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

"RnM92;c-16289136" wrote:

"kremesch73;c-16289104" wrote:

"RnM92;c-16289022" wrote:
I have to give this a 4/10 at the most. Still unsure whether 3 or 4 in reality.

*snip*

But yeah, it really doesn't surprise me that the Sims 4 is such a downgrade compared to the previous games, after all I'm seeing a general pattern forming with most EA games as of late. Most of their franchises have seen terrible new games as of late (eg Mass Effect, Star Wars BF2, Sim City) which has resulted in an alienation of the fan base and cancellation of future games and/or closure of the studio. Therefore it really doesn't surprise me that the same has happened to the Sims. EA has clearly got to a point where making maximum profit is all that matters, and they'll rush out a game before its finished regardless, while investing as little as possible in the creation of the game.

Im curious about the pros. You gave it a 3/4 and only mentioned the cons. Your sentiment mirrors my own so I’m intrigued. What do you like about Sims 4 to give it that score?

Regarding the bolded area: I don’t understand the mentality of decreasing quality to maximize profits. I feel you’re correct, but this is the pattern that usually closes the doors on a company. I just don’t understand why they’d stick their own feet in a grave they appear to be digging. Time will tell, I guess.

Edit: sorry to snip your post. But the quote was so long. Nothing wrong with it. It’s just that you already said it. :)

You'd better ask EA why they're doing that, I don't know. God knows why a company would do such a thing, but it seems to be exactly what they're doing.

The corporate world has all kinds of phenomenons that have been studied because someone attempted to explain problems.

In this case with Sims 4, something that occassionally happens is that whoever is in charge of the project decides they're going to make a name for themselves by increasing profit. Because they're ambitious about it, they look to every possible method of increasing profit, including cutting back on expenses. They slash the budget, cut back on what's produced and on development costs, maybe even up the price of the product, and wouldn't you know it profit goes up. Now their superior is at their desk shaking their hand, offering a bonus or a promotion or the like.

The thing is, that profit often winds up being short-term. Sure, the first year or two there's a boost to income, but after that there's a backlash. Suddenly staff are realizing why something got the funding that it had because they're having difficulty completing their job with the budget that remains, or customers are getting fed up with the lack of quality and not buying. Unfortunately, because of how shortsighted we tend to be, the manager responsible for all these changes may have already been promoted for saving on costs, thus the blame goes to the next guy. If not, of course they can find someone else to use as their scapegoat. Say a manager cuts on production costs and it works for 2 years, but then suddenly profit dives. Blame the newer employees, blame a change in the market. The business world has a number of different factors going into the success or failure of a product and very few employers/employees who properly understand which are responsible. This means that for the more ambitious managers who don't want to take responsibility for their short-sightedness or their failures, there's also a wide variety of scapegoats available. Scapegoat gets blamed, upper management buys it, and things just continue to get worse until it's over. I see this at my work all the time where sometimes an assistant manager or someone with a supporting role for a project isn't given enough aid to complete their task, but because they aren't in a position of power, the project lead can simply blame them and their superiors are unlikely to question it and ask if the aids and assistants weren't at fault.

I find that companies that think long-term are especially rare these days (but more often successful, which is an especially bitter paradox), and I do think a lot of it has to do with workers wanting to impress so they can move up. It's unfortunate, because long-term thought is immensely profitable, it's just slower, and I think that's why individual workers shy away from it since it requires patience and has less chance of being noticed by their superiors. No one wants to be that investor that makes a steady and reliable income through regular investments over years that require more thought, everyone wants to be that guy that invests in Bitcoin super early and scores millions of dollars within a matter of months. Thing is, the latter also has far more risks, it's just people ignore those when their focus is climbing to the top. They're too focused on the peak of the mountain to notice the potential fall behind them; all they care about is that they can reach the top faster if they don't bother with some of the more tedious safety gear.

Take Breath of the Wild as an example on the gaming market. That game had an unorthodox development because it saw some delays and Nintendo even saw fit to delay it to perfect things like the physics engine. (as I understand it, 5 year development and the last year spent almost exclusively on the physics) Do you need a perfect physics engine to make a great game? No, but they did it and players absolutely notice and appreciate it. I think I remember reading that Nintendo sunk so much money into that game that they needed to sell 2 million copies just to break even.

It has sold over 5 million copies according to an article from December. I think it was last year that we heard absolute confirmation Sims 4 sold 5 mil copies. What took this game 2-3 years, Breath of the Wild achieved in months. It also has a historically high packaged rate, to the point the game itself sold more than the system used to play it. That is absolutely unheard of. The thing to realize is that the way Nintendo planned that, it's not just about the sale of the title itself, but also about the Switch and the faith in that system. Even if they developed it at a loss, if they win profit off of the system because everyone wants to play that game, then it can be worth it long term. People run out to buy a Switch to play the new Zelda, and now that they have the system, of course they pay attention to new game releases for it. Lo and behold, Nintendo is currently making a killing because they've just been on a roll, developing blockbuster title after blockbuster title. The amount of money spent developing their games is practically moot because customer faith in the company is currently at an all-time high, so people shell out for their games pretty quick.

This isn't something that happens often, though. Let's say you developed Breath of the Wild and you developed it at a loss. You sunk so much money into it that even though it's selling super well and winning game of the year, your company lost profit from the title individually. However, the Switch itself is selling historically well. It's breaking records and the number of systems sold offsets any losses on your game with ease.

Guess what happens now: you and the main guy developing the Switch are gonna butt heads about who to thank for the sales. You'll argue your game is what sold it and you purposefully sunk too much money into it in hopes of encouraging system sales for ongoing future company revenue, the team that developed the system will argue it's just a good system and that's why it's selling so well since customers recognize it's quality. Your superior might be scratching his head, unsure who's right, and at the end of the day neither of you has a promotion, or perhaps he decides to play it safe and demote you from being a project lead because "the numbers don't lie."

I think that's precisely why long-term thinkers can sometimes be so rare in the business world. Everyone wants to be the guy getting a pat on the back for increasing profit because that's easy. Cut expenses everywhere, up the product price, and then perhaps by the time everything's on fire because your budget cuts were poorly planned, you'll have already been promoted because "oh look, profit! (short-term, anyways)" But planning long-term...? That takes more thought and care and even has more risks of not being recognized.

I personally think that where EA stands now after the Battlefront fiasco (amongst others), they need to be focused on rebuilding trust with their consumers, not on profit. If they want to re-stabilize, they need to put profit in a backseat role while focusing on making quality games without greedy practices so that customers regain trust. Making a Sims 5 that's good for example would just have Simmers saying "oh thank God, back to normal" and eager to buy expansions. Making Sims 5 just as bad as 4...? That would be enough to get people to just permanently abandon the franchise since they'd assume Sims 4's quality (or lack thereof) is the new standard.

That's the thing though: what do you think happens to the managers that are assigned such a task to increase customer satisfaction? What happens when they just make great games, but company profit actually drops because development costs went up...? That's already a strike against them even if they really are doing the right thing for the company and even if customers are happy with their work, and that's precisely why both the company as a collective entity and the individual workers tend to shy away from that, instead focusing solely on the short-term.

Just a possibility of course, but it's absolutely something that happens a lot in the business world.

"the_greenplumbob;c-16288765" wrote:
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.

This is very similar to my feelings toward the game. I really enjoy it, but the content is slow and there are adjustments needed. I do add a handful of mods that affect gameplay. If I weren't able to use these mods I am not sure whether I'd still be enjoying the game.

Nonetheless, while I can look back and reflect on specific advantages of previous iterations, I just can't bring myself to play the other versions for more than a brief duration. I don't know whether it's because I burned out on the other versions, or because Sims 4 is easier to play and look at. For whatever reason, I'm focused on Sims 4 now.

"DeservedCriticism;c-16289407" wrote:

"RnM92;c-16289136" wrote:

"kremesch73;c-16289104" wrote:

"RnM92;c-16289022" wrote:
I have to give this a 4/10 at the most. Still unsure whether 3 or 4 in reality.

*snip*

But yeah, it really doesn't surprise me that the Sims 4 is such a downgrade compared to the previous games, after all I'm seeing a general pattern forming with most EA games as of late. Most of their franchises have seen terrible new games as of late (eg Mass Effect, Star Wars BF2, Sim City) which has resulted in an alienation of the fan base and cancellation of future games and/or closure of the studio. Therefore it really doesn't surprise me that the same has happened to the Sims. EA has clearly got to a point where making maximum profit is all that matters, and they'll rush out a game before its finished regardless, while investing as little as possible in the creation of the game.

Im curious about the pros. You gave it a 3/4 and only mentioned the cons. Your sentiment mirrors my own so I’m intrigued. What do you like about Sims 4 to give it that score?

Regarding the bolded area: I don’t understand the mentality of decreasing quality to maximize profits. I feel you’re correct, but this is the pattern that usually closes the doors on a company. I just don’t understand why they’d stick their own feet in a grave they appear to be digging. Time will tell, I guess.

Edit: sorry to snip your post. But the quote was so long. Nothing wrong with it. It’s just that you already said it. :)

You'd better ask EA why they're doing that, I don't know. God knows why a company would do such a thing, but it seems to be exactly what they're doing.

The corporate world has all kinds of phenomenons that have been studied because someone attempted to explain problems.

In this case with Sims 4, something that occassionally happens is that whoever is in charge of the project decides they're going to make a name for themselves by increasing profit. Because they're ambitious about it, they look to every possible method of increasing profit, including cutting back on expenses. They slash the budget, cut back on what's produced and on development costs, maybe even up the price of the product, and wouldn't you know it profit goes up. Now their superior is at their desk shaking their hand, offering a bonus or a promotion or the like.

The thing is, that profit often winds up being short-term. Sure, the first year or two there's a boost to income, but after that there's a backlash. Suddenly staff are realizing why something got the funding that it had because they're having difficulty completing their job with the budget that remains, or customers are getting fed up with the lack of quality and not buying. Unfortunately, because of how shortsighted we tend to be, the manager responsible for all these changes may have already been promoted for saving on costs, thus the blame goes to the next guy. If not, of course they can find someone else to use as their scapegoat. Say a manager cuts on production costs and it works for 2 years, but then suddenly profit dives. Blame the newer employees, blame a change in the market. The business world has a number of different factors going into the success or failure of a product and very few employers/employees who properly understand which are responsible. This means that for the more ambitious managers who don't want to take responsibility for their short-sightedness or their failures, there's also a wide variety of scapegoats available. Scapegoat gets blamed, upper management buys it, and things just continue to get worse until it's over. I see this at my work all the time where sometimes an assistant manager or someone with a supporting role for a project isn't given enough aid to complete their task, but because they aren't in a position of power, the project lead can simply blame them and their superiors are unlikely to question it and ask if the aids and assistants weren't at fault.

I find that companies that think long-term are especially rare these days (but more often successful, which is an especially bitter paradox), and I do think a lot of it has to do with workers wanting to impress so they can move up. It's unfortunate, because long-term thought is immensely profitable, it's just slower, and I think that's why individual workers shy away from it since it requires patience and has less chance of being noticed by their superiors. No one wants to be that investor that makes a steady and reliable income through regular investments over years that require more thought, everyone wants to be that guy that invests in Bitcoin super early and scores millions of dollars within a matter of months. Thing is, the latter also has far more risks, it's just people ignore those when their focus is climbing to the top. They're too focused on the peak of the mountain to notice the potential fall behind them; all they care about is that they can reach the top faster if they don't bother with some of the more tedious safety gear.

Take Breath of the Wild as an example on the gaming market. That game had an unorthodox development because it saw some delays and Nintendo even saw fit to delay it to perfect things like the physics engine. (as I understand it, 5 year development and the last year spent almost exclusively on the physics) Do you need a perfect physics engine to make a great game? No, but they did it and players absolutely notice and appreciate it. I think I remember reading that Nintendo sunk so much money into that game that they needed to sell 2 million copies just to break even.

It has sold over 5 million copies according to an article from December. I think it was last year that we heard absolute confirmation Sims 4 sold 5 mil copies. What took this game 2-3 years, Breath of the Wild achieved in months. It also has a historically high packaged rate, to the point the game itself sold more than the system used to play it. That is absolutely unheard of. The thing to realize is that the way Nintendo planned that, it's not just about the sale of the title itself, but also about the Switch and the faith in that system. Even if they developed it at a loss, if they win profit off of the system because everyone wants to play that game, then it can be worth it long term. People run out to buy a Switch to play the new Zelda, and now that they have the system, of course they pay attention to new game releases for it. Lo and behold, Nintendo is currently making a killing because they've just been on a roll, developing blockbuster title after blockbuster title. The amount of money spent developing their games is practically moot because customer faith in the company is currently at an all-time high, so people shell out for their games pretty quick.

This isn't something that happens often, though. Let's say you developed Breath of the Wild and you developed it at a loss. You sunk so much money into it that even though it's selling super well and winning game of the year, your company lost profit from the title individually. However, the Switch itself is selling historically well. It's breaking records and the number of systems sold offsets any losses on your game with ease.

Guess what happens now: you and the main guy developing the Switch are gonna butt heads about who to thank for the sales. You'll argue your game is what sold it and you purposefully sunk too much money into it in hopes of encouraging system sales for ongoing future company revenue, the team that developed the system will argue it's just a good system and that's why it's selling so well since customers recognize it's quality. Your superior might be scratching his head, unsure who's right, and at the end of the day neither of you has a promotion, or perhaps he decides to play it safe and demote you from being a project lead because "the numbers don't lie."

I think that's precisely why long-term thinkers can sometimes be so rare in the business world. Everyone wants to be the guy getting a pat on the back for increasing profit because that's easy. Cut expenses everywhere, up the product price, and then perhaps by the time everything's on fire because your budget cuts were poorly planned, you'll have already been promoted because "oh look, profit! (short-term, anyways)" But planning long-term...? That takes more thought and care and even has more risks of not being recognized.

I personally think that where EA stands now after the Battlefront fiasco (amongst others), they need to be focused on rebuilding trust with their consumers, not on profit. If they want to re-stabilize, they need to put profit in a backseat role while focusing on making quality games without greedy practices so that customers regain trust. Making a Sims 5 that's good for example would just have Simmers saying "oh thank God, back to normal" and eager to buy expansions. Making Sims 5 just as bad as 4...? That would be enough to get people to just permanently abandon the franchise since they'd assume Sims 4's quality (or lack thereof) is the new standard.

That's the thing though: what do you think happens to the managers that are assigned such a task to increase customer satisfaction? What happens when they just make great games, but company profit actually drops because development costs went up...? That's already a strike against them even if they really are doing the right thing for the company and even if customers are happy with their work, and that's precisely why both the company as a collective entity and the individual workers tend to shy away from that, instead focusing solely on the short-term.

Just a possibility of course, but it's absolutely something that happens a lot in the business world.

I agree wholeheartedly. You left out one other aspect of cutting corners though.

Being one who’s worked for many publicly owned companies: There is another danger.

Companies promise high numbers within an agreed upon time. They can’t always live up to their promises. They lose shares due to their inability to meet the demands of being publicly owned.

Their solution is to cut costs and raise prices to increase profits.

Both employees and customers suffer.

Customers suffer to higher prices and degrading quality.

Employees suffer to less hours and lower pay, along with the stress of being over-worked and given the bare minimum to complete a task—on a good day.

Meanwhile, the investors and higher management count their coins and pat themselves on the back.

It’s to the point where customers don’t even realize they’re being short-changed anymore. Or
Maybe they just don’t care. It’s come to ‘the best of the worst.’

Anyhoo. If only I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard, “numbers don’t lie.”

No one ever wonders about the actual story they really tell.

I feel like TS4 has been a failed experiment. This game...was an mmo first, than it had a story mode, than it became a weak main sims game. It wasn't meant to be a main game and it shows.

The biggest "innovations" of this game are it's biggest flaws. Emotions clearly didn't work out the way they probably planned, I don't even think moodlets were supposed to be a thing since they weren't on the first TS4 gameplay video but they are here and they are a major problem. Multitasking makes sim AI lag, a lot, and it's a wall in development.

The EP's are for the most part decals and decoration objects, with so little features or even none. I still don't understand how a Cats and Dogs only pack doesn't even make dogs and cats more detailed than in previous games a aprt for some "quirky" hidden traits, doesn't make pets roam around every world, doesn't have pet trainer NPC's or actual contests with an NPC and other sim's that can win. And only two pet beds. It's all so.....low end. They have also been recycling the EP and GP content as of late which....just shows how much development they are putting into these packs.

Build mode is a mess. Only basements, pools (I don't even know how a sims game came out without pools) roof types that somehow didn't make it to the base game in time and half walls were added in 3 years. Foundations are a problem, every lot is flat, ponds are objects, only one type of stairs, elevators aren't real, there's a huge lack in wallpapers and floor tiles, no sliding doors, etc. We only got new wall trim types in the vampires GP I believe, so this iteration isn't even expanding on the new features it has.

Sims have no personality in TS4, and they only tried to expand upon them in Parenthood, but you can't set character values in CAS.

They even removed the memory timelines from the game in a patch and added the more simple screenshot viewer because they didn't want to work on a better system, removing the option to manually dictate a memory's emotion. Now it's automatic.

Whims in this game are a joke to behold, they might as well not be there. The aspiration rewards aren't that amazing and the devided aspiration goals instead of just the major one doesn't work. The concept of aspirations and the reason for them to not be changeable in TS2 is because aspirations in TS2 work like a trait (romance aspiration would make your sims keen on cheating and not really care too much if the partner cheated on them, they did not like to get married). They would dictated how your sim reacts to certain events and what he/she wants or fears. On TS4 it's just a boring way to somehow reward the player for completing a bunch of goals.

I still to this day don't understand why you can change a sim's body type and whatever suits you in CAS through the wardrobe. It's way too op and it feels like a feature an RPG would have when you make a mistake on your character. In TS3 you have to pay to get plastic surgery and in TS2 you have to go through an entire career. I don't know why this game is praising on the cheaters. I always feel like I'm going to the Black Emporium into the magic mirror to change my inquisitor when I see the change sim option on a mirror and not even there I 100% agree with the feature.

All the complaining made a T rated game an SJW political delight. No slapping, no shoving, no bumping, no showing off a fist, but we can have all the potty humor we want. No robbers, no meteors, no spontaneous combustion, no death by flies, no death by elevator, and death by emotions has been nerfed to hell.

Overall TS4 feels very much like a children game, it's easy and simple as simple can be, the artstyle looks like a cartoon network show (I guess some people like it, but I'm not living for the plastic hair, playdoh skin and over saturated tonality), animations are too much and unrelatable especially when sims talk, those smiles and arm movement is crazy, and the clipping bothers me a lot, that and sims talking through walls.

However I give it a 4 because it does have some good concepts regarding certain features and it can keep me entertained for some time though it's not as fun as previous games as it tends to get really repetitive really fast.

I had to go with a rating of 4 we're 3 and a half years in and are still missing so many basics I need. No cars water tools CAW or even a way to edit the worlds babies are still objects and teens have been given nothing unique except being able to be parented.

The expansions are repetitive reusing content over and over such as active careers (mini games) in 3 out of 4 expansions and worlds are being passed off as new content instead of being a place to explore and play with all the new game expanding content that we should be getting. When you have to turn to a $20 game pack to add any resemblance of game play over a $40 expansion which should offer a wide variety and does not something is wrong.

There is a reason EA is called the worst company in America. The Sims 4 is like SimCity (2013 of course), such a utter disappointment, and such an utter mess that is lacking in heart and soul, that I hope one day other studios and developers come up with a worthy competitor to the Sims as Cities: Skyline by Colossal Order did to SimCity.

For one example on how the Sims 4 is a disappointment, look no further than the EP's. Expansion Packs are supposed to be massively defining addons and improvements to the base game, be it adding new worlds, new life states, new gameplay features, etc, and while the EP's do that in an essence, Expansion Packs are all but over glorified stuff packs, with most adding nothing to gameplay, and giving us tiny 'worlds', or should I say towns for a more accurate term, that have cumbersome loading screens that seem illogical simply because the neighborhoods we are given are tiny, with some just having 4 lots. Just look no further than San Myshuno in City Living to Bridgeport in the Sims 3. San Myshuno pales in comparison to the scope of content that Bridgeport and Late Night had, everything from gameplay, NPC's, lots, size, etc.

Another problem is the stuff packs. Many things that are in stuff packs should've been included in the base game to begin with or in expansion packs instead of adding on another 10 dollars, one example is laundry and the concept of doing laundry. It would've been logical if laundry was included in the Parenthood Game Pack for example, or in the Cats and Dogs EP. In Parenthood it would've made sense in regards to the responsibility feature for teenagers and children, with possible events being 'Spring Cleaning' where a household would work together as a family to do laundry. In Cats and Dogs, it would've made sense in the essence that you have cats and dogs now, and accidents happen where cats and dogs get clothes dirty, from accidentally going to the bathroom on clothes, to getting hair and saliva on clothes, to getting their dirty paws on clothes, this just some examples. EA is known to love in app purchases, just look at their mobile games, from the Simpsons: Tapped Out, to the Sims Freeplay, they are everywhere, ranging from 1 dollar to over 100 dollars.

As I said in another thread, I enjoy the Sims, I love buying new content to better enhance the Sims, but to mishandle the game and make it similar to a freemium game where its just about the money in the context that it is NOT about enhancing the base game is a big no no. This is why I welcomed the massive blacklash that EA received for their Battlefront disaster. In getting the most disliked comment in Reddit history did EA finally do something good in removing transactions for Star Wars, momentarily no doubt, and I hope that the Sims community continues to purse efficient dialogue and criticism on ways to improve the Sims that EA and Maxis understand and take note of the frustration that we Simmers have when it comes towards the Sims and the way the series is moving towards the future.

I hope the Gurus and EA Community Managers and Administrators realize that we are not criticizing the game and EA and Maxis just to criticize, but because we want to make the Sims 4 a better game that can positively impact both the consumers, and EA and Maxis. We love the Sims, that is why we are on this forum talking about this.

"Dracon;c-16289797" wrote:
There is a reason EA is called the worst company in America. The Sims 4 is like SimCity (2013 of course), such a utter disappointment, and such an utter mess that is lacking in heart and soul, that I hope one day other studios and developers come up with a worthy competitor to the Sims as Cities: Skyline by Colossal Order did to SimCity. For one, Expansion Packs are all but over glorified stuff packs, with most adding nothing to gameplay, and giving us tiny 'worlds', or should I say towns for a more accurate term, that have cumbersome loading screens. Many things that are in stuff packs should've been included in the base game to begin with or in expansion packs instead of adding on another 10 dollars to do laundry for example. It would've been logical if this was included in the Parenthood Game Pack for example, or in the Pets EP.

I welcomed the massive blacklash that EA received for their Battlefront disaster, in getting the most disliked comment in Reddit history did EA finally do something good in removing transactions for Star Wars, momentarily of course, but I hope that the Sims community continues to purse efficient dialogue and criticism on ways to improve the Sims that EA and maxis understand the frustration that we Simmers have.

That (Worst Company branding) was a few years ago (2012 & 2013), and basically over bad Customer service -
EA Did respond - and admitted their errors -

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/ea-exec-responds-to-worst-company-in-america-contr/1100-6443178/

Overall I'm quiet happy with Sims 4 I have played all sims games.. tho could never get the hang of sims3 .. so Yes YAYY SIMS 4

7/10 bc the aesthetic is great and I feel like the gameplay has been heading in a good direction lately. I feel like there is improvement needed still in areas but I also feel the game feels incomplete without the basic expansions that come with sims normally (seasons, university)

I feel like there a lot of basic aspects missing from the base game that should have been included (burglars, cops etc)

Overall I enjoy the game. I can spend hours in BB and CAS and I enjoy live mode as long as I am storytelling.

Well - I guess your opinion is your opinion. It just isn't mine.