Add ability to lock relationships to never be culled

There seems to be an actual bug with simmers getting their relationships culled too often but it bothers me how relationships are culled even following the game's rules. (Link to the bug report here if you're having it too so you can go and click Me too on it)

From that same thread, this is how Simguru Nick described how relationship culling works in the game:

1. The relationship will not decay if either the romance or friendship track goes above 20 or below -20. This means that relationships that have progressed beyond these points are safe (unless they then fall into this range).
2. Decay will not begin unless there has been no relationship progress in either direction for a day.
3. Certain relationship bits can prevent the relationship being culled anyways. ****
4. Even after decaying down to 0, the relationship will then still give an additional day before culling is done. If the relationship does move away from 0 in either direction, then the relationship will not be culled and the process will start all over.

Could we please get ability to lock certain relationships so that those would be bypassed from the culling function?

It helps to know how it all works so we can try to play the game in a way that prevents certain relationships from being culled if we want to keep them.. But doing so may not really play well into the story we want to tell/play out and can be quite a task to keep up to. For instance, my sims might have distant (or not so distant) relatives, neighbours, work colleagues or classmates that they do know but don't really interact with and those relationships are often at risk from being culled. It doesn't make any sense that these sims would be completely forgotten, like even if there's a kid in my class that I never talk to I still remember they exist. I'd love to prevent my sims from forgetting that their neighbours exist too.

Please consider adding this ability to the game, I'm sure it would make a lot of simmers happy!

**** Also, what are those certain rel bits?

gameplay issue

11 Replies

simsplayer818
Hero
3 years ago
This is a good point. I've always found it a bit daft that previous besties who have drifted apart have to introduce themselves again, even if they are former roommates.
I also have huge family networks across worlds and it's a lot to keep maintaining their relationships so they don't become strangers. My main family has over 20 members over many households across several worlds of all ages and it's difficult to stop them forgetting each other, especially the toddlers and kids with whom it's a bit more tricky to max relationships. So Uncle Nico has to introduce himself to little Rafi when he stops by and so on.
CGrant56
Hero+
3 years ago
@siirysiir
There is a way in the game for you to not have relationships culled. It's the Beloved trait which you earn by completing the Friend of the World aspiration under Popularity. Once you have it, relationships are never culled again. It's not that hard to earn, just takes some time.
Hope this helps.
Anonymous
3 years ago
@siirysiirNot my preference. Instead, I want two-sided relationships and numerical scores in the relationship panel (X out of 100) for both daily and lifetime relationships.
simsplayer818
Hero
3 years ago
@CGrant56 Yes I do that for a lot of my Sims.
For children's social goals I wish that more aspiration points were awarded I find them frustratingly slow to achieve. But for many of my adults I usually get the Incredibly Friendly Trait asap to achieve popularity quickly.
siirysiir
Seasoned Ace
3 years ago
@CGrant56 ah yeah I had kinda forgotten this exists and it would work in some cases.. But sims have different personalities! I'm a loner in real life so I tend to give that trait to a lot of my sims and this aspiration doesn't make sense to them at all, unfortunately. I just want the realism and a good gameplay experience and no nonsensical stuff happening like completely forgetting that your classmate exists. There should be a way for every sim regardless of their personality to keep relationships even if they don't maintain those. I don't mind the relationship dropping to 0, I just mind that they are lost completely since it doesn't make any sense. I can get it from a performance point of view, that's why I'm suggesting that we could consciously Choose to remember some sims (like relatives!) and all the rest would follow the normal rules for forgetting relationships.
siirysiir
Seasoned Ace
3 years ago
@simsplayer818 Yep this is exactly what I mean... I can imagine you having a tough time maintaining those family relationships.. :D
@testaccount7890 I'd like two-sided relationships too and I don't think these things are exclusive as in they would probably even work very well together. If they were to separate relationships so that each sim had different progress in the relationship, I don't see any reason why one sim couldn't forget about the other but the other would still remember them.
simsplayer818
Hero
3 years ago
@siirysiir For me it's the fact they forget these people and introduce themselves just because they've gone a little while without seeing them. It just wouldn't happen as much IRL.
I remember every relative and childhood, teen, work friend. I remember colleagues. But to a Sim they have to introduce themselves again as if they've never met and I have noticed it seems to be a bit more frequent (or it was before crashing made my game unplayable).
I think for family members there should be something to stop them forgetting them, but I also think the family tree set up isn't great.
For friendships maybe once Sims have been good friends they should at least still remember them. If you're not on the Super Popular track as it doesn't fit in with the personality type it's hard work. It means that say a quieter Sim has to keep maintaining any relationships. I usually get my Sims in that situation to phone around everyone once a day but I've noticed that a phonecall doesn't boost a relationship like it did in previous Sims games.
xochiquetzl_xkvn
Seasoned Ace
3 years ago
@simsplayer818
Yeah, I was heartbroken when I had to have a Sim introduce himself to his sister who lives next door. They were childhood besties. Yeah, I got a little distracted with child-rearing and didn't have him go around to see her, but... to have to introduce himself like he'd never met her, when they grew up together? Ouch.
siirysiir
Seasoned Ace
3 years ago
@xochiquetzl_xkvn oof yeah I feel like this just shouldn't happen, at all. ☹️ It's Very immersion breaking too. But if we could lock the relationship to not be culled, we wouldn't need to deal with it!
simsplayer818
Hero
3 years ago
@xochiquetzl_xkvn Yes I had a situation where I had a University Professor with a second wife and estranged adult kids. He had another daughter from an affair and I had one half brother find her and try to build a relationship, she's a soldier and he's a cop. When he travelled with his brothers to introduce them to her, he'd forgotten her. I had them building an awkward slow friendship and it wasn't high enough so it went back to strangers.
They kept forgetting their dad too because they weren't speaking to him, I mean he'd been a bit of a dog lol and it caused a rift. But they'd been created from the same household so should have known each other.