6 years ago

Del Sol Valley is TOO Small

I want to start off by saying that I really love Get Famous as an expansion pack. It's the 2nd best EP of The Sims 4 and in general content release for this series, the best-done implementation of the fame system throughout the Sims series titles, and opened so much possibility in what you can do with your Sims. That's all great—the potential for it is HUGE!

For me, the only notable thing wrong with it is Del Sol Valley being too SMALL. It's a great world design, but it is TINY!

We have a small residential neighborhood with only 3 lots and in general represents a lower income/starter home neighborhood.

Then we have a mega-mega-megarich neighborhood with also only 3 lots and represents the insane wealth where your Sims are embarrassed to live there if they aren't famous enough.

...and no in between, unless you start bulldozing the few community lots on Starlight Boulevard as I have done. I've replaced two lots with apartment buildings because houses don't make sense in such a commercialized area, but apartments can sorta work. But it's still not really enough.

If the expansion pack is all about the road to fame, why is there only a start-point and an end-point and NO middle-ground?

Again, the expansion pack is GREAT overall, so this may seem like a small note, but it's a big issue. I've run out of lots for my Sims to live in this neighborhood very quickly.

They can say that it needed to be small in order to include all the features or have issues with performance, but I don't fully buy that and I don't really accept that on principle. I'd much rather have a world that feels complete than one that is lacking just because some PCs may not be able to handle it—that's a technical issue that shouldn't unnecessarily limit the fun of the game. I'd rather have a feature where PCs that cannot handle the game can TURN OFF either worlds or neighborhoods from accessibility manually rather than have a release with limitations imposed for machines that might not be applicable for most players.

Something feels off with that excuse and as a result, the limitation of a small world leaves a bad mark on an otherwise near-perfect expansion.

expansion packs

WaytoomanyUIDs
Rising Scout
6 years ago
If they are worried about too many households affecting the performance of the game, then the devs should consider letting you choose what worlds you attach to your game, like in The Sims 2
HappyNoodles123
6 years ago
I thought it was hilarious when my sim moved into his new home in Del Sol Valley, and his entire welcome wagon was Venessa and a slice of fruitcake.
elliebreton
Seasoned Ace
6 years ago
I've always thought, from the very outset, that they made a big mistake with the original base game. I'm certainly no techie, but it seems apparent that this version has always had, and will continue to have, big restrictions on what they can do with it.

Whether that's the game engine or some other reason, I have no idea. But I didn't even expect it to go on this long so I guess they are managing better than I thought they would.

But, let's face it, the longer this version continues the more they will struggle to meet expectations.

The poor devs are probably doing a totally awesome job with what they've got to work with. The game is not a total disaster, has some great aspects and can be very enjoyable.

Personally I'm having a lot more fun with get famous than I thought I would and I have plenty of space across my worlds to fit all of my rotation families plus a lot of spares and a lot of community places.
keekee53
Seasoned Newcomer
6 years ago
Sooooooooooooooooooooo I broke down and bought the game before a sale. One of my favorite modders added some really interesting stuff with the celebs and fame system so I just had to get the game LOL. The modders are the real "gamechangers", just saying.

I am battling in my mind about this because the world is ridiculously small and I feel like this should have been an expansive world at the same time the game play is really interesting. If I am being honest, I would rather have better gameplay than a bigger world.

I think they should have thought a few things through when adding Celeb sims. Technically we only got six residential lots and three of those lots were filled with Sims. I will not delete them because I like playing the back stories of added sims. Maybe they should have only added like 2 households to the 6 given. Anyway, I have decided to use part of San Myshuno for celebs too...like a NY vs LA type thing.
DreamaDove
6 years ago
TS4's way of cutting corners is what's getting it into trouble.

This time, if they had at the onset of the game released basegame WITH a Create A World tool (or even released the tool short after) then instead of using up budget and resources making worlds for us, they could have dedicated that to debugging and adding new game play and content. We could have made our own worlds. And for those of us who suck at building, there's many capable and willing builders who would have undoubtedly created gorgeous worlds and put them up for download in the gallery. They said the tool was underused in ts3, but there's no need for everyone to be a building when we can all reap the benefits of CAW through the gallery.It would save money in the long run and attracted more ts2 and ts3 simmers to invest in ts4.

But of course, since we can't make our own worlds then:

a large chunk of the budget is used up by making worlds leading to empty feeling packs (not much new gameplay)
not as many people buy the game so the budget shrinks.
simmers are restricted to ONLY playing the vision of the gurus, since the worlds they like is what we get
we have to wait on them to add lots to the game, so we run out of room to build quickly
we can't tailor worlds for our machines so people with low-end computers get lag in complex worlds and people with high-end computers are unnecessarily restricted

No one wins in this scenario. Expansions are empty of gameplay. Worlds are tiny. Simmers are restricted. Computers lag.

Simmers are dissatisfied by the game, and the gurus hear nothing but complaints while juggling building and coding new game play. Even EA loses since not as many people buy the game.

Everyone loses.
Simmerville
Seasoned Ace
6 years ago
I don't own this pack, but one thing I don't understand is why your sims must reside in Del Sol Valley? I keep playing my old worlds and old households when I get a new EP. Even when I got City Living I kept playing sims in Willow Creek and Oasis springs, it did not take them any longer to visit Planet Honey Pop than those sims living in the city. Of course I'd play a house or two in a new world, but I don't see why you need big hoods there.

Another question, someone mention they added an apartment build in Del Sol Valley. Is it possible to build apartments like in San Myshuno, in any world? I never tried, but was thinking it was limited to San M. Is it not, or can we download apartment builds from EA? Confuzzled :)
kurimisarang
6 years ago
"elanorbreton;c-16854961" wrote:
I've always thought, from the very outset, that they made a big mistake with the original base game. I'm certainly no techie, but it seems apparent that this version has always had, and will continue to have, big restrictions on what they can do with it.

Whether that's the game engine or some other reason, I have no idea. But I didn't even expect it to go on this long so I guess they are managing better than I thought they would.

I 100% agree with this.
I'm not sure to which extent the planned online game was used as a basis for TS4, if at all, but that could be why.
VentusMatt
6 years ago
Unfortunately this is something that they were going to hit at some point. Though are sims and all the lots aren't loaded up or on the current lot they are still in the background being tracked. At the moment we have 145 lots we can move sims into and if you wanted to you could have up to 1160 sims in your saved households (housed sims only) with the expectations that more lots will be added so the potential of more sims being in the world also raises.

Personally I don't think it's the game itself since from the beginning they have said they are making ts4 as playable as possible for lower end systems so I think it's the lower end system that are struggling. I know that on my old PC after I got CL my game started to take a hit and I had noticable lag in it's hoods. I have since upgraded and though I don't have all my settings at max I am able to play the game much better then before. I think with how the raised their minimum specs requirements for C&D they are going to have to sacrifice playability on lower end systems continue to raise the minimum specs as they see fit. It's something that most gaming companies end up having to tell their consumers. Upgrade your system if you want to play are games.
Ravager619
6 years ago
"silver_songbird;c-16855194" wrote:
honestly I personally think that the entire reason that the world is so small is due to performance issues, but not of the PC kind. often games a limited to what consoles can handle, and as sims 4 is now out on console, they're having to make cuts more than likely so everything works fine and dandy on that side of things. you often see (or hear) how much better games could have been if it wasn't for the limitations of console..they're not bad, but they're not as good as a PC sometimes.

You make a very good point. As someone who has a gaming rig and a PS4, I own copies of Project CARS on both systems. The PC version has better graphics, but the console version has better game play with less scenery detail on the sides of the track. I find myself playing the console version since the only time I notice the scenery is when I'm driving too slow.

I'm not sure what can be done going forward. Maybe if we're lucky we'll get the choice of what worlds we want to use. I don't remember the last time I visited Newcrest, Forgotten Hollow, or Granite Falls. If I could have that choice in exchange for larger worlds I'd do it in a heartbeat.
keekee53
Seasoned Newcomer
6 years ago
UGH this whole conversation makes me think I will not bother with Sims 5 if it is coming out on console. It will be even more limited than Sims 4.