Sims 4 Today vs. 2014-2017
Do you feel as though the same gripes you had with the game back then are still relevant? Has the "not enough content" issue finally been solved? What do you like the most about The Sims 4, compared t...
Forum Discussion
I only bought TS4 in early 2017 when TS2 randomly decided to no longer work on my computer. By then, updates had been made and several packs were already out, so I never got to experience the empty base game in its original form. Still, I know there used to be no pools, no ghosts, no toddlers, not much of anything we take for granted these ways, so it's safe to say that the base game is much better now than it was in 2014. But I have other gripes with the game that have actually gotten worse over time.
1. Bugs, bugs, bugs!
This is the most important one, and it's not an opinion or a matter of personal preference, but a simple fact: The game is broken. Even though I play it a lot, I'd never recommend it to others for this very reason. I used to look forward to the monthly patches and the free new content they would sometimes bring, now I dread them because of how they might ruin my game again, often in ways I would never have anticipated. It's the same with packs, I bought High School Years in the current sale and I'm actually enjoying it, but hardly a day goes by without me discovering another thing that doesn't work. I mean, being the only participant in a chess tournament can be great, because without competition, my sim should automatically win, right? Not so much when there isn't even a judge around to declare the winner. And this is just one of the less serious problems.
2. Quantity over quality / All show, no substance
TS4 has been running for much longer and produced many more expansions than any previous iterations of the game. Even back when I bought it in 2017, there was already so much content that I didn't even know where to start, but at the same time, all that content is extremely restrictive and shallow. Everything looks nice, but leaves a lot to be desired in the gameplay department. Why give us 500 different cat breeds to mix and match as we please when cats do so little in the game that there's no point in owning one? There was a time when they were able to learn tricks (now only dogs can) and even go to work (TS2), now they're just animated decor objects. Then there's the worlds, so beautifully designed, but empty and boring. The creepy alley leading up to the hill with the overturned streetlamp in Forgotten Hollow is a great example, it looks cool and mysterious, but there's nothing going on there, nothing to do other than sit on a bench, so why even bother going all the way up there? Sometimes less is more. I think it's not an unpopular opinion that I would prefer having less content that is, however, more fleshed out and not just pretty to look at.
3. Good ideas, poor execution / No sense of scale
Somewhat related to the above, many cool features have been added over time, both as free base game updates and in packs. But more often than not, they end up being more trouble than they're worth. I think the wants and fears system works fine nowadays, but it was terribly intrusive at first, and not fixed for a very long time. My sims kept getting the same fears over and over again, as if the game was criticising my play style (yeah, sorry for not fulfilling their every whim, but you know, some of those whims are utterly nonsensical). Then there's Bust the Dust, which plays on our desire to have more normal, everyday chores in our sims' lives, but dust used to come back so often and so quickly that any sim with a house bigger than a shoe box had to spend their entire free time vacuuming! I don't know if that has been fixed yet because I don't own the kit, but I wanted it and decided not to get it after hearing about other players' complaints. It's like every time there's a new feature, it gets rubbed in our faces at any given opportunity, and once enough players complain about that, it gets disabled completely, like that's the only alternative (looking at you, vampire break-ins).
So yeah, TLDR: Base game is better now, but I still have my fair share of gripes with TS4, even now in 2023.
1. Bugs, bugs, bugs!
This is the most important one, and it's not an opinion or a matter of personal preference, but a simple fact: The game is broken. Even though I play it a lot, I'd never recommend it to others for this very reason. I used to look forward to the monthly patches and the free new content they would sometimes bring, now I dread them because of how they might ruin my game again, often in ways I would never have anticipated. It's the same with packs, I bought High School Years in the current sale and I'm actually enjoying it, but hardly a day goes by without me discovering another thing that doesn't work. I mean, being the only participant in a chess tournament can be great, because without competition, my sim should automatically win, right? Not so much when there isn't even a judge around to declare the winner. And this is just one of the less serious problems.
2. Quantity over quality / All show, no substance
TS4 has been running for much longer and produced many more expansions than any previous iterations of the game. Even back when I bought it in 2017, there was already so much content that I didn't even know where to start, but at the same time, all that content is extremely restrictive and shallow. Everything looks nice, but leaves a lot to be desired in the gameplay department. Why give us 500 different cat breeds to mix and match as we please when cats do so little in the game that there's no point in owning one? There was a time when they were able to learn tricks (now only dogs can) and even go to work (TS2), now they're just animated decor objects. Then there's the worlds, so beautifully designed, but empty and boring. The creepy alley leading up to the hill with the overturned streetlamp in Forgotten Hollow is a great example, it looks cool and mysterious, but there's nothing going on there, nothing to do other than sit on a bench, so why even bother going all the way up there? Sometimes less is more. I think it's not an unpopular opinion that I would prefer having less content that is, however, more fleshed out and not just pretty to look at.
3. Good ideas, poor execution / No sense of scale
Somewhat related to the above, many cool features have been added over time, both as free base game updates and in packs. But more often than not, they end up being more trouble than they're worth. I think the wants and fears system works fine nowadays, but it was terribly intrusive at first, and not fixed for a very long time. My sims kept getting the same fears over and over again, as if the game was criticising my play style (yeah, sorry for not fulfilling their every whim, but you know, some of those whims are utterly nonsensical). Then there's Bust the Dust, which plays on our desire to have more normal, everyday chores in our sims' lives, but dust used to come back so often and so quickly that any sim with a house bigger than a shoe box had to spend their entire free time vacuuming! I don't know if that has been fixed yet because I don't own the kit, but I wanted it and decided not to get it after hearing about other players' complaints. It's like every time there's a new feature, it gets rubbed in our faces at any given opportunity, and once enough players complain about that, it gets disabled completely, like that's the only alternative (looking at you, vampire break-ins).
So yeah, TLDR: Base game is better now, but I still have my fair share of gripes with TS4, even now in 2023.
