wow. You're all talking about hungry sims and tired sims and sims that shower. Once i discovered maxmotives i dint think a sim of mine has had to fulfill a need since. Im challenging myself right now to TRY not to use maxmotives..... then maybe i'll get used to the idea of playing like a normal person and just not use cheats as much anymore

What really annoys me is that when my sims house was robbed, the guy took one of those fix-it-up cars, and it was already halfway fixed!! i mean, my sims have enough money to but a new car, but they dont have enough time to fix it up. And then they all woke up, and all their actions got canceled so they could whine about how much they missed the car!! im the one that misses the car!! youre the one that has to eat because im not going to use maxmotives on your family!!

Haha, I NEVER noticed that! But that's quite true in a cousin of mine's case. He believes Chinese food is the perfect laxative xD

This is more of a feature, but I hate how kids/parents/grandparents all get a memory for meeting each other even when they haven't - thus when one dies it fulfills the "death of a family member" fear. Had so many toddlers go straight to red because I forgot that their grandma they never met died by my hands of old age.

Also, I know getting robbed is traumatizing, but do you really remember it when you're a baby? toddler? I have teens and kids walking around furious with a crook they shouldn't have any memories seeing them (or missing the object for that matter).

I make liberal uses of maxmotive objects because I can't be bothered with typing that into the cheat box all the time. But even so, there are times I forget to keep an eye on their motives because I'm busy watching stuff happen in the game. I've been surprised how low my sims levels get when I have a bunch of sims visiting and am moving my sims around to greet and get to know each one. I get distracted watching the wants and relationship points and I forget to check their needs.

I also use the maxmotives objects to drain their hunger when it is time to eat. It was so funny the other day. Seven sims were playing a water balloon fight while one sim cooked the meal. Once I drained their hunger to half way, everyone stopped playing all at once and headed for the kitchen. I was just looking for ways to get them all to do the same things instead of spread all over the house. But they got too cold outside so I have them eat, then sit at the table chatting for a while. When I'm playing new sims, I always have a bunch of people visit frequently to build up friends.

But on topic, I hate the way my sims get cold too quickly when outside. Especially when they are having fun in a water balloon fight in summer. For some reason, I never get tired of watching a bunch of sims in a water balloon fight. For my sims, it seems to make the relationship scores rise more steadily than the other play choices and I have had up to ten playing at once.

Now that I think about it, the whole "food drains bladder" thing was even worse in the Sims 1, since everything drained a sim's bladder. Remind me to never eat food in the sims world.

Oh, and you'll love No Telepathy.

Most of my houses have more than one bathroom and whenever more than one sim needs to use the bathroom it is always the same bathroom, they never think to use the other bathroom(s).

Not only that, but they usually need it at the same time all their guests do, too. I think it's kind of funny when you have four or five sims all shooing one another from the bathroom.

No, right now I love you! *hugs*

Sims Interactions I Can't Stand

1. Nap on couch. Their energy level doesn't rise much at all for this, no matter how many hours they nap, so it's useless. But without a mod installed to make them stop, they consistently nap on couch. You look away for one minute to work on another sim, and the sim you've sent to do something important is now doing "nap on couch" when it will give him no real energy gain and he will still be dead tired for work in the morning when all is said and done.

2. Take bubble bath. They do this a lot, way more than I consider normal. Taking a bubble bath for me is a very rare occurrence. But apparently it's what Sims like to do for 2 hours when it's time for work, or when their baby needs to be fed.

3. Make drinks/Blended. I hate this interaction so much. Sometimes when Sims get hungry, instead of using those 8 points of cooking skill I worked hard to get them, and that fridge I made sure was stocked, they go Make Drinks/Blended 45 times in a row (no exaggeration.) The sound it makes is pure hell. Both the blending and the slurping. And in the end they are still hungry, but they are now seconds away from pissing their pants.

4. Soak in hot tub. In my opinion, this is something that should be done rarely, but Sims are very attracted to hot tubs and will sit in them all night, children be damned. Children are inside screaming for food and its parents are soaking in hot tub. When visitors come over after you've invited them, they proceed directly to soak in hot tub, leaving you no chance to interact with them unless you get in, too. I also once had a Sim come over and soak in the hot tub until it caught fire and almost killed their stupid butt. Oh did I laugh.

5. Fall asleep in food. The sound of their stupid faces going "SPLAT" into a plate of spaghetti got old after I saw it once. Now it fills me with rage. Pregnant Sims do this the most. No matter how hard I try to provide enough food and rest for them, their hunger and energy levels deplete very quickly - and at the same time. The Sim is now too tired to cook or eat, but if you send it to bed it can't sleep because of the hunger. If it manages to make food, it just falls asleep in it. SPLAT.

6. Wanting things that they are not equipped for. If you only have 3 measly creativity points, why do you want to sell a masterpiece and write a great novel every day? Fool, you are still a drive through clerk and your husband is coming home in a frigging clown suit. Wake up and smell reality. You might want to work on getting a promotion and buying decent furniture that is not made of bricks, THEN building up your creativity skills, THEN writing a hit novel. 'Kay?

7. Hold Youngster and Bathe Toddler. Together, these two interactions kill my will to live. Is it just me, or does everyone bathe the baby obsessively? I mean even when it''s not dirty, a relative will come snatch the kid up - when you are trying to teach it something - solely for the purpose of giving it a bath that it didn't need. Or, when you are trying to make smart milk for the toddler, in that one second you sit them down, a relative takes the toddler and puts it to bed hungry. You can't pick it up until it's awake, and its hunger is getting worse and worse. Now you're seeing my least favorite memo "What kind of parents let a child just go hungry? Deathklok is just skin and bones. Feed that child - and fast!" Well I can't now - Deathklok is in his crib!!!!

8. Why is it that nannys know to change a wet baby, but it's parent will not do this autonomously? Instead they hold that wet pee-pee baby for hours, and rock it trying to quiet it down. You have to literally send them to change the baby. And the baby pees after every feeding. So you're constantly executing the command "Change Deathklok's diaper." Shouldn't they learn this when they "Study Parenting?"

9. Children are always really sleepy. What kind of kids are these who are worn down to exhaustion after a day of elementary school? What, counting on your fingers and coloring stars is too physically taxing? Real life children are energetic. TOO energetic most of the time. These children act like old folks.

10. Children who reply "I don't feel like it. Can't you see I'm in a bad mood?" when you send them to do their homework, simply because their fun meter is low. I can only imagine what would have happened if I would have told my mother I wasn't going to do my homework cause I was too bored. I probably wouldn't be alive right now to type this. More like I definitely wouldn't.

11. Taking too long to eat. It takes Sims the equivalent of two hours or more to make and eat a bowl of cereal. That's insane.

12. Warm Up on ballet barre. I have stopped buying my Sims ballet barres even though they obsessively ask for them. Why? Because they wear themselves down to no energy, and then they are hungry and bored as well, cause the ballet barre provides no fun. So, I cancel the Warm Up interaction, thinking they will go take care of their needs now. Nope. They go right back to Warm Up. Are they trying to kill themselves on purpose?

13. You send a Sim to talk to another Sim. That other Sim heads up the stairs. Your Sim follows. By the time they both get up the stairs, the command to talk disappears. Now you have to send them to talk to that other Sim again. What, do they forget? Do they only have short term memory? Are they suffering from ADHD?

14. Sims yelling "KOSHAS! ELAGANDA!" and waving their hands frantically every time something is supposedly in their way. Which is often. They can't walk around the most reasonable of obstacles, or just pick up what's in the way.

15. Sims yelling at me when they are hungry. Dude, you know where the fridge is. Get crackin.

16. Stuff Face. In my world, stuffing face makes you very full. In their world it hardly helps hunger at all. And it's really annoying to watch and listen to.

17. Multiple Sims crowding one bathroom when there are 3 other bathrooms in the house. Are they emotionally attached to this particular commode? WTF?

18. Sims yelling "KOSHAS! ELAGANDA!" and waving their hands frantically when someone is on the computer they want to use. Of course you can't sit down, someone is in that chair, you nunce!

19. Sims inviting other Sims over, and no matter what you do to get them to talk to their guest they just keep taking showers, trimming the hedges, making grilled cheese, making drink/blended, etc. Anything but talking to that guest, even when you send them to.

20. Sims who have families, hungry families, and yet rarely make food for anyone other than themselves.

21. Sims who lay the baby in front of the fridge or stove so no one can eat unless I notice that little Deathklok is lying there and have someone move him. By then, everyone is yelling "HO MA!" at me, and rubbing their bellies to indicate the gnawing hunger.

22. Abusing the espresso machine. If left to their own devices, Sims would never go to bed. They'd just keep drinking espresso, which drains their bladder, and yelling at me about their bladder desperation. Then they'd pee themselves, cry, but not go take a shower unless I send them to do so. They mystify me - I actually like sleep. Sure, I like staying up late, but there comes a time when Blitzy needs to go to bed and get some shut-to-the-eye. Unfortunately, that time never comes for Sims.

23. Plead for Job. Hasn't worked for me yet. I get something like "You think I'd let you have your job back? No way!"

24. Plead with Social Worker. Doesn't work. "Are you kidding? I know a bad parent when I see one!" But, no, Miss Social Worker! My Sims love their kids, it's just they kept asking for a hot tub and a bar, and I once I bought those two items they forgot little Deathklok existed! He's been sitting in that pee diaper for 16 hours!

25. Stomp on roaches. When a family gets bugs, you call the exterminator, but most of the time at the time my Sims get roaches, the exterminator can't come out until the morning. So all night everyone in the family ignores their basic needs, jobs, infants, homework, etc, so they can stand there and just stomp on bugs and cry. Like that is going to solve the problem. By the time the exterminator comes, they're all near death.

26. Ex girlfriends/wives knocking over your trash. She cheated on my Sim, so they fought and broke up. Now she wants to knock over his trash can repeatedly, so he can get bugs and I can keep having to see what happens in #25 above? I want to see that ex's ghost.

27. Nannies peeing on the floor during their shift. Honestly. 5 bathrooms in the house. WTF? Then the toddler comes along and starts splashing and playing in the nanny's pee. Mega gross.

28. Toddlers playing in the toilet. *shudders*

29. Old ladies constantly screaming "WAZA KE NAYNAY!!!"

30. Sims wanting you to call them, but they never call you. Or every time you call, they're not home!

31. Paying well for a blind date from the fortune teller, but getting a fuggo. Or a gray-haired old lady. Like Ms. Crumplebottom, or something.

32. Children going to sleep in their parents' bed. Even if other double beds are available, or the very first bed they slept in was the one you designated for them, they are still going to throw their sleepy bored body into your bed. So wives, say goodbye to sleeping next to your husband (whom I made to be extremely hot) because little Deathklok has just grown up from a toddler to a child, and now he's coming for your side of the bed.

33. Prepare Food. At least 1/3 of the time this is just code for "burn down house" or "kill myself."


With a list of hateful things this long, sometimes I wonder why I still play this game...

Maybe it's just addictive.

Whereas while two of my Sims (in a 6 Sim house) were at work their housemate decided to cook hamburgers and set fire to the house, burning to death both of the at work Sims' lovers. They were both successfully saved from death by the other housemates, but apparently the whole incident wasn't important enough to tell their lovers. I dunno, if my lover had just had a near death experience I'd want to know ... Instead they come home and worry about someone else who fell asleep in the kitchen.

Lightning hit and set ablaze a large tree in my backyard. Unlike normal, after 5 minutes the fire was still going strong so I called the fire department ... and got fined for a prank call! Hello! Look at the inferno in my backyard! I had to delete the stupid tree as noone could extinguish it. Now I'm sorry I did; it would have been funny to see just how long it could burn for. XD



I paid her the top price for Benedick Monty and got such and such the atrociously evil witch. XD I guess he had a hidden dark side lol.

I HATE that! I also hate sims continuously getting bottles for the baby when it's stinky. And random people trying to get the baby out of the crib jamming up the queue and making it impossible for the actual family/housemates to get the baby.

The biggest annoyance I have is when one or more of my sims are sleeping, then someone comes into the house and goes in that sim's room and uses their tv/radio, waking them up. I've learned to lock my doors at night.

blitzysixx, I was really, truly loling reading your post. Spot on, but hysterical to read such an all-encompassing compendium of annoyances (plus - a sim named Deathklok - too funny!)

FWIW, I hate the roach-stomping for a couple of reasons. First of all, they know how to spray for roaches. Why don't they just spray in the first place? Second, they'll go nuts because there are roaches somewhere on the lot, but they're so tiny, and spread out so fast, you can't find them to get your sim to spray for them until someone decides stomping on them is better than just crying about them being on the lot! I've had sims who will do nothing for hours but cry hysterically because there are roaches, and finally give up and call the exterminator because, well, like the weather, everyone talks about it but nobody does anything about it!

blitzysixx, Thanks for providing a bit of laughter. And how did you come up with the name deathklok?

For number 6, sometimes they have hidden skills to write or paint. There are some hacks to let you look at hidden skills. I think writing novels is a way to increase creativity. Whenever my sims roll a want to write a great novel, I always lock that want and oftentimes, they can be writing pretty good novels in no time. (I do fulfill other wants in teh meantime.) Especially if you use Christianluv's Easy Computer. If they aren't employed, I let them work on their writing a lot until they can make about 4000 per novel. Then they can go to work and supplement their income when they want some high price item or to quickly get enough to move to a bigger place. If they are employed, it's a nice boost for the family and for my pregnant sims, it's what I make them do the minute I know they are pregnant so their mate doesn't have to be the only income bringer. Sometimes I make them start writing novels just before they get pregnant. Just make sure they have a very comfy chair at the computer desk.

One of my favorite "Don`t do THAT!" behaviors is when everyone wants to WAKE the sleeping toddler just so that they can put her in a DIFFERENT CRIB.

Some of my others include:
* Getting bottles for toddler when they AREN`T HUNGRY.
* NOT getting bottles for toddlers when they ARE hungry.
* Trying to bathe toddlers when when they aren`t dirty.
* NOT trying to bathe toddlers when they are dirty. Etc..
* Getting ANOTHER bottle for the toddler just because the kid didn`t grab the first bottle fast enough.
* Stuff Face.
* "I can`t open the refrigerator to get a bottle because I just placed the child on the floor in front of it!"
* "I can`t fix food because someone left a magazine on the counter or on the floor in front of the refrigerator/stove/counter!"
* Sims delaying their next command by complaining about a Need that the next command will alleviate.
* Sims who DO go and cook meals for themselves [or the whole family!] when I`m trying to get them hungry enough to drink Eggplant Juice without getting fat from it.
* Commands dropping from their queues FOR NO GOOD REASON while I`m attending to other Sims.
* "Ok, you`ve told me to STOP doing my chores. I will, JUST AS SOON AS I FINISH MAKING THIS BED."

There are more, but I`ve gotta go do something else at the moment. Someone is pushing commands into MY command queue!

I had that happen when I first got the game but after I got Simsky's durable food mod it stopped. Sure was annoying. But the sickness from it is left over seeing as the Trees family spread it to everyone in the neighborhood.

This was driving me INSANE until I installed the "no baby harassment hack." Now when I have a house full of sims and a baby, the baby can friggin breathe!!

Haha, it's so funny (and painful) to read this thread because... well, been there! For me the most hateful interactions were related to babies and toddlers, and my very first hacks were for those things. I have got hacks to stop all those annoying interactions and now playing is more fun and less stressful. I'm glad, that there is so many hacks available, that anyone can customize their game the way they want to. But oh, I do remember the time I used to scream behind the screen out loud, wanting to smash their little empty heads against the wall in every 2 seconds..

Lol this thread almost wants me to allow my sims freewill =D
They all act perfect and do as I say with me in complete control xD

Someone will surely have pointed it out by now, but this is a question of AI. Well, that, and management logistics.
Let me try to explain...

All 'townies' in the game are controlled by the PC. When a sim gets an interaction fed into it's brain saying it should eat (whether that interaction was from the PC or you is irrelevant), the pathing algorithm (most likely a modified version of A*) decides that the sim should go to the nearest dinnerplate in it's vicinity.
This is common sense. If a human being is given the choice of eating from a dinnerplate under it's nose as opposed to eating from a dinnerplate in the bathroom (assuming said human is standing in the kitchen), 98% of the time said human will pick the first.
The pathing algorithm calculates the distance between available targets, picks whichever target is closer and then calculates the path to that target.
The thing to keep in mind here is that this decision is done before the sim actually knows whether or not another sim is eating from said dinnerplate. Checking against every dinnerplate on a lot to see whether or not it is currently 'owned' by another sim quickly becomes timeconsuming (even on todays PCs), so the function responsible for picking an appropriate target and finding the path to that target doesn't care about dinnerplate 'ownership'.
Programmers are always concerned with speed and overhead costs. Once a 'townie' has reached it's target and realizes that the target is in use by another sim, calculating the distance between all available dinnerplates minus the one it just reached, finding the shortest one again and calculating another path to the closest target quickly becomes slow. AI calculations tend to be slow and create alot of overhead. Also keep in mind these calculations are being invoked by alot of sims at the same time on a given lot!
Ultimately, the cost effective way to get the desired target is to wait until the target is not in use by a sim (when said sim has just taken a mouthful), and then grab the target from under the nose of that sim.
Of course, the logical thing for that sim to do would then be to grab another dinnerplate, but that means more calculations. So the sim just sits in it's spot, waiting for the player (you) to pick another dinnerplate target for it. That way there's no need to invoke calculations to determine where the nearest dinnerplate is.

The fact that there's not an option for the player to tell the 'townie' that taking your sims' dinnerplate is rude, is kind of inexcusable.
But most resources are put into the programming work on the base game, every expansionpack gets away with as many artists + designers and as few programmers as possible.
Add to that the fact that members of programming teams are constantly switched around within the team itself and between different projects, each of which has a codebase that typically consists of several million lines of C++ code, and you get an idea of what it's like to cater to every possible outcome of every possible situation in a game.

If you think about the things I've mentioned in this post, you should also be able to understand why something seemingly as simple as putting a toddler in the correct crib can become quite a complex affair...

randomly making the bed is quite annoying.

its more I hate but this one sticks out the most more than the others.

Amtram, glad I made ya laugh! Also, you are so right about the roaches. Way too hard to see them to spray. One thing I have taken to doing is spawning The Deleter from the inSimenator, and deleting all refuse, or just deleting the roaches. But sometimes, they just come back! But it at least keeps the Sims quiet/sane until the Exterminator shows up.

Cheshirekat, I never thought about that before! They could have hidden talent! Like I do. No one pays me for my hidden talent, but my Sims could start capitalizing on theirs, asap! It's hard for me to keep pregnant sims alive, though, so I will have to try this one on my other sims and see how it goes. Thanks for the tip!

KittyKuba, didn't know that mod existed. Must have it now....*goes to download it*

HaphazardSim, you guessed it right. I got Deahtklok's name from Metalocalypse. I love to name my Sims fun things, though. I have a whole family of goths named TruGoth. Since you know, if Bella is Goth, that would make my Sims a whole new level of goth. They all have crazy first names like Deviant, Titan, Warlok, and Chromium. Even the girls.

RingzTerritory, that is so funny. You know, sometimes I turn off free will, but when there is more than a couple of Sims in a house to control, I find it's just too much work for me. So then I turn free will back on...and end up frustrated and wanting to beat my head on the desk.

Yeah! It's like that with sim gossip too... "Tee-hee, your husband... made enemies... with a random townie." NO I WANT YOU TO REPORT THAT YOU SAW HER HUSBAND KNOCKING UP THE MAID IN THEIR CLOSET. "Teehee... Your husband...Wet himself... as a Child." *headdesk*



I've had that happen with an oven - it burns til you delete it, I believe. As long as your sims act like they don't see it, I never call the fire depot.



Hahaha, I agree about work, but when the baby needs to be fed? Hell. No. That freakin baby is fed even when he isn't hungry, and everyone wants to fight over who gets to do it.

Which leads to another annoyance - When I find I have a house full of sims not moving at all and a tired toddler screaming his head off. Why? Because every teen and up has it queued to put the baby to bed, and the toddlier cannot just accept the first person whose fear of the social worker causes them to develop childcare OCD and ignore the others. Oh no, I must go into the toddlers view to click out of everyone's request to hold him, JUST to get some progress.

And everything else blitzysixx mentioned... I lmao so hard. Except, where I can never get my job back no matter how carefully I plan (Okay, lemme try right after I get fired....okay maybe I'll give the boss some time, say 6 hrs... okay I'll ask the hour before my old carpool arrives...frammit! Haloo?! What's the point of this option if it never works!!) the social worker is terribly forgiving. Oh, you're a teenage mom taking care of your 6 younger brothers and sisters too, failing school, and the repo man coming every 3 days? Yeah, you can keep 'em THIS time but next time...

Not a behaviour, but I had to mention it because it's still annoying!

Why are there so many townies? I went into SimPE to do something with one of my Sims and I had to scroll through ten pages (slight exaggeration) of townies I never met or even heard of before I found my Sim. What do we need 100 or so townies for? I would prefer a no townie option actually. I have enough Sims with the families I created; I don't want random NPCs in my neighbourhood.

All they ever do anyway is annoy me by being brought home from work or school when I don't want them and/or by hanging out in front of my house/stealing the newspaper constantly. DX And they're all so hideously ugly; not even valid prospects for my Romance Sim. She has some taste! How many people in RL do you see walking around with hugely bloated lips etc. anyway?

ROTFL!

You are so right. They look like cave men in high-waisted pants. Once I found out how to get custom sims and make my own cute sims out of custom parts, my Sims have not dated a townie since. But the game is a reall a-hole, sending them home from work and making you befriend them. Hmph. I take the insimenator and give them a face lift and makeover before I even talk to them. Yes, I know down in their Sim DNA they still have fuggo genes. But at least they are easy on the eyes.

Oh man! That sucks! You really tried hard! Sometimes I let them get a new job, or a job in the same field (it's usually low-level, which is unfair if the Sim has the skills and friends to get a high-level job). Other times I just use the Career Adjuster to give them back the exact job they were fired from. Mwahahahahha!