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Island Living is a Great Disappointment (Sort of a Rant)
TheIntrovertSimmer
Posts: 641 Member
i'm probably going to hell for writing this up but whatever.
alright, i've had enough. island living is getting really old and boring faster than i expected. gameplay starts off good, new build items look great and the world is excellent. but again, shallow gameplay, bad decisions, repetitive tasks, poor design and executions, and overdone with rehashed content and animations. first in game day was spend mostly on seeing the new things and exploring all neighborhoods and my sims spent their first night at a bar. then second day, it’s just swimming in the ocean, tanning and getting sunburned, making sand sculptures and combing for seashells. on the third day, my sims did all of water the activities and it was cool at first but slowly getting boring. i created another household to try the new careers and god, it was disappointing to have two of my favorite careers be played as rabbit holes. the dolphins felt like the hamsters from my first pet disaster, they’re repetitive and lacking interactions. the new festivals and elementals are a nice touch but it’s just not my alley. i played the game for like a couple of hours straight and feel like i’ve already seen 95% of the content so i’d be like, is that it? this honestly feels like a game for me.
so, here’s the tea, a lot of the brand-new features weren’t even that good either. the new conservationist career which can dynamically change the island cosmetics feels something like we can already do from that stranger things parody game pack. new lot traits are infested with bugs and issues and in need to be fixed soon. diving and life guard career are just rabbit holes which means no treasure-hunting, underwater diving, shark encounters and no underwater lots for our mermaids to live in. the volcano is just another decorative chunk in the neighborhood just like everything else in the game (god, they hyped that thing like hell in the stream). odd jobs are like the watered-down version of kawaiistacie’s slice of life mod. lounge chairs have poor designs and multitasking which is sorely disappointing.
i feel like this is an embarrassing version of sims 3 island paradise, i know ip was all about resorts and stuffs and il focuses more in living on the island itself which is kind of fair, i guess, but the tea is, island paradise was poorly optimized but still is a far more superior than island living.
and wow, talk about marketing deception. simgurus and game changers were hyping this up like [Removed, please don't circumvent the filter ~Rtas] hell... most of them tried to make the simplest thing sound overcomplicated when it actually isn’t. the lounge chair which we have apparently waited for five years for ea to figure out, are just another lazy and low-quality work from maxis. only god knows why ea didn’t bother to put multitasking at that object. and just fours after the embargo lifted and when the ea propaganda (gamechangers) started uploading their captures of the new pack, i feel like we already covered the majority of the pack and nothing more to discover nor explore.
i’ve mentioned this in other threads before but am i the only who noticed how this pack is oversaturated with reused animations and mechanics stolen from other packs? most of them are from get together, the “ladder” is just the diving platform done with new a paintjob and woodwork and a few tweaks. the fire pit which had its mechanics and animations very similar from EP02 tho, im okay with that but the beach combing animation looks like i’ve seen it for a hundred times before. can they come up with something else? like having to lie down or duck to dig for seashells instead of bending them sims’ back and the swings? isn’t that supposed to be ep05 exclusive and just let our generous modders and cc creators create new versions of it. some may say, ‘the more the merrier’, i guess, but not for me, beach please (you see what i did there). and the hammocks and firewalk pit, they’re not existent. as for the toddler playing in the ocean, it’s the same animation from the tub and kiddie pool and they didn’t even bother to replace the rubber duckie with a seashell or something else. and oh yeah, the ceiling fan just finally had a fix more than half a year after it came out. a fix which i already have done, thanks to the modders, just a week after the caribbean patch back in 2018.
now, let’s talk about the mermaids. i’m glad that we finally have a new playable occult. but there’s still some bones i need to pick about them mermaids. there’s no underwater lot as their natural habitat. they can’t swim underwater, i mean like under the water. i don’t like how they’d need to gasp for air every time they swim. and how they sleep on the surface really annoys me. aren’t mermaids supposed to sleep on the seabed like how dolphins do, are they suicidal or something? the absence of underwater gameplay made me sob and choke myself like i’m so done for this.
now, this might be unrelated or i might be getting a little too personal here but i found it very annoying when people make a ‘small’ list of all stuffs in the new expansion on some threads and comment sections. then they’d just write 7-10 new features like wow, is that it for a $50 game? but i still find it happy when some people are fine and happy to settle on maxis’ low-quality products and that ain’t my business anymore. but back in the day, i used to visit simsvip for their guides of ts3 eps and discover a lot of things i haven’t tried yet. and i just found out that hilarious plastic surgery feature was a thing from ts3 pets. and yet in ts4 cats and dogs, we didn’t even get proper doghouses and more pets. how can it be that a 10-year-old game is far more mature and intelligent than the modern one? this isn’t clearly an improvement in all honesty and a great insult to my consumer intelligence.
im aware that the team usually try to do new stuffs in new expansions and im fine with that. but, they just can’t achieve a proper expansion even if they do that. they have billions of moneys to pass the complexities and challenges. they’re not some kind of an indie game company or something, heck even most indie game developers can create and develop the best games of the year and offer more gameplay experience. a great example is cities skylines, published by interactive paradox and developed by colossal order. like here’s the tea, they made that game after simcity failed, like thank god that poor quality product flopped, and they offer more full and better expansions that actually expands the gameplay eg. new mechanics, new system and management, and brand-new stuffs and they’re like only 10-15 dollars each. if these were made by ea, they’d put it for a price of $20 or more, half the content, shady pre-order perks, more tradeoffs and limitations, and just more casual EA things. i can still remember that simcity expansion called cities of tomorrows and only offered a few buildings and one new resource to gather. now compare that to cities skylines. the new era of ea games flops and disappoints. avoid at all cost! and as for island living, I’ll probably bot gonna play this game again until the next year or so, same thing i did with jungle adventures. but it’s kind one of those games where you gotta play for like 5 minutes at a time. yeah.
alright, i've had enough. island living is getting really old and boring faster than i expected. gameplay starts off good, new build items look great and the world is excellent. but again, shallow gameplay, bad decisions, repetitive tasks, poor design and executions, and overdone with rehashed content and animations. first in game day was spend mostly on seeing the new things and exploring all neighborhoods and my sims spent their first night at a bar. then second day, it’s just swimming in the ocean, tanning and getting sunburned, making sand sculptures and combing for seashells. on the third day, my sims did all of water the activities and it was cool at first but slowly getting boring. i created another household to try the new careers and god, it was disappointing to have two of my favorite careers be played as rabbit holes. the dolphins felt like the hamsters from my first pet disaster, they’re repetitive and lacking interactions. the new festivals and elementals are a nice touch but it’s just not my alley. i played the game for like a couple of hours straight and feel like i’ve already seen 95% of the content so i’d be like, is that it? this honestly feels like a game for me.
so, here’s the tea, a lot of the brand-new features weren’t even that good either. the new conservationist career which can dynamically change the island cosmetics feels something like we can already do from that stranger things parody game pack. new lot traits are infested with bugs and issues and in need to be fixed soon. diving and life guard career are just rabbit holes which means no treasure-hunting, underwater diving, shark encounters and no underwater lots for our mermaids to live in. the volcano is just another decorative chunk in the neighborhood just like everything else in the game (god, they hyped that thing like hell in the stream). odd jobs are like the watered-down version of kawaiistacie’s slice of life mod. lounge chairs have poor designs and multitasking which is sorely disappointing.
i feel like this is an embarrassing version of sims 3 island paradise, i know ip was all about resorts and stuffs and il focuses more in living on the island itself which is kind of fair, i guess, but the tea is, island paradise was poorly optimized but still is a far more superior than island living.
and wow, talk about marketing deception. simgurus and game changers were hyping this up like [Removed, please don't circumvent the filter ~Rtas] hell... most of them tried to make the simplest thing sound overcomplicated when it actually isn’t. the lounge chair which we have apparently waited for five years for ea to figure out, are just another lazy and low-quality work from maxis. only god knows why ea didn’t bother to put multitasking at that object. and just fours after the embargo lifted and when the ea propaganda (gamechangers) started uploading their captures of the new pack, i feel like we already covered the majority of the pack and nothing more to discover nor explore.
i’ve mentioned this in other threads before but am i the only who noticed how this pack is oversaturated with reused animations and mechanics stolen from other packs? most of them are from get together, the “ladder” is just the diving platform done with new a paintjob and woodwork and a few tweaks. the fire pit which had its mechanics and animations very similar from EP02 tho, im okay with that but the beach combing animation looks like i’ve seen it for a hundred times before. can they come up with something else? like having to lie down or duck to dig for seashells instead of bending them sims’ back and the swings? isn’t that supposed to be ep05 exclusive and just let our generous modders and cc creators create new versions of it. some may say, ‘the more the merrier’, i guess, but not for me, beach please (you see what i did there). and the hammocks and firewalk pit, they’re not existent. as for the toddler playing in the ocean, it’s the same animation from the tub and kiddie pool and they didn’t even bother to replace the rubber duckie with a seashell or something else. and oh yeah, the ceiling fan just finally had a fix more than half a year after it came out. a fix which i already have done, thanks to the modders, just a week after the caribbean patch back in 2018.
now, let’s talk about the mermaids. i’m glad that we finally have a new playable occult. but there’s still some bones i need to pick about them mermaids. there’s no underwater lot as their natural habitat. they can’t swim underwater, i mean like under the water. i don’t like how they’d need to gasp for air every time they swim. and how they sleep on the surface really annoys me. aren’t mermaids supposed to sleep on the seabed like how dolphins do, are they suicidal or something? the absence of underwater gameplay made me sob and choke myself like i’m so done for this.
now, this might be unrelated or i might be getting a little too personal here but i found it very annoying when people make a ‘small’ list of all stuffs in the new expansion on some threads and comment sections. then they’d just write 7-10 new features like wow, is that it for a $50 game? but i still find it happy when some people are fine and happy to settle on maxis’ low-quality products and that ain’t my business anymore. but back in the day, i used to visit simsvip for their guides of ts3 eps and discover a lot of things i haven’t tried yet. and i just found out that hilarious plastic surgery feature was a thing from ts3 pets. and yet in ts4 cats and dogs, we didn’t even get proper doghouses and more pets. how can it be that a 10-year-old game is far more mature and intelligent than the modern one? this isn’t clearly an improvement in all honesty and a great insult to my consumer intelligence.
im aware that the team usually try to do new stuffs in new expansions and im fine with that. but, they just can’t achieve a proper expansion even if they do that. they have billions of moneys to pass the complexities and challenges. they’re not some kind of an indie game company or something, heck even most indie game developers can create and develop the best games of the year and offer more gameplay experience. a great example is cities skylines, published by interactive paradox and developed by colossal order. like here’s the tea, they made that game after simcity failed, like thank god that poor quality product flopped, and they offer more full and better expansions that actually expands the gameplay eg. new mechanics, new system and management, and brand-new stuffs and they’re like only 10-15 dollars each. if these were made by ea, they’d put it for a price of $20 or more, half the content, shady pre-order perks, more tradeoffs and limitations, and just more casual EA things. i can still remember that simcity expansion called cities of tomorrows and only offered a few buildings and one new resource to gather. now compare that to cities skylines. the new era of ea games flops and disappoints. avoid at all cost! and as for island living, I’ll probably bot gonna play this game again until the next year or so, same thing i did with jungle adventures. but it’s kind one of those games where you gotta play for like 5 minutes at a time. yeah.
y'all got bread?
Post edited by EA_Rtas on
162
Comments
If Sims 4 was my first game in the Sims series, the whole thing would knock my socks off. It would be so awesome. But knowing what came before it. Playing what came before it. And seeing how great of and experience EA can give us with The Sims, Sims 4 has me feeling short changed.
But that's just me. I know other players who feel that Sims 4 is the best out of the series, and they are over the moon with everything.
I agree it was over hyped to hell and back. Notice how a few of the gushing reviews changed once they were no longer on a trip paid for by the powers that be
The only other comment I have is your use of "stolen" animations...? That argument just doesn't make sense.
No I agree 100% with you. Well said.
When I read the part about their budget for the game and them having a heap of money, all I could think is "the Sims 4 is EA's cash cow to fund other games".
I totally believe they're given a budget (a very small one) and are told "do as much as you think people will pay for and nothing more" "save money where possible, recycle where possible & remesh where possible".
And as someone who has played/owned every Sims game since the Sims 2 (and Sims bustin out on PS), I can honestly say that brings a tear to my eye and a lot of cringe.
It honestly feels like they're discounting every person who played any other sims game. And are just appeasing those who's first game is the Sims 4. Maybe there's a bigger market there?
100% agree with the mermaids. It was cool to get a new occult type but missed a lot of practicalities, such as eating kelp in the water as food, being able to fish/hunt for food and swim under the water. And seriously what gives with the advertising of "evil mermaids" that can drowned sims. They cannot. I've already made another post/poll about the dissapointment that is that lie. So salty about this tbh.
I think it all comes down to how much you like the base game to begin with. I notice that for each pack released, it's often the same people who rave and complain about it. If you perceive the foundation to be fundamentally flawed, very little additional content will change your mind
It might be because TS4 had a very weak start. It's gotten better over the years (for the most part I'm okay with it now), but even today the development of the game suffers for it. We only got terraforming back last November, which had always been a day 1 feature. Resources that would've otherwise been spent elsewhere were poured into it. It's good that we got it back, but it's something that should've been there from the start. Same for toddlers. And all the work they scrapped on the online version translates to several hours' worth of labor wasted. There isn't much anyone can do about the past in any case
I also like to think that management still isn't giving the devs the resources they need, but that's because I'm just wary of EA
Race Against the Clock: Can your elder sim turn back the clock before their time runs out?
This so much, it honestly feels like they're deliberately chopping up full expansion packs into littler packs. Like half of the SP's could have been put into the EP's or GP's. E.G Movie Stuff could have easily gone into City Living, but nope, it was chopped up into a smaller pack so that EA could make a little more of the precious $$ (It's so freaking obvious that My First Pet Stuff was supposed to go into Cats and Dogs but was deliberately held back for the sake of the almighty dollar XP).
It's enough to make you want to cry or scream into the void, maybe both.
Trying to communicate with EA is screaming into the void lmao
True enough XD
Sorry OP I prefer to make up my own mind. I've never trusted critics since Les Miserables was 🐸🐸🐸🐸 by them.
But now that I've played it for a few days I see where you're coming from. We have collectively lowered our expectations from the Sims team. And those among us who never played the previous iterations of the franchise are used to this standard anyway. We should expect more from a $40 expansion. Active lifeguard, active scuba diving and mermaids going beneath the ocean surface should have been required for an expansion titled ISLAND LIVING. That's just the tip of the iceberg though. I know that for the pricetag it should have included even more than that.
But at the end of the day, this one falls right in with the rest of the EP's for Sims 4. None of them are that good if we keep things in perspective - compared to what we got in Sims 2 for example. I know the engine is completely different because it's a different game altogether but I'm talking about things like overall effort and the resulting fun factor. It's a shame because I love the overall look of the Sims 4.
Now that it's out, and they can play it at their pleasure, all the game changers I follow on twitter say this pack isn't worth it at full price. They say it plays like a game pack, wait for a sale to get it. And I've seen so many players that normally defend the game saying "Don't get it, wait till its on sale, it gets old quickly". There are actually very few people that I have seen actually recommend buying it at full price that have had it for more than a week.
edit:wait... has it even been out a week?
edit2: its been out 4ish-5 days.
Lounging in a chair is so boring when they can’t socialize. That was just lazy of them to half-plum this.
The new world is absolutely gorgeous, but I didn’t see anyone really ask to live there, we want to VACATION there. Why does a world have to be either a vacation world or a livable world? We have something called Lot Types! Each lot should have the capability of being assigned a vacation rental. Why is this not a thing?
I wonder if the developers even play this game, let alone any past Sims games. They don’t seem to know what we want and need. ETA Or what we expect based on past iterations.
There’s only so many times you can pet a dolphin, swim and stare at a buoy while you wait for your sim to re appear before it gets boring. I honestly think this was meant to be a game pack.
The more I think about their change to the way they deliver expansions/game packs and stuff packs, I've came to the realisation that it is done for a purpose. You see if they were to announce Island Living in say March, that would give people 3 months to build up hype, hope and worst of all in EAs eyes, QUESTIONS!! Which would then lead to disappointment sooner and effect the overall sales outcomes with many people deciding not to buy right away, to wait for a sale or worst of all NOT buy at all.
So, what do they do? Announce the pack VERY CLOSE to release. This means people have less time to speculate, less time to get into the nitty gritty, and complete the pack (for the EA game changers) and see it for what it really is. This way people get hyped and excited (Don't worry I got excited too!) and then pre-order or rush out and purchase it on the day of release. It's only after the fact of a few hours or so of game play they realise it's another disappointment (or what should have been a Game Pack). But TOO LATE! You've already purchased it.
Compare this pack to Jungle Adventures and it comes off like a game pack, but not as deep.
Other things about the pack seriously irritate me. Non natural skin tones can't tan? Why? What lazyness was that [and it kicks aliens out of the new aspiration unless you cheat.] Mermaids switch to legs to use the floaties and aqua zip but can't manage that for ladders? Mermaids can't survey aquatic wildlife for the new career because its the snorkel animation and they didn't make one for mermaids. The toddler animation and it's lack of even changing out the toy [if they did that I would have been 100% fine]. And the lounge chairs I was SUPER hyped for? I couldn't believe they couldn't chat on them. At least chatting come on EA.
Oh and for some reason mermaids are the only occult without their own urn/tombstone and bassinet look. Why :<
I’m so annoyed I am thinking of going back to TS3 because we can’t actually multitask anyway without them up & down, standing and sitting, and now this. Multitasking was what made me not want to go back after TS4 but they can’t even get it right.
I wish that there was the option to vacation in Sulani rather than having to either live there or come up with workarounds such as owning a business there to use as a base to visit - I wish rental options were available everywhere to be honest, it seems silly that I can vacation in the Jungle Adventures world but not in Sulani where all the beaches/vacation worthy type game play is.