[NEEDS INPUT] No NPCs Spawning [ Edited ]

[misalignments]

Product: The Sims 4
Platform:PC
Which language are you playing the game in? English
How often does the bug occur? Every time (100%)
What is your current game version number? 1.47.51.1020
What expansions, game packs, and stuff packs do you have installed? All
Steps: How can we find the bug ourselves? Start a new save and check household manager for NPCs.
What happens when the bug occurs? NPCs don't spawn (excluding not in world celebrities and Father Winter).
What do you expect to see? A populated world with many NPCs.
Have you installed any customization with the game, e.g. Custom Content or Mods? Never used.
Did this issue appear after a specific patch or change you made to your system? Neutral/Not Sure 

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So I've started a new household recently, and I noticed that there weren't lot of NPCs milling about. The only NPCs I saw were: The townies that come with each world (Goth, Landgraab, etc.) pre-generated celebs (Baby Ariel, Izzy Fabulous, etc), and Father Winter. I had another save that I deleted where the sim was an actor and 5 or 6 NPC spawned for that (they were all Adults, which might be different issue), but that was it. I have my max sim count at 200. I think this happened after the Positivity Challenge ended, but I'm not sure. Edit: There's also a female young adult bartender that always spawns named Alex Moyer, but idk if she's always supposed to spawn or not.

[crinrict · Accepted solution]

The lot maximum is usually 20 so you should get a few more but there are things that can lower the total, I think.

Maybe you had a mod before that upped the total ?

[crinrict]

Hi @misalignments

The complaint is usually the other way round that too many NPCs are created.

Sims are usually spawned when they are needed. So do you have alien night the game should create aliens unless it already has enough.

How many Sims do you have when you visit other lots ? If all the roles can be filled with existing Sims, no new ones are needed.

How long have you been playing that save

[misalignments]

Hi

I've been playing this save 4 days in game.

The neighborhoods are like ghost towns. 1 or 2 sims appear at lots as guests, and most townies work as vendors, door guards, gym trainers, etc. instead of sims spawning to fill these roles, which was what used to happen.

San Myshuno which is usually pretty bustling for me (10 sims or so, I never thought I would have to count the exact amount), is almost completely dead. My sims is self employed so I haven't gone to an active career lot, the sim isn't living in an apartment so no landlord, and I haven't visited a vacation worlds, so I haven't checked those yet. Literally the only sims in the household manager are the townies, pre-generated celebrities, the mayor cat and a ghost dog, and a bartender named Alex Moyer (a GF pre-generated NPC, I'm assuming).

Like, idk if the pre-generated celebrities or something threw it off, but I used to get 15~ households in game. I've played the Friend of the World Aspiration several times and would get 50/50 split of townie friends and NPC friends before, and now literally all of my friends would be townies.

Maybe I was getting too many NPCs before, but if this how game is supposed to work, the bug was much more preferable.

[crinrict]

There was so much feedback against the constant NPC creation and I do see more re-use of existing ones (but for a while). The lots shouldn't be dead though. I think the amount of Sims on any give lot should be around 20 but the amount can depend on your specs too.

Do you play rotationally or just one household ?

[misalignments]

Just one!

I have a gaming laptop, so my specs are pretty good. The amount of sims I used to get are guesses, tbh. I never thought I'd have to count sims walking about, so I really can't give exact numbers, sorry!

[crinrict]

I would play some more for now and see if they start spawning after 2 Sims weeks or so.

Visit lots of community lots. I can confirm that the roles are now filled with household Sims but unless those are played Sims (https://answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports/OPEN-Played-Sims-are-used-in-roles-f-e-as-a-bouncer/m-p/719763...) I think that change was made on purpose and not a bug cause of the complaints of too many Sim generated.

If your lots are really empty, I do see a concern though.

[misalignments]

Okay, I'll try to get back with the results asap! Thanks for your time and help!

[misalignments]

Hi again! Sorry it took me so long to get back; I had a busy week. 

So it's been two weeks in game, and I visited every community lot and stayed for multiple hours on each. Good news, some sims have spawned, but it still doesn't seem to be as many as there usually is. I went to Selvadorada and the number of sims there seems a little low as well, although I don't know there area well so that might the normal amount.

At this point, I'm thinking that there might be something wrong here. I wish I didn't have the habit of purging my saves (I only like having one save bc of a bad experience with TS3), so I would have something to compare to and, I could know I wasn't going crazy.. 

[crinrict]

Thanks for coming back

Going to tag this as needs input for now to see if others experience something similar.

Could you attach your config.log file (found in documents)

[misalignments]

Here you go:

https://pastebin.com/jzhHjsEy

My deadname is in there a couple times, so please just ignore that.