Is Eco lifestyle worth it?

Gecko420

Hey it’s been a while since I touched sims 4, I brought the university and realm of magic but haven’t touched them yet. Have yet to pay for eco lifestyle but I most likely will since there is a sale. Can someone tell me crucial details or reasons to get this pack? Thanks

calaprfy

I never bought it due to the unpleasantness on these boards. It's an EP to avoid apparently.

MrsC1990

I really enjoy Eco Lifestyle and use the items/clothes a lot, although admittedly I was one of the people who was looking forward to the pack.

Gecko420

I’m vegan irl so maybe this pack would suit my taste after all?

keekee53

The real issue with the pack according to the forums is the Neighborhood Action Plans which wreak havoc on gameplay. It is why I have not picked it up. I am not sure what was fixed in the patch as I have not played in some time as well. Last I heard the sharing is caring was really bad and caused items to get stolen on public lots and of course as intended private homes.

musteni

Content wise I think it's a good pack. The problem is the bugs that are still around.

mebagl15

I'd wait on buying this pack. Too many bugs. The workaround cheats don't work either.

JestTru

I don't have it, so probably not the best to answer your question but I'll say this...

Even though I have no plans of getting this pack because the gameplay doesn't interest me, I do really like the CAS and build/ buy items. I wish I could get these things separate of the gameplay.

I have read a lot of issues involving NAPs. So if it's something that does interest you, I would suggest waiting for the bugs to be fixed.

haisin

I got it in a bundle a couple of days ago and the first thing I did was turn off the NPC voting of the NAPs. I'm waiting for the NAPS to be fixed before I try them, because others have had major issues with them. I haven't had any problems yet, except for false announcements of NAPs being chosen, but maybe I have been lucky.

I like the CAS and build/buy items. I'm also very excited about the random phone calls that come in the pack and dumpster diving. I haven't tried candle making or bug farms yet.

One of the biggest features of the pack isn't working at the moment, but if you decide to buy it anyway, I'd recommend turning off the NPC voting of the NAPs and not to vote NAPs at all until they are fixed.

Onverser

To put it simply, No.

SimmerGeorge

No, unless you are one of those build buy, CAS players who buy just for items. The main selling point of the pack is the Eco footprint and it is so illogically made. For many people it is neutral all the time and changing your Eco footprint to industrial or green requires you to place certain objects like wallpapers, floors or whatever to make a change in the environment which makes absolutely no sense.
The industrial footprint in worlds other than Evergreen harbor is a barely visible fog in the sky that you won't notice during normal gameplay so there goes that.
If you don't care about the main selling point of the pack and want to make candles and juices then you can get it.

Camkat

I'm going to be the minority here but I love this pack! It's my favourite CAS and BB by far. The game play glitches and NAPS that people complained about when it launched do seem to be all but fixed for me in the latest patch from last week.

NAPS were constant repetitive and it caused sims to do things like bake a billion cakes, steal every last item... etc. They've fixed that though and now NAPS only apply to the home neighbourhoods so NPC's don't come into your hood with every NAP from every hood in the whole game applied to them. It's a lot more tolerable and infrequent and more as intended. A fun background rather than a foreground.

The other major complaint was the eco-footprint jumping all over and that seems to have calmed down for me too. It's a lot more steady and moves a little more when I actually make changes. Before it was changing 3-4 times in one sim day for me, now I've played around a few houses and it's slowly sliding, takes about a sim week to actually change the footprint unless you make major changes.

Disappearing pets is fixed. I've played households with pets and they had been disappearing and now they're not, so I can also confirm that fix.

People are still complaining though so I guess the patch fixed it for some of us but not all of us? Or people just haven't tried their games at all since last week? I think the latest patch was last Thursday so if they haven't tried since then, they truely don't know if the game is still bugged or not.

I would still recommend turning off NAPS in the options before you launch any save game and have full control of what gets voted in or not so that you can test it for that save and make sure it's working as intended. It can be potentially game ruining if you did have the bug still so best to check how it affects your game before you turn it on permanently.

They didn't mention a gardening bug fix in the patch either, but it does seem to be fixed for me as well. I think all the crazy eco-footprint jumping was causing the plants to revert to clumps. Every time the footprint changed, they changed. At least that's how it seemed to work for me but some people were having issues with this without the pack so you might get this bug even if you don't ever buy the pack.

Everything major with the pack that was wrong is fixed (for me). I would recommend picking it up on sale if you think the game play and CAS/BB would fit into your game style. There's a lot in the pack and it's worth it (IMO).

musteni

@Camkat I have a household where the male sim seems to be infected with the creativity NAP that makes sims mold clay, draw on tablet etc. They do NOT have that NAP in their neighbourhood. Sometimes it gets so bad that I can't get him to eat because he needs to get up and do three NAP interactions instead. This is after the patch. I love the NAPs but there are a lot of problems with them.

Plumbeeb

I pre-ordered the pack because I was super excited about the new water and power production methods. I wanted to try the off the grid lot trait since it came out, but it seemed like a hassle because there was no way of producing water and power without being connected to the grid.

I'm still actively playing the pack, so I'll try to break down my experience so far.

• Eco Footprint - This one is pretty mediocre to me. It usually always stays in the 'neutral' even if you don't do anything. Sometimes it'll go over into the 'green' but it'll drop down to 'neutral' just as quickly. My sim could be doing something as simple as gardening and this will still happen, so I have no idea how the footprint is measured, despite many Build & Buy mode objects listing how it will impact the eco footprint. It could also be a bug, who knows at this point.
• Water and Power Production - There are now new ways to produce water and power with this pack. There's solar panels for the roof and ground, wind turbines for the roof and ground and dew collectors. You can also collect water by hand, or in the form of snow if you have Seasons. You can also industrialise the world if you like, by using power and water generators that contribute to the industrial footprint.
• Community Lots - This is a feature that I really enjoy! As well as voting on neighbourhood action plans (NAP's) you can also vote on what type of community space you'd like. You'll find three lots in each neighbourhood, that resemble abandoned buildings (which is great for dumpster diving if you start a new save) and you can choose between changing the lot to a marketplace, community garden or maker space. I set myself the goal of having all three different lot types in my save, and I'm two thirds of the way there. NPC's will often visit and actively participate in different activities while on the lot. The community lots and voting boards can also be placed in any world, not just Evergreen Harbor.
• Neighbourhood Action Plans - This feature is probably the biggest part of the pack. Voting costs influence points, which are very easy to obtain. There's a list of different NAP's that you can choose from and what they'll do (can be found here). Each neighbourhood can have up to four active NAP's at one time. I found that is was very easy to get the NAP's that I wanted, as long as the plan you vote for is in the lead, you'll usually get more NPC votes in favour of the plan as well. Repealing NAP's is much more difficult and time consuming. I found that even if you have high friendships with other sims, the results will still vary. I was able to get Knox to repeal a green gardening NAP, which doesn't make much sense considering he's an 'eco master', so you'd think he would refuse to sign that repeal based on his eco themed traits. I've not really had any huge issues with the NAP system, but it definitely needs tweaking.
• Crafting - In order to craft many things that come with this pack, you'll need to recycle a whole lot. As far as I know, there doesn't seem to be a limit on what you can recycle, and bits and bobs are easy enough to obtain, as is soy wax. You can craft furniture, eco upgrade parts and more with the fabricator, craft candles using soy wax and the candle station, and make fizzy juice or seltzers with the juice fizzing station. I don't really care for the fabricator, mainly because it breaks or malfunctions so often. The juice fizzing station is my favourite thing to use, as it ties in nicely with gardening and you can make a huge profit from selling the fizzy juice at a yard sale. You also said that you're vegan in real life, so I guess it's worth mentioning that there is cruelty free 'meat' in the form of a faux meat cube. The faux meat cube can be planted in the vertical planter to grow this meat wall abomination lol. I haven't grown it myself, so I'm not sure how it's used when cooking.
• Evergreen Harbor - This is a new world that changes appearance depending on what NAP's you vote for. It's the modern development or green initiatives that make the biggest change in how the world looks. As far as I know, the junk and trash that you see everywhere is exclusive to Evergreen Harbor, so even though eco footprint can effect any world, you won't see trash filled streets in Willow Creek for example. Honestly, the new world is equally as disappointing as Del Sol Valley from Get Famous. It's full of boring builds mostly, and the starter homes are nothing interesting. They put so much effort into making the community lots look great, but didn't really do that for the rest of the world. Most of the world is made up of residential lots, and the three community lots. The only other venue available is a bar, which is just typical of the developers.
• Lot Traits - There are five new lot traits to choose from. The eco lot trait means that the lot will move quicker towards being eco-friendly than other lots. The geothermal trait produces natural heating to generate power and lower the cost of utility bills. The natural well trait reduces utility bills as fresh, clean water runs under the lot. The reduce and recycle trait means that the lot will generate recyclable trash, and household waste needs to be managed as bins are no longer bottomless. The landfill lot means that trash will accumulate quicker on the lot. I had a lot of fun with the new traits, and they work great with the off the grid lot trait. Some of the traits do make things pretty easy, but that depends on how you want your gameplay to be.

I hope this will give you some insight and help you with your decision. There's good and bad things with this pack, but it mostly depends on what kind of gameplay you enjoy and features that you're likely to use often. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask them and I'll do my best to answer!

Camkat

musteni wrote: »

@Camkat I have a household where the male sim seems to be infected with the creativity NAP that makes sims mold clay, draw on tablet etc. They do NOT have that NAP in their neighbourhood. Sometimes it gets so bad that I can't get him to eat because he needs to get up and do three NAP interactions instead. This is after the patch. I love the NAPs but there are a lot of problems with them.

I had that too pre-patch. It's stopped since then for my save. (I haven't tried all saves but before the patch all saves did seem to be affected differently with varying degrees of this). They still do the NAP interactions but they don't interrupt my sim's lives near like they did. My game feels like it's working as intended. I did wonder if it had been fixed for everyone or if they just haven't played. I'm sorry it didn't get fixed for you.

Missmagoo2

I'm also wondering if I should buy this pack. It DOES sound pretty fun - but the downsides/glitches seem pretty big and I just can't convince myself to purchase it, even on sale. I usually buy for the CAS, but recently I've been into gameplay and I have an inkling that buying this pack would just kinda... make things harder

Gordy

It's a really good Game Pack, not a good Expansion Pack. It provides a lot of fun gameplay options and Buy/Build, but everything else is disappointing and/or unnecessary, and it's not worth the full price.

Omri147

To tell you the truth, I just went back to play Sims 2 after trying it out... I did like it better than Discover University though.

BlkBarbiegal

I like it a lot.

logion

No, it isn't.

As I am writing this, I'm trying to figure out why my sim who has no NAPs in his neighborhood is constantly using the future cube when he is on the studio in San Myshuno. Either he still uses it even if the NAPs are gone, or Maxis added NAP's to the neighborhood and included the studio.

Edit: After searching around, the problem seems to be that NPC NAP autonomy commodities get stuck on sims even if you remove the NAP's. I had to download simvasion's mod to fix it.

duhboy2u2

Gecko420 wrote: »

Hey it’s been a while since I touched sims 4, I brought the university and realm of magic but haven’t touched them yet. Have yet to pay for eco lifestyle but I most likely will since there is a sale. Can someone tell me crucial details or reasons to get this pack? Thanks

It seems like its an unpopular opinion, but I'm really enjoying Eco Lifestyle! Yes, there are some rather annoying bugs and some tweaks that need to be made to some of the Neighborhood action plans, but I love the decor items, I enjoy the concept and I think it adds some things I'm having a lot of fun with like the 3-d fabricator and the candle making station.

Features:

-Neighborhood action plans: These are little "rules" for your neighborhoods that gives some flavor to the individual hoods.
- 3-d fabricator: You can make things like furniture with this computerized machine.
- Recycling machine: lets you break down garbage and old items into materials for 3D fabrication and candle making and such.
- Great mid-century/contemporary modern, blonde wood furnishings which I'm absolutely in love with.
- Some nice new hairs and a few outfits in CAS
- solar panels and windmills for your residences to lower bills


Cons:

The foodie N.A.P. causes all your guests to create white cake. One. After. Another.... I had 40 + at one point. The sharing is caring or whatever its called NAP causes things to disappear all over the place. Like, everyone becomes a kleptomaniac and nothing is sacred. A space ship jungle gym was lifted from my park today

APotts

I haven't bought it yet, because the NAPs and bugs sounded game breaking. Also I don't feel that it sounds worth the EP price. However, I own Every pack that came before, and back in the Sims 3 days I bought all EPs, many stuff packs and nearly the entire Sims 3 store. Would have gotten everything, except my game got so bogged down it would no longer run ☹️

I complain a lot, but I am sucker for the Sims, so it is possible that I may pick it up when the price drops, but only after seeing how the lastest patch works in toning down the NAPs craziness.

Waiting awhile on knitting too, to make sure it isn't buggy too.

Plumbeeb

Missmagoo2 wrote: »

I'm also wondering if I should buy this pack. It DOES sound pretty fun - but the downsides/glitches seem pretty big and I just can't convince myself to purchase it, even on sale. I usually buy for the CAS, but recently I've been into gameplay and I have an inkling that buying this pack would just kinda... make things harder

This is me in a nutshell lol. I've bought so many packs simply for the CAS assets, but I can safely say that this one does not feel worth it for the CAS alone.

There's plenty of old and worn looking items, but I just wasn't that impressed and I can't see myself getting use out of 90% of it. There's this skirt and cropped jeans combo which I still think about... boy they really did that huh.

j1z1

Camkat wrote: »

musteni wrote: »

@Camkat I have a household where the male sim seems to be infected with the creativity NAP that makes sims mold clay, draw on tablet etc. They do NOT have that NAP in their neighbourhood. Sometimes it gets so bad that I can't get him to eat because he needs to get up and do three NAP interactions instead. This is after the patch. I love the NAPs but there are a lot of problems with them.

I had that too pre-patch. It's stopped since then for my save. (I haven't tried all saves but before the patch all saves did seem to be affected differently with varying degrees of this). They still do the NAP interactions but they don't interrupt my sim's lives near like they did. My game feels like it's working as intended. I did wonder if it had been fixed for everyone or if they just haven't played. I'm sorry it didn't get fixed for you.

Weird, this started happening to me AFTER the knitting patch. Granted, I only played for a few days before that patch, but I'm sure it wasn't happening before. Or maybe the broken NAPs simply hadn't been implemented then? Can't recall now.

I spent the entire first month after release just building because the BB is great! If you're into that, you won't be disappointed with that part, but full price might be too much if it's the only feauture you enjoy in it (so far, it has been for me).

Maybe use a test save to see how NAPs work for you first.

One thing I was looking forward to was the new lots, but I can't use them in neighborhoods where there are no households and I do like concentrating my non-residential lots in non-residential areas.

Rouensims

It’s a great pack content-wise. If you use mods, there are mods to control the annoying bugs. I love having a new world and new lot traits, of course. I love Knox too, lol. I’m having lots of fun with the machines, the bugs, and the eco footprint. I love having new wallcovers, floorings, and CAS items.