Was Multitasking worth the loading screens?

"jackjack_k;c-16286727" wrote:

"@DeservedCriticism;c-16286643" wrote:
NOPE

By definition, it's not even really multitasking. Sims 3 (heck, even Sims 2 AND even Sims 1) showcased superior multitasking in some specialized cases. I mean if my Sims sit down to eat breakfast together, a Sim family in Sims 3 can successfully eat their breakfast and gain socialization without slowing themselves down at all. If a family does the same in Sims 4, it turns into a nightmare where you have to cycle around the table canceling everyone's social desire before they all end up late for work, and it's a never-ending battle cause the little jerks will constantly re-queue new social interactions even after they've been canceled.

Multi-tasking to me means multiple actions being done simultaneously for a boost to efficiency, such as doing the laundry while watching the news and chatting on the phone for an increase in social and fun while the laundry itself gets completed at about the same rate it usually would. In Sims 4, it means the game periodically cycles between action A and action B. When action A is being completed, action B is completely put on pause and vice versa. It's not multitasking, it's a dumb little automated toggle they honestly would've been capable of implementing in any of the past Sims game. The problem this has is that Sims in Sims 4 obsessively socialize at all times, even when they don't need it, so the multitasking system usually just means the player's desired action for the Sim will be slowed down by their obsession with social tasks. If not for the multitasking system, we wouldn't need to babysit our sims half as much as we do because they wouldn't constantly hunt chat partners.

"Multi"tasking and the emotion system are probably the two biggest bombs of Sims 4. Both of them were promised to be revolutionary and both are absolutely terrible. If there was an option to turn off multitasking in the game options, I think it would be very tempting to do so. It would more or less function as a mini-free will toggle that solely effects their obsession with

Sims in The Sims 2 actually take longer to eat and talk than they do in The Sims 4. Often if you serve breakfast in TS2, it’s almost lunch if you don’t cancel the talk interactions (which I believe was a patched feature due to complaints as it’s not present in The Sims Life Stories from memory, I served Lunch Meat Sandwhiches at 1pm and it was getting dark once all 4 of them had finished).

And in The Sims 3 the eating animation is really unnatural it’s like they’re forcing it down.

I don’t think they’ll ever get it right.

Also, that’s my only experience of that happening is with eating. Often I can have Sims listen to music while skill building, or Sims talk while doing basic stuff. I don’t have them randomly cycle between actions to that degree.


Since you mention it, I love the emotion system.
I believe people don’t like it because of Sims being bipolar, but a quick test shows Sims can be just as bipolar in The Sims 3. Going from extremely unhappy to happy just from one bad Moodlet (like filthy surroundings). My Sim went from depressed to happy just because she was afraid of the dark.

It’s more an issue with the Moodlet system imo with Moodlets often being too strong (eg Nicely Decorated is way too powerful), but the Emotions expand on the mood system in TS3 in the best way. I just wish it wasn’t so huge in the UI.

I have never had any time issues with Sims 2 sims. Even if it were technically longer, this is not a matter of time spent, but rather time won/time lost by participating in multitasking. Sims 1, Sims 2 and Sims 3 barely adds any time onto a meal at all when Sims socialize while eating. Sims 4, it is actually possible to have a meal so long it takes hours.

Your example - even if it were true - has no clear answer anyways. The sky is the limit with Sims 4 because of the way group convos are programmed. It is completely possible to have a "neverending" conversation because everyone keeps attempting to queue up a social, and they all have to wait on each other. This is exactly why the retail system from Get To Work is such a nightmare: a group of Sims all chatting together is a lost cause, because if you try to greet a sim in that group, your social request is put in line behind the 4 other Sims all wanting to tell the group a story, and then when you try to show that sim an item, four other stories got queue'ed up in front of you in the meantime.

If this is truly multitasking, why is it impossible for two seperate groups of Sims to simultaneously hold a convo between themselves while in a larger group chat? If Sim A tells Sim B a story while Sim C wants to tell Sim D a secret, and all of them are in one giant group convo, then Sim C must now wait on Sim A to finish even though Sim C doesn't require the attention of either Sim A or Sim B right now. This is not multitasking, and this is a huuuuuuuuuuge culprit for the slowness of gameplay when multitasking comes into play. Multitasking on it's own is just very weak because it only cycles between two actions and doesn't accelerate the completion rate of both at all. Multitasking plus the horrible socialization system is a nightmare that results in nothing getting done, made even worse by the fact that Sim A.I. in this game seeks out socialization even when the social meter is full, even when the only available chat partner is a sworn enemy, and sometimes even when socialization demands their current action be canceled.


And going from unhappy to happy is not the problem. There will always always always be a point where that +1 point tips the balance, so the example you gave is neither a problem for Sims 3 nor Sims 4.

The problem is that emotions in Sims 4 siphoned a lot of what made personality traits special away from traits and towards moodlets. This means my Sims are identical when they have the same mood with very limited differences. It used to be the Genius Sim was just better at skill-building and the Absent-Minded Sim was worse at it. Just like that, I can make three sims with three varying degrees of building a skill. In Sims 4 however, even if I had such traits (no absent minded trait), all three would be identical the moment I get them in a focused mood. There aren't countless different Sims to make thanks to thousands of different combinations of personality traits. Instead, there's 15 different types of Sims based on 15 different types of moods.

The second problem is that happy moodlets are absolutely spammed to the point that it is legitimately challenging to make a Sim angry or sad. There's zero balance with the scale of moodlets, and the result is that negative moods are comparatively rare, happy is practically the default, and sometimes happy mixing with other moods can have strange or undesired results. Such a system needs very careful and cautious planning on when to add a new moodlet, how big it should be and what mood it should have. Instead, this is their go-to system to spam when they have no idea what else to do. Love Guru at a romance festival? Yeah he gives a moodlet. Laundry? Moodlet. Hugged a dog? Moodlet. Had a good upbringing with your family? Moodlet.