The Sims 3 Immortal Dynasty Challenge

[Trip]

@Sarabi: foreigners count as best friends. Just as much as pets and cars do.

[Sarabi]

Thanks, @Trip.  I was afraid there might be some known glitch or something.  And speaking of glitches, I have another question/issue -

My 3rd gen heir just aged up to teen, and after I'd had her visit the dresser and mirror to adjust her wardrobe and hairstyle, I noticed that her age bar showed only 12 days left to her next birthday.  It should be 14.  Yes, it's still before midnight.  That isn't the first time something like this has happened - two other members of my household have had their next birthday extended by 1 day, and there's no reason I can see for that.  They've never been near life fruit, beverages made with life fruit, or any such thing, and are never hungry enough to autonomously eat, anyway.  I'm playing with only EA content - no CC, nothing from the store, I'm playing Sunset Valley with only Ambitions and WA plus a couple of Stuff Packs (High End Loft and Fast Lane).  I have several other expansions installed, but select only the aforementioned from the game launcher.

I suspect that using the dresser/mirror may be somehow altering the age/timeline of the sim who uses it/them.  I don't think it happens to every sim every time; perhaps there are specific items of clothing or hairstyles that are glitched, or some particular sequence in the way the player tries on and uses these items that causes the age to change.  It may be what happened to my brand new teen (with 12 days to the next birthday), and may be what happened to my other sims whose birthdays were extended by 1 day apiece - I did change their outfits during the age range where it happened.  There is no other explanation that I can see; my teen went directly to the dresser then mirror immediately after eating her slice of birthday cake, and as soon as she finished with the mirror, the timeline showed 12 days.

I don't mind the loss of 2 teen days, and the other sims' extensions provided me with no advantage - they're just killing time, waiting for elderhood, anyway.

I do have several game saves along the way, and could revert to a previous save if that would be the proper thing for me to do here.  I'm comfortable forging ahead as is.  Please advise, and thank you.

[Trip]

@Sarabi: does the change stick? Usually the age is altered for a few minutes in the UI until it turns back to normal. And I've only ever noticed it doing even that if you use the dresser directly after a birthday. The game doesn't really handle the fresh and empty life bars in the UI that well.

[Sarabi]

@Trip: I've never really noticed any issues with empty life bars before - but I guess I'm not usually so aware of them as when I'm playing a challenge like this.

But to answer your question, yes it sticks.  I've not only exited and re-started the game, but restarted my entire computer.  Twice.

I keep meticulous records, and here are the timelines for this particular Sim: (W - week, D - day)
Born W9D7
W10D3 aged to toddler
W11D3 aged to child
W12D3 aged to teen
It's currently W12D6, and she shows 9 days to aging up again - so the game is indeed giving her 12 days as a teen.  I've checked the option settings (for the umpteenth time - heh), and it correctly displays the expected length of each life stage.

There's another oddity going on here, too.  I'd captured a wish to stay on the honor roll for 3 days, and she completed 2 of them while still in grade school.  She was at 2/3 when we did birthday cake (it was after school), and now it shows -2/3.  She's only been to high school a couple of days thus far, and isn't quite an A student yet - so it'll be interesting to see what happens to those numbers when her grades improve.

Edit: First day back after attaining an A in school, and the number changed from -2/3 to -1/3.  So it is treating it as a negative number.  Only 4 more days to go to complete what started out as a wish for 3 days.

Another edit:  I just noticed that the LTR she'd already purchased (Observant for 5,000) is also missing.  This poor girl has... issues.  She needs a good therapist.

[Trip]

Do you have a save from before her teen birthday? Because it seems like some problems are piling up.

(Sorry to ask for you to replay though)

[Sarabi]

Sure thing, @Trip.

I loaded a save prior to her birthday and have played it through her birthday and beyond - she now has the expected # of days until her next birthday, and did not lose the LTR she had purchased.  Those issues were fixed by my reverting to an older save.

She still has the -2/3 days on the honor roll wish issue, however.  It's been quite a long time since I've played TS3, and even longer since I've raised kids in the game - but there's something somewhere in my vaguest of memories telling me that it's always been that way, they always lose progress on that wish when they transition from elementary to high school.  Whether it's intended or a bug is something only the developers know, but that seems to be the way it works.

And I might have figured out a reason why this may have happened in my game.  I have a tendency to frequently alt-tab in and out of the game while I'm playing (to take notes or look something up in Carl's most excellent guide), and I've left the game running in the background for days on end while I'm doing other things.  I've even put my computer to sleep and then woken it back up multiple times with the game running.  I guess what I'm trying to suggest here is that exiting out and restarting the game more often might help me to avoid such issues going forward.

Thanks for your help with this.

[Deklitch]

Regarding the -2/3 days thing ... yes, I've had that happen to my sims countless times. I just work extra hard at making sure they have 5 days on the honour roll as a teen (or cancel the wish - one of the two)

[Trip]

@Sarabi @Deklitch: It's normal for when my sims have just aged up and not gotten an A because that's when the Honor Roll timer starts. I wasn't worried about that but the dropped reward was a red flag (and Observant is so darn useful, why deal with losing it? )

[Deklitch]

I am struggling big time with opportunities (ie getting many to be offered to me that are related to careers or skills. The 'other' opportunity category ie special ones from around town and Celebrity Opportunities are being offered regularly, however). The kids are also getting their school based opportunities offered to them as well.

By the time he reached level 10 of the Ghost Hunter profession (in the Blue Family), the founder was offered and completed Spooky Props (only). He was doing Logic Skill and Science Skill (science was supermax). He then switched to Business Career because 'opportunities always come up with that one'. I got perhaps 1 opportunity offered through the first four levels (1st/2nd level of the career). I really DON'T want to make him a celebrity, but from another game the Celebrity ones (The Citrus family) are coming along at their usual frequency, however I'm also noticing the work/skill opportunities have dried up there.

As I said, the 'around town' opportunities (Olympics, Eating Comp, Chess Comp, BBQ off Comp etc) seem to be occurring at their usual frequency. The School at Primary/Secondary level opportunities are also being offered at their usual frequency.

In (The Muppets take Twinbrook), I know that the photography opps to overseas are still being offered, because the 'beautiful' Miss Piggy was asked to go to China to take a photo of the Dragon Cave.

I do not have into the future installed, so it isn't that. I have also checked that suppress opportunities is not selected (it isn't). Any way, if anyone has any suggestions or ideas, please let me know, True Blue is getting awfully close to his elder hood and me, being the natural worrywart that I am, am getting worried.

[Trip]

@Deklitch: lol, even big business failed us at last.

I'm not sure how to approach this, but for now: is this only affecting your dynasty save? What happens in a fresh save?

[Deklitch]

it only seems to be impacting the Dynasty save, @Trip .

I'll go and try a different save/game.

[Sarabi]

@Trip - yes, Observant is one of my favorite rewards.  At only 5,000 points, it's quite the bargain.

@Deklitch - I can relate to the worry about BlackOps.  I think it's because it's one of the few things where we are completely dependent on the game's random generators to give us what we need, when we need it.  Most of the other requirements are things we can constantly actively work toward, but the Ops are always a waiting game.

Good luck - you'll probably be okay, really.

[Deklitch]

Thanks @Sarabi Maybe I should break down and make him a celebrity and put up with the stalking etc

[Sarabi]

I'm seeing the age-up bug happening again with my 2nd gen.  The 3rd gen has been fine since I reloaded a previous save.

Second gen looks like this:
.
W6D1 to teen
W8D1 to YA
W11D2 to Adult (this is the first age slip I mentioned earlier - she was a day late)
W14D3 scheduled to age up to elder - another day slip.  The "days to birthday" listed on the age slider was stuck on 2 for an extra day.

I'm quite tempted to go ahead and cake her up on the day she's actually supposed to age up.  I really don't want to have to deal with 2 major birthdays on the same day.

It has occurred to me to try resetting her, though I don't know that it would make much difference.  I have exited the game - I don't know that resetting a sim does anything that exiting and restarting the game does not do.

[Deklitch]

Something that I just thought of, @Sarabi - have you cleaned your caches in a while? I'm not sure if that would have any impact on your issues, but it might be worth a try.

Delete Game Cache Files (What & Howto)
http://www.carls-sims-4-guide.com/forum/index.php?topic=20732.msg401809#msg401809