Once again, thank you for taking community feedback in this way. For this topic in particular, I think the longer forum post format is better suited than short-form posts on other platforms.
The thing about the concept of “depth and challenge” is that it means different things to different people. For myself, my biggest concern is that everything in the game feels…episodic, for lack of a better word. This is primarily due to the game’s over-reliance on the Emotion system. No matter what happens in a Sims’ life-from getting a job to having child to losing a loved one-the only reaction is an emotional buff. Now, yes, the buffs do have varying degrees of intensity and durations. But the thing about emotions is they are not permanent, and once that emotional buff expires it’s as if that major life event never happened.
There’s also the issue that the emotional buffs only apply to Sims who are physically there for an event. Certain events should have at least some emotional impact regardless of whether you were physically present. If I’m playing a lot where an elder passes away from old age, it seems odd that when I switch to their adult children in another house they’re smiling without a care in the world. I know that TS2’s memory system was a huge source of technical issues, but there needs to be some middle ground between that and Sims having no awareness at all unless they’re physically in the room.
The other effect of relying on the emotion system is that there are no real, long-term consequences for anything a Sim does or does not do. Again, compare to Sims 2. If a Sim neglected to teach a toddler to walk and talk, they aged to a child with a disadvantage. If a Sim didn’t meet their wants, or realized too many fears, they would have a nervous breakdown-and if this continued for long enough their lifespan would be shorter.
The Emotions system is nice to have, and I know it’s one of TS4’s headline features. But it can’t provide a in-depth experience on it’s own, because emotions are fleeting. When the only impact of a Sims’ actions is a brief emotional reaction, it makes the entire game feel shallow. With the Aspiration system having shifted away from providing long-term goals to providing player tutorials, there needs to be another way to show how a Sim is impacted by their life beyond how they feel in the short term. This may or may not be something that can be brought to TS4-but if it can’t, I hope that it’s taken into consideration if/when development begins on TS5.
Community Manager
