The Sims 4: Switching Between Households (Like in The Sims 2)

Goodywood

I really would like to have this back in Sims 4. I want to be able to play with more than one household, and not lose wishes, etc. I hate the “Change Active Household” feature that Sims 3 have. Mainly because my (real life) family members and I use to play in the same neighborhood in TS2. Our families were able interact with each other, which made it a lot of fun.

We could switch between our families, without any household losing data. When TS3 came, my family was a bit upset because we couldn’t play in the same neighborhood; we all had to have are own game. So they pretty much left the game. I, of course, stayed (I can’t help it, it’s the Sims! ^.^).

Anyway I just hope they bring this back to S4. If they do I know my family will come back and play the Sims.


I hope I'm not the only one who wants this. :XD:

Proteus42

If it is done in a way that this is optional, then I am all for it.

For example by the player being able to choose whether a certain household is a player household (no loss of wishes + (optionally) no taking part in aging if you go away from the household) or an NPC household (fully simulated ... you can still take over it and play its members, but don´t expect theirr wishes to remain the same when you leave the household ... also, fully taking part in the aging system)

I would be totally against it if it is forced upon us, and fully done the TS2 way however (that is, no aging (and probably no story progression) of households outside of you currently active)

Goodywood

Proteus42 wrote:

If it is done in a way that this is optional, then I am all for it.

For example by the player being able to choose whether a certain household is a player household (no loss of wishes + (optionally) no taking part in aging if you go away from the household) or an NPC household (fully simulated ... you can still take over it and play its members, but don´t expect theirr wishes to remain the same when you leave the household ... also, fully taking part in the aging system)

I would be totally against it if it is forced upon us, and fully done the TS2 way however (that is, no aging (and probably no story progression) of households outside of you currently active)

So you're saying there should be an option for the household to be a "player's household" or an "npc household", making it possible to have more than one player household? If so that's a good idea!

Proteus42

Goodywood wrote:

...


So you're saying there should be an option for the household to be a "player's household" or an "npc household", making it possible to have more than one player household? If so that's a good idea!

Aye ... IMHO it is the logical step up from the current (Sims 3) system (where you could only opt the whole neighborhood in or out of aging and SP) and the best way to appease the maximum number of players

Valandis

Yes!! The exact same thing happened to me and my sister. The Sims 2 was so much fun in that sense, but with The Sims 3 it wasn't enjoyable because of the loss. Why did we have to have this loss at all?? They have wishes in TS2 too. Please tell me this won't happen in TS4. :-o

Goodywood

Proteus42 wrote:

Goodywood wrote:

...


So you're saying there should be an option for the household to be a "player's household" or an "npc household", making it possible to have more than one player household? If so that's a good idea!

Aye ... IMHO it is the logical step up from the current (Sims 3) system (where you could only opt the whole neighborhood in or out of aging and SP) and the best way to appease the maximum number of players

I agree! I just hope they do this for TS4.

Goodywood

Valandis wrote:

Yes!! The exact same thing happened to me and my sister. The Sims 2 was so much fun in that sense, but with The Sims 3 it wasn't enjoyable because of the loss. Why did we have to have this loss at all?? They have wishes in TS2 too. Please tell me this won't happen in TS4. :-o

I know... It was very sad when they took it away. I wonder why too they couldn't have this?

Cinebar

OP, If I can't switch households like I can in TS2 then I'm not going to buy the EPs. I know I will not like the game all that much. It's important to me to be able to play any house in my neighborhood and keep those Sims safe from Story Progression.

I'm not saying I don't mind if some townies age up and or leave or whatever, but if my Sim goes to the trouble to make friends with them, and or I go to the trouble to interact with them, then they better be untouched by SP.

I love TS2 to this day because I create themed neighborhoods whether that is in medieval times, Victorian times, or even modern times etc. And each and every character I place in the game is important, and even if they are just there to be the extras they are important to me.

It bothered me when no longer was the same townie running the cash registers when the BV EP was released. George (blond hair teen in TS2) was replaced by a BV generated townie, etc. It made the game buggy because each time your Sim went to a community lot the game generated a new townie to run the registers or be the hostess at a restaurant or wherever.

When I had become fond of the people that did those jobs and no longer was the game just generating as needed but everytime you went back.

I hope TS4 team understands not all of us play one family forever we like to jump from lot to lot and work on our stories in our heads from a different angle.. And nothing is more annoying than when the game moves out the adult kids you spent a Sim life time on raising.

I hope TS4 allows to age up a certain amount of townies to keep the game fresh, but I really do not like TS3's SP or the age per neighborhood instead of per Sim/lot system in TS3. And I really hate per neighborhood save instead of per lot save.

ETA: I will even go as far to say I am very greedy with my neighborhood not only the Sims I place in it. Because I feel I am the creator of that neighborhoods peoples and when the SP messes with my plans then that irks me. I can understand others aren't so greedy with their towns, but I am the god of my neighborhoods and to me I can't share my neighborhoods not even with Story Progression. :?

Goodywood

^^^


You explained it right. This is exactly how I feel. And what made it even more special for me was having my real life family help build the neighborhood. It's one of the main reasons why I always struggle to enjoy TS3.

windweaver

Yep, I feel this way too.

What's the point of spending all that time in Create-a-Sim making them exactly how you want them, only to have the game move them out of town to be replaced by some repulsive Sim that you have no intention of using?

What's the point of turning off Story Progression only to have a completely dead game? Not one single sim existed in the neighborhood outside my active household when I turn it off.

There has to be some kind of compromise. I can't believe the original developers of Ts3 were so narrow minded and so fixated upon one and only one style of game play. What happened to the original philosophy of providing a tool for the player to create whatever it was he/she wanted to create? That obviously went by the way side. :x

I have T4 pre-ordered, but if we learn before release that the game will not accommodate our type of play style, then I'm cancelling the order. I'm not going to suffer through another Sims game hoping that EA will adjust it to include all of our styles. I'm just not.

If they don't want me and people like me to play the way we want, then they can go ahead and do it without me. They have already lost so many players due to their short sightedness from t2 to t3, what's another 100,000 more? (that figure was arbitrarily chosen )

dancerREH

It would be nice if you could just choose individual households and "lock" them
locking a household would keep their wishes and age and job the same until you return to it
the rest can be unlocked and have children, gain relationships and promotions and have birthdays and everything

Glimmer50

It would be nice if you could just choose individual households and "lock" them
locking a household would keep their wishes and age and job the same until you return to it the rest can be unlocked and have children, gain relationships and promotions and have birthdays and everything

OMG what an awesome idea. I love this!! I would love to lock in my family but then let the rest of the town age.

I never played Sims 2 but I am kind of wishing I had. I like to play different parts of my legacy family and so wish I could lock in my original family so they are the way I left them. In other words, be able to go play the kids in a different house then come back and play the parents and rest of the kids. I like to switch around because I want to make sure my kids are gaining in their jobs and stuff like that. When I have kids I really get attached and have a hard time letting them go but only 8 members to a household makes it impossible to keep them all on the lot.

So yeah it would be awesome to lock in certain households.

KaraJKAZ

I've been playing the Sims since The Sims (1). I owned all the Sims 2 EPs. I still do. I bought Sims 3 and WA and realized I couldn't switch houses the way we could in TS2 and shelved the game.

My interest in the Sims 3 was recently renewed because my 8 yo was watching a youtuber. I decided to reinstall. My and 3 of my kids are playing. I kind of wish I could play with my kids. I wish it was a choice. But I really wish I could control the other families in my game. I had a lot of interesting families in the TS2 and would bounce around from house to house and pretty much kept them aging evenly.

I hope the awesome people that write the game, read here!!


Kara

Erich_Raeder

I agree with this idea

keFUNKNEY101

I really hope they have the option for both, and each option works properly. Sometimes I want to play with a neighborhood where sims age automatically, and sometimes i want to play each individual family. I hope they shape the game to fit both styles.

Cinebar

It's a trivia fact most players of TS2 had about one thousand Sims in their neighborhoods. This wasn't necessarily all created by the player or born in game, but the townies the game generated to stick around unless one died or was made playable.

If EA had taken into account that means the player actually created about two hundred of those Sims and maybe another one hundred born in game to those Sims (if you add up the neighborhood character files per EP townie character files) then when they went to make TS3 they would have given this a lot more thought.

Why would anyone that had worked on a neighborhood (and subhoods) so much and placed that many Sims and or also born in game and then throw in the character files for each EP which added around two hundred or so, why they would like SP and the way it would destroy all that work?

It would have paid them to understand their own trivia information.

I'm not sure that thousand average is just for base game or when you add all the EP townies that get added, but it still says the player winds up adding at least eight hundred of those if just base game installed since the character files is about 250, and about two hundred of their own if all EP townies are included in that thousand number.

zorba2357

In The Sims 4 - I Want to Switch Between Households in the SAME NEIGHBORHOOD / SAVE like in sims 2!

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I cannot express enough how much I want this!


The THINGS I wish for sims 4 are not so much just added THINGS. They are more a whole playstyle.

I'd like to just throw this out there - I want the old simple photoalbum back too. Just one for the whole family. No fancy extra features, especially no uploaded photo to the launcher everytime I take a pic.

Goodywood

Let us hope that they read this thread. I really need this to be in S4.

Alysha1988

If it's optional then sure. One of the main reasons I don't enjoy the sims 2 as much as 3 and can't really stick with it is because I hate the idea of a stagnant town. I don't want my sims running into the same exact people their great, great, great, great grandparents where running into. I also like to have lots kids in my sim families but in 2 I would only really have one because I had no interest in having to keep swapping houses to keep everyone on the same age schedule nor did I have any interest in playing until death every child I had. So my options were be bored to tears playing sims I didn't want to play, live with a neighborhood full of the same sims forever, or start killing people off which I hate doing.

So yeah, they definitely need to include some options so different types of players can all get enjoyment of the game. Sims should never lose any promised wishes or anything like that from switching households but there should be an option for aging and progression of the whole neighborhood or only aging and progression of the current active household. They should also allow you to allow aging and progression for all households except specific ones selected by the user.

windweaver

Here is something else I learned this weekend. I have been playing ts3 with aging and story progression off. The game has been running fantastic! No lags, no stutters no problems. Well, one little problem, the town is completely dead.

So I filled it up with my own sims (it is a community made world, so there were no sims in it), and turned on story progression after playing it for a long time in sim years.

So, the game starts out good, like it had been, then as time goes on, it starts to lag. Then stutters, then stops and I had to quit b/c it essentially paused itself and would not start up again.

Quit and the next day, turned it back on and turned off story progression. Now it's working well again and there are still a few sims here and there.

I guess if you want story progression, you have to accept the troubles that go with it?

I'd be really happy if they would just get rid of it altogether!

Goodywood

windweaver wrote:

Here is something else I learned this weekend. I have been playing ts3 with aging and story progression off. The game has been running fantastic! No lags, no stutters no problems. Well, one little problem, the town is completely dead.

So I filled it up with my own sims (it is a community made world, so there were no sims in it), and turned on story progression after playing it for a long time in sim years.

So, the game starts out good, like it had been, then as time goes on, it starts to lag. Then stutters, then stops and I had to quit b/c it essentially paused itself and would not start up again.

Quit and the next day, turned it back on and turned off story progression. Now it's working well again and there are still a few sims here and there.

I guess if you want story progression, you have to accept the troubles that go with it?

I'd be really happy if they would just get rid of it altogether!

Prefer it gone too!


There are people who prefer to have SP, I guess it's best to make it an option. I just wish we could get more info on S4. I want to know if SP is going to be optional. :?