there are no new whims in island living and

"PrincipleOfEntropy;c-17129343" wrote:

"Sigzy05;c-17129055" wrote:

"PrincipleOfEntropy;c-17128945" wrote:

"Sigzy05;c-17128204" wrote:

"Felicity;c-17128151" wrote:
Yeah, I think they've given up on whims, unfortunately.

I wish they hadn't. I wish they'd make whims matter more. Either update them, add fears, and/or add an Aspiration meter through a Freetime EP, that is filled by fulfilling whims.

An aspiration style meter would work wonders for the game in terms of rewards and impacts. Sims 2 had the right idea, but 3's reward system was okay too and felt more impactful to me.

The fact that whims are turned off by default now says a lot.

I know right!? It made sense if it was the opposite because they are omitting a game feature, especially to new players who don't even realize it's an option to turn them on in the options menu.

I have been requesting a whim overhaul for ages but nothing has come from it sadly, it doesn't even seem like they read the plum surveys they put up to improve the quality of the game ahaha what a joke. I loved doing wishes in TS3 and in TS2 wants and fears were one integral part of the game, almost like a 9th need we needed to fulfil in order to make sims happy. It was like sims had minds of their own and fulfilling those wants made them have a happy life. Having a baby, getting a car, getting a job in a certain career, going on vacation to a certain place, seeing the children have good grades, get a degree in something, get into the dean's list, gain a sill level in cooking, befriend x sim....now it doesn't matter and it annoys me to be honest. Most of the whims are the same and it's always "buy this" and "buy that" or "chat" or "call someone".....oh well.

Most importantly also, was the fact that whims co-related to the sim's traits and aspiration. TS4 shouldn't have a dedicated whim based on a sim's emotion, it should be the opposite so that you'd have to put a sim in an emotional state to fulfil a whim. I think it was like that in the beginning idk why they changed it, it doesn't make much sense to me because you are then "forced" to do that whim in a short window because your sim's emotion will change at any given time and that whim will forcibly change. It just doesn't make sense.

The fact you can switch aspirations at any time without losing progress or without any sort of repercussions is a mistake too. It completely removes any and all weight from choosing a lifetime goal/aspiration for your Sims. In Sims 2 and 3 it was a momentous decision that would heavily impact the rest of your Sim's life.

In 2 the aspiration you chose, for the majority of the time, decided all wants and fears outside of a few big life events. In 3 it used to strengthen certain wants and increase rewards pertaining to them, and you couldn't change it without investing 10,000 aspiration points, so you'd best be certain before settling on which one you wanted for your Sim.

Sims 4 literally has zero thought in the same areas. Nothing. It might have been much better if they designed it so you couldn't change aspiration without either spending satisfaction points or completing your current one first.

With that said, that whim reserved for current emotional status might have been better reserved for your Sim's aspiration. That way they always have a whim related to their current goal.

TS4 aspirations each give a sim a unique trait, like the "Alluring" trait for example. The problem is that those traits, don't do anything to the sim's personality, besides boosting something. They should add something to them besides that boos, for example unique interactions. They could also easily attach whims to this unique trait instead of the aspirations themselves, because even if you change aspirations your original aspiration trait doesn't change!

In TS2 you couldn't change aspirations because aspirations were a big part of a sim's personality, kind of like a trait. Love sims were all about cheating and getting into many relationships and they would get a bad memory upon marrying someone, sort of like the "Commitment issues" from TS3/TS4.

"Sk8rblaze;c-17129468" wrote:

"Sigzy05;c-17128204" wrote:

"Felicity;c-17128151" wrote:
Yeah, I think they've given up on whims, unfortunately.

I wish they hadn't. I wish they'd make whims matter more. Either update them, add fears, and/or add an Aspiration meter through a Freetime EP, that is filled by fulfilling whims.

I agree. It would be nice if they repurposed them to tie into, perhaps, interests for our Sims, like FreeTime. Doing whims that align with cooking, exercising, fashion, sports, etc. would increase the interest meter for that interest, and make our Sim more inclined to do those activities. It could be a nice way of designing our Sims' AI.

Also a really great idea! I'd love that.

"Sk8rblaze;c-17129468" wrote:

"Sigzy05;c-17128204" wrote:

"Felicity;c-17128151" wrote:
Yeah, I think they've given up on whims, unfortunately.

I wish they hadn't. I wish they'd make whims matter more. Either update them, add fears, and/or add an Aspiration meter through a Freetime EP, that is filled by fulfilling whims.

I agree. It would be nice if they repurposed them to tie into, perhaps, interests for our Sims, like FreeTime. Doing whims that align with cooking, exercising, fashion, sports, etc. would increase the interest meter for that interest, and make our Sim more inclined to do those activities. It could be a nice way of designing our Sims' AI.

I'm not sure why they don't already. They did this in both Sims 2 and Sims 3. The whims (though called different things) were numerous and appropriate. Sims 2 was best with the wants and fears, but Sims 3 did a good job as well with having wishes come up based on both long and short term actions.

I wonder if they are working on a new system or some kind of overhaul. If they are, then investing further in whims would, in the end, be a waste of development time. Otherwise, I don't see why they would just abandon the whims overall.

I really do miss the wants and wishes from TS2 and TS3 as well. I always used them to mostly decide what the sim would be doing and it helped so much with not playing every sim the same way. They felt way more unique to me that way. I think the TS2 sims with Freetime were my favourite ones. They could have a combination of two different aspirations, a one true hobby and an inherited personality. They felt so different from one another, especially if you let their wants and fears guide your game play. I miss inherited personalities so much.
I also liked how the wishes tree changed in TS3 depending on how you played the sim. That gave them some sort of memory and a history.

I do use the whims to guide my gameplay in TS4 as well and they are a bit different depending on the traits, but some are just very generic. Childish sims should want to play in the rain, but it just says "from rain outside" and I think every sim can get them. Although I am not completely sure. A snobbish sim, who hates the rain, definitely shouldn't get that whim, though. And I do miss the fear system. My sim always end up with a ton of points in TS3 and TS4, because I play a lot according to their wishes and whims and a way to lose them would be great.

"KaeChan2089;c-17129675" wrote:
....that just seems incredibly LAZY...I'm sorry..

On a random note, I really miss the memory system like in 2..that was one of my most favorite features.

For an Expansion Pack....your right, it is lazy.

"KaeChan2089;c-17129708" wrote:

"Sigzy05;c-17129684" wrote:

"KaeChan2089;c-17129675" wrote:
....that just seems incredibly LAZY...I'm sorry..

On a random note, I really miss the memory system like in 2..that was one of my most favorite features.

For an Expansion Pack....your right, it is lazy.

I'm sorry but are they even trying anymore?

I think they are, but not on the sims themselves. They're trying to make a beautiful game that is fairly fun and engaging. But Sims 4 suffers from a severe issue in development -- the team did not consult a behavioral psychologist, much less work with one to ensure that behavior, feelings, and reactions were realistic and, well, human. And it shows. Also, I think they're hands are a bit tied -- they need it to be pretty and showy.

I've thought a bit about how they're targeting teenage girls despite teenage girls not being the majority of players (there are lots of teen girl simmers, but overall, simmers are about 50/50 male vs female and there are a lot of older simmers). But from EA's POV, it makes perfect sense. If you bring in teen girls and younger, you're bringing in a whole new, not-really-catered-to, audience to buy your games. The old people, they're not worried about us so much. So many of us buy no matter what (and I'm a bit guilty of this) so they don't have to worry about drawing us in.

"KaeChan2089;c-17129708" wrote:

"Sigzy05;c-17129684" wrote:

"KaeChan2089;c-17129675" wrote:
....that just seems incredibly LAZY...I'm sorry..

On a random note, I really miss the memory system like in 2..that was one of my most favorite features.

For an Expansion Pack....your right, it is lazy.

I'm sorry but are they even trying anymore?

I wouldn't say that they aren't, but this game needs a personality update. Traits, relationships, interactions and whims need to be updated. They are meant to be the core of the game but they weren't well developed and haven't been updated in 5 years even though we are constantly asking for this, at least I am in their monthly surveys and in the forums.

Look at how the Hot Headed trait works. Sims are suppose to get angry when others do them mischief, and they do get an angry +1 moodlet, but somehow they still get positive relationship points. :\ It doesn't make sense.

I hope they are working on overhauling the whim system, instead of just dropping them altogether. Even if they'd added a few simple ones "go to the beach" / "Pet a dolphin" / "Sail a boat"... The whole system really needs an overhaul badly, though, so if they didn't add any because they're working on updating the system then that makes sense. But to just drop/abandon them is not a good thing.

"Pegasys;c-17130141" wrote:
I hope they are working on overhauling the whim system, instead of just dropping them altogether. Even if they'd added a few simple ones "go to the beach" / "Pet a dolphin" / "Sail a boat"... The whole system really needs an overhaul badly, though, so if they didn't add any because they're working on updating the system then that makes sense. But to just drop/abandon them is not a good thing.

"Meet a dolphin", "Befriend a Dolphin", "Go scuba diving", "Drink kava", "Make a sand sculpture", "Get a tan", "Woohoo in the waterfall", "Go snorkelling", "Beachcom for seashells", "Enter the conservationist career", "Use an aqua jet", etc are some of the whims that should be in the game!