Life is not without its ups and downs. Is TS4 really a game, particularly a life simulation game?Okay, I know there's so much more to the game than just the emotion system. But, let's just focus on it, also because it's one of the game's highlighting features and core mechanics... which affects the entire gameplay.No matter how much they add object-specific, lot-specific, or any feature-specific "challenging" gameplay elements, the game feels too easy. At this point, they should just change the official description from "life simulation sandbox game" or whatever to just purely "sandbox game." Okay, let's say that the upcoming "Lot Challenges" can solve this. But have you seen the tons of new positive emotional buffs your Sims can get from the new objects (animals, sheds, farming activities, etc.) compared to the negative ones? This brings me to my main point: the positive buffs / moodlets in this game are too OP as if we don't ever naturally need the "negative" ones for interesting and diverse gameplay. This is why the Emotion System is still (and will forever be) broken, thus breaking the fundamental aspect of a game, the "challenge and reward," until an overhaul is done. There are generally far too many positive emotional buffs in the game compared to negative ones. The strength and duration of the buffs are too inconsistent that, for example, we get moodlets from mundane tasks (commonly positive) that last for a long 8 hours and important ones (often negative) that only last for a short 4 hours instead of days. There are too many objects and gameplay elements that grant (powerful) positive emotions by just doing simple tasks. We have to make so much effort to get our Sims in a "bad" mood. There are many naturally occurring positive buffs and rarely negative ones (that are also powerful enough) to spice up the baseline emotion gameplay. For example, the Gloomy trait sad buff only adds a +1 Sad buff to your Sim that is supposedly inherently depressive and sad their whole life! EDIT (thanks to @Handel for this): The Happy buffs boosts all the positive emotions, and is an extremely easy one to get and stack. Meanwhile, none of the negative emotions boost one another! This is why we have the glorious Meaningful Stories mod. But how about the console and vanilla players tho? sad noises Relating to the previous point, Meaningful Stories fixes many aspects of this system good, and the devs should consider using it as an inspiration for their own vanilla implementation. However, this integral system of the game should never rely on mods in the first place.Now, I don't want any trouble with those who play the game as a sandbox or storytelling game and those who play it as a feel-good and a relaxing game who are most probably fine with the bombardment of the positive emotions and absence of the real gameplay effects of the negative ones. I don't know; perhaps a tickbox in the Settings that says "Enable Emotion System?" Or, maybe a dropdown option in the Settings labeled "Emotion System" with the options: "No Emotion System," which is suitable for sandbox/storytelling gameplay; "Basic Emotion System," which is like what we have now but improved; "Deep/Enhanced Emotion System" which works on these problems that I'm discussing. Regardless, this system desperately needs an overhaul.What do y'all think?

I would like to return to the Mood meter system of earlier Sims games. I don’t like the emotion system. For me, it gets in the way of the stories I want to tell, as I have to manage Sims.I get a lot of grumpy elder Sims stomping through my streets who walk and look angry. (I think it’s because I make happy young adults so it’s some sort of counterbalance?).It just means making friends is more difficult for my Sims, they can only mostly befriend other Sims I make.I dislike the ‘too many instant meals’ uncomfortable emotion as it pressures me into cooking which there isn’t time for. I would love to remove that gourmet fruitcake as it spawns in Sims inventories when I change houses and if I forget to check, they eat a plate and get that ‘who eats this stuff anymore?’ Then they’re uncomfortable which means certain things are unavailable until the buffer goes. ???. (Although one of my Sims got a positive buff from eating the fruitcake so that confused me. You like it?! ?).I don’t want buffs that last for days either positive or negative. 4 hours is the most for me.

Thank you for your opinions, @ncisGibbs02. Yes, the mood meter system feels better than what we have now. However, I don't think the devs are capable of making such a drastic change to the game at the moment (or ever). And if they did, it'll probably break the game even more because it isn't what's intended. This is why I've suggested a solution that I think would be cool and also feasible development-wise.

I don't play too many mods, but the emotion system was so easy to gain and mess with that I did actually opt in to find one and picked up Meaningful Stories by roburky. I can't honestly recommend it enough as it enough. Carl has a video that goes over it here.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-SmZqyyFNsI don't know how high of a priority this is for the Maxis devs, as they always need to focus on the next expansion and new things to expand the gameplay, whether or not they actually do expand the gameplay is another question but ya know. I'm always willing to give them a benefit of a doubt because game development is hard and it's quite clear that they pour a lot of love an attenion despite all the anger that's hurled their way.But yeah, for now, I'd recommended picking up the mod and hopefully the developers can learn from it for later on or for whatever the Sims 5 will be.

Thanks for your input, @Handel . I made an edit to the original post because it's a good point, and I remembered the mod.

"thatpinkcoconut;d-991682" wrote:We have to make so much effort to get our Sims in a "bad" mood.Exactly, that is the one real challenge in TS4 (aside from trying to work around bugs all the time), and it makes no sense. Sometimes I wonder why negative emotions are in the game in the first place when the game itself is constantly bending over backwards to prevent you from experiencing them.Case in point: I had a situation where a sim's husband autonomously flirted with the sim's sister right in front of her. The scorned wife got angry, so very angry in fact, that I feared she was going to have a heart attack, so I sent her to a mirror in another room to calm down. Another room that happened to have beautiful decorations, a calming fire, and more things that gave happy moodlets and she went from very angry to very happy before she even reached the mirror. After she had just been cheated on! The angry moodlet was still there, though, and constantly fighting for dominance with the overabundance of happy moodlets. It was ridiculous.But negative emotions aren't just needed for drama, but sometimes for regular gameplay, too. Another sim of mine was working from home in the Social Media career, and one of the tasks of the day was to record an angry rant. Since she had neither the Hot-headed trait nor a partner that could cheat on her, the only thing I could think of to make her angry was to look at an angry painting, so I had her travel to a certain museum to do just that. The moodlet was extremely weak, though, and quickly overpowered by positive influences left and right. I ended up failing the task because I couldn't get her angry enough in time to record the rant.I used to have the Meaningful Stories mod installed, but found it to be too extreme in the opposite way, with unwanted emotions being very hard to get rid of. Since I was mostly playing with archaeologists at the time, who sometimes needed to get in a certain mood to overcome certain temple traps, I uninstalled the mod because it was making that impossible. But I think we shouldn't have to rely on mods for such things in the first place.

thatpinkcoconut

5 years ago

Forever Imbalanced Emotion System: The Big Problem

Life is not without its ups and downs. Is TS4 really a game, particularly a life simulation game?

Okay, I know there's so much more to the game than just the emotion system. But, let's just focus on it, also because it's one of the game's highlighting features and core mechanics... which affects the entire gameplay.

No matter how much they add object-specific, lot-specific, or any feature-specific "challenging" gameplay elements, the game feels too easy. At this point, they should just change the official description from "life simulation sandbox game" or whatever to just purely "sandbox game." Okay, let's say that the upcoming "Lot Challenges" can solve this. But have you seen the tons of new positive emotional buffs your Sims can get from the new objects (animals, sheds, farming activities, etc.) compared to the negative ones? This brings me to my main point: the positive buffs / moodlets in this game are too OP as if we don't ever naturally need the "negative" ones for interesting and diverse gameplay. This is why the Emotion System is still (and will forever be) broken, thus breaking the fundamental aspect of a game, the "challenge and reward," until an overhaul is done.

There are generally far too many positive emotional buffs in the game compared to negative ones.
The strength and duration of the buffs are too inconsistent that, for example, we get moodlets from mundane tasks (commonly positive) that last for a long 8 hours and important ones (often negative) that only last for a short 4 hours instead of days.
There are too many objects and gameplay elements that grant (powerful) positive emotions by just doing simple tasks. We have to make so much effort to get our Sims in a "bad" mood.
There are many naturally occurring positive buffs and rarely negative ones (that are also powerful enough) to spice up the baseline emotion gameplay. For example, the Gloomy trait sad buff only adds a +1 Sad buff to your Sim that is supposedly inherently depressive and sad their whole life!
EDIT (thanks to @Handel for this): The Happy buffs boosts all the positive emotions, and is an extremely easy one to get and stack. Meanwhile, none of the negative emotions boost one another! This is why we have the glorious Meaningful Stories mod. But how about the console and vanilla players tho? sad noises
Relating to the previous point, Meaningful Stories fixes many aspects of this system good, and the devs should consider using it as an inspiration for their own vanilla implementation. However, this integral system of the game should never rely on mods in the first place.

Now, I don't want any trouble with those who play the game as a sandbox or storytelling game and those who play it as a feel-good and a relaxing game who are most probably fine with the bombardment of the positive emotions and absence of the real gameplay effects of the negative ones. I don't know; perhaps a tickbox in the Settings that says "Enable Emotion System?" Or, maybe a dropdown option in the Settings labeled "Emotion System" with the options: "No Emotion System," which is suitable for sandbox/storytelling gameplay; "Basic Emotion System," which is like what we have now but improved; "Deep/Enhanced Emotion System" which works on these problems that I'm discussing. Regardless, this system desperately needs an overhaul.

What do y'all think?

feedback

39 Replies

ncisGibbs_BOSS
Seasoned Ace
5 years ago
I would like to return to the Mood meter system of earlier Sims games.

I don’t like the emotion system. For me, it gets in the way of the stories I want to tell, as I have to manage Sims.
I get a lot of grumpy elder Sims stomping through my streets who walk and look angry. (I think it’s because I make happy young adults so it’s some sort of counterbalance?).
It just means making friends is more difficult for my Sims, they can only mostly befriend other Sims I make.

I dislike the ‘too many instant meals’ uncomfortable emotion as it pressures me into cooking which there isn’t time for.

I would love to remove that gourmet fruitcake as it spawns in Sims inventories when I change houses and if I forget to check, they eat a plate and get that ‘who eats this stuff anymore?’ Then they’re uncomfortable which means certain things are unavailable until the buffer goes. ???.
(Although one of my Sims got a positive buff from eating the fruitcake so that confused me. You like it?! ?).

I don’t want buffs that last for days either positive or negative. 4 hours is the most for me.
thatpinkcoconut
5 years ago
Thank you for your opinions, @ncisGibbs02. Yes, the mood meter system feels better than what we have now. However, I don't think the devs are capable of making such a drastic change to the game at the moment (or ever). And if they did, it'll probably break the game even more because it isn't what's intended. This is why I've suggested a solution that I think would be cool and also feasible development-wise.
handelgamer
Seasoned Ace
5 years ago
I don't play too many mods, but the emotion system was so easy to gain and mess with that I did actually opt in to find one and picked up Meaningful Stories by roburky. I can't honestly recommend it enough as it enough. Carl has a video that goes over it here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-SmZqyyFNs

I don't know how high of a priority this is for the Maxis devs, as they always need to focus on the next expansion and new things to expand the gameplay, whether or not they actually do expand the gameplay is another question but ya know. I'm always willing to give them a benefit of a doubt because game development is hard and it's quite clear that they pour a lot of love an attenion despite all the anger that's hurled their way.

But yeah, for now, I'd recommended picking up the mod and hopefully the developers can learn from it for later on or for whatever the Sims 5 will be.
thatpinkcoconut
5 years ago
Thanks for your input, @Handel . I made an edit to the original post because it's a good point, and I remembered the mod.
GrumpyGlowfish
Seasoned Ace
5 years ago
"thatpinkcoconut;d-991682" wrote:
We have to make so much effort to get our Sims in a "bad" mood.

Exactly, that is the one real challenge in TS4 (aside from trying to work around bugs all the time), and it makes no sense. Sometimes I wonder why negative emotions are in the game in the first place when the game itself is constantly bending over backwards to prevent you from experiencing them.

Case in point: I had a situation where a sim's husband autonomously flirted with the sim's sister right in front of her. The scorned wife got angry, so very angry in fact, that I feared she was going to have a heart attack, so I sent her to a mirror in another room to calm down. Another room that happened to have beautiful decorations, a calming fire, and more things that gave happy moodlets and she went from very angry to very happy before she even reached the mirror. After she had just been cheated on! The angry moodlet was still there, though, and constantly fighting for dominance with the overabundance of happy moodlets. It was ridiculous.

But negative emotions aren't just needed for drama, but sometimes for regular gameplay, too. Another sim of mine was working from home in the Social Media career, and one of the tasks of the day was to record an angry rant. Since she had neither the Hot-headed trait nor a partner that could cheat on her, the only thing I could think of to make her angry was to look at an angry painting, so I had her travel to a certain museum to do just that. The moodlet was extremely weak, though, and quickly overpowered by positive influences left and right. I ended up failing the task because I couldn't get her angry enough in time to record the rant.

I used to have the Meaningful Stories mod installed, but found it to be too extreme in the opposite way, with unwanted emotions being very hard to get rid of. Since I was mostly playing with archaeologists at the time, who sometimes needed to get in a certain mood to overcome certain temple traps, I uninstalled the mod because it was making that impossible. But I think we shouldn't have to rely on mods for such things in the first place.
logionX
Legend
5 years ago
I think that they should look at what SimGuruConor did with Paranormal and add a "hard mode" for their packs in the future, that way people that want more of a challenge can enable that and people that want to play the game more casually can play the game normally.

Maybe hard mode could include stronger negative buffs as well if that would be possible to do in the game.
Babykittyjade
Seasoned Ace
5 years ago
I absolutely love sims 4 and to a certain extent I do love the emotions personally I think it adds life to them. But at the same time it's their biggest weakness that is not well balanced, flipflops between emotions constantly, and stops sims individual personality from shining through. And this point in the game I don't know if this is something that can be fixed? But even if they could re balance it a little it would help. This game in general is aimed to be a happy place. Just look at the new traits we get in every pack. Since when did we even last have anything negative?
And my favorite slightly negative trait (jealousy) got nerfed cause people complained it was too "negative". Now it's a plain ol happy one. I'm still hunting for a custom jealous trait.
Enemies are still hard to maintain. Sims automatically are nice to eachother despite their relationship. All negativity and drama in my game is forced.
thatpinkcoconut
5 years ago
"Babykittyjade;c-17928591" wrote:
This game in general is aimed to be a happy place.

As much as I hate to get backlash for this, I think I should say that this is one of the biggest problems of the franchise now.The game is leaning too much on the positive side of things that it forgets that it. is. a. life. simulation. game. Negative things are part of life. Life is full of drama. And it's up to us, the players, who are now in control of everything, to make things right.

Ultimately, what enrages me is that The Sims 4 is 7 years old, but it hasn't decided yet whether it is a life simulation game (that feels like a game with real challenges) or a sandbox/storytelling game.
SilentK008
Seasoned Ace
5 years ago
Roburky’s meaningful stories is great! It has made a huge difference in my game. It became much more interesting afterwards.
logionX
Legend
5 years ago
"thatpinkcoconut;c-17928609" wrote:
"Babykittyjade;c-17928591" wrote:
This game in general is aimed to be a happy place.

As much as I hate to get backlash for this, I think I should say that this is one of the biggest problems of the franchise now.The game is leaning too much on the positive side of things that it forgets that it. is. a. life. simulation. game. Negative things are part of life. Life is full of drama. And it's up to us, the players, who are now in control of everything, to make things right.

Ultimately, what enrages me is that The Sims 4 is 7 years old, but it hasn't decided yet whether it is a life simulation game (that feels like a game with real challenges) or a sandbox/storytelling game.

I think that has given them a larger player base, because they get a lot of new people that play the game casually and play for shorter play sessions. Unfortunately people who play the game for longer probably feels like many others that there are no larger consequences in the game and no long-term goals.

I asked them about this during sims 411 when they were taking questions from the community for a day... hopefully Maxis will consider adding options for long-time players and not letting the focus on getting new players decide too much how they design their packs.