Rotational Play Rant

I feel your pain. Especially when it was presented early on as rotation play friendly. Yes, it is friendlier than in Sims3, where your Sims lost out on some of the wants you needed for them, just to switch households! But, my first attempt at rotation play in Sims4 involved six households. I played if memory serves for three days in each household, but that still let time lapse before I got back to my O/C and her new family. What did I find? Her 'loving' husband had another female Sim in his romance panel! This was quite some time ago, true enough. And I decided to take things into my own hands. As we had to do in Sims3, I had him invite over the offending 'lady' and have them fight enough to break it off. Then I learned that these 'relationships' really weren't relationships at all. Sure made me feel better, though to squelch it. LOL

There is no true story progression in Sims4. In many ways I'm grateful for that. I do find myself in my current 'rotation' save, bouncing back and forth from the different households just to make sure relationships are created where they need to be and that the children are being had. It's my ancestral game save so their lives are all pretty much mapped out.

I do use MCCC, but not even to its fullest. I'm still quite the novice. I went from someone who was terrified of using Boolprop in Sims2, to using at least 20 of NRaas, Ind. mods in Sims3, just to stabilize the game. MCCC is based on the Master Controller mod which I loved.

As for having to update mods, it's not that big a deal. Generally with the MCCC support thread they give us a heads up if the patch is mod-breaking. And to Deaderpool's credit, he's pretty darn quick at his updates. I have my Origin page set up to not allow for game updates. That way I can pull my Mods folder before I patch. Then, like this last time around, I just waited for the two mods I use regularly to be updated prior to playing the save that required their use. To bide my time, which wasn't very long at all, I started a new game save, just for fun.

Give it a thought, it might just solve your problem. Best of luck! I hope you feel better for getting it off your chest and that I was helpful at least with the tea and sympathy.

I quite agree that TS4, despite EA propaganda, is not rotational play friendly. Have tried it on occasion and have always found those games to be such a mess that they have been abandoned. Not only do sims form new relationships on their own, but have come back to households/characters to find babies, kids, and preggie sims that were not there when I went on to other households in the rotation. TS4, holding to its online roots, is a one sim/household per game affair. When I do rotational play I go to the version that is made for it, TS2. No, you are not screaming into the void alone.

I was in fact happy to learn (not that long ago) that TS4 works a lot better with rotational saves than I expected. For some reason I thought their cash funds would "randomize" while I was gone, that some would switch careers, and relation panel be tossed all over the place. I tested my full 50+ households rotation, and found that most household's cash fluctuated with only around §10, which is practically zero. Nobody switched jobs, there might have been one retired old sim who had gotten a new job, but I'm not sure that happened before or after my awakening.

Relations panel is still a random mess, but it doesn't bother me all that much, I normally focus on relations for just a few households at the time, or I just move them together while working their relation, so it can easily be fixed if some flirt has been cut off the world.

I believe the sims are *not* getting new contacts and new romances while we are away, but that the game randomize them the second you enter the household. It's intentional. I heard relations is one of the bigger problems when it comes to lagging, so that's why they programmed it this way. Adding a new EP will add more to lagging if the pack comes with new relation possibilities/forms. I hardly check the relation panel anymore, besides I hate that we can't sort it by friendship. I'd only be interested in knowing top 5 friendships (and maybe bottom 3, too). Anyone my sim hardly knows is not interesting to me, and when all those are displayed in random order, it gets too messy for my eyes. It feels like the game wants to surprise me with some shocking new contacts, while I rather like to decide those things myself. I'm not impressed with randomness.

I wish EA would explain how misc stuff is calculated, like how is bills and income set up for rotational play? I have my thoughts on it, but I often think I really should do a test run just to verify my assumptions - instead of playing.

I think MC Command center has some settings to stop relationship culling. I'm not very technical myself but I did see settings for it. I've set it to not cull relationships in my game, well I at least I think I have it set right. I'm not 100% sure. :D

I've had a big rotational game going over a year now and have found it pretty easy to work around. I do use MCCC to reduce culling by 95%, but even with this sometimes I still see some relationships vanish/drop lower than they should. Again though, MCCC can help as it is very easy to restore the relationship with a click or two. If you dont want to use cheats to fix relationships, the incredibly friendly reward trait and high reputation can make for fast friendships.

I'll also echo that MCCC is usually updated very fast, usually before I am home from work and for sure within a day of patches.

Also the UI Cheat mod allows to set friendship values, but your sims must have met.

I have played rotationally for a while on my current game and haven't noticed too much mess, but then I do not write exact things down and my memory is not brilliant. But I do keep a photo album for each family, so I am aware that they still have marriage and best friend relationships intact and their jobs usually remain the same (except the self-employed - that is pretty annoying).

I thought all the culling problems had been fixed but I haven't played it since the last update so maybe they broke again? Or have I just been lucky and they were not fixed at all? I haven't had any unwanted romantic relationships appearing in marriages for a long, long time and mainly I just end up losing non-friend relationships and gaining some different non-friend relationships. I do get a few new bizarre friend relationships though, like my sims little boy being friends with some random creepy dude.

The bottom line is that, despite the many good things about The Sims, it’s not that playable for most people without some sort of modification. It’s just not thoroughly thought out, they’re obviously not doing regular customer surveys (or doing them and then not acting on the feedback), and we all know what their quality control is like.

Without makers of cc and mods, this company would have tanked long ago. So to make up for manufacturer incompetence, you just always have to look for the mod that fixes whatever the problem is. It’s not the way it should be, but it’s the way it is.

Oh dear after reading all these comments I wish I didn’t start a second household ?‍♀️
At first I thought my household I switched back to was broken nobody going to work or school.
But now I have relationship decay and issues that is why I started the second household there just isn’t many viable fish in the sea dating wise.
Oh and I just read I now have job performance to worry about.
Not entirely sure it is worth it. Thoughts feelings suggestions welcome. Pretty new to sims.

I have been playing a rotational file for several years now. I have an abundance of families in the rotation and am probably on generation 7 or 8 at this point. Yes, there is some culling of relationships, but only on acquaintance relationships as far as I can tell. I've never had a friendship or romance disappear that I have noticed. You just have to make sure that if you're establishing a new relationship that it is well on its way before changing households. You can't meet someone and then immediately rotate and be sure the connection will still be there when you come back. I've never seen any changes to jobs or work performance, nor household funds. Personally, I've had a great experience with rotational play in the Sims 4.