8 years ago

Please Fix the Alien "Discovery" Issue

@SimGuruDrake @SimGuruNinja @SimGuruLyndsay @SimGuruHydra

You know, the issue in which Sims will "discover" that another Sim is an alien, despite the alien not being in disguise to begin with. This wouldn't be so bad, if not for the fact that the Sim that "discovers" them usually gets an angry moodlet and the poor alien gets embarrassed. Sometimes the human Sim will get confident instead of angry, but it will almost always make the alien embarrassed. Not only that, but the aliens take an immediate hit to their relationship when they get "discovered" by a Sim who gets angry, putting their relationship in the red. Sims that get confident, however, will have their relationship boosted with the alien. Yeah, I know about the Shameless reward trait, but we shouldn't have to save up our points for a reward just to fix a flawed game mechanic. It doesn't fix those negative relationship hits either. There's also a mod that removes the angry and embarrassed buffs, but it also doesn't prevent the negative relationship hits.

This was made even stranger when I looked into it further. I decided to see what the caption for the angry moodlet was, and it said something along the lines of "why didn't they tell me?!" This makes NO sense. It implies that the Sim has known the alien for ages and is only just finding out that they are an alien, but this isn't the case. You WERE told, the very second the alien approached you without a disguise!

Also, that annoying little blurb that pops up whenever the undisguised alien is "discovered," which pops up EVERY TIME they meet a new Sim without their disguise. It says something like "and the disguise seemed perfect!" What disguise? They were never in a disguise to begin with!

Not to mention, this is actually a very long-standing issue. It's actually been a problem in the game since GTW first came out in 2015. That's right, this has been an issue for TWO YEARS and it has never been fixed or even acknowledged. I think it's about time that something was finally done about this, because this issue has really put a damper on my enjoyment of playing aliens, and I'm sure that I'm not alone on this.

More on the issue on Answers HQ.

Linkinnnnnnn
8 years ago
I'm in agreement with this. What's even worse is that sims' siblings will even do that, "discovered ___ is an alien". I play mostly with families and a lot of them have had abduction babies. You have known them since they were a baby, you should already know that they are an alien.
Lorraine-Simmer
8 years ago
Oh gosh, the issue is actually worse than I remember. I completely forgot about this old thread. To summarize, your Sims can apparently get angry at "discovering" undisguised aliens on their own home planet. They can also get the Aliens Among Us achievement for discovering 10 disguised aliens by "discovering" undisguised aliens. Seriously, this is super ridiculous!
P4ncaketree
8 years ago
I played a basically brainless Sim a few weeks ago together with my niece, and it did give some laughs how it took him two dates to notice the woman he was dating was an alien, despite never being in disguise. It was surprisingly fitting for that Sim.
But aside from that I don't like this bug.

What I like even less however, is how they are never disguised! Except for that one science career event. All the other times they walk around like normal people during daytime and totally undisguised, and none of the NPCs seem to care. That's a pretty big blocker for whenever I want to play "Catch the aliens"; they show themselves too easily.
Magdaleena96
Seasoned Newcomer
8 years ago
The mom in the legacy I'm playing didn't "discover" her husband's alien twins were aliens before they grew into children. That was kind of ridiculous. At least she thought it was cool, though.

But?? Like????? Discovering undisguised aliens at all is silly. They don't discover it. They're making an observation. Big difference.
Lorraine-Simmer
8 years ago
It's the November 2017 patch, and this issue STILL hasn't been addressed or even acknowledged. I am so disappointed. :( Everything else is awesome, and there's so much new stuff, but!.. It's just bothersome how long some issues are taking to be fixed. I mean, it's really been two years. Do the gurus even know about this issue?
sjofn77
New Spectator
8 years ago
This started bothering me a lot more post-vampires, where even though there's the whole dark form thing, everyone just knows who's a vampire and no one cares. Yet my undisguised aliens freak people out? Bah!
geoffreypa
8 years ago
Mine kept dying of embarrassment, till i realized i needed to put the form on before leaving the house lol or if they were my first household of the game die almost on entering their zone ( dumb other sims being in my instance hehe). have a mod now so no one cares would be nice to not have to mod thou.
Lorraine-Simmer
8 years ago
Exactly! It totally stinks that we have to buy a reward or use a mod to fix a flawed game mechanic that should not even be a problem to begin with. Even then, though, the mod doesn't entirely fix the issue. Even though it does away with the negative moodlets, it still does not fix the immediate negative relation or prevent that annoying "x discovered that y is an alien" blurb from popping up.

Seriously, just take a minute to read the description of the mod in question. It really is ridiculous how Sims behave in response to aliens by default. How can you get angry at "discovering" an alien when there is nothing to discover? They aren't even in disguise to begin with, so the fact that they're an alien should already be obvious, and thus not cause negative reactions!

"Sjofn;c-16142271" wrote:
This started bothering me a lot more post-vampires, where even though there's the whole dark form thing, everyone just knows who's a vampire and no one cares. Yet my undisguised aliens freak people out? Bah!

And it seems that Sims are also hypocrites. Tsk tsk!
Lorraine-Simmer
8 years ago
Good News! The folks over at Answers HQ have confirmed that this issue is still on their list, so the Sims Team is definitely aware of it. They are not allowed to disclose if or when it will be looked into, though.
Magdaleena96
Seasoned Newcomer
8 years ago
"Sjofn;c-16142271" wrote:
This started bothering me a lot more post-vampires, where even though there's the whole dark form thing, everyone just knows who's a vampire and no one cares. Yet my undisguised aliens freak people out? Bah!

Oh my god true???

Would have been neat to have this "known vampire" status as well.. even though some of mine don't even have a normal-looking form, let alone a dark form. Maybe that could be why.

But there could be other ways to go about it. Maybe they'd discover someone's a vampire when they observe them doing that hand clawy idle animation, or see them drink from someone nearby in public, or ask to drink from them or see them in front of a mirror or something.

Or if they just.. plain have those glowy eyes and sharp teeth and other vampire-exclusive features. Even in their default appearance. Sometimes you can just literally tell someone's not quite human. Other times they may be good at hiding just that in their non-dark form. It's what I like about the customization options here.