Self Discovery - Waffle Explains It All (Patreon)

Self Discovery is a system introduced with Growing Together. It's a huge addition to the game, making your Sim discover new aspects of their personality through lived experiences. Does it actually do that? How does it really work, and what affects it?

Self Discovery Categories

Self Discovery is handled partly with- yet again- a set of "hidden motives". I always call them this, but they're called "Commodities" in tuning. Really, it's just a number value that goes up and down. Motives are a type of commodity, so it's just easier to explain it by calling it a hidden motive.

When the commodity hits minimum, you can get a Self Discovery moment that aligns WITH the category it's tracking. When it hits maximum, you can get a Self Discovery moment that aligns AGAINST the category it's tracking. For example, Min Active will give you a moment for Active or Adventurous, and Max Active will give you a moment for Lazy. The min/max alignment doesnt make sense at face value, but it's just because the numbers are oriented that direction, it's not actually measuring "how active you are", but when things that count as active are counted, they lower the value. Just think of it as "more active = more active discovery" and "less active = less active discovery" anyway.

(Additionally, when you get a Self Discovery moment, you may be prompted to SWAP a trait for another, if the moment is for a Trait that conflicts with one you already have!)

Here is a full list of all the Self Discovery commodities the game keeps track of. The first bullet point is the category, followed by lists of traits that can be earned from said category.

• Active

  • Active, Adventurous, Lazy

• Ambition

  • Ambitious, Chased by Death, Overachiever, Self Assured

• Animal

  • Animal Enthusiast, Cat Lover, Dog Lover (There is no distinction between types of Animal discovery tracking, which is why playing with a cat might prompt the Dog Lover trait lol)

• Creative

  • Art Lover, Creative, Maker, Music Lover

• Critic

  • Foodie

• Economy

  • Freegan, Klepto, Materialistic

• Family

  • Family Oriented, Hates Children

• Fragile

  • Squeamish

• Green

  • Green Fiend, Recycle Disciple

• Hygiene

  • Neat, Slob

• Islander

  • Child of the Sea

• Jealous

  • Jealous

• Metabolism

  • Glutton, Lactose Intolerant, Vegetarian

• Mood

  • Cheerful, Gloomy, Hotheaded

• Outdoorsy

  •  Outdoorsy

• Party

  • Dance Machine, Party Animal

• Relationship

  • Loyal, Commitment Issues

• Romance

  •  Lovebug, Romantically Reserved, Romantic, Unflirty

• Scared

  • Erratic, Paranoid

• Silly

  • Childish, Cringe, Goofball

• Skill

  • Clumsy, Perfectionist

• Smart

  • Bookworm, Genius

• Snob

  • High Maintenance, Self Absorbed, Skeptical, Snob

• Social

  • Bro, Insider, Loner, Nosy, Outgoing, Socially Awkward

• Tech

  • Geek

• Virtues

  • Evil, Generous, Good, Mean, Proper

Here's an explicit example of how this works: What on earth could make your Sim discover they are Lactose Intolerant?

1. The Metabolism tracker is tracking a hidden value in the background.

2. Certain actions make the tracker go in one direction or the other.

3. When one of these directions is fully explored, you get a Discovery Moment!

4. If your Sim was experiencing a lot of things that make them seem gluttonous, they'll get a moment that affords them the Glutton trait, but only if they aren't a Vegetarian or Lactose Intolerant.

5. If your Sim was experiencing a lot of food without meat, they'll get a moment that affords them the Vegetarian trait...

6. And, if they have recently drank spoiled milk, they will get a moment that affords them the Lactose Intolerant trait.

Interactions that contribute to the Metabolism tracker include:

• Vegetarian/Lactose Intolerant:

  • Eating food that is tagged by the game as having "Meat Substitution", or vegetarian food.

• Glutton:

  • Eating all food, Grand Meals, Participating in the Curry Contest, Ambrosia, Boiling Frog Hot Pot, Raw Fish, Vending Machine Snacks, Food Ball (I am not sure what that is?), Netherworld Snacks, and Dumpster Food, eating when above 75 hunger

So you can see that some of these systems are a bit silly. If you shovel vegetarian food down your Sim's throat all day and then they drink a glass of spoiled milk, they'll get asked about Lactose Intolerance, but if they haven't had spoiled milk they get Vegetarian. But it kinda contributes to things feeling a bit more organic and random at the same time to handle it this way.

For every single Discovery Category, there are interactions that contribute in either direction.

I'm not going to list them all. That would be crazy. But here's some fun examples:

• Chased by Death:

  • I am actually not understanding when this one happens, I think it may be randomly possible whenever your Sim achieves an Ambitious discovery moment. I know for a fact it works as my Sim got this one, but it's not handled the same as the others. It seems to take over for the other Ambitious traits in general, instead of being "possible alongside the others". So if your sim has been achieving a lot they may fear death coming for them before they can do more!

• Ambitious, Overachiever, Self Assured:

  • The Ambitious category is all positive traits besides Chased by Death (which is probably why they made it work differently, rather than add a whole new set of factors to make a negative track). Ambitious rewards can come from things like:

  • Admiring self in the mirror, practicing speeches or research and debate

  • Winning: Video games, card games, hackathon, chess, hoseshoes, darts, foosball, ping pong, voidcritters, karaoke contests, video game tournaments, debates, the curry contest, the weird hunger games rabbit hole competition you can be invited to with For Rent, the finchwick fair

  • Negotiating promotions, Graduating, progressing in the Honors Society at college, asking professors for better grades

• Another one that is entirely one direction is "Squeamish". What makes a Sim Squeamish?

  • Witnessing fights

  • Changing dirty diapers

  • Seeing death

  • Narrowly escaping spider-like creatures during a specific Rocket Ship adventure

  • Sleeping in a bed someone died in

  • Apartment Problems (Mice, Goo, etc)

  • Getting Ticks from going through the Bramble Patch in Granite Falls

  • Using dirty bathrooms and counters

  • Bugs in your sleeping bag

  • Dirty public campground bathroom

So you can see that these things can come from REALLY obscure stuff.

But the gist of it is pretty simple: If an interaction would logically lead a Sim to feel a certain way, it contributes to a hidden meter that might prompt you- hey, does this sim feel a certain way?

And then you randomly get one of the potential options, depending on other traits your Sim already has, or from certain restrictions or buffs they have.

Pretty cool! IMO, this is one of the biggest features Sims 4 has ever gotten, and it's so foundational to the game now that I think any future Sims game should have it as a base game feature. It's NOT difficult for them to implement, and would only be easier to do if they started doing it right away, since it has to be put into all the interactions that make sense for it. They had to update a lot of interactions for this one. But frankly, for how complex and impactful this system is, it's deceptively simple.

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