EXPERIMENT: HOW TRAITS INFLUENCE AUTONOMY

This is a test to see how much traits influence autonomous behavior in The Sims 3 vs. The Sims 4.

I created a couple of Sims in each game (named Jane and John Jones) and I assigned similar traits to them (with the limitation of only being able to assign three traits in The Sims 4 + one Aspiration trait). I built similar houses with objects related to the traits, as well as high quality objects to fulfill their needs.

I played for 24-Sim hours. I didn't interact with any object in the world, only with the UI. I switched different speeds at random times to reduce the length of the video and to test how autonomy responds when you're playing at different speeds.

Traits I Used:
John Jones (The Sims 3): Family Oriented, Friendly, Artistic, Virtuoso, Good Cook.
Jane Jones (The Sims 3): Friendly, Good, Athletic, Childish, Lucky.
John Jones (The Sims 4): Family Oriented, Outgoing, Creative. Aspiration: Musical Genius.
Jane Jones (The Sims 4): Outgoing, Active, Childish. Aspiration: Friend of the World.

Observations:
- Traits seem to influence autonomy more in The Sims 3 than in The Sims 4. Only Active, Childish and Outgoing seem to do anything in The Sims 4.
- The Sims 3 highlights traits when they're directly influencing a Sim's behavior.
- The creative trait in The Sims 4 didn't influence behavior at all in The Sims 4. John Jones didn't use ANY of the creative objects I bought for him (easel, guitar, keyboard).
- The active trait didn't influence Jane Jones to use the weight lifting machine in The Sims 3, but it did influence her to work out on the TV and play sports video games.
- Sims in The Sims 4 seemed more prone to initiate social interactions. Multitasking allows them to interact with each other while doing other activities.
- Sims in The Sims 4 were idle for longer periods of time than in The Sims 3. Using Ultra Speed seemed to exacerbate the issue. This was especially obvious at 12:19 when Jane didn't do anything for 30 Sim minutes.
- None of the Sims used the bookcase at all. Probably because there were other activities related to their traits they wanted to do instead.
- Jane in The Sims 3 cooked a group serving. Both Jane and John in The Sims 4 decided to eat quick meals most of the time. Jane cooked an individual serving toward the end of the video.
- The Good Cook trait didn't influence John's behavior at all in TS3.
- In both games Sims took care of their needs when they were low.

When it comes to TS4, skills, and the starting thereof, also influence sims with specific traits. Such that a musically "traited" sim may never touch a musical instrument despite many being around the house. But once you command them to use an instrument for first time, such that the skill tree then begins, the higher the skills, the more they will autonomously play instrument. To the point you may well be looking for a No Auto Play Instrument mods come the time top skill levels are reached.

This is a major difference between TS3 and TS4. The skills being in place are as much an autonomy push as traits, - as usually started by player's first command - much more so for TS4. Perhaps to the player's end regret when they don't leave the instruments, microphones, karaoke machines, easels you name it, alone.

I still find it odd they won't use musical instruments, easels, etc. on their own until they "discover" the skill. I kept playing for two more days after I finished recording the video, and John didn't do anything "creative" in spite of having that trait.

If I were to guess, I'd say Maxis were coming at traits and skills for TS4, as the skills being the higher factor for autonomy pushing, and traits being the things that gives a skilled sims better, unique buffs for using skills suited to their traits.

Damn near every trait XML I've looked at over the years for TS4 are all about giving unique buffs, and some of those buffs specifying if the skill is present, then autonomy (In the form of commodity and affordance pushes) is the aim. So it's traits for unique buffs, skills for autonomy pushes, in the most part.

So traits check if a skill is present before pushing a Sim to build that skill (in some cases)? That's a little bit counterintuitive. It means that unless I manually command a Sim to develop a certain skill, they'll never do it on their own in spite of having a trait that should push them to do so. It also makes some traits REDUNDANT. Skills could easily give unique buffs the more you use certain objects and the higher your skill is.

They do things on their own, if prompted by their needs, like developing their cooking skill when they get hungry and need to cook.

But the trait doesn't matter then. If I give a Sim the Foodie trait they won't cook on their own unless they're hungry. This renders certain traits redundant / useless.

I think the foodie trait makes the sims enjoy to eat good food. It doesn't matter who cooks it. But even so, it makes sense to only cook when you're hungry or when working as a cook. Or they could could cook to increase the fun meter, but that behavior would still be driven by a need.

The AI in the Sims 4 is dreadful. I suspect because it was intended to be an online game, but this was made 5 years after release. It needs work.

Two things:

For sake of thoroughness, I'd say this needs more testing and more traits should be examined, otherwise people will dismiss this and say you found THE traits that don't do anything and "it's not like that in my game" and all the other traits work flawlessly or other such excuses. Making a family where you've got traits like genius, loner, outgoing, mean, romantic, lazy/couch potato and bookworm all present for example would really drive home how little these traits do. Loner especially I'd expect to see night and day since a loner would likely opt to go into an empty room in Sims 3 to avoid a bigger family, whereas in Sims 4 I expect it to do absolutely nothing at all since we all know they set Sims social desire waaaaaaaaaaay too high.

Second, post this absolutely everywhere. This is the kind of comparison that generates serious discussion and gets people talking about how bad the traits are in Sims 4. I'd always include the summary since the vid really just serves as proof for those who want it, but I doubt most will actually watch the full thing. If you want a chance of putting fire to the Sims team's feet to actually patch the traits, this is probably your best method. Making a vid driving home how bad traits like loner, mean and lazy are is probably the best way to get Game Changers discussing it, and we all know the Sims team seems oblivious to any feedback that isn't from them. Entire community has wanted better traits for years, BUT BY GOD THOSE GAME CHANGERS WANT A WHITE SHELF so obviously that's what people truly want.

I thought about adding more Sims with other traits and testing again. It just takes quite a bit to set-up. Although, like you said, Sims will probably spend more time socializing than doing anything else related to their traits. The only thing that truly suprised me about TS4 was that childish Sims actually are pushed to play with toys fairly frequently. It seems to be one of the few traits that affect autonomous behavior. I don't know

I think it's pointless at this point to expect The Sims Team to fix traits. It's been FIVE years, and they have barely added new traits and they don't really do much. At this point there's no reason for them to fix them as it'll be too much investment for little return. The players they've lost are lost forever (until Sims 5 is released at least, IF it's released). But they did a good job advertizing the game to young people who never played The Sims before. They don't know that traits used to be much more meaningful and make Sims fairly unique in The Sims 3.

If you're interested here's a complete list of autonomy pushing commodities (from all packs except ROM):


Creative one only shows up in start crafting autonomously (requiring painting skill >2), some staging interactions (req. incomplete painting I guess) and with the activity table (child only).

Maybe it would be a good idea to place sims in an environment that's opposite to their traits, like pair a clean sim with a slob sim. By chance I placed an outgoing sim all by herself in the off the grid lot in Sulani, so it's just her and the waves most of the time and it's a struggle to keep her social in the green. The lot is on the grid now, so she has access to computer and can socialize online, but it's not enough, so I need to take her places and invite other sims over. Had she been a loner sim, don't think her social bar would have decayed quite as quickly.

Į see only like Carly starting a video about thow traits need justice. Other GC tend to complain about absent white self or anything CAS related.

Also, the english translation of good cook is natural chef.

The Sims 2 had a therapist of sorts for that.

As do I. For me, it's more about giving players visual, conclusive evidence that "this can be better" so that they demand more instead of just eating whatever shit they're fed. I honestly feel like a lot of people have either forgotten what the older games offered or they've never legitimately played them. I don't expect the Sims team to be the ones to improve the formula based on what we've seen with Sims 4, but I still consider it good if the community is hungrier for quality gameplay instead of just accepting what they have, and this would definitely leave people asking "why was programming a loner sim to avoid conversation doable 10 years ago but not doable now?"

Put it this way: which is more likely to spawn a competing franchise for the Sims? If the Sims itself is healthy and making loads of money, or if the game is unhealthy, stagnant, and on EA's chopping block? When other companies smell blood in the water, they'll strike and try to take the game concept as their own. When it's healthy, there's concern they won't succeed. Therefore, personally I welcome every opportunity to point out how terrible Sims 4 is.

In my Sims 3 game the Sims do use weight machine autonomously but after a skill reaches a bit high. I think they give priority to the TV maybe? But they do use the weight machine and treadmill. Also in gyms in Sims 3 they use the machines on their own.

My video can be used as visual evidence of a few things:
- The Sims 3 has similar performance to The Sims 4 on a decent gaming PC. As a matter of fact, I'd say I experienced worse performance in 4 due to simulation lag (as I pointed out, a Sim was idle for 30 Sim minutes in 4). Both are brand new saves, though. One has to wonder how much performance deteriorates as you play more and more. Probably The Sims 3 fares worse the longer you play due to save-game bloat. This is very difficult to test though.
- Traits matter less than I thought in 4. If the creative trait doesn't even push a Sims to use related objets and you have to manually command the Sim to develop that skill (and the skill will be the one to push Sims). What's the point of having the creative trait? Just some buffs, modified needs and 2 talk-like interactions?
- Sims 4's Sims have a higher tendency to socialize. They still socialize in 3, but they do it more sparingly. Socialization seems to be of upmost importance in The Sims 4. This can be a good or a bad thing, depending on how important you consider socialization IRL.
- What do emotions do exactly? I didn't see how emotions affect gameplay at all. Even while Dazed John kept playing video games and socializing like he did when he was "Happy." I'm really surprised Jane never got "Energized" from exercising. If anyone is going to get energized from evercising it should be a Sim with the active trait. I'd like to test if an Energized Sim without the active trait has similar pushes to exercise than a Happy Sim with the active trait.

This is more of a subjective appreciation but I find Sims 4's graphics extremely bland, and lacking details and texture. The Sims 3 was released five years before and it looks better in my opinion (with the highest settings). Only lighting seems to have been improved in 4 (and only certain aspects of the lighting engine). I really don't like how GLOSSY and kinda blurry The Sims 4 looks.