The Sims 4 is just boring, especially in Comparison to previous titles.

[DaniTheHero]

I'm sure this topic was discussed many many times, but after experiencing it myself I just have to vent this frustration away.

The Sims 4 is boring. It's really boring.

There's only a couple of things going for The Sims 4 and they are all on the visual side -

Building is nice, if you're the type of person that just enjoys making beautiful houses, furnishing them like a designer, staring at them a bit and repeat.

Creating the Sims themselves is pretty good. The system is fluid and varied though I do miss the Color wheel. I was slightly turned off by approach to gender, but Maxis was always on the "progressive" side so I honestly expected it to be there.

The graphics/visuals, even considering it's actually a 2014 released game, are good.
Sims 3 even when it was brand new always looked off for me.


Now when it comes to actual GAMEPLAY, which is the most important part, the game completely falls short in every aspect to both it's predecessors, the older one being over 18 years old now(Sims 2).

No World or story progression.
Only YOUR household matters in this universe, the lack of simulation of the world itself makes all the NPC's being completely background to the world. They don't have their own lives, randomly spawn at lots and locations without any actual reason. They don't really have relationships or reproduce. You sometimes get texts from them and you end up DECIDING if someone has a baby or makes a new friend. Not only is this quite rare and very random, but doesn't really matter. as they don't actually interact with each other in a distinct way.

The Sims have no real personalities, so they get along with everyone, will do everything, and don't care about anything.
You can set an aspiration for the Sim, completely ignore it, and they won't care at all. In The Sims 2, if I ignore my sim's wants and aspiration, or if they have their worst fears come true, they'll end up a depressed little pixel person having a mental breakdown on the floor. And that is AWESOME.
But in The Sims 4, they don't actually want anything. They don't fear anything. There's nothing to really motivate you to explore the Sims and their personalities. The traits are often one-dimensional, the aspirations are super linear. I actually really dislike having all of the tiered, small goals - I'd rather have a fortune Sim who wants to be super rich, and then I can get them there in a number of different ways... not by placing x amounts of columns in their house.
It is a simulation game - the characters should therefore be simulated. You set it up, press play, and see what happens. Not constantly try to make things happen with little to no input from the characters themselves.
We have the emotions system... okay, but, what fun is that if every sim has basically the same emotional response to events that happen in the game? And why is Nancy Landgraab diving in dumpsters? The game makes no sense, the characters have no depth, they are constantly performing actions that make no sense for their "character".

There's an endless amount of options in the 'friendly' tab, can reach like 5+ pages if you maxed a few skills, and they literally don't matter at all. Almost all of them always have the same result and serve no actual purpose. Everyone likes everyone and everything.

The romance is atrocious. You can romance ANYONE in mere minutes.
That person is in a relationship/married? Doesn't matter, just flirt a couple of times get to about quarter of the pink bar and there you go, you can woohoo in the shower.
Can have an endless amount of partners with no real drawback as well, impregnate every woman in town(Including the married ones) while you're at it, because nobody actually cares. They will raise your kid for you no problem as well. No responsibility yey!.

Too many activities are "Rabbitholes", and even the few ones that aren't (Like the acting career) are the exact same tasks every single time

The AI in the game is terrible and there's endless amount of bugs. Nothing seems to work as "intended". Sims constantly take a meal and eat it as far as possible from the fridge or nearest desk, sometimes going all the way to a far away bed.
The constantly sit up or get up during conversation commands, do push ups everywhere and dozens of other issues I'm too tired to name.
The relationship bars are bugged, building a rocket is bugged, randomly for no apparent reason even though the game itself runs fine you suddenly have major delay/lag when trying to do interactions(pressing on a computer or a stove, waiting a few seconds for the options to come up and time doesn't flow.
And many other small interactions.

The game has almost no foils for you, everything is easy and danger free. You will ALWAYS reach your goals.

Most activities, especially ones from the Expansions/DLCS are completely pointless, they barely even add "Flavor" and usually feel like chores to even participate in.
You maybe check them out once to see what's it about, realize that it's boring at best and a waste of your sim time at worst.
You usually end up just one dimensionally improving skills by repeating the same task until your sim needs to fill a need or go to work. You only ever really need to leave your house or interact with other Sims to fill your social bar, and even that can be instantly fixed by just calling someone over, woohooing once and kicking them out.

And of course the most obvious and most insulting part.
For something that can barely be called a "Game" at this point, it's literally one of the most expensive full package video games out there. Insane.

[76561198213095365]

On the plus side of things there seems to be a lot more move ins, births, and adoptions from families I do not use when using neighborhood stories from The Sims 4 than deaths from accidents and/or old age or at least for me anyways. Do I wish there were more sims for The Sims 4 and especially for base game? The answer to that is yes and that is the reason why I have kept adopt pets for neighborhood stories turned off, but as pointed out earlier MCCC and various other mods (especially the extreme violence mod if for some reason you get bored from playing this game that might make it more interesting for some players and especially for men that could very easily make The Sims 4 rated M instead of T) in addition to adding sims from the gallery (instead of spending extra time and effort on creating your own new sims) could potentially make The Sims 4 more interesting and fun to play at the same time. When I added the MCCC mod into my game I had no regrets in downloading it. Plus, I also noticed as well that pregnancy without needing mods to get a sim pregnant is much easier for The Sims 4 than The Sims 3 as well.

[76561198213095365]

One last thing I want to point out that may sometimes get overlooked is that you can add additional sims in the base game besides create a sim and gallery. Take notice for example from manage worlds listed under neighbors you are using some of them are labeled as "not in world". This means you could add them into the game anytime if you want to have more sims for The Sims 4; although, I am guessing if you do not want to have control over those sims you could also just simply ignore them which some of them might eventually move in on their own. I for example got a new neighbor recently that was apparently was "not in world" at one point without me needing to play her since this female sim was a vampire and very vampires are included from the new vampire world with only three vampires total from this expansion pack, but somehow I mysteriously got a new neighbor that was a vampire. (It is unclear if she was turned into a vampire or always was a vampire, but I am guessing she was most likely a vampire to begin with.)

[DaniTheHero]

Originalmente postado por davidnoble1996:

One last thing I want to point out that may sometimes get overlooked is that you can add additional sims in the base game besides create a sim and gallery. Take notice for example from manage worlds listed under neighbors you are using some of them are labeled as "not in world". This means you could add them into the game anytime if you want to have more sims for The Sims 4; although, I am guessing if you do not want to have control over those sims you could also just simply ignore them which some of them might eventually move in on their own. I for example got a new neighbor recently that was apparently was "not in world" at one point without me needing to play her since this female sim was a vampire and very vampires are included from the new vampire world with only three vampires total from this expansion pack, but somehow I mysteriously got a new neighbor that was a vampire. (It is unclear if she was turned into a vampire or always was a vampire, but I am guessing she was most likely a vampire to begin with.)

I am aware that I could manually add in more Households through the game(Created by me, in the library or from galary), but the problem is that it doesn't actually matter.
No family I will add will properly progress in the game other than background characters and i'll need to continuously replace them like that if i'm wanting to play through more than one or two generations.
They also don't really behave in any unique way to any other household.

The NPC's don't follow any specific routine other than that 11pm-6amish they are asleep.
They don't have any unique personalities, they all like everything and dislike nothing.
You can romance every single sim with 3 flirty interactions. Regardless of their gender or relationship status. Nobody has a sexual preference, nobody is faithful nobody even has turn on or turn offs.
The NPC's spawn at random at random lots and random times.
You could call an NPC over to visit you and you'll get a notification that they are asleep, and then 10 seconds later find them roaming at the lot you are in.

Sims 4 is pretty much just Minecraft Creative mode. Build anything you want, create any family you want. But you don't actually get to "play" through a simulation properly, you'd get a more realistic and enjoyable long term playthrough in sims 2 or 3 and that's a REAL shame.

[DaniTheHero]

I figured I'd give it another try seeing If I was being too harsh, and now a year later, as a final attempt I am even more adamant in my opinions.
I'm a firm believer that tastes are subjective and people like different things, but it's almost shocking to me that people are satisfied with such a hollow product.

I also checked a bit of some forum posts to see if any other people really complain, it doesn't seem to be the case too often, but it seems that the same people that responded to me here a year ago are still posting just as often now.

[Xeriath]

The main problem is that Sims 4 doesn’t have really a competition. Sure, you could play older products but as Sims 3 still give me headaches how bad it is and how much effort I need to get it playable and then still it gets corrupt after a while if you don’t maintenance your save game. Sims 1/2 is out of reach if you don’t like to sail like a pirate.

Maybe *Paralive* or the new *life by you* give sims finally competition and make it better. I like Sims4 but I agree with you is terrible shallow and if my playstyle would not be sandbox I had not much fun in it and self with sandbox It get a little frustrated because this game throws still autonomy actions on your sims queue with autonomy off. The best scenario which boils my blood is always stranger want to join my conversation on community lots, especially on dates and then 100 points if it is a kid.

[76561198213095365]

The Sims 4 is overall fun in my opinion and The Sims 3 has unfortunately become a dinosaur at this point where desperately a newer game that has any resemblance to The Sims 3 for replacing it such as Paralives or Life By You (made by Paradox which is a much bigger company than the one making Paralives) since I have some doubts that The SIms 5 (Project Rene) is going to be open world. However, The SIms 4 is actually not as addicting as I thought it would be even with me owning nearly every dlc in the game, mods, and EA adding in neighborhood stories from March of 2022 shortly after the My Wedding Stories disaster. Some days for example I might only go on to The Sims 4 checking out the news and gallery instead of actual gameplay/building. I think overall The Sims 4 seems like it was specifically designed for casual gamers instead of gaming addicts who are fully committed to playing The SIms 4 even if someone were to own nearly every dlc in the game in order to make the game feel more alive and less boring. I am hoping that Growing Together changes that despite the fact it took EA almost 9 years to make this expansion pack where the livestream did not show everything including the three new events and the infant carrier that may or may not have bugs.

[Lady Aeleanor]

Totally disagree with the OP. I played the base game from months after I bought it, and before downloading any DLC. I still don't have very much DLC. I play the base game worlds more than any of the other ones that come with the DLC. After 2 years of playing every day, it's still tons of fun.

[DaniTheHero]

Originalmente postado por Lady Aeleanor:

Totally disagree with the OP. I played the base game from months after I bought it, and before downloading any DLC. I still don't have very much DLC. I play the base game worlds more than any of the other ones that come with the DLC. After 2 years of playing every day, it's still tons of fun.

When i mentioned that there's still the same posters from over a year ago that actively defend the game on the forums, It wasn't an hyperbole. As you and David just like before, still do.
Now there's no ill will on my end towards you, as we can respectfully disagree and you are obviously allowed to like anything that you well.. like.

However every single piece of content, no matter how negatively received it may be, will have SOMEONE like it and support it, else it wouldn't exist at all. And of course there's always going to be even a few more people from that group that will try to defend that preference publicly.
I can see the charm of the game regarding buildings or designing things. As it's quite pretty and the tools are varied. But when it comes to anything else, mainly the actual 'Gameplay', it is beyond me how anyone could spend so many years playing this hollow and bland game.

The Sims 2 and 3 were objectively better regarding gameplay in every aspect other than Multitasking. The lack of ingame challenge, the lack of relationship depth, the lack of actual progression and continuity, the meaningless of tasks, the repetitiveness and non uniqueness of everything. It's as if things and mechanics just "exist". But they don't actually matter.
Just watching any of those The Sims 2/3 vs Sims 4 comparison videos are very eye opening to the few who either never played anything else than Sims 4 or were far too young to even recall a difference.

[76561198213095365]

Originalmente postado por DaniTheHero:

When i mentioned that there's still the same posters from over a year ago that actively defend the game on the forums, It wasn't an hyperbole. As you and David just like before, still do.
Now there's no ill will on my end towards you, as we can respectfully disagree and you are obviously allowed to like anything that you well.. like.

Contrary to Lady Aeleanor I do not totally disagree with you about The Sims 4 and I have played The Sims 3 before where I had fun with it, but it does not work as good when it comes to saving the game (such as the frequent error code 16 for example that prevents me from successfully saving the game, unless if I were to make an attempt to save the game many times over) when switching from Windows 10 to Windows 11 in addition to multiple other issues I have with this game just because of it being an older game than The SIms 4. I for example can still enjoy playing The Sims 4 at least casually, do not seem to be spending as much time playing and building on The Sims 4 as I used to. The main difference here between you and me is that at least I have my hopes up that Growing Together would improve gameplay enough that it would have more resemblance to The Sims 2 and 3 gameplay and possibly better in comparison to other dlc. The only expansion packs that even come close to being just as good as Growing Together (assuming that it is going to be at least mostly bug free) are Seasons (although, more practical for getting with a bundle than getting as an individual pack) and Get Together (largest world from The SIms 4) in addition to maybe City Living/Cottage Living mainly because these packs have very few if any noticeable bugs and are also overall the funnest expansion packs at least in my personal opinion. Also, for Cats and Dogs I love this expansion pack overall, but there are various different controversies about this pack (including the facts that maybe it should have been called a "Pets" expansion pack instead of "Cats and Dogs", bugs, vet carrier controversy where some people do not like it, and possibly complaints about various other issues as well relating to this pack) in addition to its even more hated pet's stuff pack because of it being a dlc for a dlc.

[Lady Aeleanor]

Originalmente postado por DaniTheHero:

When i mentioned that there's still the same posters from over a year ago that actively defend the game on the forums, It wasn't an hyperbole. As you and David just like before, still do.

I think you'll find that there are a lot of people who would disagree with you about your original post. Namely, people who have been playing the Sims 4 since launch. I belong to a number of groups - some Facebook, and some other forums - and most of those love the game, despite its glitches and shortcomings - which plague every game in existence, to some extent.

Now there's no ill will on my end towards you, as we can respectfully disagree and you are obviously allowed to like anything that you well.. like.

Why, that is most gracious of you. I am deeply touched.

So, your opinion is noted. But, as you already stated, everyone has opinions. I defend the game based on my own experience with it - not because I have a great love for EA - but because of the enjoyment the game has given me. However, you disagree, as is your right to your opinion. We can simply agree to disagree. It's pointless to keep debating. Have yourself a great day.

Unsubscribed.

[ChocoFries]

Yep. That's why simmers play the legacy challenges. Otherwise this game will bore you out of your skull within three game sessions, especially if you have played Sims 2 or Sims 3.
I thought the game was giving me everything (too smooth) until my legacy Sim died in the purple/grape/mahogany generation (nearly 8 to 9 months into the challenge). Luckily, I was playing double Not-So-Berry and had two of every generation. Mods and cc ... if your still bored after that, there's nothing else that I know about

[Swing]

What is it with people not liking the game and HAVE to come on the forums to cry about it? As OP said, this has been brought up before and the main answer has always been the same... don't play it. It seems like people just like to ♥♥♥♥♥. Go play something else... PLEASE.

[76561198213095365]

Originalmente postado por Swing:

What is it with people not liking the game and HAVE to come on the forums to cry about it? As OP said, this has been brought up before and the main answer has always been the same... don't play it. It seems like people just like to ♥♥♥♥♥. Go play something else... PLEASE.

It seems pointless to continue discussions here with perhaps myself included as well. Just largely based on opinions where obviously not everyone really enjoys playing The Sims 4, but at the same time many people do enjoy playing it as well. A person for example could be only just a casual player on The Sims 4 instead of a gaming addict and still enjoy it overall instead of thinking that it is boring.

[Xeriath]

Originalmente postado por Swing:

What is it with people not liking the game and HAVE to come on the forums to cry about it? As OP said, this has been brought up before and the main answer has always been the same... don't play it. It seems like people just like to ♥♥♥♥♥. Go play something else... PLEASE.

Because people search for people which think same, so they hope they find people here which agree to 100%. I am sure as Paralive or Live by You come out we got here ton on post which will praise these games and that sims4 will go under, and that we all are stupid because we still play and like this game.

I only hope that Sims4 will get only better if they finally get a worthy rival. As I said I like the game, but I think they could make it better (Sims4 got much better since 2014, so we all know they can do it.)

[Sovereign Dark]

Originalmente postado por Swing:

What is it with people not liking the game and HAVE to come on the forums to cry about it? As OP said, this has been brought up before and the main answer has always been the same... don't play it. It seems like people just like to ♥♥♥♥♥. Go play something else... PLEASE.

If people gather to the forum just to complain about hating the game, I'd see your point. Generally, that's not what I've seen.

People (like myself) complain because they love the game, some of us all of The Sims games. They complain about EA hyping DLC which ends up disappointing consumers, and trying to sell broken and/or empty packs just to profit off us. They complain about the exorbitant cost of DLCs and many have already invested a great deal into content. They (and I) complain about the whole glitchy, buggy mess TS4 has further become with each update and new DLC, too many of which have remained without fixes for years. That's not to mention new DLC can break older DLC so you'd wonder if anyone's awake in QC when thinking of all the money one may have spent.

People have also complained that this version has become too partisan and they don't want that in a video game. Others have complained that certain aspects of their lives aren't represented in the game and they want it. Now people complain that this has caused TS4 to become divisive. That's a no win and has also affected game functionality (looking at you, Eco Living..to name one).

Also, if millions of simmers who enjoy it hadn't whinged about 'babies being objects' in TS4, perhaps none at all would be receiving the upcoming babies upgrade nor even be offered up the Growing Together expansion.

Personally, I love and enjoy the game enough to find all of this nonsense troubling. I want to play TS4, I do play it, but I won't buy any more ♥♥♥♥ content and I don't want further updates to break the mods I use to fix what Maxis won't. That's not dislike. It's frustration.

In any matter.. why ♥♥♥♥♥ about people ♥♥♥♥♥ing? Who in the world would go on playing a game they dislike?