Can the content get too overwhelming?

"wahini2024;c-18060729" wrote:
Yes. Especially in CAS. I wish I could hide styles I never use and have no plan to.

Yes! I would love to be able to hide CAS or BB items I don't want. In one of the games - it might have been Sims 3 - you could create your own collections in BB mode. I wish we could do that in 4, for both BB and CAS, because it would be good to have an easy way to access specific content in themed games, or consign undesired items to a separate area. It's such a shame we can't create our own Styled Looks in CAS. I use the default ones when I'm feeling lazy or uninspired or when I need outfits for low priority sims, but it would be amazing if we could save outfits of our choice, particularly for themed games.

"Mariefoxprice83;c-18060775" wrote:
When I rotate I usually play each household for 1 or sometimes 2 weeks. It has to be consistent for the sake of aging. It can be a slog if I have too many households and too many of them are large though. That's why I stop and start saves so often.

I don't have aging on. I manually age up my Sims according to whatever story I'm telling myself. I know some leave aging off except for the last family in the rotation and turn it on for everyone then. I don't think there is any wrong way to play though, and ultimately it is what you most enjoy. I just don't like to play with lots of rules.

"Mariefoxprice83;c-18060781" wrote:
In one of the games - it might have been Sims 3 - you could create your own collections in BB mode. I wish we could do that in 4, for both BB and CAS.

Both TS2 and TS3 let you do that for BB. And I 100% agree that it's a travesty we can't do it in 4. It's so needed, in both BB and CAS.

I also agree about how awesome it would be to make our own Styled Looks. I'd love if we could not only make our own, but if that was one of the things people could upload and share on the gallery. It'd be so much fun sharing styled looks and adding others' styled looks to our games.

"telemwill;c-18060784" wrote:

"Mariefoxprice83;c-18060775" wrote:
When I rotate I usually play each household for 1 or sometimes 2 weeks. It has to be consistent for the sake of aging. It can be a slog if I have too many households and too many of them are large though. That's why I stop and start saves so often.

I don't have aging on. I manually age up my Sims according to whatever story I'm telling myself. I know some leave aging off except for the last family in the rotation and turn it on for everyone then. I don't think there is any wrong way to play though, and ultimately it is what you most enjoy. I just don't like to play with lots of rules.

That makes sense. I like everyone to age at an equal pace so I get a bit OCD about it. I usually age the current family in a rotation and the NPCs when the "lead" family is playing. Occasionally I forgot to turn it on or off but it mostly works for me.

In my new save my plan is to attempt 10 generations in a semi-legacy/attempt to play out every aspiration in a single save. Each generation from the main household will produce 2 kids, the heir and the spare - they will only have more than 2 kids if they get twins. The heir will continue in the family home and again produce kids, the spare will move into a different town and live according to their aspiration and their whims, as will any descendants, as they will produce kids only when they roll the whim to try for a baby, or they have a family aspiration that requires a set number of kids. I'm curious to see how many aspirations I can complete before the founding household produces its generation 10 heir.

I have to take a break because of things with the game that annoy me. The latest issue I've had is sims randomly stopping and "acting shocked" for no reason and in their queue it'll say "watch" but have their own picture. A random thought bubble will come up that, I guess, is supposed to tell you what they're "shocked" about, but it's vague and since I can't figure out why it happens and the fact that it literally happens all of the time, I'll just shut the game off and do something else.

This may seem small, but it's one little thing that's been bothering me for a while. May go with the OCD theory.

"crocobaura;c-18060533" wrote:

Why rotate to another family if you are enjoying the one you're playing? You can rotate to them when you get bored with your current family or you get nice story ideas for other family that you can't wait to implement.

Yea I think I need to relax a bit about it all...

"Mariefoxprice83;c-18060775" wrote:
When I rotate I usually play each household for 1 or sometimes 2 weeks. It has to be consistent for the sake of aging. It can be a slog if I have too many households and too many of them are large though. That's why I stop and start saves so often.

This was what I was trying to do, but you are right, it does feel like a bit of a slog. And I do the same with starting another save. I have too many on the go really.

"Stormkeep;c-18060656" wrote:


I played rotational in TS2 and I kept a freaking database in Microsoft Access for tracking things and used Excel Pivot tables tied into the database to get various overview data when I wanted it. Tell your husband about my insanity the next time he thinks you are mad. :lol:

I will pass this on haha! I have just pulled out my cards now to give it another go. I even have a little pouch for the past sims as well, forever remembered! :D

Yea I think I need to relax a bit about it all...

@Cherryrose_x Yes! It can and does get overwhelming. I understand because it can for me too. A game world should be fun, not feel like a chore that one starts to hate. ;)

What I've been doing is playing where my whims take me. If I "planned" for let's say a household to do something, but it starts to get frustrating forcing myself to continue that "plan", I drop it. Put them in "unplayed households or something, since aging up is only for "played" households now in my game. Then I know they'll still be there.

So then go do something different for awhile. No 'rigid' rotational schedule. ;)

Yes, I have picked up my rotatoonal saves again but I am taking it much more casual and not forcing myself to play for 7 sim days like I used to. I am going with the flow a bit more now so enjoying it again. For now at least. :blush: