Are NPC invitations still a thing?

I've made a lot of mods to stop phone calls...there are way too many "Should I go out with..", "Are you prepared?", "Do you want to leave your high paying job to become a criminal?", etc, etc. But the ones where you got invited to someone's house I didn't touch. And they never happen. And they were the best ones, because they brought your sim someplace new, at random. I've said it before; each game pack that comes out kills something off in favor of its own mechanics. It should just add variety to gameplay but it doesn't. It's more like "Eco Living! Time for everyone to wear bags, play with clay, and flirt with everything that moves." Then it's "High School! With fears! (and wants, but they hardly count). Now all your sims can be angry or sad about something!" but not so much bags, clay and flirting, because that's been toned down. Right now, it's "Families! And their dynamics. It's all about how everyone gets along, or doesn't. And fighting over who going to change and bathe the infants. Again and again." And fears are toned down, or at the least you can properly turn them off. By now, we should have a really interesting game with everything that's been added, but it doesn't feel like it.
The best game play to me (in any kind of game) is the unexpected. That hardly ever happens in the sims. You have to make things happen.