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Sims 411 - Forum Feedback, August 19th

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  • HolidayHoliday Posts: 681 Member
    I would personally like to see you explore how to make careers more challenging, or not so straight forward and easy, especially for those of us who play with a longer lifespan. I also think this links to how easy it is to make money in the game too.

    In the current family I’m playing, both the parents are about halfway through their adult life stage, but have advanced way beyond Level 10 in their careers, I think mum is at 10+7 and dad is at 10+5. Mum has also taken time off work to have 3 children, plus however many vacation days she has taken, so imagine she hadn’t - she would be even further up the ladder. Both these Sims are also earning so much money and nothing really to spend it on anymore so the household funds are just accumulating. I’ve also never used cheats for money, skills or career, so this has all been natural progression.

    I’d love to be faced with chance cards like we had in The Sims 2, that spontaneity made the game fun and challenging, and although we have some at the moment (I’m not a fan), I don’t want to know that if I select X answer my Sims status will remain unchanged but if I select Y they will be fired.

    If we are faced with 2 or 3 choices that don’t give you the answer beforehand and is completely variable on the percentages, then that makes the game fun and challenging. If my Sim gets fired, demoted, loses skill points, told to take an unpaid day off, made to stay on for overtime, these are not the outcomes I would chose for myself, but the game has decided it for me and that’s the path I now need to take! I think it’s too easy to play a ‘happy’ game because there are no barriers like this put in place. Of course there would need to be choices that gave you promotions, big bonuses, increased skill points etc… we just need more variables to make our games not so linear and going in a forward direction and to throw in these disruptions.
  • carpe_diemcarpe_diem Posts: 280 Member
    edited August 2021
    DEPTH BG - PERSONALITY

    Are you planning to continue to work on the LIFESTYLES SYSTEM (adding more + include it in BG)? And are you going to fix / tune the existing ones? 😊
    Example: Social lifestyles counting family members (Close knit parents tensed from having a new baby = new friend), sims flickering between close-knit / Peopleperson (no gap), there are no Lifestyles for Art, etc

    Improved experience: Lifestyles are a good idea but a it's a bit half done. It could give more uniqueness to sims if it was improved (and fixed). Work with what you already have instead of abandoning good ideas.
    Post edited by carpe_diem on
  • AineAine Posts: 3,043 Member
    edited August 2021
    One of the things I've been thinking about a lot lately that I've wanted to see since the game launched is improvements to community lots and neighborhood and world management. Customization and depth are closely tied together IMO in the sims. If we got improvement to community lot and npc management that would vastly improve depth and immersion in gameplay.

    Idea for how that would look like includes being able to own community lots, assign ownership to sims in neighborhood management. Customize what npc's are spawned on community lots, and walkby sims in the world. There's a lot that could be expanded from there. Being able to play sims that are also npc's would also be welcome, but it's not the most important part. Having a lot owner sim show up on lots AND be assigned a lot so that when you use other features in the game, for example when you do a renovation, that owner is the client.

    Details that deepens customization will improve the depth of the game SO much. For instance - if I could assign npc's to lots, I could have a spa with a café, a nightclub with a gym, and other combinations.

    SO in short customizing every single lot and sim and their ROLES in each world and where they spawn and walk around would really help the game. You could still have default settings if people don't care about it, but In think most simmers would love to be able to control npc's and community lots more. Setting role outfits would also be nice. Imagine being able to customize not only which sim works as a barista on a particular lot, but also their outfit - even better if we could assign npc's for different shifts, set open hours for the lot, owner of the lot, Paying to enter a lot, like a nightclub, and sims that own that lot earn money from it!

    There's a lot there that could be explored.

    Also, being able to live in every world would be great. Owning rentals also, and apartments, yes everything. ;)
    Allons-y!

    ---> Afterlife Game Pack Idea - improved ghosts, cemeteries and funerals, psychics, new skills, new career and more! <---
    ---> Burglary Stuff Pack Idea - Burglars, alarm systems, and diamonds to steal!<---
  • Renato10Renato10 Posts: 472 Member
    edited August 2021
    Thank you for this opportunity!

    In my opinion Emotions are the key for the depth in The Sims 4. I would like to see more challenge to it! Positive emotions tend to overlap all the other ones and that is a big problem. Features like likes/dislikes, sentiments, relationships,etc... are all affected by emotions and unfortunatly it doesn't work well many times. Things become so easy and boring because sims tend to be extremelly happy all the time and if I try to be sad, it becomes another extreme like there's no in between! And also emotions should take longer in game time. Sometimes sims change radically their emotions that it doesn't look normal.

    Relationships are one sided. I feel like even if I don't control a sim, it must reflect the emotion and relashionship level my controlled sim has and that almost never happen.

    Sims from another worlds have to stop showing in another random worlds. Pre-made sims should only walk arround and work as npc's in the world they live. It doesn't kill the immersion and it's an opportunity to give more depth to the lore.

    And finally the job rewards should be more valuable. I don't like how in TS4 the rewards are random decorative objects or things that don't make sense at all like windows or doors (seriously?) I think big things like weather machine, or the giant microscope or telescope or the cupcake factory, those over the top objects should be rewards and a simple plant or a decorative piece of paper not. That would give the feeling of reward wich I think it ads more depth to the game. Working hard on a job or aspiration to unlock a piece of cas or a window isn't rewarding at all.

  • Gloxinia19Gloxinia19 Posts: 7 New Member
    Lot challenges….hmm what about a tiny house lot challenge where it limits how many stuff you have in your house. What about a rich lot challenge where it only makes you buy expensive stuff and you can’t buy things noobs would buy.
  • ZaszZasz Posts: 806 Member
    EA_Lanna wrote: »
    [*] What would you expect from it?
    [*] How would this change your current experience of The Sims 4?
    [*] What specific aspects of the game would you like to see more depth in?
    [/list]
    - A big window to see ALL actions based on the packs we purchased and a simple click to enable/disable them individually. 'curses at umbrellas'
    - I could eliminate pointless actions and have my sims do things that are not pointless.
    - The above adds more depth by eliminating pointless actions.

    Personally I would like CAS overhauled instead. Its a mess and should have gotten attention years ago.
  • flaminganakinflaminganakin Posts: 36 Member
    Hello Sims Team. Thank you for doing another feedback thread! Here are some thoughts I have on the subject of bringing more depth to the game.

    1) something I appreciated about Dream Home Decorator was the modular furniture feature brought to shelving and storage because, as a builder, it gave us more customization options and helped the rooms I decorate and homes I build not all look the same. I would like to see more of that in the future, particularly with things like playground equipment.


    2) speaking of all rooms and builds not looking the same, I think adding recolors of wall art, clutter, rugs, and curtains in addition to adding new items in with each pack, would help with the “sameyness” a lot of rooms have. Particularly kids’, toddlers’, and teens’ rooms


    3) With regard to teens, kids, and toddlers, my gameplay style is family-based (as opposed to say, occults, or strictly adults), so with that said, it feels like there isn’t as much for teens and below to *do.* I think adding more gameplay and kid/toddler/teen-focused objects would add more depth to the game. For example:

    -bikes & tricycles for kids so that--in addition to riding--adults and teen Sims could teach younger Sims how to ride a bike.

    -a ‘jump on the bed/couch’ interaction as this is something kids do in real life

    -more teen-centric gameplay options. Right now they look and feel like young adults. I think adding more gameplay, objects, and interactions that were distinct from the other life stages would improve the realism of the Teen life stage.


    4) Emotions in the game seem a little...off? In that they seem weighted in a way that feels unbalanced and unrealistic. For example, a Sim whose wife just died was instantly cheered up after they ate a hot dog. It feels odd. I think an overhaul of the emotions system and making it so that Sims experience emotion in a more realistic way would go a long way to improving gameplay.


    Thank you again for doing this thread.
  • Briana2425Briana2425 Posts: 3,591 Member
    edited August 2021
    A challenge well with sickness as well as the options with medicine that instantly make the sim better why not take the sims to the doctors just like we take pets to the vet let them check a sim out and we get a notification saying your sim needs a day or two of rest before doing any activity like they rest from work or school and don't forget the doctor's note.

    School we need more activities with children and teens also challenges like a science fair we already have the rocket, volcano, and the castle now it's time for the volcano to blow up and the castle be crushed and depends on how good the sims build it will win the science fair. Also the grading system is okay with kids, teens, and college like the grading system for sims 2 college showed us where we were at when it came to grades and how to boost it up but I wish they mainly kids and teens had more homework like let's write a book report for homework, or develop a skill as a homework it could even be a special skill they can use as an adult.

    Sims really don't have fears like I want them to be scared of what others like to do like some should be scared of skiing and snowboarding, Rock climbing, swimming, or going on a boat, fear of high places, fear of the dark, fear of small places, but eventually and gradually they can get over it maybe.
  • AoYamiNoYumeAoYamiNoYume Posts: 1 New Member
    Dear Sims Team,

    Thank you kindly for this opportunity. My suggestion/ request is a bit different than the general tone; all I ask is that whatever you implement as a result of this thread, please give us a way to disable it.

    I greatly appreciate that we can turn off gameplay from packs and I would love to see that even more, even with previous packs, if possible. I am someone who does not want more challenge, does not want more danger, and certainly does not want any sort of story progression imposed. I was upset by the text-messaging update which causes NPCs to call sims and proclaim that they want to be more than friends or the random relationships that seem to happen between NPCs since the update. As a side-note, please offer a way to disallow them!

    Thus, my only request is: whatever is added, as a result of this thread, or even in future packs, please allow the disallowing of it.

    Kindest regards.
  • SthenastiaSthenastia Posts: 651 Member
    My suggestions. I hope that his time you will read something :)

    In my opinion the base game requires more unique places to visit for our sims. Currently we can do the same things in every neighbourhood. It is really boring in long-term gameplay. In my opinion, we need to have more community spaces to spend times with families, dates or do another activities. After the years we have a lot things pathched to the basegame and in my opinion it is time to implement some new content to the game. I think that we need more cross-world lore also. For example it will be awesome if you implement the world from TS1 with Mortimer's parents and make relations between Gots from Willow Creek and the Gots from Old Town. In my opinion BB and CAS is also a huge part of the game. Especially as a console player I really miss a lot of content made by CC creators. I'm sure that the content made by HeyHarrie or Peacemaker could help me to make more various lots and families. I provided some ideas in previous thread how CC can be implemented to the game for console players :) I also think that is should be harder to get promoted in TS4. It is too easy to be rich. In my opinion we need more things to do for poor or medium-class sims as less paid careers, small, cheap lots to live ect. Currently every of my sim is getting wealthy and happy too fars. Iven if I try to sabotage it. In general I think that currently the major issue with the base game is the fact, that the base game is too small. And I mean everything to be honest. Worlds are small, with similar neighbourgoods and not too much space to build here, sims are still flat with no lore, bb and cas is still not interesting because of swatches and texture choice. I forgot to add that townies should stay in your home worlds. I really don't like to see Judith Ward, Bella Goth and Penny Pizzazz in the middle of Strangerville.
  • BortschBortsch Posts: 1 New Member
    Hello dears !
    I don't actually have much in mind but as someone who thoroughly enjoys building and customising spaces, neighborhoods and maps, I would really appreciate the addition of "Room markers" since they allowed to create custom public/private areas like apartment buildings in the past. I feel like TS4 gave us the biggest creative freedom so far in the franchise and it simply lacks a tiny bit of that in the way you can purpose your builds. It feels incredible to build something, but it feels even better watching it come to life. My idea may seem quite poor compared to other elaborated comments but I just think it could bring even more customisation to our game. Thank you all for caring so much about feedback !
  • mischiefluvermischiefluver Posts: 738 Member
    Focusing on gameplay improvements I would like to see, relationships are too easy. There should be one sided relationships that generate unique reactions, socials, and animations. Unrequited love and crushes would be great. There should be a chemistry system that makes it really hard for a couple with no chemistry to have successful romantic interactions.

    Gameplay will also deepen by building on existing systems. There should have been new lifestyles added in cottage living, clubs need new icon choices, and there should be more NAPS (I would love one where everyone dresses in formal wear and another where everyone is in their gym clothes and another with everyone in their party outfits so I can make all of my sims in the fashion district super fancy all the time.). And where did whims go? These features were created for a reason and they need to be updated so that they can add depth to an ever expanding game instead of being abandoned which makes them seem shallow and temporary and makes it hard to fall in love with new features knowing they might also be rendered obsolete.

    Part of what gives a game longevity and replay value is the ability to do the same thing over and over again and to have random new things pop up, not in the form of dialogue, but by seeing the sims do something they have never done before. That is why recycled animations are such a game killer because it is the seemingly random animations that someone stumbles upon after hours of playing that makes the game special. It might not seem like it, but for a game like the sims, objects that come with new animations is key. That is why I would love to see bands, a fashion career with a functioning run way, winemaking complete with grape smashing, strollers, pottery, canes, and pool tables make a return. It was endearing to watch the sims use these items especially especially when there was a small chance that something could go wrong and produce a surprise animation and a comical moment.

    I have been playing this game from TS1 and I am so glad that the TS4 team is committed to improving the game. Evey iteration of the game has had both a sense of magic and mischievous joy for me and I would love to see TS4 reach its full potential. Thank you!
  • SelinaKylesSelinaKyles Posts: 4,337 Member
    Can other skills be looked at? Painting/Writing is extremely catered too even though it’s extremely easy to make money with. Other skills need to be looked at, handiness has the woodworking table to train, yet no career? There could be a carpentry career
  • lizalotlizalot Posts: 1 New Member
    Hello, thank you for hosting this and listening to us.

    What I want from the Sims is much more complex, detailed, and individualized personalities and relationships. I want each sim to have their own unique psychology that alters how they react and interact with events, each other, and the world around them.

    Lifestyles and sentiments were a great addition and part of what got me back into playing recently (the other was cottage living). Likes and Dislikes were great too. I think there are still gaps and missed opportunities that can be improved by at least doubling the number of personality traits and continuing to improve the existing ones.

    Many times when I've recreated non-sim characters in the sims, I'll find one or two traits that really match with their personality, and then be at a loss when picking the others. Not because I don't have a good idea of who they are, but because there just aren't any traits that [i]fit[/i]. I didn't have that problem with TS3.

    For example, I have a character who is kind, actively generous, peaceful, and rarely lets her emotions show or get the better of her, except for when she cries at weddings. She's mentally tough and not at all squeamish. She sometimes feels tempted to be selfish or evil, which she hides out of shame.
    TS4 traits that correspond with that are: Good. Just Good. (And Compassionate, but that's a Parenthood character value)

    I wasn't sold on the three CAS trait limit when the game came out and I have to say it's still not working for me. Especially because we have traits that don't affect personality (like animal lover or vegetarian). Right now they're just taking up a slot from that would otherwise make the sim feel more like an individual. Maybe there could be a separate category for CAS traits like that? I wholly approved of the update that added a separate category for lot challenges—limited benefits; unlimited challenges, each with visible changes.

    Someone once said they play the sims like it's partially an RPG, and I'd never thought of it like that, but it really makes sense to me (when it comes to working towards goals like reaching the top of a career). Some RPGs will let you choose character modifiers that increase difficulty or alter gameplay in a meaningful way (e.g. you get a permanent -10% to perception unless you wear glasses, which now give you +20% perception).

    I think there should be challenges that range in difficulty from casual to something that takes time strategy. FFXIV comes to mind; what you can choose to do in that game that range in difficulty from casual minigames to dungeons that take months of preparation and practice to complete, and it's all optional. It's the same game, but everyone picks their level of difficulty by the content they gravitate towards.
    Completing TS2 lifetime goal felt like an accomplishment, but in TS4 they're so simple they don't interest me much. I also miss TS3 opportunities, I feel the only thing really driving the gameplay/story forward in TS4 is my own imagination (which should be a big part, but not the only part).

    (It's kind of the middle of the night for me so I'm going back to bed now lol)
  • EloquentMyDearEloquentMyDear Posts: 54 Member
    The "genderless clothing" system needs a whole overhaul. Feminine tops have shadows on the chest which makes them look wrong on male/masculine flat-chested Sims. Feminine bottoms and dresses often give male/masculine body sims a weird bulge at the groin. Masculine bottoms often give female/feminine body sims a concave dip at the groin, and the pants often sit way too low and sag down. Hairstyles and beards transferred to the 'other' gender still have mesh issues, especially hair and beards on feminine-framed men, and long hairs on masculine-framed women. Makes a lot of it unusable, unfortunately.

    The expanded gender options was such a good thing to add, but has been severely neglected which makes it difficult to use. Male Sims with feminine body shape also need to have their proportions changed - they always have long, thin giraffe necks. Masculine-frame female Sims are always a little too bulky around the shoulders, chest and neck. Every 'genderless' item of clothing and hairstyle needs to be checked for how it looks on the 'other' body shape. In particular, the chest area and groin area.

    I know that pronouns/non-binary Sims is something you're looking into as a team already, and is sorely needed (would love a 'neutral' body shape that sits somewhere between the two gendered options, and a 'both' fashion preference, as well as pronouns), but there is a lot more to be fixed before we can truly say The Sims 4 supports diverse gender identity/expression. Not sure if this will be censored, but also a breast on/off toggle would be great. (In case of censoring, I said a mammary toggle).
  • MLW186MLW186 Posts: 1 New Member
    1. More baby interactions like sims 3
    2. More pet control like sims 3
    3. No disappearing family tree after several generations
  • ChantiNoodlesChantiNoodles Posts: 1 New Member
    I would definitely like to see more depth in relationships. I would like Sims to have preferences (for example that a straight Sims can’t seduce a gay one and make them straight)
    But also make friendships and family relationships mean more. Perhaps friends will get different interactions. I miss seeing real connections, I wouldn’t mind the sim that you don’t play taking more initiative

    I love the lot challenges and would like to see those in characters also. I wouldn’t mind there being character flaws next to the positive traits. It will give characters more depth.

    It would be awesome if babies would not so much be more challenging (they’re plenty challenging) but get more depth and be more fun. Toddlers are awesome, I want more of that.

    I wish more professions would either become active or ‘work from home’ professions. Those of us with one sim households don’t want to just sit and stare at the screen until work is over.

    I would really like Sims to be able to marry more than one sim. I know real life isn’t exactly a Utopia for us polyamorous people, but I would like to live vicariously through my sims

    Maybe bring back accidental pregnancies? Allow Sims to use contraceptives to prevent them?

    I personally love playing off the grid games, where a Sim tries to be very self sufficient. I love all the recent new developments in that and more would be great. Maybe able to make more furniture and lights ourselves etc?

    Also maybe some more modern features like online dating?
  • FireBird098FireBird098 Posts: 1 New Member
    Hello! I hope it’s okay to post here – I joined the forums because I saw the topic for today during the last announcement and I wanted to make a few suggestions. Personally, I’m a big fan of collecting things/completing challenges for rewards/watching numbers go up which is absolutely reflected in what I’m about to suggest, so this might not be what you had in mind {and some of these are definitely more half-baked than others} but I’d like to offer it anyway. To make the base game more challenging I would like to suggest:

    1} A Challenge Trait system. This would entail the creation of a new section of traits, for the sake of this description I’ll call them Flaws, that effectively act as Lot Challenge traits but for sims. That way they remain optional, but they’re there for players to take with the understanding that they will significantly impact the way gameplay functions. I’m thinking something more akin to the perks of Fallout 1 through New Vegas over The Sims Medieval’s fatal flaw system, with a positive attribute and a negative attribute, i.e: sims with the ‘socially awkward’ flaw gain a big debuff to social/romantic gain but a big boost to skills, ‘social butterfly/chatty’ gain socials incredibly fast/have a buff to social events but their work/school performance is lowered significantly, ‘slow learners’ learn skills incredibly slowly but gain double satisfaction points, and so forth. This offers challenge whilst making traits feel more impactful by favouring gameplay changes over emotional buffs, which I don’t think would be very enriching to implement as there are so many ways to circumvent them.

    2} A revamp of the achievement system. The achievement system feels as if it was implemented in the base game by request because achievements have become a valued gaming commodity, but enthusiasm for it fizzled out during EP development and it was left by the wayside. I can completely understand why, but I’d like to make a case for it as something of a player equivalent to satisfaction points – i.e: keep the achievement system, keep it point based, but tie gameplay rewards to the acquisition of achievements. I’m thinking something physical/object based, maybe akin to the sims 2’s aspiration points to aspiration rewards system, but I also think there’s room to lock certain traits/buffs behind this unlock system.

    Alternately, this kind of system could also be used to create something like a ‘challenge overlay’, a checklist/template of goals to achieve that’s applied to a save like a player selected, universal aspiration, i.e: a ‘100 baby challenge’ template that has goals like ‘have x number of babies’ or ‘have a child learn a skill point’/’have x number of teens graduate’, maybe with gameplay rewards tied to it but I’d lean towards keeping it flexible to allow for players to create their own ‘challenge overlays’, opening the system up to the online challenge community to create their own metrics. I think having a system like this would be helpful both for challenging gameplay and for allowing players to set their own goals, retaining that feeling of player autonomy which is so vital to The Sims 4’s design.

    3} Value sliders. This is more a thought for the console/no-mods crowd, but also because I think it would be really cool to have official multiplier sliders that affect different aspects of gameplay, intended to increase/decrease things like bill amounts, skill rate, relationship gain, weight/calories, wages and job performance, durations of emotions, need decay, the cost of furniture/objects/items, so that players can set their own rate of challenge - especially in light of flexible aging, some people have their sims live for days while some never die, and a uniform rate of progression for different lifespans feels insufficient, either far too quick or too slow. I know this suggestion might be contradictory to the others I’ve offered {and there are definitely plenty of mods out there that affect these things, yes} but I’ve always found gameplay related value sliders to be an implementation that greatly increases the customisability of a game, and so I think they’re worth considering for The Sims 4.

    While there are other things I could suggest, these are the only ones that seemed ‘base game’ compatible and in-line with TS4’s design philosophy. Thank you for taking the time to read through them, even if they’re not what you’re looking for. :smile:
  • L1ttl3R3dL1ttl3R3d Posts: 1 New Member
    Hi Sims team,
    I think the gallery needs a little bit more attention. I think it’s a great recourse, however, basic features like sorting by packs doesn’t actually exclude the packs you don’t own, which makes it very hard to find builds you can actually download. Thanks for asking for the feedback and I can’t wait to see what’s in the next patch.
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