More Awesome Than You!

I was curious, so I ran a Family Oriented Sim up to Elder without deliberately forcing a romance or kids.  The only family-related Wish he rolled was to kiss some women.  But once they were kissed, he showed no further interest in them, and never rolled Have A Baby.

From past experience, Sims fairly regularly start rolling Have a Baby / Have a Boy / Have a Girl / Have a Baby with Spouse once you've actually primed the pump by starting the first kid.  But it's clear that they won't start thinking about kids on their own, even if that's supposedly one of their personality traits.

Ditto WooHoo.  I've seen WooHoo wishes often enough, but only once I've pushed them into losing their virginity.  Otherwise they're just fine being celibate their entire simulated lives.

I'm disappointed.  I had the impression that the Personality Traits influenced Wish-rolling as much as the old Aspirations, and now I'm thinking that's not true.  Family Sims rolled these wants on their own quite regularly in TS2.

 - Gus

Can't say I've seen this. My sims seem to roll up "have baby" wants just fine, even though I have never given anyone any!

My sims are pretty ADD -- they only roll wants for stuff they are doing right this second, and forget everything that was before. Like when I tell them to tend garden, they immediately want more garden skill / plant garlic / weed plants, when they're fishing they want more fish, when they talk to their boyfriend they want to make out. But this is the same for all sims, completely uniform.

I'm under the impression that "personality" doesn't play any role with regard to wants, and neither do relationships .. some of my couples don't live on the same lot and it's as if they aren't even aware that their partner exists. Most of these couples have kids together -- they have wants about the kids, but not about the partner. The only exception I've seen so far was when both halves of a newly going-steady couple had wishes to move in with the other one the next day -- but once they had done that, they went back to the usual play chess, level up fishing skill, water plants and so on.

It's fairly clear that many wishes are event-triggered.  Seeing another Sim triggers socialization Wishes, i.e. walk into a room with a toddler and they want to snuggle it, but seem completely unaware that their child exists unless they see the child periodically.

Other wishes seem arbitrarily generated, like learning to Fish, Cook, or play guitar.  Fishing generates "catch X" wishes, but the original Go Fishing wish is random.

Traits fairly clearly have some weight, but nowhere near as much as I'd like.  Everyone seems to want to Fish and Garden, even if they hate the outdoors.

 - Gus

To some degree, this is a good thing. Remember those annoying, worthless wants for completely inapplicable things that would cost more to do than you would actually have gained from doing them, thus making them total wastes of a want slot? Good riddance.

True.  One reason I can't see going back to TS2, ever, is that there are fewer completely stupid Wants.  And more to the point, while we're limited to 4 locked Wants, extra unlocked Wants aren't clogging a limited resource, want slots.  So what if your Sim rolls a Want for the inefficient "friendly introduction" when they have "charming introduction"?  Just delete it and move on.

However, I still want stronger flavor to the personality traits.  All my Sims are starting to feel the same, and not just because their parents always want them to have the Genius trait.

 - Gus

I regularly see "Have a baby with -spouse-" wishes right after marriages, regardless of traits. Now woohoo wishes I've only seen after they have done the deed once.

Well the thing I notice is that non player controlled sims don't even really have wants. Every time I have taken control of them they have suddenly generated wants magically after a minute or so of play. It's like the game doesn't even bother with them if they are not being observed, but then again if they aren't even acting on them I guess it makes little difference.

Thing is though, even though you have sims that supposedly are afraid of commitment or having children or water or technology or large groups or whatever, the townies will happily engage in these activities with no noticeable repercussions. In TS2 if they got pushed into such situations enough the result would be noticeable and they would have a nervous breakdown.

I guess I kind of miss the fear system in a way. It's replaced somewhat by negative moodlets (some of which are based on implied fears via traits) but I feel like the penalty is not nearly as severe or noticeable. The worst that can happen is their mood tanks and they refuse to do anything. Well hell in my game the non player controlled sims don't do a hell of a lot to begin with anyway.

I guess the traits and the aspirations are just really arbitrary and what's driving the player controlled sims is just whatever the hell you are dangling in their face at any given moment. I suppose that's at least something because the non player controlled sims don't even have that.

In some ways in terms of interactions and personalities this game is a step back. :(

Not quite true. Unlocked wants are limited to 3. So they are a limited resource, but you can kill them and free the slot.

Good to know.  Now I have more incentive to nuke the occasional stupid ones.

I'd miss the fear system more if it had ever mattered in TS2.  As a practical matter, only things like Fire or Death ever triggered without the player's deliberate intent.  At least with the present system, you don't get sims ignoring a spouse's death because they didn't happen to roll that Fear that day.

I agree though that with reasonable play, it's not hard to overcome most negative moodlets.  Tanked mood is rare if you know what you're doing.

 - Gus

I guess my sims are just hornier than most because even the vergins do often roll wants to woohoo with thier romantic interests.  One sim in particular would roll up a want to "hang out with" his romantic interest, so I'd send him over to her house (she lived next door) to get some easy points.  Well, as soon as he was face to face with her, he'd roll up a want to woohoo with her.  Every single time.  And I never actually had them woohoo because he always had to run off to work or something and the points for woohoo are so abismally low as to not really be worth the trouble -- anyone else miss the huge points for kiss/makeout/woohoo in TS2?  I think it'd be worth it if they got a positive moodlet, but I guess I see why EA didn't see fit to include a "had great woohoo" in thier T rated game.

Maybe traits affect it?  This particular sim was Good Sense of Humour, Charismatic, Perfectionist, Mean Spirited, and Artistic.  Come to think of it, this particular sim rolled wants to woohoo way more often than Riverview's Don Lothario who mostly wanted to kiss everything he saw but wasn't much interested in anything beyond that most of the time.  I stopped playing Don because I got tired of making him woohoo when he didn't even want to just because I felt it fit his character to be doing the deed somewhat frequently.

This actually has an explanation: NPC sims don't have a want controller, normally, as the game is programmed to purge their wants when you switch out. If you have AwesomeMod and have selected them at some point, they will keep their want controllers when you switch away and WILL be able to roll and fulfill wants. Otherwise the game will purge their wants and not generate new ones.

Yeah but even if you run AM and select them, get them some wants, then unselect them, they aren't going to do anything to meet those wants. It's all coincidence whether they do or not. And if you don't ever intend to really play them then the points don't mean much. The only real benefit is the 6 hour +40 fulfilled moodlet, but even with that does anything notice a difference with townies at various highs or lows in their moods? I really don't.

It would be more significant if the wants directed their behavior, as they should, but they don't. Right now it's really only helpful if you intend to go back and play that Sim again at some point and want to come back to fulfilling those wants yourself.

Unless my Sims marry late and are rapidly approaching elderhood without progeny, or have a wish for 5 children that needs to be met quickly, I never have them try for baby unless one of them comes up with the want.  It has always come up, though sometimes not until after they go from YA to A.

I've simply never seen it come up until I force them to start spawning.  I'm on generation 7, so there must be something I'm doing systematically which makes it unlikely.

 - Gus

I've never had a couple not get a want to have a baby. Like Phyllis, I don't make them breed until they get the wish. I've gotten specific 'have first baby' wishes, and also 'have baby with spouse' wishes. The family oriented do seem to get these wishes more than those without the family orientation, but they all get them.
I also get a fair amount of wishes for 'amorous hug',  'kiss' and 'woohoo', though I don't usually bother with them as more often than not all four of their slots will be occupied by higher pay out wishes. Sorry honey, I want to upgrade 5 objects, I'll hug you in a few days.

Will giving lots of different NPCs want controllers add a massive overhead to processing in game or is it failry efficient? I'd prefer to flesh out my NPCs a bit as they are possible relationship fodder for the legacy family.

I've never seen that one.  Have baby, have boy, have girl, have baby with spouse, but no first baby.  And as I said, they never roll any of them until I've primed the pump.

I almost always keep one slot free for short-term, immediate gratification wishes.  Losing a few points seems like a fair trade for the 6 hour "fulfilled" buff you can get for doing something trivial like making the bed.  +15 at least, and often +25 or more if you get a string of easy wishes like hugs, kisses, etc.

 - Gus

A lot of times, you'll gain more points over time by making sure you have one slot available for the tiny +200-350 wants. The romantic ones usually string. Plus, by keeping their fulfillment bar over that little crease, you earn points gradually simply for them being so fulfilled. With Awesomemod's new feature of allowing the unpromised wishes to be fulfilled and count for points, you can keep seven at all times (though the unpromised will fade out, so long-term ones should be promised).

Well, in TS2, everyone had one, and the world didn't end.

This was true for my game also, my sims have to wish it. I was happy to let a couple live out their YA lives childless, so I can fulfill some skills and movement up the work ladder. Even if the singles have a child by their romantic interest, they didn't marry til they were adults, the wish to have another baby always come up. I may give a romantic sim an oopsie pregnancy as a consequence of having too many lovers, but even they will roll a wish to have a child with a certain someone that suites their fancy. I do hate deciding when they have children, I really miss ACR, that I depended on so much in TS2.

Woohoo wishes have grown massively in my game, one couple wish for it after they have just had the want satisfied. I don't know if it's cause I just switched to Indie Stone, but I did have these wishes rolled with Awesomemod, just not as frequent.

Fair enough. I assumed that in TS2 only active sims are processed i.e. just those on the current lot, on walk-by and at the end of a telephone/computer conversation which amounts to a small number. In TS3 presumably every sim in the world is updated though not at the same resolution of detail but that could still add up, given the EAxian capacity for writing efficient code.

I believe that TS3 should like TS2 did but the difference is as each lot was in their own temporal zone, in TS3 the entire neighborhood is in sync.

So there is more data to keep track since every single Sim age at the same time but Sims should not really doing anything when not loaded in the same area as your Sim is and so no change in data beyond growing older.

I had a Family-Oriented Sim once who, almost immediately after getting married, got the Want to have a baby with her husband.  The next day, the Want rolled to Have First Baby.  A few still-not-pregnant days later, she rolled Have a Baby, with no specific sim listed for with.  I figured the poor thing was hearing her pixelized biological clock ticking, and by this point, didn't care who the father was.

See, that's the point where I'd be wanting to lock all 3 wants, get her pg asap and score megga points when the baby arrived.  But then, I'm a shameless point farmer in this game.

Of course I did!  It was wonderful; when she actually got pregnant, she rolled Have a Boy, which a few apples ensured.  Ended up with around 12,000LTP's, I believe.  However, the inability to lock any other wishes in the few days between conception and birth sucked.  Thank the Gods for AM's Fulfill Unlocked wishes option now.

I've experienced the wish rolling right after that type action is performed as well. I've not played many couples but the one couple that I married off rolled one want to have a child. Since then they roll the want to woohoo nearly every night but so far no more baby wishes. They also generally want to have romantic actions towards each other. One has the "great kisser" trait and the other is "Flirty" so that might be part of what is causing it.

I was so tickled!  I don't know if it's because of the Indie Stone mod or not, but for the first time I had a Sim come home from work with the wish to "Kiss Rayna" for the first time -- Rayna being a Sim he worked with and who I had never even seen!  He developed the friendship entirely at work because I had him meet and hang out with folks while at work, and it was his little pixelated "idea" that he wanted to kiss her!  Woot!  They are now married.  No babies, though -- he must like older women, because he just turned adult while she is mid-way through elderhood.  No worries, though; he has two kids from a previous marriage.