I’ve often thought along these lines as well. Keep the build mode style and objects; keep the CAS system and the little things that make the game more “tolerable”, like the ability to plates to sinks/dishwashers/trashcans and the autonomy option. Meanwhile, look to Sims 2 for guidelines and inspiration. Give us the start up stories to the townies; have premade graveyards that hold references to past Sims that you can also add to when one of your Sims pass; make buildings that truly function as two lot types at once; cars that can be bought, owned and restored. (You don’t need to make it open world just the ability to add in garages and have the animations of the vehicles coming and going from the lots is fine.) There are just so many things…
Also the humor… This is a teens + game… The humor feels tamer compared to the previous versions. Show random, silly jokes like the Flying Pig and changing booths with the security camera being a peeing camera! They don’t have to be exactly the same, but just something that makes the gamer pause and smile at the randomness or surprise.
They brought back the Tragic Clown from The Sims, but they remade him in the most boring of ways. He was a well-meaning but horrible menace in the original. You had freaking clown catchers! Then the times he did wander about on his own, it was actually kind of humorous… like with Makin’ Magic, seeing him get on the freaky Clown rollercoaster ride, or popping out of a freaking birthday cake? I found that amusing. Sims 4 didn’t have to straight out copy these things, but they could have made the character a whole lot more interesting and an actual challenge. In truth, I’d love it if they brought back other characters like the Social Bunny, the Therapist, the animals that tossed over trashcans and cause havoc or cuteness… but I’m afraid they’d be just as utterly stale.
And death… getting older I certainly understand how sensitive the topic can be and if you are suffering from deep depression or have lost a loved one, the game could certainly cause triggers. Those who play or at least know of the game well enough know what they are getting into. Look back into the cartoonish electrocutions where you can see the Sim’s skeleton; make it a bit easier to get a Sim to die from feeling too angry, playful or embarrassed; have a Sim lay down to stare at the sky only to have the freak chance of a broken satellite land on them and so on. Let the fires burn and be as dangerous as before!
I’d tweak certain packs also. Recently the packs they have been producing… they really recycle things and make the base game and earlier packs feel redundant. You can’t change the past, but maybe they can plan things out better in the future. Nevertheless… I have been greatly bothered by how Seasons affected the gardening skill in terms of obtaining plants that had to be grafted in order to obtain. If they had left the seed packets and gift purchases solely to the new plants introduced or the ones that can easily be found in the base game that don’t require grafting… sure! But I can now easily get all of them via the seed packets? Why do that to something that actually makes the Simmer become more involved in a skill?
Then there is how Realm of Magic has affected almost all skill building with the practical magic. Rather than the practical magic, they could have made spells that did new things. Teleport? I can do that holding the shift key and clicking on the Sim! You even got Teleportation accomplished with Spa Day! Freeze Spell, Cloning Spell? I can work for those in Get to Work! The rest minus Return to The Magic Realm and Giving the Gift of Magic to another Sim are things you can already work towards or obtain via aspiration perk points without your Sim becoming lazy. The Mischief is fine, since most of those things require cheats are haven’t existed before. Untamed… half of them have already been addressed via the base game and again Get to Work. It just really feels cheaty… Yeah, lots of Simmers will use cheats… but for it to be like this… It gets boring fast.
In fact... I haven't even played a proper session for the longest time. I find editing lots and creating Sims I don't even play with to be more interesting these days. Somewhere around Cats & Dogs and Jungle Adventure... I've just lost interest in the game play. I've come up with ideas to make playing again interesting... but I have yet to find the actually desire and drive to do said ideas.
