Disclaimer: I am not a maker, and I have never made any content for the sims 4 or any sims game for that matter. I am in no way associated with EA or any other gaming system. I only play the sims 4 on a gaming laptop, so some of the things I bring up deals with quality of life for the sims community as a whole including console players but I say it to try to help them too, not just myself.
I say the information below, as a player with all the expansion packs, game packs, stuff packs, and kits. I have paid for some things on the marketplace and I have enjoyed the free items on the marketplace as well. I have played the sims for 2 and a half decades in one form or another. I'm at the point where I'm doing a hail mary of advice with this post in hopes that someone at EA will hopefully listen and do something to fix some of the discontent in the wider sims community. The feedback I have below, I hope will help, and I do mean it respectfully, even if I cannot phrase it correctly all the time.
Okay first off, starting with what Makers can do. When the Marketplace system was first introduced, it said that it could have player content and I was under the impression that mods would be able to be put on the the marketplace as well in time.
If mods can go on the marketplace, could a guru or sims employee with the right authority reach out to the mod makers of the big mods like MCCC and UI Cheats especially so that those mods could potentially be on the marketplace for free as well? So that console users could finally use mods of some kind to help with issues they run into? I'm unsure if either of the creators would go for it, but it certainly doesn't hurt to ask and credit them if they say yes.
After those 2 especially, could more mod creators get their mods on the marketplace? Especially the ones that fix issues while waiting for EA to fix things. If it makes the game better, why not try to help everyone?
Back to what makers can do overall.
Why can't some content go onto the marketplace for free? From makers that already made some things? Especially if it's good quality? Custom content overall is supposed to be free in the long run, so why not allow makers who have made tons of content to upload some of the things they have made over time? Especially if it's loved by the community? Especially as console players cannot get custom content downloaded, like the computer players can?
This is a really big question, that I think a lot of people would very much love. Could the sims 4 team, or a maker, go through the buy and build mode items and find all different bundles that don't have full matching swatches? Then make the missing swatches for the items? Then either upload them with a game update or for free on the market place? No limited time gimmicks. Just listening to player complaints and adding the swatch colors that have been missing over time to all the items? I'm sure some players already have a lot of the known items, or people would be willing to make them for the game if they thought they would be used for everyone.. for free.
Also adding things that the base game doesn't have a lot of, since the base game is free, many players only have that. So adding more necklaces, earrings, rings, bracelets and other accessories would be helpful on top of more hairstyles or fixing the hairstyles that were from the early years of sims 4.. ?
Could the cross pack compatibility be made more extensive per expansion pack? Game Pack? Stuff Pack and even Kit? There is SOOOOOO much that could be added onto. Even just with sentiments, milestones, traits, illnesses and cures, occults, LORE (so much lore), different families being connected as cousins or siblings, or parent / child. So many different things between small changes and big changes for improvements.
- With Milestones it has the ability to have people connected with it... So with adult sims it could show more things between each other. With adult to infant or toddler sims it could show which adults helped with which tasks.
Examples:
Milestone: Learned to Reach
Description: Work those tiny muscles! Orion reached their arms out and learned to reach with the help of the playmat! (when no adults help)
Milestone: Learned to Clap
Description 2: Orion made their first sounds with their hands with the help of Atlas Michaelson and Celeste Michaelson. (when 2 sims help, the one who worked with them most with it, goes first).
With so many of the milestones for infants, toddlers, children and possibly even teenagers - the milestones could easily have <sim name> for their name, <object name> for things like first baby food to say exactly what they did. Then also <target sim name> for who taught them or was with them.
To truly personalize their lives. It makes doing the work so much more meaningful, as long as the information is NOT wiped somehow like how the picture frames keeps disappearing. I think players would be pretty upset if that happened..
Another idea is for each Sim in cas, when setting up households and story lines.
- Milestones could be added as well as who they had it with.
- If they're toddlers, could add if they got the unhappy, happy or top notch infant.
- If they're children, could add if they got the unhappy, happy, or top notch toddler trait.
- If they're a teen, could add if they got the High Self Confidence or Low Self Confidence trait. (or neither if people want to have the story line that it was neutral).
- Could potentially add self discovery traits while in cas, especially if the plan is for the family to be adjacent sims to the main family storyline.
- along with family dynamics, could put if sims have a negative relationship, are acquaintances, friends, best friends (just the overall relationship level, and maybe romance bar as well.)
- also the character values of adult sims - going by storylines this sort of thing would be perfect. So some sims may have none of the character value traits, some may have all of them (good or bad) and some may have a mixed bag. With the character value traits being: Good Manners vs Bad Manners, Emotional Control vs Uncontrolled Emotions, Responsible vs Irresponsible, Compassionate vs Insensitive, and Mediator vs Argumentative..
- Just saying I have played saves where I set up quite a few neighborhoods of families having actually seemed liked they lived... where I turned aging off - purely so that with the family I play most with, they have friends they can interact with - with backstories as well. Usually also adding skills, maybe a child or a partner or even parents of an adult sim...
But doing all that, doing it right, takes a lot of time hours upon hours when using ui cheats and mccc and cas full edit mode - not to mention updating lots and bringing in content from other packs into the older packs.
Sometimes by the time I'm done making one family perfect (think the goths, the landgraabs, etc) between updating things with their lot and their clothes, their character overall - I've played a few hours and need a break...
So if people could get into the rhythm of it with either side bars or drop down menu's in create a sim - i just think it would save so much time?
Especially with other sim games coming out, I'm sure you've heard of the ones i won't say them on here, it just makes sense to me to try to stream line things for the players to have more accessibility and more content.
If some of that stuff could be integrated into base game, great, if not for people with all the packs, if it could somehow be faster to set up... would make things so much... less time consuming..
I'm willing to do a ton of presets or something if there's a way to save them for people, but not sure what ea is willing to allow to be done...
Anyway, thank you for your time... sorry that this may have been a confusing read.
