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High School Years - yes or no?

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I have been playing Angela Pleasant, now Smith, for a while. She's a happy mother of three children, two of which are about to turn into teenagers. With the current sale I have been considering buying High School years and turn my attention over to the twins for a while. I am, however, hesitant, because I have heard so many negative things about HSY, including people wishing they had never bought it, so now I'm asking. With the patches and fixes that has been so far - is it worth buying or is it like Dine out so riddled with bugs that I should give up on the idea?

What are your experiences? Good and bad, should I buy the pack?
Moreover, I advise that the cart button must be destroyed!

Comments

  • JustinB113JustinB113 Posts: 1,050 Member
    edited January 2023
    I really like high school years but the feedback is quite mixed.

    Personally I think it fleshed out teens, had great CAS and build items and is one of the best packs for screenshots. Prom and graduation are nice albeit short. It has some great townies and theres a good ‘vibe’ to the pack like a tv teen drama. I didn’t try the thrift system but it’s apparently fun.

    That being said gameplay can be a bit lacking and strangely the weakest part of it all is the school. It doesn’t look great and there’s not much to do there and what there is becomes very repetitive quite quickly. The world is good but not the best and some of the activities there are rabbitholes.

    If you will decorate the school and make your own story and use the CAS and Build items then you can make this pack work well for you. The more you put in the more you get out with this pack.

    I didn’t really see any major bugs on console and I think modders fixed most PC issues. I feel it’s safe to buy. I would buy it again personally, I really like it despite the flaws.
    Post edited by JustinB113 on
  • Katofhyrule12Katofhyrule12 Posts: 693 Member
    edited January 2023
    I never planned to use most of the High school pack. I bought it after watching a werewolf teen video on youtube, and also for the build items. I ended out following a teen to school, out of curiosity, and I am glad that I did. I still have not had interest to fully explore the game play and the world, but it has become a critical supplement to my other worlds. It was the last expansion/game pack that I purchased, but it would be one of the first I'd purchase if I had to start over again. I highly recommend it, for people that can afford it.
  • mightyspritemightysprite Posts: 5,808 Member
    edited January 2023
    Honestly, my favorite aspect of the pack is having access to my teens throughout the day. Active high school only has 2 hours of classes out of a 7-hour school day. So for a player who tends to focus on their teen sims a lot, it's great to be able to go with them to high school (which we can custom-build like crazy) and, during those 5 hours they're not in class, work on relationships or skills or generally just develop them as characters. Graduating early is a nice option for similar reasons. Being able to go to university as a teen provides a nice balance for the amount of lifespan that university can take up.

    The pack provides many more opportunities for teen sims to meet other teens too, whether at school or a boba tea shop or prom.

    Rabbithole school is still available when desired.

    The premades are cool.

    My real-life human teen loves the build/buy. And the boba.

    A lot of the other stuff that came with the pack - Social Bunny, Trendi, the pier (what's a beach-style pier doing in an old mining town anyway?!), the whole influencer thing, pillow fights confined to one bed object - got old really fast.

    Edit: For your question about bugs, you should see the current list of HSY bugs here.
    https://answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports/READ-FIRST-Compiled-list-of-reported-Issues/m-p/11673025#M223852
    The truly objectionable ones (like adult-child romance bars developing) have been fixed.
    People randomly wandering into my house to demand to be best friends or go to prom is something I find a little annoying, and is not fixed yet.
    If the high school graduation event were important to me, I'd be annoyed, because it often just doesn't happen, and even the designed timing is odd-- it's like the first or second Sunday after the student ages up to young adult, which could easily be after the sim is already married with kids.
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  • ncisGibbs02ncisGibbs02 Posts: 2,019 Member
    I love the concept of the high school and was excited for it.

    It’s just not as engaging. I use the build stuff frequently but since Cassandra Goth got expelled during a scanario I just haven’t played it again. If there’s a teen in the household I just select ‘send alone’.
    Now alternating between Sims 2,3 and 4! 😊☕️🌞
  • logionlogion Posts: 4,712 Member
    edited January 2023
    I mean...

    On sale, I guess it's worth it, the pack does not have any larger bugs as far as I know. If you like to make outfits with trendi, use the gen z inspired clothing and also want more rabbit holes for your teens (jobs and after school activities) and maybe you would like to build some rooms for your teen sims and maybe build high schools then it's worth it.

    But the actual high school gameplay is very simplified and repetitive and it doesn't help that prom is happening every week. The social bunny app is just posting the same messages over and over as well.
  • NushkaNushka Posts: 380 Member
    Despite the flagrant bugs, I'm still really enjoying playable careers from Get to Work so I'm very much into High School gameplay. There are added bonuses like skill gain from just attending lessons and plenty of drama (everyone wanting to be your bestie).

    For me it's worth it but, if you're not a fan of active careers, you'll probably want to skip that one.
    Happy simming!
  • imhappyimhappy Posts: 1,988 Member
    I like playing around at the Thrift tea store. The teens create fun fashions and sell them. Like a mini entrepreneur game.

    The pack is at better then the snooze fest of university. I think the team listened to us.

    I haven’t experienced any bugs. Like most packs, I’ve played a few times and then got bored and went back to my regular play style.

    I think it’s worth it on the current sale.
  • SERVERFRASERVERFRA Posts: 7,108 Member
    For the Beautiful Tartosa world, CAS, Build Modes & Objects; Yes. :p For the Wedding Gameplay; No. :'(
  • SteveBridgerSteveBridger Posts: 106 Member
    edited January 2023
    High School Years adds some very interesting social aspects to game play, but it also has some fairly serious bugs which have yet to be addressed. To avoid some serious frustration, I would hold off on High School Years until some of those problems have made it into the laundry bin.
  • CK213CK213 Posts: 20,525 Member
    The best thing I can say about it is it fleshes out teens.
    Before my teens would go to school, come home and do homework and maybe work on skill points. Their only free time was the weekends.
    Now I can choose to spend more time with them during the week and often they go hang out at the Boba Tea shop after school and other teens show up there too.

    There are a bunch of unfortunate game play decisions for high school though and I had to use mods to make it better.
    My favorite is a mod that allows me to decided what other teens show up at high school instead of generic townies.
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  • JALJAL Posts: 1,001 Member
    Thanks to everyone who gave your opinion. I did end up getting it, so hopefully I will enjoy it.
    Moreover, I advise that the cart button must be destroyed!
  • SteveBridgerSteveBridger Posts: 106 Member
    CK213 wrote: »
    My favorite is a mod that allows me to decided what other teens show up at high school instead of generic townies.

    The way the game chooses which other students show up at Copperdale High with your played sim is actually an interesting design decision, BUT it could have been explained a lot better to make it less confusing to players. It took me a fair bit of time to figure out how this works, and I'm someone who will not use mods or custom content of any kind. (It lets me quickly get past the inevitable "try uninstalling your mods" response when I discuss game problems.)

    When choosing which sims to bring onto the lot with your played sim, in large part the game looks for other sims which your active one holds strong sentiments and relationships with. What clued me in on this was the experience of a played sim named Cassie, and the fact that her ex-boyfriend and current boyfriend nearly always show up to school with her. Griffin (the ex, who turned out to be Mean and Evil, and was quickly dumped) seems to hold some strong and virtually permanent sentiments towards her as a result of being dumped. Stephen, her boyfriend, very consistently holds different very positive sentiments toward her. That got me curious, and I started looking at which other students were showing up more or less constantly, and it turned out all of them hold one or more sentiments toward her. Those she doesn't interact with much seem to get frequently rotated in and out of attendance.

    Basically, the game is trying to populate the campus with both your best friends and worst enemies, and then just adds in some random teenagers from different households to fill out the rest, as background characters.

    There are a couple other factors involved as well, but this seems to be the strongest influence.
  • Atreya33Atreya33 Posts: 4,411 Member
    I am still very weary about high school years. I would only get the pack for the world, the cas and bb. There are two things in the gameplay that I don't like. I have zero interest in the social bunny and don't want hair growth. I know I can disable them for an individual sim but why didn't the devs give us a global on/off switch? I like how they handled fame with an option for all sims and an individual override for individual sims.

    For the social bunny I don't want to be forced to to spend time on this. I also dislike the fact that it can change my sims' relationship. If I turn it off for my current sim but not for other households I rotate to, will the social bunny have interfered in their relationships while I do not play them?

    Hair growth is a part of reality I don't need in the game. It is bad enough that beauty standards force women to shave their legs in real life. My sims are fine in a world where there is no need for this. Will sims I don't play end up all hairy? Is there a difference between Sims in my household and other households? I don't want an entire sim population with hairy legs.

    I could of course spend an entire real life day editing every single sim to turn these off but then it would still be on for newly generated sims...
  • mightyspritemightysprite Posts: 5,808 Member
    @Atreya33 I'm not sure about hair growth for NPCs, but NPCs of both genders definitely generate with various body hair presets, including way more chest hair and back hair on women than would ever be realistic.
    My saves are weird places anyway, with plenty of occults and ghosts and strange happenings, so I feel like the extra-hairy sims fit in okay, but I do wonder why there isn't a global "disable for random" available on the body hair presets (or hair growth if that's what it is).

    Social Bunny affects relationships of sims who are on each other's contact list in the app. If one sim has the app and not the other, or even if they both have the app but neither sim has added the other to their contact list, it won't affect their relationship.
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  • CiralindeCiralinde Posts: 81 Member
    edited January 2023
    The hair growth is a little off-putting for sure. I prune the population, so it stays relatively small. So far, I've got one hairy townie girl. She certainly provoked me to think about what beauty standards do, because to be fair, I react in similar ways to my own legs when they're all hairy...

    It's turned off for active households by default, I believe. You can turn on facial hair growth only if you want, which is kind of nice... but it doesn't seem to work at all for me, sadly.

    It's an interesting choice to have as a feature for an expansion. I don't know what to think of it.
  • JustinB113JustinB113 Posts: 1,050 Member
    edited January 2023
    Ciralinde wrote: »
    The hair growth is a little off-putting for sure. I prune the population, so it stays relatively small. So far, I've got one hairy townie girl. She certainly provoked me to think about what beauty standards do, because to be fair, I react in similar ways to my own legs when they're all hairy...

    It's turned off for active households by default, I believe. You can turn on facial hair growth only if you want, which is kind of nice... but it doesn't seem to work at all for me, sadly.

    It's an interesting choice to have as a feature for an expansion. I don't know what to think of it.

    I was really against it at first but now I kinda like the gameplay of making them shave every few days and managing the acne and things as well.

    My only issue with it now is how it affects the townies and how you can’t seem to globally turn it off for townies, or at least you couldn’t. The amount of female students at the high school that had leg hair etc was just a little silly to me.

    But for my own sims, sure why not, something to do.
  • SteveBridgerSteveBridger Posts: 106 Member
    Ciralinde wrote: »
    The hair growth is a little off-putting for sure. I prune the population, so it stays relatively small. So far, I've got one hairy townie girl. She certainly provoked me to think about what beauty standards do, because to be fair, I react in similar ways to my own legs when they're all hairy...

    It's turned off for active households by default, I believe. You can turn on facial hair growth only if you want, which is kind of nice... but it doesn't seem to work at all for me, sadly.

    It's an interesting choice to have as a feature for an expansion. I don't know what to think of it.

    It would have been more amusing if they'd included barbers and beauticians.
  • CiralindeCiralinde Posts: 81 Member
    JustinB113 wrote: »

    My only issue with it now is how it affects the townies and how you can’t seem to globally turn it off for townies, or at least you couldn’t. The amount of female students at the high school that had leg hair etc was just a little silly to me.

    You're right, you can't turn it off at all for all newly generated townies... I don't quite know why they didn't add the global option, like they did for other features - such as the carbon-footprint from eco lifestyle or opting out of fame pre-emptively from get famous. Women have hairy legs, but it's usually not that thick or that much though. Perhaps they suffer from a hormonal imbalance. Who knows. Not a fan of it though.

    It would have been more amusing if they'd included barbers and beauticians.

    I'd like that idea a lot more, tbh.
  • RainKikoRainKiko Posts: 32 Member
    I have a couple noob questions as I am new to the sims4 game. I bought the high school years pack but I have no idea how I actually play it. I googled the question and even went to many youtubes on playing it and no one shows how they launch it ot start it up? Totally confused.

    The other question I have is people have mentioned the expansion adds things like body hair. Does this expansion make that happen in all lands or just at the high school or in the high school pack?
  • Katofhyrule12Katofhyrule12 Posts: 693 Member
    Highschool works like a career for teens. Teens from any world will go to school when it is time to go to school. You will have the choice to go along, or send them alone and stay in the family home. The highschool is located in the Copperdale world.
  • Katofhyrule12Katofhyrule12 Posts: 693 Member
    RainKiko wrote: »

    The other question I have is people have mentioned the expansion adds things like body hair. Does this expansion make that happen in all lands or just at the high school or in the high school pack?

    The body hair shows up in the other worlds, too.

  • mightyspritemightysprite Posts: 5,808 Member
    Hi @RainKiko and welcome to the forum :)

    The pack adds functions to the regular game, and adds a new world Copperdale. Once you have the pack downloaded, start up the Sims 4 game like you used to before installing the pack. You can play a household you were already playing, or another household, or play one of the households in Copperdale, or create a new household to live there, etc. as you like. You'll notice new things in the game like the Social Bunny and Trendi apps on the phone, Facial Cleanser available as an option on mirror and sink, Pillow Fight available as an option on a bed, etc.

    If you have a teen in the household, when it's time for them to go to school (8am on school days) you'll get a pop-up asking if you want to join them at school or send them alone. Joining them will let you play them through their school day, at the high school. The school gameplay is locked to that one particular lot in Copperdale, but teens who live in any world can go to that school no problem. You can modify the school building if you want, by going to Manage Worlds > Copperdale > high school lot > build.

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  • honeywitchhoneywitch Posts: 321 Member
    i wanted the pack originally based on the announcement and trailer but i decided to indefinitely hold off on it due to the abundance of reported bugs and my major issues with the gameplay. same deal with my wedding stories.
  • RainKikoRainKiko Posts: 32 Member
    Thanks a lot for help all. I've been playing the pack a little and I like it. I thought hair growth would be an issue but you can turn it off in CAS and at any mirror so not been an issue at all for me. I like having the option to make harry sims if I want to. Also so far all the sims I downloaded have had the hair turned off. Maybe because the maker did not have the pack.
  • bluelightingbluelighting Posts: 704 Member
    i hated high school when i went, now i hate it even more. the only reason i tried it, is because i thought it'd be nice to have a high grad pic. on the wall. but grad day is broken, so no pic.
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