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Community lots in the Sims 3 and 4 are next to meaningless, I hope they put more "impact" in Sims 5
Thetford
Posts: 419 Member
In the Sims 5, I hope they put more, I find it hard to explain, meaning, purpose, impact, in visiting community lots than The Sims 3 and 4 have. In both games, community lots are essentially just hang out lots where NPC sims are more likely to use certain types of objects. The problem is, these objects are just ordinary objects found in your home catalogue, and they are not even expensive or oversized either, essentially undermining the reason to go there.
This is especially apparent with parks, libraries, gyms and museums, as well as to a minor extent, cafes and bars. These lots have very little unique gameplay, aside from maybe give you a small buff. Essentially, there is pretty much no compelling reason to go to these lots. They are just there to meet sims - which is kinda pointless since they come to your door too.
I just miss the days of the Sims 1 and early Sims 2 where you HAD to leave the house to buy groceries or clothing, go on quests and errands for magical ingredients, use services, go dining, use unique objects and activities that you can't do at home. There are unique NPCs to interact with, unique goods to buy, unique stuff to do. Sorry if I'm rambling and repeating myself. The Sims 3 decided to hide many of these activities in rabbit holes, and never expanded on them, aside from a few hollow Store Sets - shopping, dining, spa facilities, entertainment, all locked behind rabbit holes, all your clothing options available to you from the start and you could buy food from the fridge, and the Sims 4 decided to drive down this path even further.
In both games, your sims could just live their entire existence in their home.
I know it may be unpopular, but I want the game to force you out of the house, instead of making everything available at a whim like food and clothes. I'd like it if we had to go out and buy fishing rods and bait from a tackle shop and learn what today's hot fishing spot is, or go to the hardware store for tools and parts or to buy new gardening equipment and seeds, or go to the arts and craft store for paints and yarn, or have to go to specific places to sell your creations instead of just out of your inventory. Make an evening out of going to places, like having to take out business associates to dinner, participate in league night at the bowling alley, or take dance classes with your spouse at the rec centre. And maybe have limits such as fridge capacity and ingredients that expire so you have to make a weekly trip to the supermarket. I know it is unpopular as a lot of people would find it tedious, and from what I've seen of the major YouTubers, they like the instant gratification thing, and cheat their way out of anything that doesn't go their preordained way. Sorry if I sound bitter.
I think it would benefit the whole community aspect if things were a little less like real life, and more ... old school? Before you could do everything from your computer and have it delivered to your door.
I'm not sure if I explained myself well, and I've probably contradicted myself numerous times, but I hope people understand.
This is especially apparent with parks, libraries, gyms and museums, as well as to a minor extent, cafes and bars. These lots have very little unique gameplay, aside from maybe give you a small buff. Essentially, there is pretty much no compelling reason to go to these lots. They are just there to meet sims - which is kinda pointless since they come to your door too.
I just miss the days of the Sims 1 and early Sims 2 where you HAD to leave the house to buy groceries or clothing, go on quests and errands for magical ingredients, use services, go dining, use unique objects and activities that you can't do at home. There are unique NPCs to interact with, unique goods to buy, unique stuff to do. Sorry if I'm rambling and repeating myself. The Sims 3 decided to hide many of these activities in rabbit holes, and never expanded on them, aside from a few hollow Store Sets - shopping, dining, spa facilities, entertainment, all locked behind rabbit holes, all your clothing options available to you from the start and you could buy food from the fridge, and the Sims 4 decided to drive down this path even further.
In both games, your sims could just live their entire existence in their home.
I know it may be unpopular, but I want the game to force you out of the house, instead of making everything available at a whim like food and clothes. I'd like it if we had to go out and buy fishing rods and bait from a tackle shop and learn what today's hot fishing spot is, or go to the hardware store for tools and parts or to buy new gardening equipment and seeds, or go to the arts and craft store for paints and yarn, or have to go to specific places to sell your creations instead of just out of your inventory. Make an evening out of going to places, like having to take out business associates to dinner, participate in league night at the bowling alley, or take dance classes with your spouse at the rec centre. And maybe have limits such as fridge capacity and ingredients that expire so you have to make a weekly trip to the supermarket. I know it is unpopular as a lot of people would find it tedious, and from what I've seen of the major YouTubers, they like the instant gratification thing, and cheat their way out of anything that doesn't go their preordained way. Sorry if I sound bitter.
I think it would benefit the whole community aspect if things were a little less like real life, and more ... old school? Before you could do everything from your computer and have it delivered to your door.
I'm not sure if I explained myself well, and I've probably contradicted myself numerous times, but I hope people understand.
8
Comments
This was the biggest let down of TS3. They made open world so it was supposedly easier to travel to community lots but there was no point in visiting them, they were either rabbit holes or devoid of sims. They also ruined shopping by making food available to buy from the fridge and free clothing for everyone. I love TS4 when my sims want to cook fish and I have to take them to Brindleton Bay to buy some. Or when there's no food in the fridge but my sim runs outside to get some from the food stand nearby. I can finally have sims that eat only takeaways.
I hope with Sims 5 they put a lot more thought into it and give you a reason to actually use retail maybe once a week your fridge becomes empty and you have to go pick up groceries at the store otherwise your Sim has to order take out until you do.
Retail needs a motivation to use it why go out of your way to purchase an outfit when all of CAS is unlocked and free they could also add things like perfume and cologne your Sims could use to help them attract other Sims useful helpful items to purchase that add in game play that is not available with your Sim just sitting at home.
Most importantly what they need to do is add in group activities to community lots and actually have the Sims you bring together hangout and not randomly take off. We need things on community lots Sims do together. If I bring 3 Sims to go out to play a game pool just because 2 are playing does not mean the third should go walk off on their own why not stand there and watch your friends or make it a game for 3 but either way community lots should be about community.
I would, however, enjoy a mechanic that allowed all clothing to be available in CAS when creating a sim but forced you to go buy other clothing if you want new outfits/clothing pieces in game. The current system of accessing any clothing you want from the dresser is too "easy" for me.
I definitely want lots to have more purpose. Like, if you want a cool new laptop or car, then there are certain ones that you literally have to go to a tech store or car dealership in order to purchase. And if you don't want to have that in your gameplay? then just use simple cheats to unlock in BB mode or something easy. Idk, I miss the simple everyday life challenges that came with TS2. I also want vacations to have more of an impact on sims. Vacation should be a huge ordeal, it's meant to be a new fun way to experience new things. Also bringing back to "purchase plane tickets" via phone/computer was realistic and a very nice touch they added with vacays in TS2.
I am concerned that everything with TS5 will again be too easy and allow you instant access to almost everything like TS4 allows.
Same. I've been keeping up with the news for both, and they both have different qualities that interest me. If TS5 is as shallow in gameplay as TS4, then I sadly may say goodbye to purchasing any new The Sims related content and move on to the newer options. But we also have no idea how the gameplay in those will be either. Regardless, I'm getting bored of The Sims and have been trying to find new life/city building sims to play and explore.
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