Author Topic: Cottage Living - First Impressions  (Read 5377 times)

Offline christinal3106

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Re: Cottage Living - First Impressions
« Reply #15 on: July 30, 2021, 11:12:53 AM »
I guess it's just how I play the game.  I personally wouldn't just buy eggs from the store, I mean even when I was doing the quests, if I didn't have what they wanted, I would do what I had to do to get the ingredients/skills needed to complete it. 
When I have my completionist, Blaire play this pack, I will obviously get a perfect variety of all the plants, unlock and display all cross-stitching patterns at the highest quality with the wool from her llamas she sheered herself, have every type of chicken, unlock all the treats, and make sure that she has everything she needs to be able to produce all of those things on her own without the store.  I'm honestly not much into story, I'm truly more of a strategic player.  I just have this thing of self-sufficiency that runs really deep that drives my sims playing.  I refuse to rely on a store, and the biggest drawback to me with this pack is the flour and sugar can't be produced.  I was really hoping cricket meal or something could be a flour substitute, but I'll just save any flour/sugar obtained in quests in family inventory for cakes.
I know the fair keeps getting mentioned, and I have avoided that topic mainly because I don't really find it interesting.  It'll probably just get used to complete the aspiration for me. 
I didn't know about the candy jar, but I watched a video about the things you could get from the specters. First of all, I tried playing that pack, and it is bugged out, well the career is anyway.  I love cooking and collecting recipes so much in the sims, I wouldn't use that personally.  Also, even though the energized emotion keeps your sims up longer, I have this other thing in the way I play that I just don't like to play without needs.  I mean I even avoided getting any type of hunger, hygiene, or energy reward trait because of this.  I really like a routine for my sims, so anything that disrupts that is no go for me.  I only use energized if they are leveling fitness or something.  The most interesting thing in that pack to me is the specter jars because I really do not like that emotionally mindful buff, and it helps get it to the next level so you can surge an emotion. However, I haven't checked to see if this is fixed, but my "completionist" sim is a spellcaster and for some reason, the jobs won't complete when you have a spellcaster, so no specter jar for me.  I'll check if it's fixed if I ever have a desire to play that pack again.
Snowy escape was the most disappointing pack for me.  If I could get my $20 back, I would.  When I bought it, the most exciting thing to me in that pack seemed to be the rock climbing excursion.  For months, it was bugged.  Onsen bathhouse was bugged and would come up as a generic lot whenever you tried to start the event.  There was hundreds of reports of this on the forums, and it was literally game breaking imo.  Finally it was fixed, but only for new saves with this last patch. So I excitedly got to move my "completionist" sim into a new file so she could finally complete that aspiration, and wow was that the most disappointing experience I ever had in the sims.  I mean, I waited for months, avoided spoilers, for that?
Again, it's just really interesting to me what drives different simmers.  Like in myself and heartfoam's case, it seems to be complete opposite things.  I would never go out of my way to get that candy jar or do that disappointing mountain excursion.  I would definitely go out of my way to make sure my sims was 100% self sufficient though.
On another note though, I really need to stop commenting on this thread, sorry to everyone who had to read my long rambling posts.

Offline Sannara

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Re: Cottage Living - First Impressions
« Reply #16 on: July 31, 2021, 07:47:26 PM »
I like many aspects of the new pack. I've only done two fairs and I was distinctly underwhelmed. But I love the ability to can things and have different sized crops (even if its only 5 types). My biggest disappointment is the inability to combine baking and canning to make "bread and jam." Seriously. You can make scones with flour and jam and milk, and you can make sandwiches with bread and jam, but only if you're making a sack lunch. Why, Maxis, why?



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Offline celticlass

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Re: Cottage Living - First Impressions
« Reply #17 on: August 09, 2021, 03:21:22 PM »
I have been happily feeding my birds, rabbits, and foxes farm raised insects. When you have any of the food items from the mighty bug house (for example, cricket flower), the options to share farm raised bugs are possible. I did figure out how to trade my chickens for meat. Haven't played with a cow yet. Not sure if they trade out for red meat. Cows don't give milk without having a calf. Wish more than the chickens had babies! Glad we don't have to milk the cows every 12 hours like in real life. I would never get anything done off the farm! LOL The llamas are adorable! I won my first competition with rainbow wool and my rainbow alpaca. The foxes cause enough trouble to make up for the lack of coyotes.

I played the Sims 2 in a heavily modded medieval world for 20 years. Not everyone likes the next latest and greatest thing! The first thing I truly enjoyed after finally giving up Sims 2 was the mermaids in Sims 3. I used to swim around a coral reef in Florida every time we went to the ocean. It was only 10 miles away, but we had a pool in our backyard. Still, I loved those coral reefs. And I loved them in Sims 3. The first thing I have truly enjoyed since those mermaids is cottage living. My sims had jobs. But they were working gigs. You can enjoy the world without going to fairs or doing favors. Although I had lots of crops (overgrown and regular), lots of trees, farmed insects, a llama, and two chicken coops. My household grew from two young adults and two dogs to adding 4 children. I played through the entire challenge with both sims without cheats just to get to know the pack.

I have a family of mermaids on Sulani that's in their 5th generation. So I have moved farming there because mermaids have to eat too! Although I have had my mermaids eat fish in the past, my sims have never gotten a buff from it. My sims caught fish from their pond and cooked it for dinner. Several of my sims were uncomfortable because they ate a fish friend. So I will just be more careful with my mermaids and ponds.

I hope others are enjoying this pack as much as I am!

Offline MissZoef

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Re: Cottage Living - First Impressions
« Reply #18 on: August 20, 2021, 07:58:39 AM »
I love the pack! I have been a sims player for years, but I haven't touched the sims 4 in about one or two years for real. I saw the cottage pack and went for it. I have been playing everyday for the past week again and I love the sims again! I just love all the animals and the feeling of being a farmer. I also bought the eco expansion in the sale so I want to try to go off the grid. The sims is so calming and nice. I do notice more glitches lately than i was used to and I see they've made quite a few changes in past updates I have not discovered yet. I look forward to figuring it all out.