Sims 3 vs Sims 4 - Where do you stand and why?

[AmysGames]

I haven't played Sims 4 so I can't comment on it, but I've played some Sims 3 and an inordinate amount of Sims 2, haha.

I'd say they both have their advantages—I love the personality system in Sims 3, and I like how it's more open-world—but I think I somewhat prefer Sims 2 because I feel like I have more control over what happens. (Also I got the Sims 2 Ultimate Collection for free and I can't argue with free. )

[Kann]

I haven't played TS4, so I can't really say where I stand, though I loved the way you can set colors of almost everything (as far as I can remember) in TS3 and the personality system.

I've played A LOT of TS and TS2 and tbh what I miss is having more control over the neighborhood like in TS2.

Btw, I remember my sister trying to play the very first Sims games some time ago and it did age badly... xD

[Kura]

Sims 3 is superior because I can play it on Steam.

Sims 4 needs Origin, and I hate having that thing on my computer. It is literally the only game I need that god forsaken program for.

Another thing, being able to pick your hair and clothes colour from a friggen colour picker (more so the hair cause it's usually my characters that I'm making in this game), why did they get rid of that for TS4? I don't understand?? They make everything else a lot more customization for CAS but then they remove THAT??? Despite everything they added that small thing being removed feels like a step back and makes it feel like I have LESS customization options even though that's clearly not true. They're just all on the body sliders.

Sims 4 is.... fine... if you have money to burn. As yeah, it gets more enjoyable the more packs you have to cator to your style of play, but I'll still echo what a lot of people have been saying, there is too little content in all their expansion and stuff packs even though there is so many of them. It ALWAYS feels like I could do more in TS3 than I can 4, and it's not because it was out longer. That said, the packs that are similar to one another usually is more polished for 4, but is not as content heavy or exciting as 3, cause you're not really constantly running into stuff that surprises you.

Pets are also a lot more fun to play in 3, but they're also really well done and act more like pets in 4.

Oh yeah, another big thing that urks me, it takes friggen YEARS for EA to fix their glitches in the Sims 4 even when they are game breaking. I don't remember it ever taking this long to fix bugs that literally broke the game for Sims 3. Only this year did I get a fix for the glitch that made it impossible for me to progress in police job line for Get to Work. For an idea on how LONG it took them to fix those glitched Get to Work was released in 2015 with the glitch existing since release (AND KNOWN BY EA)

There was also a glitch with the hamster cages, they were just WAY TO INTERESTING for every sim in the house hold, if I put one in the house all the sims (both people and animals) would go over to the cage and just STARE AT THE HAMSTER WHILE PISSING THEMSELVES UNTIL THEY STARTED STARVING TO DEATH and even then you manually had to force them to go eat. This was really frustrating when you had pets and children in the house because that counts as neglecting their needs and having services take them away. Obviously the best option was to not give them that pet at all, but that pet was also a separate 12$ add on (and really the only reason you'd want to buy the pet stuff pack)

The things I like about the Sim4 is mostly performance, it loads a lot faster on my computer, the build mode is also a lot better but damn I really want the spiral staircases back. They took up so much less friggen room. I also really like the options Sims4 has in their create a Sim menu that allows for you to make trans characters, but as mentioned before in this thread, is sucks that the games auto generation doesn't also do this when filling your world with sims.

Another thing for CAS mode is that I REALLY wish they had more black hairstyles... I mean... like... really curly/kinky black hair not the hair colour...)

[NickRowler]

Sims 3, because I never played Sims 4, I don't really want to buy it now.

I do like all the options in Sims 3, especially when it comes to building houses, my favorite part of the game. However, I wish it had sandlot towns like in Sims 2.

[Mari]

That’s actually super interesting to me that so many prefer the total control over TS2 to the high autonomy of TS3. I’m quite the opposite I love that when you put the autonomy on high it’s no joke. My insane party animal sim would throw me prompts to throw a party at random locations, my controlled sims would divorce on their own if they were angry enough and had a low relationship, and I massively preferred this over the low autonomy of any other sims game.

[redmancomics]

Maaaan, screw all this new age stuff. Sims ONE is where it's at!

[moonfixer]

I love the sims 4's character creation. In my opinion, it rivals some of the best wwe character creation systems. However as an overall package, I enjoy the sims 3 better. The house building, the open world and the general atmosphere of the game is better I believe.

[Kura]

I enjoy the free autonomy aspects, I like to just let the game play while I'm working on comics so every time I look over they're getting into some kind of trouble.

Though I wish they would set themselves on fire less, my sims just seems to have issues with setting themselves on fire.

[Nullyish]

Gameplay wise, I will choose TS3 over TS4. It's just much richer than what TS4 (with equivalent EP) can offer. I remember I used to have a witch sim and burned zombies when they spawned in my lot. I miss how my sim can drive their own car, explore the town without needing to go through a loading screen. Also Bonehilda. OMG I miss Bonehilda.

TS4 is lighter and has better graphic, but it feels dull. I'm bored within 2 hours of playing each time I have installed a new EP.

[Kittosaurus]

TS4 is lighter and has better graphic, but it feels dull. I'm bored within 2 hours of playing each time I have installed a new EP.

This is so true! But I've been playing TS4 for so long now that it's hard to go back to TS3 because of the controls and graphics..

[Mari]

I echoed this with Get Famous. Like I know I should've watched reviews of it so I would've known that yeah, it's just the same BS in a different package than EVERYTHING ELSE in TS4, but I really had hope that they would've surprised us with like, putting soul into the game for once u_u;;;

Everything in get famous dissapointed me so bad. You can't see the videos. Why? You could watch your own stupid video cam footage in TS3 generations WHICH WAS THE BEST?! YOU COULD WATCH YOUR SIMS WEDDING VIDS AND KIDS BIRTHDAY VIDS IT WAS THE SHIT. I know someone is going to say hurr durr performance but video footage at like 12 x 12 px resolution with ppixels as big as twinkies is not that hard on a computer, believe it or not :p. There's nothing in the new media production skill. NOTHING. It made me so mad. It's just a bunch of clicking (as with everything from sims 4)

The music stuff was okay. But there was so few tracks and they were not filtered by genre for some god-awful reason so trying to find a house song you can mix involves you going through all the options on all random simlish names like??? this was smart???

The acting carreer was the most dissapointing of all. There's literally only one new big animation and a few smaller ones. Sword fighting. BUT THEY DIDN'T EVEN BOTHER TO ANIMATE DIFFERENT SWORD FIGHTS FOR LIGHT SABERS AND CUTLASSES. WTF. I THOUGHT SIMS 4 WAS ALL ABOUT THAT ANIMATION YO.

Then the atrocity that is all the musical stages. THEY RE-USE SINGING ANIMATIONS FROM CITY LIVING AND DANCES FROM GET TOGETHER. THERE IS NOTHING NEW. IT LOOKS FUCKING STUPID TOO. It's set in like Singing in the Rain and they do some moronic club dance. Oh the musical is set in wild west? HERE'S THE SAME FUCKING CLUB DANCE LOL

Not to mention the scenes rarely ever have anything to do with the blirb that you get what the movie or the tv show is about, and am I the only one who wanted something more indepth? Like the blirbs were basically just "It's a period drama and stuff happens!!" Would it have killed them to write something better? Oh yeah it would because then they would've had to add something else than "Have toast" and "Vampire bite" as a scene =_=

The scenes get old so fast. You cannot get out of the commercial stage without seeing repeats.

The acting agencies have some funny and indepth dialogue depending on which gig you are doing, which is super disportionate on like everything else. It goes in depth on what role you did and how you did it, so idk which sim-guru was on charge of that one, but they did a good job on a shit pack

Most of the items and clothing is unusable because it's all costumes. which sucks. Because you get only one costume per category. so it's not even good for some Jane Austen- roleplay family. Unless you want everyone in your family to wear the same dress.

I can't. It was so fucking lazy. How was that worth 40 bucks. I got so mad I asked for a refund but because I played for more than 2 hours they didn't

[Kittosaurus]

How was that worth 40 bucks.

You're lucky my friend - it was $51.99 here in Canada...

[Kura]

You're lucky my friend - it was $51.99 here in Canada...

Yeah I was really expecting more than I got, not sure why though. You'd think I'd have learned at this point. I think a lot of it had to do with "AHHH I loved this in 2 or 3" only to have it not meet up to the content in 2 or 3. I think Get to Work and Dine Out were my biggest disappointments with this, I REALLY liked the way you could set up a business in the Sims 2, but... you can't do that in 4 >< I also really miss using dorm setups to make mini apartments for my characters in 2.

Really not looking forward to the university expansion, I didn't mind it in 2, but 3 it was horrible, and I can only assume at this point it's going to be worse in 4.

[Mari]

Dine out is really fun and I do thin it's like the only thing worth the money in TS4. But yeah oh my god I used to have restaurants with tiny studio apartments on the top floor (you needed a mod for it, but still) in TS2...It was so goood.

And a Point I already made I think that I thought was fucking stupid was the limitations in get to work type bussinesses. TS2 could code patrons to buy objects and eat at restaurants AND use a venue with ticket payments, so you're telling me TS4 devs couldn't fucking figure out how to atleast have a bakery-restaurant =_=

Let me have a restaurant-vet bussiness where everyone is dresses as bears! Come on sims >: (

TS3 never had a proper system like that because they knew the game couldn't handle it (even with the hotels you only saw like 2 people going about and suddenly 200 people visited xD), so the put their effort into other areas. With Sims 4 it's like, they want it to be accessible to babies who game on mom's laptop meant to run microsoft word so everything is super toned down and PG and they do a little of everything and end up with a bunch of nothing

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Edit: I was actually thinking this while I tried running a hotel in TS3, but why is there no anonymous generated YELP page like there was in TS3 :I that would be so easy to code in, and it would be a ton of fun.

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Edit: 2

UNIVERSITY?? Is that legit coming out?? That is going to be awful It has imho been an awful addition (as in the actual university stuff always felt like a drag) in all games, so it's going to be even worse. Who wants to bet you can't live in dorms period You'll get city living neighbour roomies who stand around behind their doors in emptyness waiting to bug you :DD

[Nullyish]

This is so true! But I've been playing TS4 for so long now that it's hard to go back to TS3 because of the controls and graphics..

how are we so alike? that why I am not going back to TS3 either. As much as I miss TS3, the convenient (if you can call it that) keeps me with TS4

[Mari]

I used to play the games on a computer made to run microsoft word in 2005, so I was always playing on lowest....So to me switching back to TS3 from TS4 was super easy. I guess because most of my life I've played games with shit graphics? Like naturally too, since I grew up in the 90's... Even though I now have a gaming computer and can run everything on ultra, I've never really put that much into graphics. Create-a-Style tool and all the dumb stuff to do atleast for now is keeping me in TS3. However, if I ever wanna build something larger I'm switching to TS4 for that.

Though how the artstyle isn't consistent in TS3 kinda irks me, but eh. I got so mad over how much money I wasted on TS4 with the latest ep just for some recycled content from previous packs I ALREADY PAID FOR , so can't play the game rn without getting the ragies lmao

[Kittosaurus]

My boyfriend laughs at me and calls me a graphics snob. ( Some of his favorite games are Tibia and Old School Runescape - for reference )

[Mari]

OLD SCHOOL RUNESCAPE WAS THE SHIT WHEN I WAS 13

....I mean back then it was just runescape....

I had a guild called "whisper of the wind" and a runescape boyfriend <3 <3 <3 Ahhh the sweet cringe <3

/EDIT

My character's name was Jessica91

My name is not jessica
I just thought it was a cool name

I am remembering so many awful, awful things

//Edit2

I just had my sim die accidentally to fire in sims 3 : I
I forgot how devastating this is since I never had a sim accidentally die in sims 4
I hardly ever got them to die when I wanted to. I tried to woohoo an old man to death but his moodlet kept disappearing before he died. Ended up killing him in the pool and that took forever too. I had a sim child drown accidentally like every summer in sims 3 xD

[Kittosaurus]

Fair enough - he usually just plays to relax. Half the time he'll be doing monotonous tasks in the background on runescape while playing another game on a different system.

[Mari]

sounds kinda like I usually just have livestreams in my ears when I play sims. or I play some grindy card RPG on mobile