Smarten up TS4
The Sims 4 has boasted about having smarter sims with wacky stories. So far, the stories are lack luster because of limited game play options and the sims are as smart as rocks. Here's just 1 exampl...
Forum Discussion
Some things discussed in this thread aren't AI problems, they're just poor game design results - like pets texting about curfews. I can live with glitches, they happen, it's okay. What bothers me is that almost 4 years in, this game still doesn't seem to be able to recover from its online co-op beginnings.
There is only so much you can do with a game that started out as something completely different than what its trying to be. I hoped that enough time and effort on the devs' part would fix this - now I'm done fooling myself. TS4 ended before it even started - right when they decided to scrap the co-op "Olympus" idea. They should have given themselves 2 or 3 years more before shipping out another iteration but EA's greed doesn't leave room for discussion. Devs do what they're told to do. If bosses demand new game to be out soon, they deliver a new game. And players suffer.
You cannot make a good simulation game in 1,5 year. It's not possible. Maybe it would be with more people and resources, but with the way Sims Studio looked in 2013, when they made the decision to turn TS4 180... It just wasn't going to happen. I applaud them for trying but life simulation is too complex. One can't possibly wrap their head around all the little complexities needed to be included in gameplay when you only have a little over a year. Devs are in a rush to give us big things that will bring in the money like active careers or fleshed out supernatural states and they don't have time to focus on something as tiny (yet important!) as the way group conversations look. Or how emotions are actually executed. I believe there simply aren't enough people working on this game for small subtleties to be reworked. Sims 4 AI will stay more or less the same until we're given Sims 5, but I've recently learned it's not in the works yet, so that means 4 is probably the last one of the series before EA kills it off.
There is only so much you can do with a game that started out as something completely different than what its trying to be. I hoped that enough time and effort on the devs' part would fix this - now I'm done fooling myself. TS4 ended before it even started - right when they decided to scrap the co-op "Olympus" idea. They should have given themselves 2 or 3 years more before shipping out another iteration but EA's greed doesn't leave room for discussion. Devs do what they're told to do. If bosses demand new game to be out soon, they deliver a new game. And players suffer.
You cannot make a good simulation game in 1,5 year. It's not possible. Maybe it would be with more people and resources, but with the way Sims Studio looked in 2013, when they made the decision to turn TS4 180... It just wasn't going to happen. I applaud them for trying but life simulation is too complex. One can't possibly wrap their head around all the little complexities needed to be included in gameplay when you only have a little over a year. Devs are in a rush to give us big things that will bring in the money like active careers or fleshed out supernatural states and they don't have time to focus on something as tiny (yet important!) as the way group conversations look. Or how emotions are actually executed. I believe there simply aren't enough people working on this game for small subtleties to be reworked. Sims 4 AI will stay more or less the same until we're given Sims 5, but I've recently learned it's not in the works yet, so that means 4 is probably the last one of the series before EA kills it off.
