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"I like The Sims 4, but...."
JayedTadaSkier
Posts: 817 Member
I'm wondering if there's any other simmers out there in the same boat as me. My first Sims game was 3 and I loved the open world as I tend to play large households of roommates with different personalities and aging disabled. It allowed to me have many different things happening in a singular game that keeps it pretty interesting, not having to worry about children and such, and I really love trying to add more patterns to everything in my houses with CASt. Those are some of the biggest things from the Sims 3 I enjoyed that weren't going to be in the Sims 4, but I went ahead and tried the 4.
Of course, I didn't enjoy it as much as 3 so I dropped it and came back, but... There are some things from 4 that I really, really, really enjoy. Like features I think should become a staple.
One of the biggest ones for me is how they had the Create-A-Sim set up. Being able to change the bodyshape is a real improvement from the others (even mods in 3 can make the sims bodies have issues). A big thing that can help facial differentiation is how instead of changing one face shape, you can mix, match, and mold presets and, oh my gosh, having hat / head accessories and hairstyles separate is amazing!
I'm also quite a fan of multitasking. It adds a little extra bit of realism to the game - I always find it kind of weird how most of my sims would go through their morning routine barely acknowledging eachother, but in 4 there's a lot more organic-...ness to how Sims interact with the world, simply through multitasking! (At least to me)
Unpopular opinion here but I absolutely love the artstyle of the Sims in the game (Aside from the eyelashes). I love the blending of moderately realistic bodily proportions and cartoony textures, and I love, love, LOVE the way the hairstyles look in the game. It's not very realistic but each hairstyle has a bit more personality and shape put into it than than more realistic hairstyles in 2 and 3. It's just kind of aesthetically pleasing to me.
The mood system is okay, its better than a mood bar, but it needs some tweaks.
I really love all the things listed above and they're pretty great improvements! It's just I cannot compromise the open world, CASt, and the color wheel for those features. While they're nice, only one of them really heavily affects my gameplay, but the removal of an open world drastically hinders it (I had a sim who serenaded tomatoes every night from 12-5 am just so they would grow...) Does anybody else have the same love-hate relationship with 4? I haven't played it since 2015 and that was just to see some CAS mods, to put it into perspective.
Of course, I didn't enjoy it as much as 3 so I dropped it and came back, but... There are some things from 4 that I really, really, really enjoy. Like features I think should become a staple.
One of the biggest ones for me is how they had the Create-A-Sim set up. Being able to change the bodyshape is a real improvement from the others (even mods in 3 can make the sims bodies have issues). A big thing that can help facial differentiation is how instead of changing one face shape, you can mix, match, and mold presets and, oh my gosh, having hat / head accessories and hairstyles separate is amazing!
I'm also quite a fan of multitasking. It adds a little extra bit of realism to the game - I always find it kind of weird how most of my sims would go through their morning routine barely acknowledging eachother, but in 4 there's a lot more organic-...ness to how Sims interact with the world, simply through multitasking! (At least to me)
Unpopular opinion here but I absolutely love the artstyle of the Sims in the game (Aside from the eyelashes). I love the blending of moderately realistic bodily proportions and cartoony textures, and I love, love, LOVE the way the hairstyles look in the game. It's not very realistic but each hairstyle has a bit more personality and shape put into it than than more realistic hairstyles in 2 and 3. It's just kind of aesthetically pleasing to me.
The mood system is okay, its better than a mood bar, but it needs some tweaks.
I really love all the things listed above and they're pretty great improvements! It's just I cannot compromise the open world, CASt, and the color wheel for those features. While they're nice, only one of them really heavily affects my gameplay, but the removal of an open world drastically hinders it (I had a sim who serenaded tomatoes every night from 12-5 am just so they would grow...) Does anybody else have the same love-hate relationship with 4? I haven't played it since 2015 and that was just to see some CAS mods, to put it into perspective.
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Whoops. I thought this would be more fitting in the sims 3 forums because it's a little more... Sims 3-centric? I also feel like posting anything positive about 3 in the Sims 4 forums would be like throwing a raw steak into a field of starving wolves.
Can anyone answer if Sims 4 has got the create a pattern in the pipeline ?????
I loved to build in Sims 3 and I loved using CAW, though I admit I sometimes hurried through building and setting up a town so I could control all those wonderful little people I made. I was excited to play, excited to see what my Sims would do next. And I greatly enjoyed building a town and it's people from the ground up, and being in charge and in control of it all.
I have created sims in TS4 and played them for a bit, four or five sim days at most, but they are boring to me. They are insipid shallow little creatures who flip emotions quicker than you can say psycho and after a little while of playing, those loading screens break the immersion I used to feel with Sims 3 and I exit the game in disgust.....
So I build houses. I can build just about any style of house, but I can't decorate it exactly the way I want to. The furniture that is supposed to match doesn't all match, the shades of brown or black vary from one chair to the next, and of course I can't click a wall and make it those wonderful shades of pink or peach that I used in a lot of my Sims 3 houses. But I keep building. I have logged 1848 hours on this game, of which maybe 100 was actual "gameplay". The rest of the time I build; I build houses I design myself and houses I replicate from plans on websites and I've shared over 100 houses on the gallery. The gallery is a great feature and I love that I can share houses online, and while it makes me feel good that a few people might like my houses and use them for their own enjoyment, it's not enough for me. It's not enough to imagine someone else's Sims in my homes, I want to create and see MY own Sims in my houses.
I keep telling myself to get over the loading screens. I convince myself that spending all this time creating houses without a color wheel and terrain tools, houses I will never see my Sims in, is a waste of time. With determination, I create another Sim. And then of course I get mad about the loading screens and I'm back to building. It's a vicious cycle.
This week, I spent all my time placing and tweaking houses, some my own and some great builds from others, in a completely blank new game. Next week, I will be creating Sims so I can take a stab at rotational play similar to what I enjoyed in TS2. I am determined to somehow make this work and if I'd spent as much time and persistence on my past marriages, I wouldn't be a four-time divorcee.
So you are not alone in your love-hate relationship with Sims 4. I really want to love it, and I'm disappointed in myself for being so stubborn regarding the loading screens and color wheel. I just wish I could have TS2's expressive and unique Sims, in an open TS3 world, living in houses built with TS4's really nifty build mode.
Disclaimer: The above is my opinion based on my own experience and gameplay.
I feel the Sims 5 will be better
Just like how Sims 1 was eh and Sims 2 was great.
I think they tried to capture the sims 2 again when creating the sims 4, but for whatever reasons, it's simply just a shadow of the more complex/goofy/family oriented/ creative sims 2. (Watered down I believe is the best term to describe it)
BTW.....anyone who has not played Ts2 you can still get the ultimate collection (which is everthing ts2) free. Just go into origin chat and ask nicely for it to be added to your origin library. (I have all the ts2 disk versions, but I had uninstalled it when I upgraded to win10 second release). I logged into origin chat today and asked and within afew seconds it was in my game library.
There are things that I like about TS4, editing the whole family in CAS... the search function in buy/build. I like the categories for clothing in CAS.
And then suddenly as I was trying to switch between the two I stopped going back into TS4. There was a neverending stream of things that I suddenly couldn't enjoy (borked genetics, lack of good mods to make the game playble, lack of CASt of which I only really discovered when I re-started TS3). I thought at first it was because TS3 was older and the mods were just all there. Now I'm at the point where even the sims in TS4 displease me. You can make a really great looking sim in CAS but then in-game they are all the same. Same ridiculous expressions, same desires, same needs, same emotions... and I only got to generation3 before jumping ship.
I can make drastically better/more realistic sims in TS3 than I can in TS4. Sliders, while more difficult are better for really getting into the subtle differences.
Recently I went back to TS4 on my laptop because I thought it would be a good 'casual game'. Unfortunately the very minuteness of the playable area was SO demoralizing that I closed the game and haven't gone back. Yeah its nice to have busy venues and areas, but when those same characters should be elsewhere or not even in SIGHT.. it makes it.. unenjoyable to me. I want the other sims in the neighborhood to be leading lives, evolving... but that was taken away.
I've also recently discovered that I LOVE "negative" traits. The sims show range and personality. I have a TS3 sim that has a bevy of "bad" traits and he is the most useless, most loveable, most cringe-worthy sim I've ever seen. In Ts4 they are all the same. The subtleties of the actions are nice, but they are impersonal. All the sims are the same. The emotions rotate like clockwork, like in TS3 when you go to a festival grounds. Every object causes specific and predictable wishes. I can forgive it in TS3 because I know when I go to certain areas that certain wishes will pop, but in TS4 its the same in the house. All the sims want the same things, regardless of their traits.
I really wanted to like it. But the fact that it is SO hard to personalize is difficult to come to terms with. If I want a different hair colour I need to DL twelve tons of CC, for every hairstyle. If I want a different outfit, again.. same thing. TS3 at least has CASt, where the same outfit/object/hair can have multiple/inumerable combinations of looks. Its really hard to beat.
IMO TS4 really pushed me into CC, and would require so much more to be playable longterm. I wont get into the missing lifestages, and the fake backgrounds. Its just too... false... for me to really enjoy. Like the sims combined with the "Truman Show"
Look What We Started- Simblr (MATURE CONTENT)
ISLAND END- Simblr (MATURE CONTENT, link is for scene list on sims.com)
Studio
When I was playing the game, I could only play for as long as an hour, after that I was done. The game itself - the sims - they don't need you. You are no longer in control. You no longer rule. You can just sit back and watch a badly put together reality show and you find yourself wanting to enjoy it, but you can't.
When I play the Sims, I want to play it, I want to control my simmies. I want to rule. LOL And I can't with this game.
Sorry, but that's completely and absolutely not my sim. That's an oversized child acting childish, not the grown up man he's supposed to be. In Sims 3 he'd only do that if he were insane. And as for their looks in the game.
And there I was, sometimes complaining about a nose that gets deformed in Sims 3 (which I do hate by the way). Who cares how I created his eyes and jawline and facial features, Sims 4 knows better...
Oh, p.s., and your Rowan (I'm sure he's the one you're referring to) actually convinced me I must check out more of the more negative traits in the future! Funny thing is, while he does have those traits, he remains a grown up. A childish silly one, but a grown up. Not a caricature. For me that works better, because it adds a contradiction in his appearance. I love that.
I think it's a result of the devs trying to be quirky, but it isn't working. What would make the game more quirky, is more gameplay objects and new npc's, not this.
It also effects the non trait triggered emotions, my Sims daughter recently died, and while she still has the sad moodlet, she's displaying as "Happy" because of some new furniture.
The nose thing annoys me in TS3 too. In fact, lots of stuff does, but the game offers so much more in return that I put up with it.
@GaiaHypothesis , I agree with JoAnne, Rowan is an awesome sim ( Is he downloadable ? I love him ) and negative traits are SO much fun. My insane artist with the Insane & Neurotic traits is amazingly lively to play.
I've also taken a cowardly / clumsy / unlucky sim on vacation to Egypt in the tombs.... SO FUNNY. I gave them the unlucky trait because I didn't actually want them to die, just see how they would react. It was hilarious. I don't actually count clumsy as a negative trait, because I find it quite endearing when they trip over and mess stuff up, but it wasn't exactly contributing to good adventuring encounters
As for TS4.. I've seen the same complaint from people on occasion. That the traits don't seem to help define their sims behaviour, or they're doing things that they feel their sim should or shouldn't do in accordance with their traits, and thus feel as if their sims behaviour is somehow "wrong".
It just seems to be kind of messed up and unappealing. My sims personality is important to me. It defines who they are, of course. And when you have TS4 seemingly just ignoring personality traits, then it simply cements my opinion that my decision not to buy was the right one.
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Devolution of Sims - a once customisable open world sandbox which has become a DLC Party catalog in a shoebox
I ♡ Pudding
so when im going to buy sims 4 it will cost: 3215.4 philippine peso
YES, its Rowan.. all the way. Its something about rolling random traits that makes you try things you don't usually. Most of my sims that I would make before were like Harris and Layla, YK? Generally good sims with no 'negative' traits. Now? I throw in at least one 'neg' trait because it completely changes their expressions, and the way they go through their lives. (I AM going to put him up for DL, later on though. When I can get all the kids up at the same time).
TS4 definitely turns the characters into charicatures.. which doesn't suit my play style. I like a bit of realism, but on top of that a layer of the ridiculous. I like the ability to make stories that are serious, with serious themes... but then also I can turn around play the same game and have it completely full of laughable moments. Its that sort of diversity that I feel is lacking from the newest game, which makes it... unplayable for me. If you're not into the fishbowl of over-the-top expressions and quickly cycling emotions then its just difficult to play.
Look What We Started- Simblr (MATURE CONTENT)
ISLAND END- Simblr (MATURE CONTENT, link is for scene list on sims.com)
Studio
edit: oh gosh, i just realized this post was from 2016, but the topic is still relevant regardless
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