Opinions on emotions? «123...Next Go

SimFan298

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.)

Polyrhythm

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.

m11kj

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

Scobre

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.

HappySimmer3

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.

Voeille

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.

uryga

I don't like the Mood swings, you try to do something and there goes your sim, weather to happy to do the simple task YOU want them to do, while they sit there every 3 sec laughing or they walk into another room and are to mad to even do it.
They spend to much time on their emotions then letting you play your game, your way.
It's way to over emotional and to bipolar.
Talk about mood swings.

KevWalker

It's a lousy system, solely designed to be manipulated in order to meet the RPG-style goals instead of reflecting what it should - our sims reaction to the people and events around them, affecting their lives. Too many buffs, lasting too long, for trivial reasons. Who really goes out brimming with confidence just because they've brushed their teeth? Rather there should be a potential anti-social penalty if you haven't brushed for a time, similar to not bathing.
Also there are not enough emotions- where's fear for instance? And we need more than 3 traits ( and for them to actually tie in to emotions) to create more rounded individual characters. ATM most sims all seem like clones emotionally. I could go on forever, but life's too short!

Arkster93

They're useless and get in the way. They don't add anything new to the game and they do not make the sims more individual. If two sims have the same emotion, they're basically the same person. The wants and fears from Sims 2 or even the moodlets from Sims 3 worked much better.

JoAnne65

It's absolutely not for me, that's for sure. I don't like the focus on the emotions, I don't like emotions being part of gameplay. I played Sims 2 last week and at one point some townie visited my sims. She apparently had a bad temper, because even though she rang our door, as soon as my sim started talking friendly to her, she behaved nasty. My sim didn't like that, so we decided to teach her a lesson by pulling some pranks (throw a water balloon, giving her a buzz handshake) and the atmosphere reached below sea level pretty fast So in the end they were really mad at each other, pushing each other and it ended by a threat of the other sim she would bad-mouth my sim in public. My sim apologized and later the other sim phoned her twice to have a chat, clearly to improve the relationship again because it did.
Now, that's emotions for me. I could clearly see what they were feeling, I had some choices how to treat the quarrel and that's more than enough for me. The pushing was utterly funny to watch by the way.

I don't need my game to tell me with little jingles (they irritate me, don't know why) and a pic of my sim at the bottom showing the mood they're having how they feel. To me that feels like I'm a little kid learning about emotions.



I also don't like it they can end up having moods by doing totally unrelated things (like watching a painting or taking a shower). The reason I had fun with my quarreling sim, was that I could see it building up in a natural way. When people behave unpleasantly we get mad at them. And afterwards we can make it worse (by fighting) or better (by apologizing). I can relate to that, that's what emotions are about for me. I also prefer that though my sim was angry with that woman, she was normal and loving to her own husband. In Sims 4 when something makes them angry, they're angry in every situation following. When they are flirty they flirt with anyone. Not just with that one particular sim.

Sigzy05

They need tweaking. And the moodlet system needs to go. For TS4 I would like an option to hide the moodlets like in TS3's UI. It just breaks immersion for me.

luthienrising

I enjoy them, for the most part. I like that for a lot of activities, my Sim will do that activity differently depending on the emotion they're in. I find that engaging - it's a lot of why I now play mostly on speed 1 after spending most of my Sims 3 years on speed 2. It thought I'd have moved on to speed 2 by now, but only occasionally.

For me, the only drawback is that Sims are oversensitive to their environment. I tend to play with a mod installed that removes/lessens the effect of decor buffs - mostly I've pulled it in and out depending on my own mood, but I've been lazy about that recently. That said, I've heard from Simmers who don't have the mod that the decor buffs have less impact than they used to, so I probably ought to really try pulling the mod back out for a while.

I've seen a lot of newer-to-the-forums Simmers posting recently that the emotions are one of the draws of Sims 4 for them, so just putting a word in for those among them here who might not feel like posting after a lot of "emotions? nope!" posts.

SimFan298

It's a shame that what EA marketed as this huge feature is the number one thing disliked by everyone on the forums, and all Sims players.

Personally, I like this emotion system better than the mood meter of Sims 1-3. If a Sim was sad, they'd actually LOOK sad! Same with looking angry, embarrassed, and uncomfortable, and the 🐸🐸🐸🐸 walk is hilarious to me when they gotta "go/"

I honestly have no idea where the "clone" opinion comes from. They act like they always have, just a bit more exaggerated, and I think it's better that way, as it makes it more like "The Sims" in my opinion.

NZsimm3r

I enjoy the emotions but think they need a few changes.
The most pressing ones being a stack of happy moodlets over-riding a sudden death of a loved one. The grief/sad moodlet should always over-ride a stack of happy positive moodlets.... always, even if only for 4 hours. It's different if after the death the player directs the grieving sim to do specific things to reduce the sad moodlet but watching your sim smile while standing over the urn of their just-dead soul mate is wrong.
I also think a flirty sim should not flirt with just anyone if they are married and they should not get a whim to woohoo with 'someone'. The whim should have the spouses name on it.

I like the different ways sim will do things depending on their current emotions, such as eating. The sad eating animation is actually pretty cute. The stressed/tense sim that slams the fridge door always makes me jump, but that's good. I like it when my sims 'act up'.

I also like how certain emotions will give quite substantial skill boosts. A 40% skill boost for being very happy while chatting to yourself in the mirror to raise charisma skill... yep, I'll take that! Good thing is I can also ignore the moods/skills boost of I want to play a different way.

SiliClone

I already talked about this too much, emotions are only a way to manipulate the game for me. And are the reason I don't play the game anymore, they make all too easy. Sims 2 made the emotions better and they weren't even a selling point.

CK213

I don't like environment having such a big impact on happiness.
Happiness should be driven by having their needs met (which the game does), and living up to their traits.

I really don't like the focus being on emotions.
I want my sims personality to take center stage. These emotions makes all of the sims feel the same since they all go through them. Also, I may be playing out a scenario and I have to deal with emotions which aren't helpful for how I want to play my sim.

LatinaBunny

No, I don't like the weird RPG emotions buffing thing, either. I prefer the emotions of the older previous 3 games (1, 2, and 3), including more traits and Turn-ones and Turn-offs, etc.

emtheelf

Emotions irritate me to no end. The music when it changes irritates me - especially when it changes five times in quick succession. I hate that they make everything so predictable (when apparently that was exactly what they're there to prevent?) and that they make my sims behave in ways I don't want them to and make it less about the characters I want to create. Just make what was already there better. If it weren't for the multitasking I would have thought TS4 made literally everything about how the sims themselves behave worse.

midnightpearl

If EA had not focused so much on ''emotions'', then I think Toddlers would've been in base game!

Krisha880

CK213 wrote: »

I don't like environment having such a big impact on happiness.
Happiness should be driven by having their needs met (which the game does), and living up to their traits.

I really don't like the focus being on emotions.
I want my sims personality to take center stage. These emotions makes all of the sims feel the same since they all go through them. Also, I may be playing out a scenario and I have to deal with emotions which aren't helpful for how I want to play my sim.

This! To me it seems like the emotions makes all Sims behave and feel the same. I feel like my Sims have lost their uniqueness. I want traits to matter more and not just give my Sims trait related interactions. I want autonomous behaviour based on traits more than emotions. The idea is good though, but it needs some tweaking! I wish emotions were more connected to the traits. I tnink that would really make my Sims unique!

simstr0ng

I like emotions and I use them to enable promotions for Sims. I like having emotional auras for objects but I wish the game was consistent in letting you read what the emotional aura on an object is - I think I have conflicting auras in rooms. I really like objects that influence the emotion like the showers - I wish more objects had that function.

MasonGamer

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

like that should be how sims react if they are really close to that person

or, if they are Enemies.



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

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 🐸🐸🐸🐸. 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

It's a shame call them "emotions". This game is so embarrassing

-Skky-Ninja-

I love them. The game would be quite boring without them, in my opinion.

Goldmoldar

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.