How to Permanently Disable Needs Decay in The Sims 4

As an experienced Sims player with over 700 hours across the franchise, I‘m excited to share this definitive guide to permanently stopping needs from decreasing in The Sims 4. If your Sims‘ constant hunger, bladder issues, and hygiene failures are getting in the way of the storylines and gameplay you want to focus on, disabling needs decay can help.

What Does Disabling Motive Decay Do?

When you first enter motivedecay off in the cheat console, you‘re telling the game engine to stop autonomous scripting that makes needs decrease over time. Instead, needs levels will remain static at whatever value they were at when you activated the cheat.

This means your Sims can focus on skills, relationships, careers and hobbies without inconvenient distractions like bathroom breaks interrupting their flow. They‘ll also maintain consistent performance and moods since needs won‘t drop into negative ranges.

Impacts on Autonomy and Scripting

With motive decay disabled, your Sims will still autonomously take actions to build needs – but the needs levels won‘t actually change. For example, a Sim may spontaneously grab a snack or use the toilet, but their hunger and bladder motives won‘t fill up at all.

This happens because the base autonomy system and actions are still active – it‘s specifically the decreasing of motives and associated mood effects that are frozen when you turn decay off.

Decay Rates for All Needs

Here‘s an overview of the default motive decay rates in hours for all needs in The Sims 4:

As you can see, hygiene decays slowest by default while hunger and fun drain faster. If you find your Sims are constantly tired, outraged due to becoming too play-deprived, or rushing to use the toilet – disabling those specific need decays may help.

Toggle Decay for Individual Needs

Rather than fully turning off all needs, you can disable decay for just one or two that are being bothersome.

• Hunger: motive_hunger_decay off
• Bladder: motive_bladder_decay off
• Energy: motive_energy_decay off
• Fun: motive_fun_decay off
• Social: motive_social_decay off
• Hygiene: motive_hygiene_decay off

This way, you could have hunger, fun and social decay disabled so your Sims can socialize and enjoy activities without interruption, while still needing to sleep and use the bathroom occasionally for some realism.

Mods Like MCCC Offer More Control

While the standard motive decay cheat is great for completely stopping needs, mods like MC Command Center (MCCC) let you customize motive autonomy in more detail. With MCCC you can:

• Make all needs decay faster or slower
• Set different rates for each need (e.g. slow bladder decay but fast hunger decay)
• Make Sims autonomously take care of their own needs more or less frequently

So if you want your Sims to still react to their needs, just at a less demanding pace, MCCC offers more flexibility.

Managing Sims With No Motive Decay

Once you‘ve turned off motive decay completely, your Sims may seem a bit too carefree since they‘ll never take care of their own needs autonomously anymore. Here are some tips:

• Periodically use the Make Happy interaction on key Sims so needs remain decent
• Queue up bladder and hunger actions manually if you notice extremely low motives
• Install LittleMsSam‘s automatic hygiene mod so they‘ll stay clean
• Focus gameplay on career, skills, relationships without need distractions

When Disabling Motive Decay Makes Sense

As an experienced Simmer, here‘s my take on when turning off motive decay can enhance your gameplay:

• You‘re telling a specific story – disable needs so your Sims stick to the plot!
• Want Sims focused on maxing a skill like programming or painting
• Prevent pets from constantly napping or begging for food
• Stop toddlers from needing attention every 5 minutes
• Avoid ballet/chess/etc performances being interrupted
• Gameplay is becoming too centered around addressing needs

Hope this guide gives you all the info you need to permanently switch off bothersome needs in TS4! Feel free to reach out with any other questions.