Dine Out nearly unplayable

http://simsasylum.com/tfm/index.php?/topic/13758-world-sim-control-10-restaurants-dine-out-gp/ This is the suite of mods I use that takes care of about ninety percent of the issues I had with restaurants. These are tuning mods, not script mods, so they are less likely to conflict with mods you're already using. I am currently using almost a hundred tuning and bug fixing mods, three script mods and 1800 pieces of CC, and have not seen a Last Exception from MCCC for two months. I usually don't post links to mods because many players don't want to use mods. But given the fact Dine Out came out three years ago and players are still unable to enjoy the full dining out experience, as I am seeing in this discussion, I guess I'll just throw this info out for anyone to look into and see if it will help. I can honestly say these mods have made a huge difference in how restaurants work for me or I wouldn't be recommending them to anyone as a possible fix. All I know is, his mods have made my game much more enjoyable.

Thanks for that. @Paigeisin5 I might actually look into a few of those just so I can see what the game should be like.

Maxis still really needs to fix their game. It's great that you found a way around but you PAID for this game and good golly gosh should NEVER NEED nearly 100 mods... Maybe some are things to change the game of your own choosing and not actually just gaming fixes, I don't know how you play, but my point remains we should never need mods to fix the basics of the game we paid them for.

However, like you said, 3 years in and the basics about what this pack is about is unplayable and never was and still never fixed it likely will never be fixed. I think refunds should be in order personally after this long. Or at least partially. I can play with items and clothes and I can run a restaurant, I just can't eat in one. I think a stuff pack price would be more appropriate then.

@Camkat Most of the mods I use are there to stop many of the autonomous actions such as the constant need our Sims have to grab glasses of water then leave dirty glasses everywhere. The toddler harassment where one Sim puts the child to bed then another Sim will drag the poor thing out of bed. They do this with the highchair as well. I am using around fifty of those types of tuning mods, and with each new pack or update that list seems to grow. The rest are bug-fixing mods to repair broken features such as the ones we got in Dine Out. I have a couple that do change the game around more to my liking, but there are only about twenty of those in my mods folder. One of those adds hygiene and fun to swimming. Which makes total sense to me, because why should swimming just be about fitness. It's more satisfying sending my Sims off to swim when they get to have fun while doing it. Otherwise it's a waste of time once a Sim has max fitness skill.

I use mods because I am tired of waiting for bug fixes, and to bring a bit of sanity and clarity back into the game. The devs can't do that for me. They don't know what I want and every new feature seems to have problems attached to it, it doesn't work properly, or it doesn't make sense to me on any level. I passed on buying Realm of Magic because the devs didn't include a way to turn off the magic portion which I did not want to see in all the worlds. And many players are saying they're seeing magic folk flying around on brooms in all the worlds even when they have not taken a played Sim through the Portal. One can make potions, but the devs forgot to tag those as retail objects. And all I wanted from that pack was the new world, and not to have the game decide what I had to do with it. So I won't buy that pack until I find a mod that lets me control how I want to play. The days of buying any pack at full price are over. When, or if, I purchase anything more, I won't be paying full price for it. Buy it at half price, throw in a couple of mods, and I'm totally cool with that. The same goes for the updates. I now wait for my mods to be updated before I install anything. Playing off line isn't ideal, but it beats playing a vanilla game. Most modders update their mods in a couple of days, so playing off line isn't that tough to do. So give a couple of mods a try. The restaurant ones are especially nice. But he has a lot of mods that are useful and can save your sanity if your Sims are doing something that doesn't make sense to you, or is driving you crazy.

"Paigeisin5;c-17278994" wrote:
@Camkat Most of the mods I use are there to stop many of the autonomous actions such as the constant need our Sims have to grab glasses of water then leave dirty glasses everywhere. The toddler harassment where one Sim puts the child to bed then another Sim will drag the poor thing out of bed. They do this with the highchair as well. I am using around fifty of those types of tuning mods, and with each new pack or update that list seems to grow. The rest are bug-fixing mods to repair broken features such as the ones we got in Dine Out. I have a couple that do change the game around more to my liking, but there are only about twenty of those in my mods folder. One of those adds hygiene and fun to swimming. Which makes total sense to me, because why should swimming just be about fitness. It's more satisfying sending my Sims off to swim when they get to have fun while doing it. Otherwise it's a waste of time once a Sim has max fitness skill.

I use mods because I am tired of waiting for bug fixes, and to bring a bit of sanity and clarity back into the game. The devs can't do that for me. They don't know what I want and every new feature seems to have problems attached to it, it doesn't work properly, or it doesn't make sense to me on any level. I passed on buying Realm of Magic because the devs didn't include a way to turn off the magic portion which I did not want to see in all the worlds. And many players are saying they're seeing magic folk flying around on brooms in all the worlds even when they have not taken a played Sim through the Portal. One can make potions, but the devs forgot to tag those as retail objects. And all I wanted from that pack was the new world, and not to have the game decide what I had to do with it. So I won't buy that pack until I find a mod that lets me control how I want to play. The days of buying any pack at full price are over. When, or if, I purchase anything more, I won't be paying full price for it. Buy it at half price, throw in a couple of mods, and I'm totally cool with that. The same goes for the updates. I now wait for my mods to be updated before I install anything. Playing off line isn't ideal, but it beats playing a vanilla game. Most modders update their mods in a couple of days, so playing off line isn't that tough to do. So give a couple of mods a try. The restaurant ones are especially nice. But he has a lot of mods that are useful and can save your sanity if your Sims are doing something that doesn't make sense to you, or is driving you crazy.

I've definitely got to look into some mods. The more you pile it all up, the more it is that does need fixing. I've got that silly water issue too and all my homes end up looking like that little girl from Signs has visited with water glasses just littered everywhere. You're smart to wait on ROM, everything you've mentioned I've seen in my game. Funny thing is, ROM is the first pack I had paid full price for. Literally everything else I have in game I had bought on sale (including the base) because of the issues in game, I've never felt they were worth my full dollars. *sighs* and yeah, the 2 things that I bought it for, being able to sell the potions with GTW and the ancient bloodlines are completely broken. I LOVE spellcasters and I'm a generational player so this ancient bloodline thing was going to tell a lot of stories for me. I thought ROM was going to be worth my money because of how much I love the theme and I adored all of the CAS/BB but the 2 of the very most things I wanted, were broken and useless. That will teach me. I know there's a mod out there to fix potions too.

It really makes me angry that I do have to look into mods. There's so much now and it baffles me as to why the sims team has just left it yet the modders seem to fix them no problem. :/

@Camkat Using mods of any kind has always been a thing with any iteration of the Sims. There's no way around it. Sims2 needed a few, Sims3 needed even more and Sims4 is just ......Well, let's say it needs a lot of help. I was angry when Sims4 first came out, hated it, and uninstalled it, vowing I would never play it after the first day. But I went back to it after 14 months and gave it another shot once new packs were added. I've been tweaking it with mods since then. And the modding community has grown as the need for mods has increased. If you do decide to add a few mods to your game, use mods from only two or three modders. It's easier to find updates for your mods if you only have two or three websites to visit, and bookmark those sites. Also, there is less risk of mod conflict when you use content from a couple modders rather than many. Coolspear, 83Bienchen and Littlemssam are my go-to modders. Between the three of them they have mods for nearly every problem I had. Create a folder within your Mods folder, with the title 'Ingame Mods' then place all of your mods into it. If it is a separate folder, it's easier to pull it out of the game and check for updates whenever EA updates the base game, or releases patches or new packs. If you prefer not to update until your mods are updated, you have the option to play off line until that happens. Keeping your mods all in one place makes life much easier. Script mods have to be placed directly into the Mods folder. Those cannot be placed in the Ingame Mods folder. I have two script mods, MCCC and the UICheats Extensions. I had one or two others but they didn't play very well with other mods I felt were more important to keep. One last thing, delete the LocalThumbnail cache before you fire up your game to play or after every play session. Allowing that cache to grow will cause lag and other problems. It needs to be deleted often. This is especially true after addding or deleting mods and CC.

Trial and error rules when trying out new mods. Add one or two at a time then play your game for a while. Since you have the drinking-water- constantly bug, try a mod for it then see how much easier it is when dirty glasses aren't littering your lots. I loved your reference to that movie 'Signs'. That is a great movie. I have the DVD and won't embarrass myself by admitting how many times I have watched it. LOL

I was very angry about the state of Sims4 also. But I've decided to regain my control over the game and not let my anger interfere with my enjoyment. I was very upset after pre ordering Island Living, playing it, then realizing the pre EP update had borked two thirds of my mods. I was beyond furious and was quite vocal about it here in the forum. That's when I decided to do something about everything on my own. After five years of unfixed bugs, irritation with unwanted autonomous actions, and the teams basically ignoring the problems, I dove even deeper into finding solutions within the modding community. The reward for taking the time to do that is a game that is playable and I am having fun again.


https://www.deichschafblog.de/s4/sonstige-mods/ here is the link to Bienchen's site

https://littlemssam.tumblr.com/ link to littlemssam

http://simsasylum.com/tfm/index.php?/forum/322-ts4-general-mods/&page=4 link to Coolspear's no drink from sinks and no drink from fridge mods

@Paigeisin5 Thanks so much for taking all the time to put this together. I am going to try the drinking water one after work today as you suggested. I was lucky and did get through TS2 and TS3 without mods, even though I'm sure I had issues that bothered me where I could have used them, but TS4 is so beyond broken that I end up wanted to rip my hair out half the time I play.

(I have the Signs DVD too :D ) Whenever I see my lot full of rotten water glasses, I kind of just sigh and say to myself that "Bo must have been over". Haha

@Camkat You're welcome! And I thought about little Bo when my lots looked like the movie set, too. :D

I honestly don't know why Maxis thought it would be a great idea for it to take hours and hours for sims to get their food. Going to a restaurant in dine out really is an all-day event lmao.

"feenalockheart;c-17341984" wrote:
Does anyone know how to get food from other Expansions to show up in the Dine Out menu? I recently installed Sulani and I was hoping to see new food items pop up in the Dine Out menu but they're not there. I can only get them from the food stalls. Is this how it's supposed to be? If there is a cheat out there or this is simply a bug, please let me know.

You can't.

"popstarissa;c-17342205" wrote:

"logion;c-17342087" wrote:

"feenalockheart;c-17341984" wrote:
Does anyone know how to get food from other Expansions to show up in the Dine Out menu? I recently installed Sulani and I was hoping to see new food items pop up in the Dine Out menu but they're not there. I can only get them from the food stalls. Is this how it's supposed to be? If there is a cheat out there or this is simply a bug, please let me know.

You can't.

I never even thought about or noticed this @logion and @feenalockheart . Now that I know, it’s super irritating! There’s zero reward in TS4 for being a loyal buyer of packs. They miss all the opportunities to make them meaningfully interconnect.

That they do, I wish expansions could expand all the packs more, like seasons does, where the weather got updated for sulani for example. But I guess they would not be able to release them as fast as they do if they would do that.

Still, it doesn't sound that difficult to make food available from other packs so you could cook it for yourself or order it at restaurants. They did it with City Living.