Game's economy is something that should be revisited. Why? Right now, sims get so much money and they have no options to spend them. New economy would change salaries and prices in a game, while adding new gameplay features.
1. Add taxes and different typey of insurance
2. Add banks, online banking and loans
3. Lower salaries and change price of everything
4. Bills - add new categories, like fee for pets, different types of internet and TV, etc.
5. Add new ways for spending money - cars, fee in public places, memberships in public places (gym, gallery...), abbility to buy more lots and public lots, groceries, clothes, private schools for kids
Hi Sims team! There's a lot of great suggestions here for you to get through--I wasn't able to get through them all myself! I want to put my two cents in, and hope that I'm suggesting similar things that others have already suggested so you'll know which ones are the most popular.
1. Kid/Parent relationships -- As it stands, there isn't much of a challenge raising kids, etc. This is especially true once parenting skills increase which happens quick! I'm happy that you added phases, etc. for teenagers and kids, but those moods don't last long or make much of an impact. It'd be nice if you upped the ante and made kid/parent relationships more realistic. Teens storming off and locking themselves in their rooms, parents knocking on doors to plead with them, older kids able to throw tantrums like toddlers when their needs are low or their stress high, babies that on occasion don't quit crying even though they're fed, dry, and have had plenty of attention (not often, but like a 5% chance you might have a sleepless night that'll put you into work late or have you calling in sick!). AND, these tensions with older kids/teens should be more dramatic but not do permanent harm to the relationship. Only parents who are awful and neglectful repeatedly should lose relationship with their kids.
2. Risky pregnancy! -- Speaking of kids, they aren't always planned! Any time sims of the opposite sex woohoo there should be like a 5% chance of pregnancy (birth control methods aren't 100% effective after all!), just like there's a small chance you won't get pregnant if your sims 'Try for Baby.' This would make it a much more challenging game for those noncommittal, lots of lovers sims! There's a reason this is one of the most popular mods...
3. Daycare! -- This was one of my favorite parts of Sims 3--running a daycare out of my house! Random parents dropping off their kids for the day, taking care of lots of babies and toddlers all at once, with kids added to the mix when the school day ended. It was so much fun and it seems like we already have everything in the game that we'd need to make a daycare. The only thing missing is the functionality to turn a livable lot into a daycare (like you can set a lot to be off the grid...), and have parents show up to drop off and pick up their kids throughout the day. It'd be great if you can turn it into a challenge with stages like many of the careers have (can't remember what that's called right now...)
4. Challenges/Goals for every career! -- Right now I find that I choose the same careers for my many sims because they have career goals to complete in the challenges (can't recall what that's called!), and I never have sims choose careers without those goals because there's nothing really driving me to play that sim through then.
5. Rocky marriages!!! -- Married sims have it too easy! Unless they cause a random fight on purpose, marriages have no tension in them. That is so far from real life! When money is low, married sims (or even roommates...) should have relationship tension and be able to have convo options about money. The same when the trash overflows, or when stinky dishes are left around, or when a sim turns off the tv while another was watching it. Our sims need the ability to bicker to test their relationship!
6. CRIME!!! -- this is the biggest one for me. We need thieves we can see back who steal our stuff if we don't stop them! And home security systems to wake us up! And police officers to show up if we catch the criminal, or don't. That randomness was unexpected and fun and what made regular gameplay so exciting!
7. RANDOM HAPPENINGS! -- Along with random crime, it'd be nice if we had other random happenings, too! Ones that are IN THE GAME permanently, not events like we've had in the past. I'm talking power getting knocked out so that all electronics need repairing after a big storm. A random real estate agent shows up at your house and makes you an offer to sell. If you do, you must move to a new lot immediately! Other salespeople showing up at your door to sell you things (like vacuums!) or just talk to you about whatever cause they're promoting. Say, if it's someone promoting service attendance, then your sim commits to attending a service once a week MANDATORY for at least one full sim year (four seasons). Or the person at your door convinces to commit to volunteering, so you must volunteer once a week, or get angry calls from the organization. And random junk mail that gives you discounts at restaurants or stores that can expire like the grocery delivery coupons. Or random food delivery that you didn't order--do you keep it and eat it and then get an angry neighbor pounding at your door, or do you send the delivery away? Or how about neighbors who call the cops on you for playing music or having a big party outside after 10pm?
Or teens sneaking out after curfew when you're playing another sim and then possibly getting brought home by the cops! OR parents being able to catch their teens coming home after breaking curfew (it's kind of in the game right now, but only if you play the teen sneaking out. They don't sneak off autonomously the way that cats and dogs do without enough attention...) OR if you're playing the teen sim who's out after curfew, cops should be randomly roaming around the teen spot hangouts and be able to arrest you and immediately bring you home to face your parents! The same for if they decide to skip school!
8. DEBT!!! I find it absolutely ANNOYING that I make an adorable Sim family and then they cannot afford to move into the house I want them to go into because you only allotted my family of 5 $20,000 or so to get started with. I don't need them to have more money, I need them to be able to go into debt to buy that dream house! Sims should be able to get a mortgage to buy a dream house and still have money to eat! In fact, you could make it so that a sim gets to decide how much of their money they'll put toward the house from that original $20,000. $15,000? $10,000? Or only $2,000? The mortgage and interest could come due every week like with regular bills, and have the interest add up over time, so that if they don't start paying down their mortgage, their house could get seized, they won't be able to buy a house with a mortgage again, and they'll be stuck moving into whatever tiny house they can buy with their household funds, no matter how big their family. Can't afford even an empty lot with what money you have in your household funds? Then you'll need to merge households with another sim who has a house until you get back on your feet!
9. MORE TRAITS! I find myself making the same type of sim over and over again because the playable traits are so limited. For fun I sometimes play the difficult traits like slobs or kleptos, but not often. It becomes too tedious to keep up with their annoying traits. So I wind up playing sims with the same traits. That wouldn't be the case if we had a lot more traits! I know that some people on here have suggested a bunch of new traits, and I am fully on board! Having a wider variety of traits to interact would make the game much more challenging!
10. BRING BACK MILESTONES! This is one thing I really miss from Sims 3. Kids want to celebrate school ending when the summer comes! (No school in summer months so my parents can actually use a babysitter when they go to work while kids are home alone. The in-game nanny is basically useless right now!) My teens want to go to prom in the spring! I don't care if it's a rabbit hole prom. I want them to get asked to prom or to ask someone to prom, and then want to buy new evening clothes for the event, then get whisked away in a limo for a few hours! Does it go well? Is it a disaster? Their mood on return will tell, but we'll have the memory of that milestone forever! Miss that milestone? Well, when you're an adult, you'll get a random memory of that missed milestone and be sad for a while. There's plenty more milestones, not just prom. Honeymoons too! Get married on the spot and don't have a big wedding? Missed a milestone! Get married but don't go on a honeymoon, you just go to work the next day, missed a milestone! Kid ages up while you're at work? Fail to throw a party for a birthday? Missed a milestone!
The sims used to be fun and unexpected, yet realistic. You’d be taken into a whole new world where anything could happen. Sims 2 and 3 will always be in my heart and I often go back and play them, where sims 4 seems to get boring after a while as it seems to be all positive and the same everyday life, work, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, with no variations or exciting elements. Below are some suggest to make the sims great again! To make it a world which make you addicted to it.
1) Transport: letting sims own their own cars which they can travel in, as well as car pools and schools buses to make it realistic. As well as teaching teens to learn to drive. 2) having burglars, social workers, repo man etc to add a bit of excitement and drama 3) having things like midlife crisis to add a fun element 4) having more deaths without warning, such as satellites, and maybe an illness so it’s not always planned and organised which would be considered murder in the real world… 5) being able to actually spend symbols such as going food shopping and paying for transportation 6) bringing back wants and fears! To ensure that sims are not always positive and happy 7) bring back memories, I used to love looking back though what my sim had done 8) letting teens be teens, such as proms, and being grounded after being caught sneaking out 9) bring back attractions levels and turn on/off, romance is too easy and you can literally marry anyone in a day, where’s the chance and reality? 10) 2 words… Alien abduction
> @TomcatLucien said: > Here's my thoughts on what is needed from the base game. > > -An option to toggle weight gain off or on. The weight gain can be a very annoying feature since I often want to be able to focus more on things other than working out, and it's very annoying to have to either do unwanted activities or keep going back into CAS to try to bring my sim back to where I put them originally after so much work making them. People put a lot of care into creating their sims, so being unable to switch off this mechanic that constantly tries to alter their appearance is a real thorn in the player's side. > > -Sims should eat much, much faster, and actually sit down to eat. My sims consistently eat while standing in front of the fridge, and take over an in-game hour to eat a simple meal. This is unrealistic as well as annoying. In the Sims 3, watching sims eat was actually fun! Why not bring that little bit of charm over to TS4? > > -More CAS items for masculine sims. I know male fashion is trickier to work with, but there should be as much masculine stuff as there is feminine stuff. > > -More personality traits. Three is too few. It feels like moods replaced personality, when it could have enhanced it instead. Sims don't feel very fleshed out. > > -An attraction system would also help the sims feel more fleshed out. > > -More likes and dislikes. 20 quickly starts to feel too limiting. People generally have strong feelings about way more than 20 things. > > -Couples and spouses should cuddle while sleeping sometimes. > > -Sim behaviour should be more realistic and true to their given traits. For example, I once made a sim who hated fitness, and he would keep hitting the treadmill every single time he drank a cup of coffee. And he really liked his coffee. It was just excessive and bizarre. > > -And finally, please just fix any existing bugs. You do tend to have a bit of a bug problem.
Also, a quick note I forgot to add on the subject of likes and dislikes- please add food preferences. This would greatly benefit realism and depth.
Consider introducing a new NON_emotional platinum state: The Zone, a real life phenomenon, referred to as "flow state", a highly focused mental state conducive to productivity.
It's a state of being where people are so into what they are doing, its like time stands still, you don't notice if you're hungry, if you're cold, if someone walks by or is talking to you and you don't feel tired.
A suggestion how to add this into the game:
Add a third level of intensity to Focused and Inspired moodlets.
Focused> Very Focused> The Zone
Inspired> Very Inspired > The Zone
How to make it 'special':
All other emotional moodlets are removed. They only experience "The Zone"
All sims NEEDS are frozen, they do not deplete from what they were when they first enter the zone.
Whatever a sim does in this state of mind will be of the highest quality possible, eg. an author writes a best seller, an artist paints a masterpiece, a chef cooks an impeccable meal, a gardener evolves a plant to perfect, etc.
The Zone lasts for 8 hours. The only way a sim can come out of The Zone:
Cold Shower
Fire on the lot
Toddler Tantrum
The zone should be quite a difficult state of mind to achieve, so it feels like an accomplishment.
I enjoyed a lot of these little jobs and missions sims can now do in Cottage living and Journey to Batuu. In the future it would be creat to see more exiting characthers like the town Mayor in Cottage Living who has "missions and jobs" for you. Lot Challenges was also great addon. My sims are rather slow on building their skills so I love to use the tiny living lot trait for fast skill raising and I love that feature. But that could also be a lot challenge in both ways, increasing skills 50% faster lot challenge for normal sized houses without tiny living and also the other way around the more "difficult skill gaining" lot challenge trait for those who enjoy that.
I would like to see similar organazing objects tool in files Sims 3 has. It´s grate inside game tool for creating your own easy access files in game for your favorite party items or garden items etc. Reasoning is that when you have all EP`s and extensions installed there starts to be difficulties finding stuff when building lots.
I would like to see humans with Superhero skills or abilities. It would be awesome to have town "Superhero" doing some jobs and missions. It would also be totally new and fresh area in the game since we kinda "seen the supernaturals" even tough they are awesome too. It´s kind of like having something oppose those Supernatural powers in game that is more human like. Superheroes could have some kind of skills and power to help heal or resist and fight back Supernatural beings for example. At the monet it feels like the simmies are at mercy of the Supernaturals roaming around. There are not many options in game for the human sims to defend themselves other than locking doors but if you want more depth in the game and exitment then thats one solution to it. I use aliens as example, human sims should have something do defend themselves against aliens and like createing some kind of "barrier" they can´t pass. But as this game is family game and kids play it too, I don´t think it can be too scary tough so I understand that things has to be presented in mild way in such a game. My opinions are from matured adult point of view but something withing the safe boundaries.
Hi Sims team. Thanks for doing this again. I think it really helps with communication between you and us.
I just want to add to all of these great suggestions to say, I would love to see a better memories system. I want my sims to remember when they had their children, when they got married, etc.
Also, more fleshed out traits. You guys did pretty good with the recent updates, although I find the goofballs constantly pranking toilets a bit annoying. I would like see all the traits get similar tweaks.
Better whims, that are more in line with Sims' personalities, skills, careers, etc, rather than just 'Buy a Beebox.'
I'm open to anything that throws me a curveball. An unexpected death, an alien abduction, a cheating spouse, I want it all. I tend to roll with whatever happens, and those households usually end up being my favorite households.
Edit: I also want to add, that I would love see more likes and dislikes. All skills (current and future) should be added to the Activities category, food likes/dislikes, and some sort of attraction system.
It would be lovely if a class system was put into the sims4. Where you could truly have rich, royal, elite, poor ect type sims.
Bringing back private schools would be nice too, along with different schools for each world, instead of everyone ending up at the same one. Being able to have jocks, cheerleaders ect for teens would be fun again.
Before this thread is closed, I also wanted to say that pack integration (or lack of it) is another reason why the game is not at its fullest potential. Eg. knitting is still is not added to club activities in Get Together. For some reason, you always miss the hit with cross-pack gameplay and it breaks the immersion big time. You bring new features and you abandon them 2 minutes later. That is not cool. And most of the features/systems you bring are not even delivered appropriately... Eg. likes and dislikes system, it is great to have it back but you chose the easy way to put skills in there instead of real activities. I'd love to see "reading" or "dating" or "hanging out with the family" or "camping" as like/dislike options. If you actually took great care of these details and did your best with what we have, maybe we -the community- wouldn't complain that much. But with TS4, it is always disappointment and heartbreak and most of us are too tired to get hyped about new things because we know we will get half-baked features and will have to rely on modders to fix the game. And without some of the core elements that are required for a satisfactory experience (see my first comment on this topic), these bad decisions of yours add up and create a giant sentiment that you either don't give a hang about your player base and their needs or you really are incompetent. Sorry, not sorry to say that. Again, just look at all the previous games and how weak your product is now.
Illnesses, chronic illnesses, injuries, allergies, dental hygiene and disabilities
Illnesses
Illnesses system from Get To Work should be revamped. Right now, illnesses doesn't do much, they are just there. But they should affect the gameplay.
1. New illnesses and refresh of current ones - there should ne illnesses that aren't that much serious, like cold. Sims with these illnesses would be barely affected - you would have to take medicine, you would see symptons, wear warm clothes, etc depending on type of illness, and your sim would still be able to live their life like they doesn't have any illness. But some illnesses should be complicated, harder and have real consequences if you don't treat them - there could be also illness that would result in death if you don't take care of it. These complicated illnesses would affect gameplay differently - sim could be tired too much, sim wouldn't want to eat, sim wouldn't like to talk, sim would have to lie in bed and take medicine, drink hot tea and eat chicken soup, etc. The illnesses should be divided into multiple categories depending on which system they affect - like respiratory system, digestive system, skin, nervous system, etc.
2. Healthcare - our Sims should be able to visit doctord in order to treat their illnesses. They should visit chemist's to get medicine. They could also get help from family members.
Chronic illnesses
Chronic illnesses would be added in base game, and with Get To Work, you could visit doctors to treat them. These chronic illnesses wouldn't be real life one, but would resemble them - instead of diabetes, there would illness named differently, but would resemble it.
Injuries
Injuries would be added in Get To Work. Broken legs, arms, but also amputations (note, amputations and prosthesis would be added to BG). Your gameplay would be affected differently depending on injury. You would have to visit hospital and use mobility aids in case of Injuries of legs
Allergies
They would be added to base game but expanded in Get To Work. Your sims would have various allergies that would affect them. They could take medicine. If you have Get To Work, they would have to visit doctor in order to learn about their allergy.
Dental hygiene
Added to base game, but expanded in Get To Work. Brushing teeth wouldn't be meaningless anymore. You would have to take care of your teeth if you don't wamt any complications. With Get To Work, you would be able to visit dentist in hospital
Disabilities
Add disabilities to base game. It is crucial for representation. You can add vision impairments, hearing impairments and mobility disabilites.
Please consider adding the Singing Skill to the base game.
Why?
There is a lot of singing in lots of different packs - eg, OR campfire songs, CL - Karaoke, GF - singing with instruments, Seasons - group holiday songs, COL-singing with birds. If it was a base game skill, the sim can continue to develop this skill by singing from features from all of these packs.
It also opens more opportunity for other packs, eg Opera Singing could be something a sim develops AFTER they've reached level 5 of the base game singing *like cooking and gourmet cooking.
Music is such an intrinsic part of the human experience and something we develop from a very early age. Mothers - even if they consider themselves 'bad' singers, will sing to their little babies. Toddlers are humming and singing to themselves even before learning how to put sentences together.
How to implement as base game:
Self-interaction: Practise singing
Sing songs: existing Folk songs, and three new Nursery Rhymes
Ability to sing to babies
Ability to teach toddler how to sing
Sing in Shower
Toddlers given a complete new skill: Musical. Parents can teach their toddlers nursery rhymes, which they can then sing to themselves to cheer themselves up. Other toddler music can be added via other packs.
Children: are given a new Singing Skill. They can sing the nursery rhymes, and learn new songs called rounds like:
Row row row your Boat
London's Burning
As 'compensation' add sad songs to Karaoke, which when sung can make their audience sad too.
Separate Karaoke and singing in the club section, so if Karaoke is chosen, the club will watch and sing with the machine,
but a regular singing club will choose to sing songs from all the different packs, including the new rounds together (simple harmony).
A singing career can now be added, as it can expand from the base game skill.
Tying it all together from base up will add more depth to this ability.
1. The way your Sim live should have more impact on Sim life. Diet, happiness, sport - all of these should have an impact on a Sim's life, health and life expectancy.
2. Health system The Sim's health system should appear in the game. The health of a Sim could change depending on what he eats and what lifestyle he leads. The sim's health could be visualized in the UI. For example, a green heart stands for a healthy heart, a yellow one for a disease, and a red one for a life threatening sim. The same goes for other sensitive parts of the Sim's body, like brain.
3. Sims finances should be more challenging. Currently, items are too cheap, salaries are too high, and bills are too low. The financial aspect of the game should be more of a challenge.
4. Maybe new skill system? I think the 10 lvl skill system is not challenging and little obsolete. And higher skill levels are not rewarding enough. Maybe skills should have less levels but could be more harder to get and more rewarding. Maybe something more similar to The Sims 2 Open for Business and Free Time badges?
5. Better aspiration system. Many people above told enough about this.
6. More children and teenagers activities!
7. More school activities and a better school system. At the moment, the school is for nothing. It gives us nothing. There is no challenge, getting bad grades is harder that getting good ones and getting bad grades are not punishable.
8. Relationships definetly needs some depth and upgrade.
What would definitely improve the game in my view:
- More traits and aspirations, with impact on Sim's daily life. For example, my Clumsy Sim is getting fitness skill as fast as a Sim without this trait. Aspirations are too easy to fulfill and too few.
- Would like to have the real diving option in Sulani, like in Sims3. With an aspiration related to it.
- We need babies, not objects.
- Sims chemistry - based on traits or like/dislikes they should have a positive or negative start of the relationship
- Lot traits should have a bigger impact on the Sims life and also environment. To me it is weird that Reduce and Recycle does not have any impact on the eco footprint. .
- Cats and dogs - stopped playing them. I need to see their needs. And honestly I was expecting the CoL will bring new interactions between pets and wild animals as well as new features (cats fishing from ponds, dogs chasing off foxes, etc).
- More likes and dislikes, including favorite drink/food.
- Burglars and Repo-man.
- Bachelor parties, honeymoon trips.
- A family album where you can see the pictures of babies, holidays, etc.
- Holidays homes/second home.
- Please rework the moodlets. All energized sims are doing push-ups no matter where they are, very unrealistic.
- Bringing back the skill journal would be great; would bring more challenges which currently are completely missing.
Thanks again and have a great day!
I am not an English native speaker, so excuse my French
Shopping and giving presents Now sims start with a wardrobe that is full. It would be better that in the beginning it was limited to some items. Clothes should also have different price tags.
There should be many more opinions for presents. For example buying and giving some jewelery, selecting from a range of flower bouqets and sending them to your interest.
Managing shops and restaurants should be improved. Sims work hard 20 hours a day with their entire family and still don't earn enough at a restaurant. Also a restaurant can't bring money autonomously. All clothes is the same price, so a wedding gown sells at a price of a t-shirt. The mechsnics for business should be improved. There should be different level of the business with some challenges and tasks for each level.
Good Morning! :) First of all English isn't my native language so I hope there won't be to much mistakes in my post! There is a lot that could be improved in my opinion, especially in relation to family gameplay, personality and genetics. But my main concern is with the genetics system. I am always bummed out when I play with generations because of the lack of depth in the genetics system and I enjoy playing with generations the most.
The genetics system lacks a lot of depth and that's pretty frustrating if you want to play over more than two generations. As far as I have recognized Sims won't get any genetic features of the face, body, hair color, eye color or anything else from grandparents or even further ancestors (like great-grandparents and so on). And I think that's something that destroys a lot of possible depth for generation players. Especially for those who love to see how the genetics evolve over generations. How cool would it be if a child would have red hair because one of their ancestors had them, but none of their parents? Also it would be nice if a child would have their mothers nose form but their fathers nose size or even a nose (or anything else) that's a mixture between those two. Like the father had a big nose, the mother a little and the child would have a middle sized one. Although I'm not sure if that would be very realistic, but the inheriting of genetics from grandparents and other ancestors would be pretty important and would help to deepen the generation gameplay a lot in my opinion. Because you could see the forefathers of your starter sims and other sims of the different generations in your current generation. And it would be so cool if your sim (A) would have a child with another sim (B) which you never played before and the child would get genetic features of the grandparents of sim B! And to add to this, facial features, teeth and so on should be part of the genetics system as well. Especially freckles. I don't get at all why they aren't. :o
Maybe I'll add some more ideas if I have the time, but that's the most important stuff in my mind at the moment! Also most of the personality and family gameplay ideas I would have where already posted anyway! :)
Hi, Simgurus!
I'm happy to see there's a forum opened for feedback and I'm glad I still have time to write this, hope Simgurus really read this. I'm not a native English speaker so sorry if there's a lot of grammar error. This feedback is not necessary for The Sims 4 but can be used as an improvement for The Sims 5. For easier reading, I'll sort it into few points and keep it on topic.
Fishing can be much more exciting and enjoyable if players really do something about it. For example, fishing in Stardew Valley requires the player to make sure the fish icon is inside the green bar. Holding mouse click will raise the bar while releasing it will drop the bar. Different fish have different difficulties, it's much more challenging compared to what we have now, just waiting. Of course, The Sims 4/5 can invent their own version of the fishing challenges.
Cooking can have more gameplay/depth. The Sims 4 is very boring in the current state because it's too easy, most food can be done without ingredients. All recipes should require ingredients and can't be cooked without ingredients. Eggs and Toast may require eggs, bread, and butter. Ingredients can be either purchased from a phone or computer. Each day the "grocery store" offers different products to buy, so players may think about stocking up some ingredients because it's only available on Sunday, etc. Running out of ingredients at midnight & getting hungry will force a player to order delivery (more expensive than homecook) because the "grocery store" is closed. At least this will provide another realistic depth/gameplay.
If all recipes require ingredients, farming/gardening will automatically get another gameplay depth. Players need to plant a specific fruit or herb to cook some foods. The "grocery store" may not provide all kinds of fruits and herbs so players may need to plant them themselves.
Each recipe or foods needs to provide a different effect. Right now, what is the difference between eating Garden Salad and Vegetable Casserole? No significant difference. Developer can make the Garden Salad provide +5% gardening skill gain for 2 hours and Vegetable Casserole provide +20% gardening skill gain for 4 hours (a higher bonus since it requires 10 level Cooking skill).
Just like Carl's Sims Guide said on his channel "everything is handed to us". Almost everything is accessible when players start a new game. There's no hard work required or challenge in order to afford/access something. For example, almost all outfits on Create-a-Sims are accessible without purchasing them in clothing stores. Making it locked (until purchased) will provide some degree of challenge, players need to earn more money to afford an outfit, some can be as expensive as $100,000. In this way, a player will think twice before buying a new outfit. I know this seems like a wishlist for fashion stores, but outfit shopping can be just done on a phone/computer or it can be just like working, disappear from the current lot and then a new page appears with a bunch of outfits to purchase.
More monetary goals or expensive things to buy. This is also said by Carl in his videos. The Sims 4 hit dead end very quickly. What is the reason for getting rich? When players earn $15,000 per week, there's nothing much left to buy or do other than bigger houses and lots. In The Sims 3, we spend a lot on Investment, partnering, or owning community lots and rabbit holes, and we get rewarded for doing so. Since players will end up getting very rich, there should be some items that only can be afforded by wealthy players. That's why I said it would be cool to see some outfit that cost $100,000 or maybe an extremely rare statue that cost $300,000.
A more realistic gameplay that also provides a small challenge to the game. Each Gym, Pool, or Karaoke Bar should cost some money to visit or use their facilities. For example, players need to pay $50 per in-game hour for using Gym facilities. The price per hour can be adjusted in Build Mode and this will make some luxury Gym, Pool, or Karaoke Bar to cost extremely expensive and inaccessible until players work harder and are able to afford it.
All I can say is developers need to make everything rewarding. Eating Vegetable Casserole is not the same as eating level 1 Garden Salad. Fishing some rare fish can be challenging and it is a required ingredient to cook something that provides tons of positive buff for hours. Poorer sims that work harder will be rewarded by being able to afford good-looking outfit (may provide Fame gain), appliances, owning community lots, access to better community lots, etc.
Sometimes I really wish to get involved directly or working to develop The Sims game.
I hope that all this feedback is helpful, thank you!
Firstly, thank you for reaching out to the community for this initiative. Lack of depth + challenge in the Sims 4 has been a recurring conversation within the community for a fair while now!
At the moment the game feels very geared towards a very young audience, who do have the tendency to give up if they deem things to difficult and prefer the easy route but it’s the left the game with no challenge and leaves out those older fans or those who want to make their sims life a bit more difficult. There have been come good features removed or toned down as some didn’t like it.
I think part of the issue lies within the sims themselves. Being limited to only 3 traits, especially if you don’t have the full collection of DLC, means that all sims are very similar, even with the newly added likes & dislikes. Sims can have conflicting likes/dislikes and personality traits and still be BFFS within minutes. There isn’t a challenge in making friends with other sims and it doesn’t really reflect real life. In everyday life you will meet people who you just don’t jell with. Having more traits to pick from and the sims being able to have more traits would improve this dramatically. The traits also need a review. There are some, like vegetarian, which I never use as they don’t really bring anything to the game. Dietary related ‘traits’ should be treated more as a like/dislike.
I believe having an attraction system, like TS2 and TS3, and increasing the amount of a traits a sim could have would improve this greatly. Need to be friends with a co-worker to get a promotion? Oh dear they have conflicting traits to your sim so you need to work extra hard. Oh you really fancy the neighbour across the street? Unfortunately, you’re not their type. So how does the player get a round this? Work on changing their sim or move on and explore the worlds to find someone else?
Career progression is also very easy. I very rarely get any chance cards and the ones I go get are normally ‘SIMS life will go on unaffected’ or ‘SIM will be fired’ which don’t really excite me. I would like more choices and more difficult scenarios. There should be more challenge to get that promotion, especially as your sim climbs the career ladder. It shouldn’t just be get to level x of whatever skill and fill out reports every day. Dinner with the boss/colleagues, have 10 friends/enemies. Even if they had to interview for it and prep for that interview, whether that be for a new job or a promotion at their existing one.
There doesn’t seem to be many hurdles to stop the sims from having a perfect life. I can be playing TS1, TS2 & TS3 for an hour and get fires, natural disasters, burglars, chance cards, random challenges etc. but this doesn’t happen within the sims 4 to that degree.
Expanding lot challenges or adding a challenge to a whole neighbourhood/world. Some worlds would have higher priced lots/ bills / services. Reminiscent of the TS1 where some of all always tried to get to that big mansion on the hill.
Having complete story progression going on around your family (even if it’s an option you can turn on and off) would also add an exciting element to the game. Your sims friends are having a hard time, those with the jealous trait would hate to see your sim succeed so they fall out with your sim. Your sims with the jealous trait could likewise hate to see others succeed.
Ultimately, to me, the name of the game is sim life fulfilment (or lack of fulfilment depending on the simmer). It’s far too easy with no real reward at the end. Sims that experience a happier life compared to those that don’t (perhaps based off the emotions they’ve felt over their lifetime) should get more of a reward at end of life (or a longer life with a nice natural death), whereas a sim who has experienced an unhappier life would be more at risk of an accidental death or earlier death. It would be a challenge to take a sim who had a ‘bad’ childhood to turn the life around and make it as good as possible (traits allowing) or vice versa.
The game is a life simulator and making it more real life would be an improvement. Expanding loans that came with DU. You could take a loan but face the consequences of not repaying it (repo men which are already in the game!)
No doubt you think we’re broken records at this point by continually referring to previous games in the franchise but they’re the reason why so many people have been lifelong fans of the game. Looking back and taking elements of the past games that you know the community loved isn’t a bad thing. It’s a formula you know works. Looking at popular mods would also give you an indication of what simmers are looking to add to their game.
There's already been a lot posted, and I agree with most of them, especially relationships, traits, moodlets.
Theres one other thing that I feel limits the gameplay EXTREMELY and takes away a lot of possible depth to the game.
-- Open Neighbourhoods --
1. current Problem: You can only concentrate on one sim at a time. The control options for Sims that are currently not on the lot are really limited. Whenever I play the game I feel like I'm missing out so much because it just sucks to visit a lot that is literally door to door with your house. Take for example eco living, there is that community lot where you can use the candle making station and other "crafty" stuff. Going there doesn't make sense for every Sim, but leaving the other Sims at home is not ideal either, because sometimes you spend hours on the community lot to complete something, but you also want your other Sims from the household to succeed in life. So normally you end up adding random items like a computer to this community lot just so you can play with the whole household at the same time. Or visiting a household because ONE of your Sims is friends with one the Sims from that other household. You literally have to put the rest of your Sims on hold, bc it makes no sense bringing them over. This is ridiculous and makes the game not fun. Especially because the surrounding neighbourhood for the lots are exactly the same!
Take it from the real world: visiting your neighbour, you have to only walk over there (few steps minimum), but visiting another town/world you have to get in a car/train/bus whatever, so a loading screen somehow makes sense. But not for the house next door.
The worlds don't feel like worlds and the neighborhoods don't feel like neighborhoods.
English is not my first language so I'm having a bit trouble explaining why this would add depth. To sum it up, having non-open neighbourhoods limits the gameplay, as you never will explore everything on the world, as it's just too time consuming. So I feel like you miss out on a lot of stuff you actually put time and energy in creating. In the Sims 3 I loved exploring every detail of the world. Normally you would want every single Sim of yours to succeed (or not) in life, build relationships, have special occasions happening. In the Sims 4 you have to focus on one Sim, or make everyone want the same.
I really hope this feature will be discussed and reconsidered of course with the option to turn it off.
Adoption system deserves some overhaul. First of all, our household would have to fullfil some requirements in order to be able to adopt kids. Social worker (returning NPC) would check the house. Your sims would have to visit kid they want to adopt before they adopt them. You would have to gain a trust of this kid.
Not taking care of kids should have more consequences than just kid disappearing - first of all, kids taken away by social worker will still exist. Your sims would have to face consequences, like not being allowed to have other kids before they go through parenting course or deacrease of relationship with the kid. Your sims could also try to get their kids back.
Foster care
You should add foster care as an alternative for having kids. One big diference between adoption amd foster care would be that ypu wouldn't be able to control the fostered children and that they might leave eventually.
For as long as the game has been running, each pack has brought new features that make a sim's life mostly easier. More ways to make money, positive moodlets that stack up, etc. To make the game more challenging, you'll need to look at the game as a whole, with all its DLC. Otherwise, players who own all the older packs will still have it way too easy.
Emotions and traits - make them matter more
Emotions don't impact gameplay enough. It's also far too easy to get sims in a good mood.
Traits that affect emotions need to impact the way sims experience life, rather than just give a random moodlet. For instance, a hotheaded sims could get angry when their spouse cheats on them, a gloomy sim would get sad. A lazy sim could get less and weaker energized buffs, active sims more powerful ones, etc. This was done right with toddlers and one of the reasons toddlers feel more unique.
Make negative emotions more of a threat. It should be easier for sims to fall into a negative emotion and bare the consequences of that.
Economy overhaul
Others have mentioned taking out a loan at the start of the game to buy your first house. Have the bank calculate how much they can borrow based on their income. Crafters could have their income calculated by means of checking what profit they've made in a week. The 20k sims start with could come as debt instead of funds.
In addition to that, I would like to suggest personal wallets for household members. This would be a great incentive to play for multiple generations, as parents could help out their kids financially. Give them pocket money as kids and help them invest in their first home. Or leech off of them, by taking the money from their part-time jobs as teens, if you want to play as a deviant.
Sim challenges
Lot challenges are such a great addition. If this could be applied to sims somehow, it would definitely add challenge. Some ideas: slow learner, hard to love, insecure. Traits like hotheaded, slob, vegetarian and lactose-intolerant could fit in this new category.
Revisit aspirations - less hand holding
I've come to loathe aspirations. These little tutorials completely ruin the immersion for me. I want to discover new features on my own, I don't need to be told what to do. Strangerville is the worst offender. The mystery can be solved on your own and is a lot more fun that way. The aspiration takes all the life out of the mystery, and completely removes the challenge.
Aspirations in general feel like a chore, they're nothing more than a list to cross off. They don't require any work or skill, it's just a grind.
Lifetime challenges, wants, fears and passions
Sims feel the same, because they lack passion. Something they're absolutely crazy about. There's nothing they want to achieve. When your sims have no goal in life, it makes it harder for the player to care. We can make one up for them, but it's like playing with dolls in a doll house, except more limited. For sims to feel alive, they need to want something and their life should move towards that personal goal, or else they'll get very upset about it.
Likewise, they should fear something, as well.
To make it more urgent, failing to achieve their goal and fulfilling their biggest fear could be the death of them!
The whim system wasn't that bad, but could use an overhaul. Give sims negative whims, as well, something they want to avoid.
What not to do
Don't add challenge by adding a grind or slowing down existing processes.
For instance, the speed at which skills are gained is alright for the moment. There are enough skills to keep every sim busy.
Don't slow down the career progress bar, but add other challenges instead. For instance, the option to get demoted or fired.
The game course of life is very easy and skewed to a positive outcome and choices most of the time. That’s not necessarily bad but without a challenge, the game treats many aspects in our Sims lives as given starting from their first second of existence as new borns. - Babies can be a lot more challenging if they are movable. If we could do more with them and they can give different moodlets and emotions to their parents. Parenting is a great gift but is everyone ready or equipped to receive it? - Toddlers can be more challenging by adding a [teething] stage. As they are, they are easy to handle .. almost too easy unless wild and fussy. What if we have a feverish, fussy child who cries all the time and require a parent presence [and maybe a day off work]. - Children and teens require more reasons to be disciplined. It is not challenging to have a child. It is almost too easy because they eat, shower and do homework [and that’s all] .. unless they made a mess and that’s only when you can have fun .. but how many more messes you can handle .. and after 2 children, it becomes old. So, they need to be children: explore and make mistakes: fights between siblings or friends, sneak out, stealing, start a fire, … etc all requires a parent to lecture them and to punish them. I almost never have a reason to punish my children which is sad – it is a whole system that exists but can’t be used. - The school: more pop ups and travels to the principal office. Pranks, cheating, not doing homework, stealing .. all punishable at school + add expel period. - The university acceptance is very easy. How about we get a chance to be rejected. We can’t live in an ideal world were applying to university grants you a seat.
Young adults/adults life: - More pop ups: the town needs life so more of those pop ups from Randoms. It is easy to live and go around with life but some of the previous added pop ups are amazing. How about more? Have a mysterious flirty text that leads to relationship wedge or spread a rumour about your sim to ruin their reputation [make sims react to it by whispers if seen in public] or have a sim claim someone’s identity then lead to leaked information. - Work is almost very easy. No chances for demotions, having less pay – basically the money is very easy. A chance pop ups that affect work performance [and add a challenge to achieving excellent] will make it much fun to play. Easy money = easy life = boring - Sickness: Sims get sick more often by weather changes. My sims used to get sick much easier before but recently: not really. I hardly have any of them sick and that’s sad. Almost no reason to skip work or school = which leads to an easy life = easy money = boring outcome. - Relationship gains is very easy .. without any system to control emotions or dictate the chemistry between sims .. we can friend everyone and love them easily. A challenge would be to add a factor of difficulty to how relationship develops. Maybe first sentiments affect how the Sims develop the relationship. - Odd events: events that occur spontaneously that can influence the gameplay like the alien abduction and vampire visit including: burglary, hidden pregnancy, egging the house, random fire in repair lots, ..etc 1. A burglar will challenge the players by adding a source of money loss to the game 2. Hidden pregnancy are those where Sims didn’t test or appear pregnant. They can cause the Sims life to be challenging especially if they were in university or not prepared for a baby. 3. Egging the house can be due to a rumor or a bullying incident or unwelcoming neighbour. Similar to noisy neighbours in apartments > that was challenging. 4. Fires at random times and caused because of poor electrical connections can ruin a Sim sleep, require money to be fixed and damage the property. 5. Weird mail: receiving an interesting or unusual mail item > causing your Sim to be paranoid > make them harder to be calmed > go around their life. - Lots challenges: 1. insects/rodents’ infestations. That would add lots of challenge to the game. 2. Noisy neighbours added as a lot challenge would be cool for even the regular house. 3. Racoon attack > these lots will suffer from knocked out bins in the morning because the racoons check their garbage bins. 4. Leaking roof: water puddles and no insulations: Sims wake up cold or having flu because of the situation of the house. 5. Bad soil: more insects ruining your plants in this area. 6. Foul smell: Industrial neighbourhoods aren’t enough … have you ever heard of salt lake city?
About CHALLENGES: I think the game need more random and unexpected thinks happen.. currently Sims have to make danger things two, three time to die and this remove the fun because I know what expect... I rather let the game have different outcomes: sometimes they survive and sometime not. (a Sim got electrocuted while repairing a TV.. some will get dazed and some die.. same thing with eat by a cowplant.. Overheated in Sauna.. most of the deaths).. things like burglaries, natural disasters, illnesses (get a disease from get to work don't make diference.. sims get cure so fast.. is so bad), more chance cards (or different choices/outcomes) in jobs and rabbit holes, bad emotions outweighing good.. Making Sims' lives harder will make good things more satisfying.
About DEPTH: Sentiments, Likes and Dislikes has a great step to give more depth and personality for the sims 4, but we need more of those for previous packs. I know if we get more traits (more slots in CAS too), Overhaul whims (Make them more related to Traits, Remove Emotional whims and Things like buy bee box because season) and Lifetime goals (Aspirations don't look like this) the game will offer more options to us create unique Sims ansd Stories. One-Side Relationships, Hobbies and Rework Emotion System (emotion need to be more stable) will help too
I love the sims 4 and I hope we get some of those things
Comments
1. Add taxes and different typey of insurance
2. Add banks, online banking and loans
3. Lower salaries and change price of everything
4. Bills - add new categories, like fee for pets, different types of internet and TV, etc.
5. Add new ways for spending money - cars, fee in public places, memberships in public places (gym, gallery...), abbility to buy more lots and public lots, groceries, clothes, private schools for kids
1. Kid/Parent relationships -- As it stands, there isn't much of a challenge raising kids, etc. This is especially true once parenting skills increase which happens quick! I'm happy that you added phases, etc. for teenagers and kids, but those moods don't last long or make much of an impact. It'd be nice if you upped the ante and made kid/parent relationships more realistic. Teens storming off and locking themselves in their rooms, parents knocking on doors to plead with them, older kids able to throw tantrums like toddlers when their needs are low or their stress high, babies that on occasion don't quit crying even though they're fed, dry, and have had plenty of attention (not often, but like a 5% chance you might have a sleepless night that'll put you into work late or have you calling in sick!). AND, these tensions with older kids/teens should be more dramatic but not do permanent harm to the relationship. Only parents who are awful and neglectful repeatedly should lose relationship with their kids.
2. Risky pregnancy! -- Speaking of kids, they aren't always planned! Any time sims of the opposite sex woohoo there should be like a 5% chance of pregnancy (birth control methods aren't 100% effective after all!), just like there's a small chance you won't get pregnant if your sims 'Try for Baby.' This would make it a much more challenging game for those noncommittal, lots of lovers sims! There's a reason this is one of the most popular mods...
3. Daycare! -- This was one of my favorite parts of Sims 3--running a daycare out of my house! Random parents dropping off their kids for the day, taking care of lots of babies and toddlers all at once, with kids added to the mix when the school day ended. It was so much fun and it seems like we already have everything in the game that we'd need to make a daycare. The only thing missing is the functionality to turn a livable lot into a daycare (like you can set a lot to be off the grid...), and have parents show up to drop off and pick up their kids throughout the day. It'd be great if you can turn it into a challenge with stages like many of the careers have (can't remember what that's called right now...)
4. Challenges/Goals for every career! -- Right now I find that I choose the same careers for my many sims because they have career goals to complete in the challenges (can't recall what that's called!), and I never have sims choose careers without those goals because there's nothing really driving me to play that sim through then.
5. Rocky marriages!!! -- Married sims have it too easy! Unless they cause a random fight on purpose, marriages have no tension in them. That is so far from real life! When money is low, married sims (or even roommates...) should have relationship tension and be able to have convo options about money. The same when the trash overflows, or when stinky dishes are left around, or when a sim turns off the tv while another was watching it. Our sims need the ability to bicker to test their relationship!
6. CRIME!!! -- this is the biggest one for me. We need thieves we can see back who steal our stuff if we don't stop them! And home security systems to wake us up! And police officers to show up if we catch the criminal, or don't. That randomness was unexpected and fun and what made regular gameplay so exciting!
7. RANDOM HAPPENINGS! -- Along with random crime, it'd be nice if we had other random happenings, too! Ones that are IN THE GAME permanently, not events like we've had in the past. I'm talking power getting knocked out so that all electronics need repairing after a big storm. A random real estate agent shows up at your house and makes you an offer to sell. If you do, you must move to a new lot immediately! Other salespeople showing up at your door to sell you things (like vacuums!) or just talk to you about whatever cause they're promoting. Say, if it's someone promoting service attendance, then your sim commits to attending a service once a week MANDATORY for at least one full sim year (four seasons). Or the person at your door convinces to commit to volunteering, so you must volunteer once a week, or get angry calls from the organization. And random junk mail that gives you discounts at restaurants or stores that can expire like the grocery delivery coupons. Or random food delivery that you didn't order--do you keep it and eat it and then get an angry neighbor pounding at your door, or do you send the delivery away? Or how about neighbors who call the cops on you for playing music or having a big party outside after 10pm?
Or teens sneaking out after curfew when you're playing another sim and then possibly getting brought home by the cops! OR parents being able to catch their teens coming home after breaking curfew (it's kind of in the game right now, but only if you play the teen sneaking out. They don't sneak off autonomously the way that cats and dogs do without enough attention...) OR if you're playing the teen sim who's out after curfew, cops should be randomly roaming around the teen spot hangouts and be able to arrest you and immediately bring you home to face your parents! The same for if they decide to skip school!
8. DEBT!!! I find it absolutely ANNOYING that I make an adorable Sim family and then they cannot afford to move into the house I want them to go into because you only allotted my family of 5 $20,000 or so to get started with. I don't need them to have more money, I need them to be able to go into debt to buy that dream house! Sims should be able to get a mortgage to buy a dream house and still have money to eat! In fact, you could make it so that a sim gets to decide how much of their money they'll put toward the house from that original $20,000. $15,000? $10,000? Or only $2,000? The mortgage and interest could come due every week like with regular bills, and have the interest add up over time, so that if they don't start paying down their mortgage, their house could get seized, they won't be able to buy a house with a mortgage again, and they'll be stuck moving into whatever tiny house they can buy with their household funds, no matter how big their family. Can't afford even an empty lot with what money you have in your household funds? Then you'll need to merge households with another sim who has a house until you get back on your feet!
9. MORE TRAITS! I find myself making the same type of sim over and over again because the playable traits are so limited. For fun I sometimes play the difficult traits like slobs or kleptos, but not often. It becomes too tedious to keep up with their annoying traits. So I wind up playing sims with the same traits. That wouldn't be the case if we had a lot more traits! I know that some people on here have suggested a bunch of new traits, and I am fully on board! Having a wider variety of traits to interact would make the game much more challenging!
10. BRING BACK MILESTONES! This is one thing I really miss from Sims 3. Kids want to celebrate school ending when the summer comes! (No school in summer months so my parents can actually use a babysitter when they go to work while kids are home alone. The in-game nanny is basically useless right now!) My teens want to go to prom in the spring! I don't care if it's a rabbit hole prom. I want them to get asked to prom or to ask someone to prom, and then want to buy new evening clothes for the event, then get whisked away in a limo for a few hours! Does it go well? Is it a disaster? Their mood on return will tell, but we'll have the memory of that milestone forever! Miss that milestone? Well, when you're an adult, you'll get a random memory of that missed milestone and be sad for a while. There's plenty more milestones, not just prom. Honeymoons too! Get married on the spot and don't have a big wedding? Missed a milestone! Get married but don't go on a honeymoon, you just go to work the next day, missed a milestone! Kid ages up while you're at work? Fail to throw a party for a birthday? Missed a milestone!
1. Life time aspirations:
Source: https://modthesims.info/d/648717/lifetime-aspirations-v-04.html
2. More traits
https://kuttoe.itch.io/new-emotional-traits
https://kuttoe.itch.io/new-hobby-traits
https://www.patreon.com/posts/41969378
3. More slots for traits
https://www.patreon.com/posts/more-traits-in-1-48204168
4. More likes and dislikes (as food preferences):
https://simscommunity.info/2021/06/01/modders-are-already-creating-custom-likes-dislikes-for-the-sims-4/
The sims used to be fun and unexpected, yet realistic. You’d be taken into a whole new world where anything could happen. Sims 2 and 3 will always be in my heart and I often go back and play them, where sims 4 seems to get boring after a while as it seems to be all positive and the same everyday life, work, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, with no variations or exciting elements. Below are some suggest to make the sims great again! To make it a world which make you addicted to it.
1) Transport: letting sims own their own cars which they can travel in, as well as car pools and schools buses to make it realistic. As well as teaching teens to learn to drive.
2) having burglars, social workers, repo man etc to add a bit of excitement and drama
3) having things like midlife crisis to add a fun element
4) having more deaths without warning, such as satellites, and maybe an illness so it’s not always planned and organised which would be considered murder in the real world…
5) being able to actually spend symbols such as going food shopping and paying for transportation
6) bringing back wants and fears! To ensure that sims are not always positive and happy
7) bring back memories, I used to love looking back though what my sim had done
8) letting teens be teens, such as proms, and being grounded after being caught sneaking out
9) bring back attractions levels and turn on/off, romance is too easy and you can literally marry anyone in a day, where’s the chance and reality?
10) 2 words… Alien abduction
> Here's my thoughts on what is needed from the base game.
>
> -An option to toggle weight gain off or on. The weight gain can be a very annoying feature since I often want to be able to focus more on things other than working out, and it's very annoying to have to either do unwanted activities or keep going back into CAS to try to bring my sim back to where I put them originally after so much work making them. People put a lot of care into creating their sims, so being unable to switch off this mechanic that constantly tries to alter their appearance is a real thorn in the player's side.
>
> -Sims should eat much, much faster, and actually sit down to eat. My sims consistently eat while standing in front of the fridge, and take over an in-game hour to eat a simple meal. This is unrealistic as well as annoying. In the Sims 3, watching sims eat was actually fun! Why not bring that little bit of charm over to TS4?
>
> -More CAS items for masculine sims. I know male fashion is trickier to work with, but there should be as much masculine stuff as there is feminine stuff.
>
> -More personality traits. Three is too few. It feels like moods replaced personality, when it could have enhanced it instead. Sims don't feel very fleshed out.
>
> -An attraction system would also help the sims feel more fleshed out.
>
> -More likes and dislikes. 20 quickly starts to feel too limiting. People generally have strong feelings about way more than 20 things.
>
> -Couples and spouses should cuddle while sleeping sometimes.
>
> -Sim behaviour should be more realistic and true to their given traits. For example, I once made a sim who hated fitness, and he would keep hitting the treadmill every single time he drank a cup of coffee. And he really liked his coffee. It was just excessive and bizarre.
>
> -And finally, please just fix any existing bugs. You do tend to have a bit of a bug problem.
Also, a quick note I forgot to add on the subject of likes and dislikes- please add food preferences. This would greatly benefit realism and depth.
It's a state of being where people are so into what they are doing, its like time stands still, you don't notice if you're hungry, if you're cold, if someone walks by or is talking to you and you don't feel tired.
A suggestion how to add this into the game:
Add a third level of intensity to Focused and Inspired moodlets.
Focused> Very Focused> The Zone
Inspired> Very Inspired > The Zone
How to make it 'special':
The Zone lasts for 8 hours. The only way a sim can come out of The Zone:
The zone should be quite a difficult state of mind to achieve, so it feels like an accomplishment.
Some extra careers. (I would love to be a teacher for example)
I already read this one, but it would be amazing if flirting came from the other person instead of yourself all the time.
It would be cool if one of the household members visits the other house, you can play them both.
Thanks for reading! Bye!
I would like to see similar organazing objects tool in files Sims 3 has. It´s grate inside game tool for creating your own easy access files in game for your favorite party items or garden items etc. Reasoning is that when you have all EP`s and extensions installed there starts to be difficulties finding stuff when building lots.
I would like to see humans with Superhero skills or abilities. It would be awesome to have town "Superhero" doing some jobs and missions. It would also be totally new and fresh area in the game since we kinda "seen the supernaturals" even tough they are awesome too. It´s kind of like having something oppose those Supernatural powers in game that is more human like. Superheroes could have some kind of skills and power to help heal or resist and fight back Supernatural beings for example. At the monet it feels like the simmies are at mercy of the Supernaturals roaming around. There are not many options in game for the human sims to defend themselves other than locking doors but if you want more depth in the game and exitment then thats one solution to it. I use aliens as example, human sims should have something do defend themselves against aliens and like createing some kind of "barrier" they can´t pass. But as this game is family game and kids play it too, I don´t think it can be too scary tough so I understand that things has to be presented in mild way in such a game. My opinions are from matured adult point of view but something withing the safe boundaries.
I just want to add to all of these great suggestions to say, I would love to see a better memories system. I want my sims to remember when they had their children, when they got married, etc.
Also, more fleshed out traits. You guys did pretty good with the recent updates, although I find the goofballs constantly pranking toilets a bit annoying. I would like see all the traits get similar tweaks.
Better whims, that are more in line with Sims' personalities, skills, careers, etc, rather than just 'Buy a Beebox.'
I'm open to anything that throws me a curveball. An unexpected death, an alien abduction, a cheating spouse, I want it all. I tend to roll with whatever happens, and those households usually end up being my favorite households.
Edit: I also want to add, that I would love see more likes and dislikes. All skills (current and future) should be added to the Activities category, food likes/dislikes, and some sort of attraction system.
Bringing back private schools would be nice too, along with different schools for each world, instead of everyone ending up at the same one. Being able to have jocks, cheerleaders ect for teens would be fun again.
Illnesses
Illnesses system from Get To Work should be revamped. Right now, illnesses doesn't do much, they are just there. But they should affect the gameplay.
1. New illnesses and refresh of current ones - there should ne illnesses that aren't that much serious, like cold. Sims with these illnesses would be barely affected - you would have to take medicine, you would see symptons, wear warm clothes, etc depending on type of illness, and your sim would still be able to live their life like they doesn't have any illness. But some illnesses should be complicated, harder and have real consequences if you don't treat them - there could be also illness that would result in death if you don't take care of it. These complicated illnesses would affect gameplay differently - sim could be tired too much, sim wouldn't want to eat, sim wouldn't like to talk, sim would have to lie in bed and take medicine, drink hot tea and eat chicken soup, etc. The illnesses should be divided into multiple categories depending on which system they affect - like respiratory system, digestive system, skin, nervous system, etc.
2. Healthcare - our Sims should be able to visit doctord in order to treat their illnesses. They should visit chemist's to get medicine. They could also get help from family members.
Chronic illnesses
Chronic illnesses would be added in base game, and with Get To Work, you could visit doctors to treat them. These chronic illnesses wouldn't be real life one, but would resemble them - instead of diabetes, there would illness named differently, but would resemble it.
Injuries
Injuries would be added in Get To Work. Broken legs, arms, but also amputations (note, amputations and prosthesis would be added to BG). Your gameplay would be affected differently depending on injury. You would have to visit hospital and use mobility aids in case of Injuries of legs
Allergies
They would be added to base game but expanded in Get To Work. Your sims would have various allergies that would affect them. They could take medicine. If you have Get To Work, they would have to visit doctor in order to learn about their allergy.
Dental hygiene
Added to base game, but expanded in Get To Work. Brushing teeth wouldn't be meaningless anymore. You would have to take care of your teeth if you don't wamt any complications. With Get To Work, you would be able to visit dentist in hospital
Disabilities
Add disabilities to base game. It is crucial for representation. You can add vision impairments, hearing impairments and mobility disabilites.
Why?
There is a lot of singing in lots of different packs - eg, OR campfire songs, CL - Karaoke, GF - singing with instruments, Seasons - group holiday songs, COL-singing with birds. If it was a base game skill, the sim can continue to develop this skill by singing from features from all of these packs.
It also opens more opportunity for other packs, eg Opera Singing could be something a sim develops AFTER they've reached level 5 of the base game singing *like cooking and gourmet cooking.
Music is such an intrinsic part of the human experience and something we develop from a very early age. Mothers - even if they consider themselves 'bad' singers, will sing to their little babies. Toddlers are humming and singing to themselves even before learning how to put sentences together.
How to implement as base game:
Toddlers given a complete new skill: Musical. Parents can teach their toddlers nursery rhymes, which they can then sing to themselves to cheer themselves up. Other toddler music can be added via other packs.
Children: are given a new Singing Skill. They can sing the nursery rhymes, and learn new songs called rounds like:
Row row row your Boat
London's Burning
As 'compensation' add sad songs to Karaoke, which when sung can make their audience sad too.
Separate Karaoke and singing in the club section, so if Karaoke is chosen, the club will watch and sing with the machine,
but a regular singing club will choose to sing songs from all the different packs, including the new rounds together (simple harmony).
A singing career can now be added, as it can expand from the base game skill.
Tying it all together from base up will add more depth to this ability.
Diet, happiness, sport - all of these should have an impact on a Sim's life, health and life expectancy.
2. Health system
The Sim's health system should appear in the game. The health of a Sim could change depending on what he eats and what lifestyle he leads. The sim's health could be visualized in the UI. For example, a green heart stands for a healthy heart, a yellow one for a disease, and a red one for a life threatening sim. The same goes for other sensitive parts of the Sim's body, like brain.
3. Sims finances should be more challenging.
Currently, items are too cheap, salaries are too high, and bills are too low. The financial aspect of the game should be more of a challenge.
4. Maybe new skill system?
I think the 10 lvl skill system is not challenging and little obsolete. And higher skill levels are not rewarding enough. Maybe skills should have less levels but could be more harder to get and more rewarding. Maybe something more similar to The Sims 2 Open for Business and Free Time badges?
5. Better aspiration system. Many people above told enough about this.
6. More children and teenagers activities!
7. More school activities and a better school system. At the moment, the school is for nothing. It gives us nothing. There is no challenge, getting bad grades is harder that getting good ones and getting bad grades are not punishable.
8. Relationships definetly needs some depth and upgrade.
What would definitely improve the game in my view:
- More traits and aspirations, with impact on Sim's daily life. For example, my Clumsy Sim is getting fitness skill as fast as a Sim without this trait. Aspirations are too easy to fulfill and too few.
- Would like to have the real diving option in Sulani, like in Sims3. With an aspiration related to it.
- We need babies, not objects.
- Sims chemistry - based on traits or like/dislikes they should have a positive or negative start of the relationship
- Lot traits should have a bigger impact on the Sims life and also environment. To me it is weird that Reduce and Recycle does not have any impact on the eco footprint. .
- Cats and dogs - stopped playing them. I need to see their needs. And honestly I was expecting the CoL will bring new interactions between pets and wild animals as well as new features (cats fishing from ponds, dogs chasing off foxes, etc).
- More likes and dislikes, including favorite drink/food.
- Burglars and Repo-man.
- Bachelor parties, honeymoon trips.
- A family album where you can see the pictures of babies, holidays, etc.
- Holidays homes/second home.
- Please rework the moodlets. All energized sims are doing push-ups no matter where they are, very unrealistic.
- Bringing back the skill journal would be great; would bring more challenges which currently are completely missing.
Thanks again and have a great day!
Now sims start with a wardrobe that is full. It would be better that in the beginning it was limited to some items. Clothes should also have different price tags.
There should be many more opinions for presents. For example buying and giving some jewelery, selecting from a range of flower bouqets and sending them to your interest.
Managing shops and restaurants should be improved. Sims work hard 20 hours a day with their entire family and still don't earn enough at a restaurant. Also a restaurant can't bring money autonomously.
All clothes is the same price, so a wedding gown sells at a price of a t-shirt. The mechsnics for business should be improved. There should be different level of the business with some challenges and tasks for each level.
First of all English isn't my native language so I hope there won't be to much mistakes in my post!
There is a lot that could be improved in my opinion, especially in relation to family gameplay, personality and genetics. But my main concern is with the genetics system. I am always bummed out when I play with generations because of the lack of depth in the genetics system and I enjoy playing with generations the most.
The genetics system lacks a lot of depth and that's pretty frustrating if you want to play over more than two generations.
As far as I have recognized Sims won't get any genetic features of the face, body, hair color, eye color or anything else from grandparents or even further ancestors (like great-grandparents and so on). And I think that's something that destroys a lot of possible depth for generation players. Especially for those who love to see how the genetics evolve over generations. How cool would it be if a child would have red hair because one of their ancestors had them, but none of their parents?
Also it would be nice if a child would have their mothers nose form but their fathers nose size or even a nose (or anything else) that's a mixture between those two. Like the father had a big nose, the mother a little and the child would have a middle sized one. Although I'm not sure if that would be very realistic, but the inheriting of genetics from grandparents and other ancestors would be pretty important and would help to deepen the generation gameplay a lot in my opinion. Because you could see the forefathers of your starter sims and other sims of the different generations in your current generation. And it would be so cool if your sim (A) would have a child with another sim (B) which you never played before and the child would get genetic features of the grandparents of sim B!
And to add to this, facial features, teeth and so on should be part of the genetics system as well. Especially freckles. I don't get at all why they aren't. :o
Maybe I'll add some more ideas if I have the time, but that's the most important stuff in my mind at the moment! Also most of the personality and family gameplay ideas I would have where already posted anyway! :)
I'm happy to see there's a forum opened for feedback and I'm glad I still have time to write this, hope Simgurus really read this. I'm not a native English speaker so sorry if there's a lot of grammar error. This feedback is not necessary for The Sims 4 but can be used as an improvement for The Sims 5. For easier reading, I'll sort it into few points and keep it on topic.
All I can say is developers need to make everything rewarding. Eating Vegetable Casserole is not the same as eating level 1 Garden Salad. Fishing some rare fish can be challenging and it is a required ingredient to cook something that provides tons of positive buff for hours. Poorer sims that work harder will be rewarded by being able to afford good-looking outfit (may provide Fame gain), appliances, owning community lots, access to better community lots, etc.
Sometimes I really wish to get involved directly or working to develop The Sims game.
I hope that all this feedback is helpful, thank you!
At the moment the game feels very geared towards a very young audience, who do have the tendency to give up if they deem things to difficult and prefer the easy route but it’s the left the game with no challenge and leaves out those older fans or those who want to make their sims life a bit more difficult. There have been come good features removed or toned down as some didn’t like it.
I think part of the issue lies within the sims themselves. Being limited to only 3 traits, especially if you don’t have the full collection of DLC, means that all sims are very similar, even with the newly added likes & dislikes. Sims can have conflicting likes/dislikes and personality traits and still be BFFS within minutes. There isn’t a challenge in making friends with other sims and it doesn’t really reflect real life. In everyday life you will meet people who you just don’t jell with. Having more traits to pick from and the sims being able to have more traits would improve this dramatically. The traits also need a review. There are some, like vegetarian, which I never use as they don’t really bring anything to the game. Dietary related ‘traits’ should be treated more as a like/dislike.
I believe having an attraction system, like TS2 and TS3, and increasing the amount of a traits a sim could have would improve this greatly. Need to be friends with a co-worker to get a promotion? Oh dear they have conflicting traits to your sim so you need to work extra hard. Oh you really fancy the neighbour across the street? Unfortunately, you’re not their type. So how does the player get a round this? Work on changing their sim or move on and explore the worlds to find someone else?
Career progression is also very easy. I very rarely get any chance cards and the ones I go get are normally ‘SIMS life will go on unaffected’ or ‘SIM will be fired’ which don’t really excite me. I would like more choices and more difficult scenarios. There should be more challenge to get that promotion, especially as your sim climbs the career ladder. It shouldn’t just be get to level x of whatever skill and fill out reports every day. Dinner with the boss/colleagues, have 10 friends/enemies. Even if they had to interview for it and prep for that interview, whether that be for a new job or a promotion at their existing one.
There doesn’t seem to be many hurdles to stop the sims from having a perfect life. I can be playing TS1, TS2 & TS3 for an hour and get fires, natural disasters, burglars, chance cards, random challenges etc. but this doesn’t happen within the sims 4 to that degree.
Expanding lot challenges or adding a challenge to a whole neighbourhood/world. Some worlds would have higher priced lots/ bills / services. Reminiscent of the TS1 where some of all always tried to get to that big mansion on the hill.
Having complete story progression going on around your family (even if it’s an option you can turn on and off) would also add an exciting element to the game. Your sims friends are having a hard time, those with the jealous trait would hate to see your sim succeed so they fall out with your sim. Your sims with the jealous trait could likewise hate to see others succeed.
Ultimately, to me, the name of the game is sim life fulfilment (or lack of fulfilment depending on the simmer). It’s far too easy with no real reward at the end. Sims that experience a happier life compared to those that don’t (perhaps based off the emotions they’ve felt over their lifetime) should get more of a reward at end of life (or a longer life with a nice natural death), whereas a sim who has experienced an unhappier life would be more at risk of an accidental death or earlier death. It would be a challenge to take a sim who had a ‘bad’ childhood to turn the life around and make it as good as possible (traits allowing) or vice versa.
The game is a life simulator and making it more real life would be an improvement. Expanding loans that came with DU. You could take a loan but face the consequences of not repaying it (repo men which are already in the game!)
No doubt you think we’re broken records at this point by continually referring to previous games in the franchise but they’re the reason why so many people have been lifelong fans of the game. Looking back and taking elements of the past games that you know the community loved isn’t a bad thing. It’s a formula you know works. Looking at popular mods would also give you an indication of what simmers are looking to add to their game.
Thank you for reading!
Theres one other thing that I feel limits the gameplay EXTREMELY and takes away a lot of possible depth to the game.
-- Open Neighbourhoods --
1. current Problem: You can only concentrate on one sim at a time. The control options for Sims that are currently not on the lot are really limited. Whenever I play the game I feel like I'm missing out so much because it just sucks to visit a lot that is literally door to door with your house.
Take for example eco living, there is that community lot where you can use the candle making station and other "crafty" stuff. Going there doesn't make sense for every Sim, but leaving the other Sims at home is not ideal either, because sometimes you spend hours on the community lot to complete something, but you also want your other Sims from the household to succeed in life. So normally you end up adding random items like a computer to this community lot just so you can play with the whole household at the same time. Or visiting a household because ONE of your Sims is friends with one the Sims from that other household. You literally have to put the rest of your Sims on hold, bc it makes no sense bringing them over. This is ridiculous and makes the game not fun. Especially because the surrounding neighbourhood for the lots are exactly the same!
Take it from the real world: visiting your neighbour, you have to only walk over there (few steps minimum), but visiting another town/world you have to get in a car/train/bus whatever, so a loading screen somehow makes sense. But not for the house next door.
The worlds don't feel like worlds and the neighborhoods don't feel like neighborhoods.
English is not my first language so I'm having a bit trouble explaining why this would add depth. To sum it up, having non-open neighbourhoods limits the gameplay, as you never will explore everything on the world, as it's just too time consuming. So I feel like you miss out on a lot of stuff you actually put time and energy in creating. In the Sims 3 I loved exploring every detail of the world. Normally you would want every single Sim of yours to succeed (or not) in life, build relationships, have special occasions happening. In the Sims 4 you have to focus on one Sim, or make everyone want the same.
I really hope this feature will be discussed and reconsidered of course with the option to turn it off.
Adoption system deserves some overhaul. First of all, our household would have to fullfil some requirements in order to be able to adopt kids. Social worker (returning NPC) would check the house. Your sims would have to visit kid they want to adopt before they adopt them. You would have to gain a trust of this kid.
Not taking care of kids should have more consequences than just kid disappearing - first of all, kids taken away by social worker will still exist. Your sims would have to face consequences, like not being allowed to have other kids before they go through parenting course or deacrease of relationship with the kid. Your sims could also try to get their kids back.
Foster care
You should add foster care as an alternative for having kids. One big diference between adoption amd foster care would be that ypu wouldn't be able to control the fostered children and that they might leave eventually.
Bring balance to older packs
Emotions and traits - make them matter more
Economy overhaul
Sim challenges
Revisit aspirations - less hand holding
Lifetime challenges, wants, fears and passions
What not to do
- Babies can be a lot more challenging if they are movable. If we could do more with them and they can give different moodlets and emotions to their parents. Parenting is a great gift but is everyone ready or equipped to receive it?
- Toddlers can be more challenging by adding a [teething] stage. As they are, they are easy to handle .. almost too easy unless wild and fussy. What if we have a feverish, fussy child who cries all the time and require a parent presence [and maybe a day off work].
- Children and teens require more reasons to be disciplined. It is not challenging to have a child. It is almost too easy because they eat, shower and do homework [and that’s all] .. unless they made a mess and that’s only when you can have fun .. but how many more messes you can handle .. and after 2 children, it becomes old. So, they need to be children: explore and make mistakes: fights between siblings or friends, sneak out, stealing, start a fire, … etc all requires a parent to lecture them and to punish them. I almost never have a reason to punish my children which is sad – it is a whole system that exists but can’t be used.
- The school: more pop ups and travels to the principal office. Pranks, cheating, not doing homework, stealing .. all punishable at school + add expel period.
- The university acceptance is very easy. How about we get a chance to be rejected. We can’t live in an ideal world were applying to university grants you a seat.
Young adults/adults life:
- More pop ups: the town needs life so more of those pop ups from Randoms. It is easy to live and go around with life but some of the previous added pop ups are amazing. How about more? Have a mysterious flirty text that leads to relationship wedge or spread a rumour about your sim to ruin their reputation [make sims react to it by whispers if seen in public] or have a sim claim someone’s identity then lead to leaked information.
- Work is almost very easy. No chances for demotions, having less pay – basically the money is very easy. A chance pop ups that affect work performance [and add a challenge to achieving excellent] will make it much fun to play. Easy money = easy life = boring
- Sickness: Sims get sick more often by weather changes. My sims used to get sick much easier before but recently: not really. I hardly have any of them sick and that’s sad. Almost no reason to skip work or school = which leads to an easy life = easy money = boring outcome.
- Relationship gains is very easy .. without any system to control emotions or dictate the chemistry between sims .. we can friend everyone and love them easily. A challenge would be to add a factor of difficulty to how relationship develops. Maybe first sentiments affect how the Sims develop the relationship.
- Odd events: events that occur spontaneously that can influence the gameplay like the alien abduction and vampire visit including: burglary, hidden pregnancy, egging the house, random fire in repair lots, ..etc
1. A burglar will challenge the players by adding a source of money loss to the game
2. Hidden pregnancy are those where Sims didn’t test or appear pregnant. They can cause the Sims life to be challenging especially if they were in university or not prepared for a baby.
3. Egging the house can be due to a rumor or a bullying incident or unwelcoming neighbour. Similar to noisy neighbours in apartments > that was challenging.
4. Fires at random times and caused because of poor electrical connections can ruin a Sim sleep, require money to be fixed and damage the property.
5. Weird mail: receiving an interesting or unusual mail item > causing your Sim to be paranoid > make them harder to be calmed > go around their life.
- Lots challenges:
1. insects/rodents’ infestations. That would add lots of challenge to the game.
2. Noisy neighbours added as a lot challenge would be cool for even the regular house.
3. Racoon attack > these lots will suffer from knocked out bins in the morning because the racoons check their garbage bins.
4. Leaking roof: water puddles and no insulations: Sims wake up cold or having flu because of the situation of the house.
5. Bad soil: more insects ruining your plants in this area.
6. Foul smell: Industrial neighbourhoods aren’t enough … have you ever heard of salt lake city?
About CHALLENGES: I think the game need more random and unexpected thinks happen.. currently Sims have to make danger things two, three time to die and this remove the fun because I know what expect... I rather let the game have different outcomes: sometimes they survive and sometime not. (a Sim got electrocuted while repairing a TV.. some will get dazed and some die.. same thing with eat by a cowplant.. Overheated in Sauna.. most of the deaths).. things like burglaries, natural disasters, illnesses (get a disease from get to work don't make diference.. sims get cure so fast.. is so bad), more chance cards (or different choices/outcomes) in jobs and rabbit holes, bad emotions outweighing good.. Making Sims' lives harder will make good things more satisfying.
About DEPTH: Sentiments, Likes and Dislikes has a great step to give more depth and personality for the sims 4, but we need more of those for previous packs. I know if we get more traits (more slots in CAS too), Overhaul whims (Make them more related to Traits, Remove Emotional whims and Things like buy bee box because season) and Lifetime goals (Aspirations don't look like this) the game will offer more options to us create unique Sims ansd Stories. One-Side Relationships, Hobbies and Rework Emotion System (emotion need to be more stable) will help too
I love the sims 4 and I hope we get some of those things
Dag Dag
How about The Sims 5?