Sims 4 vs Sims 3

[wkoziol]

So ok its been roughly a week that Sims 4 is out.  So those who have it what do you think of it?  All that hype they were building up to it was it a let down, could they actually done more with the choices or at some other aspect of the game, or are you enjoying it so much that you feel that you'll be uninstalling Sims 3 for good?  Also, include any other feedback if you desire to.  Just curious to hear what all the old Sim 4 players.  I just got the game 18/9/14 so eventually once I play more of it I'll be adding my two bits in as well.

[Cheezey]

As someone who was actually following one of the biggest negative threads about The Sims 4 up to its release on another forum, I was very pleasantly surprised by how much I like it.  There are some major differences that are frustrating (for me, no Create-A-Style and the loading screens that limit your ability to see what the rest of the world is doing) but it was not enough to make me dislike the game.  Manage Worlds isn't as nice as Edit Town, either, and I dislike that you're forced to enter a new game through the CAS menu and placing a sim, and can't just edit an empty town or play a premade off the bat.  But there's nothing stopping you from making a throwaway sim, and then hitting pause and going into Manage Worlds, where you can then delete the throwaway household and play a premade or edit a lot.  You can then save that as a base file for new games if you want, as long as you remember to "save as" when you do it.

I love how fast Sims 4 runs. I have overkill stats for Sims 4 because my laptop is a gaming laptop that's been upgraded with a solid state hard drive to run Sims 3 on its highest settings with all expansions, stuff packs, and a bucket load of store content and a good amount of mods and CC.  So since it can handle that, it runs Sims 4 amazingly well.

Despite the loading screens, the live areas on Sims 4 are very much alive.  There are always sims roaming about to interact with.  Sometimes I find there are too many on public lots, and they butt into your conversations, but on your home lot it's not bad if you don't mind ignoring people at the door. (Which sometimes you have to do in Sims 3, too.)

The build mode wasn't as intuitive to me as it was billed, and it took a little getting used to, but once I got the hang of its controls, I love it.  It's so nice to be able to actually move rooms and roofs and such without having to delete and rebuild.  I miss my basements, but I wouldn't be surprised if we get them eventually.

Multitasking is amazing, and I found I really missed it and the easier group conversations when playing Sims 3 for a bit yesterday.  It's a real chore to get 4 sims to interact together in Sims 4 requiring a careful queuing of who's talking to who next, but in Sims 4 it happens naturally.  It's also nice that your sims can eat or cook or use the computer and actually talk to someone else, without having to cancel it and wait for them to stand up or put down what they're doing to answer a simple chat interaction.

[Ellenser]

As someone who was actually following one of the biggest negative threads about The Sims 4 up to its release on another forum, I was very pleasantly surprised by how much I like it.

This is quite similar to me as well. I wasn't even planning on purchasing the Sims 4 until a couple expansion packs have been released, but I saw someone streaming the game on Twitch at release and I couldn't help myself - been loving the game so much.

I'm not too fond of the loading screens and lack of story progression, but I love how many sims - of various ages - are present in various lots (or even just walking down the sidewalk in front of your house), how smooth the game runs (even on my laptop that was a mid-range gaming one released 3 or 4 years ago), the multi-tasking, how the sims really feel alive in this game, the graphics, etc.

I've uninstalled the Sims 3 for now. I will probably pick it up again in the future once I have a better computer and then install a ton of Nraas mods to "fix" the game. Also, I still have an Immortal Dynasty challenge that I want to complete. After that, I'll probably just reinstall it on a whim in the same way I do with the Sims 1 or Sims 2.

[wkoziol]

Yea....I'm starting to really liking the Sims 4 more and more I play it.  The loading screens imo could have been done lot better.  I mean if you go from the pub to the gym which you can see its right next to the pub you should be able to just walk into the gym and not have to wait for it to load up.  I know they did each thing as a its own entity but come on even an old system nowadays can handle at least that much.  I just find it pretty redundant and I have a gaming rig <not a laptop> as well.  If I have to gripe one thing about The Sims 4 is that every new area you go into even if it's right next to each other it still has to load.  If they wanted to they could at least have the sim(s) go there and have parts of the game load in on the fly.  Other than that I am really enjoying the game.

[Heart Foam]

The two games do different things... differently. To simply lump Sims 4's biggest failing as not being Sims 3 is to miss what a remarkable game it is. Maybe Sims 3 is a better dollhouse, but even granting that, it's a clumsy one. (Did you ever play a legacy or dynasty and not have enough funds at the start to build a foundation, and decide you wanted one later? Exactly.) CAS and build mode are massive step forward in Sims 4 - even without being able to apply a wooden pattern to your dress. Maybe that feature has gone, but there are far more colour options for every item so it's not a big miss.

The sims themselves are much better, and much of the gameplay mechanics are better. The game is much better at keeping you aware of how effective a given activity is. In Sims 3 you could have your sim reading at the library with a whole bunch of positive moodlets, but not one of them related to skill improvement. I know keeping their moods high in itself helped skilling, but how much? It wasn't apparent. Now it's much better. And if the moodlets come from a romantic drink and risky woohoo, then it's fair enough that the game says you're not focused, you're flirty; and despite being super happy you're not in the right frame of mind for building logic. Sims 3 didn't have a cold shower because it didn't need a cold shower: the romantic moodlets didn't get in the way of being energized or focused. I really like the added depth the sims themselves have. And that's what the game is about. I loved Sims 3, and I miss some of the things like making spreadsheets of nectar combinations, and cars, and toddlers but a lot of that is just the froth. The underlying game in Sims 4 is better. How I feel right now is that I can't go back to 3.

[Devin]

I've been with the Sims since the beginning (back in 2002, when the OG was a couple of years old) and in that time there's something important that I've learned about The Sims.

Each game is different. This is key to understanding the new generations as they are released. I'll never stop wanting to play TS2, in spite of the sims not being nearly as pretty as they are now. I want to play TS3 even now, and I found the sims in that version to be downright ugly, and the game play lost something between TS2 and TS3.

The way that I see it, The Sims is not "The Sims." Each game carries some things from one incarnation into the next, but if TS4 wasn't going to be vastly different from TS3, then there's no reason for them to release it at all: They could re-release TS3 and continue to patch it (since continued expansion would make it glitchier on many systems). This game (TS4) was meant to be different, and that's what a lot of the negative posters don't understand about the game. I've found that those who are most negative joined the franchise recently, and that those of us familiar with TS2 are more likely to be positive, because TS4 is very much like TS2 (minus pools and toddlers).

My only complaint is the lack of open world. It didn't bother me at first, but I don't like not being able to control my sims while I'm on a community lot. The loading screens, lack of toddlers, and lack of pools don't bother me at all. Story progression would be nice, but it's not entirely imperative and it was broken in my TS3 anyway, so I don't miss something that never worked right for me in the first place.

[simsonata]

I will be playing both, because I was open minded about the sims 4 despite the bad press and they each have things the other doesn't. I don't mind the loading screen times because it's still worlds faster than the sims 3 has ever been for me, even before installing any expansion packs to the base game. I never used story progression so I can't miss it and the lack of open world doesn't really make me feel it's isolated like some people feel it's become. I do enjoy the gameplay more than sims 3 too, it's far more fluid. Though there are stupid things like kids not being able to use normal easels anyone and being generally more limited that aggravate me sometimes. The things I dislike about it will probably surprise people because apart from create a style, especially for clothes, I hate the new, much anticipated build mode that most seem to like. It's not the lack of pools, but the lack of basements which I adore for extra space for workshops and other things I don't want in the main house, especially since we now have only three storeys to work with, which annoys me no end since I usually have about six sims in a family and they need their space. What do we get in return? Raising foundations. Pointless. When I raised mine I lost stairs, doors and several household items. More trouble than it's worth. No terrain tool to jazz up the landscape.  No building ponds on your land and designated fishing spots?! Also, moving rooms around is something I've never wanted to do. As well as that, the new obsession with rooms has turned building into a painful experience for me where it was my favourite part of the game before, with missing floor tiles above random rooms on second floors and no way to put them down without arranging the lower floor in a way I don't like for reasons unexplained as yet, seemingly no way to delete individual floor tiles and mix up patterns, or at least if there is a way, it's well hidden and that rather defeats EAs claim of easier, more intuitive building. I've never had to trawl the internet to work out how to do something simple in ts2 and 3 and that is saying something. Its like they got the definition of intuitive confused with domineering because I feel like I'm constantly fighting to have things my way and not the way the game thinks I should want it. I could go on and on about all the things I despise about the new, inferior build mode. I feel all the joy and freedom has gone out of it.  Suffice it to say, while I really like live mode, I sure can't build the 'house of my dreams' in this, I'll have to go back to ts3 for that.

[Citronia]

I like them both... I was very negative towards Sims 4 in the beginning, and just got it like three days ago. After playing a little I do like it! The emotions are fun, the social interactions are also great, and it runs sooo smooth on my laptop! Are there things missing? Yes of course! The world feels very small and sometimes it's almost like I run out of things to do... But I really believe that future expansion packs will make that a lot better.

But overall I'm still a bigger fan of the Sims 3. It's more free to me (gosh I'm so annoyed by having to follow certain rules to get a good party in Sims 4!) and I also love how the sims look in it, very real and human-like.

But yeah, I'm sure that store content and expansions will make it better.

[kymber13]

I'm bored out of my mind. Dig, dig, dig. Fish. Plant. I have all of these "playful" mood Sim Trophies that don't actually do anything...but enable a playful mood. How many playful moods do you need??  Aliens in bottles that don't do anything either. There are improvements I like very much, like the searchable build/buy, but there's just not enough game play variety to make it interesting.