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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Pros:
Aesthetics (to an extent; bloom + ppe are nice, the overused world decor is not)
Animation fluidity
CAS (this was essentially the game’s main selling point, but I still think it could be better)
Toddler life stage
*Clubs - as a concept, they are great. Not perfect, but overall a really cool addition to the game.
*Character values - again, great concept. The end rewards are actually pretty good too. The only part that I feel could use some work is the balance for positive and negative actions. There’s a lot of things that affect your CV’s in a positive way, but the negative ones require active involvement of the player to not be overtaken by the autonomous positive actions.
Cons:
Simplified building tools
Poor AI (in some cases it’s far too structured and predictable, in other cases it’s just not believable)
No world creation or editing (this tips the scale heavily for me.. shouldn’t even be a question as to whether a modern Sims game should support this feature)
Tiny worlds - epic fail in the functionality department, decoration presents a deceptive ‘world’ compared to what can actually be used.
BG content heavily skewed toward YA social/party life.
Too many exaggerated animations/not enough animation variety.
Too many copied actions amongst age groups (children, teens, and elders all behave too much like YA Sims. No variety there, and kids feel like mini adults. Teens are just adults who go to school, otherwise minimal difference)
*underwhelming implementation of several major game features (active careers that only work in their designated areas, apartments that only exist in their designated areas and cannot be modified any further than small decorative changes, pets that by default have no info panels, retail lots that become a social trap, etc etc etc)
*too large of a focus on cuisine, a new recipe is not a new gameplay addition and frankly it’s about as exciting as seeing a box of crayons that has the color red in it (hint hint, it’s super low level and expected. Sims 2&3 added new recipes w/o making a huge deal about it)
*broken gameplay features: active careers (EP01) broken, but still being sold w/o any clarification on whether a fix will ever become reality. Retail (EP01), restaurants (GP03), and Vet (EP04) have bugged employees who chit chat excessively even with maxed skills and training (when I said ‘retail lots become social trap’ earlier this is what I’m referring to).
**Vet works a tiny bit differently than the other two even though they all essentially work on the same system. Employees still stand around/socialize, but if they have actually taken a pet to the examination table that action should complete since it’s locked into the action cue. The only times I have encountered a bug where they will stop working on a pet is when the owner tries to talk to the vet examining their pet.
*Incomplete Pets - this might be a matter of opinion, but the vanilla Cats/dogs do not feel complete. Not in terms of gameplay, not in terms of functionality. For the EP they feel like the very last thing they added, because there’s just not enough to do given the excuses we were supplied for why ONLY cats and dogs were included. Cats have more than dogs, but neither have an acceptable amount of gameplay OR content associated with them.
** Something that is bothersome is the lack of a destruction/chew need for dogs. Dogs ARE natural chewers, but in the ‘realistic’ interpretation Sims 4 C&D they are angelic even with the worst traits. There is no chewing, or destruction of furniture. Dogs can barely interact with any furniture. They also never go potty in the house, a fully untrained dog will always go whine by the door - which is what a trained dog would do. So the whole training aspect is woefully undercooked and frankly, just terrible.
* - denotes features from DLC packs, not solely base game stuff.
** - additional explanation of point above
Aesthetics (to an extent; bloom + ppe are nice, the overused world decor is not)
Animation fluidity
CAS (this was essentially the game’s main selling point, but I still think it could be better)
Toddler life stage
*Clubs - as a concept, they are great. Not perfect, but overall a really cool addition to the game.
*Character values - again, great concept. The end rewards are actually pretty good too. The only part that I feel could use some work is the balance for positive and negative actions. There’s a lot of things that affect your CV’s in a positive way, but the negative ones require active involvement of the player to not be overtaken by the autonomous positive actions.
Cons:
Simplified building tools
Poor AI (in some cases it’s far too structured and predictable, in other cases it’s just not believable)
No world creation or editing (this tips the scale heavily for me.. shouldn’t even be a question as to whether a modern Sims game should support this feature)
Tiny worlds - epic fail in the functionality department, decoration presents a deceptive ‘world’ compared to what can actually be used.
BG content heavily skewed toward YA social/party life.
Too many exaggerated animations/not enough animation variety.
Too many copied actions amongst age groups (children, teens, and elders all behave too much like YA Sims. No variety there, and kids feel like mini adults. Teens are just adults who go to school, otherwise minimal difference)
*underwhelming implementation of several major game features (active careers that only work in their designated areas, apartments that only exist in their designated areas and cannot be modified any further than small decorative changes, pets that by default have no info panels, retail lots that become a social trap, etc etc etc)
*too large of a focus on cuisine, a new recipe is not a new gameplay addition and frankly it’s about as exciting as seeing a box of crayons that has the color red in it (hint hint, it’s super low level and expected. Sims 2&3 added new recipes w/o making a huge deal about it)
*broken gameplay features: active careers (EP01) broken, but still being sold w/o any clarification on whether a fix will ever become reality. Retail (EP01), restaurants (GP03), and Vet (EP04) have bugged employees who chit chat excessively even with maxed skills and training (when I said ‘retail lots become social trap’ earlier this is what I’m referring to).
**Vet works a tiny bit differently than the other two even though they all essentially work on the same system. Employees still stand around/socialize, but if they have actually taken a pet to the examination table that action should complete since it’s locked into the action cue. The only times I have encountered a bug where they will stop working on a pet is when the owner tries to talk to the vet examining their pet.
*Incomplete Pets - this might be a matter of opinion, but the vanilla Cats/dogs do not feel complete. Not in terms of gameplay, not in terms of functionality. For the EP they feel like the very last thing they added, because there’s just not enough to do given the excuses we were supplied for why ONLY cats and dogs were included. Cats have more than dogs, but neither have an acceptable amount of gameplay OR content associated with them.
** Something that is bothersome is the lack of a destruction/chew need for dogs. Dogs ARE natural chewers, but in the ‘realistic’ interpretation Sims 4 C&D they are angelic even with the worst traits. There is no chewing, or destruction of furniture. Dogs can barely interact with any furniture. They also never go potty in the house, a fully untrained dog will always go whine by the door - which is what a trained dog would do. So the whole training aspect is woefully undercooked and frankly, just terrible.
* - denotes features from DLC packs, not solely base game stuff.
** - additional explanation of point above
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