Autonomy: Who uses it and what are your thoughts on it?

I always have autonomy on, whether I'm playing a household of 1 Sim or 8 Sims. I find the game boring with autonomy off. Part of what makes the Sims games fun for me is just watching my Sims to see what they get up to on their own, sometimes I am pleasantly surprised at the stuff that happens.

I'm not control-freaky with my Sims, and don't feel the need to micromanage every little thing they do. If I need one to do something specific of course I will control them, but what they do when I'm focusing on another Sim doesn't matter to me really. You're correct of course that some autonomous actions are very annoying, and I use mods to disable some of the worst offenders (mainly hugging, getting water from the sink, and forum trolling) but overall I don't find my Sims to be too irritating, most of the time. I have an insane Sim that I need to watch carefully because if left alone he will argue with and insult his family all day, lol....but I made the character crazy for a reason so I just have to deal with that behavior.

I use it on everyone except for my main sim, usually the stay at home mom. I play huge families.

Always full autonomy here. I can't imagine playing the game without it.

Even though I'm curently using the game for modeling and story telling, I still have autonomy on.
I'm sort of allowing the story to tell it's self. Then I go back, and reenact the scenes, to get better pics.
I know, I'm bonkers.

"Movotti;15414900" wrote:
Even though I'm curently using the game for modeling and story telling, I still have autonomy on.
I'm sort of allowing the story to tell it's self. Then I go back, and reenact the scenes, to get better pics.
I know, I'm bonkers.

That's how I play too when I am storytelling. I rarely ever follow a scripted path, but prefer instead to let the story tell itself through the Sims' actions, whims, and chance occurrences.

And when I'm reading other people's stories I prefer the ones based around what happens naturally in the game rather than scripted stories.

I always have autonomy on, even for my main Sim and even if I only have one Sim. I like it when the game tells a story just based on the autonomous actions. But I do have some mods that stop certain auto-actions such as drinking from the sink or mourning at an urn/gravestone.

Then again, I control my Sims in certain situations. But when I do, it's either for repairing/upgrading something, for filling their needs or for storytelling purposes. For example, I can't imagine anyone but an insane Sim to not shout at the Grim Reaper and insult him after he took away a relative or other beloved person. An insane Sim on the other hand would chat quite friendly with him, and a romantic one (that is Very Flirty) would instead try to seduce death (especially with the Serial Romantic aspiration).
But that's just me trying to keep the game a little bit realistic (this doesn't mean that I don't play with aliens though, it's more about the unrealistic emotional reactions that bother me).

And the other case where I take full control is when they have a whim. I always make them sticky so they don't go away (unless it's a whim to greet someone who already left the lot) and then try my best to satisfy that wish.

"StarlingGray;15414783" wrote:
I always have autonomy on, whether I'm playing a household of 1 Sim or 8 Sims. I find the game boring with autonomy off. Part of what makes the Sims games fun for me is just watching my Sims to see what they get up to on their own, sometimes I am pleasantly surprised at the stuff that happens.

I'm not control-freaky with my Sims, and don't feel the need to micromanage every little thing they do. If I need one to do something specific of course I will control them, but what they do when I'm focusing on another Sim doesn't matter to me really. You're correct of course that some autonomous actions are very annoying, and I use mods to disable some of the worst offenders (mainly hugging, getting water from the sink, and forum trolling) but overall I don't find my Sims to be too irritating, most of the time. I have an insane Sim that I need to watch carefully because if left alone he will argue with and insult his family all day, lol....but I made the character crazy for a reason so I just have to deal with that behavior.

There's a mod that disables autonomous hugging??? Where can I find it?!

I always play with full autonomy on, but I often have to go in and steer my sims into doing things. They often just sit at the TV or computer if I leave them to themselves. They never leave their apartment to go out to the square below, or outside their yard if they live in a house. So in my experience, full autonomy does too little and I would like so see my sims actually do more things and take more decisions by themselves. They rarely flirt, argue, seek out a lot of conversations or such by themselves. They don't even care for their own needs very often without me having to tell them.

"Terra;15415601" wrote:

"StarlingGray;15414783" wrote:
I always have autonomy on, whether I'm playing a household of 1 Sim or 8 Sims. I find the game boring with autonomy off. Part of what makes the Sims games fun for me is just watching my Sims to see what they get up to on their own, sometimes I am pleasantly surprised at the stuff that happens.

I'm not control-freaky with my Sims, and don't feel the need to micromanage every little thing they do. If I need one to do something specific of course I will control them, but what they do when I'm focusing on another Sim doesn't matter to me really. You're correct of course that some autonomous actions are very annoying, and I use mods to disable some of the worst offenders (mainly hugging, getting water from the sink, and forum trolling) but overall I don't find my Sims to be too irritating, most of the time. I have an insane Sim that I need to watch carefully because if left alone he will argue with and insult his family all day, lol....but I made the character crazy for a reason so I just have to deal with that behavior.

There's a mod that disables autonomous hugging??? Where can I find it?!

@Terra It can found in this set http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=571552

You must be a registered Mod The Sims member to download it. Works with the latest patch for me. :)

That mod and MC Command Center are my two mods that I refuse to play without. I always avoid patching until I know they are working with the patch or get updated. The hugging drives me bonkers, I find that they will choose that action like 75% of the time. With the mod, the variety of autonomous socials I see them choose is a lot better.

I'm rather controlling of my legacy families so I usually keep the autonomy off. But if I do play a family very casually, I keep it on so I don't have to micromanage. I'm still wishing for a middle-ground autonomy option in the future, and for some tuning for the annoying quirks like constant water drinking and walking across the entire lot to hug someone.

I'll probably pick up that mod @StarlingGray :)