More Awesome Than You!

Could anyone confirm if personality really affects hobby enthusiasm, like various Freetime guides claim? For example, do only outgoing and active Sims like fitness?

You can guess what their One True Hobby will be based on their personality and interests. It's easy to test - use a bunch of sims you haven't figured out/looked at their One True with, look at their personality and make guesses, click on the lot debugger to see if you're right.

But then... define sims 'liking' something. That it's the One True isn't that big a deal. Sims will easily gain hobby interest in any and all of them and don't mind cooking (for example) at all, even if their special hobby is sports. And will still roll up wants to win cooking contests and blog about it on the net or whatever. Actually sometimes I wish they were only allowed one hobby at all. Having all of them do everything dilutes the fun of it.

Then I have the same problem with the Lifetime rewards things - there aren't enough of them, they aren't different enough and before too long everyone has everything. blah. I self-limit for both things.

I agree.  And I actually try to limit it, but studying for skills increases hobby enthusiasm and even just cooking and eating for survival makes them all excited.  Very obnoxious.  I want my sims to be different!

Of course I could make them more different if I wasn't so OCD about maxing skills..but I digress...

Maybe the question is really how much personality affects enthusiasm compared to relevant skill, one true hobby, interests and equipment/action used.

I think these things were designed for people allowing their sims to age at the standard rate.  Then it wouldn't be so easy for every sim to get rich and successful.  But how many of us do age our sims at original rate?   I guess if we want the sims to live longer we need to reduce skilling and enthusiasm rates etc.

I think these things were designed for people who are not very good at simming?

I think I semi-subconsciously shorten my sims lives any time I can. I always do the "lose a day" thing when aging up...amongst other things. My sims are still maxed and enthusiastic and whatnot.

On the plus side, Free Time made me less OCD about maxing skills.

*raises hand*  I allow my Sims to live a "natural" lifespan.  On the odd occasion they might have a shot of elixir, but I don't do it as standard.  The one thing I do tend to have is a lot of long-lived elders solely due to them generally being in platinum by the time they age to elder.  Obviously it varies from Sim to Sim, but quite a lot have high scores, if not max, in one or more hobbies due to the skilling, and even ones that start with a standard 20K on leaving college (instead of going back to the original house and therefore 'inheriting' everything) seem to end up with a fair chunk of money without a great deal of effort.   I'm getting a lot of Sims getting to Perma-Platinum from the Lifetime Aspiration thing, which is actually getting a bit annoying - it's especially bad with born-in-game-after-FT-install Sims.  The male of the family I loaded today was a toddler when I installed FT, IIRC, and he hit PermaPlat (while I wasn't even playing the house...) with twenty days left to go of adult stage.  I remember seeing a mod floating somewhere around here that slowed down lifetime aspiration gain... I'm seriously thinking about giving it a whirl, since LTW's are almost superfluous now, especially for Sims who get married and have a kid.  

Edited to add:  I just had a look at his LTA Milestones using the Lot Debugger, and "Max Career" is greyed out despite the fact that he, er, hasn't.  Unless it's counting teen career... which would be too stupid for words since, with private school, that's a whole.. one promotion, correct?

Of course, if you add the challenge of filling the travel album to things Sims ought to aspire to in their lifetime, there goes a large portion of their earnings on hotel bills and air fares.

As I recall, maxing the teen career *does* count as maxing that career category. Yes, it's stupid. But no helping that.

Well, 3/4 of the time getting a best friend (even a BFF) or having a first kiss doesn't register for me. Stupid game.

I will very rarely elixir a sim if I have specific procreation plans for them that will require another couple of days, but especially with the addition of the YA age, these lifespans are more than long enough (even when aging up asap, which I almost always do). Also, because I'm sick of my elders living for-freaking-ever, I've also taken to manually lowering my sims' Aspiration levels before they age. Platinum Adults will occasionally cross the threshold still Plat. if they've achieved their LTW (and I like them enough ;p), but from their transition to childhood on, I drag 'em down to avoid stacking on all those extra elder days.

The silly thing is that actually the range of lengths in the elder stage as designed brings the sims up to something realistic for a human age to die, when added to the days they have lived already.  The problem really lies in the age at which they are portrayed as "old".  The start of elder stage in the game actually marks menopause - about 56 in sim days.  But because they are already old and stooped by then it just feels like they are living too long.

What worries me about Sims 3 is that although theoretically there will be middle aged sims due to YA stage covering till 30ish, if they don't start the elder stage at about the same time it starts in Sims 2, we will be having middle aged sims generally fertile into their 60s.  Or else they will stop being fertile at 30.   If it's on a sliding scale it will make things awfully complicated when playing with ageing off or using rewards to add days.

That doesn't make any sense.

On the aging thing: I just use standard game aging. I don't usually age sims up the day early, but sometimes. About the only time I change ages is when a family comes from CAS (I roll for them) and has 2 in the same age group, I'll usually make one of them older as I don't feel like they should all be twins. Everyone still gains everything way too fast.

In general, I use tons of 'make it harder' hacks. I self-limit all over the place (this sim isn't allowed to do this or that for whatever reason) and they all still gain everything.

BTW Inge, I'd love AL updates to the autonomous skill learning in bookcases and to the system for buying a football before they can play football or whatever. (At last they weren't updated last time I was at simlogical, just a few days ago.) Those things help add limits. And add fun/reason for selling baseballs, footballs, jumpropes etc. in stores.

TwoJeff's Age Duration Hack expands the adult stage, basing it on aspiration level at age-up. It also decreases the elder stage significantly, and is customizable if you want to adjust other stages (I shorten my teens).

I do the same thing, particularly if I dislike the Sim but not enough to actively seek his/her death. Hey, if they're red when they transition, does it take away days? That would be particularly awesome. Must test.

The main issue with Sim-elders is basically that they're boring. They're like crippled versions of adults with lousier motive decay, and gain no real perks whatosever. They should have had a whole host of interactions that we have in REAL life, like ranting about how in MY day, we had to WALK to school, through the snow, uphill and against the wind both ways, while the Japanese would try to bomb us, and turning the hose on those DAMN KIDS who won't GET OFF MY LAWN! EAxis sucks all the FUN out of it, leaving elders as simply crippled versions of adults.

That is *precisely* it. There are no special interactions with grandkids, no "let me bore you with pictures of my spawn's spawn" interactions, no elders-only restaurant discounts...
They basically take the adults, smoonch their spines, give the women saddlebags & floppy breasts, wreak havoc with their Needs, cut their career prospects off at the knees, and then say, "Here - yes, HERE! - is where you get to spend all your bonus days!"

Unmodded (elder jobs & Inge's 'elders sleep through night'), I would have sent these farts off with the Sunset Squad ages ago. As it is, they're convenient babysitters and, whoopee, they can Encourage more efficiently, but the abruptness with which your vibrant Adults suddenly fall to pieces is thoroughly off-putting and lame. The fact that they can retire if they want might be a 'benefit' in the designers' eyes, but that just leaves them more time to sit around needing to pee.

I probably will sweep through updating more stuff, now that the last EP is out and it isn't all so demoralising!

I mostly stick to bug and annoyance fixing hacks, but I'd download *that* if someone could make it.. since I've not actually got around to ordering a vacation photo album yet, I'm not quite sure how it works, but it'd be funny if someone could use that to make a "Grandkids album" that only elders with grandchildren could order, and whenever anyone was around they'd have an option to "Show Off Album to.."

1. Does personality affect the rate at which a Sim gains hobby enthusiasm?
2. Does it have a significant effect? For example, if Sports is affected by Active and Grouchy personality, will a Lazy, Nice Sim find it impossible/very hard to gain enthusiasm in Sports?

Hobbies seem rather restricted if Sims need a certain personality type in order to do well at them. Can't have a neat Artist, for example, or a serious Chessmaster.

It still is way to easy to gain permaplat with that stupid lifetime-aspiration meter. I started a playing a neighbourhood prosperity-style and all my in game born sims gain permaplat at the latest once they finish college, if not even before that. I don´t lengthen their lifespan at all and I use all the make stuff harder hacks, I could find.

Now I desperately want to get rid of the permaplatness. I have never seen a sim have a nightmare and I can´t even remember having one below green aspiration or seeing the worry animation. I got the slower lifetime aspiration hack from the peasantry, but I would really love to just get rid of the already accumulated permaplatness. The lifetime want permaplatness can be toggled with the lotdebugger, but I couldn´t find anything to get rid of the lifetime-aspiration permaplatness.

I would love a hack, that makes the aspiration just decay slower instead of not decaying at all, once a lifetime want is reached or the lifetime-aspiration bar is maxed. It would make much more sense, that a sim would still be devastaded by the death of a loved one, even if he had reached his lifetime goal in the past.

Ideally I would like to have a sim being in a good mood costing aspiration points. That way it would still make sense to fulfill wants and the points are gained in such abundance anyway.

The vacation album is mostly useless, but island vacation dig-ables have a social interaction for telling vacation stories, and travellers who go to the far east can bring back dragon legends.  I often pack the retirees off for a vacation or two and deduct those days off the end of their lives.  With TwoJeffs' AgeDuration hack, the grandparents only get to tell stories to the brats for a week or less, in my 'hoods.

Enthusiasm, in game terms, is how fast you go up on the little bars. The whole point of the One True Hobby is that you gain "enthusiasm" faster, i.e., your little bars go up faster in that one. Personality and interests (at least in part) determines the One True, so yes. Again, test it yourself. Look at their personality and interests and guess at the One True.


No. We already said it's way too easy and everyone gets everything in near no time.

Are you even playing Freetime?

You can't have an artist or a chessmaster at all. You can have a sim who will, after spending some time, go 'into the zone' when doing arts and crafts (a whole variety of kinds) or into the zone when playing games (again a bunch of games). It's not near that specific and any sim who spends any time doing those, regardless of personality/interests/One True or anything else will get there plenty quick enough.

What you get really is that all sims zone when doing anything unless you specifically don't let them do some stuff. And that means they can't cook or eat if you don't want them to gain cuisine enthusiasm :p (that one is particularly bad). They can't play *any* game if you only want one chessmaster (or just a few), etc.

You really aren't playing with Freetime, hm?

So is OTH the 'only' thing that increases the enthusiasm gain rate ?
What boost does OTH give?
Is the rate the same when reading the paper-section, blogging, being tutored by hobbie-guru at hobbie lot?
A sport-OTH with 2 points interest in sport has same gain-rate as 10 points interest in sport?

My observation of the sport interest suggested that it did make a difference when I gave the sim the extra 8 points. Though without looking at the code I'll accept that this was in my imagination (driven by my want of how I'd like it to work).

Do the enthusiasm decay rates vary?

thanks, tuna (regaining his modding enthusiasm now that the EP goalposts have stopped moving)

No.

I dunno. There are an awfully lot of variables so just standard observation isn't going to tell you that. I don't personally have any reason for a test that complicated. You can't compare the effect of personality on enthusiasm gain against the OTH enthusiasm gain rate in any reasonable fashion though because personality has an effect on the OTH. And although you can change interests after creation, you can't personality. So you're trying to compare things that build on each other.

Edit: I mean change in standard game play. You can use mods to change things, but then you're bypassing the code that determines the OTH and so far as I know it's never recalculated. I have no idea how much recalculation goes into the rest. I suspect the rates are not recalculated but set, and the rest of the game just looks for 'did you do this activity enough to have x points in it or lose points in it.

The hobby-guru is faster. But it's all so fast it doesn't really matter. And reading the paper and blogging are a waste when you can do things that give skills as well and get enthusiasm so quickly, the only reason to bother would be boredom with standard activities, or self-limits in skill-raising activities, or to fill a want or something.

Pescado mostly seemed uninterested but there's some brief discussion in the war room thread on skill gaining. Looking at the code for actual answers instead of trying to determine by empirical evidence might be more reasonable - certainly over my head to do.

I'm more peeved that they gain enthusiasm so quickly in things just by doing the regular things sims do there's little variety and less character deviation than there could be. What kind of mod are you thinking about?

I am aware that hobby enthusiasm is horribly easy to gain. I ask because I sometimes switch OTH when I get too many in a particular neighborhood and was wondering if this 'breaks' the game rules in any way. I only allow Sims to build their OTH because I hate the hobby club membership memory spam.

WTB 'Harder Hobbies' hack, extreme edition.

Thanks for the reply Sagana, the only info I'd seen up to now was at snootysims reposted from the Prima guide, so even that has to be taken with a pinch of salt.
They say that OTH is chosen at birth from personality and interests. born-in-game sims interests don't vary enough IMO. I'd prefer a random OTH :)
I've not seen any info that states what variables are involved with the increase rate so far, just gut feelings.  I'll post to the war room if I come across it.

I've only been playing again for about a week with all EPs.  Last time I played before that was just after OFB came out so there's a lot to catch up on.
oh... there is a new way to alter Niceness in AL with spells... apparently.

As far as modding goes, I was thinking about making a 'magazine rack' which would work like a bookcase but for interest/hobbie mag's.
However I made some notes of how I would change the enthusiasm code...

Make the OTH mean something by...
remove all wants for non-OTH hobbies
fix multiple 'maximize X enthusiasm' wants - a sim of mine achieved this want twice in cooking
don't award lifetime aspiration milestone for non-OTH
no 'zone' for non-OTH (cap at 9?)

Increase the speed the enthusiasm dies by...
No hobbies decay while at hobbie-lot.
No hobbie-X decay while actively involved with hobbie-X.
Vary the decay-rate of enthusiasm based mainly on interests, with a touch of personality, turn on's, and relationship with hobbie-guru.

eg, low interest in food, cooking skill turn off - then cooking enthusiasm will drop like a stone.
If your OTH(sport) sim has a interest of sport of 8-10, then it should be possible to reduce enthusiasm-decay for sport to zero.
Make the same sport sim's interest in Food high, then they will gain all the serving platter options, and not lose them so quickly, but won't have any desires to win cooking competitions and the like.


Dopp, I don't think Pescado would give you the tools to change OTH if it would break your game :)

That sounds like a good start at a hack I definitely want :)

I think it's ridiculous they get enthusiasm for cooking just because they're eating something.   And they shouldn't get it just because they're cooking, either.  After all, loads of people cook just because they have to.   I think enthusiasm should only be built up by a particular success in an activity, or by reading a magazine, or by being talked to about it by someone.  Enthusiasm should be completely seperate from the skills involved.

Hook has made one - semiperma plat.  It gives sims who have reached perma plat a slower rate of aspiration decay.  I'm not sure if it's in peasantry here (it used to be) but I picked it up over at simbology recently.

This is why I tend to do stuff like vamp or use elixir on adult sims.  If I transition them to elders, they're going to be sucky for a long, long time.  Playing an elder sim into 80+ days is boring as hell.  Now I can also make good retirement homes with AL.

I may need to get that Age Duration hack.

If they didn't get cooking enthusiasm for eating something, they'd never get any at all, because the only thing that *GIVES* food enthusiasms is eating things! What I *HAVE* tried doing is making it so low-level "unwanted" hobbies decay faster, so that they quickly lose interest in it again.

However, the BEST way to gain culinary enthusiasm is not merely to eat the food, but to sleep in it.

A sort of Sim-in-the-hole?

I have the Insim interest adjuster permanently mounted in the skilling room to reset unwanted hobbies before they generate hobby club membership spam. Can Sims lose hobby club membership?

I've now looked at the code for enthusiasm gain.
I'll post the full details in the war room, but here's a brief description

Each hobbie action has a base-rate (some things increase the enthusiasm faster than others)
The OTH gets a bonus of 50% of base added
Relevant high interests adds up to 33% of base
Relevant high skill adds up to 50% of base

It appears that Personality does not come into the gain rate.

*Relevant interests are also increased!*

This last point is what is annoying me most and must be fixed...
Catch butterflies, and gain interest in Animals, Environment & Weather - while you lose interest in random others.
It's no longer worth getting children to read magazines to gain the extra growing-up bonus of interests - the extra points get stomped as soon as they eat.
Tuned your sims interests so they takes advantage of the ltwvariety hack?  There are 7 interests that don't have any hobbie association.  By the time they reach teen they may just want to be a celebrity chef.

Starting on this now :)

If the thanks button actually did anything (other than crash my WMP) I would have hit it several times by now. Thanks, most informative.

Wait, what?  Hobbies actually change your Interest numbers?   >:(

That is so completely freaking retarded.  It's bad enough that it clogs up your want panel with "Talk about Hobby" and "Blog about Hobby".  And yet, talking about an associated interest doesn't actually fulfil the first want.  Idiotic.

The more I play, the more I wonder what purpose hobbies actually serve.  They offer zero benefit to gameplay.  It's just a way of keeping score for doing things you were already doing.

At least fulfilling the "Talk About Hobby" Want isn't dependent on the talk-ee accepting your natureblather. I was certain when this came up that I'd have to wander some comm lot looking for someone to appreciate SimX's "ooh, I liek bugz!" spiel. Also glad we can pick which of our sim's hobbies to use, thereby at least mitigating the chances of irritating friends/family/passers-by with said blather.

I still fail to see any point in the Blog About Hobby routine. Sure, you can use it to up your Interest in something, but if you're interested enough to be able to blog about it, you're already gaining sufficient Interest in it from somewhere else (probably by doing something more productive, too). I guess the problem, really, lies in trying to come up with activities to use in a game that both simulates real life *and* is interesting for us, the players. Some people have tons of fun blogging IRL, but a computer game where you watch somebody blog? Yawny.

Also, blogging should raise a sim's social.

Talking to fake people on the 'net doesn't make you feel a little less alone?

You need to reinstall and update your WMP.

Moo?

Agree on raising the social.  If I've only got one or two sims in a house, they don't get to blog (and I might not buy them a computer, just to avoid stupid computer behavior in general).  If I have four or more, I might let a sim blog just because it'll keep him occupied and not doing anything ridiculously stupid for a few hours while I deal with the ones who need attention.

My Sports and Fitness sims do a lot of blogging because it is so very ironic.

No, actually, it's because I'm sick of seeing everyone wandering around in workout clothes all the damn time. I don't know why that irks me so, but it does. I wish they'd automatically change back to their normal outfits once they're done sporting and fitnessing like they do when they're done with the ballet bar.

I also can't stand when the childrens are wandering around in their private school uniforms. AND I don't allow anyone to wear pajamas past 7 a.m.

ETA - I'm glad I'm not the only one who drags down the aspiration meter for adults about to transition to elder. I've been doing that since the dawn of Uni because it's all just too much. I would really love a "rant about EVERYTHING" interaction for the old folks. They could've been made way more hilarious and fun. Mrs. Crumplebottom is fun because she is drunk and mad. No one else is fun.

I leave sims in their PJ's later on the weekends (for that lazy Sunday vibe ;p), but I'm with you on the school unis. That's why I've taken to stashing a less obtrusive wardrobe near the front door, so the kids can make it their 2nd stop after the One Desk (and so adults can change out of their dumb work togs without spending an hour tromping up to their bedroom). This function really should have been coded into the otherwise useless coat rack. Why the fancy hell does the coat rack not have a 'change to normal' feature?

This would be a fun interaction! I can see it being accepted/rejected, depending on their relationship to the recipient, along with the recipient's current mood/personality. Sims who like them and are in a good mood will be happy to let them vent. Sims who like them but are feeling cranky won't be in the mood for it but will put up with it if they're Nice enough. Nice strangers will listen politely, and pissed off strangers will have none of it.

For me, it kind of depends of the absurdity of the work uniform. Walking around the house in something like the french fry head thing or an astronaut space suit is kind of funny, so I just let them.

I can not stand Criminal Mastermind or Captain Hero's outfit though...and also whatever the hell that thing is they wear when they get to the top of the gamer career. It's Game Designer, right? Do you think Eaxians dress like that to go to work? That's kind of a charming mental picture.

ETA - I also really love that silly frilly thing the men wear when they get to the top of the dance career. I let them wear that one around the house for awhile when they get home too.

I'm not nice, but I'll listen anyway. You'll regret you told me in the end, though. People earn their schticks that way.

There's now a mod in peasantry that addresses some on the annoyances discussed above.

Nice. And my WMP has stopped crashing.

That works perfectly. Thanks for the tip, I would never have found the right version otherwise.

If we do get a "Rant About Everything!" elder interaction, can someone make a custom talk bubble of a long, grey beard?

"I'm old! I'm old and I have a long beard!"

I will release a fix for this in the existing interestlosshack.

Thanks for the warning.  I've already fixed that in the peasantry so will take a look at what you do to be able to give conflict advice.
As it stands it doesn't conflict with any awesome hacks.

I'm in the process of updating the mod so that the interest gain will happen (in a non-stomping way) for one chosen interest for a sim's OTH.