Home
Artists
Search Recent Random
Posts
Search DMs Popular Hash Lookup Tags Random
Importer
Import FAQ
Register
Partychan Telegram Find&Fuck Waifus ThePornDude
Home Artists Posts Import Register

The Sims 4 and Gameplay Depth (Patreon)

Published:
2019-10-05 17:37:21
Imported:
2022-01

Content

Hi gang. I really appreciate your support and I hope this doesn't cause some people to be angry. As much as I love The Sims, as a long-term fan some things have bothered me for a while now. After Island Living I knew I was going to do this video. It stewed in my mind, and I grew as a Youtuber until I felt comfortable enough to attempt it. I knew it would be long, and I knew it would be difficult. No video has ever taken me so long, but I wanted to articulate my thoughts on The Sims 4 and how those things that bother me might be fixed. If you like it, please let me know. Something like this won't come again for a long time.

Files

Sims 4 Gameplay Needs Depth. Let's Review its Weak Areas and What's Fixable

Players call The Sims 4's Gameplay Shallow. In this video, I review the areas in Sims 4 where I see weakness and what could be done to improve the base game by adding depth. Some of my gameplay ideas would definitely make things better for people who crave deeper gameplay and say the newest version of The Sims is not very satisfying. This video has been planned since the release of Island Living, when I was disappointed with the new career and gameplay in that pack. It took a while to feel capable of editing such a huge video. Donate (PayPal): https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=A3BAXDZ5R96Z6&source=url Donate via Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/carlssims4guide My site: http://www.carls-sims-4-guide.com #Sims4

Comments

Anonymous

I think this video hit the nail on the head! You articulated so many things I've been feeling about Sims 4 since it was released but was unable to put into words. I appreciate your use of specific examples, and you really broke things down to the nitty-gritty. I've been using your site for years and decided to become a $1 patron because of this video. I know it's not much but it's a small way of thanking you for all your hard work over the years.

Vooster

Hi, long time supporter, first time poster. I agree with many of the points here, and I'm glad you were able to articulate them. Here are a few things that have been bugging me (sorry for the long paragraph): 1) The whims system is often not context dependent and it is highly limited. I started a few new games recently and all of my sims wanted a bee box. Why would my squeamish sim want to keep bees? My mermaid and my art critic sims also are suddenly into beekeeping, or doing laundry? 2) When my sim gets invited to something, I always hesitate, because I know my sim will drop everything and go. Why can't they finish their current action? Why can't I put it in a queue? (Also, why cant I rearrange items in the queue)? Why can't they get a heads up in advance like invitations in the sims 3 and arrive fashionably late? 3) It's a pain in the neck to switch between sims in two different locations. Every time you switch, the game loads and cancels what the previously active sim is doing. Maxis sort of mitigated this by allowing your sim at home to focus on "improving skills", but if I want them to do something more specific, like finish programming a mod, they will stop as soon as a switch away. Basically the non-active sim is just wasting time. Finally 4) This seems like the easiest fix, but I'd like to customize the age of my sims. Standard seems too short, long is way too long, and I want my children and teen years to be rather short. I know I can age my sims up by using a cake, but I want to make sure all their friends age at the same rate.

Anonymous

I really enjoyed your latest video and I appreciate that you are helping Sims 4 players start to articulate the feeling we’ve had about this game for a long time. Thanks!

Anonymous

Thanks for all the work you put into this! Your review of the patches that changed the aspirations and whims made it more clear to me why development went in the direction it did. It seems like they're struggling a lot trying to appeal to a broad audience, both demographically (how do we make it more kid-friendly while not losing the edge of the original?) and gameplay-wise (how do we make it both easy enough for drop-in players and difficult enough for long-term players?). For that, I thought your suggestion about toggling difficulty was an especially good one. I don't think there's a way that they will ever satisfy everyone, especially when a not insignificant portion of the community assumes that the devs are purposefully ignoring requests because they're lazy or stupid or only in it for those sweet, sweet dollars. Guys, we know enough about the state of the gaming industry and how people at these jobs are overworked and underpaid; please don't take your frustrations out on them. Chances are they share them. This a large part of why I appreciate your video, voicing concerns and offering constructive suggestions without being a dick about it. I really value your voice and contributions!

carlssims4guide
>>27581754

Yeah it'd seem that those types of whims' only prerequisite is "own the pack" so of course people don't like them. What if bee boxes came up after level 3 gardening or so. Laundry could be for family oriented Sims. I want my kids to be happy with nice clean clothes, is rational to me. Really good point on #2. Insta-teleporting is not ideal at all in many situations. Let me get a shower first, right? Things like custom age limits should be super easy to add into the game. It's a simple counter. They don't want options to get overwhelming, but 'short/medium/long' can exist quite happily as recommended settings alongside 'custom'

carlssims4guide
>>27575741

Thanks, Jen. There are many things I didn't get into. To some extent, there has always been a simplicity to The Sims. But past packs had so much more content, that we didn't notice. Where the game called for depth it often provided it, like the system to combine gems in TS3 as an example of a side activity that warranted the extra effort.

carlssims4guide
>>27588258

Thanks for taking the time to watch and comment, Liz. I'm just getting back here. The excitement of putting it out kept me up quite a while after "bedtime" and it's good to see such a positive reaction to it all.

carlssims4guide
>>27604317

Yeah it's extremely hard to strike a balance on some of this, but Sims has never been hard. It's just extremely noticeable if things like aspirations and whims fulfill themselves. It used to be a bit more deliberate. Take for example as opposed to just reaching level 10 writing and putting out a few excellent books, how about making $50k from book royalties. Totally doable, it just takes some time. The old way of lifetime goals + skill challenges was a bit more involved. I think to an extent aspirations are meant to take over for that but if that is the case, there need to be many more of them for various activities that have been added to the game.

Anonymous

I needed this. I enjoy the sims because I can mod the hell out of it and make it my game. I am partial to building but like to make stories. But the kids- not into them and hate having them- so I can ensure they don't exist except for NPC. Very much appreciate the people like Kawaii Stacie and LilMsSims who put true effort in keeping the game a world beyond, as it were. Fortunately for me, Wicked Whims exists. I wanted an adult based game that wasn't about making kids happy. It would be wonderful if the mod-makers were hired by EA sometimes just so they'd have an infusion of people who play the game as guides for programmers. Just hoping to see that happen.

Anonymous

Just caught up with this video. Very cogently put, and articulates a lot of my own frustration with the Sims 4 over the years. It looks great, but it's ultimately cookie-cutter and shallow.