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Csabuszkah's avatar
Csabuszkah
New Scout
3 years ago
Solved

[FIXED] Townies with no Sexual Orientation at all

Product: The Sims 4 Platform:PC Which language are you playing the game in? English How often does the bug occur? Every time (100%) What is your current game version number? 1.90 What expansi...
  • flauschtrud's avatar
    flauschtrud
    3 years ago

    I just checked the update files and did a play test and the bug seems to be fixed (although it is not mentioned in the patch notes).

    There have been significant changes in the file that my mod fixes. I am not entirely sure if I understand everything yet, but it seems each new townie now has a 50/50 chance to be attracted to either gender. In my play test (no mods used) the game generated some hetero and homosexual Sims, but I assume mathematically there will be 25% homosexual, 25% bisexual, 25% asexual and 25% heterosexual Sims in the long run (probably only regarding single townies because generated families are set up differently).

    Whether a Sim is exploring still is 50/50 as it was before. The numbers seem not to be dependent on play style anymore.

    I advise everyone that used my fix mod and has updated to version 1.96.365.1030 (Infant update) to remove my mod as it will probably break and is not necessary any more.

flauschtrud's avatar
flauschtrud
Seasoned Ace
3 years ago

I really, really want to enjoy the game, but it's almost impossible and makes me more frustrated with each day. I just started a new save and wanted my Sim to find a partner and ran into this bug.

I checked the townies: of the single-Sim households ALMOST ALL have zero romantic and sexual interests and are set to not explore. I found only two that are both aromantic but interested in woohoo with everyone.

The couples that have been generated have fitting orientations, but for example a teenage son of one of these couples is also set to aro/ace/not exploring.

So it's basically impossible to find a partner for my Sim (unless by breaking up one of the couples...).

And yes, I know I can go to CAS and adjust the settings. But that should not be needed and would make the feature basically useless. I like it that not every Sim is interested in my Sim, but these settings just don't make sense and have to be fixed!

  • flauschtrud's avatar
    flauschtrud
    Seasoned Ace
    3 years ago

    I looked into the tuning files (I'm kind of sick of this post introduction by now, it should not be necessary for me to figure out the bugs that EA introduces) and found the following in: 03B33DDF!00000000!D71B613E3D5BCCE5.sims.global_gender_preference_tuning.Tuning.xml

    There is ENABLED_AUTOGENERATION_SAME_SEX_PREFERENCE_WEIGHTS which is defined as "An alternative weightings list for the weighted random choice of sexual preference after a romantic same-sex relationship has been kindled." which is tuned to:

    <L n="ENABLED_AUTOGENERATION_SAME_SEX_PREFERENCE_WEIGHTS">
      <U>
        <E n="gender_preference">LIKES_NEITHER</E>
        <T n="weight">5</T>
      </U>
      <U>
        <E n="gender_preference">HETEROSEXUAL</E>
        <T n="weight">40</T>
      </U>
      <U>
        <E n="gender_preference">HOMOSEXUAL</E>
        <T n="weight">10</T>
      </U>
      <U>
        <E n="gender_preference">BISEXUAL</E>
        <T n="weight">5</T>
      </U>
    </L>

    And then there is GENDER_PREFERENCE_WEIGHTS which  is defined as "A weightings list for the weighted random choice of sexual preference." which is tuned to:

    <L n="GENDER_PREFERENCE_WEIGHTS">
      <U>
        <T n="weight">10</T>
      </U>
      <U>
        <E n="gender_preference">HETEROSEXUAL</E>
        <T n="weight">0</T>
      </U>
      <U>
        <E n="gender_preference">HOMOSEXUAL</E>
        <T n="weight">0</T>
      </U>
      <U>
        <E n="gender_preference">BISEXUAL</E>
        <T n="weight">0</T>
      </U>
    </L>

    That does not look right, does it?

    I made a mod that changes the weight of GENDER_PREFERENCE_WEIGHTS to the same weights that are defined in ENABLED_AUTOGENERATION_SAME_SEX_PREFERENCE_WEIGHTS and guess what, my townies are now much more diverse!

    Please, @crinrict point someone from EA to this post. This should be fixed.

    EDIT

    I do not believe that my mod solution is the way that EA intended this feature to work though, since the ENABLED_AUTOGENERATION_SAME_SEX_PREFERENCE_WEIGHTS seems to only be used once the player has initiated a same sex relationship and thereby given the game the "permission" to generate LGBTQ+ townies. This is really weird in my opinion and kind of contradicts the statement from EA that the sexual orientation feature can not be turned off. I want diverse townies and I want them without having to "configure" the game this way by playing a same-sex couple.

    But I assume that GENDER_PREFERENCE_WEIGHTS was intended to prioritize BISEXUAL but apparently sets almost everyone to LIKES_NEITHER instead.

    • catloverplayer's avatar
      catloverplayer
      Legend
      3 years ago

      I'm seeing the same on PS5. In my case it's Savannah that don't have a sexual orientation. 

      • flauschtrud's avatar
        flauschtrud
        Seasoned Ace
        3 years ago
        @catloverplayer This is fine, I believe Savannah is a premade townie that is explicitly aromantic + asexual.

        The problems that I (and others) experience are about randomly generated townies, but only those that have been generated after the patch. Older pre patch townies are fine, they all get romantically exploring + bisexual.
    • flauschtrud's avatar
      flauschtrud
      Seasoned Ace
      3 years ago

      So here is a slightly less technical version of my previous post (https://answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports/OPEN-Townies-with-no-Sexual-Orientation-at-all/m-p/11735371/highlight/true#M228240)

      HOW TO REPRODUCE THE BUG (tested without mods)

      1. Create a new save.
      2. Play as any Sim and go to different venues in order to have random NPCs be created. Go to the gym, library, bar etc. and pay attention to the librarians, gym trainers, bar keepers or any vendors that might spawn. With a fresh save there won't be too many NPCs that get generated that way because there are already so many townies in the save.
      3. After some time go to "Manage Worlds"/"Manage Households" and choose "Other Households". Sort the households by "Date created" so you should see the service NPCs and some others.
      4. Check the sexual orientation of the Sims.

      In my test save I checked 12 NPCs. 9 of them were aro/ace+not exploring and 3 were bi+romantically exploring. These settings seem really absurd and make it almost impossible to find partners for Sims.

      HOW TO WORKAROUND THIS BUG

      1. Create a new save
      2. Create a household with three Sims of the same sex.
      3. Play as one of these Sims and initiate a romantic relationship with the two others. This does not have to be much, but there should be two romance bars.
      4. CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE NOW PROVEN TO THE GAME THAT YOU ARE ABLE TO DEAL WITH SAME SEX RELATIONSHIPS! AS A REWARD YOU WILL NOW ENCOUNTER TOWNIES THAT ACTUALLY USE THE NEW SEXUAL ORIENTATION FEATURE! (I wish I was joking)
      5. Go to "Manage Worlds"/"Manage Households" and choose "Other Households". Sort the households by "Date created" and delete any "Not in World" NPCs that might have been created in the save while you were proving that you are not homophobic.
      6. Repeat steps 2 to 4 of the bug reproduction to have some new townies be generated.
      7. You should now get sexually diverse random townies.

      In my test save I had some straight, some homosexual, one asexual/aromantic and a bunch of romantically straight but sexually bi Sims.

      SO WHY ON EARTH DOES THAT WORK?

      There are actually two configurations which determine how the sexual orientation for new townies is set:

      1. The "default" way, which appears to be broken (but I assume it should generate bi Sims if it worked as intended, see my previous post on the details: https://answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports/OPEN-Townies-with-no-Sexual-Orientation-at-all/m-p/11735371/highlight/true#M228240)
      2. The "special" way, which only gets activated if you prove to the game that you can handle same-sex relationships. This generates sexually diverse townies. If you are interested in the numbers, they are 67% hetero, 17% homosexual, 8% bi, 8% neither.

      A quote from the python code which describes the property ENABLE_AUTOGENERATION_SAME_SEX_PREFERENCE_THRESHOLD: "A value that, once crossed, indicates the player's allowance of same-sex relationships with townie auto-generation." WTF...

      SO THAT RAISES A FEW QUESTIONS...

      1. Why does EA claim that sexual orientation cannot be turned off while the truth seems to be that it is turned off by default and has to be switched on by gameplay? (See https://www.ea.com/games/the-sims/the-sims-4/news/sexual-orientation-in-the-sims-4, they say "While we try to give players the option to toggle certain gameplay features,  LGBTQIA+ identities are a fact of life and not a toggle to be switched on and off.") 
      2. Why does EA not dare to put this switch in the settings and instead hides it in the code? How on earth should people know how they can control the way townies are generated?
      3. Why does EA assume that people that tend to play with same-sex couples do not want the old pansexual settings? Maybe they prefer it this way so their Sims have more Sims to date?
      4. Why does EA assume that people that tend to play with different-sex couples do not want the new diverse settings? Maybe they prefer a more diverse and realistic townie population?
      5. Why does EA use the precious time of the developers to hide a sneaky toggle in the code instead of fixing bugs or making sure that the sexual orientation feature actually works and integrates with other features?

      Again, @crinrict I would very much appreciate if you could direct the attention of an EA employee to this thread.

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