What is Your Biggest Criticism About Sims 4?
Note: This thread is not for being mean or insulting. Please try to phrase your critiques as civilly and respectfully as possible, no matter how much the issue irks you. Thanks in advance! For me, ...
Forum Discussion
I think it's rather telling how my priorities for fanmade content has completely flipped on its' head in TS4: whereas with TS2/TS3 I hardly downloaded any mods but lots of CC, I'm now downloading a buttload of gameplay mods while hardly any CC (except some masculine content).
Vast majority of the mods I've downloaded have something to do with making sims have more personality, improving relationships or adding more challenge/drama. That basically sums up what my biggest issues with the game are right now.
Personality system leaves a lot to desire for. In an unmodded game Sims just don't really show their personality and there's very little differences between traits whereas in TS3 I felt like traits actually did something. They had unique interactions, animations and other properties. TS4's overreliance on (mostly redundant) moodlets and the emotion system has a lot to do with this inferior experience. Emotions basically override everything and all sims tend to act in the same bipolar manner. Moodlets are basically there just to boost certain emotions instead of adding any meaningful "states". E.g. having a certain moodlet would then allow you to do certain interactions. I thought they were going to do something like this with sentiments but, while I like them, they also ended up being kind of a dud. For example: a sim of mine got an "awed by a life saving hero" sentiment. Why on earth couldn't she then actually thank her saviour? I know I freaking would. How about when (the same sim actually) saved his enemy? In that case neither of them got sentiments at all which I found such a missed opportunity. Imagine if the one who got saved got some sort of "grudging respect" sentiment and the two could then use a unique interaction to bond quickly. Cuz I know if an enemy of mine ended up saving my life, it'd very quickly endear them to me.
Another pet peeve of mine is how bland and "safe" the unmodded game is. The game basically expects the player to micromanage everything and, when something unexpected is about to happen, it still holds your hand and gives you clear warnings (minus some exceptions) making it so that if your sim is e.g. about to die by a meteor, you basically need to knowingly LET that happen. Things that added some surprising "out there" experiences, have been heavily nerfed too (e.g. vampire invasions). I know some players like the game to be a dollhouse for they basically want to orchestrate everything their sims do "according to a script" but I'm not one of those players. I actually often just observe my sims and let their autonomy play out. I enjoy it when the game surprises me and when it gives me some unplanned roleplay "guidance" and hints via things like autonomy or whims. Though I needed to mod both in order to get the experience I want. I think this is one reason why I've been enjoying Werewolves as much as I do. I just like it how it added this nice touch of chaotic energy.
@ignominiusrex had a good analogy about dollhouses and ant farms. I'm more like an ant farm player for I like to nudge my sims to certain directions but I don't like to dictate everything that happens. One part I always enjoyed about the Sims series was to see how characters I created behaved in this world. I got cheap laughs when I created a pseudo-simself in TS2 and just observed. She seemed like a complete fish out of water among all the weirdos and drama-queens. I feel like in an unmodded TS4 game nothing like that would happen. They'd all just be idle-chatting for hours.
Vast majority of the mods I've downloaded have something to do with making sims have more personality, improving relationships or adding more challenge/drama. That basically sums up what my biggest issues with the game are right now.
Personality system leaves a lot to desire for. In an unmodded game Sims just don't really show their personality and there's very little differences between traits whereas in TS3 I felt like traits actually did something. They had unique interactions, animations and other properties. TS4's overreliance on (mostly redundant) moodlets and the emotion system has a lot to do with this inferior experience. Emotions basically override everything and all sims tend to act in the same bipolar manner. Moodlets are basically there just to boost certain emotions instead of adding any meaningful "states". E.g. having a certain moodlet would then allow you to do certain interactions. I thought they were going to do something like this with sentiments but, while I like them, they also ended up being kind of a dud. For example: a sim of mine got an "awed by a life saving hero" sentiment. Why on earth couldn't she then actually thank her saviour? I know I freaking would. How about when (the same sim actually) saved his enemy? In that case neither of them got sentiments at all which I found such a missed opportunity. Imagine if the one who got saved got some sort of "grudging respect" sentiment and the two could then use a unique interaction to bond quickly. Cuz I know if an enemy of mine ended up saving my life, it'd very quickly endear them to me.
Another pet peeve of mine is how bland and "safe" the unmodded game is. The game basically expects the player to micromanage everything and, when something unexpected is about to happen, it still holds your hand and gives you clear warnings (minus some exceptions) making it so that if your sim is e.g. about to die by a meteor, you basically need to knowingly LET that happen. Things that added some surprising "out there" experiences, have been heavily nerfed too (e.g. vampire invasions). I know some players like the game to be a dollhouse for they basically want to orchestrate everything their sims do "according to a script" but I'm not one of those players. I actually often just observe my sims and let their autonomy play out. I enjoy it when the game surprises me and when it gives me some unplanned roleplay "guidance" and hints via things like autonomy or whims. Though I needed to mod both in order to get the experience I want. I think this is one reason why I've been enjoying Werewolves as much as I do. I just like it how it added this nice touch of chaotic energy.
@ignominiusrex had a good analogy about dollhouses and ant farms. I'm more like an ant farm player for I like to nudge my sims to certain directions but I don't like to dictate everything that happens. One part I always enjoyed about the Sims series was to see how characters I created behaved in this world. I got cheap laughs when I created a pseudo-simself in TS2 and just observed. She seemed like a complete fish out of water among all the weirdos and drama-queens. I feel like in an unmodded TS4 game nothing like that would happen. They'd all just be idle-chatting for hours.
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