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Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#1 Old 12th Oct 2014 at 4:10 AM
Odd issue... losing friends in the Singer career
I don't know if something is borked or not... I highly doubt it since I literally JUST started modding this stuff and haven't had mods put into the game yet... but my Sim is losing friends whenever he does a gig... nothing is being thrown at him... no one is booing... people look like they're having a hell of a time and I usually get a very good response to the show... but from time to time randomly my Sim will lose a friend and it's labeled (from neglect) yet my sim has the long distance relationships LTR that keeps all relationships from going out due to neglect... so I'm confuzzled by this and would appreciate some knowledge on the subject.

Also I was working on a mod this morning that removes the hygiene and fatigue decay from preforming for tips if that would be of interest to anyone.... just lemme know.
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One Minute Ninja'd
#2 Old 12th Oct 2014 at 4:15 AM
It's been a problem since SHT was released. It was never fixed by any patch, either. Just one of those things.
1978 gallons of pancake batter
#3 Old 12th Oct 2014 at 7:58 AM
Hmm, I read about that in modding discussion. Actually I'm itching a bit to make something small. (Don't have the motivation for something big) Can you tell me exactly how I can see that bug in action? Disclaimer: It's been a *very* long time since I played the game.

If gotcha is all you’ve got, then you’ve got nothing. - Paul Krugman
Alchemist
#4 Old 12th Oct 2014 at 10:35 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Buzzler
Hmm, I read about that in modding discussion. Actually I'm itching a bit to make something small. (Don't have the motivation for something big) Can you tell me exactly how I can see that bug in action? Disclaimer: It's been a *very* long time since I played the game.

By the time a gig is over, everyone's relationship meter in the Sim's relationship just... decreases. That's it. All is decreased for no reason. Right after the show is over.

I always had this theory: when a Sim performs on stage, sometimes the audience request for something (noticeable from the thought bubble, but it's not very descriptive. You'll have to figure out which song the audience wants from the icon). IIRC, if you ignore the request, they will dislike you slightly, but if you fulfill their request, they will... like you perhaps? I thought that was the cause but I really can't tell.

Just call me Nikel
Department of Post-Mortem Communications
#5 Old 12th Oct 2014 at 12:30 PM Last edited by Don_Babilon : 12th Oct 2014 at 2:04 PM.
It actually happens during the performance and I'm pretty certain that you can track it. During a performance the audience reacts and the reaction is signalled by plus or minus signs. It seems that the reaction and its actual effect are reversed, i.e., the relationship will go down despite the reaction signalling only plusses. I can't remember the numbers but I tracked the relationship losses once and by the end of a show you will usually have lost some 20 relationship points. IIRC. There is some inconsitency though, which suggests that the reaction plusses do not relate directly to the relationship changes. In addition all three careers behave in a different way. It's most severe for Singers, but Acrobats and Magicians are also affected. But while Singers seem to always suffer from the losses, the other two professions can also gain friendship points.

But if you're looking for something small, may I suggest something else? A toggle for the University Life social groups. Make it optional whether playing the computer, bowling, playing catch etc should raise a Sim's standing in the various social groups. Enable/disable social groups per save.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#6 Old 12th Oct 2014 at 10:39 PM
I think this is the file that controls the interactions with the performers and singers career... but not sure what to mod... maybe make the requests timers longer than the gig itself? *shrug*
Attached files:
File Type: zip  ShowStage.zip (5.0 KB, 78 downloads) - View custom content
Scholar
#7 Old 12th Oct 2014 at 10:45 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Darkcloudwalker
I think this is the file that controls the interactions with the performers and singers career... but not sure what to mod... maybe make the requests timers longer than the gig itself? *shrug*

Hey did you make that yourself? Or is it someone else's?
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#8 Old 12th Oct 2014 at 10:50 PM
It's straight out of the gameplaydata unaltered. Not sure what TO alter in order to get rid of the decrease in friendship.
Mad Poster
#9 Old 13th Oct 2014 at 1:46 AM
I have noticed that myself and I think I posted about it here.

I've actually had a Sim perform and their spouse do all positive responses, and their relationship still goes down a tad.

It used to be I could have another member of the household watch while they were performing for tips (which increases the relationship). Now it's not an option. Wonder if the latest patch(es) broke it.

Who is Q? qanon.pub
1978 gallons of pancake batter
#10 Old 13th Oct 2014 at 7:40 PM
I've played a sim to level 2 of the singer career and had her perform a gig, but I'm unable to reproduce the bug so far. I've browsed the code for quite a bit too, but didn't come across anything yet. It's rather difficult, because the related code isn't exactly clean if you ask me.

If anyone wants to check if it's related to the failure of performing tricks, I'd suggest to change the kLTRBoostForNotPlayingTrick value in the tuning provided by Darkcloudwalker to 0.0 and see if the problem persists.

If gotcha is all you’ve got, then you’ve got nothing. - Paul Krugman
Department of Post-Mortem Communications
#11 Old 29th Oct 2014 at 12:48 PM
Any feedback on this yet? My Sim is loosing an average of 10 relationship points per performance, even with Sims who aren't watching and just entered the preformance lot. Talking to them then reveals that they are all "slightly insulted".
The odd thing in addition is that they are frequently requesting a song that has no corresponding song thumbnail. It feels like requesting a Black Sabbath track from Celine Dion.
Alchemist
#12 Old 30th Oct 2014 at 7:43 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Don_Babilon
Any feedback on this yet? My Sim is loosing an average of 10 relationship points per performance, even with Sims who aren't watching and just entered the preformance lot. Talking to them then reveals that they are all "slightly insulted".

Oh yeah, I second this. This needs to be noted.

Just call me Nikel
Department of Post-Mortem Communications
#13 Old 31st Oct 2014 at 8:53 PM Last edited by Don_Babilon : 31st Oct 2014 at 10:02 PM.
@Buzzler: Ok, I just tested this with the ShowStage file changed and kLTRBoostForNotPlayingTrick set from 0 to 0.0 and the boost for playing a trick from 1 to 2. My level 10 singer performed a gig, with two songs. The audience requested the same thing twice and (I think) I had chosen the right track. Two best friends with a LTR of 100 were present. After the first song the relationship sank by 8 points to 92, and the same after the second one - another loss of 8 points. With all the others there was also a loss of 8 points per song. The show itself was classified as amazing and there was no negative reaction from the audience. All plusses. But when I talked to members of the audience all showed that they were "slightly insulted", I could complain about other members and all had the option of "Smooth Recovery".
This is all in accordance with my experience before changing the file.

ETA:
Second test where I changed the second value kLTRBoostForPlayingTrick back from 2 to the initial 1, but left kLTRBoostForNotPlayingTrick at the modded 0.0: this time I sent another household member with my singer, so that he could do the requesting, to make sure that my Singer performed what was asked. First song resulted in a relationship loss with all attendants of 8 points, despite performing exactly what my other Sim requested, for the second song I let the audience do the request, LTR loss another 8 points, the third song couldn't complete as the gig time ran out and no LTR loss. Speaking with my other household member showed him as "slightly insulted" while the household member thought that my Singer was "impolite".
This is again in accordance with my experience before changing the file.

It's a loss of 8 points, no matter what I do and it is fully reproducible. None of the tuning has any effect and the value doesn't correspond with any values given in the ShowStage xml.
Alchemist
#14 Old 1st Nov 2014 at 2:14 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Don_Babilon
@Buzzler: Ok, I just tested this with the ShowStage file changed and kLTRBoostForNotPlayingTrick set from 0 to 0.0 and the boost for playing a trick from 1 to 2. My level 10 singer performed a gig, with two songs. The audience requested the same thing twice and (I think) I had chosen the right track. Two best friends with a LTR of 100 were present. After the first song the relationship sank by 8 points to 92, and the same after the second one - another loss of 8 points. With all the others there was also a loss of 8 points per song. The show itself was classified as amazing and there was no negative reaction from the audience. All plusses. But when I talked to members of the audience all showed that they were "slightly insulted", I could complain about other members and all had the option of "Smooth Recovery".
This is all in accordance with my experience before changing the file.

ETA:
Second test where I changed the second value kLTRBoostForPlayingTrick back from 2 to the initial 1, but left kLTRBoostForNotPlayingTrick at the modded 0.0: this time I sent another household member with my singer, so that he could do the requesting, to make sure that my Singer performed what was asked. First song resulted in a relationship loss with all attendants of 8 points, despite performing exactly what my other Sim requested, for the second song I let the audience do the request, LTR loss another 8 points, the third song couldn't complete as the gig time ran out and no LTR loss. Speaking with my other household member showed him as "slightly insulted" while the household member thought that my Singer was "impolite".
This is again in accordance with my experience before changing the file.

It's a loss of 8 points, no matter what I do and it is fully reproducible. None of the tuning has any effect and the value doesn't correspond with any values given in the ShowStage xml.

That's an interesting observation, Don. Did you chat or interact with your audience? I think interacting with them will insult them, but I don't really recall. Try not to interact with your audience next time, and see what will happen.

Once, I changed the value of kAutonomousRequestChance to 0 and kShouldRequestAutonomously to false, so that the audience won't request anything and hopefully my performer would never offend them in any way. Unfortunately, I made this mod after I played with Showtime performer profession, and I've never actually tried playing with it again. Try that method if it works.

Just call me Nikel
1978 gallons of pancake batter
#15 Old 1st Nov 2014 at 7:40 PM
@Don_Babilon, thanks for your detailed description. I still didn't see the bug live in game, but that may be because my test sim is only on level 4 now. I will need to see what code is actually running when it happens to get a better chance at pinpointing the bug. We'll see.

If gotcha is all you’ve got, then you’ve got nothing. - Paul Krugman
Department of Post-Mortem Communications
#16 Old 2nd Nov 2014 at 1:39 PM Last edited by Don_Babilon : 2nd Nov 2014 at 5:37 PM.
Perhaps I can provide some more clues now.

In order to test something else I started a fresh game in Starlight Shores in a largely mod free environment excpet for MasterController. I chose the Meir household. He's a lvl 2 Acrobat, has no skills and doesn't know anyone in the neighbourhood except for one dislike. Luckily a Simfest happened on the second day and I had him attend as audience and not interact with the performers except for Watch The Show.
There were 4 performances, 2 Magicians, an Acrobat and a Singer

Now my observations were:
- the LTR with the Magicians (both lvl 3) ended at 6.68 and -1.66 respectively. They started to appear in his relationship panel during the performance and the LTR was updated simultaneously to the performance and probably according to their performance quality per trick. I.e. the LTR with the first Magician went up initially and then dropped at the end of her show, the LTR with the second went up and stayed like that.
- the LTR with the Acrobat (lvl 5) went up twice during the performance and ended at 2.338. The Acrobat also began to appear in the panel while the performance was in progress, and the LTR boost increments were exactly 1.169 in both instances.
- Now the Singer (lvl 5) only started to appear in Meir's relationship panel after the song was finished. The audience requested the song with the dance steps icon, which, I think, can be New Glitz and Oogie Fever. He played Oogie Fever. LTR was -5 at the end in one immediate drop.

ETA: In the meantime I went through the ordeal of two more Simfests and two different gigs as audience, and I think I got some pretty reliable numbers now. I'll spare you to post these here. I've written them down in case you need them. But the basic result is that for Singers the results were always negative.
1978 gallons of pancake batter
#17 Old 4th Nov 2014 at 11:02 PM
Thanks again. I'm still on it, but since I'm currently super-easily bored, so I switch between projects a lot.

Also I just searched for an old message in my private messages and stumbled over quite a few from a certain Don_Babilon. Funny how I don't remember messaging with someone with that name. Guess some has had a name change and I remember the old name well.

If gotcha is all you’ve got, then you’ve got nothing. - Paul Krugman
Department of Post-Mortem Communications
#18 Old 5th Nov 2014 at 12:59 AM Last edited by Don_Babilon : 5th Nov 2014 at 1:13 AM.
Well, you know, Don_Babilon is so amazing he can send PMs to the past. It's the only possible explanation.

But to give you more numbers: the increments that I mentioned in my previous post are not always the same. They seem to depend on the attraction system, too. With an attraction bonus the positive increments are 2.0875, the regular one seems to be 1.67 (no idea why that one Acrobat had only 1.169 point increments, maybe my Sim thought that he was ugly). The negative one seems to be fixed at -5.0 (similar to a failed conversation topic).
In addition, the plus/minus signs a performer receives are not social LTR plus/minus signs and not every trick results in LTR change.
Yeah definitely something simple and easy to tackle
1978 gallons of pancake batter
#19 Old 15th Nov 2014 at 7:34 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Don_Babilon
Well, you know, Don_Babilon is so amazing he can send PMs to the past. It's the only possible explanation.
Well, that would explain it. :P

Ok, after hours of test playing (which helped nothing except showing me that the issue exists) and studying code, I think I've found the spot. Everytime a trick request times out and gets reset, the relationship between the performer and each sims in the audience gets a little kick towards Insulting. That timeout is 30 minutes by default and fun fact: it counts even if the audience didn't request anything.

So. Setting the timeout to a longer value seems to work, although it means the audience will never request a new trick until the old request has been fulfilled. I didn't see any thought balloons of tricks requests yet, though. So I can't tell for sure. Would be awesome if someone could test the little tuning mod I've uploaded to MYP to confirm my findings (i.e. no LTR drop, but no requests either):
http://www.modyourpanties.com/hosti...StageTuning.zip

If it turns out that I'm right, then the question is what to do about it. Could stick with the tuning mod and live with the trick request thingymajingy being limited in its functionality. I could also probably make a script mod that alters the functionality in that regard. Would mean to replace a fair amount of EAxian code to get a grip on the point of change, though. Dunno if it's worth the effort? Opinions?

If gotcha is all you’ve got, then you’ve got nothing. - Paul Krugman
Department of Post-Mortem Communications
#20 Old 16th Nov 2014 at 2:11 AM
Well, I've abandoned my Showtime save for the moment and retired my only singer, but I'll test this as soon as I've got time for it. Thanks for tackling one of the many nuisances that came with that EP.
Alchemist
#21 Old 16th Nov 2014 at 4:24 AM
Oh, that explains it all! As far as I checked, the only benefits for performing the requested trick are slight performance and relationship boosts. But it's not worth it, compared to constant, inevitable performance and relationship drops 6 times for each gig. So shutting down the request completely seems okay to me.

Just call me Nikel
Instructor
#22 Old 28th Nov 2014 at 6:05 PM Last edited by lindali365 : 28th Nov 2014 at 7:07 PM.
The relationship decay is one of those annoyances that was never fixed by EA. Which leads me to believe that they may view this as a feature or incentive to have our performers perform for tips following shows to repair the decline. Who knows for sure when it comes to EA's way of thinking?

@Buzzler - I'm currently playing a Showtime Singer in Starlight Shores. I installed the tuning mod from the link you posted (StageTuning) and had my Sim perform a show at Verde Park. I checked the relationship values of the audience members before and after the show using NRaas Master Controller 'Long Term Relationship: By Value.' I'm thrilled to report that there was no value change to relationships of audience members, they all remained the same (yay)!

I've scheduled a second gig and I'll check the values once again before and after the show. After she completes her second gig, I'll have my Sim sing for tips to ensure that the relationships increase as they should with Sims who were in the audience. Will report back after the show.

My Sim performed a second show, and again there was no decline in the relationship values. After the show I had her sing for tips and I could only use one of the audience members as a test to see if the relationship increased as it should. Did it ever increase! They went from strangers to friends quickly. This is a keeper Buzzler, I love it! Thank you :lovestruc
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