Free will on or off?

I play with it off. I don't like having to worry about my sims striking up romantic conversations with the elderly, or constantly grabbing glasses of water, or always going off to play computer games... the list goes on and on.

At first I had free will off, but my sims were just standing there kind of like zombies, so I turned it on.

I have it off because autonomy in this game is awful and annoying.

"Hermitgirl;c-16473216" wrote:

"Pamtastic72;c-16473168" wrote:

"Hermitgirl;c-16473053" wrote:
I play with full autonomy "on" but with autonomy checked off for selected sim. So is that a yes or no? I don't consider it a sometimes really.

This allows it so the other sims in the household stay busy doing what they want/need to do but I control the played one. The played sim doesn't decide to fight what you want them to do, they don't drop your commands as easy, they still respond to other sims that engage them.
I didn't start playing this way until about 2 years in and it's been a game changer for me. If you feel you're more busy and frustrated canceling out your sims actions I encourage you to give it a try.

Hmmmm...I think I will give this a shot. It sounds like a perfect compromise as I do get irritated with my played sim walking away and the like as I am queuing up actions.

Tell me if you like using it. I was really surprised at how it changed things. I didn't even know it was an option for a few years of playing (opps) or just ignored that check mark thing.

I will. I am going to play later. I am doing the legacy challenge right now and I have a family of 5, parents and triplet toddlers

On because I like to see what my Sims are doing and it's sometimes funny to see what they're doing on their one. I only interlude them when I must like they're setting the lot on fire. Or I wanting them to doing some skilling or building relationships.
The pause button is my friend too.

For as long as I've had it I always leave it alone. A time where I did adjust it I found it quite boring. I usually only interfere if there's a goal that needs to be met or they are just off doing their own thing way too much. But times where you want a Sim to do something and they do it, makes it worth it for me! And less work!

"CK213;c-16473287" wrote:
Yes, meaning Free Will on.
But I think I should experiment with it off because all there moving around, constantly trying different things, and interrupting what I am trying to do can get annoying. The selected sim is off, but that doesn't stop other sims from stopping what I assigned them to do.

It's especially irksome that everything is cancelled out if you go off-lot with the selected sim. If I start mom writing a book or painting a picture, I can't take the kid to an off-lot club gathering.
Does playing with free will totally off fix that? But it seems like it would be really annoying in addition to not getting to watch what they do autonomously.. Starting to wonder if I should try turning it off just before leaving the lot with a particular sim, but an awful lot of the time the things I want to take them to are invitations, so I can't change settings before accepting.

I leave it on but I use mods to squash certain autonomous behaviors that irk me. I like my sims to tell their own stories so I let them decide what they want to do, who they want to romance, all that stuff. I like to keep things spontaneous and be as hands off as much as possible.

I leave freewill on so Sims can do as they please while I'm not paying attention - although I usually keep them on a pretty short rope, lol!

I have free will turned on. It can be annoying, but it is much better than having it turned off. When it is turned on, my sims tend to do annoying things such as eating when not hungry, preparing food and then never cooking it, or reading books and then not putting the books back. In previous games, I have turned it off, but then my sims just stand around like zombies, so I had to turn it back on quickly. I think they've even missed a few days of work.

I guess I would rather go with sims that are out to get me, than zombie sims ;)