[Occults] What do you think the powers and weaknesses would be for

I don’t think the weaknesses/strengths thing would actually work for witches as well as it does for vampires.

Personally, I would like to see a skill tree style thing where certain choices lock out other choices. This enables replay ability as you can’t get all the spells on the same sim, but also enables customization.

Ooooh, maybe something a bit more like the game’s celebrity system- just more branch-y and with ‘magical quirks’ instead of weaknesses.

Yeah, different occults tend to work in different ways. The reason they did this with vampires is because their lore varies wildly between each media that has vampires in it. So they let us pick and choose instead of forcing all vamps to be the same like in previous iterations of the game.

Having a branch system for witches sounds neat though.

"Magdaleena;c-17012715" wrote:
Yeah, different occults tend to work in different ways. The reason they did this with vampires is because their lore varies wildly between each media that has vampires in it. So they let us pick and choose instead of forcing all vamps to be the same like in previous iterations of the game.

Having a branch system for witches sounds neat though.

I agree. A similar system (strengths / weaknesses with point and rank system e.g. from omega to alpha) for our vampire rival werewolves could work brilliantly though for the same reasons. I want werewolves to be very versatile to suit different player lores and well thought out just like our vampires. So, for example for me I want my werewolves to be cursed to change during the full moon, no matter what, but an optional perk/strength could be used for players who want more control. I posted some ideas for strengths and weaknesses previously:

Some possible strengths (in wolf form) could be super strength and stamina or speed, the ability to pass on the werewolf 'curse' with a bite, and of course an enhanced sense of smell to help them find collectables and other hidden treasures. I would suggest this includes smelling emotions too, but all sims seem to have empathy anyway. They should live longer and of course be able to join packs and climb different ranks. Maybe the leader/alpha can control the others and they can all howl to call other werewolves near and scare other sims. Perhaps they have to earn the ability to change into wolf form outside of the full moon or even prevent it happening during the moon? Or you can choose a lone wolf perk where you don't need to socialise (but perhaps can't be in a pack)? I don't know. There's lots of possibilities and I'm sure others will have more and far better ideas.

As for weaknesses, there's silver of course, which could deplete their energy or make them tense, similar to garlic for vampires. Maybe a ravenous wolf has to eat a lot of meat or they lose control and bite other sims. Maybe some get cranky and have less control of their emotions/anger near the full moon. Maybe some are forced to change into wolf form during the full moon whether they like it or not, and in wolf form they have less control of themselves, get hungry faster, scare other sims, and/or are unable to talk. Or maybe some are just a little too hairy, growl and/or sniff other sims even in their normal form and it puts other sims off, or maybe they always stink like wet dog lol, particularly if you're a vampire.

The representation of witches also varies a lot in media, even more so than that of vampires; if we only compare the Wicked Witch of the West from Wizard of Oz to the Halliwell sisters from Charmed, they have pretty much nothing in common. That's why I don't want witches to come out in a GP like vampires did, even though I tend to prefer GPs over EPs, I feel a GP would be way too small to contain all the things I expect from witches.

Some witches live for hundreds of years with eternal youth, others are blessed with the same longevity, but do age physically, and still others live and age the same way as ordinary humans. Some witches have spectacular active powers like throwing fireballs and turning people into mice, others "only" have premonitions and/or sharpened senses, and all of those powers may or may not be used at will or require special conditions, tools, or rituals to work. So yeah... I doubt we'll get all these possibilities for our witches to choose from, even if they do come in an EP.

As for werewolves, I think they could actually work with a system similar to that of vampires.
Possible Strengths: Werewolf Speed / Strength, Power of the Moon, Alpha Material (may or may not include the ability to turn others into werewolves, if not, that could be a separate skill).
Possible Weaknesses: Silver Sensitivity, Fleas, Random Rage, Uncontrollable Transformations, Lone Wolf (unpopular in werewolf societies if I'm not mistaken, could be either an inability to find / stay in a pack or a problem with the alpha's authority).
I can't really think of that many, but to make up for that, and to differentiate them from vampires, the werewolf pack could introduce werewolf hunters (something I wish had already come with vampires), and that in turn could give werewolves additional unlockable perks to better defend themselves. Sharpened senses could be either a strength or a weakness depending on how you look at it, as it would help werewolves be more aware of everything happening around them, but at the same time give them stronger negative reactions to unpleasant sensory perceptions like a stinky environment or loud sounds. It would also be cool if sims could learn how to fully transform into a wolf, i.e. not just a very hairy human like in TS2, but an actual four-legged, controllable wolf that comes with special interactions not available to werewolves in other stages of their transformation.

Yeah, the issue with witches is that (for the most part) they are humans- albeit humans-with-mystical-powers.

And I realized I left out a word in my first post, but what I was thinking is this why something similar to the celebrity quirk system would be better for witches. Whereas fame makes it harder for sims to relate to normal peeps, having EXTREME MAGICAL POWER could make a sim less in tune with regular ol’ humanity.

Witch quirks could be as benign as having green skin or occasionally getting lost on the astral plane in your dreams (waking up with positive or negative moodlets depending on chance), to as dangerous as having a weakness to water (now you must use cleaning spells to get your sim clean!). It would be fun to see the quirks you could pick up vary depending on which branches of magic you chose as well.

Meanwhile vampires are demons, demons possessing the undead, sinner’s souls coming back to haunt from the undead, humans who were turned, etc etc etc depending on the lore.

But yeah Werewolves would work well with the vampire structure as they have similar variance, although 9 times out of ten they have human origins there is a lot of variance for how a werewolf becomes a werewolf. Would LOVE for one of the choices allows you to shed it as a wolf pelt that you can were at will whenever you wanted to turn a la that one Nordic saga I’m blanking out on the name of.

mermaids... considering their stories are a bit more streamlined, I could see it more as being maybe more of them coming with special skills they can raise or having special effects with normal skills (example- mermaids gain musical and singing skills more quickly, and the singing comes with special emotional manipulation abilities with them.)

Fairies are even more wildly varied than vampires and witches in lore so lol they kinda have to narrow it down.

Witches could suffer (or profit) from the chance of backfiring spells, angered or benevolent (nature) spirits, being attuned to special altars or monoliths, which allow them to work certain magic - and other not, or the kind of familiar they choose. They might upgrade their magic cauldron one way or the other (maybe using crystals, fossils, metals) which changes the potions they can brew. All those mechanics would have a lot or replayability if done right, and witches could even change "paths" along the way.

One weakness I'd like to see for witches is the possibility of a spell bouncing off a targeted sim and hitting the spell caster instead. Maybe if they're in a bad mood or have low energy or the target's mood is the opposite energy of the spell (positive spell bounces off of sim in bad mood, negative spell bounces off sim in good mood). Could call it instant karma or something like that.

I would really like to be able to have a cat as a familiar for a witch but I do not know how keen Maxis would be to link a former pet-pack to a new pack about witches. Hope they would consider doing that because I would really enjoy playing that story.

"SilentKitty;c-17013843" wrote:

I would really like to be able to have a cat as a familiar for a witch but I do not know how keen Maxis would be to link a former pet-pack to a new pack about witches. Hope they would consider doing that because I would really enjoy playing that story.

Oh yes, definitely! I really want witches to have familiars. It wouldn't feel right otherwise and I love it when packs work together. It would be great too if witches could influence the weather/seasons. Or melt in the rain if they have a water weakness lol.

I really like a lot of ideas in this thread. Adding perks or skill trees would be a great way to make occults worth the wait.

"SilentKitty;c-17013843" wrote:

I would really like to be able to have a cat as a familiar for a witch but I do not know how keen Maxis would be to link a former pet-pack to a new pack about witches. Hope they would consider doing that because I would really enjoy playing that story.

They added familiars to witches in sims 2, witches came with the last EP. I already owned pets at the time so I don't remember if pets was required but they definitely did familiars before.