Not Completely. Keep only absolutely essential mods…
I've been trying to play without most as the game is already so fractured coding-wise but there are a few essentials that I really can't seem to do without. One is LittleMsSams Gardening fix mod and the other is the No CityLiving-IslandLiving-Snowy Escape Names for NPC's. I can manage just about everything else on my own but those two really make things so much easier on my end.
Yes. It’ll make life easier (and probably the game too as many add challenges…)
I may be biased because I like to run a vanilla game. I always did. I typically avoid mods and I have a limited amount of custom content. I remember during my early teen years, I went crazy and downloaded everything! It took nearly an hour and a half for my TS3 game to load and some of the mods caused mild corruption in my game. I somehow managed to get a mod that made my sims have horse legs. At that point, most of the mods came off of my game!
I may need to make a few exceptions; I believe that the amount of homework in TS2 is unreasonable and it may be a good idea to mod the homework out.
Not Completely. Keep only absolutely essential mods…
I really only have Meaningful Stories from roburky to add some challenge to the emotion system and a few minor mods such as Eco Lifestyle Interaction fixes from Simvasion and some small ones from LittleMsSam. (I think that's her name) It takes effort to run through each mod after major patches and I don't want to expend much more than I have to.
I am thinking of a wants adjustment mod but it'd be something I'd save for after the Sims 4 is finished updating.
There are so many great mods out there, that make the game make sense and help fill in the giant holes EA has left in the game. It would be great to see EA use these mods to patch all the holes (like the unicorn being very sad and unmagical).
No. Mods are what personalise the game and make it fun.
I have my share of errors, but I absolutely could not play without my mods. Some of them, sure. But there are some that are vital to my game. It's worth the hassle to me.
Not Completely. Keep only absolutely essential mods…
Some mods are essential for when EA/Maxis fail to fix some bugs and in comes a mod that can be used until they address them. There are some mods that do add options that was not included in EA/Maxis vision. However, some mods need to be avoided such as core mods where you have to reinstall as deleting a mod that is core mod messes up the game.
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Not Completely. Keep only absolutely essential mods…
That doesn't seem like too many mods to keep track of. It is annoying when they cause issues though. I just got Horse Ranch and my sim would glitch off while trying to mount her horse, which turned out to be a mod issue. I would just keep the ones that feel essential to you.
Yes. It’ll make life easier (and probably the game too as many add challenges…)
Jokes on me. Everytime I think I'll play without mods for good, I slowly realize, oh wait, all my sims will get fat/muscular when I don't play them, better install fitness control. I need ui cheat extension to click away the stupid fears, I need 4 cas columns. I need sims spawn overhaul to see people walk their dogs in other worlds, stop people dressed for brindleton bay weather to show in oasis springs and keep vampires in forgotten hollow, I need mccc to make sure nothing happens to my core cast of sims.
Aaaaand just like that, I'm back using mods, and sad because my game doesn't run as smoothly as it should. But then again I did not make these sims just to watch the game destroy their appearance and relationships with each other. I've been playing some of them since ts2!
Yes. It’ll make life easier (and probably the game too as many add challenges…)
@Ninoosim I totally hear you. I can swear that one time I had this sim who was getting a bit overweight. Ok, no big deal. I sent her to the gym and she ran on the treadmill for a few hours. By the time she finished, she was perfectly slimmed down. That was too fast!
Jokes on me. Everytime I think I'll play without mods for good, I slowly realize, oh wait, all my sims will get fat/muscular when I don't play them, better install fitness control. I need ui cheat extension to click away the stupid fears, I need 4 cas columns. I need sims spawn overhaul to see people walk their dogs in other worlds, stop people dressed for brindleton bay weather to show in oasis springs and keep vampires in forgotten hollow, I need mccc to make sure nothing happens to my core cast of sims.
Aaaaand just like that, I'm back using mods, and sad because my game doesn't run as smoothly as it should. But then again I did not make these sims just to watch the game destroy their appearance and relationships with each other. I've been playing some of them since ts2!
@Ninoosim thanks for mentioning the sims spawn overhaul mod! Gonna grab that today.
There's also home regions and townie demographics, I only heard about them very recently so I need to test them, might be a little more involved with the settings but also once set up more powerful? Maybe more lag compared to the simspawnoverhaul.
Yes. It’ll make life easier (and probably the game too as many add challenges…)
I don’t use mods, I haven’t since the game started. I don’t use CC either, and I try not to money cheat with most of my families, people like the Landgrabbs I do. I never cheat moods or skills, to me, that just defeats the purpose of the game. Sometimes for the rich, I will download a maid or cook to the family that has top skills, but they are only extra’s in my game.
I do use cheats to bring my plants back from dirt piles, and to get rid of lifestyles I don’t think my sims should have, I also use moo some. And, I have aging turned off most of the time.
Because I don’t use Mods and CC, I don’t have to worry about them causing problems, when there is a bug….. I know it’s a bug. And, I update my game usually within a day, as soon as I know there aren’t any big game breaking things with it.
But really, if it’s what makes the game more fun for you. I would not want to have to be waiting to update my game, and if I stated using mods and customs content I would probably go way overboard, and spend most of my time looking for them.
@Ninoosim I totally hear you. I can swear that one time I had this sim who was getting a bit overweight. Ok, no big deal. I sent her to the gym and she ran on the treadmill for a few hours. By the time she finished, she was perfectly slimmed down. That was too fast!
Jokes on me. Everytime I think I'll play without mods for good, I slowly realize, oh wait, all my sims will get fat/muscular when I don't play them, better install fitness control. I need ui cheat extension to click away the stupid fears, I need 4 cas columns. I need sims spawn overhaul to see people walk their dogs in other worlds, stop people dressed for brindleton bay weather to show in oasis springs and keep vampires in forgotten hollow, I need mccc to make sure nothing happens to my core cast of sims.
Aaaaand just like that, I'm back using mods, and sad because my game doesn't run as smoothly as it should. But then again I did not make these sims just to watch the game destroy their appearance and relationships with each other. I've been playing some of them since ts2!
When I want my sims to lose weight I will take them out for diet ice cream….. lol. I have even taken townies out for it with dine out. But dine out is still having problems for me. I may try paring down my restaurants and see if that helps.
No. Mods are what personalise the game and make it fun.
Mods make the game for me. I would not play without them.
I need the ones that remove irritations, which is entirely subjective. I need the big UI mods for functionality, allowing me to play the way I want to play. I need the mods that give me new musical instruments and new activities like archery.
And just recently, I found I adore the mods from TheKalino that give me parts to make legendary creatures like a Pegasus, hippogriff, phoenix, and dragon for a legendary zoo.
I simply love my sims being able to ride a Pegasus that actually flies, because I have the mod for wings and the mod to make a horse fly (it uses the ghost horse float as a trait for horses that are not dead).
I cannot expect EA to make most of those things for me, because it is too niche.
As I added more mods, I did wonder if all the CC would make my game run more sluggish or buggy, but I have not noticed any difference at all. And I am playing on an intel iMac from 2020.
I do take care to use mods that do not conflict. It is also important to keep the mods organized in the Mods folder, and to never play with any of them until they are updated for each patch. I have a folder on my browser with the links to the Deaderpool Discord and also links to each modder I use, for easy updating. Considering how much mods add to my game play, I consider the time spent keeping them up to date as time well spent.
Edited to add that I always keep one game with no CC in it so that I can play vanilla after a patch, until modders update. That is also my test game to play a new pack. I don't mind going back to it each patch. Just part of the fun.
I mostly just keep the essential mods, but oddly that means a lot of mods for me since I have many tweaks for all the annoying things.
This is me. I restarted my Mods folder this spring from scratch when I my old save corrupted and decided to give up trying to fix it and just start over. "Essential" for me is a bunch of bandaid ("bugfix") mods for things I'm likely to run into, UI Cheats for more varied Sims (like, Adults with higher skills than teenagers, and higher job levels for some), More CAS Columns because I have all the packs, MCCC for some control of other things (but only a few modules, and not for story progression - I use it for tweaking occult events, keeping the Tragic Clown out of my life, and the like), and lots of tweaking mods on top of that to make the game run how I like instead of sometimes being annoying. Real life is annoying. I don't need my Sims to be annoying too. I need them to not be annoying. I'm holding off on complex gameplay mods right now. Home Regions is probably the only one I currently have. CC is where I'm really trying to resist "I might use that some day" and focus on things truly missing from the game (with all packs), like shiftable mirrors, functional radiators, Simlish overrides.
BUT... someday the next game will come out and this one might not be in development anymore and I just might start accumulating those complex game mods (there are some that I find really interesting, just not something I need right now) and, probably, lots of hairs.
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It's absolutely up to you how you play your game. I personally couldn't play without mods. I have tried, but there's a million little annoyances and things I want to change, so I have a huge but carefully curated selection of mods I use.
I currently have around 750 actual gameplay mods, as in, files that change how the game works, not just CC. I also have 30-40 GB of normal CC like clothes and hair and furniture. I don't get errors or lag because I'm extremely particular about sorting and updating my mods and checking for compatibility, but it can be a hassle to keep everything updated, and it can also be annoying to have to wait a few days while all the creators update their mods to be compatible with new patches and expansions (however, this wait also often allows EA to fix a few bugs so I was never hit by the tooth bug in Growing Together, for example).
All these mods make the game more enjoyable for me, so I choose to live with the few downsides because the benefits are huge to me. If you don't feel like messing with mods and the unmodded game is plenty of fun for you, just play vanilla. If you want to use just a few mods like MCCC or UI Cheats or some CC like default skins and eyes, go for it. If you want to go crazy and use 750 mods and deal with the consequences, I totally understand
It's your game and you get to decide how to enjoy it
No. Mods are what personalise the game and make it fun.
I have tons of mods and CC, and I could not imagine playing a The Sims game without them. There's so much that needs to be tuned, and so much depth added to gameplay by mods.
Also, without mods I wouldn't have my playable oboe! Can't even possible play without that! Plus, I have a couple of mods of my own and a bunch of CC I have in my game that I made or converted.
Not Completely. Keep only absolutely essential mods…
Mods go hand in hand with the Sims franchise. I've been using CC since Sims 1. I don't load it with script mods but I do have some extremely handy mods that make the in-game experience much better.
No. Mods are what personalise the game and make it fun.
@LeucosiaX Here is a suggestion: Slide your Mods folder over onto your desktop and label it OLD MODS. Then start a new Mods folder and put in that new folder the five mods or CC that you know you cannot live without. Start a new game you have not played before. If something annoying happens that you had a mod to correct, then stop the game and put that mod in the new Mods folder. If you realize you are missing some functionality that you almost forgot was in your game because of a mod and you miss it, stop the game and add that mod. Keep doing this until you you are playing the game and simply having fun, not annoyed and not missing anything. That is your happy place, and you have all the essential mods in your new Mods folder. Anything you add beyond that is tweaking your game, just for fun.
@LeucosiaX Here is a suggestion: Slide your Mods folder over onto your desktop and label it OLD MODS. Then start a new Mods folder and put in that new folder the five mods or CC that you know you cannot live without. Start a new game you have not played before. If something annoying happens that you had a mod to correct, then stop the game and put that mod in the new Mods folder. If you realize you are missing some functionality that you almost forgot was in your game because of a mod and you miss it, stop the game and add that mod. Keep doing this until you you are playing the game and simply having fun, not annoyed and not missing anything. That is your happy place, and you have all the essential mods in your new Mods folder. Anything you add beyond that is tweaking your game, just for fun.
Comments
I may need to make a few exceptions; I believe that the amount of homework in TS2 is unreasonable and it may be a good idea to mod the homework out.
I am thinking of a wants adjustment mod but it'd be something I'd save for after the Sims 4 is finished updating.
Aaaaand just like that, I'm back using mods, and sad because my game doesn't run as smoothly as it should. But then again I did not make these sims just to watch the game destroy their appearance and relationships with each other. I've been playing some of them since ts2!
There's also home regions and townie demographics, I only heard about them very recently so I need to test them, might be a little more involved with the settings but also once set up more powerful? Maybe more lag compared to the simspawnoverhaul.
I do use cheats to bring my plants back from dirt piles, and to get rid of lifestyles I don’t think my sims should have, I also use moo some. And, I have aging turned off most of the time.
Because I don’t use Mods and CC, I don’t have to worry about them causing problems, when there is a bug….. I know it’s a bug. And, I update my game usually within a day, as soon as I know there aren’t any big game breaking things with it.
But really, if it’s what makes the game more fun for you. I would not want to have to be waiting to update my game, and if I stated using mods and customs content I would probably go way overboard, and spend most of my time looking for them.
When I want my sims to lose weight I will take them out for diet ice cream….. lol. I have even taken townies out for it with dine out. But dine out is still having problems for me. I may try paring down my restaurants and see if that helps.
I need the ones that remove irritations, which is entirely subjective. I need the big UI mods for functionality, allowing me to play the way I want to play. I need the mods that give me new musical instruments and new activities like archery.
And just recently, I found I adore the mods from TheKalino that give me parts to make legendary creatures like a Pegasus, hippogriff, phoenix, and dragon for a legendary zoo.
I simply love my sims being able to ride a Pegasus that actually flies, because I have the mod for wings and the mod to make a horse fly (it uses the ghost horse float as a trait for horses that are not dead).
I cannot expect EA to make most of those things for me, because it is too niche.
As I added more mods, I did wonder if all the CC would make my game run more sluggish or buggy, but I have not noticed any difference at all. And I am playing on an intel iMac from 2020.
I do take care to use mods that do not conflict. It is also important to keep the mods organized in the Mods folder, and to never play with any of them until they are updated for each patch. I have a folder on my browser with the links to the Deaderpool Discord and also links to each modder I use, for easy updating. Considering how much mods add to my game play, I consider the time spent keeping them up to date as time well spent.
Edited to add that I always keep one game with no CC in it so that I can play vanilla after a patch, until modders update. That is also my test game to play a new pack. I don't mind going back to it each patch. Just part of the fun.
This is me. I restarted my Mods folder this spring from scratch when I my old save corrupted and decided to give up trying to fix it and just start over. "Essential" for me is a bunch of bandaid ("bugfix") mods for things I'm likely to run into, UI Cheats for more varied Sims (like, Adults with higher skills than teenagers, and higher job levels for some), More CAS Columns because I have all the packs, MCCC for some control of other things (but only a few modules, and not for story progression - I use it for tweaking occult events, keeping the Tragic Clown out of my life, and the like), and lots of tweaking mods on top of that to make the game run how I like instead of sometimes being annoying. Real life is annoying. I don't need my Sims to be annoying too. I need them to not be annoying. I'm holding off on complex gameplay mods right now. Home Regions is probably the only one I currently have. CC is where I'm really trying to resist "I might use that some day" and focus on things truly missing from the game (with all packs), like shiftable mirrors, functional radiators, Simlish overrides.
BUT... someday the next game will come out and this one might not be in development anymore and I just might start accumulating those complex game mods (there are some that I find really interesting, just not something I need right now) and, probably, lots of hairs.
I currently have around 750 actual gameplay mods, as in, files that change how the game works, not just CC. I also have 30-40 GB of normal CC like clothes and hair and furniture. I don't get errors or lag because I'm extremely particular about sorting and updating my mods and checking for compatibility, but it can be a hassle to keep everything updated, and it can also be annoying to have to wait a few days while all the creators update their mods to be compatible with new patches and expansions (however, this wait also often allows EA to fix a few bugs so I was never hit by the tooth bug in Growing Together, for example).
All these mods make the game more enjoyable for me, so I choose to live with the few downsides because the benefits are huge to me. If you don't feel like messing with mods and the unmodded game is plenty of fun for you, just play vanilla. If you want to use just a few mods like MCCC or UI Cheats or some CC like default skins and eyes, go for it. If you want to go crazy and use 750 mods and deal with the consequences, I totally understand
It's your game and you get to decide how to enjoy it
Also, without mods I wouldn't have my playable oboe! Can't even possible play without that! Plus, I have a couple of mods of my own and a bunch of CC I have in my game that I made or converted.
That's a great idea @amjoie ! thank you 🙂