I think neither CAS like we have nor gameplay acne would have been a perfect solution for me : I would have liked a bit of randomization and not having to manage it myself, but I bet it would have annoyed me too and I would have ended up editing it in CAS anyway. I'm mostly interested in the visual aspect of acne so I don't care if there's no moodlet or emotion associated with it. I'll probably do what I already do for braces : roll a dice when I rotate.
I myself was lucky enough never to have suffered from bad acne, but I can empathize with those who did/do and I can see how enforcing game play that reinforces incorrect information (that acne is only a problem for dirty people and that people with acne should be embarrassed and ashamed about it) would make such people feel like plum.
I am happy its a CAS detail only and I applaud the developers for their sensitivity, especially considering the young and vulnerable age group that makes up a large part of their target audience.
Edited: sorry I realized there were uncensored naughty words in the pic, so edited to conceal them.
I and many others grew up with TS2 and this was never an issue. Again everything has to be so politically correct these days in order not to offend anyone that I wouldn't be surprised if this was the cause.
I agree that perhaps they shouldn't portray acne necessarily as a bad thing to be embarrassed about (may not be the message you want to send to the kids). But this is the easy solution: make it completely irrelevant. Perhaps they could have dealt with this differently and in even take advantage of this to send a positive message to teens somehow e.g. Not necessaily every sim should be embarrassed just because they have acne (it could depend on their traits). Perhaps adding an attraction system once and for all and let us choose pimples as a turn on for some teens etc. And what's best: growing out of it. After a while and with proper treatment, teens would just get rid of their acne problem. So that's also a good message for teens out there suffering from acne: it gets better with time.
@Pixelsimmer
There wasn't any moodlet or emotion in TS2 though, when you had acne, it didn't do anything apart from adding an acne skin detail : No embarassement, no emotion, no reaction from others. That may be why it wasn't an issue in TS2 : it did nothing.
@Pixelsimmer
There wasn't any moodlet or emotion in TS2 though, when you had acne, it didn't do anything apart from adding an acne skin detail : No embarassement, no emotion, no reaction from others. That may be why it wasn't an issue in TS2 : it did nothing.
Well then they could have made it so that it didn't have an effect on mood (or only for certain sims, perhaps for those with a new "insecure" trait?). At least that would have given us some gameplay associated with it: acne cream, a little challenge having to take good care of your teens' hygiene to avoid acne (i.e. Much needed consequences in this game) etc
@Pixelsimmer
There wasn't any moodlet or emotion in TS2 though, when you had acne, it didn't do anything apart from adding an acne skin detail : No embarassement, no emotion, no reaction from others. That may be why it wasn't an issue in TS2 : it did nothing.
It was for the player, so you could direct them to use cream and it would disappear. Unlike TS4, TS2 had consequences (more depth) in what happens if you don't care for your Sims in that game. Too much homework, no fun, no sleep, no time for a shower, gave a teen a zit. It's not a life and death situation. And I'm shocked anyone would associate a teen zit (from hormones) in a game, with real acne. My gosh, at what point do we stop being so overly sensitive when it comes to playing a life simulator? If I built a game I would put in anything I wanted, shock and awe, and tell people to deal. (Of course no murder etc.) I can't believe (no I really can since TS3) of the overly sensitive players these days who see a boogie man on every corner.
ETA: lol, in my hurry to write my on selective outrage, I wrote boggie man. hahaha that should have been boogeyman.
Because I spelled it wrong, I get the picture of some dude dancing on the corner, ...boogie down.
Post edited by Cinebar on
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
I'm baffled by the comments in this thread. OP makes a perfectly sound argument: acne is a purely cosmetic feature that in no way influences gameplay. Random events such as vampire attacks or the monster under the bed 100% influence gameplay, often in an annoying and negative way. To claim random acne is somehow worse...? I cannot wrap my head around it. Just program it so that acne triggers randomly, but removing said acne is as simple as going to the bathroom sink and choosing "Apply Acne Cream" for a very short animation to apply said cream if you don't want your teen to have it. Boom. Minimalist gameplay interference, a realistic experience, and in no way a huge hinderance to gameplay the way the monster under the bed or vampire attacks sometimes are.
You want my $100 bet of the week? I'm going to assume OP is referring to a remark by the SimGurus themselves stating that they didn't want to take away control from the player. Going off that assumption that this argument truly originates from the Sims team and not from some random forum-goer, then my bet is that this is a very flowery and polite way to say either "our tech is more limiting and we could not program in acne the same way we did in Sims 2," or "programming in dynamic acne would've been extra work and we didn't care to do it." It's not about control, it's not about interfering with the player's experience, it's about the difficulty of programming it.
That's not even commenting on if their method is bad or good; control vs. challenge/realism is a worthy discussion with arguments for both sides. My point is merely that I don't think we should pretend there was truly a deep, thought-provoking discussion on the virtues of controllable acne for our gaming experience. Lolno, that doesn't happen, there's NO WAY acne got some deep philosophical and in-depth discussion when the pack has much larger features to worry about. What happened was they looked at how dynamic acne development would look in terms of work effort, saw it was too much or too difficult to achieve, and now we have self-applied acne with the claim "we wanted to give you control."
Let me start out by saying I was hoping acne wasn't just in cas and I am dissapointed, but comparing a tiny tiny tiny piece of content out of a whole pack, to the actual theme of the pack?
This isn't Sims 4 Acne, however it WAS Sims 4 vampires.
Im not excusing the fact that it's a cas item, but it's a really bad example. If someone buys a pack specifically about vampires, I don't care if they find it annoying when vampires show up.
Yes, we could have has cream. I even saw people saying they didn't want it to appear automatically because it'd ruin their photos, except that's what acne does..
I don't quite get the purpose of your comparison. I feel like you and I are focused on two seperate things.
The point OP made (that I built upon) is that anyone making the argument acne needs to be optional to afford the player better control...? Well that doesn't really account for our lack of control with the monster under the bed, or the vampire attacks, or or or. It doesn't make sense to hear that argument based on the history of the franchise. It's very strange to hear them suddenly have a change of heart about design philosophy regarding such a trivial, cosmetic feature that I feel most of us would not have minded if it were random.
In this thread people make the argument you can "control" vampire attacks by putting up garlic, though I'm unsure this works for vampires immune to garlic. You could however make the same argument for a fast-working acne cream; minimal interference being the cost, realistic acne being the pay-off. Again, why the change?
I just think this was a decision made purely due to programming limitations, whether it be a hard limitation they couldn't overcome or a soft one they simply didn't wanna invest the time into developing. (viewed it as not worth the time or a poor management of time to include it and divert time away from more meaningful features) The only reason I even comment on it is because it feels like some people hear The Sims' Team's stance on a feature, then agree with it by default rather than simply forming an opinion of their own. Self-applied acne is....well, it's kinda weird, and when OP words it the way he did, it's very difficult not to see his point.
Since the random acne never came into the works, we don't know whether or not there would have been a simple, quick solution to it or not. So arguing as if there definitely would have been one is a bit pointless.
Aside from that, they never even used "control" as an excuse for it. That doesn't mean control can't be a reason why some of us might be in favor of how they implemented it. We're all going off our own experiences here- for starters I don't play with kids, so the monster under the bed is not an issue to me (even if it were, there's a night light that prevents the monster from showing up). As for vampire attacks, I've had fewer than I can count on one hand since the pack was released in January. OP has had 2.
Despite this, several people in this thread act like self-applied acne is a flawless decision that they LOVE. Dynamic acne would be by-far the least meaningful random event they've ever included....yet now we hear speeches about giving the player more control...? I smell tech limitations and blind loyalty.
Is that really fair? To say people are "acting" about their opinions rather than the simple possibility that maybe some of us just really don't care for the idea of random acne and are glad it isn't going to be random? It's actually incredible that you managed to turn a topic on acne into "what's that? you're in favor of the way this was implemented? BLIND LOYALTY!" I can totally understand the reasons why people want it to be random - plenty of people have given good arguments, particularly the argument in regards to the illness system being comparable (which in my opinion, is a FAR better argument than either vampires, or monsters under the bed, but whatever it's not my argument to make ). Still, I don't want random acne. I'm not "acting" like I don't like it in a display of blind loyalty. My goodness.
I'm baffled by the comments in this thread. OP makes a perfectly sound argument: acne is a purely cosmetic feature that in no way influences gameplay. Random events such as vampire attacks or the monster under the bed 100% influence gameplay, often in an annoying and negative way. To claim random acne is somehow worse...? I cannot wrap my head around it. Just program it so that acne triggers randomly, but removing said acne is as simple as going to the bathroom sink and choosing "Apply Acne Cream" for a very short animation to apply said cream if you don't want your teen to have it. Boom. Minimalist gameplay interference, a realistic experience, and in no way a huge hinderance to gameplay the way the monster under the bed or vampire attacks sometimes are.
You want my $100 bet of the week? I'm going to assume OP is referring to a remark by the SimGurus themselves stating that they didn't want to take away control from the player. Going off that assumption that this argument truly originates from the Sims team and not from some random forum-goer, then my bet is that this is a very flowery and polite way to say either "our tech is more limiting and we could not program in acne the same way we did in Sims 2," or "programming in dynamic acne would've been extra work and we didn't care to do it." It's not about control, it's not about interfering with the player's experience, it's about the difficulty of programming it.
That's not even commenting on if their method is bad or good; control vs. challenge/realism is a worthy discussion with arguments for both sides. My point is merely that I don't think we should pretend there was truly a deep, thought-provoking discussion on the virtues of controllable acne for our gaming experience. Lolno, that doesn't happen, there's NO WAY acne got some deep philosophical and in-depth discussion when the pack has much larger features to worry about. What happened was they looked at how dynamic acne development would look in terms of work effort, saw it was too much or too difficult to achieve, and now we have self-applied acne with the claim "we wanted to give you control."
Let me start out by saying I was hoping acne wasn't just in cas and I am dissapointed, but comparing a tiny tiny tiny piece of content out of a whole pack, to the actual theme of the pack?
This isn't Sims 4 Acne, however it WAS Sims 4 vampires.
Im not excusing the fact that it's a cas item, but it's a really bad example. If someone buys a pack specifically about vampires, I don't care if they find it annoying when vampires show up.
Yes, we could have has cream. I even saw people saying they didn't want it to appear automatically because it'd ruin their photos, except that's what acne does..
I don't quite get the purpose of your comparison. I feel like you and I are focused on two seperate things.
The point OP made (that I built upon) is that anyone making the argument acne needs to be optional to afford the player better control...? Well that doesn't really account for our lack of control with the monster under the bed, or the vampire attacks, or or or. It doesn't make sense to hear that argument based on the history of the franchise. It's very strange to hear them suddenly have a change of heart about design philosophy regarding such a trivial, cosmetic feature that I feel most of us would not have minded if it were random.
In this thread people make the argument you can "control" vampire attacks by putting up garlic, though I'm unsure this works for vampires immune to garlic. You could however make the same argument for a fast-working acne cream; minimal interference being the cost, realistic acne being the pay-off. Again, why the change?
I just think this was a decision made purely due to programming limitations, whether it be a hard limitation they couldn't overcome or a soft one they simply didn't wanna invest the time into developing. (viewed it as not worth the time or a poor management of time to include it and divert time away from more meaningful features) The only reason I even comment on it is because it feels like some people hear The Sims' Team's stance on a feature, then agree with it by default rather than simply forming an opinion of their own. Self-applied acne is....well, it's kinda weird, and when OP words it the way he did, it's very difficult not to see his point.
Since the random acne never came into the works, we don't know whether or not there would have been a simple, quick solution to it or not. So arguing as if there definitely would have been one is a bit pointless.
Aside from that, they never even used "control" as an excuse for it. That doesn't mean control can't be a reason why some of us might be in favor of how they implemented it. We're all going off our own experiences here- for starters I don't play with kids, so the monster under the bed is not an issue to me (even if it were, there's a night light that prevents the monster from showing up). As for vampire attacks, I've had fewer than I can count on one hand since the pack was released in January. OP has had 2.
Despite this, several people in this thread act like self-applied acne is a flawless decision that they LOVE. Dynamic acne would be by-far the least meaningful random event they've ever included....yet now we hear speeches about giving the player more control...? I smell tech limitations and blind loyalty.
Is that really fair? To say people are "acting" about their opinions rather than the simple possibility that maybe some of us just really don't care for the idea of random acne and are glad it isn't going to be random? It's actually incredible that you managed to turn a topic on acne into "what's that? you're in favor of the way this was implemented? BLIND LOYALTY!" I can totally understand the reasons why people want it to be random - plenty of people have given good arguments, particularly the argument in regards to the illness system being comparable (which in my opinion, is a FAR better argument than either vampires, or monsters under the bed, but whatever it's not my argument to make ). Still, I don't want random acne. I'm not "acting" like I don't like it in a display of blind loyalty. My goodness.
Illness in TS4 isn't random, some aren't paying enough attention. Keep pushing your Sims and they get sick. Or if another Sim is sick they may get sick. Especially if they run a store, a restaurant or work at the hospital or live with someone who does. It's all player controlled.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
I'm baffled by the comments in this thread. OP makes a perfectly sound argument: acne is a purely cosmetic feature that in no way influences gameplay. Random events such as vampire attacks or the monster under the bed 100% influence gameplay, often in an annoying and negative way. To claim random acne is somehow worse...? I cannot wrap my head around it. Just program it so that acne triggers randomly, but removing said acne is as simple as going to the bathroom sink and choosing "Apply Acne Cream" for a very short animation to apply said cream if you don't want your teen to have it. Boom. Minimalist gameplay interference, a realistic experience, and in no way a huge hinderance to gameplay the way the monster under the bed or vampire attacks sometimes are.
You want my $100 bet of the week? I'm going to assume OP is referring to a remark by the SimGurus themselves stating that they didn't want to take away control from the player. Going off that assumption that this argument truly originates from the Sims team and not from some random forum-goer, then my bet is that this is a very flowery and polite way to say either "our tech is more limiting and we could not program in acne the same way we did in Sims 2," or "programming in dynamic acne would've been extra work and we didn't care to do it." It's not about control, it's not about interfering with the player's experience, it's about the difficulty of programming it.
That's not even commenting on if their method is bad or good; control vs. challenge/realism is a worthy discussion with arguments for both sides. My point is merely that I don't think we should pretend there was truly a deep, thought-provoking discussion on the virtues of controllable acne for our gaming experience. Lolno, that doesn't happen, there's NO WAY acne got some deep philosophical and in-depth discussion when the pack has much larger features to worry about. What happened was they looked at how dynamic acne development would look in terms of work effort, saw it was too much or too difficult to achieve, and now we have self-applied acne with the claim "we wanted to give you control."
Let me start out by saying I was hoping acne wasn't just in cas and I am dissapointed, but comparing a tiny tiny tiny piece of content out of a whole pack, to the actual theme of the pack?
This isn't Sims 4 Acne, however it WAS Sims 4 vampires.
Im not excusing the fact that it's a cas item, but it's a really bad example. If someone buys a pack specifically about vampires, I don't care if they find it annoying when vampires show up.
Yes, we could have has cream. I even saw people saying they didn't want it to appear automatically because it'd ruin their photos, except that's what acne does..
I don't quite get the purpose of your comparison. I feel like you and I are focused on two seperate things.
The point OP made (that I built upon) is that anyone making the argument acne needs to be optional to afford the player better control...? Well that doesn't really account for our lack of control with the monster under the bed, or the vampire attacks, or or or. It doesn't make sense to hear that argument based on the history of the franchise. It's very strange to hear them suddenly have a change of heart about design philosophy regarding such a trivial, cosmetic feature that I feel most of us would not have minded if it were random.
In this thread people make the argument you can "control" vampire attacks by putting up garlic, though I'm unsure this works for vampires immune to garlic. You could however make the same argument for a fast-working acne cream; minimal interference being the cost, realistic acne being the pay-off. Again, why the change?
I just think this was a decision made purely due to programming limitations, whether it be a hard limitation they couldn't overcome or a soft one they simply didn't wanna invest the time into developing. (viewed it as not worth the time or a poor management of time to include it and divert time away from more meaningful features) The only reason I even comment on it is because it feels like some people hear The Sims' Team's stance on a feature, then agree with it by default rather than simply forming an opinion of their own. Self-applied acne is....well, it's kinda weird, and when OP words it the way he did, it's very difficult not to see his point.
Since the random acne never came into the works, we don't know whether or not there would have been a simple, quick solution to it or not. So arguing as if there definitely would have been one is a bit pointless.
Aside from that, they never even used "control" as an excuse for it. That doesn't mean control can't be a reason why some of us might be in favor of how they implemented it. We're all going off our own experiences here- for starters I don't play with kids, so the monster under the bed is not an issue to me (even if it were, there's a night light that prevents the monster from showing up). As for vampire attacks, I've had fewer than I can count on one hand since the pack was released in January. OP has had 2.
Despite this, several people in this thread act like self-applied acne is a flawless decision that they LOVE. Dynamic acne would be by-far the least meaningful random event they've ever included....yet now we hear speeches about giving the player more control...? I smell tech limitations and blind loyalty.
Is that really fair? To say people are "acting" about their opinions rather than the simple possibility that maybe some of us just really don't care for the idea of random acne and are glad it isn't going to be random? It's actually incredible that you managed to turn a topic on acne into "what's that? you're in favor of the way this was implemented? BLIND LOYALTY!" I can totally understand the reasons why people want it to be random - plenty of people have given good arguments, particularly the argument in regards to the illness system being comparable (which in my opinion, is a FAR better argument than either vampires, or monsters under the bed, but whatever it's not my argument to make ). Still, I don't want random acne. I'm not "acting" like I don't like it in a display of blind loyalty. My goodness.
Illness in TS4 isn't random, some aren't paying enough attention. Keep pushing your Sims and they get sick. Or if another Sim is sick they may get sick. Especially if they run a store, a restaurant or work at the hospital or live with someone who does. It's all player controlled.
Except even when I play with Testing cheats on.. and NONE of my sims in my Swanson save work or live with anyone who does the above.
I myself was lucky enough never to have suffered from bad acne, but I can empathize with those who did/do and I can see how enforcing game play that reinforces incorrect information (that acne is only a problem for dirty people and that people with acne should be embarrassed and ashamed about it) would make such people feel like plum.
I am happy its a CAS detail only and I applaud the developers for their sensitivity, especially considering the young and vulnerable age group that makes up a large part of their target audience.
Edited: sorry I realized there were uncensored naughty words in the pic, so edited to conceal them.
I and many others grew up with TS2 and this was never an issue. Again everything has to be so politically correct these days in order not to offend anyone that I wouldn't be surprised if this was the cause.
I agree that perhaps they shouldn't portray acne necessarily as a bad thing to be embarrassed about (may not be the message you want to send to the kids). But this is the easy solution: make it completely irrelevant. Perhaps they could have dealt with this differently and in even take advantage of this to send a positive message to teens somehow e.g. Not necessaily every sim should be embarrassed just because they have acne (it could depend on their traits). Perhaps adding an attraction system once and for all and let us choose pimples as a turn on for some teens etc. And what's best: growing out of it. After a while and with proper treatment, teens would just get rid of their acne problem. So that's also a good message for teens out there suffering from acne: it gets better with time.
Clearly for Louise Wheeler it WAS an issue, and I suspect for many others in her position also.
Honestly I find the amount of fuss over such a minuscule amount of game play, that no doubt within a week of launch would have everyone complaining about how annoying it is that their sims get acne every 2 sim hours and have to spend a fortune on medicine to cure it, a tad incomprehensible.
Illness in TS4 isn't random, some aren't paying enough attention. Keep pushing your Sims and they get sick. Or if another Sim is sick they may get sick. Especially if they run a store, a restaurant or work at the hospital or live with someone who does. It's all player controlled.
In any case whether it's random or consequential, I think the goal of that argument was to find something comparable to justify random acne. (It's not my argument, I was just acknowledging it). Even if illness isn't random, I think it's a much better comparison to the system of acne that people want than either vampires or monsters under the bed are. Especially if the acne system were going to be consequential as well, like a consequence of not washing your teen's face for a period of time etc.
Oh good lord we have vampires in this game, guys and galls can get pregnant from eachother and man get babies from aliens but acne hits the spot? Come on, that's just reaching for it. Teens don't have to be emberassed, but I like it to be a gameplay feature not a CAS detail. I want them to have treatments if I want it gone or i'll leave it, not every interaction HAS to HAVE a moodlet, some things just happen.
Coming from someone who has suffered from acne and still has a lot of spots left from scars, everyone gets why too into things nowadays.
@Pixelsimmer
There wasn't any moodlet or emotion in TS2 though, when you had acne, it didn't do anything apart from adding an acne skin detail : No embarassement, no emotion, no reaction from others. That may be why it wasn't an issue in TS2 : it did nothing.
It was for the player, so you could direct them to use cream and it would disappear. Unlike TS4, TS2 had consequences (more depth) in what happens if you don't care for your Sims in that game. Too much homework, no fun, no sleep, no time for a shower, gave a teen a zit. It's not a life and death situation. And I'm shocked anyone would associate a teen zit (from hormones) in a game, with real acne. My gosh, at what point do we stop being so overly sensitive when it comes to playing a life simulator? If I built a game I would put in anything I wanted, shock and awe, and tell people to deal. (Of course no murder etc.) I can't believe (no I really can since TS3) of the overly sensitive players these days who see a boogie man on every corner.
Had it been acquired through gameplay, I'd rather have it tied to how far you are in the life stage (to further distinguish how old our Sims are), with a random or even genetic component. I didn't feel like TS2 acne being tied to hygiene or whatever really brought something interesting in term of gameplay. I always considered it random in TS2, and didn't feel the need to check whether that was actually the case or not.
I'm baffled by the comments in this thread. OP makes a perfectly sound argument: acne is a purely cosmetic feature that in no way influences gameplay. Random events such as vampire attacks or the monster under the bed 100% influence gameplay, often in an annoying and negative way. To claim random acne is somehow worse...? I cannot wrap my head around it. Just program it so that acne triggers randomly, but removing said acne is as simple as going to the bathroom sink and choosing "Apply Acne Cream" for a very short animation to apply said cream if you don't want your teen to have it. Boom. Minimalist gameplay interference, a realistic experience, and in no way a huge hinderance to gameplay the way the monster under the bed or vampire attacks sometimes are.
You want my $100 bet of the week? I'm going to assume OP is referring to a remark by the SimGurus themselves stating that they didn't want to take away control from the player. Going off that assumption that this argument truly originates from the Sims team and not from some random forum-goer, then my bet is that this is a very flowery and polite way to say either "our tech is more limiting and we could not program in acne the same way we did in Sims 2," or "programming in dynamic acne would've been extra work and we didn't care to do it." It's not about control, it's not about interfering with the player's experience, it's about the difficulty of programming it.
That's not even commenting on if their method is bad or good; control vs. challenge/realism is a worthy discussion with arguments for both sides. My point is merely that I don't think we should pretend there was truly a deep, thought-provoking discussion on the virtues of controllable acne for our gaming experience. Lolno, that doesn't happen, there's NO WAY acne got some deep philosophical and in-depth discussion when the pack has much larger features to worry about. What happened was they looked at how dynamic acne development would look in terms of work effort, saw it was too much or too difficult to achieve, and now we have self-applied acne with the claim "we wanted to give you control."
Let me start out by saying I was hoping acne wasn't just in cas and I am dissapointed, but comparing a tiny tiny tiny piece of content out of a whole pack, to the actual theme of the pack?
This isn't Sims 4 Acne, however it WAS Sims 4 vampires.
Im not excusing the fact that it's a cas item, but it's a really bad example. If someone buys a pack specifically about vampires, I don't care if they find it annoying when vampires show up.
Yes, we could have has cream. I even saw people saying they didn't want it to appear automatically because it'd ruin their photos, except that's what acne does..
I don't quite get the purpose of your comparison. I feel like you and I are focused on two seperate things.
The point OP made (that I built upon) is that anyone making the argument acne needs to be optional to afford the player better control...? Well that doesn't really account for our lack of control with the monster under the bed, or the vampire attacks, or or or. It doesn't make sense to hear that argument based on the history of the franchise. It's very strange to hear them suddenly have a change of heart about design philosophy regarding such a trivial, cosmetic feature that I feel most of us would not have minded if it were random.
In this thread people make the argument you can "control" vampire attacks by putting up garlic, though I'm unsure this works for vampires immune to garlic. You could however make the same argument for a fast-working acne cream; minimal interference being the cost, realistic acne being the pay-off. Again, why the change?
I just think this was a decision made purely due to programming limitations, whether it be a hard limitation they couldn't overcome or a soft one they simply didn't wanna invest the time into developing. (viewed it as not worth the time or a poor management of time to include it and divert time away from more meaningful features) The only reason I even comment on it is because it feels like some people hear The Sims' Team's stance on a feature, then agree with it by default rather than simply forming an opinion of their own. Self-applied acne is....well, it's kinda weird, and when OP words it the way he did, it's very difficult not to see his point.
Since the random acne never came into the works, we don't know whether or not there would have been a simple, quick solution to it or not. So arguing as if there definitely would have been one is a bit pointless.
Aside from that, they never even used "control" as an excuse for it. That doesn't mean control can't be a reason why some of us might be in favor of how they implemented it. We're all going off our own experiences here- for starters I don't play with kids, so the monster under the bed is not an issue to me (even if it were, there's a night light that prevents the monster from showing up). As for vampire attacks, I've had fewer than I can count on one hand since the pack was released in January. OP has had 2.
Despite this, several people in this thread act like self-applied acne is a flawless decision that they LOVE. Dynamic acne would be by-far the least meaningful random event they've ever included....yet now we hear speeches about giving the player more control...? I smell tech limitations and blind loyalty.
Is that really fair? To say people are "acting" about their opinions rather than the simple possibility that maybe some of us just really don't care for the idea of random acne and are glad it isn't going to be random? It's actually incredible that you managed to turn a topic on acne into "what's that? you're in favor of the way this was implemented? BLIND LOYALTY!" I can totally understand the reasons why people want it to be random - plenty of people have given good arguments, particularly the argument in regards to the illness system being comparable (which in my opinion, is a FAR better argument than either vampires, or monsters under the bed, but whatever it's not my argument to make ). Still, I don't want random acne. I'm not "acting" like I don't like it in a display of blind loyalty. My goodness.
I'll say a couple things in response to this:
1) No, I am not implying EVERYONE that wants it controllable is blindly loyal. However, a few arguments in favor of it definitely have me scratching my head and trying to imagine feeling that strongly about such a minor issue. Lord knows certain people have at times blindly approved of everything the Sims team has done in the past, so it functions as a great explanation for this sudden passion about such a trivial thing. I said what I said because I struggle to think of another motivation that makes more sense.
2) ...And if I'm wrong, I'm not sure that's comforting, because that means we have a bunch of people emotionally invested in...acne? I think @Cinebar said it best with "If we all project everything that ever happened to us when we play video games then there won't be much point in playing a life simulator when we can't even get a zit on a pixel now and then." Not gonna get into some huge personal discussion, but yeah I think it's time to ask oneself if perhaps they're being too sensitive if the thought of uncontrollable acne is emotionally scary for them. That's the only two cents I'll comment on that.
3) Perhaps I'm jumping the gun in the sense no, I do not have evidence for this (beyond Sims 4 cutting corners in the past). Understand the reason I jump the gun is because if my suspicion proves correct in the future...? If this was cut for development time and some people are blindly loyal...? I think it makes a much better point if I can properly surmise what the situation is off limited info; says a thing or two about just putting thought into what the methods probably looked like instead of undying support. But sure, I'll happily concede there's good odds I'm wrong.
If this was a "teen woes" pack then the IT's comparison would be appropriate. But its not. Its acne in a parenting pack. Not vampire attacks...in a vampire pack.
Granted, I did want it to be random personally but w/e. It was one feature i did miss from sims 2 but ah well.
If they don't do something exactly the way it was in TS2 or TS3, people harp on why it wasn't done the same way. If they do something the same as it was in TS2 or TS3, people harp on how they aren't doing anything "fresh" with this game. Just because something was done a certain way in TS2 or TS3 doesn't mean they need to or should just copy exactly how it was done in those games.
This isn't Sims 4 Acne, however it WAS Sims 4 vampires.
Exactly. Vampires biting people is pretty essential to a vampire game pack. If you don't want vampires being able to bite people, then don't buy a vampire game pack. On the other hand, this is a game pack about parenthood and not acne. Should parents discipline their sim teens because they got a zit? Doesn't really fit with the theme of the gamepack....whereas vampires biting people is pretty central to the theme of a vampire game pack. Also, we could just argue that every negative consequence in the game or put into the game in the future should be a random occurrence just because a vampire can bite someone....that logic doesn't hold up.
If you want to prevent a vampire attack, just lock the bedroom door for only household members. Vampiric entrance works on front doors but not bedroom doors. The vampire will just stand or roam outside the bedroom door. If you play as a vampire with that power, you'll find that you'll get a locked door routing error thought bubble from the sim, if that bedroom dock has been locked, and that vampiric entrance is not an option on locked bedroom doors like it is with locked front doors. Catastrophe averted.
It must also be noted that acne being just a CAS item has another consequence: I'm guessing you will never see teen townies with acne....And before anyone tells me you can modify townies' appearance in the Manage Households window: yes, I know. I do that all the time....But the problem is when they grow into young adults they still have it (until you see them around town and edit them again). This, together with the fact that, without player intervention, teens and young adults look practically the same, makes it even harder to tell who's a teen and who's a young adult.
Townies already look bad without intervention....random acne isn't going to fix that.
I suspect that acne as a CAS option was only added to throw a bone to the "teens don't look like teens" crowd. If you want to make your teens younger looker, there you go...add some acne. For others who don't really care about dealing with acne, they don't have to. It's called a "compromise", as you'll never find anything like this that every single simmer can agree on and so they aren't going to be able to make everyone happy anyway.
These packs have budgets and adding acne as a game feature would mean getting rid of something else as a game feature of the pack and so, personally, I'm glad they just added it as a CAS option instead of putting it in place of some other family gameplay feature of the pack.
I'm baffled by the comments in this thread. OP makes a perfectly sound argument: acne is a purely cosmetic feature that in no way influences gameplay. Random events such as vampire attacks or the monster under the bed 100% influence gameplay, often in an annoying and negative way. To claim random acne is somehow worse...? I cannot wrap my head around it. Just program it so that acne triggers randomly, but removing said acne is as simple as going to the bathroom sink and choosing "Apply Acne Cream" for a very short animation to apply said cream if you don't want your teen to have it. Boom. Minimalist gameplay interference, a realistic experience, and in no way a huge hinderance to gameplay the way the monster under the bed or vampire attacks sometimes are.
You want my $100 bet of the week? I'm going to assume OP is referring to a remark by the SimGurus themselves stating that they didn't want to take away control from the player. Going off that assumption that this argument truly originates from the Sims team and not from some random forum-goer, then my bet is that this is a very flowery and polite way to say either "our tech is more limiting and we could not program in acne the same way we did in Sims 2," or "programming in dynamic acne would've been extra work and we didn't care to do it." It's not about control, it's not about interfering with the player's experience, it's about the difficulty of programming it.
That's not even commenting on if their method is bad or good; control vs. challenge/realism is a worthy discussion with arguments for both sides. My point is merely that I don't think we should pretend there was truly a deep, thought-provoking discussion on the virtues of controllable acne for our gaming experience. Lolno, that doesn't happen, there's NO WAY acne got some deep philosophical and in-depth discussion when the pack has much larger features to worry about. What happened was they looked at how dynamic acne development would look in terms of work effort, saw it was too much or too difficult to achieve, and now we have self-applied acne with the claim "we wanted to give you control."
Let me start out by saying I was hoping acne wasn't just in cas and I am dissapointed, but comparing a tiny tiny tiny piece of content out of a whole pack, to the actual theme of the pack?
This isn't Sims 4 Acne, however it WAS Sims 4 vampires.
Im not excusing the fact that it's a cas item, but it's a really bad example. If someone buys a pack specifically about vampires, I don't care if they find it annoying when vampires show up.
Yes, we could have has cream. I even saw people saying they didn't want it to appear automatically because it'd ruin their photos, except that's what acne does..
I don't quite get the purpose of your comparison. I feel like you and I are focused on two seperate things.
The point OP made (that I built upon) is that anyone making the argument acne needs to be optional to afford the player better control...? Well that doesn't really account for our lack of control with the monster under the bed, or the vampire attacks, or or or. It doesn't make sense to hear that argument based on the history of the franchise. It's very strange to hear them suddenly have a change of heart about design philosophy regarding such a trivial, cosmetic feature that I feel most of us would not have minded if it were random.
In this thread people make the argument you can "control" vampire attacks by putting up garlic, though I'm unsure this works for vampires immune to garlic. You could however make the same argument for a fast-working acne cream; minimal interference being the cost, realistic acne being the pay-off. Again, why the change?
I just think this was a decision made purely due to programming limitations, whether it be a hard limitation they couldn't overcome or a soft one they simply didn't wanna invest the time into developing. (viewed it as not worth the time or a poor management of time to include it and divert time away from more meaningful features) The only reason I even comment on it is because it feels like some people hear The Sims' Team's stance on a feature, then agree with it by default rather than simply forming an opinion of their own. Self-applied acne is....well, it's kinda weird, and when OP words it the way he did, it's very difficult not to see his point.
Since the random acne never came into the works, we don't know whether or not there would have been a simple, quick solution to it or not. So arguing as if there definitely would have been one is a bit pointless.
Aside from that, they never even used "control" as an excuse for it. That doesn't mean control can't be a reason why some of us might be in favor of how they implemented it. We're all going off our own experiences here- for starters I don't play with kids, so the monster under the bed is not an issue to me (even if it were, there's a night light that prevents the monster from showing up). As for vampire attacks, I've had fewer than I can count on one hand since the pack was released in January. OP has had 2.
Despite this, several people in this thread act like self-applied acne is a flawless decision that they LOVE. Dynamic acne would be by-far the least meaningful random event they've ever included....yet now we hear speeches about giving the player more control...? I smell tech limitations and blind loyalty.
Is that really fair? To say people are "acting" about their opinions rather than the simple possibility that maybe some of us just really don't care for the idea of random acne and are glad it isn't going to be random? It's actually incredible that you managed to turn a topic on acne into "what's that? you're in favor of the way this was implemented? BLIND LOYALTY!" I can totally understand the reasons why people want it to be random - plenty of people have given good arguments, particularly the argument in regards to the illness system being comparable (which in my opinion, is a FAR better argument than either vampires, or monsters under the bed, but whatever it's not my argument to make ). Still, I don't want random acne. I'm not "acting" like I don't like it in a display of blind loyalty. My goodness.
I'll say a couple things in response to this:
1) No, I am not implying EVERYONE that wants it controllable is blindly loyal. However, a few arguments in favor of it definitely have me scratching my head and trying to imagine feeling that strongly about such a minor issue. Lord knows certain people have at times blindly approved of everything the Sims team has done in the past, so it functions as a great explanation for this sudden passion about such a trivial thing. I said what I said because I struggle to think of another motivation that makes more sense.
2) ...And if I'm wrong, I'm not sure that's comforting, because that means we have a bunch of people emotionally invested in...acne? I think @Cinebar said it best with "If we all project everything that ever happened to us when we play video games then there won't be much point in playing a life simulator when we can't even get a zit on a pixel now and then." Not gonna get into some huge personal discussion, but yeah I think it's time to ask oneself if perhaps they're being too sensitive if the thought of uncontrollable acne is emotionally scary for them. That's the only two cents I'll comment on that.
3) Perhaps I'm jumping the gun in the sense no, I do not have evidence for this (beyond Sims 4 cutting corners in the past). Understand the reason I jump the gun is because if my suspicion proves correct in the future...? If this was cut for development time and some people are blindly loyal...? I think it makes a much better point if I can properly surmise what the situation is off limited info; says a thing or two about just putting thought into what the methods probably looked like instead of undying support. But sure, I'll happily concede there's good odds I'm wrong.
The clarification is appreciated, I at least understand your point of view better than I did before.
In respect to people feeling strongly about the topic, I don't know if many of us actually do, regardless which side we're on. Like I'd rather not have the game dictate acne onto my sims, but if it did I would just see it the same way I do illness, a minor nuissance. I wouldn't skip on the pack because I don't want the acne. Similarly I don't think many people in favor of random acne are going to skip on the pack just because it isn't random.
Can't speak for anyone else, but for me there's no emotional connection to it ; I've never struggled with acne- which is probably one of the reasons I don't think it should just be a random event that all our teens should experience. That said, since poor hygiene isn't the way most people actually get acne, having to make my teen wash their face daily to prevent it as some people have suggested would just annoy me because it's one of those things that tries to be realistic but just isn't. In lieu of either a random or consequential system I would've probably gone along with something like a hidden "acne prone" trait that gets passed down to offspring with a 50% chance or something like that. (I still don't want it , but this would be a lot more appealing to me than randomness for sure)
I'm baffled by the comments in this thread. OP makes a perfectly sound argument: acne is a purely cosmetic feature that in no way influences gameplay. Random events such as vampire attacks or the monster under the bed 100% influence gameplay, often in an annoying and negative way. To claim random acne is somehow worse...? I cannot wrap my head around it. Just program it so that acne triggers randomly, but removing said acne is as simple as going to the bathroom sink and choosing "Apply Acne Cream" for a very short animation to apply said cream if you don't want your teen to have it. Boom. Minimalist gameplay interference, a realistic experience, and in no way a huge hinderance to gameplay the way the monster under the bed or vampire attacks sometimes are.
You want my $100 bet of the week? I'm going to assume OP is referring to a remark by the SimGurus themselves stating that they didn't want to take away control from the player. Going off that assumption that this argument truly originates from the Sims team and not from some random forum-goer, then my bet is that this is a very flowery and polite way to say either "our tech is more limiting and we could not program in acne the same way we did in Sims 2," or "programming in dynamic acne would've been extra work and we didn't care to do it." It's not about control, it's not about interfering with the player's experience, it's about the difficulty of programming it.
That's not even commenting on if their method is bad or good; control vs. challenge/realism is a worthy discussion with arguments for both sides. My point is merely that I don't think we should pretend there was truly a deep, thought-provoking discussion on the virtues of controllable acne for our gaming experience. Lolno, that doesn't happen, there's NO WAY acne got some deep philosophical and in-depth discussion when the pack has much larger features to worry about. What happened was they looked at how dynamic acne development would look in terms of work effort, saw it was too much or too difficult to achieve, and now we have self-applied acne with the claim "we wanted to give you control."
Let me start out by saying I was hoping acne wasn't just in cas and I am dissapointed, but comparing a tiny tiny tiny piece of content out of a whole pack, to the actual theme of the pack?
This isn't Sims 4 Acne, however it WAS Sims 4 vampires.
Im not excusing the fact that it's a cas item, but it's a really bad example. If someone buys a pack specifically about vampires, I don't care if they find it annoying when vampires show up.
Yes, we could have has cream. I even saw people saying they didn't want it to appear automatically because it'd ruin their photos, except that's what acne does..
I don't quite get the purpose of your comparison. I feel like you and I are focused on two seperate things.
The point OP made (that I built upon) is that anyone making the argument acne needs to be optional to afford the player better control...? Well that doesn't really account for our lack of control with the monster under the bed, or the vampire attacks, or or or. It doesn't make sense to hear that argument based on the history of the franchise. It's very strange to hear them suddenly have a change of heart about design philosophy regarding such a trivial, cosmetic feature that I feel most of us would not have minded if it were random.
In this thread people make the argument you can "control" vampire attacks by putting up garlic, though I'm unsure this works for vampires immune to garlic. You could however make the same argument for a fast-working acne cream; minimal interference being the cost, realistic acne being the pay-off. Again, why the change?
I just think this was a decision made purely due to programming limitations, whether it be a hard limitation they couldn't overcome or a soft one they simply didn't wanna invest the time into developing. (viewed it as not worth the time or a poor management of time to include it and divert time away from more meaningful features) The only reason I even comment on it is because it feels like some people hear The Sims' Team's stance on a feature, then agree with it by default rather than simply forming an opinion of their own. Self-applied acne is....well, it's kinda weird, and when OP words it the way he did, it's very difficult not to see his point.
Since the random acne never came into the works, we don't know whether or not there would have been a simple, quick solution to it or not. So arguing as if there definitely would have been one is a bit pointless.
Aside from that, they never even used "control" as an excuse for it. That doesn't mean control can't be a reason why some of us might be in favor of how they implemented it. We're all going off our own experiences here- for starters I don't play with kids, so the monster under the bed is not an issue to me (even if it were, there's a night light that prevents the monster from showing up). As for vampire attacks, I've had fewer than I can count on one hand since the pack was released in January. OP has had 2.
Despite this, several people in this thread act like self-applied acne is a flawless decision that they LOVE. Dynamic acne would be by-far the least meaningful random event they've ever included....yet now we hear speeches about giving the player more control...? I smell tech limitations and blind loyalty.
Is that really fair? To say people are "acting" about their opinions rather than the simple possibility that maybe some of us just really don't care for the idea of random acne and are glad it isn't going to be random? It's actually incredible that you managed to turn a topic on acne into "what's that? you're in favor of the way this was implemented? BLIND LOYALTY!" I can totally understand the reasons why people want it to be random - plenty of people have given good arguments, particularly the argument in regards to the illness system being comparable (which in my opinion, is a FAR better argument than either vampires, or monsters under the bed, but whatever it's not my argument to make ). Still, I don't want random acne. I'm not "acting" like I don't like it in a display of blind loyalty. My goodness.
Illness in TS4 isn't random, some aren't paying enough attention. Keep pushing your Sims and they get sick. Or if another Sim is sick they may get sick. Especially if they run a store, a restaurant or work at the hospital or live with someone who does. It's all player controlled.
Except even when I play with Testing cheats on.. and NONE of my sims in my Swanson save work or live with anyone who does the above.
Pay more attention. Germs travel. A friend of a fried who was at the hospital who happened to be sick, or were out at a community lot who was talking to someone one day who was sick then your Sim talks to that friend of a friend. And grinding (*tasks and skill building too much) in game makes these Sims sick in my experience. Most of this stuff is player triggered one way or another. Another Sim in the doctor career...months ago.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
Personally I would prefer it to happen randomly in game but I wouldn’t want it tied to embarrassed moodlets or low hygiene. I used to have acne as a teenager and was really self-conscious of it, I wouldn’t really want to then play a game reinforcing the idea that it’s something I should be ashamed of or that I don’t wash.
If they avoided these elements then yes I would prefer it to happen randomly. But then again, so far I haven’t seen anything in this pack that I would rather trade for random acne. After all, random acne would be more work than CAS acne and therefore something else would be cut as a result. So is realistic acne something people care about enough to have something else not in game as a result?
I'm baffled by the comments in this thread. OP makes a perfectly sound argument: acne is a purely cosmetic feature that in no way influences gameplay. Random events such as vampire attacks or the monster under the bed 100% influence gameplay, often in an annoying and negative way. To claim random acne is somehow worse...? I cannot wrap my head around it. Just program it so that acne triggers randomly, but removing said acne is as simple as going to the bathroom sink and choosing "Apply Acne Cream" for a very short animation to apply said cream if you don't want your teen to have it. Boom. Minimalist gameplay interference, a realistic experience, and in no way a huge hinderance to gameplay the way the monster under the bed or vampire attacks sometimes are.
You want my $100 bet of the week? I'm going to assume OP is referring to a remark by the SimGurus themselves stating that they didn't want to take away control from the player. Going off that assumption that this argument truly originates from the Sims team and not from some random forum-goer, then my bet is that this is a very flowery and polite way to say either "our tech is more limiting and we could not program in acne the same way we did in Sims 2," or "programming in dynamic acne would've been extra work and we didn't care to do it." It's not about control, it's not about interfering with the player's experience, it's about the difficulty of programming it.
That's not even commenting on if their method is bad or good; control vs. challenge/realism is a worthy discussion with arguments for both sides. My point is merely that I don't think we should pretend there was truly a deep, thought-provoking discussion on the virtues of controllable acne for our gaming experience. Lolno, that doesn't happen, there's NO WAY acne got some deep philosophical and in-depth discussion when the pack has much larger features to worry about. What happened was they looked at how dynamic acne development would look in terms of work effort, saw it was too much or too difficult to achieve, and now we have self-applied acne with the claim "we wanted to give you control."
Let me start out by saying I was hoping acne wasn't just in cas and I am dissapointed, but comparing a tiny tiny tiny piece of content out of a whole pack, to the actual theme of the pack?
This isn't Sims 4 Acne, however it WAS Sims 4 vampires.
Im not excusing the fact that it's a cas item, but it's a really bad example. If someone buys a pack specifically about vampires, I don't care if they find it annoying when vampires show up.
Yes, we could have has cream. I even saw people saying they didn't want it to appear automatically because it'd ruin their photos, except that's what acne does..
I don't quite get the purpose of your comparison. I feel like you and I are focused on two seperate things.
The point OP made (that I built upon) is that anyone making the argument acne needs to be optional to afford the player better control...? Well that doesn't really account for our lack of control with the monster under the bed, or the vampire attacks, or or or. It doesn't make sense to hear that argument based on the history of the franchise. It's very strange to hear them suddenly have a change of heart about design philosophy regarding such a trivial, cosmetic feature that I feel most of us would not have minded if it were random.
In this thread people make the argument you can "control" vampire attacks by putting up garlic, though I'm unsure this works for vampires immune to garlic. You could however make the same argument for a fast-working acne cream; minimal interference being the cost, realistic acne being the pay-off. Again, why the change?
I just think this was a decision made purely due to programming limitations, whether it be a hard limitation they couldn't overcome or a soft one they simply didn't wanna invest the time into developing. (viewed it as not worth the time or a poor management of time to include it and divert time away from more meaningful features) The only reason I even comment on it is because it feels like some people hear The Sims' Team's stance on a feature, then agree with it by default rather than simply forming an opinion of their own. Self-applied acne is....well, it's kinda weird, and when OP words it the way he did, it's very difficult not to see his point.
Since the random acne never came into the works, we don't know whether or not there would have been a simple, quick solution to it or not. So arguing as if there definitely would have been one is a bit pointless.
Aside from that, they never even used "control" as an excuse for it. That doesn't mean control can't be a reason why some of us might be in favor of how they implemented it. We're all going off our own experiences here- for starters I don't play with kids, so the monster under the bed is not an issue to me (even if it were, there's a night light that prevents the monster from showing up). As for vampire attacks, I've had fewer than I can count on one hand since the pack was released in January. OP has had 2.
Despite this, several people in this thread act like self-applied acne is a flawless decision that they LOVE. Dynamic acne would be by-far the least meaningful random event they've ever included....yet now we hear speeches about giving the player more control...? I smell tech limitations and blind loyalty.
Is that really fair? To say people are "acting" about their opinions rather than the simple possibility that maybe some of us just really don't care for the idea of random acne and are glad it isn't going to be random? It's actually incredible that you managed to turn a topic on acne into "what's that? you're in favor of the way this was implemented? BLIND LOYALTY!" I can totally understand the reasons why people want it to be random - plenty of people have given good arguments, particularly the argument in regards to the illness system being comparable (which in my opinion, is a FAR better argument than either vampires, or monsters under the bed, but whatever it's not my argument to make ). Still, I don't want random acne. I'm not "acting" like I don't like it in a display of blind loyalty. My goodness.
Illness in TS4 isn't random, some aren't paying enough attention. Keep pushing your Sims and they get sick. Or if another Sim is sick they may get sick. Especially if they run a store, a restaurant or work at the hospital or live with someone who does. It's all player controlled.
Except even when I play with Testing cheats on.. and NONE of my sims in my Swanson save work or live with anyone who does the above.
Pay more attention. Germs travel. A friend of a fried who was at the hospital who happened to be sick, or were out at a community lot who was talking to someone one day who was sick then your Sim talks to that friend of a friend. And grinding (*tasks and skill building too much) in game makes these Sims sick in my experience. Most of this stuff is player triggered one way or another. Another Sim in the doctor career...months ago.
I've always seen diseases function as communicable in Sims 4 households. I can't tell if the family catches them from outsiders or if that's random (or mediated by Skilling or other activities), but it definitely appears to pass through the household based on interaction with sick Sims. It's a little detail I've always loved about the illness system.
@Pixelsimmer
There wasn't any moodlet or emotion in TS2 though, when you had acne, it didn't do anything apart from adding an acne skin detail : No embarassement, no emotion, no reaction from others. That may be why it wasn't an issue in TS2 : it did nothing.
It was for the player, so you could direct them to use cream and it would disappear. Unlike TS4, TS2 had consequences (more depth) in what happens if you don't care for your Sims in that game. Too much homework, no fun, no sleep, no time for a shower, gave a teen a zit. It's not a life and death situation. And I'm shocked anyone would associate a teen zit (from hormones) in a game, with real acne. My gosh, at what point do we stop being so overly sensitive when it comes to playing a life simulator? If I built a game I would put in anything I wanted, shock and awe, and tell people to deal. (Of course no murder etc.) I can't believe (no I really can since TS3) of the overly sensitive players these days who see a boogie man on every corner.
Had it been acquired through gameplay, I'd rather have it tied to how far you are in the life stage (to further distinguish how old our Sims are), with a random or even genetic component. I didn't feel like TS2 acne being tied to hygiene or whatever really brought something interesting in term of gameplay. I always considered it random in TS2, and didn't feel the need to check whether that was actually the case or not.
It did distinguish teens from adults (no YA until Uni and they don't live in the main world) because teens were the only ones who could get one.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
I myself was lucky enough never to have suffered from bad acne, but I can empathize with those who did/do and I can see how enforcing game play that reinforces incorrect information (that acne is only a problem for dirty people and that people with acne should be embarrassed and ashamed about it) would make such people feel like plum.
I am happy its a CAS detail only and I applaud the developers for their sensitivity, especially considering the young and vulnerable age group that makes up a large part of their target audience.
Edited: sorry I realized there were uncensored naughty words in the pic, so edited to conceal them.
I and many others grew up with TS2 and this was never an issue. Again everything has to be so politically correct these days in order not to offend anyone that I wouldn't be surprised if this was the cause.
I agree that perhaps they shouldn't portray acne necessarily as a bad thing to be embarrassed about (may not be the message you want to send to the kids). But this is the easy solution: make it completely irrelevant. Perhaps they could have dealt with this differently and in even take advantage of this to send a positive message to teens somehow e.g. Not necessaily every sim should be embarrassed just because they have acne (it could depend on their traits). Perhaps adding an attraction system once and for all and let us choose pimples as a turn on for some teens etc. And what's best: growing out of it. After a while and with proper treatment, teens would just get rid of their acne problem. So that's also a good message for teens out there suffering from acne: it gets better with time.
Clearly for Louise Wheeler it WAS an issue, and I suspect for many others in her position also.
Honestly I find the amount of fuss over such a minuscule amount of game play, that no doubt within a week of launch would have everyone complaining about how annoying it is that their sims get acne every 2 sim hours and have to spend a fortune on medicine to cure it, a tad incomprehensible.
I'm sensitive about death, should Sims not die in the game, ever? I'm sensitive about my own pets died, should they never make a Pet EP? I'm sensitive about being older than most of you, should there be no elders in game? I know people sensitive about having red hair (they dye it) should they leave that color out of the game? When does it stop? Where does it stop, and for goodness sake where is this bubble because you know what happens to bubbles? they burst.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
I myself was lucky enough never to have suffered from bad acne, but I can empathize with those who did/do and I can see how enforcing game play that reinforces incorrect information (that acne is only a problem for dirty people and that people with acne should be embarrassed and ashamed about it) would make such people feel like plum.
I am happy its a CAS detail only and I applaud the developers for their sensitivity, especially considering the young and vulnerable age group that makes up a large part of their target audience.
Edited: sorry I realized there were uncensored naughty words in the pic, so edited to conceal them.
I and many others grew up with TS2 and this was never an issue. Again everything has to be so politically correct these days in order not to offend anyone that I wouldn't be surprised if this was the cause.
I agree that perhaps they shouldn't portray acne necessarily as a bad thing to be embarrassed about (may not be the message you want to send to the kids). But this is the easy solution: make it completely irrelevant. Perhaps they could have dealt with this differently and in even take advantage of this to send a positive message to teens somehow e.g. Not necessaily every sim should be embarrassed just because they have acne (it could depend on their traits). Perhaps adding an attraction system once and for all and let us choose pimples as a turn on for some teens etc. And what's best: growing out of it. After a while and with proper treatment, teens would just get rid of their acne problem. So that's also a good message for teens out there suffering from acne: it gets better with time.
Clearly for Louise Wheeler it WAS an issue, and I suspect for many others in her position also.
Honestly I find the amount of fuss over such a minuscule amount of game play, that no doubt within a week of launch would have everyone complaining about how annoying it is that their sims get acne every 2 sim hours and have to spend a fortune on medicine to cure it, a tad incomprehensible.
I'm sensitive about death, should Sims not die in the game, ever? I'm sensitive about my own pets died, should they never make a Pet EP? I'm sensitive about being older than most of you, should there be no elders in game? I know people sensitive about having red hair (they dye it) should they leave that color out of the game? When does it stop? Where does it stop, and for goodness sake where is this bubble because you know what happens to bubbles? they burst.
And this is why each iteration has gotten progressively less dark.. times are different now and everything has to be politically correct, god forbids kids are traumatized! So no random deaths (oh the meteor!), you can't be fired as a result of chance cards, etc. In my opinion, these hyper-sensitivity is getting ridiculous...but oh well...
@Pixelsimmer
There wasn't any moodlet or emotion in TS2 though, when you had acne, it didn't do anything apart from adding an acne skin detail : No embarassement, no emotion, no reaction from others. That may be why it wasn't an issue in TS2 : it did nothing.
It was for the player, so you could direct them to use cream and it would disappear. Unlike TS4, TS2 had consequences (more depth) in what happens if you don't care for your Sims in that game. Too much homework, no fun, no sleep, no time for a shower, gave a teen a zit. It's not a life and death situation. And I'm shocked anyone would associate a teen zit (from hormones) in a game, with real acne. My gosh, at what point do we stop being so overly sensitive when it comes to playing a life simulator? If I built a game I would put in anything I wanted, shock and awe, and tell people to deal. (Of course no murder etc.) I can't believe (no I really can since TS3) of the overly sensitive players these days who see a boogie man on every corner.
Had it been acquired through gameplay, I'd rather have it tied to how far you are in the life stage (to further distinguish how old our Sims are), with a random or even genetic component. I didn't feel like TS2 acne being tied to hygiene or whatever really brought something interesting in term of gameplay. I always considered it random in TS2, and didn't feel the need to check whether that was actually the case or not.
It did distinguish teens from adults (no YA until Uni and they don't live in the main world) because teens were the only ones who could get one.
You will be able to do that in TS4 too, you can choose to put acne on teens only, and it will help distinguish teens from YA/A.
It would have been cool if it was something your sims develop and treat like with the sims 2 teens but I think it makes perfect sense to have acne as a skin detail. Gives the player more control and that's always a good thing in my eyes. Not only that, people of all ages can suffer from acne so it would have been unusual to restrict getting acne with a system like that from sims 2 to just teens.
I agree, as I feel having teens not care about acne at all is completely unrealistic and takes away from the game. It really could have added so much basic game play to make teens more unique, but now it will just be a skin detail that any age group will just randomly get.
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I and many others grew up with TS2 and this was never an issue. Again everything has to be so politically correct these days in order not to offend anyone that I wouldn't be surprised if this was the cause.
I agree that perhaps they shouldn't portray acne necessarily as a bad thing to be embarrassed about (may not be the message you want to send to the kids). But this is the easy solution: make it completely irrelevant. Perhaps they could have dealt with this differently and in even take advantage of this to send a positive message to teens somehow e.g. Not necessaily every sim should be embarrassed just because they have acne (it could depend on their traits). Perhaps adding an attraction system once and for all and let us choose pimples as a turn on for some teens etc. And what's best: growing out of it. After a while and with proper treatment, teens would just get rid of their acne problem. So that's also a good message for teens out there suffering from acne: it gets better with time.
There wasn't any moodlet or emotion in TS2 though, when you had acne, it didn't do anything apart from adding an acne skin detail : No embarassement, no emotion, no reaction from others. That may be why it wasn't an issue in TS2 : it did nothing.
Well then they could have made it so that it didn't have an effect on mood (or only for certain sims, perhaps for those with a new "insecure" trait?). At least that would have given us some gameplay associated with it: acne cream, a little challenge having to take good care of your teens' hygiene to avoid acne (i.e. Much needed consequences in this game) etc
It was for the player, so you could direct them to use cream and it would disappear. Unlike TS4, TS2 had consequences (more depth) in what happens if you don't care for your Sims in that game. Too much homework, no fun, no sleep, no time for a shower, gave a teen a zit. It's not a life and death situation. And I'm shocked anyone would associate a teen zit (from hormones) in a game, with real acne. My gosh, at what point do we stop being so overly sensitive when it comes to playing a life simulator? If I built a game I would put in anything I wanted, shock and awe, and tell people to deal. (Of course no murder etc.) I can't believe (no I really can since TS3) of the overly sensitive players these days who see a boogie man on every corner.
ETA: lol, in my hurry to write my on selective outrage, I wrote boggie man. hahaha that should have been boogeyman.
Because I spelled it wrong, I get the picture of some dude dancing on the corner, ...boogie down.
Since the random acne never came into the works, we don't know whether or not there would have been a simple, quick solution to it or not. So arguing as if there definitely would have been one is a bit pointless.
Aside from that, they never even used "control" as an excuse for it. That doesn't mean control can't be a reason why some of us might be in favor of how they implemented it. We're all going off our own experiences here- for starters I don't play with kids, so the monster under the bed is not an issue to me (even if it were, there's a night light that prevents the monster from showing up). As for vampire attacks, I've had fewer than I can count on one hand since the pack was released in January. OP has had 2.
Is that really fair? To say people are "acting" about their opinions rather than the simple possibility that maybe some of us just really don't care for the idea of random acne and are glad it isn't going to be random? It's actually incredible that you managed to turn a topic on acne into "what's that? you're in favor of the way this was implemented? BLIND LOYALTY!" I can totally understand the reasons why people want it to be random - plenty of people have given good arguments, particularly the argument in regards to the illness system being comparable (which in my opinion, is a FAR better argument than either vampires, or monsters under the bed, but whatever it's not my argument to make
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Illness in TS4 isn't random, some aren't paying enough attention. Keep pushing your Sims and they get sick. Or if another Sim is sick they may get sick. Especially if they run a store, a restaurant or work at the hospital or live with someone who does. It's all player controlled.
Except even when I play with Testing cheats on.. and NONE of my sims in my Swanson save work or live with anyone who does the above.
Clearly for Louise Wheeler it WAS an issue, and I suspect for many others in her position also.
Honestly I find the amount of fuss over such a minuscule amount of game play, that no doubt within a week of launch would have everyone complaining about how annoying it is that their sims get acne every 2 sim hours and have to spend a fortune on medicine to cure it, a tad incomprehensible.
In any case whether it's random or consequential, I think the goal of that argument was to find something comparable to justify random acne. (It's not my argument, I was just acknowledging it). Even if illness isn't random, I think it's a much better comparison to the system of acne that people want than either vampires or monsters under the bed are. Especially if the acne system were going to be consequential as well, like a consequence of not washing your teen's face for a period of time etc.
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Coming from someone who has suffered from acne and still has a lot of spots left from scars, everyone gets why too into things nowadays.
Had it been acquired through gameplay, I'd rather have it tied to how far you are in the life stage (to further distinguish how old our Sims are), with a random or even genetic component. I didn't feel like TS2 acne being tied to hygiene or whatever really brought something interesting in term of gameplay. I always considered it random in TS2, and didn't feel the need to check whether that was actually the case or not.
I'll say a couple things in response to this:
1) No, I am not implying EVERYONE that wants it controllable is blindly loyal. However, a few arguments in favor of it definitely have me scratching my head and trying to imagine feeling that strongly about such a minor issue. Lord knows certain people have at times blindly approved of everything the Sims team has done in the past, so it functions as a great explanation for this sudden passion about such a trivial thing. I said what I said because I struggle to think of another motivation that makes more sense.
2) ...And if I'm wrong, I'm not sure that's comforting, because that means we have a bunch of people emotionally invested in...acne? I think @Cinebar said it best with "If we all project everything that ever happened to us when we play video games then there won't be much point in playing a life simulator when we can't even get a zit on a pixel now and then." Not gonna get into some huge personal discussion, but yeah I think it's time to ask oneself if perhaps they're being too sensitive if the thought of uncontrollable acne is emotionally scary for them. That's the only two cents I'll comment on that.
3) Perhaps I'm jumping the gun in the sense no, I do not have evidence for this (beyond Sims 4 cutting corners in the past). Understand the reason I jump the gun is because if my suspicion proves correct in the future...? If this was cut for development time and some people are blindly loyal...? I think it makes a much better point if I can properly surmise what the situation is off limited info; says a thing or two about just putting thought into what the methods probably looked like instead of undying support. But sure, I'll happily concede there's good odds I'm wrong.
Granted, I did want it to be random personally but w/e. It was one feature i did miss from sims 2 but ah well.
Exactly. Vampires biting people is pretty essential to a vampire game pack. If you don't want vampires being able to bite people, then don't buy a vampire game pack. On the other hand, this is a game pack about parenthood and not acne. Should parents discipline their sim teens because they got a zit? Doesn't really fit with the theme of the gamepack....whereas vampires biting people is pretty central to the theme of a vampire game pack. Also, we could just argue that every negative consequence in the game or put into the game in the future should be a random occurrence just because a vampire can bite someone....that logic doesn't hold up.
If you want to prevent a vampire attack, just lock the bedroom door for only household members. Vampiric entrance works on front doors but not bedroom doors. The vampire will just stand or roam outside the bedroom door. If you play as a vampire with that power, you'll find that you'll get a locked door routing error thought bubble from the sim, if that bedroom dock has been locked, and that vampiric entrance is not an option on locked bedroom doors like it is with locked front doors. Catastrophe averted.
Townies already look bad without intervention....random acne isn't going to fix that.
I suspect that acne as a CAS option was only added to throw a bone to the "teens don't look like teens" crowd. If you want to make your teens younger looker, there you go...add some acne. For others who don't really care about dealing with acne, they don't have to. It's called a "compromise", as you'll never find anything like this that every single simmer can agree on and so they aren't going to be able to make everyone happy anyway.
These packs have budgets and adding acne as a game feature would mean getting rid of something else as a game feature of the pack and so, personally, I'm glad they just added it as a CAS option instead of putting it in place of some other family gameplay feature of the pack.
The clarification is appreciated, I at least understand your point of view better than I did before.
In respect to people feeling strongly about the topic, I don't know if many of us actually do, regardless which side we're on. Like I'd rather not have the game dictate acne onto my sims, but if it did I would just see it the same way I do illness, a minor nuissance. I wouldn't skip on the pack because I don't want the acne. Similarly I don't think many people in favor of random acne are going to skip on the pack just because it isn't random.
Can't speak for anyone else, but for me there's no emotional connection to it ; I've never struggled with acne- which is probably one of the reasons I don't think it should just be a random event that all our teens should experience. That said, since poor hygiene isn't the way most people actually get acne, having to make my teen wash their face daily to prevent it as some people have suggested would just annoy me because it's one of those things that tries to be realistic but just isn't. In lieu of either a random or consequential system I would've probably gone along with something like a hidden "acne prone" trait that gets passed down to offspring with a 50% chance or something like that. (I still don't want it
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Pay more attention. Germs travel. A friend of a fried who was at the hospital who happened to be sick, or were out at a community lot who was talking to someone one day who was sick then your Sim talks to that friend of a friend. And grinding (*tasks and skill building too much) in game makes these Sims sick in my experience. Most of this stuff is player triggered one way or another. Another Sim in the doctor career...months ago.
If they avoided these elements then yes I would prefer it to happen randomly. But then again, so far I haven’t seen anything in this pack that I would rather trade for random acne. After all, random acne would be more work than CAS acne and therefore something else would be cut as a result. So is realistic acne something people care about enough to have something else not in game as a result?
I've always seen diseases function as communicable in Sims 4 households. I can't tell if the family catches them from outsiders or if that's random (or mediated by Skilling or other activities), but it definitely appears to pass through the household based on interaction with sick Sims. It's a little detail I've always loved about the illness system.
It did distinguish teens from adults (no YA until Uni and they don't live in the main world) because teens were the only ones who could get one.
I'm sensitive about death, should Sims not die in the game, ever? I'm sensitive about my own pets died, should they never make a Pet EP? I'm sensitive about being older than most of you, should there be no elders in game? I know people sensitive about having red hair (they dye it) should they leave that color out of the game? When does it stop? Where does it stop, and for goodness sake where is this bubble because you know what happens to bubbles? they burst.
And this is why each iteration has gotten progressively less dark.. times are different now and everything has to be politically correct, god forbids kids are traumatized! So no random deaths (oh the meteor!), you can't be fired as a result of chance cards, etc. In my opinion, these hyper-sensitivity is getting ridiculous...but oh well...
You will be able to do that in TS4 too, you can choose to put acne on teens only, and it will help distinguish teens from YA/A.