I have no idea where to put this thread, so if you feel it belongs in the General Discussion section, please let me know. Thanks.What is your opinion on the emotions of The Sims 4? Do you like them? Hate them? Halike them? (Like and hate them.)

I'm have mixed feelings on them, though as they are in the game now I have a mostly negative opinion on them. Basically I think they have potential and even some minor tweaking could help, but right now I think they're too fake feeling and don't add much meaningful - imo. I do like some of the subtle animation/tone changes they have in a certain emotion however.Happy is a bit too prevalent, and it boosts other positive emotions. Because of that if your sim has a negative emotion it can be easily buried under a slew of superficial happy moodlets, like nicely decorated. This also causes them to switch emotions far too fast, like jumping from sad to happy to playful in under a minute.Tying into that, emotions are influenced too easily by decor. If your sim is angry from an annoying conversation or sad about witnessing death, they shouldn't suddenly be peachy because the room they're in has a painting and a flower vase. I don't think decor should influence emotions at all unless you choose to make them do so, like items with an emotional aura. I also don't like how currently many emotions don't affect your sim enough and are instead mostly used to make building a certain skill faster, or how you're encouraged to manipulate their emotions like getting them in a required mood for work, doing an action for X amount of time while in a certain mood, etc.

Believe it or not I've never played sims 1-3 before and am only starting with sim 4 and freeplay so I might not be in the position so say anything. However I watch a lot of lps from previous games and have a general idea of what's going on. To me emotions in sims 4 is just an additional feature to the game, one of the "gimmicks" to add varieties to the gameplay. I like it, it makes the characters more intimate and the characters are what I care about most in sims games.It does sometimes get in the way when your focus in the game is more on other aspects. You don't want to add one more possible way of dying bc of extreme emotions, you don't want them to be too tense/uncomfortable to not do sth you're trying to make them do, you don't want certain interactions to not appear when your sim is "not in the mood".If you come from a sims 1-3 background I understand that those additional "inconvenience" would draw your attention more than the "good" aspects do, cuz getting used to sth. new is always hard (I personally never try to lol). But to me as a new simmer, I'm okay with it and I kinda like it since I'm not entirely bored with the game yet. XDDDDDD

I hate them. They don't even feel like real emotions, but a MMO buff system. Emotions are so unbalanced to being so happy all the time and traits don't really have an effect on them. If anything, the Sims 4 feels the most robotic to me in that all the Sims feel like the Sims 3 Into the Future Plumbot life states. Reactions being a hit and miss don't help matters too. Makes it hard to get emotionally attached to this generation of Sims. Sims act like they have short and long term memory loss. It is really depressing to watch sometimes.

I think manipulating emotions was supposed to be the replacement for meeting a sims' need bars. Not always, but many times they will take care of their own needs (remember the "smarter sims" line?), so the challenge to the player was to manipulate their emotions in order to 'level up' and unlock content. So IMO they certainly ARE a buff system and personally I am not the least bit interested in trying to put them in various emotional states for some kind of "gamey" purpose. That's not what the sims were ever about, IMO. The last time I tried to play, several months ago, the sims were doing their own thing, chatting, cooking, skilling, etc. I felt like an observer just watching their (un-amusing) chat, chat, chatting, and I really felt nothing for those sims.

I don’t think they’re done properly. I agree they do feel like buffs to reach certain goals easier, and they make all the sims clones. I already mentioned it in some threads, and plenty of people also did, but when two sims are experiencing the same emotion they’re basically clones – they have the same animations, the same whims, the same autonomous actions, the same expressions, the same everything. Emotions shouldn’t be so shallow and override traits, they should be filtered through them – a loner shouldn’t want to meet someone new or hug someone when happy; however, if they were in a happy relationship they could want to hug that particular sim. Energised shouldn’t be tied to exercising, for example an ambitious sim could want to raise a skill level; flirty shouldn’t make all sims want to perform romantic interactions with random sims unless they have such an aspiration.Also I actually believe than emotions don’t seem a revolutionising feature – as far as I’m concerned, they seem to be doable as an EP for TS3 – they’re basically categorised moodlets, where each category has its own unique animations, buffs, and interactions. TS3 also has moodlets – so they would just need categorising and adding those things, and it’d be no different to the TS4 system. TS2 sims seemed more emotional due to the memory system – they could get sad or angry even after a few days later. Sims in TS4 completely forget that something happened after the moodlet related to it disappears, and some seem to be a pure decoration – in TS3 sims sometimes performed a certain animation while having a moodlet, in TS4 it’s all depending on which emotion is active at a certain moment – e.g. if they have an inspired and angry moodlets and the value of inspired is higher, they don’t seem angry even a little bit. In TS3 I saw a townie crying because someone broke his heart, and that surely wasn’t the only moodlet they had (it’s actually not that easy to have just one moodlet in TS3, lots of things make them appear).And I think that happy shouldn’t be the default mood – it basically is, because there are to many things that can cause it – if a sim is a loner that loves outdoors, they have two happy moodlets when they’re alone outside, which means a wide smile from ear to ear almost all the time. That is not realistic. Happy should be a special emotion caused by exceptional events, like maxing out a skill, reaching a milestone in an aspiration, finding love and so on. Those examples I mentioned should give fine moodlets, so then it’s harder to make a sim feel bad, but then they would be... just fine. Not grinning all the time, but feeling fine. I’m a loner and I’m alone at this moment – and I don’t have an extremely wide smile, I just feel fine and much more comfortable than in a crowd.

Opinions on emotions? | EA Forums

MasonGamerBoi
9 years ago
I feel like Emotions aren't real enough. I liked the idea but they aren't deep.

But it's more of reactions.

like when a loved one dies, (loved family member/best friend/partner) they all react the same.
Yes it's a game, but I want my sims to make me care, at least for almost a second.

this - V
http://66.media.tumblr.com/75bdb71768135400fdc9c4188672955b/tumblr_inline_o53ytiMfuR1tndigp_500.gif
like that should be how sims react if they are really close to that person

or, if they are Enemies.

http://omgreds.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/the-carlton-happy-dance-o.gif

Like it's not fun to play with emotions if they're not 75% believable

They need to add all of the negative emotions,

Fearful - with mutable traits sims can acquire traits through experiences. like surviving a drowning, your sim will acquire the hydrophobic trait
sims can over come fears. and as a little goal, "over come 5-7 fears, and acquire the Brave trait."

Envy - Jealousy is a trait but it's also an emotion. You can feel jealous about a lot of thing, not just romance. What the Jealous trait should have been it should make this sim more likely to be Envious than the average Sim.

and they need to add Favorites those will really contribute to emotions and make sims a little more unique when it comes to emotion, because they'll have different things that will make them happy, sad, tense, relaxed, playful, focused, inspired, confident.

Another thing, is kind of unrelated, but it's the "Big Personalities" clause. Not everyone in life has a big personality, I do but I don't use my hands or make a lot of movements when I'm talk. So I say die it down on the big personalities
Mizz_Creative48
9 years ago
I don't really like their emotions because the emotions are very dramatic at times and being easily happy with the huge grins annoy me more than anything. They focused too much on emotions and multitasking so the rest of the game is half-assed. I don't like how the positive emotions usually overpower the negative ones. If they're going to be emotional they need to stay in the current mood no matter how bad it is
riccardouga
9 years ago
It's a shame call them "emotions". This game is so embarrassing :flushed:
ashtendo
9 years ago
I love them. The game would be quite boring without them, in my opinion.
Lonewolf1044
Seasoned Spectator
9 years ago
I do not like some of the emotions but emotions is dependent on an AI system that will never be perfect regardless of how much memory you have, what video card you using, etc. The AI system must be tweaked when needed to get close to a perfect emotional state but will never get to perfect. I am not dependent on how a Sims feels because I did not buy the game to see emotions or how graphical a Sim looks I brought it for the gameplay and it does not really meet a lot of my expectations.
WillowG
9 years ago
Not really my thing. Those are really too much over the top, and seem to override the traits. And remind me of very over the top moodlets. Really don't see the appealing. I was more than happy with the sims 3 animation-reaction to events or raits than these "emotions". Are quite unuseful to me.
elliebreton
Seasoned Ace
9 years ago
I do not like the emotions system, they switch too fast and I hate that the UI TELLS us which emotion they are in. I don't want to be told my sim is feeling sad, happy etc, I want to be able to see it by looking at them.
benjiu
9 years ago
I really like the emotions, even if there are some things I think could be improved :
- I think the environment has too big an impact on emotions, at least we can disable the auras, but well decorated should not override emotions that easily
- I wish there were a first more subtle version of the emotion (like there is a "Very" variation), which would make transitions smoother in my mind
- I would prefer if "happy" was a true emotion, when something memorable happens (new friend, babies, promotion, etc), and most of the basic +1 happy/+1 uncomfortable moved to a mood meter, which would just boost true emotions (good mood = boost positive emotions, bad mood = boost negative emotions).
Scobren
9 years ago
@MasonGamer I agree and I love your ideas. I also want fear and envy in the game.
TechToTravis
9 years ago
"Neia;14861501" wrote:
I really like the emotions, even if there are some things I think could be improved :
- I think the environment has too big an impact on emotions, at least we can disable the auras, but well decorated should not override emotions that easily
- I wish there were a first more subtle version of the emotion (like there is a "Very" variation), which would make transitions smoother in my mind
- I would prefer if "happy" was a true emotion, when something memorable happens (new friend, babies, promotion, etc), and most of the basic +1 happy/+1 uncomfortable moved to a mood meter, which would just boost true emotions (good mood = boost positive emotions, bad mood = boost negative emotions).

I agree with all what you said !:D