So this has been a subject that comes up in related topics every now and then, but it doesn't seem to get a lot of solo attention.
And yet, it seems to be one of the most important (and most frequently overlooked by players) issues with autonomy failing to choose actions that make them stand out from the other sims in the household.
Just tonight, I was playing a household that I had added the bookcase from the toddler patch to. I figured, I wanted some toddler books on hand, in case I wanted to read to my toddler. I had put my play on pause for a while in the process of redecorating and by the time I was done with most of the home, the bookcase was pretty much a part of the decoration. So hard to just get rid of it without redecorating the room it's in again.
But anyway, point is, when I finally got to playing, 3 of the 4 YA sims in the household proceeded to go for the bookcase like crazy. They mostly ignored the music player, until I turned it on, at which point all 4 were drawn to it quite a lot, even fighting with the bookcase for attention. One of them is a music lover, but he went for books over the music player until I turned it on. One of them is an art lover and hasn't gone for the easel once.
One of them is a vampire and has the vampire power that negates the need to replenish fun. And has been going for books and dancing like crazy. She is an active/vegetarian/loner.
This is just one rough description of how it can go down and how the presence of a single object in the household with a significant attractiveness to sims can draw them away from doing things that have to do with their traits to all doing much the same thing; or at least giving the appearance of doing much the same thing, due to how often they go for the same things.
Some of this is arguably not the fault of programming. For my active vampire, there is no workout equipment in the home. Perhaps if there was, she'd go for that more. But I can hardly take fault for it myself either because 1) there is no visible indication of how attractive an object is and 2) if the fulfillment of traits wasn't so often tied to objects, perhaps the objects wouldn't need to be present to get the "correct" results in the first place.
To give you an example: Active sims can do push ups, sit ups, or stretch, any time, any place. Great in principle, but none of them has a lengthy duration like actual fitness objects do. And that's one of the better examples.
Here's another one: Romantic sims require the presence of other sims to be Romantic. There are one or two actions I can think of that are solo and could be categorized as Romantic, such as Trying On Outfits, but I don't know if I've ever seen this happen autonomously and I'm not sure it'd be a great thing if it did as you'd have your sim going and getting a Flirty buff autonomously and some may not like that.
The point of these examples is, their capability of fulfilling their traits without specific circumstances or objects is lacking. This means if you design your home in the "wrong" way, they are all that more likely to be drawn to generic attractiveness objects.
Here are some rough ideas for traits that suffer in this regard:
- Goofball: Can talk to themselves and laugh at themselves as they go about doing other things, which they'll be drawn to if there are no other sims on the lot. Not in an "insane" way, just talk to themselves as in talking out loud. The same could be done for outgoing sims, but with a little variation where they talk in such a way that it sounds like they're taking turns with themself doing both parts of the conversation.
- Active: Can do full-length exercise routines in place that go through different things like push ups and stretches. Maybe have them pause the animation into an idle mode more to extend the duration naturally.
- Kleptomaniac: Can "practice swiping" with objects they own. Maybe reuse some sort of anxious-looking animation if there is one. This raises Mischief skill.
What do you think? Is object attractiveness a problem? Would the above ideas make the situation any better?
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I sit him down to read the vampire lore book, Nope, College Cram, cancel movie, sit sim down on other side of apartment, read vampire book. Instantly, book down - College Cram!
I repeated this 6 times. Nope - this sim needs to watch College Cram. Standing up, I have to add.
This kind of thing pushes me towards one conclusion - rage quitting.
I would like the game to respect that I, the player, has chosen this option and should override the autonomy, at least for a usable length of time.
Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day
The day's divinity....
The Ghost Song - Jim Morrison
Add Manage Neighbourhood Options - assign your own Sim to NPC jobs!
The Problems with Death in The Sims 4
Distinguish Elder gameplay with Elder-only reward traits
Filter Rugs by Room Size
It is on verge of gamebreaking for me. The game cancelling my requests to do what it wants to do is simply the most infuriating thing I have ever encountered in a video game.
I wouldn't mind if it was occasionally, but the game decides what it wants to do more than me. Turning autonomy off doesn't help either unless you are playing one sim. Switch to another sim and you can kiss goodbye to those four actions that were queued up.
The only way I can play the game is in the same vein as I play tactical RTwP RPGs and doing some detailed micro-management.
Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day
The day's divinity....
The Ghost Song - Jim Morrison
I'm starting to think that it, more than anything, is the reason it becomes near impossible for me to play a household with more than 1-2 sims max. They start running off and doing ridiculous things that have nothing to do with their traits all the time and I don't have the time or inclination to micro-manage every single one of them every moment. I could direct them to do things that fit with their traits, but that feels like it defeats the point of the traits existing for one thing and then there are those cases like you described where the autonomy is so broken that the attractiveness pull overrides a player decision.
I recall this happening with the basketball hoop and active sims (I believe it is a known bug in this instance, though I hadn't known it was a known bug at the time). It's so bad that I would literally tell my active sim to do some kind of yoga routine and no matter what I did, they would cancel out and go for the basketball hoop shortly into the routine. I had to just get rid of the basketball hoop for the time being. They would interrupt normal tasks at random to Dream Big and they couldn't exercise for extended periods of time at all.
Yup, I've had the same kind of experience with certain objects. I delete enough or have the right objects around and suddenly my autonomy seems to play out as it was intended.
if they have nothing else to get occupied with they always go for the phone
like they would die if they are not constantly replenishing their fun meter
no matter traits, phone it is
another thing is being obsessed with talking to other sims
also no matter traits
that's why there are wishes
wishes inform usually the player about what the sim cares for along its traits, relationship status, aspiration, happenings
that's how sims informed the player for the past 10 years about who they are as person
there was a communication between the sim & the player
sims should also inform the player about its status, thoughts, emotions, fears, future plans, dreams through thought bubbles, relevant thought bubbles along again its traits, relationships, aspiration, experiences, happenings
& TS2 had even several clear additional animations to show the player what the sim thinks about the commands given by the player & that's why many TS2 players feel those sims were more alive than other sims
now with TS4 those sims feel self sufficient with the simplest interactions for nearly every sim making them all appear similiar & boring
& the same boring & exchangeable way are those sims' wishes
the game does even still tell the player that wishes are not really relevant, just an extra addition to be ommited
those who decided to make sims this way clearly had no idea why sims games were so addictive
My Sims also love listening and dancing to music. I tried placing the eating table on the other side of the room - with no effect whatsoever on their love for music.
That's about it, aside from the usual things like phone, computer and TV. Is it just me, or do Sims in TS4 have a natural inclination towards looking at screens?
And then of course there are the outright bugs... cases where objects have a highly skewed amount of attractiveness set on them for reasons I don't understand (my first impression was that it'd be a simple numerical value, but I guess it's probably more of a series of head-spinning mathematical algorithms operating on a dynamic/shifting priority system... otherwise, you'd think it would be the equivalent of a typo to have the attractiveness so far off on a particular object and you'd think it would be easily fixable in a minute's worth of work... clearly it's not).
Anywho, in other words, more "meaningful" traits doesn't necessarily mean traits that would be called on in autonomy more often. Not if they are still being overridden by objects. Unless by "meaningful," you mean "called on in autonomy more often with less dependence on perfect conditions," in which case... sure. I agree.
I never let my sims have computers anymore for this reason. They will constantly want to play video games or browse the web on it. I don't know about anyone else, but it's boring for me to be on my computer playing a game watching someone on a computer playing a game. It's hard for me to have sims in the writing career for this reason, because they need a computer for work. I wish there was a typewriter object that you could ONLY write on and not do the other computer stuff.
For a while I had the cupcake machine in my sims' house, but they would constantly make cupcakes in favor of eating real meals prepared in the kitchen. It was actually pretty hilarious how obsessed with it they were (though I can relate), making cupcake after cupcake. But an all cupcake diet is definitely not good for you, so I deleted it. I have this problem to a lesser extent with the ice cream maker, but it's not as bad.
The bookshelves are just all around frustrating to me. It's almost impossible for me to get my sims to actually sit and finish reading a book. Most of the time they will read some of it and put it back on the shelf, only to immediately get another book and start reading it instead. Gah! Why? In Sims 2 and 3 my sims would always finish reading a book uninterrupted if I told them to.
And I agree that this stuff ties into traits a lot. In Sims 3, my Bookworms were grabbing a book the second I wasn't controlling them. They'd constantly have books in their inventories and I had a few that read every single book there was to read in the game. My sims who weren't Bookworms seldom read anything. I wish it was the same way in Sims 4-- my Bookworm sims almost never read. How great would it be in Sims 4 if your Bookworms were pushed to read, your Geniuses were pushed to play chess, your Lazy sims were pushed to watch TV, your Geeks were pushed to use the computer, etc? It would give more flavor for traits and it would have more variety-- your sims wouldn't all be fighting to use one object.
I hope I'm not getting too off-topic here, but does anyone know if sims' Fun motive is affected by traits? My artist sim doesn't seem to get much enjoyment out of painting, and she doesn't often paint autonomously. My Active sim doesn't seems to enjoy working out more than other activities. My Bookworm sim doesn't seem to get much out of reading. Is there an actual difference in how their Fun motives fill up, or would it be much better for all of them to just plunk them in front of a TV?
I never let my sims have computers anymore for this reason. They will constantly want to play video games or browse the web on it. I don't know about anyone else, but it's boring for me to be on my computer playing a game watching someone on a computer playing a game. It's hard for me to have sims in the writing career for this reason, because they need a computer for work. I wish there was a typewriter object that you could ONLY write on and not do the other computer stuff.
For a while I had the cupcake machine in my sims' house, but they would constantly make cupcakes in favor of eating real meals prepared in the kitchen. It was actually pretty hilarious how obsessed with it they were (though I can relate), making cupcake after cupcake. But an all cupcake diet is definitely not good for you, so I deleted it. I have this problem to a lesser extent with the ice cream maker, but it's not as bad.
The bookshelves are just all around frustrating to me. It's almost impossible for me to get my sims to actually sit and finish reading a book. Most of the time they will read some of it and put it back on the shelf, only to immediately get another book and start reading it instead. Gah! Why? In Sims 2 and 3 my sims would always finish reading a book uninterrupted if I told them to.
And I agree that this stuff ties into traits a lot. In Sims 3, my Bookworms were grabbing a book the second I wasn't controlling them. They'd constantly have books in their inventories and I had a few that read every single book there was to read in the game. My sims who weren't Bookworms seldom read anything. I wish it was the same way in Sims 4-- my Bookworm sims almost never read. How great would it be in Sims 4 if your Bookworms were pushed to read, your Geniuses were pushed to play chess, your Lazy sims were pushed to watch TV, your Geeks were pushed to use the computer, etc? It would give more flavor for traits and it would have more variety-- your sims wouldn't all be fighting to use one object.
I hope I'm not getting too off-topic here, but does anyone know if sims' Fun motive is affected by traits? My artist sim doesn't seem to get much enjoyment out of painting, and she doesn't often paint autonomously. My Active sim doesn't seems to enjoy working out more than other activities. My Bookworm sim doesn't seem to get much out of reading. Is there an actual difference in how their Fun motives fill up, or would it be much better for all of them to just plunk them in front of a TV?
Personally, I have no interest in micro-managing everything my sims do (it's just too much detail brain work). I can do it to a point with one sim and still enjoy myself. Much more than that and it's quickly overload. You might think "oh well, just stay on the one sim then with selective autonomy for the targeted sim and problem solved." But it gets complicated fast. The more sims there are in the household, the more chances there are of another sim attempting to get involved in whatever actions I'm queuing up on the sim I'm currently trying to manage... usually to go socialize with them.
So if I want to micro-manage, it fast becomes this sort of all-or-nothing game, where I'm looking at either micro-managing everything with autonomy off (which is just exhausting for even a fair-sized household and feels more like an RTS than a life simulator) or I leave autonomy on and try to herd cats.
The problem for me is largely solved by not playing more than 2 (maybe 3, though 3 is on the cusp for me) sims at a time. However, making this choice limits what kind of households I can play. I ventured into a larger one again last night because I wanted to toy around with making a larger group of vampires and going for the vampire family aspiration. But due to what I've outlined in this post, it quickly became an exercise in frustration.
So I revisited this issue of objects because when it comes down to it, I'm not interested in micro-managing everything. But I also would rather that when my sims are doing their own thing, they're not constantly doing things that are either so uniform it's boring to watch, so interaction-obnoxious that it's hard to do any managing myself, or some combination of the two.
I can play and enjoy myself if I stay within my limits. The problem is, that means there are certain kinds of play that are largely closed off to me. And that sort of thing just isn't good for my own game experience, or the game experience of others (I know I'm not the only one who runs into similar issues).
It's possible my observation is a little off on some of the traits, but afaik, Art Lovers don't actually get Fun from Painting. In fact, I don't think any sims do. Which is just weird to me. And it's not the only trait where I've gotten that impression. I've thought it's part of the problem for a while, but I don't know enough about how Fun and attractiveness works to be certain.
There is actually a reward trait called Gym Rat (I believe that's the name) that causes sims with it to gain Fun from exercising and not lose Hygiene. Oddly, I don't think Active sims get the "gain Fun" part of that by default. Again, just weird to me. If a sim's core trait is being Active, why would they not get some enjoyment out of exercise?
Then there are traits like Neat where I'm pretty sure the Clean interaction gives Fun, but doing things like taking out the trash doesn't.
Another thing that's way too attractive is bars. All it takes is for a Sim to get inspired from something and then it turns into a non stop rampage of making drink after drink until there are 20 of them on the bar. I finally had to nuke that one with a mod because it was excessive.
So, I guess my point is that I don't mind when Sims use all of the items available to them even if it doesn't necessarily "fit" their traits, but for sure some objects are just way too attractive to the point of being annoying and overly repetitive.
it would be not only flavour & variety, it would be fun playing them instead being bored by yet another sim behaving as if there wasn't traits at all but some generic code telling to do what every other sim does too
i had the best experiences with athletic sims & scientists, every other sim has behaved "somehow", meaning without any specific relation to traits or aspiration
even if, as some players claimed it, sims were trainable, which i doubt since i didn't observe anything of that kind, it still would make those traits as they are now in the game useless
cause
either there are traits which can be set in CAS by the player to define from the start what a sim has to be
or a sim is trainable while playing
if both options are there then they interfere with each other where the trained traits overwrite the CAS traits, so what for are CAS traits then ?
& the second option is more problematic if played rotationally,
cause what decides which traits of a sim i am not playing at the moment become developed ?
it seems like a good idea at first, quirky to have more lively sims but it is a nightmare for players which have stories in mind & sims not behaving at all or even in a reversed manner than planned - then the game plays itself & the player is the mere admirer #YouRule
|By the way, when I first began playing this game I never used autonomy and would micro-manage every move. Eventually I found it too taxing and a bit unnatural. I do enjoy watching what they get up to on their own.
All food has calories in this game. Hidden value. Cakes and cupcakes (as well as all baked goods if you have GTW) have a lot, while garden salad doesn't have any. So yes, they do gain weight from this. At first it's only the hips but you'll quickly notice how the rest of their body also gets wider.
But because all food fills the same amount of hunger it's technically not necessary to eat anything but salad. Since I discovered this my Sims won't get big(ger) anymore unless I want them to.
In case you already have a few Sims with overweight that isn't supposed to be there, you should go to the gym and let them use the treadmill for about five or six hours. That brings them back to normal.
> My sims are obsessed with computers and drinking tap water. They only read books for as long as I wish them to if I switch off autonomy.
>
> |By the way, when I first began playing this game I never used autonomy and would micro-manage every move. Eventually I found it too taxing and a bit unnatural. I do enjoy watching what they get up to on their own.
The sink is my issue. I had my sim go on a date. That's very rare for me...well his date kept trying to go to the sink. I had to stop her every time to make her sit down and do what she had to do to have a great date. Now this is very annoying it happens all the time for me. This is one how about the sims not taking care of their own needs. Really?!!! I have a house full of sims so I'm very busy trust me!!! So why as I'm trying to keep the kids busy and from killing each other. I look up and noticed that either the parents didn't eat or shower etc... I can see not doing some of the things but eating and taking showers. Come on!!! But they will drink the hell out of water!!!!!!
I've been wondering a lot lately about the coding of objects and lot requirements. It would be really nice if the devs explained it, or said whether and how it can be tweaked.
ETA: I assume some of the lot coding is to generate activity in response to the complaints of dead lots in Sims3. They do it to make it appear busy and active, but in some ways, I think it really restricts the creative aspect of what we actually want to happen on our lots.