I came across a comment in the dreaded Youtube comment section from someone very angry at the constant dissatisfaction from the community in general. Pointing out that EA has tried to appease them, give them what they want, yet the wailing never stops. I'm paraphrasing of course since her comment was much more... colorful Anyway as complainer, I thought I'd return the volley with the view from the other side. At least the way I've observed things.

While I agree that some people are simply impatient and throw the same tantrums with every iteration of the game that's released, you can't lump the complainers all into one group. Some people do just want instant gratification and expect to have everything they want all at once. And some people have a genuine belief (not entirely unwarranted) that many of these features should be considered base game by this point. But for me personally, the discontent comes from a different place.

When you look back at the Sims franchise, which I've been playing since 2000 when I was fresh out of college (just dated myself, oh dear), each new version was always about innovation and taking a step forward. New doesn't always mean improved but the Sims made it so. The original game is a marvel and it was impressive what the modders in the community were able to do with it. At the time Maxis clearly paid attention to the mods out there and when they created Sims 2, it felt like they had birthed it from the community's collective wishlist: weather, aging, a more involved CAS, the ability to recolor furniture, world building, unlimited hoods, 3D view... almost every feature in the Sims 2 franchise originated from a mod someone created for the Sims. It felt like they'd listened and strained every fucking imaginative muscle in their employ to give us the best product possible.

Sims 2 may have been flawed and sometimes the patches broke more than they fixed but what's important was the effort going into the final product. The creators never stopped finding ways to improve the game play, making it more in depth, always revisiting facets of it and polishing them. When they came up with an idea for an expansion, they went all the way with it, never holding back. I can't even count how many ways my sims could greet each other by the time the last stuff pack was released. Such a small detail but every detail added to the experience. Their enthusiasm gave the community a great game and it remains very much beloved even by players who've moved on and I believe is the most innovative in the entire series.

With Sims 3, they had a tough act to follow and they had a choice: Just polish up Sims 2 with better graphics and repackage everything they'd already created with a prettier shell? Or try to expand on what worked and give it more depth. And I honestly think they went for the latter. Some might even say Sims 3 was too ambitious for its own good and suffered being buggy and crashing and unable to live up to the creators' vision. But it was definitely innovative from the start and changed everything about how simmers, simmed. Some of their ideas fell flat but they still had ideas and just kept trying. Does the game smack of nepotism? Of course. Impossible not to by the third installment of a franchise. What's important to understand is that by then, EAxis had taught the community to expect the best. To expect the series to always be moving forward.

Which brings us to Sims 4. On it's own, it's a good game. It's beautiful, easy to jump right into and play, it's simple, it's got great features for the player who just wants to make a sim and run around visiting pretty places and seeing what happens. It's not a bad game if what you want is simplicity (and there's zero wrong with wanting that). But for any simmer who wants to go deeper, and was expecting the franchise to move forward, it falls apart on every level.

Sims has always been a great game because it caters to all sorts of players: Sim Gods (both malevolent and benign), Builders of houses or worlds, CC creators, Modders, Storytellers, actual Gamers... From Sims 2, no matter what kind of player you were, you could go as deep into the game as you could imagine. Every expansion added to that ability to stretch your game play to the limit. It truly felt as though they'd created the game then gave it to us to do with what we wanted. "Tell your own story" was never more true.

I started noticing some of the confines in Sims 3, which did turn me off it at first. Areas in which they were boxing in the game play options, making it more difficult for Modders to rewire the master creation, more difficult for players to do what they wanted rather than what the creators intended. And with Sims 4, it REALLY shows. If you are a builder, they give you some beautiful and interesting tools. And just when you get into it, you realize they've taken away other building options that should have been included. The lack of usable elevators, spiral stairs or half landings or the ability to build higher than five floors or finally create a true blue split level house after 17 fucking years! Which would only be disappointing if they hadn't also SOLD the game on those specific building features.

If you love creating worlds... you're shit out of luck because we've gone back in time to fixed lots. No toggles for the neighborhood view (same houses and backdrop), no choices for growth, and additional neighborhoods that require purchasing new packs. This isn't just limiting, this is castrating an entire swath of your player base and telling them to go fuck themselves.

If you're a storyteller, fewer animations for you. And it's been made more difficult to control the environment for filming, controlling and moving your props (including the sims themselves), fewer cheats to work with. Hollywood just cut your budget.

Serious gamers, if you're looking for depth, you've come to the wrong place. The game is sold on the sims' intelligence and emotions but once you peel back the pretty covering, there's nothing there. They rarely exhibit any sort of unique personality or habits, I personally find them dumber than ever. There's less for them to engage with in the world in general. They're surrounded by pretty things, some of which they can touch but few of which have any true impact on their life. They don't seem to change or grow from their experiences. And something tells me that there's only a 50/50 chance this new Parenting pack will truly change any of that. Which would only be disappointing if they hadn't been SOLD on that facet of game play (though in the new pack's defense I can say I've found the game packs themselves to be better put together and less disappointing than the expansions packs. maybe it's a case of 'aim small, miss small')

This game is very much EA telling players to "Tell the story we made for you". And again, people who enjoy it, that's wonderful. I wish I could be as content with the simplicity but I need more. Grant it, I'm not one of the people who cares all that much about how long it takes for expansions to be released. Personally I'd rather have something polished than spend my money on a half baked premise. But I can honestly say that with each expansion released, I've just been disappointed at the lack of depth being offered. And while I feel for EA when every time they try to deliver on what the players want, we never seem happy about it, EA are the ones who set the gold standard for what we should expect in the first place.

How can I be content with Get to Work when Open for Business was one of my favorite expansions of all time?

So yeah, us players complaining may annoy you. We may seem entitled, spoiled, in need of instant gratification, impatient, never satisfied... Keep this in mind: We only expect gold because we KNOW EA can deliver that since they've given it to us before: In the past iterations of this very game. You can't move backwards, sell a prettier but poorly made version of a better product, claim it's innovative and be surprised at the backlash.

Preach (to the OP)! Detailed posts makes it even more worth of a time I agree with you all the way!

I remember reading not long ago that complaining isn't really healthy and leads to a pessimistic outlook. I don't think that's always true and that there's different types of complaining and complainers. Sometimes, it's healthy to vent and, at other times, complaining is a process to get to explaining what is needed. There's also an unproductive and unhealthy type of complaining that simply feeds negativity and drags everyone down. Occasionally, someone is the type of complainer who seems to live for the opportunity to say something snarky. The youtuber you mentioned was engaging in complaining themselves....

The complaint about lack of depth is often repeated. It would be helpful if folks who feel that could try to put a finger on what it is exactly that makes this game feel that way over the other Sims titles. I've tried to guess myself and think it may have something to do with the emotions of the Sims, which seem to all be very similar no matter what the given personality, and are too easily shifted to one thing or another, especially with all the buffs in the game. Another aspect that may lead to that feeling of lack of depth is that the Sims do not have an attraction system or dedicated aspirations/desires and that both of those aspects are easily manipulated. But I don't really know and it hasn't stopped me from enjoying the game

Haters gonna hate I guess. :/ Won't be me though.

I was not going to read the original post as tend to not read long posts like that, but did and I agree with 99% said. And I agree with Clint about the "meh". Being observant and caring is one thing. The hate that I see too often is not a healthy or productive thing IMO. I am a very analytical person and so I look at the good and bad and what needs improvement in darn everything. I totally agree that the prior versions taught us to love the game and expect more than we got this time. This time around the game just is not engaging like it was before. There are things that are well done, but for me and too many of us this version does not draw us in. The "it" factor is missing.

As a sims 2 player that isn't 100% accurate. They did for the most part flesh out the EP's pretty well but Pets fell short. They never ported over things such as pet shows from pet Stories which should have been done and it's missing some really basic things such as cats being able to sit on laps or dogs defending the house from a burglar. As someone who started with sims 1 then moved onto sims 2 I am very happy with it though.

I tend to scoff at comparing incomplete sets of games to completed ones because it is in its nature an unfair comparison. I foresee a lengthy life ahead for ts4 as long as it churns out profits, and ea keeps assuring us that it does while some accuse them of lying.The sims 4 has it's own more subtle innovation moments and those lie in performance and tech support. My playstyle was only really changed by the transition from sims 1 to sims 2 with the addition of aging, unaffected by sims 3 for the most part because nothing about it really inspired me to play differently. In the so far life of sims 4 my playstyle evolves every month, and quite drastically. In my opinion that is progress because the older games had a tendency to become stale and grindy. Forgive me, I read about 3/4ths of the first post before I had enough of it, and merely scanned the rest of the thread as I am apt to do on this forum. So if I missed some stuff that is the reason. Innovation and progress depend on a person's definition of it, and it does vary. Because of the progress made by the game I play sims 4 the most, and I myself have been playing since the year 2000. It's possible to be a long term sims fan and to be happy with the sims 4, and I wanted to point that out.

I'm not entirely sure why you'd bother replying in a thread that you didn't finish reading because you'd 'had enough', most would just hit the back button but I wanted to clarify something: I don't ever say that Sims 4 is a bad game, that it isn't enjoyable, that players are wrong for liking it, or that it doesn't introduce some great new features. I'm not here to hate on any of the games or the people who play and enjoy them. I simply wanted to give a comprehensive explanation as to why I personally have problems with this latest iteration as many seem to sweep all complaints into one large 'bitch folder' generalization. And I certainly never imply that it isn't possible for long time players and fans to be happy with Sims 4. I just wanted to point that out.

Huh. I was just looking to get answers to two questions, given the recent Sims 4 expansion pack...

Is the Sims 4 now more fun than Sims 3?
And
Is the Sims 4 worth buying?

I think I'll wait a while longer, maybe until Sims 5 or some other company makes a sims like game. I mean, why not, given the plethora of shoot 'em up & kill 'em all games out there, shouldn't there be room for at least one more in the "personal relationship/build stuff/create world genera?

I do not regret buying 4 as there are many good things about 4. 4 is good in many ways. It just is not great compared to the prior versions per me and many others. I am doing a lot in 3 now. I was building a room which I wanted to be a movie studio and wanted to add the camera set up. Oh, that is an item from 4. I was looking for something else in 3 the other day and then remembered it is in 4. I really like the vampires in 4. The toddlers were done well in 4. The graphics are gorgeous in their Disney way. I love things like the street car, the riverboat. I have liked the time I have spent in 4, overall. I get irritated by no open world, no CASt and the zillion other missing things. I play it now and then. I like that I have played all versions as each has some good things and I like to experience all of them.

Looks like EA will soon release The Sims Mobile. That seems rather weird to me, because The Sims 4 feels like a mobile game that was ported to PC...

It kinda stupid when I see people complaining like this: "this game sucks no seasons at all" or "LOL 3 YEARS NO PET!!1 BOOO!" (no offense)... Well, you just need to wait.

But, I agree when people were complaining when they feels like their creativity are being limited and most valuable features are gone yet the price is beyond the roof.
by the way, I actually love sims 4 as the other sims series, every sims series feels like it has its own uniqueness.

I've been trying to say this for the longest time, but never came as close as you just did. Thank you.

That's not what a wall of text is.

This is a very good summary of the issues with TS4.
Is it a bad game? Well... No. It's a very easy and casual game. It's greatest strength is equally it's greatest flaw.
It's enjoyable in it's own right, but it is not fair to compare it to previous versions as it is clearly taking a very diffrent path.

It is an age old story, posting gushing opinions is a lot more enjoyable for me then reading long winded judgement. can't be helped, i am bad at doing things i don't enjoy, I am not perfect You may be a fan but you offered little other than a lot of criticism, too much negativity is life draining to read at times, which is why I merely scan these threads. I'm just trying to feel good and be happy. Gushing about the sims 4 happens to make me super happy

I mean, we're doing it because we care. I've been with the franchise from the very start, I've invested a minor fortune into it and I want to see it do well. I do enjoy The Sims 4 however, I don't think it's as bad as people try to make it out to be.



Weather didn't make it into The Sims 2 until, was it the fifth expansion? Considering that the game had eight expansions in total we didn't get weather until halfway past the game's lifecycle. One could argue that the world-building feature was there to sell people on SimCity 4 which was released just a year before The Sims 2. Everything was just an iteration on what The Sims was, it was the next logical step, really.



I remember The Sims 3's release very clearly, including the leaked build a few weeks prior to the official launch. At the time people did not agree with you. I remember people comparing The Sims 2 and 3, stating that the graphics of 2 were clearly better (which granted, with jacked up CC filled TS2 compared to the default pudding people of TS3 I can see where they're coming from) how The Sims 2 had so much more content, how casT was a shill to make it so that EAxis wouldn't have to make more content because we could just recolour things, how open world is awful, how they should just scrap TS3 and move to TS4 right off the bat. Even after the game's release people complained about the lack of content, how there was no weather, how few family interactions there were and how shallow the world was with all the rabbit-holes. It took people a long time to warm up to TS3, and even when we did we complained about the numerous bugs, the performance problems the game had, and so on.

The Sims 3 was not a perfect game, not upon release, and certainly not now. I'd say the game has aged abysmally, even more so than TS2 since when it comes to TS2 you can mostly edit configuration files and have the game function well even on modern systems, the same cannot be said for TS3.



I have no recollection of being promised elevators, split levels or spiral stairs in the base game. Do you have a quote for that? Furthermore spiral stairs weren't a thing in The Sims, we didn't get them until Apartment Life in TS2, and I think Generations in TS3, but don't quote me on that. In any case spiral staircases, much like weather, has never been a base-game feature.

People bring up these same points all the time, and we constantly see comparisons drawn to previous games in the series. However, people seem to forget that the previous games already had their full lifecycles, they've received all their updates, expansions and stuff packs. The Sims 4 is still relatively new and early in its release cycle. It certainly feels like they've slowed down in comparison to The Sims 3, perhaps the team has been shrunk, that would be my biggest gripe. We've lost some storytelling tools, I'm actually quite upset that we can't construct our own worlds (I'm dying for more worlds) - The Sims 4 isn't without its shortcomings, but it's proven to be a solid foundation on which to expand the game upon. The game runs well and has an interesting set of systems in place, something they've been experimenting with and expanding upon. I feel like people are just looking back with rose-tinted glasses, most of the time they're expecting features from previous games' expansions in the base-game, othertimes they're just looking back with rose-tinted glasses. The Sims 3 is plagued with a laggy simulation and constant pathing issues that make me want to pull my hair out when I'm playing it. The graphics haven't really aged well, and there's not even built-in anisotropic filtering, that's something you have to force externally.

It's just really hard to take all these complaints seriously, because once The Sims 5 inevitably comes around people are going to compare it to The Sims 4 and moan about how much better The Sims 4 was and how EAxis should just scrap The Sims 5 and move right on to The Sims 6. We've been there, we've done that, twice.

"People bring up these same points all the time, and we constantly see comparisons drawn to previous games in the series. However, people seem to forget that the previous games already had their full lifecycles, they've received all their updates, expansions and stuff packs."

I enjoyed reading your post @Dojan5 but I think you're drawing the wrong conclusion here. People don't not like the Sims 4 because they're comparing it to past iterations. They don't like the Sims 4 - or don't like it as much - so they're comparing the game to the previous iterations they enjoyed more trying to figure out what's "wrong" with this version. It's a small but important difference, I think.

I like The Sims 4. I don't love it. I don't think it's the best game in the franchise. I think it could be better.

I really want to LOVE The Sims 4. I try to be optimistic about it so I don't feel like a terrible fool for putting money towards it. I think the main reason why I play it is because it's new and pretty and is way more modern than let's say, The Sims 2. Although TS2 is my favourite of the series in terms of gameplay, I've been leaning towards TS4 lately simply because TS2 is outdated in terms of style (the UI, furniture, fashion, the fugly townies, etc), and in TS4 everything is just so modern and pretty and I don't have to install a bunch of mods and CC in order for it to please my aesthetic needs. I still go back to TS2 when I feel like getting lost in that excellent gameplay, but TS4 for me has just been a nice new toy to play with. Even if it's not as good as the old one.

But it's hard not to be disappointed with the game when you've been given such in-depth content in previous games. I sometimes envy players who are new to the franchise with TS4. They must think the game is gold.

Well now you've done it This thread has turned into a a crash party for fans of Sims 4 to come in and make it clear just how very wrong those of us who have problems with the game, are. Or to point out how imperfect the previous games we may praise and compare it to actually are. Without realizing that the comparisons don't always come from expecting the games to be the same but from a need to understand why we enjoyed the previous games more than this one. They either love Sims 4 or are simply sick of hearing the 'same old thing' (which begs the question as to why they'd bother reading a thread with 'complaining' in the title) so we aren't actually allowed to have issues with it and our complaints aren't valid. I suppose my point of trying to show that all complainers are lumped together into the 'bitch folder' category was successful

I'm ok with complaints that are an attempt to understand the why of it or what needs improving. Your complaints are valid. I think complainers get lumped together because of a few bad apples who aren't trying to be productive, but just disruptive.

This poll found that 65% of people on MtS like or love Sims 3, with 14 out of 21 pages being posted within a year of the basegame coming out. Only 4% of people said they hated it! And most of the comments are positive too, with very few "hating" comments. So while there may have been a lot of criticism, it was nowhere near the level seen with Sims 4. I can't imagine that the people of MtS have actually changed, so the difference must be due to the games themselves.

This is in comparison to Sims 4 threads like this- a positive opinion on Sims 4 a month after release is met with 71 disagrees versus 26 agrees.

Also, if you look back in the archives, I didn't notice a single Sims 3 thread within a month of release being locked/deleted for being too negative... for Sims 4, they needed an entire receptacle to put those threads! So the idea that "it's always been like this" is just a myth. I can't speak for other parts of the internet, but on MtS at least, Sims 4 has received far more negative feedback than Sims 3 ever did.