So what is so great about The Sims 4?

Hi Games4theWorld users,


I felt the need to make this topic, as obviously The Sims 4 was highly anticipated and we were all extremely thrilled that it was released.  Whether you pre-ordered it, caved and purchased it or hey, maybe you even scrambled onto the internet the day after and looked for a torrent – you now, officially, have The Sims 4 on your PC and you are ready to play.

But wait!  Have you not seen all of the terrible reviews?  Have you not heard from your friends, your neighbors, even your dog that The Sims 4 is by far the worst Sims game EA has ever released?  Have you heard, through the grape-vine, that there are just too many things taken out of the game!  If you’ve heard all of these complaints and more, you’re probably in the same boat as everyone else.  I, personally, find this disappointing.  I mean, sure, EA has definitely released its garbage packed full of bugs before!  They have also appeared to be quite money hungry, especially with The Sims 3 and all of its expansion packs.

I’m here to tell you now:  that The Sims 4, actually, isn’t so bad after all.  In fact – I’ve observed, even witnessed with my own two eyes, many people testing the cracked version of the game only to cave and actually buy the game in all of its glory, simply due to the fact that they enjoyed playing and found it not only to be interesting, but addictive and fun.  While I never did download any cracked version of the game thus far, I did cave and buy the game.  What surprised me?  Almost all of the reviews and comments on the game are either not accurate, or are just general complaints due to the fact that they’re missing components that these particular players will miss.

On to the point of this thread:  I want to discuss what we all LIKE about The Sims 4.  I mean, it’s brand new!  It’s all spiffy and shiny!  There’s GOT to be SOMETHING neat about the game, right?

Here are a few reasons why I like, and definitely bought, The Sims 4.
 
 
1.   The Endless Ability to Multi-Task.



First and foremost, the number one reason I even bothered to purchase the game was due to the multi-tasking and the fact that EA raved about how your Sims no longer wear blinders!  And let me tell you, it will blow your mind.  As some of you probably already know, I’ve been a Sims fan since I was a pre-teen at the ripe-old-age of 12.  The Sims has ALWAYS been a great series and even through its faults, I’ve played and played and probably clocked YEARS of my life into them!  This feature in The Sims 4 will totally blow you away, as it had me gasping and laughing!  As an example:  My family Yeung, consisting of a twin brother and sister, were eating breakfast one morning.  When I called the family to the breakfast, the sister grabbed a plate and stood in the kitchen eating.  Her brother grabbed a plate as well, but walked off to sit down in the dining room.  Because I wanted them to socialize, and also wanted to see what would happen, I instructed the brother to ‘Chat’ with his sister.  He promptly grabbed his plate, stood up and began to walk for the kitchen.  Of course, being use to The Sims 3, I was thinking, “Oh no, he’s about to clean his dish and do something else totally unrelated to what I wanted.”  Lo’ and behold, to my surprise, he waltzed into the kitchen, stood next to his sister holding his plate and began rambling about his ‘New Album’!  I couldn’t help but be amazed.
 

2.  Seamless Build Mode and Create-a-Sim Mode.


If you all never played The Sims 4 Create-a-Sim Demo, you may or may not know what I’m speaking of when I call this function in The Sims 4 seamless and effortless.  Long ago, in a far away land, we had something called sliders.  They were either your worst enemy or your best friend – for me, they were both.  Not only did I lack a lot of the control that I have in The Sims 4 due to these sliders, but I had modded my Sims 3 game by downloading slider-mods so that I could REALLY fine-tune how my Sims looked.  Those days are gone, my friends!  So gone, that we can throw the mere idea into the fire and watch it burn.  With this new pinch and grab Sims 4 creation, called:  Direction Manipulation, you are able to really, REALLY, manipulate your Sims’ looks.  It’s fantastic!

But that’s not all.  Another great feature listed as #2 here, is the new Build Mode.  No longer are you spending hours of your time creating and furnishing the house of your dreams.  I, for one, spent a long time furnishing my newly built house in The Sims 3 (let’s not even count the hours of BUILDING the thing) – so much so, that I found myself on The Sims Resource¹ downloading pre-made houses that sometimes caused more issues than I’d like to admit (crashing, glitching, etc).  You are able to build houses extremely fast in The Sims 4.  I almost didn’t even notice that the swimming pools were gone, because let’s face it, if less effort is made in building a home and furnishing a home so that you can just jump into playing, why would you care about something so tedious?  This game really does force you into a mindset of seeing more positive than negative.

 
3.  Your Sims now have tons of emotional depth.


Okay, I’m seriously not exaggerating here.  For the first time, your Sims will act like REAL people.

"The Sims' personality and depth is really changing those different interactions that are tied directly to the way your Sim is feeling.  It allows our players to tell stories they haven't really been able to tell before."  - Sims 4 Producer, Ryan Vaughan.

This is SO true!  This feature ties into #1 on my list here, and even more-so than I can begin to explain.  Something called Emotional States within the game is actually a huge game changer!  Not only do certain emotional states your Sims can go into unlock new contextual actions, but as an example, a sad Sim may paint something depressing while an angry Sim might have extra drive to work out!  Your Sims aren’t exactly at the mercy of their emotions, as emotions in The Sims 4 are basically like temporary traits.  I find myself fascinated by these new-found-Sims-emotions and I could honestly, make my Sims run around the neighborhood JUST to meet new people and watch how they interact.  Never before, in ANY of the Sims games released by EA have I been this enthralled with something so seemingly simple.

 
4.   The Pathing system got a face-lift!


If you’re again, in the same boat as a lot of people, in the past (even starting within The Sims 1) there were tons and tons of annoyances found within the pathing system.  You might be like, “What is this pathing system you speak of?”  Oh nothing too major, just how your Sims maneuvered around your house.  Yes, that!  It is x101 better!  Sims can now pass each other on flights of stairs;  Sims in crowded areas or rooms will now maneuver around each other;  even better – now even 100 Sims can pass through doorways and you won’t ever get a stamping of the foot, a Simlish yelling at the sky and a wave of the arm or even a cancelled action.  The pathing system is now about as streamline as the game itself.  Perhaps I’m easy to please here, or perhaps this is a huge breakthrough.  Either way, I was thanking the EA Gods for this because this issue was always something so game-breaking for me.  I hated having to almost babysit my Sims actions’ bar if I accidentally made it so that two Sims need to do something within the same few feet in the game, or if I accidentally made two Sims use the same dishwasher, for example.  No more annoyances!
 

5.   The ‘Worlds’ – i.e., Neighborhoods.


Now, I know for a fact that there have been lots of complaints circulating the internet about the very close-ended neighborhood.  A lot of people are unhappy with the way the neighborhoods look in general, as obviously this is a major change.  I, for one, will tell you this right now:  The concept within the open-ended neighborhood in the Sims 3 was great, but it was a failure in how they executed it.  Not only was it a huge demand on your PC, but I ran into a lot of graphical issues and a lot of lag due to everything being so open.  For Sims having blinders on and being unable to multi-task, there sure were A LOT of things going on in the neighborhood around you.  In my opinion, it was just too much. 

In The Sims 4, they really fixed this issue.  In The Sims 4, the concept of “neighborhoods” are now called “Worlds”.  Each “World” consists of different, and distinct, Neighborhoods.²  Can you run around your neighborhood and even explore different worlds with a click of a button?  Yes!  For example, you can visit your neighbors by zooming all the way out and clicking on the front door of a house to ‘Knock’.  Once your Sim/s does this, a loading screen will pop up and it will then load you into your neighbor’s home.  With my Yeung family for example, I made both brother and sister visit their neighbors.  In the midst of the brother chatting with a female in the home, his sister left the house and went back home to do her own thing.  Apparently she wanted to sleep,  so she left and took a nap in her bed.  Again, I find this to be a lot more simple and a lot less demanding of my PC, which I not only appreciate, but love.  This is surly a new feature that should not be overlooked and definitely given credit.  All in all, it makes the gameplay smoother and I am thankful, because my poor PC hated The Sims 3 demanding so much but giving so little to their relationship!



These are the top five for me.  What are yours?  What are some things, especially within the first hour or so of your game-play, that really surprised you or made you gasp, laugh or smile? 

Please remember guys, this thread will be about the positives of The Sims 4 only!  Stay on topic and let the conversations stay friendly! Remember to follow all forum rules, too.

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Links:  ¹http://www.thesimsresource.com/  ²http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/The_Sims_4

snipped for negativity, apologies

delete to relieve wasted post if desired please!

leminlyme wrote:can appreciate your perspectives on the game, and I agree that some of the functions are great and totally necessary after the fourth engine iteration of this damn time-blackhole of a game. However I want to refute some things and help elaborate as to why it is everyone is in a stink about this game. 

Hi leminlyme,


While I do appreciate your feedback on The Sims 4, I aimed for this topic to be positive. I stated that, here:

Sephymuffins wrote:Please remember guys, this thread will be about the positives of The Sims 4 only!  Stay on topic and let the conversations stay friendly! Remember to follow all forum rules, too.

I expect anyone here on the forums, to respect certain rules that a person places within their made topic.  If, for example, you were to open up your own topic about the fact that you do not like or agree with them catering to 'low-end' PCs, I would not create a rather large wall of text refuting what you have to say - especially after stating more than once, that you wanted the discussion in your topic to stay on a certain path.

Needless to say, The Sims 4 is a brand new game.  People tend to hyperly-focus on the fact that it "needs to be like older games", it "needs to be like TS3, or TS2".  When The Sims 3 came out, people were bringing up certain issues too, demanding it change or claiming in general that it was a poor decision on EAs part.  The fact of the matter is, EA is going to do what they will.  Perhaps I'm the only one that feels The Sims 3 was really a step-back rather than step-forward, but that's okay.  The Sims 4 feels more like The Sims 2 to me, but a little more cartoon-ish with a lot more features.

Getting back to my point here, I'd like this topic to remain positive.  My original post was, of course, my opinion on the game itself and why I like it/thought it was worth it.  There is already tons of negativity out there circulating around EA and the creation of The Sims 4, so I'd like this topic to be a place of discussion regarding things we actually do like or find interesting within the game!

There are some "deeper" multitasking stuff many people might not have realized they can do now (most people are still surprised by fairly simple things like talking while eating).

Believe it or not, these work too:

-After cooking a meal, go to the fridge > quick meal > any drink. You will eat and drink at the same time. Want to go for triple? Go watch TV. Yeah, eat dinner, drink, and watch TV all at once.
-Grab any drink and go to the bathroom. You can do both at once.
-Grab your tablet and go to the bathroom. Same deal.
-You can hold and drink 2 drinks at the same time. Seriously. It's pretty funny.

Multitasking is easily the best improvement but I don't agree with the OP's "everything is great and nothing is bad" assessment of Sims 4, but I won't go into detail as that's not the purpose of the thread.

Carlos wrote:

leminlyme wrote:Like seriously, if you think adaptive pathing around another Sim is an impressive calculation, you might need to spend some time at a computer sciences course (...)

Well hello,


Not everybody can be a computer "science"-expert like you, and while we're at it: besides your unfriendly (under)tone, which isn't appreciated on here, you failed to comprehend Sephy's initial statement of the topic being only about positive things in the game. And very strictly speaking, the thread is about actual in-game stuff, and NOT about any technical discussions/background information. You may open up a new topic yourself, about negative stuff, at any time, as long as you abide by the forum rules (to which you agreed before registering on here).

P.S. I think the thing with "impressive calculation" is to be understood in comparison to earlier Sims titles, but OK... 

It wasn't implied as hostile, I'm sorry if it was read that way. I get a little heated when publishers, developers, and creative development all butt heads and the end result is the end user biting the bullet. I wanted to provide information, and unintentionally spat it out  I also didn't attentively read the entire post and missed the request for all positive points, my bad. *flies away*

I can agree with that, which actually really surprised me. But I think that it's that they're finally actually getting into that style. Before, the games weren't actually stylized cartoonish well, they were just sort of low quality, now that they have the freedom to do what they want with the models in modern graphics schemes, they definitely refined it and although I love photorealism and the pursuit of details, this is the first sims game where I find myself not that bothered by the flat textures and simplistic designs, they're well executed. I can't wait for more though, I'm very picky on my hairs and I look forward to the hairs they intend to give us to really show that whole personality theme they got going.


(and absolutely of course user created hairs as well)

MisterDingo wrote:There are some "deeper" multitasking stuff many people might not have realized they can do now (most people are still surprised by fairly simple things like talking while eating).

Believe it or not, these work too:

-After cooking a meal, go to the fridge > quick meal > any drink. You will eat and drink at the same time. Want to go for triple? Go watch TV. Yeah, eat dinner, drink, and watch TV all at once.
-Grab any drink and go to the bathroom. You can do both at once.
-Grab your tablet and go to the bathroom. Same deal.
-You can hold and drink 2 drinks at the same time. Seriously. It's pretty funny.

Multitasking is easily the best improvement but I don't agree with the OP's "everything is great and nothing is bad" assessment of Sims 4, but I won't go into detail as that's not the purpose of the thread.

Hi MisterDingo,


These are really neat things to point out, so thank you for making a small list there!

I actually had that happen before, where my female sim had a cup of tea in one hand and a glass of milk in the other.  Needless to say, I was rolling and I couldn't help it.

To reinstate my intentions with this thread, however, were to focus more on what's new with The Sims 4.  I never said that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the game, as all Sims games have had SOMETHING wrong with them - I just don't want to dissect why the game is "missing all of this stuff and is so horrid".  That seems to be what everyone is talking about right now, over really anything and everything else.

leminlyme wrote:I can agree with that, which actually really surprised me. But I think that it's that they're finally actually getting into that style. Before, the games weren't actually stylized cartoonish well, they were just sort of low quality, now that they have the freedom to do what they want with the models in modern graphics schemes, they definitely refined it and although I love photorealism and the pursuit of details, this is the first sims game where I find myself not that bothered by the flat textures and simplistic designs, they're well executed. I can't wait for more though, I'm very picky on my hairs and I look forward to the hairs they intend to give us to really show that whole personality theme they got going.


(and absolutely of course user created hairs as well)

Hi leminlyme,


I totally agree.  I think the simplicity of TS4 + mods down the road for graphics, will make this game even more enjoyable and realistic.  I have the graphics on Ultra and it's like my PC doesn't even heat up.  That's totally different, in comparison to TS3, for example.  That game was super heavy and really took a lot out of my laptop.  Mind you, my laptop can run Skyrim on Ultra graphics with less issues than TS3 gave me.  If that puts it into perspective.


You should definitely hit-up The Sims Resource.  If you pay like $3 a month (which is NOTHING), you can mass download hairs, skins, clothing, etc., for The Sims 4 and ALL of the downloads are super high quality.  There are lots of hair meshes and CC coming out that are way better looking than the hair in TS3 - that, and they are much easier to install into your game and run.  Adding CC to The Sims 4 doesn't lag it out like in TS3!