Personality and Enthusiasm

[Dopp]

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

[Sagana]

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.

[EsotericPolarBear]

Actually sometimes I wish they were only allowed one hobby at all. Having all of them do everything dilutes the fun of it.

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...

[Dopp]

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

[Inge]

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.

[buddha pest]

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.

[coralleane]

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.

*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?

[Inge]

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.

[talysman]

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?

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

[Zazazu]

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.

[Liz]

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.

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.

[Inge]

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.

[Sagana]

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

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.

[Zazazu]

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).

[AuKestrel]

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.

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.

[J. M. Pescado]

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.

[Liz]

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.

[Inge]

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

[coralleane]

no "let me bore you with pictures of my spawn's spawn" interactions,

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.."

[Dopp]

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

That doesn't make any sense.

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.

[abelle]

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.

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.

[seelindarun]

no "let me bore you with pictures of my spawn's spawn" interactions,

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.."

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.

[Sagana]

1. Does personality affect the rate at which a Sim gains hobby enthusiasm?

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.

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?

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

Are you even playing Freetime?

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.

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?

[tunaisafish]

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)

[Sagana]

So is OTH the 'only' thing that increases the enthusiasm gain rate ?

No.

What boost does OTH give?

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.

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?

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.

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)

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?