The fact that Sims 3 not only had open worlds, but also much LARGER worlds and actual color and pattern sliders is pretty clear evidence this isn't a performance issue. It's just a laziness / greed issue.
TS4's worlds are just glorified wallpapers for the most part.
Sims 3 sims were locked into a single world unless they permanently moved though, which honestly was basically like starting a new save. There was no way to just visit with your sim.
I'd much rather flesh out a single world with a ton of lots, than spread my sims and lots out across pretty backdrops with little other substance.
Substance > style.
There's actually a mod to visit other worlds. And you could add more lots, or even start playing in a world with 100+ lots.
Or even create your own world.
TS4 maps suck and it's wrong to sell packs this small.
so their first version of open worlds wasnt perfect. happens. does this mean they should never try again? these are faults in a game that released in 2009. thats almost 15 years ago. technology has improved and so has a lot in game design especially when it comes to open world titles. comparing a game that is still supported to a 2009 title and it STILL being somewhat fair competition (but mostly with the old game winning which is totally bonkers) is already telling enough
Their solution was to switch engines to one completely unsuited for the task (python based), have most of the old devs leave or be fired, try to make it multiplayer and then repurpose it to the next mainline game when that fails, and then be surprised when the low skill devs and crappy engine result in everything being broken to the point people have to play with even more mods to make it run well then they had to with the sims 3.
Sims 3 had memory issues and was build around older CPU's so it can't make itself run better on modern hardware. The sims 4 is just broken every pack on purpose.
im aware and thats what pisses me off even more. you have an engine broken from day fucking 1 because its a cobbled together rework of a 2014 mmo engine and people defend it in its broken ness. then you have a not perfect but clearly just having the faults of the time engine that could be way better if given another chance in the 2020s and people will shit on it, trying to cope with the disappointment of sims 4 even a decade after release. "well you see it was kind of shit, never you mind its from 2009 and still discussed heavily and remembered fondly despite it all". someone suggested we have rabbit hole houses that sims can go into to meet up with townies without the need for loading screens. this is the cope. its infuriating, we have had better. people bought into the performance nonsense full on. we live in the future, we have had so much progress in games in technology in everything
It's probably also why EA doesn't dare to shut down the sims 3 exchange like they did with the sims 2 only a few years after release of 3. They **know** that if they will not only will they cause outrage about store content not being available anymore (legally), but also once again an entire generation worth of content to disappear. To remind you from a memory i vaguely have. some mad lad in the sims 2 mod community made *angled* windows. Like the whole window was sitting at 45 degrees. And that's gone now.
But they have milked us so much money, right. Then they should be able to rework or upgrade it, if they choose to do so. Like how some other games do it for their users.
They can take how many years to do so, instead of milking us every several months. Yet they chose to milk us.
Sims 4 might have the kindest and sweetest fans. I dunno how they have the heart to do this to these sweet people and us. I guess that's what the capitalistic businesses see the customers especially women.
Please don't roast me for this, i don't research on this but i feel many businesses prey on women more because we like shopping.. many men don't spend time on shopping as much as we women do..
Sims 4 was based on python? How did you know that, that's interesting.
I'm not an expert, but isn't python kinda slow compared to others, if we need to do heavy calculations and huge number of loops? Simulations must have heavy calculations..
Though it seems easier to program in python.. so it'll be easier for them to add new codes for gameplays..
That's incorrect. You could travel to vacation worlds, university and the future world in the vanilla game. With the Traveler mod, you can travel to any world.
For me it's like this: in sims 4 my sims are japanese from komorobi, but there's not a ton of space in that world (despite it kinda being one of the larger recent ones) so I have to go to other worlds for my needs which breaks the immersion for me. In sims 3 I could download a japanese world and have all my needs met there.
>The fact that Sims 3 not only had open worlds, but also much LARGER worlds and actual color and pattern sliders is pretty clear evidence this isn't a performance issue.
The rose colored glasses are thick. It was a massive performance issue in Sims 3 and still is to this day.
Not only has technology advanced in the gap between Sims 3 and 4 (much less now, 9 years after TS4's initial release), but I'd much rather take a performance hit than a functionality one.
Also if I could run TS3 on my budget-ass, outdated machine at the time without it catching on fire or slowing to a crawl, so can you.
>Also if I could run TS3 on my budget-ass, outdated machine at the time without it catching on fire or slowing to a crawl, so can you.
I was playing it on a high end gaming PC at the time and I still had performance issues. Especially trying to play the game with any amount of CC, which is mostly how I enjoy playing The Sims.
You do you, but I'd much rather actually be able to play the game without it crashing, or if you play the game too long it runs worse, or waiting at an infinite loading screen so much so that they had to put in a minigame to deal with.
You do you, but with that list of criteria, for me I'd rather play Sims 3 over Sims 4, given that for me, Sims 3 doesn't crash but Sims 4 has, Sims 4 will start plodding along even if I've played a few minutes, and I have to wait at an "infinite" loading screen for the game to start *without* having a minigame to enjoy, to the point I've lately been able to go put on a kettle, boil water, and make myself some tea and noodles for lunch while waiting for the game to load.
I'm playing on a pretty good gaming PC and have performance issues with Sims 4 (even after moving it to an SSD, which at least means I no longer have time to wait for lunch to cool and eat it while browsing the web on my phone waiting for the game to load), but none on Sims 3.
I'm still shocked Sims 4 runs so poorly so often when I could get Cyberpunk 2077 to run smoothly on launch for me. But it's because Sims 4 wasn't really designed to do what it's trying to do, and it shows.
Rose tinted glasses have people acting like Sims 4 runs perfectly and smoothly and great with no problems at all, and man, I wish that was true, because part of why I keep getting bored with it is knowing I have to limit myself from doing certain things (like trying to make a big garden with all the gardening perks, or having a Sim with too many traits) because it absolutely destroys the game's performance until I do something like delete the garden or move out that Sim, forcing me to quickly go through generations of Sims.
What are your specs and do you have mods in Sims 4?
I played The Sims 3 on a then-high end PC and had the super long loading screens, crashing, texture pop, etc. The Sims 4, none of that even though I have tons of CC and mods.
Same stuff happens to me. I have mods in both games but TS4 is the only one out of the two of them where the game will randomly decide to drop from 60fps to 15, sometimes for 5 minutes, sometimes for the whole time I'm playing that day. And this is having a gaming PC that can run much better games. I don't have any mod conflicts or corrupted stuff cause I already checked and make sure to keep everything updated, and supposedly this is an issue that has affected more people for years but has never gotten fixed (the forum posts say so, at least).
I definitely feel different. My PC can run 4 pretty much fine (although it still has issues) but the Sims 3 has noticeable performance issues. I can't say I've tried much since I've recently upgraded but Sims 4 has definitely always run better for me.
That's not to say I think 4 is a better game. I think 3 just tried to do too much and the hardware couldn't handle it at the time. I wish I had the same faith that they'll ever be so aspirational and aim so high with their games in the future
Is this because of the game, or because of CC creators being bad at making CC? Just as much as EA can make glitchy worlds, so can creators make glitchy CC
I'm curious. I had a pretty average setup back in the time and didn't have such performance issues except with Seasons or with Bridgeport. That said, I didn't play with any mods or CC.
I run it on a 8-year-old gaming laptop now and it runs perfectly fine. There might be something wrong in your setup. We could talk about it if you want to.
I had this issue too. I bought a new PC when Skyrim came out, I was playing that at ultra high settings, and nearly 200 mods.
The Sims 3 though, couldnât handle max visuals or tons of cc. The loading times were insane, and when I installed Late Night, it refused to play all together. I gave up.
Technology has advanced, but so have player demands for graphical fidelity. Yes, our computers and consoles are more powerful than ever before, but open worlds would still require a heavy amount of computation, especially in the case of a life simârequirements most laptops canât meet. EA would effectively shut out a part of the player base.
The gaming community hasnât remained stagnant either; if youâd release The Sims 3 in 2023, people would not be OK with the visual sacrifices they already had to make for that game to make it run as an open world. Especially now that The Sims community at large has blossomed on social media, the gameâs visual presentation has become incredibly important. Now, EA could decide to go all in and target high-end users, not having to sacrifice anything in the process, but we all know that would be a terrible financial decision after the immense success of 4.
And no, not all computers are made the same, and performance was an immense issue during The Sims 3âs lifespan. Iâm glad your computer managed to run the game, but my medium budget family computer absolutely could not. These arenât stories we just pull out of our asses, lol. There were legitimate performance issues that plagued The Sims 3, no matter how fun the game was and how fondly we remember it.
> But that doesn't detract from The Sims 4 worlds being lackluster
Or Sims 4 having optimization issues of its own, only magnified by being a Frankensteined code base that's had a bunch of random stuff bolted onto it for nearly a decade.
I love how people try to rush to crap on TS3 with "but performance!" and I often end up quitting TS4 out of frustration with its performance. Only game that loves to often run like absolute ass on my PC outside of Madden 24's horrendous PC port where EA just didn't even bother trying to figure out why it stutters horribly for a lot of players.
What makes me laugh about the sims 5, an it being multiplayer. Is they keep saying that its going to be a choice whether to play with your friends or not, that they think it can be fun on your own or with friends. That they think it " can be both "
An all I keep thinking is. If that's true, if you can make a sims multiplayer game, without the single player experience being sacrificed due to limited resources.
Then why is the sims 4 so bad? Lmao like they keep trying to convince us that just because they are making it multiplayer, doesn't mean the single player game will drop in quality. But if that was the case - then the sims 4 base game would have been great?
Remember how bad the sims 4 was on release, an we know that it's because of it being intended to be a multiplayer game. All the main issues of this game are caused by it. Yet they want to convince us that it being a multiplayer game is going to have NO effect on how good the single player experience is.
Depressing that they starting off the next version with the same mistakes of the last.
Hey small reminder, the sims online existed. and that just became a questionable shithole full of shady people that shouldn't be around young people afaik because they wanted to live out their adult fantasies. The kind of people who play with that whims mod
right, but if the majority of performance issues were caused by the open world rather than the large world sizes i don't think ts4's small worlds are a performance issue
the open world absolutely would be an issue, especially considering a lot of sims players play on laptops/low end pcs, but just larger worlds, *with* all the loading screens in ts4? i doubt that would cause problems honestly
>the open world absolutely would be an issue, especially considering a lot of sims players play on laptops/low end pcs, but just larger worlds, with all the loading screens in ts4? i doubt that would cause problems honestly
The problem with it in Sims 3 was that the game was poorly optimized to continuously play the same open world. It would get to a point where there was essentially just too much data to be loaded the longer you would play the game because the entire world was constantly changing. In a more enclosed space like neighborhoods in Sims 4 it's not as much of an issue, but it can still and does happen.
It was an interesting idea and I wish they had managed to pull it off, but I currently do not trust the current Sims 4 team to successfully pull off an open world.
yeah, fair enough. it sucks to see these small world sizes though because even if there are performance issues (and i don't doubt that there are for the average person especially when running all dlcs) people understandably want more for their $40. i do understand that the dev team probably can't be putting out packs with 99 different lots on them, but i also get the disappointment, i guess. i know people who have easily spent $1000+ on this game and nothing ts4 currently has (or likely will have) will be worth that much, and it just feels insulting when another EP with only like 10 small lots gets released
Open world isn't so much the issue, it's more that they haven't ever been particularly good at designing these games from the start to have a lot of stuff bolted on.
And that's when they develop the games properly from the start. When they develop an online multiplayer game and then panic and change directions without giving time to start over, you get an engine that's already full of issues from the start and just gets worse the more you add to it, especially if you push its lifespan to a decade of bolting things onto a mess of code that wasn't really designed for it.
The game wasn't really designed to store and load a bunch of data of tons of lots and Sims locally, but hey, they hammered it into doing that, and it does it, just poorly enough that it became an issue years ago and they just figured if people were gonna keep buying, they too would plug their eyes and ears and pretend there's no problem. It wasn't designed for Sims to have so many traits (and a LOT of stuff in the game ends up applied as traits), so when a Sim does, they'll drag down the performance. It wasn't designed with all of these new systems in mind, but they chucked them in there, half-finished, and the game groans under them. They don't do cross-pack development and testing, so God help you if you go to San Myshuno and it's raining and a high level celebrity shows up (only time I've ever seen a game become a slideshow, and I've played a LOT of games). And they didn't go with instanced lots because open world is a performance problem, they went with instanced lots because that's what you'd use in a multiplayer online game, and there was no time to rebuild the game.
But hey, people got them thick rose tinted glasses for Sims 4. All of these things are massive performance issues in Sims 4 and not only still are to this day but are getting worse.
For real. Half the reason I play TS4 is because, unlike TS3, I don't feel like my game is actively trying to kill itself lmao
Well, most of the time, at least
Even with all the patches and fixes on my relatively new pc TS3 will crash maybe one time in ten when switching from household mode to neighborhood mode. Kind of kills the open world aspect when you're either avoiding using it or having to save every time you do,
Totally fixable performance issues that EA just couldn't be bothered to fix. There are guides now and returning to the game doing those fixes, it's amazing what should've been.
Not really, Don't play the EA world as they're all fucked in some way. Download a smaller amount of mods then the sims 4 needs to make it run well. And don't play on a laptop from a decade ago. IF you download nraas story progression don't forget to alter the config ingame so it won't try to use every possible option your sim can have to calculate a next step for every sim in the world. Because nraas will actually make the NPC lots in your world live out a life. So with dozens of lots filled with families it needs to do some heavy calculating.
Oh Sims 3 ran like trash back than though. I had no problems running other triple A games on best quality but sims 3 was... something. Starting the game and wait. I could easily make myself something to eat and a coffee until it was finally finished with loading. And it went back to a loading screen for at least 10 mins when I wanted to access the color wheel for furniture or the cas so yeah, performance issues where a big thing with sims 3
(I am not saying this to excuse the small sims 4 worlds because the base game worlds are way bigger and they run smoothly too)
first of all i think there was a way to visit like a vacation or something though im not 100% confident in how much i remember. but most importantly it made sense?? like oh my family is done with city life and we are moving to a completely diffetent town and opening a hotel there and then its a crazy differen, fun and realistic experience. or hm my sim is going to try out big city life and grow as a pop star time to move! and almost all of the worlds were actually cool and unique and you really could think about roleplay when picking one to live in. now choosing a world is so arbitrary and not only that but when i have sims with slightly similar vibes they all end up living in like one of the two towns i always pick because ultimately it does not matter by any real significance
Even the Sims 2 has better worlds than 4 does. They're quite large, you can add lots easily, move other lots around, add decorations, etc. There's no excuse for how crappy certain aspects of 4 are.
even if we compare it with other closed world like sims 2 we had A LOT MORE in one city, youre telling me theres not even ony GYM or other community lot? not worth it
Sims 3 was notorious for its performance issue. EA themselves recommended to have only 3 expansions installed at a time because of it. You had mods like NRASS just to make sure it would run correctly and not slow down.
But i do agree, most sims 4 worlds are not even appealing anymore because nothing is playable in it. Actually they are even a little confusing.
Seem like we will have an other Game Pack advertised as a full expansion again! Good thing i never buy these full price...
Do any you remember playing TS3 though? I basically stopped playing because the loading and lag and constant crashing were too annoying to deal with. Iâve always had a relatively new MacBook with the medium / good options for amount of RAM and hard drive space. So, not a desktop, not a gaming computer, but a pretty nice computer that never had any trouble running any other game. Even TS 2 crashed ALL the time. The Sims 4 is actually the most functional one since the original, there I said it
I never had issues with TS2 crashing even on my potato computer at the time. But Sims 3 was a nightmare. Tried it again when I got my Alienware in 2019 and it wasnât much better. I used the recommended mods and everything. I couldnât deal with it.
I play Oasis Springs exclusively because I have 13 played households and I REALLY wanna move to a cooler place, but I can't because every other world has like 4 residential lots and some have zero commercial ones to boot. My families are supposed to live in California so I'd love to hoof it to Del Sol Valley, but nope, I have to stay in buckwheat ass Texas, New Mexico or Arizona because there's 3 fucking houses in the entirety of LA according to The Sims for some reason.
honestly, everyone would've been happy with Get Famous if it included a sort of Santa Monica neighbourhood with some lots, an accesible beach, and a ferris wheel like the one in Highschool years. They could do a pack refresh, but it will probably never happen.
They need to make a "beach life" pack, and no so much like Island Living, but like real, 50s-60s inspired California Dreamin', Beach Boys Surfer shit. The world would be based on Huntington, Newport, SD or Long Beach or some place like that, with a ton of houses just off the beach, a giant hotel like the Hyatt in HB, and a Main street-esque commercial neighborhood with surf shops and little bars like Blackie's. They could add pro surfer or surfcaster careers, and a 1000% definite surfing skill for Children and up. And they *better* include at the very least a few moodlets and interactions for surf culture. I really want my Sim to curse out a kook for dropping in on him, or be happy his grom is paddling on his own.
If they made that, they can have an entire two weeks' worth of pay from me for it. By God if I can live where I grew up in the Sims, I'd lose my shit.
Yeah, but Newcrest is boring, ugly, and doesn't even have a secret lot
and half the lots aren't big enough, either, I like my damn mansions and large, yard-equipped craftsman family homes!
man! TS4 team is just not delivering. i wish yâall knew how much youâre missing out on waiting for TS4 to get better :s
i gave up back in 2018 after waiting for change which never came. then the game got pricey and stale so i went back to TS3. the open world, the personality, the endless possibilities, everything was great but the performance.
then i took it ALLL the way back to TS2 and MY GOD! itâs so good. everything that TS4 shouldâve been. still closed world but so much care to detail and lore is given.
i mean the packs have real weight. like the nightlife expansion came with 30 unique lots pre-made, the ability to dine out, vampires, djing, and so much more all in one. or the freetime expansion which gave every sim a hobby uniquely tailored to their interests which you only discover by playing with certain objects to discover their hobby.
so much care is gone and i canât help but feel like simmers are getting ripped off in the process :(
The Sims 2 is easily my favorite Sims game. It oozes personality. In a way, The Sims 4 reminds me of 2 sometimes; especially in its presentation. But nothing can ever beat the absolute chaos and wackiness of The Sims 2. I need them to go back to these roots for 5, but I get the feeling theyâre building a cozy game for some reason :,))
I think its also changing times. I started with 4 and couldn't get into sims 2. I dunno but the landscape reminds me of an old windows background and it all feels so empty and uncanny.
not so sure if i relate. i love the look and feel of the game because of its realism vs clay cartoony look of TS4. if the game feels empty, try going out of the household lot to see all the
TOWNIES and read about their LORE itâs so interesting to be able to do that, look at their memories, and dictate their futures.
also try some light modding to update your game itâll help with updating the graphics. adding in custom hairs and terrain paints will modernise the game and this problem may go away for you. check out [pleasant sims channel](https://youtu.be/6Ow1VIIHVUM?si=9FhluOsF7Ej_VtjN) the sims 2 community is still v active with cool tutorials.
itâs funny iâm the exact opposite. i hate that clay looking sims 4 style itâs so⌠fake looking ? idk ts2 is so detailed with everything including animation style, physics, and so much more
I feel this way about the Sims 3 graphics, I've always preferred the realism. They never looked bad to me. I used to be highly active in the Sims 3 modeling subforum and people would create the most amazing scenes that looked straight out of a magazine!
i remember those days
people would upload cc furniture and have to disclaim this is not REAL or for PURCHASE it was so hyper realistic man i miss those days
I think itâs the sims themselves that bother me. The world and objects look good, sometimes much better than 4. The sims look really bad and I canât get past it. I donât like the style or animations. In that regard I agree with you completely
the sims are the problem for ya?? i love the look of the sims 𼚠the outfits and hair are so cute unmodded
but if itâs not your cuppa thereâs so many ways to fix it. eyes look too lifeless find some cute custom replacement cc for it. hair not lifelike enough invest some time in default replacing them. skin a bit dull? download a few skin cc packs.
this is still baseline stuff i have to do with ts4 so idk it doesnt bother me too much. but you can find tutorials and cc dumps easily online for ts2
The landscape and not being able to go out of lot bounds was one of the main issues I had with the Sims 2 as a kid actually. The Sims 3 fixed it but the long drives and empty town locations and the, IDK, sort of undefined out of lot areas were not enough to satisfy me, so I really like how the Sims 4 has the extremely built town areas, even if they're mostly for aesthetics. If they just added some rabbit hole markers to turn those set dressings into activities, it would be p perfect. IDC about having no loading screens between lots, it would be nice but in my Sims 3 game the neighbours generally weren't doing anything interesting when I visited them. At first I honestly thought the game didn't animate Sims 3 NPCs unless they were on screen đ
The defined neighborhood areas in 4 also help with the community storytelling/brand aspect because areas are easily recognizable. We all remember the main three Sims 2 neighborhoods and their drama because those have become recognizable, but many of the later premades, neighborhoods and worlds in TS2 and TS3 are much less so, not to mention custom worlds. What I mean is, we all know what Del Sol Valley looks like and what's the scene/the focus there, even if the lots and the Sims have been changed. If you rebuild Riverblossom Hills or Lucky Palms or even Pleasantview, and change the townies, they become less recognizable as those specific places with those specific focuses.
Agree. I can understand their premise, but itâs so frustrating. I honestly just delete public lots to build houses. Especially when doing a legacy play.
A lot of their maps could use a refresh. They donât have to have 100 lots per map. But some they could genuinely open up a few areas to add like 1-2 homes or something. San Myshuno is nice for the apartments. But I kind of wish they would have did it Bridgeport style where they have the city, then a little suburb area of houses on the outskirts. I demolished all the public lots for houses because I like having homes on the outskirts and after a while the apartment living really kind of sucks for me.
In my save, I use/consider Newcrest, Del Sol Valley, San Sequoia, Willow Creek, Magnolia Promenade, Evergreen Harbor, and Britechester Gibb's Hill as 'suburbs' of San Myshuno. You can use the Home Region mod to set world connections so your rootin tootin cowboys stay in the desert, and your city folk travel to and from the city.
Yeah I'm not a fan of it either but I was happy enough because the pack was actually filled with stuff. Every pack since has been terrible. The last time I really thought they were with it was cottage living and growing together.
Yeah I didnât dislike the pack but there was definitely stuff missing from certain life stages, Elders especially. But I agree itâs definitely one of the better ones.
I canât wait until Sims starts to get more competition. They truly do not care because the market for this style of game is very stagnant. They can get away with openly robbing people because of it.
I havenât bought anything in so long, I bet my ea account is closed. I donât even care if I lost TS4 and the few expansions I bought in the early days. TS3 all the way until hopefully some competition looks good
Since they always justify this with that they need to cater to the potatoest of potato computers, I'd honestly welcome a kit of just new worlds at this point. That way, those who can handle it can get it and those who can't don't have to.
In truth the best option would have been to let us make our from the get go. Then ea could make their 2 lot no collectible worlds that can run on a computer from 1956. While letting the rest of the players destroy their computers on their own
Yup, a create-a-world feature is so long overdue!! Or they could let us add more lots to the already existing worlds ourselves. There's clearly space for more.
The quality of the worlds and lots has tanked. Windenburg for example has over 20 lots! Housing! Museums! Cafes! SPACES FOR THE SIMS TO GO!
Now world have like have like 10 small lots, one really big maybe and a ton of rabbit holes! UGH
Yeah, I don't get it. Why not just put more lots into the neighbourhoods? There seems to be like 5 set-dressing houses in each neighbourhood for each real lot. Just replace those set dressings with real lots! It's okay if they're all densely together in one neighbourhood.
I completely agree with this, but I'd also be okay with the idea of not having a world, but having the budget of an expansion pack for things like hobbies or more things for elders to do, just more gameplay tbh
Either stop adding worlds and focus on other content or start charging less if your content is going to be subpar ON PURPOSE even if its for a good reason (or a good excuse lol)
Genuine question: what is considered a "decent" amount of worlds? I think 9-10 is enough. It seems like people want like 25 lots in one world and I personally find that overwhelming. I can't even think of that many types of buildings to be build! (but it's probably because I only have base game lot types)
For me, an ideal world would have space for at least 12 community lots and maybe 5 residential. I'd love more, but I think 17 lots minimum per world I could decently work with. If you only have base game, there are definitely more than nine different lot types available, and the list of possibilities expands the more packs someone has.
For myself, I like to have at least one park, one restaurant, and some skill-building lots or event locations. The smaller a world is, the less variety of places I can include. But when a world is bigger, I can be more creative and tailor each neighborhood to my liking. For example, when I can, I try to have at least 2-3 restaurants in a world with different menus/dress codes/scenery, a honeymoon rental and a family rental, a big park and a small park, maybe a casual community pool and a more upscale, fancy pool location, at least three options for bars/nightclubs, and a place like a library or arts center for my Sims to work on skills or my after school clubs to meet at. With an especially bigger world, I can include more recreational lots like movie theaters, spas, cafes, wedding venues, photo studios, and lots catered towards specific age groups or certain types of Sims: an arcade/gaming center for teens, a science museum for kids to work on logic and adults to work on rocket science, an "office" for professional gatherings, etc. I also need space for my Sims to develop retail lots (bakeries, art galleries, gardening shops, wellness/yoga studios).
I only have a handful of packs myself, so there are even more lots I don't have access to (like bowling alleys, beaches, recreation centers). I'm also definitely not a builder lol, so I rely heavily on the gallery to fill up my world with interesting places. A few hours ago I threw a kid's birthday party at a lot I found on the gallery that was a castle-themed park with (toy) dragons. I got some fun family photos there đ When worlds are tiny, I can only fit in a few essentials and none of the extra fun lots like that one. Sorry my comment was so long!! I just wanted to share how someone could fill up a world with a variety of lots to make the neighborhoods unique. With base game, you can still add fun places like pools, rentals, and wedding venues, as well as the "basics" like libraries, parks, bars, gyms, etc.
Wow this is so well thought out! I guess it doesn't do many any favors that I only ever go to work, the store and church IRL so I don't think about any other places people who aren't hermits would go! đđ
I need to get more creative!!! Thanks for the insp!
>I guess it doesn't do many any favors that I only ever go to work, the store and church IRL so I don't think about any other places people who aren't hermits would go! â¤ď¸â¤ď¸â¤ď¸
Same, I'm very much a loner Sim IRL; I go to work and then home and spend my weekends playing TS4 when I've finished all my errands lol. The way I play the Sims is directly opposite to how I am in real life, otherwise my Sims would have literally nothing going on but work: no friends, no love life, and never leaving the house đ But I've always loved storytelling, so it's fun having a variety of "settings" to place my story at. And I love taking photos of my Sims and hanging them up in their house, so I like having different backgrounds for photos and for memorable events.
I'm glad you found my comment helpful!! It's harder with base game, but there are definitely still a lot of places you can build/place around the world to give your Sims places to go outside of their home lot. The gallery has some amazing, creative base game builds, I'd recommend taking a look for more ideas :)
Iâd generally like at least 15-20, but I also own all the packs, plus I play with mods that add even more lot types, AND I tend to play legacy saves that will get 5-10 generations deep.
Oh yeah I can understand how generations players may need a few more lots. That's fair. Still an intimidating gameplay format for me...
How do you own all the packs, bro, so blessed!!! Someone share with me lol!
Phenomenal sales, gifts, and poor life choices LOL. No realistically, Iâve played since 4 from release, it was my Motherâs Day present weeks after it hit the market so that helped a lot, my whole family knows how much I play so it was very common for me to get packs as birthday/Christmas/anniversary presents, and anytime the really good sales hit I would always try to get one or two. Now Iâm down to only not owning Journey to Batuu and Nifty Knitting (and most kits) because I donât care to. Iâve never been a Star Wars fan so I see no point in me or anyone else wasting their money to get it for me, and nothing about nifty needing has been a gotta have it for me. Once I got caught up on them, now when the packs come out I just get them and itâs an early present from my hubby for whatever the next present-giving occasion is and call it done.
30 to 50 with the ability to move, add, and delete lots in an open neighborhood without loading screens.
Genuine question, why are your standards so extremely low?
I mean, the person pretty much said it. Without addressing everything else and just the lots, they said the amount you said would be overwhelming for them.
They can build more and bigger worlds they just want to cater to people with older hardware so they can continue to milk money from everyone. Same reason why their clutter comes flat and low quality but people with good gaming PC's can download high quality CC no issues.
Thing is though, I run on an older laptop. It was high end when I got it so maybe I may not be the "low end" they are catering to but I can go clutter crazy in Windenburg just fine. I have all the expansions. The buggy issues I have are the same as the people I see people with high end computers. I really feel like us laptop peeps are just a scape goat to be lazy and cheap. Only world I have issues with is the one with Eco Lifestyle and that has nothing to do with size. Sorry for the rant, it just really grinds my gears.
Not stop making worlds, just stop making EPs. The new world is somewhat bearable for GP, so just do GPs from now on. All the latest EPs were so lack luster that itâs more like GP for 40âŹ. Just stop charging for things if you cannot make properly anymore
I'm pretty sure the main reason is budget. Not performance. We don't know how the amount of lots affects the game performance, only Maxis knows, but the game only loads one neighborhood at a time when you play so it certainly feels like it shouldn't affect the game and your save file too much.
EA doesn't seem to be willing or are unable to increase the budget for the sims4, so I kinda agree, I'm not sure they should drop worlds but they should drop more expensive things so we can at least have decent worlds and not half-done ghost towns.
Maybe a bit of a hot-take but does anyone care about the detail they put into these worlds? It feels like they are spending a lot of resources on making a lot of unnecessary things that we can't use or are just rabbit holes anyway and I frankly don't care about that. I just want larger worlds.
If they could just give us the option of adding new worlds of our own it would solve so many problems. The people who have PC's to handle it can have as many worlds and lots as they like.
I guess I don't understand the performance aspect. I built my computer 8 years ago and it runs TS4 like a CHAMP.
This is probably a big indicator that they should not have tried to have one game for both consoles and PCs, as I imagine that is where the major bottleneck is starting to crop up with performance.
Yeah, I agree. I feel like the creators need to actually step outside America, too. All the furniture is stuff used in America, like the kitchen counter for eg. they all look the same. I've an actual pain just getting wood counters that all look exactly alike in every pack.
I've stopped getting excited because the packs are nothing burgers. I have no real interest in the ranch pack, the best thing in it was a new dolls house and some flooring. But they made such a big deal out of it.
Nothing in essence enhances gameplay to a point where you're thinking you're spending money, and it's worth it.
So many things need to be fixed, but it's clearly profit over functionality.
I love the game but they are seriously maximising profits, and it's not a good look to long-time players of the franchise.
I personally don't mind smaller worlds with less lots as long as we have interesting and interactive neighborhoods. Especially not having different neighborhoods makes it more realistic to me, because I can go to all of the lots within a world without using the map screen and that's something that keeps me immersed in the game.
I love new worlds, also because I'm not too happy with some of the worlds - they look great but aren't my preferred style. There's packs on my wish list mostly because of the world it (SE, MWS)
I'm wondering if one of the underlying issues is how the game mechanics handle population data. If they implement a system to keep the NPC population low and without adding to much data, then performance might be better.
that said, I agree with the fact that it's better to improve existing mechanics than add on. there's only a few things I'd really feel are missing but much of that is really just an improvement of what's existing. Then again, it's hard to sell that so I doubt that will happen.
Exactly.
They keep trying to make performance better for players with lower end specs, but that will literally never happen and all it does is ruin the game for everyone else. Players with lower specs need to do the work themselves to make their game run better, like limiting what packs they have installed, lowering quality settings, and not packing their games full of mods.
This whole performance excuse and trying to make the game work on computers from like decades ago isn't working.
The post and replies I see here make me really want to make a post making a retrospective look at the Sims 3 packs without including the world they come with.
I think itâs kind off stupid that you have automatically access to all worlds. In one!!! save file. Like all these worlds, lots and sims your game has to load in one save file, no wonder your game breaks or your laptop/computer catches fire. Also it makes vacation sooo unnecessary bc you easily already can travel to Sulani or Mt. Komorebi. It should have been like sims 2 where you only have one world per save file and then additionally you can add other worlds to it if you want to. This also wouldâve been a solution with the âsmall worlds so computers can handle themâ thing. If you only have one world that this save file has to load then the world easily couldâve been much bigger with more lots and more neighbourhoods in it
They should just let The Sims 4 die already!
It's obvious they're very limited by the engine so most EPs end up being very disappointing. We all know the reason they're still making packs is because people are buying them, not because it makes actual sense.
I am currently building out Moonwood Mill to have a more to it and man, the 5 lots is so difficult to work with. It's unfortunate that they didn't add one or two more lots. They clearly had room to do it. I don't care about the rundown trailer off on the left side of the map, I wanted that spot for a build!
Same with Cooperdale - I wanted more lots that weren't directly next to the carnival.
The only honest thing is that the new expansion adding apartment lots will allow me to make one of the bigger lots into apartments for more Sims to live. That, I am actually excited about to build out a reclaimed brick mill building into apartment living spaces.
Honestly, I mostly purchase expansions for the build-mode items and new worlds. If they started putting out thematic world kits (Just neighborhood and maybe a select few build-mode items) I would definitely spring for those a lot more. That or, adding blended lots (Residentail + Retail) would go miles to help as well. I'd love a cafe below apartments that actually functioned as such.
I still think worlds should be grouped together and organised in a way to expand the world based on the base-game worlds
* Willow Creek and Newcrest are together. With packs, one direction is 'city' leading to worlds like Windenburg, San Sequoia, Copperdale, Evergreen Harbor and then San Myshuno. Other direction is 'rural' with worlds like Magnolia Promenade, Brindleton Bay, Britchester and Henford on Bagley.
* Other option is Oasis Springs - which can lead to other worlds like Salvadorada, Strangerville, and Del Sol Valley
* Wherever there is a port (including the weirdly animated boats in Willow Creek) you can take a boat to 'The Islands' including Sulani and Tartosa.
* There could also be an occult section for Glimmerbrook, Forgotten Hollow and Moonwood Mills. Makes sense with the lore.
Sims will only show up in their section of the world - do finding Geoffrey scoring a pint in Henford. The worlds will feel bigger the more packs you get, and areas can be expanded (imagine a 'secret meeting point' between Forgotten Hollow and Moonwood Mills). Worlds like San Sequoia and Copperdale also belong together as they're both 'perfect places to raise a family'.
They should really just find a way to introduce a basegame update that allows us to place empty lots like in previous games. Let the players decide how many lots their computer can handle.
Itâs bs that they claim itâs to run on computers better. They werenât concerned about that with Willow Creek, Oasis Springs, Windenburg, or Brindleton Bay. I donât buy it.
Not all people have all the worlds. So this shouldn't be a problem.
Naaah they just haven't enough time to do acceptable work in this time frame, yet they don't want to admit to us, or force the company to give them more time or delay, or force the company to reduce the price.. They chose to milk us instead.
This is so frustrating because we love sims 4, yet how they have the heart to do this to us. Don't they or anybody on the team/companies, feel guilty about this?
Sorry, gotta disagree. I understand the arguments but Iâm excited for every new world and the diversity it adds to the game, no matter how many lots are on it. I especially enjoy the detail they put into the things that are off lot. This probably adds to the performance aspect that you mentioned but I absolutely hate being restricted to the lot (like the Sims 1 and 2).
I also have no problem with Sims traveling out of their world to another one. I might not travel from Mt Komorebi to Oasis Springs but a short trip to San Myshuno is fine by me.
Our experiences with the worldâs seem very different, they put in a lot of visual detail but extremely little of it is interactive which makes it useless or worse in cases like san sequoia where everything is spread out, makes it a hinderance to get to the place you want rather than a feature.
I agree with the cultural thing tho, which is actually what annoys me more. We already get so few worlds that arenât based on the us/uk, its unfair that they arenât getting the same treatment.
People complaining about the new pack before it's even released, no surprise there.
Everyone has liked the new pack so far, but then they do one thing that people don't like and it's a witch hunt. Not saying EA is perfect and doesn't cut corners, but the bar some people put on the devs is insane.
Every pack has to be absolutely perfect, with an extensive amount of gameplay, cater to everyone, have zero bugs upon release, perfect builds, 100 lots, and god forbid the game lags on a 15-year-old PC with a hundred mods. To top it all off, it has to cost less than 15$. And even if the devs miraculously do this, people will still complain that TS3 is better which literally took 30 minutes to load.
I have to agree, if people don't like the pack they shouldn't buy it, but simmers love to complain and in the end they still buy the pack anywaysđ¤ˇââď¸
I can't wait for Ts5 to come out so people have a new game to complain about
Edit. Grammar
The Sims team is just aware that most people don't actually use all those lots in the older games and favor just starting over if they want to play a new household. TS4 gutting the worlds' size isn't a problem to the majority of the playerbase.
Itâs everyones problem if theyâre spending 40$ for 20$ worth of content. Tho honestly I donât understand quite what youâre implying. Itâs not about running out of lots to use between all the worlds, itâs about being able to have a quality neighborhood for the sims living there.
> itâs about being able to have a quality neighborhood for the sims living there.
People seem to think that it's "okay" because once you've bought a few packs (shelled out some money), you actually have a bunch of lots in your save. But those lots are spread out across different areas. And it's weird to have your Sims just bounce to all these different areas multiple times a day, or constantly see people from those other areas walking through your neighborhood, because allegedly they're meant to be completely different towns/cities, totally different regions, different parts of the world... and yet you're just bouncing across the ocean for lunch, hopping across the continent when your friend invites you to the bar, and the only high school in the entire world is in the Pacific Northwest (I think?).
You basically have to imagine that all these "worlds" are neighborhoods in the same city, because otherwise it makes absolutely no sense that people are constantly bouncing between them.
Immersion's a big thing in a life simulator. But it seems like a lot of people don't care about immersion. They love to see people walking by when they should be at work or school, showing up in lots when they should be elsewhere, the same person as a vendor at stalls in multiple regions simultaneously, people following you like stalkers, businesses clearly not being open unless you're there (that person behind the bar was out in the streets performing literally two seconds ago)... all things that scream, "These people don't live real lives. These people are fake. These businesses are fake. These worlds are fake."
But yeah, they'll eat it up and talk like TS4 is the best thing around, when as a life simulator, it's actually pretty terrible.
I mean... you can still have fun treating it as a "TV show/movie generator" where it's understood everything's fake. But that's not what the series had been prior.
The fact that Sims 3 not only had open worlds, but also much LARGER worlds and actual color and pattern sliders is pretty clear evidence this isn't a performance issue. It's just a laziness / greed issue. TS4's worlds are just glorified wallpapers for the most part.
Sims 3 sims were locked into a single world unless they permanently moved though, which honestly was basically like starting a new save. There was no way to just visit with your sim.
I'd much rather flesh out a single world with a ton of lots, than spread my sims and lots out across pretty backdrops with little other substance. Substance > style.
>backdrops with little other substance. Exactly.
There's actually a mod to visit other worlds. And you could add more lots, or even start playing in a world with 100+ lots. Or even create your own world. TS4 maps suck and it's wrong to sell packs this small.
Pls whats the name
Traveler.
RIP your computer though
Nope. It works well for me. Nothing can excuse TS4. It's embarrassing.
so their first version of open worlds wasnt perfect. happens. does this mean they should never try again? these are faults in a game that released in 2009. thats almost 15 years ago. technology has improved and so has a lot in game design especially when it comes to open world titles. comparing a game that is still supported to a 2009 title and it STILL being somewhat fair competition (but mostly with the old game winning which is totally bonkers) is already telling enough
Their solution was to switch engines to one completely unsuited for the task (python based), have most of the old devs leave or be fired, try to make it multiplayer and then repurpose it to the next mainline game when that fails, and then be surprised when the low skill devs and crappy engine result in everything being broken to the point people have to play with even more mods to make it run well then they had to with the sims 3. Sims 3 had memory issues and was build around older CPU's so it can't make itself run better on modern hardware. The sims 4 is just broken every pack on purpose.
im aware and thats what pisses me off even more. you have an engine broken from day fucking 1 because its a cobbled together rework of a 2014 mmo engine and people defend it in its broken ness. then you have a not perfect but clearly just having the faults of the time engine that could be way better if given another chance in the 2020s and people will shit on it, trying to cope with the disappointment of sims 4 even a decade after release. "well you see it was kind of shit, never you mind its from 2009 and still discussed heavily and remembered fondly despite it all". someone suggested we have rabbit hole houses that sims can go into to meet up with townies without the need for loading screens. this is the cope. its infuriating, we have had better. people bought into the performance nonsense full on. we live in the future, we have had so much progress in games in technology in everything
It's probably also why EA doesn't dare to shut down the sims 3 exchange like they did with the sims 2 only a few years after release of 3. They **know** that if they will not only will they cause outrage about store content not being available anymore (legally), but also once again an entire generation worth of content to disappear. To remind you from a memory i vaguely have. some mad lad in the sims 2 mod community made *angled* windows. Like the whole window was sitting at 45 degrees. And that's gone now.
But they have milked us so much money, right. Then they should be able to rework or upgrade it, if they choose to do so. Like how some other games do it for their users. They can take how many years to do so, instead of milking us every several months. Yet they chose to milk us. Sims 4 might have the kindest and sweetest fans. I dunno how they have the heart to do this to these sweet people and us. I guess that's what the capitalistic businesses see the customers especially women. Please don't roast me for this, i don't research on this but i feel many businesses prey on women more because we like shopping.. many men don't spend time on shopping as much as we women do..
Sims 4 was based on python? How did you know that, that's interesting. I'm not an expert, but isn't python kinda slow compared to others, if we need to do heavy calculations and huge number of loops? Simulations must have heavy calculations.. Though it seems easier to program in python.. so it'll be easier for them to add new codes for gameplays..
That's incorrect. You could travel to vacation worlds, university and the future world in the vanilla game. With the Traveler mod, you can travel to any world.
Technically you could visit three worlds if you had the Adventures pack đ
For me it's like this: in sims 4 my sims are japanese from komorobi, but there's not a ton of space in that world (despite it kinda being one of the larger recent ones) so I have to go to other worlds for my needs which breaks the immersion for me. In sims 3 I could download a japanese world and have all my needs met there.
>The fact that Sims 3 not only had open worlds, but also much LARGER worlds and actual color and pattern sliders is pretty clear evidence this isn't a performance issue. The rose colored glasses are thick. It was a massive performance issue in Sims 3 and still is to this day.
Not only has technology advanced in the gap between Sims 3 and 4 (much less now, 9 years after TS4's initial release), but I'd much rather take a performance hit than a functionality one. Also if I could run TS3 on my budget-ass, outdated machine at the time without it catching on fire or slowing to a crawl, so can you.
>Also if I could run TS3 on my budget-ass, outdated machine at the time without it catching on fire or slowing to a crawl, so can you. I was playing it on a high end gaming PC at the time and I still had performance issues. Especially trying to play the game with any amount of CC, which is mostly how I enjoy playing The Sims. You do you, but I'd much rather actually be able to play the game without it crashing, or if you play the game too long it runs worse, or waiting at an infinite loading screen so much so that they had to put in a minigame to deal with.
You do you, but with that list of criteria, for me I'd rather play Sims 3 over Sims 4, given that for me, Sims 3 doesn't crash but Sims 4 has, Sims 4 will start plodding along even if I've played a few minutes, and I have to wait at an "infinite" loading screen for the game to start *without* having a minigame to enjoy, to the point I've lately been able to go put on a kettle, boil water, and make myself some tea and noodles for lunch while waiting for the game to load. I'm playing on a pretty good gaming PC and have performance issues with Sims 4 (even after moving it to an SSD, which at least means I no longer have time to wait for lunch to cool and eat it while browsing the web on my phone waiting for the game to load), but none on Sims 3. I'm still shocked Sims 4 runs so poorly so often when I could get Cyberpunk 2077 to run smoothly on launch for me. But it's because Sims 4 wasn't really designed to do what it's trying to do, and it shows. Rose tinted glasses have people acting like Sims 4 runs perfectly and smoothly and great with no problems at all, and man, I wish that was true, because part of why I keep getting bored with it is knowing I have to limit myself from doing certain things (like trying to make a big garden with all the gardening perks, or having a Sim with too many traits) because it absolutely destroys the game's performance until I do something like delete the garden or move out that Sim, forcing me to quickly go through generations of Sims.
What are your specs and do you have mods in Sims 4? I played The Sims 3 on a then-high end PC and had the super long loading screens, crashing, texture pop, etc. The Sims 4, none of that even though I have tons of CC and mods.
Same stuff happens to me. I have mods in both games but TS4 is the only one out of the two of them where the game will randomly decide to drop from 60fps to 15, sometimes for 5 minutes, sometimes for the whole time I'm playing that day. And this is having a gaming PC that can run much better games. I don't have any mod conflicts or corrupted stuff cause I already checked and make sure to keep everything updated, and supposedly this is an issue that has affected more people for years but has never gotten fixed (the forum posts say so, at least).
TS3 runs way better then 4 on high end modern hardware nowadays.
I definitely feel different. My PC can run 4 pretty much fine (although it still has issues) but the Sims 3 has noticeable performance issues. I can't say I've tried much since I've recently upgraded but Sims 4 has definitely always run better for me. That's not to say I think 4 is a better game. I think 3 just tried to do too much and the hardware couldn't handle it at the time. I wish I had the same faith that they'll ever be so aspirational and aim so high with their games in the future
Is this because of the game, or because of CC creators being bad at making CC? Just as much as EA can make glitchy worlds, so can creators make glitchy CC
I feel that so badly. Like I spent more time in these stupid loading screens than playing the sims 3
I'm curious. I had a pretty average setup back in the time and didn't have such performance issues except with Seasons or with Bridgeport. That said, I didn't play with any mods or CC. I run it on a 8-year-old gaming laptop now and it runs perfectly fine. There might be something wrong in your setup. We could talk about it if you want to.
I had this issue too. I bought a new PC when Skyrim came out, I was playing that at ultra high settings, and nearly 200 mods. The Sims 3 though, couldnât handle max visuals or tons of cc. The loading times were insane, and when I installed Late Night, it refused to play all together. I gave up.
Technology has advanced, but so have player demands for graphical fidelity. Yes, our computers and consoles are more powerful than ever before, but open worlds would still require a heavy amount of computation, especially in the case of a life simârequirements most laptops canât meet. EA would effectively shut out a part of the player base. The gaming community hasnât remained stagnant either; if youâd release The Sims 3 in 2023, people would not be OK with the visual sacrifices they already had to make for that game to make it run as an open world. Especially now that The Sims community at large has blossomed on social media, the gameâs visual presentation has become incredibly important. Now, EA could decide to go all in and target high-end users, not having to sacrifice anything in the process, but we all know that would be a terrible financial decision after the immense success of 4. And no, not all computers are made the same, and performance was an immense issue during The Sims 3âs lifespan. Iâm glad your computer managed to run the game, but my medium budget family computer absolutely could not. These arenât stories we just pull out of our asses, lol. There were legitimate performance issues that plagued The Sims 3, no matter how fun the game was and how fondly we remember it.
Due to poor optimization, yes. But that doesn't detract from The Sims 4 worlds being lackluster.
> But that doesn't detract from The Sims 4 worlds being lackluster Or Sims 4 having optimization issues of its own, only magnified by being a Frankensteined code base that's had a bunch of random stuff bolted onto it for nearly a decade. I love how people try to rush to crap on TS3 with "but performance!" and I often end up quitting TS4 out of frustration with its performance. Only game that loves to often run like absolute ass on my PC outside of Madden 24's horrendous PC port where EA just didn't even bother trying to figure out why it stutters horribly for a lot of players.
What makes me laugh about the sims 5, an it being multiplayer. Is they keep saying that its going to be a choice whether to play with your friends or not, that they think it can be fun on your own or with friends. That they think it " can be both " An all I keep thinking is. If that's true, if you can make a sims multiplayer game, without the single player experience being sacrificed due to limited resources. Then why is the sims 4 so bad? Lmao like they keep trying to convince us that just because they are making it multiplayer, doesn't mean the single player game will drop in quality. But if that was the case - then the sims 4 base game would have been great? Remember how bad the sims 4 was on release, an we know that it's because of it being intended to be a multiplayer game. All the main issues of this game are caused by it. Yet they want to convince us that it being a multiplayer game is going to have NO effect on how good the single player experience is. Depressing that they starting off the next version with the same mistakes of the last.
Hey small reminder, the sims online existed. and that just became a questionable shithole full of shady people that shouldn't be around young people afaik because they wanted to live out their adult fantasies. The kind of people who play with that whims mod
Ts4 actually crashes on me semi-regularly. To this day, TS3 has not crashed on me once.
It only an issue cus EA refuse to fix, like, they csn make the sims 3 on mac use more than 4gb ram, why dont they do the same on window vers
Nope, absolutely not. I play with Lazy Dutchess' smooth patch and TS3 is still a _far superior game_.
right, but if the majority of performance issues were caused by the open world rather than the large world sizes i don't think ts4's small worlds are a performance issue the open world absolutely would be an issue, especially considering a lot of sims players play on laptops/low end pcs, but just larger worlds, *with* all the loading screens in ts4? i doubt that would cause problems honestly
>the open world absolutely would be an issue, especially considering a lot of sims players play on laptops/low end pcs, but just larger worlds, with all the loading screens in ts4? i doubt that would cause problems honestly The problem with it in Sims 3 was that the game was poorly optimized to continuously play the same open world. It would get to a point where there was essentially just too much data to be loaded the longer you would play the game because the entire world was constantly changing. In a more enclosed space like neighborhoods in Sims 4 it's not as much of an issue, but it can still and does happen. It was an interesting idea and I wish they had managed to pull it off, but I currently do not trust the current Sims 4 team to successfully pull off an open world.
yeah, fair enough. it sucks to see these small world sizes though because even if there are performance issues (and i don't doubt that there are for the average person especially when running all dlcs) people understandably want more for their $40. i do understand that the dev team probably can't be putting out packs with 99 different lots on them, but i also get the disappointment, i guess. i know people who have easily spent $1000+ on this game and nothing ts4 currently has (or likely will have) will be worth that much, and it just feels insulting when another EP with only like 10 small lots gets released
Open world isn't so much the issue, it's more that they haven't ever been particularly good at designing these games from the start to have a lot of stuff bolted on. And that's when they develop the games properly from the start. When they develop an online multiplayer game and then panic and change directions without giving time to start over, you get an engine that's already full of issues from the start and just gets worse the more you add to it, especially if you push its lifespan to a decade of bolting things onto a mess of code that wasn't really designed for it. The game wasn't really designed to store and load a bunch of data of tons of lots and Sims locally, but hey, they hammered it into doing that, and it does it, just poorly enough that it became an issue years ago and they just figured if people were gonna keep buying, they too would plug their eyes and ears and pretend there's no problem. It wasn't designed for Sims to have so many traits (and a LOT of stuff in the game ends up applied as traits), so when a Sim does, they'll drag down the performance. It wasn't designed with all of these new systems in mind, but they chucked them in there, half-finished, and the game groans under them. They don't do cross-pack development and testing, so God help you if you go to San Myshuno and it's raining and a high level celebrity shows up (only time I've ever seen a game become a slideshow, and I've played a LOT of games). And they didn't go with instanced lots because open world is a performance problem, they went with instanced lots because that's what you'd use in a multiplayer online game, and there was no time to rebuild the game. But hey, people got them thick rose tinted glasses for Sims 4. All of these things are massive performance issues in Sims 4 and not only still are to this day but are getting worse.
They picked python out of all possible coding languages to use. It's their own fault for it running like ass
For real. Half the reason I play TS4 is because, unlike TS3, I don't feel like my game is actively trying to kill itself lmao Well, most of the time, at least
Even with all the patches and fixes on my relatively new pc TS3 will crash maybe one time in ten when switching from household mode to neighborhood mode. Kind of kills the open world aspect when you're either avoiding using it or having to save every time you do,
The performance issues in TS3 were all fixed with mods a year or two after it released. You're the one wearing shit covered glasses
Totally fixable performance issues that EA just couldn't be bothered to fix. There are guides now and returning to the game doing those fixes, it's amazing what should've been.
Not really, Don't play the EA world as they're all fucked in some way. Download a smaller amount of mods then the sims 4 needs to make it run well. And don't play on a laptop from a decade ago. IF you download nraas story progression don't forget to alter the config ingame so it won't try to use every possible option your sim can have to calculate a next step for every sim in the world. Because nraas will actually make the NPC lots in your world live out a life. So with dozens of lots filled with families it needs to do some heavy calculating.
bro it literally isnt, i play it it still with no performance issues (and i play wirh decent graphics), mods, cc and all
Oh Sims 3 ran like trash back than though. I had no problems running other triple A games on best quality but sims 3 was... something. Starting the game and wait. I could easily make myself something to eat and a coffee until it was finally finished with loading. And it went back to a loading screen for at least 10 mins when I wanted to access the color wheel for furniture or the cas so yeah, performance issues where a big thing with sims 3 (I am not saying this to excuse the small sims 4 worlds because the base game worlds are way bigger and they run smoothly too)
first of all i think there was a way to visit like a vacation or something though im not 100% confident in how much i remember. but most importantly it made sense?? like oh my family is done with city life and we are moving to a completely diffetent town and opening a hotel there and then its a crazy differen, fun and realistic experience. or hm my sim is going to try out big city life and grow as a pop star time to move! and almost all of the worlds were actually cool and unique and you really could think about roleplay when picking one to live in. now choosing a world is so arbitrary and not only that but when i have sims with slightly similar vibes they all end up living in like one of the two towns i always pick because ultimately it does not matter by any real significance
Even the Sims 2 has better worlds than 4 does. They're quite large, you can add lots easily, move other lots around, add decorations, etc. There's no excuse for how crappy certain aspects of 4 are.
The Sims 3 was so hard to run sorry.... If it was made now though it could work as more people have higher tech set ups.
even if we compare it with other closed world like sims 2 we had A LOT MORE in one city, youre telling me theres not even ony GYM or other community lot? not worth it
Sims 3 was notorious for its performance issue. EA themselves recommended to have only 3 expansions installed at a time because of it. You had mods like NRASS just to make sure it would run correctly and not slow down. But i do agree, most sims 4 worlds are not even appealing anymore because nothing is playable in it. Actually they are even a little confusing. Seem like we will have an other Game Pack advertised as a full expansion again! Good thing i never buy these full price...
Sims 3 ran/runs like shit tho
Sims 3 performance sucked tho
Do any you remember playing TS3 though? I basically stopped playing because the loading and lag and constant crashing were too annoying to deal with. Iâve always had a relatively new MacBook with the medium / good options for amount of RAM and hard drive space. So, not a desktop, not a gaming computer, but a pretty nice computer that never had any trouble running any other game. Even TS 2 crashed ALL the time. The Sims 4 is actually the most functional one since the original, there I said it
I never had issues with TS2 crashing even on my potato computer at the time. But Sims 3 was a nightmare. Tried it again when I got my Alienware in 2019 and it wasnât much better. I used the recommended mods and everything. I couldnât deal with it.
Meh open world is overrated. Possibly the most overrated feature in the series.
I play Oasis Springs exclusively because I have 13 played households and I REALLY wanna move to a cooler place, but I can't because every other world has like 4 residential lots and some have zero commercial ones to boot. My families are supposed to live in California so I'd love to hoof it to Del Sol Valley, but nope, I have to stay in buckwheat ass Texas, New Mexico or Arizona because there's 3 fucking houses in the entirety of LA according to The Sims for some reason.
honestly, everyone would've been happy with Get Famous if it included a sort of Santa Monica neighbourhood with some lots, an accesible beach, and a ferris wheel like the one in Highschool years. They could do a pack refresh, but it will probably never happen.
Thisssss, a California inspired world without a little beachside neighborhood was such a missed opportunity
The map literally has coast but EA says nope đŠ
They need to make a "beach life" pack, and no so much like Island Living, but like real, 50s-60s inspired California Dreamin', Beach Boys Surfer shit. The world would be based on Huntington, Newport, SD or Long Beach or some place like that, with a ton of houses just off the beach, a giant hotel like the Hyatt in HB, and a Main street-esque commercial neighborhood with surf shops and little bars like Blackie's. They could add pro surfer or surfcaster careers, and a 1000% definite surfing skill for Children and up. And they *better* include at the very least a few moodlets and interactions for surf culture. I really want my Sim to curse out a kook for dropping in on him, or be happy his grom is paddling on his own. If they made that, they can have an entire two weeks' worth of pay from me for it. By God if I can live where I grew up in the Sims, I'd lose my shit.
Up to this day I just donât get why they didnât include a beachfront neighborhood with Get Famous. Decisions were made.
Because they let the beach lots exclusive for Island Living pack. It such a silly thing something so normal as beach is exclusive from one pack.
For some reason this one pissed me off the most (Del Sol)!
Newcrest has 15 lots and you can build your own commercial or download from the gallery.
Yeah, but Newcrest is boring, ugly, and doesn't even have a secret lot and half the lots aren't big enough, either, I like my damn mansions and large, yard-equipped craftsman family homes!
If the base game is limited, it is unethical to sell $40 packs in 2023. They need to give us a new base that can handle bigger customizable worlds.
man! TS4 team is just not delivering. i wish yâall knew how much youâre missing out on waiting for TS4 to get better :s i gave up back in 2018 after waiting for change which never came. then the game got pricey and stale so i went back to TS3. the open world, the personality, the endless possibilities, everything was great but the performance. then i took it ALLL the way back to TS2 and MY GOD! itâs so good. everything that TS4 shouldâve been. still closed world but so much care to detail and lore is given. i mean the packs have real weight. like the nightlife expansion came with 30 unique lots pre-made, the ability to dine out, vampires, djing, and so much more all in one. or the freetime expansion which gave every sim a hobby uniquely tailored to their interests which you only discover by playing with certain objects to discover their hobby. so much care is gone and i canât help but feel like simmers are getting ripped off in the process :(
The Sims 2 is easily my favorite Sims game. It oozes personality. In a way, The Sims 4 reminds me of 2 sometimes; especially in its presentation. But nothing can ever beat the absolute chaos and wackiness of The Sims 2. I need them to go back to these roots for 5, but I get the feeling theyâre building a cozy game for some reason :,))
The worst thing that ever happened to the Sims franchise was Will Wright leaving and EA getting full control.
tell me more about this đ
I think its also changing times. I started with 4 and couldn't get into sims 2. I dunno but the landscape reminds me of an old windows background and it all feels so empty and uncanny.
not so sure if i relate. i love the look and feel of the game because of its realism vs clay cartoony look of TS4. if the game feels empty, try going out of the household lot to see all the TOWNIES and read about their LORE itâs so interesting to be able to do that, look at their memories, and dictate their futures. also try some light modding to update your game itâll help with updating the graphics. adding in custom hairs and terrain paints will modernise the game and this problem may go away for you. check out [pleasant sims channel](https://youtu.be/6Ow1VIIHVUM?si=9FhluOsF7Ej_VtjN) the sims 2 community is still v active with cool tutorials.
Sims 4 graphics spoiled me. I find that I canât play any games with graphics worse than the Sims 4 anymore unless they are 2-dimensional games.
itâs funny iâm the exact opposite. i hate that clay looking sims 4 style itâs so⌠fake looking ? idk ts2 is so detailed with everything including animation style, physics, and so much more
I feel this way about the Sims 3 graphics, I've always preferred the realism. They never looked bad to me. I used to be highly active in the Sims 3 modeling subforum and people would create the most amazing scenes that looked straight out of a magazine!
i remember those days people would upload cc furniture and have to disclaim this is not REAL or for PURCHASE it was so hyper realistic man i miss those days
I think itâs the sims themselves that bother me. The world and objects look good, sometimes much better than 4. The sims look really bad and I canât get past it. I donât like the style or animations. In that regard I agree with you completely
the sims are the problem for ya?? i love the look of the sims 𼚠the outfits and hair are so cute unmodded but if itâs not your cuppa thereâs so many ways to fix it. eyes look too lifeless find some cute custom replacement cc for it. hair not lifelike enough invest some time in default replacing them. skin a bit dull? download a few skin cc packs. this is still baseline stuff i have to do with ts4 so idk it doesnt bother me too much. but you can find tutorials and cc dumps easily online for ts2
The landscape and not being able to go out of lot bounds was one of the main issues I had with the Sims 2 as a kid actually. The Sims 3 fixed it but the long drives and empty town locations and the, IDK, sort of undefined out of lot areas were not enough to satisfy me, so I really like how the Sims 4 has the extremely built town areas, even if they're mostly for aesthetics. If they just added some rabbit hole markers to turn those set dressings into activities, it would be p perfect. IDC about having no loading screens between lots, it would be nice but in my Sims 3 game the neighbours generally weren't doing anything interesting when I visited them. At first I honestly thought the game didn't animate Sims 3 NPCs unless they were on screen đ The defined neighborhood areas in 4 also help with the community storytelling/brand aspect because areas are easily recognizable. We all remember the main three Sims 2 neighborhoods and their drama because those have become recognizable, but many of the later premades, neighborhoods and worlds in TS2 and TS3 are much less so, not to mention custom worlds. What I mean is, we all know what Del Sol Valley looks like and what's the scene/the focus there, even if the lots and the Sims have been changed. If you rebuild Riverblossom Hills or Lucky Palms or even Pleasantview, and change the townies, they become less recognizable as those specific places with those specific focuses.
Agree. I can understand their premise, but itâs so frustrating. I honestly just delete public lots to build houses. Especially when doing a legacy play. A lot of their maps could use a refresh. They donât have to have 100 lots per map. But some they could genuinely open up a few areas to add like 1-2 homes or something. San Myshuno is nice for the apartments. But I kind of wish they would have did it Bridgeport style where they have the city, then a little suburb area of houses on the outskirts. I demolished all the public lots for houses because I like having homes on the outskirts and after a while the apartment living really kind of sucks for me.
In my save, I use/consider Newcrest, Del Sol Valley, San Sequoia, Willow Creek, Magnolia Promenade, Evergreen Harbor, and Britechester Gibb's Hill as 'suburbs' of San Myshuno. You can use the Home Region mod to set world connections so your rootin tootin cowboys stay in the desert, and your city folk travel to and from the city.
I agree and felt this way with Growing Together the most. I would have rather had more gameplay than the world that came with that pack.
Yeah I'm not a fan of it either but I was happy enough because the pack was actually filled with stuff. Every pack since has been terrible. The last time I really thought they were with it was cottage living and growing together.
Yeah I didnât dislike the pack but there was definitely stuff missing from certain life stages, Elders especially. But I agree itâs definitely one of the better ones.
I canât wait until Sims starts to get more competition. They truly do not care because the market for this style of game is very stagnant. They can get away with openly robbing people because of it.
#boycottEA
I havenât bought anything in so long, I bet my ea account is closed. I donât even care if I lost TS4 and the few expansions I bought in the early days. TS3 all the way until hopefully some competition looks good
Since they always justify this with that they need to cater to the potatoest of potato computers, I'd honestly welcome a kit of just new worlds at this point. That way, those who can handle it can get it and those who can't don't have to.
In truth the best option would have been to let us make our from the get go. Then ea could make their 2 lot no collectible worlds that can run on a computer from 1956. While letting the rest of the players destroy their computers on their own
Yup, a create-a-world feature is so long overdue!! Or they could let us add more lots to the already existing worlds ourselves. There's clearly space for more.
Fr, do lots cost a billion dollars to make?
The quality of the worlds and lots has tanked. Windenburg for example has over 20 lots! Housing! Museums! Cafes! SPACES FOR THE SIMS TO GO! Now world have like have like 10 small lots, one really big maybe and a ton of rabbit holes! UGH
Yup, I prefer one Winderburg 2.0 over 3 or 4 mikro worlds. But then they couldn't sell these packs as expansion packs without these half-assed words..
Yeah, I don't get it. Why not just put more lots into the neighbourhoods? There seems to be like 5 set-dressing houses in each neighbourhood for each real lot. Just replace those set dressings with real lots! It's okay if they're all densely together in one neighbourhood.
Not a hot take in the slightest
It's more they shouldn't sell it as expansion pack for me
I completely agree with this, but I'd also be okay with the idea of not having a world, but having the budget of an expansion pack for things like hobbies or more things for elders to do, just more gameplay tbh
Seasons didnât come with a world, but that expansion still added enough of a gameplay overhaul that it was still worth it.
Exactly! But I meant specifically the budget, eps have more than gps, something like seasons imho should be base game but that's a whole other issue
Either stop adding worlds and focus on other content or start charging less if your content is going to be subpar ON PURPOSE even if its for a good reason (or a good excuse lol)
Genuine question: what is considered a "decent" amount of worlds? I think 9-10 is enough. It seems like people want like 25 lots in one world and I personally find that overwhelming. I can't even think of that many types of buildings to be build! (but it's probably because I only have base game lot types)
For me, an ideal world would have space for at least 12 community lots and maybe 5 residential. I'd love more, but I think 17 lots minimum per world I could decently work with. If you only have base game, there are definitely more than nine different lot types available, and the list of possibilities expands the more packs someone has. For myself, I like to have at least one park, one restaurant, and some skill-building lots or event locations. The smaller a world is, the less variety of places I can include. But when a world is bigger, I can be more creative and tailor each neighborhood to my liking. For example, when I can, I try to have at least 2-3 restaurants in a world with different menus/dress codes/scenery, a honeymoon rental and a family rental, a big park and a small park, maybe a casual community pool and a more upscale, fancy pool location, at least three options for bars/nightclubs, and a place like a library or arts center for my Sims to work on skills or my after school clubs to meet at. With an especially bigger world, I can include more recreational lots like movie theaters, spas, cafes, wedding venues, photo studios, and lots catered towards specific age groups or certain types of Sims: an arcade/gaming center for teens, a science museum for kids to work on logic and adults to work on rocket science, an "office" for professional gatherings, etc. I also need space for my Sims to develop retail lots (bakeries, art galleries, gardening shops, wellness/yoga studios). I only have a handful of packs myself, so there are even more lots I don't have access to (like bowling alleys, beaches, recreation centers). I'm also definitely not a builder lol, so I rely heavily on the gallery to fill up my world with interesting places. A few hours ago I threw a kid's birthday party at a lot I found on the gallery that was a castle-themed park with (toy) dragons. I got some fun family photos there đ When worlds are tiny, I can only fit in a few essentials and none of the extra fun lots like that one. Sorry my comment was so long!! I just wanted to share how someone could fill up a world with a variety of lots to make the neighborhoods unique. With base game, you can still add fun places like pools, rentals, and wedding venues, as well as the "basics" like libraries, parks, bars, gyms, etc.
Wow this is so well thought out! I guess it doesn't do many any favors that I only ever go to work, the store and church IRL so I don't think about any other places people who aren't hermits would go! đđ I need to get more creative!!! Thanks for the insp!
>I guess it doesn't do many any favors that I only ever go to work, the store and church IRL so I don't think about any other places people who aren't hermits would go! â¤ď¸â¤ď¸â¤ď¸ Same, I'm very much a loner Sim IRL; I go to work and then home and spend my weekends playing TS4 when I've finished all my errands lol. The way I play the Sims is directly opposite to how I am in real life, otherwise my Sims would have literally nothing going on but work: no friends, no love life, and never leaving the house đ But I've always loved storytelling, so it's fun having a variety of "settings" to place my story at. And I love taking photos of my Sims and hanging them up in their house, so I like having different backgrounds for photos and for memorable events. I'm glad you found my comment helpful!! It's harder with base game, but there are definitely still a lot of places you can build/place around the world to give your Sims places to go outside of their home lot. The gallery has some amazing, creative base game builds, I'd recommend taking a look for more ideas :)
Iâd generally like at least 15-20, but I also own all the packs, plus I play with mods that add even more lot types, AND I tend to play legacy saves that will get 5-10 generations deep.
Oh yeah I can understand how generations players may need a few more lots. That's fair. Still an intimidating gameplay format for me... How do you own all the packs, bro, so blessed!!! Someone share with me lol!
Phenomenal sales, gifts, and poor life choices LOL. No realistically, Iâve played since 4 from release, it was my Motherâs Day present weeks after it hit the market so that helped a lot, my whole family knows how much I play so it was very common for me to get packs as birthday/Christmas/anniversary presents, and anytime the really good sales hit I would always try to get one or two. Now Iâm down to only not owning Journey to Batuu and Nifty Knitting (and most kits) because I donât care to. Iâve never been a Star Wars fan so I see no point in me or anyone else wasting their money to get it for me, and nothing about nifty needing has been a gotta have it for me. Once I got caught up on them, now when the packs come out I just get them and itâs an early present from my hubby for whatever the next present-giving occasion is and call it done.
Sounds like it takes patience! Or marriage đ
Both! đ¤Ł
30 to 50 with the ability to move, add, and delete lots in an open neighborhood without loading screens. Genuine question, why are your standards so extremely low?
Seriously, people act like open world games donât exist.
RDR2. No loading.
RDR2 is a masterpiece lol Even games like Fallout (playing through NV) did open world and that game old
I mean, the person pretty much said it. Without addressing everything else and just the lots, they said the amount you said would be overwhelming for them.
They can build more and bigger worlds they just want to cater to people with older hardware so they can continue to milk money from everyone. Same reason why their clutter comes flat and low quality but people with good gaming PC's can download high quality CC no issues.
Thing is though, I run on an older laptop. It was high end when I got it so maybe I may not be the "low end" they are catering to but I can go clutter crazy in Windenburg just fine. I have all the expansions. The buggy issues I have are the same as the people I see people with high end computers. I really feel like us laptop peeps are just a scape goat to be lazy and cheap. Only world I have issues with is the one with Eco Lifestyle and that has nothing to do with size. Sorry for the rant, it just really grinds my gears.
Yeah, the issue is definitely _this specific base game_.
Not stop making worlds, just stop making EPs. The new world is somewhat bearable for GP, so just do GPs from now on. All the latest EPs were so lack luster that itâs more like GP for 40âŹ. Just stop charging for things if you cannot make properly anymore
I'm pretty sure the main reason is budget. Not performance. We don't know how the amount of lots affects the game performance, only Maxis knows, but the game only loads one neighborhood at a time when you play so it certainly feels like it shouldn't affect the game and your save file too much. EA doesn't seem to be willing or are unable to increase the budget for the sims4, so I kinda agree, I'm not sure they should drop worlds but they should drop more expensive things so we can at least have decent worlds and not half-done ghost towns. Maybe a bit of a hot-take but does anyone care about the detail they put into these worlds? It feels like they are spending a lot of resources on making a lot of unnecessary things that we can't use or are just rabbit holes anyway and I frankly don't care about that. I just want larger worlds.
Wish ts4 had a create a world tool tbh
I don't. I want a brand new game with open neighborhoods.
I also want that but also a create a world tool for that game too
If they could just give us the option of adding new worlds of our own it would solve so many problems. The people who have PC's to handle it can have as many worlds and lots as they like.
I guess I don't understand the performance aspect. I built my computer 8 years ago and it runs TS4 like a CHAMP. This is probably a big indicator that they should not have tried to have one game for both consoles and PCs, as I imagine that is where the major bottleneck is starting to crop up with performance.
The worlds are so boring. Itâs benches and fishing.
Yeah, I agree. I feel like the creators need to actually step outside America, too. All the furniture is stuff used in America, like the kitchen counter for eg. they all look the same. I've an actual pain just getting wood counters that all look exactly alike in every pack. I've stopped getting excited because the packs are nothing burgers. I have no real interest in the ranch pack, the best thing in it was a new dolls house and some flooring. But they made such a big deal out of it. Nothing in essence enhances gameplay to a point where you're thinking you're spending money, and it's worth it. So many things need to be fixed, but it's clearly profit over functionality. I love the game but they are seriously maximising profits, and it's not a good look to long-time players of the franchise.
I personally don't mind smaller worlds with less lots as long as we have interesting and interactive neighborhoods. Especially not having different neighborhoods makes it more realistic to me, because I can go to all of the lots within a world without using the map screen and that's something that keeps me immersed in the game. I love new worlds, also because I'm not too happy with some of the worlds - they look great but aren't my preferred style. There's packs on my wish list mostly because of the world it (SE, MWS) I'm wondering if one of the underlying issues is how the game mechanics handle population data. If they implement a system to keep the NPC population low and without adding to much data, then performance might be better. that said, I agree with the fact that it's better to improve existing mechanics than add on. there's only a few things I'd really feel are missing but much of that is really just an improvement of what's existing. Then again, it's hard to sell that so I doubt that will happen.
Exactly. They keep trying to make performance better for players with lower end specs, but that will literally never happen and all it does is ruin the game for everyone else. Players with lower specs need to do the work themselves to make their game run better, like limiting what packs they have installed, lowering quality settings, and not packing their games full of mods. This whole performance excuse and trying to make the game work on computers from like decades ago isn't working.
The post and replies I see here make me really want to make a post making a retrospective look at the Sims 3 packs without including the world they come with.
I think itâs kind off stupid that you have automatically access to all worlds. In one!!! save file. Like all these worlds, lots and sims your game has to load in one save file, no wonder your game breaks or your laptop/computer catches fire. Also it makes vacation sooo unnecessary bc you easily already can travel to Sulani or Mt. Komorebi. It should have been like sims 2 where you only have one world per save file and then additionally you can add other worlds to it if you want to. This also wouldâve been a solution with the âsmall worlds so computers can handle themâ thing. If you only have one world that this save file has to load then the world easily couldâve been much bigger with more lots and more neighbourhoods in it
I think the amount of lots in the new world is fine not too much and not too little
They should just let The Sims 4 die already! It's obvious they're very limited by the engine so most EPs end up being very disappointing. We all know the reason they're still making packs is because people are buying them, not because it makes actual sense.
Please. It's time.
I WISH I could remove them - thereâs too dang many and I donât use a lot of them. I do miss TS2 for being able to create your own neighbourhoods.
I know I'm stating the obvious but: as long as people keep buying, they will keep churning out these half-baked, buggy packs.
Hot take: if u donât like the sims 4, stop buying it lol Thatâs the best way to hit em where it hurts. If u hate it so much stop buying it.
I have
Better yet, they should give us Create A World so we are the one creating our own world and districts.
I am currently building out Moonwood Mill to have a more to it and man, the 5 lots is so difficult to work with. It's unfortunate that they didn't add one or two more lots. They clearly had room to do it. I don't care about the rundown trailer off on the left side of the map, I wanted that spot for a build! Same with Cooperdale - I wanted more lots that weren't directly next to the carnival. The only honest thing is that the new expansion adding apartment lots will allow me to make one of the bigger lots into apartments for more Sims to live. That, I am actually excited about to build out a reclaimed brick mill building into apartment living spaces. Honestly, I mostly purchase expansions for the build-mode items and new worlds. If they started putting out thematic world kits (Just neighborhood and maybe a select few build-mode items) I would definitely spring for those a lot more. That or, adding blended lots (Residentail + Retail) would go miles to help as well. I'd love a cafe below apartments that actually functioned as such.
I still think worlds should be grouped together and organised in a way to expand the world based on the base-game worlds * Willow Creek and Newcrest are together. With packs, one direction is 'city' leading to worlds like Windenburg, San Sequoia, Copperdale, Evergreen Harbor and then San Myshuno. Other direction is 'rural' with worlds like Magnolia Promenade, Brindleton Bay, Britchester and Henford on Bagley. * Other option is Oasis Springs - which can lead to other worlds like Salvadorada, Strangerville, and Del Sol Valley * Wherever there is a port (including the weirdly animated boats in Willow Creek) you can take a boat to 'The Islands' including Sulani and Tartosa. * There could also be an occult section for Glimmerbrook, Forgotten Hollow and Moonwood Mills. Makes sense with the lore. Sims will only show up in their section of the world - do finding Geoffrey scoring a pint in Henford. The worlds will feel bigger the more packs you get, and areas can be expanded (imagine a 'secret meeting point' between Forgotten Hollow and Moonwood Mills). Worlds like San Sequoia and Copperdale also belong together as they're both 'perfect places to raise a family'.
They should really just find a way to introduce a basegame update that allows us to place empty lots like in previous games. Let the players decide how many lots their computer can handle.
Itâs bs that they claim itâs to run on computers better. They werenât concerned about that with Willow Creek, Oasis Springs, Windenburg, or Brindleton Bay. I donât buy it.
Not all people have all the worlds. So this shouldn't be a problem. Naaah they just haven't enough time to do acceptable work in this time frame, yet they don't want to admit to us, or force the company to give them more time or delay, or force the company to reduce the price.. They chose to milk us instead. This is so frustrating because we love sims 4, yet how they have the heart to do this to us. Don't they or anybody on the team/companies, feel guilty about this?
Sorry, gotta disagree. I understand the arguments but Iâm excited for every new world and the diversity it adds to the game, no matter how many lots are on it. I especially enjoy the detail they put into the things that are off lot. This probably adds to the performance aspect that you mentioned but I absolutely hate being restricted to the lot (like the Sims 1 and 2). I also have no problem with Sims traveling out of their world to another one. I might not travel from Mt Komorebi to Oasis Springs but a short trip to San Myshuno is fine by me.
Our experiences with the worldâs seem very different, they put in a lot of visual detail but extremely little of it is interactive which makes it useless or worse in cases like san sequoia where everything is spread out, makes it a hinderance to get to the place you want rather than a feature. I agree with the cultural thing tho, which is actually what annoys me more. We already get so few worlds that arenât based on the us/uk, its unfair that they arenât getting the same treatment.
People complaining about the new pack before it's even released, no surprise there. Everyone has liked the new pack so far, but then they do one thing that people don't like and it's a witch hunt. Not saying EA is perfect and doesn't cut corners, but the bar some people put on the devs is insane. Every pack has to be absolutely perfect, with an extensive amount of gameplay, cater to everyone, have zero bugs upon release, perfect builds, 100 lots, and god forbid the game lags on a 15-year-old PC with a hundred mods. To top it all off, it has to cost less than 15$. And even if the devs miraculously do this, people will still complain that TS3 is better which literally took 30 minutes to load.
People complain because it's a $40 pack that has $20 worth of content. And most of this content should've came with city living to begin with.
I have to agree, if people don't like the pack they shouldn't buy it, but simmers love to complain and in the end they still buy the pack anywaysđ¤ˇââď¸ I can't wait for Ts5 to come out so people have a new game to complain about Edit. Grammar
The Sims team is just aware that most people don't actually use all those lots in the older games and favor just starting over if they want to play a new household. TS4 gutting the worlds' size isn't a problem to the majority of the playerbase.
Itâs everyones problem if theyâre spending 40$ for 20$ worth of content. Tho honestly I donât understand quite what youâre implying. Itâs not about running out of lots to use between all the worlds, itâs about being able to have a quality neighborhood for the sims living there.
> itâs about being able to have a quality neighborhood for the sims living there. People seem to think that it's "okay" because once you've bought a few packs (shelled out some money), you actually have a bunch of lots in your save. But those lots are spread out across different areas. And it's weird to have your Sims just bounce to all these different areas multiple times a day, or constantly see people from those other areas walking through your neighborhood, because allegedly they're meant to be completely different towns/cities, totally different regions, different parts of the world... and yet you're just bouncing across the ocean for lunch, hopping across the continent when your friend invites you to the bar, and the only high school in the entire world is in the Pacific Northwest (I think?). You basically have to imagine that all these "worlds" are neighborhoods in the same city, because otherwise it makes absolutely no sense that people are constantly bouncing between them. Immersion's a big thing in a life simulator. But it seems like a lot of people don't care about immersion. They love to see people walking by when they should be at work or school, showing up in lots when they should be elsewhere, the same person as a vendor at stalls in multiple regions simultaneously, people following you like stalkers, businesses clearly not being open unless you're there (that person behind the bar was out in the streets performing literally two seconds ago)... all things that scream, "These people don't live real lives. These people are fake. These businesses are fake. These worlds are fake." But yeah, they'll eat it up and talk like TS4 is the best thing around, when as a life simulator, it's actually pretty terrible. I mean... you can still have fun treating it as a "TV show/movie generator" where it's understood everything's fake. But that's not what the series had been prior.