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Can the content get too overwhelming?
Cherryrose_x
Posts: 524 Member
I have been playing Sims since... well, The Sims.
But, I go through stages of playing as much as I can, dreaming about it and making plans constantly. To then do nothing for months.
I tend to log in, download more content in the sales as if I am just trying to complete my collection. Play for like 10 minutes and find I just can't get into it.
I am now wondering if I have too much content and just can't seem to decide what to even do with my Sims anymore. I have tried the legacy and got to the 10 gens, tried to do it again but it didn't hold the same appeal.
Tried rotation play but got so obsessed with planning their lives out through the generations my husband thought I was mad with my notebooks and flash cards!
Does anyone else get like this? And do you have any tips for getting out of it?
But, I go through stages of playing as much as I can, dreaming about it and making plans constantly. To then do nothing for months.
I tend to log in, download more content in the sales as if I am just trying to complete my collection. Play for like 10 minutes and find I just can't get into it.
I am now wondering if I have too much content and just can't seem to decide what to even do with my Sims anymore. I have tried the legacy and got to the 10 gens, tried to do it again but it didn't hold the same appeal.
Tried rotation play but got so obsessed with planning their lives out through the generations my husband thought I was mad with my notebooks and flash cards!
Does anyone else get like this? And do you have any tips for getting out of it?
Gallery name: Anna-Banna
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Comments
Try playing with a set of dice where you let the dice roll decide what happens. I kind of just went through a slump like you seem to be in. I decided to give it another go by creating some "scenarios" for a cast of characters in my town. Kind of making them fulfill certain roles based on ideas that pertain to whatever family. So for example, Alexander Goth was kidnapped. I can play the Goth's who are grieving and searching and going through the whole mourning process or I can play the kidnapper home as the family that's holding him hostage or Alexander and try to escape or stay put. Or as I'm playing other families, it could be one of my detectives that might be working this case and searching for clues. It could be families with children who are maybe put on a curfew while a kidnapper is on the loose. Or maybe as the mayor who is taking heat for the crime-ridden city she runs. --the key here is to use dice rolls or coin flips to decide how things play out. Does the detective get real information about the case or is it a wild goose chase? Does Bella suspect Mortimer had something to do with it? Does Cassandra know a secret? I guess the gist of it is it's just your imagination and a coin flip to know the direction. And it's fun not planning and setting up, ya know. And if you want to keep track, consider writing it down journal style instead of spreadsheet style.
I started rolling careers for example and realized that I hadn't played a lot of it because I was so overwhelmed with all the features I forgot they existed.
Once you let a randomizer take over you start discovering and doing things you wouldn't have even thought of otherwise and it even takes the pressure away from having to make a decision.
All the sims err'day
This seems pretty normal to me. It is natural for your interest in things to rise and fall, rise and fall, over time. This just means you are a healthy human being with lots of options, interests, and priorities. I love playing the Sims. But it's not the only thing I love. So I don't play it all the time, nor do I expect myself to.
If this seems to be your pattern, and you are not happy with it, you might be buying content you don't really have a plan for. I generally don't buy a pack until I have at least one clear idea of what I want to do with it. I know a lot of players like to "complete the collection", but maybe that's not really for you. Consider holding off on getting a new pack until you know exactly why you want it.
I'm not really a legacy player, so not much I can say here. But maybe it didn't appeal the second time because you tried to do it in the same way. Like watching the same movie over and over. It gets boring. I've seen a lot of interesting looking legacy style challenges. Some of those might spark new ideas for you.
Nothing wrong with that!
It's a real struggle.
The Winters family Tree --- My Mods
I might dig my notebooks out a bit more and try be a bit more gentle on their life plans.
This is why I often filter by pack or style, especially in CAS, and only let a sim use items from that pack unless they specifically need something else. For example, today I started a new save and only let the sim wear base game items and hairstyles.
I often try to have a concept of a Sim or Sim family already and start focusing on specific packs and specific occults, etc. So like, say for example, I want to focus on doing farming or spell caster stuff, so I just make sims for those packs, and doing interactions and careers (or whatever main feature that attracted me) from those packs.
You can filter the CAS and B/B with packs or custom content as well, to help narrow some choices, too. 🙂
(She/her)
Maybe this sounds a tad complicated, but basically you just pick one random career and one random skill for your family, and allow those two form their lives. Hopefully the two won't match too well
I recall a few years back I was in your shoes, I started my game but did anything on my computer but playing. Often I had been on for a couple hours only playing 5 sim minutes, lol. Then Seasons came along, and it was the calendar that changed everything for me - not that I use the feature a lot, but I suddenly had a better understanding of time, and it made everything more enjoyable.
And I would always stress about the time I was spending with each family. Like how many sim days do you play each household for?
I am also notorious for not actually playing when I have turned it on. I think last night I logged about 4 hours, but yea, I played for about 10 minutes.
Why rotate to another family if you are enjoying the one you're playing? You can rotate to them when you get bored with your current family or you get nice story ideas for other family that you can't wait to implement.
I wouldn't enjoy rotational play either if I had to play it by rules. I spend as much time as I like with each family, leaving when I feel their part of the story is complete. Sometimes I just check in for one or two Sim days, sometimes it may be two or three weeks. The only real rule I have is that I have fun.
OMG, I totally missed your comment about notebooks and flash cards when I first read this thread.
I played rotational in TS2 and I kept a freaking database in Microsoft Access for tracking things and used Excel Pivot tables tied into the database to get various overview data when I wanted it. Tell your husband about my insanity the next time he thinks you are mad.
TS3 ruined rotational play (for me) so I'm relatively new to playing rotatonally in TS4 as well, because I just have been playing TS4 the same as how I played TS3 (legacy challenge type play) until over this past Christmas when I decided to start my first new game in years. I'm not up to tracking things with a notebook yet even, much less my old database approach.
I tend to be manic though, so it's probably just a matter of time.
The Winters family Tree --- My Mods
Yes! I would love to be able to hide CAS or BB items I don't want. In one of the games - it might have been Sims 3 - you could create your own collections in BB mode. I wish we could do that in 4, for both BB and CAS, because it would be good to have an easy way to access specific content in themed games, or consign undesired items to a separate area. It's such a shame we can't create our own Styled Looks in CAS. I use the default ones when I'm feeling lazy or uninspired or when I need outfits for low priority sims, but it would be amazing if we could save outfits of our choice, particularly for themed games.
I don't have aging on. I manually age up my Sims according to whatever story I'm telling myself. I know some leave aging off except for the last family in the rotation and turn it on for everyone then. I don't think there is any wrong way to play though, and ultimately it is what you most enjoy. I just don't like to play with lots of rules.
Both TS2 and TS3 let you do that for BB. And I 100% agree that it's a travesty we can't do it in 4. It's so needed, in both BB and CAS.
I also agree about how awesome it would be to make our own Styled Looks. I'd love if we could not only make our own, but if that was one of the things people could upload and share on the gallery. It'd be so much fun sharing styled looks and adding others' styled looks to our games.
The Winters family Tree --- My Mods
That makes sense. I like everyone to age at an equal pace so I get a bit OCD about it. I usually age the current family in a rotation and the NPCs when the "lead" family is playing. Occasionally I forgot to turn it on or off but it mostly works for me.
In my new save my plan is to attempt 10 generations in a semi-legacy/attempt to play out every aspiration in a single save. Each generation from the main household will produce 2 kids, the heir and the spare - they will only have more than 2 kids if they get twins. The heir will continue in the family home and again produce kids, the spare will move into a different town and live according to their aspiration and their whims, as will any descendants, as they will produce kids only when they roll the whim to try for a baby, or they have a family aspiration that requires a set number of kids. I'm curious to see how many aspirations I can complete before the founding household produces its generation 10 heir.