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Why didn't the base game come with weather...among other things?

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  • NeiaNeia Posts: 4,190 Member
    @Scobre
    I'm checking regularly too ! I'm just under the 210 cap at the moment (204 if I remember right), so I have culling really often ! I see the number go up and up as the NPCs are created through the week, and then culling happens. I had around 350 before I removed the no culling mod some time ago, with lots of dead NPCs.
  • ScobreScobre Posts: 20,665 Member
    Neia wrote: »
    @Scobre
    I'm checking regularly too ! I'm just under the 210 cap at the moment (204 if I remember right), so I have culling really often ! I see the number go up and up as the NPCs are created through the week, and then culling happens. I had around 350 before I removed the no culling mod some time ago, with lots of dead NPCs.
    Yeah @Neia it is really interesting to check it. I'm learning so much what the MC Command Center can do now. This is like so cool.
    “Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.” –Helen Keller
  • GruffmanGruffman Posts: 4,831 Member
    Neia wrote: »
    Sorry Gruffman, but this is not accurate and since I see there had been some misconception posted, I'm going to provide some info.

    The game is not supposed to delete any of your played/housed Sims, no matter if you have 10, 100 or 400 Sims in your save. If you have more than 210 Sims into your save, NPCs will just be replaced more frequently and you'll be far more likely to see your own played/housed Sims in the public spaces/venues.

    What it is supposed to do and what it does are two separate things. For me, in my game umplayed sims in houses gets culled, regularly and often. The only houses that do not are the ones I either play or have flagged.
  • JoAnne65JoAnne65 Posts: 22,959 Member
    edited May 2016
    @kremesch73 After Late Night, I don't think there was anything bar like in the game before..? I don't know, to be quite honest I've underestimated mixology myself all those years, learned to appreciate it playing my current sim. What I love is that the bars come in different levels and your sim climbs the mixology ladder, by starting at home, then getting invited in a simple cafe to tend the bar, till he's finally skilled enought to perform his tricks in the VIP lounges and nightclubs. For me the open world is very important in that process. The fact that I know where those bars are. Some in the sleazy dock area, the more luxury ones downtown. And then there's the bar on the rooftop of a sky scraper, next to a swimming pool.

    Great you like that skin, I think it's awesome :) And I agree about the coffee...
    Post edited by JoAnne65 on
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  • JoAnne65JoAnne65 Posts: 22,959 Member
    edited May 2016
    JoAnne65 wrote: »
    JoAnne65 wrote: »
    JoAnne65 wrote: »
    Well, I'm just glad that they had an actual mixology skill added into the game rather than just adding bars with a random drink. I'm glad that there are different venues that are actually somewhat appropriate to go with a date, as there would only be two or three open venues where I can actually interact with them and it makes some sense, the museum, a park, or the beach, and then just clicking on buildings and waiting for the bar at the top of the screen to finish.
    You obviously never bought or played the Late Night EP. Or are you referring to the basegame. In that case you're right of course.

    I was referring to just the base game, as they were having a discussion about how in-depth bars (either the object or the venue) were. The object bars themselves definitely got much more than they did in TS3, and that's one thing I'm glad they actually decided to work on rather than giving one generic drink.
    It's true Sims 3 basegame didn't have bars, like Sims 2 basegame didn't have cars and the sequel did (and the sequel sequel didn't but that another subject ;)). I'm not really famliar with the Sims 4 bars to be honest, maybe I haven't given them a proper chance. They were sitting there and chatting. I love the features of the Late Night bars, I also love how that world came with different kind of nichtclubs, all with their own atmosphere.

    They definitely did more with the bars in TS4 base game than 3's. Honestly, I was glad we got more than one instrument in the base, and that there was a lot more to mixology in this. I remember when building houses in 3, I pretty much left bars out of my builds entirely, since they really had no purpose besides a single moodlet.

    Some moodlet ;)

    Again, talking about the base game. :neutral: Do I have to explain myself every time I talk about it?
    No, you don't. Just not interested in comparing basegames at this stage. Sims 3 basegame had a lot of other stuff Sims 4 doesn't have (and still doesn't have). When people compare Sims 2 cars to Sims 3 cars, I won't start yelling "hah, but Sims 3 had them in the basegame!" Because that's entirely irrelevant for those people when they talk about cars.
    Post edited by JoAnne65 on
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  • Sigzy05Sigzy05 Posts: 19,406 Member
    Mstybl95 wrote: »
    Neia wrote: »
    @blueturtleotter
    Perhaps you shouldn't be asking questions like "Why isn't there X ?" or "Is it unreasonable to expect X ?" on a forum if you don't want people anwsering them.

    You can think the game is missing this or that, I don't care. But if you're aren't respecting the fact that others may not miss this or that, then I'm going to care. And if you're trying to "prove" that the game is missing, I'm going to challenge your arguments. Like no, Maxis is probably not telling us anything by releasing free patches when that's a common practice in the video game industry. No, making bars probably wasn't that easy. No, playing a lot of video game doesn't make one "clearly see that The Sims 4 has not had much money or time spent developing it". No, EA isn't giving free things out of goodness either and yes, these free patches have a budget too.

    @kremesch73
    I think the problem is that the improvement discussions are too often based on the premise that the game is lacking/missing something/the standard is low. A premise that isn't shared by everybody. And these improvement discussions are too often missing the fact that what is an improvement is a subjective matter too.

    I've enjoyed playing TS4 on released day, before any patch or DLC, and I'm still enjoying it now with a bunch of patches/DLCs under its belt. I don't think I'm accepting a lower standard here, I'm just lucky the set of features they have chosen for this iteration is suiting me. When people are saying something else should have been in the base game, they are basically changing this set of features. This may or may not be an improvement for me.

    I don't think including a basic weather, instead of whatever they would have removed, would have truly been an improvement for me because I want more than just basic weather. I want a lot of weather, I want customizations, I want seasons, I want interactions with the weather, I want a full EP because Seasons/Weather is something I really like and I want Maxis to expand them a lot, not just include the basic. I don't want just a rain FX.

    Boy...you don't bother reading or comprehending anything anyone posts if you don't like it. Everyone has said basic weather that can be expanded on in a future EP. Heck, they might even bring something new to it since they'd have more time freed up.

    You may have liked the game as is, but that doesn't make it an improvement. An improvement is indicative of an advancement of features. Nothing in this game improved from previous games. You believe what you want, but that doesn't make you right...because these are facts. This is not subjective like you seem to think. Code to code, TS2 and TS3, heck, even TS1 runs circles around TS4. Those games were simulations, had good character design and AI, emotions that actually worked logically, worlds that could be manipulated, terrain tools to help build outside the box, open ended gameplay, and much much more. TS4 dumps all data from background characters and just for good measure deletes them, too. And let's not forget that now it also deletes relationships, even among your played sims. While everything that was happening in previous games was saved and stored to advance the neighborhood, TS4 creates illusions so you think it looks lively and then deletes the data. This game says generate 1 angry sims, 3 joggers, etc. That angry sims isn't angry for a reason. The game just generated a random angry sim. In the previous games, that sims would have been angry because someone provoked him or something actually happened to him. That's the difference. And that is a degradation in technology.

    TS2 has a sims limit if 30K. That's a 10 year old game used by 15 year old computers. You think that by now we'd actually get something that makes use of the processors we have now. But no. The last time I checked, TS4's sim limit was 180. TS2's original sim limit was 1K from the start, they upped it when they realized how many sims and babies players were having.

    Preach!

    People that like this game have all the right to like it, but it's not illogical that most people don't because this game does not improve that much in comparison to previous games, no matter who's responsible for it.
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  • NeiaNeia Posts: 4,190 Member
    Gruffman wrote: »
    Neia wrote: »
    Sorry Gruffman, but this is not accurate and since I see there had been some misconception posted, I'm going to provide some info.

    The game is not supposed to delete any of your played/housed Sims, no matter if you have 10, 100 or 400 Sims in your save. If you have more than 210 Sims into your save, NPCs will just be replaced more frequently and you'll be far more likely to see your own played/housed Sims in the public spaces/venues.

    What it is supposed to do and what it does are two separate things. For me, in my game umplayed sims in houses gets culled, regularly and often. The only houses that do not are the ones I either play or have flagged.

    You're having a bug then. If you have the save file, I'm sure they would be interested in it. There's two new SimGurus who have joined the forum and who are into the QA team : SimGuruNick and SimGuruArvin. They are on twitter too and I've seen them answered questions about bugs.
  • JoAnne65JoAnne65 Posts: 22,959 Member
    aaronjc123 wrote: »
    kremesch73 wrote: »
    Ugh. Stop now! Don't make me install LN yet! I'm still learning the ropes!

    It looks like fun but I'd be cautious when deciding to buy it - the bars in TS3 Late Night are nearly always dead. Community lots were often dead in TS3 though - a downside of the open world feature.
    No, that's the downside of playing with a low end computer.

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    (no mods)
    I do by the way fix those barrier ropes in building mode, making sure everyone can get past (passed....?) them.
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  • Sigzy05Sigzy05 Posts: 19,406 Member
    kremesch73 wrote: »
    JoAnne65 wrote: »
    It's true Sims 3 basegame didn't have bars, like Sims 2 basegame didn't have cars and the sequel did (and the sequel sequel didn't but that another subject ;)). I'm not really famliar with the Sims 4 bars to be honest, maybe I haven't given them a proper chance. They were sitting there and chatting. I love the features of the Late Night bars, I also love how that world came with different kind of nichtclubs, all with their own atmosphere.

    The improvements to the bars are they can make several drinks of their choice and they can order food. Those are nice touches, but at the end of the day, it's still just a bar that really has no affect on the sim whatsoever, unless you want to take the emotional moodlets into account. Behaviour-wise, still no difference. I admit I still like the bars in Sims 1 the best. Until the bars actually affect the sim's behaviour (doubt it will ever happen again), I really don't see a use for them in general (decorating a sims home with them, for example), unless I'm trying to build the mixology skill.

    As Luthien mentioned earlier, the Venue bars are nice places to meet new sims, but given sims are constantly running through the neighbourhoods, it's really not necessary to go to them for that reason. On the other hand, I really liked the bar venues in S4. Maybe it was just the ambience and the fact that I was playing in my own builds. I don't really know. Having the bar venues are also convenient when your sims are hungry. It's fast and efficient.

    When the first December patch broke the bars, I was completely at a loss since they were pretty much my favourite go-to place for single sims. That patch literally destroyed my enjoyment of the game and I didn't touch it for a whole month (until it was fixed). All-in-all, they remained my favourite until I stopped playing altogether. After experiencing them, I realize just how much of an improvement they were.

    Speaking of improvements, there are several in the game, tbh. The problem is that they're mostly just objects that do great things. The gameplay itself is another story.

    You could order food in TS3 too almost as many as in TS4's base game or perhaps more. And sims can have special little interactions with the mixologists, like complain about life or something like that. And I'm not entirely sure but I think sims in TS3 can get juiced.
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  • To7mTo7m Posts: 5,467 Member
    Neia wrote: »
    Feel free to disagree, but at the end of the day The Sims 4 didn't integrate "nightlife" any better than TS3 if you created an identical bar.

    Disagreeing wholeheartedly. The existence of couches and drinking and conversation is nothing like having a venue with NPCs, Sims you don't already know, etc. If you can't even see the difference between staying home and going out to a club where you don't know who else will show up, I give up.

    Really? What do sims do at bars? They drink, which they already do in the game. They sit on chairs, which they already do in game. They dance to music, which they already do in game. They socialise, which they already do in game. Random sims turn up to the bar, which they already do in game.

    The point @drake_mccarty is making is that it took very little time and work for them to add bars to the game because pretty much all of the interactions and behaviours a sim does in a bar are already in the base game. They did not have to create lots of new animations. All the developers had to do was create the venue, the physical bar, and npc barperson.

    Compared to content like pools, where they had to be incorporated into the build mode so that we can customise and create our own; where they had to create new animations and interactions specifically just for pools; it takes more time to create this content. Bars are 95% re-purposed content and that is probably why we got them in the base game: it was cheap to do.

    I specifically said I didn't know how much more development it took than object creation. See my first post on the bar thing. Doesn't make me any less delighted to have had multiple venue types my Sims could go to that aren't family-oriented, so they can get out of the house for grown-up purposes. I also liked the basegame coding that leaned the non-active Sims in the different venue types to emphasize different age groups. Thus was, for me, a great example of not actually needing a whole EP worth of development to get some non-rabbit hole gameplay. I'd have liked a dart board or pool table for the bars in the base game, but that would likely have ended up being st the expense of some other major item because of the amount of animation involved. For me personally the venues added a lot to my right-out-of-the-box storytelling without needing to be expensively produced, and the GT enhancements 15 months later of nightclubs and bars - the animation-heavy enhancements - are a nice-to-have on top of it. But it was great not to have to wait 15 months for the venues. Obviously if you don't value the venues you won't care. But many of us do.

    I don't get how you can be happy you got bars in the base game which are incredibly basic because did not have to wait for them, and were happy that 15 months later they received enhancements, but then had this to say about basic weather:
    ebuchala wrote: »
    Neia wrote: »
    @Mstybl95
    Real life is more rich than a video game, and will always be. So the question is not "what could they put in a Sims game", because there's not a shortage on things they could add. It's more "what is the most important things, the most impactful, the most fun". And "can they do it well enough with the budget they have".

    I prefer the base game to focus on the base, and I prefer them to keep the concept that could really use some more budget for EP, to do them justice. I think weather is one of those.

    This is how I feel about apartments. I want to be able to buy apartment complexes, be the landlord and the live-in super, rent them out, have to deal with broken toilets or be able to upgrade the appliances and plumbing in each unit. And be able to just be a tenant who rents an apartment and can call the manager to have my shower fixed when it breaks, etc.

    I could see them maybe adding the most basic kind of apartments in the base game but not something like what I'd want.

    I have to agree with this. Basegame FX weather would feel like toying with me. And all the more so if we still had to wait years (as always) for full-on experienced seasonal change and weather ... all of those years spent wondering if this was really all we were going to get for weather this time. There's a sense in which it would be more cruel than just never giving us a weather EP. At least this way we're not being taunted.

    Why would you wonder if that was all you were going to get for weather? Did you wonder that was all you were going to get with the bars in the base game?

    My view is that the base game should have the basics of every thing, expect with regards to sim A.I., build mode and CAS which should be fully-developed. Expansions should expand, not add content that should have been there at launch.

    The venues aren't fx or rabbit holes, which might be why in fact I did not wonder if i was gong to get more. Those extras from the EP are, I said, nice to haves, for me, not essentials - I bought the EP for the club system and the world - I was prepared to pass on it until I learned more about those. I was satisfied with the experienced nightlife gameplay in the basegame and happy that it meant j might not end up feeling j had to buy an EP I was disinterested in the rest of just so my Sims could go out like adults at all.

    Yes, expansions should expand etc. Obviously. But there's not an agreed-on-by-all version of what should be in the game at launch. And I'm really having a hard time seeing why it's a bad thing that we got a $60 game with some nightlife. Is if only okay to want weather in the basegame, not nightlife? Is my gameplay not right somehow? I'm supposed to prefer having my Sims drink at home looking out the window at fx weather they can't experience? No thank you.

    Edit: so many typos - autocorrect isn't my friend today and I'm just on my phone. :/

    The point I'm making is that the game should have had basic weather in addition to bars and lots of other features. I believe the only reason we got bars in the base game was because it was cheap and fast for them to do. I don't believe it had anything to do with giving players a feature they love. I know you like the game and I am happy you enjoy it, but others like myself can't enjoy the game because to us, we think things are missing.

    (...)

    Then tell Maxis what you want. Why do you care what others want or don't want ?

    Are you reading the same forum as I am? I believe many of us have been screaming at EA/Maxis for over a year.

    --T
  • luthienrisingluthienrising Posts: 37,617 Member
    edited May 2016
    Gruffman wrote: »
    Neia wrote: »
    Sorry Gruffman, but this is not accurate and since I see there had been some misconception posted, I'm going to provide some info.

    The game is not supposed to delete any of your played/housed Sims, no matter if you have 10, 100 or 400 Sims in your save. If you have more than 210 Sims into your save, NPCs will just be replaced more frequently and you'll be far more likely to see your own played/housed Sims in the public spaces/venues.

    What it is supposed to do and what it does are two separate things. For me, in my game umplayed sims in houses gets culled, regularly and often. The only houses that do not are the ones I either play or have flagged.

    If that's happening, it's either something really odd being done by mods or its a bug that the developers would take very seriously and would want to see save files for. They've asked for saves before for played or housed Sims being deleted. If you could contact @SimGuruNick or ... um ... I've lost track of SimGurus. There's a second new-to-the-forums one in QA too :/@crinrict?

    Never mind! @Neia beat me to it :) But yeah, @SimGuruNick and @SimGuruArvin may well want to see your saves, because that's a Big Bug (if it's not a weird thing mods are making happen, which I suggest ruling out).
    EA CREATOR NETWORK MEMBER — Want to be notified of patches, new Broken Mods threads, and urgent Sims 4 news? Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/luthienrising.
  • knazzerknazzer Posts: 3,382 Member
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  • BrittanyChick22BrittanyChick22 Posts: 2,130 Member
    I agree, it time that certain expansion should be in the game, pets weather,university, are things that should be base game by now. Buying the same expansion over and over is getting old when they can come up with new idea for other expansions.
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  • kremesch73kremesch73 Posts: 10,474 Member
    Neia wrote: »
    kremesch73 wrote: »
    Neia wrote: »
    Sorry Gruffman, but this is not accurate and since I see there had been some misconception posted, I'm going to provide some info.

    There's no cap on the population of your save. You can have as many Sims as you want. There is a cap on the number of NPCs (that is Sims who are unplayed and unhoused), with the game deleting NPCs if your overall population is getting too big. Like some others have already said, this cap before deleting NPCs is now 210. It will only delete sims who are both unplayed and unhoused, no matter if they are alive or dead.

    The game is not supposed to delete any of your played/housed Sims, no matter if you have 10, 100 or 400 Sims in your save. If you have more than 210 Sims into your save, NPCs will just be replaced more frequently and you'll be far more likely to see your own played/housed Sims in the public spaces/venues.

    What has been changed recently (in GT in fact) :
    - Limit on NPCs up from 180 to 210
    - Upon death, played Sims stay played, which preserves the played Sims in the family tree (note : this does not work for Sims who died before GT patch)

    I really feel the relieving the original cap was great. What I don't believe was great was the introduction to relationship culling. Person-to-person (candidly): Do you really feel that move was necesary?

    Personally, I don't care for the length of my loading screens so I don't mind the performance hit. Ideally, I would like an improved version of relationship culling that clean unplayed/unplayed or unplayed/played relationships and keep all the played/played ones, because that's what would fit my playstyle the best (I mostly play with played Sims, and I almost never play with NPCs).

    When the relationship culling was introduced with GT, I liked it in fact, because it cleaned up my relationship panel which was so much crowded with dead NPCs (because of the no culling mod I used at that time). I played around one week happily with the relationship culling, then saw a lot of threads about a "bug" that deleted relationships. It wasn't very complicated to mod it out so I did it and uploaded it. And I'm now using my mod because I prefer to use the mods I've uploaded so I know if something break.

    Now to the question "was it necessary", I can't really answer because I don't have the performance data on the min spec, or which loading screens duration they are aiming for, or what sort of content they are planning to add next. I'm playing on a PC which is over the recommended spec and I don't have any performance problem (more than 200+ Sims in my save, culling active, no relationship culling). But how would that run on a min spec ? I don't know. My loading screens are probably longer, but it's still a hundred time faster than at the end of TS2 so I don't mind, but is it acceptable for the majority of the playerbase ? I don't know either.

    ETA : Regarding your edit, don't forget it's only the NPCs who are limited, not the played Sims ! How many NPCs did we have in TS2 or in TS3 ? And the main change is not the number in my mind, it's the played status on death which means you can keep your family trees.

    Your playstyle sounds very similar to mine. I also didn't mind the culling at first for the same reason. MC made it easy to remove unwanted sims from my panel, but I couldn't remove the ghosts.

    I was happy to have them cleaned out, but I wasn't happy to have sims I was working on befriending cut from the relationships. I also made it a regular habit to cull all unplayed sims on a regular basis. I prefer to only play with my own sims. Always have.

    My loads in S2 were never long. I learned a long time ago to keep community builds small. I found this also mattered in S4. The larger and more cluttered the lot, the longer the load time. As more EPs and GPs are introduced, I suspect those loads will also be affected.

    It's the nature of having a growing database of objects and scenarios behind the scenes.
    Dissatisfied with Sims 4 and hoping for a better Sims 5
  • boguczed1boguczed1 Posts: 170 Member
    My theories would be 1) Viability of Expansion Packs 2) Rushed Release 3) New Fan Criticism 4) Refocusing of the Sims 4 to be more of a "party and hanging out" simulator from the leftover ideas of "Olympus" or The Sims MMO.
  • dirtyDdirtyD Posts: 65 Member
    I hope that by the time The Sims 5 rolls around the base game isn't so bare. I'd like weather, open worlds, a downtown/shopping area, & of course toddlers (never thought I'd have to hope for that after Sims2) to be included in the base game.
  • ZafireriaZafireria Posts: 3,640 Member
    @Scobre how do you check that? I am quite curious to what mine are at.
  • jcp011c2jcp011c2 Posts: 10,859 Member
    I thought it was high time they included the basic weather patterns of rain and snow in the base game, along with basic pets (dogs, cats, birds and fish, even if the last two were objects rather than actual pets), but maybe next iteration if there is one. Honestly it's a double edged sword. Pets and Seasons have traditionally been the sure bet sellers because more people (though not all of course) want those in the game than anything else. Yet at the same time it is getting old paying for them again, this will be four times for pets and three times for weather. Yet if they're not in the base game, they can pretty much count on most people who want them, buying them regardless even if it is getting old.

    I realize I just speak for myself here but it's not so much a cost thing to me as it is just waiting and waiting for these what I consider to be essential elements. I wouldn't even mind paying some extra to get the basic stuff in the base game right away.
    It's kind of sad that I have to point out that anything I say is only just my opinion and may be a different one from someone else.
  • sunman502sunman502 Posts: 18,325 Member
    jcp011c2 wrote: »
    I thought it was high time they included the basic weather patterns of rain and snow in the base game, along with basic pets (dogs, cats, birds and fish, even if the last two were objects rather than actual pets), but maybe next iteration if there is one. Honestly it's a double edged sword. Pets and Seasons have traditionally been the sure bet sellers because more people (though not all of course) want those in the game than anything else. Yet at the same time it is getting old paying for them again, this will be four times for pets and three times for weather. Yet if they're not in the base game, they can pretty much count on most people who want them, buying them regardless even if it is getting old.

    I realize I just speak for myself here but it's not so much a cost thing to me as it is just waiting and waiting for these what I consider to be essential elements. I wouldn't even mind paying some extra to get the basic stuff in the base game right away.
    You are speaking for your self on this. But you are not far from the truth on this one, since Pets and Seasons have always been hot sellers for this Franchise in the past. ;)

  • ScobreScobre Posts: 20,665 Member
    edited May 2016
    Zafireria wrote: »
    @Scobre how do you check that? I am quite curious to what mine are at.
    Probably best to talk about it over here as to not drive this topic OT: http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/837115/need-help-with-mc-command-center-settings-ask-here/ egwarhammer helped me out with it. Sorry @meeon.
    “Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.” –Helen Keller
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