Re: [FIXED] Gender Preference/Attraction Bug

Sims have a hidden gender preference score, which you can see using mods. When they are first created, they have a 100% score for both male and female preference. If you play them and direct them towards a particular gender, the score increases for the one you chose, until eventually it can be 100% for one and 0% for the other.

If you leave a sim alone, such as a townie they can gradually form their own preference over time as they flirt autonomously on their own in the background.

Usually, before the patch, they would seem to follow this score and choose autonomous actions based off it. But now they don't.

Hello everyone!

We are trying to reproduce your issue but we have been unable to so far. 

Can you guys helps us a bit? Would you be willing to send your save files?  If so, instructions are here:

https://answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports/INFORMATION-How-to-Send-User-Files-to-The-Sims-4-Team/m-p/6065...

Thank you very much!

Uh yeah. Don't like being lied to.

The problem has been fixed in my game and I don't appreciate SimQA coming on and saying there was not a problem.

I opened a new save file and now the romantic wish on the wishing well gives my sims the correct orientation love partner, the first time around. 

Since I first noticed the problem weeks ago, I kept retesting with new game saves and the problem was still there. It was still there last week.

And now suddenly, it's gone, today when I am told that there is no evidence of the game glitch or tuning of relationships  or whatever was going on to make the game more gay after the gay couple was highlighted in the Cats and Dogs expansion (by the way, the gay couple keep asking female sims on dates before this current (background) fix...not sure what the heck that was about. 

I would appreciate honesty from a game platform that I've invested in substantially and over many years. 

They just said they could not repro themselves and like some help. No one ever said it wasn't an issue. So I don't see where you're being lied to ?

Tagging others in this thread to see if it's still an issue

@ConsoleCake @unseenlarks 

hi @SimGuruIcarus, thanks for replying!

i've seen one of my male Sims, who's meant to flirt with other males and has done so from the start as intended, often gets whims to flirt with his two female friends/housemates. two other male Sims (who happen to be best friends) roll whims to flirt with each other. basically, everyone in that house wants to flirt with everyone else (the whim description states it's "from being near a friendly relationship"), and they have never had any sort of romantic relationship (or interaction, even) with each other--only with their significant others, who are not part of that household, btw.

tbh, i haven't been keeping track of my other played Sims lately, but from time to time i would check their romance panels and find all kinds of stuff like the above. those whose preferences leaned towards males had female love interests, and i've seen the other way around before, too.

here are my save files. it's an older batch, because for some reason onedrive is being unreasonable today. i don't remember how the situation was left off here. so let me know if it's still okay to share these ones--if not, i will try back later.

Omission of what ? There was no sneak fix for that or you would have needed to update your game.

This game is quite complex and some glitches are only seen by one person and not by another. They can heavily depend on your play style.

---

@crinrict wrote:

This game is quite complex and some glitches are only seen by one person and not by another. They can heavily depend on your play style.

---

THIS.

Hi, @SimGuruIcarus! (And thank you crinrict, for notifying me!) Here's the save file where I first noticed the bug. I also have a vampire with Alluring Visage/Vampiric Charm in my last played household, if that helps! This is my current gameplay save. I have some custom content on this one, sorry! I'm still experiencing the bug, but I'm using mods to mitigate the issue.

Hi @SimGuruIcarus 

Here is the link to my save where it's been occurring. I've had what are meant to be straight male sims flirting with other men simply because they're feeling flirty, and both of them have been in relationships as well. 

Thank you all for your saves!

This will definitely help us trying to pin-point this issue.

Happy Simming! 

Hopefully you can reproduce it and get to the bottom of it.

Tips to reproduce: I see this worst at the Romance Festival. Just observed two female sims, both with 100% male preference drink some tea and then immediately start flirting with each other in front of their husbands.

Also I had a gay couple dining at a restaurant, and they get the Dinner Date romance moodlet. They started chatting with a married heterosexual couple dining at the table next to them and suddenly there were jealousy reactions all over the place because one of the groups flirted with the other autonomously instead of having any restraint or faithfulness.

When I click on any sims and get presented with random suggested social interactions, I often see romantic interactions suggested that ignore gender preference. For example if I male sim with female preference is in a playful mood and clicks on another male sim, it can suggest "Make a Flirtatious Joke". Before the November 2017 patch I don't recall that happening. Or at least it was tuned differently. The problem is that sims seem to follow the same rules as the suggestions when randomly performing autonomous actions.

I only play one saved game ever, which I've previously submitted for other bug reports.

You know, I never really paid attention before, but this happens in my game too.  I just guess I thought my Sim was hot stuff -- and she gets flirty A LOT.  But she's also a vampire, and when she uses "alluring visage" it doesn't matter what flirts with her... she'd probably flirt back with the talking john.  Of course, the unplayable Sim is always the one to make the first move... she just reciprocates regardless of relationship status, or gender of the Sim making the overture.

If this is not the same thing, I apologize.

I have done my own research on this since noticing strange relationships starting in my game. I basically ran the game with a save with no mods other than MCCC to make it easier to perform troubleshooting and to also keep track of my sims gender preferences. I've definitely noticed alot of swinging of gender preferences, closer to neutral percentages, than their was in the past. I believe this is a combination of a few game changes that may not be WAI. 

It seems that the whims that sims get, especially on NPC's, are alot more friendly/romantic social than in the past, and it also seems that these interactions are either repeating so frequently, or they have such a strong influence, that they are shifting otherwise completely straight or completely gay sims over twords the other side, especially if they have alot of friends of both sexes. 

Also I believe some of the traits having to do with friendly and romantic interactions are stronger now, making it even more likely any one sim with these will become more of a gregarious romantic than what might have been otherwise intended. 

One of the things I tried for example was to remove any traits from some sims that appear to affect friendliness or romantic feelings, then run some testing again. It definitely appeared to reduce the instance of sims who were mostly one gender preference from becoming unbalanced away from the way they currently feel. 

Obviously when it comes to relationships and gender preference in the game it is a very fluid system, allowing for sims to be played first one way, then the other without having to start a new sim. But it seems like the random influence on sims, especially NPC sims, has become a bit too excessive. 

Anyway FWIW, YMMV :D