o-RayeGunn-o
10 hours agoSeasoned Scout
Life and Death - Ghost QoL issues
I love playing as ghosts, but there are some things I find so annoying, or think could be improved.
- Ghosts keep using 'dispel material' on fresh food, and it is infuriating. This is supposed to be one of the good, helpful abilities. I had a ghost VANISH MY WEDDING CAKE. they should only autonomously use this ability on food that's gone off!
- Allow us to invite ghosts over/out. As it stands now, we can not invite ghosts over to the home lot, even if you are playing AS a ghost! and we can only invite them to funerals or to dates as far as social gatherings go. Even though ghosts can call and ask our active sim out, and come door knocking, and it all works fine, and the ability to invite them to funerals and they show up just fine shows that they COULD absolutely be invited to any social event, they just are banned from most for whatever reason. Ghosts clearly have access to phones, my ghosts use their phones all the time, most ghosts can travel, there is no reason they need to be blocked from all social functions. I am playing as ghosts, I also have gothy characters that have ghost friends, i want to invite them over/out without summoning them via the mailbox with MCCC, or having to maintain clubs just to invite them over. (which works perfectly fine, though it takes several clicks, and is immersion breaking, but shows there is no reason they can't be invited over) Like, i can hire ghosts to be my employees, but not invite that same employee over for a social visit? make it make sense.
- For that matter, venues and walkbys. I love that with small businesses and custom venues, we can have ghosts show up, and there seems to be a recent push to treat ghosts more like full sims, which I appreciate. I was happy to see that ghosts could show up tot he festivals in Adventure Awaits! but it's just made it more glaring how they are excluded from other, earlier lots. I get that some people really hate seeing ghosts just out and about, so making this a toggle in the settings to allow ghosts to appear in the world outside of Ravenwood, similar to the fairy and werewolf toggles, would be fine by me. But as it stands now, in addition to the custom lots, ghosts can show up at nightclubs, (why nightclubs specifically? it's weird and inconsistent. but it does show there is absolutely no reason they shouldn't be able to spawn elsewhere) at cemeteries, bars but only on ghost night, and out and about in Ravenwood. (unless you are Guidry and Temperance, then you can spawn anywhere. And yes i know this is because they are technically not ghosts as far as the game is concerned) And I have a ghost living in San Myshuno, why can he not show up as a walkby like the other residents in the neighbourhood when i am playing another household? Again we know this is possible because of the remembrance holiday tradition. I'm not asking for them to just appear willy nilly, just in neighbourhoods they actively reside in, so they won't take over. Basically, with Life and Death, ghosts got promoted to more of a full on occult status, and it is just odd to put up these arbitrary barriers for them to appear outside of Ravenwood. I get the veil is thin there, and you want to preserve it's special vibe, but as a player it's frustratingly limiting.
- I know this one and the next are a long shot, but while I am at it, I think adding a few touches will help sell the idea that their needs are actually not quite the same as living needs. Like, the bladder/goo waste. I get it, it's not them peeing, it's a buildup of ectoplasm they are disposing of. So how about if that need gets into the orange, they start leaving slime puddles behind? if they use 'pass through' with this need in the yellow or lower, the other sim can get a 'slimed' moodlet and a hit to their hygiene? Stuff like that would help sell that their needs are a bit different, even if they line up roughly with living needs.
- I like playing as a ghost, but miss seeing them sometimes, the ghost overlay makes them hard to see. the colour selection was a great first step, but the ghost overlay could use some tweaks. Guidry and Temperance have colour in their overlay, why can't regular ghosts also have that same filter? And there is some empty space on the power screen for another power, in the neutral section. So how about an ability to control their visibility? Like they can either become invisible to other sims (similar to how imaginary friends and the imaginative play FX function) and that gives them a boost to their scare abilities, like make all the scared moodlets given be +1 to what they would normally be or something, and they can't be targeted for retaliation, OR they can concentrate really hard, and appear corporeal again, BUT it drains their energy (even if they have suppressed needs, like maybe it drains twice as fast as normal or just regular speed if you have suppressed needs) so it