All they do is raise the social need and they don’t even have the fun and exclusive romantic and family interactions. I miss when friends were required to network and get ahead in a career. The fact that there’s no consequences if you’re mean and pretty much all the friendly and funny socials have no chance of failing makes it feel more meaningless. I want socials to have a higher chance of failing. Interactions like brighten day never go wrong and that just takes me out of the immersion because trying to brighten someone’s day isn’t always successful irl. Friendships in the sims 2 actually felt meaningful and were done the best IMO. You could still become friends with whoever you want but if your sims were different it’d be harder to get along.Tl;dr Friendly and funny social interactions should actually have a chance of failing to make them more meaningful.

I've seen nothing but hate over the fact in past games sims needed friends to get promotions. Chances of that coming back are very slim. Interactions can actually fail. I've seen romance, hugs, jokes, get rejected many times in my game. If you do the same interaction several times the other sim will get bored.

TS2's system of needing friends for work was also meaningless, at least to me. Those friends didn't necessarily have anything to do with your place of work, they could be anyone. It didn't make much sense at all, and I sincerely hope a system like that doesn't return. In TS3, you usually had to get to know, and become friends with, your co-workers. Now that makes sense. Who would impact your job more? Your collegue or that random Joe in town? Then again, in TS3, friendships were pushed on you until you couldn't breathe. Partly also in previous games. But 3 was the worst.And jokes can absolutely fail, most sims never laugh at jokes, unless they ARE friends, and some times not even then. They just go "Huhh...yeah, funny dude" and continue the conversation, talking about something else. I've had sims get embarrassed from telling jokes that failed, things turn awkward.I don't know what to think about the friendly interactions. At least hugs and stories can fail depending on the mood of the other sim. There are quite a lot of interactions I never use, so can't say if they fail or not. You mention Brighten Day specifically, and thats one I DO use quite frequently, and can't remember it failing once. It wouldn't have failed in real life either, if I was in a bad mood and someone tried to brighten my day. I would feel rude if I rejected it.

It's one of my big disappointments in the game... but it's because, again, we have a very basic (and stupid) whim system.. It's another huge wasted opportunity, and frankly, I end up with Sims who have no friends whatsoever because they get enough social from their family.A much better approach would be to have Sims who want to hang out with their friends, want to call a specific friend when something good or bad happens to them, want to have a party (where people actually INTERACT instead of going to the computer, you know), heck want to make a friend and have a BFF... but no, they want 1000 dog toys instead.So stupid. Such a shame that, in 2018, there still isn't a good life simulation game out there. But hey, at least we have a thermostat... right?

I'd like way more specific unlocked interactions between different relationship types. I feel very little difference between normal friends or even acquaintances and best friends. With romantic relationships, yes we need more romantic interactions, but I feel that good/best friend interactions are more important to make relationships feel more meaningful. I've posted quite a lot of ideas for interactions in past comments.

I don't want the amount of friends you have determine how successful you are in your career, but I do want strong friendships to bring benefits into your sims life.These benefits should be based on the friend's, traits, skills, career, and wealth.You can get occasional phone calls that will give you boosts for work, moodlets for skills, and they can give you occasional gifts to show their appreciation. If you interact with them in a group activity, you get a boost for whatever that activity normally provides.This way you will probably be more choosy about your sim's friends.Sims with negative attributes should have negative effects on your sim, like bad advice that goes predictably wrong.

Friendships feel meaningless | EA Forums

16 Replies

Jonni08
7 years ago
"Brindleton;c-16642540" wrote:
Interactions can actually fail. I've seen romance, hugs, jokes, get rejected many times in my game. If you do the same interaction several times the other sim will get bored.

That's right. They can also fail if they are in a bad mood, such as angry. If you use mods then I recommend Roburky's Emotional Inertia. It causes moods to last longer and prevents eternally happy Sims.
Nindigo79
Seasoned Ace
7 years ago
I believe that friendship in TS4 is pretty much what you make of it. You can make it matter if you have a story going on (even just one in your head) or not. Some aspirations require friendships to complete, so I'd say it's not completely meaningless.
ThePocketWeasel
7 years ago
"Brindleton;c-16642540" wrote:
I've seen nothing but hate over the fact in past games sims needed friends to get promotions. Chances of that coming back are very slim.

Interactions can actually fail. I've seen romance, hugs, jokes, get rejected many times in my game. If you do the same interaction several times the other sim will get bored.

I didn't really like needing friends to get promotions, so I'm glad that's gone. I definitely see interactions failing as well. I quite like the way it is now - if I/my Sim can be bothered to make friends, I can make friends and if not I can be a loner and ignore everyone.
Doodles985
7 years ago
I only have a few friends in the sims. You can add a lot more use to them by throwing parties and gatherings!
sjofn77
Seasoned Veteran
7 years ago
"ManakoHime;c-16643344" wrote:
I would like to see the propose interaction fail for once! Has anyone seen that happen in TS4 yet? I loved it when in the other TS games if one of the sims was unhappy in any way they would shake their hand and it would be this big fail lol I miss that and have yet to see it happen in the game!

I've seen it happen plenty of times, even between Sims that have capped friendship/romance bars. If one of them has a crappy moodlet lurking under their happy ones, it seems like that'll make it less likely to succeed. Which is fine by me!
Francl27
7 years ago
"Doodlebeans;c-16650193" wrote:
I only have a few friends in the sims. You can add a lot more use to them by throwing parties and gatherings!

But you need to know people before you can invite them, lol.

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Friendships feel meaningless

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