For me bad would be finding out that Island Living allowed tanning. Considering the Sims doesn't allow things like smoking, or the effects of alcoholic drinks to be shown, I was more than a little surprised that tanning was an option.
Good would be just how much I was able to incorporate Realm of Magic into my regular Sims gameplay. I had heard that a lot of people got bored with the pack after a while, and that it perhaps didn't have staying power in terms of gameplay, but so far I haven't found that.
What have others been surprised by with packs, good or bad?
Occult Simmer (All Occult All The Time)
Female Simmer from Australia (she/her)
I had one of my Sims marry the Grim Reaper & now they have a lot of kids.
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I am a bit disappointed in University. I play rotationally and hate being stuck fo a week with one sim to complete a semester. The town is too small too. But, I have yet to fully explore it, I have only just almost finished a semester with the pleasant’s and found out from some posts that you need to take notes in class ( I didn’t realize the option was there ).
I haven’’t played Ecco lifestyle yet. I made it where only residents can vote on Naps. There are some I don’t care for. I wish you had an option to turn Naps off in some neighborhoods, and on in others. The same with the footprints. I love the concept but I don’t want all my houses to have solar power, windmills and have to collect water. I heard you can give them a lot trait for that, but they didn’t add an extra lot trait slot. I want the harbor area to remain run down, so I guess I will have to leave the trash there and add discarded furniture and stuff to keep it that way. I’m still not sure how the community lot thing works there either.
I just got JBT and Snowy Escape which completes my packs. I’m actually looking forward to making my criminal sim a smuggler. Do smugglers do missions too? And snowy escape seems to be a good pair with island living for my more active sport sims.
I play rotationally too and I have a lot of sims that I want to go through university.
But there is no way I am going to play week after week of University. It is a bit of a disappointment.
Mods have made the weak social aspects more enjoyable though.
It's been fun rotating back to my prep school as a Uni rotation point and having them take vacations.
I then progress my other households.
I am currently getting the first three graduates started in their careers.
I have a mother and daughter household. The mother is a Stylist that owns a small boutique shop.
So she is combining her career and her business. Her daughter just finished Uni and is now a Trend Setter.
I am going to have them run the business and makeover sims for a while and then vacation at Mt. Komorebi.
After that, it's back to the next batch of Uni students.
I think I am finding combining some pack features surprisingly enjoyable.
This. ^^^
In the pets expansion, I was surprised that you cant actually control the pets yourself. You need to have your sim attempt to control them, the way people do in real life. I think it can be a little annoying, but its interesting and i like it. The customization for the pets is really cool too.
In the vampire pack, I was really surprised to find out vampires can break into your house and do some weird mind control stuff to your sims while they sleep. Idk what the heck thats all about, not sure what its supposed to do, since it just froze my sim and I had to debug reset him, so whatever it was, I might've interrupted it.
Just got Island Living too, and I love how open the world of Sulani is. There's so much to explore, and it's fun that your sim can access so much space by swimming and/or walking. That was a pleasant surprise.
City Living is one of my favorite packs too. Of course I wish we could build apartments in other worlds too, but I love a lot of the interactions of that packs and just the feel of San Myshuno as a whole. I never had that many expansion packs when playing TS3, so I think I'm a bit more charmed by some of the TS4 packs since I don't have anything to compare them to. (Although Jungle Adventure and Outdoor Retreat both disappointed me since they felt like they were lacking in comparison to TS3 World Adventures, which was one of the only packs I owned for TS3 and I loved it)
Also, perhaps this is an unpopular opinion, but the one pack I do kind of regret buying is Parenthood. I don't play with aging, so I feel like I don't benefit from the full features of the game. If I ever do play more than one generation though, I can see myself appreciating it more, but honestly I don't feel like it really added anything to my game at this point in time
Bad would be Snowy Escape, I'm really disappointed by it as I was excited for it but the gameplay and the world totally missed the mark for me. I just find it very boring, I would happily refund it as I got bored of it after a week and haven't touched it since.
Another nice surprise was Luxury party. I had said I wouldn't get the pack because there were only a couple of pretty dresses in it, but then after carefully watching videos of the stuff packs that I still didn't have I ended up choosing this one for a bundle. I have been pleased with my choice. I really like the clothes in this pack (the dresses are lovely!) and I have used them quite a lot, the make up is nice and I have put the food serving items in a couple of lots (I still haven't used them, but I think they will be useful).
Realm of Magic has been a somewhat disappointment for me. In general I like the pack and I play spellcasters, but I wish the spellcaster perks were more interesting and there was more to do in the magic realm. I also kind of wish there was an easier way to choose which spells your spellcaster learns and how they learn them. I'd like my spellcasters to learn a couple of particular spells that I choose them to have, but now the learning is a bit random unless I hunt down the tomes which I have been doing lately.
I haven't even touched JTB but droids can be used outside of Batuu? Like do they not function/work or they just have no real use but can be played with like a "pet" still?
They play music lol. They won't follow your sim, but I think you can make them move around with the datapad, so there's that if your sims are into really fancy toys. I think you keep the relationship? But not like with pets, as they don't have autonomy, and they won't do anything useful like on missions.
I got Get Together just recently. I knew I would make natural pools and use the rock ladders and seating a lot. I'm using the clubs more than I orinally planned to. It's given my Sims a social life and I now have a reason to get them out and about and socialising with other Sims outside of their household or family. My Sims are now making friends.
I got Backyard Stuff for the waterslide. I only buy stuff packs at half price and I though even that was a bit much for a waterslide, but it looked like it will be a lot of fun. After buying the pack I use the waterslide a lot, but I also use the lemonade and the bird feeder too.
Discover University is the first pack I got. I had University in Sims 2 and really enjoyed it. I didn't have it in Sims 3. I don't regret buying this one, but there are a few dissapointments with it.
First of all: There's so much work. Sims take a long time to complete their assignments and homework. I have them live off campus on their own, the Study Spot lot trait has been assigned, and their Research and Debate skill is at level 6, but they still take so long to finish their work. I don't like that I have to build their Research and Debate skill (a skill I otherwise don't care about and wouldn't use) just so they can complete their work. My University Sims don't have time for socializing or anything fun. There's so much work that it's not fun for me.
Second: My Sims can't eat proper meals while living in the dorms. They can only have quick meals and then get uncomfortable for having only quick meals which really takes the enjoyment out of the dorm life. I know Sims will put food on that table, but it's usually high calorie stuff and I don't have time to have my University Sims exercise, so they end up getting fat way to fast.
https://youtube.com/channel/UCaj9o4hycNSPy8U1Ip0OCFA/videos
I thought I'd just end up using it more like a destination than a main world, and while the idea of mermaids was cool to me it wasn't like...a driving feature for me. But I am absolutely in love with the world! I think it's really well fleshed out, and quite beautiful. I love sending my sims for swims. Meeting my first mermaid was exciting, as I didn't know it until they woohoo'd! I am getting the same 'good surprise' sort of feeling from Snowy Escape, but it's too soon for me to commit to that. I do know I think the world introduced is absolutely stunning and I've loved exploring it, but the festivals are completely pointless, and I haven't tried the snow sports yet (which I am completely uninterested in, lol).
Vampires was sort of a Good Surprise, too. I waited a long time to buy it and wasn't expecting much, and aside from how depressingly small Forgotten Hollow is, it's a great pack. Would love to see them introduce other supernaturals with the same vigor.
University was a grand scale Bad Surprise. Going to university is not fun, like, at all. And while part of me likes that it's a little bit challenging, it's not challenging in a fun way. It's very monotonous. And aside from studying constantly, there's not much else to do, even if your sim doesn't mind flunking. I haven't tried the secret societies storyline, but the whole pack to me is just exhausting and reaps very few benefits.
Outdoor Retreat is another bad one for me. Found the 'hermit' in like 5 minutes, romanced them, etc. It's just a random person in the woods? Why not make them like...special? Or have like more of a legend/mythology/folklore around them? That would've been cool. Besides that, running around the woods for a vacation is like...pointless. To an extent I like the herbology skill and finding insects, etc, but it's such a dud overall. It adds virtually no game play.
I tried to ignore the pack as much as I could until I learned a lot of what I complained about was modifiable. I could just delete holiday traditions, or holidays altogether, and create new ones I picked myself. Now, it’s one of my favorite packs, and I love having the seasons pass and watching for some annual holidays that I’ve made up to roll around on the calendar. I keep my seasons 28 days, so it actually feels like a refreshing change when one season fades into another.
This sounds like a bad surprise, but it was actually good--I had no idea there were sharks in Island Living. My Sim was swimming merrily along when he stopped in the water and got tense, and I saw the moodlet with a shark fin--and then I saw the actual shark. I have no idea if it can actually attack your Sim or not, but it was an exciting element of unexpected danger.
Sulani is *the* place for my main family. They'll settle on an empty beach, and build their shacks, huts and sometimes a huge vacation house. Then tear it all down again and start over. And I love the style of the houses and the surrounding enviroment. Still fighting to build *the* perfect house for them, and make it last through generations.
Are there actually sharks in the base pack? I've never seen any myself (maybe only on certain lots?) and I've heard claims that people on PC can cheat them into the game, but it apparently will only make your Sims tense, not eat them. I did get me a surprise when I had my mermaid test out her powers and using her husband as volounteer. Don't know if the mermaid actually can make people drown (doubt it) but I'm not gonna risk it unless I get really unwelcome visitors.
Laundry Day and Seasons gets a shout-out. They work perfectly with this pack. My Sims can do their laundry by hand, the mermaid gets weather powers and I actually have to keep watch on my Sims during thunderstorms, because someone in the sky is actively aiming for them (one of my Sims left for work and was struck the moment he was outside the door).
We want: Faeries, with a good ability tree, hopefully before summer 2024.
What do we want to get rid of: The holiday bug, the constant showering and the weed glitch.
Knifty knitting also surprised me. I was all for Happy Haunts (and still am) but KN ended up being so well done! It's very relaxing to see my sims knitting by the fireplace while rain/snow hits the window...
For a bad surprise i would say Discover University. I like the pack,i like that it has so many degrees to choose and i like that it's hard to get the degrees because i don't want all of my sims to get a degree... but it's too long! Very unbalanced, at least for a normal lifespan...