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Maxis going in wrong direction with expansion pack gameplay?
TOLKIEN
Posts: 1,594 Member
At first I was really excited for Snowy Escape mostly because of the setting/I grew up in Fernie, BC basically a ski resort town. Plus I love anime so it just works for me until I realized what lost opportunity it was.
Having literally re-installed the Sims 4 JUST for it, I found myself doing the same old gameplay I've always done in the Sims 4. By that I mean, skiing IS new - but just another athletic skill using new animations.
Even the "story packs" such as Star Wars and Strangerville are based on leveling/doing skill activities that already exist for the most part (like talking to sims with charisma skill).
Outside of the odd pack like exploring the jungle and the eco pack (literally changes the way you build) Snowy escape demonstrated Sims 4 packs are largely recycled gameplay with new names, paint and animations. The only real time we've gotten new gameplay or its changed the underlying game, is when they make packs based on OLD Sim packs (like university or seasons) but yet still cut back on content.
In contrast I would have LOVED if Snowy Escape actually let you MANAGE a sky hill, its slopes and allowed you to build resorts.
So for example manage ticket prices, get customer ratings, ect based on what slope difficulty and snow quality, are your slopes too icy? Ticket sales go down. Not only that but you'd be competing with neighboring ski slopes for business.
Don't want to manage, than compete to enter ski events or become a ski bum, get a job running at the mountain as an instructor, for safety or running the lifts. Or become a hermit on the backside of the hill in an off the grid house. So many options missed....
While I love "japan town" I would have loved it more if instead of a new neighborhood, it was a HUGE mountain to allow for all this, with multiple ski resort lots and lots for hotels ect at the bottom.
Not only that but it WOULD have two seasons (or 4 if u had seasons) which allowed for winter activities and summer activities - heck maybe even a summer camps to keep business up during the summer. YES SUMMER CAMPS. Send your kids or be a camp counceller.
I just realized that Snowy Escape could have been so much more than just a new neighborhood to level up skills and I think its because the Maxis teams have been stuck in a grove how they design Sims 4 packs - a range of activities based on skill advancement but not a new type of game play outside of really Eco living.
What do you think?
Having literally re-installed the Sims 4 JUST for it, I found myself doing the same old gameplay I've always done in the Sims 4. By that I mean, skiing IS new - but just another athletic skill using new animations.
Even the "story packs" such as Star Wars and Strangerville are based on leveling/doing skill activities that already exist for the most part (like talking to sims with charisma skill).
Outside of the odd pack like exploring the jungle and the eco pack (literally changes the way you build) Snowy escape demonstrated Sims 4 packs are largely recycled gameplay with new names, paint and animations. The only real time we've gotten new gameplay or its changed the underlying game, is when they make packs based on OLD Sim packs (like university or seasons) but yet still cut back on content.
In contrast I would have LOVED if Snowy Escape actually let you MANAGE a sky hill, its slopes and allowed you to build resorts.
So for example manage ticket prices, get customer ratings, ect based on what slope difficulty and snow quality, are your slopes too icy? Ticket sales go down. Not only that but you'd be competing with neighboring ski slopes for business.
Don't want to manage, than compete to enter ski events or become a ski bum, get a job running at the mountain as an instructor, for safety or running the lifts. Or become a hermit on the backside of the hill in an off the grid house. So many options missed....
While I love "japan town" I would have loved it more if instead of a new neighborhood, it was a HUGE mountain to allow for all this, with multiple ski resort lots and lots for hotels ect at the bottom.
Not only that but it WOULD have two seasons (or 4 if u had seasons) which allowed for winter activities and summer activities - heck maybe even a summer camps to keep business up during the summer. YES SUMMER CAMPS. Send your kids or be a camp counceller.
I just realized that Snowy Escape could have been so much more than just a new neighborhood to level up skills and I think its because the Maxis teams have been stuck in a grove how they design Sims 4 packs - a range of activities based on skill advancement but not a new type of game play outside of really Eco living.
What do you think?
Post edited by TOLKIEN on
Maxis going in wrong direction with expansion pack gameplay? 156 votes
Yes, the packs could have been so much more
61%
96 votes
No, the packs are fine and I'm happy with them
10%
17 votes
Yes and no, I think they have been a good mix
21%
34 votes
Other (explain if you have the time pls)
5%
9 votes
4
Comments
My biggest gripe with Snowy Escape and a lot of the expansions is they don't really expand on the day to day game play. If I want to enjoy all of what Snowy Escape has to offer then I have to do it in that world, I have to have my sims travel there on a vacation or move there permanently. The pack adds nothing besides life styles & sentiments that affect the game over all. I would like to see packs having more of an impact on the game as a whole instead of just adding one world where all the focus of that pack is centered.
I'm not sure I explained well but that's how I feel about the Sims 4 expansions.
A side from the snow activities, there's nothing to do in that pack that is new unless you only have the BG, and those are specifically tied to one world. And regarding those snow activities there's no career or competitions you can take part in to get extra simoleons or awards, so it feels like it lacks substance, the reward for building those skills is non existent or just cosmetic. Not sure if you get fame from it if you have Get Famous. You just do it for the sake of....??? It's the overall problem with TS4, things are just kind of there just to be.
but i feel pretty much every pack in ts4 could have been whole lot better if ea did better job at budgeting.
they often mention devs don't have "time or staff or money to add new animations"
and that people who make stuff then add random fun objects that do not need animation cause well they can't add animations which obviously is not devs fault but they really need to hire more animators and give them better budget cause obviously whatever it is now is not enough to make game truly shine
like what even is game with no gameplay
also as for pack themes I do hope they would make them more unique like what is the point if every pack has same items slightly altered give me something new
and when you make pack about theme please dont repeat it 5 times over do it properly the first time
id honestly rather have one ep a year if that meant it would be made properly and with enough unique content to call it ep
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Except they have done this in the past, and imo, those packs had the same exact quality....aka City Living, Cats and Dogs and Seasons. Cats and Dogs recycled from GTW's scientist and doctor careers and Dine Out's business system, it only had two pets and they barely had any interactions as is, and they didn't even include proper pet beds or dog houses...it's a literal rug. Like....???? I'm just confused with this Sims itteration.
Maybe they thought it was a better idea to make hotels into a possible game pack, then people could add them to snowy escape.
I'm not sure how much of it is skill advancement or skill-building type of play.
I think the core issue with Sims 4 is the completely faulty, superfluous, superficial "emotions" game design. Their 'goal', it seems, is to trigger emotions with new packs. And that's usually tense, or sad, or just not in tune at all with what simmers expect. I feel like sometimes they've given up and are just trying to ruin the game.
Simmers want "fear" or "real" emotions, but the game design is strictly superficial coding to get the animations going. pouting while eating, slamming fridge doors, stomping around, shuffling with head down. I guess that's where their real animation budget went?
The problem is that the much touted emotion system of S4 is strictly superficial coding for those animations and they do NOT affect sims inlong term, at all.
But yes, as to the OP? I agree, that description you gave is much more about game PLAY vs watching a sim go down the slopes over and over again. Or taking selfies on hikes. It's all GAME controlled. Players DO NOT rule.
Well that in itself has been another issue I've had with Sims 4 packs, the themes are VERY narrow and don't branch out very from from their basic concepts. In past expansions for ALL Sism games explored so much more in much bigger worlds. I also don't believe its a cost thing either, the Sims 4 is not pushing technology with 4k resolution graphic textures or effects that increase budgets into photo realism optimization.
Basically we seem to be getting less content than before, for example running a resort in Sims 3 was just a feature of that expansion - it wasn't the theme of it.
They did not have any game packs in the sims3. I guess you could say that they have less time to work on expansion packs now because they have to make both expansion packs and game packs.
I agree, their themes are very narrow, they only seem to be able to explore a few things with every pack.
In sparkd they grouped players up as three types of players - the storyteller, the builder, and the CAS player. And this is clearly how they see players now, build and CAS take a massive focus in development (they were very much a background feature in past games) and all the gameplay is made for storyteller players who come up with their own stories for it.
They don't put any depth in as they expect the player to do it themselves. But what about those who like lore and some sort of depth to their gameplay? Everyone else has just been forgotten. You can see this the most with Realm of Magic. There's no depth to that pack at all, the player has to create their own story for it to be interesting. There's just no challenge to the packs, nothing is unexpected, everything is just surface level, there's no fun little extras they add to packs because they just seperate them out into stuff packs. Tiny Living should've been part of Eco Lifestyle, Bowling Stuff shouldve been in university, Spa Day should've been in Snowy Escape, etc etc. I like this game but packs, especially expansions are disappointing. I don't get that same excitement from them as I did with Sims 3 packs as I know they aren't gonna massively change my game. I honestly don't feel like any of them are good enough for what they're charging.
The game packs i've seen have been consistent on their value and content and the same with stuff packs over the years so no problem there.
Seasons and Get Famous showed how hard EA scraped the barrel a few years ago for something that was most certainly not worth the price of being an expac because it seriously lacked content and value. I hope they don't go that far in future expacs...
The Sims 4 for me is just money. They don't care what you want as long as you pay for their DLCs.
Edited - the fact that black players happen to complain about the skintone issue but it took police brutality deaths for them to fix it? And yet the skintone update doesn't work with the genetics?
Get Together has a lot of the stuff that the date expansions had in 1 & 2, but since dates and parties were base game we got the whole new club system instead. This seems like a net positive to me.
Seasons didn't have to add gardening and fishing the way it did in 2, so they had room to add the holidays instead.
But when the missing content is not in the base game, the new packs come up short some of the time.
Such as we don't get retail that's as detailed as Open for Business because those resources were spent on active careers.
We don't get birds and reptiles and have to spend extra for small mammals because those resources were spent on the vet career.
I like the active careers and the vet career, but I also miss what was left out to make room for them.
Technically Sims 3 had the store which provided "gamepack" like content.
Per production they have different teams, one is a central development team and all the packs are basically developed by second teams that work with that team. Its why they can develop 3 different things at once but its also the reason why never see post launch content for packs because after one is completed that team is moved onto another production unlike the central team that continues to work on the Sims 4 base core game.
The Only Expansion Pack Level of Content for me that we got was Get To Work, Get Together, and Seasons.
I feel like from the size of content from smallest to large this is how it goes
1. The Sims 3/2 Stuff Packs
2. The Sims 4 Stuff Packs
3. The Sims 3 Store
4. The Sims 4 Game Packs
5. The Sims 4 Expansion Packs
6. Big Gap
7. The Sims 3 and 2 Expansion Packs. (Plus Get to Work)
Expansions in previous iterations would have 4 or 5 major features and non of them would be about the world or BB/CAS. In Get To Work for example we had the Scientist, Doctor, Detective and Retail as a Major Feature. That is Four major features in one expansion pack, not counting the aliens, magnolia promende (tho could be bigger) the illness system and etc. Meanwhile Eco Lifestyle only have...............NAP and Eco Foot Print as the main features........we have objects as a major feature (Sustainable Living Description) and whole set dedicated just for.....Build and Buy.
http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/924539/features-that-needs-depth-and-ways-to-improve
- expansion packs supposedly add the most amount of content
- While some do a good job focusing on gameplay that is more universal (seasons especially) a lot feel like glorified worlds with little lasting gameplay
- Sims 2 and 3 eps had a stronger focus while sims 4 eps sometimes feel all over the place with no thematic focus and lacking details.
- $40 price tag not always justified
- Game packs generally have more fleshed out features with vampires dine out and parenthood being the best. Parenthood is especially good adding content that effects sims daily lives and changes gameplay as a whole.
- A big miss with game packs are the ones that add rpg like stories and content that doesn’t work well for sandbox gameplay (I.e. once you complete it you don’t go back to it)
- stuff packs generally don’t contain much gameplay, but unlike sims 2 and 3 l, they seem to be a better deal as they include interactive objects
- Kids room stuff, vintage glamour movie hangout, laundry day, and nifty knitting add the most gameplay for stuff packs as they either include new gameplay, or in depth interactive objects.
Terrific Family Play
Too fun
The sims 2 forever
I plan to play with the Japanese neighborhoods and I have some households that will be able to go there. I think I would have liked the snowy mountain top to have more empty lots and to be a generic mountain that I can tailor as the player. In other words, I'd like a completely mountainous and wintry world with more lots, but I do like Snowy Escape. I found myself thinking that even with all there is to do, there could be more. I do like having Japan in the game and I appreciate Mt. Komorebi.
In terms of the focus of the packs, I think some of them have had parts that I personally wasn't interested in but we are all interested in different things. Mermaids in IL aren't really a big deal for me but they are for others. A lot of parts of EL weren't interesting to me but I still found myself liking it because I actually find the world to be pretty immersive and it added a "normal" side to the game. I have not played JtB. I'm kind of thinking I might add it as a theme park, but I haven't yet because I'm not interested in Star Wars or aliens. I do like some of the CAS/BB and I want to build a science center, but I stay on the fence. That's a game pack but I include it among the recent content.
I think recent packs have been ok, but yes, some of the themes are a bit odd. I think they are trying to appeal to different simmers. I'm open to a lot of ideas. I do think new gameplay and new optional storylines might make sense.