Forum Announcement, Click Here to Read More From EA_Cade.

Please do something with The Sims

«1
Hi,

I’ve been playing The Sims for a long time since The Sims 2. I think it is the game I’ve played the longest time. I love, The Sims, but I’m sad watching the game getting into the direction it is taking. It’s not improving, but getting worse.

I don’t post in these forums much, I really don’t know about the sales of the company. I just chat with friends who like playing The Sims and I think that I’m not alone with this kind of frustration with The Sims.

I will not make a vent post. No. I’m a positive person and I’ll try to give my humble opinion and try to give EA feedback and some things I would change.

Each version of the game had something unique that made it special in its way. TS2 had lots of actions and depth in each activity that made you discover something new each day. TS3 had an open world where you felt like part of a whole. Everything was alive in the world, every sim was progressing or doing things by themselves throughout the world. You could sit in your couch and think: “where is my friend now? What is he/she doing?”. I could take my bike and have a ride to the mountains, watching the scenery, have a sandwich in a park, fish in the pond, run across a friend on the street and go with him/her to a coffee and chat. You could recolour and place different patterns on every object. You could have generations and generations of your family, everything was connected in some way. Everything was alive in that very instant.

TS4 has good graphics and runs smoother. Just that. I don’t feel part of anything. It’s just me inside my lot. I can go to another lot and it’s me again in another lot with the same people showing up but I go to another lot and again it’s me with different people. Everything is lot-driven. There is nothing outside, just the lot. Nothing is connected. I don’t feel part of anything, it’s just me in a lot. I play a story in that lot and when I get out of it it’s gone, erased. It’s like it never happened.

Loading screens is not the problem for me. It’s ok to have loading screens if that makes the game runs better. The problem is that everything outside the lot you are in is dead and does not exist until you go somewhere else. There is no continuity in your actions.

I think EA also keeps doing the wrong choices about Expansions, packs and stuff. It is good to have different activities like going to a Jungle Adventure, for example, but once you’ve done that, you will probably won’t do that again. People keep asking over and over and over for a sandbox game, not a goal-driven game, or one-adventure game. We need more daily things to do.

I need more reactions to some situations, more specific personalities that define my sim behavior, not just some cosmetic traits that do not affect the sim much. I would like that traits were much more important in my sim life. I would like that my sim behaved differently according to the situation and other sims. For example: the way I speak to my boss should be different that the way I speak to my father.

I want to do some cooking and discover that I don’t have some ingredient and have to go to the grocery to buy it, not magically get it by opening the fridge. I would like to go to a store and buy the clothes I will wear, not just have them free. When I want to go to a lot, I need my sim at least go to the door of my house so I think: he’s leaving the house to go to the lot, not just see my sim in the couch and then in the gym. It’s not realistic, it’s just something weird which breaks continuity. If I had an argument with a friend or with my partner, I would like to have a feeling about that, not just go home and smile like nothing happened.

Nightclubs. I love nightclubs, but these are boring. I miss a mirrorball, some other effects like fog. I miss different kind of Nightclubs: posh places with disco music, old garages or warehouses with techno music, etc., each of them having different actions, styles, activities, music. I would like to be able to create new styles of music and feed them with my own music. That’s a sandbox.

Killing a NPC sim has become, at least for me, almost impossible. I tried to play an evil vampire who invited people into his castle and kill them. I tried to kill six different sims and after a sim-week they were still alive even with no food. No robberies, no evil jobs, no sarcasm in some actions. Everything is so pure and perfect that, in my opinion, is so childish. Sometimes I like to play a real life, with the good and the bad things a real life has to offer: getting robbed, be cheated by my partner, get insulted, fell on the floor, have an accident, or whatever. That’s life, not just a child tale in a Walt Disney cartoon.

Decorations are not my type as well. ¿Pink trees? ¿Trees with no leaves but some kind of green big ball up? It’s like a Walt Disney cartoon or a fantasy world. What about the city? That’s not a city.

Customization is very limited. People like me who are control freak and like to have control of everything and customize everything, don’t have the chance to change many things. Everything is so driven by the codification, so fixed, so stiff. Some worlds are so small that it’s impossible to customize to your liking because there is no room to make changes. You can’t even change trees, roads, the orientation of a lot, not even the size of the lot. Why not letting people change some aspects of the world with some prefixed patterns? Playing the game is very frustrating for me: I can’t do this because it is not allowed, I can’t do that because of the coding, I can’t place this here because there is a restriction, I can’t… I can’t…. This is not an open game. This is not a sandbox game.

Some of these changes are possible because modders are doing incredible things improving the game. Why EA doesn’t do anything at all? Shame on you!

Then, there is the empty packs and the poor base game problem. I know that the base game can’t have all we want. Companies should make money. Ok. I think the solution is, as always, a mid approach. We can get a base game with a little bit of everything, just a little bit, and then an EP taking that little bit and developing it for a whole and complete experience. For example, a base game with some kind of weather: rain, wind, snow, etc., but without much implications. After that EA could release a Seasons EP developing in more depth all the features and aspects of that, illnesses, control over the temperature and seasons, activities depending on the weather, etc. The same with Pets. We could have two different pets in the base game (cats and dogs) and in an EP we could see a complete experience with much more activities with pets, more different pets, vet job and vet clinic, and everything we can imagine. EA could make a better EP because they would have more time to develop the ideas and make the experience more complete because part of the work had already done in the base game.

I know it is almost impossible to release something that everyone would like. There will always be someone who does not like this and that, but what people is asking, demanding and shouting desperately is a sandbox game. And instead of that, EA is going to the opposite direction. Why?

I bought all the EP and many of the packs hoping the game would get better, but it is not. I love The Sims, and I really, really hate to see this game getting into this direction. I’m trying to like it, really, trying hard, but there are so many things that I don’t like that the game is not appealing much to me anymore.

This is a desperate call to EA. Please, do something about it. You can’t leave The Sims like this.

Thank you for reading me.

PD: Sorry for my mistakes. English is not my first language.

Comments

  • phoebebebe13phoebebebe13 Posts: 19,400 Member
    edited February 2018
    @mcorral This section is for forum function feedback. We do have a separate section for game play feedback for future reference should you want to bookmark that section , See link http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/categories/the-sims-4-feedback

    I'm going to page EA mods to move your post to game feedback @EA_Lanna or @EA_Mage Thanks!
  • Noree_DoreeNoree_Doree Posts: 1,470 Member
    mcorral wrote: »
    Hi,

    I’ve been playing The Sims for a long time since The Sims 2. I think it is the game I’ve played the longest time. I love, The Sims, but I’m sad watching the game getting into the direction it is taking. It’s not improving, but getting worse.

    I don’t post in these forums much, I really don’t know about the sales of the company. I just chat with friends who like playing The Sims and I think that I’m not alone with this kind of frustration with The Sims.

    I will not make a vent post. No. I’m a positive person and I’ll try to give my humble opinion and try to give EA feedback and some things I would change.

    Each version of the game had something unique that made it special in its way. TS2 had lots of actions and depth in each activity that made you discover something new each day. TS3 had an open world where you felt like part of a whole. Everything was alive in the world, every sim was progressing or doing things by themselves throughout the world. You could sit in your couch and think: “where is my friend now? What is he/she doing?”. I could take my bike and have a ride to the mountains, watching the scenery, have a sandwich in a park, fish in the pond, run across a friend on the street and go with him/her to a coffee and chat. You could recolour and place different patterns on every object. You could have generations and generations of your family, everything was connected in some way. Everything was alive in that very instant.

    TS4 has good graphics and runs smoother. Just that. I don’t feel part of anything. It’s just me inside my lot. I can go to another lot and it’s me again in another lot with the same people showing up but I go to another lot and again it’s me with different people. Everything is lot-driven. There is nothing outside, just the lot. Nothing is connected. I don’t feel part of anything, it’s just me in a lot. I play a story in that lot and when I get out of it it’s gone, erased. It’s like it never happened.

    Loading screens is not the problem for me. It’s ok to have loading screens if that makes the game runs better. The problem is that everything outside the lot you are in is dead and does not exist until you go somewhere else. There is no continuity in your actions.

    I think EA also keeps doing the wrong choices about Expansions, packs and stuff. It is good to have different activities like going to a Jungle Adventure, for example, but once you’ve done that, you will probably won’t do that again. People keep asking over and over and over for a sandbox game, not a goal-driven game, or one-adventure game. We need more daily things to do.

    I need more reactions to some situations, more specific personalities that define my sim behavior, not just some cosmetic traits that do not affect the sim much. I would like that traits were much more important in my sim life. I would like that my sim behaved differently according to the situation and other sims. For example: the way I speak to my boss should be different that the way I speak to my father.

    I want to do some cooking and discover that I don’t have some ingredient and have to go to the grocery to buy it, not magically get it by opening the fridge. I would like to go to a store and buy the clothes I will wear, not just have them free. When I want to go to a lot, I need my sim at least go to the door of my house so I think: he’s leaving the house to go to the lot, not just see my sim in the couch and then in the gym. It’s not realistic, it’s just something weird which breaks continuity. If I had an argument with a friend or with my partner, I would like to have a feeling about that, not just go home and smile like nothing happened.

    Nightclubs. I love nightclubs, but these are boring. I miss a mirrorball, some other effects like fog. I miss different kind of Nightclubs: posh places with disco music, old garages or warehouses with techno music, etc., each of them having different actions, styles, activities, music. I would like to be able to create new styles of music and feed them with my own music. That’s a sandbox.

    Killing a NPC sim has become, at least for me, almost impossible. I tried to play an evil vampire who invited people into his castle and kill them. I tried to kill six different sims and after a sim-week they were still alive even with no food. No robberies, no evil jobs, no sarcasm in some actions. Everything is so pure and perfect that, in my opinion, is so childish. Sometimes I like to play a real life, with the good and the bad things a real life has to offer: getting robbed, be cheated by my partner, get insulted, fell on the floor, have an accident, or whatever. That’s life, not just a child tale in a Walt Disney cartoon.

    Decorations are not my type as well. ¿Pink trees? ¿Trees with no leaves but some kind of green big ball up? It’s like a Walt Disney cartoon or a fantasy world. What about the city? That’s not a city.

    Customization is very limited. People like me who are control freak and like to have control of everything and customize everything, don’t have the chance to change many things. Everything is so driven by the codification, so fixed, so stiff. Some worlds are so small that it’s impossible to customize to your liking because there is no room to make changes. You can’t even change trees, roads, the orientation of a lot, not even the size of the lot. Why not letting people change some aspects of the world with some prefixed patterns? Playing the game is very frustrating for me: I can’t do this because it is not allowed, I can’t do that because of the coding, I can’t place this here because there is a restriction, I can’t… I can’t…. This is not an open game. This is not a sandbox game.

    Some of these changes are possible because modders are doing incredible things improving the game. Why EA doesn’t do anything at all? Shame on you!

    Then, there is the empty packs and the poor base game problem. I know that the base game can’t have all we want. Companies should make money. Ok. I think the solution is, as always, a mid approach. We can get a base game with a little bit of everything, just a little bit, and then an EP taking that little bit and developing it for a whole and complete experience. For example, a base game with some kind of weather: rain, wind, snow, etc., but without much implications. After that EA could release a Seasons EP developing in more depth all the features and aspects of that, illnesses, control over the temperature and seasons, activities depending on the weather, etc. The same with Pets. We could have two different pets in the base game (cats and dogs) and in an EP we could see a complete experience with much more activities with pets, more different pets, vet job and vet clinic, and everything we can imagine. EA could make a better EP because they would have more time to develop the ideas and make the experience more complete because part of the work had already done in the base game.

    I know it is almost impossible to release something that everyone would like. There will always be someone who does not like this and that, but what people is asking, demanding and shouting desperately is a sandbox game. And instead of that, EA is going to the opposite direction. Why?

    I bought all the EP and many of the packs hoping the game would get better, but it is not. I love The Sims, and I really, really hate to see this game getting into this direction. I’m trying to like it, really, trying hard, but there are so many things that I don’t like that the game is not appealing much to me anymore.

    This is a desperate call to EA. Please, do something about it. You can’t leave The Sims like this.

    Thank you for reading me.

    PD: Sorry for my mistakes. English is not my first language.

    I absolutely agree with you! Something needs to change. I still think there is still time left to flip things around in 4. I see the potential. and it has gotten better since it was first launched. If modders can add something to the game at their own expense (meaning they aren't getting paid to do such and are putting in their own time into it) then I know it can be done. Maybe it will... Maybe it wont. only time will tell... sadly
    "Bada su the gorn bada su the brawn bada bady oda aba donk donk donk gerbits gerbits vo gerbits".
  • simgirl1010simgirl1010 Posts: 35,701 Member
    mcorral wrote: »
    I want to do some cooking and discover that I don’t have some ingredient and have to go to the grocery to buy it, not magically get it by opening the fridge. I would like to go to a store and buy the clothes I will wear, not just have them free.

    These are two features I would definitely like to see return. One of the Sims 2 console versions had an awesome cooking feature that allowed you to cook only the recipes for which you actually had the ingredients. And you could combine different ingredients to make different recipes. For instance if you had carrots, beef, and potatoes you could make beef stew.

    I've also wanted clothes to cost money with a clothes shopping feature like in Sims 2.
  • Jordan061102Jordan061102 Posts: 3,918 Member
    I'm right with you. But since 2017, this game go in the good direction.
    Lu4ERme.gif
  • TS1299TS1299 Posts: 1,604 Member
    I'm right with you. But since 2017, this game go in the good direction.

    Agreed. The game is now getting better and Jungle Adventure was another huge step in the right direction, especially for the GP Team.

    Side Note for the OP, if you have Get to Work you can build a store, be it a clothing store, a grocery, a bakeshop, tablet store, bookstore, appliance center, fitness house, music store, or even a Toy Store, then you can visit them. When my sims needs ingredients I mostly don't cook the food which required ingredients to cook. I always go to the grocery store that I had built. If I am playing at San Myshuno I always go to the veggie food stall. The tools and options are there, you just have to use it and explore them more.
    Nightclubs. I love nightclubs, but these are boring. I miss a mirrorball, some other effects like fog. I miss different kind of Nightclubs: posh places with disco music, old garages or warehouses with techno music, etc., each of them having different actions, styles, activities, music. I would like to be able to create new styles of music and feed them with my own music. That’s a sandbox.

    Now with how people complained during the 2015-2016 era of The Sims that The sims 4 was a nightlife party simulator I was honestly surprised that people find these nightclubs boring. There are fogs, DJ Booths, Synchronized Dancing, Dance Competition, Feel the Crowd, a DJ Skill, dancing Skill, Showing off moves, Clubs, Bars, A more "feel" with groups in a club that specializes on Nightclub activities(e.g. like the Spin Masters) Earning money trough dancing, tons of music, tons of style, tons of remixes, tons of custom dj songs for master DJ, graffiti wall decorations, and even real graffiti boards for both ground and wall, plus a garage door for mural and graffiti. The tools and features are again, already there. Its already in the game, you just have to discover and explore them. If there is one thing that The Sims 4 has done too much, its the nightclubs imo.
    Killing a NPC sim has become, at least for me, almost impossible. I tried to play an evil vampire who invited people into his castle and kill them. I tried to kill six different sims and after a sim-week they were still alive even with no food. No robberies, no evil jobs, no sarcasm in some actions. Everything is so pure and perfect that, in my opinion, is so childish. Sometimes I like to play a real life, with the good and the bad things a real life has to offer: getting robbed, be cheated by my partner, get insulted, fell on the floor, have an accident, or whatever. That’s life, not just a child tale in a Walt Disney cartoon.

    Have you left the house during that time? Once a loading screen incurs, the sims will automatically take care of their needs. I highly doubt that they are still alive for one whole week. They should have died for two days as the hunger hunger and ravenous moodlet last that time. Other than that, perhaps try a pool? Its the easiest thing to do in killing sims lol. If that dosen't work, feed them with a pufferfish they will be 10/10 dead. While yep I agree with you, 4 has the hardest sim death in the franchise.
    I think EA also keeps doing the wrong choices about Expansions, packs and stuff. It is good to have different activities like going to a Jungle Adventure, for example, but once you’ve done that, you will probably won’t do that again. People keep asking over and over and over for a sandbox game, not a goal-driven game, or one-adventure game. We need more daily things to do.

    That's why they designed the Game Pack to change the puzzles, rewards, and the adventure each time you visit ;) Not all people in the game want more sandbox game. Some of us what a breath in a sims everyday life and take them to a new adventures. The Sims is a goal-driven game. Its one of the aspects that makes the game great. Like you said you had played The Sims 2 and The Sims 3. You said they are great, which is true. But the main question is will those game will be great without the goal-driven aspects on it? Wants and Fears, Wishes, Career Rewards, Opportunities, Aspirations, and University are just some of the example of the features that makes the sims great.Those are goal-driven aspects of the game. If we remove the goal aspect of the game, The Sims 2 wouldn't be as great as we know it, The Sims 3 will lack the basic simology.

    That is one of the problems in The Sims 4. The Goal-driven aspect was out of balance. Look at the Whims. A lot of us want them to improve. Yes it is one of the Goal-Driven aspects of The Sims 4 but they are shallow. Sims autonomously don't follow their whims. They are just there. They lack depth. It only adds to the problem that sims lack personality. Goal-driven are important for this franchise. Also, didn't we get too much content for everyday life in the past year? Parenthood, Bowling, Toddler Equipment, Gym stuffs, Pets. The last goal driven game for us imo was Vampires, and just like Jungle Adventure, it changes the normal sim routine on their everyday life.
    hen, there is the empty packs and the poor base game problem. I know that the base game can’t have all we want. Companies should make money. Ok. I think the solution is, as always, a mid approach. We can get a base game with a little bit of everything, just a little bit, and then an EP taking that little bit and developing it for a whole and complete experience. For example, a base game with some kind of weather: rain, wind, snow, etc., but without much implications. After that EA could release a Seasons EP developing in more depth all the features and aspects of that, illnesses, control over the temperature and seasons, activities depending on the weather, etc. The same with Pets. We could have two different pets in the base game (cats and dogs) and in an EP we could see a complete experience with much more activities with pets, more different pets, vet job and vet clinic, and everything we can imagine. EA could make a better EP because they would have more time to develop the ideas and make the experience more complete because part of the work had already done in the base game.

    The thing is the base should be the foundation of the iteration. The Sims focuses on the sims themselves not animals. Each Sims games had three years of development time. A huge example of this was The Sims 3. According to the information that I learned, The Sims 3 begun development after the release of Open for Business, which was on February of 2006. We also know that The Sims Studio was founded on the year 2006. After its establishment they began working on The sims 3, in which the obvious proof of this was The Sims 3 was the very first game that this studio had ever developed, From 2006-2009 their main focus was on the base game. They focused on Creating all the tools, (CAST, CAS, BUILD, BUY, Exchange, The online movie editor), add depth on the sims, Implement an improved engine, Create a new environment, a new world,
    overhauled personality system, plus tons of QA Testing, in addition to all the lifestages, Non Playable Characters like the Tragic Clown, Police, Special NPC behavior, implementation of the death system, recording of Music from Build and buy, to cas, to live mode, to testing the animations on all the gameplay objects to expanding interactions across all the sims with features transferring from The Sims 2 expansion packs to The Sims 3 Base game.

    With three years of time all of their hardwork has paid off. Now add Pets in the roll, will result to the double amount of animation for the Base Game, engineering it to support for legged animals, etc, will result to cutting a lot of content to fit on three year schedule. It will result for the sims being shallow as the time for development that can be used on them will be used on pets. It is not always on how much content we will receive for me, but on how will the developers spend their resources. The Base Game alone that only focuses on Sims already took two three years to develop. Not to mention if Pets where in the Base Game, then expect CAS to be shallow as well as they will have to share resources for the Create A Pet, even voicing with sims and Pets, traits, etc. Its better to have the sims team focus on the sims first rather than focus on to many things in one time which results on making them shallow.

    The Sims 4 only had One Year(if the rumors are correct) of development time for an full offline sims traditional experience, and I'm glad they didn't put pets in the base game. Even with all the time restraints from EA I still find it amazing how the team launch it from a total mess because of the publisher, to now slowly making it great and worthy the "Sims 4" title it has. There are just some aspects that we should include in the base game. Like Pets. If the main focus of the Game was about sims, then let the devs have them fleshed out for three years instead of cutting resources on those sims just for the inclusion of pets in the base game.

    Anyways those are just my thoughts. While I disagree with you, I had one same opinion about you, These sims need more personality. They will be the foundation of the enjoyment of the packs. That is the only thing I need from Maxis and EA.

  • fruitsbasket101fruitsbasket101 Posts: 1,530 Member
    I agree with everything you said OP.
    Have a super fantastic awesome splendid amazing day! -TheQxxn
  • Stdlr9Stdlr9 Posts: 2,744 Member
    I agree with the OP. I also think it's too late for TS4. What you see is what you get. I hope that a robust TS5 game will be released in a year or so for the PC, not consoles. EA has got to stop trying to reinvent the wheel with every Sims series -- bland base game (although I think TS3's base game was the best) and then stretching out the same expansion content over literally years and years.
  • KlthfKlthf Posts: 230 Member
    mcorral wrote: »
    TS4 has good graphics and runs smoother. Just that. I don’t feel part of anything. It’s just me inside my lot. I can go to another lot and it’s me again in another lot with the same people showing up but I go to another lot and again it’s me with different people. Everything is lot-driven. There is nothing outside, just the lot. Nothing is connected. I don’t feel part of anything, it’s just me in a lot. I play a story in that lot and when I get out of it it’s gone, erased. It’s like it never happened.

    Loading screens is not the problem for me. It’s ok to have loading screens if that makes the game runs better. The problem is that everything outside the lot you are in is dead and does not exist until you go somewhere else. There is no continuity in your actions.

    I think the bolded parts are hitting the nail on the head.

    We need more consequences that stay, consequences that aren't erased the moment you leave the lot or you are doing something else. We need NPCs that stay in their role, like they used to in The Sims 1 and 2. Something that is going to make me feel that there is some form of continuity. Consequences and continuity seem to be the two magic words.
  • PrincessrozeeSPrincessrozeeS Posts: 390 Member
    mcorral wrote: »
    Hi,

    I’ve been playing The Sims for a long time since The Sims 2. I think it is the game I’ve played the longest time. I love, The Sims, but I’m sad watching the game getting into the direction it is taking. It’s not improving, but getting worse.

    I don’t post in these forums much, I really don’t know about the sales of the company. I just chat with friends who like playing The Sims and I think that I’m not alone with this kind of frustration with The Sims.

    I will not make a vent post. No. I’m a positive person and I’ll try to give my humble opinion and try to give EA feedback and some things I would change.

    Each version of the game had something unique that made it special in its way. TS2 had lots of actions and depth in each activity that made you discover something new each day. TS3 had an open world where you felt like part of a whole. Everything was alive in the world, every sim was progressing or doing things by themselves throughout the world. You could sit in your couch and think: “where is my friend now? What is he/she doing?”. I could take my bike and have a ride to the mountains, watching the scenery, have a sandwich in a park, fish in the pond, run across a friend on the street and go with him/her to a coffee and chat. You could recolour and place different patterns on every object. You could have generations and generations of your family, everything was connected in some way. Everything was alive in that very instant.

    TS4 has good graphics and runs smoother. Just that. I don’t feel part of anything. It’s just me inside my lot. I can go to another lot and it’s me again in another lot with the same people showing up but I go to another lot and again it’s me with different people. Everything is lot-driven. There is nothing outside, just the lot. Nothing is connected. I don’t feel part of anything, it’s just me in a lot. I play a story in that lot and when I get out of it it’s gone, erased. It’s like it never happened.

    Loading screens is not the problem for me. It’s ok to have loading screens if that makes the game runs better. The problem is that everything outside the lot you are in is dead and does not exist until you go somewhere else. There is no continuity in your actions.

    I think EA also keeps doing the wrong choices about Expansions, packs and stuff. It is good to have different activities like going to a Jungle Adventure, for example, but once you’ve done that, you will probably won’t do that again. People keep asking over and over and over for a sandbox game, not a goal-driven game, or one-adventure game. We need more daily things to do.

    I need more reactions to some situations, more specific personalities that define my sim behavior, not just some cosmetic traits that do not affect the sim much. I would like that traits were much more important in my sim life. I would like that my sim behaved differently according to the situation and other sims. For example: the way I speak to my boss should be different that the way I speak to my father.

    I want to do some cooking and discover that I don’t have some ingredient and have to go to the grocery to buy it, not magically get it by opening the fridge. I would like to go to a store and buy the clothes I will wear, not just have them free. When I want to go to a lot, I need my sim at least go to the door of my house so I think: he’s leaving the house to go to the lot, not just see my sim in the couch and then in the gym. It’s not realistic, it’s just something weird which breaks continuity. If I had an argument with a friend or with my partner, I would like to have a feeling about that, not just go home and smile like nothing happened.

    Nightclubs. I love nightclubs, but these are boring. I miss a mirrorball, some other effects like fog. I miss different kind of Nightclubs: posh places with disco music, old garages or warehouses with techno music, etc., each of them having different actions, styles, activities, music. I would like to be able to create new styles of music and feed them with my own music. That’s a sandbox.

    Killing a NPC sim has become, at least for me, almost impossible. I tried to play an evil vampire who invited people into his castle and kill them. I tried to kill six different sims and after a sim-week they were still alive even with no food. No robberies, no evil jobs, no sarcasm in some actions. Everything is so pure and perfect that, in my opinion, is so childish. Sometimes I like to play a real life, with the good and the bad things a real life has to offer: getting robbed, be cheated by my partner, get insulted, fell on the floor, have an accident, or whatever. That’s life, not just a child tale in a Walt Disney cartoon.

    Decorations are not my type as well. ¿Pink trees? ¿Trees with no leaves but some kind of green big ball up? It’s like a Walt Disney cartoon or a fantasy world. What about the city? That’s not a city.

    Customization is very limited. People like me who are control freak and like to have control of everything and customize everything, don’t have the chance to change many things. Everything is so driven by the codification, so fixed, so stiff. Some worlds are so small that it’s impossible to customize to your liking because there is no room to make changes. You can’t even change trees, roads, the orientation of a lot, not even the size of the lot. Why not letting people change some aspects of the world with some prefixed patterns? Playing the game is very frustrating for me: I can’t do this because it is not allowed, I can’t do that because of the coding, I can’t place this here because there is a restriction, I can’t… I can’t…. This is not an open game. This is not a sandbox game.

    Some of these changes are possible because modders are doing incredible things improving the game. Why EA doesn’t do anything at all? Shame on you!

    Then, there is the empty packs and the poor base game problem. I know that the base game can’t have all we want. Companies should make money. Ok. I think the solution is, as always, a mid approach. We can get a base game with a little bit of everything, just a little bit, and then an EP taking that little bit and developing it for a whole and complete experience. For example, a base game with some kind of weather: rain, wind, snow, etc., but without much implications. After that EA could release a Seasons EP developing in more depth all the features and aspects of that, illnesses, control over the temperature and seasons, activities depending on the weather, etc. The same with Pets. We could have two different pets in the base game (cats and dogs) and in an EP we could see a complete experience with much more activities with pets, more different pets, vet job and vet clinic, and everything we can imagine. EA could make a better EP because they would have more time to develop the ideas and make the experience more complete because part of the work had already done in the base game.

    I know it is almost impossible to release something that everyone would like. There will always be someone who does not like this and that, but what people is asking, demanding and shouting desperately is a sandbox game. And instead of that, EA is going to the opposite direction. Why?

    I bought all the EP and many of the packs hoping the game would get better, but it is not. I love The Sims, and I really, really hate to see this game getting into this direction. I’m trying to like it, really, trying hard, but there are so many things that I don’t like that the game is not appealing much to me anymore.

    This is a desperate call to EA. Please, do something about it. You can’t leave The Sims like this.

    Thank you for reading me.

    PD: Sorry for my mistakes. English is not my first language.

    WOW a great post and HMMMM I'm thinking a lot about what you said. I do empathize with what you are saying in general, there are some things I would like to comment on.

    Quote "TS3 had an open world where you felt like part of a whole. Everything was alive in the world, every sim was progressing or doing things by themselves throughout the world. You could sit in your couch and think: “where is my friend now? What is he/she doing?”. I could take my bike and have a ride to the mountains, watching the scenery, have a sandwich in a park, fish in the pond, run across a friend on the street and go with him/her to a coffee and chat. You could recolour and place different patterns on every object."

    I did love the open World of the Sims 3 but for me being an older person and having issues with dizziness I found all the zooming in and out necessary to move my Sim around in the Sims 3 tiresome and effected me so much I could not play for very long. I know those who are young will probably not find this problem so I understand why many liked the Sims 3 so much and it wasn't that I didnt like it I just found it hard to play on my health. I loved all the design that the Sims 3 brought the customization it was a wonderful thing. I loved all that the fishing and gardening brought to the Sims 3. I loved the bikes the vehicles and being able to jog all the way to town or anywhere.

    Quote "TS4 has good graphics and runs smoother. Just that. I don’t feel part of anything. It’s just me inside my lot. I can go to another lot and it’s me again in another lot with the same people showing up but I go to another lot and again it’s me with different people. Everything is lot-driven. There is nothing outside, just the lot. Nothing is connected. I don’t feel part of anything, it’s just me in a lot. I play a story in that lot and when I get out of it it’s gone, erased. It’s like it never happened."

    I am not sure what you mean by everything is lot driven. I find loads to do on community lots and with all the interactions and new things I find plenty to boost my Sims aspirations and gain skills. It is not easy to make friends in the Sims 4 but going to community lots and getting skills like "mentor" is a big boost to finding friendships.

    Quote "I need more reactions to some situations, more specific personalities that define my sim behavior, not just some cosmetic traits that do not affect the sim much." "If I had an argument with a friend or with my partner, I would like to have a feeling about that, not just go home and smile like nothing happened.

    I have to agree that mood of Sims in the Sims 4 is controlled much by what they do so even if they get angry it may not register if they have other good moodlets to put it behind those good ones. So you may not see the effects of that particular moodlet.

    Quote "I want to do some cooking and discover that I don’t have some ingredient and have to go to the grocery to buy it, not magically get it by opening the fridge"

    I am not sure what you mean by this but personally I like the challenge of finding an ingredient for a recipe but for those who don't want to going to a shop to buy it is an alternative. But I think some things need to be a challenge in a game. Not everything but we need goals to make it interesting.

    Quote "Killing a NPC sim has become, at least for me, almost impossible"

    Oh wow, I like to preserve the life of my Sims and although I know many want to kill of some of them that is not my kind of game but I do understand. I am sure that death in the Sims 4 is quite possible I have seen so many fires now but not wanting my Sims to die have done things to put out the fire. I have never tried to kill off an NPC not in any of my previous Sims 1 2 or 3!

    Quote "Nightclubs. I love nightclubs, but these are boring"

    Personally I find the dancing fun at nightclubs. Admittedly there isn't much more to do there except make friends and have a drink at the but what more do you expect from a nightclub? Am I missing something here? There are plenty of fun things like dart boards etc to add more interest if you want it.

    Quote "Decorations are not my type as well. ¿Pink trees? ¿Trees with no leaves but some kind of green big ball up? It’s like a Walt Disney cartoon or a fantasy world. What about the city? That’s not a city."

    We had money trees in the Sims 3 they were very colourful! The Sims is not suppose to be real life, it is a game. And although it is a life simulation I am sure many play it to fulfill fantasies that perhaps real life doesn't bring. Isn't that why we play games to escape from the pressures of real life? If this game was to become real life I wouldn't want to play it. I like the fact there are things in the game that we would not find in real life! Personally I like the look of the Sims in the Sims 4, more so than in the Sims 3. City Living was one of my favourite EP's it gave us so much in content, and I don't think you can fault the game on it's looks. Maybe on the amount of content given overall; but most of us being players of previous Sim games we have become critics and sometimes much too critical; and when the game has improved so much I feel that credit needs to be given where it is due.

    Personally I think with all the packs that are being brought out the Sims 4 it has got much better. That is not saying I like everything that has been done, but I don't think the game is as bad as you make it sound. I didn't like it much when it first came out (base game), but I have come back after a very long break installed new packs and having fun again. I guess a game is what you make it and how you play it and what you want from it.

    I am looking forward to the new Jungle Adventure and for you to say that quote "once you’ve done that, you will probably won’t do that again" I cannot understand you here, isn't that what the Sims is? Does your Sim household's not continue to get skills over and over, do they not get friends over and over, do they not play the same careers over and over. It is a game that is repetitive but its charm is that you play it to achieve different things in the game. That is the nature of the Sims, you play every household to do the similar things over and over to achieve their goal, make a story or whatever you are trying to achieve in the game.

    I am sorry you are disappointed with the Sims 4 and I am in some respects but I am trying my best to continue and support the Sims and have some fun with it. Maybe it's the way I play and not putting too many expectations on the game and just enjoying it for what it is.




  • CK213CK213 Posts: 20,525 Member
    mcorral wrote: »
    Hi,

    ...

    I think EA also keeps doing the wrong choices about Expansions, packs and stuff. It is good to have different activities like going to a Jungle Adventure, for example, but once you’ve done that, you will probably won’t do that again. People keep asking over and over and over for a sandbox game, not a goal-driven game, or one-adventure game. We need more daily things to do.

    I need more reactions to some situations, more specific personalities that define my sim behavior, not just some cosmetic traits that do not affect the sim much. I would like that traits were much more important in my sim life. I would like that my sim behaved differently according to the situation and other sims. For example: the way I speak to my boss should be different that the way I speak to my father.

    ...

    This a great post.
    It gets at the heart of why I just play to try out the new content and never do it again.
    I figure I will get back to them after time has past and I get Seasons, University, and hopefully more supernatural content and farming.

    I guess I am waiting for the game to be complete before delving in and become tired of everything once I have done it.
    There isn't much emergent game play and behaviors in the game.
    The%20Goths.png?width=1920&height=1080&fit=bounds
  • Jordan061102Jordan061102 Posts: 3,918 Member
    It's true that if we get a Sims 5, he'd better to be to the height for EA & us.
    Lu4ERme.gif
  • PrincessrozeeSPrincessrozeeS Posts: 390 Member
    CK213 - I too am waiting on Seasons and University. Personally I don't understand why these are not out already, they are an important part of the game. But I feel we need to be patient.

    I don't think that a Sims 5 will be coming out soon, I think the Sims 4 will continue to expand. I will be more than disappointed if the Sims 4 does not continue and give us things like University and Seasons. The Sims 4 needs to expand and give us more before they even think of making an new one!
  • CynnaCynna Posts: 2,369 Member
    edited February 2018
    CK213 wrote: »


    This a great post.
    It gets at the heart of why I just play to try out the new content and never do it again.
    I figure I will get back to them after time has past and I get Seasons, University, and hopefully more supernatural content and farming.

    I guess I am waiting for the game to be complete before delving in and become tired of everything once I have done it.
    There isn't much emergent game play and behaviors in the game.

    I agree with everything that the OP said, and this post as well.

    This is why my game play with TS4 is so limited. I always have the game running in the background. However, I rarely get an urge to actually play it. I have a family that I created and I really liked the idea of them. I tried to give them the traits that I thought would be interesting. However, the family doesn't play as I had hoped. Their personalities only make a difference in the halls of my imagination, never in the game. In the game, they never react as I expect them to -- if there is a reaction at all.

    Eventually, I recreated the family in TS3 and when I play them there, they're an absolute riot. Drama, mayhem, hilarity, it's all there. I'm so inspired by them, I started a writing a story. With lots of posing and editing, I use TS4 to illustrate it because TS4 Sims are attractive and more realistic-looking. (Plus, all the ridiculously brilliant CC!) Yet, it's difficult. I'm constantly fighting the engine and there isn't much for the Sims to do. So, the game just sits there, running in the background. Me, just hoping that something will change.

    A new pack brings a few moments of initial joy. That is, until l I realize how shallow the game play still is. It's a disheartening cycle. I keep posting here in hopes that the developers will see, that they'll get it.

    TS4 is truly beautiful. The environs are progressively imaginative and interesting to look at. Yet, in a series called The Sims, the actual Sims should always come first and foremost. Until and unless the Sims finally become the priority for TS4, it will never feel quite like a Sims game. This is something that should have been worked out before launch, not as paying customers continue to wait and wait. It's so disappointing to see a beloved series take this turn to touting the next great thing. Meanwhile, the foundation of the very Sims themselves is still lacking.

    Sometimes, I wonder what Will Wright thinks of what has become of his brainchild.
    I3Ml5Om.jpg
  • catitude5catitude5 Posts: 2,537 Member
    I agree with the OP. What I think happened, they painted themselves into a corner with the online idea, then it was too late to do much changing when they found out the players didn't want online.
  • DragonCat159DragonCat159 Posts: 1,896 Member
    mcorral wrote: »

    TS4 has good graphics and runs smoother. Just that. I don’t feel part of anything. It’s just me inside my lot. I can go to another lot and it’s me again in another lot with the same people showing up but I go to another lot and again it’s me with different people. Everything is lot-driven. There is nothing outside, just the lot. Nothing is connected. I don’t feel part of anything, it’s just me in a lot. I play a story in that lot and when I get out of it it’s gone, erased. It’s like it never happened.

    Loading screens is not the problem for me. It’s ok to have loading screens if that makes the game runs better. The problem is that everything outside the lot you are in is dead and does not exist until you go somewhere else. There is no continuity in your actions.

    I think EA also keeps doing the wrong choices about Expansions, packs and stuff. It is good to have different activities like going to a Jungle Adventure, for example, but once you’ve done that, you will probably won’t do that again. People keep asking over and over and over for a sandbox game, not a goal-driven game, or one-adventure game. We need more daily things to do.

    I need more reactions to some situations, more specific personalities that define my sim behavior, not just some cosmetic traits that do not affect the sim much. I would like that traits were much more important in my sim life. I would like that my sim behaved differently according to the situation and other sims. For example: the way I speak to my boss should be different that the way I speak to my father.

    I want to do some cooking and discover that I don’t have some ingredient and have to go to the grocery to buy it, not magically get it by opening the fridge. I would like to go to a store and buy the clothes I will wear, not just have them free. When I want to go to a lot, I need my sim at least go to the door of my house so I think: he’s leaving the house to go to the lot, not just see my sim in the couch and then in the gym. It’s not realistic, it’s just something weird which breaks continuity. If I had an argument with a friend or with my partner, I would like to have a feeling about that, not just go home and smile like nothing happened.

    Nightclubs. I love nightclubs, but these are boring. I miss a mirrorball, some other effects like fog. I miss different kind of Nightclubs: posh places with disco music, old garages or warehouses with techno music, etc., each of them having different actions, styles, activities, music. I would like to be able to create new styles of music and feed them with my own music. That’s a sandbox.

    Killing a NPC sim has become, at least for me, almost impossible. I tried to play an evil vampire who invited people into his castle and kill them. I tried to kill six different sims and after a sim-week they were still alive even with no food. No robberies, no evil jobs, no sarcasm in some actions. Everything is so pure and perfect that, in my opinion, is so childish. Sometimes I like to play a real life, with the good and the bad things a real life has to offer: getting robbed, be cheated by my partner, get insulted, fell on the floor, have an accident, or whatever. That’s life, not just a child tale in a Walt Disney cartoon.

    Decorations are not my type as well. ¿Pink trees? ¿Trees with no leaves but some kind of green big ball up? It’s like a Walt Disney cartoon or a fantasy world. What about the city? That’s not a city.

    Customization is very limited. People like me who are control freak and like to have control of everything and customize everything, don’t have the chance to change many things. Everything is so driven by the codification, so fixed, so stiff. Some worlds are so small that it’s impossible to customize to your liking because there is no room to make changes. You can’t even change trees, roads, the orientation of a lot, not even the size of the lot. Why not letting people change some aspects of the world with some prefixed patterns? Playing the game is very frustrating for me: I can’t do this because it is not allowed, I can’t do that because of the coding, I can’t place this here because there is a restriction, I can’t… I can’t…. This is not an open game. This is not a sandbox game.

    Some of these changes are possible because modders are doing incredible things improving the game. Why EA doesn’t do anything at all? Shame on you!

    Then, there is the empty packs and the poor base game problem. I know that the base game can’t have all we want. Companies should make money. Ok. I think the solution is, as always, a mid approach. We can get a base game with a little bit of everything, just a little bit, and then an EP taking that little bit and developing it for a whole and complete experience. For example, a base game with some kind of weather: rain, wind, snow, etc., but without much implications. After that EA could release a Seasons EP developing in more depth all the features and aspects of that, illnesses, control over the temperature and seasons, activities depending on the weather, etc. The same with Pets. We could have two different pets in the base game (cats and dogs) and in an EP we could see a complete experience with much more activities with pets, more different pets, vet job and vet clinic, and everything we can imagine. EA could make a better EP because they would have more time to develop the ideas and make the experience more complete because part of the work had already done in the base game.

    I know it is almost impossible to release something that everyone would like. There will always be someone who does not like this and that, but what people is asking, demanding and shouting desperately is a sandbox game. And instead of that, EA is going to the opposite direction. Why?

    I bought all the EP and many of the packs hoping the game would get better, but it is not. I love The Sims, and I really, really hate to see this game getting into this direction. I’m trying to like it, really, trying hard, but there are so many things that I don’t like that the game is not appealing much to me anymore.

    This is a desperate call to EA. Please, do something about it. You can’t leave The Sims like this.

    Thank you for reading me.

    PD: Sorry for my mistakes. English is not my first language.
    Can you provide examples what you mean by that? How would you propose for the world to be more alive?

    And what would you hope the difference to be for 'talking to your boss vs talking to your father' ? Slower or faster relationship gain?

    I agree. At the very least I way an interaction to restock the fridge/wardrobe by paying it, so that it doesn't feel a grind for those who perfer to keep a sim at home. Thought it some come with a benefit, like better quality meals, If one decides to send the sim to the groceery and stock with their produce (grown fruit or caught fish).

    I agree with you about there being little customization options provided.
    NNpYlHF.jpg
  • fullspiralfullspiral Posts: 14,717 Member
    Cynna wrote: »


    TS4 is truly beautiful. The environs are progressively imaginative and interesting to look at. Yet, in a series called The Sims, the actual Sims should always come first and foremost. Until and unless the Sims finally become the priority for TS4, it will never feel quite like a Sims game. This is something that should have been worked out before launch, not as paying customers continue to wait and wait. It's so disappointing to see a beloved series take this turn to touting the next great thing. Meanwhile, the foundation of the very Sims themselves is still lacking.

    This! 100% this! The game is definitely the most beautiful of the bunch to me and the worlds are stunning to look at and travel around. BUT....the sims themselves are lacking in any ability to truly make them feel unique and play them as unique. My hope is that they start spending some time on fleshing out the YAs with lots of depth of character.

    Fears, attractions, wants. They have to replace this silly "moodlet" system that came in with S3.

  • PrincessrozeeSPrincessrozeeS Posts: 390 Member
    Cynna wrote: »
    Sometimes, I wonder what Will Wright thinks of what has become of his brainchild.
    I doubt very much Will Wright thinks or cares about how the game has turned out. He has made his money that is what people do, they sell out when they know the time is right, it is business and they move on. That maybe a cynical view but probably true. Many small companies making PC games way back then were taken over by bigger corporations, that is life. You only have to look in real life at small companies all over the world that are now run by big corporations. I am not happy how they have turned out but even not buying those products does nothing to change things. PC games are not big sellers these days the gaming industry is more into console games. I only have to visit my local game shop to see how things have changed over the past 10 years, there is very little in the way of PC games on the shelf and nothing is on disk everything is online to download not like the old days where we bought a CD and installed it on our PC.

    I agree that not everything in the Sims 4 is what I want it to be but that is how it is and we can sit here all day complaining about how things "should be" instead of getting on playing the game and being constructive about what we can add to the game to make it more enjoyable for those that feel it has let them down, within reason.

    I think mistakes were made at the beginning of the Sims 4 but I can understand how they wanted a "new" type of game (just as they did in the Sims 3 with the open neighbourhood) not just going over old ground; although I would have been happy to have a new Sims 2 game with updated graphics and new things added into the game, especially the customization that we got in the Sims 3. But I am sure there are reasons why it didn't happen or aware of that have brought about changes.

    I am so sad that so many people want pull the Sims 4 down even after 4 years of running and complain about game so much. Do people think by continually complaining that things are going change, make a U turn or we will have big changes. It is more likely that the Sims will close if sales start to fall because they cant deliver what the fans are demanding.

    Maybe if the Sims continues in years to come and develop into the Sims 5 one day, they may take on board what the fans have said about the Sims 4, but I probably think that finance rules most decisions and they have to pick out what they can and cannot do, not what the fans are demanding.





  • CK213CK213 Posts: 20,525 Member
    Cynna wrote: »
    Sometimes, I wonder what Will Wright thinks of what has become of his brainchild.
    I doubt very much Will Wright thinks or cares about how the game has turned out. He has made his money that is what people do, they sell out when they know the time is right, it is business and they move on. That maybe a cynical view ...

    Somewhere in the future, in a parallel universe;


    EA Executive: Will... The Sims is dying. We need you back to rejuvenate the brand. We need your magic.

    Will Wright: We've been through this. I still like doing my own thing in complete freedom.

    EA Executive: [Writes a sum on a piece of paper] Have stupid fun with this, Will.

    Will Wright: [Takes paper.] Oh. Alright, but just for the base game.

    The%20Goths.png?width=1920&height=1080&fit=bounds
  • JoAnne65JoAnne65 Posts: 22,959 Member
    Fears, attraction, wants ánd moodlets, for me they all could contribute to a sim’s personality. The emotions should be a result of those aspects at all times and nothing else.
    5JZ57S6.png
  • ScarletSimEaterScarletSimEater Posts: 126 Member
    One thing I liked from back in the original Sims was how you lacked complete control over your sims. You picked the top-level option like "joke" or "kiss", and the exact option chosen depended on your mood and relationship. It made the sims feel just that little bit more random.

    You can have sims interact on their own thanks to the large amount of public space in most neighborhoors, even if they aren't TS3's open worlds. (And something should be done to make neighboring lots seem more engaged and active, instead of being pretty looking blank spaces you need a loading screen to interact with.) But the big things I want are randomness and combinations. I don't want simple animations that I have to string together to get the outcome I want. I don't want moods and lot types to overwhelmingly dictate sim actions, because moods tend to be easy to inflict and lot types tend to create a lot of sameyness. I want traits to have a stronger influence on what actions a sim takes, and how they respond to others. I want states and interactions that play off of each other in unexpected ways. Whims are fine as a player engagement mechanic, but sometimes I want random chaos that I have to react to - or possibly, sit back and watch.

    And most importantly from a game, I want to have things to react to sometimes. Sometimes it's worth speedrunning Super Mario Bros, where you can basically familiarize yourself with what will come at any given frame or pixel. But most games are at their best when the player has to react to uncertainty. Free will off is fine for people who want to direct everything. But with free will on, things feel too sure and certain.
  • Noree_DoreeNoree_Doree Posts: 1,470 Member
    Cynna wrote: »
    Sometimes, I wonder what Will Wright thinks of what has become of his brainchild.
    I am so sad that so many people want pull the Sims 4 down even after 4 years of running and complain about game so much. Do people think by continually complaining that things are going change, make a U turn or we will have big changes. It is more likely that the Sims will close if sales start to fall because they cant deliver what the fans are demanding.

    I don't think it complaining. We are all paying customers and we have a right to give feedback for a product we bought that we feel "falls short" of the hype it was given or advertised as. Think about it. You pay for your favorite food and when you get it it's not cooked thoroughly you have a right to give the place that serves you feedback on that food so they can do better next time right?

    I will admit since the beginning the game has gotten better (because of feedback), however, I still find myself unable to play for long periods of time because of the bare minimum of the base of the sims themselves. And to make up for that I was buying a pack every time a new one came out because I thought it would make things better but in the end, it's always the same. There's that initial hype and then the bugs start to come in or denseness of the sims starts to shine all over again. This is not a problem for me in iteration 2 and 3. I can play for hours at a time and or play until I'm so tired I have to cut it off and go to bed or the fact that I forget how long I've played and think its only been a few minutes when its been hours.

    People like myself don't get that feeling from iteration 4 and we crave it. Don't you think I want the feeling again? I don't give feedback because I hate the sims, I give feedback because I love this series. I want to get the tingly feeling I get inside with 4 that I get from all the others. I want to feel attached to the sim that dies of old age in my game because of everything I've gone through with them. I don't feel that with 4. I simply move on to their heir and sadly that sim doesn't care if their parent has died either. What boggles my mind is a sim will get a sad emotion for 2 days from a pet dying when they have already moved away from the household the pet is in, but they don't get sad when they have already moved out of that household and their relative dies? it's like really?

    I really think they need to take a step back and focus on the sims themselves as someone said before. That's where things are missing. This isn't something new. I've seen that discussed plenty of times in the past.
    "Bada su the gorn bada su the brawn bada bady oda aba donk donk donk gerbits gerbits vo gerbits".
  • Tremayne4260Tremayne4260 Posts: 3,126 Member
    What EA has to understand first and foremost is that the Sims (no matter what version) is a SANDBOX game. It is not a MMO, it is not a RPG, it is not an action/adventure game. It is a game that has no "goals" per se except what you the player bring in with your own imagination. There are many different play styles with some folks enjoying Legacy play with families, other enjoy building and creating worlds, custom content, or various types of lots, some enjoy supernatural creatures and others do not. We're all here because we as players love the game itself. There should be actions and reactions, there should be negative consequences at times and there should be more hardships to overcome.

    In a Sandbox game, each play style should thrive and grow. For example, builders in Sims 4 have been left out as there are no terrain tools to raise and lower the ground level. Family play was left behind until last year and a part of that was due to the timing it takes to plan, design and program new EPs, SPs, and GPs.

    In my opinion, the initial problems with Sims 4 were the following. 1) It was going to be an online game. As a result of this, many of the interactions, reactions and family aspects were lost as the developers saw much of this happening because the players were interacting with each other and reacting instead of the Sims themselves. Since the online aspect was dropped so late in development, many aspects were never fleshed out as fully as they were in Sims 2 or 3. 2) She Who Must Not Be Named. Let's face it. She lead the team and was so focused on the Young Adult lifestage and parties and selfies, nothing else was really developed until she left. Since then, we've gotten a lot of good content. 3) Parts of the gameplay are too linear as if we were playing an RPG and were questing for certain items. Again, I feel this is due to the original design of this version forgetting the Sims is a Sandbox game.

    While the Devs are working to improve Sims 4, I do have to agree that I can easily lose myself in Sims 2 or 3 much easier than this version. They have improved on certain aspects of the game and I do hope they build on that success to make the next version even better incorporating what we love about pervious version as well.
    Second Star to the Right and Straight on 'til Morning.
  • ErpeErpe Posts: 5,872 Member
    @Tremayne4260 The Sims Medieval and the World Adventures weren’t sandbox games and they were some of the most popular games and EPs! I will admit that for simmers who mainly just want to build and watch their sims act on their own a sandbox game would be ideal though. But I am not at all that kind of simmer and I don’t believe that the majority of simmers are either!

    The reason why I stopped playing TS4 was very different because I like challenges and I would have stopped playing the Sims Freeplay years ago if that game had been just a sandbox game without challenges too. So why did I stop playing TS4?

    The reasons were other things:
    1. TS4 was too slow for me. Things took too long time and I hated the waiting times which mainly were caused by the autonomy and the multitasking. But also the 14 days waiting time until my sim had a change to be promoted again and that my sim had to just wait for hours or even days in another neighborhood before some collectible could be ready to be picked up.
    2. I am not a builder and I didn’t care about building or decorating.
    3. I am mainly a simmer who like to control my sims completely. So it annoyed me when they waisted huge amounts of time doing things that I didn’t want them to do at all.
    4. I hated the extreme focus on eternal happiness which for me just was annoying. I wanted challenges and consequences of my sims’ actions instead.

    So no! I don’t want a complete sandbox game at all! I just want a challenging game where I can control my sims and where every action has consequences instead of a game where I only can watch my sims act on their own and forget insults or infidelity in a split second!

    So I hope that EA soon will release another Sims game which is much more a game for me than TS4 which for me is much worse than its predecessors were!
  • DragonCat159DragonCat159 Posts: 1,896 Member
    edited February 2018
    @Erpe though I think it's pretty reasonable to believe that lack of sandbox also took as a factor for having veteran players putting the game back on the shelf or never to play, and it still is a popular complaint up to now. Frustration happens when you realize what customization you loved doing isn't possible: to change/add/remove the layout of lots, to build or change apartments/skyrises. It's one of the reasons, along with what I agree on you: lack of challenges is what driven the game to be and remain shittier.
    NNpYlHF.jpg
Sign In or Register to comment.
Return to top