Autonomy

I've used this analogy elsewhere, but I play a lot of TTRPG's. Or more accurately, I gamemaster a lot of table top roleplaying games. So the Sims is a chance for me to play, as well as be the storyteller. I leave autonomy on as I more or less use that as my "randomizer" in my sim's development. Sometimes it's interesting to see what sims do on their own, especially child and teen sims who will sometimes act like they have additional traits that they haven't developed yet. I'll often use their random actions to determine what their next trait should be when they age up.

And in a bit of amusing autonomy, my current sim is in drama club. I'd have her watch tv after she finished her homework and before going to bed, and I would just select "watch TV" rather than directing her to a specific channel. I plan on having her go to University to be a lawyer and later a politician, but at the moment she has no traits relating to either of those.

She would choose politisim and world travels to watch on her own.

I always have autonomy on because I like to let my Sims lead me in the direction they want to go. I prefer to let the story guide me as opposed to creating it all myself, and I want unexpected things to happen. Unfortunately, the Sims 4 doesn't have a whole lot of surprises and Sims act pretty much the same and all gravitate towards the same activities so it doesn't actually do much except send them into repetitive rampant cycles that don't make much sense. It was very different in Sims 2, lol.

But I've been considering playing around with the the autonomy and maybe turning it off for the selected Sim to see if I can find a balance between allowing them to find their own lives and guiding them enough to keep the ADHD behavior from driving me nuts. :D

My sims make some really silly decisions sometimes *cough cough* Zachary repairing the Roomba, getting electrocuted and starting a fire with it *cough*, but I like giving them room to make their own decisions.

@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 :D 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 :o

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.

On. It's weird to me if it's off.

Autonomy on always...

I really can't understand what is fun about having sims just stand around doing nothing while waiting commands. I honestly wish they were smarter and had even more autonomy than they do now. I find it relaxing to sit back and watch them sometimes.

Pity we can,t vote the way I actually play, that is, ALL autonomy OFF.
And the game AI and autonomy is still interfering and lagging MY game on MY PC.
Get that right EA people, OUR PC's, NOT yours.
You didn't pay for them, you don't own them, give us our game and PC back.

I've played both ways, but I've found I prefer leaving autonomy on.
For starters, with autonomy on sims will take care of their basic needs on their own (for the most part). This is useful when you get caught up in what one sim is doing and forget to check in with the others.
Second, I like to pull their decisions into how I shape their personality. It's usually just small things (since most sims act fairly similarly), but it may give me an idea of which direction to take them.

I play with autonomy on always. I like it because I like to see what sims do on their own while I play on another. It also lets me see what kind of sim they really are sometimes. If my sim starts randomly flirting with another, I might start a fling with that sim. I like to storytell also so it helps with the story too, especially to have some drama. I never played with autonomy off, I always wanted my sims to act on their own when it comes to certain things and work whatever story I can around that. Plus it also makes it more intersting to me.

I desperately wish we had selective autonomy. I dont want to control all the sims yet I cannot play with autonomy on. I'd love to have a full household and control maybe 3 for example depending on what I'm doing. So since that's not an option I just play with autonomy off and sometimes add family as roomates.

I hate it when specific sims I'm trying to control wants to do their own thing lol and I hate it even more when they want to do dumb things like freeze themselves in a pool on a rainy day instead of going to fill their hunger meter. I nip that bud off with a quickness and take control ??

Sadly I'm not too crazy about roomates either. The endlessly smelly food, the random girlfriends, the smelly roommates who don't bathe. They seemed to be programmed to do the same things with no variety. How can they ALL have this random girlfriend? Lol

And I'm not too into skills and aspirations as I am about story telling. I pretty much just do my own thing and rarely fulfill whims.