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My issue with mermaids
Zeldaboy180
Posts: 5,997 Member
Alright, I'll start off with the positive and say that mermaids are vastly improved over their sims 3 counterparts, but there are some things that bother me and I hope the devs are reading this cause I just don't get it.
Mermaids need to purchase diving gear in order to dive for treasure or seashells, or even hunt for fish. That seems....weird? Why does my mermaid need to buy gear to dive down for treasure? I'd love for this to be corrected.
Also, why can't mermaids snorkel? I haven't played a normal sim yet so I'm not sure exactly what snorkeling does, but doesn't it let you go deep underwater and catch collectibles? Doesn't this put the mermaid at an advantage? If someone could offer insight to this I'd be happy.
Why can't mermaids eat while in the water? In sims 3 you could satisfy pretty much every need in the water except sleep. You could even eat kelp/fish raw while underwater or above it on the surface. In the sims 4 you can satisfy every need except hunger, you mermaid has to go on land to eat. A mermaid should never have to leave the water if you choose, that is their home, their natural habitat. Obviously living in the water 24/7 would get boring fast, but the point is a mermaid should be able to stay in the water for as long as you like.
Kelp should have been a new harvestable, or at the very least the ability to eat raw fish. Even eating coconuts/pineapples or basic fruit on the water would have been great. Another simple solution would be to add the "hunt for food" option while clicking on a buoy.
Possible bug? I don't know if it's intended for sims to be able to be struck by lightning while swimming, but my mermaid was by a storm he conjured himself. Only thing is that there was no lightning bolt, it just caused all the sims in the area to reset and he got a singed moodlet, but did not get the singed appearance until he got out of the water.
Overall I'm very satisfied and loving my mermaids, I just wish these issues were fixed.
EDIT:
Just an update for anyone who uses mods, a couple of the issues I had were fixed. I made a stronger buff mod that increases the strength of their siren songs from +2 to +10 so they are more powerful and not easily over ridden. The main reason I made this mod because the moodlet was so weak it rarely ever showed. The increased flirty strength alone should help you seduce people easier.
you can find this here: http://modthesims.info/d/629224/stronger-mermaid-buffs.html
Here is a mod that allows mermaids to eat raw fish: http://modthesims.info/d/629276/eat-raw-fish-v1-1-and-cc-trait-raw-food-lover.html
And here is a mod that allows mermaids to fulfill all of their needs in the ocean. Freediving will restore hungry, sleeping in the ocean restores energy much faster than a bed, and mermaids can pee in the ocean much easier. https://www.deichschafblog.de/s4/mods-fuer-inselleben/
Mermaids need to purchase diving gear in order to dive for treasure or seashells, or even hunt for fish. That seems....weird? Why does my mermaid need to buy gear to dive down for treasure? I'd love for this to be corrected.
Also, why can't mermaids snorkel? I haven't played a normal sim yet so I'm not sure exactly what snorkeling does, but doesn't it let you go deep underwater and catch collectibles? Doesn't this put the mermaid at an advantage? If someone could offer insight to this I'd be happy.
Why can't mermaids eat while in the water? In sims 3 you could satisfy pretty much every need in the water except sleep. You could even eat kelp/fish raw while underwater or above it on the surface. In the sims 4 you can satisfy every need except hunger, you mermaid has to go on land to eat. A mermaid should never have to leave the water if you choose, that is their home, their natural habitat. Obviously living in the water 24/7 would get boring fast, but the point is a mermaid should be able to stay in the water for as long as you like.
Kelp should have been a new harvestable, or at the very least the ability to eat raw fish. Even eating coconuts/pineapples or basic fruit on the water would have been great. Another simple solution would be to add the "hunt for food" option while clicking on a buoy.
Possible bug? I don't know if it's intended for sims to be able to be struck by lightning while swimming, but my mermaid was by a storm he conjured himself. Only thing is that there was no lightning bolt, it just caused all the sims in the area to reset and he got a singed moodlet, but did not get the singed appearance until he got out of the water.
Overall I'm very satisfied and loving my mermaids, I just wish these issues were fixed.
EDIT:
Just an update for anyone who uses mods, a couple of the issues I had were fixed. I made a stronger buff mod that increases the strength of their siren songs from +2 to +10 so they are more powerful and not easily over ridden. The main reason I made this mod because the moodlet was so weak it rarely ever showed. The increased flirty strength alone should help you seduce people easier.
you can find this here: http://modthesims.info/d/629224/stronger-mermaid-buffs.html
Here is a mod that allows mermaids to eat raw fish: http://modthesims.info/d/629276/eat-raw-fish-v1-1-and-cc-trait-raw-food-lover.html
And here is a mod that allows mermaids to fulfill all of their needs in the ocean. Freediving will restore hungry, sleeping in the ocean restores energy much faster than a bed, and mermaids can pee in the ocean much easier. https://www.deichschafblog.de/s4/mods-fuer-inselleben/
Post edited by Zeldaboy180 on
33
Comments
I completely agree with your criticism. I haven't had the chance to play around with mermaids a lot yet but everything you are saying makes sense. You also offer simple solutions to the issues which is great for the devs to consider these things. I think most of the issues you bring could easily be fixed via patch and I hope some of them get updated.
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Agree in every way! I was a lil plumed when I found out there wasn't even 1 under water lot & got progressively more so when I found out that they couldn't live in the water if they wanted. It's their home so it makes sense! The eating in the water is particularly sour for me. They should be able to eat kelp & other sea veges (corals, clams and fish raw).
I hope the Dev team sees this and adds it. Glad it's nothing major and just small things that would make this pack a 10/10.
Race Against the Clock: Can your elder sim turn back the clock before their time runs out?
and i totally agree that they should be able to fulfill every need while in the water. i was really excited they could sleep in the water too, and i really hoped they could eat raw fish. surely it’s possible for that to be patched in? pleaseee.
could even rabbithole it if they had to, just use the dive animation and have the mermaid come back up with fish and/or kelp in their inventory, and the option to eat the fish.
i’m definitely happy with them overall, but i’d appreciate a few changes.
If regular sims want to collect shells they have to go scuba diving. (Which itself makes no sense)
I really don’t like that the diving activities are separate. I.e treasure hunting, spear fishing, shell collecting and taking photos underwater. It feels like just a cheap way to pad it out because we can’t see anything other than a buoy and a few bubbles in the surface.
Lightning one sounds like a bug.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
Design choice, the option says ‘a mermaid would never be caught snorkelling... it’s a taboo subject’
I guess they consider it a human thing. This doesn’t bother me. The fact they only swim in the surface of the water does though, and now some of these issues I didn’t know about have kinda put me off altogether.
—T
Well they are not human - what can I say.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
they can eat fish in the game (and other media, just depends where you look. ‘Splash’ for example, which this game definitely took some inspiration from with the mermaids bathtub animation if you see the whole thing. i adore it btw.) it just has to be cooked unfortunately. those shark teeth look like some fish chompers to me lol. is there kelp other than mermadic kelp? they can’t live off that and i haven’t seen any other kind, but awesome if there is. imo they should still be able to eat it in the water if there is some.
also, it isn’t mermaids wearing the snorkeling gear we would like (at least myself, i’m assuming others as well lol), but the animation of visibly swimming underwater and around the reef.
Edited to remove inaccurate information.
Exactly. Why would a mermaid need to snorkel? And, yes, my mermaid's non-merperson boyfriend accidently cooked the fish 'grand meal' for a fest. The mermaid could hardly keep it down. A thought bubble with vegetables pictured was above her head.
Besides, for snorkeling, why wouldn't a mermaid enjoy swimming in shallow water viewing the coral?
> Alright, I'll start off with the positive and say that mermaids are vastly improved over their sims 3 counterparts, but there are some things that bother me and I hope the devs are reading this cause I just don't get it.
>
> Mermaids need to purchase diving gear in order to dive for treasure or seashells, or even hunt for fish. That seems....weird? Why does my mermaid need to buy gear to dive down for treasure? I'd love for this to be corrected.
>
Hmm, 'corrected' doesn't seem right to me. I have no issue, personally, with them requiring tools - they're of human-level intellect (at least) and have hands, so it stands to reason that they'd be tool-users - but I'd have loved it more if they'd been able to craft their own.
> @Zeldaboy180 said:
> Also, why can't mermaids snorkel? I haven't played a normal sim yet so I'm not sure exactly what snorkeling does, but doesn't it let you go deep underwater and catch collectibles? Doesn't this put the mermaid at an advantage? If someone could offer insight to this I'd be happy.
>
Honestly, this does bother me. The way it's phrased, that it's a 'taboo subject' and that they 'wouldn't be caught dead' doing it, strikes me as being a bit... referencey. It feels like they're referencing something with this and I admit that if it's the case, the exact reference eludes me. I assume that it's ultimately a way of cutting down their workload. Which is a bit of a shame, since it could have been surmounted by either giving them a slow swim-speed animation (don't get me wrong, I love how fast they can swim, but it makes sense that they'd also be able to take their time), or they could just remain in human form and snorkel normally, with the reasoning that they use it as cover to hide their mermaid natures when humans are around. And as @Sephirajo pointed out:
> @Sephirajo said:
>Besides, for snorkeling, why wouldn't a mermaid enjoy swimming in shallow water viewing the coral?
>
It'd be a lot like a human going sight-seeing or on a nature walk, surely.
> @Zeldaboy180 said:
> Why can't mermaids eat while in the water? In sims 3 you could satisfy pretty much every need in the water except sleep. You could even eat kelp/fish raw while underwater or above it on the surface. In the sims 4 you can satisfy every need except hunger, you mermaid has to go on land to eat. A mermaid should never have to leave the water if you choose, that is their home, their natural habitat. Obviously living in the water 24/7 would get boring fast, but the point is a mermaid should be able to stay in the water for as long as you like.
>
Yeah, this bugs me too. Not enough to not play the game, and it's not going to result in a bad review from me, but I'll admit that not being able to eat in the water seems nonsensical. They're not much of an aquatic species if they have to come out onto land every time they want to eat something.
> @Zeldaboy180 said:
> Kelp should have been a new harvestable, or at the very least the ability to eat raw fish. Even eating coconuts/pineapples or basic fruit on the water would have been great. Another simple solution would be to add the "hunt for food" option while clicking on a buoy.
>
I agree, they could have done a lot more with this. Hopefully they'll add these elements in at a future date.
> @Zeldaboy180 said:
> Possible bug? I don't know if it's intended for sims to be able to be struck by lightning while swimming, but my mermaid was by a storm he conjured himself. Only thing is that there was no lightning bolt, it just caused all the sims in the area to reset and he got a singed moodlet, but did not get the singed appearance until he got out of the water.
>
100% sounds like a bug to me. I've noticed some weirdness with storms, and not getting the singed appearance seems to track with their look not updating until a state change (like the way you don't see them update with their tan until they stop performing the sunbathing action).
> @Zeldaboy180 said:
> Overall I'm very satisfied and loving my mermaids, I just wish these issues were fixed.
>
I'll admit I didn't check out mermaids in TS3 particularly thoroughly. Touched on them briefly but didn't invest any real time into exploring them. As a result I'm coming to the mermaids in TS4 more or less raw. I absolutely agree with most of your points, and I too am looking forward to seeing how they patch this content in the future.
The team seems to have invested somewhat less time into the mermaid subspecies than they did into vampires, but they've nonetheless done a very solid job.
> @Writin_Reg said:
> Mermaids are friends of fish - they don't eat them and do not like people who do.
>
Nah, that's a Child of the Ocean thing, as has been mentioned above. I've met a few of the mermaids wandering around and it's really only Nalani, that I can tell, who doesn't eat fish. Most, possibly all, have Child of the Islands, though.
but I would have loved to have some more activities=animations for them when in the water and most of all an underwater area for them, even if it were just a small one, I have a very small amount of hope that something more will be added for them with ROM but I am not holding my breath...also I am missing mermaid themed decorations especially sculptures.
yes she would, all it really changes is that she gets an additional mermaid form and will turn into a mermaid when swimming or in the bathtub and get some mermaid abilities (also she will occasionally make dolphinsounds ^^) and the hygiene need will be replaced by hydration need.