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Restricting played sims from showing up on lots outside their world?

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I feel so very deeply that sims who live in a world should be the only ones who naturally show up there! (besides, I suppose "not in world" sims) Am I the only one who wants this? If I could have anything, anything in the base game updates, it would be some way of making sims who live in a world, stay there unless I ask them to travel.

Maybe they could implement this through a lot trait, or through settings. I just don't know of anything that irks me more than seeing Nancy Landgraab in Willow Creek Library or Eliza Pancakes at the gym in Oasis Springs, and with more worlds/expansions this problem has only become worse. Am I the only one who thinks this one change could save the game?

Also IMO:
If my world is empty, I don't think sims should be generated for walk-bys! We should have to earn those walk-bys by moving sims into the world! And our neighbors from the neighborhood should be much more "present" than those from other neighborhoods in the same world.
In game sims are rare jewels that should require clever work to find - ie going to their world and looking for them there, not waiting for them to walk by your house.
Also, travel should cost money. $50 to another neighborhood, $500 to another world. Make it difficult to find your true love/best friend or relax on the beach. It should be more of a goal.
For rotational play, and storytelling purposes, if a household is left while they are on vacation and another household is played, the household on vacation should not leave the rental property until that family is played again and uses up the days they paid for that vacation while the player controls them. Give us time to get a feel for what having the Pancakes on vacation in Oasis Springs feels like for the residents who live there!

Comments

  • Archie128Archie128 Posts: 94 Member
    I think Mt. Komorebi must be considered as a place in another country so residents there should not be commonly seen in Willow Creek, Oasis Springs, etc.
  • simopolissimopolis Posts: 147 Member
    edited August 2021
    I honestly haven't played with Mt. Komorebi yet. Still working my way through the earlier packs one by one. Does this mean that they figured out how to do it already? Maybe they could expand that system to work everywhere? Or do sims from other worlds still show up super frequently at Mt Komorebi? When I'm in Mt. Komorebi eventually I would LOVE to just see sims who are vacationing there, are "not in world" sims and sims that LIVE in Mt. Komorebi. Does that make sense? Would you want that to happen?
  • Gamer_34567544Gamer_34567544 Posts: 1,300 Member
    Let vampires travel all over, at least, since they have wings. However, I am a bit curious about Strangeville. There's a book you can get at the Curio shop that mentions being stuck in that realm, so it's weird if people travel to and from there.
  • simopolissimopolis Posts: 147 Member
    Let vampires travel all over, at least, since they have wings. However, I am a bit curious about Strangeville. There's a book you can get at the Curio shop that mentions being stuck in that realm, so it's weird if people travel to and from there.

    100% let vampires roam. But keep the strange in Strangerville and ideally everybody home unless called out!!! Surely during a pandemic this could be addressed lol
  • TARDISgradeTARDISgrade Posts: 193 Member
    I recently bought Eco Lifestyle and I was surprised to see the Sages from Realm of Magic roaming around in Evergreen Harbor. :/ I pretend they are just cosplaying or something.

    On another occasion, one of my Sims was having a nice meal in a restaurant I put in Windenburg, when a "possessed" Strangerville lady wearing nothing but her underwear barged in. How did she manage to travel all the way from Strangerville to Windenburg in that state? Is the Mother trying to take over other worlds too? :lol:
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  • ChampandGirlieChampandGirlie Posts: 2,482 Member
    I would really like a setting for this. There are sometimes that I like to combine the sims from different worlds such as worlds with a similar theme or when I have a district of common areas like Newcrest in my game. I do sometimes send my sims traveling to venues in the different worlds.

    If this could be a setting by world or even possibly by lot, I would interested in that. I'd be more flexible about sending sims to certain restaurants or gyms with special equipment. I think players could make that decision for themselves.

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  • CK213CK213 Posts: 20,525 Member
    I really wish they would set up a distance relationship between all the worlds and set percentages of what sims will show up there.
    So a sim from a certain town would most likely show up in their town and the neighboring towns, while distant sims will rarely appear.

    It's immersion breaking when you have your Brindleton Bay sim vacationing in Komorebi and then her mother shows up while she's dining in the restaurant I placed there.
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  • Chicklet453681Chicklet453681 Posts: 2,431 Member
    Well, this wouldn't "save the game" for me personally.

    But, it's something that has always irritated me about TS4. I tend to not have my sims travel to worlds that seem like they are not close, if they travel at all. I set up each world with no pre-mades, they're all my sims I've placed, I also have over 300 of my sims in the not in world bin, so I have plenty of player created sims to fill those roles without the game doing it. And, I've always wanted just my sims to be the visitors on community lots in my world and the walk-bys/joggers, etc.

    I don't understand the dev team's thinking process of allowing all sims to freely go to all worlds. In my RL, I can assure you if I go to another city (or state) for dinner, shopping, a concert, or vacation, I will 99.99999% NOT see people from my own city also in that other city, at that restaurant, in that motel, at that particular mall or social event at the same time I am there. (Unless there's some spectacular event that is going on at that time, then I might see 1 person I know.)

    I use a mod for this.
  • 83bienchen83bienchen Posts: 2,554 Member
    edited August 2021
    I guess EA wants to make sure that there are enough Sims in every world without them being flooded even more with townies. If you disable all residents from showing up in every other world except their own, you either have quite empty worlds or masses of households. In fact, my favourite mod (that is no longer updated by werbeesu), was doing the opposite as it would prefer my own played households over unplayed Sims to spawn when I visited a lot. I loved seeing my own Sims around instead of just some randomly generated NPCs.
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  • Pamtastic72Pamtastic72 Posts: 4,545 Member
    83bienchen wrote: »
    I guess EA wants to make sure that there are enough Sims in every world without them being flooded even more with townies. If you disable all residents from showing up in every other world except their own, you either have quite empty worlds or masses of households. In fact, my favourite mod (that is no longer updated by werbeesu), was doing the opposite as it would prefer my own played households over unplayed Sims to spawn when I visited a lot. I loved seeing my own Sims around instead of just some randomly generated NPCs.

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  • Mstybl95Mstybl95 Posts: 5,883 Member
    I have been begging for this since the game came out so I'm with you. This is something that completely puts me off playing, especially when I see my own introvert sims in different worlds acting like extroverted fools.
  • 83bienchen83bienchen Posts: 2,554 Member
    That's not the point I wanted to make. It doesn't matter to game performance if the townies are drawn from your library, the gallery or created randomly. They do take up to many ressources either way.
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  • EnkiSchmidtEnkiSchmidt Posts: 5,334 Member
    This (along with lack of lots) is why I came to headcanon "everything is San Myshuno and suburbs". Well, Sulani is still several hours flight away, but I glued Selvadorada neatly to Sulani as two different cultures within the same nation.

    And quite honestly, after having played with this headcanon since 2016, I'd be severely put off if the game suddenly introduced official distances and tried to prevent my Del Sol Valley sims from going to Windenburg whenever they want.
  • simopolissimopolis Posts: 147 Member
    edited August 2021
    Love these responses! This leads me to think that simply having a lot trait that prevents sims from showing up at a lot might be the way to go! Perhaps it's a lot trait called "locals only" and only works if the player chooses it. Ideally it would work for residential, commercial and rental lots!!! That way people who don't want this functionally could choose not to turn it on. The only drawback would potentially not having as many walk-bys if there were not enough sims in the world. Would you want to have the game use sims from manage households not in world? Or what about another optional trait called "residents only" which would prevent the game from generating walk bys from sims in manage households who are not in world. Would you mind if this reduced the number of walk bys? Personally I would love to have less walk-bys in general. It is far too easy to get my social need up when I am playing single sims without having to go to the bar or other commercial lot. Also, I pretend all sims the game generates do not exist so I wouldn't miss them walking around, although I get that some are needed to fill NPC roles and some people like them, so make it optional. I just wish we could manage not in world sims better, assign their roles etc, and one day be able to have our played sims work at NPC roles... that would be a game changer as well!! Thoughts?
  • simopolissimopolis Posts: 147 Member
    Well, this wouldn't "save the game" for me personally.

    But, it's something that has always irritated me about TS4. I tend to not have my sims travel to worlds that seem like they are not close, if they travel at all. I set up each world with no pre-mades, they're all my sims I've placed, I also have over 300 of my sims in the not in world bin, so I have plenty of player created sims to fill those roles without the game doing it. And, I've always wanted just my sims to be the visitors on community lots in my world and the walk-bys/joggers, etc.

    I don't understand the dev team's thinking process of allowing all sims to freely go to all worlds. In my RL, I can assure you if I go to another city (or state) for dinner, shopping, a concert, or vacation, I will 99.99999% NOT see people from my own city also in that other city, at that restaurant, in that motel, at that particular mall or social event at the same time I am there. (Unless there's some spectacular event that is going on at that time, then I might see 1 person I know.)

    I use a mod for this.

    What mod is that?! I don't use mods but this feature is something I might be willing to change my ways for. How does the mod work? What can you control?
  • ACruelButLovingGodACruelButLovingGod Posts: 708 Member
    simopolis wrote: »
    I just wish we could manage not in world sims better, assign their roles etc, and one day be able to have our played sims work at NPC roles... that would be a game changer as well!! Thoughts?

    I love this idea, because some of those NPCs have actually earned their way into my playable rotation, especially gym trainers. It'd be nice for them to be able to work at the gym just like before they got ascended. Instead, they usually end up in the Bodybuilder or Pro Athlete career because they come preloaded with Fitness 10 and can spend their days cranking up the Charisma and getting out in the world.
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  • HopeyStarrHopeyStarr Posts: 1,276 Member
    A mod created by SHUSHU restricts sims to their home world, including lots, the downside is that a lot of townies may be generated to fill walkby/employee/service roles around the world. But thanks to this mod I could say goodbye to (as I like to call) "Nancy Landgraabs" jogging around the world. There are a few exceptions to sims not staying in their resident worlds though. Like for festivals and stuff.

    Kuttoe has so kindly updated this mod to make it compatible with the recent patch. If you're still interested/open to mods check it out here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/54534808
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  • 83bienchen83bienchen Posts: 2,554 Member
    This approach might be interesting for those of you who use mods:
    https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1421588407034208263

    It has some flaws though as we are limited to 20 preferences per Sim. Maybe EA could create something similar to that though, maybe a dropdown menu where you can just uncheck every world you don't want a certain Sim to be able to appear in.
    Now now EA, don't be stinking up our lovely lavender bath with your shopping fart. - My TS4 mods - Gallery ID: 83bienchen
  • lexibeelexibee Posts: 163 Member
    I agree with everything you said except for the cost to travel. The only place I'd accept that is if we had more public transportation in the game. Right now I think we only have that boat in Brindleton Bay that takes you to the lighthouse.

    But yeah, walkbys of sims from other neighborhoods (especially Sulani for me, so many Sulani sims in Brindleton Bay...) has irked me this entire time. I think just having a toggle in the settings would be fine, this way it doesn't eat up a lot trait slot. But I need something because I'd like to see the actual sims I've created walking around, not the same 10 sims everywhere I go.

    The team also needs to limit how many new NPCs keep spawning. I don't even see the like 30 NPCs I remade anymore. I was so tired of seeing randomly generated ugly NPCs clogging up my towns that I finally gave in and remade a bunch, but now they're gone... I play with aging off so it's not like they're dying. Why do so many NPCs keep needing to be generated??

    All of this really breaks immersion for me 😭 I just want to see the sims I actually put effort into making.
  • simopolissimopolis Posts: 147 Member
    HopeyStarr wrote: »
    A mod created by SHUSHU restricts sims to their home world, including lots, the downside is that a lot of townies may be generated to fill walkby/employee/service roles around the world. But thanks to this mod I could say goodbye to (as I like to call) "Nancy Landgraabs" jogging around the world. There are a few exceptions to sims not staying in their resident worlds though. Like for festivals and stuff.

    Kuttoe has so kindly updated this mod to make it compatible with the recent patch. If you're still interested/open to mods check it out here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/54534808

    This one looks awesome and is kind of what I had imagined the sims 4 team would do.
    83bienchen wrote: »
    This approach might be interesting for those of you who use mods:
    https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1421588407034208263

    It has some flaws though as we are limited to 20 preferences per Sim. Maybe EA could create something similar to that though, maybe a dropdown menu where you can just uncheck every world you don't want a certain Sim to be able to appear in.

    This is the even better!!! Have you used it?! I couldn’t tell if it was released yet, but seems like a really cool way to also manage sims not in world!!!! I think a combo of these two would be amazing!!!
    lexibee wrote: »
    I agree with everything you said except for the cost to travel. The only place I'd accept that is if we had more public transportation in the game. Right now I think we only have that boat in Brindleton Bay that takes you to the lighthouse.

    The only reason I imagine travel costing money is because I want a reason to have cars and helicopters/private jets that would provide free travel to other neighborhoods(cars)/other worlds(airplanes)

    Even if they were just immovable objects that disappeared once entered and brought us to a loading screen!!!
  • VeeDubVeeDub Posts: 1,862 Member
    I'm not particularly bothered by "average townies" (including my own currently unplayed sims) appearing in other places even if a few seem a bit out of place. But I'd be extremely put off if I saw only the same few sims over and over and over again in any given area. However, I'd be all for restricting "special" sims (those that the game gives special traits for special roles) such as Realm of Magic Sages, City Living Weirdos, StrangerVille Scientists and Conspiracy Theorists, and similar special roles from other packs.
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  • 83bienchen83bienchen Posts: 2,554 Member
    @simopolis: It's not released yet, it's a work in progress. But I'll surely try it out once it is ready for release.
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  • Calico45Calico45 Posts: 2,038 Member
    I don't care if mine show up, really. Yes, it's weird that no matter where I go the same four 5 star celebrities follow me, but I don't care enough for them to have to restrict NPC travel between the world.

    100% hate nonessential townie generation, though. Number one complaint since launch. I don't like walk-bys either and it should be a toggle for people that care about populated worlds.

    Travel costs... Meh. Don't care to don't want.

    I hesitate with some of these suggestions that ask EA to decide and define what the worlds mean to us. For example, I understand some people treat Mt. Komorebi as an exotic vacation location and more power to you, but as someone that doesn't like vacations in 4 I wanted it to be a residential world and I treat it as such. For them to suddenly add barriers afterwards to treat it like a foreign country would upset me.
  • VeeDubVeeDub Posts: 1,862 Member
    Calico45 wrote: »
    I hesitate with some of these suggestions that ask EA to decide and define what the worlds mean to us. For example, I understand some people treat Mt. Komorebi as an exotic vacation location and more power to you, but as someone that doesn't like vacations in 4 I wanted it to be a residential world and I treat it as such. For them to suddenly add barriers afterwards to treat it like a foreign country would upset me.

    This is a really good point. Even just a simple, low-cost travel fee (with or without other restrictions) would force everyone to consider any world outside their "home world" to be Some Other Place. Not everyone does that now, nor do all of us want to start doing so later.
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  • simopolissimopolis Posts: 147 Member
    Wow. Great feedback! Perhaps we could introduce a system whereby each lot is assigned an optional "cost to visit" and then players could decide travel costs per lot. This would potentially open up a whole new system of gameplay where commercial lots could generate income - perhaps for their sim owners?! I would LOVE to have the Landgraabs be able to end up owning half of Oasis Springs and be getting rich off of charging admission.

    I would also LOVE to be able to toggle off walk-bys. Great suggestion!!! I personally don't care about any other sims but my own in my worlds, and if I wanted them around, I would call them, or have them walk by verrrrry rarely. If I could micromanage who operates in each NPC role as well then I would be in pure heaven. LET ME ASSIGN MY SIMS TO WORK IN COMMUNITY LOTS!!! Dina would LOVE to be the only bartender at Rattlesnake Juice bar in Oasis Springs, Johnny would love to be the only comedian at The Solar Flare, and Katrina would thrive as the offical musician. It bothers me so much that Sara Scott loses her role as the Gnome’s Arms' bartender once played. Our played sims should be able to work at lots!!! WHY IS THIS NOT A THING?!?!!
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