Forum Announcement, Click Here to Read More From EA_Cade.
EA Catering Mostly to the Realistic Players {RANT}
nerdfashion
Posts: 5,947 Member
I'm sure most of you remember when EA neutered Vampire Break-Ins and Alien Abductions. If not, well, that happened. Anyways, it really saddens me that EA would be forced to neuter Vampire Break-Ins because Realistic players were complaining about how "Vampires keep breaking in, and it's sooooo immersion breaking!" and "Ugh, why are Vampires breaking into my house?" and- well, you get the point. You bought a pack specifically titled "Vampires" and are now complaining about Vampires being in your game. Sure, you bought it for the BB/CAS. That's on you. You paid for a pack you probably knew would not contain gameplay you liked, and also probably knew about the break-ins, but you bought it anyways and then complained. I'm not going to whine about Alien Abductions because they come with Get to Work, and in this case you certainly could have wanted much more gameplay than the aliens, but I am going to complain about a lot of stuff.
You've probably noticed the lack of anything occult. We have four "real" occults we can play with, "real" meaning can be made from scratch in CAS. Aliens, Vampires, Mermaids, and Spellcasters. I can name a HUGE problem with each and every one of them.
I don't believe I've mentioned yet the many complaints I've seen about Occults. For example,
Edit: I'm less angry now, so this will be a less aggressive paragraph. The guru's have stated that Toggles are not going to work in this game. I know modern have proved wrong, but for the purpose of this thread I will be strictly following Guru and EA info. But what if we could just enable and disable them via gameplay? Say you would only get attacked by Vampires if you did certain actions to trigger that? For example, obsessively reading about Vampires would cause them to take notice of you. And Aliens would only come if you went to the trouble of finding and meeting an alien, getting a certain relationship with them to make you a target of Alien abduction?
You've probably noticed the lack of anything occult. We have four "real" occults we can play with, "real" meaning can be made from scratch in CAS. Aliens, Vampires, Mermaids, and Spellcasters. I can name a HUGE problem with each and every one of them.
- Aliens - Stuck in with GTW and are forced to live on Earth. Like, you made a full world for them, but they can't live there?
- Vampires- Neutered. As stated above, complaints of Realistic players who bought the pack for BB/CAS caused EA to severely town down their break-ins, one of the best parts of their gameplay.
- Mermaids- Do I even have to explain this one?
- Spellcasters- Not brought out to their full potential, even for a Game Pack!
I don't believe I've mentioned yet the many complaints I've seen about Occults. For example,
- "This is a life simulator, and life doesn't have occults!"
- "Occults are a waste of resources."
- "Why would people want occults? They're so annoying."
- Who ever said this was a realistic life simulator?
- To you, but there are quite a few people who disagree.
- Then don't buy them.
Edit: I'm less angry now, so this will be a less aggressive paragraph. The guru's have stated that Toggles are not going to work in this game. I know modern have proved wrong, but for the purpose of this thread I will be strictly following Guru and EA info. But what if we could just enable and disable them via gameplay? Say you would only get attacked by Vampires if you did certain actions to trigger that? For example, obsessively reading about Vampires would cause them to take notice of you. And Aliens would only come if you went to the trouble of finding and meeting an alien, getting a certain relationship with them to make you a target of Alien abduction?
Post edited by nerdfashion on
39
Comments
In The Sims 2, alien invasions weren’t completely random. Your Sim had to actually interact with their telescope numerous times for them to have a shot at getting abducted. Vampires wouldn’t just randomly break in your house, you had to be on the same lot as them around midnight for them to get remotely close to your Sim.
I don’t play the game as a sandbox where I must be in complete control, and as I’ve posted so many times, I love and prefer the game to throw curve balls my way to ensure I’m getting some challenge in the mix. However, random occult appearances on my Sim’s lot don’t really make sense to me, from a game design perspective. There should be a player triggered action which can either yield a reward or failure state. In TS2, the telescope can give my Sim so much money from discovering stars, etc, but that risk of alien abduction is there to make sure I’m not succeeding without risk. And that risk is also there when I use the genie, interact with that spooky wolf (Werewolves), garden excessively (Plant Sims), and so on.
I really wish they’d take a long look at the game design of TS2 because things made so much more sense back then. There was more detail and depth put into everything, but especially occults. I mean, take servos in The Sims 2, for instance. Bundled in Open for Business, they were designed so well, and have so many neat extras such as the ability to become a hybrid occult. Vampire servo? Sounds crazy, right? But it’s very possible in TS2, and so cool to play with.
Also the only vampires I have ever cared about have been on Buffy there's no "breaking in" until they're invited. There's so many issues with these poorly done vampires breaking into homes is not one of them at least for me.
I also like wandering the hills.
I would love a switch to totally disable occults. Until then, I’ll depend on these mods to carry me to the Promised Land.
Should Vampires be allowed to do break ins?, Should we have pets on community lots?, Should celebrities show up on every community lot?, Should existing sims turn into spellcasters?
These are options that should be offered to the player.
Only downside is the fact that children are totally excluded. Child mermaids aren't actually mermaids because they lack the one crucial attribute that defines a mermaid, a fish tail. And child spellcasters can't see, react or be touched by magic, with the exception of a floating FX as their familiar.
But the occults we get are pushed into hiding, unfortunately. I wish the devs would have given us options to turn them on and off. I understand not every one is into occults but those who are, we don't want to tone down occults all the time.
For example I really hoped for a lot trait to allow autonomous magic by spellcasters so we could make a second magical place besides the magic realm. But unfortunately that is not possible. The magic realm is great but also a very specific scenery that does not always suit my story.
As for people complaining they see vampires after getting the pack. When this is a game pack specifically themed around an occult like vampires or RoM, people should accept the main focus of the pack is part of the deal. If you don't want them you can easily avoid them by not getting the pack without missing out on other gameplay. For expansion packs I can understand complaints. For example I can see people buying GTW for the main gameplay as stores or active careers while they and want to avoid aliens. For this reason some sort of switch would be advisable for EP's.
While the strangerville story is not exactly realistic, I wouldn't see it as a supernatural pack. I don't agree with 'occult players have strangerville as an occult pack' theory because we get no new occults or lifestates. Infected sims are normal sims that act a bit bizarre with less control over them and the mother is not even a sim.
Luckily (from my point of view luckily) , as you pointed out, occult players did get 3 occults this year: mermaids, spellcasters and robots which are proper playable lifestates.
I knew if I (my Sim) opened the door, there will be an attack later. How is that not player triggered? It is. It was all in the control of the player. If I made my Sim study vampire lore, well duh, I knew one would show up later. I knew if I set the lot traits to be a vampire hang out attraction there would be more vampires there and break-ins. How is that not player triggered? It is. I knew if I made some in CAS and then didn't play them but added them to the bins of course I would see them bite someone in a bar. How is that not player triggered? It is. Vampire pack was one of the best returns of player control by player triggers. Now, it's just a mess, and instead of Vlad (last time I played) being blood sucker to show up at the door it's those lame, veggie eaters who just break-in to watch TV or play on the pc.
Thanks, Maxis, for ruining a good pack and one of your best.
Aliens were nuked when it was all player triggered. I knew if my Sim was a scientist of course there would be possible abductions, but that was so intrusive to some. Well, that was the game, player triggers. How could anyone think if they married an alien there wouldn't be abductions? That is also player triggered. If they did other things how could they not think there wouldn't be abduction pregancies? This is how all the games before TS4 worked. By the player triggering a situation. I don't understand how others don't understand the concept. However, I think they do and still want to remove the very features of why people play these games, because of player triggers (which are sometimes surprises) and instead want toggles and levers to pull to just live in Utopia. That's not The Sims.
It's the same difference of My Sim eats cake, they gained weight, boohoo. Well, stop eating so much cake.
ETA: And as far as premade Sims living in homes in the game being in a magic world why not? The logic here doesn't make sense by some complaints. They don't play them, but they want story progression where they live their own lives, well.....then why wouldn't they also be interested in magic? None of that argument against them made any sense to me. Their secret lives should have been their business if a player wants a town where they don't control premades, right? See, the logic is flawed with saying but premades shouldn't be in a magic town, but we want story progression,...really?
If there are going to be triggers, they should be a bit more obscure, not regular game play. Personally, I wanted to collect all the telescope space pictures and play the scientist career without my Sims being abducted. (And believe me, it has not been nerfed - my doctor Sim was abducted numerous times.) The satellite object can sort of block it, but you have to remember to reset it every day, and since you can't reset it until 24 h & 1 min have passed, the reset time moves by at least 10 min every day.
They've done better with more recent packs - you have to do some very specific things to get involved in the Strangerville mystery; you won't see mermaids unless you want to, and random NPCs aren't casting spells on my Sims. For me, it's less a matter of the occults existing than the extent to which they interfere with my Sims.
That's why there are mods. You know the science career will produce alien abductions, but how many of those wound up pregnant? I would guess zero, or if you are very lucky maybe one. Since someone told Maxis it's forced woohoo and they nerfed it. If I know a career is built to trigger a situation on purpose that is why mods are welcomed by so many Simmers. It doesn't mean it should be so nerfed there aren't any anymore or they don't result in a male getting pregnant. Gone are the days we sit with our fingers crossed the Sim will actually survive the abduction, now, it's so watered down we just get ticked off and hope it ends soon so we can go back to trying to get to the top of a career...boring. But it's ok to use mods to stop drinking water...but nerf the aliens because someone wanted a realistic career without consequences. The game suppled a failsafe of the satellite but others shouldn't have males pregnant because someone forgets to set the satellite? Ok then.
Where you are very wrong was how vampires were "triggered." I still completely ignore them and the skill that goes with it. Unfortunately, my sims in-game still get what I consider an invasion a couple times per sim year. I thought if I ignored them, they would not invade, but alas that is not what happens. Btw, I played a vampire once in a separate save file amd found I hate them, so there is that.
Did I have fun playing with Vampires ? I did.
Do I want them to break in my regular sims houses and bite them ? No!!
This comes from a person who has a real life legend on one side of the family about being descended from a mermaid, and witches and warlocks on the other side. Ghosts may be caused by low frequency sound, but it's still fun to pretend that they're real in real life.
TS1 and TS2 used Astrology (actually the Big Five) for personalities. I thought that system was more precise than the Traits system in TS3, TS4, and Sims Medieval. Was it changed to appease certain types of users who don't like the occult, or was it done to save memory usage? That is a thing, you know.
Say what now?
But I suppose it is to be expected. I imagine that the very idea of sharing one slice of cake is absolutely inconceivable when you're so used to eating the whole entire thing.
Unfortunately, they do, and even more sadly, the devs actually listen to them, screwing occult players out of their play style.
There's lots of things going through my mind when reading that so I'll try to break it down.
First, they certainly aren't catering to mostly realistic players because this year alone was full of non realistic gameplay. Strangerville, Realm of Magic and Mermaids were all introduced this year. I feel as though you are being as entitled as some realistic players you so despise.
Secondly, spellcasters not brought to their full potential isn't the fault of players who enjoy realistic gameplay. That's the developers fault for doing a GP about magic, with poor design decisions and shortcuts all around focusing on Harry Potter styled gameplay which does not work. It makes the pack really repetitive.
Third, aliens...aliens were handled poorly, bad design choices all throughout. I think they could definitely update Sixam so that aliens spawn there freely while visiting that neighborhood. They only appear there as part of a Science career event currently. I wish they'd also patched in the GTW EP an "Area 51" lot trait where aliens are more keen to appear at night or abduct sims. I also think they should abolish alien and ghost nights, and replace them with something else or just plain delete those. It's not fun to go to a bar and get 10 alien spawns in a day that will haunt your save forever.
Fourth, the matter of the low frequency of vampire break ins. Honestly, I'm fine with it. I think the break ins should be more frequent in the world of Forgotten Hollow, and the others should have a much lower rate. It only makes sense, because it's the "vampire world". I don't know if it's like that or not right now, but it should. I personally prefer burglar break-ins because they are more of a staple in the series and scared me to death with the music.
All of these people dissing the realistic players though, need to realize that the sims is first and foremost a lifesim game which should have realism gameplay at it's core. Occults were always a fun novelty in the packs until TS3 when they did Supernatural which focused on them purely. So I think it's kind of disrespectful to be so hateful towards players who purely enjoy realism. Makin Magic wasn't so much about occults it really was just overall Magic so I'm not counting that here as any sim could do magic and it had a lot of content even, besides that.
I'm like this too. I play realistic saves more often than I play occult saves (though I am definitely playing spellcasters quite a bit now!) so it would be very handy for me to have toggles for the occults so I can use them when I want to.
I understand the occults are not really at their full potential but you have to ask yourself what in this game is. The realism gameplay is just as bad as the occult gameplay so I don't really understand the whole catering to the realistic players. Babies are still objects. The children are always left out of any new gameplay that is added to the game. Elders have like nothing. If this is about the stuff pack and how the vote went, did you really want another half baked occult pack? It is a stuff pack and there is no way it was going to be that detailed.
This might be a sign that we're going to see some shifting from here on. Maybe Occult players will be taken more into consideration. Some players keep trying to say that the Sims games are supposed to be a life simulation, but they were never a real life simulation. More like a dramatic simulation of a fictional world where anything is possible. Some players choose to focus on real life, some players choose to focus on the fantastical. But both need to coexist somehow in the same game.
Toggles are great. I'm not personally against toggles, but I do prefer the "triggering" system of Sims 2, where once I "activated" Occult activity, it would incorporate into my game. And even if the player didn't trigger them, there were still Witch and Vampire NPCs showing up on community lots, making their presence known, there were still Genie lamps being left on doorsteps, Werewolves with glowing eyes appearing in household yards, and a potential for Aliens to show up for an abduction if you used the telescope at night. They were never completely absent, at least in Sims 2. Occult toggles were a thing only introduced in Sims 3, and while it's a great idea, the devs have stated that toggles can cause instability in this game, so they have to be careful about how they use them. Like it or not, we have to come to terms with that.
So what was the solution if they can't use toggles but still want to go deeper and expansive in creating a new Occult life state? Answer: put them in their own Game Packs with a focus that revolves specifically around them. The reasoning? So that players who want them in their game can buy these packs and enjoy them to their fullest while those who don't are made fully aware of what the pack contains and can skip it completely to avoid that kind of invasiveness. It comes down to choice. Occults were isolated into Game Packs on purpose to keep them from realistic players, yet some of these realistic players chose to buy it anyway, yet still demanded that they never see any [insert type of Occult here]. That's preposterous. Sure, go ahead and buy it, but do it at your own risk and know what that risk is. I mean, I wouldn't go buy Parenthood and then complain about the kids acting up, lol. That's why I don't own it.
I think that if the devs are going to keep moving forward with the Occult Game Pack model, (which I think is awesome, by the way), they need to stop worrying about trying to please the rest of the player base and let them be adults and live with their decisions if they add it to their games. Realm of Magic suffered for this desire to please by restricting spell use from everywhere except the magical realm. I had been looking forward to seeing magic everywhere, to have my game come alive, the way it did when Vampires released, but everything remains quiet and mundane, except for the occasional teleportation exit or broom use, which I love to see. If Spellcasters came in an Expansion Pack with a more general theme, then this would make sense, but they were given a pack all to themselves. How can you dial down the main subject of a pack? I mean, I'm not saying that they should have gone nuts so that Casters were doing autonomous magic on other Sims. But to see them have their own magical idles would have been nice, or to use a cauldron on a public lot on their own. And Vampires should most definitely continue to break into homes and feed off of boring mortals at all hours of the night.
I will never stop fighting for good Occult gameplay. For me, it's what gives Sims 4 life (ironically, lol). The simulation of modern living is just not as exciting as it used to be when the prominent Sim behavior means watching Sims constantly stick their faces in the nearest electronic screen. I'll take Vampire home invasions any day.