Just how much does romance with Lovestruck decline in your game? I honestly play 1 game only, meaning I typically 'resume' my game. I create a new save after each update and delete the 'old' save. I have always played this way. I am CC/MOD free. I play with aging off and sometimes will play 1 family for many sim years. So... just how much do I have to care about the romance levels using Lovestruck?
Thank you in advance for your input!
this showed up on the laundry list today, June 25, 25. I will be curious to know if it actually does fix the problem. There are 3 others related to LS on the laundry list. I am patient - I will wait and see what everyone says after the update, which hopefully will be no later than July 2nd. I do hope that it is fixed!!!! 🤞
I have started to dislike Lovestruck a bit, because if sims don't live together the romance starts to go down veeery fast at some point. Sometimes it is useful that my sims forget their love in a couple of days but sometimes it annoys me. I get it, they need to keep in touch and spend a lot of time together for the romance to develop and last longer. I have to put more effort into their relationships.
I used to have no problems with sims that live together, but now my most precious couple has started to be unsatisfied if I don't make them interact enough with each other. I guess I'm too focused on skilling and doing other stuff than romance things. Again, I have to put more effort in their relationship.
I kind of miss the time when romance was easier, because it really was easier without Lovestruck, but I also kind of get why it is hard. I would be sad too if I didn't interact with my boyfriend at all for a couple of days. I also enjoy the build/buy of Lovestruck a lot and don't really want to play without it. The new dates are fun too.
I must say Lovestruck had surprisingly little affect on my sims. I would expect a little more. I play on rotation so I assume there are mechanisms I don't give enough time to develop. And I always had neighbor stories turned off. Occasionally I come accross details in my game that must be related to romance and the other LS stuff, though, but it's no way interferring. Couples don't drop their love interest too fast either, so it seems it happens only while being played.
PS: I think I added a mod to prevent couples on all benches and only couples to show up on community lots. Not sure if there was patched in some fix for the massive romance focus among non played couples.
elliebreton , Jehane40 , GalacticGal , logionX
Love all your input😁, I appreciate candidness greatly... I was messing around with
I ultimately had to disable/turn off all Neighborhood stories for everyone! It was an area that I never messed with until I had, still have, issues with clement frost having neighborhood stories which the game gave him I guess by default or something, I am sure it's in the bug report already or something having to do with it - it was last year? I never touched it again until last night! After doing research about what it was supposed to do or not do? 🤷♀️ I still didn't grasp something..... Cause I am now more confused about it, I think.
So, I just turned them off for everyone and I have no experience of game play with neighborhood stories turned off for all sims, so I am really don't know if there is a difference at all. I did learn something tho 🙃-
I can now say with 100% confidence 🤩, that it was the Neighborhood stories being enabled that was causing the blinking in my game. My game has not blinked - either black or white - since I turned all neighborhoods stories off. 😊 I will see if this is a bug, I do know how. 🤣 edit: I thought the blinking was due to my graphics card.
With that said, Will I need Neighborhood stories for the pack to function? Will the pack force Neighborhood stories to be used?
It's bad. It decays for unplayed households.
Romantic Relationships decay/become negative fast with no interaction | EA Forums - 4947168
The pack also has some other bad game design:
I don't recommend playing this pack without mods.
Frankly, I haven't really noticed having to do much upkeep on my couple's romance at all. I just got them up to the Steamy level on their romance skills and they do the rest. I also am tending to play just one family. I have the parents of my couple and their siblings, but I mostly stick to the one household as it's the center of my interest. I do a Save As at the start of each gaming session, aging is on, and then keep the previous saves, lest something untoward occurs. (I've had glitches in which a key Sim has died, only to realize it was just a glitch upon rolling back and replaying.) To each his own, this works for me. I love Lovestruck. I did have a moment (when my young couple first got married wherein that weird bug kicked in keeping them from doing much of anything regarding romance. I had a mod that at least allowed for them to woohoo, which saved the disastrous honeymoon) but once I reset their relationship, all has been well. They started out as teens, which seems to be what triggers this bug. I think this pack is well worth it.
It seems to be a bit random if and how much romance declines. With my main couple, it's sometimes down by maybe a third when I get back to them (I play rotational), and if that's the case, I send them on a date and have them do romantic stuff. What works really well is including a few romantic gestures throughout their day. That helps the bar remain stable. Also, if traits and interests align, the decline isn't all that bad, if it happens at all.
I have one couple that has never had the romance decline at all; with another couple, the bar was almost empty when I last played with them. Sending them on a date and have them interact helped a bit but in their case I didn't worry all that much. After all, they just had a kid, of course they would be stressed out and not have much time for each other.
What's interesting, though, is if you have a couple that's not a good match at all. When Lovestruck came out, I created a couple that was like night and day - he's a criminal, she's a lawyer. He hates kids, she wants a bunch. He is nasty, mean, and everybody hates him, she is lovable and has tons of friends. In short, I set them up for failure because I wanted to test the gameplay that came with Lovestruck, like the marriage counselling. Also, I didn't put in much effort once that romance bar started to decline because I wanted to see where it was going, then decided I'd let it spiral into a full-fledged drama including a divorce. With another couple I created to test gameplay, the husband changed from super-shy to super-romantic while the wife became more and more reserved and eventually developed a trait that requires forming a stable friendship before she even considers flirting with someone. Again, these two weren't a good match; they, too, are divorced, and the wife is now dating Caleb Vatore :D
In short, the romance decline seems to be random and linked to a couple's traits and interests. The better the match, the more stable that romance bar.
I guess it depends how you play your game. If you have a few romantic interactions each day then you probably won't see anything. I have had a few occasions when my sims had woohoo and I got the pop up that they are dissatisfied in their relationship and may break up if their partner does anything mean. Possibly bad woohoo? Lol. Or because they forgot the romantic interactions beforehand. I've never seen a sim break up from it though. But I can't say I've noticed any substantial decline in their pink romance lines - possibly it is a small amount but looks just the same to me.
Sometimes if I'm working hard on gaining skills etc I will get the pop up and realise that I've neglected them lately - I do find it a little annoying in a way but it also reminds me that they do have a partner in their life!
