Life and Death Negative thread
This is the place to put your thoughts and concern of the new expansion pack.
Forum Discussion
I'm mostly concerned about that rotational player aspect and the grim career. I was super excited about it and then I thought about how I don't ever play the Home Decorator career anymore because I got tired of ending up in one of my rotational families and having to change the build to meet the career demands. What if I'm playing as a Grimtern and end up in one of my rotational families to unalive them. I'm just not okay with that. I actually kinda wish it was a standard career where you go to work and/or have the option to work from home.
That I agree with.
With Dream Home Decorator, they'll just be getting free renovation. Plus if you see the name of a played sim and accept the job, you can send your sim there alone so that they do the work and their house remains unchanged (I hope I remember that correctly).
I do hope that they include a sim filter with that with terms that not only exclude played sims, but also sims in My Households section. High School Years graduation for example only included a term that excluded played sims, so that played teens won't be aged up, but unplayed teens could be aged up, even if they were in My Households section.
Discover University has an... interestingly complex system there, only having unplayed Other Households sims to re-enroll on their own...
Just a small critique, but I’m not a fan of how completing a bucket list goal gives you a whole level on the Soul's Journey meter—it’s just too much. Other systems counting toward it should be fined-tuned too, completing a Want gives virtually no progress. I thought the progression here would be incremental, like the fame system, where you’d need more 'points' to go from level 2 to 3 than from level 1 to 2, and so on. Instead, it seems to be the same amount for each step.
Now to wait for a mod to adjust the progress given for each feature in this new system. I love the concept on paper, but being able to complete it so quickly undermines it. It should be a bit harder to finish (like, a whole Sim life, and not a few sim days as a young adult), and setbacks, like starting a fire, losing a job, or other "bad" life events, should decrease the meter, similar to previous game systems.
This is a general issue with TS4: the game feels too easy and forgiving. The gameplay systems with benefits tied to them only move up, and there’s no ‘punishment’ for making your sim’s life challenging. So, no matter how miserable your sim is, they still get the same benefits compared to a Sim with the most perfect life, which feels a bit off.
The game just got easier with Ghosts as a whole life stage. This new life stage is great imo, but now, keeping your Sim alive isn't the priority anymore. I do have to admit though, this drastic shift in the gameplay experience is a really welcome thing, but it should have come with new stakes and things to fear/actively avoid.
I haven't played much with the soul's journey but I liked it so far. I was playing a household with two sims and was still doing the reaper event and didn't delve too much into the new pack. But he got a goal to show love to himself, one day when he was feeling sad. That was easy enough to do and tick off. The some days later, she got a goal to have a baby. Well, he's been wanting to have a baby since forever as he has the aspiration for large family, but she never once had a want for a baby. So now they are going to have a baby, but not right now as they need to do some other things first. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that I like that some of the goals aren't necessarily that easy or straight forward to accomplish and we need to work for them. I also, liked how they tied in with the sims' story.
Bucket list objectives should have been given "difficulty levels" of some sort and different "weights" or individual progress points imo. Having a baby should have a bigger impact toward Soul's Journey than, say, spending a day in Sulani.
Replying to my own thread because I think I found a work around. If an item on the bucket list is something your sim doesn't like doing, but there are other things on the list that your Sims will do the list can still be useable.
For example: using Genesis bucket list for success:
- Get level 10 Fitness
- Reach Level 10 video gaming
- Complete university
- Earn 10,000 Simoleons
This list is usable by Genesis. I can complete 3 of these goals and then when the video gaming goal is the only one left, I can scrap the list and start again. Again it would just be nice to scrap a single goal.
Overall I really like this pack but have found a few negatives.
For a pack that has such a huge focus on ghosts, you still cannot contact them on the phone. Living in Ravenwood my sim has befriended around 6 ghosts and is in a romantic relationship with one, yet cannot call any of them on the phone. He held a party and there is no option to invite them, they're simply not there in the list of contacts to invite to party. That's got to be an oversight? Or is it a bug?
The Soul Journey completes far too quickly and easily. My young adult hasn't achieved any of the bucket list wishes he created but just from gameplay alone he is over half way through his soul journey and very nearly at the limit. Without fulfilling a single wish.
Interesting. I wonder if it's because they are ghost and you can't really call a ghost up on the phone...
It sounds like the call interaction is not well planned in the game for ghost. I don't own the EP but this is good information. 🙂
In term of design, Maxis didn't think about the resurrection of NPC ghosts wearing ghost outfits.
For example Mr. Warez
I like what I see but the biggest negative to me is death and ghosts and playing as the grim reaper doesn’t really fit my playstyle much.
I seem to like HSY and lovestruck more than most because they really fit my playstyle. And so I might not like this as much as others do. But it was a pretty strong trailer I think.The same team who did My Wedding Stories and For Rent did Life & Death ?
I don't know what to think about that, the support team is still struggling to fix this mess.
I'm watching some previews but I can't help but just feel really unimpressed by this pack.
The home of the Grim Reaper is a small house on a small mountain with a kitchen, computer... are you kidding me?
Visiting people to collect their souls is the Detective Career. The people you collect are randomized townies... which is good, but at the same time 0 immersion visiting households and there is just a random dead stranger.
Sims doing push-ups at the funerals, rabbit-hole crypts...
EA tried to convince me that The Sims 4 was worth keep going and not make a Sims 5. This pack is doing nothing but convincing me of the opposite.
No seasons in the world is definitely a big downside. I can kinda understand that for the spooky neighbourhood where there is a very special atmosphere. But the rest of the world should definitely have normal weather. I am disappointed about the lack of weather.
The sims team focuses so heavily on linking worlds to real life countries and/or regions. It makes no sense to say this is Romania and not having snow in the winter.
Exactly.
If they wanted to have it be autumn permanently, why wait until the game is out/about to come out to tell us, and only mention it when someone somewhat asks.. It just sounds like an excuse to me. Obviously, they waited because of their sales, but it's so shady to do that, esp when they had many opportunities to.
I see a lot to like about the pack. I'm nervous about rebirth which seems like it's bringing in religion. I prefer to have the Sims stay out of that area and let Simmers do as they wish.
If one religious belief is brought into the game, how will the Sims play fair with all the many varied beliefs out there?
Many rebirth is not reincarnation, but is a new form of resurrection where the Sim is returned to life but at a younger life stage. I can see this working better with the quirkiness of the Sims, and it could even have a sci fi twist.
I look at rebirth as a new chance to replay a sim that you are connected too.
I can already do this with cheats in my game. To have this option in the game without cheats is a perfect solution for vanilla players.
