I can say I enjoy the pack, but there are few things that I find icky.
First the world: it looks so inviting, yet it’s so empty. I found one harvestable, poor snapdragon in the town area. I was low key hoping for maybe a new flower or at least few crystals in every area. I agree with everyone saying cinema needs another rabbit hole next to it to be restaurant (Batuu style would be good, sim comes out with food and can use tables already placed in the world). That would make dates in cinema so much more cool. The number of pretty shells is discouraging. I was hoping after Werewolves they will at least try to make the world part of the experience, but HSY already killed that hope.
I’m a little shocked that family dynamics only apply to literal family (husband/wife/son/daughter etc). It means that if my sim is not into conventional marriage, they will never have a family dynamics with their boyfriend. The message that I’m not sure I’m comfortable with. Couples who don’t tie the knot seems not to be considered as a family by the game.
I’m also not sure what game needs to consider my sims being a close couple. They have amazing compatibility, autonomously do a lot of parenthood and romantic interactions (before and after I installed dlc) yet it still didn’t trigger. But they cracked two jokes and game gave me a message if they should have jokesters dynamic. I decline because one of them has a hate mischief thing and the descriptions says they will prank each other and tell jokes. A little lame, I guess.
Unlike others, I actually like milestones. I like it works backward and registered my sim getting degree and defeating Mother Plant. Sometimes I see them getting moodlets from remembering things they did and getting extra confidence. So no complains here.
My sims also got burned out from salary person job which I found fitting since that kind of job really makes people dazed, lol. He was going around in haze all two days and then real burnout kicked in, tense moodlet and lower fun plus lower ability to learned skills. I found it great excuse to change his job. It was realistic, because some people really don’t fit this type of job.
Another thing I enjoy is the self discovery (3 additional personality traits), my sim already got cheerful from being in good mood for a long time and overachiever after going into skill class at Foxbury. I’m not sure why their husband didn’t have single self discovery yet, but maybe because I focused more on my original sim (their husband is former townie).
That being said, this dlc and patch introduced many animation glitches which are annoying especially when caring for the youngest sims. My couple had science newborn yesterday and husband went into the loop while holding and cuddling the baby. He would never put his son down so I had to cancel the whole circus. Then baby disappeared and reappeared in the basinet. It looked sloppy and unfinished. Didn’t like it. I also noticed they throw newborn diapers on the floor and don’t bother until they start to have a green cloud, but my main sim is a slob so I thought maybe that’s why. Seeing what others say it seems to be a feature.
To sum up my awfully long post, this pack do enhance gameplay, creates more obstacles for sims and contact with other it’s not always rosy. The friendship bar for fresh sim goes up painfully slow and finally my sims stopped getting friends on the go. It also obviously makes playing younger sims more meaningful. But the world full of empty shells and unused space, lackluster CAS which didn’t even bother to add new shoes, obsession sims have babies/infants plus lack of clear explanation how some mechanism (positive or negative) are triggered prevent it from being great back imho. And sadly it is a must pack if one wants sim to be more fleshed out and I do feel like some of these mechanics should be base game.
Look in the Life, not first milestone list and see if the second child is shown there. My Sims have had two children and both are listed in the life section of the milestones.
Dang, I was about to be SO happy to be wrong. But alas, in the life section for me, it only lists my sim's first child.
Did your two children happen to be twins?
No, one was made in CAS when I made the family, the other was born in game, now I am wondering if that is the reason both show up, since one wasn't actually born in game. Won't be able to check that until my next generation. Will be very upsetting if that is the case.
Look in the Life, not first milestone list and see if the second child is shown there. My Sims have had two children and both are listed in the life section of the milestones.
Dang, I was about to be SO happy to be wrong. But alas, in the life section for me, it only lists my sim's first child.
Did your two children happen to be twins?
I think it's a bug.
I have a legacy family who had two children before the pack (not twins). Parents have milestones for both of them. But since GT release they've had a third kid, and this time they got no milestone it doesn't make sense. Kids are not in “firsts” milestone category, they are in “life”. So it really should show all of them.
The burnout system is so annoying. It already takes an annoyingly long time for my sims to get promoted. Now they're getting burned out every single time they go to work. I have to spend so much of their off time sleeping it off or doing some of their hobbies - and even then, some hobbies just make things worse. I get that it's realistic, I take a nap every day after work IRL. But it's so irritating how it seems to happen so often. I hope I can just remove the moodlets without worry, so I could just use MCCC to get rid of them.
The Sims 4 hasn't introduced a new musical instrument since 2017
I just wish my sim's friends/relatives would stop asking to move in and then getting hurt sentiments when I tell them no. It's worse than the unwanted boyfriend/girlfriend solicitation.
I'm enjoying it so far, but I've literally just found the dumbest bug... Toddler milestones include "study Letters" (using the flashcard thing) and you obviously can't study letters until the thinking skill has been maxed, and then once you've done that the "study Numbers" option on the flashcards disappears but... that's now the next 'suggested' milestone. It's literally impossible to get. I already got my sim to study numbers with the toddler bc I forgot that it changed once you maxed the skill so I was getting frustrated that it wasn't unlocking, finally unlocked it, only to find that I now need to get an impossible milestone by doing an activity that I've already been doing for days. Like... this is your big new game feature guys, at least get this part right (yes yes yes, I'm aware that My Wedding Stories *happened*)
So as much as I'm enjoying this pack....I can't help but be a little disappointed in the milestone mechanic. Why was this just milestones? Why couldn't it be a full blown memory system? My sims basically only remember their firsts for everything. I just had a sim get back from the hospital after delivering their second child and...no milestone update at all. Under the "had a baby" milestone, it still only lists her first child.
I also noticed the same thing happened with job promotions and making friends. So what other important things are gonna get left out just because they weren't the first? Will this not document a sim's second time falling in love? A second wedding? What about negative memories? Is there anything for that? I'm glad this thing is here but like...so far it feels like yet another returning feature from a past game that was brought back in an inferior way.
I also just looked at the grandparents' milestones and...nothing for being a grandparent. Not even the first time.
My sims have had two children and they are both listed in milestones. I’m adopting one soon and I’ll let you know about that one.
My biggest gripe besides the empty world is that there is no transportation option for toddlers. I can take the infant on a walk in the carrier but as soon as they age to toddler we are stuck.
My biggest gripe besides the empty world is that there is no transportation option for toddlers. I can take the infant on a walk in the carrier but as soon as they age to toddler we are stuck.
I thought toddlers can be carried with the carriers too.
My biggest gripe besides the empty world is that there is no transportation option for toddlers. I can take the infant on a walk in the carrier but as soon as they age to toddler we are stuck.
I thought toddlers can be carried with the carriers too.
Family dynamics just don't seem to stick when playing rotationally... That's... disappointing...
I’m curious @EgonVM what do you mean by they don’t stick? Do you mean each time you change households you have to reapply them in CAS or do you mean when you change households and invite someone over they don’t seem to have the closeness/distance etc. they were supposed to have to your sim? This might be a bug, and you might want to take it to the bug section.
Mostly yes. Though sometimes, I don't even have to play with another household as simply going to CAS to edit another household may do that...
i'm sorry... what ? i was considering buying the expansion but now i'm not so sure... what's the point of making a whole thing about family dynamics if they reset every time you do something else with another household...?
Family dynamics just don't seem to stick when playing rotationally... That's... disappointing...
I’m curious @EgonVM what do you mean by they don’t stick? Do you mean each time you change households you have to reapply them in CAS or do you mean when you change households and invite someone over they don’t seem to have the closeness/distance etc. they were supposed to have to your sim? This might be a bug, and you might want to take it to the bug section.
Mostly yes. Though sometimes, I don't even have to play with another household as simply going to CAS to edit another household may do that...
i'm sorry... what ? i was considering buying the expansion but now i'm not so sure... what's the point of making a whole thing about family dynamics if they reset every time you do something else with another household...?
I've not experienced family dynamics resetting (or sims losing milestones either). I play rotationally, vanilla. One things that surprised me though is that the family dynamics gained through gameplay seem to be one-sided.
I just wish my sim's friends/relatives would stop asking to move in and then getting hurt sentiments when I tell them no. It's worse than the unwanted boyfriend/girlfriend solicitation.
Just like the HSY stuff, them asking is fine but the hurt sentiments feel really unfair when most of the time you’re just trying to build up friendship with them.
Family dynamics just don't seem to stick when playing rotationally... That's... disappointing...
I’m curious @EgonVM what do you mean by they don’t stick? Do you mean each time you change households you have to reapply them in CAS or do you mean when you change households and invite someone over they don’t seem to have the closeness/distance etc. they were supposed to have to your sim? This might be a bug, and you might want to take it to the bug section.
Mostly yes. Though sometimes, I don't even have to play with another household as simply going to CAS to edit another household may do that...
i'm sorry... what ? i was considering buying the expansion but now i'm not so sure... what's the point of making a whole thing about family dynamics if they reset every time you do something else with another household...?
I think resetting family dynamic might be a bug or related to a mod or something. On console I set family dynamics for all the npcs in the village and they don’t reset.
I just wish my sim's friends/relatives would stop asking to move in and then getting hurt sentiments when I tell them no. It's worse than the unwanted boyfriend/girlfriend solicitation.
I haven't gotten the boyfriend/girlfriend question. Probably because most of my Sims are married already. But yea my Sim's sister randomly stopped by, they had a convo, and at the end I saw a message of her asking to move in. She is also married. It was very odd. I obviously said no but didn't notice what it did to their relationship.
This is something I heard around Reddit and the EA help threads, but apparently they coded milestones so that inactive sims lose milestones (I guess for performance reasons maybe). This would be okay if infants weren’t limited by what they could do according to their milestones. I do like to rotate the household I’m playing every now and then, so this would really hurt my play-style. I was going to get the pack, but I won’t until either this is undone or a modder finds a workaround.
This is something I heard around Reddit and the EA help threads, but apparently they coded milestones so that inactive sims lose milestones (I guess for performance reasons maybe). This would be okay if infants weren’t limited by what they could do according to their milestones. I do like to rotate the household I’m playing every now and then, so this would really hurt my play-style. I was going to get the pack, but I won’t until either this is undone or a modder finds a workaround.
Oh geez, I hope that's just a rumor. That would be absolutely terrible for rotational players.
This is something I heard around Reddit and the EA help threads, but apparently they coded milestones so that inactive sims lose milestones (I guess for performance reasons maybe). This would be okay if infants weren’t limited by what they could do according to their milestones. I do like to rotate the household I’m playing every now and then, so this would really hurt my play-style. I was going to get the pack, but I won’t until either this is undone or a modder finds a workaround.
Soooo they'll lose milestones if you mark them as an unplayed household or for whatever household you're not actively playing at the moment?
This is something I heard around Reddit and the EA help threads, but apparently they coded milestones so that inactive sims lose milestones (I guess for performance reasons maybe). This would be okay if infants weren’t limited by what they could do according to their milestones. I do like to rotate the household I’m playing every now and then, so this would really hurt my play-style. I was going to get the pack, but I won’t until either this is undone or a modder finds a workaround.
Infant milestones seem to give out special milestone traits which seem to unlock the new infant abilities (I think...).
But yeah, please consider rotational players more.
This is something I heard around Reddit and the EA help threads, but apparently they coded milestones so that inactive sims lose milestones (I guess for performance reasons maybe). This would be okay if infants weren’t limited by what they could do according to their milestones. I do like to rotate the household I’m playing every now and then, so this would really hurt my play-style. I was going to get the pack, but I won’t until either this is undone or a modder finds a workaround.
Infant milestones seem to give out special milestone traits which seem to unlock the new infant abilities (I think...).
But yeah, please consider rotational players more.
So you lose milestones if you are a rotational player? I play that way to and I would hate for them to lose milestones because I decided to play a different family member that didn't live in the house.
I have to say that I'm not really pleased with the new world and I haven't even had much time to play with it yet. First, most of the lots are wider than deeper, which means that you need to build your own, or look for the few lots out there that were built on wider, shallow lots. Second, all of the larger lots are occupied by townies or have public lots on them. If you don't delete or evict families from those lots you are limited to the 30 by 20 lots or one 40 by 20 lot. The 40 by 20 lot is weirdly located (surrounded by roads), and the 30 by 20 lots limit either the house size or the yard size. For a world that was supposed to be for families, open lots for building your own large, multi gen house is lacking with out having to shuffle or delete townies. Nope, not pleased with how the world was put together.
This is something I heard around Reddit and the EA help threads, but apparently they coded milestones so that inactive sims lose milestones (I guess for performance reasons maybe). This would be okay if infants weren’t limited by what they could do according to their milestones. I do like to rotate the household I’m playing every now and then, so this would really hurt my play-style. I was going to get the pack, but I won’t until either this is undone or a modder finds a workaround.
I don't know. I've tested it (made my family unplayed, then moved them to “other households”) and they didn't lose any. Though later I realised that all my sims were in the exact life stage they were created in, so maybe they lose milestones for previous life stages? Worth testing, I guess.
Or maybe it's like culling and happens at some moment, not immediately.
This is something I heard around Reddit and the EA help threads, but apparently they coded milestones so that inactive sims lose milestones (I guess for performance reasons maybe). This would be okay if infants weren’t limited by what they could do according to their milestones. I do like to rotate the household I’m playing every now and then, so this would really hurt my play-style. I was going to get the pack, but I won’t until either this is undone or a modder finds a workaround.
Infant milestones seem to give out special milestone traits which seem to unlock the new infant abilities (I think...).
But yeah, please consider rotational players more.
So you lose milestones if you are a rotational player? I play that way to and I would hate for them to lose milestones because I decided to play a different family member that didn't live in the house.
I have to say that I'm not really pleased with the new world and I haven't even had much time to play with it yet. First, most of the lots are wider than deeper, which means that you need to build your own, or look for the few lots out there that were built on wider, shallow lots. Second, all of the larger lots are occupied by townies or have public lots on them. If you don't delete or evict families from those lots you are limited to the 30 by 20 lots or one 40 by 20 lot. The 40 by 20 lot is weirdly located (surrounded by roads), and the 30 by 20 lots limit either the house size or the yard size. For a world that was supposed to be for families, open lots for building your own large, multi gen house is lacking with out having to shuffle or delete townies. Nope, not pleased with how the world was put together.
Yeah that little issue reached out and bit me, as I took upon myself of building a house for the pack before I got the pack.
And then set about adding GT content when I did get the pack.
Only to find horizontal lots in the new world. I was lucky my house wasn't too large.
Fortunately build mode is flexible enough to easily fix it.
Okay I'm currently playing, and I am really just annoyed with how everything is a shell. I love the path for sims to go powerwalking, jogging, reflective walking by their lonesome or with others. My sim couple are on a fitness journey and its perfect for that. The little breaks to sip water or have a snack is chefs kiss.
BUT-The Arboretum?? WHY couldn't that be a rabbit hole for sims to tour and shop at? They literally could've made one positive and one negative moodlet associated with touring it. And the shopping could've been as if there was a little gift shop inside or maybe it's a community area so they can pick flowers or something. Idk- ANYTHING would have been nice. I'm used to rabbit holes and don't mind them too, as I'm an avid sims 3 player. I just can't stand the world around my sims being set dressing and not allowing them to interact with it. They can't even view the statue near the Arboretum. I'm finally enjoying playing the sims 4 a bit after not playing for a while, but stuff like this irks me and turns me off from it.
I wonder if maybe a modder can make it a rabbit hole. I'll take anything at this point haha.
**adding in as I play, that tiny "house" looking thing by the path around the pond looks like it could be a fishing/bait shop and they easily could've made that shell a shopping rabbit hole too. As I play more I quickly see the missed opportunities lol.
Comments
First the world: it looks so inviting, yet it’s so empty. I found one harvestable, poor snapdragon in the town area. I was low key hoping for maybe a new flower or at least few crystals in every area. I agree with everyone saying cinema needs another rabbit hole next to it to be restaurant (Batuu style would be good, sim comes out with food and can use tables already placed in the world). That would make dates in cinema so much more cool. The number of pretty shells is discouraging. I was hoping after Werewolves they will at least try to make the world part of the experience, but HSY already killed that hope.
I’m a little shocked that family dynamics only apply to literal family (husband/wife/son/daughter etc). It means that if my sim is not into conventional marriage, they will never have a family dynamics with their boyfriend. The message that I’m not sure I’m comfortable with. Couples who don’t tie the knot seems not to be considered as a family by the game.
I’m also not sure what game needs to consider my sims being a close couple. They have amazing compatibility, autonomously do a lot of parenthood and romantic interactions (before and after I installed dlc) yet it still didn’t trigger. But they cracked two jokes and game gave me a message if they should have jokesters dynamic. I decline because one of them has a hate mischief thing and the descriptions says they will prank each other and tell jokes. A little lame, I guess.
Unlike others, I actually like milestones. I like it works backward and registered my sim getting degree and defeating Mother Plant. Sometimes I see them getting moodlets from remembering things they did and getting extra confidence. So no complains here.
My sims also got burned out from salary person job which I found fitting since that kind of job really makes people dazed, lol. He was going around in haze all two days and then real burnout kicked in, tense moodlet and lower fun plus lower ability to learned skills. I found it great excuse to change his job. It was realistic, because some people really don’t fit this type of job.
Another thing I enjoy is the self discovery (3 additional personality traits), my sim already got cheerful from being in good mood for a long time and overachiever after going into skill class at Foxbury. I’m not sure why their husband didn’t have single self discovery yet, but maybe because I focused more on my original sim (their husband is former townie).
That being said, this dlc and patch introduced many animation glitches which are annoying especially when caring for the youngest sims. My couple had science newborn yesterday and husband went into the loop while holding and cuddling the baby. He would never put his son down so I had to cancel the whole circus. Then baby disappeared and reappeared in the basinet. It looked sloppy and unfinished. Didn’t like it. I also noticed they throw newborn diapers on the floor and don’t bother until they start to have a green cloud, but my main sim is a slob so I thought maybe that’s why. Seeing what others say it seems to be a feature.
To sum up my awfully long post, this pack do enhance gameplay, creates more obstacles for sims and contact with other it’s not always rosy. The friendship bar for fresh sim goes up painfully slow and finally my sims stopped getting friends on the go. It also obviously makes playing younger sims more meaningful. But the world full of empty shells and unused space, lackluster CAS which didn’t even bother to add new shoes, obsession sims have babies/infants plus lack of clear explanation how some mechanism (positive or negative) are triggered prevent it from being great back imho. And sadly it is a must pack if one wants sim to be more fleshed out and I do feel like some of these mechanics should be base game.
No, one was made in CAS when I made the family, the other was born in game, now I am wondering if that is the reason both show up, since one wasn't actually born in game. Won't be able to check that until my next generation. Will be very upsetting if that is the case.
I think it's a bug.
I have a legacy family who had two children before the pack (not twins). Parents have milestones for both of them. But since GT release they've had a third kid, and this time they got no milestone
The Sims 4 hasn't introduced a new musical instrument since 2017
Like... this is your big new game feature guys, at least get this part right (yes yes yes, I'm aware that My Wedding Stories *happened*)
My sims have had two children and they are both listed in milestones. I’m adopting one soon and I’ll let you know about that one.
I thought toddlers can be carried with the carriers too.
So did I
i'm sorry... what ? i was considering buying the expansion but now i'm not so sure... what's the point of making a whole thing about family dynamics if they reset every time you do something else with another household...?
I've not experienced family dynamics resetting (or sims losing milestones either). I play rotationally, vanilla. One things that surprised me though is that the family dynamics gained through gameplay seem to be one-sided.
Updated with Werewolf Diaries (1)
Just like the HSY stuff, them asking is fine but the hurt sentiments feel really unfair when most of the time you’re just trying to build up friendship with them.
I think resetting family dynamic might be a bug or related to a mod or something. On console I set family dynamics for all the npcs in the village and they don’t reset.
I haven't gotten the boyfriend/girlfriend question. Probably because most of my Sims are married already. But yea my Sim's sister randomly stopped by, they had a convo, and at the end I saw a message of her asking to move in. She is also married. It was very odd. I obviously said no but didn't notice what it did to their relationship.
Oh geez, I hope that's just a rumor. That would be absolutely terrible for rotational players.
Soooo they'll lose milestones if you mark them as an unplayed household or for whatever household you're not actively playing at the moment?
Infant milestones seem to give out special milestone traits which seem to unlock the new infant abilities (I think...).
But yeah, please consider rotational players more.
I don't know. I've tested it (made my family unplayed, then moved them to “other households”) and they didn't lose any. Though later I realised that all my sims were in the exact life stage they were created in, so maybe they lose milestones for previous life stages? Worth testing, I guess.
Or maybe it's like culling and happens at some moment, not immediately.
It's not automatic. I've not lost any milestones yet playing rotationally. I've played five different households since the pack was released and two of them have infants. I did take extra backup of my save though after reading this thread: https://answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports/OPEN-GRO-Toddler-milestones-resetting-disappearing/td-p/12394945
Updated with Werewolf Diaries (1)
Yeah that little issue reached out and bit me, as I took upon myself of building a house for the pack before I got the pack.
And then set about adding GT content when I did get the pack.
Only to find horizontal lots in the new world. I was lucky my house wasn't too large.
Fortunately build mode is flexible enough to easily fix it.
BUT-The Arboretum?? WHY couldn't that be a rabbit hole for sims to tour and shop at? They literally could've made one positive and one negative moodlet associated with touring it. And the shopping could've been as if there was a little gift shop inside or maybe it's a community area so they can pick flowers or something. Idk- ANYTHING would have been nice. I'm used to rabbit holes and don't mind them too, as I'm an avid sims 3 player. I just can't stand the world around my sims being set dressing and not allowing them to interact with it. They can't even view the statue near the Arboretum. I'm finally enjoying playing the sims 4 a bit after not playing for a while, but stuff like this irks me and turns me off from it.
I wonder if maybe a modder can make it a rabbit hole. I'll take anything at this point haha.
**adding in as I play, that tiny "house" looking thing by the path around the pond looks like it could be a fishing/bait shop and they easily could've made that shell a shopping rabbit hole too. As I play more I quickly see the missed opportunities lol.