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Disobedient Sims are driving me crazy
SimChessack
Posts: 182 Member
I have experienced this to some extent before, but the last few days playing Sims 4, my Sims are driving me up the wall with disobedience. Before anyone asks, yes, I leave autonomy on. And I know this leads to them having minds of their own. To some extent I like it.
But... when I give them a direct order to do something that has a defined duration, such as taking a shower, cooking a meal, eating a meal -- I expect them to follow through with that activity until it completes. And up until a week or two ago, they did that the majority of the time.
Now, however, especially over the last few days, it seems like I can't get them to do almost anything other than a skill activity (like making an end table at the workbench) without them canceling it the second I switch to another active Sim. I will have a Sim with yellow hygiene, and tell her to "take a shower" and she will walk over to the shower. Figuring that's done, I will click on another Sim and tell him to "ponder chess moves." Once he seats himself at the table (having all needs in the green and thus no urgent needs), I will switch back to the first Sim. She's not in the shower but now petting the cat. I figure wow, that was quick, but check needs and she did not take the shower! Argh! So I order it again -- I have taken to clicking the Take Shower command FIVE TIMES to fill up her queue and ensure the activity. Then I switch back to the 2nd Sim and he's reading a book -- not pondering chess moves! ARGH!
And today, even my active Sims are being disobedient. I had to tell my Gen 3 Legacy heir to eat a meal like 4 times to get her to finish it. She kept taking a bite, putting it down, and trying to do something else (usually -- go to the card table, the pool, or the computer...). It took her like 3 in-game hours to just finish eating.
It's become so ridiculous that for the first time in probably 11 years of Simming, I am thinking seriously about just turning autonomy off and leaving it off. I don't really want to do that -- because I enjoy seeing what they get up to when I am not controlling them. As long as, when I issue a direct order, they follow it (which has been true, generally, in the past). But if they're going to disobey direct orders... I may have to rethink my strategy.
Anyone else having fits with this? Or do you all just play with autonomy off?
But... when I give them a direct order to do something that has a defined duration, such as taking a shower, cooking a meal, eating a meal -- I expect them to follow through with that activity until it completes. And up until a week or two ago, they did that the majority of the time.
Now, however, especially over the last few days, it seems like I can't get them to do almost anything other than a skill activity (like making an end table at the workbench) without them canceling it the second I switch to another active Sim. I will have a Sim with yellow hygiene, and tell her to "take a shower" and she will walk over to the shower. Figuring that's done, I will click on another Sim and tell him to "ponder chess moves." Once he seats himself at the table (having all needs in the green and thus no urgent needs), I will switch back to the first Sim. She's not in the shower but now petting the cat. I figure wow, that was quick, but check needs and she did not take the shower! Argh! So I order it again -- I have taken to clicking the Take Shower command FIVE TIMES to fill up her queue and ensure the activity. Then I switch back to the 2nd Sim and he's reading a book -- not pondering chess moves! ARGH!
And today, even my active Sims are being disobedient. I had to tell my Gen 3 Legacy heir to eat a meal like 4 times to get her to finish it. She kept taking a bite, putting it down, and trying to do something else (usually -- go to the card table, the pool, or the computer...). It took her like 3 in-game hours to just finish eating.
It's become so ridiculous that for the first time in probably 11 years of Simming, I am thinking seriously about just turning autonomy off and leaving it off. I don't really want to do that -- because I enjoy seeing what they get up to when I am not controlling them. As long as, when I issue a direct order, they follow it (which has been true, generally, in the past). But if they're going to disobey direct orders... I may have to rethink my strategy.
Anyone else having fits with this? Or do you all just play with autonomy off?
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Comments
I don't mind them doing something they "want" that is not part of my "plan" for them -- such as a business Sim sitting at the computer playing games instead of filling out work reports. That's OK, as long as I have not already given the command to fill out reports..
My problem with it is that they are canceling my orders if I click off of them, and sometimes it doesn't even take that -- they cancel them while I am still controlling. Or they just don't do it. Just today, with autonomy still set to "full", I told my 3rd gen mother to take her 4th gen toddler to bed and read to her. The two of them just stood there in the bathroom (the had just done a toddler bath). And did nothing. I waited... and waited. They just stood there with the interaction in the queue but not sliding down to the "doing it" section. Finally I had to cancel both, have them both walk to the bed, and then re-up the interaction.
This kind of thing is really aggravating.
I don't want to turn autonomy off because I do play larger families and it creeps me out when they just stand around but since they do that anyways I might need to switch.
Yes to both of these.
One thing I don't like is with autonomy off, I don't think they'll even talk to each other unless I make it happen, will they? (Although they kind of do that anyway...). But yeah I have 7 Sims in the house plus a cat (which of course I can't control). I wasn't going to have the spare for my 4th generation (Legacy) yet but mom is really old and has been at the "max age" bar for like a week. I keep expecting her to die but she had max body condition from level 10 fitness so she is just living forever, LOL.
Also the 3rd gen spare is a loner/unflirty so it didn't make sense to marry her off and move her out. She's turned out to be really awesome (just shooting up the Astronaut career at light speed), but it's yet one more Sim to have around. Bleh. Not doing that again either. From now on, the day the spares hit YA, as long as there is a next gen heir in the house, out the door they go, married or not.
Yea that does bother me too, but I also don't like the fact that there is an issue with giving commands and sims canceling and not following them... sigh... there no winning with this issue
But I think I am going to modify how I do Legacies in the future. For example, I may just allow myself to reload if the heir dies. I know that's not supposed to be done in Legacies, but, if you relax that rule, then you don't need spares, which lowers the # of Sims you need in a household by quite a bit (you end up with 4-5 at a time instead of 7-8).
I'm not sure it will work for you as you play it @SimChessack since you jump from member to member pretty fast by your description. It works for me because I usually focus on one sim for awhile. Like if I start them reading or doing their homework or something else that normally locks them in for a bit.. like practicing an instrument. I can switch to the other without much worry that the unplayed sim will stop soon. Then again if I forget about them they will at least find something to do on their own.
Although one reason I have learned to do that is how relatively dumb they are... how if I don't micro-manage them they tend to do really stupid things like go to bed with a yellow bladder.
I would play with autonomy off for selected sim, but I jump to others too much and it doesn't really help me. I may have to switch to autonomy off if it gets me annoyed much more
Other than that, what you're describing sounds like a new kind of bug to me. Yes, I've also had issues with disobedience since I started playing TS4, sims sometimes drop things out of their queue or refuse to do what you tell them for no apparent reason, and more "complicated" actions like first picking up a toddler and then making it blow out the birthday candles before everyone leaves to do other things can drive me to the edge of insanity because of all the unnecessary fuss my sims make about it, like having to do two specific things in a specific order totally overwhelms their stupid programming. But so far, none of this has ever happened to me just because I switched to a different sim, it happens because they're just that dumb.
Something wicked this way comes!
I don't use MCCC.
i also find that sims in 4 wont finish reading a book unless its a skill book and they seem to have the smallest attention spans ever unless its autonomously playing games or using exercise machines and it seems to be getting worse from my sims perspective
"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.....
I had a sim who was almost going into bladder failure, but they insisted they kept wanting to read a book and would cancel the go to the toilet interaction. I wouldn’t mind but they aren’t bookworms so they shouldn’t be that obsessed with books but when they are doing that pathetic I need the toilet walk as they are making a beeline for the bookshelf it just leaves me thinking: “Go to the freaking bathroom and stop cancelling!” It’s not just once, it’s several times a day.
Smarter sims? Don’t make me laugh.
Yeah same here, The Sims 2 is my go to game if I want true life simulation. I can't believe that they managed to make the sims dumber than even the sims in the first game. I love the graphics and the New CAS but that is not enough and I can live without it. I have experienced this simulation lag on high end computers, i have 2 gaming rigs and it doesn't make a difference. Sure the fps is more stable but the simulation lag is due to the limited engine and has nothing to do with the specs. The simulation lag is seen in their own streams and every youtuber who let's plays the game.
are you using mods
I always play with free will turned off for the selected Sim. For example I tell my Sim to take a shower and eat something. They'll then just stand there, wobble their heads and look around while doing nothing. Even deleting the queue and adding new interactions or pausing the game doesn't do anything. When I switch to another Sim the previous Sim usually cancels my queue and does their own thing. It's beyond frustrating.
And just because I know the question will pop up - Yes, I tried it multiple times with no mods, new installation, different packs, different patches. It's always the same.
I am not using mods. I have never used mods. EVER. Not in Sims 2, Sims 3, or Sims 4. I use only what Maxis/EA puts out... for 2 and 3, via disk. For this game, via the lovely Origin store that we all love so much.
Yup this. I've repaired the game. As for fresh installs... I went to visit my mother a couple weeks ago and fresh-installed it on a laptop... slightly older but still way above spec (24 GB Ram, nVidia 980M vid card, etc.). SAME THING happened.
My testing just confirms this is indeed an engine issue and has nothing to do with specs. They really should discontinue the sims 4 because the game can't even handle its own simulation and more packs make it worse and more obvious.