"I don't read it" is not what I call criticism, but to each his own.
The lack of depth of social play is just so glaring in the SIMS 4. Might be related to the fact that it had been originally planned as a multiplayer game? Perhaps this is the reason why not a lot of effort has gone into characters and sim-social-AI.
....
That was not my whole comment, if you cared to read more than the first line.
As for the other thing, I have no idea. Unlike TS3 and TS2 traits don't affect how other sims see your sims and interactions don't have different outcomes depending on the relationship or the traits.
Friendly interactions in TS4 all have positive, equal, outcomes, and as you socialize more, doesn't matter which of the friendly interactions as long as you don't repeat the same for too many times or sims become bored, you unlock new, the same but with diferent names, interactions.
In TS2, and to some degree TS3, traits affect interactions and interactions affect the relationships. In TS3 if an insane sim that acts all nutsy to another sim, he will get bashed if they don't have a high enough relationship or if the other sim is not insane too even though some of the "nutsy" interactions are under the "friendly label". Going as far as you go in the thread is not needed, especially since it's a game, reproducing "likes or dislikes" like you are posting them just doesn't work in a game setup.
As for the other thing, I have no idea. Unlike TS3 and TS2 traits don't affect how other sims see your sims and interactions don't have different outcomes depending on the relationship or the traits.
Well, according to that guide I have linked above (the guide seems to have ceased to exist since I've linked it ), the friendship-meter does indeed play a role for interaction-success (except for mean and mischief interactions that take into account some traits instead). But from my limited gaming-experience I agree that it seems to be barely noticable. Except for those mischief and mean interactions noted in the guide, traits play no role for social interaction at all which, needless to say, it quite outraging. Sims' characters have no direct effect on social interaction.
Friendly interactions in TS4 all have positive, equal, outcomes, and as you socialize more, doesn't matter which of the friendly interactions as long as you don't repeat the same for too many times or sims become bored, you unlock new, the same but with diferent names, interactions.
So you think that all friendly interactions have the very same effect on friendship-meter on success? I'm not sure. I'd have to pay closer attention to the gains and losses. I do think that some interactions might give you more gain or loss than others.
But in any case even if there was a differentiation of interaction-power, so to speak, there would be but a few distinct types. This is what I've called cautious/medium/bold interactions in my suggestion.
And I've also suggested to adapt the UI accordingly: 1. select interaction type (mean/friendly/mischief/funny), 2. select risk-type (cautious/medium/bold), 3. select animation. I think that this UI would be more transparent and honest to us players. It would not lead us to believe that there are tons of unique interactions (both in terms of their gameplay effect and their animation).
In TS2, and to some degree TS3, traits affect interactions and interactions affect the relationships. In TS3 if an insane sim that acts all nutsy to another sim, he will get bashed if they don't have a high enough relationship or if the other sim is not insane too even though some of the "nutsy" interactions are under the "friendly label". Going as far as you go in the thread is not needed, especially since it's a game, reproducing "likes or dislikes" like you are posting them just doesn't work in a game setup.
Well it depends on what you expect and wish from the game. How plausible and realistic do you want other sims to behave (the sim you control can still do whatever he/she wants)? The deeper a (well balanced, well designed) system, the more nuanced and intricate the situations it can create. I admit that I'm a fan of a realistic game. A simulation. That's my personal preference. Also, I don't think that it would somehow take away the fun of players who are more into crazy and awkward situations. Give a sim an insane-trait and their AI will basically circumvent the "social context test" for interactions and therefore act in crazy ways.
However, being able to get any other sim to wohoo with your sim in a matter of a few ingame hours would be a thing of the past. Is that a bad thing? Too realistic? Not for me. Making everything possible at any time does not help to make me feel accomplishment. In the SIMS 4, it's hard for me to feel any satisfaction or achievement because I know that other sims are just puppets that succumb to my will. They have no will. Giving them a will of their own (social AI) would give me a feeling of challenge, but perhaps it would take away from players who prefer to rule over other sims as if they were marionettes. But wait, that's what cheats are for!
From a technical point of view, I don't think that an intricate system (similar of different to the one I've described) is impossible. Just because it's a game does not mean that it can't feature a "deeper" social system and AI. I'm not a programmer and I can't judge how well our PCs could handle the background-calculations needed to support the system, but I'm rather positive. There are games out there that feature far more complex AIs and game-mechanisms than those that I've described here. All the walls of texts I have written are supposed to show that a like/dislike system could indeed be functional in a game-context. Also, I see no real alternative to a like/dislike system if we want sims to behave according to their perception (like/dislike) of other sims.
As for the other thing, I have no idea. Unlike TS3 and TS2 traits don't affect how other sims see your sims and interactions don't have different outcomes depending on the relationship or the traits.
Well, according to that guide I have linked above (the guide seems to have ceased to exist since I've linked it ), the friendship-meter does indeed play a role for interaction-success (except for mean and mischief interactions that take into account some traits instead). But from my limited gaming-experience I agree that it seems to be barely noticable. Except for those mischief and mean interactions noted in the guide, traits play no role for social interaction at all which, needless to say, it quite outraging. Sims' characters have no direct effect on social interaction.
Friendly interactions in TS4 all have positive, equal, outcomes, and as you socialize more, doesn't matter which of the friendly interactions as long as you don't repeat the same for too many times or sims become bored, you unlock new, the same but with diferent names, interactions.
So you think that all friendly interactions have the very same effect on friendship-meter on success? I'm not sure. I'd have to pay closer attention to the gains and losses. I do think that some interactions might give you more gain or loss than others.
But in any case even if there was a differentiation of interaction-power, so to speak, there would be but a few distinct types. This is what I've called cautious/medium/bold interactions in my suggestion.
And I've also suggested to adapt the UI accordingly: 1. select interaction type (mean/friendly/mischief/funny), 2. select risk-type (cautious/medium/bold), 3. select animation. I think that this UI would be more transparent and honest to us players. It would not lead us to believe that there are tons of unique interactions (both in terms of their gameplay effect and their animation).
In TS2, and to some degree TS3, traits affect interactions and interactions affect the relationships. In TS3 if an insane sim that acts all nutsy to another sim, he will get bashed if they don't have a high enough relationship or if the other sim is not insane too even though some of the "nutsy" interactions are under the "friendly label". Going as far as you go in the thread is not needed, especially since it's a game, reproducing "likes or dislikes" like you are posting them just doesn't work in a game setup.
Well it depends on what you expect and wish from the game. How plausible and realistic do you want other sims to behave (the sim you control can still do whatever he/she wants)? The deeper a (well balanced, well designed) system, the more nuanced and intricate the situations it can create. I admit that I'm a fan of a realistic game. A simulation. That's my personal preference. Also, I don't think that it would somehow take away the fun of players who are more into crazy and awkward situations. Give a sim an insane-trait and their AI will basically circumvent the "social context test" for interactions and therefore act in crazy ways.
However, being able to get any other sim to wohoo with your sim in a matter of a few ingame hours would be a thing of the past. Is that a bad thing? Too realistic? Not for me. Making everything possible at any time does not help to make me feel accomplishment. In the SIMS 4, it's hard for me to feel any satisfaction or achievement because I know that other sims are just puppets that succumb to my will. They have no will. Giving them a will of their own (social AI) would give me a feeling of challenge, but perhaps it would take away from players who prefer to rule over other sims as if they were marionettes. But wait, that's what cheats are for!
From a technical point of view, I don't think that an intricate system (similar of different to the one I've described) is impossible. Just because it's a game does not mean that it can't feature a "deeper" social system and AI. I'm not a programmer and I can't judge how well our PCs could handle the background-calculations needed to support the system, but I'm rather positive. There are games out there that feature far more complex AIs and game-mechanisms than those that I've described here.
I'm heavily against this, it's not about lying it's about playing an emersive game and making sure the characters feel more real life-like. Plus with the UI telling you what success it'll have on the sim what would be the point in the "social game" that is knowing yourself what interactions you should or not use?
I think perhaps "which" interactions/traits affect each other could be on the game lessons, but as far as "how" I think that should be left to the player to see.
Never the less it's not hard to see if you pay enough attention and I don't know about that guide but I have played the game myself.
On the UI-thing. Well it would be more of a way to clear up the interface. I mean surely a "hug" is a more "risky" or "bold" move than a "talk about neighbours". I can easily talk about my neighbours with my neighbour. or engage in any kind of small talk. I'm not sure if he would be okay with me trying to hug him though.
So I don't see how classifying interactions into three risk-classes would break immersion. The cautious/medium/bold choice would make it easier for players to find the interactions they're looking for and give them the hint that the game actually differentiates three types of friendly interaction according to their "boldness". In my eyes, this would be a good thing. We agreed that we don't even know if the game differentiates between more and less risky interactions (that result in more or less gain/loss) right now.
And to clear this up: the UI differentiating interactions in cautious/medium/bold does not tell you the chance of success. All it tells you is a slight indication of the base difficulty of the interaction to succeed. But then, as I've described above, a lot of other factors are taken into account to determine whether the interaction succeeds. Apart from base difficulty, there is mood of target and initiator, and - most importantly - trait-intolerances between sims. You can read that up in "evaluation of interaction-success" (I've copied it into this post, see spoiler). All of these factors remain hidden from the player. The player does not know whether the other sim likes his/her sim and is more or less likely to make the interaction succeed. Therefore, observing another sim's reaction to your cautious/medium/bold moves would be very thrilling. Interpreting another sims reactions would be the only way to find out whether he likes your sim. And this alone would be so much more than what we have in the game right now, where other sims don't like or dislike anyone and their reactions are totally random and where negative reactions can be overcome by spamming more actions and trying again and again (with some friendly interactions in between).
Copy: Evaluation of interaction-success
Most interactions can succeed or fail, based on a number of modifications. This is the list of factors of the base game that have an influence on the success-chance of interactions (as posted above):
type/history of current conversation (SocialContext)
friendship-meter [except for mischief and mean actions]
charisma skill of initiator [except for mischief and mean actions]
mood of the target & of the initiator
For mischief actions: traits of initiator and target play an additional role
For friendly and funny and romantic interactions ONLY, this list would need to be complemented by trait-intolerance. For each trait of the initiator that is known by the target, add a tolerance modification. For the final tolerance factor, determine the mean of all (in)tolerances.
Tolerance modifications
Note that I keep up the differentiation between romantic and friendship traits, even though this makes everything a bit more complicated. If the initiator attempts a romantic interaction, use “primary” for romantic traits and “secondary” for friendship traits. If the initiator attempts a funny or friendly interaction, use “primary” for friendship traits and “secondary” for romantic traits.
Sim X performs a friendly interaction on sim Z. Sim Z knows about sim X that sim X is "good" (neutral for sim Z), that sim X "loves outdoors" (slight aversion for sim Z), while the last of the three friendship-traits remains unknown to sim Z and does not take effect. Moreover, regarding the two romance traits, sim X has a "gracile" appearance (strong aversion for sim Z) and talks like a robot (slight preference). So, how would the base success chance of the friendly interaction be affected by trait (in)tolerance?
for "good" (friendship=primary/neutral): 1
for "loves outdoors" (friendship=primary/slight aversion): 0.85
for "gracile" (romantic=secondary/strong aversion): 0.9
for "robot" (romantic=secondary/slight preference): 1.1
MEAN: (1+0.85+0.9+1.1)/4= 0.96
This means that the base chance of success (as determined by other factors) is altered by *0.96. So, based on the perception that sim Z has of sim X, which, in general, is slightly unfavourable, the success-chance of sim X’s friendly interaction is reduced to 96%.
The same example for a romantic interaction:
for "good" (friendship=secondary/neutral): 1
for "loves outdoors" (friendship=secondary/slight aversion): 0.9
for "gracile" (romantic=primary/strong aversion): 0.001
for "robot" (romantic=primary/slight preference): 1.2
MEAN: (1+0.9+0.001+1.2)/4= 0.78
So you can see that the success chance for romantic interactions is more affected by sim Z’s negative perception of sim X’s traits.
Note that I’d actually like to give negative romantic primaries a greater impact, but with the (hypothetical) method of calculation, by using means, that seems impossible.
These ideas are not necessarily related to the suggested social system, but I think they would adjust the balance if a social system of some kind was introduced:
Social/Body-balance
If social gameplay was deeper, we should be granted a bit more time to engage in it. Therefore, I suggest to make days a bit longer and/or make bodily needs decrease slowlier, so that social interactions have a bigger share of a day's time. Do not chain our (adult) sims to beds and toilets so much. Give them more freedom, now that they have something interesting to do with it.
Moodlet balance (objects/social)
Moodlets that come from interaction with objects (or being close to objects/auras/deco) should not work like an automatism. Rather, they should give your sim a CHANCE to get into that particular mood. If there was deeper social gameplay, moods from objects would compete with moods from social interaction (and also from traits). In order to spice up this competition, a nuanced system with varied outcomes is needed. I think that mood-PROBABILITIES competing with each other would be quite interesting (of course, once a mood "wins", it needs to stick). Generally speaking, moods from social interaction and traits should be stronger then moods from objects. In fact it would be interesting if moods were only generated by social interaction and traits (and maybe auras, but only very weak), not by objects (deco/interaction with objects). Objects (deco/interaction) could still serve to decrease or increase the duration of a positive/negative mood accordingly.
Random daily moods?
In addition, I think that giving each sim a random daily mood could be interesting to mix things up a bit and make mood-management more challenging. Of course, it would not be totally random: traits should have an effect on it. But other than that, everyone has a certain mood each day. Also, it could help to make characters of the different ages a bit more pronounced (with older people having a higher chance for slightly angry or sad daily moods, etc.). And in general, it would give us more interesting and diverse situations. Everyday my sim gets up, I would be interested to see the mood he's in. And I might think: oh my, he's so sad today. Can I cheer him/her up? If not, do I really stick to his plan today and make him go to the limits in the gym? You know, it would just spice and mix things up a bit more. It would give us environments for our game-play, environments that we'd have to adapt our gameplay to - not make us create any environment we like with a simple finger-snap.
And it could even be used to make traits stand out in a more nuanced way. Lazy sim? Prepare for a higher chance of "sad" daily moods if a sim has to work on that day. Or even better: if a lazy sim cannot sleep late (fully recover all his sleep-need), increase his chance for an angry daily mood.
Bump! One year has passed. I fired up Sims again to build some stuff - build-mode is great - but I can't get myself to play the "game" because there is no challenge in it at all. All that the Sims' gameplay offers is a strongly consumption-oriented life-simulation seen through rose-tinted spectactles. Everything works in your favour. There are no opposing wills or obstacles whatsoever. Everything you want for your sim turns true without effort. No financial problems, no status/representation identity-crises, no proper social interaction and/or social identites. Yawn.
Comments
....
That was not my whole comment, if you cared to read more than the first line.
As for the other thing, I have no idea. Unlike TS3 and TS2 traits don't affect how other sims see your sims and interactions don't have different outcomes depending on the relationship or the traits.
Friendly interactions in TS4 all have positive, equal, outcomes, and as you socialize more, doesn't matter which of the friendly interactions as long as you don't repeat the same for too many times or sims become bored, you unlock new, the same but with diferent names, interactions.
In TS2, and to some degree TS3, traits affect interactions and interactions affect the relationships. In TS3 if an insane sim that acts all nutsy to another sim, he will get bashed if they don't have a high enough relationship or if the other sim is not insane too even though some of the "nutsy" interactions are under the "friendly label". Going as far as you go in the thread is not needed, especially since it's a game, reproducing "likes or dislikes" like you are posting them just doesn't work in a game setup.
Well, according to that guide I have linked above (the guide seems to have ceased to exist since I've linked it
So you think that all friendly interactions have the very same effect on friendship-meter on success? I'm not sure. I'd have to pay closer attention to the gains and losses. I do think that some interactions might give you more gain or loss than others.
But in any case even if there was a differentiation of interaction-power, so to speak, there would be but a few distinct types. This is what I've called cautious/medium/bold interactions in my suggestion.
And I've also suggested to adapt the UI accordingly: 1. select interaction type (mean/friendly/mischief/funny), 2. select risk-type (cautious/medium/bold), 3. select animation. I think that this UI would be more transparent and honest to us players. It would not lead us to believe that there are tons of unique interactions (both in terms of their gameplay effect and their animation).
Well it depends on what you expect and wish from the game. How plausible and realistic do you want other sims to behave (the sim you control can still do whatever he/she wants)? The deeper a (well balanced, well designed) system, the more nuanced and intricate the situations it can create. I admit that I'm a fan of a realistic game. A simulation. That's my personal preference. Also, I don't think that it would somehow take away the fun of players who are more into crazy and awkward situations. Give a sim an insane-trait and their AI will basically circumvent the "social context test" for interactions and therefore act in crazy ways.
However, being able to get any other sim to wohoo with your sim in a matter of a few ingame hours would be a thing of the past. Is that a bad thing? Too realistic? Not for me. Making everything possible at any time does not help to make me feel accomplishment. In the SIMS 4, it's hard for me to feel any satisfaction or achievement because I know that other sims are just puppets that succumb to my will. They have no will. Giving them a will of their own (social AI) would give me a feeling of challenge, but perhaps it would take away from players who prefer to rule over other sims as if they were marionettes. But wait, that's what cheats are for!
From a technical point of view, I don't think that an intricate system (similar of different to the one I've described) is impossible. Just because it's a game does not mean that it can't feature a "deeper" social system and AI. I'm not a programmer and I can't judge how well our PCs could handle the background-calculations needed to support the system, but I'm rather positive. There are games out there that feature far more complex AIs and game-mechanisms than those that I've described here. All the walls of texts I have written are supposed to show that a like/dislike system could indeed be functional in a game-context. Also, I see no real alternative to a like/dislike system if we want sims to behave according to their perception (like/dislike) of other sims.
I'm heavily against this, it's not about lying it's about playing an emersive game and making sure the characters feel more real life-like. Plus with the UI telling you what success it'll have on the sim what would be the point in the "social game" that is knowing yourself what interactions you should or not use?
I think perhaps "which" interactions/traits affect each other could be on the game lessons, but as far as "how" I think that should be left to the player to see.
Never the less it's not hard to see if you pay enough attention and I don't know about that guide but I have played the game myself.
So I don't see how classifying interactions into three risk-classes would break immersion. The cautious/medium/bold choice would make it easier for players to find the interactions they're looking for and give them the hint that the game actually differentiates three types of friendly interaction according to their "boldness". In my eyes, this would be a good thing. We agreed that we don't even know if the game differentiates between more and less risky interactions (that result in more or less gain/loss) right now.
And to clear this up: the UI differentiating interactions in cautious/medium/bold does not tell you the chance of success. All it tells you is a slight indication of the base difficulty of the interaction to succeed. But then, as I've described above, a lot of other factors are taken into account to determine whether the interaction succeeds. Apart from base difficulty, there is mood of target and initiator, and - most importantly - trait-intolerances between sims. You can read that up in "evaluation of interaction-success" (I've copied it into this post, see spoiler). All of these factors remain hidden from the player. The player does not know whether the other sim likes his/her sim and is more or less likely to make the interaction succeed. Therefore, observing another sim's reaction to your cautious/medium/bold moves would be very thrilling. Interpreting another sims reactions would be the only way to find out whether he likes your sim. And this alone would be so much more than what we have in the game right now, where other sims don't like or dislike anyone and their reactions are totally random and where negative reactions can be overcome by spamming more actions and trying again and again (with some friendly interactions in between).
Copy: Evaluation of interaction-success
For friendly and funny and romantic interactions ONLY, this list would need to be complemented by trait-intolerance. For each trait of the initiator that is known by the target, add a tolerance modification. For the final tolerance factor, determine the mean of all (in)tolerances.
Tolerance modifications
Note that I keep up the differentiation between romantic and friendship traits, even though this makes everything a bit more complicated. If the initiator attempts a romantic interaction, use “primary” for romantic traits and “secondary” for friendship traits. If the initiator attempts a funny or friendly interaction, use “primary” for friendship traits and “secondary” for romantic traits.
ROMANTIC TRAITS / Primary (if romantic interaction is attempted)
strong aversion= 0.001
slight aversion = 0.5
neutral = 1
slight preference = 1.2
strong preference = 1.6
ROMANTIC TRAITS / Secondary (if friendly/funny interaction is attempted)
strong aversion= 0.9
slight aversion = 0.95
neutral = 1
slight preference = 1.1
strong preference = 1.2
FRIENDSHIP TRAITS/Primary (if friendly/funny interaction is attempted)
strong aversion= 0.7
slight aversion = 0.85
neutral = 1
slight preference = 1.2
strong preference = 1.35
FRIENDSHIP TRAITS/Secondary (if romantic interaction is attempted)
strong aversion= 0.8
slight aversion = 0.9
neutral = 1
slight preference = 1
strong preference = 1
Example for tolerance-modifications
Sim X performs a friendly interaction on sim Z. Sim Z knows about sim X that sim X is "good" (neutral for sim Z), that sim X "loves outdoors" (slight aversion for sim Z), while the last of the three friendship-traits remains unknown to sim Z and does not take effect. Moreover, regarding the two romance traits, sim X has a "gracile" appearance (strong aversion for sim Z) and talks like a robot (slight preference). So, how would the base success chance of the friendly interaction be affected by trait (in)tolerance?
for "good" (friendship=primary/neutral): 1
for "loves outdoors" (friendship=primary/slight aversion): 0.85
for "gracile" (romantic=secondary/strong aversion): 0.9
for "robot" (romantic=secondary/slight preference): 1.1
MEAN: (1+0.85+0.9+1.1)/4= 0.96
This means that the base chance of success (as determined by other factors) is altered by *0.96. So, based on the perception that sim Z has of sim X, which, in general, is slightly unfavourable, the success-chance of sim X’s friendly interaction is reduced to 96%.
The same example for a romantic interaction:
for "good" (friendship=secondary/neutral): 1
for "loves outdoors" (friendship=secondary/slight aversion): 0.9
for "gracile" (romantic=primary/strong aversion): 0.001
for "robot" (romantic=primary/slight preference): 1.2
MEAN: (1+0.9+0.001+1.2)/4= 0.78
So you can see that the success chance for romantic interactions is more affected by sim Z’s negative perception of sim X’s traits.
Note that I’d actually like to give negative romantic primaries a greater impact, but with the (hypothetical) method of calculation, by using means, that seems impossible.
These ideas are not necessarily related to the suggested social system, but I think they would adjust the balance if a social system of some kind was introduced:
Social/Body-balance
If social gameplay was deeper, we should be granted a bit more time to engage in it. Therefore, I suggest to make days a bit longer and/or make bodily needs decrease slowlier, so that social interactions have a bigger share of a day's time. Do not chain our (adult) sims to beds and toilets so much. Give them more freedom, now that they have something interesting to do with it.
Moodlet balance (objects/social)
Moodlets that come from interaction with objects (or being close to objects/auras/deco) should not work like an automatism. Rather, they should give your sim a CHANCE to get into that particular mood. If there was deeper social gameplay, moods from objects would compete with moods from social interaction (and also from traits). In order to spice up this competition, a nuanced system with varied outcomes is needed. I think that mood-PROBABILITIES competing with each other would be quite interesting (of course, once a mood "wins", it needs to stick). Generally speaking, moods from social interaction and traits should be stronger then moods from objects. In fact it would be interesting if moods were only generated by social interaction and traits (and maybe auras, but only very weak), not by objects (deco/interaction with objects). Objects (deco/interaction) could still serve to decrease or increase the duration of a positive/negative mood accordingly.
Random daily moods?
In addition, I think that giving each sim a random daily mood could be interesting to mix things up a bit and make mood-management more challenging. Of course, it would not be totally random: traits should have an effect on it. But other than that, everyone has a certain mood each day. Also, it could help to make characters of the different ages a bit more pronounced (with older people having a higher chance for slightly angry or sad daily moods, etc.). And in general, it would give us more interesting and diverse situations. Everyday my sim gets up, I would be interested to see the mood he's in. And I might think: oh my, he's so sad today. Can I cheer him/her up? If not, do I really stick to his plan today and make him go to the limits in the gym? You know, it would just spice and mix things up a bit more. It would give us environments for our game-play, environments that we'd have to adapt our gameplay to - not make us create any environment we like with a simple finger-snap.
And it could even be used to make traits stand out in a more nuanced way. Lazy sim? Prepare for a higher chance of "sad" daily moods if a sim has to work on that day. Or even better: if a lazy sim cannot sleep late (fully recover all his sleep-need), increase his chance for an angry daily mood.