What am I still doing wrong? (Serial Restarting in New Saves)

Sounds like you need a variety to your gameplay. I suggest making different Timeline Game Saves. If you have most of the packs, you can use Sulani & Tartosa Worlds for an Ancient Times play with Greeks, Romans & Egyptians.
With a another new Game Save you can use Windenburg, Henford, Brindleton Bay & Glimmerbrook for a Medieval or Georgian play with Knights, Nobels, Peasants, Pirates, Royalty & Witches/Wizards.
On the flip side with a new Game Save you can use Oasis Springs, Evergreen Harbor & Strangerville for a Futuristic SIFI play with Aliens, Hybrids & Robots.
Just remember your build codes & CAS codes, you won't need any mods/ccs/mccs. I've began this myself back in 2020 when I was bored with my Sims 4, now I have 5 Game Saves from Ancient Times to Futuristic. Also, I only play Vanilla in my PC Sims 4 & depend on my packs to change my worlds.
I promise you won't be bored again or lose ideas in your Sims 4 play if you create a variety of fun Game Saves. ;)

Honestly? Sometimes my "playstyle" for a while is making new households and setting them up then playing them for a day. I think it's okay.

(Sometimes my "playstyle" is that it turns out it really wasn't time for Sims. Then I usually play Civ VI for a while. I almost never play to finish a game in that, either. The end stage is just too slow, so I start over :D And that's okay too.)

I am your twin when it comes to this!

I too am notorious for:

• Having a storyline pop up in my head
  
• Getting excited for it and can't wait to play
  
• Create my sim(s) and the world
  
• Go on a downloading spree for what I feel are necessary mods to enhance the story
  
• Start playing and then get bored and then another storyline pops into my head and I am "Ohhh yeah! That'll be fun!" and then I start the process all over again!
  

Rinse
Repeat

I'm actually working on a new story to play too. I'm really hoping that it actually keeps me entertained because it is 100% NOT how I typically play, at all!



One thing I always do is play with aging off, I typically always play a single young adult looking for her mate, I always think I'll let them have kids ... but that never happens because I start over all the time.

One thing I haven't done (in any version of The Sims) is ...... I have NEVER, EVER played with an elder! Not once! I play with aging off ..... always, so my sims are eternal and never age, let alone die.

But I was reading over a lot of challenges on various sites and I combined some of their ideas to come up with my own personal challenge. I'm still setting up that save right now. Which is taking a lot of time because it's not how I normally play so I had to, once again, go on a downloading spree for mods/cc to immerse myself in it.

Here's a short synopsis of my story line for anybody else who might be interested

Instead of restarting every time an idea comes up, have you tried incorporating it into your current household?

I'm also a constant restarter. I'll start playing a save, then another idea will pop up and I have to do it immediately. I get busy setting things up for the new idea, and by the time all of that's done, another idea has come up. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Maybe that's just our play style. I don't anything you do in this game is "wrong." It's a game, it's meant to be fun.

I've started and restarted legacy challenges so many times because everything gets achieved so quickly and it gets boring for me.
So I started playing on short lifespan for the struggle and this works for me. I'm currently playing the not so berry challenge and I'm only just reaching the goals and I love this. The third generation, yellow, is about to age to teen and I can't stop playing.
The mint founder's lifespan was 91 days which was about the same as the normal lifespan in the sims 3.
I do believe that there is no right or wrong way to play the game, just find a way that you enjoy to play.
I play with no mods or cc.

There’s no right or wrong way to play as long as you enjoy what you do.

I definitely get bored when I play the same type of game each time. Usually, I set up a story with one household and play it out until I run out of ideas, then end the game until some new inspiration comes along. Wash, rinse, repeat. That usually gets me a few months of playtime for each save, with a period of inactivity until something new strikes me. In TS3, I had a household that I kept moving to new saves just to try out different stories with them. That worked for a couple of years, actually. I don’t do legacy families, challenges, or strictly rotation play, and my game isn’t heavy on careers and achievements.

Having said all that, my current save is over 3 years old, now, and is still going strong. The difference is that, instead of just playing one household out, I set up a whole world with interesting characters. When one household gets a bit dull, I can switch to a different one and work on their story for some variety. And, since they’re all connected in one large story, they feed into each other’s individual stories. I can expand Morgyn’s ever growing mastery of his unique powers, visit Oberon at the Blue Moon and see who shows up there, check in on Musette and Eldon who are raising triplet fairy toddlers, take Guidry to a festival to flirt with anything that moves, give Rowen the Cursed Spellcaster some help with his crush on Lilith Vatore, follow my alien or vampire hunters, run Johnny Zest through the Strangerville mystery, enlist help for Nalani’s ocean preservation efforts, and many more stories that are available in the world. When we get bands, I have one made up and ready to go. For the new stuff pack, I plan to make a crystal vendor to play that pack out. They’ll slot right in to the “occult” part of my game.

I play with aging off, so I have time to hang out in this world. I also have tight control over Neighborhood Stories, with it turned off for my main households, customized for secondary households, and fully on for randoms and premades that aren’t really a part of the narrative. I feel that gives me a nice balance between playing my world on my terms, and providing a sense of active change. Basic skills are cheated in for played households. I’m not spending time learning to make grilled cheese sandwiches. And, since I don’t really play jobs/careers, money is cheated in to reflect the sim’s financial status. Jobs and careers depend on the sim. Morgyn hasn’t got a “job.” But Oberon runs a tavern, and Johnny Zest is trying to make it big as a comedian. In Strangerville.

So, I guess my suggestion would be to include all of your ideas into one save with a larger concept, and just keep adding them in. That way, you can play through new ideas and revisit older ideas anytime you want, but your game keeps growing and developing. This approach has worked great for me, and I find myself enjoying my game much more consistently than before.

"luthienrising;c-18355023" wrote:
Honestly? Sometimes my "playstyle" for a while is making new households and setting them up then playing them for a day. I think it's okay.

(Sometimes my "playstyle" is that it turns out it really wasn't time for Sims. Then I usually play Civ VI for a while. I almost never play to finish a game in that, either. The end stage is just too slow, so I start over :D And that's okay too.)

Lol, I just took a break from TS4 to fire up a new Civ V save. I have VI too, but I keep gravitating back to V.

I tend to restart saves all the time as well because I have ADHD so my attention span is just not it. I have most of the packs and yet done anything in this game worth being proud of. For me, I didn't find much joy in the game because I felt like I was racing the clock to get them married and having children and then as a result I get bored because I didn't get to do anything else with them. So I decided to use the MCCC mod to adjust time speed, lifespans, etc and the game got more enjoyable because I can actually take my time

So what I do to keep myself interested is I have multiple saves and each save is something different.

I have the Opposites Attract save where I have Alexis and Keyvon so are opposites but realize they are in love. So this is the save I'm focusing the romance and family aspect on.

I have a Multitalented Orphan save with a teen Sim named Evangeline who wants to be an attorney to avenge her parents death because the person responsible got away with it. Her parents always believed in her ability to be something amazing. So she is trying to be good at lot of things. This is the save I'm focusing the university and skills aspect on.

Then I have the Single Sports Nut sim. This is Kayjae, who is not interested in marriage or a family. She is more interested in extreme sporting. This is the Sim I use to focus more on exploring the Snow Escape expansion pack.

I also have a Supernatual Girl Band save, a Mother/Father/Grandmother and Toddler save, Lola De'Angelo and my Raymonds Twins saves all of which I haven't really played much of, but the Girl band will be on Occults and music, the Mother/Father/Grandmother and Toddler will be on family again (because in Sims, no matter what, family is just my gameplay) and the Raymonds Twins and Lola De'Angelo will both be focused mostly on drama and homewrecking.

I find that if I have multiple saves with different themes going on in each save, my attention stays because it keeps me interested because it's not the same thing every save.

@Fairy_Happy I like that play style! Are these totally different saves (as in .... your other characters are not in that worlds for your current main character(s) to interact with or is it the same worlds but you just save that game play session as it's own save so you know where it left off?

I've never played different households with their own story line in the same save because I've always been afraid something would happen with them that wasn't in my plan while I wasn't involved.

"Chicklet453681;c-18355520" wrote:


I've never played different households with their own story line in the same save because I've always been afraid something would happen with them that wasn't in my plan while I wasn't involved.

I play my whole world this way. I have Neighborhood Stories and MCCC story progression turned off for all played households. The most they do is wander around town or occasionally show up at festivals and bars. Nothing important will happen to them if story progression is off for that household.