Game Packs ranking

"SheriSim57;c-18343432" wrote:

Well, , you could make your own church in your game, or place or worship ( whatever you would call it ). I have a couple of churches in my game I have a ‘Protestant’ church, and a ‘Catholic Church’ in my main save ) I don’t use meditation in them. But, some of my sims meditate at home, it depends on the sim.

Hi @SheriSim57 :) I do have a church I built as a rec center lot type, but always curious about further options. What do your sims like to do in your church?

My very subjective ranking of The Sims 4 gamepacks.


I LOVE IT

#1 StrangerVille (10/10)

Positives:
I love everything about this pack.
The world easily makes it to my top 3. I love the aesthetic, the atmosphere, the sounds (the eagle screeching!), the military look, the whole vibe.
I like the story. It's a nice change to have a little linear storyline in this otherwise sandbox game.
I also like that you don't have to play the story if you don't want to and you can still utilize the world, the military career etc. The possessed sims aren't too intrusive, you can easily ignore them if you're not interested in playing the storyline.
Great BB and great CAS. Again, I love the whole aesthetic of this pack.
I like the military career and play it a lot. I like that it is "semi-active" (meaning you can work from home).
George Cahill is one of the very few premades I actually care about. (I usually completely ignore premades.)

Negatives:
There aren't really any.

#2 Spa Day (9,5/10)

Positives:
This was already one of my favorite packs even before the pack refresh. The refresh just cemented its position in my top 3.
This pack adds tons of new activities for your sims to do. Yoga, meditation, different types of massages, sauna, soaks, scents...
Even more activities after the refresh. Your sim can become a yoga instructor, meditation instructor, masseur and/or nail artist and earn decent money this way. It's kind of an active career when you think about it.
Children can do yoga and meditate after the refresh! As a mostly family player I appreciate it a lot.
Beautiful BB.

Negatives:
No world.
CAS is just average.
(I'm really scraping the bottom of the barrel here. Seriously, it's a great pack.)

#3 Jungle Adventure (9,5/10)

Positives:
Beautiful world. And suprisingly big for a gamepack.
Great CAS.
Servadorada is a distinct, fully fleshed new world. I'm talking about the world's aesthetic, architecture, townies' fashion, the two new radio stations, new exclusive recipes. It's something out of the ordinary Sims 4 gameplay. It really feels like going on an adventure.
I like that the temple changes between visits, it's great for replayability.

Negatives:
I don't like that you can't permanently live here, it's just a vacation world.
Most of the new gameplay is locked to the world of Selvadorada. You have to interrupt your normal gameplay to take a vacation here, meaning you can't progress in your career, do university etc. while exploring this gamepack.


I LIKE IT A LOT

#4 Realm of Magic (8,5/10)

If I were to rate the packs "objectively", Realm of Magic would place lower. But I personally utilize it a lot and can barely imagine playing without it.

Positives:
I play almost exclusively with spellcasters. See what I meant when I said can barely imagine playing without this pack?
Spellcasters are by far my favorite occults. I like how versatile they are.
You can focus on their occult lifestate, cast spells, duel, brew potions, explore all the new content that came with this pack.
OR you can completely ignore their occult status and do other things with them like you would with a "normal" sim. And they will be completely ok with it. They don't have any special needs like other occults, they won't burn in the sun like vampires or become uncontrollable rage monsters like werewolves. They won't get tense or sad or angry because you don't do enough magic with them. They are no more high maintenance than ordinary non-occult sims. Some players view this as a negative but I like it.
OR you can of course do something in between, slowly level them up in spellcasting on the side but not focus on it. Or go through phases. Focus on magic, then take a break to explore something else, then go back to spellcasting.
That's what I mean when I say spellcasters are versatile.
I want wizards and witches in my game and this pack gives them to me. Simple.

Negatives:
Lots of players praise this pack's CAS and BB but I'm not that big of a fan. I'm not saying it's bad - it's just not my style.
Glimmerbrook is an average world. It's certainly pretty (Sims 4 doesn't have an ugly world) but nothing special. It's small and there's not that much to do.
The Realm of Magic is a unique hidden world but once again it's very small. Not that much to do here either.
Some of the spells and potions are just recycled stuff from previous packs. For example the Potion of Plentiful Needs is the exact same thing as the Need Fixer Serum from GTW.

#5 Outdoor Retreat (8/10)

This is probably the most underrated gamepack. People usually consider it one of the weakest packs and I seriously don't understand why.

Positives:
Beautiful world.
I enjoy the activities you can do there. It's great for family gameplay (I'm mostly a family player).
I like the herbalism skill that comes with this pack and I use it a lot. Almost all of my sims are spellcasters and I think it makes sense for them to pursue mastering this skill.

Negatives:
Like Selvadorada, it's just a vacation world, you can't permanently live here.
The annoying "bears". Seriously, whose idea was that?


SOLID PACKS, JUST NOT MY CUP OF TEA

#6 Vampires (7/10)

Objectively it's probably better than Realm of Magic, but I rarely play vampires, so I don't utilize this pack nearly as much.

Positives:
Great BB. Aesthetically one of the best packs in the game. It's why I bought this pack in the first place.
Unique world (albeit a small one).
I may not play with vampires much but even I acknowledge how well they're fleshed out.
Vlad! The best NPC in the game and one of the very few premades I actually care about.

Negatives:
As I said, I rarely play vampires so I don't utilize this pack to its fullest.
Vampires are very needy. You can't play a vampire and ignore they're a vampire (like you can with spellcasters).

#7 Werewolves (7/10)

Similarly to Vampires, it's objectively a very solid pack, it's just not my cup of tea.

Positives:
Beautiful world. Plenty to do there, plenty to explore. I just wish there were more lots.
Again, even if I'm not much into werewolf gameplay, I can appreciate how well developed they are.
BB and CAS are pretty good.

Negatives:
Just like with Vampires, if you don't play werewolf sims, you miss most of this pack's content.
Werewolves are super high-maintenance. An uncontrollable raging werewolf was fun for a little while but he became annoying pretty quickly. I gladly changed him back into a spellcaster.


FINE

#8 Parenthood (6/10)

Probably the most overrated gamepack. I bought it because people constantly pitched it as the best gamepack in the Sims 4 and I was really disappointed by it at first. When I bought it I already owned Strangerville and Spa Day and I thought Parenthood was very lackluster in comparison. I gradually warmed towards this gamepack, it's really not that bad as I first thought, but I still think the hype around it is ridiculous.

Positives:
More stuff to do for children is always welcome. The new gameplay objects are the best part of the pack.
BB is a hit and miss for me but some of the items are really nice.

Negatives:
No world.
CAS is meh. I rarely use it.
Character values are a good idea but I don't like how they're implemented. Some character values are ridiculously easy to achieve while others are almost impossible.
The constant "asking for advice" is annoying and repetitive and you can't toggle it.
The choices often don't make sense. The game tells me that "answer A decreases emotional control" but I don't see why. It seems completely arbitrary.
The annoying bear phase. Ugh.


DIFFICULT TO CATEGORIZE

#9 Journey to Batuu (5/10)

Positives:
Amazing BB. I had no interest in this pack (I never saw any Star Wars movie) but I saw some amazing builds in the gallery that convinced me.
CAS isn't bad either.
The world looks beautiful.
I like Batuu music.
Hondo Ohnaka is a fun premade.

Negatives:
It's another vacation world and what's worse, you can't even build there (without cheats).
Even when you use cheats, there's still just 3 lots (one in each neighborhood) and you can't completely replace the original builds because you wouldn't be able to do the quests.
It's completely separated from the rest of the game. On one hand that's good (I wouldn't want the Batuu aliens roam around Willow Creek) but on the other hand it's downright impossible to integrate this gamepack into your normal gameplay. It's like a game inside a game.
There's not much to do on Batuu except for the missions.


MEH

#10 Dream Home Decorator (5/10)

Positives:
Beautiful BB, one of the best in the game.
The playing tent!
Some very nice items in CAS.

Negatives:
Barely any new gameplay. We already could change every build in the game to our liking (even the special lots with cheats) so what exactly is the point of this gamepack? What is new?
Game breaking bugs even 2+ years after the release. I had to download a mod to be able to play the new career.

#11 My Wedding Stories (4/10)

Positives:
The new world of Tartosa is beautiful.

Negatives:
You won't get much out of this pack unless you're super into weddings.
The CAS and BB are pretty but again very wedding-specific.
The weddings are very tedious because you have to micromanage everything. I preferred the old weddings.

#12 Dine Out (4/10)

Positives:
Decent CAS and BB. Some of my favorite items are from this pack.

Negatives:
No world. That's why I rate it lower than MWS.
Owning a restaurant is super boring. You can't do anything. You can't be a chef, you can't be a waiter, you just idle here while the game plays itself. Who thought this was a good idea? I'll try to download Carl's Dine Out mod to see if I'll get more out of this pack but I'm not a fan of the vanilla "gameplay".
Going to a restaurant as a guest is okay but I don't use this feature that often. I could live without it.
You can't take your toddler to a restaurant.

"mightysprite;c-18343576" wrote:

"SheriSim57;c-18343432" wrote:

Well, , you could make your own church in your game, or place or worship ( whatever you would call it ). I have a couple of churches in my game I have a ‘Protestant’ church, and a ‘Catholic Church’ in my main save ) I don’t use meditation in them. But, some of my sims meditate at home, it depends on the sim.

Hi @SheriSim57 :) I do have a church I built as a rec center lot type, but always curious about further options. What do your sims like to do in your church?

@mightysprite I mostly use them for weddings. I do have a podium ( from City living) in there and a piano now, so that sims can go there, usually on Easter, and or Christmas. I had a wedding at the Protestant one before I bought wedding stories, and of course had the arch in there then.. On the outside patio I had a bar, table for a cake, some round tables and chairs and a buffet table from luxury party stuff (love those buffet tables, they come in so handy) for their reception. The wedding went well and they received a prize for it. Now outside that church I have a garden area, and a hot tub as well. With season’s it can be quite cold in Willow Creek during certain times of the year. In the Catholic Church ( in Newcrest ) it is tall and has stained glass windows. For some reason it wasn’t possible to use the upstairs area, so it is decked out below with tables and stuff on the sides ( for a reception). In the back, I used some of the Statuary, and the benches and stuff from the romantic garden stuff pack. I also have an arch and bench set up in Willow creek park for weddings ( using romantic garden stuff ) and I had a wedding there as well. I haven’t had a wedding since I bought wedding stories, so I’m not sure how well that will work with them. I may have to remove some things like the hot tub that may draw them away when I have weddings. I’m thinking because they now have research and debate with University, those debate podiums could be used now too if you have room.

My daughter ( on PlayStation ), has very elaborate churches where her preacher makes books of life for sims in the community, and she has a another lot with a microphone and gathering area as well, for funerals. I believe she uses clubs from Get Together for them to gather at her churches.

1. Strangerville (my favourite TS4 pack)
2. Spa Day (after the refresh)
3. Vampires
4. Realm of Magic
5. Parenthood
6. Jungle Adventure
7. Dine Out (much better after recent fixes)
8. Batuu
9. My Wedding Stories (glorious world)
10. Outdoor Retreat (my favourite skill herbalism has been ruined by Seasons)
11. Werewolves (I still don't get the concept behind NPC werewolves)
12. Dream Home Decorator (unplayable for more than a year now)

These are the ones I own,

1. Parenthood
2. Realm of Magic
3. Vampires
4. Jungle Adventure
5. Strangerville
6. 5. Outdoor Retreat
7. Spa Day

I have some interest in werewolves, mostly for the CAS and build/buy, so it's a "might get one day" for me.
I'm, not interested in the rest.

I love making lists, so I'll totally join for this one. Keep in mind that I am coming at this from the perspective of someone who has heavily modded this game (mods folder is 163GB) and I play the game for screenshotting, CAS, and live gameplay and not for building.

#1: Vampires

I would not be playing the game without this pack. The gameplay and depth it offers to Sims almost totally lacking in that area is fantastic. Being a vampire to hunt Sims and grow your vampire created some very addicting gameplay for me when this pack first came out. And with certain CC and some mods, the variety of Sims you can create is fantastic. Demonic Sims, for example. It's the main reason I'm able to do my story. Would highly recommend to anyone that likes supernatural gameplay. My only complaint is that I find the world to be uninteresting and don't often visit it as a result.

#2: Werewolves

I was surprised with this pack, I really didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I did, but this pack actually had me wishing I was playing TS4 when I had to do other things. I find Werewolves to be incredibly fun and diverse and I always appreciate packs that let me create Sims that may live life totally differently from the average Sim.

And as much as I dislike TS4 worlds as a whole, this one is among the least disliked for me. It's pretty and peaceful... until the full moon comes out, anyway. But for negatives, I suppose for me, given the nature of Werewolves, I find it harder to justify them being in the modern world/setting (like a city) over Vampires, so while that's not the pack's fault, I do use them and create them far less than Vampires as a result.

#3: Spa Day

I enjoy making my Sim couples be very close and intimate, so the ability for them to give each other proper massages (not that 2 second shoulder rub animation in the romantic category) is quite nice to have. I also enjoy having my Sims be into fitness and health, so I find at least some mild enjoyment in having them do yoga and meditate. Sound effects are nice too.

Nothing about this pack particularly stands out in the way of negatives, I just don't value it as much as the other 2 packs listed above. It does its job and is a solid pack, especially with the refresh.

#4: Strangerville

I do appreciate what this pack was trying to do, with its unique theme that hasn't been seen in other Sims games (as far as I know) and the Possessed emotion jump-scared me numerous times, which I enjoyed a lot. With certain mods, this pack is pretty fun for me. But I dislike the rather linear "quest" that it has, since I feel that runs antithetical to the nature of the game. And because of this, I often only do it just once per save. While I like that it can be replayed, doing so has very little purpose as well.

#5: Realm of Magic

The magic itself can be pretty fun and as far as TS4 occults go, Spellcasters are far from the worst to me.

The worlds are not interesting to me at all and so I hardly use them. And while I said it was fun, Spellcasters are definitely the most overpowered occult in the game, since over-charging can be easily avoided on a max-level Spellcaster.

Why cook when you can summon food? Why work when your Sim can just garden, grow a money tree, then copy said tree over and over? (Though in fairness, the Painting skill can be abused this way too) Why even focus on needs at all when you can just brew a potion to fill them, then copy said potion over and over? Need help? Summon a clone of yourself. While I admit that the magic is cool, it heavily trivializes an already trivial game. Vampires are a close second to me in this regard. At least the sun is a threat in the early stages of vampirism.

#6: Parenthood

Meh. I'm not very interested in family play in general and I found maxing out all character values to be very hard. Three were easy, two felt like a chore. I don't think it's an awful pack, but I do concur it's very overrated.

#7: My Wedding Stories

I really only like this pack for the world, it's got some great scenery. That's really it. It's just a place I send newly married Sims to so they can pretty much do nothing but Woohoo all day on their honeymoon.

#8: Outdoor Retreat

My view of this one is mostly negative. I'm not really a fan of the vacation packs since they heavily focus on the game's worlds and said worlds are often disappointing. Herbalism isn't an interesting skill to me, there's nothing to really do in the world besides hike and scour for plants... and I guess have your Sims Woohoo outdoors or something. Some nice scenes for screenshots, but that's about it.

#9: Jungle Adventure

Another vacation pack I hardly used after I got it. It just makes me miss TS3 World Adventures.

#10: Dine Out

Honestly, I just haven't really used it. I like watching my Sims cook and since you can't be a chef with this pack, I don't make them go to restaurants at all. However, I do want to give it a try. It'd be nice if I can use it for date variety.

#11: Dream Home Decorator

I'm not a builder, so this pack holds zero value to me.

#12: Journey to Batuu

While Dream Home Decorator still fits within the theme of the game, this pack absolutely doesn't. If you could put how much I care about this pack as a negative number, it'd be pretty far down there.

I will just add on here that I recently played a wedding again with My Wedding Stories. It mostly isn't buggy for me except that the first dance can still be glitchy and yet a second time, someone flirted with the groom while I was setting up the first dance. I was playing both the bride and groom and it happened again so I think there is still some bug for the first dance. It takes too long for them to start dancing and I ended up using the slow dance.

Other than that, everything worked and I understood what I needed to add to my pre-existing venue for it to function for those types of weddings. While sims can still just elope, I do think they could have kept the original basic weddings as well. I will say that for some of my main households or favorite sims, the weddings are upgraded and everything other than the first dance worked nicely. I will continue to use the pack to make some weddings in my rotation more elaborate and to involve more of my sims such as family and friends in these events.

Tartosa remains a great world for romantic trips or for some lucky sims to live in. Basically there's a learning curve when you first start using this pack but it's mostly working well now and if you do want to customize weddings then it lets you do that. I'll keep using it and I am glad that they added it because romance options were more limited before. We could honestly have more than we do.

My current voting on GPs:

#1 Parenthood
Love the gameplay of the pack. Finally some interactions between parents and their kids and consequences! New traits based on how children/teens were raised. Also like the CAS and BB. Every Monday kids and teens come home from school with a school project in their inventory. The whole family can work on it together!

#2 Spa Day
Yoga is a great hobby for my star-Sims who film every yoga session with their drone. The spa is a great place to be when a mid-life crisis or burnout is on the way or your kids are too loud or... :) CAS is okay. However, the addition of fingernails was great.

#3 Dine Out
Unfortunately the gameplay is broken for me at the moment, but I like that you can customize the menu of every restaurant and create different ones in all of your worlds. (My Oasis Springs has a cheap burger place, New Crest has an Italian Bistro, Willow Creek has a fancy restaurant and so on...)

#4 Dream Home Decorator
The furniture is really great for building. It is very modern and you can create unique waredrobes and living rooms with this pack (sectionals, furniture that snapps together). However, I do not enjoy the career that much.

#5 Vampires
The CAS is great for my classic goth Sims. Most of my Goth decendants live in Forgotten Hollow. I like the addition of a new instrument (pipe organ) and skill.

#6 My Wedding Stories
Tartosa is a beautiful world. CAS is stunning! Yet the actual gameplay disappoints. I added a beautiful vineyard to the world with nectar making from Horse Ranch. You can find it in my gallery (Erja888).

#7 Stranger Ville
I like the size of the world. It reminds me a bit of Strangetown. However, the gameplay is repetetive.

#8 Realm of Magic
CAS is great. I love the lipstick that came with this pack a lot. Never even had one spellcaster in my game though.

#9 Jungle Adventure
Went to the jungle about three times. No-one but my archeologist Sim ever goes there anymore.

#10 Werewolves
The CAS is very specific. Can be used for some very poor Sims and rags to riches gameplay. Never played with werewolves. You guessed it by now I am not a fan of occults in my game.

#11 Outdoor Retreat
I only use some CAS and very few BB items from this pack (love the kids' sunglasses!). The world is boring... Could use a refresh!

#12 Star Wars - Journey to Batuu
No comment!

1. Vampires - The party never really gets started until the vampires arrive.

2. Dine Out - I love taking my sims out and restaurants are such a fun place.

3a. My Wedding Tartosa Stories - I love weddings, but this one is all about the world. It took a bit for it to grow on me but it's my favorite now.

3b. Werewolves - I love this pack and I could easily put it ahead of MWS, but at the moment I'm getting more use out of Tartosa than I am anything in this pack. If only it had come out about 6 months or so sooner I might be working on a SimLit story about werewolves instead of a romance novelist living in Tartosa.

5. Dream Home Decorator - Like others have mentioned, the CAS and BB with this pack are essentials in any situation where I'm going CC free.

6. Spa Day - This is a pack that might be taken a bit for granted. It's not necessarily a pack you really spend a lot of time thinking about and yet when you do think about it you find that you've used it more than you realized. Or maybe it's just me.?

7. Jungle Adventure - What a shame Selvadorado is only a vacation world. It's one of the most beautiful worlds in the game and our simmies can't call it home.

8. Parenthood - I don't do much family gameplay so I don't get much use from this one. That will change eventually with my current story saves so if I did this ranking again, say a year from now, it might be much higher up the list.

9. Realm Of Magic - The pack that disappointed me most of all. This one is a love it or hate it pack. I feel like they missed the mark with what could have been the best of the occult packs. The spellcasters feel like normal sims with some cheat codes built in. Maybe it was the fact that they chose to call them spellcasters instead of witches. I wanted to love this pack but I'm still waiting for it to pull me in. Maybe someday it finally will.

10. Outdoor Retreat - I tend to go really long periods of time where I forget this one exists. I've only been to Granite Falls a handful of times since it came out. This is one of the packs I got because I kept finding lots I loved that needed bits and pieces of it to get the look. It's probably a case of just never having the right story where this pack could shine.

11. Strangerville - The Mother storyline was fun the first time through but it does get old after that. Like Outdoor Retreat it's a victim of the kind of stories I tend to tell and I haven't come up with one where this world would fit in.

12. Journey To Batuu - I love this pack, but even I'll admit it's super niche. Where it shines is as a bit of escapism from realism or occult gameplay. It certainly doesn't hurt to be a Star Wars fan either.