In the Sims, extended family is treated like dirt. A sim automatically has a 'friend' status with their mother, father, and any siblings in the household. Everyone else is a stranger to them. As a family player, I was quite upset when I realized that my child and my toddler had no knowledge of their grandmother, who was on the brink of death. Wanting them to know their grandparents before they passed, I quickly invited them over. However, because my toddler didn't have the charmer trait, she got scared and I couldn't even interact with them. Another problem I have is with siblings. If an older sibling moves out of the house before a baby is born, the child will have to be introduced to that sibling despite the fact that moved out siblings are still considered to be immediate family. I also dislike the fact that aunts, uncles and cousins aren't featured in the family tree. As a person who enjoys the big happy family side of the Sims, this is particularly annoying to me. There are a lot of things that don't make any sense about familial relationships in the Sims that one post isn't enough for it. Who else has problems with the Sims family trees?

Relations like these have never been a focal point in 4. Many relationships aren't acknowledged at all. Cousins can flirt with each other. I was expecting more, considering that The Sims 3 acknowledged so many different kinds of family relations. The fact that a family tree (and a very, very weak one at that) was only added later in a patch says a lot.

Playing my Matthews family out, i check the genaology for Sandra and only her immediately family members show. I check her daughter Karen, and all the family members show, including her father, her fathers wife and her half-siblings.TS4's genology family tree thing is a mess unfortunately.

Yeah, even in my playstyle (aging off, few generations) it bothers me that grandparents are complete strangers to their grandkids.

I hate the fact that grandchildren can't even introduce themselves to famous grandparents. It's like the grandparent is so famous that they don't want to know their grandchild? I can't believe the Sims team didn't made a fix for this yet.

I was hoping at this point of 5 years they would bring a fix to this. I don’t know if it is even a matter of importance for them now. The family tree never existed in the beginning and with the lack of depth in family-play, I wouldn’t hold my breath on the Sims Studio to give us a patch for it. Take the latest stuff pack for example. It advertised a fashion company that only sells apparel + accessories, yet barely has any of it. :)Im beginning to lose some hope with TS4 and hoping that they’re working on the next sequel right now...

Does anybody else hate the Sims family trees?

26 Replies

TheRainBeatsDow
6 years ago
Relations like these have never been a focal point in 4. Many relationships aren't acknowledged at all. Cousins can flirt with each other. I was expecting more, considering that The Sims 3 acknowledged so many different kinds of family relations.

The fact that a family tree (and a very, very weak one at that) was only added later in a patch says a lot.
Hoverael
6 years ago
Playing my Matthews family out, i check the genaology for Sandra and only her immediately family members show. I check her daughter Karen, and all the family members show, including her father, her fathers wife and her half-siblings.

TS4's genology family tree thing is a mess unfortunately.
jacknifelee
6 years ago
Yeah, even in my playstyle (aging off, few generations) it bothers me that grandparents are complete strangers to their grandkids.
evelynin
6 years ago
I hate the fact that grandchildren can't even introduce themselves to famous grandparents. It's like the grandparent is so famous that they don't want to know their grandchild? I can't believe the Sims team didn't made a fix for this yet.
hestiah23
Seasoned Ace
6 years ago
I was hoping at this point of 5 years they would bring a fix to this. I don’t know if it is even a matter of importance for them now. The family tree never existed in the beginning and with the lack of depth in family-play, I wouldn’t hold my breath on the Sims Studio to give us a patch for it.

Take the latest stuff pack for example. It advertised a fashion company that only sells apparel + accessories, yet barely has any of it. :)

Im beginning to lose some hope with TS4 and hoping that they’re working on the next sequel right now...
Simmerville
Legend
6 years ago
Hate is a too strong emotion, but I don't use the tree that much. I keep my own family notes in a spread sheet, so I will rather go there to check stuff I need to look up. I'm more concerned with the culling of relations. It's fine that a sim "forgets" about a random stranger they talked with long ago, but it is very annoying that sims don't have a relation to their own siblings! When a sim is throwing a wedding party, half the family can't be invited because it's been too long since they talked.

Also, I'd like better if we could invite entire households. If my sim has a relation to a brother, and is throwing a party, she should be able to invite brother with family, even if she has not met his wife and kids in a long time.

I wish we could decide these things in settings, like whether relative could avoid culling. There should even be a way to phone a relative even if we didn't meet them in advance. I assume the sims are modern enough to have access to some sort of a phone book without needing to first knock on a sim's door to "ask for the phone number" ;)

Sorry, this got a bit off the topic.
Simmerville
Legend
6 years ago
"Evalyn326;c-17196209" wrote:
I hate the fact that grandchildren can't even introduce themselves to famous grandparents. It's like the grandparent is so famous that they don't want to know their grandchild? I can't believe the Sims team didn't made a fix for this yet.

You can fix this by playing the grandparent, and establish the relation with grandchildren. Not sure how strong the relation must be before the grand child behaves natural towards grandparent, though. And if you play on rotation, the relation might fade too quickly any way. I agree that relatives should behave differently than random contacts.
Amj1995
Seasoned Ace
6 years ago
I’m not a fan of it. A lot of family members have become deleted when I’ve started on the 3rd generation.
hestiah23
Seasoned Ace
6 years ago
@Amj1995 No way? :o I’m terrified to do expanded generations now...
TheRainBeatsDow
6 years ago
"Hestia;c-17196271" wrote:
@Amj1995 No way? :o I’m terrified to do expanded generations now...

The way the game culls Sims means that family members can disappear from your family tree. So once you've been playing for many generations the odds are certain family members will go missing unless you take steps to prevent it.