HELP! I want to love The Sims again!

Maybe you can tell us a little about your play style? It's hard to suggest what would interest you without knowing what you loved about previous iterations of the game.

I used to be you :tongue: i couldn't play more than a hour (when i get to that) and was constantly restarting.

But my issues may not be yours... there were two things that, for me, didn't work in sims 4:
1) in sims 3 i used to play a random sim and just go with the flow. I guided my play through wishes (that were much more complex) and the sims themselves, because they had stronger personalities.
2) while i also have almost all packs, i tended to play much more with the content i thought i liked more

My work around:
1) now i make up the stories for my sims. I don't care about wishes and i don't expect my sims to react to nothing (while now i have found that they do react, just less than before, and it's a good surprise when they do). I think about what i want to do and, because i have so much content, the possibilities are almost endless. I don't think about the sim's whole story in advance. I just need to think about what to do next.
2) i have a huge list with all the features and gameplay objects from all the packs i own. This list helps me to remember about everything i have available and stimulates my imagination to invent the storyline.

And i play slowly and enjoy each moment. Playing slowly also helps me make my storyline as it goes.

At the moment, i am enjoying the sims more than ever!

"83bienchen;c-17492573" wrote:
Maybe you can tell us a little about your play style? It's hard to suggest what would interest you without knowing what you loved about previous iterations of the game.

Truthfully I've always been a rather vanilla in my games. I know that already sounds boring but that is how I love to play haha I don't tend to try challenges or anything. I love more in depth family gameplay. Watching Sims age up and succeed or fail in life.

"telmarina;c-17492590" wrote:
I used to be you :tongue: i couldn't play more than a hour (when i get to that) and was constantly restarting.

But my issues may not be yours... there were two things that, for me, didn't work in sims 4:
1) in sims 3 i used to play a random sim and just go with the flow. I guided my play through wishes (that were much more complex) and the sims themselves, because they had stronger personalities.
2) while i also have almost all packs, i tended to play much more with the content i thought i liked more

My work around:
1) now i make up the stories for my sims. I don't care about wishes and i don't expect my sims to react to nothing (while now i have found that they do react, just less than before, and it's a good surprise when they do). I think about what i want to do and, because i have so much content, the possibilities are almost endless. I don't think about the sim's whole story in advance. I just need to think about what to do next.
2) i have a huge list with all the features and gameplay objects from all the packs i own. This list helps me to remember about everything i have available and stimulates my imagination to invent the storyline.

And i play slowly and enjoy each moment. Playing slowly also helps me make my storyline as it goes.

At the moment, i am enjoying the sims more than ever!

That sounds similar to how I play as well. I find the normal lifespan is too short but the long is too long Haha I definitely utilized the wants and fears in Sims 2 and the wishes in Sims 3. The whims just don't do it for me...

I'm a completionist. I started in a poor little apartment this time though and my Sims will have to make a lot of money before they can go and explore the world.

Mods are your friend with TS4! And a bit of random decision making to keep sims and stories unique and interesting, so they encourage you to play in different ways than you normally would, with sims with different traits than you would normally choose. There are some adult mods we cant talk about here, but they add a whole new level of realism and depth to games, from woohoo to pregnancy to special 'juice' type substances and crazy levels of violence - really great if you want to play sims going completely off the rails!! You dont need all of them, but exploring which ones would suit you might give you much more depth to gameplay.

There's also mods like KawaiiStacie's that really add a different level. There's Slice of Life that adds so much stuff (I get a bit overwhelmed by it so dont use it often), but it has things like real tears, children losing teeth, personality types etc. And then there's the Explore Mod that I love. It adds more rabbithole options for your sims, so they can go off to concerts, or go out on dates, or go trick or treating, which I find really great for adding activities for teens especially.

Mods arent for everyone, I didn't have any in previous versions of The Sims. But for TS4 I've found them so amazing and helpful in keeping me interested and adding that much needed depth, they're definitely worth exploring :)

"asimbsim;c-17492639" wrote:
Mods are your friend with TS4! And a bit of random decision making to keep sims and stories unique and interesting, so they encourage you to play in different ways than you normally would, with sims with different traits than you would normally choose. There are some adult mods we cant talk about here, but they add a whole new level of realism and depth to games, from woohoo to pregnancy to special 'juice' type substances and crazy levels of violence - really great if you want to play sims going completely off the rails!! You dont need all of them, but exploring which ones would suit you might give you much more depth to gameplay.

There's also mods like KawaiiStacie's that really add a different level. There's Slice of Life that adds so much stuff (I get a bit overwhelmed by it so dont use it often), but it has things like real tears, children losing teeth, personality types etc. And then there's the Explore Mod that I love. It adds more rabbithole options for your sims, so they can go off to concerts, or go out on dates, or go trick or treating, which I find really great for adding activities for teens especially.

Mods arent for everyone, I didn't have any in previous versions of The Sims. But for TS4 I've found them so amazing and helpful in keeping me interested and adding that much needed depth, they're definitely worth exploring :)

Yeah this. I played vanilla for soooo long until I caved and started using mods. And boy do they add life to this game ?

One feature that allowed me to truly enjoy sims is the in-game storytelling feature in TS1 and 2. (I didn't like TS3's). I also like the memories in ts2. I'm like you I've been playing since 12 ts1 - ts4 got all complete gamepacks for each franchise. I get bored of Ts4 because I realised there's no in game way of preserving and rereading stories you've created. Generations pass by in a blur if I don't record them, and I gave each person such a nice backstory too. So sharing the stories you created or just putting them somewhere for your own personal amusement can make ts4 feel fresh again.

"sims2freak737;c-17492609" wrote:

"telmarina;c-17492590" wrote:
I used to be you :tongue: i couldn't play more than a hour (when i get to that) and was constantly restarting.

But my issues may not be yours... there were two things that, for me, didn't work in sims 4:
1) in sims 3 i used to play a random sim and just go with the flow. I guided my play through wishes (that were much more complex) and the sims themselves, because they had stronger personalities.
2) while i also have almost all packs, i tended to play much more with the content i thought i liked more

My work around:
1) now i make up the stories for my sims. I don't care about wishes and i don't expect my sims to react to nothing (while now i have found that they do react, just less than before, and it's a good surprise when they do). I think about what i want to do and, because i have so much content, the possibilities are almost endless. I don't think about the sim's whole story in advance. I just need to think about what to do next.
2) i have a huge list with all the features and gameplay objects from all the packs i own. This list helps me to remember about everything i have available and stimulates my imagination to invent the storyline.

And i play slowly and enjoy each moment. Playing slowly also helps me make my storyline as it goes.

At the moment, i am enjoying the sims more than ever!

That sounds similar to how I play as well. I find the normal lifespan is too short but the long is too long Haha I definitely utilized the wants and fears in Sims 2 and the wishes in Sims 3. The whims just don't do it for me...

Oh i forget to tell: i used to think lile you about lifespans but now i play in short. Playing slowly and thinking about what to do next makes that span longer than what it looks ? and it's also a way to don't get bored easily. I'm now on my 4th generation!

Honestly, I just use a lot of mods to spice up the gameplay. I used to play vanilla for the first few years of the Sims 4, but I kept getting bored. Ever since I modded my game though, the sims 4 has come to life. I use a lot of mods by deaderpool(MC Command Center), Kawaiistacie, littlemssam’s, bienchen, roburky, zero, simrealist and much more. It’s all about trial and error and seeing what mods you like. Some are purely to add depth to gameplay, while others fix annoyances with the game. The only thing with mods is that they tend to break after patches. The creators I mentioned though keep their mods updated regularly after patches, so I tend to use mods only from creators I trust.