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I love you, my Despised Enemy
Simalleyaile
Posts: 865 Member
There is currently NO gameplay consequences for enemies - sims who are both in the red in their relationship panels who are meant to hate each other.
Here are two such sims. To be clear, they only "hate" each other because of me. I made them be mean to each other. They each have negative traits like "mean" "hot-headed"; no "cheerful" or "good" traits.
They meet in the hallway - they are apartment neighbours - and immediately start in with the "friendly chatting" and I watch their relationship begin to improve. So, I intervene. I am controlling the female. Start the yelling, the name calling, the everything awful and bad available to me. Sure. He gets mad and suddenly he storms off...into her apartment. Whoa, I think, have you guys added something? What's he gonna do?
The dishes. That's what he did. Her dirty dishes. He took them to her sink and washed them for her.
Ah yes, all players of Sims 4 says. The ole, 'nothing to see here folks'. Enemies love each other, just like other sims. Or at least, that's the impression I am so often left with. Sometimes I do see enemies out in the wild fighting each other and being mean - when I am not controlling either one of them. But what I'd like to focus on here is when I am playing one of them.
Please devs, consider a "simple" solution. Grey out all friendly interactions so neither the player or the automated scripting chooses to be friendly.
Currently, everything is still available, including the loving "brighten" day, the HUGS etc.
The only option in "friendly" category should be "apologise" and "find common ground" - which the player can use if they want to start building a positive relationship again. Once in green, all other friendly interactions can return.
All too often, enemy sims have either verbally or have physically been in a fight and before the player even has time to intervene, the two of them are happily chatting, joking with each other or even hugging. They'll happily watch movies together, slide out in the backyard together, play chess etc. all of these options should be greyed out, and if one autonomously asks the other, then the answer is NO. Use the snub animation. I have seen it for other scenarios and it will work very well for enemies refusing to be friendly.
Also, please, check all coding that relates to random phone calls. All too often, an enemy will be chosen as the sim who invites the other sim out to a friendly event, or say a kind encouragement or congratulations. Please fix this coding so that enemies are exempt from this positive behaviour.
Also, please add some extra gameplay for two sims who hate each other, not just verbal interactions.
Examples from Sims 2:
Other ideas for enemies:
Edit: I have added further feedback since Sentiments were added in this post here.
Here are two such sims. To be clear, they only "hate" each other because of me. I made them be mean to each other. They each have negative traits like "mean" "hot-headed"; no "cheerful" or "good" traits.
They meet in the hallway - they are apartment neighbours - and immediately start in with the "friendly chatting" and I watch their relationship begin to improve. So, I intervene. I am controlling the female. Start the yelling, the name calling, the everything awful and bad available to me. Sure. He gets mad and suddenly he storms off...into her apartment. Whoa, I think, have you guys added something? What's he gonna do?
The dishes. That's what he did. Her dirty dishes. He took them to her sink and washed them for her.
Ah yes, all players of Sims 4 says. The ole, 'nothing to see here folks'. Enemies love each other, just like other sims. Or at least, that's the impression I am so often left with. Sometimes I do see enemies out in the wild fighting each other and being mean - when I am not controlling either one of them. But what I'd like to focus on here is when I am playing one of them.
Please devs, consider a "simple" solution. Grey out all friendly interactions so neither the player or the automated scripting chooses to be friendly.
Currently, everything is still available, including the loving "brighten" day, the HUGS etc.
The only option in "friendly" category should be "apologise" and "find common ground" - which the player can use if they want to start building a positive relationship again. Once in green, all other friendly interactions can return.
All too often, enemy sims have either verbally or have physically been in a fight and before the player even has time to intervene, the two of them are happily chatting, joking with each other or even hugging. They'll happily watch movies together, slide out in the backyard together, play chess etc. all of these options should be greyed out, and if one autonomously asks the other, then the answer is NO. Use the snub animation. I have seen it for other scenarios and it will work very well for enemies refusing to be friendly.
Also, please, check all coding that relates to random phone calls. All too often, an enemy will be chosen as the sim who invites the other sim out to a friendly event, or say a kind encouragement or congratulations. Please fix this coding so that enemies are exempt from this positive behaviour.
Also, please add some extra gameplay for two sims who hate each other, not just verbal interactions.
Examples from Sims 2:
- Enemy sim turns up at house at night and kicks over trash can and makes a mess, runs away laughing maniacally.
- Enemy sim turns up at house and steals gnomes. Sends ransom message to get the gnome back.
Other ideas for enemies:
- If access to property - as in my above example - enemy storms into house and starts slamming the fridge till it breaks OR breaks any other thing that is breakable.
- Prank calls that decrease relationship further - like the ones you added in EcoLife, (without the playfulness).
- Whims for enemies
Edit: I have added further feedback since Sentiments were added in this post here.
Post edited by Simalleyaile on
38
Comments
I really want justice for evil sims or just mean consequences in general.
I agree
OP, your suggestions are very good ones and I hope the devs take them into consideration. I also would love it if they took a close look at some of the mods out there like Meaningful Stories and More Personality Please and took note of what they do to make the game more interesting. Sims 4 is long overdue for this kind of depth in its Sims.
It makes no sense. Enemies should not autonomously act friendly with each other. The player is not challenged in any way to make it work between those sims because the game does it all for them. I completely agree with friendly interactions being greyed out. If a sim is too sad or angry to do something, some interactions are disabled until a sim feels better. Enemy interactions should work in the same manner.
The Sims 4 is too much of a ‘happy happy’ life simulator when personality mods are not installed. This should be a life simulator. If folks can’t take edgy gameplay because it’s too realistic or traumatizing, the game should add more gameplay toggles in the settings menu.
Challenges and consequences is what we need.
My favorite comparison is Neat sims and Slobs. Neat sims get tensed at filthy surroundings in Ts4, but cannot make the connection between the mess and the sim that is responsible for it.
I played these odd couples in TS3 and TS4 and the difference is striking.
TS3 sims even have built in socials to call out slobs for their behavior and order them to clean up.
I also love that the sloppy sim doesn't like being lectured and ordered to clean.
Extra attention to the social relations of sims with compatible and incompatible traits is a big hole in TS4.
It would make them a lot more interesting to watch and play if they had it.
fight on there own also if anyone here is a moder they could do the same thing please and thank you
however trying to fix it may be tricky because the game can't know what your sim actually wants to do because sims don't have a specific personality. it only has traits, and traits don't really change anything besides two or three random actions. ts4 sims have no memories either which means that they probably forget who were they angry with and all that sorta stuff, even if it appears on the relationships bar.
the game kinda offers more possibilities this way however the problem resides in that the artificial intelligence can't differentiate the interactions regarding the "feelings" of one sim to another. emotions also kind of sabotage this because sims mostly react according to their emotions and these are too easily manipulable. which means if your sim is feeling happy it means he isn't angry with anyone, so it won't be mean to anyone and so on.
i believe some of these interactions may actually be a bug but overall is just an example of why sims in ts4 are so dumb.
LiELF - you have a way of expressing yourself that so often sums up exactly what I'm thinking!
@CAPTAIN_NXR7
The solution seems obvious doesn't it? Foes shouldn't be friendly, so remove the option to be friendly. I think the trickiest thing will be convincing the devs there's enough of a problem to bother fixing.
@comicsforlife
Yes - exactly why I thought I'd try to bring this to their attention. I'm very happy with what they did with the Decorating buff, and now I even have some sims who complain about their surroundings! - and I think it's great. Emotions are much better, and gone is that erratic changing of emotions just because a sim has entered a different room with different, or no decor. Here's hoping they bring this enemy situation to it's logical conclusion - like LiELF says, actually "finish" it off.
@Oldeseadogge - thanks for all your suggestions, I hope the devs get to read them. I will say, there is actually a lot of options for sims 4 sims to become enemies - it was super easy to get my two sims up there to hate each, the problem was once they were in the enemy relationship - jokes and friendly chats galore! As you say, more autonomous options from the mean category - which would have to happen if the friendly options were no longer available to them.
Something I've noticed in the programming is that Sims have idle chats. These chats don't even contribute to relationships. Isn't that strange? I first noticed this while playing Discover University and saw that all of the students were hanging out and talking, so I let them since I wanted them to get their relationships up. After a little while I decided to focus in on a couple of Sims to boost them further, and my Sim had to introduce themself to the Sim they had already been talking to for two hours. There was no bar between them at all.
So first thing I think needs to happen is that these autonomous interactions need to change. Automatic hugging and friendly idle talk just needs to go. Let the player decide who their Sim wants to communicate with and how. Once these fillers are out of the way, maybe we can have some honest interactions. Sims won't automatically hug their enemies or sit and chat with them.
The next thing that needs tuning (and I'm not a developer so I'm only assuming these things are possible) is how a Sim reacts to another Sim and moves forward from there. This, I think, is going to take some deeper diving into Sim traits and personalities. For instance, take a Good and Evil Sim. They should, by instinct, argue and debate, fight, or not get along. This should be by default. But if the player wants them to somehow have a friendship, then the direction of the player's guidance should be considered by the AI and, with a lot of work, be possible. But the same two Sims should easily be able to be enemies or rivals. We should see them fighting on their own, making each other angry and poking each other as they argue. Same goes for any other Sims with an enemy status or relationship in the red zone. Once that status is in the red, the programming should dictate that those Sims do those autonomous interactions that are appropriate. Then if, say, the player decides to have one Sim try to make amends, they should be able to apologize, try to find common ground, or maybe have some new interactions like "empathize with their side" or "try to reason". These interactions should not always be successful to make it challenging. And there should be a "cool down" timer, like Sims 2 had that goes into effect after a negative interaction between red zone Sims. This way, you are forced to let them be, and when the time has passed, try to interact with them again (maybe the chance will be higher this time and even more if you apologize first.)
But while Sims are angry at each other or enemies, I think we need to see some petty and humorous activity. Coming by the house to kick over the trash barrel is always a classic. Maybe your Sim could get a mean, prank phone call from them or make one back. Get trolled on the internet or find out they've been slandered and have to protect their reputation. Be interrupted in public places when they try to make friends with other Sims and the enemy is there too. If the relationship is completely in the red, maybe they even get stalked a little. If we had doorbells, I'd say they could ring and run. Leave litter scattered on their front steps. Egg their house or steal their bicycle. Maybe the burglar activities could be transferred to enemy Sims behaviors instead. I can think of many, many ways that other packs could incorporate new vengeful activities. Sabotage, theft, social disruption. It would add a whole new challenge to the game that would make it interesting and engaging and it would all be completely optional to the player so those who wanted peaceful Sims could just keep making them friendly.
At this point, I kind of think we could use a "frenemies" Game Pack. It would be awesome.
I would love this
Is it wrong of me to wish they would fix this kind of stuff over the skin tones?? I mean sims 2 has 4 skins and the gameplay is everything...LOL I am grateful they are looking at the skin tones because it needs to be done but modders will still do it better and I do feel like gameplay is more a priority for me anyways.
take a Good and Evil Sim. They should, by instinct, argue and debate, fight, or not get along.
This could occur once Sim A learns that Sim B has the conflicting trait. A similar mechanic is already functioning in the game. For example, "bros" enjoy hanging out with other "bros" and have specific and exclusive interactions like "bro hug" etc, also Snob sims love the company of other snobs. Soit's very possible for two enemies to "detect" their hate and get assigned specific buffs and open new unique interactions - they just have to want to add it. Some of the work is already done - they have the tags made that appear in the relationship panel like disliked, despised, declared enemies - I think there's even an enemies with benefits?
Stalked a little: Ha! Love it! This mechanic is also in game already, developed for Get Famous: Stans. They could easily use some of this behaviour for two sims in a Declared Enemy status.
If we had doorbells, I'd say they could ring and run. Yes, we shall ask for doorbells please. I know it's
been asked for many times before.
Leave litter scattered on their front steps: It would be funny seeing an adult sim joyfully using the toddler animation to make a mess on their enemies property and then do that evil laugh as they run away.
Maybe the burglar activities could be transferred to enemy Sims behaviors instead. I love this idea! I think the reason why so many people are asking for burglers (besides the, you know, "principle" of them being missing as they were in other games) is because of the unexpectedness, the fact that it feels like gameplay suddenly halts because build/buy mode becomes unavailable - like fires - you don't have control of the game
for just those few moments, and then BAM! you get the option to fight or call the police and you don't know if they're going to get away with it or not. They could make this meaningful in Sims 4 if they used a reason for the burglary to happen. Enemies seem like a good enough reason for me. (Side note, I'd also like to see my actual sims in the criminal career do this too, and then my actual police/detectives show up to investigate - but that's probably another topic!)
I kind of think we could use a "frenemies" Game Pack. It would be awesome. I think this sort of thing would be perfect for a Superheros and Villains pack. My goodness, we have ALL those costumes, evil, mean and good traits, two entire social categories dedicated to mischief and mean, we can even do a Villainy Degree at University. I wouldn't be surprised if something like this may have been planned
all along, they just knew they had to get the more often requested packs done first. Anyway, I got a bit impatient waiting, so thought I'd ask for them to hurry along a little.
Though... I have no problem with the concept of enemies who should have the occasional 'angry woohoo' interaction. This should be a thing. So much anger, so much rage, so much woohoo-tension?
Heck, even a rage filled snog session.
Wait... just a proper snog session in general. You know, like what was in ts2.
🤔...Hmmm...I’m trying not to imagine what that’s like... It will break all the appliances in the house for sure.
I only recently discovered that there is a ‘apologize in bed’ interaction between two arguing sims that are in a romantic relationship. Who knew. I didn’t. I’m sure kids playing the game don’t understand what that means.