Live mode:
- Sort books/items per bookshelf/storage unit. It's so annoying how all stored items on the lot appear when clicking on any storage unit. It looks unorganized and it's annoying to sift through a thousand stuff to find a specific thing. I like organizing collectables into their own special chests, and organizing my bookshelves into fiction, skill, music etc.
- Better library books. Libraries have the exact same books as bookshelves bought for a home. This abolishes the point of going to the library, as my broke sims are still forced to buy skill books bc libraries don't have them, and what's the point in travelling to the library to read a book my sim owns?
- Quicker eating times. Seriously, it takes sims like 60mins to eat cereal....
- NPC firemen, burglars and police.
- Gift-giving. What's the use of birthday parties if you can't give any gifts?
Update: Seasons added gift-giving. However, I still think giving gifts is a basegame feature so I hope it gets patched in. Photography was patched in from GTW, so.
- Computer chess. This was fun in TS3 and since gaming is so big in TS4, it doesn't make sense that it isn't included. Also, chess tables can take a lot of space, so it would be useful to play it on the pc.
- Updated pet fish system. Why can't we feed them? That's cruel. The poor things are just lonely decorations. They should be fed or they'll die, and sims should be able to watch and talk to them, as well as build relationship with them (as real people do) and be sad if they die if they had a good relationship with the fish. Same goes for frogs. The frogs are so cute but we can't feed or play with them either. Stop the animal cruelty! Give them some love.
- Opportunities. This little gem from TS3 adds so much to the game. It makes the world feel alive and offers guidance for when you don't know what to do next, or when your sim needs an opportunity to progress to the next step in their career/skill. I'll never forget how a request for my sim to write a biography motivated her to quit her part-time job at the bookstore and pursue her career as a journalist.
Note: Opportunities should have a toggle so we can turn them off, if players don't want them in a save.
- Funerals, cemeteries and better mourning. Death is as part of life as birth. I find it shocking that we don't have a way to mourn and honor passed loved ones in TS4. Crying at a tombstone in the garden isn't sufficient.
Build/Buy mode:
- Paint texture to ceilings. Beams would also be seriously cool.
- Terrain tools. If not actual hills and valleys, at least a pond tool.
Update: REJOICE! Terrain tools soon to be patched in.
- Stage tool. Because bands and preformers don't feel special being on the same level as the audience.
- More swatches to doors and windows. Ugh. Barely anything matches.
CAS:
- More hair and eye colours.
- Make-up oppacity slider
- Body hair.
- Being able to unlock those cute fishermen and gardening outfits that the NPCs wear.
Sims, personality and life states:
- Attration system. Turn-ons/offs like eye and hair colour, certain personality traits and skills, and maybe a certain reputation (innocent, faithful, player, cheater etc.) A certain star sign can also be set as a turn-on/off.
- Star signs. Should most certainly NOT replace attraction system, or influence attraction in any way to be honest, unless it's a turn-on or -off. It's mostly an immersive detail for those that like this sort of thing. Add in the socials to "ask about star sign," "chat about horoscope," "talk about how typical (insert star sign) you are" (might offend them) etc. for some gameplay.
- Likes/dislikes Fav food, colour, music and drink. Would also be fun to choose a least fav food and drink, so they can be unhappy when encountering it and complain/insult the sim who presented them with it etc. It would be nice if their favourites actually have some influence on them too, like "My jam" happy buff when fav music is playing, being extra happy when eating fav meal or drink, and being happy when in a room filled with their favourite colour and being able to "compliment colour scheme" on a sim's house with that colour, as well as being able to compliment a sim if they are wearing the sim's favourite colour.
- Memory system. Nothing that happens in a sim's life, affects them in any sense of long run. Since it was advertised that TS4's sims are "smarter than ever" and that things in their life affect them later on, I only think it fair that we get exactly that in an update. Memories should be tied to other sims and locations, eg. a sim maybe remembering their first kiss when visiting the lot it happened at and turning happy/flirty, or getting sad when visiting the lot where a loved one died etc. Maybe eating pancakes reminds a sim of their honeymoon, because they ate it every morning for that period, or seeing pufferfish nigiri makes a sim sad/scared because they saw someone die from eating it.
- Scared emotion. I'm kind of shocked this wasn't added at launch, since fear is one of the core emotions humans experience... Anyway, things like the dark, the tragic clown, ghosts, aliens, vampires, broccoli (hehe) etc. should put a sim in the scared emotion and cause them to panic, pass out, die from severe fear etc. Of course, we should be able to choose a fear or two for our sims so they don't freak out at everything, as well as a "brave" trait and "coward" trait.
- Updates to existing traits. The traits need some serious updates. This is my favourite trait ideas thread.
- Sims with conflicting traits should have a harder time getting along. A good sim and evil sim are so easy to become friends. This is anarchy. Give us some drama!
- Let child skills actually contribute to their lives when they age up... I have children practice an instrument at every waking moment, but they only start actually gaining skill in it after they've maxed creativity, which is a massive waste of time. And if I didn't max their creativity but they still practiced an instrument A LOT, they didn't acquire any skill at all. If a child practiced a certain instrument for a certain amount of hours or spent a lot of time drawing/playing chess etc, they should immediately have some skill in it upon aging up/maxing out the relevant child skill. The level of child skill can give them a boost throughout their life at how quickly they learn skills in that area, but they should actually start with some skill that they worked on during the child stage even if they did not max the relevant child skill.
- Consequenses. Oh, you skipped school without calling with a valid excuse? DETENTION. You didn't do your homework and thought you'd get away with it? Ha, no. (DETENTION.) Bob, you slackin' at work again? Oh, that's fine. (NO IT'S NOT YOU'RE FIRED.) You catch my drift. Sims get away with everything in this game. It makes playing kind of boring, since there's no kick out of doing something that might get you into trouble or any risks. It's kind of like watching a movie without any antagonists - then what's the point?
Packs:
Get to Work:
- Add the neighbourhood with the hospital and police station to the Magnolia Promenade map so we can visit it. Sick sims going to the hospital would be really fun, and being able to go to the police station would also be cool, even if only for story telling reasons. (I mean, the neighbourhood is already there, they basically just have to edit the map so we can access it from there.)
- Retail system update! There are plenty of suggestions on the forum for that fan favourite (lol).
- Option to disable goal list during live work. It's kind of annoying when I want my doctor sim to actually do her job, but the goal list keeps telling her to complain about her job to her co-worker or she'll get a preformance decrease (and my sim actually likes her job...and it's the first day). The option to disable goal lists in general would also be great. I have my own idea of what a fantastic date is, and while massages are nice, I certainly wouldn't give one on the first date, or every single date, as the game wants us to.
Dine Out:
- Ability to assign family members as chefs and waiters.
- Ability to play as a chef or waiter! It gets really boring playing the owner of a restaurant if all you can do is look at everyone eating, occasionally scolding staff and bugging customers to ask how their meal is. It's not like we're asking for a Diner Dash experience - we just want our sims to be able to stand behind the cooking stations as chefs, take orders, report order at cooking station, and deliver order as waiters. Maybe "guilt trip for tip." This would make restaurants way more entertaining and open up more story telling options. Besides, all the animations are already there! All we need, are the interactions.
What are your suggestions for things in TS4 that need to be updated/added in a free update?
Let us know in the comments!
Comments
I have my own version of ''memories.'' When something significant happens I take screenshots. Makes me easier to remember these times
Which is why it explains I have more than 10.000 screenshots... *cough* on one family alone *cough*
I also agree on the update on the traits. When you play them for a while they're just basically the same sims no matter what trait they have which is annoying for storytelling.
Also I'd like to see an update on the emotion faces as I call them. When they're happy for example, they have these smiling faces all the time. So why not smiling for a few minutes and then have a normal face? My sims are rich and have a lot of stuff, so naturally they're happy all the time but i can't look at these derpy faces anymore...
My CC!
My screenshot comics!
My Family tree!
Freckles should be passed on through genetics! I was so shocked when I first heard it doesn't....
Pirates!! http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/906481/pirate-gp-smuggling-dueling-live-on-ship-or-build-own-and-more#latest
I agree on NPC Firemen/burglars/police, ceilings, terrain tools, different heights for foundations on a lot or at least placeable platforms/pits, more swatches, body hair, a cheat to unlock clothing at least, and any personality additions. I feel like emotions really do add to sims but they can still be pretty bland without much meat to them. Any real personality they do have is my imagination, and I want sims to sometimes like, tell me who they are you know?? Which feels like it happens less in 4. We need a few systems to add to that.
Other things that should be added for free imo:
I was playing sims with my teenager and i like to have them move out as soon as they become young adults, but they only have 20,000 to start off! Maybe my sim doesn' :) t want a job full time job right away! One of the backstories i use is the teen mom thing, so once they become a young adult i have them adopt, but 20,000 isn't enough to move into a 2 bedroom home AND take care of a child. Therefore, why cant teen sims save up money? i think they should be able to put money from their jobs away so they can have 20,000 And what they saved up. Money they earn goes towards the household and i think thats okay if the family is poor and needs the money and in that case i would make my teen work for the household but i think that every time they get a part time job it should have an option to save munties.
This is a good point. I think that, when a sim moves out of a household, there should be an option where we can choose how much money from the household funds they should start off with. As an example, if I have a super rich family and the now young adult daughter wants to move out, must she now make do with $20 000 when the household funds are $80 000 and I want to give her 40k? With GTW and I think DO, you can put a certain amount of money into the business with a panel. This move out funds thing could be quite similar in the household management panel when moving out a sim.
Pirates!! http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/906481/pirate-gp-smuggling-dueling-live-on-ship-or-build-own-and-more#latest
Likes/dislikes
Attraction system
Star Signs
Online Dating
Favorites (food, color, music, etc)
Celebrity System
Darkwave radio station (I can dream, can't I?) :P
Bunk beds would also be a major improvement, as would sofa beds, and murphy beds.
Another thing I would like to see is lighted mirrors, though I don't know whether they would categorize these as wall lights or as mirrors. The baroque mirrors with LED frames at disco-designer.com look very cool. (If EA needs ideas for their next party/celebrity pack, they should visit that site for inspiration and maybe team up with the 3D designers there.)
I would also like to see more ceiling lights with small footprints, or even invisible lights that only become visible in build/buy mode.
Finally, I would like the "lighted room divider" that came with Bowling Stuff actually FUNCTION as a standing lamp. I tried making my own bowling alley, but it wasn't well enough lit because this "lighted room divider" is a sculpture, not a light. If it says lighted, it should BE lighted.
The one we got would be better named "burned out lighted room divider".
Yes! And the new fairy lights/Christmas lights whatever you wanna call them, they aren't real lights either! Just wall decoration, that look light they are lit. Bummer
- Tweaks to townie "randomness." I really hate it when I get townies spawning with the most ridiculous outfits. Really, certain CAS items should be locked out of being able to randomly appear on townies. I can definitely make an exception for Sims wearing funny outfits at events such as the Humor and Hijinks festival, but as everyday outfits? Also, I really liked the addition of a lot of ethnic names at first. There's one problem with them, though, and that's how often Sims that are as white as white can possibly be spawning with ethnic names. Seriously, I had this guy named Genji-something, I forget his last name (but I remember that it was also obviously a Japanese name), spawn in my game. And let's just say that he was clearly not Japanese. I wish I would've taken a screenshot of him.
- Bring back the ignore button! This is perhaps the update I want more than anything. Some people like chance cards, and some people don't. I'm the latter. I'm just not the risk-taking kind of person, and a bad chance card can flush an entire week's worth of work down the drain when you're at higher careers levels and only working like three days a week. I actually save before any of my Sims go to work out of fear of a bad chance card. Seriously, what was the point of removing the ignore button?!
- Slow dancing! Need I say more? Slow dancing was so sweet, and I'd love to see it make a return.
- Let adults have "teen" jobs! If elder Sims can be nannies, then why can't adult Sims be babysitters?
- Refund our money when we cancel autonomous buying/tipping actions. Autonomy when it comes to buying food and other things wouldn't be such a problem if we got our money back when we cancelled these actions.
- Remove the "disguise" speech bubble and embarrassed moodlet when aliens aren't in disguise! Seriously, this is so annoying. "And the disguise seemed perfect, too!" Disguise? What disguise?!
- Tweak the Foodie trait a bit. I've been largely avoiding this trait as of late because of a really annoying "feature" it has. Apparently, Foodie Sims will always get a "disappointing drink" moodlet if they get drinks from a Sim with a mixology skill of 5 and below, regardless of the drink's quality. Seriously, why should the Sim's mixology skill matter if the drink is excellent quality?! And who really hates orange juice that much?! Yes, they also get this moodlet when drinking orange juice! Not sure if this also happens with water and soda. I haven't tested those.
I for one would've liked a metro in city living but they wont do that as an update which would have been nice.
I REALLY want the turn on and offs system!
Although I do believe Zodiacs should come back and affect sims. Not in the relationships so much, but things in TS2 like sloppy sims etc, it would also be a reason to add back make bed as an individual interaction.
Who said EA doesn't have a sense of humor
> - Tweak the Foodie trait a bit. I've been largely avoiding this trait as of late because of a really annoying "feature" it has. Apparently, Foodie Sims will always get a "disappointing drink" moodlet if they get drinks from a Sim with a mixology skill of 5 and below, regardless of the drink's quality. Seriously, why should the Sim's mixology skill matter if the drink is excellent quality?! And who really hates orange juice that much?! Yes, they also get this moodlet when drinking orange juice! Not sure if this also happens with water and soda. I haven't tested those.
I could live with that, what really annoys me is thet Foodie Sims are also affected by autonomous drinking water from the tap. You know it's water from the tap, it can't be good, so WHY DO YOU KEEP DRINKING THAT?