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

runamoksims
9 years ago
"PrincessVee;14866836" wrote:
I feel like they need to come up with an Emotions EP to add new emotions like jealous and afraid/scared, as well as expand on already existing emotions to make them more prominent and believable in this game. And name it Get Emotional haha
Seriously, tho

Great idea but just what would they be afraid of? Maybe the dark? The ghosts aren't scary.
WillowG
9 years ago
Eh. There isn't even a negative event in the sims 4 that I know of... at least having a burglar (it was sometime a little depressing in the sims 3 having my sims robbed, expecially the poorer ones, but it was fun having the police or a courageous sims fight with the bruglar! :D )
Wizbiziest
9 years ago
I like the concept but dislike the implementation.

I'm honestly baffled by the way emotions are handled. There are so many things you can do to artificially put your sim in any (positive) mood you want and they just keep adding more with every pack. You can use lamps, incense, aromatherapy, showers, ice cream, bath soaks, etc. to make your sim feel any way you want and I'm just like...why? Why do I care that my sim is energized right now? Why do I care that they're inspired? You could argue that those emotions help them build skills but skill building is only a small part of the Sims experience for me, and being able to do it slightly faster is not much of a draw. I do like that the flirty emotion gives them more success with romance because I feel that's a more interesting and realistic result. I know skill building and crafting are important to a lot of people, but to me having more complex and realistic ways for the sims to act is the most important part of the game.

Emotions should not be a means to an end (that I can't seem to figure out), they should be the RESULT of an event that has happened in a sim's life. I want my sims to be in certain emotions because of interesting gameplay events, not furniture.

Other people have made really good points about how positive emotions stack too much (I hate the decor one), and I think this is a big part of it too. One example for me is the Mom in my main family has done the Master Chef aspiration so her meals always give the family +3 happiness buffs. That's the same level of happiness that marriage or a new baby brings, and it kind of cheapens those events that my sims are equally happy from eating her tuna casserole. I want my sims to be "fine" more often and happiness to be something I have to work for, so that I can actually be excited for my sims when something good happens to them. I would be OK with all the less significant happiness buffs going away and only big life events like First Kiss or Promotion causing it.
astridentanja
9 years ago
"fabeme;14867748" wrote:
I think emotions have potential, but when I look at how it is right know, I hate it. When it was announced I thought that it would give us new sims, intelligent and unique. That's not the case, they all feel the same and their traits doesn't influence at all this system. It feels empty. For me it's the same as in the Sims 3, but they just changed the name of moodlets for emotions...

Moodlets are way less dominant than the emotions in Sims 4. And moodlets are both trait as circumstances based, which delivers a more unique sim. Like, when my sim in 3 loses a friend, he will be a bit down about that. A sim with the brooding trait however gets really depressed when the same thing happens. A brave sim can't be bothered when he sticks his hand in a hole filled with bugs, a coward however will totally flip.
rucolasheep
9 years ago
"JoAnne65;14868123" wrote:
"fabeme;14867748" wrote:
I think emotions have potential, but when I look at how it is right know, I hate it. When it was announced I thought that it would give us new sims, intelligent and unique. That's not the case, they all feel the same and their traits doesn't influence at all this system. It feels empty. For me it's the same as in the Sims 3, but they just changed the name of moodlets for emotions...

Moodlets are way less dominant than the emotions in Sims 4. And moodlets are both trait as circumstances based, which delivers a more unique sim. Like, when my sim in 3 loses a friend, he will be a bit down about that. A sim with the brooding trait however gets really depressed when the same thing happens. A brave sim can't be bothered when he sticks his hand in a hole filled with bugs, a coward however will totally flip.

i should do that, make a coward go on adventures, just have to come up with a story which justifies it :grimace:
a coward probably even faints often on adventures i think

i played yesterday again TS3 & it was so much fun, just to watch those little creatures doing their stuff, going about their business, they just behave so much more like humans if compared to TS4 sims
TS4 sims are more about the mechanics of the game & about those features like multitasking & emotional manipulation than just the instruments to be utilised in the sims' everyday life - i'd guess that's the difference
TS3 sims, as much this game has its own problems, still make sense as sims living humanly normal life

in TS4 i constantly wish that some small feature might be included which would offer for me a richer gameplay & for those sims a more fulfilling life,
like with the GT addition a chess club i made for several of my elders, finally something useful & entertaining for both, those sims to do together & me to watch & play them
now i am waiting for some sort of a ball, several of my sims can't move in their lives further if there is not even such a basic feature, a physical game which they could do together, not just hanging around in stuffy bars, basketball, baseball, football, badminton, frisbee, ping-pong* ... something :open_mouth:
jogging together, that would have been something but nope, not possible :tongue:
dancing together ? nope :confounded:

emotions would be probably not so abundantly dominant in TS4 if there would be more to do for sims

a question
does someone know if evil or mean sims rejoice if sims suffer in their presence ?
cause in TS3 that's the case, they get a related happy moodlet
i don't play much mean or evil sims in TS4, they are always such a struggle to play, i have again & again to correct their interactions from friendly to hostile, it's so little fun :tongue:

edit
*boccia ? ... golf, miniature golf, tennis ... so many options & nothing there
daleylife
9 years ago
Sims change emotions way too frequently and I feel as a whole, the way Sims react to situations (or don't, in many cases) needs to be looked at.
rucolasheep
9 years ago
"SiliClone;14869134" wrote:
"Rukola_Schaaf;14868993" wrote:

a question
does someone know if evil or mean sims rejoice if sims suffer in their presence ?
cause in TS3 that's the case, they get a related happy moodlet
i don't play much mean or evil sims in TS4, they are always such a struggle to play, i have again & again to correct their interactions from friendly to hostile, it's so little fun :tongue:

Nice question, it's hard to notice the effect of the evil and mean trait. Mean Sims gets a +1 happy from every successful mean or mischievous interaction they make to other Sims. Evil Sims gets an happy buff from being around Sims in an uncomfortable state. Now the funny part about this is that the happy buff they get makes them more inclined to use friendly interactions inside a conversation, along with the increased probability to use mean interaction given from the mean and evil trait, this results in bipolar conversations where the mean/evil sim insult-> compliment-> insult->compliment (for example) the other sim he's talking to... that keeps smiling because the compliment gives an happy buff and he almost always has another random happy buff that stacks with it and overpower the angry buff from the insult (if he got it, since not always they get it)

this is more crazy than the insane traits interactions

probably mean/evil sims just shouldn't be friendly at all, this is confusing to the player

i suppose there had to be other sorts of smiling for evil/mean sims, mean sorts of smiles

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/0f/b1/87/0fb1878d65b9c6822b54da3c5529e6d6.jpg
http://cache3.asset-cache.net/gc/93272494-business-man-with-evil-smile-gettyimages.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=7lpAby4cutme9JOV9KnMpDIdTD9lviYyySdNQjsMHBsv%2fArL76S4oiwcsQB5ee3EEMQKIXkeQpypm1jOGhfNSw%3d%3d
http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/villains/images/e/e1/Eddy_evil_smile.png/revision/latest?cb=20121203203102

& not just the same absent frozen grin of "happiness" as every average sim displays

http://i67.tinypic.com/2l9tw81.jpg
Trykmi
9 years ago
The way Sims picks the autonomous interactions is insane by itself if my understanding of the games files is right, because all the few interactions that are allowed for autonomous are ruled this way, they have a trait score, an emotional score and a relationship score. Due to this fact is more likely that a sim angry for finding out that is partner is a cheater goes out and insult the first random stranger than the partner he\she is supposed to be angry with, the married relationship bit makes it this way. This is also the reason there are times when they start a loop of blow a kiss to their partner, since they are happy an into a relationship and the interaction has an high score, resulting in being always chosen, 5 times in a row.
Jaystar420
5 years ago
They were a neat new idea and I appreciate the Sims team for trying something new but honestly the game would be so much better without it. I miss the moodlets from TS3 instead.
Cynna1065
5 years ago
I don't want the game to tell me how Sims are feeling by using neon signs and flashing red lights. None of that was necessary for TS2. TS3 started the moodlet feature. I mostly ignored it, however, because the animations and the Sims' behavior often told me enough about what the Sims were thinking and feeling, without the moodlets.

If there is another TS game, I'd like them to go back to using animations, reactions, and interactions to tell the story of a Sim's emotions. I don't appreciate love notes or static pictures with bold headings telling me what's going on. I find them distracting and tedious. The expression of the avatar would have been enough. I don't need to be led by the nose.