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Personality System / Do we need "personality traits"?
updated 1 year, 2 months ago
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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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This discussion was modified 1 year, 4 months ago by
JP.
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This discussion was modified 1 year, 4 months ago by JP. Reason: Unfortunately this topic became corrupted in the migration and cannot accept further replies
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This discussion was modified 1 year, 4 months ago by
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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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I would love to see this, I feel like a points system will do nicely
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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.
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HABITS: I like this idea I think sims 3 and sims 4 traits became too much about quantity and not necessarily quality. Having the 5 basic ‘personality sliders’ are a good idea and having them change during game play as well due to environmental factors will add depth however if this would be to difficult maybe having ‘habits’ affected by the environment instead of ‘personality traits’. I like the idea that somebody else mentioned about have ‘habits’/’likes’ and dislikes’ i.e. bookworm separate from the ‘personality traits’, what you could do with that is have the ‘personality traits’ interact with the ‘habits’ for example an introvert might become a video game addict or bookworm or something like that because they’re generally indoors.
ENVIRONMENT FACTORS: You could go really in depth with this idea delving into the deepest parts of human psychology however you could simplify it down a bit by having milestones in a way. For Example once a child becomes a certain age you could get a pop up box that Evaluates how their childhood went and how that’s affected the sliders as well as what habits they’ve lost or gained along the way (You could have a look at Spore as they have quite an effective method of this). some examples could be: If they’ve had quite a solitude childhood then they’ll probably be more of an introvert, If they didn’t have many chores then they could be lazy etc. The sims 4 Parenthood introduced the character values which was ok but very basic like I said you could go quite in depth but not exactly necessary.
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I love this idea! I am a fan of traits, but I do wish they had more bearing on the actual game. Cant wait to see what you guys decide upon! 😀
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I prefer the sims 3 trait system I like having more traits and I like the specific ones and fun ones
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I like this idea, i would also like to see the “favorite color” “favorite music” “favorite food” etc, also zodiac signs!
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I really love the idea of a trait being developed. To build off @sailordeco‘s example, not only could they become a bookworm, but perhaps a sub-category of that could be that based on what kinds of books they read, they could become a fiction lover and develop creativity/imagination from that, or if they love science fiction books, maybe they can develop a love of the supernatural or logic skill increases, something like that. Same if they read cooking books, they’d develop a trait where they are a food/cook lover.
And with what @icey said, maybe it’s not just “oh they love the color red” but that the character knows if they are wearing that favorite color (maybe by presenting clothing in color categories if possible), and that causes a boost in their happiness or something. and with zodiac signs, the “compatible” characters they tend to find more attractive (also zodiac signs have preferable colors, so if you choose the same favorite color as the zodiac sign, every time your sim wears it, they feel more confident/empowered). And if their favorite music is on, they know it and get boosted fun or happiness.
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I have always wondered what a game like the Sims would be like if each person had AI similar to the creature in Lionheart Studios’ “Black and White”.
This creature’s (basically your pet) personality evolved as he lived. If he did something that benefited himself, like eating fish (fills hunger need), he would be more likely to do it again.
This could also cause some interesting situations, as eating a person also raised his hunger need, but usually wasn’t what you wanted him to do.
This is why the scolding/praising system was implemented. It worked like this:
Both eating a fish and a person would raise his hunger, and was therefore first determined by the creature to be positive actions, making it likely to do so again.
But then you scold after he eats a person. The game evaluates what he has done in the last little bit and adds a negative point to them. The more often you scold him while eating a person, the more negative points are added to it and the less likely he is to do so again. You can also praise him to have the opposite effect.
As simple as this is, it can create some very complex habits and personalities. My brother managed to teach him to lift rocks to exercise. There was no motivation for the creature to do this on his own.
What he did was tell his creature to pick up the largest rock he could. He then praised the creature. He told the creature to walk somewhere while holding the rock, and praised him again. He kept doing this until the creature started trying to do these actions on his own.
At first, the creature would often do the wrong action, like dropping or throwing the rock instead of carrying it. He would be scolded for this, and continue to be praised when he got it right. Over time the creature manages to learn to do it correctly every time. He would pick up a rock and carry it back and forth, thereby raising his strength.
The creature started initiating this sting of actions in his free time, as doing this correctly was seen as vastly more positive than other activities. (If you aren’t careful though, the creature could get ‘addicted’ and start valuing this action over his basic needs)
Essentially, by doing this my brother managed to program a more complex behavior in the creature that it was not previously programed to do.
I think this type of system would make for some very interesting and unique people.
Edit:
I just realized that these learned actions would build off of each other when other people with this type of AI are interacting.
Say you have an evil parent with a child. The evil parent might yell at the child whenever he/she/they see them. This would eventually teach the child to avoid the parent.
Or say you have a grandparent that loves to bake. The grandchildren would visit often as they would learn their hunger need gets filled there.
Or say you have a husband that hates messes. He may get angry at his spouse is they leave one. This would eventually cause his spouse to be more neat
Seeing all the people with this type of AI react to each other would be very interesting. They could even eventually create their own culture.
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With my long experience of The Sims 1,2,3 and 4, I would say the sliders of the early sims games made for more distinct personalities than the trait system of later games. With the trait system, Sims all react the same to most situations except those that their traits are programmed to respond to. And all sims who share one trait all react in the same way to that situation. A bit like the horoscopes in popular magazines that say one-twelfth of the entire population will have success in sport on Monday. With the sliders there is much more variation, since the properties actually factor together in each autonomous decision or reaction. For instance a sim with high Active slider and low Outgoing slider will want to do sport, but be put off team sport, prefering to exercise alone, so they will go to find a spot of grass to do push-ups. Whereas with a trait system, the Active trait will make them do the sport even if it’s with others, but while doing the sport they will get a bad buff about being with people. So the trait system leads to more dumb looking behaviour
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We absolutely need this and they should be “true” traits – sloppy characters should not be cleaning up all the time; someone who hates children should not roll wants to have them, etc.
An attraction system would also be great. While I want to control some things in the game, I would not want the characters to fall in love with everyone/whoever I tell them to. Some choices should be left up to them.
It would be nice if the game had some “challenges” – no easy money;no easy relationships no automatic promotions, etc; but not go so far as to be frustrating.
I like the look of the game as it stands – maybe just a little more “polish”. Looking forward to seeing what the characters look like. Saw some really great possibilities in the Google Drive.
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Hi, I’m new to the forum. I’ve always thought that a hybrid system would be good for The Sims. Maybe sims could have every trait at neutral/undeveloped by default but do actions to increase or decrease them. This would be much like how skills work. You get more points allocated towards that trait when you do actions related to that trait.
In addition to this, there could be a range of actions/wants a person could have based on their personality. For example, on the niceness scale, it could go from altruistic to neutral to downright evil. If a person is nice, they will have access to actions above and below nice such as grumpy actions up to friendly actions. Doing actions above or below will push your personality in that direction and will introduce new actions while disabling others.
Additionally a person’s mood could come into play here. If a person is nice but they are in a bad mood, the range of actions available would shift down. Now a nice person could do mean things instead of just grumpy things, and could only do good things instead of friendly things.
This opens the possibility of one person having an influence on the whole town, like if your person is a jerk to someone all the time, that could make that person become mean and they would be a jerk to other people. Over time the town could descend into chaos.
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Non-Scholarly or Non-Studious – basically doesn’t care about grades, but instead about other aspects like goodness or strength.
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You might find this threat useful 🙂
https://paraliveshub.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=13&p=156#p156+1 -
While I do like the idea, a mix of both might be the best to go with I think. To react to JP’s message, having likes, dislikes and such would be a good alternative, but it would need to have more than one like and dislike to really feel fleshed out in my opinion given that otherwise it would still feels lacking. (We don’t only like or dislike one thing irl, so it would make sense to have more than one) 🙂
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quote Dooble Dorf” post_id=346 time=1564508412 user_id=389:Hi, I’m new to the forum. I’ve always thought that a hybrid system would be good for The Sims. Maybe sims could have every trait at neutral/undeveloped by default but do actions to increase or decrease them. This would be much like how skills work. You get more points allocated towards that trait when you do actions related to that trait.
In addition to this, there could be a range of actions/wants a person could have based on their personality. For example, on the niceness scale, it could go from altruistic to neutral to downright evil. If a person is nice, they will have access to actions above and below nice such as grumpy actions up to friendly actions. Doing actions above or below will push your personality in that direction and will introduce new actions while disabling others.
Additionally a person’s mood could come into play here. If a person is nice but they are in a bad mood, the range of actions available would shift down. Now a nice person could do mean things instead of just grumpy things, and could only do good things instead of friendly things.
This opens the possibility of one person having an influence on the whole town, like if your person is a jerk to someone all the time, that could make that person become mean and they would be a jerk to other people. Over time the town could descend into chaos.
I agree with the first part of your post, but no so much with the last paragraph. If someone is a jerk and this starts a chain reaction, okay, sure that could happen, but not all the paras would react like this. They should still have the agency to choose to turn the other cheek and break the chain.
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quote TheVioletLily post_id=284 time=1564024088 user_id=313:I have always wondered what a game like the Sims would be like if each person had AI similar to the creature in Lionheart Studios’ “Black and White”.
This creature’s (basically your pet) personality evolved as he lived. If he did something that benefited himself, like eating fish (fills hunger need), he would be more likely to do it again.
This could also cause some interesting situations, as eating a person also raised his hunger need, but usually wasn’t what you wanted him to do.
This is why the scolding/praising system was implemented. It worked like this:
Both eating a fish and a person would raise his hunger, and was therefore first determined by the creature to be positive actions, making it likely to do so again.
But then you scold after he eats a person. The game evaluates what he has done in the last little bit and adds a negative point to them. The more often you scold him while eating a person, the more negative points are added to it and the less likely he is to do so again. You can also praise him to have the opposite effect.
As simple as this is, it can create some very complex habits and personalities. My brother managed to teach him to lift rocks to exercise. There was no motivation for the creature to do this on his own.
What he did was tell his creature to pick up the largest rock he could. He then praised the creature. He told the creature to walk somewhere while holding the rock, and praised him again. He kept doing this until the creature started trying to do these actions on his own.
At first, the creature would often do the wrong action, like dropping or throwing the rock instead of carrying it. He would be scolded for this, and continue to be praised when he got it right. Over time the creature manages to learn to do it correctly every time. He would pick up a rock and carry it back and forth, thereby raising his strength.
The creature started initiating this sting of actions in his free time, as doing this correctly was seen as vastly more positive than other activities. (If you aren’t careful though, the creature could get ‘addicted’ and start valuing this action over his basic needs)
Essentially, by doing this my brother managed to program a more complex behavior in the creature that it was not previously programed to do.
I think this type of system would make for some very interesting and unique people.
Edit:
I just realized that these learned actions would build off of each other when other people with this type of AI are interacting.
Say you have an evil parent with a child. The evil parent might yell at the child whenever he/she/they see them. This would eventually teach the child to avoid the parent.
Or say you have a grandparent that loves to bake. The grandchildren would visit often as they would learn their hunger need gets filled there.
Or say you have a husband that hates messes. He may get angry at his spouse is they leave one. This would eventually cause his spouse to be more neat
Seeing all the people with this type of AI react to each other would be very interesting. They could even eventually create their own culture.
Much of what you’re writing about is a from a branch of psychology called “Behaviorism.” It has its application in real life, but it cannot be used to affect or describe the whole of human thought and action. Maybe it works for animals completely, but not people. I would combine it with cognitive psychology, social learning theory, and psychosocial psychology.
Cognitive psych basically claims that people are not blank slates. We are born with personalities that can be molded by own choices.
Social learning theory claims that our personalities are influenced by the teaching, expectations, and traditions of surrounding culture.
Psychosocial psychology claims that our personalities are molded by positive and negative social experiences in childhood.
These three and behaviorism should be combined to create a realistic psychological basis for life simulation games.
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quote Winderhousen post_id=662 time=1566594407 user_id=550:Much of what you’re writing about is a from a branch of psychology called “Behaviorism.” It has its application in real life, but it cannot be used to affect or describe the whole of human thought and action. Maybe it works for animals completely, but not people. I would combine it with cognitive psychology, social learning theory, and psychosocial psychology.
Cognitive psych basically claims that people are not blank slates. We are born with personalities that can be molded by own choices.
Social learning theory claims that our personalities are influenced by the teaching, expectations, and traditions of surrounding culture.
Psychosocial psychology claims that our personalities are molded by positive and negative social experiences in childhood.
These three and behaviorism should be combined to create a realistic psychological basis for life simulation games.
Thanks for the explanation. My purpose in posting my first comment was to address the issue of, from what I’ve seen, the lack of that specific type of AI learning in life sim games.
In “The Sims”, for example, the sims do not learn from past experiences. They are products of their initial traits. The “Sims 4” addressed this in a way with the Parenthood pack, but it really only gave you the option to add on a few more traits through some very specific experiences. That is not the type of AI learning that could create a complex character.
The type of AI that could would be one that can learn from nearly every experience. I gave the creature in “Black and White” as an example of this, as it was the first video game character I had seen with that type of AI.
All complex creatures are, at least in part, a result of their environment. Any character that lacks the ability to learn from their environment will seem unrealistic and dull in comparison.
I didn’t mean to say this specific type of AI learning should be the only contribution to a simulation person’s personality or behavior, but rather I meant that, when incorporated, it could contribute much to whatever personality or behavior mechanics are already in place.
That being said, I doubt this type of AI will be incorporated to the game. It is rather complex and I don’t want to put even more pressure on the game developers than there already is. Complex characters are in no way a requirement in what could be considered a virtual doll game, and taking a similar route to “The Sims” in regards to personality is definitely the easier option.
I just think it would be very interesting to see in a life sim game at some point in the future, even if it isn’t this one.
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I was thinking what if we could have the option to do both?
My idea is What if something like the sims 2 personality trait system was what we started out with, but as you would play the game and have your paras do certain tasks or hobbies more frequently or all the time they would develop these hidden traits. Like bookworm, kleptomaniac, materialistic. Like all the individual traits wouldn’t be able to be chosen in create a para like sims 4, but would be programmed in the game, to become part of the paras personality while playing the game. So we would gradually see this appear in their biography overtime as they aged or just overtime throughout the cycle of seasons/weeks.
But there was an option to also just choose individual traits if we wanted to in create a para.
I do hope personality traits can be passed off from parents to children, though just a couple so there’d be room for the children to develop their own personality.
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[quote quote=3569]I like the idea of a mix of personality points and traits, it adds more granularity and uniqueness to the characters. And I definitely like the idea of their personalities developing based on their experiences, especially their experiences growing up.
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YES. Idk how that would work, but it could, YEAH idk how to word right now, but this seems the best to me.
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[quote quote=4012]
quote TheVioletLily post_id=284 time=1564024088 user_id=313:I have always wondered what a game like the Sims would be like if each person had AI similar to the creature in Lionheart Studios’ “Black and White”.This creature’s (basically your pet) personality evolved as he lived. If he did something that benefited himself, like eating fish (fills hunger need), he would be more likely to do it again.
This could also cause some interesting situations, as eating a person also raised his hunger need, but usually wasn’t what you wanted him to do.
This is why the scolding/praising system was implemented. It worked like this:
Both eating a fish and a person would raise his hunger, and was therefore first determined by the creature to be positive actions, making it likely to do so again.
But then you scold after he eats a person. The game evaluates what he has done in the last little bit and adds a negative point to them. The more often you scold him while eating a person, the more negative points are added to it and the less likely he is to do so again. You can also praise him to have the opposite effect.
As simple as this is, it can create some very complex habits and personalities. My brother managed to teach him to lift rocks to exercise. There was no motivation for the creature to do this on his own.
What he did was tell his creature to pick up the largest rock he could. He then praised the creature. He told the creature to walk somewhere while holding the rock, and praised him again. He kept doing this until the creature started trying to do these actions on his own.
At first, the creature would often do the wrong action, like dropping or throwing the rock instead of carrying it. He would be scolded for this, and continue to be praised when he got it right. Over time the creature manages to learn to do it correctly every time. He would pick up a rock and carry it back and forth, thereby raising his strength.
The creature started initiating this sting of actions in his free time, as doing this correctly was seen as vastly more positive than other activities. (If you aren’t careful though, the creature could get ‘addicted’ and start valuing this action over his basic needs)
Essentially, by doing this my brother managed to program a more complex behavior in the creature that it was not previously programed to do.
I think this type of system would make for some very interesting and unique people.
Edit:
I just realized that these learned actions would build off of each other when other people with this type of AI are interacting.
Say you have an evil parent with a child. The evil parent might yell at the child whenever he/she/they see them. This would eventually teach the child to avoid the parent.
Or say you have a grandparent that loves to bake. The grandchildren would visit often as they would learn their hunger need gets filled there.
Or say you have a husband that hates messes. He may get angry at his spouse is they leave one. This would eventually cause his spouse to be more neat
Seeing all the people with this type of AI react to each other would be very interesting. They could even eventually create their own culture.
Much of what you’re writing about is a from a branch of psychology called “Behaviorism.” It has its application in real life, but it cannot be used to affect or describe the whole of human thought and action. Maybe it works for animals completely, but not people. I would combine it with cognitive psychology, social learning theory, and psychosocial psychology.
Cognitive psych basically claims that people are not blank slates. We are born with personalities that can be molded by own choices.
Social learning theory claims that our personalities are influenced by the teaching, expectations, and traditions of surrounding culture.
Psychosocial psychology claims that our personalities are molded by positive and negative social experiences in childhood.
These three and behaviorism should be combined to create a realistic psychological basis for life simulation games.
[/quote]
YESSSSSSSSSS ALL OF IT. Also love the psych bit there.
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I think that the reason people want Trait Customization is so they can relate better to the characters they make. It’s understandable. Who wouldn’t want that? I certainly would. It’s we’re parents watching their children grow up into both emotionally and financially thriving adults.
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I never enjoyed the point system from TS2. Often times I wasn’t able to make the sim that I wanted, due to a lack of points, which can take away from the game. Honestly, I’d love to see a system that we haven’t seen in a simulation game yet. It would be really easy to just go with traits or a point system, but I’d love to see a whole new system.[i] Paralives is its own game[/i]. Both the points system and the traits systems have their own faults. With the traits system, it is way too easy to pick ONLY positive traits, making unrealistic and unbalanced sims. A sim who’s good, friendly, nurturing, ambitious, and brave is kinda boring! I really enjoyed the system in The Sims Medieval where the player had to pick one flaw for the character. I’d love to see personality of Parafolks’ children a LOT less up to the player. A mixture of randomized and adopted from parents and environment would be lovely.
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i’d want them traits to work like how traits function in TS2 and TS3 in which each traits has a great and distinct impact on them sims which made them unique from one another there.
if there’d be emotional traits. there should be some system of some sort that disable and prevents from being in a certain emotion. for instance, a parafolk with a ‘good’ trait don’t have access to mean interactions or will only have limited interactions only.
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I don’t think we need traits at all. Just interests, turn-ons and offs, and skills. That would leave us with a pretty flexible system to build upon with the gameplay.
So, a polk who preferred a mate with high fitness/beauty and low mental skill (logic in the sims) would be the equivalent of a serial heartbreaker. If he himself has these features, he could even fall victim to a better heartbreaker.
I’m all for favorite foods, music, book genre, turn-ons and offs, job, and a long term goal to guide that polk life. But I think character traits/values have been overdone by now. Paralives needs to set itself apart from the competition if it was to shine.
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