Mikayla's Art & Multimedia
Mikayla's Art & Multimedia
2/7/2021
If you’re an active sim player and have played the Sims 4, you know the struggle of wanting to complete an action and realizing those game mechanics only exist in previous game series. You probably often wonder why these specific actions were removed from gameplay when it hinders your ability to follow your own sim’s storyline the way you want. As an active sim player, I often wonder why specific features were removed from the latest Sims 4 in the first place and how these specific features improved the simulation experience in earlier game series.
In the Sims 3, if you wanted your sim to travel somewhere you could easily open the map view by pressing “M” and direct your sim to the desired location. This map view allows you to easily track other sims in your household and allows you to still have full control of sims in your household even if you have one or more sims in different locations.
The Sims 4 decided to remove this mechanism and return loading screens from the Sims 2. Now in order to travel in Sims 4, you have to confirm which sim(s) is traveling and what place they’re traveling to. I find this mechanism really annoying especially when I want a sim to visit a place nearby and I’m prompted with this loading screen. This mechanism also gets in the way of being able to control remaining sims in my household.
Unlike Sims 2, Sims 4 does add a mechanic that allows you to select minimal actions for your sim when you are not able to control them, but it seems this mechanic only exists to make the player feel like they are in control of their sims when they are not in plain site. In reality, your non-playable sims are on auto pilot and don’t make much progress in any activity unless you are in control of their physical environment.
Sims 2 has a way of indicating what a sim wants and fears, which is based on a range of things from relationships, skills, hobbies, and aspirations. This also plays a role in defining sim’s relationships with each other rather then giving a sim the status of a “friend” or “romantic interest”. Sim’s relationships can increase based on compatible interactions and decrease based on incompatible traits as well as the amount of time you spend away from a sim. This can be a clear indication of your sim’s goals and what they truly want to accomplish.
In the Sims 4, sims can still have wants but do not have fears, which strives away from what their intended goals are. The wants also do not operate the same way they do in the Sims 2. In the Sims 4, Sims can have wants but these wants seem to be generated at random and not directly related to their relationships, skills, hobbies, and aspirations.
As of recent, Sims 4 did an update as of November 2020 including the sentiments feature which is similar to relationship stats from the Sims 2. With the sentiments feature, you can view not only your sim’s sentiments about other sims, but sims sentiments towards you. This is a great improvement from Sims 2, but the problem with this mechanic is how relationships work in the Sims 4.
In the Sims 4, it is very easy to increase your relationship with sims even with incompatible traits and time does not have an effect on a relationship like it did in the Sims 2. In the Sims 4, it’s very simple to chase after a sim to be your friend or significant other even after signs of rejection or dislike. It seems like EA developers tried to bring this mechanic back, but in reality with existing mechanisms in the Sims 4, it is easy to manipulate other sim’s sentiments about your sim, which strives away from the real purpose of sims having traits.
Custom recoloring in the Sims 3 allowed players to customize colors and patterns on objects, furniture, clothing, and sims’ appearances. This gives players the ability to have a free range of style in their game. It surprises me that the Sims 4 did not include the custom recoloring feature like it did in the Sims 3 and instead, returned to having presents like it did in the Sims 2.
Although having presets in the Sims 4 is an easy way of selecting styles without spending too much time worrying about colors or patterns, not having the option to custom color things in the game becomes an issue when the player is not satisfied with any of the available presets. I feel like the presets in the Sims 4 are very limited and the choice that EA developers made to not include the custom recolor feature in this game is giving players less of an ability to get creative with in game styling.
I feel that the Sims 4 lacks a lot of mechanisms that improved the simulation experience in earlier games series. With each release of the sim games, it seems that each game is always improving with graphics, but lacks mechanisms that made sims feel more life-like. The question is, why did EA developers make these decisions? Do you think these game mechanics should return to the Sims 4?