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Personality should be the main focus of this game.
StrawberryYogurt
Posts: 2,799 Member
Why not make it the priority?
CAS & Build in TS4 is the greatest its been in the series (imo). I love other unique features like the gallery and first person view.
However, what is a life simulator withour sims that dont feel alive? They all feel the same to me. Because of this I dont play the Sims 4. I try every couple months but always looses my interest. I was very intrigues by the sentiment and lifestyle idea, but by watching reviews and reading others experiences, it doesnt seem to make that much of a change. Your sims still all act the same. I think the emotion system needs to be completely uprooted or at least major new functions need to be at play to make the sims feel dynamic.
There are so many ways to do this: attractions systems, more trait slots, more dynamic traits, personality sets, fears, wants, memories etc
How would you #FixThePersonalities ? (Lets get this trending next please...)
CAS & Build in TS4 is the greatest its been in the series (imo). I love other unique features like the gallery and first person view.
However, what is a life simulator withour sims that dont feel alive? They all feel the same to me. Because of this I dont play the Sims 4. I try every couple months but always looses my interest. I was very intrigues by the sentiment and lifestyle idea, but by watching reviews and reading others experiences, it doesnt seem to make that much of a change. Your sims still all act the same. I think the emotion system needs to be completely uprooted or at least major new functions need to be at play to make the sims feel dynamic.
There are so many ways to do this: attractions systems, more trait slots, more dynamic traits, personality sets, fears, wants, memories etc
How would you #FixThePersonalities ? (Lets get this trending next please...)
The Sims has currently lost its identity. Bring it back for TS5
Personality,depth,humor,consequences,lore,customization.
Personality,depth,humor,consequences,lore,customization.
Post edited by EA_Leeloo on
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Comments
I think they might be headed in the right direction with sentiments. I like that an experience with others creates sentiments (that feels meaningful to me, but it would be cool to see trait based sentiments too since the base game ones really feel a lot like the identical emotions systems in that everyone is forming the same sentiments). Sentiments affect emotions/buffs too - like getting shared sadness when someone they share a certain sentiment with gets sad (love that, definitely the kind of complexity that I’d love to see more of). I’m not sure how long sentiments are meant to last or if they can get strengthened. I play rotationally and sometimes they are just gone the next time I play a family.
I would also love to see a buff system that takes experiences, sentiments or relationships into consideration, like a lasting resentment toward ex or a happy moodlet from spending time with a best friend/long time friend. I’m not sure if something like this would be possible, but it could be cool to see sims react to past experiences and places too - like let’s say a sim watched someone die while they were out on a community lot, it would be neat to see them get a negative moodlet for a certain amount of time afterwards since the location might trigger bad memories. Now I’m just rambling, but giving Sims lasting experiences and memories with consequences (both good and bad) would make them feel so much more real
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Modeling Career?
To me it feels like they need to take a look at the emotion system and figure out a way for them to not conflict with the trait system.
They need to:
1. Redo Whims so that they are relevant to a Sim's traits
2. Change Emotions so they aren't so easily changed/ effected by environmental factors
3. Make Traits more substantial
I'm sick of having to rely on mods to make my game interesting. If modders can do this, so can EA!
I was playing today and my sims husband had one of his irrational jealousy pangs and she was hurt by him. To fix the sad mood and hurt sentiment she certainly doesn't want to "ask for advice" lol. I was looking for something like "ask for an apology" , with his response then based off his personality/the relationship. I ended up playing him to apologize. Sentiments gave me more information but I'm not doing anything new with them.
Not on Twitter but I can get behind #FixThePersonalities!
Love your list. The whims are totally underused. Some whims do come by the trait type but they dont really seem that significant. In the sims 2 if you never fulfilled their wishes in life theyd end up depressed. Thats the kind of consequences id like to see. Their wishes/dreams/goals in life matter. If they dont get that fulfillment they should feel something about it.
This is what happens in Sims 2 when a family sims' wishes about falling in love, getting married, having kids, making friends etc doesnt happen:
They hve a mental breakdown of sorts. This is a family sim so she pretends this bad is a baby and starts to rock to it and sing to it. Dark but good. This is some ways depth in personalty can be shown!
Personality,depth,humor,consequences,lore,customization.
Im happy you're satisfied with it! I wish I was. I love love love sims 4 cas but I cannot get past the gameplay. Sims 4 looks with Sims 2 gameplay would be my perfect heaven. Ive seen custom trait mods, they look good! I imagine if they redid their personality system the modders could also have much more to work with.
Personality,depth,humor,consequences,lore,customization.
Yes I cant think of the word but i like the one-sided relationships! Makes the world more dynamic and harder to just fall in love and get married in 2 sim hours. Sims 3 lifetime aspirations were really cool. I remember I had a son who went to the fathers soccer game at the stadium and he had a wish to be in the pro league for a long time. Then when he was a teen he seen a science fiction movie he really liked and got inspiration to be a scientist, and I went with that. I thought it was so cool how the aspirations come to you through your sim actions rather than picking them at birth!
Personality,depth,humor,consequences,lore,customization.
Appreciate the hashtag support! 😂✊
Yep more consequences for negative actions you do to people and natural responses to it are needed! Like in TS2 if a child sees their parent cheat they will be very upset and angry. You could even use the gossip interaction and it will tell others about the cheating!
Personality,depth,humor,consequences,lore,customization.
Also a whims overhaul (whims that correspond with traits) should be a priority imo. I think they can really inspire gameplay and add some quirkiness. I'd love it if my childish Sim would get a whim to 'draw on placemat' while dining out. These kinds of details matter and make the Sim's personalities more believable.
Taking a look at the idle animations would also help. Sims all seem to share the same smile. If they'd add three different idle facial expressions it'd already help for livening up the game and the personalities.
2. Emotions should have a bigger impact on sims actions. Angry sims should use mean interactions more with other sims, as well as not accept jokes (unless your sim has certain traits like goofball) sad sims should interact less with others automatically, etc.
3. Get rid of idle chat which is pointless.
4. Bring chemistry system that takes traits current friend ship level and more into consideration
5. Traits should impact sims more and not just add emotional buffs. For example mean sims should heckle sims they pass by if they are playing an instrument badly. Evils sims should try to cheat at games like chess.
6. Sims should react more to others around them. In sims 2 they would react to sims fighting, worry if a sim passed out, children would cry if parents were fighting, etc.
That’s all for now
Terrific Family Play
Too fun
The sims 2 forever
1) Aspiration failures bring back the psychologist
2) Fears and Wants replacing whims
3) Memories
4) Multigenerational and a tad less traditional family ties (ex step and half relations)
5) Fear emotion
6) Overlapping emotions
7) Favorites
8) Turn ons and turn offs
9) Uncomfortable boosting negative emotions, this mod helped a lot: https://zerbu.tumblr.com/post/168552239715/the-sims-4-mod-uncomfortable-boosts-negative
10) More negative traits and lot traits
11) More trait slots
12) More romantic interactions such as Sims needing to look like they actually love each other like cuddling in bed, sleeping in bed cuddling, couple dances
This slow dancing mod is really sweet:
Really nice thread.
People keep asking for Build/ Buy and CAS, when the reality is, Personality has ALWAYS been what's lacking from the Sims 4 since 2016.
Yup. I haven't really noticed the effects of the sentiments on the sims yet. Yes, I can see they gained it in their profile, but it doesnt really seem to change their behaviours at all.
For sims that were supposed to have all these "emotions", they just feel so void of them when playing.
I honestly have no idea what they can do at this point to make us "feel" like our sims actually "feel" like they care about each other. Although animation play a big part of it.
I remember when everyone talked about the woohoo cheer before woohoo. That's not "love". lol They don't face each other when dancing. They can't lay together in bed, rather they sit on the edge and primly kiss. Then they get up and cheer before woohoo?
Yeah, animations would go far. But probably too late now. Sims 4 sims will never know what being in love feels like! Lol
- attraction system
- fears & wants (or whims rework)
- emotions & traits rework, less generic and more variety, or replace traits with personality points for example
- AI enhancements, better autonomy
- more animations, interactions and things for sims to do
etc
agreed & agreed. it's true all sims act the same and this is one of the reason they feel like bots. i think there should be a repertory of things certain sims should do. the walking style was one way to show this, but the idle animations should be another, the way sims stand, they sit, etc. notice how certain occults have also different idle animations, but they are just there to differentiate occults from humans. now imagine if we could also differentiate a gentle sim from a more careless one for example, and etc. hardly doubt we gonna have this much variety and customization on the game but i'd love it.
I'd also love to see certain (genetic?) smartness barometer, beyond the genius trait. Not just anyone should be able to climb just any kind of career. Or make friends easily. Or do well in school. It's too plain that all sims without the Genius trait are not genius (assuming they are neutral and not dumb? Do we have a Dumb trait?)
More negativity = diversity = challenges
Yeah I see a lot of people who ask every now and then for personality improvements but it doesnt seem to traction a big movement. Sentiments and lifestyles were a step towards that but I dont think its substantial enough.
Personality,depth,humor,consequences,lore,customization.
However, he works four days a week as an Entertainer. The other three, he's busy cutting albums, playing concerts (Rock Star) and going to photoshoots. He has just started on the path to Workaholic!
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As for personalities I agree I'd like to see some improvements. Biggest issue is with townie sims. Traits only seem to affect the sims you're currently playing with (moodlets) and have no effect on townies which makes no sense. For example I want to create vampire sims that are unfriendly and unapproachable, it makes no sense to have a dark and menacing looking sim who will just has a normal happy conversation with my sims. You can give them traits like loner, evil, etc, but it literally will not affect them unless you're playing with them?
If they ever add fairies to the game I hope better personalities come with them. I want them to be mischievous and tricky to talk to. I want them to be permanently playful and lively. What I don't want is Eliza Pancakes in a wig because at the moment that's what we'd get as every sim has the same personality.
I desperately want to see autonomy make sense! Lifestyles are supposed to help with this. I have only noticed it with Energetic lifestyles - they will use treadmills or the climbing wall on their own but that wasn’t unusual before, anyway. Maybe as I get more experience with lifestyles it will become more clear. But right now I am not seeing many autonomy changes with lifestyles, even though in game options it clearly says lifestyles are supposed to have an effect on it.
It has been hugely disappointing to not get more traits added in every expansion pack. We got ZERO new traits with Discover University. And some traits that have been added in packs feel like they should be bonus traits or lifestyles. Being a cat or a dog person isn’t deserving of one third of a sim’s personality, IMO. I would have preferred those to be reward traits.
Honestly this is probably an unpopular opinion but I don’t think TS2 was better in terms of personality. All my sims would autonomously talk through teddy bears. All romance sims felt the same to me, and so on. The personality points scattered across 5 measures really only gave you 10 extremes. And then the star signs forced certain attributes which I didn’t like.
I really liked traits in TS3 and I never ended up using them all, I wish they had just stuck with those. There were probably too many silly ones, but that never bothered me because we can change them and they had more trait slots. We should have more than 3.
ETA: I would love to see favorite color, music and food return (or similar favorites). An attraction system would be awesome as well! If we can change the turn ons/turn offs with a reward potion or something, of course.
The focus should be on how sims show their personalities and their personalities should act as a filter for how they express their emotions.
I fully agree with this, it's currently my number 1 peeve in the game. I would like to see it improve too, there is too much of a difference between a played sim and a townie in terms of liveliness/personality. For example, in my game townies also don't mourn after one of their family members has died, unless you play them. I shouldn't be able to have a happy conversation with Knox when Mary Greenburg died literally minutes ago... I hope that's what they meant with 'story progression' and the 'drama starting next door' in that survey from april.