So now that The Sims 4 is out, and people can see first hand whether it's good or bad to their personal taste, I thought I'd ask what you guys' ideal Sims game would be like...

-------------------Mine Below-------------------

Mine would start off with all the base mechanics of The Sims 2 with some notable differences...

1. There would be trait sliders and traditional sliders... Basically you have the psychological personality system from 1 and 2, with the ability to get 5 traits. But unlike The Sims 3, and 4 these would not be straight traits. These would be trait based sliders. (Evil-Good, Moron-Genius, Greedy-Generous, etc) And you would have 25 points to allocate into the ones you choose. So your character would always have cons as well as pros (unless you make the super boring) to make them more interesting. I'm not sure whether I'd keep Astrology or not, since it is a bit of a dumb way to calculate attraction...

2. I'd make an emotions system that makes sense, using plutchik's wheel of emotions.

Each action your sim does, or each interaction with another sim carries a certain number that pushes your sim towards a certain emotion. This effects the autonomy of the sim in question on top of the way they present themselves. If a sim is embarrassed or sad, they may sulk in a corner, and sims with different personalities would react to this differently... For example, a very outgoing and nice sim may try to cheer them up, while most other sims would ignore them or leave the area they are sulking in... There would also be long term and short term emotional states... Someone can be suffering depression from the death of a family member, but still find some short term solace from a joke, or a memorable experience, which would slowly negate the long term depression. There would be moodlets as well, but they'd be more subdued, with only large events having a noticable long term emotional impact.

3. A semi-open world. When they announced districts in The Sims 4, I assumed they would make each district a small open world in a large map... This is how I would handle it. Each district would be seperate from eachother, helping decrease the lag and borkedness the open world in The Sims 3 creates... When sims are traveling to another district, you would have the option to go with them, stay in the current district, or keep both loaded at once... You would start each play session in a map overview like in The Sims 2, and you would be able to choose a family, as well as resize and rezone districts. So, if you wanted a full open world, you could do that, but it would come with all the cons of The Sims 3's one obviously... Aging would have the same options as are in The Sims 4, with local, and global aging options... The game would calculate what the other sims in the district did while you were gone, when you load the district back up, so, for example, if you sent your sim to a motel in a different distirct for a few days cuz they got kicked out of their house, when they came back, the game would decide what each sim in the district did while you were gone, which sounds clunky, but would work well if well programmed and optimized...

4. Better neighborhood modification tools, and zoning. In the sims 2, you could place, and move lots anywhere without hassle, because of the limited road designs. In 3 this became a huge hastle with curved roads, decorations, and wird slopes proving as obstacles towards placing that new lot where you want it to be. So, in my ideal sims game there would be terrain sculpting tools for the neghborhood (kind of like the terrain elevation cheat from 2), the ability to move all decorations regardless of what they are, and an advanced zoning tool, that would be able to make irregular zone shapes (which would be perfect for designing old cities or towns), and make them curve with the curvature of the road, so they hug it properly. There would also be the ability to add and remove segments of road for better customization, and adding new neighborhoods if you want...

5. Curved, and non gridded walls, pools, roofs, and fencing. What good is having irregular lot shapes, if the things you build on them have to conform to the grid? These advanced tools (and the advanced zoning tool as well) would work like the free select tool in a photo editor, allowing you to set the start and end points of each segment, and being able to warp and curve each segment as well... Roofs can be either set to automatically follow the edge of the walls on the floor below, or can be manually edited in the same fashion, and floors, doors, and windows would follow wall curvature. This way you can recreate buildings like you see in old cities.

6. CASt and CAO. Create a style would be back, better optimized, and less glitchy, as well as the addition of Create an Object. This option would take you to a Create a Sim like menu, where you can design objects using design tools reminiscent of spore's building creator, and programs like Google SketchUp. Bend warp add and remove pieces to modify objects to look how you want them to, and give them stencils, and designs to make them look cool.

7. Revamped motives. Motives would be decreased at more realistic rates, but there would be more of them.. Notably thirst and stress. Thirst would obviously degrade from strenuous activity, heat, and long conversation, and would be a potential cause of death, but hunger would degrade slower in return... Stress would be unique amongst motives in that if you were to hover over it, it would list all the things that are currently impacting it either negatively: (emotional states, thirst, hunger, exhaustion, bad environment, lots of things they have to do) or positively (emotional states, fun, good environment, meditation, yoga, hypnosis, good nights rest, etc...

8. Character progression, phobias, and habits. Over time, sims will develop little habits and quirks which effect their AI. Sims can become addicted to things, or use a specific interaction a lot if continually exposed to it with a positive emotion. While they can develop phobias from the opposite. Their personalities will also slowly change depending on the experiences they have throughout their lives... (A sim made as a techno-whiz could become a technophobe after repeated negative experiences with technology due to lack of computer skill for example. Or a good sim could turn evil if their good deeds go unrecognized) So, your sims would be in flux like real people...


These are just some ideas, and with that I need to rest... Looking forward to seeing all you guys's ideal mechanics...

Some good ideas and some great ideas.

My (quick) ideal:

-The gameplay/interaction mechanics would be much more like TS2 than anything else. I'm talking they bring back fears, unbalanced relationships, daily & lifetime relationships (they can add in the romantic relationship thing too for any sim your sim does romantic interactions with). Fix the jealousy interactions from TS2. I never saw it play out in TS3 (couldn't be bothered to play that for long) but I want my sims to not throw a fit if they see their lover flirting with their lover's spouse. Smarter sims would know when to freak and when to stay quiet. Family interactions would be as deep and charming as in TS2. Sims in TS2 were always aware of each other, looking at each other, talking to each other when they sat together, gathering around for birthday, births, weddings, deaths, etc. That's what I want in my Sims game. I personally don't give a crap about TS4's emotions because I haven't yet seen how they're better than what was in TS2, though I do really like that graphic you posted.

-Personality would be the five personality trait point system of TS1 & TS2 with TS3/TS4 traits added on as bonus to give us an especially rounded sim. The TS1/2 traits would be there from birth. The 3/4 would be added as they age. Aspirations would be tied to traits and chosen when a sim reaches the teen years. Attraction absolutely would be based on a combo of all the above including turn-ons/offs and not impossible to figure out like in TS3 ('I like people who craft things...' or whatever the heck they say).

-Give me CASt but I must have Mendellian genetics, so no color wheel for hair, eyes or skin. CAS would be TS4-style but the slider limits would not be so limited (so if you reach the edge of a slider, you can reload the sim and the slider resets to zero allowing you to go beyond the limits - a la TS2 bodyshop). Also give me a tool like bodyshop or just put all those extra sliders in the game for crying out loud. I get so frustrated in TS3 or TS4 CAS when I want to move something and realize there's no slider. Eyebrow and eyelash thickness are two that I definitely need back, but there's a whole crapload of others I need too.

-Semi-open worlds (open sub-districts) seem to be ideal. I'm ok with TS2's loading screens because I'm used to it, though I do like TS3's open world for exploring, especially because the world's are so lovely. Unfortunately that meant lag and empty community lots, so let's go with the middle ground for sure. And none of this having to place a specific lot size down first and then designated what type of venue it is and then place the venue down. Ugh. Give me back the TS2 way of building hoods where I plop a building down and that's that. Easy, fast, done.

There's probably more but I'm outta time. :D