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Calling Non-Rotational Players!

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As a rotational player, I am adjusting my gameplay style due to my decision to play without mods (if you rotate without mods to a lot of households your sims sadly lose relationships and I don't want this to happen).

What I would like to ask all you non-rotational players is what you find enjoyable about sticking to only one or two households only. What keeps you motivated to play those same sims and how do you change things up now and again? Also, do you play more than one saved game in order to play different sims?

Comments

  • blaq797blaq797 Posts: 145 Member
    I dont really rotate games, I just play what I feel like playing. And only mods I use are genetic mods thus far.

    And yes, I tend to put different sims in their own save, and save a copy of the family to bin.

    Alot of it is attachment. Sim in my avatar has been around ever since Supernatural came out basically, 530 days old or so, 19 children, etc...

    Another save, the sim is over 200 days old, and has fathered 115 or so children in total.
    Sorry, Avatar is merely my favorite Sims 4 sim.
  • mightyspritemightysprite Posts: 5,807 Member
    The save I'm mostly playing right now is my legacy challenge. I'm not playing rotationally on this one except occasional build-mode adjustments. I have aging on, so my sims are always changing. And yes I do play other saves sometimes too.
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  • IllandryaIllandrya Posts: 87 Member
    I don’t play rotationally in the sense that all my families don’t inhabit the same “universe”. They each have their own saves and I might bounce around between them depending on what story I feel like telling. But this way I know when I get around to them again, it will be exactly where I left off.
  • Chicklet453681Chicklet453681 Posts: 2,431 Member
    edited March 2023
    I've never really played rotationally. I mostly create a new save for new families.

    I enjoy that most because it's "new". The relationships develop with new people and I don't feel like I need to make sure something doesn't happen to "upset" my story line because this is a "new story" .... so if Bob & Eliza suddenly decide to become an extremely happy boho hippy commune loving couple, they can! I don't have to worry about them veering off the "we hate each other" story line.

    I just really enjoy starting fresh, I guess. Maybe I want my current sim to fall in love with Don Lothario, but in another save he's already happily involved with someone else, and I don't ever play intentional cheating sims (had a few instances of infidelity happen to me in RL so that's not my jam, regardless of what sim I'm playing.)
  • WightQueenSiamWightQueenSiam Posts: 11 New Member
    I've also never played rotationally (at least not to a point where I can consider it rotational). I struggle with having multiple stories going on, so I think that's part of why I like to not play rotationally. I get invested in one family!

    I also tend not to stick with one legacy for too long, which is something I want to fix. Maybe playing rotationally would improve my desire to stick with one save? But I definitely have a preference for playing one set of Sims, because I usually have one storyline or legacy challenge I'm trying to fulfill.

    Sometimes I like to use the Legacy Challenge randomizer for what to do that week if I get bored and want to spice up a plain, non-challenge legacy save, or any variety of "Spin the wheel!" things that Simmers have come up with to decide what they wanna do. Gives it a lil injection of something fun.
  • FutureFuture Posts: 336 Member
    If my Sim only has 1 everyday outfit I’m less inclined to play with them much. True story.
  • JustinB113JustinB113 Posts: 1,050 Member
    I stick with the same sims for ages and do not rotate. To change it up I either give them a new aspiration or have them focus on a new game pack/expansion. I like to build them houses in different worlds and to see them in different CAS.

    I’m doing the opposite to you though and starting a small rotation as I’m building an extended family for my sims 😁.
  • FlapFlap Posts: 200 Member
    edited March 2023
    As a rotational player, I am adjusting my gameplay style due to my decision to play without mods (if you rotate without mods to a lot of households your sims sadly lose relationships and I don't want this to happen).

    You can try add (you said you play without mods, but not sure about cheats) the Beloved trait (reward for completing Friend of the World aspiration) that halts any relationship decay of the Sim. :smiley:
  • LSM36LSM36 Posts: 593 Member
    I don't really play rotationally I'm just neurospicy. I spend hours on sims building them up in CAS, giving them traits. Making them truly amazing. Sometimes their backstories are more their own, and other times reflect things I'm working through in my mind/thinking about lately.

    And then I get bored. Whether it's of the sims, or of The Sims in general and then don't play for a period of time. The problem with that is I forget everything about my sims. I'm trying to type up info in the household tab now to combat that a bit. But I'll literally make sims and then forget why I made them the way I did and then I can't play them anymore. So then I have to just start over with a new save.

    I don't even know the last time I had a multigenerational family, that wasn't made that way from the beginning, or like the parents were added in after. Mostly my sims might get married, maybe have kids, and I'm gone before the kids get to college. And since I don't let my person sims become elders, I end up hoping around a lot. And my sims are still alive in other saves. I've got saves that didn't even have toddlers yet. I've got a save from when toddlers first came.

    I do use all the mods though. It helps me set up the stories I want without too much stress and then I can play what I want. Especially since I'm constantly starting over.
    Check out my posts in the Ideas corner, and see the Simsverse living inside my head. :blush:
  • angelbearangelbear Posts: 151 Member
    I make each family member I take over unique. So that helps me stick to the save. For me all the intrest is build up.tp having a kid. Then I switch focus to the kid and build up again. And what that kid likes and dislikes. I love to roll likes and dislikes each birthday and see how things change. I make a list of the old ones. Roll. And combine the two lists. If there was no change for an item then it stays the same. I once had a sim start our loving gardening....get a job in the career. Age up and then rolled a dislike for it. Which changed how ai played that Sim. And made them feel fresh and intresting.
  • Umbreon12Umbreon12 Posts: 877 Member
    In my PC version of the game I am making myself play only one family. I have multiple saves, but each one is a single family that I play.
    The only time it may turn rotational is when the children of my families move out.
  • RedDestiny92RedDestiny92 Posts: 7,819 Member
    I mostly rotate but when I don’t it is because of a challenge even something easy to keep track of like play on short, normal or long and play one in game year see what happens.
    Reddestiny921 on the gallery...still not sure if I capitalized the second d..lol
    All the sims err'day
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  • simgirl1010simgirl1010 Posts: 35,708 Member
    I've been playing one family, one save for the last five years. What keeps it fresh and interesting for me is focusing on different family members at different times. Sometimes I move some family members in with relatives in order to focus on specific family members. Or I'll move a family member into a separate home in order to concentrate on them and then move them back into the main family home. For example when Cottage Living released I moved one sim to Henford On Bagley to experience country life and farming. My goal is to use this family to complete all the aspirations, careers, skills, etc.

    Their story is here.

    https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/1005742/my-super-sim-family-challenge#

    It's not really a story. Mostly documentation of accomplishments to help me keep track of who has done what.
  • LarrikatevenLarrikateven Posts: 99 Member
    I have four separate saves right now, but only play one household in each save. I like them to be in the same place where I left them.

    However, I do have a long-term project in that I am slowly diverging each save so that they are completely different from each other. For example, my legacy family lives in worlds full of big houses for happy, growing families. In the mischief and mayhem save, my Sims are creating chaos and hurt relationships among the townies.

    And then I also sort of try to balance the four saves so that they are always at different stages. When one save has three children, another family is childless. One save has aging off, the others are on. Cats in one save, a single dog in another, no pets in the other two.

    So I always have a Sim game ready to go that appeals to me in that moment, whether I have fifteen minutes before work and just want to fiddle around with a pair of Sims, or if I want a marathon hard session where I'm trying to get three children to be world-famous at the same time without any cheats.
  • mustenimusteni Posts: 5,403 Member
    edited March 2023
    I'm a vanilla rotatinal player and I was wondering how the relationship decay is bothering you. I barely notice it in my gameplay. One exception I remember is when the game removed a good friend of my sim, but normally it doesn't do that. My rule of thumb is to get above the acquaintance level if it's a relationship I wish to keep. The game removes acquaintances pretty freely, so always have to make sure they're friends before rotating away.
  • elanorbretonelanorbreton Posts: 14,518 Member
    @Larrikateven that is exactly the way I used to play rotationally, everyone different in one save. Your idea appeals to me a lot, being able to jump into a particular save depending on what you want to play. I think that's how I will start things off and see how it goes.

    There's lots of ideas I've picked up from people's replies, so thank you all for contributing.

    @musteni maybe it's because I rotate away for probably a whole sim year? I have a lot of households in my game and by the time I get back to one they have lost their friends. The only relationships they still have are their own household members and even those are at different levels. It frustrates me no end that EA decided not to freeze relationships when you are not playing someone, it's a ridiculous choice.
  • loubyloulouloubyloulou Posts: 4,466 Member
    I rotate saves rather than households in the same save. I have 12 saves I go through, one save per gameplay session - that way I never get bored playing the same family over and over. In three or four of the saves I'm playing different challenges, which also keeps it fresh and also sometimes pushes me out of my Simming comfort zone - which is a good thing!
  • Atreya33Atreya33 Posts: 4,410 Member
    I tend to switch families in a serial manner, not rotationally. I stick with one family for a while, sometimes long, sometimes short, until I have finished their story. Mostly I have a specific goal in mind which I want to reach. This can be full filling an aspiration, raising children, opening a store for other sims to visit or completing a scenario. After this goal is completed, I start a new family in the same save but leave the previous family around to socialize with. I like seeing them in the world. I have aging off for everyone outside the active household and disabled neighbourhood stories so my sims aren't going anywhere. I rarely go back to a family once I am done with them.

    The only exception is my supersim who is completing all aspirations. She has a little break now but I will return once my growing together test family has raised their children.
  • GlacierSnowGlacierSnow Posts: 2,301 Member
    In most of my "non-simlit" saves that I play a lot, I am only playing one household. But I have a lot of saves. I think currently I have about 16 saves that I play just for fun which are all one household only. I play whichever one I feel like playing in any given session. Even in the few other saves where I do play more than one household, I typically have a "main" household that gets most of the time and attention, and I only play the others for short and infrequent stints.

    I think there are a couple reasons why I like sticking with one household. The main one is that I just get emotionally involved in what those specific sims are doing, and become very attached to them. I don't really want to play other households in that save, because then I wouldn't be playing with the main one. I don't like seeing my main sims walking around in public places doing things that don't fit their story when I am not able to control them.

    I play with aging turned off because I'm not really interested in generational play. What appeals to me about sticking with one set of sims for a very long time is being able to create very complex stories for them in my head (regardless of whether I write the stories down or not). Spending so much time with them makes them really come alive for me as characters and people. There is plenty of time for subtle details, backstory, subplots, random adventure arcs, complex relationships, and character growth.

    I take a TON of screenshots. Sometimes upwards of 100 screenshots during a single play session. I save them in separate folders for each save. I give them captions so I know what was going on story-wise in my head when I took them. Those screenshots help me think about the story as I am playing. And if I go away for a long time, I can use the screenshots to remind me what was happening in the story when I come back.

    I will say that right now my playstyle is hindered by the bug that makes sims keep moving when the game is paused. That makes it hard for me to capture precise moments in the story with screenshots. So, lately, I have been not playing with a lot of my main household saves very much. I've been focusing on my more heavily staged simlit saves and my more superficial "messing around" play saves instead. Hopefully this will get fixed though.
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  • Brd709Brd709 Posts: 2,032 Member
    Since my sim self's family has grown over time, i like to rotate his children's houses. Most of his kids are married with their own kids now and what ever household i'm playing become the main stars of the show for a while.
  • elanorbretonelanorbreton Posts: 14,518 Member
    @GlacierSnow I'm tempted to turn ageing off for the reasons you gave. This would be a totally new way for me to play. I think I will do that in a few separate saves and see how I enjoy it.

    All this input from you peeps, I'm actually looking forward to starting some non-rotational saves after work tonight, I was feeling quite sad about it yesterday so thank you all <3
  • mightyspritemightysprite Posts: 5,807 Member
    Have fun @elanorbreton :)
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  • EleriEleri Posts: 534 Member
    edited April 2023
    I've also never played rotationally (at least not to a point where I can consider it rotational). I struggle with having multiple stories going on, so I think that's part of why I like to not play rotationally. I get invested in one family!

    I also tend not to stick with one legacy for too long, which is something I want to fix. Maybe playing rotationally would improve my desire to stick with one save? But I definitely have a preference for playing one set of Sims, because I usually have one storyline or legacy challenge I'm trying to fulfill.
    My play style is halfway between you and @elanorbreton . I'll start a legacy (usually a specific challenge) and get really absorbed in it for a while, then I'll want something new. So I'll start another legacy, but not necessarily in a different save. I'll set all the households from the first legacy to not aging, then I'll start the new legacy in that save. The new legacy sims might interact and become friends with members of the old legacy. In fact, just earlier, the little girl from my current household made friends with a little girl from a different legacy at the Festival of Youth. Cute stuff.
    -No, my almost-elderly mother, I don't think it's a good time for you to try for a baby.
    -Yes, person I barely know, you have my blessing to hang out with Johnny Zest.
    -No person with the mean, hot-headed and self-absorbed traits, I don't think you should get married.
  • phantasmkissphantasmkiss Posts: 1,520 Member
    edited April 2023
    I played more than one save in order to have different households.

    Maybe I want Phoenix Valentine to make as many Sim-babies as possible. That doesn't mean I want everyone in town to be related to him. Maybe I want to turn everyone to vampires, or have everyone eventually marry into my legacy. Every now and then I delete some old saves that I'll never got back to (the experiment is complete, for example). But yes, many saves. So many saves, lol.
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  • manicobsessivemanicobsessive Posts: 1,103 Member
    edited April 2023
    I currently have a different save for each of my households too. Some are occults, one is famous, and one is just a regular kinda realistic legacy save which my 3rd gen has just been born in. I have all different kinds of sims, so I never get bored. :)
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