Do you play vanilla, semi vanilla (using mods like overwatch, errortrap, etc) or fully modded?

Currently I have a few mods not too many and I've been thinking about either going back vanilla or just keeping the essential like Nraas mods. I used to play completely vanilla in like 2015 before I discovered mods. Specifically Nraas. And they've been amazing and seemingly essential mods. But im here to get others opinion to kind of decide wither I want to go full blown vanilla or just stick with basic Nraas Mods or game fixing mods in general. What are some of your thoughts and how do you play?

I understand, but im not sure I can agree 100%. Maybe it's because my experiences have been different in the past. This is not to say the game doesn't have problems, because anyone in their right mind knows TS3 has issues haha. I just remember the huge annoyances, for me were the routing issues in certain worlds and the lag. One in particular was that appaloosa plains was unplayable until I got the world fix lol it would just freeze on me lol I used to rage quit lol

I had something like 150 mods in 2 but other than Nraas have very few in 3. And as I have said many times the only thing that makes my game lag is when I have loads of CC in CAS and then loading there is slow. ATM I have no CC in CAS so is much faster. Gameplay is fine.

I have about 250MB worth of mods. I wouldn't play without them.
There is a plan in place to replace some of them with Retuner settings but I don't have that much time and the time I have I rather spend playing that fiddling with Retuner. So, I might cut down once I do that.
I actually played without anything in there recently when I was trying out the Smooth Patch. It was ok but I also didn't play very long. So, in my legacy game, playing without a lot of things would probably get annoying. Like doing a business. Or the toddlers that can't do much without the many toddler mods I have. Or without Moar Interactions or some of the walk fixes and interaction fixes that I have gotten used to over the years. Or the mods that make it harder to make money. Or my suite of Careers (I have almost all of MissyHissy's careers in my game).

Normally, I got my game heavily modded, crowded of cc and overpopulated .. result of the race? My game is not playable at all and I don't think I want to be back at ts3 I am tired of the game that nobody will fix it, tired of my computer, tired of ts3.Tired of the bad graphics, tired of the ram limitation etc etc...

I mostly play my modded The Sims 3 folder but there are times when I switch to others such as base game only or all EP's/SP's with no game altering mods only using NRass NoCD. For my base game I like to go back to basics and relive that experience or to challenge myself based on the notion I've read from others that, "Base game clothes and patterns are ugly."


When it comes to certain mods/cc, I enjoy the extra creativity and freedom that is not present in TS3. Such as creating my own walk-in shower. Generally speaking, the more options there are, the better for me. However the more mods/cc, the more the game has poor performance likely due to being 32-Bit, high-poly cc, poorly created cc, etc, so I revisited learning how to organize and merge the mods/cc so the game wouldn't struggle so much as before. My load times went for 5 minutes plus to around 2 minutes and 30 seconds. I still need to clean up frequently as part of maintenance in general. This game being so complex, I've gotten accustomed to that and have learned TS3 isn't so difficult like some say to maintain good performance. Even to the point of quitting ever changing neighborhoods again due to lag and/or error code 12. All that time I never had to do that but better to have learned late than not at all. So far my oldest save is at week 226 day 2. And with that, I now have expanded my playstyle to incorporate as many of the neighborhoods as I move my Sims around. For one Sim, his hometown is in Moonlight Falls, then he traveled to Lucky Palms and now he's in Bridgeport. I haven't decided yet where to permanently make his new home, if not back in MF. And now I have most of my family trees documented because I don't want to forget who's related to who and I do at times get easily confused because I switch between so many Sims, lol.


Playing modless is refreshing because that's one less thing to worry about since using mods/cc does impact performance depending on various factors. Playing with minimal mods can be much less of a headache than using a lot. And then playing with a lot of mods/cc takes patience and the willingness to learn to sort out what works and what doesn't. What to keep and what to get rid of, usually quite often depending how much one adds new mods/cc.

Besides mod maintenance, there's also save game maintenance and if one doesn't even do that or learn how...problems will always eventually surface. Learning how to work with a 32-Bit game is key than trying to overload the game engine and then complain how TS3 is the most laggiest, slowest, problem-ridden Sims game ever. Of course, as you are already aware, many have their own experiences with TS3. Good or bad. For me overall, I have mostly positive and good experiences and the times that I don't are mostly mods/cc related and the other times are Sims getting reset in unroutable areas or broken objects that Sims get stuck in a loop trying to use.

It really depends on what you want when playing TS3. Do you prefer good performance or 3rd party content that doesn't always has the player or the game for that matter, in best interest? Though, there is also a possibility to have the best of both worlds with trail and error. I'm still learning and so far so good.

See a lot of those issues I got lucky enough not to come across. I do use Nraas mods in my game and they've been an absolute blessing. Maybe it was wishful thinking? haha I dont know. But I comepletely agree with this post.

I don't think I would still be playing TS3 now if it were not for mods. It isn't just the bugs, there are things that are part of normal game play that I just don't want to deal with. Like the monthly zombie plague. I wouldn't have minded so much if it had been an occasional random event, like meteor strikes or earthquakes, but not as a regular thing! On your home lot you can lock them out and fence off your vegetable plot (and then put up with them moaning and throwing tantrums about not being able to get at you or your tomatoes) but in France, China or Egypt there is nowhere to hide, not even in a tomb! It was a happy day when I found a mod to get rid of them.

As for other mods, I now consider the Nraas mods I use to be an essential part of the game (although I try not to use them to cheat unless absolutely necessary) and, thanks to the smoothness patch, I am now able to include Nraas Story Progression.

Erm... rather noobish question for @nitromon: what is the 'infinite book bug'? I've never heard of it before. And I'm assuming it's not the issue I have with getting additional copies of books in my book cases, depending on how many times I have saved a lot. That's just a minor annoyance.

@nitromon Thanks for explaining that. I can't say for certain whether I have ever had that happen, although it might explain those occasions when the game freezes for some minutes shortly after a save has loaded, or suddenly crashes for no apparent reason.

Fully modded, and kitted out for max detail in picture taking. Because that's essentially what I use Sims3 for - is illustrating my writing.

However, I did take a break from that and am playing the game "as intended" or something like that - doing a R2R challenge, which I think for me was too easy, so I'll do it again, but add more restrictive rules.

I think I have a decent amount of annoyance-nerfing mods, the usual NRAAS maintenance ones and a couple of ingredients mods because I'm weird like that.

I used to shoot my story IN Twinbrook itself, fully populated, etc - and that sucker would crash and lag and implode at least three times a night in a gaming session - not ideal and not playable. So what I did to make it workable was do the interior shots in like, Builder's Island and just do the exterior shots in a population-emptied Twinbrook. I do have a TB that is fully populated/built for some shots, but I don't save after the shots.

For actual gameplay, I choose a smaller world or lessen the amount of crap I put into the world to make it work. So far, so good. (and I probably just jinxed myself LOL)