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JasonRMJ's avatar
9 years ago

Let's talk about the flawed emotion system

I have a problem with this game's emotional system on treating sims emotion with it's flawed rating/grading mood. How in the H? can a Sim become happy (any positive emotion) in a decorated room with max motive when their love ones are gone in a day? and they are not very sentimental when they see their love ones grave. It just doesn't really make sense at all, when their emotion keeps changing back as positive to negative; vice versa. I find it extremely awkward to see my sims becoming happy in a moment when they lose a fight when they have the Self-Assured/Hot-Headed trait. How are they even smart sims, when they can't even control their emotion correctly? seriously you get depressed in a wedding while it's a happy moment in life. not only that a child sim can become "uncomfortable" when there's a monster in their bed, why isn't there a Fear/scared emotion when it's suitable?

The emotional system is a let down and has a very flawed scoring system that outweigh's certain emotion in favor for another one, with a grading system that overwhelm the mood of a sim.

I suggest that certain events that ties with the emotions must be made permanent until time passes. what do you think? Should the developers take a look at the emotions and add in a another crucial emotion (Scared)?

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  • I find some of them very odd as well but I try to think of it this way; even if we as humans are depressed, we have things that can distract us and keep our minds off our sadness. The underlying depression is still there, but there are still things that make us smile and temporarily feel better. I know that I would feel better being in a room with lots of sunlight that is clean and nicely decorated than I would if I were in a dark room that was messy. I instantly feel better when I sit down to drink a nice cup of tea or relax in my hammock with a book. The same things apply to our sims. I don't think it's completely unrealistic, it's just exaggerated. :smile:
  • Yea I agree with you. The emotions system has a lot of issues. For the most part, they just change too quickly and aren't difficult to solve. I wish it were easier to get to the next stage of emotions. I know that sounds wrong... But I've never actually seen my sim become depressed. They never get deeper into the sadness emotion. I would be interested in playing with a sim who maybe was feeling down for a little while. Most of the emotions are experienced for less than a sim hour, so I totally ignore them. I rarely do an action related to the emotion. I just wish it had been deeper. The moodlets in 3 did a better job of influencing sims' behaviour in some ways, and I don't think that system was perfect either.
  • I don't usually reply in this way but... I hate the emotion system!
    The best "emotion system" was of The Sims 2: Memories, Wants and Fears. At least you can't manipulate the emotion of a Sim by a decoration.
  • CircuitD's avatar
    CircuitD
    Seasoned Novice
    5 years ago
    "HalloMolli;c-15197359" wrote:
    Well, first: If you are scared you feel uncomfortable. The word uncomfortable is just not as specific as you would expect it to be (you are right on that matter). Maybe they will add more emotions with new eps. We will see.

    However, what you encounter in your game is a consequence of the emotion-system being very flexible and convenient in its outcome. Some simmers won't like it and I can totally understand that because if you don't use it appropriately it can be rather irritating and messed up sometimes. But I, personally have learned to work with 'emotions' and know about the potential for story telling the game provides with them.

    For example, you plan a wedding and want everybody to become happy - no problem, after all the game gives you the tools to achieve it + you have several possibilities: Whether you decorate nicely, cook certain meals or trigger special interactions with certain sims it's all your choice.

    Another example: you are at a get together with a group of sims and you want to make them fight/angry at each other. You can do the same. Always, at any time. You have control over the outcome of any conversation or action if you wish, even if your sims are not involved.

    ---

    Just for the record. The Sims 3 had a similar problem where sims sometimes didn't behave accordingly to their actions they had performed prior:

    https://youtu.be/IL1X26I_83s?t=471

    "Trips is very angry with Grace." --> Yet he still decides to kiss her autonomously.


    "HalloMolli;c-15197359" wrote:
    Well, first: If you are scared you feel uncomfortable. The word uncomfortable is just not as specific as you would expect it to be (you are right on that matter). Maybe they will add more emotions with new eps. We will see.

    However, what you encounter in your game is a consequence of the emotion-system being very flexible and convenient in its outcome. Some simmers won't like it and I can totally understand that because if you don't use it appropriately it can be rather irritating and messed up sometimes. But I, personally have learned to work with 'emotions' and know about the potential for story telling the game provides with them.

    For example, you plan a wedding and want everybody to become happy - no problem, after all the game gives you the tools to achieve it + you have several possibilities: Whether you decorate nicely, cook certain meals or trigger special interactions with certain sims it's all your choice.

    Another example: you are at a get together with a group of sims and you want to make them fight/angry at each other. You can do the same. Always, at any time. You have control over the outcome of any conversation or action if you wish, even if your sims are not involved.

    ---

    Just for the record. The Sims 3 had a similar problem where sims sometimes didn't behave accordingly to their actions they had performed prior:

    https://youtu.be/IL1X26I_83s?t=471

    "Trips is very angry with Grace." --> Yet he still decides to kiss her autonomously.


  • CircuitD's avatar
    CircuitD
    Seasoned Novice
    5 years ago
    I completely agree. The emotion system is terrible in sims 4. They advertised it as if it was amazing and improved. The algorithms managing it are wack. My sims 3 were more diverse and interesting. Traits have nearly zero influence on emotional responses and neither do character values. If I have an evil or mean Sim why are they angry when they make an enemy or when someone is mean or mischievous? Shouldn’t they be happy? Or at least feel confident(since we are literally working with like 8 emotions. I don’t consider very a very different emotion. If you are embarrassed then mortified is just embarrassed. If you need levels let’s stick to two. I don’t need flirty or very flirty. It’s just flirty) I see no difference. All the sims have the same responses to every event no matter the traits or situation. And when they don’t it’s not because of the trait or situation. It’s random and senseless. When a sim gets sad at a wedding it’s not because they are evil or any other trait, it’s not because weddings make them sad (that would make sense). It’s something stupid, not related nonsense. One of my sim killed 6 spouses. I won the black widow achievement, which does nothing, and this murderous, uncommitted sim had the same response as my evil sim to losing a spouse (or 6) or my romantic or one with soulmate aspiration. I see no difference. She was sad for 2 days if she liked her spouse or hated them. After 2 days she forgot she was even married (that is another pet peeve I have). They jump from emotion to emotion with boiler plate happenings without any distinction or with little sense. Or you get an occasional random emotion from the traits that comes and goes. I guess the creators thought that was the big breakthrough. Sorry HalloMolli but if you are scared the emotion is scared not uncomfortable. Sims3 seams to have understood that. Since my sims would actually get moodlets appropriate to the situation based on their character traits. Like a brave sim exploring a tomb would not get phased by scary things or even would get a thrilled moodlet. My sim shouldn’t feel embarrassed when scared. They should feel scared. They shouldn’t feel only happy, confident or flirty. Why talk about vampires if it produces no emotional response. She should feel content, calm, scared, they should feel different around their spouse of many years and different around a new flirt. In sims 4 my bookworm sim puts any book away after 5 minutes of reading just like all my other sims. None of them seam to like reading even the bookworm ones. My mean sim gets upset when someone is mean to them, just like the good sim. Why? Shouldn’t they be happy with mischievous interactions. Then my sim with an awful reputation gets a call to meet someone who is also awful, but when they meet they have nothing in common. If my sims is awful, mean and evil shouldn’t others feel scared of them (at least some). In sims 3 at least they can talk about shared traits. Even that is unavailable. They get the same interaction and they reacted to them the same way. Not to mention if you pick any friendly interaction no matter how stupid it’s just counted as friendly. Like I don’t even care what they talk about: vampires, deep conversation, baking, reading, pigeons. They are viewed as one pot. You can literally pick the same friendly interaction over and over and over again. It would just count as friendly. You can gush about your partner to an uncommitted sim and they will react just like a hopeless romantic. How is that realistic? I had one sims with all positive character traits gained from childhood and and A in high school and one with all negative and a F in high school. They interact the same. My overachiever couldn’t graduate (top notch toddler, super scout) and was put on probation. My flunky (Irresponsible, argumentative etc) was nailing all his courses, doing homework without being told and just graduated swimmingly. Both jump from embarrassment to angry to 90% happy in the same scenarios. Same things make them happy, embarrassed, sad. I rather have the moodlet system back then this inconsistent, frazzled emotional system with narrow possibilities of emotional diversity. In sims 3 sims would actually get annoyed or bored when you chose the subject of conversation which they did not a care about. How do you tell stories when nothing is lasting? Another issue I have is no long term consequences. A death of a loved one, which was loved (As in the actual relationship should matter) should have an impact on sims life. There are no memories so if a sim’s loved one dies you get 2 sad days and then they forget all about it. At least previous sims games had memories. My sim cries the same at an urn of a loved one or a stranger. No difference. Then takes a shower and is happy again baking a stupid cake or some inconsequential drivel. The point system is terrible and doesn’t reflect importance, character values and traits (The few we got) have almost no impact on gameplay, there are no memories so nothing matters in the long run. They are literally emotional clones that jump through feelings like a roller coaster on Ritalin. I would like some of the achievements to be turned into traits or long impact. If my sim has 6 spouses die on them maybe at least they should be a subject of gossip or suspicion (we don’t have that emotion). Like I said I rather the moodlets from sims 3. At least they reflected level of importance, traits and situation. This system is just making sims look Like emotional crazy clones. I miss the lady that would wack sim with a cane. I think she was introduced in sims 2. One of a kind

    Ps: my vampires are angry when you call them at night. Isn’t that a time they should be awake? Sims logic for you. They didn’t even get that right
  • "arleta;c-17605146" wrote:

    Ps: my vampires are angry when you call them at night. Isn’t that a time they should be awake? Sims logic for you. They didn’t even get that right


    and you can only call them at 7pm to 10pm, otherwise they arent available all the time
  • RouenSims's avatar
    RouenSims
    Seasoned Traveler
    5 years ago
    I’m happy with the emotion system. The negative emotions come out often enough that you can tell when a Sim has a relevant trait, but you can also work to keep them happy most of the time.
  • The significance and depth of emotions and multitasking were incredibly over-sold to players and turned out to be some of the least enjoyable gimmicks this game has. What’s worse is these two things were the backbone for Sims 4 in 2014, as of 2020 how have they been improved? They haven’t because even the studio sees them as useless, poorly implemented gimmicks that aren’t worth improving. The best example would be loungers, which aren’t compatible with MT after the gurus explicitly told players it would be unacceptable for them not to. It’s all a charade.
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