How can we fix the emotion system?

We see it all the time, complaints about the emotion system, and rightfully so. Emotions as they stand are a mess. A great idea with not so great implementation. But how can we fix them? Saying "emotions are bad" over and over again will do nothing.

I started having some ideas on how to fix them and figured I'd just make a thread for others to share their ideas. This thread is for constructive criticism. If you have an issue with something, offer points on how to improve it. Stating "Blank stinks" and offering no feedback helps nothing.

Let's start with the basis. Positive emotions currently drown out negative emotions and this is due to a couple reasons.

Having a nicely decorated lot will give your sims positive moodlets by default
Positive moodlets stack off of each other. Happy moodlets always boost any other positive moodlets.
Positive moodlets tend to be a lot stronger than negative ones.

So how can we improve this aspect?

Remove the happy moodlet for nicely decorated lots, or severely nerf it. Have the moodlet appear only when new things are bought that have high environment scores. I may be really happy about a new TV I bought, but eventually that happiness will fade and become mundane for me.
Allow negative moodlets to stack. There is a mod by Zerbu that makes uncomfortable moodlets boost negative emotions, just as happy boosts positive. So if your sim is hungry and has an uncomfortable moodlet, that moodlet will boost negative emotions like anger, sadness, etc.
Increase the strength of negative moodlets in general. Humans naturally feel negative emotions stronger than positive ones.

This will balance out the positive vs negative emotions a bit and prevent them from always being drowned out with positive moodlets, but there's still more we can do. Something that the emotions system fails to take into consideration is that in real life, new experiences typically outweigh old ones. Let me give an example so I can make myself clear.

You've been working hard at work lately, and your boss finally recognizes you and you earn that promotion you've always wanted. You're happy, until you come home to your wife and find her in the arms of another man. Despite being happy about the promotion, this new experience quickly sours your mood.

A good example of this being done poorly can be found all over in the Snowy Escape Live stream. When Graham's sims are hiking up the mountain, they are happy because they are with family and having a fun journey, which makes sense. But upon being attacked by bats, Grahams sims are still happy and raring to go because the positive outweigh the negative. Same with the sim in the hot spring who's relaxing happily, until he sees his enemy and gains a small angry buff, and continues to relax.

It gives off the impressions that sims do not react to new scenarios because they are too busy being occupied with getting a massage 4 hours ago, or smelling some candles etc.

So how can we fix this?

In my opinion, we should change how the moodlets work. As it stands right now, you may get a +5 positive moodlet that lasts 5 hours for getting engaged. (Just an example.) After the 5 hours the moodlet completely fades. Perhaps having it gradually fade over the course of 5 hours would help balance it a bit. So after the first hour, the +5 becomes a +4, the second hour it goes down to +3.

Basically, new moodlets start off strong so they can have priority, but fade over time leaving room for new ones to take their place.

Emotions also need to better affect Autonomy, with traits being kept in mind. (Traits also need an overhaul, but that's a thread someone else can make.) A hotheaded sim and a friendly should not react to their emotions the same way. A hot headed sim while angry may autonomously start fights, insults etc, but a friendly sim may process anger differently and only result to minor insults or cursing under their breath.

That's all the ideas I can think of for now, let me know what you think of mine, and any ideas you can think of!

14 Replies

Scobren
Legend
5 years ago
Seems like there is going to have improvements on it with a future pack and patch which is discussed with the livestream.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sw-Bkrlbao

Not an ultimate solution but it will help. Emotions have felt more balanced since Eco Lifestyle too and patch with that in which the environment is more balanced with the walls and floors.

They really need to implement this system in the game too since it helps balance the emotions out a lot.
https://zerbu.tumblr.com/post/168552239715/the-sims-4-mod-uncomfortable-boosts-negative

We need more negative traits, more trait slots, and more negative effects with objects too. Having aspiration failures would be nice to bring more consequences into the game. I would love to have preferences for loves and friendships and jobs and interests too.
timurjr96
5 years ago
Make emotions behave differently depending on Sims traits. Like energized emotion is less potent on Lazy Sims, less choice of autonomous energized interaction.

Angry good Sims will only yell at someone that they have bad relationship with or angry emotions only make them mumble.
Sharooonia
Seasoned Ace
5 years ago
Emotions in the Sims 4 change to sporadically and are to easily manipulated for my liking and happy should not be the default state. Happiness is something we should strive to achieve for our Sims. The fact that it’s just there by default bothers me. I currently use the Meaningful Stories mod to fix some of these issues.

"izecson;c-17710273" wrote:
Make emotions behave differently depending on Sims traits. Like energized emotion is less potent on Lazy Sims, less choice of autonomous energized interaction.

Angry good Sims will only yell at someone that they have bad relationship with or angry emotions only make them mumble.

Also this ^^ Traits should definitely play a role in how emotions work.
nikkiheathcote95
Seasoned Ace
5 years ago
I think with emotions we cant do much with them, its quite realistic that emotions change and too feel multiple emotions at the same time, you can feel happy about one thing and feel angry or upset about the other, I'd say if there were going too change something is when a family member or friend dies the sad emotion should take more over, and betrayal should have more depth that the sim should have strong anger and upset emotions, and deeper reactions to both death and betrayal, I would say the sims 4 has grasped the complexity of humans emotions, that we feel multiple at the same time
babajayne
Seasoned Ace
5 years ago
I wholeheartedly agree with the suggestion to allow negative moodlets to stack. It doesn’t make sense for “happy” to boost positive emotions, but not have a system like that for the negative side.

I think the Sentiments are going to mimic an emotion that decreases with time (which is also a great suggestion). For example, a sim catches their spouse cheating and they get a +3 angry moodlet for a certain amount of hours. But the Sentiment brings a +1 angry moodlet for what sounds like could be weeks.

I can see how the “festering grudge” +1 angry moodlet didn’t affect the sim in the livestream much while he was in the hot springs, but if they ran into each other under different conditions it could become the dominant emotion. I can see the argument that it should be stronger, but it’s still an improvement. I wish autonomy had been on so we could see how these things will really play out.
GroovyLady1968
Seasoned Ace
5 years ago
I don't know what goes on with other players but my Sims get negative buffs that override positive buffs all the time. Sad about missing family for family orientated Sims although they just had breakfast with them only 2 hours before. Sore from working out or injured and tense from not working out or not being challenged for some depending on their trait. A sim with the foodie trait and getting disappointed about low quality food or drink. Tense from not playing games or for playing too much. There's writers block and toddlers who play or dance too much get angry. Caught partner cheating or whatever it says lasts something like 4 days. It may not always be on top but it's still there and it flares back up when near the cheating spouse. I have UI extensions and I tend to cancel negative buffs because the Sim can do very little when uncomfortable and it makes me tense as a player when they stop around angerly.

A youtuber name Pleasant Sims has made videos about playing without mods and had some surprising revelations about emotions. I think viewers who play a vanilla game complained and challenged her at some point to remove her mods. I don't know the whole story. I recently found her. Anyway she was both impressed and disappointed by some aspects but did see an improvement. She usually compares TS2, TS3 to TS4. She is very opinionated and points out what she needs to be improved. She also gives credit when needed. I mostly find myself in disagreement with her and that's ok. I am open to other points of view.

I do not know how to fix emotions and I admit that I often click them away for convivence. I only strive to get an emotion for skill boost or to enable a certain interaction associated with an emotion. IMO I would not be hurt if emotions completely went away. I said it many times. I just want to play the game. I don't want the game to play me. Emotions add to the game and they also restrict what my Sims can do depending on the emotion. Anything that limits me playing the game my way may has well go. For the most part MCCC allows me the freedom to play the game the way I want to play. Even if they improve emotions I am still cheating them away when they limit what my Sims can do when I want them to do it.
Scobren
Legend
5 years ago
I want overlapping emotions like how these chart works and of course a fear emotion. I mean people are very harsh when critiquing Disney, but at least since Pixar became apart of them, they have improved a lot with emotions and inclusion with their movies like with Inside Out tackling subjects like depression:
https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/_aDrf4SlUoDQRmxKo8qd3nG85UA=/1400x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/3824542/inside_out_emotions-03.png
GalacticGal
Legend
5 years ago
"babajayne;c-17710758" wrote:
I wholeheartedly agree with the suggestion to allow negative moodlets to stack. It doesn’t make sense for “happy” to boost positive emotions, but not have a system like that for the negative side.

I think the Sentiments are going to mimic an emotion that decreases with time (which is also a great suggestion). For example, a sim catches their spouse cheating and they get a +3 angry moodlet for a certain amount of hours. But the Sentiment brings a +1 angry moodlet for what sounds like could be weeks.

I can see how the “festering grudge” +1 angry moodlet didn’t affect the sim in the livestream much while he was in the hot springs, but if they ran into each other under different conditions it could become the dominant emotion. I can see the argument that it should be stronger, but it’s still an improvement. I wish autonomy had been on so we could see how these things will really play out.

I have to jump in here. The stacking of negative moodlets could put us right back to those emotional deaths that players were yelling about came all too easily. We can't have it both ways, I'm afraid. It's either make them stronger, or (and maybe this is a possible solution) make the percentage of emotional deaths smaller? I don't know how they're configured at the moment, which is why I hesitate. I believe that's one thing I really loved about Slice of Life. Besides calculating our Sims personalities based on their traits, once your Sim is given a specific personality type, it changes their behavior.

I think we need to wait and see (since November 13th is nearing) just what this new upgrade: Lifestyles and Sentiments really means.
MarioBabyLuigi
5 years ago
I use Meaningful Stories to address a lot of issues with the emotions system. To give a small recap what it does.

"Fine" is turned to the default emotion rather than "Happy". You can get happy only if you do things that are truly happy, such as getting a promotion, making a new friend, witnessing the death of an enemy, completing a holiday, etc. rather than owning a nicely-decorated trashcan. That means a lot of the emotions are merely turned into boosters rather than an emotional state.
A lot of the uncomfortable moodlets are turned into boosters for negative emotions instead such as hunger, bad weather, etc. This makes more sense: if your Sim is angry, lack of food would absolutely boost it.
Emotions will linger even if their initial mood is gone. Your Sim, while may not be furious after your moodlets expire, can still potentially feel angry simply because he's still feeling angry. It doesn't always happen, but the variation is such a nice touch to have so you can predict less out of him, just like real emotions.
It takes momentum to change an emotional state rather than flickering how you feel on and off like a light switch. You can't simply change your angry mood by walking into a bathroom and noticing how nicely decorated your toilet is, it has to build up and eventually overtake your dominant emotion.

Other improvements I'd love to see:

The blending of emotions that Scobre posted is a very great idea. Fear should have definitely been an emotion in the game to begin with even if it does overlap a bit with Embarrassment, though "Disgust" overlaps a lot with Uncomfortable and Tense.
Traits definitely need more of a focus rather than your Sim's current emotional state: their traits should dictate the intensity of their state rather than how the state does to the Sims. Reactions to particular commands shouldn't be universal, and a lot of the interactions emotional intensity should be dependent on their trait. For example, a Self-Absorbed Sim should get pretty angry if you pick a Mean interaction that insults their appearance or a Goofball Sim are better at laying off Mean interactions as they don't take remarks as seriously (but they can get angry if it's repeatedly done). Gloomy Sims would be harder to make happy in general rather than having a random moodlet dictate their personality.
ArcherDK
5 years ago
I know this is not what people are discussing, really, but still - if you are PC and want a "Fix" right now? Install Meaningful stories mod. IT has an excellent groundwork for everything worthwhile system of moods should be.

Default mood is not Fine and not happy, with happy being difficult to get and it not only is the best mood in game but it also can me set to give lifetime happiness point continuously/

Moods now last and stick, meaning that it is VERY hard to change the mood by simply walking in another room.

Mood is now a resource, so when a sum is doing something related to the mood they are actually SPENDING It.

Mood can have and after effect, meaning that Sim that has been angry may STILL be angry.

Emotional trait moodlets now stay for much longer hours.

Uncomfortable now boosts negative moods.

Tryst me - this mod works VERY well in game, so I don't see why not just make this system be a feature in game. I strongly recommend anyone to try this mod.