High Free Will, but still clueless.

Eccles

I wonder if anyone else is thinking what I'm thinking: when it come to Sims' free will and wishes, they can be pretty stupid at times. Take the following examples:

1. Sim who can't cook and loves Goopy Carbonara, is hungry and decides to make Mac & Cheese (and consequently burns it). Mind you, there are already 2 batches of Perfect Lobster Thermidor, a batch of Very Nice Autumn Salad and - shock, horror - a batch of Nice Goopy Carbonara in the fridge already...

2. Sim has wishes to grow an Excellent Apple Tree and a Perfect Money Tree, despite the fact that the Sim in question is a level 10 gardener with 6 Perfect Money Trees and a Perfect Apple Tree in the garden already, and is still waiting for the Steak/Patty Plant Opportunity to show up despite daily trips to the resturant and a fridge full of the required (in fact, Perfect) cheese...

3. Despite being so tired they are about to collapse, my Virtuoso Sims with level 10 Guitar still insist on playing the guitar unless I pretty-much forcibly send them to bed. As if they need the practice...

Those are just three examples of the constant stream of stupid actions and wishes my Sims have on a daily basis. I love the idea of 'high free will', but I think a good measure of 'high common sense' might also be in order; perhaps EA could do a revamp of the AI to address the issue, because 'Genius Trait' currently does not equal 'smart Sim'.

AudreyR

Another example? A sim wakes up very hungry. Complains about hunger and then continues to pace the bedroom for half an hour before deciding to check the fridge.

X8_Bliss

Sometimes my sim suddenly wants to do something right after she just did it. Like, maybe one day she would go and autonomously cook and eat some mac and cheese. Right after she's done eating it, a new wish suddenly appears. "Eat mac and cheese," it says

But... she JUST did that!!! She just ate an entire bowl of mac and cheese. Why does she want it again now?

And I agree with the part in the first post about genius sims... the only thing that I ever notice about sims I give the genius trait is that every single one of them has an obsession with chess. I'm smart, but I hate chess. Sometimes when I have a party, my genius sim goes past where all the people are hanging out and dancing and having a great time all the way upstairs onto the computer just to play chess. Chess is not that fun.

Also, I get sick of when I go to a community lot where I've placed a stereo and my sims go and autonomously dance with complete strangers. It's creepy to watch my child sim dance with a fat old man.

I also deleted the lakes in the park because once my sim learned to fish, she refused to do anything else but fish there unless I told her to do something else.

CarmenG104

I too have removed items form my game because my Sims are plain stupid. I desperately miss being able to lock the doors.
Once you send A Sim to a bed it is designated as that Sims bed. However a Sim will relax and read on another Sims bed preventing that Sim from use of his bed. The then tired Sims will shoo the other Sim off his bed then use the treadmill instead of sleeping in his now vacant bed.

Jalida

I can't believe that nobody has said it yet, but...

"What, do you want the game to play itself for you?"

No, Im joking, I agree with you. There have been many a thread in the General forum about sims being dumb as a sack of hammers, I expected the sims to be a great deal more capable of doing things on their own when they are set on the highest free will setting.

Honestly, I kind of expected them to expand on the sims abilities to do some things on their own, perhaps give the gamer a way to set a spending limit for their sims so that the sims could actually live their lives (ON THE HIGHEST FREE WILL SETTING ONLY) in atleast a little bit on their own. For example, going to the stadium rabbit hole on a day off instead of sitting around the house watching the TV or painting a picture. Little things like that which (my sims anyway) don't do on their own even though all my sims are set to the highest freewill setting.

I'd really like to see this improved and expanded on so that (even if they have to add another setting to make it a truly "free" high will) my sims can do something without needing to be told to go do it. Of course they should always still have the ability to do exactly as told by their creator in case I don't want them going down to the stadium or art museum on a particular day.

It's funny really (NOT), I've got one sim (highest free will setting) living in a lovely beach front home, he's an angler, and NOT ONCE has he bothered to walk across the street on a day off to go fishing in the ocean. That's just kind of sad really.

It could really use some improvements in this regard.

cutecandyandie

I have the freewill set at the highest my sims usauly stand around tapping their feet till they are acually told what to do or play the guitar all day long its very annoying at times

Mhose

The Free Will thing is my biggest problem with the game. It was the thing I was most looking forward to. How would my sims uniquely, autonomously interact with other sims based on their traits? Well, like a previous poster said, most times they all just stand around and stare at each other. Even in town. I have never attempted to use the low free will setting for fear that my sims would just curl up into the fetal position and do nothing. I would love to see that tweaked a bit so we could really get the more colorful interactions we were looking forward to. It's great have the freedom to go peek in on other sims but they usually aren't doing anything. Because of that, I tend to focus on their careers more these days, which is an aspect of the game I find really fun, but would love to see them a bit more independent when set at the highest free will. I've seen all this reassurance that a Sim will never do anything to harm their current relationships autonomously...but can it be assumed that if I have it set to the highest Free Will, that I am just more interested in seeing what they'll do on their own, and therefore don't care?? (with a certain level of God-Like control, of course-muahaha)

AudreyR

Mhose wrote:

The Free Will thing is my biggest problem with the game. It was the thing I was most looking forward to. How would my sims uniquely, autonomously interact with other sims based on their traits? Well, like a previous poster said, most times they all just stand around and stare at each other. Even in town. I have never attempted to use the low free will setting for fear that my sims would just curl up into the fetal position and do nothing. I would love to see that tweaked a bit so we could really get the more colorful interactions we were looking forward to. It's great have the freedom to go peek in on other sims but they usually aren't doing anything. Because of that, I tend to focus on their careers more these days, which is an aspect of the game I find really fun, but would love to see them a bit more independent when set at the highest free will. I've seen all this reassurance that a Sim will never do anything to harm their current relationships autonomously...but can it be assumed that if I have it set to the highest Free Will, that I am just more interested in seeing what they'll do on their own, and therefore don't care?? (with a certain level of God-Like control, of course-muahaha)

"will never do anything to harm their current relationships autonomously"

Apparently they didn't mean mean-spirited, evil, or flirty sims. I too use the highest free will, and while it does take them awhile to decide what to do, they do interact on their own quite a bit.

I've seen my evil sims scare their spouse so much they were almost negative when they started out almost full. I've seen Mean-spirited sims get very close to becoming enemies with their own children. And I've seen flirty sims flirt with a stranger in front of their own bf/gf/fiancee/spouse! All autonomously.

Stuff like that is why I usually let my sims do whatever whenever I decide to loosen my iron grip on them.

But yeah, sims are mostly idiots.