Playing the game with mods that fix bugs and nuke annoyances is better than playing a buggy game any day. The only bad time I have with mine is when a new update comes along. And nearly two thirds of my mods broke after the Cottage Living one. That hurt. Most times I just play off line when new updates are announced. Then I can take my time updating my mods, keeping them in a new folder on my desktop until all have been updated. Then I pull my old 'In Game Mods' folder out of my main Mods folder and replace it with the one containing all the updated and unbroken ones. We have an awesome community of mod creators that works very hard to keep their mods up to date so it all goes fairly quickly. I find it much easier to use mods from a small group of seven mod creators who all have their own web sites, too. And @luthienrising does a fantastic job with her threads listing all the broken and updated mods every time we get an update. Her hard work makes my task a lot easier. Believe me, I'd rather not have to use mods at all, but sometimes the bug fixing team takes too long to fix something and I find it less stressful to just use a mod and be done with it. I use only three game play mods. But I have over 120 other mods that fix bugs, stop autonomous actions and other things such as adding hygiene to swimming. Which the teams should have added but didn't. With quality of life mods my elders have a happier life and aren't walking stooped over, don't tire as easily or get those sudden aches and pains that make them grumpy all the time.
The trick is to start slow with a few must-have mods. It might seem daunting at first, but it won't take long before it gets easier to manage. After Seasons came along I began using a few. I think I had ten at that time. Then after Island Living dropped my game was so borked it took me nearly four months to get it back on track, and my mod count soared to over two hundred. I haven't had that happen again, but for some reason that pack hated me and my game. But it became a mission to find ways to regain my control. Retaining control of the game is what keeps me using mods. I don't mind the time it takes to keep the mods I use up to date as long as I have a say in what happens with my Sims. The AI in Sims4 was done very poorly. But that doesn't mean you're stuck and can't change some of that. Mods give you the freedom to tweak and manipulate nearly everything until you find that sweet spot where the game matches your vision of the game. Sims4 will never be perfect. No game is perfect. The beauty of Sims4 is it's so easy to modify. Take advantage of that and use it to your benefit. That will require some trial and error on your part. But the rewards are so worth it in the end.
