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Sims 4 game balance is a joke
ReclusiveEagle
Posts: 86 Member
Remember in TS3 when you had to work hard to get things? And TS2 and TS1 and all the console games like Urbs and My Sims ect?
Right, So. Started a new game. Had my Sim eat 3 times in 3 days when they were hungry.
They got fat (Like ???)... decided to go to the gym. Let me tell you what happened with the click of a single button.
Keep in mind they are a new Sim with only 1 level of cooking and Free Will is turned off so they can't do anything else.
I clicked "Workout", went to go make a coffee (Which took 3 minutes irl). Left the game on Speed 1 (3-4 hours passed in game), came back to:
Like what is this?? In The Sims 3 even as a Vampire at night with frozen motives ONLY working out the entire day with "Push Limits"-
I still can't even get 4 levels in a Single day. Never mind if I actually wanted to make a friend the amount of struggled and effort I'd have to put in to become good or best friends with someone would mean spending 3-5 days with them spamming interactions.
TS4 is the definition of do nothing and get rewarded and if emotions, The "ReVoLuTioNaRy" core of the game
(That Maxis told us was the reason they didn't add pools, toddlers, basements, ghosts ect ect ect when the game first came out) - is an issue just enable the Aura on the $2 poster your Sim found on the street and completely disable all "negative" gameplay elements.
And by negative gameplay elements I mean things that slow down the game and make it take a while to progress, instead of instant gratification. It's just getting more frustrating as time goes by. And I know I'm not the only one frustrated. Like when World Adventures came out I put over 800 hours into that one expansion pack .. even before Ambitions (The 2nd pack) was released let alone after. I can't even get 80 hours of TS4 with almost all content owned. Its really, really boring, this "Click one button or better yet don't even click anything just watch" kind of gameplay.
Right, So. Started a new game. Had my Sim eat 3 times in 3 days when they were hungry.
They got fat (Like ???)... decided to go to the gym. Let me tell you what happened with the click of a single button.
Keep in mind they are a new Sim with only 1 level of cooking and Free Will is turned off so they can't do anything else.
I clicked "Workout", went to go make a coffee (Which took 3 minutes irl). Left the game on Speed 1 (3-4 hours passed in game), came back to:
- 4 and a half Levels of fitness
- 3 Levels of Comedy
- 3 Levels of Charisma
- 3 New "Good friends" that my Sim met and raised their relationship with to halfway.
- 1 New "Best Friend" (The trainer that walked up to my Sim).
- A new potential romance from a random Sim that was in a flirty mood.
Like what is this?? In The Sims 3 even as a Vampire at night with frozen motives ONLY working out the entire day with "Push Limits"-
I still can't even get 4 levels in a Single day. Never mind if I actually wanted to make a friend the amount of struggled and effort I'd have to put in to become good or best friends with someone would mean spending 3-5 days with them spamming interactions.
TS4 is the definition of do nothing and get rewarded and if emotions, The "ReVoLuTioNaRy" core of the game
(That Maxis told us was the reason they didn't add pools, toddlers, basements, ghosts ect ect ect when the game first came out) - is an issue just enable the Aura on the $2 poster your Sim found on the street and completely disable all "negative" gameplay elements.
And by negative gameplay elements I mean things that slow down the game and make it take a while to progress, instead of instant gratification. It's just getting more frustrating as time goes by. And I know I'm not the only one frustrated. Like when World Adventures came out I put over 800 hours into that one expansion pack .. even before Ambitions (The 2nd pack) was released let alone after. I can't even get 80 hours of TS4 with almost all content owned. Its really, really boring, this "Click one button or better yet don't even click anything just watch" kind of gameplay.
Eagle.
Post edited by EA_Leeloo on
11
Comments
Yeah I feel like the game lacks proper balancing too. In regards to...a lot of things. Careers, needs, emotions etc. I think one of the reasons though is because the developers are putting things they shouldn't over proper game design. One annoyance to me is how sims in TS4 tarts skills at level 1...I never got that. In previous games sims started from 0.
Edit: I'm curious, if you managed to get 800 hours of game play out of World Adventures, how many hours have you spent in total playing Sims 3? I've had Sims 4 for a couple years now and I have just over 2200 hours logged in total.
The problem is that I don't think a lot people play for the game difficulty. It's a story telling tool for a lot of players and difficulty is generally just an inconvenience to their plans.
I miss having some difficulty and randomness in the game. I've never been a story teller. I generally like the game to direct how my sims stories will go which sadly doesn't happen that much in the Sims 4 if I'm being honest. I tend to rely on mods mostly for my enjoyment.
Because I can't; I keep all sigs turned off.
There are no lot traits assigned and I only have one mod installed. UI Cheats.
Wonder if it could be trait related? 🤔
ETA: I instructed her to stop the workout and she stood around for a couple of minutes but still none of the other sims present made any attempt to approach her.
Nope no mods. Like its not even rare for this kind of thing to happen in my game that's why I'm just so done with this. I can't even leave my Sims house without my neighbor constantly at my door trying to get in. This was at San Myshuno's gym btw
Traits are "Creative, Art Lover, Foodie".
And its not a rare thing to go out and have people just talk to my Sims. Every possible free will interaction is disabled, No mods nothing
Sims 3? Since 2009, over 10,000 hours. Its my most played game ever. I was easily dropping 5-10 hours every day after getting home from school. More on the weekends
Just the Gym breeze thing. San Myshuno gym.
Yeah...that makes sims energized while working out. I've been to that gym and if the gym trainer autonomously mentors your sim while that buff is active they'll level up like crazy.
The worst part is they were inspired the whole time I was there. Had +3 from traits and painting
But also charisma and comedy? 3 levels in both too, in 3 minutes?
Sea may rise, sky may fall, My love will never die..
My heart, my heart, My drowning heart, Oh all the tears I've cried
Oh I may weep forevermore, My love will never die..
Not to talk about how unbalanced the income is and how rich you can get in a few hours of gameplay. Or how easy some jobs are. One example, I have never failed an audition in the acting career since Get Famous came out.
Also another completely unbalanced system is this game is the social event system. I have gold events even when I'm trying to make them bad. The meter fills up to gold in the first few seconds, what's the point?
I wonder if the multitasking feature can be tuned down or if it's just a thing that does what it does. Also, I suspect that all Sims have autonomous behaviors regardless of the toggle, because I've heard of other people having issues with rampant autonomy after disabling.
You could try making a bug report on EA's Answer HQ site or posting about it in the feedback section.
Yessir, basically as long as you have a "positive" emotion (Which again can basically be selected as you please at this point) you will never have a negative or failed interaction. And even if you do you pass it or its an extremely negligible negative that only results in a moodlet that doesn't override anything.
Even death in this game is a minor shoulder shrug. I get that its great to have the game play how you want it to play with no negatives unless its intentional but that's what cheats are for. Making it the default option with no say or negative consequences just destroys all core aspects of not just Sims 4 but the entire franchise.
Again, when literal death only last a few moments or becomes so inconsequential that it leaves the player unbothered because of all the extremely easy and cheap ways to instantly bring them back like nothing happened, then what even is the point of having negative traits and moodlets at all.
Because when you disable free will a single chat option results in a conversation loop that never ends unless you cancel it. Your Sim will literally pick and cycle endlessly through random friendly and funny conversation options until they either need to pee, eat or pass out from sleep. I'm guessing that's how that happened. Try it, your Sims will talk to each other for 20+ hours if their needs are full with a single click of any social interaction.
I've recently seen several of my Sims start knitting while they're using a workout machine. They got credit for both the Fitness and Knitting skills. Pretty smart.
Trainers do get to Good Friend status just by training even though they haven't actually met the Sim they're training, which is really annoying. They start calling right away wanting to visit and hang out or with invitation to meet them somewhere.
I've removed the Convivial trait from most of my venues because bartenders seem to be motivated to leave the bar to sit and chat with customers instead of serving drinks.
I agree that many parts of the game include a lot of mandatory socializing with Sims you have no interest in knowing.
I don't think sims 4 balance is broken though. I think it has a different balance than 3. I feel 4 is more connected to criativity and control. It has unique capabilities to create any story. While 3 is more like the game throws at you a lot of different options that will lead your sim in a unique life path.
I feel that in 4 i lead the game, while in 3 the game leads me.
I always figured that's what all the cheats are there for. To give you a certain control. I personally don't see it as a good thing that the game feels almost cheaty in its attempt to give you more control (when in fact it takes a lot of your control and customizability away a lot of the times, like when it comes to worlds or controlling your population, or your sims action).
It's like the game is trying to give you control to "make believe" stories but at the same time it interferes with them constantly.
If you choose to follow the checklists, then yeah. But you don't have to do it.
But i agree it's much funnier to find out stuff by oneself then to be explained everything from the get go.
Exactly and even if that was the case why then add emotions which are made to make it harder and make your sim more life like. But then they decide "Nah lets just aura everything and add sentiments to boost existing emotions and give players a 1 button press to change the emotion into the one they want".
Nvm the fact that if they actually wanted to give us full control they need to add things for us to do... The 4 lot neighborhood with 2 random joggers now and then is really not cutting it. Nvm the fact that its not like TS2 doesn't give players control, or TS3 or any sims game ever. Overcoming randomness IS control. Because you do it YOUR way.
With things like Seasons I understand wanting to change, disable or control certain weather. TS2 does that TS3 does that its fine. You can make whatever season you want when you want. That's acceptable. But the entire point of TS4 from the very beginning has been this modular mentality of "Don't like Insert here? Turn it off."
TS4 in 2021 is basically don't like it? Turn it off.
Like at this point just give me random dust fairies that give you money and random $10k items. Oh wait...... They did.
Balancing weirdness is not only in the time it takes to achieve something, here's another example: The cowberry was supposed to be a rare object gained by grafting. Then they changed how grafting works and made the berry an ultra-rare occurence. However, at the same time the same berry comes up all the time through fishing and dumpster diving. As a result we now have a collectable that is both ultra-rare and very common.
For a goal-oriented gamer it is obvious that they have to send their sim fishing if they want to grow a cowplant. Bamm, game is easy-peasy. To the contrary a simmer who wants to roleplay a gardener mightl struggle, provided they choose the bug house as fertilizer source, but will have it easy if they use fishing. So it's a coin toss between challenging or mindnumbingly boring.