I just got the "Seasons" expansion for Christmas by way of a generous Amazon gift card, and I'm quite happy to finally have weather. The rain and snow look pretty nice, and I really like how the leaves slowly fall off of the trees over the course of the fall and the frost on the windows in winter is a nice touch. However, there are a few things in seasons I am not fond of.
1. The Autonomous "Witness First Snow" action is annoying. It causes your sim to actually walk all the way outside of the house to look at the snow...all the way outside. If your sim lives in a tiny shack, not so bad, but if you have a medium/large house, it's super annoying...especially if you're managing several sims at once and you don't catch the sim who's on their way outside until they're just about to hit the stairs! Why can't your sim just go to the nearest window to see the snow like TS2?! Why do they have to trek all the way outside just to see the snow? No. That was a poor design decision, especially because it happens even with Autonomy set to OFF!! No desert for you.
2. The Holiday Activities are kind of lame. If they get a full golden checkmark on at least 3/4 of the holiday activities, they get a happy moodlet. If your sim doesn't spam through at least 3/4 of the holiday activities enough to get a gold checkmark on them, sad moodlet. The worst part is that with the Spooky activity type, I had a family of vampires and had them interacting with each other non-stop, but none of the interactions counted toward a gold checkmark on the activity. What the actual Heck? Yeah...Holidays are pretty weak.
3. The snowball fight animations are slow, limp, and lifeless. I had three Child sims having a snowball fight, thinking it was going to be a cute, funny romp...WRONG! They stand around more than anything, and they move around so slowly, rarely ever throwing a snowball. There's just no action, no dynamism to the whole affair and it's boring to watch! A snowball fight should not be boring to watch! What sort of wrong have you done to your animation team for them to toss out a crummy set of snowball fight animations and go, "Yeah, it's done, here. Just give us our paychecks so we can go home and drink away the pain." Thank goodness I didn't pay full price for this pack with these weak oars snowball fights.
Aside from these complaints, I do like the weather and seasonal effects, and the calendar is very useful, at least, for keeping track of sims' birthdays (an invaluable tool for playing with families) and scheduling parties and vacations in advance. Still, not as good as "Get Together" (still my favorite EP, sorry), but not quite as bad as "City Living" (still disappointed about that thing).
Thanks for the review. Sounds like I would not be happy with this pack. Guess I'll give this one a wide berth.
Thanks for the review. Sounds like I would not be happy with this pack. Guess I'll give this one a wide berth.
I dunno I feel it adds so much to the game. You may wanna watch a couple of Youtube reviews of the pack. I love the holidays myself. I don't feel I'm spamming anything. It sucks the vampire thing didn't work out, but just like IRL holidays get repetitive.
I wish the snowball/water balloon fights had been like they were in TS3 (or was it 2?) where it was done with the snowball fort/waterballon fort. Sure, it wasn't as impulse friendly as just grabbing a ball and chucking it, but because it was locked to a specific item, it had it's own interactions and designated fight space so they could have a more in depth animation for it.
As for City Living, I'm not exactly sure why you thought it was disappointing. I personally find it very fun! It added so much content, like apartments, lot traits, and singing skills, as well as the multiple food trucks with cool recipes your Sim can learn and collect. Plus, the festivals are pretty fun and add a bit of life to the game. I think it was a very well done pack, and added so much character to the game. Though, like others have mentioned, I've been hesitant to get Seasons because of the horror stories I've read about how weather can mess up some of the festivals - like the rain breaking all the stuff at GeekCon.
As for City Living, I'm not exactly sure why you thought it was disappointing. I personally find it very fun! It added so much content, like apartments, lot traits, and singing skills, as well as the multiple food trucks with cool recipes your Sim can learn and collect. Plus, the festivals are pretty fun and add a bit of life to the game. I think it was a very well done pack, and added so much character to the game. Though, like others have mentioned, I've been hesitant to get Seasons because of the horror stories I've read about how weather can mess up some of the festivals - like the rain breaking all the stuff at GeekCon.
Well, for one, not being able to build apartment buildings of my own. That's been really fun for me in TS2, and the lack of the feature in TS4 was a disappointment. It's one I could have lived with if it weren't for the fact that apartment neighbors are constantly noisy...like, basically every night, kicking up a ruckus and waking everyone up! I've lived in apartment buildings, neighbors inside the building are rarely that noisy. Neighbors hanging out in the outdoor areas around the house with their stinking car stereos cranked up to max and screaming their private conversations at the top of their lungs in the streets, incredibly noisy and annoying. Indoors? Amazingly, they mostly behave. Then, when a festival is in your sim's neighborhood, the 3x super speed mode no longer works, making overnights and the times when your sim is away at work/school unbearably slow to wait through. Those two problems combined make living in apartments barely playable. Since most of the city lots are in apartment buildings, that makes living in the city barely playable...which makes the core premise of the pack barely playable! So, basically, "City Living" is a pack that is only really enjoyable if your sims live like a large portion of middle-class Americans: Live in the 'burbs and enjoy all of the things that the existence of cities generates, and visit the city when there's something you either need or want to do there. It's just plain broken.
> @michelei said: > I love seasons but I agree some things should have been done differently. I am not a fan of all the dead looking plants and I still do not understand the decision to make the leaf piles smelly and rotting. The snowball fights are so bad I feel it should not have been included in the game at all in its half finished state. I do still really love this pack though.
I think that, while the piles are super annoying and the interactions with the features the pack brings is limited, there are SO MANY FEATURES that I can't be too upset about it.
> @GrumpyGlowfish said: > drake_mccarty wrote: » > > Who puts on their winter coat when you’re cold inside your house? > > > > > I always give my sims at least two cold weather outfits: One to wear when it's cold inside, and one for outside, like this: > > > > Of course, that means I always have to tell them manually which outfit to wear when, and I have no control over it when I meet them as NPCs while playing other sims, but that's still better than seeing them walk around dressed for the Antarctic while indoors.
I do that, too! I wish there were a way to copy over outfits from one category to the next--kind of like copying over traits for Vampire sims...
As for City Living, I'm not exactly sure why you thought it was disappointing. I personally find it very fun! It added so much content, like apartments, lot traits, and singing skills, as well as the multiple food trucks with cool recipes your Sim can learn and collect. Plus, the festivals are pretty fun and add a bit of life to the game. I think it was a very well done pack, and added so much character to the game. Though, like others have mentioned, I've been hesitant to get Seasons because of the horror stories I've read about how weather can mess up some of the festivals - like the rain breaking all the stuff at GeekCon.
My biggest issue with CL is that all of it’s biggest new features are locked away from the player. Apartments can barely be edited, and cannot be created from scratch or placed in other worlds. The festivals are assembled using base game content, and like apartments are created in the world and can’t be modified. Even some lot traits are locked to specific apartments; the most noticeable trait is needs TLC and that’s not even something the player can put anywhere. It only exists in like 3 apartments.
As for food stalls, I don’t find those particularly fun. It’s just a stand where you can buy some food. I know some players like having all sorts of options for food, but I really don’t pay much attention to what my sims eat. Food is food in the game. I don’t really use the singing skill, I think it’s after effects are super annoying (sims singing everywhere all the time).
I think the city is way too dressed up, personally. I’m not someone who’s impressed by world props, which is what 90% of each neighborhood is. All in all I get that it’s a pack about living in the city, and partaking in city activities, but that doesn’t mean they had to lock every new feature into the city and away from players to use freely. Most of it was just not necessary.
I don't have problems with the clothes. I give them loads of changes of all types of them in CAS. I like to choose which one to use for which occasion, particulary with GetFamous. As I always play in basic slow mode I just change their outfits when they go out or come back in. I, too, give them winter indoor/ outdoor outfits.
I have found that they seem to change sleepware often in my game without my permission!
Seasons has always been my favorite expansion in each Sims game, but this one is my least favorite incarnation of it. I would love if my Sims would change out of their winter clothing when inside, like they did in previous games. I also had a Sim leave the gym and stand in front of her home, in winter.. In her bathing suit. She never changed into her warm clothing, just stood there like a dope. Having a Sim go for a run in winter is impossible, they will freeze to death. Townies do not change into their winter clothing without me asking to, otherwise they will hang outside and complain about being cold. I really shouldn't need to play mom to these Sims and tell them to put on a coat!
Water in the winter should freeze, or at least make the swimming pool less appealing.. I had Sims constantly going for a swim or sitting on the edge, again, it's winter.
I loved the holiday to do list at first, but my third play through, it gets annoying. I don't always want to have to do a check off list when I play. It's also annoying to need to ask Father Winter (Santa), for a gift. If you have a large family, someone is not getting a gift and will miss a check on their list, leading to a bad holiday. He should just come in, dump the gifts under the tree and leave, or at least do that if you don't want to wait up and ask.
Thermostat seems like a wonderful idea.. Until you realize your Sim is going to freeze everywhere. I found this out when I went on vacation in Granite Falls, I didn't rent a cabin with a fireplace, and the game did not auto add the thermostats. I had to add them, I also have to add them to every single home, otherwise it'll be cold when I go visit friends. This is pretty annoying to need to do this for every single game. There is also no inbetween for them, you turn it off to save money, your going to have Sims whine about being cold.
As for City Living, I'm not exactly sure why you thought it was disappointing. I personally find it very fun! It added so much content, like apartments, lot traits, and singing skills, as well as the multiple food trucks with cool recipes your Sim can learn and collect. Plus, the festivals are pretty fun and add a bit of life to the game. I think it was a very well done pack, and added so much character to the game. Though, like others have mentioned, I've been hesitant to get Seasons because of the horror stories I've read about how weather can mess up some of the festivals - like the rain breaking all the stuff at GeekCon.
I don't see "much content" but a lot of "reskins of what's already in the game". Lot traits were added in a free update. Festivals are mostly the same vanilla interactions over and over. I was hoping the eating competition would be like in TS3 where sims would actually line up at the table and compete but nope, just grab a plate and eat some spicy food and get an arbitrary text. Food trucks are nice but it's just yet again another way of clicking>get plate of food with the additional "learn this recipe to add to the myriad of recipes we have". One of the main things of City Living is apartments, and well, I thought they could not make them worse than TS3, well surprise they did. On one hand, we have multiple households in one building which is a plus that they took away in TS3. On the other hand: no placeable apartments (really now, we are stuck to San Myshuno and cannot place buildings in any other lot. This is something that even TS2 allowed to do, a game in 2004), apartments have no lobby/amenities (again, TS2 had this), and penthouses are literally plots sitting on top of a fake building. They are like any, any other lot just that the land is on top of a skyscraper (penthouses have perks like dedicated amenities, luxurious lobbies, etc). Elevators are nothing, just a textured object that teleports a sim up and down. This feels like the very first iteration of apartments, with TS2 being the 3rd and TS3 being the 2nd instead of this being a sequel to apartments. Not to mention, a loading screen to visit neighbors on your own building....just shameful.
Just my 2 cents on why I can see CL as disappointing, specially to someone that experienced Apartment Life in TS2.
One of my biggest gripes with Seasons is that they didn't add enough clothes to count as coldwear. Because of this, you get a lot of Sims wearing the same randomly-generated outfits for cold weather. Seriously, there's a good number of clothing in CAS that could qualify as coldwear, but the game doesn't seem to consider them coldwear for some reason.
I also don't really like how inclement weather is fully capable of happening at festivals. Rain during GeekCon? That's a total bust! I would like it if, at least for the duration of the festivals, it would stop raining or snowing.
And why does every Sim need to be afraid of thunderstorms? I actually had a Sim who was about to be promoted come home without the promotion because he got tense at the last minute. Why? Because it decided to storm while he was at work and he was "afraid of thunderstorms."
One of my biggest gripes with Seasons is that they didn't add enough clothes to count as coldwear. Because of this, you get a lot of Sims wearing the same randomly-generated outfits for cold weather. Seriously, there's a good number of clothing in CAS that could qualify as coldwear, but the game doesn't seem to consider them coldwear for some reason.
One of my biggest gripes with Seasons is that they didn't add enough clothes to count as coldwear. Because of this, you get a lot of Sims wearing the same randomly-generated outfits for cold weather. Seriously, there's a good number of clothing in CAS that could qualify as coldwear, but the game doesn't seem to consider them coldwear for some reason.
That can be changed by modifying filters in CAS.
no you can't. That's if you're setting the winter outfit for all sims and townies.
OP is referring to the winter outfits the game creates. There is a weather tag that they don't add to all jackets and sweaters. You can override clothe's categories with S4S, but you can't do it in the game.
I haven't tried a snowball fight yet and got Seasons for Christmas as well.
Playtesting - not just tabletop games and card games any more. Really that should have been playtested in Beta and not [img]just with accounting and marketing but actual players. https://i.imgur.com/t48COW6.jpg[/img]
And why does every Sim need to be afraid of thunderstorms? I actually had a Sim who was about to be promoted come home without the promotion because he got tense at the last minute. Why? Because he it decided to storm while he was and work and he was "afraid of thunderstorms."
seriously? satisfaction reward store -> storm hunter 1000 sat points -> problem solved and you get a positive buff as a bonus... what IS an actual problem with these is tho: does every single lightning storm have to be like a RA 2 one as in every time it storms your lot gets attacked by at least a dozen of lightning strikes? and especially in autumn lightning storms are way too frequent turning my yard into a charred battlefield full of fried garden ornaments and well i guess the rare minerals and elements are handy but still… lightning strikes in TS 4 are way too common...
Seasons makes the game so much more beautiful. Dont judge seasons by one persons viewpoint.
My only complaint about Seasons is too many cloudy days. And less rain, more sun mod may reduce rain, but the game already allows me to turn off rain, and the mod doesnt increase sunny days.
"Let Our Hearts And Hands Be Streched Out In Compassion Toward Others."
The snowball animation is definitely the worst thing about this expansion, but other than that I kinda liked it. I just wish my sims wouldn't spontaneously go out in the snow in their pajamas and risk death if I don't catch them soon enough.
One of my biggest gripes with Seasons is that they didn't add enough clothes to count as coldwear. Because of this, you get a lot of Sims wearing the same randomly-generated outfits for cold weather. Seriously, there's a good number of clothing in CAS that could qualify as coldwear, but the game doesn't seem to consider them coldwear for some reason.
That can be changed by modifying filters in CAS.
no you can't. That's if you're setting the winter outfit for all sims and townies.
OP is referring to the winter outfits the game creates. There is a weather tag that they don't add to all jackets and sweaters. You can override clothe's categories with S4S, but you can't do it in the game.
Actually, you can, unless something is wrong with your game? I do it all the time, and have never once had an issue with using something that was not filtered as hot or cold - it's the category that matters, not the filter. Pretty sure even one of the Gurus said that. I know I'd get mighty sick of the same 5 coats if I couldn't just remove the filter and go!
Besides the flat no texture snow the snowball fight is the worst thing about Seasons had 3 of my Sims do a snowball fight last night they stood completely still and random snowballs would hit them I cant believe the Guru's thought this was okay.
Sims 4 went from "You Rule" to "One of the stories we want you to tell"
Besides the flat no texture snow the snowball fight is the worst thing about Seasons had 3 of my Sims do a snowball fight last night they stood completely still and random snowballs would hit them I cant believe the Guru's thought this was okay.
If you've never heard the phrase "placeholder animation", look it up. It's a pretty enlightening thing to understand. I came to realize a lot of things when I played Seasons and found that the pack had been shipped like that.
Holidays are kind of a disappointment. I just deleted most of em from the calendar, they're too much of a bother.
I like them in toned-down versions. For example, sending my Sims to a ceremony on Winterfest night instead of spamming Holiday greetings with all 8 household members. ^_^;;
Watch me mash together Sims and Pokémon to tell a story about battling glitches in Penny Saves Paldea. Updated every other Thursday.
Comments
Thanks for the review. Sounds like I would not be happy with this pack. Guess I'll give this one a wide berth.
I dunno I feel it adds so much to the game. You may wanna watch a couple of Youtube reviews of the pack. I love the holidays myself. I don't feel I'm spamming anything. It sucks the vampire thing didn't work out, but just like IRL holidays get repetitive.
As for City Living, I'm not exactly sure why you thought it was disappointing. I personally find it very fun! It added so much content, like apartments, lot traits, and singing skills, as well as the multiple food trucks with cool recipes your Sim can learn and collect. Plus, the festivals are pretty fun and add a bit of life to the game. I think it was a very well done pack, and added so much character to the game. Though, like others have mentioned, I've been hesitant to get Seasons because of the horror stories I've read about how weather can mess up some of the festivals - like the rain breaking all the stuff at GeekCon.
Well, for one, not being able to build apartment buildings of my own. That's been really fun for me in TS2, and the lack of the feature in TS4 was a disappointment. It's one I could have lived with if it weren't for the fact that apartment neighbors are constantly noisy...like, basically every night, kicking up a ruckus and waking everyone up! I've lived in apartment buildings, neighbors inside the building are rarely that noisy. Neighbors hanging out in the outdoor areas around the house with their stinking car stereos cranked up to max and screaming their private conversations at the top of their lungs in the streets, incredibly noisy and annoying. Indoors? Amazingly, they mostly behave. Then, when a festival is in your sim's neighborhood, the 3x super speed mode no longer works, making overnights and the times when your sim is away at work/school unbearably slow to wait through. Those two problems combined make living in apartments barely playable. Since most of the city lots are in apartment buildings, that makes living in the city barely playable...which makes the core premise of the pack barely playable! So, basically, "City Living" is a pack that is only really enjoyable if your sims live like a large portion of middle-class Americans: Live in the 'burbs and enjoy all of the things that the existence of cities generates, and visit the city when there's something you either need or want to do there. It's just plain broken.
> I love seasons but I agree some things should have been done differently. I am not a fan of all the dead looking plants and I still do not understand the decision to make the leaf piles smelly and rotting. The snowball fights are so bad I feel it should not have been included in the game at all in its half finished state. I do still really love this pack though.
I think that, while the piles are super annoying and the interactions with the features the pack brings is limited, there are SO MANY FEATURES that I can't be too upset about it.
But as a Gardening fan...why no fun grafting?
> drake_mccarty wrote: »
>
> Who puts on their winter coat when you’re cold inside your house?
>
>
>
>
> I always give my sims at least two cold weather outfits: One to wear when it's cold inside, and one for outside, like this:
>
>
>
> Of course, that means I always have to tell them manually which outfit to wear when, and I have no control over it when I meet them as NPCs while playing other sims, but that's still better than seeing them walk around dressed for the Antarctic while indoors.
I do that, too! I wish there were a way to copy over outfits from one category to the next--kind of like copying over traits for Vampire sims...
My biggest issue with CL is that all of it’s biggest new features are locked away from the player. Apartments can barely be edited, and cannot be created from scratch or placed in other worlds. The festivals are assembled using base game content, and like apartments are created in the world and can’t be modified. Even some lot traits are locked to specific apartments; the most noticeable trait is needs TLC and that’s not even something the player can put anywhere. It only exists in like 3 apartments.
As for food stalls, I don’t find those particularly fun. It’s just a stand where you can buy some food. I know some players like having all sorts of options for food, but I really don’t pay much attention to what my sims eat. Food is food in the game. I don’t really use the singing skill, I think it’s after effects are super annoying (sims singing everywhere all the time).
I think the city is way too dressed up, personally. I’m not someone who’s impressed by world props, which is what 90% of each neighborhood is. All in all I get that it’s a pack about living in the city, and partaking in city activities, but that doesn’t mean they had to lock every new feature into the city and away from players to use freely. Most of it was just not necessary.
I have found that they seem to change sleepware often in my game without my permission!
Water in the winter should freeze, or at least make the swimming pool less appealing.. I had Sims constantly going for a swim or sitting on the edge, again, it's winter.
I loved the holiday to do list at first, but my third play through, it gets annoying. I don't always want to have to do a check off list when I play. It's also annoying to need to ask Father Winter (Santa), for a gift. If you have a large family, someone is not getting a gift and will miss a check on their list, leading to a bad holiday. He should just come in, dump the gifts under the tree and leave, or at least do that if you don't want to wait up and ask.
Thermostat seems like a wonderful idea.. Until you realize your Sim is going to freeze everywhere. I found this out when I went on vacation in Granite Falls, I didn't rent a cabin with a fireplace, and the game did not auto add the thermostats. I had to add them, I also have to add them to every single home, otherwise it'll be cold when I go visit friends. This is pretty annoying to need to do this for every single game. There is also no inbetween for them, you turn it off to save money, your going to have Sims whine about being cold.
Beekeeping is just annoying.
I don't see "much content" but a lot of "reskins of what's already in the game". Lot traits were added in a free update. Festivals are mostly the same vanilla interactions over and over. I was hoping the eating competition would be like in TS3 where sims would actually line up at the table and compete but nope, just grab a plate and eat some spicy food and get an arbitrary text. Food trucks are nice but it's just yet again another way of clicking>get plate of food with the additional "learn this recipe to add to the myriad of recipes we have". One of the main things of City Living is apartments, and well, I thought they could not make them worse than TS3, well surprise they did. On one hand, we have multiple households in one building which is a plus that they took away in TS3. On the other hand: no placeable apartments (really now, we are stuck to San Myshuno and cannot place buildings in any other lot. This is something that even TS2 allowed to do, a game in 2004), apartments have no lobby/amenities (again, TS2 had this), and penthouses are literally plots sitting on top of a fake building. They are like any, any other lot just that the land is on top of a skyscraper (penthouses have perks like dedicated amenities, luxurious lobbies, etc). Elevators are nothing, just a textured object that teleports a sim up and down. This feels like the very first iteration of apartments, with TS2 being the 3rd and TS3 being the 2nd instead of this being a sequel to apartments. Not to mention, a loading screen to visit neighbors on your own building....just shameful.
Just my 2 cents on why I can see CL as disappointing, specially to someone that experienced Apartment Life in TS2.
I also don't really like how inclement weather is fully capable of happening at festivals. Rain during GeekCon? That's a total bust! I would like it if, at least for the duration of the festivals, it would stop raining or snowing.
And why does every Sim need to be afraid of thunderstorms? I actually had a Sim who was about to be promoted come home without the promotion because he got tense at the last minute. Why? Because it decided to storm while he was at work and he was "afraid of thunderstorms."
That can be changed by modifying filters in CAS.
OP is referring to the winter outfits the game creates. There is a weather tag that they don't add to all jackets and sweaters. You can override clothe's categories with S4S, but you can't do it in the game.
seriously? satisfaction reward store -> storm hunter 1000 sat points -> problem solved and you get a positive buff as a bonus... what IS an actual problem with these is tho: does every single lightning storm have to be like a RA 2 one as in every time it storms your lot gets attacked by at least a dozen of lightning strikes? and especially in autumn lightning storms are way too frequent turning my yard into a charred battlefield full of fried garden ornaments and well i guess the rare minerals and elements are handy but still… lightning strikes in TS 4 are way too common...
My only complaint about Seasons is too many cloudy days. And less rain, more sun mod may reduce rain, but the game already allows me to turn off rain, and the mod doesnt increase sunny days.
Actually, you can, unless something is wrong with your game? I do it all the time, and have never once had an issue with using something that was not filtered as hot or cold - it's the category that matters, not the filter. Pretty sure even one of the Gurus said that. I know I'd get mighty sick of the same 5 coats if I couldn't just remove the filter and go!
My Families Via PlumTree App
I've been longing for scarves in game for ages.
If you've never heard the phrase "placeholder animation", look it up. It's a pretty enlightening thing to understand. I came to realize a lot of things when I played Seasons and found that the pack had been shipped like that.
I like them in toned-down versions. For example, sending my Sims to a ceremony on Winterfest night instead of spamming Holiday greetings with all 8 household members. ^_^;;