Traits Alone Can Never Represent Personality
Let's start with a hypothetical. You make a sim with the Geek, Cat Lover, and Ambitious traits. Supposedly, this is designing their personality in the Sims 4. ...Okay, but what's this sim's actual p...
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@Anonymous , yes, as someone who has played both TS1 and TS2 that used that system for personality, I certainly agree that it has many advantages!👍 They changed how personality works with TS3 , I think in order to give some unique and quirky personality traits , such as unflirty or afraid of water. But in TS3 we were able to choose 5 traits, which meant that we could add a couple unique ones like what I mentioned , plus add the more personality-defining ones like Neat, Lazy, Outgoing, etc. 😎
But with TS4, we only get 3 slots, which isn't enough for a well rounded personality for an adult. 😢 This lack of trait slots shows the problem with the newer system introduced in TS3.
I think the main defining personality of any Sim in TS4 is their Aspiration. But Aspiration doesn't seem to drive their behavior or moodlets the way the traits sometimes do. ☹️ A Sims who is a Collector doesn't autonomously go out and start digging up rocks and searching for frogs. It is more of a guideline for us to shape their lives. Which is ok but not really defining our Sims' personalities in the way it should! But because of TS3's use of 2 extra slots , it wasn't as much of a problem as it is in TS4. And let's not even dwell upon how one-dimensional children Sims are in TS4! 😣
The thing is, is that it any changes to this system most likely wouldn't happen in TS4. That would be too extensive of an overhaul. Hopefully the personality sliders will make a return if and when there is a TS5! (or at the very least add more personality slots). Or even better, have the sliders, but also have a few personality slots for those quirky traits, like clumsy, unflirty, etc.! 😄
I'm adding my "Me Too" to this topic! ❤
Very well said @PugLove888 ! I particularly like your point that aspirations don't really seem to affect what sims to autonomously.
We need several things here:
- core personality sliders (like sims 1 and 2) that drastically affects AI, motive decay, rates of skill gain, and other things
- traits are particular quirks of added scripting that affect certain behavior. It's more specific, but less generalized than core personality
- A high-level aspiration. Think simply popularity, romance, creative, fortune, knowledge, adventurer, etc. These aspirations should drastically affect the Wants and Fears rolled by the sim. It should more or less permanent and a constant driving force in terms of what the sim wants to achieve out of life
- Lifetime wants. These are the specific checklist goals that the Sims 4 currently calls aspirations. (It's important to note that the Sims 4 conflated lifetime wants with aspirations themselves. They are inherently different. The former are specific goals, the latter drives the wants and fears of the sim.) E.g. renaissance sim, chess master, best selling author would be example of lifetime wants.
@Anonymous , yes I see what you are saying about them conflating Aspirations and Lifetime Wants in the Sims 4. It has been so long that I forgot that what TS4 calls Aspirations are closer to what TS3 called Lifetime Wants! 😅
And my favorite system for Lifetime Wants, Aspirations, regular Wants and Fears was TS2! There were repercussions for your actions. Sure you could go out for a night on the town, but your Neat Sim might have a crisis if they have to use a dirty public restroom! 😉
Also, to this day I still think of myself as a combination of Knowledge Sim and Family Sim, with a touch of Grilled Cheese Sim thrown in the mix! 🤣 Classifying Sims according to what is most important to them was a great way of directing our gameplay.
And I do think having sliders for the main personality characteristics, combined with a few selected traits for those quirky traits that don't drive personality, would be the best of both worlds.🤩 Take the Vegetarian trait in TS4... other than mealtime, this trait does nothing but offer the ability to talk to other people about being a Vegetarian. I know some Vegetarians who almost never pick this trait because with only 3 traits, there isn't much variety to personality left to choose from , which makes all of those Sims seem very similar and is also a kind of a waste of a trait slot. It is similar for Clumsy Sims. The animations are funny, but it doesn't carry the same weight as something like Outgoing or Creative or Slob. (Though I am glad they tweaked some of these traits a bit, as it is better than it used to be!💖 ) So by adding the sliders and keeping a few quirky traits , we can still have a few quirky-but-not-as-useful traits without sacrificing core personality points! 🥳
