They really should revamp jobs and careers yes, focus less on promotion but still have it be possible. Make each career unique in how it functions, they should not all have 10 levels of advancement that are rather meaningless and only give a new outfit and sometimes an object.
Take the army for example. A sim in the army could normally have their training, but could be send on missions that would take them away from home for a period of time. How long would depend on how aging works, but certainly a few days. And there could be pop up choices for that sim to make. And these choices can lead to medals, promotion, desertion, dishonorable discharge, jailtime, making new friends with other soldiers but also death. A heroic death could make his tombstone on return a statue in his honor. But yes, joining the army should have the risk of death and there should be missions.
Politics should affect the town, there should be multible political parties and your sim can join one, advance in the ranks and be mayor. There's always a mayor, and the party the mayor belongs to could have a global effect.
The party of the wealthy elite could reduce taxes paid for sims above a certain wealth, and also requires your sim to be rich to join and will be kicked from the party if they are too poor.
The enviromental party could make vegetarian meals cheaper and otherwise benefit the enviroment, and requires your sim to live a certain way. Doing stuff against their policies could get them kicked out of the party.
The family party could give benefits to sims with children, and could require your sim to have a child before they can join. Bad relations with more than one family member could get you kicked from the party.
And lastly, the evil party would give great benefits to the criminal career and those involved make a lot more money when their party is in charge due to corruption.
Could maybe also be a fifth party that's about partying, making that cheaper and kicking sims out that haven't thrown a party for a while.
But like with mayor, all jobs should have a limited amount of openings higher up. To get those jobs, they'd have to be better than the current sim holding that job. And replacing a sim in their job could result in the other sim getting demoted, being given another job offer or even getting fired.
