Turning Story Progression Off

Tbh...I have been playing Sims 4 for (only) a year, and I don't know what story progression in the game is? I never play according to any sort of rules or anything, I don't even know what the rules are, and I never have had problems. So maybe just forget that there is a story progression? Hm. I dunno.

I have it turned of as soon as it was added to the game. I never liked story progression in the sims 3, in fact I consider it a down side of the sims 3. I am glad it is only optional in the sims 4. I like the households outside of my played sims to remain static. By default I have aging for off for unplayed households so I don't get empty worlds either. The off option works very well.

Are there any specific aspirations you are struggling with? I completed most of them. Some tasks are tricky or take a long time but most worked as expected.

"fujicakes1;c-18307646" wrote:
Tbh...I have been playing Sims 4 for (only) a year, and I don't know what story progression in the game is? I never play according to any sort of rules or anything, I don't even know what the rules are, and I never have had problems. So maybe just forget that there is a story progression? Hm. I dunno.

Story progression is a system that was added to the sims 4 in an update. Actually it is called neighbourhood stories. Story progression was the name of a similar system in the sims 3. This system allows the game to move in new households into empty lots, give unplayed sims a career, let them have children, adopt a pet, let sims die. The idea is that the world feels more alive and changes over time. The big advantage of the sims 4 is that you can customise the system on a global level for all sims and allow exceptions on a household base. You can find information about the settings here

"Atreya33;c-18307677" wrote:
I have it turned of as soon as it was added to the game. I never liked story progression in the sims 3, in fact I consider it a down side of the sims 3. I am glad it is only optional in the sims 4. I like the households outside of my played sims to remain static. By default I have aging for off for unplayed households so I don't get empty worlds either. The off option works very well.

Are there any specific aspirations you are struggling with? I completed most of them. Some tasks are tricky or take a long time but most worked as expected.

"fujicakes1;c-18307646" wrote:
Tbh...I have been playing Sims 4 for (only) a year, and I don't know what story progression in the game is? I never play according to any sort of rules or anything, I don't even know what the rules are, and I never have had problems. So maybe just forget that there is a story progression? Hm. I dunno.

Story progression is a system that was added to the sims 4 in an update. Actually it is called neighbourhood stories. Story progression was the name of a similar system in the sims 3. This system allows the game to move in new households into empty lots, give unplayed sims a career, let them have children, adopt a pet, let sims die. The idea is that the world feels more alive and changes over time. The big advantage of the sims 4 is that you can customise the system on a global level for all sims and allow exceptions on a household base. You can find information about the settings here

Ah! I see. I have aging turned off for all characters including unplayed as well. I have seen notices about neighborhood stories but didn't really think much about it. It has never interfered with my gameplay, although I know that things happen because I had notices turned on one time with mccc before a previous update and everyone was getting divorced and remarried and pregnant and etc, or they were married but they got pregnant from someone else, it was pretty entertaining. And sims do move for sure, sometimes into houses that I later want, but I just...ahem...either move them or...delete them. Depending on how much I care at the time. Thanks for telling me what that is!

I had neighbourhood stories on in my legacy game, but it does not work well because sims don't move together/marry. If you play generationally you'll soon notice how broken it is. There are households with siblings living together with adopted children and that's it. For my rotational game neighbourhood stories are way too chaotic, so I keep it off.

I also play with story progression / neighborhood stories off. Only my played Sims age (lifespan is set to normal), the townies and premades remain static. It might be a bit of TS2 nostalgia on my part (I also still remember the names of some of the TS2 NPCs). I know the names of most of my townies and sometimes just look around to see who's currently around when I play.

@fujicakes1 Here is a link to a video by lilsimsie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4_L2NEnRXg

@Atreya33 Thanks for that link! That is helpful. For right now, I think I just want it off because I am so disgusted about the ridiculous world that I woke up to after I finished those aspirations. But when I calm down, at some point, I am likely to want to tweak the system instead of disable it.

The aspirations were all ones that I have completed many many times. The game spawns things differently in different saves. Small changes that I make might have consequences larger than I understand. I just got stuck. Really stuck. I had aging off and the seasons set to 28 days. I didn't think about how much time was passing in the Sim world while i wasted so much time trying to find 5 crystals, when every world was only spawning those stupid boxes with the trophy doll thing inside. The other task was a gardening task and lets not even discuss dirt piles in the Sims 4. If there is ever a reason to play the Sims 3 instead of Sims 4, it is gardening.

I had the game on triple speed and was whizzing through week after week after week. The game thinks a week is a LONG time, but my active sim was living a week like a week. When things go so badly wrong, they can teach me how to play the game better in general. I will never forget to pay more attention to the world in general. My active sim lives in a world that can get destroyed, leaving her without a good place to live.

@musteni thank you for sharing your gameplay style. I have never played rotationally or legacy. This was one of my longest saves because I got stuck on the aspirations. I am going to need to pay more attention to what people say about playing legacies even of I don't play them. All romances in Sims 4 have been an immediate disaster for me. I think I am going to save my romances for Sims 3. But sometimes I have a longer save in Sims which is as long as a legacy family.

@Lenny_Ogg There are just some Sims that need to be in certain places. The Itos are certainly one of them. Jeb's paperbag head was so startling to me when I first started playing the game that I did not give this family the attention that they deserve. I have gradually learned to appreciate a world with rabbit themed clothing, endless grilled cheese, and paperbag heads, but the "madness" of neighborhood stories is still too much for me.

"Lenny_Ogg;c-18307754" wrote:
What I also hear a lot from other Simmers is, that when the premade families die due to the story progression, they get replaced by weird households. Or that their elderly neighbors get pregnant.
I rather like the really well done premade families with their background stories (there are exceptions, though ^^') than game created Sims that are only good for the next Townie Fashion Police

"83bienchen;c-18307767" wrote:
I also play with story progression / neighborhood stories off. Only my played Sims age (lifespan is set to normal), the townies and premades remain static. It might be a bit of TS2 nostalgia on my part (I also still remember the names of some of the TS2 NPCs). I know the names of most of my townies and sometimes just look around to see who's currently around when I play.

I like the premade families too. I want to have them as they were written. Sometimes we NEED them as written.

I was very excited when I heard about Neighborhood Stories but after experimenting with it, I turned it off completely (save occasionally turning on one feature... like getting pets or changing jobs... and even then only for selected households). I'm too much of a control freak. I want my story to proceed my way, even when it comes to NPC households.

Thank you so much everyone. I did not know if the the results of disabling the "recommended" might make even worse problems.