Sims 4 - Shame on you origin!

[Daveroski]

I got it for free.

Good job too.

The scripting for all the characters is just awful.

A character is hungry, dirty, bladder full and tired all in the yellow.

Does the character use any logic to solve these needs?

Like going to the toilet, having a shower, eating and then bed?

No... None at all..

Goes to bed. energy bar fills, nice bed. Does it at least leap out of bed when no more rest can be gained?

No.. it will stay for the full rest cycle needed or not.

It's other needs go into the orange and red before the cycle of sleep is complete.

When eventually it does finish it's sleep cycle, does it then go into the en suite bathroom to toilet and shower?

No, it goes cross-legged to the bathroom on the other side of the mansion.

It's partner is at this time cooking an 8pc meal. This has to be done manually because the character is level 10 cook but would still rather wait until its good and hungry and then make a PBJ for itself instead of cooking for the household.

Does the first character having taken care of all the rest of its needs then sit at the dining table and wait for the coming meal?

No.. it decides that it will cook a meal for itself.

Everything is just so random. It is pure laziness on the part of Origin.There is no actual script for each character which checks against the household.

It is bad enough with just a couple of characters but it seems to allow 200?

Seriously. other games with far more entities than The Sims 4  can do so much better with individual character scripting.

Prison Architect for example. a Prison with over 1000 prisoners and staff to manage them. Each entity running it's own script.

In many ways the scripting is worse than it was in Sims 3

Will any of them feed the cow autonomously? NO. They will play with the cowplant  rather than take a toddler out of it's high chair.

Why do manual commands cause deletion of existing intentions?

A visitor comes over. Does our Sim chat to the visitor? No. It goes outside to talk to a plant. In fact going out to talk to the garden seems to be a preferred activity.

The reason it's talking to a plant is because I took away the games machine and the bar.

If you have a games machine, it will live on it almost to the exclusion of everything else.

Even when it has maxed it's skill on it.

Even when it's 'Fun' bar is already full.

Then there is the bar.

A sim will make a drink and keep making drinks Kerching! Kerching! Kerching! Kerching! Kerching! 

It keeps making drinks. Doesn't even drink them all. Ends up running out of places to put them so it stars using the floor.

Eventually they may go manky enough that they get thrown away.

Then there is Gardening.

All the way up the skill levels and I still have to fertilize the garden manually one plant at a time.

I have to tell them what to grow. and where to plant because you haven't created a 'Garden' area that could have sims doing it for themselves.

But wait!, we have planters. Which are completely manual too.

Even the pathetic gardening skill they do have they use badly.

They gain the ability to 'Tend Garden' but they will still go out water an individual plant and then go an read a book not because they need fun but because your RNG tells them to.

The name "Sims" suggests a level of simulation that they don't possess.

Then there are the bugs... DEGMS.

[jpkarlsen]

I'm sorry that you thought that this were a game where you did not have to do anything yourself. Wait that reminds me of something. Movies! Have you considered watching one of these instead.?

[PugLove888]

@Daveroski, I see what you say, and at times it can be a bit aggravating, but since it is a game, this is what makes it challenging!   You might feel otherwise, but if I wanted to just watch characters do their thing without any direction from me, then I would just watch TV! 

[Alpaca-explosion]

You know if you just have an issue with the needs needing to be filled YOU CAN EASILY SOLVE THAT

1. Open the cheat bar or google how to if you never have done this before

2. Type in testing cheats true

3. Press esc or close it

4. Hold down shift while you press a sim, instead of go for a jog and change outfit appearing, it will give you the option of:

a: Make happy (Fills all need bars) temporary

b: Disable need decay (Stops it from happening) permanent 

c: Many other cool things like turning that sim into a plant sim or leaving family or marriage

d: Enable need decay (In case you disabled it)

[Player_jp5s5eav]

    Yep. The simulations can be pretty stupid. You’d think once the bar hits yellow they’d have some sort of inclination to do something about it. They don’t do anything until it has hit the near of the red. *Shrugs.*

    You cannot hurry them either. The animations are timed, so yeah, full amount of sleep and the timer is filled half way… they will stay until the meter is finished, so you have to wake them up.

    They are picky buggers, too. They always want to use the most expensive item. So yeah, if the en suite doesn’t have the bathroom with the highest quality toilet, they will go for the one across the house. Sometimes this doesn’t even matter. Even with a toilet in the house, some will automatically go to a pee bush if you stuck that in the lot. XD

    Yeah, if you aren’t watching all your Sims, you will have one almost finish cooking dinner for everyone, but some other family member starts up the grill. (This isn’t so bad ‘cause it means plenty of leftovers.)

    The thing is, all of them work on their own autonomy and not one as a group. That is just how the Sims has always played. It can be bothersome for someone trying to make everything just so, but these are not artificial intelligence. These are simulations that the player is supposed to have “complete control” over – unless of course you have autonomy on for all.

    Lots of people like this because of the stupidity. Like the Cowplant? Up! The idiot ate the cake tongue because the timing was perfect: I wasn’t paying attention to this Sim, he is starving and the Cowplant is too. I got an essence potion at least!

    While it can be annoying on occasion when a manual command stops an intention caused by autonomy, it can sometimes be a real game saver. “Crap! Don’t do that you idiot!”

    Yeah, they get obsessed over things here and there. They are like little kids that never learn. Are you feeling a bit sorry for your parents now?

    Huh… the gardening… I haven’t really played with that in a while, so I know nothing about the fertilizer part. But, hey, once upon a time you have to water, weed and harvest each plant manually one plant at a time and that would take your Sim’s entire day! o.O

    Also, yeah… you have to tell them what to grow and where to plant, because some players want the ability to make custom gardens just as much as they want to make custom buildings, rooms, Sims and so forth. (You could always hire a gardener to do all the work without your input.)

    If you cannot adapt, learn to play the game differently, check for custom-made mods other players have made or just go back to your games with better simulations. *Shrugs.*

    All in all, though, these stupid things can lead to interesting to amusing scenarios. Some people take advantage of these even for stress relief and make Youtube videos to showcase such things… and the viewers love it. >:D