Okay I think most of us can agree this game is painfully easy so my suggestion is to add a difficulty system in the game. One mode can be the current mode of how the game is now however if you increase the difficulty you tend to have to work to unlock different types of features in the game. For example; What if Aspirations could not be changed until you complete the one you originally chose for your sim? This makes it so the initial decision actually has some meaning and you can't just change aspirations to get points when it suits you. Another idea is if one random bad lot trait is chosen for your house and you need to complete some type of quest to have it removed? And to add any lot traits yourself you will need to spend simoleans. Also the infamous RoM spellcaster transformation.. The quest should be MUCH more difficult and you are required to do a series of tasks to prove your dedication to becoming a spellcaster. What are some of your thoughts in making the game more difficult.

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.

TS4 needs a difficulty system. | EA Forums

55 Replies

valleah
6 years ago
Even bringing burglars back would be a start. I started one game in The Sims 3, and the fist night a burglar broke in. He got away, after stealing the TOILET and SHOWER. I had to wait for my (brother and sister) sims to come back from their first day of work, to be able to afford to replace the toilet.
That's another thing. In The Sims they get paid daily, what if they got paid weekly (like in real life)? That would a new level of difficulty, in that you wouldn't have your household funds increasing daily, and would have to wait for "PAYDAY", to do things. It's a small change, but it would make a difference.
As for Aspirations, I'm glad that you choose a new one after completing one. But I agree, HAVING to finish one before starting another would be good.
astridentanja
6 years ago
"Sk8rblaze;c-17350125" wrote:
"JoAnne65;c-17347977" wrote:
I don't really play Sims to have a challenge in the difficulty field. For me there needs to be a good balance between the game aspect and the storytelling aspect. It must be a game for sure and I don't want things to become too easy or fast, but when it becomes too much of a time management thing, dictating what I really should do next or my sim will die or be miserable, that's when I lose interest. I like challenges but I have to be allowed to fulfill them any time I want to and as fast or slow as I want to. Or not at all and when I don't fulfill them, that should be fun too. Like, I've always regretted there is no actual gameplay attached to a sim that fails in school or university. No real consequences.

I agree with this as well, which is why I’m a huge fan of The Sims 2 over, say, The Sims 1 in terms of gameplay difficulty.

The Sims 1 is very hectic to someone who didn’t start with it. The Needs decay so fast that you can barely delve into the different features and interactive objects each pack offers. It feels more like the goal is to ensure your Sim exists, rather than thrives. Player story-telling is a very long, drawn out process which is constantly getting put on the back burner in favor of just making sure your Sim even lives.

Then The Sims 2 came around, and the survivability aspect of the game was tuned down in favor of new goals, consisting of much more defined successes ranging from their life aspirations, mental happiness, and so on. TS2 is really where story-telling in The Sims was almost born, and flourishing best with these new systems as well as fun gameplay features such as the awesome story builder tool. The difficulty level was manageable on all levels, but by no means a cakewalk like TS4 has become.

In all honestly, it feels like the franchise has become a retelling/respin of a story we’ve gotten already (The Sims 2). IMHO, it’s why each iteration after it, you have those people asking for the same expansions over and over again from the past. People compare them too often because, truly, the games don’t make enough effort to be as unique as the shift TS2 made from TS1 (although TS3 actually strived to be unique, compared to TS4). I think they’ll need to really delve into what makes a Sims game, and reinvent the wheel with The Sims 5.

With that said, spoiler alert EA, it’s not multiplayer or changing the genre of the game to some time management simulator. The Sims should remain a single player life simulator. Really hope you don’t screw this up again.

Very well said. In a way I think it’s logical people ask for some aspects in the game by the way, though I genuinely don’t quite understand why certain things aren’t basegame. Like weather for instance. The only reason not to add weather from the start (and I believe they actually had planned to make that a basegame feature for Sims 2 but something went wrong?) is because they want to make money out of it. That’s just a really bad reason from a player’s perspective though. Like it was totally silly it took expansions to flesh out life stages. The only reason we think that’s normal is because we don’t know any better anymore.

Must confess I lost faith though. Every time I see players stating they play the old games and then return to Sims 4 because it looks so much prettier and you can throw around rooms, I feel this is a lost case. Paralives is my only hope for the future.
Scobren
6 years ago
"JoAnne65;c-17350526" wrote:

Must confess I lost faith though. Every time I see players stating they play the old games and then return to Sims 4 because it looks so much prettier and you can throw around rooms, I feel this is a lost case. Paralives is my only hope for the future.

Other games do look prettier though. Frontier games for example not only have advance tech with game play but their games are very stunning to view too. There are other games like Become Human Detroit that have advanced not only the look of furniture, but weather and characters and interactions as well. I feel like EA as a company is starting to become outdated with their tech for all their games.
astridentanja
6 years ago
"Scobre;c-17350718" wrote:
"JoAnne65;c-17350526" wrote:

Must confess I lost faith though. Every time I see players stating they play the old games and then return to Sims 4 because it looks so much prettier and you can throw around rooms, I feel this is a lost case. Paralives is my only hope for the future.

Other games do look prettier though. Frontier games for example not only have advance tech with game play but their games are very stunning to view too. There are other games like Become Human Detroit that have advanced not only the look of furniture, but weather and characters and interactions as well. I feel like EA as a company is starting to become outdated with their tech for all their games.

Well absolutely. And in my case, maybe I’m blind lol but I actually prefer the looks of my Sims 3 game to Sims 4 (I do play on highest settings). And the way my sims look and the world they live in isn’t unimportant to me, it definitely contributes to the fun (which is why I fear peanut heads in Paralives ;)). But I’m under the impression the looks have become the main quality barometer for both creators and players, and that for me is a really sad development. Like someone stating they preferred Sims 4 closed neighborhoods to an open world because it provided more detail in the neighborhoods that way. They must mean the paint added by the creators, because I can change and add a lot more details in the open worlds of the predecessor. Now, that argument, ‘look how beautifully they painted the backdrops and suggest an amazing world’, (though I fully appreciate and understand it enchants people) is wasted on me.
Scobren
6 years ago
"JoAnne65;c-17350820" wrote:
"Scobre;c-17350718" wrote:
"JoAnne65;c-17350526" wrote:

Must confess I lost faith though. Every time I see players stating they play the old games and then return to Sims 4 because it looks so much prettier and you can throw around rooms, I feel this is a lost case. Paralives is my only hope for the future.

Other games do look prettier though. Frontier games for example not only have advance tech with game play but their games are very stunning to view too. There are other games like Become Human Detroit that have advanced not only the look of furniture, but weather and characters and interactions as well. I feel like EA as a company is starting to become outdated with their tech for all their games.

Well absolutely. And in my case, maybe I’m blind lol but I actually prefer the looks of my Sims 3 game to Sims 4 (I do play on highest settings). And the way my sims look and the world they live in isn’t unimportant to me, it definitely contributes to the fun (which is why I fear peanut heads in Paralives ;)). But I’m under the impression the looks have become the main quality barometer for both creators and players, and that for me is a really sad development. Like someone stating they preferred Sims 4 closed neighborhoods to an open world because it provided more detail in the neighborhoods that way. They must mean the paint added by the creators, because I can change and add a lot more details in the open worlds of the predecessor. Now, that argument, ‘look how beautifully they painted the backdrops and suggest an amazing world’, (though I fully appreciate and understand it enchants people) is wasted on me.

I like the look of Sims 3 Sims better too. It was much more inclusive to different cultures and styles with all the color and style options. Plus the eyelashes looked so much better. I loved the variety of eye, hair, and skin colors. Color wheel was just such a game changer in so many ways of representing people as a whole. Plus the body hair made Sims look not so plastic looking too and the customization of tattoos and freckles.

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TS4 needs a difficulty system.

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