Re: Growing Together: Why are my Sims BFFs dying?

Exactly, if you go to Manage Households, you can customize options like this in Neighborhood Stories settings for each household, or even disable them completely if you want. 

I don't know what that means "Neighborhood Stories". I saw that someone said turning it off using a computer and MC...which I did, although it was a bit confusing with the disabled/enabled options & figuring out what was what...but it only had to change it to enable and nothing about individual households (which no, that would be absurd) or the neighborhood (which still irks me something fierce because I don't want it ANYWHERE. Forcing me to have to do something to make it go away is frustrating and truly maddening, let alone making me do it on an individual basis.) 

Anyway, I did the Enabled thing in MC like someone said, (exited/reentered game) then played a different household, where I see that one of my Sims came home from work sad because his friend just died...another stinking, lousy Young Adult FRIEND. EA must be a bunch of sadists. I'm really angry that there wasn't a warning about this before I bought the game. I mean, seriously....3 Sim friends have died in literally days and EA thinks this is "real"? I'm ready to go back to TS3. This is the worst thing EA has ever done. (Except for banning people for daring to speak out against them...so I'll probably get banned now - after spending hundreds and hundreds from buying everything that came out with Sims 1 onward - although I'm not doing it so much with TS4, which speaks volumes.)

Stories what they are and how to deal / not deal with them.
Neighborhood Stories System (ea.com)

Sorry about your deaths. 

Ugh.

I understand what it means because TS3 had a "system", too (which I was able to disable through Mods to override). What I do not know is how to access it (or even why I should have to simply because EA seems to be a bunch of sadists). Going to that link is nothing more than a very abbreviated overview on what it is but it sure doesn't give any info on how to access it. It only shows a household, but I want it OFF for every single household in every single one of the Saves/Neighborhoods. Am I seriously going to have to go to each one of them to eliminate this absurd death issue that EA should never have allowed? And will I be able to tune the "deaths"? I'm okay with the elderly sims dying sporadically but I'm not okay with the younger ones...if they do, it should be a once in a lifetime kind of thing. The game is literally unplayable as is. This is frustrating and apparently I have to Google how to do this because this EA link is not much help. Like EA,

Again, Ugh.

@columbia93 

Neighborhood Stories settings are easy - they're in Manage Households. There's a set of settings for "My Households" (off by default) and another set for "Other Households" (on by default). Switch into Other Households, click the symbol in the top right corner, and turn off die in accidents. (or use the top checkbox to turn off effects)

What's so funny is that people are saying it's in "Manage Households" but since I've no idea where that is, it's frustrating. I literally spent about 1/2 an hour clicking on all kinds of stuff on all kinds of screens and waiting through transitional screens, etc., before I finally came up "Manage Households". I truly don't understand why no one, and I mean none of the people who mentioned it, thought to actually point out where it was. It's double frustrating because I know I'm the kind of "helper" who provides details to make it easier.

That said, Neighborhood Stories isn't enabled so that isn't the issue.

I literally downloaded Growing Together 3 days ago and in the 2 days I've played it, the 3 Sims I played (2 later married so 2 Households) lost good friends or BFFs. Nothing else changed. In the 4 1/2 years I've been playing TS4, I've never had a close Sim die. On rare events, and I mean rare as in handful, I've had stranger elderly Sims die and leave an inheritance. That's it. I also don't know how the recent Sims died because I've never had it happen before. All I got was a notification for one of the deaths, just that it had happened, and the other two I found out because they had a Sad moodlet. Now I find out there is Emotional and Accidental deaths - but again, NH Stories isn't enabled.

I have Mods: MCCC, Little Ms Sam, Twisted Mexi & . I had already made sure they were up to date with the 6th update.

I can't play the game this way.

@columbia93 your Sims shouldn't be dying off without Neighbourhood Stories enabled. I don't play with mods as I'm on Xbox but the usual advice is to remove mods to test it without them and then add each one back to see which one is causing the issue.

You could also go to Game Options>Gameplay and turn off ageing incase that setting is causing Sims to die off naturally. I play with it off.

I run back up saves incase of accidental deaths. If a Sim dies I can go to my back up save to the point before they die and stop it happening. I just had a favourite Sim drown, I got her back. Same with Hysterical laughter deaths, etc. You can also use Death Flowers to revive played Sims who die accidentally.

https://simscommunity.info/2022/11/11/the-sims-4-death-flower/

We've got a specific section on Mods if you haven't seen it, they're not within EA control obviously but there's still a lot of help and advice there from some real experts who are incredibly knowledgeable. If it is mods you might find some guidance there.

https://answers.ea.com/t5/Game-and-Mod-CC-Issues/bd-p/the-sims-4-game-issues-mods-en

Good luck 

@columbia93 I believe MCCC has something called Story Progression that is similar to neighborhood stories, but I’m afraid I can’t help with where its settings are as I’ve never used it. But you might want to start there.

I've literally been playing The Sims since the first rendition came out, so I'm not a novice. I also have found people asking for help back when Growing Together was release because they were having excessive deaths, so this isn't some random thing that I've materialized out of thin air. Again, I have NEVER had a Sim die. In the 4 1/2 years of playing TS4, no Sim has ever died. Period. And with Wedding Stories screwing up weddings, High School screwing up Proms, and even the Decorator pack having the Designer career most of the time freezing the game so you have to restart it, it doesn't seem far-fetched to believe that there is indeed an issue with the pack. 

I spend more time updating and checking out mods and CC than I do playing, because EA updates constantly as they refuse to do the job they are being paid to do correctly the first time. Then they setup forums so people who don't work for EA can also do the job EA is paid to do, maybe. It doesn't help that it's pretty hard to get help when people believe you have no idea what you're talking about.

There's a reason why I've owned every pack of S1, S2 & S3, and not all of them in S4.

I know they did with Sims 3 but I don't know if they also have it for Sims 4.I don't recall seeing anything like that here. MCCC does have controls and tuning but I don't really do any tuning and certainly never did any tuning in the past 3 days. <shrug>

Why do I have to keep defending myself on this? How is that "supportive". 

That is a single thread on EA. It has nothing to do with the many items that come up when you Google "excessive deaths".

There is LITERALLY a gaming website, dated Jan 23, 2024, providing a short term help for this issue so yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm not imaging this. BTW, the help is to toggle death off but you have to do it each time to enter the game, which is not feasible.

I am playing with the same Mods I was playing with prior to downloading Growing Together but sure, somehow it must be the Mods and not the pack, especially since every pack EA has sold recently has had truly heinous "breaks", with many issues never being addressed.

I've been trying for 3 weeks to find something to fix this and, since EA will not allow paying customers to contact them, and instead rely on Forums that EA employees don't bother with, I've had little success.

A couple of days ago I finally decided to try the game again and used a different save, one with an established family (and no friends of theirs have ever died). Within 2-3 Sims days, I noticed the wife/mother was "sad"  and sure enough, I discovered that a good friend of hers had died. Don't know why and EA makes it impossible for me to ask them.

It would be incredible if EA employees would show up in the Forums and help everyone who takes the time to look for assistance. Despite what you might think, this is a bigger issue than a couple of people.

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@PipMenace wrote:
@columbia93The bug thread about excessive deaths was only two people who thought neighborhood stories’ event balance was skewed toward too many deaths back around the time when Growing Together first came out. Neither said it continued happening with neighborhood stories off. If there’s still a bug in that balance, it doesn’t appear to be very widespread.

I have seen more reports recently of people saying that neighborhood stories failed to stay off when turned off since For Rent released, though several later reported back after testing that removing MCCC seemed to fix the issue. Again, I don’t actually use MCCC so I can’t help you with troubleshooting its settings or setup, but I do still recommend you start your troubleshooting there.

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You play console so not sure what that has to do with this. I've been using MCCC since the beginning of playing TS4 so not sure why, just after downloading Growing Together, MCCC would suddenly be triggering so many deaths.

As I said, and I guess it needs repeating, I have had NO FRIENDS DIE in TS4 since the moment I installed the Base Game. So for 4 1/2 years, I've been blithely going about my business, enjoying the game (mostly, except for all of the bugs that never seem to get fixed by EA). MCCC was one of the first mods I installed and I've been playing with it, with all of the updates, for all of that time, with NO FRIENDS DYING. MCCC is also a major mod so, if there were issues, they would address it quickly.

I can't believe I have to keep pointing out that there are numerous posts on this if you Google it, not just on EA, where people are probably learning that finding help is nearly impossible. I knew it beforehand but there are no answers for it anywhere so I had no choice, and EA refuses to actually allow customers to get support for the products they pay for.

It is a big enough issue that a gaming website, on Jan 23, 2024, provided a "cheat" of sorts that allows you to toggle death off and on, BECAUSE OF THE EXCESSIVE DEATHS ISSUE, but you have to do it each time you open the game, which isn't feasible.

So, since the previous time I played the game and all 3 Sims I played each lost a good friend to DEATH - and I have no idea what kind of death because it doesn't say - I decided to try it again with an established family in a different save. This family has never had any friends die, either. Within 2-3 Sim days, I noticed the wife/mother was "sad" and checked the mood tabs at the bottom and discovered she had lost a friend. I had to go to her Friends tab to find out who it even was. So now, not playing again. Getting tired of EA caring so little for the Sims community, pushing out kits and "fluff" stuff hand over fist but completely ignoring the packs where there are actual gameplay changes and issues. It's frustrating, especially after hearing the horror stories of EA banning people for complaining, which is unconscionable. Except it must be true because EA gives you a list of topic you can contact them about, and there are several that refer to banning. Egads.

@columbia93Console players and PC players work together here and often collaborate on testing and comparing notes. I played previous Sims games on PC. Sometimes it helps to compare so that a PC mod user can identify where the problem lies.

It's always recommended to test on an unmodded save.

There's mod advice here:

https://answers.ea.com/t5/Mod-CC-Issues/bd-p/the-sims-4-game-issues-mods-en

I was a little confused as I see you're on the bug report for Neighbourhood Stories causing excessive deaths but then I see you've got in Disabled in your game. So you shouldn't have these particular death instances and notifications occurring with it off, I don't have any as I've mentioned. But another player made a great point on that thread that any new pack adds new Sims and Townies and if you have a lot of Sims in your game then it may cull some so that could be the reason Get Together caused an issue as it adds new families. So with that in mind you could check your Sim totals in Manage Households-Other Households and delete some random characters yourself to clear space, I do this regularly. Edit: I've asked around to get you the best advice, I've then confirmed the advice with a search and the consensus seems to be check the MC tuner. It's an option to try to address the deaths issue since it's obviously very frustrating. You can also create a backup and backup key households in your Library to restore lost Sims or versions of lost Sims as I mentioned earlier. But while MCCC may be the problem, with tuning it could also be the solution.

As I'm thinking of what else might help it occurs to me that another thing you could do to test for the cause is to play a test save without Growing Together if you haven't already done that. Similar to testing an unmodded save. If nothing else here helps then that would be my next step.

I've found a Sims community guide for MCCC that might help and has detailed info/tips on using it for death controls. It may be stuff you already know but in the spirit of giving clear information it's here incase you could find it helpful, but as I've mentioned AHQ does have a great mods section for assistance too.

https://simscommunity.info/2023/08/27/mc-command-center-sims-4-guide/

There's a lot here but I hope some of it is useful and it's all been checked thoroughly. As I've been looking at it I've kept updating it as I've got more info.

Good luck 

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