Sims3 kind of dumbed down gardening quite a bit, not sure if that was a good thing. The addition of laundry was neat though.

But perhaps a few new maintenance things could be added around the house? more breakable things?

I'd like to see breakable windows for example. clumbsy sims shooting a ball through the window, a burglar or fireman breaking it to get in, etc. Aside from buying a new window, the option could be given to put wooden boards over the broken window. Kind of helps with creating an abandoned house.

Growing grass is also something I'd like to see. Sims could use lawnmowers to cut it. A cheap basic one, an electirc one, a cart they can ride around and even a robot that cuts the gras automaticly whenever its needed. Could also just let it grow tall.
Should probably be reserved for lots since having it in the entire world might prove difficult.

The way counters, toilets and such can get dirty, I want pretty much anything in the house to get dirty if messy stuff is put on it. Leaving dirty plates on a table could make the table dirty, lab stations could get dirty from use, garbage on the floor leaves stains, eating on the couch could get the couch dirty, and sloppy sims could make a mess at unusual places since they might eat anywhere and leave their dirty stuff everywhere.
A household with many sloppy sims should be near impossible to keep clean.

Cars should also have maintenance again.
They should get dirty over time, and get dirty faster from bad weather. Especially cheap cars should also have the occasional defect. Handy sims can fix this, or they could bring it to a garage to get it fixed.

I thought Sims 3 gardening was a vast improvement over Sims 2 with all the different plants and seeds and things, and not having to water all the decorative flowers so you can concentrate on the useful ones, it's one of the changes I approve of.

Broken windows with boards would make a neat build mode object, but if Sims could break pre-existing windows it would end up happening way to often and get annoying and expensive.

I think repairing plumbing and electronics ought to use separate skills.

Well, I surely want gardeners to return, and the ability to pull weeds. I miss those features.

A lot of people see it this way. Personally, I think what we got in TS3 was farming not gardening. I'd like my sims to have the option to grow decorative flowers and maybe shape hedges not grow vegetables. We have perfect and not so perfect veggies, so why not have the option to grow perfect and not so perfect roses or yucca plants? We got those indoor planters and they would have been so much better suited to decorative plants instead of the vegetables.

I think a combination of Sims 3 gardening plus Freetime flower arranging could be a good thing. You could grow certain flowers of certain qualities and can harvest the flowers indefinitely without worrying about the plants going permanently barren. Then you could put either a single flower in a vase (no skill needed) up to creating special floral arrangements that give powerful moodlets (and possibly increasing hygiene or energy as well).

About food in The Sims 4: there should be an associated fatness/fitness for them. Carrots and celery (if included) should not increase fatness level if eaten, even if your sims are already full. However, eating them when your sim is hungry should make your sim thinner. Tofu and meat should help build muscle though meat should increase fatness if your sim overeats. I also think that every fruit and vegetable ever made for the Sims 1, Sims 2 and Sims 3 should be added to the Sims 4 (preferably within the first 3 EPs).

I also think that cleaning should be added back into the franchise as a skill -- even if as a hidden skill. It would make your sims better at cleaning, increasing their speed and possibly even adding positive moodlets for freshly cleaned items cleaned by level 10 clean skill sims.

--Ocram

Edited to fix typos.

Ugh, I hated gardening in The Sims 2 -_____- that is one thing I don't miss. I think they stopped a lot of the household maintenances in The Sims 3 because sims are outside of their houses more (with the open neighbourhoods and all) If sims were spending more of their free time gardening and cleaning there would be less time to do other more fun things.

Some sims have fun while gardening in their backyard. Why spoil it for them?

I'd love to see a combination of gardening from TS2 and TS3. I want back the weed that grew when dogs peed in your yard, the bugs that infested your garden and the lady bugs that cured them. But, I also love to keep how large the gardening concept is in TS3. There is so much to garden, you can have different sims specialize in different plants. I also like that you need seeds to garden like it was in TS1.

But, as it was mentioned, I want the ability to grow flowers. The gardening club was a nice idea but it was so badly executed. The gardening club should have been about flowers and roses, not tomato plants.

I also miss watering indoor plants from TS1, that was a nice detail.

I agree with all of this, thats what makes the game actually life like! the new additions of raking leaves is fantastic but why not shoveling snow too? that would have been an awesome addition! I think the simple things need to be brought into the game, like growing grass & being able to mow it, even doing it for neighbors to earn pocket money. Thats another thing that would be a nice addition, an allowance for kids/teens~

I meant fun for me :P

Lawn mowing!!! is so important it is every teens weekend jobs around the house (and should be a afterschool job for teens).

I am an enthusiastic supporter of house's and yard's upkeep being in the game where you can really reflect the character of who owes the house -

A slob - your yard & house should reflect that (as much as your actions do) - long grass, peeling paint, broken windows, broken fences, even dirty windows.

A snob - everything trimmed and neat

Your Poor/just starting out - maintenance needed but clean - got your first job you can hire a teen to keep the lawns mowed or to wash the windows

Your Rich - hire a gardener and contract a maintenance person

Image the look you could create in different neighbourhoods the challenges it would create!

Defiantly a step-up in realism for the neighbourhoods

Indeed! its just a shame that houses cant really get too messy, and neither can gardens. A neat house should feel more satisfying after seeing rhe mess it can be.

I love this concept! With each new base game there really have been huge advances. TS2 gave us aging and so many things that rounded out the game. TS3 make a breakthrough with the open neighborhood. There's no point in TS4 if it doesn't take this open neighborhood concept and add elements like this.

In TS4, I want to there to be neighborhoods that look dramatically different then each other and diverse Sims living among them.