LoveStruck Negative Thread 2.0

Couple things from the livestream,

• It looks like fashion styles aren't an TOTO option, but outfit colors are? Like I'd be more interested in a person for dressing in a fashion choice, than the color. Clothing is already divided into fashion styles.
• I don't think you can like/dislike a sim based on weight, if they have piercings or tattoos, eye color, or body hair.
• Limiting skills to broad categories (Culinary probably covers Cooking, Baking, Mixology) makes sense, but I'd rather have just had them individually. Physical intimacy and WooHoo are separate, even though WooHoo is a form of physical intimacy. But my sim can't be unattracted to Mixologists because she doesn't like to be reminded of Juice? She can't be disgusted by occult nerds who are experts in Vampire Lore, while also liking people who enjoy the realistic and grounded Research & Debate?
• Your sim can hate flirting, and their satisfaction will go down if you do it. But the romance bar will go up regardless? Feels disjointed. 
• Feels weird to have curved pools, when they'll likely have the same issues that have been plaguing curved walls for years. I hope walls get patched soon, because I have doubts about this. 
• A sim doesn't get all that upset when their partner calls them unattractive. 
• Cupid's Corner limiting your displayed traits. It'd have been cool if we could lie about traits, but we don't have that. And I get wanting to learn more about a sim than what's shown on the app, but it doesn't really mean much when your sim is limited to 3-4 traits anyway. Unless you purchased The Sims 4: Growing Together for more trait slots!
• We don't have a lot of date activities, even when you have more packs. 
• Why do we have a Talk About Slow Dancing option? Does this do anything? The menus are already cluttered with dialogue options that do nothing and are completely interchangeable with each other. I hope that this does something unique.

Wow first time using the EA forums and it is just…so bad. 🤦 Like their “always have to be constantly online just to play” launcher.

Anyway, yea, wow, the dating app gameplay and overall turn on-off system is just…so out of touch. They try to make this pack mature but they handle it with kid gloves.

I won’t state my political compass, but I will say this, they are so out of touch if they’re unaware the dating is the ONE THING you are allowed to be discriminatory, provided you’re polite and without malice about it. Yes, real life people factor in their selection criteria for a romantic and sexual partner partly on genetic traits, including, yes, skin colour and body type. A lot of couples have split up because one of them gets too fat and racks up a nice hospital bill, or loses confidence when their partner is suddenly toned and the gym bros/babes where their partner exercises are hitting on them. Some people are into redheads, some people are into blondes, some people are into curly, and some are into frizzy. Yes, people do that in real life. That’s how it is. Accept it.

And that doesn’t even include real life factors that are more rigorous such as religious affiliation (let’s be real, interfaith relationships are hard to navigate when kids are planned in the future), financial and social stability (number one cause of divorce is not infidelity; it’s money. Any half-baked adult active in the dating scene knows it’s a red flag to marry someone with low credit score/student debt/just different social station altogether and saying otherwise because “true love conquers all” is a liar and they know it), or even as simple as social cliques.

I hope not to get banned for this, but I feel like this was just far too ridiculous and unreal that I had to call them out on it. This is supposed to be a life simulator. Ignoring reality for the sake of delicacy is just…ugh.

For me, this looks like the least impressive EP I have ever seen. The livestream was so boring I turned it off part way through and then went back to it later to just skim the rest quickly. Where's the EP content? I have never been one to say an EP should have been a game pack before, but this EP should have been a game pack 😆

It's easy to have multiple expansion packs a year when they're the size of Game Packs.

Okay first of all, not liking these new forums AT ALL. They are SO inconvenient to use.

Now on topic,  I just saw in one of the creator network videos the description of the pack features when you open the game, it includes the 'love blanket'. A Sims 2 or Sims 3 EP would NEVER include such a minor item in it's general description, it just screams 'not enough actual content'.

I’m very disappointed that the weights are not even usable, they are just a decor object. For once we actually get new gym stuff/activities, we can't even use them. 

The live stream left me with mixed feelings. I love everything that is coming with the new pack. And I really like some of the game updates. Being able to take a Sim out of my relationship panel, being able to apply accessories outfit categories.

But the pack feels bare, even after watching the live stream. I feel like if they would’ve added, maybe a pottery table, table proposals, functional weight instead of the decor. Just a few more things to round up the pack. I would only have positive feelings.

Lately I've been feeling like expansion packs have been extremely disappointing. For me, I think that GRO was the last pack that I felt was a pack I couldn't play without. It has so many small things that just add to the game. I've always wanted a customized tree-house.. where you'd build it and even better.. build it together. Kids learning how to ride a bike, losing a tooth, tooth fairy, family dynamics, the puzzles, etc.

While I am very excited about the relationship dynamics because I think that they did really well with the family dynamics.. it does feel a little.. copy/paste. However, I'm still intrigued about it and look forward to seeing how relationships work now and how Sims will behave. I'm also looking forward to the new interactions/skill. Turn ons and Offs.. are great and I'm looking forward to them, but I wish they'd stop ignoring occults. I also wish they would have added more and color of clothing is rather pointless and I more than likely won't be using it.

I think what I am really disappointed about with this pack is that they missed the opportunity to finally add double-dating, I thought for sure, we'd get a new system like that that we've never gotten before in previous iterations of this game.... but they disappointed.

Instead, you can bring one Sim along.. like either as best friend date.. or third wheeling. Which is great and all... but where's the double dating? Where's the ability to call/text for an SOS? (I mean another Sim calling them to sos to get them out of the date. I know that the Sim can pretend call or something like that, from the trailer..) Where's the consequences of said dates.. I wanted a system that would allow for the dates to be "rated"... leading to either a good date, a great date, or a stale date, or bad date.. kind of thing. 

And depending on how things were going, let's say, it went badly.. where is the animations of a bad date? They're not vibing, then maybe the other Sim is bored, or not finding things too interesting from the other Sim.. or the other Sim said something awful.. so what would they do? Throw their drink at them, or pour it on their head, etc. do something. : (

They're so afraid to add consequences to this game... while of course, I want the happily ever after. They could easily add the Sims quirkiness to it.. without it being "too much". 

And I'm tired of these lists. "Talk about x this many times". Do this x amount of times. 

where  are the activities ? The moment I saw that the Gym was a place to go on a date.. I knew that there would be nothing new. Why is there nothing new to do on a date.. just going to a gym and talking/working out? Why is there no new REAL festivals? You know with actual things to do.  While I like the food stalls and gift shops/souvenirs, it's not fun adding them to festivals and nothing else.  How about mini games and prizes? Carnival games would have been great here! It makes me miss Sims 3 soooo badly. Yet, there's so many systems in Sims 4 that I love and I absolutely love the toddler and infant stages in Sims 4 too much as well as the calendar to go back to Sims 3. : (

I am a family player.. and find so many of these new systems that we've not really had before in the other games.. essential for my game-play.. yes.. they do need some quality of life updates/tweaks. But I still enjoy them, or at least the idea of them and that makes it so difficult to go back to Sims 3 + it's optimization isn't the best.. and I'm having graphical issues for some reason so I had to uninstall it. 

WHERE is the kissing booth!??!? This would have been PERFECT. Sigh. I'm so bummed about this. 

The festivals in Sims 4 are so boring and it's one of my favorite features that I wish they would fix and EXPAND upon and they missed the nail entirely.

The axolotl thing got worse. I knew we couldn't sell them, but I figured I could still send them away via my inventory. So I had this thing in my inventory until the vacation ended and my sims returned home. Turns out I can't just tap a button and send it away.  No, I have to go BACK to Enamorada, wait for one of the spawners to show up (if it does - it seems to be inconsistent) and do it through there. What is this? Why inconvenience players and make them jump through all these hoops? Is it because delivering a message about axolotl safety is more important than fun in a game? Because I don't think most people are going to be educated by a vague "No don't sell these things, they're endangered" message, and I don't think there's a lot of overlap between sims players and illegal animal traders. If a message was so important, why not do it in a way that adds gameplay and feels more natural?

EDIT: It gets so much worse when you think about it. Suppose you're collecting axolotls to get a specific one, or finish the collection. You'll get a ton of ones you don't want. But you can't sell them, you have to do everything above. But then I realized: this game makes it a problem if you sell them, but apparently it's perfectly okay to just pluck them out of their natural habitat and force them to breed? They're ruining their own message here.

Also, the axolotls are very low-poly, even if you don't get too close. 

Also, I can't seem to drag the picnic blanket out of my sims' inventories, nor move it around. I have to place it manually from their inventory and move it via Build/Buy. I don't have the same issue with the costume trunk. This feels like an oversight, because it means my sims keep placing blankets in inconvenient places.

Idk about this pack. The live stream was incredibly lackluster and it really doesn't sit well with me that they keep adding more and more packs that are literally just: click through this menu to change some settings. 

Like idk about y'all but I've never found sentiments, lifestyles, likes/dislikes, family dynamics / etc to have any super, super obvious effects on my sims' personalities and I highly doubt this pack will be any different. 

I really wanted them to add actual date activities over these silly little overlay menus that quite essentially are not gameplay. And it's annoying because the layout is always kinda same same (whether social bunny or dating app), so it's really not a lot of work for them to keep adding more of them into the game. And like sure they can enhance gameplay, but they shouldn't be the main attraction??

They could have added sooooo many things to this, most importantly one or preferably multiple non-rabbit hole lot types like an aquarium, a mall, a boardgame store with weekly meetups (also a fun activity for married sims with kids), a circus, or literally anything else for sims to go to on their dates.

Honestly, there are so many amazing games out there with 100s of hours of content for sometimes only 20 bucks - I just don't see how anything they've released in the last 2 years is worth even that low price tag, let alone 40. It's kind of a joke at this point. And I'd be embarrassed as hell to have my name on any of these products.