Forum Discussion

Rising Hotshot

7 years ago

My First Pet Stuff Pack--Am I missing Something?

This is the first time in a long time that I've felt as if I'd made a mistake purchasing a Sims 4 EP, aka, my purchase of the My First Pet Stuff Pack...

I always thought that EA couldn't do any worse than they did with the Cool Kitchen Stuff Pack (One new set of counters? Seriously?), but they managed it with this joke of a pack.

It looked like the rodents were going to be a lot more interactive than they are. You can hardly do anything with the rodents. Just feed them treats, "view" them and hold them for a bit. Supposedly they do fun stuff on their own, but unless you ignore your sims and just keep the view on the rodent cage as time passes, you'll just miss all of those. Overall, the rodents and their cages are barely interactive.

And to top it all off, the wall-placed crawl tubes that made it look like you could design a unique crawl/play space for your rodent? They're flat, 2-D wall stickers that your rodent can't even use.

As it is, the rodent cages are just barely one step above the lousy fish tanks. I hate the downgraded tanks in Sims 4 that don't allow you to add your own caught fish or feed them or anything. The aquarium coffee table made me think that they were FINALLY going to add in more interactive aquariums. (They didn't.)

They also could've at least added in larger environments for all those frogs we can catch to keep them as long term pets, but they didn't.

PLUS, aside from the fact that they didn't add any other small critters like birds, snakes, lizards, etc., you'd think they'd have at least added one NEW item each to increase interactions and activities for cats and dogs--like a tug rope or bone to chew for dogs and something else fun for cats. They didn't. Just a few new "skins" for existing objects like pet beds, a food dish, a litter box, etc.

And those few odd pet items, mixed with the random pet-themed kid's furniture just made the whole pack seem like a hodgepodge of resurrected items deemed not good enough for the Cats & Dogs Pack.

And don't get me started on the useless pet costumes. They may be cute, but they add nothing to the game! Some pets tolerate wearing costumes, but many chew at them, try to rip them off, howl until they're taken out of them, or (as in that cute viral video of the dog who went limp and toppled over when put into a life vest) simply refuse to "dog" or "cat" while in costume. Barring real life pet reactions to the costumes, why not play up the fun and have the pets comically take on the persona of the costume they're wearing. Just something, anything!

If they'd added some sort of pet reaction or behavior in regards to pet costumes, the addition of these costumes in this terrible pack might've made it feel a bit more worthwhile, but they didn't.

Quite honestly, this pack doesn't feel like it really added anything new or interactive like the sauna or rock walls we got with other packs. (Even though for a time it felt like EA had become fitness and gym equipment obsessed we have so many variations of treadmills!)

I keep poking around, hoping I'm missing something great, but overall the pack feels pretty worthless and I'm feeling ripped off... I'm feeling so ripped off by it that I'm now less interested in playing the game...

Even though I was so excited for and am still loving/discovering the Jungle Adventure expansion, this rip-off of a pack has me uninterested in even exploring all that pack has to offer anymore!

SO, am I missing something? If I am, please let me know so I find a way to enjoy this stuff pack somehow.

(ETA: When will EA get that every time they do something this lame and disappointing they're making us more leery of future packs. I know that after this I won't automatically buy new offerings but will wait for reviews and if the reviews aren't 5-star, I'll put off buying future packs until they're on sale.)

23 Replies

Saneksemoo
7 years ago
"Movotti;c-16393111" wrote:
IT's totally unrealistic. My first pets were chickens, and lambs.
Why couldn't they have made a baby animal farm stuff pack, in place of this rubbish?

Those are hardly pets, just saying....
ceb6973
Rising Hotshot
7 years ago
http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/profile/DeservedCriticism: (Tried to quote you and it went all wonky!)

1) Totally agree! I wouldn't mind paying $10 for a new stuff pack if there were actually NEW STUFF in it. And I don't mean new skins for old objects (like the plethora of treadmills and other gym equipment we have), but actual new objects that add gameplay--and if you're going to pad it with new skins for existing objects (chairs, beds, etc.), you need at least twice as much padding. If the so-called "premium objects" like the hamster cage in this joke of a pet pack were glassware, it'd be shattered for the lack of padding it came with.

Also TOTALLY agree on the plethora of 2-D stickers we're getting. The hamster climbing tube stickers were the last straw for me on that one... It's like they those climbing tube stickers purely for their trailer, knowing/hoping people would mistake them for a fun, interactive object where you could take your hamster to play (like I did), so they'd think the pack had more to it than it actually did.

2) YES! I so agree with this ridiculous "collection" craze EA keeps trying to force on us. True, I've appreciated the collection part of the gameplay in Sims 3 and before as a sort of break from traditional gameplay, but in Sims 4 it seems like their aim is to overwhelm us with collections to complete so that we won't notice the limited gameplay features. Well, it didn't and won't work. It seems like the aspirations are easily completed and not very challenging (and the rewards that come with them are tired too, even the "new ones" are just mega versions of the old ones I never used anyway--I mean, steel bladder? If I use aspiration prizes to remove my sims' needs, what's the point of playing?)

OKAY, off the point tangent: Why CAN'T they add personality traits as purchasable prizes instead of all these lame remove/reduce needs prizes? I've always thought that it was lame that we could only have 3 personality traits. How AWESOME would it be if we could expand our sim's personality and abilities as they complete aspirations? Just make it impossible to purchase conflicting traits (like you can't have good and evil at the same time), and it should work fine. AND, you could even have a personality trait remover (that maybe wouldn't work to remove the three core traits you chose in CAS?), so if you purchased the "good" personality trait as an aspiration prize, but you want your sim to be corrupted by an "evil" sim, you can purchase a trait remover potion that deletes the good trait, so they can then purchase the evil one! If they'd implement something like this, there would finally be SOMETHING to spend all of those excess aspiration points on! It feels so much like, why bother completing aspirations after a while since there's nothing good to spend it on!

3) Yes, I get not wanting to stick around. I feel that from time to time with Sims 4, which is so surprising to me because I never felt that way with Sims 1, 2 or 3 (and yes, I've stuck with the sims since 2000!). At first I thought it was because I'm getting older and less interested in playing games... but I quickly realized that there's simply less to do in Sims 4 so it's much easier to get bored!

So why do I stick with it? Well, #1, I love the Sims (clearly!), #2 there are some fun things about Sims 4 that I really enjoy, like the toddlers, parenting pack, exploring the jungle, owning businesses/restaurants; swapping aspirations without losing progress, etc. -- but the real reason is #3....

#3--I switched from Windows to Mac and Sims 3 simply doesn't play well on a mac (thanks to the GB-limiting wrapper or whatever that caused repeated game crashes). So, I'm stuck with Sims 4 until I invest in a Windows gaming computer that can handle Sims 3 again. I certainly hope that's before they eliminate the Sims 3 store as I finally watched enough videos to earn store points so that I now own ALL store content for Sims 3. There's SO MUCH in the store that I never even got a chance to play with yet (and packs that I absolutely love and miss, like the Roaring 20s pack!!!, Oh, and islands, and the roller coaster in the theme park, and the farm, and a wider variety of career choices!!!) Ugh, there's so much I miss about it that I actually can't wait to get back to playing Sims 3 again!!!

And that's the sad state of things... I'm actually more excited by the idea of playing Sims 3 again sometime in the future than I am about playing Sims 4 which I could play this very second... But until I get that gaming computer, I'll toy around with Sims 4 and enjoy it. (Just not as much as previous versions of the game!)
OldeSimsFan
Seasoned Ace
7 years ago
Let's not forget that what drives all decisions at EA (and every business entity) is the almighty $. The upper level managers that make the decisions on what we get focus on ROI (return on investment), what will generate the most revenue. Add to that the fact that the lower expenses are, the greater the percentage of that revenue which is profit. So, all you posters that have been smelling financial rats, right on!