The amount of bugs in the patch are the most I've ever seen with the sims. Saying that, out of the blue, after this patch my game performance shot up. I have one lot in particular that is very crowded and spinning the camera used to cause the framerate to drop, that's not happening now ... which I'm very pleased with. Mixed feelings, the bugs are horrible, but I love whatever they did the settle down the frame rate on crowded lots.
I’m hoping that my main save isn’t broken, and I have so much anxiety waiting for a chance to check on my merfolk.
I’ve been enjoying the game, but I desperately need a major update for my merfolk. When I saw merfolk, I was so hopeful for underwater activities and a lot of similar content to the sims 3 merfolk. I got so little for my mermen and mermaids with Island Living and refuse to buy a sequel because of how they didn’t deliver on the minimum I expected.
I don’t think a new game will reassure me or improve my opinion about the franchise.
If they leave the Sims 4 in its current bugged and unfinished state, how do I know they won’t do the same thing in a Sims 5?
Regardless of what anyone says, Island Living is an unfinished pack as long merfolk content remains as is. I will not. I repeat, will not, buy a Sims 5 and will be very upset with the franchise if Island Living never gets a refresh that improves merfolk gameplay before a sequel.
That’s my criticism thus far. The initial update did not break my save, but the patches that came later clearly did break my save.
For merfolk, I want to see the moon affect them more because the moon is literally one of the most important things to the ocean.
We literally wouldn’t have tides without it and marine life have behaviors that revolve around the moon. The moon and ocean are extremely interconnected.
Occult players AND realism players should want to see the moon play a bigger role in Island Living. It’s that significant to the ocean.
I want merfolk to have a power system similar to vampires and spellcasters.
There is some division between people in the mermaiding community about sirens and merfolk, but I don’t think of merfolk as equivalents to Sirens. In fact the show about mermaids called Sirens is black listed as a show I will never watch because of poor title choice that demonstrates a massive of lack of merfolk mythology research, in my opinion.
As far as I’m concerned, sirens are half-bird in mythology, not half-fish… It’s clear that the siren lullaby is the Sims playing on pop culture mythology and displays significant ignorance.
Merfolk shouldn’t be objects of romance, but without seasons and the emphasis on sirens, the merfolk from Island Living are just that, romantic objects.
The songs Sirens sing in mythology, regardless of how they look, is a song that emphasizes on one’s deepest desires… That’s what they thought of merfolk in Island Living… they are like romantic objects, or objects of desire, that sing to the listener their deepest desire to lure them into the sea for a non-lethal attempt at drowning humans… They sing SIREN lullabies… Have the mermaid’s KISS that raises romance without fail…
The only two abilities that aren’t siren related and might actually be true merfolk abilities are the Summon Ocean Threat and Aquatic Lure. Changing the Weather is gated behind the Seasons expansion pack, but that would also be a true merfolk power.
Not saying I don’t want merfolk to have siren abilities either. True Sirens and True Merfolk are closely connected, and merfolk do have the natural talent with singing and music in mythology to perfectly mimic the siren song… Just, please, please recognize that SIRENS and MERFOLK are not the same mythical creatures.
They call the gender neutral plural merFOLK occult, female exclusively merMAIDS, in CAS which is a gendered mistake that completely ignores the existence of the male exclusively merMEN.
That’s my criticism so far.
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What I Would Like to See
I want to see an ability system for merfolk that focuses on the innate musical and singing talent of merfolk, changing the weather, changing emotions, interactions with marine life…
I want merfolk to have an interaction with dive buoys in shallow water. Just saying snorkeling is a taboo subject is a cheap excuse for not creating a unique interaction. Please let merfolk do something with those buoys without joining the marine biologist career…
Diving into deep water shouldn’t be a rabbit hole… I want to go underwater with my merfolk.
I want my merfolk to be able to live underwater… I want underwater residential lots similar to how Spellcasters, Vampires, and Werewolves have their own Worlds with lots they can live on.
I want to see what my sims see in the beach cave…
I want more activities my merfolk can do without leaving the water. I want them to be able to do more as merfolk, mermen and mermaids. Please make it so my merfolk can choose to spend less time in their human form. And give me, the player, more to do with them in their merfolk forms.
I want merfolk children to have a merman or mermaid form.
I want time to speed up when merfolk sleep in the water.
I want more socials about merfolk.
I want merfolk to have their own bassinet.
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What I Enjoy
I do enjoy playing with merfolk. I love the ability to change the weather and enjoy the small details from other packs… Like a cat’s reaction to a merman or mermaid.
I love that they don’t die from dehydration.
I love how merfolk seem to always know where they can swim and routinely seek those places out.
I love when merfolk sink underwater while sleeping in the water.
I love the interactions with dolphins.
I love the socials like “ask if mermaid” and “Share Mermaid Discovery”
I love the odd job that involves looking for proof of merfolk.
I love the Island Festivals.
I love the Sea Turtles.
I love the dolphins.
I love the quirks involving Children of the Ocean and fish.
I love how merfolk can talk to fish.
I love how merfolk have face masks from the spa day refresh, and I love how the full moon decreases the rate merfolk lose hydration.
I do think they are making progress with improving merfolk gameplay.
I love playing my merfolk more than I hate anything I’m upset with… I’m sure I’ll be up all night thinking about new things I love about merfolk gameplay.
I just feel like they didn’t quite figure out occults until Vampires and Spellcasters… they should have revisited merfolk and aliens a long time ago.
I've been playing offline since the pre-HSY patch.
I'm feeling very disappointed right now, having been quite excited for wants & fears and making aspec sims and then it the patch was so notoriously bugged. I can't tell if it's still broken or if people are, shall we say, complaining about things that I wouldn't.
Examples might be "NPC (who you actually never met) is doing push ups in your hood while being in a bad mood, should she dislike exercising?".
This one was a bug that was fixed a couple of months after it started happening
You can fix it by updating your game unless there is something else going on.
It went away but then came back. I don't mind though, because I actually like it.
Just reinstalled after a break, so far so good. I haven't bought any new packs, but will as soon as the build a bundle works for me. Looking forward to playing Werewolves and High School Years.
like I be excited to open the game with all these ideas but then i play like 30 min and feel like aight nap time
well partly cause i haven't been taking good care of my flesh prison this summer and sitting in one place makes me lethargic
but also kinda feels like the constant simming is catching up on my poor brain running out of memory space like ive got too many tabs open and they're all playing HD full volume on top of each other
times i wish there was such thing as brain reset
also the bugginess and lagginess and broken things in the game doesn't exactly make me more excited to play ya know
I'm really disappointed and the whole mess has been quite detrimental for my mental health to be honest. I miss my game as a means to relax and now I'm constantly reading the forums and bug reports instead...
My main save is still not playable due to aging issues (short lifespan backup, but the ages are just calculated totally wrong...) I'm currently waiting in the hope that there will be a fix, but I fear that there won't.
I hate that the lifespans have been changed and I hate even more that noboby really explains why. Especially why the heck they shorten short lifespan, 🐸🐸🐸🐸?!
I was actually excited for HSY but since I can't even play my old legacy right now and HSY is still full of bugs and won't be able to get in anytime soon.
And I'm quite disappointed that the Neighborhood Stories feature takes so long to grow. I actually like it but it does not make sense that Sims still can't get married and form families of their own. So it basically only works for two generations, but afterwards all kids will remain in the same household and grow old together without families of their own, so this kinda sucks...
I create mods and I normally I enjoy doing that, but right now I do not feel a lot of motivation. It feels super stupid to test mods in a totally buggy game and care for quality while EA apparently doesn't and to give my work away for free while people still spend loads of money for bugs...
I admit I took a little break from the game. I intended to start again a short while back, but after reading about how broken the game is currently, I'm afraid to start up my game, which I unwisely updated. What's this about overuse use of phones, as if we already do not have enough to deal with sims and their obsessions with certain objects. Why was this not limited to the new pack, and limited to teens only? What about a patch that moderates all these obsessions? Though I haven't seen wants and fears for myself, I worry it will just be another thing I'd want to keep turned off, the way I already had for lifestyles. Features that presume to tell me who my sims should be, but ultimately it just leads to my sims having to deal with more negative moodlets. It seems to be a recurrent issue that new features, which should be enhancing the game, become a hindrance and an annoyance instead. I really hope every new thing that is added now come with the ability to toggle off. So far I've managed to play with autonomy on and without mods. But if I keep getting bombarded with unwanted changes, I might just have to.
@flauschtrud I sympathize. I play a game on my Laptop called Stellaris. I can’t play that game without mods, and I’ve been there with an unplayable game when it gets updated. I know what it feels like to have broken mods in a game you love.
However,
I will say that there are mods for merfolk in the Sims 4 that I would absolutely use, but I also know that it’s not possible for me to use any mods in the sims.
I do not play the sims on the pc. I play it on the PlayStation 4.
In spite of all the chaos on the forums, my game never bugged after this update. It started bugging after they patched the update.
I think it’s great you create mods, and I understand the desire to create quality works. However, I don’t think it’s wrong for EA to make available to Console Players things that are exclusive to people who mod their game.
I think EA does care about quality, and I think this update did not have as many bugs as it appears in the forums.
Again, I play on the console and can’t use mods even if I want to. I did not have my sims experience the auto-aging bug. I haven’t had incest wants. I had a very good initial experience with the update.
The only inappropriate romances I’ve had came from my inability to change the relationships between existing sims after forgetting to set those relationships up when I started a new save. Not because of an update that came from EA…
But, romance between certain family members on a family tree has always been possible. The game doesn’t recognize cousins once removed and great-grand parents as family. Even if I can easily trace their lineage and confirm that they are closely related, I can have certain cousins perform romance interactions with each other.
This problem starts once you reach the 3rd generation. I’ll have to share a family tree later for clarity.
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The bugs I’ve encountered so far after the patch include extreme Lag and getting sent to the Main Menu when I save the game.
My current main save has lasted the longest so far. I’ve had it survive more updates than players that use mods.
Again, I play a different game that is heavily reliant on mods. It will probably take a little while for mods to get updated, but that’s just the harsh reality of using mods… You have to wait for mod updates too.
The one thing I genuinely hate about this game is neither a bug nor comes from missing content…
It’s a feature that came with ghosts. I hate the Hysterical Moodlet… I take good care of my sims, and they are always so happy that a funny story can kill them… I wish their was a rewards trait that gave my sims more control over their playful emotions…
Honestly, the ability to sleep in water has saved the lives of my merfolk more times than I can count.
I play since Sims 2 and have bought every pack. Since COL I haven't spend any money on the Sims. It not that I wouldn't like to have new content in my game but nothing was worth the price.
My current state is that I'm bored of the game. I want to play but I have no ideas what to play. I need new input but I'm not so desperate that I spend more money than a pack is worth.
I don't like what they made with the game: These annoying phone calls and popups, rabbitholes instead of gameplay, not fixing bugs, adding new features with no cross pack compability, kits and even more.
The Sims 4 is starting to become a bit more difficult to enjoy.
I have been used to mods breaking down and bugs causing problems before, I have played the game since 2014 but this recent month have been...rough. And on top of that we had the drama regarding mods and early access.
When it comes to the game itself I'm running out of stuff to do, I will probably keep playing it because there is no competition and I find the game relaxing... but keeping up with mods and fighting with bugs is making it less relaxing.
So I don't think the game is in a great state right now.
Putting under a spoiler tag, only for neatness's sake since it's a bit long (as usual.)
I'm normally the one with the positive attitude towards TS4, but lately not so much. The situation going on with mods, perma-paywalling, harassment, and the new vague and easily-abused Early Access ruling had me so furious that I nearly left the community because of it. I realise now that it's no good if I leave the community over that- I just have to make sure to be a positive member of the community, try to speak out about toxicity where I can, and not support awful creators. If I can spread some kind of joy talking about my game and creations with people here then I should. I feel like de-monetisation of mods would have been the start of a potential solution to the problem, then EA backtracked. For that I am reluctant to buy any more content for a while regardless of how much I want it.
As for the state with bugs and such, it's been MUCH more noticeable as I've switched to PC play. I used to never dread Patch Day on my Xbox Part of me feels like it's just a normal part of modern gaming nowadays and I wish it wasn't. Thanks to patches being easy to download mostly nowadays and the mad crunch-time generally put on game devs in big companies now, it means a lot of games or expansions get released more or less unfinished and it's not great for players, devs, and eventually not for the big companies either because people lose faith and stop giving them money.
I'm mainly a builder and storyteller in TS4 now, but I have been asking myself lately...is it just because I like storytelling more? Or is it because I got bored of gameplay that I have more fun with storytelling and building? I wonder if it's the latter. So many new mechanics got added in High School Years and I still had little interest in the pack itself. At one point I wanted more mechanics to aid in meaningful in-game relationships and such (and I wanted some things back from older games in the series), but now some of that is happening it still doesn't make me want to get back into gameplay.
Melisendre's point about cross-pack compatibility is an important one actually. I would have liked more of that especially with the Werewolves pack, though we did get a bit I guess, and I'd like more of it going forward. The way I feel at the moment generally, is I would rather have the current game polished up a bit rather than a bunch of new content (though I did enjoy Werewolves and finally getting more occult stuff). The Spa Day pack refresh was great, and I remember quite a lot of us were pretty excited about it. I think starting from the older packs, I'd rather have pack refreshes and bug fixes be the focal point.
It has never been a great game and it never will be. It's stifled by a bad base, but also the direction the team has taken it. I hate that they got me by making Seasons an actual good pack (customizable holidays and actually working hard on winter aesthetically beyond snow and the trees. I'm a sucker for that, just like I would be for a playable wind instrument, as winter aesthetic is my favorite IRL). I wish I could take that, and some other features (sexual orientation, gender identity being two right off the top of my head) and put them in a better The Sims game. lol.
I'm kind of devastated, actually. I have not updated the last patch, which had things I specifically asked for, because suddenly the devs decided that Sims needed to use their phones more obsessively. This will completely nuke my enjoyment of the game. I hated the phone use before and it literally had me on the edge of my patience as it was, but this bomb that was dropped has done it in for me and I'm really upset about it. I've wanted a way to turn phones off for almost 8 years now. I hate it in real life and I hate it in my game.
Like many people, I play The Sims to escape real life. I like to create my own weird world, full of Occults and Gods and strange people and a mix of eras and timelines. I rarely use any of the tech gameplay, and computers are usually locked up, only put in game for brief use or not used at all. But I could never do that with phones because the game wasn't designed with options for it. It was always a race to cancel a phone action before a Sim could gain a new phone-related skill and it was frustrating. But I dealt with it because I love the Occults so much and they have been my favorite of any of the Sims series. But all these years later, after getting so much awesome content that I love, after just dropping Werewolves that I was ridiculously excited for and only got to play twice, the game has become something I don't want to play. I just don't want phone tech like that. I don't care how trivial that might sound to some people, it absolutely bothers me. Even if limited to teens, it would bother me, I love playing teens. And I haven't use mods in years because I barely have time to play my game as it is, I don't have time to take them out and update every single month. Plus, mods can be unreliable.
So my game just sits there, not updated, and I don't even know if I want to play offline because the Gallery is one of my favorite things. I can't build very well and I usually browse for the awesome builds other people make, to put in my game. At this point, I'm just trying to decide if I'm done for good or not. Sims 4 has finally chosen its path and its players and that's just not me.
I play so often offline because I often skip a patch or two, and I can totally use the gallery.
You start your game offline. Then go into the gallery. By default you are disconnected to the gallery because you are playing offline. So you have to click on the gallery, then a popup will come up asking if you want to connect with the gallery. All you have to do is connect. I always have to cancel the first try and connect again because the first try never works for me. (Don't be afraid, because the game won't patch automatically ingame, if you connect to the gallery. In order to patch you have to exit the game and press "update".)
After connecting you can normally browse the gallery and download everything you want. The only exception is, you can't download anything that was put on the gallery with a patch you don't have, so basically the newest things.
But everything until then works perfectly fine.
@mrs_starkey Thank you for this advice, it's really good to know, I really appreciate it.
I'm just trying to figure out how I can disable auto updates from the website without opening the Origin app.
I have given this game so many chances and actually have been enjoying it for a while until the Wedding Stories disaster and suddenly it's been an accelerated decline. Expect more update/pack disasters because EA can only throw so much at it (also why I believe there will never be freed babies or cars, either would definitely render the game inoperable!
I have not updated yet; can't get a straight answer from anybody as to whether their game has improved with the update or if the coast is clear.
Despite the glitches already there at least my game is playable. Also, Sims 4 is also the largest program on my pc, not counting the mods folder so I'm thisclose to chucking the whole thing.
I'm feeling very frustrated with the way the recent updates seem to break far more than they fix. From what I've read I gather this is the usual story with updates and believe me I'll be very reluctant to update in the future. While I greatly appreciate mod makers work, I shouldn't have to go looking for a bunch of mod fixes for things the devs have badly implemented or broken, or have decided they never want to fix. Theres also no guarantee a modder will continue to update their work. By rights the devs should be fixing these things themselves rather than focusing on the next new flash in the pan random idea that never gets fully developed but still gets hyped to death as content.
Also I get the indication the devs want us to play the game how they want which is why we get all these annoying ingame messages, why we have the new constant phone obsession animation, why they're so keen for us to engage with ingame social media. I play this game to get away from that kind of thing and I just want to play the game, not be notified of everything going on like I'm a child that might lose interest if I'm not spammed with new messages every two minutes.
@flauschtrud I sympathize. I play a game on my Laptop called Stellaris. I can’t play that game without mods, and I’ve been there with an unplayable game when it gets updated. I know what it feels like to have broken mods in a game you love.
Thank you, but it's definitely not the mods at this point. I only use quite small and specific gameplay mods and they have been fine so far. But what makes the game unplayable for me right now is the fact that the aging is still wrong even on backup saves (probably due to the new lifespans) and my Sims have totally wrong ages and some age up and die. I know I could partially "fix" this with cheats but since I'm also a perfectionist this just does not feel right. And my Sim currently has a relationship with the pub owner in Henford-on-Bagley, but because of the NPC bug he does not work at the pub anymore...
But I'm happy that your console experience has been fine so far. And yes, I agree that a lot of things that modders add or fix should be part of the vanilla game.
But I also have to say that this patch is the worst that I ever had. I was always excited for patch day and to get new stuff, but will now forever have a "Fear of patched game" trait...
I've been struggling a bit to be honest. I've been trying to "fit" in as a player, trying to find work-arounds to make live-mode more enjoyable but unfortunately it's getting rather challenging for me to play the game my way. I love building and creating characters in CAS, but that's not where I'd want to stop. Right now I cannot play in live mode without mods that handle certain, extremely gamebreaking autonomous behaviors. Updating these mods is getting tiresome though. Not interested. The game should give me options.
I figured I'm really just not a member of the intended Sims 4 target audience and never will be. Sad to share this, but I'm no one's bestie. I'm this crazy, random dude who loves making up psychological horrors and wacky adventure stories and couldn't give a snails fart about phones and the latest fashion / social trends. What are you even on about?
I'm wondering whether this game is about Sims or Simcards? Is that all that there's to life now? Phonecalls , popularity and social media feeds? These are such utterly boring concepts to me.
And wait, you know what? I don't care if you found a bloddy diamond ring in yer purse. You already rang and asked me 5 times in the past half sim hour. I don't care if you were to marry a toiletbrush and gave birth to 53 garden gnomes and a neutered cat. You annoy me, go away. I mean it. Go away. If I had a flame thrower I'd blast you out of existence, whoever ye are. I'm a decent person in general, however, we should have flamethrowers in The Sims.
I'm not sure how the introduction of features such as sexual orientation, likes & dislikes, wants and fears actually enhanced gameplay?
My sim very much dislikes dancing and yet there he is brutally dancing to METAL and then getting all stressed out about it!! I mean dude, use your darn brain you dumb nut! Why are you acting so ridiculous? It's mind blowing. Absolutely mind blowing. You're doing it to yourself, getting all stressed about it. Like we all do, right? Like we all do. And stop flirting with the sofa. Please stop. That's enough of that. Cut it out!
I appreciate the devs efforts of adding all these highly requested features to the game, but Sims still don't care. They just don't care about anything. Never did. The engine just doesn't support sims that care. The Sims 4 engine is a " I don't care -engine". I'm sorry, but why should I care again?
On a positive note, I really like Werewolves. I love it when they go on a rampage and smash the bejoonkas out of my furniture. That's the spirit.
I'm still updating mods for my dear werebeasts, but only because I'm currently sick at home (*cough cough- someone please have pity on me 🦝) and there aren't many other adventurous ways to move my butt.
It's either watch Netflix, finish writing my autobiography: My Life as a Failed Male Model, or play The Sims 4. Those are the only 3 options for me. There's nothing else for me in this world, because I already washed the dishes and I'm not hungry. Oh, and I have cats NOR children to feed. Life's bliss.
I play entirely offline, and I update when I'm good and ready. So, currently I am still sitting on patch 1.89 (June 14 Werewolf patch), because of all the bugs that have been introduced in the most recent patch. Particularly the aging bug (which, even after the hotfix, I'm still seeing reports of happening in some cases). I have too many saves I care about to risk it.
I didn't buy a couple packs I wanted last time they were on sale, because of bugs in those packs that still aren't fixed.
And I'm currently being super-annoyed by the bug that causes sims to keep moving after being paused. Taking screenshots is extremely important to how I play and how I write my simlit stories, so this bug is causing me a lot of trouble.
And a few of the recent non-bug changes aren't my cup-of-tea either. Mainly the addition of " wants and fears" (I guess I'll be turning that whole system off, when I finally do update) and the "walking while using cellphones" thing I've been hearing about, which I really hope a modder creates a way of stopping, because sims are already annoyingly obsessed with their cellphones enough.
I had to get a mod to turn off the phone calls that go with Neighborhood Stories, because for some reason the "off toggle" for NS in the settings does not include actually turning off that specific feature. I was not happy about the "death by meteor" addition, and I had to get a mod to put a stop to that too. And, to be honest, I don't really like sentiments all that much either and I wish they had given us an off toggle for that feature as well.
It's astonishing how many mods in my mod folder are simply "turn off this new thing that I never wanted in the first place" mods.
I still like the game, but the recent bugs are alarming, and I wish they wouldn't add game-changing features to the base game without giving us a way to fully turn them off.
@flauschtrud I sympathize. I play a game on my Laptop called Stellaris. I can’t play that game without mods, and I’ve been there with an unplayable game when it gets updated. I know what it feels like to have broken mods in a game you love.
Thank you, but it's definitely not the mods at this point. I only use quite small and specific gameplay mods and they have been fine so far. But what makes the game unplayable for me right now is the fact that the aging is still wrong even on backup saves (probably due to the new lifespans) and my Sims have totally wrong ages and some age up and die. I know I could partially "fix" this with cheats but since I'm also a perfectionist this just does not feel right. And my Sim currently has a relationship with the pub owner in Henford-on-Bagley, but because of the NPC bug he does not work at the pub anymore...
But I'm happy that your console experience has been fine so far. And yes, I agree that a lot of things that modders add or fix should be part of the vanilla game.
But I also have to say that this patch is the worst that I ever had. I was always excited for patch day and to get new stuff, but will now forever have a "Fear of patched game" trait...
@flauschtrud I’m in a situation where the initial update was fine and didn’t break my game.
I did notice that my settings were changed from a long lifespan to a normal one, and I have aging turned off.
A couple days after the update, they must’ve sent out a patch that got downloaded because my save is starting to break down, and I’m looking at rebuilding my save in a new save.
My point with the part you quoted was that the mods could be the source of the problem and it takes time for them to get updated.
The game I mentioned, Stellaris. The developers warn the modders in advance to give them time to update their mods before releasing a major update.
The problem with aging is likely a problem that comes from the mods.
The game was playable with aging turned off and a normal life span. It seems that most of the bugs do come from outdated mods and CC and that’s normal when it comes to using mods.
Currently, I don’t know what the state of my game is. I haven’t been able to access my game for a couple days.
I have been watching the development of things in the forums, and I know that mods and cc have been the source of most bugs everyone is experiencing.
In one thread, @Brd709 removed a mod, I think it was MC and it fixed the problem.
There is Custom Content, CC, that also caused some problems. I think it was a makeup mod.
So, even if you use a small number of mods, it just takes one to be outdated.
I'm actually mad about the handling of the werewolf GP. They hid the main aspirations behind a single-tier CAS aspiration, only to reveal the four main werewolf aspirations as single-tier aspirations as well. To add to the insult, 3/4 of these single-tier aspirations are inextricably tied to either the NPC factions the devs invented or their NPC's, and the fourth plays into the worst trope in werewolf media: "the search for a cure"! What kind of bunkus is that?!
Then, the situation with female werewolf body customization is just a hot mess. The more I dig into how to fix the problem, the more horrifying the discoveries become: A base body model that was deliberately made with a flat chest and masculine proportions, a slider reference model with less hip and waist flexibility than the normal female slider references, things deliberately coded in to keep breasts from appearing on female werewolves when clothed whether you're using a slider mod or not by not giving female werewolves the "Breasts_ForceOn" trait automatically in CAS...It's not just an oversight, they went to all-out war against the female body here! That's unacceptable, especially considering their "Inclusivity to the Max" branding over the past several years!
So, yeah, I'm mad. I waited 8 years for werewolves in this game, through garbage like tiny homes and home makeover and an eco pack that includes extreme pollution without mutagen or monsters...and they give us this? They give us aspirations that are more restricted than the ones for vampires and spellcasters (the other two occults that got their own packs)? They give us forced masculinity on our female werewolves with less body shape customization than female sims normally have, even as they wrap their game in pride flags and act like they care about freedom of gender expression? No way to make our own werewolf packs, no way to even fake them with the GTW club system because they didn't add using werewolf abilities as a club activity in order to force players to join their NPC factions and play with their precious OC's? That's some mess...
The problem with aging is likely a problem that comes from the mods.
I took off all mods and had problems when loading an old (pre-patches) backup save. I also sent it to a mod on the bug forum and they could reproduce my issues. I assume it's due to the changes in lifespans and that something gets calculated wrongly when you first load a save that still uses the old aging settings. I assume there are also people that would not notice this or would think it was the other aging bug, but it is really noticeable if you play on short lifespan (and might also cause deaths depending on the initial age).
I had a look into the tuning files and the mechanism the lifespans are handled was changed for the HSY patch. So this is a high risk change that obviously was not tested enough and also made old saves not compatible. No mods involved.
I feel like it's gone on way too long with EA/Maxis not listening to what we want. We can't build apartments,we can't have apartments in other worlds(Forgotten Hollow,Oasis Springs,Sulani,HoB,etc).we have to put up with not being able to use the locked apartments traits(like Historical),we're still getting small worlds,we can't even use the stuff from the Copperdale boardwalk.
I like sims 4,but I do wish it would just end soon so we could move on to Sims 5 already.
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I’ve been enjoying the game, but I desperately need a major update for my merfolk. When I saw merfolk, I was so hopeful for underwater activities and a lot of similar content to the sims 3 merfolk. I got so little for my mermen and mermaids with Island Living and refuse to buy a sequel because of how they didn’t deliver on the minimum I expected.
I don’t think a new game will reassure me or improve my opinion about the franchise.
If they leave the Sims 4 in its current bugged and unfinished state, how do I know they won’t do the same thing in a Sims 5?
Regardless of what anyone says, Island Living is an unfinished pack as long merfolk content remains as is. I will not. I repeat, will not, buy a Sims 5 and will be very upset with the franchise if Island Living never gets a refresh that improves merfolk gameplay before a sequel.
That’s my criticism thus far. The initial update did not break my save, but the patches that came later clearly did break my save.
For merfolk, I want to see the moon affect them more because the moon is literally one of the most important things to the ocean.
We literally wouldn’t have tides without it and marine life have behaviors that revolve around the moon. The moon and ocean are extremely interconnected.
Occult players AND realism players should want to see the moon play a bigger role in Island Living. It’s that significant to the ocean.
I want merfolk to have a power system similar to vampires and spellcasters.
There is some division between people in the mermaiding community about sirens and merfolk, but I don’t think of merfolk as equivalents to Sirens. In fact the show about mermaids called Sirens is black listed as a show I will never watch because of poor title choice that demonstrates a massive of lack of merfolk mythology research, in my opinion.
As far as I’m concerned, sirens are half-bird in mythology, not half-fish… It’s clear that the siren lullaby is the Sims playing on pop culture mythology and displays significant ignorance.
Merfolk shouldn’t be objects of romance, but without seasons and the emphasis on sirens, the merfolk from Island Living are just that, romantic objects.
The songs Sirens sing in mythology, regardless of how they look, is a song that emphasizes on one’s deepest desires… That’s what they thought of merfolk in Island Living… they are like romantic objects, or objects of desire, that sing to the listener their deepest desire to lure them into the sea for a non-lethal attempt at drowning humans… They sing SIREN lullabies… Have the mermaid’s KISS that raises romance without fail…
The only two abilities that aren’t siren related and might actually be true merfolk abilities are the Summon Ocean Threat and Aquatic Lure. Changing the Weather is gated behind the Seasons expansion pack, but that would also be a true merfolk power.
Not saying I don’t want merfolk to have siren abilities either. True Sirens and True Merfolk are closely connected, and merfolk do have the natural talent with singing and music in mythology to perfectly mimic the siren song… Just, please, please recognize that SIRENS and MERFOLK are not the same mythical creatures.
They call the gender neutral plural merFOLK occult, female exclusively merMAIDS, in CAS which is a gendered mistake that completely ignores the existence of the male exclusively merMEN.
That’s my criticism so far.
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What I Would Like to See
I want to see an ability system for merfolk that focuses on the innate musical and singing talent of merfolk, changing the weather, changing emotions, interactions with marine life…
I want merfolk to have an interaction with dive buoys in shallow water. Just saying snorkeling is a taboo subject is a cheap excuse for not creating a unique interaction. Please let merfolk do something with those buoys without joining the marine biologist career…
Diving into deep water shouldn’t be a rabbit hole… I want to go underwater with my merfolk.
I want my merfolk to be able to live underwater… I want underwater residential lots similar to how Spellcasters, Vampires, and Werewolves have their own Worlds with lots they can live on.
I want to see what my sims see in the beach cave…
I want more activities my merfolk can do without leaving the water. I want them to be able to do more as merfolk, mermen and mermaids. Please make it so my merfolk can choose to spend less time in their human form. And give me, the player, more to do with them in their merfolk forms.
I want merfolk children to have a merman or mermaid form.
I want time to speed up when merfolk sleep in the water.
I want more socials about merfolk.
I want merfolk to have their own bassinet.
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What I Enjoy
I do enjoy playing with merfolk. I love the ability to change the weather and enjoy the small details from other packs… Like a cat’s reaction to a merman or mermaid.
I love that they don’t die from dehydration.
I love how merfolk seem to always know where they can swim and routinely seek those places out.
I love when merfolk sink underwater while sleeping in the water.
I love the interactions with dolphins.
I love the socials like “ask if mermaid” and “Share Mermaid Discovery”
I love the odd job that involves looking for proof of merfolk.
I love the Island Festivals.
I love the Sea Turtles.
I love the dolphins.
I love the quirks involving Children of the Ocean and fish.
I love how merfolk can talk to fish.
I love how merfolk have face masks from the spa day refresh, and I love how the full moon decreases the rate merfolk lose hydration.
I do think they are making progress with improving merfolk gameplay.
I love playing my merfolk more than I hate anything I’m upset with… I’m sure I’ll be up all night thinking about new things I love about merfolk gameplay.
I just feel like they didn’t quite figure out occults until Vampires and Spellcasters… they should have revisited merfolk and aliens a long time ago.
I'm feeling very disappointed right now, having been quite excited for wants & fears and making aspec sims and then it the patch was so notoriously bugged. I can't tell if it's still broken or if people are, shall we say, complaining about things that I wouldn't.
It went away but then came back. I don't mind though, because I actually like it. What do you mean? I don't have GT but I've seen people's videos where Cheer and Football are activities and boba/thrift is a venue option and stuff.
like I be excited to open the game with all these ideas but then i play like 30 min and feel like aight nap time
well partly cause i haven't been taking good care of my flesh prison this summer and sitting in one place makes me lethargic
but also kinda feels like the constant simming is catching up on my poor brain running out of memory space like ive got too many tabs open and they're all playing HD full volume on top of each other
times i wish there was such thing as brain reset
also the bugginess and lagginess and broken things in the game doesn't exactly make me more excited to play ya know
🏡 Gallery 📖 Stories 🌍 World Project 🥔 MOD/CC Free
My main save is still not playable due to aging issues (short lifespan backup, but the ages are just calculated totally wrong...) I'm currently waiting in the hope that there will be a fix, but I fear that there won't.
I hate that the lifespans have been changed and I hate even more that noboby really explains why. Especially why the heck they shorten short lifespan, 🐸🐸🐸🐸?!
I was actually excited for HSY but since I can't even play my old legacy right now and HSY is still full of bugs and won't be able to get in anytime soon.
And I'm quite disappointed that the Neighborhood Stories feature takes so long to grow. I actually like it but it does not make sense that Sims still can't get married and form families of their own. So it basically only works for two generations, but afterwards all kids will remain in the same household and grow old together without families of their own, so this kinda sucks...
I create mods and I normally I enjoy doing that, but right now I do not feel a lot of motivation. It feels super stupid to test mods in a totally buggy game and care for quality while EA apparently doesn't and to give my work away for free while people still spend loads of money for bugs...
My first attempt at creating a Sims comic: The Parker-Goth Legacy.
However,
I will say that there are mods for merfolk in the Sims 4 that I would absolutely use, but I also know that it’s not possible for me to use any mods in the sims.
I do not play the sims on the pc. I play it on the PlayStation 4.
In spite of all the chaos on the forums, my game never bugged after this update. It started bugging after they patched the update.
I think it’s great you create mods, and I understand the desire to create quality works. However, I don’t think it’s wrong for EA to make available to Console Players things that are exclusive to people who mod their game.
I think EA does care about quality, and I think this update did not have as many bugs as it appears in the forums.
Again, I play on the console and can’t use mods even if I want to. I did not have my sims experience the auto-aging bug. I haven’t had incest wants. I had a very good initial experience with the update.
The only inappropriate romances I’ve had came from my inability to change the relationships between existing sims after forgetting to set those relationships up when I started a new save. Not because of an update that came from EA…
But, romance between certain family members on a family tree has always been possible. The game doesn’t recognize cousins once removed and great-grand parents as family. Even if I can easily trace their lineage and confirm that they are closely related, I can have certain cousins perform romance interactions with each other.
This problem starts once you reach the 3rd generation. I’ll have to share a family tree later for clarity.
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The bugs I’ve encountered so far after the patch include extreme Lag and getting sent to the Main Menu when I save the game.
My current main save has lasted the longest so far. I’ve had it survive more updates than players that use mods.
Again, I play a different game that is heavily reliant on mods. It will probably take a little while for mods to get updated, but that’s just the harsh reality of using mods… You have to wait for mod updates too.
It’s a feature that came with ghosts. I hate the Hysterical Moodlet… I take good care of my sims, and they are always so happy that a funny story can kill them…
Honestly, the ability to sleep in water has saved the lives of my merfolk more times than I can count.
My current state is that I'm bored of the game. I want to play but I have no ideas what to play. I need new input but I'm not so desperate that I spend more money than a pack is worth.
I don't like what they made with the game: These annoying phone calls and popups, rabbitholes instead of gameplay, not fixing bugs, adding new features with no cross pack compability, kits and even more.
I have been used to mods breaking down and bugs causing problems before, I have played the game since 2014 but this recent month have been...rough. And on top of that we had the drama regarding mods and early access.
When it comes to the game itself I'm running out of stuff to do, I will probably keep playing it because there is no competition and I find the game relaxing... but keeping up with mods and fighting with bugs is making it less relaxing.
So I don't think the game is in a great state right now.
As for the state with bugs and such, it's been MUCH more noticeable as I've switched to PC play. I used to never dread Patch Day on my Xbox
I'm mainly a builder and storyteller in TS4 now, but I have been asking myself lately...is it just because I like storytelling more? Or is it because I got bored of gameplay that I have more fun with storytelling and building? I wonder if it's the latter. So many new mechanics got added in High School Years and I still had little interest in the pack itself. At one point I wanted more mechanics to aid in meaningful in-game relationships and such (and I wanted some things back from older games in the series), but now some of that is happening it still doesn't make me want to get back into gameplay.
Melisendre's point about cross-pack compatibility is an important one actually. I would have liked more of that especially with the Werewolves pack, though we did get a bit I guess, and I'd like more of it going forward. The way I feel at the moment generally, is I would rather have the current game polished up a bit rather than a bunch of new content (though I did enjoy Werewolves and finally getting more occult stuff). The Spa Day pack refresh was great, and I remember quite a lot of us were pretty excited about it. I think starting from the older packs, I'd rather have pack refreshes and bug fixes be the focal point.
@mrs_starkey Thank you for this advice, it's really good to know, I really appreciate it.
I'm just trying to figure out how I can disable auto updates from the website without opening the Origin app.
I have not updated yet; can't get a straight answer from anybody as to whether their game has improved with the update or if the coast is clear.
Despite the glitches already there at least my game is playable. Also, Sims 4 is also the largest program on my pc, not counting the mods folder so I'm thisclose to chucking the whole thing.
Also I get the indication the devs want us to play the game how they want which is why we get all these annoying ingame messages, why we have the new constant phone obsession animation, why they're so keen for us to engage with ingame social media. I play this game to get away from that kind of thing and I just want to play the game, not be notified of everything going on like I'm a child that might lose interest if I'm not spammed with new messages every two minutes.
Thank you, but it's definitely not the mods at this point. I only use quite small and specific gameplay mods and they have been fine so far. But what makes the game unplayable for me right now is the fact that the aging is still wrong even on backup saves (probably due to the new lifespans) and my Sims have totally wrong ages and some age up and die. I know I could partially "fix" this with cheats but since I'm also a perfectionist this just does not feel right. And my Sim currently has a relationship with the pub owner in Henford-on-Bagley, but because of the NPC bug he does not work at the pub anymore...
But I'm happy that your console experience has been fine so far. And yes, I agree that a lot of things that modders add or fix should be part of the vanilla game.
But I also have to say that this patch is the worst that I ever had. I was always excited for patch day and to get new stuff, but will now forever have a "Fear of patched game" trait...
My first attempt at creating a Sims comic: The Parker-Goth Legacy.
Mmmyeah.... Myup myup....
I've been struggling a bit to be honest. I've been trying to "fit" in as a player, trying to find work-arounds to make live-mode more enjoyable but unfortunately it's getting rather challenging for me to play the game my way. I love building and creating characters in CAS, but that's not where I'd want to stop. Right now I cannot play in live mode without mods that handle certain, extremely gamebreaking autonomous behaviors. Updating these mods is getting tiresome though. Not interested. The game should give me options.
I figured I'm really just not a member of the intended Sims 4 target audience and never will be. Sad to share this, but I'm no one's bestie. I'm this crazy, random dude who loves making up psychological horrors and wacky adventure stories and couldn't give a snails fart about phones and the latest fashion / social trends. What are you even on about?
I'm wondering whether this game is about Sims or Simcards? Is that all that there's to life now? Phonecalls , popularity and social media feeds? These are such utterly boring concepts to me.
And wait, you know what? I don't care if you found a bloddy diamond ring in yer purse. You already rang and asked me 5 times in the past half sim hour. I don't care if you were to marry a toiletbrush and gave birth to 53 garden gnomes and a neutered cat. You annoy me, go away. I mean it. Go away. If I had a flame thrower I'd blast you out of existence, whoever ye are. I'm a decent person in general, however, we should have flamethrowers in The Sims.
I'm not sure how the introduction of features such as sexual orientation, likes & dislikes, wants and fears actually enhanced gameplay?
My sim very much dislikes dancing and yet there he is brutally dancing to METAL and then getting all stressed out about it!! I mean dude, use your darn brain you dumb nut! Why are you acting so ridiculous? It's mind blowing. Absolutely mind blowing. You're doing it to yourself, getting all stressed about it. Like we all do, right? Like we all do. And stop flirting with the sofa. Please stop. That's enough of that. Cut it out!
I appreciate the devs efforts of adding all these highly requested features to the game, but Sims still don't care. They just don't care about anything. Never did. The engine just doesn't support sims that care. The Sims 4 engine is a " I don't care -engine". I'm sorry, but why should I care again?
On a positive note, I really like Werewolves. I love it when they go on a rampage and smash the bejoonkas out of my furniture. That's the spirit.
I'm still updating mods for my dear werebeasts, but only because I'm currently sick at home (*cough cough- someone please have pity on me 🦝) and there aren't many other adventurous ways to move my butt.
It's either watch Netflix, finish writing my autobiography: My Life as a Failed Male Model, or play The Sims 4. Those are the only 3 options for me. There's nothing else for me in this world, because I already washed the dishes and I'm not hungry. Oh, and I have cats NOR children to feed. Life's bliss.
I didn't buy a couple packs I wanted last time they were on sale, because of bugs in those packs that still aren't fixed.
And I'm currently being super-annoyed by the bug that causes sims to keep moving after being paused. Taking screenshots is extremely important to how I play and how I write my simlit stories, so this bug is causing me a lot of trouble.
And a few of the recent non-bug changes aren't my cup-of-tea either. Mainly the addition of " wants and fears" (I guess I'll be turning that whole system off, when I finally do update) and the "walking while using cellphones" thing I've been hearing about, which I really hope a modder creates a way of stopping, because sims are already annoyingly obsessed with their cellphones enough.
I had to get a mod to turn off the phone calls that go with Neighborhood Stories, because for some reason the "off toggle" for NS in the settings does not include actually turning off that specific feature. I was not happy about the "death by meteor" addition, and I had to get a mod to put a stop to that too. And, to be honest, I don't really like sentiments all that much either and I wish they had given us an off toggle for that feature as well.
It's astonishing how many mods in my mod folder are simply "turn off this new thing that I never wanted in the first place" mods.
I still like the game, but the recent bugs are alarming, and I wish they wouldn't add game-changing features to the base game without giving us a way to fully turn them off.
@flauschtrud I’m in a situation where the initial update was fine and didn’t break my game.
I did notice that my settings were changed from a long lifespan to a normal one, and I have aging turned off.
A couple days after the update, they must’ve sent out a patch that got downloaded because my save is starting to break down, and I’m looking at rebuilding my save in a new save.
My point with the part you quoted was that the mods could be the source of the problem and it takes time for them to get updated.
The game I mentioned, Stellaris. The developers warn the modders in advance to give them time to update their mods before releasing a major update.
The problem with aging is likely a problem that comes from the mods.
The game was playable with aging turned off and a normal life span. It seems that most of the bugs do come from outdated mods and CC and that’s normal when it comes to using mods.
Currently, I don’t know what the state of my game is. I haven’t been able to access my game for a couple days.
I have been watching the development of things in the forums, and I know that mods and cc have been the source of most bugs everyone is experiencing.
In one thread, @Brd709 removed a mod, I think it was MC and it fixed the problem.
There is Custom Content, CC, that also caused some problems. I think it was a makeup mod.
So, even if you use a small number of mods, it just takes one to be outdated.
Then, the situation with female werewolf body customization is just a hot mess. The more I dig into how to fix the problem, the more horrifying the discoveries become: A base body model that was deliberately made with a flat chest and masculine proportions, a slider reference model with less hip and waist flexibility than the normal female slider references, things deliberately coded in to keep breasts from appearing on female werewolves when clothed whether you're using a slider mod or not by not giving female werewolves the "Breasts_ForceOn" trait automatically in CAS...It's not just an oversight, they went to all-out war against the female body here! That's unacceptable, especially considering their "Inclusivity to the Max" branding over the past several years!
So, yeah, I'm mad. I waited 8 years for werewolves in this game, through garbage like tiny homes and home makeover and an eco pack that includes extreme pollution without mutagen or monsters...and they give us this? They give us aspirations that are more restricted than the ones for vampires and spellcasters (the other two occults that got their own packs)? They give us forced masculinity on our female werewolves with less body shape customization than female sims normally have, even as they wrap their game in pride flags and act like they care about freedom of gender expression? No way to make our own werewolf packs, no way to even fake them with the GTW club system because they didn't add using werewolf abilities as a club activity in order to force players to join their NPC factions and play with their precious OC's? That's some mess...
I took off all mods and had problems when loading an old (pre-patches) backup save. I also sent it to a mod on the bug forum and they could reproduce my issues. I assume it's due to the changes in lifespans and that something gets calculated wrongly when you first load a save that still uses the old aging settings. I assume there are also people that would not notice this or would think it was the other aging bug, but it is really noticeable if you play on short lifespan (and might also cause deaths depending on the initial age).
I had a look into the tuning files and the mechanism the lifespans are handled was changed for the HSY patch. So this is a high risk change that obviously was not tested enough and also made old saves not compatible. No mods involved.
My first attempt at creating a Sims comic: The Parker-Goth Legacy.
I like sims 4,but I do wish it would just end soon so we could move on to Sims 5 already.