More Awesome Than You!

I don't know whether my computer is not up to the task, or if the babysitters are programmed to stand in front of the crib and ignore the baby while it screams in distress? The nannies in TS2 were hilariously horrible, but at least they'd occasionally change a diaper or feed the kid. If I send my sim home early to fire the babysitter, I immediately get the message that the babysitter is done for the day and takes 75 simoleons, grrr! So they do NOTHING, and can't be fired. Is it supposed to be this way? Punishment for going out while you have a larva?

I noticed that all the maids are kleptos! The joke's on us.

Yeah they are pretty bad. I miss my nannies dammit!

That being said, besides modding the babysitters to elders and throwing them in the CAS to look the part, I also cheat their damned traits. No slobs or keptos!

By default, it seems, they are attracted to various 'fun' things around the house and will do inappropriate things instead of constantly working. I think this is the 'feature' EA brags about on the load screen that 'Not all sims work hard for their pay, keep an eye on those you hire!' etc.  ::) Except it's not just certain ones but all of them that are like that.

The thing that gets me though it how ineffective they are. Even if you XML tune them to just work and remove negative traits via debug commands, they still just stand there staring at the crib half the time, or will complain about the kid screaming (hello, that's your JOB!) or will leave them tired or stinky in a high chair where they throw an absolute fit!

We really need an effective babysitter/nanny mod.  :-\

I never thought I would miss the TS2 nannies so much  :(

Oh my babysitters look like them now thanks to Userunknown's mod (http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=353824) + Edit in CAS + my tinkering around with the design tool on some clothing.

(http://pws.cablespeed.com/moliva/TS3BlueRedNanny.jpg)

I just need to get them to work better now, that's the hard part. I don't even care if they pee all the damned time as long as they actually take care of the damned kids!

I know exactly what you mean; I had twins toddlers, both parents had to work, hired a sitter.  The sitter did well until the sprogs social's got too low, and then went batshit.  Both kids started crying, the babysitter, and then the maid too, went to stand right in front of them, and just look at them.  They stared until Dad got home from work an hour later, then both took off.

I thought maybe it was my twins those mornons couldn't handle, but it seems some of you are having problems with single babies as well.  I seriously started panicking (while also utterly irate) when the useless "babysitter" stood OUTSIDE next to a pile of garbage that the babysitter herself had made picking her nose or whatever that idle animation is while my babies screamed to high heaven in Hunger, Hygene, and Social desperation.  Had to rush both mom and dad back (you know, because of twins; didn't want either of them starving right to death!) and of course, she's all like, "Well, looks like I'm done here; thanks for the cash" and runs off before I can even scream at her.  You know what?  If that were real life, not only would I absolutely refuse to pay her but I think I'd freaking call the cops.  Or I might ring her useless neck.  Not that I believe I'd ever actually hire anyone that evil in real life to take care of my kids, but it's not like the sims have any choice; you just get whoever the service sends your way.

I've had a couple babysitters just stand out in front of the house and do nothing while the kid played and their motives went into the red, while some others wouldn't leave the kid alone and kept getting them up to watch TV with them. I'm pretty sure they're not supposed to stand in one place outside the whole time (I observed this in my sister's unmodded game too) but otherwise it does seem to be luck of the draw in regards to traits. The best one I had was Family-Oriented and also a Slob, but I accidentally aged him up after moving him in, so now he lives in town and will probably make good marriage fodder... I kinda miss him as a babysitter, though.

No, it's not just you and it's not just with twins. They are just incompetent. Even more than the TS2 nannies and that is saying something!

I've only ever had babysitters like SwiftGold's had - standing on the porch idly waiting for me to return. Annoying, particularly when I was going for a 5 kids LTW.

Somehow, I don't think it matters. They probably function with the same magic-warding effect that TS2 nannies have. Also, they're probably going into low-detail mode and shutting down.

This occured while watching the house (since my adult sims were both down rabbit holes and thus boring); by the time one of my sims got home to tend to them, the babies were rather in dire straits.

Yeah, but that's no guarantee of anything. The autonomy likes to shutdown whenever it doesn't matter anymore. Also, Kuronues suck.

The social worker will come if a babysitter is on the lot.  I threw 7 toddlers on an empty lot, had the adult call the babysitter, then kept the adult away for a couple of days.  The babysitter stopped caring for the kids after the first two or three started crying. Every morning, I got a pop-up saying the babysitter needed to leave, but he never did.  Social services came after 3 days, I think.

I had this problem in one of my households, and it was because the front door hadn't been set. Once I set the front door, the babysitter was able to come inside the house. He still didn't do a stellar job of taking care of the baby, though, and I had to drag motives up.

In my short (so far) experience with babysitters, I've found Christopher Robins to be the most attentive. The next time my Sims are both out and a babysitter slacks to the point of both kids wailing their little heads off, I'm going to try having one of the parents remotely click and select to "Fire" the useless bugger. Otherwise, they get no recourse, and how do they know this bogus service isn't going to send the same fuckup in the future?

I remember how mad I was when my sim left for 2 hours and came back to find the sitter still on the front porch with the kid screaming inside.  Typical ::)  What ticked me off was that I still had to pay 75$, same as I would for a full day service.  What the hell?  Shouldn't wages be hourly like in TS2?  I understand repair services and such for a fixed price, but with sitters, it makes no damn sense! He didn't even go inside!

We definitly need a new nanny lobotomy type thingy. Also something that make the darn maids actually clean. I rather have the TS2 way where they were paid per hour and didn't leave till everything was neat.

I've had the same problems you're mentioning and all in the same household. The stupid babysitter would stay outside till I came home and then leave with my money on top of it. The baby stuck int he chair? Check? The standing and watching while motives go down? Check?

Didn't EA brag about how the new AI is so much better? It seems to be worse for most of the npc's.

Even worse, my sim with all the charisma challenge perks doesn't have the option to "Fire" a maid or babysitter.  I guess it's because they're automagically friends as soon as they step foot on the lot...?

My sim have all the charisma pts. and the perks, did have a friendship with the babysitter. She also had the ability to fire her. My sim's boyfriend was visiting her and their spawn, so she called for the babysitter before she left for work. ( I had no idea if he would stay or not) The boyfriend stayed and took care of his kid, but the babysitter was always interrupting him and he would put the baby down before doing whatever care he was about to do. That babysitter got on my nerves.

When my sim returned home, somehow the babysitter didn't leave and she was fired on the spot. This is what happened after that:

(http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c278/mailchaser40/Pictures%201/The%20Sims%203/Screenshot-225.jpg)

I sort of felt bad.

Is that the babysitter sobbing? :D Serves her ass right, for interfering in baby care.

The only one I've had was named Wayne.  He had long hair, a biker jacket, and pajama pants, but he actually did a great job looking after the two babies and two toddlers.  He just went from crib to crib doing exactly what each kid needed him to do, then went around and tidied up the house until the parents got home.  I thought EA had actually managed to make functional nannies, but I guess it was a fluke.

Well I want Wayne to come to my sims houses then dammit!

I'd almost think they made a some generate useful and some generate useless just for the lulz, but I think that would be too complex for them to both doing. :P

Yeah, the blond haired is the babysitter.  :D

I have one teen that actually tidy up and do things with the kid. That Davy kid is totally worthless, and will only do something if I zoom to the house and look at him. Then he will belch and fart. Sigh.

Holy crap, those are amazing. It looks much better than anything I could attempt. Would you happen to be willing to upload them somewhere, pretty pretty please?

Well I just tweaked the colors around with the default EA patterns really, but sure. I'll fire up the game in a bit to play anyway and export those outfits.

Motoki, did you happen to change their traits while you had them in CAS?  If so, what did you give them?  I'm thinking of taking a page from your book, but I wouldn't know what to do with their personalities beyond family-oriented and neat.

Yeah. I think I gave them neat and perfectionist. Didn't seem to help much though. :P

 ::)  I think I'll stick with just family and neat then.  Or... wait... is there a trait that conflicts with bookworm or childish?  I really don't want them pulling a book out of their back pockets or breaking the video game console when they're supposed to be doing better things.

Maybe Workaholic as another trait? Or Friendly, to push them to interact with the larvae, thus perhaps resulting in some accidental getting-stuff-done?

FI, there is a list of traits that conflict on this site somewhere. Searching should find it. Off the top of my head, though, I don't think any traits conflict with those.

Many thanks Motoki. I know it was probably pretty simple, but alas, I am epic fail at the design tool. Everything ends up coming out with black and green polka dots and three heads.

Okay see if these files work.

For the tops I used the first (one on the leftmost side) denim pattern from Around the Sims 3 http://www.aroundthesims3.com/patterns/pattern_fabric_01.shtml

You don't have it use it if you don't want and can just do solid white or another pattern, but I thought it gave the shirt a nice material look.

Let me know if the files don't work. This was sort of an experiment exporting clothing recolors via the CAS and then extracting a useable package file from the sims3pack.

David seems to be an effective babysitter - now

I hired him overnight while my parents slept a few times (the toddler was in it's crib due to wake up when he arrived) and he did everything he was meant to during the night so they woke to a sleeping baby with all it's needs met.  He still isn't the tidiest of Sims but he does the babysitting job now when he is left alone in the house with the toddler and my parents don't come home to cranky children.

Doing the same thing with the red headed girl - Candy - resulted in having to get up in the middle of the night to fire her for playing video games downstairs all night while the toddler cried for food and a nappy (diaper) change.

Think I am just going to move an unemployed friend (live in Nanny!) into the spare room instead now lol

How on earth are you getting a babysitter to be on the lot while the parents are still there?

Btw, I believe Dislikes Children conflicts with Childish, but, well, you wouln't want that trait on your babysitter.

Uh, call services.  ;)

If both parents are home when one of them calls the babysitter, then the babysitter will show up and do its job until one of the parents dismisses it. If one parent is gone when the other calls the babysitter, then the babysitter will automatically leave when the second parent gets home.

Ok, so I'm stupid.  I guess I only ever called then when I was just about to leave anyway.

You know, from what I've been seeing in game lately, it seems it's not just babysitters, but non-controlled sims in general who are generally useless in taking care of kids.  I have often witnessed parents at the park or library standing staring off into space while thier babies/toddlers scream thier heads off in Hunger and/or Hygene frustration (usually both, actually) for hours and hours while everyone including the sim parents themselves complain about the "crying baby".  Um, duh, maybe try feeding and changing it?

I've noticed this, too, and since sims can just pull bottles from their butts, and spin babies to magically change their diapers, there's really no excuse for them not to. Stupid EA.

My Sims have the same issue since they completed the last of the charisma challenges. Those babysitters that have turned up to my Sim's home have looked after my toddler well enough but the belching, farting and flirting with the maid is just too icky to put up with.

From what I read on Customers_Suck, this seems to be fairly realistic :/

I managed to Fire the babysitter yesterday (for the first time), and I STILL had to pay him! I'm thinking of going the nanny route and creating a caretaker who moves right into the house until the babies grow to school age.