Least favourite occult
Between Vampires, Spellcasters and Werewolves which one is your least favourite occult and what did you expected from them?
Forum Discussion
Just like @DaWaterRat said there are two ways to answer this question: least favorite gameplay or least favorite theme. For me the answer is different for these two ways to consider occults.
Gameplay: of the big three, spellcasters are obviously the weakest. They are imbalanced and overpowered. There are hardly any drawbacks for being a spellcaster. Vampires are hard because of the deadly sunlight and the thirst need. Werewolves can be real challenging because of the temperaments. But spellcasters? Potions and spells rarely fail. And if they do it is easy to get rid of the curse by a simple spell, magical potion or a cure bought at the magic shops. Some of the potions and spells are overpowered and allow an advantage that is just downright cheating. My solution to this problem is self imposed restrictions on my sims and mods. My sims are not allowed to get all perks. They can only unlock one perk for spells that never fail, in other wordt they have to specialize in one branch of magic and those spells never fail. But the other two branches can fail. Of the 3 linear colomns of perks, they can only fully develop one to the top, the other two only the lower perks. I also limit the use of spells like copypasto. My spellcasters never use it to earn money, copy potions or copy harvestables. They basically only use it for those potions ingredients you can't grow like crystals. I also have a mod for the potion of plentyful needs so it doesn't fill all needs and requires more ingredient. With these rules and mods, they I enjoy playing them.
Another huge letdown for spellcasters is the lack of attention for children. It really hurts that children in the sims can't see, hear, touch or smell magic and can't be touched by magic at all. A child practice wand or an option for spellcasters to scruberoo their offspring would have made a difference.
Realm of magic unfortunatly has other missed opportunities as well. No lot traits for magical babies (like the vampire dark ley line) , no lot trait to attract spellcasters or allow magical behavious and therefor no way to create any magical lot outside of the ever dark magical realm, brooms as teleport instead of flying, familiars that are only visual effects and can't be touched in any way, not a single cas item for toddlers and children,...
Thematically: vampires. This is mainly a personal preference. I dislike the need to feed on other sims. It is great to have an alternative in plasma packs but the nature of the thirst urge itself remains and I don't like it. Despite the fact that I don't like them I have to admit that vampires are excellently implemented in terms of gameplay.
What about the third main occult werewolves? They are excellent in my opinion. I greatly enjoy them even if they rank in the middle in both gameplay and theme for me. I like how they look (if only we had a female bodyframe available) and the gameplay is balanced and challenging. Werewolves have great perks to unlock but it comes at a price. I also really enjoy the face that toddlers and children can get werewolf related moodlets. It's a small details but just enough to make them feel different from regular children.
In general I play a lot of spellcasters and werewolves, occasionally a mermaid or alien. Vampires are very few in my game and with all the other occults options, I rarely touch them. Should vampires have been released as third in depth occult, I might have skipped them. But because we hardly had any occults when vampires were released I got the pack.
I agree with @Simmingal when it comes to all occults, not just the 3 main ones. In that case plantsims are the biggest letdown. They were downgraded from a full lifestate in sims 2 and 3 to nothing but temporary state in sims 4. To me it almost feels as if plantsims in sims 4 are a desease rather than a lifestate: No powers, no way to make plantsims permanent. And the worst of all: as soon as you switch households, the plantsim moodlet is not shown, only your active household can have a plantsim. I hope they get and upgrade/revamp at some time. It has happened before (zombies in sims 2 university returned in sims 2 freetime, vampires in sims 3 late night and supernatural and robots in sims 3 ambitions and into the future) so there is still a sliver of hope for plantsims in sims 4.
Gameplay: of the big three, spellcasters are obviously the weakest. They are imbalanced and overpowered. There are hardly any drawbacks for being a spellcaster. Vampires are hard because of the deadly sunlight and the thirst need. Werewolves can be real challenging because of the temperaments. But spellcasters? Potions and spells rarely fail. And if they do it is easy to get rid of the curse by a simple spell, magical potion or a cure bought at the magic shops. Some of the potions and spells are overpowered and allow an advantage that is just downright cheating. My solution to this problem is self imposed restrictions on my sims and mods. My sims are not allowed to get all perks. They can only unlock one perk for spells that never fail, in other wordt they have to specialize in one branch of magic and those spells never fail. But the other two branches can fail. Of the 3 linear colomns of perks, they can only fully develop one to the top, the other two only the lower perks. I also limit the use of spells like copypasto. My spellcasters never use it to earn money, copy potions or copy harvestables. They basically only use it for those potions ingredients you can't grow like crystals. I also have a mod for the potion of plentyful needs so it doesn't fill all needs and requires more ingredient. With these rules and mods, they I enjoy playing them.
Another huge letdown for spellcasters is the lack of attention for children. It really hurts that children in the sims can't see, hear, touch or smell magic and can't be touched by magic at all. A child practice wand or an option for spellcasters to scruberoo their offspring would have made a difference.
Realm of magic unfortunatly has other missed opportunities as well. No lot traits for magical babies (like the vampire dark ley line) , no lot trait to attract spellcasters or allow magical behavious and therefor no way to create any magical lot outside of the ever dark magical realm, brooms as teleport instead of flying, familiars that are only visual effects and can't be touched in any way, not a single cas item for toddlers and children,...
Thematically: vampires. This is mainly a personal preference. I dislike the need to feed on other sims. It is great to have an alternative in plasma packs but the nature of the thirst urge itself remains and I don't like it. Despite the fact that I don't like them I have to admit that vampires are excellently implemented in terms of gameplay.
What about the third main occult werewolves? They are excellent in my opinion. I greatly enjoy them even if they rank in the middle in both gameplay and theme for me. I like how they look (if only we had a female bodyframe available) and the gameplay is balanced and challenging. Werewolves have great perks to unlock but it comes at a price. I also really enjoy the face that toddlers and children can get werewolf related moodlets. It's a small details but just enough to make them feel different from regular children.
In general I play a lot of spellcasters and werewolves, occasionally a mermaid or alien. Vampires are very few in my game and with all the other occults options, I rarely touch them. Should vampires have been released as third in depth occult, I might have skipped them. But because we hardly had any occults when vampires were released I got the pack.
I agree with @Simmingal when it comes to all occults, not just the 3 main ones. In that case plantsims are the biggest letdown. They were downgraded from a full lifestate in sims 2 and 3 to nothing but temporary state in sims 4. To me it almost feels as if plantsims in sims 4 are a desease rather than a lifestate: No powers, no way to make plantsims permanent. And the worst of all: as soon as you switch households, the plantsim moodlet is not shown, only your active household can have a plantsim. I hope they get and upgrade/revamp at some time. It has happened before (zombies in sims 2 university returned in sims 2 freetime, vampires in sims 3 late night and supernatural and robots in sims 3 ambitions and into the future) so there is still a sliver of hope for plantsims in sims 4.
