✨ Interests: The Conversation & Autonomy Update

Hi everyone,

I’m back with the promised update for Interests!

🚨 This mod (and any mod that requires Zerbu's The Custom Preferences Mod) is NOT compatible with Zerbu's Unlimited Likes and Dislikes.

Download: CurseForge / SFS
Requires: Lot 51 Core Library & The Custom Preferences Mod
Original post: https://www.patreon.com/posts/149971750

This update brings your Sims’ interests out of the background and into your gameplay.

Until now, interests helped define who a Sim was, but not how they acted or what they chose to talk about. With this update, Sims now talk about what they care about and choose interactions based on their preferences.

✨ Overhauled “Discuss Interests” Interaction

The Discuss Interests interaction has been fully reworked into a true back-and-forth exchange, complete with multiple outcome paths.

Sims now choose from one of the 18 interests, favoring topics they are personally interested in. If they know the other Sim dislikes a topic, they will avoid it. Sims will never bring up a topic they personally dislike.

How It Works

• Shared interests lead to more positive responses and a smoother back-and-forth exchange

• Disliked topics increase the chance of the interaction ending in a shrug

• A disliked topic combined with other negative factors can lead to Sims covering their ears or debating the merits of the interest

• The interaction reveals the participants' preference for the topic to others in the group

Topic balloons have also been painstakingly curated to better reflect these conversations. Each interest has its own curated pool of icons, and the specific balloon that appears is influenced by a Sim’s traits, skills, career, and age. A child talking about Animals will not visualize the topic the same way a veterinarian does, for instance.

There are 347 unique balloons in total, with around 10 per interest and 3 for new cross-interest subgroups:

• Insects (Animals × Nature)

• Farming (Animals × Food)

• Culinary Arts (Arts & Culture × Food)

• Environmentalism (Civics × Nature)

• Health Sciences (Health × Science)

• Camping (Nature × Travel)

• Law & Order (Civics × Crime)

• Outdoor Sports (Sports × Nature)

✨ Autonomy That Reflects Personality

Interests now directly shape what Sims choose to do, and who they choose to interact with. All in-game interactions have been carefully tagged, where appropriate, to align with specific interests.

• Sims are more likely to autonomously choose social and non-social interactions tied to their interests

• Sims are less likely to autonomously choose interactions tied to their disinterests

• Sims interested in Animals are more likely to interact with animals

• Sims interested in Technology are more likely to interact with robots

• Sims interested in the Paranormal are more likely to interact with occults and specters

✨ Interests and Disinterests Impact Interaction Success

Interests now directly influence how certain social interactions are received.

• When a Sim performs a social interaction tied to an interest the target Sim likes, the target is more likely to respond positively.

• When the target dislikes that interest, the interaction is more likely to go poorly.

I hope you enjoy this update as much as I enjoyed working on it. I think it adds a lot more depth to the game.

I'll be pivoting to updating existing mods for the next week or so. I’m planning to release several new mods in May, some of which will expand on Interests in different ways if you have it installed.

Happy Simming!