feature felt complete does anyone actually think aliens retail or the 3 active careers feel complete still annoyed they did not add the police station and hospital to the tiny 4 lot world that came with that pack.

Now Open for Business still remains my favorite Sims expansion I doubt that's ever changing they truly thought this theme through cosmetology flower arranging and crafting toys robotics also had a life state and it all worked so well with the theme everything was sell well thought out. Also Open for Business supplied the objects to actually create any business you want from a car lot museum carnival or just about anything with the ticket machine even the kids were involved with a lemonade stand while Get to Work did not even have a working clothing rack changing room or even the most basic item of retail a cash register.

"ChadSims2;c-18263489" wrote:
Get to Work was terrible because it was all over the place

Some simmers would pitch a fit at the suggestion, but I would have preferred the Get to Work spread over three packs:

1. OFB reboot EP
2. Aliens Game Pack with Sixam as an intergalactic vacation world and a skill tree for Aliens.
3. An EP focusing on the active careers that also introduces a usable healthcare system, not just ordering Snake Oil online, and a criminal justice system with burglars and charlatans and a risk of getting arrested for kleptomaniacs and pickpockets.

"SERVERFRA;c-18262991" wrote:
I actually love variety themes like:
Get Together - Clubs, outdoor parties with historical theme
City Living - Mixed Cultural Themes & Festivals
Discover University - Historical vs Futuristic themes
Get Famous - Mixed Fantasy Themes

I partially agree and partially disagree. I agree that Get Together and Get Famous are excellent examples of "Variety" packs well done. Get Together has two major game play features: a comprehensive selection of new venue features, and the club system. I love both and couldn't play the game without them. My sims like to mingle and mix. Get Famous has acting, media production, and fame and reputation. I thoroughly enjoy playing actors and video producers. I also like the perks and quirks of the fame system and dabble in fame frequently.

On the other hand, I think City Living is an example of a poorly executed "Variety" pack. Apartment game play suffered severely from being crowded out by other features.

As for Discover University, I don't even think that counts as a variety pack at all. Both STEM and liberal arts are part of the university experience, so having a futuristic polytechnic school and a historic liberal arts school are part and parcel of in-depth university game play.

I can appreciate variety or depth in an expansion pack, depending on how its done, but I think that a good game pack must be a focused, in depth pack. One of my favorite GPs is Parenthood, an entire pack that revolves around one skill, parenting. The fact that they do so much with that one skill is what makes it so powerful. I also love Vampires, Werewolves and Jungle Adventure.

I said variety, but in fact I expect both variety and depth if I'm paying the price of an entire game for an expansion pack. I could buy games for my switch for that price or less. I've backed games on kickstarter and backerkit for around that much. And that comes with the entire game, extras, and updates / early versions.

So if I'm paying 40 bucks& you're making content limited time to convince people to pay full price, it needs to be worth it. And usually it falls short in certain areas.

Like expansion packs feel like game packs with a slightly bigger theme, that always, ALWAYS include a core function that was desperately wanted by somebody in the game. Usually delivered just shy of how you wanted it, slightly off, or a functionality that greatly benefits basegame and should've been there all along. But they don't flesh out every part like they should.

Game packs end up more fleshed out. Like ignoring the first few dlc packs, these patterns quickly emerged. Just look at mermaids. Like when we got aliens no one had any reference for occults in sims 4. Then we got vampires. And Spellcasters and Mermaids. And it was easy to see that it wasn't just bc GTW was the 1st expansion pack.

So yeah variety is important. If you're paying the cost of a big new game, it needs to give content like you're literally adding an entirely new game's worth of content into it. Same with game packs, they're the price of cheaper indie, casual, and less intensive games. Ones you can finish in a few days, or play with friends that don't have an end. So give depth and content worthy of that.

Simmers shell out hundreds upon hundreds of dollars in dlc, upgrading their pcs, etc, it needs to be worth it.

Not only do I not mind focus in a game pack, I want it. To me, that's the point of game packs : one really in-depth theme that doesn't fit elsewhere. However, when it comes to EPs, for the price they are, I expect some variety, but still getting depth. Or maybe I just want a wider theme that gets explored in depth. EPs are twice the price of GPs, they need to have more, but I won't enjoy something for very long if there is not enough depth.

I like some depth, but mostly in the name of variety. So, how deep is "depth" - I prefer just going a couple levels deep, stop before it gets very nerdy ;) I prefer cross pack functionality over depth, I guess.

I also see there are a few depth features that will affect my game badly, even when I don't really use those features. One example is the milestone system which is the main reason why I skip the Growing Together pack. I have 500+ sims, and all that info added to most of them will most likely affect my game performance negatively. If I played just 1 household, it would be interesting. But this system is also a good example of something that got way too detailed. Who needs to look back to check whether they as infant tasted apple or orange first? Or if they learned to move before they learned to burp? I mean, all those details are totally not interesting as milestones to get saved for your lifetime. If the system only saved the latest 10 milestones, it would be better. Or if milestones were actually huge things and not those everyday-things that everybody will get. Not meaning to criticize the pack, just saying that some times details get out of hand...

A detail I have been hoping for since 2014 is individual cash accounts. Good for a household of individualists, or to have kids/teens save up.

This late in the series, I'm not sure that depth is needed, because most of us have our ways to play anyway, some of us even with quite old saves. So, in this aspect I prefer variety, which means new features and content that can be used regardless of world or house played. General goodies that might not be totally general, but neither too special and deep.

I love variety, don't get me wrong... but that's why we have multiple packs. Go deep into the individual packs, flesh out the gameplay (if any), add some really unique things. Make it playable across all games/worlds/saves. That's what will give variety.