My sims are constantly in mourning ever since that patch update

Hello
You may like to post feedback or press “ me too” on this AHQ EA thread about the issue
https://answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports/OPEN-Sim-gets-quot-phone-call-quot-amp-notice-about-another-sims/m-p/6891985#M65892

I find it odd that people are upset over the phone call of pending death as that was a favorite from Sims 2 that people have been requesting since Sims 2 so they knew when an old friend pr relative was dying to get a last visit perhaps and be able to actually get the urn. We finally get it back (we tried in Sims 3 too as some of us liked to be there and get the urn - and didn't get it - so now we get it and you want it gone again? To me that is sad to be denied the urn of an elder friend or relative because sims get sad when their relative is dying. To me it is realistic to be sad and realistic to be able to have maybe one last visit and to get the urn if we are there so we can bury them. So much for getting what some of us ask for after so long of waiting - looks like we lose it again at this rate.

I do think a legit cemetery should have came with this request as that is missing and the two sort of go together - perhaps it would have been received better by perhaps some of you who forgot or never played Sims 2. At the present my sims don't have any old relatives so I was not aware it was finally back after all these years of waiting as I started a new game between Cats and Dogs and Seasons because I didn't want issues with all the recoding - so if they stop it I guess if no one had mentioned it I'd never known it came back at all. Sigh.....

"Writin_Reg;c-16719477" wrote:
I find it odd that people are upset over the phone call of pending death as that was a favorite from Sims 2 that people have been requesting since Sims 2 so they knew when an old friend pr relative was dying to get a last visit perhaps and be able to actually get the urn. We finally get it back (we tried in Sims 3 too as some of us liked to be there and get the urn - and didn't get it - so now we get it and you want it gone again? To me that is sad to be denied the urn of an elder friend or relative because sims get sad when their relative is dying. To me it is realistic to be sad and realistic to be able to have maybe one last visit and to get the urn if we are there so we can bury them. So much for getting what some of us ask for after so long of waiting - looks like we lose it again at this rate.

I do think a legit cemetery should have came with this request as that is missing and the two sort of go together - perhaps it would have been received better by perhaps some of you who forgot or never played Sims 2. At the present my sims don't have any old relatives so I was not aware it was finally back after all these years of waiting as I started a new game between Cats and Dogs and Seasons because I didn't want issues with all the recoding - so if they stop it I guess if no one had mentioned it I'd never known it came back at all. Sigh.....

I think the problem everyone is having is not the calls themselves but the frequency of them. From what I can gather it seems like you get a death call for every sim your sim has ever met. Even if you only talked to that sim once and never spoke to them again or it was just a rude sim who jumped in to your sims conversation while they were on a date or out with a friend. After your sims gets these calls, they get the mourning moodlet and are sad for a few days, even if they don't really know them. I don't think they want to get rid of them entirely, just stop them from happening for sims your sim isn't even friends with.

"fruitsbasket101;c-16719634" wrote:

"Writin_Reg;c-16719477" wrote:
I find it odd that people are upset over the phone call of pending death as that was a favorite from Sims 2 that people have been requesting since Sims 2 so they knew when an old friend pr relative was dying to get a last visit perhaps and be able to actually get the urn. We finally get it back (we tried in Sims 3 too as some of us liked to be there and get the urn - and didn't get it - so now we get it and you want it gone again? To me that is sad to be denied the urn of an elder friend or relative because sims get sad when their relative is dying. To me it is realistic to be sad and realistic to be able to have maybe one last visit and to get the urn if we are there so we can bury them. So much for getting what some of us ask for after so long of waiting - looks like we lose it again at this rate.

I do think a legit cemetery should have came with this request as that is missing and the two sort of go together - perhaps it would have been received better by perhaps some of you who forgot or never played Sims 2. At the present my sims don't have any old relatives so I was not aware it was finally back after all these years of waiting as I started a new game between Cats and Dogs and Seasons because I didn't want issues with all the recoding - so if they stop it I guess if no one had mentioned it I'd never known it came back at all. Sigh.....

I think the problem everyone is having is not the calls themselves but the frequency of them. From what I can gather it seems like you get a death call for every sim your sim has ever met. Even if you only talked to that sim once and never spoke to them again or it was just a rude sim who jumped in to your sims conversation while they were on a date or out with a friend. After your sims gets these calls, they get the mourning moodlet and are sad for a few days, even if they don't really know them. I don't think they want to get rid of them entirely, just stop them from happening for sims your sim isn't even friends with.

But as we well know Sims 4 is sort of all or nothing. We either have something or we can't as they claim it breaks saves - that's why we can't have toggles and why they went to the trouble to create gamepacks especially for things not everyone wanted in their game. In order for sims to actually get at least a good bye from an old friend or relative it took a patch to the base game - but without a way to toggle them or some how tune them to every single sims relationship would surely break the game.-Tuning down isn't the answer - we saw what happened when they tried to tune down alien abduction - most of us got none at all - and strangely it was all of us that had a playstyle that wanted them. So toggles and downtuning can't be used - as most likely downtuning cannot pick who likes these things or whose relatives are whose or what ever you are expecting in this game. I believe it could in Sims 2 because the game was built with the family tree, with the backstories and with the full memory system. This game though - none of this existed - we only got the family tree after the fact as a patch, There is no memory system for the AI to really know who is related distantly - who is just someone your sim bumped into or what ever. The game cannot read your mind - it works off of what is there to feed it and what the AI is programmed to. The fact they could even do what they did after years of us asking I am amazed - but the fact remains with the way programming works - it really is we can have it or not but we can't have it both ways.

I feel like the solution would be simple, though. Don't completely get rid of the calls. Even for acquaintances, it would be a nice touch to get a call. However, I don't feel that Sims should be getting such a long and powerful sad moodlet over the deaths of Sims who are only acquaintances, especially those that your Sims have only met once. Confirming what the OP said, the way this system works in its current state, all of my Sims are in a constant state of sadness. It really takes the fun out of the game. This is how I'd do it-

Death of Acquaintance: Fine moodlet for 6 hours. With this moodlet active, it'll take a bit of effort to get them into another emotional state, but at least they won't be sad.

Death of Friend: Sad moodlet for 12 hours.

Death of Good Friend: Sad moodlet for 24 hours.

Death of Best Friend/Boyfriend/Girlfriend/Spouse/Close Family Member: Sad moodlet for two days.

And another thing, toddlers shouldn't be getting these calls at all, plain and simple. They don't even have phones! How are they still getting these calls?!

Hm, I see. That really is a shame. I do hate to say this, but if this is the only way that the death calls can be implemented, then I don't think I want them. They really do make the game unplayable for me. Like I said before, my Sims are in a constant state of sadness now. Whenever I think I'm finally about to get rid of that moodlet, BAM, there's another death call that stacks it right back up to two days again.

There just isn't any fun in having my Sims be so sad 24/7. Seriously, they're always so sad that they can barely even function. All they want to do is cry, often causing them to neglect their needs. It's even worse when the toddlers somehow get these calls, which shouldn't even be possible to begin with, because there's not much you can do for them to wear out their sad moodlet.

I might make a poll. It would be interesting to see how the community as a whole feels about the calls.

"worldofdrakan;c-16719936" wrote:
Hm, I see. That really is a shame. I do hate to say this, but if this is the only way that the death calls can be implemented, then I don't think I want them. They really do make the game unplayable for me. Like I said before, my Sims are in a constant state of sadness now. Whenever I think I'm finally about to get rid of that moodlet, BAM, there's another death call that stacks it right back up to two days again.

There just isn't any fun in having my Sims be so sad 24/7. Seriously, they're always so sad that they can barely even function. All they want to do is cry, often causing them to neglect their needs. It's even worse when the toddlers somehow get these calls, which shouldn't even be possible to begin with, because there's not much you can do for them to wear out their sad moodlet.

I might make a poll. It would be interesting to see how the community as a whole feels about the calls.

Theres actuallly a mod that changes the length of the sad moodlet based on the relationship your sim has with the deceased. So it should be possible for it to be changed in the game. Here's the mod for anyone who's interested: http://modthesims.info/d/615431

Yes, there's another mod over at Deichschaf Sims 4 that also works very well to tone down moodlets based on relationship. The mourning definitely isn't all or nothing, it's just the devs rushed out the new feature without really playing it through first.

"Writin_Reg;c-16719879" wrote:

"worldofdrakan;c-16719865" wrote:
I feel like the solution would be simple, though. Don't completely get rid of the calls. Even for acquaintances, it would be a nice touch to get a call. However, I don't feel that Sims should be getting such a long and powerful sad moodlet over the deaths of Sims who are only acquaintances, especially those that your Sims have only met once. Confirming what the OP said, the way this system works in its current state, all of my Sims are in a constant state of sadness. It really plum the fun out of the game. This is how I'd do it-

Death of Acquaintance: Fine moodlet for 12 hours. With this moodlet active, it'll take a bit of effort to get them into another emotional state, but at least they won't be sad.

Death of Friend: Sad moodlet for 12 hours.

Death of Good Friend: Sad moodlet for 24 hours.

Death of Best Friend/Boyfriend/Girlfriend/Spouse/Close Family Member: Sad moodlet for two days.

And another thing, toddlers shouldn't be getting these calls at all, plain and simple. They don't even have phones! How are they still getting these calls?!

I explained all that above and why there is no way the game AI can see that ifo.

I don't think this is true - my Sim with the loner trait gets a 'tense' moodlet from conversations with random Sims (or just being around NPCs), but is fine when talking to her daughter, and Sims with the family-loving trait get a sad moodlet when they don't interact with family members. Sims have different interactions that are determined by their family relationship and/or level of friendship. That's part of the reason levels like 'acquaintance' and 'good friend' exist, and why parent-child is more than just part of the family tree. They are flags that don't allow, say, a young adult to do inappropriate things with her parent.

If you can boil it down to a flag that is on or off, it can be coded. I agree that it was rather rushed out, and I do think they're working on fine-tuning it a bit. At very least, it would make more sense to generate the calls and moodlet intensity based on level of acquaintance rather than family relationship.

On a more general level, I think the real problem is that there are too many flags that generate moodlets, and that makes it hard to find the right balance. When people complain that Sims who have a fight are getting on like houses two minutes later, it's not that the Sims don't know they're supposed to be angry. When you look at their moodlets, they've got a red or mustard moodlet from the negative interaction, but it's overwhelmed by good decor and a tasty meal.

There are too many variables - when Hollie's mother died, she was only sad for a moment before she went back to being 'focused'. Meanwhile, her daugher, who never even met Ivy, was crying in the shower. I'd planned to have her call the sadness hotline, but when she got out of the shower, she was 'energised', and the sadness hotline was no longer available. Next minute, she's crying in her yoghurt.

This is such a interesting thread...rest assured we are looking into this issue, but with that in mind please keep up the discussion. I love reading your guys thoughts and ideas on the topic. :)