Sims' relationship builds itself

I'm definitely using Overwatch, which seems to be behaving (it's been doing its 3am cleanup at least). I went back to a couple of previous saves that were in close sequence around a move; the MC relationship values told me when this problem had to have started to within a few minutes. The game adds a +2.5 every 15 in-game minutes, in case you're wondering. They did not eat together, watch TV or perform any other group activity—not even one of them separately from the other—and they didn't have any direct interactions, romantic or otherwise, during the window in question. It's possible that one of them tried to play in the sprinklers before I redirected her, but since she was still in her everyday clothing, she obviously didn't actually get there.

Oddly enough, one of the times I reloaded the second-to-last save, they had one relationship gain a minute or two after the game had been saved, and then nothing else (but a +6 higher relationship than the day before). I also checked their value right after this (maybe 2 sim-minutes). But the other time I loaded it, the game kept generating gains. And in the most recent save, after they moved houses, it wouldn't stop.

So with the baseline in hand, I tried various resets. The console command resetsim didn't stop the gains, whether I did each separately or both at the same time. On the other hand, MC's worked when I reset just one of them. Interestingly, only the other one generated one last relationship-gain icon above her head, and the value went up another 2.5 points, but then it stopped. On the other hand, when this happened in a previous save, I used MC reset on the sim who had been left behind when the other moved out, and that didn't work.

The testingcheatsenabled console kind of reset really doesn't do much other than force clear a sim's action queue and teleport the sim to a "safe place."

The MC resets rebuild the sims from the ground up based on the data that the game has on them at hand at the time. It's not surprising that one worked better; the reason I suggested both sims is that it would be impossible to tell whether one or both of them was responsible for the stuck scenario that was generating the unwanted relationship gains.

Thanks, I figured MC was the way to go, but since I was running "experiments" I figured I'd be thorough. I was really hoping to avoid the MC reset because of the effect it has on a sim's rolled wishes chain. It shouldn't be a big deal, but I don't like restarting a sequence or discontinuity in general. So that's why I was wondering if there was an explanation of why it was happening and another way to make it stop.

And really, what's the point of playing god to your sims if you can't have control over every single aspect of their lives? It's offensive to me that they would think they had the right to dictate the terms of their relationship on their own. I created them to fill my needs, not theirs.

@igazor I'm pretty sure I found the culprit. I trashed my most recent save and reverted to the next-latest one, which was just before I told my sims to move houses. The sim not calling in the move was just standing around waiting. (As noted previously, the relationship gains must have started 45 in-game minutes to 1 hour earlier based on the total relationship value relative to the day before.) Whenever I let him do as he pleased, he wanted to play in the sprinklers—he has the Loves the Outdoors trait—and although I never let him, he did go a few steps in that direction. Combined with my manually adjusting the relationship level (on the other sim), this interrupted the automatic gains every time. On the other hand, if I told him to pace back and forth waiting for the move to happen, the gains continued despite all interventions short of an MC reset. I think he must have tried to play in the sprinklers an hour before I saved, and somehow the group activity gains got stuck. I know that if one sim is playing in the sprinklers, he or she will try to talk with anyone else around, as the other sim was. I also know that in every game where this happened, at least one of the sims involved had the same Loves the Outdoors trait, and they all seem to think that running through the sprinklers is the absolute best activity in the world. Even the ones that have the most expensive TVs, several upgraded computers, trampolines and Sim Gnubb, and all kinds of hobby-related objects to choose from. This is something I will never understand, but they're welcome to their diversions. (Unless they're supposed to be making money. In which case, ::cracks whip:: back to work!) Just kidding. Sort of.

Anyway, thanks for responding and trying to help me figure this out. This problem has bugged me for a long time, and I'm glad you engaged me to try to nail down the cause.

"puzzlezaddict;c-16253596" wrote:
Thanks, I figured MC was the way to go, but since I was running "experiments" I figured I'd be thorough. I was really hoping to avoid the MC reset because of the effect it has on a sim's rolled wishes chain. It shouldn't be a big deal, but I don't like restarting a sequence or discontinuity in general. So that's why I was wondering if there was an explanation of why it was happening and another way to make it stop.

And really, what's the point of playing god to your sims if you can't have control over every single aspect of their lives? It's offensive to me that they would think they had the right to dictate the terms of their relationship on their own. I created them to fill my needs, not theirs.

Because realistically God doesn't control people or what would be the point of free-will in the first place then? This is a life simulator with Sims that are run by AI to simulate human behaviors. Though yes, it is a video game so no not everything will be true to life obviously. Plus there are also not so great coding/programming glitches and nuisances. But overall, accomplishes the genre it is meant to portray and represent well. Well, at least it used to before TSOlympus/TS4 came into conception and realization.

For me, The Sims has always been about directing these little pixel people through life and it can be fun or frustrating when the AI decides to do its own thing. And that is where the real magic happens and how players either go along with it, compromise or try to avoid their Sims free-will choices altogether. Which the latter is boring to me because nothing surprising and drama filled ever happens. I love that The Sims, to me, is like an interactable soap opera that I direct.

My actors sometimes go along with the script but sometimes they don't and have their own agendas which I have a lot of fun figuring out what they are up to. Because not all my Sims are so vocal and quite a few of them have secrets I haven't even discovered yet.

Am trying to come up with an in-game reason for this to be happening intentionally but am drawing a blank so far. Are you not using NRaas Overwatch?

Perhaps try MC Resetting the two sims to see if that breaks through the stuck relationship gains.