Idea: "Arousal" meter

[MattyDienhoff]

While eating breakfast this morning, I was thinking about TS2 and, more specifically, the way relationships work in it. Then an idea hit me. As we all know, in the unmodded game, all romantic relationships are a slow steady climb to 100-70 followed by the Sims in question falling in love. It's not particularly realistic, especially not for Romance sims, because there are no one night stands or casual relationships. I realise that there are mods like ACR to improve on this, but to be honest, I think they're too complex for their own good.

Anyway, the idea I came up with is: Each Sim would have an "Arousal" meter. Basically, most of the romantic interactions, like flirting, kissing, slow dancing and the romantic hugs would gradually fill the meter. (the speed at which they fill up for both parties would be determined by their mutual chemistry, so they'd both fill up at the same speed) Then, if time passes and no further interaction takes place to keep filling the bar, it would gradually empty again.

Anyway, once the bar is full, both Sims would accept higher-level interactions, like Make Out and Woohoo, (even if their relationship was only 80-20, for example) that normally wouldn't be accessible till 100-70.

I realise that this idea isn't perfect, but it's simple and functional and I haven't been able to poke any significant holes in it yet. But that's why I'm posting it here. Fire away. 

[J. M. Pescado]

It is not feasible as it would involve major retooling of the entire user interface. Suggest it for TS2. Right now, the closest proxy would be noinstantlove.

[Brynne]

Suggest it for TS2.

That's what he was doing, silly Pes.

It would be a really cool idea, though.

[Zazazu]

shh, he meant TS3

[Brynne]

shh, he meant TS3

I know, I just like to yank his chain.  

[dizzy]

I realise that there are mods like ACR to improve on this, but to be honest, I think they're too complex for their own good.

Have you tried flamingo hacks? I highly doubt it's more complex than it should be. (In fact, I've been mulling over how to properly mitigate its effects.)

[doren]

I realise that there are mods like ACR to improve on this, but to be honest, I think they're too complex for their own good.

I realise that this idea isn't perfect, but it's simple and functional and I haven't been able to poke any significant holes in it yet. But that's why I'm posting it here. Fire away. 

I think the major flaw with the idea is that most others don't share your opinion that ACR is too complex. There are many settings to modify the behaviour of particular sims, but if you feel that it is too complicated you can just stick it in and see what happens. The complexity of the hack accounts for the diversity of reactions, which I still find amazing (For example: Melody Tinker could still not bring herself to do teen woohoo after making a booty call to her boyfriend, with my current generation of teenagers thinking very different about this issue).
I could be wrong, but my guess is that you read the description for ACR but haven't tried it out yet.

Apart from that, the original attraction system that is in the game already allows for romantic interactions below a certain relationship level, if the attraction between two sims is high enough.

The only difference I can see would be the introduction of "temporary" attraction as a result of romantic interaction, meaning that one sim might hop into bed with another on one particular night, but not the next day when the magic has passed. I quite like that idea. ACR does not have such a feature, the timer goes down steadily unless they get to woohoo, although it usually works like that.

[sloppyhousewife]

The only difference I can see would be the introduction of "temporary" attraction as a result of romantic interaction, meaning that one sim might hop into bed with another on one particular night, but not the next day when the magic has passed. I quite like that idea. ACR does not have such a feature, the timer goes down steadily unless they get to woohoo, although it usually works like that.

The love potion effect comes pretty close to the temporay attraction thing. Together with ACR, it can result in some really interesting combinations ^^. It's a pity that the potion can never be used autonomously, but on the other hand, it gives you at least a little bit of control .

[Inge]

shh, he meant TS3

No way!  Pescado would never let himself be taken in by lies and propaganda 

[dizzy]

I think the major flaw with the idea is that most others don't share your opinion that ACR is too complex.

I find it too complex because it is cluttered and lacking in usability (too many dialogs, for example). I admit that it is a personal and subjective choice, but I rather doubt that most others do not share that opinion.

[SnootCB]

I don't like ACR much myself, as I have a more controlling playing style.  But if you want sims to WooHoo without being in Love, just use the Love Tub.  It only requires a Best Friend relationship for WooHoo.

[seelindarun]

ACR trades simplicity for flexibility, I think.  That's not to say that your flamingo system lacks flexibility, dizzy.  I think you've chosen to assemble a number of simple, modular hacks under one umbrella.  I quite like this approach since it allows me to add one easily understandable modification at a time.  Even if the suite got quite large, it's easy to start where you need/want to.

However, I think ACR adds some extensions to the game that are necessarily complex, like probabilistic pregnancies and woohoo on sofa, which is an un-Maxian location.  If you want these sorts of things, I think you have to expect that it's going to come in a big package.  On top of that, ACR lets users modify many of the parameters it uses for these behaviours.  Obviously, if you weren't looking for the big heart of the mod, ACR is hard to take in one swallow.

[J. M. Pescado]

I find it too complex because it is cluttered and lacking in usability (too many dialogs, for example). I admit that it is a personal and subjective choice, but I rather doubt that most others do not share that opinion.

It does, from what I hear, have way too many dialogs, and has a distinct feeling of poor integration with the rest of the game, like something clumsily bolted on.

[witch]

I find ACR has added a whole new dimension to the game, it doesn't feel bolted on but more has enriched the game. I love the surprises and the autonomous behaviour, I love the fine tweakability, I like my sims getting random gender preferences. But then I'm a heretic and play with free will on. 

[doren]

I find it too complex because it is cluttered and lacking in usability (too many dialogs, for example). I admit that it is a personal and subjective choice, but I rather doubt that most others do not share that opinion.

It does, from what I hear, have way too many dialogs, and has a distinct feeling of poor integration with the rest of the game, like something clumsily bolted on.

Dialogs? Are you tallking about internal dialogs, stuff I don't get to see as a player? The adjuster has an elaborate pie menu (which could possibly be simplified a little) and I have the option of many settings to control the behaviour of my sims, but they are easy to understand and it's up to me to use them since ACR is working fine with the default settings. Personally, I think that it has become even better since more options were added (for example to make settings static/dynamic separately) but there is only a handful of sims were I feel the need to make adjustments.
Apart from that I agree with witch and would even go so far as saying that it compares to an expansion pack for what it is adding to the game. It is definitely much more than a WOOHOO!-hack and I am not saying that it isn't complex. That's why it is so good since complexity doesn't automatically translate into overladden and complicated.
Of course there is a certain chance that your opinion is based on personal animosities, but since we are not on the child's board I guess I can trust that this is not the case.

Oh, and why are flamingos so frequently mentioned here? What role do they play?

[J. M. Pescado]

Flamingos don't play any specific role, but they're a popular choice of item to use as a controller for hacks, and independently of hacks, kicking them is one of the top sources of fun in the game, and thus they play an important role in the aforementioned Sport of Kings.

[simsfreq]

I've thought about an arousal meter before - but in my head it was more like a motive bar which went down when someone attractive/the one sim was in the room, (which depending on personality/aspiration,) down quicker if they watched a "porn" channel on TV or read a porn magazine or did anything remotely sexual, ie, kissing. It would go up if someone unattractive (or their mother!) was the only person in the room, or if their partner was stinky or put makeup on (as per their turn-offs). When it gets too low the sim would whinge until you made them wank/play with a vibrating thingy/had sex, each of these filling the bar to a different level. If it was too high the sim wouldn't be able to have sex but they could be aroused by foreplay/clothing (ie, underwear or swimwear or formalwear as per their turn-ons) etc.

Obviously there's no way EAxis could implement this into a game with less than a 15 rating anyway, so it remains but a dream... it would make more sense than the pointless environment score though.  I would suggest someone hacking that, but the thought of hacking an entire motive, which has probably tens of thousands of custom objects affecting it, makes me worried. The only feasible way this could be done is if they introduce a new "customisable" motive in TS3, which you can set yourself and then get anybody creating CC which would be likely to affect this custom motive to list which custom motive they're creating it for.

Which again is extremely unlikely.

[seelindarun]

Dialogs? Are you tallking about internal dialogs, stuff I don't get to see as a player?

I think they are talking about pop-ups.  There are status pop-ups.  There are try-for-baby pop-ups.  There are pregnancy scanner pop-ups.  There could be even more, but almost all of them are user-invoked.  For me, one of the reasons it feels bolted-on is because there is no way of sleekly reporting these bits of information in the UI, so I use those pop-ups a lot.  As other posts in this thread indicate, the whole notion of a sex need requires a pretty serious mod of the UI.

I like and use ACR, but I still think of it as the autonomous one-night-stand, oops-we're-preggers hack.  I put up with the inherent clumsiness of a mod that extends the game in huge, never-intended directions.  If some players want a little bit of randomly autonomous woohoo with the wife, or a modest change in the autonomous flirting Maxis gave us, I'm not surprised that they find this hack is too much.

It's healthy for the modding community that there are different hacks, different models for sex drive.  Dizzy's hacks I think, use personality to make certain sims initiate romantic socials more often.  They don't try to model a dynamic motive, but just make some sims sluttier than others.  In some ways, it looks more natural in gameplay than the iron-fisted timer TJ uses.

Is there a way to hack the social motive for some sims, so that it's satisfied only a little by friendly socials but more strongly by romantic ones?

[Inge]

I keep wanting to rewrite the motives system to create a sexual need as well as distinguishing between needs and motives for the other settings.  For example there should be a setting for how full the bladder is, but that would not be the same as the motive to use the toilet - for example an untrained child will let go of its bladder contents long before it has any motive to seek out a toilet.

And the hunger need should take about 2 weeks (human equivalent) to get to rock bottom, while the motive will be deep red after only two days.   And juxtaposing nutritional with bladder fullness, in all cases where the bladder is over a certain fullness, the toilet motive will be higher than the food motive.

[MattyDienhoff]

I'm glad to see so many interesting replies. 

Have you tried flamingo hacks? I highly doubt it's more complex than it should be. (In fact, I've been mulling over how to properly mitigate its effects.)

No, I haven't, care to point me in the right direction? 

I could be wrong, but my guess is that you read the description for ACR but haven't tried it out yet.

You're right, I've only read about it and looked at some of the documentation, but from everything I read I got the distinct impression that it's fiddly. Plus, the whole notion of autonomous romance bothers me, as the control freak that I am.

[J. M. Pescado]

I keep wanting to rewrite the motives system to create a sexual need as well as distinguishing between needs and motives for the other settings.  For example there should be a setting for how full the bladder is, but that would not be the same as the motive to use the toilet - for example an untrained child will let go of its bladder contents long before it has any motive to seek out a toilet.

I think the EAxian obsession with pants-wetting is largely fetish-based as opposed to real-world, which is why, if you look at the actual numbers, child sims are the LEAST likely to EVER pee their pants, considering they have the rock bottom LOWEST decay rates.

[dizzy]

No, I haven't, care to point me in the right direction? 

The dizzy brain dump (ver 10c) in Peasantry

[Jelenedra]

Is it possible to override one of the current useless needs? Like environment, for something like Inge was talking about?

[J. M. Pescado]

No, changing or overwriting existing motives does not appear to be possible. There might be unused motive slots, but I have no idea how one would edit the GUI to display them, or how safe this is.

[Jelenedra]

Ah, t'was a thought.