Sims 411 - Forum Feedback, May 6th

Hi guys. Why did ghosts disappeared in paranormal catalog? My sim cant work without these little green flying pokemons. Playing without mods and... bug or not?
About content. Stop creating paranormal content it sooo boring ok? Sims is REALITY GAME, not fairy tale!!

It would be nice to have accessory tops the same way we have accessory bottoms so we can layer our sims clothing. It would be nice to have a cute jacket to go over an outfit or a nice lacey cami to go underneath a top or dress. The latter is particularly important to me as a breast cancer survivor because you can't the same necklines as you had before your operation especially if you have a prosthesis rather than a reconstruction but you still want to wear attractive feminine clothing.

When will Maxis stop ignoring literally half the planet? Can we have a genuine Southern Hemisphere world with seasons the reverse of the Northern Hemisphere world and the sunlight and shadows moving anticlockwise like they do south of the equator. This does affect building especially if you are trying to recreate a real life Southern Hemisphere building. Moonlight Falls strangely enough appears to have Southern Hemisphere lighting so if you can do it in the Sims 3 why can't you do it in the Sims 4?

Death and inheritance needs to be looked at. If your sims' elderly parents lived on another lot it would be nice if they received a share of their parents' estate. Cemeteries with mausoleums like the Sims 3 would be nice so you can retrieve the gravestones of sims that died on other lots and place them in the cemetery . Also can the game stop emptying the houses of dead sims because it is a real pain to refurnish those homes.

Some sort of story progression would be nice so the townie families wouldn't die out and leave stripped houses.

Can I express how much I loathe and detest the ridiculously out sized microscope. I've worked in a research laboratory and I can tell you that light microscopes are nowhere near that size. Please can we have realistically sized microscopes.

And on a final note; are we ever going to get fairies?

The top priority should be fixing bugs and inter packs compatibility. Not churn out new packs to dazle the consumers.

"LiELF;c-17874809" wrote:
Hello devs! *waves exuberantly*

First, I just want to say thank you for the efforts you have all put in these past years to appease us, your bloodthirsty community. I know it can't be easy and I don't envy your position. We can be harsh and relentless at times, but we can also be super excited and grateful. I just hope we can always remember to be respectful. You guys are awesome, especially when you continue to find ways to connect and communicate with us. Thank you so much. <3

So on the 411 live stream topic, I'll start by saying I do really like the livestreams. I look forward to anything you want to share, even if it's not big announcements or the things I want to hear about the most. I hope they continue to be a regular thing. I'd like to hear more about the workings of Maxis, similar information that we got in the community vote threads like the hows and whys of creation. I'd like to know more about the mechanics and what it takes to animate and create new game features. I know it's probably kind of hard to do with everyone still working at home, but maybe in the future?
On that note, if the game is continuing on for more years to come, I'd really like an idea of what kind of content we can expect. Will there be more Occults? Do you still encourage ideas from the community? What if you were to choose some specific topics and let us go nuts brainstorming (kind of like the old Toddler thread here on the forums back in the day) to get a chance to get some of those ideas in the game? I know you've all been reaching out more and I know that I, for one, never run out of ideas, lol. But maybe even a quarterly idea thread with a flexible topic that you give us could give everyone inspiration. No guarantees, of course. Or maybe a series of quarterly polls to feel out player interests? Just something to keep everyone engaged. I really loved the community Stuff Pack votes (even though they never turned out the way I wanted them too, haha) but now that you do Kits, maybe you could throw out some polls and voting for those? That would be fun. :)

Now for concerns and what I'd like to see discussed.

My main concern at this time for TS4 is about the "cancel culture" and supposed "sensitivity" issues and how they are preventing the game from blossoming into the greatness of past iterations. I know that, as a company, you don't want bad PR so if someone on Twitter stirs up a fuss about something "triggering" in the game, the response tends to be damage control, assurance of a "safe space" in the game, and instant removal or change. But I think you're not looking at these issues fairly and rationally. We're talking about a 20 year old triple A life simulation game whose roots are in satire and the exploitation of failure of the human condition. At least, that's what the game was originally about. It's no secret that since TS4's release, the core player base has been consistently disappointed with the absence of struggle, failure, consequences and general balance of the dark things in life. This is the meat of what made the previous games so engaging. It was the challenge of life, peppered with the ability to laugh when everything goes wrong. The game was relatable, surprising, engaging and often unpredictable. Sims 4 came right out of the gate in an ultra positive, safe, utopian, false paradise where no real threats exist. It was unconvincing. There was nothing for the player to sink their teeth into, no real obstacles, no force of challenge looming on the horizon to overcome. This is why players got bored so quickly. It wasn't much of a life simulator at all.

I know that some of you are really into Star Wars so I'm going to use The Force and the general SW themes as my analogy. A good life simulator is like The Force. It must always have balance. To have a light side, there must be a dark. To have good, you must have evil. To have triumph, you must have threat of failure. To have heroes like the Jedi (Sims), there must be villains (obstacles and challenges). Without the Dark Side, a Jedi has no purpose. It's the evil and darkness that they confront that gives them that purpose. It's the struggle of fighting and conquering their own inner darkness and getting up after they fall...it's those things that make the audience feel their pain, their despair, and relate to it, and jump up and cheer when the Jedi ascends to victory. It's necessary.

I say this because I know there's been a recent outrage (again) on Twitter about the Hates Children/dazed effect and somehow this translating as a non-consensual act. Listen. I know nobody on the team put this in with that kind of thing in mind. And many, many of us are aware that the dazed emotion does not only equal intoxication. This assumption on that person's complaint belongs to that person alone (and, of course, the small riot of people that they managed to stir up) and I can't even fathom why this was immediately promised to change. The wording, sure, I can completely get on board with that...but the feature? Let me point out that in order for a dazed Sim with the Hates Children trait to be in any position to Try For Baby in the first place requires... what now?....Yes. player consent. So this quick jump to turn this into a controversy without thinking it through was poor judgement on the part of the rabble rouser. And this really bothers me because I have hardly any Alien abduction pregnancies anymore, and worse...my Vampires no longer feed on sleeping Sims, if they can even break into a house. This nerfing over rash, self-inflicted hysteria that holds every. single. action. under a magnifying glass is going to lead to a complete train wreck of this game. What is the next thing the "woke" internet ragers are coming for? Arguing interactions being considered "abusive"?

There comes a time when artists and creators need to stand up for the integrity of their work. The main question should be, "is the player in control of this?" And if the answer is yes, then it stays. If the answer is no, then don't take it away completely or nerf it to oblivion. Change or add a way to give that control back to the player. Every person who plays this game deserves to be able to play the way they choose to, and nobody should be policing what can and cannot be in someone else's world or story. You, as developers, only need to give us the tools to play the way we want. Just because something can be interpreted as something offensive, doesn't mean that it is. There is a huge difference. Those who don't want it happening in their game don't need to direct it. Again, consent is there, it lies with the player. And that is where it belongs.

Please look over this thread on the topic here, I would really appreciate if you guys heard the other side: https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/989425/tired-of-being-babysit-by-a-game/p1

Thank you all for your willingness to listen. I'm sorry it's such a long post, I hope it makes sense. There's so much I could have talked about but I chose to try to keep it limited to what's on my mind now. I really hope you decide to do this again with the community.

Peace and good health to you all. :)

????????????
The queen has spoken. End of thread.
Really big concern many of us have? please please take this into consideration! I love this game and don't want to see everything I love about it killed off in favor of cancel culture. She expressed it better than I ever could 1000 times!!

My comments are regarding the Gallery, and the tag/filter system found within it.

Firstly, I think filtering lots by amount of bedrooms and bathrooms should be available. In build mode, we’re able to enter the amount of bedrooms and bathrooms, but this information becomes useless. When searching on the gallery, we are currently unable to filter by amount of bedrooms and bathrooms, which should be a feature. Many websites include this feature, and it should be a basic filter. I therefore think that when someone uploads a residential lot to the gallery, it should be a required tag, meaning we can successfully filter by bedrooms and bathrooms. Think when you try to create a household but don’t enter a name. The game will tell you your Sim needs a name. This is my idea for tagging bedrooms and bathrooms.

Secondly, filtering by packs on the Gallery. This feature is severely flawed. When filtering by packs, we expect to see builds with those filtered packs ONLY. Instead, we see builds with those packs AND others. This renders the filter useless. There is no point to it. Therefore, this filter needs to be updated in some way, as there is no need for it in its current state.

I would like to add two more items to my feedback.

please give us complete patch notes. The entire purpose of patch notes is to inform people about changes made in the game. It is nice we got a list with all the trait changes but it should have been with the actual patch, not a month afterwards. Full patch notes are also important for those using or creating mods or cc. If we know that a certain item/gameplay mechanic has changed, we know to watch out with cc and mods that use this specific item.

Secondly I like the transparency about the bug fixes for the last couple of months. I hope you continue with communicating this way. Though I hope some of the big bugs will be addressed soon. Small bug fixes are nice but less urgent than the big ones. Apart from the simulation lag I really hope for fixes for stairs, gardening, food timers dissappearing.

"Simburian;c-17875010" wrote:
Just to reiterate before you close the thread soon.

Do more for multipack or all-pack owners and go deeper into what can be done to tie up packs and how to use new stuff in old worlds and what can be done with traits and less into the frivolous stuff like burning houses down.

I love the game, have a good gaming machine and don't get a lot of the lags others get. Be more honest about specifications and prouder of what the game is about.

I know I'm much to old to play the game but it keeps my brain active and I enjoy it.

(If you can see to getting the curtain placements improved though, I'd be very grateful)! :)

there is no such thing as age for play games ❤️ sending love

Just to reiterate before you close the thread soon.

Do more for multipack or all-pack owners and go deeper into what can be done to tie up packs and how to use new stuff in old worlds and what can be done with traits and less into the frivolous stuff like burning houses down.

I love the game, have a good gaming machine and don't get a lot of the lags others get. Be more honest about specifications and prouder of what the game is about.

I know I'm much to old to play the game but it keeps my brain active and I enjoy it.

(If you can see to getting the curtain placements improved though, I'd be very grateful)! :)

Hi SimGurus!

Thanks for this opportunity, I have a lot of things I want to talk about. I love The Sims 4 so much, it’s my favourite The Sims game, but there’s still room for improvement, and today I want to talk mostly about cultural representation. I’m sorry that this will be long, I just have a lot of things I want to explain to give you a better picture of what I mean. Also, if I sound angry or irritated I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound that way, this is just the way I write and sometimes I may sound a bit harsh, I’m aware of it and I try to not sound too harsh, but if I were to say the things out loud you would hear in the tone that I’m not angry or anything, I’m neutral in tone, this is just the way I write.

In general I wonder how you work with representation. I know you do work with it, because the game contains things from a lot of different cultures, and you have talked about how you have discussed things with people of those cultures. I also understand that you can’t represent every single culture in this game. Even so, I feel like I’ve never truly been represented in any The Sims game, including The Sims 4.

I’m Swedish, and for those not knowing, it is a country in Northern Europe. You might think right away that since Sweden is in Europe it would be represented by Get Together, since Windenburg is inspired by Europe. The thing is that Europe is very diverse, and Windenburg is mostly inspired by Central Europe, specifically Germany with a touch of Germany’s neighbouring countries.

So, when I look around in the game to see if my culture is represented anywhere I don’t find much. For example, not a single mailbox looks like typically Swedish mailboxes, not a single outdoor wood panel looks like what most houses looks like here in Sweden (most houses and cottages have vertical wood panels with a colour called Falu Rödfärg), the only radiator (from Vampires GP) doesn’t look like Swedish radiators (and we have radiators in at least every room that has a window), and so on and so forth.

And, for example, when I look at the list of food and baked goods I can’t find anything that looks very typically Swedish (I tried to make a Swedish restaurant in Dine Out a little while back, and I ended up almost only adding different types of bread to the menu), and another example is the cereals that are in the game right now, they look like candy to my Swedish eyes, we don’t really have any cereals looking like that in Sweden, our cereals are typically in different shades of brown and yellow. Though I have seen Fruity Loops packages IRL they aren’t in the cereal aisle, they’re in the “from all around the world” aisle. It’s the same with a lot of the food and baked goods in The Sims 4, almost all of the things are things I expect to see at restaurants with different cultural themes, or in the “from all around the world” food aisle, not in restaurants with no theme (or a Swedish theme) or in all the other aisles in the grocery store.

Also, the categorisation is weird to me when it comes to the food, for example, in Sweden pancakes are eaten for brunch, lunch or dinner, most typically for dinner (they’re not as sweet as American pancakes), never for breakfast, but in The Sims they’re only for breakfast and brunch (unless I have my sims making them in the morning and put them in the fridge for the evening).

But there is actually one thing that represents me and my Nordic fellas, and it came with Snowy Escape, a pack inspired by Japan. It’s the “shoe rule”.

I’ve been playing The Sims since the year 2000, and I remember so strongly how the weirdest thing for me was that sims didn’t take off their shoes indoors, I was so baffled. Sure, I was 9 years old, I didn’t know that people wear shoes indoors in other cultures, and I didn’t know anything about programming and how hard it would’ve been to have sims taking off their shoes indoors, but, for me, it was still the weirdest thing in The Sims 1 base game, that’s how strong the culture of taking off shoes indoors is for us Swedes and some of our neighbouring countries and cultures.

Taking off shoes indoors is found in so many cultures around the world, not only Japan and the Nordic European countries and cultures, but it’s also in some Polynesian cultures, some Middle Eastern cultures, some Indian cultures, and so on.

So, I just wonder, why is the ability for our sims to take off their shoes indoors in a pack inspired by Japan? I completely understand that you can’t add everything to the base game, and it makes sense to have packs with themes like Snowy Escape having a Japanese theme and therefore it makes sense that we have to buy that pack to get yukata, kimono, some types of food etc, but to buy a pack inspired by Japan to have our sims taking off their shoes indoors, which is a very multicultural thing, just makes no sense to me.

Another thing about the “shoe rule” is that to activate it we have to either have a “No shoes” sign in our sims’ homes (which makes no sense to me to put in a home, I’ve never seen such a thing in a home before, that feels like something that would be in a hotel that has a lot of international guests) or to put a shoe-rack that comes in two variants, one with stereotypical female shoes and one with stereotypical male shoes, there’s no neutral one or just an empty one (also, the shoe rack is weirdly small to my Swedish eyes). I don’t see why the “shoe rule” can’t be set in the building’s settings, in the upper left corner of the screen, the same way you can make settings for student housing.

Yet another thing about the “shoe rule” is the “Shoes? Schmoes!” moodlet. To me, as someone from a culture where we don’t wear shoes indoors, it feels so foreign that even a child would walk indoors with shoes. I even asked some friends about this and we all thought the same, children in Sweden, in general, don’t go indoors with shoes on. The way they would act if they were in a mischievous or defiant mood, and would do anything that had to do with shoes, it would be to walk outdoors without shoes on. They would run outdoors in only their socks, or barefoot. To us Swedes it’s more normal to not wear shoes than to wear shoes, since we don’t wear shoes more often than what we wear shoes, so a Swedish child could absolutely be like “No, I don’t want to put my shoes on!” but not really “No, I don’t want to take off my shoes!” They would take off their shoes, or even ask for help with it, because it’s the more normal state for them to not wear shoes, but they don’t always want to put on their shoes. So this moodlet feels completely backwards to me.

With all this said I don’t mean that you have to represent Sweden specifically, or the Nordic European countries or cultures specifically either, I just wanted to give some input on that representation is hard and sometimes you might think that you represent one group of people when you’re actually represent several groups of people. Like how you thought you were representing Japanese people with the “shoe rule”, when the “shoe rule” is actually representing a lot of different cultures all around the world, and by putting it in a pack inspired by Japan it makes the base game feel even more American and not just like it’s supposed to represent people in general. Do you understand what I mean?

So, that’s all I wanted to say about cultural representation. I have three more questions though.

First, I wonder about pre-made sims that were introduced before Seasons, why don’t they have any outfits set for hot and cold weather? I understand that it’s time-consuming to fix, I just wonder if you have forgotten about it or if you just haven’t had time for it? Honestly, I could fix their outfits for hot and cold weather for you (if I were to be compensated of course), if you don’t feel like you have the time for it. I just want the pre-mades to look neat even in hot and cold weather, not to get autogenerated bad taste in those clothing categories every time I start a new save file.

Second, I wonder about one of hairs that were updated. It’s the one that pre-mades Marcus Flex and Darling Walsh have. Don’t get me wrong, the new version looks really good, I will absolutely use it, I just wonder, why did you replace the old one? Why didn’t you just add the new one as a separate one? The old and new versions don’t look like the same hair style at all, they’re even different curliness, the old one looks like a 4b or 4c, while the new one looks like a 3c, when I look at pictures of hair type categorisation. Also, the overall form of the old and new versions are very different, with the old one going up in the middle and the new one being more rounded. The old version looks like someone who have had a waves hair style (like the one that came with Paranormal SP) and then combed it out and formed it, while the new version is just curly and shaved on the sides and just looks like it grows that way and isn’t formed. So, why did you replace the old one instead of adding the new one separately?

And third, have you ever thought about having an outfit pre-set type to be costume party? With outfit pre-set I mean like everyday, formal, athletic, sleepwear, party, swimwear, hot weather, cold weather. There are a lot of costumes in the game, and I feel like it’s a missed opportunity that I can’t set my sims to have costumes to wear for example if they go to GeekCon, have a Spooky Party, or if they have costume wearing tradition on a holiday. Now I usually set one of the party-wear slots to be a costume party outfit, but an actual outfit pre-set specifically for costumes would’ve been neat. I also think this should be some kind of opt-in pre-set, so that you don’t have to set it if you don’t want to.

That’s all I wanted to talk about this time around. Sorry that it’s so long, but I hope you’ll be able to read it all. Once again, thanks for the opportunity! It’ll be interesting what you’ll bring up in the next Inside Maxis. I’m very excited to get to know more about the new hair colours, finally there’s one that might actually look something like my real hair colour. ^^

Firs of all, I will congratulate you for the last packs. I think you all have come a long way since the beginning of the sims 4 and game packs / expansions packs have improved a lot. Eco lifestyle and Snowy Escape are one of my favourites. So, good job! <3

Second of all, I will share my opinion on the sims 4 so far:


I think the main issue with this game is that it is white orientated. What do I mean by that?

Think about Snowy Escape. We got chopsticks for the first time there. Shouldn't that be base game? I mean, Are forks and spoons and knifes the only utensils of our reality? Isn't that kind of racist? If you think that all families use forks and knifes it's because you are perceiving reality through a white perspective. Same as the Japanese architecture / type of lots we got in that expansion. Why someone who only has base game, and, for example, is asian and wants to portray his/her family home cannot? Is a traditional American house the only thing that person could do?

Other things:

- Lack of naturalness. What do I mean by that?

Yesterday, I watch a Sims 2 gameplay and I got shocked at how old that game is but sims interactions look far more natural social interactions than they do in the sims 4, for example, the way they sit on the sofa or on the floor. And I only watch 10 minutes of gameplay!

I am a translator. When I did my master's degree in translation I learned that they key aspect of my profession is that, when I am translating a text, I have to make it as naturalness as posible. Someone who reads that translated text cannot read and think "oh, I can feel that this is not an original text in X language". The translator has to be invisible. You, as game developers, have to be the same. When translating life into a computer, you have to make it as close as posible as to life. Think "what would I do if this was me in this situation?", "would I do this?", "would I react like that?". You need to reflect reality if you want to be called a simulation game.

- There are still a lot of things that are lacking content and still haven't been touched since the beginning of the game.

Babies... What is it natural about them? Babies, usually, bring joy to people. Do they bring joy to the sims? To us, the players? No. I won't even go into details because I'm sure everybody talks about them.

- Lack of relationships with your relatives.

It seems that the sims don't care about their aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc. There's nothing there. Only parents and siblings.

- Weddings... Are they still a thing? I haven't had a wedding in my sims game for ages. Why can I not planned for x day?

- Aspirations need improvements... Also, would love to pick the height of my sims.

- BUGS BUGS BUGS

So many of them.

- Snowy Escape: when they share a hot pot, they keep eating even if they are already full.
- Babies and their highchairs. No one uses them. They are useless right in this moment.
- I personally think dust still appears to quickly in houses. Also, I hate when they are doing something and they suddenly stop doing it because they decide to vacuum the floor. That's a no no.
- Cooking. My sims cook a meal for themselves because they are hungry and, as soon as they have finished the dish, instead of eating it they start cooking again.
- Sometimes my sims don't go to work or to classes. I have to exit the lot and come back to fix it.
- Walking... They sometimes go to a room and suddenly they disappear for a moment and they reappear in the same spot. I don't even know how to say it.

I'm sure they will be more, but these are the ones that come to my mind first and that I find the most annoying.

To be honest, I wouldn't mind the gameplay that much if I didn't have these many bugs.

Also, cars, color sliders for furniture and clothes, and open world............. :'(