I hope they will add a cheatcode that allows players who wants to control pets can do it as in the sims 2 . End of the discussion. Everybody is winning and no plum dilemma . Does it better with or without control?
They have already stated that there will be no cheat code and I doubt that being built the way they are, mods will not be able to make them playable.
In sims 3 you could control npcs with a genie btw so even there the design of an npc (roommate or visitor) didnt have that limitation.
You can give npcs orders, this has always been the case (--> pets and sims Need to be accessible for Player input after all, otherwise you wouldn't have the Option to Train them etc.). However, it has nothing to do with how they (re-)act autonomously.
Example: In TS2/3/4 there are certain npcs (grim reaper for example) which can be added to your played houshold by using mods. Of course you don't have to do it because there are other ways how you can interact with them (giving them orders etc.). But If you decide to do it, it can result in a corrupted savegame since those npcs break eventually because they can't fulfil their role in an active household anymore (--> AI is producing Errors --> an active "full autonomy"-sim AI is different from the AI npcs have).
Hope this makes sense.
"[...] and everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, then it's not the end."
I hope they will add a cheatcode that allows players who wants to control pets can do it as in the sims 2 . End of the discussion. Everybody is winning and no plum dilemma . Does it better with or without control?
I don't like this idea as it would cripple the potential of pets, it would ruin the purpose of having pets in General and degrade them to just another household-member (in a technically sense) with specific limitations. Boring.
"[...] and everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, then it's not the end."
I don't really mind, but I do mind if we have options. And EA doesn't give us an option here. And how can some people say "I hated ts3 for controllable pets". Ts3 gave us option. If you don't want to control pets, simply turn free will on and what is the problem? As I said, I don't mind, but I want to play the game my way, because it's mine. I really like making my own decisions and either watch my pets do their thing or tell them what to do. It seems like the pets are going to be "moving objects" that you can only interact with and do nothing else. Playing as dog/cat was fun to me tbh, but I also used to turn their free will on from time to time in ts3. Besides, I'm a storytelling gamer and I like the control, but if I feel like it, I want to just see my pets roam the house on their own. I think I just don't trust the AI. Pets should be controllable to for example make them sleep at night instead of running around and slowing the time lapse down (often happened to me in Ts2). Besides, this way only a half of simmers will be satisfied. I have high hopes for a cheat to control them.
Because they can't seem to make it a true option. In Sims 1 and 2 - pets were pets - in Sims 3 pets were a sim, and never completely acted like a pet - the sim-inizing of the pets was akin to me watching a cute flick of animals that talked and behaved like humans - when in fact animals do not think and act like humans at all. Science has proven that. Yes they can love humans, they can even appear sorry for doing wrong - etc but in fact animals do not have that depth of perception of guilt or wrong doing - they just know we are speaking to them in anger or disappointment and react to that. Pets really want us to love them, not make them fear us. Training pets need love and gentle training not anger and harshness.
Well in Sims 3 they were more like pets we visualize them as in movies or some people may even believe they think like humans - even when they don't. The reflect, they may even copy behaviors humans find acceptable only because our response to such "training" makes them happy because pets actually only care to make their companions happy.
How we know this is judge stray dogs or feral cats - who have never had human companionship and you would know they are not human like in thought or behavior, nor do they care to get to know us never mind want to make us happy or anything else. Well there are tons of study done on our dear canine and feline creatures - you can look it up your self - but the fact that sims 3 made the pet controllable for the first time ever (all sims 2 did was speed up training with cheats - not really gave you any more control - you want control - train your pet - don't use cheats so you can use the time to build the trust and relationship of the pet - just like we do in REAL life. Real life has no cheats after all.
The reason we can't have both - well apparently not possible- as we saw in Sims 3 - all we could do is play them as a sim or not - but the not playing them as a sim did not make them even close to being like they were in Sims 1 and 2 - it was like in Sims 3 you scolded them a few times or taught them a couple times and they had the feats mastered. In sims 3 we called it "dumbing down the game and the sims". They were not programmed to learn - it was definitely just programmed - with next to no training needed. Pets need to be like pets and lovingly trained. Yes there was training there - but it was truly superfiscial. So if they could not offer the pet as a pet versus the pet as the Sims option - then I would rather not have that option at all.
I like a pet to be a pet. After all those movies where pets talk, think and act human is cute - but lets face it - they don't do any of that. Pets do what they do out of love and affection for their pack - and in the wild for survival - there is nothing in between true realistic pets.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
The Problem is that People assume npcs behave just like ordinary sims with "free will on". It's just not the case and completely false. As soon as you make npcs playable their "behavior Ai" gets overwritten.
"[...] and everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, then it's not the end."
In sims 3 you could control npcs with a genie btw so even there the design of an npc (roommate or visitor) didnt have that limitation.
You can give npcs orders, this has always been the case (--> pets and sims Need to be accessible for Player input after all, otherwise you wouldn't have the Option to Train them etc.). However, it has nothing to do with how they (re-)act autonomously.
Example: In TS2/3/4 there are certain npcs (grim reaper for example) which can be added to your played houshold by using mods. Of course you don't have to do it because there are other ways how you can interact with them (giving them orders etc.). But If you decide to do it, it can result in a corrupted savegame since those npcs break eventually because they can't fulfil their role in an active household anymore (--> AI is producing Errors --> an active "full autonomy"-sim AI is different from the AI npcs have).
Hope this makes sense.
Exactly right - it is the biggest cause of game corruption is adding these game controlled NPCs to your household because they are not a true sim - they are a IU game controlled object actually required by the games programming to be in the game doing what it is programmed to do. Eventually messing with those characters will corrupt your game period and all your saves even.
So never a good idea. Just because one can do something is not always a good idea to do it - especially when it comes to programming and pcs.
Great point HalloMolli.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
I hope they will add a cheatcode that allows players who wants to control pets can do it as in the sims 2 . End of the discussion. Everybody is winning and no plum dilemma . Does it better with or without control?
I don't like this idea as it would cripple the potential of pets, it would ruin the purpose of having pets in General and degrade them to just another household-member (in a technically sense) with specific limitations. Boring.
Another great point and we saw the results of that in Sims 3. I love Sims 3 but let's face it - the pets were boring - I didn't even have cats and dogs in my households because of it - and even as much as I love horses, I had few households with those as well.
I am anti breeding animals for money so I will never see the point of simmers saying they want to just breed the animals to sell. That sort of infuriates me when I hear this ... but that's another story and not appropriate in this forum for sure. But Sims 3 - pets were never as fun as Sims 1 and 2 pets were. I felt sad the dogs and cats lost that reality feel in Sims 3. But I did enjoy a few horses as I said. Seeing we had never had them before in Sims is what made them feel okay and fun to play.
Also I never use cheats in games so I never used any pet cheats in Sims 2. I have tons of pets in my Sims 2 games also.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
In sims 3 you could control npcs with a genie btw so even there the design of an npc (roommate or visitor) didnt have that limitation.
You can give npcs orders, this has always been the case (--> pets and sims Need to be accessible for Player input after all, otherwise you wouldn't have the Option to Train them etc.). However, it has nothing to do with how they (re-)act autonomously.
Example: In TS2/3/4 there are certain npcs (grim reaper for example) which can be added to your played houshold by using mods. Of course you don't have to do it because there are other ways how you can interact with them (giving them orders etc.). But If you decide to do it, it can result in a corrupted savegame since those npcs break eventually because they can't fulfil their role in an active household anymore (--> AI is producing Errors --> an active "full autonomy"-sim AI is different from the AI npcs have).
Hope this makes sense.
When you use a genie to ensorcel a sim they get added to your household temporarily and you can fully control them. It's not like giving them orders or anything. No mods needed and it doesn't corrupt your game in any way. So for NPCs the mechanic is there, even for butlers or maids. Just saying it exists, so when we purely speak about possibility it is possible to create a cheat (or mod) to be able to control them. Sims 3 corrupts in many ways though, I'll give you that. I have to use plenty of mods to keep my game from lagging out/crashing over time. I never tried to ensorcel grim reaper though so I don't know about that one. In Sims 2 the pets were very autonomous and I never really heard anyone complain much about them not being autonomous enough except for bugs when they refuse to eat etc. But that was the AI messing up, not because they are actually sims that need to be controlled. That can happen in Sims 4 as well. In sims 2 we had a cheat though, so even though the pets were designed not to be controlled, they added the option for whoever desired this freedom anyways. They could've done that with Sims 4, but they didn't. Probably because of their limited budget as I have speculated before which is EA's fault. But it has been the general direction of Sims 4 altogether to cater more towards people who play the game like an RPG and less towards people who use it as a sandbox to make their own creations (stories, builds, sims, screenshots, movies).
In sims 3 you could control npcs with a genie btw so even there the design of an npc (roommate or visitor) didnt have that limitation.
You can give npcs orders, this has always been the case (--> pets and sims Need to be accessible for Player input after all, otherwise you wouldn't have the Option to Train them etc.). However, it has nothing to do with how they (re-)act autonomously.
Example: In TS2/3/4 there are certain npcs (grim reaper for example) which can be added to your played houshold by using mods. Of course you don't have to do it because there are other ways how you can interact with them (giving them orders etc.). But If you decide to do it, it can result in a corrupted savegame since those npcs break eventually because they can't fulfil their role in an active household anymore (--> AI is producing Errors --> an active "full autonomy"-sim AI is different from the AI npcs have).
Hope this makes sense.
When you use a genie to ensorcel a sim they get added to your household temporarily and you can fully control them. It's not like giving them orders or anything. No mods needed and it doesn't corrupt your game in any way. So for NPCs the mechanic is there, even for butlers or maids. Just saying it exists, so when we purely speak about possibility it is possible to create a cheat (or mod) to be able to control them. Sims 3 corrupts in many ways though, I'll give you that. I have to use plenty of mods to keep my game from lagging out/crashing over time. I never tried to ensorcel grim reaper though so I don't know about that one. In Sims 2 the pets were very autonomous and I never really heard anyone complain much about them not being autonomous enough except for bugs when they refuse to eat etc. But that was the AI messing up, not because they are actually sims that need to be controlled. That can happen in Sims 4 as well. In sims 2 we had a cheat though, so even though the pets were designed no to be controlled, they added the option for whoever desired this freedom anyways. They could've done that with Sims 4, but they didn't. Probably because of their limited budget as I have speculated before which is EA's fault. But it has been the general direction of Sims 4 altogether to cater more towards people who play the game like an RPG and less towards people who use it as a sandbox to make their own creations (stories, builds, sims, screenshots, movies).
That budget you mentioned is not a money budget but an automation/programmer budget - and technically the eps get the biggest budget - so it is pretty unlikely it was an animation/programming deficient budgeted for the ep. Money wise the Sims 4 has a large budget and can fairly easily get more - but as the dev tried to explain about the Sims 4 budget now a dozen times that no one seems to get - is it is about animator and programmer hours allotted to each type of game - like they keep saying you can ask for more money and get it from EA if your money budgets run low, but there are just so many hours in a day and EA cannot give the day more hours. Animations and programming is the largest time consuming part of creating the different kind of packs - so if they say they had reached their budget limit, which I have never heard of them doing in an ep to be honest - then that could have been a factor perhaps only if it required changes to the game engine itself or very base programs that might have affected far more of the game than just the new pets. But honestly if you saw them mention the budget being an issue - (I must have missed that convo) would you have a link - as I am very curious. Personally I don't think it was an issue at all - as they did say they discussed it thoroughly and drew from the feedback over the years. So they had the option in my view to go either way, but decided to go they did. So my guess not a hourly budget deficient. Of course that is just a deduction on my part from what the devs had said.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
In sims 3 you could control npcs with a genie btw so even there the design of an npc (roommate or visitor) didnt have that limitation.
You can give npcs orders, this has always been the case (--> pets and sims Need to be accessible for Player input after all, otherwise you wouldn't have the Option to Train them etc.). However, it has nothing to do with how they (re-)act autonomously.
Example: In TS2/3/4 there are certain npcs (grim reaper for example) which can be added to your played houshold by using mods. Of course you don't have to do it because there are other ways how you can interact with them (giving them orders etc.). But If you decide to do it, it can result in a corrupted savegame since those npcs break eventually because they can't fulfil their role in an active household anymore (--> AI is producing Errors --> an active "full autonomy"-sim AI is different from the AI npcs have).
Hope this makes sense.
When you use a genie to ensorcel a sim they get added to your household temporarily and you can fully control them. It's not like giving them orders or anything. No mods needed and it doesn't corrupt your game in any way. So for NPCs the mechanic is there, even for butlers or maids. Just saying it exists, so when we purely speak about possibility it is possible to create a cheat (or mod) to be able to control them. Sims 3 corrupts in many ways though, I'll give you that. I have to use plenty of mods to keep my game from lagging out/crashing over time. I never tried to ensorcel grim reaper though so I don't know about that one. In Sims 2 the pets were very autonomous and I never really heard anyone complain much about them not being autonomous enough except for bugs when they refuse to eat etc. But that was the AI messing up, not because they are actually sims that need to be controlled. That can happen in Sims 4 as well. In sims 2 we had a cheat though, so even though the pets were designed no to be controlled, they added the option for whoever desired this freedom anyways. They could've done that with Sims 4, but they didn't. Probably because of their limited budget as I have speculated before which is EA's fault. But it has been the general direction of Sims 4 altogether to cater more towards people who play the game like an RPG and less towards people who use it as a sandbox to make their own creations (stories, builds, sims, screenshots, movies).
That budget you mentioned is not a money budget but an automation/programmer budget - and technically the eps get the biggest budget - so it is pretty unlikely it was an animation/programming deficient budgeted for the ep. Money wise the Sims 4 has a large budget and can fairly easily get more - but as the dev tried to explain about the Sims 4 budget now a dozen times that no one seems to get - is it is about animator and programmer hours allotted to each type of game - like they keep saying you can ask for more money and get it from EA if your money budgets run low, but there are just so many hours in a day and EA cannot give the day more hours. Animations and programming is the largest time consuming part of creating the different kind of packs - so if they say they had reached their budget limit, which I have never heard of them doing in an ep to be honest - then that could have been a factor perhaps only if it required changes to the game engine itself or very base programs that might have affected far more of the game than just the new pets. But honestly if you saw them mention the budget being and issue - would you have a link - as I am very curious. Personally I don't think it was an issue at all - as they did say they discussed it thoroughly and drew from the feedback over the years. So they had the option in my view to go either way, but decided to go they did. So my guess not a hourly budget deficient. Of course that is just a deduction on my part from what the devs had said.
EA could always push back the deadline... but since consumers these days are super impatient, games have been suffering quality wise because of deadlines. I'd rather see our developers work longer on a game or expansion to get higher quality content than getting something new every 6 months and it being 'half finished' because they couldn't afford more development hours.
Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed is another wonderful example of this tragedy. Because Ubisoft desperately wanted to have a new Assassin's Creed game every year, for example Assassin's Creed Unity had to be released while it wasn't even finished yet (there were still a huge amount of bugs that needed to be fixed).
Final Fantasy on the contrary (Square Enix) is a beautiful example of how the developers don't bother with tight deadlines and make sure they have high quality nearly finished content first before they decide on a release date. The latest Final Fantasy (XV) took 8 years to make. I waited patiently for those 8 years and they did deliver an amazing game in the end that lived up to a lot of expectations, instead of going for an earlier release and disappointing many because they couldn't add everything they wanted to add.
Also I said it's speculation from my part I don't have links or proof about the budget moneywise (I never stated it as a fact I always said 'I suspect' or 'I speculate') . I think they had a limited budget in the beginning when they designed Sims 4 to begin with (and thus the engine). I THINK EA spent most of their budget on the new Dragon Age instead which was released around the same time and had a way more expensive development cost. But it's just thoughts. Based on past experiences like how they messed up with Mass Effect Andromeda (also a deadline issue). I never claimed them to be facts.
I hope they will add a cheatcode that allows players who wants to control pets can do it as in the sims 2 . End of the discussion. Everybody is winning and no plum dilemma . Does it better with or without control?
I don't like this idea as it would cripple the potential of pets, it would ruin the purpose of having pets in General and degrade them to just another household-member (in a technically sense) with specific limitations. Boring.
Another great point and we saw the results of that in Sims 3. I love Sims 3 but let's face it - the pets were boring - I didn't even have cats and dogs in my households because of it - and even as much as I love horses, I had few households with those as well.
I am anti breeding animals for money so I will never see the point of simmers saying they want to just breed the animals to sell. That sort of infuriates me when I hear this ... but that's another story and not appropriate in this forum for sure. But Sims 3 - pets were never as fun as Sims 1 and 2 pets were. I felt sad the dogs and cats lost that reality feel in Sims 3. But I did enjoy a few horses as I said. Seeing we had never had them before in Sims is what made them feel okay and fun to play.
Also I never use cheats in games so I never used any pet cheats in Sims 2. I have tons of pets in my Sims 2 games also.
Sorry to just pick at one thing, but breeding and selling pets in the sims is much different than real life... Breeding to sell in RL bothers me too but this is just a game. I never had a pet store in sims 2, I'd breed them and put them up for adoption and cheat money as "selling" them, only if my sim had the aspiration to raise 20 puppies or kittens of course. But I wouldn't do this in RL at all!!
This has to be a joke. Like why on Earth would not being able to control your pet be a GOOD thing?
I don't understand, either. This franchise is becoming more and more like a non-interactive aquarium or a virtual snow globe that you're supposed to shake up and squee while things move on your screen.
I don't really see it as either a good or bad thing its just I never liked having pets to control in 3. To me they always felt like dumber and more needier sims. I like the challange of guiding them in the right direction instead of being able to fix their needs yourself.
Of course, you and those who feel the same don't think of it as good or bad because you are biased. You view things only from your own perspective and have no empathy as to how other play styles have been completely left out or altered in an undesirable way. Your attitude is one of 'it's all about me' instead of us as a Sims community together.Why can't we all enjoy the game? Naturally, not everyone can be pleased and this is obvious but TS4 intentionally caters to only a few play styles and audience, unlike previous Sims games that catered to ANYONE and EVERYONE.
This issue is easily solved by giving control to players as much as possible. Highly unlikely with such a limited game engine with the TS4 though.
I do remember a SimGuru talking about that back during TS3 forum days how they wanted to give players more options. But what happened? Sometimes I wonder if it is indeed the developer's vision or someone else's above being forced on a franchise that was already successful because of the growing foundation. But now, not so anymore, not to me. All hope and faith is lost with the future of The Sims. If it's not going to continue to progress and advance then what's even the point in playing with old and limited features/gameplay when I can go back anytime and play a real in-depth Sims game like TS2/TS.
I can't suppress exactly that feeling (bold) and I must add this feeling gets enkindled now that I find myself at the side of the Sims 4 fans relating the content (pets you can't control). The attitude to completely overrule any form of objection or doubt is very unpleasant and utterly selfish. "I'm happy and I don't care about anything else than that, the other option is complete garbage and dumb and everybody who doesn't think so is a whiner."
Makes you not want to bother yet every new pack release you come by with a lot of criticism for a game you don't play. To each is own I suppose.
I have all expansions up until this one, all GPs up until Parenthood, all SPs up until the one with butlers. I would like to BE ABLE to play it. I would also like for expansions to one up the previous ones.
I see autonomous animals just deepening the games problems and knowing how badly AI functions in mine, I think that letting them be controllable would be the right choice. I wish that they solved file decay so that I would not have to worry about that and be able to join in on the content that I think is well made (parenthood is pretty well made), however, it makes the decay worse. Children in general speed up save file decay.
Also EA won't refund it, so the very least I'm allowed to express my opinion.
The thing is @mirta000, what you want is actually not possible, even in Sims 2. What I mean is at some point the saves will run out. They will get too large for the game. Everything in software has limits. Everything in computing has limits. When you talk about having great, great, great, great, great, great, etc. You are pushing it too far. It is not infinite and that is the way it is. I ran my same Sims 2 save for over ten years, but in the end, it started to give out. I could only load one family per session and then shut down. That when I knew it was over for that save.
In some games other than Sims if you mod your game or use certain cheats there is no reversal code, if you want to revert back you have to reinstall and you can't even put saves that was saved while playing the modified game. This one reason I do not use mods in any of my games unless I understand that modding the game will not ruin the structure of the game and can be reversed w/o reinstalling, it was great when I was l first was learning how to use computers but now it is a drag.
Post edited by Goldmoldar on
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I like the fact that they are not controllable. There are other things that make me more sad/frustrated, like the clipping/glitching collar on long haired cats and the fact that you can still only have 8 sims/pets in one household.
I am still very happy that we get pets though.... will have to kick out my children and no collars for my fluffy cats
When you use a genie to ensorcel a sim they get added to your household temporarily and you can fully control them. It's not like giving them orders or anything. No mods needed and it doesn't corrupt your game in any way. So for NPCs the mechanic is there, even for butlers or maids.
I understand, but as soon as those sims get added to your household they lose their special behavior. It's when they become "ordinary" sims, isn't it? Or do the maid, butler etc. still keep his/her Profession while being active in your household?
In Sims 2 the pets were very autonomous and I never really heard anyone complain much about them not being autonomous enough except for bugs when they refuse to eat etc. But that was the AI messing up, not because they are actually sims that need to be controlled.
Again: it's not about whether they are autonomous (enough) or not. From a dev Point of view It's about to get the best possible result when providing pets (!) (not animals per se) for a game which revolves around a Simulation of a sims' life.
I brought the grim reaper example up to Show that Player interference ( in other words: having pets as an active household-member) denies their potential/behavior.
AI without the requirement of being accessible for direct Control can be coded efficiently to suit its purpose.
In sims 2 we had a cheat though, so even though the pets were designed no to be controlled, they added the option for whoever desired this freedom anyways. They could've done that with Sims 4, but they didn't.
We have two Options on this one:
1) NPC AI is not compatible with direct Player Input (architecture/coding is different). So an Adaption wouldn't be very costefficient.
2) They hate you guys.
But it has been the general direction of Sims 4 altogether to cater more towards people who play the game like an RPG and less towards people who use it as a sandbox to make their own creations (stories, builds, sims, screenshots, movies).
I completely disagree. TS4 has been build as a sandbox experience from the beginning (even more than previous iterations).
Let me give you some examples:
- emotions allow the player to have full control over their environment, never before was it possible to have a direct impact on the outcome of npc sim actions and social encounters. The simulation part got toned down in order to expand the sandbox possibilites.
Emotions are a tool, a mechanic which truly does justice to the "you rule" premise of the game. Emotions influence autonomous interactions. I can make a not-played group of sims flirt with each other by setting up the appropriate emotional state for them and voila - it works. In TS1-3 everything was kind of random. I couldn't make two npc sims have a flirty conversation with each other, at least it was not as easy to accomplish as it is now.
- We have access to the townies pool finally and therefore are able to edit or delete them, replace them with our own sims etc.
- Get Together introduced a feature which, IMO, is the best example for sandbox gameplay. For the first time in the franchise you can 'code' your own AI and you can make lot types play out completely differently than they are meant to be. For example: Sims-behavior is determined by the code on the lot itself, meaning: as soon as a sim enters a bar he will priorities different objects than on a museum venue (which makes sense). However, with clubs those restrictions don't matter anymore.
- City Living provides Lot-traits, you can now manipulate your own home, change its conditions and have an impact on the gameplay itself.
Conclusion: After roughly 3 years we have already way more sandbox tools in the game than previous iterations provided in their whole life span.
Post edited by HalloMolli on
"[...] and everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, then it's not the end."
The only thing that really frustrates me now is that there will be no warrior cats clan stories possible. I planned to have four clans live on the island of windenburg and fight and such but with them not being controllable I'm doubtful that they can care for their own needs like they did in Sims 3. As for the rest, well I'll find a way to deal with it.
@Deshong04 Thanks for reminding me of that video. Quote from Grant: "The Sims 3 sort of takes a lot of the best things we loved about the previous Sims games but puts them in an entirely different situation." *sigh* Yes.
Why - first of all I want pets to actually act like pets. Sure it was a short bout of fun to play pets as a Sim but when we had to sacrifice playing a pet as a pet to have the ability to play a pet as a sim - then it lost a lot of the capability of what we could actually do with pets. I am all about QUALITY over quantity. So if there is just a choice of one over the other I preferred the better thought pets games where they were not able to be sims,where instead the whole thought and game play initiative was about the Sims pets as pets..
I would have had no issues with having both had they given both equal attention - but instead we got 2 ways the pets were handled with each just being half plum incorporated. Hey they want to do both, then at least do both thoroughly without cutting so many corners - then I would have supported that. Having tried both I ended up in Sims 3 giving up on having any pets but horses because of this.
But had they made pets as good as they had always been and then added the pets as sims thing in and actually made the pets as capable as sims are - then I could see your points.
What did you miss? What could they have done better with cats and dogs in Sims 3? (I've hardly played my dog in 2 and 4 isn't out yet, I only know 3 pets really) What didn't they do thoroughly in comparison to pets in TS2?
@Deshong04 Thanks for reminding me of that video. Quote from Grant: "The Sims 3 sort of takes a lot of the best things we loved about the previous Sims games but puts them in an entirely different situation." *sigh* Yes.
Why - first of all I want pets to actually act like pets. Sure it was a short bout of fun to play pets as a Sim but when we had to sacrifice playing a pet as a pet to have the ability to play a pet as a sim - then it lost a lot of the capability of what we could actually do with pets. I am all about QUALITY over quantity. So if there is just a choice of one over the other I preferred the better thought pets games where they were not able to be sims,where instead the whole thought and game play initiative was about the Sims pets as pets..
I would have had no issues with having both had they given both equal attention - but instead we got 2 ways the pets were handled with each just being half plum incorporated. Hey they want to do both, then at least do both thoroughly without cutting so many corners - then I would have supported that. Having tried both I ended up in Sims 3 giving up on having any pets but horses because of this.
But had they made pets as good as they had always been and then added the pets as sims thing in and actually made the pets as capable as sims are - then I could see your points.
What did you miss? What could they have done better with cats and dogs in Sims 3? (I've hardly played my dog in 2 and 4 isn't out yet, I only know 3 pets really) What didn't they do thoroughly in comparison to pets in TS2?
Well in previous games you trained the pet to do everything you wanted them to do - and like real pets it took a good deal of training and working with them. Sims 3 - first of all you didn't really have to trained them very much at all - and if you wanted to you didn't have to bother at all just by playing them as a sim - you controlled them to do everything. Reminded me of those robot pets one buys and programs to act like a dog or cat. That was a big complaint of robotic sims in Sims 3 - but I know time spent on training except for maybe tricks and such were really a waste of time if they could fully take care of theirselves without you.
My most annoyance everyday of having a pet dog or cat was time spent looking for them all the time unless I played them as a sim (which I didn't want to do to make them come home). Plus if they were small pets - sometimes they couldn't come home because they couldn't climb up stairs and things - it was just a pain - and upsetting when one nearly has a pet starve to death because they can't come home because a user made park had stairs in it etc.
I get very attached to my sims - it's as bad as having real critters.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
That's beyond a bummer I cannot understand why that would be necessary to take a sim slot when owning a non controllable animal however I know I will be buying the pack for that beautiful looking world if nothing else and the rest well I hope whatever bugs may arise will be able to be be taken care of by mods (as always-)
So let me get this straight? Pets are NPC s in this they can't be controlled.Still, they will take a family slot? Ignoring that we only have eight? Well, this is now looking more downgrade?
Pets took up a slot in Sims 2, but they were not counted in the eight count limit. You could have eight sims, and three pets.
That's beyond a bummer I cannot understand why that would be necessary to take a sim slot when owning a non controllable animal however I know I will be buying the pack for that beautiful looking world if nothing else and the rest well I hope whatever bugs may arise will be able to be be taken care of by mods (as always-)
So let me get this straight? Pets are NPC s in this they can't be controlled.Still, they will take a family slot? Ignoring that we only have eight? Well, this is now looking more downgrade?
Pets took up a slot in Sims 2, but they were not counted in the eight count limit. You could have eight sims, and three pets.
As far we know the limit will stay 8, so seems a little downgrade-y in that regard....
I don't care theyre unplayable but to take a slot AND only allow 8 max is a little frustrating.
If they were able to do options and switches in TS3 and not at all in TS4, we have a serious issue here. Though I suppose we knew that we had a serious issue for a very long while now. Their engine has great amount of limitations when it comes to building this game and it seems that there's no escaping that.
Im sorry, but you can't possibly compare this to an "option or a switch". It's literally coding everything double, making an ui, I can't even think of the amount the work such a "switch" would be.
I mean there's pages and pages of back and forth for every single detail at this game and some of the stuff people use as "evidence" is so reaching at this point. Never in my life have I seen such amount of criticism and analyzing every tiny thing inside and out over a few pixels. I'm just stood here shaking my head wondering why some people still play this game. This isn't by any means me telling anyone to go away, I simply don't understand it anymore.
This year we've gotten toddlers, two very well made gamepacks and now pets is coming. And yes, I know the game has bugs and issues and a badly textured ball pit, but all in all it's been an amazing year. So I'm here, confused, as to why there needs to be such giant debates about the smallest of things. Gonna go enjoy my game, and I wish all of you fun with it as weel.
It sure is a mystery to me why certain players can't understand that people and their opinions tend to be more complex than "i like everything about the game, i play" or "i don't like this and that so i don't play"
I also don't understand why certain users on this forum have a need to insert themselves into spaces not meant for them.
I'm one of the people who usually takes part in those great debates about small things. Do you see me trying to discuss them on threads clearly not dedicated to criticism? No. If people are happy I leave them be. If I'm not happy with something I look for an accurate thread.
Pets being controllable or not may not be a huge deal to you but it is to other people. I'm sorry if this sounds rude, I quoted your post because it's the most recent of this kind but it's not an attack. I just want to say I'm tired of people who happen to be content with the current state of game constantly trying to belittle everyone else. Both stances are equally valid and if you wouldn't invade a thread where people share their happiness by saying "god would you finally stop liking everything so much i just can't understand why you even play this game smh" don't do the same but the other way around.
I wish people kept in mind that opinions are complex. We don't live in a black and white world.
Please don't waste your time telling people that they could be doing anything else than complaining on a forum. You could be doing something else than preaching anything on a forum at all too. It's a forum, it's a time filler to begin with, we all could be doing something else.
This is a vague thread, even the OP stated they're not sure how the feel about the issue. All kinds of opinions have their place here. It's honestly plain rude at this point to be like "oh come on". State your opinion and go. Not a place to discuss how divided the community is. There are other places where you can do that. Here we're discussing a specific issue. I'm tired of debates about the community starting literally everywhere.
And on topic, people are making very valid points about the faulty AI in TS4 possibly breaking the EPs playability in a way and that definitely worries me. I can't decide if their decision to make pets uncontrollable was an attempt at preventing that from happening or another mistake that'll highlight the issue. If we can't control pets though i don't know what to think of them taking up the same slot a human sim would. There are currently too many questions that need answers.
Just like OP i'm also more concerned that we're not even getting a pet mouse or anything. But whether gameplay in this EP will be satisfying or not we have yet to see.
People can answer and debate all they want. It is not for you to tell them to take a hike because they don't agree or you want a thread to stay completely negative because that is indeed what you are saying. Most reply in thread like this to keep them from spiraling down to the totally negative. There are more than a few on this forum who would like nothing better than to present Sims 4 as a "downgrade" just because it does not have the features they want. I am sorry but those of us who disagree have the right to present the other side and to remind anyone new that comes by that those opinions are NOT universal.
I completely disagree. TS4 has been build as a sandbox experience from the beginning (even more than previous iterations).
Let me give some examples:
- emotions allow the player to have full control over their environment, never before was it possible to have a direct impact on the outcome of npc sim actions and social encounters. The simulation part got toned down in order to expand the sandbox possibilites.
Emotions are a tool, a mechanic which truly does justice to the "you rule" premise of the game. Emotions influence autonomous interactions. I can make a not-played group of sims flirt with each other by setting up the appropriate emotional state for them and voila - it works. In TS1-3 everything was kind of random. I couldn't make two npc sims have a flirty conversation with each other, at least it was not as easy to accomplish as it is now.
- We have access to the townies pool finally and therefore are able to edit or delete them, replace them with our own sims etc.
- Get Together introduced a feature which, IMO, is the best example for sandbox gameplay. For the first time in the franchise you can 'code' your own AI and you can make lot types play out completely differently than they are meant to be. For example: Sims-behavior is determined by the code on the lot itself, meaning: as soon as a sim enters a bar he will priorities different objects than on a museum venue (which makes sense). However, with clubs those restrictions don't matter anymore.
- City Living provides Lot-traits, you can now manipulate your own home, change its conditions and have an impact on the gameplay itself.
Conclusion: After roughly 3 years we have already way more sandbox tools in the game than previous iterations provided in their whole life span.
The way I see it the emotion system limits my possibilities to be creative and tell the stories I want. I had to download a few mods that would tone down the emotions because my sims were ALWAYS overjoyed about literally everything and they exaggerated every single situation. The implementation is horrible as well. I just played Sims 4 today and my sim had the most random moodswings that would mess up her entire face and stature even though there was no clear reason as to why she had to act like she was nearly dying. While i was super excited for the emotions when they advertised it before the release and indeed thought it would enrich the possibilities of storytelling, in fact now I can't tell the stories I want anymore without using pose packs or mods to tone down all the extreme emotions. Also, in sims 3 the sims show a LOT of emotions but in a way more subtle matter that is way more realistic. The sims 3 moodlets would definitely have an effect on your sim, but not in the ridiculous way it does in Sims 4. If you claim that Sims 3 sims had no emotions, you clearly never zoomed in while you played. Here's just a small example of my sim thinking about his dead mother:
If only sims 4 sims had expressions like that... not to mention the fact a sims 4 sim will be completely fine 5 minutes after their mother died if they look at a playful painting and walk around like the death never happened. in Sims 3 at least the moodlet would stay for a couple of days and no matter how happy you made them with positive moodlets, they would still stop to cry about the death once in a while.
I have the Get Together expansion but I truly don't see how it enriches creativity? It's just another roleplay expansion that allows you to roleplay as being part of a certain club. The choices of clubs are limited as well so it's not like you can create any kind of character you want with this expansion and enrich them like you can with the way more detailed trait system of the Sims 3.
I'm talking about creativity, not gameplay. I'm talking about creating stuff. About creating stories and screenshots or building a house in any way you desire. They took that away by taking a way a LOT of freedom we do have in the Sims 3. Creat-a-Style being an example of it, the open world another (it breaks immersion). That City Living enriches your gameplay is great for you, but in what way does it allow for more freedom and creativity? It doesn't. On the contrary, it adds a trait to a building taking it out of its neutral state and limiting you even more to a certain stereotype.
Is it confirmed anywhere that pets would still take up the count/slot as a family member as I thought with them not being controllable it would not work that way?
Completely forgot about that. Yup, it really show how many downgrades this iteration made with this returning expansion pack, not that I'm surprised.
In this case how is that a downgrade? It’s literally been in every Pets EP we’ve ever had. Pets have always taken a household slot. I didn’t expect any different.
In TS2 and TS3, it took a new slot. But in TS4, it doesn't. Meaning you could only have in TS4 a household consisting of even half of four/ pets and four sims, but no more. [/quote
I did not get that impression. You are now making things up to justify your rant. Really need to chill.
Comments
They have already stated that there will be no cheat code and I doubt that being built the way they are, mods will not be able to make them playable.
You can give npcs orders, this has always been the case (--> pets and sims Need to be accessible for Player input after all, otherwise you wouldn't have the Option to Train them etc.). However, it has nothing to do with how they (re-)act autonomously.
Example: In TS2/3/4 there are certain npcs (grim reaper for example) which can be added to your played houshold by using mods. Of course you don't have to do it because there are other ways how you can interact with them (giving them orders etc.). But If you decide to do it, it can result in a corrupted savegame since those npcs break eventually because they can't fulfil their role in an active household anymore (--> AI is producing Errors --> an active "full autonomy"-sim AI is different from the AI npcs have).
Hope this makes sense.
I don't like this idea as it would cripple the potential of pets, it would ruin the purpose of having pets in General and degrade them to just another household-member (in a technically sense) with specific limitations. Boring.
Because they can't seem to make it a true option. In Sims 1 and 2 - pets were pets - in Sims 3 pets were a sim, and never completely acted like a pet - the sim-inizing of the pets was akin to me watching a cute flick of animals that talked and behaved like humans - when in fact animals do not think and act like humans at all. Science has proven that. Yes they can love humans, they can even appear sorry for doing wrong - etc but in fact animals do not have that depth of perception of guilt or wrong doing - they just know we are speaking to them in anger or disappointment and react to that. Pets really want us to love them, not make them fear us. Training pets need love and gentle training not anger and harshness.
Well in Sims 3 they were more like pets we visualize them as in movies or some people may even believe they think like humans - even when they don't. The reflect, they may even copy behaviors humans find acceptable only because our response to such "training" makes them happy because pets actually only care to make their companions happy.
How we know this is judge stray dogs or feral cats - who have never had human companionship and you would know they are not human like in thought or behavior, nor do they care to get to know us never mind want to make us happy or anything else. Well there are tons of study done on our dear canine and feline creatures - you can look it up your self - but the fact that sims 3 made the pet controllable for the first time ever (all sims 2 did was speed up training with cheats - not really gave you any more control - you want control - train your pet - don't use cheats so you can use the time to build the trust and relationship of the pet - just like we do in REAL life. Real life has no cheats after all.
The reason we can't have both - well apparently not possible- as we saw in Sims 3 - all we could do is play them as a sim or not - but the not playing them as a sim did not make them even close to being like they were in Sims 1 and 2 - it was like in Sims 3 you scolded them a few times or taught them a couple times and they had the feats mastered. In sims 3 we called it "dumbing down the game and the sims". They were not programmed to learn - it was definitely just programmed - with next to no training needed. Pets need to be like pets and lovingly trained. Yes there was training there - but it was truly superfiscial. So if they could not offer the pet as a pet versus the pet as the Sims option - then I would rather not have that option at all.
I like a pet to be a pet. After all those movies where pets talk, think and act human is cute - but lets face it - they don't do any of that. Pets do what they do out of love and affection for their pack - and in the wild for survival - there is nothing in between true realistic pets.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
Exactly right - it is the biggest cause of game corruption is adding these game controlled NPCs to your household because they are not a true sim - they are a IU game controlled object actually required by the games programming to be in the game doing what it is programmed to do. Eventually messing with those characters will corrupt your game period and all your saves even.
So never a good idea. Just because one can do something is not always a good idea to do it - especially when it comes to programming and pcs.
Great point HalloMolli.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
Another great point and we saw the results of that in Sims 3. I love Sims 3 but let's face it - the pets were boring - I didn't even have cats and dogs in my households because of it - and even as much as I love horses, I had few households with those as well.
I am anti breeding animals for money so I will never see the point of simmers saying they want to just breed the animals to sell. That sort of infuriates me when I hear this ... but that's another story and not appropriate in this forum for sure. But Sims 3 - pets were never as fun as Sims 1 and 2 pets were. I felt sad the dogs and cats lost that reality feel in Sims 3. But I did enjoy a few horses as I said. Seeing we had never had them before in Sims is what made them feel okay and fun to play.
Also I never use cheats in games so I never used any pet cheats in Sims 2. I have tons of pets in my Sims 2 games also.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
When you use a genie to ensorcel a sim they get added to your household temporarily and you can fully control them. It's not like giving them orders or anything. No mods needed and it doesn't corrupt your game in any way. So for NPCs the mechanic is there, even for butlers or maids. Just saying it exists, so when we purely speak about possibility it is possible to create a cheat (or mod) to be able to control them. Sims 3 corrupts in many ways though, I'll give you that. I have to use plenty of mods to keep my game from lagging out/crashing over time. I never tried to ensorcel grim reaper though so I don't know about that one. In Sims 2 the pets were very autonomous and I never really heard anyone complain much about them not being autonomous enough except for bugs when they refuse to eat etc. But that was the AI messing up, not because they are actually sims that need to be controlled. That can happen in Sims 4 as well. In sims 2 we had a cheat though, so even though the pets were designed not to be controlled, they added the option for whoever desired this freedom anyways. They could've done that with Sims 4, but they didn't. Probably because of their limited budget as I have speculated before which is EA's fault. But it has been the general direction of Sims 4 altogether to cater more towards people who play the game like an RPG and less towards people who use it as a sandbox to make their own creations (stories, builds, sims, screenshots, movies).
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That budget you mentioned is not a money budget but an automation/programmer budget - and technically the eps get the biggest budget - so it is pretty unlikely it was an animation/programming deficient budgeted for the ep. Money wise the Sims 4 has a large budget and can fairly easily get more - but as the dev tried to explain about the Sims 4 budget now a dozen times that no one seems to get - is it is about animator and programmer hours allotted to each type of game - like they keep saying you can ask for more money and get it from EA if your money budgets run low, but there are just so many hours in a day and EA cannot give the day more hours. Animations and programming is the largest time consuming part of creating the different kind of packs - so if they say they had reached their budget limit, which I have never heard of them doing in an ep to be honest - then that could have been a factor perhaps only if it required changes to the game engine itself or very base programs that might have affected far more of the game than just the new pets. But honestly if you saw them mention the budget being an issue - (I must have missed that convo) would you have a link - as I am very curious. Personally I don't think it was an issue at all - as they did say they discussed it thoroughly and drew from the feedback over the years. So they had the option in my view to go either way, but decided to go they did. So my guess not a hourly budget deficient. Of course that is just a deduction on my part from what the devs had said.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
EA could always push back the deadline... but since consumers these days are super impatient, games have been suffering quality wise because of deadlines. I'd rather see our developers work longer on a game or expansion to get higher quality content than getting something new every 6 months and it being 'half finished' because they couldn't afford more development hours.
Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed is another wonderful example of this tragedy. Because Ubisoft desperately wanted to have a new Assassin's Creed game every year, for example Assassin's Creed Unity had to be released while it wasn't even finished yet (there were still a huge amount of bugs that needed to be fixed).
Final Fantasy on the contrary (Square Enix) is a beautiful example of how the developers don't bother with tight deadlines and make sure they have high quality nearly finished content first before they decide on a release date. The latest Final Fantasy (XV) took 8 years to make. I waited patiently for those 8 years and they did deliver an amazing game in the end that lived up to a lot of expectations, instead of going for an earlier release and disappointing many because they couldn't add everything they wanted to add.
Also I said it's speculation from my part I don't have links or proof about the budget moneywise (I never stated it as a fact I always said 'I suspect' or 'I speculate')
I do have this interesting point of view for you when it comes to EA money budget issues: https://www.reddit.com/r/thesims/comments/2focau/developer_perspective_why_the_sims_4_is_missing/
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Sorry to just pick at one thing, but breeding and selling pets in the sims is much different than real life... Breeding to sell in RL bothers me too
The thing is @mirta000, what you want is actually not possible, even in Sims 2. What I mean is at some point the saves will run out. They will get too large for the game. Everything in software has limits. Everything in computing has limits. When you talk about having great, great, great, great, great, great, etc. You are pushing it too far. It is not infinite and that is the way it is. I ran my same Sims 2 save for over ten years, but in the end, it started to give out. I could only load one family per session and then shut down. That when I knew it was over for that save.
I am still very happy that we get pets though.... will have to kick out my children and no collars for my fluffy cats
I understand, but as soon as those sims get added to your household they lose their special behavior. It's when they become "ordinary" sims, isn't it? Or do the maid, butler etc. still keep his/her Profession while being active in your household?
Again: it's not about whether they are autonomous (enough) or not. From a dev Point of view It's about to get the best possible result when providing pets (!) (not animals per se) for a game which revolves around a Simulation of a sims' life.
I brought the grim reaper example up to Show that Player interference ( in other words: having pets as an active household-member) denies their potential/behavior.
AI without the requirement of being accessible for direct Control can be coded efficiently to suit its purpose.
We have two Options on this one:
1) NPC AI is not compatible with direct Player Input (architecture/coding is different). So an Adaption wouldn't be very costefficient.
2) They hate you guys.
I completely disagree. TS4 has been build as a sandbox experience from the beginning (even more than previous iterations).
Let me give you some examples:
- emotions allow the player to have full control over their environment, never before was it possible to have a direct impact on the outcome of npc sim actions and social encounters. The simulation part got toned down in order to expand the sandbox possibilites.
Emotions are a tool, a mechanic which truly does justice to the "you rule" premise of the game. Emotions influence autonomous interactions. I can make a not-played group of sims flirt with each other by setting up the appropriate emotional state for them and voila - it works. In TS1-3 everything was kind of random. I couldn't make two npc sims have a flirty conversation with each other, at least it was not as easy to accomplish as it is now.
- We have access to the townies pool finally and therefore are able to edit or delete them, replace them with our own sims etc.
- Get Together introduced a feature which, IMO, is the best example for sandbox gameplay. For the first time in the franchise you can 'code' your own AI and you can make lot types play out completely differently than they are meant to be. For example: Sims-behavior is determined by the code on the lot itself, meaning: as soon as a sim enters a bar he will priorities different objects than on a museum venue (which makes sense). However, with clubs those restrictions don't matter anymore.
- City Living provides Lot-traits, you can now manipulate your own home, change its conditions and have an impact on the gameplay itself.
Conclusion: After roughly 3 years we have already way more sandbox tools in the game than previous iterations provided in their whole life span.
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Well in previous games you trained the pet to do everything you wanted them to do - and like real pets it took a good deal of training and working with them. Sims 3 - first of all you didn't really have to trained them very much at all - and if you wanted to you didn't have to bother at all just by playing them as a sim - you controlled them to do everything. Reminded me of those robot pets one buys and programs to act like a dog or cat. That was a big complaint of robotic sims in Sims 3 - but I know time spent on training except for maybe tricks and such were really a waste of time if they could fully take care of theirselves without you.
My most annoyance everyday of having a pet dog or cat was time spent looking for them all the time unless I played them as a sim (which I didn't want to do to make them come home). Plus if they were small pets - sometimes they couldn't come home because they couldn't climb up stairs and things - it was just a pain - and upsetting when one nearly has a pet starve to death because they can't come home because a user made park had stairs in it etc.
I get very attached to my sims - it's as bad as having real critters.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
Pets took up a slot in Sims 2, but they were not counted in the eight count limit. You could have eight sims, and three pets.
As far we know the limit will stay 8, so seems a little downgrade-y in that regard....
I don't care theyre unplayable but to take a slot AND only allow 8 max is a little frustrating.
People can answer and debate all they want. It is not for you to tell them to take a hike because they don't agree or you want a thread to stay completely negative because that is indeed what you are saying. Most reply in thread like this to keep them from spiraling down to the totally negative. There are more than a few on this forum who would like nothing better than to present Sims 4 as a "downgrade" just because it does not have the features they want. I am sorry but those of us who disagree have the right to present the other side and to remind anyone new that comes by that those opinions are NOT universal.
The way I see it the emotion system limits my possibilities to be creative and tell the stories I want. I had to download a few mods that would tone down the emotions because my sims were ALWAYS overjoyed about literally everything and they exaggerated every single situation. The implementation is horrible as well. I just played Sims 4 today and my sim had the most random moodswings that would mess up her entire face and stature even though there was no clear reason as to why she had to act like she was nearly dying. While i was super excited for the emotions when they advertised it before the release and indeed thought it would enrich the possibilities of storytelling, in fact now I can't tell the stories I want anymore without using pose packs or mods to tone down all the extreme emotions. Also, in sims 3 the sims show a LOT of emotions but in a way more subtle matter that is way more realistic. The sims 3 moodlets would definitely have an effect on your sim, but not in the ridiculous way it does in Sims 4. If you claim that Sims 3 sims had no emotions, you clearly never zoomed in while you played. Here's just a small example of my sim thinking about his dead mother:
If only sims 4 sims had expressions like that... not to mention the fact a sims 4 sim will be completely fine 5 minutes after their mother died if they look at a playful painting and walk around like the death never happened. in Sims 3 at least the moodlet would stay for a couple of days and no matter how happy you made them with positive moodlets, they would still stop to cry about the death once in a while.
I have the Get Together expansion but I truly don't see how it enriches creativity? It's just another roleplay expansion that allows you to roleplay as being part of a certain club. The choices of clubs are limited as well so it's not like you can create any kind of character you want with this expansion and enrich them like you can with the way more detailed trait system of the Sims 3.
I'm talking about creativity, not gameplay. I'm talking about creating stuff. About creating stories and screenshots or building a house in any way you desire. They took that away by taking a way a LOT of freedom we do have in the Sims 3. Creat-a-Style being an example of it, the open world another (it breaks immersion). That City Living enriches your gameplay is great for you, but in what way does it allow for more freedom and creativity? It doesn't. On the contrary, it adds a trait to a building taking it out of its neutral state and limiting you even more to a certain stereotype.
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