Parenthood - Should I get it?

"EnkiSchmidt;c-18350235" wrote:

"CAPTAIN_NXR7;c-18350225" wrote:

Curfew. Good concept, not well executed, unless I’m playing it wrong… In TS3 the police ( police!!) would bring the kid home after curfew, and there would be trouble. In TS4…no one seems to care. When the curfew clock strikes …all the mischievous kids can stay out all night because mom and dad are happily snoring in their bed, completely oblivious to the fact that their kids didn’t make it home on time. BUT WILL BILLY EVER COME HOME?! Trust me, no one cares.


The lack of consequences in this game is one of its biggest issues- it makes everything feel rather bland.
That said, Parenthood still adds that little extra flavor to my stories and I wouldn’t want to give it up!

That's exactly why I like Sims 4 curfew better than the Sims 3 version.

Sims 3 dictates what my society looks like: there is mandatory curfew and it is enforced by the police. They always know where everyone is and home in on them from anywhere in town. They even grab a teenager from the street when he just wants to cross it to the wellness center right across before school. The parents have no say in how they react, they will autonomously scold the child.

In Sims 4 Responsibility value ticks down the longer the young sim breaks curfew. If I want my parents to care, I wouldn't sent them to bed while their kiddo is still missing. I can always direct them to be as angry as they want manually or decide that they don't care. It's my game, my characters, my rules.

I 100% agree with you that mandatory curfew should not be a thing. Sims 4 gives us more freedom this way. My game, my rules, absolutely.
I just don’t feel that this curfew mechanism is very balanced.
I personally miss the curfew police and wish we had a toggle to switch on/ off NPCs like this, the same way we have weather specific toggles or an option to turn off the celebrity system. In TS3 I can have my teens dodge the curfew police ( or the graffiti police ). That is the challenging and fun part for me, to try not to get caught. Unfortunately, in TS4 there’s no system like that in place at all.

I don’t send the parents to bed. They do that themselves. They’d do anything except scold the kid that arrives home late. They used to do this a lot more when the pack was released, nowadays the kid rarely gets reprimanded autonomously, regardless of parental skill level.

See, I already got the parents to activate the bulletin board, shouldn’t that be enough to trigger certain behavior? If I want them to be lenient parents I’d have them ignore the bulletin board completely by not setting the curfew clock to a specific time. Curfew doesn’t exist in a household in which no one cares about who does what and when. But I have to set the house rules through the parents. So when I play as a kid or as a teen, and mischievously stay out after curfew, I would like the parents to act accordingly, especially when they’re members of my active household. I don’t always want to direct my sims, I play with full autonomy on. I don’t always want to tell the parents what to do. I prefer to be in control to some extent, but I want the game to simulate behavior based on whatever traits and likes/ dislikes I give my sims. I want the game to surprise me, but in a logical way, if that makes sense.