I have always played with autonomy off for selected sim. Though recently I tried to set it on for everyone. It was quite OK but after some time I got fed up with that constant cancelling of tasks in the queue. I like order and they were just not obeying my commands! I was so deprivated at that time. Now I am laughing at that though it felt like real torture to be honest. I am back to my usual autonomy off for selected sim and I am content.
I leave it on. I often like to play large households and let them free range. It makes things more fun and exciting for me. I do intervene sometimes but with my big crazy households I try to be as hands free as I can.
Always autonomy on. I try to balance sim's life, caring a bit about aspiration, skills, relationships, carrer, motives... i used to complete some whims but i don't anymore cause they're just a few, repetitive and i think that a lot of packs didn't even got a new whim.
I play legacies so i usually have a medium sized/large family and i want everyone to take care of themselves.
When I used to play 3, I never once turned the autonomy on, I just found it to be more of a challenge. Recently, I've been playing to decrease my anxiety so I've just left autonomy on for 4 and let things play out.
I have never played with it Off in any game (as in any generation, not savegame). To me having no autonomy makes Sims pointless.
I have also played with autonomy off for selected sim and quite enjoyed that. It made the sim really responsive to my commands and worked better in many situations. However sometimes I like to sit back and see what happens which is why I returned to full autonomy for everyone. Still I would recommend to at least try autonomy off for selected sim.
I have always played with autonomy off for selected sim. Though recently I tried to set it on for everyone. It was quite OK but after some time I got fed up with that constant cancelling of tasks in the queue. I like order and they were just not obeying my commands! I was so deprivated at that time. Now I am laughing at that though it felt like real torture to be honest. I am back to my usual autonomy off for selected sim and I am content.
I agree! I also play with autonomy off unless doing a game challenge which requires it to be on. It is tiresome having to keep cancelling tasks which I didn't want the Sim to do. I like to be in control of my game so my Sim can achieve. I played all The Sims 1/2/3/4 this way. I must be a control freak LOL
Autonomy on is my default state, because I want to see my sims to weird/surprising things, but the ai/programming (?) behind the sims isn't very intelligent, so they end up doing stupid/repetetive things instead.
I was testing to see how much influence traits had on autonomy and gameplay objects yesterday (spoiler: not much), and locked my sims in a lot with a fence, testing indoor and outdoor activities. I gave the arty sim clay, which they left outside in winter (unfortunate), and because all sims obsess over it, the least creative froze to death when he wouldn't stop molding it.
The amount of times I had to cancel a sim-destructive action during that session (did not want to make another replacement sim), made me almost long for playing with autonomy off. Almost.
The autonomy on usually makes me mad at my sims as they'll do stupid things like neglect to take care of their basic needs or their kids. I had one sim who would just drink a glass of water over and over. I've never seemed to have any luck with seeing them do anything interesting or storyline-ish... they just seem to obsess over repeating some random and obscure task
I have autonomy on. I prefer that my sims not just stand around if I am busy with one of their other family members, but I am pretty controlling so I frequently pause the game and line up a queue for everyone. But if a sim finishes all their tasks and I'm not paying attention to them, they can do whatever they want.
Sometimes I just leave my game running while I'm watching youtube (I play in windowed mode) and come back and several days have passed and my sims are fine, save for a broken sink or something.
I like seeing what they get up to. With 2 adults, a teen, child, toddler, and dog it can be quite chaotic at times but I can always redirect them if necessary.
For whatever reason, I've always played with Autonomy Off. It never occurred to me until just now that it might be more fun to play with Autonomy On; in fact, it sounds stressful. But it could be exciting. I'm gonna try to play with Autonomy On and see how I feel about it.
DaWaterRatoh oh this is really interesting! I've never tried to play like that. I really like the idea of watching their actions to figure out what their next trait might be.
@LiELF I played with autonomy off in Sims 2 as well so I'm not sure how they would compare. When you say the story guides you, do you watch your Sim's autonomous actions to see what it reveals about their personality and then get inspired to choose other actions for them? What about a job or a skill hobby? Do they kind of choose on their own with their actions?
AriaMad2 So when that happens, what do you do? Do you just watch it all unfold or do you rescue your Sims when they get in trouble
I'm so fascinated by all the Autonomy On players here. I've never actually met another person who played the Sims besides my brother, and since I taught him how to play, he does exactly what I do lol.
@Elliandre Well, for example, Sims 2 had a chemistry/attraction system and also zodiac signs that determined how well their personalities would merge or clash. So I would take a couple of Sims from a household out to the club and chat up some strangers and see how well they got along. If my Sim had a positive reaction to someone and continued to converse with them, I would go with it and decide that my Sim was interested in them as a potential partner. But say, if I sent my other Sim to chat up or try to dance with a Sim that I wanted them to be with but they kept getting negatives and turning away from each other, I would determine that they clearly weren't meant to be.
In Sims 4, I did something like this in University in the dorms when a dorm mate NPC had a party and my Sim went to chat up a good-looking guest. He seemed her type but just when I'd go to flirt with him, he'd leave, lol. He came back another day and I tried again but for some reason if I looked away for a second, they were almost avoiding each other. So I accepted they weren't meant to be. But the next time he came for a party, my second Sim tried to talk to him since her friend gave up. She seemed to have a little more success but he would always leave before they could really get into flirting. So i ended up having her flirt with someone else and when he called another day to go out, I took it as a sign that he was more interested in her and that other guy just wasn't looking for intimacy of any kind, lol.
This is the kind of thing I like in my game, but unfortunately, Sims 4 just doesn't have enough of it and so many times I'm just sitting there, bored, looking for signs of my Sims' personalities. So I really hope we do get those new personality systems that were mentioned in the survey because I really need the action.
I always turn it off. It's just too annoying when my sims cancel the interaction I want them to do because they suddenly feel like shoveling snow that isn't even on their own lot, and if you want them to read a book? Yeah, good luck with that. They always cancel that action to watch TV instead. xD No more autonomy for my sims!
Always off and I admit I expected everyone to play like that. It was a big surprise when I started out in the community in 2013 and realized I was in the minority.
As a side effect of my playstyle many of Sims 4's shortcomings simply do not apply to me and I also never noticed some of the bugs.
Has Maxis ever confirmed what the majority of the players choose? I'm really curious about the real number. I wasn't sure what to expect with the survey results. I'm so outnumbered. Since there's 20 million players though, what do they do?? Maybe they all turn autonomy off
I play with only my selected Sim off. When playing large families, I love to just focus on the starting sim and direct heirs. All the spare sims can do whatever.
I like to watch them and leave them to make their own choices. I'll step in and help once in awhile, like if I really need them to get a skill to get promoted I'll make sure that they do it. If they decide to electrocute themselves though, that's on them. If there's a story I'm playing out in my head, I'll step in for that too, but I like households with more than one sim and I find the autonomy useful when I want to pay attention to one and not the others.
With autonomy off, I can still control my Sims (just pause and queue up tasks), but one thing that annoys me is that they will stop doing tasks if their fun bar maxes out. (For example, if I want them to read to increase a skill, I want them to continue reading even after the 'fun' bar is maxed.)
As noted by another poster, if needs are getting crucial, they'll cancel them and do what they need to do, even without autonomy. (I remember concentrating on one Sim at the fishing hole while her mother was writing a book. Forgot that poor Gran needed the toilet a bit more often, but she didn't. When her bladder need went into the red, she quit writing and used the toilet by herself.) I've also had them autonomously try to give their toddler a sippy cup when the toddler was hungry - they still get the 'check toddler' if the kid throws a tantrum or needs food or sleep.
I like the partial autonomy in S3(?) - if you didn't queue something up within five seconds, they'd act on their own. I know there are some things I miss by having autonomy on all the time, such as 'thinking about family' while eating. It would also be nice if my kids, teens and toddlers weren't relentlessly perfect, since I'm not going to direct them to do something they shouldn't do. (Toddlers still refuse to do certain things, especially before they gain thinking skills, but they don't play in the toilet or make messes.)
I would also prefer the option to enable autonomy only for the selected Sim, rather than the other way around. That way, I could see what my Sim wanted to do, and stop them if I disagreed with their choice, but the rest of the family would continue to do whatever they're supposed to be doing.
I'm kind of in the "Other" category here. I have autonomy on but I direct more of their actions and cancel a lot of autonomous actions.
Autonomy is really just on in case I decide to go with letting them do whatever action popped up. Usually, I queue up a series of actions for each sim and adjust as I go.
All of my sims are actually different, I do have concepts of personalities for them and I basically manage their lives. I'm not a control freak, I'm more like a director.
When coming up with what they want to do, I think about that specific sim and a concept of personality forms. Sometimes I might just decide to fill up their needs or I'll look for ideas based on the time of day or professional needs. Generally, I come up with interests and personalities through play. It's actually somewhat complex or subtle. I guess I think about what is motivating a given sim at any particular time.
That could just be grabbing random leftovers from the fridge or deciding it's a rainy day to do laundry. It could be someone deciding to go on an adventure or master a specific skill. I don't know, it works for me and I don't want to change. I find it easy to manage all of the sims.
I have households of various sizes including some with up to 8 sims. There's generally a lot going on then. I sometimes pause action while lining up activities for different sims.
I realize that I wrote this in a hurry while multi-tasking a lot so I edited it for clarity.
Comments
I play legacies so i usually have a medium sized/large family and i want everyone to take care of themselves.
I have never played with it Off in any game (as in any generation, not savegame). To me having no autonomy makes Sims pointless.
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I agree! I also play with autonomy off unless doing a game challenge which requires it to be on. It is tiresome having to keep cancelling tasks which I didn't want the Sim to do. I like to be in control of my game so my Sim can achieve. I played all The Sims 1/2/3/4 this way. I must be a control freak LOL
I was testing to see how much influence traits had on autonomy and gameplay objects yesterday (spoiler: not much), and locked my sims in a lot with a fence, testing indoor and outdoor activities. I gave the arty sim clay, which they left outside in winter (unfortunate), and because all sims obsess over it, the least creative froze to death when he wouldn't stop molding it.
The amount of times I had to cancel a sim-destructive action during that session (did not want to make another replacement sim), made me almost long for playing with autonomy off. Almost.
I have loved the stars too truly to be fearful of the night.
Ha'aheo, e hoʻomau i kō kāua aloha, kau a kau.
@Elliandre Well, for example, Sims 2 had a chemistry/attraction system and also zodiac signs that determined how well their personalities would merge or clash. So I would take a couple of Sims from a household out to the club and chat up some strangers and see how well they got along. If my Sim had a positive reaction to someone and continued to converse with them, I would go with it and decide that my Sim was interested in them as a potential partner. But say, if I sent my other Sim to chat up or try to dance with a Sim that I wanted them to be with but they kept getting negatives and turning away from each other, I would determine that they clearly weren't meant to be.
In Sims 4, I did something like this in University in the dorms when a dorm mate NPC had a party and my Sim went to chat up a good-looking guest. He seemed her type but just when I'd go to flirt with him, he'd leave, lol. He came back another day and I tried again but for some reason if I looked away for a second, they were almost avoiding each other. So I accepted they weren't meant to be. But the next time he came for a party, my second Sim tried to talk to him since her friend gave up. She seemed to have a little more success but he would always leave before they could really get into flirting. So i ended up having her flirt with someone else and when he called another day to go out, I took it as a sign that he was more interested in her and that other guy just wasn't looking for intimacy of any kind, lol.
This is the kind of thing I like in my game, but unfortunately, Sims 4 just doesn't have enough of it and so many times I'm just sitting there, bored, looking for signs of my Sims' personalities. So I really hope we do get those new personality systems that were mentioned in the survey because I really need the action.
As a side effect of my playstyle many of Sims 4's shortcomings simply do not apply to me and I also never noticed some of the bugs.
As noted by another poster, if needs are getting crucial, they'll cancel them and do what they need to do, even without autonomy. (I remember concentrating on one Sim at the fishing hole while her mother was writing a book. Forgot that poor Gran needed the toilet a bit more often, but she didn't. When her bladder need went into the red, she quit writing and used the toilet by herself.) I've also had them autonomously try to give their toddler a sippy cup when the toddler was hungry - they still get the 'check toddler' if the kid throws a tantrum or needs food or sleep.
I like the partial autonomy in S3(?) - if you didn't queue something up within five seconds, they'd act on their own. I know there are some things I miss by having autonomy on all the time, such as 'thinking about family' while eating. It would also be nice if my kids, teens and toddlers weren't relentlessly perfect, since I'm not going to direct them to do something they shouldn't do. (Toddlers still refuse to do certain things, especially before they gain thinking skills, but they don't play in the toilet or make messes.)
I would also prefer the option to enable autonomy only for the selected Sim, rather than the other way around. That way, I could see what my Sim wanted to do, and stop them if I disagreed with their choice, but the rest of the family would continue to do whatever they're supposed to be doing.
Autonomy is really just on in case I decide to go with letting them do whatever action popped up. Usually, I queue up a series of actions for each sim and adjust as I go.
All of my sims are actually different, I do have concepts of personalities for them and I basically manage their lives. I'm not a control freak, I'm more like a director.
When coming up with what they want to do, I think about that specific sim and a concept of personality forms. Sometimes I might just decide to fill up their needs or I'll look for ideas based on the time of day or professional needs. Generally, I come up with interests and personalities through play. It's actually somewhat complex or subtle. I guess I think about what is motivating a given sim at any particular time.
That could just be grabbing random leftovers from the fridge or deciding it's a rainy day to do laundry. It could be someone deciding to go on an adventure or master a specific skill. I don't know, it works for me and I don't want to change. I find it easy to manage all of the sims.
I have households of various sizes including some with up to 8 sims. There's generally a lot going on then. I sometimes pause action while lining up activities for different sims.
I realize that I wrote this in a hurry while multi-tasking a lot so I edited it for clarity.