[COL] NPC roles assigned to multiple Sims (Sometimes duplicates)
When playing in Henford on Bagley, I noticed that every NPC that comes with the pack (The Grocer, the Mayor, The Garden Stall Owner, The Pub Keeper, and the Creature Keeper) were doubled. Two sims with the job title above their names were appearing around the world. Both sims offered the errands, meaning my sim could complete two rounds of every errand from every NPC. Some of the duplicates were copies of the original NPCs, for example, the mayor, Lavina Chropa, had two versions of Lavina, both listed as Mayor, and both offering the same errands and rewards. Other NPCs had randomized townie versions and the original townies in Cottage Living, for example, the grocer sims were the original Kim Goldbloom, and a randomized townie just with the job title and offering errands. No complication arose from this, it honestly just allowed my sim to do more of the errands, but it does break the immersion a little when every NPC has a twin or is a completely different sim half the time.
Edit By Crinrict: Added Tag to Title, Adjusted Title
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 found another role duplication, Felix Psyded. Oddly, Felix still showed up and did his rounds, then this other ghost showed up, and followed the same path through the campus. Felix was even still there when this guy appeared. I have only ever seen Felix at Britechester before, never another ghost (unless i was playing them) and I checked with MCCC and he had Felix's special hidden trait. But Felix has no special dialogue or anything like that, so nothing like, too disruptive, but it is still an extra sim added to the game needlessly.
I have no idea. I literally just loaded up the same save i was using yesterday, but today it's fine. I did nothing differently, the only difference here is i have MCCC, and no other mods, installed so i can catch some Last Exceptions while i track down a problem mod that was causing an unrelated problem when travelling to different lots. just figured i may as well kill 2 birds with one stone.
ps. I am also noticing as I travel around the world that other roles filled by randomly generated sims are also getting reassigned. things like bartenders and vendors that I have had a small pool of familiar faces, though randomly generated ones, for a while now, are now being replaced with new sims, even though the old ones have not died or anything
Popping around the world with no mods, and it seems to have made the problem in Henford on Bagley worse, somehow. they were all fine literally yesterday, aside from Bell. Absolutely nothing has changed aside from removing mods.
But again, though Michael is listed there as the Creature Keeper, if i go to the cottage in the forest, it is a rando. All of the original sims are still part of the game and in their original homes, if they had one, otherwise they are homeless in Henforfd on Bagley.
I went to the Chopra home, and Lavina seems to have lost her title, and so has Rahul. If I ask about their career, for Lavina it says she is unemployed, though Rahul still says he is a grocery deliverer, even though he is missing the title. and no special dialogue options, for either.
(btw. for the marriage, I did it with cheats from the Watson side of things, then moved her into their house from manage worlds. The Chopra household was never played at any point, i was very careful to keep them unplayed, and that was like a month ago, they kept their roles afterward until literally just now)
Went to Ravenwood, most seemed to be in place, was actually surprised about Nyon since he is in a played household in my save, so good job there, more of that please. Kind of wild that the Ravenwood roles are the ones with a backup, when they are actually fairly resistant to breaking compared to others others, aside from that Edith glitch. I do know there is another 'Grim enthusiast' in my game, maybe 2 others actually, a new one spawned just a week ago, i know cus i gave him a makeover to actually look the part, the other may have died, or something, not sure. I don't remember who exactly it was to check.
But Nyon is missing his 'Order of Lenore' title, though you can still do Ravenwood Rumors with him and offer to help with a favor, so aside from the missing title, he still functions right. Something Lavina and Rahul were lacking, i could not help with favors for them.
Esther is the same, also missing the Order of Lenore title, but can help with favors and do rumors.
Also, not surprised by this one since her role is incredibly fragile and breaks if you look at it funny, but Celene is not tending bar. I was using a mod to reassign her to the role after she got booted from it ages ago. But she is homeless in Moonwood Mill right now, so i kinda hoped she would still be there, but alas:
Also Edith was fine, popped by the Chalet and Bernard and Mimsy were fine, the Magic Sages were also fine, grabbed a teenager to go to school, and Mei is still the principal, and rather surprisingly, Erwin Pries was fine, even tho he got culled on me so i had to make a new copy and gave him the role with a mod after cheats failed to get him to tend the stall.
I will say though that I think roles in general, especially older ones, need an update, to be less restrictive as to the requirements. especially with Neighborhood Stories. Right now, if you turn Neighborhood Stories on, by default all these sims with special roles that are DEPENDANT on them being homeless, and sometimes homeless in a certain neighborhood like Celene Lopez, can move them into a house autonomously, or kill them, if you don't go in there and disable it for those households. Most new players would have no idea that this is something you should, or even can, do. It breaks the lore, it breaks the roles, it bloats the save, because you end up with a ton of characters that used to have a role, then Stories made it so they can't do it anymore, so new ones get spawned, ballooning the Sim count.
Special roles like the Henford on Bagley characters, or the Ravenwood ones, or the Magic Sages, etc. have to either be made so that they can still do their role if they get moved into a lot by Neighborhood Stories, (like, why can't Morgyn Ember still be a sage if they get moved into an apartment? any magic user can teleport to the magic realm from anywhere, so why not be able to live in San Myshuno AND be a magic sage?) OR these characters have to come with Neighborhood Stories disabled or severely restricted BY DEFAULT. We don't need to go as far as to make them all hidden, but.... something. Make it so you can tick options to move out/in back on if you wish, but by default the pre-mades, especially ones with important roles, need their stories restricted.
the examples in my previous post, the Crumplebottoms and the Chalet Ghosts never got moved into a lot by Neighborhood Stories. But Michael Bell did get moved into a lot once, after I forgot to disable Neighborhood Stories for him. I evicted him, and disabled Neighborhood Stories for him afterward. but I have to think this may have been a contributing factor, even though this happened a long time ago, and he is currently homeless.
I think they also have to be more forgiving of being played. I have been playing as a werewolf in Moonwood Mill and had noticed the game liked to spawn some additional packmates for the 2 werewolf packs. It made me pay attention to how these roles functioned, and to see if it was spawning new ones because I had played Lou. But nope, Lou still showed up to the hangout, even tho he lives in Chestnut Ridge right now and is in a played household. Why can't more roles be chill like this?
I had not played in Henford on Bagley in a while, aside from visiting the bar a couple times, so had not been encountering this much, but I HAVE noticed Agnes and Agatha getting cloned a couple times the past few months, when i look in manage households. I go to Manage Households for one reason or another, and i see a household with them, which I know should not be there since they are supposed to be a hidden, and so i knew they got cloned. As well as the Chalet ghosts one time, for no reason that I can figure out. In both cases, they never got moved to a house, they didn't die, (I mean, the ghosts come pre-dead but you know) I never played as them... you know, the usual triggers for them getting cloned. I do have Bernard as an employee at a small business, but that had never made him get cloned before. The first time i hired him, I made sure to check right after, and it was fine, he was still doing his thing at the manor. It MIGHT be that the Crumplebottoms get cloned after i get pursed by Agnes on a date, cus that has happened a few times. but I would have to test this further to see if that's the trigger.
With the Crumplebottoms, I usually just delete the household that appears in manage households, since I do not maintain relationships with them anyway, it doesn't matter to me which one is the original, I just don't want there to be 2 of them. So I just delete the household from Manage Households and that seems to fix things, at least for a while. But with Bernard and Mimsy, I am very good friends with them in a few different households, and Bernard is an employee as mentioned. So I had to be careful there, and made sure to delete the NEW ones, with no relationship with any of my sims. I then went to the von Haunt Estate, and saw the OG Bernard and Mimsy, the ones i had a relationship with, my employee, doing their thing. So now I really do have no clue why they got cloned, if the originals still perform their role as they should.
But just encountered this with Michael Bell as I was doing a bit of maintenance, popping round the world to make sure everyone was in place. If i go to the Gnome's Arms, and read the board, all the roles seem to be applied to the right people. Looking around at the stalls, everyone seems to be in place, and Lavina Chopra is still the mayor. But if I go to the forest to go to the Creature Keeper's cottage, every time i travel there, a random sim is standing in front of the cottage. I have checked Michael's traits and he still has the hidden trait that should make him do the role, but he's just not appearing at the cottage. If i see Michel in world, he has the 'Creature Keeper' title above his head, i can talk to him and get errands. But the rando keeps spawning in front of the cottage. I am going to just kinda... hang out at the Gnome's Arms for like a full sim day and see if anyone else gets their role applied to someone else.
Now for Ravenwood weirdness. I have also encountered Edith's role being applied to a random townie, and most alarmingly to one of MY OWN SIMS. AS I WAS PLAYING THEM. This was a couple months ago. Like she showed up at his house, (static tv i think. he's a ghost so watches that autonomously sometimes) and then the next thing i knew, he had her trait. He could talk to people fine, so at first i didn't even notice, but they only got the 'nope' 'try to communicate' etc options when talking to him, and he would scream in their faces and they would get scared in his presence. With the rando, deleting them fixed it, and Edith still does her thing. But I could not delete my own character, so i had to cheat and remove the hidden trait from him, after which it was fine. I figured this was due to how the roles function differently in Ravenwood where every role seem to have like, a backup for some reason. Edith seems exempted from this (as well as Waylon and Alice) but figured maybe it was still related to how the other Ravenwood roles have dupes by default.
As mentioned, It has been the case from the beginning that the roles seemed to have a backup for handing in tasks. Something I saw on a forum post was apparently as designed. So though i find it jarring, I just tried to ignore it. But my Ghost Host has been MULTIPLYING recently. Possibly others as well, but I have a sim who lives in the Casket house so i see the Afterlife Anonymous a LOT. Esther and Zuleika are still in their house, still have the relevant conversation options. From the beginning there was a second ghost, a rando named Carp Brown, who would sometimes lead the Afterlife Anonymous meetings, and could do tasks/rumors. But recently a third one appeared. Esther and Carp were both still there, so no idea why. then a fourth appeared.
Since the September 18th update, when I start a new game with a new household, the mayor of Henford-on-Bagley and the grocery shop owner are replaced by random Sims I don’t recognize. I am a vanilla player with no mods or CC
