Out of curiosity here, how is everyone making out with managing their sims daily schedules and activites since the addition of the Cats and Dogs EP?Prior to the release of C&D I already found the game's time management system a bit of a tolerence tester... with sims taking over an hour to eat a bowl of cereal.... or 15-20 minutes to walk to the next room. And don't even get me started on the amount of minutes they waste just standing there doing nothing waiting for the queve to finally activate their next action.I just completed a camping trip for my family (2 adults, 1 teen, 1 dog). I got the sims out of bed at 4:30am to prepare them for their vacation. Each one had to pee, shower, and eat. It was a few minutes after 11am before I was able to get them out of the door. Almost 7 sims hours later.With the pets being a bit demanding, and the game's time clock spinning by as it does, is anyone finding themselves racing against the clock?(Just to offer an example)..... My Sim teen, Monday to Friday, is busy (waking state) from 6am to 6pm. She gets up for school no later than 6am, and she is almost kinda ready for school by 8am. She's gone at school until 3pm. From 3pm (now home from school) she needs about 3 hours to fix her needs again after being at school all day. She also needs to be back in bed by about 10pm-11pm for school the next day. That leaves her 4-5 hours of sim time for other activites. Unfortunately, 4-5 hours of sim time goes by in about 10 minutes of real time.... which doesn't leave her much time for a life of her own Mon-Fri .... let alone take on the added responsibility of a pet.My two adult sims have simular stories being that they both work. They both have a bit of extra time however being that they only work 4 days a week, but, because of managing their needs vs the time clock, and trying to "give them a life to live" ... having even a single pet that is a bit needy can add to the frustrations of trying to manage the sim's daily schedule.How's life for your sims?

Time management is a nightmare in this game, even moreso now with pets. I think it’s rather interesting that they made pets incompatible with multitasking - Sims will have to finish whatever action they are doing before they do any action with a dog/cat. No big deal on the surface, but some of the actions Sims do take entirely too much time to accomplish which leads to cancellations and overall interaction failures because it took them 4-5 sim hours to finish what they were doing and to do what I told them to. It also doesn’t help that pets have the same AI pause as toddlers. Since we can’t control pets in any way, selecting an action should automatically cancel whatever the pet was doing so the selected Sim isn’t standing around forever waiting for the dog/cat to finish what they’re doing so the selected action can begin.

"drake_mccarty;c-16161274" wrote:Since we can’t control pets in any way, selecting an action should automatically cancel whatever the pet was doing so the selected Sim isn’t standing around forever waiting for the dog/cat to finish what they’re doing so the selected action can begin. Yes.

It's been okay for me. I've already introduced pets to 3 saves and made a new one with the Heckings. The pets have been occupying a lot of my time, however, and stuff like going out on dates or meeting with clubs got pushed behind a bit. I'm sure things will go back to a more steady rhythm once the novelty of pets wears off. The one save I have with 3 generations only has room for one pet though, and the grownups divide their time among caring for the twin babies and the puppy, who had just aged into an adult. Grandma and grandpa work at night in the entertainer career, so they're usually there to lend a helping hand during the day.

thank god for MCCC mod with the option to adjust time otherwise id go a lil perculiar......well...more so....

I never did understand the need to have the time clock tick by a 1min/sec. With all the different activites in the game for our sims to adopt and experience, having the time clock tick by at that speed makes it difficult to actually enjoy the opportunities the game offers. Just getting your sims ready to start an opportunity (such as a family camping trip) can take the fun right out of the entire outing. (just saying).I understand some simmers like the time clock the way it is, and fair enough. But it would be nice if EA took into account the time it takes just for queve activities to even begin, let alone complete.

Cats and Dogs VS Time Management

floridameerkat
7 years ago
My current family has a dog, a cat, and two toddlers on top of two parents with full-time jobs. I think the trick to managing everyone is in their routine. I would have the parents wake up at least three hours before they had to leave for work because as we all know it takes forever for sims to get ready. The toddlers were mostly on their own in the mornings. I potty trained them to level two, so they no longer needed assistance with that, and I would have the parents leave plates of food out for them to eat when they were ready. Before going to work, I'd have one parent check the food level of the food bowls and the cleanliness of the litterbox, while the other took the dog outside to do her business (they live in an apartment and the dog can't seem to go outside by herself). Then everyone goes to work and the babysitter comes by so the twins can work on their skills during the day. When the parents get home, one lets the dog out again and I have them interact with their kids a bit and work on their skills and needs until it's time for the twins to go to bed. Then they get some time to themselves where I try to have them interact more with each other. Or I continue their skill building, depending on whichever I feel is more important on any given day.
The-Muzickmage
7 years ago
"floridameerkat;c-16162090" wrote:
My current family has a dog, a cat, and two toddlers on top of two parents with full-time jobs. I think the trick to managing everyone is in their routine. I would have the parents wake up at least three hours before they had to leave for work because as we all know it takes forever for sims to get ready. The toddlers were mostly on their own in the mornings. I potty trained them to level two, so they no longer needed assistance with that, and I would have the parents leave plates of food out for them to eat when they were ready. Before going to work, I'd have one parent check the food level of the food bowls and the cleanliness of the litterbox, while the other took the dog outside to do her business (they live in an apartment and the dog can't seem to go outside by herself). Then everyone goes to work and the babysitter comes by so the twins can work on their skills during the day. When the parents get home, one lets the dog out again and I have them interact with their kids a bit and work on their skills and needs until it's time for the twins to go to bed. Then they get some time to themselves where I try to have them interact more with each other. Or I continue their skill building, depending on whichever I feel is more important on any given day.

That's really great. Now add to that the idea that maybe you want to start your own retail business, and on occasion go camping. Plus, you like the idea of checking out the festivals. Amongst that, you also like to go fishing to build more of your collection, and, of course, there's the other stuff to collect. That's nice to have too.

Sure, its all in the routine... if you only wish to play 10% of the game.
The-Muzickmage
7 years ago
"drake_mccarty;c-16162115" wrote:
Well yes the animations have a running time in real world time, but that’s not relevant to the in-game clock. An action can be started at any time, and depending on different factors (like multitasking) can have a duration that isn’t fixed to any specific time frame. That’s why eating a meal with one sim + no multitasking will be a lot faster than a sim who is eating + socializing, or eating + socializing + watch TV.

I am not saying change the animation. In all reality the eating animation takes approx 4-5 seconds in real time. The animation happens multiple times during the ‘eat’ action, and each time it plays the action progresses by a fixed amount. Changing the rate wouldn’t change the real time animation, because that isn’t the problem, it would make the overall action take less time to complete. Multitasking is a roadblock because the game will only progress one action at a time, meaning non-action items that are currently in the cue will be paused until the current action is finished.

I think the issue here is that you are focusing on the animations. Why? It doesn't matter what they are doing, or how long it takes to do it. The only thing that matters is how long the game says it takes.

The animations could be setup to loop for 5 hours of real time. But the game clock itself could be setup to increase only 1 sec per 20 minutes of real time. Or the game clock could be setup to increase 1 hour per 1 second of real time.

It's the game clock we should be talking about. Not the animations. I don't mind staring at the screen for 10 minutes waiting for animations to play through. What I DO mind is that... at the end of those animations.... the game clock says nearly 2 hours have passed.

I'm arguing.... just tweak the game clock so that it says ..... only half that time elapsed.

What do you think the MCCC mod does?
kaeyresky
7 years ago
"simgirl1010;c-16161370" wrote:
It's a madhouse. And I love it.

same thoughts here. I wouldn't want the time to go slower because I enjoy the daily time crunch. It's the only thing that makes the game feel difficult. Maybe as an optional thing, though.
The-Muzickmage
7 years ago
"mirta000;c-16162141" wrote:
"muzickmage;c-16162117" wrote:

That's really great. Now add to that the idea that maybe you want to start your own retail business, and on occasion go camping. Plus, you like the idea of checking out the festivals. Amongst that, you also like to go fishing to build more of your collection, and, of course, there's the other stuff to collect. That's nice to have too.

Sure, its all in the routine... if you only wish to play 10% of the game.

To be fair, I'm used to requiring much stricter routine in The Sims 2. Currently playing on a full household with 1 adult, 2 toddlers, 2 teens and 3 cats. Both of my teens have time to skill build and have the Monday to Friday afterschool job (think it's the shop one?). Some of the animation slowdown that you're seeing is due to simulation lag. I had to stop playing the game entirely from Vampires all the way to Cats and Dogs patch because it was just too clunky. Try cleaning your game up, removing some mods and dropping the settings. Some is to do with multitasking. As they can't actually multitask (eating and talking is equivalent to taking a bite, then saying a word, this way eating will take 50% longer), the rest is to do with EA's emote animations put into literally every action that they perform. There's mods to take that out, however for me there's far less of them as my simulation lag lessened.

A single sim day on speed 1 is already longer than in any previous sim game. If you tweaked the time even more, I might get 2 days in one play session, which coupled with their long life expectancy, it would feel like I'm accomplishing no progress.

I only started using mods a month ago, of which I only have 5 object mods being used at the moment, which I am also taking back out. I'm not a big fan of mods for the sims game. I am surprised I've used them this long (nearly a full month now).

The time issue has always been an issue for me. Some people don't seem to have a problem with it, and I respect that, but for me, it just feels like i'm always racing against the clock that I can't just relax and enjoy the game.
Cornwallfr
7 years ago
"muzickmage;c-16162157" wrote:
"mirta000;c-16162141" wrote:
"muzickmage;c-16162117" wrote:

That's really great. Now add to that the idea that maybe you want to start your own retail business, and on occasion go camping. Plus, you like the idea of checking out the festivals. Amongst that, you also like to go fishing to build more of your collection, and, of course, there's the other stuff to collect. That's nice to have too.

Sure, its all in the routine... if you only wish to play 10% of the game.

To be fair, I'm used to requiring much stricter routine in The Sims 2. Currently playing on a full household with 1 adult, 2 toddlers, 2 teens and 3 cats. Both of my teens have time to skill build and have the Monday to Friday afterschool job (think it's the shop one?). Some of the animation slowdown that you're seeing is due to simulation lag. I had to stop playing the game entirely from Vampires all the way to Cats and Dogs patch because it was just too clunky. Try cleaning your game up, removing some mods and dropping the settings. Some is to do with multitasking. As they can't actually multitask (eating and talking is equivalent to taking a bite, then saying a word, this way eating will take 50% longer), the rest is to do with EA's emote animations put into literally every action that they perform. There's mods to take that out, however for me there's far less of them as my simulation lag lessened.

A single sim day on speed 1 is already longer than in any previous sim game. If you tweaked the time even more, I might get 2 days in one play session, which coupled with their long life expectancy, it would feel like I'm accomplishing no progress.

I only started using mods a month ago, of which I only have 5 object mods being used at the moment, which I am also taking back out. I'm not a big fan of mods for the sims game. I am surprised I've used them this long (nearly a full month now).

The time issue has always been an issue for me. Some people don't seem to have a problem with it, and I respect that, but for me, it just feels like i'm always racing against the clock that I can't just relax and enjoy the game.

It's up to you and you alone to establish patterns suiting your very own playstyle. Every sims iteration has it's own "time management" problems. All I can suggest is a "practical house", with every useful object close to one another. No use of stairs if possible. Also, don't talk to those annoying family members whose sole purpose is to make your breakfast twice as long as it should be.
HalloMolli
7 years ago
"drake_mccarty;c-16161274" wrote:
Time management is a nightmare in this game, even moreso now with pets. I think it’s rather interesting that they made pets incompatible with multitasking - Sims will have to finish whatever action they are doing before they do any action with a dog/cat.

Not really, I can interact (teach , talk) with them while my sim is eating, watching a movie, talking to another sim etc. .

Here is my sim teaching his pet and watching a movie at the same time:

https://picload.org/image/droawgoi/13.11.17_15-27-39.png

It also doesn’t help that pets have the same AI pause as toddlers. Since we can’t control pets in any way, selecting an action should automatically cancel whatever the pet was doing so the selected Sim isn’t standing around forever waiting for the dog/cat to finish what they’re doing so the selected action can begin.

It seems this Problem goes even deeper and might be even the root of Simulation lag in General.

In my game I have many of These situations occuring where a certain sim tries to Queue a social interactions up and Fails --> leading to a chain reaction of sims Standing around doing literally nothing until said interaction Fails (times out) eventually. This has been the case Long before they released pets. Not sure if it came with toddlers, though.
Unforgotten13
7 years ago
Yeah I am sort of following a Sims 3 animal shelter challenge on this expansion pack, and it is UNBELIEVABLY hard to care for 3ish dogs and 2-3 cats while also keeping up with cleaning, and self care. Also, the challenge requires them to be potty trained, and sit and lie down trained before they can be adopted out and you can claim the reward, so it take forever to do that, and you aren't allowed a job, just "extra" money (painting, writing, etc), so you have to either train them fast enough that your lights don't go out, or squeeze some painting into the day as well.

We could definitely use a better time management system. 1+hr for cereal, 2 hours for a bath, etc. adds up fast...
HalloMolli
7 years ago
"AlouetteDunsmore;c-16162250" wrote:

We could definitely use a better time management system. 1+hr for cereal, 2 hours for a bath, etc. adds up fast...

Exactly. And you can't even fix this issue with mods unless you want to break your game. In TS3 it was possible to rely on mods (relativity mod) but it seems we are out of luck now. Oh well.

On Topic: It didn't take me a week to make my cat and dog 100% Independent with a full time vet Job.
Pegasyms
New Spectator
7 years ago
Yes - time management is an issue - but I love that aspect, it adds to the "game" aspect which is more of my focus. And here's one reason why: It finally gives a reason to pay attention to and use the whim system/reward potions/traits.

But also, the pets can fill up certain needs really quickly as well. I had one sim who had one dog. He had the Responsible trait and by default he would "work hard" and come home with his Fun needs absolutely depleted and very Tense. He pets the dog and his Fun shoots way up into the green more quickly than anything else.

Basically, now our Sims can't do everything. They have to pick and choose. They have to prioritize. Things will get left undone. And for me, the game is picking those most important things and doing them.