Freewill On Or Off, That Tis The Question..... «12...Next Go

theemaskedsimmer

Sul Sul Sim Family! Just curious how everyone plays their family, freewill on or off? I have not tried it with freewill off yet but my generational family is at the max size and things with six children is, well, hectic to say the least! Just looking for some ideas of how freewill on and off goes for everyone and their families?

Stormkeep

I always play with it set to "Full", I just don't like to have to feel like I always have to control every sim in the household all the time.
I do check the box that disables autonomy for selected Sim though...I hate when the sim I have selected decides to run off to get a drink of water or dance when I'm having them do something else.

One thing that helps with "full" is taking advantage of the fact that the game will not queue an autonomous action if you have anything else in the Sim's queue, so if you have a Sim you want to make sure stays on task, queue up something else that you know won't make them drop the task and that will prevent an autonomous action from causing it.

For example, I have a Sim who is a painter, and there are some autonomous tasks which will interrupt the painting process causing her to wander off without finishing. I queue her to Update Social media status on the computer right by her Easel whenever I have her paint. That action doesn't interrupt the painting and having it queued prevents any autonomous actions from interfering as well.
It also has the added advantage of being an action which sends a notification when it's completed, so I use that as an alert to know she's done with her painting.

theemaskedsimmer

@Stormkeep that is a good idea to queue actions up. I did not think about this but it would make things a lot easier for me. With all these kids I am having trouble with them just wandering off, or getting a million glasses of water!

GalacticGal

I play full households all of the time. Seems I'm bored if there isn't enough chaos. LOL I also play with autonomy on full. That way I can see to each of their needs, or if I can't, they often take care of themselves. Another trick with full or large households is remember the pause button. It is your friend. Pause and queue up what you need a Sim or Sims to do. Then unpause and away you go. Best of luck and Happy Simming!

ETA: Forgive my Grammar Police moment, but the proper use of 'tis to know is that it is the 18th century version of it's. It means it is. They just put the apostrophe in a different location. Personally, I would love to see its return to regular usage, myself.

Kita5399

I keep mine on full, with it disabled for selected Sim as well. I’m currently playing a household that has two adults, two kids, and three toddlers, all I can say is the pause button is my friend. I micromanage a ton, so I often pause and check each Sim, queuing up any needed actions.

Kironide

Stormkeep wrote: »

I always play with it set to "Full", I just don't like to have to feel like I always have to control every sim in the household all the time.
I do check the box that disables autonomy for selected Sim though...I hate when the sim I have selected decides to run off to get a drink of water or dance when I'm having them do something else.

One thing that helps with "full" is taking advantage of the fact that the game will not queue an autonomous action if you have anything else in the Sim's queue, so if you have a Sim you want to make sure stays on task, queue up something else that you know won't make them drop the task and that will prevent an autonomous action from causing it.

For example, I have a Sim who is a painter, and there are some autonomous tasks which will interrupt the painting process causing her to wander off without finishing. I queue her to Update Social media status on the computer right by her Easel whenever I have her paint. That action doesn't interrupt the painting and having it queued prevents any autonomous actions from interfering as well.
It also has the added advantage of being an action which sends a notification when it's completed, so I use that as an alert to know she's done with her painting.

That's really useful information, thank you @Stormkeep

I generally tend to play on full autonomy, particularly in larger households, but I wish there was an intermediate level of independence that would allow the sims to take care of their basic needs when autonomy is off.

VeeDub

I use full autonomy for all sims. I do make use of the pause button as needed, though.

MiniWolfsbane

I have free will on most of the time unless it's something really important like the birth of a baby. I've had dads just wander off when their firstborn is coming! Sometimes for family dinners with the meeting of a boyfriend or girlfriend, but not always. There are many times it seems it's not even on, like last night. There were two or three stinky, hungry boys who would've rather played basketball or read than take care of their needs. I was close to just screaming at my game and probably would've rage quit if I didn't know better.

PlumbobCrossing

I am a control freak for my sims and I love to micro manage every detail so naturally I play with it off. Sometimes I try it on with a small family but I get annoyed when one sim is making dinner and another decides to start grilling burgers. Lol😂

DoodlyDoofus

On. Half the fun of The Sims is seeing what they do without you telling them what to do.

Thrior

I always have free will on for everyone and set to max. It's just half the fun for me to see what they decide to do without my input. It's been a major factor for some unexpected drama and fun roleplay ideas; how they behave autonomously can help me shape their characterizations. Plus I like chaos. With my mods affecting autonomous behavior, chaos can very well happen and I find that fun.

theemaskedsimmer

OhMyHemsworth wrote: »

I am a control freak for my sims and I love to micro manage every detail so naturally I play with it off. Sometimes I try it on with a small family but I get annoyed when one sim is making dinner and another decides to start grilling burgers. Lol😂

@OhMyHemsworth See, I am a micromanager as well! This was one reason why I was considering turning it off. I mean sometimes with freewill they will listen then other times they do not. I just like to control everything they do so when something is off it drives me crazy.

theemaskedsimmer

GalacticGal wrote: »

I play full households all of the time. Seems I'm bored if there isn't enough chaos. LOL I also play with autonomy on full. That way I can see to each of their needs, or if I can't, they often take care of themselves. Another trick with full or large households is remember the pause button. It is your friend. Pause and queue up what you need a Sim or Sims to do. Then unpause and away you go. Best of luck and Happy Simming!

ETA: Forgive my Grammar Police moment, but the proper use of 'tis to know is that it is the 18th century version of it's. It means it is. They just put the apostrophe in a different location. Personally, I would love to see its return to regular usage, myself.

@GalacticGal I will have to use that pause button more! I enjoy the chaos as well just wish they would listen more. I have had to reset my sim often as well. Idk if its a glitch or what but every time she goes to bake she freezes. Totally okay with the grammar policing lol I know the correct wordage I just liked putting tis for this post title lol

theemaskedsimmer

DoodlyDoofus wrote: »

On. Half the fun of The Sims is seeing what they do without you telling them what to do.

@DoodlyDoofus NOOO lol they will ruin everything lol!! I have yet to be successful leaving them unattended for any length of time!!

PuzzlingMystery

Freewill on completely. I do tend to play with larger families, and so while I'm focusing on one of them the rest of the household can do as they please.

telemwill

I play with freewill on, but I do pause quite a bit.

Nikkih

Of course free will 😊 I like it chaotic 🤣

DaniRose2143

I have it on, but disabled for active sim. I have one sim I use in almost every save. She's kinda, sorta, very loosely sim me, so I'm focused pretty heavily on her. On saves where she is married I do have an eye on her wife just in case she gets into trouble or starts going totally rogue. In saves where she has a wife in an active career I will follow the wife to her job.

simgirl1010

I play with free will off 80% of the time. I usually have it on for social gatherings.

Mariefoxprice83

I don't think I have ever turned it off, even for the active sim.

FatTribble23

Always on except for when I'm setting up to take family portraits, then it's off. I also am a frequent flyer on the pause button.

Jokubas

I honestly don't know what I have it set to.

What I will say though is that I tend to be a micromanager in the Sims, but mostly because I don't trust the autonomy. It's also why I tend to play with only one Sim at a time and not with families. Sims do weird things if you leave them alone, like trying to troll the forums when they're supposed to be nice and don't like technology. Most of those actions are fairly innocuous, but it still really bothers me. I did finally attempt to play a family once and it turned out better than I feared, but I also didn't have a ton of investment in them (and the significantly slower play time when there's always at least one person at home and awake also annoys me).

Jyotai

Is this referring to the 'Autonomy' setting in the Gameplay menu or something else?

I have that setting at full, and then have a stack of mods to add even more autonomous options.

The only things I have disabled are aging, pregnancy / woohoo, and apparently 'death by weather' (found I had a mod to prevent it when looking over updates yesterday).

Chicklet453681

I also play with autonomy on full because I hate to micromanage and only step in when I need to. (unless they 100% disobey the things I have queued up for them to do, then I'll switch it to autonomy off for played sims if I need them to be concentrating on something in particular).

And like @Jyotai I too have a TON of autonomous mods to add more flavor, mostly so that sims will gravitate to do things autonomously that make sense for their individual traits and to stop idiotic-obsessive behavior.

SweetieWright_84

While I am a bit of a control freak, I do play with it on. I usually only turn it off if I want a group picture. That was before I got the Moschino SP though.

SimDork23

Off. I like to be in control of everything with my sims, lol.