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Dear EA and Maxis: Please Stop Messing Up So Much
SimsLovinLycan
Posts: 1,910 Member
O.K., before I begin in earnest, I'd like to say that I do like The Sims 4. There are a lot of good features in this game, the visual style is colorful and charming, CAS is awesome, Build Mode is a big improvement over other titles in most areas, you can actually have families with latchkey kids and legitimately play out that scenario, and the sims themselves are very expressive and fun to watch...even if the game gets a little (a lot) too happy with happiness. That being said...
STOP MESSING UP SO MUCH!! Here, we have a beautiful looking game with so many innovations and cool aspects to it, but you keep doing foolish things to and with it!
Remember how you marketed this game as the one that would restore rotational play, but then stuck in some pseudo story progression that we can't turn off? You know what I'm talking about, the random new relationships for inactive sims. It was a big mistake. People who like TS2-style hand progression aren't fond of it because the game can screw up our marriages or future romantic and friendship hook-ups on a whim...not to mention creepy moments like finding old geezers with half-full romance bars on our young singles (Ew). Players who like TS3-style auto progression aren't fans because it's not real story progression, it's a token effort at best to give the illusion of progression but doesn't actually affect how the neighborhood grows and develops. Definitely one of your biggest faux-pas.
Remember how the memory system used to be fun, useful, and only pulled up screenshots from the save you were actually playing? Remember that? And then you turned it into a useless, jumbled mess that neither storytellers nor players who were just using it to get easier access to the right emotions were able to use it properly? Yeah, that wompped.
Remember how you added relationship culling at about the same time you introduced a pack that was all about relationships? Yeah, that wasn't a good move either, guys. At the every least, you should've made it an option. People like those, if you didn't already know that.
Speaking of options, remember how you nerfed alien abductions for everyone because people were complaining that they were too common, and now people who actually want alien babies are complaining they happen too rarely? That was an oopsie too. Again, it should've been a time to implement a menu option.
And, of course, your most recent mess-up: Inactive household relationship decay. I...I can't even imagine what was going through your heads when you guys came up with that. In a game that advertised the return of rotational play as one of its biggest features...you add a feature that effectively punishes rotational players. That's...the most foolhardy, boneheaded thing you could've ever done. Were you guys trying to tick off your player base or what? Did you go and buy whatever Unholy Handbook of Game Development they used when they made "Sonic '06" and are now using it as a guide on your Sims 4 journey? No. Stop it. No excuses. Stop messing up like this.
I mean, seriously, you've got a great foundation to build an absolutely awesome game on, and you keep making these foolish decisions that end up messing up whatever fun your players are managing to have. You've made a mod that adds expanded options an absolute necessity for meaningful play. I don't know who is making these decisions that are messing up the game for players of every play style...but cut it out! You're driving a good chunk of up a tree!
Look, we know that this game wasn't originally built to be a full, numbered Sims title. We know that "Olympus" was supposed to be a Sims Stories-Sims Online hybrid with a bit of a free-play mode tossed in. We know that we may never get Toddlers, or CAW, or certain other features because of the limitations of time, budget, and the game engine itself. But, it's time to stop messing up the good parts of this game with terrible decisions. Players don't just want fast load times, new features, seasonal challenges, and selfies. We also want flexibility, rich in-game experiences, and the ability to play a game either as a single-sim experience or as a big, sweeping story where we can switch POV's without losing all of the progress we made with the other characters.
We know that you guys are just trying to follow the trends set by the free-to-play games both mobile and web that have been very popular and lucrative lately. But, the appeal of a Sims title isn't that it follows all of the latest gaming trends. Sims games are appealing because they're different from most of the other games out on the market. They're versatile, open-ended games where you can cruelly torture your sims to death over and over, live out your own personal dream life, play out your craziest fan fiction ideas, have your own personal family sitcom or soap opera, or not play a single sim ever and instead let your inner architect or city planner run free. When you eat away at all of that by chasing the latest market fad, not only do you take away the timeless quality that these games have but you also suck the fun out of them, piece by piece.
So, please, I know you guys mean well and are just trying to make a profit, but...Could you just stop messing up so very, very much? We'd all appreciate that.
STOP MESSING UP SO MUCH!! Here, we have a beautiful looking game with so many innovations and cool aspects to it, but you keep doing foolish things to and with it!
Remember how you marketed this game as the one that would restore rotational play, but then stuck in some pseudo story progression that we can't turn off? You know what I'm talking about, the random new relationships for inactive sims. It was a big mistake. People who like TS2-style hand progression aren't fond of it because the game can screw up our marriages or future romantic and friendship hook-ups on a whim...not to mention creepy moments like finding old geezers with half-full romance bars on our young singles (Ew). Players who like TS3-style auto progression aren't fans because it's not real story progression, it's a token effort at best to give the illusion of progression but doesn't actually affect how the neighborhood grows and develops. Definitely one of your biggest faux-pas.
Remember how the memory system used to be fun, useful, and only pulled up screenshots from the save you were actually playing? Remember that? And then you turned it into a useless, jumbled mess that neither storytellers nor players who were just using it to get easier access to the right emotions were able to use it properly? Yeah, that wompped.
Remember how you added relationship culling at about the same time you introduced a pack that was all about relationships? Yeah, that wasn't a good move either, guys. At the every least, you should've made it an option. People like those, if you didn't already know that.
Speaking of options, remember how you nerfed alien abductions for everyone because people were complaining that they were too common, and now people who actually want alien babies are complaining they happen too rarely? That was an oopsie too. Again, it should've been a time to implement a menu option.
And, of course, your most recent mess-up: Inactive household relationship decay. I...I can't even imagine what was going through your heads when you guys came up with that. In a game that advertised the return of rotational play as one of its biggest features...you add a feature that effectively punishes rotational players. That's...the most foolhardy, boneheaded thing you could've ever done. Were you guys trying to tick off your player base or what? Did you go and buy whatever Unholy Handbook of Game Development they used when they made "Sonic '06" and are now using it as a guide on your Sims 4 journey? No. Stop it. No excuses. Stop messing up like this.
I mean, seriously, you've got a great foundation to build an absolutely awesome game on, and you keep making these foolish decisions that end up messing up whatever fun your players are managing to have. You've made a mod that adds expanded options an absolute necessity for meaningful play. I don't know who is making these decisions that are messing up the game for players of every play style...but cut it out! You're driving a good chunk of up a tree!
Look, we know that this game wasn't originally built to be a full, numbered Sims title. We know that "Olympus" was supposed to be a Sims Stories-Sims Online hybrid with a bit of a free-play mode tossed in. We know that we may never get Toddlers, or CAW, or certain other features because of the limitations of time, budget, and the game engine itself. But, it's time to stop messing up the good parts of this game with terrible decisions. Players don't just want fast load times, new features, seasonal challenges, and selfies. We also want flexibility, rich in-game experiences, and the ability to play a game either as a single-sim experience or as a big, sweeping story where we can switch POV's without losing all of the progress we made with the other characters.
We know that you guys are just trying to follow the trends set by the free-to-play games both mobile and web that have been very popular and lucrative lately. But, the appeal of a Sims title isn't that it follows all of the latest gaming trends. Sims games are appealing because they're different from most of the other games out on the market. They're versatile, open-ended games where you can cruelly torture your sims to death over and over, live out your own personal dream life, play out your craziest fan fiction ideas, have your own personal family sitcom or soap opera, or not play a single sim ever and instead let your inner architect or city planner run free. When you eat away at all of that by chasing the latest market fad, not only do you take away the timeless quality that these games have but you also suck the fun out of them, piece by piece.
So, please, I know you guys mean well and are just trying to make a profit, but...Could you just stop messing up so very, very much? We'd all appreciate that.
Sincerely,
A Concerned Customer/Fan
A Concerned Customer/Fan
There is a song I hear, a melody from the past...
When I woke for the first time, when I slept for the last.
18
Comments
I'm actually curious whether or not that validates or invalidates the actual complaint one has about the game.
Throw a little flattery in there and it will change everything? Is that what's missing?
*Genuinely curious*
Sadly, I had to mention that I do like the game so that people of a certain persuasion don't mistake me for a "hater". I'm not trying to flatter anyone, just tossing in a disclaimer to avoid drama. (Oh, the world we live in...)
I didn't mean to come down hard on you if that's how I came across. I actually believe the reason you just gave was the reason you said what you said. It's what I thought the moment I read your original post. I was more or less pointing out how ironic it is that in order to have a valid complaint be perceived by the 'general public,' that one must appease to them first. It wasn't personal. It's just sad that you have been driven to feel that way because it's a fact that this is how the community drives one to feel.
Yes and its so sad that thats the case
No problem. I didn't get the feeling that you were coming down hard on me at all. Unfortunately, that's the nature of the internet in general. We always have to try to be as clear as possible, because words alone can be difficult to interpret correctly sometimes.
So true. But, again, 'tis merely the nature of the beast...
I say... how can I put this politely...? Bite the beast!
Not quite the same, is it? >.>
Tbh, I agree with most of what you said. I really do. But after 2 years....
Bite it!
I think it's pretty clear they can not meet the standards some of us expected.
After 2 years, we're basically beating a dead horse, methinks.