The Sims 4 High School Years Has Received Mostly Negative Reviews. I Explored Why This Sims 4 School Pack Was Such A Flop!
This is a Sims 4 High School Years gameplay review.
What did you think of the Sims 4 school pack? Did it meet your expectations?
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When you sy the game is a flop are you talking about reviews or did is sell poorly?
Yah one thing stand really out to me is how tone death the developers are to the community at times, when University was about to be realized biggest gripe I heard most talk about forward it active gameplay, was that many praised the rabbit holes for not forcing them to go through boring repetitive gameplay. That some seemed to think the get to work careers were, then to have the sim team go and make exactly that I feel like is a testament to them not really listening well enough to feedback, discussions etc. Think they should have focused much more on making actual school play and prom more engaging, if EA for some reason didn't allow them enough room time wise and budget wise to do it along with what we got. I think they should have prioritized more on school, prom and activities around school instead. Then added thrift, trendy and new social media as small gameplay or stuff pack instead. But guess like some been saying probably with intention of selling pack more broadly to people who may not like high school theme but other said three things, but I still can't help but think it was at the expense of school play and activities feeling lackluster at best.
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there was a missed opportunity for an interactive teaching career that would crossover with high school years.
True!!!
I literally thought we would of gotten. A interactive career being that we got the teacher career from university but they could of updated it to have it as a way we can interact... this pack was so overly hyped and it is so blatantly a lie of marketing...
@@hannahrodriguez2731 the principal losing her job if you play her household. Can’t even get around it lol
TRUEEEE
Yeah..
the sims 3: too ambitious the sims 4: tries their absolute hardest to be the exact opposite
Sims 1: raunchy and pixelated Sims 2: Purr-fect 😺 Sims 3: ambitious Sims 4: Soul-less.
Sims 3: more! More for the masses! You’ll get the perfect game! I don’t care if we’re ahead of our times we’re doing it!! Sims 4: we want money. Give us money. Oh you want a game that’s actually good? Ah you’ll buy it anyway.
The lying trailer is the main reason I haven’t bought it yet. I’m not okay with the way they’re marketing these packs. When I saw the Game Changers playing them on early release, the difference was stark. The other thing is the Game Changers giving disclaimers that this wasn’t the final edit of the game. We all know it probably is though. I’m so over EA.
Frankly I don't think there's enough time to really change much between the early access and public release so it is pretty final software. I feel like that disclaimer is there to protect against false advertising claims.
Idk why game companies show/create theatrical trailers. I want to see actual gameplay not a fake movie!
First of all let’s get into the high school it’s self. It literally looks like they just threw school furniture into an abandoned insane asylum.
@@Kayla_P99 ,couldn’t agree more.
@@maybelikealittlebit, same!! Show me what I’m actually getting!
Toxic positivity in the Sims 4 community sucks. It’s a product….we deserve good quality.
I don't get why people say you're negative. You're realistic. Thank you for being honest when it comes to reviews.
Right. When actually good stuff comes out he talks about it.
I’d say I rather hate toxic positivity in the Sims community, which there are plenty of. This guy is honestly refreshing.
@@MeryKeit Agree. And who said negativity is inherently bad? If something deserves to get a negative review - it should.
HSY trailer: amazing, engaging Reality: emptiness and sadness
It's sad how empty and lackluster this pack is :(
right, only like 9 teen sims go to the dang school at a time, prom is broken, boring non active interactions during class, I thought the carnival was gonna be so cool but its just 3 rabbit holes, I think they should have had a band after school activity and added drum sets to the game and band animations
@@dovahbomser5232 Magic of trailer lay in storytelling and social interaction - so from get go i was aware that it will not be pretty... because sims intelligence is low and there is no story to follow expect what you make up in your head. Add to this lack of consequences - wherever you graduate from HS have no impact on your gameplay. If someone in EA used it head - he would add storyline scenarios - where from get go you have sims with specific roles in HS and by playing you can stubble on them.
As with every trailer for The Sims 4. That' s why I don't understand why there is so much hype with every trailer. Even the most naïve of hardcore fans should have understood that by now...
Kinda like real life lol.
I don't know who is on top of the decision on the Sims4 but I strongly believe they expect us as players to just ''imagine'' situations and role play instead of playing with actual gameplay. We're not kids or braindead people, but the presentation of the game treats us like that and it's getting so annoying. I really hope paralives gives them a wake up call on how to treat the consumers.
So true!
To EA I say: Here’s some Monopoly money. “Imagine” it’s real money, you clowns.
Yeah, I've actually gone back to the Sims 1 and added a ton of mods and graphical upgrades, so it looks fantastic, runs fantastic, and has fixed many of the problems it had that didn't reflect real life, like making food more filling so they don't need to eat three plates and making Sims care for themselves faster so you don't have to get all the kids up at 4 a.m. to be ready to catch the bus, just as a few examples. I've added many, many more to fix problems that Maxis never patched. That said, though the fixes I added make the game "easier," they only really bring it up to the level of difficulty it should have been in the first place. EA/Maxis refined it very well for Sims 2, Sims 3 was lacking in some of its social interactions but the open world(once CC patches and fixes were added) was really cool and sort of made up for it, but the Sims 4 is laughably easy. I've hardly ever had a social interaction fail or romantic gesture rejected. I come back to it as sort of a relaxing sandbox game in the way one might watch their fish in a fish tank: an easy source of a little entertainment, but only for a very short period of time. I cannot get lost in it for hours like I could the previous games.
Agreed!
I think Paralives is already affecting The Sims 4. Nobody really asked for curved walls but they slapped it together anyway and it's horrible. If they were gonna launch a feature nobody really asked for, they could do it on their own time, but they chose to launch it as fast as they could and it has EA's quality standard we know and love 🙄
It feels like so much of TS4 is just the sticker background on a Barbie Dream House. I’d almost rather have nothing, than a reminder of what I could have 😂
Damn that’s a good metaphor
Perfect
Omgggg, I was literally saying this the other day!!, like in Snowy Escape they put in those ski lift that were not interactive and in High School Years they put in the school bus at the front of the lot in an attempt to make the world feel bigger and more alive, when in reality it just reminded me how empty the game is, whereas, if they weren’t included my mind wouldn’t wonder or think of what could’ve been.
This is true
@@Kayla_P99 I'm glad you agree, I've been really disappointed about this topic for a while
I need the person who controls the trailers to control my life. They can obviously pull something amazing for nothingness
Don't let them gaslight you into thinking you're being too negative. Most of the people in game changers' comments are way too positive imo. There is such a things as toxic positivity and that's what's happening. I encourage you to continue being honest and realistic (which they will label as negative). We need more voices like your's in our community because there aren't enough people pointing out the reality of the situation which is EA is conning the shit out of us all.
This is why it's always best to keep criticism civil and polite, it leaves the people who use toxic positivity to shut down any negative discussion on something they enjoy or are trying to help on a professional basis with very little wiggle room to not openly appear toxic. Another thing I like to do is to try and point out means of improvement, so it's like "Yeah this sucks because of A, B and C but I think doing X, Y and Z could do a lot to smooth out the problem areas" and a positive, but not toxic, discussion.
There should be a choice in the options menu for "sim density" that you can increase if you have a higher end computer. I understand that they have to cut down on decorations and background sims because some people have low end computers but it should be an option for people to have a school just as lively as the trailer if their system can handle it.
The way the sims 4 is, I’m pretty sure that if they had this option, they would delete random objects. It would be like: a high school with all wall decorations, but without enough chairs in the class, bathrooms without walls and stuffs like that.
yes - or like an option in build/buy mode just like in eco living when you can change the venues to different ones. that way there could be a "basic" and "decorated" version of the school
Personally I don’t think they even build like that because of low end computers it’s an excuse they use because the don’t want lag in your game which is easy to get with no mods and base game.
Agreed 100%
@@jimjimjimmy7793 I agree with this. After all just look at sims3
This is how the votings work in the prom: The only voters are, your sims... If you have 3 sims, A and B vote C, and C votes A, even if C has no other friends and only his siblings A + B voted for him, he will win. If you have one sim, this sim votes D, and D would win. If you don't vote or there's a tie, it votes randomly. The relationships do not impact the votes at all. Also, in the cheerleading competition, why the fuck did a sim with no fitness skill or any experience in cheerleading win against a team of cheerleaders? This is not right sims.
yeah, i had to add random teen sims to vote for my sim to win prom queen and then move them out again.
my character always loses and she is the captain of the cheerleaders 🥲
I think High school years was way too hyped up.
The werewolf pack seems like a passion project, they started teasing it waaay before it's original announcement, like last year, than the whole teasing with the coded messages (which actively involved the sims community), and what I understood from the simgurus they wanted to make this pack for a very long time. The pack itself is very in depth with the lore and the werewolf system you can create very unique and different characters\werewolves, there is a lot to do with this pack. The HS looks like a cash grab, it's hip, it's trendy, it caters to the youth, but it's empty and soulless. The HS experience is nonexistent, the classes are boring which they should've been the most in depth part of the pack, but oh well, guess we can just ✨imagine✨ everything we want. I know I sound negative, but it's just so abundantly clear when the pack is a passion project and when it's just a cash grab which is not a bad thing, the developers need to live and buy food too, but spending almost 40$ to have cosmetics and little to no gameplay is not okay, I better buy the kits instead.
it does doesn't it? It feels like there's an hq guy that puts everything into packs THEY like and do whatever for the ones they don't like
mhmm. I was not into the concept of werewolves at first but the way the pack is made made me play it ALL the time. actually my werewolves household made me excited to revisit activities and stuff from other packs I havent actually used in ages
It's very obvious that two very different teams worked on the werewolf and high school packs. I think the werewolf pack is possibly the best pack they have released.
I’m still pissed off at werewolves not having tails, but my goodness, I feel stupid for preordering HSY instead Werewolves.
This werewolf pack has been therapeutic for me. I never kill sims. Something about werewolves makes them grow. I'm probably just projecting, but having a narcissist... Is like having a werewolf. It's good to run away.
lmao this is like watching the whole wedding pack again. people got super excited, thinking that it would finally be the turning point of the sims then...flop. Y'all get so excited over every single thing EA throws at you as if they haven't done this repeatedly for a decade. A DECADE.
Yeah, I don't know what more has to happen for people to stop and wake up.
Honestly I’m giving up. Every time something new comes out I try to give EA a chance but it looks like the sims 4 is just not in their it girl era 🥲
More then a decade. I have been playing since sims 1. As soon as EA bought it, it started to go to shit. I only buy packs to build. As I know that is all I will get from it. If I feel like gameplay, I play 3.
Honestly, my mom was the one who got this pack......We have the same account (Different saves, though), so whatever pack one person gets, the other has.
@@milacruz3970 A small amount of debt might do the trick..
You should really look into the spaghetti code that became what we know as the Sims 4. Plumbella does a good job explaining how project Olympus, a crap multiplayer mobile game, became the Sims 4. A scrapped project became the basis for the Sims 4, and they scrambled to make it work. That's why the game breaks every pack.
Remember what we had in City Living? It felt like pretty shallow compared to what we got in Sims 3 but it did offer a significant amount of content and gameplay to be called an EP. Then we have High School Years. Imagine all the possible contents they could have given us like active Teaching Career, activity options during class (chat, do homework, raise skills, play games on the phone etc.), set school uniform, build other high schools in other lots, more school clubs, more sports stuff like a goal post or skateboarding, more playable events at the auditorium like a science fair competition etc etc but all they gave us is a barely playable active school day that gets repetitive too soon for its own good. High School Years is not worth an EP tag or its price. This is a Game Pack at best.
I'm devastated about the school uniform to the point where I literally played every household that has a teenager who goes to the high school and set them a uniform, of course that save bugged and I've lost it all
I haven’t bought the pack yet. I was really looking forward to it but it’s been so disappointing to find out about all the issues as well as the lack in gameplay and details. It sounds like it really should have been a gamepack at most.
I haven't bought it yet either, I'm also disappointed
I haven't bought anything since Eco Lifestyle. I just can't. Every trailer looks amazing. The hype train is full speed ahead. And then at launch it derails. I watch people get their heart broken over and over again and I just don't even understand how the hell this keeps happening. People obviously want the game so badly. **I** want the game so badly. Why can't they give us a real game?
@@marnie8007 I don't know, this is why I can't wait until Christmas so I can get Sims 3 :D
@Laura Cottage living is the only expansion pack that I bought for full price, because it felt worth it and it is!! But this high school pack do not seem worth buying on full price, maybe I will get it on sale.
yes same - I am waiting for it to go on sale
Here's the thing, they have the base for a good high school pack. Get to work has interesting gameplay elements, it would be similar to that but with schools. When a modder made a better interactive grade/high school AGES before they did the pack and for absolutely free (thanks Zerbu) I don't understand why was this pack so bad.
Here’s the fact, It could have been soooo much better and would’ve have been a hit. It might of been sim’s most selling pack. As much I love sims, it’s kinda sad.
7:12 as a person who regularly plays the sims, I’m yet to see another type of fear. Really, the only “fear” that came to EVERY SINGLE ONE OF MY SIM is a fear of their dreams not coming true. And it just comes randomly, it gives them random tense moodlets and to solve this, I have to fulfill a want and talk about it with someone?? Like…wtf?
Mine as well AND the only wants they get is to listen to radio/dance to radio . . . they used to do that autonomously! So much for adding depth (I didn't think it would anyway) I don't have HSY though.
@@Miluielle So true! When I bought a radio all the wants were related to it.
Unfortunately I didn't have a radio so I had hard to impossible things to do. It annoyed me so much that I deactivated it.
I will say my sim almost burned her kitchen down and now has a fear of fire so that exists!!but I agree wants and fears need more work
@@musicstarbri I'll try that out lmao
Let’s also not forget that the game literally didn’t work for a couple of days. It still has major issues which is why I don’t play The Sims 4 right now, I‘m just building apartments and stuff. I regret buying so much packs, it’s honestly so frustrating :( does the Sims Team not know that most Simmers probably have minimum wage jobs?
No, please don’t let the toxic positivity simmers get to you. You’re one of the few sim reviewers who’s actually honest about how lackluster most of these packs are. You don’t sugarcoat and that’s refreshing.
I'm willing to put up with a lot; but it's the broken mods after every single update that really get to me in the end of the day.
Right? I've spent two freaking days sorting out mods this week and it's been a frigging nightmare. I can't remember ever having to do that before. The game is absolutely unplayable without mods imo, so it doesn't feel like you really have much of a choice anymore if you want to play :/
I literally haven't played in months with all the new stuff coming out bc i refuse to constantly update them
@@christinacarter4454 i realize how bad the game was when i came to the realization i would not open the game without my 100 + mods that fix, tweak and enhance the lackluster gameplay. If one day my favorite modders leave the game i'm out too. There's no way i'll stick with a family of sims that keep rushing to the damn pop corn machine every 2 seconds because it's poorly coded
With every update, I just want it to be worth my mods (I have 4 I think)
Omg same! I have to spend at least 2 hours to update my mode and usually I only have 2 hours every few days to play smh. It’s soooo frustrating because mods is what makes my game playable smh
I miss sims 3 Island living it had so many futures, that I never managed to explore all of the islands. The same with the traveling pack, I never finished all the underground exploring, idk if I even did half of them. And it came with 3 new worlds.
Right?! I spent hours creating resorts and building them out and exploring the underwater lots. And people even used to make their own custom underwater lots to explore. Playing a mermaid explorer was fantastic!
omg stop i remember my mum buying me the pack when it came out after begging her for so long😭 it was so so fun i used to always take my families on holidays there to the resorts and everything! sims 3 had sooooo much life to it
by the time I got island living my game could barely run and every time I went to the underwater world it crashed. It was so laggy that by the end of it I stopped buying ts3 expansions and couldn't play anymore, so I waited for sims4 impatiently. sad that it's a disappointment because nowadays I think the level of ts3 would be appropriate and easier to run for more people.
Sims3 was just amazing , all around - I remember a time where I could play sims the whole day , now I get bored and run out of things to do after an hour of playing
Legal Definition of false advertising : the crime or tort of publishing, broadcasting, or otherwise publicly distributing an advertisement that contains an untrue, misleading, or deceptive representation or statement which was made knowingly or recklessly and with the intent to promote the sale of property, goods, or services to the public
I personally like high school years but I do agree that it did fall short. I think the reason they made the schools in the trailer being better is to show that you can customize it probably
Even if you can customize, why wouldnt you make it more pretty if you want people to buy it 🤣 they are used to us buying everything whatever
That’s still false advertising. I thought the base school would look like that.
@@animalinshorts2893 they make houses and community lots bare so it can run on less expensive computers and systems.
@@xoxojollyy people will always find excuses for them, thats whats keeping them alive. After so maaany years of sims, they should be able to implant any system which allows you to turn the lots on or off.
I really wish they added the high school from the trailer to the gallery or in our libraries. I absolutely loved the trailer high school. Ngl, the high school we have now looks empty and sad like my own high school in reality...👀😂
i also noticed how whenever my sim would make a friend, i added them on social bunny and their friendship level would be SO HIGH. like HUH?? and then multiple sims over and over will ask to be my sims best friend even though i've only done one social interaction with them LOLL. and then they will get a sentiment called 'hurt' LIKE GIRL.
like, i won't even open social bunny after adding them and the friendship bar will go up
this is one of the most frustrating things about the new updates/pack, ive had so many bugs too like sims breaking into my house uninvited and theyll ask every single sim in my household to be bestfriends even if theyve never met and theyll do it mulple times. i feel like its a bug since it makes no sense why they ask every sim but the sim theyre friends with to be bestfriends.
@@Zoe-tj4ld oh my god YESS, i've had this exact same bug too 😒
I think my main problem with the gameplay is the lack of things to do. Especially in class. The classroom feel lifeless and empty. As a Highschooler my teachers classrooms are full of posters and things that made them unique. The desk are arranged in all sorts of different ways. For instance we'd be arranged into table(desk) groups or something fun. They could've added smart boards or a projector, since that's what we mainly use now. They could've added group projects, group activities in class, the teacher calling on people to answer questions(and if the sims didn't do there homework they wouldn't know how to do the problem or something). Could've had the sims raise their hands, they could've done a lot more. These ideas would've made the pack more enjoyable. I feel like the problem is that the pack is never focused on quality, but more so quantity. For example, if we didn't get that pier area and they instead focused more on the highschool portion it would've still worked. The problem is that instead of focusing on how the dlc can affect a players game, they instead focus on the amount of items a player gets in the game. If that makes sense
This is why I always wait for actual gameplay and video reviews like this because yes the advertisements from the sims team are always VERY MISLEADING. I was so excited about this pack and I must say I am disappointed and I won’t be making the purchase
I didn't even buy this pack this time....... usually, I watch a bunch of videos before I decide I want to get a pack.... but this time, my mom got it. We use the same account, so I ended up having it as well...
Not the High School Years already needing a pack refresh upon release 😂
im really annoyed with the wants not being able to get rid of like the whims. there is no "x" to close it out. so the "tip" on the loading screen now saying "wants are something your sims want to do, but doesn't have to" is completely false. either you do it or wait a long while for it to maybe go away.
they're now making you use satisfaction points to remove wants and fears. I'm honestly tired of fears already because every sim I play gets the "unfulfilled dreams" fear 10 times.
... they didn't even remove that tip? ????
No cuz wants and fears is actually making it so frustrating to play. I've played on 4 different saves, EVEN starting a brand new save, and every single sim has had the fear of dead end job. I picked a career for my brand new sim and she got the fear after her first shift. How can she be mad that she hasnt had a promotion after her LITERAL first shift. Even a sim who's in the top level of her career is having this fear!!!! I think it defff needs some tweaking and I've just turned off fears and wants for now.
ive been having the same problem, if you press on your sims right before they go to work it sometimes comes up something that stops it but it always comes back and most of the time they only get angry after work so cant fix it. wish i could turn fears off but i want to keep wants (was gonna say i love wants but i dont i love whims but we dont have them anymore everythings just a downgrade of how the game was before)
I feel like the packs aren't configured enough to work well together either. It seems only designed to work basically along with base game only. As far as wants and fears in my personal gameplay they're extremely repetitive. I keep getting the same ones for sims repeatedly. Not sure if it's cause there isn't enough or whatever. Some sims get the want to regain passion for their job before going into work and I do that and then they get the same one every single day. Some sims have the want to talk over relationship fears with their partner and get the same thing repeatedly every day. Whenever they add new things at times it seems to never happen in moderation. I love the game as well and I guess each time something new is coming we all have the hope that something will change and it will be better and it never does lol Things lack depth, things lack full creative ability for customization as well (hence only one highschool for alllll teens in the worlds) Some of my sims live in a desert environment then pop up at school in winter and its snowing. They don't even see sims that they're friends with at school cause none of my other played teens show up. If you pop into the home to play with the principal and principals daughter then the principal is unemployed. Follow that teen to school and someone else is the principal. You can't even play out that storyline. Sorry the comment was so long, had a lot to say lol
At one point the entire family had a fear of unfulfilled dreams or something. "It's like someone is controlling me". Listen you dumb sims, I'm rotating gameplay. There are four sims in this family and I only control you once every 4 days. You have 3 days to do whatever you want to do to fulfill your dreams
MODERATION!!! i feel like the sims team doesn’t have this word in their vocabulary. everytime a new update comes in every sim in every world acts the same for months! oh wants and fears? yup every sim is afraid of not fulfilling their dreams. every. sim. i’m so sick of not having unique gameplay no matter how hard i try to make my sims vastly different from each other they all act the same!
@@briannapelrine6999 yep I mean look at neighborhood stories you can't just set it and forget it you have to switch it on and off. Otherwise you'll have a couple with 6 animals or 6 kids. Or some combo of the two It WILL fill up every household no matter what. Neighborhood action plans? Oh god. The food related one resulted in 8500 white cakes being made and left around. Why didn't they ever make other dishes? Why?!?!? Roughhousing encouraged? Fights on community lots breaking out every ten seconds.
Yup the thing with the „principals daughter story“ is so sad…Like wtf I thought that they give us the premade sims and there story’s to play with it and then the „principals daughter“ thing (which is like the first and most important thing they tell us about Molly in the trailer) is just completely pointless?! lmao makes me so mad
Whims? Good idea. Wants and Fears? Also a good idea. Execution of both: poor. At least with Whims, you could cancel the ones you didn't want. Why couldn't the Wants and Fears be added on top of the Whims? Expand the variety of things to do. Whether it's Whims or Wants and Fears, all packs should be incorporated into them. And you should be able to cancel them if you choose to do so. These, along with Sentiments are good additions to the game, but there's just too few of them and they don't go back and add ones from older packs. If you have Jungle Adventure, and your Sim has been attacked by spiders, gotten the green circles and all of that trauma, shouldn't they have a fear of spiders? Such as on any lot with Creepy Crawlies, or a lot with any spider webs, or spider decor added? Whims, wants and fears, likes and dislikes, Sentiments: all good things, but just like commentary recorded for a wrestling video game, there's never enough variety of them to make it good if you play frequently enough. The ideas are good, but not executed to the fullest.
i hate the wants and fears so much, the wants are just a downgrade of whims and the fears are so annoying. i have 8 (well 7 sims in my household now) and cannot keep up with the fears my sims are always angry but i dont want to turn it off since i want the whims in my game, its ridiculous that they managed to make the whole system worse. i was excited as well but they just didnt make them that good and shouldve made wants and fears seperate in the setting so i can play without the fears like i used to do.
the annoying is when I cant delete my sims wants, when the whims is still can, very annoying
The people who buy packs like this only encourage EA to release more over priced dribble like this. EA are laughing at the sims fanbase for buying this expansion and they have no incentive to improve future pack quality because the sim fanbase apparently buys every garbage pack released. Good job simmers you're ruining your own game with your wallets. Thanks for the honest impression satch.
I agree with you after my wedding stories and high school years I'm not buying any more of the sims
Don’t buy that shitty game. Learned my lesson long ago with EA and now I torrent the full game, and I don’t care what anyone thinks. They don’t deserve a single penny. I’ve given them enough money
@@noel2897 im doing the same i was tired of paying for packs that are just BIG disappointments and real waste of money
i did buy the highschool pack (maybe i shouldve waited until there was a sale) but hated how boring teens were so this helped even if it was disapointing, besides that i try not to buy packs unless ik theyre good. i hate how so many people buy every pack just for the sake of it instead of thinking about if its actually worth it. i understand why some people buy a lot though since the game needs new content to be enjoyable unlike past sims games.
Its gen z’s doing. They love and hype up sims 4
I was so excited but I’d done all the gameplay within the first week (in game). Proms aren’t working. My sim was glitching when careers day happened so I couldn’t go. Figured out trendi doesn’t have any money system so you can just price it anything and it’s basically free money. Boba took about 5 minutes. The outfits were clearly made on 2020 trends, and I would guess that the pack was supposed to release 6 months ago based on them. School didn’t even work well with the limited gameplay it had. My sim has no family because I was avoiding the weird bug. It’s just a bit boring really
I brought high school years.. and was so happy about cas? Gameplay crashed my gaming pc💀
oof
Yikes
this luckily didnt happen to me but lately my game has been so laggy. my gaming pc cost me over 1k yet still can hardly run it its ridiculous.
@@Zoe-tj4ld exactly worst part is I don’t own a lot of the packs most say packs Make game laggier but with the packs I have i don’t think they are the cause
Werewolves were way better than High school years, I mean after AMAZING game pack, I was SO excited about an Expansion pack. However I am disappointed:( There is LITERALLY no gameplay, the school is boring, after school activities are just rabbit holes, prom is okay, graduation ceremony is better than university graduation, but anyway it still sucks:( Social bunny will annoy you after couple days of using it. Trendy is a good idea, but the way they made it - no thanks 😒 THE ONLY good thing about this pack is a possibility to buy and sell outfits and that’s it.
Yeah.....prom didn't even last that long..... the crowning ceremony was too soon.....
trendi shop clothes is very shit for me, it always expired expired expired and expired to sell, I never do my sims to sell any shit trendi clothes anymore, and if the clothes is tepid you suppose to hype outfit to your friend, like in james turner, but me myself not found that option when my sims interact with his friend
I remade the school before I played a single day, I was that disappointed. The school was so dreadful.
It’s not that we hate the sims 4 we just know it can be a incredibly better if they actually gave a crap like the sims 2 has to be the best sims game of all time it didn’t feel so empty with empty promises we got an actual simulation game where we can anything the sims 4 falls short all the time with out mods and added packs in an empty baseless world and when you do add packs it breaks your game it’s all a mess that’s what the sims 4 is a hot ass mess lol
The trailer makes the high school seem way more lively then it actually is. Based on the trailer you’d think the high school would be brimming with activity. When in reality there’s at most 20 sims in total allowed in the lot.
The funniest thing in the pack for me was when I took part in the cheerleading competition and at the end of the event the notification from cottage living popped up and said that unfortunately my pie couldn’t convince the judge (or whatever that was) lmao I was so confused. The events just bug in my game I never get to know who won…
hahahahaa I guess your pie didn't bring all the boys to the yard :D
I loved when a teenage sim asked my child aged sim to the prom then got pissed when she said no.
I didn’t buy the pack yet (waiting for a sale), but I had to turn off wants and fears because it was making it impossible for my sim to get promoted. I would send her to work focused and ready, and when the buff ran out she would become tense and angry from “fear of dead end job “ and her performance would start to go down. It’s a bummer because I was actually excited to play with wants and fears.
What really stood out to me was the whole "You have a lot of nerve skipping school yet still showing up here" popups, even though my sims didn't skip and actually attended the whole class but still ended up getting expelled in the first few days. It made no sense, and made it impossible to actually play any of it. Oh, and their implementation of fears needs a LOT of tweaking. Aside from Adrian Monk, who gets a brand new crippling fear every single day, or multiple per day? Add in bugs, and one of my sims becomes terrified any time they step outside (fear of the dark bug) with no way to fix it.
I honestly believe the Werewolf pack is really great and possibly like the best pack in ages. I always thought the Vampires were best occult and werewolves are even better. So, it restored my faith in the Sims. Then they decided they only have to make great packs periodically I guess. Kinda. frustrating even though I dont hate any of it just so bummed that it could be so much more and better. I am going to just try to believe TS4 will be great again like its predecessors in their various golden moments.
The high school wasn't just different in the trailer. It was also decorated like that during the live stream. I wonder why? The high school they showed off during the live stream and the one actually in the game are very different. Makes no sense.
The trailers are always bad, we have to come to reality that sims can’t do what them trailers be having them do…. The base game in it self and very glitchy just building expansion pack on top of that is just a nightmare
Something I found funny with HSY is how giant the highschool lot is compared to the tiny total amount of required objects to complete the lot. I started building then wanted to save but the game wouldn't let me until I placed the required items. I laughed when I placed everything down and zoomed out to look at the huge lot with this pathetic little collection of items. Off the top of my head it's like 2 whiteboard, 2 toilets, 2 sinks, principals's desk, 7 other desks, 4? lockers, the cafeteria thing, 2? dining tables and a loudspeaker. your school is complete 🤣 who even needs chairs
Reminds me of the fact that the trailer made the school look smaller BUT instead of the school being small and lively they made it HUGE and EMPTY!!!! Also why so many desks if there are never that many students!?
I enjoy that you’re honest Satch. It’s refreshing but you also enjoy the game and I can tell you love the game, but you’re disappointed. It took me years to be able to go into a grocery store due to severe anxiety. I’d be inside playing the sims and reading books. It became an outlet and to see the game so lackluster, annoys me. The team is trying but yea. Lol this pack got me fooled, I bought it. It’s a bit empty but I like the cas etc. Still gotta use my imagination a bit more.
What a great idea to look at the credits for the pack to analyze how the Maxis team fares in their QA testing! My boyfriend does QA testing for car electronics systems and it is one of the most important steps in the whole process of development. Reducing/messing with QA is a very bad decision, and we can definitely see the effects in the high school pack. I hope they will work with a bigger QA team for the next packs! I also wonder whether there are multiple teams working on different packs at the same time, this might also explain why some packs are better than others, with a different crew working on them.
I have a love/hate relationship with the Sims. It feels like an abusive relationship. LMAO There are things I like about Sims 4, but there are things I miss that was in Sims 2 & 3. Unfortunately that list is rather long. The list of what I like better about 4 is pretty short. If they do a Sims 5 I hope it’s an upgrade. 3 & 4 didn’t feel like much of an upgrade like it did from 1 to 2, 2 to 3. I’m not surprised this expansion was rather disappointing.
This pack is honestly my absolute favorite pack in the game, because it adds realistic teen play that FINALLY separates them from adults. Except I've disabled the pack entirely and will not play with it. 1) The pack still does not work when playing on Long lifespan. You will only have 4 total weeks of school in each lifespan, meaning Long is completely useless because after you end on the last Prom, you can't get a full time job, go to college, or even graduate until you age up in another 4 weeks. 2) The pack does not have ANY other pack connection. You CANNOT have Seasons pack enabled and use the calendar for school. Holidays CANNOT be added to school weeks. This is not ONLY for Teenagers, either! Even if you do not play with any Teens whatsoever in your household, you are still DENIED the ability to add holidays to the calendar. 3) You cannot have school activities AND a job. So if you play with only Teens, no adults/parents, you will have to give up your ability to join afterschool activities just so you can pay your bills, or you will have to give up on having any electricity whatsoever just to be a Cheerleader. This is only really doable with multiple Teen households, where you can make one or two work and the other however many do school activities. This pack would have been so easy to make work, yet they screwed it so hard
The school only goes for 4 weeks? That kinda sucks....
From my personal experience playing this pack, you -can- get a side job using one of the new side hussles introduced in the pack simfluencer/streamer. I do agree though, I swapped to become a life guard and lost my progress in one of my after school activities, it was very frustrating.
Being unbiased does not mean a neutral review. If something is bad, it's bad. Painting something as good when it's not to appear neutral is the opposite of unbiased. I'm sorry people have been bullying you but for some reason some people are unwilling to hear their favorite things aren't other people's favorite things and that it's somehow the other person's fault. You can enjoy something and honestly discuss what doesn't work for you. That doesn't make you a hater
I think part of the problem is the pressure to deliver these contents quickly, but there's no way to take the blame out of the producers or whoever makes the creative decisions for each package, the game has several logic problems in the systems, poorly worked ideas and missed opportunities and it's been a long time (look at the stores how they work, it's not possible that they thought that was a cool system), so I'm really upset, with the directions that the sims 4 took, if I were sum it up in one word, it would be a waste of opportunities and part of the blame lies with the game's producers.
They had over a year to work on this expansion pack. In past couple of years they had 2 expansion packs a year. I think the people who are working on sims 4 are also helping out with sims 5 development and that is why the current content is suffering.
@@zeldakitty3170 nope no excuses they have a separate team working on the new game. I personally think the sims team don’t get enough time and resources to make a pack that feels full.
There is also so much sloppy coding. Sorry but no matter what their time limit is, they should at least have some stuff that functions absolutely correct and doesn't break with ever patch or pack. I don't know many other games that are this lazy coded and programmed. I don't understand how modders are doing a better job than the EA team and programmers in much less time, with less payment if any and without an entire team. That's just weird.
They need to stop promising things until they’re sure they’re going to work. People are going to but the expansion no matter what, release a well-working pack and send a patch with whatever wasn’t ready in time a week later. I don’t get how they keep making that mistake. No one needed to know about wants and fears right away, keep it mum and extra week or two and fix it before patching.
Agreed, if every modder on the internet can fix their broken mods in a letter of hours, there’s no reason for patches to be released this broken.
I think the problem with outsourcing QA is not so much the testers themselves - I’m sure they’re still good at their jobs - and more that it’s an indication of the importance the company places on it. Internal QA means they’re working closely with them and investing in it. Outsourced QA means they just said “here, we built this already, run some tests and write us a report” and there’s no guarantee that report actually goes directly to developers, nor that the developers are given any time or budget to fix what’s in it.
Also the oversight that lead to the conflict between Get Famous award night and prom causing prom to just not exist....I had to change all the lounges to bars so prom would show up on the calendar again without removing Get Famous....
kids making messes literally everywhere, every time you turn around, is the most accurate thing the sims team has ever done. my sister just turned 13 in july, and she's still making paint messes and goo messes everywhere 😪
I’m just so disappointed with the sims over the years 😭 but sims 2 will AWLAYS have the best spot in my heart 🥹
I created tons of teen sims to populate the high school, added 14 desks per the two classrooms and added tons of benches to the cafeteria. Yet, only 8-9 teens even show up to class, and most of the time and it isn’t even a consistent cast of characters-they don’t show up every day.
exactly, one of my teen sims friend only showed up the first few days then disapeared for over a week or something maybe even longer but idk since got bored of going with my sims after the first 2 sim weeks.
The social bunny is so broken too, I just add random people and after a few days doing nothing, they are all at 100% relationship lol
the fastest way to make friends in sims 4 was take a photo with other sims.You could get a new best friend by taking 5 pictures with them.But it seems slow down after latest update.
I'll admit I did abuse the photography friendship thing.
even without the sims team hyping this pack up, the hype was high by default since it’s the first expansion in over a year
Im so glad there's a mod to go to high school that basically works the same as the expansion pack Edit: I think it's still around, it's been like two years since I've played it (it was on my last stint of the sims before i took a break(
Yes! Zerbu's Go To School mod, I still use it too from time to time!
It’s still out there but hasn’t been updated in like 4 years 💀
I really liked Zerbu’s go to school. You can actually engage with the teachers. And I agree with you about the prom time way too short.
I was playing Sims 4 yesterday, and my sim wanted to be her sister’s girlfriend! It was so disgusting and wrong. I thought they had patched this.
You should call yourself lucky, some people install mods for these.... features. 😂😂
I wish they would go back and add Emotion buffs to the Amusement park rides! It’s a waste of Sims time without it. You should get a special one for woohoo at least since it’s a risk. And fear for haunted house…
Sims 4 is a sinking ship. Instead of getting better since release, it seems to be only getting worse. For years players have been saying to stop pushing out packs and fix the basis of the game but they do the bare minimum of fixes and just keep releasing worse and worse packs.. that seem like a great idea but executed awfully. And even updates break the game. I’ve never seen a player base treated like such crap in my life but people keep paying for packs so EA is only winning and they know it so they don’t care. They will keep doing the bare minimum. The school mod is exactly what should’ve been a pack. That mod has been around for years and the sims team had a clear good example to even work from that ONE person created.. yet they failed hard.
the truth is that if it weren't for mods, hardly anyone would play sims4
@@ariannalister227 that’s what I’ve been saying all these years. I feel bad for all the console players but they are out there. I’ve played on pc and console.
I wish we could have school related interactions with teachers, I wish we could have more interactive classrooms. They need to revisit the pack in general. 😭😭😭
If you allow me a suggestion, could you make a video with mods that fix these messes from each pack? I've seen that some mods have come out that allow you to define the members of your class, for example, it would be interesting to have youtubers that show the simple solutions made by content creators for these holes in the production of content, including integrating more packages between themselves.
That's a great idea for a mod video. Xurbansims used to make mod videos that expand specific packs and I think itsmetroi did/does that too. I would love a series like the one you suggested from Satch though. I think he would bring something fun and different to it if he's interested!
Hi, could you tell me what mod it is that allows me to select who goes into my class? Thats one thing that really annoyed me - I spent days making my perfect sim high school characters only to end up with randoms.
@@katazaraskywalker6076 I don't know if I can put the link here, but the simscomunity site made a compilation with this and other super interesting mods, but the specific mod is "Small Mod: Choose High School Classmates" by Rex.
The most frustrating thing about it is that they knew what the players wanted and what would make the pack engaging, and the trailer demonstrates that. They knew it needed bustling hallways, busy classrooms, and active gameplay, but they just....didn't? Then prentended they did?
Regarding your opening statement, you’re not negative you’re just honest. I have the same thoughts you do 😂
Me watching the trailer: “that looks amazing! Im so buying this pack on release!” Me watching actual reviews: “oh … nevermind” Thing is, I wasn’t even surprised this time
I’m not sure who is telling you you’re negative in your reviews but I would like to say I love your reviews! You make sure to hit every point and you’ve made points I’ve never even considered! I’ve been playing for years and I am one of those people who have always bought every add on without question. 😅 Since I started watching your reviews I’ve learned more about the game itself, paused on spending my money right off the bat and I simply enjoy the game more. You help people avoid feeling frustrated or you support our frustrations with the game itself. So thank you for what you do!!!
I love your brutal honesty satch, just stay the way you are because you’re amazing just as you are 💚
"the reason the sims 3 broke down was because it was too ambitious" god you have no idea how satisfying and validating it is to hear someone else share this statement. i'm so used to people using ts3 as proof as to why the sims should never do Z, Y, Z feature again, and no!!! that's the wrong way to look at it!! she was too ambitious, she was ahead of her time. her boldest features deserve another chance, it's been more than a decade now since most of them were developed.
This is what Sims 4: High School years needed; 1. The ability to send your Sim to private school, and have a special lot with a fancier layout and a secret society. 2. Have the regular high school, with rabbit hole classes but interactive clubs like art or science. 3. Have longer prom time, and have better prizes. 4. For the theme park put one functional rollercoaster (ala Makin Magic) and then 2 rabbit holes BUT you get a photo of the Sims afterwards either having fun or being scared. 5. The ability to be a perfect student and get an interactive part-time job like liberian or teacher assistant 6. The ability to be the worst student ever and cause a school rebelion complete with stink bombs, blocking toilets, and setting the fire alarm/sprinklers off then having the police bust the student 7. (For LGBTQIA Sims) Have the ability to "come out" to friends and family - and organise a pride event at an after school club. I don't know - but it'll be worth £40!
I'd love to see a serious review and comparison between the games now that you've played a lot of the older ones. I love the Sims 2 still and I hope you're having fun with your game!
What I thought was odd is that they included curved walls, but there are none in the school or auditorium. Or any of the builds that came with the pack.
I think one of the biggest problems in general game play is how slow sims do tasks. Sometimes I'm genuinely flabbergasted at the fact it takes them almost two in game hours to eat breakfast and use the toilet, not even shower, I also make their breakfast before hand. If your sims have work or school, there should be an option to change the speed or length of sims tasks 'normal, medium, fast', this way they wont take a life time to drink a glass of juice. This problem, obviously, makes successful events almost impossible, especially weddings which I'm not surprised EA hasn't fixed considering it's a recurrent game play issue that's been going on for almost a decade.
Catchy Virus did a video maybe a year ago, where EA gives us exciting trailers for packs, but when we play those packs/expansions/etc. It's nothing like the trailers. We become disappointed with the actual lackluster and buggy gameplay and the set dressings. We don't want to "imagine" while playing a game, we want in depth and fun gameplay.
I was excited for this pack, but I only buy them on sales. Your video is the first I've seen the pack post release. I don't understand why the furniture from the trailers would disappear!!
About the werewolves thing. It came after my wedding disaster, which had just about the same amount of QA as highschool years. My theory? They added a bunch of QA on the werewolves team because EA can't afford to make another bad pack. Also, why do gamepacks usually turn out better? My guess is that it's because it's smaller, and they are probably given around the same time as an expansion to make it. The time given to them may be more adequate for gamepacks but way to little time for expansions. My guess? The next pack will have more QA and actually be decent, if this one actually flopped to much.
idk what to say here but ima say one thing, i feel like the update lagged my game so much
I relate..
@@jokersdoll1779 yeah and its really sad/why
The update broke my entire cas lol
XD
Its hard to concentrate when your Sims look like that 🤣🤣 but at the same time, they look right! They look so interesting 😅
You aren’t negative you are HONEST! There’s a huge difference. You actually care about the sims and that’s why you address this stuff. We all need to stand up and do so. I’ve been playing since I was a kid. The sims 4 has just been such a let down in so many ways and ea doesn’t care. They need to stop making new content and work on all the packs that are currently broken. The whole game is legit broken and a lot of the packs do not work. The sims 2 and sims 3 were amazing! The sims 4 is more focused on aesthetic than actual gameplay and it shows. It’s just really sad. Ea is money hungry and doing the bare minimum. It’s destroying a franchise we all love and grew up with. It’s good for us to speak up because it means we love and care for the sims and just want it to be the best it can be… or at least better than what it is currently and has been. The sims 4 is just a hot mess of a game that needs a lot of work, it doesn’t need new content.
I bought 2 xpacks and 2 game packs blind and without having seen a single Sims 4 trailer. Aside from what I did buy kinda sucking, HSY was the first trailer I saw. I'm too old and have been done too dirty by too many game companies so I'm in the habit of waiting before I get dlc, but that trailer turned me off the pack utterly. I hate pre-rendered trailers because they're grossly misleading most of the time, and I know that the stuff they were shown doing in that trailer was bunk. They're too fond of rabbit holes, and the code is too spaghetti. My Wedding Stories is a simple concept that doesn't work, they ain't gonna have high school anything like that trailer. Turns out it's worse than I imagined. I would literally rather mop my kitchen floor than go through one of those classes without time sped up. I'd be bored for the same amount of time, but I'd actually be getting something productive done. Plus mopping my floor doesn't cost as much as a whole other game and stack more spaghetti code and lag into my game. I'll just get the education overhaul mod when my game is working properly again, and some cc. Positive: I really like the hammock chair a lot, and some of the other build/buy things. I genuinely don't remember the CAS stuff but I'm sure it's good. The pre-made townie teens are adorable and nice from a character design standpoint. In short: woooo art team.
I was stoked about high-school since we'd never done this before.... and it still glitches 😅 makes me sad... I agree with the false advertising
Sorry for long winded post. I mentioned this before, but this was my fear. The dev team was most likely pigeonholed into an unrealistic release deadline for this game. Which means they had to start cutting content, which means customers were going to be unhappy. The EA corporate overlords (executive team) are going to look at this and use it as ammo to back up their claim that the only age people ever play is young adult. Ignoring the fact that the reason people play young adult so much, is because it’s the only completed lifespan. Heck, there is literally no difference between YA and Adult in ts4. At least in ts3, with generations, the adults could go into a midlife crisis which could totally jack up their lives and made for really interesting storytelling. I think the reason ts4 is so safe, is because of how janky ts3 was. Even today, with a mid tier modern gaming rig…she chugs and is a moody b. But my god, they took risks and it is really fun to play despite the chug. It’s sad, and it makes me super wary whenever they bring out TS5…like will we even have aging in that game? Or will we go back to TS1. If they’re getting burned with a safer iteration of the sims…are they going to scale it back even more and turn it into solely a dress up simulator? It’s kind of how it feels like the direction they’re taking the game.
hey bud since l found your channel it been such a breath of fresh air you bring humour, love happiness to a dying game
I think the reason Pack Re-freshes were a thing for like 2 seconds before being dropped is a Sim developer suggested it was something players wanted and the execs thought it would be a great idea that would boost sales (and not just please existing players). Except, ya know, everyone that's into the sims has probably bought the pack already so they maybe only saw it's sales increase by like a few hundred instead of a few thousand like they were hoping. So then the execs were like, forget that. Who cares about pleasing existing players, that's not making us money. Anyway, that's just my dumb theory.
I swear they made the standing arms wide open glitch a ‘’challenge’’ in their game. My sims do it and I haven’t even got this expansion 💀💀
Wow! Thanks for pointing out the difference between the trailer and the game. That's absolutely ridiculous to just put out an empty lot AND no gameplay. Least they could do is lazily pop a plant in the corner like I do when I can't be assed to decorate haha
I like that you are very honest. Most of the popular sims 4 KZheadrs always suck up to ea and are very scared to say anything bad about them which is very aggravating tbh
& they are coming out pretty close together. I don't even need weddings, werewolves, and high school to all come out in the same 6 month period! I am satisfied with one expansion pack a year if it is well developed! The little updates to previous expansions peppered along the way is plenty.
I understand Sims is like virtual Barbies, but if I buy the Barbie dream house I expect that, not a cardboard box, crayons, and imagination.
I really feel like this is a toxic relationship and most of the players are on the denial stage. Until what leghts are we gonna let EA get away with this.
Seemingly every time a new GP or EP comes out I hear the same thing: “people have been begging EA for ___ since TS1 and they’ve finally put it in a Sims game, but…it sucks.”
Its true. I love Sims 4, but I feel.... unsatisfied with what we actually have. Kinda like being in a relationship where you want it, but he just isn't putting any effort into it.
Thank you for your honest reviews! You are saying what we all feel. Don't apologize. Hugs to you! 🤗