I've been kind of bouncing back and forth between Sims 3 and 4 and whats become very apparent to me (is even with traits) the sims really have no unique personalities in the Sims 4 that make them stand apart from one another.
Personalities can be defined by emotions yes, but its not enough in the Sims 4 (as they work now) and honestly the emotional system is kind of annoying to manipulate especially from a story tellers (point of view) because their emotions are like some crazy roller coaster. Constantly flipping and changing from one state to another within minutes. Happy face, sad face, pouting face, straight face, happy face. Emotional states should last longer then that.
As for traits in the Sims 4, they feel like bonus or handicaps for sims, rather then defining elements of them.
So I read a few other posts and such of people complaining about the emotion system and was thinking of how it could be overhauled at this stage without requiring a complete re-write of coding. As well to keep currently players who are happy with it, happy.
My solution/suggest would be be found in create a sim, in the same way you pick a sims walk style you pick from 3 basic states for your sims emotions. Adding traits that effect their emotions to the below would further make them stand apart.
1. Non-emotional, straight faced. Your sim doesn't react to much and takes a lot to get an emotional reaction out of them.
2. Normal, similar to the current level of Sims emotions as it is now, BUT toned down just slightly so that emotional states last a little longer.
3. Highly emotional. The roller coaster of emotions is back, these sims react fast and furious to outside and inside stimuli.
One thing I'd do regardless is have emotional states last longer and not be so easily effected by player choice so quickly. Right now I get that its needed because they so easily pout, but if you get a sim into an angry mood then he should remain angry for a while. If he's happy then he should be happy for a while. Not insta-click changed. If they are in a happy mood and something slightly bad happens then its a sliding scale of happy. Not insta-pouting.
Speaking of pouting, wow like are all these sims so fragile as one single wrong choice makes them feel bad and pout about it? Like seriously do they need to express their feelings like they are talking to a therapist over every little thing that happens to them? Talk about easily triggered - except that COULD be a trait you could add. Honestly this is really the whole emotional system right now, they are SO easily triggered between emotional states that its often times annoying and more so removes any type of personality when all Sims are governed by the same system.
I also feel more needs to be done to define personalities and contrast between sims, which could relate to relationship stuff such as compatibility or heck even zodiac signs like in past sims.
I don't know if they'd bother tweaking it at this time, emotions but if they plan to keep supporting it into the next few years I feel this system needs an upgrade of polish. Especially if they want to keep evolving it like other service games do.
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It would be great if I could use traits to determine how he acts in any given situation. However, traits are mostly empty and broken.
The good news is that there are many mods to help with the issue. The bad news is that the developers never thought to tackle these issues until now, TS4's sixth year. EA recently conducted a survey which is basically a dream come true if any of those features come to fruition in a meaningful way. Yet, when those official fixes will arrive and if they will work as advertised is anyone's guess. I'm sorry to say that TS4 has been a masterclass in great ideas that are never fully realized.
I'm all for silly, that's what I loved about past sims games, but this isn't silly, it's just plain stupid.
Make our sims unique again!
This is killing replayabillity...
My Sims from The Sims 2 are far more intelligent, expressive, and believable than these Sims. It’s far more fun to interact with them and tell their stories. And I actually feel they develop their personalities as I play with them more throughout their whole lifespan.
Really, that’s what I look for the most in a Sims game aside from accruing wealth and success from my Sims. A ever-changing personality system which realistically portrays diverse Sims, adapting to how I direct their lives.
I'll agree it was an accomplishment, but its also become very clear that more then emotions are needed to simulate a sim as unique.
You know, I'm not sure that this was the way they intended them to work -- the early trailers showed a vastly more robust system which just didn't pan out.
Most definitely. Emotions are not personality. I wish they would focus on giving the sims personalities. Emotions aren't new, anyway. Sims 2 and Sims 3 had deeper emotional systems, with their individual traits influencing their reactions so much more. And I'd argue that Sims 2 memory system added an additional depth that Sims 3 couldn't quite reach.
What's baffling to me is how a few basic emotions have been left out of Sims 4 completely that were in previous games. In Sims 3, if your sim got scared, you certainly knew it from their reaction -- no shiny UI icon needed.
Preach ***raises hands***
I like your suggestions. Some people IRL are actual emotional potatoes and others are basket-cases, and it would be good to see that in-game.
I agree in that I don't think they could ever do away with the emotions system, but it can and should be expanded upon and enhanced, made more realistic (by having more negative emotions, for one thing), and personalities should be deeper in terms of autonomy tuning, and potential interactions in the game.
If I have a music Sim, and they are sad, I don't want their sadness whim to be "call the sadness hotline", I want it to be "play out feelings on the piano" or something like that. "Sing a sad song" maybe. Or if they are an environmentalist, they should want to "go for a walk in nature" to cheer themselves up. If they love to swim, they should want to take a trip to the beach. I do have some very useful mods for making the emotions system more realistic, but it would be nice if those mods were to become obsolete.
Traits in the game don't go deep enough... And thats where I feel an interests system should be implemented so they actually have things they like to do and to talk about, and things they dont like to to or talk about. And their interests can play into the emotions system - at it's most basic, doing things they like makes them happy and doing things they don't like makes them sad or angry. Boom.
They could also add emotional intelligence to the game, as a "character value" like those they added in Parenthood. So Sims who grew up with poor emotional intelligence are more likely to get angry, act out, fight, be mean, and kind of "reinforce" their bad mood if they have a negative moodlet or two, whereas Sims with higher emotional intelligence may be more likely to deal with their negative emotions in a healthy way by seeking to change their mood, engage in hobbies or connect with friends / loved ones. Could be cool? Or I guess they could use the "empathy" wheel we already have, that could almost work.
**Edit - they could also improve their emotional intelligence as adults by having to go to therapy, or read books or something??**
Personalityyyyyyyyyyyyyy please.
Yep, and that's because they actually have things that they want, and DON'T want. You can tell "their" stories rather than telling "your" story, if that makes sense. They actually have a personality. And of course, you can still tell "your" story if you want to, if you make their personality suit. The system was much more robust, and had much greater replayability, because everything had impact, meaning, and could turn out differently time and time again.
I've seen a lot of players say they get bored of The Sims 4, or while playing it, quite easily. I feel that the lack of character depth is partially to blame for that, and should be addressed before the devs try to add more vacation destinations or resort running or whatever else they want to do. Less fluff, more meat please!
Let's make Liberty and Justice For All a reality.
In the long run (TS5), I would like to see a hybrid between TS3 and TS4. There should be some kind of emotion system going on, but I think it needs to be scaled back somewhat. Bring personalities forward.
I'm also in favor of making negative emotions stronger and either toning down the strength or capping the amount of Happy moodlets your sim can get from environmental sources, or having Uncomfortable enhance other negative emotions like Happy enhances the positive ones to balance out the system between the two types of emotions. Positive emotions, on the whole, just have too much power in this game, even for sims with traits that predispose them to getting random negative moodlets like Hotheaded and Gloomy.
Yup sims2 had more emotions and individuality it seemed like to me as well. I still play sims2 because I do at times miss making the stories part of the sims. It's also a big reason why sims3 wasn't one of my favorites of the series.
How I wish that the interaction between Simmers & their Sims are more dynamic instead of one way. I'm not surprised why my Sims standing still most of the times. They are going to rebel!
In TS2 sims will let you know how they feel about things you tell them. Doesn't matter if its house furnishings, something you want them to do, or an appearance change via a mirror - they let you know, clearly, from 'yeah!' to 'no way!' The looks some of my sims have given me...
I can only play 4 though because I lost all my ts3 disc in a move.
I really wish there were certain things sims could do pertaining to their personality.
I also wish we could pick more than 3 traits!
Did you ever register it within the game launcher? You must have at some point if you ever used the exchange and if so Sims 3 should be playable via the Origin client. You could definitely contact support and see if they have a CD key registered to your EA account and have them activate it on Origin if thats an issue, although it should self activate...