To sum up my disappointment based on early access simmer and the livestream:
- School
Feels very empty to me and not just physically. Because the way the school day is structured the only time you can really do something is the lunch break. The time before first class is ok for small tasks, but too short for lengthy interactions.
And when you are on break the only thing you can really do is to talk to other teens. That has some appeal I guess as now all teens are herded together, but as main content for an expansion?
Sure you do have things like the locker but as far as I have seen its completely optional making using the locker and pranking them more a novelty in case you want to make a screenshot of it and recite "This is my locker, there are many like it but this one is mine".
Then there are classes which are completely inactive. You are basically watching a rabbit hole. You even get decisions like you do when doing a rabbit hole career for example about passing notes but without seeing you passing notes in the classroom and the only option you have is to leave early.
You can of course skip class to do .... what? One hour is not really that long to do something meaningful and you are already on the school lot anyway.
School performance also seems to be tied to the actions you have to perform each day, so basically just being there earns you a passing grade and if you want to be extra good you have to chat with other students when the game prompts you to.
What is good is that you can rebuild your school when you do not want that American theme (at least visually). Sadly EA did the bare minimum and does not allow you to enforce a dress code or select which kind of clubs and after school activities are available (they are all rabbit holes anyway so there is nothing preventing you from inventing more with little to no effort)
- After School activities
Those are even emptier than the school. They are all rabbit holes so you do not see them at all, even the ones where there are animations for like cheerleading or chess.
The entire sports track behind the school is wasted. You can't run on it like in the trailer and the only thing functional on it is this cheerleading mat which is placed in the middle of the field sticking out like a sore thumb. The entire area is only used for the football and cheerleading event which is very localized so could have equally been happening in a small garden space instead of an big empty field.
- Prom
Its ok, I guess? In the end its just another kind of (goaled?) party like the ones we already have. Nothing revolutionary really except getting some more animations out of it. But having it every week is a bit tedious and I think most people will skip it mostly, only going to prom once in a (normal) life span.
- Career day
Why is that even there? You do nothing career related at all, you can't network for future benefits, do internships or aptitude tests, try to get a leg up for university applications and so on. Its just a few guys standing in an empty room.
- Graduation
Seems to be broken currently so I have not seen it
- Social Bunny
Maybe the younger generation sees the appeal but I imagine that it gets tedious very fast with constant messages popping up and you having to post and tag about events. I am also not a fan off that it seems to be able to replace social interaction completely with it being able to fill relation and romance bars to full without ever interacting in person. For the younger generation that might seem to be normal but I want that relationships even in sims should require more than clicking on bunnies
- New Careers
They seem superfluous. We already have streaming, no need for EA to implement it a second time.
I have not seen enough of thrifting but so far I do not get it. You basically just click together a outfit, it doesn't matter how it looks like or has any other criteria, punch in a price and eventually someone pays it? Basically Dream Home Decorator but without any budget or build limitations or wants from your clients. Thats basically just playing around in CAS and occasionally cheat you some more money.
And another letdown, you can't play teachers or the principal even when you play the household which is specifically set up as principal and her daughter. And I doubt that will change when you have DU and the Education career.
- Amusement Pier
I am ok with it because not even EA does seem to make a big deal out of it. Its a collection of rabbit holes with new popups and text. Certainly not something I would by an expansion for but EA does not use it as big selling point, so its fine?
In conclusion I don't really see anything in the expansion which justifies the price. Most of it are rehashes of existing mechanics with other paint jobs and many of the new additions look like they are fun once or twice but would quickly get annoying.
And that assumes that there won't be problems later on once school has to interact with other packs and occult or celebrity teens which can cause a lot of problems if not handled and tested properly (for example the fire drill forcing all sims outside for an hour. Bye bye vampire teen).
I have a similar problem since I play a longer lifespan as well. I don't want teens going to prom every week! Like perhaps during my later visits with the household, to sort of match the junior/senior prom I went to.
Also man, sure do hope we get a bands/music game pack down the line at some point. ...would be interesting to see what sort of world they would think up for that.
I am having more negative feelings about this pack than I expected. I like the CAS, the B/B and I like the world. But I am very worried about graduation. It doesn't seem to be working in the version the game changers have. I am afraid it will break my rotation system.
There should have been more options for schools. We should have been able to create schools on our own and assign students to those schools. I would have preferred more options to the current rabbit hole system. If there is going to be one school, let us at least pick who attends. What's it going to be like when I play Copperdale and teens from everywhere show up, but your next door neighbor does not?
Why do the after school clubs not meet in real life? Football, I understand, but all the others should be possible. Can I have clubs meet at the school?
Why can't children pillow fights with teens!
Why is prom every week? I heard it's so everyone gets a chance to go, but couldn't we have just been allowed to schedule it?
Hopefully, it will be better than I expect, or
modders will fix some of the issues, but I'm on the fence right now.
I'm starting to have more negative feelings about the pack too, it's the limitations of the sims4 that is starting to frustrate me. They said that they wanted to focus on teens forming relationships and hanging out, but after school activities are rabbit holes? The world is so small so Kevin, the main sim in the trailer doesn't even have parents? He is living with another family? The fair looks kinda...dull? We can't build high schools anywhere else or choose who attends them so it's going to be a bunch of random teens?
It really feels like many have mentioned here that they want you to play their story. You should play as a trendy teen who is socially awkward and sells clothes, streams videogames, sneaks out at night and hangs out at the pier and looks forward to prom. Want to play as a teen who likes to to do different activities? Too bad, those are just rabbit holes, not enough budget for that.
I think the main issue is that they decided to make the pack focused on the high school, and as expected, there is very little variable gameplay in it, however, that took the bulk of the dev time. In every thread I've seen over the years asking for a school pack, pretty much everyone in those threads wanted everything school except the actual school itself - what they wanted was prom, and pretty much only prom, and maybe graduation, classrooms and locker lined hallways to take pictures of their Sims in. It's one of the areas I really wished EA continued to ignore the community on.
I really wish instead of wasting all that effort into making the whole interactive school system, they instead focused more on out of school activities. Think the Boba/thrift shop, but in addition, skateparks and skate shops, video arcades and comic book stores, that sort of thing.
I feel like this has become quite a typical problem with Sims 4 packs at this point - they'll add the essential stuff needed for the packs theme, and then rather than going right in and making that essential stuff as in depth as possible, they'll start adding other stuff instead.
With this pack they needed to focus on either one thing, or the other. They should've either made it a pack totally focused on high school gameplay, no world or other stuff, just make the school experience as busy and in depth as possible, or a pack without the school and a focus on activities like the ones you listed. But instead, rather than having either of those things executed in depth, we have both of them executed without depth.
Honestly, I think focussing on school based gameplay would make it even worse, ultimately, the gameplay loop would be similar to what we are getting, and this is exactly the gameplay I thought we would get whenever someone suggested a school pack over the years. Ultimately, for it to have any resemblance of a school, it would have to take away your control of your sim.
All the stuff that people have been wanting in the thread such as directing your sim to take notes, building a school in any world etc, while nice, is just putting lipstick on a pig, and doesn't radically improve the gameplay much, especially given the built in limitations of the game. And the trade off would be little if any, gameplay outside of school, so in essence, it would be an entire pack where you, the player doesn't do anything.
Working on school projects (alone or with other sims), pulling pranks in class, using computers or exercise equipment, causing chaos and taking notes aren't groundbreaking gameplay, but they'd make the class experience much more interactive and fun. Especially if out sim can choose our classes, thus giving us ways to customize what and how our sims experience in school.
I'm sad that we can't have everything, but if I had to choose, I'd choose more interesting school life over yet another take on streaming and fashion trends. It's a high school pack, and the school stuff is more relevant to the average sim than those niche interests. It's bad enough that all the after-school clubs are barebones.
The Sims 4 hasn't introduced a new musical instrument since 2017
The classes and after school activities just feel so underwhelming and not developed. I thought i would reserve judgment since i only have reviews of simmers with early access to go by, but even some of them seemed a little underwhelmed with the schooling part. I have played another game which had school classes before so that probably affected my expectations of what classes could be like here, and that gameplay seems more fun in comparison.
I'm thinking we could probably build art and music rooms into the schools and have our sims use them before or after classes to pretend we have the classes. For the way I play that will work for me but I know it won't for everyone.
My negative is that I really have no interest in the Trendi stuff and wish they'd spent those resources on giving us marching band as an after school activity with new instruments playable by other age groups instead. And also sim-twitter. As if the real one wasn't annoying enough.
I just want to see my sims do things that aren't "press buttons on phone", you know?
I am having more negative feelings about this pack than I expected. I like the CAS, the B/B and I like the world. But I am very worried about graduation. It doesn't seem to be working in the version the game changers have. I am afraid it will break my rotation system.
There should have been more options for schools. We should have been able to create schools on our own and assign students to those schools. I would have preferred more options to the current rabbit hole system. If there is going to be one school, let us at least pick who attends. What's it going to be like when I play Copperdale and teens from everywhere show up, but your next door neighbor does not?
Why do the after school clubs not meet in real life? Football, I understand, but all the others should be possible. Can I have clubs meet at the school?
Why can't children pillow fights with teens!
Why is prom every week? I heard it's so everyone gets a chance to go, but couldn't we have just been allowed to schedule it?
Hopefully, it will be better than I expect, or
modders will fix some of the issues, but I'm on the fence right now.
I'm starting to have more negative feelings about the pack too, it's the limitations of the sims4 that is starting to frustrate me. They said that they wanted to focus on teens forming relationships and hanging out, but after school activities are rabbit holes? The world is so small so Kevin, the main sim in the trailer doesn't even have parents? He is living with another family? The fair looks kinda...dull? We can't build high schools anywhere else or choose who attends them so it's going to be a bunch of random teens?
It really feels like many have mentioned here that they want you to play their story. You should play as a trendy teen who is socially awkward and sells clothes, streams videogames, sneaks out at night and hangs out at the pier and looks forward to prom. Want to play as a teen who likes to to do different activities? Too bad, those are just rabbit holes, not enough budget for that.
I think the main issue is that they decided to make the pack focused on the high school, and as expected, there is very little variable gameplay in it, however, that took the bulk of the dev time. In every thread I've seen over the years asking for a school pack, pretty much everyone in those threads wanted everything school except the actual school itself - what they wanted was prom, and pretty much only prom, and maybe graduation, classrooms and locker lined hallways to take pictures of their Sims in. It's one of the areas I really wished EA continued to ignore the community on.
I really wish instead of wasting all that effort into making the whole interactive school system, they instead focused more on out of school activities. Think the Boba/thrift shop, but in addition, skateparks and skate shops, video arcades and comic book stores, that sort of thing.
I feel like this has become quite a typical problem with Sims 4 packs at this point - they'll add the essential stuff needed for the packs theme, and then rather than going right in and making that essential stuff as in depth as possible, they'll start adding other stuff instead.
With this pack they needed to focus on either one thing, or the other. They should've either made it a pack totally focused on high school gameplay, no world or other stuff, just make the school experience as busy and in depth as possible, or a pack without the school and a focus on activities like the ones you listed. But instead, rather than having either of those things executed in depth, we have both of them executed without depth.
Honestly, I think focussing on school based gameplay would make it even worse, ultimately, the gameplay loop would be similar to what we are getting, and this is exactly the gameplay I thought we would get whenever someone suggested a school pack over the years. Ultimately, for it to have any resemblance of a school, it would have to take away your control of your sim.
All the stuff that people have been wanting in the thread such as directing your sim to take notes, building a school in any world etc, while nice, is just putting lipstick on a pig, and doesn't radically improve the gameplay much, especially given the built in limitations of the game. And the trade off would be little if any, gameplay outside of school, so in essence, it would be an entire pack where you, the player doesn't do anything.
My thing is class interactions is not ground breaking gameplay the Sims are at a desk doing those interactions that I requested it would be so much better then just sitting there for an entire hour doing nothing. Same thing with my sim in detention but it's fir two sim hours (supposedly.) I would much rather them do something at the desk then just sitting there. That's what I would consider a waste.
Also having a football game to be a rabbit hole I mean the only game play to that is watching them walk over to the rabbit hole to play in or watch the game like in DU. Throwing a Football back and forth for a competition great but it's a big let down.
Same thing with chess and computer programming like it should've been more.
I am having more negative feelings about this pack than I expected. I like the CAS, the B/B and I like the world. But I am very worried about graduation. It doesn't seem to be working in the version the game changers have. I am afraid it will break my rotation system.
There should have been more options for schools. We should have been able to create schools on our own and assign students to those schools. I would have preferred more options to the current rabbit hole system. If there is going to be one school, let us at least pick who attends. What's it going to be like when I play Copperdale and teens from everywhere show up, but your next door neighbor does not?
Why do the after school clubs not meet in real life? Football, I understand, but all the others should be possible. Can I have clubs meet at the school?
Why can't children pillow fights with teens!
Why is prom every week? I heard it's so everyone gets a chance to go, but couldn't we have just been allowed to schedule it?
Hopefully, it will be better than I expect, or
modders will fix some of the issues, but I'm on the fence right now.
I'm starting to have more negative feelings about the pack too, it's the limitations of the sims4 that is starting to frustrate me. They said that they wanted to focus on teens forming relationships and hanging out, but after school activities are rabbit holes? The world is so small so Kevin, the main sim in the trailer doesn't even have parents? He is living with another family? The fair looks kinda...dull? We can't build high schools anywhere else or choose who attends them so it's going to be a bunch of random teens?
It really feels like many have mentioned here that they want you to play their story. You should play as a trendy teen who is socially awkward and sells clothes, streams videogames, sneaks out at night and hangs out at the pier and looks forward to prom. Want to play as a teen who likes to to do different activities? Too bad, those are just rabbit holes, not enough budget for that.
I think the main issue is that they decided to make the pack focused on the high school, and as expected, there is very little variable gameplay in it, however, that took the bulk of the dev time. In every thread I've seen over the years asking for a school pack, pretty much everyone in those threads wanted everything school except the actual school itself - what they wanted was prom, and pretty much only prom, and maybe graduation, classrooms and locker lined hallways to take pictures of their Sims in. It's one of the areas I really wished EA continued to ignore the community on.
I really wish instead of wasting all that effort into making the whole interactive school system, they instead focused more on out of school activities. Think the Boba/thrift shop, but in addition, skateparks and skate shops, video arcades and comic book stores, that sort of thing.
I feel like this has become quite a typical problem with Sims 4 packs at this point - they'll add the essential stuff needed for the packs theme, and then rather than going right in and making that essential stuff as in depth as possible, they'll start adding other stuff instead.
With this pack they needed to focus on either one thing, or the other. They should've either made it a pack totally focused on high school gameplay, no world or other stuff, just make the school experience as busy and in depth as possible, or a pack without the school and a focus on activities like the ones you listed. But instead, rather than having either of those things executed in depth, we have both of them executed without depth.
Honestly, I think focussing on school based gameplay would make it even worse, ultimately, the gameplay loop would be similar to what we are getting, and this is exactly the gameplay I thought we would get whenever someone suggested a school pack over the years. Ultimately, for it to have any resemblance of a school, it would have to take away your control of your sim.
All the stuff that people have been wanting in the thread such as directing your sim to take notes, building a school in any world etc, while nice, is just putting lipstick on a pig, and doesn't radically improve the gameplay much, especially given the built in limitations of the game. And the trade off would be little if any, gameplay outside of school, so in essence, it would be an entire pack where you, the player doesn't do anything.
My thing is class interactions is not ground breaking gameplay the Sims are at a desk doing those interactions that I requested it would be so much better then just sitting there for an entire hour doing nothing. Same thing with my sim in detention but it's fir two sim hours (supposedly.) I would much rather them do something at the desk then just sitting there. That's what I would consider a waste.
Also having a football game to be a rabbit hole I mean the only game play to that is watching them walk over to the rabbit hole to play in or watch the game like in DU. Throwing a Football back and forth for a competition great but it's a big let down.
Same thing with chess and computer programming like it should've been more.
I get it about the After School stuff being a disappointment, but there's no way we're watching a football game in the Sims. There's only 20 sims allowed to be active on any given lot. Now, I'm not huge on football, but I think that the teams are usually bigger than that. (not players on the field, the whole team)
I'm several pages behind so I guess this topic of discussion came and went, but I really dislike the high school itself.
I understand limitations to make sure it runs on all computers, but after watching the care and thought James Turner put into every lot for the werewolf pack, making sure it looks visually interesting, it's really disappointing to go back to ... that.
Maybe EAxis builders should go through the same revisions they make the game changers go through. More often than not, it feels like they put their first draft in the game and call it a day.
I am having more negative feelings about this pack than I expected. I like the CAS, the B/B and I like the world. But I am very worried about graduation. It doesn't seem to be working in the version the game changers have. I am afraid it will break my rotation system.
There should have been more options for schools. We should have been able to create schools on our own and assign students to those schools. I would have preferred more options to the current rabbit hole system. If there is going to be one school, let us at least pick who attends. What's it going to be like when I play Copperdale and teens from everywhere show up, but your next door neighbor does not?
Why do the after school clubs not meet in real life? Football, I understand, but all the others should be possible. Can I have clubs meet at the school?
Why can't children pillow fights with teens!
Why is prom every week? I heard it's so everyone gets a chance to go, but couldn't we have just been allowed to schedule it?
Hopefully, it will be better than I expect, or
modders will fix some of the issues, but I'm on the fence right now.
I'm starting to have more negative feelings about the pack too, it's the limitations of the sims4 that is starting to frustrate me. They said that they wanted to focus on teens forming relationships and hanging out, but after school activities are rabbit holes? The world is so small so Kevin, the main sim in the trailer doesn't even have parents? He is living with another family? The fair looks kinda...dull? We can't build high schools anywhere else or choose who attends them so it's going to be a bunch of random teens?
It really feels like many have mentioned here that they want you to play their story. You should play as a trendy teen who is socially awkward and sells clothes, streams videogames, sneaks out at night and hangs out at the pier and looks forward to prom. Want to play as a teen who likes to to do different activities? Too bad, those are just rabbit holes, not enough budget for that.
I think the main issue is that they decided to make the pack focused on the high school, and as expected, there is very little variable gameplay in it, however, that took the bulk of the dev time. In every thread I've seen over the years asking for a school pack, pretty much everyone in those threads wanted everything school except the actual school itself - what they wanted was prom, and pretty much only prom, and maybe graduation, classrooms and locker lined hallways to take pictures of their Sims in. It's one of the areas I really wished EA continued to ignore the community on.
I really wish instead of wasting all that effort into making the whole interactive school system, they instead focused more on out of school activities. Think the Boba/thrift shop, but in addition, skateparks and skate shops, video arcades and comic book stores, that sort of thing.
I feel like this has become quite a typical problem with Sims 4 packs at this point - they'll add the essential stuff needed for the packs theme, and then rather than going right in and making that essential stuff as in depth as possible, they'll start adding other stuff instead.
With this pack they needed to focus on either one thing, or the other. They should've either made it a pack totally focused on high school gameplay, no world or other stuff, just make the school experience as busy and in depth as possible, or a pack without the school and a focus on activities like the ones you listed. But instead, rather than having either of those things executed in depth, we have both of them executed without depth.
Honestly, I think focussing on school based gameplay would make it even worse, ultimately, the gameplay loop would be similar to what we are getting, and this is exactly the gameplay I thought we would get whenever someone suggested a school pack over the years. Ultimately, for it to have any resemblance of a school, it would have to take away your control of your sim.
All the stuff that people have been wanting in the thread such as directing your sim to take notes, building a school in any world etc, while nice, is just putting lipstick on a pig, and doesn't radically improve the gameplay much, especially given the built in limitations of the game. And the trade off would be little if any, gameplay outside of school, so in essence, it would be an entire pack where you, the player doesn't do anything.
My thing is class interactions is not ground breaking gameplay the Sims are at a desk doing those interactions that I requested it would be so much better then just sitting there for an entire hour doing nothing. Same thing with my sim in detention but it's fir two sim hours (supposedly.) I would much rather them do something at the desk then just sitting there. That's what I would consider a waste.
Also having a football game to be a rabbit hole I mean the only game play to that is watching them walk over to the rabbit hole to play in or watch the game like in DU. Throwing a Football back and forth for a competition great but it's a big let down.
Same thing with chess and computer programming like it should've been more.
I get it about the After School stuff being a disappointment, but there's no way we're watching a football game in the Sims. There's only 20 sims allowed to be active on any given lot. Now, I'm not huge on football, but I think that the teams are usually bigger than that. (not players on the field, the whole team)
What? Who said anything about watching a football game? I said the only game play we will see is Sims walking into a rabbit hole like in DU for the game, they either play or watch the game inside the rabbit hole for some sim hours then it's over and they come out of a rabbit hole from either playing or watching the game the entire event is a rabbit hole that's what I'm talking about.
I’ve managed to build a school type building 🏫🚌 with the packs I have. It has to function as a library but that’s okay with me.
There’s stuff for teens and kids to do (albeit more fun activities) but I can pretend. The Little Campers Kit does come in handy for an outside TV. As I don’t have Seasons it never rains!
It’s a pity you can’t post pictures directly here. I still have to find a photo share thing. 🙄🤦🏼♂️
Prom every week is so....too often.
They shouldve tied it to life span settings, for short its every week, normal every 2nd, long every third and off every 4th week, or something like that or have us be able to set the frequenzy in pack settings or the calender.
Anyway Im still upset about the lack of arts, think I'll build an art room and have my sims skip class to hang out there instead...I play with ageing off, so dont care for grades anyways, my teens will never graduate....maybe some of em will drop out even.
Schools boring so I guess they got the realism there
While I do like the trendi thing and the new streaming career, they both feel like they shouldve been in previous packs, streaming in GF and trendi in CL.
My fashion designer mermaid will love trendi and the thrift store and my streamers will love to finally have a real streaming pc and career, but yeah...those things shouldve been in other packs.
Couldve added them with pack refresh which I guess they dont do anymore?
After watching the livestream and a few videos I'm sure it was their intention to create a highschool as boring as it could be. Did anyone enjoy highschool? I didn't. It was just a boring place where I had to go to every day. The best time was always after school and at the weekends and vacations.
To be honest after the trailer my expectations were not very high. But after the livestream they are even more lower. They should have focussed either on Highschool or on after school activities to make the pack really good. I would have prefered new interesting after school activities and not boring school activities and after school rabbit holes. And I miss all the activities I did in my highschool years.
I'm several pages behind so I guess this topic of discussion came and went, but I really dislike the high school itself.
This to me. I may play it once, I will. But other than that I use the features of the pack in elsewhere.
My love, my love, my fearless love, I will not say goodbye..
Sea may rise, sky may fall, My love will never die..
My heart, my heart, My drowning heart, Oh all the tears I've cried
Oh I may weep forevermore, My love will never die..
I am having more negative feelings about this pack than I expected. I like the CAS, the B/B and I like the world. But I am very worried about graduation. It doesn't seem to be working in the version the game changers have. I am afraid it will break my rotation system.
There should have been more options for schools. We should have been able to create schools on our own and assign students to those schools. I would have preferred more options to the current rabbit hole system. If there is going to be one school, let us at least pick who attends. What's it going to be like when I play Copperdale and teens from everywhere show up, but your next door neighbor does not?
Why do the after school clubs not meet in real life? Football, I understand, but all the others should be possible. Can I have clubs meet at the school?
Why can't children pillow fights with teens!
Why is prom every week? I heard it's so everyone gets a chance to go, but couldn't we have just been allowed to schedule it?
Hopefully, it will be better than I expect, or
modders will fix some of the issues, but I'm on the fence right now.
I'm starting to have more negative feelings about the pack too, it's the limitations of the sims4 that is starting to frustrate me. They said that they wanted to focus on teens forming relationships and hanging out, but after school activities are rabbit holes? The world is so small so Kevin, the main sim in the trailer doesn't even have parents? He is living with another family? The fair looks kinda...dull? We can't build high schools anywhere else or choose who attends them so it's going to be a bunch of random teens?
It really feels like many have mentioned here that they want you to play their story. You should play as a trendy teen who is socially awkward and sells clothes, streams videogames, sneaks out at night and hangs out at the pier and looks forward to prom. Want to play as a teen who likes to to do different activities? Too bad, those are just rabbit holes, not enough budget for that.
I think the main issue is that they decided to make the pack focused on the high school, and as expected, there is very little variable gameplay in it, however, that took the bulk of the dev time. In every thread I've seen over the years asking for a school pack, pretty much everyone in those threads wanted everything school except the actual school itself - what they wanted was prom, and pretty much only prom, and maybe graduation, classrooms and locker lined hallways to take pictures of their Sims in. It's one of the areas I really wished EA continued to ignore the community on.
I really wish instead of wasting all that effort into making the whole interactive school system, they instead focused more on out of school activities. Think the Boba/thrift shop, but in addition, skateparks and skate shops, video arcades and comic book stores, that sort of thing.
I feel like this has become quite a typical problem with Sims 4 packs at this point - they'll add the essential stuff needed for the packs theme, and then rather than going right in and making that essential stuff as in depth as possible, they'll start adding other stuff instead.
With this pack they needed to focus on either one thing, or the other. They should've either made it a pack totally focused on high school gameplay, no world or other stuff, just make the school experience as busy and in depth as possible, or a pack without the school and a focus on activities like the ones you listed. But instead, rather than having either of those things executed in depth, we have both of them executed without depth.
Honestly, I think focussing on school based gameplay would make it even worse, ultimately, the gameplay loop would be similar to what we are getting, and this is exactly the gameplay I thought we would get whenever someone suggested a school pack over the years. Ultimately, for it to have any resemblance of a school, it would have to take away your control of your sim.
All the stuff that people have been wanting in the thread such as directing your sim to take notes, building a school in any world etc, while nice, is just putting lipstick on a pig, and doesn't radically improve the gameplay much, especially given the built in limitations of the game. And the trade off would be little if any, gameplay outside of school, so in essence, it would be an entire pack where you, the player doesn't do anything.
Yeah, maybe, I'm not sure. The thing is that many other games focus on the fun parts and create variety. Racing games for example is just about driving around in a circle or a set path over and over again and in real life it comes with a lot of boring things, so they make it fun by focusing on the fun parts and also adding tons of variety by letting you drive so many different cars and also offer challenges.
It feels like we have...given up with that in the sims4? The game doesn't get much development, only focuses on a few fun parts, doesn't create much variety with our sims except visually and doesn't offer much in terms of challenge either.
So whenever I hear "well, what did you expect them to do? real life class is boring" I just go "Well, then they should make it fun? They are game developers, that's what game developers do?"
The gameplay in the school looks almost non existent, for a pack literally with High School in the title that's just terrible.
I expected a science lab with test tubes and experiments, explosions if it goes wrong.
Perhaps a music dept with various instruments, the ability to have a band or singing in a choir.
Where is the art dept where along with painting there could have been a pottery wheel, a kiln, still life sitting.
Gym class with students using that huge running track.
Students actually working in a classroom, taking notes, talking, interacting with the teacher.
Those 2 hours of just sitting there are like watching paint dry.
I couldn't care less about the whole "social bunny" thing, it will probably get very annoying within a day.
Also it's not a selling point of the pack, but really dislike how the pier with the amusements is practically just all rabbithole. We had a working rollercoaster in Sims 1, but now it's just something to disappear into.
The gameplay in the school looks almost non existent, for a pack literally with High School in the title that's just terrible.
I expected a science lab with test tubes and experiments, explosions if it goes wrong.
Perhaps a music dept with various instruments, the ability to have a band or singing in a choir.
Where is the art dept where along with painting there could have been a pottery wheel, a kiln, still life sitting.
Gym class with students using that huge running track.
Students actually working in a classroom, taking notes, talking, interacting with the teacher.
Those 2 hours of just sitting there are like watching paint dry.
I couldn't care less about the whole "social bunny" thing, it will probably get very annoying within a day.
Also it's not a selling point of the pack, but really dislike how the pier with the amusements is practically just all rabbithole. We had a working rollercoaster in Sims 1, but now it's just something to disappear into.
This is what I would have expected from a highschool pack.
I wish we could write up our own Social Bunny posts, instead of just letting the game generate some for us. It'd be a great way to keep track of our sims' stories and personalize how they speak and act.
I agree with this! I was disappointed we couldn't write our own posts! I hope a modder takes care of this.
The gameplay in the school looks almost non existent, for a pack literally with High School in the title that's just terrible.
I expected a science lab with test tubes and experiments, explosions if it goes wrong.
Perhaps a music dept with various instruments, the ability to have a band or singing in a choir.
Where is the art dept where along with painting there could have been a pottery wheel, a kiln, still life sitting.
Gym class with students using that huge running track.
Students actually working in a classroom, taking notes, talking, interacting with the teacher.
Those 2 hours of just sitting there are like watching paint dry.
I couldn't care less about the whole "social bunny" thing, it will probably get very annoying within a day.
Also it's not a selling point of the pack, but really dislike how the pier with the amusements is practically just all rabbithole. We had a working rollercoaster in Sims 1, but now it's just something to disappear into.
That's is what I'm talking about it's a high school but where's the SCHOOL gameplay?
Also to the Summer who said real life class was boring that is your opinion. My opinion is different you'd participate with the gameplay other simmers and myself have listed. Also I remember doing most of that in class.
I wish we could write up our own Social Bunny posts, instead of just letting the game generate some for us. It'd be a great way to keep track of our sims' stories and personalize how they speak and act.
I agree with this! I was disappointed we couldn't write our own posts! I hope a modder takes care of this.
I mean I would like both because Im going to be honest sometimes I'm just to lazy to write posts and wish there's a default post lol. So I'd say both make your own and default.
The more I watch early access footage of simmers playing through the school routine, the more it makes me think it's all exactly the same and I've already seen everything so why would I even want to play it myself? The game barely lets you do something different or interesting.
From watching some of the EA Creator Network simmers, this pack is going to be extremely shallow and disappointing when it comes to high school play. Modders will have to intervene to save this.
All the other stuff like base game updates, socials, connectivity, CAS, buy mode, the community lot, traits, aspirations, are cool.
But the actual school game play seems so lame and a lackluster repackaging of Get To Work and Discover University.
Quite a few features will be useless to me personally.
I don't give teens careers because it takes up too much of the time they have to be teens. If the game gave them a personal bank account that added to what they would normally get when moving out, as well as personal object storage for things that don't fit in inventories, then yeah, I would have them work to boost what they will have to start their new life of independence. Also, some of these game play features are locked behind being in a career, so my sims will never see them.
Classes are extremely lack luster. Sims that you meet in school initially will probably disappear later, never to be seen again, so how can you play out any teen stories? You are going to get some random townies to replace the ones you are interested in seeing in school. Groups seems very limited while you are in school. The YouTubers are playing without Get Together, so who knows what we will be able do when Get Together is added. Hopefully it will add more flexibility to school play.
Career Day sounds like a feature that they just don't have the time flesh out.
It would be a perfect opportunity to familiarize yourself with all the careers, what skills are needed, what the pay is, so you can start thinking about what your sim will be doing after they graduate.
I myself, will be making over the career day function.
I am going to plaster the room with Britechester and Foxbury content just for laughs. "This career day event is sponsored by Britechester and Foxbury Universities."
I believe the most enjoyment I will get out of the school setting will be replacing the high school with my own school and using Get Together club features to enjoy hanging out a few hours after school, with the sims I actually want to see in Copperdale High, for group activities, and then moving on to a community lot of choice for a few more hours before going home.
Finally came around to see the previews of the pack. Already knew I wasn't going to be the target group for this one - but, honestly, I don't know what to say. In comparison to the trailer that was shown to us, and the current state of the expansion pack. I thought it so odd that we hardly had time to enjoy the hype of the werewolf pack - this new expansion dropped so quickly.
My heart kinda breaks for the people who wanted more indepth teen things to do. Parenthood and Get Together make for great companion packs to facilitate it, I suppose.
Comments
- School
Feels very empty to me and not just physically. Because the way the school day is structured the only time you can really do something is the lunch break. The time before first class is ok for small tasks, but too short for lengthy interactions.
And when you are on break the only thing you can really do is to talk to other teens. That has some appeal I guess as now all teens are herded together, but as main content for an expansion?
Sure you do have things like the locker but as far as I have seen its completely optional making using the locker and pranking them more a novelty in case you want to make a screenshot of it and recite "This is my locker, there are many like it but this one is mine".
Then there are classes which are completely inactive. You are basically watching a rabbit hole. You even get decisions like you do when doing a rabbit hole career for example about passing notes but without seeing you passing notes in the classroom and the only option you have is to leave early.
You can of course skip class to do .... what? One hour is not really that long to do something meaningful and you are already on the school lot anyway.
School performance also seems to be tied to the actions you have to perform each day, so basically just being there earns you a passing grade and if you want to be extra good you have to chat with other students when the game prompts you to.
What is good is that you can rebuild your school when you do not want that American theme (at least visually). Sadly EA did the bare minimum and does not allow you to enforce a dress code or select which kind of clubs and after school activities are available (they are all rabbit holes anyway so there is nothing preventing you from inventing more with little to no effort)
- After School activities
Those are even emptier than the school. They are all rabbit holes so you do not see them at all, even the ones where there are animations for like cheerleading or chess.
The entire sports track behind the school is wasted. You can't run on it like in the trailer and the only thing functional on it is this cheerleading mat which is placed in the middle of the field sticking out like a sore thumb. The entire area is only used for the football and cheerleading event which is very localized so could have equally been happening in a small garden space instead of an big empty field.
- Prom
Its ok, I guess? In the end its just another kind of (goaled?) party like the ones we already have. Nothing revolutionary really except getting some more animations out of it. But having it every week is a bit tedious and I think most people will skip it mostly, only going to prom once in a (normal) life span.
- Career day
Why is that even there? You do nothing career related at all, you can't network for future benefits, do internships or aptitude tests, try to get a leg up for university applications and so on. Its just a few guys standing in an empty room.
- Graduation
Seems to be broken currently so I have not seen it
- Social Bunny
Maybe the younger generation sees the appeal but I imagine that it gets tedious very fast with constant messages popping up and you having to post and tag about events. I am also not a fan off that it seems to be able to replace social interaction completely with it being able to fill relation and romance bars to full without ever interacting in person. For the younger generation that might seem to be normal but I want that relationships even in sims should require more than clicking on bunnies
- New Careers
They seem superfluous. We already have streaming, no need for EA to implement it a second time.
I have not seen enough of thrifting but so far I do not get it. You basically just click together a outfit, it doesn't matter how it looks like or has any other criteria, punch in a price and eventually someone pays it? Basically Dream Home Decorator but without any budget or build limitations or wants from your clients. Thats basically just playing around in CAS and occasionally cheat you some more money.
And another letdown, you can't play teachers or the principal even when you play the household which is specifically set up as principal and her daughter. And I doubt that will change when you have DU and the Education career.
- Amusement Pier
I am ok with it because not even EA does seem to make a big deal out of it. Its a collection of rabbit holes with new popups and text. Certainly not something I would by an expansion for but EA does not use it as big selling point, so its fine?
In conclusion I don't really see anything in the expansion which justifies the price. Most of it are rehashes of existing mechanics with other paint jobs and many of the new additions look like they are fun once or twice but would quickly get annoying.
And that assumes that there won't be problems later on once school has to interact with other packs and occult or celebrity teens which can cause a lot of problems if not handled and tested properly (for example the fire drill forcing all sims outside for an hour. Bye bye vampire teen).
Also man, sure do hope we get a bands/music game pack down the line at some point. ...would be interesting to see what sort of world they would think up for that.
There are some good points to the pack but a lot of it is disappointing.
Honestly, I think focussing on school based gameplay would make it even worse, ultimately, the gameplay loop would be similar to what we are getting, and this is exactly the gameplay I thought we would get whenever someone suggested a school pack over the years. Ultimately, for it to have any resemblance of a school, it would have to take away your control of your sim.
All the stuff that people have been wanting in the thread such as directing your sim to take notes, building a school in any world etc, while nice, is just putting lipstick on a pig, and doesn't radically improve the gameplay much, especially given the built in limitations of the game. And the trade off would be little if any, gameplay outside of school, so in essence, it would be an entire pack where you, the player doesn't do anything.
I'm sad that we can't have everything, but if I had to choose, I'd choose more interesting school life over yet another take on streaming and fashion trends. It's a high school pack, and the school stuff is more relevant to the average sim than those niche interests. It's bad enough that all the after-school clubs are barebones.
The Sims 4 hasn't introduced a new musical instrument since 2017
My negative is that I really have no interest in the Trendi stuff and wish they'd spent those resources on giving us marching band as an after school activity with new instruments playable by other age groups instead. And also sim-twitter. As if the real one wasn't annoying enough.
I just want to see my sims do things that aren't "press buttons on phone", you know?
My thing is class interactions is not ground breaking gameplay the Sims are at a desk doing those interactions that I requested it would be so much better then just sitting there for an entire hour doing nothing. Same thing with my sim in detention but it's fir two sim hours (supposedly.) I would much rather them do something at the desk then just sitting there. That's what I would consider a waste.
Also having a football game to be a rabbit hole I mean the only game play to that is watching them walk over to the rabbit hole to play in or watch the game like in DU. Throwing a Football back and forth for a competition great but it's a big let down.
Same thing with chess and computer programming like it should've been more.
I get it about the After School stuff being a disappointment, but there's no way we're watching a football game in the Sims. There's only 20 sims allowed to be active on any given lot. Now, I'm not huge on football, but I think that the teams are usually bigger than that. (not players on the field, the whole team)
I understand limitations to make sure it runs on all computers, but after watching the care and thought James Turner put into every lot for the werewolf pack, making sure it looks visually interesting, it's really disappointing to go back to ... that.
Maybe EAxis builders should go through the same revisions they make the game changers go through. More often than not, it feels like they put their first draft in the game and call it a day.
What? Who said anything about watching a football game? I said the only game play we will see is Sims walking into a rabbit hole like in DU for the game, they either play or watch the game inside the rabbit hole for some sim hours then it's over and they come out of a rabbit hole from either playing or watching the game the entire event is a rabbit hole that's what I'm talking about.
There’s stuff for teens and kids to do (albeit more fun activities) but I can pretend. The Little Campers Kit does come in handy for an outside TV. As I don’t have Seasons it never rains!
It’s a pity you can’t post pictures directly here. I still have to find a photo share thing. 🙄🤦🏼♂️
They shouldve tied it to life span settings, for short its every week, normal every 2nd, long every third and off every 4th week, or something like that or have us be able to set the frequenzy in pack settings or the calender.
Anyway Im still upset about the lack of arts, think I'll build an art room and have my sims skip class to hang out there instead...I play with ageing off, so dont care for grades anyways, my teens will never graduate....maybe some of em will drop out even.
Schools boring so I guess they got the realism there
While I do like the trendi thing and the new streaming career, they both feel like they shouldve been in previous packs, streaming in GF and trendi in CL.
My fashion designer mermaid will love trendi and the thrift store and my streamers will love to finally have a real streaming pc and career, but yeah...those things shouldve been in other packs.
Couldve added them with pack refresh which I guess they dont do anymore?
To be honest after the trailer my expectations were not very high. But after the livestream they are even more lower. They should have focussed either on Highschool or on after school activities to make the pack really good. I would have prefered new interesting after school activities and not boring school activities and after school rabbit holes. And I miss all the activities I did in my highschool years.
Sea may rise, sky may fall, My love will never die..
My heart, my heart, My drowning heart, Oh all the tears I've cried
Oh I may weep forevermore, My love will never die..
Yeah, maybe, I'm not sure. The thing is that many other games focus on the fun parts and create variety. Racing games for example is just about driving around in a circle or a set path over and over again and in real life it comes with a lot of boring things, so they make it fun by focusing on the fun parts and also adding tons of variety by letting you drive so many different cars and also offer challenges.
It feels like we have...given up with that in the sims4? The game doesn't get much development, only focuses on a few fun parts, doesn't create much variety with our sims except visually and doesn't offer much in terms of challenge either.
So whenever I hear "well, what did you expect them to do? real life class is boring" I just go "Well, then they should make it fun? They are game developers, that's what game developers do?"
I expected a science lab with test tubes and experiments, explosions if it goes wrong.
Perhaps a music dept with various instruments, the ability to have a band or singing in a choir.
Where is the art dept where along with painting there could have been a pottery wheel, a kiln, still life sitting.
Gym class with students using that huge running track.
Students actually working in a classroom, taking notes, talking, interacting with the teacher.
Those 2 hours of just sitting there are like watching paint dry.
I couldn't care less about the whole "social bunny" thing, it will probably get very annoying within a day.
Also it's not a selling point of the pack, but really dislike how the pier with the amusements is practically just all rabbithole. We had a working rollercoaster in Sims 1, but now it's just something to disappear into.
This is what I would have expected from a highschool pack.
I agree with this! I was disappointed we couldn't write our own posts! I hope a modder takes care of this.
That's is what I'm talking about it's a high school but where's the SCHOOL gameplay?
Also to the Summer who said real life class was boring that is your opinion. My opinion is different you'd participate with the gameplay other simmers and myself have listed. Also I remember doing most of that in class.
I mean I would like both because Im going to be honest sometimes I'm just to lazy to write posts and wish there's a default post lol. So I'd say both make your own and default.
All the other stuff like base game updates, socials, connectivity, CAS, buy mode, the community lot, traits, aspirations, are cool.
But the actual school game play seems so lame and a lackluster repackaging of Get To Work and Discover University.
Quite a few features will be useless to me personally.
I don't give teens careers because it takes up too much of the time they have to be teens. If the game gave them a personal bank account that added to what they would normally get when moving out, as well as personal object storage for things that don't fit in inventories, then yeah, I would have them work to boost what they will have to start their new life of independence. Also, some of these game play features are locked behind being in a career, so my sims will never see them.
Classes are extremely lack luster. Sims that you meet in school initially will probably disappear later, never to be seen again, so how can you play out any teen stories? You are going to get some random townies to replace the ones you are interested in seeing in school. Groups seems very limited while you are in school. The YouTubers are playing without Get Together, so who knows what we will be able do when Get Together is added. Hopefully it will add more flexibility to school play.
Career Day sounds like a feature that they just don't have the time flesh out.
It would be a perfect opportunity to familiarize yourself with all the careers, what skills are needed, what the pay is, so you can start thinking about what your sim will be doing after they graduate.
I myself, will be making over the career day function.
I am going to plaster the room with Britechester and Foxbury content just for laughs.
"This career day event is sponsored by Britechester and Foxbury Universities."
I believe the most enjoyment I will get out of the school setting will be replacing the high school with my own school and using Get Together club features to enjoy hanging out a few hours after school, with the sims I actually want to see in Copperdale High, for group activities, and then moving on to a community lot of choice for a few more hours before going home.
My heart kinda breaks for the people who wanted more indepth teen things to do. Parenthood and Get Together make for great companion packs to facilitate it, I suppose.