Smarten up TS4
The Sims 4 has boasted about having smarter sims with wacky stories. So far, the stories are lack luster because of limited game play options and the sims are as smart as rocks. Here's just 1 exampl...
Forum Discussion
"tonicmole;c-16485583" wrote:
The problem is that Will Wright is a programming genius. His genius was in building a Sims personality thru a handful of common traits. Shy/Outgoing, Lazy/Active, Grouchy/Nice, Sloppy/Neat, Lazy/Active. When you combine these handful of traits they spawn a limitless number of behaviors and what appears to be true AI. "Traits" from Sims 3 and 4 are just silly and nonsensical. Honestly they feel lazy and their effects limited directly to a specific activity instead of being dynamic like Will Wrights original system.
Ideally Maxis should bring back the Zodiac based personality system, and then allow players to choose traits to modify that base personality. Then they could weight activities and objects based on those personality traits. For instance a television would have a stronger draw for less active or playful sims. In conversation a playful Sim would be more likely to tell jokes, and a grouchy Sim more likely to react negatively. On top of that you'd have the modern idea of traits like "nerd", "Snobby", or "Loner", but much like the personality they would function in a more dynamic way with weighted objects and behavior.
I could go on forever, but simply put it'd be really easy to create truly dynamic Sims without even applying much effort if Maxis just actually looked back at Will Wrights original work and learned why it was so amazing to begin with.
I agree with you in most aspects you talked about, but the traits system worked nicely in Sims3. I think that a sims game would take better advantage if both system were used in conjunction.
THe zodiac system could work with more basic things, like things that every single human being wil focus more on its personality. Some people are neat, somer arent... some people have heavy sleep, some not... But there is a between those things and the zodiac sytem was the best for that matter. You sim could be addicted to cleaning his house crazily or he could just deal normally with mess in its house, or he just didnt care cuz he was lazy.
The trait system could work for other aspects that does not have a greater range of variations. Like the bro trait... That one works really well in Sims 4. And i can see people in real life that are jsut like that when i go workout at the gym.
