What beginner packs should I have for Sims 4?

If you don't have seasons, no weather. If every day being the same sunny day is fine, great. If you won't be happy without changing seasons and weather, you'll need Seasons.

If you want to be able to go dancing at the club, to a dj, and to be able to summon groups of sims to meet up when and where you want, to do activities you choose, by criteria like age, or marital status, or skill level, you need Get Together.

If you want the chance to live in apartments, from the low-rent rat and roach infested kind, to the posh penthouse, and a city vibe with city spaces and festivals, you need City Living.

If you want any jobs that aren't rabbitholes, you need Get To Work, and if you want non-rabbithole high school, you need High School Years.

If I had to choose just how ones I most need to make the game fun, it would be Seasons, Get Together, and City Living.

Seasons should be #1- it adds something for every player, realism with weather, and less mundane every day Sunshine. You can create your own holidays, and they can revolve around anything you want. If you aren't a family player, and don't want to have traditional holidays, you can literally make any other holiday you want, about anything.

#2- really depends on the type of player you are. I am a family player. So for me, my #2 must have is the Parenthood Pack.

Buuut

...If you're into occults, there is the Vampire pack, and the Werewolf pack that you could add.

...If you want to make an apartment like you live in now, and hit the town, I would recommend Get Together.

...If you want to gather together and throw parties with your friends, deff get the Backyard Stuff or the Patio Stuff packs.

Lots of options, but, it really depends on what you want to accomplish in your game!

Happy Simming!

Werewolves has a lot of great gameplay that actually works better without a lot of stuff added to it. Youtube has multiple video series of people playing the pack.

I think Cottage Living is a better beginner pack than Seasons. Seasons is great, but a beginner will have difficulty preventing deaths from the cold. I would only add Seasons after playing Werewolf and Cottage Living for a bit. The animals in Cottage Living are more interesting to me than Cats and Dogs. The gardening and building items complement the Werewolves pack.

High school was one of the last packs that I bought and I was not interested in it by itself, but I like it combined with the Werewolves pack. A pack that a person is least interested in might add interesting gameplay when combined with a pack that a person is more interested in. The Teen emotions mixed with Werewolves emotions results in a lot of funny drama. I was not expecting to laugh so much while playing Sims.

The Jungle pack looks to have a lot of great gameplay, too, but I have not had time to properly explore it, yet. If someone has no interest in the Werewolves gameplay, they might like the Jungle pack as their first pack, and then add the packs that they think will most complement that pack.