It really depends on what point of my game I am in, at the start beginning with one sim I use ultra-speed a lot, fast forwarding the times where he is gaining money (through the week/whatever day they work, the days are always on ultra speed as its normally, wake, eat, work, eat, sleep, repeat) but on normal speed throughout the weekends when I try to socialise and upgrade my skills.
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It depends for me. When doing small households, I can usually get away with staying on normal speed. When doing 4+ households, I may need to start pausing to build up queues and ensure people are doing what they are supposed to be doing. I also fast forward through slow moments.
I use all constantly depending on the action, what I am doing, what my sims are doing, what I want to see and what I want to skip fast. My left hand is always on pause-1-2-3 keys while playing the entire time. But I'm not very happy with the fastest speed. I think it's not fast enough and it slows down randomly. One thing that especially annoys me, if all sims are asleep on a lot, including pets, fastest speed work perfectly, as soon as someone is up, and as long as someone is up, it's always slower, almost equal to 2nd speed. I also hate that each time the phone rings game throws me back to normal speed while I'm trying to fastforward something. Combined with the ts4 sims' horrible response speed to the commands, it's a pain.
Some people use fast forward to make sims do things faster but I've found if I pause and unpause, sometimes a couple times, sims animations take way less time and they still have the full day ahead of them. Any faster speed wastes too much time cuz my animations get stuck a loooot. I fast forwarded through a sims dinner out and it took hours while when pausing and unpausing made it only take about 90 minutes and I don't pause for very long. Sometimes if a sim is extra stuck I'll scroll all the way out and back in and it brings them back to normal speed. I only use fastforwars during boring tasks and sleep. But I've found if you're at normal speed while a sim is sleeping and have vampires and your door is unlocked, a vampire is much more likely to break in. I love that drama so I do it occasionally.
I usually use ultra for the really boring stuff, like washing dishes, showering, cooking.. Stuff like that. I do pause frequently to redirect them to another action.
i use normal speed although it does bug me when they take 2 sim hours to scramble an egg and fry bacon to make a simple meal . Its time they cut back most of the silly additional animations like sneezing into the pan or poking their fingers in their ears before tossing salad by hand , I dont need to see that 3 or 4 times each time a meal is made , They might seem funny if done rarely but soon become tedious and then dont even get me started on the juggling when making a meal or drinks , My sims have normally dropped waiting for the drink from the queue in a bar by the time its made
It's interesting to see that so many people play on normal speed. Personally, I find watching the sims complete everyday tasks in real-time to be very boring; I'm always more interested in the outcome (success, skill improvement, fame) than the process of getting there. But then again, I find everyday tasks boring in real life too. Too bad there isn't a fast forward for that.
Lol Pause like 99% of the time when I do play. Also Normal speed, but pausing to queue up as much is possible for each sim (so it's worst for big households) and watching scene unfold at normal to make up what's going on and what potential drama can arise for storytelling of course.
i use normal speed although it does bug me when they take 2 sim hours to scramble an egg and fry bacon to make a simple meal . Its time they cut back most of the silly additional animations like sneezing into the pan or poking their fingers in their ears before tossing salad by hand , I dont need to see that 3 or 4 times each time a meal is made , They might seem funny if done rarely but soon become tedious and then dont even get me started on the juggling when making a meal or drinks , My sims have normally dropped waiting for the drink from the queue in a bar by the time its made
Yes, totally agree, it's only interesting the first time. They improved with with certain things though since TS3, like getting out of bed and fixing the sheets - super fast now!
I usually run normally. Every second counts for me, especially with managing multiple sims. This way I can manage everything, plan a few things ahead on the seasons' calendar and still have time to organize a few outings while still gaining skills. Basically, everything has a schedule and it's own time .
Normal... until the need to spam that pause button becomes so great because little Anna is playing with dolls for the twelfth time that day and blocking me from getting a decent picture for like an hour in-game that I switch speeds and give up. My niece used to call me 'Pause Master', though my inner control freak over the Sims is slowly disappearing. It helps when you turn off free will... and remember that they rarely catch on fire, lol.
I play on normal speed mostly, but I do pause a lot to queue up actions for my Sim(s), check the calendar, collections, career/aspiration tasks, etc. The pause button is my best friend.
Fast mode while sleeping usually runs just fine with no slow down because I put their cells on silent. If they get any calls, it won't automatically kick it to normal. Still happens with mail delivery or vampire visits though. Sometimes I'll use the fast speed for collecting if there is a lot of ground to cover or when they're doing certain skills.
If my Sims get stuck just standing there, I'll pause a few seconds, pop in and out of the manage screen or build mode and it usually gets them going again. I limit my use of the fastest speed since it's been my experience that's when the bugs like to come and play.
It seems the game has a hard time keeping up when a lot of actions are queued up and speed 3 is chosen, it'll do one or two and then cancel the rest. It's a 'D'oh' smh "Why'd I do that?" moment for me because I know better. Opps! lol
I thought playing on my new gaming desktop would cure most of these speed issues, and for the most part it has improved. But the issues still do occasionally happen. Ah well, it's not game breaking at all for me, I'm still having lots of fun!
Although, the literal answer to your question is of course Ultra, because it takes so ridiculously long to get through a queue when they have to stop and pose/react/sit/stand/multitask/growl/pollinate/faint every 3 seconds, and then spend another 6 staring into space while the overtaxed crayoncode tries to figure out what to do next. It's often better to just let it run on speed 2, so they don't waste half the day eating a plate of spaghetti.
It's really a question of how fast you can navigate the clunky pie menus, assuming they even bother to open without pausing the game first.
As for sitting back and watching the AI tell it's story, when they actually bother giving us anything resembling AI or storytelling, I might give it a try; but no sims game has ever done anything on it's own to make me want to play it that way.
Normal, because the fast speed annoys me a bit. I only use fast speed when my Sims are doing something boring, going to work/school or sleeping. I also regularly pause the game to take screenshots, though.
I was about to say normal speed, but actually, I do pause A LOT. Mostly to take pictures. I get very carried away while taking screenshots.
It's also helpful when I want to queue up some actions, I guess. Except the queue in TS4 isn't very linear. Actions go in front of other actions instead of going in the order I want them to, and it's frustrating.
Ugh! So annoying! It's ok on your home lot with your currently played sims. I don't usually speed things up when I'm off my lots but still... sometimes I like to speed through things like fishing and karaoke (especially sims with low singing skill). I don't really like kicking sims off of my lot if I might want them later for socializing either.
I admit I usually use ultra speed unless they are doing something fun like a date or throwing a party. With dates and events, I pause then queue actions for them to do.
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I tend to end up with large households. I usually use normal speed, but fast is great for boring tasks, and ultra is great for walking from spawn points to where I'm actually going. Pause, though. Pause is my friend.
It makes me anxious watching people play on youtube that never pause! How do they get anything done!? I need to pause to figure out what I need to do and get things lined up otherwise I feel like I run out of time.
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But I'm not very happy with the fastest speed. I think it's not fast enough and it slows down randomly. One thing that especially annoys me, if all sims are asleep on a lot, including pets, fastest speed work perfectly, as soon as someone is up, and as long as someone is up, it's always slower, almost equal to 2nd speed. I also hate that each time the phone rings game throws me back to normal speed while I'm trying to fastforward something. Combined with the ts4 sims' horrible response speed to the commands, it's a pain.
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Yes, totally agree, it's only interesting the first time. They improved with with certain things though since TS3, like getting out of bed and fixing the sheets - super fast now!
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Fast mode while sleeping usually runs just fine with no slow down because I put their cells on silent. If they get any calls, it won't automatically kick it to normal. Still happens with mail delivery or vampire visits though. Sometimes I'll use the fast speed for collecting if there is a lot of ground to cover or when they're doing certain skills.
If my Sims get stuck just standing there, I'll pause a few seconds, pop in and out of the manage screen or build mode and it usually gets them going again. I limit my use of the fastest speed since it's been my experience that's when the bugs like to come and play.
It seems the game has a hard time keeping up when a lot of actions are queued up and speed 3 is chosen, it'll do one or two and then cancel the rest. It's a 'D'oh' smh "Why'd I do that?" moment for me because I know better. Opps! lol
I thought playing on my new gaming desktop would cure most of these speed issues, and for the most part it has improved. But the issues still do occasionally happen. Ah well, it's not game breaking at all for me, I'm still having lots of fun!
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It's really a question of how fast you can navigate the clunky pie menus, assuming they even bother to open without pausing the game first.
As for sitting back and watching the AI tell it's story, when they actually bother giving us anything resembling AI or storytelling, I might give it a try; but no sims game has ever done anything on it's own to make me want to play it that way.
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It's also helpful when I want to queue up some actions, I guess. Except the queue in TS4 isn't very linear. Actions go in front of other actions instead of going in the order I want them to, and it's frustrating.
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Ugh! So annoying! It's ok on your home lot with your currently played sims. I don't usually speed things up when I'm off my lots but still... sometimes I like to speed through things like fishing and karaoke (especially sims with low singing skill). I don't really like kicking sims off of my lot if I might want them later for socializing either.
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It makes me anxious watching people play on youtube that never pause! How do they get anything done!? I need to pause to figure out what I need to do and get things lined up otherwise I feel like I run out of time.