Is TS4 Cats & Dogs worth it?

"MissCherie;c-16157612" wrote:
That make me laugh people that say it worth it, but that people should wait for a sale, it's contradictory, if it was worth it you wouldn't suggest people to wait for the pack to be cheaper.

I just really like sales. Sims are an expensive hobby, so paying full price on every pack adds up fast especially when you've been playing multiple iterations. Like ok fine to do it in your first iteration, but after that, it is like ok why didn't I buy these packs before on sale?

Some people like giveaways. I don't think anyone should be ashamed of paying sales on packs or entering giveaways. I rather people acquire packs that way than by other means.

I voted No for the very obvious reason that is the expansion, if you can even call it that, is drastically unfinished.

From just opening the game and having it running for twenty minutes, you can figure out this is not worthy of being called an expansion as it lacks a variety of features, gameplay and such. You can just call it a gamepack as it introduces a new element to the sims lives however it does not really affect or change anything as pets did in the sims 2 and 3.

For me, these are dumbed down, glorified NPC’s without the ability to make them playable as you can regular humanoid townies.
I purchased this game on the over commercialization, gifs and videos of pets being portrayed as more than animated clutter, which they are with all due respect. I do enjoy the company, instead of it being my sim alone in their house or bothered by other sims, they can wander around their apartment as they please and still have some presence of low maintenance company.

If I may say this and plenty of people will sigh at the mere mention, but this feels like what we should have received in terms of interaction with baby sims, by that I mean being able to pick them up and walk around and do more than feed them, give them a quick cuddle and then put said baby back into the crib where it stays an object until toddlerhood. It feels like that, however instead of realising a patch freeing them from the confines of a cheap bassinet (that is the correct word, right?), EA have decided to apply this feature to a completely different creature and make us pay for it, rather than do the obvious.

Yes it sounds off topic but just consider the fact you cannot control pets, all you can do with them is interact and carry them around, speak to them, train them, instruct this and that, it clearly isn’t enough gameplay for an animal and feels very out of place.
This is why I bring up baby sims because again it seems like rather than simply throwing these features in a patch, EA have said to each other about constructing an expansion with these said abilities and gone backwards instead of forwards.

Next to that, the lack of dog content, I’ve only played for a few hours and already it feels more like CATS than cats and dogs, there is more for your cat than there is for your dog and that is infuriating as a dog person because I want equal items and feature gameplay for both animal species, instead of one being the main priority whilst the other sits and rots.

With clothes and hair and the color wheel, it’s evident a lot of attention has been placed on these things, for the first time I can say I am happy with the collection of wearables and hair styles instead of quietly seethe from the lack of variety, however that is where I believe a lot of the developers time and effort went instead of being placed into the actual main feature. I know, many of us are as excited for new fashion as we are for new gameplay and creatures, but when it’s shown they put more time into a shirt than the animation and interactions of a dog, then I take issue.
Don’t get me wrong, the styles and such are fabulous, I cannot find fault with any of the clothes this expansion, however the fact my animals are basically walking items does grind my plumbob.

Moving into the vet career.
Today I had to run my cat Mayor Whiskers to the vet to deal with his epic case of dry mouth, the one vet up and left the moment I entered my cat into the computer and then a dialogue bar appeared saying they were asleep, leaving myself and Angry neighbors to head home. I had to squeeze all of the medical machines into my tiny apartment and preform surgery myself because the vet option was utterly useless. It made the overall experience of the game unpleasant and I’m already regretting spending the 30 pounds on a pack that was advertised to be exciting and new, for once I believed sims 4 was on track and again I was disappointed.

These are all reasons I vote no on the expansion, or overpriced gamepack.
If this expansion is to be redeemed it’s going to take many large patches repairing features as well as adding them, even then it will take time and real effort to repair the damage the lackluster result has caused.

I will always be a fan of the sims but as for this generation, it’s gone downhill at a rapid pace.

"Falynios;c-16159811" wrote:
looking through the posts in this topic, most of the "no's" are from people who don't own the pack. Can we please hear more opinions from people who actually have it and don't like it?

I have it and already commented.

have it really enjoy it

I held off from buying Cats and Dogs until a couple of hours ago and finally decided to take the plunge. This means I haven't spent too much time on the game; I just had a quick look around this evening but what I've seen so far has impressed me.

I haven't seen any bugs so far, but even if I had seen any I wouldn't worry too much at this stage because there are always bugs in a new game. There are bugs in old games too but, as irritating as some of them might be at times, most are not generally impossible to get around and the really game killing bugs are usually put right at some point.

I think they have done a really good job on the new world. It really does look nice and the detail and some of the colours are lovely. The sun setting over the beach was really pleasant and the sky was a lovely colour. I also very much like the build/buy objects because I love decorating houses and there is some really nice stuff there! I liked seeing the animals around because it has added some realism to the game, whether you play the pets or not. Just seeing them around and about was good to see. I had my sim go and sit on a bench overlooking the sea and there were some seagulls wandering around him and I thought how nice it was. It took me out of myself for a while and for the first time, I began to feel more immersed in my own sim sitting there than I have when playing previously.

Obviously I still need to learn what it is like to have an actual pet but I'm not worried about not knowing their needs. There is a lot of guesswork involved with pets, certainly with my own two dogs, so this seems quite realistic to me but I will know more after trying it out tomorrow.

So far then, my initial thoughts are very much on the positive side and I'm looking forward to playing again tomorrow. I would say that this expansion pack has renewed my interest in the game because up to now I have been very unhappy with many aspects of Sims 4 in general. The slow eating, over 30 minutes, trying to get my sims hunger bar down before work drives me crazy. The gathering up and chatting of all the sims in retail stores really gets to me! On a scale of 1 to 10, this irritates me way off the scale - more like 100! Hopefully, Cats and Dogs will pull my irritation away from these things and renew my enjoyment of playing the Sims. Time will tell!

"Falynios;c-16159811" wrote:
looking through the posts in this topic, most of the "no's" are from people who don't own the pack. Can we please hear more opinions from people who actually have it and don't like it?

I have it and I agree with what has been said already. Also, there's so much information up about the pack online that you really don't need to dismiss people who don't have the pack and still aren't happy with it.

I have the game and have played with it four times. I have never had an ep with this amount of bugs. Somethings work...sometimes. I had to sell a vet clinic because I wasn't able to do exams... or treat (this with the highest priced instruments) I have been waiting for this game since it was announced but I'm really disappointed this time. In keeping with the price and the tradition, I expected a more useable game. I hope they don't wait too long to patch it....

Honestly I've always been somewhat neutral to cats and dogs as a whole, always been more of a bird person in general, but this was still pretty worth it.

Mostly I just wanted it to try the Pet CAS, which delivered kind of; There were some features I wanted to change more than it let me, I wish it had more eye colors to choose from (including some less natural ones) but hey, the actual fur editor has a color wheel with actual hex codes. I get to paint on my dogs and cats and make them look just like, say, pokemon, with their actual colors instead of just approximations. It's nice.

I don't really care about the pricetag, can afford it anyway, I even bought it for my friends I knew would enjoy this. Worth it.

Also, the added world looks great. I haven't played enough with it yet, but I don't regret buying this so far. Just had my legacy household adopt two cats and bought some furniture to accommodate them. Looking forwards to actually seeing what they do, hah. I didn't have high expectations of the gameplay outside of CAS, so I'm not really let down either way.

Cats & Dogs EP is Perfect. <3 I love this EP I have not see bugs or glitches.
I do truly own Cats & Dogs, I do Play the EP daily. I am so happy I have it. It made Sims 4 what it should have been, people who truly have the Cats & Dogs are at Awe of the EP.

Online you are not allowed to review a product that you do not have because that would not be fair. Even though it's happening here But is it fair? going to get it is not having it.

For the most part, Simmers with Mods and CC are having problems and that has nothing to do with Cats & Dogs EP.
A few ignored the warning that they upped the specs on the New EP. and that has nothing to do with Cats & Dogs EP.

Cats & Dogs is Perfect and was made by a Team that loves the Sims and the simmers as well. I was not even a cat and dog lover in real, but in the Sims 4 game I now have Cats & Dogs and I love my pets. I thought it would take a long time to download but for me, it was under 30min, and its so many cute full breeds to chose from in cats and dogs categories.

First of all, you always see their picture in the family line up so you can always find them or click the whistle to get them to come to you
with their picture, you can tell easily if they are ok with the background color.our toddlers are very cute with the dogs and cats. I must say the Dogs and Cats are much more easy to deal with and control and train. For the first time, we get to truly walk around our cities like we have always wanted to and enjoy the sites.

Cats & Dogs EP is Perfect. <3

"DeservedCriticism;c-16156278" wrote:
I think something many people are failing to keep in mind is this:

Even if you're having fun, even if it's keeping you entertained and even if it's enough to be deemed satisfactory for you, the issue is that's it's practically a fact it could've been better. This EP offers next to zero improvements over the Sims 2 and Sims 3 counterparts, and in many areas even loses quality. Despite this, it has the exact same pricetag.

You know what I would think if I were an EA/Maxis manager right now...? I would see this expansion as evidence we can get away with cutting out features, providing less content for the same pricetag and offering missing content later as SPs/GPs, and then I would start experimenting with just how much we're allowed to cut out before fans start to notice and put their foot down.

If people are happy with the product, good for them. However, the question of purchasing this EP or not could be seen as "would you like one car for $20,000 or two?" You got your car for the pricetag and that's great, but there's just soooo much we stand to lose by settling for one instead of demanding the second that we used to get for that price.

It shouldn't be a question of "is it fun," but rather of "could it be more fun." The focus should be on the lost potential and what we stand to lose by settling for less. Sadly, once again I fear the general community will be too short-sighted for this or underestimate the power of their purchase (everyone assumes "it's ok if I purchase it, I'm just one person"), so here we are three years later with an expansion pack that stands up terribly compared to it's predecessors, and despite the bugs and loss of features, we're all just content. It is not a crime to ask for more, but unfortunately people seem to have the attitude that if what they have is nice, then asking for more is out of the question, even if there's overwhelming evidence that "more" is absolutely doable.

I agree with this.