I think we need to have a discussion on festivals. At first I thought they were such a great idea and had fun with them when they were first introduced. It gave our sims something fun to look forward to to change up their sometimes dull lives. But at this point I think the festivals have just become a lazy way for EA to feel like they’ve added “content” in a new pack without putting in much effort. For example let’s look at the snowy escape festivals. You head to the festival of youth, buy a capsule, use items that have been in the game since base game, buy an outfit and then what? There really should be some new gameplay. And from the looks of things festivals seem to be getting worse, not better. In HSY the football match is basically a festival. All you do is throw around a football and eat. How is this fun or new?So many of these festivals just feel so boring now, we’re getting these in expansions and they don’t seem to be adding any brand new fun content or gameplay to them. Snowy Escape and now HSY seem to have taken the lazy route when they could have been done so much better. What are your thoughts??

I said the same thing when I got snowy escape. I feel EA should have created festivals as a holiday players can make similar to Christmas and Easter. I think the festival lots should have been a special sort of lot designed for only festivals. We can decorate the lot with festive items and choose what festival we want to be there and on which day. Then players can change up how the festivals look, and instead of it being every weekend, we could set it to happen less often so missing it feels sad.But instead the festivals are static and there is no way to shake things up.

I think they were fine in the beginning, I do like that you can often participate in competitions and win prizes but because they haven't really been developed and we don't have any way of customizing them they feel repetitive and overused now.Maxis seems to add them to a lot of packs but I feel that they are not much more than a place to visit in order to do a few activities. They probably put in a lot of work in order to make them by making art and assets and creating tuning files and broadcasters but the end result feels a bit underwhelming when you have visited them a few times... If they had been placed on an actual lot then maybe we could have customized them and added more things to them. In HSY they should probably have been located at the school and happen during school hours.

I've stopped sending my sims to festivals because it's boring. The City Living festivals were fun in the beginning, but it is boring after you've done it a few times. The festivals in Cottage Living and Snowy Escape aren't fun at all. Not even a little, and I'm going to say that it all comes down to their reluctance to do new animations. I think what most players want is more of a carnival, and not the one we're getting with the high school pack that is all rabbit holes. I'm getting really bored with the game. I open it, it loads, and I close it without playing a single minute. And let's be real, I don't play this game to read paragraphs of text. That's got to stop.

I actually still love the City Living Festivals, and still attend most of them regularly. (Spice Festival always, Geek Con usually, Romance Festival sometimes, and Flea Market almost never.) But that's because they have lots of different activities (except for Flea Market), good food options, and lots of new sims to meet.But the ones in Snowy Escape definitely seemed to have potential, but were underwhelming pretty quickly. The ones in HS Years look pretty lacking, too. I agree that it would probably help if we could customize them ourselves, but unfortunately that doesn't seem likely to ever happen.

The festivals in City Living are the only ones I still pay any attention to. While they're pretty limited, there's at least things to DO there. Eating spicy food at the spice festival, dressing up and participating in contests at geek con, drinking tea and talking to the romance guru at the romance festival, picking a team and being mischievous at the humor and hijinks festival with fireworks at the end for the winning team. Even the flea market can be fun to attend, and you can even set up your own table.Comparing those to the ones we're getting in HSY, it's pretty pitiful honestly... So, you what? Take selfies, throw a football, and show off your cheerleading skills? That's it?? And it's so SMALL too. Would've been nice if it took up the whole football field. If there were actual games for your sims to play. Maybe it would've been better if it was more of a school spirit kinda thing, especially since by default you have to schedule on your own the non-sports related events. Why not have them all together? Have some more competitions? Maybe be able to try out for a team? Make it like an event where the clubs are trying to recruit new members? Maybe there could've been the school mascot there that you can talk to and take pictures with like you can with all the other mascots? Get hyped about school spirit or mock it instead? Maybe even prank the mascot? I mean they DID design the Womp Womp, why not make it an actual mascot that one of the teens dresses up as?I like the idea of the festivals, and like I said the CL ones are still fun to attend from time to time. But they are definitely getting more boring. The HSY one is definitely the worst to date. Give my sims something to DO!

Thoughts on festivals? | EA Forums

20 Replies

crocobaura
Legend
4 years ago
I only visit them if my sims need to for social need or if there is something they need from the festival. Flea market if they need some cheap furniture or maybe some free posters or snow globes, spice festival for the spices and free food, humour and hijinks I visited with a sim who was working on becoming an entertainer, Geekcon I visited with a scientist sim, star wars fan, and freelance programmer sim, the Henford festivals I visit with my farmer sims to sell their produce or if some sims need to buy produce. I attended snow festival and festival of light once each. I was disappointed because my sim bought a pretty kimono from the vending machine and the game gave her a stupid flat cap to wear too and I could not change it for some reason.
wexxam
Seasoned Ace
4 years ago
"crocobaura;c-18155480" wrote:
I only visit them if my sims need to for social need or if there is something they need from the festival. Flea market if they need some cheap furniture or maybe some free posters or snow globes, spice festival for the spices and free food, humour and hijinks I visited with a sim who was working on becoming an entertainer, Geekcon I visited with a scientist sim, star wars fan, and freelance programmer sim, the Henford festivals I visit with my farmer sims to sell their produce or if some sims need to buy produce. I attended snow festival and festival of light once each. I was disappointed because my sim bought a pretty kimono from the vending machine and the game gave her a stupid flat cap to wear too and I could not change it for some reason.

I also do think the cottage living festivals are okay if you have farmer sims. The competitions make it more interesting as there is atleast a prize for participating. However the Snow Escape ones and now HSY have severely hit the mark IMO. There are so many brand new objects and gameplay ideas they could of added to these festivals but decided to do the bare minimum.
crocobaura
Legend
4 years ago
"sam123;c-18155490" wrote:
"crocobaura;c-18155480" wrote:
I only visit them if my sims need to for social need or if there is something they need from the festival. Flea market if they need some cheap furniture or maybe some free posters or snow globes, spice festival for the spices and free food, humour and hijinks I visited with a sim who was working on becoming an entertainer, Geekcon I visited with a scientist sim, star wars fan, and freelance programmer sim, the Henford festivals I visit with my farmer sims to sell their produce or if some sims need to buy produce. I attended snow festival and festival of light once each. I was disappointed because my sim bought a pretty kimono from the vending machine and the game gave her a stupid flat cap to wear too and I could not change it for some reason.

I also do think the cottage living festivals are okay if you have farmer sims. The competitions make it more interesting as there is atleast a prize for participating. However the Snow Escape ones and now HSY have severely hit the mark IMO. There are so many brand new objects and gameplay ideas they could of added to these festivals but decided to do the bare minimum.

I haven't played the HSY ones yet, so can't say much about them, but the festivals from snowy escape don't engage our sims too much, unless it's food related activity. I like food and it's good that we get so may recipes, but there's not much to do there except eat and watch fire works. And because they are not editable, we can't add more stuff from other packs either so we're stuck with them.
wexxam
Seasoned Ace
4 years ago
"crocobaura;c-18155571" wrote:
"sam123;c-18155490" wrote:
"crocobaura;c-18155480" wrote:
I only visit them if my sims need to for social need or if there is something they need from the festival. Flea market if they need some cheap furniture or maybe some free posters or snow globes, spice festival for the spices and free food, humour and hijinks I visited with a sim who was working on becoming an entertainer, Geekcon I visited with a scientist sim, star wars fan, and freelance programmer sim, the Henford festivals I visit with my farmer sims to sell their produce or if some sims need to buy produce. I attended snow festival and festival of light once each. I was disappointed because my sim bought a pretty kimono from the vending machine and the game gave her a stupid flat cap to wear too and I could not change it for some reason.

I also do think the cottage living festivals are okay if you have farmer sims. The competitions make it more interesting as there is atleast a prize for participating. However the Snow Escape ones and now HSY have severely hit the mark IMO. There are so many brand new objects and gameplay ideas they could of added to these festivals but decided to do the bare minimum.

I haven't played the HSY ones yet, so can't say much about them, but the festivals from snowy escape don't engage our sims too much, unless it's food related activity. I like food and it's good that we get so may recipes, but there's not much to do there except eat and watch fire works. And because they are not editable, we can't add more stuff from other packs either so we're stuck with them.

Watch the game changer videos on them and you'll feel the same way. There is literally nothing to do lmao.
Zmias1
Seasoned Ace
4 years ago
I agree and never feel motivated to send my sims to the ones in either Cottage Living (usually almost devoid of npc's) and Snowy Escape after just one time.
Also, even though the City Living ones are better than the ones in those two packs, I really thought they would have done a refresh on some of the festivals (including Flea Market) or at least changed them up a bit for that pack as I don't bother to send my sims to those anymore at all.
FriendlySimmers
Seasoned Ace
4 years ago
i have never sent my sims to festivals only one time but ignore festival annoncement now
LetMePlaySimSoon
New Scout
4 years ago
I've only played Snowy Escape for a few days on free trial, but there's definitely a lot to do at the festival of youth at least? At least if you're a child.
GalacticGal
Legend
4 years ago
I still enjoy sending my Sims to the Spice Festival, the Hijinks and Humor festival, and the Romance Festival. So far, the one in HS is boring to a point. I think I've only gone to the one in Mt. Komorebi once, didn't have fun, so why send my Sims? The one in Fenwick? never plays out well, inasmuch as there has never been any proper resolution. No one ever wins, the festival just fades away. Most disappointing of them all.

I do agree, these little changes could be better. And I agree the devs probably feel as if they've done a lot in giving the game more fullness, but I don't think that's so. Adding Knickknacks to a room can really make it homey and nice, but adding too many can cause clutter. I think we've reached clutter, now.
Jade47UK
4 years ago
I think they're okay. Like a lot of things they're of limited value and in many cases tend to happen when my sims are busy with something else or totally exhausted. One of my sims went to the flea market a couple of times and bought some junk, seems pretty accurate to real life. Romance festival is total fantasy but kind of funny, especially seeking the advice of the guru who tells you some rubbish about your future love life. Spice festival was good to learn the recipes. Never had a sim visit humour festival or geekcon.

Finchwick Fair is just as lame as the one we have in our village but one of the interactions makes me laugh "ask about bird's plummage history" or something. It is actually somewhat useful for loner sims to talk to a lot of sims at once, I never enter anything, I'm not into sim gardening.
pepperjax1230
Seasoned Ace
4 years ago
There are way to many I can't even go to all of them especially if its going to happen on the same day as another billion of them. Yes I am exaggerating. :D

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