New Relationship Decay Feature Added with June 2nd Patch

[Playalot]

With a recent patch (June 2nd) we have a new game mechanic that was introduced but that was not in the patch notes.

Now inactive played households will experience relationship decay.

This means that any household that you have played or marked as played will experience a decline in the levels of relationships while you are rotated away and playing another household.

At the moment it does seem as though this decay rate is more aggressive than perhaps the developers intended but there has been no formal news around the decay rate being toned down.

One of the more negative effects this relationship decay can have is that, depending on time rotated away, babies can be removed from households due to neglect as the relationship between baby and caregiver has been decayed to basically zero.

It can also mean that you may need to spend some time on rotating back to a household on rebuilding the relationships both inside the household and with other friend sims that are outside of the household.

This is not a game bug. This relationship decay of inactive played households is by design.

I'll be keeping an eye on this for more information but to date there is no information on decay rate or who exactly is protected from this decay (i.e. relationship status that might be exempt). It probably can be managed within normal game play in a vanilla game once you know about this feature and maybe make rotations away from households shorter in duration or make quick check up 'visits' to households you haven't played in a while.

[ikbod]

This doesn't sound great, thanks for the info! Especially about babies hmm...

[CuriousSim]

It sounds completely unnecessary. It's like only allowing Sims to be autonomous, when you're actively playing them. Just when you need them to think for themselves, they stop working. It looks like playing rotational play could be a "death sentence" for families. I much preferred that hardly any time would pass, when switching households. Also, I noticed that even though I turned aging off, most of the Sims around the neighborhood starting having birthdays. Refusing the cake didn't seem to stop the aging.

[coolsim9999999]

I have aging turned off --- via the game options menu --- for all of my Sims --- including my main household.

One of my main household Sims' extended family members had a birthday party today, but the caterer did not bake a cake, and the Sim did not age up.

Do you think I have to worry about Sims aging up even though I have aging turned off completely (especially my main family)?

[Playalot]

I have aging turned off --- via the game options menu --- for all of my Sims --- including my main household.

One of my main household Sims' extended family members had a birthday party today, but the caterer did not bake a cake, and the Sim did not age up.

Do you think I have to worry about Sims aging up even though I have aging turned off completely (especially my main family)?

The aging of your sims is quite different to the inactive played household relationship decay. If you have aging off in the game settings then no sim will age automatically, you can force them to age by making them blow out candles on a cake though... even when the age settings are set on no aging. 

[coolsim9999999]

Thanks, Playalot.  I will make sure that no one blows out candles.

[CuriousSim]

Last month, Sims in my neighborhood started having birthdays, and even though I have had turned aging off, since last year, the Sims aged up anyway. Summer is now an adult. I have all the birthday cakes from the parties rotting in the roof, and no one ever touched them.

[Playalot]

Even when aging is turned off you will still get random invites to townies birthday parties. I always just turn them down because I don't want anyone aging in my just-for-fun games.
Rather than having all the cakes spoiling you could remove the candles and have your sims just eat them, or just throw them out by dragging them to a rubbish bin.

[CuriousSim]

I'm not positive, but every time I attempted to interact with the cake, all the options aged the Sim up, whether it be taste the frosting, remove the candles, blow out the candles, etc. I could be wrong, though. I couldn't find any safe ones, so I just kept the cakes, until the events were over. There was a birthday party for my first Sim, and Summer Holiday - both non random townies. In fact, I attended the FirstSim's birthday, (Daniel) with the BFF household, then when I switched to manage Daniel, I got an invitation to Summer's party. That's when Daniel got stuck in the roof. After the events were over, I noticed both Sims had aged up, even though the cakes were never interacted with & had spoiled.

[Playalot]

Yes, even with aging off if you accept an invite to a sim (that you don't control) birthday party they will age up. That's why I cancel the invitations in my games where aging is turned off.