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Has Neighborhood Stories Gone Wild In Your Game?

At first Neighborhood Stories sounded like a way for EA to enhance gameplay. However, it appears this new feature has not been play tested at all.

For example, after playing the game for a short time, I discovered that every town sim and/or their families had a lot of brown (?) newborn babies along with toddlers and pets in their household. While I expected to hear about some changes. I didn't expect this kind of extreme change. Some households had almost three newborns at once. All of which would be unrealistic in real life.

So thus far, it has definitely made gameplay worse as I had to click on all these households and try to delete all these unwanted additions. Btw, you can't delete the newborns in CAS and still not sure if it worked since after I disabled the feature for all households, I got another message that mentioned how the Delgato family in Brindleton Bay recently added more babies to their household, lol.

Let's hope EA fixes this as I'm starting to think this whole concept already needs a lot of tweaking or overhaul.
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Comments

  • JaiSeaJaiSea Posts: 907 Member
    Yes! I have so much going on in my neighborhoods now that I have stopped reading them. As for newborns, I'm not sure as there was just too much to keep up with.
    Check out my latest Multiplayer Let's Play! The Off the Grid challenge - single family addition.
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  • Casey415Casey415 Posts: 7 New Member
    Yes there is an adoption or a birth every day almost lol 😂
  • Admiral8QAdmiral8Q Posts: 3,303 Member

    I like the concept. Keep in mind you can 'tweak' it. For "Played" (Heck no for me, stays off!), For "UnPlayed" (Have it on, but all features off). For each household then you can customize it. At the moment, the only household I have customized with a few of the features is "Harris" in Evergreen Harbour.
    So yes, I have not playtested it yet. Good to start with one household.

    With base-game, no packs, no mods, had that issue of things going insane when I first started playing. ;)
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  • aparkisonaparkison Posts: 135 Member
    For me it was just killing off my Townies too much, and while I was fine losing some of the older ones I've had in my saves for a long time, it got excessive and I shut it off.

    I only had pet and child adoption, plus having a baby turned on for a few Townie families (most of my Townies are single Sims) and I never saw any traction with it, but my understanding is that's affected by traits. I'm guessing the Sims I was allowing it for didn't have the right traits.

    I boot out nearly all the premade Sims too when I start a new save, so I don't have a lot of unplayed households living on lots either. And I had it turned off on the ones I kept, because I'll want to play them at some point.
  • shellbemeshellbeme Posts: 2,086 Member
    Adoption has gone totally nuts in my game so I turned it off for most households. I am disappointed that I have no idea what happened to Eliza Pancakes. I couple sim days ago she was there and then it was like she never existed. I assumed she died but I didn't get any kind of notification on the neighborhood stories updates. I don't know if it was because I was playing a sim that didn't live in Willow Creek or what. I visited Bob. The house seems so big when he is there by himself.

    He is not sad about her being gone, there is no urn, no trace that she ever existed. She doesn't even show up in his family tree as a sim that has died. That bums me out, a lot. She's not in his relationship panel at all. Completely scrubbed. I'm going to have to play his household just to make sure he remarries and has a nice life. I feel bad for him, I was hoping the game would make them have kids but nope, it just erased Eliza all together.
  • BeardedgeekBeardedgeek Posts: 5,520 Member
    It seems to function very closely to the MCCC story telling. So no, I like it very much, this is exactly what I wanted and also tells me this is very much playtested.
    Btw, a bug makes a lot of babies dark skinned despite not actually being that. It has nothing to do with this patch.
    Origin ID: A_Bearded_Geek
  • simgirl1010simgirl1010 Posts: 35,701 Member
    I just got notification that one of my families is expecting a baby. That was my first notification. It's my main sim's son and daughter-in-law.
  • StormkeepStormkeep Posts: 7,632 Member
    edited March 2022
    I like how they implemented it, in terms of just how much control they give us for each household and each setting. But I'm disappointed that we can't tweak the individual settings in terms of actual tuning.

    Right now, accidental deaths kills far too many sims too quickly. It completely wiped out the entire elder population in under 2 sim weeks when i set all elder households to allow accidental deaths.
    Pet adoptions adopts pets at the rate of a couple per day which, at the rate pets age, will eventually fill up every household in the game with pets.
    Baby births does not create new births at the same rate as sims are dying (especially with accidental deaths on) so it is not sufficient to maintain populations at the default tuning, yet child adoptions is through the roof and would completely displace all genetic offspring if left on as it is tuned significantly higher than births, apparently.
    Meanwhile, joining careers needs to be disabled because it can break your game and cause the error code 0 save issue.

    So, basically, the entire feature needs adjustment, and sadly they didn't give us the tools to do the adjustments ourselves. A simple "on/off" option is insufficient given that the entire population of the game and the rate at which it ages (or not) can be adjusted.

    MCCC is much better for literally every feature that Neighborhood stories offers except pet adoptions, because MCCC lets you tweak the tuning values not just turn things on/off. The only thing Neighborhood stories does better than MCCC is the pet adoptions and the ease with which features can be turned on and off by household.
    This post will be edited by StormKeep at some point.
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  • Admiral8QAdmiral8Q Posts: 3,303 Member

    @Stormkeep I agree. Fine tuning the chances should be there for it. Like MCCC.
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  • GrimlyFiendishGrimlyFiendish Posts: 718 Member
    I don't particular care about the neighbours in Sims 4, unless they're a potential love interest in which case they very quickly get moved into one of my played households. I have noticed some hilarious outcomes with the neighbourhood system though, including one house with 5 dogs and a toddler, no adults, not teens. I'm half considering playing the house as a 'raised by wolves' scenario. :D
    Occult Simmer (All Occult All The Time)

    Female Simmer from Australia (she/her)

    I had one of my Sims marry the Grim Reaper & now they have a lot of kids.

  • ncisGibbs02ncisGibbs02 Posts: 2,018 Member
    shellbeme wrote: »
    I am disappointed that I have no idea what happened to Eliza Pancakes. I couple sim days ago she was there and then it was like she never existed. I assumed she died but I didn't get any kind of notification on the neighborhood stories updates. I don't know if it was because I was playing a sim that didn't live in Willow Creek or what. I visited Bob. The house seems so big when he is there by himself.

    He is not sad about her being gone, there is no urn, no trace that she ever existed. She doesn't even show up in his family tree as a sim that has died. That bums me out, a lot. She's not in his relationship panel at all. Completely scrubbed. I'm going to have to play his household just to make sure he remarries and has a nice life. I feel bad for him, I was hoping the game would make them have kids but nope, it just erased Eliza all together.

    This reminds me of a show, I think it was called ‘Missing’ and there was a team who had to find out what happened to the missing person. Sure Eric Close was in it.

    Also if a Sim suffers an accidental death why doesn’t an urn get generated? 🤷🏼‍♂️ Does the Grim Reaper only appear on an active lot? Is he required to register the death in game? Maybe that’s why there’s no urn? 🤔🤷🏼‍♂️.

    Maybe in Options, a master report we could go through if wanted that tracks everything that changed. 🤔


    Now alternating between Sims 2,3 and 4! 😊☕️🌞
  • GrimlyFiendishGrimlyFiendish Posts: 718 Member
    This reminds me of a show, I think it was called ‘Missing’ and there was a team who had to find out what happened to the missing person. Sure Eric Close was in it.

    Also if a Sim suffers an accidental death why doesn’t an urn get generated? 🤷🏼‍♂️ Does the Grim Reaper only appear on an active lot? Is he required to register the death in game? Maybe that’s why there’s no urn? 🤔🤷🏼‍♂️.

    Maybe in Options, a master report we could go through if wanted that tracks everything that changed. 🤔

    He generally only appears on active lots, or a lot where actively played sims are gathering. Urns used to automatically spawn though even if a death occurred away from an active lot. Even in my game where I technically have two grim reapers, urns would still spawn on unplayed/non active lots. If this is no longer occurring then it's either a glitch or something the devs have decided to change.

    Occult Simmer (All Occult All The Time)

    Female Simmer from Australia (she/her)

    I had one of my Sims marry the Grim Reaper & now they have a lot of kids.

  • JALJAL Posts: 999 Member
    Personally I love it, and prefer it over MCCC as it gives me control over each family individually. That said there are features that I hope they add in the future - marriage for one, which I still use MCCC for. I would also love to be able to set individual settings per person, not just the household, so Bob Pancake is allowed to move out, but Eliza cannot and the family as a whole cannot.

    As for "too much" it's just a matter of being aggressive in what you allow and not. I edit per family, turning every feature on and off depending on my preference. So if a family has two-three kids I tend to turn it off (though I am letting the Bjergsens run wild - they have six now, I am wondering how many they'll have as now the older kids are starting to head to uni leaving space for more babies.) I have also turned off adoption for more or less everyone (but will turn it on if I have a family where it fits).
    Moreover, I advise that the cart button must be destroyed!
  • mustenimusteni Posts: 5,403 Member
    I was afraid it might be too agressive and it was. Even if they tweak it for me this will probbaly be a feature that I turn on once in a while when I want some drama or progress, but keep off most of the time.

    I find that it's better to allow it for a large number of sims at a time, at least then there's the gamble who dies and who gets babies etc. Also the game only gives pets and babies to sims who live in a world, so that narrows the pool and makes the pets/babies pile up.
  • PhobostimePhobostime Posts: 38 Member
    musteni wrote: »
    Also the game only gives pets and babies to sims who live in a world, so that narrows the pool and makes the pets/babies pile up.

    This is a shame. I was hoping to use neighborhood stories to breathe some life into all the automatically generated single-sim households, but if they won't have babies unless they're in a relationship, and won't adopt babies or pets unless they're moved into a house, there's not much they can do.
  • RoseRyderRoseRyder Posts: 19 Member
    > @shellbeme said:
    > Adoption has gone totally nuts in my game so I turned it off for most households. I am disappointed that I have no idea what happened to Eliza Pancakes. I couple sim days ago she was there and then it was like she never existed. I assumed she died but I didn't get any kind of notification on the neighborhood stories updates. I don't know if it was because I was playing a sim that didn't live in Willow Creek or what. I visited Bob. The house seems so big when he is there by himself.
    >
    > He is not sad about her being gone, there is no urn, no trace that she ever existed. She doesn't even show up in his family tree as a sim that has died. That bums me out, a lot. She's not in his relationship panel at all. Completely scrubbed. I'm going to have to play his household just to make sure he remarries and has a nice life. I feel bad for him, I was hoping the game would make them have kids but nope, it just erased Eliza all together.

    Omg I lost Mortimer Goth the same way! No urn, no nothing! He was completely scrubbed from the game, poor Bella is a widow and she doesn’t even know it, it’s bizarre, I mean where did he go??? It feels like a glitch
  • ElliandreElliandre Posts: 2,468 Member
    It's quite the baby boom!! Even Geeta Rasoya adopted a baby in my game and she is an elderly widow. That was a fun surprise though, because I never play that family and now Raj has a brother I aged up to teen, so I have some fun ideas to play them.

    I am really enjoying the update, but for a rotational player, a setting to adjust the frequency would be helpful. If multiple Sims get pregnant at once, then you can't really play out all their pregnancies, you have to just choose one. I think there should be time to play out a pregnancy before there is another one added to the game.

    I customize individual households. I turned off accidental death, move in and move out, quit and get new jobs, retire, because what I like is just all the new babies and pets being added. And I went to every Sim who quit their job and put them back in their original job. I didn't see how their new job was more suited to them. It seemed sort of random.

    My baby/pet rules are this: whoever is single can adopt a pet so they don't get lonely, whoever is an adult or young adult couple can have a baby, same sex couples can adopt, elder Sims couples can adopt if they don't already have a lot of children and grandchildren. So far this balance is working much better for me, so it's not just babies and adoptions everywhere or all in the same household.

    I check the mailbox for daily notifications, they only happen once per day, and if someone gets pregnant, adopts, or has a pet, I will check on them and decide if they can have another. If not I will switch the feature off for them. I get about 2-3 updates per Sim day and the changes feels easier to manage now.
  • ElliandreElliandre Posts: 2,468 Member
    Stormkeep wrote: »
    It completely wiped out the entire elder population in under 2 sim weeks when i set all elder households to allow accidental deaths.

    :joy: It's so deadly right?! You can't even get Sims wiped out like that with the plague in Strangerville.
  • Brd709Brd709 Posts: 2,032 Member
    edited March 2022
    I had to exit out of my current save on two separate occasions because while playing another household, my sim self and his wife ended up having yet another baby. They have six adult kids who are already out of the house so this is their time together. On another occasion, my sim self's middle son got married to his boyfriend and a day later neighbourhood stories killed off his new husband.
  • StormkeepStormkeep Posts: 7,632 Member
    edited March 2022
    You know you can turn it off for individual households, right, @Brd709? It sounds like you didn't want babies and accidental deaths enabled for those households...so disable it.
    This post will be edited by StormKeep at some point.
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  • SilentKittySilentKitty Posts: 4,665 Member
    Hmm…

    I can get activate “have baby” or “adopt a child” for a few households at the time. Then when a few children have been added turn it if again. I often look at the stats for my population so that would be ok.

    Something that I do not approve of in any way, shape or form is sims dying and they are just unknown in the save. I don’t know if it is a bug or intended that a wife or husband can die due to story progression and there is no urn, no family tree and they are gone from all panels. I cannot allow that in my game.

    Currently I am offline so I am just reading about the new features in the forum. It could be very useful if it gets a bit more work.
  • wahini2024wahini2024 Posts: 547 Member
    edited March 2022
    Yes it's a little over kill. Some families can't stop having and adopting children. The homes are at max capacity. The frequency at which things happen could be tamed IMO.
    I had 4 deaths in one Sim day. every sim day at least one Sim dies and others are expecting, delivering or adopting.

    I'm having to turn it off fully or extremely edit the settings. Turning it off in my manual age saves is all I can do or homes look like baby mills.
  • wahini2024wahini2024 Posts: 547 Member
    @MsKatieRose I had to manually age up the Goth infants and delete the toddlers in cas. I set the Goths to "no more children at all in any way" and yet there are 3 more. It was the first time I "played" as the Goths so not sure if that did it or what but even though they've been set to never have or adopt a child... they had 3 more. That totals 7 newborns for them so far.
  • DianesimsDianesims Posts: 2,867 Member
    Yes, several sims had like 4 babies or 4 toddlers at the same time, having one after the other like a factory.
  • logionlogion Posts: 4,712 Member
    edited March 2022
    Hmm…

    I can get activate “have baby” or “adopt a child” for a few households at the time. Then when a few children have been added turn it if again. I often look at the stats for my population so that would be ok.

    Something that I do not approve of in any way, shape or form is sims dying and they are just unknown in the save. I don’t know if it is a bug or intended that a wife or husband can die due to story progression and there is no urn, no family tree and they are gone from all panels. I cannot allow that in my game.

    Currently I am offline so I am just reading about the new features in the forum. It could be very useful if it gets a bit more work.

    I have been offline since August 2021.

    It has been interesting reading about these new features and bugs...I'm not sure when I will ever update... I might not have a choice as I might have to reinstall my OS soon. I'm planning to change my motherboard.

    If that happens, I'm pretty sure I will disable all of this new stuff. Neighborhood stories seems way too random for my taste with sims adopting babies and pets for no reason and sims getting deleted as part of a "story" progression.

    Is there any logic to which sims that will be affected or is it just random generator like the horrible outfits that gets generated for townies?
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