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Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#26 Old 2nd Jul 2018 at 11:35 PM
For me, the motivational levels that I play with (neatness + Activity- playfulness) are not just IQ points but depending on the sim it can also mean willpower, focus and motivation to do something or even orneriness/stubbornness. Which is why I call them motivation levels not smart-stupid levels.

As to IQ tests, that depends. I think if a person is given two or more tests in a clinical setting without that person being overly stressed or given tests that are out of their realm that it can show you a decent picture of that person.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
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Field Researcher
#27 Old 3rd Jul 2018 at 12:01 AM
Come to think of it, I actually use Inge's/Simlogical's Homework Skilling mod, because I think it's stupid that children don't learn anything from school or homework in the Sims 2. When it comes to toddler skills, I actually base which toy or two toys I buy on what aspiration the parents have - knowledge sims like at least two toys, at least the logic one, family sims like two, wealth or popularity favor charisma, etc. The tod has nothing to say about it!

Quote: Originally posted by iCad
Nothing is ENTIRELY nature or ENTIRELY nuture. Pretty much everything is some combination of both. We are slaves to both biology AND sociology, after all. It's just that I don't think "intelligence" is primarily in-born. I think it's primarily affected by environment...or sometimes by rebelling AGAINST environment, like relishing learning because one's parents didn't/don't value it or because you want to spite your social peers/agemates and relish being "different."


Yeah, I'm in a different camp at the moment, that it could be an equal measure, I didn't think you argued for one extreme! I was not rebelling (I implicitly trusted and respected adults until I became 11 or so), I despised attention and I wasn't particularly motivated to learn at school (it was way to easy, except for the stuff most high-intelligent autistic children have troubles with), yet I showed signs of great intelligence, picking things up faster than average, having a great memory, being able to skip sections of learning books without trouble, etc.. And I was myself partially anti-intellectual under influence of my parents until I became 21! As a child I was simply obsessed with reading, from food packaging to books that were 'above' my age and that might have influenced my intelligence, but that drive wasn't caused by the environment, it probably was an autistic thing.
(IQ tests aren't necessary to notice someone is intelligent, but the results aren't completely random either)
Simply because you can come up with children that do better when moved from a bad to a good environment doesn't mean that intelligence is heavily nurture-based, just like a child that starts growing after it gets nutritious food after starving doesn't prove that food makes you grow - growing means you need the nutrition and energy food provides, but children don't grow more if you overfeed them. (Well, at least not vertically!) Even in Asia not everyone does well at school, some people just don't have it. Of course kids need confidence that they can achieve things even if it's hard to do, but there are real limits to what a person can do, like how much you can tolerate stress or how much you can concentrate or whether something interests you to begin with. I know at least that Twin Studies have revealed biological underpinnings of behaviour and interests, I just don't know the details yet because I haven't spend the time reading books or listening to lectures about it yet. :P
(Oh by the way, Puritanism is an US/UK thing, different christian sects had a different influence on teaching and learning.)
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#28 Old 3rd Jul 2018 at 1:27 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Isa-WP
Come to think of it, I actually use Inge's/Simlogical's Homework Skilling mod, because I think it's stupid that children don't learn anything from school or homework in the Sims 2.


Exactly, Sim 2 vanilla school seems such a waste of time to me. Kids come home grumpy then have to do homework. It feels more like a mechanic to keep the SW happy then anything else. The Homework Sometimes mod improved that quite a bit but still wasn't good enough for me. I want the kids to be learning something useful, plus I like seeing them either at home or at my player run schools.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Mad Poster
#29 Old 3rd Jul 2018 at 1:40 AM
I don't really call them 'motivation' levels, but personal ambition levels. If a pixel (or human for that matter) doesn't have the ambition to do something, until they do, it makes no sense to push them to do what they won't do naturally.

Some pixels just wanna have fun, you know?

Receptacle Refugee & Resident Polar Bear
"Get out of my way, young'un, I'm a ninja!"
Grave Matters: The funeral podium is available here: https://www.mediafire.com/file/e6tj...albits.zip/file
My other downloads are here: https://app.mediafire.com/myfiles
Scholar
#30 Old 3rd Jul 2018 at 9:55 PM
I didn't know how to get skill limiting until this thread appeared. I can certainly see this being useful for my older teens, adults and elders. (Younger ages don't seem to be too disproportionate in SimHampton, possibly because the object choice for them tends to be limited in any given house and I try to play each young Sim so they have distinct preferences).

I'm thinking of limiting on a basis of the amount of learning Sims do. Engaging in learning seems to gradually improve ability to learn (at any age), particularly in areas of strength, but not learning makes it harder to restart learning. I may need to do more thinking about this to see how to make such a system work well.
Mad Poster
#31 Old 4th Jul 2018 at 12:18 AM
The reason I started using limiting is that in Bellefleur, Bella's youngest son, Matt, (by Don Lothario) is such a genius that he literally maxed out nearly all of his skills by the time he turned YA. Thus, he didn't really have to go to college, he knew it all before!

Not that I mind the young man's ambition, but you really must have limits or else burn out! (plus he has the most wonderful personality. Everyone loves Matt!)

Receptacle Refugee & Resident Polar Bear
"Get out of my way, young'un, I'm a ninja!"
Grave Matters: The funeral podium is available here: https://www.mediafire.com/file/e6tj...albits.zip/file
My other downloads are here: https://app.mediafire.com/myfiles
Lab Assistant
#32 Old 4th Jul 2018 at 3:04 AM
I use that addon. I decide by motivation level, interests, and random dice rolls.

They should use The Sims 2 in psychology....it could work wonders.
Mad Poster
#33 Old 7th Jul 2018 at 10:44 PM
I only let them skill autonomously, and only direct them to skill when they ask me to (rolling a want, including rolling a want for a promotion).

Toddler toys I look at the skills of the parents and I allow them to buy skill based toys based on the parents' level in each skill. So in some ways a toddler "inherits" the skills the parent is strongest in, or if you like, the parents encourage those skills the most - that seems realistic to me. That gives children a head start in those particular skills because from the age of child I start paying attention to their own wants regarding skilling, and there are various skilling objects available at each of the schools as well, but again parents are likely to have an influence over what toys or activities children have to play with at home, but it's not as strong as for toddlers.

I use Cyjon's homework mods so that kids and teens end up with a variation in grades and some mod which means that a majority of children in a family need to be failing at school before social services get involved, so I don't end up with all children getting As because I'm paranoid about them getting taken away. This way I feel justified to leave them to the game- and mod-directed behaviour and it's only when the parents are really lax and/or the children aren't actually getting their needs met in terms of sleep, food, fun, and hygiene, or they are regularly skipping school - that their grades tend to drop dramatically, which makes much more sense (I never understood why children were whisked away from their families just because they struggled at school - or, worse, because their sibling was lazy and didn't do their homework!)

I use the sims as a psychology simulator...
Theorist
#34 Old 8th Jul 2018 at 8:39 AM
IQ tests, at least the traditional ones, ignore that there are many components to intelligence that can be developed at different levels within the same person (a person can be a genius in logic, but absolutely clueless about emotional or social matters - and no that doesn't automatically mean they have some sort of syndrome, or somebody can have huge resources on practical sense but be very unskilled at working out concepts or abstract thought construct)
The idea that "X" is intelligence or the "best" intelligence is very outdated...
....as is the idea that people get "dumb" with age, no matter how warm and fuzzy it makes people feel to hail children as the "actual" smart people. It's just that children are given the primary function/job to learn and acquire knowledge/skills by our society, while later on people are excepted to fulfill different functions, are given less access to resources that relate to acquiring new knowledge or skills, and, in many cases, become too busy or complacent to go on doing what society deems "learning".
Current understanding is that we learn until our last breath and we're actually wasting a lot of our potential by telling ourselves otherwise. I just learned how to crochet, something I couldn't do as a kid despite numerous tries because my motor skills took a bit longer to develop than those of most people. Other people learn how to be parents at an older age, etc. etc. etc.

On limiting skills...it is an interesting idea, but again my inner conviction that everybody can learn everything (with some obvious exception) is a bt against that. In real life the reason why people can't acquire a specific skill tends to be a lack of access to education/training, lack of personal confidence/ambition/endurance or other socio-economic factors which would be difficult to simulate in Sims, but it's an itneresting idea, I might try that mod that can set limits.

Avatar by MasterRed
Taking an extended break from Sims stuff. Might be around, might not.
Mad Poster
#35 Old 8th Jul 2018 at 6:22 PM
It's a bit like restricting Sims' job levels or their money: I just don't perceive the need to do it. I don't do any of these things, but my Sims are not all filthy rich; they're not all sitting at the top of their professions or with all skills maximised.
As examples, look at my original Sim Andrew Jones and his mum Gloria, whom I've been playing on and off since I started in November 2012. Andrew is Knowledge and his skills are:
7 Cooking
2 Mechanical
0 Charisma
7 Body
10 Logic
3 Creativity
7 Cleaning
Andrew quickly picked up his 10 Logic points because he enjoys chess. 7 Cleaning points because he's a Virgo. 7 Body points because his mum has both an obstacle course and a punch-bag at home, so keeping fit isn't hard. 7 Cooking points because Andrew is still annoyed about being rejected for private school on his first day. He wants to get in by serving up a lobster thermidor that he's cooked himself. No charisma points because talking to himself in the mirror is just about the most boring way of spending his time that he can imagine.

Gloria's skills are:
5 Cooking
5 Mechanical
4 Charisma
9 Body
8 Logic
3 Creativity
5 Cleaning
Gloria's dream is to reach the top of the athletic career. She's quite focussed upon this, but, like her son, she has a full social and love life too. Her Aspiration is Romance. She got her Charisma points because she needed them for promotions. Her boyfriend is in the politics career, so he has that teleprompter thing, which isn't quite as boring as practicing in front of the bathroom mirror. She's always done most plumbing repairs in the house, so she's garnered a few Mechanical points. (I never let my Sims do electrical repairs themselves -- they always get the repairperson for that.) And she quite likes chess, but she's not as fixated on it as Andrew. But, despite me spending a lot of time with them, they're nowhere near maximising all their skills.

All in all I think the reason why my Sims don't maximise skills, job-levels and money is my relaxed, aging-off playstyle. Sims who need the money will work hard to get skills they need for the next promotion. But once they have enough to meet their needs with a little to spare, they tend to relax and enjoy life. Without the pressure of feeling "Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near", they can hang out with friends or family, they can go to the park, or they can enjoy the downtown nightlife. As for skilling for that promotion, they can join with Scarlett O'Hara (in Gone with the Wind) in saying, "I won't think about that today. I'll think about that tomorrow. After all, tomorrow is another day!"

Quote: Originally posted by Orphalesion
On limiting skills...it is an interesting idea, but again my inner conviction that everybody can learn everything (with some obvious exception) is a bt against that.
I'm perfectly happy to see my Sims not maximising all their skills because they're doing other, more satisfying things with their lives, but I'd feel very uneasy introducing an arbitrary limit on what they can achieve. I'd just feel it was wrong to arbitrarily stop anyone from achieving their full potential. With their aspirations and their fears, I'm sure my Sims have souls. In dealing with my Sims, I like to tread softly, lest I tread on their dreams.

All Sims are beautiful -- even the ugly ones.
My Simblr ~~ My LJ
Sims' lives matter!
The Veronaville kids are alright.
Mad Poster
#36 Old 3rd Sep 2018 at 3:58 PM
Interesting. Now I'm contemplating whether or not I should begin limiting skills or not I guess meanwhile I don't much care atm.

P.S. Sorry for my bad english.
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