Do Sims in S4 require more micromanaging or just me?

TOLKIEN · February 2016

I'm currently playing S4 and S3 kinda back to back (more or less switching week to week) and maybe I'm crazy in thinking this but do sims in s4 require a lot more micromanaging and have faster decaying needs? Or is it just me?

Obviously emotions add a layer of management to the game play (like if I what to raise my piano skill i first need to get her inspired, but first I have to wait for her confidence buffs to go, unless I do this first to get rid of them, ect, ect)

Just seems like I'm doing a lot more work to do the same things lol between games...

Colorist40 · February 2016

Nope you are right. My sims needs decay at an astonishing rate. I have seven people in my household and it is a constant round of eating, taking a shower, bladder, sleeping and fun. I even try to have them shower and use the toilet before it gets close to critical otherwise by the time the first person takes their shower and uses the bathroom 3 other sims all are in the critical constantly wandering trying to use the facilities. With two not so bad, but seven? I can't seem to take them out on the town as it is just grinding to keep their needs up. I even got a mod to make their needs decay as in sims 2 which wasn't as bad, but it is still a nightmare. That is why I can't play the game for long periods of time. I mostly stick to sims 3.

LosaruTaiyo · February 2016

I honestly haven't had issue. Although I haven't tried my main families since this latest patch so something might have happened then. Usually, if left on their own, my sims tend to take care of their needs on their own and I just direct them to things when I want something particular done. Only real time I've needed to excessively micromanage has been with the kids getting ready for school because they don't have enough time to get everything done if they wake an hour before. I usually need to wake them around 4am to get everything that they need done. Getting some help hopefully soon with the alarm clock mod. Ehehe.

Conclue · February 2016

I'm not playing Sims 4 but the style would just automatically make me say yes. In Sims 3 it was very hard to have several families in a world that you played with without SP changing things so drastically all the time. Sims 2 actually frustrated me so badly last night it was one of those "Sim does what he wants because he's too smart vs what I want him to do" you know, those battles that frustrate you so much you switch households? LOL Yup. On The Sims birthday. I was annoyed. LOL

The other thing that occurs is that they tweak the needs based on the game's overall pace. In the begining there's not a lot to do in the series. By the end your Sims have so many daily options that it's hard to actually play the way you want because of their needs. To compensate, I've always "maxmotives" or "makeallhappy" once the series is at an end because they (the Sims team) rarely adjust need decay as more and more stuff is put in the game. For instance, it's cute it takes a Sim 45 minutes to shower when theres not much to do. But when your Sim can live out a very busy day doing this that, the other thing, the other thing after that and that etc - lol - nobody wants a 45 minute shower. I'd like to have some tea before work, make breakfast, read the paper - etc. It's these things I'm talking about. The little things we try to add into our Sims routines as more content com es but it becomes a matter of time in the day vs keeping up needs. I adjust but cheating once a day. I do try not to do it often... almost always when playing OFB in Sims 2.

So I'd imagine with the complexity of the Sims 4 Sims vs 2 - I would imagine it would definitely be more micromanaging than that of Sims 2.

lovejess2 · February 2016

Yeah not me I kinda find it doesn't go down enough so I get bored figuring out to do with my sim.

Neia · February 2016

It's rather the opposite for me, I was micromanaging my Sims far more in the previous iterations.

Thanks to the new routing, they no longer drop actions as much as before so I can plan many actions in advance (like in the morning) and they'll follow it really well. And thanks to multitasking, I can move them when they are in the middle of something (like reading or eating), so there's far less micromanaging to make them do what I want them to do.

When I let them alone, they are fine, no more talking bunnies or toys dropped in a corridor, no more bottleneck in front of the fridge, they move smoothly and I can just relax and watch them.

I'm not managing emotions closely though, those are just one tool for my stories, but I don't try to min-max their skilling or something like that, I mostly go with the flow.

UmbralFlower · February 2016

TS4 sims feel like a vacation compared to TS1 sims. I've been playing TS1 a lot recently, and the first week or so, I was adjusting to how needy TS1 sims are. And if I remember correctly, TS2 sims needs dropped fairly quick...and there were more motives.

To me, TS4 sims are the easiest of all of them because of how many motives they have and the autosolve button. As for micromanaging...I do tend to micromanage TS4 sims more because these sims are so quick to go do random stuff that I don't want them to do lol.

luthienrising · February 2016

I find TS4 management to be a bit easier than TS2, a bit harder than TS3. It's a harder I appreciate - TS3 often felt easy in terms of Sim needs and advancement at things. They ended up great at everything and top of their careers and rich awfully fast. I like that Sims 4's Sims have a bit more struggle in their lives without it being impossible to just keep them going at all. I suspect that there's no one way of setting this kind of difficulty that would work for everyone, which is part of why these things end up being made moddable.

pixiejuice · February 2016

I do kind of micromanage mine, but I can make things happen faster if I do. Like in the mornings, I might cancel the action 75% through the shower or breakfast, because that's good enough. 45-minute showers are a luxury, not an everyday thing. I also find that if they start talking during a meal or homework, it takes a lot longer, so I cancel their conversations so that they'll focus on the task at hand. It's so realistic though. It reminds me of micromanaging my 9 year-old on a school morning to get him fed and cleaned up and out the door, lol!

I don't dislike it though, necessarily. This way I can choose whether I let them do an action leisurely (like a long chatty weekend breakfast) or quickly (three bites of their cereal and they're out the door). I don't aim to have my sims needs 100%, tasks completed and in the right mood before they leave for work/school every day. Maybe if they were ambitious or had whims for a promotion or something, but everybody else just gets what they get. It creates a lot of interesting variety in my town between achievement-type sims and other more laid back sims that value other things.

sillyangel0906 · February 2016

I think TS4 Sims are fairly easy to manage. I usually play 6-8 Sims in my family at a time and don't have a problem. If it does get a little hectic, I just pause and queue up the actions. TS2 was much harder I though. I was constantly using the needs cheat.

GalacticGal · February 2016

Colorist40 wrote: »

Nope you are right. My sims needs decay at an astonishing rate. I have seven people in my household and it is a constant round of eating, taking a shower, bladder, sleeping and fun. I even try to have them shower and use the toilet before it gets close to critical otherwise by the time the first person takes their shower and uses the bathroom 3 other sims all are in the critical constantly wandering trying to use the facilities. With two not so bad, but seven? I can't seem to take them out on the town as it is just grinding to keep their needs up. I even got a mod to make their needs decay as in sims 2 which wasn't as bad, but it is still a nightmare. That is why I can't play the game for long periods of time. I mostly stick to sims 3.

I have played Sims2 again, fairly recently, and it seems to me their needs rapidly decay! So much so, I'm wondering how I used to keep up. I'm not so great at it these days. LOL I'm not having such a hard time managing my Sims in my Legacy Challenge household, but yes, sometimes two or more of them need to use the toilet at the same time. I'm having my Gen. 2 heir build the upstairs as quickly as possible, which is hard, since the household now only has one income — his. His dear wife died in a tragic fire on their first family campout. And his brother (the 'spare') has been removed from the household. (Storyline is he actually was guilty of switching the normal lighter fluid used in BBQs for the gas can in his brother's car… he got "life", so we won't be seeing him anymore.) He has recently managed to install two additional bathrooms upstairs, nonetheless.

musteni · February 2016

I feel the basic needs are pretty easy to look after and sims can do pretty well on their own too. I've tried sims 1 again recently and that's a whole another story.... Also it's your choice whether to get your sims inspired before piano rehearse or not. I don't always bother, specially if they already have other buffs.

imhappy · February 2016

My kid has left the game on for 24 hours, and the sims seem to take care of all their needs. But I feel that the basic needs decay quickly, so I use the mailbox cheat in my game to fill needs so I don't have to think about it when I play.

Sucom · February 2016

For me it's not a question of how 'easy or difficult' to manage the sims needs in Sims 4. For me, it's more a question of how tedious/boring it is to play a game which focusses entirely around going to the bathroom, eating, chatting, washing or playing on the computer. My idea of playing and enjoying this game is not so much about how good I am at managing very needy sims although that obviously does play a part, but more about whether I'm enjoying the gameplay enough to want to continue playing for any length of time or even, perhaps, whether I am likely to put the game on again the following day.

In my own game I have found that the needs bars go down very quickly compared to Sims 3 so I'm quite pleased that I learnt about the fill motive cheat. I do think it's a pity that the cheat sliders have not been included in Sims 4 because it did make playing Sims 3 that bit more enjoyable.

lovebypondside · February 2016

I agree, needs mgmt is a little rougher in TS4, especially in bigger households. Multitasking is a necessity to save time. I have always thought the needs had to have been calibrated to take the availability of multitasking into consideration.

Edit: I notice, watching LPs on YouTube for example, that a lot of simmers who have played the game a long time still try to play TS4 like it is TS3. Like, just letting their sims sit there and eat a meal while the fun bar drops.

EnkiSchmidt · February 2016

I find it harder to efficiently control my sims, especially in large households.

Needs do seem to drop faster than in Sims 2 (though slower than in 1? it's been a while, so I cannot judge), but I like that.

However, the sims seem to move much slower than in other sims games. Also in the old games free will off meant exactly this, but in Sims 4 I have to constantly watch them to cancel out-of-character or stupid actions in time and kick strangers from conversations. So for me the extra workload comes not from getting my sims to do something, but from preventing them to do stuff on their own.

Simfan923 · February 2016

TS1 was serious micro managing atleastgot me. 90% of the time I was taking care of my sims needs and as soon as your sim was in a bad mood they didn't want to do anything. Not like the other generations where if a sim was in a bad mood they could still do a few things.

Triplis · February 2016

EnkiSchmidt wrote: »

So for me the extra workload comes not from getting my sims to do something, but from preventing them to do stuff on their own.

Oh god yeah, this is what drains my attention. I really wish there was a way to toggle autonomy on individual sims, quickly (I know there is selected sim, but sometimes I want to temporarily control 2 or more without them canceling stuff on me). Invariably, the most I get frustrated is when I've got something I want one or more sims to do and they're all over the place. If I turn autonomy off, I have to micromanage. If I turn it on, they will do stuff like try to go talk to someone while eating - someone who is far away and about to go shower (or some other action that would prevent them from talking). So they pick up their food, walk over, fail, then finally pull their food back out while standing and take a bite.

Or there's the thing I've seen where Sim A will autonomously start watching a movie, Sim B will try to come and hug them, Sim A will stop watching the movie entirely and get up to hug Sim B. And it's like... ok, I guess you weren't real into that movie LOL.

Sometimes I have to tell myself to take a step back and just let them be stupid. Because the only way to stop them from being stupid is to micromanage them and, in my experience, they are pretty good at managing their own needs with autonomy, they just tend to take about twice as long to do it as it would take with micromanaging. In fact, the more sims there are around, I think the more chaotic it gets because they're constantly trying to chat each other up.

Saying all this did make me think of an idea though. A household made up entirely of Loner sims. I'd be curious to see if it would make even a sliver of a difference in how much they try to talk to each other.

PrincessWolffie · February 2016

> @Neia said:
> It's rather the opposite for me, I was micromanaging my Sims far more in the previous iterations.

^ Glad I'm not the only one who feels this way. However, I'm used to the faster paced decaying motives from the previous entries that The Sims 4 feels super boring and too easy. I'll admit, though, The original Sims was the worst offender with fast decaying motives, imo, if people complained about The Sims 2. It was hard to get anything done in the original Sims, forget it if your sim was a celebrity that had to go to Studio Town for their job; it just added more things on top of your needs. However, I'll admit it wasn't super annoying. I still go back to the original because of how nice it was to constantly micromanage. (I like taking care of my sims but that's just me. I've never been into the whole generation play style.)

I'm the odd ball to say this but eh. The Sims 4 is, again, way too easy. I could be doing something else for an hour or two and my sim will be just fine. I'd only have to wonder what kind of social drama they make while I'm not controlling them. Lol.

mrb · February 2016

you know not really i find that for me their needs drop at a fairly decent rate. honestly i would say its a but unrealastic when i work as a doctor because i do not take a single break but that is usally because every day i send my sim to work i have all her moods in best mood. maybe its because i try to focus on one sim at a time except for the kid but even then its okay to let one or 2 things drop and if i know i cant fix all the needs within 2 hours i just say oh well and let them go in a bad mood to work well the father since i have 2 unmployed sims and 1 sim who is a tech guru and another sim who is a doctor and a child.

ladybreid · February 2016

I was thinking the needs dropped much faster too though they seem to be easier to fill. Left to their own though they seem to manage them by themselves. I don't like that though and try to keep everyone on a schedule. I like my families to east together at least 2 times a day and the kids shower before bed, the parents shower in the morning. Homework is done after school before dinner. Fun is before school after breakfast and then before bed. I try to get everyone to the potty in the morning then as needed.

HowGreatThouArt · February 2016

Like several others have mentioned, I mainly have to micro-manage when the autonomy is turned on. I could set a Sim up to do a couple social interactions with another Sim, and in the middle of the chat he'll just cancel it and go watch TV.

I don't like how the autonomy cancels out previously queued actions; it's something I'd like them to fix. But other than that the needs aren't bad. I've seen posts about how Sims 4 is too easy compared to previous Sims games.

Sara74469 · February 2016

For me TS3 has more micro managing. Maybe it's because the open word makes me want to go out more and away from home more. Probably just me.

MaryVann · February 2016

I find with Sims 4 there is a lot less micro managing compared to Sims 3.

DeKay · February 2016

I didn't play much of TS3 so I can't really say, but have you seen the decaying rate in TS2? It was worse.

Also just a tip to help your micro managing: You can always go to a sim's needs tab and click on the icon like the bladder or hunger icon and your sim will automatically do those things on their own without you having to click on the toilet or fridge.

TOLKIEN · February 2016

DeKay wrote: »

Also just a tip to help your micro managing: You can always go to a sim's needs tab and click on the icon like the bladder or hunger icon and your sim will automatically do those things on their own without you having to click on the toilet or fridge.

Huh that I never knew...thx! Despite all my play hours and even owning the strategy guide lol...

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Do Sims in S4 require more micromanaging or just me?

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