Forum Announcement, Click Here to Read More From EA_Cade.
Do You Think That the "Happy" Emotion is Oversaturated?
SimsLovinLycan
Posts: 1,910 Member
The emotions system is one of the things that the developers of The Sims 4 were the most proud of from launch. This game has given us the ability to murder our sims with emotion, even. Unfortunately, there's one emotion that we just can't escape from without mods or very selective decorating...Happy. Put a painting on the wall, your sim is Happy. Eat a meal, your sim is Happy. Grab some boo--uh, juice, your sim is Happy. Exercise, your sim is Happy. Have all needs full or nearly full, your sim is Happy. These Happy moodlets often take up most of the slots in the moodlet display and completely override negative moodlets from emotional traits like "Goomy" and "Hotheaded". Making Happy even more overpowered is the fact that it enhances other positive emotions like Flirty and Playful...and the negative emotions have no such booster!
But, what do you think? Is TS4 oversaturated with items and actions that give our sims Happy moodlets, or is all of this constant joy perfectly acceptable to you?
But, what do you think? Is TS4 oversaturated with items and actions that give our sims Happy moodlets, or is all of this constant joy perfectly acceptable to you?
There is a song I hear, a melody from the past...
When I woke for the first time, when I slept for the last.
Do You Think That the "Happy" Emotion is Oversaturated? 246 votes
No, this game needs even more joy!
1%
4 votes
No, it's just right.
6%
15 votes
Yes, a little bit too much happy.
28%
69 votes
Yes, they've gone way overboard with the happy!
36%
90 votes
If I see one more sim with, like, 8 happy moodlets at once, I'm drowning them all.
27%
68 votes
8
Comments
Sims 4 sims are such whiners that I welcome the ease with which happy state can be reached. Emotions are just buffs anyway and I hate it when debuffs like sad lock me out of actions. If I had my way, the game would just simulate physical needs and what happens inside their minds should be for the player to make up.
So, personally I can live with the constant happy moodlets, but objectively I see how it is too easy and off balance.
Kennel | SIKC | Tumblr
Someone suggested diminishing returns for the well decorated moodlets, because IRL, the novelty does wear off after a while.
Race Against the Clock: Can your elder sim turn back the clock before their time runs out?
Repose en paix mamie tu va me manquer :
1923-2016 mamie
It probably wasn't a good design choice to make happy combine with other emotions. Instead they probably should've cooled it on the happy moodlets in general and just given ALL emotions priority over happy, since happy is functionally just "Fine but a little bit better than fine." I also think it's safe to say that if you're happy and then you find out someone stole your car, then your anger/frustration/sadness is going to override your happiness, but if you have your car stolen and then win a new one, your happiness is unlikely to override the anger or frustration since the principle of the stolen car still bothers you. Happiness should've been marked as the "weakest" emotion instead of synergizing with all positive ones.
- My Art - Website - OriginID : saishou
http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/924539/features-that-needs-depth-and-ways-to-improve
Out of curiosity I just checked the stats on a sim I've been playing for months, this is without the happy moodlet from decor. Her 3 most frequent emotions were happy 392 times, confident 279 and inspired 211. Her least frequent emotions were dazed 8 times, bored 5 times and angry 4 times. Not sure if anger is super weak or if it's the way I play but I'm sure it should be a stronger emotion than that. I know some people are more chilled out but this sim completed both deviant aspirations meaning she spent her time going round fighting people, apparently she's a very zen criminal. Interestingly her teenage daughter has been happy 82 times and angry 18 times, so it seems more balanced but I'm guessing that's because I played through her toddler days.
Worse still, I think this must be intentional, surely no-one could balance their game this badly by accident?
They're rarely just fine, because that's usually the absence of moodlets. Happy has really kind of taken over as the default emotion by far. Which seems very unrealistic. I'm not happy 24/7. My sims shouldn't be either. Pretty decor doesn't make me happy, usually I don't even acknowledge it.
What if Sims 4 did more of an Inside Out approach, where each sim had one specific dominant emotion that usually influences their actions? Anger, sadness, happiness, fear, disgust... As it is, everyone's primary emotion is happiness and it's just not realistic. Fear doesn't even exist. Why.
they/he
simblr
--dictated by simreviews, written by Louise--
- kill environmental happiness from decoration
- kill 'well cared for' from high needs (or make it harder to get, such as requiring the hidden water need to be high, requiring a dance machine sim to not be bored from lack of dance, that sort of thing.... or make it something you loot when your needs get high that is temporary duration and has a cooldown on getting it again... I mean, it's fairly realistic for a person to be happy because their needs are met, but not in such a weirdly permanent way)
- make it significantly easier to "fail" in a conversation (thus making it harder to get the "pleasant conversation" type moodlets)
There's still a lot of actions that make a sim happy, but this would hit at some of the overdone pillars of it, I think. Make it seem a fair bit more sensible.
I normally get only two or three +1 Happy moodlets ; good meal, decorated, high needs.
Replacing Happy with something else is easy enough too, so I don't know what's this outrage about.
Well, the main thing is, because Happy moodlets come from just about everything and give a buff to other positive/productive emotions, while negative moodlets are generally weak and have no booster of their own, we rarely get to see or experience the negative emotions (Sadness, Anger, Embarrassment). That sort of makes the gameplay experience not only much shallower, but more frustrating for players who are storytellers (whether they share their stories or just enjoy them like their own private T.V. show) as well. It's like they never feel anything that's not considered productive...Sort of like how, in real life (at least in America, I don't know how bad it is in other countries) you're not really allowed to feel sad or angry or scared or nervous because those emotions serve no purpose for you or your employers/teachers as a unit of production in this chew-em-up-and-spit-em-out factory farm of a society we live in. We want a break from the expectation that everyone be contented and productive, at the very least, in a video game where we control the universe, dangit.
...That's where that frustration comes from.
Personally, I also think that Uncomfortable should become the booster for negative emotions, since it's almost as common as Happy in terms of how many things can trigger it (cheap furniture, messy home, nasty food/drinks, crafting things on the woodworking table with low Handiness skill, vampire transformation, etc.). That would help add some semblance of balance to the emotion system, along with strengthening negative moodlets from personality traits. The emotions system has so much potential for enhancing gameplay, but the emphasis on positivity and productivity makes it feel very lopsided and mechanical.