@SimsLovinLycan I'm on board with your theory, that's possibly the case. Unfortunately we don't know. I want more content but dreading the resulting drastic step they'll need to take to further stabilize the game.
"Further" stabilize? This thing has been running on bubble gum and paper clips since they dropped it on us.
Every time they "give" us something new, either something else breaks, OR the new thing COMES with a destructive fireball attached, like DO's relationship decay routine.
Or they remove things they think we won't have a problem with... like OUR sims (including housed babies), relationships, relationship LEVELS now... it's mind boggling.
If they would STOP shoveling so many NEW sims into our games via the overzealous bin, THAT would probably go amazing lengths toward settling down whatever performance drain issues they're seeing. Excellent place for them to be tinkering.
The lives of the sims I have MAPPED and PLAYED (or even just MAPPED, I *do* have reasons for wanting unplayeds there, also, those with NPC jobs...), those should be MINE, to do with as I see FIT.
And let me tell you, what I want to do in my game does NOT include having to go in EVERY TIME I LOAD A FAMILY and see that they have NO friends and are living with a house full of STRANGERS, also.
That was not the case when I left them. That should not be the case when I go back to them.
Do you know if this is due to DO generates new Sims to show up at restaurants? Therefore they had to add a more aggressive social decay due to as they said in past relationship (and why we got relationship culling) was causing performance issues. Like the more Sims your Sims knew caused issues for some. Which I would have upped the requirements instead of telling them to play on a toaster but that's me. But anyway is the new speedy decay due to DO would need more generated Sims to show up (which may work like those who aren't real who show up a hospitals?) and so they meant for it to go really fast but not this fast. ?? It seems to be a feature they intended but maybe not as fast as some experience but still not going to be removed (even beyond relationship culling from last year) but maybe looked at to see if it's just too fast?
I don't know. I really can't understand why relationships can't be constant in this game like in other games. Why does it have to different for this game. It boggles my mind.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
@Neia I had around 40 households at one point ( Aside from the main family) then I experienced the culling. With MC command installed, I haven't played enough to pass the 200 sim population mark but my computer can more than handle heavy sim populations, my specs also exceed max requirements. Now we have relationship decay which I doubt has anything to do with what most people's PCS these days can handle and it seems more to do with what the engine can handle. With no serious feedback on mechanisms that potentially hamstring gameplay, there will be a lot of speculation. I'd like Maxis to communicate clearly with us why these decisions are implemented and what we're dealing with.
When I had 400 Sims, a large part of them were unplayed/unhoused Sims, that's why they were culled after I removed the mod. I don't know why they choose to make relationship decay affect all played Sims, but it's not a problem with what the engine can handle since modding it out works just fine. It does feel like a performance choice.
I've come to accept we aren't gonna get more info on this
Gurus please feel free to surprise me
Yep, I guess it's a waste of time to keep coming back to the thread. Might as well just ditch the game.
I'm finishing my re-installation of TS3 tonight, I will play that instead. No more money from me, EA! Not until you get your act together and fix this mess.
@SimsLovinLycan
I'm not sure what you mean by game-breaking bugs when you have too many relationships. There're most likely issues that will appear if you have billions of Sims in your save, because your computer won't be able to keep up, but that's basically performance related.
I have a population of around 200 Sims, no relationships culling and my game is running fine, though my comp is far above the minimum asked. I had around 400 Sims at some point (before I removed the no culling mod) and it worked fine too.
I'm playing on an upper mid range laptop...by no means a gaming laptop but still a very decent one. I recently bulldozed OS to rebuild and populate with my own Sims. At this point it's still a relatively new game and I think I have 8 households that totals less than 50 Sims and relationship decay, relationship eradication and Sim culling is making game play infuriating. The repetitive action of reintroducing Sims who live in the same household is getting very old, very fast.
So please don't assume their game breaking bugs are probably too many relationships or their computer.
"People really love to explore 'failure states. In fact, the failure states are really much more interesting than the success states." ~ Will Wright
@SimsLovinLycan I'm on board with your theory, that's possibly the case. Unfortunately we don't know. I want more content but dreading the resulting drastic step they'll need to take to further stabilize the game.
"Further" stabilize? This thing has been running on bubble gum and paper clips since they dropped it on us.
Every time they "give" us something new, either something else breaks, OR the new thing COMES with a destructive fireball attached, like DO's relationship decay routine.
Or they remove things they think we won't have a problem with... like OUR sims (including housed babies), relationships, relationship LEVELS now... it's mind boggling.
If they would STOP shoveling so many NEW sims into our games via the overzealous bin, THAT would probably go amazing lengths toward settling down whatever performance drain issues they're seeing. Excellent place for them to be tinkering.
The lives of the sims I have MAPPED and PLAYED (or even just MAPPED, I *do* have reasons for wanting unplayeds there, also, those with NPC jobs...), those should be MINE, to do with as I see FIT.
And let me tell you, what I want to do in my game does NOT include having to go in EVERY TIME I LOAD A FAMILY and see that they have NO friends and are living with a house full of STRANGERS, also.
That was not the case when I left them. That should not be the case when I go back to them.
Do you know if this is due to DO generates new Sims to show up at restaurants? Therefore they had to add a more aggressive social decay due to as they said in past relationship (and why we got relationship culling) was causing performance issues. Like the more Sims your Sims knew caused issues for some. Which I would have upped the requirements instead of telling them to play on a toaster but that's me. But anyway is the new speedy decay due to DO would need more generated Sims to show up (which may work like those who aren't real who show up a hospitals?) and so they meant for it to go really fast but not this fast. ?? It seems to be a feature they intended but maybe not as fast as some experience but still not going to be removed (even beyond relationship culling from last year) but maybe looked at to see if it's just too fast?
I don't know. I really can't understand why relationships can't be constant in this game like in other games. Why does it have to different for this game. It boggles my mind.
I did not get DO or the new kids stuff as i said I was not buying another thing until they give us toddlers and I meant it - no matter how much I eagerly wanted to buy those packs - I did not cave and won't. It has now become the principle of the thing - seeing they justify not even telling us if they are coming shortly or anything then I justify giving them no more money.
That said - I have the same exact issues worsened relationship decay and culling - even of some sims I have played at one time or other. It also does not seem to matter if this is a brand new sim or Sims I have played previously - none seem safe from relationship culling. Pretty sad when I send my sim off to the science lab every day and every day he gets a request to remeet the same people he already met twice that week. So it is not DO doing this - that I can guarantee - I am sure it may be adding to the already existing problem though.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
@SimsLovinLycan
I'm not sure what you mean by game-breaking bugs when you have too many relationships. There're most likely issues that will appear if you have billions of Sims in your save, because your computer won't be able to keep up, but that's basically performance related.
I have a population of around 200 Sims, no relationships culling and my game is running fine, though my comp is far above the minimum asked. I had around 400 Sims at some point (before I removed the no culling mod) and it worked fine too.
I'm playing on an upper mid range laptop...by no means a gaming laptop but still a very decent one. I recently bulldozed OS to rebuild and populate with my own Sims. At this point it's still a relatively new game and I think I have 8 households that totals less than 50 Sims and relationship decay, relationship eradication and Sim culling is making game play infuriating. The repetitive action of reintroducing Sims who live in the same household is getting very old, very fast.
So please don't assume their game breaking bugs are probably too many relationships or their computer.
@SimsLovinLycan
I'm not sure what you mean by game-breaking bugs when you have too many relationships. There're most likely issues that will appear if you have billions of Sims in your save, because your computer won't be able to keep up, but that's basically performance related.
I have a population of around 200 Sims, no relationships culling and my game is running fine, though my comp is far above the minimum asked. I had around 400 Sims at some point (before I removed the no culling mod) and it worked fine too.
I'm playing on an upper mid range laptop...by no means a gaming laptop but still a very decent one. I recently bulldozed OS to rebuild and populate with my own Sims. At this point it's still a relatively new game and I think I have 8 households that totals less than 50 Sims and relationship decay, relationship eradication and Sim culling is making game play infuriating. The repetitive action of reintroducing Sims who live in the same household is getting very old, very fast.
So please don't assume their game breaking bugs are probably too many relationships or their computer.
Did you read SimsLovinLycan's post ?
I did but I was responding to what you were saying.
"People really love to explore 'failure states. In fact, the failure states are really much more interesting than the success states." ~ Will Wright
@SimsLovinLycan
I'm not sure what you mean by game-breaking bugs when you have too many relationships. There're most likely issues that will appear if you have billions of Sims in your save, because your computer won't be able to keep up, but that's basically performance related.
I have a population of around 200 Sims, no relationships culling and my game is running fine, though my comp is far above the minimum asked. I had around 400 Sims at some point (before I removed the no culling mod) and it worked fine too.
I'm playing on an upper mid range laptop...by no means a gaming laptop but still a very decent one. I recently bulldozed OS to rebuild and populate with my own Sims. At this point it's still a relatively new game and I think I have 8 households that totals less than 50 Sims and relationship decay, relationship eradication and Sim culling is making game play infuriating. The repetitive action of reintroducing Sims who live in the same household is getting very old, very fast.
So please don't assume their game breaking bugs are probably too many relationships or their computer.
Did you read SimsLovinLycan's post ?
I did but I was responding to what you were saying.
Then you didn't understand my post because what's you're responding has nothing to do with the discussion. SimsLovinLycan had an hypothesis about a game breaking bug that would appear with too many relationships. So yes, I assume this game breaking bug would appear with too many relationships. I mean, that was the whole point of SimsLovinLycan's post
I don't know why they choose to make relationship decay affect all played Sims, but it's not a problem with what the engine can handle since modding it out works just fine. It does feel like a performance choice.
But yeah, more information would be great
That's the thing. How could this justifiably be a performance choice? Wasn't TS4 supposed to be forgiving to all ranges of pcs. Aside from the gameplay options we no longer enjoy ( like terrain tools and neighbourhood editing) there's the culling - and while some form of culling existed in previous versions, the limits in this iteration are absurd. Now relationship decay . "Performance" could mean many things including limits in the engine and to offset these limits a "Performance choice" has been made to limit sim populations and cull sim relationships.
Yes more info would be nice, but like @elanorbreton said, I doubt we'll get it..so we're left in limbo.
Edit: Yes , I use MC Command and it "fixes" it but we *still * don't know what the devs know and how this affects gameplay over time.
@SimsLovinLycan
I'm not sure what you mean by game-breaking bugs when you have too many relationships. There're most likely issues that will appear if you have billions of Sims in your save, because your computer won't be able to keep up, but that's basically performance related.
I have a population of around 200 Sims, no relationships culling and my game is running fine, though my comp is far above the minimum asked. I had around 400 Sims at some point (before I removed the no culling mod) and it worked fine too.
I'm playing on an upper mid range laptop...by no means a gaming laptop but still a very decent one. I recently bulldozed OS to rebuild and populate with my own Sims. At this point it's still a relatively new game and I think I have 8 households that totals less than 50 Sims and relationship decay, relationship eradication and Sim culling is making game play infuriating. The repetitive action of reintroducing Sims who live in the same household is getting very old, very fast.
So please don't assume their game breaking bugs are probably too many relationships or their computer.
Did you read SimsLovinLycan's post ?
I did but I was responding to what you were saying.
Then you didn't understand my post because what's you're responding has nothing to do with the discussion. SimsLovinLycan had an hypothesis about a game breaking bug that would appear with too many relationships. So yes, I assume this game breaking bug would appear with too many relationships. I mean, that was the whole point of SimsLovinLycan's post
I understood.
"People really love to explore 'failure states. In fact, the failure states are really much more interesting than the success states." ~ Will Wright
I bet you're wrong... @egwarhammer
I don't have the superbad machine or megahood to do it with, but TBH that's EXACTLY what I'm thinking about... "how long would it take me with relationship.introduce_sim_to_all_others and MC to remove roadblocks and UI Cheats for easier relationship level maniuplation... to put all of this into play?" I have about 130 sims. I'd blow up a game to check it out. <shrug> (Restart queen, at your service.)
I *can't* be the only one.
OMG I wish they'd fix that floating tag thing, too... it's ANNOYING.
I may well be, hypotheses are meant to be challenged and proven/disproven, after all...Or, at least that's what I learned in Science class... But, do be careful if you do decide to try it, since, like I said, I'm not sure if this glitch might have a ripple effect on any other files or data on one's computer. I don't know a lot about computer programing, but I do know that one bad program can cause a whole lot of mayhem on one machine from my experience with malware. (One program slipped onto my old computer, and even after it was gone I still had overheating problems from just using MS Word for 5-7 hours...which never used to happen.)
...And, yes, that floating tag was haunting me too...
I'm not sure what you mean by game-breaking bugs when you have too many relationships. There're most likely issues that will appear if you have billions of Sims in your save, because your computer won't be able to keep up, but that's basically performance related.
I have a population of around 200 Sims, no relationships culling and my game is running fine, though my comp is far above the minimum asked. I had around 400 Sims at some point (before I removed the no culling mod) and it worked fine too.
@Neia By that, I mean save file corruption (either slow or instantaneous) which renders the save unplayable or program file corruption which renders the game itself unplayable (requiring one to repair or reinstall the program...and probably delete the offending save file). I don't know what the upper limit of existing relationships required to cause such an event actually is, however. This is why the hypothesis would need to be tested. But, thanks to your info, we do know that the breaking point (if there is one) would have to come with a population above 400 sims if it's an instant event. Again, this is all theoretical at this point.
This is just sad. Instead of "new ways to play", it might as well be "new ways to cull"!
/mock pitch begins
Want to have the game cull your townies? Well, look no further! Unhoused townies will be culled at an instant, even if they have strong ties to your household! Where's that long lost step-brother? Where's your teen son's new girlfriend? Culled! Even ghosts or long-dead matriarchs/patriarchs in your family tree will have the chance of being culled!
Oh, but we won't stop there. Played, housed Sims get a free pass and that can't do. Now there's relationship culling! With the BG patch that (ironically) came right alongside an EP all about meeting new friends, now your Sim will lose memory of their friends, enemies, and even potential love interests! Your Sims get the joy of introducing themselves again and again to people that they have surely *never* seen before. Spectacular, huh?
Only good friends, family members, and strong romantic interests are exempt, you say? That certainly needs to be fixed with our brand new inactive played household relationship decay (quite a mouthful!). Now even good friends of your inactive played Sims have the chance of being relationship culled. Equality for all, right? This new feature even allows babies to be taken away. So when you rotate back to your households, you get to build decayed relationships, which were before frozen in time, instead of actually playing the game.
And the best part about all this? Everyone gets to have this for free! It's like a surprise gift that you can't return. We wanted this to be a wonderful surprise to y'all when you open the game and play for hours until you discover it. Don't bother with trying to turn off this feature; why would you want options for altering culling? Have fun with your new and improved game!
/mock pitch over
Seriously, all of my saves involve rotational play in one way or another. I have to drop one exciting save that had soap opera level drama going on because I would have to switch between households. My sister's game had her main Sims forget each other after one of them moved out and got married. I'm seriously bummed about this and cannot do much of anything since it affects how I usually play. My decent laptop handled the game just fine before these patches came along, so why now? I'd rather you not even include these culling mechanisms or perhaps, at least, give us an option to alter it. @SimGuruDrake Please get a development/tech Guru to respond to this thread.
I bet you're wrong... @egwarhammer
I don't have the superbad machine or megahood to do it with, but TBH that's EXACTLY what I'm thinking about... "how long would it take me with relationship.introduce_sim_to_all_others and MC to remove roadblocks and UI Cheats for easier relationship level maniuplation... to put all of this into play?" I have about 130 sims. I'd blow up a game to check it out. <shrug> (Restart queen, at your service.)
I *can't* be the only one.
OMG I wish they'd fix that floating tag thing, too... it's ANNOYING.
I may well be, hypotheses are meant to be challenged and proven/disproven, after all...Or, at least that's what I learned in Science class... But, do be careful if you do decide to try it, since, like I said, I'm not sure if this glitch might have a ripple effect on any other files or data on one's computer. I don't know a lot about computer programing, but I do know that one bad program can cause a whole lot of mayhem on one machine from my experience with malware. (One program slipped onto my old computer, and even after it was gone I still had overheating problems from just using MS Word for 5-7 hours...which never used to happen.)
...And, yes, that floating tag was haunting me too...
I'm not sure what you mean by game-breaking bugs when you have too many relationships. There're most likely issues that will appear if you have billions of Sims in your save, because your computer won't be able to keep up, but that's basically performance related.
I have a population of around 200 Sims, no relationships culling and my game is running fine, though my comp is far above the minimum asked. I had around 400 Sims at some point (before I removed the no culling mod) and it worked fine too.
@Neia By that, I mean save file corruption (either slow or instantaneous) which renders the save unplayable or program file corruption which renders the game itself unplayable (requiring one to repair or reinstall the program...and probably delete the offending save file). I don't know what the upper limit of existing relationships required to cause such an event actually is, however. This is why the hypothesis would need to be tested. But, thanks to your info, we do know that the breaking point (if there is one) would have to come with a population above 400 sims if it's an instant event. Again, this is all theoretical at this point.
I think you're on to something with number of relationships. Still doesn't explain why decay them... unless it's a two pronged attack and the decay is calculated to dump more sims downward into the "fodder" range. Deletable.
Housed BABIES... really?
But, I digress. Brand new game. Butchered. I got rid of EVERYBODY and started with one sim. Also deleted a bunch of lots I don't plan to use.
Question about that, why does saving things to my tray evidently increase my save file size? This morning I went through and copied all the mapped lots to my library (I started it fresh again not long ago). As I put them in the library, if I wasn't planning to use it for now, I bulldozed it.
Shouldn't removing data make a file smaller, not bigger?
Now here's the thing I wanted to mention. I played through the first day, it's almost midnight Sunday. 30 some new sims have landed today.
I used the relationship.introduce_sim_to_all_others cheat to put everybody in my girl's panel so I could set their MC flags better. (My YF is the only played sim in this game, so far. Everybody else is unmarried and inactive.)
The thing is, after I did that and hit Save... it worked, but I got that "spinny circle" Not Responding blurb for a few seconds. Straightened up, no big thing... yet. I see it a lot, but this was the first time I'd seen it (and I wasn't surprised) in THIS new game. Just a heads up.
There's something to what you're saying. I just don't know what it means, yet. Other than "be careful" if you're playing a save you care about. I'm really not. I'm just kicking tires.
I appreciate your courage/madness for embarking on this experiment, @egwarhammer. This is interesting. I'm not sure if these early results prove anything conclusively just yet aside from lots of relationship data=more effort needed to save the game, but it's a start...
Question about that, why does saving things to my tray evidently increase my save file size? This morning I went through and copied all the mapped lots to my library (I started it fresh again not long ago). As I put them in the library, if I wasn't planning to use it for now, I bulldozed it.
Shouldn't removing data make a file smaller, not bigger?
That's another strange thing. Maybe the file size increases because of something having to do with the way that the save file interacts with the library...? The data from the interaction may not be optimized well, or generates some sort of cache or junk data, maybe...? I think that might warrant some extra study at another time...
I was able to get that restaurant to 5 in about 5 Sim days, or maybe close to a week. When I went back my Sims relationships were drastically changed and I noticed because there was one in particular I spent time building up and it was like I never even put in the effort
A Simguru said in one of the earlier developers' discussions that relationships contribute the most to save bloat. He didn't say that the game would become unstable or anything else, but relationships are one of the few things that sims "remember" and why that's such a big deal is because it goes both ways. Not only does your sim remember the relationship with the other sim, the other sim has to remember the relationship with your sim as well so it's double the work.
Personally I think a lot has to do with the minimum requirements and making sure the game still can run under a computer with the minimum requirements, which are ridiculously low. Considering the class action lawsuits against car manufacturers and so forth, I'm sure the legal department has made it clear to the developers that minimum requirements must be able to run the game at any cost.
PROCESSOR: 1.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, AMD Athlon 64 Dual-Core 4000+ or equivalent (For computers using built-in graphics chipsets, the game requires 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.0 GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-62 or equivalent)
MEMORY: At least 2 GB RAM
HARD DRIVE: At least 9 GB of free space with at least 1 GB additional space for custom content and saved games
DVD-ROM: DVD ROM drive required for installation only
VIDEO CARD: 128 MB of Video RAM and support for Pixel Shader 3.0. Supported Graphics cards: NVIDIA GeForce 6600 or better, ATI Radeon X1300 or better, Intel GMA X4500 or better
1.8GHZ Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD Athlon 64 Dual-Core 4000+ is decades old technology. This particular Athlon 64 was released in 2004!! I'm not sure these processors can even run Windows 8 or 10, but the point is that even the weakest modern 2015 LAPTOP CPU is far better than either of these decade old CPUs.
The GPU requirement is also decades old. I can't remember the last time 128MB of VRAM was standard on a GPU, but even the worst cards today have at least 512MB. To put it in perspective, the Nvidia GeForce 6600 performs worse than even a modern Intel integrated GPU, the worst Intel integrated GPU, Intel HD4600. A mid-range modern card like the Nvidia GTX 960 performs 7000% to 58000% better on graphics tests according to http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GTX-960-vs-Nvidia-GeForce-6600/3165vsm8606. No there isn't an error with the amount of zeroes! We're talking about 70x to 580x better performance!
No modern GPU that you could possibly buy is that weak, yet the game has to be able to run on outdated equipment that you can't even purchase anymore. That's the problem and that's what's killing the game.
Interesting to see a lot of people here talking about the generation of townies. For me, I don't have a problem with that. I see the same townies every sim day. But I play with one household only, so there's definitely some correlation between townies spawning more and when you rotate more, maybe?
Someone has said over and over new townies are generated every time you go through the loading screen. I can testify this is probably true since I play rotationally and have never had more than 150 Sims in all in any of my games, and more townies and townies culled happened on a regular basis and seems to have nothing to do with a cap but how many times I go through screens traveling and or rotating and or how many Sim weeks I play at a time which was said by a modder happens every Sunday regardless.
No, yesterday, I checked my game and I went through many loading screens and getting the same townies (at least what was shown in household management) and the only time my game generated new townies is when I delete some of them. So my guess is that it only happens when you play rotationally, not going through loading screens in general.
@SimGuruDrake, will we receive an answer from the SimGurus soon on this subject? This extreme level of relationship decay is a major issue and needs to be addressed.
SOo... I just did some testing and my game is fine thankfully.
I have about 12 active households that have held their relationship status'
This is btw my NEW game.
I had to delete my old one due to the relationship problems and..disappearing sims (this one was a bigger problem for me).
Phew.
@SimsLovinLycan I'm on board with your theory, that's possibly the case. Unfortunately we don't know. I want more content but dreading the resulting drastic step they'll need to take to further stabilize the game.
"Further" stabilize? This thing has been running on bubble gum and paper clips since they dropped it on us.
Every time they "give" us something new, either something else breaks, OR the new thing COMES with a destructive fireball attached, like DO's relationship decay routine.
Or they remove things they think we won't have a problem with... like OUR sims (including housed babies), relationships, relationship LEVELS now... it's mind boggling.
If they would STOP shoveling so many NEW sims into our games via the overzealous bin, THAT would probably go amazing lengths toward settling down whatever performance drain issues they're seeing. Excellent place for them to be tinkering.
The lives of the sims I have MAPPED and PLAYED (or even just MAPPED, I *do* have reasons for wanting unplayeds there, also, those with NPC jobs...), those should be MINE, to do with as I see FIT.
And let me tell you, what I want to do in my game does NOT include having to go in EVERY TIME I LOAD A FAMILY and see that they have NO friends and are living with a house full of STRANGERS, also.
That was not the case when I left them. That should not be the case when I go back to them.
Do you know if this is due to DO generates new Sims to show up at restaurants? Therefore they had to add a more aggressive social decay due to as they said in past relationship (and why we got relationship culling) was causing performance issues. Like the more Sims your Sims knew caused issues for some. Which I would have upped the requirements instead of telling them to play on a toaster but that's me. But anyway is the new speedy decay due to DO would need more generated Sims to show up (which may work like those who aren't real who show up a hospitals?) and so they meant for it to go really fast but not this fast. ?? It seems to be a feature they intended but maybe not as fast as some experience but still not going to be removed (even beyond relationship culling from last year) but maybe looked at to see if it's just too fast?
I don't know. I really can't understand why relationships can't be constant in this game like in other games. Why does it have to different for this game. It boggles my mind.
I did not get DO or the new kids stuff as i said I was not buying another thing until they give us toddlers and I meant it - no matter how much I eagerly wanted to buy those packs - I did not cave and won't. It has now become the principle of the thing - seeing they justify not even telling us if they are coming shortly or anything then I justify giving them no more money.
That said - I have the same exact issues worsened relationship decay and culling - even of some sims I have played at one time or other. It also does not seem to matter if this is a brand new sim or Sims I have played previously - none seem safe from relationship culling. Pretty sad when I send my sim off to the science lab every day and every day he gets a request to remeet the same people he already met twice that week. So it is not DO doing this - that I can guarantee - I am sure it may be adding to the already existing problem though.
You're right. It's the prep-patch update for DO's release which we ALL got, that's doing this.
Don't bother looking for anything on Relationship Decay. You won't find it in there (edit: or in the 2 patches since, one of which WAS for bugfixes). /edit But it sure is in our GAMES now.
I appreciate your courage/madness for embarking on this experiment, @egwarhammer. This is interesting. I'm not sure if these early results prove anything conclusively just yet aside from lots of relationship data=more effort needed to save the game, but it's a start...
Question about that, why does saving things to my tray evidently increase my save file size? This morning I went through and copied all the mapped lots to my library (I started it fresh again not long ago). As I put them in the library, if I wasn't planning to use it for now, I bulldozed it.
Shouldn't removing data make a file smaller, not bigger?
That's another strange thing. Maybe the file size increases because of something having to do with the way that the save file interacts with the library...? The data from the interaction may not be optimized well, or generates some sort of cache or junk data, maybe...? I think that might warrant some extra study at another time...
I just posted a question about this to Tech. Maybe somebody who knows will clue me in. If they do, I'll let you know.
@SimGuruDrake, will we receive an answer from the SimGurus soon on this subject? This extreme level of relationship decay is a major issue and needs to be addressed.
I don't understand why these threads are being ignored. @SimGuruDrake popped into the family thread earlier and stated it was because she knew she'd been tagged, so she must know about this one too. Is this just a case of 'skim over the more awkward issues'?
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Do you know if this is due to DO generates new Sims to show up at restaurants? Therefore they had to add a more aggressive social decay due to as they said in past relationship (and why we got relationship culling) was causing performance issues. Like the more Sims your Sims knew caused issues for some. Which I would have upped the requirements instead of telling them to play on a toaster but that's me. But anyway is the new speedy decay due to DO would need more generated Sims to show up (which may work like those who aren't real who show up a hospitals?) and so they meant for it to go really fast but not this fast. ?? It seems to be a feature they intended but maybe not as fast as some experience but still not going to be removed (even beyond relationship culling from last year) but maybe looked at to see if it's just too fast?
I don't know. I really can't understand why relationships can't be constant in this game like in other games. Why does it have to different for this game. It boggles my mind.
When I had 400 Sims, a large part of them were unplayed/unhoused Sims, that's why they were culled after I removed the mod. I don't know why they choose to make relationship decay affect all played Sims, but it's not a problem with what the engine can handle since modding it out works just fine. It does feel like a performance choice.
But yeah, more information would be great
Gurus please feel free to surprise me
I'm finishing my re-installation of TS3 tonight, I will play that instead. No more money from me, EA! Not until you get your act together and fix this mess.
I'm playing on an upper mid range laptop...by no means a gaming laptop but still a very decent one. I recently bulldozed OS to rebuild and populate with my own Sims. At this point it's still a relatively new game and I think I have 8 households that totals less than 50 Sims and relationship decay, relationship eradication and Sim culling is making game play infuriating. The repetitive action of reintroducing Sims who live in the same household is getting very old, very fast.
So please don't assume their game breaking bugs are probably too many relationships or their computer.
I did not get DO or the new kids stuff as i said I was not buying another thing until they give us toddlers and I meant it - no matter how much I eagerly wanted to buy those packs - I did not cave and won't. It has now become the principle of the thing - seeing they justify not even telling us if they are coming shortly or anything then I justify giving them no more money.
That said - I have the same exact issues worsened relationship decay and culling - even of some sims I have played at one time or other. It also does not seem to matter if this is a brand new sim or Sims I have played previously - none seem safe from relationship culling. Pretty sad when I send my sim off to the science lab every day and every day he gets a request to remeet the same people he already met twice that week. So it is not DO doing this - that I can guarantee - I am sure it may be adding to the already existing problem though.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
Did you read SimsLovinLycan's post ?
I did but I was responding to what you were saying.
Then you didn't understand my post because what's you're responding has nothing to do with the discussion. SimsLovinLycan had an hypothesis about a game breaking bug that would appear with too many relationships. So yes, I assume this game breaking bug would appear with too many relationships. I mean, that was the whole point of SimsLovinLycan's post
That's the thing. How could this justifiably be a performance choice? Wasn't TS4 supposed to be forgiving to all ranges of pcs. Aside from the gameplay options we no longer enjoy ( like terrain tools and neighbourhood editing) there's the culling - and while some form of culling existed in previous versions, the limits in this iteration are absurd. Now relationship decay . "Performance" could mean many things including limits in the engine and to offset these limits a "Performance choice" has been made to limit sim populations and cull sim relationships.
Yes more info would be nice, but like @elanorbreton said, I doubt we'll get it..so we're left in limbo.
Edit: Yes , I use MC Command and it "fixes" it but we *still * don't know what the devs know and how this affects gameplay over time.
I understood.
I may well be, hypotheses are meant to be challenged and proven/disproven, after all...Or, at least that's what I learned in Science class... But, do be careful if you do decide to try it, since, like I said, I'm not sure if this glitch might have a ripple effect on any other files or data on one's computer. I don't know a lot about computer programing, but I do know that one bad program can cause a whole lot of mayhem on one machine from my experience with malware. (One program slipped onto my old computer, and even after it was gone I still had overheating problems from just using MS Word for 5-7 hours...which never used to happen.)
...And, yes, that floating tag was haunting me too...
@Neia By that, I mean save file corruption (either slow or instantaneous) which renders the save unplayable or program file corruption which renders the game itself unplayable (requiring one to repair or reinstall the program...and probably delete the offending save file). I don't know what the upper limit of existing relationships required to cause such an event actually is, however. This is why the hypothesis would need to be tested. But, thanks to your info, we do know that the breaking point (if there is one) would have to come with a population above 400 sims if it's an instant event. Again, this is all theoretical at this point.
/mock pitch begins
Want to have the game cull your townies? Well, look no further! Unhoused townies will be culled at an instant, even if they have strong ties to your household! Where's that long lost step-brother? Where's your teen son's new girlfriend? Culled! Even ghosts or long-dead matriarchs/patriarchs in your family tree will have the chance of being culled!
Oh, but we won't stop there. Played, housed Sims get a free pass and that can't do. Now there's relationship culling! With the BG patch that (ironically) came right alongside an EP all about meeting new friends, now your Sim will lose memory of their friends, enemies, and even potential love interests! Your Sims get the joy of introducing themselves again and again to people that they have surely *never* seen before. Spectacular, huh?
Only good friends, family members, and strong romantic interests are exempt, you say? That certainly needs to be fixed with our brand new inactive played household relationship decay (quite a mouthful!). Now even good friends of your inactive played Sims have the chance of being relationship culled. Equality for all, right? This new feature even allows babies to be taken away. So when you rotate back to your households, you get to build decayed relationships, which were before frozen in time, instead of actually playing the game.
And the best part about all this? Everyone gets to have this for free! It's like a surprise gift that you can't return. We wanted this to be a wonderful surprise to y'all when you open the game and play for hours until you discover it. Don't bother with trying to turn off this feature; why would you want options for altering culling? Have fun with your new and improved game!
/mock pitch over
Seriously, all of my saves involve rotational play in one way or another. I have to drop one exciting save that had soap opera level drama going on because I would have to switch between households. My sister's game had her main Sims forget each other after one of them moved out and got married. I'm seriously bummed about this and cannot do much of anything since it affects how I usually play. My decent laptop handled the game just fine before these patches came along, so why now? I'd rather you not even include these culling mechanisms or perhaps, at least, give us an option to alter it. @SimGuruDrake Please get a development/tech Guru to respond to this thread.
I think you're on to something with number of relationships. Still doesn't explain why decay them... unless it's a two pronged attack and the decay is calculated to dump more sims downward into the "fodder" range. Deletable.
Housed BABIES... really?
But, I digress. Brand new game. Butchered. I got rid of EVERYBODY and started with one sim. Also deleted a bunch of lots I don't plan to use.
Question about that, why does saving things to my tray evidently increase my save file size? This morning I went through and copied all the mapped lots to my library (I started it fresh again not long ago). As I put them in the library, if I wasn't planning to use it for now, I bulldozed it.
Shouldn't removing data make a file smaller, not bigger?
Now here's the thing I wanted to mention. I played through the first day, it's almost midnight Sunday. 30 some new sims have landed today.
I used the relationship.introduce_sim_to_all_others cheat to put everybody in my girl's panel so I could set their MC flags better. (My YF is the only played sim in this game, so far. Everybody else is unmarried and inactive.)
The thing is, after I did that and hit Save... it worked, but I got that "spinny circle" Not Responding blurb for a few seconds. Straightened up, no big thing... yet. I see it a lot, but this was the first time I'd seen it (and I wasn't surprised) in THIS new game. Just a heads up.
There's something to what you're saying. I just don't know what it means, yet. Other than "be careful" if you're playing a save you care about. I'm really not. I'm just kicking tires.
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Also: That's another strange thing. Maybe the file size increases because of something having to do with the way that the save file interacts with the library...? The data from the interaction may not be optimized well, or generates some sort of cache or junk data, maybe...? I think that might warrant some extra study at another time...
I was able to get that restaurant to 5 in about 5 Sim days, or maybe close to a week. When I went back my Sims relationships were drastically changed and I noticed because there was one in particular I spent time building up and it was like I never even put in the effort
Personally I think a lot has to do with the minimum requirements and making sure the game still can run under a computer with the minimum requirements, which are ridiculously low. Considering the class action lawsuits against car manufacturers and so forth, I'm sure the legal department has made it clear to the developers that minimum requirements must be able to run the game at any cost.
1.8GHZ Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD Athlon 64 Dual-Core 4000+ is decades old technology. This particular Athlon 64 was released in 2004!! I'm not sure these processors can even run Windows 8 or 10, but the point is that even the weakest modern 2015 LAPTOP CPU is far better than either of these decade old CPUs.
The GPU requirement is also decades old. I can't remember the last time 128MB of VRAM was standard on a GPU, but even the worst cards today have at least 512MB. To put it in perspective, the Nvidia GeForce 6600 performs worse than even a modern Intel integrated GPU, the worst Intel integrated GPU, Intel HD4600. A mid-range modern card like the Nvidia GTX 960 performs 7000% to 58000% better on graphics tests according to http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GTX-960-vs-Nvidia-GeForce-6600/3165vsm8606. No there isn't an error with the amount of zeroes! We're talking about 70x to 580x better performance!
No modern GPU that you could possibly buy is that weak, yet the game has to be able to run on outdated equipment that you can't even purchase anymore. That's the problem and that's what's killing the game.
No, yesterday, I checked my game and I went through many loading screens and getting the same townies (at least what was shown in household management) and the only time my game generated new townies is when I delete some of them. So my guess is that it only happens when you play rotationally, not going through loading screens in general.
@SimGuruDrake, will we receive an answer from the SimGurus soon on this subject? This extreme level of relationship decay is a major issue and needs to be addressed.
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I have about 12 active households that have held their relationship status'
This is btw my NEW game.
I had to delete my old one due to the relationship problems and..disappearing sims (this one was a bigger problem for me).
Phew.
You're right. It's the prep-patch update for DO's release which we ALL got, that's doing this.
This one: http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/888722/june-2-2016-patch-notes
Don't bother looking for anything on Relationship Decay. You won't find it in there (edit: or in the 2 patches since, one of which WAS for bugfixes). /edit But it sure is in our GAMES now.
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I just posted a question about this to Tech. Maybe somebody who knows will clue me in. If they do, I'll let you know.
https://deaderpool-mccc.com/
https://www.patreon.com/egwarhammer
https://twitter.com/eg4mccc
https://eg4mccc.tumblr.com/