The chemistry/attraction system was first introduced in The Sims 2: Nightlife and there were options to set certain turn-ons and turn-offs which I find myself missing in Lovestruck:
I found occult states especially cool and think they would be a great addition for storytelling in TS4.
Also, with the expanded character creator in TS4, I would love tattoos to be an option as well.
I am completely disappointed as to the lack of physical turnons in the new Lovestruck EP.
All that is available is either platonic interests, careers, skill levels and frivolous rubbish like clothes style or color, which cater only to people with very specific interests irl and it's creepy.
My simself has different interactions according to whether she's in swimwear or workout clothes, and the system is as deep as a puddle and feels reused from the growing together friendship changes.
My simself is proudly curvy like me, and having no cupid'a corner match remotely interested in what they look like males me feel robbed of the body positivity I fought for, as I have a meaningful relationship with someone who was attracted to my actual body, exactly for how it is, and then we discovered we are basically soulmates.
You can choose sims with a high fitness skill if you want muscular sims to match, but there's no way to have sims who aren't into impossible modern standards, and there's no turnon/off categories for beard, body hair, or eye colour. While I understand rejection is something everyone has to deal with in a constructive manner, having my simself simply left in the shadows again is not a good look when all they are interested in is a certain career or hobby
I think adding new turn categories for physical features is long overdue, and a step toward inclusivity, diversity and positivity.
Deleting this post only means like minded people will share the same sentiment on socials, by the way.
I remember that sims 3 had something similar. You would make a dating profile and choose whether you had an athletic body, skinny, average or 'more to love'. I feel as if sims 3 was more unrestrained compared to 4 which made it all the more interesting :D.
I'm sure the exclusion of these things is the Sims Team's attempt to be all inclusive (an effort which has been routinely flubbed) but it seems almost comical to exclude them in this case.
Especially in the context of dating apps, blind dates, etc., when you really don't have much to go on about your match, you'd be looking at things like their eye color, hair color, facial hair, or body to determine if you find them attractive or not. It's a bit juvenile to beat around the bush and pretend that people have no physical preferences when it comes to attraction.
Maybe I'm being too cynical, but I feel like they were afraid of backlash around having things like "skinny", "blue eyes", and "blond hair" being a turn-on. But at the end of the day, what people do in their own games isn't really the team's responsibility and they shouldn't water down features just to avoid people being potentially problematic* in a single-player game. You know that there are already people who only have their sims hooking up with white supermodels. That's not a good enough reason to completely ignore any physical attraction in a game that already has "woo-hoo" as a core feature.
(*not that it's problematic to be attracted to any of these traits, but I'm sure we all know why this specific combo and nothing else might be perceived as racist)
@Coraychiexactly, or we should introduce build limits to prevent people from making netherbits shaped buildings, and the like. It's completely ridiculous to go to the extent of customising gender and preferences, but then completely go over physical traits because someone thought the solution to the male gaze and unnatural beauty standards is to pretend they're not there, instead of revolutionizing the concept and making it our own.
I feel I'm condescendingly being told my body and relationship with physical intimacy does not matter at all, when instead it was a huge factor in stepping into my power
