Developers - omg STOP with the stupid Mischief skill

I have the mischief activity set to dislike on every SIM since I started playing the game because I literally hate it... in the game and in real life.  Recently, EVERY SINGLE SIM has acquired the skill and uses it on all my other SIMs.  I have even deleted Sims because they became too obnoxious to be around.  Please disable this undocumented feature you have recently added to the game.

I dislike comedy and I literally had to tune it out of every file that would level comedy because Sim's disliking it wasn't enough. So I know how you feel, I only have 1 Sim I allow Mischief and it is only inherit due to the fact I have them learning the school of Mischief for my storyline.

But what about Proper Trait? It is suppose to disapprove of mischief.

I also use the Lock Skill mod, it allows me to lock Sims from learning any skills I don't want them too. But it does announce every time (including repeating) you learned the skill (when you haven't) when using an interaction that levels it. But I rather that—then an unwanted skill. This has been a game saver for me, I hate when my Sims learn things I didn't want them to.

I found this to be a problem too and the only solution I found was to have my sims dive in and enjoy it and set them to like mischief, deception and maliciousness because of the insults. And then I had a nasty surprise when I decided to do an aspiration on it which required using the voodoo doll. I did not know this would cause a sim to pick up the Thanatology skill which is relationship wrecking. I had to add mccc back to my game a few days ago because I could find no other way to go through my sims and remove that skill from everyone. So for those that didn't know that like I did not, AVOID USING THE VOODOO DOLL!!!!

Honestly, I think the Mischief skill should be renamed to Bullying and harassment skill because that's exactly what it is. 

You can always control the traits, lifestyles, likes and dislikes in this game.

Nobody is forcing mischief gameplay on you.

Toggles are ment to be controlled with all the DLC.

Trial and error is a good way to omit mischievous behavior in the game.

It's a game that you have to controll while making the right decisions for your sims and  based on your playstyle.

Edit: 6 edits later for simple sentences...I know and I ....☹️

Sadly nothing is stopping sims from being obsessed with computers, mainly to troll the forums. You have to lock them out of the computer to stop them from doing that. 

Likes and dislikes do nothing but add a useless buff or debuff but don't alter gameplay. Now your sims just get annoyed by the stuff they still do automatically but won't stop doing it. If they hate violins they will still go out of their way to listen to it, even if a housemate is three floors underground in a bunker playing it. 

Miataplay wrote:

Nobody is forcing mischief gameplay on you.

That's the point.  They ARE.  I have the same problem as OP.  I have set my main characters as disliking Mischief and Mean interactions.  They autonomously Troll the Forums and use Mischief and Mean socials anyway.  This is even with Zero mods installed.  It's a known issue that's been ongoing for years now, and they won't fix it.

Unfortunately this has been like this in the game for forever, but I agree that the Sims' "mischief" is mostly just mean, and I really wish they'd overhaul the whole thing. We've discussed it before - [Request] Please adjust the Goofball trait | EA Forums - 11251755

Then it was specifically in relation to the goofball trait's increased use of mischief, but I have also noticed that sims will frequently autonomously use mischief interactions even without any related trait.

From what I can see from the tuning files on "trolling the forums" this action is whitelisted for the following traits (so if they are any of these that is why they did that):

<T>16836<!--trait_Evil--></T>
<T>16830<!--trait_Childish--></T>
<T>16841<!--trait_Geek--></T>
<T>16845<!--trait_HotHeaded--></T>
<T>16848<!--trait_Insane--></T>
<T>9602<!--trait_Loner--></T>
<T>9620<!--trait_Snob--></T>
 <T>16857<!--trait_Mean--></T>

It is not based on likes/dislikes, that tends to be used for applying positive and negative buffs when they have or do certain actions/interactions.

IMO, they should add blacklist too according to both traits and dislikes, which in the internal files still regards likes/dislikes as a trait:

<T>264149<!--trait_SimPreference_Dislikes_Activities_Mischief--></T>

This has also annoyed me in the past with my "main" Sim, who is a Loner. I'd used cheats every now and then to reset her Mischief skill to 0 every now and then to try and get her to stop randomly trolling the forums, but eventually I just gave up because it was so relentless. I'll still cancel the interaction for her when I can, but am not as strict about it

If it's any comfort, though, there IS a good-natured type of internet trolling that people refer to as "do no harm" trolling. Instead of trying to make people angry and upset, "do no harm" trolls try to perplex people by making super foolish and/or harmlessly absurd posts, with the ultimate goal of making other people laugh at the ridiculousness. Nowadays, when I see a more good-natured Sim choosing to "troll teh forums", I'd like to imagine that's what they're doing

That being said, I don't think I've ever let a Sim troll for very long, so I don't know if there's a moodlet they get from it or anything. If they have something that specifically confirms that they're doing the mean kind of trolling, then welp. There goes that

By the way, "Insult", "Jeer", and "Yell At" are all actually Mean interactions IIRC, not Mischief