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Cats and Dogs VS Time Management

muzickmagemuzickmage Posts: 986 Member
Out of curiosity here, how is everyone making out with managing their sims daily schedules and activites since the addition of the Cats and Dogs EP?

Prior to the release of C&D I already found the game's time management system a bit of a tolerence tester... with sims taking over an hour to eat a bowl of cereal.... or 15-20 minutes to walk to the next room. And don't even get me started on the amount of minutes they waste just standing there doing nothing waiting for the queve to finally activate their next action.

I just completed a camping trip for my family (2 adults, 1 teen, 1 dog). I got the sims out of bed at 4:30am to prepare them for their vacation. Each one had to pee, shower, and eat. It was a few minutes after 11am before I was able to get them out of the door. Almost 7 sims hours later.

With the pets being a bit demanding, and the game's time clock spinning by as it does, is anyone finding themselves racing against the clock?

(Just to offer an example)
..... My Sim teen, Monday to Friday, is busy (waking state) from 6am to 6pm. She gets up for school no later than 6am, and she is almost kinda ready for school by 8am. She's gone at school until 3pm. From 3pm (now home from school) she needs about 3 hours to fix her needs again after being at school all day. She also needs to be back in bed by about 10pm-11pm for school the next day. That leaves her 4-5 hours of sim time for other activites. Unfortunately, 4-5 hours of sim time goes by in about 10 minutes of real time.... which doesn't leave her much time for a life of her own Mon-Fri .... let alone take on the added responsibility of a pet.

My two adult sims have simular stories being that they both work. They both have a bit of extra time however being that they only work 4 days a week, but, because of managing their needs vs the time clock, and trying to "give them a life to live" ... having even a single pet that is a bit needy can add to the frustrations of trying to manage the sim's daily schedule.

How's life for your sims?

Comments

  • drake_mccartydrake_mccarty Posts: 6,114 Member
    Time management is a nightmare in this game, even moreso now with pets. I think it’s rather interesting that they made pets incompatible with multitasking - Sims will have to finish whatever action they are doing before they do any action with a dog/cat. No big deal on the surface, but some of the actions Sims do take entirely too much time to accomplish which leads to cancellations and overall interaction failures because it took them 4-5 sim hours to finish what they were doing and to do what I told them to.

    It also doesn’t help that pets have the same AI pause as toddlers. Since we can’t control pets in any way, selecting an action should automatically cancel whatever the pet was doing so the selected Sim isn’t standing around forever waiting for the dog/cat to finish what they’re doing so the selected action can begin.
  • Rae357Rae357 Posts: 922 Member
    Since we can’t control pets in any way, selecting an action should automatically cancel whatever the pet was doing so the selected Sim isn’t standing around forever waiting for the dog/cat to finish what they’re doing so the selected action can begin.
    Yes.
  • icmnfrshicmnfrsh Posts: 18,789 Member
    It's been okay for me. I've already introduced pets to 3 saves and made a new one with the Heckings. The pets have been occupying a lot of my time, however, and stuff like going out on dates or meeting with clubs got pushed behind a bit. I'm sure things will go back to a more steady rhythm once the novelty of pets wears off. The one save I have with 3 generations only has room for one pet though, and the grownups divide their time among caring for the twin babies and the puppy, who had just aged into an adult. Grandma and grandpa work at night in the entertainer career, so they're usually there to lend a helping hand during the day.
    Don't manhandle the urchin. He's not for sale. FIND YOUR OWN! - Xenon the Antiquarian, Dragon Age II

    Race Against the Clock: Can your elder sim turn back the clock before their time runs out?
  • uo_aaronjduo_aaronjd Posts: 425 Member
    thank god for MCCC mod with the option to adjust time otherwise id go a lil perculiar......
    well...more so....
    Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup
  • muzickmagemuzickmage Posts: 986 Member
    I never did understand the need to have the time clock tick by a 1min/sec. With all the different activites in the game for our sims to adopt and experience, having the time clock tick by at that speed makes it difficult to actually enjoy the opportunities the game offers. Just getting your sims ready to start an opportunity (such as a family camping trip) can take the fun right out of the entire outing. (just saying).

    I understand some simmers like the time clock the way it is, and fair enough. But it would be nice if EA took into account the time it takes just for queve activities to even begin, let alone complete.
  • icmnfrshicmnfrsh Posts: 18,789 Member
    muzickmage wrote: »
    I never did understand the need to have the time clock tick by a 1min/sec. With all the different activites in the game for our sims to adopt and experience, having the time clock tick by at that speed makes it difficult to actually enjoy the opportunities the game offers. Just getting your sims ready to start an opportunity (such as a family camping trip) can take the fun right out of the entire outing. (just saying).

    I understand some simmers like the time clock the way it is, and fair enough. But it would be nice if EA took into account the time it takes just for queve activities to even begin, let alone complete.

    Yeah, I thought of this as well. They really need to rebalance the time scaling, because it's absurd that it takes my sim an hour to shower. Even 3 seconds to a minute would work fine, since that gives us thrice as much time to do stuff. And then they can just adjust a few things so that the things that already have good timing won't finish too quickly.
    Don't manhandle the urchin. He's not for sale. FIND YOUR OWN! - Xenon the Antiquarian, Dragon Age II

    Race Against the Clock: Can your elder sim turn back the clock before their time runs out?
  • simgirl1010simgirl1010 Posts: 35,701 Member
    It's a madhouse. And I love it. :p I'm playing a single sim with one dog. How in the world are those playing families with multiple pets managing!
  • drake_mccartydrake_mccarty Posts: 6,114 Member
    muzickmage wrote: »
    I never did understand the need to have the time clock tick by a 1min/sec. With all the different activites in the game for our sims to adopt and experience, having the time clock tick by at that speed makes it difficult to actually enjoy the opportunities the game offers. Just getting your sims ready to start an opportunity (such as a family camping trip) can take the fun right out of the entire outing. (just saying).

    I understand some simmers like the time clock the way it is, and fair enough. But it would be nice if EA took into account the time it takes just for queve activities to even begin, let alone complete.

    It’s not an issue with the time clock. The clock in Sims 4 moves slower than Sims 3, which moves slower than Sims 2. The issue is due to the length of time each interaction takes to complete, and it’s made worse by multitasking which essentially pauses one action while another one is taking place.

    To address the issue they would have to modify the length of different actions, especially when multitasking is taking place.
  • calaprfycalaprfy Posts: 3,927 Member
    uo_aaronjd wrote: »
    thank god for MCCC mod with the option to adjust time otherwise id go a lil perculiar......
    well...more so....

    I'd love for them to introduce a time slider into the game. Until then I'll have to keep combatting it with giving sims the neverweary trait or leaving the lot with a sim and returning so everyone else is suddenly refreshed.

    Have you ever tried to keep a teen sim with a part-time job happy? Now that is tough!
  • muzickmagemuzickmage Posts: 986 Member
    muzickmage wrote: »
    I never did understand the need to have the time clock tick by a 1min/sec. With all the different activites in the game for our sims to adopt and experience, having the time clock tick by at that speed makes it difficult to actually enjoy the opportunities the game offers. Just getting your sims ready to start an opportunity (such as a family camping trip) can take the fun right out of the entire outing. (just saying).

    I understand some simmers like the time clock the way it is, and fair enough. But it would be nice if EA took into account the time it takes just for queve activities to even begin, let alone complete.

    It’s not an issue with the time clock. The clock in Sims 4 moves slower than Sims 3, which moves slower than Sims 2. The issue is due to the length of time each interaction takes to complete, and it’s made worse by multitasking which essentially pauses one action while another one is taking place.

    To address the issue they would have to modify the length of different actions, especially when multitasking is taking place.

    I think an argument can be made for both sides of the coin.

    If instead of having the time clock tick by at 1min/sec... have it be 1min/2 sec.... that would give us double the time for the animatins to play through. So animations that take (currently) 1 hour to complete (such as eating a bowl of cereal) would take instead just 30 minutes.

    The animations could stay the same.... and still take the same length of time to complete. But be measured differently by the time clock running in the background of those animations.

    Changing the animations so they don't take up as much time, will be helpful (as you suggest), but will cost us some animations for our gameplay. Some play the game for the animations (I do too to some degree).

    I'm just not sure if the time clock is independant of those animations. Is it running in the background (as I assume)? Or is it coded into each of the animations themselves?
  • mirta000mirta000 Posts: 2,974 Member
    muzickmage wrote: »
    I never did understand the need to have the time clock tick by a 1min/sec. With all the different activites in the game for our sims to adopt and experience, having the time clock tick by at that speed makes it difficult to actually enjoy the opportunities the game offers. Just getting your sims ready to start an opportunity (such as a family camping trip) can take the fun right out of the entire outing. (just saying).

    I understand some simmers like the time clock the way it is, and fair enough. But it would be nice if EA took into account the time it takes just for queve activities to even begin, let alone complete.

    The issue is not the time-speed, but animation length and multitasking. Eating cereal can be cut down from 1 hour to 15 minutes if you take out every "sit, smile and giggle at spoon" animation in between actual eating animation.

    For me the passage of time feels too slow as it is, as in previous games the scaling was faster, however so were the animations so none of you noticed.
  • muzickmagemuzickmage Posts: 986 Member
    calaprfy wrote: »
    uo_aaronjd wrote: »
    thank god for MCCC mod with the option to adjust time otherwise id go a lil perculiar......
    well...more so....

    I'd love for them to introduce a time slider into the game. Until then I'll have to keep combatting it with giving sims the neverweary trait or leaving the lot with a sim and returning so everyone else is suddenly refreshed.

    Have you ever tried to keep a teen sim with a part-time job happy? Now that is tough!

    lol. A sim teen with a part time job lol. With the C&D addition, She has very little time as it is lol. You're absolutely right. It's a challenge.
  • MissNightOwlMissNightOwl Posts: 740 Member
    uo_aaronjd wrote: »
    thank god for MCCC mod with the option to adjust time otherwise id go a lil perculiar......
    well...more so....

    How do you adjust time with MCCC?
  • drake_mccartydrake_mccarty Posts: 6,114 Member
    muzickmage wrote: »
    muzickmage wrote: »
    I never did understand the need to have the time clock tick by a 1min/sec. With all the different activites in the game for our sims to adopt and experience, having the time clock tick by at that speed makes it difficult to actually enjoy the opportunities the game offers. Just getting your sims ready to start an opportunity (such as a family camping trip) can take the fun right out of the entire outing. (just saying).

    I understand some simmers like the time clock the way it is, and fair enough. But it would be nice if EA took into account the time it takes just for queve activities to even begin, let alone complete.

    It’s not an issue with the time clock. The clock in Sims 4 moves slower than Sims 3, which moves slower than Sims 2. The issue is due to the length of time each interaction takes to complete, and it’s made worse by multitasking which essentially pauses one action while another one is taking place.

    To address the issue they would have to modify the length of different actions, especially when multitasking is taking place.

    I think an argument can be made for both sides of the coin.

    If instead of having the time clock tick by at 1min/sec... have it be 1min/2 sec.... that would give us double the time for the animatins to play through. So animations that take (currently) 1 hour to complete (such as eating a bowl of cereal) would take instead just 30 minutes.

    The animations could stay the same.... and still take the same length of time to complete. But be measured differently by the time clock running in the background of those animations.

    Changing the animations so they don't take up as much time, will be helpful (as you suggest), but will cost us some animations for our gameplay. Some play the game for the animations (I do too to some degree).

    I'm just not sure if the time clock is independant of those animations. Is it running in the background (as I assume)? Or is it coded into each of the animations themselves?

    Reducing the interactions length wouldn’t impact the animations. Each time a sim eats, or moves the silverware from the plate to their mouth the action progresses(you can see this on the action cue indicated by the green bar), and it does so by a specific amount per ‘run’. Increasing the decay rate per run would shorten the overall interactions duration. Once multitasking is initiated the ‘runs’ become less frequent (because other actions are being done in place of just eating) which then makes the action take even longer to complete.

    All animations would be completely unchanged. Now because the action wouldn’t take as long you may not see as many different animations, but I don’t think that’s really a bad thing. I would (personally) rather see variety in the animations, than seeing all of them in one go (sometimes more than once) because the interaction takes so long to finish.
  • muzickmagemuzickmage Posts: 986 Member
    edited November 2017
    muzickmage wrote: »
    muzickmage wrote: »
    I never did understand the need to have the time clock tick by a 1min/sec. With all the different activites in the game for our sims to adopt and experience, having the time clock tick by at that speed makes it difficult to actually enjoy the opportunities the game offers. Just getting your sims ready to start an opportunity (such as a family camping trip) can take the fun right out of the entire outing. (just saying).

    I understand some simmers like the time clock the way it is, and fair enough. But it would be nice if EA took into account the time it takes just for queve activities to even begin, let alone complete.

    It’s not an issue with the time clock. The clock in Sims 4 moves slower than Sims 3, which moves slower than Sims 2. The issue is due to the length of time each interaction takes to complete, and it’s made worse by multitasking which essentially pauses one action while another one is taking place.

    To address the issue they would have to modify the length of different actions, especially when multitasking is taking place.

    I think an argument can be made for both sides of the coin.

    If instead of having the time clock tick by at 1min/sec... have it be 1min/2 sec.... that would give us double the time for the animatins to play through. So animations that take (currently) 1 hour to complete (such as eating a bowl of cereal) would take instead just 30 minutes.

    The animations could stay the same.... and still take the same length of time to complete. But be measured differently by the time clock running in the background of those animations.

    Changing the animations so they don't take up as much time, will be helpful (as you suggest), but will cost us some animations for our gameplay. Some play the game for the animations (I do too to some degree).

    I'm just not sure if the time clock is independant of those animations. Is it running in the background (as I assume)? Or is it coded into each of the animations themselves?

    Reducing the interactions length wouldn’t impact the animations. Each time a sim eats, or moves the silverware from the plate to their mouth the action progresses(you can see this on the action cue indicated by the green bar), and it does so by a specific amount per ‘run’. Increasing the decay rate per run would shorten the overall interactions duration. Once multitasking is initiated the ‘runs’ become less frequent (because other actions are being done in place of just eating) which then makes the action take even longer to complete.

    All animations would be completely unchanged. Now because the action wouldn’t take as long you may not see as many different animations, but I don’t think that’s really a bad thing. I would (personally) rather see variety in the animations, than seeing all of them in one go (sometimes more than once) because the interaction takes so long to finish.

    That's an interesting read ... however, such may be irrelevant if the time clock is an independent code running in the background. Having the animations continue as they are, untouched... but changing an independent time code in the background would change the listed display explaining how long it took that animations to play through.

    In reality... the animations can still take 10 minutes. But the time code running in the background, that use to explain a period of time displacement of 90 minutes (game time), can instead display a displacement of 60 minutes (game time).

    It comes down to whether or not the game time clock is coded into the animations, or if the animations simply run side by side with the time code.

    Because I played around with creating animations in blender.... i'm inclined to believe that the time clock is an independent code running in the background of the animations which can be tweaked to tell you whatever you want it to.

    But, i'm still going to consider my opinion an "assumption" being that I have no official proof of what I suggest. That, and ... I admit that Sims coding could just as well be setup differently than what I assume.

    ETA:
    That green bar in the queve is the animations timer... not the game clock. When creating animations you need to setup the length of the animation .... then set each movement in part of the whole of that timer.

    The animations timer, and the game clock, should function independantly,
  • floridameerkatfloridameerkat Posts: 1,190 Member
    My current family has a dog, a cat, and two toddlers on top of two parents with full-time jobs. I think the trick to managing everyone is in their routine. I would have the parents wake up at least three hours before they had to leave for work because as we all know it takes forever for sims to get ready. The toddlers were mostly on their own in the mornings. I potty trained them to level two, so they no longer needed assistance with that, and I would have the parents leave plates of food out for them to eat when they were ready. Before going to work, I'd have one parent check the food level of the food bowls and the cleanliness of the litterbox, while the other took the dog outside to do her business (they live in an apartment and the dog can't seem to go outside by herself). Then everyone goes to work and the babysitter comes by so the twins can work on their skills during the day. When the parents get home, one lets the dog out again and I have them interact with their kids a bit and work on their skills and needs until it's time for the twins to go to bed. Then they get some time to themselves where I try to have them interact more with each other. Or I continue their skill building, depending on whichever I feel is more important on any given day.
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  • drake_mccartydrake_mccarty Posts: 6,114 Member
    Well yes the animations have a running time in real world time, but that’s not relevant to the in-game clock. An action can be started at any time, and depending on different factors (like multitasking) can have a duration that isn’t fixed to any specific time frame. That’s why eating a meal with one sim + no multitasking will be a lot faster than a sim who is eating + socializing, or eating + socializing + watch TV.

    I am not saying change the animation. In all reality the eating animation takes approx 4-5 seconds in real time. The animation happens multiple times during the ‘eat’ action, and each time it plays the action progresses by a fixed amount. Changing the rate wouldn’t change the real time animation, because that isn’t the problem, it would make the overall action take less time to complete. Multitasking is a roadblock because the game will only progress one action at a time, meaning non-action items that are currently in the cue will be paused until the current action is finished.
  • muzickmagemuzickmage Posts: 986 Member
    My current family has a dog, a cat, and two toddlers on top of two parents with full-time jobs. I think the trick to managing everyone is in their routine. I would have the parents wake up at least three hours before they had to leave for work because as we all know it takes forever for sims to get ready. The toddlers were mostly on their own in the mornings. I potty trained them to level two, so they no longer needed assistance with that, and I would have the parents leave plates of food out for them to eat when they were ready. Before going to work, I'd have one parent check the food level of the food bowls and the cleanliness of the litterbox, while the other took the dog outside to do her business (they live in an apartment and the dog can't seem to go outside by herself). Then everyone goes to work and the babysitter comes by so the twins can work on their skills during the day. When the parents get home, one lets the dog out again and I have them interact with their kids a bit and work on their skills and needs until it's time for the twins to go to bed. Then they get some time to themselves where I try to have them interact more with each other. Or I continue their skill building, depending on whichever I feel is more important on any given day.

    That's really great. Now add to that the idea that maybe you want to start your own retail business, and on occasion go camping. Plus, you like the idea of checking out the festivals. Amongst that, you also like to go fishing to build more of your collection, and, of course, there's the other stuff to collect. That's nice to have too.

    Sure, its all in the routine... if you only wish to play 10% of the game.
  • muzickmagemuzickmage Posts: 986 Member
    edited November 2017
    Well yes the animations have a running time in real world time, but that’s not relevant to the in-game clock. An action can be started at any time, and depending on different factors (like multitasking) can have a duration that isn’t fixed to any specific time frame. That’s why eating a meal with one sim + no multitasking will be a lot faster than a sim who is eating + socializing, or eating + socializing + watch TV.

    I am not saying change the animation. In all reality the eating animation takes approx 4-5 seconds in real time. The animation happens multiple times during the ‘eat’ action, and each time it plays the action progresses by a fixed amount. Changing the rate wouldn’t change the real time animation, because that isn’t the problem, it would make the overall action take less time to complete. Multitasking is a roadblock because the game will only progress one action at a time, meaning non-action items that are currently in the cue will be paused until the current action is finished.

    I think the issue here is that you are focusing on the animations. Why? It doesn't matter what they are doing, or how long it takes to do it. The only thing that matters is how long the game says it takes.

    The animations could be setup to loop for 5 hours of real time. But the game clock itself could be setup to increase only 1 sec per 20 minutes of real time. Or the game clock could be setup to increase 1 hour per 1 second of real time.

    It's the game clock we should be talking about. Not the animations. I don't mind staring at the screen for 10 minutes waiting for animations to play through. What I DO mind is that... at the end of those animations.... the game clock says nearly 2 hours have passed.

    I'm arguing.... just tweak the game clock so that it says ..... only half that time elapsed.

    What do you think the MCCC mod does?
  • mirta000mirta000 Posts: 2,974 Member
    edited November 2017
    muzickmage wrote: »
    That's really great. Now add to that the idea that maybe you want to start your own retail business, and on occasion go camping. Plus, you like the idea of checking out the festivals. Amongst that, you also like to go fishing to build more of your collection, and, of course, there's the other stuff to collect. That's nice to have too.

    Sure, its all in the routine... if you only wish to play 10% of the game.

    To be fair, I'm used to requiring much stricter routine in The Sims 2. Currently playing on a full household with 1 adult, 2 toddlers, 2 teens and 3 cats. Both of my teens have time to skill build and have the Monday to Friday afterschool job (think it's the shop one?). Some of the animation slowdown that you're seeing is due to simulation lag. I had to stop playing the game entirely from Vampires all the way to Cats and Dogs patch because it was just too clunky. Try cleaning your game up, removing some mods and dropping the settings. Some is to do with multitasking. As they can't actually multitask (eating and talking is equivalent to taking a bite, then saying a word, this way eating will take 50% longer), the rest is to do with EA's emote animations put into literally every action that they perform. There's mods to take that out, however for me there's far less of them as my simulation lag lessened.

    A single sim day on speed 1 is already longer than in any previous sim game. If you tweaked the time even more, I might get 2 days in one play session, which coupled with their long life expectancy, it would feel like I'm accomplishing no progress.
  • CupidCupid Posts: 3,623 Member
    edited November 2017
    It's a madhouse. And I love it.

    same thoughts here. I wouldn't want the time to go slower because I enjoy the daily time crunch. It's the only thing that makes the game feel difficult. Maybe as an optional thing, though.
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  • muzickmagemuzickmage Posts: 986 Member
    edited November 2017
    mirta000 wrote: »
    muzickmage wrote: »
    That's really great. Now add to that the idea that maybe you want to start your own retail business, and on occasion go camping. Plus, you like the idea of checking out the festivals. Amongst that, you also like to go fishing to build more of your collection, and, of course, there's the other stuff to collect. That's nice to have too.

    Sure, its all in the routine... if you only wish to play 10% of the game.

    To be fair, I'm used to requiring much stricter routine in The Sims 2. Currently playing on a full household with 1 adult, 2 toddlers, 2 teens and 3 cats. Both of my teens have time to skill build and have the Monday to Friday afterschool job (think it's the shop one?). Some of the animation slowdown that you're seeing is due to simulation lag. I had to stop playing the game entirely from Vampires all the way to Cats and Dogs patch because it was just too clunky. Try cleaning your game up, removing some mods and dropping the settings. Some is to do with multitasking. As they can't actually multitask (eating and talking is equivalent to taking a bite, then saying a word, this way eating will take 50% longer), the rest is to do with EA's emote animations put into literally every action that they perform. There's mods to take that out, however for me there's far less of them as my simulation lag lessened.

    A single sim day on speed 1 is already longer than in any previous sim game. If you tweaked the time even more, I might get 2 days in one play session, which coupled with their long life expectancy, it would feel like I'm accomplishing no progress.

    I only started using mods a month ago, of which I only have 5 object mods being used at the moment, which I am also taking back out. I'm not a big fan of mods for the sims game. I am surprised I've used them this long (nearly a full month now).

    The time issue has always been an issue for me. Some people don't seem to have a problem with it, and I respect that, but for me, it just feels like i'm always racing against the clock that I can't just relax and enjoy the game.
  • mirta000mirta000 Posts: 2,974 Member
    muzickmage wrote: »
    I only started using mods a month ago, of which I only have 5 object mods being used at the moment, which I am also taking back out. I'm not a big fan of mods for the sims game. I am surprised I've used them this long (nearly a full month now).

    The time issue has always been an issue for me. Some people don't seem to have a problem with it, and I respect that, but for me, it just feels like i'm always racing against the clock that I can't just relax and enjoy the game.

    did you try previous sim iterations? :)

    And yeah, I put in MCC and my simulation lag came back, so I've found that I can only keep MCC and one module. As others pointed out there are mods specifically to do with slowing or speeding up game time, so it might be right up your alley.

    If it was up to me, I would like to come back to TS2 lifespan where YA wasn't a thing unless you went to college and toddler lasted 3 days. I felt like I had to try harder to succeed and yet still I have lots of pictures of my sims on holiday, or in retirement, or dancing together after work. Now I can overachieve before my sims even age up to adult and days are longer on top of that.
  • DijktafoneDijktafone Posts: 775 Member
    muzickmage wrote: »
    mirta000 wrote: »
    muzickmage wrote: »
    That's really great. Now add to that the idea that maybe you want to start your own retail business, and on occasion go camping. Plus, you like the idea of checking out the festivals. Amongst that, you also like to go fishing to build more of your collection, and, of course, there's the other stuff to collect. That's nice to have too.

    Sure, its all in the routine... if you only wish to play 10% of the game.

    To be fair, I'm used to requiring much stricter routine in The Sims 2. Currently playing on a full household with 1 adult, 2 toddlers, 2 teens and 3 cats. Both of my teens have time to skill build and have the Monday to Friday afterschool job (think it's the shop one?). Some of the animation slowdown that you're seeing is due to simulation lag. I had to stop playing the game entirely from Vampires all the way to Cats and Dogs patch because it was just too clunky. Try cleaning your game up, removing some mods and dropping the settings. Some is to do with multitasking. As they can't actually multitask (eating and talking is equivalent to taking a bite, then saying a word, this way eating will take 50% longer), the rest is to do with EA's emote animations put into literally every action that they perform. There's mods to take that out, however for me there's far less of them as my simulation lag lessened.

    A single sim day on speed 1 is already longer than in any previous sim game. If you tweaked the time even more, I might get 2 days in one play session, which coupled with their long life expectancy, it would feel like I'm accomplishing no progress.

    I only started using mods a month ago, of which I only have 5 object mods being used at the moment, which I am also taking back out. I'm not a big fan of mods for the sims game. I am surprised I've used them this long (nearly a full month now).

    The time issue has always been an issue for me. Some people don't seem to have a problem with it, and I respect that, but for me, it just feels like i'm always racing against the clock that I can't just relax and enjoy the game.

    It's up to you and you alone to establish patterns suiting your very own playstyle. Every sims iteration has it's own "time management" problems. All I can suggest is a "practical house", with every useful object close to one another. No use of stairs if possible. Also, don't talk to those annoying family members whose sole purpose is to make your breakfast twice as long as it should be.
  • muzickmagemuzickmage Posts: 986 Member
    mirta000 wrote: »
    muzickmage wrote: »
    I only started using mods a month ago, of which I only have 5 object mods being used at the moment, which I am also taking back out. I'm not a big fan of mods for the sims game. I am surprised I've used them this long (nearly a full month now).

    The time issue has always been an issue for me. Some people don't seem to have a problem with it, and I respect that, but for me, it just feels like i'm always racing against the clock that I can't just relax and enjoy the game.

    did you try previous sim iterations? :)

    And yeah, I put in MCC and my simulation lag came back, so I've found that I can only keep MCC and one module. As others pointed out there are mods specifically to do with slowing or speeding up game time, so it might be right up your alley.

    If it was up to me, I would like to come back to TS2 lifespan where YA wasn't a thing unless you went to college and toddler lasted 3 days. I felt like I had to try harder to succeed and yet still I have lots of pictures of my sims on holiday, or in retirement, or dancing together after work. Now I can overachieve before my sims even age up to adult and days are longer on top of that.

    Yes, I tried previous iterations and I prefer their setup better than the sims 4. The problem with the sims 4 (IMO) which wasn't an issue in the previous iterations is the multitasking slowing down the queve... which in retrospect makes the day seem shorter... or have less time in it to complete stuff.

    I can't see EA deleting their amazing multitasking system, so the best I can hope for (and I won't even get that lol) is for EA to reconfigure the game clock to account for their (how did I label it) amazing multitasking system.
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