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You are not listening

mcorralmcorral Posts: 512 Member
edited September 2020 in The Sims 4 Game Feedback
It shocks me to read a post of EA/Maxis saying that they are listening to simmers. I'm sorry, but you are NOT.

Simmers, have been asking for cars, babies, farms, romantic interactions, more depth in content, more daily actions and activities and you... you just release something that nobody asked for and now, seeing the forums and votes from simmers, it seems the pack is a dissaster that very few people likes. What were you thinking?

In this iteration of the franchise I can see tons of wrong decisions, one after another. From day one of this game people said that The Sims should not be an online game, ever. What did you do? Start the coding for an online game. Uproar came on forums and quickly you tried to change the game into... this... kind of... ¿life simulation game? Wrong choice, you clearly didn't listen.

People have been asking for more customization. We want to controll our game and feel free to customize as much as possible. What did you do? No Create a World, No Create a Style, restrictions everywhere, no custom apartments... Wrong choice, you clearly didn't listen.

A huge number of different packs were released and the people complained about the poor quality of the packs giving precise reasons of why the game will not improve until you fix some features in the base game. More objects WILL NOT improve this game. What are you doing? Releasing more and more stuff with zero replayability, lots of bugs and lacking of depth and integration with other packs. Wrong choice, you clearly are not listening.

People is complaining about the game being so childish and boring. The game lost the irony and black humour. The game lost its dark side: graveyards and burglars amongs other things. Interactions are way to childish or femenine. There's no challenge in anything. You just reach the top of the career easily, earn lots of money... Sims are almost invincible, they will never die even if you try hard to kill them. Nothing bad happens in the game. What are you doing about it? Nothing. Wrong choice, you clearly are not listening.

Many simmers are talking about how the game could improve a little bit adding:
- Emotion system should be reworked. More tratis.
- Add wants and fears, favourite music, colour and music.
- Fixing all existing bugs.
- Improving some interactions completely broken at the moment like sims not siting during dinner or watching a film, amongst many others.
- Story progression, family tree, more family interactions and awareness of grandparents...
- An extension of San Myshuno with apartments that can be customized some way. Maybe adding shells... Add the posibility of creating our own apartments.

I know you want to do new things. There is really a huge amount of things that have never been done yet and I'm sure people will like it:
- A romance pack: attraction system, slow dance, dating v2.0, have a walk together hand by hand...
- Winter actitivies with a big world like Norway with at least 15 lots. Activities that can be replayed in other worlds as well.
- Farm pack.
- Cars: it can be done. When your sim wants to travel just make the sim get to a car and leave the neighbourhood. Simple. New skill: car repairing, new job: car fixer, new lot type: garage.

There are lots and lots and lots of things that can be done, but you just decided to look the other way and release something like... this pack and say that the next EP will not have babies, cars or anything people is asking for. Wrong choice. You are not listening.

So, we came to this situation where there are lots of simmers leaving the franchise and posting sad and negative reviews of this game. I really don't know if you don't care, you just simply look the other way... Don't you see that many people is posting eagerly about other future games like this? Don't you see that you are loosing your fan base? You just have to enter youtube to see loads of youtubers complaining about this game. Some of them even stopped reviewing the packs. Really? Can't you see it? I can't possibly believe you are doing this to this game. I suggest you just stop doing whatever you are doing and think about this. This is NOT going in the right direction.

But you know what? I feel very tired of posting this kind of comments trying in any possible way to make you understand that this is not the way. Don't take this post like a rant, I really, really, really love The Sims, but not TS4. I'm trying to be constructive giving feedback from what I read on forums, youtube, and my friends opinions, but enough is enough. I quit.

Enjoy your game.

Comments

  • CinebarCinebar Posts: 33,618 Member
    I quit years ago, it didn't matter there were five more over on instagram who do not care about the series who will buy anything.
    "Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
  • Bluebeard45Bluebeard45 Posts: 3,889 Member
    The warning signs where all there but we had hope they would fix it. The baby object turning into a child skipping the toddler stage and it kept getting worse. It has been almost 2 months and the garden is still broke and the Sim family is dead.
  • mcorralmcorral Posts: 512 Member
    Cinebar wrote: »
    I quit years ago, it didn't matter there were five more over on instagram who do not care about the series who will buy anything.

    That's the problem. Threre are people that will buy whatever EA releases even when they don't like it much.
    Personally I will not buy any more content. I'm tired of TS4. I just play to build, me who always played and almost never built anything.
    Adz89 wrote: »
    Unfortunately, the sims peaked at sims 3 and no stuff pack, game pack or expansion pack has reached the potential the sims 3 had....actually contemplating uninstalling sims 4 and going back to playing sims 3

    I do have TS3 installed and play a lot. Can you believe that I'm still learning new things I thought there were not there? If you use NRAS mods, not play in Isla Paradiso (too buggy) and use the FPS limiter of your graphic-card (set it to 60 max, which is the maximum your eye can detect) only if you need to, then the game is totally playable.
    The warning signs where all there but we had hope they would fix it. The baby object turning into a child skipping the toddler stage and it kept getting worse. It has been almost 2 months and the garden is still broke and the Sim family is dead.

    Bugs is something that EA is not very good at. Do you remember how the left TS3? They totally ignored most of the bugs and they just simply left the game unplayable for many simmers. Modders took the time to fix many of them...
  • Sk8rblazeSk8rblaze Posts: 7,570 Member
    Cinebar wrote: »
    I quit years ago, it didn't matter there were five more over on instagram who do not care about the series who will buy anything.

    Every person counts. One person who doesn’t buy any The Sims 4 content entirely is one person who does not give about ~800 bucks to EA.

    Avoid buying things you dislike, be vocal on the forums and social media, and maybe things could change. Or not, and we bank everything on Paralives to save the genre. Either way, anything is better than giving a company money that you do not agree deserves it.
  • keekee53keekee53 Posts: 4,328 Member
    Well OP I pretty much agree with you, except I don't want story progression. Your title says it all You are not listening or maybe the title should be they don't care what we want because we buy it anyways. I have continued to play because of modders. They have helped turned this game into the crazy I can't get with normal play. It feels like Sims 2. I don't know what will happen to my sims next from kidnapping, car accidents, serial killers, armed robberies, cancer, etc. If my favorite modders ever stop making the mods, I am gone.

    I could go on and on but I am just going to end this comment with.....

    The Letter... "Guys we hear you but let us be open about the next expansion will not include cars, babies, farms and bunkbeds"

    I believe these are the most requested items LOL. It is like a sick joke to hear they know what we want and still will not deliver on these items. My only hope that there will be some type upgrade to the romance system with a destination wedding\honeymoons with hotels that can be placed IN ANY WORLD or some type of winter vacation with enough winter activities and content worthy of an expansion price.
  • SucomSucom Posts: 1,709 Member
    When I hear them say they are listening to their fans my first thought is always 'No, they're not.' Actions speak louder than meaningless words, in my view. After spending literally hours and hours playing Sims 3, I find myself totally disappointed with the direction Sims 4 has taken, to such an extent I rarely open it. On those rare occasions when I do open the game, I tend to leave after only a short time to go and find a game on Steam which interests me more.

    The crazy thing is that I really was open to spending more money on the Sims because I loved the almost unlimited customisation that Sims 3 offered. Sims 4 is so shallow in comparison. Oh well, they lost me as a loyal customer. I've moved on and am not at all surprised to hear that others have too.
  • AthenaOnyxAthenaOnyx Posts: 3,921 Member
    edited September 2020
    EA doesn't listen. It's unfortunate because they have the keys to the kingdom of Sims which is arguably the only complex human simulation game out there. But, EA is about the money, and the less EA has to invest in getting the money the better. We continue buying the game because we love the game and it's in a class by itself, but if a more passionate company owned it or it had some competition it could be so much better.

    I only recently decided to buy sims4 because I was getting a little bored of 3. I was diehard: I owned everything since s1 came out and I got most everything the day or month it came out. I learned my lesson with 3 to just wait, because EA tends to disappoint players if they expect too much.
  • SharoniaSharonia Posts: 4,853 Member
    edited September 2020
    They definitely aren't listening that much is obvious with the latest pack and also the news that the next pack also won't feature any of the things that are most requested. I've personally lost all hope with this latest pack for the much needed improvements that TS4 needs. I've been playing TS3 a little bit lately and I'm getting curious about other life simulation games currently in development.
  • Lady_BalloraLady_Ballora Posts: 783 Member
    I agree. Even the Gurus don't seem to be listening to us...we keep complaining about stuff,but it seems like EA and the Gurus are covering heir ears and saying "We're going to keep a glitchy,buggy,shallow game that's on a dying game engine going on for many more years!"

    I think both EA and the Gurus need to stop pretending everything's okay and they need to stop turning out packs that are only adding to the problem of a dying game engine.They either need to take time to overhaul the game engine or they need to pull the plug on Sims 4 and work on giving us Sims 5.

    As for me,I'm waiting to see what Paralives and the people at Paradox games will come up with. If they come up with much better games than Sims 4,I'll be sure to buy those games.
    Why do you hide inside these walls?
  • GoldmoldarGoldmoldar Posts: 11,966 Member
    edited September 2020
    AthenaOnyx wrote: »
    EA doesn't listen. It's unfortunate because they have the keys to the kingdom of Sims which is arguably the only complex human simulation game out there. But, EA is about the money, and the less EA has to invest in getting the money the better. We continue buying the game because we love the game and it's in a class by itself, but if a more passionate company owned it or it had some competition it could be so much better.

    I only recently decided to buy sims4 because I was getting a little bored of 3. I was diehard: I owned everything since s1 came out and I got most everything the day or month it came out. I learned my lesson with 3 to just wait, because EA tends to disappoint players if they expect too much.

    Yeah they had the key to Sim City 2013 too and somehow lost that key and I glad Paradox got it and made an fortune on City Skylines.
    Omen by HP Intel®️ Core™️ i9- 12900K W/ RGB Liquid Cooler 32GB Nvidia RTX 3080 10Gb ASUS Ultra-Wide 34" Curved Monitor. Omen By HP Intel® Core™ i7-12800HX 32 GB Nvidia 3070 Ti 8 GB 17.3 Screen
  • Paigeisin5Paigeisin5 Posts: 2,139 Member
    @mcorral You said it all very well. I agree with everything you stated in your post. They stopped listening to us before Sims3 ended, and haven't really taken the time and effort to understand the damage that has been done to the future of the franchise. I realize EA is out to make money, and The Sims franchise has a large and varied fan base, with certain expectations that fall outside of the plans that were made over six years ago for Sims4. But that doesn't mean we, the fans, have to accept, agree with, or pay for content we do not want. And in these uncertain economic times, one would think EA might want to give the fans more of what they want, and spend less money on creating content that was never at the top of the majority of players' wish lists. And just stop this silliness of saying they're listening to us. Because it is painfully obvious they are not listening at all. On the list of things the fans wanted was a new vacation world with new activities. Then we got JtB. How can that be taken as being heard? It can't, by any stretch of the imagination, be construed as having come from actively listening to us. The theme of this pack was not chosen to please us. It was chosen to bring in new players, fans of the Star Wars franchise who would have to buy the Sims4 base game in order to play JtB. And boost the sales numbers for EA and Disney. Given the number of dislikes the reveal trailer for JtB received, I think EA and Disney made a huge mistake while causing the fans to lose what little faith they had left in EA. I hope Disney made it worth EA's time and investment because any new pack that comes next will have to be pretty darn special before a lot of us spend one penny more on Sims4 content. I am not planning to purchase any new content, or update my game, until Sims4 ends. I have had my fill of broken features, bugs and lackluster content so my game is now frozen. I'll wait to pick up packs I might like later when the prices tank. And there are mods to fix whatever bugs the teams don't fix before abandoning Sims4.
  • Chicklet453681Chicklet453681 Posts: 2,431 Member
    edited September 2020
    I agree. Even the Gurus don't seem to be listening to us...we keep complaining about stuff,but it seems like EA and the Gurus are covering heir ears and saying "We're going to keep a glitchy,buggy,shallow game that's on a dying game engine going on for many more years!"

    I think both EA and the Gurus need to stop pretending everything's okay and they need to stop turning out packs that are only adding to the problem of a dying game engine.They either need to take time to overhaul the game engine or they need to pull the plug on Sims 4 and work on giving us Sims 5.

    As for me,I'm waiting to see what Paralives and the people at Paradox games will come up with. If they come up with much better games than Sims 4,I'll be sure to buy those games.


    I just read that interview again from PCGames talking to Rod Humble, at Paradox Tectonics and I am now getting excited for it because the interviewer asked:
    When might we hear more?

    I’ve been told to officially say ‘soon’. It’s not going to be years down the road, so: soon.
    https://pcgamesn.com/paradox-tectonic-new-game-rod-humble
  • Paigeisin5Paigeisin5 Posts: 2,139 Member
    Exciting news! Thanks for the link @Chicklet453681 :)
  • ChazzzyChazzzy Posts: 7,166 Member
    mcorral wrote: »
    Interactions are way to childish or femenine.

    Can you give an example of an interaction you feel is too feminine?
  • izecsonizecson Posts: 2,875 Member
    edited September 2020
    Chazzzy wrote: »
    mcorral wrote: »
    Interactions are way to childish or femenine.

    Can you give an example of an interaction you feel is too feminine?

    The Insult animation where sims shake their hips and put their palms infront then mocking other sims is too feminine
    ihavemultiplegamertags
  • BeardedgeekBeardedgeek Posts: 5,520 Member
    Adz89 wrote: »
    Unfortunately, the sims peaked at sims 3 and no stuff pack, game pack or expansion pack has reached the potential the sims 3 had....actually contemplating uninstalling sims 4 and going back to playing sims 3

    IMHO it was Sims 2, but... just look at videos on youtube; the details on animations in Sims 2 are just mind boggling even compared to Sims 3.
    Origin ID: A_Bearded_Geek
  • mcorralmcorral Posts: 512 Member
    edited September 2020
    Chazzzy wrote: »
    mcorral wrote: »
    Interactions are way to childish or femenine.

    Can you give an example of an interaction you feel is too feminine?

    If you play a male, and female say or do something romantic, the male poses.... ugggrrrr. He moved his leg and waved with his hand while his head went on one side... uggg (sorry, I'm not an English speaker...) it's a mixture of a toddler or a woman. My male was a rough, brave and confident guy and that was not right. It broke my immersion.
  • SimmerGeorgeSimmerGeorge Posts: 2,724 Member
    mcorral wrote: »
    Chazzzy wrote: »
    mcorral wrote: »
    Interactions are way to childish or femenine.

    Can you give an example of an interaction you feel is too feminine?

    If you play a male, and female say or do something romantic, the male poses.... ugggrrrr. He moved his leg and waved with his hand while his head went on one side... uggg (sorry, I'm not an English speaker...) it's a mixture of a toddler or a woman. My male was a rough, brave and confident guy and that was not right. It broke my immersion.

    Which brings me to the romantic or mean interactions from the Sims 2. If I had a kind of a playboy buff dude then he would more often use the smooch or goose interactions, if I had a more shy one he would use the tender or romantic kiss.
    Also in the mean interaction I would make "diva-ish" sims use the throw drink interaction, while more grouchy ones would spit and the mean ones would immidiately use the fight interaction.

    There was a lot of variety in interactions, to suit your sims' personality. It was awesome.
    Where's my Sims 5 squad at?
  • SimsLovinLycanSimsLovinLycan Posts: 1,910 Member
    Too true. If they were really listening to simmers, they wouldn't have put out that Eco pack before getting a true "Generations" pack out of the way...like, Year 2 of the game's run so the family players wouldn't keep complaining all the time about it. If they were listening, we would have had the core occults (ghotst, aliens, plantsims, casters, werewolves, vampires, zombies, robots) all complete, fully fleshed-out, and better than ever by now, and would likely have had the newer/more minor occults (genies, fairies, imaginary friends) mostly done by now as well. If they were listening, magic would have been a skill, not requiring a whole new lifestate to use like in TS3. If they were listening, we would have had cars by now. If they were listening, we would have Create-A-World or at least the ability to decide whether we wanted to start a new game with a populated save or an empty one. If they were listening, we would have more non-item-dependent play interactions for sims of all ages. If they were listening, the away system and emotion system wouldn't be such a hot mess. If they were listening, traits would be much more impactful. If they were listening, we would have difficulty settings and on/off toggles for occults instead of all of those annoying nerfs they've deployed over the years. If they were listening, we'd have better skintones. If they were listening, we'd have paintable ceilings. If they were listening, we would have natural and dyed options for hair color and unnatural hair colors available and heritable for Toddlers and Children.

    But, they're not listening to simmers. They're listening to their bosses, who think of The Sims as a virtual Barbies game for little girls and therefore don't take it seriously except for pushing them to toss out more packs of accessories like a virtual Mattel. They're listening to Game Changers, who represent only a very narrow sliver of the playerbase as a whole not only in terms of demographics, but tastes and gameplay styles as well. They pop into these forums every now and again, but they're not really listening to our complaints or requests. They pay them lip-service, fix stuff only when it's too big to ignore or when a group of Game Changers who are too popular to ignore complain about it loud enough. They are more interested in squeezing in what they want in the game between the things corporate wants in there at this point than really making the TS4 that players have been trying to lead them toward from the beginning.

    The result is a game with weak gameplay, no depth or challenge, and a fractured sense of identity. Even with the state it launched in, TS4 could have been great if more of the people in key decision-making positions (not just devs, but executives too) had been more keyed-in to what the playerbase wanted in the game instead of what they wanted to do with the game or what players they wanted for the game.
    There is a song I hear, a melody from the past...
    5MNZlGQ.gif
    When I woke for the first time, when I slept for the last.
  • Sk8rblazeSk8rblaze Posts: 7,570 Member
    Adz89 wrote: »
    Unfortunately, the sims peaked at sims 3 and no stuff pack, game pack or expansion pack has reached the potential the sims 3 had....actually contemplating uninstalling sims 4 and going back to playing sims 3

    IMHO it was Sims 2, but... just look at videos on youtube; the details on animations in Sims 2 are just mind boggling even compared to Sims 3.

    As a diehard TS2 fan, I agree. But dang, when you've played TS4, even for a bit, you come to realize that The Sims 3 actually had its own fair share of details and quirks. If The Sims 3 had the stability of 4, I'd probably say it'd be hands down the best.
  • BeardedgeekBeardedgeek Posts: 5,520 Member
    Sk8rblaze wrote: »
    Adz89 wrote: »
    Unfortunately, the sims peaked at sims 3 and no stuff pack, game pack or expansion pack has reached the potential the sims 3 had....actually contemplating uninstalling sims 4 and going back to playing sims 3

    IMHO it was Sims 2, but... just look at videos on youtube; the details on animations in Sims 2 are just mind boggling even compared to Sims 3.

    As a diehard TS2 fan, I agree. But dang, when you've played TS4, even for a bit, you come to realize that The Sims 3 actually had its own fair share of details and quirks. If The Sims 3 had the stability of 4, I'd probably say it'd be hands down the best.

    I WANT:
    Sims 4 graphics (I DO absolutely adore the slightly deliberately cartoony style), Sims 3's open world and SIms 2's commitment to detail.
    Origin ID: A_Bearded_Geek
  • OnverserOnverser Posts: 3,364 Member
    edited September 2020
    The Sims team don't seem to understand what "listening" is. Regularly nowadays they come back with some stupid statement about how they hear players complaints yet they do nothing about them. If you do nothing about these complaints and continue making things nobody wants rather than what players ask for that is not listening.

    The amount of time it's taking for basic things like occults to be put in and stuff for elders to do to be put in is ridiculous.

    Why are they spending so much time on these random packs nobody wants rather than putting in what players want? We want occults. We want generations. We want world adventures. Not some stupid pack about saving the environment and becoming a star wars.
  • mcorralmcorral Posts: 512 Member
    I came to the conclusion that the fan base, those who have been plaing The Sims since the first iteration are more demanding, maybe because of the experience with the game or maybe because we reached a certain age and we know what we want and what we don't want. I think that maybe new players, that I'm sure are younger and haven't played previous games, accept more easily this iteration and are fine with this swallow game. Maybe EA strategy was, due to their lazyness, to reach for a younger audicence, which are less demanding and release a very visual game but not as difficult to program as previous games.
  • GoldmoldarGoldmoldar Posts: 11,966 Member
    Sk8rblaze wrote: »
    Adz89 wrote: »
    Unfortunately, the sims peaked at sims 3 and no stuff pack, game pack or expansion pack has reached the potential the sims 3 had....actually contemplating uninstalling sims 4 and going back to playing sims 3

    IMHO it was Sims 2, but... just look at videos on youtube; the details on animations in Sims 2 are just mind boggling even compared to Sims 3.

    As a diehard TS2 fan, I agree. But dang, when you've played TS4, even for a bit, you come to realize that The Sims 3 actually had its own fair share of details and quirks. If The Sims 3 had the stability of 4, I'd probably say it'd be hands down the best.

    I agree Sims 2 was the best for me and Sims 3 is second best whereas Sims 4 is the last. The thing for me Sims 3 had an lot of options as opposed to Sims 2 and 4. Sims 2 would be even better if it had some of the options that Sims 3 had. For me some of that instability can be alluded to EA/Maxis for not tweaking Sims 3 as they should have been doing. I luckily had not experienced problems unless it was done by developer errors and what killed me the way they handled IP which was an shame. I could not play in that EP and I do not use mods. However even though Sims did not have the characteristics that Sims 2 had it was still an blast as the options to create, play was an blast. I really can't say much for Sims 4 as it was not an traditional evolution for the game as I almost never seen newer versions of any franchise cut all features and combined, tweaked the old and new features. For me EA/Maxis blew it on that part and I do not high hopes for Sims 5 unless they come up with new themes and try to correct it's path to the the true formula.
    Omen by HP Intel®️ Core™️ i9- 12900K W/ RGB Liquid Cooler 32GB Nvidia RTX 3080 10Gb ASUS Ultra-Wide 34" Curved Monitor. Omen By HP Intel® Core™ i7-12800HX 32 GB Nvidia 3070 Ti 8 GB 17.3 Screen
  • CinebarCinebar Posts: 33,618 Member
    edited September 2020
    TS4 is the opposite, if they see someone who hasn't ever bought their base and or packs they go out of their way to get them do tell them what they would like in a game. It doesn't matter they want the game to be anything but a life simulator. Oh, yeah, that sounds good, let's make the game into a virtual shop where we all feel good about ourselves, and pat each other on the back for our diversity and yeah, there should be ten different genres in the game and hey, you guys over there that used to buy from us, hush, we have bigger and better plans for these over here. We got your money, we have bigger fish to fry. Five minutes of gameplay, 55 minutes of fluff.
    "Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
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