I don't hate Sims 4, I'm just underwhelmed with it and rather disappointed. I feel like with the leaps and bounds that Sims 2 and Sims 3 made, Sims 4 should have been so much more amazing than it actually is. For me, Sims 4 seems stuck mostly in permanent unrealized potential. Great ideas, but they don't hit full marks due to one excuse or another. Some features, wow, you can see all the hard work and attention. Like toddlers. They are amazingly detailed. But then there are other features that make me feel unmotivated to play other than a random hour here or there. Like the ridiculously small worlds, the annoying grind fests for tasks, and those dumb emotions that were supposed to be so revolutionary, yet so illogical that they just make me shake my head. And so on and so on.
I don't hate the game but I'm also not in love with it.
I have played The Sims since the beginning. Yeah i'm old :-p.
Compared to al the other games there is a lot wrong with The Sims 4.
The bugs are one thing, but the thing that irritates me the most right now is the new expansion pack Cats and Dogs that you CAN'T control your frinkin' pet!? Who the hell thought that was a good idea?
I want to control my pet when my sims are at work. Now it just sits/standing somewhere doing nothing.
And we pay quitte much for the expansion packs/game play packs and I personally think we are not getting what we are paying for.
In previous post there's a lot of talk about dining out that sims don't keep to there seats and just dine out! I have that same problem and it really gets on my nerves also that after one plate of food my sim is to tired to eat a second plate and after one drink they have to go to the bathroom or they burst. Being outside of your own lot the needs of my sim drops really fast. You can't really enjoy being out of your own lot.
I sometimes have the idea that EA never listens to our idea's/complaints/suggestions to boost up the game.
What I still really want in the game is to have a sim move out and not the way as it is now where you have to force your sim out of the household.
I thought it was in the Sims 3 that when a sims turns young adult you got the option on the computer/phone to move out, that was perfect!
I would say that even stronger because to me it is obvious that EA never listens. Instead EA just considers what the main target group (very young “teen” girls) would need to want the game which for TS4 was an easy, happy, simple game with autonomous behavior and a little built-in multitasking. You give one of the examples yourself when you mention that cats and dogs can’t be controlled by us in TS4 because nobody wanted that and EA knew. But EA obviously thought that it was what new very young simmers needed. They don’t control their pets in their real lives and they aren’t experienced gamers. So maybe they would feel the game more realistic if they couldn’t control them in the game either? Besides that TS4 was from the beginning about autonomous behavior and multitasking. So autonomously behaving pets suited that idea perfectly.
The only people in EA who listens just a little are a few of the gurus in this forum. But even though they are developers they aren’t the people who take any of the main decisions. EA obviously decides almost everything and the developers don’t have much freedom to design the game themselves. Instead all EA’s main decisions about the game seem clearly to be decided by EA’s marketing experts who don’t seem to think that ideas in this forum are relevant at all because the main target group are new young simmers who don’t use the forum yet anyway.
So good luck whith your ideas! You sure will need it if you want EA to change just a couple of very small minor details in the game!
I don't hate the game but I'm also not in love with it.
I have played The Sims since the beginning. Yeah i'm old :-p.
Compared to al the other games there is a lot wrong with The Sims 4.
The bugs are one thing, but the thing that irritates me the most right now is the new expansion pack Cats and Dogs that you CAN'T control your frinkin' pet!? Who the hell thought that was a good idea?
I want to control my pet when my sims are at work. Now it just sits/standing somewhere doing nothing.
And we pay quitte much for the expansion packs/game play packs and I personally think we are not getting what we are paying for.
In previous post there's a lot of talk about dining out that sims don't keep to there seats and just dine out! I have that same problem and it really gets on my nerves also that after one plate of food my sim is to tired to eat a second plate and after one drink they have to go to the bathroom or they burst. Being outside of your own lot the needs of my sim drops really fast. You can't really enjoy being out of your own lot.
I sometimes have the idea that EA never listens to our idea's/complaints/suggestions to boost up the game.
What I still really want in the game is to have a sim move out and not the way as it is now where you have to force your sim out of the household.
I thought it was in the Sims 3 that when a sims turns young adult you got the option on the computer/phone to move out, that was perfect!
I would say that even stronger because to me it is obvious that EA never listens. Instead EA just considers what the main target group (very young “teen” girls) would need to want the game which for TS4 was an easy, happy, simple game with autonomous behavior and a little built-in multitasking. You give one of the examples yourself when you mention that cats and dogs can’t be controlled by us in TS4 because nobody wanted that and EA knew. But EA obviously thought that it was what new very young simmers needed. They don’t control their pets in their real lives and they aren’t experienced gamers. So maybe they would feel the game more realistic if they couldn’t control them in the game either? Besides that TS4 was from the beginning about autonomous behavior and multitasking. So autonomously behaving pets suited that idea perfectly.
The only people in EA who listens just a little are a few of the gurus in this forum. But even though they are developers they aren’t the people who take any of the main decisions. EA obviously decides almost everything and the developers don’t have much freedom to design the game themselves. Instead all EA’s main decisions about the game seem clearly to be decided by EA’s marketing experts who don’t seem to think that ideas in this forum are relevant at all because the main target group are new young simmers who don’t use the forum yet anyway.
So good luck whith your ideas! You sure will need it if you want EA to change just a couple of very small minor details in the game!
I completely agree with this. And if it is incorrect, it is time for EA to speak up and set the record straight as to why we are where we are. If not, we are left with speculating, and that will end up being their downfall.
"If you build it, they will come." - Movie: Field of Dreams
For the things you listed as immersion/advancements in ts4
I don't really want to watch my sims in the spa.
There is a specific reason for this, I have other sims to play who have other things I need them to do, with the way ts4 is set up if I'm not on the same lot as my sims watching them they tend not to do what I want, therefor I don't like using nice community lots like spas or even pools because usually they aren't as functional for say kid sims.
In ts3 there was an open world to deal with this so I tended to use these lots more, in ts2 only sims on the lot had time advance so I never lost time to sims being idle off the lot.
I don't mind business in ts4 but I don't use it often for the following reasons. Employees are known to be bugged and for anyone who wants to own a business but not actively run it everyday (or have their sims hold other jobs) it is nearly impossible to use ts4 business system to do that. Also once again there is the issue of having multiple sims in a family, if you have one sim at the shop all your other sims will be idle. And even if you live on your shops property sims after going to work or school still go to the home lot by default so you have to pay attention to them.
Ts3 was more simplistic with it's business running schemes but it did allow you to run a consignment shop or own and invest in business/property/resorts. Again ts3 got away from the issues of not being able to run your business and play other sims but having an open world and allowing for a passive system where you just improved your business buy improving the property.
Shopping for cloths in ts4 and ts3 is pointless. Owning a shop that sells cloths is also pointless because it doesn't actually change NPC's clothing who buy from you. I prefer ts2 in regards to clothing in everyday. Going to a public lot (again issues with controlling all your sims) to go buy something I could just get for free out of my dresser is not worth it or a good system in my opinion. This actually can tie into the lack of consequences in the sims 4. Buying or not buying cloths has little to no on your game, selling clothing (or anything in shops) has no impact on your game.
I do prefer ts4 dates (and all events) over ts3 because it is made more clear what makes an event good, I am not into the fact that all events are on a checklist that has to be completed in a certain order, and might be impossible to do depending on your venue, and if you do an event enough it becomes very repetitive. This could be an example of how ts4 limits peoples ability to be creative, you have to do events as the game tells you to or fail at them.
Every version had things for toddlers to do but I think these are the best toddlers the sims has seen.
Pets seem just as invested as previous versions. I admittedly do not own ts4 C&D but from everything I have seen they look the same as my ts2 and ts3 pets. Also the lack of control is a step back for me, knowing what I know of coding and having seen what C&D has to offer I am in no way convinced that getting rid of control actually improved anything. Another example where players lost creative control.
Real apartments? you have to go through a loading screen in to visit your neighbors and have almost no customization. At least in ts3 you could still place apartments. Again apartments can be an example of a lack of creative control on the players end and shortcuts when it come to animations such as no elevator animations.
Professions I don't play with because I don't like leaving my other sims unattended. see above for why. I do think ts3 had some very entertaining professions such as the ghost buster one. There was plenty to do in that profession.
More challenging... I think the over abundance of happiness and the fact that picking up a book gains you level one in a skill immediately suggest otherwise, but again I'm sure this depends on how you play.
Taking sims out to clubs and bars then socializing and dancing is something I have seen in every version. ts4 annoys me because all sims socialize with every other sim out there regardless of the group they are in.
So my conclusion:
I don't hate the sim 4, that should be clear, if I hated it I would not be here.
I think most of the stuff you think of as good as limited in some way and not that fun. The things I like in the sims 4 include
Toddlers
Clubs
and Vampires
probably also parenthood, but I have not gotten to play it yet.
I like having consequences and creative control in my game something all 4 of those packs provide. A majority of ts4 features I personally find too streamlined with limited player choice and of little impact to my sims stories.
Things like the emotion sytem
lack of build mode tools
ease of skill gain
and constant need to babysit sims be it an event or work or just sending them to a public lot, is not entertaining to me and this issue is only increased by things in cues being canceled randomly or sims not cancelling actions when I tell them to.
As such I have a lot of comments to share about what could be done better in ts4.
None of this is wrong it just means we have different play styles and values, and that is ultimately the answer to your question. People like different things and you can list what you like till you are blue in the face, or tell them that what they like is not as important (ie newspapers) but it wont matter. Those people do not want the same thing out of the game as you do and so they are not happy therefore they share their opinions with the devs in hope of seeing something they can enjoy implemented into the game.
I don't think that they aimed too high for TS3 and too low for TS4 because it isn’t about what our computers are capable to do. There are much more demanding games out there. Just look at a game like Deus Ex: Mankind Divided where the recommended requirements are:
CPU: Intel Core i7-3770K or AMD FX 8350 Wraith
CPU SPEED: Info
RAM: 16 GB
OS: Windows 10 64-bit
VIDEO CARD: AMD Radeon RX 480 - 1920 x 1080 or NVIDIA GTX 970 - 1920 x 1080
FREE DISK SPACE: 55 GB
Such a computer would be a huge overkill even for TS3. So if TS3 doesn’t run smoothly on it while Deus Ex: Mankind Divided does then it should be clear for everybody that the problem isn’t the open world in TS3. Instead the problem as usual just is that EA doesn’t use enough resources on bug fixing and testing and never has. This most likely also mean that in the end when all expansions for TS4 have been released then TS4 will have have just as many bugs and problems as TS3 had.
Or EA don't give enough time for bugs to be fixed. Then another issue for the icing on the cake. They make a patch then it breaks a previous patch. That isn't just done on Sims 3 but on Sims 4 as well. Might as well add the icecream to the cake. Ea don't care till their money hits rock bottom. When it hurts their stocks they still don't give a flying sugar cookie-Monster. I am very concerned that one day we could end up without the Sims franchise in the future. Or if it gets auction off that the game developer don't care about the Sims fans. They just make really bad games and a few other things. Not trying to be negative but I always see things in the negative light more than the positive light.
What's the point of asking if you won't bother to hear the other side.
I like the sims 4. But it could be so much better. For one, the emotion aspect. I like that they can get different moodlets for different things but I wish it worked. I shouldn't need a mod to get rid of environment influences. It was so ANNOYING to have an angry sim be happy because the house looked nice and then back to angry once they left the house. I shouldn't have to get a "memory" mod so sims who had a lot of sad experience, get randomly sad. The memory system is crud in TS4. It's just fishing for screenshots. Mods can't be the answer for everything. They should be something to spice up an already fun game.
I don't mind loading screens but I wish I could walk/drive around a whole world. Why can't it be partly open. I'm happy that newer worlds have partly open neighborhoods (like how in windenburg you can walk from the house to the café) but why not the whole world. Why can't I drive from one neighborhood to another? I don't mind loading screens between lots or worlds but TS4 needs more open/"public" areas that don't require loading screens. Like those mini parks they have.
The pets look fantastic but they're starting to annoy me. I'd like to enter a nightclub without seeing a pet for once
What's wrong with newspapers? Even if they seem like an "old people thing" (which they aren't), why cant my elderly sims read newspapers?
Why are ghosts so dull. Why can't they be more supernatural? Why are aliens so dull? Why can't they do more.
Vampires is my favorite GP and I have little complaints. But I just wish a sim could have their vampire identity be secret.
I spend more time customizing ugly townies than playing. I enjoy CAS a lot so I don't mind. But I get bored very quickly. I need to have a goal in mind and I shouldn't have to. I want more spontaneous events. Not the same thing every time. Apartment living is annoying. Keep having people knock on my door for the same thing and now people are just walking. Festivals got old fast. Active careers are too repetive. They should have let us have a main goal that needed to be done but give us some leeway on how to accomplish it or just give us less goals but if we do bad on the job (like fight a coworker) we get in trouble. I want consequences.
And I know I'm not the only one who plays the game. Why can't people have a toggle for supernaturals? People play multiple saves differently. Why can't there be an option to write a book with a notebook rather than computers?
All I want is more options, consequences, and less shortcuts. I am truly happy for the players who are enjoying the game for what it is but the wants of other players shouldn't be ignored.
Maybe I should sing Hot n Cold song about Sims 4. That way I feel about it. Sims 4 I get bored easy. Sims 3 I don't get bored. I rarely leave the house on Sims 4. Sims 3 I am always going somewhere. Same on Sims 2. I miss the grocery store from Sims 2 and Sims 3. Bookstore as well. Now you buy the books directly from the bookshelf. This version of the Sims 4 is alternate timeline. So all the sims are to happy for their own good. I miss Sims 2. I don't feel like doing this. Or They have happy week and want it for every week.
Nope, I most definitely am not saying that. Yes, I know you don't care about those things, but again, this game isn't onky produced for you. And I've not once said the game is a bad game - I'm saying it could be better - or that I hate it. I want it to be better. However, if those things were missing from the game again, I would find it questionable. The Sims, as it progressed from the first game, became about so much more than just the Sims themselves - it was about the world around them too and the others that inhabited it. By stripping out a lot of those things that you mention, it loses sight of what it had become. And the open word 'complaint'? It's not a complaint, it's called feedback. I agree though, I don't think it's coming for TS4, but waiting until production of TS5 starts isn't going to solve anything especially since no one knows when production on a new game starts except for the developers.
Yes, TS4 did bring some great additions to the game, but to me (and probably some others too), they took way too much away. CAW, CASt, Open World - what's to compensate for taking them away? Emotions, multitasking, being able to run on lower end computers? I don't think they're in the same league as each other.
Wow! Your last paragraph is a tad bit condescending, but I'll overlook the barbs and respond. Depends what you consider middle-aged (side note: I know plenty of people that aren't middle-aged that read the newspaper, so age shouldn't be a factor here), but I am older than you are. And why shouldn't the option of having a newspaper being delivered be there? That's part of the problem - options have been taken away!
On the subject of technology, I think it's fantastic - in fact, I've been very vocal about the fact that I think the specs should be raised and higher from the beginning of the game (many don't agree with this) because today's technology should be taken advantage of. Imagine the game that we'd have then!
Well... TS4 has moved on with the times what do you want me to say? We should all read newspapers just to reminisce on how times used to be? No. Times move on, and technology advances society whether or not people choose to accept it. People used to think credit cards/debit cards were the mark of the beast... That's just asinine. Would you throw away your debit/credit cards? No... It just makes no sense. The specs should be raised and Thank god they finally raised em'. It was about time tbh.
I know the game isn't just produced for me, but I and many other simmers enjoy TS4. We all want TS4 to be better but complaining about things that won't change (i.e. open world) is just too much at this point in the game. And you're exactly right the open world made us focus on the world instead of just the sims which is why TS3 was pretty darn weak. And yeah I think the open world "feedback" is just a complaint because we all know it won't be added to this game. When they open TS5 threads it would make more sense for them to get up in arms about it over there.
CAW was buggy as all heck, and not user-friendly in any aspect. CAST was never in TS2 or TS1, and it's kind of not needed. We can just download Sim PE, or other package editors and change colors that way. I mean... We can't get our furniture in any color in real life... We make do. Emotions and multitasking are pretty solid. They do need tweaking but I think we're getting there! TS4 does not run on low end computers lol... We need to thank Ea instead of complaining all the time.
its true news papers are dead even superman writes online now
You are totally missing my points. Let me break it down further for you.
1. I never said WE should all read newspapers. I haven't made any blanket statements about WE. The point is about having the options. As was just said, options should be there not taken away. It's not about technology advancing in game. The Sims is meant to be a sandbox game where the player plays as they wish. If I want to make a world set in the 1950s without cell phones and with newspapers, I should be able to.
2. On the point of specs, one of the selling points before release is that TS4 would run on lower end machines. I think that's wrong and probably why the engine can't handle a lot of things. I've seen gurus state that they couldn't add certain features because the engine couldn't support the technology to do it. So I think you're talking about a different technology than I am.
3. You missed out an important part of what I said when you bolded part of my sentence. I said it was about the world TOO. I never said it focused on one thing over another. And again, it's not a complaint, it's feedback about open world. In hopes that it will make a reappearance. No one is getting up in arms.
4. CAW, CASt, Open World all may have been buggy (I'm not saying that they were) as heck. So you're saying it's ok not to try again to make it better than before? Why not try to optimise it better?
5. I'm not opposed to mods at all, but why is that or should it be the answer for everything that doesn't work or isn't right?
6. I'm pretty sure it's possible to get furniture in any color under the sun in real life, so I am not sure what your point is there.
7. Don't emotions override traits a lot of the times? Isn't multitasking a series of actions that are done one after the other?
8. Contrary to what you believe, I'm not complaining. I'm providing feedback and there is a difference. I don't hate the game, I want it to be better. I also want a strong base game from the beginning. I do appreciate what EA have done, I just think they can do better and I see nothing wrong with holding them to a high standard because I believe what this franchise deserves. I'm not sure what's wrong with that?
We really don't need options when it comes to newspapers. This game isn't about reading a newspaper. I don't want Ea wasting their resources on newspapers, and I'm sure plenty of other simmers agree with that. You can still make a 1950's world, just don't use the cellphones. You can download cc newspapers... Problem solved.
When did they ever try to boast about how TS4 could run on lower end machines? If anything they were placating players with low end machines, assuring them they could somewhat play it. That was never a main selling point though. And no, we're talking about the same technology... The same technology that allows our sims to socialize like real people in everyday life situations. The same technology that allows our sims to stop waving their hands in the air because an object in their way. The same technology that allows our sims to take their pets to the vet when their sick.
They should've optimized CAW and CAST and Open World, but they chose to invest time in things that really mattered.
Why should mods be the answer for everything that doesn't work right? Because they were the answer with TS3 Late Night and all of those taxis that kept spawning, and the spontaneous inventory hoarding issues. Twallan saved TS3 so much now where is he? The poor guy needed a break after picking up the slack for Ea so long. That's why mods are the answer. Everyone says TS3 wasn't buggy but most of them have Twallan's mods just to make the game playable after several generations.
If you walk into an Ikea and they have an arm chair in only two colors you're out of luck. You can't say "no I want my arm chair to be green, do it now." O.o
What can they do better? The game is playable, immersive, and entertaining.
TS4 is far from perfect, and there are plenty of things that need to be worked on but I still like the game quite a lot. I enjoyed TS3 as well but personally I actually like TS4 better.
I agree somewhat with the OP. I am enjoying playing the Sims 4 again after what was a long break. I don't have all the packs, missing some of the later ones. I do find myself playing for long periods but for me it can never be as good as the Sims 2. I prefer the way the Sims 4 plays to the Sims 3 though.
I don't get all I want for my Sims in the Sims 4. By that I mean I could play each member of the family in the Sims 2 individually and get as much out of them as I wanted. In the Sims 2 I much preferred how we could take one of our Sims out to a community lot leaving other family members behind and when getting back have those said family members where just as how we left them. The problem for me is when taking a family member to do something on a community lot in the Sims 4 when my Sim gets back the other Sims needs are all over the place. I even had one child leave for school so tired even though she was suppose to "care" for herself. I may leave my Sims in bed sleeping but when I return they are rarely sleeping! Like naughty children they get up and do as they please, lol. I feel we need an options for sleep and eat on this menu instead of care for self. This is not so much of a problem if I am playing a long lifespan or with aging off, but if I playing in a normal lifespan, say in a challenge, this for me is not so much fun because then I have to sort all their needs out when returning. It makes me not want to take my Sims to community lots!
Also I have found it impossible to have toddlers get all their skills on a "normal" lifespan I am just short of a few skills before they age up. Getting an older Sim to help is suppose to build skills quicker with the toddler but this is still impossible for me to achieve. I don't have all the packs so maybe I can improve on this when I have everything installed or perhaps had a bit more practice with toddlers. This also goes for children getting all of the aspirations but at least a child can take a potion to age them back. Maybe I am wanting too much for my Sims on a normal lifespan but that is how I like to play.
I like how we can have a business in the Sims 4 and I did make and play a bakery for sometime. It was ok but no where as much fun as it was in the Sims 2 Open for Business. I need to find out more about playing a business but there isn't the same incentive as there was in the Sims 2. What is missing is the quirky interactions and silly things the non playing Sims did and getting your business up to be a top notch business.
I agree with some of the comments that the Sims 4 has become a money making exercise and lacks a lot of content that previous games had. The one thing I miss is having our Sims in distress. My Sims even though they get bad moodlets it never really brings them down. Not like in the Sims 2 when a Sim went into aspiration failure! And the worse problem I find is things spawning in the Sims 4. Plants and people on lots other than the one you are playing. Flowers and trees not growing, rocks not appearing and sometimes not enough Sims to meet on community lots, especially those not already living in the community. This can make the game very frustrating having to keep visiting those other lots and spending days there just to get a cutting of a plant that wont grow and give flowers or fruit. I got around this by making my own plant lot and installing it in the game but kind of defeats the object of the game.
I am liking the Sims 4 a lot more than when it first came out, but so it should be that was several years ago and not only free content has been added but so many packs have been brought out too. I am having fun with it for the time being exploring what new things have been added and seeing how I can enjoy the game as much as I did with the Sims 2.
I did some image searching for Sims 4 and made a simple image to describe how I feel about the constant demand for positivity about Sims 4 around these forums:
I think the things that I dislike the most about the Sims 3 are being done even to a more extreme and messy extent with the Sims 4. Plus some things I didn't like about the original Sims are done with the Sims 4. I guess the Sims 4 brings everything I dislike most about those two iteration into this iteration between the broken story progression, the small hoods, the constraints to building from the first Sims, babies being ugly and boring objects, the trait system, the rabbit holes, and the moodlet system just to name a few things.
Sims 2 is by far my favorite iteration. I liked the Sims 1 as well but somedays it feels like the Sims 4 can't even do things that game did like terrain and pond tools and NPCs and transportation. I don't hate the Sims 4. I don't love it either. Sims 4 I guess I dislike less since toddlers and vampires came out, but still has leaps and bounds to go to make me even accept it as part of the main series of Sims games. For now it remains a side game like Life Stories and the Urbz are.
Why I joined forums was actually majorly due to what happened to SimCity. I didn't want to see another Sims game go down the drain just because customers were again ignored. Also I was on a site with Gaiaonline and what happened with that site and how customers were belittled on it to an extreme extent made me not wish the same fate for the Sims community. I wanted to prove a lie that was said that Gurus wouldn't listen to regular Simmers especially if they were on forums said by a fan site. I did prove it wrong and managed to find my own voice here like I was able to with Gaiaonline and found out Gurus are really nice and normal like Gaiaonline employees. So no matter how much name calling and trolling I got, I know I wasn't going to let Sims go down without a fight. I don't think the Sims 4 would have gotten toddlers or many other features if Simmers had not been vocal about it. I actually really enjoy batting out some crazy ideas and see if it sticks or not with Gurus and fellow Simmers. Not all ideas are good but funny to see some of them come about.
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.” –Helen Keller
I don't think that they aimed too high for TS3 and too low for TS4 because it isn’t about what our computers are capable to do. There are much more demanding games out there. Just look at a game like Deus Ex: Mankind Divided where the recommended requirements are:
CPU: Intel Core i7-3770K or AMD FX 8350 Wraith
CPU SPEED: Info
RAM: 16 GB
OS: Windows 10 64-bit
VIDEO CARD: AMD Radeon RX 480 - 1920 x 1080 or NVIDIA GTX 970 - 1920 x 1080
FREE DISK SPACE: 55 GB
Such a computer would be a huge overkill even for TS3. So if TS3 doesn’t run smoothly on it while Deus Ex: Mankind Divided does then it should be clear for everybody that the problem isn’t the open world in TS3. Instead the problem as usual just is that EA doesn’t use enough resources on bug fixing and testing and never has. This most likely also mean that in the end when all expansions for TS4 have been released then TS4 will have have just as many bugs and problems as TS3 had.
Or EA don't give enough time for bugs to be fixed. Then another issue for the icing on the cake. They make a patch then it breaks a previous patch. That isn't just done on Sims 3 but on Sims 4 as well. Might as well add the icecream to the cake. Ea don't care till their money hits rock bottom. When it hurts their stocks they still don't give a flying sugar cookie-Monster. I am very concerned that one day we could end up without the Sims franchise in the future. Or if it gets auction off that the game developer don't care about the Sims fans. They just make really bad games and a few other things. Not trying to be negative but I always see things in the negative light more than the positive light.
I agree. EA doesn’t make games to please us but just to earn money. (Back in the 1980s when EA started EA didn’t even make games at all but only earned money by publishing games made by other companies. So EA’s expertise has always mainly been about publishing and distributing the games.)
The problem with bug fixing and testing is that EA doesn’t get paid for doing such things. Bug fixes can’t be sold at all for money. So therefore EA has always reduced testing and bug fixing to a minimum such that only the most destructive bugs usually ever are fixed. For the earlier games EA often fixed old bugs though when they were testing a new EP because then often the solution for such old bugs were found at random and it therefore cost EA very little to fix such bugs when EA was preparing a necessary patch for the new EP anyway.
@BeJaWa Completely agree with your post. Buying clothes could be such a great feature in this game, owning a store, designing them (CASt ), selling them, seeing townies wearing them, you could cause total trends in town that way, poor sims wearing cheap clothes, rich sims wearing posh clothes. I don’t care about retail I said earlier but this I’d love.
One paragraph is not entirely clear to me.
I do prefer ts4 dates (and all events) over ts3 because it is made more clear what makes an event good, I am not into the fact that all events are on a checklist that has to be completed in a certain order, and might be impossible to do depending on your venue, and if you do an event enough it becomes very repetitive. This could be an example of how ts4 limits peoples ability to be creative, you have to do events as the game tells you to or fail at them.
Isn’t it the checklists that make it more clear? To me it’s quite clear in 3 what makes a date successful or not: doing stuff. Sometimes I invite a sim over and it becomes a date by accident. When I delete the ‘dating’ mechanism in such cases immediately, they declare they had a boring date. When I do stuff with my date, they had a great time. Personally that’s all I need really, rather than checklists where I have to do what the game wants me to do. Throwing a successful party comes down to making sure there’s enough food, enough music and enough people. What more does a party need, people make a party, right ?
For example:
In TS4 you can watch your sims in the spa, have family dinners, go shopping for clothes, run your own business, take your sims on actual dates, invest time in your toddlers,kids,etc... , have pets that are actually invested in your sims, you can have REAL apartments, the professions are actually more fun, the game overall is more challenging, and you can take your sims out to clubs and bars and they ACTUALLY socialize and dance.
Compared to TS3 where... Your sims go to the rabbit hole 'spa,' and just get a moodlet, you can't really go shopping at all, you can't run your own business, your sims can't go on immersive dates, the toddlers are a cake walk and the kids just ignore you, the pets are practically unbothered by the sims, you have fake apartments with no real change in the sim's life style (no rats, no real neighbors, etc..), the professions are really just distractions and tasks you do outside of the rabbit holes so you feel like you're going to work with your sims, TS3 is somewhat challenging but you can get bored easily, in TS3 the clubs are just boring.... Remember the launch of Late Night and all of the "empty club" threads? Yeah.... Boring.
You do get a spa in TS3, If you purchase to install the necessary DLC (which is no different from what you're doing with SPA DAY GAME PACK, that provides a sauna, a massage table, which I believe all that comes with sunlight tides world. Again, you can run a business If you have Savy Seller Collection purchase and installed.
Reasons TS4 is hated: It’s a fashion simulator, barely offering anything new to the table for the actual LIVE mode gameplay: Based of MY observations, many decide to choose to play TS4, because over CAS, Aesthetic/Graphics, and… couldn’t recall the other reason. The Gameplay is shallow and don’t see it dominating in that area when comparing to TS1/TS2/TS3 Limited Sandbox; Little Customization/Flexibility in options and tools: So much advertised on "you ruling", but the only 'you rule' aspect of the slogan comes to true is CAS and The Sims game is just basically back to square one. The Sims 4 ain't The Sims FOUR, with how many strip downs/omissions it receives from the through the whole series. As a TS2 player, I can’t say TS4 fails to bring the sufficient freedom what they would expect from a sequel, unlike TS2 (exception would be CAS). A clear and bright example would be apartments: you can build an whole apartments/penthouses/skyscrapers from scratch from the very ground to the sky (TS2: with the help of cheats), however in TS4 you can’t and stuck with premade apartments/penthouses in a premade world and uneditable apartments. TS2 has terrain tools… enough said. TS2, you have access to buy, place, move and remove down an elevator, in TS4 you can only dream about. Barely groundbreaking, but the game pays the price for many strip downs and omissions its direction took from the sims series: It has nothing and barely noticeable groundbreaking additions to the so-called "sequel". Emotions are nothing more than a borked feature and technically sims always had emotions. Ironically, some players made valid points how TS2/TS3 have real emotions than the mechanic that was marketed like "OMG, THIS IS THE BEST ABOUT that past games missed the park. GO BUY IT! for TS4. Multitasking? Lol, I can think of more ways of what benefitial multitasking can include than the stuff the game has now and most of times multitasking isn't actually a what its term suggests: If a sim is switching the task between A and B instead than simultaneously (for example, If a sim cooks, then stops just to chit chat, and then returns to continue on preparing the meal - let me tell you, that ain'tmultitasking. As for iconic omissions of the game, I don’t think I need remind people of what on they are because you can search them out by just looking through the forums of complaints. Some person reported that TS4 has one of the worst A.I’s in the Sims series history: Go read #DeservedCritism ‘s thread. Verdict (there are too many reasons to cover why the game is hated, but I’ll leave it for another rant): Cons outweigh the Pros: Little/No replayability (no long-lasting rewards for completing a certain task, thus lack of motivation/purpose to do anything), not that many challenges, a lot missed marks/opportunities for creating fleshed out features/mechanics/additions to make up for a loss/skipped feature, very buggy game...
I still liked TS3 better overall. The open world was great (I absolutely despise loading screens, even if they're short) and it had many things I liked. Especially with Master Controller I enjoyed it a bunch, the messages you got for the storyprogression were so cute! TS4's Command Center is absolutely awesome and I couldn't play without it, but I still miss those cute messages. xD But there are also numerous things I like about TS4. It's more fluent overall, I like the pets better for sure, and the toddlers are great (minus the freaking high chair problem where my toddler parents keep taking them out of the chair before they can even eat their food, I doubt that will ever be fixed, much to my frustration, lol).
The main reason I'm sticking with TS4 is because TS3 was just so incredibly unstable and laggy. I've heard of people who had no problems with that, but at this point I honestly believe you're just very lucky if you never had a problem with TS3, because for everyone I know that plays the Sims, it crashed and lagged all over the place (the latter especially with the Island Paradise expansion pack, that was just terrible, which is sad because I did love the idea of the pack). I'm pretty sure my gaming rigs were not to blame here, since everything else has always been smooth as butter. It's a shame, because I loved TS3 and if not for that, I wouldn't have given up on it, but I do quite enjoy being able to play the Sims without having to save it every three seconds because it's probably going to crash at some point...
And well, now that TS4 has toddlers and some expansion packs I actually enjoy, I don't think it's that bad anymore. I just also don't really feel like it's as much progress as I had hoped from a next generation of a game, but that just is what it is and it doesn't mean I can't enjoy playing it.
I've started to find it interesting when people compare TS4 to older games by saying things like, 'Well this is so much better (insert feature here) in TS4 than TS3 (or TS or TS2).' Isn't the the WHOLE point of a sequel in a series to improve and make things better? When comparisons like that are made, it just seems like sort of moot because the current iteration should be better.
But TS4 did improve the series as a whole. How do you expect simmers to compare older games without breaking it down by features? If we didn't break it down feature by feature we would pretty much be saying "TS4> TS3, or TS3 >TS4." I don't understand what you're saying.
How and when? TS4 is the least to introduce new ways of playing the game.
TS1 is the base. Isometric camera, sims have no aspirations or wants or fears, only mood and interests. No aging. 7 static skill points and zodiac based personalities. Community lots were added through an EP, Pets, Magic, Fame active career, Vacation lots and dates. TS1 had terrain tools.
TS2 went from isometric to 3D camera and objects, it added wants, fears, memories, aspirations, aging, genetics, week days, 7 lifestages, base game had community lots including shops and parks. It also included a world maker tool, world editing tools, stories you could make for your sims, first time sliders to adjust sim faces, separate tops and bottoms and color costumization. EP's added a new lifestage, changing Seasons for the first time, ability to run a business in a community lot, badges, turn ons and turn offs, nightclubs, bars and bowling alleys, pet sliders and coat costumization, university, beaches sims could swim in and exploring other cultures from the far east and mountains and living with other sim families in the same lot.
TS3 went from single lot loading to full open world, you could visit other sim houses for the first time and without a loading screen. 7 static skills transitioned to a more open skill system, you now had guitar skill, gardening skill, fishing skill etc. Personality points transformed into traits, sims's mood was now moodlet based, sims had inventories in the base game, cellphones, sims could have three people conversations, you could make and schedule parties with a huge amount of sims instead of only 3 or 4, sims could receive opportunities from work etc, sims had bosses and co-workers for the first time, CAST allowed for mega customization, in 2009 customizing colors and patterns of every furniture piece and clothing was a huge 🐸🐸🐸🐸 deal, diagonal and free object placing, community lots included parks, community pools, graveyards, art galleries, gyms, the beach, and even though they were rabbit holes you could see the city hall etc. For the first time there were more than 3 body shapes, muscles and fat were sliders and you could also choose shoes separately from bottom clothing. EP's added the ability to personalize tattoos, boob size and muscle definition slides, basements for the first time, swimming on every beach, swimming underwater, traveling though boats in addition to cars, moving boat houses, owning resorts, exploring tombs, horse pets, snakes and other small animals besides hamsters, future tech (hoverboards, jetpacks etc.), sim online dating, consignment shopping and selling, etc.
TS4...well...TS4 added push and pull Cas features, emotions instead of mood "bar" and improved multitasking. Wall and foundation height but you can't put separate foundations anymore. And that's it. Regarding EP's the only new things in the series are the club system, lot traits, pet painting.... and that's it. What can you do for the first time in TS4? Talk to a toilet in City Living?
Though as I said, emotions are so flawed they may as well be consider a failed feature. They fail to do their task and are one of worst ways actual emotions of the series programmed.
But TS4 did improve the series as a whole. How do you expect simmers to compare older games without breaking it down by features? If we didn't break it down feature by feature we would pretty much be saying "TS4> TS3, or TS3 >TS4." I don't understand what you're saying.
And how does not breaking down features and not making them relevant work to do the comparison "correctly"? I mean, how do make a "comparison" without breaking it down? If I were to praise TS4 due how cats in it can jump on any furniture/surface this time around as a superior feature in comparison to what everything TS3 PETS offered, that makes me only a little wrong? Or can be vice versa, like TS3>TS4 in any case. That.... eh makes it kinda unfair to justify it being the best game out of others in the same franchise over one slight teeny-tiny advantage difference it has than what other offers. Can you provide an example to your argument how else we should compare without breaking it down by features? To me, your idea and suggestion sounds it would make comparison inconsistent than to what you believe it is.
> @Sigzy05 said: > alexandrea wrote: » > > aricarai wrote: » > > I've started to find it interesting when people compare TS4 to older games by saying things like, 'Well this is so much better (insert feature here) in TS4 than TS3 (or TS or TS2).' Isn't the the WHOLE point of a sequel in a series to improve and make things better? When comparisons like that are made, it just seems like sort of moot because the current iteration should be better. > > > > > But TS4 did improve the series as a whole. How do you expect simmers to compare older games without breaking it down by features? If we didn't break it down feature by feature we would pretty much be saying "TS4> TS3, or TS3 >TS4." I don't understand what you're saying. :/ > > > > > How and when? TS4 is the least to introduce new ways of playing the game. > > TS1 is the base. Isometric camera, sims have no aspirations or wants or fears, only mood and interests. No aging. 7 static skill points and zodiac based personalities. Community lots were added through an EP, Pets, Magic, Fame active career, Vacation lots and dates. TS1 had terrain tools. > > TS2 went from isometric to 3D camera and objects, it added wants, fears, memories, aspirations, aging, genetics, week days, 7 lifestages, base game had community lots including shops and parks. It also included a world maker tool, world editing tools, stories you could make for your sims, first time sliders to adjust sim faces, separate tops and bottoms and color costumization. EP's added a new lifestage, changing Seasons for the first time, ability to run a business in a community lot, badges, turn ons and turn offs, nightclubs, bars and bowling alleys, pet sliders and coat costumization, university, beaches sims could swim in and exploring other cultures from the far east and mountains and living with other sim families in the same lot. > > TS3 went from single lot loading to full open world, you could visit other sim houses for the first time and without a loading screen. 7 static skills transitioned to a more open skill system, you now had guitar skill, gardening skill, fishing skill etc. Personality points transformed into traits, sims's mood was now moodlet based, sims had inventories in the base game, cellphones, sims could have three people conversations, you could make and schedule parties with a huge amount of sims instead of only 3 or 4, sims could receive opportunities from work etc, sims had bosses and co-workers for the first time, CAST allowed for mega customization, in 2009 customizing colors and patterns of every furniture piece and clothing was a huge plum deal, diagonal and free object placing, community lots included parks, community pools, graveyards, art galleries, gyms, the beach, and even though they were rabbit holes you could see the city hall etc. For the first time there were more than 3 body shapes, muscles and fat were sliders and you could also choose shoes separately from bottom clothing. EP's added the ability to personalize tattoos, plum size and muscle definition slides, basements for the first time, swimming on every beach, swimming underwater, traveling though boats in addition to cars, moving boat houses, owning resorts, exploring tombs, horse pets, snakes and other small animals besides hamsters, future tech (hoverboards, jetpacks etc.), sim online dating, consignment shopping and selling, etc. > > TS4...well...TS4 added push and pull Cas features, emotions instead of mood "bar" and improved multitasking. Wall and foundation height but you can't put separate foundations anymore. And that's it. Regarding EP's the only new things in the series are the club system, lot traits, pet painting.... and that's it. What can you do for the first time in TS4? Talk to a toilet in City Living?
I believe you just sold me on investing in the Sims 3. I am so utterly bored with TS4 right now just because of the customizing of colors & patterns. I just don't understand why that wouldn't have been something they brought over to their new game. They had a winning model & if they would've invested time to fix everything & update Sims 3 graphic with the new CAS system, they would have struck a goldmine. The fact that EA/Maxis are still putting out incomplete & bugged content only proves that they truly lack the vision & love they once had for their game.
This may have been different if their were similar games on the market but unfortunately that is not the case. I still hold out that another developer may rise to the occasion. I can at least dream.
I still liked TS3 better overall. The open world was great (I absolutely despise loading screens, even if they're short) and it had many things I liked. Especially with Master Controller I enjoyed it a bunch, the messages you got for the storyprogression were so cute! TS4's Command Center is absolutely awesome and I couldn't play without it, but I still miss those cute messages. xD But there are also numerous things I like about TS4. It's more fluent overall, I like the pets better for sure, and the toddlers are great (minus the freaking high chair problem where my toddler parents keep taking them out of the chair before they can even eat their food, I doubt that will ever be fixed, much to my frustration, lol).
The main reason I'm sticking with TS4 is because TS3 was just so incredibly unstable and laggy. I've heard of people who had no problems with that, but at this point I honestly believe you're just very lucky if you never had a problem with TS3, because for everyone I know that plays the Sims, it crashed and lagged all over the place (the latter especially with the Island Paradise expansion pack, that was just terrible, which is sad because I did love the idea of the pack). I'm pretty sure my gaming rigs were not to blame here, since everything else has always been smooth as butter. It's a shame, because I loved TS3 and if not for that, I wouldn't have given up on it, but I do quite enjoy being able to play the Sims without having to save it every three seconds because it's probably going to crash at some point...
And well, now that TS4 has toddlers and some expansion packs I actually enjoy, I don't think it's that bad anymore. I just also don't really feel like it's as much progress as I had hoped from a next generation of a game, but that just is what it is and it doesn't mean I can't enjoy playing it.
I can't imagine anyone ever had 'no problems' with Sims 3. That is, crashes are too rare in my case to be a real issue (probably because I played vanilla for years and now that I do have mods, I don't overdo it and I make sure to clean cache files before every playing session). Bugs and glitches though? Yes, of course. The reason I'm still sticking with the game and never ever considered to quit, is because it's so addictive. I take the issues for granted and they are too occasional to be seriously put off by them. I still think the game has been falsely blamed in some areas, especially where 'crashing and lagging' are concerned. Because the only people I always saw and see complaining about that, were the ones with an overload of CC. The complaints about this I fear has contributed to EA dumbing down this game so much. Bugs and bad routing (IP) are real unfortunately, and I can't imagine there's one Sims 3 ambassador denying that.
Technology is great, and should be taken advantage of!
Tradition is also great! -- Add newspapers back to the game
Okay but if it was between newspaper coding and animations vs cars fully fleshed out with animations, and even repair shops which one would you want? It's a no-brainer.
I would want all of them. For crying out loud, we're talking about AAA game company studio, not an indie company. Why do we have choose between one of the three? It just doesn't make sense to willing accept what they're offering, nod our heads with a smile and say "alright! I wouldn't persuade/suggest you to implant anything. Nobody likes confrontation" when in reality they could do more. Of course, they can do anything, but they may not.
You are totally missing my points. Let me break it down further for you.
1. I never said WE should all read newspapers. I haven't made any blanket statements about WE. The point is about having the options. As was just said, options should be there not taken away. It's not about technology advancing in game. The Sims is meant to be a sandbox game where the player plays as they wish. If I want to make a world set in the 1950s without cell phones and with newspapers, I should be able to.
2. On the point of specs, one of the selling points before release is that TS4 would run on lower end machines. I think that's wrong and probably why the engine can't handle a lot of things. I've seen gurus state that they couldn't add certain features because the engine couldn't support the technology to do it. So I think you're talking about a different technology than I am.
3. You missed out an important part of what I said when you bolded part of my sentence. I said it was about the world TOO. I never said it focused on one thing over another. And again, it's not a complaint, it's feedback about open world. In hopes that it will make a reappearance. No one is getting up in arms.
4. CAW, CASt, Open World all may have been buggy (I'm not saying that they were) as heck. So you're saying it's ok not to try again to make it better than before? Why not try to optimise it better?
5. I'm not opposed to mods at all, but why is that or should it be the answer for everything that doesn't work or isn't right?
6. I'm pretty sure it's possible to get furniture in any color under the sun in real life, so I am not sure what your point is there.
7. Don't emotions override traits a lot of the times? Isn't multitasking a series of actions that are done one after the other?
8. Contrary to what you believe, I'm not complaining. I'm providing feedback and there is a difference. I don't hate the game, I want it to be better. I also want a strong base game from the beginning. I do appreciate what EA have done, I just think they can do better and I see nothing wrong with holding them to a high standard because I believe what this franchise deserves. I'm not sure what's wrong with that?
We really don't need options when it comes to newspapers. This game isn't about reading a newspaper. I don't want Ea wasting their resources on newspapers, and I'm sure plenty of other simmers agree with that. You can still make a 1950's world, just don't use the cellphones. You can download cc newspapers... Problem solved.
When did they ever try to boast about how TS4 could run on lower end machines? If anything they were placating players with low end machines, assuring them they could somewhat play it. That was never a main selling point though. And no, we're talking about the same technology... The same technology that allows our sims to socialize like real people in everyday life situations. The same technology that allows our sims to stop waving their hands in the air because an object in their way. The same technology that allows our sims to take their pets to the vet when their sick.
They should've optimized CAW and CAST and Open World, but they chose to invest time in things that really mattered.
Why should mods be the answer for everything that doesn't work right? Because they were the answer with TS3 Late Night and all of those taxis that kept spawning, and the spontaneous inventory hoarding issues. Twallan saved TS3 so much now where is he? The poor guy needed a break after picking up the slack for Ea so long. That's why mods are the answer. Everyone says TS3 wasn't buggy but most of them have Twallan's mods just to make the game playable after several generations.
If you walk into an Ikea and they have an arm chair in only two colors you're out of luck. You can't say "no I want my arm chair to be green, do it now." O.o
What can they do better? The game is playable, immersive, and entertaining.
Than what the game is all about? Where does it say/advertise/market it's about anything. Future advancements? Why do books still exist without newspaper? "You can still make a 1950's world, just don't use the cellphones" - You forgot to send the person good luck because AFAIK it's impossible to disable these handheld machines and the obsession that sims have over them.
And what are these "things" that really mattered? (By any changechange these things you refer that are upon your wishlist?). Tbh, CAW and CAST and Open World were and are the desirable suggestions by the fans (as far as my observation goes).
You really have to realized not everyone enjoy and doesn't give 🐸🐸🐸🐸 the same things you do/don't. Once you do, the answer is pretty obvious and answered to your question that is in the title of this thread.
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The only people in EA who listens just a little are a few of the gurus in this forum. But even though they are developers they aren’t the people who take any of the main decisions. EA obviously decides almost everything and the developers don’t have much freedom to design the game themselves. Instead all EA’s main decisions about the game seem clearly to be decided by EA’s marketing experts who don’t seem to think that ideas in this forum are relevant at all because the main target group are new young simmers who don’t use the forum yet anyway.
So good luck whith your ideas! You sure will need it if you want EA to change just a couple of very small minor details in the game!
I completely agree with this. And if it is incorrect, it is time for EA to speak up and set the record straight as to why we are where we are. If not, we are left with speculating, and that will end up being their downfall.
"If you build it, they will come." - Movie: Field of Dreams
I don't really want to watch my sims in the spa.
There is a specific reason for this, I have other sims to play who have other things I need them to do, with the way ts4 is set up if I'm not on the same lot as my sims watching them they tend not to do what I want, therefor I don't like using nice community lots like spas or even pools because usually they aren't as functional for say kid sims.
In ts3 there was an open world to deal with this so I tended to use these lots more, in ts2 only sims on the lot had time advance so I never lost time to sims being idle off the lot.
I don't mind business in ts4 but I don't use it often for the following reasons. Employees are known to be bugged and for anyone who wants to own a business but not actively run it everyday (or have their sims hold other jobs) it is nearly impossible to use ts4 business system to do that. Also once again there is the issue of having multiple sims in a family, if you have one sim at the shop all your other sims will be idle. And even if you live on your shops property sims after going to work or school still go to the home lot by default so you have to pay attention to them.
Ts3 was more simplistic with it's business running schemes but it did allow you to run a consignment shop or own and invest in business/property/resorts. Again ts3 got away from the issues of not being able to run your business and play other sims but having an open world and allowing for a passive system where you just improved your business buy improving the property.
Shopping for cloths in ts4 and ts3 is pointless. Owning a shop that sells cloths is also pointless because it doesn't actually change NPC's clothing who buy from you. I prefer ts2 in regards to clothing in everyday. Going to a public lot (again issues with controlling all your sims) to go buy something I could just get for free out of my dresser is not worth it or a good system in my opinion. This actually can tie into the lack of consequences in the sims 4. Buying or not buying cloths has little to no on your game, selling clothing (or anything in shops) has no impact on your game.
I do prefer ts4 dates (and all events) over ts3 because it is made more clear what makes an event good, I am not into the fact that all events are on a checklist that has to be completed in a certain order, and might be impossible to do depending on your venue, and if you do an event enough it becomes very repetitive. This could be an example of how ts4 limits peoples ability to be creative, you have to do events as the game tells you to or fail at them.
Every version had things for toddlers to do but I think these are the best toddlers the sims has seen.
Pets seem just as invested as previous versions. I admittedly do not own ts4 C&D but from everything I have seen they look the same as my ts2 and ts3 pets. Also the lack of control is a step back for me, knowing what I know of coding and having seen what C&D has to offer I am in no way convinced that getting rid of control actually improved anything. Another example where players lost creative control.
Real apartments? you have to go through a loading screen in to visit your neighbors and have almost no customization. At least in ts3 you could still place apartments. Again apartments can be an example of a lack of creative control on the players end and shortcuts when it come to animations such as no elevator animations.
Professions I don't play with because I don't like leaving my other sims unattended. see above for why. I do think ts3 had some very entertaining professions such as the ghost buster one. There was plenty to do in that profession.
More challenging... I think the over abundance of happiness and the fact that picking up a book gains you level one in a skill immediately suggest otherwise, but again I'm sure this depends on how you play.
Taking sims out to clubs and bars then socializing and dancing is something I have seen in every version. ts4 annoys me because all sims socialize with every other sim out there regardless of the group they are in.
So my conclusion:
I don't hate the sim 4, that should be clear, if I hated it I would not be here.
I think most of the stuff you think of as good as limited in some way and not that fun. The things I like in the sims 4 include
Toddlers
Clubs
and Vampires
probably also parenthood, but I have not gotten to play it yet.
I like having consequences and creative control in my game something all 4 of those packs provide. A majority of ts4 features I personally find too streamlined with limited player choice and of little impact to my sims stories.
Things like the emotion sytem
lack of build mode tools
ease of skill gain
and constant need to babysit sims be it an event or work or just sending them to a public lot, is not entertaining to me and this issue is only increased by things in cues being canceled randomly or sims not cancelling actions when I tell them to.
As such I have a lot of comments to share about what could be done better in ts4.
None of this is wrong it just means we have different play styles and values, and that is ultimately the answer to your question. People like different things and you can list what you like till you are blue in the face, or tell them that what they like is not as important (ie newspapers) but it wont matter. Those people do not want the same thing out of the game as you do and so they are not happy therefore they share their opinions with the devs in hope of seeing something they can enjoy implemented into the game.
Or EA don't give enough time for bugs to be fixed. Then another issue for the icing on the cake. They make a patch then it breaks a previous patch. That isn't just done on Sims 3 but on Sims 4 as well. Might as well add the icecream to the cake. Ea don't care till their money hits rock bottom. When it hurts their stocks they still don't give a flying sugar cookie-Monster. I am very concerned that one day we could end up without the Sims franchise in the future. Or if it gets auction off that the game developer don't care about the Sims fans. They just make really bad games and a few other things. Not trying to be negative but I always see things in the negative light more than the positive light.
I like the sims 4. But it could be so much better. For one, the emotion aspect. I like that they can get different moodlets for different things but I wish it worked. I shouldn't need a mod to get rid of environment influences. It was so ANNOYING to have an angry sim be happy because the house looked nice and then back to angry once they left the house. I shouldn't have to get a "memory" mod so sims who had a lot of sad experience, get randomly sad. The memory system is crud in TS4. It's just fishing for screenshots. Mods can't be the answer for everything. They should be something to spice up an already fun game.
I don't mind loading screens but I wish I could walk/drive around a whole world. Why can't it be partly open. I'm happy that newer worlds have partly open neighborhoods (like how in windenburg you can walk from the house to the café) but why not the whole world. Why can't I drive from one neighborhood to another? I don't mind loading screens between lots or worlds but TS4 needs more open/"public" areas that don't require loading screens. Like those mini parks they have.
The pets look fantastic but they're starting to annoy me. I'd like to enter a nightclub without seeing a pet for once
What's wrong with newspapers? Even if they seem like an "old people thing" (which they aren't), why cant my elderly sims read newspapers?
Why are ghosts so dull. Why can't they be more supernatural? Why are aliens so dull? Why can't they do more.
Vampires is my favorite GP and I have little complaints. But I just wish a sim could have their vampire identity be secret.
I spend more time customizing ugly townies than playing. I enjoy CAS a lot so I don't mind. But I get bored very quickly. I need to have a goal in mind and I shouldn't have to. I want more spontaneous events. Not the same thing every time. Apartment living is annoying. Keep having people knock on my door for the same thing and now people are just walking. Festivals got old fast. Active careers are too repetive. They should have let us have a main goal that needed to be done but give us some leeway on how to accomplish it or just give us less goals but if we do bad on the job (like fight a coworker) we get in trouble. I want consequences.
And I know I'm not the only one who plays the game. Why can't people have a toggle for supernaturals? People play multiple saves differently. Why can't there be an option to write a book with a notebook rather than computers?
All I want is more options, consequences, and less shortcuts. I am truly happy for the players who are enjoying the game for what it is but the wants of other players shouldn't be ignored.
I don't hate TS4, I'm just disappointed.
its true news papers are dead even superman writes online now
I would rather they add comics
me to
I don't get all I want for my Sims in the Sims 4. By that I mean I could play each member of the family in the Sims 2 individually and get as much out of them as I wanted. In the Sims 2 I much preferred how we could take one of our Sims out to a community lot leaving other family members behind and when getting back have those said family members where just as how we left them. The problem for me is when taking a family member to do something on a community lot in the Sims 4 when my Sim gets back the other Sims needs are all over the place. I even had one child leave for school so tired even though she was suppose to "care" for herself. I may leave my Sims in bed sleeping but when I return they are rarely sleeping! Like naughty children they get up and do as they please, lol. I feel we need an options for sleep and eat on this menu instead of care for self. This is not so much of a problem if I am playing a long lifespan or with aging off, but if I playing in a normal lifespan, say in a challenge, this for me is not so much fun because then I have to sort all their needs out when returning. It makes me not want to take my Sims to community lots!
Also I have found it impossible to have toddlers get all their skills on a "normal" lifespan I am just short of a few skills before they age up. Getting an older Sim to help is suppose to build skills quicker with the toddler but this is still impossible for me to achieve. I don't have all the packs so maybe I can improve on this when I have everything installed or perhaps had a bit more practice with toddlers. This also goes for children getting all of the aspirations but at least a child can take a potion to age them back. Maybe I am wanting too much for my Sims on a normal lifespan but that is how I like to play.
I like how we can have a business in the Sims 4 and I did make and play a bakery for sometime. It was ok but no where as much fun as it was in the Sims 2 Open for Business. I need to find out more about playing a business but there isn't the same incentive as there was in the Sims 2. What is missing is the quirky interactions and silly things the non playing Sims did and getting your business up to be a top notch business.
I agree with some of the comments that the Sims 4 has become a money making exercise and lacks a lot of content that previous games had. The one thing I miss is having our Sims in distress. My Sims even though they get bad moodlets it never really brings them down. Not like in the Sims 2 when a Sim went into aspiration failure! And the worse problem I find is things spawning in the Sims 4. Plants and people on lots other than the one you are playing. Flowers and trees not growing, rocks not appearing and sometimes not enough Sims to meet on community lots, especially those not already living in the community. This can make the game very frustrating having to keep visiting those other lots and spending days there just to get a cutting of a plant that wont grow and give flowers or fruit. I got around this by making my own plant lot and installing it in the game but kind of defeats the object of the game.
I am liking the Sims 4 a lot more than when it first came out, but so it should be that was several years ago and not only free content has been added but so many packs have been brought out too. I am having fun with it for the time being exploring what new things have been added and seeing how I can enjoy the game as much as I did with the Sims 2.
Sims 2 is by far my favorite iteration. I liked the Sims 1 as well but somedays it feels like the Sims 4 can't even do things that game did like terrain and pond tools and NPCs and transportation. I don't hate the Sims 4. I don't love it either. Sims 4 I guess I dislike less since toddlers and vampires came out, but still has leaps and bounds to go to make me even accept it as part of the main series of Sims games. For now it remains a side game like Life Stories and the Urbz are.
Why I joined forums was actually majorly due to what happened to SimCity. I didn't want to see another Sims game go down the drain just because customers were again ignored. Also I was on a site with Gaiaonline and what happened with that site and how customers were belittled on it to an extreme extent made me not wish the same fate for the Sims community. I wanted to prove a lie that was said that Gurus wouldn't listen to regular Simmers especially if they were on forums said by a fan site. I did prove it wrong and managed to find my own voice here like I was able to with Gaiaonline and found out Gurus are really nice and normal like Gaiaonline employees. So no matter how much name calling and trolling I got, I know I wasn't going to let Sims go down without a fight. I don't think the Sims 4 would have gotten toddlers or many other features if Simmers had not been vocal about it. I actually really enjoy batting out some crazy ideas and see if it sticks or not with Gurus and fellow Simmers. Not all ideas are good but funny to see some of them come about.
The problem with bug fixing and testing is that EA doesn’t get paid for doing such things. Bug fixes can’t be sold at all for money. So therefore EA has always reduced testing and bug fixing to a minimum such that only the most destructive bugs usually ever are fixed. For the earlier games EA often fixed old bugs though when they were testing a new EP because then often the solution for such old bugs were found at random and it therefore cost EA very little to fix such bugs when EA was preparing a necessary patch for the new EP anyway.
One paragraph is not entirely clear to me.
Isn’t it the checklists that make it more clear? To me it’s quite clear in 3 what makes a date successful or not: doing stuff. Sometimes I invite a sim over and it becomes a date by accident. When I delete the ‘dating’ mechanism in such cases immediately, they declare they had a boring date. When I do stuff with my date, they had a great time. Personally that’s all I need really, rather than checklists where I have to do what the game wants me to do. Throwing a successful party comes down to making sure there’s enough food, enough music and enough people. What more does a party need, people make a party, right
Reasons TS4 is hated:
It’s a fashion simulator, barely offering anything new to the table for the actual LIVE mode gameplay: Based of MY observations, many decide to choose to play TS4, because over CAS, Aesthetic/Graphics, and… couldn’t recall the other reason. The Gameplay is shallow and don’t see it dominating in that area when comparing to TS1/TS2/TS3
Limited Sandbox; Little Customization/Flexibility in options and tools: So much advertised on "you ruling", but the only 'you rule' aspect of the slogan comes to true is CAS and The Sims game is just basically back to square one. The Sims 4 ain't The Sims FOUR, with how many strip downs/omissions it receives from the through the whole series. As a TS2 player, I can’t say TS4 fails to bring the sufficient freedom what they would expect from a sequel, unlike TS2 (exception would be CAS). A clear and bright example would be apartments: you can build an whole apartments/penthouses/skyscrapers from scratch from the very ground to the sky (TS2: with the help of cheats), however in TS4 you can’t and stuck with premade apartments/penthouses in a premade world and uneditable apartments. TS2 has terrain tools… enough said. TS2, you have access to buy, place, move and remove down an elevator, in TS4 you can only dream about.
Barely groundbreaking, but the game pays the price for many strip downs and omissions its direction took from the sims series: It has nothing and barely noticeable groundbreaking additions to the so-called "sequel". Emotions are nothing more than a borked feature and technically sims always had emotions. Ironically, some players made valid points how TS2/TS3 have real emotions than the mechanic that was marketed like "OMG, THIS IS THE BEST ABOUT that past games missed the park. GO BUY IT! for TS4. Multitasking? Lol, I can think of more ways of what benefitial multitasking can include than the stuff the game has now and most of times multitasking isn't actually a what its term suggests: If a sim is switching the task between A and B instead than simultaneously (for example, If a sim cooks, then stops just to chit chat, and then returns to continue on preparing the meal - let me tell you, that ain't multitasking. As for iconic omissions of the game, I don’t think I need remind people of what on they are because you can search them out by just looking through the forums of complaints.
Some person reported that TS4 has one of the worst A.I’s in the Sims series history: Go read #DeservedCritism ‘s thread.
Verdict (there are too many reasons to cover why the game is hated, but I’ll leave it for another rant): Cons outweigh the Pros: Little/No replayability (no long-lasting rewards for completing a certain task, thus lack of motivation/purpose to do anything), not that many challenges, a lot missed marks/opportunities for creating fleshed out features/mechanics/additions to make up for a loss/skipped feature, very buggy game...
The main reason I'm sticking with TS4 is because TS3 was just so incredibly unstable and laggy. I've heard of people who had no problems with that, but at this point I honestly believe you're just very lucky if you never had a problem with TS3, because for everyone I know that plays the Sims, it crashed and lagged all over the place (the latter especially with the Island Paradise expansion pack, that was just terrible, which is sad because I did love the idea of the pack). I'm pretty sure my gaming rigs were not to blame here, since everything else has always been smooth as butter. It's a shame, because I loved TS3 and if not for that, I wouldn't have given up on it, but I do quite enjoy being able to play the Sims without having to save it every three seconds because it's probably going to crash at some point...
And well, now that TS4 has toddlers and some expansion packs I actually enjoy, I don't think it's that bad anymore. I just also don't really feel like it's as much progress as I had hoped from a next generation of a game, but that just is what it is and it doesn't mean I can't enjoy playing it.
How and when? TS4 is the least to introduce new ways of playing the game.
TS1 is the base. Isometric camera, sims have no aspirations or wants or fears, only mood and interests. No aging. 7 static skill points and zodiac based personalities. Community lots were added through an EP, Pets, Magic, Fame active career, Vacation lots and dates. TS1 had terrain tools.
TS2 went from isometric to 3D camera and objects, it added wants, fears, memories, aspirations, aging, genetics, week days, 7 lifestages, base game had community lots including shops and parks. It also included a world maker tool, world editing tools, stories you could make for your sims, first time sliders to adjust sim faces, separate tops and bottoms and color costumization. EP's added a new lifestage, changing Seasons for the first time, ability to run a business in a community lot, badges, turn ons and turn offs, nightclubs, bars and bowling alleys, pet sliders and coat costumization, university, beaches sims could swim in and exploring other cultures from the far east and mountains and living with other sim families in the same lot.
TS3 went from single lot loading to full open world, you could visit other sim houses for the first time and without a loading screen. 7 static skills transitioned to a more open skill system, you now had guitar skill, gardening skill, fishing skill etc. Personality points transformed into traits, sims's mood was now moodlet based, sims had inventories in the base game, cellphones, sims could have three people conversations, you could make and schedule parties with a huge amount of sims instead of only 3 or 4, sims could receive opportunities from work etc, sims had bosses and co-workers for the first time, CAST allowed for mega customization, in 2009 customizing colors and patterns of every furniture piece and clothing was a huge 🐸🐸🐸🐸 deal, diagonal and free object placing, community lots included parks, community pools, graveyards, art galleries, gyms, the beach, and even though they were rabbit holes you could see the city hall etc. For the first time there were more than 3 body shapes, muscles and fat were sliders and you could also choose shoes separately from bottom clothing. EP's added the ability to personalize tattoos, boob size and muscle definition slides, basements for the first time, swimming on every beach, swimming underwater, traveling though boats in addition to cars, moving boat houses, owning resorts, exploring tombs, horse pets, snakes and other small animals besides hamsters, future tech (hoverboards, jetpacks etc.), sim online dating, consignment shopping and selling, etc.
TS4...well...TS4 added push and pull Cas features, emotions instead of mood "bar" and improved multitasking. Wall and foundation height but you can't put separate foundations anymore. And that's it. Regarding EP's the only new things in the series are the club system, lot traits, pet painting.... and that's it. What can you do for the first time in TS4? Talk to a toilet in City Living?
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> aricarai wrote: »
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> I've started to find it interesting when people compare TS4 to older games by saying things like, 'Well this is so much better (insert feature here) in TS4 than TS3 (or TS or TS2).' Isn't the the WHOLE point of a sequel in a series to improve and make things better? When comparisons like that are made, it just seems like sort of moot because the current iteration should be better.
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> But TS4 did improve the series as a whole. How do you expect simmers to compare older games without breaking it down by features? If we didn't break it down feature by feature we would pretty much be saying "TS4> TS3, or TS3 >TS4." I don't understand what you're saying. :/
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> How and when? TS4 is the least to introduce new ways of playing the game.
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> TS1 is the base. Isometric camera, sims have no aspirations or wants or fears, only mood and interests. No aging. 7 static skill points and zodiac based personalities. Community lots were added through an EP, Pets, Magic, Fame active career, Vacation lots and dates. TS1 had terrain tools.
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> TS2 went from isometric to 3D camera and objects, it added wants, fears, memories, aspirations, aging, genetics, week days, 7 lifestages, base game had community lots including shops and parks. It also included a world maker tool, world editing tools, stories you could make for your sims, first time sliders to adjust sim faces, separate tops and bottoms and color costumization. EP's added a new lifestage, changing Seasons for the first time, ability to run a business in a community lot, badges, turn ons and turn offs, nightclubs, bars and bowling alleys, pet sliders and coat costumization, university, beaches sims could swim in and exploring other cultures from the far east and mountains and living with other sim families in the same lot.
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> TS3 went from single lot loading to full open world, you could visit other sim houses for the first time and without a loading screen. 7 static skills transitioned to a more open skill system, you now had guitar skill, gardening skill, fishing skill etc. Personality points transformed into traits, sims's mood was now moodlet based, sims had inventories in the base game, cellphones, sims could have three people conversations, you could make and schedule parties with a huge amount of sims instead of only 3 or 4, sims could receive opportunities from work etc, sims had bosses and co-workers for the first time, CAST allowed for mega customization, in 2009 customizing colors and patterns of every furniture piece and clothing was a huge plum deal, diagonal and free object placing, community lots included parks, community pools, graveyards, art galleries, gyms, the beach, and even though they were rabbit holes you could see the city hall etc. For the first time there were more than 3 body shapes, muscles and fat were sliders and you could also choose shoes separately from bottom clothing. EP's added the ability to personalize tattoos, plum size and muscle definition slides, basements for the first time, swimming on every beach, swimming underwater, traveling though boats in addition to cars, moving boat houses, owning resorts, exploring tombs, horse pets, snakes and other small animals besides hamsters, future tech (hoverboards, jetpacks etc.), sim online dating, consignment shopping and selling, etc.
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> TS4...well...TS4 added push and pull Cas features, emotions instead of mood "bar" and improved multitasking. Wall and foundation height but you can't put separate foundations anymore. And that's it. Regarding EP's the only new things in the series are the club system, lot traits, pet painting.... and that's it. What can you do for the first time in TS4? Talk to a toilet in City Living?
I believe you just sold me on investing in the Sims 3. I am so utterly bored with TS4 right now just because of the customizing of colors & patterns. I just don't understand why that wouldn't have been something they brought over to their new game. They had a winning model & if they would've invested time to fix everything & update Sims 3 graphic with the new CAS system, they would have struck a goldmine. The fact that EA/Maxis are still putting out incomplete & bugged content only proves that they truly lack the vision & love they once had for their game.
This may have been different if their were similar games on the market but unfortunately that is not the case. I still hold out that another developer may rise to the occasion. I can at least dream.
I would want all of them. For crying out loud, we're talking about AAA game company studio, not an indie company. Why do we have choose between one of the three? It just doesn't make sense to willing accept what they're offering, nod our heads with a smile and say "alright! I wouldn't persuade/suggest you to implant anything. Nobody likes confrontation" when in reality they could do more. Of course, they can do anything, but they may not.
Than what the game is all about? Where does it say/advertise/market it's about anything. Future advancements? Why do books still exist without newspaper? "You can still make a 1950's world, just don't use the cellphones" - You forgot to send the person good luck because AFAIK it's impossible to disable these handheld machines and the obsession that sims have over them.
And what are these "things" that really mattered? (By any changechange these things you refer that are upon your wishlist?). Tbh, CAW and CAST and Open World were and are the desirable suggestions by the fans (as far as my observation goes).
You really have to realized not everyone enjoy and doesn't give 🐸🐸🐸🐸 the same things you do/don't. Once you do, the answer is pretty obvious and answered to your question that is in the title of this thread.