The sims has always been ahead of its time, groundbreaking and exiting to play and explore. It was the highlight of my childhood to adulthood ...until sims 4 was released. I feel like it took a big step back in a lot of ways, made with less love, attention to detail, gameplay, depth, realism, immersiveness, customization and sims personalities. The goal seemed to have shifted from making a game as amazing as possible for all ages to charging as much money as possible while doin bare minimum (small not-even-open worlds with sad houses, no cars, object babys, low polygons, clay textures, bad light, shallow gameplay, less interactions & things to do, „stupid“ AI, no meaningful wants or fears, no chemistry system, etc..), a somewhat half-a*sed, buggy, goofy game for easily entertained 6 year olds with small attention span, limited mental capabilities and semi bad/weird taste, eventhough 60% of players are females between 18-24. having played previous sims titles as a child myself, i NEVER thought: "oh, this is too challenging and complicated. I wish there were less things to customize in the settings, goals faster to reach and no NPC story progression". Instead it just kept me occupied and happy for years and not just 2 hours max.
your big selling point is "moods" when it just makes them seem emotionally unstable and bipolar. Even just the simple happy meter in the sims 3 seemed more realistc then all these random mood buffs from literally anything. There is more to a persons life experience then its "current mood", all other things like reaching a meaningful life goal impact, having wants and fears, attractivness preferences and automated memory system seem to have been forgotten.
I like that you at least tried to give the personalities more depth with lifestyles (which should be base game) u made it somehow mostly annoying. You stayed at home for too long cuz youre taking a break from going through all those loading screens and u get punished with the "indoorsy" trait way too fast that makes them tense for way too long and theres nothing u can do. why does going inside not shorten the tense timer at least?
The AI feels so stupid and not like real people what so ever. how is it worse then back in the day? All those random push ups, constant standing up and sitting back down for no reason, them walking all the way they were gonna go when u cued up a social interaction instead of just stopping, forgetting what they were doing or having to "think" about it for a long time when i told them to do something, other sims not taking care of themselfes or toddlers when im away with a sim, most times just on computer when autonously doing something, etc.
in retail stores they all stand in ONE tiny corner until they decide to buy the only 2 or 3 different objects sims chose to like out of the whole store. The hired employee even with nearly maxed retail skills still isnt doing anything most of the time and keeps forgetting his/her work assignment.
maybe you should re-evaluate some of the people you have hired when single modders & CC creators are able to make better content for the game for free and YT-simmers building better houses for a pack, then the 200+ people you are paying to do so.
People have sank over >>700$/€!!!!!<< into the game (myself included) and THIS is what they got for it. If u make a game intentionally less good to overcorrect sims 3 performance issues, u shouldn‘t charge the same price for it. The sims 4 today, WITH all the expansions, still feels more like a 40€ game, especially if u compare it to games like: Detroit - Become Human, Far Cry 5, Red Dead Redemption 2 (all 60€ masterpieces). Our level of standards shouldnt be people with crappy laptops, it should be about trying to make the BEST game possible! People with low end laptops know they cant play triple-A games on em and dont even expect to be able to (they can also just lower the graphic settings, we shouldnt all suffer because of them even on ultra settings). A >700$ game SHOULD be a triple-A game but at this point ive seen mobile games with better graphics and light engine.
(also sidenote: it used to be a life simulation game and not a doll-house simulator)
… so i guess thats whats "on my mind" when i think about the sims 4, maybe u could explain some of this and why u think the sims 4 is worth over 700$?
EA Staff (Retired)