Can we stop expanding the game and work on the core of it?

StrawberryYogurt · August 2020

There is a lot of buzz about the new game pack. In fact, there's always speculation about what new stuff pack, expansion, gp etc we will get next.

For me, this game will never be worth its expansions, gps, packs etc UNTIL they rehaul personalities, add a chemistry system, add real memories and deeper consequences. Why doesnt it seem like that is a priority?

I believe there was a survey about this some time ago but havent seen an update about it. It is possible they are working on things "behind the scenes" but how much better reception would the game get if they openly said what theyre working on and how they plan on making it better?

My excitement for any dlc is hindered by the fact the personalities of the game is so lacking.

Why arent they working on personalities & an attraction system? If they are, why arent they talking about it?

That is the biggest issue for me.

StrawberryYogurt · August 2020

I know others' big issues are the color wheel and open world. I like the swatches and open neighborhood system they have right now much better. My only things id want to fix is having bigger neighborhoods and being able to make my own.

StrawberryYogurt · August 2020

I do acknowledge some people are compeltely satisfied with the systems that are in place and like them the way they are. But I think on the whole the game itself would get much better reception and attract more people if they did (for example the promises coming from paralives)

Missmagoo2 · August 2020

I wish EA would take the time to make the base game better. But, would they after 6 years of ignoring us and pumping out expansions? It's hard to say. They seem to have a skeleton crew on the Sims and the employees they do have are working on stuff that they're told to do. They don't seem able to work on things we want them to.

StrawberryYogurt · August 2020

Missmagoo2 wrote: »

I wish EA would take the time to make the base game better. But, would they after 6 years of ignoring us and pumping out expansions? . They don't seem able to work on things we want them to.

And doesnt the fact that all this dlc here now will make implementing something like this even more difficult? Youd have to go back and code reactions to different objects depending on personalities and things for each dlc. Which makes me feel like itll never happen.

Chazzzy · August 2020

Noooo I love me some *new* packs!! 😩

elanorbreton · August 2020

I think it's fairly safe to say this will never happen. It's too late in the day now.

Hopefully, they will have taken people's reactions to the sims 4 when making sims 5, but I very much doubt it. There was an awful lot of people saying before 4 was released that the perfect game would take the best features of 2 and 3 and put them together to make 4, but that didn't happen.

Personally, I've grown to like 4 more than 3 now. But 2 was still the best in its day. I am hoping 5 will take the best bits from 2, 3 and 4 haha, but chances are that 5 will be some atrocious social online multiplayer game to appeal to someone other than a long-standing oldie player like me.

DaWaterRat · August 2020

While I agree that the base game needs improvement, I do believe that they are working on it. I think they have a dedicated team for base game improvements, and these particular improvements strike me as the sort of project that doesn't really get faster with more hands after a point. Not to mention potentially increasing the complexity factor (a formula of 2 to the nth, where n = number of people whose opinions matter for the final product.)

Would it be nice if they told us? Sure. But then people would be whining about how long it was taking to get updates, why can't they work faster, why aren't they doing it X way instead of Y way, and they're focusing on the "wrong" improvements. Not to mention getting read the riot act if they, watcher forbid, needed to backtrack due to coding conflicts or other issues.

And then... how would you fund the payroll while no new packs are being made? just coast on existing sales? That probably wouldn't sustain the project for the needed time. Also, what about the people whose jobs don't interact with the coding of the personality system, such as concept artists? Laid off until this is done?

logion · August 2020

I agree, I would be fine if they could focus less on making packs and try to improve the game instead. I'm not sure if anyone felt the same but I kinda felt after Discover University that this would be a good place to stop... now we can focus less on packs and more on improving the game...

As for why they don't do it, could be several reasons... I think one reason is because you generally don't go back and change the base game code when you have worked on a game for that long, you could risk breaking old code from many years ago that keeps the game together.

Which is why I think we will never get a color wheel for sims in CAS, they don't want to risk breaking CAS, they could do it for pets because that was something they could build from the ground up.

Missmagoo2 wrote: »

I wish EA would take the time to make the base game better. But, would they after 6 years of ignoring us and pumping out expansions? It's hard to say. They seem to have a skeleton crew on the Sims and the employees they do have are working on stuff that they're told to do. They don't seem able to work on things we want them to.

Well said, they really are a skeleton crew. I don't know that much about game development, but if you look at the credits for every pack that they have made recently...they really are not that many people compared to other game developer studios. The credits for other games can be incredibly long, their credits can be scrolled down in a second.

Sharonia · August 2020

I'd be okay with it to be honest. The last few packs have not been that great anyway and from the sounds of it it's not getting any better anytime soon. If they aren't going to add actual good new content and are just going to continue with these poor themed packs that don't really fit in with regular play then I'd rather they just work on improving what we already have.

Goldmoldar · August 2020

Never going to happen as Sims 4 path and future is already written, in order to see editing in Neighborhoods it will have to wait until the next version if it happens and if EA/Maxis does incorporate that feature. I gave up hoping for features that would increase Sims 4 cred and I also not waiting for Sims 5 as it may have the same scheme and theme as previous versions.

cherrysim_ · August 2020

I think they've just given up at this point. We can only hope to get all those things on the sims 5 sadly.

Onverser · August 2020

I don't think that's gonna happen this late in the game. It's too much of a big overhaul, if they were to put any of those things in it'd be for the Sims 5, not for a game that only has a few years left.

Controversial but I'm happy with it staying how it is for this game, I'd rather they maximised the new content and gave us some more things to play with and then put the big overhauls into the next game.

musteni · August 2020

I really want the core improved, badly. You mention personalities and attraction system - these are my main wants. I can only hope that the things that we voted for in the recent survey will one day become reality. However I think they have mentioned that there will be no colour wheel of open world and personally I don't miss those to be honest (I didn't even play TS3). Also I'm kind of used to with the devs not communicating about things. I know that only leaves me with blind faith, but have to go with it.

Nate_Whiplash1 · August 2020

It would be far easier to incorporate changes in the Sims 5 than to heavily revamp code in the existing game--if I had to guess, that's what EA is thinking too

So_Money · August 2020

Trouble is, how would they wrap something like this up nicely into a saleable product? That’s their main concern.

jcp011c2 · August 2020

At six years into the game, that's very unlikely to happen. If it were going to happen it would have happened 3-4 years ago, if not sooner. They will continue to churn out packs until a time they deem an acceptable cutoff prior to Sims 5's release - be it a year, 6 months or something else.

There might be some small adjustments but I don't think anything really game changing. it's why I'm still hoping for body hair. It's a nice addition but hardly game changing. I would imagine to them the lack of this is not "game breaking" - something new that would literally make the game unplayable to old code of course I can see they would adjust, but if it's not "broken", they're not going to "fix it".

GalacticGal · August 2020

elanorbreton wrote: »

I think it's fairly safe to say this will never happen. It's too late in the day now.

Hopefully, they will have taken people's reactions to the sims 4 when making sims 5, but I very much doubt it. There was an awful lot of people saying before 4 was released that the perfect game would take the best features of 2 and 3 and put them together to make 4, but that didn't happen.

Personally, I've grown to like 4 more than 3 now. But 2 was still the best in its day. I am hoping 5 will take the best bits from 2, 3 and 4 haha, but chances are that 5 will be some atrocious social online multiplayer game to appeal to someone other than a long-standing oldie player like me.

If they go to a multiplayer online game, count me OUT. I didn't even look into Sims4 because that was what it was supposed to be. When they changed their minds mid-stream (always a bad move) then and ONLY then did I take a look at Sims4. I am very happy with it. Could they improve things, sure. But until they do, I use mods. I love KS Slice of Life for a variety of reasons, but you also get a fantastic personality system with it. MCCC gives me other choices as well that enhance the gameplay. I use littlemsSams 21 day seasons. KS Showtime combined with Road to Fame and I have my singer Sim back, in spades. I'm having a blast.

Strudelzz · August 2020

I really miss the personality system of S2 and S3 alongside story progression. Even if the open world had to be scrapped due to performance concerns, at the very least they should've kept those two core elements. I had only the base game for the longest time until I decided to buy some expansions cause' it is so bare bones. But as other users said, it's too late to change the base game, right now your best bet is to mod the game and fill the gap (as most of us do).

filipomel · August 2020

Strudelzz wrote: »

I really miss the personality system of S2 and S3 alongside story progression. Even if the open world had to be scrapped due to performance concerns, at the very least they should've kept those two core elements. I had only the base game for the longest time until I decided to buy some expansions cause' it is so bare bones. But as other users said, it's too late to change the base game, right now your best bet is to mod the game and fill the gap (as most of us do).

If mods can do as much as they do to fix/at least enhance core features, there is no excuse for the devs to not do the same. There’s literally mods out there that expand autonomy, balance the emotion system, enhance relationships and relationship dynamics, if all this can be done unofficially imagine what can be done if the devs actually put in the effort and budget into fixing core features of the game.

If mods can fix core features six years in the game, so can the actual developers.

Justin · August 2020

They’re just lazy to improve the game & only care about the money. They take advantage of us

irishdragon7 · August 2020

I think Sims 4 is it for me. I have bought all franchises and I am so disappointed in Sims 4 that I don't think I would bother with Sims 5. Besides, it will be so expensive all over again with the new packs. There are some things I really like about Sims 4 (dolphins, eco footprint), but I think I will be sticking with playing Sims 3. It is just so frustrating to be putting out the money and our feedback remains ignored.

If I didn't have so many issues with mods and custom content corrupting my games in Sims 3, I would probably use more in Sims 4. Seriously, if the mods have been able to do the things we want, why can't the developers do it? I think it is more of a matter of will over what's possible.

Lady_Ballora · August 2020

EA will most likely keep Sims 5 as an offline game. I highly doubt they want to relive the nightmare that was Sim City 2013.

Missmagoo2 · August 2020

StrawberryYogurt wrote: »

Missmagoo2 wrote: »

I wish EA would take the time to make the base game better. But, would they after 6 years of ignoring us and pumping out expansions? . They don't seem able to work on things we want them to.

And doesnt the fact that all this dlc here now will make implementing something like this even more difficult? Youd have to go back and code reactions to different objects depending on personalities and things for each dlc. Which makes me feel like itll never happen.

Right, I think you're correct.

AncientMuse · August 2020

StrawberryYogurt wrote: »

There is a lot of buzz about the new game pack. In fact, there's always speculation about what new stuff pack, expansion, gp etc we will get next.

For me, this game will never be worth its expansions, gps, packs etc UNTIL they rehaul personalities, add a chemistry system, add real memories and deeper consequences. Why doesnt it seem like that is a priority?

I believe there was a survey about this some time ago but havent seen an update about it. It is possible they are working on things "behind the scenes" but how much better reception would the game get if they openly said what theyre working on and how they plan on making it better?

My excitement for any dlc is hindered by the fact the personalities of the game is so lacking.

Why arent they working on personalities & an attraction system? If they are, why arent they talking about it?

That is the biggest issue for me.

Why does it have to be an either/or situation? Why the false dilemma?

Why can't it be both? Why are we not demanding that the game be made properly functional with properly functioning core features AND adding interesting things to the game along the way?

Six years in and $900+ dollars later, this bloody game ought to be pouring me a martini (shaken not stirred), cleaning my house, and rubbing my feet after a hard day at the office. Pfft.

phantasmkiss · August 2020

As much as I will never stop missing the color wheel, I've learned to play without it. My main issue is the lack of personality. Sims get the same moodlets and reactions for the same things. There's no real surprise in their actions. I'm actually tired of complaining about it.

Maybe I'll get back into building...

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Can we stop expanding the game and work on the core of it?

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