Coffefreak4Life wrote:9 out of 10 times i already know what im gonna make asim

Me too! I know exactly what I would like them to become - great sim-personalities - with or without jobs/professions...
It´s just that my sims, they all seem to end up a bit too similar to eachother in-game.

In TS3 today, all sims we create have almost the exact same interactions/options/"personality" (even with 5 different traits).

I just think it would be awesome if each new sim that ever left TS4-CAS (or born in game) meant a much more unique game to enjoy...

So... One of my sims keeps having this dream about a chicken-bone Night after night it appears in his dreams... Maybe I´m not feeding him enough...?

Anyway - What if we could put custom pictures (much like custom music works today) into the game that would show randomly in dreams or during interactions/conversations? Maybe even linking them to a specific sim or Trait? This could be really cool for TS4, right? Taking the "Build a Trait" to new heights.

Just imagine the "Wintersports Fanatic" dreaming about his/her favourite brand of snowboard bindings or having your "Unbelievable" sim "talk" or think about anything from bungy-jumping to cute cartoons? It´s all up to you now...

What do you think?

I think that's a very good idea! If they can't add this, then they should add a lot more pictures that shows up.

While it would be cool to create your own traits, I don't see how this could ever be feasible.

by choosing between a wide range of Unique Qualities, Talents/Flaws and Peculiarities

This is so vague that it allows to think up pretty much anything, however "anything" is impossible to implement into an actual game, so let's look at a few concrete things this tool needs to allow a user to configure:

1) makes skill x harder/easier and the sim less/more inclined to do it
2) makes job x harder/easier and the sim less/more inclined to do it
3) makes interaction (including talk about topic) x more/less likely to be used autonomously
4) sim has dream bubble x

Just these four things would already be pretty complicated and could be a huge turn off for new players, so at minimum we would still need pre-made traits that users can choose, with this as only an additional advanced option.

You suggested being able to add your own dream/thought/conversation bubbles. This solves the problem of limited bubbles (because it would be impossible to think up a though bubble for any imaginable topic), though you still would be limited to interactions that have been created beforehand and it requires users to either make their own bubbles or download ones they find in the community.

I think the greatest limitation however is that many traits require specific interactions or normal interaction rules to not apply. How will you make an insane sim if there are no insane interactions? How will you make an inappropriate sim without disabling certain interaction rules for this trait only?

Also, some traits are not so much (or only) about what a sim does, but how a sim reacts, like e.g. an unflirty sim.

So we'd need to add:

5) Likely response interaction y for received interaction x

But then there's the question of how you define "likely". After all even an unflirty sim might be receptive of advances by the right sim.

And that's not even talking about requirements that aren't covered by this list, like the ability to be right/left-handed.

I'd love more unique sims in TS4, but I don't see how such a system could be possible because of the limitations of interactions that can be shipped with the base game and because even if they made every single aspect of the game configurable so that it could be tied into this new trait system, it would make the system so complex that it would essentially be a program by itself, thereby limiting the appeal to the same kind of people who already mod the game to their needs today.

I think partial ideas of this, like the ability to add dream bubbles, would be much more feasible, though they would of course also be more shallow.

I'm sorry if this comes across as very negative, but whenever I see an idea like this, I start to write a specification in my head on how it would be implemented and sometimes what sounds like a great idea is very, very difficult to do. (I'm not going to say impossible, because with enough time and money, you can implement just about anything.)

Velocitygrass wrote:This is so vague that it allows to think up pretty much anything, however "anything" is impossible to implement into an actual game, so let's look at a few concrete things this tool needs to allow a user to configure:

1) makes skill x harder/easier and the sim less/more inclined to do it
2) makes job x harder/easier and the sim less/more inclined to do it
3) makes interaction (including talk about topic) x more/less likely to be used autonomously
4) sim has dream bubble x

Just these four things would already be pretty complicated and could be a huge turn off for new players

Ok… First of all - maybe it´s time for a more accurate definition of the term “Trait” before anything else:


A trait is a relatively stable element of personality.

Trait: A distinguishing feature, as of a person's character.

Definition of trait: Component of a person's behavior that is assumed to serve as an explanation of his or her enduring personal characteristics.


Component of a person's behavior sounds great to me – That must be where all the pre-programmed, well-tested and highly compatible
( of course…) Unique Qualities, Talents/Flaws and Peculiarities get into the picture.


Each Trait built in this new TS4-system would consist of pieces of an awesome personality-puzzle - one that you would also keep adding more pieces to later in game.

And any TS4-player only need to do following:

1.Name the Trait you wish to create
2.Drag and drop a suitable number of pre-programmed Unique Qualities, Talents/Flaws and Peculiarities
3.Done!


Let me give a quick example – The “Winter-sports Fanatic”

Since there is a slight risk that we might not be getting Snowboarding, Figure skating, Hockey or Skiing as skills right away from the start in TS4, but rather have to wait for it to be realesed in a future TS4-EP – what can I do meanwhile?

Well, I´d probably just start out with something like:


“Chance willing” (Uni Q)
“Dedicated” (Uni Q)
“Weather-guru” (Uni Q)
“Fysical Balance” (Tal.)
“Agility” (Tal.)
“Tends to overdo things” (Flaw)
“Love for Speed” (Perc.)
“Not afraid of Hights” (Perc.)
“Taste for Snow” (Perc.) As long as it´s not snowing in-game – he´ll just have to do with chewing ice-cubs out of the fridge or something… lol


By combining several Unique Qualities, Flaws, Talants and Perculities we´re now slowly making this Trait come together, right? And this sim hasn´t even yet been close to a hockey-rink or mountain-top…

This might be a fun way of building a character over time – not being so limited as in TS3 whenever lacking a specific skill or having to choose one trait over another because of a determinated number of traits. Also not having to start all over again creating a certain character after a few Eps because there now are so many traits I would like him/her to have.

I know you can change traits in TS3 – but this is a much better way to keep a character “up-dated” and interesting.

Whenever the skill “Snowboarding” does occur in a realesed TS4-EP this sim is going to be more than ready for any alpine adventure – I´m just entering “Upgrade a Trait” and click on my custom-made “Winter-sport-Fanatic”-Trait to add “Snowboarding”.

Now – if I did manage to pick out some of the useful talents or got rewards that would match with this brand new skill “Snowboarding”, my sim shouldn´t have to begin at level 1… Same thing if I just put him/her on a snowboard right away in-game – A message should appear saying something like:

“Would you like to enter Upgrade a Trait? - Yes now / Later”


It´s actually a lot like putting a potion together – adding a lot of different ingrediens. While still only some of these Traits-ingrediens will interact with eachother – unlocking cool interactions and other gameplay features, the rest will also serve a purpose by adding that special flavour all by itself to a one-of-a-kind Trait!

Obviously the game TS4 won´t “know” what kind of Trait you´ve tried to accomplish here – simply because TS4 is not a text interpreter robot… It will for example not be able to interpret the word “Winter-sport Fanatic”.

But by something as simple as choosing and activate the right type of Icons (premade pictures – much like the little pics now appearing in dreams and conversations in TS3) – one more step towards some sense and logic will hopefully be completed. Especially if we could some how link these activated icons to certain emotions/responses – just to finetune things a bit further...

Example - if I link my “Winter sports Fanatic”-Trait to the Snowboard-Icon (out of like thousands of Icons in different catagories that obviously needs to be provided with the base-game TS4 for any of this to work) with the Emotions-Icons “Very Thrilled” and “Favorite Sports ” – I now give TS4 something to work with in my favor.

Now – if I want to put in some imported pictures also I should in this manner be able to “explain” to TS4 what my sim thinks of whatever the imported icon/picture representing. Activated Imported Icons would then be used in game (along with random ones of course much like in TS3) appearing in dreams, daydreams, conversations, nightmares etc. Maybe we could even set some simple standard chat-lines for conversations to match a Trait better:

“Talk about snowboard-bindings”
“Talk about mountain rescue team”
“Talk about risks involved in winter-sports”

The possibilities are endless… And just like people IRL sometimes change – so should the sims… If he´ll ever out-grow this “Winter-sports Fanatic” Trait (by your choice) you should be able to keep rewards and such for future use.

There´s still a lot more to figure out when it comes to this awesome new TS4-CAS-tool “Build a Trait” – It has to be water-proof enough, but with creativity let loose…

This sounds cool!

Amykara wrote:This sounds cool!

Thank you! - There are so many awesome features that could easily fit into a "Build a Trait"-TS4 CAS-tool like this one - If well enough executed it would finally provide us with something really useful to work with when Creating a Personality.



Another great advantage with "Build a Trait" is that it would be very easy to keep adding new Unique Qualities, Talents/Flaws and Peculiarities from updates, EPs or maybe even buy them separately or in packages right from the on-line store.

So... TS4 is getting closer - It will become reality in one or two years probably. And I´m fine with that - As long as it´s mainly going to be about the sims themselves this time. Not so much about celebrities, fantasy-creatures, potions and endless home-remakes. I mean, I don´t mind all that being part of the game - as long as there are enough other things to do as well...


Like fine-tuning my sims personalities - making them more interesting all the time and keeping the sims interacting in new cool ways in-game.


Don´t get me wrong - I love building houses for my sims and I really enjoyed TS3. But I just can´t wait to get my hands on some great tools for creating amazing personalities for each and every sim in TS4.


I also really hope TS4 will focus a lot more on human-sims (- Because there´s soooo much more that could be done in that area...) But if you like SuperNatural elements in your game, a TS4 CAS-system with a "Build-a-Trait" feature would definitely provide more variation within species - zombies, vampires and other SN creatures - Unlocking special abilities - making them all a bit more personalized than today...

Valandis wrote wrote:I think that's a very good idea! If they can't add this, then they should add a lot more pictures that shows up.

Thank you! As long as they add something for sim-players to work with when it comes to creating a sim-personality I´m going to be very happy about it.

That'd be cool... unfortunately I don't think they'd allow us to make the traits anything crazy beyond building certain skills faster (due to moodlets involved and certain animations)

danivixen wrote:That'd be cool... unfortunately I don't think they'd allow us to make the traits anything crazy beyond building certain skills faster (due to moodlets involved and certain animations)

Well, since so many sim-players are creative builders, I refuse to believe that TS4 will offer nothing better that TS3 does when it comes to fine-tuning sim-personalities.


Just think about this for awhile - after so many years the sim-mind is still more or less an unexplored area... Which is kind of funny (or sad?), when it really should play a much more central part of CAS and also make a much greater impact in-game.

But of course there´s always a risk that we´ll have to make due with a slightly less complex system at first. But I would still be happy with any "1.0 version of Build a Trait" for TS4, since I strongly believe it´s a huge step in the right direction for endless sim-fun of the future...

Ok... So maybe it will help the TS4 dev-team, if as many as possible answered the following questions:


Q1:

What are the main-issues with the TS3-trait-system of today?


Q2:

What would you like to see in a more advanced TS4-Trait-system?


Q3:

What do you think would be the pros and cons with a TS4-CAS "Build a Trait"-system?


Thank you so much for answering!

Saw this in an article about TS4(macorg.net):

“In The Sims 4, Sims can go beyond the boundaries of their neighborhood, and immerse themselves in an open subhood, interacting with other Sims using our new deeper personality system. It is this type of open-ended gameplay that inspires endless creative possibilities. In addition the new goals and rewards systems will give players of all kinds from core gamers to storytellers the ability to enjoy long-term gameplay”.

What do you think?

Maybe we'll know more on the 9th October... http://www.flickr.com/photos/simsvip/8023650657/

Cinderellimouse wrote:Maybe we'll know more on the 9th October... http://www.flickr.com/photos/simsvip/8023650657/

Thanks for posting this - It looks really interesting!



There´s so much to do when it comes to sim-personalities and I really hope the TS4-dev team is on the right track

Finally getting us some proper CAS-tools for creating an endless stream of interesting and over time constantly changing sim-personalities - Sims that we really want to get to know, if you know what I mean...