I at least need some type of occult content added to my game. At the very least, with Sims 2 I need Night Life and Apartment Life for vampires and witches, I need Sims 3 Supernatural, and I didn't event consider buying Sims 4 until the Vampires game pack came out (also them releasing toddlers at that time is all the push I needed).
So yea, even though older Sims titles have had more in the base game than Sims 4, I still wouldn't buy a single base game without at least 1 occult EP to go with it.