Seasons or Discover University?

Depends what you prefer really, seasons is very much a background pack in my opinion. If you're bored of gameplay at the moment and want a brand new experience I'd say discover university or another pack. If you're enjoying gameplay at the moment and just want it to be enhanced then get seasons.

As for these two packs build buy isn't that great for either in my opinion. The build stuff in university is very much "university themed" and there isn't really anything much you can use for regular builds, seasons I honestly don't even notice the build buy from it I don't think there's anything that exciting. I'd recommend as an alternative cats and dogs as that's a pretty good pack, the world is the best suburban world in the game in my opinion, build buy is nice, you get pets to play with and a new active career.

Neither is my favorite pack. But if you play rotational, discover university keeps you tied to your university student for a time being.

Seasons is my favourite pack. Discovery University I didn't really like all that much. The game play is kind of boring.

University has always been my favorite packs in TS2 and TS3.
My game play basically has three pillars.
-College life experience
-New friends, new loves
-Academics.

TS4 is heavily slanted towards academics and I find it more boring than the TS2 and TS3 versions.
I find my sims more focused on homework, term papers, presentations, skill building, and getting to class on time.
Your awareness of where your sim stands academically at any moment is nebulous, so you find yourself over compensating to make sure your sim gets good grades.
https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/f116/cireking213/09_22_20_12_25_17_PM.png?width=1920&height=1080&fit=bounds

This is a dorm makeover by the way:


There are other lacking features like no true fraternities and sororities and the secret society is a cult that makes your sim a slave to sprites.
For these reasons, I recommend Seasons, unless college academic game play is your love.

Seasons is one of my favourite packs. The weather just adds so much to the game. Discover University is my least favourite. I'm thinking discover university probably has more gameplay, but still can't bring myself to recommend it. I just don't like university packs and the system is not particularly good.

Seasons adds a weather system which will enhance the aesthetics of your builds and environment depending on the season. As a builder myself I very much appreciate seeing the look of my builds change with the weather, such as frost on glass, puddles in the garden, trees shedding leaves, snow on the roof. These details make the world feel way more dynamic. Smoking chimneys look better when it's cold in game. Open fires make more sense during fall and winter.

The BB items are quite rustic, not very modern, but if you like that kind of style you will probably use plenty of it. I find it to be quite similar to the Cats & Dogs BB library. Seasons also comes with a calendar system which can be nice if you like to organize events for your sims. Events from other packs are added to the calendar.

DU is more focused on the University experience, but outside of that there is not that much to do, although there are plenty of courses and professions to choose from. I don't feel it adds as much to the immersive experience as Seasons.

Personally I would pick Seasons above all EPs if I had none at all, simply because of the weather system. I wouldn't want to do without.

I couldn't play the sims without seasons, and I use the build/buy items a lot (but DU has some great cas items, and I use the bathroom stalls in like, all of my public lots now haha)

But the calendar that seasons adds is necessary for me. Before we had a calendar all of the days just seemed to blend together. I also really like the holiday system! I've used it to add in fall/winter/spring/summer breaks for my kids and teens. It's a life-saver for me since I like larger households and most of my day is spent monitoring their needs/completing homework. Now they have some time off without having to take vacation days and they can hang out with friends. My sims have all of summer off and it really helps give my kids some free time and to make it feel like they're going through school years. Plus since you can still send sims to work/school during holidays I like to think that if I send a kid to school during summer it's "summer school" haha. Holidays don't require traditions so you can give them a day off without the annoying "bad holiday" moodlet if you don't choose any.

Discover University is a pretty good pack I like having it but between the two I'd definitely pick up seasons, it just makes the world feel more alive to me and helps with the feeling of time progression.

"CAPTAIN_NXR7;c-17735359" wrote:
Seasons adds a weather system which will enhance the aesthetics of your builds and environment depending on the season. As a builder myself I very much appreciate seeing the look of my builds change with the weather, such as frost on glass, puddles in the garden, trees shedding leaves, snow on the roof. These details make the world feel way more dynamic. Smoking chimneys look better when it's cold in game. Open fires make more sense during fall and winter.

The BB items are quite rustic, not very modern, but if you like that kind of style you will probably use plenty of it. I find it to be quite similar to the Cats & Dogs BB library. Seasons also comes with a calendar system which can be nice if you like to organize events for your sims. Events from other packs are added to the calendar.

This is really what I needed to hear, I think. I definitely enjoy building more than gameplay in the long run and I think I will enjoy the new aesthetic that each season brings, plus I love rustic style build objects - that's one reason I love Laundry Day and Tiny Living too

I haven't played with University yet since I bought it on sale mostly for the build/buy, especially the shower. I can see it adding some depth when I play families, uni/college being seen as a rite of passage and a phase in life to go crazy and experiment, but it isn't really useful to me when I start a game with a single sim. That's just my playstyle.

Seasons, like someone else commented, is more a background element than a gameplay element. The most important for me is that it helps establish a sense of passage of time. In a season-less world with every day being the same and no calender, the world is frozen. Your sims age up, yes, but it doesn't feel like they get older. You one day look at their age and see "2 days before aging up," then panic that they don't even have a romantic partner yet but wanted to get married by adulthood. With seasons, every Winterfest, Leisure Day and Love Day spent alone is a constant reminder of the time passing that your sim hasn't yet achieved what they want to. You feel the "years" you've spent in a sim's life by how many season cycles you've completed, and if you haven't yet achieved their goals you feel the pressure sinking in to get them done. When they finally HAVE achieved their goals (ex. having a family), those festive holidays, pool days in the heat and cozy shut-in days when it's pouring outside feel much more rewarding, bc you are reminded of the days you spent alone and the work you did to get where you are now, happy and fuzzy.

Seasons is a tool to me, not a gameplay pack. It provides challenges, ex. making the History challenge more difficult or forcing me to plan my days around the weather in normal saves. I especially love that each world has its own climate, giving my decision to live somewhere more weight bc if my sim is an outdoorsy person who thrives on sunshine, rainy Brindleton Bay won't be a good choice (unless I want to purposefully make them unhappy as a narrative, or a motivator to move later on).
Weather and seasons bring atmosphere, providing passive backdrops or actively being taken advantage of. There's a certain feeling I get from having my sims sit in their armchair with a coffee and book/newspaper while the windows are all foggy from the cold outside, passively making me enjoy the experience more. Planning a wedding around a season actively brings atmosphere and purpose - if my sim wants a Spring wedding full of life, it gives me a lot to do in planning, building and choreographing the ceremony, especially if it's still winter and my sim wants everything to be hand-made in advance. If my sim hates Love Day and I decide to take advantage of that, it brings active gameplay of seasonal bitterness - singles parties, anti-love home decor, getting juiced and crying while watching bad romantic TV etc. The possibilities are endless, and it largely depends on your creativity.

Seasons enhances the game for me. If you're looking for hard gameplay, there is some (botany, flower arranging, skating etc), but most of the enjoyment comes from what you make of it.

I ended up buying Seasons! Thanks everyone - it feels like a whole new game with how much the weather and calendar
affects everything! Been experimenting in gameplay a lot, but I'm very excited to do seasonal builds