What pack should I get?

"Eleri;c-18264194" wrote:
If you don't mind, I'll answer your question with anther question. You mentioned that you strongly dislike occult game play. Nothing wrong with that, it's your game. But it would help us give you the best advice if you let us know what you do like.

Here is a list of themes/activities that your sim might do. Could you rank these in order of favorite to least favorite?

Raising a family with kids
Raising animals
Exploring a hobby
Succeeding in a career
Succeeding in school
Socializing/partying
Leisure experiences (beach, camping, ski vacation, massage)

Adding to what @Eleri suggested. It’s very helpful to know what you want in your game.

If a pack has something you are looking for, but it introduces an occult or something supernatural, there are ways around the supernatural encounters.

If there is one pack that I think you might want to avoid it’s Vampires. Despite all the options for limiting vampire encounters, they are most definitely going to have a presence in your game no matter what.

A lot of occults have a tendency to blend in with other sims…



If you love beaches, Sulani from Island Living is an amazing island world with lots of beaches and swimming.

About Merfolk…



If you want to pursue careers you can be involved with, Get to Work has some excellent options…

The thing about Aliens is…



I’m not saying you should get a pack with something you don’t want. However, if there is something that is particularly interesting to you in a pack with Occults, I can answer any questions about how to avoid them.

Also, it would be helpful to know if it’s just the Occult Life States that you want to avoid or anything occult.

There are things called “sprites” that appear in various sim worlds… they are like fairies or spirits. Some of the games that don’t introduce a new Occult Life State still have occult elements.

Packs With Sprites…



Also, Seasons have Seasonal Mythical Figures themed after the Holidays: Father Winter, Flower Bunny, Gnomes… of course, these are also things you can change in the game too.

Point is, it would be very helpful to know what Occult Elements are really too much.

The Packs with Occult Life States are a given, but the Life States for Sims really aren’t the only Occult Element in the game.

Tried to edit in spoilers so you don’t need to read something you probably won’t be interested in. The details are there if anyone wants to look at them though.

Just remembered… Servos come with Discover University… they are essentially robots your sims can build that are also playable. Kinda a futuristic life state that is more of a hidden occult.

@JustinB113 I see merfolk swimming around Sulani all the time. Island Living is not a good choice for someone who hates occults.

I see Kalamainu'u Iona all the time everywhere. She may not be with her fins out but she is a premade mermaid.

I think both @JustinB113 and @Eleri both make good points.

@SimplyJen I spend a lot of time in Sulani. I see premades from every pack everywhere there. Kalamainu’u does have a notorious tendency to insert herself into conversations, but she never does anything mermadic or occult. I think it’s her traits that make her act the way she does.

Also, something I wanted to add to Eleri’s statement.

As I understand it, there’s a mechanic called MerWoke, that affects an entire household. Once a household is MerWoke, that’s when they start seeing merfolk swimming around with their fins. I actually think this mechanic is the reason why merfolk end up with glitched swimming. Depending on the household, merfolk are supposed to still appear human in the water… this mechanic really does not work as well as intended and that’s why I never said you won’t see merfolk swimming with a tail.

The things that can make a household MerWoke:

1. Blowing the “Ordinary” Conch Shell and asking about a sim’s strange reaction.
2. Becoming good friends with a MerSim and having them admit to what they are
3. Moving a MerWoke sim into a household
4. Having a sim inside a household become a Mer.

If you do any of these things, you’ll probably start seeing the merfolk swim like merfolk.

Sometimes… the MerWoke Mechanic doesn’t work as intended and non-MerWoke households still see merfolk in their MerForm.

Like I said… there could be some bugs or other complications with the mechanic, but I’m not an expert on programming that can confirm anything.

But, the only reason Merfolk in my save actually have a substantial mermadic presence in my save is because I use mods, cc, and cheats to increase their presence.

In all honesty, after spending years playing the Vanilla Game on the console without access to mods, I always felt like unmodded MerSims only look different from human sims. Otherwise, they act and can only really do most things human sims do. Their mermadic abilities are never used autonomously. Like, there is very little difference between a Vanilla MerSim and a Vanilla Human Sim. It’s almost strictly a difference in how they look while swimming.

Anyways, that’s just my experience with the occult.

I will add that almost all the premade Human Sulani Households start out MerWoke… So, if you’ve added a Keahloha or that other household from the trailer to a played household you can make a household merwoke unintentionally.

The MerWoke is a hidden trait you don’t see similar to traits that decide if a sim is Right Handed or Left Handed/ whether they like Fruit Cake or Not.

Edit: To be fair… I’m not entirely sure how the game handles everything, but I suspect that it’s most likely a hidden trait that flags the household as aware of the existence of merfolk… I’m not 100% certain though.

Kalamainu'u Iona was just an example. She also has high fitness skill so she's likely to show up at the gym (any world). These occults may not be obvious or harmful but it sounds like OP is against anything occult related and does not want one single occult in their game. OP has another thread asking how to use MCCC to humanize all sims so it sounds like having occults in the game is not something they want at all cost. Ghost are a little hard to avoid since they are apart of BG.

I love occults personally but I understand it's not for everyone.

@SimplyJen I didn’t realize they had another thread for that.

MCCC might actually make some of what the original poster wants possible.

I was trying to offer suggestions that didn’t require mods because I didn’t know that they were willing to use them.

I think MCCC has some options for toggling bar nights and other useful functions that won’t humanize all sims but will remove certain occult encounters. I’d definitely recommend MCCC for the packs that introduce occults.

I don’t think the “Sprites” are as easy to toggle.

For Island Spirit Sprites, you just need to not use the Island Spirits Lot Trait.

For Seasonal encounters, just don’t use the traditions associated with them. You can go into the Calendar to create your own Holidays and control what happens.

I can’t exactly remember all the different “Occult” Sprites and the way you can encounter them at the moment. However, a lot of them are tied to Lot Traits, Holiday Traditions, and etc… there are things you can do in the Sims 4 that I rarely see utilized because I don’t think people are even aware that it’s a possibility….

Not going to lie… there are many many things “occult” and “non-occult” that are hidden features you have to do something very specific to encounter because they don’t naturally appear in the game.

The Sulani Mana Trait and Elementals are just one example of something in the Sims 4 that is very complex to encounter and actually impossible to do without an Island Living Trait.

I recommend getting either Seasons for weather, Cats and Dogs for little furry friends, Discover University for the ability to attend university or Dream Home Decorator to have more modern looking furniture if you like that style. I am waiting to get High school years and Growing Together once they go on sale which I would recommend if I had them. Additionally, you should definitely wait for a sale though which should come soon, since it is getting closer to summer and there is usually sales in the summer. Finally, I would suggest that you choose the pack that you find the most compelling and the one that speaks to you the most if that helps.