Forum Discussion

5 years ago

"Happy Haunts lost, I guess you can't please everyone!" Predictable poll results article

I don't really see a specific place to put this so here it is, as expected Arts & Crafts won the player poll, which honestly seems practically by design.

Something I learned about reading a news article this morning with a sentence that was almost word for word the quoted portion of the topic title ending it is that the likelihood of occult jobs coming in the near future just tanked.. again... Because when it comes to it the number of people who will vote realism is marginally higher

And I'm not even slightly surprised, honestly I actually want arts and crafts but I voted as well as I was able on the oddly formatted poll for happy haunts and entirely excluded everything else as much as possible because I figured that something like arts and crafts would come along in the future anyway while anything occult has to be practically /begged/ for

And that's just it, happy haunts reportedly came in just after arts & crafts, again as predicted because there is always around a 60/40 split between people in the community on what they want with realism players nearly always winning out simply because there are a few more and they tend to be /much/ louder with their demands.

And it makes me question why they would pair up occult themed possibilities with realism based possibilities at all unless it's just to say "well we did give the occults a chance to get what they wanted but they lost so... oh well, moving on."

A better and much more fair method would be to make a bunch of realism based packs and do a poll for them to let people decide on what out of those they want, then do the same for a bunch of occult themed packs, because as things stand now the occult side of things gets relatively ignored and underdeveloped even in packs built around occults (which again.. look at the realism content, now look at the occult content)

Almost half of the sims players are excluded from getting content and it seems like there is a huge disconnect between them and the dev's over /why/ that is the case, you'll almost never see dozens of occult players in every comment section of every YouTube video or tweet yelling over new realism packs the way others do over occult packs, you'll almost never see more than a few people being flat out /toxic/ the way people were over additions like RoM or mermaids being added or vampires being given some love because "This is s***! /We/ want cars! /We/ want university! Stop all this occult trash!"

It's frustrating that because some players are that venomous and that toxic they get catered to with a great deal of content while because occults tend towards being quieter and waiting to be drip-fed literally anything they rarely /get/ anything as a result

And when they do it's usually tagged on to a realism pack and is underdeveloped like mermaids or just seemingly unfinished like RoM which really could have had things like careers and a couple more skills added in--- like for example most everything advertised in happy haunts, or heck.. even just making it so that occults have some special interactions with other occults like vampires and spellcasters having some sort of special magic duel since both have magic since honestly most people who have one occult based pack probably have them all so having those sorts of interactions would be far from wasted and at least then they could all be shoehorned in /together/

This is probably just me venting my frustration, honestly I'm just kind of done with expecting that occult players will ever be given any kind of deep content of pretty much any kind until probably around the time when the game is running low as far as shelf-life goes, it has been years already and things haven't changed much, and I'm pessimistic about things ever doing so.

I'm not saying there is nothing that I like about the game or its content I love sims 4, I've been working on turning every world on one file into a medieval fantasy of sorts and I love it

I'm just saying that it seems like most of the content a large but undervalued portion of the fanbase would like to see is largely ignored in favor of the rest and it's kind of bs.

keekee53
Seasoned Newcomer
5 years ago
I will admit, I am not a fan of the occults. The reason why is because my townies end up being all occults. When I play occults, I play them a certain way and I don't want my sims turned into them unless it is part of their story. With ROM, I heard many players had their played sims turned into spell casters. Who asked for that?? Honestly this goes for the normal sims too. Who asked for a million Sulani Sims to be created for all jobs in all worlds??

When I vote, I have to think about how is EA going to handle this in my game? With happy haunts, it would have been my first choice but I can imagine my other households being overwhelmed with ghost sims. So it became my second choice. Now that danger pack idea that came out when they were voting for laundry would have been more my speed anyways.

I think if EA would include options to turn off or not saturate my town with occults or any certain sim I would be more inclined to vote to add more. Unfortunately, these things affect my decisions. So to your point, I don't think it is just hate for the occults that affect decisions.
Vamplague
5 years ago
Disappointed on Happy Haunts not winning, it's laundry day all over again. Here's hoping it's more interesting
Anyways I'm not trying to spit on the other side, but you're kinda right about the occult side being quieter. I mean I do see people commenting on wanting more occults, but dang I never seen occult people unironically say "Who asked for this?" when popular realistic packs are added.

Makes me scratch my head when some say Sims is supposed to be a realistic life simulator so occults aren't allowed when the first game in the franchise had Grim, ghosts, witches, genies, servos, zombies, and some other lesser "occults" before actual realistic packs were added into the franchise (seasons, university, etc).
keekee53
Seasoned Newcomer
5 years ago
"nerdfashion;c-17331922" wrote:
I 100% agree with the OP. Occults are certainly very lacking, as well as few and far between. I haven't gotten the chance to buy Get to Work yet, so I can't speak for aliens, but mermaids and Spellcasters feel a lot emptier than Vampires, but even they weren't brought out to their full potential, even for a Game Pack. Realistic players do tend (from what I've seen) to be louder and more persistent with their demands. A lot of them also seem to get pretty upset when an occult-like pack comes.

This is also a reason why I did not vote for it. It was going to be a stuff pack so there is NO WAY anything was going to be really fleshed out. Arts and Crafts felt better as a stuff pack. ROM was a gamepack and spellcasters were not on the level of Vamps. Mermaids were terrible in my opinion.
renato007rigin
5 years ago
What I find kinda silly is the fact that devs also voted on the poll and they are proud to share it on twitter. Like... really?
InuMiroLover
New Spectator
5 years ago
The thing I find the most interesting, is that when occult anything starts to rear its ugly head, there's like a cacophony of how "there are too many occults!" and how "we have nothing for realistic players!" Right. Because going out with friends isnt realistic, neither is having Winterfest dinners with the family, or going to a restaurant, or owning a retail shop that sells nothing but apples, helping kids with homework or sending them off to college.
Gardening, painting a picture, reading to a toddler a bedtime story, having a wedding, oh sure nothing about those are realistic and we're never going to get anything realistic again because of the dreaded occults!

Give me a break! For starters, if anything we have 2 actual occults since those 2 are the most developed of what we have in the lot. Mermaids and Aliens are afterthoughts. Ghosts are just colorful seethrough sims that dont need to eat, and who the heck remembers that plantsims are a thing? Vampires and Spellcasters are the only ones who'd gotten any real love in this iteration. (Though I do like Spellcasters, they do feel weak when compared to Vampires) And yet occult players are told to shut up, be happy with it and dont ask for more. You know a starving dog is really happy too when someone bothers to toss a shred of meat its way.

But I suppose its hard to share a slice of cake when you're so used to eating the entire thing. I have no doubt there will be more realistic gameplay coming. I mean sheesh we have a pack about freakin' knitting coming. But another occult anything? Who knows! For all we know, this might be it for occults planned until the next Sims iteration. But we all know that there will be future packs with things to do for everyday sims. To say otherwise and believe that the once in a blue moon occult appearance is nothing short of an attack on realistic play is just plain stupid.
Simburian
Seasoned Rookie
5 years ago
I think occults deserve a pack of their own so I'm OK with the crafts as a stuff pack. If Maxis could design a pack something between The Sims, Makin' Magic, Sims 2 Apartment Life, Sims 3 Supernatural it would make a great Expansion or Game pack. Take a look and see what we had before............... Needs a whole expansion in my opinion.

https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/The_Sims:_Makin%27_Magic

https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/The_Sims_2:_Apartment_Life

https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/The_Sims_3:_Supernatural
timurjr96
5 years ago
Arts and craft, hmm as if we dont have any more of these since seasons.
Anonymous
5 years ago
"CelSims;c-17332265" wrote:
The thing that bugs me is that when we DO get occults, the play is watered down garbage to appease the occult haters that buy the pack for pretty objects. It completely ruins my immersion that both my own sims and the npc spellcasters never ever use spells to fill their needs.
'I'm a Grand Master Wizard, yet i'll go cook a hotdog instead of casting Delicisio". "Uhh I'm dirty, better wonder off home and go take a bath', instead of a quick scruberoo.

Instead of watering down my gameplay, in a game pack which is supposed to provide content I am interested in, provide a toggle off button for the selfish people demanding other peoples play be rubbish.

Or don't cater to it at all and make them use mods. I've seen realism players tell others to use mods to make their occults do things. Maybe if you buy an occult pack and don't want the gameplay, YOU should be the one using mods.

I don't completely understand the divide anyway. My vamps and spellcasters mostly go to work, socialize and have families just like the regular sims. They won't be knitting though.

Exactly. If you don't like the occult style/gameplay, don't play it but don't tell others how to play their game.
FriendlySimmers
New Traveler
5 years ago
me the way i see this is a win win situation as they are trying to fit in the sims game what players went but try to stay positive even if something lost the poll do not mean they will put the ideas of said content aside they might bring it back or add it in future content, so in a way its a win win situation.
OneAdorkableGirl
New Spectator
5 years ago
I voted for Happy Haunts just because I felt like.. this may be the only time that theme will come around. I really wanted that Haunted Lot Trait.. because the "cursed lot trait" is well.. .. we'll just say it could use some updates of its own.. because the only thing that happens is my Sim is mad because it got (I didn't know that getting stuck by a needle was a bad word :/) randomly. I was hoping that would make the value of a house go down because it was "haunted", just think - a vampire wouldn't care and could live there. :)

Also.. if they made the trait where spoopy music played every once in awhile, and chains rattled, and ghosts came out "to play". That would be really fun and something I could see using for Trick or Treating, or even for HarvestFest. :)

I was also worried that this was the one chance that Ghosts might finally be updated...

Hopefully it means that since it was second place.. that they'll consider working on it for maybe a game-pack because I would love all of that stuff to be included and that could definitely fit in a Game-pack than in a stuff pack. *fingers crossed*

Aside from that. I loved all the themes and it was really hard to decide, but the only one that I was like, "We have enough of that in game" was the healthy stuff. Which.. I still loved a lot of it and would like to see some of that stuff added, but.. felt like we have enough gym equipment and ways to workout.. they could save that for another time and bring out some fresh new stuff for now..

Though.. I love Arts and Crafts.. I'm worried that this will mean that they won't add more hobbies later on. I would have much rather Arts and Crafts been a Gamepack instead of a Stuff Pack... and that's really the only thing I'm most disappointed about. :(

FreeTime was my favorite Sims 2 expansion pack..I really hope this isn't the only hobby they will do.. because I think Knitting was like my fourth choice.. on that list. :( Though I do hope this means that we can knit new toys for toddlers and kids (I know there will be new toys), but how many and if they'll have some new interactions.. is my real question.. because... they're lacking content...