Wait. Adding furniture raises the rent? Is this just from the landlord side? Surely if a household moves in with their own furniture, it has nothing to do with the rent. Or if a household purchases furniture or upgrades, that comes from their own money, does that raise the rent too?
That was my understanding from watching one of the early access videos. Now I can’t remember which one it was, otherwise I’d check again. But I agree, if that is indeed how it works, it’s unfair.
OTOH, I’m not sure how the game could distinguish between the furniture that’s in the unit to start with and the furniture added later, when calculating the rent. Or how it could distinguish between new furniture that’s meant to stay in the unit and new furniture that the tenants “own” and would take with them if they moved out. It makes a kind of grim sense that the game would just count everything in the unit toward the rent. I guess they could have implemented some kind of tagging system where you could mark the furniture that shouldn’t count toward the rent. But as a player, I’d find that tedious.
OTOH, I’m not sure how the game could distinguish between the furniture that’s in the unit to start with and the furniture added later, when calculating the rent. Or how it could distinguish between new furniture that’s meant to stay in the unit and new furniture that the tenants “own” and would take with them if they moved out. It makes a kind of grim sense that the game would just count everything in the unit toward the rent. I guess they could have implemented some kind of tagging system where you could mark the furniture that shouldn’t count toward the rent. But as a player, I’d find that tedious.
I agree, they were probably limited by the game mechanics, but I would have loved for the landlord to be able to tag some furniture or appliances (such as toilet, kitchen counters) and then only those would contribute to the rent calculation, and would not be editable by the tenant. Or maybe they could also tag all or none to simplify it.
This pack seems a bit buggy. I ended up buying it last night and started building a rental lot. After I started assigning units, the game randomly generated a rental unit called "-300 Pebble Lane". When I tried to go in and delete it, the game completely crashed. I had been building for almost 2 hours without saving, so I was quite annoyed that it crashed on me.
Not the best first impression of the pack....
yeah i saw on twitter many people were having issues with crashing
Wait. Adding furniture raises the rent? Is this just from the landlord side? Surely if a household moves in with their own furniture, it has nothing to do with the rent. Or if a household purchases furniture or upgrades, that comes from their own money, does that raise the rent too?
That was my understanding from watching one of the early access videos. Now I can’t remember which one it was, otherwise I’d check again. But I agree, if that is indeed how it works, it’s unfair.
OTOH, I’m not sure how the game could distinguish between the furniture that’s in the unit to start with and the furniture added later, when calculating the rent. Or how it could distinguish between new furniture that’s meant to stay in the unit and new furniture that the tenants “own” and would take with them if they moved out. It makes a kind of grim sense that the game would just count everything in the unit toward the rent. I guess they could have implemented some kind of tagging system where you could mark the furniture that shouldn’t count toward the rent. But as a player, I’d find that tedious.
I think I would have rather they didn't calculate furniture at all, if it had to be all or nothing. I just feel like renting a furnished apartment is kind of rare unless in a boarding house or dorm. At least in my area, people move their own stuff in. Plus, if every piece of furniture and decor has a rent value, that can also go awry with creative builds/decorating slum apartments. Just from being cluttered, the rent could increase, even if the place looks like a dumpster.
Just doesn't seem like a well thought out design decision.
And I'm still confused on why landlord gameplay seems to be prioritized over tenant gameplay in the first place. Players just wanted buildable apartments that their Sims could live in. But here we go again with the devs deciding that they would do something "different" from what we wanted instead, and it just feels like trolling at this point.
And I'm just going to bring up Baldur's Gate 3 yet again, because it just won Game of the Year as well as Best Community. Because this game studio, Larian, which doesn't even have half the money that EA has, made an amazing game experience, true to its earlier iterations, with tons of choices and outcomes. And when their players gave feedback that some things fell short, they actually worked harder to put player suggestions in the game. They listened, they've patched like, at least four times since its July release, HUGE patches, with no extra dlc for players to buy, no extra cost to players. The last patch was about 25g worth of new content and the community is always happy and always talking about it.
So if I seem a little harsh on Sims 4 lately, this is why. A small studio just seriously upped the game, so to speak, and completely wiped the floor with these big corporate studios who claim "it's too hard", "it's too costly", "we can't do it". Well, I'm calling baloney. You certainly can EA. But you won't. You're too busy chasing money and pandering to trends and making bad game decisions based from profit calculations. You care nothing for your players. Prove me wrong. I wish you would. But I constantly see an unhappy community and it doesn't have to be so.
My one negative is that I have developed a bug that has been around since the werewolves patch, I have two Tomarangs. The only way to fix it is apparently disabling and reinstalling the pack. It doesn't happen in a new game, just my current save. It isn't messing anything up so far, but we shall see.
So I've been thinking about some of the bugs that have come up so far, and I'm wondering if just perhaps, the apartment units might be in actuality multiple lots layered on top of each other.
This could explain several of the bugs.
Lag in build mode when changing wallpaper etc = game actually has to change the wallpaper on multiple lots at once
Glitches with changing lot type away from residential rental = game is successfully changing one instance of the lot but not the others
Glitches with objects being dirty/not dirty = they are dirty on one copy of the lot but it isn't getting communicated to other copies of the lot
@mightysprite I think you are right about the lots being layered. I had tons of apartments built since the game came out and I didn't have any issues in build mode because all I was doing was creating the completed apartment zones. No lag, no bugs. But when I tried to build one from scratch, major lag on that specific lot type. Same lot as a completely furnished residential then converted to res rental has no lag.
But I also think it has to do with computer specs, too. I have a brand new gaming pc and my lag is a billion times zippier than some of the videos I've seen posted. If I was having to sit and wait like some players, I would be causing a riot.
I spent a good half of the day today playing off and on, but one of my biggest issues is that my sim's tenant had a trash overload, which is against the rules, and I could not fine him. Not sure if because it is an event, but if its a rule then I think I should be able to enforce it.
I have two questions that hopefully someone will be able to answer, lol:
1. Are all units supposed to have the same rent? I have a duplex where the units are nearly identical (the only real difference being that one has a nicer computer & desk), but one is $8 less than the other. Ironically, it’s the one with the nicer office.
2. I’m assuming that the sim that appeared in my sims’ relationship panels is their landlord, but I can’t find him in manage worlds under “not in world.” Are landlords typically somewhere in one of the worlds or are they randomly spawned & my game is just glitched & he’s nowhere to be found? Lol.
Well, I have an update for those who just want to convert their existing multi families into apartment without playing Landlord. It is a bit of a pain, but it could be worse. First you need to make sure that the sims in your existing build have enough money, use the cheat and give them six figures. This will by pass the low funds issue. Then you must select the evict option and move them all out. The good news here is that everything in the houses stays in place, including the food in their houses. All their personal effects stay in place and continue to be associated with the sims.
Now you must go to the household management screen and break them up into the different families that will occupy the different apartments. Then you must go to the residence and change it to rental and set up the different apartments there. Then one by one select the families and move them back into their former spaces. This works well if you only have the 8 sim limit. If you have more than eight. You will need to create a one sim family on a lot and add the extra sims there. Then you can use the household management tool.
All of this is a bit more complicated than I like, but it does work. The issue so far is that I still hate looking at the empty square of the unused apartments.
I cannot in good faith buy this pack as it stands. I would love to be able to build apartments but I’m already getting a lot of bugs just from the patch never mind the pack. Not getting paid rent is awful, it’s a bug they knew of and should have been patched before release. With that not working, it makes this pack redundant. I know some reviewers brought this up but it shouldn’t have been glossed over how it was. From what I can see, the pack is in a horrible state with no word from the devs when it will be fixed. Do better EA. There is no excuses for this.
So I've been thinking about some of the bugs that have come up so far, and I'm wondering if just perhaps, the apartment units might be in actuality multiple lots layered on top of each other.
This could explain several of the bugs.
Lag in build mode when changing wallpaper etc = game actually has to change the wallpaper on multiple lots at once
Glitches with changing lot type away from residential rental = game is successfully changing one instance of the lot but not the others
Glitches with objects being dirty/not dirty = they are dirty on one copy of the lot but it isn't getting communicated to other copies of the lot
(This is pure speculation. I have no inside info)
this is very interesting. if it is the case, i wonder if this system was a test to see if they could make a mall pack or something that would have to function with multi-function purpose for different lot types on one.
I did see that one of the devs addressed the current lag issue with editing rental res lots in B/B and says they’re working on it.
From what I have seen on social media, there are bugs with landlords not getting rent, only getting paid like once in a year. Tenants getting charged exorbitant rent far above the allotted cap for household funds. Lag in build mode when placing wallpapers when building on a residential rental lot.
Packs sometimes have bugs at release... but these bugs are destroying the point of playing with the pack.
I haven't bought it yet, as I need to find out if rotational play is safe or not. I saw someone say that tenants can move out on their own, but I'm hoping that's just non-played households. But what happens if the lease runs out for played tenants while you're playing a different household? Will those tenants move out on their own? I hate things like story progression that takes control of my Sims. I have Neighborhood Stories turned off and I don't want the game telling me where my Sims want to live.
@LiELF This was one of my main concerns as I play in a similar fashion. I finally had time to test it with 12 played sims living in a 6 unit apartment and I can confirm that NONE of my played households moved out on their own, thank goody goodness. I also have played households living in the apartment building across the road (4 units) and they're exactly where I put them at the start of my session.
So what happens is, after the lease period (the default is 7 days) there's a notification regarding the "Tenant Grace Period". The Tenant Grace Period lasts 24 hours. During this Tenant Grace Period you can move out played households without having to pay a penalty. If you don't do anything, they'll just stay in their apartments. That's right. STAY IN YOUR APARTMENT!!
I did not create a landlord this time. I just converted a fully furnished residential lot into a residential rental, set up the units and moved in my own households.
This is currently a very tedious process as most units were too expensive for my sims and -as others mentioned before- the free real estate cheat doesn't work at the moment. Grumble. I hope this gets fixed ASAP. If you don't create your own landlord the game does it for you ( same as the NPCs in City living & Eco Lifestyle) and he sometimes comes to visit, but you don't have to let him in. I actually sent him home, didn't want to talk to the man. I also had a bit of a roaches infested dumpster problem outside of the apartment and waste management came by to take out the trash. Or is this from another pack? I haven't got a clue. Oh wait, this is probably from Eco Lifestyle, yeah nevermind. 😆
Another tedious thing: I wish we could "Set As Front Door" in build mode when allocating units. All my tenants have their own apartment PLUS a ground floor garage & storage rooms that they rent (yeh, this is where the real mayhem happens...😈).
I think it's great that we can do this, since this was also one of my main concerns. However... the game automatically recognises the doors to these storage room units as the "Front Door" since they're located in the vicinity of the main entrance of the building. Now I have to switch to each household individually in order to re-designate the front door function and..well...boring.
ETA: Hmmm. So each time I change households the front doors seem to reset as though I never changed them. I'll have to test it again to find out what I'm missing here. I do want to add though, the tenants DO recognise their living units as their home, it's only the visitors that are confused and start knocking at the storage unit's door.
***
I preordered the pack for all the wonderful reasons I won’t get into here. One of them includes mold. I haven't tested the mold yet. But since I'm here in Negative Land I might as well share some of the things that really friggin' bug me about this pack, because I hope the sims team takes notes from both positive and negative threads. Here's my rent-rant:
I will repeat what so many have pointed out already:
Rabbit holes.
Why advertise a tiger sanctuary rabbit hole with a special effect? The special tiger effect being glowing eyes, pretty much the same eyes that watch you from the bushes in Forgotten Hollow and Sylvan Glades! Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the special effects, but advertising a rabbit hole is not good enough. I believed Sims 4 was all about the “NO MORE RABBITHOLES FOLKS! WE'RE DONE WITH THOSE AND WERE PROUD OF IT! WE'RE HOLE FREE FROM NOW ON! SORT OF.”
Yeah right. No rabbit holes me ho… So here we are: Sims 4 is finally turning into a gigantic Swiss cheese. It’s been fermenting for quite some time now.
Here’s the Oxford definition of a “hole”:
1. a hollow place in a solid body or surface.
"the dog had dug a hole in the ground"
In this case the dog dug a hole in the tiger sanctuary and all the tigers fell in. At least we know what happened to them.
Or this definition:
2. “a place or position that needs to be filled because someone or something is no longer there.”
( I won’t include the example because it’s too heartbreaking)
Notice where they say “NEEDS to be filled” . Take note sims team. NEEDS to be filled, with gameplay that goes beyond the text adventure quest, perhaps similar to Jungle Adventures, where you move into a new, hidden area of the world after succesfully completing the text adventure, although I would have preferred to see an actual sloth.
What’s that someone or something? Exactly! The tigers. The tigers are no longer there because they all nose-dived/dove into a frigging hole!! A rabbit hole at that!! How is that even possible, the size of those beasts! But they fell in regardless, down down down. They fell in as tigers and eventually came out as …tassels. No wonder. But why tassels?!
So this is where I have to conclude my rabbithole rant because I have yet to solve the mystery surrounding the tassels. Ah! Give me a crowbar and let me break into that wee gazebo that's standing all alone in that teeny little garden over there. I may or may not magically discover an actual botanical garden in there. SHEESH!
The Nightmarket.
Seriously? So we've got what, 20 market stalls and only 5 or 6 are interactible and occupied with vendors? The other ones are decor only.
What's worse, most of the deco stalls are fish market stalls. And I can't buy a single fish! Instead, I have to go that lovely waterfront " fishmarket" rabbithole lot across the road to buy my darn rabbithole fish. What's the point? Why not put a fish stall at the nightmarket and let us use that water front lot to build on?! Why is there no floating market? Boats? Come on, did the rental system eat all of this EP's budget?? I find it hard to believe, then again, I still haven't explored everything this pack has to offer. I won't lose my marbles just yet.
Tuc Tucs.
The ones that zoom around Tomarang are quite endearing. But WHY CAN'T OUR SIMS drive a TUC TUC?!
Not that big of a problem, but worth mentioning it.
There's probably more, but I have to stop there before I go down the deep rant-rabbithole myself and will land exactly where our hungry family of tassel tigers ended up. Poor beasts, I'd be such a bland feast.
And I'm just going to bring up Baldur's Gate 3 yet again, because it just won Game of the Year as well as Best Community. Because this game studio, Larian, which doesn't even have half the money that EA has, made an amazing game experience, true to its earlier iterations, with tons of choices and outcomes. And when their players gave feedback that some things fell short, they actually worked harder to put player suggestions in the game. They listened, they've patched like, at least four times since its July release, HUGE patches, with no extra dlc for players to buy, no extra cost to players. The last patch was about 25g worth of new content and the community is always happy and always talking about it.
I think because Larian Studios gets most of their projects off the ground via kickstarters(like with the recent Divinity game), so they're more inclined to listen to their fanbase. EA is 100x larger then LS, and even without the Sims franchise, they have their sports division rolling in all their money.
Hey guys!
Well, here are my negative review ( the positive will be post on the positive thread, I know how exotic" ).
First, the world is empty. Not like : " ohh, wish we had more lots ! ", no! Just EMPTY! No sims around empty !
The save generate an average of 18 sims per " play session ". Still the streets are empty, no traffic, no one . Willow Creek is bustling in comparison. Not much to do around town either.
Anyway, on to the gameplay !
Well, it's not that intuitive.
You should definitely be smarter than me and follow the Onboarding.
As you can guess, I did not !
It was a mess.
Conclusion: UX is not that good! The game can lag like crazy if you're building with the new type of lot -> ALWAYS start with residential , then convert.
The world is beautiful but feels empty ! Although the game generate many townies per play session ( for those who kill at the and of each session).
BB & CAS are fine and add a new culture ( a few glorious SEA inspires formal wear would have been appreciated ), always good.
I still have to play the game thoroughly to give it a definite rating .
For now, maybe just wait and get it on sale?
If you need it ( yeah some of do, gameplay, torture, ...) well, take the time needed to really understand the "rent feature".
Free real estate is for buying the lots, I think it doesn't work because in apartments they pay rent, there is no lot purchase fee.
At first I thought this can't be true because you can use the cheat for CL and EL apartments, but then I remembered that those apartments require a deposit. Do the residential rentals require a deposit?
So I've been thinking about some of the bugs that have come up so far, and I'm wondering if just perhaps, the apartment units might be in actuality multiple lots layered on top of each other.
This could explain several of the bugs.
Lag in build mode when changing wallpaper etc = game actually has to change the wallpaper on multiple lots at once
Glitches with changing lot type away from residential rental = game is successfully changing one instance of the lot but not the others
Glitches with objects being dirty/not dirty = they are dirty on one copy of the lot but it isn't getting communicated to other copies of the lot
(This is pure speculation. I have no inside info)
Both new tea pots make my neat sim think the room is dirty when the lot is set to rental residential but when the same lot is set to residential the dirty effect is gone.
When the same lot is set to residential I can remove the lot challenge 'off the grid' and set new lot challenge 'simple living' but when I change the same lot to rental residential the original 'off the grid' lot challenge is on the home unit and the lot challenge I set 'simple living' is gone. All testing was done on the empty 30X20 lot in the tiger neighborhood in the new world.
Also the full trash event acts like the accumulate trash is set on the lot challenge. I can't remember what that lot challenge is called.
Wow - say what you want about this creator, but he points out some major bugs and tuning issues in the For Rent pack. Some of these seem like easy fixes, but in the current state, it's imbalanced and unchallenging.
So I've been thinking about some of the bugs that have come up so far, and I'm wondering if just perhaps, the apartment units might be in actuality multiple lots layered on top of each other.
This could explain several of the bugs.
Lag in build mode when changing wallpaper etc = game actually has to change the wallpaper on multiple lots at once
Glitches with changing lot type away from residential rental = game is successfully changing one instance of the lot but not the others
Glitches with objects being dirty/not dirty = they are dirty on one copy of the lot but it isn't getting communicated to other copies of the lot
(This is pure speculation. I have no inside info)
Both new tea pots make my neat sim think the room is dirty when the lot is set to rental residential but when the same lot is set to residential the dirty effect is gone.
When the same lot is set to residential I can remove the lot challenge 'off the grid' and set new lot challenge 'simple living' but when I change the same lot to rental residential the original 'off the grid' lot challenge is on the home unit and the lot challenge I set 'simple living' is gone. All testing was done on the empty 30X20 lot in the tiger neighborhood in the new world.
Also the full trash event acts like the accumulate trash is set on the lot challenge. I can't remember what that lot challenge is called.
I read somewhere that lot challenges cab cause trouble after the category switch - so I intend to never switch to RR while there are any active lot challenge. You sim might have reacted to a dirty object according to settings on a "hidden lot".
Wow - say what you want about this creator, but he points out some major bugs and tuning issues in the For Rent pack. Some of these seem like easy fixes, but in the current state, it's imbalanced and unchallenging.
I don't mind Satch's brutal honesty, and appreciate hearing various perspectives on this pack. I've seen quite a few videos now, and most of them come down to, basically, "This pack had a lot of potential, but it's half-baked." If I weren't so keen to get the new lot type because I really enjoy building, I'd wait for a sale. (I'm still waiting patiently for HSY and GrT to be 50% off.) As it is, though, I'm just going to wait for the major bugs to be fixed. I hope that happens in time for me to get the bonus items, but if not, oh well. It doesn't seem like I'm missing much in terms of gameplay; I'm pretty sure now that what new gameplay there is will get boring quickly. And the world is so tiny...
Comments
That was my understanding from watching one of the early access videos. Now I can’t remember which one it was, otherwise I’d check again. But I agree, if that is indeed how it works, it’s unfair.
OTOH, I’m not sure how the game could distinguish between the furniture that’s in the unit to start with and the furniture added later, when calculating the rent. Or how it could distinguish between new furniture that’s meant to stay in the unit and new furniture that the tenants “own” and would take with them if they moved out. It makes a kind of grim sense that the game would just count everything in the unit toward the rent. I guess they could have implemented some kind of tagging system where you could mark the furniture that shouldn’t count toward the rent. But as a player, I’d find that tedious.
I agree, they were probably limited by the game mechanics, but I would have loved for the landlord to be able to tag some furniture or appliances (such as toilet, kitchen counters) and then only those would contribute to the rent calculation, and would not be editable by the tenant. Or maybe they could also tag all or none to simplify it.
I think I would have rather they didn't calculate furniture at all, if it had to be all or nothing. I just feel like renting a furnished apartment is kind of rare unless in a boarding house or dorm. At least in my area, people move their own stuff in. Plus, if every piece of furniture and decor has a rent value, that can also go awry with creative builds/decorating slum apartments. Just from being cluttered, the rent could increase, even if the place looks like a dumpster.
Just doesn't seem like a well thought out design decision.
And I'm still confused on why landlord gameplay seems to be prioritized over tenant gameplay in the first place. Players just wanted buildable apartments that their Sims could live in. But here we go again with the devs deciding that they would do something "different" from what we wanted instead, and it just feels like trolling at this point.
And I'm just going to bring up Baldur's Gate 3 yet again, because it just won Game of the Year as well as Best Community. Because this game studio, Larian, which doesn't even have half the money that EA has, made an amazing game experience, true to its earlier iterations, with tons of choices and outcomes. And when their players gave feedback that some things fell short, they actually worked harder to put player suggestions in the game. They listened, they've patched like, at least four times since its July release, HUGE patches, with no extra dlc for players to buy, no extra cost to players. The last patch was about 25g worth of new content and the community is always happy and always talking about it.
So if I seem a little harsh on Sims 4 lately, this is why. A small studio just seriously upped the game, so to speak, and completely wiped the floor with these big corporate studios who claim "it's too hard", "it's too costly", "we can't do it". Well, I'm calling baloney. You certainly can EA. But you won't. You're too busy chasing money and pandering to trends and making bad game decisions based from profit calculations. You care nothing for your players. Prove me wrong. I wish you would. But I constantly see an unhappy community and it doesn't have to be so.
The Sims 4 hasn't introduced a new musical instrument since 2017
So I've been thinking about some of the bugs that have come up so far, and I'm wondering if just perhaps, the apartment units might be in actuality multiple lots layered on top of each other.
This could explain several of the bugs.
Lag in build mode when changing wallpaper etc = game actually has to change the wallpaper on multiple lots at once
Glitches with changing lot type away from residential rental = game is successfully changing one instance of the lot but not the others
Glitches with objects being dirty/not dirty = they are dirty on one copy of the lot but it isn't getting communicated to other copies of the lot
(This is pure speculation. I have no inside info)
But I also think it has to do with computer specs, too. I have a brand new gaming pc and my lag is a billion times zippier than some of the videos I've seen posted. If I was having to sit and wait like some players, I would be causing a riot.
1. Are all units supposed to have the same rent? I have a duplex where the units are nearly identical (the only real difference being that one has a nicer computer & desk), but one is $8 less than the other. Ironically, it’s the one with the nicer office.
2. I’m assuming that the sim that appeared in my sims’ relationship panels is their landlord, but I can’t find him in manage worlds under “not in world.” Are landlords typically somewhere in one of the worlds or are they randomly spawned & my game is just glitched & he’s nowhere to be found? Lol.
Now you must go to the household management screen and break them up into the different families that will occupy the different apartments. Then you must go to the residence and change it to rental and set up the different apartments there. Then one by one select the families and move them back into their former spaces. This works well if you only have the 8 sim limit. If you have more than eight. You will need to create a one sim family on a lot and add the extra sims there. Then you can use the household management tool.
All of this is a bit more complicated than I like, but it does work. The issue so far is that I still hate looking at the empty square of the unused apartments.
Same! i wanted one for so long. Id honestly love an active mechanic career for home repairs and cars
this is very interesting. if it is the case, i wonder if this system was a test to see if they could make a mall pack or something that would have to function with multi-function purpose for different lot types on one.
I did see that one of the devs addressed the current lag issue with editing rental res lots in B/B and says they’re working on it.
Packs sometimes have bugs at release... but these bugs are destroying the point of playing with the pack.
@LiELF This was one of my main concerns as I play in a similar fashion. I finally had time to test it with 12 played sims living in a 6 unit apartment and I can confirm that NONE of my played households moved out on their own, thank goody goodness. I also have played households living in the apartment building across the road (4 units) and they're exactly where I put them at the start of my session.
So what happens is, after the lease period (the default is 7 days) there's a notification regarding the "Tenant Grace Period". The Tenant Grace Period lasts 24 hours. During this Tenant Grace Period you can move out played households without having to pay a penalty. If you don't do anything, they'll just stay in their apartments. That's right. STAY IN YOUR APARTMENT!!
I did not create a landlord this time. I just converted a fully furnished residential lot into a residential rental, set up the units and moved in my own households.
This is currently a very tedious process as most units were too expensive for my sims and -as others mentioned before- the free real estate cheat doesn't work at the moment. Grumble. I hope this gets fixed ASAP. If you don't create your own landlord the game does it for you ( same as the NPCs in City living & Eco Lifestyle) and he sometimes comes to visit, but you don't have to let him in. I actually sent him home, didn't want to talk to the man. I also had a bit of a roaches infested dumpster problem outside of the apartment and waste management came by to take out the trash. Or is this from another pack? I haven't got a clue. Oh wait, this is probably from Eco Lifestyle, yeah nevermind. 😆
Another tedious thing: I wish we could "Set As Front Door" in build mode when allocating units. All my tenants have their own apartment PLUS a ground floor garage & storage rooms that they rent (yeh, this is where the real mayhem happens...😈).
I think it's great that we can do this, since this was also one of my main concerns. However... the game automatically recognises the doors to these storage room units as the "Front Door" since they're located in the vicinity of the main entrance of the building. Now I have to switch to each household individually in order to re-designate the front door function and..well...boring.
ETA: Hmmm. So each time I change households the front doors seem to reset as though I never changed them. I'll have to test it again to find out what I'm missing here. I do want to add though, the tenants DO recognise their living units as their home, it's only the visitors that are confused and start knocking at the storage unit's door.
I preordered the pack for all the wonderful reasons I won’t get into here. One of them includes mold. I haven't tested the mold yet. But since I'm here in Negative Land I might as well share some of the things that really friggin' bug me about this pack, because I hope the sims team takes notes from both positive and negative threads. Here's my rent-rant:
I will repeat what so many have pointed out already:
Rabbit holes.
Why advertise a tiger sanctuary rabbit hole with a special effect? The special tiger effect being glowing eyes, pretty much the same eyes that watch you from the bushes in Forgotten Hollow and Sylvan Glades! Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the special effects, but advertising a rabbit hole is not good enough. I believed Sims 4 was all about the “NO MORE RABBITHOLES FOLKS! WE'RE DONE WITH THOSE AND WERE PROUD OF IT! WE'RE HOLE FREE FROM NOW ON! SORT OF.”
Yeah right. No rabbit holes me ho… So here we are: Sims 4 is finally turning into a gigantic Swiss cheese. It’s been fermenting for quite some time now.
Here’s the Oxford definition of a “hole”:
1.
a hollow place in a solid body or surface.
"the dog had dug a hole in the ground"
In this case the dog dug a hole in the tiger sanctuary and all the tigers fell in. At least we know what happened to them.
Or this definition:
2.
“a place or position that needs to be filled because someone or something is no longer there.”
( I won’t include the example because it’s too heartbreaking)
Notice where they say “NEEDS to be filled” . Take note sims team. NEEDS to be filled, with gameplay that goes beyond the text adventure quest, perhaps similar to Jungle Adventures, where you move into a new, hidden area of the world after succesfully completing the text adventure, although I would have preferred to see an actual sloth.
What’s that someone or something? Exactly! The tigers. The tigers are no longer there because they all nose-dived/dove into a frigging hole!! A rabbit hole at that!! How is that even possible, the size of those beasts! But they fell in regardless, down down down. They fell in as tigers and eventually came out as …tassels. No wonder. But why tassels?!
So this is where I have to conclude my rabbithole rant because I have yet to solve the mystery surrounding the tassels. Ah! Give me a crowbar and let me break into that wee gazebo that's standing all alone in that teeny little garden over there. I may or may not magically discover an actual botanical garden in there. SHEESH!
The Nightmarket.
Seriously? So we've got what, 20 market stalls and only 5 or 6 are interactible and occupied with vendors? The other ones are decor only.
What's worse, most of the deco stalls are fish market stalls. And I can't buy a single fish! Instead, I have to go that lovely waterfront " fishmarket" rabbithole lot across the road to buy my darn rabbithole fish. What's the point? Why not put a fish stall at the nightmarket and let us use that water front lot to build on?! Why is there no floating market? Boats? Come on, did the rental system eat all of this EP's budget?? I find it hard to believe, then again, I still haven't explored everything this pack has to offer. I won't lose my marbles just yet.
Tuc Tucs.
The ones that zoom around Tomarang are quite endearing. But WHY CAN'T OUR SIMS drive a TUC TUC?!
Not that big of a problem, but worth mentioning it.
There's probably more, but I have to stop there before I go down the deep rant-rabbithole myself and will land exactly where our hungry family of tassel tigers ended up. Poor beasts, I'd be such a bland feast.
I think because Larian Studios gets most of their projects off the ground via kickstarters(like with the recent Divinity game), so they're more inclined to listen to their fanbase. EA is 100x larger then LS, and even without the Sims franchise, they have their sports division rolling in all their money.
Well, here are my negative review ( the positive will be post on the positive thread, I know how exotic" ).
First, the world is empty. Not like : " ohh, wish we had more lots ! ", no! Just EMPTY! No sims around empty !
The save generate an average of 18 sims per " play session ". Still the streets are empty, no traffic, no one . Willow Creek is bustling in comparison. Not much to do around town either.
Anyway, on to the gameplay !
Well, it's not that intuitive.
You should definitely be smarter than me and follow the Onboarding.
As you can guess, I did not !
It was a mess.
Conclusion: UX is not that good! The game can lag like crazy if you're building with the new type of lot -> ALWAYS start with residential , then convert.
The world is beautiful but feels empty ! Although the game generate many townies per play session ( for those who kill at the and of each session).
BB & CAS are fine and add a new culture ( a few glorious SEA inspires formal wear would have been appreciated ), always good.
I still have to play the game thoroughly to give it a definite rating .
For now, maybe just wait and get it on sale?
If you need it ( yeah some of do, gameplay, torture, ...) well, take the time needed to really understand the "rent feature".
No they do not, I think that must be it.
Both new tea pots make my neat sim think the room is dirty when the lot is set to rental residential but when the same lot is set to residential the dirty effect is gone.
When the same lot is set to residential I can remove the lot challenge 'off the grid' and set new lot challenge 'simple living' but when I change the same lot to rental residential the original 'off the grid' lot challenge is on the home unit and the lot challenge I set 'simple living' is gone. All testing was done on the empty 30X20 lot in the tiger neighborhood in the new world.
Also the full trash event acts like the accumulate trash is set on the lot challenge. I can't remember what that lot challenge is called.
Instead, they could have created a full-time contractor or construction career with all the levels.
Gameplay discussion starts at 6:50 of the video:
I read somewhere that lot challenges cab cause trouble after the category switch - so I intend to never switch to RR while there are any active lot challenge. You sim might have reacted to a dirty object according to settings on a "hidden lot".
I don't mind Satch's brutal honesty, and appreciate hearing various perspectives on this pack. I've seen quite a few videos now, and most of them come down to, basically, "This pack had a lot of potential, but it's half-baked." If I weren't so keen to get the new lot type because I really enjoy building, I'd wait for a sale. (I'm still waiting patiently for HSY and GrT to be 50% off.) As it is, though, I'm just going to wait for the major bugs to be fixed. I hope that happens in time for me to get the bonus items, but if not, oh well. It doesn't seem like I'm missing much in terms of gameplay; I'm pretty sure now that what new gameplay there is will get boring quickly. And the world is so tiny...