I've always used cheats. Lately I've been playing without them, and I do like it better, for the most part. It certainly gives me more to do. But it would have been nice if the Sims took more initiative. I hate how they never leave the house on their own and always come back the minute I select another Sim. I also hate the introduction video, which usually doesn't stop playing until it's almost over. Because my game has so many bugs already, I do not want to use mods. I've heard so many bad things about them.None of my Sims are slobs. I had one Sim who was, and when she just couldn't stop farting and belching I decided, never again. I get enough of that noise over my shoulder. So they should be neat enough where this does not happen, but I continue to find the house in a constant state of...blah. The counters are grimy, there's trash piles on the floor, the toilets are never flushed. (Everything is Unbreakable because I have a pretty big place, and something was breaking every day.)I don't like how my active Sim will always cancel her interaction to have ice cream when one of her relatives makes it. I don't like how the deep fryer food is invisible. And what I don't like most of all is how her brother is always walking around in his little tighty whities, even thogh he's Proper. He changes randomly into his formal wear, yet most of the time I'm following my girl around and realizing he's disproportional. Seriously, he's got really tiny legs.

By what you describe, I think you may be playing the game on a low end computer? Because for me that introduction video stops right when I press a key, I never have to sit that through. And sims are constantly doing things with high free will enabled. They don’t leave the house autonomously, that’s true, but I don’t mind that. It’s a game, we’re supposed to play them. As for mods, the NRaas ones (Overwatch and Errortrap) help performance so you might want to try that after all? Just make sure to clean the five cache files before playing.

Personally I would never encourage a player who types out in all bold that they choose not to use mods to do so. I believe the OP has engaged in that conversation with us before, under a prior screen name.The game is what it is, mods made by professional programmers and that have their own support systems in place have the capacity to make it more enjoyable or at least a bit of a different experience. But what we don't need is players "yelling" at us before we've even suggested anything. :/ (I know the OP wasn't really "yelling," but the intended emphasis can just look that way).That being said, Free Will going out the window entirely is indeed either an early sign of an overly stressed game engine or possibly the result of a glitch such as the well-known one that strikes some (not all) households having large dogs and bathtubs on the lot. Even with Free Will working just as it should though, sims are not always going to do what we want them to do as they can be stubborn and have other ideas as to what constitutes running a household and their own lives than we do. :)

I used to have that same attitude, then my favorite PC games stopped working and I realized my gaming PC wasn't inherently a gaming device, nor was it inherently backwards compatible, nor do developers have most of the control over the direction of their games and which bugs get fixed or which games receive continued support. So I stopped making choices that I had begun to realize weakened my PCs viability as a gaming device and now all my old PC games are working again. If you were to ever change your mind, now would be the time to do it as there is so much active support at this moment for this games most popular mods. Edit: this response reads rude but I don’t mean it to be. This is from personal experience and a lot of frustration I felt trying to get my favorite games to work.

"igazor;c-16958508" wrote:Personally I would never encourage a player who types out in all bold that they choose not to use mods to do so. I believe the OP has engaged in that conversation with us before, under a prior screen name.The game is what it is, mods made by professional programmers and that have their own support systems in place have the capacity to make it more enjoyable or at least a bit of a different experience. But what we don't need is players "yelling" at us before we've even suggested anything. :/ (I know the OP wasn't really "yelling," but the intended emphasis can just look that way).That being said, Free Will going out the window entirely is indeed either an early sign of an overly stressed game engine or possibly the result of a glitch such as the well-known one that strikes some (not all) households having large dogs and bathtubs on the lot. Even with Free Will working just as it should though, sims are not always going to do what we want them to do as they can be stubborn and have other ideas as to what constitutes running a household and their own lives than we do. :) Didn’t know that (the player being engaged in that conversation before, especially not if it was under another name), but in this case not only the remark not using mods was bold, but also the reason as to why. And I don’t think bugs, actual bugs, have anything to do with mods? Hence my advice, I was rather referring to that reason not to use them. Also because I was quite suspicious towards mods myself once; I know, first hand, that advice concerning mods can be useful, even if you aren’t all that enthousiastic about them initially. The OP can do with all advice given as they please.

I wasn't "yelling"; I was simply making the text stand out, as it has been ignored before. (Although I am usually in a bad mood, so I know a lot of what I say comes across as mean.)@JoAnne65 It's a $500 Samsung, slash Acer, slash Logitech, slash Microsoft.

High Free Will | EA Forums

astridentanja
6 years ago
By what you describe, I think you may be playing the game on a low end computer? Because for me that introduction video stops right when I press a key, I never have to sit that through. And sims are constantly doing things with high free will enabled. They don’t leave the house autonomously, that’s true, but I don’t mind that. It’s a game, we’re supposed to play them. As for mods, the NRaas ones (Overwatch and Errortrap) help performance so you might want to try that after all? Just make sure to clean the five cache files before playing.
igazor
6 years ago
Personally I would never encourage a player who types out in all bold that they choose not to use mods to do so. I believe the OP has engaged in that conversation with us before, under a prior screen name.

The game is what it is, mods made by professional programmers and that have their own support systems in place have the capacity to make it more enjoyable or at least a bit of a different experience. But what we don't need is players "yelling" at us before we've even suggested anything. :/

(I know the OP wasn't really "yelling," but the intended emphasis can just look that way).

That being said, Free Will going out the window entirely is indeed either an early sign of an overly stressed game engine or possibly the result of a glitch such as the well-known one that strikes some (not all) households having large dogs and bathtubs on the lot. Even with Free Will working just as it should though, sims are not always going to do what we want them to do as they can be stubborn and have other ideas as to what constitutes running a household and their own lives than we do. :)
Satanu_Reeves
6 years ago
I used to have that same attitude, then my favorite PC games stopped working and I realized my gaming PC wasn't inherently a gaming device, nor was it inherently backwards compatible, nor do developers have most of the control over the direction of their games and which bugs get fixed or which games receive continued support. So I stopped making choices that I had begun to realize weakened my PCs viability as a gaming device and now all my old PC games are working again. If you were to ever change your mind, now would be the time to do it as there is so much active support at this moment for this games most popular mods.

Edit: this response reads rude but I don’t mean it to be. This is from personal experience and a lot of frustration I felt trying to get my favorite games to work.
astridentanja
6 years ago
"igazor;c-16958508" wrote:
Personally I would never encourage a player who types out in all bold that they choose not to use mods to do so. I believe the OP has engaged in that conversation with us before, under a prior screen name.

The game is what it is, mods made by professional programmers and that have their own support systems in place have the capacity to make it more enjoyable or at least a bit of a different experience. But what we don't need is players "yelling" at us before we've even suggested anything. :/

(I know the OP wasn't really "yelling," but the intended emphasis can just look that way).

That being said, Free Will going out the window entirely is indeed either an early sign of an overly stressed game engine or possibly the result of a glitch such as the well-known one that strikes some (not all) households having large dogs and bathtubs on the lot. Even with Free Will working just as it should though, sims are not always going to do what we want them to do as they can be stubborn and have other ideas as to what constitutes running a household and their own lives than we do. :)

Didn’t know that (the player being engaged in that conversation before, especially not if it was under another name), but in this case not only the remark not using mods was bold, but also the reason as to why. And I don’t think bugs, actual bugs, have anything to do with mods? Hence my advice, I was rather referring to that reason not to use them. Also because I was quite suspicious towards mods myself once; I know, first hand, that advice concerning mods can be useful, even if you aren’t all that enthousiastic about them initially. The OP can do with all advice given as they please.
5m4rt455
6 years ago
I wasn't "yelling"; I was simply making the text stand out, as it has been ignored before. (Although I am usually in a bad mood, so I know a lot of what I say comes across as mean.)
@JoAnne65 It's a $500 Samsung, slash Acer, slash Logitech, slash Microsoft.
igazor
6 years ago
But the point is, what is it we can do to help you be less miserable? I realize this is General Discussion and not tech support, but you just don't sound very happy with your game in some ways and you have quite a few players here with very different play styles who are willing and happy to help, if we can figure out how.
Mikezumi
6 years ago
Since you don't want to use mods I would suggest that you get rid of the ice cream maker for a start. Unless you mod out the obsessive making and eating of ice cream you are stuck with it.
I don't use the deep fryer so am unaware of the invisibility glitch so I have no suggestions there. I vaguely remember using it a long while ago and that my sims kept trying to fry food autonomously so I stopped using it. I believe I have since downloaded a mod but don't like my sims eating fried food in any case.
Perhaps your sims would be more likely to clean dirty counters, etc. once you get rid of items like the ice cream maker or other premium items that sims obsessively use. I know my sims are always cleaning on their own and I never use the neat trait. I often have several sims converging on one dirty counter or to empty the potty chair.
Sims on high free will don't always behave as we would like. If your sim walking around in his tighty whities bothers you that much, direct him to change outfit.
igazor
6 years ago
I view the ice cream maker and deep fryer as I do the chocolate fountain. Modded to reduce the insane amount of pull they offer or otherwise, they usually stay in the family inventory, are brought out for special occasions and can be a lot of fun to use for a short while, then get put away again.
astridentanja
6 years ago
"RiverBlossom;c-16959831" wrote:
I wasn't "yelling"; I was simply making the text stand out, as it has been ignored before. (Although I am usually in a bad mood, so I know a lot of what I say comes across as mean.)
@JoAnne65 It's a $500 Samsung, slash Acer, slash Logitech, slash Microsoft.

I’ve played the game modless for years (2010-2015) and it’s quite possible to do so. Whenever my game would start stuttering or would take half an hour to save (exaggerating there but a really long time ;)), I’d save my sims to the bin and start a new game with them. It’s just true though that Sims 3, if you want to be able to play it smoothly and with acceptable loading times, benefits from a good/high end computer. ‘Acceptable’ is subjective by the way. On my old computer loading the game from launcher to start playing would take 11 minutes. For me that was acceptable because after that wait (I did other things while waiting) I could play without having to wait any more. For others 11 minutes might be unacceptable though.

I personally love it my sims do unexpected things by the way and I have to give them instructions. That’s why I play the game, I personally wouldn’t like it if they’d do everything autonomously.
commandermctosh
6 years ago
"RiverBlossom;d-955607" wrote:
I've always used cheats. Lately I've been playing without them, and I do like it better, for the most part. It certainly gives me more to do.

Agreed, I never use cheats :) Infact I'm weird and like to make the game harder, not easier! I specifically tune NRAAS mods to help me do that lol.

But it would have been nice if the Sims took more initiative. I hate how they never leave the house on their own and always come back the minute I select another Sim.

NRAAS Story progression, there's an option 'Push Actives to Lot' and you can set the percentage chance of them leaving to go out to a lot.

I also hate the introduction video, which usually doesn't stop playing until it's almost over.

Just delete it or put the no intro mod into the mods folder.

Because my game has so many bugs already, I do not want to use mods.

That doesn't even make sense, mods actually fix the game bugs.

I've heard so many bad things about them.

You've heard wrong. If you're using a legitimate copy of the game and your system meets requirements and you configure things right mods actually fix the game, not make it worse.

None of my Sims are slobs. I had one Sim who was, and when she just couldn't stop farting and belching I decided, never again. I get enough of that noise over my shoulder. So they should be neat enough where this does not happen, but I continue to find the house in a constant state of...blah. The counters are grimy, there's trash piles on the floor, the toilets are never flushed. (Everything is Unbreakable because I have a pretty big place, and something was breaking every day.)

Depends on their mood and personality. Never had this trouble myself, one of my sims seems to forever be cleaning and doing the laundry and they don't even have the clean trait lol!

I don't like how my active Sim will always cancel her interaction to have ice cream when one of her relatives makes it.

Sometimes sims have a mind of their own, this too depends on their mood, relationship and whether or not they even feel like having icecream!

I don't like how the deep fryer food is invisible.

It isn't. This along with your intro video thing sounds like your game installation is bugged. Try reinstalling fresh.