I think my biggest gripe about it is that it was built on the bones of a multiplayer/online version of the Sims, which is why we don't have open worlds/neighborhoods and why several series staples were missing, like ghosts, swimming pools and toddlers.
Besides that? All the expansions and game packs and whatever; they're all so bare-bones, so empty and hollow, pale imitations of previous iterations. Like I look at them and I see exactly which packs from Sims 1-3 they're trying to be, but it's just a small part of what was in those.
I want to love the Sims 4 and I do play it but there's a lot of problems with it; I'm really hoping they'll learn from this and that Sims 5 is better.
My biggest gripe about this game is the lack of gameplay. I remember hearing that Sims 4 was supposed to be a multiplayer/online game. I think the reason everything is so rushed and incomplete is that they are trying to convert an online game to an offline game. This is why they may be saying that there will be many more years of content.
I have wanted to love this game and all of its packs but the lack of actual gameplay has just left such a sour taste in my mouth. I will give them one more chance when I purchase Werewolves and eventually get a better laptop to play on. But if, after that, the gameplay lacks what I love about Sims 2, that will be the game I stick with until I see the next version.
In the sims 3 you could customize your sims hair with any color from the color wheel. Plus had the options to change their roots, highlights, base, and tips.
As someone whose playstyle would register as "Dream Dollhouse" to the more simulation and/or time management focused players, I'm not happy either. Lack of customisation is a huge problem. For example why enforce a mean sim and one member per premade afterschool activity? What if I want to run a sports school or a monastery? The former probably won't have a chess club, and the second one might not admit mean sims. I'm currently setting up a school boat for my fishing & canned fish company's apprentices. It's working, it is immersive, and it doesn't need HSY with its arbitrary restrictions.
Dream Dollhouse used to be a child's game where you basically just moved around objects and characters. There were various floors, each with their own characters and objects. Sometimes there would be a little mouse hole that you can go through to see what the rodents are up to.
Case in point- a very childish game which is no longer even worth my time, nor would it be entertaining. If Sims keeps up with the toilet pranks, the shallow game play, and the lack of consequences for things, yeah. Definitely a child's game with rated T-M content. Doesn't make sense.
I didn't know Dream Dollhouse was a computer game, thank you for explaining. I've often heard "dollhouse play" used as a term to belittle both story driven gameplay and simmers who want to play in an utopia, so I assumed that was what you meant.
That aside my point still stands: you and me are looking for a very different experience from the game, but given how it's getting handled at the moment neither of us is happy. They're driving away the players who were satisfied with Sims 4, while at the time failing at getting those that are dissatisfied back.
The lack of lots, and gameplay.
Don't get me wrong, I love all the worlds we get, but we get so little lots in them. I am the type of player that likes to make tons of families, with different dynamics.
When I just have a couple families, the game doesn't really feel alive, because the Sims don't do much. When I put more families it, and do more stuff with them, the game comes alive for me.
In Sims 2, you had worlds that came with the game, but you could create your own. You could fill it up with so many families, and use the space. Plus, random things could happen to your Sims that were out of your control.
I don't hate Sims 4, but the game play heavily focuses on the young adult age group. Even though I tend to create more Sims in that age range, older games actually spread it out fairly evenly among the age groups.
Honestly what I see as performative allyship & rainbow capitalism, from the Sims in general, really irks me. I'm not saying there aren't sims gurus and creators who are genuine allies to the LGBTQIA+ community, because I think there are. In terms of the Sims game itself though, I just think there needs to be a lot more genuine shows off allyship instead of what too often appears to be a marketing ploy to appeal to players of a certain age and demographic.
For example: teaming up with popular influencers on instagram, when they could instead team up with grass roots arts initiatives that are working within communities for real change, and appearing to give sims players non binary clothing options for their sims, whilst simultaneously appearing to forget that trans men, the stone butch lesbian community, masculine presenting non binary & gay folks also exist.
Occult Simmer (All Occult All The Time)
Female Simmer from Australia (she/her)
I had one of my Sims marry the Grim Reaper & now they have a lot of kids.
Honestly what I see as performative allyship & rainbow capitalism, from the Sims in general, really irks me. I'm not saying there aren't sims gurus and creators who are genuine allies to the LGBTQIA+ community, because I think there are. In terms of the Sims game itself though, I just think there needs to be a lot more genuine shows off allyship instead of what too often appears to be a marketing ploy to appeal to players of a certain age and demographic.
For example: teaming up with popular influencers on instagram, when they could instead team up with grass roots arts initiatives that are working within communities for real change, and appearing to give sims players non binary clothing options for their sims, whilst simultaneously appearing to forget that trans men, the stone butch lesbian community, masculine presenting non binary & gay folks also exist.
Yes! That gets on my nerves so much, especially in the wake of what they did to female werewolves! No option for breasts and unreasonably restricted hip, waist, and butt sliders in order to restrict them to an "androgynous" (read: masculine) physique, even as they rainbow-wash this game to Heck and back in every trailer, hyping up their "gender inclusivity" line! I did some digging into the game model files with MorphMaker, and I found that they deliberately gave female werewolves a masculine base model and a reference model with reduced hip and waist range for the sliders! Furthermore, though you can break through what they did to the female werewolves' chests with a slider mod, they still have it set up where CAS doesn't recognize the modified slider data automatically, leading tops and full-body clothing to still auto-flatten the chest, which requires an override in Live Mode via the "traits.equip_trait trait_Breasts_ForceOn" cheat (this requires testing cheats to be on) in order for their boobs to show with clothes on because they do not apply the breast trait automatically in CAS!!
They go around playing their Rainbow Capitalism song, and then go to all that effort to deliberately force-masculinize female werewolves?! That's not allyship.
By the way, if any of you would like to restore breasts to your female werewolves, you can find my test slider mod HERE. I recommend combining it with a chest depth replacement slider like hi-land's BIG BOOBS?? MALE CHEST SLIDER (I like this one, since it gives guys better pecs ^_^), since a side-effect of this WIP slider is giving guys the boob slider too, but chest depth slider replacements override it on the males while keeping the female chest restoration intact. Just remember to turn on testing cheats, then use "cas.fulleditmode" and "traits.equip_trait trait_Breasts_ForceOn" with your female werewolf sim selected, then edit her werewolf form in CAS to fix her chest fully.
I'm not done fighting this fight, either with mods or the devs fixing their screw-up, there will be justice for the she-wolves!!
My biggest gripe with the sims 4 is very simple. They don't provide complete content. At the end of the day I've played and bought many games and if they sell something I don't complain b.c its a complete game even if I might not want the content.
Sims 4 releases stuff I sometimes want and stuff I sometimes don't want, but everything is so incomplete and shallow that even the stuff I want to buy upsets me b.c they are either selling me a broken game, or shallow nothingness. I have NEVER needed to use mods to enjoy any game I played, mods were like a side quest I explored just for fun, I didn't need them.
With Sims 4 you need mods.
Mods to fix lag
Mods to fix the paparazzi
Mods to fix the cell phone spamming
Mods to fix the photo and social bunny imbalance
Mods to fix traits so they actually affect how your sims acts
Mods to upgrade your calendar and club icons to reflect all the new content released since get together (since EA hasn't updated them in over what 3 years?)
Mods that fix my wedding story
Mods that fix dine out
Mods that fix the unisex outfit issue
Mods that balance the ECO meter from Eco life so players can use it since EA left it stuck in perfectly perfect mode
Mods that integrate old packs into the wants and fear system so people who own every single pack don't have to play like they only own base game.
The mod that will eventually be made to make parenthood matter in the HS pack so again players who keep buying every pack don't have to play every new pack as if they didn't buy the others.
TLDR: I as a player should never HAVE TO seek out mods to fix a games issues but that is the norm with sims 4. Sim 4 releases shallow broken content and the modding community fixes it and flushes it out. That is my biggest issue with the sims 4.
My biggest gripe with the sims 4 is very simple. They don't provide complete content. At the end of the day I've played and bought many games and if they sell something I don't complain b.c its a complete game even if I might not want the content.
Sims 4 releases stuff I sometimes want and stuff I sometimes don't want, but everything is so incomplete and shallow that even the stuff I want to buy upsets me b.c they are either selling me a broken game, or shallow nothingness. I have NEVER needed to use mods to enjoy any game I played, mods were like a side quest I explored just for fun, I didn't need them.
With Sims 4 you need mods.
Mods to fix lag
Mods to fix the paparazzi
Mods to fix the cell phone spamming
Mods to fix the photo and social bunny imbalance
Mods to fix traits so they actually affect how your sims acts
Mods to upgrade your calendar and club icons to reflect all the new content released since get together (since EA hasn't updated them in over what 3 years?)
Mods that fix my wedding story
Mods that fix dine out
Mods that fix the unisex outfit issue
Mods that balance the ECO meter from Eco life so players can use it since EA left it stuck in perfectly perfect mode
Mods that integrate old packs into the wants and fear system so people who own every single pack don't have to play like they only own base game.
The mod that will eventually be made to make parenthood matter in the HS pack so again players who keep buying every pack don't have to play every new pack as if they didn't buy the others.
TLDR: I as a player should never HAVE TO seek out mods to fix a games issues but that is the norm with sims 4. Sim 4 releases shallow broken content and the modding community fixes it and flushes it out. That is my biggest issue with the sims 4.
You wrote every single thing I feel! I was just too lazy to once again write out what bothers me. So THANK YOU!
I really feel that the reason modders can "fix" bugs and/or enhance systems is because ..... they're simmers! They play the game, they know what's annoying, they read what people complain about or they know first hand how annoying or broken something is.
I feel like there are very few devs who are actual simmers. a dev that actually plays the game, not for work purposes, but for actual enjoyment and leisure down time because there is no way in heck that they wouldn't find a lot of things that simmers find annoying or gamebreaking (unless those devs who are simmers, uses mods to fix stuff and enhance LOL)
And no, I don't consider building or playing in CAS as actually playing the game, you can build and create sims and never see any bugs.
My biggest gripe is I always wish they would have done something differently in each pack. I understand there are trade-offs and they have to stay within budget but it still bugs me a bit.
For example, since it's the freshest thing on my mind, I wish they had done proms differently in HSY. As it is now, prom is a weekly event, which I think takes away from the excitement. I understand this is beneficial to rotational players but I wish it was a social event like parties and weddings. I feel like by doing it that way, it let's us decide when we want our sims' prom to be.
The werewolf pack system is another example. I know you can use the Get Together club system and create your own, and that may be why they didn't do it this way. That would mean they would have to offer the feature in the pack or in a basegame update, and some people don't like it when they add stuff to the basegame that was originally in a pack. I still wish it was done differently.
Apart from this, I mostly love this game. It's come a long way from where it started, and I do enjoy it for the most part.
- constant updates that bring new bugs and force me to constantly update mods
- the lack of attention for occult sims. One occult lifestate every two to three years is too little. The quality of the occults is not bad, but they are so few.
- the inability to edit the world. I miss not being able to add lots or change neighbourhood decorations like we could in sims 2 and 3.
- the lack of a color wheel or sliders for hairs. I like how skin tones have loads of options and how we can customise make up. Please allow this for hair as well
- kits replacing stuff packs. I like DLC that adds gameplay, not just looks
My biggest criticism is that every time we get new updates (especially big patches) it comes with a ton of new bugs, some of which have been around for YEARS now without being fixed. If they were fixed quickly it wouldn't be an issue, but now updating the game and adding new things is just plain scary because it could break an important part of your gameplay indefinitley.
That my sims hug and kiss without me telling them to. Even with full autonomy disabled. Is there a mod that prevents my sim, (not all sims) to only do the actions I tell him to do?
My main issue is the lack of space, I always make my own beginning Sims, they normally end up interbred with premades, I just like doing it that way, and I end up with big family trees, multiple generations, so I end up running out of space if I don't want to evict some of the premade families down the line. I wish we could create our own sub neighborhoods like we could in Sims2.
My second issue is the worlds themselves, most are incredibly pretty, but as others have pointed out, they are mainly set dressing. I wish there was more to do in each world, more interactive stuff. I loved exploring in Sims 3, there were so many things to find.
Then the last thing I will mention, the bugs. It seems that the more stuff they add the more bugs we get. They are trying to add things that are an improvement to the base game, but I don't know if the engine just can't handle it or what, because the longer it goes on, the more they add, the more broken and buggy it seems to make the game.
Honestly what truly annoys me with Sims 4 are just a few things, and all of them can be boiled down to deliberately choosing a game engine not suited for the game:
1. The lack of detail in animations. Compare to Sims 2, where the Sims reached into cabinets to get cookwares etc.
2. The lack of open world. Imagine a local open world combined with the easy travel of Sims 4. The best of two worlds, literally.
3. Townies, and the choice of the complete randomness that create quite literal eyesores everywhere.
4. The lack of color wheel.
I think my biggest issue is with the limitations of sims' bodies in game and in CAS. For one thing, I cannot tell you how much I hate that there aren't neck sliders given that every single female sim has the longest freaking neck ever and looks like a giraffe if I don't use a slider mod. There's also what could be considered cognitive dissonance, a lack of awareness, or even actual hypocrisy around how much they've striven to introduce more diversity with race, gender, and sexuality as well as even bringing in some minimal religious aspects with the holiday pack, while doing absolutely nothing at all for disability representation. It's 2022 and we still can't have disabled sims or anything and I'm honestly disappointed. There should be CAS traits for disabilities - both physical and mental - and there should be prosthetics in CAS as well as options for various facial differences and such as well as various mobility aids. There should be options for blind sims and deaf sims as well, with seeing eye dogs, braile, sign language, hearing aids, and more. They could even go so far as to include interpreters in stuff like the High School Years pack for the school and they could add aspects of OSHA to commercial lot requirements as well as adding things like ramps and elevators to build mode. Idk, I just feel like a game that markets itself as being representative of life should actually represent most lives and it's a shame that, in the year of our Lord 2022, life apparently doesn't include disabled bodies yet.
> @Simmingal said: > Launching grumpy gal mode in 3 2 1 > *Beeep* > > Randomized townies. > > Thats it. My criticism. > 99% of things i am annoyed about would be solved if i could stop the game from generating randomized townies for freaking everything. > > ts1 didn't need randomized townies neither did ts2 so why on earth would i need them in ts4 i do not. > > just where are them toggles really > > Also the way the game performance has really gotten bad during last 2 years its making me worry they will just overload the game with random stuff and let it crash and burn the same way they did ts3 in the end its giving me unpleasant flashbacks > > aaand as for new content the way they keep adding about everything on earth except gameplay > > like sure I am happy about the new additions especially the updates > > but its bit sad that I get excited about sims sitting at this point > > like goodness tell ts2 simmingal she is gonna be excited about sims sitting...
I really wish they'd stop throwing such useless stuff at us in the packs they release and instead focus on improving the actual gameplay and making the changes that are actually important. A lot of the packs are totally useless or they overlap with each other or they just don't really have much. For example, I've seen a lot of people talking about how the world in Eco Lifestyle is just... empty. What's the point? What even is the point of Eco Lifestyle, Snowy Escape, Get Together, Get To Work, Discover University, High School Years Wedding Stories, Batuu, Strangerville, Jungle Adventure, Parenthood, or like literally any of the stuff packs and kits? Stuff like seasons, holidays, the four whole extra careers you get with Get to Work and Discover University, and the school stuff from HYS and University should have just been included with the base game from the beginning and everything else is unnecessary. I just don't get it smh.
My biggest gripe with the sims 4 is very simple. They don't provide complete content. At the end of the day I've played and bought many games and if they sell something I don't complain b.c its a complete game even if I might not want the content.
Sims 4 releases stuff I sometimes want and stuff I sometimes don't want, but everything is so incomplete and shallow that even the stuff I want to buy upsets me b.c they are either selling me a broken game, or shallow nothingness. I have NEVER needed to use mods to enjoy any game I played, mods were like a side quest I explored just for fun, I didn't need them.
With Sims 4 you need mods.
Mods to fix lag
Mods to fix the paparazzi
Mods to fix the cell phone spamming
Mods to fix the photo and social bunny imbalance
Mods to fix traits so they actually affect how your sims acts
Mods to upgrade your calendar and club icons to reflect all the new content released since get together (since EA hasn't updated them in over what 3 years?)
Mods that fix my wedding story
Mods that fix dine out
Mods that fix the unisex outfit issue
Mods that balance the ECO meter from Eco life so players can use it since EA left it stuck in perfectly perfect mode
Mods that integrate old packs into the wants and fear system so people who own every single pack don't have to play like they only own base game.
The mod that will eventually be made to make parenthood matter in the HS pack so again players who keep buying every pack don't have to play every new pack as if they didn't buy the others.
TLDR: I as a player should never HAVE TO seek out mods to fix a games issues but that is the norm with sims 4. Sim 4 releases shallow broken content and the modding community fixes it and flushes it out. That is my biggest issue with the sims 4.
I agree with the above 100%. These are all my issues with the game. Especially the phone spamming and lag. To this list I would like to add the constant fears issue. Even after my sim overcomes a fear, it comes right back which is very annoying. I also don't like that you can't cancel wants. I have a mod to fix it so add another mod on. SIGH.
I'm almost tempted to change my original reply to this thread, but I won't. But if I did change my answer it would be my biggest gripe about TS4 would be it's community.
Complaints for 8 years and still they keep buying. Why should EA/Maxis do anything when they make billions (true) off of TS4 when the community keeps buying more content knowing it's not going to work as it should, it's going to be very buggy and it's not what they actually wanted or implemented in a way they wanted?
EA has nothing to learn here as someone stated. They know the community will buy the next pack, kit, stuff pack, EP or GP. And still hope that EA will change. Really, if the game isn't what you wanted it's no one's fault but the buyer. If you are still buying you shouldn't be complaining. Because you know TS4's reputation eight years later and can depend on it's reputation to be less than you expected, less than perfect and less than fun.
Everyone went along with EA/Maxis changing TS4 into a sitcom (instead of a life simulator), a questy game (linear play rather than sandbox) , and or later a Simself game (Identity rules)...it's been all over the map. It's been a Simself game for the past four years, it's been catering to specific group of people for the past four or five years, it's made billions because of that catering. If the game isn't living up to a sterling reputation of great gameplay, in depth personality and needs mods or no one would touch it what does that say? That the community is the problem not EA.
Everybody by now knows Maxis using reused animations, recolors and reuses previous assets...they don't spend that much on reused items and animations. Everybody knows the DLC is only tested with a base game and not all other EPs etc. Everybody knows the gurus add what they want not necessarily what the community as a whole wanted, and or they spend time on text instead of simualtion....and yet they make billions. If it's that bad, stop buying as I did. Because it's just a waste to complain if you bought it anyway.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
I wish the integrated all the packs. An example: The social media feature introduced with the high school expansion is fine for teens and maybe young adults but to a degree. Wouldn't one think that when someone gets engaged, married or has a baby or a birthday that would be "post worthy"? I'm not going to make a laundry list but seriously, I wish things were coded in such a way that if someone has the packs/requirement-then an extra option would be available with a feature that is introduced in game. That's my two cents.
My number 2 gripe, just below #1 posted however long ago, is the bugs. Years ago, when the game was still in its early stages I posted somewhere, probably several somewheres as opportunity presented itself, that the game has more bugs than a Florida swamp. That hasn't changed except in one respect. Bugs proliferate unless brought under control. They haven't been, so guess what's happened with the game? More bugs than in several swamps.
Comments
Besides that? All the expansions and game packs and whatever; they're all so bare-bones, so empty and hollow, pale imitations of previous iterations. Like I look at them and I see exactly which packs from Sims 1-3 they're trying to be, but it's just a small part of what was in those.
I want to love the Sims 4 and I do play it but there's a lot of problems with it; I'm really hoping they'll learn from this and that Sims 5 is better.
I have wanted to love this game and all of its packs but the lack of actual gameplay has just left such a sour taste in my mouth. I will give them one more chance when I purchase Werewolves and eventually get a better laptop to play on. But if, after that, the gameplay lacks what I love about Sims 2, that will be the game I stick with until I see the next version.
I didn't know Dream Dollhouse was a computer game, thank you for explaining. I've often heard "dollhouse play" used as a term to belittle both story driven gameplay and simmers who want to play in an utopia, so I assumed that was what you meant.
That aside my point still stands: you and me are looking for a very different experience from the game, but given how it's getting handled at the moment neither of us is happy. They're driving away the players who were satisfied with Sims 4, while at the time failing at getting those that are dissatisfied back.
Don't get me wrong, I love all the worlds we get, but we get so little lots in them. I am the type of player that likes to make tons of families, with different dynamics.
When I just have a couple families, the game doesn't really feel alive, because the Sims don't do much. When I put more families it, and do more stuff with them, the game comes alive for me.
In Sims 2, you had worlds that came with the game, but you could create your own. You could fill it up with so many families, and use the space. Plus, random things could happen to your Sims that were out of your control.
I don't hate Sims 4, but the game play heavily focuses on the young adult age group. Even though I tend to create more Sims in that age range, older games actually spread it out fairly evenly among the age groups.
For example: teaming up with popular influencers on instagram, when they could instead team up with grass roots arts initiatives that are working within communities for real change, and appearing to give sims players non binary clothing options for their sims, whilst simultaneously appearing to forget that trans men, the stone butch lesbian community, masculine presenting non binary & gay folks also exist.
Female Simmer from Australia (she/her)
I had one of my Sims marry the Grim Reaper & now they have a lot of kids.
Yes! That gets on my nerves so much, especially in the wake of what they did to female werewolves! No option for breasts and unreasonably restricted hip, waist, and butt sliders in order to restrict them to an "androgynous" (read: masculine) physique, even as they rainbow-wash this game to Heck and back in every trailer, hyping up their "gender inclusivity" line! I did some digging into the game model files with MorphMaker, and I found that they deliberately gave female werewolves a masculine base model and a reference model with reduced hip and waist range for the sliders! Furthermore, though you can break through what they did to the female werewolves' chests with a slider mod, they still have it set up where CAS doesn't recognize the modified slider data automatically, leading tops and full-body clothing to still auto-flatten the chest, which requires an override in Live Mode via the "traits.equip_trait trait_Breasts_ForceOn" cheat (this requires testing cheats to be on) in order for their boobs to show with clothes on because they do not apply the breast trait automatically in CAS!!
They go around playing their Rainbow Capitalism song, and then go to all that effort to deliberately force-masculinize female werewolves?! That's not allyship.
By the way, if any of you would like to restore breasts to your female werewolves, you can find my test slider mod HERE. I recommend combining it with a chest depth replacement slider like hi-land's BIG BOOBS?? MALE CHEST SLIDER (I like this one, since it gives guys better pecs ^_^), since a side-effect of this WIP slider is giving guys the boob slider too, but chest depth slider replacements override it on the males while keeping the female chest restoration intact. Just remember to turn on testing cheats, then use "cas.fulleditmode" and "traits.equip_trait trait_Breasts_ForceOn" with your female werewolf sim selected, then edit her werewolf form in CAS to fix her chest fully.
I'm not done fighting this fight, either with mods or the devs fixing their screw-up, there will be justice for the she-wolves!!
Sims 4 releases stuff I sometimes want and stuff I sometimes don't want, but everything is so incomplete and shallow that even the stuff I want to buy upsets me b.c they are either selling me a broken game, or shallow nothingness. I have NEVER needed to use mods to enjoy any game I played, mods were like a side quest I explored just for fun, I didn't need them.
With Sims 4 you need mods.
TLDR: I as a player should never HAVE TO seek out mods to fix a games issues but that is the norm with sims 4. Sim 4 releases shallow broken content and the modding community fixes it and flushes it out. That is my biggest issue with the sims 4.
You wrote every single thing I feel! I was just too lazy to once again write out what bothers me. So THANK YOU!
I really feel that the reason modders can "fix" bugs and/or enhance systems is because ..... they're simmers! They play the game, they know what's annoying, they read what people complain about or they know first hand how annoying or broken something is.
I feel like there are very few devs who are actual simmers. a dev that actually plays the game, not for work purposes, but for actual enjoyment and leisure down time because there is no way in heck that they wouldn't find a lot of things that simmers find annoying or gamebreaking (unless those devs who are simmers, uses mods to fix stuff and enhance LOL)
And no, I don't consider building or playing in CAS as actually playing the game, you can build and create sims and never see any bugs.
For example, since it's the freshest thing on my mind, I wish they had done proms differently in HSY. As it is now, prom is a weekly event, which I think takes away from the excitement. I understand this is beneficial to rotational players but I wish it was a social event like parties and weddings. I feel like by doing it that way, it let's us decide when we want our sims' prom to be.
The werewolf pack system is another example. I know you can use the Get Together club system and create your own, and that may be why they didn't do it this way. That would mean they would have to offer the feature in the pack or in a basegame update, and some people don't like it when they add stuff to the basegame that was originally in a pack. I still wish it was done differently.
Apart from this, I mostly love this game. It's come a long way from where it started, and I do enjoy it for the most part.
The other issues honestly pale in comparison to these. We had all those things in Sims 2 and Sims 3, it shouldn't be hard at all.
- constant updates that bring new bugs and force me to constantly update mods
- the lack of attention for occult sims. One occult lifestate every two to three years is too little. The quality of the occults is not bad, but they are so few.
- the inability to edit the world. I miss not being able to add lots or change neighbourhood decorations like we could in sims 2 and 3.
- the lack of a color wheel or sliders for hairs. I like how skin tones have loads of options and how we can customise make up. Please allow this for hair as well
- kits replacing stuff packs. I like DLC that adds gameplay, not just looks
My second issue is the worlds themselves, most are incredibly pretty, but as others have pointed out, they are mainly set dressing. I wish there was more to do in each world, more interactive stuff. I loved exploring in Sims 3, there were so many things to find.
Then the last thing I will mention, the bugs. It seems that the more stuff they add the more bugs we get. They are trying to add things that are an improvement to the base game, but I don't know if the engine just can't handle it or what, because the longer it goes on, the more they add, the more broken and buggy it seems to make the game.
1. The lack of detail in animations. Compare to Sims 2, where the Sims reached into cabinets to get cookwares etc.
2. The lack of open world. Imagine a local open world combined with the easy travel of Sims 4. The best of two worlds, literally.
3. Townies, and the choice of the complete randomness that create quite literal eyesores everywhere.
4. The lack of color wheel.
> Launching grumpy gal mode in 3 2 1
> *Beeep*
>
> Randomized townies.
>
> Thats it. My criticism.
> 99% of things i am annoyed about would be solved if i could stop the game from generating randomized townies for freaking everything.
>
> ts1 didn't need randomized townies neither did ts2 so why on earth would i need them in ts4 i do not.
>
> just where are them toggles really
>
> Also the way the game performance has really gotten bad during last 2 years its making me worry they will just overload the game with random stuff and let it crash and burn the same way they did ts3 in the end its giving me unpleasant flashbacks
>
> aaand as for new content the way they keep adding about everything on earth except gameplay
>
> like sure I am happy about the new additions especially the updates
>
> but its bit sad that I get excited about sims sitting at this point
>
> like goodness tell ts2 simmingal she is gonna be excited about sims sitting...
I really wish they'd stop throwing such useless stuff at us in the packs they release and instead focus on improving the actual gameplay and making the changes that are actually important. A lot of the packs are totally useless or they overlap with each other or they just don't really have much. For example, I've seen a lot of people talking about how the world in Eco Lifestyle is just... empty. What's the point? What even is the point of Eco Lifestyle, Snowy Escape, Get Together, Get To Work, Discover University, High School Years Wedding Stories, Batuu, Strangerville, Jungle Adventure, Parenthood, or like literally any of the stuff packs and kits? Stuff like seasons, holidays, the four whole extra careers you get with Get to Work and Discover University, and the school stuff from HYS and University should have just been included with the base game from the beginning and everything else is unnecessary. I just don't get it smh.
I agree with the above 100%. These are all my issues with the game. Especially the phone spamming and lag. To this list I would like to add the constant fears issue. Even after my sim overcomes a fear, it comes right back which is very annoying. I also don't like that you can't cancel wants. I have a mod to fix it so add another mod on. SIGH.
Rosebud Challenge
My Drifter Challenge II
Orgin ID: Glimmer50
Complaints for 8 years and still they keep buying. Why should EA/Maxis do anything when they make billions (true) off of TS4 when the community keeps buying more content knowing it's not going to work as it should, it's going to be very buggy and it's not what they actually wanted or implemented in a way they wanted?
EA has nothing to learn here as someone stated. They know the community will buy the next pack, kit, stuff pack, EP or GP. And still hope that EA will change. Really, if the game isn't what you wanted it's no one's fault but the buyer. If you are still buying you shouldn't be complaining. Because you know TS4's reputation eight years later and can depend on it's reputation to be less than you expected, less than perfect and less than fun.
Everyone went along with EA/Maxis changing TS4 into a sitcom (instead of a life simulator), a questy game (linear play rather than sandbox) , and or later a Simself game (Identity rules)...it's been all over the map. It's been a Simself game for the past four years, it's been catering to specific group of people for the past four or five years, it's made billions because of that catering. If the game isn't living up to a sterling reputation of great gameplay, in depth personality and needs mods or no one would touch it what does that say? That the community is the problem not EA.
Everybody by now knows Maxis using reused animations, recolors and reuses previous assets...they don't spend that much on reused items and animations. Everybody knows the DLC is only tested with a base game and not all other EPs etc. Everybody knows the gurus add what they want not necessarily what the community as a whole wanted, and or they spend time on text instead of simualtion....and yet they make billions. If it's that bad, stop buying as I did. Because it's just a waste to complain if you bought it anyway.