6 years of Shallow Sims
This is a post just to remind people that after 6 years of this game, sims are still as shallow as ever, and that there have been no attempts to fix it or improve it.
1. Not enough substantial traits or aspirations:
The Sims 4 has an alarmingly low number of traits to actually choose from. Even more significant is that very few of them actually make any difference to your game. Traits like Active merely give you an energized moodlet that lasts an hour then disappears. Music Lover simply gives them fun when their playing or listening to music. Neither make a substantial dent in a Sim's personality. Even worse, are the pack specific traits we receive with Expansion and Game Packs. Child of the Islands merely gives you a happy buff when you're doing island activities. Dog Lover lets you improve your relationships with dogs faster. What's worse is that you can only pick 3 traits, so your sims never form an interesting or unique personality.
As for aspirations, again there are far too few of them. The developers have been reluctant to add more to the game at all, and most of the time when they are added to a pack, they are simply tutorials for how to play that specific pack. In Island Living, for example, one of the goals of the Beach Life aspiration is to "get a suntan" and to "eat a coconut." How is this interesting gameplay?
2. Emotions are still bogged down by environmental & happy buffs:
The "well-decorated" buff overrides negative emotions constantly. Did your sim's spouse just die? Well, they won't care, since the room is so well decorated! This goes for all positive emotions in the game, most of the time they will override any negative emotions. Is your sims embarrassed from wetting themselves? Well, they won't be once they get a happy buff from playing a video game. Emotions are far too changeable, shallow, and just too happy. Unless playing in a shallow Utopia is your idea of a fun time, and this goes into my next point...
3. Not enough consequences:
Along with positive emotions overriding negative emotions all the time, the game just has too few consequences. If your sim child is failing school, the parents will not care, and there are no consequences. If your spouse cheats on you, the cheating spouse will only receive a slight negative relationship decline, and sometimes they don't even care. Children don't care if their parents get divorced. Your sim will almost never get fired from their job even when they perform badly. If your sim is mean to another sim, the other sim will simply continue chatting and smiling in the conversation. Add to this, we still don't have any burglars, an essential feature from the Sims 1, 2 and 3.
4. Whims were eliminated and never fixed:
Whims were things your sim wanted to do in order to gain aspiration points. From the beginning, they weren't very well thought out, with ridiculous whims such as "build a 1x1 pool" or "become dazed," completely random and not based on the sim's traits at all. They recently stopped having them altogether. You can re enable them in settings, but they have not been updated with any of the current packs, so there are no whims about magic, college, or becoming a star. Why they never updated or fixed them in the first place is anyone's guess.
5. No attraction, turn ons/ offs, hobbies, likes/ dislikes, favorites:
The Sims 2 and 3 both had systems for having favorite colors, food and music. They also had unique attraction systems that made dating and romance more interesting. 6 years in, we still don't have these things in the Sims 4.
All of these things together make the sims in the Sims 4 incredibly shallow, which is why most people complain that all the sims act the same.
And we shouldn't have to rely on mods to fix these problems!
So listen up EA/ Maxis, you can sell as many copies of the Sims 4 as you want, get as much money as you want from people, but the same complaints are still there and have been there from the beginning! Just because they're spending money on your game doesn't mean they love it, and once the new customers realize how shallow the sims are, they won't be interested in the game either.
I think it's high time these issues get fixed!
1. Not enough substantial traits or aspirations:
The Sims 4 has an alarmingly low number of traits to actually choose from. Even more significant is that very few of them actually make any difference to your game. Traits like Active merely give you an energized moodlet that lasts an hour then disappears. Music Lover simply gives them fun when their playing or listening to music. Neither make a substantial dent in a Sim's personality. Even worse, are the pack specific traits we receive with Expansion and Game Packs. Child of the Islands merely gives you a happy buff when you're doing island activities. Dog Lover lets you improve your relationships with dogs faster. What's worse is that you can only pick 3 traits, so your sims never form an interesting or unique personality.
As for aspirations, again there are far too few of them. The developers have been reluctant to add more to the game at all, and most of the time when they are added to a pack, they are simply tutorials for how to play that specific pack. In Island Living, for example, one of the goals of the Beach Life aspiration is to "get a suntan" and to "eat a coconut." How is this interesting gameplay?
2. Emotions are still bogged down by environmental & happy buffs:
The "well-decorated" buff overrides negative emotions constantly. Did your sim's spouse just die? Well, they won't care, since the room is so well decorated! This goes for all positive emotions in the game, most of the time they will override any negative emotions. Is your sims embarrassed from wetting themselves? Well, they won't be once they get a happy buff from playing a video game. Emotions are far too changeable, shallow, and just too happy. Unless playing in a shallow Utopia is your idea of a fun time, and this goes into my next point...
3. Not enough consequences:
Along with positive emotions overriding negative emotions all the time, the game just has too few consequences. If your sim child is failing school, the parents will not care, and there are no consequences. If your spouse cheats on you, the cheating spouse will only receive a slight negative relationship decline, and sometimes they don't even care. Children don't care if their parents get divorced. Your sim will almost never get fired from their job even when they perform badly. If your sim is mean to another sim, the other sim will simply continue chatting and smiling in the conversation. Add to this, we still don't have any burglars, an essential feature from the Sims 1, 2 and 3.
4. Whims were eliminated and never fixed:
Whims were things your sim wanted to do in order to gain aspiration points. From the beginning, they weren't very well thought out, with ridiculous whims such as "build a 1x1 pool" or "become dazed," completely random and not based on the sim's traits at all. They recently stopped having them altogether. You can re enable them in settings, but they have not been updated with any of the current packs, so there are no whims about magic, college, or becoming a star. Why they never updated or fixed them in the first place is anyone's guess.
5. No attraction, turn ons/ offs, hobbies, likes/ dislikes, favorites:
The Sims 2 and 3 both had systems for having favorite colors, food and music. They also had unique attraction systems that made dating and romance more interesting. 6 years in, we still don't have these things in the Sims 4.
All of these things together make the sims in the Sims 4 incredibly shallow, which is why most people complain that all the sims act the same.
And we shouldn't have to rely on mods to fix these problems!
So listen up EA/ Maxis, you can sell as many copies of the Sims 4 as you want, get as much money as you want from people, but the same complaints are still there and have been there from the beginning! Just because they're spending money on your game doesn't mean they love it, and once the new customers realize how shallow the sims are, they won't be interested in the game either.
I think it's high time these issues get fixed!
