I'm actually pretty pleased with the family game play of Sims 4 now.
I was an avid advocate for toddlers, think they're pretty well done now and love the generational differences and parenting system that came with Parenthood. My child sims are all competitive card players and the family meetings through the club system combined with the holidays you can create yourself make up for a lot of what was missing at the beginning.
I still have some pet peeves with the game like how small and barren EPs normally are eventhough they create content at such a slow rate, but I wanted to give credit where credit is due.
Doesn't mean you should start ignoring the family players again though, EA
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I do enjoy Parenting probably one of my favorite packs but all it added was that with a few new interactions that could be parented and school projects... What family players need is true generational differences besides some quick mode swings.
Honestly I would like to see just a few more adjustments to family related play for it to be better and making each life stage a bit more relevant.
Seriously? I think families - with the Parenthood pack - are better than in any previous Sims game. For the first time, Sims actually know that they're related to other Sims - they've toned it down (thank goodness), but my Sims would get sad over the deaths of cousins and aunts they'd never met. They know who their mother and father are (or mother and mother, etc), and who their siblings are.
It always irritated me when the parents would give their poor kids a tongue-lashing when something broke (as if it's the kid's fault the parent bought a cheap toilet!). That's gone, along with the outsized reaction to teens who were out after curfew (even if they were going for a jog or returning from their part-time job). Parents can counsel kids through their phases, and we have choices for discipline (anywhere from expressing disappointment - which in turn adds empathy - to going nuclear). Kids can ask for advice, and parents can teach them to be more responsible.
Moreover, good parenting gives kids traits that help them in adulthood - 'responsible' kids never have to take work home as adults (Holy Llama, how I wish this were true in real life).
Of course, I want more stuff for my families, don't get me wrong. I'd be terribly disappointed if the next pack is another YF drama-rama with nothing for kids and toddlers. I want more stuff for my teens, and more for my elders to do. However, Parenthood is one of the highlights of the whole Sims series.
I have to disagree that knowing the other family members is the 'first time ever'. Not. Parenthood was O.K. but these kids still can't play games with each other or aggravate their brother or sister, it's four years later, and deleting mommy and daddy won't phase a kid...Shallow.
It's four years later and kids still can't play tag, play games together like Mary Mack, and I could list a zillion family interactions not in this game still yet. Tell a secret? I can't remember if that is in TS4 or not. They can't inherit any monies from grandma..lame....they can't have a proper funeral for grandpa..heck just delete him, he never existed. Lame. Lecturing is part of parenting, whether we want to be politically correct or not, it still works. I liked kids could ask for advice but what was the purpose? To make it more repsonsible so it can level up one day for a job, to level up to an achievement. Where is the depth? It's all about leveling up. That's not depth, that's busy work. ETA: Can't even take a family photo...how shallow can it go.
Gotta agree with this. Teens are young adults that go to school with mood swings. That is the only thing that sets them apart from adults. Parenthood was an okay pack but very basic things are still missing. Things like a child flunking school- parents don’t care -neither does the child. Parents divorcing or catching a parent cheating has no effect on the children of the household which is a massive oversight.
Sims in earlier games knew their families. Grandparents has wishes and wants for their grand children’s success as did parents. My current sims 2 family has an overbearing father who wants nothing more than his three children to be successful in school with As and get a university scholarship. He is obsessed with it. I didn’t make him that way. I can’t replicate that in sims 4 as parents don’t give a 🐸🐸🐸🐸 about their kids education. Hell the call to warn about poor performance goes directly to the child or teen and not the parent.- What’s that about?
The only way sims 4 sims know their families is by constant hugging and the in laws hitting on their son and or daughters in law from time to time as well apparently. Parenthood turned it into a paddling pool but it’s still not in depth compared to what we had previously.
Have to agree with this, too. And I have yet to see a parent go in to comfort a child who is hiding in bed or crying in bed or whatever, they don't care. TS2 Sims care and wring their hands and worry about the kid who passed out on the floor from a lack of a bed. lol Toddlers in this version were great, but then parents get obsessed with taking them out of the chair, so, it still says to me, these parents don't even know what's going on with their kids..or they would leave the toddler in the chair to eat, and they would go comfort their upset child. It's still very shallow and hollow. I'm not a fan of busy work to keep the masses busy thinking they are playing family life.
Maybe it's because I play with autonomy off, so I look at the range of possible interactions and choose the appropriate one for them. That's what I'm getting at - with Parenthood, we have so many more interactions. Yes, a parent can comfort a crying child - there are several options for this. (If the parent got the 'empathy' trait as a child/teen, they have additional options.) They take the toddlers out of the chair because the toddlers asks to be let out, or because another caregiver has the 'check toddler' queued and wants to put the child in the chair, but has to take her out, first.
Even with autonomy off, the 'check toddler' will come up if a toddler's needs are in the red, or the toddler is crying. I once had a mother give a hungry toddler a little juice sipper, even though I don't have the highchair and can't give the child juice without it. She overrode the no autonomy to take care of the toddler's need. (They will do that if a critical need gets too critical - every once in a while, I'll have an elder working on a book or programming and forget that elders have more urgent bladder needs. They'll quit and take care of it by themselves, fortunately.)
The AI is a bit of a mess, but it's always been a mess. I've never been able to leave my Sims alone to care for themselves. They inevitably starved to death, the kids sent to military school, and the toddlers and babies taken away. (Kids and teens are much better about going to school without my interference in S4.) 'Check toddler' was designed to make sure that parents didn't neglect the toddlers, but it often interferes with toddler care itself - the parent is trying to get the toddler fed, but 'check toddler' comes up and they can't finish what they're doing. It should also be smarter - it tends to result in giving food, no matter what, while the kid sits in a dirty diaper or just needs comforting because she's sad.
Honestly a Sorcerers and Werewolves GP is needed so I can get my families stories going, it's basically the only vital piece I'm missing.
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And honestly, elders have so much more potential to be used ingame that it's beyond me that it hasn't been taken into consideration yet.
There's a lot they could do with elders family wise like if grandma would offer to babysit. Or call up (if not in home) and ask to take the baby or toddler for a walk. The player could stay there with the mother or father and keep playing while the grandparent got the smaller children out of the home. Sort of like when Sims call up to ask a Sim to go somewhere. The player could choose to go with the grandparent or stay home and keep playing the household. Grandma could call up and ask the family over for dinner, like those lame birthday invites. But maybe they would get it right and there would actually be dinner. And I don't want to hear but that's our own played Sims, I don't want them messing with our played Sims! lol, because they already do by putting them into relationships we didn't even ask for when we aren't playing them. So, might as well make grandma and grandpa do some things we didn't control to help out with the smaller kids.
Groups are another way I maintain relationships with members outside of the immediate family. I don't have a Grandma/Grandpa group but gonna check that when I next play tonight.
That's a lot of hoop jumping when older games made family members show up, knock on the door and visit. TS4 does some of that but not in a logical way, higher relationships or kin should be those knocking on front doors. You had to do a lot of work arounds, which is always fun, I agree, but depth would solve all those problems.
I can easily invite the grandmother over but unfortunately I don't have control of her as a visitor. Was that possible in previous games? I sort of remember clicking on a sim in Sims 3 to make them selectable. But that was a mod.
No, I'm pretty sure we never had control of visitors. My Sims are constantly getting texts from relatives, even those they've never met. (My Sim kid gets two or three in a row from her other dad, and he was only around long enough to mix his genetics with the father who is raising her. If she wanted to, she could invite him over, but she's a loner and much too busy becoming a super kid to bother with socials.)
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Yes, I miss those things, too. The only time the house is messy anymore is when there are toddlers in the home. I had a set chore list for particular kids, like in real life, teen make the beds, kids around ten wash the dishes etc. Younger kids pick up the toys and return them to the toy chests. Mom spent some time cleaning up messes made by toddlers. It's too perfect in my opinion.
Sneak out at night (party or friends house)
Ditch school (parent can find out & punish)
Grounded (not allowed to use cellphone or electronics or go out)
Get in trouble for drinking from bar or using bubble machine
School dances / after school sports & activities
Parents can have them watch over their younger siblings when they aren’t home. They can go crazy like throw a party or break things but if they don’t clean up in time they can get in trouble
Just small things like that. And I’m still surprised that they still haven’t added step mom or dad or siblings. I know they have half siblings but they need to add the step relative so they can show in their family tree.
Well, Parenthood gives you reward traits, so I don't really know what you mean... But I would love a legacy trait
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My sim autonomously tucks in her child
It's also nice that you can choose how to discipline kids bad behavior, Talk calmly or Firm, Punish or Strict. My sim kid sabotaged a grand meal and sim parent can ask them not to do that, Hug it out, or express disappointment, give time out, ground, yell at. In one save, my kid was forbidden to play with toys lol and I had her play with a toy anyway and the parent
scolded her autonomously.
What I really want now is options for kids/parents to play catch, tag, hide & seek, teaching kids to ride bicycles, walk hand in hand, so on.
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I miss the times when Sims expansions would bring a little bit for everyone, nowadays it's so theme focused people keep battling for every game pack and stuff pack and whatever because they know that once the theme is set in stone only the ones who like said theme will be happy...and back then even in packs like world adventures you could find ways to use assets you were given to create something entirely different. These days it's not really possible thus why I worry that in order to get more bits of family play we're gonna have to wait another 2 years for a new family focused expansion instead of being given small pieces of it here and there in various packs.
I'm having more fun with families than I used to for sure, but there is definitely a lot more imagination involved, there are still things I have to make up for with excessive storytelling.