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Why are Spellcasters not as well liked as Vampires/Werewolves?
Garfieldwxg55
Posts: 76 Member
Hi, for most Sim gameplay, I prefer Sims 2/3, but one thing that I love about the Sims 4 is the more expanded occult gameplay. But I was thinking, I see a lot of love for Vampires and Werewolves, but not so much for Spellcasters. And I was curious why that is, what did Realm of Magic do that wasn't as interesting as Vampires or Werewolves? Any feedback is greatly appreciated!
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like how
2. same about chillio its just less dependable freeze ray
3. you can only inferniate 1-3 times then game blocks you and also sim who set the fire puts it out themselves autonomously as if it was not their intention
4. no witch hat, no cloak no pointy shoe
sighs
isn't that just the basics of looking witching
5. no interesting magical objects
sure theres like cauldrons but what else are you supposed to fill that magic hq with
6. can't live in magic realm
just always sad when u can't live in magical place in magic pack
7. no integration like say having spells to cure other occults or changing weather or whatever like sure you can be techy witch n do those things in other packs but also you know magic?
8. kids are not involved in any way even though have you ever seen movie where theres magic and kids don't magic just asking
sure its issue with vampires and werewolves n such too but i feel kids are less common theme with those so its tiny bit more understandable
9. lack of unique animations / show magic style flair to the spells
its bit of a issue with all packs in ts4 that theres not much new animations but with magic mainly being redo of the scientist career and zap zap it takes away from the magical feeling of the pack
10. curses are fun but why our spellcaster sims cannot curse other sims you know directly while we at it?
but also its just that since its lifestate instead of skill you have to abandon all other occult characteristics to do magic which just tbh does not feel worth it when theres barely anything unique to lifestate itself
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I greatly enjoy spellcasters and they are my favourite occult. But this is mainly a thematical preference. When it comes to gameplay spellcasters have one huge disadvantage : they are overpowered.
- It is way easier to become a spellcaster and it happens instantly without a waiting period like the other two in depth occults.
- Vampires have weaknesses which are there constantly confronted with. Werewolves have temperaments that increase rage several times a day. Both vampires and werewolves get more weaknesses/temperaments as they level up. Spellcasters only have curses which only happen occasionally and can be easily removed with multiple methods. If you level them up you can even avoid curses altogether with the right perks.
- On top of that the extremely powerful potion of plentiful needs is very cheap to make.
- And then there is the copy pasto spell which allows you to duplicate things at will, including the potion you are handed out for free when you learn a recipe. The spell can also be used as a money cheat if you duplicate expensive items.
- you can play a spellcaster and ignore their magical nature. Apart from the UI they behave like normal sims. For werewolves and vampires it is impossible to ignore their occult nature in the everyday gameplay.
In short spellcasters are imbalanced and lack any form of challenge.
They are my favourites none the less, closely followed by werewolves. But I impose rules on myself to make spellcasters more challenging.
2. my spellcasters are not allowed to unlock all the perks. I let them specialise in one branch of magic and only for that branch they can get the perk for spells to be always successful. They can only unlock one of the linear perk lines above level 2 so they don't become overpowered.
3. I use a mod to lessen the effect of the potion of plentiful needs and make it require more ingredients.
https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/966261/vampires-or-casters/p1
Time for a Spellcaster, Vampire, Werewolf battle.
I'll take a look at the previous games. The Sims Makin' Magic and The Sims 2 Apartment Life had a lot of unique spells. Some spells even gained some functions when you had DLC (You can cause rain or make the sun shine and butterflies appear with Seasons). I'll share some interesting spells from the previous games.
- Turning sims into toads (which could end badly in The Sims 1 if you had a dragon)
- Make an object to temporarily come alive (well, The Sims 4 has too much gnome statues to make a gnome NPC)
- Banishing someone (either make them disappear or create a hole under them to fall into)
- Turning a pet into a sim
- Using a spell to temporarily look like a monster
- Making a clone that goes to work/school for you!
- Imaginary friends
- Easier magician tricks
- Spells that make socializing easier or harder
- Summoning a sim (I'd like to see a relationship drop when summoned at the wrong time)
- A spells that removes other spells
- Makes a sim act weird to other sims (act like a chicken for example)
- Summon bees to attack sims
- Resurrecting dead sims as a zombie
- Freezing time (it even has its own section in game tips!)
- Haunting curse (which kills the caster if it backfires)
- Pestilence Curse
- Ability to turn an object into something else
- Rain that makes non-witches dance uncontrollably
The Sims 2 evil spells really were evil. Erasing memories, breaking up marriages...But the first two games had one requirement: spells require ingredients. In The Sims 2, you could just make it in cauldrons, but in The Sims 1, you really had to go out of your way to find them.
The Sims 3 just had magical energy that went down. When it was in half, spells began to backfire. Witches can't cast spells without any of that energy.
Yet, none of the games also doesn't force your sim to cast spells. Witches were the most noticeable in The Sims 2 (special idle animations, using brooms). In fact, in The Sims 1, if your sim casts a spell in front of non-magical sims, they'll get fined. I get a feeling that The Sims 4 is trying to re-create that secret magic theme, just without strict consequences.
But my ideas for spellcaster improvements are like so:
etc.
Anyway, that's what I have to share on this matter.
Updated with Werewolf Diaries (1)
Potions are a mess. They're not worth the price it costs to make them, or worth the effort it takes to get their ingredients. It's not worth selling them. Only a couple of potions are useful, and Plentiful Needs is way too easy to make and unlock, for something that's so powerful.
Familiars are also useless. They're glorified drones that sometimes give you generic pop-up messages. You can't interact with them besides choosing to summon or disperse them. They save you from death by magical overload, but magical overload is something you have to actively go out of your way to achieve, and it's even harder to die by it.
Brooms basically teleport you. You can't ride around and have fun with them, which gives them less immersion and gameplay potential. Duels are similar, in that there's not a lot of interactivity or variation.
They're also almost completely unnoticeable if you're not playing with them. At least werewolves can wolf out sometimes, and vampires fear sunlight. Witches might ride brooms if you give them one, but other than that, they don't cast spells or do anything magical autonomously. And if you try to have that via the club system, they just cast Inferniate and burn all your stuff. So it becomes a detriment to try and work with them.
They also have no secondary form, which is a major appeal for vampires and werewolves. You can greatly customize them. Not that you could do much with spellcasters though, since they have very little CASsets that fit the spellcaster theme. The only witch hat we got was in a completely different pack.
On top of that, what makes them different from other sims? Vampires and werewolves require you to change up your gameplay style to accommodate them. Mermaids benefit from living in worlds with swimmable waters. Spellcasters are normal sims that can sometimes use cheats if you feel like it. And I get that witches are generally portrayed as enhanced humans, so there's less room for deviation from normal sims. But there's little incentive to play them outside of that way.
I love playing spellcasters, but they're pretty basic. I have to imagine a lot of my stories and gameplay because RoM didn't give us enough to work with. Meanwhile, werewolves and vampires have unique looks, unique items, and unique gameplay.
The Sims 4 hasn't introduced a new musical instrument since 2017
Ah yes, brooms. While they were bikes in The Sims 3, you could literally go to a Broom Arena and do broom stunts.
And I agree about CAS assets too. I get that they were going for the spellcaster customizability thus avoiding the classic witch and warlock look, what if I want to make a classic witch/warlock?
I don't know about all that. I love my spellcasters.
I have no vampires or werewolves in my save, I don't even use their worlds because I hate them for various reasons. I hate the way they act outside their worlds. I hate how animal like the werewolves are, they eat pet poop! Why?!?!? It's what I hated the most about TS3 werewolves, how they acted like dogs. I also can't stand how they look like furries. Yeah, I'm not feeling that at all. Vampires are also annoying to me. I DO like the content that came with vampires so I don't regret purchasing that one. Oh man, do I ever regret purchasing werewolves!
My spellcaster is the child of spellcasters, all the way up to her great grandmother. It's a matriarch that marries humans. The women are all spellcasters, except her mother who went rogue and married a male spellcaster....lol. She's got the ancient bloodline and she's what I consider my wicked "bad....butt". She's constantly being challenged to a dual and never loses, she even beats the sages.
Reading through some of the comments, it's really how you play them. I'm very happy with my spellcasters and I'm considering turning Forgotten Hollow and Moonwood Mills into worlds for different "branches" of spellcasters so I'll finally use those worlds. FH could be where the practitioners of the dark arts live while MM will be for the green "spellcasters". I could even use Henford (another world I ignore) for kitchen "spellcasters". Green/kitchen spellcasters are pretty similar but I'll figure something out lol.
I will say that I miss turning sims into frogs. Sometimes I'd turn the entire town into frogs just to amuse myself, I do find much joy and fun in freezing sims that annoy me and then laughing at their blue skins. I also have my sim going to the magic realm constantly so I can watch the club I set up that meets there catch everything on fire because they're not very good at spells. Also, have you seen the cute animation for child spellcasters in CAS? The "oops? what did I do?" It's one of my favorites.
As far as lack of CAS? I combine the vampire stuff into the realm of magic when I'm dressing my spellcasters, I'll probably draw in the stuff from werewolves and the country world, too.
I also think vampires (and possibly werewolves too, but I haven't played them yet) have more depth than spellcasters. Their powers and weaknesses and optional dark form gives them more versatility and personality. Being a vampire is a big part of their identity, for better or worse. They can be the most powerful sim ever or more challenging to play if you prefer. There are some things I would like to change or add about them, but they are not far from perfect. I have always loved vampires though so I am biased.
(I've also never been a fan of playing Vampires in any system. Never saw the appeal of it. 90% is either play a monster, or play angsty that you have to do monstrous things, neither of which are stories I want to explore.)
I do think Spellcasters are more popular than the Forums might indicate. Forums always tend to amplify the voices of the vocal, making certain aspects of the game seem more preferred/desired than actual play would indicate (twitter likewise.)
Spellcasters I like, but I wish they weren't called spellcasters. I always call them either witches or warlocks instead.
Werewolves don't interest me at all, but I like them in Sims 4. Werewolves pack surprised me positively, I didn't expect to like it as much as I do.
Tales From The Myst
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Another thing I think it is because they tend to blend in with other Sims.
That said, a majority of my Sims are actually spell casters, and I purposely have them use wands, brooms, and familiars. I do that to bring them more into my game.
I also love werewolves and vampires, but there aren't as much yet in my game.
This discussion has got me wondering if spellcasters are really as little liked as the title suggest. I think a supernatural battle between the three main occuls is in order. So I created a poll to compare spellcasters, werewolves and vampires.
I've come across the term "overpowered" in this thread, which I agree with in some regards (because they can use their powers all the time and don't have any meaningful weaknesses), but also disagree with in others. If anything, witches should be overpowered, but when I look at the things TS4 spellcasters are doing and compare it to what they could be doing, they actually feel underpowered to me. Of course, casting very powerful spells could come with powerful consequences to stop players from doing it all the time, and the pack tried this with the magic meter or whatever it's called, but it doesn't fill up fast enough, and I've never had a spellcaster get into trouble because of it during regular gameplay.
There's also an annoying lack of compatibility with other packs. You can't use magic to become famous, change the weather, clean up hair left by pets, or fight the mother plant. And why can't we stop time like in TS2? Granted, that would probably make spellcasters extremely overpowered, but so what? This is not a competition with other occults, it's about exploiting the full potential of every individual occult, and while vampires and werewolves have gotten that treatment for the most part, witches haven't.
Something wicked this way comes!
I don't use MCCC.
I like magic being unnoticeable, as my spell caster are special and rare in my game. I even like them living at lots out of the way that not a lot of people frequent….. I do think spells and potions could use improvement…… and it would be nice if they could have a second look like vampires and werewolves….and I wish there was a real witches hat, plain colors, especially white and black….., without the spider.
Witches are everyday folks. It's only those who have watched movies like The Craft too many times who buy into the whole stereotype.
I love that my witches look like every Pagan I ever met when I was experimenting. They all garden, they are all very into nature, most of them are vegans. That's a bit of a generalization but it's the kind of Pagans I met so I tried to recreate them in my game.
Probably why I love my spellcasters so much; some of the kindest, most accepting, and generally good people I've ever met were witches. Also, my spellcasters don't do a ton of spellwork. They mostly worship the Goddess in ways that I can pretend within the limitations of the game (gardening, caring for their animals, etc etc). Don't get me wrong, I do I enjoy when they do a battle and win. However, that's pretty much the only time their magic comes out to play.
Not to be disrespectful, the Pagans you're describing sound like interesting people I'd like to meet myself, but they are simply not what most players think of when it comes to witches in a video game like The Sims. They may be the "real" witches in the sense that they're real people practicing a real lifestyle in the real world, but at the same time they're not "real" witches in the sense of using real magic, because... well, magic itself isn't real. And works of fiction featuring magic don't usually do it for the representation of any real people calling themselves witches.
As for the obsession with pointy hats and other stereotypes, the problem is that the pack that brought us spellcasters doesn't even give us the option of making our witches look like that. It went in the opposite direction than TS2, which forced witches to be stereotypical by changing their entire appearance to correspond with their moral alignment every five minutes of practicing magic. Nowadays, if you want a pointy hat, you need Spooky Stuff, but as someone mentioned before, that one comes with a spider attached that makes it look like a costume more than anything else.
About 25% of my played sims are spellcasters, including walking stereotypes with witchy outfits and black cats, but also normal everyday folks like the ones you described, and everything in-between. I love this diversity, the ability to create whatever kind of witch I can think of, but the options for anything out of the ordinary are limited, and I think that's what most people mean when they complain about the lack of stuff like pointy hats.
Something wicked this way comes!
I don't use MCCC.
Yes, they are. The only thing that needs to be done is learning them. When we take The Sims 1 and 2, your sim had to hunt down/make the ingredients to cast spells and make charms. It was annoying, but it was balance. I am all for more interesting spells!
Yup, not to mention that your sim will get one potion they just learned to make. So learning it from a sage or a tome will give you a potion. Then use copypasto on it. Potions can fail though...
Again, the previous games also had interesting potion. However, I didn't bring them out before here. Ah well, might as well bring out now...
To be honest, I don't know how familiars can be useful. Maybe send them to fetch ingredients, maybe some can be socialized with. They also boost spellcaster experience gain and reduce charge gain, so for me, they are sort of cheat objects to remove balance a little...
Brooms I already brought up. And yes, magic duels in Makin' Magic were awesome. Though the only problem with that system would be that if you know the system, there's no way for your sim to lose. So, in my opinion, the magic duels are so because it then has chance of your sim losing.
Now that is something where players can have different opinions on. Some prefer open-magic (The Sims 2), others prefer closed-magic (The Sims 1). I think like with werewolves, it should be in the options for players to toggle. Limit magic to Realm of Magic, and if you want extra challenge, the fine for casting in front of non-spellcaster sims could also be an extra option.
Though with clubs, I agree. For me, they constantly enable and disable teleportation. Plus they'll cast spells until they die by overcharge.
Hmm...
I'd say like with vampires, it should be optional. Plus it would be great to have some shape-shifting spell, allowing the spellcaster to temporarily become an animal or another lifestate (werewolf or vampire, including the powers they have).
And I'll quote myself again. Though yes, it was annoying that The Sims 2 tries to force that witch/warlock outfit on sims. Yes, you can change it, but a change in the alignment level will change them back into that witch/warlock outfit (even when they become more good/evil).
Well, yes. I think it would be great to see more of those curses players would rather keep to make spellcasters different from human sims...
Agreed. Spellcasters do need a refresh. I'll quote myself under spoilers to show some of my ideas.
Yup. Werewolf lore say that werewolves exist because spellcasters wanted to defeat vampires and thus became werewolves. The lore is full of awesome things magic can do, but why can't we do that in gameplay?
Agreed. We need more cross-pack spells. I won't quote my ideas again here (this post is already so long).
This is the great part about spellcasters: the customizability. They can be witches, mediums, nature oriented mages etc. That is why wands, brooms, and familiars are equal in power. I don't know how to approach these topics, so I'll apologize in advance.
Yet the option would be nice. Have some outfits inspired from The Sims 2's witches and warlocks. The important thing is that the game isn't forcing the clothing on the spellcasters after all!