I’ve been playing The Sims 4 lately and there are a few things that I don’t like. I already expected the dozen expansion packs, stuff packs, thematic packs. They know where to milk the money. But that’s not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about things that aren’t related to money.
The Design Tool (The Sims 3)
I miss being able to edit outfits and furniture and give them the colours and textures that I want them to have. The customization options were much more expansive and that allowed me to really create my sim and my house. Even the hair colour options are very limited. I used to create my sim with crazy hair colours, mix high lights, low lights and the main colour to create amazing colourful haircuts. That’s something I can’t do any more. It’s harder to match items with each other from other sets as well. There is no guarantee that the colour is the right colour to match with something else.
Community Mods (The Sims 3)
I remember that I downloaded hundreds of custom made items from the community. The modding community was the best. I could browse for days just to get the right dress, haircut or house. There were some amazing houses. In The Sims 3 the modding community was accessible in game. It was way easier since everything was automatically added to the game. That was a great way to manage all the items. I know that I added several gigabytes to The Sims 2 and it actually took half an hour longer to start the game. I needed to cut down my downloaded assets, but it was hard to see which ones I could
Building lots (The Sims 2)
I have the feeling that there aren’t as much places to build as in the previous games, especially if you haven’t bought any expansion packs. Even the newer areas have limited lots due to all the commercial lots.
I used to have a choice of fifteen or more lots in different sizes. Now my options are limited. I don’t know if this has anything to do with the ‘open world’ feeling that started in The Sims 3 or not, but even these ‘neighbourhoods’ feel small and limited. It doesn’t excite me. I’d either want the system of the old Sims (The Sims 1 and 2) or The Sims 3. This halfway thing isn’t great.