I don't hate the game but I'm also not in love with it.
I have played The Sims since the beginning. Yeah i'm old :-p.
Compared to al the other games there is a lot wrong with The Sims 4.
The bugs are one thing, but the thing that irritates me the most right now is the new expansion pack Cats and Dogs that you CAN'T control your frinkin' pet!? Who the hell thought that was a good idea?
I want to control my pet when my sims are at work. Now it just sits/standing somewhere doing nothing.
And we pay quitte much for the expansion packs/game play packs and I personally think we are not getting what we are paying for.
In previous post there's a lot of talk about dining out that sims don't keep to there seats and just dine out! I have that same problem and it really gets on my nerves also that after one plate of food my sim is to tired to eat a second plate and after one drink they have to go to the bathroom or they burst. Being outside of your own lot the needs of my sim drops really fast. You can't really enjoy being out of your own lot.
I sometimes have the idea that EA never listens to our idea's/complaints/suggestions to boost up the game.
What I still really want in the game is to have a sim move out and not the way as it is now where you have to force your sim out of the household.
I thought it was in the Sims 3 that when a sims turns young adult you got the option on the computer/phone to move out, that was perfect!
I would say that even stronger because to me it is obvious that EA never listens. Instead EA just considers what the main target group (very young “teen” girls) would need to want the game which for TS4 was an easy, happy, simple game with autonomous behavior and a little built-in multitasking. You give one of the examples yourself when you mention that cats and dogs can’t be controlled by us in TS4 because nobody wanted that and EA knew. But EA obviously thought that it was what new very young simmers needed. They don’t control their pets in their real lives and they aren’t experienced gamers. So maybe they would feel the game more realistic if they couldn’t control them in the game either? Besides that TS4 was from the beginning about autonomous behavior and multitasking. So autonomously behaving pets suited that idea perfectly.
The only people in EA who listens just a little are a few of the gurus in this forum. But even though they are developers they aren’t the people who take any of the main decisions. EA obviously decides almost everything and the developers don’t have much freedom to design the game themselves. Instead all EA’s main decisions about the game seem clearly to be decided by EA’s marketing experts who don’t seem to think that ideas in this forum are relevant at all because the main target group are new young simmers who don’t use the forum yet anyway.
So good luck whith your ideas! You sure will need it if you want EA to change just a couple of very small minor details in the game!
I completely agree with this. And if it is incorrect, it is time for EA to speak up and set the record straight as to why we are where we are. If not, we are left with speculating, and that will end up being their downfall.
I don’t think that we ever will get a more straight answer from EA than SimGuruDrake’s statement about teenage girls being the main target group because EA doesn’t want to tell us not to play the game and EA can’t tell us if EA considers preteen girls as included in the target group because the ESRB has given the game a T rating (and EA of course doesn’t want to provoke the ESRB). Most simmers in the forum want to ignore all this and wishfully think that they are the target group themselves in spite of SimGuruDrake’s statement (which is very okay with me).
Why did EA ignore the forum when they designed TS4? Why does EA still ignore the forum when they design the new expansions? We saw this again for Cats&Dogs where horses were omitted and where we can’t control the pets anymore. But EA for sure will just continue to ignore the forum and design also future expansions and TS5 in their own way (and still targeted mostly at very young girls). So why?
If we compare the number of simmers in this forum with the usual sales numbers for Sims games then I don’t think that it is quite so surprising anymore because we are only a few hundred in the forum while the game is sold in millions of copies. Half of the forum also seem to be simmers who just buy everything no matter what and the others still buy a lot too anyway. So EA can likely at most lose very few hundreds of simmers here in the forum which doesn’t really matter very much because many times more interesting for EA is why the newer versions of the Sims games still sell a few million copies less than TS1 did? How can EA get enough new simmers as customers for the next big Sims game for this to change? I think that it is such questions that have motivated EA to focus so extremely much on getting new young girls as customers and mostly ignore all suggestions from the hardcore veteran simmers in the forum. But how should we be able to change that?
I dunno why but for some reason I get really tense when thinking about making a realistic loving normal family in Sims 4. The reason why is because Sims 4 isn't realistic enough for me! It's going to be so odd to see your kid's grandparent reading on his latest phone and not on the newspaper. And I don't have a family feeling like I did for Sims 3 since entering into people houses were more realistic in Sims 3! Sims 3 the sim would come up to shake your sim's hand to let you in but would not answer if it's the middle of the night or if the sim is out!
While in Sims 4 there's a notification coming up saying "Come on in!" Even when it's 3:30AM. I only use Sims 4 to make cartoon characters and make stories about them mixed with some families into it too. Parenthood improved the Sims 4 kids but it just isn't realistic enough like it should be. Idk why but the first time my kid was taken away, my Sim didn't got any sad moodlet. She just saw her kid disappeared in to thin air while having a big grin on her face.
About the moodlets, if you're sim experience a love one dying, they would get a moodlet right? Then they will become happy if they get a nice cooked meal or something on the same day their loved one died! I remembered it wasn't like that in Sims 3. Though in Sims 3 you could get good traits while your Sim is sad for a good reason, it would never go up to change your Sim's mood until 2 days later.
I tried making a normal family in Sims 4 but it really wasn't that fun tbh. I remember the good times in Sims 3 when all my sims and their family went out on a picnic, the cousins were playing, the aunts and uncles were chatting and the grandparents were too. And I remember the dogs and cats playing around on the picnic area. I don't get that family vibe in Sims 4 anymore which makes me really disapointed.
"Give me the name of a place where you can get your furniture and whatever color you want? I'll wait..."
That's an odd argument in defense of Sims 4, I'll counter that with - give me and example of when you've had to say to work. school etc "Sorry I'm late but my load screen was taking forever"
And the thing about newspapers...sure it's 2017, but I, personally, love reading the paper while drinking coffee on the train to work in the morning. So I don't fall under the 'we' that you've lumped everyone into.
In fact, every rebuttal you gave to @MidnightAura's was about what YOU don't care about having in the game. Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you aren't the only one that plays this game and you should keep in mind that there are so many different play styles to be catered for - which isn't the easiest of things for EA to do when producing a game for millions, but they've come close before.
So you're telling me if TS5 had every other aspect you desired but it didn't include: Fire fighters, burglars, police, newspapers, etc... you would say the game is bad? I just think that's so petty. We're griping about things they took away but they gave us a lot of things too. Like the open world complaint is just so played out. We know that we most likely won't get an open world, save that complaint for when they start the production for TS5. Idk I just don't get the hate. *Shrug*
Idc about newspapers in my game. It's 2017, my sims have phones and computers they can use that. That's what I use. I do read on the train as well but not the newspaper... I read actual books. If I want to read the news on the train I just pop out my phone, it's less intrusive that way and it just works. Are you middle-aged? I'm just curious because I'm 19 so obviously that somewhat plays a role in my opinion of technology. We don't even bother to pay for the newspaper to be delivered to our house... There's just no point. TS4 is moving along with the times...
From what I can tell, you're more miffed about people not liking a game that you love, if nothing else. You're so busy trying to convince people of why they should like what you like, but it's not all about you. A game like the Sims series should be about being inclusive, not catering to only a few.
Options are the way of doing that, as someone has already pointed out to you. TS4 has taken away all the options.
Okay, you just love your tech. But what about people who loved period game play? In the other games, there were some players who played generations of family throughout time from medieval to far flung future time. The games allowed for that because there were options. It's really hard to play, say a pioneer or a post apocalyptic scenario, if the Sims keep whipping out their smartphones. There's not even an option to get rid of them! At least, with the newspapers, you could cancel the subscription. Do you see what I mean?
You don't seem to care about a lot of things and that is why you are enjoying TS4. But again, it's not just about you. It's about US, all of us, everyone that spent money on this game because we want to love it. Even before you mentioned your age, I knew that you had to be young. You still haven't gotten to the point in your life where you can really look back and remember a time when things were different or even better. Comparatively, you don't have as much to miss or be nostalgic about. Some of us do.
To illustrate my point: Imagine that in Sims 5 or 6 or 7, all of the things that you love about the game right now are removed. If you can imagine that, you will understand a little of what some of us feel. Right now, you're still in your own head. It's all about I, I, I and me, me, me. But that's not the world, that's just you. Some of us have certain ideas that we love in life (newspapers) as well as a Sims game and we're missing them now. Some of us are missing the fact that in TS4, we can no longer play how we want to play. It's almost like going through a grieving process, if that makes sense.
Enjoy the game if you like. But you don't have to call other haters or start a thread where it seems your whole point was just to defend the game because you love it. When you love something, there's no need to defend it. There's truly no purpose in it, really. Because no matter how glorious it is to you, you will never convince another person who is not having the same experience.
If you really want to attempt to understand why some people don't like a thing (which is how you started this thread before you went on a full court press to defend the game), come out of your own head a little bit. There are other folks out here.
Why does it have to be either or (not that these things are on the same level)? That seems to happen a lot with this iteration.
This is the question that I ask myself every day. What happened to the choices in this game? There are so few options now -- from something as big as having the option to play in a different world, down to the smallest option of paper or plastic (phone).
Oddly enough, EA put all the option in CAS and CAP and forgot to put that full range of choice into the rest of the game.
Edited to add: You've been doing a really good job of pointing out the areas where this game needs work. Thank you.
Why does it have to be either or (not that these things are on the same level)? That seems to happen a lot with this iteration.
This is the question that I ask myself every day. What happened to the choices in this game? There are so few options now -- from something as big as having the option to play in a different world, down to the smallest option of paper or plastic (phone).
Oddly enough, EA put all the option in CAS and CAP and forgot to put that full range of choice into the rest of the game.
Edited to add: You've been doing a really good job of pointing out the areas where this game needs work. Thank you.
You're welcome. I'm definitely not blind to what this iteration does well, but there are so many things that I wish were done differently or weren't missing. I think if things are to change for the future, people need to remain vocal but do it in a manner that is respectful. Wanting change or different things is not bashing or hate and it really irks me when people see it as such. I want to love this game as much as all of the other ones but for me, personally, the cons outweigh the pros.
You're welcome. I'm definitely not blind to what this iteration does well, but there are so many things that I wish were done differently or weren't missing. I think if things are to change for the future, people need to remain vocal but do it in a manner that is respectful. Wanting change or different things is not bashing or hate and it really irks me when people see it as such. I want to love this game as much as all of the other ones but for me, personally, the cons outweigh the pros.
You and I are of the same mind on this, it seems. I want to love this game, too.
So far, it's only been meh. In order to enjoy it in any manner, I've had to change my entire way of playing. I no longer play the game because I find it so lacking. So, with all the poses and things out there, I've decided to turn it into a storytelling tool. I use the game as a type of movie set, I guess.
Still, I would like to be entertained by the game play again. That's what this was supposed to be about -- the game play. I'm just not there yet. I don't know if I ever will be. Each EP keeps me hoping but, already in the fourth year, hope is all but gone. Giving feedback is the only way that I ever have any hope of seeing a game that will make me love it again.
I do not love Sims 4, but I do love the Sims series. That's why I'm still here. If I hated it, I wouldn't be wasting my time posting about it.
Sweet! Are you ending this debate/discussion just because you're losing it? That's the expression I'm getting from the request you gave to lock this thread out of the blue. There ain't even any flaming or trolling going around here (unless asides from you OP, by spreading that "you're all wrong and must preach to must standpoint". Why did even bother starting this thread in the first place? YOU: "Why do you hate on TS4?" Someone: "Well, because--" You: "LALALLALAL, don't wanna hear you, ignorant fool!".
P.S. I would really advise looking into other input people open-mindedly or the very least accept that we approach with a conflicting interest about the game to one another.
Honestly, I do not hate Ts4, but it constantly bores me. It has beautiful graphics, beautiful scenery and good possibilities for creating sim. Stop it. It all ends here.
There is no interaction with the surrounding world, there are no consequences, there is no variety and there is no possibility of creating truly captivating stories.
An example is that in Ts 3 and Ts2, many png people often arrived at home and created situations of various kinds. Now at the most other sim come to visit, but nothing special.
No thieves, no police, no postman. In addition, the sims in the scenario do not seem to live their own life, at most walking or jogging. Their stories do not intersect with mine.
Also in ts4 I never need or want to leave the house. No lot offers something that you can not have at home. Shopping is irrelevant, everything can be bought from the catalog. I would have seen well the supermarkets, shops with clothes that are not present in CAS and things like that. Maybe even hidden corners of the map with curiosity or other.
The prize shop is irrelevant, not updated by a lot. No strange tract, no interesting prize. In ts3 for example there were special items to be purchased or traits that customized the sim in a particular way.
The aspirations are few, they have very few additions. When you own The sims 4 from the exit it is useless to continue to conclude the aspirations, by now you know them all. Why repeat the same things to infinity forever? after a while it becomes boring. In the old sims I have never completed all the aspirations because there were so many and every time I created a new interesting and stimulating game.
The careers are all very flat. Active ones get tired soon. The investigator always repeats the same tasks, in ts3 instead there were cases to be solved with their own story.
At the end the sims 4 is simply: create a sim, get married, make children, get old, die, start all over again.
And before I get asked, I do not play the sims 3 because it's a really buggy and crashing game. I would like to see the possibilities of the sims 4 become real and have the same level of fun I had in the sims 3.
You're welcome. I'm definitely not blind to what this iteration does well, but there are so many things that I wish were done differently or weren't missing. I think if things are to change for the future, people need to remain vocal but do it in a manner that is respectful. Wanting change or different things is not bashing or hate and it really irks me when people see it as such. I want to love this game as much as all of the other ones but for me, personally, the cons outweigh the pros.
You and I are of the same mind on this, it seems. I want to love this game, too.
So far, it's only been meh. In order to enjoy it in any manner, I've had to change my entire way of playing. I no longer play the game because I find it so lacking. So, with all the poses and things out there, I've decided to turn it into a storytelling tool. I use the game as a type of movie set, I guess.
Still, I would like to be entertained by the game play again. That's what this was supposed to be about -- the game play. I'm just not there yet. I don't know if I ever will be. Each EP keeps me hoping but, already in the fourth year, hope is all but gone. Giving feedback is the only way that I ever have any hope of seeing a game that will make me love it again.
I do not love Sims 4, but I do love the Sims series. That's why I'm still here. If I hated it, I wouldn't be wasting my time posting about it.
That’s how I feel. I feel sad almost that I don’t enjoy the sims 4 the way I do the others. But I can’t pretend either. I can play maybe once/twice a week for maybe an hour or two and I’m bored. I thought maybe I had outgrown the series but I can pour hours into the sims 1,2 and 3 so I’m certain it not that.
I believe the devs need feedback. It saddens me what this game has become and if there is any future sims games maybe they will be different.
Oh, I forgot something in my previous post: the sims 4 is too slow to give new content, even tiny. Do you really need another 4 years to have the spiral staircases? They would have had to be present already in the basic game. We waited 3 years and more for the round roofs ... seriously?
I repeat, I do not hate the sims 4 but it seems that they do things to the minimum possible and without too much effort. This is very discouraging.
That’s how I feel. I feel sad almost that I don’t enjoy the sims 4 the way I do the others. But I can’t pretend either. I can play maybe once/twice a week for maybe an hour or two and I’m bored. I thought maybe I had outgrown the series but I can pour hours into the sims 1,2 and 3 so I’m certain it not that.
I believe the devs need feedback. It saddens me what this game has become and if there is any future sims games maybe they will be different.
Feedback is crucial.
The way that I see it, EA is playing a numbers game right now. TPTB seem to be searching for some kind of sweet spot. They're trying to see just how far they can gut the core of the game before people finally start being driven off. Which is what happened with SimCity. Then EA just took their ball and went home, so to speak. Instead of improving and learning from mistakes, they canceled the series.
I don't want to see that happen here, that's why I fight in my own way for this series by giving feedback and trying to convey exactly what it is I believe will keep the series alive and thriving. In this particular case, I honestly believe that options is the saving grace of a game that's an open-ended, sandbox of a god game.
Marketing sold the game by promising "You Rule" then they delivered something totally different. If they really have interest in having a successful series with continued longevity, they shouldn't stray too far from what made it great in the first place.
I hope someone at EA gives a dang. Though, they have killed so many other successful series, I don't really believe that such a person exists. At least, not someone will a job description that will matter.
That’s how I feel. I feel sad almost that I don’t enjoy the sims 4 the way I do the others. But I can’t pretend either. I can play maybe once/twice a week for maybe an hour or two and I’m bored. I thought maybe I had outgrown the series but I can pour hours into the sims 1,2 and 3 so I’m certain it not that.
I believe the devs need feedback. It saddens me what this game has become and if there is any future sims games maybe they will be different.
Feedback is crucial.
The way that I see it, EA is playing a numbers game right now. TPTB seem to be searching for some kind of sweet spot. They're trying to see just how far they can gut the core of the game before people finally start being driven off. Which is what happened with SimCity. Then EA just took their ball and went home, so to speak. Instead of improving and learning from mistakes, they canceled the series.
I don't want to see that happen here, that's why I fight in my own way for this series by giving feedback and trying to convey exactly what it is I believe will keep the series alive and thriving. In this particular case, I honestly believe that options is the saving grace of a game that's an open-ended, sandbox of a god game.
Marketing sold the game by promising "You Rule" then they delivered something totally different. If they really have interest in having a successful series with continued longevity, they shouldn't stray too far from what made it great in the first place.
I hope someone at EA gives a dang. Though, they have killed so many other successful series, I don't really believe that such a person exists. At least, not someone will a job description that will matter.
Still, we need to try.
I completely agree. Sadly You Rule doesn't apply but I think weirder stories definitely does. Not in a good way.
As the title suggests, I'm really not sure why a decent amount of simmers have so much disdain for TS4. I stopped playing it for almost a year but I got into it again and it's a really really fun game. Don't get me wrong the game has its fair share of annoying quirks but it's so much more immersive.
I just don't get why anyone would want to have an open-world with less immersion.
For example:
In TS4 you can watch your sims in the spa, have family dinners, go shopping for clothes, run your own business, take your sims on actual dates, invest time in your toddlers,kids,etc... , have pets that are actually invested in your sims, you can have REAL apartments, the professions are actually more fun, the game overall is more challenging, and you can take your sims out to clubs and bars and they ACTUALLY socialize and dance.
You can do ALL of those things in the Sims 2 and more. And what's more they are all more fleshed out and created to a higher standard. I haven't really played much of the Sims 3 so I can't really compare it to that, however from what I did play I did find it underwhelming. But compared to the Sims 2, the Sims 4 is an atrocious game. Why should I fork out my hard earned money to buy inferior stuff for an inferior game when I can continue to play 2 for free? People have a right to dislike a game that's a downgrade, it's not unreasonable at all. It's upsetting for long term fans to see their beloved series go the way it's going. I really want the Sims 4 to be better and keep hoping, but it still hasn't happened.
Also if anyone doesn't yet know about how little EA cares about us and their games, I suggest you look up what's happened with Star Wars Battlefront 2. That should tell you everything you need to know.
The game has gotten better, but it still bores me at times. For me it's mainly the world. The closed world and lack of world customization kills it for me. Open neighborhoods I can swallow, but let me at least add a little something new to the canvas of our worlds. I get bored of constantly seeing the same settings. Generation after generation.
Last but not least, are the sims' personalities. I want more diversity in the sims personality. Merely having 3 traits stinks as you have a greater probability of meeting a sim sharing at least 2 of the 3 traits from your active sim. I'm not really in to that astrology stuff, but I think at least adding zodiac system along with traits would've helped, like in TS3.
The release was bogus. No toddlers, no pools, no ghosts ... there was so much missing out of the base game ... plus the way it was handled with all the 'we can't talk about X' left a bad taste in peoples mouth. People felt deceived and lied to. The PR handling of the game was .... and still is, bad. The release was horrible.
It took out a few key features that were from Sims3, specifically open world and CAST. In many ways, it felt backwards and a throwback to Sims2. While graphically the game is better, the lack of information with no real logical reason as to why it was done. For some of us, the loss of the open world concept isn't that big of a deal, for others it was a deal breaker.
Content and releases. There are times that the game gets ... stagnant with the releases of new content. Add in the price of that content ( EP's costing as much as the base game currently ) with the questionable quality of the content leaves us consumers ... angry. I paid "X" amount for the base game ... now I have to pay that same amount for cats/dogs to make the game feel more complete. That would be acceptable if the thing being released was so ... perfect and flawless, and it just isn't.
Bad decisions, with no logical reasons why. I will use City Living ... which is a great EP, provided you live only in San Myshuno. You can't have apartments in any other city ... why. I can't build an apartment building ... again, why. If I want to have the upstairs of a house be an apartment, I can't. I can't give keys out to other sims unless I own an apartment. So much of a great opportunity just wasted. I can't customize my areas, I can't build as I want to. I can't place things in common areas. I can't modify any of the structures ... no.
I can't wait for seasons to come out ... it makes me wonder if seasons will be tied to a specific town, just like city living and apartments. Sadly, I can see that happening with the way everything else for the game has been done.
I don't hate this game. I hate most of the choices that were made leading to some of the things we got or didn't get in this game which makes me dislike and more so lately feel indifferent to this game, but I don’t hate it.
For me, the main thing I take issue with is that all my sims act alike. No matter their traits they are all the same sim in a different shell. And it sucks when these are my go to sims that I recreated to play this iteration and they aren't as great as they were in TS3 or TS2. Most recently I've played these sims in TS3. I love how the game seems to pick up on how I play them and when I'm not playing a certain sim it has that sims acting as I would when I was playing them. One of my sims is a big family man and a romantic. The way I play him he calls his brother every day to chat or go hang out, he loves spending time with his wife and often talks to her or is loving on her, he loves playing with his kids and helping them with homework. He likes spending time with his nieces and nephews. So when I'm not playing him for a bit and I come back around to him he's on the phone with his brother or thinking about his wife who’s at work, he wants to play with his son, or talk with his daughter, he wants to snuggle with his newborn niece. He will actively seek them out on his own if I'm not playing him. I was playing his wife and suddenly an interaction with him popped up in her queue while she was practicing piano and I had her stop just to see what he wanted. He just wanted to hug and kiss her and when I clicked on him he had a wish to spend time with her and I thought that was the sweetest thing. I didn't get that from his TS4 self. He's more interested in watching tv. All of my sims seem more interested in watching tv or whatever usual thing they happen to be doing when something unusual or significant that would usually draw their attention in the previous games happens.
Another thing I have an issue with is that I don't have as much creative control or control in general in TS4 as I do in the previous games. To be fair, it's also a bit of an issue going back to TS2 from TS3 as well, but that's to be expected considering the order they came in. See in TS3 I don't have a boatload of CC. I have maybe a couple of natural hairstyles and that was at the end of the TS3 when I was sure there'd be no more content. I also never used mods until then and the only reason I do now is for poses or to accommodate having just a couple more sims per household because I hate the limitation of 10. But in TS3 I can recolor and even retexture things myself. And not just their clothes but their floors, their walls, their furniture, their steps, their neighbors house, the community lot their on, etc. I can even use a color wheel to get the exact eye color I have had in mind and the exact hair color I have in mind for them. So when I see the inside of my sim's home I see their personality and their style written all over it. I can tell my sims apart from any other sim in town walking down the street because of how they dress. And the fact that they actual act in accordance to the personality I gave them makes that all the more better.
Open world also wasn’t immersion breaking for me. It was more natural than loading screens. I never had a major problem. Now I don’t mind a loading screen to travel to another neighborhood, but next door or across the street is frustrating. My only wish involving worlds in TS3 was that we could travel between every world and maintain relationships, or live in Bridgeport and own land in Riverview, and fix terrain so I wouldn't get the dreaded unroutable terrain popup when trying to place a lot. But I'd take that system any day over loading screens every few seconds. At least I could ride a horse, drive cars, and go to whatever sim in my household I wanted to without delay. That's what I personally prefer. I can build whatever community lot I want and even specify what type of community lot it is without having to abide by certain qualifications that shouldn't even matter to call it that.
See a lot of what you’re describing as what makes TS4 better than TS3 for you isn’t the same for me or for many other people. I actually don't mind rabbitholes, especially when it comes to my sims jobs, because at least I have a location for them. They aren’t just disappearing off the face of the earth. Have I thought about seeing inside dome rabbitholes? Yes. But even when I thought about seeing inside some rabbit holes my ideas for them still required some portions to be a rabbit hole because while I would love to see my sim(s) in TS3 sitting in the stands at the stadium on a date I thought it’d be too much and kind of boring to watch my professional sport playing sim play.
My sims have gone on plenty of dates in TS3. They were very immersive, and I didn't need a checklist and a time table to tell me if I was doing it right. I know what my sim and in some cases their dates like. The game doesn't have to dictate that to me. Suggestions are fine, but not telling me I must do something. If I want my sims to be the oddballs I created them to be and want to have a date with a picnic in the cemetery where they do a little ice skating, go see a movie, then head to the park to woohoo in a treehouse at 12am where one gets a splinter then that's what's going to happen. They had a great date and she was actually called the very next day to go on another date. From my experience if you know your sim(s), you try, and nothing comes up like work then it usually works out. That's just me though.
My sims in TS3 were very invested in their children and their children equally as invested in them. My pets in TS3 greeted my sims when they came home from school or work, they suckered my sims out of treats, they ruined furniture and the yard, and acted like real pets but with the added bonus of me being able to control them and play as them. My sims socialized and danced at the club. But those are all my experiences. If what you listed was your experience then I can't take that away from you and I won't call it wrong or anything, but for some of us here that wasn't ours. That doesn’t make us wrong either.
What makes this series so great is that it's usually up to the players to mold this game how they want. There was no wrong way to play, but this go round it seems like that was forgotten and we're being told how to play. It's like I was taken out of a huge sandbox and placed in one even tinier than the one I had before in TS2 and not just that, but now they're telling me things to justify why they had to give me this tiny sandbox, like how they had to take away my control to give me something great while still going around and bragging about how I control and rule. When I start to do thing B. suddenly I'm on a clock and have a list to check off or else I didn't play a game I supposedly rule and control right. I'm told when I wonder why my dog can't have a dog house that it's not the 1950's and it's cruel even though I have no cruel intentions so the option isn't even granted. I'm told that I was lied to before and that my sims didn't have emotions in the past but they do now in this game when my sims acted with more emotion in the previous games where supposedly they have no true emotions. Every time I think I'm going to get into this game and think, 'Okay, this has to be in it, because It's be crazy not to include it! I can't wait to see this!' They prove me wrong and do things like not making it possible to build our own apartments or excluding toddlers from the base game.
What made me hesitate in jumping on the bandwagon was that we were entrusting and putting faith in the same team that never fixed their last game for The Sims 3 "haters" (because I guess that's what we call people who have valid issues with games now) to make us a brand new game with minimal problems. Because even though I had few problems that didn't mean that would be the case this time. I sat back and I watched and listened. Now as time goes on and spec requirements increase low and behold we're seeing issues that still haven't been fixed and it's been how long depending on the bug? For my biggest problem it’s been since the release of the base game. But now that's not the only thing keeping me from buying, but the development choices made are contributing to my stance on not buying this game.
I know I'll never love this game. It will always feel off to me. It's not even about change. Truthfully, I don't mind that the series reboots every several years or so. Never have. I don't even mind rebuying the same expansions packs, even though progress and moving on with the times to me would be putting pets and seasons in the base game and taking advantage of tech today. But even if they don't and there's a Sims 5 yes, if they've learned from most of their past mistakes and it turns out well to me, I'll buy it and Seasons, and Pets, and Uni because I don't think they've exhausted everything they can do with or related to these packs. And I'll buy the new idea packs too depending on what they bring to the table. If the base game is great, I generally have no problem buying anything else that follows if it provides some decent content. And I'll be just as hesitant to buy should there be a Sims 5, and I'll try it before making a purchase. But even saying all that, I don't hate this game.
For me it comes down to options. We need more options and more things optional. I've thought that with every Sims game, even The Sims 3. We players should decide if our Sim has a cellphone. We players should decide if our sims has a car or takes taxis. We should decide if our sims take their promotions. We should be able to mold our sims exactly how we want down to the eye color. We should be able to decide what season we start off a world in. We should be able to create worlds, and lots without having to meet defined standards in order to call that lot what we want it to be. We should have great sims and a great world, we shouldn't have to choose. We should have more creative freedom. We should be able to create, control, and rule as much as possible in a game that is supposed to be a sandbox. But then again The Sims 4 is the only game in the main franchise that isn't aiming to improve the sandbox experience it seems.
I don't hate this game. I hate most of the choices that were made leading to some of the things we got or didn't get in this game which makes me dislike and more so lately feel indifferent to this game, but I don’t hate it.
For me, the main thing I take issue with is that all my sims act alike. No matter their traits they are all the same sim in a different shell. And it plum when these are my go to sims that I recreated to play this iteration and they aren't as great as they were in TS3 or TS2. Most recently I've played these sims in TS3. I love how the game seems to pick up on how I play them and when I'm not playing a certain sim it has that sims acting as I would when I was playing them. One of my sims is a big family man and a romantic. The way I play him he calls his brother every day to chat or go hang out, he loves spending time with his wife and often talks to her or is loving on her, he loves playing with his kids and helping them with homework. He likes spending time with his nieces and nephews. So when I'm not playing him for a bit and I come back around to him he's on the phone with his brother or thinking about his wife who’s at work, he wants to play with his son, or talk with his daughter, he wants to snuggle with his newborn niece. He will actively seek them out on his own if I'm not playing him. I was playing his wife and suddenly an interaction with him popped up in her queue while she was practicing piano and I had her stop just to see what he wanted. He just wanted to hug and kiss her and when I clicked on him he had a wish to spend time with her and I thought that was the sweetest thing. I didn't get that from his TS4 self. He's more interested in watching tv. All of my sims seem more interested in watching tv or whatever usual thing they happen to be doing when something unusual or significant that would usually draw their attention in the previous games happens.
Another thing I have an issue with is that I don't have as much creative control or control in general in TS4 as I do in the previous games. To be fair, it's also a bit of an issue going back to TS2 from TS3 as well, but that's to be expected considering the order they came in. See in TS3 I don't have a boatload of CC. I have maybe a couple of natural hairstyles and that was at the end of the TS3 when I was sure there'd be no more content. I also never used mods until then and the only reason I do now is for poses or to accommodate having just a couple more sims per household because I hate the limitation of 10. But in TS3 I can recolor and even retexture things myself. And not just their clothes but their floors, their walls, their furniture, their steps, their neighbors house, the community lot their on, etc. I can even use a color wheel to get the exact eye color I have had in mind and the exact hair color I have in mind for them. So when I see the inside of my sim's home I see their personality and their style written all over it. I can tell my sims apart from any other sim in town walking down the street because of how they dress. And the fact that they actual act in accordance to the personality I gave them makes that all the more better.
Open world also wasn’t immersion breaking for me. It was more natural than loading screens. I never had a major problem. Now I don’t mind a loading screen to travel to another neighborhood, but next door or across the street is frustrating. My only wish involving worlds in TS3 was that we could travel between every world and maintain relationships, or live in Bridgeport and own land in Riverview, and fix terrain so I wouldn't get the dreaded unroutable terrain popup when trying to place a lot. But I'd take that system any day over loading screens every few seconds. At least I could ride a horse, drive cars, and go to whatever sim in my household I wanted to without delay. That's what I personally prefer. I can build whatever community lot I want and even specify what type of community lot it is without having to abide by certain qualifications that shouldn't even matter to call it that.
See a lot of what you’re describing as what makes TS4 better than TS3 for you isn’t the same for me or for many other people. I actually don't mind rabbitholes, especially when it comes to my sims jobs, because at least I have a location for them. They aren’t just disappearing off the face of the earth. Have I thought about seeing inside dome rabbitholes? Yes. But even when I thought about seeing inside some rabbit holes my ideas for them still required some portions to be a rabbit hole because while I would love to see my sim(s) in TS3 sitting in the stands at the stadium on a date I thought it’d be too much and kind of boring to watch my professional sport playing sim play.
My sims have gone on plenty of dates in TS3. They were very immersive, and I didn't need a checklist and a time table to tell me if I was doing it right. I know what my sim and in some cases their dates like. The game doesn't have to dictate that to me. Suggestions are fine, but not telling me I must do something. If I want my sims to be the oddballs I created them to be and want to have a date with a picnic in the cemetery where they do a little ice skating, go see a movie, then head to the park to woohoo in a treehouse at 12am where one gets a splinter then that's what's going to happen. They had a great date and she was actually called the very next day to go on another date. From my experience if you know your sim(s), you try, and nothing comes up like work then it usually works out. That's just me though.
My sims in TS3 were very invested in their children and their children equally as invested in them. My pets in TS3 greeted my sims when they came home from school or work, they suckered my sims out of treats, they ruined furniture and the yard, and acted like real pets but with the added bonus of me being able to control them and play as them. My sims socialized and danced at the club. But those are all my experiences. If what you listed was your experience then I can't take that away from you and I won't call it wrong or anything, but for some of us here that wasn't ours. That doesn’t make us wrong either.
What makes this series so great is that it's usually up to the players to mold this game how they want. There was no wrong way to play, but this go round it seems like that was forgotten and we're being told how to play. It's like I was taken out of a huge sandbox and placed in one even tinier than the one I had before in TS2 and not just that, but now they're telling me things to justify why they had to give me this tiny sandbox, like how they had to take away my control to give me something great while still going around and bragging about how I control and rule. When I start to do thing B. suddenly I'm on a clock and have a list to check off or else I didn't play a game I supposedly rule and control right. I'm told when I wonder why my dog can't have a dog house that it's not the 1950's and it's cruel even though I have no cruel intentions so the option isn't even granted. I'm told that I was lied to before and that my sims didn't have emotions in the past but they do now in this game when my sims acted with more emotion in the previous games where supposedly they have no true emotions. Every time I think I'm going to get into this game and think, 'Okay, this has to be in it, because It's be crazy not to include it! I can't wait to see this!' They prove me wrong and do things like not making it possible to build our own apartments or excluding toddlers from the base game.
What made me hesitate in jumping on the bandwagon was that we were entrusting and putting faith in the same team that never fixed their last game for The Sims 3 "haters" (because I guess that's what we call people who have valid issues with games now) to make us a brand new game with minimal problems. Because even though I had few problems that didn't mean that would be the case this time. I sat back and I watched and listened. Now as time goes on and spec requirements increase low and behold we're seeing issues that still haven't been fixed and it's been how long depending on the bug? For my biggest problem it’s been since the release of the base game. But now that's not the only thing keeping me from buying, but the development choices made are contributing to my stance on not buying this game.
I know I'll never love this game. It will always feel off to me. It's not even about change. Truthfully, I don't mind that the series reboots every several years or so. Never have. I don't even mind rebuying the same expansions packs, even though progress and moving on with the times to me would be putting pets and seasons in the base game and taking advantage of tech today. But even if they don't and there's a Sims 5 yes, if they've learned from most of their past mistakes and it turns out well to me, I'll buy it and Seasons, and Pets, and Uni because I don't think they've exhausted everything they can do with or related to these packs. And I'll buy the new idea packs too depending on what they bring to the table. If the base game is great, I generally have no problem buying anything else that follows if it provides some decent content. And I'll be just as hesitant to buy should there be a Sims 5, and I'll try it before making a purchase. But even saying all that, I don't hate this game.
For me it comes down to options. We need more options and more things optional. I've thought that with every Sims game, even The Sims 3. We players should decide if our Sim has a cellphone. We players should decide if our sims has a car or takes taxis. We should decide if our sims take their promotions. We should be able to mold our sims exactly how we want down to the eye color. We should be able to decide what season we start off a world in. We should be able to create worlds, and lots without having to meet defined standards in order to call that lot what we want it to be. We should have great sims and a great world, we shouldn't have to choose. We should have more creative freedom. We should be able to create, control, and rule as much as possible in a game that is supposed to be a sandbox. But then again The Sims 4 is the only game in the main franchise that isn't aiming to improve the sandbox experience it seems.
Having this urge to print these whole comment down of yours and hang it on my bedroom wall.
Content and releases. There are times that the game gets ... stagnant with the releases of new content. Add in the price of that content ( EP's costing as much as the base game currently ) with the questionable quality of the content leaves us consumers ... angry. I paid "X" amount for the base game ... now I have to pay that same amount for cats/dogs to make the game feel more complete. That would be acceptable if the thing being released was so ... perfect and flawless, and it just isn't.
Bad decisions, with no logical reasons why. I will use City Living ... which is a great EP, provided you live only in San Myshuno. You can't have apartments in any other city ... why. I can't build an apartment building ... again, why. If I want to have the upstairs of a house be an apartment, I can't. I can't give keys out to other sims unless I own an apartment. So much of a great opportunity just wasted. I can't customize my areas, I can't build as I want to. I can't place things in common areas. I can't modify any of the structures ... no.
I can't wait for seasons to come out ... it makes me wonder if seasons will be tied to a specific town, just like city living and apartments. Sadly, I can see that happening with the way everything else for the game has been done.
In all it’s years, TS4 just feels hallow. Beautiful but empty, just like the background neighborhoods of the game.
I have TS2 Castaway on wii and you can’t gave children, no jobs, there’s loading screens, objectives, etc. But I had more fun with that game than I do TS4. I played it for hours and when I “beat” the game, I would play it all over again.
TS4, has more options and I can play it for hours, but I don’t feel like I’m really accomplishing anything. I’m not saying the limited wii version is better but in TS4, if I’m doing something with objectives, they take the fun out because I’m focusing on completing them and if I don’t, than it might result in a bad date, poor party, or low wages. I’m glad events have no objective option, I just wish Active careers were the same.
TS4 is missing something and I don’t think it’s just content. I feel like, even if they added all the content from previous games, the heart of the game wouldn’t be there. Unless they did huge overhaul on traits, memory, emotions, and townie interactions.
But speaking of content: City Living infuriates me to this day. I wish I hadn’t paid full price on it. The pack looks lovely and has nice features but it wasn’t worth $40 to me. Festivals got old fast. The completions aren’t even competitions because outside the Geek Festival, no one looks like they’re participating. Like why couldn’t the spicy food competition have sims sit in the same table and Kaoreoke Contest but no one wants to sing
And I hope that Seasons is not tied to a world. I don’t think it will be but if it does I will be furious. At least Sims Freeplay gave weather machines and royal weather decrees.
I’ll be annoyed if I see full on snow in Oasis, that just screams lazy if they can’t differentiate weather and climates, especially when there’s a mod that does that
Sims4 has so much potential... but it won’t live up to it
> @JoAnne65 said: > alexandrea wrote: » > > aricarai wrote: » > > > > For someone who flip flops between liking the game and not, I think it's a bit ironic that you ask what can they do better. > > You said you can't get furniture in any color under the sun in real life and then when I say you can, you want to give a specific example where it probably isn't possible? Just to prove you're right? > > So because mods saved the game before, it's ok for them to continue to do so? I think mods should be used to enhance gameplay not fix the game. Do I used them and praise modders for what they do - of course, it takes hard work but I don't think mods and cc should always be the default answer. > > What did they invest their time in that really mattered? Apartments? Emotions? Multitasking? They did a heck of a job on CAS and some building features but they took away a lot more. You have to remember not everyone plays the same way. > > Running on lower end machines was definitely a selling point. I can dig up something if you'd like proof but a simple Google search will turn this up for you. No you were talking about cellphones and the lack of newspapers being about moving along with technology of today whereas I'm talking about the actual engine of the game. TS4's engine definitely doesn't take advantage of 2017 technology - hence why I brought up the fact that gurus have said that things couldn't be implemented due to technology. So no, we aren't talking about the same technology at all. > > Again, it's not about just the newspapers. It's about things missing from the game and having options. What is wrong with having options for the game? Why are you so deadset against options? Why does it have to be either or? Why should I have to download CC to play the game the way that I want? You are aware that the slogan for this game is: You Rule. How is that true if I can't play the way I want? > > So let me get this straight: basically you're saying that you're ok with being dictated to about how you play your game and you think this game is perfect without room for improvements? And anyone who suggests improvements or would like to see things implemented are haters and complainers? > > If you didn't want anyone engaging in conversation with you and possibly having a difference of opinion than you - which is bound to happen - then what was the point of making this thread? > > > > I asked because you said they could improve. TS4 has nothing to improve on to be quite honest with you. > > Give me the name of a place where you can get your furniture and whatever color you want? I'll wait... > > The rest is irrelevant... The proof is in the pudding. Ea is doing just fine and TS4 is great. > > > > Well... > > > > It’s kind of striking how the perspective of a Sims 4 fan clearly is that of the following consumer, without even being able to imagine the other side of designing. As if there’s no other way to look at this. But some people love to be designers in this game. alexandrea wrote: » > > @Moderator_Anna554 Please close this thread. > > > > Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t you do something like this before...? Starting a topic and then, when it didn’t exactly go your way, ask for it to be closed? Next time you might think before you post. Start off a bit differently for instance. Like, without the ‘because the predecessor was so awful’ routine. Why does Sims 4 still need that approach anyway?
You explained exactly my play style. I may not be an architect in real life but I am every single time I design a home in my head & build it. It allows me to tap into my inner interior designer as well. I usually use other sims from the gallery to test my builds. I am not very good at storytelling because I am not a fan of having to operate every single sim in my household. I just want to operate my own & let the other do their thing like in real life but that may just be me.
> @JoAnne65 said:
> alexandrea wrote: »
>
> aricarai wrote: »
>
>
>
> For someone who flip flops between liking the game and not, I think it's a bit ironic that you ask what can they do better.
>
> You said you can't get furniture in any color under the sun in real life and then when I say you can, you want to give a specific example where it probably isn't possible? Just to prove you're right?
>
> So because mods saved the game before, it's ok for them to continue to do so? I think mods should be used to enhance gameplay not fix the game. Do I used them and praise modders for what they do - of course, it takes hard work but I don't think mods and cc should always be the default answer.
>
> What did they invest their time in that really mattered? Apartments? Emotions? Multitasking? They did a heck of a job on CAS and some building features but they took away a lot more. You have to remember not everyone plays the same way.
>
> Running on lower end machines was definitely a selling point. I can dig up something if you'd like proof but a simple Google search will turn this up for you. No you were talking about cellphones and the lack of newspapers being about moving along with technology of today whereas I'm talking about the actual engine of the game. TS4's engine definitely doesn't take advantage of 2017 technology - hence why I brought up the fact that gurus have said that things couldn't be implemented due to technology. So no, we aren't talking about the same technology at all.
>
> Again, it's not about just the newspapers. It's about things missing from the game and having options. What is wrong with having options for the game? Why are you so deadset against options? Why does it have to be either or? Why should I have to download CC to play the game the way that I want? You are aware that the slogan for this game is: You Rule. How is that true if I can't play the way I want?
>
> So let me get this straight: basically you're saying that you're ok with being dictated to about how you play your game and you think this game is perfect without room for improvements? And anyone who suggests improvements or would like to see things implemented are haters and complainers?
>
> If you didn't want anyone engaging in conversation with you and possibly having a difference of opinion than you - which is bound to happen - then what was the point of making this thread?
>
>
>
> I asked because you said they could improve. TS4 has nothing to improve on to be quite honest with you.
>
> Give me the name of a place where you can get your furniture and whatever color you want? I'll wait...
>
> The rest is irrelevant... The proof is in the pudding. Ea is doing just fine and TS4 is great.
>
>
>
> Well...
>
>
>
> It’s kind of striking how the perspective of a Sims 4 fan clearly is that of the following consumer, without even being able to imagine the other side of designing. As if there’s no other way to look at this. But some people love to be designers in this game. alexandrea wrote: »
>
> @Moderator_Anna554 Please close this thread.
>
>
>
> Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t you do something like this before...? Starting a topic and then, when it didn’t exactly go your way, ask for it to be closed? Next time you might think before you post. Start off a bit differently for instance. Like, without the ‘because the predecessor was so awful’ routine. Why does Sims 4 still need that approach anyway?
You explained exactly my play style. I may not be an architect in real life but I am every single time I design a home in my head & build it. It allows me to tap into my inner interior designer as well. I usually use other sims from the gallery to test my builds. I am not very good at storytelling because I am not a fan of having to operate every single sim in my household. I just want to operate my own & let the other do their thing like in real life but that may just be me.
I only am in Sims 3, in Sims 4 I greatfully rely on what others share in the gallery. And one of the aspects I love about building, is the constant awareness a sim is going to live there (which is both challenging and limiting ). The roommate system in TS3 would be perfect for you. It enables you to just control one sim, and still you run a household with seven other sims (who take care of themselves). I like controlling more than one sim, but my recent (first) roommate experience is great too.
Honestly, I do not hate Ts4, but it constantly bores me. It has beautiful graphics, beautiful scenery and good possibilities for creating sim. Stop it. It all ends here.
There is no interaction with the surrounding world, there are no consequences, there is no variety and there is no possibility of creating truly captivating stories.
An example is that in Ts 3 and Ts2, many png people often arrived at home and created situations of various kinds. Now at the most other sim come to visit, but nothing special.
No thieves, no police, no postman. In addition, the sims in the scenario do not seem to live their own life, at most walking or jogging. Their stories do not intersect with mine.
Also in ts4 I never need or want to leave the house. No lot offers something that you can not have at home. Shopping is irrelevant, everything can be bought from the catalog. I would have seen well the supermarkets, shops with clothes that are not present in CAS and things like that. Maybe even hidden corners of the map with curiosity or other.
The prize shop is irrelevant, not updated by a lot. No strange tract, no interesting prize. In ts3 for example there were special items to be purchased or traits that customized the sim in a particular way.
The aspirations are few, they have very few additions. When you own The sims 4 from the exit it is useless to continue to conclude the aspirations, by now you know them all. Why repeat the same things to infinity forever? after a while it becomes boring. In the old sims I have never completed all the aspirations because there were so many and every time I created a new interesting and stimulating game.
The careers are all very flat. Active ones get tired soon. The investigator always repeats the same tasks, in ts3 instead there were cases to be solved with their own story.
At the end the sims 4 is simply: create a sim, get married, make children, get old, die, start all over again.
And before I get asked, I do not play the sims 3 because it's a really buggy and crashing game. I would like to see the possibilities of the sims 4 become real and have the same level of fun I had in the sims 3.
Excellent post, this highlights exactly how I feel about TS4, too.
It would be wonderful if The Sims 3 was more stable. Its instability, bugs, and lagginess on my end prevents me from enjoying it, so I am limited to The Sims 2, which is still an awesome game, 12 years later. It would be nice to finally have a successor which could replace The Sims 2 for me though. The route they have gone with The Sims 4 is definitely the wrong one towards achieving this.
I forget who mentioned this above, but sims obsessed with their phones? That's probably the most realistic game feature in the whole thing, to be honest. It's how 90% of the population behave in real life these days and yeah, it's annoying. It seems like the sims got that right
...Ok, so I have some confusions about this too. Not least that I swear I already posted in this thread, and apparently I somehow didn't.
I don't have a problem with people disliking or criticising the sims 4. Everyone has the right to their opinions, that's the beauty of the internet. The issues I have is when it turns into flaming, like it's some kind of factional war that you have to choose sides in (I'm not going to), or when people assume that because they think something is wrong with the game, absolutely everyone else must feel the same and EA must immediately change it or the whole experience is ruined. (My pet peeve in this regard are the people who didn't buy the Vampire pack for the Vampires and who want those of us who did to lose or risk or sacrifice our gameplay so they can get the Vampire pack without the Vampires).
A lot of things twitch at me in the sims 4. But I grew up with the Sims 1 and 2. And I feel like there's so much rose-tinted memory and particularly short memories to what it was like when the sims 2 was the current game. I know a lot of people still play it. I still have it installed on my old Desktop PC, but I am not unrealistic about the game I remember playing.
The things I loved about sims 2? The memories. Family trees. Genetics. The aliens. The acknowledgement of death and the fact that it was more possible to die from things.
But the sims 2 had a lot of bugs as well. If you played it as the game packs came out, those bugs were things everyone was aware of and complained about bitterly for weeks, months after a new pack or an issue. There were tons of mods made to correct issues that the gameplay had, and sometimes I think people forget that they played back then pre-patched games with mods that resolved certain issues. Sometimes people even played with mods they didn't know they had, because downloading a new household would also bring in custom content and mods and that could wreck your whole game. I had sims get stuck in walls, on roofs, with their faces stuck in dance mode...and oh my goodness, the problems trying to create anything but a nuclear family (albeit same gender was fine). What if you had a step-parent? The moment any affection was shown between parent and step-parent, the kids went nuclear. That might be realistic in some family situations, but not every single time.
The vampires in the sims 2 were also in my opinion quite dull by comparison to TS4. I never really played with them much in TS2, but I really like them in TS4. And the real problem of TS2 was the vast number of expansion packs. In the end that kind of broke the game for me...and when I reinstall, I choose the packs I like most, not all of them together. I guess some people are playing TS2 still with all those packs, but then if that's the case, and you're unhappy about the content deficit in TS4 by comparison, it's paralleling a finished product with one still in construction. In short, I understand loving the sims 2. I don't understand the mysterious representation of it as a perfect product. It wasn't.
The thing for me is that comparing the games is a bit futile. Each has different things that it does well and badly, but they are meant to be separate games. I think one of the biggest reasons that people are unhappy with elements of TS4 is that some people want the same exact stuff in the same exact format as the older games, just with an updated style and graphics and extra content. Whereas I think that EA (rightly or wrongly, but with a target audience in mind) reinvented the franchise for TS3 and TS4 to try and establish them as different kinds of sim games from the Sims 2.
I'm also not much for realistic gameplay. I get to live real life. I don't need to relive it in the game. I like the quirky weird that the games throw up. I didn't get on well with Sims 3 but it doesn't make it a bad game. It didn't suit my PC and I didn't like the format so much as TS2, but I respect the openworld fans for whom it was a step up. I think, reading threads on here about things that people are very invested in, I'm quite a laid back player. I let my sims decide mostly how they play, and for me I don't think TS4 is limited in gameplay. I think it depends on your focus and your angle in how you play the game, and how you make use of its features. It takes a human imagination to create a story in the Sims, and we're all capable of doing that. But if your imagination tells a story that fits TS2 format better than TS4, then obviously you're going to like TS2 better overall.
I disagree that there's no scope for creating a proper story in TS4. I have several and most of them happened because of tiny things between sims that exploded into possibilities for other interactions and pathways. I feel like in a lot of ways TS4 has more opportunity to create those stories. It makes me sad when people say it's not possible. If it wasn't possible, I wouldn't be playing the game, as that's basically my only requirement for a sims game - that I can create a good story and characters. I don;t care about building or CAS or anything else, really. So the stories are there. Saying they aren't just suggests to me that this isn't the franchise that suits your storytelling, not that the opportunities don't exist at all. I know a lot of people like very microscopic control over their Sims, and I think maybe if that's the case, TS4 might not be for you.
I think people need to take a breath and just let a lot of these things go. Focus on getting actual bugs ironed out and accept that TS4 is what it is. I bypassed TS3 because it wasn't for me. It's not a big deal or a bad thing if you choose to do that for TS4. But I just don't understand why there are some people (I think a minority, but they are on this forum if not in this thread) whose main interest is to try and make others feel bad for liking one or other of the franchise games. I have seen outright abusive comments and mocking of people who say they like the Sims 4 and really, it's not anyone's place to tell anyone they're right or wrong about liking a game. Everyone is an individual. We all have individual likes and dislikes and there is no way that any sims game is going to appeal 100% to 100% of the fanbase 100% of the time. It's basically impossible.
Going back to the original question, though, we're also hard on TS4 because human beings by nature complain. We like to find fault with things. I think complaining is fine, we learn a lot from it and sometimes it exposes bugs that then get fixed. But sometimes it crosses that line of acceptable behaviour and that's not cool.
I have a lot of twitchy issues with the Sims 4 but they pretty much relate to bugs. I am happy accepting the game for what it is, not as a shadow of its predecessors or anything else. It is what it is.
@Vraie - there were people that wanted the Vampire pack without vampires? That seems a bit odd. I've heard of people buying packs for certain items but knowing that it would come with the main features was something they accepted.
I'm more of a builder than a player, so for example, I wasn't that fussed on Into the Future (or Supernatural for that matter), I just wanted the build/buy items that came with them. When I first got the packs, I checked out the Future world (and supernatural life states) a little bit, but I don't regret my purchases even though I don't use the gameplay features. I wouldn't expect those packs to come without the main features of them simply because I only wanted the items that came with them. That seems really selfish.
@aricarai from what I have read, I think they just wanted a toggle, like an off switch. Honestly, in my opinion, if you don’t want vampires don’t buy vampires or don’t request no vampire interactions period because that defeats the purpose of the pack. I am pro toggling because each player plays differently. I know there are players who do play with supernaturals on one save but don’t on another so I think a switch would be nice to have.
Thank goodness for MCCC because while I love vampires, my game was generating too much at one point
Comments
Why did EA ignore the forum when they designed TS4? Why does EA still ignore the forum when they design the new expansions? We saw this again for Cats&Dogs where horses were omitted and where we can’t control the pets anymore. But EA for sure will just continue to ignore the forum and design also future expansions and TS5 in their own way (and still targeted mostly at very young girls). So why?
If we compare the number of simmers in this forum with the usual sales numbers for Sims games then I don’t think that it is quite so surprising anymore because we are only a few hundred in the forum while the game is sold in millions of copies. Half of the forum also seem to be simmers who just buy everything no matter what and the others still buy a lot too anyway. So EA can likely at most lose very few hundreds of simmers here in the forum which doesn’t really matter very much because many times more interesting for EA is why the newer versions of the Sims games still sell a few million copies less than TS1 did? How can EA get enough new simmers as customers for the next big Sims game for this to change? I think that it is such questions that have motivated EA to focus so extremely much on getting new young girls as customers and mostly ignore all suggestions from the hardcore veteran simmers in the forum. But how should we be able to change that?
While in Sims 4 there's a notification coming up saying "Come on in!" Even when it's 3:30AM. I only use Sims 4 to make cartoon characters and make stories about them mixed with some families into it too. Parenthood improved the Sims 4 kids but it just isn't realistic enough like it should be. Idk why but the first time my kid was taken away, my Sim didn't got any sad moodlet. She just saw her kid disappeared in to thin air while having a big grin on her face.
About the moodlets, if you're sim experience a love one dying, they would get a moodlet right? Then they will become happy if they get a nice cooked meal or something on the same day their loved one died! I remembered it wasn't like that in Sims 3. Though in Sims 3 you could get good traits while your Sim is sad for a good reason, it would never go up to change your Sim's mood until 2 days later.
I tried making a normal family in Sims 4 but it really wasn't that fun tbh. I remember the good times in Sims 3 when all my sims and their family went out on a picnic, the cousins were playing, the aunts and uncles were chatting and the grandparents were too. And I remember the dogs and cats playing around on the picnic area. I don't get that family vibe in Sims 4 anymore which makes me really disapointed.
That's an odd argument in defense of Sims 4, I'll counter that with - give me and example of when you've had to say to work. school etc "Sorry I'm late but my load screen was taking forever"
From what I can tell, you're more miffed about people not liking a game that you love, if nothing else. You're so busy trying to convince people of why they should like what you like, but it's not all about you. A game like the Sims series should be about being inclusive, not catering to only a few.
Options are the way of doing that, as someone has already pointed out to you. TS4 has taken away all the options.
Okay, you just love your tech. But what about people who loved period game play? In the other games, there were some players who played generations of family throughout time from medieval to far flung future time. The games allowed for that because there were options. It's really hard to play, say a pioneer or a post apocalyptic scenario, if the Sims keep whipping out their smartphones. There's not even an option to get rid of them! At least, with the newspapers, you could cancel the subscription. Do you see what I mean?
You don't seem to care about a lot of things and that is why you are enjoying TS4. But again, it's not just about you. It's about US, all of us, everyone that spent money on this game because we want to love it. Even before you mentioned your age, I knew that you had to be young.
To illustrate my point: Imagine that in Sims 5 or 6 or 7, all of the things that you love about the game right now are removed. If you can imagine that, you will understand a little of what some of us feel. Right now, you're still in your own head. It's all about I, I, I and me, me, me. But that's not the world, that's just you. Some of us have certain ideas that we love in life (newspapers) as well as a Sims game and we're missing them now. Some of us are missing the fact that in TS4, we can no longer play how we want to play. It's almost like going through a grieving process, if that makes sense.
Enjoy the game if you like. But you don't have to call other haters or start a thread where it seems your whole point was just to defend the game because you love it. When you love something, there's no need to defend it. There's truly no purpose in it, really. Because no matter how glorious it is to you, you will never convince another person who is not having the same experience.
If you really want to attempt to understand why some people don't like a thing (which is how you started this thread before you went on a full court press to defend the game), come out of your own head a little bit. There are other folks out here.
This is the question that I ask myself every day. What happened to the choices in this game? There are so few options now -- from something as big as having the option to play in a different world, down to the smallest option of paper or plastic (phone).
Oddly enough, EA put all the option in CAS and CAP and forgot to put that full range of choice into the rest of the game.
Edited to add: You've been doing a really good job of pointing out the areas where this game needs work. Thank you.
You're welcome. I'm definitely not blind to what this iteration does well, but there are so many things that I wish were done differently or weren't missing. I think if things are to change for the future, people need to remain vocal but do it in a manner that is respectful. Wanting change or different things is not bashing or hate and it really irks me when people see it as such. I want to love this game as much as all of the other ones but for me, personally, the cons outweigh the pros.
You and I are of the same mind on this, it seems. I want to love this game, too.
So far, it's only been meh. In order to enjoy it in any manner, I've had to change my entire way of playing. I no longer play the game because I find it so lacking. So, with all the poses and things out there, I've decided to turn it into a storytelling tool. I use the game as a type of movie set, I guess.
Still, I would like to be entertained by the game play again. That's what this was supposed to be about -- the game play. I'm just not there yet. I don't know if I ever will be. Each EP keeps me hoping but, already in the fourth year, hope is all but gone. Giving feedback is the only way that I ever have any hope of seeing a game that will make me love it again.
I do not love Sims 4, but I do love the Sims series. That's why I'm still here. If I hated it, I wouldn't be wasting my time posting about it.
Sweet! Are you ending this debate/discussion just because you're losing it? That's the expression I'm getting from the request you gave to lock this thread out of the blue. There ain't even any flaming or trolling going around here (unless asides from you OP, by spreading that "you're all wrong and must preach to must standpoint". Why did even bother starting this thread in the first place? YOU: "Why do you hate on TS4?" Someone: "Well, because--" You: "LALALLALAL, don't wanna hear you, ignorant fool!".
P.S. I would really advise looking into other input people open-mindedly or the very least accept that we approach with a conflicting interest about the game to one another.
There is no interaction with the surrounding world, there are no consequences, there is no variety and there is no possibility of creating truly captivating stories.
An example is that in Ts 3 and Ts2, many png people often arrived at home and created situations of various kinds. Now at the most other sim come to visit, but nothing special.
No thieves, no police, no postman. In addition, the sims in the scenario do not seem to live their own life, at most walking or jogging. Their stories do not intersect with mine.
Also in ts4 I never need or want to leave the house. No lot offers something that you can not have at home. Shopping is irrelevant, everything can be bought from the catalog. I would have seen well the supermarkets, shops with clothes that are not present in CAS and things like that. Maybe even hidden corners of the map with curiosity or other.
The prize shop is irrelevant, not updated by a lot. No strange tract, no interesting prize. In ts3 for example there were special items to be purchased or traits that customized the sim in a particular way.
The aspirations are few, they have very few additions. When you own The sims 4 from the exit it is useless to continue to conclude the aspirations, by now you know them all. Why repeat the same things to infinity forever? after a while it becomes boring. In the old sims I have never completed all the aspirations because there were so many and every time I created a new interesting and stimulating game.
The careers are all very flat. Active ones get tired soon. The investigator always repeats the same tasks, in ts3 instead there were cases to be solved with their own story.
At the end the sims 4 is simply: create a sim, get married, make children, get old, die, start all over again.
And before I get asked, I do not play the sims 3 because it's a really buggy and crashing game. I would like to see the possibilities of the sims 4 become real and have the same level of fun I had in the sims 3.
That’s how I feel. I feel sad almost that I don’t enjoy the sims 4 the way I do the others. But I can’t pretend either. I can play maybe once/twice a week for maybe an hour or two and I’m bored. I thought maybe I had outgrown the series but I can pour hours into the sims 1,2 and 3 so I’m certain it not that.
I believe the devs need feedback. It saddens me what this game has become and if there is any future sims games maybe they will be different.
I repeat, I do not hate the sims 4 but it seems that they do things to the minimum possible and without too much effort. This is very discouraging.
Feedback is crucial.
The way that I see it, EA is playing a numbers game right now. TPTB seem to be searching for some kind of sweet spot. They're trying to see just how far they can gut the core of the game before people finally start being driven off. Which is what happened with SimCity. Then EA just took their ball and went home, so to speak. Instead of improving and learning from mistakes, they canceled the series.
I don't want to see that happen here, that's why I fight in my own way for this series by giving feedback and trying to convey exactly what it is I believe will keep the series alive and thriving. In this particular case, I honestly believe that options is the saving grace of a game that's an open-ended, sandbox of a god game.
Marketing sold the game by promising "You Rule" then they delivered something totally different. If they really have interest in having a successful series with continued longevity, they shouldn't stray too far from what made it great in the first place.
I hope someone at EA gives a dang. Though, they have killed so many other successful series, I don't really believe that such a person exists. At least, not someone will a job description that will matter.
Still, we need to try.
I completely agree. Sadly You Rule doesn't apply but I think weirder stories definitely does. Not in a good way.
You can do ALL of those things in the Sims 2 and more. And what's more they are all more fleshed out and created to a higher standard. I haven't really played much of the Sims 3 so I can't really compare it to that, however from what I did play I did find it underwhelming. But compared to the Sims 2, the Sims 4 is an atrocious game. Why should I fork out my hard earned money to buy inferior stuff for an inferior game when I can continue to play 2 for free? People have a right to dislike a game that's a downgrade, it's not unreasonable at all. It's upsetting for long term fans to see their beloved series go the way it's going. I really want the Sims 4 to be better and keep hoping, but it still hasn't happened.
Also if anyone doesn't yet know about how little EA cares about us and their games, I suggest you look up what's happened with Star Wars Battlefront 2. That should tell you everything you need to know.
Last but not least, are the sims' personalities. I want more diversity in the sims personality. Merely having 3 traits stinks as you have a greater probability of meeting a sim sharing at least 2 of the 3 traits from your active sim. I'm not really in to that astrology stuff, but I think at least adding zodiac system along with traits would've helped, like in TS3.
The release was bogus. No toddlers, no pools, no ghosts ... there was so much missing out of the base game ... plus the way it was handled with all the 'we can't talk about X' left a bad taste in peoples mouth. People felt deceived and lied to. The PR handling of the game was .... and still is, bad. The release was horrible.
It took out a few key features that were from Sims3, specifically open world and CAST. In many ways, it felt backwards and a throwback to Sims2. While graphically the game is better, the lack of information with no real logical reason as to why it was done. For some of us, the loss of the open world concept isn't that big of a deal, for others it was a deal breaker.
Content and releases. There are times that the game gets ... stagnant with the releases of new content. Add in the price of that content ( EP's costing as much as the base game currently ) with the questionable quality of the content leaves us consumers ... angry. I paid "X" amount for the base game ... now I have to pay that same amount for cats/dogs to make the game feel more complete. That would be acceptable if the thing being released was so ... perfect and flawless, and it just isn't.
Bad decisions, with no logical reasons why. I will use City Living ... which is a great EP, provided you live only in San Myshuno. You can't have apartments in any other city ... why. I can't build an apartment building ... again, why. If I want to have the upstairs of a house be an apartment, I can't. I can't give keys out to other sims unless I own an apartment. So much of a great opportunity just wasted. I can't customize my areas, I can't build as I want to. I can't place things in common areas. I can't modify any of the structures ... no.
I can't wait for seasons to come out ... it makes me wonder if seasons will be tied to a specific town, just like city living and apartments. Sadly, I can see that happening with the way everything else for the game has been done.
For me, the main thing I take issue with is that all my sims act alike. No matter their traits they are all the same sim in a different shell. And it sucks when these are my go to sims that I recreated to play this iteration and they aren't as great as they were in TS3 or TS2. Most recently I've played these sims in TS3. I love how the game seems to pick up on how I play them and when I'm not playing a certain sim it has that sims acting as I would when I was playing them. One of my sims is a big family man and a romantic. The way I play him he calls his brother every day to chat or go hang out, he loves spending time with his wife and often talks to her or is loving on her, he loves playing with his kids and helping them with homework. He likes spending time with his nieces and nephews. So when I'm not playing him for a bit and I come back around to him he's on the phone with his brother or thinking about his wife who’s at work, he wants to play with his son, or talk with his daughter, he wants to snuggle with his newborn niece. He will actively seek them out on his own if I'm not playing him. I was playing his wife and suddenly an interaction with him popped up in her queue while she was practicing piano and I had her stop just to see what he wanted. He just wanted to hug and kiss her and when I clicked on him he had a wish to spend time with her and I thought that was the sweetest thing. I didn't get that from his TS4 self. He's more interested in watching tv. All of my sims seem more interested in watching tv or whatever usual thing they happen to be doing when something unusual or significant that would usually draw their attention in the previous games happens.
Another thing I have an issue with is that I don't have as much creative control or control in general in TS4 as I do in the previous games. To be fair, it's also a bit of an issue going back to TS2 from TS3 as well, but that's to be expected considering the order they came in. See in TS3 I don't have a boatload of CC. I have maybe a couple of natural hairstyles and that was at the end of the TS3 when I was sure there'd be no more content. I also never used mods until then and the only reason I do now is for poses or to accommodate having just a couple more sims per household because I hate the limitation of 10. But in TS3 I can recolor and even retexture things myself. And not just their clothes but their floors, their walls, their furniture, their steps, their neighbors house, the community lot their on, etc. I can even use a color wheel to get the exact eye color I have had in mind and the exact hair color I have in mind for them. So when I see the inside of my sim's home I see their personality and their style written all over it. I can tell my sims apart from any other sim in town walking down the street because of how they dress. And the fact that they actual act in accordance to the personality I gave them makes that all the more better.
Open world also wasn’t immersion breaking for me. It was more natural than loading screens. I never had a major problem. Now I don’t mind a loading screen to travel to another neighborhood, but next door or across the street is frustrating. My only wish involving worlds in TS3 was that we could travel between every world and maintain relationships, or live in Bridgeport and own land in Riverview, and fix terrain so I wouldn't get the dreaded unroutable terrain popup when trying to place a lot. But I'd take that system any day over loading screens every few seconds. At least I could ride a horse, drive cars, and go to whatever sim in my household I wanted to without delay. That's what I personally prefer. I can build whatever community lot I want and even specify what type of community lot it is without having to abide by certain qualifications that shouldn't even matter to call it that.
See a lot of what you’re describing as what makes TS4 better than TS3 for you isn’t the same for me or for many other people. I actually don't mind rabbitholes, especially when it comes to my sims jobs, because at least I have a location for them. They aren’t just disappearing off the face of the earth. Have I thought about seeing inside dome rabbitholes? Yes. But even when I thought about seeing inside some rabbit holes my ideas for them still required some portions to be a rabbit hole because while I would love to see my sim(s) in TS3 sitting in the stands at the stadium on a date I thought it’d be too much and kind of boring to watch my professional sport playing sim play.
My sims have gone on plenty of dates in TS3. They were very immersive, and I didn't need a checklist and a time table to tell me if I was doing it right. I know what my sim and in some cases their dates like. The game doesn't have to dictate that to me. Suggestions are fine, but not telling me I must do something. If I want my sims to be the oddballs I created them to be and want to have a date with a picnic in the cemetery where they do a little ice skating, go see a movie, then head to the park to woohoo in a treehouse at 12am where one gets a splinter then that's what's going to happen. They had a great date and she was actually called the very next day to go on another date. From my experience if you know your sim(s), you try, and nothing comes up like work then it usually works out. That's just me though.
My sims in TS3 were very invested in their children and their children equally as invested in them. My pets in TS3 greeted my sims when they came home from school or work, they suckered my sims out of treats, they ruined furniture and the yard, and acted like real pets but with the added bonus of me being able to control them and play as them. My sims socialized and danced at the club. But those are all my experiences. If what you listed was your experience then I can't take that away from you and I won't call it wrong or anything, but for some of us here that wasn't ours. That doesn’t make us wrong either.
What makes this series so great is that it's usually up to the players to mold this game how they want. There was no wrong way to play, but this go round it seems like that was forgotten and we're being told how to play. It's like I was taken out of a huge sandbox and placed in one even tinier than the one I had before in TS2 and not just that, but now they're telling me things to justify why they had to give me this tiny sandbox, like how they had to take away my control to give me something great while still going around and bragging about how I control and rule. When I start to do thing B. suddenly I'm on a clock and have a list to check off or else I didn't play a game I supposedly rule and control right. I'm told when I wonder why my dog can't have a dog house that it's not the 1950's and it's cruel even though I have no cruel intentions so the option isn't even granted. I'm told that I was lied to before and that my sims didn't have emotions in the past but they do now in this game when my sims acted with more emotion in the previous games where supposedly they have no true emotions. Every time I think I'm going to get into this game and think, 'Okay, this has to be in it, because It's be crazy not to include it! I can't wait to see this!' They prove me wrong and do things like not making it possible to build our own apartments or excluding toddlers from the base game.
What made me hesitate in jumping on the bandwagon was that we were entrusting and putting faith in the same team that never fixed their last game for The Sims 3 "haters" (because I guess that's what we call people who have valid issues with games now) to make us a brand new game with minimal problems. Because even though I had few problems that didn't mean that would be the case this time. I sat back and I watched and listened. Now as time goes on and spec requirements increase low and behold we're seeing issues that still haven't been fixed and it's been how long depending on the bug? For my biggest problem it’s been since the release of the base game. But now that's not the only thing keeping me from buying, but the development choices made are contributing to my stance on not buying this game.
I know I'll never love this game. It will always feel off to me. It's not even about change. Truthfully, I don't mind that the series reboots every several years or so. Never have. I don't even mind rebuying the same expansions packs, even though progress and moving on with the times to me would be putting pets and seasons in the base game and taking advantage of tech today. But even if they don't and there's a Sims 5 yes, if they've learned from most of their past mistakes and it turns out well to me, I'll buy it and Seasons, and Pets, and Uni because I don't think they've exhausted everything they can do with or related to these packs. And I'll buy the new idea packs too depending on what they bring to the table. If the base game is great, I generally have no problem buying anything else that follows if it provides some decent content. And I'll be just as hesitant to buy should there be a Sims 5, and I'll try it before making a purchase. But even saying all that, I don't hate this game.
For me it comes down to options. We need more options and more things optional. I've thought that with every Sims game, even The Sims 3. We players should decide if our Sim has a cellphone. We players should decide if our sims has a car or takes taxis. We should decide if our sims take their promotions. We should be able to mold our sims exactly how we want down to the eye color. We should be able to decide what season we start off a world in. We should be able to create worlds, and lots without having to meet defined standards in order to call that lot what we want it to be. We should have great sims and a great world, we shouldn't have to choose. We should have more creative freedom. We should be able to create, control, and rule as much as possible in a game that is supposed to be a sandbox. But then again The Sims 4 is the only game in the main franchise that isn't aiming to improve the sandbox experience it seems.
Having this urge to print these whole comment down of yours and hang it on my bedroom wall.
I have TS2 Castaway on wii and you can’t gave children, no jobs, there’s loading screens, objectives, etc. But I had more fun with that game than I do TS4. I played it for hours and when I “beat” the game, I would play it all over again.
TS4, has more options and I can play it for hours, but I don’t feel like I’m really accomplishing anything. I’m not saying the limited wii version is better but in TS4, if I’m doing something with objectives, they take the fun out because I’m focusing on completing them and if I don’t, than it might result in a bad date, poor party, or low wages. I’m glad events have no objective option, I just wish Active careers were the same.
TS4 is missing something and I don’t think it’s just content. I feel like, even if they added all the content from previous games, the heart of the game wouldn’t be there. Unless they did huge overhaul on traits, memory, emotions, and townie interactions.
But speaking of content: City Living infuriates me to this day. I wish I hadn’t paid full price on it. The pack looks lovely and has nice features but it wasn’t worth $40 to me. Festivals got old fast. The completions aren’t even competitions because outside the Geek Festival, no one looks like they’re participating. Like why couldn’t the spicy food competition have sims sit in the same table and Kaoreoke Contest but no one wants to sing
And I hope that Seasons is not tied to a world. I don’t think it will be but if it does I will be furious. At least Sims Freeplay gave weather machines and royal weather decrees.
I’ll be annoyed if I see full on snow in Oasis, that just screams lazy if they can’t differentiate weather and climates, especially when there’s a mod that does that
Sims4 has so much potential... but it won’t live up to it
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> For someone who flip flops between liking the game and not, I think it's a bit ironic that you ask what can they do better.
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> You said you can't get furniture in any color under the sun in real life and then when I say you can, you want to give a specific example where it probably isn't possible? Just to prove you're right?
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> So because mods saved the game before, it's ok for them to continue to do so? I think mods should be used to enhance gameplay not fix the game. Do I used them and praise modders for what they do - of course, it takes hard work but I don't think mods and cc should always be the default answer.
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> What did they invest their time in that really mattered? Apartments? Emotions? Multitasking? They did a heck of a job on CAS and some building features but they took away a lot more. You have to remember not everyone plays the same way.
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> Running on lower end machines was definitely a selling point. I can dig up something if you'd like proof but a simple Google search will turn this up for you. No you were talking about cellphones and the lack of newspapers being about moving along with technology of today whereas I'm talking about the actual engine of the game. TS4's engine definitely doesn't take advantage of 2017 technology - hence why I brought up the fact that gurus have said that things couldn't be implemented due to technology. So no, we aren't talking about the same technology at all.
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> Again, it's not about just the newspapers. It's about things missing from the game and having options. What is wrong with having options for the game? Why are you so deadset against options? Why does it have to be either or? Why should I have to download CC to play the game the way that I want? You are aware that the slogan for this game is: You Rule. How is that true if I can't play the way I want?
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> So let me get this straight: basically you're saying that you're ok with being dictated to about how you play your game and you think this game is perfect without room for improvements? And anyone who suggests improvements or would like to see things implemented are haters and complainers?
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> If you didn't want anyone engaging in conversation with you and possibly having a difference of opinion than you - which is bound to happen - then what was the point of making this thread?
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> I asked because you said they could improve. TS4 has nothing to improve on to be quite honest with you.
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> Give me the name of a place where you can get your furniture and whatever color you want? I'll wait...
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> The rest is irrelevant... The proof is in the pudding. Ea is doing just fine and TS4 is great.
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> Well...
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> It’s kind of striking how the perspective of a Sims 4 fan clearly is that of the following consumer, without even being able to imagine the other side of designing. As if there’s no other way to look at this. But some people love to be designers in this game. alexandrea wrote: »
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> @Moderator_Anna554 Please close this thread.
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> Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t you do something like this before...? Starting a topic and then, when it didn’t exactly go your way, ask for it to be closed? Next time you might think before you post. Start off a bit differently for instance. Like, without the ‘because the predecessor was so awful’ routine. Why does Sims 4 still need that approach anyway?
You explained exactly my play style. I may not be an architect in real life but I am every single time I design a home in my head & build it. It allows me to tap into my inner interior designer as well. I usually use other sims from the gallery to test my builds. I am not very good at storytelling because I am not a fan of having to operate every single sim in my household. I just want to operate my own & let the other do their thing like in real life but that may just be me.
Excellent post, this highlights exactly how I feel about TS4, too.
It would be wonderful if The Sims 3 was more stable. Its instability, bugs, and lagginess on my end prevents me from enjoying it, so I am limited to The Sims 2, which is still an awesome game, 12 years later. It would be nice to finally have a successor which could replace The Sims 2 for me though. The route they have gone with The Sims 4 is definitely the wrong one towards achieving this.
...Ok, so I have some confusions about this too. Not least that I swear I already posted in this thread, and apparently I somehow didn't.
I don't have a problem with people disliking or criticising the sims 4. Everyone has the right to their opinions, that's the beauty of the internet. The issues I have is when it turns into flaming, like it's some kind of factional war that you have to choose sides in (I'm not going to), or when people assume that because they think something is wrong with the game, absolutely everyone else must feel the same and EA must immediately change it or the whole experience is ruined. (My pet peeve in this regard are the people who didn't buy the Vampire pack for the Vampires and who want those of us who did to lose or risk or sacrifice our gameplay so they can get the Vampire pack without the Vampires).
A lot of things twitch at me in the sims 4. But I grew up with the Sims 1 and 2. And I feel like there's so much rose-tinted memory and particularly short memories to what it was like when the sims 2 was the current game. I know a lot of people still play it. I still have it installed on my old Desktop PC, but I am not unrealistic about the game I remember playing.
The things I loved about sims 2? The memories. Family trees. Genetics. The aliens. The acknowledgement of death and the fact that it was more possible to die from things.
But the sims 2 had a lot of bugs as well. If you played it as the game packs came out, those bugs were things everyone was aware of and complained about bitterly for weeks, months after a new pack or an issue. There were tons of mods made to correct issues that the gameplay had, and sometimes I think people forget that they played back then pre-patched games with mods that resolved certain issues. Sometimes people even played with mods they didn't know they had, because downloading a new household would also bring in custom content and mods and that could wreck your whole game. I had sims get stuck in walls, on roofs, with their faces stuck in dance mode...and oh my goodness, the problems trying to create anything but a nuclear family (albeit same gender was fine). What if you had a step-parent? The moment any affection was shown between parent and step-parent, the kids went nuclear. That might be realistic in some family situations, but not every single time.
The vampires in the sims 2 were also in my opinion quite dull by comparison to TS4. I never really played with them much in TS2, but I really like them in TS4. And the real problem of TS2 was the vast number of expansion packs. In the end that kind of broke the game for me...and when I reinstall, I choose the packs I like most, not all of them together. I guess some people are playing TS2 still with all those packs, but then if that's the case, and you're unhappy about the content deficit in TS4 by comparison, it's paralleling a finished product with one still in construction. In short, I understand loving the sims 2. I don't understand the mysterious representation of it as a perfect product. It wasn't.
The thing for me is that comparing the games is a bit futile. Each has different things that it does well and badly, but they are meant to be separate games. I think one of the biggest reasons that people are unhappy with elements of TS4 is that some people want the same exact stuff in the same exact format as the older games, just with an updated style and graphics and extra content. Whereas I think that EA (rightly or wrongly, but with a target audience in mind) reinvented the franchise for TS3 and TS4 to try and establish them as different kinds of sim games from the Sims 2.
I'm also not much for realistic gameplay. I get to live real life. I don't need to relive it in the game. I like the quirky weird that the games throw up. I didn't get on well with Sims 3 but it doesn't make it a bad game. It didn't suit my PC and I didn't like the format so much as TS2, but I respect the openworld fans for whom it was a step up. I think, reading threads on here about things that people are very invested in, I'm quite a laid back player. I let my sims decide mostly how they play, and for me I don't think TS4 is limited in gameplay. I think it depends on your focus and your angle in how you play the game, and how you make use of its features. It takes a human imagination to create a story in the Sims, and we're all capable of doing that. But if your imagination tells a story that fits TS2 format better than TS4, then obviously you're going to like TS2 better overall.
I disagree that there's no scope for creating a proper story in TS4. I have several and most of them happened because of tiny things between sims that exploded into possibilities for other interactions and pathways. I feel like in a lot of ways TS4 has more opportunity to create those stories. It makes me sad when people say it's not possible. If it wasn't possible, I wouldn't be playing the game, as that's basically my only requirement for a sims game - that I can create a good story and characters. I don;t care about building or CAS or anything else, really. So the stories are there. Saying they aren't just suggests to me that this isn't the franchise that suits your storytelling, not that the opportunities don't exist at all. I know a lot of people like very microscopic control over their Sims, and I think maybe if that's the case, TS4 might not be for you.
I think people need to take a breath and just let a lot of these things go. Focus on getting actual bugs ironed out and accept that TS4 is what it is. I bypassed TS3 because it wasn't for me. It's not a big deal or a bad thing if you choose to do that for TS4. But I just don't understand why there are some people (I think a minority, but they are on this forum if not in this thread) whose main interest is to try and make others feel bad for liking one or other of the franchise games. I have seen outright abusive comments and mocking of people who say they like the Sims 4 and really, it's not anyone's place to tell anyone they're right or wrong about liking a game. Everyone is an individual. We all have individual likes and dislikes and there is no way that any sims game is going to appeal 100% to 100% of the fanbase 100% of the time. It's basically impossible.
Going back to the original question, though, we're also hard on TS4 because human beings by nature complain. We like to find fault with things. I think complaining is fine, we learn a lot from it and sometimes it exposes bugs that then get fixed. But sometimes it crosses that line of acceptable behaviour and that's not cool.
I have a lot of twitchy issues with the Sims 4 but they pretty much relate to bugs. I am happy accepting the game for what it is, not as a shadow of its predecessors or anything else. It is what it is.
I'm more of a builder than a player, so for example, I wasn't that fussed on Into the Future (or Supernatural for that matter), I just wanted the build/buy items that came with them. When I first got the packs, I checked out the Future world (and supernatural life states) a little bit, but I don't regret my purchases even though I don't use the gameplay features. I wouldn't expect those packs to come without the main features of them simply because I only wanted the items that came with them. That seems really selfish.
Thank goodness for MCCC because while I love vampires, my game was generating too much at one point