Carl's take of ways for improvement.

"JoAnne65;c-17296827" wrote:

"invisiblgirl;c-17296794" wrote:

"83bienchen;c-17296364" wrote:
I feel it was a step in the false direction to get rid of the comfort motive and replace it with happy moodlets for decoration and seating.

You've hit upon something here - the moodlets themselves weren't a bad idea, and sometimes they can be fun or interesting, but they get smothered by decoration moodlets. My Sim will come home from work 'Angry', but the moment she steps in the house, her 'anger' moodlet is pushed to the back by pictures and nice furniture. There are certain interactions we can choose when a Sim is in a particular mood, but they're not available because the decoration is overwhelming.

That's one reason toddlers are so much fun to play - they aren't affected by most of the aesthetic moodlets. An angry toddler is likely stay angry for a bit, unless you do something to either distract her or difuse the anger.

That’s indeed how it should work. And it’s a shame it only works like that for toddlers.

That's exactly why most who love the toddlers know they are more fleshed out than the other ages. We all thought they were the best toddlers so far, but maybe because they were more like the older games, and were not ruled by decorations and not happy, happy, the differences of the toddler to the adult is stunning. But that is also how it is in the older games. Maybe that's why those who wanted them so much were so happy about them, because they behave like Sims in the older games. Maybe Maxis should think about why so many have that mod installed that removes all the decor moodlets, and instead of a Sim always being happy the games says they are Fine. I guess they missed that part of why so many have that mod installed. Because it removes the core feature of TS4, the decor mood emitters and puts the Sim back to the state of any Sim in the older games. I wish they would think about why so many use it.

"Cinebar;c-17296933" wrote:

"JoAnne65;c-17296827" wrote:

"invisiblgirl;c-17296794" wrote:

"83bienchen;c-17296364" wrote:
I feel it was a step in the false direction to get rid of the comfort motive and replace it with happy moodlets for decoration and seating.

You've hit upon something here - the moodlets themselves weren't a bad idea, and sometimes they can be fun or interesting, but they get smothered by decoration moodlets. My Sim will come home from work 'Angry', but the moment she steps in the house, her 'anger' moodlet is pushed to the back by pictures and nice furniture. There are certain interactions we can choose when a Sim is in a particular mood, but they're not available because the decoration is overwhelming.

That's one reason toddlers are so much fun to play - they aren't affected by most of the aesthetic moodlets. An angry toddler is likely stay angry for a bit, unless you do something to either distract her or difuse the anger.

That’s indeed how it should work. And it’s a shame it only works like that for toddlers.

That's exactly why most who love the toddlers know they are more fleshed out than the other ages. We all thought they were the best toddlers so far, but maybe because they were more like the older games, and were not ruled by decorations and not happy, happy, the differences of the toddler to the adult is stunning. But that is also how it is in the older games. Maybe that's why those who wanted them so much were so happy about them, because they behave like Sims in the older games. Maybe Maxis should think about why so many have that mod installed that removes all the decor moodlets, and instead of a Sim always being happy the games says they are Fine. I guess they missed that part of why so many have that mod installed. Because it removes the core feature of TS4, the decor mood emitters and puts the Sim back to the state of any Sim in the older games. I wish they would think about why so many use it.

I remember starting up my Sims 4 game after toddlers had been released (and this was right after I had decided to drop the game for good) and I loved them. Because they were so cute and spot on and really interacted with their parents and I wasn’t used to that in Sims 4. But after a while I realized that though toddlers were fleshed out, their parents still were not and that only had become more noticeable for me. I’m not playing the game with a focus on toddlers, never will. The kids are important for me (though genetics play a huge part in that for me and I don’t like how genetics work in Sims 4), but never the focus. The (young) adults are.

"JoAnne65;c-17297306" wrote:

"Cinebar;c-17296933" wrote:

"JoAnne65;c-17296827" wrote:

"invisiblgirl;c-17296794" wrote:

"83bienchen;c-17296364" wrote:
I feel it was a step in the false direction to get rid of the comfort motive and replace it with happy moodlets for decoration and seating.

You've hit upon something here - the moodlets themselves weren't a bad idea, and sometimes they can be fun or interesting, but they get smothered by decoration moodlets. My Sim will come home from work 'Angry', but the moment she steps in the house, her 'anger' moodlet is pushed to the back by pictures and nice furniture. There are certain interactions we can choose when a Sim is in a particular mood, but they're not available because the decoration is overwhelming.

That's one reason toddlers are so much fun to play - they aren't affected by most of the aesthetic moodlets. An angry toddler is likely stay angry for a bit, unless you do something to either distract her or difuse the anger.

That’s indeed how it should work. And it’s a shame it only works like that for toddlers.

That's exactly why most who love the toddlers know they are more fleshed out than the other ages. We all thought they were the best toddlers so far, but maybe because they were more like the older games, and were not ruled by decorations and not happy, happy, the differences of the toddler to the adult is stunning. But that is also how it is in the older games. Maybe that's why those who wanted them so much were so happy about them, because they behave like Sims in the older games. Maybe Maxis should think about why so many have that mod installed that removes all the decor moodlets, and instead of a Sim always being happy the games says they are Fine. I guess they missed that part of why so many have that mod installed. Because it removes the core feature of TS4, the decor mood emitters and puts the Sim back to the state of any Sim in the older games. I wish they would think about why so many use it.

I remember starting up my Sims 4 game after toddlers had been released (and this was right after I had decided to drop the game for good) and I loved them. Because they were so cute and spot on and really interacted with their parents and I wasn’t used to that in Sims 4. But after a while I realized that though toddlers were fleshed out, their parents still were not and that only had become more noticeable for me. I’m not playing the game with a focus on toddlers, never will. The kids are important for me (though genetics play a huge part in that for me and I don’t like how genetics work in Sims 4), but never the focus. The (young) adults are.

I agree. It's why I can't play it much now, if ever again. Because the differences in how fleshed out toddlers are makes all other Sims stark and even more noticable they don't have any personality. We already knew that, but with a toddler in the home it's more evident than before. It's like putting a new silk purse next to a rucksack. lol Don't get me started on TS4 nonexistant genetics. My black couple magically had a white baby that magically turned black later when a kid. Gallery Sims- oh, look how much my Sim child looks like the mother...no, sorry, it's the same default child in my game, too. lol

I'm afraid it's too late to patch comfort in as a need but I seriously think EA should patch out the happy environment moodlets (and maybe also the make it so that all the other positive environment moodlets have to be activated to be used like it already is with some of the other objects).

I'm playing like that with mods since quite a while and it is so much more fun to actually experience different moods in the game.

If they absolutely want to keept the environment moodlets they could make it so we can switch them on/off or give us an option to toggle those off in settings (like we can switch of thunderstorms/rain).

The video makes great points. It is at least an attempt to give some real definition to why the Sims 4 seems "shallow," which can be hard to pin down.

My own experience for hitting the road on Sims 4 and where I wanted to see things play out differently is beef with how few unique ways to play, interact with the world, environment, and other sims.

I played the happy/inspired happy/focused, etc, sim. Been there, done that. It gets boring fast. Eventually just looking at all that smiling made my face hurt and listing to that chime over and over made me want to flip the bird. In The Sims 3, sure, I'd do the same few repetitive things (from a long list of options) to get my mood up for the day, but they were definitive and made the character unique, and there was a whole world to interact with, with unique characters that were just as fun to watch as get to know. In the Sims 4, just the same few things over and over until you die. So, I thought, I'll play a melancholy sim. I'll pick traits, spruce up my place, and live my life interacting with people and objects to be as freaking sad as possible, and build some lucrative career out of my misery.

No.

I picked traits so I could be sad, but sadness is not very complicated. I saw that I could check the obituaries as a consequence of being sad, so I assumed this would be a daily task I could perform to gear my mood up for work or a task, which I found hilarious. But, no. I could just check them, to no consequence, no effect, nothing at all but killing time that kills the mood.

There were other objects in the world I assumed would contribute to a sad emotion, such as "sadnum," (I assumed it would make me sad by the name, unless I am mistaken, in the vein of "romantium,") but no, all metals give a boost to "confidence," regardless of their name.

I couldn't even eat or upgrade my toilet without becoming so ecstatic that any hope at of having a successful career with the sad emotion went down the toilet.

The only thing left to do was lock myself up in a room with a handful of my own sad paintings and paint. Not upgrade my home. Have nothing to spend that hard earned cash on. No unique clothes ore wares, no way to choose the color scheme in my home. No way to benefit from decoration besides my own sad paintings. And no way to interact with the world as a melancholy sim. Nothing. Nothing at all. Can paint yourself blue creating the same sad pictures over and over and there is nowhere to go from there. Continuous monotony.

Any variety in the emotions from the happy/inspired, happy/energetic, happy/focused is seen as detrimental. While there should be things that are detrimental, of course, there is a severe lack of ways to live life. A real lack of flavor. That leaves a lack of depth and humor, and lack of interesting interactions between sims of different stripes. Carl is right. Overwhelmingly, all sims seem the same.

So, to spice up the Sims 4 for my liking, I would like to live live in different ways. I would love to play as a sims that is truly sad, or angry, as a total life choice, with benefits and detriments, that is way more fleshed out and immersive.

With the risk of making this post overlong, I am also a player that did not like loading screens. I was in the middle of playing the Sims 4 for the first time when I upgraded computers. My Sims 3 games took forever to load, but when they did, that was it. So, when I got a new computer I expected that those pesky Sims 4 loading screens would pass by in a matter of seconds. No. I got absolutely no performance boost or reduction in loading screen time for The Sims 4 when I got a pretty swanky new machine, while my Sims 3 games loaded up in seconds and ran gloriously.

That pesky Sims 4 loading screen gets longer and longer the more you put into you home. Simply having one of each regular plant (not the alien ones) was enough to make the loading screen unreasonably long. Don't get me wrong, I like going out and looking for plants and crystals and setting them up in my place, but geez. Going out the the bar and going home became a nightmare. I spent more time on loading screens than playing.

Since my social interactions and activities out in the world were pretty lame and I saw the same handful of boring people everywhere I went, I decided to become my homeward bound and make my house a sanctuary. I thought, I'll just do all I can from home. My stuff, career, plants, collectibles, friends. I'll bring them all here. That's ok for a while, but it's boring. It gets done pretty quick. Careers and whims were no better. Nowhere to go. Loading screens all over the place. A dead end of monotonous game play on every career real fast, with whims completed, so no choice but to keep changing careers in order to keep playing. I get so bored and get so much done by the time I'm designing and decorating my second home, after upgrading from the starter home, that I quit. Every time. After a very short time, the Sims 4 to me becomes a monotonous prison of eating (the same old thing so I don't get fat even when I watch the hunger bar and stop eating as soon as it is filled), sleeping, and going to the bathroom. I can't even get through the welcome wagon anymore.

To add, for the lack of depth and shallowness, which I definitely noticed when trying to get out of the ideal career mood/happy lane, there is no reason more depth could not have been added to the Sims 4, even it it's current state.

In the Sims 3, if I took the "daredevil" trait I could interact with objects in ways other sims could not (play with fire.) I could interact with other sims in ways other sims could not (watch this.) I could get a career boost in some careers, and I could do "extreme" versions of regular tasks. Sure, an "extreme shower" is just a shower, but it changed things up. It gave some color and flavor to the game. Same goes for something like the "brooding" trait. The list of variations for each trait is actually quite long, and when you couple that with many unique sims and an open world, things get interesting, and the game has huge replay value in spite of certain repetitions, which should be fun rather than a chore.

There is no reason the Sims 4 could not have added a bit more depth at this level. There are remarkably few variations in how you can interact with people, objects, or complete tasks depending on your traits. For instance, when I tried to play a melancholy sim by focusing on the "sad" emotion, there was no benefit to it. When I played my piano, or listened to music, or any other thing, there was absolutely no variation in how the sim REACTED to things vs every other sim. Traits meant nothing at all in this respect. I still got happy, sad, inspired, angry, etc, in the exact same cookie cutter fashion no matter what. That sad mood was one tiny blue dot in a sea of other colored dots, with absolutely no reaction to those emotions or emotional stimuli that varied from sim to sim. It would be much more interesting if Sims with certain traits act and react in specific ways to their environment and social interactions. It would give some variety and depth, and seeing as it is so well done in the Sims 3, it's near total absence in the Sims 4 makes the game seem like kind of a drag.

In the Sims 3, even if you took traits that would seem detrimental in the Sims 4 scope, you could forge a life for yourself and still live it to the fullest. You could be brooding, hot headed, etc, and you could produce unique paintings, do unique things, complete tasks in a unique way, and have unique social interactions. You would also find certain interactions, traits, and activities unpalatable, which really shaped a life with some shape and some lines to play within for a certain lifestyle and personality. In the Sims 4, this could have been present with the emotion system, but it's lacking. If you pick traits like "sad" or "angry" they are practically detrimental and drowned in a generic world unless you make one unique dish or paint one unique emotional painting.

In the Sims 4, I started the music career. I lived at subsistence wages. Playing for tips was not worth my time. I made extra money painting, which made me filthy rich, while my music career stagnated into an unfulfilling drag that would never go anywhere. The sweet piano was uncomfortable. Grims Goulish Guitar really had no outlet for the rocker life. The loading screens were long, repetitive, and nauseating. So I attempted to made a raging pad where I'd invite the townies to party and show off my musical prowess. To no avail. Patrons merely stood around, sad down, rarely interacted, nobody hooked up, nobody really did anything at all, and sims lit on fire. A lot. Over and over. And went home.

To contrast, in the Sims 3 I could take multiple career tracks in the music career, play multiple instruments, start a band, articulate any of these with many traits, and interact with many interesting sims. For instance, I moved to Aurora Skies for a career in music. After spending a ridiculous amount of time designing the perfect button up plaid shirt and knit beanie (which cannot be done in the Sims 4 because you cannot customize a thing,) and fuming that I could not sleep in my toque and had to pick a different hair style (I never take my toque off), I had to pick up some cash. I would never get my band off the ground at home alone. I had to get out there. So, I joined the music career. Probably doing dumb stuff like hang posters. I started to party. I bought my first guitar. I sucked at first, then started to shred. But, I found the music career was not for me. Too limiting. I was my own sim. I met people at work and at parties, played on the road, and eventually started a band. I poached the talent from the music agency and had a guitar player and drummer. One last band member to go, so I recruited the girlfriend of a local artist who showed at least some primitive musical ability to play the keys. That's when things started to slide. We were pretty good. I started to date the guitar player (not a good idea, dating within the band.) I never thought to invite band members girlfriends and boyfriends to practice, seeing as I had kind of a shallow, one track mind with no goals in life besides the next gig and dumping every penny into my Rock Town 3000, and you know how girlfriends and boyfriends are at practice. But, one day the drummer cheated with the keyboard player, who betrayed their artist boyfriend who was stuck at home in the basement toiling at the easel with his glorious long blond hair, right at practice (is he available now? Hmmm...) Drummers. Feelings were hurt. Things were never the same. The guitar player evidently had greater feelings for me than I did for him, because he asked me to move in with him. I declined. No way was I going to give up my great pad with a studio I toiled long and hard to pay for. No way was I going to be looking after another sim with my focus on my band. No way was I going to have someone eating my food, leaving dirty dishes all over the place, and filthing up my washroom. We had a huge falling out. The band broke up. I started sculpting and talking to unicorns.

In the Sims 4, people literally do nothing. Just rinse, repeat, nowhere to go, and not enough interaction to make it interesting. Due to the lack of depth in action and reaction, and variety in the traits and environment those funny situations that happened all the time in the Sims 3 that kept me playing are totally absent.

Everything lights on fire in the Sims 4. It is literally stupid. You cannot feasibly, to my knowledge, be smart about fire and practice any kind of fire safety other than being in a good mood, and to some extent not leaving things unattended. I wanted to burn that incense stick. I really did. I removed the carpeting. I put the stick in the middle of the room on a table by itself. Everything still lit on fire. I placed a non combustible surface around my fire place (some fine tile), but, to no avail. In the Sims 3, I could practice some reasonable fire safety, be smart about fire, and come out relatively unscathed unless a guest got into some mischief. I could design, place objects, upgrade objects, or use my lifetime happiness points to make my home fireproof. In the Sims 4, stuff and people lights on fire. All the time. A lot of fire. Not really funny or interesting in any way. Just repetitive and annoying.

For instance, in the Sims 3 I started the singer profession. I got the call to do a sing-a-gram while in the middle of cooking some bad quality mac and cheese. Out the door I went. Left the mac and cheese on the stove. Stove started on fire. Came home to find my kitchen ruined. Couldn't afford a new stove for ages on my pay and lived on yogurt and orange juice. It was hilarious. It had some context. In the Sims 4, fire has little to no context, and happens repetitively, all the time, stupidly so, to little or no effect except annoyance. I don't know if the atmospheric composition is different in the Sims 4 than the Sims 3, but geez, do things ever light on fire a lot.

Carl is right about the game growing linearly but not getting any modification to game play. If you look at the wiki page for each trait in the Sims 3, you'll see a pretty long list of ways the trait modifies the original game play. This is in addition to, or in modification of a pretty decent and in depth game with lots to do. Some traits had as few as 5 changes, and some as high as 18. I did not look at them all. And these lists are only direct changes. They do not list how all traits stack, interact, modify each other, or effect skills, such as being able to paint a unique style of painting, or succeed in a particular genre of writing. This is additional. On top of that, if you average something like a dozen changes PER trait, your sims can have 5-7 traits! If you multiply that, that's a lot of changes! Both for your play style, benefits and downsides in the environment, social interaction, and career. All the sims in the world have that many differences by the traits they have, too, and there are a lot of traits! In addition, there are changes based on skills, on career, on your degree, in 3 social groups, celebrity, and many life states, which again combine with the huge number of unique factors for EACH trait, let alone 5-7 of them. Put that into an open world with many sims with 5 traits each, and all the other factors like life state and social group, and it's fantastic. It's complex and interesting. It has depth. It's immersive, funny, fun to play, and highly replayable. All these factors knocking heads in the open world lead to fun games again and again. The Sims 4 does none of this. I simply did the same boring things again and again to get in the mood for work, and social interactions were very boring. That immersive, in depth glow I expected from the Sims was totally missing. What the Sims 3 lacked in complexity in actual game play (we all know how to eat and go to the bathroom) it more than made up for in the complexity of the game itself - the nuts and bolts behind those traits, life states, and social groups was complex enough to make a game where you click to do basic life functions again an again a joy to play. The ability to truly customize your create a sim and building experience, to quite a degree of difficulty if you wanted to, always added depth where it was needed. The Sims 4 doesn't really have this. There isn't the depth to traits there was before. The emotional states are shallow and few. There is no way to customize objects or clothing. Social interactions are boring to do and watch, in a small world where nothing unfolds out of that chaos of so many traits and states with so many factors that the Sims 3 has.

It's hard to explain that particular joy you feel when something truly hilarious, clever, and true to life comes out of all those traits and factors bumping into each other in that open world. The lady in the pink pick up truck. The day Tom Wordy showed up to the party a werewolf. The day the Murphy Bed killed Tiberius before classes even started. Scouring Bridgeport for the perfect date only to find out they're a burglar. The way the butler kept quitting until I got a damn cat. Playing for tips and being everybody's best friend without knowing a thing about them. Putting a stereo out for the zombies. Being so hungry you eat spoiled pumpkin pie. Getting pranked or scared in public and peeing yourself so your reputation goes down the drain. When the drummer cheats with the keyboard player, or your horse eats your newspaper and digs up an onion while stamping to the stereo, and your klepto spouse comes home from work with a street light in their inventory (I wish I'd waited to learn that last trait before putting a ring on it, but I'm not going to change you.)

That clumsy, loser, hot-headed, socially awkward, inappropriate mayor really has a different effect on the game from the charismatic, family oriented, good, workaholic, ambitious mayor. It's an open world, with many differences applied through each trait, life state, job, and social group. In the background is a wonderful chaos that yields some really fun results. The words that came to mind when I played The Sims 4 were vapid, void, and shallow. There really isn't the depth of intricacy to the traits and how things work to give the in depth feeling the Sims 3 had.

Also, I do not like to play sadistically. When I play the Sims 4 I find there is nothing much to do but apply my own afflictions to other sims due to the lack of social depth. Nothing happens. The sims never do anything. However, I don't like playing like this. I find it gross. I don't actually like a world where no one hooks up or does anything but eat and gab, unless I make them, and I don't want to do the job the game should do on it's own. I like the Sims 3 world where sims develop their own relationships, and I take part in a world, rather than constantly breaking that sort of fourth wall, making me make moves I wish were already there in a functioning and interesting world, rather than an empty thing for me to click at. Gone are the days of summoning meteors for money, committing arson again and again on the front lawn as a witch for insurance, and having the repo man take the mail box. And man, I miss shopping. I get so bummed when everything just comes in the mail instantly. Another loss on opportunities for meaningful interaction with sims and the world. And fake dating profiles or being asked on a first date... to a graveyard. Funny things. Instead, there are the same three sims on a conveyor belt sidewalk that show up to every lot I go, no matter how far I go from home. Creeps. Stalkers. I can't make new friends!

In the Sims 4, unless I sit through a whack of loading screens, my Sim either works from home or I watch an empty home as they walk out the door and reappear after a speed through. There isn't really anything interesting about jobs. No commute. No nothing. In the Sims 3, the sheer glut of jobs, traits, and ways to make money made for some interesting combinations. It's almost limitless. The detective that uses their experience to write mystery novels (the Castle), the down on their luck private investigator that hacks the slot machines for extra cash, the graveyard keeper that wanders around picking up rocks to sell for money, the fisherman that paints the scenic outdoors, the criminal that loots the antiquities of ancient Egypt.... the list is almost unlimited, and adds so much more than just looking at an empty house or loading screen.