Changes from Sims 3 to 4: Fun, Interesting, Weird and/or Disappointing?

[KhaineGB]

So I've had a few hours with this, and I've compiled a list of my likes/dislikes compared to Sims 3. I'm not going to cover toddlers/pools/basements since everyone knows about those anyway.

The Bad.

1) No "grab leftovers" interaction on the fridge. You want the leftovers in there? You have to click open, then click on the food and select "take serving"

2) "Chat with someone" from the computer BARELY fills your social need. You basically have to do it all day if the social need is yellow. It also doesn't add them to your relationship panel, so it's as if you never met them.

Oh... and it doesn't increase fun.

3) Calling someone lasts for a minute... max. You need to call them about 6 times to get any kind of social boost.

4) The "worlds" have about 10 houses and 5 community lots. That's it. Supposedly there are 1 or 2 secret lots you can unlock.

5) There doesn't seem to be a "Work Out" function on the TV anymore. You either need gym equipment or to go jogging. If you are energized, you can do sit up's and push up's, but they don't seem to increase athletics... just fulfill whims.

6) The fire alarm going off does NOT summon the fire brigade... so either put the fire out yourself or watch the house burn down if you haven't installed a fire prevention system. In fact, there's no fire or police service from what I've seen, but there's also no burglars either.

7) The camera controls are awful. At least you can set it to "Sims 3 mode", which fixes that.

8 ) Bit too cartoony on the art style for my tastes.

9) The action queue is limited to 6. Sims 3 had 8, and people thought THAT wasn't enough.

10) You can walk past your neighbors houses, but visiting them requires a loading screen. Oh, and there's no way to tell if a house actually has people in it or not WITHOUT visiting! You can tell if it's actually owned or not though.

11) Pathfinding is still a bit of an issue. I've had a sim standing in the middle of the floor, with nothing around her, and yet my sim cannot go and talk to her because something is in the way. What is in the way, Steven? A speck of dust???

The Good.

1) Loading times. Instead of taking nearly 10 minutes to load from clicking the icon on the desktop, then into my saved game (this is Sims 3 + SP's and EP's is on a 5400rpm laptop hard drive. It was about 6 minutes with base game), it's more like 1 minute... maybe 2 at most. That's pretty impressive!

2) The emotion system. I love all the extra interactions based on what emotional state your sim currently has.

3) Career's. Okay, we don't get as many... that's fair enough. But I love the fact you have to do very specific things in order to be promoted. It's not just "level x skills as fast as possible, go to work in a good mood and have loads of friends." I have a criminal right now, and she's got to pickpocket 5 people and have mischief level 4 to be promoted (I think she's currently level 4 in her career).

4) The aspiration system. I love the fact you can change it and keep your progress.

5) Smoother animation. I don't think this is a product of the performance increase. It looks like Maxis have REALLY paid attention to animation in Sims 4 vs Sims 3... and it is glorious.

6) The programming skill. Just... the programming skill!

At this point, I feel as if the game is more like a sequel to Sims 2 rather than Sims 4. In fact, they probably could have called it The Sims 2 HD and that'd be a somewhat accurate description of the game. I do like Sims 4, but I feel it's just missing too much. Aside from Fun and Social being absolutely horrible to keep balanced (since being social no longer grants Fun, or it didn't for me), I find the game a lot easier to play. When I just want to vegetate and chill out, I can see Sims 4 being my go-to game.

When I want a deeper experience, I'll be loading up Sims 3.

[Katluvr]

Something just popped into my head: I remebered that EA said that sims could get voluntarily maternity leave instead of a forced one. Yet I couldn't find anything about it. Also they told there would an autosave function. Maybe it's just me, but I can't find anything about that too.
I was kinda annoyed about that.
But so far it's pretty good.

I noticed that there is always an auto save file in addition to my named save file when I open the loading screen.  I don't know what triggers the autosave file to be created - whether it periodically saves or just when you exit the game.

[Namaya]

At this point, I feel as if the game is more like a sequel to Sims 2 rather than Sims 4. In fact, they probably could have called it The Sims 2 HD and that'd be a somewhat accurate description of the game. I do like Sims 4, but I feel it's just missing too much. Aside from Fun and Social being absolutely horrible to keep balanced (since being social no longer grants Fun, or it didn't for me), I find the game a lot easier to play. When I just want to vegetate and chill out, I can see Sims 4 being my go-to game.

When I want a deeper experience, I'll be loading up Sims 3.

I agree with this 100%!! I told a friend of mine today that it feels more the order of sims should be Sims 1, Sims 2, Sims 4 and then Sims 3. I guess they kind of went too far with Sims 3 and faced too many problems with the performance and had so many bugs etc. that for some people that played the game intensively it was almost impossible to play it without performance mods to keep it from crashing (for example: to play a legacy or dynasty that would still run smoothly at your 10th generation was almost a miracle). I think that if I went to play this straight after sims 2 without ever playing sims 3, I would have loved it a lot more than I do now.

When I first started sims 3 I had the problem that there were just too many new functions and there was so many stuff to do that I felt overwhelmed and didn't know where to start. After 5 generations, I still found new stuff to do without getting the feeling that I was just repeating the same thing over and over again. Now, with Sims 4, I feel like I have seen it all after one or two generations. Of course this is also because there are no expansions yet, but still, the Sims 3 base game had a lot more to offer than this base game.

[m.sato]

So I've had a few hours with this, and I've compiled a list of my likes/dislikes compared to Sims 3. I'm not going to cover toddlers/pools/basements since everyone knows about those anyway.

The Bad.

1) No "grab leftovers" interaction on the fridge. You want the leftovers in there? You have to click open, then click on the food and select "take serving"

2) "Chat with someone" from the computer BARELY fills your social need. You basically have to do it all day if the social need is yellow. It also doesn't add them to your relationship panel, so it's as if you never met them.

Oh... and it doesn't increase fun.

3) Calling someone lasts for a minute... max. You need to call them about 6 times to get any kind of social boost.

4) The "worlds" have about 10 houses and 5 community lots. That's it. Supposedly there are 1 or 2 secret lots you can unlock.

1) Especially annoying when your sim is at work and you want to queue a bite after coming home.

2+3) In TS3 socializing seemed like a chore more than anything else, so it made sense to create a option to complete it easily, in TS4 it's arguably the best part of it, so it makes sense to "force" it on the player. Also, social not increasing fun doesn't seem to be a problem for me because of the multitasking.

4) Actually, I think it's a smart move. It lets you explore the hole world before an expansion comes next year and you became overwhelmed. I do miss a restaurant, however.

10) You can walk past your neighbors houses, but visiting them requires a loading screen. Oh, and there's no way to tell if a house actually has people in it or not WITHOUT visiting! You can tell if it's actually owned or not though.

I beleive in map view sims not at home are faded, transparent when you hover the mouse over the house.

When I want a deeper experience, I'll be loading up Sims 3.

No arguments there, at least until the next 5-6 expansions.

[EleLL]

So I've had a few hours with this, and I've compiled a list of my likes/dislikes compared to Sims 3. I'm not going to cover toddlers/pools/basements since everyone knows about those anyway.

The Bad.

1) No "grab leftovers" interaction on the fridge. You want the leftovers in there? You have to click open, then click on the food and select "take serving"

Just click on the hungry icon next to the stat, if there's leftovers, they will automatically grab one.

2) "Chat with someone" from the computer BARELY fills your social need. You basically have to do it all day if the social need is yellow. It also doesn't add them to your relationship panel, so it's as if you never met them.

Oh... and it doesn't increase fun.

I don't use chat on the computer, as I just have to walk outside to find people to chat to. Also, use the Funny interactions to increase Social and Fun at same time.

3) Calling someone lasts for a minute... max. You need to call them about 6 times to get any kind of social boost.

Again, just walk outside and people will show up quickly to chat.

4) The "worlds" have about 10 houses and 5 community lots. That's it. Supposedly there are 1 or 2 secret lots you can unlock.

I haven't even finished exploring them all yet, although I can tell that I'll be redoing the museum.. talk about dull!

5) There doesn't seem to be a "Work Out" function on the TV anymore. You either need gym equipment or to go jogging. If you are energized, you can do sit up's and push up's, but they don't seem to increase athletics... just fulfill whims.

While there isn't a work out function, you can head out to jog the area available, and the bigger issue isn't so much that there isn't a work out, but for my chef sim, she gained weight incredibly fast. Working out did nothing for her, even cutting her food down and working out did nothing. I had to actually go buy a Insta-Lean to get her down to skinny and now she looks anorexic (although I did get the Achievement "My, how you've change".

6) The fire alarm going off does NOT summon the fire brigade... so either put the fire out yourself or watch the house burn down if you haven't installed a fire prevention system. In fact, there's no fire or police service from what I've seen, but there's also no burglars either.

I do think the fire prevention system is cheesy, along with no security system. I have one in my RL house and sprinklers, so if there's a fire, not only will my sprinklers go off, the fire department will show up!

Overall, I can't wait to see the next expansions, and gotta agree with the rest, although I won't be going back to Sims 3 any time soon. I'm having fun with actually creating my first really big family since Sims 2. Pathing was always too much of a pain in TS3 along with travel times to go do things that I never bothered. So these things I'm really getting into and I'm absolutely adoring my kids and put the game on max aging, and letting them fully age out except for babies. Just so I can see how far I can push them in their child aspirations 

[KhaineGB]

I don't use chat on the computer, as I just have to walk outside to find people to chat to. Also, use the Funny interactions to increase Social and Fun at same time.

Again, just walk outside and people will show up quickly to chat.

These are fine if you aren't playing a Loner sim.

You do that, and they almost instantly become uncomfortable or tense. I found that out the hard way.

[Lisa46]

I find the whole socializing thing fun, but I totally understand the annoyance when you are playing a sim who is a bit of a loner. It is so much harder to keep social bar high!

[KhaineGB]

It really is!

On Sims 3, I'd just have them use the computer to "Chat with Someone" and that'd sort out their social need nicely. On Sims 4, they have to leave the house to talk to people, which as I've mentioned, usually makes them uncomfortable or tense.

So it's a lot harder now, in my opinion. My loner sim's sister has no problem with her social and fun.

[saltpastillen]

Doesn't calling people on the phone work?

[Ginj]

They don't seem to have long chats from Sims 3.  It works well for satisfying the whim to ring someone up; for social need or building the relationship, not so much.

[KhaineGB]

Yep, you can call people.

They always answer, it barely fills the social need (you have to queue it up about 6 times to get any noticeable effect) and mostly seems to be there to fulfill whims.

[Ellenser]

I agree with this 100%!! I told a friend of mine today that it feels more the order of sims should be Sims 1, Sims 2, Sims 4 and then Sims 3. I guess they kind of went too far with Sims 3 and faced too many problems with the performance and had so many bugs etc. that for some people that played the game intensively it was almost impossible to play it without performance mods to keep it from crashing (for example: to play a legacy or dynasty that would still run smoothly at your 10th generation was almost a miracle). I think that if I went to play this straight after sims 2 without ever playing sims 3, I would have loved it a lot more than I do now.

When I first started sims 3 I had the problem that there were just too many new functions and there was so many stuff to do that I felt overwhelmed and didn't know where to start. After 5 generations, I still found new stuff to do without getting the feeling that I was just repeating the same thing over and over again. Now, with Sims 4, I feel like I have seen it all after one or two generations. Of course this is also because there are no expansions yet, but still, the Sims 3 base game had a lot more to offer than this base game.

As for performance issues, yes, Sims 3 was not very optimized and incredibly buggy, though I've heard Sims 4 may have some issues for multi-generational families as well (heard from LGR's Sims 4 review on YouTube and also from browsing on the official forums a bit). Not necessarily as bad as the Sims 3 was, but we'll see.

I feel like the Sims 4 base game has a lot more depth than the Sims 3 one, personally. Lots of jobs with different interactions to get through, whereas in Sims 3 a lot of it is just max a skill or two, be happy, go to work. I do miss the open world and story progression in Sims 3, though.. and cutting that out of the game feels like it is more a sequel to Sims 2 rather than Sims 3.

[Echo]

Pause is still 0 or ` (~) just like it was in Sims 3.

Odd, I've been hitting 'P' to pause it just like I did in Sims 3.

[jesirose]

Odd, I've been hitting 'P' to pause it just like I did in Sims 3.

P works in both too. There are a LOT of ways to pause

[stitching_JA]

I'm enjoying the new game. 

One interesting thing I found that I haven't seen mentioned yet is the stats that are kept.  On the Simology tab, to the right of the age bar, is a bar graph.  Clicking it brings up a list of all sorts of odd things in the game.  Interested in knowing how many meals you've eaten, trips to the bathroom, or times passed out?  How many whims you fulfilled?  The number of times you've been in each emotional state?  It's all tracked for each of your sims.