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Why the sims 4 feels lacking and divided.
peterskywalker
Posts: 553 Member
I have played the sims since late 2005 beginning with the sims 2. I took a while to get into the sims 3 (in fact only this year have I learned how fun it can be) thanks to new mods that make the game more stable, and mods that allow kids and toddlers to do more.
The sims 4 was fun at first, and I loved the look of the sims and worlds, but it over time it became boring. No matter how much content I bought, the game still felt hollow. I have been thinking for a long time why this is the case, and I think I now finally understand. I will list them below.
1. The game is bug ridden. I have many mods to fix bugs, and even then new one crop up.
2. The game lags more than it should and has no reason to do so. On larger lots, sim occasionally bob their heads or become unresponsive (even on a good PC).
3. Sims have no personality. You can only choose 3 traits and they do little to influence your sim besides putting them in various emotions (some traits do add significant gameplay like childish).
4. There is no randomness, danger, or surprises. If you want something to happen that is unexpected, you have to do it yourself. In previous sims games (2 & 3), unexpected things happen whether good or bad such as chance cards at work, buglers robbing your house, a sale happening at the local grocery stores, etc.
5. There is no meaningful challenge. Everything is so easy in the sims 4 (except for high bills), and whenever something bad happens, there is always a easy way out (such as self extinguishing fires).
6. The emotions system is broken and actually hinders the game. Sims in the same emotion act the same regardless of their traits, and tying negative events to emotional buffs means that sims can quickly forget impactful events (such as death) so long as they get enough happy buffs (which is easy to do).
7. Autonomy is boring, and sims end up doing the same thing regardless of traits. Also idle chat, makes it so that in community lots, all you mostly see is groups talking with each other (unless you use clubs to help simulate life).
8. Sims are constantly happy, and it is hard to get them in negative emotions without intentional player involvement.
9. Many life stages don't feel unique. While toddlers are the best yet, teens young adults, and adults and elders basically act and look the same (aside from wrinkles and grey hair). There is no unique gameplay for any of these stages at all. (this may change with the new high school EP).
10. The game is overly modern and hip, and is marketed as such. The old sims game definitely had things of their generations, but the trailers usually focused on the features of the EP. Furthermore, those game had a better balance between modern technology, activities and ideologies and things that are old fashioned. Many aspects of the sims 2 and 3 feel timeless, while the sims 4 feels like it will become dated in the next 1-2 decades.
Overall, it feels kind of sad, especially since the sims 4 has some things it does very well (CAS and build/buy). Unfortunately, I don't think that these problems can be easily fixed, as they are rooted in both the sims 4 engine, and the way they market the game (and the main audience they are trying to sell the game to). Hopefully others can find some joy in the game even if I can not.
The sims 4 was fun at first, and I loved the look of the sims and worlds, but it over time it became boring. No matter how much content I bought, the game still felt hollow. I have been thinking for a long time why this is the case, and I think I now finally understand. I will list them below.
1. The game is bug ridden. I have many mods to fix bugs, and even then new one crop up.
2. The game lags more than it should and has no reason to do so. On larger lots, sim occasionally bob their heads or become unresponsive (even on a good PC).
3. Sims have no personality. You can only choose 3 traits and they do little to influence your sim besides putting them in various emotions (some traits do add significant gameplay like childish).
4. There is no randomness, danger, or surprises. If you want something to happen that is unexpected, you have to do it yourself. In previous sims games (2 & 3), unexpected things happen whether good or bad such as chance cards at work, buglers robbing your house, a sale happening at the local grocery stores, etc.
5. There is no meaningful challenge. Everything is so easy in the sims 4 (except for high bills), and whenever something bad happens, there is always a easy way out (such as self extinguishing fires).
6. The emotions system is broken and actually hinders the game. Sims in the same emotion act the same regardless of their traits, and tying negative events to emotional buffs means that sims can quickly forget impactful events (such as death) so long as they get enough happy buffs (which is easy to do).
7. Autonomy is boring, and sims end up doing the same thing regardless of traits. Also idle chat, makes it so that in community lots, all you mostly see is groups talking with each other (unless you use clubs to help simulate life).
8. Sims are constantly happy, and it is hard to get them in negative emotions without intentional player involvement.
9. Many life stages don't feel unique. While toddlers are the best yet, teens young adults, and adults and elders basically act and look the same (aside from wrinkles and grey hair). There is no unique gameplay for any of these stages at all. (this may change with the new high school EP).
10. The game is overly modern and hip, and is marketed as such. The old sims game definitely had things of their generations, but the trailers usually focused on the features of the EP. Furthermore, those game had a better balance between modern technology, activities and ideologies and things that are old fashioned. Many aspects of the sims 2 and 3 feel timeless, while the sims 4 feels like it will become dated in the next 1-2 decades.
Overall, it feels kind of sad, especially since the sims 4 has some things it does very well (CAS and build/buy). Unfortunately, I don't think that these problems can be easily fixed, as they are rooted in both the sims 4 engine, and the way they market the game (and the main audience they are trying to sell the game to). Hopefully others can find some joy in the game even if I can not.
True Love
Terrific Family Play
Too fun
The sims 2 forever
Terrific Family Play
Too fun
The sims 2 forever
Post edited by EA_Cade on
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Comments
I still love playing it and mods have helped me get close to the game I want.
@jpsulsuldagdag You can always just skip what you think are 'tiresome' posts?
Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day
The day's divinity....
The Ghost Song - Jim Morrison
And yes, sims that are always happy (regardless of given traits) drives me mad. Basically, what the devs did was to give all sims a default personality that for the majority of the time, overrides whatever traits you gave that sim.
But they won't fix it. I suspect that this would require a radical overhaul, and with TS5 in the pipeline, I doubt they'll put that sort of effort into TS4.
It's spot on and can't be said enough.
This thread should be in Feedback though.
But when I have played a pack for a while then these things become pretty tiring to deal with.
I think that Maxis are doing a good job with what they have to work with, they are very creative and they are still supporting the game with base game updates and new content but... I am kinda running out of energy here.
But…not really? I’ll get to my point in a minute.
Because I have every sims story already plan way before birth, even sometimes before their parents birth, I rush to get to that point because I’m excited to play that out …then it’s a cycle.
My point is that there is no dramatic revelations, or anything unexpected, to throw me off that route and add a bit of pizazz. I don’t want all my plans obliterated due to too much drama, but we basically have none unless I create it. How does a sim go their entire life and nothing really unexpected happens, even when you give it the opportunity to? Then I get bored because I’ve had this sims life planned 50 generations ago….and once again, the game doesn’t produce anything to spice it up.
Then when we have some unpredictable moments, they are nerfed. Take the alien abductions and vampire break-ins as an example. I absolutely understand not everybody wants that stuff always happening in the game! Your game is suited to you, it’s okay. But…they’ve been nerfed to the point were it’s nearly impossible. People cry about something, and instead of slightly decreasing the chances, they make it nearly impossible to happen, then people who like that type of stuff are basically devoid of something they paid for. The reasons I bought Get To Work and Pets together for my first expansions was because I wanted to be able to take my sim to the hospital to deliver babies, I wanted aliens, and the abductions. Then that happens. I regularly play and I haven’t had a vampire break in happen for 4 or 5 years. It was a couple I played as for a while, before moving on, playing some other saves, and then creating my main save I’ve had for 3 years. I’ve never had a break in my main save, although granted, Vlad was deleted for a bit and then I took one of the gallery and used him as my own. But doesn’t Lilith also have a chance to appear?
And I’ve only ever had a completely random alien abduction once, and that happened in the first year of my main save. And even with that, I wonder if it has something to do with the fact the abducted sims husband was an alien.
TLDR: The game lacks anything dramatic and when it has some unexpected events, they are nerfed (unfortunately, I think it’s only a matter of time till werewolves get a nerf. I’m suspecting Greg will be hit first, although most of the community love Greg and summoning him is optional…unfortunately there’s always that side though.)
I'm the same, its a continuous cycle which I never experienced with any of the previous iterations.
The problem is the base game (although improved) is fundamentally flawed. New packs provide some new thrills but at the end of the day you are still playing the Sims 4 and the issues the base game is plagued with rear their head when you return to everyday gameplay.
I use to play the sims 4 a lot as well, especially thanks to mods. Unfortunately, there is only so much time in the day, and with my re-connection with the sims 3, (and still playing sims 2), I realized that there was not enough to keep me invested in the game.
However to all those who enjoy the game I say go for it.
Mods like have some personality please by PolarBearSims, and meaningful stories by roburky really help with autonomy and emotions. Furthermore pandasama has some great new animated objects (especially for toddlers). Finally littllemisssam and Bienchens Mods fix many bugs and also add new fun features or tweak existing ones to be better.
I only wrote this because I hope that when the sims 5 comes out, it will appeal to a wider audience of simmer, and not leave the old generation behind.
Terrific Family Play
Too fun
The sims 2 forever
Not listed but this is a huge one to me and I'm sure many others who world build or made worlds their own by editing them we simple can't they decided to exclude a huge chunk of players from doing something they loved want to build you can't you play in the world they tell you designed how they wanted it or don't play at all.
My biggest complaint too, and exactly why I will never tire of sims 2. Sims in 2 tell me who they are. They say I'm interested in this sim, I can't stand that sim, this is my favorite hobby. Even without traits they have so much personality and feel so different from one another. I might plan one thing but my sims have something else in mind. It isn't like that in 4. I view 4 as more of a sandbox game than a life sim game. You get to control every aspect of the story and every last thing about your sims (well, except for where they wash dishes, because that will always be the bathroom sink). Some do like to play like that, but I personally don't really see much of a difference between this and low autonomy.
Agree with everything you said, but this is another big thing for me, and I've never even set foot in the CAW tool. CAW and sims actually being individuals would fix this game for me. Actually gonna cry if Sims 5 never gets CAW. I almost exclusively play custom worlds in Sims 3 because the creativity this community has is unmatched. My sims can go anywhere from greenland to korea to brazil to finland and I love it so much. In 4 I'm playing in komorobi and any time I need to travel to another world it's just immersion breaking. As an example, my gen3 kids in S3 went to uni abroad in denmark (dronningslund). They live in greenland (Saaqartoq one of my all time favorite worlds!) and it's actually common for kids there to go to uni in denmark. They didn't go home every night to Saaqartoq, they got an apartment in dronningslund. They went on dates there, met sims from there, went to bars there. Anything they wanted to do, they did there. They didn't randomly travel to bridgeport to go to the gym then go home, because that makes no sense. It's something that bothers me about 4. I want my komorobi sims to go to the gym there, go to uni there, etc, but it's just not possible, and since there's no CAW I can't even get another japanese inspired world to fill the gaps. Kinda had a lil rant there I guess, but it's just something that's sorely lacking in this game. We can't make our own worlds and the sims team gives us the tiniest worlds ever that are 80% set dressing, it's pretty frustrating
Socializing has this awful idle state where they sought to make it look like Sims were really chatting it up but it’s an idle, its rolling even when no actual socials are happening meaning no relationship increase or decrease. What makes matters worse is that Sims do not break out of this social state. They will idle loop endlessly until you cancel it. Socializing itself is not great since there’s dozens of identical socials that all do the exact same thing which is run an animation and increase relationship. There is no rhyme or reason to it. Negative socials don’t have any lasting impact, and the game will immediately run a positive social after you spam a bunch of negative ones. Making it nearly impossible to have two sims dislike each other.
A lot of Sims 4 is very clearly fake, and I don’t just mean the big fake worlds and fake buildings, I mean fake scripted interactions and behaviors. The 2 base game worlds have these nice little areas with specific gameplay in them and there are always sims there doing that stuff, but only that stuff. The game is scripted to pull random sims into the area and have them do specific things. When you go to a venue sims will “autonomously” do specific location based behaviors. Go to the gym, people will be exercising because that’s what they are programmed to do. Don’t expect much else to happen, because there’s a limit to what they’ve programmed to happen. Every lot type and open area in every world is like this.
I’m sure when this game was online multiplayer the idea that background sims would behave accordingly with respect to their location sounded just fabulous. However in a single player game it’s off putting. There are no background characters. They are supposed to be other sims with individual personalities that are “living their life” just like the sims I created but the facade can be seen thru so easily. They have generic behavior, but so do the active household Sims. All these issues tie back into this being a multiplayer game and those roots always popping up through the soil.
My absolute biggest gripes and the reason I can't love this version is:
Their personalities!!!!!!!! You can create a group of sims with totally different traits and play them the same way and they will ALL REACT THE SAME WAY! There's no uniqueness!
The rinse and repeat of animations.
It literally is like playing Barbies, where you either have to pretend everything or 100% direct the actions. I am not a micromanager, never have been, I much prefer to let my sims drive my stories, but in TS4 that's non-existant.
There's not enough variety of venues. Why can't we create multi-functional lots instead of faking a bowling ally by making it a bar? Creating a roller rink, instead of making it a bar that happens to have a roller rink in it. Etc, Etc, Etc!
The Nerfing! ..... It's insane how they do it. Everything in TS4 is extremely maxed out .... so if it's on .... it's on 11! When they nerf, it then becomes non-existent. There is never ever a happy medium, ever. The weather is even too extreme! I have it shut off with mods, which sucks cause I paid for that gameplay. I live in a state that has 4 seasons, I want to experience that in the game, but I don't want rain every single day during the spring, that's not realistic!
The itty bitty, teeny tiny worlds! They give us this huge world, but 80% (sometimes 90%) of it is FAKE! And we are forced to play in the world the devs decided we should play in. That's not cool, it's not fair, I don't need 90% of the world being fake buildings, my PC can handle more lots (lots more lots actually!). So I can NEVER, EVER create a world the way I want because I'm forced to either have a ridiculously out of place lot in a world surrounded by the fake buildings that it doesn't match the vibe or cave in and just keep my lots in the same style so it's not so jarring and immersion breaking. Why are apartments tied to only 2 worlds? I want to make my own, in a different world! I like apartments, I just don't like the worlds they're stuck in. I don't play either one of those worlds. I want to make condos, and townhouses, row-houses, etc. I want duplexes in a suburban neighborhood, but I can't!
I can't even delete things in the world (or move that tree that's blocking my view), because again, the devs decided that these things MUST STAY TO KEEP OUR VISION!
Ok rant over ..... yay for many more years of this!
Many more years of simming or ranting? Or are they the same with 4? Fully agree with you. All of it. You even understate the case. It says something when I find that doing my RL university homework is more fun than TS4.
Summer and Autumn spoke to each other outside the house and smiled and hugged. Winter played on her phone. They all went into the house. One turned on the tv, one went to the computer. The other watched TV too. One needed to pee. One played with their phone.
A bunch of sims came around with cake. One or two of them were ‘magicky’ from the Charm family but everyone else was a badly dressed black person with a Chinese name or something. The guests took turns using the computer. Autumn went to sleep. Summer played with her phone. The TV went on and off and on again.
Now my main problem with this? If I created 3 completely different sisters, and/or put them in the country living house, snowy escape house, willow creek... exactly the same experience. Which it really shouldn’t be, the day to day life of 3 teenage witches in a magical village should be very different from sisters in a country town or at a ski resort. And the packs cost enough to expect that, it’s not like it’s a free mobile game.
The sims are limited by their coding and are all the same. And the townie generation is cursed.
It's kind of pointless to choose a creative sim when the buff is only +1 inspired because they constantly have other things altering them with +2 or +3. My sim has the active lifestyle right now and they are forever energized.
Maybe if they just altered these moodlets a little, so creative sims got a +2 inspired moodlet instead of +1.
As for I think #4
My sim just died from being hysterical because it's so easy to stack happy moodlets without even trying and as soon as they got the playful moodlet that was it. I had a witch over so I had to switch play to them and revive them, was an interesting and unexpected situation lol.
One of my sims is forever pranking the toilet and sink too which is funny. I just had Father Winter show up randomly and flirt with my man.
It's not a perfect game by any means but I find that when I cheat it ruins it, and when I play like.. the whole max skills right away and get rich selling paintings and stuff, it takes the fun out of it as well.
It's very story based though, using the imagination and not much reward (atleast for me, on xbox and the bugs prevent me from completing collections and stuff.)
Right now I am playing a mermaid that teaches yoga (not a whole lot of profit) and I have about 13,000 satisfaction points unspent because I also find that when I spend them all on things that make the game easier it also takes the fun away.