My sims are turning into lushes.

[dizzy]

Interesting thing about free will in TS2, FBA() uses the following priorities:

Fun, Social, Comfort, then Hunger, Bladder, Energy

The game weights these slightly according to the sim's personality and the advertising of various available objects, but it mostly fulfills the Fun need first. This is why things like dishes and ringing phones advertise Fun. It's also why sims are obsessed with Fun objects, because it makes sims more fun to watch unless you actually play the game in a serious way. Serious Sims 2 players really should turn off free will.

[Marvin Kosh]

I think the radio button was labelled 'Free Will' by mistake.  It should have read 'Flirt with anything that has two legs, run around the house looking at all the new stuff, and leave the dinner in the oven to watch the TV.'

Of course, that would have taken up too much space but I'm sure there's something which summarises such behaviour in two words (or less).

[Avalikia]

How about "Idiot Mode"?

[J. M. Pescado]

Interesting thing about free will in TS2, FBA() uses the following priorities:

Fun, Social, Comfort, then Hunger, Bladder, Energy

The game weights these slightly according to the sim's personality and the advertising of various available objects, but it mostly fulfills the Fun need first. This is why things like dishes and ringing phones advertise Fun. It's also why sims are obsessed with Fun objects, because it makes sims more fun to watch unless you actually play the game in a serious way. Serious Sims 2 players really should turn off free will.

See, that's incorrect behavior. But I bet I could tweak it to work better. What it SHOULD be is that Bladder should be dealt with first below about 0, then Energy below -95, Hunger below -80s below about -85, then Hunger below -50, and then FINALLY fun. Energy should be completely IGNORED below -70, and very little attention should be paid to hunger at all until 0.

[dizzy]

The thing to realize about all this is that FBA() is the last check you do right before the postprocessing of free will. A ton of other checks precede it.

The real problem with the needs system is that Bladder, Hunger, and Energy are specific types of Comfort, and Fun, Social, and Environment are derivatives of intuitive Comfort. Comfort itself is really just a catch-all miscellaneous term. In short, the system is not very well organized, and is prone to confusion.

The Needs system should be completely phased out and replaced with some type of Nature/Memory system.

[J. M. Pescado]

The thing to realize about all this is that FBA() is the last check you do right before the postprocessing of free will. A ton of other checks precede it.

I don't think those checks are relevant to why sims are stupid, though, they cover other things like unplugging them from animations, and timing.

The other thing to note about Free Will is that Free Will is not actually intended as a mode of play! You will note there is an extended, rather lengthy "cooldown wait" before it fires, meaning it is intended to be an idle-behavior, not a primary mode of play. It lacks sufficient aggression for that, and is thus prone to deadly stunlocking.

The real problem with the needs system is that Bladder, Hunger, and Energy are specific types of Comfort, and Fun, Social, and Environment are derivatives of intuitive Comfort. Comfort itself is really just a catch-all miscellaneous term. In short, the system is not very well organized, and is prone to confusion.

Well, as far as the motives go, it's a crude attempt to emulate basic human motivations which runs a little thin around the edges. Such as that people strictly don't require "Fun" so much as they require non-Boredom, and that if people are too bored, it is actually possible to die of boredom when your brain shuts down from disuse. "Environment" is just a motive to make people not give sims crappy houses, and as far as sims motives go, it's pretty unimportant, rather like how it is in real life. It's also very much a matter of opinion, rather than a universally-agreed upon attribute, like it in the Sims. Sims ALL like the same kind of environment, which is not true of real people. I consider a badly lit, bare concrete room to be an excellent environment, my preferred environment of choice, and would despise a room filled with bright light and windows, and have a complete indifference to any number of paintings hung on walls. I am not easily bothered by the environment as such, having rather minimalistic tastes, so something that would make *MY* environment bar green might be an awful place for someone else.

[Magicmoon]

That is hilarious. However I found the hack by Squinge at MTS2- no autonomous drinking or something like that. I haven't had chance to test it yet. But I'll let you know how it works.

Can't live without that mod. It's Here for anyone who is interested. Works a charm.

I noticed that one stops all autonomous drinking. Squinge also has another one called Less Attractive Drinks. I haven't tried it as I keep forgetting to but a bar in the house, but might be a good alternative to stopping their behavior cold turkey.

[gjam]

The thing that really makes sims stupid is their inability to remember what they were doing before they got interrupted.  I realize it could get out of hand with interruptions on top of interruptions on top of interruptions, but would it have been that hard to give them one level of recall?

Of course, if they had, I guess we would all be bitching about how sims couldn't remember two things.

[neriana]

If they could just hold a thought in their tiny brains for a few seconds longer, that would be an immense help. I hate that they forget to go up the stairs just because someone else was using them, for instance. Or forget to interact with another Sim because said Sim had to put away a book before the interaction. I want what I tell them to do not to disappear from the queue so readily.

[J. M. Pescado]

It's not really the concept of "holding a thought" as in something inherent to the game. Each and every action has a defined "timeout" period individual to that action or group of actions, and thus how quickly an action times out when it can't be initially completed the first time varies greatly. Experiments with "no timeout" have been used in the past, where I order an action to succeed or die trying, but then people complain when their sim can't do the action for some reason, but refuses to give up because I have not allowed them to fail the attempt, only to succeed or die trying.

[neriana]

Is there any way to lengthen the timeout period, or is it a binary thing?

[J. M. Pescado]

Is there any way to lengthen the timeout period, or is it a binary thing?

Theoretically possible, but it may have to be done on a per-action basis, which means there are a lot of things.

[veilchen]

Hmm, your Macrotastic command of "concentrate" works pretty well though. I realise that it's not feasble to use it everytime you give commands not connected to macrotastic, it would require a lot of extra clicking, and us non-serious, free-will on gamers would have to do some extra sim chasing or pausing, but if I want to queue up more than 3 or 4 commands, I always use it. It's been working as advertised so far.

[Issy]

I'm kind of having the same problem here.  I've had a total of four weddings so far and in all of them the couples did not get into the limo as intented.  They stand in front of the limo like they are going to sit inside (which is a mere 2 seconds or so) then they run off to the bar to get a drink :/  They miss the limo.

The last wedding I did, I saved right before they run to the limo, deleted the bar to see if it would make a difference, but only one got in and the other ran to the bartender to "get a drink". 

I don't know if it's a hack causing this.  I doubt it though cos the only hacks I use are from JM and TJ, and a few from Inge.

[J. M. Pescado]

Inability to board a vehicle is addressed in an experimental fix for a problem that occurred as of OFBp2. Get it and your sims will probably be more able to board a vehicle.

[Issy]

I wasn't aware that there is a fix for it, will download asap J.M

[eve_ftw]

If they could just hold a thought in their tiny brains for a few seconds longer, that would be an immense help. I hate that they forget to go up the stairs just because someone else was using them, for instance. Or forget to interact with another Sim because said Sim had to put away a book before the interaction. I want what I tell them to do not to disappear from the queue so readily.

I find this most annoying when you command a parent to teach a toddler something and the toddler to quit playing to receive the teaching, if it's not just right they drop it and the toddler goes back to playing, unless you make them crawl away from their toys altogether.  Even so, I still have to do the command a few times sometimes to make it work. 
By the way, has anyone figured out why it's so impossible to hand a playing toddler a bottle instead of dropping it on the floor next to them yet?  Still bugging me...

[jsalemi]

By the way, has anyone figured out why it's so impossible to hand a playing toddler a bottle instead of dropping it on the floor next to them yet?  Still bugging me...

It's a question of clearance around the toddler.  There has to be enough room for the toddler to face the parent to receive the bottle, AND actually be facing the parent, without toys or anything in-between.  Put the toddler in an empty room and the parent can hand it a bottle no problem.

[cwykes]

DJ sims has a hack to make the bar less attractive as well.
http://www.djssims.com/
"This hack alters the advertising levels of the bar drinks that were changed in Open for Business. Now the drinks are far less appealing, but Sims will still go for them autonomously, because autonomous is always better than obsessive."

[miramis]

I thought the initial idea in the base game was that fun loving sims were more prone to seek out things like games, bars, swings etc.. while serious sims were supposed to aim for the telescopes, chessboards and that sort of thing.  What happened to that?  Now all sims head for the same thing no matter what their personality.  It's annoying.

[J. M. Pescado]

Personality-affinity advertising does exist, but is not considered a strong factor. Variations in sim behavior are thus small at best, and generally not observable.