Fill Empty Lots Change

I could do that but I don't want to, I want the lots to stay empty. Randos can move in on the Landgrabs. ;D

@Catzilla I haven't updated the game yet as I am too busy with work to even play, but I wondered about that when I saw the patch notes and was hoping that would not be the case. I too do not like random townies filling in the empty houses and always had it off. I want to choose who lives in the world and who doesn't.
@chocolatefrosting I understand what you are saying, but I don't want to spend what little time that I have to play my game on just deleting random townies from households every 5 minutes.
I wish they would stop removing/nerfing things in the game that were options. :'(

I have Neighborhood Stories turned completely off, and I also didn't allow random sims to move in before it came along, so the new change won't affect me personally. However, in case some of you are unaware, one thing you could do to take a bit more control over the housing situation is to go into build mode and set the number of beds to 0 on houses that you want to reserve for your played sims. You don't have to actually take beds out, but setting it to zero tells the game "There are no beds here," and it won't move sims into those particular houses. I used to use this method when I did allow move-ins for a little while when I first started playing. But later I stopped allowing move-ins at all because I'm absolutely greedy about my houses. ;)

But why take the option away? The neighborhood stories may move Sims around that were already in the world, but the "fill empty lots" setting prevented the game from automatically moving "Not in World Sims" and newly generated townies from moving into to empty houses. By a conservative estimate including every pack and new crest, that is approximately 117 empty lots and apartments to alter, every time you start your game, rather than a setting in the options that was able to be selected from the beginning.
@VeeDub, I simply don't have several hours to do "clean-up" just to have some down time and play. I have very limited time as I work 7 days a week and only have a couple of hours to play during that time.
As I said in my other post, I just wish they would stop removing/ or nerfing features that were in the game or came with packs.

I had fill empty lots off but then they gave us the new neighborhood stories and I erroneously thought it was a setting that meant move in/out of existing lots (which I thought would be fun and entertaining) and not fill all the empty houses that I had already toggled off.

What I'd like is to have is an alternative to all off or all lots get filled. BTW, Fill Empty Lots On/Off was very specific and clear what it's function was, the neighborhood stories Move IN/Out is not if you're looking to keep the randos from moving into all the good lots you're trying to save for later.

@Catzilla exactly what I was trying to say. By taking that away (fill empty houses) and the fact that the neighbor stories is turned on by default, makes it more time consuming.

"Catzilla;d-999294" wrote:
From the patch notes:

"We have tidied up the Game Options menu a little by removing the Fill In Empty Lots option. This particular option has been superseded with Neighborhood Stories and the “Move In” functionality."

I have to disagree with this change. I like the game option to block rando sims from taking all the good lots that are left open intentionally. Also, the Move In option through neighborhood stories made me think that sims would be moving into existing households not taking empty lots I may be saving. In do want sims to be able to move into existing households but I do not want them filling empty lots. It would be nice to be able to fine tune this.

It's a good point that there should be different options for sims moving into a household and Sims filling empty lots. Perhaps a new option in neighbourhood stories like join households would be a solution. I think I will stick to having neighbourhood stories completely off.

"DesertSimmer1971;c-18102363" wrote:
Instead of just unchecking one box, If I understand @DaWaterRat, since there are approximately 93 permade and not in world sims at the beginning of starting a new game with all the worlds, I would now have to go into each household and edit the neighborhood stories one at a time since this feature is turned on automatically. This would have to be done every 5 to 10 minutes of play or because the game generates townies to fill roles in the game. I would also need to go into each empty house/Apartment which is over 100 lots with all packs, and zero out the bedrooms and bathrooms as well.
I would like to play the game, not have to spend my time doing this. I don't have the luxury of having hours a day to play a game.

No, you can change it globally for all Unplayed households. So all unplayed households will have the same behavior. You change 2 buttons once. Newly Generated Unplayed Households will all have the same restrictions.

Heck, you can turn Neighborhood stories off entirely with one check box.

It only becomes an issue if you want to have, say, the Goths and the Landgraabs move out and in, which I'm assuming you don't want.

Here, I don't have screenshots at the moment and won't be playing sims for a few hours, but here's the overview that Sims Community did on Neighborhood Stories

https://simscommunity.info/2022/03/16/the-sims-4-guide-to-neighbourhood-stories-customisation/

Honestly, you're making a mountain out of a mole hill.

Go to other households. Click on the little icon. Change what you want to change. It then applies to ALL Households. You don't have to change them individually. You don't have to customize them individually.

You *can* customize them further, but you don't have to. You can set everything at the global level and it will apply to all of them, including new ones the game generates. Example under the cut.

"DesertSimmer1971;c-18102731" wrote:
@DaWaterRat that still does not stop random sims from moving into the houses even if you turn the neighborhood stories off completely. So it makes no sense why they removed the fill empty lots option

I have Neighborhood Stories turned off completely and no random sims have ever moved into houses in my game. The instructions given by @DaWaterRat would do the exactly same thing because you'd be turning that part OFF if you do use some parts of NS.