My feedback for the Sims 4:
What I like:
Create-a-Sim: Phenomenal. I absolutely love the tactile feature manipulation. The sliders were good for preciseness, but I have to say that I'm liking the lack of much better. I will admit that it took me a bit to get used to it though. My first Sim -- not a pretty sight. The clothing choices are great as well. I'm really glad there's an option to remove filters for different outfits. My only complaint here is that you have to go into modify face in order to change earrings, necklaces, etc, when those things could be just as easily altered from the accessories menu under modify body.
Blueprints: This one's kind of bittersweet. I know TS3 has something similar, but I never used it. I always enjoyed more the freedom of creating whatever I wanted. Due to the lack of being able to create whatever I want, I'm using the blueprints now when I didn't before because I feel they're better than what I could put together by myself, and make my houses not entirely miserable to live in.
Emotions: I had a feeling I'd like them even before the game came out, even more so after watching the gameplay walkthrough with Graham Nardone and Ryan Vaughan on YouTube, and I absolutely do. They're a great addition, and I love how they can affect what actions your Sims are able to do.
Intuitive Pie menus: These are great in conversations especially, because not only do they give potential emotional responses, but they also keep the Sims you're talking to from getting bored by you repeating interactions.
Multitasking: This has been way too long in coming. I'm so glad it's finally been implemented. Sure there was the "casually talk while eating dinner" thing, but this is nicer.
Lack of pools: I only ever rarely told them to swim in one (and only because they had a wish to and it was easy lifetime points), and I never built them one except to kill a Sim I didn't like, and even that stopping having its uses in the TS3 when they were able to climb out of them without ladders. Despite the unfortunate lack of swimwear now, I'm glad these were taken out because I never had any use for them. Don't have much use for them in real life, either, for that matter.
The infuriating lighting bug fix: This is different to the one mentioned later. What I'm talking about is in TS3, whenever I minimized it and the opened it again, the entire screen would darken. Everything from the GUI to the Sims themselves, it's like a translucent layer of darkness was set over the whole screen. The only way to get rid of it was to somehow get to a loading screen, such as going to CAS and back, or Loading a new Neighborhood. It was a real pain in the arse to deal with when I was trying to make a Sim based on a real person and had only pictures online to go off of. Here, on the other hand, it wouldn't be half so much an issue due to the abundance of loading screens, but it doesn't matter either way because the glitch doesn't exist. Thank you all very much for fixing that. I never figured out what caused it, and likely never will.
Save times: Let me tell you, it's really nice not having to wait half an hour for the game to save and quit. If I wanted to play the Sims 3, it was an all day production. "Am I doing anything Saturday? No, okay. Good day to play the Sims." This game, however, it's just, "Alright, let's get into it, play for half an hour before bed, and I'll actually accomplish something instead of just watching the cursor spin around."
In-game Gallery: I have really bad internet. Simple statement of fact. There are days when I can't check my email, let alone browse the gallery website and then wait for those things to be downloaded. Sometimes, I couldn't even get on the site. I'd get an error message that basically told me I timed out. So it's really nice to have something in game where I can just browse and save and not load all the unnecessary things like ads and nice pretty HTML and CSS coding that makes the site look good and wastes my limited internet.
Outfits: This is something I was really really hoping for, and I'm so beyond glad that it actually is in the game (I never heard any news about it or anything) -- the game automatically cycles outfits. If you have more than one everyday outfit, the game will automatically change to the next one depending on the day. And because you can only have five outfits, you won't always have the same outfit on Monday or whenever. I just really like this, 'cause I always wondered what the purpose of more than one outfit in TS3 was if you had to remember to change it every day. I never could do that 'cause I was always so caught up in actually playing the game, by the time I remembered it was too late. I'm also glad changing doesn't take five Sim hours because the game is taking so long to load the outfit so the Sim just stands there like a moron until it does.
Things I didn't like:
Lack of toddlers: While I admit this stage is taxing and tedious for every other Sim in the household, it's still important, especially because this is where you can determine some of your Sims skills before they're even in school. I always always always built up logic, taught them how to walk and talk, and potty trained them before I let them age up. Maybe it didn't do anything for them, really, but it was just something I needed to do. The game feels incomplete without them.
Babies: Holy crap. I haven't even had one in-game yet, but from what I've read, EA's regressed babies back to the TS1 era! They're just objects again! While I get they weren't much more than that in TS3 anyway, at least you could, like, pick them up, and carry them around. I'm not sure you can even do that much. Plus, it's a little bit creepy that they're tied to the crib.
Height: I was sincerely hoping that CAS would include a height slider. Clearly not to a ridiculous degree (ie. taller than a building) but like, enough that you could tell the difference. For that matter, teen and adult Sims aren't a different height to begin with! It seems that the only differences between them is one less trait and some internal checkbox saying, "This Sim is a teenager," and restricted interactions because of that. Other than that, they seem to use everything from the same model to having the same clothing unlocked. It's just frustrating.
Blueprints: Again with the bittersweet thing. They don't mesh well with non-blueprint rooms. I built my house using blueprints and other walls, and if I tried to paint the outside of it, it'd simply cover the outside of the blueprint room. Floors, as well, don't register rooms vs. blueprints. In fact, I can't even figure out how to put a roof on my house. Thus far, all it is is ceiling tiles over blueprint rooms and an otherwise open, roofless shack. Needless to say, I think from here on out, I'll be using only houses that other people make. This coming from someone who loves the building aspect of the Sims, it should be plain to see that you messed up somewhere.
Lighting: I don't know if it's just that my rooms are too dark, or there aren't enough windows or lights, or whatever it is, but walking from one room to another, my Sims are lighted completely differently. It's really bizarre and just a little disconcerting.
No cars: This one's rather self-explanatory. Again, I used to really enjoy the building aspect, and I'm sure I'll find myself booting up the Sims 3 more often than I should with the Sims 4 out, but in order to build a realistic house, it's kind of got to have a garage. Generally, garages house cars. I didn't make the system, that's just how it works. Unfortunately, that system just doesn't exist in this game. Way to go. Woo.
Traits: Though from what I can tell thus far, there is a way to eventually earn more traits through aspiration points or careers or... something else, in game, but I'm really rather disappointed that that maximum freely selected number of traits is three, and even more disappointed that there's a trait that links directly to your aspiration. The way I play, I create Sims of characters, and the backstory I give them in my head sometimes has them on the wrong path before realizing what they're good at and changing their life goal to suit it. Hence, them forcefully having a trait that matches their sometimes wrong life goal means I can't do that, which is a negative in my book.
Suggestions:
Height slider. Please. Please please please. At the very least, change the teen model so that it's, I don't know, an inch shorter than the adult one? That would be nice.
Again in regards to height, and this is more a small thing that's always bugged me, heels don't have any effect whatsoever on the height of the Sim wearing them. They just, like, carve out her feet to fit the shoe. It's like the original Cinderella. If that could maybe be fixed, that'd be great.
Maybe not Create a Style, since I've heard it simply won't work with the TS4 engine (I'm willing to accept that), but something like it maybe? Us choose a preset and manipulate that? If not, it's all I can really do is to ask for more presets. The design tool, also, is a nice touch. Glad you kept something akin to Create a Style in Build/Buy mode.
Uh... Toddlers. Maybe not pre-teens, but, again, smaller teens? At least teens that aren't adults with only two traits. Some kind of differentiation would be nice.
Districts. The loading screens don't really bug me that much, but it'd be nice if I didn't have to have a loading screen to walk next door. The map even looks like it should be in districts. Going from the Bargain Bend lot to the nightclub on the lower neighbor hood should reasonably have a loading screen, but going next door shouldn't, and I'd gladly take a longer one at the beginning of the game if it meant I didn't have to have two in order to walk fifty feet down the sidewalk.
Overall Thoughts:
A wonderful game. Much less a sequel than a complete reboot, if the change in direction from realism to cartoonism has anything to say about it. Needless to say, I enjoy it, though there are parts I'm likely not going to have anything to do with. People who blatantly say it's a bad game probably aren't giving it a chance, because there's a lot more to it than what meets the eye.
Something else for anyone playing who reads this, I don't understand how any of you are having problems with the camera. If you go into the options menu and check Sims 3 camera, you then can hold down the right button and drag to pan, and if you hold down Ctrl before clicking the right button, you can manipulate the tilt and rotation.
EA Staff (Retired)
