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My confusion about "Gameplay" and the supposed lack thereof in packs
Beardedgeek
Posts: 5,520 Member
I am once again seeing review where the claims "not enough gameplay" or "no gameplay" or "no replayability" is thrown around.
I... don't get it. I 500% don't get what these people actually MEAN by "gameplay". They are not happy when something is scripted, like Strangerville; they are not happy when something is open like Island Living.
Again, what do these people MEAN with gameplay?
Not to mention Replayability. Strangerville I get. Batuu I get. But anything else? If you don't think there is "replayability" in the new pack, or in say Island Living, then why do you play Sims at all? I mean if there is no replayability in Island Living how much replayability is it in going to the bathroom or doing laundry?
I... don't get it. I 500% don't get what these people actually MEAN by "gameplay". They are not happy when something is scripted, like Strangerville; they are not happy when something is open like Island Living.
Again, what do these people MEAN with gameplay?
Not to mention Replayability. Strangerville I get. Batuu I get. But anything else? If you don't think there is "replayability" in the new pack, or in say Island Living, then why do you play Sims at all? I mean if there is no replayability in Island Living how much replayability is it in going to the bathroom or doing laundry?
Origin ID: A_Bearded_Geek
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In the end I feel it is up to the individual playstyle, I play rotationally and have different backstories and characters for my sims, I like to call my way of playing as "character driven", since I do not really play out a story but rather what fits each character.
So when I go on vacation with household X they'll do different stuff than household Y , or they will do the same stuff but go about it different ways....that is what adds the replayability to me.
It's hardly ever a "one time and done" and I do not rush through things either.
Gameplay itself is also more to me than just "gameplay objects", which again is dependent on playstyle, I enjoy all parts of the game, CAS and BB are as much a part of gameplay to me as livemode, but I get that this is not the same with every player.
Now, I am not saying that I can't see a lack of gameplay at all in the game, cause I can, it is there but to me that has more to do with a lack of personality of individual sims, recycled things (animations, buffs, interactions and more), hardly any (real) consequences and little to no (or underwhelming) surprises, than with say gameplay objects.
As much as I do love to use my own imagination and creativity (and the fact that it is a sandboxgame does suggest that one should), I feel that some tools/functions are simply missing....cant paint a colourful picture with only grey shaded pens
....hopefully sentiments and lifestyles will add some more colours though
Playability - or replayability - is entirely contingent on gameplay style. People who like Island Living obviously have found more things to do there than I did. Or they are happy doing those things over and over again.
This is why the devs want constructive criticism and I think that some people have no idea of what that actually is. It's important when criticizing to give helpful details of want you want to see, how it would play out, and any examples you can think of. It's easy to just pick something apart and say, "I don't like that!" but it takes time and a little effort to actually try to think like a developer and give advice as to how it could improve. But most of what we get around here is lazy complaints, which does absolutely nothing to help.
As I said somewhere else, just becuase a person don't LIKE the added gameplay doesn't mean it's not there.
Also I hate to break this to everyone, but the "gameplay" IS just different animations that adds and subtracts the same variables. That is what the Sims is and has always been.
What a pack actually DOES is add new animations to look at while the same numbers go up or down. The basic game, below everything, is just a spreadsheet. Animations can be more or less fun to watch, but that's all there is: amusement while a number goes up and down
Oh and I am one of those, btw. IL Is a top 3 pack and my favorite world. And as soon as the November Patch comes out I will make my Sims a vacation home on Key Point so I can eat my cake (move them to the new world) and have it too (having them spending all winters renting that lot)
I still don't get it, but I do like some of the build/buy and off-the-grid features. That's all I ever use from the pack, and I almost never live on the map. I really wanted to like it, but I got spoiled by Isla Paradisio in TS3 with houseboats, actual diving and finding ruins/treasure, resorts, catching fish underwater, and a gruesome death by shark. Yes, I wish they had fixed the routing issues, but those of us who still play TS3 have a work around for it.
First there is a difference between scripted gameplay, sandbox gameplay and a mix of those 2 I like to call "semi-scripted gameplay".
- Scripted gameplay would be for example Strangerville, it's a written storyline that is always the same and doesn't leave room for creativity.
- Sandbox gameplay are tools for example something like retail lots, or Create a holiday, hotels, memories. You get a tool that you can modify in different ways in order to fit your imagination.
- Semi-scripted gameplay is what we are getting with Snowy Escape (apart from Lifestyles and Sentinments, which imo aren't in any way related to this pack). Examples for this type of gameplay would be festivals which are restricted to one area, cannot me modified or placed anywhere else. Activities restricted to one area that again cannot be changed, moved or skills which always have the same progression.
None of these gameplay-elements is "bad" in any way and all of it has different functions. Scripted and semi-scripted gameplay is for example not very replayable, since it doesn't allow freedom for creativity and either always has the same result or is in the same area etc. This is however an important part of the game because you can pick and choose which of these activities your sim will do based on your idea of their life and personality, but the activities themselves are always pretty much the same.
With sandbox gameplay you are free to create almost anything you can think of. Retails for example don't necessarilly restrict you much. You can create a bakery or a toy store or a witch potion store or whatever. It's different everytime and highly customizable, which to many people means a loooot more hours of gameplay.
I my opinion a good pack has to have some elements from all of this categories, as they are all vital, but it is a bummer when there is mostly content from one of these, especially the more scripted and semi-scripted ones because they limit the gameplay so much that it feels like it is lacking and doesn't invite you to replay certain things because you already know the outcome or have already experienced them.
I hope this answers your question.
Reading a book and flipping the pages.
Flipping through the tv channels with the remote.
Stopping to take a pic when out walking.
Autonomously sunbathing after swimming.
I don't always want to be the one to control every single move or action they do or have to pretend what my sims are doing.
I like it when they are just doing their own thing and it guides me in what direction the story in my head will play out.
I hate the management part. That's why I have never owned a business, never do active careers and all my Sims are either freelancers, self employed or at least ALWAYS going to the rabbit hole for work.
My present household sums it up nicely. Both are self employed, making one batch of Fizz every weekday and then sell them all on the weekend in a yard sale. So far 120 000 in the bank and a 70 000 house. They spend most of their time sunbathing, doing yoga or dumpster diving.
The problem with answer a question like this is that it's complicated to answer because it includes SO much. You just know it when you see it.
For instance gameplay is features that lets ME decide what to do, where to do it, and how, and that impacts the ENTIRE game, and creates immersion. Also NEW gameplay means DIFFERENT things to create, do and customize and build. Not the same type of thing in different set dressing. The details can vary from person to person - but if you're one of the people that fell in love with Sims 1 and Sims 2, then you just know.
In the most general sense, gameplay is extra things for me to do. Part of the more confusing no "new gameplay" critiques probably come down to the "new" part. Collections for example. Sure, new collections are new in a sense, but it is more of the same. I criticize Batuu especially with stuff like this because it felt like a lot of pieces from other packs thrown together with SW paint.
Replayability, I feel, is much more personal of an issue. Something you find replayable, others might not. I love IL and EL. Sulani is my second favorite world. Mt. Komorabi looks to be my third. I prefer the open stuff. However, I like Strangerville, too. I use the world a lot and clothes a lot, even if I do not replay the scripted story.
Something I do not get a lot of use out of is the vacation system. Something like that is too much trouble to be that replayable in my opinion, so that is something I keep in mind with my packs. Anyway, it comes down to taste and there are plenty of voices in the community. So we see these criticisms every time from different people.
The assumption that people who enjoy Sims 4 can't have played the earlier games is getting old.
1. I bought all main entries in the series on release day.
2. I... honestly cannot remember any more immersive game play in 2, really. More detailed animations, yes. By far. But that's about it.
3. I got bored with Sims 3 before Island Paradise came out; I stopped playing it after Supernaturals. It was just too frustrating trying to fit all lot types I wanted into one world.
I never really got into Sims 3 that much, but I recently started playing it a bit and there's a vast difference to me compared to sims 4.
As for your other points, I never said you didn't enjoy Sims 2 - but you can't have played the game much if you really don't see the difference - or maybe you did but didn't value that depth much because you enjoy different aspects of the life sim experience, which I can understand and it's fine. However take a thing like dates and relationships in Sims 2 for instance - the difference in depth and immersion to the sims 4 is incredibly big. Dates in Sims 2 were actually fun and immersive - imagine if they had built on that and even improved it! That's just a tiny example. Sims 2 wasn't a perfect game - but it definitely feels to me like Sims 4 was a giant step backwards in many regards, except maybe CAS and build tools. NGL if Sims 2 was updated to 64 bit, I probably wouldn't even care about Sims 4 at all. Customization and immersion is 90% of the game to me - and Sims 2 looks great with mods and CC so the graphics aren't really that much of an issue for me.
I think people play the game differently that enjoys different aspects of the lifesim genre, and that's fine. I'm just trying to explain why people go on about gameplay - because the immersion and customization is so important to some players. There's nothing wrong with enjoying the genre differently, but the genre and the games could easily encompass more players, like it used to.
Like I said in my comment the Sims 2 and 3 had a lot more "sandbox", customizable gameplay that just made the game more replayable for tons of players. The Sims 4 doesn't have that as much and people feel restricted. It's just how it is.
A new bed? Yep, one of my couples have been saving their hard earned cash for one and can't wait to test it out. Skiing? Yep, one of my sims is an avid ski lover who lives for the slopes. New hairstyle? Yep, my teen has been growing her hair to get a new look in the hope of attracting the new boy in high school.
Island Living? I haven't even scratched its surface yet... I have an off the grid couple there growing their own coconuts etc, a lifeguard, a conservationist, a beach bum, divers, swimmers, a secret mermaid and, oh yeah, my Scooby Doo investigators are currently living in a scientific lair at the base of the volcano to name but a few.
I guess I'm easily pleased 😁
I played it until Sims 3 came out. But again, it was a long time ago, it is a very old game.
I remember mostly turning premades I didn't like into Zombies, buying the business pack for the Servo (basically the only feature I used from that pack) and only trying the "own your own business" once because just like in Sims 4 it was utterly UTTERLY boring and that vampires were out of control since once a townie was bitten it spread like a zombie apocalypse, and as usual finding the vacation pack boring, as I found it boring in 1 and 4 as well.
That said I happily admit I didn't have the money to buy all the packs and lacked quite a few.
So what you're saying is that you personally prefer "sandbox" gameplay with customizability and you don't feel like you get that with Sims 4.
There's no need to try to speak for others, I'm sure they can do that for themselves.
Also I find the sandbox aspect larger in Sims 4; Sims 3 after all locked you into a single map. Unless you used mods, but that argument is by default invalid since you know, mods.
@LiELF I am not trying to speak for others, I am basically trying to speak for the people I have found that agree with me and that's everything. And it is also just simple logic that watching one event happen exactly in the same way as always is in general more bland watching it unfold differently. So I think that not giving that freedom is the reason why people say the sims 4 doesn't have much replayability. I am not saying I prefer it. I am saying it's easy to understand why sandbox gameplay is more replayable than restricted gameplay.
I am trying to solve the replayability issue and I am just sharing my theory. I am not speaking for anyone and if people don't agree I guess they will tell me, so I don't see why you have to speak for them...
StrangerVille was a whole lot of go here, click this, keep doing the same things over and over until the story ended. I did it twice and honestly I never want to do it again. It's just rather dull game play.
I don't exactly know what other people want in a Sims game. I'm mostly just happy playing with my families. I would like more fun things for them to do, like more options of places to visit and things to do and for the sims themselves to be more interesting. I don't want a boring check list of mundane tasks for them generally. Which is what I consider the active careers and these task based packs to be.
@Beardedgeek But that is probably the only thing the Sims 4 allows more freedom in compared to the Sims 3. If you want to compare the two games, then the thing is the Sims 3 rarely or never had main features of a pack be restricted to one area or world.
We could also argue it's not "sandboxy" as the older games and I can agree with that. Still doesn't change the fact that it has gameplay rather or not one likes the content added. I've been plenty busy this whole lockdown with so much to do it's overwhelming sometimes. My style is semi live mode semi story mode with pose player. I never get enough.
And my sister is a full live mode style player on console.
So no mods or cc. And she spends so many hours having fun her bf forces her off😂😂 she's always sending me pictures. And yes shes older than me so she definitely remembers playing older sims game. And according to her there is plenty of gameplay.
Anytime she runs into a glitch or possible bug she doesn't fly into an outrage, we actually laugh about it together or she screenshots and then moves on and keeps playing because it's a "video game" 😌
I know this was not aimed at me, but I do want to chime in as someone that has played all the main entries with pretty well all the packs. Short summary: loved Sims 1, loved Sims 2, hated Sims 3 at first and grew to love it after Pets, and with Sims 4 was disappointed but have since sort of embraced its faults and started playing different ways.
I think 4 has better graphics, CAS, and BB than 3, however I think 3 does have the better sandbox, personalities, and live mode. To name some of the sandbox things I miss from 3: color wheel, super in depth personalities, controlling seasons, and CAW. I don't care a thing about open worlds and story progression (the latter I actively dislike), but I dislike how 4 did it, too, with half open neighborhoods. I would want open neighborhoods, then load screen to other neighborhoods and other worlds.
However, talking specifically about sandbox elements, you cannot beat CAW. I made my own island where it was winter 3/4 of the time and I never placed a school and a bunch of urban elements to maintain seclusion. I cannot even think of doing half of that in 4, so I had to change the way I play. I have had fun with the game, but I did feel a lot of control was taken away from me. Even my favorite packs in pretty well every other entry are not anymore.