I knew it was like this but still interesting to read about your experiment.
I started to think of a sim of mine who got level 10 mixing skills straight from the wishing well. They have a bar at home but he had never shown particular interest towards it before. Suddendly after the skill increase he likes to spend his time mixing drinks! It could be interesting to see what happens if you cheat them some really high skills.
On run through 3 I cheated them all skills I'd expect them to have. Artsy had 10 painting, Gandalf 10 programming, Musak 10 in guitar and piano. They all had corresponding jobs though so not as much time at home. I wanted to know if having the skills, aspiration AND related job would push them towards the right activities. When they weren't filling needs they were dancing, playing video games, trolling teh forums..
Let's start with Musak Player: Most relevant interactions are exempted from autonomy until he reaches skill level 2 and Creative requires an unfinished painting. Which leaves him with group singing, (listen to) serenade and listen deeply (excluded when energized).
Next, Active Bob: While his namesake trait has been proven effective, Glutton only makes a difference when it comes to spoiled consumables (others simply ignore it).
I played the 100 baby challenge and completed it, so have played with a lot of random traits.
The one that drove me the most nuts was my evil Sims, because they would become happy if another Sim was sad and vice versa. They would also do stuff like punching the lights out of the Blarffy toys bears/dragons etc. I like all my Sims to be good so I tried my best to line up a bunch of good actions for them lol but couldn't keep on top of it all the time.
Some of the traits affect personality more than others. My personal preference is for them to affect the personalities less, so that I can get them to do what I want regardless of their traits haha.
Let's start with Musak Player: Most relevant interactions are exempted from autonomy until he reaches skill level 2 and Creative requires an unfinished painting. Which leaves him with group singing, (listen to) serenade and listen deeply (excluded when energized).
Next, Active Bob: While his namesake trait has been proven effective, Glutton only makes a difference when it comes to spoiled consumables (others simply ignore it).
Right, autonomous actions linked to their personality, which a player would reasonably expect them to do are in some cases completely barred from them until they already have experience in that skill. And yet it's ok for them to go trolltehforums and gain mischief, or play video games and gain that. Why? Why deliberately prevent them from doing the things it seems reasonable to expect them to do?
I focused on mainly one trait per sim with things like glutton being fillers as I had so much to keep track of.
I played the 100 baby challenge and completed it, so have played with a lot of random traits.
The one that drove me the most nuts was my evil Sims, because they would become happy if another Sim was sad and vice versa. They would also do stuff like punching the lights out of the Blarffy toys bears/dragons etc. I like all my Sims to be good so I tried my best to line up a bunch of good actions for them lol but couldn't keep on top of it all the time.
Some of the traits affect personality more than others. My personal preference is for them to affect the personalities less, so that I can get them to do what I want regardless of their traits haha.
Haha I made the mistake of doing that challenge when the mom had childish trait. I ended up locking the dollshouse in the basement away from mom.
> @CelSims said: > (Quote) > > Haha I made the mistake of doing that challenge when the mom had childish trait. I ended up locking the dollshouse in the basement away from mom.
I made a similar sim once. That's a creative way to solve it.
I played the 100 baby challenge and completed it, so have played with a lot of random traits.
The one that drove me the most nuts was my evil Sims, because they would become happy if another Sim was sad and vice versa. They would also do stuff like punching the lights out of the Blarffy toys bears/dragons etc. I like all my Sims to be good so I tried my best to line up a bunch of good actions for them lol but couldn't keep on top of it all the time.
Some of the traits affect personality more than others. My personal preference is for them to affect the personalities less, so that I can get them to do what I want regardless of their traits haha.
Haha I made the mistake of doing that challenge when the mom had childish trait. I ended up locking the dollshouse in the basement away from mom.
Lol!!! Too funny! To be honest, I've given up on giving doll houses to most my families because someone always breaks the thing every few seconds haha!
Clumsy Sims break dishes when they wash them. There might be something similar with handiness tasks also.
I don't think the traits were designed with autonomy in mind. I think they intended them to be challenges for the player, how you should play the sim to avoid negative or get positive moodlets. In general autonomy seems not to be how the game was designed to be played. Weird, but that's the only reason I can think of why it would be so bad.
I've never once considered the game from this perspective, so I find this so interesting to think about.
It would sort of imply that every Trait would/should have a set of moodlets that correspond with a Sim's state of being from positive to negative, at least in theory. For example, a Sim with a Creative trait would have Inspired as one of their Positive spectrum moodlets/emotions, and something like Uninspired (which doesn't exist in the game as far as I know) would be on the Negative spectrum, and then there would be in-betweens, and also extremes on both ends for dynamism. It would then encourage players to try to maintain the equilibrium between states.
However, the execution of this is poor because:
there aren't enough moodlets/emotions that actually feel like they correspond to a full spectrum for every Trait. Instead, there's a stock amount that nearly all Sims can equally experience. If there were more emotions tied to individual Traits it would make it seem more individualized and dynamic. I know that different emotions run on a timer which indicate an event being more or less influential on a mood than another but this really gets lost in the AI and the UI, and I think a big part of it has to do with points 2 and 3 (especially 3).
the resting point for a Sim tends to always lie around Happy, when Fine would be a better suited option. From Fine, it feels more logical/dynamic that a Sim can always feel better or worse. It makes me think of how in TS2, there was the bar that would be filled with Green if Sims Wants were being met, or Red if Fears were being realized. When not too much change was happening in a Sim's life, the bar would float back to a midpoint wherein a Sim wasn't too good or too bad.
emotions/moodlets are constantly being overshadowed by others in a way that doesn't indicate any sort of prioritizing of emotions based on traits or relationships. Even if my Sim was experiencing Sadness from something happening, they're just as likely to feel an amalgam of other stuff that disregards that sadness and places it in the background.
I say all of this to say that this would really explain the direction the devs took with the emotion and trait system, but I don't think they made it as robust as they should have. I think what happened, if this is the case, is that their intention got lost on the way to the player (or at least to me lol). Like, if I know that by choosing Creative as one of my Sim's traits, I'll play the game knowing that I have to ensure that my Sims don't often feel the Uninspired moodlets or it will affect their quality of life. Then it'll change my approach on how my Sim lives their lives and why. But I find that I often have Sims do something because, well I picked that trait so now I have to make them do things to live up to that trait but not because it will permanently impact their state of being (the fact that all emotions run on a timer and will inevitably go away is a big reason why I think it feels like a lot emotions don't matter...because they'll go away soon enough and the Sim will be fine) but because the alternative is that they go play Video Games nonstop. Make a Sim have a full on crisis and then I'll care enough to make sure they stay positive.
Also, reading the op's posts was like reading an exposé article; I loved it.
I followed up with a little test while playing other sims. I had a genius sim in the tech career do the 'Complete a side job' programming option every single day. Finally, on day 147 of her life, she went ahead and did it autonomously. 147 days....
Thanks for sharing, I've noticed this too but being Kitty Lazy never did anything about it. The AI is shocking, they don't take care of their own needs never mind those of a pet. My sims however do keep themselves hydrated and wet themselves if left alone for ten minutes. It's so frustrating, I scream at the screen you found your way to the bathroom for a drink you didn't need, why can't you find the loo?
I am beyond baffled that the developers haven't redone the traits. This is something that has been complained about since the very beginning! What gives? Why are traits such a poorly developed feature?
Yeah, this sounds pretty much like how my game plays. There might be occasional "in-character" behaviors, but they are usually way down the line of a Sim's life and are probably more coincidental and circumstantial than actual proper AI.
This is why I really want a "Technophobe" flaw and a way to turn off mobile phone use. My Sims will always, always go to the PC first to play games or troll, and if I take the electronics away, they will stand around on their phones playing games. If I keep a radio in the house, the entire household gets their dancing skills up, even if there's a gloomy, clumsy loner who I don't want to dance. I have to keep TVs locked in the walls or hidden basements of bars because Sims will just gather around and watch TV all night when they go out for a drink.
Yeah, it's pretty realistic to current society, but come on...it makes for a very boring game. And if Sims had proper personality behavior dictated by their traits, I might not mind these things as much because they wouldn't be as common.
I don't think the sim should autonomously do everything, for me the traits should give me special/unique animations. Like the slob sim farting and belching. I remember in SIms 3 evil sims would randomly "evil laugh" or think about something malicious, and I miss something like that. My art lover sim sometimes goes to paint by herself, but would be lovely if she went to admire paitnings and statues around her house by herself and had some fun doing that, or maybe autonomously influencing her children to use the activity table to do some drawings (I'm an artist and usually I influence my nieces and nephew to display their abilities to show them that art is also important).
I don't need my sim to do something autonomously (altough I enjoy that she goes to paint without me, its pretty cute). Usually I choose their traits o purpose to help me, I know I'm going to make my sim paint when i choose the Art Lover trait, but what i don't expect and would love is extra interactions, special animations, custom interaction names (like the pirate pun interaction names). "Take evil slumber", "steal candy from kid", etc... Those would give more characteristics to my sims.
I’ve seen autonomous filling of a pet bowl once or twice. Not by an animal lover, but I’ve seen it. Just putting it out there.
This is good to see because it bothered me a lot. To have my animal lover decide to prioritize dancing over the crying hungry pet was just unacceptable.
@CelSims I know for sure that traits lack some detail and effectiveness, but I have seen one or two of them making my sim do something autonomously thats unique to the trait. I think that in this case the problem is in the game codes, probably there's a bug no one notices that most of the time makes the traits meaningless (not that they have any meaning most of the time). But yeah... I am pretty sure that there's something making the traits not work.
Yeah, this sounds pretty much like how my game plays. There might be occasional "in-character" behaviors, but they are usually way down the line of a Sim's life and are probably more coincidental and circumstantial than actual proper AI.
This is why I really want a "Technophobe" flaw and a way to turn off mobile phone use. My Sims will always, always go to the PC first to play games or troll, and if I take the electronics away, they will stand around on their phones playing games. If I keep a radio in the house, the entire household gets their dancing skills up, even if there's a gloomy, clumsy loner who I don't want to dance. I have to keep TVs locked in the walls or hidden basements of bars because Sims will just gather around and watch TV all night when they go out for a drink.
Yeah, it's pretty realistic to current society, but come on...it makes for a very boring game. And if Sims had proper personality behavior dictated by their traits, I might not mind these things as much because they wouldn't be as common.
It might be realistic to what's available but it's not realistic for every single person to be obsessed with it. I've used MCCC to turn off autonomous water drinking, computer things like troll teh forums and video gaming, a bunch of other things.
I'd love a technophobe trait, (if it worked). I really wanted off the grid to be fleshed out.
Speaking of working, my vegetarian student autonomously chooses the hotdogs someone left out over the onion bagels. /Facepalm.
I have 2 Sims with the Glutton trait who are constantly going to the fridge to grab meals even when their hunger is in the green and almost full.
I have 2 Sims with the Child of the Ocean trait and they are constantly going outside to swim in the ocean on their own.
My Childish adult Sim loves playing with toys and dollhouses autonomously.
I had a Sim with the Paranoid trait and he was always on the computer doing some interaction, I believe it was “Research Conspiracy Theories”... something like that.
I have a Geek Sim who autonomously plays video games when his fun is low.
I have a few Sims with the Active trait who always want to work out.
I have 2 Sims with the Glutton trait who are constantly going to the fridge to grab meals even when their hunger is in the green and almost full.
I have 2 Sims with the Child of the Ocean trait and they are constantly going outside to swim in the ocean on their own.
My Childish adult Sim loves playing with toys and dollhouses autonomously.
I had a Sim with the Paranoid trait and he was always on the computer doing some interaction, I believe it was “Research Conspiracy Theories”... something like that.
I have a Geek Sim who autonomously plays video games when his fun is low.
I have a few Sims with the Active trait who always want to work out.
That’s all I can think of at the moment.
Because that's all there is. You may also find that any sim in Sulani with nothing to do will go swim regardless of the trait and especially if they are a mermaid.
All sims play video games regardless of the trait.
Paranoid is an interesting one. My paranoid sim does, rarely, go change the locks on his computer files. But 'Research Conspiracy theories' autonomy is usually from higher mischief skill and nothing to do with the trait. So you might want to check his skill level on that.
I forgot to add in a childish sim, thank you for reminding me about those. I avoid them like the plague because ALL THEY DO is play with toys. Always. To the point of annoyance. Definitely a trait that works! Unless I was playing without her having access to a computer - I'll check if that over rides being childish.
Comments
On run through 3 I cheated them all skills I'd expect them to have. Artsy had 10 painting, Gandalf 10 programming, Musak 10 in guitar and piano. They all had corresponding jobs though so not as much time at home. I wanted to know if having the skills, aspiration AND related job would push them towards the right activities. When they weren't filling needs they were dancing, playing video games, trolling teh forums..
Next, Active Bob: While his namesake trait has been proven effective, Glutton only makes a difference when it comes to spoiled consumables (others simply ignore it).
The one that drove me the most nuts was my evil Sims, because they would become happy if another Sim was sad and vice versa. They would also do stuff like punching the lights out of the Blarffy toys bears/dragons etc. I like all my Sims to be good so I tried my best to line up a bunch of good actions for them lol but couldn't keep on top of it all the time.
Some of the traits affect personality more than others. My personal preference is for them to affect the personalities less, so that I can get them to do what I want regardless of their traits haha.
Right, autonomous actions linked to their personality, which a player would reasonably expect them to do are in some cases completely barred from them until they already have experience in that skill. And yet it's ok for them to go trolltehforums and gain mischief, or play video games and gain that. Why? Why deliberately prevent them from doing the things it seems reasonable to expect them to do?
I focused on mainly one trait per sim with things like glutton being fillers as I had so much to keep track of.
Haha I made the mistake of doing that challenge when the mom had childish trait. I ended up locking the dollshouse in the basement away from mom.
> (Quote)
>
> Haha I made the mistake of doing that challenge when the mom had childish trait. I ended up locking the dollshouse in the basement away from mom.
I made a similar sim once. That's a creative way to solve it.
Lol!!! Too funny! To be honest, I've given up on giving doll houses to most my families because someone always breaks the thing every few seconds haha!
I've never once considered the game from this perspective, so I find this so interesting to think about.
It would sort of imply that every Trait would/should have a set of moodlets that correspond with a Sim's state of being from positive to negative, at least in theory. For example, a Sim with a Creative trait would have Inspired as one of their Positive spectrum moodlets/emotions, and something like Uninspired (which doesn't exist in the game as far as I know) would be on the Negative spectrum, and then there would be in-betweens, and also extremes on both ends for dynamism. It would then encourage players to try to maintain the equilibrium between states.
However, the execution of this is poor because:
I say all of this to say that this would really explain the direction the devs took with the emotion and trait system, but I don't think they made it as robust as they should have. I think what happened, if this is the case, is that their intention got lost on the way to the player (or at least to me lol). Like, if I know that by choosing Creative as one of my Sim's traits, I'll play the game knowing that I have to ensure that my Sims don't often feel the Uninspired moodlets or it will affect their quality of life. Then it'll change my approach on how my Sim lives their lives and why. But I find that I often have Sims do something because, well I picked that trait so now I have to make them do things to live up to that trait but not because it will permanently impact their state of being (the fact that all emotions run on a timer and will inevitably go away is a big reason why I think it feels like a lot emotions don't matter...because they'll go away soon enough and the Sim will be fine) but because the alternative is that they go play Video Games nonstop. Make a Sim have a full on crisis and then I'll care enough to make sure they stay positive.
Also, reading the op's posts was like reading an exposé article; I loved it.
This is why I really want a "Technophobe" flaw and a way to turn off mobile phone use. My Sims will always, always go to the PC first to play games or troll, and if I take the electronics away, they will stand around on their phones playing games. If I keep a radio in the house, the entire household gets their dancing skills up, even if there's a gloomy, clumsy loner who I don't want to dance. I have to keep TVs locked in the walls or hidden basements of bars because Sims will just gather around and watch TV all night when they go out for a drink.
Yeah, it's pretty realistic to current society, but come on...it makes for a very boring game. And if Sims had proper personality behavior dictated by their traits, I might not mind these things as much because they wouldn't be as common.
I don't need my sim to do something autonomously (altough I enjoy that she goes to paint without me, its pretty cute). Usually I choose their traits o purpose to help me, I know I'm going to make my sim paint when i choose the Art Lover trait, but what i don't expect and would love is extra interactions, special animations, custom interaction names (like the pirate pun interaction names). "Take evil slumber", "steal candy from kid", etc... Those would give more characteristics to my sims.
@CelSims I know for sure that traits lack some detail and effectiveness, but I have seen one or two of them making my sim do something autonomously thats unique to the trait. I think that in this case the problem is in the game codes, probably there's a bug no one notices that most of the time makes the traits meaningless (not that they have any meaning most of the time). But yeah... I am pretty sure that there's something making the traits not work.
It might be realistic to what's available but it's not realistic for every single person to be obsessed with it. I've used MCCC to turn off autonomous water drinking, computer things like troll teh forums and video gaming, a bunch of other things.
I'd love a technophobe trait, (if it worked). I really wanted off the grid to be fleshed out.
Speaking of working, my vegetarian student autonomously chooses the hotdogs someone left out over the onion bagels. /Facepalm.
I have 2 Sims with the Child of the Ocean trait and they are constantly going outside to swim in the ocean on their own.
My Childish adult Sim loves playing with toys and dollhouses autonomously.
I had a Sim with the Paranoid trait and he was always on the computer doing some interaction, I believe it was “Research Conspiracy Theories”... something like that.
I have a Geek Sim who autonomously plays video games when his fun is low.
I have a few Sims with the Active trait who always want to work out.
That’s all I can think of at the moment.
Because that's all there is. You may also find that any sim in Sulani with nothing to do will go swim regardless of the trait and especially if they are a mermaid.
All sims play video games regardless of the trait.
Paranoid is an interesting one. My paranoid sim does, rarely, go change the locks on his computer files. But 'Research Conspiracy theories' autonomy is usually from higher mischief skill and nothing to do with the trait. So you might want to check his skill level on that.
I forgot to add in a childish sim, thank you for reminding me about those. I avoid them like the plague because ALL THEY DO is play with toys. Always. To the point of annoyance. Definitely a trait that works! Unless I was playing without her having access to a computer - I'll check if that over rides being childish.