There's not more I can add to this that hasn't already been said in the video and the posts. Bethygrace I think really said it perfectly.
I distinctly remember back when I used to play, I'd buy a new pack, spend an hour creating a family with the new CAS to start off with, play them a couple of times, and then start a new family because I got bored. Rinse and repeat until Get Famous where I just stopped playing because of bugs and boredom. TS4 does nothing to keep me interested in playing. The sims are dull, have no deep desires, no motivation to do anything, and no reward for actually doing anything. You can complete aspiration after aspiration, but it all means nothing in the end. Nothing about it feels special since you can just do them all with any sim in the exact same way. Likewise, you can NOT complete a single aspiration and it still means nothing because sims don't care about their aspirations. Many of the careers lack depth, relationships are boring since all you need to do is spam interactions and BAM everyone loves each other, there are barely any hobbies. It's all just dull.
And this isn't even mentioning how the non-YA life stages are grossly ignored with even less content. So if you don't like playing YAs, there's even less to keep you interested in playing kids or elders for long term.
Recently I've been seeing more and more Youtube simmers start playing new packs, create a "series' with maybe 5 episodes, then drop it and just do build or CAS challenges. They may never say it, but I think a lot of people are getting less motivation to play TS4 for long periods of time because it just isn't being built to play long term. It may not even be a large majority of them, but it is becoming very noticeable.
Maxis knew that the glorified chat box they spent years developing was beneath the quality of games they were known for. Like 6 years later this game is soooooo hard to work with that we can’t get seemingly minuscule bits of content for arbitrary budgetary reasons. Like a AAA developer funded by a huge game publisher like EA can’t do better than this? Real slap in the face when they talk about how much money this game takes in.
The game is in the state it’s in for a few reasons. First and foremost the people working on this game don’t want to make the type of game that Sims traditionally is. As inappropriate as that sounds they have been very open about this and frequently pit players against their own property (Sims 3) to reinforce this idea. Secondly, the game has been corporatized for the non-gamer. The Sims player base that was passionate enough to make every other Sims game a financial success was not enough. They insisted on getting new players, and they made that priority 1. One could argue they needed new players to cover the loss of people not buying Sims 4 after all the bad stuff was out there, but I don’t argue that because Maxis lied to those players telling them they messed up and they were determined to make this game the best one ever. They really delivered on the mouth service front years ago, but at this point in time none of those words mean anything because so little has materialized. I get that there’s been some significant additions to the base game, but taking 3 years (just tossing a number out there) to add in content that was promised for launch is not my idea of good project management. It’s not like they were busy improving the huge flaws in the game while they pushed out over $100 worth of DLC in the games first year, let alone the cost for the first 3 years.
So true, great post! I do remember how they frequently talked down Sims 3, as if that would make more people buy TS4. No, a company doing that, it's just embarrassing. They lost my respect right there.
Maxis knew that the glorified chat box they spent years developing was beneath the quality of games they were known for. Like 6 years later this game is soooooo hard to work with that we can’t get seemingly minuscule bits of content for arbitrary budgetary reasons. Like a AAA developer funded by a huge game publisher like EA can’t do better than this? Real slap in the face when they talk about how much money this game takes in.
The game is in the state it’s in for a few reasons. First and foremost the people working on this game don’t want to make the type of game that Sims traditionally is. As inappropriate as that sounds they have been very open about this and frequently pit players against their own property (Sims 3) to reinforce this idea. Secondly, the game has been corporatized for the non-gamer. The Sims player base that was passionate enough to make every other Sims game a financial success was not enough. They insisted on getting new players, and they made that priority 1. One could argue they needed new players to cover the loss of people not buying Sims 4 after all the bad stuff was out there, but I don’t argue that because Maxis lied to those players telling them they messed up and they were determined to make this game the best one ever. They really delivered on the mouth service front years ago, but at this point in time none of those words mean anything because so little has materialized. I get that there’s been some significant additions to the base game, but taking 3 years (just tossing a number out there) to add in content that was promised for launch is not my idea of good project management. It’s not like they were busy improving the huge flaws in the game while they pushed out over $100 worth of DLC in the games first year, let alone the cost for the first 3 years.
So true, great post! I do remember how they frequently talked down Sims 3, as if that would make more people buy TS4. No, a company doing that, it's just embarrassing. They lost my respect right there.
It is embarrassing. They should stand by their work, because at the end of the day they made the game and left it in the state it’s in. I do remember a launch review for Sims 4 that stated it’s biggest problem was that Sims 3 exists.. and honestly I believe that is why the studio went out of their way to break the game for good one with the final patch.
Maxis knew that the glorified chat box they spent years developing was beneath the quality of games they were known for. Like 6 years later this game is soooooo hard to work with that we can’t get seemingly minuscule bits of content for arbitrary budgetary reasons. Like a AAA developer funded by a huge game publisher like EA can’t do better than this? Real slap in the face when they talk about how much money this game takes in.
The game is in the state it’s in for a few reasons. First and foremost the people working on this game don’t want to make the type of game that Sims traditionally is. As inappropriate as that sounds they have been very open about this and frequently pit players against their own property (Sims 3) to reinforce this idea. Secondly, the game has been corporatized for the non-gamer. The Sims player base that was passionate enough to make every other Sims game a financial success was not enough. They insisted on getting new players, and they made that priority 1. One could argue they needed new players to cover the loss of people not buying Sims 4 after all the bad stuff was out there, but I don’t argue that because Maxis lied to those players telling them they messed up and they were determined to make this game the best one ever. They really delivered on the mouth service front years ago, but at this point in time none of those words mean anything because so little has materialized. I get that there’s been some significant additions to the base game, but taking 3 years (just tossing a number out there) to add in content that was promised for launch is not my idea of good project management. It’s not like they were busy improving the huge flaws in the game while they pushed out over $100 worth of DLC in the games first year, let alone the cost for the first 3 years.
So true, great post! I do remember how they frequently talked down Sims 3, as if that would make more people buy TS4. No, a company doing that, it's just embarrassing. They lost my respect right there.
It is embarrassing. They should stand by their work, because at the end of the day they made the game and left it in the state it’s in. I do remember a launch review for Sims 4 that stated it’s biggest problem was that Sims 3 exists.. and honestly I believe that is why the studio went out of their way to break the game for good one with the final patch.
My sims 3 game was broken way before the last update.
Maxis knew that the glorified chat box they spent years developing was beneath the quality of games they were known for. Like 6 years later this game is soooooo hard to work with that we can’t get seemingly minuscule bits of content for arbitrary budgetary reasons. Like a AAA developer funded by a huge game publisher like EA can’t do better than this? Real slap in the face when they talk about how much money this game takes in.
The game is in the state it’s in for a few reasons. First and foremost the people working on this game don’t want to make the type of game that Sims traditionally is. As inappropriate as that sounds they have been very open about this and frequently pit players against their own property (Sims 3) to reinforce this idea. Secondly, the game has been corporatized for the non-gamer. The Sims player base that was passionate enough to make every other Sims game a financial success was not enough. They insisted on getting new players, and they made that priority 1. One could argue they needed new players to cover the loss of people not buying Sims 4 after all the bad stuff was out there, but I don’t argue that because Maxis lied to those players telling them they messed up and they were determined to make this game the best one ever. They really delivered on the mouth service front years ago, but at this point in time none of those words mean anything because so little has materialized. I get that there’s been some significant additions to the base game, but taking 3 years (just tossing a number out there) to add in content that was promised for launch is not my idea of good project management. It’s not like they were busy improving the huge flaws in the game while they pushed out over $100 worth of DLC in the games first year, let alone the cost for the first 3 years.
So true, great post! I do remember how they frequently talked down Sims 3, as if that would make more people buy TS4. No, a company doing that, it's just embarrassing. They lost my respect right there.
It is embarrassing. They should stand by their work, because at the end of the day they made the game and left it in the state it’s in. I do remember a launch review for Sims 4 that stated it’s biggest problem was that Sims 3 exists.. and honestly I believe that is why the studio went out of their way to break the game for good one with the final patch.
My sims 3 game was broken way before the last update.
That’s definitely true, but the final update without a doubt did something to make the game completely unstable. My desktop had no major issues with the game until I updated it and now will not run with everything that I have installed. Basically EA issued the pack selector and made sure there was a reason for it to exist even if you were previously not in need of that type of thing.
I agree. I think The Sims 4 lacks the depth and detail you described OP. And the game lacks a lot of things but I just sum it all up as depth now. I joined a sims group that at first was Sims 4 all the time practically but after the Eco Lifestyle uproar some of them decided to try Sims 3 or even Sims 2 and the general consensus of those who chose to overlook appearances is that they don't have to use their imaginations for gameplay anymore. And again, they went back to the previous games. There was shock and awe over the littlest things that I honsetly forgot couldn't be done in Sims 4 from little mannerisms to interactions.
They had their flaws but there was more depth before than now. Sims 4 may be bright and pretty but the gameplay falls short for those of us looking for more. I hope they bring depth back in Sims 5 but I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up lacking as much as if not more than Sims 4.
I agree partly - I miss lifetime goals etc. too, and it irks me that there are potions you can take to instantly lose weight etc. That's too easy. But I don't agree this game is not challenging at all and you get rich in no time.
I just recently got City Living and am playing my first family there. I didn't start with one person - young adult - because, well, yes, that would be too easy. I started with a single mother with a toddler. They moved into one of the cheapest apartments, and it wasn't like her fortunes grew fast. I hooked that sim up with the baby sitter - but I didn't move him in or marry him. I just let them date. The result? She got pregnant with twins. Suddenly you have a young mother with three kids and one income. And that of course meant they needed a new, and larger, apartment. Meeting the rent requirement for that wasn't easy either - I have had the power cut off a few times.
(Her original daughter ended up hooking up with the SAME BABYSITTER too, though - I have 🐸🐸🐸🐸 enabled so they can randomly get questions if they want to have sex, so when he asked, I said yes. Now she and her mother have kids with the same man. A bit disturbing? You bet. None of them wanted to keep him around though, so she is raising the baby by herself aswell.) Now the eldest daughter is a young adult and herself a mom, but with two adults working full-time the economy is finally working and they're saving up money. The twins are now teenagers and right now I haven't decided if I'm keeping them in the household when they age too, to get even more income, for a while.
It seems to me a lot of the people who claim the game is so easy don't do anything to make it challenging either. They use cheats. They start with one young adult, who has time for maxing out a career before even settling with a family. They choose only good traits for their sims. And so forth.
I agree that there are aspects of the game that is too easy - just "grinding" skills like painting or writing can give you a steady income. It is difficult to lose your job or get kicked out of school. Etc. But there are ways to make the gameplay more challenging and you can always make choices that mean it will be more difficult to for example get rich. Like I did. My original sim was a YA when we started (and her daughter a toddler) while now she is an elder and her daughter a young adult. We're not rich yet, atm they have about 6000 simoleons (not counting the value of the furniture, as I have slowly upgraded their furniture with their income).
@jennydb91 I think what's easy and what is difficult is subjective. I don't use cheats and I have to say at times I am frustrated with how easy the game is for me. Since there are no wants and fears there are only the emotions that bring something more negative in the Sims personality but that is easily countered once you eat a nice meal or once you're in a well decorated room. Even if my sims are sad their lives are still pretty normal, the only thing that changes is the way they talk, walk and some interactions. So if my Sims are sad, bored, angry, there is no change in the gameplay.
The "aspirations" are super easy, the career climbing is super easy, the making friends part is easier than even before because every Sim is compatible with everyone.
The making money thing is mid-difficulty but still okay, the student loans are too low, putting out fires is soooo easy. In fact I have never been visited by the Repoman and once we got firefighters I actively made a spellcaster sim put a fire and I couldn't get the firefighters to work since the sims were putting the fire out themselves in seconds. The fire doesn't even spread out fast enough.
I've never had a teenage Sim get kicked out of school or get taken by the social worker (I don't know which one actually happens since I never got to that point). I have a Sim that I WANT to be bad in school and get taken away but I can't because not doing homework doesn't decrease the grade enough and sometimes he does his own homework on his own and puff the grade increases a lot. Even if I delete his homework he steals his sibling's homework.
Okay what else. I could name a few more but I've been typing for a long time hehe.
I think you need to skip school several times to get kicked out, not doing homework isn't enough. But yes, you might not have time before the kid ages up and changes schools, lol.
Nothing matters in TS4 in my opinion. If a Sim has low motives and or in a bad mood none of that matters if your Sim is running a store in TS4. It matters a lot in TS2. Customers will get mad lose interest in a product, complain to the owner (your Sim) about the employees, lose a star and leave mad at the business and your Sim. Your Sim won't be able to do a successful sell, ring up customers fast enough without them storming out (even with good cashier skills) and the business loses stars that lower it's reputation that immediately cause it to get less customers. Emotional buffs do very little for real gameplay consequences in TS4.
What else that won't happen in TS4 are consequences to other relationships or meetings. Sims will still engage with other Sims (even in a bad mood) the other Sims will listen, smile, talk and joke etc. None of the crossing the arms or sticking their fingers in their ears they don't want to hear it, and or turning away from a conversation they don't want to know about. Nor even a bored response. TS4 Sims are pretty much open to anyone and everything, no matter how good or bad a mood your own Sim is in and or displaying. Sims in other games can't successfully encourage other Sims to do anything, because the mood is not high enough, their job performance suffers and no they won't be getting a promotion if they go to work in a bad mood or very low motives. They just might get fired and or demoted. Or even lose a skill point. There are consequences for not going to work happy and fullfilled. It won't matter in TS4 even if your Sim is in the 'red' and needs to eat at work..they aren't going to die at work. They might in TS2 if there are other motives that also need to be filled. It's why you can sometimes see 'Died on Another Lot'.
What does it matter if a kid or anyone in the family goes hides in the bed, or to cry it out, and or to hide the embarrassment, no one in that household even cares. No one goes to encourage or comfort them. It's like oh, look, how cute, but no point in it if the other Sims are so unaware.
TS4 Sims are not going to look up at you and state' No, can't you see I'm upset, I don't feel like it.' So, it really doesn't matter how much you think you have accomplished something in the game with getting your Sim to the next level of an aspiration, and or a career or new skill or whtatever, you could have done that in any game, any game, what is supposed to matter is the Sim knows and remembers how hard it was for 'them' and not about you but them. TS4 will never be about the actual Sim, it's all been a false promise from day one.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
TS4 is primarily about Young Adults, for Young adults ( but, hey let’s be honest, it’s mostly for teens and below even if the rating does not officially support the latter). The game Is being loaded with different themes and concepts and objects and it all looks snazzy and jazzy and fun, but what’s really happening is that all the fireworks are used as a distraction, so that the player does not immediately recognize the almost lack of Intelligent game play including long term goals. Why? Because the target audience may simply not have the attention span to get into intelligent gameplay and finish long term goals in games. They want to move on to the next level or the next theme or concept as quickly as possible. By keeping the game engine simple, it can support a lot more fireworks at a relatively quick turn around than if it was a complex core engine trying to deal with more demanding ai systems. That’s why we’re only being TOLD that the sims are smart and intelligent, but not SHOWN.
It’s a sign of the times. I’m involved with a lot of YA’s and younger folks and man, I’m not that old myself but I certainly feel I come from a different place in time...Short Attention Span is a serious thing...
What saddens me is that many main stream movies, ads, shows and games actually stimulate and cultivate this kind of disposable amusement, like a quick fix. Im not blaming one or the other. However, the appreciation for something simple but meaningful seems no longer encouraged.
I personally blame parents who put smart phones in their kids' hands to distract them and keep them quiet before they can even talk, and fail to expose them to intellectually stimulating media like kids' documentary programs, physical books, and tough old 8 bit and 16 bit games because they had kids for the aesthetic or the experience or because they felt social pressure to, then didn't want to actually interact with them outside of feeding them and enjoying all the cute parts. In short, a whole generation of parents that treated their kids like pets did this.
I wish I read this thread sooner, but when I was growing up, my family wasn't very well off. We actually didn't get a lot of toys when we were kids, maybe just one or two a year. But what my parents invested in was an encyclopedia set and a trip to the library for free membership! And it was great! Going to the library, I found out how to make my own dolls and dollhouses and make my own jewelry and clothes and other crafts and toys. My brother made his own wrestling ring for a cardboard box that lasted longer than any factory-made toy. It also instilled a love for reading and curiosity to learn things outside of one's self - to this day, my sister and I are still avid readers.
Oh yeah, and in older games, a lot of times the tutorials are just to give you the basics, but part of the gameplay and fun is to discover other features and the creative ways you can use those features. It's like that with TS1 through TS3.
Now, I'm reading reviews where these old games get rated low because it doesn't hold the players hand or nothing is spelled out so that the player has to actually make the effort to think things through. Smh....
I don't think there is any salvaging TS4 so for The Sims 5, I would really want the game to be more challenging like the older iterations and have depth, not only for veteran simmers, but to show new simmers what a great life simulation game can be.
Maxis knew that the glorified chat box they spent years developing was beneath the quality of games they were known for. Like 6 years later this game is soooooo hard to work with that we can’t get seemingly minuscule bits of content for arbitrary budgetary reasons. Like a AAA developer funded by a huge game publisher like EA can’t do better than this? Real slap in the face when they talk about how much money this game takes in.
The game is in the state it’s in for a few reasons. First and foremost the people working on this game don’t want to make the type of game that Sims traditionally is. As inappropriate as that sounds they have been very open about this and frequently pit players against their own property (Sims 3) to reinforce this idea. Secondly, the game has been corporatized for the non-gamer. The Sims player base that was passionate enough to make every other Sims game a financial success was not enough. They insisted on getting new players, and they made that priority 1. One could argue they needed new players to cover the loss of people not buying Sims 4 after all the bad stuff was out there, but I don’t argue that because Maxis lied to those players telling them they messed up and they were determined to make this game the best one ever. They really delivered on the mouth service front years ago, but at this point in time none of those words mean anything because so little has materialized. I get that there’s been some significant additions to the base game, but taking 3 years (just tossing a number out there) to add in content that was promised for launch is not my idea of good project management. It’s not like they were busy improving the huge flaws in the game while they pushed out over $100 worth of DLC in the games first year, let alone the cost for the first 3 years.
So true, great post! I do remember how they frequently talked down Sims 3, as if that would make more people buy TS4. No, a company doing that, it's just embarrassing. They lost my respect right there.
It is embarrassing. They should stand by their work, because at the end of the day they made the game and left it in the state it’s in. I do remember a launch review for Sims 4 that stated it’s biggest problem was that Sims 3 exists.. and honestly I believe that is why the studio went out of their way to break the game for good one with the final patch.
My sims 3 game was broken way before the last update.
That’s definitely true, but the final update without a doubt did something to make the game completely unstable. My desktop had no major issues with the game until I updated it and now will not run with everything that I have installed. Basically EA issued the pack selector and made sure there was a reason for it to exist even if you were previously not in need of that type of thing.
I don't know what happened, but all of a sudden I can load all the TS3 EPs and SPs at once - and this is on patch 1.69 through Origin. I did reinstall the game because I messed it up trying to use Reshade, but I also moved the game to an SSD. It's been playing fine and stable with very little lag despite loading all the packs. *Shrug* Not going to question it, and I'm loving the game even more!
I feel bad for the people disappointed in TS4. I don't think the devs will do anything to improve TS4 in terms of depth and gameplay because I think those are core functions - they would need to rework the engine. And if they haven't done anything with that for the past 6 years, they're not going to do that now.
I do have more hope for TS5 so I think more focus should be put toward that and any features you want implemented in it.
The Sims 4 lacks in every department. The only things they somewhat got right is CAS and Build Mode, but they had to sacrifice Create-A-Style or even a basic color wheel (or slider for skin tones). So even the good aspects have some negatives and downgrades.
Gameplay is just a BOREFEST. It's not just the lack of long term gameplay, that's an issue too. But what makes this game practically unplayable for me and many other simmers is how INSULTINGLY bad AI is, how deeply flawed and poorly designed the emotions system is, and how traits do next to nothing to make each Sim unique. The fact the world is extremely static is also a huge let-down.
It honestly doesn't feel like you're playing a game. It feels like a toy, like a doll house, and everything rellies on your imagination. The game doesn't do ANYTHING to make your gameplay interesting. On top of that, the game reeks of cheapness. Be it for the fake 2D backdrops, the extremely low poly critters, the fake vehicles and fake people everywhere in the background, etc. I just don't feel like I'm playing a game, like I said. It feels like a play and I have to do all the work. I have to write the script, I have to add the conflict, I have to switch to other households to make them progress in any way. Playing is not fun. It's a CHORE.
I'm also sick and tired of this fake narrative that The Sims 3 runs really bad for everyone. I have played it on 12 different gaming PCs over the years, and I never had MAJOR lag or performance issues except in Isla Paradiso or using Create-a-Style. But even CASt runs smoothly on my new gaming PC. But the game run just fine even on my old i5 750 (from 2009) with a GTX 960 GPU (VIDEO). So I honestly don't understand on what PCs are playing people who claim the game to be unplayable due to lag. It's really frustrating.
It gets boring quickly if you just play with one family. I fill the whole game to the brim of allowed Sims with my stored families and it's interesting to see them meet up, interact and the families evolve and some die when I check on them again. They appear to be carrying on with their lives in the meantime as many of them are greyed out and if I want to play them, find they are in the gym, or a waiter at the last restaurant the last family I played with visited.
I suppose I don't look too much at the traits but I like SimCity 4 and running a community and approach it like that. Eco-lifestyle is quite good for that. (if I can get to grips with the voting)! I leave it for a bit and then come back to it. It's not the game but life bugging me at the moment.
The Sims 4 lacks in every department. The only things they somewhat got right is CAS and Build Mode, but they had to sacrifice Create-A-Style or even a basic color wheel (or slider for skin tones). So even the good aspects have some negatives and downgrades.
Gameplay is just a BOREFEST. It's not just the lack of long term gameplay, that's an issue too. But what makes this game practically unplayable for me and many other simmers is how INSULTINGLY bad AI is, how deeply flawed and poorly designed the emotions system is, and how traits do next to nothing to make each Sim unique. The fact the world is extremely static is also a huge let-down.
It honestly doesn't feel like you're playing a game. It feels like a toy, like a doll house, and everything rellies on your imagination. The game doesn't do ANYTHING to make your gameplay interesting. On top of that, the game reeks of cheapness. Be it for the fake 2D backdrops, the extremely low poly critters, the fake vehicles and fake people everywhere in the background, etc. I just don't feel like I'm playing a game, like I said. It feels like a play and I have to do all the work. I have to write the script, I have to add the conflict, I have to switch to other households to make them progress in any way. Playing is not fun. It's a CHORE.
I'm also sick and tired of this fake narrative that The Sims 3 runs really bad for everyone. I have played it on 12 different gaming PCs over the years, and I never had MAJOR lag or performance issues except in Isla Paradiso or using Create-a-Style. But even CASt runs smoothly on my new gaming PC. But the game run just fine even on my old i5 750 (from 2009) with a GTX 960 GPU (VIDEO). So I honestly don't understand on what PCs are playing people who claim the game to be unplayable due to lag. It's really frustrating.
I agree wholeheartly, gimping the game had not helped even if Sims may run well as there is hardly any features that stress the performance of the game. When someone claim that Sims 3 was unplayable on their system and if it did I just point out the dev and publisher. How does this put EA/Maxis in an good light when they do not tweak their own game regularly. Sims 3 ran fine on my system and the only pack that gave me problems was IP which was problems caused by Developers coding and was never fixed and nothing to do with my systems as I owned 7 systems.
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I distinctly remember back when I used to play, I'd buy a new pack, spend an hour creating a family with the new CAS to start off with, play them a couple of times, and then start a new family because I got bored. Rinse and repeat until Get Famous where I just stopped playing because of bugs and boredom. TS4 does nothing to keep me interested in playing. The sims are dull, have no deep desires, no motivation to do anything, and no reward for actually doing anything. You can complete aspiration after aspiration, but it all means nothing in the end. Nothing about it feels special since you can just do them all with any sim in the exact same way. Likewise, you can NOT complete a single aspiration and it still means nothing because sims don't care about their aspirations. Many of the careers lack depth, relationships are boring since all you need to do is spam interactions and BAM everyone loves each other, there are barely any hobbies. It's all just dull.
And this isn't even mentioning how the non-YA life stages are grossly ignored with even less content. So if you don't like playing YAs, there's even less to keep you interested in playing kids or elders for long term.
Recently I've been seeing more and more Youtube simmers start playing new packs, create a "series' with maybe 5 episodes, then drop it and just do build or CAS challenges. They may never say it, but I think a lot of people are getting less motivation to play TS4 for long periods of time because it just isn't being built to play long term. It may not even be a large majority of them, but it is becoming very noticeable.
So true, great post! I do remember how they frequently talked down Sims 3, as if that would make more people buy TS4. No, a company doing that, it's just embarrassing. They lost my respect right there.
It is embarrassing. They should stand by their work, because at the end of the day they made the game and left it in the state it’s in. I do remember a launch review for Sims 4 that stated it’s biggest problem was that Sims 3 exists.. and honestly I believe that is why the studio went out of their way to break the game for good one with the final patch.
My sims 3 game was broken way before the last update.
That’s definitely true, but the final update without a doubt did something to make the game completely unstable. My desktop had no major issues with the game until I updated it and now will not run with everything that I have installed. Basically EA issued the pack selector and made sure there was a reason for it to exist even if you were previously not in need of that type of thing.
They had their flaws but there was more depth before than now. Sims 4 may be bright and pretty but the gameplay falls short for those of us looking for more. I hope they bring depth back in Sims 5 but I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up lacking as much as if not more than Sims 4.
I agree partly - I miss lifetime goals etc. too, and it irks me that there are potions you can take to instantly lose weight etc. That's too easy. But I don't agree this game is not challenging at all and you get rich in no time.
I just recently got City Living and am playing my first family there. I didn't start with one person - young adult - because, well, yes, that would be too easy. I started with a single mother with a toddler. They moved into one of the cheapest apartments, and it wasn't like her fortunes grew fast. I hooked that sim up with the baby sitter - but I didn't move him in or marry him. I just let them date. The result? She got pregnant with twins. Suddenly you have a young mother with three kids and one income. And that of course meant they needed a new, and larger, apartment. Meeting the rent requirement for that wasn't easy either - I have had the power cut off a few times.
(Her original daughter ended up hooking up with the SAME BABYSITTER too, though - I have 🐸🐸🐸🐸 enabled so they can randomly get questions if they want to have sex, so when he asked, I said yes. Now she and her mother have kids with the same man. A bit disturbing? You bet. None of them wanted to keep him around though, so she is raising the baby by herself aswell.) Now the eldest daughter is a young adult and herself a mom, but with two adults working full-time the economy is finally working and they're saving up money. The twins are now teenagers and right now I haven't decided if I'm keeping them in the household when they age too, to get even more income, for a while.
It seems to me a lot of the people who claim the game is so easy don't do anything to make it challenging either. They use cheats. They start with one young adult, who has time for maxing out a career before even settling with a family. They choose only good traits for their sims. And so forth.
I agree that there are aspects of the game that is too easy - just "grinding" skills like painting or writing can give you a steady income. It is difficult to lose your job or get kicked out of school. Etc. But there are ways to make the gameplay more challenging and you can always make choices that mean it will be more difficult to for example get rich. Like I did. My original sim was a YA when we started (and her daughter a toddler) while now she is an elder and her daughter a young adult. We're not rich yet, atm they have about 6000 simoleons (not counting the value of the furniture, as I have slowly upgraded their furniture with their income).
The "aspirations" are super easy, the career climbing is super easy, the making friends part is easier than even before because every Sim is compatible with everyone.
The making money thing is mid-difficulty but still okay, the student loans are too low, putting out fires is soooo easy. In fact I have never been visited by the Repoman and once we got firefighters I actively made a spellcaster sim put a fire and I couldn't get the firefighters to work since the sims were putting the fire out themselves in seconds. The fire doesn't even spread out fast enough.
I've never had a teenage Sim get kicked out of school or get taken by the social worker (I don't know which one actually happens since I never got to that point). I have a Sim that I WANT to be bad in school and get taken away but I can't because not doing homework doesn't decrease the grade enough and sometimes he does his own homework on his own and puff the grade increases a lot. Even if I delete his homework he steals his sibling's homework.
Okay what else. I could name a few more but I've been typing for a long time hehe.
What else that won't happen in TS4 are consequences to other relationships or meetings. Sims will still engage with other Sims (even in a bad mood) the other Sims will listen, smile, talk and joke etc. None of the crossing the arms or sticking their fingers in their ears they don't want to hear it, and or turning away from a conversation they don't want to know about. Nor even a bored response. TS4 Sims are pretty much open to anyone and everything, no matter how good or bad a mood your own Sim is in and or displaying. Sims in other games can't successfully encourage other Sims to do anything, because the mood is not high enough, their job performance suffers and no they won't be getting a promotion if they go to work in a bad mood or very low motives. They just might get fired and or demoted. Or even lose a skill point. There are consequences for not going to work happy and fullfilled. It won't matter in TS4 even if your Sim is in the 'red' and needs to eat at work..they aren't going to die at work. They might in TS2 if there are other motives that also need to be filled. It's why you can sometimes see 'Died on Another Lot'.
What does it matter if a kid or anyone in the family goes hides in the bed, or to cry it out, and or to hide the embarrassment, no one in that household even cares. No one goes to encourage or comfort them. It's like oh, look, how cute, but no point in it if the other Sims are so unaware.
TS4 Sims are not going to look up at you and state' No, can't you see I'm upset, I don't feel like it.' So, it really doesn't matter how much you think you have accomplished something in the game with getting your Sim to the next level of an aspiration, and or a career or new skill or whtatever, you could have done that in any game, any game, what is supposed to matter is the Sim knows and remembers how hard it was for 'them' and not about you but them. TS4 will never be about the actual Sim, it's all been a false promise from day one.
I wish I read this thread sooner, but when I was growing up, my family wasn't very well off. We actually didn't get a lot of toys when we were kids, maybe just one or two a year. But what my parents invested in was an encyclopedia set and a trip to the library for free membership! And it was great! Going to the library, I found out how to make my own dolls and dollhouses and make my own jewelry and clothes and other crafts and toys. My brother made his own wrestling ring for a cardboard box that lasted longer than any factory-made toy. It also instilled a love for reading and curiosity to learn things outside of one's self - to this day, my sister and I are still avid readers.
Oh yeah, and in older games, a lot of times the tutorials are just to give you the basics, but part of the gameplay and fun is to discover other features and the creative ways you can use those features. It's like that with TS1 through TS3.
Now, I'm reading reviews where these old games get rated low because it doesn't hold the players hand or nothing is spelled out so that the player has to actually make the effort to think things through. Smh....
I don't think there is any salvaging TS4 so for The Sims 5, I would really want the game to be more challenging like the older iterations and have depth, not only for veteran simmers, but to show new simmers what a great life simulation game can be.
I don't know what happened, but all of a sudden I can load all the TS3 EPs and SPs at once - and this is on patch 1.69 through Origin. I did reinstall the game because I messed it up trying to use Reshade, but I also moved the game to an SSD. It's been playing fine and stable with very little lag despite loading all the packs. *Shrug* Not going to question it, and I'm loving the game even more!
I do have more hope for TS5 so I think more focus should be put toward that and any features you want implemented in it.
Gameplay is just a BOREFEST. It's not just the lack of long term gameplay, that's an issue too. But what makes this game practically unplayable for me and many other simmers is how INSULTINGLY bad AI is, how deeply flawed and poorly designed the emotions system is, and how traits do next to nothing to make each Sim unique. The fact the world is extremely static is also a huge let-down.
It honestly doesn't feel like you're playing a game. It feels like a toy, like a doll house, and everything rellies on your imagination. The game doesn't do ANYTHING to make your gameplay interesting. On top of that, the game reeks of cheapness. Be it for the fake 2D backdrops, the extremely low poly critters, the fake vehicles and fake people everywhere in the background, etc. I just don't feel like I'm playing a game, like I said. It feels like a play and I have to do all the work. I have to write the script, I have to add the conflict, I have to switch to other households to make them progress in any way. Playing is not fun. It's a CHORE.
I'm also sick and tired of this fake narrative that The Sims 3 runs really bad for everyone. I have played it on 12 different gaming PCs over the years, and I never had MAJOR lag or performance issues except in Isla Paradiso or using Create-a-Style. But even CASt runs smoothly on my new gaming PC. But the game run just fine even on my old i5 750 (from 2009) with a GTX 960 GPU (VIDEO). So I honestly don't understand on what PCs are playing people who claim the game to be unplayable due to lag. It's really frustrating.
I suppose I don't look too much at the traits but I like SimCity 4 and running a community and approach it like that. Eco-lifestyle is quite good for that. (if I can get to grips with the voting)! I leave it for a bit and then come back to it. It's not the game but life bugging me at the moment.
I agree wholeheartly, gimping the game had not helped even if Sims may run well as there is hardly any features that stress the performance of the game. When someone claim that Sims 3 was unplayable on their system and if it did I just point out the dev and publisher. How does this put EA/Maxis in an good light when they do not tweak their own game regularly. Sims 3 ran fine on my system and the only pack that gave me problems was IP which was problems caused by Developers coding and was never fixed and nothing to do with my systems as I owned 7 systems.