Hmm... what about a "lifetime" Aspiration Meter?

[Singularity]

This is an idea that came to me quite a while ago, and I've been thinking it over.  The basic idea is that, for some situations the aspiration meter just doesn't make sense (e.g.  Sim is in aspiration failure, but one date puts him back in platinum) . Since adding the lifetime relationship bar in TS1 seemed to help, why wouldn't it work for aspirations?  My thought is that the "Lifetime" meter would be used for most of the calculations, mood boost, etc. that the current one is used for now, and the "daily" aspiration meter would pull the lifetime one up or down with time, just like relationships work.  Things like power wants and power fears would affect the lifetime meter directly, so that, for example, a Fortune sim who got fired wouldn't just forget all his troubles by getting a new car or something.  Mainly, power wants and fears seem relatively useless to me right now since you can achieve the same effect by spamming smaller wants/fears.  Obviously this is far beyond the realm of any mod, but I wish they'd put something like this in for TS3.  Wishful thinking, I know...

[J. M. Pescado]

This is an idea that came to me quite a while ago, and I've been thinking it over.  The basic idea is that, for some situations the aspiration meter just doesn't make sense (e.g.  Sim is in aspiration failure, but one date puts him back in platinum) .

Makes sense to me, nothing like getting laid to improve one's day.

[Singularity]

Well, sure, I never argues against that.  The point is that, if you're a Fortune sim, for example, who just got fired, a nice date may provide a temporary lift.  But at the end of the day, in their eyes, their life should still suck.  After all, they still need a job. (A family sim who'd been divorced, on the other hand, would obviously get a more permanent boost, and romance sims go without saying.)

[J. M. Pescado]

Well, sure, I never argues against that.  The point is that, if you're a Fortune sim, for example, who just got fired, a nice date may provide a temporary lift.  But at the end of the day, in their eyes, their life should still suck.

It does. Aspirational decay quickly wipes out those gains when no other wants are filled afterwards.

[Kyna]

With toddlers, when a family member dies their aspiration go to full red.  Then one hug and they're back to a good aspiration level.  One hug does not make anyone forget that a beloved grandparent died.  On the flip side, their aspiration meter can drop for the death of some family member they've never even met.  To me it makes more sense that the death of a relative they have a good relationship with would have a bigger effect, while there would be a smaller impact from the death of an unknown or little-known family member.  Even if they don't have a current fear of a beloved family member dying, I feel it should have an impact if they were particularly close.

If TS3 ever moves beyond L&P I'd like to see a long-term LTW meter as well as a short-term LTW meter, and varying impact when the "death of a family member" fear is fulfilled, depending on the relationship the toddler had with the deceased.

[Soylent Sim]

All sims are very present-centered creatures, and real-life toddlers are very much the same.  Distracting them from the loss of a relative shouldn't be all that hard.  Of course losing a parent means that there are fewer people around to distract the toddler and fill its wants, but that's been worked around before.

Just saying "I want some major change to the game engine that I haven't even fully thought out yet" is BBS behavior and risks leading ot bad gameplay if anyone with power actually picks it up.  What elements that currently are tied up in the basic aspiration levels will apply to daily bar vs. lifetime bar?  What elements will be added to make this worth fleshing out?  At least have the decency to think things through a little before posting.

Really, aside from the "some random relative I've never met died and now my life sucks" factor, STA covers a lot of how people seek to feel better.  The random relative thing is only silly because it's a random relative, and is covered easily in modland.  The only change I'd apply would be to have certain wants/fears modify the decay rate for a set period of time; some fears make it it an uphill struggle to feel cheerful, and some wants are short term and self-destructive.  Otherwise, I have a strong feeling that LTA would just become another way that this game quickly becomes too easy.

[Doc Doofus]

I really like the Memory features of Sims 2.  I wish they would have taken it further, though, and maybe they will with Sims 3.

Sims need more individuality, and traumatic memories and streaks of bad luck should stick with the Sim and change his character over time.  In fact, they ought to become downright neurotic over the passage of time to such an extent that you can't ever fix them completely.  For example, Lilith Pleasant should carry the scars of her arrest and fights with her sister to her dying day, making her more combative or less trusting in certain instances, or whatever. 

As the game is, a traumatic memory (relative dying, not going to college, losing a job) will cause them some moments of weeping, but that's all gone in 24 hours.  I think they should never completely go away, and should accumulate like a big snowball of crap, either making them develop more character or making them twisted.

[J. M. Pescado]

Sims need more individuality, and traumatic memories and streaks of bad luck should stick with the Sim and change his character over time.  In fact, they ought to become downright neurotic over the passage of time to such an extent that you can't ever fix them completely.  For example, Lilith Pleasant should carry the scars of her arrest and fights with her sister to her dying day, making her more combative or less trusting in certain instances, or whatever.

Sims don't have trust, and Lilith already *IS* more combative, it's permanently marked on her personality. She is severely nice-point-impaired as a result.

As the game is, a traumatic memory (relative dying, not going to college, losing a job) will cause them some moments of weeping, but that's all gone in 24 hours.  I think they should never completely go away, and should accumulate like a big snowball of crap, either making them develop more character or making them twisted.

Well, what effects do you propose? Anything you can name, I can name a counterexample for why it doesn't work that way.

[seelindarun]

It would be interesting if sims could be as smart as their pets.  I mean, pets can actually learn behaviours!  I'd want to have sims learn behaviours only through experience though, rather than through a skilling object or teacher.

See, this is why I like the fightclub mod so much.  It just makes so much sense that fighting more should make you better at it.  It would be shinier still if the threshold for starting fights could be lowered for those mean sims with lots of fighting skill.  Kinda like the chemistry boost in reverse!    Such sims should seek to resolve all their conflicts with fist fights.  Wouldn't you?

Anyway, the basic model of learned behaviours through experience, combining with personality to produce a greater tendency to exercise that behaviour should lead to some neurotic sims, I should think.

[Assmitten]

As the game is, a traumatic memory (relative dying, not going to college, losing a job) will cause them some moments of weeping, but that's all gone in 24 hours.  I think they should never completely go away, and should accumulate like a big snowball of crap, either making them develop more character or making them twisted.

Well, what effects do you propose? Anything you can name, I can name a counterexample for why it doesn't work that way.

Okay, I'll bite. How about robbery? This could push a sim into a lifetime of being more careful, having more nightmares or obsessive needs to buy alarms for every new item?

[dizzy]

This is an idea that came to me quite a while ago, and I've been thinking it over.  The basic idea is that, for some situations the aspiration meter just doesn't make sense (e.g.  Sim is in aspiration failure, but one date puts him back in platinum) . Since adding the lifetime relationship bar in TS1 seemed to help, why wouldn't it work for aspirations?

If you think about it carefully, this is precisely what the Influence meter was supposed to provide, however almost nothing actually depends on the Influence meter because the only way it ever decays is by usage of influence (which is practically never, although I have been thinking about how to make them use it autonomously).

However, I think I may have grokked this problem out. I won't get into specifics, but it involves using "normalizing" the Influence meter and making levels of Influence affect Aspiration levels from time to time.

[veilchen]

That would be great.

As it is now, the only thing I do with it is get it full and not worry about it any longer. The only thing it ever did was clog up the wants panel, and I took care of that with the noInfluenceObsession. Now I ignore it.

[witch]

That influence meter was useless from the start. Apart from fulfilling small wants points, it took twice as long to round up both sims and get one to persuade the other to do something. The sim could usually have done the thing itself by the time the palaver was over. (Just like parents and children when the dishes are to be done.)

I've never used the meter so would love for it to be put to some use.

[J. M. Pescado]

If you think about it carefully, this is precisely what the Influence meter was supposed to provide, however almost nothing actually depends on the Influence meter because the only way it ever decays is by usage of influence (which is practically never, although I have been thinking about how to make them use it autonomously).

I don't think autonomous influence usage makes any sense, largely because practically none of the influence actions are USEFUL. That's the REAL problem with influence: That nothing that involves influence has any real USE. In the time it takes to influence a sim to do anything, you could do it yourself, and anything more complex would be done woefully ineptly. The sole use of influence is basically for the term paper exploit. It is basically a Uni mechanic that never went anywhere. And that really isn't what the influence meter is meant to provide. What you're THINKING about is the aspirational hoarding meter, which is used for aspirational shiny things. Originally, there was supposed to be some effect for having stocked aspiration points as well, but apparently this was discarded early on.

[Emma]

Clean my house! Cook me a meal! (although that last one is slightly broken as whoever I influence to cook a meal, 5 times out of 10 he/she tries to cook fish I don't have) That's the only influence I use, apart from at parties.

[J. M. Pescado]

The first one doesn't work because it literally takes them FOREVER was they move at like a furlong per fortnight. And the second is just a bad idea because they shouldn't even be allowed access into the kitchen, or you'll be pillaged and trashed, and besides, they don't know WHAT to cook, and so the meal will generally be the WRONG thing that does not fit your fuel input requirements. Honestly, none of them work. Not even "Fight", as they don't tend to actually FIGHT. The only thing which functions at all is the term paper exploit.

[Emma]

BTW Pescado, any visitors don't even go in the fridge unless it is a party. I might have a hack to stop them from doing that though, but I doubt it. Party time-I lock the kitchen and the guests eat outside either from the buffet or inventory food I place out there. Normal meet & greet visitors do not go toward the fridge at all. If they are hungry and there is no food available then they piss off home

[dizzy]

What you're THINKING about is the aspirational hoarding meter, which is used for aspirational shiny things. Originally, there was supposed to be some effect for having stocked aspiration points as well, but apparently this was discarded early on.

I think that's about right. What I'm thinking about is making the Influence meter a kind of reservoir for Aspiration. The way it will work is that at various moments of low aspiration, a sim will be able to have an epiphany or realization that drains a certain amount of Influence into Aspiration. However, there will be the danger that if the Aspiration meter climbs *too* high, it will induce a sudden reverse-epiphany and go fully red. 

[Singularity]

Just saying "I want some major change to the game engine that I haven't even fully thought out yet" is BBS behavior and risks leading ot bad gameplay if anyone with power actually picks it up.  What elements that currently are tied up in the basic aspiration levels will apply to daily bar vs. lifetime bar?  What elements will be added to make this worth fleshing out?  At least have the decency to think things through a little before posting.

Well, I never really intended for this to be a request thread.  I suppose what I really wanted to know is if it was even technically feasible (and maybe it is, if I can learn to work with tokens).  If there's an affirmative, or at least not "that's completely impossible", I was thinking of tinkering around with the idea myself.  I know better than to request things of anybody else.

I guess basically I want to have some balanced aspiration mechanic that lies between short-term things like "make new friends" and the LTWs.  Something with a longer-lasting effect, but without making them perma-plat.

Influence is pretty useless right now, but once in a while I make a guest clean or cook, if my sims need extra time for skilling or some other reason.  I don't care so much if it's inefficient since it's free labor.

[doren]

What you're THINKING about is the aspirational hoarding meter, which is used for aspirational shiny things. Originally, there was supposed to be some effect for having stocked aspiration points as well, but apparently this was discarded early on.

I think that's about right. What I'm thinking about is making the Influence meter a kind of reservoir for Aspiration. The way it will work is that at various moments of low aspiration, a sim will be able to have an epiphany or realization that drains a certain amount of Influence into Aspiration. However, there will be the danger that if the Aspiration meter climbs *too* high, it will induce a sudden reverse-epiphany and go fully red. 

That is an interesting idea and would definitely be more useful than the current influence meter, although I can not find a "psychological" explanation - manic/depressive? endorphine overdose? - why it should go fully into the red. The influence meter would also be drained over time, so if no wants are fulfilled the sim eventually will not be able to draw from past good experiences anymore. It makes sense to me.

So far I hardly ever used the influence, my students often get the want to write a term paper (and I just realised that I may think it's wrong to hand in other people's work - scroungers), with social interactions it usually seems to go horribly wrong (if it works at all, because usually it drops from the menu when the influenced sim can not approach the third one immediately) and it takes ages to complete the influence interaction.
Nina Caliente's husband influenced her to clean the house one time and that was quite funny, given her general character and the way she moved around like a robot when she was "under the influence". I got fed up with it before she was finished cleaning the house though.

[J. M. Pescado]

The "influence" thing is supposed to represent your power to coerce others to do your bidding, but the cases where influence is awarded are rather arbitrary, and not very influential. Also, it really should be specific to a target, rather than a global influence level, so doing things should affect your influence with that target, and not so much with irrelevant others, and perhaps less keyed to filling wants. That, or there needs to be more wants to catch other sims in compromising situations, so you can get influence over them: "I see what you did there."

[doren]

The "influence" thing is supposed to represent your power to coerce others to do your bidding, but the cases where influence is awarded are rather arbitrary, and not very influential. Also, it really should be specific to a target, rather than a global influence level, so doing things should affect your influence with that target, and not so much with irrelevant others, and perhaps less keyed to filling wants. That, or there needs to be more wants to catch other sims in compromising situations, so you can get influence over them: "I see what you did there."

I think that's why I don't understand why they introduced it into the game. If influence was working on a more global level and maybe related to the status (career, money, friends) of a sim rather than particular wants and fears, it would make more sense to me. The OFB business rewards (relationship bonus not influence) serve this function to some extent, or shorter if you have enough influence other sims should be more likely to lick your arse.
With influence points connecting to wants, it is either the wrong wants which carry them (Earning 100000 simoleons does not add any influence points, hustling pools adds 500, as much as making a friend) or they should in fact be less global. Having a baby gives a massive 5000 influence points (tell that to a single mother on social welfare), which is only comprehensible if you see it as giving the mother a big influence over her offspring.

The way the influence is implemented (on a low daily task level) it is a bit too much Stepford wives for me. I do have fond feelings for my sims and they are impaired since I neither like the one, who is coercing the other into doing something, nor the victim which transforms into a brainwashed zombie so easily.   

[Damsel]

Influence can be pretty fun in some circumstances, for example it's always fun to have a Sim influence their spouse to flirt with another Sim and then watch them get furious when the spouse goes and does it. I find that endlessly amusing.

[Zazazu]

I just use it to have students make others do their homework/term papers. After that, it goes to waste.

[J. M. Pescado]

That's basically it, yes, none of the influence functions out of the box tend to be worth shit. Influencing the Headmaster or some other NPC might have been more useful.