****MODERATOR POST****** (crawls out of retirement)

When I first read this thread it seemed to be raising an interesting topic; to wit, the "emotions" of the Sims in Sims4. However, I do think it is important to reiterate that we have a comfy spot for those who dislike TS4 (the receptacle) and we even have a thread that is the unofficial "why I hate the receptacle" thread.

Indeed, we have places where everyone can be happy to post and find like minded simmers.

What we do ask is that in the Sims4 discussion forums that discussion remains ON TOPIC and so the post by the OP immediately prior to mine is not on-topic and is removed (TSO and EA's rumored decision to make an online game offline are not relevant to sims emotions and their expression of them - the topic).

I'm a total control freak when it comes to playing the sims. I used to train my sims like they were pets, from birth to YA, and rarely ever let the sims die, so they mostly stayed YA's. With the sims 4, i've already tried several combinations of living situations, testing the waters, if you will. Some think have interpreted what i said as my sims don't communicate much. When that's not at all what i was trying to say. A few of my core sims have maxed out their charisma and comedy by communicating with each other. They get their whims for creativity, genius and etc., satisfied through communication rather than an object. And still i find them disconnected. I could explain better through various senarios that have been played out in my games, but not sure i feel like doing that.

I tried this, and it seemed to make for a happier family: No books, no computer. The only ones that kept checking their phones were teens. Otherwise, they had nothing else to do but talk and socialize, and their friendship bars went up very fast. I think I will put the computer in a room and remove the door when guests come over, so the guests will be forced to connect to the homeowners and their family members.

Part of my routine has been to socialize the kids, so they are acquainted with all their cousins and step-siblings. It is one more thing I have to keep up with....

From my experience they seem to interact with others sims that they know more. My household sims keep talking to each other and hugging. The parents of the household even do romantic gestures with each other on their own. There has been an occasional flirt with other sims but but never anything that would count as cheating and when another sim does try they turn it down. I kinda have to force them to interact with others since they tend to stick to each other. As for the orientation i find it neat that my sim end up being gay without my interference. With my household in the sims 3 one of my sims was gay at the point of being a teenager. I found out when he went to prom and asked a boy to dance and go rejected and ever since then only male sims gave the message "We have to much in common we should get to know each other."

As for the Attraction system in the sims 3 I have never had a sim cheat over it or take much interest in it making me believe it was just some dumb system that never did much or had anything to it other then my sim getting love letter and gifts

Yay for a free source of income by selling the gifts

Hmm...yeah, I'm not getting disconnected from what you're saying. I still suspect it's something subjective, rather than objective. I feel like they are connected because of the little ways they react and interact. I'm touched that they seek each other out on their own to spend time together when they're eating, reading, or doing homework. I love the way some will stop and listen to a budding musician that others avoid for their lack of skill. I had one Sim get incredibly angry when he saw his spouse flirt with another. Her next lover became very sad when he saw the same behavior. Some get excited over pregnancy, others take it as a bad sign of things to come. I love the way some Sims will go up to the baby and try to calm it or play with it on their own. Maybe it's easier to see the connection and their souls when you let them have some autonomy. Or, again, maybe you just don't care too much for these Sims or this particular game. It's certainly ok not to.

I understand the poster but what I feel the problem is(which I don't understand since he has played the sims 2) is the Sims are just dolls on all our computer screen. Yes the sims 2 would look up at you and they behave a little different from each other depending on their birth sign, they liked to clean or they didn't etc. but they were still dolls. They can walk, they can talk and even do somethings on their own but we are the puppet masters and as puppet masters we have to give these sims personalities. Sims is really a god game.

I love the sims 2 I still play it. It took years to get that game the way I wanted it with hacks, etc on top of all the eps, and Sim 2 had many problems. I skipped the Sims 3 didn't like the looks of the sims and didn't want story progression because I progress the story in my game. You could not give me the Sims 3. What did I do when it came out, ya I complained for the first week or 2 but I just continue to play Sims 2 and let it go. When 4 came out, after I played for a few days, it wasn't getting it and thought I'm really not going to be playing it. I even went back into my sims 2 game off and on. I had to get it in my head this is a new game, these are news sims not the ones I have been playing with for years that I have created in my head, a personality, a story to each of them and an outcome. The connection has got to come from you not the pixels on the screen. I believe in the last 10 years, we except too much instant gratification from things, we don't want things to be slow and have to use our imaginations, which that is what the sims is all about.

I never made a family in CAS, I make one sim at a time and would bring them into the game that way, I even built their houses around them, to make them who I wanted them to be, granted I did have a lot more CC to work with in Sims 2 and in the beginning of Sims 2 there was so much difference graphic wise compared to the sims 1. I have a few sims in my sims 2 game that I never connected to, I would go into their houses and try and nothing seem to help. I have 2 right now in sims 4, I'm really considering just evicting them and be done with them, instead of hanging on to them like I did in Sims 2
Having 8 sims in one house right off the start isn't going to help you connect to any of them, ya you might favor one or two of them but for all of them to come to life for you it's just not going to happen. Go back and play your sims 2 game and try to remember how you got those sims(characters) to where they are now in your head. then maybe the sims 4 will be more enjoyable for you. I get that the physical interaction lacks in sim 4, I'm with you on that, the dancing sucks, the romantic interaction is weak, etc. Hopefully it will improve with the coming eps or with some help form the community. We also need more things to do in the game with our sims but that will also come in time. If the Sims did everything on their own what fun would it be, what would be the point to it?

I agree that i did go a bit off topic. My apologies.

I don't play strictly no autonomy. I fluctuate between autonomy and no autonomy. I've observed as much as controlled. I'm well acquainted with how the sims worked in every series. I test the game as much as play it. I modded my own games and built my own world using CAW. I understand the series more than you know. But i'm not saying this out of boasting. I understand there are people out there that might know a lot more than i do when it comes playing the sims. But you should consider respecting years and years of experience with the entire sims series and have played many aspects of the game.

And to say this isn't my game, well tell that to my $12,000.00 gaming computer built specifically with the Sims in mind.

I'm not the problem, the game is.

Back to the idea that the sims in the sims 4 operate entirely based on emotions that can change at the drop of a hat. Just activate a specific emotion via an item and see how quickly they change. And when you look at things from that perspective, then it's easy to see the sims traits are really based on emotions and not real true personality.

Check your gameplay options and make sure autonomy is set to full. They will only do what you
tell them to if autonomy is off. The game feels so much more alive when autonomy is set to full.
The sims will drop whatever you tell them to do to flirt or talk to sims nearby.

I'm not trying to attack you, so I hope you won't take it that way when I say that maybe you just don't like the game? No one who's replied so far seems to really understand what you're trying to say - and I completely get that it's hard to when we're communicating in text only! But it really does sound like you just aren't quite able to bond with your sims, and that's really okay - but it's not something that EA or Maxis can fix or create for you. I actually second what dtw said about maybe just making one sim and getting to know them really well to help with character bonding. Otherwise, maybe just play another version of the game? We've got 4 now which is awesome - I feel like that means that no matter what you look for from the Sims as a franchise, you can find it somewhere in one of those. I hope that helps!

Indeed it is. I started playing all four of them (practically) at once because I was testing them for a challenge, but once I finished the testing I just kept going and each does play in a way of its own.
- My TS Sim is careful not to run out of money but he mainly likes visiting all those charming places - if he's hard up he just jumps into the hole in the ground and off he goes.
- My TS2 Sim (Belladonna Cove) likes to live on the edge; he does get some work done during the day (or rather, after he manages to get up) but his evenings and nights are, at least so far, dedicated to his real interests, bars, bowling alleys, gambling dens and the local brothel.
- My TS3 Sim (Sunset Valley) is the only one who already got married and is obviously going the was of all my TS3 Sims - he'll be at least well off in the end. with a nice family and a house here and a house there and summers on Isla Paradiso.
- My TS4 Sim is also careful not to run out of money; otherwise, he just loves to go out - it does not really matter where - and chat and flirt a bit and tell jokes and then chat some more, until he almost drops dead. Logically, he has by far the most friends of all of them.
In short, it's fairy tale vs. film noir vs. family game vs. San Francisco.

It took me a while to figure out how I should play TS4, though. AI is much better than in older games - I think it's its best part - and the player does not have to be the control freak, like I always was, any more. I play all the games with free will fully on but TS4 is the first one where this setting really works. The Sims still need a nudge every now and then but the real fun, at least for me, is just to sit back and wonder what will they think of next.

Totally agree, I play the sims 2 with free will off but the Sims 4 I have free will on all the time. It's great they are not as obsessive with certain things and behaviors like they were in earlier game. I think I did play Sim1 with free will on, not even sure if you can turn it off in Sims 1 it's been so long since I play Sims 1, I think Sims 2 was the worse with it. It made me nuts that they always wanted to take a bubble bath, and it took so much longer than a shower.

Oh, definitely! I was a control freak before, and I started it in 4 - my first gen, I had them do every little thing. But what I'm really loving is just sitting back and watching, and seeing who they want to talk to, what they like to do, the things that actually make their personalities come to the fore! Such a blast

I like how you brought up their personalities. To me i feel like their personalities to need a bit more depth, though better then previous games still need more. Hopefully as more updates and expansions come (toddlers) they will add more traits and allow us to add more then 3 total. The emotions system does help but it only goes so far.

My problem with the emotions is that my Sims are chronically happy. I have a hotheaded sim, and when that trait pops up, it's STILL buried under happy so it never actually feels like she's a hothead. Same with the Loner debuff, etc. So, in my mind anyway, this is one of the big failings of the emotions system that needs to be fixed.

As for the personalities, yeah, they could always use a bit more depth! I don't really feel like more than 3 traits would help with that, because I don't think the traits really affect personality very much (see example above). I view their personalities as more hard-coded into the character, but not completely obvious - what they develop over time, I guess. Like the Good Sim I have that still gets glee from going up and destroying her children's dollhouse, even though NONE of the other adults in the house want to! Or the child that always goes and does their homework right when they get home (even though they don't have genius trait, so it's more "them" than a trait prompting this). Or the friend my Sim will always pick out of the crowd to go talk to, even though there are several who have maxed friendship bars and they don't have traits that would be obviously more compatible with each other. This is the kind of stuff that I love sitting back and watching :D

*it also helps that I have the "no auto pc" and other mods that stop all the autonomous behavior that interrupts these quirks. Not nearly as much fun if the Sims are just gonna sit at the fridge staring at their juice cups!!

I see your point. one of my sims is always dancing. First thing she does when she gets to the park is go dance and then ignores everyone lol. I still feel like more traits would help cause she also has the Gardening aspiration so a gardening traits that would makes her garden on her own would be great.

Exactly! lol. A gardening trait would be awesome, and I do think they need more variety (and skill-specific ones). But more variety makes it harder to choose!! lol

Unless they allow us to have more then 3, like maybe 5 :P

But if it's 5 from, like, 50, then the CHOICES. And what if 7 of them are perfect for the character? What then? :P

I play about 5 houses in rotation, but unfortunately 2 out of my 5 families are a real bore to play, I have two living together, other than work, they never want to go out, they both like Art and Music and all they really wish for is to finish a painting or buy them a new instrument, which is getting ridously as as I've brought them dozens of instrutments now, and theres only about 4 or 5 types to choose from in the buy menu, I wouldn't care if they died, but they also lucky I can't find any way to kill them.

Interesting. I've noticed also that traits don't affect Sims' behavior as much as I would think. I'm playing a house with 8 sims, and each definitely has their own personality, but not the way I would expect. Two Sims have almost the same traits, but one always seems to be angry about something, even though he doesn't have the hot-headed trait, while the other is mellow and keeps to herself, even though she isn't a loner. One of the Sims who has the most friends in the household, and is generally friendly and out-going, is evil, while another evil one is constantly baiting others and laughing at them when they get pissed. There's definitely more to their personalities that traits, which I actually like. It adds interest to each of them as an individual.

Yup! And I have a loner that's always surrounding herself with people, and a hot-head who's never angry (except that one time, and we don't talk about that).

I kinda view the traits as more...specifying what whims they'll get XD Cause my loner will get the whim wanting some alone time, but she won't take it for herself - it has to be directed. That kinda thing.

I disagree with that, because my sims emotions are really influenced by their traits. I have an evil/good couple with an emotional rollercoaster relationship. I have a loner, who gets tense around his girlfriend because he doesn't know her to well as a friend. And i have a cheerful sim, who is even more constantly happy as all the other sims out there.
If your sim just gets whims from an emotional bound trait, the emotion system doesn't work properly in your game.

like with the rest of the players here, the sims in my game are anything bút disconnected from eachother.
unlike with the sims 3, where you had to make them connect with eachother. cos if you didnt, then your sim would never get involved with anyone but the objects that were surrounding them.

it is why i love the sims 4 so much.
because they are so much connected to eachother.
i cant look away for 2 minutes or they'll be interacting with eachother in every possible way.

I find my sims autonomously interacting with each other in some way, like the Lion Twins going to hug or talk to each other, Herakaris babbling about geeky hobbies with her housemates, or Francesca seeking advice from the elder Lion Twin* or Hera.

However, I agree that some of the traits seem to be weak, as Francesca doesn't mind her housemates at all and keeps approaching them despite being a loner.

*The Twins are her distant cousins, just not tagged as such ingame.