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Sims 4 High School Year's Negative thread
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Right but at least it's something to do instead of just sitting there not doing anything until class ends it's a high school pack but it's anything but actual school related gameplay like even the homework the same like how will it boost up the Sims grade?
The carnival would've been really neat, if it (like that utter disappointment of a football field) wasn't mostly set dressing. The school itself, which arguably should've been the focal point of the pack, is desolate because of the limit on Sims per lot and there looks to be NOTHING interesting to do. They had so much creative freedom because an interactive high school experience has not been seen before in the franchise.
The lack of options while in the classroom is laughable. No passing notes to friends/crushes, hoping the teacher doesn't catch you? No group projects, no labs? And the stark lack of after-school activities is embarrassing. Parroting what others have said, nothing for creative Sims—no art club or book club or band or theater for example.
Wouldn't it have been cool to have a student government where you could run for election? Making signs to post around school and asking for support from your peers, having friends campaign for you, practicing a speech, then using your newfound position to make little changes to the school?
I don't know, this pack could've been a really cool addition to the game, but it looks like just another expansion you'd buy and mess around with for an hour before never touching the core features again. Doesn't seem worth the $40 price tag for me.
EDIT: Would've also been cool if they added a mechanic where you'd have to build out your college application, taking into mind your GPA, extracurriculars, rec letters from teachers... but I haven't seen mention of that anywhere.
Imagine if you could have chosen to stare at crush or daydream about crush during class. lol
The student body sounds fun, it would have fit in well with valedictorian. We already have the animations from the politician role and the system to get votes and change sims minds is already in there from eco living. We can already protest with signs and a megaphone so just swap it to a campaign to vote for you. After you get elected they could have made use of the cottage living feature for small quest. Students from different clubs want things like more equipment or something. All things already in the game that they could have recycled to make this work. Maybe even allow you to be a bad student body and be removed. lol
since we are going for hollywood high vibes
where are the stereotypical villains?
can evil or mean sims do petty stuff like stuffing people in lockers or bragging about their little achievements towards sims that are already sad?
or heckle other sims?
i want to create chaos and drama
If nothing else, I can make a popular sim who cyberbullies, hits people with stink bombs and picks on them outside of class.
The Sims 4 hasn't introduced a new musical instrument since 2017
🐲🐲🐲🐲
Like, while I understand that they were probably limited due to having build the system from the ground up to include multiple sims; the school part itself feels very underutilized.
- No artsy clubs
- football field is very set dressing and couldve used more interaction opportunities.
- no choices in classroom behavior. No talking to other students, misbehaving, passing notes, sleeping, etc while teacher is teaching.
- from my understanding, no choice in trachers/faculty
- prom is a bit too frequent but I can forgive that.
- clubs really couldve afford to be a bit more involved
- things feel a bit too sanitized. I want to see a little more chaos. Mean sims picking fights, stuffing into lockers, etc.
- with lots being limited to 20 sims or so, schools feel very small. This may be unavoidable but it's gotta be said.
- aside from prom every weekend, there didn't seem to be many other school events?
- no option to set a school uniform
- no private/military school options - even as rabbit holes.
The new social bunny app is nice - but I feel like with the focus on phones (whilei t makes sense given it reflects modern stuff) mechanically we lose out on a lot of social interactions. Sims won't get off their phones.
While it might just be my age showing, Im really not into the constant push for "influencer" content. Especially since we've had it many times before and it seems weird to me for teens to have livestreaming careers but maybe I'm just living in a bubble with that. The BobaTea + Thrift store is a neat idea but honestly is something that couldve been put in another pack or a stuff pack or w/e.
And the pier, as much as I like the idea, honestly couldve waited to be put in another pack if it couldn't be fully fleshed out now. I 100% making ToL and HH rabbitholes, but the Ferris wheel? That's something we could've easily gotten so we could view at least OUR active sims (like in one cubicle).
Based on the livestream, it also looks like the autonomy AI could use tweaking. Sims could barely sit down on the floor for a second before wanting to run off to do something else, gets up from their current seat to another seat to do a task they could've easily done at the first seat, or couldn't seem to figure out how to read a electronic book on the bed properly.
Overall, while I have a lot of criticisms - there were good things I saw I just wish school content was more focused in on and fleshed out.
The Sims 4 hasn't introduced a new musical instrument since 2017
🐲🐲🐲🐲
I was also hoping for this and started to think why they didn't implement a system like that. My guess is that they probably thought this entire pack is about enhancing teenage sims lives, sending them off to a boarding school and not being able to play them is the complete opposite of what they wanted to go for. They want us to play teenage sims more not less.
That's a trailer it can have anything added to make it look good, I saw the game creators gameplay the classrooms gameplay what classroom gameplay there's was nothing granted it's not the full version but they said the same about my wedding stories but they released it broken. How come they didn't show the classroom gameplay in the Livestream because there's none. The football just needs to be a rabbit hole especially to have games.
If they run outside on the field, I think there should be a low risk of a passing dragon whisking them off! 🏃🏻♂️🐉
If our sim is on that field and we command them to go for a jog and they don't run around that track, I don't know what to say.
Why wouldn't they create a jogging path that would make them run on that track? Especially since they show sims running on it in the trailer.
My sim better run around that track.
I agree and even though I am intrigued by it is in some ways like CL with assets that cannot be used elsewhere and for me that is sad. It seems like EA/Maxis only allow a certain level of creativity. A lot of packs in this game had potential but it never hit its target.
Not to mention that not all classes are at the same time. There were ALWAYS at least one or two classes worth of kids wandering the halls or in the recess activity areas because they were between classes.
It feels like they can only focus on hitting a few targets, in this case they focused on some individual and personal experiences from being a trendy teenager, but many other experiences feels lacking...
I understand that Maxis can only use what they have available but... it doesn't give us a lot of options except for the ones that they had budget to develop for. I have a hard time seeing myself playing a sim who is not like Molly, Ash, Sidney or Kevin in the trailer.
I mean I am sorta glad you can't actually be bullied, as I have discussed before, but everyone SUPER TRENDY is so weird. Again, it feels like we're back to when the game started and they only had SUPER COOL careers. Remeber it took a year before we had mundane careers.
yeah....real "good" representation there...sure.
Its all about popularity right?
Be huge on social media and get a hot prom date...excuse me while I am trying not to puke all over my phone as Im typing this.
Ah so diverse....oh so diverse...nerds and jocks...yesyes...seriously its kinda funny how they always talk about inclusion and telling your own story, seems that only includes stereotypical, extroverted, hollywood pretty, spoiled, first world, social media fanatics.
But dont you worry EA/Maxis, my occult, artsy, loner teens are still gonna destroy that picture perfect dull little world of yours
Sure you can chose not to attend it but if there is a lot of talk about it, an npc asks your sim out and is crushed when you reject them because you do not want to do a 3:rd prom and have other sims in that household to play.
I am not happy about prom every week. Wish we could have had more influence in when it will show up.
I was thinking about this too. Like yeah, you can just not go. But what about all those pre and post prom parties your sim can get invited too? Would have to decline those, and it's just another reminder that prom is happening. And also like you mentioned, being asked out by another sim and having to turn them down, possibly negatively impacting the relationship? I didn't even think about that.
I was trying to see on the calendar during the stream and early access vids if you could at least delete a specific day of it (like you can with Talk Like a Pirate Day and those random holidays from Seasons), but I couldn't see any icons to do so. Seems more like an event like the GF Starlight Accolades that can't be deleted or moved.
I can understand their reasoning for making it weekly, for the sake of aging teens, but it feels like they really didn't take into account any other playstyle than the average short lifespan time limit. Even just with longer weeks and lifespans it feel excessive. I play aging off and 2 week long seasons. That's 8 proms a school year (6 if my summer holiday overrides school events, but something tells me that the prom event is separate from school, so even with a no school holiday, it'll still be something that will happen on its own).
And if we have important holidays during prom? Like New Years or something? I already know I'm gonna get so frustrated with the frequency of proms. Just give us more freedom to choose! I really wanted prom but this is a little much... Not sure why we couldn't just schedule it ourselves.
I feel like this has become quite a typical problem with Sims 4 packs at this point - they'll add the essential stuff needed for the packs theme, and then rather than going right in and making that essential stuff as in depth as possible, they'll start adding other stuff instead.
With this pack they needed to focus on either one thing, or the other. They should've either made it a pack totally focused on high school gameplay, no world or other stuff, just make the school experience as busy and in depth as possible, or a pack without the school and a focus on activities like the ones you listed. But instead, rather than having either of those things executed in depth, we have both of them executed without depth.
Also, in Fantayzia’s video she had her Sim use the vending machine, but instead of food like chocolate bars and pop, it had cream snack cakes. She was disappointed about this and I am too. I think it’s because chocolate bars and pop are not encouraged in school anymore, but that’s too bad because I really want a vending machine with those types of foods.
I have a custom vending machine from ATS4 with junk food, but unfortunately this was created before vending machines were available in the Sims 4, so the CC one is considered to be a fridge, and uses the animations from the fridge instead of vending machine.
Even tho I am one of... 3? people in the universe who could give or take Seasons either way, it is by far the pack that means the least to me, they did that absolutely right. They focused 100% on the thing it was about.
And I agree, either no world, but school exclusive stuff, OR a "Hollywood Teen Experience" pack without an active school.
There are several things that I do like with the pack but I would have preferred a pack like the Parenthood GP that focused on the system of a school and then let you place that yourself. Like retail, you have the default retail-stores in Magnolia Promenade if you do not want to build a school but you have the freedom to do so if you like.
Hmm… if you wish to take part in the story of High School in their town I believe if will feel very immersive. However, for me that is a very set story, and it doesn’t show the width of what I would like to see.
In the University Pack you could build an occult dormitory so even if you went to Uni in Britechester you would be surrounded by fellow occults every day. If you want to be with other occults in High School you might have to live with them.
Zerbu might solve the problem with the school being placed in one world. We will see how much we can do when it comes to who attends school and so on. Having access to the Go To School mod gave me a taste for the fun of designing schools for different worlds and doing different stories. It feels very limiting to have just one.
We are an diverse bunch of simmers. I would much have preferred more attention given to giving players options when it comes to the actual school. Where is it placed? Who goes there? How are students dressed? Iam not interested in trendi or streaming. Bet there are others who are very excited about the things that I dislike.
We will just have to see what the pack will mean for our own save. With a liberal amount of mods I might be able to get acces to the tools I want. Will wait and see how it works out.