What does sims 2 have that is lacking in sims 4

@CAPTAIN_NXR7 I hope you found a way to get rid of the issues and improve the gaphics resolution? I play in 1920x1080 resolution and the game looks great that way but I had to tweak it a little bit. Also getting the smooth edges maxed out was tricky to do and getting rid of the black squares under the sims.
After doing that I find the Sims 2 looks pretty bearable.

"@SimmerGeorge;c-17570783" wrote:
@CAPTAIN_NXR7 I hope you found a way to get rid of the issues and improve the gaphics resolution? I play in 1920x1080 resolution and the game looks great that way but I had to tweak it a little bit. Also getting the smooth edges maxed out was tricky to do and getting rid of the black squares under the sims.
After doing that I find the Sims 2 looks pretty bearable.

Yeah it was no problem. I altered some of the instances in the Graphics Rules.sgr and the game looks good!

To be honest, I've always maintained that each iteration of The Sims has its own special thing. The Sims was an excellent, and sometimes very challenging, life simulator where you were hard pressed to just have your sim(s) live. I loved it dearly. The Sims 2 felt like an expansion of life. Opening up all the different pathways that a sim's life could take and giving true meaning to "life simulator" for me. I loved how relationships worked and how everything fit seamlessly together to create a great gaming experience. The Sims 3 was all about adventure and exploration. If I wanted to explore and go on an adventure with my sims, for discovery's sake, The Sims 3 was my jam... I used to say The Sims 4 was all about feelings, and the sim themselves, but I'm struggling these days, even with all the cool content, to compare The Sims 4 with The Sims 2.

I'm going to use the word "Mature" but I don't mean it in a... an adult hub sort of way. I mean it in a, humor and metaphor sort of way.

The Sims 2 had a more mature nature. It felt less like being treated as if I were 12 and more like I'm being addressed, as an adult player. There were little easter eggs and bits of innuendo that would have been lost on me as a 12 year old child that I've grown to really miss. The humor, both dark and light, is what I miss the most about The Sims 2 that is sadly, lacking from the Sims 4 game on the whole. I loved that you could actually die during pregnancy if your player wasn't paying enough attention. I think there was just the right amount of attention paid to life states and systems and none of it felt bogged down or over-wrought in the way that some of the new life states do for the Sims 4. I actually find myself avoiding some of my most beloved life states because they are just too focused on ...whatever it is EA decided they should be. Sims 2 was more open ended and left it to the player to design the fate of them. I miss that. I miss making a witch and allowing my story to unfold my way instead of being forced into Harry Potter via The Magicians .TM

I miss being an alien and having the freedom to live my life without sims shying away from me and being jerks, all the while accepting the evil jerk next door...

It (The Sims 2) Was just over-all, a better game in my opinion and I'd L.O.V.E a graphically updated version of it some day. Digital remastery or whatever you might call it.

@Cinebar,

beautifully described :)

You could created your own worlds in the Sims 2 and the Sims 3. That's definitely something that's lacking in the Sims 4. In the Sims 4, you basically have to make do with what you got. You can visit any world that you want, but you can't add any new ones outside of the official worlds without mods, and even those mods that I've heard about that add a new world, replace one of the existing worlds.

Personally, I absolutely HATE the emotional system on TS4! It drives me absolutely nuts. IMHO, this is waaaay overdone. The family goes on a great vacation b/c he/she needed it, comes home refreshed, goes to work ONE day, comes home and says "I need a vacation." UGH!!!! That and the monsters under kid's beds. When they see monsters, NOBODY in the house can sleep at all until they are taken care of and that is almost impossible w/o any mods.

I MUCH prefer TS2 and TS3. I love the open world of TS3 and the traits and I love the complexity of TS2. At least in #3, the "monsters" were only specific to that child and his/her bed, NOT the entire household. Currently, I'm doing a Build a City challenge in #2 where you start out w/a blank or empty world and build up a city. The founding sim must do something to get more food (I won't reveal what since Captain NXR7 doesn't want to know) or he/she will go hungry when the fridge gets empty (no grocery store yet). So far, I'm up to 2 families. As soon as their kids grow up, I'll have more.

Personality. Sims 2 had the most personality out of all the Sims games. By personality I mostly mean actions and animations of Sims. They could do so much more than in Sims 3 and 4, and had a lot more animations that really made the Sims look a bit more alive in a sense. There's also the fact that conversations actually meant something. You can literally see exactly what they're talking about, and what they're talking about always reflects their likes and dislikes from their profiles. However, I definitely do prefer the trait system, but it really feels like the trait system did erase some major personality.

Another thing is rotational play. Rotational play is only viable in Sims 2. If you try to rotate families in 3, you'll come back to see they all have new jobs, new marriages, or left town completely while you were away. The only way to stop this is to mod your game to double hockey sticks, which requires a LOT of techy knowledge to truly understand even how to make that work well. And in Sims 4, it's basically the same. Sims will flirt and make enemies while you're away, and just generally ruin everything you set up for them. In Sims 2, this thankfully didn't happen unless you made it happen by interacting with them. Yes, it's realistic for them to live their lives, and I personally prefer it this way since I like playing one family only, however occasionally I do want to rotate but it's disappointing that I can't in any other Sims game.

Intimacy between sims. S4 couples act more like friends than lovers. 3 bolts sims will autonomously leap into the arms of their partners whenever they want, do incessant romantic gestures and are generally inseparable, the way they cuddle on beds and couches (my favorite is when one Sims wakes up and cuddles with the sleeping Sims, now that's the kind of detail S4 needs more of).

S2 sims react to their surroundings, I can tell whether they like/dislike, are sad, happy or angry at something by watching their reactions rather than colorful moodlets and music. Sims who cook a lot will rub their belly from time to time while thinking about food.

The cut scenes of important life events. both the goods and the bads.

Businesses.

Sims 4 is closer to an RPG game than S2, I like figuring out what to do to make sims Sims happy (or not) in S2. Sims 2 is about the Sims themselves, the family and the relationships between them which is not as much the focus in S4, unfortunately.

The personality actually matters in this one and if I order them to do something that goes against their established personality, they'll let me know.

The sims 4 is lacking in personality and uniqueness (especially from the sims 2). Also the sims feels very samey the way the ai work.

Here are the problems With the sims 4

• traits don’t change sims much.
  
• sims change emotion all the time and it doesn’t change how they behave apart from visual and facial animation
  
• Idle chat forces sims to just talk even when angry, tense, etc.
  
• Sims are unaware of Most of their surrounding
  
• Sims don’t react to others
  
• No hardship or challenge. Sims almost always happy and get over negative emotions fast
  
• No surprises. Fires rarely happen and sims can put themselves out.
  
• Holding friendships and romance too easy.
  
• No chemistry.
  

Here is why sims 2 is much more fun

• small details. Teens get zits, sims open drawers, sims put toilet seat up and down, etc.
  
• Many surprises. 1% death by satellite when sky gazing, random burning of food when low cooking, sims get electrocuted when low mechanical skill, especially when standing on water, etc.
  
• Always new details to find. Sims for example get angry when one person flushes the toilet why they are taking a shower.
  
• Sims don’t all act the same and are more unique. High playfulness unlocks new interactions like juggle and play in bathtub, but thy lose the ability to meditate, Sims with low playfulness read more and don’t like tickles and other play interactions unless you have higher relationship.
  
• Sims more likely to reject social interactions if you try to early before building up friendship.
  
• Sims react to others around them. If someone is doing a desperation action from having low aspiration, others will do the hour crazy gesture. Sims also worry when someone passes out due to tiredness.
  
• Sims have memories and talk about them or remember them in thought bubbles.
  
• variation in animations for interactions depending on outgoingness and shyness. Also make out has varying animations.
  
• Aspirations rewards are all fun interactive objects.
  
• Animations are great. Sims will move chess pieces like an actual game and will play poker correctly as well. Pool is also fun to watch.
  

Here are mods that can help some of the flaws in the sims 4.

• meaningful stories by roburky (makes sims not change emotions all the time, stops sims from being happy all the time, and varies strength of certain moodlets. Also makes uncomfortable boost other negative emotions like happy boosts positive emotions.)
  
• Have more personality please by polarbearsims (sims don’t do idle chat anymore and will vary social interactions more based on emotions. Angry sims now more likely to perform mean socials automatically for example.
  
• Slice of life by kawaii stacie (many feature you can customize such as new sickness, new moodlets like losing teeth for kids, headaches and more. new pop up texts, and. Much more.
  
• Passionate romance by sacrificial (adds new romance interactions missing in the game)
  
• MC command center by deaderpool (allows you to customize lots of things like stopping sim culling, changing bill amount or friendship and romance gain, having certain sims automatically marry and have kids (not the ones you play unless you change the settings)
  

Finally things you can do to help without mods

• use clubs to make bans that plays at certain venues
  
• Use clubs to make drama such as bullies, thieves, pranksters, etc
  
• Use clubs to give certain venues more life in background like having a painting group visit museums or art centers and paint, or having group of friends who drink and ply games at pubs.
  
• 
  
  

"simplyzoe;c-17663456" wrote:
I just started playing again (and I did install a lot of my CC) and one thing I can say right off is, the sims actually move and don't just stand there and the game flows.

They also quickly redirect if something else, like put the toddler to bed is in someone else's queue!

I'm not using the money cheat, I'm actually leaving them without stuff as they work to earn it, like I now remember I did before with The Sims 2.

I love that changing houses freezes the family so I can make my own story and families to interact with each other.

I'm still relearning the controls but some of them I like, some things I miss like being able to move a wall.

The remove wall works the first time, I was getting really frustrated in the sims 4 having to do it over and over again.

They interact readily with each other and animals so I feel like I can have fun watching more and don't have to micro-organize them for the game to progress.

Toddlers have bottles and they can do nursery rhymes, just wish I could keep them toddlers longer.

If you want to use a mod so toddlers and all others have a longer life span then get PhaenohLifeSpan mod, over on Mod The Sims site.
It won't work on current households but will work on the next household you create and add to hood.

It extends life stages and you can always use the cheat to age one up before any other Sim of the same age. I have been using it for several years now, and it works great. I don't know if it will kick in if another baby is born into a household after adding the mod to the game and having current households in the game. None of mine had any babies in that sort of situation.