Neighborhood Stories OFF button

"EnkiSchmidt;c-18017570" wrote:

"loubyloulou;c-18017498" wrote:
Just say 'no' and nothing will change.

I believe an 'off' toggle will be coming at a later date.

Saying No is not the same. For example, in another thread someone reported Jacques Villareal asking Morgan Fyres whether he should change his career. That man is a criminal mastermind and Morgan could be his daughter. The phonecall is character-breaking and therefore poses a serious problem for story-oriented players.

That's why I want an option for the game to skip households marked as played. A complete off switch would be even better, of course.

Oh, I didn’t think about the idea that he could be Morgan’s father. Hmmm, interesting. Maybe it’s a good thing Hugo awkwardly left when she flirted with him.

The second phase of this update will let us designate each household’s participation in Neighborhood Stories, if I understood the blog post correctly. I wish they’d have waited for that to roll this out.

I have mentioned this before in the dim and distant past, and it is very unlikely it will be done, but the game needs an overhaul of the options altogether.

Many complex simulation type games such as Crusader Kings have very deep game setup options, where game parameters can be adjusted with either selecting values or in some cases sliders so the player can balance the game to their taste by selecting the severity of some mechanics or disabling them altogether. Of course a player has the option of ignoring these altogether.

In addition, many options are provided on the main HUD of these type of games - autonomy and aging options would be excellent candidates for this in Sims 4, IMO.

Mods like MCCC go a long way towards alleviating this problem in Sims 4 and would not be surprised to see the option to disable neighbourhood stories in that mod.

However, mods don't help the console player. I have not played the console version so not even sure those players can set 'testingcheats', so the option to disable should certainly be provided if just for those players - also lob in a few cheats for them for good measure :) Perfect for the new DRM - er, I mean Smart Delivery. I suspect in many cases console players would appreciate more game options rather than a new coat once in a while

I feel that if a gameplay feature is not tied to a specific object or a specific lot challenge (which are all optional), it needs to have an on/off toggle in the settings menu. And the toggle needs to be on a per save basis. Even features I want to use in one save, I don't necessarily want to use in all my saves.

I want to be able to choose which systems I use or don't use in each of my saves depending on what kind of story I want to be playing.

Some of the features I really want on/off toggles for:
-Neighborhood stories
-Sentiments
-Reputation
-Sims outside of the active household acquiring likes and dislikes on their own
-Random events like alien abductions and vampire attacks
-The Strangerville mystery

They gave us good on/off options for fame, weather and lifestyles. Why didn't they give us those same on/off options for the other systems?

"GlacierSnow;c-18017934" wrote:
I feel that if a gameplay feature is not tied to a specific object or a specific lot challenge (which are all optional), it needs to have an on/off toggle in the settings menu. And the toggle needs to be on a per save basis. Even features I want to use in one save, I don't necessarily want to use in all my saves.

I want to be able to choose which systems I use or don't use in each of my saves depending on what kind of story I want to be playing.

Some of the features I really want on/off toggles for:
-Neighborhood stories
-Sentiments
-Reputation
-Sims outside of the active household acquiring likes and dislikes on their own
-Random events like alien abductions and vampire attacks
-The Strangerville mystery

They gave us good on/off options for fame, weather and lifestyles. Why didn't they give us those same on/off options for the other systems?

YES YES YES YES!!!

As others have said, when you have your own Neighborhood story going on, it is a distraction to have character-breaking events going on. Story Progress was the main reason why I did not enjoy Sims 3 because it was hard to rotate households with that going on. I get people play legacy and want things going on in other households without intervention but please give us rotational players an OFF button.

I haven't updated my game yet, so I'm still playing the prior version but I definitely do not want neighborhood stories. I use MCCC and I prefer to keep using it rather than have EA screw up my game and my sims relationships. I'll patch my game when they patch this patch and add an off switch.

"GlacierSnow;c-18017934" wrote:
I feel that if a gameplay feature is not tied to a specific object or a specific lot challenge (which are all optional), it needs to have an on/off toggle in the settings menu. And the toggle needs to be on a per save basis. Even features I want to use in one save, I don't necessarily want to use in all my saves.

I want to be able to choose which systems I use or don't use in each of my saves depending on what kind of story I want to be playing.

Some of the features I really want on/off toggles for:
-Neighborhood stories
-Sentiments
-Reputation
-Sims outside of the active household acquiring likes and dislikes on their own
-Random events like alien abductions and vampire attacks
-The Strangerville mystery

They gave us good on/off options for fame, weather and lifestyles. Why didn't they give us those same on/off options for the other systems?

All of this sounds great.

I also wish they'd have given us the option to turn off Likes/Dislikes per save. I had already been using my own personal likes/dislikes system from the get-go, because my sims care about far more than just colors, music, or skills. In my story-focused play likes and dislikes mean something, but the game version doesn't add anything but unnecessary and meaningless social interactions to spam (and they do it autonomously way too much). After trying it, I stopped using the game mechanic for most of my played sims, so I really don't need it at all. Sadly, I have no option to also turn it off for unplayed sims. The best I can do (which is far less than adequate) is to edit random townies and such whenever I come across stuff that makes no sense. Like a case a couple of days ago where I discovered a fitness instructor at a gym who disliked fitness. :unamused:

"Goth583;c-18018059" wrote:
I haven't updated my game yet, so I'm still playing the prior version but I definitely do not want neighborhood stories. I use MCCC and I prefer to keep using it rather than have EA screw up my game and my sims relationships. I'll patch my game when they patch this patch and add an off switch.

That's exactly how I feel, I don't use MCCC for any type of story progression but I don't want EA to mess with my families lives and I 1000% do not want a bunch of interrupting phone calls disrupting my story. Especially after seeing some of the ones people have gotten. (IE: a grandmother asking her toddler granddaughter if she should switch careers).

And since I had zero interest in the "manly" kit they just put out, I have no need to update the game and will pass on any new DLC that's upcoming until they add a complete "OFF" toggle for Neighborhood Stories.

"babajayne;c-18017579" wrote:

"EnkiSchmidt;c-18017570" wrote:

"loubyloulou;c-18017498" wrote:
Just say 'no' and nothing will change.

I believe an 'off' toggle will be coming at a later date.

Saying No is not the same. For example, in another thread someone reported Jacques Villareal asking Morgan Fyres whether he should change his career. That man is a criminal mastermind and Morgan could be his daughter. The phonecall is character-breaking and therefore poses a serious problem for story-oriented players.

That's why I want an option for the game to skip households marked as played. A complete off switch would be even better, of course.

Oh, I didn’t think about the idea that he could be Morgan’s father. Hmmm, interesting. Maybe it’s a good thing Hugo awkwardly left when she flirted with him.

The second phase of this update will let us designate each household’s participation in Neighborhood Stories, if I understood the blog post correctly. I wish they’d have waited for that to roll this out.

Oh my, I'm giving my poor man Jacques a bad reputation here! I meant to say that he is old enough to be Morgan's father, and that I cannot see him valueing her advice that much. (On a sidenote, in one of my saves it was the other way around: Hugo had an unrequited crush on Morgan. Maybe we should swap our Morgans, lol.)

I'm very much looking forward to the fine tuning options.

"EnkiSchmidt;c-18018587" wrote:

"babajayne;c-18017579" wrote:

"EnkiSchmidt;c-18017570" wrote:

"loubyloulou;c-18017498" wrote:
Just say 'no' and nothing will change.

I believe an 'off' toggle will be coming at a later date.

Saying No is not the same. For example, in another thread someone reported Jacques Villareal asking Morgan Fyres whether he should change his career. That man is a criminal mastermind and Morgan could be his daughter. The phonecall is character-breaking and therefore poses a serious problem for story-oriented players.

That's why I want an option for the game to skip households marked as played. A complete off switch would be even better, of course.

Oh, I didn’t think about the idea that he could be Morgan’s father. Hmmm, interesting. Maybe it’s a good thing Hugo awkwardly left when she flirted with him.

The second phase of this update will let us designate each household’s participation in Neighborhood Stories, if I understood the blog post correctly. I wish they’d have waited for that to roll this out.

Oh my, I'm giving my poor man Jacques a bad reputation here! I meant to say that he is old enough to be Morgan's father, and that I cannot see him valueing her advice that much. (On a sidenote, in one of my saves it was the other way around: Hugo had an unrequited crush on Morgan. Maybe we should swap our Morgans, lol.)

I'm very much looking forward to the fine tuning options.

Oh I get you now ??
I was thinking about her skin tone compared to Dominic’s and thought, well, that could be possible.

It is kind of weird that Jacques would care what Morgan thought, but she had just aged to a YA so it wasn’t as bad as if she was still a teen.

I refuse to update my game until this has an off switch. I've seen screenshots of weird scenarios that I don't want in my game like a mother asking if she should get to know her son better in a romantic way and also a boyfriend asking his girlfriend if he should get to know another sim in a romantic way. It appears to function quite poorly at the moment which is not surprise to me. I hope they will keep working to improve it.