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From Sim culling to Relationships culling!! What is going on EA?

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  • applefeather2applefeather2 Posts: 4,003 Member
    I just tested texting (boy, that's as had to type as to say) and if you want to wear your finger out, it will raise your friend level infinitesimally. Yes, I knew everyone would be so thrilled. :unamused:
  • Ceres_MeirionaCeres_Meiriona Posts: 5,006 Member
    edited December 2015
    This change makes 0 sense for anyone no matter the play style.

    I couldn't agree more! lol
    @Ayumap Yes, once my genealogy had recorded 127 sims in it, my town was pretty sparse (in terms of fresh genetic material lol), so I repopulated it with some gallery sims. After that, 3 sims were culled from the genealogy. I expected my founder to disappear first, and that wasn't the case. 3 deceased siblings from a relatively current generation were culled instead. It was an interesting choice that the game made, and I'm not sure why they disappeared first.

    @king_of_simcity7 Neia posted the rules for relationship culling. It's actually a really interesting read, though a bit baffling for all of us. lol
    https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/comment/14391214#Comment_14391214
    Neia wrote: »
    Some info regarding this new relationships culling :
    - The max number of relationships that a non-played NPC is allowed to have with other NPCs : 10
    - The max number of relationships that a played NPC is allowed to have with other NPCs : 20
    Exceding those caps will trigger the relationships culling

    - When relationships are culled from an NPC relationship tracker due to the number of relationships exceeding the cap, this is how much below the cap the number of relationships will be after the culling : 5
    - The relationship depth below which an NPC relationship will be culled, this is for sims that have never been played : 25
    - The relationship depth below which an NPC relationship will be culled, this is for sims that have been played in the past : 15
    - This is happening between 2am and 5am

    There are a couple of conditions that makes Sims completely immune to relationships culling :
    - Brother and Sister, Son and Daughter, Grandchild, Grandparent, Parent, Stepsibling, Cousin, Aunt and Uncle, Niece and Nephew, Husband and Wife
    - BFF, Good friends
    - Divorced, Promised, Engaged, Widow/widower, Married, Significant other, Lovebirds, Lovers, Soulmates, Sweethearts, Total Opposites, Exchanged Numbers
    - Enemy, Enemies with benefit,
    - First Kiss, Renewing vows, Have done woohoo, Have done woohoo recently, Leave at the altar/Left at the altar, Cheated with, Has been unfaithful, Partners in crime, Getting married, Got cold feet

    I am a little confused on the NPC types in the context of the game. Is a played NPC a sim that is a played sim, but is not currently being played (i.e. active)?

    NPC just means Non Player Character. For The Sims it references sims like bartenders and cafe clerks etc. The patch notes for Nov 4 addressed the bugs they found in the game that were causing too many npcs to spawn which would trigger culling long before it should happen. There were actually a lot more issues than just that; you can read about it in more depth at the end of the Dec 4 Patch Notes. It's a good read and worth checking out in more detail.
    Scobre wrote: »
    I kind of knew culling would get worst as more packs are released back when GTW was released. I just didn't know it would hit the relationships too. But that was a fun math project to do. I wonder what feature culling will hit next? I still think culling was a quick last minute solution when the Sims 4 made the always online to offline switch. I just don't think the Sims 4 was designed to be an offline PC/Mac game on a strong enough foundation to handle the usual expansion rate Sims main series games usually get. I mean at least with the laptop version of the Sims 2, the Sims 2 Life Stories, they knew it couldn't handle running too many packs at once. I sometimes wonder, "What were they thinking?"

    This is a frustrating statement. It's not "worse" just affecting something else now. :( They vastly improved genealogy culling, but in plugging that hole we now have a new one... which is aggravating to say the least, because that's not how it should work. I'm not entirely convinced they were thinking. >.< lol Anyway, I believe in credit where credit is due, and in regard to the genealogy culling, the team deserves some serious credit because it is vastly improved... in regard to this irritating relationship culling issue... though... well they really jacked this up, and they a mess to fix, that's for sure.

    @Ayumap NP! I needed a refresher as well. lol
    The culling was curious indeed, and I agree, it won't affect my legacy family because I will never have that many sims in my genealogy tree. lol However, it would affect rotational players on a very old save who were very effective at procreating >:) . lol So that's one of the reasons I wanted to test it that way. I didn't notice that it had happened at first, because you couldn't see the culling on the direct lineage family tree. It wasn't until I clicked on a descendant and viewed his particular tree that I found it. (TS4 has so many sub trees to the genealogy, only the direct descendants are displayed at first glance). The best way for me to explain is to just show you.

    Here is the center of Bonnie's family tree and everything looks normal and in tact from this view.
    Bennett%20Culling%204%20Upload_zpsk8gwcj1b.jpg


    When I clicked on Richard (as I did with each generation to check for culling in places I couldn't see, as I expected the spouses to disappear first with culling), this is what I found. 3 of his children had been culled (they were deceased), but they are the generation just before the current one... so it was most unexpected.
    Bennett%20Culling_zpsfvc3qblj.jpg


    Anyway, the relationship culling is devastating in a lot of ways across all play styles. There are ways around it without mods by building meaningful relationships, but you shouldn't have to do that... and it's silly to need to be introduced to sims you have already met... especially when they are in your club. But it is what it is, lol, no use crying over spilled milk. Instead I shall find a thread in the feedback section and add my own personal "WHAT THE PLUMBOB MATE!" voice to it. ;) lol

    Happy simming!
    tumblr_oesik08PQO1vorh5do6_1280.jpg
  • stilljustme2stilljustme2 Posts: 25,082 Member
    Hermitgirl wrote: »
    @ModerateOsprey Okay thanks, I was wondering and that does clear it up for me more. Yeah, I don't think that would affect my play style. I'm sorry it's bothering others though. Personally I don't want a glut of faces of sims I barely know.. or don't want my sims to know popping up in that relationship panel because it seems too full as it is too me already.
    I wish we had more tools to like put a check next to a sim we want to remain on our relationships panel.

    One thing that bugs me is when NPC Sims my Sim has met die, and their ghost portraits remain in the relationship panel for what seems like forever. If this relationship culling gets rid of the ghost Sims first, I'll be fine with it.

    A way to mark Sims in the relationship panel, short of getting to the Friend level, would be awesome. I've toned down the Friendship decay to 0 percent with MC Command Center, and hopefully that will help -- I'll just make sure my Sims have a few close friends instead of trying to get them to know the whole town.

    I'm glad that's fine with you but what about the players who have been upset with their ghosts being culled for almost a year now?

    Okay, I meant NPC ghosts -- the Sims you meet, they hang around in the relationships panel at the "acquaintance" level, then they die and their ghosts remain, but there's no way to find a gravestone or urn to send them off to the Netherworld in peace or otherwise delete them from the game. If you play a save for long enough and this 20 Sim limit remains in place, eventually you're going to end up with more ghosts than living Sims in your panel especially if you have a Sim born in game with the Social Butterfly aspiration.

    Family ghosts are another matter, especially in the family tree; I want that recognition in the genealogy to remain even if I send that ghost off to the Netherworld.
    Check out my Gallery! Origin ID: justme22
    Fun must be always -- Tomas Hertl (San Jose Sharks hockey player)
  • Ceres_MeirionaCeres_Meiriona Posts: 5,006 Member
    Is there a thread in the feedback section? I'm having trouble locating one. >.<
    tumblr_oesik08PQO1vorh5do6_1280.jpg
  • Sasquatch7Sasquatch7 Posts: 240 Member
    I find this so frustrating about this game. I genuinely enjoy playing it, and I really like some of the changes that they've made, but then something like this comes along and I find myself not even wanting to load it up. It really seems to me that this game is aiming for people who play casually, play a save for a few days and then move on to another one, so that things like culling and broken family trees don't really affect them. But for the players who want to stick with one save, rotate through the households, play a legacy or long generation game, or just spend a lot of time having their Sims meet neighbors and explore all of the aspects of the game, those players will end up frustrated when issues like these pop up. This game is easy and fun for someone to pick up and play with for a little while, but it should also be fun for someone who wants to spend more time and really develop their Sims.
  • luthienrisingluthienrising Posts: 37,617 Member
    @Stdlr9 Don't feel bad there is an aspect of all this that I find a little amusing too. It's not that people are having problems with their game but it reminds me of a post I read months ago. I don't even remember who said it but someone who was upset that their game play had been effected by the game mechanics. They were pretty much dismissed by the "happy" players so they posted that sooner or later something would be done to effect the satisfied players play style. Turns out to be an accurate prediction.

    Not this us and them stuff again, please.

    Indeed.

    FWIW, I, for one, haven't stopped loving the game. I'm not happy with this decision - mainly the part where I'd have liked it to be in the patch notes, so I could prepare - but that doesn't mean I'm permanently miserable and Sims 4 is awful and blah blah blah. I'd probably have not ever ended up even temporarily angry if they'd put in the patch notes that they were doing this as a compromise between legacy play and rotational play and that yes, it was moddable.

    I'd really appreciate sometimes if topics like this could be where actual Sims 4 players can come to a better understanding of what's happening and what's needed instead of becoming a place for non-Sims 4 players to come in with their "See? Nyah nyah told you so" stuff. It's old, and it's not even relevant.
    EA CREATOR NETWORK MEMBER — Want to be notified of patches, new Broken Mods threads, and urgent Sims 4 news? Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/luthienrising.
  • LoveMcQueen5683LoveMcQueen5683 Posts: 3,689 Member
    There was an issue with losing relationships with the December patch. It can't be fixed because the data is gone. It was a one time thing. It's not another addition to culling.

    It was an unfortunate accident.
    LR3g0ni.jpg
  • stilljustme2stilljustme2 Posts: 25,082 Member
    Ayumap wrote: »
    Ayumap wrote: »
    fullspiral wrote: »
    I can't believe we are actually talking about an expansion pack that is geared to groups -- where the members of the group cannot remember each other!
    *boggled mind*

    This! It doesn't make any sense at all! If anything, those club relationships should be developing even better on their own and not being completely forgotten when not playing them.

    This kind of reminded me... the townie limit of sims they can know is 10 (I was thinking this was going to be an issue, but I didn't think much on it past that) Now I understand why (I think) club members are vanishing off the relationship panel. It's not just because of the sim amount your sim has, but it's also because they can only know 10 people, so that's just "doubling" the culling. Townies are constantly talking to each other.

    They couldn't have honestly expected us to add all our club members as "played" households... At least I hope not. I like organization. I personally like being friends with townies, but I'm fine with them living their own lives and doing npc careers. I mean if you want to be friends with the mailman you can only be friends with him as the mailman while he's not played.

    So there is a limit on how many friends you can have now?

    Ridiculous

    :disappointed:

    Right, that's what we're talking about. Someone posted it already, but there are rules to the relationship culling, but from my personal experience they're not always working. Your sim can know 20 people in your relationship panel before sims start getting culled. If you play rotationally and with a lot of sim family members, that culling is going to hit you very often. Townie sims (non-played) can know a max of 10 (apparently) before their relationships are culled. So, if you know that townie sim when it's culling time it should (in theory) cull the... actually, just realized something. They're supposed to be keeping "played" friends (I think, right?)... but they can only have 10 friends.. so what if 10+ of your sims know that townie, now I'm getting confused lol.

    Edit: Apparently it doesn't specify how many "played" friends a npc can have, it just says how many non-played friends a npc sim can have. That leaves me scratching my head a bit.
    Ayumap wrote: »
    Ayumap wrote: »
    Hermitgirl wrote: »
    @ModerateOsprey Okay thanks, I was wondering and that does clear it up for me more. Yeah, I don't think that would affect my play style. I'm sorry it's bothering others though. Personally I don't want a glut of faces of sims I barely know.. or don't want my sims to know popping up in that relationship panel because it seems too full as it is too me already.
    I wish we had more tools to like put a check next to a sim we want to remain on our relationships panel.

    This would be glorious! I'd like to be able to manually delete sims from my relationship panel. Especially NPCs that have aged and are now ghosts.

    @Ceres_Meiriona I think this should be possible with testingcheats true enabled. (I mean I think they should make that a reality, not that it exists already). That said you can do this with mc cmd center.

    I couldn't agree more! That would be a great way to implement the feature.
    I wanted to avoid mods, but I think at this point mc cmd is going to become a staple for me. (It has always been tempting for me anyway, since it offers so many wonderful features and options).

    If you ever get one mod for this game, honestly that's the one to get (imo) Every update just offers more and more customization and nothing in it is forced upon the player. You want more story progression? It will give it to you. You want less? It'll help. Also it fixes all kinds of issues. Honestly don't know how a rotational or family/generational player can play without it. I'd be terrified for my sims. :no_mouth:

    I know you're testing the games limits though, still can't wait to see your results.

    I finally hit culling, (though it wasn't where I expected it to be) so I'm done testing. In all truthfulness, I'm kind of weary of testing game limitations... it's time to get back to my real legacy family and enjoy myself. ;)

    Which unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it lol) means I'll need mc cmd. Excited to have access to the story progression and woohoo features that come with that mod, not gonna lie! lol I've wanted it for a long while!

    I'm sorry that you'll need it, but the modder who created it is really great at keeping it up to date. Seems like a really nice person in general. I think you'll enjoy its use. :)

    And I didn't realize you finished testing. How much greater was the culling limit compared to what it was before (on the family tree) ?

    Deaderpool reminds me of Twallen from the old NRaas Industries site -- he was awesome at updating his suite of mods whenever there was an update, and continually adding functionality as well. He had so many mods that eventually he got burned out -- if Deaderpool just limits himself to MC Command Center then hopefully burnout won't be a problem for him either. (Thought about getting into tuning mods but life's just too dang crazy right now.)

    Check out my Gallery! Origin ID: justme22
    Fun must be always -- Tomas Hertl (San Jose Sharks hockey player)
  • AyumapAyumap Posts: 3,425 Member
    fullspiral wrote: »
    Ayumap wrote: »
    fullspiral wrote: »
    Ayumap wrote: »
    fullspiral wrote: »
    I can't believe we are actually talking about an expansion pack that is geared to groups -- where the members of the group cannot remember each other!
    *boggled mind*

    This! It doesn't make any sense at all! If anything, those club relationships should be developing even better on their own and not being completely forgotten when not playing them.

    This kind of reminded me... the townie limit of sims they can know is 10 (I was thinking this was going to be an issue, but I didn't think much on it past that) Now I understand why (I think) club members are vanishing off the relationship panel. It's not just because of the sim amount your sim has, but it's also because they can only know 10 people, so that's just "doubling" the culling. Townies are constantly talking to each other.

    They couldn't have honestly expected us to add all our club members as "played" households... At least I hope not. I like organization. I personally like being friends with townies, but I'm fine with them living their own lives and doing npc careers. I mean if you want to be friends with the mailman you can only be friends with him as the mailman while he's not played.

    Most of my clubs consist of my other played sims and there are few few townies in any of my clubs. It doesn't make sense that my musician club ends up not knowing each other when they are all my played sims. Same with my jocks, dancers, franks darts club, etc. A couple of my country bar line dance clubs have townies and that's it.

    So my played sims get to know townies while not playing them and that is why they forget each other???

    @fullspiral
    Sorry, didn't see this post before. Yes, when rotating sims will typically make new relationships. If you don't rotate away long you may not have noticed, or a particular household may not spawn around town as often.

    When the game first came out and I'd rotate away I'd always be interested in who my sims were starting a romance with or making friends with. It was like they were deciding their life (and they were). As I played more I began actually caring about the sims in my rotation (I mean I cared about where their story was going in a stricter sense) and no longer enjoyed the random relationships they were accumulating.

    Now that their is relationship panel culling as well, you can see how a sim might easily be racking up sims past 20 when you're not playing them.

    Then you have (well always had) relationship decay to consider. If you're consistently not talking to sims the relationship will decay and once it gets to 0 (I suppose) the sims will be culled off the panel. So there was always relationship culling, but it never affected the sims you were consistently speaking to because you were going out of your way to keep them in your sim's life (though one may have not realized this).

    For me this never worked well because I rotate too many households and some times play some longer than others (which is why I favor relationship decay 0).

    I play the same. I rotate through a lot of households ( over 30) and I don't play them all on a set schedule and there are times I will play one household for a good long while.

    It seems very silly to have to keep introducing my club members over and over again and the minute I rotate to a different house that relationship gets lost because it is only an acquaintance. Like I said, club members should take president over townie developments and my club members should be maintaining those relationship over new townie relationships. The game should not be deciding that a townie a sim met ( lol) when not playing them is more important or has a better relationship than the ones the player is trying to establish.

    I don't disagree with this. I see what you're getting at now. I feel like club members should go on the list of "never cull" because it really doesn't make any sense that you're not going to know the people you made a club with...

    It's "funny" though, you can be in 3 clubs right? 3x8 = 24 - 3 (your place in all 3 clubs) is 21 sims that your sim would know through normal game play. Never mind any family, lovers, enemies, exes, or friends your sim might have. This system makes no sense at all.


    ----
    @Ceres_Meiriona Just looking at that family tree feels so satisfying for me. lol. Talk about goals. :)

    Thanks for sharing those pictures, it really told a lot just seeing that. You're right though, had I not been looking for something out of the ordinary I might not have caught that at first glance either. I wish at the very least (even if they have to cull the sim) they'd keep the sims picture.

    Btw, I noticed it doesn't show Richard's spouse, are his children cas babies or is he unmarried/no longer with the other parent?
    2m60a6q.jpg
    *There's nothing wrong with loving the Sims 4, there's also nothing wrong with seeking improvements.
    A list of Mods I use.|My Sims 4 Mod and CC "Master" post. Helpful Links included.
  • fullspiralfullspiral Posts: 14,717 Member
    The game needs to quit setting townie relationship over and above player relationships. I go in to my Cranston family save which is ALL about family ties and the elder wife has romantic relationships with 2 townies, while her husband has romance with 3. It's not fun, or funny.
  • stilljustme2stilljustme2 Posts: 25,082 Member
    I just tested texting (boy, that's as had to type as to say) and if you want to wear your finger out, it will raise your friend level infinitesimally. Yes, I knew everyone would be so thrilled. :unamused:

    I use a mod that builds relationships through phone calls -- wonder if there's one that increases the amount of friendship built from texts.
    Check out my Gallery! Origin ID: justme22
    Fun must be always -- Tomas Hertl (San Jose Sharks hockey player)
  • ConclueConclue Posts: 2,307 Member
    I don't understand how a game from 2004 doesn't have these issues and the newest generation game does.
    I also don't understand how The Sims 4 is everyone's favorites on SimsVIP when theres problems like this? I mean the oldest Sims game on my CPU seems to be the only one that runs correctly. I'm about to play 2 now. I feel like going shopping with my sims and having santa come. if only I could combine the Christmas experiences in both 2 and 3. LOL Hopefully 4 will be like that one day lol. I love when Santa comes and my towns all have stores for everything that work perfectly so "christmas shopping" is actually really fun in Sims 2. Plus, no real world driving! LOL
  • luthienrisingluthienrising Posts: 37,617 Member
    There was an issue with losing relationships with the December patch. It can't be fixed because the data is gone. It was a one time thing. It's not another addition to culling.

    It was an unfortunate accident.

    What we're discussing here is not a one-time thing. It's ongoing in your game. Do a "Save As", look at your current household members' relationship panels, switch households for a Sim day or two (be sure to stay playing the other household at least one overnight), and switch back. Now try to find the acquaintances your Sims had in the panels. Good luck with that. I have tested this on repaired games, mod-free, new saves, everything. Neia found detailed coding. Now, that coding might not be as intended, but nobody's come to tell us that; as far as any of us exploring this can tell, relationship culling is intentional and here to stay. In which case, I hope they'll see what we're saying about it (such as that I'd rather they cull my dead Sims out of genealogy and leave my living one's relationships alone), tell us how it's meant to be working, and generally be more open about major changes like this.
    EA CREATOR NETWORK MEMBER — Want to be notified of patches, new Broken Mods threads, and urgent Sims 4 news? Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/luthienrising.
  • luthienrisingluthienrising Posts: 37,617 Member
    @Stdlr9 Don't feel bad there is an aspect of all this that I find a little amusing too. It's not that people are having problems with their game but it reminds me of a post I read months ago. I don't even remember who said it but someone who was upset that their game play had been effected by the game mechanics. They were pretty much dismissed by the "happy" players so they posted that sooner or later something would be done to effect the satisfied players play style. Turns out to be an accurate prediction.

    Not this us and them stuff again, please.

    Indeed.

    FWIW, I, for one, haven't stopped loving the game. I'm not happy with this decision - mainly the part where I'd have liked it to be in the patch notes, so I could prepare - but that doesn't mean I'm permanently miserable and Sims 4 is awful and blah blah blah. I'd probably have not ever ended up even temporarily angry if they'd put in the patch notes that they were doing this as a compromise between legacy play and rotational play and that yes, it was moddable.

    I'd really appreciate sometimes if topics like this could be where actual Sims 4 players can come to a better understanding of what's happening and what's needed instead of becoming a place for non-Sims 4 players to come in with their "See? Nyah nyah told you so" stuff. It's old, and it's not even relevant.

    I've been a TS4 player and would like to be again so how do you see it as I told you so? What I see happening here are quite a few players who have been able to play the way they like and it's suddenly been disrupted. It's just something other kinds of players have been going through for a while now.

    Sorry. I read a bit of a "nyah, nyah, see I told you so" tone in what you were saying. And I don't see the relevance to the topic, for that matter. How is relationship culling affecting your game? Or are you only interested in commenting on us?
    EA CREATOR NETWORK MEMBER — Want to be notified of patches, new Broken Mods threads, and urgent Sims 4 news? Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/luthienrising.
  • AyumapAyumap Posts: 3,425 Member
    edited December 2015
    Ayumap wrote: »
    Ayumap wrote: »
    fullspiral wrote: »
    I can't believe we are actually talking about an expansion pack that is geared to groups -- where the members of the group cannot remember each other!
    *boggled mind*

    This! It doesn't make any sense at all! If anything, those club relationships should be developing even better on their own and not being completely forgotten when not playing them.

    This kind of reminded me... the townie limit of sims they can know is 10 (I was thinking this was going to be an issue, but I didn't think much on it past that) Now I understand why (I think) club members are vanishing off the relationship panel. It's not just because of the sim amount your sim has, but it's also because they can only know 10 people, so that's just "doubling" the culling. Townies are constantly talking to each other.

    They couldn't have honestly expected us to add all our club members as "played" households... At least I hope not. I like organization. I personally like being friends with townies, but I'm fine with them living their own lives and doing npc careers. I mean if you want to be friends with the mailman you can only be friends with him as the mailman while he's not played.

    So there is a limit on how many friends you can have now?

    Ridiculous

    :disappointed:

    Right, that's what we're talking about. Someone posted it already, but there are rules to the relationship culling, but from my personal experience they're not always working. Your sim can know 20 people in your relationship panel before sims start getting culled. If you play rotationally and with a lot of sim family members, that culling is going to hit you very often. Townie sims (non-played) can know a max of 10 (apparently) before their relationships are culled. So, if you know that townie sim when it's culling time it should (in theory) cull the... actually, just realized something. They're supposed to be keeping "played" friends (I think, right?)... but they can only have 10 friends.. so what if 10+ of your sims know that townie, now I'm getting confused lol.

    Edit: Apparently it doesn't specify how many "played" friends a npc can have, it just says how many non-played friends a npc sim can have. That leaves me scratching my head a bit.
    Ayumap wrote: »
    Ayumap wrote: »
    Hermitgirl wrote: »
    @ModerateOsprey Okay thanks, I was wondering and that does clear it up for me more. Yeah, I don't think that would affect my play style. I'm sorry it's bothering others though. Personally I don't want a glut of faces of sims I barely know.. or don't want my sims to know popping up in that relationship panel because it seems too full as it is too me already.
    I wish we had more tools to like put a check next to a sim we want to remain on our relationships panel.

    This would be glorious! I'd like to be able to manually delete sims from my relationship panel. Especially NPCs that have aged and are now ghosts.

    @Ceres_Meiriona I think this should be possible with testingcheats true enabled. (I mean I think they should make that a reality, not that it exists already). That said you can do this with mc cmd center.

    I couldn't agree more! That would be a great way to implement the feature.
    I wanted to avoid mods, but I think at this point mc cmd is going to become a staple for me. (It has always been tempting for me anyway, since it offers so many wonderful features and options).

    If you ever get one mod for this game, honestly that's the one to get (imo) Every update just offers more and more customization and nothing in it is forced upon the player. You want more story progression? It will give it to you. You want less? It'll help. Also it fixes all kinds of issues. Honestly don't know how a rotational or family/generational player can play without it. I'd be terrified for my sims. :no_mouth:

    I know you're testing the games limits though, still can't wait to see your results.

    I finally hit culling, (though it wasn't where I expected it to be) so I'm done testing. In all truthfulness, I'm kind of weary of testing game limitations... it's time to get back to my real legacy family and enjoy myself. ;)

    Which unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it lol) means I'll need mc cmd. Excited to have access to the story progression and woohoo features that come with that mod, not gonna lie! lol I've wanted it for a long while!

    I'm sorry that you'll need it, but the modder who created it is really great at keeping it up to date. Seems like a really nice person in general. I think you'll enjoy its use. :)

    And I didn't realize you finished testing. How much greater was the culling limit compared to what it was before (on the family tree) ?

    Deaderpool reminds me of Twallen from the old NRaas Industries site -- he was awesome at updating his suite of mods whenever there was an update, and continually adding functionality as well. He had so many mods that eventually he got burned out -- if Deaderpool just limits himself to MC Command Center then hopefully burnout won't be a problem for him either. (Thought about getting into tuning mods but life's just too dang crazy right now.)

    I feel the same way, though to be honest I have an easier time navigating through Deaderpool's mod, but that might be because I've used it since its release and am able to learn what's there and then learn every new addition as it comes lol. There are so many things that come along with Nraas I get lost and have to look information up. xD I hope Deaderpool won't get burnt out either, hopefully he just enjoys his modding experience and continues to in the future.

    I hope life calms down for you in the future (regardless of modding). :)
    2m60a6q.jpg
    *There's nothing wrong with loving the Sims 4, there's also nothing wrong with seeking improvements.
    A list of Mods I use.|My Sims 4 Mod and CC "Master" post. Helpful Links included.
  • GoldmoldarGoldmoldar Posts: 11,966 Member
    Sasquatch7 wrote: »
    I find this so frustrating about this game. I genuinely enjoy playing it, and I really like some of the changes that they've made, but then something like this comes along and I find myself not even wanting to load it up. It really seems to me that this game is aiming for people who play casually, play a save for a few days and then move on to another one, so that things like culling and broken family trees don't really affect them. But for the players who want to stick with one save, rotate through the households, play a legacy or long generation game, or just spend a lot of time having their Sims meet neighbors and explore all of the aspects of the game, those players will end up frustrated when issues like these pop up. This game is easy and fun for someone to pick up and play with for a little while, but it should also be fun for someone who wants to spend more time and really develop their Sims.
    I agree with you, it looks like EA/Maxis is nervous in going outside the box or push Sims 4 to it's full technical capability because it might upset some people that are afraid their system cannot meet the demand. So instead of providing options they use the blanket party option where no matter what your machine can do you will play like your machine is med or low end. In some aspects that is what you would see in a game designed for tablets. I guess EA/Maxis see culling as a necessary feature to keep the demand on processing down to a manageable level and it may be something that the engine cannot be flexible enough to alter. If any of this is the case I do not see the sky is limit for Sims 4 and it will stay at a certain level.

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  • fullspiralfullspiral Posts: 14,717 Member
    Ayumap wrote: »
    fullspiral wrote: »
    Ayumap wrote: »
    fullspiral wrote: »
    Ayumap wrote: »
    fullspiral wrote: »
    I can't believe we are actually talking about an expansion pack that is geared to groups -- where the members of the group cannot remember each other!
    *boggled mind*

    This! It doesn't make any sense at all! If anything, those club relationships should be developing even better on their own and not being completely forgotten when not playing them.

    This kind of reminded me... the townie limit of sims they can know is 10 (I was thinking this was going to be an issue, but I didn't think much on it past that) Now I understand why (I think) club members are vanishing off the relationship panel. It's not just because of the sim amount your sim has, but it's also because they can only know 10 people, so that's just "doubling" the culling. Townies are constantly talking to each other.

    They couldn't have honestly expected us to add all our club members as "played" households... At least I hope not. I like organization. I personally like being friends with townies, but I'm fine with them living their own lives and doing npc careers. I mean if you want to be friends with the mailman you can only be friends with him as the mailman while he's not played.

    Most of my clubs consist of my other played sims and there are few few townies in any of my clubs. It doesn't make sense that my musician club ends up not knowing each other when they are all my played sims. Same with my jocks, dancers, franks darts club, etc. A couple of my country bar line dance clubs have townies and that's it.

    So my played sims get to know townies while not playing them and that is why they forget each other???

    @fullspiral
    Sorry, didn't see this post before. Yes, when rotating sims will typically make new relationships. If you don't rotate away long you may not have noticed, or a particular household may not spawn around town as often.

    When the game first came out and I'd rotate away I'd always be interested in who my sims were starting a romance with or making friends with. It was like they were deciding their life (and they were). As I played more I began actually caring about the sims in my rotation (I mean I cared about where their story was going in a stricter sense) and no longer enjoyed the random relationships they were accumulating.

    Now that their is relationship panel culling as well, you can see how a sim might easily be racking up sims past 20 when you're not playing them.

    Then you have (well always had) relationship decay to consider. If you're consistently not talking to sims the relationship will decay and once it gets to 0 (I suppose) the sims will be culled off the panel. So there was always relationship culling, but it never affected the sims you were consistently speaking to because you were going out of your way to keep them in your sim's life (though one may have not realized this).

    For me this never worked well because I rotate too many households and some times play some longer than others (which is why I favor relationship decay 0).

    I play the same. I rotate through a lot of households ( over 30) and I don't play them all on a set schedule and there are times I will play one household for a good long while.

    It seems very silly to have to keep introducing my club members over and over again and the minute I rotate to a different house that relationship gets lost because it is only an acquaintance. Like I said, club members should take president over townie developments and my club members should be maintaining those relationship over new townie relationships. The game should not be deciding that a townie a sim met ( lol) when not playing them is more important or has a better relationship than the ones the player is trying to establish.

    I don't disagree with this. I see what you're getting at now. I feel like club members should go on the list of "never cull" because it really doesn't make any sense that you're not going to know the people you made a club with...

    It's "funny" though, you can be in 3 clubs right? 3x8 = 24 - 3 (your place in all 3 clubs) is 21 sims that your sim would know through normal game play. Never mind any family, lovers, enemies, exes, or friends your sim might have. This system makes no sense at all.


    I think club members are already "do not cull", but I think their relationships within them should take president over other game generated ones. Meaning, my sims relationship with them should stay, or steadily grow even when I am not playing them. The game should not be saying that the townie sim my sim recently met while I was not playing them has a stronger relationship that the club ones. Club relationships should not be being reset to unknown status even if the bar is minimal. They should still be acquaintances rather than having to reintroduce them each time that household is played.
  • PHOEBESMOM601PHOEBESMOM601 Posts: 14,595 Member
    @Stdlr9 Don't feel bad there is an aspect of all this that I find a little amusing too. It's not that people are having problems with their game but it reminds me of a post I read months ago. I don't even remember who said it but someone who was upset that their game play had been effected by the game mechanics. They were pretty much dismissed by the "happy" players so they posted that sooner or later something would be done to effect the satisfied players play style. Turns out to be an accurate prediction.

    Not this us and them stuff again, please.

    Indeed.

    FWIW, I, for one, haven't stopped loving the game. I'm not happy with this decision - mainly the part where I'd have liked it to be in the patch notes, so I could prepare - but that doesn't mean I'm permanently miserable and Sims 4 is awful and blah blah blah. I'd probably have not ever ended up even temporarily angry if they'd put in the patch notes that they were doing this as a compromise between legacy play and rotational play and that yes, it was moddable.

    I'd really appreciate sometimes if topics like this could be where actual Sims 4 players can come to a better understanding of what's happening and what's needed instead of becoming a place for non-Sims 4 players to come in with their "See? Nyah nyah told you so" stuff. It's old, and it's not even relevant.

    I've been a TS4 player and would like to be again so how do you see it as I told you so? What I see happening here are quite a few players who have been able to play the way they like and it's suddenly been disrupted. It's just something other kinds of players have been going through for a while now.

    Sorry. I read a bit of a "nyah, nyah, see I told you so" tone in what you were saying. And I don't see the relevance to the topic, for that matter. How is relationship culling affecting your game? Or are you only interested in commenting on us?

    I always expect you to have some sort of negative remark on anything I say. I don't want to derail the thread so I'll let it at that.
    "People really love to explore 'failure states. In fact, the failure states are really much more interesting than the success states." ~ Will Wright
  • AyumapAyumap Posts: 3,425 Member
    edited December 2015
    fullspiral wrote: »
    Ayumap wrote: »
    fullspiral wrote: »
    Ayumap wrote: »
    fullspiral wrote: »
    Ayumap wrote: »
    fullspiral wrote: »
    I can't believe we are actually talking about an expansion pack that is geared to groups -- where the members of the group cannot remember each other!
    *boggled mind*

    This! It doesn't make any sense at all! If anything, those club relationships should be developing even better on their own and not being completely forgotten when not playing them.

    This kind of reminded me... the townie limit of sims they can know is 10 (I was thinking this was going to be an issue, but I didn't think much on it past that) Now I understand why (I think) club members are vanishing off the relationship panel. It's not just because of the sim amount your sim has, but it's also because they can only know 10 people, so that's just "doubling" the culling. Townies are constantly talking to each other.

    They couldn't have honestly expected us to add all our club members as "played" households... At least I hope not. I like organization. I personally like being friends with townies, but I'm fine with them living their own lives and doing npc careers. I mean if you want to be friends with the mailman you can only be friends with him as the mailman while he's not played.

    Most of my clubs consist of my other played sims and there are few few townies in any of my clubs. It doesn't make sense that my musician club ends up not knowing each other when they are all my played sims. Same with my jocks, dancers, franks darts club, etc. A couple of my country bar line dance clubs have townies and that's it.

    So my played sims get to know townies while not playing them and that is why they forget each other???

    @fullspiral
    Sorry, didn't see this post before. Yes, when rotating sims will typically make new relationships. If you don't rotate away long you may not have noticed, or a particular household may not spawn around town as often.

    When the game first came out and I'd rotate away I'd always be interested in who my sims were starting a romance with or making friends with. It was like they were deciding their life (and they were). As I played more I began actually caring about the sims in my rotation (I mean I cared about where their story was going in a stricter sense) and no longer enjoyed the random relationships they were accumulating.

    Now that their is relationship panel culling as well, you can see how a sim might easily be racking up sims past 20 when you're not playing them.

    Then you have (well always had) relationship decay to consider. If you're consistently not talking to sims the relationship will decay and once it gets to 0 (I suppose) the sims will be culled off the panel. So there was always relationship culling, but it never affected the sims you were consistently speaking to because you were going out of your way to keep them in your sim's life (though one may have not realized this).

    For me this never worked well because I rotate too many households and some times play some longer than others (which is why I favor relationship decay 0).

    I play the same. I rotate through a lot of households ( over 30) and I don't play them all on a set schedule and there are times I will play one household for a good long while.

    It seems very silly to have to keep introducing my club members over and over again and the minute I rotate to a different house that relationship gets lost because it is only an acquaintance. Like I said, club members should take president over townie developments and my club members should be maintaining those relationship over new townie relationships. The game should not be deciding that a townie a sim met ( lol) when not playing them is more important or has a better relationship than the ones the player is trying to establish.

    I don't disagree with this. I see what you're getting at now. I feel like club members should go on the list of "never cull" because it really doesn't make any sense that you're not going to know the people you made a club with...

    It's "funny" though, you can be in 3 clubs right? 3x8 = 24 - 3 (your place in all 3 clubs) is 21 sims that your sim would know through normal game play. Never mind any family, lovers, enemies, exes, or friends your sim might have. This system makes no sense at all.


    I think club members are already "do not cull", but I think their relationships within them should take president over other game generated ones. Meaning, my sims relationship with them should stay, or steadily grow even when I am not playing them. The game should not be saying that the townie sim my sim recently met while I was not playing them has a stronger relationship that the club ones. Club relationships should not be being reset to unknown status even if the bar is minimal. They should still be acquaintances rather than having to reintroduce them each time that household is played.

    Sorry, I meant "do not cull the relationship" not the sim. (though obviously I don't think they should cull the sim either)

    My point was even if you have a single sim with no friends, no family, and no other relationships other than clubs, they will go past the cap of known sims by just being in three full (8 sim) clubs. Which is just all the more reason this system makes no sense.
    2m60a6q.jpg
    *There's nothing wrong with loving the Sims 4, there's also nothing wrong with seeking improvements.
    A list of Mods I use.|My Sims 4 Mod and CC "Master" post. Helpful Links included.
  • applefeather2applefeather2 Posts: 4,003 Member
    On this loss of friends thing -- how does it go if they ARE friends? Does it still decay?
  • fullspiralfullspiral Posts: 14,717 Member
    Ayumap wrote: »
    fullspiral wrote: »
    Ayumap wrote: »
    fullspiral wrote: »
    Ayumap wrote: »
    fullspiral wrote: »
    Ayumap wrote: »
    fullspiral wrote: »
    I can't believe we are actually talking about an expansion pack that is geared to groups -- where the members of the group cannot remember each other!
    *boggled mind*

    This! It doesn't make any sense at all! If anything, those club relationships should be developing even better on their own and not being completely forgotten when not playing them.

    This kind of reminded me... the townie limit of sims they can know is 10 (I was thinking this was going to be an issue, but I didn't think much on it past that) Now I understand why (I think) club members are vanishing off the relationship panel. It's not just because of the sim amount your sim has, but it's also because they can only know 10 people, so that's just "doubling" the culling. Townies are constantly talking to each other.

    They couldn't have honestly expected us to add all our club members as "played" households... At least I hope not. I like organization. I personally like being friends with townies, but I'm fine with them living their own lives and doing npc careers. I mean if you want to be friends with the mailman you can only be friends with him as the mailman while he's not played.

    Most of my clubs consist of my other played sims and there are few few townies in any of my clubs. It doesn't make sense that my musician club ends up not knowing each other when they are all my played sims. Same with my jocks, dancers, franks darts club, etc. A couple of my country bar line dance clubs have townies and that's it.

    So my played sims get to know townies while not playing them and that is why they forget each other???

    @fullspiral
    Sorry, didn't see this post before. Yes, when rotating sims will typically make new relationships. If you don't rotate away long you may not have noticed, or a particular household may not spawn around town as often.

    When the game first came out and I'd rotate away I'd always be interested in who my sims were starting a romance with or making friends with. It was like they were deciding their life (and they were). As I played more I began actually caring about the sims in my rotation (I mean I cared about where their story was going in a stricter sense) and no longer enjoyed the random relationships they were accumulating.

    Now that their is relationship panel culling as well, you can see how a sim might easily be racking up sims past 20 when you're not playing them.

    Then you have (well always had) relationship decay to consider. If you're consistently not talking to sims the relationship will decay and once it gets to 0 (I suppose) the sims will be culled off the panel. So there was always relationship culling, but it never affected the sims you were consistently speaking to because you were going out of your way to keep them in your sim's life (though one may have not realized this).

    For me this never worked well because I rotate too many households and some times play some longer than others (which is why I favor relationship decay 0).

    I play the same. I rotate through a lot of households ( over 30) and I don't play them all on a set schedule and there are times I will play one household for a good long while.

    It seems very silly to have to keep introducing my club members over and over again and the minute I rotate to a different house that relationship gets lost because it is only an acquaintance. Like I said, club members should take president over townie developments and my club members should be maintaining those relationship over new townie relationships. The game should not be deciding that a townie a sim met ( lol) when not playing them is more important or has a better relationship than the ones the player is trying to establish.

    I don't disagree with this. I see what you're getting at now. I feel like club members should go on the list of "never cull" because it really doesn't make any sense that you're not going to know the people you made a club with...

    It's "funny" though, you can be in 3 clubs right? 3x8 = 24 - 3 (your place in all 3 clubs) is 21 sims that your sim would know through normal game play. Never mind any family, lovers, enemies, exes, or friends your sim might have. This system makes no sense at all.


    I think club members are already "do not cull", but I think their relationships within them should take president over other game generated ones. Meaning, my sims relationship with them should stay, or steadily grow even when I am not playing them. The game should not be saying that the townie sim my sim recently met while I was not playing them has a stronger relationship that the club ones. Club relationships should not be being reset to unknown status even if the bar is minimal. They should still be acquaintances rather than having to reintroduce them each time that household is played.

    Sorry, I meant "do not cull the relationship" not the sim. (though obviously I don't think they should cull the sim either)

    My point was even if you have a single sim with no friends, no family, and no other relationships other than clubs, they will go past the cap of known sims by just being in three full (8 sim) clubs. Which is just all the more reason this system makes no sense.

    Okay, yep. I agree completely. I don't get what's going on at all.
  • VickiVampiressVickiVampiress Posts: 211 Member
    edited December 2015
    This seems to be a reoccurring issue with both EA and The Sims 4: A lack of choices.

    "You Rule". Yeaaah... Except we don't. If the game decides to randomly completely destroy every form of story progression/writing the player has created, you've got a bad mechanic. As someone mentioned, a good solution would be to give players the option to enable or disable culling entirely, or set a time frame or certain flags before culling is allowed like "Has known X for X amount of time", "Has been friends with X for X amount of time". I personally would say that unless it really kills performance, leave culling out entirely or only do it when absolutely necessary.


    Technical point of view, and stay with me, I kept it simple:

    From a technical perspective, if the game engine is capable of doing so (I assume so, otherwise shame on you Maxis), the best trick would be to load data in clusters and/or keep it in memory once loaded. We know keeping data in memory until flushed is possible, seeing as objects like thumbnails and color swatches in CAS and build mode load once and don't have to be recalled until re-entry of said mode after exiting.
    Why not apply the same on relationships? Just load it once and don't flush until you leave the lot or select a different family to play with. I'd assume it's possible since all it seems to be doing is loading objects like thumbnails and relationship bars, as well as of course changing the relationship setting for the culled victim. Which would be "Stranger" in this case.

    Memory usage will go up and might require 64 bit, which could be a disaster for people with lower end hardware. But in all honesty, *Implies mother is a llama* you guys. If you don't have money to buy a decent PC, you certainly don't have money to buy The Sims 4 and all of its expansions. I'm sorry, but one of the factors why games like The Sims have always been cut is because of people with weak systems who don't have money or don't want to upgrade. But seriously, if you want to game, you need to be willing to spend some cash. You can stay as low as 600 Euros and build a PC good enough to play The Sims 4 on Medium-High, as well as be future proof AND play other games too. It's not that difficult to do either. All it takes is a little bit of time and effort. You'll learn from it. You don't need a GTX 980 or i7 if all you play is The Sims and similar games. Hell, anything above the recommended requirements will suit your needs and won't require you having to upgrade if requirements ever change for Sims 4.

    Aside of my little rant, the info mentioned could be a solution. A game like The Sims simply can't be "for people with ancient hardware", it's way too large scale, and Maxis is too afraid to let go of this unrealistic idiocy, although I do very much appreciate the 64 bit update, which is a very good sign for the future, because memory usage will be theoretically unlimited now.

    A very bad case of poor memory management and bad programming in general is The Sims 3. A prime disast- I mean example. No error or garbage collection for failing scripts, awful navigation mesh for NPCs, poor data streaming, and worst of all: 32 bit limitations. Even with the Large Address Aware mod/patch, it was still a disaster. The Sims 4 has the ability to do all this correctly. USE IT MAXIS. Don't let people with weak systems break the game.

    Gurus please take note; Relay this to your superiors and the programmers. Casual gamers and techtards take note too. If you want it, you can do it. All it takes is some money, a little basic knowledge and maybe someone friendly enough to help. There's plenty of people on these forums, for one.

    TL;DR: Scroll up and read. This is well thought out post for the most part. Not just a rant.


    Addendum: One of the easiest things to note when it comes to bad resource allocation in The Sims 3 is how every time you switch tabs in CAS or Buy/Build, it has to reload EVERY object and all of its prefabs and properties. The Sims 4 keeps everything in RAM, or some other form of flash memory until the mode is exited.
    Post edited by VickiVampiress on
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  • VickiVampiressVickiVampiress Posts: 211 Member
    edited December 2015
    I really, really don't want to have to rely on mods. I'm not against mods, but I don't want to NEED them.

    You shouldn't need mods if a game is good. And by good I mean technically good, not necessarily fun or visually impressive, although mods do help with the fun part in The Sims 4. Like the MC Command Center.

    If something is truly annoying or game breaking to many players, it becomes an issue and needs to be addressed.
    Post edited by VickiVampiress on
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  • Ceres_MeirionaCeres_Meiriona Posts: 5,006 Member
    @Ayumap I can't say for sure, but I think the Dec 17th patch ate her. He had a wife before the patch, and after she simply didn't exist anymore. I thought maybe something malfunctioned and their relationship was culled by this new relationship culling issue, but I didn't notice her anywhere in the game walking around either. This totally compromised the culling play test, as I don't know for sure if I hit the culling trigger in the genealogy or if the patch ate his wife and when the game tried to digest the information this was how it responded.

    In the end, I became really frustrated with the unknowns and ended the play test. It's entirely possible that the culling in the tree isn't genealogy culling, but a result of the patch and his wife going up in mysterious smoke. :/

    He wasn't a CAS sim, though, and neither were his children. Every Sim in Bonnie's tree was born in the game with the exception of a few spouses that I yoinked in from my library.


    tumblr_oesik08PQO1vorh5do6_1280.jpg
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