Forum Discussion

Godleyjeans's avatar
6 years ago

Improved features the game NEEDS: Babies, pregnancy, moodlets, burglers and more.

Happy as I was to see and take part in the recent survey for the sims 4, a few missing subjects just got to me, especially when the game seems to be slowly and unsteadily improving throughout its so many years since release.

When they spoke about emotional/social improvements, my heart leapt, the idea of romance/relationships flourishing in the background without my say so, without me having to get involved at all and eventually be surprised with sudden marriages/friendships/bromances, it felt so good to finally be listened to and see some sims 3 throwbacks over the horizon. Yes, these things aren't big changes, but when you've had to be utterly and completely in charge of your sims lives for so many years, a break is nice, incredibly nice, plus the randomised pairing of sims via the game and not you, it's interesting to see who ends up with who.

That said, I now bring attention to the missing elements/subjects, things that weren't on the survey left unsaid via staff and yet we feel the game should be getting because without them, it's not really the sims, it's just a lowkey ruler game where you have to micromanage else nobody expands!


I know I go on about improved babies, auto pregnancy and the like, but that's because it's a vital part of the game! in Sims 3, you didn't have to go to so and so's house and force interaction, sometimes/most of the time, you'd end up just having a nice picnic at the park and spot Miss Goobyfluup with her new baby and even newer man! You wouldn't have to make her find a partner because the game made her do it herself! it was a surprise and there were so many others which gave the game life, which was and is the point of sims, LIFE!

Even moodlets were more detailed, there were more of them and they actually made an impact, as did choices we made in the sims 3.
Living as a whole was more detailed, more worth spending hours of our lives watching virtual people because, at the end of the day, you'd see so much change and expansion! The Landgraabs would have so many grandchildren, the Goths would have lost their minds and Mortimer would have left town to find himself while Bella and her family coped with the sudden disappearance of her aunt who totally wasn't drowned by the maid!

The game was more! The game had more content and more things to do! Like moving in, you could be struck by thieves on the first night or left to it until you had a good amount of loot for them to steal.

How many of us remember just grabbing ourselves a new fridge and sleeping in the hallway of our homes, ready to kick some burglar rear because Plum knows we weren't about to lose that fancy new appliance! Or that cute gnome statue?! You wouldn't feel that sense of protection now in the sims because what's there to protect?! Even the repo sims aren't that scary, plum, I'm more worried about Vlad welcoming himself into my home than I am those guys. And shouldn't it be I fear both?! or all of them because, in the old days, those sims used to be worth fearing?!


As far as the game has come, it still doesn't feel worth it, and the surveys, even now, aren't touching base on things the game REALLY needs except for a few pieces, and we know most of them are going to be ignored for a cute blender or small animation that you can't even get unless you so 75 different things first!


All I'm saying is that they need to take on board what we want/need and what would improve the game instead of make money, even if it's a patch we have to wait a while for.



Not being ungrateful here, just want to expand on what they're trying to achieve.

35 Replies

  • "MissyHissy;c-17382662" wrote:
    "JoAnne65;c-17381318" wrote:

    Oh they were cheeky behind our backs lol, I placed a new sim in my game once for my heir to fall in love with and marry one day. Three days in I bumped into her, pregnant... And the father turned out to be my heir’s old uncle, who’d been a bachelor all his life :D I can see how people hated that kind of thing to happen, it was poorly implemented. I used it for my story, had to :D That was the last time it happened in my game (2011).


    :D Yeah, definitely not the best implementation but then it was a pretty new concept then, wasn't it? So mistakes and 'heck, that didn't work the way we thought it would' can only be expected :D I like using stuff like that for stories though, it adds a plot twist in when no one expects it!

    Yes, I guess it was defensible to a point, though (as a layman I should add) I’ve never understood why a modder could develop a totally advanced system, using what was in the game. I wish EA had refined it that way. Oh well, water under the bridge ;)
    "bethyGrace;c-17382285" wrote:
    Personally I feel that issues like miscarriage & disease is better left to the modders, unless they come with an in-game on/off toggle. For me, I like to play with those elements of realism. I think it would enhance gameplay if unhealthy elders could get sick with diseases and need to take care of themselves or they might die. But I totally understand that is a personal choice, so I understand why the dev team avoid things like that.

    THAT SAID, I totally agree with this -

    "LiELF;c-17379408" wrote:
    The survey was hopeful, but the one thing I was really discouraged to see no mention of was Fear. The game has an incomplete emotion system and it's just weird that a Sim can "feel" Focused or Inspired or Confident, but not Afraid. There is no balance between the dark and light aspects of emotions/traits/behaviors like there used to be in past games. With every positive possibility there used to be a negative, and the turnout was up to the choices of the player. Kind of like the light and dark side of The Force (if you're a Star Wars fan ?). So the creative liberties that were taken to change the game to focus on emotions, also didn't check that the game retained that balance of choice and possibility. Instead, they bent it in favor of the positive, which gives the player no reason to pick up that light saber and fight for the good. Good/happy is already in abundance. And what purpose is there in that? All purpose is lost.

    So besides Fear (and I also had hope for a phobias system) I had also wished they'd considered changing the default state from Happy to Fine. Again, it's about having that balance between good and bad, dark and light. If there is no dark Empire, no First Order or Sith Lords, there is no need for the Jedi Knights. Heroes need not exist, even on a domestic level. Isn't that kind of sad?

    (Hopefully someone understood my geeky references, lol.)


    Firstly, YES I get your Star Wars references (I am a mega-fan!!) and I completed agree with you. The whole point of the Force and the children of Mortis (if you've seen the Clone Wars) is that balance needs to be maintained between the light and the dark, and this is what the game is lacking. (I want to keep talking about Star Wars, but I'll stop myself...) :D

    We have whims, positivity, sunshine and rainbows, but very little to none of the reverse. Failure MUST be an option to gain real engagement from a gamer audience, in my opinion. And it doesn't have to be morbid, dark or depressing - Sims 2 had mental breakdowns paired with that epic NPC, the Therapist. And if the Sims had low aspirations, they cried and moped around... So you had something to AIM for in game.

    Yes, burglars should be added back into the game. They're a Sims staple and yeah, they can be kind of scary... thats the whole point ya'll. But if you have a burglar alarm, you're good... as it should be?? Anyone remember the music that played in The Sims 1 if you got a burglar?? It would give me a freaking heart attack! And that was FUN!

    On babies & pregnancy -
    I don't mind the pregnancy stuff in Sims 4, but I do feel like it could be enhanced by some of the suggestions I've seen here, especially about moodlets.

    BABIES on the other hand...

    Does anyone else find those faces nightmare-ish??? lol they look terrifying to me XD

    And yes, I would love to see some more objects for them to interact with. Things like a play-mat, or a rug for "tummy time", a high chair or baby bouncer, a CHANGE TABLE for those diapers... danglemasters, toys, things for them to chew on...

    Yeah, basically just enhanced TS2 babies, imma just admit that is what I mean :wink:

    I agree. You have to play them to understand why, I never did when people complained about burrito babies and I’d never played Sims 2 yet. They looked meh and huge and above all very naked in pictures. But playing them (once I got my hands on the UC) was a different experience. They totally reminded me of my own wee, vulnerable babies and I think that’s the main thing they need to do. Move us. And I simply could dress them with CC.
  • "JoAnne65;c-17383564" wrote:

    Yes, I guess it was defensible to a point, though (as a layman I should add) I’ve never understood why a modder could develop a totally advanced system, using what was in the game. I wish EA had refined it that way. Oh well, water under the bridge ;)


    I think it's probably a time/budget issue, as it often is with these things. I remember another game way back that had some issues that got fixed by a modder and people couldn't understand why the Devs hadn't done what the modder did. The difference ended being the modder had the time to test, test and test again, add things, take it away etc. There was no deadline for them to complete it by so they could afford the time required to fine-tune, so to speak. Devs don't get that kind of time (one of my best friends is studying game design at Uni at the moment) because they often have deadlines and time limits. I imagine that can cause a lot of stress.

    But like you say, water under the bridge <3
  • LOL!!!
    "bethyGrace;c-17382513" wrote:
    "Scobre;c-17382382" wrote:

    Sims 4 babies give my nightmares literally. I haven't even seen the Chuckie Dolls, but there was a Twilight Zone episode with a talking doll and they pretty much look like killer dolls to me rather than real Sims. Here the Imaginary Friend used to creep me out, the the babies are so much more scary.

    I especially can't get this image out of my brain which would happen in my game sometimes.
    https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d1/84/9d/d1849d7c2f10cadb0133e38c2f63a07c.png


    Dear sweet goodness gracious.

    I've never had that glitch... I'm thanking my lucky stars.


  • "Scobre;c-17377638" wrote:
    Whoever designed the Sims 4 babies made them look much like the Chuckie doll it literally freaks me out and here I thought the imaginary friends were scary.
    https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61F3B-CDdEL._AC_SL1500_.jpg

    So I wouldn't mind a complete reworking of the Sims 4 babies and their overall design. It is a shame because the Sims 4 toddlers came out so cute, but the babies look like they came out of a nightmare and so limited with skin choices too. So I would love for the babies to be freed. I wouldn't mind more detail with pregnancy and more emotions and more consequences in the game. I loved burglars and cops and when kids would play cops and robbers too. There is no fail safe for fires too once it starts if you have not put a sprinkler system in for when adults are not home, so there needs to be firefighters too.


    Ho-ly. Now that you've pinned down the resemblance, I'll never be able to forget it. No wonder I never cared for the looks of the babies. ::shudder::
  • "To7m;c-17567564" wrote:
    You’re beating a dead horse. We are 6 years down the line what on Earth makes anyone think they’re going to do any of this? The game is what it is, and it’s gonna stay that way.

    —T


    Simmers said the same about firefighters and yet we have them, it took six years but here they are. I get where you're coming from, but for whatever reason things are coming, the team is just doing a plum poor job of when and how.

    That with their infamous silence on EVERYTHING creates the dead horse effect up until the point where it sits up and everyone is scrambling to download the update/get the pack/youtube about it because we just had no hope for the feature in the first place and now its here, we have no idea what's going on.



    But even if the horse is well and truly dead, a little hope doesn't hurt.

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