I've seen this argument come up before about comparisons to past sims games/packs and I've never actually seen proof provided (which is what is needed for the argument to work) that the TS4 packs are objectively "thinner." Every time, cherrypicked examples are trotted out, like, "This pack had a butler in it and TS4 put the butler in a stuff pack." As if the entirety of the differences between EP and EP is whether each did or didn't have a butler.
If you are seriously going to use an argument like that, you have to go in depth. This wannabe academic nonsense of pulling out one or two examples to sound authoritative is tiresome and tired.
Above post by Sk8rblaze reminded me of what I wanted to respond to. It's not that it's hard to answer this question, it's that I think most people, such as Sk8rblaze, can agree Sims 4 expansions are lacking without a demand for a discussion "proving" it. But if you insist....
Let's compare Get to Work to Ambitions.
Get to Work had:
-3 careers
-1 and a half new skills (one and a half because one skill only goes to 5)
-A retail system less interactive and less polished than it's Sims 2 counterpart (we'd have to watch youtube clips of both to really showcase this)
-One tiny neighborhood with four lots
-New furniture and CAS items
-New misc collectibles
-New life state
-New secret lot
Of the three careers, one felt truly complete with lots of new gadgets for it, another felt "adequate," and the third felt like it was lazily slapped together over the course of two weeks. Detective career lacked depth and a sense of progress at all, with no new career interactions being unlocked in the entirety of the career. Of the skills, Photography was rather basic and just affected photo quality and value. Baking was likewise surprisingly basic, with higher levels unlocking hire-value baked goods; the skills seems DESIGNED to be used in retail and otherwise has no purpose. The neighborhood practically doesn't count as one, it's just a handful of lots. Aliens felt like a rather lackluster life state, functioning identical needs-wise to a Sim with their only notable (aka fully unique) powers being to erase a Sims memory and convert collectibles...and wear a disguise if you view that as a power. A secret lot offers a new place to farm collectibles.
Ambitions had:
-8 careers+ (+ because it also added self-employed careers, which were less involved but sometimes still had unique rewards)
-2 skills
-Laundry and Laundromats as a new concept, Firefighters expanded upon
-One new neighborhood, full-sized and as big as the base game's
-New Furniture and CAS items
-New misc collectibles
-New life state
Of the careers, two were heavily focused on allowing you to customize the town, either letting you customize the appearance of townies or the appearance of townie homes. Another was simply a standard inactive career if that was your thing, another was just the doctor career expanded to have active alternatives to the standard inactive career, and the last three were highly active. (Firefighter, Ghost Hunter, Private Investigator) Notably, Ghost Hunter had a habit of bugging out on players fairly reliably. Of the skills, both were quite expansive, with sculpting allowing you to sculpt EVERY item in your household if you had the time and patience to invest towards doing it, while Inventing had a number of neat new gadgets tied into it. The neighborhood came with a select number of new lots and lot types, such as junkyards, fire stations, stylist salons, consignment stores and laundromats. Consignment stores let you sell your craftables while allowing you to purchase things that normally can't be found elsewhere. The new life state functioned uniquely compared to Sims in that it could fill it's hunger on the fly, didn't need to shower and had to avoid water, while also aging up differently (one life stage only, but lived longer in it). They were also capable of destroying objects for scrap (food), though this was frowned upon.
It seems pretty clear Ambitions has more depth and features to it. You get more careers, more skills, the skills housed infinitely more depth compared to rather bland counterparts in GTW, a bigger neighborhood, the neighborhood itself has far more unique lots and unique new NPC functions than GTW, and the life state had more unique lifestyle aspects to it than aliens do in 4; aliens often function identically to Sims in day to day life, whereas Simbots were very good at filling hunger on the fly, didn't need hygiene, could flirt with home appliances for social and had to avoid water like the plague. You could even re-program their personalities.
Also worth note in Sims 3 Showtime, which was a great example of "what NOT to do" and was one of the most poorly received expansions in Sims 3. It, like Get to Work, offered 3 new careers of modest detail, a new neighborhood, I believe it only offered passive or hidden skills (golf, dominos, DJing, Singing), and one new life state that was actually pretty solid. This one is far more comparable in size and scope....but that's not really a good thing since this one was already criticized in Sims 3, too.
Should I keep going and compare Late Night to City Living? Don't wanna crowd the page with more write-ups that many wouldn't find neccesary, but I will if it's insisted upon.
The business career in Get to Work I would say is still pretty well done, in terms of skills I believe both new skills, photography and baking, are far from basic. Baking requires the player to focus on other skills as well in order to bake certain recipes, some recipes require some produce or fish, and in order to get a high quality meal you need high quality ingredients, if anything the baking skill expands two other skills as well. Building the baking skill unlocks new recipes, which require different ingredients, and in order to get good quality ingredient to make good quality pastries you need to also focus on other skills as well. In terms of photography, there's an option to build a whole photography studio, how you use the studio is completely up to you. Building the skill is quite basic, but how you use it has many different options. Although by criticising the photography skill from Get to Work you might as well also criticize the photography skill from The Sims 3, they are both pretty much the same in terms of just building the skill, gameplay though for photography I believe to be better in GTW.
I don't need a lecture on personal opinion. If you can't discern between fact and opinion without a visual warning saying "this is my opinion NOT FACT" on a web forum composed of mostly subjective opinions then I don't know what to tell you. General rule of internet use, don't assume anything is a fact unless evidence is presented. Criticising an opinion that you perceived as fact is non-constructive and derails the thread.
Your enterpretation of my opinion doesn't give you any right to try and suppress said opinion. When you run off criticism by requiring objective facts, you aren't helping the developers buddy. You're eliminating people who's opinions help shape a better game.
The very idea that I can discern fact from opinion is what enables me to call someone out on portraying opinion as fact. If I couldn't tell the difference between the two, I wouldn't be able to point out when the one is being used like it's the other.
You can read the reply I wrote you in that other thread for more in-depth. I sincerely don't know where you're getting the idea that I'm trying to suppress opinions. All I ask is that people not wield their opinions like they are facts. That shouldn't "run off criticism" at all and I would be very confused if it did.
The only one insisting opinions are facts is you. The one interpreting my opinion as a fact is you. You obviously cannot discern because this is like the 4th post since I explicitly told you it's my opinion and you're still over there lambasting my opinion because you perceived it as fact, and you decided to derail the topic into "don't spread opinion as if it's fact" when that's not what I am doing, that's how YOU are interpreting it. If you don't perceive it as fact then you are having a pointless conversation right now, after I have told you several times that is my opinion. If after all of that you're still going on and on about the same mistake you made two days ago in wrongly interpreting my post then you need to reread or move on. There's nothing else to be said here.
I've seen this argument come up before about comparisons to past sims games/packs and I've never actually seen proof provided (which is what is needed for the argument to work) that the TS4 packs are objectively "thinner." Every time, cherrypicked examples are trotted out, like, "This pack had a butler in it and TS4 put the butler in a stuff pack." As if the entirety of the differences between EP and EP is whether each did or didn't have a butler.
If you are seriously going to use an argument like that, you have to go in depth. This wannabe academic nonsense of pulling out one or two examples to sound authoritative is tiresome and tired.
Above post by Sk8rblaze reminded me of what I wanted to respond to. It's not that it's hard to answer this question, it's that I think most people, such as Sk8rblaze, can agree Sims 4 expansions are lacking without a demand for a discussion "proving" it. But if you insist....
Let's compare Get to Work to Ambitions.
Get to Work had:
-3 careers
-1 and a half new skills (one and a half because one skill only goes to 5)
-A retail system less interactive and less polished than it's Sims 2 counterpart (we'd have to watch youtube clips of both to really showcase this)
-One tiny neighborhood with four lots
-New furniture and CAS items
-New misc collectibles
-New life state
-New secret lot
Of the three careers, one felt truly complete with lots of new gadgets for it, another felt "adequate," and the third felt like it was lazily slapped together over the course of two weeks. Detective career lacked depth and a sense of progress at all, with no new career interactions being unlocked in the entirety of the career. Of the skills, Photography was rather basic and just affected photo quality and value. Baking was likewise surprisingly basic, with higher levels unlocking hire-value baked goods; the skills seems DESIGNED to be used in retail and otherwise has no purpose. The neighborhood practically doesn't count as one, it's just a handful of lots. Aliens felt like a rather lackluster life state, functioning identical needs-wise to a Sim with their only notable (aka fully unique) powers being to erase a Sims memory and convert collectibles...and wear a disguise if you view that as a power. A secret lot offers a new place to farm collectibles.
Ambitions had:
-8 careers+ (+ because it also added self-employed careers, which were less involved but sometimes still had unique rewards)
-2 skills
-Laundry and Laundromats as a new concept, Firefighters expanded upon
-One new neighborhood, full-sized and as big as the base game's
-New Furniture and CAS items
-New misc collectibles
-New life state
Of the careers, two were heavily focused on allowing you to customize the town, either letting you customize the appearance of townies or the appearance of townie homes. Another was simply a standard inactive career if that was your thing, another was just the doctor career expanded to have active alternatives to the standard inactive career, and the last three were highly active. (Firefighter, Ghost Hunter, Private Investigator) Notably, Ghost Hunter had a habit of bugging out on players fairly reliably. Of the skills, both were quite expansive, with sculpting allowing you to sculpt EVERY item in your household if you had the time and patience to invest towards doing it, while Inventing had a number of neat new gadgets tied into it. The neighborhood came with a select number of new lots and lot types, such as junkyards, fire stations, stylist salons, consignment stores and laundromats. Consignment stores let you sell your craftables while allowing you to purchase things that normally can't be found elsewhere. The new life state functioned uniquely compared to Sims in that it could fill it's hunger on the fly, didn't need to shower and had to avoid water, while also aging up differently (one life stage only, but lived longer in it). They were also capable of destroying objects for scrap (food), though this was frowned upon.
It seems pretty clear Ambitions has more depth and features to it. You get more careers, more skills, the skills housed infinitely more depth compared to rather bland counterparts in GTW, a bigger neighborhood, the neighborhood itself has far more unique lots and unique new NPC functions than GTW, and the life state had more unique lifestyle aspects to it than aliens do in 4; aliens often function identically to Sims in day to day life, whereas Simbots were very good at filling hunger on the fly, didn't need hygiene, could flirt with home appliances for social and had to avoid water like the plague. You could even re-program their personalities.
Also worth note in Sims 3 Showtime, which was a great example of "what NOT to do" and was one of the most poorly received expansions in Sims 3. It, like Get to Work, offered 3 new careers of modest detail, a new neighborhood, I believe it only offered passive or hidden skills (golf, dominos, DJing, Singing), and one new life state that was actually pretty solid. This one is far more comparable in size and scope....but that's not really a good thing since this one was already criticized in Sims 3, too.
Should I keep going and compare Late Night to City Living? Don't wanna crowd the page with more write-ups that many wouldn't find neccesary, but I will if it's insisted upon.
The business career in Get to Work I would say is still pretty well done, in terms of skills I believe both new skills, photography and baking, are far from basic. Baking requires the player to focus on other skills as well in order to bake certain recipes, some recipes require some produce or fish, and in order to get a high quality meal you need high quality ingredients, if anything the baking skill expands two other skills as well. Building the baking skill unlocks new recipes, which require different ingredients, and in order to get good quality ingredient to make good quality pastries you need to also focus on other skills as well. In terms of photography, there's an option to build a whole photography studio, how you use the studio is completely up to you. Building the skill is quite basic, but how you use it has many different options. Although by criticising the photography skill from Get to Work you might as well also criticize the photography skill from The Sims 3, they are both pretty much the same in terms of just building the skill, gameplay though for photography I believe to be better in GTW.
That same baking skill you praise has two functions: you can eat the produce or sell it. Eating it yields no special new abilities, moodlets or effects; it's identical to any other food. Selling it is the primary purpose, with new unlocks only serving to increase profit. The entire skill is devoid of new abilities and features, instead only governing how much you make.
The photography skill does not allow for a studio, the object and the retail system do this. As I said, all the skill does is increase the quality of the photos and their value. Both have no function other than to increase your funds.
Ask yourself this: which skill is the best out of Painting, Baking and Photography? That's right, it's painting, because it does the function of the other two better while also providing additional functions such as emotional paintings. Baking's hunger fulfillment is even inferior to regular cooking, since it's a dessert that doesn't fill your sim and makes their hunger drain faster. And this is precisely why I have little praise for those two skills.
Inventing and Sculpting on the other hand....? Sculpting is a great hobby skill. Your sim could craft practically any furniture piece. With enough time and practice, your Sim could make an entire house out of ice furniture, for example. The functions themselves are not unique, but the aesthetic absolutely is, and this is by far the most expansive hobby the Sims series has ever gotten. For many players it might be too much, but for those that care to have an "endless" hobby, this suits them perfectly. Inventing...? There's a number of unique items that are crafted, as well as the unique ability to detonate objects. The Miner, Time Machine, and Collector in particular all have rather unique gameplay tied to them. For crying out loud, the final invention is a life state.
It's very very clear which expansion has the more expansive skills attached to it. GTW's skills have MINIMAL effort put into them.
As for Photography from World Adventures, you're right, I wouldn't praise it much either....and I'd STILL praise it more than this one, because it was once again more expansive. Again, if hobbies are your thing, the Sims 3's photography skill was probably the second most expansive hobby, with dozens of huge collections of photographs to get, many of which required some degree of travel or social events to be completed. Still, no, it was not this amazing skill to write home about. Even if Sims 4's were superior, this would not exactly be a meaningful achievement. I don't see the purpose in you bringing up this comparison, to be frank. It just seems to miss the point and think this is some Sims 3 vs. Sims 4 competition. It's not. Sims 3 is mentioned solely to highlight what is possible to "prove" Sims 4 has missed potential, not out of some fan desire to see it viewed as the best. On occassion it's Sims 2 that serves that function, such as with the retail.
its simply because with sims 4 they decided to divide the content more then before and include stuff that should be made for eps in stuff packs and devote and divide those creators into 3 types of packs so they can make even more money , leaving the expension pack team destroyed
you know i'm pretty sure if they can cancel the whole expansion pack idea and start dividing there work into even more stuff pack so they can even get more money from them they wouldn't say no
its almost as if they were forced to make expansion packs but decide to keep the content at minimum cause they think they can put it in its own pack wish will make them more money
I was actually playing The Sims 2 last night and took my Sims to a bowling place just so I could remember what it was about (to compare it to The Sims 4 stuff pack) and I couldn't believe the amount of content that we got back then. Expansion Packs were HUGE and even the base game had so many little details and interactions that they've missed now.
I love The Sims 4 for what it is (if I look at it as a separate game, not a third sequel) but yes, they've been lacking so much content. I had huge expectations for City Living and it's a beautiful world but it's so limited. I'm both excited and afraid of the next expansion pack because it seems like it's going to be Pets. I'm excited because I love it but I'm afraid that just like the other 3 EPs, they're going to half bake it or who knows, maybe they will surprise us and just like Toddlers, these have the potential to be the best Pets of the entire series.
I admire everyone involved and the Gurus because they do their job and have fun doing it so I just want to thank them for working so hard on the game but that's just my opinion as a player and fan for 17 years.
I find them skimpy also. I bought two of them for the 'worlds' but hardly ever visit CL world at all, moved my Sims back to the other worlds. I bought GTW because these Sims desperately needed more job choices. The same ole thing over and over does get redundant with aspirations and jobs. Pets is not my favorite things in Sims. So, I bet they add something I would have to have, like world editing and military career and things like that. I wouldn't doubt it just to make some of us buy Pets EP when it's not my favorite just to get world editing or military career and new aspirations or something I am really needing.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
Honestly, the limitations in City Living make me wonder about the overall "tech" of this game. It's like it was too hard to code a lot building to recognize walls and fences as dividers that created an apartment with said locked door. Instead of coding "apartment door" to a specific door like in 2, why not blend the Sims 3 solution of specific doors options (clickable options). Anyhow taking it for what it is. Sometimes I feel like they were in such a whole it's taking them forever to dig out and things are spared in favor of forward movement within budgets. SMH. Either way, now that we seem to be on par now hopefully things will have more depth to them. The "classic build lot" apartment feature and retail purchasing are the two things I can think of that I'm the most frustrated with them doing to this game still. It is what it is. Can't wait for the teaser to see what's coming this next Quarter! Will it be jam packed? Pets is a safe bet but not placing bets on it. They are doing things out of the norm this time around. Sims 3 era we got two trailers at the same time with Pets and Generations and Pets wasn't until wayyyyyy later, unlike SN & SNS being released a couple months apart.
Honestly, the limitations in City Living make me wonder about the overall "tech" of this game. It's like it was too hard to code a lot building to recognize walls and fences as dividers that created an apartment with said locked door. Instead of coding "apartment door" to a specific door like in 2, why not blend the Sims 3 solution of specific doors options (clickable options). Anyhow taking it for what it is. Sometimes I feel like they were in such a whole it's taking them forever to dig out and things are spared in favor of forward movement within budgets. SMH. Either way, now that we seem to be on par now hopefully things will have more depth to them. The "classic build lot" apartment feature and retail purchasing are the two things I can think of that I'm the most frustrated with them doing to this game still. It is what it is. Can't wait for the teaser to see what's coming this next Quarter! Will it be jam packed? Pets is a safe bet but not placing bets on it. They are doing things out of the norm this time around. Sims 3 era we got two trailers at the same time with Pets and Generations and Pets wasn't until wayyyyyy later, unlike SN & SNS being released a couple months apart.
Anyhoo, I'm looking forward to whats coming next!
Sorry if this is off topic but I'm still trying to wrap my head around what made apartments in TS3 so much different than they are in TS4?
Is it that the shells were ploppable?
@Jordan061102 I agree with this post. TS3 expansions came with so many new features, while the ones released so far for TS4 have seemed very dry and bland.
Sorry, I don't agree. If anything, TS3 resorted to a lot of padding to make it look like you were getting more than what you were getting.
For example, let's take a look at Seasons. On first glance, when you look at Seasons, you think, "Wow! Look at this! Not only am I getting weather, I'm getting so much more gameplay in the form of four unique and totally fleshed out festivals! Yippee!"
But you know what? You weren't. Yes, you got a handful of season-specific objects for these festivals (snowboard ramp, love meter, soccer net, apple bobbing, haunted house, hay bales, pumpkin patch, tanning booth, easter egg hunt). But the festivals were mostly padded out with objects that were being recycled across all four seasons (food vendor, face painting, photo booths, Family Arena) or were technically different but performed more or less the same function (ice skating and roller skating rinks, pie/hot dog eating contest). It's not obvious as a player that this is the case but as a builder it's very obvious to see how cleverly they repurposed or made objects do double duty to make it look like you were getting so much content and gameplay in Seasons.
Ditto with World Adventures. It looked like you were getting fully fleshed out worlds in that game, each filled with a large number of unique activities and adventures. But you weren't. You were getting more or less the exact same experience across all three worlds because they were all based on the same set of assets, interactions and animations. Once you had explored, excavated or tomb raided one world, you had pretty much done it all. The only real difference between visiting and doing stuff in China, France and Egypt was the backdrop and some minor details (like nectar tasting vs martial arts training). But beyond those minor things the experiences and gameplay were pretty interchangeable between all three worlds.
Again, Ambitions. Don't get me wrong--there were some great new additions and everything, but the Stylist and Architect careers were padding, as they were built around two preexisting gameplay features (Build Mode, CAS). You did not get new animations or features at all, and the only object you got was a table that did "double duty" (acted as a drafting table for both the architect and stylist profession).
So maybe EPs from the past were "fat" but they were fat because they were padded, not because they were full of features.
Honestly, the limitations in City Living make me wonder about the overall "tech" of this game. It's like it was too hard to code a lot building to recognize walls and fences as dividers that created an apartment with said locked door. Instead of coding "apartment door" to a specific door like in 2, why not blend the Sims 3 solution of specific doors options (clickable options). Anyhow taking it for what it is. Sometimes I feel like they were in such a whole it's taking them forever to dig out and things are spared in favor of forward movement within budgets. SMH. Either way, now that we seem to be on par now hopefully things will have more depth to them. The "classic build lot" apartment feature and retail purchasing are the two things I can think of that I'm the most frustrated with them doing to this game still. It is what it is. Can't wait for the teaser to see what's coming this next Quarter! Will it be jam packed? Pets is a safe bet but not placing bets on it. They are doing things out of the norm this time around. Sims 3 era we got two trailers at the same time with Pets and Generations and Pets wasn't until wayyyyyy later, unlike SN & SNS being released a couple months apart.
Anyhoo, I'm looking forward to whats coming next!
Sorry if this is off topic but I'm still trying to wrap my head around what made apartments in TS3 so much different than they are in TS4?
Is it that the shells were ploppable?
You can't build apts outside of the city in Sims 4 whereas it was possible in TS3. I never truly played with the apts in TS3 but In TS2 I had a blast. If one can build Apts outside of the City that would have been major, shells or not.
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I think the first two EPs were skimpy but City Living definitely was a step up, which I believe may be from us dedicated simmers not settling for less lol. Even though it isn't my favorite EP (my fave is GTW because I love the [glitchy] doctor career), it definitely had more to offer compared to the other two; however Get Together comes in second in regards to quantity and Get to Work in dead last. I may be trippin' out but in my perspective, what each EP offers is more than the last. I dunno... my hope is EA is listening to criticisms and upping next EPs.
Honestly, the limitations in City Living make me wonder about the overall "tech" of this game. It's like it was too hard to code a lot building to recognize walls and fences as dividers that created an apartment with said locked door. Instead of coding "apartment door" to a specific door like in 2, why not blend the Sims 3 solution of specific doors options (clickable options). Anyhow taking it for what it is. Sometimes I feel like they were in such a whole it's taking them forever to dig out and things are spared in favor of forward movement within budgets. SMH. Either way, now that we seem to be on par now hopefully things will have more depth to them. The "classic build lot" apartment feature and retail purchasing are the two things I can think of that I'm the most frustrated with them doing to this game still. It is what it is. Can't wait for the teaser to see what's coming this next Quarter! Will it be jam packed? Pets is a safe bet but not placing bets on it. They are doing things out of the norm this time around. Sims 3 era we got two trailers at the same time with Pets and Generations and Pets wasn't until wayyyyyy later, unlike SN & SNS being released a couple months apart.
Anyhoo, I'm looking forward to whats coming next!
Sorry if this is off topic but I'm still trying to wrap my head around what made apartments in TS3 so much different than they are in TS4?
Is it that the shells were ploppable?
You can't build apts outside of the city in Sims 4 whereas it was possible in TS3. I never truly played with the apts in TS3 but In TS2 I had a blast. If one can build Apts outside of the City that would have been major, shells or not.
OIC.
I think I have a hunch why they might have done that.
It's most likely a population control issue.
Honestly, the limitations in City Living make me wonder about the overall "tech" of this game. It's like it was too hard to code a lot building to recognize walls and fences as dividers that created an apartment with said locked door. Instead of coding "apartment door" to a specific door like in 2, why not blend the Sims 3 solution of specific doors options (clickable options). Anyhow taking it for what it is. Sometimes I feel like they were in such a whole it's taking them forever to dig out and things are spared in favor of forward movement within budgets. SMH. Either way, now that we seem to be on par now hopefully things will have more depth to them. The "classic build lot" apartment feature and retail purchasing are the two things I can think of that I'm the most frustrated with them doing to this game still. It is what it is. Can't wait for the teaser to see what's coming this next Quarter! Will it be jam packed? Pets is a safe bet but not placing bets on it. They are doing things out of the norm this time around. Sims 3 era we got two trailers at the same time with Pets and Generations and Pets wasn't until wayyyyyy later, unlike SN & SNS being released a couple months apart.
Anyhoo, I'm looking forward to whats coming next!
Sorry if this is off topic but I'm still trying to wrap my head around what made apartments in TS3 so much different than they are in TS4?
Is it that the shells were ploppable?
You can't build apts outside of the city in Sims 4 whereas it was possible in TS3. I never truly played with the apts in TS3 but In TS2 I had a blast. If one can build Apts outside of the City that would have been major, shells or not.
OIC.
I think I have a hunch why they might have done that.
It's most likely a population control issue.
Thanks for the heads up
IIRC they said that apartments were designed the way they were to match the visual aesthetics of the city. Population control probably plays into that, but their overall design was influenced by the developers favoritism of visual aesthetic over new/different functionality.
Honestly, the limitations in City Living make me wonder about the overall "tech" of this game. It's like it was too hard to code a lot building to recognize walls and fences as dividers that created an apartment with said locked door. Instead of coding "apartment door" to a specific door like in 2, why not blend the Sims 3 solution of specific doors options (clickable options). Anyhow taking it for what it is. Sometimes I feel like they were in such a whole it's taking them forever to dig out and things are spared in favor of forward movement within budgets. SMH. Either way, now that we seem to be on par now hopefully things will have more depth to them. The "classic build lot" apartment feature and retail purchasing are the two things I can think of that I'm the most frustrated with them doing to this game still. It is what it is. Can't wait for the teaser to see what's coming this next Quarter! Will it be jam packed? Pets is a safe bet but not placing bets on it. They are doing things out of the norm this time around. Sims 3 era we got two trailers at the same time with Pets and Generations and Pets wasn't until wayyyyyy later, unlike SN & SNS being released a couple months apart.
Anyhoo, I'm looking forward to whats coming next!
Sorry if this is off topic but I'm still trying to wrap my head around what made apartments in TS3 so much different than they are in TS4?
Is it that the shells were ploppable?
You can't build apts outside of the city in Sims 4 whereas it was possible in TS3. I never truly played with the apts in TS3 but In TS2 I had a blast. If one can build Apts outside of the City that would have been major, shells or not.
OIC.
I think I have a hunch why they might have done that.
It's most likely a population control issue.
Thanks for the heads up
You welcome
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I think the first two EPs were skimpy but City Living definitely was a step up, which I believe may be from us dedicated simmers not settling for less lol. Even though it isn't my favorite EP (my fave is GTW because I love the [glitchy] doctor career), it definitely had more to offer compared to the other two; however Get Together comes in second in regards to quantity and Get to Work in dead last. I may be trippin' out but in my perspective, what each EP offers is more than the last. I dunno... my hope is EA is listening to criticisms and upping next EPs.
Umm city living offered nothing compared to the other two packs. At least the other two tried to actually expand the game in terms of new content added to the core. All city living did was add a really truly ugly world (in my opinion) and a bunch of features that are useless outside said ugly world. In my honest opinion the best thing about that pack was basketball and the hookah. Thankfully I only paid half price for that abomination of an expansion pack.
If city living is the best the team can offer then ep's for the sims 4 are doomed to be shallow useless filler packs until the next stuff pack rolls up.
Again rating in quantity city living would be placed dead last behind every pack in the entire history of the sims series for one thing alone...those awful travesty 'elevators' they deemed worthy to give us. Those 'elevators'really show how much the ep team cares about the ep's...that's to say nothing.
But hey it's just my opinion. If you like city living that's fine but I expect more from an EP that took nearly a year to make and with a team knowing fully )for the first time for the sims 4 ep's) what their audiences were wanting. City living is the absolute lowest of the low in terms of ep's and I pray to the sims team to never, ever, ever try to recreate it in any way shape or form.
I would be infinitely less annoyed about the Bowling Stuff pack if it was just an addon to some kind of Games GP. On its own, it doesn't stand up.
It feels like somebody said, "Okay, time to make a Stuff Pack. We need to do something that was in Sims 3. Anybody got any ideas?" and somebody else said, "You can bowl in Sims 3." And then they just took all the things used for bowling out of Sims 3 without actually giving us anything that could be used anywhere other than bowling.
I know we had Toddlers for free recently but that's no excuse for such a weak effort.
Prepping a list of mods to add after Infants are placed into the game. Because real life isn't 'nice'.
I would be infinitely less annoyed about the Bowling Stuff pack if it was just an addon to some kind of Games GP. On its own, it doesn't stand up.
It feels like somebody said, "Okay, time to make a Stuff Pack. We need to do something that was in Sims 3. Anybody got any ideas?" and somebody else said, "You can bowl in Sims 3." And then they just took all the things used for bowling out of Sims 3 without actually giving us anything that could be used anywhere other than bowling.
I know we had Toddlers for free recently but that's no excuse for such a weak effort.
I disagree with you because if was added in with something else it wouldn't have been so detailed and they wouldn't have added the extra touches and I do believe that Graham said no one would add it so the SP team did it.
even if there are still expansion pack some content are better in stuffpack because when its added to astuffpack they have time to work n it and work on the animation t make it look great
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I would be infinitely less annoyed about the Bowling Stuff pack if it was just an addon to some kind of Games GP. On its own, it doesn't stand up.
It feels like somebody said, "Okay, time to make a Stuff Pack. We need to do something that was in Sims 3. Anybody got any ideas?" and somebody else said, "You can bowl in Sims 3." And then they just took all the things used for bowling out of Sims 3 without actually giving us anything that could be used anywhere other than bowling.
I know we had Toddlers for free recently but that's no excuse for such a weak effort.
I disagree with you because if was added in with something else it wouldn't have been so detailed and they wouldn't have added the extra touches and I do believe that Graham said no one would add it so the SP team did it.
That's a marketing line. It boils down to priority, which in my opinion has been a big problem for the people working on this game.
I would have never pegged bowling as a stuff pack premium object, nor do I necessarily agree with the choice to release it in that format. Since we know bowling was explicitly off the table for the bigger packs, it makes you wonder what else is going to be delegated to the bottom line DLC?
I would be infinitely less annoyed about the Bowling Stuff pack if it was just an addon to some kind of Games GP. On its own, it doesn't stand up.
It feels like somebody said, "Okay, time to make a Stuff Pack. We need to do something that was in Sims 3. Anybody got any ideas?" and somebody else said, "You can bowl in Sims 3." And then they just took all the things used for bowling out of Sims 3 without actually giving us anything that could be used anywhere other than bowling.
I know we had Toddlers for free recently but that's no excuse for such a weak effort.
I disagree with you because if was added in with something else it wouldn't have been so detailed and they wouldn't have added the extra touches and I do believe that Graham said no one would add it so the SP team did it.
This argument needs to die.
-Choice of bowling ball
-Bumpers for kids
-Bowling shoes and glove
-An achievement
That is the difference between this version and the last version. Even the skill was a thing in Sims 3, it was just a hidden skill. If this is your definition of "so detailed," I'd be happy to sell you a mod where I make Bob Pancakes more detailed by giving him an afro.
I don't think they're skinny. They just don't do the best job of highlighting what all they add, in functionality. For instance, you might miss the fact that you get an object that allows you to sell paintings on the street, from CL, because it's not really obvious, nor is it directly highlighted in the city theme (though it is loosely related to the city theme, there's nothing I can think of that's really going to point you at it in-game, short of looking through every object you get from the pack, one at a time).
With GPs, it's easier to wrap your head around what all they added and it's usually a more focused theme, with every addition centering around that theme, so it seems more meaty.
I'm inclined to think it's a mental trick believing that the expansions are thin. It's a gap in perception that hinders, rather than helps, with peoples' perception of expansions. I think they need to do a better job in advertising expansion features (in-game or out) and highlighting the little things.
That's not to say there isn't room for improvement (there certainly is) but I think calling the expansions thin is mostly rooted in the perception that there's not enough to sink your teeth into, or because of straight up missing features that are contained in it. As an example, if you just see City Living as, "The beginning and end of this pack is living in San Myshuno," it's going to seem like it has a pretty short shelf-life, hinging on how quickly you tire of the experience of your sims living in a city. And it's going to seem pretty thin because as soon as you tire of living in the city and move out, you're going to feel like the pack no longer has anything to offer you.
But it does have features that can be enjoyed outside of the city. Some examples that come to mind: Karaoke, Keyboard, Singing, Yard Sale, Painting Sale, Murals, Basketball Hoop, the 3 new careers which have special "work from home" functionality.
So... I'm not convinced that they are thin. I think they just don't sell themselves all that well.
I think sims 4 expansions have great features. I like the interactive careers in sims 4 a lot better than ones we were given in sims 3. I mean, ghostbuster? Really?
So. Get to work also adds a fun dynamic to the game.
I think the expansion packs are just unimpressive in what they set out to do, and often fall massively short in terms of features.
For instance, Get to Work could have been this big pack with tons of new jobs and a lot more open careers. They could have designed these careers to be far more open ended, and player choice oriented, that way we could replay the same careers, yet get a vastly different experience out of them in each Sim life. However, the three few careers are, realistically, horrendously boring and uninspired. Retail features fall so short of TS2's retail features and are, honestly, feel lazily created.
Get Together was a vague concept. I feel they could have went further on expanding the group activities of Sims. Still like the enhanced ability over controlling groups of Sims, but granted, that was a patch feature (as it should've been). We could have used more of these group activities (such as changing clothes together) in the pack. Perhaps holding hands? Playing freeze tag? Things like that.
City Living was a pretty big disappointment, when you compare it to what could have been, as well as the last "city" iterations of the past games. The city is more or less just a backdrop, apartments require loading screens, neighborhoods feel empty and boring, the new jobs aren't that exciting, and... that's pretty much all the pack tries to add..
Just reviewing each pack right now, I feel myself wanting far more from each and every one of them. It should not feel this way, especially so early in the lifespan of a new Sims game that has coincidentally left many people sad/angry over the lack of innovation in its base game.
The lack of innovation is apparent in all sims games.Both 3 and 4 leave a lot to be desired of terms of player experience. I dont understand why they always stop short.
I don't at all think that any of the expansions in The Sims 4 are anymore 'skinny' than all previous expansions we've gotten, however, I will say that some have poor implemented features but let's not pretend every pack from the previous games were perfect.
Get To Work's main features offered us the Alien life state, and although it didn't receive the same treatment as Vampires, they still got an upgrade from TS3's Aliens. We also got three professions - Detective, Doctor and Scientist, which are admittedly very repetitive (the Doctor profession being the most), they do add some diverse game-play that we've never really received before. Onto the Skills, the Baking Skill is one of my favorites because it not only adds a plethora of new recipes but gives Sims the ability to decorate their baked goods and the Photography Skill is pretty nice for everyday game-play, even letting you take photos from your phone. Now onto the smaller but still very present features - the Illness System is a welcome addition and doesn't happen too often (at least not for me), this and the ability to visit the Hospital if ill or about to birth (and receiving a Birth Certificate after) really helped to add to the realism for me. Magnolia Promenade and Sixam were also nice, although I wish they were a bit more expansive. As for the Retail System, I must say it's one of my least favorite features of Get Together but it's not completely broken and unbearable, it works enough to do what it is meant to and it does provide us the ability to sell almost any item and object from all packs past and present.
Get Together and City Living might not have seemed as 'beefy' as Get To Work to allot of people, but that's because they focused on different aspects of the game and gave us different features. Get Together focused on socialization, giving us in-depth Clubs and a large and beautiful new location, adding lot upgrades, Cafes, DJ Mixing, Dancing, special lots, pool details, diving platforms, woohoo bushes (still unhygienic) and several game activities for Sims to enjoy. City Living gave me the feeling of diversity, with the different districts of the apartment filled San Myshuno, the festivals that each had their own flare (although the gaming festival was kinda underwhelming imo), they brought back hidden traits, added more lot traits and types, finally brought in the Singing Skill, gave us the ability to sell different works of art on the street, make graffiti, play basketball and in addition, gave us three new careers with the ability to work from our Sims' homes, which was a welcome feature for me.
I've far from included everything each of the EPs have to offer, they honestly don't sound 'skinny' at all to me, they're filled with content and that's a fact, whether we like or choose to use all the content each EP has to offer is entirely up to each of us.
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The business career in Get to Work I would say is still pretty well done, in terms of skills I believe both new skills, photography and baking, are far from basic. Baking requires the player to focus on other skills as well in order to bake certain recipes, some recipes require some produce or fish, and in order to get a high quality meal you need high quality ingredients, if anything the baking skill expands two other skills as well. Building the baking skill unlocks new recipes, which require different ingredients, and in order to get good quality ingredient to make good quality pastries you need to also focus on other skills as well. In terms of photography, there's an option to build a whole photography studio, how you use the studio is completely up to you. Building the skill is quite basic, but how you use it has many different options. Although by criticising the photography skill from Get to Work you might as well also criticize the photography skill from The Sims 3, they are both pretty much the same in terms of just building the skill, gameplay though for photography I believe to be better in GTW.
The only one insisting opinions are facts is you. The one interpreting my opinion as a fact is you. You obviously cannot discern because this is like the 4th post since I explicitly told you it's my opinion and you're still over there lambasting my opinion because you perceived it as fact, and you decided to derail the topic into "don't spread opinion as if it's fact" when that's not what I am doing, that's how YOU are interpreting it. If you don't perceive it as fact then you are having a pointless conversation right now, after I have told you several times that is my opinion. If after all of that you're still going on and on about the same mistake you made two days ago in wrongly interpreting my post then you need to reread or move on. There's nothing else to be said here.
That same baking skill you praise has two functions: you can eat the produce or sell it. Eating it yields no special new abilities, moodlets or effects; it's identical to any other food. Selling it is the primary purpose, with new unlocks only serving to increase profit. The entire skill is devoid of new abilities and features, instead only governing how much you make.
The photography skill does not allow for a studio, the object and the retail system do this. As I said, all the skill does is increase the quality of the photos and their value. Both have no function other than to increase your funds.
Ask yourself this: which skill is the best out of Painting, Baking and Photography? That's right, it's painting, because it does the function of the other two better while also providing additional functions such as emotional paintings. Baking's hunger fulfillment is even inferior to regular cooking, since it's a dessert that doesn't fill your sim and makes their hunger drain faster. And this is precisely why I have little praise for those two skills.
Inventing and Sculpting on the other hand....? Sculpting is a great hobby skill. Your sim could craft practically any furniture piece. With enough time and practice, your Sim could make an entire house out of ice furniture, for example. The functions themselves are not unique, but the aesthetic absolutely is, and this is by far the most expansive hobby the Sims series has ever gotten. For many players it might be too much, but for those that care to have an "endless" hobby, this suits them perfectly. Inventing...? There's a number of unique items that are crafted, as well as the unique ability to detonate objects. The Miner, Time Machine, and Collector in particular all have rather unique gameplay tied to them. For crying out loud, the final invention is a life state.
It's very very clear which expansion has the more expansive skills attached to it. GTW's skills have MINIMAL effort put into them.
As for Photography from World Adventures, you're right, I wouldn't praise it much either....and I'd STILL praise it more than this one, because it was once again more expansive. Again, if hobbies are your thing, the Sims 3's photography skill was probably the second most expansive hobby, with dozens of huge collections of photographs to get, many of which required some degree of travel or social events to be completed. Still, no, it was not this amazing skill to write home about. Even if Sims 4's were superior, this would not exactly be a meaningful achievement. I don't see the purpose in you bringing up this comparison, to be frank. It just seems to miss the point and think this is some Sims 3 vs. Sims 4 competition. It's not. Sims 3 is mentioned solely to highlight what is possible to "prove" Sims 4 has missed potential, not out of some fan desire to see it viewed as the best. On occassion it's Sims 2 that serves that function, such as with the retail.
you know i'm pretty sure if they can cancel the whole expansion pack idea and start dividing there work into even more stuff pack so they can even get more money from them they wouldn't say no
its almost as if they were forced to make expansion packs but decide to keep the content at minimum cause they think they can put it in its own pack wish will make them more money
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I love The Sims 4 for what it is (if I look at it as a separate game, not a third sequel) but yes, they've been lacking so much content. I had huge expectations for City Living and it's a beautiful world but it's so limited. I'm both excited and afraid of the next expansion pack because it seems like it's going to be Pets. I'm excited because I love it but I'm afraid that just like the other 3 EPs, they're going to half bake it or who knows, maybe they will surprise us and just like Toddlers, these have the potential to be the best Pets of the entire series.
I admire everyone involved and the Gurus because they do their job and have fun doing it so I just want to thank them for working so hard on the game but that's just my opinion as a player and fan for 17 years.
Anyhoo, I'm looking forward to whats coming next!
Sorry if this is off topic but I'm still trying to wrap my head around what made apartments in TS3 so much different than they are in TS4?
Is it that the shells were ploppable?
Sorry, I don't agree. If anything, TS3 resorted to a lot of padding to make it look like you were getting more than what you were getting.
For example, let's take a look at Seasons. On first glance, when you look at Seasons, you think, "Wow! Look at this! Not only am I getting weather, I'm getting so much more gameplay in the form of four unique and totally fleshed out festivals! Yippee!"
But you know what? You weren't. Yes, you got a handful of season-specific objects for these festivals (snowboard ramp, love meter, soccer net, apple bobbing, haunted house, hay bales, pumpkin patch, tanning booth, easter egg hunt). But the festivals were mostly padded out with objects that were being recycled across all four seasons (food vendor, face painting, photo booths, Family Arena) or were technically different but performed more or less the same function (ice skating and roller skating rinks, pie/hot dog eating contest). It's not obvious as a player that this is the case but as a builder it's very obvious to see how cleverly they repurposed or made objects do double duty to make it look like you were getting so much content and gameplay in Seasons.
Ditto with World Adventures. It looked like you were getting fully fleshed out worlds in that game, each filled with a large number of unique activities and adventures. But you weren't. You were getting more or less the exact same experience across all three worlds because they were all based on the same set of assets, interactions and animations. Once you had explored, excavated or tomb raided one world, you had pretty much done it all. The only real difference between visiting and doing stuff in China, France and Egypt was the backdrop and some minor details (like nectar tasting vs martial arts training). But beyond those minor things the experiences and gameplay were pretty interchangeable between all three worlds.
Again, Ambitions. Don't get me wrong--there were some great new additions and everything, but the Stylist and Architect careers were padding, as they were built around two preexisting gameplay features (Build Mode, CAS). You did not get new animations or features at all, and the only object you got was a table that did "double duty" (acted as a drafting table for both the architect and stylist profession).
So maybe EPs from the past were "fat" but they were fat because they were padded, not because they were full of features.
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I think I have a hunch why they might have done that.
It's most likely a population control issue.
Thanks for the heads up
IIRC they said that apartments were designed the way they were to match the visual aesthetics of the city. Population control probably plays into that, but their overall design was influenced by the developers favoritism of visual aesthetic over new/different functionality.
Umm city living offered nothing compared to the other two packs. At least the other two tried to actually expand the game in terms of new content added to the core. All city living did was add a really truly ugly world (in my opinion) and a bunch of features that are useless outside said ugly world. In my honest opinion the best thing about that pack was basketball and the hookah. Thankfully I only paid half price for that abomination of an expansion pack.
If city living is the best the team can offer then ep's for the sims 4 are doomed to be shallow useless filler packs until the next stuff pack rolls up.
Again rating in quantity city living would be placed dead last behind every pack in the entire history of the sims series for one thing alone...those awful travesty 'elevators' they deemed worthy to give us. Those 'elevators'really show how much the ep team cares about the ep's...that's to say nothing.
But hey it's just my opinion. If you like city living that's fine but I expect more from an EP that took nearly a year to make and with a team knowing fully )for the first time for the sims 4 ep's) what their audiences were wanting. City living is the absolute lowest of the low in terms of ep's and I pray to the sims team to never, ever, ever try to recreate it in any way shape or form.
It feels like somebody said, "Okay, time to make a Stuff Pack. We need to do something that was in Sims 3. Anybody got any ideas?" and somebody else said, "You can bowl in Sims 3." And then they just took all the things used for bowling out of Sims 3 without actually giving us anything that could be used anywhere other than bowling.
I know we had Toddlers for free recently but that's no excuse for such a weak effort.
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That's a marketing line. It boils down to priority, which in my opinion has been a big problem for the people working on this game.
I would have never pegged bowling as a stuff pack premium object, nor do I necessarily agree with the choice to release it in that format. Since we know bowling was explicitly off the table for the bigger packs, it makes you wonder what else is going to be delegated to the bottom line DLC?
This argument needs to die.
-Choice of bowling ball
-Bumpers for kids
-Bowling shoes and glove
-An achievement
That is the difference between this version and the last version. Even the skill was a thing in Sims 3, it was just a hidden skill. If this is your definition of "so detailed," I'd be happy to sell you a mod where I make Bob Pancakes more detailed by giving him an afro.
I think sims 4 expansions have great features. I like the interactive careers in sims 4 a lot better than ones we were given in sims 3. I mean, ghostbuster? Really?
So. Get to work also adds a fun dynamic to the game.
The lack of innovation is apparent in all sims games.Both 3 and 4 leave a lot to be desired of terms of player experience. I dont understand why they always stop short.
Get To Work's main features offered us the Alien life state, and although it didn't receive the same treatment as Vampires, they still got an upgrade from TS3's Aliens. We also got three professions - Detective, Doctor and Scientist, which are admittedly very repetitive (the Doctor profession being the most), they do add some diverse game-play that we've never really received before. Onto the Skills, the Baking Skill is one of my favorites because it not only adds a plethora of new recipes but gives Sims the ability to decorate their baked goods and the Photography Skill is pretty nice for everyday game-play, even letting you take photos from your phone. Now onto the smaller but still very present features - the Illness System is a welcome addition and doesn't happen too often (at least not for me), this and the ability to visit the Hospital if ill or about to birth (and receiving a Birth Certificate after) really helped to add to the realism for me. Magnolia Promenade and Sixam were also nice, although I wish they were a bit more expansive. As for the Retail System, I must say it's one of my least favorite features of Get Together but it's not completely broken and unbearable, it works enough to do what it is meant to and it does provide us the ability to sell almost any item and object from all packs past and present.
Get Together and City Living might not have seemed as 'beefy' as Get To Work to allot of people, but that's because they focused on different aspects of the game and gave us different features. Get Together focused on socialization, giving us in-depth Clubs and a large and beautiful new location, adding lot upgrades, Cafes, DJ Mixing, Dancing, special lots, pool details, diving platforms, woohoo bushes (still unhygienic) and several game activities for Sims to enjoy. City Living gave me the feeling of diversity, with the different districts of the apartment filled San Myshuno, the festivals that each had their own flare (although the gaming festival was kinda underwhelming imo), they brought back hidden traits, added more lot traits and types, finally brought in the Singing Skill, gave us the ability to sell different works of art on the street, make graffiti, play basketball and in addition, gave us three new careers with the ability to work from our Sims' homes, which was a welcome feature for me.
I've far from included everything each of the EPs have to offer, they honestly don't sound 'skinny' at all to me, they're filled with content and that's a fact, whether we like or choose to use all the content each EP has to offer is entirely up to each of us.
Sometimes your creativity is limited where you use it most, but you can use those limitations to inspire new forms of creativity you may never have thought of beforehand.