Origin Game Repair Takes A Long Time - What's Changed??

This started happening to me (and others) with the September 3rd patch. It took 8 hours to repair all 38 packs. It usually only took a few minutes before this. You can read the thread about it here:
https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/comment/17668704#Comment_17668704

Something with Origin really has changed. It's been said it has something to do with the new EA/Origin Desktop App but I don't understand how this would affect those not using it.

I didn't repair after the October patch came out as I normally would but the November patch was so big, I decided to try it again to see if things were better. No such luck. My game did suffer crashing so I need this new update, but I'm really hoping this new hotfix patch works properly so I don't have to repair again.

Would somebody please tell me how to cancel all the packs from being repaired so it will only repair the base game (and maybe any new pack recently downloaded)?