What is your least favorite/worst expansion pack?

"Calico45;c-17924989" wrote:
It disappointed me the most. It isn't really that it has the least content (there are some things I really like, such as the world), but I feel the focus wasn't where is should be. I have enumerated my reasoning in many threads, put ultimately while CAP is amazing pets feel like lifeless, moving decor that take up a family slot. They aren't fun enough to play for me and pets expansions are my favorite in every other entry. My game does not feel complete without them, and that itch never got really scratched for me.

No pet skills, no info panels, limited personality, no control (neither did 1 and 2, but I still loved and preferred them more so I could have been happy without this), kids cannot bathe, kids cannot walk, cats don't have tricks, cats don't get bathes (and quite frankly they do occasionally need them IRL), no dedicated pet slots, no pet jobs, no small pets in pack and very few added in other places, pet illness cannot be turned off or treated at home with medicine, veterinary bugs (I have gone so many times to get my pet treated and it glitches out and I have to retry multiple times), etc.

Also, it was so insignificant to their actions that I genuinely believed pets had no relationships with each other until someone told me there were files for it. I believe (s)he was a modder.

In comparison, Sims 3 Pets was all I ever wanted and brought me back to Sims 3 when I had given that series up (way too early and easily just because of the differences from 2 and the art style, but that mistake was corrected). So yeah, I could have never understood my disappointment until I got it. It more or less echoed 4's launch and hit harder. Looks great with underwhelming gameplay and no updates to the core you want addressed. (This has been changing for the BG, but since when have the old packs gotten a facelift in 4?)

I agree with this 100%. Cats & Dogs might as well be called the "Everything wrong with TS4" EP because it's the textbook example of at least one of the game's major flaws: All show and no substance. A million different ways to make pets look cute in CAS, a million different sicknesses that can befall them to give you a reason to play with the new vet feature, but can you actually do a million different things with the pets in gameplay? Nope, much less with cats. I'm more of a cat person in real life, yet when my sims get a pet, it's almost always a dog because at least you can do something with them other than feeding and petting.

That said, while Cats & Dogs is definitely the pack that disappointed me the most (because I was really looking forward to it), it's not my least favourite. That would be City Living, which commits yet another major sin: Instead of introducing gameplay elements that enhance your sims’ lives no matter where they live, as a proper EP should, this one focuses too much on its world. Be it the careers if you play them actively, the new aspiration or the festivals, and of course the apartments – everything requires you to live in or at least frequently visit San Myshuno, you can’t even create your own festivals or build your own apartments outside of it, so all that leaves for the rest of the sim world is the (very colourful) CAS and BB items. Technically, I don’t really have a problem with that as long as I like the world, which is why Island Living and Snowy Escape rank higher on my list, but I’m just not into big cities, so San Myshuno, while impressive and unique among this game’s worlds, unfortunately falls flat for me. City Living is also the pack that introduced Asian names for everyone, whether they look the part or not, without also having any proper Asian culture aside from the food. (I think this has been toned down in the meantime, but I'm not sure if the fix came from the developers or a mod I'm using.)