So, I was doing more maintenance around my save, and ended up back in Moonwood Mill, and the game again started spawning randos as pack members. Now, I know **bleep** well when I started this save, the packs did not require SEVEN members to avoid random pack mates. (who aren't even werewolves, wtf?)
I also had a random teen take over as gym trainer even though i had 2 that had spawned not long ago, and I checked, and are still around, they haven't moved, or anything, i had stories off. I've seen more new bartenders, vendors, DJs (I have SIX DJs in my game right now wtf? how many do you need? ) living statues, and mail carriers and on and on and on get spawned. And there's the issue of the multiplying Order of Lenore members, Edith getting reassigned, the faux Felix, the Chalet ghosts, etc. even playground children. I have a TON of kids in my save, ones born to my families, those born via Neighborhood Stories, or ones the game spawned fresh as part of one of those single parent families it creates when you need more kids. But it keeps creating more of those families whenever i walk past some playground, even though I have dozens of kids that could be called upon. And just, so many random elders. so many. I even have 2 Grims right now.
Basically, this is not just a Cottage Living issue. That's just the pack where it is easiest to notice, because those roles are filled by pre-mades and it is very obvious if they get replaced. This is an issue with the game in general where there is a perfectly valid sim available to do a role, they have the right traits, the right job, age, or whatever else is needed, and it is deciding to create a new one anyway. It doesn't always happen, and i don't know what the trigger is, but it happens enough that the townie population is exploding.
this happens with or without mods, but the only way i have been able to somewhat counter the population explosion for common roles is to use cheats/mods to assign roles manually to sims that would otherwise not have a role (like teens that had aged up to young adults recently) so there is a large pool to draw upon for each role. this can't be done for certain special roles, though, like the Henford on Bagley residents.
I guess that, since the Enchanted by Nature EP, the game has tended to create reserve NPCs for each role, so existing fairy world NPCs won't have to stay for 24 hours unrealistically.
However, if this is true, the problem is why the game changes the rules for all EPs, especially Cottage Living and Life & Death, which heavily rely on official NPCs and lore.
Firstly, I thought the problem was only CoL EP (that's why we are here in this thread), but your observation proved that there is much more damage than that. The worst thing is that some townie NPC replaces the existing one.
I can't accept the Creature Keeper case that Michael Bell "can't" appear every time. While other roles are just duplicating, the Creature Keeper role right now always new townie, even Michael still exists.
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Bars need extra bartenders at each time shift before the current bugs. Sometimes they switch the shifts in the middle of a shift. For example, in 2PM-10PM shift, they switch shifts at 6 PM. So, you need many more NPCs. If you have Get Famous EP, the game will pick existing unemployed sims in the game, but if not, the game will create new townies.
But in the recent patch, there is a bug (I assume that it's a bug, but I wrote on feedback) that new townies are created whenever you use a computer to do a job (ex, write a paper)
I wrote the details here --> Right now, the game creates new townies when my Sims use the computer to work. | EA Forums - 12384080
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I haven't played Life & Death until now, and I also avoid visiting Ravenwood because I don't want to modify many of the new NPCs for now. Reading your case makes me want to avoid that world longer.
Thanks for reporting many cases about this. The NPC bugs make me suffer a lot, and I want the developers to take care of this as soon as possible!
Interesting about the computer bug, I will have to go look at that thread. I play rotationally, and some of my sims are freelancers so yeah, they've used the computer for their work, I'm sure. I also have some in semi-active careers where i sometimes work from home, and that sometimes involves a computer. But this also has happened just... randomly. Like right now i am playing a household where one owns a small buisness, and one is in the political career, and i always send her to work, and it's happening.
And yes, I know you need more than one sim for each role, for shifts. When I was manually assigning roles, I think i did like 5 bartenders, (including Corey Nyhus and Jesminder Bheeda cus why not) and 8 or so vendors, 4 gym trainers, and that seems to have worked so far to keep it from spawning new ones. But it was getting excessive before that, and I am still waiting to see if they will lose their roles over time. I am fine with there being several bartenders etc in my game. It's when I have a bartender, and then they seem to lose their role and then are just hanging around the world with nothing to do except show up on lots to fill space. Like a role i haven't assigned manually, is the Living Statue. I have a Living Statue that I gave a makeover to that I quite liked, so I remembered his name, and notice him when I play in San Myshuno, there was also another one that would do the statue thing sometimes. But for the past while, the game has spawned 2 new Living Statues, that I have never seen before, and I haven't seen him or the other one do the statue thing in a few game weeks now, but he does walk by on the street. I haven't touched him, he hasn't been moved int a lot, nothing. He just stopped doing his role and new ones were made.
this is him. He walks by all the time, but he hasn't done the statue thing in weeks, and that one with the black hair was generated like yesterday, along with another one. I'm taking down the names of the new ones and will try deleting them to see if he starts doing his thing again.
About assigning the role, how do you assign the bartender roles to existing premade sims? Normally, we can't just add a trait to make them being NPC Bartender for each lot (Unless you use mods such as Zero's one or NPCC, which I haven't tried yet). Having mods make the outcome different, so I want to know your game mechanics before going deeper.
Also, having or not having Get Famous EP will affect the rule of NPC generating, too. If you have Get Famous, the game will pick existing Sims for NPC jobs instead of creating new townies.
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Not only that, bartender outside "Bar, Nightclub, and Lounge" can't keep the role. Their role/job will be removed after you close the game and reload again.
For example, if you visited a Karaoke bar, exited the game to the main menu, and reloaded the game again, you will see that the existing bartender will lose the mixologist title (red font), and the new bartender will come to replace.
Most of the lots that need to have a bar but can't keep a permanent shift are in San Myshuno, or "City Living" lots. Ex, Karaoke bar, Art center. It's impossible to keep the same bartender working there. So, if you visit those lots a lot, you will have plenty of new bartenders who will lose the jobs after you close the game.
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About Living Statue, I haven't had the new one for a long time. In my main save, I have two of them. The first one is a teen guy, and the second one is a young adult girl. The second one appeared more often, but sometimes the first one still appears, too.
What I suspect is, the game will make new NPC when the first one isn't available. For example, if this red shirt guy visited the lot as a normal person, but then the game needs a Living Statue, it will make the 2nd one. But... the game will prefer to use "the recent one" instead of being completely random.
So, if you want the red shirt guy to appear as Living Statue again, you may remove Living Statue trait from two new ones (aka, remove the role), or delete them if you don't want to keep them in your game. Then wait to see if the red shirt guy can do a living statue job or if the game still makes the new one.
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I can't prove the result, because the game seems to change the mechanics of townies generating after Enchanted by Nature EP.
I used a lot of mods to stop townies from generating, so I can know when the new case happens without my consent.
