I've been playing a house of 8 young adults for weeks now and there's this overall sense the Sims act like they don't really know each other. It feels so impersonal much of the time. They seem so disconnected from each other. Why for the most part does it take an object for Sims to interact with each other? When sims come to visit, 99% of the time they make a bee line for an object rather than a sim. What ever happened to spontaneous or even purposeful acts of love, friendship, caring, loyalty.

Loyalty! Now there's a thought. Why can't the Sims be loyal to each? If Sim A is in a commitment to Sim B and good friends with Sim C, why can't Sim A refuse a romantic gesture from Sim C out of a sense of loyalty to Sim B? Why aren't there any boundaries? It's a life simulator and not everyone on planet earth is unfaithful to each other, even when given the opportunities to be so. EA gave us breast feeding, like that should have taken priority over more important things. Sims breastfeeding objects, ok sure. How about programming some loyalty into the mix of this life simulator? My family-oriented Sim A doesn't want to have a romantic relationship with Sim C. He wants to be loyal to Sim B.

As it stands, the Sims traits don't really seem to make the Sims unique in personality. Like some have said, traits seem to make a sim more impulsive toward whatever trait has been assigned to them.

There's such a sense of emptiness to these Sims. Strip them of emotions and whats left?

I still have hope that this can be rectified to some degree.

Have you introduced them to each other?

Really? Are you posting in the wrong thread maybe?

Did you people even read the entire post? My sims can't be good friends if they don't know each other. Nor could they be in a romantic relationship if they didn't know each other. It's a bit insulting to insinuate i wouldn't know to introduce my sims to each other with all of them living in the same house for weeks on end. That is such an elementary part of the playing the sims. Which i've been playing for 14 years. Or that i wouldn't have the foresight or knowledge to introduce my sims to each other. How would i know sims aren't loyal without having introduced sims to each other in the sims 4?

But for the record all 8 YA's living in the same house have maxed out relationships. Your missing the point i'm trying to make. But don't insult my intelligence in the process. Or like i'm the only person that sees that. I'm not the only one, FTR. As a matter of fact the person sitting next to me said there's such a sense of emptiness to these sims. For me, she nailed it.

I read what you wrote, but I think your experience is different from others. My sims interact with each other on their own and are very involved with each other. I have close knit sims. I wonder why yours are so cold.

I did read it but I got a bit lost in the algebra.
Have you played other households as well, or have you focused on this one household?

My sims are constantly going to talk to each other and starting conversations. In other rooms or wherever. It doesn't work as well with only 2 sims since it is 1 sided, but the other sim I am not controlling will start up conversations. With 3 or more 2 of them are going to talk to each other and joke/romance/whatever unless I have them do something with no time limit, such as practice an instrument. The only thing I can think of that can make them stop is to turn off autonomy.

My sims won't stop autonomously trying to hug their family members! Have you introduced them isn't that bad of a question actually. Whenever one of the babies ages up to child I direct an older kid to interact with it first and then they get on on their own after that.

If your sims seem too disconnected from each other, I recommend trying FlorianPTME's Emotional Overcharge mod (http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=539636). It's still in development, but I feel that it makes sims interact much more realistically with each other and seem like they have real personalities.

Have to agree with everyone, I have a Hot Headed sim(who does get angry). He is very romantic with the sim I hooked him up with even though he does not have the romantic trait nor does she. He will also hug, on his own (not romantically) his male friends, which comes from the Bro trait. It doesn't seem to matter if it was on his lot, another sim's lot or out on a community lot. Even after I got him and his girlfriend engaged, he was still romantic towards her without any of help from me, move them in together and still he does these actions on his own. It's cute because I would not expect it out of him with the traits he has. Bro, Hot Headed, Self-Assured, Deviance. I have a Loner,Noncommittal sim he gets tense when too many sims are around or if it's one he doesn't know, but once he know them he is ok, just so, he gets his alone time, has a girlfriend and doesn't show as much affection to his girlfriend as the Hot Headed one. Have a Friend to the World, Good, sim, he is a little of a pain because he is always coming over to the other sims houses all the time. Maybe the traits are too much alike in the house, not sure why they wouldn't be interacting with each other on their own.

You're making a lot of assumptions. When people first raise a question/problem, the normal way of analyzing it is to first look through the list of obvious, but often overlooked and missed, fixes. No one is insulting your intelligence. The things you assume, I would never assume.

Perhaps it's better if none of us respond. We might get yelled at.

Obviously one of your sims unplugged the other sim's laptops and wiped all their progress on SimCity. Now they all blame each other and refuse to speak. Duh.

As far as the loyalty is concerned, in my game at least, married sims tend to actually be fairly loyal. They refuse romantic interactions quite often. It isn't until I have maxed or nearly maxed their friendship that they will welcome advances. Even then they sometimes refuse. I have even seen someone with a boyfriend or girlfriend take some work, just not as much. It works a lot like married sims with the Family Oriented trait in TS3. Getting them to cheat actually takes some work and building a high level of "closeness" before they are willing to betray their partner.

I know the system isn't perfect but they have to allow us the freedom to play however we want (including seducing Bella Goth. Who doesn't want that?) while also making it challenging at times to do so. Building a maximum level of friendship with someone does take effort and I can totally see a very close friendship turning into something more, whether married or not.

The questions that came after my first post were assumptions as well. Assuming i didn't know enough to introduce my sims to each other when 8 have been living in the same house for weeks now? I'm assuming the people that put out the questions are assuming i don't know how to play the sims enough to introduce them to each other. The implication is there. How could anyone miss something so easily obvious?

And where have i yelled at anyone? You are assuming i've yelled, but have not. Or is that an accusation? And if so, where's the proof?



My sims don't care enough to blame each other for anything. Actually, they care about nothing really.



I would really like to see some sort of loyalty system written into the game. Even if just a little. It would be revolutionary for the sims series. Loyal sims, imagine that.

Don't get me wrong, i really want to love this game. Just like the first 3 in the series, I played each series for hours and hours, days, weeks, years, but something is seriously missing from this game.

I want my sims to act like they really know each other and want to hang out together. Define that how you will. I'd like to see traits become really integrated into their personalities. So that traits are really unique to a personality, rather than just a passing emotional whim.

What about slow dancing, they couldn't add that to the base game? EA has known the community to beg for this for years in every sims series and then they give it at some point down the road. When it should have been something put into the base game. Things the sims can do together to be more intimate.

What about that rock paper scissors ditty we used to have in the sims 2. Or break dancing in the sims 2 where a crowd would gather and compete with each other. Or even red hands game. All these things we really fun, but nothing like that exists in sims 4.

Massages are so lame, such a shallow and quickie thing, it seems useless.

And yes, the sims can now communicate while using gym equipment. However, they cannot communicate while fishing anymore. In the sims 3 fishing was usually a great way to for sims to socialize and now its nothing. So many things it could be. I fire up the game and can hardly play for 10 minutes. The other sims series, you couldn't pull me away from playing, even after playing for hours and hours in a session.

Count yourself lucky. My sims are so loyal they routinely refuse romantic advances. Don Lothario, the arch romantic, rejected Katrina, Nina's mother, even though he is supposed to be her toyboy; both were covered in confusion. Then I stood him face to face with Emma Watson, my download, and made them alternate romantic options: he would flirt, then she would flirt; he blew a kiss, she asked a risque question; and so on. Every action was rejected. This went on for an hour, till they were both so hideously embarrassed that they wanted to run and hide. I really wanted that alliance, but it was not to be. I can't break that loyalty.

I've played 3 different households of 8 YA's, in which they all had maxed out friendships. I've played 4 different houses of married couples with children. All maxed out relationships. Yes, parents seem to be drawn to their children for the most part. And because of this, I sort of delegate the kids and parents to communicate much, to spend time with each other. I raised one family of 4 kids from babies to teenagers, all with great relationships, maxed out skills and high educations.

Where to go from here? Well i just spent the last few hours updating tons of skyrim mods and getting ready to play that for awhile too. Gosh, i even thought of starting a new Oblivion game.

Asking posters if they read your post is scolding. It really stinks when posters who are trying to help are scolded for trying. Your game does not match the experiences of most of the players here. Your Sims should be interacting more than you describe by striking up conversations and wanting to be around each other, for example. Ruling out the obvious answers is the first steps in diagnosing a problem. Even the most experienced players will sometimes overlook something. It makes sense to cross off certain basic things first, before proposing less likely things that may have gone wrong.

The loyalty tuning that you're suggesting is a good idea. Even with the loyalty that certain Sims show for one another, it still would be nice to have more hesitancy when breaking the bonds of a romantic relationship. And slow dancing would be great, but that alone would not make the Sims feel more connected. I'm wondering if the disconnect you're experiencing is less about what the Sims are experiencing and more about your lack of attachment to the Sims or their stories in this game. I've experienced that disconnect in all of the Sims games at one time or another. Playing another game is a good solution.

Increasingly with each generation of the game, the sims are treated a mere pawns or avatars of the player. Unlike in TS2 where if you asked a sim to do something they wouldn't have chosen they pulled a "why me?" face and were really slow about doing it, these days they just think "fine, so I want to do this now" and robotically change direction and even sexual orientation.

Yes, or rubbed their hands in glee.

Inge, I had that very same impression when I played TS3 this month for the first time. Fun twist on 2, but the Sims don't feel quite the same.

I just recently came across what I can only deduce is loyalty in TS2: One of my households has a guy who wants to go on 50 first dates, and he asked one of his best friends on one, and I was baffled when she kept refusing. The only conclusion I could come to was that she was hung up on the old coot professor her wishing well had dropped the last time I played her household.

To keep this semi-TS4 related, I do enjoy reading accounts and seeing pics of y'all's TS4 games.

I think there's enough loyalty in the game. For fun, I had a female Sim trying to get involved with the wife of Bob Pancake. Let me tell you; It was hard. Took me lots of trying out things, like when to do a certain (romantic) social. Doing a romantic social too soon and she rejected with force and I could start all over.

It's much easier with single Sims; they respond a lot easier to romantic socials.

The point is though, they will cheat. No matter what, they will cheat. In the sims 3 my legacy families wouldn't cheat. I trained them that way. I could let them go out and know they wouldn't be flirting with anyone. After awhile, i knew which ones would be loyal and were completely trustworthy.

UNTIL...EA introduced the attraction system into the sims 3. That patch completely broke the game. It made every trait null and void. All the sims became suddenly stupid beyond belief with that attraction system. One family oriented sim who would never cheat on his wife, started cheating on his wife. And EA never even tried to rectify nor even acknowledge their disastrous mistake.

That's one of the reasons i didn't have much hope for the sims 4. When i heard the same producers that worked on the sims 3 were working on the sims 4. And one of the first things i saw in the sims 4 was a book with one of the producers names on it, again. I was like, what does this guy think? That the sims is all about him? Maybe that's the problem.

Yes, if you keep trying eventually they will. That was even for previous versions.

The Sims has to give the player the option to override this stuff because some players want to control their Sims a lot more than others.

I think you have to play it with some restraint of you want your Sims to display more personality.

If that Sim rejects your Sim for the 3rd time then just have your Sim move on... If you keep pestering that Sim eventually they will give in.

But it is not my experience that autonomously that they will cheat no matter what.