More Thoughts on Sims 4

Some of the best legacy stories I ever read were amazing because they had really great villains. Sometimes those villains came from inside the family itself. Other times, the villains were from rival families.  All of this was made up, of course, with no real effect on game play beyond just sims disliking other sims. I think it would be great if Sims 4 included bigger levels of conflict, such as rival families and enemies who actually could cause trouble in all levels of your life.

In Sims 2, enemies could do various things to your yard. They could kick over your trashcan, which could invite cockroaches to invade your lot.  They could leave bags of poo at your door. Once magic was introduced, they could make it rain and cause some other levels of damage. It was annoying, but really didn't cause that much harm. In Sims 3, you could declare someone a nemesis and had a negative buffer when they were around, but beyond that, very little happened. Sims could fight each other, of course. In Sims 3, later expansion packs allowed for rumors to cause damage to reputation of the sim, but that was never directly from an enemy.

In Sims 4, I would like for the concept of enemies to be expanded. I would love for families to be able to war with each other, making it very difficult for members of the rival families to become friends or even coworkers. They would crash each other's parties and start fights. They would try to ruin each other's gardens, spread rumors, and cause general problems for each other. Family sims would have an interaction with each other to Discuss Rival Family. It would build their relationship with each other, while further destroying the one with the enemy family.

This kind of situation would cause Evil sims to thrive, because they had someone to focus on and Good sims to fret because they didn't want to hate others. Perhaps there could even be a quest for Good sims to go on where they could possibly mend the riff between families.

Of course, if a family was hated enough, perhaps they could even earn a Curse from an enemy. Expanding on the curse spells from the sims magic packs of the older games, a Curse in 4 could be something leveled at the whole family and future generations, not just at one person. The curses could range in strength from "House is always dirty" to "Each family member dies before reaching old age." Like curses in real life, it shouldn't be apparent from the start that the curse has happened. The player would have to notice that fires break out every time someone cooks and then go consult an expert on the nature of the curse and how to get it removed. Removal could involve a quest of some sort.

How would curses come about? I would like for them to be part of another aspect of the game I would love to see. It would be called Dying Wish. In sims 2, when a sim died, people would inherit money depending on their relationship with the deceased, but you as a player had no control over that. In sims 3, you get everything in a person's inventory when they died, if they lived on your lot. Other than making people sad for a couple of days and creating ghosts, death really had no other effect on the living.

Once a sim achieved their life time wish and had some kids, a lot of their aspiration points were just being wasted. Sure, you could purchase some items that could be left for the coming generations, but once those things were purchased by one sim, it wasn't really necessary for them to be bought again. Aspiration points would build and build and nothing of consequence could be done with them. It made it very tempting to kill of any old sims who weren't needed to help with the kids.

However, if the goal of a Dying Wish was added into the game, suddenly elder sims become far more important to play. Dying Wishes would consist of a list of things that could truly improve (or harm) the lives of the sims left behind. The point total to unlock a Dying Wish would need to be really high so that the player would be encouraged to really work with their elders and fulfill their goals.

Along with Curse Enemy Family and the various ways one could do that, a Dying Wish could also do things like gain special abilities, special items, or adding bonuses like easier career advancement. A Dying Wish shouldn't be something that  could be accomplished in other, easier ways like "Get a Bunch of Money." Anything that could be done with a cheat code shouldn't count as  dying wish.

One potent possible Dying Wish could be that sims wish to Come Back as Ancestral Spirit.  Instead of being some mindless ghost who just scared people and shook the beds, an Ancestral Spirit would be there to really benefit the family.  For one thing, they would not cost a slot of the family max. Like a Butler, they would stay on the lot, even if 8 sims already lived there.

They could function as a babysitter and watch the children while the adults were gone. Sims could ask to be tutored and the Ancestral Spirit would teach them any skills they knew in life. They could also guard the house from robbers and anyone else who might pose a threat. Ancestral Spirits would build relationships with each generation of the family. They could teach family lore (which would strengthen the family bonds) and talk to sims about ancestors they favored.

I know this is a lot of stuff that deals with the family unit, but as I said in last night's post, the family unit and the ability to grow multiple generations is truly one of the strongest appeals of the The Sims. I think if the game designers would build on THAT foundation, they could take the game to some amazing places.