The things that I liked:
Juize Fizzing, you can unlock new and interesting recipes and even hidden ones. Fabrication, there are a lot of useful things that you can craft. Building Container Homes is actually pretty fun. Living off-the grid is more fun now that you can make your own power and water. CAS and Build items are great as always. Finding items in dumpsters and breaking them down is fun.
The things that I disliked:
NAPs are way too intrusive, they override everything and are not balanced. Candle Making is very slow and boring. Insects Farms doesn't work and the animations are weird. Eco Footprint is mostly based on your lot and not your sims actions. Traits and aspirations don't add much to the game.
I only like the eco footprint green. I disable the N.A.P & the eco footprint. I use the code Eco_Footprint.Set_Eco_Footprint_State 0.
I extremely dislike the new garbage bin, insects/worms. I really like the juicemaker machine, watermachine & solar panels.
I've never gotten bored of Sims 4 until I got Eco Lifestyle.
The only reason I gave it rating 2 instead of 1 is because I'm hoping that they'll fix the bugs some day and things will start working the way they should.
I was excited for the vertical gardens, but they don't work properly. NAPs are forced on saves, even if I disable them. Dumpster diving was fun the first few times, but after a while it gets boring. My Sims who live off the grid have to place way too many wind turbines, solar panels and dew collectors to be able to use appliances, their home lot is full of them and it looks ridiculous... and there is still not enough. The new bug farms will require you to nurture them 24/7 or the bugs will die. There are so many annoyances I just want to exit the game after few minutes.
I just find EL boring. I don't really like the new world either.
I've been afraid to play my pre-Eco Lifestyle saves because of all the bugs that EL and the latest patch brought in the game. Right now I'm debating if I should disable EL or not or. I've never disabled any packs, I don't even know how to do it. I wish I could keep CAS and B&B Items, though.
Sorry about the negativity, I know most people like this pack.
I'm not impressed with the pack at all. It has no replay value, not well intergrated with other packs, the world is ridiculous small and the amount of fake houses triggers me and its not a challenge to make the eco foot print green and way too hard to go industrial.
Although the voting and recycling got old pretty fast, it has an important message, has a few fun pre-mades, making fizzy juices out of pretty much any fruit or vegetable is fun, and I love that you can stock up on power and water.
@telmarina I think your post is the first I've seen enjoying the naps and voting! I'd love to ask you more about how you are playing them, but probably a bit off topic for this thread. But you have got me thinking about downloading those mods now, despite being a vanilla player.
Some very interesting replies, I am quite surprised that 8 out of 10 is currently in the lead. I honestly expected it to be a lower score.
I really like this pack. I love that we can finally make difference in the neighborhoods. Sadly the system is bugged, but I hope it'll be fixed soon. There's some issues though, like I'd like to see the effect of the NAPs more clearly put. The influence system is a bit stupid tbh, because it seems to me it is way too easy to collect. The build/buy items make too great a difference on the footprint. Other than that I'm enjoying my game a lot again after being on a break for almost a year.
The idea of it is nice. How the game mechanics are supposed to work.
But they don't.
Where the NAPs were supposed to bring flavour and a bit of sillyness back to the Game, they're just spreading chaos and anarchy, up to being gamebreakers. The Pre Patch of EL alone broke the game for many buyers of TS4, (still) not being able to access their older saves and loved legacys.
So I'm rating the pack as it is right now 3/10 until they fixed and tweaked the issues which make it nearly unplayable. We paid for a working pack/game.
@telmarina I think your post is the first I've seen enjoying the naps and voting! I'd love to ask you more about how you are playing them, but probably a bit off topic for this thread. But you have got me thinking about downloading those mods now, despite being a vanilla player.
Some very interesting replies, I am quite surprised that 8 out of 10 is currently in the lead. I honestly expected it to be a lower score.
@elanorbreton im almost a vanilla player myself. I have only 2 small mods usually. Now i have four im using No eco footprint decay (prevents the eco footprint from sliding back towards neutral without a player's intervention) and Nap autonomy fixes (Fixes the bug where all N.A.Ps active in the different neighbourhoods will be active everywhere).
This last one is the one that made me enable npc voting again. I think that it's working as it's supposed to.
About how im playing, most of my sims don't care about the naps. They get voted but my sims just live their lifes without caring on gaining influence or so. I haven't noticed any annoyance by doing so.
Others, while not 'politically' involved, try to comply to the naps that get voted. Like if the workout nap gets voted they try to make some change in their lifes to go on line with the nap.
Others are involved. The sim i talked about in my previous reply is a snob with the renaiscence aspiration, so she wants to influence everyone so that her neighbourhood turns into a criativity and learning hub.
One other sim i have is 'homeless' in EH. She's not very politicaly involved but she did vote for sharing is caring. She wants that law to get passed because she's really poor and can take advantage of that. But she already knows that she'll be repealing it when her life goes better 😈
I think that the naps add a layer of personality to the neighbourhoods. With this mod i don't feel them to be intrusive.
Biggest pet peeve is that the world is terrible - I envisioned building a nice little community of tiny homes. Not possible because 2/3 of the neighborhoods have a grand total of 2 houses in them which are placed on the opposite sides of the neighborhood. The world is just awful and the worst in the entire game imo. The port is the only actual playable neighborhood, the rest feels like a ghost town because of how many fake houses there are. The neighborhoods should've been smaller and more compact so they don't feel so empty.
Also the NAPs; I feel like they should be an entire world thing, so the entire world of Evergreen Harbor is one neighborhood and you just have one or two community lots to go to. Would've worked better with other worlds aswell - ie the Island Living neighborhood which has 3 lots in it. If I live there I wanna vote to change the island not just those 3 houses. Or in Willow Creek or Oasis Springs, I'd rather the community lot be placed in the seafront area with the other public lots but it has to be in the neighborhood you live in or you can't vote on it.
Saving the world is awful aswell, just vote for the green initiative NAPs, shod a few trees and wind turbines around and bam! Eco paradise, game complete.
The fabricator is just the woodworking table recycled with a few new items, juicing is just recycled from bartending and has already basically been done many a time before and candle making is cute but meh. The freelancer career is attrocious aswell, make a rug everyday until you've maxed out the skill and then you finally get job options.
Even the aspirations are terrible, I tried the eco saviour aspiration thingy, first level was to join the new career, second level was to max out the career. What?!
The 4 points it gets are from how nice the port neighborhood is and how good build-buy/cas is for this pack.
@elanorbreton I'm also liking the NAPs and they're in fact my favourite feature of the pack. Some of them need tuning yes, but I'm currently managing in vanilla game. I first had the NPC voting on which was a mistake and I'm now fixing things through gameplay and not cheats. I do this because I have specific ideas what I want each neighbourhood to be like and want my sims to work for it. I don't see myself turning NPC voting on again, it's too random for my taste. I love the idea that we can give extra characteristics to each neighbourhood.
I love the Build/Buy and the CAS, the Buy Mode items especially are some of the nicest we've had in the game to date.
The gameplay does fall short for me though. The NAPs are a buggy nightmare, the world ends up with modern development without any involvement from me and again the eco-footprint moves without any intervention so it feels like my actions are pointless. The Civil Designer career is pretty boring too - the 'daily task' is always just to gain influence.
After giving this pack a reprieve and retracting my first impressions I'm disappointed that it's managed to fall short after all.
I've been having fun with it, however it's not really my play style and there are annoying bugs.
CAS : Not my style. I like the hairs and a few items, but most of it I find kinda hideous. But that's just a personal opinion, though.
Build/Buy : It's grown on me. I like that many items are cheap, which is convenient for starter homes. However some things don't make sense to me, like having a bookshelf filled with books that's just decor but an empty bookshelf that's considered a bookshelf....Or having giant machines that won't fit inside a house. I mean, the juice machine for instance is cool, but also having a blender would have been nice. Or the recycling machine....
Also there are items I thought we'd get in an eco pack that we didn't get, like recycling bins.
Gameplay : It's fun, I quite enjoy cleaning up the world. I also enjoy the new hobbies. If you enjoy rags to riches, this is nice to have. It also adds to the Off The Grid trait. However there are bugs that are annoying, like your sims with the "recycle disciple" trait swiping their OWN stuff to recycle..., some NAPs allowing sims to steal your stuff, the fact that you need quite a lot of objects to make your lot eco friendly or industrial (like, several wind turbines/dew collectors etc) which break way too often (my ground wind turbines break like, everyday). The fabricator it very annoying, because when it doesn't break, it's your sims that will fail at fabricating....The eco footprint keeps changing even if you don't do anything, mine constantly changes from "green" to "neutral". You can't use apartments balconies either.
Also you can't trash other worlds like Evergreen Harbor is, you can add smog and trash on lots but not in the entire world and it won't really change either, from what I get.
World : The world is quite nice, and I like that we have new appartments, but there are a few things that annoy me : As I said, the balconies are not editable which looks weird and is annoying gameplay wise -where else could I place a solar panel or a dew collector?- but apparently they couldn't make them editable.
There are no empty lots, most of the lots are quite small, and many residential lots are in neighborhoods where all houses are kind of the same (you have maybe two residential lots in opposite sides of the neighborhood), which is cute, but if you want to build something that has a different style....it looks out of place.
It has boring and broken gameplay for naps and the eco footprint which is the pack’s core feature. The cas is horrid with the exception of a few items. As the world is ok and the bb items are quite nice I was feeling generous so gave it a 3. This is the only pack I regret buying at full price. It may suit other simmers gameplay but I does nothing for me at all.
I can’t even vote on this and I wish I could have eco lifestyle installed thanks to my boyfriend but have been ill with vertigo so haven’t even played it yet 😞😞
I probably would of rated it higher if it didn't have so many bugs and awful design choices. I really enjoy the game play. Having my sims improve their eco footprint is quite fun. The N.A.P's are bad though, like really bad. I had to install six new mods just to keep the annoying ones from disrupting my game. The changes to billing are horrible. My sims don't even need to work anymore and they can still live in a big comfortable house with no struggle. I hate this. I actually miss the old billing system and I never thought that would be something I'd miss.
I really love the CAS and build items, and I like the new hobbies. But the NAPS... oh my days I hate the NAPS! I enacted one and it's now ruined my sim forever (literally everything I ask him to do he cancels 2 seconds in to stretch or do push ups,even tho I repealed that NAP and moved him to a different world!) I just can't get him to anything, and now there is no way I'm risking any more NAPs for fear of it destroying more of my sims! It feels like the incessant violin playing from University has been mutated so now my own sims keep doing really annoying things I cant stop as well as all the other ones! I know there is lots more of the game for me to explore and enjoy, but the issues I've encountered so far have really dampened my ability to enjoy this game
To be honest, I only bought it for the CAS and the buy items. OK the town is pretty nice too.
The gameplay does not appeal to me at all.
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I gave it an six and even though I like the concept, right now everything else about the game itself affects what I truly want to give it as I still find playing the game still boring and adds little for me as certain features that are missing does not allow me to enjoy the game to it's fullest.
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My score will go up to 8 once the bugs are fixed. Right now, I'm really frustrated that I can't explore all the features of the pack unless I want my game to be stuffed with sims making white cakes, playing with future cubes, clay, stealing things, etc, in neighborhoods where the NAP hasn't been enacted. I lost one save to that, luckily I had a backup. But I'm frustrated that I can only enjoy some of the features after paying full price, something I will never do again.
I really like this pack. I love that we can finally make difference in the neighborhoods. Sadly the system is bugged, but I hope it'll be fixed soon. There's some issues though, like I'd like to see the effect of the NAPs more clearly put. The influence system is a bit stupid tbh, because it seems to me it is way too easy to collect. The build/buy items make too great a difference on the footprint. Other than that I'm enjoying my game a lot again after being on a break for almost a year.
My score will go up to 8 once the bugs are fixed. Right now, I'm really frustrated that I can't explore all the features of the pack unless I want my game to be stuffed with sims making white cakes, playing with future cubes, clay, stealing things, etc, in neighborhoods where the NAP hasn't been enacted. I lost one save to that, luckily I had a backup. But I'm frustrated that I can only enjoy some of the features after paying full price, something I will never do again.
@Cabelle1863 Lol my score has went from 8 to 3 because of all the bugs mentioned in your post that started occurring after I gave my vote on this. And must say I stated the exact same thing about never again paying full price upon release ever again. >_<
Comments
Juize Fizzing, you can unlock new and interesting recipes and even hidden ones. Fabrication, there are a lot of useful things that you can craft. Building Container Homes is actually pretty fun. Living off-the grid is more fun now that you can make your own power and water. CAS and Build items are great as always. Finding items in dumpsters and breaking them down is fun.
The things that I disliked:
NAPs are way too intrusive, they override everything and are not balanced. Candle Making is very slow and boring. Insects Farms doesn't work and the animations are weird. Eco Footprint is mostly based on your lot and not your sims actions. Traits and aspirations don't add much to the game.
I extremely dislike the new garbage bin, insects/worms. I really like the juicemaker machine, watermachine & solar panels.
The only reason I gave it rating 2 instead of 1 is because I'm hoping that they'll fix the bugs some day and things will start working the way they should.
I was excited for the vertical gardens, but they don't work properly. NAPs are forced on saves, even if I disable them. Dumpster diving was fun the first few times, but after a while it gets boring. My Sims who live off the grid have to place way too many wind turbines, solar panels and dew collectors to be able to use appliances, their home lot is full of them and it looks ridiculous... and there is still not enough. The new bug farms will require you to nurture them 24/7 or the bugs will die. There are so many annoyances I just want to exit the game after few minutes.
I just find EL boring. I don't really like the new world either.
I've been afraid to play my pre-Eco Lifestyle saves because of all the bugs that EL and the latest patch brought in the game. Right now I'm debating if I should disable EL or not or. I've never disabled any packs, I don't even know how to do it. I wish I could keep CAS and B&B Items, though.
Sorry about the negativity, I know most people like this pack.
Some very interesting replies, I am quite surprised that 8 out of 10 is currently in the lead. I honestly expected it to be a lower score.
But they don't.
Where the NAPs were supposed to bring flavour and a bit of sillyness back to the Game, they're just spreading chaos and anarchy, up to being gamebreakers. The Pre Patch of EL alone broke the game for many buyers of TS4, (still) not being able to access their older saves and loved legacys.
So I'm rating the pack as it is right now 3/10 until they fixed and tweaked the issues which make it nearly unplayable. We paid for a working pack/game.
@elanorbreton im almost a vanilla player myself. I have only 2 small mods usually. Now i have four
This last one is the one that made me enable npc voting again. I think that it's working as it's supposed to.
About how im playing, most of my sims don't care about the naps. They get voted but my sims just live their lifes without caring on gaining influence or so. I haven't noticed any annoyance by doing so.
Others, while not 'politically' involved, try to comply to the naps that get voted. Like if the workout nap gets voted they try to make some change in their lifes to go on line with the nap.
Others are involved. The sim i talked about in my previous reply is a snob with the renaiscence aspiration, so she wants to influence everyone so that her neighbourhood turns into a criativity and learning hub.
One other sim i have is 'homeless' in EH. She's not very politicaly involved but she did vote for sharing is caring. She wants that law to get passed because she's really poor and can take advantage of that. But she already knows that she'll be repealing it when her life goes better 😈
I think that the naps add a layer of personality to the neighbourhoods. With this mod i don't feel them to be intrusive.
Biggest pet peeve is that the world is terrible - I envisioned building a nice little community of tiny homes. Not possible because 2/3 of the neighborhoods have a grand total of 2 houses in them which are placed on the opposite sides of the neighborhood. The world is just awful and the worst in the entire game imo. The port is the only actual playable neighborhood, the rest feels like a ghost town because of how many fake houses there are. The neighborhoods should've been smaller and more compact so they don't feel so empty.
Also the NAPs; I feel like they should be an entire world thing, so the entire world of Evergreen Harbor is one neighborhood and you just have one or two community lots to go to. Would've worked better with other worlds aswell - ie the Island Living neighborhood which has 3 lots in it. If I live there I wanna vote to change the island not just those 3 houses. Or in Willow Creek or Oasis Springs, I'd rather the community lot be placed in the seafront area with the other public lots but it has to be in the neighborhood you live in or you can't vote on it.
Saving the world is awful aswell, just vote for the green initiative NAPs, shod a few trees and wind turbines around and bam! Eco paradise, game complete.
The fabricator is just the woodworking table recycled with a few new items, juicing is just recycled from bartending and has already basically been done many a time before and candle making is cute but meh. The freelancer career is attrocious aswell, make a rug everyday until you've maxed out the skill and then you finally get job options.
Even the aspirations are terrible, I tried the eco saviour aspiration thingy, first level was to join the new career, second level was to max out the career. What?!
The 4 points it gets are from how nice the port neighborhood is and how good build-buy/cas is for this pack.
Updated with Werewolf Diaries (1)
The gameplay does fall short for me though. The NAPs are a buggy nightmare, the world ends up with modern development without any involvement from me and again the eco-footprint moves without any intervention so it feels like my actions are pointless. The Civil Designer career is pretty boring too - the 'daily task' is always just to gain influence.
After giving this pack a reprieve and retracting my first impressions I'm disappointed that it's managed to fall short after all.
CAS : Not my style. I like the hairs and a few items, but most of it I find kinda hideous. But that's just a personal opinion, though.
Build/Buy : It's grown on me. I like that many items are cheap, which is convenient for starter homes. However some things don't make sense to me, like having a bookshelf filled with books that's just decor but an empty bookshelf that's considered a bookshelf....Or having giant machines that won't fit inside a house. I mean, the juice machine for instance is cool, but also having a blender would have been nice. Or the recycling machine....
Also there are items I thought we'd get in an eco pack that we didn't get, like recycling bins.
Gameplay : It's fun, I quite enjoy cleaning up the world. I also enjoy the new hobbies. If you enjoy rags to riches, this is nice to have. It also adds to the Off The Grid trait. However there are bugs that are annoying, like your sims with the "recycle disciple" trait swiping their OWN stuff to recycle..., some NAPs allowing sims to steal your stuff, the fact that you need quite a lot of objects to make your lot eco friendly or industrial (like, several wind turbines/dew collectors etc) which break way too often (my ground wind turbines break like, everyday). The fabricator it very annoying, because when it doesn't break, it's your sims that will fail at fabricating....The eco footprint keeps changing even if you don't do anything, mine constantly changes from "green" to "neutral". You can't use apartments balconies either.
Also you can't trash other worlds like Evergreen Harbor is, you can add smog and trash on lots but not in the entire world and it won't really change either, from what I get.
World : The world is quite nice, and I like that we have new appartments, but there are a few things that annoy me : As I said, the balconies are not editable which looks weird and is annoying gameplay wise -where else could I place a solar panel or a dew collector?- but apparently they couldn't make them editable.
There are no empty lots, most of the lots are quite small, and many residential lots are in neighborhoods where all houses are kind of the same (you have maybe two residential lots in opposite sides of the neighborhood), which is cute, but if you want to build something that has a different style....it looks out of place.
I think that's about it, sorry it's a bit long.
The gameplay does not appeal to me at all.
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I'm also posting about my I'm surrounded by idi🤪ts! - challenge, in which I've now reached gen 9.
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@Cabelle1863 Lol my score has went from 8 to 3 because of all the bugs mentioned in your post that started occurring after I gave my vote on this. And must say I stated the exact same thing about never again paying full price upon release ever again. >_<