List Your Sims 4 Pros and Cons
Every game has its glowing virtues and horrible sins, and TS4 is no exception. This thread is a place to name our most favorite and most despised aspects of The Sims 4. My list?: Pros 1. The ...
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Copy-pasting parts from another post:
Pros:
-I prefer rotational gameplay and the new options to activate aging SOLELY for the active sim or SOLELY for unplayed Sims are excellent. Those should be used in every game from now on.
-The income-to-bills ratio is the best in the franchise. Bills in Sims 2 are only like $300 or so while the Sims earn thousands a day, whereas in Sims 3 you get promoted to president of the universe for smiling at the secretary on your way to your desk. Sims 4 is nice in the sense a Sim can reasonably expect to earn $12,000 a week, but then pay $7,500 in taxes. Painting and writing are where the money is at, so if you desperately want money, just do that. If you want more balanced gameplay though with poorer Sims? This is completely doable. I would actually prefer they even take this further in the future and develop a way for the taxes to be income/property-based as they are now, but to also allow for their bills to exceed their income without demanding a mansion. I hate only having rich Sims to play, so it's a breath of fresh air to see this game's economy more balanced.
-The animations are a subtle means to help Sims feel more alive. Yes it's all smoke and mirrors considering the personality variations are actually abysmal, but they're still a nice touch that I'd like to keep.
-The graphics and Sim customization are currently the best. Something that I hated about Sims 3 was that Bridgeport was the only neighborhood where female Sims would have big breasts; the breast slider was disabled beyond a certain size for randomly generated Sims. What's the point in such a feature if they're just gonna disable it...? I know I say that and it sounds perverted, but for me it was about 1) having more diversity in appearance is nice and also means more diversity in the gene pool for family play, and 2) some women - yes - have bigger breasts. If I were a woman with bigger breasts, I'd be annoyed I can't make myself properly just because someone thinks kids are gonna view that sexually or something (no, that's not how kids think), so my body type is inadvertedly being censored. It's taken a looooong time for a lot of body modifications to be included in the game because of their possible sexual usage or because the body type is viewed as atypical or unattractive, but the fact of the matter is that sometimes a guy or a girl has a nice butt, sometimes someone is fat without having a big butt, sometimes a woman has bigger breasts and sometimes a person has a rather unfortunate figure altogether. The past games seemed to shun any body forms that could either be seen as unfortunate and unattractive while also shunning any body forms considered overtly sexual. I want everyone and everything included, because it provides better diversity and better representation of the world. Sims 4 allows for that better than the other games, and I look forward to a Sims game where they can actually figure out how to reasonably animate varying degrees of height, because I think height is another trademark appearance characteristic for certain people that needs to be included.
Cons:
-Personalities are terrible and the Sims have absolutely no character. The problem is the personality system was gutted and moved to emotions to try and make the emotions system feel more impactful. However, it simply doesn't work, because it means that if I have a socially awkward geek loner and a ladies man romantic that's constantly hooking up, then both of them exhibit the EXACT same proficiency at seducing women if they're both flirty, and both of them exhibit the EXACT same socially awkward tendencies if they're embarassed.
-Moods are a terrible system that needs to be trashed. This could work as a supportive system to do little more than govern their expression, the animations they use or add minor bonuses/penalties to actions, but as a centerstage feature they're constantly trying to make it be...? No, get off the stage. It cannot handle being a main attraction, it's simply not an exciting or meaningful enough system to pull it off. The fact that they refuse to drop this system means we get spammed out with moodlets as though they were actual gameplay. These moods crowd out any potential for actual gameplay and seriously overstay their welcome.
-Relationship culling. It's hard to build a town and craft it exactly as I please when my Sims constantly forget each other and their relationships to one another. Relationships should freeze when a Sim is not being actively played, cause it's an a pain for rotational play the way it is now.
-Wall decals are not gameplay. You could apply that statement to any CAS or build mode object, the point remains the same: we want gameplay, not things. There was actually a study on happiness that found people who spend their wealth on things aren't any happier than those lacking wealth. The people that spend their wealth on experiences typically are happier. It's no different for this game: gameplay experiences are satisfying, things and nice clothing or hairstyles are not.
-Too few Expansions, too many Stuff Packs. I still find it ridiculous they consider a year-long wait for an expansion to be acceptable. No, that is ridiculous. It means you could starve to death in the time it takes this game to come out with meaningful content, but by God they need to make sure you buy a half-hearted, phoned-in stuff pack every three months.
-Bugs are bad. It is very difficult to be in the same ballpark as Sims 3, yet somehow they've succeeded. There's constantly new bugs coming out that actively disrupt people's gameplay. Sims 3's crime was always lag and slow performance, but it had comparatively less bugs that got in the way of gameplay. The complaints were more that the game runs slow rather than that feature X doesn't function. Sims 4 isn't quite as slow, but for crying out loud we cannot use Speed x3 and there's been a great number of bugs that singlehandedly ruin careers, playstyles or even life states. It's pathetic, and it needs to be fixed.
-The worst AI in the entire series. I don't know why it's so hard to get a Sim to go to the nearest sink when washing dishes. I don't know why it's so hard to get them to pick up those dishes in a logical order prioritizing the nearest dishes first. I don't know why it's so hard to tweak their AI so that Sims with social need at 75% fullness or higher will NOT obsessively queue up social interactions. I don't know why it's so hard to give MY orders absolute priority so that my Sims can't cancel them out with their autonomous actions. I don't know why musical chairs is so impossible to destroy. I just know it's truly impressive that they somehow managed to create an AI system that's even worse than Sims 1.
I could honestly go on and on with the cons for some time, but I think those touch on major issues. Honorable mentions go to the limited world spaces, smaller lots, ridiculously oversized furniture objects for no explainable reason, terrible priorities in design, consistently disappointing packs, and any half-hearted feature that clearly had corners cut during it's development. (example, retail has no cash register, Pets has no dog houses)
Pros:
-I prefer rotational gameplay and the new options to activate aging SOLELY for the active sim or SOLELY for unplayed Sims are excellent. Those should be used in every game from now on.
-The income-to-bills ratio is the best in the franchise. Bills in Sims 2 are only like $300 or so while the Sims earn thousands a day, whereas in Sims 3 you get promoted to president of the universe for smiling at the secretary on your way to your desk. Sims 4 is nice in the sense a Sim can reasonably expect to earn $12,000 a week, but then pay $7,500 in taxes. Painting and writing are where the money is at, so if you desperately want money, just do that. If you want more balanced gameplay though with poorer Sims? This is completely doable. I would actually prefer they even take this further in the future and develop a way for the taxes to be income/property-based as they are now, but to also allow for their bills to exceed their income without demanding a mansion. I hate only having rich Sims to play, so it's a breath of fresh air to see this game's economy more balanced.
-The animations are a subtle means to help Sims feel more alive. Yes it's all smoke and mirrors considering the personality variations are actually abysmal, but they're still a nice touch that I'd like to keep.
-The graphics and Sim customization are currently the best. Something that I hated about Sims 3 was that Bridgeport was the only neighborhood where female Sims would have big breasts; the breast slider was disabled beyond a certain size for randomly generated Sims. What's the point in such a feature if they're just gonna disable it...? I know I say that and it sounds perverted, but for me it was about 1) having more diversity in appearance is nice and also means more diversity in the gene pool for family play, and 2) some women - yes - have bigger breasts. If I were a woman with bigger breasts, I'd be annoyed I can't make myself properly just because someone thinks kids are gonna view that sexually or something (no, that's not how kids think), so my body type is inadvertedly being censored. It's taken a looooong time for a lot of body modifications to be included in the game because of their possible sexual usage or because the body type is viewed as atypical or unattractive, but the fact of the matter is that sometimes a guy or a girl has a nice butt, sometimes someone is fat without having a big butt, sometimes a woman has bigger breasts and sometimes a person has a rather unfortunate figure altogether. The past games seemed to shun any body forms that could either be seen as unfortunate and unattractive while also shunning any body forms considered overtly sexual. I want everyone and everything included, because it provides better diversity and better representation of the world. Sims 4 allows for that better than the other games, and I look forward to a Sims game where they can actually figure out how to reasonably animate varying degrees of height, because I think height is another trademark appearance characteristic for certain people that needs to be included.
Cons:
-Personalities are terrible and the Sims have absolutely no character. The problem is the personality system was gutted and moved to emotions to try and make the emotions system feel more impactful. However, it simply doesn't work, because it means that if I have a socially awkward geek loner and a ladies man romantic that's constantly hooking up, then both of them exhibit the EXACT same proficiency at seducing women if they're both flirty, and both of them exhibit the EXACT same socially awkward tendencies if they're embarassed.
-Moods are a terrible system that needs to be trashed. This could work as a supportive system to do little more than govern their expression, the animations they use or add minor bonuses/penalties to actions, but as a centerstage feature they're constantly trying to make it be...? No, get off the stage. It cannot handle being a main attraction, it's simply not an exciting or meaningful enough system to pull it off. The fact that they refuse to drop this system means we get spammed out with moodlets as though they were actual gameplay. These moods crowd out any potential for actual gameplay and seriously overstay their welcome.
-Relationship culling. It's hard to build a town and craft it exactly as I please when my Sims constantly forget each other and their relationships to one another. Relationships should freeze when a Sim is not being actively played, cause it's an a pain for rotational play the way it is now.
-Wall decals are not gameplay. You could apply that statement to any CAS or build mode object, the point remains the same: we want gameplay, not things. There was actually a study on happiness that found people who spend their wealth on things aren't any happier than those lacking wealth. The people that spend their wealth on experiences typically are happier. It's no different for this game: gameplay experiences are satisfying, things and nice clothing or hairstyles are not.
-Too few Expansions, too many Stuff Packs. I still find it ridiculous they consider a year-long wait for an expansion to be acceptable. No, that is ridiculous. It means you could starve to death in the time it takes this game to come out with meaningful content, but by God they need to make sure you buy a half-hearted, phoned-in stuff pack every three months.
-Bugs are bad. It is very difficult to be in the same ballpark as Sims 3, yet somehow they've succeeded. There's constantly new bugs coming out that actively disrupt people's gameplay. Sims 3's crime was always lag and slow performance, but it had comparatively less bugs that got in the way of gameplay. The complaints were more that the game runs slow rather than that feature X doesn't function. Sims 4 isn't quite as slow, but for crying out loud we cannot use Speed x3 and there's been a great number of bugs that singlehandedly ruin careers, playstyles or even life states. It's pathetic, and it needs to be fixed.
-The worst AI in the entire series. I don't know why it's so hard to get a Sim to go to the nearest sink when washing dishes. I don't know why it's so hard to get them to pick up those dishes in a logical order prioritizing the nearest dishes first. I don't know why it's so hard to tweak their AI so that Sims with social need at 75% fullness or higher will NOT obsessively queue up social interactions. I don't know why it's so hard to give MY orders absolute priority so that my Sims can't cancel them out with their autonomous actions. I don't know why musical chairs is so impossible to destroy. I just know it's truly impressive that they somehow managed to create an AI system that's even worse than Sims 1.
I could honestly go on and on with the cons for some time, but I think those touch on major issues. Honorable mentions go to the limited world spaces, smaller lots, ridiculously oversized furniture objects for no explainable reason, terrible priorities in design, consistently disappointing packs, and any half-hearted feature that clearly had corners cut during it's development. (example, retail has no cash register, Pets has no dog houses)
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