One thing that still baffles me years after this pack's release is the fact that we can't build an high school anywhere we want (at least, one active high school per save at a time). For immersion sake, and especially with a gameplay that repetitive: The dev team shot itself in the foot by not giving us a way to at least change the setting by choosing the world, the classmates, the teachers and the uniform (or not). Another Sims4 pack that ignores the others and designed to be played only once.
And the fact that the high school is very sparse for students. I play it on console and I was nearly appalled at all the open space. And I didn't even go to public high school except for speech therapy as a kid, so if I can tell that it's wrong, then it's wrong. Wish we could have small mods on console to at least up the number of sims on a lot.
I think we have seen a similar limit in sms 4 before. my sense is it's how they were able to make it function properly- but I can't say from a specific technical stance why. Is it is oddly limiting? also yes
1) Brought high school game play to only one world. 2) Ignored my other sims and brought generic NPCs and Copperdale NPCs into the school. I had to get a mod to select who I wanted to appear in school. 3) Forbid you from having Get Together clubs on school grounds, even after school hours. 4) A long list of other things that I am not going to list.😂
I forgot about the get together thing! Or even forming groups at all. As a rotational player all my teens have know each other since practically toddlerhood and I can’t even put them in a group at school to eat together? What? They really did design it for one random teen fresh out of CAS to intergrate with their Copperdale NPCs. Which is not how I play. Thank god for mods that got all my kids in school together.
Such a missed opportunity not to add private schools to this pack 🙄 I’m truly disappointed there is zero option for private schools that could lead to sims getting better scholarships or better grades for university
one of my fav things in sims 2 is trying to get into a private school ha. Yeah.. in a VERY ideal world, I'd love: boarding schools, private schools, and instead of just the typical uni, maybe community college/ vocational/ tech schools
@@SimmerErinomg I thought I was the only one who missed this. It gave you a reason to learn how to cook, boost charisma and have an impressive house. Why would they take it out. Sucks
well there you go ha! It's not terribly exciting, but I think it's a nice change to your typical lot- and somewhere to take sims out that isn't a bar. Can take some pretty cool pics too makes me think it'd be fun to look at just a few side features from every pack
@@SimmerErinI take adult couples there all the time as well as teens. A nice difference from bars and nightclubs, ending with whoohoo in the photo booth is fun. I don’t mind the rabbitbhole rides because of the way they’re structured. Its a pretty short bit of disappearing and if you zoom out the fair looks active. Unlike the text adventure quest in a cave type of thing or the tiger sanctuary in Tomerang which seems a little more cutting corners on features.
To piggyback off my comment from the poll I keep thinking Erin imagine if they were tasks during the classes with a timer like events ? Like let’s say you are in science class and then you get tasks like, using a science table, using the telescope, read such and such book etc and you completing those tasks have an effect on your grades. Or tasks at home like the extra homework making a volcano, find a gemstone etc like in university and elementary school. That would have been so interesting to have and see your sims do the tasks in real time and that affecting their grades.
that would have been so much more interesting!! a bit more distinction to courses and much more interaction. I can see how it might have been feasible though.. to get all sims to cooperate
@itsbrooklynbabyyy that's an awesome idea...too bad you're not on the devteam. Of course if you were the corporate overlords wouldn't understand the genius of your idea...they know numbers...not videogames
I do feel like they lazed out about all the windows having animations instead of just one to sneak out. Then "sneaking out" doesnt take you anywhere and gives you a rabbit hole... my worst enemy
The issues I have with this pack is; 1) Your teen Sim never gets the intended diploma after they graduate. For example, if my Sim is a Valedictorian, they never receive the Valedictorian diploma, they instead only get the regular diploma in their mailbox. 2) When it is time for graduation, you sometimes get notified, you sometimes don't, it's not consistent. And when you do get your teen to go attend their graduation, you see randomly generated townies that your Sim never went to high school with before, or you will see a few, like one or two that the game automatically age up to young adults and the worst of all, you will see a Sim, who you know very well, was only a child and they are now suddenly a young adult ready for graduation, this happened to my game with Evie Delgato. She was suddenly aged up to a young adult by the game randomly to attend graduation whilst her older brother Pierce Delgato is still a teen. I was so annoyed by this that I stopped sending my teen sims to any graduation events for fear of the game randomly again, breaking my immersion just because they decided to aged up a random sim into a young adult to graduate. 3) Lastly, the events; The Proms, it doesn't make sense to have it every week. imagine playing without aging on... and you just can't escape the constant notifications for football or cheerleading. It's so obnoxiously loud that it gives you a jump scare! And when you do attend the football or cheerleading event, there's literally nothing to do there, it's pathetic. I actually can go on with more issues with this pack, but I think I have said enough... 😟
Also there are special traits assigned to high schoolers which are meant to create fun but they basically don't work. Students will have hidden traits like "Bully" "mean girl" and "popular kid". These traits are supposed to have an effect on autonomy which is why you'll see 2 sims fighting in the halls sometimes but don't really work.
i forgot about snowy escape even though i also thought it was disappointing.. snowy escape felt like they didn't commit to one strong concept and just put in a bunch of smaller things which were kind of half baked anyway imo
I kinda feel that they do that with a few packs: sort of a try to get as many players as possible by offering features that appeal to different players. I get it, but sometimes it feels like things are disconnected and a bit shallow?
The kids just sitting there but having nothing you could do, being able to choose even as much as you normally can choose if they're going to rabbithole
I agree with all the comments that point out that bugs contributed a lot to this, but even if the pack had been released in perfect condition, it would still be a horrible, lazy pack. In my opinion, this is a pack that simply has no gameplay. It's extremely repetitive and I don't see anything fun in watching my sims in class, without being able to take any action. The decision for the proms to occur every week seems pretty lazy to me, it's obvious that this should be a special event. Maybe they should have combined the ideas from this pack together with GT EP, which is another pack that could be so much better.
no gameplay, or lackluster gameplay? I did see someone say that they prob did this due to those playing on shorter life spans- but to me, ideal would be to select how often you wanted prom. some deeper pack integration would have been helpful too
@@SimmerErin No gameplay. Literally your whole school day is sitting in class unable to actually do any gameplay...and the only things you have as 'tasks' throughout the day outside of class are 'be nice to students' and 'be nice to faculty' and 'study for exam'. I don't really call that a gameplay filled school day...especially when there's a myriad of actions they could have added JUST to the class-times! But my stand-alone comment addresses that.
6:38 All primary and secondary schools in Europe and Africa are uniformed schools whether private or public (there are exceptions of course), unsure about anywhere else x 👀 But the school system in High School Years is so foreign for non-American players and the lack of variety/ focus on American societal systems breaks the immersion. *Things like cheerleading, American high school sports, prom, high school graduation and middle school don’t exist in most school systems **_(e.g. primary school age 3-11, secondary school age 11-16, sixth form or college age 16-18, university aged 18+)._* It feels like a “Recreate your favourite American TV show” simulator instead of a representative life simulator. 🙃 - which is insane because most of us (outside N.A) pay for packs at a premium to fulfil the Sims 4 promise of ‘simulating our lives’. They’ll throw a “foreign” world in here and there, but the features are locked to that pack and everything else remains American. 🤷🏾♀️ For example, even after 10 years they still haven’t updated the base game to add more school options that represent the schooling experience in other countries. High School Years adds some broken gameplay, but tbh despite the game having an international audience, it’s one of many packs that’s only for Americans.
Yes, that's a point. I suppose I did not expect is because they chose an American theme. I will say I think they had to pick one region though, as schooling norms differ around the world.
@@SimmerErin (Sorry for the essay): Absolutely and that’s true too, *however* my point is that _because_ the rest of the world’s school systems are modelled by Europe (colonisation), picking an American theme (with no fusion) for this central, universal experience *is* the problem for a lot of players. While 98% of the world can relate to the same/similar school system (with variations), only 2-3 North American countries can relate to High School Years. And because there’s a complete lack of inclusion in both the pack *and* the base game, the entire school experience turns into a “Recreate your favourite American High School TV Show” simulator. Which honestly could be solved with even the smallest additions or some customisability (e.g. the ability to: add mandatory uniforms, change “prom” to “school dance”, superficially rename “grade” and “high school” to “primary” and “secondary school”, rename the books, opt out of the graduation system for those who only have graduations at university etc) For example- Discover University was based on a British University theme, but even so, it included aspects of American colleges that we don’t have in the UK (like a fixation on Collegiate Sports). The pack has EA sports, Spirit week, a Secret society and a few other American specific experiences- which is great don’t get me wrong, university is a universal opportunity and there should be in-game variety/inclusion- but there was an intentionality in merging those themes into a “European university pack” that we don’t see for other experiences with American packs like High School Years. It comes across as inflexible Ameri-centrism that can alienate a large portion of the game’s audience when; 1. The game markets itself internationally as a way to simulate life experiences- internationally and 2. The designers are able to infuse the American experience when the pack isn’t American-based, (even the most British sport in a British university pack was renamed to its American name “soccer”). I guess my point is from the experience of a non-American player- I could understand if there were 100s of different global school systems, but there’s 1 other major one that applies to the rest of the world (with exceptions). They chose one that applies to maybe 3 countries- that’s fine, but there were no attempts to infuse, include or merge anything outside that experience. So it’s more of a broken America expansion pack, than a broken school pack- if that makes sense.
I was so disappointed when my sims sat down for class and I had no options to take notes, doodle, the text under the desk, sleep ....even if they went in the "all sims must remain seated for the duration of this class" route for an EXPANSION PACK they could have put the hours into some seated in desk animation options that affected gameplay.
Snow Escape I think wasn't as hyped as HSY, and that prob also long term made it less hated but it was pretty messy when it came out. I don't own it actually, but I can see how it seems underwhelming. I think the overall feeling is that there are some okay features, but that it's diluted for an ep
@@SimmerErin that´s the main problem with alot of the add-ons... they all seem half developed with features missing. Snow Escape is a good example. It offers a handful of decent features but so few of them that the world feels wasted... After going for a walk and skiing a couple of times you´re pretty much done with it.
@@RSProduxx a lot of times to me it feels like they add a bunch of features that aren't deeply integrated or sometimes even connected. It feels like they are going for a wider appeal yet not getting deep into developing some potentially good ideas
This was one of only two packs I ever purchased with nifty knitting stuff being the other in December 2022. I combined both packs frequently along with a CC stuff pack so that I would create an emo teenage sim named Serenity Rune. This also involved the use of several mods that would make her high school classmates almost the same every day. As part of her adventures the school was equipped with a buildable rocket ship. Other changes to the school included adding appliances to the cafeteria and making the school have a swimming pool and a motion gaming rig. Serenity’s time in high school ended when she celebrated her birthday at prom. This was done by setting aside a table at prom to accommodate a birthday cake. If both high school years and either luxury party stuff or my wedding stories is installed you get more food choices at prom (without either it’s just roast chicken, which was not one of Serenity’s favorite foods, as vegetable tempura was her favorite). The other packs I have were obtained for free via special promotions (jungle adventure, luxury party stuff, fashion street kit on epic, and backyard, my first pet, romantic garden, desert luxe via ea) or giveaways (home chef hustle and goth galore).
love your vision for how to use it ! I have won a giveaway or two, been gifted, and bought on a good sale but I too tend to not buy full price less I am buying for a friend. My only temptation is wanting to review the packs ha
Great video as always. Would love to see more deep dives on other packs including popular ones. I enjoy highschool years but I realized most of the things I enjoy are because I have mods to add more gameplay and make teens more interesting! This pack had so much potential but I think I was hoping for it to be like the trailer, silly me. I know now not to expect that but at the time I was hyped. I don't mind the rabbit holes for the rides but I wish they'd made the amusement park an active lot because it's usually pretty empty.
thanks! will def, consider it. I think retrospective looks are so interesting, especially to see how perception changes or doesn't. Ah, what mods do you find are most enjoyable?
@@SimmerErin I have a mod that lets me choose which sims show up because I found it frustrating that I was making teens for highschool and then I wouldn't see any of them, and also adeepingo has a bunch of mods specifically more interesting for teen sims like adding more after school activities and cliques and family drama. I also think Chippedsim has a mod to make the active school day more interesting (like students can actually get in trouble for using phones in class) but I haven't checked it out yet.
It's subjective, but I prefer gameplay and since this game is about simulated ppl I wish they put more effort into that. I feel like before the sims were dumb fun, now they are just dumb boring. In past games, their trait or quirck or random emotional reaction could cause chaos. Now you can absolutely ignore it, and if it does a little something it's so effortless to fix. I second that comment about cutting Generation into tiny pieces. I had hoped growing together and high school years, for example, would have made more significative improvement to intergeneration interactions, and impact ! We got new bubbles interactions, yes, what do they do ? Not much really. I don't feel compelled to use them, they don't change anything. TS4 is so much, expensive, fluff to me I have lost hope for improvement. I mostly enjoy it for building now. I really wish they would act on those promised pack refreshes...
I assume by gameplay, you mean live mode. I think I agree with some of what you are saying. The first part is the deeper issues: sims autonomy and how they behave with other sims, and how much traits actually impact them. I will say with some of the systems in growing together, I do think there is more variety and depth in some of the interactions. But some of these things stem back to how the game was originally programmed.
@@SimmerErin Yes sorry, I meant live mode indeed. And exactly, I wish the traits made a bigger difference (and I don't mean bigger bonuses... we have enough of these)
It seems like a lot of expectations ruin how people feel about the game when they actually get it. For instance, I would never have expected that it would include an active Teacher career or an active Principal career. The active school day I did expect, and it turned out almost exactly how I expected it to turn out. (It's very similar to the active work days in the rest of the game, including the amount of "repetitiveness.") So, while others may have been disappointed by the "active" parts of the pack, I wasn't. The only thing I wanted that the pack didn't have was having the teen learn to drive (which would have been fine as a rabbit hole. The way that TS3 did it, the poor Sims often ended up far from home as if they were kicked out of the car partway through the lesson. That was frustrating.) But that's a pretty minor issue. I suspect if they had done it that way, there would have been a big outcry about cars in the game. (As it was, I remember a multitude of complaints because the pack didn't come with cars in any way. I suspect the team wanted to side-step that issue completely.) There are a lot of things that I wish were more fleshed out (such as the cheer and football events) but I suspect that they ran out of money to do more with those. I never attend them. (But they aren't my "thing" anyway. Even if fleshed out more, I wouldn't use them. But other people would be happier.) If anything, the team tried to cover too much and that led to people feeling slighted (even though it was meant to do the opposite.) Overall, I *like* the way I can use High School Years. I like having a prom every week (because it always feels like it's Freshman prom, Sophomore prom, Junior prom, and Senior prom. I didn't get to go to any of my school proms, including Senior prom, so it lets me live vicariously.) I also like the availability of after-school activities, teen side hustles, and the like. I especially like how those integrate into the new Teen Aspirations (which I find to be a lot of fun.) I especially like the way I can integrate it with Growing Together. This pack fits in well with how I like to play. However, from listening to how other people play, they may not enjoy it the way I did.
I certainly agree that expectations play a big role in how one ends up liking a pack, too. I did not expect an active career in addition to an active school day. For me, minus bugs or whatever, the pack fell flat, but in ways I expected? That is, I don't think I ever was convinced an active school day in of itself would be an especially compelling focus
@@SimmerErin As to bugs, the more packs we get, the more problems we'll see. As the game gets more complex, they need more and more testing. Yet they seem to have dialed it back instead. As to active school, it would only appeal to those who probably also like active careers. I like that we can choose to do either (although if you want to achieve certain things in both teen aspirations and career advancement, they need to go to the active school/career.) In my gameplay, I sometimes send them to school alone and sometimes to active school (for their first day, for career day when they're ready for that part of their aspiration, and for Fridays, since otherwise they tend to have a glitch regarding prom where they get the option, but then it goes nowhere. That's a new glitch, by the way. It came with For Rent!)
I was most disappointed with the school clubs. Already expected that there won't be much to do in class but the clubs being just rabbit holes is awful. Like, what do you mean we have this huge building that we can fill up with all kinds of skill building stuff but clubs are outside of school? And why are there only 2 clubs that aren't sports? And even worse: being unable to make your own clubs/club gatherings from get together being disabled. There was a HUGE opportunity for that but no. The school building is basically useless.
I accidentally played my teen today and it was disappointing to get a NOTIFICATION about someone having a sign stuck to their back, but no animations to that effect during the class. I feel like there were a LOT of lost opportunities in the pack and of course, messing with the lifespans at that point was ...... unfortunate at best.
I thought the active school day thing was a bad idea from the start, even though that's what people asked for. 1. The school day itself could have been a rabbit hole with a lot of options that affected your sims relationships and popularity. Then, more of a focus could be put on activities and relationships. 2. There should have different types of rabbit hole schools that could be placed in any world (all girl's school, private school, technical school), and that could tie into the colleges if you have that pack. 3. They should have brought back the boarding school and headmaster 4. Better integration with the club system that already exists (c'mon man 🙄🤦🏽♀️) 5. Integrating an active educator career would have been great! 6. The pier was cute, but they should have included some games with prizes and the ability to travel there directly. So so many missed opportunities.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again! The biggest problem is that the worlds are empty. Including the high school itself. It just doesn’t feel like a high school because it’s simply not “big and busy” enough. “The halls are alive” … uummm … no they’re not!!
Oh and random townies like wth! Imagine having new friends at school every day! That’s so tragic! This pack had no place for random townies! It’s the same problem with “Discover University”. Randoms are killing the game!
Fun fact when I first got it, I never got a pop-up for going to school. It was only after I completely re-downloaded the game and all my packs that it happened.
i also think one issue with the poll thing is it doesn’t show who actually bought each pack. for all we know maybe hardly anyone bought snowy escape and that’s why it was so low. or some people may be voting based off content they’ve seen and not first hand gameplay
@@SimmerErin oh ya for sure, you can know a pack is bad without buying (my wedding stories… yikes!) i just wonder how many people actually did experience all the issue. you find some people who play the game and never experience bugs, while a large majority might experience some or a lot of bugs, so it’s kinda hard without the specifics but overall ya gives a good idea
I enjoyed the pack a lot, but it's honestly lazily put together with not enough thought. We did get a LOT of cool stuff (the high school, crushes, detention, prom, auditorium, and so on) but we also got a lot of flopping stuff (The football team doesn't have actual unforms like American football for one thing, Friday night football club or whatever it's called is the biggest joke, the school is sparse of students, and must I mention that the 'sitting anywhere' feature has ruined weddings forever?). I can live with rabbit holes, but the game just over promised if not outright lied to us in some instances. (I can't think of any lies right now, I'm not in a good headspace atm, but there had to be some.) If they ever refresh it, it would help if they fixed at least some of the above, plus: *Not putting sims in detention just because they had to pee/bargain with or explain to principle option, similar to plead with death. *Actual art class. Could not be that hard since we have all the stuff needed. *Bring back cut scenes, if just for the ferris wheel so people will have their comeuppance (because they complained so much that we couldn't see inside it). It would be a nice compromise between full animation and what we currently have. *Utilize some of the animations and things from university. Not sure what exactly, but it would have made sense to recycle what we already had since the themes are similar. Edit: Some of what we could or should have gotten with this pack that would have made it feel more well rounded and full: *Driving lessons from sims 3 back, along with actual cars. (Stop being lazy, EA.) *actual grades that equate 9-12 and are EU friendly as well since they measure differently than US does. Without that, it makes it feel like it lasts forever. (Maybe call them levels or something instead of grades/forms?) *More structure in general *Related Careers, like people in the video said. *Making Career day A LOT bigger than it is. 3 tables is measly. 6 would have been better at least. And forget the "must complete" thing and no timer there. Too stressful. They really should have tied it to 'Get To Work' as an addition, then just had what they have now as generic, and a fourth random one that changes every so often. *I think TS3 had a science fair? Bringing that back for sure. *Obviously, more schools in other neighborhoods, don't just limit us to Copperdale if you give us the ability to make schools. (I'm throwing one in to Oasis Springs because I never play there, just for pretends sake.) *Guide us through what a rival really is, because I messed it up big time on multiple occasions. *Home Ec class and shop class at least, just sayin'. *More ways to get detention, omg. *A School fair for funds would have been fun. Dunk tank, anyone? *Extremely wishful thinking, but this would have been the time to give us a teen height slider. If we can't have it across age groups, this would have at least made sense.
Some cool ideas. I'm indifferent to cut scenes, but it's an interesting topic for sure. I think a reason classes felt so dull too is there is no real distinctions that could make them more meaningful
tihihihihi "active" classes. my biggest problem is the thrift store/flopsy/entrepreneurial skill stuff, which actually works fine and is fun, but it has f... I mean woohoo-all to do with school; while anything to do with school, sports/cheerleading/chess club/classes/prom, isn't engaging and only connected to your sims' personality by a thread and even that ends up severed once they age up. it's all not terrible ideas on their own, but there is no connective tissue.
I see, so mostly you just feel it would have been better suited in another pack? I see an argument for why it was there, but I am more inclined to feel that way too. I think instead they could have directed more resources towards the actual experience (school, clubs and so forth
I feel like there needs to be a generations specific pack instead of breaking it up into 10 different ones. I’ve been mainly playing Sims 3 just because the packs are better executed compared to sims 4’s. IMO, sims 4 is a more creative game while sims 3 is more gameplay focused.
I was so hyped for HSY then so disappointed with it but as time went on I ended up really liking it. The CAS and build/buy is A+ and I'm a sucker for new foods so really liked the boba tea shop. Thrifting is kind of fun (and a good money maker) AND you can store an outfit in your inventory and change without going through a loading screen. I like football and cheerleading (but don't like how we have to cheer alone) and I love the amusement park, prom and photo booth. Plus your teens easily meet people at school. Cons: the school - too big and ugly, the classes- boring, lack of grades etc and hard to play everyday with a family, and social bunny was unnecessary.But overall it does make my teens feel like teens just because they see other teens so much and have their own things going on even if it's just "football", chess, cheerleading and computers. Before they had next to nothing
I wish the thrifting 'job' made sense, is all. In theory, very cool - but just set an outfit for for the max amount of simoleons in the game...and someone will buy it eventually. It's...just not realistic.
that's fair, and that's honestly what really interests me: how perceptions of packs may change over time. I think maybe sometimes too players can go in with certain expectations and end up liking or disliking features they did not anticipate
High school years was fun for awhile but as a storyline player, high school years eventually got boring after time especially with Prom being every Saturday got boring after time. I didn't want my teen sims going to prom all time, I planned Slumber parties on some Saturdays and the teens that my sims were dating got mad because of "No Prom invite" I had my teen couples skipped out on Prom at times but like I said prom Every Saturday got boring.
I don't like HSY other than for the furniture because i don't find the school day very interesting (in the classroom) and I do not like having Prom every week which is very unrealistic. Wouldve been nice to be able to have an active career at the highschool too. For Rent was released buggy (and still is) but to me doesn't have the lackluster effect that HSY does. I like horse ranch i have no problems with this pack. I bought snowy escape months after release so I genuinely don't know why people don't like it.
Snowy Escape could be cool to discuss. I'd say that the reception actually softened over time; it did launch with some substantial bugs, albeit not to the level of some other packs. There was some controversy over some aspects of cultural depiction, and the discourse actually that many eps get: that some argued it felt like/ should have been a game pack
The high schools never worked for me. (Could be mod-caused, but I am veeery diligent about my mods) My teens just never go to class.🤷♀ And the school is SO empty!
I don't really want to buy HSY because of how isolated it feels like. Even if in my way of playing, there are not really different worlds apart, I hate that there is one high school for everyone? Like for example you ask someone about their career, and then you go in their profile, they sometimes just have "gratuated from Copperdale High School" and it's breaking immersion a lot for me. But as usual with other EPs: it's pretty. The BB and CAS items are really cool and I wish I had them in game but I don't want the gameplay coming with it. Maybe the theme park though, but it's just a fixed rabbithole, not even a lot you can create yourself. :(
I’m prefacing this by saying that I took a break from Sims 4 before HSY even came out (I think even before Wedding Stories?), and only started poking my head back in recently with major sales. So in my head, HSY feels like it’s just a part of Growing Together and Parenthood at the very least. But I also slap the mod Education Overhaul on top because I was an avid mod user before I stopped playing and I know what I want. But I think it says a lot that I felt compelled to buy HSY alongside those other two packs at least and not by itself, even as a returning player. :/
The fact that the cheer competition isn’t really a competition because your team is the only one that shows up, no one else arrives and everything is just empty is so annoying. Social bunny sucks so badly, why are my adults talking about pillow fights and prom? It could’ve been fun if it was more like a social media website like Twitter and not just based around teens. Social bunny is specifically for teens it seems and I think they just didn’t bother to expand it for adults
So I just spent a huge amount of time screaming at my sims to go to freaking class. Half the time the main feature of going to school with them is broken. It's so frustrating. Expansion packs are the game packs of Sims 3. There is not enough content for the price. I refuse to buy anything full price anymore.
I've never had that issue- wondering if a mod could be interfering? This is a thread on the issue:answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports/OPEN-HSY-Teens-don-t-attend-class-White-Board-shows-Career/td-p/11687360/page/2
I'm not okay with rabbit holes in the sims 4. Devs got rid of open world but claimed there would be no rabbit holes but active experiences. Now look what we've got.
I've got some thoughts... LOL First of all, as far as its reviews/rating, I'm very curious what kind of simmers are reviewing it. We all have different play styles and what we each individually get from the packs is different. There are packs I own where the actual game play didn't interesting me but the CAS/Build Buy did. Depending on how you play the Sims would change my answers on what packs I suggest to a friend? Are you mostly a builder? Then I suggest X. and so on and so forth. As far as HS..is functions like trash. My first time trying a graduation ceremony...hoo boy. First of all it was a severe thunderstorm. My Sims mom had a fear of the dark that kept coming back so she was freaking out. I finally manage to get her composed and then EVERYONE IN THE AUDITORIUM WAS HAVING MASS PANIC AND HYSTERIA. They kept cowering in masse reacting to the damn storm. This went on for in game hours until the ceremony was over. HS is a lot of half baked ideas and hype (like most xpacs). They tried to put so much in it but it was mostly shallow. I like to describe The Sims 4 experiance as a hollow chocolate bunny. You want one, you buy it, you bite inside, its empty. Yeah, you got some chocolate, but it was not a satisfying experiance. I feel like we're in this toxic cycle of... EA's greed puts pressure on devs to push out content and keep us interested in buying it. So we get cool half baked concepts that never have the time to be fully fleshed out so its on to the next one. We want more fullfilling gameplay, so like our toxic ex we keep taking them back and buying the next thing, being disappointed and wanting something shiny and new. The devs have pressure from us to fullfill our wants and pressure from EA to churn stuff out fast. What would change this? If people stopped buying everything they put out, but we're never collectively going to be on the same page with that. We're in the absolute worst timeline to be consumers, quality is down, prices are up, and no one stops the madness. EA has the benefit of not really having competition. People are trying, but most of the competition fails cause it does not offer as much as Sims does.
answer is simple: lack of features, bug gameplay and just look at the school its huge but empty it would've work if this would be a game pack not expansion
which brings us back to the ongoing debate, which I honestly find interesting: what makes a game pack a game pack, and an expansion an expansion? (I think, EA classifies it by budget but have often argued there's a mismatch in execution for the community and what one feels an expansion should be) and it also raises: is it better to have a game with eps and gps? Or do gps muddy the waters
@@SimmerErin I think that's a good point I never was thinking about what determines which one should be eps and gps, I am always just thinking about the price tag
Maybe it's me, but generally the interactive things in the sims 4 annoy me, if I can I always select the choice of not following them... the interactive careers proceed anyway, whether you follow them at work or not... and it's just one of the examples, idem school, proceeds equally whether you follow a teenager to school or not, and often proceeds better if you don't follow them to school.
you can pick early or later graduation; your teen has to age up to a YA but getting it to work can be annoying sometimes. there are workarounds: answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports/NEEDS-SAVES-HSY-Graduation-Not-Showing-on-Calendar/m-p/11695783
I feel like the simstein just needs to do better at getting more in depth Feedback about what they want from the game. Because genuinely don't know why they thought people would want a lackluster active school day over more flesh out and varied school experiences and after school activities. I personally like to play with a lot of sims at once so I would prefer rabbit holes with actual impacts and consequences over having every aspect of gameplay be active. While I know that EA is a greedy company I'm oftentimes frustrated with The Sims team for not working with the limitations of the game and systems that we already know exist to make the game more fun
Honestly, I'm going to defend this pack, kind of. The bugs were annoying, sure, but with the right mods, I found high school to be wildly dramatic (one of my Sims' childhood friends came out as trans at the cheer meet, I have beautiful screenshots of a promise ring exchange in the middle of Prom, there was a fight in the hall that stopped the whole class and disrupted the day, for starters). Without the mods, I bought it explicitly with the intention of getting my Sims to graduate early so they can get a head start on University, and in that regard, I think it does a bangup job aside from the whole teens can't do university clubs issue. I also find that my teens don't typically spend a lot of time in high school unless they're really struggling, so it never really gets to feeling repetitive. I do agree they could have done a lot better, but this pack did surpass my expectations and makes the transition to young adulthood so much smoother, whether my teen is saving up for a house, getting a head start on university, or taking a gap year in Salvadorada. Amazing video as always, Erin! I AM kind of shocked the critics rated it as high as they did, even if I have a lot of fun with it.
This is a review of the pack without mods, and without mods...it's a hollow shell of a pack. There's no personality, you can't do anything in class, and the only daily tasks are to be nice ot students, and be nice to faculty. I'd love to have half the drama you seem to have had in your gameplay though, lmao! I use a lot of mods, but I don't think any of my teen mods cause this kind of drama! I even have Lumpinou's LGBTQIA+ mod, but I've never had someone just...declare they're trans openly without me sort of making sims do it myself, micromanaging them. What a neat addition to things though, with the mods you have. Just a shame it takes mods to make this pack feel alive!
@@christabelle__ I'll agree there! It shouldn't take mods to get some level of fun chaos! Also, I use Lumpinou's LGBTQIA+ mod too! My heir for the legacy I was playing with was talking to their best friend about thinking they are agender and I got the prompt of "I'm part of the LGBT community too!", which naturally made my Sim ask, and there it was! Maybe play around in the settings a little bit to make sure it's on for NPCs and make sure you're close to the Sim you're talking to?
Thanks so much, and thanks for giving your full opinions. I honestly find it so interesting how different perceptions are for most packs- and I think it also shows how much perspective and experiences are going to differ. I do think it's a shame always if a pack feels best with mods (though of course shout out to the amazing creators)
for my two cents... social bunny could have never happened and it would have the same impact in the game pack with or without it. social bunny is just glorified cheat for relationship gain. and boba could have never been put in the pack, and it would have had same impact with or without it. its weird because, in sims 3 the little things that they put into the packs, made them unique and you just didnt want to go without having those special and awesome things. in the sims 4, its mostly meaningless (or recycled mechanics repackaged as a new things, but its not) it doesnt add to gameplay, excitement or enjoyment in the sims 4. and honestly often it adds to the annoyance factor, for me!! bloating the game out with pointless stuff makes the game so hollow and uninspiring.. you play a little while and dont want to come back. the sims 3 is so much more enjoyable rewarding and addicting, so much more win for it you know. weirdly imo the best contribution highschool years made to sims 4 was its great variety to build buy++ and CAS. added nice variation and there. and i do appreciate new sports added with the cheerleading... but BOY the loud announcements of cheer and football are terrible! 😂😂😂 especially when you dont have any teens in the household! 🙄
On Amazon don’t you rate wether you got the package and if it was good quality? I don’t typically hold the business selling the game key at fault for the game being crap, it isn’t their fault.
High School Years is probably one of my favorite packs I get the most use out of it. With that said I don't think the focus was there to make it amazing instead of fleshing out classrooms adding more game play for football adding in drama they put their attention to the trendi app and a boring rabbit hole carnival. They did this with Get to Work as well instead of fleshing out retail and doing it right it became shallow and useless with the focus split between retail and the 3 active careers both suffered for it. Not being able to create high schools in any world either was a huge let down they built in so many limitations. I will always stand with they made a huge mistake not making worlds expandable high school lots should have been added to every non vacation world the same with hospitals and police stations expansions should expand not create limited mini games stuck to a specific world.
I too would have personally scrapped the theme park, trendi and so forth. I get WHY they added it: probably for a broader appeal. But I do think it weakens the pack as a whole and the chance for more depth
I think asking people to choose the worst is different than asking users to rate the pack, because if people are generally satisfied but still have preferences, it will look worse than it is.
the poll is very flawed, and there is likely a sample bias- but community tab only allows for basic polls. If I can ever afford it, I'd like to get a premium version of survey monkey. you can do surveys for free, but the sample size limit is like 50 people ha
I hate high school years because it doesn’t WORK. The students never go to class, for some reason the school day never ends on time. They REFUSE to do exams, AND THEY NEVER SIT ON CHAIRS. They’re always sitting on the FLOOR 😭 despise that pack
admittedly have never had any issue with students going to class or doing basic things. Have you experienced this since you bought it? Do you have any mods?
@@SimmerErin Yeah I’ve only (tried) to use the high school feature sparingly because out of all my EP (I have every ep except horse ranch) it is the absolute glitchiest 😭 not even my for rent is as glitchy as high school years for me. I do have mods but because the crystal creations broke every mod in existence I deleted my mod folder and started all the way over so everything should be updated as I also do periodic checks on the major gameplay mods to make sure they’re still up to date. The only reason I don’t completely regret buying it is because the cas and build mode items are some of my favorites
i know so many people are bothered by prom every week, but functionally it makes sense. they did it that way to ensure whatever life span you play on your teen sim gets a chance to go. you dont have to go every week.
I think High School Years is OK. A bit boring, but at least it is functional, and have for me been since launch. You can get your teenager through an education without too much trouble and have a end-of-semester ball (rather than an American prom). I find Trendi and Social Bunny annoying, but I'm in my 50s and clearly not the target audience. The CAS and BB are OK, and offer styles we don't have too much of otherwise. Together with Growing Together, it makes for a decent experience.
"Highschool Years" was good pack for me, one of the best actually. Very very nice world with a good atmosphere and mix of lot placement. Some of the best items - practically irreplaceable for me at this point. Your community mostly excludes people who focus more on building and CAS (of which in reality I think are more than gameplay only people), so it's no surprise there's a big discrepancy. As a couple side notes: 1. If you rebuild the high school to be smaller and have the interesting areas closer, gameplay gets slightly better; not to mention it feels better when the high school looks good unlike the bland thing we got... 2. I noticed that if you don't configure mccc well, high school pack bugs out in a lot of places; sims not going to school, teachers not coming, stuff like that. A lot of people download it because they hear it's mandatory for good gameplay, but end up having no clue what it's for and how to set it up. 3. I think you're taking the social bunny app too seriously. I don't do just build, I also play, and I use it from time to time and I find it somewhat funny. Of course it would be repetitive - the only way such a small feature wouldn't was if it used AI to constantly generate new messages, but that's not gonna happen is Sims 4.
I certainly don't mean to exclude builders. Ido focus more on gameplay, because it is was I know most about and am most passionate about. As I stated at the beginning, I discussed a sample bias, which is something I feel many fail to do. But there's also not a lot I can do about that sample bias. I always welcome all types of players here, but by nature of my focus, I am more likely to attract more live mode players.
For a billion dollar company, they could have done more with social bunny that isn't basically 3-4 rotating messages about pillow fights, and the same jokes over and over. She also isn't reviewing the game with mods like MCCC, she's reviewing the pack baseline - and baseline, this pack is hollow. The CAS/BB are excellent! But the gameplay is very shallow - your sims sit in class and do nothing. In TS3 Uni, I could participate in class, or give a presentation. But in high school in TS4 I can't...do anything? How about talking to friends in class, passing notes, taking notes, throw a paper airplane, give a presentation, take selfies, cheat on homework or tests, etc - high school kids get up to a lot in class that isn't sitting still and writing notes. This pack also has no crossplay with Parenthood, and your teen years are when you need the most parenting and guidance! I like what this pack could have been - but when the only tasks during a school day are 'be nice to a student' and 'be nice to faculty' and 'study for exam'...what's the point? Stare at them sitting still in class, then go use one friendly social after class, then watch them sit still in class again? Why not just send them to a rabbithole, then, and just 3x speed m yday and not waste that time staring at them, unable to do anything in class, and unable to even make like...a high school club to participate in. Why can't I have a chess club meet at school, without mods? Why can't the cheer team meet after school? Why can't I have the computer club meet up? Wh yhave anything in a school except a cafeteria and the two classrooms? You need nothing else because you can't DO anything else. I just wanted better for this pack, and it fell short of...anything, really. The 'active' school day is more boring than just sending them to a rabbithole for school. At least then I got pop ups for fun things happening at school sometimes!
Yes, High School Years does have flaws, but I still think it's a great pack. One thing you didn't mention is this recent, terrible glitch, that's preventing graduation day from happening!😨
Sadly not recent! they've had that issue on and off, and I'm not sure why. I think I said something vague about graduation issues, but not specifically what (a very casual video ha) . I def don't feel it's the worst pack, by any means- I think it's fairly subjective and depends somewhat on what one really expected or wanted
If going to school would be in a open world, it would be awesome. But it’s just not interesting enough to only be on the the school lot 5 days a week to manage the school life of your sims. Actually, open world would make this game awesome and tie every feature together so well. It would be worlds better than sims 3.
@@SimmerErin because it had so many new things, especially going to school, I feel it was soo much fun. Soo many new things for teens. Very huge pack. Horse ranch had nothing interesting, and for rent doesnt have any gameplay. Another great pack is eco lifestyle, sooo much to do, so much gameplay.
there are a few comments on my community tab that may illustrate it. Most I have seen regard it not feeling like an expansion pack/ should be a gamepack and the gameplay feeling lackluster, both of which are subjective
i would love to see you do a retrospective on cottage living because i feel like that pack got a LOT of positive attention (even to this day) and i just feel like theres something im not getting about all of that hype lol.
It was a good pack, added a lot of new things (taht were very in depth), had excellent CAS and BB, added new animals, a new way to live - by only living off the land...it completely changed the game AND had one of the bigger worlds! Plus very few bugs! But...if you don't like farming or living off the land, or cottagecore or the British countryside, it may not have hit your sweet spot. Not every pack is for every person!
that's the one I was first thinking to do, and it won my poll on twitter for most recently well received packs. I also find that one highly interesting... because it feels like a lot of the discourse about it not feeling like an ep quieted down. I don't dislike the pack and think a lot good was done, but I also was not and wowed by it
I think the lack of integration is the BIGGEST issue with every pack. Everything is so disjointed and disconnected and surface level. It's just a shame...
I may discuss it some, but there were a fair few comments on my community tab (I left the poll up). I think the most common are that it didn't feel like a true expansion, the gameplay felt not flesh out/ lackluster, and others took issues with some of the bugs
@@SimmerErin The bugs, the live mode and the overall instability that I always see when anyone is doing anything that use some game play related to that pack.
An additional thought and issue I have is that students that show up to high school changes.. and if you're a rotational player, your sims friends, cousins and other family members won't "go to school", I find that so annoying, not seeing them there.
One of the problems is the game pulls from certain traits like if you don't have a teen with the mean trait the game will spawn one or if you don't have a Sim in one of the high school clubs it will spawn one. I have a 40 student mod and do 2 classrooms of 20 I was still getting the random spawn till I figured out what traits are required had to make a mean teen delete the random spawn and attend high school with my new Sim.
This. I had a bullying plotline set up, but it had to be in my head/offscreen, because the bully sims didn't show up to school the same day as my main family. But I worked it out in college. Younger twin rooms with the bad girl and the older twin dipped out of Uni to school at home because she simply wasn't going to stand for sharing a dorm with her mortal enemy. Also, they come from a family of 10 other siblings, 23 grandkids and 12 great-grandkids, so sure as shooting I was upset that high schoolers don't consistently have their friends and cousins at school with them!! ((grumpy face))
@@lance9249 There’s a few classroom culling mods, some with similiar names. There’s one where you can select every student and faculty member. Only one that works for me to ensure the sims I want are showing up at school with my sims.
My biggest disappointment was the absence of an active Teacher career which after the announcement I was really hyped about it, fantasized about situations and stories I could play out with my Sims and then was let down by the Simsteam again after they said there wouldn't be one. ugh. I do like the some of expansions overall ideas and features, relative to other Sims4 expacs, but I still cant get myself to buy it because of the missing Teacher career.
yes, I know many were hoping for that. I think the challenge would be: what would the teaching active career involve, and how to keep it dynamic and interesting.
I think the biggest problem with TS4 packs is, that they are too linear. There is only one way of playing with them. For instance HSY should have introduced a simple school mechanic. Meaning you have classes that can be edited for various purposes. The player can decide on the subjects and the schools can be designed accordingly. I would have preferred a custom curriculum; a way to pick your classmates. Similar to the club system. To just have the ability to choose your subjects, whether it’s Potions class for spellcasters or Music class for the aspiring violinist, would have been great. Introducing a school lot trait would have made the pack universally usable. Then we could have created our own schools in every neighborhood. Vampire school? Done. A learning institute for your historical gameplay? Here you go. As it is you can only attend U.S. High School. It‘s incredibly restrictive and immersion breaking. No freedom to create your own stories. To be fair, I quit the Sims long before HSY and never played with it. Apart from that, I‘m not the target demographic for the game anymore. But I do feel that the restrictiveness and lack of pack integration is prevalent in most TS4 expansions. They never quite fit my playstyle, rendering them useless for storytelling purposes. Thank you, Erin! I enjoyed the video 🤓
Many reviews from critics are forgiving of bugs. They give the benefit of a doubt for the conditions of the review version they receive with the hope that patches will solve the issues. Players are far less forgiving. I saw this a lot with My Wedding Stories reviews, and after that I stopped reading media reviews for Sims games.
the sad things are, I think their is those critics. that you could give worms and if the Critic like the developing company. It´s going to get a great score. If you don´t know what game ask your parents or maybe grandparents. Depending on how old you are.
Yeah it’d be easier to forgive if this wasn’t a consistent pattern with multiple packs and it can take them years to patch and fix major issues. Also it’s really disappointing when you spend your money on a broken hardly playable piece of crâp. I think high school years was the last pack bc I was tired of spending my money on disappointment and broken promises.
A notable difference between critics and reviewers would The Sims 2's console port. The game had above average reviews which was lower than the original Windows version but players who actually played the game gave more harsher reviews which was mostly because the game didn't include children that The Sims included and it not being like the original Windows version. Most people who gave negative reviews mostly played either the PC version or played the previous games who didn't like the game lacked children or was not like the original game they were expecting. Those who didn't hate the game likely never played the PC/Mac games especially those who grew up with the console games or were introduced to The Sims through the console games.
I really wish that for high school years we had the option to attend prom as a rabbit hole. The first few times it’s nice to go with them, but after a while it gets annoying that this is the only way for your sims to go. Especially when you’re playing with a large household and have other sims to focus on. I don’t want my sims to miss out on prom, but I also don’t want to be forced to go with them every time.
The only time I usually send my sims alone to high school is for final exams on Friday. This is because sims sometimes stop what they are doing for final exams.
@@marcosmith4764you’ll get a bad moodlet. if you’re sim is dating someone and they don’t go to prom there sentiment will change and their partner will be resentful for no prom invite
The last good expansion pack was honestly Cottage Living… -Never before seen animals (you can actually pet and care for) in the Sims franchise (Llamas) -Lore -Return of Agnes Crumple Bottom -More lots than average expansions -Blends in very well with most of the packs you own -Quests -They tried to make the world interactive (window shopping, festivals, the stalls) -canning and stichting AND overhaul of the cooking system -Marketing. (Flyers sent to simmers) -The launch wasn’t super glitchy at all, which can’t be said for the latest packs released as of lately -probably much more!
I do plan on talking about cottage living as an opposite of this, reception wise. I'm very interested in how the perception of that pack changed some, too
Social bunny is still so questionable especially the flirty interactions. It’s showing up on PARENTS but not love interests like?? Hello? And then the cafeteria staff will sometimes decide that they hate their job and do something else making it impossible to eat And also before I got the more classmates mod, I kinda forced the game to only have teens from played households by assigning unplayed sims into extreme violence mod gangs and just waited for them to take each other out one by one 😂
yeah... social bunny is so messy I don't see a point of even bothering with it honestly although your second paragraph ha- 😆maybe they've just had it with students
Because I am a rotational player with a pretty large family tree in my active legacy, I play with HSY a lot and find myself regularly using the build / buy and CAS items. Yeah there are some bugs and I'll sometimes just cheat my way through the aspiration milestones, but it is so useful for storytelling. it would be great if the career day actually mattered. it just feels like a waste of time to me. I do find the activity day notifications to be annoying though, like for Football day and Cheer day. The Social Bunny app I primarily use to slowly build or cause drama passively. I've had sims become friends as well as enemies by just being social bunny friends and leaving it alone. it just doesn't function the way it should when I try using it. I don't mind the theme park, but I really wish that the ferris wheel wasn't a rabbit hole and that it was open so we could see the different sims riding it, but I still enjoy the space.
Rotational Family player as well. I actually don’t hate the pier rides overall. Sending the sims on rabbit hole rides are okay with me. Especially if I bring a large friend group or the whole family. I made Totter park a little more toddler/infant friendly. Overall, h.s. Years is a mixed bag for me. i do not hate it and took ages to even get it, but I really wish teen activities were more beefed out and interactive. I don’t need to play a football game, but certainly football practice wouldn’t have been too hard. I think the sports/cheer days are more fun than career day. Prom is fun a few times, then gets annoying. I had a teen who aged up the day before prom and the game ‘is Ellis going to prom?’ And I am like ‘he hasn’t even been to h.s. Yet!!!’
YESSS the career day was a huge missed opportunity! I just feel like that concept had a lot of potential as for social bunny... also a cool idea but not only buggy but also feels very randomized and nonsensical
I just feel like every school day is the same. There's no variation no matter which teen I'm playing as - you can't participate in classes, so you just...stare at your sim doing nothing but a few repeat idles for a sim hour or so. All the daily tasks are always the same - 'be friendly to [person]' and 'study for exam]...at a certain point, that's really tiresome? I just wonder what draws others back to doing the same 3 tasks and sitting through school days where you do nothing in class, and have time for nothing else between classes...not even time to eat at lunch.
@@christabelle__ Yeah it's really great for finding teens for your sim to be friends with, I usually skip lunch, grab an apple from my locker, and go around meeting people to find a good connection to carry into young adulthood. HS Sweethearts and regular friends. The activities do definitely get repetitive, but I like that each activity doesn't have to be done long to be completed, like Study or using the exercise equipment. It would be nice to not have to spend your first morning playing your teen sim at the high school with the principal.. we don't need the run down with every new teen in one save. I do wish that there was more after school time, and like others have mentioned in other places, that the after school activity did something. I WANT to follow my sim to Chess Club. I WANT to see my sim in football gear tossing a ball back and forth with their teammates. But nah 😂 Edit to add: I know I could make a lot a Teen Hangout to meet teens but I usually forget to do that and fewer of them show. HS is just an easier place to meet appropriate aged sims for my teen sims to be friendly with. Or rude to 😈
An interesting angle… these 2 packs that people were most unhappy with in your poll (For Rent and High School Years) are the ones that, to me at least, feel like they assumed a “standard” way of playing and didn’t allow for any variation. Both work best when you’re only playing 1 Sim, not a large family and definitely not rotationally. And HSY is also made for a normal lifespan - I’ve heard so many complaints from people who play long lifespan or aging off. And yet, according to a recent AHQ poll, most people play with aging off or long lifespan! Whereas Snowy Escape may have disappointed some (I personally love it) but at least playing in a non “standard” way doesn’t actively make it worse. Same with Horse Ranch.
Something no one talks about is that the game will create a pool of teens for high school and WON'T AGE THEM UP unless your sim attends graduation. The problem with this is if you never send your sims to graduation 1. You'll have the same high school classes for 10 generations 2. Graduation is glitched and it's almost impossible to go The teens not aging up is by design so that they don't randomly age in class but it practice it's so immersion breaking
I do agree, and that's a shame. in a weird way it reminds me of other things in sims 4, like how if you see a sim shopping, it won't really be in their inventory- a smaller thing, but often the sense the world doesn't really exist outside of your control
I think the lack of virtriol for snowy escape is due to how long ago it came out, at the time it seemed like one of the worse but compared to how bad things are now it isn’t. Also it did bring a lot of diversity and gameplay/new activities so those tend to be received better imo overall.
It was just so empty, but I was most disappointed that other teens in the neighborhood didn't attend the school even after the NPC students were removed. I created several families and had all of the teens in a friend group. I was hopeful that since they lived in town I might have seen them in the school while playing my main sim, but the game just continues to send the removed NPC or newly generated NPCs. No teacher career was disappointing too. The trailer was complete false advertising in my opinion. I didn't play the sims for over a year after this pack released.
I doubt it flopped from a financial aspect for EA (has any pack done that?) but for simmers it definitely seems to be a big miss for the most part. Even putting the numerous bugs aside, it didn't really offer anything beyond the most basic kid goes to school. It has the same issue many other packs have, it fails to live up to it's potential. The world is nice for building but that's not enough. I don't follow the bigger sites like IGN and others, as you can't trust their reviews because they'll want to keep a positive relationship with the publishers. Whether there's truth there or not, it casts enough suspicion for me to stay away. I'd sooner go to smaller channels with nothing to lose.
There are indications that a Pack or two has not met their expectations- which I plan to discuss soon!- but as far as operate at a loss? probably not? It's hard for me to know sadly for certain as they don't tend to release specific metrics. I'm not sure.. is there a direct financial incentive? because on that metric, they'd have to provide a positive rating for all major publisher games, and I do not think they do, so I don't personally think this is the case
@@SimmerErin Not a direct financial incentive but it could keep them in good favour with EA so they keep getting exclusives. It wouldn't need to be all major pubs, or games, just some. IGN in particular are very well known for giving many games a 7 out of 10, which is a good rating. There's no concrete proof of course but there is evidence to suggest it.
IGN reviews unfortunately don't seem that useful anymore. I think the incentives are more psychological (and manipulative) than any sort of direct reward
My biggest issues with this pack are: 1) the inability to choose your classmates. 2) the calendar repeating events weekly. Prom shouldn’t happen every Friday. Those could’ve been different types of events. 3) not being able to build a high school in any world. 4) lack of pop ups and interactions during the day. 5) the routing inside the school is terrible.
I wonder if 1 has some kind of core limitation of the base game. As for prom starting every Friday, I do feel you should be able top select. Routing where or around what in specific, or generally everything you feel?
While I was disappointed with the pack when I first played it I have since found ways to use it that actually add to my gameplay - 1. Making the school smaller 2. Combining both class teachers into one classroom makes the classrooms feel livelier. 3. And probably the best thing was discovering I could use the club system to make groups of 'unplayed' teens that my played sim can 'invite club to hang out' brings the whole place to life. These unplayed sims will sit in the classrooms, use the cafeteria, practice cheer and use the gym and computer room and generally add to the school vibe and let my playable sims meet more teens than they normally would. I've also found I can skip classes to skill build, very rarely do my sims get caught - I have them paint in the art room, build skills in the media room etc. I also use the clubs in the same way to get more teens turn up to prom. Probably the biggest complaint is that the prom is so scripted... oh, and the fact that the cheer and football comps still don't work 😢 Sorry for the long comment but I thought this might help other simmers to enjoy it more ❤
Yes, the clubs and organizations are the true hack to the Sims 4, just as you use them to make the school more alive I create a family tree club for all my families and make the activities typical everyday common things, like watching tv, playing long video, talking etc… it will bring the household to life as well. Another cute way is my lawyer sim, once they reach a certain level can work from home and it gives you law career options on the computer. Well I have my sim work from home but I go to the office building (law firm) I created and just have her do the work and task in her office while inviting my law friends to the lot and it gives the illusion of an active office building and such, you can make the task to computer work, research etc. You have to know how to bring The Sims 4 to life.
@@marcosmith4764 Thank youI I love these ideas. You are right, it does take a bit of trial and error and imagination to really enjoy this game and hearing how other simmers use features is really helpful too💞
All great ideas, thanks for sharing that! I do think you get the most bang for your money by playing in conjunction with other packs. And you never need to apologize for taking time to write a thoughtful comment! that's what makes having a channel fun-
I had hopes for HSY but it really let me down. The school is nearly empty, the field outside is useless, no teacher career, lack of activities etc. I know we had a few but what about baseball basketball clubs? Or my Britishness hockey cricket. It’s a shame really so much potential and we got screwed
empty as in sims/ lot? Afraid that's a limitation in general, as only so many sims can spawn per lot- and it def does feel empty because it's a lot of space. As for teaching career: do you mean you wanted an active career? And what activities would you have liked? thanks!
High School Years suffers from "You got what you asked for, you didn't know what you were asking for thats why you hate it" syndrome. And Maxis is partly to blame for this. They put out survey's asking players what we want, corporate looks at these survey's dictates what will sell to the devs & then says "Make it." the devs can say "No, they mean this" but the corporate money daddy can argue back "Survey says no, make it." And thats where it all falls apart. I for one love & hate High School years. CAS, Build & World are all 8-10. Solid content! Actual school is a 2, I hate active nonsense & never play with families so it's meaningless to me. But what makes this entire pack a 4 overall for me despite my love of the CAS, Build & World, which should really add up to more than 70% of my rating? 1. I cannot disable Cheer, Football & Prom, despite the calendar now being Base Game. As I said, I don't play with fams. So why is my elder spellcaster getting weekly updates to go to events she can't take part in if my household has no teens? That's a fail. Complete. Fail. 2. Active classes were never going to work. They were aweful in Sims 3. Shoe horning that bad idea into High School years was players demanding "I want this!!!" but forgetting just how horrible that was in previous games. This same thing happened with Laundry Day. Lindsey Pearson said Maxis vowed to never make Laundry for Sims 4 in an interview but the players demanded the pack in a community vote so they team was forced to make Laundry. They did not want to make it. They knew it would not work well. The developers were aware of the teams limitations and the pack would have issue, many many issues but they were forced to cave in to community demands. So they made the pack. It has many many issues & players complain about it constantly. They complain because they got exactly what they asked for, a fire simulator that only some times works. Active classes are the same problem. Players demanded to go to school, but school is incredibly boring & was torture to live through, so playing it in a sim is going to be torture to play. You guys got what you asked for, boring classes, bad events, lame dances & agrivating bugs. Maxis could do a Much better job getting community feedback. Goth Galore proves they are asking the wrong questions the wrong way. They shouldn't ask "Hey what theme do the cool kids want today?" And then just go from there. That's a recipe for mess. What they should be asking is "What outcomes do you want?" That would have saved them a lot of issues in previous packs. -Mermaids would have had occult tech trees. -Horses would have had unicorns with at least 2 abilities. -Acting would have Katy Perry style gig street jobs. -Growing Together would have strollers, not child backpacks that don't work. -Batuu would be a stand alone like Sims Mideval. -Pets would be playable. -My First Pet stuff wouldn't exist, hamsters would be a Kit. -Kits would have come at launch because some people really love them especially console players who can't just make there own magic content on. -Base Game would have kept the cars loading screens. (They removed this to streamline the game by the way). When you have to watch an animation play out in it's entirety and the animation plays on top of a loading screen that means the load time must be at least the length of the animation. Therefore, loading times are increased. If you guys want cars back you are going to have to come to terms with the fact you are asking for longer loading screens that have a car & not a spinning plumbob.
the surveys certainly point to general ideas- as opposed to the details of say why or in what ways people are drawn to said ideas. So in theory one may want a certain type of gameplay, but the problem is, wanting a general concept inevitably doesn't tell the story of the why or the how Thanks so much for this very interesting breakdown! It also makes me think again how everyone has their own way of rating a pack, and how heavily different parts of said pack weigh. matter
I hardly play with HSY, tbh. I go to school with my sims only on the first day and after that I just send them alone. If I don't, their grades never go up. And that's the whole point, according to the aspirations. I also think it's really empty. I replace the school with the one James Turner built, immediately in my games. The standard school is way too big and empty. I thought the school system was better in the previous ones.
yeah, I do know a lot of people have had trouble with grades- and also it not making sense based upon what you do. While not universal, it's a common concern
Prom is kind of a mess in HSY. I kinda get because of how weird aging is in sims 4 (and its customizable) why they made dumb choice like prom every week. But I think they could have had ‘a dance’ / maybe seasonal based dances like spring formal and ‘fall fling’ and ‘winter ball’ or an ‘event’ every weekend to curb this issue. I play on long lifespan with periods of turning aging off even. Prom becomes meaningless afterawhile so there was a way to not overdo ‘the big dance’ for long life spans, not make short lifespan miss playing it, and a way to balance for normal lifespan that would have made a school dance event better. Not having the clubs be active was a miss. I was actually quite okay with NOT going to class with my sims in all the Sims university packs (2-4). But I would have like real parties and activities to go to in HSY. I like the concept of social bunny, not the execution. And same with Graduation. Better than Discover University but it was confusing when graduation was even going to happen the first time I played HSY through a kid aging up.
yeah, at very least options to choose simply or for it to scale based on the life span you play on. Different themes and being able to customize prom more could have been cool too
I definitely agree that they should’ve had it be more interactive. I wish the teen aspirations were a little more interactive when you decided to join your son at school i.e., if your sim has the drama llama aspiration, have one of the objectives for the day is to start gossip or get into a fight.
I also wish parents were more intergrated somehow like a parents day or the family actually coming to graduation or recitals or competitions or drama showsbor swim meets. Teens feel like self navigating young adults already and High School feels like pre-College instead of what is essentially the final years of being your parent’s kid. Like they call the student not the parent if the teen skips school. Like what?
I feel like a lot of people forget about Discover University’s shortcomings, but I truly hate how long it takes to get a degree and the fact that lifespan just continues. I wish they would have treated it as its own world like in previous Sims games to help off-set the aging. High School Years kind of reminds me of these shortcomings.
DU was mentioned by some, but curiously does seem to enjoy less backlash that HSY. It's interesting to compare. I think for HSY people in some ways actually expected more, expected it not only for the school experience but also to flesh out teen life
I actually hated the restricted university world in Sims 3 as it locked off the college Sims and they couldn’t go back and forth. In Sims 2 you actually could leave the university world and go back at will as there was no aging except for your active Sim and young adult ONLY existed for College students. No college your Sim went straight from high school to adult. It didn’t bother me since I played rotationally and often worked it out so that my non-college kids and college kids still ended up all sorted out in about the same progression in the end. I loved that flexibility and Sims 3 had none. I hated finding out that when you went to college in sims 3, that was it, trapped forever in the frozen college zone until you got your degree. No switching back to the home family for a bit, no inviting your college kid home for the occasional dinner, no inviting the family to campus. Just stuck til college was done. You cold rotate back and forth between the home family and College kid in sims 2 allowing me to let life go on at home while college kid was at college. The baby born when they left would at least be a toddler when they got back while in sims 3 everything froze for approx. ‘4 simulated years’ of your sim getting a degree and resumed when they came home graduated. As a rotational player, hated it. I do actually like Sims 4 Discover University more than Sims 3’s University (with Sims 2 still being my favorite). In Sims 4 I can go to college as an elder if I want and more importantly, however I want…. on campus, off campus, in a dorm, in a house, whatever version of college fits. As a person who graduated college at 33 and was older than my classmates but not the only one, I do like playing an older mom going to college on her own timetable if she wants as its not a lifestage locked event. Sometimes I do traditional college and just turn aging off, something Sims 4 make super easy to do. And sometimes I play it other ways and the pack is flexible enough for that. I love Discover University. I hope they never world lock/age freeze it again. Afterall, easy access to aging off gives me the power to freeze whatever I want the way I want how I want.
There was no "passing notes" or "raise hand to answer question" or "act like a smart aleck" actions for the classes. No fish tank or gerbils to feed. No real "hanging out" sort of activities.
hey, that's good though! I think it can be easy to forget about specific features from diff packs. I do think, while certainly not game changing, the park is a fun place to take families or for dates
2:25 I'm gonna guess being a part of the sims community is the thing here. People that enjoy playing the sims 4, but do not consume any content about the sims, nor interact with the community, are probably not aware of the bugs, or don't care too much. The majority of players probably fall into this category actually tbh I've played the sims since 2004, and I've only very recently found "the sims community". The entire time I was playing the sims 2 and 3, the "community" was my friend group.
Yep, this is honestly such a big and fascinating topic. I have also played since.. Oh I guess it was 2005 or so, and I only joined the "community" in late 2018. I think being a part of it can vastly shape how you feel about the game
I own it, and it's okay. But it would not rank in a top recommendation for me. And I also know people experience the bugs etc differently. I think the concept just personally wasn't quite right for sims 4
theres been a bug since hsy ep that causes teens to never age up. i dont see anyone talk about it. i play a lot of legacy gameplay and often take my teen sims to active hs. my gen 1 sim will have teen friends at school that my gen 2,3,4+ teen sims will have at their school. i think it has something to do with the fact that not enough sims have teens at the time of going to school and the game needs X# of teens to function at school. also the teachers will stay alive forever. the janitors will die and take days to replace the role. i have also had YA sims show up as classmates. to combat this issue i have to go in manage world and add a ton of teens to the game. its so frustrating though. (i also know its not just me bc ive seen simmers streams where it happens to them.)
@@SimmerErinthank you! i couldnt manage to find any post on it. looks like theres work arounds but no actual fix. i have aging on for everyone so thats not it. the sims is frustrating sometimes..
6:38 I don’t know If uniform schools are necessarily private, in the uk every school has a uniform so could just be that they wanted school to feel more like that
What's the point of the weekly competitions at the tea shop? Often the staff don't show and we're left with a handful of sims in similar outfits and are prizes awarded? I've not seen any.
High School Years is not as fun as it is shown in trailer, as you pointed out the mechanics itself is not as immersive. Going to class just to see the Sims sit for a long time listening to the teacher yapping away, with no input from players on how it can turn out, nothing interesting to see either. So the main part of the game play is really flawed. Events for the school is way too often and not that it is interesting either. Most of them feels like again a checklist to complete which is not as fun along with the events in Sims 4. After school activities are interesting, again I don't get the point of having the carnival rides as rabbit holes. No carnival games? Nothing else to do aside from vanishing to a ride entrance? All in all High School years "flops" not because it is bad, but it is not giving enough to make the pack feel complete.
I will say, most packs the cinematic trailer is going to look a lot livelier etc- I recall discussing that before. But the range of that does vary by pack. (Whoever works on the trailers imo is talented). That's why streams and things like that really tell you a lot more. I personally feel if they'd made it interactive in classes it'd be a hot mess- but I also could argue there could have been more interactions from your desk, as well as more things you could do (sans animations) to influence your performance and even add drama in more meaningful ways. Like some of my qualms w/ other packs, my biggest issues stem from feeling some things I do don't matter or are more or less random. I also felt a nuance popularity system and a crush system based on larger systems (attraction) could be better. Course... in some ways I am again pointing to the core of the game itself, too I agree on the events. Cool concept, and I can still have fun with them some. But they should not happen so often, and they could again have more consequence
1:53 so many critics just aren’t even gamers… they won’t get as deep into the pack as players and won’t see the issues. unless the problems are in the your face the whole time or the critic can’t figure out how to play the game, you can almost guarantee an 80-90 score from every major critic on every game.
@@SimmerErin makes sense.. i remember seeing a video before about gamer critics i think that’s where i got the idea from but also as an observation, not fact
@@cryingwatercolours for sure. It actually is something I'd love to look into! What I really appreciate about seeing comments is if often gets me thinking about other topics too
@@SimmerErin well yay i’m glad this interaction did that for you 🥰 yknow im a lil spammer lol so sometimes i feel a lil annoying but honestly erin i just love listening to u talk about anything super random but logout as well let u know hope ur having the best day
I'm replaying HS pack with my new computer with new safe file. Turns out, teen unable doing extra credit work, the option only for kids. Also, in order to graduate 🎓 with A rank, you need spend 3 game weeks in HS with level 3 of any skills. Good thing in the HS option on teens is Study Exam, you need only do once on entire game week. So late knowing how because teens in my old file graduate early 😅.
I didn't buy any of these packs. I was interested in all of them when they were announced, but the more I saw about them, I lost interest. You can't have a pack like this where you follow your teens to school in a closed world game like TS4. Because while you're there with your teen, the rest of your family isn't going to work, isn't going to school, isn't feeding themselves, you can't just flip over to them and take care of them for a minute, it's just awful. You finally come home and everyone is using locked computers they shouldn't be able to access, starving, missed work, didn't do homework, all of it. I actually stopped watching several Sims streamers at this time because I didn't even want to watch the let's plays for this pack. I wasn't even the one playing and the bugs were annoying me so much.
Well-done analysis Erin. I use the CAS items all the time and for me it's the strongest aspect of the pack. I find the gameplay unfortunately severely lacking. HSY could have been so much better
Thank you. The CAS items I think got the job done, and I looked back at my review and saw I said I liked they stood out in Manu ways, plus a fair blend of masc and fem fashion
The prom event, the school day events, it goes by so fast and you can’t even truly experience it. I see what they were going for in the pack, and some of the ideas of flushed out and more functional could’ve made it a decent pack.
I think there are indeed some nice ideas in the pack- and I mostly feel mixed about it. I think it adds some good things- such as teen aspirations- while also feeling it feels oddly unfinished in certain aspects
They fumbled so badly on this pack imo. The idea could have been really great and I was actually really excited about it!! The gameplay is lacking so much: the board walk is just rabbit holes and theres never sims when I go to the board walk. While I don’t hate rabbit holes and I understand the need for them, when there’s so many in one spot it’s really not a great look. The school events were extremly buggy in the beginning and I still sometimes don’t get to go to graduation or prom. The aspirations are getting old very quickly. I wish I could choose which sims show up to the school and I feel like they should have made the amount of spawnable sims for the school lot higher (it’s not like you can have more than one school anyways lol). Social bunny is like many of the recent gimmicks they’ve been adding with packs, a very lackluster gameplay aspect. I always turn it off because I find it quite irritating with the pinging and the notifications. I use it very rarely for a teen sim with the drama llama or social aspirations. I haven’t played with Trendi at all yet, as it didn’t fit into any of my storylines yet. I actually almost forgot the after school activities, which while I liked them are seriously lacking as well, would have liked an art club or band tbh. Others have mentioned things that could have been included that I also agree with like an active teacher career and boarding and private school. Even though they definitely added too much in the pack to actually flesh out anything. Almost all the gameplay additions are lackluster and don’t add any meat to the game. The highschool day is just soooo boring, which I guess is kinda realistic haha. The only thing pulling this pack up are literally bb and cas. You can actually make sims that dress like teens and live in realistic teen rooms. I’m just really sad about the state of the recent expansion packs, if I pay 40 bucks for a pack I want something that’s actually fun and not just half-cooked gameplay ideas wrapped up in a pretty bow :(( In the end: As a family and legacy player I do use highschool years a lot, but I definitely think the packs gameplay feels unfinished and lacks in depth… A little thing I noticed because I play on long lifespan right now: My teen sims get a call everyday asking if they want to graduate early ://
bb and cas did a nice job aligning with the theme, imo, some of those things may be a rushed issues but others could stem too from limits of the base engine- especially the issue of what students populate. I def. feel that social bunny could have been done and fine tuned a lot better. I personally feel maybe it would have been better to stick to the core theme and nixed the amusement park- which may have been more fleshed out in a different package
Instead of getting the jump scare of a burglar we now get jump scare of the notification for football and cheerleader day. I miss the burglars.
I do too.. but after for rent adding the break in thing, I kinda feel we probably just won't get them
Late, but this is correct and funny. Whoever thought loud noises in sims was the thing to do needs to go suck on a bushel of lemons.
@DragonFruitTaco theres already 2 burglar npc mods that have existed for a while. life tragedies and carls gameplay overhaul
One thing that still baffles me years after this pack's release is the fact that we can't build an high school anywhere we want (at least, one active high school per save at a time).
For immersion sake, and especially with a gameplay that repetitive: The dev team shot itself in the foot by not giving us a way to at least change the setting by choosing the world, the classmates, the teachers and the uniform (or not).
Another Sims4 pack that ignores the others and designed to be played only once.
And the fact that the high school is very sparse for students. I play it on console and I was nearly appalled at all the open space. And I didn't even go to public high school except for speech therapy as a kid, so if I can tell that it's wrong, then it's wrong. Wish we could have small mods on console to at least up the number of sims on a lot.
I think we have seen a similar limit in sms 4 before. my sense is it's how they were able to make it function properly- but I can't say from a specific technical stance why. Is it is oddly limiting? also yes
1) Brought high school game play to only one world.
2) Ignored my other sims and brought generic NPCs and Copperdale NPCs into the school. I had to get a mod to select who I wanted to appear in school.
3) Forbid you from having Get Together clubs on school grounds, even after school hours.
4) A long list of other things that I am not going to list.😂
I forgot about the get together thing! Or even forming groups at all. As a rotational player all my teens have know each other since practically toddlerhood and I can’t even put them in a group at school to eat together? What?
They really did design it for one random teen fresh out of CAS to intergrate with their Copperdale NPCs. Which is not how I play. Thank god for mods that got all my kids in school together.
yeah I do think it's a shame about how students are generated though it is really what I expected
Such a missed opportunity not to add private schools to this pack 🙄
I’m truly disappointed there is zero option for private schools that could lead to sims getting better scholarships or better grades for university
one of my fav things in sims 2 is trying to get into a private school ha.
Yeah.. in a VERY ideal world, I'd love: boarding schools, private schools, and instead of just the typical uni, maybe community college/ vocational/ tech schools
@@SimmerErinomg I thought I was the only one who missed this. It gave you a reason to learn how to cook, boost charisma and have an impressive house. Why would they take it out. Sucks
@@Shay416adeepindigo has the education overhaul mod…
I actually forgot that theme park existed. Shows how little I actually use High School years. XD
👀
well there you go ha! It's not terribly exciting, but I think it's a nice change to your typical lot- and somewhere to take sims out that isn't a bar. Can take some pretty cool pics too
makes me think it'd be fun to look at just a few side features from every pack
@@SimmerErinI take adult couples there all the time as well as teens. A nice difference from bars and nightclubs, ending with whoohoo in the photo booth is fun.
I don’t mind the rabbitbhole rides because of the way they’re structured. Its a pretty short bit of disappearing and if you zoom out the fair looks active.
Unlike the text adventure quest in a cave type of thing or the tiger sanctuary in Tomerang which seems a little more cutting corners on features.
To piggyback off my comment from the poll I keep thinking Erin imagine if they were tasks during the classes with a timer like events ? Like let’s say you are in science class and then you get tasks like, using a science table, using the telescope, read such and such book etc and you completing those tasks have an effect on your grades. Or tasks at home like the extra homework making a volcano, find a gemstone etc like in university and elementary school. That would have been so interesting to have and see your sims do the tasks in real time and that affecting their grades.
that would have been so much more interesting!! a bit more distinction to courses and much more interaction.
I can see how it might have been feasible though.. to get all sims to cooperate
@@SimmerErin yes using the mechanics we already have like cooking together could of been doing homework together or making a volcano together etc
@itsbrooklynbabyyy that's an awesome idea...too bad you're not on the devteam. Of course if you were the corporate overlords wouldn't understand the genius of your idea...they know numbers...not videogames
That is literally how the active university worked in sims 3 so- it's been done before.
@@iamsuzerain3987 you are so kind! I wish I could work on a video game actually I have a lot of ideas. Thank you for your kind comment 🙏🏽✨
I do feel like they lazed out about all the windows having animations instead of just one to sneak out. Then "sneaking out" doesnt take you anywhere and gives you a rabbit hole... my worst enemy
ah yeah, I forgot how there was a lot of discourse about that too
The issues I have with this pack is; 1) Your teen Sim never gets the intended diploma after they graduate. For example, if my Sim is a Valedictorian, they never receive the Valedictorian diploma, they instead only get the regular diploma in their mailbox. 2) When it is time for graduation, you sometimes get notified, you sometimes don't, it's not consistent. And when you do get your teen to go attend their graduation, you see randomly generated townies that your Sim never went to high school with before, or you will see a few, like one or two that the game automatically age up to young adults and the worst of all, you will see a Sim, who you know very well, was only a child and they are now suddenly a young adult ready for graduation, this happened to my game with Evie Delgato. She was suddenly aged up to a young adult by the game randomly to attend graduation whilst her older brother Pierce Delgato is still a teen. I was so annoyed by this that I stopped sending my teen sims to any graduation events for fear of the game randomly again, breaking my immersion just because they decided to aged up a random sim into a young adult to graduate. 3) Lastly, the events; The Proms, it doesn't make sense to have it every week. imagine playing without aging on... and you just can't escape the constant notifications for football or cheerleading. It's so obnoxiously loud that it gives you a jump scare! And when you do attend the football or cheerleading event, there's literally nothing to do there, it's pathetic. I actually can go on with more issues with this pack, but I think I have said enough... 😟
Also there are special traits assigned to high schoolers which are meant to create fun but they basically don't work.
Students will have hidden traits like "Bully" "mean girl" and "popular kid". These traits are supposed to have an effect on autonomy which is why you'll see 2 sims fighting in the halls sometimes but don't really work.
yeah, a problem I often have with sims 4 traits is sounding good on paper but falling short when it comes to overall integration and autonomy
That’s a shame. Those sort of tags look like they would make going to school with your sim more fun
i forgot about snowy escape even though i also thought it was disappointing.. snowy escape felt like they didn't commit to one strong concept and just put in a bunch of smaller things which were kind of half baked anyway imo
I kinda feel that they do that with a few packs: sort of a try to get as many players as possible by offering features that appeal to different players. I get it, but sometimes it feels like things are disconnected and a bit shallow?
I've rarely been to Komorebi except for the festival on occasion but in my saves Sims are always dying there on the mountain, sometimes 2 per week
The kids just sitting there but having nothing you could do, being able to choose even as much as you normally can choose if they're going to rabbithole
what would you have ideally added
I agree with all the comments that point out that bugs contributed a lot to this, but even if the pack had been released in perfect condition, it would still be a horrible, lazy pack.
In my opinion, this is a pack that simply has no gameplay. It's extremely repetitive and I don't see anything fun in watching my sims in class, without being able to take any action. The decision for the proms to occur every week seems pretty lazy to me, it's obvious that this should be a special event. Maybe they should have combined the ideas from this pack together with GT EP, which is another pack that could be so much better.
no gameplay, or lackluster gameplay?
I did see someone say that they prob did this due to those playing on shorter life spans- but to me, ideal would be to select how often you wanted prom. some deeper pack integration would have been helpful too
@@SimmerErin No gameplay. Literally your whole school day is sitting in class unable to actually do any gameplay...and the only things you have as 'tasks' throughout the day outside of class are 'be nice to students' and 'be nice to faculty' and 'study for exam'. I don't really call that a gameplay filled school day...especially when there's a myriad of actions they could have added JUST to the class-times! But my stand-alone comment addresses that.
6:38 All primary and secondary schools in Europe and Africa are uniformed schools whether private or public (there are exceptions of course), unsure about anywhere else x 👀
But the school system in High School Years is so foreign for non-American players and the lack of variety/ focus on American societal systems breaks the immersion.
*Things like cheerleading, American high school sports, prom, high school graduation and middle school don’t exist in most school systems **_(e.g. primary school age 3-11, secondary school age 11-16, sixth form or college age 16-18, university aged 18+)._* It feels like a “Recreate your favourite American TV show” simulator instead of a representative life simulator. 🙃
- which is insane because most of us (outside N.A) pay for packs at a premium to fulfil the Sims 4 promise of ‘simulating our lives’. They’ll throw a “foreign” world in here and there, but the features are locked to that pack and everything else remains American. 🤷🏾♀️
For example, even after 10 years they still haven’t updated the base game to add more school options that represent the schooling experience in other countries. High School Years adds some broken gameplay, but tbh despite the game having an international audience, it’s one of many packs that’s only for Americans.
Yes, that's a point. I suppose I did not expect is because they chose an American theme. I will say I think they had to pick one region though, as schooling norms differ around the world.
@@SimmerErin (Sorry for the essay):
Absolutely and that’s true too, *however* my point is that _because_ the rest of the world’s school systems are modelled by Europe (colonisation), picking an American theme (with no fusion) for this central, universal experience *is* the problem for a lot of players. While 98% of the world can relate to the same/similar school system (with variations), only 2-3 North American countries can relate to High School Years. And because there’s a complete lack of inclusion in both the pack *and* the base game, the entire school experience turns into a “Recreate your favourite American High School TV Show” simulator. Which honestly could be solved with even the smallest additions or some customisability (e.g. the ability to: add mandatory uniforms, change “prom” to “school dance”, superficially rename “grade” and “high school” to “primary” and “secondary school”, rename the books, opt out of the graduation system for those who only have graduations at university etc)
For example- Discover University was based on a British University theme, but even so, it included aspects of American colleges that we don’t have in the UK (like a fixation on Collegiate Sports). The pack has EA sports, Spirit week, a Secret society and a few other American specific experiences- which is great don’t get me wrong, university is a universal opportunity and there should be in-game variety/inclusion- but there was an intentionality in merging those themes into a “European university pack” that we don’t see for other experiences with American packs like High School Years. It comes across as inflexible Ameri-centrism that can alienate a large portion of the game’s audience when; 1. The game markets itself internationally as a way to simulate life experiences- internationally and 2. The designers are able to infuse the American experience when the pack isn’t American-based, (even the most British sport in a British university pack was renamed to its American name “soccer”).
I guess my point is from the experience of a non-American player- I could understand if there were 100s of different global school systems, but there’s 1 other major one that applies to the rest of the world (with exceptions). They chose one that applies to maybe 3 countries- that’s fine, but there were no attempts to infuse, include or merge anything outside that experience. So it’s more of a broken America expansion pack, than a broken school pack- if that makes sense.
I was so disappointed when my sims sat down for class and I had no options to take notes, doodle, the text under the desk, sleep ....even if they went in the "all sims must remain seated for the duration of this class" route for an EXPANSION PACK they could have put the hours into some seated in desk animation options that affected gameplay.
I´m one of the "snowy" 5% btw... it was just so underwhelming and I was quite happy to see a Japan setting... :(
Snow Escape I think wasn't as hyped as HSY, and that prob also long term made it less hated but it was pretty messy when it came out. I don't own it actually, but I can see how it seems underwhelming. I think the overall feeling is that there are some okay features, but that it's diluted for an ep
@@SimmerErin that´s the main problem with alot of the add-ons... they all seem half developed with features missing. Snow Escape is a good example. It offers a handful of decent features but so few of them that the world feels wasted... After going for a walk and skiing a couple of times you´re pretty much done with it.
@@RSProduxx a lot of times to me it feels like they add a bunch of features that aren't deeply integrated or sometimes even connected. It feels like they are going for a wider appeal yet not getting deep into developing some potentially good ideas
@@SimmerErin sounds about right. Some good ideas but way underdeveloped
This was one of only two packs I ever purchased with nifty knitting stuff being the other in December 2022. I combined both packs frequently along with a CC stuff pack so that I would create an emo teenage sim named Serenity Rune. This also involved the use of several mods that would make her high school classmates almost the same every day. As part of her adventures the school was equipped with a buildable rocket ship. Other changes to the school included adding appliances to the cafeteria and making the school have a swimming pool and a motion gaming rig. Serenity’s time in high school ended when she celebrated her birthday at prom. This was done by setting aside a table at prom to accommodate a birthday cake. If both high school years and either luxury party stuff or my wedding stories is installed you get more food choices at prom (without either it’s just roast chicken, which was not one of Serenity’s favorite foods, as vegetable tempura was her favorite).
The other packs I have were obtained for free via special promotions (jungle adventure, luxury party stuff, fashion street kit on epic, and backyard, my first pet, romantic garden, desert luxe via ea) or giveaways (home chef hustle and goth galore).
Also students who are expelled from high school can no longer go to prom
love your vision for how to use it !
I have won a giveaway or two, been gifted, and bought on a good sale but I too tend to not buy full price less I am buying for a friend. My only temptation is wanting to review the packs ha
Great video as always. Would love to see more deep dives on other packs including popular ones. I enjoy highschool years but I realized most of the things I enjoy are because I have mods to add more gameplay and make teens more interesting! This pack had so much potential but I think I was hoping for it to be like the trailer, silly me. I know now not to expect that but at the time I was hyped. I don't mind the rabbit holes for the rides but I wish they'd made the amusement park an active lot because it's usually pretty empty.
thanks! will def, consider it. I think retrospective looks are so interesting, especially to see how perception changes or doesn't.
Ah, what mods do you find are most enjoyable?
@@SimmerErin I have a mod that lets me choose which sims show up because I found it frustrating that I was making teens for highschool and then I wouldn't see any of them, and also adeepingo has a bunch of mods specifically more interesting for teen sims like adding more after school activities and cliques and family drama. I also think Chippedsim has a mod to make the active school day more interesting (like students can actually get in trouble for using phones in class) but I haven't checked it out yet.
It's subjective, but I prefer gameplay and since this game is about simulated ppl I wish they put more effort into that. I feel like before the sims were dumb fun, now they are just dumb boring. In past games, their trait or quirck or random emotional reaction could cause chaos. Now you can absolutely ignore it, and if it does a little something it's so effortless to fix. I second that comment about cutting Generation into tiny pieces. I had hoped growing together and high school years, for example, would have made more significative improvement to intergeneration interactions, and impact ! We got new bubbles interactions, yes, what do they do ? Not much really. I don't feel compelled to use them, they don't change anything. TS4 is so much, expensive, fluff to me I have lost hope for improvement. I mostly enjoy it for building now. I really wish they would act on those promised pack refreshes...
I assume by gameplay, you mean live mode. I think I agree with some of what you are saying. The first part is the deeper issues: sims autonomy and how they behave with other sims, and how much traits actually impact them. I will say with some of the systems in growing together, I do think there is more variety and depth in some of the interactions. But some of these things stem back to how the game was originally programmed.
@@SimmerErin Yes sorry, I meant live mode indeed. And exactly, I wish the traits made a bigger difference (and I don't mean bigger bonuses... we have enough of these)
It seems like a lot of expectations ruin how people feel about the game when they actually get it. For instance, I would never have expected that it would include an active Teacher career or an active Principal career. The active school day I did expect, and it turned out almost exactly how I expected it to turn out. (It's very similar to the active work days in the rest of the game, including the amount of "repetitiveness.") So, while others may have been disappointed by the "active" parts of the pack, I wasn't.
The only thing I wanted that the pack didn't have was having the teen learn to drive (which would have been fine as a rabbit hole. The way that TS3 did it, the poor Sims often ended up far from home as if they were kicked out of the car partway through the lesson. That was frustrating.) But that's a pretty minor issue. I suspect if they had done it that way, there would have been a big outcry about cars in the game. (As it was, I remember a multitude of complaints because the pack didn't come with cars in any way. I suspect the team wanted to side-step that issue completely.)
There are a lot of things that I wish were more fleshed out (such as the cheer and football events) but I suspect that they ran out of money to do more with those. I never attend them. (But they aren't my "thing" anyway. Even if fleshed out more, I wouldn't use them. But other people would be happier.) If anything, the team tried to cover too much and that led to people feeling slighted (even though it was meant to do the opposite.)
Overall, I *like* the way I can use High School Years. I like having a prom every week (because it always feels like it's Freshman prom, Sophomore prom, Junior prom, and Senior prom. I didn't get to go to any of my school proms, including Senior prom, so it lets me live vicariously.) I also like the availability of after-school activities, teen side hustles, and the like. I especially like how those integrate into the new Teen Aspirations (which I find to be a lot of fun.) I especially like the way I can integrate it with Growing Together.
This pack fits in well with how I like to play. However, from listening to how other people play, they may not enjoy it the way I did.
I certainly agree that expectations play a big role in how one ends up liking a pack, too. I did not expect an active career in addition to an active school day. For me, minus bugs or whatever, the pack fell flat, but in ways I expected? That is, I don't think I ever was convinced an active school day in of itself would be an especially compelling focus
@@SimmerErin As to bugs, the more packs we get, the more problems we'll see. As the game gets more complex, they need more and more testing. Yet they seem to have dialed it back instead.
As to active school, it would only appeal to those who probably also like active careers. I like that we can choose to do either (although if you want to achieve certain things in both teen aspirations and career advancement, they need to go to the active school/career.) In my gameplay, I sometimes send them to school alone and sometimes to active school (for their first day, for career day when they're ready for that part of their aspiration, and for Fridays, since otherwise they tend to have a glitch regarding prom where they get the option, but then it goes nowhere. That's a new glitch, by the way. It came with For Rent!)
I was most disappointed with the school clubs. Already expected that there won't be much to do in class but the clubs being just rabbit holes is awful. Like, what do you mean we have this huge building that we can fill up with all kinds of skill building stuff but clubs are outside of school? And why are there only 2 clubs that aren't sports? And even worse: being unable to make your own clubs/club gatherings from get together being disabled. There was a HUGE opportunity for that but no. The school building is basically useless.
TBH I would have rather had active clubs and kept classes closed
I accidentally played my teen today and it was disappointing to get a NOTIFICATION about someone having a sign stuck to their back, but no animations to that effect during the class. I feel like there were a LOT of lost opportunities in the pack and of course, messing with the lifespans at that point was ...... unfortunate at best.
what sorts of missed opportunities especially
I thought the active school day thing was a bad idea from the start, even though that's what people asked for.
1. The school day itself could have been a rabbit hole with a lot of options that affected your sims relationships and popularity. Then, more of a focus could be put on activities and relationships. 2. There should have different types of rabbit hole schools that could be placed in any world (all girl's school, private school, technical school), and that could tie into the colleges if you have that pack.
3. They should have brought back the boarding school and headmaster
4. Better integration with the club system that already exists (c'mon man 🙄🤦🏽♀️)
5. Integrating an active educator career would have been great!
6. The pier was cute, but they should have included some games with prizes and the ability to travel there directly.
So so many missed opportunities.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again! The biggest problem is that the worlds are empty. Including the high school itself. It just doesn’t feel like a high school because it’s simply not “big and busy” enough. “The halls are alive” … uummm … no they’re not!!
Oh and random townies like wth! Imagine having new friends at school every day! That’s so tragic! This pack had no place for random townies! It’s the same problem with “Discover University”. Randoms are killing the game!
I think that's a reality with sims 4's base engine
Fun fact when I first got it, I never got a pop-up for going to school. It was only after I completely re-downloaded the game and all my packs that it happened.
I wonder why downloading it again did the trick! so strange
i also think one issue with the poll thing is it doesn’t show who actually bought each pack. for all we know maybe hardly anyone bought snowy escape and that’s why it was so low. or some people may be voting based off content they’ve seen and not first hand gameplay
I'd argue that don't have to own the pack, however. That is especially so if you're watching full reviews, the livestream,, blog posts and more
@@SimmerErin oh ya for sure, you can know a pack is bad without buying (my wedding stories… yikes!) i just wonder how many people actually did experience all the issue. you find some people who play the game and never experience bugs, while a large majority might experience some or a lot of bugs, so it’s kinda hard without the specifics but overall ya gives a good idea
I enjoyed the pack a lot, but it's honestly lazily put together with not enough thought. We did get a LOT of cool stuff (the high school, crushes, detention, prom, auditorium, and so on) but we also got a lot of flopping stuff (The football team doesn't have actual unforms like American football for one thing, Friday night football club or whatever it's called is the biggest joke, the school is sparse of students, and must I mention that the 'sitting anywhere' feature has ruined weddings forever?). I can live with rabbit holes, but the game just over promised if not outright lied to us in some instances. (I can't think of any lies right now, I'm not in a good headspace atm, but there had to be some.)
If they ever refresh it, it would help if they fixed at least some of the above, plus:
*Not putting sims in detention just because they had to pee/bargain with or explain to principle option, similar to plead with death.
*Actual art class. Could not be that hard since we have all the stuff needed.
*Bring back cut scenes, if just for the ferris wheel so people will have their comeuppance (because they complained so much that we couldn't see inside it). It would be a nice compromise between full animation and what we currently have.
*Utilize some of the animations and things from university. Not sure what exactly, but it would have made sense to recycle what we already had since the themes are similar.
Edit:
Some of what we could or should have gotten with this pack that would have
made it feel more well rounded and full:
*Driving lessons from sims 3 back, along with actual cars. (Stop being lazy, EA.)
*actual grades that equate 9-12 and are EU friendly as well since they measure differently than US does. Without that, it makes it feel like it lasts forever. (Maybe call them levels or something instead of grades/forms?)
*More structure in general
*Related Careers, like people in the video said.
*Making Career day A LOT bigger than it is. 3 tables is measly. 6 would have been better at least. And forget the "must complete" thing and no timer there. Too stressful. They really should have tied it to 'Get To Work' as an addition, then just had what they have now as generic, and a fourth random one that changes every so often.
*I think TS3 had a science fair? Bringing that back for sure.
*Obviously, more schools in other neighborhoods, don't just limit us to Copperdale if you give us the ability to make schools. (I'm throwing one in to Oasis Springs because I never play there, just for pretends sake.)
*Guide us through what a rival really is, because I messed it up big time on multiple occasions.
*Home Ec class and shop class at least, just sayin'.
*More ways to get detention, omg.
*A School fair for funds would have been fun. Dunk tank, anyone?
*Extremely wishful thinking, but this would have been the time to give us a teen height slider. If we can't have it across age groups, this would have at least made sense.
Some cool ideas. I'm indifferent to cut scenes, but it's an interesting topic for sure. I think a reason classes felt so dull too is there is no real distinctions that could make them more meaningful
My teens get crushes on EVERYONE they meet. Another feature I wanted to like, but isn't coded well.
tihihihihi "active" classes. my biggest problem is the thrift store/flopsy/entrepreneurial skill stuff, which actually works fine and is fun, but it has f... I mean woohoo-all to do with school; while anything to do with school, sports/cheerleading/chess club/classes/prom, isn't engaging and only connected to your sims' personality by a thread and even that ends up severed once they age up. it's all not terrible ideas on their own, but there is no connective tissue.
I see, so mostly you just feel it would have been better suited in another pack? I see an argument for why it was there, but I am more inclined to feel that way too. I think instead they could have directed more resources towards the actual experience (school, clubs and so forth
I feel like there needs to be a generations specific pack instead of breaking it up into 10 different ones. I’ve been mainly playing Sims 3 just because the packs are better executed compared to sims 4’s. IMO, sims 4 is a more creative game while sims 3 is more gameplay focused.
do you mean for the next game?
@@SimmerErin yes! Hopefully when developing packs for the next game they take aspects from both sims 4 and sims 3.
I was so hyped for HSY then so disappointed with it but as time went on I ended up really liking it. The CAS and build/buy is A+ and I'm a sucker for new foods so really liked the boba tea shop. Thrifting is kind of fun (and a good money maker) AND you can store an outfit in your inventory and change without going through a loading screen. I like football and cheerleading (but don't like how we have to cheer alone) and I love the amusement park, prom and photo booth. Plus your teens easily meet people at school.
Cons: the school - too big and ugly, the classes- boring, lack of grades etc and hard to play everyday with a family, and social bunny was unnecessary.But overall it does make my teens feel like teens just because they see other teens so much and have their own things going on even if it's just "football", chess, cheerleading and computers. Before they had next to nothing
I wish the thrifting 'job' made sense, is all. In theory, very cool - but just set an outfit for for the max amount of simoleons in the game...and someone will buy it eventually. It's...just not realistic.
that's fair, and that's honestly what really interests me: how perceptions of packs may change over time. I think maybe sometimes too players can go in with certain expectations and end up liking or disliking features they did not anticipate
High school years was fun for awhile but as a storyline player, high school years eventually got boring after time especially with Prom being every Saturday got boring after time. I didn't want my teen sims going to prom all time, I planned Slumber parties on some Saturdays and the teens that my sims were dating got mad because of "No Prom invite" I had my teen couples skipped out on Prom at times but like I said prom Every Saturday got boring.
yeah, I feel it would have been best to be able to select how often prom happened
I don't like HSY other than for the furniture because i don't find the school day very interesting (in the classroom) and I do not like having Prom every week which is very unrealistic. Wouldve been nice to be able to have an active career at the highschool too. For Rent was released buggy (and still is) but to me doesn't have the lackluster effect that HSY does. I like horse ranch i have no problems with this pack. I bought snowy escape months after release so I genuinely don't know why people don't like it.
Snowy Escape could be cool to discuss. I'd say that the reception actually softened over time; it did launch with some substantial bugs, albeit not to the level of some other packs. There was some controversy over some aspects of cultural depiction, and the discourse actually that many eps get: that some argued it felt like/ should have been a game pack
I need a mod to disable the social bunny. It was fun at first but reading the same messages is driving me crazy.
surprised I can't seem to find one! there is one that adds or adjusts features
So cool to make it in your video, Erin! There was so much wasted potential here for an amazing expansion pack.
thanks so much for sharing your thoughtful perspective!
The high schools never worked for me. (Could be mod-caused, but I am veeery diligent about my mods) My teens just never go to class.🤷♀ And the school is SO empty!
yeah, I never had that issue. perhaps check your mods? (School is empty- only a certain # sims generate per lot, and it's a big lot)
I don't really want to buy HSY because of how isolated it feels like. Even if in my way of playing, there are not really different worlds apart, I hate that there is one high school for everyone? Like for example you ask someone about their career, and then you go in their profile, they sometimes just have "gratuated from Copperdale High School" and it's breaking immersion a lot for me. But as usual with other EPs: it's pretty. The BB and CAS items are really cool and I wish I had them in game but I don't want the gameplay coming with it. Maybe the theme park though, but it's just a fixed rabbithole, not even a lot you can create yourself. :(
yeah, for whatever reason, they decided (I suspect some weird tech limitation) that it had to be a specific location, as opposed to a lot type
I’m prefacing this by saying that I took a break from Sims 4 before HSY even came out (I think even before Wedding Stories?), and only started poking my head back in recently with major sales. So in my head, HSY feels like it’s just a part of Growing Together and Parenthood at the very least.
But I also slap the mod Education Overhaul on top because I was an avid mod user before I stopped playing and I know what I want. But I think it says a lot that I felt compelled to buy HSY alongside those other two packs at least and not by itself, even as a returning player. :/
yeah you know I am kinda interested in how much when someone bought a pack also alters their pov
The fact that the cheer competition isn’t really a competition because your team is the only one that shows up, no one else arrives and everything is just empty is so annoying. Social bunny sucks so badly, why are my adults talking about pillow fights and prom? It could’ve been fun if it was more like a social media website like Twitter and not just based around teens. Social bunny is specifically for teens it seems and I think they just didn’t bother to expand it for adults
social bunny was a cool idea and I agree just wasn't executed in a way that makes sense
So I just spent a huge amount of time screaming at my sims to go to freaking class. Half the time the main feature of going to school with them is broken. It's so frustrating. Expansion packs are the game packs of Sims 3. There is not enough content for the price. I refuse to buy anything full price anymore.
I've never had that issue- wondering if a mod could be interfering?
This is a thread on the issue:answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports/OPEN-HSY-Teens-don-t-attend-class-White-Board-shows-Career/td-p/11687360/page/2
@@SimmerErin It probably is. But then again you can't use the game without them.😂
I'm not okay with rabbit holes in the sims 4. Devs got rid of open world but claimed there would be no rabbit holes but active experiences. Now look what we've got.
I think they may have said less rabbit holes vs none.
It'll be interesting to see how the game industry shapes up for the upcoming games
I've got some thoughts... LOL First of all, as far as its reviews/rating, I'm very curious what kind of simmers are reviewing it. We all have different play styles and what we each individually get from the packs is different. There are packs I own where the actual game play didn't interesting me but the CAS/Build Buy did. Depending on how you play the Sims would change my answers on what packs I suggest to a friend? Are you mostly a builder? Then I suggest X. and so on and so forth. As far as HS..is functions like trash.
My first time trying a graduation ceremony...hoo boy. First of all it was a severe thunderstorm. My Sims mom had a fear of the dark that kept coming back so she was freaking out. I finally manage to get her composed and then EVERYONE IN THE AUDITORIUM WAS HAVING MASS PANIC AND HYSTERIA. They kept cowering in masse reacting to the damn storm. This went on for in game hours until the ceremony was over.
HS is a lot of half baked ideas and hype (like most xpacs). They tried to put so much in it but it was mostly shallow. I like to describe The Sims 4 experiance as a hollow chocolate bunny. You want one, you buy it, you bite inside, its empty. Yeah, you got some chocolate, but it was not a satisfying experiance.
I feel like we're in this toxic cycle of... EA's greed puts pressure on devs to push out content and keep us interested in buying it. So we get cool half baked concepts that never have the time to be fully fleshed out so its on to the next one. We want more fullfilling gameplay, so like our toxic ex we keep taking them back and buying the next thing, being disappointed and wanting something shiny and new. The devs have pressure from us to fullfill our wants and pressure from EA to churn stuff out fast. What would change this? If people stopped buying everything they put out, but we're never collectively going to be on the same page with that. We're in the absolute worst timeline to be consumers, quality is down, prices are up, and no one stops the madness. EA has the benefit of not really having competition. People are trying, but most of the competition fails cause it does not offer as much as Sims does.
answer is simple: lack of features, bug gameplay and just look at the school its huge but empty it would've work if this would be a game pack not expansion
which brings us back to the ongoing debate, which I honestly find interesting: what makes a game pack a game pack, and an expansion an expansion?
(I think, EA classifies it by budget but have often argued there's a mismatch in execution for the community and what one feels an expansion should be)
and it also raises: is it better to have a game with eps and gps? Or do gps muddy the waters
@@SimmerErin I think that's a good point I never was thinking about what determines which one should be eps and gps, I am always just thinking about the price tag
Maybe it's me, but generally the interactive things in the sims 4 annoy me, if I can I always select the choice of not following them... the interactive careers proceed anyway, whether you follow them at work or not... and it's just one of the examples, idem school, proceeds equally whether you follow a teenager to school or not, and often proceeds better if you don't follow them to school.
I think active careers/ school day etc are a pretty subjective thing- some like them a lot, some not at all, and many a blend of choices
I’ve played with HSY multiple times and have never seen my sims graduate lol. I didnt even know that was an option? Lol
you can pick early or later graduation; your teen has to age up to a YA but getting it to work can be annoying sometimes. there are workarounds:
answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports/NEEDS-SAVES-HSY-Graduation-Not-Showing-on-Calendar/m-p/11695783
I feel like the simstein just needs to do better at getting more in depth Feedback about what they want from the game. Because genuinely don't know why they thought people would want a lackluster active school day over more flesh out and varied school experiences and after school activities.
I personally like to play with a lot of sims at once so I would prefer rabbit holes with actual impacts and consequences over having every aspect of gameplay be active.
While I know that EA is a greedy company I'm oftentimes frustrated with The Sims team for not working with the limitations of the game and systems that we already know exist to make the game more fun
Honestly, I'm going to defend this pack, kind of. The bugs were annoying, sure, but with the right mods, I found high school to be wildly dramatic (one of my Sims' childhood friends came out as trans at the cheer meet, I have beautiful screenshots of a promise ring exchange in the middle of Prom, there was a fight in the hall that stopped the whole class and disrupted the day, for starters). Without the mods, I bought it explicitly with the intention of getting my Sims to graduate early so they can get a head start on University, and in that regard, I think it does a bangup job aside from the whole teens can't do university clubs issue. I also find that my teens don't typically spend a lot of time in high school unless they're really struggling, so it never really gets to feeling repetitive. I do agree they could have done a lot better, but this pack did surpass my expectations and makes the transition to young adulthood so much smoother, whether my teen is saving up for a house, getting a head start on university, or taking a gap year in Salvadorada.
Amazing video as always, Erin! I AM kind of shocked the critics rated it as high as they did, even if I have a lot of fun with it.
This is a review of the pack without mods, and without mods...it's a hollow shell of a pack. There's no personality, you can't do anything in class, and the only daily tasks are to be nice ot students, and be nice to faculty. I'd love to have half the drama you seem to have had in your gameplay though, lmao! I use a lot of mods, but I don't think any of my teen mods cause this kind of drama! I even have Lumpinou's LGBTQIA+ mod, but I've never had someone just...declare they're trans openly without me sort of making sims do it myself, micromanaging them. What a neat addition to things though, with the mods you have. Just a shame it takes mods to make this pack feel alive!
@@christabelle__ I'll agree there! It shouldn't take mods to get some level of fun chaos!
Also, I use Lumpinou's LGBTQIA+ mod too! My heir for the legacy I was playing with was talking to their best friend about thinking they are agender and I got the prompt of "I'm part of the LGBT community too!", which naturally made my Sim ask, and there it was! Maybe play around in the settings a little bit to make sure it's on for NPCs and make sure you're close to the Sim you're talking to?
Thanks so much, and thanks for giving your full opinions. I honestly find it so interesting how different perceptions are for most packs- and I think it also shows how much perspective and experiences are going to differ. I do think it's a shame always if a pack feels best with mods (though of course shout out to the amazing creators)
for my two cents... social bunny could have never happened and it would have the same impact in the game pack with or without it. social bunny is just glorified cheat for relationship gain.
and boba could have never been put in the pack, and it would have had same impact with or without it.
its weird because, in sims 3 the little things that they put into the packs, made them unique and you just didnt want to go without having those special and awesome things. in the sims 4, its mostly meaningless (or recycled mechanics repackaged as a new things, but its not) it doesnt add to gameplay, excitement or enjoyment in the sims 4. and honestly often it adds to the annoyance factor, for me!! bloating the game out with pointless stuff makes the game so hollow and uninspiring.. you play a little while and dont want to come back. the sims 3 is so much more enjoyable rewarding and addicting, so much more win for it you know.
weirdly imo the best contribution highschool years made to sims 4 was its great variety to build buy++ and CAS. added nice variation and there. and i do appreciate new sports added with the cheerleading... but BOY the loud announcements of cheer and football are terrible! 😂😂😂 especially when you dont have any teens in the household! 🙄
On Amazon don’t you rate wether you got the package and if it was good quality? I don’t typically hold the business selling the game key at fault for the game being crap, it isn’t their fault.
some people do, but a lot of people rate on the actual product.
High School Years is probably one of my favorite packs I get the most use out of it. With that said I don't think the focus was there to make it amazing instead of fleshing out classrooms adding more game play for football adding in drama they put their attention to the trendi app and a boring rabbit hole carnival.
They did this with Get to Work as well instead of fleshing out retail and doing it right it became shallow and useless with the focus split between retail and the 3 active careers both suffered for it.
Not being able to create high schools in any world either was a huge let down they built in so many limitations. I will always stand with they made a huge mistake not making worlds expandable high school lots should have been added to every non vacation world the same with hospitals and police stations expansions should expand not create limited mini games stuck to a specific world.
I too would have personally scrapped the theme park, trendi and so forth. I get WHY they added it: probably for a broader appeal. But I do think it weakens the pack as a whole and the chance for more depth
I think asking people to choose the worst is different than asking users to rate the pack, because if people are generally satisfied but still have preferences, it will look worse than it is.
the poll is very flawed, and there is likely a sample bias- but community tab only allows for basic polls. If I can ever afford it, I'd like to get a premium version of survey monkey. you can do surveys for free, but the sample size limit is like 50 people ha
I hate high school years because it doesn’t WORK. The students never go to class, for some reason the school day never ends on time. They REFUSE to do exams, AND THEY NEVER SIT ON CHAIRS. They’re always sitting on the FLOOR 😭 despise that pack
admittedly have never had any issue with students going to class or doing basic things. Have you experienced this since you bought it? Do you have any mods?
@@SimmerErin Yeah I’ve only (tried) to use the high school feature sparingly because out of all my EP (I have every ep except horse ranch) it is the absolute glitchiest 😭 not even my for rent is as glitchy as high school years for me. I do have mods but because the crystal creations broke every mod in existence I deleted my mod folder and started all the way over so everything should be updated as I also do periodic checks on the major gameplay mods to make sure they’re still up to date. The only reason I don’t completely regret buying it is because the cas and build mode items are some of my favorites
i know so many people are bothered by prom every week, but functionally it makes sense. they did it that way to ensure whatever life span you play on your teen sim gets a chance to go. you dont have to go every week.
I think ideally one could set it when you want it frequency wise though this could be nitpicky
I think High School Years is OK. A bit boring, but at least it is functional, and have for me been since launch. You can get your teenager through an education without too much trouble and have a end-of-semester ball (rather than an American prom). I find Trendi and Social Bunny annoying, but I'm in my 50s and clearly not the target audience. The CAS and BB are OK, and offer styles we don't have too much of otherwise. Together with Growing Together, it makes for a decent experience.
yeah I think it makes a pretty good companion with growing together
"Highschool Years" was good pack for me, one of the best actually. Very very nice world with a good atmosphere and mix of lot placement. Some of the best items - practically irreplaceable for me at this point.
Your community mostly excludes people who focus more on building and CAS (of which in reality I think are more than gameplay only people), so it's no surprise there's a big discrepancy.
As a couple side notes:
1. If you rebuild the high school to be smaller and have the interesting areas closer, gameplay gets slightly better; not to mention it feels better when the high school looks good unlike the bland thing we got...
2. I noticed that if you don't configure mccc well, high school pack bugs out in a lot of places; sims not going to school, teachers not coming, stuff like that. A lot of people download it because they hear it's mandatory for good gameplay, but end up having no clue what it's for and how to set it up.
3. I think you're taking the social bunny app too seriously. I don't do just build, I also play, and I use it from time to time and I find it somewhat funny. Of course it would be repetitive - the only way such a small feature wouldn't was if it used AI to constantly generate new messages, but that's not gonna happen is Sims 4.
I certainly don't mean to exclude builders. Ido focus more on gameplay, because it is was I know most about and am most passionate about. As I stated at the beginning, I discussed a sample bias, which is something I feel many fail to do. But there's also not a lot I can do about that sample bias. I always welcome all types of players here, but by nature of my focus, I am more likely to attract more live mode players.
For a billion dollar company, they could have done more with social bunny that isn't basically 3-4 rotating messages about pillow fights, and the same jokes over and over. She also isn't reviewing the game with mods like MCCC, she's reviewing the pack baseline - and baseline, this pack is hollow. The CAS/BB are excellent! But the gameplay is very shallow - your sims sit in class and do nothing. In TS3 Uni, I could participate in class, or give a presentation. But in high school in TS4 I can't...do anything? How about talking to friends in class, passing notes, taking notes, throw a paper airplane, give a presentation, take selfies, cheat on homework or tests, etc - high school kids get up to a lot in class that isn't sitting still and writing notes. This pack also has no crossplay with Parenthood, and your teen years are when you need the most parenting and guidance! I like what this pack could have been - but when the only tasks during a school day are 'be nice to a student' and 'be nice to faculty' and 'study for exam'...what's the point? Stare at them sitting still in class, then go use one friendly social after class, then watch them sit still in class again? Why not just send them to a rabbithole, then, and just 3x speed m yday and not waste that time staring at them, unable to do anything in class, and unable to even make like...a high school club to participate in. Why can't I have a chess club meet at school, without mods? Why can't the cheer team meet after school? Why can't I have the computer club meet up? Wh yhave anything in a school except a cafeteria and the two classrooms? You need nothing else because you can't DO anything else. I just wanted better for this pack, and it fell short of...anything, really. The 'active' school day is more boring than just sending them to a rabbithole for school. At least then I got pop ups for fun things happening at school sometimes!
Yes, High School Years does have flaws, but I still think it's a great pack. One thing you didn't mention is this recent, terrible glitch, that's preventing graduation day from happening!😨
Sadly not recent! they've had that issue on and off, and I'm not sure why. I think I said something vague about graduation issues, but not specifically what (a very casual video ha) . I def don't feel it's the worst pack, by any means- I think it's fairly subjective and depends somewhat on what one really expected or wanted
If going to school would be in a open world, it would be awesome. But it’s just not interesting enough to only be on the the school lot 5 days a week to manage the school life of your sims. Actually, open world would make this game awesome and tie every feature together so well. It would be worlds better than sims 3.
the gurus have more or less said open world isn't plausible for sims 4
@@SimmerErin It absolutely is not possible at all with this engine, I still think it's the only thing that would make sims 4 actually good
High school years is one of my fav packs, rarely had issues with it.
oh cool, in what ways is it one of your favs
@@SimmerErin because it had so many new things, especially going to school, I feel it was soo much fun. Soo many new things for teens. Very huge pack. Horse ranch had nothing interesting, and for rent doesnt have any gameplay. Another great pack is eco lifestyle, sooo much to do, so much gameplay.
I spit on high school years its just blue balls cuz i want it to work so bad and it just wont !!!!
work in what way, or what specifically is not working
@@SimmerErin i can’t go to prom ever 🥺
Snowy escape is a good pack, why people hating on that?
there are a few comments on my community tab that may illustrate it. Most I have seen regard it not feeling like an expansion pack/ should be a gamepack and the gameplay feeling lackluster, both of which are subjective
i would love to see you do a retrospective on cottage living because i feel like that pack got a LOT of positive attention (even to this day) and i just feel like theres something im not getting about all of that hype lol.
It was a good pack, added a lot of new things (taht were very in depth), had excellent CAS and BB, added new animals, a new way to live - by only living off the land...it completely changed the game AND had one of the bigger worlds! Plus very few bugs! But...if you don't like farming or living off the land, or cottagecore or the British countryside, it may not have hit your sweet spot. Not every pack is for every person!
that's the one I was first thinking to do, and it won my poll on twitter for most recently well received packs. I also find that one highly interesting... because it feels like a lot of the discourse about it not feeling like an ep quieted down.
I don't dislike the pack and think a lot good was done, but I also was not and wowed by it
I think the lack of integration is the BIGGEST issue with every pack. Everything is so disjointed and disconnected and surface level. It's just a shame...
while I don't feel it strongly in some packs vs others, I think it is indeed an overall weakness in sims 4
Why the hate for #SnowyEscape?
I may discuss it some, but there were a fair few comments on my community tab (I left the poll up). I think the most common are that it didn't feel like a true expansion, the gameplay felt not flesh out/ lackluster, and others took issues with some of the bugs
So glad that I DIDN'T get High School Years.
because of bugs, live mode, or ?
@@SimmerErin The bugs, the live mode and the overall instability that I always see when anyone is doing anything that use some game play related to that pack.
I think It was a pack. that was to hyped. it was more or less imposible to live up to.
I'd love to explore that more- where does hype come from, what role do devs vs influencers vs the community at large have to play
High School is kinda like those Sims 3 worlds, overpriced and underwhelming
I assume you mean from the store? I admittedly have never bought one
@@SimmerErinyeah store worlds
awsome video friend
thank you
@@SimmerErin yqw friend
An additional thought and issue I have is that students that show up to high school changes.. and if you're a rotational player, your sims friends, cousins and other family members won't "go to school", I find that so annoying, not seeing them there.
One of the problems is the game pulls from certain traits like if you don't have a teen with the mean trait the game will spawn one or if you don't have a Sim in one of the high school clubs it will spawn one. I have a 40 student mod and do 2 classrooms of 20 I was still getting the random spawn till I figured out what traits are required had to make a mean teen delete the random spawn and attend high school with my new Sim.
yes, I do agree that is immersion breaking. I think there are some core limitations of the game/ issues that maybe is why it is how it is
This. I had a bullying plotline set up, but it had to be in my head/offscreen, because the bully sims didn't show up to school the same day as my main family. But I worked it out in college. Younger twin rooms with the bad girl and the older twin dipped out of Uni to school at home because she simply wasn't going to stand for sharing a dorm with her mortal enemy. Also, they come from a family of 10 other siblings, 23 grandkids and 12 great-grandkids, so sure as shooting I was upset that high schoolers don't consistently have their friends and cousins at school with them!! ((grumpy face))
@@lance9249 This is actually very good to know. Thank you for sharing the information about the traits the game pulls!
@@lance9249 There’s a few classroom culling mods, some with similiar names. There’s one where you can select every student and faculty member. Only one that works for me to ensure the sims I want are showing up at school with my sims.
My biggest disappointment was the absence of an active Teacher career which after the announcement I was really hyped about it, fantasized about situations and stories I could play out with my Sims and then was let down by the Simsteam again after they said there wouldn't be one.
ugh.
I do like the some of expansions overall ideas and features, relative to other Sims4 expacs, but I still cant get myself to buy it because of the missing Teacher career.
yes, I know many were hoping for that. I think the challenge would be: what would the teaching active career involve, and how to keep it dynamic and interesting.
I think the biggest problem with TS4 packs is, that they are too linear. There is only one way of playing with them. For instance HSY should have introduced a simple school mechanic. Meaning you have classes that can be edited for various purposes. The player can decide on the subjects and the schools can be designed accordingly. I would have preferred a custom curriculum; a way to pick your classmates. Similar to the club system.
To just have the ability to choose your subjects, whether it’s Potions class for spellcasters or Music class for the aspiring violinist, would have been great. Introducing a school lot trait would have made the pack universally usable. Then we could have created our own schools in every neighborhood. Vampire school? Done. A learning institute for your historical gameplay? Here you go.
As it is you can only attend U.S. High School. It‘s incredibly restrictive and immersion breaking. No freedom to create your own stories.
To be fair, I quit the Sims long before HSY and never played with it. Apart from that, I‘m not the target demographic for the game anymore. But I do feel that the restrictiveness and lack of pack integration is prevalent in most TS4 expansions. They never quite fit my playstyle, rendering them useless for storytelling purposes.
Thank you, Erin! I enjoyed the video 🤓
Many reviews from critics are forgiving of bugs. They give the benefit of a doubt for the conditions of the review version they receive with the hope that patches will solve the issues. Players are far less forgiving. I saw this a lot with My Wedding Stories reviews, and after that I stopped reading media reviews for Sims games.
that certainly is possible. also thinking critic reviews get an early access copy, which may not include them playing with other packs
the sad things are, I think their is those critics. that you could give worms and if the Critic like the developing company. It´s going to get a great score. If you don´t know what game ask your parents or maybe grandparents. Depending on how old you are.
Yeah it’d be easier to forgive if this wasn’t a consistent pattern with multiple packs and it can take them years to patch and fix major issues. Also it’s really disappointing when you spend your money on a broken hardly playable piece of crâp. I think high school years was the last pack bc I was tired of spending my money on disappointment and broken promises.
A notable difference between critics and reviewers would The Sims 2's console port. The game had above average reviews which was lower than the original Windows version but players who actually played the game gave more harsher reviews which was mostly because the game didn't include children that The Sims included and it not being like the original Windows version. Most people who gave negative reviews mostly played either the PC version or played the previous games who didn't like the game lacked children or was not like the original game they were expecting. Those who didn't hate the game likely never played the PC/Mac games especially those who grew up with the console games or were introduced to The Sims through the console games.
I really wish that for high school years we had the option to attend prom as a rabbit hole. The first few times it’s nice to go with them, but after a while it gets annoying that this is the only way for your sims to go. Especially when you’re playing with a large household and have other sims to focus on. I don’t want my sims to miss out on prom, but I also don’t want to be forced to go with them every time.
either that or be able to choose how often we have prom- preferably both
I thought you didn’t have to attend if you didn’t wanna…?
@@marcosmith4764 you don't. But if you skip it, your teen will get a bad moodlet for missing/skipping prom.
The only time I usually send my sims alone to high school is for final exams on Friday. This is because sims sometimes stop what they are doing for final exams.
@@marcosmith4764you’ll get a bad moodlet. if you’re sim is dating someone and they don’t go to prom there sentiment will change and their partner will be resentful for no prom invite
The last good expansion pack was honestly Cottage Living…
-Never before seen animals (you can actually pet and care for) in the Sims franchise (Llamas)
-Lore
-Return of Agnes Crumple Bottom
-More lots than average expansions
-Blends in very well with most of the packs you own
-Quests
-They tried to make the world interactive (window shopping, festivals, the stalls)
-canning and stichting AND overhaul of the cooking system
-Marketing. (Flyers sent to simmers)
-The launch wasn’t super glitchy at all, which can’t be said for the latest packs released as of lately
-probably much more!
I do plan on talking about cottage living as an opposite of this, reception wise. I'm very interested in how the perception of that pack changed some, too
Social bunny is still so questionable especially the flirty interactions. It’s showing up on PARENTS but not love interests like?? Hello?
And then the cafeteria staff will sometimes decide that they hate their job and do something else making it impossible to eat
And also before I got the more classmates mod, I kinda forced the game to only have teens from played households by assigning unplayed sims into extreme violence mod gangs and just waited for them to take each other out one by one 😂
yeah... social bunny is so messy I don't see a point of even bothering with it honestly
although your second paragraph ha-
😆maybe they've just had it with students
I also use Extreme Violence to take out unwanted sims.
Because I am a rotational player with a pretty large family tree in my active legacy, I play with HSY a lot and find myself regularly using the build / buy and CAS items. Yeah there are some bugs and I'll sometimes just cheat my way through the aspiration milestones, but it is so useful for storytelling.
it would be great if the career day actually mattered. it just feels like a waste of time to me.
I do find the activity day notifications to be annoying though, like for Football day and Cheer day. The Social Bunny app I primarily use to slowly build or cause drama passively. I've had sims become friends as well as enemies by just being social bunny friends and leaving it alone. it just doesn't function the way it should when I try using it.
I don't mind the theme park, but I really wish that the ferris wheel wasn't a rabbit hole and that it was open so we could see the different sims riding it, but I still enjoy the space.
Rotational Family player as well. I actually don’t hate the pier rides overall. Sending the sims on rabbit hole rides are okay with me. Especially if I bring a large friend group or the whole family. I made Totter park a little more toddler/infant friendly. Overall, h.s. Years is a mixed bag for me. i do not hate it and took ages to even get it, but I really wish teen activities were more beefed out and interactive. I don’t need to play a football game, but certainly football practice wouldn’t have been too hard. I think the sports/cheer days are more fun than career day. Prom is fun a few times, then gets annoying. I had a teen who aged up the day before prom and the game ‘is Ellis going to prom?’ And I am like ‘he hasn’t even been to h.s. Yet!!!’
That is when I miss the cutscenes in Sims 2 during the fair rides
YESSS the career day was a huge missed opportunity! I just feel like that concept had a lot of potential
as for social bunny... also a cool idea but not only buggy but also feels very randomized and nonsensical
I just feel like every school day is the same. There's no variation no matter which teen I'm playing as - you can't participate in classes, so you just...stare at your sim doing nothing but a few repeat idles for a sim hour or so. All the daily tasks are always the same - 'be friendly to [person]' and 'study for exam]...at a certain point, that's really tiresome? I just wonder what draws others back to doing the same 3 tasks and sitting through school days where you do nothing in class, and have time for nothing else between classes...not even time to eat at lunch.
@@christabelle__ Yeah it's really great for finding teens for your sim to be friends with, I usually skip lunch, grab an apple from my locker, and go around meeting people to find a good connection to carry into young adulthood. HS Sweethearts and regular friends. The activities do definitely get repetitive, but I like that each activity doesn't have to be done long to be completed, like Study or using the exercise equipment. It would be nice to not have to spend your first morning playing your teen sim at the high school with the principal.. we don't need the run down with every new teen in one save. I do wish that there was more after school time, and like others have mentioned in other places, that the after school activity did something. I WANT to follow my sim to Chess Club. I WANT to see my sim in football gear tossing a ball back and forth with their teammates. But nah 😂
Edit to add: I know I could make a lot a Teen Hangout to meet teens but I usually forget to do that and fewer of them show. HS is just an easier place to meet appropriate aged sims for my teen sims to be friendly with. Or rude to 😈
An interesting angle… these 2 packs that people were most unhappy with in your poll (For Rent and High School Years) are the ones that, to me at least, feel like they assumed a “standard” way of playing and didn’t allow for any variation. Both work best when you’re only playing 1 Sim, not a large family and definitely not rotationally. And HSY is also made for a normal lifespan - I’ve heard so many complaints from people who play long lifespan or aging off. And yet, according to a recent AHQ poll, most people play with aging off or long lifespan! Whereas Snowy Escape may have disappointed some (I personally love it) but at least playing in a non “standard” way doesn’t actively make it worse. Same with Horse Ranch.
AHH that is indeed an intriguing connection!! This why I love hearing what people have to say- always bring in some interesting insights
Something no one talks about is that the game will create a pool of teens for high school and WON'T AGE THEM UP unless your sim attends graduation.
The problem with this is if you never send your sims to graduation
1. You'll have the same high school classes for 10 generations
2. Graduation is glitched and it's almost impossible to go
The teens not aging up is by design so that they don't randomly age in class but it practice it's so immersion breaking
I do agree, and that's a shame. in a weird way it reminds me of other things in sims 4, like how if you see a sim shopping, it won't really be in their inventory- a smaller thing, but often the sense the world doesn't really exist outside of your control
I've seen teens age up and I've never sent my sims to graduation. If all else fails, delete unwanted sims.
@@hustlinhitch I'm talking about the pool of 10-15 npc high school student sims that the game creates.
I think the lack of virtriol for snowy escape is due to how long ago it came out, at the time it seemed like one of the worse but compared to how bad things are now it isn’t. Also it did bring a lot of diversity and gameplay/new activities so those tend to be received better imo overall.
Yes, as I said, it is an older pack, and recency bias is certainly always important to consider- as well as the sample bias of the poll itself
It was just so empty, but I was most disappointed that other teens in the neighborhood didn't attend the school even after the NPC students were removed. I created several families and had all of the teens in a friend group. I was hopeful that since they lived in town I might have seen them in the school while playing my main sim, but the game just continues to send the removed NPC or newly generated NPCs. No teacher career was disappointing too. The trailer was complete false advertising in my opinion. I didn't play the sims for over a year after this pack released.
I wonder if there was some sort of base game technical limitation regarding how teens spawned into attendance
I doubt it flopped from a financial aspect for EA (has any pack done that?) but for simmers it definitely seems to be a big miss for the most part. Even putting the numerous bugs aside, it didn't really offer anything beyond the most basic kid goes to school. It has the same issue many other packs have, it fails to live up to it's potential. The world is nice for building but that's not enough.
I don't follow the bigger sites like IGN and others, as you can't trust their reviews because they'll want to keep a positive relationship with the publishers. Whether there's truth there or not, it casts enough suspicion for me to stay away. I'd sooner go to smaller channels with nothing to lose.
There are indications that a Pack or two has not met their expectations- which I plan to discuss soon!- but as far as operate at a loss? probably not? It's hard for me to know sadly for certain as they don't tend to release specific metrics.
I'm not sure.. is there a direct financial incentive? because on that metric, they'd have to provide a positive rating for all major publisher games, and I do not think they do, so I don't personally think this is the case
@@SimmerErin Not a direct financial incentive but it could keep them in good favour with EA so they keep getting exclusives. It wouldn't need to be all major pubs, or games, just some. IGN in particular are very well known for giving many games a 7 out of 10, which is a good rating. There's no concrete proof of course but there is evidence to suggest it.
@@Elwaves2925 why EA especially?
@@SimmerErin Not especially, they were just an example because they're relevant to this channel. 🙂
IGN reviews unfortunately don't seem that useful anymore. I think the incentives are more psychological (and manipulative) than any sort of direct reward
My biggest issues with this pack are: 1) the inability to choose your classmates. 2) the calendar repeating events weekly. Prom shouldn’t happen every Friday. Those could’ve been different types of events. 3) not being able to build a high school in any world. 4) lack of pop ups and interactions during the day. 5) the routing inside the school is terrible.
I wonder if 1 has some kind of core limitation of the base game. As for prom starting every Friday, I do feel you should be able top select.
Routing where or around what in specific, or generally everything you feel?
Yeah once a season would be better
While I was disappointed with the pack when I first played it I have since found ways to use it that actually add to my gameplay - 1. Making the school smaller 2. Combining both class teachers into one classroom makes the classrooms feel livelier. 3. And probably the best thing was discovering I could use the club system to make groups of 'unplayed' teens that my played sim can 'invite club to hang out' brings the whole place to life. These unplayed sims will sit in the classrooms, use the cafeteria, practice cheer and use the gym and computer room and generally add to the school vibe and let my playable sims meet more teens than they normally would. I've also found I can skip classes to skill build, very rarely do my sims get caught - I have them paint in the art room, build skills in the media room etc.
I also use the clubs in the same way to get more teens turn up to prom. Probably the biggest complaint is that the prom is so scripted... oh, and the fact that the cheer and football comps still don't work 😢
Sorry for the long comment but I thought this might help other simmers to enjoy it more ❤
Yes, the clubs and organizations are the true hack to the Sims 4, just as you use them to make the school more alive I create a family tree club for all my families and make the activities typical everyday common things, like watching tv, playing long video, talking etc… it will bring the household to life as well.
Another cute way is my lawyer sim, once they reach a certain level can work from home and it gives you law career options on the computer. Well I have my sim work from home but I go to the office building (law firm) I created and just have her do the work and task in her office while inviting my law friends to the lot and it gives the illusion of an active office building and such, you can make the task to computer work, research etc.
You have to know how to bring The Sims 4 to life.
@@marcosmith4764 Thank youI I love these ideas. You are right, it does take a bit of trial and error and imagination to really enjoy this game and hearing how other simmers use features is really helpful too💞
All great ideas, thanks for sharing that! I do think you get the most bang for your money by playing in conjunction with other packs.
And you never need to apologize for taking time to write a thoughtful comment! that's what makes having a channel fun-
I had hopes for HSY but it really let me down. The school is nearly empty, the field outside is useless, no teacher career, lack of activities etc. I know we had a few but what about baseball basketball clubs? Or my Britishness hockey cricket. It’s a shame really so much potential and we got screwed
empty as in sims/ lot? Afraid that's a limitation in general, as only so many sims can spawn per lot- and it def does feel empty because it's a lot of space.
As for teaching career: do you mean you wanted an active career? And what activities would you have liked? thanks!
@@SimmerErin yeah active. They could have done so much better and now I don’t get my hopes up anymore
High School Years suffers from "You got what you asked for, you didn't know what you were asking for thats why you hate it" syndrome. And Maxis is partly to blame for this. They put out survey's asking players what we want, corporate looks at these survey's dictates what will sell to the devs & then says "Make it." the devs can say "No, they mean this" but the corporate money daddy can argue back "Survey says no, make it." And thats where it all falls apart.
I for one love & hate High School years. CAS, Build & World are all 8-10. Solid content! Actual school is a 2, I hate active nonsense & never play with families so it's meaningless to me. But what makes this entire pack a 4 overall for me despite my love of the CAS, Build & World, which should really add up to more than 70% of my rating?
1. I cannot disable Cheer, Football & Prom, despite the calendar now being Base Game. As I said, I don't play with fams. So why is my elder spellcaster getting weekly updates to go to events she can't take part in if my household has no teens? That's a fail. Complete. Fail.
2. Active classes were never going to work. They were aweful in Sims 3. Shoe horning that bad idea into High School years was players demanding "I want this!!!" but forgetting just how horrible that was in previous games. This same thing happened with Laundry Day. Lindsey Pearson said Maxis vowed to never make Laundry for Sims 4 in an interview but the players demanded the pack in a community vote so they team was forced to make Laundry. They did not want to make it. They knew it would not work well. The developers were aware of the teams limitations and the pack would have issue, many many issues but they were forced to cave in to community demands. So they made the pack. It has many many issues & players complain about it constantly. They complain because they got exactly what they asked for, a fire simulator that only some times works. Active classes are the same problem. Players demanded to go to school, but school is incredibly boring & was torture to live through, so playing it in a sim is going to be torture to play. You guys got what you asked for, boring classes, bad events, lame dances & agrivating bugs.
Maxis could do a Much better job getting community feedback. Goth Galore proves they are asking the wrong questions the wrong way. They shouldn't ask "Hey what theme do the cool kids want today?" And then just go from there. That's a recipe for mess. What they should be asking is "What outcomes do you want?" That would have saved them a lot of issues in previous packs.
-Mermaids would have had occult tech trees.
-Horses would have had unicorns with at least 2 abilities.
-Acting would have Katy Perry style gig street jobs.
-Growing Together would have strollers, not child backpacks that don't work.
-Batuu would be a stand alone like Sims Mideval.
-Pets would be playable.
-My First Pet stuff wouldn't exist, hamsters would be a Kit.
-Kits would have come at launch because some people really love them especially console players who can't just make there own magic content on.
-Base Game would have kept the cars loading screens. (They removed this to streamline the game by the way). When you have to watch an animation play out in it's entirety and the animation plays on top of a loading screen that means the load time must be at least the length of the animation. Therefore, loading times are increased. If you guys want cars back you are going to have to come to terms with the fact you are asking for longer loading screens that have a car & not a spinning plumbob.
the surveys certainly point to general ideas- as opposed to the details of say why or in what ways people are drawn to said ideas. So in theory one may want a certain type of gameplay, but the problem is, wanting a general concept inevitably doesn't tell the story of the why or the how
Thanks so much for this very interesting breakdown! It also makes me think again how everyone has their own way of rating a pack, and how heavily different parts of said pack weigh. matter
I hardly play with HSY, tbh. I go to school with my sims only on the first day and after that I just send them alone. If I don't, their grades never go up. And that's the whole point, according to the aspirations. I also think it's really empty. I replace the school with the one James Turner built, immediately in my games. The standard school is way too big and empty. I thought the school system was better in the previous ones.
yeah, I do know a lot of people have had trouble with grades- and also it not making sense based upon what you do. While not universal, it's a common concern
Prom is kind of a mess in HSY. I kinda get because of how weird aging is in sims 4 (and its customizable) why they made dumb choice like prom every week. But I think they could have had ‘a dance’ / maybe seasonal based dances like spring formal and ‘fall fling’ and ‘winter ball’ or an ‘event’ every weekend to curb this issue. I play on long lifespan with periods of turning aging off even. Prom becomes meaningless afterawhile so there was a way to not overdo ‘the big dance’ for long life spans, not make short lifespan miss playing it, and a way to balance for normal lifespan that would have made a school dance event better.
Not having the clubs be active was a miss. I was actually quite okay with NOT going to class with my sims in all the Sims university packs (2-4). But I would have like real parties and activities to go to in HSY. I like the concept of social bunny, not the execution. And same with Graduation. Better than Discover University but it was confusing when graduation was even going to happen the first time I played HSY through a kid aging up.
yeah, at very least options to choose simply or for it to scale based on the life span you play on. Different themes and being able to customize prom more could have been cool too
I definitely agree that they should’ve had it be more interactive. I wish the teen aspirations were a little more interactive when you decided to join your son at school i.e., if your sim has the drama llama aspiration, have one of the objectives for the day is to start gossip or get into a fight.
There should’ve been social groups that you can join. They could’ve made use of the system from GF and Werewolves.
I def appreciate that they added aspirations and they aren't super easy, but I also agree they could have been a lot more interesting.
I also wish parents were more intergrated somehow like a parents day or the family actually coming to graduation or recitals or competitions or drama showsbor swim meets. Teens feel like self navigating young adults already and High School feels like pre-College instead of what is essentially the final years of being your parent’s kid. Like they call the student not the parent if the teen skips school. Like what?
I feel like a lot of people forget about Discover University’s shortcomings, but I truly hate how long it takes to get a degree and the fact that lifespan just continues. I wish they would have treated it as its own world like in previous Sims games to help off-set the aging.
High School Years kind of reminds me of these shortcomings.
DU was mentioned by some, but curiously does seem to enjoy less backlash that HSY. It's interesting to compare. I think for HSY people in some ways actually expected more, expected it not only for the school experience but also to flesh out teen life
I actually hated the restricted university world in Sims 3 as it locked off the college Sims and they couldn’t go back and forth. In Sims 2 you actually could leave the university world and go back at will as there was no aging except for your active Sim and young adult ONLY existed for College students. No college your Sim went straight from high school to adult. It didn’t bother me since I played rotationally and often worked it out so that my non-college kids and college kids still ended up all sorted out in about the same progression in the end. I loved that flexibility and Sims 3 had none.
I hated finding out that when you went to college in sims 3, that was it, trapped forever in the frozen college zone until you got your degree. No switching back to the home family for a bit, no inviting your college kid home for the occasional dinner, no inviting the family to campus. Just stuck til college was done. You cold rotate back and forth between the home family and College kid in sims 2 allowing me to let life go on at home while college kid was at college. The baby born when they left would at least be a toddler when they got back while in sims 3 everything froze for approx. ‘4 simulated years’ of your sim getting a degree and resumed when they came home graduated. As a rotational player, hated it.
I do actually like Sims 4 Discover University more than Sims 3’s University (with Sims 2 still being my favorite). In Sims 4 I can go to college as an elder if I want and more importantly, however I want…. on campus, off campus, in a dorm, in a house, whatever version of college fits. As a person who graduated college at 33 and was older than my classmates but not the only one, I do like playing an older mom going to college on her own timetable if she wants as its not a lifestage locked event. Sometimes I do traditional college and just turn aging off, something Sims 4 make super easy to do. And sometimes I play it other ways and the pack is flexible enough for that. I love Discover University. I hope they never world lock/age freeze it again. Afterall, easy access to aging off gives me the power to freeze whatever I want the way I want how I want.
There was no "passing notes" or "raise hand to answer question" or "act like a smart aleck" actions for the classes. No fish tank or gerbils to feed. No real "hanging out" sort of activities.
Hi Erin! I never play with HS years. You just reminded me about the amusement park. Thanks it’s the one feature I enjoy from that pack.
hey, that's good though! I think it can be easy to forget about specific features from diff packs. I do think, while certainly not game changing, the park is a fun place to take families or for dates
2:25 I'm gonna guess being a part of the sims community is the thing here.
People that enjoy playing the sims 4, but do not consume any content about the sims, nor interact with the community, are probably not aware of the bugs, or don't care too much.
The majority of players probably fall into this category actually tbh
I've played the sims since 2004, and I've only very recently found "the sims community". The entire time I was playing the sims 2 and 3, the "community" was my friend group.
Yep, this is honestly such a big and fascinating topic. I have also played since.. Oh I guess it was 2005 or so, and I only joined the "community" in late 2018. I think being a part of it can vastly shape how you feel about the game
been reading quite some bad things about that one... kinda happy that I didn´t get it yet :)
I own it, and it's okay. But it would not rank in a top recommendation for me. And I also know people experience the bugs etc differently. I think the concept just personally wasn't quite right for sims 4
theres been a bug since hsy ep that causes teens to never age up. i dont see anyone talk about it. i play a lot of legacy gameplay and often take my teen sims to active hs. my gen 1 sim will have teen friends at school that my gen 2,3,4+ teen sims will have at their school. i think it has something to do with the fact that not enough sims have teens at the time of going to school and the game needs X# of teens to function at school. also the teachers will stay alive forever. the janitors will die and take days to replace the role. i have also had YA sims show up as classmates. to combat this issue i have to go in manage world and add a ton of teens to the game. its so frustrating though. (i also know its not just me bc ive seen simmers streams where it happens to them.)
see if this thread helps
answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports/OPEN-HSY-Homeless-unplayed-teen-sims-never-age-up/m-p/12898211
@@SimmerErinthank you! i couldnt manage to find any post on it. looks like theres work arounds but no actual fix. i have aging on for everyone so thats not it. the sims is frustrating sometimes..
@@caitlynl7213 I really hope it helps, I can imagine that is really irritating
6:38 I don’t know If uniform schools are necessarily private, in the uk every school has a uniform so could just be that they wanted school to feel more like that
yes, you are correct- but this pack is specifically labeled based off US high schools
What's the point of the weekly competitions at the tea shop? Often the staff don't show and we're left with a handful of sims in similar outfits and are prizes awarded? I've not seen any.
High School Years is not as fun as it is shown in trailer, as you pointed out the mechanics itself is not as immersive. Going to class just to see the Sims sit for a long time listening to the teacher yapping away, with no input from players on how it can turn out, nothing interesting to see either. So the main part of the game play is really flawed.
Events for the school is way too often and not that it is interesting either. Most of them feels like again a checklist to complete which is not as fun along with the events in Sims 4.
After school activities are interesting, again I don't get the point of having the carnival rides as rabbit holes. No carnival games? Nothing else to do aside from vanishing to a ride entrance?
All in all High School years "flops" not because it is bad, but it is not giving enough to make the pack feel complete.
I will say, most packs the cinematic trailer is going to look a lot livelier etc- I recall discussing that before. But the range of that does vary by pack. (Whoever works on the trailers imo is talented). That's why streams and things like that really tell you a lot more.
I personally feel if they'd made it interactive in classes it'd be a hot mess- but I also could argue there could have been more interactions from your desk, as well as more things you could do (sans animations) to influence your performance and even add drama in more meaningful ways. Like some of my qualms w/ other packs, my biggest issues stem from feeling some things I do don't matter or are more or less random. I also felt a nuance popularity system and a crush system based on larger systems (attraction) could be better. Course... in some ways I am again pointing to the core of the game itself, too
I agree on the events. Cool concept, and I can still have fun with them some. But they should not happen so often, and they could again have more consequence
1:53 so many critics just aren’t even gamers… they won’t get as deep into the pack as players and won’t see the issues. unless the problems are in the your face the whole time or the critic can’t figure out how to play the game, you can almost guarantee an 80-90 score from every major critic on every game.
not sure, I def want to research before I can properly assert that statement
@@SimmerErin makes sense.. i remember seeing a video before about gamer critics i think that’s where i got the idea from but also as an observation, not fact
@@cryingwatercolours for sure. It actually is something I'd love to look into! What I really appreciate about seeing comments is if often gets me thinking about other topics too
@@SimmerErin well yay i’m glad this interaction did that for you 🥰 yknow im a lil spammer lol so sometimes i feel a lil annoying but honestly erin
i just love listening to u talk about anything
super random but logout as well let u know
hope ur having the best day
I'm replaying HS pack with my new computer with new safe file. Turns out, teen unable doing extra credit work, the option only for kids. Also, in order to graduate 🎓 with A rank, you need spend 3 game weeks in HS with level 3 of any skills. Good thing in the HS option on teens is Study Exam, you need only do once on entire game week. So late knowing how because teens in my old file graduate early 😅.
graduation is buggy, and I think the grades systems likewise should have been fine tuned
I didn't buy any of these packs. I was interested in all of them when they were announced, but the more I saw about them, I lost interest. You can't have a pack like this where you follow your teens to school in a closed world game like TS4. Because while you're there with your teen, the rest of your family isn't going to work, isn't going to school, isn't feeding themselves, you can't just flip over to them and take care of them for a minute, it's just awful. You finally come home and everyone is using locked computers they shouldn't be able to access, starving, missed work, didn't do homework, all of it. I actually stopped watching several Sims streamers at this time because I didn't even want to watch the let's plays for this pack. I wasn't even the one playing and the bugs were annoying me so much.
yeah, it's not the best because of the limitations of the base of the game itself
Well-done analysis Erin. I use the CAS items all the time and for me it's the strongest aspect of the pack. I find the gameplay unfortunately severely lacking. HSY could have been so much better
Thank you. The CAS items I think got the job done, and I looked back at my review and saw I said I liked they stood out in Manu ways, plus a fair blend of masc and fem fashion
The prom event, the school day events, it goes by so fast and you can’t even truly experience it. I see what they were going for in the pack, and some of the ideas of flushed out and more functional could’ve made it a decent pack.
I think there are indeed some nice ideas in the pack- and I mostly feel mixed about it. I think it adds some good things- such as teen aspirations- while also feeling it feels oddly unfinished in certain aspects
They fumbled so badly on this pack imo. The idea could have been really great and I was actually really excited about it!! The gameplay is lacking so much: the board walk is just rabbit holes and theres never sims when I go to the board walk. While I don’t hate rabbit holes and I understand the need for them, when there’s so many in one spot it’s really not a great look. The school events were extremly buggy in the beginning and I still sometimes don’t get to go to graduation or prom. The aspirations are getting old very quickly. I wish I could choose which sims show up to the school and I feel like they should have made the amount of spawnable sims for the school lot higher (it’s not like you can have more than one school anyways lol). Social bunny is like many of the recent gimmicks they’ve been adding with packs, a very lackluster gameplay aspect. I always turn it off because I find it quite irritating with the pinging and the notifications. I use it very rarely for a teen sim with the drama llama or social aspirations. I haven’t played with Trendi at all yet, as it didn’t fit into any of my storylines yet. I actually almost forgot the after school activities, which while I liked them are seriously lacking as well, would have liked an art club or band tbh. Others have mentioned things that could have been included that I also agree with like an active teacher career and boarding and private school. Even though they definitely added too much in the pack to actually flesh out anything. Almost all the gameplay additions are lackluster and don’t add any meat to the game. The highschool day is just soooo boring, which I guess is kinda realistic haha.
The only thing pulling this pack up are literally bb and cas. You can actually make sims that dress like teens and live in realistic teen rooms. I’m just really sad about the state of the recent expansion packs, if I pay 40 bucks for a pack I want something that’s actually fun and not just half-cooked gameplay ideas wrapped up in a pretty bow :((
In the end: As a family and legacy player I do use highschool years a lot, but I definitely think the packs gameplay feels unfinished and lacks in depth…
A little thing I noticed because I play on long lifespan right now: My teen sims get a call everyday asking if they want to graduate early ://
bb and cas did a nice job aligning with the theme, imo, some of those things may be a rushed issues but others could stem too from limits of the base engine- especially the issue of what students populate. I def. feel that social bunny could have been done and fine tuned a lot better.
I personally feel maybe it would have been better to stick to the core theme and nixed the amusement park- which may have been more fleshed out in a different package