Make spellcasters actually exist in the game?

"CelSims;c-17775321" wrote:

"LiELF;c-17775304" wrote:

"CelSims;c-17775281" wrote:

"LiELF;c-17775249" wrote:
I believe the reason they are not using too many toggles is because it causes instability in the game. I'm pretty sure that's what I read from one of the devs. When you think about what toggles actually do, they change the course of the game. The more toggles you have, the more game shifts and combination of possibilities need to be considered, and the game needs to be programmed for it. When you have people trying out features and then toggling them off, the game makes that shift and it surely affects a bunch of game code. With everything else going on in a Sims game and the more heavy weight of packs, you start risking more issues and bugs as it is. Adding too many toggles most likely becomes the straw that breaks the camel's back, so to speak.

If you look at how heavy Sims 3 became in only a few years, and how many crashing, freezing and corruption issues it had, it's an example of what can go wrong when you try to do too much, too fast, with too many possibilities.

So I think they've been reserving the toggles for more major and important features, to use sparingly, which is why the main Occults come in separate packs to begin with.

Thing is though LiELF, they said it's because of instability and then go and introduce toggles for N.A.P.s, eco footprint and thundersnow. I was prepared to accept the instability argument right up to the point they made it clear through their actions that instability only counts when it comes to supernatural players, but we sure can use them for every thing else.

'Major and more important features'. Eco footprint and NAPS certainly are major features. Is it important to turn off realism in a pack for realism though? More important than allowing occult players to actually play with occults? I would argue it's more important to allow players who want a specific theme to be able to play that theme without nerfs.

Yeah, I think they felt they had to gauge how big and invasive a feature is, what it affects, and what the possibilities are. In the Vampires pack, they included garlic to ward off Vampires, so there was already a work-around in place, which is why it's complete nonsense to nerf them in the first place. Ninja had said that they specifically chose to put Vampires in a separate pack so that those who didn't want them could skip the pack. That was the original intent. To create an immersive Vampire experience for those who wanted it.

In the larger packs, if we look at the scale of how toggled features affect things, we see that certain weather has potential to cause multiple deaths in one swoop, so it has a toggle. The Eco pack has two toggles (which I use myself) because the environment and the Naps completely change entire neighborhoods of behavior on a worldwide scale, so that has a toggle. In get Famous, the entire Fame system is turned off because one single famous Sim causes a lot of disruption and can't even be properly interacted with. (This one I think was more of a design flaw and probably a waste of a toggle because it could have worked differently. Probably came from the Sims 3 celebrity complaints.) Now that I think about it, it seems toggles are only used in EPs. Maybe budget is also a factor, which kind of makes sense.

I personally like the way Occults were handled with Mermaids, similar to Sims 2 where the player can "activate" them by seeking them out and that "outs" them in the game. It seems like a good middle ground for everyone. Better than banishing Spellcasters to the magic realm. ?

In the end, with Vampires, I saw a complaint once (I think on Twitter) that I think was the real cause of the nerf, because someone overdramatically compared the break-ins to a certain horrible, criminal act in real life, and after that, Vampires seem to just show up at the door and do nothing.

Of all the ways to turn things off, my preference has been Laundry Day. If you don't want laundry, simply don't add the items required. Maybe if garlic had been simply buy a garlic braid from build/buy and have one some where on the lot to prevent vampires spawning, that would have been less inconvenient for people? Though now we have the No Trespassing option they need to unnerf them imo. Or add a RoM item to enable using spells, like a wand case or some thing.

Exactly. Or here's an idea. If realistic players really don't want occults "ruining" their game but can't bear skipping out on the packs: Don't create occults, delete the premade occult sims from your library, and just delete any that spawn. There you go: completely realistic game without intruding on other people's gameplay.

Otherwise though, I think of being able to turn things on/off would work out fantastically too.