"JoAnne65;c-17275936" wrote:
"darrenfroggy;c-17275887" wrote:
@Felicity It's less the specific use of "think critically" as "focus on everything that's wrong". It's more that there's a level of peer pressure to not just consume media presented to us without questioning it (which is fine in itself) and some people take it to the extreme and look for perfection. Critical thinking is perfectly fine and understandable - say, a movie that romanticizes abuse definitely shouldn't just be watched and accepted as something perfectly normal - but, especially on social media, there's frequently a push to make things perfect to the point where sometimes things get pushed into the "problematic" zone without a valid reason.
To me, some of the criticism I see about TS4 falls into the category of "reaching" (not anyone's specific criticism and by far not all of it). It can get to the point where everything is proof that the game is bad, even things that are simply not enjoyable to someone.
@JoAnne65 For the sake of everyone who is missing the gameplay elements that Carl (and others) mentioned, I really hope the devs will take a hard look at it and work on them. (full disclosure: I don't think they're unaware and I think it's a bit more complicated than "the devs don't care", considering the history of TS4)
If that's not possible, then hopefully TS5 will come and be able to implement all the aspects that players enjoy, from gameplay through CAS and build features and mechanics, all the way to the option of micromanaging and storytelling. For me personally, the big thing about the next game would be options. Being able to set up the game to what each person wants, being able to carry those settings over, maybe having core setups to choose from when starting a new game.
I do enjoy the game's mechanics now, more than I find the need for them to change, but I do understand that they're not for everyone (and I really dislike anyone who tells others what they should enjoy, on both extremes of the spectrum). I might not want to play the game as a challenge all the time but it should have that option for those who do.
I'm a hopeful person by nature, sometimes to my detriment, really, but I genuinely think there's still a chance to make those changes happen. What I also hope is that Maxis will do it in a way that doesn't just flip a switch and take away what we have now. (how, I believe, it happened with Vampires after complaints about too much intrusiveness in the other worlds). Granted, it's the easier way to just tweak those things than it is to add a new layer. But both the devs and some of the players need to stop being so terrified of options. There are so many that wouldn't even be that hard on machines but would add so much to gameplay - random events, autonomous occult appearances outside of their worlds, stronger responses to events from the Sims.
So for me it's definitely a case of still having hope because that's how my brain is wired.
(at the same time, I'm genuinely terrified that the next iteration will be Freeplay 2.0, along with microtransactions and tons of pointless decor. Here's hoping that the shuffling of that over to Firemonkeys means that it won't be the case)
(apologies about the rambling and if this doesn't make complete sense. it's been a long day of arguing with trying to get TS4 to even work, thanks to Mac updates :/)
I agree (the bold), but actually that’s where my concern lies where it comes to Sims 4. I definitely have seen them trying to give simmers what they ask for for years now, I have no reason at all to assume they don’t care. There’s no proof of that, on the contrary. But “they can’t” doesn’t make me any more hopeful than “they won’t”.
Speaking of this, I notice developers, intentionally or not, when their asked for their input of certain implementation possibless, they always everytime deem it to be something "(they) can't do it", instead of you know - hypothetically thinking of theories and explaining how hypothetically they can be make it to practice. They don't really give an open minded attitude of explaining how they would be able to do it
if they could. As if anybody that shares an idea on their twitter count will be inevitable be shut down by developers powerlessness.
Actually, I don't how to articulate the point I'm trying to cross.