How are you feeling about the sims 4 and its current state ?

I have mixed feelings. I love the game most of the time, but I also want to scream in frustration with it at times. I love my stories and the sims in them. I love the game for giving me the tools and the connection to those things, but I curse it at times for holding me back from really telling the story the way I want to. I'm relieved that after a near miss with disaster because of this patch debacle my main save appears to have survived, magic intact. I'm also upset that others aren't going to be so lucky and are going to lose saves that have been years in the making. It's sad we have to go through all of this.

On the positive side, I really love the Werewolves pack. It shows that great content for this game is possible. The CAS items in that pack are on a whole other level, and they showed some of the creative flair we've been wanting. The quality of CAS items on the whole recently has been superb, but it's often lovely carbon copies of styles that have been done to death, crop tops, high water pants, etc. If only they would take that wonderful modeling skill and use it to make other types of clothing. I would also love to see them throw out all of the old makeup in CAS and turn those skills loose making gorgeous makeup. I still use cc for all makeup unless I'm creating a sim to upload to the gallery, and I really do apologize to them before I save because of how horrible the Maxis makeup is. Same can be said for heels and boots. The sneakers and gym shoes that have come with Throwback Fit Kit, Incheon Arrivals, Midnight Chic and others are so good I've pretty much tossed out all of my cc sneakers. I still have some so I don't always repeat the same item too often. Give us some good heels and a variety of boots. High heels, mid heels, strappy sandals, thigh high boots, knee highs, ankle boots, the whole shebang. They've shown they can make great shoes with the sneakers, do it with the rest now.

I've said many times, and I'll say it again, I'd love to have an active singing career and bands. I'd love to have a full jazz band with a singer out front. Standup comics, models, too. How is it with a fame system we only have one career that is synonymous with fame? While you're at it how about releasing some new gigs for actors. The same handful of roles over and over.

"LiELF;c-18165217" wrote:
I'm kind of devastated, actually. I have not updated the last patch, which had things I specifically asked for, because suddenly the devs decided that Sims needed to use their phones more obsessively. This will completely nuke my enjoyment of the game. I hated the phone use before and it literally had me on the edge of my patience as it was, but this bomb that was dropped has done it in for me and I'm really upset about it. I've wanted a way to turn phones off for almost 8 years now. I hate it in real life and I hate it in my game.

Like many people, I play The Sims to escape real life. I like to create my own weird world, full of Occults and Gods and strange people and a mix of eras and timelines. I rarely use any of the tech gameplay, and computers are usually locked up, only put in game for brief use or not used at all. But I could never do that with phones because the game wasn't designed with options for it. It was always a race to cancel a phone action before a Sim could gain a new phone-related skill and it was frustrating. But I dealt with it because I love the Occults so much and they have been my favorite of any of the Sims series. But all these years later, after getting so much awesome content that I love, after just dropping Werewolves that I was ridiculously excited for and only got to play twice, the game has become something I don't want to play. I just don't want phone tech like that. I don't care how trivial that might sound to some people, it absolutely bothers me. Even if limited to teens, it would bother me, I love playing teens. And I haven't use mods in years because I barely have time to play my game as it is, I don't have time to take them out and update every single month. Plus, mods can be unreliable.

So my game just sits there, not updated, and I don't even know if I want to play offline because the Gallery is one of my favorite things. I can't build very well and I usually browse for the awesome builds other people make, to put in my game. At this point, I'm just trying to decide if I'm done for good or not. Sims 4 has finally chosen its path and its players and that's just not me.

I play so often offline because I often skip a patch or two, and I can totally use the gallery. :)

You start your game offline. Then go into the gallery. By default you are disconnected to the gallery because you are playing offline. So you have to click on the gallery, then a popup will come up asking if you want to connect with the gallery. All you have to do is connect. I always have to cancel the first try and connect again because the first try never works for me. (Don't be afraid, because the game won't patch automatically ingame, if you connect to the gallery. In order to patch you have to exit the game and press "update".)

After connecting you can normally browse the gallery and download everything you want. The only exception is, you can't download anything that was put on the gallery with a patch you don't have, so basically the newest things.

But everything until then works perfectly fine. :)

Overall, I'm pretty bored with it. Once I realized that all sims basically have the same personality and act the same, it took most of the fun out of it for me. The enhancements they have tried to add to the game have not been enough--this isn't something they can fix with an update (such as likes/preferences, whims, etc), this is code deeply written into the base game itself that they would have to overhaul. They're not going to do that.

EA needs to hit pause on releasing new packs (I think CAS kits are fine as they are just glorified CC) and spend a year integrating cross pack functionality and expanding on some the packs features that they have forgotten about.

Clubs are one of the most used feature and EA has abandoned it. I have to use a mod to expand club activities to use the other packs.
Wants & Fears need to be pulled from all packs.
Lifestyles need to be expanded.
Fame needs to be looked at in terms of the other careers. My All Star athlete should be as famous as the actress sim, but he's not.
Simstagram and Social Bunny need to be linked like how Instagram and Facebook are linked.
Social Bunny needs expansion with more posts/emotions. Why can't we post about pets??
More afterschool activities based on the packs ie. Research and Debate Club, Robotics Club (granted this can be remedied using the club system, but you need a mod to expand the activities).
Please for the love of ***** can we copy and paste makeup between outfits!
This is all I can think of at the top of my head but there's just so much more!

They also need to fix bugs. I avoid restaurants because they don't work well.

The amount of bugs in the patch are the most I've ever seen with the sims. Saying that, out of the blue, after this patch my game performance shot up. I have one lot in particular that is very crowded and spinning the camera used to cause the framerate to drop, that's not happening now ... which I'm very pleased with. Mixed feelings, the bugs are horrible, but I love whatever they did the settle down the frame rate on crowded lots.

I’m hoping that my main save isn’t broken, and I have so much anxiety waiting for a chance to check on my merfolk.

I’ve been enjoying the game, but I desperately need a major update for my merfolk. When I saw merfolk, I was so hopeful for underwater activities and a lot of similar content to the sims 3 merfolk. I got so little for my mermen and mermaids with Island Living and refuse to buy a sequel because of how they didn’t deliver on the minimum I expected.

I don’t think a new game will reassure me or improve my opinion about the franchise.

If they leave the Sims 4 in its current bugged and unfinished state, how do I know they won’t do the same thing in a Sims 5?

Regardless of what anyone says, Island Living is an unfinished pack as long merfolk content remains as is. I will not. I repeat, will not, buy a Sims 5 and will be very upset with the franchise if Island Living never gets a refresh that improves merfolk gameplay before a sequel.

That’s my criticism thus far. The initial update did not break my save, but the patches that came later clearly did break my save.

For merfolk, I want to see the moon affect them more because the moon is literally one of the most important things to the ocean.

We literally wouldn’t have tides without it and marine life have behaviors that revolve around the moon. The moon and ocean are extremely interconnected.

Occult players AND realism players should want to see the moon play a bigger role in Island Living. It’s that significant to the ocean.

I want merfolk to have a power system similar to vampires and spellcasters.

There is some division between people in the mermaiding community about sirens and merfolk, but I don’t think of merfolk as equivalents to Sirens. In fact the show about mermaids called Sirens is black listed as a show I will never watch because of poor title choice that demonstrates a massive of lack of merfolk mythology research, in my opinion.

As far as I’m concerned, sirens are half-bird in mythology, not half-fish… It’s clear that the siren lullaby is the Sims playing on pop culture mythology and displays significant ignorance.

Merfolk shouldn’t be objects of romance, but without seasons and the emphasis on sirens, the merfolk from Island Living are just that, romantic objects.

The songs Sirens sing in mythology, regardless of how they look, is a song that emphasizes on one’s deepest desires… That’s what they thought of merfolk in Island Living… they are like romantic objects, or objects of desire, that sing to the listener their deepest desire to lure them into the sea for a non-lethal attempt at drowning humans… They sing SIREN lullabies… Have the mermaid’s KISS that raises romance without fail…

The only two abilities that aren’t siren related and might actually be true merfolk abilities are the Summon Ocean Threat and Aquatic Lure. Changing the Weather is gated behind the Seasons expansion pack, but that would also be a true merfolk power.

Not saying I don’t want merfolk to have siren abilities either. True Sirens and True Merfolk are closely connected, and merfolk do have the natural talent with singing and music in mythology to perfectly mimic the siren song… Just, please, please recognize that SIRENS and MERFOLK are not the same mythical creatures.

They call the gender neutral plural merFOLK occult, female exclusively merMAIDS, in CAS which is a gendered mistake that completely ignores the existence of the male exclusively merMEN.

That’s my criticism so far.

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What I Would Like to See

I want to see an ability system for merfolk that focuses on the innate musical and singing talent of merfolk, changing the weather, changing emotions, interactions with marine life…

I want merfolk to have an interaction with dive buoys in shallow water. Just saying snorkeling is a taboo subject is a cheap excuse for not creating a unique interaction. Please let merfolk do something with those buoys without joining the marine biologist career…

Diving into deep water shouldn’t be a rabbit hole… I want to go underwater with my merfolk.

I want my merfolk to be able to live underwater… I want underwater residential lots similar to how Spellcasters, Vampires, and Werewolves have their own Worlds with lots they can live on.

I want to see what my sims see in the beach cave…

I want more activities my merfolk can do without leaving the water. I want them to be able to do more as merfolk, mermen and mermaids. Please make it so my merfolk can choose to spend less time in their human form. And give me, the player, more to do with them in their merfolk forms.

I want merfolk children to have a merman or mermaid form.

I want time to speed up when merfolk sleep in the water.

I want more socials about merfolk.

I want merfolk to have their own bassinet.

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What I Enjoy

I do enjoy playing with merfolk. I love the ability to change the weather and enjoy the small details from other packs… Like a cat’s reaction to a merman or mermaid.

I love that they don’t die from dehydration.

I love how merfolk seem to always know where they can swim and routinely seek those places out.

I love when merfolk sink underwater while sleeping in the water.

I love the interactions with dolphins.

I love the socials like “ask if mermaid” and “Share Mermaid Discovery”

I love the odd job that involves looking for proof of merfolk.

I love the Island Festivals.

I love the Sea Turtles.

I love the dolphins.

I love the quirks involving Children of the Ocean and fish.

I love how merfolk can talk to fish.

I love how merfolk have face masks from the spa day refresh, and I love how the full moon decreases the rate merfolk lose hydration.

I do think they are making progress with improving merfolk gameplay.

I love playing my merfolk more than I hate anything I’m upset with… I’m sure I’ll be up all night thinking about new things I love about merfolk gameplay.

I just feel like they didn’t quite figure out occults until Vampires and Spellcasters… they should have revisited merfolk and aliens a long time ago.

I've been playing offline since the pre-HSY patch.

I'm feeling very disappointed right now, having been quite excited for wants & fears and making aspec sims and then it the patch was so notoriously bugged. I can't tell if it's still broken or if people are, shall we say, complaining about things that I wouldn't.

"mightysprite;c-18164913" wrote:

"Simmerville;c-18164902" wrote:

Examples might be "NPC (who you actually never met) is doing push ups in your hood while being in a bad mood, should she dislike exercising?".

This one was a bug that was fixed a couple of months after it started happening
You can fix it by updating your game unless there is something else going on.

It went away but then came back. I don't mind though, because I actually like it.

"Logisitcs;c-18165386" wrote:
Clubs are one of the most used feature and EA has abandoned it. I have to use a mod to expand club activities to use the other packs.

What do you mean? I don't have GT but I've seen people's videos where Cheer and Football are activities and boba/thrift is a venue option and stuff.

Just reinstalled after a break, so far so good. I haven't bought any new packs, but will as soon as the build a bundle works for me. Looking forward to playing Werewolves and High School Years.

I'm just strangely tired as of late

like I be excited to open the game with all these ideas but then i play like 30 min and feel like aight nap time :sleepy:

well partly cause i haven't been taking good care of my flesh prison this summer and sitting in one place makes me lethargic

but also kinda feels like the constant simming is catching up on my poor brain running out of memory space like ive got too many tabs open and they're all playing HD full volume on top of each other

times i wish there was such thing as brain reset

also the bugginess and lagginess and broken things in the game doesn't exactly make me more excited to play ya know

I'm really disappointed and the whole mess has been quite detrimental for my mental health to be honest. I miss my game as a means to relax and now I'm constantly reading the forums and bug reports instead...

My main save is still not playable due to aging issues (short lifespan backup, but the ages are just calculated totally wrong...) I'm currently waiting in the hope that there will be a fix, but I fear that there won't.

I hate that the lifespans have been changed and I hate even more that noboby really explains why. Especially why the heck they shorten short lifespan, wtf?!

I was actually excited for HSY but since I can't even play my old legacy right now and HSY is still full of bugs and won't be able to get in anytime soon.

And I'm quite disappointed that the Neighborhood Stories feature takes so long to grow. I actually like it but it does not make sense that Sims still can't get married and form families of their own. So it basically only works for two generations, but afterwards all kids will remain in the same household and grow old together without families of their own, so this kinda sucks...

I create mods and I normally I enjoy doing that, but right now I do not feel a lot of motivation. It feels super stupid to test mods in a totally buggy game and care for quality while EA apparently doesn't and to give my work away for free while people still spend loads of money for bugs... :(