Carl's take of ways for improvement.

"darrenfroggy;c-17272666" wrote:

"JoAnne65;c-17272586" wrote:

"darrenfroggy;c-17272276" wrote:
I like the ideas he has for improvement. Can't say that every one of them is something that majorly annoys me (careers being too easy? doesn't feel that way to me though it's a bit of a bummer that they did away with the ideal mood part for them) but the possible solutions are well thought out.

The only thing about the video that bugged me a bit was towards the end. I'm sure it wasn't his deliberate goal but when he talked about the parts of the game that he feels got more attention in TS4, it came across a lot like pitting players against each other. Bringing up things like "groups that are louder than others" isn't going to do much good in general. Or telling people they need to realize that other players want something else. That part, imo, was unnecessary. Especially since he then goes on to say: well, people who are loud have wants I don't share. I bet the vast majority of people feel that way anyway. To me, the loudest people I've seen want things like story progression and the game having more impact on what happens, which is something I don't care for but he does seem to. So it's hard to figure out who really is the loudest voice in the room. (and it's probably none of the obvious ones).

What I absolutely 100% support is his suggestion on adding options for the game to let people adjust the gameplay difficulty and give them more control over those things. There's no way to make the game perfect for everyone at the same time without giving us all the options to set it up to suit our needs because the player needs are so different across the community.

Funny, because I actually felt very much supported in that part of his video (and I’m not even part of such a group; I love building, I love storytelling and I love gameplay, I really divide my time in that respect, in Sims 3 that is). The way I interpreted it, is that what he means there is: the fact you are happy with the game the way it is doesn’t mean you’re right. And that is very much the atmosphere, at least on these forums. Don’t like the game? Well I love it so go play something else, bye bye. For me that’s exactly the attitude he adresses here in a very respectful, friendly manner. And that attitude very much needs to get some attention, because it’s not Carl who’s pitting players against each other. Players are doing that themselves, constantly.

The thing is, I didn't say he's creating the issue. And it's very much not just on one side (players who are happy with how the game is currently have been equally dismissed on the forums and elsewhere, regardless of whether they also support additions and changes to the game or not).
The way he pointed it out is just making it worse, imo. I get his point, it just missed the mark for me.

It's probably the wording and mentioning the whole "those who shout the loudest" thing combined with "they want things different to what I want". It just comes across as "we need to shout over them now" which tends to lead to shouting matches and no one winning in the end.

Both the extreme sides of all this are wrong: the ones who think the game is perfect (as I said, that's impossible in general, it can only be "perfect" for a section of players at a time as it is at the moment) and tell others to go find something else, as well as those who aren't happy and dismiss those who don't hate the game as brainwashed and similar (there's an equal amount of those in the community). And Carl's video only mentioned one side of all this properly (he wasn't wrong, I didn't say he was, it was just supporting one angle only, the way it felt to me).

Not sure how fans of this game are dismissed? It’s perfectly ok to say that you love Sims 4, nobody will tell you to please go away with that opinion. I can’t count the numerous times people here told me literally that. He most definitely doesn’t say “we need to shout over them now”. Quite an achievement to sense any agressive tone in his video in the first place, the guy is all friendliness and respect. The problem is, that any bit of criticism towards Sims 4, also constructive criticism (and this video is very constructive, from the beginning to the end) for some apparently feels like they’re being dismissed themselves. They’re not, the criticism only concerns the game, not the people who play (and like) it.