I definitely agree with EA's handholding and structuring the game to play their way instead of your way.
If I have a challenge that involves raising a sim's art skill, don't tell me exactly what to do to raise the skill. Allow me to choose what my sim can do to raise that skill. That way I can play in a way that makes sense for that sim. All the game should care about is that the skill was raised.
The reason I am not playing anymore is actually this new forum. I hate it, and looking at the drop off in participation, a lot of simmers don't like it either. I use to create in the forum for storytelling. It was a way to buff my immersion in the game with text and images. It was a visual record of the fun I was having. Plus you would have other simmers enjoying it too.
This new forum format is an endless scroll instead of a book. It is difficult to structure and you can easily get lost in in it and only the latest posts and their popularity matter most. It's not good for stories. I gave it a try with a linking system so my readers would not get lost and could find their way around, but people are hardly reading stories anymore. My personal belief is that they don't want this to be a social hub anymore. They probably want that role to be taken over by Project Renee to create more "engagement" in the game.
So I am considering alternatives to this and I rarely drop in on the forums, which used to be a daily thing. Now it's more like every two weeks or so.
