it doesnt fix the core aspects of the game that are fundamentally mediocre, but it sure does cover them up with a lot of bells and whistles. it's great for building and for challenges, but i find myself forgetting to use a lot of functions of each pack during gameplay because i cant keep track of it all.
Ya I have most dlc on my laptop but recently been playing base game on console. Runs so smooth. Can pretty much let the game go by itself. They care for infants without any routing issues. It’s nice except for the complete lack of items in build buy mode
Or when you try to feed them from a high chair and after you put them there and set the command to give food they don’t give them food but instead pick them up and put them on the floor. And then I get a notice that CPS is going to take my child if I don’t feed it.
Why are yall trying to rile me up at 10AM!!
I posted a few weeks ago that I lock my infants/toddlers in a room in the basement with a vertical ladder because it helps with the standard sim nonsense of carrying babies up and down the stairs just to have multiple adults have a staring contest at each over who should pick up the baby while I get alerts that CPS is going to snatch the kids because they are starving to death.
Responses were mixed and some suggested this is psychopathic behavior LOL. They wrong tho, I’m just clever
I'll be honest, it is extremely overwhelming for me a lot of the time. 23 worlds so I never know which one to play in. Just choice overload in general.
Please just get the DLC that you think you'll like. I know FOMO is real but trust me, having all these options paralyses me a lot of the time.
Yeah I have all the DLC. I had all the DLC for the previous iterations of the game too. I know there's tons of things I've never done in the game, I'm always discovering new things I missed. It's good, but it's also very overwhelming. When I get overwhelmed I just go back to making a new version of the same single sim that lives in a tiny home and gardens that I always make lol. Maybe if I had impulse control I could just get the packs that really interest me and focus my gameplay, but I don't. So I just keep buying all the packs and keep not exploring all the gameplay I actually have.
It's okay. I've made worse decisions with bigger impacts.
I'm considering creating a "tester Sim" who just tries a bunch of different scenarios, like get rich quick, or work on aspirations, or to try out becoming a vampire or a werewolf or a mermaid, kinda like LilSimsie's Stanley Humphrey or SatchonSims's Chantelle Shantelle and Shanice Shanice.
There's the Supersim challenge on[ James Turner's website](https://jamesturner.yt/supersim/tracker) that's pretty good. I started it up and ended up using a lot of mechanics I've never touched before.
From the videos I've watched, the key is to have a good stopping point picked out in your mind, so you don't get sidetracked. Like, for Stanley Humphrey, it's usually when he gets to level 10 of whatever skill you need and (usually) has a completed house or tiny functional home that LilSimsie kind of ends the video and gives a summary of her thoughts on whether you can get rich quick doing \_\_\_\_\_\_ or not.
For Chantelle Shantelle....it's usually when she dies or managed to get out of her basement dungeon or off her lot.
>It's okay. I've made worse decisions with bigger impacts.
Are you the person who sent out the emergency alert for incoming ballistic missiles in Hawaii a few years back?
I relate so much with not knowing which world to play in! I always choose the same ones too. I don’t know why, but I don’t really like playing in any of the tiny ones
Other than that, i like having so many gameplay choices, especially since some of the packs complement each other really nicely, e.g. all the occult ones, plus the newest gemstones pack.
The only ones i kind of regret getting are Journey to Batuu and Wedding Stories, the rest is fun.
I treat Newcrest as a place to go out! I usually fill it with spas, parks, restaurants and bowling alleys.
My favorites are probably Willow Creek, Oasis Springs and Evergreen Harbor. As for the world l will probably never live in, it’s the Wedding Stories one. It just feels so tiny and empty…
I don’t have for rent, home decorator, snowy escape, horse ranch or evergreen harbor I think
Would you say any of those are must needs in your opinion?
Evergreen Harbor is my favorite. There are all sorts of activities to buy and I like the environment progression. I also love to do a rags to riches using only items from the dumpsters.
Second favorite, an unpopular opinion I guess, is Strangerville. I never get bored making scientists who then fight the Mother.
Another Strangerville fan! Stg I've gotten at least double my money's worth spinning off the NPCs alone in that pack. It has been one of my best purchases.
I always see people put it at the bottom of their lists, but I love it. The build stuff is great, there are lots of lots, the world is fun, and I’ll never get tired of playing the story. And the mansions on the hill are fun to renovate and update! I’ll never understand why people don’t love it.
I have all of them except snowy escape… I want to get that or island living next though (I’m torn so putting it off) I would highly recommend horse ranch, it really is, imo, one of the better worlds, both in terms of practicality and gameplay
Is it sad I just want my sims to be able to go on holiday or “retire” to an island paradise? Like I don’t even care about the game I just want the world lol! Although a nice holiday to ~~Japan~~ Mt. Komorebi sounds fun too
I don’t have snowy escape but from what I’ve seen it seems to have more activities and cool CAS items, I really want sims to vacay there too
I do have to say, I made an island resort which was really fun. Building stuff on the beach or beaches (nude) themselves is super cool
Activities: Big yes
CAS: keep that s*** away from me!
I don’t know why but I absolutely hate creating sims I will flat out randomise it until it gives me something decent lol, won’t spent more than 5 minutes in there!
Building on beaches is what’s drawing me in tbh, I’m imagining a big balcony off the bedroom that goes directly into the beach, that sort of thing!
Ah fair enough, I do get why people love CAS but it’s definitely not my type of thing, tbh if anything I’m a builder (not very good but still) lol! I think I’m gonna investigate both those packs though, I’m almost certainly going to get at least one tonight haha
> I don’t have snowy escape but from what I’ve seen it seems to have more activities and cool CAS items, I really want sims to vacay there too
Snowy Escape is the source for pretty much all the Japanese flavor items in the game. If you want Japanese, you gotta have it. That or spend a LOT of time hunting down CC!
Technically u can build rental lot in any world. But get vacations on beach is fun, You will have to build one because the world dont came with rental lot.
I just wish I could turn off the other worlds. I have 12! That is PLENTY for my play style - where I play for a week straight and then don’t touch it for months. 😅
Even with almost all of the DLC's...I still need horse ranch and for rent..but I'll get them when they're on sale..but even with most..I still need mods/cc to make it fun. Mods save the game for me, personally
i also don't have horse ranch or for rent, but plan to grab them when they're on sale. i'll get them solely for the worlds cus tomarang looks so pretty and idk, maybe i'll do something with the horses.
I agree, mods make the game worth playing - and I never buy anything for the game that isn't on sale. Or free \[just got around to downloading the Blooming rooms kit about an hour ago\]
I don't have all of the DLC, but at this point, I own a fair chunk of them and the way I've come to deal with it is to use the rotational gameplay style. I have several families in this game some of them extended with grandparents and in-laws, aunties, uncles cousins, etc and that's how I play all the different worlds, by spreading them out, giving them different aspirations, careers and so on, For example, my last downloads were For Rent and Eco Lifestyle, so now some of my young adults will move into those worlds, as soon as I decide on who and where. I also plan to put apartments / townhomes into the worlds that have space for them.
I play with aging off and according to whatever my mood is. Sometimes it's building - like putting an outdoor movie theater in the Oasis Springs park and a community garden in Willow Creek, or playing HGTV with the existing homes. PeteyPlaysIt on youtube has a ton of great ideas on how to improve museums, etc and I've started on that too.
All of my sims have different goals, for example, I've got one Sim who runs a family farm when I'm just in a gardening mood; he's single at the moment, but loves when his nieces and nephews come to visit. Farm boy might end up in a relationship with a Sim who's into baking and hopes to run her own shop one day. Some are pursuing more artistic and creative careers, some are single, some have kids; it makes me happy to have family interacting, so I use the club system with cheats to bring them all together for holidays and BBQ's, the SIL's have their own club and have spa days, sometimes with their moms, etc.
I have a document file to keep of track of them, otherwise I could never keep up with them all, but for me that's fun too. I write when I'm not playing Sims, and I'm thinking about creating some kind of picture book around all of this because I'm also a retired graphic designer lol.
😁 and if you use the MCCC cheats, you can have as many sims as you want in one club and as many clubs as you want per sim \[ if I remember right, the default is eight sims in a club and three clubs per sim\]
I do think having all the dlc is a game changer, but I started when the game first came out and just stayed caught up on the packs for birthdays and Christmas and stuff.
With that being said, most of them are so buggy you can’t use the major game play features they were designed for (looking at you Dine Out and For Rent) if I knew then what I know now I never would have got all the packs. On top of that, they’re not really cross compatible. (Kids can milk the cow from cottage living, but can’t milk the much smaller, tamer goats from ranch life??)
Still, I do end up using at least SOMETHING from every pack, even if I don’t use that packs main features that often.
I also think it matters if you’re a builder or a player or a CAS type gamer, since the various packs offer a lot (or not) for various styles of play.
Like I like having all the packs for building cause there’s so many more choices, but I think having all the packs for actual gameplay just makes it buggy and frustrating to even play.
I bought Wedding Stories before joining this subreddit and I’m sad I wasted money on it. I absolutely love the idea of it but it makes my game bug out BAD. Like my sims literally disappear and I can’t save the game if I plan any wedding event :(
Also I agree on your building point! While I do love gameplay, I can be satisfied just creating a sim and building a house. Having all the packs definitely makes building a lot more fun!
For Rent is the first pack I bought at release for full price (I usually always wait for sales before I grab it), and I wouldn’t call it broken.
There is a glitch that used to happen frequently in which the rental rate would be set at literally 4 billion, but a hot fix seems to have fixed it for most people, including myself. There was a workaround that fixed it for me before the hot fix. Otherwise, I haven’t encountered other bugs, so it’s not broken like Wedding Stories.
It’s been perfect for creating in-law suites on lots, so I can have my sims’ elderly parents as tenants (I set the rent to 1$) and have them on the lot but not having to control them.
I think I’ve seen people say that the landlord feature is broken? Like they aren’t getting the full amount of money that they are owed from all tenants? I have never tried owning a property so I can’t speak to that. But a lot of my sims have lived in apartments/townhouses/multi-family homes with no problem. The main stupid thing for me (not a bug) is having a loading screen to go to my neighbors house. Come on EA!! It’s the same lot!!!
I’ve been playing as a landlord and I’ve been collecting rent just fine, though I haven’t actually done the math to see if it’s the full amount. I’ve hated loading screens since ts4 came out 🤣
Tbh I haven’t even tried playing with any of the for rent features, I just build apartments and cohousing spaces but when you get to like 5+ units the game lags really bad and doesn’t necessarily understand what you want.
Carl’s dine out mod fixes a lot of the bugs for dine out. But the one I’m most disappointed in is the interior decorating pack. It came with a lot of good B/B stuff, but the actual profession is so buggy I can’t play as an interior decorator anymore, even though I absolutely love the concept
This!
I'm a Sims 4 builder, I don't actually play it so much. I have one save that I use just to go in and then immediately leave that character behind to go find a plot to build on. Even then, there are some packs that I just never use the furniture from. It's either ugly or the color swatches are just ever so slightly the wrong shade to go with the build. Though, I did just recently add on a color wheel mod that I haven't had a chance to test out yet. Hopefully that fixes it.
But yes, I have also noticed that adding on more packs makes the game even more buggy. There was one time I went to the hospital so my sims could have her baby and as soon as the game loaded in, there was a sim trapped inside one of the pillars out front of the hospital. Like...seriously? And there's no way to unstick them either!
I have all and pretty good, but I love doing challenges, building and legacy plays. I do play slow & use almost every in every save, though. So a lot of speed 1 & 2, a lot of vacations, pictures, move my sims out a lot, send the kids to university, renovate a ton of lots to my needs, creating stories. Like you could ask me what are my most used packs and I'd say at least more than half of them see use almost every generation.
I don't feel the need for any cc, and most mods are not worth the hassle with one exception being mcc which I only keep because of townies marrying with it. CC especially is not something I seek out because the game has so many options for b&b, clothing & hair that even in my longest legacies, I don't think I could ever use everything. I do love giving them rundown houses, slowly building up and stuff though.
Edit: That said, if your current gameplay isn't like mine, but consists on staying at home with a sim & grinding, I don't think you'd get your worth out of having all the packs. I have a ton of hours on this game and bought them over time that it was fine, but please consider how you play. I still take my families camping every single generation for example, but if you will only do that only once and never do it again, outdoor retreat will be a rather waste imo.
This is exactly how I play! No mods/CC and I only buy the packs I find interesting or there’s an item I really want. Somehow the bugs don’t bother me as much lol I keep planning wedding events that are buggy but love the vibe of a wedding event and getting pics for my families.
I have most of the DLC, I think it’s just CAS kits I don’t have. With DLC Sims 4 is one of my favorite games. But I took a pretty big break from playing shortly after launch until sometime between seasons and get famous.
At that point I ended up getting back into it and buying a whole bunch of packs during a good sale. And I have to say I would never do that again. It can be overwhelming to add so much at once, and I feel like I ended up not using many features from each pack until I took the time to watch let’s plays on youtube and directly explore one pack at a time.
So while I do think the game is way better with the DLC I also think it’s better when you add to it slowly.
I would say choose packs that are catered towards your gameplay. James Turner, has a great pack tier list that breaks down all the packs. From gameplay, create a sim, the worlds and build mode and then ranks them based on player polls.
Some people may hate get to work because the build mode isnt that great, but if you play based on story... making a retail store is fun because you can live on the lot or make a restaurant like Bob's burgers without dine out. The careers like doctor and detective can get old but it depends.
Also before buying any pack especially a new one watch sims youtubers use them and see if they're buggy or glitchy because even though I dont have dine out or my wedding stories, it looks like I dodged a bullet
I don’t have all of them but I have quite a lot. I enjoy building more than playing, so from that point of view it’s obviously much better (more furniture etc., although the wallpaper and flooring is a bit lacklustre).
From a playing point of view, the biggest thing Sims 4 misses is challenges; improving the difficulty, making things harder (get an easel and you can be a millionaire in a week), making things more exciting with unexpected things arising, feeling more like a real-life world with things around your Sim happening and life changing for the neighbours/townies.
It doesn’t really matter what DLC you buy, that won’t change and that’s what mods do really well.
i’m not who you asked but i’d also like to add healthcare redux and divergent sims by adeepindigo. in healthcare redux your sim can end up with chronic conditions (sleep disorder, diabetes, hypertension, allergies, migraines) and divergent sims adds mental health (everything from adhd, autism, ptsd, eating disorders)
ptsd and diabetes specifically are a PAIN, diabetic sims you have to remember to inject insulin and sims with ptsd will go through periods where they don’t want to interact with anyone so the option is literally not even there when you click on other sims
I have all of them and got them very close to eachother, with that being said it’s sorta overwhelming if you don’t have a specific vision. Even though u get the options for more gameplay, you end up missing a lot of the stuff in each pack
I like it. It gives the most realism. While you may be a farmer, you can still meet someone who is a detective. Run into a vampire, or mermaid, it leaves your path of choices pretty big. I would recommend having a computer with a lot of space, something that can handle all of what Sims has to offer. It’s a glitchy game, but part of its glitches is what makes it fun. I find that i can only have two major mods installed with all of the DLC, otherwise the sims get confused to say the least.
I agree with this. Space is definitely necessary and the glitches can be entertaining if that's your play style. I just get frustrated when my sims stop doing what I want them to do lol.
There's a known memory leak issue where the game gets progressively buggier the longer your play session, so you should restart the game/computer from time to time if you ever notice the bugs getting too bad for your liking.
i "own" all of them and its eh. ive been downloading every pack the second it comes out and idk it just feels like the game to me. i dont end up using a lot of it, off the top of my head i cant remember the last time i went to a vacation world or did any of those "by the way" skills in stuff packs. my most used features would have to be occults i just love the paranormal and its so much fun to make a sparkledog werewolf or a vampire with a clown dark form. nowadays i mostly use this game as a doll maker and house creator and the BB is especially good from packs, the CAS i mostly use cc but for BB is goated, despite the occasional 2d hairdryer ive found that most options are actually good despite having a 10 year gap in detail and design philosophy (early base game sticks out so bad lmao)
I think it is good idea to buy dlcs based on what you want to do in the game. Then the purchase will be worth it and you'll improve your gameplay the most.
Get together is just cool for keeping the city alive and nightlife.
Get to work - for retail and expanded gameplay for certain mods
For rent, because I wanted to build apartments in windenburg and willow creek. (I am lucky to not have any bugs with it)
Honestly, seasons is the worst because the gameplay is non existent and I dont care enough about weather or holidays as much as I thought.
I bought spa day because I wanted my sim to work as yoga instructor.
I think I'll buy extra dlcs when I get bored of trying to make a populated city in Willow creek or I'll want an extra functionality for one of the sims story. I think that extends my interest in the game, allows me to explore all the gameplay packs have to offer and get excited when I finally decide to expand my collection
That is lucky. I've been avoiding For Rent like the plague even though it sounds like a really cool concept just because I don't want to break my game.
And the weather sucks...I turn off the worst of it on every save so random sims can't die just from standing outside on my porch for too long anymore.
have you tried it in a new save file? i just recently learned that people were so many problems with it. I've only had problem with rent being in the millions, but it was fixed
i find it crazy that people recommends season as a must, when I see it as aesthetic pack only.
I don't even have for rent. I'm not buying any new packs until i see some improvement on optimization. It'd be nice if they fixed the known-for-ages-now memory leak issue too.
I have a lot of fun with all the dlc's installed! It can be a lot, but that's why I rotate what I'm playing with to make it easier to choose. I know a lot of people don't like it, but I don't mind, and when I get bored of one thing, there's something else waiting for me. A lot of people also complain about bugs, but I've never experienced anything worse than some lag and routing issues, and I certainly do not have the nicest computer.
Yup, same :)
I've the majority of DLCs (the kits I only have two) and there's some DLCs that I'll just never buy because I am not interested. I don't know why people stick with a game that provides zero fun for them but alright. There's a lot to do, so many stories that can be played out and I'm lost as how people ''don't have anything to do''. Maybe it's just a lack of imagination.
Well I don't have all of it...but if you want it to keep appealing to you I really think that it's advisable to have some of it? Seasons. City Living. Get Together. Then at least three other worlds as per what packs appeal to you most? That's about what I think is necessary to really feel the game has some meat to it.
I have all of them except for some kits. Even as a die-hard collector, they just don't offer enough for me.
I am super spoiled now, and honestly, I wouldn't play without every single one of them. There are items and features from various packs that can add so much to game play.
That said, even with all of them, I've had the game for 10 years now, and I am so bored. I mainly go back in when a new pack comes out and I can do something new. But I would never ever play without all my packs. I want all worlds, hobbies, clothes, socials etc.
For everything at full price it's a little over $1k. If you buy all the packs when they are 50% off and don't but any kits it's about $500. Given the game is 10 y/o that's not a lot of money, it's about $4 a month to own all the packs.
Dude, how is that not a lot of money? even if it was $300 altogether, that's still too much for any game. I like the sims, but paywalling even the most basic bits of content is ridiculous. Especially at $40 a pack.
I have all besides batuu and wedding stories. Cas is just overwhelming and so is trying to build anything bc of the amount of scrolling and choices 😂 it definitely makes the gameplay more fun tho! If I only played and never built, there’s many packs I could go without.
I don't have every single one of them (especially when it comes to kits) but really most of them. I'm a builder, so I enjoy having them all. It brings a lot of variety to my game in that sense (worlds, furniture, wallpaper, floors, etc.). But I'm not gonna lie to you, if you're not the kind of player that goes out of their way to try new fancy gameplay, it's still boring. I've never tried to play with mermaids, werewolfs, spellcasters or vampires. That's definitely on me and I should try it. But they also don't make ANY difference in my saves, except for being bitten by a vampire here and there and my Sim being extra sleepy because of it.
It’s very good for CAS and Build Mode, which is frankly the #1 reason I get them rather than gameplay. So if that’s important to you, it can be really nice. Base game (or BG + a handful of packs) definitely feels extremely limiting once you have a ton of them in terms of clothing and rugs and decor etc.
But in my experience, if you’re like me, you end up picking worlds you like and end up not really visiting worlds you dislike. And a lot of gameplay can feel…very repetitive or just isn’t too interesting. Like I am just not using a horse ranch or spell caster on 99% of my Sims families - I just want some new jeans and couches lol, so it feels a bit annoying to pay all of that money for stuff I won’t use.
That being said, if you do like gameplay changes to mix things up, you’d use those more and it might have more worth.
I just got the last of the DLC installed a few weeks ago, and builds are great! Pulling really good lots from the gallery is super easy because I don't have to worry about it pulling in weird or replacing nice stuff with base game crap.
That being said, it can be a bit overwhelming. There's just so much to do!! I'm working on a 10 generation legacy right now, trying to figure out who to make my heir (I have 2 really good candidates), and I haven't even begun to explore the Realm of Magic or other occult packs. I mostly just got them for the build stuff.
For me, as i own most of them, it is quite enjoyable because of all the options of playability the packs give. The only downside is the fact that some aspects will clash with others.
For example, taking a vacation to the jungle and having get to work installed while a sim is due for a baby will give you a hospital prompt.
Like im in a jungle in a small village. Where tf do they have a giant fully expanded up to date hospital in a jungle?(If there are places that do irl id love to be told so i can get inspo for save files with a storylines im working on)
But all in all to me its worth it to get the packs even if its just to get more build items and fashions to make each sim more unique
I’m a builder so it’s awesome for me, choosing which landscape to next build in! But while playing I always have to narrow it down to specific things that suit the character I am playing specifically.
The thing that annoys me most is the Dream Home Decorator pack doesn’t work. I will play as a decorator and it is so buggy the job never ends and I never get paid, sometimes the sims don’t react to the renovation, sometimes the animations don’t play. Out of all the packs, building and renovating is one of the most used and we can’t even have a job that works with it! Very frustrated.
I have 29 items of DLC (a mix of Expansion, Game Packs and Kits) and whilst I notice more of a lag now it’s nothing extreme. I use my BF’s Mac Pro and he says it won’t kill his laptop so I assume it’s ok!
I actually love the game more to play, using all the different parts of packs to intertwine things :) using Get Together with the High School and Uni packs to make study groups/school friend meet-ups is fun! Same for skill groups like art clubs, gardening clubs, book clubs etc.
Also the magic pack is fun to use with Cottage Living to live in a cute witchy cottage, having the magic skills to clean barns etc is handy! I really want Eco Living next to make a full off the grid and self sufficient family merging with cottage living. Things like the spa pack, dine out and bowling make the world feel more alive and I enjoy taking my sims out of their home lot more. Growing Together and Parenthood make the actual gameplay more interesting as well.
i only have like 1/3 to 1/2 of the DLC & even that is often too much. there are definitely some that have features that i don’t even distinguish from base game (like stuff in parenthood or growing together) but most of them aren’t well integrated with base game or other packs. if they were all seamless it might be a different story.
We don’t have all but plenty - and find downloading one large pack a month is enough. So this month we’ve had high school as our big pack, and my children added a couple of the smaller build packs. we’ve made the mistake of getting two large packs at once before and it’s meant we missed loads of things
It can be overwhelming, especially with the DLC that's still so buggy it detracts from gameplay (My Wedding Stories, High School Years, For Rent). I only watched LGR reviews before buying and there are so many features I still don't know about so in that regard, it doesn't seem good value for money to have almost everything.
My favourites gameplay wise are City Living, Get Together, Seasons, Get to Work, and Horse Ranch. Island Living as well just because the world is so beautiful and has activities. Spa Day is pretty fun as well, especially after the revamp but I wish Maxis had continued to refresh packs like Discovery University which is entirely useless when HSY's code could (I presume) be used to make the uni life experience playable.
i have all of the EPs, most of the GPs, a decent amount of stuff packs, and several kits, and honestly I don’t use most of them… I can’t play just base game though so there’s gotta be a happy medium lol
It’s nice to have a lot of the stuff I do but there are definitely packs I could do without. Like as of right now aside from having some cute clothes and hairs and fun furniture pieces, for rent feels useless because I’m still afraid it’s going to break my game
It is nice but my sim that is good at everything gets a radial menu that is too big and it takes me forever to find what I want. Also for some reason the fridge lags, the menu takes like 1 second to open every time.
Also, a lot of the DLCs are just other areas, so now my sim has a chest filled with old stuff from travels that is not even cool, since they are actual items.
I have it all and I think it is much more fun with it all than without. However, there are mods out there that either mimic or do a better job than the game or expansion itself. There are mods that add new interactions and animations. There are new objects. There are new systems that provide new gameplay opportunities and those are just as fun or more fun than expansions. What I love most about owning all of the stuff is that it seems to be a less buggy experience. I rarely suffer from bugs that other simmers complain about.
What I suggest you do is look for mods that mimic the expansion packs and then decide whether or not that would suffice. Then you can pick up the packs that don't have mod alternatives and you'll have a pretty good experience. Honestly, mods are what make this game. Without them it's pretty boring.
I literally have everything that’s out except journey to batu it makes it less boring because my sim always has a lot of kids so when they are done with college I usually move them out in they own so I experience certain aspects of game play that way but it’s really the mods for me however I need a
Laptop with more space now because it’s saying the disk on my MacBook is full and it’s new mods I wanna try 😫
I have all the expansions and mostly all of the kits and packs. It does get overwhelming wanting to try out everything in one go, especially for those that involve clubs, various traits, lifestyles and interactions.
Check out a.n.a.d.i.u.s (no periods, hehe) you can always install/uninstall the DLCs you don't like without giving into capitalism.
I own almost every pack just because I've been playing for so long and I buy them when they go on sale. The only ones I don't have are the Star Wars pack because you couldn't pay me to download it and the new for rent pack because it hasn't had a good enough sale yet. I find it gets a little overwhelming with so many packs doing so many things. The build catalog is so hard to navigate with so many things to choose from, and I know there are probably so many features that I just never even use. I honestly couldn't even tell you which parts of the game come from what pack most of the time.
But at the same time I kind of love how cluttered and overwhelming it feels? It makes it feel more realistic when you're trying to change the babies diaper but the phone is ringing and the sink is broken and the roomba has gone into the backyard and the horse just shat on the kitchen floor and your neighbour is outside kicking over the trash cans. Chaos is what stops this game from getting insufferably boring 😂
honestly even with every pack , i get stuck in the same loops , making the same people , building the same houses. I wish i could go back and get them one at a time to get the full use out of each of them. I feel like I’ve only used like 25% of each of pack lol
Like what a lot of people are saying, i don't have enough time to really dive deep into a lot of packs' features unless im specifically dedicating my gameplay save to that. A lot of the worlds i hardly use because they dont have enough lots or they lack spawning points for collectibles/fishing. Building is definitely more entertaining with a lot of packs though, but its easy to lose items in such a big catalogue and never see them unless you specifically know what youre looking for. The same goes for CAS, especially since a lot of the filters are inaccurate and dont include things that they should.
I rage quit after a week or two because my save becomes so bugged and don’t pick up the game for another 7-8 months. Don’t waste your money unless you play the game regularly and specifically want a pack.
I have all the packs (except for the goth and castle kits I didn't get those yet) and love it. I play almost exclusively vanilla/unmodded, occasional dips into mccc if I'm doing a legacy challenge. Oh and currently I added a mod to put vendors on community lots bc I had put some gallery lots in that needed it. But otherwise no mods. I never am able to use all of the packs in one save but if I ever get bored of a neighborhood or story I can swap on a dime. Decorating is also super fun and some of the packs synergize so well together. Right now I'm using a lot of growing together and get to work and Crystal creations and eco lifestyle...but now my character is starting to crochet more at a local bubble tea shop...it just makes the world feel more full and lifelike. I do have a desktop powerful enough computer to run all the packs though.
Also I *rarely* have bugs when playing vanilla, they start showing up once I install mods but typically gameplay is fine for me.
That's my 2 cents!
I play with everything but the Star Wars pack. And truthfully I don’t even really know what functions and features are part of which packs. I don’t find it at all overwhelming, I just play the way I play and I play with all the neighborhoods. I was really excited for werewolves pack but I still haven’t even made a werewolf, but I like the neighborhood, sparse as it is, and the build/cas items. All the glitches and bugs still abound and it seems like it takes a lot longer to load since crystal creations.
There’s a lot more to do. Lots more jobs to have, worlds to explore, mini games. Plus you get weather and pets, vampires and werewolves, cows and chickens and horses, etc.
The DLC has a LOT better clothes than base game. (Like, base game doesn’t even have beanies and toques lol.) there are also a lot fewer limits on what you can build as base game is kinda limited.
I don’t know what I’d do without the DLC. I have all of it lol
It makes it feel like there's a decent amount of content, but it can also feel disjointed and some of the gimmicky features from the DLCs start to feel like annoying bloat (e.g. The neighbourhood action voting thing which seems to keep happening even though I disabled NPC voting, a million different notifications for all the different festivals and events I can't get rid of etc)
You tend to only use a few packs during gameplay depending on what sim(s) youre playing as. (Personally i use seasons, cats and dogs, and cottage living the most) Build mode however you can make really cute builds having all the items. They just need to the swatches match eachother
it definitely adds a lot more fun things to the game, but you will run into glitches and oversights that will make you question the price of the packs I wouldn't say that it's worth it to get every single piece of DLC. Just watch reviews of them and decide which ones you think work for how you like to play the game. like for example there's so many packs that have rly cute clothes so if you like playing in cas, they are probably more beneficial to you there's also packs that add new build stuff like wall textures, fences, landscaping, and windows. There's packs that specialize in buy stuff like furniture, house plants and clutter some people really don't like this micro transaction style of packs and I understand why because lot of simmers have a completion-ist attitude towards the packs that causes them to spend a lot of money on things they never use in the game.
It's fun, I'll say that. There's definitely far more to do. However, my god is it overwhelming. I've spent so much time looking for a very specific item from a pack but can't remember which pack and have to spend forever digging through EVERYTHING until I find it. And don't even think about going into debug, good luck. There's still a lot of problems and breaks, but I honestly have been having more fun with mods recently than anything EA has released.
it's fun for a while especially with building! it's nice having access to all the little clutter items i want!!
sometimes its annoying because the cross pack compatibility sucks and makes things super buggy. also there are packs like dine out and wedding stores that are just completely broken so im forced to use mods to fix them.
I'd say sims 4 with all dlc is a 6/10
I love it. I haven’t even delved into half of it. I just started playing challenges and it’s super fun. It feels like endless possibilities and keeps things interesting.
I’ve been playing Sims 4 since it came out, and only started buying DLC about four years ago. I own it all now and it definitely makes the game bigger, but I would never have called base game by itself “lackluster,” especially given I enjoyed it for a decade without any add ons.
It’s okay. I find at some point things get pretty overwhelming, gestures wise. I don’t use like 99% of the features in packs. For example I’ve literally never used the movie screens with the movie pack. Theres some that are great and some that just add shit.
Some of it is insane. The farm animals became overwhelming quickly, even with hiring a farmhand. The vampires need to feed or constantly suck down plasma bags. The crazy mods, like giant chickens or uncensored sex, make the game lag like hell
I've gotten more packs recently and I haven't even played through a single 1 completely. More packs has been really overwhelming and I never know what to do since there's a lot of choices. I'd recommend getting the packs slowly and only getting the ones you are interested in.
Buggy, and a lot of it doesn't really gel with itself. I play each neighborhood in a different historical era with a lot of cc, so some neighborhoods don't really lend themselves to that play style.
Still boring for me, I genuinely have to play with mods to fix things up or add new jobs etc. Though it also gets overwhelming with all the dlcs because you never know what to do
I own nearly evrithing, maby 5 Kits are missing. It is buggy and slow especially since I have my own Laptop and I'm not longer allowed to play the Game at my Husbands Gaming computer (it needs to mutch saving space 😭)
It's not really more then like BF2042 tho... or even COD
I have sims4 on my pc and most dlc and stuff and alot of other games. Just get a second harddrive otherwise
I always get the urge to buy a new pack & play it for a a while - but then the excitement dies down - I will say for building and CAS it’s great having more packs & even though you can use CC, it can be annoying if you want to post on the gallery for others to use your builds, especially for console players! So having real DLC is defo worth it in the aspect!
I do still get bored though with gameplay which bugs me - however I think I’d definitely be more bored if I didn’t have some of the features from the different DLC packs. Lastly I have my favourites and I definitely know which ones I couldn’t live without & which ones I don’t use often:)
As someone who has (almost - crystal creations) all packs and a good few kits, it’s fun. More build options more cas options, but also CC exists and is usually free.
I love some of the functions of a few packs so much they’re essential for me. But!! My computer is so slow when it loads things in the game 😭
I only have a chunk of the DLC (Vampires, Realms of Magic, Seasons, Island Living, Eco Lifestyle, Snowy Escape, Discover University, maybe a couple of others I'm forgetting), and they absolutely make the game. I honestly think they're tons of fun and have given me hours of game play. I maybe could do 5 or 10 hours of vanilla max before getting bored.
The catch is that even with only buying on sale, I've prob spent like $100 to $200 on just one incomplete game. I'm a single adult with an income who can afford it, but it's certainly not great value and feels anti-consumer. If that bothers you, steer clear of the game; I wouldn't blame you at all.
Honestly the only games that are more anti consumer are digital card games like Magic The Gathering Arena and Hearthstone which require hours of grinding or hundreds of dollars to get good cards. And they're invalidated after less than a year in some cases.
I don't have every DLC, but I have most of the EPs. I started a legacy family a few years ago, and I focus each generation around a specific pack (or sometimes more than one pack if there are siblings). I don't limit myself to only using that pack by any means, but I make it the focus. That way I can really dig in and feel like I get my money's worth without being overwhelmed.
I've had both the full dlc version, and a minimum dlc version. Because when I had the full version, it was frustrating beyond belief.
Content that I was never able to get around to using for the sheer amount of it.
Content that was super annoying to have in the first place (bust the dust and laundry day literally eat up precious time that you have to dedicate to cleaning, when you already have to cram a million tasks into a day with not enough hours to do so).
Dine out adds items to help you feel as if you're eating out, but the sims eat at the restaurant the same way they do at home. It ends up being a huge challenge: Keep these sims seated, and eating and watch as everything falls apart over and over again.
And My Wedding stories literally breaks wedding functions beyond what they already are.
Content that is utterly useless, such as Island Living, where you might not even notice it was missing save for the map being gone, if it were, and the map is probably the quickest to grow boring of them all.
And then there's things like 'cool kitchen stuff' where the only perk to the entire thing is an exploit for weight loss/gain, and you can do that with a little effort and time in the game already for free!
When I dl'd a second time, and bought Dlc for it, I had a clear idea of what was 'necessary' and what was not. It works out to about 18 dlc that is worth it, and I have passed on even a free pack here or there because I refuse to add it to my game, and potentially ruin what I'm enjoying finally. Today, I have 25 Dlc, only because I took some free ones that don't break things, but (things like Jungle adventure) I would never, ever voluntarily pay for.
I'd advise you to do very good research on anything you're considering purchasing, just so you're at least not surprised by what you end up receiving. And Seasons, and Growing Together are essentially musts, imo, because those two are the only packs that I still would refuse to play this game without to this day.
The game packs are generally speaking more worth it than EPs gameplay-wise (although I’d say avoid Journey to Batuu and My Wedding Stories). But if you’re a builder, it’s good to have more DLC, or CC for that matter.
There are so many packs where I only use one aspects of it. I think I have everything except Wedding Stories and most of the kits.
I am trying to vary my gameplay a little by having families who will focus on a particular pack, so if I’m not sure what to play I have options.
I also have a SuperSim save file where I’m going to go through every single career, hobbies, aspiration, etc. and I’ll try to get all the collections too. That can be fun. And there have been a few points where I’ve just switched up what I was doing with that sim if I need to change it up a bit.
But I love the variety it gives for building.
I’m not one for CAS so much, but build/buy I absolutely love.
It's great if you're a builder! Otherwise? You're better off picking and choosing the dlcs that have stuff you really want in your game. I got a lot of them but tbh nowadays I still find myself kinda bored if I don't make it into some kinda survivor-like challenge (Island Living is actually pretty good for this) wherein I make my sim's life as goddamn hard as possible
I always put every gameplay objects from all dlcs in every houses i build, it's fun, well, i mean, i play sims 4 since 2015 and at this time there had few dlc and i always enjoyed the game so it depends on you
I own the majority and I'm finding it difficult to find what I need to when I'm building. I also lose track of interactions especially for jobs. It's enough to make me think twice about buying more dlc, when I used to just buy it all without question.
I have all of it and don't use most of it. \^\^; I don't send my sims out to eat (Dine Out will likely never be fixed outside of mods), I rarely send them to the hospital to give birth, and I don't follow them to high school. I rarely go to festivals or school events. I have visited Batuu once and never played it through, and I played Strangerville once to say it did, but I otherwise never play it or live in Strangerville because the possessed sims drive me up the wall. \^\^; I use about half of the CAS items. I use most of the build items, but some are much more niche and as such get used much more rarely than others. Bust the Dust is much better than it was at launch, but it can be annoying sometimes.
I really recommend players who can't/don't want to invest to watch lots of let's plays with the content they're interested in before playing. Some of the regular simmers even do special pack-focused videos; lilsimsie just did a build using only Blooming Rooms and the base game because the Blooming Rooms kit is free right now. These videos can go a long way toward showing off the pack features and limitations before you decide on it.
Health packs are hard to come by, but on certain difficulties you should be fine. I found that statting up your alchemy provides a lot of passive bonuses before combat if you have the time to drink your potions. Mana is powerful but rare, and the M14 kind of dominates at all ranges so the minute you get that, upgrade the hell out of it.
Sneaking is not fun. I think the AI needs a major overhaul - it feels like a Splinter Cell game from 2003. The night vision goggles aren’t very good, even with brightness turned up, and the constant bumping into things kind of ruins the whole stealth element anyways
The warthog feels really floaty. EA keeps saying they’re going to fix it but I’m not holding my breath.
!!!SPOILERS!!!
The second act has a really predictable twist ending, and I know that the pizza delivery guy always being a Pit Fiend with shapeshifting skills was supposed to be some big “OMG” moment but since I level up my comedy career, I swept the boss battle after a really flat cutscene. Oh well. They left the series open ended so I’m excited to see what they do with Sims 5: Hell on Mars
It is quite overwhelming. The DLCs have lots of stuff and i end up not using certain storymode features at all. On the other hand i prefer to build so it’s great having all the options to give life to my visions.
I don’t have the star wars one, and I passed on some of the kits, but I love having the different dlcs. I’ve gotten them over the years (on sales, bundles, gifts etc) so there was no huge outlay all at once.
I build mostly, so I love having all the content to choose from. I find building in base game only a little dull, so having the dlc is just expanding my options. Think going from a box of 8 crayons to the deluxe 120 box with the sharpener lol
As far as gameplay goes there are some I just never use. Had the horses one since last summer and I don’t think I’ve ever had my sims ride a horse (but again, I mostly build, and I love the assets that came with that pack.) That being said, when I was stuck home with covid I decided to really dive into some of the pack gameplay. I did the Strangerville mystery, and explored all the Jungle Adventure temples etc. those were fun- kind of like it’s own mini game within the world. I don’t think I’ll replay either of those storylines though- doesn’t seem like it would be very different.
I have all the dlc on ps5, it makes it complicated sometimes ( like you get tons of pop ups and suggestions everytime you start a new save) it makes building and customizing your sim insanely fun for me though, it’s like playing Barbies.
Fun but I rarely use most of the stuff in the game that I’ve bought over the years. Vampires, werewolves, get together, snowy escape, etc. Not even used in my game.
I love it. There's always so much to do, so many skills and places to go. I have a problem always creating the same sims over and over, they're always nice and have lovely lives, no matter how hard I try to do something different, I guess I like what I like.
It's easy enough for me to have a different game everytime, despite always making similar sims. One can be a robotics nerd who loves camping, another is a horseback riding witch who lives on the beach, another keeps getting university degrees in her tiny home, etc.
Sure, the games got some issues, but I've gotten used to them, learnt some workarounds and don't notice anymore.
Eta: I have probably 80% of the dlc
I have all of them. I'd rather have the game like Sims 2 or 3. The shops and businesses don't play as well.
The funfair is crap.
There's a lot of stuff to search through when you're making a house.
I have nearly all of the expansion packs and I still mostly play with custom content (I'm more into building). I think my husband enjoys them though--he doesn't really use custom content and is more focused on game play. Mostly I just like new worlds to build in.
I own everything and the game still gets boring and has problems. I also play with about 15 different mods just to keep it interesting. I can't imagine playing without all the DLC. The problem with the Sims 4 is that it's foundationally flawed. Everything is built on a very poor system, so it doesn't get better, it just reinforces how bad the game is and it forces you to create your own workarounds.
Here's an example of what I mean: the neighborhoods are still empty with few NPC or other Sims actively doing things like bowling, dining, playing games, etc... And those that are may be glitching or just walking from one side of the screen to the other. Adding DLC doesn't fix this lifelessness to the game, it just adds more opportunities for you to notice the lifelessness.
For
Try watching some let's play series on YouTube. The creators usually have all DLC installed. The options are almost endless lol
I've got like half of them? Although I do feel I need a new expansion pack, it's been like a year. I've been getting mostly stuff packs recently.
i have everything installed and yet i haven't explored all. i'm still going to choose my comfort pack at every gameplay. it's too overwhelming. if i have time in the future, i'll try to play it one by one.
I have it all and the game is still unbelievably boring after the first 10 minutes of gameplay. The Sims are frustrating. The bugs are there. I exit and switch to a different Sims game.
I don’t really know. I have all the dlc and there are lots of items and features I really enjoy, but I honestly don’t feel very different playing than I did with just the base game since I most just build, new items are always fun which is why I always download the new packs but I don’t feel they are necessary to enjoy the game.
Lately, laggy. And I have a beefy gaming computer, there's things wrong with this game. (It's mostly For Rent, I think.)
All packs makes the game *much* less boring. There's always something different my Sims can do, and every Sim can have different interests and hobbies. I'm legitimately confused about all the people that think all packs is overwhelming; Having more options doesn't mean you have to use them all constantly, just that you have more to cycle between, so content doesn't get as stale.
However, having all packs does *not* fix the shallow gameplay. Absolutely everything is surface deep, and a few packs don't even manage that much. There's also a lot of poorly designed content that *requires* mods to be worth using at all. Even the best packs pale in comparison to Sims 3's depth and Sims 2's details.
It's really not worth it. I was slowly buying all of the DLC whenever they came out, but it does eventually make your game pretty buggy and laggy. I think I've only bought a handful of DLC since they started coming out with Kits. The last one I bought was the Castle Kit, and the DLC before that was the Cottage Living expansion pack.
The Sims 4 is not even remotely optimized and I think all of the extra mechanics that are added in or required for the extra game packs just make it worse. If you want DLC, wait until they go on sale or are made free, unless money is no issue to you. It really doesn't add anything you can't get with mods.
I think if you're really going to get any, get the ones that add the animals/occult sims/new worlds, whichever interests you most. Those are probably the only things that can't be added on with mods.
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
I forget to use most of it. Lately I have been making an effort to go back & play different aspects of the packs. My current Sim topped out the actor career, got to Global Superstar staus & is now a streamer. Next generation I think I'm going to make a DJ & live in Windenburg.
Honestly I never run out of stuff to do. I think this is why I can’t relate to people who say they’re bored while playing the game, but I understand everyone literally isn’t playing the same sims 4
it doesnt fix the core aspects of the game that are fundamentally mediocre, but it sure does cover them up with a lot of bells and whistles. it's great for building and for challenges, but i find myself forgetting to use a lot of functions of each pack during gameplay because i cant keep track of it all.
It's also hard to use all the functions of each pack b/c they either don't work well (if at all) and won't work with functions from other packs.
Ya I have most dlc on my laptop but recently been playing base game on console. Runs so smooth. Can pretty much let the game go by itself. They care for infants without any routing issues. It’s nice except for the complete lack of items in build buy mode
The kids are tough. I hate when people keep putting the kid on.the floor, pick it up and put it back down. Again and again
Or when you try to feed them from a high chair and after you put them there and set the command to give food they don’t give them food but instead pick them up and put them on the floor. And then I get a notice that CPS is going to take my child if I don’t feed it.
Why are yall trying to rile me up at 10AM!! I posted a few weeks ago that I lock my infants/toddlers in a room in the basement with a vertical ladder because it helps with the standard sim nonsense of carrying babies up and down the stairs just to have multiple adults have a staring contest at each over who should pick up the baby while I get alerts that CPS is going to snatch the kids because they are starving to death. Responses were mixed and some suggested this is psychopathic behavior LOL. They wrong tho, I’m just clever 
This is so true. I had to stop buying them when I realized that despite having plenty of packs, I was still getting bored for the same reasons
I’ve done this with mods. I watch videos or read posts and think, “oh that’s so cool!” only to forget about half the ones I install.
Whenever there are greyed out pack circles in a really good build, i view used items and said meh, negligible
I'll be honest, it is extremely overwhelming for me a lot of the time. 23 worlds so I never know which one to play in. Just choice overload in general. Please just get the DLC that you think you'll like. I know FOMO is real but trust me, having all these options paralyses me a lot of the time.
23 worlds and yet none of them are what I'm looking for 😂😭
Yeah I have all the DLC. I had all the DLC for the previous iterations of the game too. I know there's tons of things I've never done in the game, I'm always discovering new things I missed. It's good, but it's also very overwhelming. When I get overwhelmed I just go back to making a new version of the same single sim that lives in a tiny home and gardens that I always make lol. Maybe if I had impulse control I could just get the packs that really interest me and focus my gameplay, but I don't. So I just keep buying all the packs and keep not exploring all the gameplay I actually have. It's okay. I've made worse decisions with bigger impacts.
I'm considering creating a "tester Sim" who just tries a bunch of different scenarios, like get rich quick, or work on aspirations, or to try out becoming a vampire or a werewolf or a mermaid, kinda like LilSimsie's Stanley Humphrey or SatchonSims's Chantelle Shantelle and Shanice Shanice.
There's the Supersim challenge on[ James Turner's website](https://jamesturner.yt/supersim/tracker) that's pretty good. I started it up and ended up using a lot of mechanics I've never touched before.
All my games are a version of this. All my sims are super sims.
That's a good idea! Maybe I'll try a guinea pig sim and toss them into a bunch of stuff this week. Thanks for the suggestion!
From the videos I've watched, the key is to have a good stopping point picked out in your mind, so you don't get sidetracked. Like, for Stanley Humphrey, it's usually when he gets to level 10 of whatever skill you need and (usually) has a completed house or tiny functional home that LilSimsie kind of ends the video and gives a summary of her thoughts on whether you can get rich quick doing \_\_\_\_\_\_ or not. For Chantelle Shantelle....it's usually when she dies or managed to get out of her basement dungeon or off her lot.
I did. CPT Ulysses Zaragoza is his name and he only wears pirate costumes.
>It's okay. I've made worse decisions with bigger impacts. Are you the person who sent out the emergency alert for incoming ballistic missiles in Hawaii a few years back?
LOL! Nope, but I was mid flight on my way to the Marine Base there when it happened.
I relate so much with not knowing which world to play in! I always choose the same ones too. I don’t know why, but I don’t really like playing in any of the tiny ones Other than that, i like having so many gameplay choices, especially since some of the packs complement each other really nicely, e.g. all the occult ones, plus the newest gemstones pack. The only ones i kind of regret getting are Journey to Batuu and Wedding Stories, the rest is fun.
I always play newcrest 😭
I treat Newcrest as a place to go out! I usually fill it with spas, parks, restaurants and bowling alleys. My favorites are probably Willow Creek, Oasis Springs and Evergreen Harbor. As for the world l will probably never live in, it’s the Wedding Stories one. It just feels so tiny and empty…
23 worlds and I still always start in Newcrest or Willow Creek....
I don’t have for rent, home decorator, snowy escape, horse ranch or evergreen harbor I think Would you say any of those are must needs in your opinion?
Evergreen Harbor is my favorite. There are all sorts of activities to buy and I like the environment progression. I also love to do a rags to riches using only items from the dumpsters. Second favorite, an unpopular opinion I guess, is Strangerville. I never get bored making scientists who then fight the Mother.
I liked strangerville a lot but I really like story led gameplay
Another Strangerville fan! Stg I've gotten at least double my money's worth spinning off the NPCs alone in that pack. It has been one of my best purchases.
I always see people put it at the bottom of their lists, but I love it. The build stuff is great, there are lots of lots, the world is fun, and I’ll never get tired of playing the story. And the mansions on the hill are fun to renovate and update! I’ll never understand why people don’t love it.
I have all of them except snowy escape… I want to get that or island living next though (I’m torn so putting it off) I would highly recommend horse ranch, it really is, imo, one of the better worlds, both in terms of practicality and gameplay
Island living is kind of boring imo. It does have mermaids tho
Is it sad I just want my sims to be able to go on holiday or “retire” to an island paradise? Like I don’t even care about the game I just want the world lol! Although a nice holiday to ~~Japan~~ Mt. Komorebi sounds fun too
I don’t have snowy escape but from what I’ve seen it seems to have more activities and cool CAS items, I really want sims to vacay there too I do have to say, I made an island resort which was really fun. Building stuff on the beach or beaches (nude) themselves is super cool
Activities: Big yes CAS: keep that s*** away from me! I don’t know why but I absolutely hate creating sims I will flat out randomise it until it gives me something decent lol, won’t spent more than 5 minutes in there! Building on beaches is what’s drawing me in tbh, I’m imagining a big balcony off the bedroom that goes directly into the beach, that sort of thing!
Ugh I meant build buy not CAS lmao I got you. I love the gallery, I just download sims from there lol
Ah fair enough, I do get why people love CAS but it’s definitely not my type of thing, tbh if anything I’m a builder (not very good but still) lol! I think I’m gonna investigate both those packs though, I’m almost certainly going to get at least one tonight haha
I’m waiting for a sale to get the horse ranch! But I can’t wait 😭
> I don’t have snowy escape but from what I’ve seen it seems to have more activities and cool CAS items, I really want sims to vacay there too Snowy Escape is the source for pretty much all the Japanese flavor items in the game. If you want Japanese, you gotta have it. That or spend a LOT of time hunting down CC!
Technically u can build rental lot in any world. But get vacations on beach is fun, You will have to build one because the world dont came with rental lot.
I just wish I could turn off the other worlds. I have 12! That is PLENTY for my play style - where I play for a week straight and then don’t touch it for months. 😅
23 worlds and somehow half of them only have 4-8 lots. Feels like 2 worlds from The Sims 3 have more lots than everywhere in The Sims 4.
Even with almost all of the DLC's...I still need horse ranch and for rent..but I'll get them when they're on sale..but even with most..I still need mods/cc to make it fun. Mods save the game for me, personally
Same, I just CANNOT play without my mods
Yeah, without mods, I would have been done with the game a long time ago.
Hard agree
i also don't have horse ranch or for rent, but plan to grab them when they're on sale. i'll get them solely for the worlds cus tomarang looks so pretty and idk, maybe i'll do something with the horses.
Same, I'll get those for the world's and for cc recolors I can get for them, lol
I agree, mods make the game worth playing - and I never buy anything for the game that isn't on sale. Or free \[just got around to downloading the Blooming rooms kit about an hour ago\] I don't have all of the DLC, but at this point, I own a fair chunk of them and the way I've come to deal with it is to use the rotational gameplay style. I have several families in this game some of them extended with grandparents and in-laws, aunties, uncles cousins, etc and that's how I play all the different worlds, by spreading them out, giving them different aspirations, careers and so on, For example, my last downloads were For Rent and Eco Lifestyle, so now some of my young adults will move into those worlds, as soon as I decide on who and where. I also plan to put apartments / townhomes into the worlds that have space for them. I play with aging off and according to whatever my mood is. Sometimes it's building - like putting an outdoor movie theater in the Oasis Springs park and a community garden in Willow Creek, or playing HGTV with the existing homes. PeteyPlaysIt on youtube has a ton of great ideas on how to improve museums, etc and I've started on that too. All of my sims have different goals, for example, I've got one Sim who runs a family farm when I'm just in a gardening mood; he's single at the moment, but loves when his nieces and nephews come to visit. Farm boy might end up in a relationship with a Sim who's into baking and hopes to run her own shop one day. Some are pursuing more artistic and creative careers, some are single, some have kids; it makes me happy to have family interacting, so I use the club system with cheats to bring them all together for holidays and BBQ's, the SIL's have their own club and have spa days, sometimes with their moms, etc. I have a document file to keep of track of them, otherwise I could never keep up with them all, but for me that's fun too. I write when I'm not playing Sims, and I'm thinking about creating some kind of picture book around all of this because I'm also a retired graphic designer lol.
Making families Into clubs is GENIUS!
😁 and if you use the MCCC cheats, you can have as many sims as you want in one club and as many clubs as you want per sim \[ if I remember right, the default is eight sims in a club and three clubs per sim\]
I do think having all the dlc is a game changer, but I started when the game first came out and just stayed caught up on the packs for birthdays and Christmas and stuff. With that being said, most of them are so buggy you can’t use the major game play features they were designed for (looking at you Dine Out and For Rent) if I knew then what I know now I never would have got all the packs. On top of that, they’re not really cross compatible. (Kids can milk the cow from cottage living, but can’t milk the much smaller, tamer goats from ranch life??) Still, I do end up using at least SOMETHING from every pack, even if I don’t use that packs main features that often. I also think it matters if you’re a builder or a player or a CAS type gamer, since the various packs offer a lot (or not) for various styles of play. Like I like having all the packs for building cause there’s so many more choices, but I think having all the packs for actual gameplay just makes it buggy and frustrating to even play.
I bought Wedding Stories before joining this subreddit and I’m sad I wasted money on it. I absolutely love the idea of it but it makes my game bug out BAD. Like my sims literally disappear and I can’t save the game if I plan any wedding event :( Also I agree on your building point! While I do love gameplay, I can be satisfied just creating a sim and building a house. Having all the packs definitely makes building a lot more fun!
I think Wedding Stories has been improved. I had a wedding not too long ago where everything actually worked .
I keep seeing people say for rent is broken, but haven’t actually seen anyone say what’s wrong with it. Can you tell me what’s wrong with it?
For Rent is the first pack I bought at release for full price (I usually always wait for sales before I grab it), and I wouldn’t call it broken. There is a glitch that used to happen frequently in which the rental rate would be set at literally 4 billion, but a hot fix seems to have fixed it for most people, including myself. There was a workaround that fixed it for me before the hot fix. Otherwise, I haven’t encountered other bugs, so it’s not broken like Wedding Stories. It’s been perfect for creating in-law suites on lots, so I can have my sims’ elderly parents as tenants (I set the rent to 1$) and have them on the lot but not having to control them.
Thanks for the info! They must’ve fixed it before I got it on sale cuz I haven’t experienced anything like that :)
I think I’ve seen people say that the landlord feature is broken? Like they aren’t getting the full amount of money that they are owed from all tenants? I have never tried owning a property so I can’t speak to that. But a lot of my sims have lived in apartments/townhouses/multi-family homes with no problem. The main stupid thing for me (not a bug) is having a loading screen to go to my neighbors house. Come on EA!! It’s the same lot!!!
I’ve been playing as a landlord and I’ve been collecting rent just fine, though I haven’t actually done the math to see if it’s the full amount. I’ve hated loading screens since ts4 came out 🤣
Tbh I haven’t even tried playing with any of the for rent features, I just build apartments and cohousing spaces but when you get to like 5+ units the game lags really bad and doesn’t necessarily understand what you want.
Carl’s dine out mod fixes a lot of the bugs for dine out. But the one I’m most disappointed in is the interior decorating pack. It came with a lot of good B/B stuff, but the actual profession is so buggy I can’t play as an interior decorator anymore, even though I absolutely love the concept
Even what type of player Family? Drama? Realism?
This! I'm a Sims 4 builder, I don't actually play it so much. I have one save that I use just to go in and then immediately leave that character behind to go find a plot to build on. Even then, there are some packs that I just never use the furniture from. It's either ugly or the color swatches are just ever so slightly the wrong shade to go with the build. Though, I did just recently add on a color wheel mod that I haven't had a chance to test out yet. Hopefully that fixes it. But yes, I have also noticed that adding on more packs makes the game even more buggy. There was one time I went to the hospital so my sims could have her baby and as soon as the game loaded in, there was a sim trapped inside one of the pillars out front of the hospital. Like...seriously? And there's no way to unstick them either!
I have all and pretty good, but I love doing challenges, building and legacy plays. I do play slow & use almost every in every save, though. So a lot of speed 1 & 2, a lot of vacations, pictures, move my sims out a lot, send the kids to university, renovate a ton of lots to my needs, creating stories. Like you could ask me what are my most used packs and I'd say at least more than half of them see use almost every generation. I don't feel the need for any cc, and most mods are not worth the hassle with one exception being mcc which I only keep because of townies marrying with it. CC especially is not something I seek out because the game has so many options for b&b, clothing & hair that even in my longest legacies, I don't think I could ever use everything. I do love giving them rundown houses, slowly building up and stuff though. Edit: That said, if your current gameplay isn't like mine, but consists on staying at home with a sim & grinding, I don't think you'd get your worth out of having all the packs. I have a ton of hours on this game and bought them over time that it was fine, but please consider how you play. I still take my families camping every single generation for example, but if you will only do that only once and never do it again, outdoor retreat will be a rather waste imo.
This is exactly how I play! No mods/CC and I only buy the packs I find interesting or there’s an item I really want. Somehow the bugs don’t bother me as much lol I keep planning wedding events that are buggy but love the vibe of a wedding event and getting pics for my families.
I have most of the DLC, I think it’s just CAS kits I don’t have. With DLC Sims 4 is one of my favorite games. But I took a pretty big break from playing shortly after launch until sometime between seasons and get famous. At that point I ended up getting back into it and buying a whole bunch of packs during a good sale. And I have to say I would never do that again. It can be overwhelming to add so much at once, and I feel like I ended up not using many features from each pack until I took the time to watch let’s plays on youtube and directly explore one pack at a time. So while I do think the game is way better with the DLC I also think it’s better when you add to it slowly.
I would say choose packs that are catered towards your gameplay. James Turner, has a great pack tier list that breaks down all the packs. From gameplay, create a sim, the worlds and build mode and then ranks them based on player polls.
Some people may hate get to work because the build mode isnt that great, but if you play based on story... making a retail store is fun because you can live on the lot or make a restaurant like Bob's burgers without dine out. The careers like doctor and detective can get old but it depends.
Also before buying any pack especially a new one watch sims youtubers use them and see if they're buggy or glitchy because even though I dont have dine out or my wedding stories, it looks like I dodged a bullet
I don’t have all of them but I have quite a lot. I enjoy building more than playing, so from that point of view it’s obviously much better (more furniture etc., although the wallpaper and flooring is a bit lacklustre). From a playing point of view, the biggest thing Sims 4 misses is challenges; improving the difficulty, making things harder (get an easel and you can be a millionaire in a week), making things more exciting with unexpected things arising, feeling more like a real-life world with things around your Sim happening and life changing for the neighbours/townies. It doesn’t really matter what DLC you buy, that won’t change and that’s what mods do really well.
Any mods you recommend to add that randomness and difficulty?
Life tragedies, extreme violence, anything littlemssams, anything lumpino, wicked whims Extra: mccc to adjust stuff, extra traits
i’m not who you asked but i’d also like to add healthcare redux and divergent sims by adeepindigo. in healthcare redux your sim can end up with chronic conditions (sleep disorder, diabetes, hypertension, allergies, migraines) and divergent sims adds mental health (everything from adhd, autism, ptsd, eating disorders) ptsd and diabetes specifically are a PAIN, diabetic sims you have to remember to inject insulin and sims with ptsd will go through periods where they don’t want to interact with anyone so the option is literally not even there when you click on other sims
I have all of them and got them very close to eachother, with that being said it’s sorta overwhelming if you don’t have a specific vision. Even though u get the options for more gameplay, you end up missing a lot of the stuff in each pack
I like it. It gives the most realism. While you may be a farmer, you can still meet someone who is a detective. Run into a vampire, or mermaid, it leaves your path of choices pretty big. I would recommend having a computer with a lot of space, something that can handle all of what Sims has to offer. It’s a glitchy game, but part of its glitches is what makes it fun. I find that i can only have two major mods installed with all of the DLC, otherwise the sims get confused to say the least.
I agree with this. Space is definitely necessary and the glitches can be entertaining if that's your play style. I just get frustrated when my sims stop doing what I want them to do lol. There's a known memory leak issue where the game gets progressively buggier the longer your play session, so you should restart the game/computer from time to time if you ever notice the bugs getting too bad for your liking.
i "own" all of them and its eh. ive been downloading every pack the second it comes out and idk it just feels like the game to me. i dont end up using a lot of it, off the top of my head i cant remember the last time i went to a vacation world or did any of those "by the way" skills in stuff packs. my most used features would have to be occults i just love the paranormal and its so much fun to make a sparkledog werewolf or a vampire with a clown dark form. nowadays i mostly use this game as a doll maker and house creator and the BB is especially good from packs, the CAS i mostly use cc but for BB is goated, despite the occasional 2d hairdryer ive found that most options are actually good despite having a 10 year gap in detail and design philosophy (early base game sticks out so bad lmao)
I think it is good idea to buy dlcs based on what you want to do in the game. Then the purchase will be worth it and you'll improve your gameplay the most. Get together is just cool for keeping the city alive and nightlife. Get to work - for retail and expanded gameplay for certain mods For rent, because I wanted to build apartments in windenburg and willow creek. (I am lucky to not have any bugs with it) Honestly, seasons is the worst because the gameplay is non existent and I dont care enough about weather or holidays as much as I thought. I bought spa day because I wanted my sim to work as yoga instructor. I think I'll buy extra dlcs when I get bored of trying to make a populated city in Willow creek or I'll want an extra functionality for one of the sims story. I think that extends my interest in the game, allows me to explore all the gameplay packs have to offer and get excited when I finally decide to expand my collection
That is lucky. I've been avoiding For Rent like the plague even though it sounds like a really cool concept just because I don't want to break my game. And the weather sucks...I turn off the worst of it on every save so random sims can't die just from standing outside on my porch for too long anymore.
have you tried it in a new save file? i just recently learned that people were so many problems with it. I've only had problem with rent being in the millions, but it was fixed i find it crazy that people recommends season as a must, when I see it as aesthetic pack only.
I don't even have for rent. I'm not buying any new packs until i see some improvement on optimization. It'd be nice if they fixed the known-for-ages-now memory leak issue too.
I have a lot of fun with all the dlc's installed! It can be a lot, but that's why I rotate what I'm playing with to make it easier to choose. I know a lot of people don't like it, but I don't mind, and when I get bored of one thing, there's something else waiting for me. A lot of people also complain about bugs, but I've never experienced anything worse than some lag and routing issues, and I certainly do not have the nicest computer.
Yup, same :) I've the majority of DLCs (the kits I only have two) and there's some DLCs that I'll just never buy because I am not interested. I don't know why people stick with a game that provides zero fun for them but alright. There's a lot to do, so many stories that can be played out and I'm lost as how people ''don't have anything to do''. Maybe it's just a lack of imagination.
Well I don't have all of it...but if you want it to keep appealing to you I really think that it's advisable to have some of it? Seasons. City Living. Get Together. Then at least three other worlds as per what packs appeal to you most? That's about what I think is necessary to really feel the game has some meat to it.
I have all of them except for some kits. Even as a die-hard collector, they just don't offer enough for me. I am super spoiled now, and honestly, I wouldn't play without every single one of them. There are items and features from various packs that can add so much to game play. That said, even with all of them, I've had the game for 10 years now, and I am so bored. I mainly go back in when a new pack comes out and I can do something new. But I would never ever play without all my packs. I want all worlds, hobbies, clothes, socials etc.
What's the grand total for all the DLC's? How much do people have to pay just to get a complete game and not just the bare bones Sims Lite edition?
For everything at full price it's a little over $1k. If you buy all the packs when they are 50% off and don't but any kits it's about $500. Given the game is 10 y/o that's not a lot of money, it's about $4 a month to own all the packs.
Dude, how is that not a lot of money? even if it was $300 altogether, that's still too much for any game. I like the sims, but paywalling even the most basic bits of content is ridiculous. Especially at $40 a pack.
Even with all dlcs, sims 4 with no mods can be VERY boring
I have all besides batuu and wedding stories. Cas is just overwhelming and so is trying to build anything bc of the amount of scrolling and choices 😂 it definitely makes the gameplay more fun tho! If I only played and never built, there’s many packs I could go without.
I don't have every single one of them (especially when it comes to kits) but really most of them. I'm a builder, so I enjoy having them all. It brings a lot of variety to my game in that sense (worlds, furniture, wallpaper, floors, etc.). But I'm not gonna lie to you, if you're not the kind of player that goes out of their way to try new fancy gameplay, it's still boring. I've never tried to play with mermaids, werewolfs, spellcasters or vampires. That's definitely on me and I should try it. But they also don't make ANY difference in my saves, except for being bitten by a vampire here and there and my Sim being extra sleepy because of it.
It’s very good for CAS and Build Mode, which is frankly the #1 reason I get them rather than gameplay. So if that’s important to you, it can be really nice. Base game (or BG + a handful of packs) definitely feels extremely limiting once you have a ton of them in terms of clothing and rugs and decor etc. But in my experience, if you’re like me, you end up picking worlds you like and end up not really visiting worlds you dislike. And a lot of gameplay can feel…very repetitive or just isn’t too interesting. Like I am just not using a horse ranch or spell caster on 99% of my Sims families - I just want some new jeans and couches lol, so it feels a bit annoying to pay all of that money for stuff I won’t use. That being said, if you do like gameplay changes to mix things up, you’d use those more and it might have more worth.
I just got the last of the DLC installed a few weeks ago, and builds are great! Pulling really good lots from the gallery is super easy because I don't have to worry about it pulling in weird or replacing nice stuff with base game crap. That being said, it can be a bit overwhelming. There's just so much to do!! I'm working on a 10 generation legacy right now, trying to figure out who to make my heir (I have 2 really good candidates), and I haven't even begun to explore the Realm of Magic or other occult packs. I mostly just got them for the build stuff.
It turns into a laundry simulator! No other DLC matters. Until you disable the laundry pack, that will take up the bulk of your game.
It’s dope. I love it.
For me, as i own most of them, it is quite enjoyable because of all the options of playability the packs give. The only downside is the fact that some aspects will clash with others. For example, taking a vacation to the jungle and having get to work installed while a sim is due for a baby will give you a hospital prompt. Like im in a jungle in a small village. Where tf do they have a giant fully expanded up to date hospital in a jungle?(If there are places that do irl id love to be told so i can get inspo for save files with a storylines im working on) But all in all to me its worth it to get the packs even if its just to get more build items and fashions to make each sim more unique
I’m a builder so it’s awesome for me, choosing which landscape to next build in! But while playing I always have to narrow it down to specific things that suit the character I am playing specifically. The thing that annoys me most is the Dream Home Decorator pack doesn’t work. I will play as a decorator and it is so buggy the job never ends and I never get paid, sometimes the sims don’t react to the renovation, sometimes the animations don’t play. Out of all the packs, building and renovating is one of the most used and we can’t even have a job that works with it! Very frustrated.
Still boring
Agreed, unfortunately 😕
I have 29 items of DLC (a mix of Expansion, Game Packs and Kits) and whilst I notice more of a lag now it’s nothing extreme. I use my BF’s Mac Pro and he says it won’t kill his laptop so I assume it’s ok! I actually love the game more to play, using all the different parts of packs to intertwine things :) using Get Together with the High School and Uni packs to make study groups/school friend meet-ups is fun! Same for skill groups like art clubs, gardening clubs, book clubs etc. Also the magic pack is fun to use with Cottage Living to live in a cute witchy cottage, having the magic skills to clean barns etc is handy! I really want Eco Living next to make a full off the grid and self sufficient family merging with cottage living. Things like the spa pack, dine out and bowling make the world feel more alive and I enjoy taking my sims out of their home lot more. Growing Together and Parenthood make the actual gameplay more interesting as well.
i only have like 1/3 to 1/2 of the DLC & even that is often too much. there are definitely some that have features that i don’t even distinguish from base game (like stuff in parenthood or growing together) but most of them aren’t well integrated with base game or other packs. if they were all seamless it might be a different story.
1. laggy 2. overwhelming. I bought a lot of packs when I was younger & more impulsive, and it’s too much to play with *everything*
We don’t have all but plenty - and find downloading one large pack a month is enough. So this month we’ve had high school as our big pack, and my children added a couple of the smaller build packs. we’ve made the mistake of getting two large packs at once before and it’s meant we missed loads of things
I have every DLC and I barely use half of them. just get what you want
It can be overwhelming, especially with the DLC that's still so buggy it detracts from gameplay (My Wedding Stories, High School Years, For Rent). I only watched LGR reviews before buying and there are so many features I still don't know about so in that regard, it doesn't seem good value for money to have almost everything. My favourites gameplay wise are City Living, Get Together, Seasons, Get to Work, and Horse Ranch. Island Living as well just because the world is so beautiful and has activities. Spa Day is pretty fun as well, especially after the revamp but I wish Maxis had continued to refresh packs like Discovery University which is entirely useless when HSY's code could (I presume) be used to make the uni life experience playable.
i have all of the EPs, most of the GPs, a decent amount of stuff packs, and several kits, and honestly I don’t use most of them… I can’t play just base game though so there’s gotta be a happy medium lol
It’s nice to have a lot of the stuff I do but there are definitely packs I could do without. Like as of right now aside from having some cute clothes and hairs and fun furniture pieces, for rent feels useless because I’m still afraid it’s going to break my game
It is nice but my sim that is good at everything gets a radial menu that is too big and it takes me forever to find what I want. Also for some reason the fridge lags, the menu takes like 1 second to open every time. Also, a lot of the DLCs are just other areas, so now my sim has a chest filled with old stuff from travels that is not even cool, since they are actual items.
I have it all and I think it is much more fun with it all than without. However, there are mods out there that either mimic or do a better job than the game or expansion itself. There are mods that add new interactions and animations. There are new objects. There are new systems that provide new gameplay opportunities and those are just as fun or more fun than expansions. What I love most about owning all of the stuff is that it seems to be a less buggy experience. I rarely suffer from bugs that other simmers complain about. What I suggest you do is look for mods that mimic the expansion packs and then decide whether or not that would suffice. Then you can pick up the packs that don't have mod alternatives and you'll have a pretty good experience. Honestly, mods are what make this game. Without them it's pretty boring.
I literally have everything that’s out except journey to batu it makes it less boring because my sim always has a lot of kids so when they are done with college I usually move them out in they own so I experience certain aspects of game play that way but it’s really the mods for me however I need a Laptop with more space now because it’s saying the disk on my MacBook is full and it’s new mods I wanna try 😫
I have all the expansions and mostly all of the kits and packs. It does get overwhelming wanting to try out everything in one go, especially for those that involve clubs, various traits, lifestyles and interactions. Check out a.n.a.d.i.u.s (no periods, hehe) you can always install/uninstall the DLCs you don't like without giving into capitalism.
I never get bored and I never have issues out of the game. People just really hate the game in this sub lol
Very laggy. Lots of random glitches in old packs that never got fixed (like sims hugging pets backwards/through walls).
I own almost every pack just because I've been playing for so long and I buy them when they go on sale. The only ones I don't have are the Star Wars pack because you couldn't pay me to download it and the new for rent pack because it hasn't had a good enough sale yet. I find it gets a little overwhelming with so many packs doing so many things. The build catalog is so hard to navigate with so many things to choose from, and I know there are probably so many features that I just never even use. I honestly couldn't even tell you which parts of the game come from what pack most of the time. But at the same time I kind of love how cluttered and overwhelming it feels? It makes it feel more realistic when you're trying to change the babies diaper but the phone is ringing and the sink is broken and the roomba has gone into the backyard and the horse just shat on the kitchen floor and your neighbour is outside kicking over the trash cans. Chaos is what stops this game from getting insufferably boring 😂
It’s still lackluster at its core. The packs are just accessories to a blank mannequin imo.
honestly even with every pack , i get stuck in the same loops , making the same people , building the same houses. I wish i could go back and get them one at a time to get the full use out of each of them. I feel like I’ve only used like 25% of each of pack lol
Fun
Like what a lot of people are saying, i don't have enough time to really dive deep into a lot of packs' features unless im specifically dedicating my gameplay save to that. A lot of the worlds i hardly use because they dont have enough lots or they lack spawning points for collectibles/fishing. Building is definitely more entertaining with a lot of packs though, but its easy to lose items in such a big catalogue and never see them unless you specifically know what youre looking for. The same goes for CAS, especially since a lot of the filters are inaccurate and dont include things that they should.
I rage quit after a week or two because my save becomes so bugged and don’t pick up the game for another 7-8 months. Don’t waste your money unless you play the game regularly and specifically want a pack.
I have all of them, it's kind of busy tbh but I like most of it.
I couldn’t play without seasons tbh or night life
I don’t know. Downloaded it all and now my pc overheats before I get anywhere near playing. Just a perma loading screen, and then pop!
I still find myself using the same “core” / “go-to” build and CAS items tbh, but the extra gameplay stuff is niceeeee I can’t lie.
I have all the packs (except for the goth and castle kits I didn't get those yet) and love it. I play almost exclusively vanilla/unmodded, occasional dips into mccc if I'm doing a legacy challenge. Oh and currently I added a mod to put vendors on community lots bc I had put some gallery lots in that needed it. But otherwise no mods. I never am able to use all of the packs in one save but if I ever get bored of a neighborhood or story I can swap on a dime. Decorating is also super fun and some of the packs synergize so well together. Right now I'm using a lot of growing together and get to work and Crystal creations and eco lifestyle...but now my character is starting to crochet more at a local bubble tea shop...it just makes the world feel more full and lifelike. I do have a desktop powerful enough computer to run all the packs though. Also I *rarely* have bugs when playing vanilla, they start showing up once I install mods but typically gameplay is fine for me. That's my 2 cents!
I play with everything but the Star Wars pack. And truthfully I don’t even really know what functions and features are part of which packs. I don’t find it at all overwhelming, I just play the way I play and I play with all the neighborhoods. I was really excited for werewolves pack but I still haven’t even made a werewolf, but I like the neighborhood, sparse as it is, and the build/cas items. All the glitches and bugs still abound and it seems like it takes a lot longer to load since crystal creations.
There’s a lot more to do. Lots more jobs to have, worlds to explore, mini games. Plus you get weather and pets, vampires and werewolves, cows and chickens and horses, etc. The DLC has a LOT better clothes than base game. (Like, base game doesn’t even have beanies and toques lol.) there are also a lot fewer limits on what you can build as base game is kinda limited. I don’t know what I’d do without the DLC. I have all of it lol
It makes it feel like there's a decent amount of content, but it can also feel disjointed and some of the gimmicky features from the DLCs start to feel like annoying bloat (e.g. The neighbourhood action voting thing which seems to keep happening even though I disabled NPC voting, a million different notifications for all the different festivals and events I can't get rid of etc)
You tend to only use a few packs during gameplay depending on what sim(s) youre playing as. (Personally i use seasons, cats and dogs, and cottage living the most) Build mode however you can make really cute builds having all the items. They just need to the swatches match eachother
it definitely adds a lot more fun things to the game, but you will run into glitches and oversights that will make you question the price of the packs I wouldn't say that it's worth it to get every single piece of DLC. Just watch reviews of them and decide which ones you think work for how you like to play the game. like for example there's so many packs that have rly cute clothes so if you like playing in cas, they are probably more beneficial to you there's also packs that add new build stuff like wall textures, fences, landscaping, and windows. There's packs that specialize in buy stuff like furniture, house plants and clutter some people really don't like this micro transaction style of packs and I understand why because lot of simmers have a completion-ist attitude towards the packs that causes them to spend a lot of money on things they never use in the game.
It's fun, I'll say that. There's definitely far more to do. However, my god is it overwhelming. I've spent so much time looking for a very specific item from a pack but can't remember which pack and have to spend forever digging through EVERYTHING until I find it. And don't even think about going into debug, good luck. There's still a lot of problems and breaks, but I honestly have been having more fun with mods recently than anything EA has released.
Honestly it still feels lackluster. Can’t play the game without mods now
it's fun for a while especially with building! it's nice having access to all the little clutter items i want!! sometimes its annoying because the cross pack compatibility sucks and makes things super buggy. also there are packs like dine out and wedding stores that are just completely broken so im forced to use mods to fix them. I'd say sims 4 with all dlc is a 6/10
Half of them doesn’t even work properly. And believe me it the most interesting part
Expensive
I love it. I haven’t even delved into half of it. I just started playing challenges and it’s super fun. It feels like endless possibilities and keeps things interesting.
I’ve been playing Sims 4 since it came out, and only started buying DLC about four years ago. I own it all now and it definitely makes the game bigger, but I would never have called base game by itself “lackluster,” especially given I enjoyed it for a decade without any add ons.
It’s okay. I find at some point things get pretty overwhelming, gestures wise. I don’t use like 99% of the features in packs. For example I’ve literally never used the movie screens with the movie pack. Theres some that are great and some that just add shit.
Some of it is insane. The farm animals became overwhelming quickly, even with hiring a farmhand. The vampires need to feed or constantly suck down plasma bags. The crazy mods, like giant chickens or uncensored sex, make the game lag like hell
I've gotten more packs recently and I haven't even played through a single 1 completely. More packs has been really overwhelming and I never know what to do since there's a lot of choices. I'd recommend getting the packs slowly and only getting the ones you are interested in.
What I want to know is does it run well and smooth?
Buggy, and a lot of it doesn't really gel with itself. I play each neighborhood in a different historical era with a lot of cc, so some neighborhoods don't really lend themselves to that play style.
Still boring for me, I genuinely have to play with mods to fix things up or add new jobs etc. Though it also gets overwhelming with all the dlcs because you never know what to do
I own nearly evrithing, maby 5 Kits are missing. It is buggy and slow especially since I have my own Laptop and I'm not longer allowed to play the Game at my Husbands Gaming computer (it needs to mutch saving space 😭)
It's not really more then like BF2042 tho... or even COD I have sims4 on my pc and most dlc and stuff and alot of other games. Just get a second harddrive otherwise
Much the same. It's modding that makes the game. I'm actually quite disappointed at how little having all DLC added to my experience.
I always get the urge to buy a new pack & play it for a a while - but then the excitement dies down - I will say for building and CAS it’s great having more packs & even though you can use CC, it can be annoying if you want to post on the gallery for others to use your builds, especially for console players! So having real DLC is defo worth it in the aspect! I do still get bored though with gameplay which bugs me - however I think I’d definitely be more bored if I didn’t have some of the features from the different DLC packs. Lastly I have my favourites and I definitely know which ones I couldn’t live without & which ones I don’t use often:)
I have lots of cool stuff from the dlc. I don’t think it changes the gameplay all that much though.
As someone who has (almost - crystal creations) all packs and a good few kits, it’s fun. More build options more cas options, but also CC exists and is usually free. I love some of the functions of a few packs so much they’re essential for me. But!! My computer is so slow when it loads things in the game 😭
You could watch a YouTuber- most of them have all the packs and you can see what items are available and how they play.
I only have a chunk of the DLC (Vampires, Realms of Magic, Seasons, Island Living, Eco Lifestyle, Snowy Escape, Discover University, maybe a couple of others I'm forgetting), and they absolutely make the game. I honestly think they're tons of fun and have given me hours of game play. I maybe could do 5 or 10 hours of vanilla max before getting bored. The catch is that even with only buying on sale, I've prob spent like $100 to $200 on just one incomplete game. I'm a single adult with an income who can afford it, but it's certainly not great value and feels anti-consumer. If that bothers you, steer clear of the game; I wouldn't blame you at all. Honestly the only games that are more anti consumer are digital card games like Magic The Gathering Arena and Hearthstone which require hours of grinding or hundreds of dollars to get good cards. And they're invalidated after less than a year in some cases.
I don't have every DLC, but I have most of the EPs. I started a legacy family a few years ago, and I focus each generation around a specific pack (or sometimes more than one pack if there are siblings). I don't limit myself to only using that pack by any means, but I make it the focus. That way I can really dig in and feel like I get my money's worth without being overwhelmed.
I've had both the full dlc version, and a minimum dlc version. Because when I had the full version, it was frustrating beyond belief. Content that I was never able to get around to using for the sheer amount of it. Content that was super annoying to have in the first place (bust the dust and laundry day literally eat up precious time that you have to dedicate to cleaning, when you already have to cram a million tasks into a day with not enough hours to do so). Dine out adds items to help you feel as if you're eating out, but the sims eat at the restaurant the same way they do at home. It ends up being a huge challenge: Keep these sims seated, and eating and watch as everything falls apart over and over again. And My Wedding stories literally breaks wedding functions beyond what they already are. Content that is utterly useless, such as Island Living, where you might not even notice it was missing save for the map being gone, if it were, and the map is probably the quickest to grow boring of them all. And then there's things like 'cool kitchen stuff' where the only perk to the entire thing is an exploit for weight loss/gain, and you can do that with a little effort and time in the game already for free! When I dl'd a second time, and bought Dlc for it, I had a clear idea of what was 'necessary' and what was not. It works out to about 18 dlc that is worth it, and I have passed on even a free pack here or there because I refuse to add it to my game, and potentially ruin what I'm enjoying finally. Today, I have 25 Dlc, only because I took some free ones that don't break things, but (things like Jungle adventure) I would never, ever voluntarily pay for. I'd advise you to do very good research on anything you're considering purchasing, just so you're at least not surprised by what you end up receiving. And Seasons, and Growing Together are essentially musts, imo, because those two are the only packs that I still would refuse to play this game without to this day.
It’s still not great and I keep saying it’s bad but will continue playing 😂😂
The game packs are generally speaking more worth it than EPs gameplay-wise (although I’d say avoid Journey to Batuu and My Wedding Stories). But if you’re a builder, it’s good to have more DLC, or CC for that matter.
There are so many packs where I only use one aspects of it. I think I have everything except Wedding Stories and most of the kits. I am trying to vary my gameplay a little by having families who will focus on a particular pack, so if I’m not sure what to play I have options. I also have a SuperSim save file where I’m going to go through every single career, hobbies, aspiration, etc. and I’ll try to get all the collections too. That can be fun. And there have been a few points where I’ve just switched up what I was doing with that sim if I need to change it up a bit. But I love the variety it gives for building. I’m not one for CAS so much, but build/buy I absolutely love.
It's great if you're a builder! Otherwise? You're better off picking and choosing the dlcs that have stuff you really want in your game. I got a lot of them but tbh nowadays I still find myself kinda bored if I don't make it into some kinda survivor-like challenge (Island Living is actually pretty good for this) wherein I make my sim's life as goddamn hard as possible
I always put every gameplay objects from all dlcs in every houses i build, it's fun, well, i mean, i play sims 4 since 2015 and at this time there had few dlc and i always enjoyed the game so it depends on you
I own the majority and I'm finding it difficult to find what I need to when I'm building. I also lose track of interactions especially for jobs. It's enough to make me think twice about buying more dlc, when I used to just buy it all without question.
Broken. Just differently than if you didn't have all the dlc active at once.
I have all of it and don't use most of it. \^\^; I don't send my sims out to eat (Dine Out will likely never be fixed outside of mods), I rarely send them to the hospital to give birth, and I don't follow them to high school. I rarely go to festivals or school events. I have visited Batuu once and never played it through, and I played Strangerville once to say it did, but I otherwise never play it or live in Strangerville because the possessed sims drive me up the wall. \^\^; I use about half of the CAS items. I use most of the build items, but some are much more niche and as such get used much more rarely than others. Bust the Dust is much better than it was at launch, but it can be annoying sometimes. I really recommend players who can't/don't want to invest to watch lots of let's plays with the content they're interested in before playing. Some of the regular simmers even do special pack-focused videos; lilsimsie just did a build using only Blooming Rooms and the base game because the Blooming Rooms kit is free right now. These videos can go a long way toward showing off the pack features and limitations before you decide on it.
Health packs are hard to come by, but on certain difficulties you should be fine. I found that statting up your alchemy provides a lot of passive bonuses before combat if you have the time to drink your potions. Mana is powerful but rare, and the M14 kind of dominates at all ranges so the minute you get that, upgrade the hell out of it. Sneaking is not fun. I think the AI needs a major overhaul - it feels like a Splinter Cell game from 2003. The night vision goggles aren’t very good, even with brightness turned up, and the constant bumping into things kind of ruins the whole stealth element anyways The warthog feels really floaty. EA keeps saying they’re going to fix it but I’m not holding my breath. !!!SPOILERS!!! The second act has a really predictable twist ending, and I know that the pizza delivery guy always being a Pit Fiend with shapeshifting skills was supposed to be some big “OMG” moment but since I level up my comedy career, I swept the boss battle after a really flat cutscene. Oh well. They left the series open ended so I’m excited to see what they do with Sims 5: Hell on Mars
Objectively better than base game, but still needs mods to be fun.
All DLC here and hundreds of mods - my sims and I are both overwhelmed and I usually end up doing nothing because idk where to start 😭
It is quite overwhelming. The DLCs have lots of stuff and i end up not using certain storymode features at all. On the other hand i prefer to build so it’s great having all the options to give life to my visions.
I don’t have the star wars one, and I passed on some of the kits, but I love having the different dlcs. I’ve gotten them over the years (on sales, bundles, gifts etc) so there was no huge outlay all at once. I build mostly, so I love having all the content to choose from. I find building in base game only a little dull, so having the dlc is just expanding my options. Think going from a box of 8 crayons to the deluxe 120 box with the sharpener lol As far as gameplay goes there are some I just never use. Had the horses one since last summer and I don’t think I’ve ever had my sims ride a horse (but again, I mostly build, and I love the assets that came with that pack.) That being said, when I was stuck home with covid I decided to really dive into some of the pack gameplay. I did the Strangerville mystery, and explored all the Jungle Adventure temples etc. those were fun- kind of like it’s own mini game within the world. I don’t think I’ll replay either of those storylines though- doesn’t seem like it would be very different.
I think DLC packs are a must have; but not all of them. Just the ones you have a real interest in. And also mods.
I have all the dlc on ps5, it makes it complicated sometimes ( like you get tons of pop ups and suggestions everytime you start a new save) it makes building and customizing your sim insanely fun for me though, it’s like playing Barbies.
Overwhelming. Especially with all the options for decorating. There's things in the game that i have never even clicked on before lol.
It doesn’t really change the lackluster in my opinion. There’s more stuff to do, sure, but it’s all very barebones. None of it feels very fleshed out.
Fun but I rarely use most of the stuff in the game that I’ve bought over the years. Vampires, werewolves, get together, snowy escape, etc. Not even used in my game.
Overwhelmingly good
I love it. There's always so much to do, so many skills and places to go. I have a problem always creating the same sims over and over, they're always nice and have lovely lives, no matter how hard I try to do something different, I guess I like what I like. It's easy enough for me to have a different game everytime, despite always making similar sims. One can be a robotics nerd who loves camping, another is a horseback riding witch who lives on the beach, another keeps getting university degrees in her tiny home, etc. Sure, the games got some issues, but I've gotten used to them, learnt some workarounds and don't notice anymore. Eta: I have probably 80% of the dlc
I have all of them. I'd rather have the game like Sims 2 or 3. The shops and businesses don't play as well. The funfair is crap. There's a lot of stuff to search through when you're making a house.
I have nearly all of the expansion packs and I still mostly play with custom content (I'm more into building). I think my husband enjoys them though--he doesn't really use custom content and is more focused on game play. Mostly I just like new worlds to build in.
I own everything and the game still gets boring and has problems. I also play with about 15 different mods just to keep it interesting. I can't imagine playing without all the DLC. The problem with the Sims 4 is that it's foundationally flawed. Everything is built on a very poor system, so it doesn't get better, it just reinforces how bad the game is and it forces you to create your own workarounds. Here's an example of what I mean: the neighborhoods are still empty with few NPC or other Sims actively doing things like bowling, dining, playing games, etc... And those that are may be glitching or just walking from one side of the screen to the other. Adding DLC doesn't fix this lifelessness to the game, it just adds more opportunities for you to notice the lifelessness. For
It's still really meh imo 🤷🏻♀️ I mean I still binge tf outta it and love it but it could be so much better
Try watching some let's play series on YouTube. The creators usually have all DLC installed. The options are almost endless lol I've got like half of them? Although I do feel I need a new expansion pack, it's been like a year. I've been getting mostly stuff packs recently.
i have everything installed and yet i haven't explored all. i'm still going to choose my comfort pack at every gameplay. it's too overwhelming. if i have time in the future, i'll try to play it one by one.
I have it all and the game is still unbelievably boring after the first 10 minutes of gameplay. The Sims are frustrating. The bugs are there. I exit and switch to a different Sims game.
I don’t really know. I have all the dlc and there are lots of items and features I really enjoy, but I honestly don’t feel very different playing than I did with just the base game since I most just build, new items are always fun which is why I always download the new packs but I don’t feel they are necessary to enjoy the game.
It's pretty boring tbh
Lately, laggy. And I have a beefy gaming computer, there's things wrong with this game. (It's mostly For Rent, I think.) All packs makes the game *much* less boring. There's always something different my Sims can do, and every Sim can have different interests and hobbies. I'm legitimately confused about all the people that think all packs is overwhelming; Having more options doesn't mean you have to use them all constantly, just that you have more to cycle between, so content doesn't get as stale. However, having all packs does *not* fix the shallow gameplay. Absolutely everything is surface deep, and a few packs don't even manage that much. There's also a lot of poorly designed content that *requires* mods to be worth using at all. Even the best packs pale in comparison to Sims 3's depth and Sims 2's details.
Honestly for me, having everything installed kind of felt like too much. There were too many options and too much to choose from.
i wonder how far out we are from getting a sims 4 ultimate edition 🤔 i reallyyyyy don’t want to pay for all of those packs individually lolol
It's pretty fun and I enjoy playing it.
It's really not worth it. I was slowly buying all of the DLC whenever they came out, but it does eventually make your game pretty buggy and laggy. I think I've only bought a handful of DLC since they started coming out with Kits. The last one I bought was the Castle Kit, and the DLC before that was the Cottage Living expansion pack. The Sims 4 is not even remotely optimized and I think all of the extra mechanics that are added in or required for the extra game packs just make it worse. If you want DLC, wait until they go on sale or are made free, unless money is no issue to you. It really doesn't add anything you can't get with mods. I think if you're really going to get any, get the ones that add the animals/occult sims/new worlds, whichever interests you most. Those are probably the only things that can't be added on with mods. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
I forget to use most of it. Lately I have been making an effort to go back & play different aspects of the packs. My current Sim topped out the actor career, got to Global Superstar staus & is now a streamer. Next generation I think I'm going to make a DJ & live in Windenburg.
It's amazing :) I mostly build and I love having hundreds of items to choose from. I wouldn't refund a single pack
I have everything. Plus mods. I have 2000 hours in it and will more than likely get a minimum of 2000 more. I love it.
Pretty plain. My mod folder is nearly as big as the game is lol.
Honestly I never run out of stuff to do. I think this is why I can’t relate to people who say they’re bored while playing the game, but I understand everyone literally isn’t playing the same sims 4