TS4 needs a difficulty system.

One way - probably the only one so far - of raising difficulty in the game is to play challenges. There are plenty of challenges, and there's this thread with a list.

I've tried a few of those challenges so far and your first example where you're not allowed to change your sim's aspiration whenever you like it is part of all challenges I've tried so far.

The idea with the lot trait sounds pretty cool, too! I can't think of a challenge where this might already be a rule but you could start your own challenge with it :)

I wouldn't even open the game once anymore if I didn't play challenges. That's the only way for me to play the game and enjoy it. Plus I write stories about the challenges which also helps to keep me interested.

But all this depends on what you expect from the game, of course.

If the challenges - or creating your own - doesn't work for you, maybe there are mods out there which add more difficult things to the game. But I wouldn't count too much on the feature being added by the devs :/ Mainly because it has never been in a sims franchise (or I have never heard about it).

I agree that a difficulty setting would be good, but honestly, I feel that fixing the difficulty should be more than just a matter of imposing negative elements on the player. I made some suggestions on improving the difficulty a while ago, with my main focus being on making it so toddlers and kids actually need their parents to take care of them instead of them being able to perfectly survive on their own while their parents just do whatever and ignore their existence. I suggested once a special refrigerator where kids can't just grab quick meals from the fridge as they please and need their parents to cook for them and remember to have leftovers. I suggested adding toys that don't cause toddlers to learn/level their skills so that they'd need their parents to teach them. I thought of making it so job tasks are less repetitive than just "practice this thing, level up this skill, get this emotion", etc. I also feel it should be way harder to adopt a child, like the parents should have specific skills they need and maybe they need to be at a certain level. I feel that things like this will make the game naturally more difficult, not to mention more realistic.

As for your points, well my current issue with aspirations is that I think they need to be more than just tutorials of new pack features. I find them easy because they're literally just click-lists made to show off new pack features, rather than feeling like an actual desired goal for a sim's life. A lot of them seem really repetitive too. I do agree that I think it's weird that you can just change them on a whim, and personally I would make it so they can't be changed unless completed, but I'm sure there are players who like that they can jump from aspiration to aspiration whenever they want so, I feel like they'd never change that.

It might be easy to handle one Sim's family but I find it difficult to control a whole filled world with ageing on. I go back to a family and cannot recognise some of them as the kids have grown up and the grandparents disappeared. I'm thinking of trying to get all the University dorms full of young adults from my own families at the same time now. At least they'll all be well dressed! :)

I’ve never really thought difficultly is important to the Sims experience, but it would be interesting to have a “hardcore” mode for those who want it.

"Sk8rblaze;c-17338471" wrote:
The game should really throw more unexpected curveballs aside from the occasional career pop-up to make us think and plan ahead of how we would respond.

This. 100 times this. I’ve always said that this game is crying out for choice & consequence gameplay that extends beyond career performance boosts.

For me, it's not about ease, it's about open-endedness. I don't like to be overly directed in terms of outcomes. I do roll with negative events that happen and deaths. I'll admit that I like having some challenge in atmospheres like University but I don't want constant negativity either.

I have some households where things are more complicated and then I have a number of happy and functional families that I like and don't necessarily need to add tons of difficulty to. It's not a case of being unable to play without cheats, but I sometimes use them to create different families at various socioeconomic levels.

I do think that sometimes the game can get overly childish or even too easy but at the same time, I like being able to have a certain light-hearted approach as well. I guess that I like being able to decide when to back off of intensity. I don't like everything to be bleak.

Generally, I want to see more to do in the game but I'm usually not that hard on my sims. I've always had them clean the lint filter rather than catch on fire, for example. I think there are ways to make this work but I don't want "very difficult play" forced on players like me. It's not that I want all sunshine but I like that if I want to change an outcome for a sim, then I can take certain steps like frantically searching for a cure for Selvadoradan poison, for example.

I know that some players get annoyed that those workarounds exist but they are also there to be ignored when someone wants.

I think that's the main issue here. There are multiple ways that people want to play the same game. Again, I think that TS4 can definitely be a bit "too easy" at times but at others, it can be surprisingly complex. I think the approach to University is a step in the right direction. Let players choose how much to take on.

Probably one of my hardest households was the astronaut with 5 and then 6 kids. Four to five of them were toddlers at once, one with the wild trait. I could have made it harder with fussy. They were constantly having meltdowns and just getting their basic needs met was challenging. The astronaut would work long hours. The house was constantly a mess. I know people have played concepts like the 7 toddler challenge and this was a bit like that. The wild toddler didn't learn basic skills until approximately the last day. I had to pause time to allow him to get potty-trained, etc, which also meant more time for chaos. Mayhem.

I like being able to do that and then to switch to Sulani islanders back-floating around at the beach. I want more to do though, definitely more to do.

"DMDCT;c-17338498" wrote:
I completely agree that the game is far too easy. And it's only been made easier over the years. Remember when aspirations were super hard to complete? And while nobody else seemed to be bothered, I cried when they removed ideal moods for careers. It's sad to think that some people can't even play without motherlode. I mean, really? I use the money cheat to periodically TAKE AWAY MONEY from my sims (call it taxes). I think I might have taken somewhere in the vicinity of 150 million simoleons at this point.

I didn't know there was a cheat for that! My sim is a celebrity and has about 250k so I've literally been buying expensive items and donating them to get rid of her money haha.

I disagree with OP.

The Sims is what you make it to be. You can impose all kinds of rules on your play to make it difficult - take on challenges and whatnot. Try a challenge on short lifespand, etc.

The Sims is like a virtual dollhouse. If you get bored playing, find a different game to test your limits. The Sims is not about difficulty. It's a game of creativity and living out ideas.

"Nindigo;c-17338825" wrote:
I disagree with OP.

The Sims is what you make it to be. You can impose all kinds of rules on your play to make it difficult - take on challenges and whatnot. Try a challenge on short lifespand, etc.

The Sims is like a virtual dollhouse. If you get bored playing, find a different game to test your limits. The Sims is not about difficulty. It's a game of creativity and living out ideas.

Exactly what I was thinking. One of the best things about S4 is being able to switch aspirations on the fly. You can always impose rules on yourself to make it more difficult - there is nothing stopping you from making a rule in your game that aspirations can't be changed. Just because a toddler or kid can take care of herself doesn't mean you have to play it that way - my parents spend most of their time teaching and caring for their toddlers, and they always help with homework and projects and have family meals together.

Will Wright imagined players as the director - it's not a game in which you cope with whatever the game throws at your Sim, but rather, a game in which you decide what to throw at your Sim.

"invisiblgirl;c-17338887" wrote:

"Nindigo;c-17338825" wrote:
I disagree with OP.

The Sims is what you make it to be. You can impose all kinds of rules on your play to make it difficult - take on challenges and whatnot. Try a challenge on short lifespand, etc.

The Sims is like a virtual dollhouse. If you get bored playing, find a different game to test your limits. The Sims is not about difficulty. It's a game of creativity and living out ideas.

Exactly what I was thinking. One of the best things about S4 is being able to switch aspirations on the fly. You can always impose rules on yourself to make it more difficult - there is nothing stopping you from making a rule in your game that aspirations can't be changed. Just because a toddler or kid can take care of herself doesn't mean you have to play it that way - my parents spend most of their time teaching and caring for their toddlers, and they always help with homework and projects and have family meals together.

Will Wright imagined players as the director - it's not a game in which you cope with whatever the game throws at your Sim, but rather, a game in which you decide what to throw at your Sim.

This isn't quite correct. Will Wright's original intention for The Sims was to explore states of failure because it was more interesting and engaging than consistent success. The purpose of the actual gameplay was for the player to decide if they would allow Sim needs and aspirations to bottom out, resulting in Sims having breakdowns or dying, ...or if they would care for their needs and goals, resulting in happiness and fulfillment. It put the player in the position of a God. The entire premise was to put the fate of the Sims in the player's hands, and when you activated live mode, the game would creep towards failure without player intervention. And there were higher chances of random failure and disaster from unskilled Sims. The player creativity came mostly from build mode and the extra content, but the essence and the core of the actual gameplay was to simulate ultimate failure if left to its own devices. It was more about getting through life's obstacles and the struggle to succeed and meet fulfillment while confronting fears and failures, so when the player finally got their Sim to reach their end goal in their aspiration, there was a sense of accomplishment and reward. It was satisfying because it had challenge and purpose.

The game used to be a lot more than a simple virtual dollhouse of happiness. It used to be an actual game. The devolution of the series has led it to become more of the opposite of what it used to be; it's now a Utopia simulator with the option of failures that actually need to be more forced into happening, which is why people get bored all the time. The challenges and obstacles have been neutralized. It has completely lost its way from Will Wright's original design. And I'm not saying many people don't enjoy Sims 4 for what it is or are wrong for doing so, but it's definitely not the kind of game that Will Wright had intended.