I haven't updated my game yet, so I'm still playing the prior version but I definitely do not want neighborhood stories. I use MCCC and I prefer to keep using it rather than have EA screw up my game and my sims relationships. I'll patch my game when they patch this patch and add an off switch.
That's exactly how I feel, I don't use MCCC for any type of story progression but I don't want EA to mess with my families lives and I 1000% do not want a bunch of interrupting phone calls disrupting my story. Especially after seeing some of the ones people have gotten. (IE: a grandmother asking her toddler granddaughter if she should switch careers).
And since I had zero interest in the "manly" kit they just put out, I have no need to update the game and will pass on any new DLC that's upcoming until they add a complete "OFF" toggle for Neighborhood Stories.
I'm not updating either, until this feature either gets an official on/off switch or a modded one. I hope it gets an official off setting though, since not everyone who wants to turn it off uses mods. But for me, eh, I already have over 80 mods, what's one more.
It's not a bad spot for me to wait it out, since at the moment I'm not having any bugs that really interfere with my style of gameplay, and I have all the packs I'm currently interested in getting. I already always play offline anyway. So I can be pretty patient. But, I think it was a poorly thought out choice on their part to introduce this feature without an on/off setting from the start, given how divided the community is on whether or not they wanted a story progression feature in the first place.
Anyone already know what the calls asking whether Sim X should spend more time with Sim Y calls mean? Is ist just friendship or are they asking to involve in a romantic relationship as @Sharonia wrote?
I just got such a call from an elder female that is happily married with three children and the Sim she wanted to get involved in was a mean young adult who is also married - I was too scared to tell her she shall go for it, especially as I'm playing this familiy on rotation).
The wording is confusing on some of the texts, it's hard to know what they mean. I don't see why a mother should want to get to know her son that she lives with more. He's her son, shouldn't she already know him well enough?
Because the game's AI is not programmed to assume that and may not differentiate a parent-child's relationship vs non-related relationship (for that individual text prompt). I don't know the details of how its coded, but I imagine a lot of it is randomly generated and it's not fine tuned to recognize those sort of things (if not just a glitch).
And a direct example would be the prompt where a BF tells the GF that he found a ring in his GF's purse and asking if HE should accept (even though the GF is being actively played in this scenario). It's not finely tuned and there are some weird bumps/disconnects (that will HOPEFULLY be fine tuned as time goes on).
The reason I asked if the text/call was specifically romantic or not (or if just vague), is because if it was romantic that is a big error that needs fixing asap and should be reported. If it's just a scenario where a mom wanting to spend time with her son in a general/platonic manner; while it is something that is certainly weird narratively and needs to be tweaked but not as big of a priority as if it were an incest glitch.
I have never played any sims game with story progression on. I play with aging off, and no sims in the world die if I can help it. If I want a sim to be in a particular situation, I switch households, play that household until I get the outcome I want, and then go back to my main family. I have played that way for so many years that I would be very unhappy to change my style of play.
To me, playing "my way" IS the sims. I am guessing a lot of players feel that way. I think if EA does not voluntarily offer us a toggle to turn off story progression, they are likely to get hounded until they do.
That being said, I know a segment of players really want a changing world, so I am glad EA will be offering the option. As long as it remains an option ....
Okay, okay, I really love this update and would never turn it off, but I see why some of you are hesitating to update, because yeah, to be honest, even if you intend to select no in every phone call option, you know, you could miss that one time and hit the wrong option and then BOOM that Sim will become pregnant or quit their high paying office career to take up work as a gardener. I'm generally very excited when my Sims want to make babies or new friends, because it's something I want for them, but when that career one pops up my fingers tremble a little bit before I hit the no option, unless it's for a promotion. I work so hard advancing their careers. My Sims and I have different opinions about what their dream jobs are. They have no autonomy in my game. It's funny that they think they can choose new careers for themselves all of a sudden. They think they can just throw away all my hard work leveling up their careers to do something else and I'm just NO you must keep doing the job I chose for you.
If they don't add an off option in the main menu, there should at least be the option to x out of the window so you don't have to choose anything, you know, in case you accidentally click in the wrong place and alter a Sim's life dramatically.
What I would really like is they should make a type of answering machine so you can leave your phone on silence and then check your messages after the call to find out what it was about: date invitation, social event invite, inheritance money, advice about friendship, career, family, or money begging ... and then choose to call the Sim back and initiate the event popup. That's what I do in real life anway. I don't answer my cell phone ever. I return calls after I listened to the message.
I updated my game. One of my sims called about finding a ring in her boyfriend's stuff. Can't remember the specifics. After 10 seconds of staring at the screen I said no. The reply for this was: "You think so? I wasn't sure... but you're right. I guess it just wasn't written in the stars."
I love to take pictures of every special moment so I don't think I'll say yes to these engagement calls that often. I didn't feel like answering the phone after that. For now, at least you won't get the pop up window unless you click to answer the phone.
I'm also holding off on updating my game until they come out with an off option. But who knows how long THAT'LL take let's be honest. Remember when they implemented the likes/dislikes system and said that it was only the beginning and that they planned on expanding it? I'm still waiting for my sims who hate dancing to not autonomously dance and get mad about it 🙄 stop dancing then!!
But yeah. I'm so tired of them patching in half baked systems and telling us they'll fix/update it later. Why couldn't they just wait until they had developed it more? I don't understand the logic here. They could've just told us they were working on a progression system and showed what they had so far in a livestream. You know, maybe get people excited? Instead of apprehensive about updating their game if they're a player who doesn't like SP? But they don't communicate with us in advance on anything so I guess that was never an option...
I've never liked SP in my sims games. I have my stories planned out and I don't want that getting messed with. My sims have personalities that I don't want being contradicted (and let's be honest, with how the sims in TS4 currently operate my sims personalities get contradicted often enough since the sims all act so similarly in the first place, I don't need that happening MORE often).
All I want is an easy off switch, and I can't believe they implemented this (unfinished) system without even an off button. And by that blog post, it sounds like once they DO implement a way to turn it off, it'll be on a household by household basis, which sounds annoying and tedious af to have to turn off. I can definitely see the appeal of having it on a household basis, but there should also be one big master control switch to turn it off.
And don't even get me started on them moving up from taking items out of packs and putting them in BG, to them now just taking gameplay features from packs and putting them into BG 🙄🙄 It comes down to not having foresight and it's so frustrating. They implement systems without thinking about how things might change in the future or how they might be able to be expanded upon by other systems working in tandem. It just feels like they think about everything separately, then in the future they realize "hey maybe this should've been in the game the whole time", like with the calendar. It just makes it feel like they aren't thinking about these things when they're developing packs, and it ties into the whole unfinished systems thing. I'm just really tired of it all 😔 Like they're moving so fast to push out packs they just don't think about how to make systems work together or how future systems might be impacted. I'm assuming it's coming from poor management or low budget or teams not communicating or something but yeah I just want to see more cohesion and foresight happening and I feel like it's just getting worse. In previous iterations, systems compounded with each other and made things deep and interesting, and I just don't see that happening with TS4. And it's another reason why I'm so apprehensive about how SP is going to look going forward.
Hibwstly you shpuld be fine with the phone calls regarding SP. I haven't had that many about it, only one. So I don't think anyone should be grtting too many of them.
The one thing I don't like that needs fixing:
My sim got a call from a friend telling her she's pregnant. Later, she called and said she'd had the baby. I have extended pregnancies through mcc and the 'expectant sim' wasn't even pregnant to begin with! So there really needs to be an off switch for the new story progression because it's a joke.
The only thing I like is the fact that your friends ask if they should hang out with another friend of yours.
I have more faith in the Mc Command Center mod than this update, because the mod effects all sims, not just those who know your active household.
Origin ID HillyPlays P.A.C.E- Positive Attitude Changes Everything
@HillyBeth That sounds like a conflict between MCCC and new gameplay, not an issue with the new gameplay. Have you reported it to Deaderpool?
EA CREATOR NETWORK MEMBER — Want to be notified of patches, new Broken Mods threads, and urgent Sims 4 news? Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/luthienrising.
I started a new save and had my Sims pick careers and then go to the gym to use the equipment there. My Sims always start with the treadmills if they can beat Makoa, one of the mermaids, and the gym trainer to them. From that point on, my Sims become chat magnets for every pre-made Sim that enters the gym. My Sims leave the gym after two hours and go home with several very low-level acquaintances in their relationship panels.
My Sims start their new jobs on Monday or Tuesday which triggers congratulatory phone calls from the pre-made Sims they met briefly at the gym on Sunday.
Tuesday evening one of my Sims gets a phone call from Uku who was at the gym on Sunday. Uku wanted to know if he should try to get to know Darell, from Glimmbrook, better. Darrel was also at the gym on Sunday and had initiated a conversation with my Sims. My reactions on behalf of my Sim were:
1. I barely know you so I don't care what you do.
2. I barely know Darrel so I don't care what he does.
3. Leave me alone.
Shortly after my other Sim gets a phone call from Darrel wanting to know if he should get to know Makoa better. Makoa was also at the gym on Sunday. My response on behalf of my Sim was:
- I don't care.
- Leave me alone.
Tuesday afternoon one of my Sims went to the library to use a computer because they can't afford to buy one yet. While he's there, his roommate called to ask if he should change careers. Uh, no you just started the first one. Why are you calling me? You're supposed to be at work right now.
I vote for an "OFF" button for this progression nonsense. I don't think it's ever going to get better because of how the Sims themselves seemed to be programmed to have an excessive need to socialize with anyone and everyone. Phone calls that slow down the clock while a Sim is at work are just going to get worse. Strangers are calling during the day to offer congratulations on getting a job or getting promoted. If I knew you I might care, but I don't so leave me alone. Strangers call wanting to know if my Sims want to join their clubs. No. And then the members of the Welcome Wagon that got angry because my Sims didn't answer the door fast enough start calling. They want to meet for lunch or something because "we got off to a bad start."
Is the point of this so-called story progression to play the pre-made Sims and townies instead of our own Sims? Because that's what it's starting to feel like.
Although I like the feature, I agree with you @lexibee . Why not take longer to tease and market the feature, while testing it and finishing that on/off toggle?
Anyone already know what the calls asking whether Sim X should spend more time with Sim Y calls mean? Is ist just friendship or are they asking to involve in a romantic relationship as @Sharonia wrote?
I just got such a call from an elder female that is happily married with three children and the Sim she wanted to get involved in was a mean young adult who is also married - I was too scared to tell her she shall go for it, especially as I'm playing this familiy on rotation).
I am not sure about this one. I answered yes one time and it seemed like it was just a friendship but I really should have checked the sims to see if the romantic bar changed. The message I got back was something like we had a good time and they were quite amusing. Sounded like friendship.
You know this system is even worse when the pop ups are vague and you are not sure what is going to happen if you say yes. They really need to be clear about these things. I just hate this system with a passion. I am sure my sims are possibly losing friends because I have been just saying no to everything lately. I just want an off button. I create my own drama. In a sense this system is still just making me have to create my own drama so what is the point?
I haven't updated my game yet, so I'm still playing the prior version but I definitely do not want neighborhood stories. I use MCCC and I prefer to keep using it rather than have EA screw up my game and my sims relationships. I'll patch my game when they patch this patch and add an off switch.
That's exactly how I feel, I don't use MCCC for any type of story progression but I don't want EA to mess with my families lives and I 1000% do not want a bunch of interrupting phone calls disrupting my story. Especially after seeing some of the ones people have gotten. (IE: a grandmother asking her toddler granddaughter if she should switch careers).
And since I had zero interest in the "manly" kit they just put out, I have no need to update the game and will pass on any new DLC that's upcoming until they add a complete "OFF" toggle for Neighborhood Stories.
I'm not updating either, until this feature either gets an official on/off switch or a modded one. I hope it gets an official off setting though, since not everyone who wants to turn it off uses mods. But for me, eh, I already have over 80 mods, what's one more.
It's not a bad spot for me to wait it out, since at the moment I'm not having any bugs that really interfere with my style of gameplay, and I have all the packs I'm currently interested in getting. I already always play offline anyway. So I can be pretty patient. But, I think it was a poorly thought out choice on their part to introduce this feature without an on/off setting from the start, given how divided the community is on whether or not they wanted a story progression feature in the first place.
I updated my game. One of my sims called about finding a ring in her boyfriend's stuff. Can't remember the specifics. After 10 seconds of staring at the screen I said no. The reply for this was: "You think so? I wasn't sure... but you're right. I guess it just wasn't written in the stars."
I love to take pictures of every special moment so I don't think I'll say yes to these engagement calls that often. I didn't feel like answering the phone after that. For now, at least you won't get the pop up window unless you click to answer the phone.
Edit: I'll see how it goes in other households.
I have been ignoring calls a lot lately because I don't even want to get asked any questions.
I started a new save and had my Sims pick careers and then go to the gym to use the equipment there. My Sims always start with the treadmills if they can beat Makoa, one of the mermaids, and the gym trainer to them. From that point on, my Sims become chat magnets for every pre-made Sim that enters the gym. My Sims leave the gym after two hours and go home with several very low-level acquaintances in their relationship panels.
My Sims start their new jobs on Monday or Tuesday which triggers congratulatory phone calls from the pre-made Sims they met briefly at the gym on Sunday.
Tuesday evening one of my Sims gets a phone call from Uku who was at the gym on Sunday. Uku wanted to know if he should try to get to know Darell, from Glimmbrook, better. Darrel was also at the gym on Sunday and had initiated a conversation with my Sims. My reactions on behalf of my Sim were:
1. I barely know you so I don't care what you do.
2. I barely know Darrel so I don't care what he does.
3. Leave me alone.
Shortly after my other Sim gets a phone call from Darrel wanting to know if he should get to know Makoa better. Makoa was also at the gym on Sunday. My response on behalf of my Sim was:
- I don't care.
- Leave me alone.
Tuesday afternoon one of my Sims went to the library to use a computer because they can't afford to buy one yet. While he's there, his roommate called to ask if he should change careers. Uh, no you just started the first one. Why are you calling me? You're supposed to be at work right now.
I vote for an "OFF" button for this progression nonsense. I don't think it's ever going to get better because of how the Sims themselves seemed to be programmed to have an excessive need to socialize with anyone and everyone. Phone calls that slow down the clock while a Sim is at work are just going to get worse. Strangers are calling during the day to offer congratulations on getting a job or getting promoted. If I knew you I might care, but I don't so leave me alone. Strangers call wanting to know if my Sims want to join their clubs. No. And then the members of the Welcome Wagon that got angry because my Sims didn't answer the door fast enough start calling. They want to meet for lunch or something because "we got off to a bad start."
Is the point of this so-called story progression to play the pre-made Sims and townies instead of our own Sims? Because that's what it's starting to feel like.
I for one, am enjoying watching this latest EA debacle. I cannot understand why this was released unfinished. No ON/OFF switch? Amazing. All I can think is it's some kind of test being carried out on the players. No way am I updating. I may never update again.
Another thing I cannot figure out is how these "stories" relate in any way to "story progression." It's not "story progression." I won't go through all the examples I'm seeing posted everywhere, so many have been mentioned already. I do personally like the "pregnancy" phone call where the other party isn't pregnant and never was. LOL.
I will give you a couple of examples of "story progression" using MCCC. I have a save that I've been playing for a while and I just found out that Nancy Landgraab is pregnant. Yes Nancy. Not the most "family" oriented sim in the game. Anyway, Nancy is pregnant and that is a surprising and fun twist to the game. My two sims are acquainted with the Landgraabs but why would Geoffrey or Nancy call my sim to ask if they should get pregnant? I mean do you see the absurdity of that? Maybe not. What would their decision to get pregnant have to do with my sims? That is how "story progression" works. Sims living, loving, divorcing, making babies. That's the whole point. It would be like a neighbor of mine that I met in passing at the block party calling me to ask if they should have a baby.
Another example in the same save, is a few sim days ago Bjorn and Clara Bjergsen got divorced. I would not have expected that. And Bjorn is romantically involved with the pizza delivery lady, LOL. Poor Clara. An example of real "story progression." Again, why on earth would Bjorn call my sim to ask him if he should leave his wife? Or my sim call Bjorn to tell HIM to leave his wife? Nothing but an absurdity is this new system of "stories." Story progression should be sims going about their sim lives. That's what enriches the game. That's what makes the game interesting. Not random phone calls. Sheesh.
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).”
― Mark Twain
I for one, am enjoying watching this latest EA debacle. I cannot understand why this was released unfinished. No ON/OFF switch? Amazing. All I can think is it's some kind of test being carried out on the players. No way am I updating. I may never update again.
Another thing I cannot figure out is how these "stories" relate in any way to "story progression." It's not "story progression." I won't go through all the examples I'm seeing posted everywhere, so many have been mentioned already. I do personally like the "pregnancy" phone call where the other party isn't pregnant and never was. LOL.
I will give you a couple of examples of "story progression" using MCCC. I have a save that I've been playing for a while and I just found out that Nancy Landgraab is pregnant. Yes Nancy. Not the most "family" oriented sim in the game. Anyway, Nancy is pregnant and that is a surprising and fun twist to the game. My two sims are acquainted with the Landgraabs but why would Geoffrey or Nancy call my sim to ask if they should get pregnant? I mean do you see the absurdity of that? Maybe not. What would their decision to get pregnant have to do with my sims? That is how "story progression" works. Sims living, loving, divorcing, making babies. That's the whole point. It would be like a neighbor of mine that I met in passing at the block party calling me to ask if they should have a baby.
Another example in the same save, is a few sim days ago Bjorn and Clara Bjergsen got divorced. I would not have expected that. And Bjorn is romantically involved with the pizza delivery lady, LOL. Poor Clara. An example of real "story progression." Again, why on earth would Bjorn call my sim to ask him if he should leave his wife? Or my sim call Bjorn to tell HIM to leave his wife? Nothing but an absurdity is this new system of "stories." Story progression should be sims going about their sim lives. That's what enriches the game. That's what makes the game interesting. Not random phone calls. Sheesh.
Except that a lot of people don’t like or want MCCC or S3 story progression in their game. Yes, I know. The Magic Word “toggle”. But it’s been indicated that the number of toggles in S3 contributed to that game’s instability, so the devs are trying to bring in a type of story progression with player control through in game action.
I really don’t mind that this only affects the sims my sims know. I don’t really care if other households make changes. And I think it’s nice that we are given a choice before any changes happen. Otherwise it might ruin the plans I have for marrying certain sims or seeing how a couple’s kids would end up. I like being consulted about this stuff. It will be even better when we can mark certain households off-limits, because I would rarely or never approve a change within the households I play.
There are some core relationship issues that I wish would get fixed which would allow us even more control over who gets to call us about their life choices or the other sims involved in those decisions:
Let us remove sims from the relationship panel. Other sims butt into my conversations and I don’t want to know them. Then they end up being friends with my sims somehow while I’m playing other households. I don’t want them calling me for advice. Relationship Culling often makes my sim forget they even knew people- give us the choice on who to cull. It’s not as if they have dozens of acquaintances - there should at least be a limit there if anyone is to be culled, ever. But I‘ve seen culling occur and they know just 3 other sims that are in their own household. That’s so unnecessary. Meanwhile, my small children are upset because someone apparently died who they had no business knowing. I want to remove these weird relationships when I see them.
Relationship Culling has destroyed the relationships around me in households I wasn’t playing. I want those maintained so that Rashidah Watson can one day ask me if she should say yes to a proposal from Rahul Chopra. Or Kaori Nishidake from Kitoshi Ito. Or Siobhan Fyres from Sergio Romeo. Unless I mark them as “played” immediately at the start of a game, it’s like they never knew each other.
Except that a lot of people don’t like or want MCCC or S3 story progression in their game. Yes, I know. The Magic Word “toggle”. But it’s been indicated that the number of toggles in S3 contributed to that game’s instability, so the devs are trying to bring in a type of story progression with player control through in game action.
I can't imagine why toggles would inherently lead to instability in a computer program, that sounds like a design problem. They already have tons of them and they keep coming: packs. Of many sizes.
Why they are using the drama nodes feature I don't know, which seem to be in desperate need of actually working filters/tests that many other parts of the game have. Like how many times have people complained of phone calls not filtering for sims and relationships between them properly? And then there are reports that's happening with the stories prompts too. Go figure.
It seems like the route they have chosen would be unnecessarily hard to turn off on a global level. Maybe they were supposed to figure it out without reaching out to a gameplay engineer or something (or it was pitched as something easy-ish to do "because we can use an existing system"?), but this neighborhood stories thing should probably be its own system and tuning type, so it can be easily turned on or off (or blocked or whatever) and so it won't suffer from the same problems that have plagued the phone calls system for I don't know how long. It seems like their choice here has to lead to that separation or a serious look at the entire phone call system.
If I'm being charitable, maybe doing it through the phone system is just for prototyping to get a feel for how people react to the general concept, but if so, they should have been upfront about that.
I have mentioned this before in the dim and distant past, and it is very unlikely it will be done, but the game needs an overhaul of the options altogether.
Many complex simulation type games such as Crusader Kings have very deep game setup options, where game parameters can be adjusted with either selecting values or in some cases sliders so the player can balance the game to their taste by selecting the severity of some mechanics or disabling them altogether. Of course a player has the option of ignoring these altogether.
In addition, many options are provided on the main HUD of these type of games - autonomy and aging options would be excellent candidates for this in Sims 4, IMO.
Mods like MCCC go a long way towards alleviating this problem in Sims 4 and would not be surprised to see the option to disable neighbourhood stories in that mod.
However, mods don't help the console player. I have not played the console version so not even sure those players can set 'testingcheats', so the option to disable should certainly be provided if just for those players - also lob in a few cheats for them for good measure Perfect for the new DRM - er, I mean Smart Delivery. I suspect in many cases console players would appreciate more game options rather than a new coat once in a while
I play on the pc, but don’t us CC or mods. I want to be able to turn SP off in my rotational saves. I don’t want to be forced to get a mod to do it. I don’t feel comfortable using mods.
Comments
I'm not updating either, until this feature either gets an official on/off switch or a modded one. I hope it gets an official off setting though, since not everyone who wants to turn it off uses mods. But for me, eh, I already have over 80 mods, what's one more.
It's not a bad spot for me to wait it out, since at the moment I'm not having any bugs that really interfere with my style of gameplay, and I have all the packs I'm currently interested in getting. I already always play offline anyway. So I can be pretty patient. But, I think it was a poorly thought out choice on their part to introduce this feature without an on/off setting from the start, given how divided the community is on whether or not they wanted a story progression feature in the first place.
Because the game's AI is not programmed to assume that and may not differentiate a parent-child's relationship vs non-related relationship (for that individual text prompt). I don't know the details of how its coded, but I imagine a lot of it is randomly generated and it's not fine tuned to recognize those sort of things (if not just a glitch).
And a direct example would be the prompt where a BF tells the GF that he found a ring in his GF's purse and asking if HE should accept (even though the GF is being actively played in this scenario). It's not finely tuned and there are some weird bumps/disconnects (that will HOPEFULLY be fine tuned as time goes on).
The reason I asked if the text/call was specifically romantic or not (or if just vague), is because if it was romantic that is a big error that needs fixing asap and should be reported. If it's just a scenario where a mom wanting to spend time with her son in a general/platonic manner; while it is something that is certainly weird narratively and needs to be tweaked but not as big of a priority as if it were an incest glitch.
To me, playing "my way" IS the sims. I am guessing a lot of players feel that way. I think if EA does not voluntarily offer us a toggle to turn off story progression, they are likely to get hounded until they do.
That being said, I know a segment of players really want a changing world, so I am glad EA will be offering the option. As long as it remains an option ....
Okay, okay, I really love this update and would never turn it off, but I see why some of you are hesitating to update, because yeah, to be honest, even if you intend to select no in every phone call option, you know, you could miss that one time and hit the wrong option and then BOOM that Sim will become pregnant or quit their high paying office career to take up work as a gardener. I'm generally very excited when my Sims want to make babies or new friends, because it's something I want for them, but when that career one pops up my fingers tremble a little bit before I hit the no option, unless it's for a promotion. I work so hard advancing their careers. My Sims and I have different opinions about what their dream jobs are. They have no autonomy in my game. It's funny that they think they can choose new careers for themselves all of a sudden. They think they can just throw away all my hard work leveling up their careers to do something else and I'm just NO you must keep doing the job I chose for you.
If they don't add an off option in the main menu, there should at least be the option to x out of the window so you don't have to choose anything, you know, in case you accidentally click in the wrong place and alter a Sim's life dramatically.
What I would really like is they should make a type of answering machine so you can leave your phone on silence and then check your messages after the call to find out what it was about: date invitation, social event invite, inheritance money, advice about friendship, career, family, or money begging ... and then choose to call the Sim back and initiate the event popup. That's what I do in real life anway. I don't answer my cell phone ever. I return calls after I listened to the message.
I love to take pictures of every special moment so I don't think I'll say yes to these engagement calls that often. I didn't feel like answering the phone after that. For now, at least you won't get the pop up window unless you click to answer the phone.
Edit: I'll see how it goes in other households.
But yeah. I'm so tired of them patching in half baked systems and telling us they'll fix/update it later. Why couldn't they just wait until they had developed it more? I don't understand the logic here. They could've just told us they were working on a progression system and showed what they had so far in a livestream. You know, maybe get people excited? Instead of apprehensive about updating their game if they're a player who doesn't like SP? But they don't communicate with us in advance on anything so I guess that was never an option...
I've never liked SP in my sims games. I have my stories planned out and I don't want that getting messed with. My sims have personalities that I don't want being contradicted (and let's be honest, with how the sims in TS4 currently operate my sims personalities get contradicted often enough since the sims all act so similarly in the first place, I don't need that happening MORE often).
All I want is an easy off switch, and I can't believe they implemented this (unfinished) system without even an off button. And by that blog post, it sounds like once they DO implement a way to turn it off, it'll be on a household by household basis, which sounds annoying and tedious af to have to turn off. I can definitely see the appeal of having it on a household basis, but there should also be one big master control switch to turn it off.
And don't even get me started on them moving up from taking items out of packs and putting them in BG, to them now just taking gameplay features from packs and putting them into BG 🙄🙄 It comes down to not having foresight and it's so frustrating. They implement systems without thinking about how things might change in the future or how they might be able to be expanded upon by other systems working in tandem. It just feels like they think about everything separately, then in the future they realize "hey maybe this should've been in the game the whole time", like with the calendar. It just makes it feel like they aren't thinking about these things when they're developing packs, and it ties into the whole unfinished systems thing. I'm just really tired of it all 😔 Like they're moving so fast to push out packs they just don't think about how to make systems work together or how future systems might be impacted. I'm assuming it's coming from poor management or low budget or teams not communicating or something but yeah I just want to see more cohesion and foresight happening and I feel like it's just getting worse. In previous iterations, systems compounded with each other and made things deep and interesting, and I just don't see that happening with TS4. And it's another reason why I'm so apprehensive about how SP is going to look going forward.
My sim got a call from a friend telling her she's pregnant. Later, she called and said she'd had the baby. I have extended pregnancies through mcc and the 'expectant sim' wasn't even pregnant to begin with! So there really needs to be an off switch for the new story progression because it's a joke.
The only thing I like is the fact that your friends ask if they should hang out with another friend of yours.
I have more faith in the Mc Command Center mod than this update, because the mod effects all sims, not just those who know your active household.
HillyPlays
P.A.C.E- Positive Attitude Changes Everything
I don't know where you saw that but in the code, all of these calls are disabled for toddlers.
I saw it on twitter earlier today...
My Sims start their new jobs on Monday or Tuesday which triggers congratulatory phone calls from the pre-made Sims they met briefly at the gym on Sunday.
Tuesday evening one of my Sims gets a phone call from Uku who was at the gym on Sunday. Uku wanted to know if he should try to get to know Darell, from Glimmbrook, better. Darrel was also at the gym on Sunday and had initiated a conversation with my Sims. My reactions on behalf of my Sim were:
1. I barely know you so I don't care what you do.
2. I barely know Darrel so I don't care what he does.
3. Leave me alone.
Shortly after my other Sim gets a phone call from Darrel wanting to know if he should get to know Makoa better. Makoa was also at the gym on Sunday. My response on behalf of my Sim was:
- I don't care.
- Leave me alone.
Tuesday afternoon one of my Sims went to the library to use a computer because they can't afford to buy one yet. While he's there, his roommate called to ask if he should change careers. Uh, no you just started the first one. Why are you calling me? You're supposed to be at work right now.
I vote for an "OFF" button for this progression nonsense. I don't think it's ever going to get better because of how the Sims themselves seemed to be programmed to have an excessive need to socialize with anyone and everyone. Phone calls that slow down the clock while a Sim is at work are just going to get worse. Strangers are calling during the day to offer congratulations on getting a job or getting promoted. If I knew you I might care, but I don't so leave me alone. Strangers call wanting to know if my Sims want to join their clubs. No. And then the members of the Welcome Wagon that got angry because my Sims didn't answer the door fast enough start calling. They want to meet for lunch or something because "we got off to a bad start."
Is the point of this so-called story progression to play the pre-made Sims and townies instead of our own Sims? Because that's what it's starting to feel like.
I am not sure about this one. I answered yes one time and it seemed like it was just a friendship but I really should have checked the sims to see if the romantic bar changed. The message I got back was something like we had a good time and they were quite amusing. Sounded like friendship.
You know this system is even worse when the pop ups are vague and you are not sure what is going to happen if you say yes. They really need to be clear about these things. I just hate this system with a passion. I am sure my sims are possibly losing friends because I have been just saying no to everything lately. I just want an off button. I create my own drama. In a sense this system is still just making me have to create my own drama so what is the point?
exactly
I have been ignoring calls a lot lately because I don't even want to get asked any questions.
LOL agreed. It is a nightmare for sure.
Another thing I cannot figure out is how these "stories" relate in any way to "story progression." It's not "story progression." I won't go through all the examples I'm seeing posted everywhere, so many have been mentioned already. I do personally like the "pregnancy" phone call where the other party isn't pregnant and never was. LOL.
I will give you a couple of examples of "story progression" using MCCC. I have a save that I've been playing for a while and I just found out that Nancy Landgraab is pregnant. Yes Nancy. Not the most "family" oriented sim in the game. Anyway, Nancy is pregnant and that is a surprising and fun twist to the game. My two sims are acquainted with the Landgraabs but why would Geoffrey or Nancy call my sim to ask if they should get pregnant? I mean do you see the absurdity of that? Maybe not. What would their decision to get pregnant have to do with my sims? That is how "story progression" works. Sims living, loving, divorcing, making babies. That's the whole point. It would be like a neighbor of mine that I met in passing at the block party calling me to ask if they should have a baby.
Another example in the same save, is a few sim days ago Bjorn and Clara Bjergsen got divorced. I would not have expected that. And Bjorn is romantically involved with the pizza delivery lady, LOL. Poor Clara. An example of real "story progression." Again, why on earth would Bjorn call my sim to ask him if he should leave his wife? Or my sim call Bjorn to tell HIM to leave his wife? Nothing but an absurdity is this new system of "stories." Story progression should be sims going about their sim lives. That's what enriches the game. That's what makes the game interesting. Not random phone calls. Sheesh.
― Mark Twain
Except that a lot of people don’t like or want MCCC or S3 story progression in their game. Yes, I know. The Magic Word “toggle”. But it’s been indicated that the number of toggles in S3 contributed to that game’s instability, so the devs are trying to bring in a type of story progression with player control through in game action.
Tales From The Myst
The Blue Moon Jukebox
There are some core relationship issues that I wish would get fixed which would allow us even more control over who gets to call us about their life choices or the other sims involved in those decisions:
Let us remove sims from the relationship panel. Other sims butt into my conversations and I don’t want to know them. Then they end up being friends with my sims somehow while I’m playing other households. I don’t want them calling me for advice. Relationship Culling often makes my sim forget they even knew people- give us the choice on who to cull. It’s not as if they have dozens of acquaintances - there should at least be a limit there if anyone is to be culled, ever. But I‘ve seen culling occur and they know just 3 other sims that are in their own household. That’s so unnecessary. Meanwhile, my small children are upset because someone apparently died who they had no business knowing. I want to remove these weird relationships when I see them.
Relationship Culling has destroyed the relationships around me in households I wasn’t playing. I want those maintained so that Rashidah Watson can one day ask me if she should say yes to a proposal from Rahul Chopra. Or Kaori Nishidake from Kitoshi Ito. Or Siobhan Fyres from Sergio Romeo. Unless I mark them as “played” immediately at the start of a game, it’s like they never knew each other.
I can't imagine why toggles would inherently lead to instability in a computer program, that sounds like a design problem. They already have tons of them and they keep coming: packs. Of many sizes.
Why they are using the drama nodes feature I don't know, which seem to be in desperate need of actually working filters/tests that many other parts of the game have. Like how many times have people complained of phone calls not filtering for sims and relationships between them properly? And then there are reports that's happening with the stories prompts too. Go figure.
It seems like the route they have chosen would be unnecessarily hard to turn off on a global level. Maybe they were supposed to figure it out without reaching out to a gameplay engineer or something (or it was pitched as something easy-ish to do "because we can use an existing system"?), but this neighborhood stories thing should probably be its own system and tuning type, so it can be easily turned on or off (or blocked or whatever) and so it won't suffer from the same problems that have plagued the phone calls system for I don't know how long. It seems like their choice here has to lead to that separation or a serious look at the entire phone call system.
If I'm being charitable, maybe doing it through the phone system is just for prototyping to get a feel for how people react to the general concept, but if so, they should have been upfront about that.
I play on the pc, but don’t us CC or mods. I want to be able to turn SP off in my rotational saves. I don’t want to be forced to get a mod to do it. I don’t feel comfortable using mods.