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Rotational Gameplay in TS4
Rukola_Schaaf
Posts: 3,065 Member
i am playing TheSims franchise since 2000
as far the game allowed it i played always rotationally
i don't play TS4 any longer, one of the main reasons is it doesn't support rotational gameplay,
TS4 is programmed without consistent consideration of rotational playstyle
several different playstyles are apparently being considered by TS4 devs, but
there is not even a section within those forums reserved for rotational players to share their experiences
is Rotational Gameplay & Rotational Playstyle unwanted with this franchise ?
related links :
What is Rotational Gameplay ? <<<
many players with this franchise not even realise they are playing rotationally
threads about TS4's problems with rotational gameplay :
Same sims appear everywhere <<<
Relationship Randomness in Rotational Play <<<
Here is MY Biggest Issue <<<
Share Your Culling Story <<<
They are on the sidewalk AGAIN . . . <<<
Rotational play is broken beyond repair <<<
my first thread in the Forums section about this matter
Suggestion - Rotational Gameplay Forum <<<
some points about how TS4 is not considering rotational playstyle/gameplay :
but on the other the game produces & spawns sims randomly into the worlds while already living in the worlds sims are being culled, no matter if player's sims or long lived townies with relationships to actively played households
* the Dine Out patch introduced not only agressive relationhips decay but also direct relationships culling, where the relationhips of sims even within the same household consist of an empty bar
* since the beginning of TS4 sims not directed by the player build romantic interests spawned randomly
if a rotational player changes the currently played household the currently unplayed sims behave randomly & not along traits, not along built relationships, not along family relationships
that way romantic relationships with even complete strangers are being built despite family aspiration, despite to the player apparent strong family bonds & despite displayed love between sims within a family
* Get To Work introduced coworkers which are being assigned randomly either from the already existing sims pool or where sims are being spawned new to the worlds, often while already living in the worlds sims are being culled
* in Dine Out restaurants & Get To Work retail the player has little control over which sim is being included into the employees pool
even the already employed sims will be culled if the households are changed to play rotationally
* sims have no memory, no recollection of what is going on in their lives at all
therefore there is nothing initialising sims to behave along happenings of their own life
important happenings like births, deaths, birthdays, promotions, friendship, love, marriages, divorces are forgotten as soon the situation is over
* traits are defined poorly, there are too few traits
not traits but emotions rule TS4 sims
the traits are defined along emotions, not emotions along traits
which makes all sims alike, which makes rotational gameplay absurd, if all sims are alike why play different sims ?
& how to design different lives if all sims are alike ?
* TS4's culling & spawning is mandatory & not optional
only mods help with that
* everything that has timers gets weird when you rotate. Play a family for 6 days, then rotate to a new family? Guess what it is billday for you. Play the first family for another 6 days and come back to the second family? Yeah, you won the bills lottery again. Musicians actually have to be played for 7 days before they can send in another song, but writers can submit books to the literary digest as long as some household has been played for 7 days since the last one. Investments require that you are still playing the same household 48 hours later, or your investment is lost. If someone has the shrewd trait (or whatever the trait was, that gave you a percentage of the household funds), they get stinking rich while you are not playing them, depending on how big your rotation is. Age is frozen, but time is not when you rotate away, so every reward or change that is related to time gets messed up. And the inconsistency made it impossible to try and imagine your way out of things, by making the story fit so to speak. (by @TriX0099 )
as far the game allowed it i played always rotationally
i don't play TS4 any longer, one of the main reasons is it doesn't support rotational gameplay,
TS4 is programmed without consistent consideration of rotational playstyle
several different playstyles are apparently being considered by TS4 devs, but
there is not even a section within those forums reserved for rotational players to share their experiences
is Rotational Gameplay & Rotational Playstyle unwanted with this franchise ?
related links :
What is Rotational Gameplay ? <<<
many players with this franchise not even realise they are playing rotationally
threads about TS4's problems with rotational gameplay :
Same sims appear everywhere <<<
Relationship Randomness in Rotational Play <<<
Here is MY Biggest Issue <<<
Share Your Culling Story <<<
They are on the sidewalk AGAIN . . . <<<
Rotational play is broken beyond repair <<<
my first thread in the Forums section about this matter
Suggestion - Rotational Gameplay Forum <<<
some points about how TS4 is not considering rotational playstyle/gameplay :
but on the other the game produces & spawns sims randomly into the worlds while already living in the worlds sims are being culled, no matter if player's sims or long lived townies with relationships to actively played households
* the Dine Out patch introduced not only agressive relationhips decay but also direct relationships culling, where the relationhips of sims even within the same household consist of an empty bar
* since the beginning of TS4 sims not directed by the player build romantic interests spawned randomly
if a rotational player changes the currently played household the currently unplayed sims behave randomly & not along traits, not along built relationships, not along family relationships
that way romantic relationships with even complete strangers are being built despite family aspiration, despite to the player apparent strong family bonds & despite displayed love between sims within a family
* Get To Work introduced coworkers which are being assigned randomly either from the already existing sims pool or where sims are being spawned new to the worlds, often while already living in the worlds sims are being culled
* in Dine Out restaurants & Get To Work retail the player has little control over which sim is being included into the employees pool
even the already employed sims will be culled if the households are changed to play rotationally
* sims have no memory, no recollection of what is going on in their lives at all
therefore there is nothing initialising sims to behave along happenings of their own life
important happenings like births, deaths, birthdays, promotions, friendship, love, marriages, divorces are forgotten as soon the situation is over
* traits are defined poorly, there are too few traits
not traits but emotions rule TS4 sims
the traits are defined along emotions, not emotions along traits
which makes all sims alike, which makes rotational gameplay absurd, if all sims are alike why play different sims ?
& how to design different lives if all sims are alike ?
* TS4's culling & spawning is mandatory & not optional
only mods help with that
* everything that has timers gets weird when you rotate. Play a family for 6 days, then rotate to a new family? Guess what it is billday for you. Play the first family for another 6 days and come back to the second family? Yeah, you won the bills lottery again. Musicians actually have to be played for 7 days before they can send in another song, but writers can submit books to the literary digest as long as some household has been played for 7 days since the last one. Investments require that you are still playing the same household 48 hours later, or your investment is lost. If someone has the shrewd trait (or whatever the trait was, that gave you a percentage of the household funds), they get stinking rich while you are not playing them, depending on how big your rotation is. Age is frozen, but time is not when you rotate away, so every reward or change that is related to time gets messed up. And the inconsistency made it impossible to try and imagine your way out of things, by making the story fit so to speak. (by @TriX0099 )
i won't be participating in the forums & the gallery anymore - thanks EA
Post edited by Rukola_Schaaf on
18
Comments
I have also written a thread about relationships in rotational play in feedback http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/893396/relationship-randomness-in-rotational-play (if anyone is interested)
Updated with Werewolf Diaries (1)
I use MCCC mod for Sims 4 and NRAAS mods for Sims 3. Neither game suited my kind of rotational play without the mods (and cheats).
I had more fun in Sims 1 and Sims 2, where I could play rotational without fear of losing Sims, without losing control of any aspect of the sims' lives, and without losing relationships and memories, etc...
(She/her)
With sims 4, however, I have had to make concessions from jump. I hated that Sims 4 culled relationships I had created and spawned relationships I did not but I was willing to "grin and bear" it. At least, my families maintained their relationships when I rotated. There was no decay like I see now back when the ga me launched. And, as long as the sims I wanted to keep from being culled were housed then everything was fine. But then the patch before Dine Out happened and rotational play has been broken for me ever since.
Now, when I rotate, my entire sim family (sims that live together in the same household) are strangers, married couples have no relationship whatsoever but then they also have new friends and lovers I didn't direct. It was not like this when I bought this game and I am furious that my concerns are not being addressed by EA! If I can't play this game my way or have my sims maintain the relationships I want and EA is not going to fix this then I want a refund! You can't just fundamentally change how the game works, with no notice I might add, and then provide no explanation on why it was done or when it will be fixed! This is not what I paid for but, more importantly, this is NOT how they advertised the game. I don't rule at all. Basically, I shelled out hundreds of dollars to watch EA direct my game and that doesn't work for me.
there are two sorts of rotational play,
* it's the total control, like TS2 enabled because the currently unplayed households wouldn't progress at all if not present on active lots (community & residential)
* & the progressive control, like TS3 enabled, where the player allows currently unplayed sims to progress (Story Progression)
i was content with how TS3 allowed to play rotationally, i play both ways
but i understand that TS2 style rotational players were very unhappy with TS3
TS4 makes both ways impossible
the only way possible is to deal with what the game throws at the player & that's premades & randomly generated & at any time cullable sims
i remember how i played TS2 & that was to replace every single sim in the world i played with my own sims, all NPCs included
& those sims stayed put where i placed them, the work which included several hundreds of sims was worth it, i had fun to see the sims i made stories for on every lot i visited with the currently played household
with TS4 such work is useless, the game is not programmed to regard the wishes of the player, it doesn't regard what & how the player wants to play - the You Rule slogan is a hypocrisy
If you play more than a couple generations, rotational gameplay is practically mandatory.
Unless you only have one child per generation, eventually you're gonna have to move one of your child Sims out of the home so that they can raise a family of their own.
Gen 1 2 children, 2 parents
Gen 2 Those 2 children get married, meaning you have 6 Sims in the house. If your 2 child Sims have kids of their own, they can only have one each before you hit the max Sim limit.
Gen 3 Someone's gonna have to move out, otherwise that next generation can't have kids of their own, and can't get married.
Boom, you've just created a rotational family.
Why don't they just take away the romantic interests that are randomly generated, and the friendship that are randomly generated. I don't like them anyway!
Also, I would prefer they use the same townie's (or my own sims who are mixologists) in bars, night clubs and lounges instead of spawning new ones for each place. Also, they could use the same restaurant cooks, waiters and hosts in all my restaurants instead of spawning new ones for each restaurant. That would help cut back a lot on the amount of people needed in the game.... And allow my sims romantic interests to be steady.....
there are players which play not that way
there are players who don't play families at all
there are players who don't care for the moved out sims at all
there are players who don't care for the gameplay at all because they are just building, just making sims in CAS, just enjoying CC, just making CC ...
there are players who think their way's the only legit way to play this franchise & the other ways are not actually playing it
i admit the definitions what is a TheSims Playstyle are murky but i think, as long someone is unable to replace this game with some other game or a computer program then what that player makes with/for/within this game's still a legit playstyle
this franchise is being played in many ways
rotational is one of them
I just turn on the game and just picked one of my families that I felt like playing, and then pick another family I felt in the mood to play as.
I don't do legacies or extended generational play. I keep Aging off, play one or two family generations and only age once in a while whenever I get tired of a sim being a baby, toddler, or child.
I just play and try to make my sims happy and successful in life. I tried to meet their wants/wishes and try to keep them surviving and happy while doing so.
I kind of play the sims games like a mixture of time management, survival, sandbox, dollhouse, and RPG game elements (because I play all sorts of games, not just sims). I liked setting goals to reach, even if it's something small/minor, but I liked doing it my way and whenever I wanted.
I liked having total control of my sims, and I felt Sims 3 and 4 have taken some of that away from me.
Yes, Sims 3 has creative tools, which I loved, but I couldn't really control the sims themselves until I discovered NRAAS mods much later on. (I only had Sims 3 base game for a long, long time. I didn't enjoy the game and it's SP that much.)
However, it was (and still is) a lot of work to set up the mods, and there are times where I wasn't in the mood for that, so I end up playing Sims 2.
Sims 4 had a more smoother experience for me, but that relationship decay, culling, the extra random flirty "relationships", and lack of memories really started to annoy me over time. I am grateful for the MCCC Mod that helps alleviate this.
I play both games, but I have to use mods for both as I feel my gameplay is crippled by both, but in different ways.
That's just how it is for me. *shrugs*
ETA: Thinking about it, I think the problem with Sims 3 for me is it had too much of the simulation aspect...? I couldn't do Total Control Rotational Immortal Dollhouse play without the NRAAS mods.
Sims 4 is just...weird, lol.
(She/her)
It stopped feeling like my choices had any impact on the game - instead I could just sit and watch the game play itself for me. And there are a lot more entertaining shows/series/films out there, so I sadly gave up on my sims.
One of the issues you aren't mentioning btw, is that everything that has timers gets weird when you rotate. Play a family for 6 days, then rotate to a new family? Guess what it is billday for you. Play the first family for another 6 days and come back to the second family? Yeah, you won the bills lottery again. Musicians actually have to be played for 7 days before they can send in another song, but writers can submit books to the literary digest as long as some household has been played for 7 days since the last one. Investments require that you are still playing the same household 48 hours later, or your investment is lost. If someone has the shrewd trait (or whatever the trait was, that gave you a percentage of the household funds), they get stinking rich while you are not playing them, depending on how big your rotation is. Age is frozen, but time is not when you rotate away, so every reward or change that is related to time gets messed up. And the inconsistency made it impossible to try and imagine your way out of things, by making the story fit so to speak.
And if they didn't want us to play rotationally, they should have told us that from the beginning...And I don't use mods or CC.....But I do own all the packs so far....
@DJNS
i think the introduction of relationships culling is related to the low regard or maybe even disregard of rotational gameplay
sims culling being already a solution which should be at least optional & not mandatory
& i think relationships decay was introduced to remove the randomly created lovebirds relationships
but it's quite a superficial idea, the devs should remove the randomness as the ruler
@TriX0099
you seem to be very consistent in your gameplay & i can imagine that TS4 is absolutely frustrating for you because the game is everywhere all over the place
i am not even that consistent & the game is still frustrating
i will put your description into the points in the initial post
you are probably not the only one who wants to play that consistently
I started out playing rotationally, so I got used to all the weird stuff happening (the timers). Those didn't bother me much, I'm quite laid-back with details such as bills. But now that I've been playing a single household (not a choice I made happily) the game makes much more sense and even feels more immersive. So I think that if I was to go back playing rotationally I would probably pay more attention to those details. I doubt those would stop me from playing though, not the same way that relationship decay did.
@SheriSim57 I agree they should have told us in the beginning! I've already invested so much on this game and I would have likely stuck with TS2 if I had known what's coming.
Updated with Werewolf Diaries (1)
I most certainly found culling and relationship decay to be much bigger issues than the inconsistent neighbourhood vs lot time. But those I found mods for
so what is your contribution to this thread again ?
I'm very much a roational player. It's one of the reasons I don't take to the The Sims 3 right away. And it's one of the reasons I was excited for the sims 4. But since the relationship decay patch? I'm not impressed in the slightest. I want it fixed so badly.
I sincerely don't know what you are "talking" about. I have played The Sims 4 rotationally since the first day I played???
Really?
I mean I do play rotationally and now I'm even trying to make townies my own and I feel quite limited.
Culling destroyed a lot of my progress and I have sims that never really go out on their own.
I think it is possible to play rotationally, but you never know when your progress is going to break and also memories would help a lot.
Like I wish friends meant more in the sims 4. I have sims that are best friends and they have nothing new to it besides the fact that it says best friends, no new interactions were unlocked. I have sims that are "partners in crime" and it does nothing to the game
I think it depends on the person. There are some aspects of the OP I definitely agree with, I still rotate but it's not as easy thanks to some of the decisions EA made. The relationship decay and culling are personal bug bears of mine. I think that's the problem with such a broad post, not all rotational players play the same way or look for the same things. The random romantic interests I quite like, for example, it offers some variety for my game.
That brings to my mind. When my sim hooked up Candy Behr and Wolfgang Munch they actually started showing up on the venues together and were often flirting with each other. I thought it was nice, but I haven't tried with other sims so maybe I just got lucky to have it work that well?
Updated with Werewolf Diaries (1)