About 3 and a half years into Sims 4, how would you rate it?

I scored it 8 out of 10. I'd possibly drop as low as a 7 out of 10, but no higher than an 8.

EDIT:
Bare in mind though that, by the time TS4 comes to an end, we may raise or lower our scores. If TS4 does not get that much better, then I might score it as a 5 out of 10. It will have to try hard to get me to increase my score though - It may never reach above 7 or 8 out of 10 for me.

For me I see 5 out of 10 as being average. In terms of comparing Sims 4 to all games, I might give it a 5 out of 10. It offers more to do than most, but I feel that's a natural consequence of being a sandbox, open-world style game. Compared to other sandbox, open-world style games it's pretty generic.

I feel I should absolutely drop the score to 3 out of 10 for three main reasons:

1) This is the worst game of the Sims franchise, and as such when you grade it based on what could be achieved, using past games as evidence? This game lacks severely and thus I don't think it deserves a 5 out of 10 in this context.

2) They have yet to produce a single expansion that has been universally well received. To me, that's unprecedented. It's a bit difficult to rate this game above a 5 out of 10 when, if you were to average out the individual ratings and scores of each individual pack, that average would be low. I just find that inexcuseable that within 3 and a half years, they've produced a grand total of 2 out of 22 packs that seem universally well regarded by the fans. (Vampires and Parenthood)

3) To me perhaps the biggest "crime" of development is that they're clearly recycling everything possible in an effort to cut corners and reduce costs, to the point they're even willing to recycle broken systems. Recycling the animations from Get to Work for the Vet career...? It's a little "depressing" since it acts as an indicator the game's budget is lacking or the creators are focused on the cash, but you could also argue recycling such things helps them spend more time on important features.

However, they've also recycled that god awful retail system. Twice. Both times it's bugged out and performed just as poorly as the initial rendition did. They know it's flawed and buggy, and yet they don't care and bring it back again and again. Retail, to this day, has worthless employees and sales hindered by group convos of socialite customers. Three years later, they have yet to go back and simply patch the customers to socialize less or make employees actually work, and are content to leave that expansion pack's content in a completely disfunctional state. Dine Out is perhaps the most stable, but visiting a restaurant as a customer takes an entire day, and the system still bugs out regularly, causing a 1-star review from customers that simply couldn't sit or refused to actually eat their meal. The Vet career - big surprise - has the workers once again doing nothing.

To me if they're copy-pasting that system despite knowing how buggy it is, I take that as an insult. I take that as evidence the team truly does not care and just wants a quick buck. I mean that's like trying to sell a vase with a big crack down the side, the initial customer returns it when they notice it, and then they have the audacity to put the vase back on display for sale while trying to hide the crack from customers. How about actually improving your product instead of just trying to swindle customers...?

In that regard, I do absolutely think the game deserves some points knocked off in protest of such practices.


Overall I just find myself consistently unimpressed while packs produce forgettable experiences, and my motivations for voting it 3 out of 10 include the fact that this game underperforms vs. other games of it's kind/other games in the franchise, the expansion packs are absolutely awful, and all the while EA/Maxis seems completely shameless about recycling broken systems.

4/10

for me TS4's not at average 5/10
it's a sims game & i have some basic sims game expectations, which have to be met & TS4 doesn't meet them despite improvements in other areas :confused:


list of improvements which had to be made in order of importance :

traits revamp would heave it to 6 or even 7
it had to be improved rather towards how clubs are options to set up than predefined by the devs like in TS3
incl no generic whims, no generic autonomous actions, no unrelated to the current situation actions, no unrelated leading emotion to the situation/main happenings in sim's life like death/cheating/quarrel/birth/love/friendship, healthy human reactions to important situations

to 8 would bring it fixes to
main bugs/glitches for things like invisible autonomous action icons, commands falling out of queue, phantom traits, CAS sculpting jumps, certain jewelry in CAS not displaying combined with certain meshes
getting rid of prescripted things like clothing for careers & festivals
options for no vampires, no aliens, no pets despite having bought the packs, cause just because i want the build/buy objects & clothing doesn't mean i want always to play the content of the whole package incl all gameplay changing interactions ...

cars would get it to 9

it won't ever get to 10 though
because of lack of buildable apartments, poor active jobs, invisible rabbit hole jobs on the street, no actual city structure, unmovable & not freely placeable lots, unchangeable & inaccessible backdrops, not all sims playable (some are just hidden role sims, unchangeabe, unaccessible, not even freely assignable like coworkers & employees)


& TS4 is 4 because of
better assortment of CAS, freedom to assign in CAS every piece of clothing for every occasion & gender, hats with every hair, great lighting, improved roofs, house movable on the lots with & without lot deco, bigger lots placeable on smaller, searching the build/buy mode per name, changeable place of shelfs, windows, pictures, free assignment of spree parties on the go ...
also improvements from previous iterations again included like assignable beds, closeable doors ...
improved CLUBS CLUBS CLUBS !!!

i personally can accept though
loading screens everywhere, flat lots, no terrain tools ... even no CASt, yep ...
& if the listed above improvements would take place then i could even accept TS4's limited & skewed version of business :tongue:

5 out of 10

It really doesn't deserve any lower than that, because it still has the elements that makes it a life simulator game. I just don't like that it is taken as a sequel, because:
- It continues to be less and less sandbox game than any other previous titles.
- Revolutionary additions we're promised: emotions and multitasking - are so borked that you could only forget about say and make them as a record score of the biggest fails brought in TS4.
- Sims, peeps themselves, are less dynamic and diverse, because, blame and point at stupid implementations of emotions that rendered trait system to uselessness.
- So buggy.
- and all etc stuff that I pointed out across the forum with the fallacies this game as (I can't recall all of them at this very moment, because there's too many of them and that itself proofs how a failure this game is in the franchise).

As for other reasons why it still has a half of the wholescore and not any lower than that:
- Huge upgrade in CAS (Create A Style).
- Intuitive BUILD MODE.
- Gallery System/Addition.
- Other minor features & details (club system, lot traits, improved animations, etc).

I'm kinda surprised all of us thought to give off the same score.

6 out of 10: only because The Sims 2 & 3 exist

3 out of 10

It's ok if I pretend it's a side game, but it doesn't feel like "The Sims".

It has improved a lot with the addition of toddlers, parenthood, vampires, ... They saw the complaints and decided to do something about some of them, at least that's how it felt to me. Of course, there are some stuff packs which don't actually feel like they add something, but it's up to each and every individual to decide whether they want to spend their money on it. They did drop the ball with City Living (the rental system, small amount of apartments, ...). But even that had some new features which I still enjoy today. If they had the attention for detail they put into the packs I mentioned earlier, could you even imagine what a complete and fantastic game we would have had? They've made some regrettable choices but I absolutely enjoy playing the game these days. Are there still a lot of flaws? Yes. Can I live with them? Yes. I do believe if more expansions/game&stuff packs come in the next few years, that this could turn out to be a fantastic game in the end. It's a shame we will have to wait so long and with the insecurity if the series will actually continue. It should've been a fantastic game from the very beginning but we can't turn back time so let's just see where they go with this. It will be interesting, that's for sure.

When TS3 came out, I played it and actually went back to TS2 because I disliked the new one so badly. I imagine that's how most feel about TS4 which I do happen to enjoy. I know how frustrating it gets when you feel as if a game you love is being "butchered".

7/10 and it will never get higher because of some major flaws that will remain.

I voted 7/10 despite the fact that I really enjoy this game, and have barely played any other iteration since the Sims 4's launch.

The main reason as to why I voted for a 7 is because after 3.5 years, it feels as if we are not even close to what feels like a full game. At this point in the Sims 3's life span, Seasons had just been released, with University just around the corner. I felt happy with what I could do in The Sims 3, and did not feel as if the game needed much more work from that point onwards.

Yet with the Sims 4, the whole process feels pretty slow, there is still a lot more stuff that I want from this game that does not seem to be coming any time soon.

Like I said, I really do enjoy this game. If this were the game's 2 year mark, it would probably be an 8 or 9, but because it's 3.5 years old (towards what would have been the end of the game's cycle in the previous instalments), I do not feel as if I can mark it as highly.

I give it a 3/10.

If this were a side game, it could maybe be acceptable but it’s not. The sims 4 biggest problem is that the sims 2 & 3 exist. We have lost valuable tools along the way not to mention basic things like car pools, school buses, the repo man, the burglar and countless other basic things like supermarkets. We can’t create our own worlds. I can’t have say a luminous green kitchen with a purple fridge and hot pink counter tops. I can’t build a pond in my sims back garden, I can’t give them a back garden with a hill in it. I can’t hsve two sims hold hands and dance nor can I have them lie on a bed and read a book or just cuddle.
Don’t get me started on the lack of building tools. Why can’t I build a park without a chess table? Why am I restricted to having community lots I build follow a check list? That wasn’t even a requirement in the sims 1 for crying out loud.

There’s no consequence, I’m not so much playing a game as I am fighting against a moodlet manipulator. Or maybe that’s my role..

For limiting my creativity and forcing me to play a certain way I feel the game deserves the rating I gave it.

I adore the sims animations, the art style.
The children facial expressions are precious to me, not to mention the toddlers. The play interaction with toddlers is the best one I've seen in a sims game.
And the list goes on..