5 years ago

Too many "fake" houses.

I get the reason why they've been putting fake houses in newer worlds as they seem to be limited to 5-6 lots in each neighborhood (also, why is it so limited in newer worlds? In Windenburg and San Myshuno some of the neighbourhoods have up to 8 lots but all of the newer neighbourhoods are restricted to 6 at a maximum) but I wish they wouldn't use these fake houses. It just feels like set dressing and makes the worlds feel dead to me, rather than making it feel bigger and more full it makes it feel empty. It just feels like a ghost town and emphasises how few lots there are.

For example in this Eco Lifestyle neighborhood there's two usable houses and one usable apartment complex and that's it, yet there's 20 fake houses. So this means for every genuine house, there's 6.6 fake houses. See below, the circled lots are the only useable space in the entire area. (excluding the community space)

https://i.imgur.com/o1fFGDH.png

That means that only 13% of the neighborhood is actually usable. In my opinion it just emphasises the flaws with the Sims 4 and all the restrictions, when there's so few usable houses it doesn't feel like a community anymore it just feels like a couple houses in the middle of a ghost town. I think it'd be much better if the neighborhood was smaller, but it was full of real houses because all of this set dressing is only a bad thing in my opinion. If you're gonna give us fake house, atleast make them rabbithole lots so we can get some use out of them because this just makes it feel dead.

"Onverser;c-17725422" wrote:
Update 15/11/2020:

Very disappointed to see this exact same issue come back up in Snowy Escape. Counted them (not very accurately) but there's around 66 buildings in this neighborhood, 5 are usable. I think that's an even worse ratio than the Eco Lifestyle one. The entire top area is pretty much entirely set dressing with one actual house in the whole area

https://i.imgur.com/Yyl6hHi.png

I'm interested to see what other people think on this - Do you like the fake houses or hate them?

feedback

Sharooonia
New Spectator
5 years ago
It doesn't bother me. I'm not a builder and I'm also lazy. If they weren't fake houses I would have to go search the gallery for builds to fill them. Saying this though... the new neighbourhood Evergreen harbor looks really barren. When my sims go jogging it's like there isn't much scenery or sims around and it seems rather dull.
crocobaura
Seasoned Ace
5 years ago
"elelunicy;c-17553129" wrote:
"Onverser;d-977948" wrote:
(also, why is it so limited in newer worlds? In Windenburg and San Myshuno some of the neighbourhoods have up to 8 lots but all of the newer neighbourhoods are restricted to 6 at a maximum)

Because back in 2015/2016 there were only like 100 lots in total across all worlds. Then they realized that as they added more lots to the game, loading times/performance began to suffer as a result. If they continued to add 30 lots per world, TS4 would have well over 500 lots across all worlds by the end of its lifespan. Their solution was decreasing the number of lots in newer worlds, in hope that by the time TS4 ends, it would only have 300 lots in total, as opposed to 500+ lots.

Essentially, the number of lots in a certain neighborhood or a certain world doesn’t matter much. What matters is the total number of lots across all worlds, as this directly increases the save file size/loading times, and negatively affects performance. It wouldn’t make any sense to put 8+ lots in a single neighborhood, when their goal is to keep the total number of lots low.

I wish they would leave this up to players to decide how many lots they are going to populate in their neighbourhoods. There are some neighbourhoods I like more than others, and would love to have more playable lots in them. Also, it bothers me because some of these new fake houses appear to use quite a lot of build/buy items as their textures are way more detailed than standard fake houses.
Bert1701
5 years ago
Like others have said it' sprobably performance related. I've got a pretty high-end machine and even I get occasional drops in performance (admittedly I've also got a lot of mods/CC on top too).
A_Mom
5 years ago
"elelunicy;c-17553129" wrote:
"Onverser;d-977948" wrote:
(also, why is it so limited in newer worlds? In Windenburg and San Myshuno some of the neighbourhoods have up to 8 lots but all of the newer neighbourhoods are restricted to 6 at a maximum)

Because back in 2015/2016 there were only like 100 lots in total across all worlds. Then they realized that as they added more lots to the game, loading times/performance began to suffer as a result. If they continued to add 30 lots per world, TS4 would have well over 500 lots across all worlds by the end of its lifespan. Their solution was decreasing the number of lots in newer worlds, in hope that by the time TS4 ends, it would only have 300 lots in total, as opposed to 500+ lots.

Essentially, the number of lots in a certain neighborhood or a certain world doesn’t matter much. What matters is the total number of lots across all worlds, as this directly increases the save file size/loading times, and negatively affects performance. It wouldn’t make any sense to put 8+ lots in a single neighborhood, when their goal is to keep the total number of lots low.

But I thought that was the whole point of getting rid of the open world. Only the lot you’re in loads so it wouldn’t matter if there are 20 that aren’t loaded or 200. Even if the other usable lots in the neighborhood are “semi-loaded” so that they render properly that’s still just a handful of lots.
BlackRosesPL
5 years ago
dont get me wrong the fake houses in the background can be a nice thing in some cases, but with evergreen harbour it limits your ability to build interesting houses since your build will look odd if it doesn't match the neighbourhood. i feel like its a nice thing to do if its more in the 'background' rather than literally surrounding your lot
atreya33
Seasoned Ace
5 years ago
I don't like too many fake houses in a neighbourhood. I prefer no fake houses like the island in windenburg or Glimmerbrook.

I understand if there are a few fake houses but it seems to be a lot of them in EL (only seen screenshots and videos so far) . What bothers me most is the fact that they are in between the lot and not just around them. I like it if playable lots are locatednnear each other.
CaprianaB
Seasoned Newcomer
5 years ago
I don't have EL, but I feel this way about IL. Sims can walk right past some of the houses. It seems like they're usable, but they're not. I don't mind fake houses in the background but wish there were more usable lots.
eternalrainn
5 years ago
"Atreya33;c-17553415" wrote:
I don't like too many fake houses in a neighbourhood. I prefer no fake houses like the island in windenburg or Glimmerbrook.

I understand if there are a few fake houses but it seems to be a lot of them in EL (only seen screenshots and videos so far) . What bothers me most is the fact that they are in between the lot and not just around them. I like it if playable lots are locatednnear each other.

Same! This is why I love the Windenburg Island, Forgotten Hollow, and Glimmerbrook so much! When I'm building in those worlds I can make them whatever design I want them without the "background houses" having to influence them. Of course anyone can do whatever they want, but I feel to make the lot fit in with the surroundings you have to model it somewhat to the non-playable houses in the background.

For example, you don't have to make Forgotten Hollow all gothic victorian builds if you don't want too because there's no houses in the background to influence the world. So anything you build won't look out of place. I notice gothic victorian builds seem common with builders in Forgotten Hollow (probably because of the lore) but you can literally do dark modern vampire homes and it looks just as good there!

Another example, Oasis Springs is the perfect world for mid-century modern homes IMO but a lot of the non-playable houses are spanish villa themed so it's kind of a challenge to make it work depending on what part of Oasis Springs you're in. This is all subjective of course.
MH_Roon
5 years ago
I miss the ability to put down empty lots on the grid like in Sims 2 & 3. :(
NationalPokedex
5 years ago
"suzanna13;c-17553127" wrote:
I have mixed feelings on fake houses. I wish more of them were playable but I also think the neighbourhoods would be pretty bare looking without them. I think what bothers me more is not seeing sims who live in playable houses out in their yards or even on the streets. I am so tired of seeing sims from different "worlds" out jogging in my sims neighbourhood.

I agree. I think there should be Sims in the world that can't be interacted with mixed in with Sims that can be interacted with. They could run on predetermined loops like the vehicles run on the roads. This would at least alleviate that empty feeling.

But I also agree with @LiELF that if they're going to shortchange on the content then they need to at least let us be able to edit that to our liking. I guess with EL it's hard because the world changes based on NAPs though.