Winter Massacre

"Tanja1986;c-16571492" wrote:
Sadly I wasn't able to test more... But after the massacre and reading here for a while, I decided to delete some of my CC... After returning for short time in Game I didn't see that many Sims turn blue anymore. I will need to continue testing tonight and see if removing just CC has anything to with it. If it's some sort of CC that is causing these massacres I would be seriously surprised!

I wonder if it's just stuff that slows down normal game functioning just enough.

"luthienrising;c-16571523" wrote:
I wonder if it's just stuff that slows down normal game functioning just enough.

That's my guess too. I saw it with all mods enabled, but couldn't see it in vanilla or with only a couple mods enabled for testing. Could just be mod overhead making it take extra cycles to make the unplayed sim take the next action which would have saved them from freezing.

"treece01;c-16571488" wrote:

"Ceres_Meiriona;c-16571353" wrote:
I honestly think it's a bug. I have not seen a single played or unplayed sim freeze to death in my game (and I have been simming for at least 5 hours a day since release day). If you're experiencing the issue, you should do what SimQARobo suggested and upload your save file.

I was joking earlier about making two sets of athletic wear! I guess I should have noted that more clearly. In my game, my sims don't turn blue when jogging in the winter with snow on the ground. The only time I have not tested this, is during a full on blizzard, but that's because my sim only made it 10 steps out the door before she slipped and fell on her back in the blizzard winds. I sent her back inside for the rest of the blizzard. I've only jogged in Brindleton Bay and San Myshuno during the winter (not sure if that's relevant, but erring on the side of caution, so I'll include it anyway).

I'm not playing with any mods currently.

Was it freezing when you went jogging?
it's not snow on the ground, it's the temperature. If it says it's freezing they start turning blue and freezing to death. Pretty quick ; same as the equivalent in a heat wave. And the weather is noticeably different in each world. I had a lot of rain in Brindleton Bay and more heatwaves in Oasis Springs.
Honestly, I wouldn't mind if they just reduced how often sims just randomly start jogging. That would even help. As a lazy person in rl I'm already annoyed by how many joggers there are :D especially when I invite them over and they just take off jogging.

It was freezing and a blizzard in both of my vanilla tests for this and no matter how long I sat with my camera outside the gym and in my neighborhood nobody died. Many turned blue and shivered, many fell in the wind, but everyone at the gym managed to make it inside and warm up and when they left after working out they spun into appropriate winter gear and made there way to the despawning point. In my neighborhood lots of joggers went by on a freezing windy day and turned blue, some even stopped to chat with passersby but every single one made it to a despawning area unharmed albeit cold and blue. Both of these tests were in new games.

So, I fired up a played Simsie save, and again waited for a blizzard took my sim to the gym in Willow Creek and sat outside for hours, same results. Sims spawned in workout gear, turned blue sometimes, shivered, fought the wind and freezing temps but managed to get inside and warm up. When they left they spun into appropriate winter gear and eventually despawned. In my neighborhood, same results as before. Joggers turned blue on a freezing day, and even if they stopped to chat they made it to a despawn area mostly unharmed. In all my tests when I watched my neighborhood in a blizzard nobody jogged, there were some walkby sims in winter outfits, but nobody in jogging/workout clothes. All of these saves had never been modded prior to playing them, and pre-Seasons patch I reset my Sims 4 folder so the games were clean as whistle. I am convinced this is some kind of mod issue, as now even the gurus are saying they can't duplicate it and their games are as vanilla as it gets.

I still think there's a chance of it happening in vanilla. I think it's random bad luck for a sim that is jogging when a blizzard kicks in so they are caught in their athletic wear, and then they start slipping nonstop and stopping to do pushups or shovel snow, hahaha. Mods just probably exacerbate things. If the mod changes base behaviours the sims might stand around computing their next action for even longer, making a freezing outcome more likely. I think it's fine as it stands. Most players won't ever run enough mods to see a marked increase in deaths. Just like abductions though, some folks will get lucky and see lots of freezing... or is that unlucky? =)

EDIT: As for replicating this, if it's just a run of really bad luck, no saves they look at will really help - because by loading the save and starting the simulation running again you'll very likely end up with all new outcomes from different RNG results.

I think it would be more helpful for them to look at stopping the chain reaction death effect rather than avoiding that first death if it's so random and hard to replicate. Like I suggested before make 'take shelter from the weather' override the urge to witness a death, and give witness a death a cooldown period so you won't have the same sims running inside to take shelter only to run right back out again because of the competing desire to witness a death.

"Euripides67;c-16571565" wrote:
I still think there's a chance of it happening in vanilla. I think it's random bad luck for a sim that is jogging when a blizzard kicks in so they are caught in their athletic wear, and then they start slipping nonstop and stopping to do pushups or shovel snow, hahaha. Mods just probably exacerbate things. If the mod changes base behaviours the sims might stand around computing their next action for even longer, making a freezing outcome more likely. I think it's fine as it stands. Most players won't ever run enough mods to see a marked increase in deaths. Just like abductions though, some folks will get lucky and see lots of freezing... or is that unlucky? =)

I don't disagree with you. I just don't want it to get to a point where weather deaths are nerfed altogether like alien abductions were. I was getting so sick and tired of the lack of spontaneity and unpredictability in this game, now we finally have something that gives it to us in spades and I am afraid that a handful of complaints is going to take us backwards into the land of ho hum, everything is fine, because everything is always fine. I finally have a little adrenaline pumping when I play and a genuine need to strategize and plan ahead and I don't want to lose it. I am loving the mild element of danger this pack has finally provided.

"Pamtastic72;c-16571572" wrote:
I don't disagree with you. I just don't want it to get to a point where weather deaths are nerfed altogether like alien abductions were. I was getting so sick and tired of the lack of spontaneity and unpredictability in this game, now we finally have something that gives it to us in spades and I am afraid that a handful of complaints is going to take us backwards into the land of ho hum, everything is fine, because everything is always fine. I finally have a little adrenaline pumping when I play and a genuine need to strategize and plan ahead and I don't want to lose it. I am loving the mild element of danger this pack has finally provided.

Yes we're definitely on the same page. I don't want a knee jerk reaction nerfing the possibility of *ever* seeing a weather related death. I just want them to stop the massacres caused by the seemingly endless push to go witness a death in conditions that will kill them.

I can't recall seeing anything but old age related deaths by unplayed sims up until now - unless I messed with those killer plants and the like. Seasons adds a nice element of risk in the worst weather conditions. I'd be sad to see that go too!

"Euripides67;c-16571539" wrote:

"luthienrising;c-16571523" wrote:
I wonder if it's just stuff that slows down normal game functioning just enough.

That's my guess too. I saw it with all mods enabled, but couldn't see it in vanilla or with only a couple mods enabled for testing. Could just be mod overhead making it take extra cycles to make the unplayed sim take the next action which would have saved them from freezing.

I wonder if it then might also happen in particular combinations of CPUs and GPUs, where one gets ahead of the other in just the wrong way.

"Euripides67;c-16571565" wrote:


EDIT: As for replicating this, if it's just a run of really bad luck, no saves they look at will really help - because by loading the save and starting the simulation running again you'll very likely end up with all new outcomes from different RNG results.

I ended up with 5 deaths on a 2nd play through. I had 12 before so that was a significant change.

"SimQARobo;c-16571036" wrote:
Hello.

We are still having trouble reproducing played NPC's freezing to death, or mass NPC deaths due to weather.

If anyone else is experiencing this without mods and is willing to share save files, instructions are here:

https://answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports/INFORMATION-How-to-Send-User-Files-to-The-Sims-4-Team/m-p/6065302

The only way I was able to reproduce it was forcing sims to stand outside the gym and talk to my sim. As that sim got cold I kept on talking with them until they froze. Once they froze the mourning began and while mourning more and more sims froze to death causing more mourning and so on. I would say that if that one sim died and the other sims were not bothered by his death and did not walk outside to mourn none of the massacre deaths would have happened. Perhaps mourning could be tweaked so sims only mourn if its a close and high relationship sim dying, instead of someone they don't even know. But then again, when I did not force them to chat I went through the whole of winter with one death inside of the building from a sim that just.. just did not make it. So no massacre. I play mod and cc free. I am busy uploading my saves folder to media fire

@SimQARobo and @SimGuruNick

Edited to add link http://www.mediafire.com/file/eh2cw9zw4wcxith/saves.zip

"Pamtastic72;c-16571572" wrote:

"Euripides67;c-16571565" wrote:
I still think there's a chance of it happening in vanilla. I think it's random bad luck for a sim that is jogging when a blizzard kicks in so they are caught in their athletic wear, and then they start slipping nonstop and stopping to do pushups or shovel snow, hahaha. Mods just probably exacerbate things. If the mod changes base behaviours the sims might stand around computing their next action for even longer, making a freezing outcome more likely. I think it's fine as it stands. Most players won't ever run enough mods to see a marked increase in deaths. Just like abductions though, some folks will get lucky and see lots of freezing... or is that unlucky? =)

I don't disagree with you. I just don't want it to get to a point where weather deaths are nerfed altogether like alien abductions were. I was getting so sick and tired of the lack of spontaneity and unpredictability in this game, now we finally have something that gives it to us in spades and I am afraid that a handful of complaints is going to take us backwards into the land of ho hum, everything is fine, because everything is always fine. I finally have a little adrenaline pumping when I play and a genuine need to strategize and plan ahead and I don't want to lose it. I am loving the mild element of danger this pack has finally provided.

I'VE HAD TWO ALIEN ABDUCTION!!!! ...

Yes I am shouting and yes, it will become relevant in a minute :sunglasses: But before I continue. I am very sorry for your losses, especially loosing Sims you have worked so hard on.

I've been playing the game since last august and I've been playing almost non stop in one save game and only had 1 game created death (the DJ booth is actually flammable) and only 1 alien abduction. I haven't even witnessed one extramarital affair that hasn't been instigated by me. Noone has ever gotten fired from their jobs without missing weeks and weeks of workdays and noone has gotten seriously ill apart from the occasional cold.

The death happened this spring and the alien abduction happened about a week before Seasons patch. Now before the death the game had become a bit of a chore for me and I was very thinking of a break. But this death gave me a new storyline to weave into my game and gave me ideas for 2 more and actually made me keep a household I was actually going to have move to another country (delete them). But importantly: I got a renewed interest. The alien abduction was very surprising for two reasons; none of the household are in the science career (NONE of my played Sims in this saved game is in that career) or know any aliens, the second is that the abductee and now a father is an elder. Oye! The poor tyke is going to be an orphan soon so who will foster/adopt? (Insert a high sonic squeeky sound only a demented chipmunk can produce!) I DON'T KNOW!!! :flushed: Yes. I am easily amused.

The second alien abduction really knocked me over the head (in the nicest way possible) and happened in my new save created especially for seasons and because of this thread :lol: Irony is that the abductee's husband is an alien (created in CAS) and sciencing (is that a word?) in the second lowest rung of that career so I am going to have 2 alien babies soon (cross toes).

The reason I am telling all this is, that as someone with an annoying control streak I DO actually love when the game throws me a monkeywrench that makes changes to my Sims' status. Now I haven't dared to play my saved game (I didn't even fire it up to test seasons patch, the Seasons pack or even my updated mods which are working fine in my new save) because reading your stories and looking at these pictures has filled me with dread and I have to admit a bit of an anxiety. I've been afraid of all this because although I don't mind deaths I do feel the need to having to be in control on who dies. BUT now that I have had time to think (I sometimes have to do that :lol: ) I'm gonna fire my game up and see what happens. I know I won't be happy with my played Sims dying 'off screen' but I have realised something. The game mechanics gives us ways to bring them back. As ghosts and even back as Sims. And unlike real life there is the possibility to quit without saving and I can backup my saved game before hand. Would be handy in RL.

Although I probably will end up eating these words. Oye! Now. I don't know how I will fare facing a whole sale slaughter like this thread has described but I really miss my saved game and I am going to test it. Yes, I will backup my saved game.