Underwater Lots in Island Living

Now, I've almost spent all my time playing as merfolk in Island Living. Merfolk sims are like other sims, but they have that half fish part to them and special abilities. While Island Living missed a lot of opportunities, I think it failed the most with what could be done with merfolk.

When you look at occults, the game is pretty well equipped to support Alien, Vampire, and Spellcaster families. For Spellcasters, you even have a place for them to call their own and bloodlines. Aliens can result in weird genetics, and Vampires are, well Vampires.

Island Living offers the hidden Sulani Mana Trait and Merfolk. Merfolk have a bunch of unique abilities, and I consider Seasons a must because it adds the weather changing abilities. However, merfolk don't have a place to call their own, there are no special bloodlines, and the trait doesn't even show up until they are teens.

I've seen people talk about how the dive spots could be part of something like a secret lot or how it could be a place for merfolk. But, the idea that I think is different from other threads, and I think worth mentioning is: Merfolk really would benefit from underwater lots. I'm talking about underwater lots that could be used as residential lots or serve similar functions to other venues but underwater.

The idea is pretty simple, but it's not like people haven't done similar things in real life. Of course, those examples aren't very common, so I doubt many have seen anything.

I think it would give merfolk that extra thing they need if the game play could actually support having a merfolk family on an underwater lot. Of course, this would mean creating underwater friendly stuff for the home, but I think it's doable. I think they could have given Toddlers and Children a merform. Here are a couple screenshots of the merform equipped to children and a toddler. It's in the code. They just didn't design a smaller, child-size version of the adult tails or include the swim style.

Kylen and Rylen: Merboys with their merform equipped using cheats. The next life stage (Teen) will include a merform with a tail.



Ember: A mergirl toddler with her merform equipped. This also came with a change in hairstyle and clothes.



The children and toddlers could have a merform that allows them to live underwater and support everything the sims has to offer but underwater with unique underwater items to interact with. Of course, only the merfolk sims could live underwater without some kind of underwater life support. Something like underwater life support could be included for non-mersims.

As things are, merfolk have limitations on what they can do in their merform, but there's more they can do then it appears. Testing the limits of what merfolk can do in their merform, I found that they can almost have a functional home while hardly taking their human form.

Without Cheats

With certain mirrors, they can do almost everything except a select few things that came with later packs. It seems merfolk were coded to do a lot of stuff, but this didn't get updated with introduction of new packs.



He can also practice pick-up lines while flirty. I assume he can also perform the other emotional interactions as well as psych himself up.



Things they can't do with a mirror (Some things make sense while others don't or could have an alternative option for mers):

They can't practice acting or practice lines. Apparently, functioning legs are required to be an actor or actress:



I made him flirty by trying on outfits in his merform, but he can't use the freshen up option.



I can build charisma by practicing a speech, but I guess they forgot to update things with the University Pack. Merfolk can't practice debate...



Naturally, he doesn't have legs in this form, so I wouldn't expect him to practice dancing. Instead of a quirky message they give about ladders, he just won't know where to go to perform the action.

He can view and talk to fish without leaving the water.



Merfolk can watch wall mounted tvs and listen to music from a nearby music source or headphones.



They can't view artwork or posters.



With Sulani Mana, Merfolk can summon lava bombs



Oh, and these fireballs can be summoned by children, but they don't have their merfolk abilities until they are teens...



Thanks to their ability to call thunderstorms anywhere they go and the Storm Chaser Trait, Bringing the Lightning is a very easy ability to acquire at any time anywhere.

If you get two merfolk together, you can almost keep a thunderstorm going perpetually and further increase your chances of getting struck twice. One of my mers were struck three times while trying this.



With Cheats

If you use cheats, you can equip the merform while the sims is sitting. Like this, a mer can be at the waters edge performing various things fully submerged in the water. Things like hunger can be satisfied without changing back. Hand held electronics can be used (This includes the electronic drawing pad).



It wouldn't be hard to use this as starting point for merfolk beds and furniture.



Also, merfolk might have interactions that seem to only be lethal to players and not townies, but their abilities can wreck a lot. If I kept going, who know how many fires would break out and destroyed object would need to get replaced.



Merfolk didn't get as many perks as other occults. The way they developed them, I kinda have to use features from other packs. However, I really, truly believe that the one things they could do to make merfolk more popular in the sims is to include underwater lots that can be used as merfolk family homes for occult players or various types of diving venues for non-occult players. I'm sure a few google searches would bring up plenty of possibilities for underwater non-occult playstyles. I am upset that a previous version had underwater lots and the second one didn't include it. The technology the sims 4 is run on must be better than what the sims 3 runs on even if it isn't the best. I don't know why features from the Sims 3 would be excluded. I'm still very new to the Sims, but it's the merfolk that sold the games for me. They've made all their sales because of them, so I'm a bit disappointed that they haven't at least offered a free update for the people that want to play as merfolk.

I'm still exploring what I can do, and even though I play on the Console (Playstation 4), I continue to push the limits of what I can do with merfolk.

This is my current build. It still has elements from my experimentation, but I hope to find the perfect combination of traits and building style to create a home for merfolk where they don't have to change into a human form. For now, it's the only thing I can do until something is done about the lack of underwater lots. I think they have tons of missed opportunities with merfolk.

My Underwater Build (Experimental)



In some ways, a merperson has more ways to make the most of a tiny living boost too. Considering that a pool can facilitate most of the living space needs, its possible to create a build with huge benefits that only merfolk can take advantage of because they can sleep in the water and perform so many interactions while in the water. There's still room for improvement.