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Dear Maxis, please add more traits and aspirations!
Duende
Posts: 175 Member
The following image is taken from Carl Sim's Guides
The Sims 4 not been adding many traits with every expansion. The current traits tend to give moodlets and don't affect the gameplay dynamically. The Sims 3 had so many traits with every expansion that not only gave moodlets but affected the way the Sims all interacted. In The Sims 3 the brooding trait for example use to realistically let those Sims take longer to shower which concurs with someone who would spend a lot of time pondering on things.
Let's look at the technophobe trait. I used to love using that and making a technophobe sims destroy electronics everywhere to upset other sims. (Any emotions/ moodlets? No, just pure behaviour due to a trait)I remember the absent minded trait which would be so challenging for me when I played with Connor Frio from Sunset Valley. I had to actually keep focused on the game to help him complete tasks (he has really genetics so I used to use him a lot) so I can fulfill my storytelling.
I miss the unlucky trait because I used to have fun leaving those Sims on their own to fall into misery without me having to actually force drama for the sake of storytelling. From fires starting abruptly, coffee machines breaking down on them to the house getting robbed as if jinxed. (by the way WHERE ARE THE BURGLARS AND POLICE ARRESTS IN TS4 ALREADY??!?!?) I miss the way traits used to affect the world around the sims versus a moodlet appearing for some fleeting hours! I had to force a Sims to get mortified last week so he could die and lend some credibility to my family legacy I'm doing, then get another to jump into the shark pool ninneteen times before she finally got mauled to death. I think the morality of Sims is too protected in The Sims 4 but that's whole other rant. Nevertheless, dear MAXIS, we need more traits and aspirations, sincerely a longtime fan.
The Sims 4 not been adding many traits with every expansion. The current traits tend to give moodlets and don't affect the gameplay dynamically. The Sims 3 had so many traits with every expansion that not only gave moodlets but affected the way the Sims all interacted. In The Sims 3 the brooding trait for example use to realistically let those Sims take longer to shower which concurs with someone who would spend a lot of time pondering on things.
Let's look at the technophobe trait. I used to love using that and making a technophobe sims destroy electronics everywhere to upset other sims. (Any emotions/ moodlets? No, just pure behaviour due to a trait)I remember the absent minded trait which would be so challenging for me when I played with Connor Frio from Sunset Valley. I had to actually keep focused on the game to help him complete tasks (he has really genetics so I used to use him a lot) so I can fulfill my storytelling.
I miss the unlucky trait because I used to have fun leaving those Sims on their own to fall into misery without me having to actually force drama for the sake of storytelling. From fires starting abruptly, coffee machines breaking down on them to the house getting robbed as if jinxed. (by the way WHERE ARE THE BURGLARS AND POLICE ARRESTS IN TS4 ALREADY??!?!?) I miss the way traits used to affect the world around the sims versus a moodlet appearing for some fleeting hours! I had to force a Sims to get mortified last week so he could die and lend some credibility to my family legacy I'm doing, then get another to jump into the shark pool ninneteen times before she finally got mauled to death. I think the morality of Sims is too protected in The Sims 4 but that's whole other rant. Nevertheless, dear MAXIS, we need more traits and aspirations, sincerely a longtime fan.
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Comments
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Yes. For example I could make a 'jelous' sim, and sure they get 'tense' while their lover is gone, but that's it. I want them to get like straight up angry and fight other sims for talking to them. Even being cheated on only makes them angry for a few hours and then it's business as usual. The emotion system can really work against any chance of good AI.
Traits like book worm, or cat/dog lover should skew a sims actions toward doing things related to that trait alot more often than other things. Instead we a rectcled social interaction, that looks and sounds the same as another social interaction, with a pen/cat/dog in the thought bubble. Really, what's the point. They don't act any different than any other sim, so the trait is completly useless.
They need something like the interests that they had in.. 2(?) Where they could just randomly pick up an interest while doing something and all of a sudden WANT to do something. Whims I guess sort of like that except there's like what 5 of them that cycle through, and are completly arbitrary, having to do more with environment and buffs than any hint of a personality. But we will not see anything like this in the game anymore, I think; definately not in sims 4 anyway. Disheartening.
Exactly! Why fill the game with more traits when existing ones work underwhelming-ly than the counterpart of the previous game. The unlucky trait would just end up giving a bad moodlet that only increase the odds of losing in the games and that's that.
I'm so desperate and really wanted a lot of improvement in TS4. Colorwheel, paintable ceiling, flat roof, sexual orientation, adjust lifespan manually, more family relationship (aunt, uncle, in-law, etc), cemetery and many more.
I just spent a total of 100+ hours on TS3, so I'm not sure how shallow TS4 compared to TS3. But I really miss that I have a lot of traits to choose from, so many that I get confused about which to pick. The traits that make them unlucky, not afraid of ghost (daredevil? brave?), technophobe, easily impressed, good sense of humor, hydrophobic, etc.
I created around 20 sims (TS4) in the past few weeks and honestly, I run out of ideas. Only 3 slots available, and the number of traits barely reaches 60.
I don't know why the traits are so far less compared to TS3. Maybe because they implemented the mood system which makes them harder (more coding required?) to add new traits?
Before TS5 launches, I wish to see at least (let's be realistic), 70 traits. It's not much to ask, right?
I love that Carl's Sims Guide posted a video like this, I love when popular simmer critic on how bad The Sims 4 is. Our voice is too small, I feel like we always get ignored no matter how hard we try, how many posts we created here, it doesn't matter because our voice won't reach the developer.
It's really ridiculous at this point. And the minimal number of traits doesn't even begin to address the severely lacking way that traits affect gameplay and personality in TS4 compared to 2 and 3....sigh.
My point is there are many ways to make the trait system AMAZING and they could even make money off of it, I wouldn't even be mad,
Sims 3 had a very interesting way of handling those types of traits and there were many more of them than what is in Sims 4. For every non-hidden skill and a couple of hidden skills, there were skill challenges. For instance, under charisma, if you meet 25 sims, you'll start getting friendship boosts when you meet new sims. If you have 20 friends, your friendships never decay. If you learn 50 traits of other sims, you learn traits more quickly. 100 jokes, and your jokes don't fail. 10 best friends, and when making friends you'll skip the good friend level and go straight to best friends.
But more than that, your traits and actions guide your whims. A bookworm will want to read a book. Then 5 books. Then write a book. Then write 5 books. These values keep increasing in wishes, but as they write more, they start rolling wishes like writing a best seller. Making so much in royalties. Meanwhile, as you read and write, you are making progress on your skill challenges as well.
It's a different system, but I was impressed that every time they added a new skill, they'd have all these challenges attached and every challenge had a reward.
I love this about sims 3. It makes it very interesting and the traits wishes helps guide you through the game if you follow it. Never a dull moment with the game that's for sure.
Yep, and given you have five traits (up to seven if you have university), it can make for very different game play even you have have the same basic outline. And then the overarching lifetime wish also can make things play out differently.
Sims 4 aspirations remind me of Sims 3 skill challenges with fewer rewards. But if you want to pursue more than one, in Sims 4 you have to flip around, and that's a type of micromanagement that gets annoying very quickly.
That's a great idea, I would love that so much