Way too much phone action now during chatting

"QueenSaraphine;c-18182809" wrote:
I just really wish there was a way to disable the phone all together. Just a simple switch in the gameplay options: cellphone usage or no cellphone usage.
I really had the urge the other day to start a new save that was like old time farming family with no electricity sort of little house on the prairie style. But knowing the phone will be a constant nuisance made me lose the urge.

Last update made it a little better, but still my rampaging werewolf will occasionally look at the freaking phone while on all fours. But it’s way better than it was. Maybe we will get toggle for a phone some time in the future so players who likes decade challenges or occult sims can have immersive experience.

I recommend to disable the social bunny & turn off notification on the sims phones. Also, give them the dislike video gaming.

I sometimes wonder if the people who come with these new tuning or mechanic ideas have actually played the game.

What's wrong with adding some new traits? Phone Lover is one idea, for example. We have Art Lover. Or maybe likes/dislikes. Dislikes Tech. Loves Gadgets, etc. The basics for this stuff is already in the game. If anything those could do with being tuned up a bit. Sims who hate cooking still cook for example.

"ModerateOsprey;c-18182835" wrote:
I sometimes wonder if the people who come with these new tuning or mechanic ideas have actually played the game.

What's wrong with adding some new traits? Phone Lover is one idea, for example. We have Art Lover. Or maybe likes/dislikes. Dislikes Tech. Loves Gadgets, etc. The basics for this stuff is already in the game. If anything those could do with being tuned up a bit. Sims who hate cooking still cook for example.

I have often wondered the exact same thing! It's like they bring in new people to work on a feature, but that person has no idea what is in the game already or how you even play the game ..... it really seems like they have no idea of how they could/should incorporate the "new feature" to actually provide additional gameplay for those people who own more packs besides the base game. I've often thought the issue is because they are incorporating it to only be a basegame feature and not play-testing these features without all of the packs. This iteration of The Sims is really horrible about cross-pack integration.

I think that's the reason that mods always seem so much more indepth, because they are created by actual simmers who've played the game for years and know how it works!

I was okay at first, But now my Sims cannot get past the fount door without looking at her phone and now I keep on telling to her pay attention to her child or get going and be late for work! However seriously, I don't mind this once in a while, However, geez, even in the real world, I not obsessing with it no idea why did it that method.

To me, this is A VERY poor game design decision. Games are meant to be interactive and engaging, even a life simulator where you spend a great time observing sims. There is nothing engaging in watching a person stare endlessly at their cellphone.

Its annoying in real life and its even more annoying in a video game, especially when it interrupts an action. This game is not called "sims on cellphones". Its boring mechanic/animation, it adds no gameplay and worse it can break game play actions. THAT is poor design decisions by the development team.

Plus not everybody on this planet is glued to their cellphone and I don't think every sim should be either.

Maxis could develop traits or rewards to limit cellphone, as its become more annoying than anything else in this game. Regardless cellphone animations should not be the go to animation for sims, especially when people in real life are trying to remove screen time. Shouldn't are sims be too?

More so I've recently been playing a LOT of the sims 3 and Sims 2 - coming back to the Sims 4, the CONSTANT cellphone idle animations and action interupts is VERY jarring to the point that it becomes stressful.

For some of us, socially we find it very annoying if not downright rude if the person your interacting would rather be on their cellphone (which IS AN ADDICTION) and I have NO idea why Maxis/the developers believed that players would want this in our game as enjoyable.

I feel like the designers thought "hey people are addicted to cellphones, so lets represent that too" but they didn't take into account what that represents, if its enjoyable to watch (its not, i actually find it stressful to see my sims constantly checking their phone after switching back from previous games) and how it effects game play or the end user experience.

"TOLKIEN;c-18183242" wrote:
To me, this is A VERY poor game design decision. Games are meant to be interactive and engaging, even a life simulator where you spend a great time observing sims. There is nothing engaging in watching a person stare endlessly at their cellphone.

Its annoying in real life and its even more annoying in a video game, especially when it interrupts an action. This game is not called "sims on cellphones". Its boring mechanic/animation, it adds no gameplay and worse it can break game play actions. THAT is poor design decisions by the development team.

Plus not everybody on this planet is glued to their cellphone and I don't think every sim should be either.

Maxis could develop traits or rewards to limit cellphone, as its become more annoying than anything else in this game. Regardless cellphone animations should not be the go to animation for sims, especially when people in real life are trying to remove screen time. Shouldn't are sims be too?

More so I've recently been playing a LOT of the sims 3 and Sims 2 - coming back to the Sims 4, the CONSTANT cellphone idle animations and action interupts is VERY jarring to the point that it becomes stressful.

For some of us, socially we find it very annoying if not downright rude if the person your interacting would rather be on their cellphone (which IS AN ADDICTION) and I have NO idea why Maxis/the developers believed that players would want this in our game as enjoyable.

I feel like the designers thought "hey people are addicted to cellphones, so lets represent that too" but they didn't take into account what that represents, if its enjoyable to watch (its not, i actually find it stressful to see my sims constantly checking their phone after switching back from previous games) and how it effects game play or the end user experience.

Agree 100%!

I still have not updated my game since Werewolves because of this awful and infuriating nonsensical decision, and I probably won't unless they patch in a way for Sims to completely turn off phone use (including the horrible new walk that was also forced on us,) which people have been begging for since the first year of the game.

Unfortunately, this means no more packs and the game ends here for me because I HATE the phone use more than anything, even the equally stupid and useless "get water" feature. So I can't even access the gallery to share Sims or download lots because the game won't allow it and I'm not much of a builder. Even worse, I can't use mods because they have to be tuned to the game version I'm playing. I am still fuming over this, considering how much I've supported the game over the years and how much money I've spent on it.

I'm thinking my time would be better spent putting my energy into research for getting Sims 2 running again. I'm so frakking frustrated.

The mods that were created to address this work well. There are multiple mods by various modders. Take your pick.

About the obsessive phone use, it's real-to-life. I don't know how many times I've had to slam on my brakes because some college student was glued to their phone and meandered across the road in front of my car. Then they glare at me as if I did something wrong. I live in a college/tourist town so we have all sorts of issues with people on their phones.

My own son, a college student, has his phone in his pocket at all times and is glued to it. My spouse is also glued to his phone. He has a serious Facebook addiction.

I'm the one who hates their phone. I hate it so much that I'm constantly losing it and getting fussed at by the men in my life. "MOM! You left your phone (insert wherever) AGAIN!" As he comes and brings it to me expecting me to be thrilled and offer him accolades. "Oh...thanks...." (deadpanned).

ANYWAYS, lol....not everybody is addicted to their phones but unfortunately a huge percentage are.

Does this mean I want to see it in my game? Did ya read the wall of text above? I HATE MY PHONE. NO! I do NOT want to see sims addicted to it like all the people around me.

I want a toggle button that turns off phones.

Then again, toggle buttons are broken so it probably wouldn't work.

I use MCCC's tuner function to disable all the annoying autonomous actions and it works fairly well! My sims no longer get water all the time, use the computer to troll, do push-ups, text/play games on phone, etc.

I'm not a great fan of phone use in TS4 nor in RL, but I can live with some of it but it's way too much as all sims seems addicted. If there was a way to remove this activity from certain sorts of sims... like some aspirations and traits could escape it. My biggest problem is that my game zooms into NPCs arriving the lot with the phone in their hand (assuming they are changing the color of their phone - I still don't understand why the game designers though it would be important for me to see that). At first I thought it was cool that the NPC sims' favorite color would actually be on their phone, and I thought that after all sims have changed their color it won't happen as often. But no - it's just a pose animation without purpose, the phone is not getting a new color.

I've grabbed a mod to reduce the phone activity. Hopefully developers will admit the problem and come up with some ways to reduce it.