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Smarten up TS4

The Sims 4 has boasted about having smarter sims with wacky stories. So far, the stories are lack luster because of limited game play options and the sims are as smart as rocks.
Here's just 1 example that recently happen to me in game.
How is it that in a 3 person (Sims A, B &C) conversation, sim A asks sim B about his career and only sim A knows and sim C still hasn't a clue. Even thou in the box above it shows all sims are involved in the convo.
There are so many missed opportunities in this game it drives me mad.
Why are mischievous sims with criminal careers not the ones in the jail cells in the police station? Instead the game spawns more townies I have to delete.
I could go on and on but I wonder what everyone else thinks.


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Please Bring Back Toddlers, Realistic Teenagers and Create a World.
Make the Sims (4) Great Again<3

Comments

  • SarahsShadySarahsShady Posts: 963 Member
    Thanks for your comment @AHolyToilet (great name btw) I sincerely thought The Sims 2 was a great game. That's the reason for my sig Make The Sims Great Again
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    Please Bring Back Toddlers, Realistic Teenagers and Create a World.
    Make the Sims (4) Great Again<3

  • AHolyToiletAHolyToilet Posts: 870 Member
    Thanks for your comment @AHolyToilet (great name btw) I sincerely thought The Sims 2 was a great game. That's the reason for my sig Make The Sims Great Again

    Oh, you meant the series. Your sig says "Sims 4", so I got confused. Alright.
  • CoteDAzurCoteDAzur Posts: 610 Member
    The townie generation in Sims infuriates me. I hate randomised townies, I always have. They seem to have given us the ability to create Sims, but those Sims can't take advantage of any npc opportunity even while unplayed without going back and forth deleting the townies again and again. I like the game and I can work around it, but that certainly doesn't mean I want to waste my time doing that.

    I don't feel that the Sims have ever been autonomously smart in any game, potentially TS3 but I haven't played enough of it to know since I only played about 4-5 hours of base game + World Adventures. Smarter Sims who can't even figure out when their parent had died in the room next door.. It's not a big request, I still have faith that things will be changed though.
  • GoodywoodGoodywood Posts: 4,612 Member
    Cynna wrote: »
    Evil_One wrote: »

    Because this game was supposed to be online, with players doing the parts and not NPCs, so they had to hastily add into the base game the NPC coding, multitasking, emotions, ETC.

    The result is a hollow shell of a game.

    You can thank anyone who still wants the Sims to be online.

    Exactly this.

    These Sims weren't meant to have personalities, the player was supposed to provide that.

    You are so right! This is a good way to explain it guys.
    PLEASE FIX TEENS IN TS4! I NEED YOUNGER TEENS NOT YA TEENS! (^_^)Please add Music Bands with lead singers! Please add vehicles and garages! Vehicles have always been part of The Sims.
  • AHolyToiletAHolyToilet Posts: 870 Member
    Pretty much everybody in this thread is making good points. I like the game, don't get me wrong, but to say these Sims are "smarter" is to call the sky "sentient".

    Just doesn't make any sense at all.
  • AHolyToiletAHolyToilet Posts: 870 Member
    edited May 2018
    Cynna wrote: »
    Evil_One wrote: »

    Because this game was supposed to be online, with players doing the parts and not NPCs, so they had to hastily add into the base game the NPC coding, multitasking, emotions, ETC.

    The result is a hollow shell of a game.

    You can thank anyone who still wants the Sims to be online.

    Exactly this.

    These Sims weren't meant to have personalities, the player was supposed to provide that.

    The game was also supposed to provide the player a good medium in which the player can provide said personalities. Working and detailed traits, for example. However, for example, if you compare the wiki entries of the Evil trait from the Sims 3 to the one in the Sims 4, you'll find that the Sims 3 entry has way more information than the Sims 4 one.

    And that's simply because the Sims 3 version of that trait does way more than its Sims 4 counterpart.

    Just one of many examples of the Sims being dumbed down.
  • CynnaCynna Posts: 2,369 Member
    edited May 2018

    The game was also supposed to provide the player a good medium in which the player can provide said personalities. Working and detailed traits, for example. However, for example, if you compare the wiki entries of the Evil trait from the Sims 3 to the one in the Sims 4, you'll find that the Sims 3 entry has way more information than the Sims 4 one.

    And that's simply because the Sims 3 version of that trait does way more than its Sims 4 counterpart.

    Just one of many examples of the Sims being dumbed down.

    The TS4 Sims literally weren't supposed to have personalities. They were supposed to be empty vessels that the "player" poured their own personalities into -- no different than an avatar in Second Life or IMVU.

    The bolded part of your post wasn't attempted until later and they never quite got the hang of it.

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  • SarahsShadySarahsShady Posts: 963 Member
    Wow, It all makes a little more sense now, learning about the sims being empty creatures. There are too many times where I just sat back and scratched my head over a missed (seemingly easy to make) connection that could be in the game. I wonder though, is it going to stay like this or are they going to slowly sell us back bits & pieces? Most of the base aspects (that baffle me why they didn't complete) I believe are never going to be worked on. The game is over 4 years old now and the sims are just as dry as day 1.The game is just too full of emptiness and half baked ideas.
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    Please Bring Back Toddlers, Realistic Teenagers and Create a World.
    Make the Sims (4) Great Again<3

  • GoldmoldarGoldmoldar Posts: 11,966 Member
    Improper tweaking of the AI system which to date in any game is not 100% perfect.
    Omen by HP Intel®️ Core™️ i9- 12900K W/ RGB Liquid Cooler 32GB Nvidia RTX 3080 10Gb ASUS Ultra-Wide 34" Curved Monitor. Omen By HP Intel® Core™ i7-12800HX 32 GB Nvidia 3070 Ti 8 GB 17.3 Screen
  • MikiMiki Posts: 1,692 Member
    One of my "favorites" is a whim for one sim to "get engaged" to another.. to whom they are already married.

    I like the game as well, especially CAS, but there are abundant examples of "disconnects" like mentioned in earlier posts.

    I learned a while back that even in a group conversation, the sim who one is playing only relates to the one selected for a social interaction such as 'ask about career" or "ask if single", etc. The others in the group do not really "hear" what's going on.

    Alas I don't think they will add any depth to the sims or what they can remember (one can ask the same sim about his or her career multiple times with the same result. When I mention this elsewhere I simply refer to it as a lack of depth to these characters.
  • CynnaCynna Posts: 2,369 Member
    Miki wrote: »
    One of my "favorites" is a whim for one sim to "get engaged" to another.. to whom they are already married.

    I like the game as well, especially CAS, but there are abundant examples of "disconnects" like mentioned in earlier posts.

    I learned a while back that even in a group conversation, the sim who one is playing only relates to the one selected for a social interaction such as 'ask about career" or "ask if single", etc. The others in the group do not really "hear" what's going on.

    Alas I don't think they will add any depth to the sims or what they can remember (one can ask the same sim about his or her career multiple times with the same result. When I mention this elsewhere I simply refer to it as a lack of depth to these characters.

    I don't expect there to be any kind of memories either.

    TS4 is the polar opposite of TS2. TS2's memory and detail are unmatched. However, because of that, it was very difficult to, say, add a placeholder Sim and then delete them. IIRC, if that character met anyone and subsequently was deleted, it could totally mess up an entire save. I think that it's because the remaining Sims had memories related to another that no longer existed.

    In TS4, the game has been built so that Sims can appear and disappear willy nilly. That can't happen if they are tied to the world with memories. It would probably take a lot of clean up to keep the saves from becoming totally bogged down. That's why in TS4 memories are manufactured with the screenshot manager.

    Initially, the screenshot manager system was fantastic. It didn't give the Sims a memory, but a facsimile could be created for the player's sake and to manipulate the Sims with. Now, that system is broken and useless.

    If TS4 Sims were ever given genuine memories of events, I think that the Manage World feature would cease to exist. To my knowledge, there's no other way to split and merge families. So, I think that proper memories will never happen.
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  • JoAnne65JoAnne65 Posts: 22,959 Member
    edited May 2018
    tonicmole wrote: »
    The problem is that Will Wright is a programming genius. His genius was in building a Sims personality thru a handful of common traits. Shy/Outgoing, Lazy/Active, Grouchy/Nice, Sloppy/Neat, Lazy/Active. When you combine these handful of traits they spawn a limitless number of behaviors and what appears to be true AI. "Traits" from Sims 3 and 4 are just silly and nonsensical. Honestly they feel lazy and their effects limited directly to a specific activity instead of being dynamic like Will Wrights original system.

    Ideally Maxis should bring back the Zodiac based personality system, and then allow players to choose traits to modify that base personality. Then they could weight activities and objects based on those personality traits. For instance a television would have a stronger draw for less active or playful sims. In conversation a playful Sim would be more likely to tell jokes, and a grouchy Sim more likely to react negatively. On top of that you'd have the modern idea of traits like "nerd", "Snobby", or "Loner", but much like the personality they would function in a more dynamic way with weighted objects and behavior.

    I could go on forever, but simply put it'd be really easy to create truly dynamic Sims without even applying much effort if Maxis just actually looked back at Will Wrights original work and learned why it was so amazing to begin with.
    Though I don’t agree with this completely (I don’t think traits in 3 were silly and nonsensical but I will agree they could have been so so so much better than they are; the system as such isn’t a bad one imo and I don’t agree it’s a lazy system either), I do agree with the essence. It’s highly important to this game someone who knows how to build a good, solid personality system in this respect is the bottom line of a good Sims game. In any case (and if they use a Zodiac system for that that’s fine by me) taking sim’s personalities as a starting point in relation to everything else in the game is highly essential indeed and they’ve completely left that principle in Sims 4.
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  • ElenPinkElenPink Posts: 541 Member
    Nehemiahxx wrote: »
    The only thing that keeps me in the Sims 4 is the graphics and cc options. But it annoys me how unaware the sims are of their environment. Sim A cooks dinner. Sim B goes right on to find something else to eat. If the sims aren't in the same room as a sim who died (even if they are related) they won't care. Sims don't recognize other sims. Not to be 'that person' but I played Sims 2 and 3, after the Sims 4 and was shocked. Mind you I really like the graphics in the Sims 4. But gameplay wise? I was shocked how complex the sims were. A grandmother in a household I played recognized and remembered a sim who had cheated on her daughter and would be angry whenever she saw him. Why can't the Sims now do that? In the Sims 2 and 3 there was more dialogue than to "Brighten Day" or "Tell a joke about penguin". Sim conversations have no substance, it's frustrating. I also agree with the first post. My sims would be in a three-way convo, and the third sim will know nothing about their traits or careers. But God forbid they start flirting, cause then they'll ALL become romantic interests.... -___-

    This!! The part where sim a doesn't recognize when sim b cooks dinner has to be one of the most annoying things in the game.
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  • AmandèleAmandèle Posts: 378 Member
    Something that I really hate is when my Sim invites someone to the restaurant and orders food, if the person they invited is hungry, they will go grab food in the fridge instead of waiting to be served. That doesn't make any sense!
    Sorry for the mistakes, English is not my first language ^^'
  • Tremayne4260Tremayne4260 Posts: 3,126 Member
    Evil_One wrote: »

    Because this game was supposed to be online, with players doing the parts and not NPCs, so they had to hastily add into the base game the NPC coding, multitasking, emotions, ETC.

    The result is a hollow shell of a game.

    You can thank anyone who still wants the Sims to be online.

    And this is why the "Family Tree" doesn't work properly either and Toddlers show up as being the spouse of an adult sim. I enjoy some aspects of Sims 4, but find myself playing Sims 2 or 3 more.

    I really wish this could be properly fixed.
    Second Star to the Right and Straight on 'til Morning.
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