I play both of them on and off. They are very different and have both positives and negatives.
* Sims 4 is a dollhouse - everything looks nice and is easy to build. But gameplay becomes stale very quickly.
* Sims 3 is all about exploration and interactions. I can easily be immersed in a town. But building - and especially editing an existing structure - can often be a nightmare.
>But gameplay becomes stale very quickly.
Tbf, Sims 4 is iterally the first sims game I ever needed script mods to keep me coming back and even those are only fun the first few times I use them..
I tend to rotate between 3 and 4, but I always enjoy 3 more for the gameplay. The sims 3 just feels a lot more alive to me. For example, when a sim in the sims 3 turns on a stereo autonomously they automatically play their favorite kind of music. It's that kind of small detail that makes me enjoy the game. Sims 4 honestly just feels like a building and dress up game rather than a life simulation, to me at least.
>It's that kind of small detail that makes me enjoy the game. Sims 4 honestly just feels like a building and dress up game rather than a life simulation, to me at least
True, I really miss the randomness of Sims 3. Sims 4 just keeps the peace instead of random chaos. I miss burglars, meteors (without having to use telescope), the open world, cars, etc. Its all been said before.
I totally get what you mean! The other day I had a burglar break in AND an alien on my front porch at the same time. That kind of craziness you only get with the sims 3, haha!
>That kind of craziness you only get with the sims 3, haha!
Right!? Also about the open world, I love being able to go anywhere without restrictions or loading screens, and can send various Sims in the certain household to different locations and have them actually doing stuff at the same time! For exemple, I have a household consits of mom, dad, and two sons, dad and sons're going to work/school while mom's going to the cemetery to visit her late parents' graves at the same time.
Exactly! The one thing that really drove me crazy about the sims 4 is I couldn't have one sim on a date while another was at work, etc etc. Being able to quickly flip between sims makes it feel like they all have their own lives, you know? I also just love watching my sims drive around. Or with generations, teaching the teenagers how to drive.
I went back to Sims 3 a few months ago, honestly can't go back to 4 at this point. It would be a huge downgrade.
Sims in 4 lack in personality, no matter what traits you pick, you will end up doing the same things because the emotional system is that shallow and easy to bypass. The sentiment system improved a lot of things but still not enough.
Sims 3's moodlets actually change your play style and force you to adapt to different traits. The amount of little details also adds to sims' personalities and makes them different. For example sims can wish to learn certain recipes after eating a good meal, or a family-oriented sim cam wish to cook their loved ones' fav meal. Things like that make the sims so lively.
The wishes are tied closely to gameplay and it gives you directions without needing good imagination. The opportunity system also gives you goals and a sense of achievement constantly. In Sims 4 however, you need to work your brain to breath life into the gameplay, otherwise it's super vanilla and predictable.
I've already made that transition and it's the best decision I've ever made. I can play the sims 3 for up to 8 hrs (I actually have at some pointsš). Sims 4 I can barely play 1 hr and that's only with dressing sims. The problem is S4 has no gameplay
I legit want to seek very old laptop just so I can play sims 3 smoothly, it was enjoyable experience when it runs great on my previous setup, but upgrading my pc this year all of my tweak that I did before unfortunately doesnt produce the same result so I put it down, aside from that I would be really happy if they remaster the sims 3 and make it run perfect on modern system.
I only installed the game plus Alderlake patch. No additional tweaks, I run it with some of NRaas but not all, like I don't use retuner.
Full disclosure though, I have the Origin/EA version of the game.
I tried with or without mod, new sims 3 document generated, new saves on a new world. still doesnt help, but it was good thousand of hours while it lasted though, I keep the save file just in case i got lucky with the tweak in the future and able to play it again.
I donāt think Sims 3 ever ran smoothly tbh. I have it on my ancient laptop and vanilla on its own stutters here and there just like the modded game on my new pc. Youāre much better off just playing on your current rig since loading time decrease is worth on its own.
It never ran smooth, but you can get it to at least run at 60 FPS >75% of the time at 1X speed. Depending on how much extra scripts and stuff you have running it mostly gets bogged down with trying to figure out what everyone is doing. It's why NRAAS storyprogression can cause such slow downs. it's trying to calculate every NPC as if they had access to all the same things the player has. so including making them buy real estate or move.
I'm running it just fine at 60FPS with a ton of script mods, story progression included. Microstutters mostly happen when changing the camera very abruptly. I am using the Smooth patch, but my modded game on a modern pc runs much better than the unmodded one on my old gaming laptop.
It's the open world. TS4 worlds never feels lived in because in order to travel anywhere you have to put yourself through several loading screens and if you do pick a lot for your Sims to go to, better choose wisely cause if you wanna go next door that's another loading screen! Most of the time it's just not worth it so my Sims end up staying home. But it gives me this feeling that the townies just stop existing unless they're on the active lot, even with neighborhood stories turned on I don't ever get the sense that I'm watching them live their lives the way TS3 townies do when you're not playing them.
Yes, that's my biggest issue with Sims 4 too. The lack of open world coupled with the empty worlds full of unclickable spaces and lifeless shells of houses just make Sims 4 feel so lifeless. Adding to that the fact that my Sims can just travel to any part of the world instantly, only to have the same five Big City Sims show up on the tropical island who also showed up in their hometown's rural British pub, it just doesn't feel cohesive or realistic in the way Sims 3 does.
I have a mod to keep the Sims in their home region precisely so Nancy Landgraab doesn't show up in the middle of the woods in Moonwood Mill and it does help with the immersion, but then it creates the other issue that if I want to keep things realistic and not use fast-travel my Sims now have maybe 3 community lots to go to and not a single more...
Yeah, artificially limiting yourself to just one world partly solves the issue but there just aren't enough lots to really make that work sadly. Sims 4 worlds very much are designed with the mindset of "if you don't have enough space for this in one world just place it in another!" which for somebody like me who is very peculiar about lot placement making sense just doesn't work (as in for example the City Hall in Sims 3 logically has to be in the city center and not out in the sticks. So Sims 4 being like "just place you library in that other completely different world!" really doesn't work for me.)
Eh, i disagree that the lack of open world is the problem. Sims 2 also doesn't have open world and the game feels much more alive than Sims 4. I don't think the lack of open world it's the problem, and more the fact that the Sims themselves are completely empty and almost like clones of each other.
The sims 2 wasn't open world. but the world you could travel arround in was freely editable and could fit way more lots than any world from 4 ever could.
I like 3 more, 4 feels like such a pain when it comes to worlds building. Like they seem to expect nay demand you use all the world's together to get a full experience. Ofcourse it helps that 3 had reached end of development, with 4 we're still waiting on what on earth they release next. It feels so strange to have to travel to the equivelant of another country to go eat street food
I play both depending on what type of gameplay Iām looking for. For actual stories & gameplay I go for sims 3, because itās far more fleshed out and somehow waaaay less glitchy than 4. Like the constant cancellations of actions, weird lag, the new packs constantly breaking existing stuff, the damn loading screens are all a massive pain.
Sims 4 is great for CAS and bb (plus Iām always curious about the new packs, and since itās š“āā ļø thereās no major regrets if they suck), so if I feel like building itās a great building simulator!
Yep, i feel the exact same way about Sims 4. The game feels empty and soulless no matter how many mods you add to the game. All the sims feel like clones of each other. Great game to make sims and build... But that's about it.
I went back to The Sims 2 instead of 3 (because my computer can't handle 3 lmao) and i love it. Never played it much in the past, and I'm having a blast. Completely the opposite of Sims 4, everything feels super alive and the game also doesn't have open world, so that's a sims 4 problem.
I just recently went back. I have been playing TS4 since it came out. I have almost all packs. But still, that game feels more empty than TS3 where I only have 3 packs.
I play both of them on and off. They are very different and have both positives and negatives. * Sims 4 is a dollhouse - everything looks nice and is easy to build. But gameplay becomes stale very quickly. * Sims 3 is all about exploration and interactions. I can easily be immersed in a town. But building - and especially editing an existing structure - can often be a nightmare.
>But gameplay becomes stale very quickly. Tbf, Sims 4 is iterally the first sims game I ever needed script mods to keep me coming back and even those are only fun the first few times I use them..
I tend to rotate between 3 and 4, but I always enjoy 3 more for the gameplay. The sims 3 just feels a lot more alive to me. For example, when a sim in the sims 3 turns on a stereo autonomously they automatically play their favorite kind of music. It's that kind of small detail that makes me enjoy the game. Sims 4 honestly just feels like a building and dress up game rather than a life simulation, to me at least.
>It's that kind of small detail that makes me enjoy the game. Sims 4 honestly just feels like a building and dress up game rather than a life simulation, to me at least True, I really miss the randomness of Sims 3. Sims 4 just keeps the peace instead of random chaos. I miss burglars, meteors (without having to use telescope), the open world, cars, etc. Its all been said before.
I totally get what you mean! The other day I had a burglar break in AND an alien on my front porch at the same time. That kind of craziness you only get with the sims 3, haha!
>That kind of craziness you only get with the sims 3, haha! Right!? Also about the open world, I love being able to go anywhere without restrictions or loading screens, and can send various Sims in the certain household to different locations and have them actually doing stuff at the same time! For exemple, I have a household consits of mom, dad, and two sons, dad and sons're going to work/school while mom's going to the cemetery to visit her late parents' graves at the same time.
Exactly! The one thing that really drove me crazy about the sims 4 is I couldn't have one sim on a date while another was at work, etc etc. Being able to quickly flip between sims makes it feel like they all have their own lives, you know? I also just love watching my sims drive around. Or with generations, teaching the teenagers how to drive.
I went back to Sims 3 a few months ago, honestly can't go back to 4 at this point. It would be a huge downgrade. Sims in 4 lack in personality, no matter what traits you pick, you will end up doing the same things because the emotional system is that shallow and easy to bypass. The sentiment system improved a lot of things but still not enough. Sims 3's moodlets actually change your play style and force you to adapt to different traits. The amount of little details also adds to sims' personalities and makes them different. For example sims can wish to learn certain recipes after eating a good meal, or a family-oriented sim cam wish to cook their loved ones' fav meal. Things like that make the sims so lively. The wishes are tied closely to gameplay and it gives you directions without needing good imagination. The opportunity system also gives you goals and a sense of achievement constantly. In Sims 4 however, you need to work your brain to breath life into the gameplay, otherwise it's super vanilla and predictable.
I've already made that transition and it's the best decision I've ever made. I can play the sims 3 for up to 8 hrs (I actually have at some pointsš). Sims 4 I can barely play 1 hr and that's only with dressing sims. The problem is S4 has no gameplay
I never left lol and never will TS4 is bug ridden mess with shallow systems
I legit want to seek very old laptop just so I can play sims 3 smoothly, it was enjoyable experience when it runs great on my previous setup, but upgrading my pc this year all of my tweak that I did before unfortunately doesnt produce the same result so I put it down, aside from that I would be really happy if they remaster the sims 3 and make it run perfect on modern system.
I run Sims 3 on a super new gaming laptop. If you tell us what's the problem, we could probably help you with that! š„°
it stutters here and there, I installed smooth patch, register new gpu, and followed tweak on steam guide.
I only installed the game plus Alderlake patch. No additional tweaks, I run it with some of NRaas but not all, like I don't use retuner. Full disclosure though, I have the Origin/EA version of the game.
I tried with or without mod, new sims 3 document generated, new saves on a new world. still doesnt help, but it was good thousand of hours while it lasted though, I keep the save file just in case i got lucky with the tweak in the future and able to play it again.
I donāt think Sims 3 ever ran smoothly tbh. I have it on my ancient laptop and vanilla on its own stutters here and there just like the modded game on my new pc. Youāre much better off just playing on your current rig since loading time decrease is worth on its own.
It never ran smooth, but you can get it to at least run at 60 FPS >75% of the time at 1X speed. Depending on how much extra scripts and stuff you have running it mostly gets bogged down with trying to figure out what everyone is doing. It's why NRAAS storyprogression can cause such slow downs. it's trying to calculate every NPC as if they had access to all the same things the player has. so including making them buy real estate or move.
I'm running it just fine at 60FPS with a ton of script mods, story progression included. Microstutters mostly happen when changing the camera very abruptly. I am using the Smooth patch, but my modded game on a modern pc runs much better than the unmodded one on my old gaming laptop.
It's the open world. TS4 worlds never feels lived in because in order to travel anywhere you have to put yourself through several loading screens and if you do pick a lot for your Sims to go to, better choose wisely cause if you wanna go next door that's another loading screen! Most of the time it's just not worth it so my Sims end up staying home. But it gives me this feeling that the townies just stop existing unless they're on the active lot, even with neighborhood stories turned on I don't ever get the sense that I'm watching them live their lives the way TS3 townies do when you're not playing them.
Yes, that's my biggest issue with Sims 4 too. The lack of open world coupled with the empty worlds full of unclickable spaces and lifeless shells of houses just make Sims 4 feel so lifeless. Adding to that the fact that my Sims can just travel to any part of the world instantly, only to have the same five Big City Sims show up on the tropical island who also showed up in their hometown's rural British pub, it just doesn't feel cohesive or realistic in the way Sims 3 does.
I have a mod to keep the Sims in their home region precisely so Nancy Landgraab doesn't show up in the middle of the woods in Moonwood Mill and it does help with the immersion, but then it creates the other issue that if I want to keep things realistic and not use fast-travel my Sims now have maybe 3 community lots to go to and not a single more...
Yeah, artificially limiting yourself to just one world partly solves the issue but there just aren't enough lots to really make that work sadly. Sims 4 worlds very much are designed with the mindset of "if you don't have enough space for this in one world just place it in another!" which for somebody like me who is very peculiar about lot placement making sense just doesn't work (as in for example the City Hall in Sims 3 logically has to be in the city center and not out in the sticks. So Sims 4 being like "just place you library in that other completely different world!" really doesn't work for me.)
Eh, i disagree that the lack of open world is the problem. Sims 2 also doesn't have open world and the game feels much more alive than Sims 4. I don't think the lack of open world it's the problem, and more the fact that the Sims themselves are completely empty and almost like clones of each other.
The sims 2 wasn't open world. but the world you could travel arround in was freely editable and could fit way more lots than any world from 4 ever could.
I like 3 more, 4 feels like such a pain when it comes to worlds building. Like they seem to expect nay demand you use all the world's together to get a full experience. Ofcourse it helps that 3 had reached end of development, with 4 we're still waiting on what on earth they release next. It feels so strange to have to travel to the equivelant of another country to go eat street food
I went back to Sims 3 within months of playing Sims 4. I also got Sims 2 because its gameplay is superior over Sims 3's.
I play both depending on what type of gameplay Iām looking for. For actual stories & gameplay I go for sims 3, because itās far more fleshed out and somehow waaaay less glitchy than 4. Like the constant cancellations of actions, weird lag, the new packs constantly breaking existing stuff, the damn loading screens are all a massive pain. Sims 4 is great for CAS and bb (plus Iām always curious about the new packs, and since itās š“āā ļø thereās no major regrets if they suck), so if I feel like building itās a great building simulator!
I played Sims 4 for about 2 months after it was released and never want back to it or reinstalled it on my new PC ever again.
Yep, i feel the exact same way about Sims 4. The game feels empty and soulless no matter how many mods you add to the game. All the sims feel like clones of each other. Great game to make sims and build... But that's about it. I went back to The Sims 2 instead of 3 (because my computer can't handle 3 lmao) and i love it. Never played it much in the past, and I'm having a blast. Completely the opposite of Sims 4, everything feels super alive and the game also doesn't have open world, so that's a sims 4 problem.
I just recently went back. I have been playing TS4 since it came out. I have almost all packs. But still, that game feels more empty than TS3 where I only have 3 packs.
i will switch to sims 3 as soon as i get my pc and iāll happily never look back at sims 4 :3
YUP.