What do players mean by "gameplay"?

"DragonCat159;c-16264854" wrote:

"DeservedCriticism;c-16264738" wrote:

"DragonCat159;c-16263862" wrote:

"DeservedCriticism;c-16263253" wrote:
A long-term goal that changes how you play, something to do and to work for, a reward of sorts at the end or at milestones, and something that distinguishes the performance of various different Sims from one another.

Look back at Sims 1. The two main goals of that game were to get married and have kids or max your career. In both cases you have a long-term goal (marriage, a promotion), they're something to work towards (flirt and socialize with your spouse of choice, improve your skills), you get a reward for the milestone (another sim to play, new skills or paycheck that you benefit from daily), and something that distinguishes the performance of various Sims from one another. (This wasn't Sims 1's strongsuit, but their personalities helped set them apart from each other while some of the expansion jobs or tasks did set them apart, for example being a celebrity meant other Sims would react differently to you)


Now look at Sims 4. Let's grab the last three expansion packs as examples. All three of them had a skill that existed "just because" and had weak to no rewards whatsoever. Get Together had DJing, which was just a copy-pasting instrument skill with no unique reward and no motivation to actually bother with it. The only reason to bother with it is because if you want your Sims to be a DJ, but actually being a DJ doesn't make him unique or give him unique abilities or qualifications. The skill just exists as something to do if you're exceedingly bored and that's it.

City Living did the exact same. Singing skill again had zero long-term goal and again it was a copy-pasted instrument skill that was more or less functionally identical to the other four. Singing afforded you no special qualifications for jobs and no special abilities. It was just a copy-pasted skill with no goal or purpose. Again your only motivation for using it is if you want your sim to be a singer, but what you earn is little more than an absolutely meaningless title of "singer" with no practical effects on how they perform in day-to-day life. Yes, some animations and audio files improve, but this achieves absolutely nothing in terms of the game.

Pets? The Pet training skill. What does this do? Again it's just....there. You don't get anything for it, there's no special benefits for mastering it. It's just there and the best-case-scenario is shinier interactions. I don't own the pack, but it seems to me that pets themselves - in their entirety - are completely devoid of goals or gameplay. They just sit there, poop on your couch and the new "gameplay" is you get to clean it up. Wow, real exciting.

Let's look at vampires as a comparison, since it's probably the most praised pack in terms of gameplay. Does it have a long-term goal that changes how you play? I don't know about super long term, but the aspirations do help personify your vampires a bit and give them a personalized goal, not to mention maxing your vampire powers is of course a standard goal. Does it have something to do and to work for? Yes, again there's three aspirations and tons of powers to work towards. Does it have a reward at the end or at milestones? Yep, the vampire powers themselves. Does it have something that distinguishes the performance of various different Sims from one another? Yep, the vampire powers and even the vampire lifestate itself do this.

Vampires is so praised because it gives Sims more personality and variety than the base game traits do. That's ridiculous, and it speaks volumes about how bad the traits are. What's more, it attaches this personality and variety towards something to work towards and a goal. You don't just get the personality of being an all-powerful vampire handed to you on a silver platter; you have to earn it. This keeps you busy and keeps you invested in your game, and this is a good thing.


Unfortunately, Sims 4 repeatedly lacks this. It spams stuff packs at us with absolutely zero gameplay involved, it throws out lackluster expansion packs that - until now - have only offered skills that seem to copy-paste the designs of other pre-existing skills (baking copying cooking, DJ and singing copying any other instrument, Vet copying the Scientist and Doctor careers rather than another skill) and only one seemed to have any semblance of goal-orientated gameplay. (Get to Work) Even the Game Packs often get overpraised, because thusfar only Vampires and Parenthood have succeeded in providing gameplay. (Spa Day had practically zero, Outdoor Retreat's was waaaaaaaay too niche, barebones and repetitive to be interesting, Dine Out completely lacked meaningful rewards for any work provided)

That's why you hear outcries for gameplay. Because astonishingly, the Sims team seems to have forgotten that games require gameplay.

So even doing those DJing and Singing activities didn't give you tips and/or gradually upped payout as their skill increased? Hmh I can really see how that could make the game repetitive and less invested in doing such recreational stuff. It's unfortunate. If only it were like showtime, where you would get a phone call for an opportunity when at a certain skill level a bar owner for example would invite to do a gig there for the pleasure of customers/audience and in return receive cash a reward after turning and mixing the tables.

Skills need to be more like the inventing and martial arts skills. Those are skills where with every new level, you got something neat. Martial Artists gained the ability to teleport for example, or to collect space rocks and gems from breaking boards. Inventors would eventually build a time machine and even a new life state. Little unlocks along the way meant the player was saying "wow I can't wait to see what I get next!" and feeling both motivated and excited to continue. It also meant that if I made one inventor Sim and one martial artist, they both had vastly different talents and capabilities, so comparing and contrasting the two meant I had two very different-yet-interesting playstyles in the form of two different sims.

Now go back the DJing and Singing. The ultimate goal of these is the ability to make your own music and license it for money. This is exactly what piano does, exactly what pipe organ does, exactly what guitar does and exactly what violin does. Nothing about these skills and what they can do is new, they just had to copy-paste the coding from the initial three. The sole benefit of such skills on a practical level is money, and even then it's not as much money as writing or painting. To my knowledge, DJing also has abysmally low payouts compared to the others. I also don't think Singing allows to gain tips, whereas guitar offers both the licensed music and playing for tips. Comparing my pianist to my singer is a joke, because both are functionally the same, right down to the paycheck they receive for licensed music. There's practically nothing unique about them.

It just shows how uncreative, lazy and uninspired the design for Sims 4 is. All of the expansion skills are copy-pasted in terms of skill unlocks (though to be fair, the Scientist career functions much like a skill to the point Vet copies it, so that could be a lone exception) and we've yet to have a single one that branches out and does something truly unique. Every single move the Sims team makes, it just feels like a constant reminder they're focused on trying to cut corners and save on costs.

Interesting. Even I don't play that game anymore, I always took a notice that's there's really motivation to the game at all. DJing is prety much was in TS2, but that object/activity that came in Nightlife, the expansion pack made up for that by giving out rewards to the players If a date/outing was successful. They get either a reward or junk based of the event's outcome score. Dream Date? Well, your partner would be very appreciated of the time sim took with them that made their night great and in exchange generosity - expect a Bouquet of flowers at your household's doorstep. Even If you don't appreciate an object as a gift (which you can sell for extra fee), you get a mood boost that's is If the date went above average success. You really get nifty rewards from hosting great outings/dates (such as instant promotions, restaurant coupons, random objects as gifts).

Though I wanna add those huge penalties, obviously with the right balance together with impacting rewards, also define gameplay. Fought your boss or a friend? Risk becoming enemies with them and in return have huge negative consequences haunt your disrespectful sim (like risk losing a job, with the boss or his relative/friend you fought the day before). I guarantee that's is one of the reasons the game loses to live up to the player's, especally veteran's, expectations. In TS2 Nightlife, If you we're to jump onto somebody or get caught cheating, expect that sim to get slap on their face or their garbage can to be knocked off the next day. In TS4? It's a plump utopia - sims will start hugging and making jokes with their smile clipping through their faces when face-to-face with their enemy, because guess what - sims have amnesia in the game due to lack of memory system or screwed up emotion mechanic or both.

I agree with you about sims 4 needing more dire consequences in general (it's one of my major issues with this game), but I can attest with confidence that this isn't true (not IME, at least). My sim has just recently became enemies with Don after a break-up in my game, and since then any interaction I've spammed on him has not been working out in her favor at all -not even the friendly ones- they just end up decreasing their relationship bar even more every time I spam them; he wasn't having any of it. Now I'm just trying to get them back together for my storyline to continue, and he wouldn't even come over to her house.

EDIT: Nevermind. As I'm playing right now, they seem to get along just fine again. Oh well, turns out you're right in that regard, I guess - relationships and reactions definitely need an overhaul.

ETA: I think whether the interactions work or not depends solely on the mood your sim is in. I remember how my sim was uncomfortable when she was trying to chat up Don back then, which is probably the reason why the interaction-spam I gave him didn't work at the time. Now she's in a flirty mood, which most likely explains why they're suddenly all fine and dandy now. Sigh, well this is disappointing...for a second I thought there was actually some intuitive AI going on in the background. :/