What Do You Love and Hate About Ambitions?

[lipglosschaos]

What do you like? What do you hate? What is glitchy? What do you wish was different? What is useless and boring?

I've only explored some of the aspects of Ambitions (I'll post more when I get to explore more), but here are my personal thoughts:

Stylist Career: It's fun if you really like CAS and it's a great way to keep all the fugly outfits out of your town. But if you have a lot of CC like me, doing the premade assignments can take up to an hour per Sim because of all the loading that needs to be done. I find it easier to just grab Sims when they come into the Salon, give them new hair/makeup, and send them back out.

Laundry: I think it's neat. A bit unrealistic that if you don't have a hamper, Sims won't lave dirty laundry, but laundry is not that time-consuming and gives a nice bonus positive moodlet, which I think is actually pretty accurate (I'm always a bit happier when I'm wearing fresh, warm clothes). The laundry-mats and clotheslines are annoying to deal and it's better for anyone in the long run to just buy a washer and dryer.

Sculpting: I really like this, especially since there seems to be a plethora or different things you Sim can sculpt, some of it downright odd. I do get a big flashing red cube, though, about every other time I try to sculpt something out of ice. It allows my Sim to keep sculpting, and it sells for a good amount of money, but never ends up being anything and gives me an "error" message. Not sure what that's all about.

Self-Employed (General): I know some people are disappointed with the lack of depth in this, but I actually like the flexibility of it. It's very laid-back, I can go at my own pace (whether I want to shoot to the top or just take it slow) and it makes it a great option when it comes to single mothers or parenting. Playing Legacy style, it allows my pregnant wife to take care of the toddlers and still make cash and improve her skills (more cash than she would be making if she were just doing everything randomly, that is). The promotions are easy at first and get appropriately harder. It's also a great option for anyone playing with one Sim who needs to work. Sometimes if I play with one Sim I get dreadfully bored during those hours he/she's at work. It just takes the fun out of it to have such a big chunk of your day where you can only sit there.

[kewpie]

I love the inventing table so much. It's fun to make all the doohickies, root through the trash, detonate stuff. I also like the time machine and when I have a big family, I just send the elders on time travel excursions because they will be out of my hair all day. I haven't done much with the simbots because I hate gardening and you need life fruit to get it. I also don't want to waste my LTR points on a simbot.

I really like the sculpting bench. It's fun to craft the stuff there.

The interactive jobs are mostly fun overall, but there are lots of unresolved glitches. Sometimes they don't work and you need to do a lot of futzing around to fix them. Also, the Lifetime goals for the new careers are sometimes just plain stupid. I have never even gotten close to the Architect goal of 100 perfect reviews even though I had a sim who worked every day until she died trying to do it. The same with the firefighter. He worked his behind off and was far into his elderhood before he saved 30 sims lives. If the game doesn't generate scenarios with sims to save, you can't save them. Here are some specifics:

Ghost Hunter: Very fun if you are a collector. You can collect ghosts and either sell them to the science lab or keep them. As a career reward, you get a little machine that lets you find ghosts on your own time. I'd skip the jobs that require you to talk to sim-shaped realistic ghosts and stick with the spirits. Even though they are lower level jobs, you can finish them up faster and get better money by selling the spirits. This is glitchy, but not too hard to fix.

Firefighter: Kind of fun, but best if your sim has no family. You have to stay at the firehouse and wait for a fire to happen. You have to ignore the other sims in the family to do a decent job. My best firefighters were single sims that lived at the fire station and only used their lots to store items they wanted to buy. It's kind of neat to have a sim live full time on a community lot. Other sims will come and "live" at the fire station as well. I mentioned the sim that hung out all the time and ended up giving birth at the station in some other post here. There is a glitch or two here but not too hard to fix.

Private Investigator: Cute, but can get very repetitive. I also had a glitch that caused stakeouts to randomly not work more than half the time and I had to ditch the case. There was another problem -- I think it was a glitch or a badly coded feature. PIs can break into houses, but there is a homing device on sims that activates when they are in an NPC house and nobody is home. The sim will just automatically leave and go home. I thought.. wtf is the point of breaking into the house if you can only do it when someone is home? There is also a glitch with one or two interactions in this career. If you use them on a sim (report to them about a case or ask them questions about a case) your friendship will eternally improve long after you've completed the interaction. So a PI will end up eventually being best friends with almost every single sim in town after a few levels.

Stylist: Cute if you love Create a Sim. It can get annoying though -- especially because it seems like the same sims will ask for makeovers countless times. Really? You need five formal outfits and three swimsuits and 10 everyday outfits? I do like a non-mod way to get in and fix townies with horrible outfits, though. This career also has the eternal friendship glitch and your sim will quickly get 20- 30 best friends that you gave one single makeover to and then never spoke to them again.

Architecture: Meh. It was OK, but I am not too great at building or designing. Eventually, all of the houses end up looking alike, because the sims want upgrades and they already have the best of everything. AwesomeMod has a fix for this, but without the mod, I was basically being forced to trash up a bunch of houses. The only thing that I did like was that I could add cribs and various skilling objects to houses to encourage sims to have more babies and hobbies at home. I think people who love decorating and building like this one. I suck at both, so it wasn't my thing. It also has the eternal friendship bug I spoke about.

I wish it had more outfits available from the start. Overall, I like the expansion pack and I am glad I have it.

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Edited to add Laundry:

I don't really get it. If you don't buy a washer or dryer, you don't get any dirty laundry. If you do buy one, your sim starts making laundry all over the place. I wish this was true, IRL. I would totally destroy my machine so I never got dirty laundry again. Anyway, you get a little bonus moodlet for having laundry machines, but I don't think it makes up for the huge mess a big family makes with one and someone in the family is constantly going around picking up laundry and washing clothes all the time.

I get a machine anyway, because the sims beg for the machines nonstop until you buy them one.

[SapphireSparx]

Just a note, if you have a brave sim in the house and something randomly starts on fire, the brave sim puts it out with the fire extinguisher. And then the fire fighters finally come just to fine you for calling the fire department! What the heel?

[Bystander180]

Mostly the new careers and skills. They finally added a Self-Employed Career, but EA hardly did a good job when making depth into the career.
The firefighter career is fun, but seriously, you use a fire extinguisher?
The Stylist career.. I do enjoy it to add some better looking clothes to aged up/created sims, but when Sims visit the salon, they just mooch off the fridge, use their laptop and play their instruments.
The Architect career, it's alright.
The Private Investigator career, I love it but it is.. annoying. All you do is walk around town. Their should be actual criminals, but instead, it's just petty things like using someone's tooth brush. Sims don't even brush their teeth autonomously!
Ghost Hunter, I love it.
EA didn't think Laundry through that much. They're isn't a "Collect Laundry on Lot" to take to a laundromat, but with mods, yeah it's possible. The eternal moodlet is also annoying, since it takes the realism out of the game.
The Sculptor and Inventor skills are okay.. I guess.
Twinbrook, I really hate that town, but of course, I don't have to play in it. It's poorly designed, they're too much attics in all the buildings and they're is no relationships with the deceased Sims.
Well, after my rant.. My conclusion is : Ambitions is good, but EA should really take time doing this.