7 years ago

Things that will improve the Sims 4. What are your ideas?

I know there are other threads out there discussing similar things, but I really want to know what you think could improve the Sims 4. No mods, no cheats ... just good ideas to add to the game by the developers.

EDIT: I would also love for you guys to give a bit of detail on how your improvements function.

I would like to see BANKS.

- A new banking career.
- Weekly Financial Records.
- Incurring debt, specifically a mortgage loan.

I'm honestly surprised that there is no finance option for purchasing homes and you are required to pay cash. Considering how expensive decent homes tend to be, it could take a while to save up the funds for one if you play the game realistically. It's a grind. So introducing a finance feature would be a welcome addition.

How it could look like:

Take the cost of the home less a down payment.
Add a markup rate for purchasing via financing.
Provide 2 types of terms (Long and Short).

Interest
- Determined by the down payment.
- Low down payment means a higher markup rate.
- High down payment means a lower markup rate.

Short Term Loan: 15 Weeks
- Has higher weekly payments.

Long Term: 30 Weeks
- Has lower weekly payments.

They could make so that if you chose a longer term you would end up paying more over time than if you chose a shorter term loan.

Weekly Financial Statements.
A record of your household income and expenses for the week. This already exists as a daily financial report in Get to Work for your retail business so it shouldn't be that difficult to implement.

Loan qualification.
Newly created or playable households shouldn't immediately qualify for mortgage loans without meeting certain requirements.
- Have enough funds for a down payment. The game options could be between 10% lowest to 40% highest.
- Have reached a Career level that ensures you make more than the weekly mortgage payment and/or ..
- Submit your weekly financial report showing income exceeding the mortgage amount. Usually income from other professions (Painter, author etc.,) for those who don't join careers.

Separate Utility Bills.
Having a mortgage would allow for the household to have separate utility bills as an additional expenditure to throw your hard earned simoleons on. Why not?

This would be an incredible selling point for me and would really elevate this game into a whole new dimension. I would also like to see finance options for purchasing/building Retail stores and Restaurants as well as the addition of separate utility bills for those businesses. If you hardly make money in one business because you don't use it as often as another, the game will not excuse you from paying the bills. You would need to dig into personal funds to keep the business running.

Idea

bsozz
7 years ago
Stats for each sim, like an RPG. And a more robust relationship system.
JestTru
Seasoned Newcomer
7 years ago
Story progression
ParmaViolet87
7 years ago
"TS1299;c-16728611" wrote:
a overhauled personality system where the main priority of sims decision autonoumusly are based first on the Traits rather than emotion, An Aspiration system where the goals are not specific, A proper memories system that affects a sims behavior, and an emotion system that dosen't overpower traits. I"ll also go to the fact that a sim has many interest in their life, such as skills, and while this might sound like sims 2, Wants and Fears. Its the deepest system they ever introduced in the franchise. It needs a big debut if they want depth for sims in The Sims 4

I absolutely love this. The memories sounds like a great idea. I want Sims to remember things. Perhaps they had a grudge in the past? Or a nasty encounter that will affect their mood when they see the culprit sim, say, a few days later? It would make them more...well, human in a way. Our Sims seem to forgive far too easily. Maybe they made a childhood enemy and but they eventually became friends, but they will always remember they were once enemies? It would be so great for story building.

I confess this is what I thought the Sims 4 would be when it was first advertised. I was quite disappointed.
Chrisbay
7 years ago
"ParmaViolet87;c-16729303" wrote:

I absolutely love this. The memories sounds like a great idea. I want Sims to remember things. Perhaps they had a grudge in the past? Or a nasty encounter that will affect their mood when they see the culprit sim, say, a few days later? It would make them more...well, human in a way. Our Sims seem to forgive far too easily. Maybe they made a childhood enemy and but they eventually became friends, but they will always remember they were once enemies? It would be so great for story building.

I confess this is what I thought the Sims 4 would be when it was first advertised. I was quite disappointed.

A grudge that could transcend generations. Now that would be awesome lol.
ParmaViolet87
7 years ago
"V_Ice;c-16729306" wrote:
"ParmaViolet87;c-16729303" wrote:

I absolutely love this. The memories sounds like a great idea. I want Sims to remember things. Perhaps they had a grudge in the past? Or a nasty encounter that will affect their mood when they see the culprit sim, say, a few days later? It would make them more...well, human in a way. Our Sims seem to forgive far too easily. Maybe they made a childhood enemy and but they eventually became friends, but they will always remember they were once enemies? It would be so great for story building.

I confess this is what I thought the Sims 4 would be when it was first advertised. I was quite disappointed.

A grudge that could transcend generations. Now that would be awesome lol.

Yes! Maybe a grudge that could create family feuds too. Makes me think a reputation system would be great as well. Bad Sims are known as the 'bad ones' - maybe other Sims stay away from them, or relationship gets a negative relationship bar to begin with xD
bsozz
7 years ago
"V_Ice;c-16729277" wrote:
"So_Money;c-16729255" wrote:
Stats for each sim, like an RPG. And a more robust relationship system.

That sounds interesting. I'm not very familiar with RPGs, what would the stats look like?

A lot of them would precipitate an overhaul of the traits and skills system - which is either too binary (traits) or not impactful enough (skills). For example, I'd prefer it if my sims had some level of ambition, rather than simply be ambitious or not because they don't have the trait.

I'd combine some of the traits with skills, and we would be able to "roll" these stats in CAS, with less points available for younger sims. We'd have base stats like humor, intelligence, charisma, handiness, endurance, greed, confidence, ambition, cleanliness, flirtiness, etc. From there, we would select certain perks for our sim, based on stat thresholds.

But the important thing would be that each of these impacts what our sim can do in the game to a significant degree and also control what perks they qualify for. So a sim with a humor stat of 8 would then be able to choose some cool humor-based perks at creation.

I also think that the stats of adult sims should be very hard to raise through gameplay. Kind of like when you reach a high level in an RPG and levelling up can be painfully slow. Furthermore, elders should start losing points from their stats.
bsozz
7 years ago
"V_Ice;c-16729356" wrote:
"So_Money;c-16729343" wrote:
"V_Ice;c-16729277" wrote:
"So_Money;c-16729255" wrote:
Stats for each sim, like an RPG. And a more robust relationship system.

That sounds interesting. I'm not very familiar with RPGs, what would the stats look like?

A lot them would precipitate an overhaul of the traits and skills system - which is either too binary (traits) or not impactful enough (skills). For example, I'd prefer it if my sims had some level of ambition, rather than simply be ambitious or not because they don't have the trait.

I'd combine some of the traits with skills, and we would be able to "roll" these stats in CAS, with less points available for younger sims. We'd have base stats like humor, intelligence, charisma, handiness, endurance, greed, confidence, ambition, cleanliness, flirtiness, etc. From there, we would select certain perks for our sim, based on stat thresholds.

But the important thing would be that each of these impacts what our sim can do in the game to a significant degree and also control what perks they qualify for. So a sim with a humor stat of 8 would then be able to choose some cool humor-based perks at creation.

I also think that the stats of adult sims should be very hard to raise through gameplay. Kind of like when you reach a high level in an RPG and levelling up can be painfully slow. Furthermore, elders should start losing points from their stats.

Nice, nice!

Something like that would probably be a next generation iteration of the game because that would require the entire system revamped.

Probably. One can dream, though. :)
TheStarHermit
7 years ago
I like the idea of banks, I would also like to see the financial statement system from TS1 return to the game. I'd also like to see rental of homes as an option instead of purchasing them, sims could always buy their home when they had saved enough for it.

For new sims I almost always use the free real estate cheat so I can have them move into a slightly better home with some extra spare cash to start their lives, if I could choose to rent a house to start with then I wouldn't feel the need to use that cheat. I suppose I could always choose to rent an apartment in San Myshuno to start them off (I do irl) but I'm not keen on that city and would prefer them to start off in a house. :smile:
Lustianicia
7 years ago
Fixing all the major bugs/glitches that have been in the game since the release of 'Seasons' would be a good start.

Seriously though... it's been three months and we still have major issues that are constantly being ignored by the developers, despite getting several patches since then.

I'd rather have them fix the bugs we currently have BEFORE creating new features that will likely only end up introducing more bugs.
Chrisbay
7 years ago
"Lustianicia;c-16730047" wrote:
Fixing all the major bugs/glitches that have been in the game since the release of 'Seasons' would be a good start.

Seriously though... it's been three months and we still have major issues that are constantly being ignored by the developers, despite getting several patches since then.

I'd rather have them fix the bugs we currently have BEFORE creating new features that will likely only end up introducing more bugs.

And then preceded to drop the mic B)

I don't know if they will have be able to clean out all the bugs. Sims 3 was laced with many .. they haven't been fixed to this day ..