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Personality System / Do we need "personality traits"?
So, I’m not sure how far the characters development already is, but I’ve came up with some ideas! Seems that a lot of us are Sims players and, at this point, I’ve seem a lot of discussion about personality traits. However, I was wondering if that is the best personality system we can get.
Sims 3 and Sims 4 players very often complain about traits and how they don’t really influence that much on gameplay. Maybe a nice option is to bring something similar with the personality points-system that we saw in The Sims 2.
Seems simple, but I do see a lot of possibilities in this ideia. We could actually have a personality system influenced by the gameplay. Imagine something like that:
Sloppy —–|—– Neat
Lazy —– | —– Active
Shy —– | —– Outgoing
Serious —– | —– Playful
Grouchy —– | —– NiceOf course it doesn’t need to use the same parameters as Sims 2, it’s just an example. So, let’s imagine you set your character’s personality like this:
Sloppy |– Neat
Lazy | — Active
Shy — | Outgoing
Serious – | Playful
Grouchy | — NiceThat means you would have a character that is a Neat, Active, Shy, Serious and Nice. This presets would affect your gameplay, but your gameplay could affect this presets too. You could make your character being mean to everyone, which would drop the “Nice” points until he becomes Grouchy. When you max points in any parameter, you could have a special reward or somethig: for example, characters with max Nice points could start relationships easily!
Other “traits” that we know from Sims games could work as an “Interests and Habits” system. Characters that read a lot could gain the “Bookworm” trait, or characters that flirt a lot could gain the “Romantic” trait.
Idk how difficult would be implement something like that, but I think it would make gameplay a lot more interesting!
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34 Replies
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That’s brilliant! I hope something like this is added in the final game!
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Something like the sliders would be way better than selecting traits.
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There should probably still be at least a few really general traits that don’t change, like “good” and “evil” and things like that, like core personality traits that either don’t go away once earned or are chosen like the Sims system.
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I always preferred the Sims 2 style of personality sliders. The current thinking is there are 5 major personality traits:
Conscientiousness
Agreeableness
Neuroticism
Openness
ExtroversionHaving sliders or allocating points on a 1 – 10 scale would allow for a greater degree of difference in my opinion. You can then add character traits (on the same slider basis as personality) which could be learned in the game via chance cards as well as specific game play actions. (ie being mean would lower kindness). Adults could begin with some points in the various categories as part of the creation process so they are not a complete blank slate when starting out. As well as that you could also add “Interests” and/or “Pet Hates”. Just what those would entail would be decided to some extent by the available game play. (ie no point having something like Archery as an interest if it’s not in the game)
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I like the personality traits, but I would stick to a 3 or 5 step slider and keep them dynamic.
Sloppy | – – – – Neat = A swine
Sloppy – – – – | Neat = OCD Neatfreak
Sloppy – – – | – Neat = More than average, but not scrubbing the toilet on a daily basis.Example:
You have a working couple, both are 3/5 Neat. They live together with no kids, both do their fair share of tasks around the house. They get a kid, the man starts working more hours so the mom can stay at home. The mom would gradually become Neat 4/5 because she spends much more time cleaning around the house now, but most likely never a 5/5 because there is simply no time for that much cleaning with a kid 😀 And the man would gradually become a 2/5 Neat because he’s working more so less household activities for him, but he would never become a 1/5 because he still has the decency of cleaning up after himself.Keep an optional system or cheat to lock those traits, in case you really don’t want your people to loose/gain a certain trait. Or maybe even lock it per slider step. i.e: Only allow Neat 2/3/4 but never 1 or 5 so you can avoid over-exaggerated effects.
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quote sawdust post_id=153 time=1563609696 user_id=153:I always preferred the Sims 2 style of personality sliders. The current thinking is there are 5 major personality traits:
Conscientiousness
Agreeableness
Neuroticism
Openness
ExtroversionHaving sliders or allocating points on a 1 – 10 scale would allow for a greater degree of difference in my opinion. You can then add character traits (on the same slider basis as personality) which could be learned in the game via chance cards as well as specific game play actions. (ie being mean would lower kindness). Adults could begin with some points in the various categories as part of the creation process so they are not a complete blank slate when starting out. As well as that you could also add “Interests” and/or “Pet Hates”. Just what those would entail would be decided to some extent by the available game play. (ie no point having something like Archery as an interest if it’s not in the game)
I think most of those are good scales to have for personality points and then you have traits on top, and you could do interesting things like have an introvert with the “charismatic” trait which means they don’t like being around people that much but people tend to like them (which might cause them some trouble with people wanting to be around them when they don’t want to be around people!), or a “shy” extrovert who needs plenty of social interactions but has trouble dealing with new people.
