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alan650's avatar
alan650
Seasoned Ace
8 years ago

Your in-depth ideas to make each Sim more unique!

Someone started this discussion on the Sim Reddit and I just loved the topic and fully agreed. Sims 4's main weakness is that each Sim tends to act the same due to the emotions overriding the weak traits and the reactions to death, divorce, and other drama is weakly executed. I am just going to start by copying my response from that discussion and ask everybody to lend their specific ideas for ways to make each Sim unique from the other!! Hopefully the gurus will read our multitude of responses to get ideas! Anyway here were my ideas:

We simply need a pack based on personalities/drama/consequence. I feel something like this could be a game pack and of course a mix of free updates. The perfect free update is allowing for the same amount of traits that Sims 3 did and maybe a couple new and very strong traits such as jealous. "Jealous" is the most noticeable trait in The Sims 4. You literally can't have your partner simply TALK to another sim without the jealous sim getting angry and letting you know. A trait shouldn't just be a random moodlet and boost here and there. This pack could contain reputation system, hobby enthusiasm, attraction system, likes/dislikes, wants/fears, strong reactions to many situations that arise AND reactions based on traits/mood of sim. Use the emotion system to coincide with your sim's traits and then have them react! For example, a hot-headed sim could get really nasty and fight both partner and cheater if they walked in on them Woohooing. Perhaps a "gloomy" sim would have an emotional breakdown of crying and screaming without the rage. I also always thought they should add quirks! The pets get a quirk like being afraid of the TV. I imagine a Sim quirk would be "Snores", "Picks nose" (I feel this should have been included with Parenthood for "Bad Manners" Sims!), "annoying laugh", "rolls eyes constantly" or whatever you can think up . A pack based solely on deep customization of a sim that truly matters would be AMAZING! The Sims 4 is not a lost cause in this department whatsoever. I hated toddlers in the past and now I enjoy them more than children sometimes! This game does so well in a multitude of areas but unfortunately is weakest in what your game should spring from: deeper sims and reaction to the world around them!

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  • comicsforever's avatar
    comicsforever
    8 years ago
    "TheGoodOldGamer;c-16267990" wrote:
    I don't think they have to overhaul or add additional systems to Sims personalities. They just need to strengthen the current ones. A hot-head, for example, should default to more mean interactions with other Sims, be angry or tense more often, etc. A lazy Sim should have a much difficult time keeping their energy bar up when actively doing things, but should also gain energy more quickly when sleeping or even just sitting down, unlike other Sims. Etc, etc. Just tweak the current system to be more obvious.

    I feel like the differences are already there, it's just that they're more subtle than they should be.


    agreed also it would help if happy didn't override negative emotions so much I would understand it doing it sometimes but not as much as it does now
  • comicsforever's avatar
    comicsforever
    8 years ago
    "MidnightAura;c-16267902" wrote:
    "alan650111;c-16267896" wrote:
    "comicsforlife;c-16266073" wrote:
    I think adding fear would go a long way for all the sims as well as fears like fear of death fear of divorce fear of someone cheating on you
    fear of ghost fear of monsters fear of losing your job


    Fear is definitely needed! It makes no sense that "tense" happens instead of fear in certain situations.


    I agree. It makes even less sense when you wonder why cats and dogs have fears and sims don’t.


    so true this needs to be fixed I mean even kids are scared of the monster under the bed
    and then adults and teens fear nothing its really odd and it makes the game feel unbalanced
    I'm sure we're not the only ones that feel that way @MidnightAura
  • Cynna1065's avatar
    Cynna1065
    Seasoned Ace
    8 years ago
    "Jestina;c-16265798" wrote:
    The only fix would be to get rid of the emotion system and have traits dictate a sims behavior, like they did in TS3.


    ...and TS2 -- with the personality scale. Emotions as the underpinning for all has been a failure as far as I'm concerned.
  • MidnightAura86's avatar
    MidnightAura86
    Seasoned Ace
    8 years ago
    "comicsforlife;c-16268875" wrote:
    "MidnightAura;c-16267902" wrote:
    "alan650111;c-16267896" wrote:
    "comicsforlife;c-16266073" wrote:
    I think adding fear would go a long way for all the sims as well as fears like fear of death fear of divorce fear of someone cheating on you
    fear of ghost fear of monsters fear of losing your job


    Fear is definitely needed! It makes no sense that "tense" happens instead of fear in certain situations.


    I agree. It makes even less sense when you wonder why cats and dogs have fears and sims don’t.


    so true this needs to be fixed I mean even kids are scared of the monster under the bed
    and then adults and teens fear nothing its really odd and it makes the game feel unbalanced
    I'm sure we're not the only ones that feel that way @MidnightAura



    I agree. I don't understand why fear isn't in game. It's been in previous games and it's a valid emotional it doesn't make sense to not have it particularly for children and monsters under the bed.
  • astridentanja's avatar
    astridentanja
    8 years ago
    "NorthDakotaGamer;c-16259755" wrote:
    "alan650111;c-16259719" wrote:
    "NorthDakotaGamer;c-16259678" wrote:
    The way I make my Sims unique is to create backstories to my households. That way I use my imagination and use the limitations of the game to just tell stories. Guess I do not need any in-depth analysis on my sims.


    I make stories too but the game itself needs to lend a hand more often than it does. Traits were way stronger in 3 and there were actual differences in each sim.


    I disliked Sims 3, which is why I never purchased it. So giving that comparison is not really convincing.

    Disliking a game you never purchased is imagining you don’t like it (because you can’t actually know can you?). And now you’re imagining you’re not convinced, without bothering giving arguments. I guess we have to imagine those?
  • simgirl1010's avatar
    simgirl1010
    Hero
    8 years ago
    "JoAnne65;c-16269660" wrote:
    "NorthDakotaGamer;c-16259755" wrote:
    "alan650111;c-16259719" wrote:
    "NorthDakotaGamer;c-16259678" wrote:
    The way I make my Sims unique is to create backstories to my households. That way I use my imagination and use the limitations of the game to just tell stories. Guess I do not need any in-depth analysis on my sims.


    I make stories too but the game itself needs to lend a hand more often than it does. Traits were way stronger in 3 and there were actual differences in each sim.


    I disliked Sims 3, which is why I never purchased it. So giving that comparison is not really convincing.

    Disliking a game you never purchased is imagining you don’t like it (because you can’t actually know can you?). And now you’re imagining you’re not convinced, without bothering giving arguments. I guess we have to imagine those?


    So you're saying without having played Sims 3 he can never say with any certainty that he doesn't like it? :)
  • Erpeerpe's avatar
    Erpeerpe
    8 years ago
    "MidnightAura;c-16269543" wrote:
    "comicsforlife;c-16268875" wrote:
    "MidnightAura;c-16267902" wrote:
    "alan650111;c-16267896" wrote:
    "comicsforlife;c-16266073" wrote:
    I think adding fear would go a long way for all the sims as well as fears like fear of death fear of divorce fear of someone cheating on you
    fear of ghost fear of monsters fear of losing your job


    Fear is definitely needed! It makes no sense that "tense" happens instead of fear in certain situations.


    I agree. It makes even less sense when you wonder why cats and dogs have fears and sims don’t.


    so true this needs to be fixed I mean even kids are scared of the monster under the bed
    and then adults and teens fear nothing its really odd and it makes the game feel unbalanced
    I'm sure we're not the only ones that feel that way @MidnightAura



    I agree. I don't understand why fear isn't in game. It's been in previous games and it's a valid emotional it doesn't make sense to not have it particularly for children and monsters under the bed.

    EA is trying to make every new Sims game as different from all earlier Sims games as possible. For the Sims 4 the decision became to do this by focusing much more on happiness and autonomous behavior. So it was the more focus on happiness that made fear something that really didn’t suit the game.

    I agree though that fear should be there. But that is because I am not interested in more happiness and more autonomy because I am a gamer who like challenges. Even so I am not in the main target group of very young girls who get TS4 as their very first game. So I just have to accept that this game isn’t a game for me.

    But even though TS4 theoretically could be “fixed” this doesn’t interest me because I know for sure that it won’t ever happen! We have to wait for the next Sims game instead and hope that it will focus on something better for us than autonomy and happiness.
  • EndrGirl6's avatar
    EndrGirl6
    8 years ago
    I HAVE THREE IDEAS...

    1. More piercings. It would be so awesome to have double ear piercings, and probably nose or tongue piercings too.

    2. Nail polish. I know this detail is so small, but it would be so amazing if you could have your sims' toe or nail painted.

    3. Different colored eyes. Pretty simple, and a lot of people have mentioned this before.

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