TS4 needs a difficulty system.

I have to disagree with difficulty levels *such as toggles, for The Sims. My problem with this iteration is there are way too many failsafes. Or whatever you want to call it. I enjoyed my Sims had to eat about every four or five hours in the past games. I understand others don't. But motives were what pushed players to care for their Sims and try to keep them safe. I understand some found TS1 extremely difficult to play but it's because some approached the game (per game console players and critiques) as if it was a win type game where you leveled up and won the game after you had completed some goal such as getting to the top of a career. But The Sims were not built to actually be played that way, but that was a side thing while they dealt with Life. Life happens. Getting hungry, dying, getting sick, dying, getting an illness, dying, accidents such as fires/dying,cheaters/betrayal/divorce/revenge etc. etc.

But not in TS4. I don't expect my Sim to pull out some imaginary food if I haven't supplied them with food. But that is exactly what they do or can do. I wonder why Maxis thinks that's ok and tries to protect a teenager or an adult from the harm that might happen to the Sim if they had no food. It would seem they want to protect the child that may be playing rather than a teenager who has dealt with far worse in raw rpgs that are more intense and harmful to a character. It's not that I want to spend all my time making sure the Sim is fed, but good grief, remove the baby failsafes. I expect difficulty to work the same way. If my Sim eats better food I expect them to stay healthier, live longer, or not gain weight, or get an illness etc. But if they don't, I would expect my Sims would keel over from my bad management of their life. I don't expect the game to save the Sim for me by supplying them with food they pull out of a pocket somewhere and won't die. I also don't expect every Sim in the world to be able to extinquish a fire without some sort of training and just pull out a fire extinquisher from nowhere. That to me is so babyfied. If I don't supply them with some sort of fire alarm etc I don't expec them to have a canister hidden in a pocket. This is the difference in TS4 and TS1 and the others. And in TS2 Sims may fail to put out a fire if they haven't studied how to do that. At least read the canister instructions.

Also, I expect Sims to have human behavior such as anger and resentment and wanting revenge if their partner cheats on them, I don't expect them to behave like they do in TS4 and start joking with the home wrecker and want to be friends and do lunch. People want reality but that's not reality, human behavior and emotions are just not that polite. Let's get real, TS4 is Utopia and that's it's whole problem. I don't need levers in the game to set difficulty, I just need the game to grow up.