Hey you broke this Base-game feature about 8 years ago. I think it's worth mentioning during the spree of "community-voted bug fixes", NOBODY is going to vote on a feature they never saw function as originally intended in-game. It seems like a method that is surely going to avoid having to implement a highly requested fix for years that the only slightly newer users don't care as much about over which live-mode interaction doesn't work correctly. So if it's not going to even get reported by new players, I'm going to report it.
Recognizing which sim is taggable in which screenshot once worked, but became restricted to a per-household basis. Sims who show up in screenshots taken by one household were once able to be tagged. They no longer are. That includes sims who move out, such as aging relatives. They must be moved into the household taking the photo to be tagged in the photo, and then maybe when removed the tag still holds. Individual sims in the photo as part of the household could be tagged, but this was simplified to tagging everyone in the household in the screenshot.
You cannot invite your grandchild over and have them appear tagged in a screenshot without adding them to the household, and yet there are numerous family-related features that have come out since this change.
The ability to view screenshots specific to an individual sim in the household was removed, arguably the biggest change to this whole tool.
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/sims/images/4/46/TS4_Memories_%284%29.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20140907120525
I consider this decision to have been a temporary bugfix that temporarily disabled a launch feature. This is a basegame feature, a basegame bug that was never fixed. Its inclusion in the sims 4 was a key feature for players of previous sims installments.
https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/Memories#The_Sims_4
Ever since it broke I was hoping one of the future expacs, stuffpacks, kits, anything would fix it, but no. $1000 worth of content later and it's still a broken basegame feature.
No community mod has restored anything close enough to this feature, and its UI elements would involve python-level changes that most modmakers do not have the skillset for nor the willingness to fix every update. It cannot be outsourced to the community or it would have emerged in the decade since its implementation. It is not for a lack of want.
Please save this feature. I think it's an important part of the design philosophy that has been lost under implementing new content. I do not need a new gameplay mechanic as a collapsible category in my simology, skills, or aspirations tab. I need this feature working that only the highly vaunted programmers of 2015 were able to deliver and were subsequently told to stop worrying about years before kits were even introduced. The business model has changed and I'm not sure if this issue has ever been re-addressed as any mention of it gets buried under community attempts to re-implement the feature or results are overtaken by discussions of in-game polaroids.
The in-house sticky note that reminds you how this feature even used to work and who was supposed to get around to fixing it is buried under a decade of previous SCRUM boards. Find a new savior for our screenshot album. It could actually bring old players back into the fold, a group which I presume is difficult to maintain playership for besides the absolute loyalists.
My desperation to be sold a product that fixes a basegame feature should express the gravity of the situation. Give me a $40 expac called "Sims 4: Making Memories" and I will give you the last of my 401k. That's absurd for a community to be okay with and yet they will happily hand it over.
