>>10610835>I personally dislike neglecting and abusing my tama pets to get them to look a certain wayCare mistakes as a mechanic are meant to be a goal/"punishment", in that the entire system only works hand in hand with slow growths. Part of why it's so flawed in modern entries is that the requirements are the same as older ones, but you get less time to accumulate those mistakes, and the nuances in how you get them is gone too.
In Connection era, you had mental and physical care mistakes, which were determined either by forgoing happiness/hunger, or neglecting to praise/scold them. It was a "that's life" sort of system, where combined with the time it takes for characters to grow, you can actually screw up here and there, and get a different character from what you wanted. Things not going to plan was a core part of the gameplay loop and was treated as normal since it's pretty easy to slip up and ignore a discipline call; maintaining that level of good care was the challenge.
It fails in modern entries because the ability to naturally make a mistake here and there is all but gone. To get a "bad care" character now, you'd have to ignore it for the entire day instead of carelessly racking up mistakes from natural play. It's especially noticeable in Uni, where you need 6+ CMs for certain characters despite teen->adult evo only taking a day.
As for why I dislike the gene mixing gameplay, it's because nothing you do matters at all. You pair your Tama off to a spouse that has a design you like, and pray to RNGesus that it gets that design. There's no involvement or thought put into it, and the character you get will either be sent off immediately for "better genes", or kept, which removes almost all the "gameplay".
Mentioned the V4 before, and the reason I like it is because it has growth mechanics that aren't just "take perfect care", but do have punishments for neglecting skill, care, or both, so there's an active gameplay element involved in how you raise your pet.