The "Have Some Personality Please!" mod has actually been remarkably impactful for making negative traits and the like noticeable in normal play, at least in my experience, since it peppers in a lot of trait-based autonomous interactions. Mean and Evil sims with the mod are just... extremely hard to be friends with. roBurky's Meaningful Stories mod also address that thing you mentioned at the end - negative emotion moodlets compounding other negative emotions, as well as vastly reducing the impact of environmental happiness on mood.
I really hope the sims devs are watching this, it so perfectly encapsulates the core of what is wrong with the Sims 4. Emotions are well and good if they actually properly reflect the sim's character traits, behaviours and actions.
There's a mod called meaningful stories that somewhat improves what you're talking about here! Negative (particularly uncomfortable) moods stack together to make things a bit more difficult.
Did one with Paranoid, Evil and a third (something like wacky I think). The combo seemed to make them happy around sheer misery, and when left to their own devices they'd mock the old guy from down the road, or even start fights with the postal-worker. If a combo plays against itself well it can have some fairly unique results.
Wow Carl! You really go all out with these videos! I appreciate all the time, passion and hard work it took to make them! :D I was wondering is there a guide for all the keyboard shortcuts and settings you can have in the Sims? I saw your hotkeys guide, thanks for that! But not one for special settings in the Sims 4. Things like... If you go to game options --> Audio ---> Click ON or OFF "Make music match game speed" you can set whether you want the sims radio music to match the game speed or be normal regardless of what the game speed is. Or if there is a Simlish song you like on a radio and you don't know who it is or if it is a real song go to Game Options ---> Music ---> The radio station you heard the song (pop, alternative, spop, jazz, etc)---> play the songs in the list until you find the title and artist. OR you can go to Game menu ---> Credits ---Pick the pack the song came in ----> scroll down to the bottom to see the credits for the Sims music ----> There you can see who actually sang, performed, wrote and produced the song (for both Simlish originals and Simlish versions.). Stuff like that, did you make a guide already?
And with strange aeons even death may die. Grim, bro, you're okay right? Ahem. Yeah, sims tend to be cheerful, chirpy little suckers unless they're not currently being played and have the mean/evil traits where they might *gasp* kick over a trash can. The only way you're really going to see them get down and dirty is through mods, serious game-changing ones like the serial killer mod where Lil' Timmy can shank the granny down the street for giving him an apple instead of candy on Halloween.
If you wanted to look into different mods, theres a good bit of custom traits that actually make your sim just totally suck. Custom traits can make relationships move slower, they could never be good at cooking, they could learn skills much slower, I'd just say it's worth looking into custom traits in general.
Sims on their own are not unique its the story you make for them in your mind that makes them unique. Sims is like a RPG in many ways. Jim Pickens for example is the most unique and wonderful sim created but his story is in control of his creator. Yes I know you feel that’s a downside to which in some ways it is but its what we got. Maybe in updates or sims 5 they will give sims more control over their lives so we can sit back and watch instead of being the master in disguise. Good video overall you make good content even though your critiques feel like your trying to persuade us to not like the game..
Hey Carl in my sims 4 game one of the sims has an aspiration that is called something like chef with the career mined trait and the over achiever reward trait which is weird because I don’t use mods and it doesn’t show up in the aspirations menu
Ahhhh, this is from the tutorial, which I've never done. It's a weird thing to me that gives some actually good bonuses, because yeah. The game's already quite easy.
oddly, Clumsy isn't a bad trait really. Your sim falls over a lot but they're quite cheerful about it as a result. Found it balanced out my gloomy simself quite well
My sims make a skipping motion like they slipped on a banana and then flails like he’s gonna fall face first or on his butt. But then quickly regains his balance like nothing happened. And it’ll happen at random times. Like it happened my sim was going to the chicken coop to feed his chickens.
Non committal sims shouldn't be able to commit, unflirty sims should REALLY dislike flirting, traits should actually matter and I shouldn't be able to override them as a player by just ignoring them. They should have an actual impact. For instance, a sim that hates kids should have a hard time gaining the parenting skills and therefore the kid could come out with bad character traits as a repercussion. I just think things should matter more in TS4.
I hired a nanny multiple times, I winded up just having her become part of the household since it was cheaper to just house and feed someone than to pay them $180 x2 a day, she was literally an on-call nanny 24/7, well, maybe 22/7 but you get the idea. Too many kids, not enough adults in the home. She had a non-committal trait, goof ball, and ambitious, she drowned. It seems like there isn't a way to save someone who's drowning? Which is a bit unfortunate, I exited the game when that had and just reloaded, it was a huge set back, since then I've Save'd before a Sim repairs anything, and I also don't let/tell Sims to go swim if they have low energy. In my game the sims have full autonomy, but there's definitely not I in AI for the Sims, this idiot who complains about having to work as a musician (They had 10 piano, 10 guitar, 10 violin when I brought them into my home) and is literally free loading, and was about to be deported over to Sulani to get the Beach Life trait making her never get Tense, even though I had over 5000 aspiration I was still on the edge about wasting it on this Sim. Well, she drowns, I get the notification, I find my best Fitness Sim on the lot (9) send her in to swim to her to save her, I tried clicking on her but pulling her up/swimming to save wasn't an option, I jump into the pool hopping maybe than an option appears, none does. I couldn't be arsed to roll back my game for the Nanny who complained about living for free and just going to work to pay for what she ate (she made very little, only level 6 of the musician category, and rest of the house made much more in comparison., yes, even the 3 teens.) *TL;DR* Sims AI has no "I" in it, likewise non-committal sims are a pain in the ass, and I'm not annoyed that she drowned other than now I have to find another Nanny or age up my teens so they go live with their father in Sulani, but he's off-the-grid, so that will be fun. (Oh, and reason why Non-committal Sims can commit to anything is otherwise they wouldn't ever commit to a job, you'd maybe have them do only Freelance Jobs, or perhaps only Odd Jobs, which I think are both behind a paywall.)
@@thundertea For some reason it's like they make the game more for children. And honestly ii don't think children are their biggest fan base. Prior Sims games were a lot better with the AI. It seems in my opinion the only plus of Sims 4 is the graphics and that's it, anytime they attempt to add AI anything, it does nothing. I'm sure that's why they no longer add traits to the game they've given up and become lazy. Every sim acts like the last with just a different look no actual personality. Sims 3 may have been buggy but I adored my sims and their offspring, I enjoyed the townies I enjoyed them actually living and acting outside of my control. I could play for hours while in Sims 4 I could just play a hour then get bored VERY fast. Sims 1 2 and 3 I had on PC and in my opinion I never felt mods were needed for their personalities. But playing this game on console the game is just boring and I have all EPs and SPs. It is a shame really. Bring back story progression Sims team
@@sukiiriinaa i just got back to sims 3 and i remember why i love the game. it has all the details. the open world, cars, incredible gameplay, everything.. and i don't need +7GB of cc and mods. a few hairstyles and that's it. sims 3 is fun and it has content. it makes you want to leave your lot and explore the world. sims 4 has a nice cas but that's it. that is everything it has for me. in sims 3 i also love how i don't have to pay 20 € to have a curfew for the teens..
Z. Well, flirty ambience items are pretty dodgy in the whole concept of "freely given consent" - like an aphrodisiac gas released into the room without the person's consent.
This is the most frustrating part of the game for me. Sims aren't a collection of personalities, they're a random collection of moods that changes on a dime In my current game, I'm playing two scientists "trapped"in a bio-dome. Trait-wise, they're polar opposites. I want them to eventually become romantic. But because forming a romantic relationship is so easy, I'm making it harder by: 1) Starting them out with full negative relationship bar. 2) Requiring them to do an hour straight of negative interactions. Separately, they're required to work on various knowledge aspirations from 9-5 each day to make relationship building in general more difficult. This is the level of user responsibility that's required to have any depth in the Sims 4. So unfortunate. I'm having fun, though. Credit to "Gatmadi" in the gallery for their awesome bio-dome build.
If yer not against using whicked whims, you could download it for the attraction system and make them dislike each other traits. It will actually make it quite hard for them to become romantic.
I recently played Sims 3 and my Sim was socially awkward and it was so hard to build a friendship or flirt with someone because my Sim said the wrong thing and the other person looked at her oddly and left the date or conversation. Traits in Sims 4 are just a joke.
Ikr instead of them making useless packs they should make a big update for their behaviors or make a pack for it or else the game will be unplayable even with new packs
I made myself in the Sims 3, gave myself the clumsy, brooding, socially ankward, shy and ambitious, and it was so hard to make friends and was legit a challenge, i gave myself the non-commital trait in Sims 4, got a girlfriend in 2 days.
@@Nobody-qk4xu My non-committal sim in TS3 has had 1 marriage, a divorce, a bunch of breakups and career changes (all on her own wishes). My non-committal sim in TS4 is married, cool with it (apparently?) and only wants to look at paintings. And if that ain't just a baffling lack of depth right there, I don't know what is! 😂😂
Honestly I've been thinking about how weirdly the emotions are in TS4, like why aren't Sims bored when their fun is low? They seem to be either happy, tense or uncomfortable. (At least they are in my gameplay) I imagine a lot of other people have said it, but I wish that TS4 took the emotion system seriously. Some of the emotions just don't make sense to me. Why does literally any minor inconvenience make my Sim uncomfortable? It's weird.
yeah, low fun is tied to tension like being overworked ( the main drain of fun) while boredom is generally, "I want to do x but haven't done x in a while" like for dance machines. But yeah, happy or uncomfortable are the major players here. Being sad + uncomfortable should likely overwhelm your +happy points and make you not feel so hot. That's my take.
Another thing that really bothered me is I have two sims with the "hates children" trait, they're males and got abducted, both came back pregnant and they were happy about it -_- they should've been tense or angry, etc. Super unrealistic.
I think it was Sims 2, or 3 I made an ugly boy in a family, he had quite a big jaw, narrow/thin cheecks which enhanced the jaw. He was a happy kid, much loved. He grew up and I gave him a beard to hide the jaw. He went off to Uni. When he finally moved in a home with friends I decided to get rid of the beard. The weirdest thing happen. I felt so bad. He shaved his beard looked at himself in the mirror and started crying. Luckily their was a machine you could unlock as a career reward, was a plastic surgery machine and I could change his face and make him good looking. In my heart I always felt bad when I remember his reaction when he looked at himself in the mirror. Was the truest moment I ever felt in Sims.
4:45 This is probably the MAIN reason why The Sims 4 feels so shallow and unsatisfying. They created TWO mutually exclusive systems and one ends up overriding the other. You can either have traits OR fixed emotions, not both since emotions override your Sim's individual traits. Two Sims under the same emotion behave exactly the same way, so traits only make a nominal difference. In real life, two people experience the same emotion in very different ways according to their personality. This is extremely difficult to replicate in a video game and why they should've never gone for a FIXED emotion system. The moodlet system as it was implemented in The Sims 3 was better in that sense, as it's heavily reliant on traits rather than fixed emotional states.
It's not just that, though, Sims 4 aspirations are a complete joke, and the fact that you can change them so easily means that every sim ends up completing a massive number of aspirations in their lifetime without any effort. Whims mean absolutely nothing (and they're disabled by default), so there's never any push for the player to do something interesting (like adopt a baby just because their sim wanted it).
Right @Isomer Mashups - it's not everything, it's just a very easily provable problem that we can say, "please fix" to. I am 100% in agreement we need a broad effort to make Aspirations something other than tutorials and to give more for Sims to do with large sums of money and improve autonomy/storytelling, AI, career rewards, and mainly those areas off the top of my head. This is me chopping down what was a 25m video into a couple sentences but.... I really hope they are planning to tackle the issues we seem to almost universally agree upon.
@@RedRoseSeptember22 I liked the Lifetime Wishes in 3, but preferred the Aspirations in 2. Since the aspirations were vague, the wants were the real heavy-hitters for shaking up gameplay, and since those are randomized, no two sims were ever alike.
This is why I always loved Sims 3, they remembered having bad relationships with people and would get mad whenever an "arch nemesis" was nearby, also they had the option to shoo children whenever there were kids if they had the "dislikes children" trait. I dunno why so much is missing from Sims 4, it's truly disappointing.
Ikr instead of them making useless packs they should make a big update for their behaviors or make a pack for it or else the game will be unplayable even with new packs
Sad that most traits mean so little. Knew this already, but still sad. It is one of my four main complaints about the game. Thanks Carl for the video. I like you content, keep it up.
@@MieSyzygy Well, the general lack of risk and challenge for one. The fact in many ways it is less developed than sims 3, no open worlds, fewer pets, fewer life states and more. Is another. And the last is it lacks much of the quirkiness of the earlier packs.
@@TheScoed I agree with you on those. Really did expect much more from the game at this point. Thanks for sharing your reasons, I know we all have similarities as to why this installment is lacking. The fact that we have to rely on mods says a whole lot about where their headspace is at. I keep crossing my fingers that they'll take a hint from the thousands of us who interact with them, but it's almost like a deaf ear in response. It's such a shame because this game is graphically very nice, build/buy/cas is wonderful. It just lacks so much depth with the gameplay. Thanks again. 💖
@@MieSyzygy This is really interesting and I just don't know why Maxis steadfastly refuse to listen to fans. AKA the people who pay over and over for games right from the Sims 1. Almost everyone says the same thing about lack of challenge, lack of consequences for actions, shallow gameplay and just generally feeling bored and uninspired with the game. And these are the die-hard dedicated fans I am talking about, who actually care enough to make these suggestions and comments. But instead of listening they just release more random stuff packs or add things like mermaids instead of challenge. Its says a lot that fans are forced to create their own artificial challenges like 100 baby or rags to riches etc, to create the element of difficulty and depth not provided by the game, plus relying on mods and downloaded content just to make it fun. But I highly doubt they will ever listen. They'll just take our money from the dozens of Sims 4 expansions so far then move right on to the Sims 5 and expect us to do it all over again.
"I'm sorry I've derailed this" he says snapping me out of my mesmerised state... you... you killed the Grim Reaper!?! I'm amazed, impressed and didn't know I wanted that in my life
Someone also did it around the time the sims 4 first came out. She did a whole test around it. If you wanna check it out, her name is PrettyGrumpyBear.
I usually dislike messing around with Grim like he's a regular Sim. It messes with my headcanon regarding the Sims mythos in which Death is a "greater deity" which is why the Watchers (us) have less direct control over him. Any time Grim appears to be killed, cursed, beaten up, etc. he's just messing around with mortals.
This was my biggest disappointment with Sims 4. In Sims 3 you could have fun with gloomy, insane and angry traits. Insane Sims need to go to hospital during a mental break, angry Sims grumble and yelled a lot and gloomy sims stared out ALL the windows. Nearly died laughing when I realized my gloomy Sim, when sent to the future, spent all day staring out each and every window in the building made of windows.
I know a lot of people have said that meaningful stories mod fixes some of the issues with this system but the system should be fixed in the base game. Us console players have to work our asses off with self imposed restrictions or setbacks to make our games interesting since mods are not an option.
Agree 100%. I hope this is part of what they're cooking up to improve gameplay. I really look forward to covering whatever big patch they are working on based on that survey and hope it wasn't just to put some more stuff in some kind of snow retreat pack (because that type of activity was mentioned in the survey as well).
oh god do I feel this pain as a console player. buying the packs on 50% off sale JUST to keep me interested. Thank goodness we at least have access to some of the gallery now! even if it does take several minutes to place a lot...
@@CarlsSimGuides it seems that positive traits occur more often than negative ones, I paired a genius and a gloomy sim in a single household to test this up, and the gloomy sim would get sad a lot less frequently than the genius sim would get focused, seemed like the genius sim would get focused 3/4 times a day while the gloomy sim would not be sad more than once a day, I may need to test this a bit more
@@tonyshum5569 Do keep me in the loop. I may follow the lead you've given me as well... though I have to pace out critical videos as this one turned out to be. I want the best for Sims 4 but I do not want to be seen as hating it or ruining others' fun so I try to space that out. It'd be quite shocking to me given how easy things are if the sad/angry moodlets fired less period. So you can't even make a real hot head if you want to..
@@CarlsSimGuides celeb's quirks and vampire's weaknesses are more reliable in that department. They are triggered all the bloody time! So if you want to make the worst sim, add those in as well.
I feel like you should try to make him a vampire & give him the uncontrollable hissing & undead aura. I found it really hard to build up a child / parent relationship with the parent having these traits. (I actually got a toddler/parent relationship down to zero, which was weird. With the evil trait the parent keep getting irritated by the child as if they had the good trait)
I find emotional bomb not that bad actually. It’s actually one of the quickest ways to get rid of a sad mood let from a death. Sure they’re very sad for a bit but then they just have a cry and all the sad moodlets are removed.
Traits need such a revamp. Only trait that is slightly annoying is unflirty. Other than that traits mean nothing. Sims who hate children will become tense after trying for a baby, but will be perfectly happy during pregnancy? Makes no sense Erratic is actually one of my favorite traits since sims can just talk to themselves for Socialization. Kleptos are boring because they're so limited to what they can actually steal. And all my sim steals from work are dirty dishes Hot headed and gloomy are just random moodlets and clumsy sims don't have much of a difference. Traits barely affect whims either. So in reality there aren't really any 'bad' traits that make gameplay harder in my opinion
Klepto is boring to me because even if I get caught stealing there are no consequences. I can't go to jail, won't get fired from my job, you won't have a meaningful loss in friendship. They should make it so that if you're caught stealing you get kicked out of the place you're at, or if you get caught stealing at work you can get fired/demoted. Also when you don't get caught if would be cool if there was still a possibility to be caught later, like you get a text from the Sim you stole from asking if you took their object. It would be great if you could be arrested for stealing as well as fighting, throwing drinks, streaking, etc. since we already have the jail and police station from Get to Work but I get that's too much to ask
@@saintazepam I mean honestly you’re so right this brings up a point I’ve thought about for a while. Like why is there so much missing? it because of EA restrictions and not wanting to trigger their fanbase using police, robbers, etc? Cause you know this day in age you can’t do anything without offending at least someone 🙄 Is EA trying to make ts4 appeal more to children? Like is that why there’s so much missing from sims 4? I don’t freaking get it!
There are a couple types of transitions I won't use or will use less frequently. I feel like I've come to learn a lot but have overdone a few things. Sim share below. If you'd like to support my videos and site, see: www.patreon.com/carlssims4guide The Sim is shared under hashtag carlsguide on the gallery. Should be Roommate household. Note youll need the mod and likely have to reconfigure him to have the extra personality traits. Let me know if I'm wrong though I doubt I can do much to help given he's modded.
I love the Sims 4. The graphics are great and I love how I can have fun in multiple ways each playthrough. But holy crap we HAVE TO get a COMPLETE OVERHAUL on Traits, Ambitions and the Moodlets. Traits and Moodlets don’t mesh together whatsoever and the Ambitions are kind of repetitive and easy. Why should a mood overwrite a trait? Why are moods so powerful and unbalanced? These are questions I sense in the back of my mind every time I boot up TS4... it’s like an existential crisis looming behind every decision I make.
We won't get a complete overhaul, now when sims5 has now been announced. That will be under development as we speak, so most of the energy and resources will be going towards that. They might add stuff, but I highly doubt they'll do a full rework of existing features.
Go Carl go! Its been amazing seeing your growth from the Guide I've read since I first started playing the sims to now and your fantastic youtube channel. Exciting to see your explorations of the gameplay capacity of this most modern iteration of the game.
Even with that great mod, that doesn’t remove the core gameplay on how not meaningful the traits are. I’ve experimented with and without, this issue is at its core gameplay.
@@Hestia23 True, it doesn't fix traits, but at least it eliminates the easy manipulation of emotions through decorating and sims being happy all the time by default :) I would love for traits having stronger consequences too, sure.
I'm wondering how this would do combined with other negatives you can get from other things, like the occults. Curses from Realm of Magic, Weaknesses from Vampires, and Quirks from Fame could all be fun to try.
He will lose all his extra traits, leaving you to get the mod and customize him - since you're not gonna be the only one to ask, I went ahead and did so just now. He's in the roommate household found searching hashtag #carlsguide
This is why I wish there's a difficulty setting that halves happy moodlet power and doubles all negative moodlets (even fine) or something like that among other things.
I started the Random Legacy challenge with full autonomy, and my sim is evil and a criminal. He married hotheaded Katrina Caliente, and except for their wedding when they were both pregnant (he has alien kid) and she peed herself, making him happy and her random breaking dollhouses, they are great parents, have a wonderful relationship, and have achieved their aspiration and career goals. I now understand why he wasn't as horrible as I thought he would be.
Something is kinda letting me thoughtful, why you can't become vegetarian? It should be possible, the sim start to feel sick with meat or study about this and get the trait, would be nice
I've been looking for negative custom traits. Like a Mean Girl trait where the Sim gets happy being mean. The Slice of Life mod and Meaningful Stories mods stacks emotions. Also, Personality Please is a great mod. We need more negative emotions. Sims need a full range of emotions.
I rolled Mean as a trait for one of my Legacy heirs and she'd often get a Happy moodlet from being mean to someone, but it would be great if it was a little more smug than just happy.
Hey Carl! Love the video! 😂He's a gorgeous sim. Emotions really can be annoying in the sims 4 but I find that the True Happiness mod by roBurky seems to add more variety to it. Its nice to finally have sims not be permanently happy all the time
And the nail is hit on the head about the problem with emotions -- namely, Happy is too powerful. I think at least a bit of temporary game balance would be to greatly increase the strength of the moods given by the traits like Gloomy or Hot-Headed -- you know how teenagers can have super-powerful Angry moodlets as "phases?" Do that. And yes, three traits is DEFINITELY too few -- you need at least five. *sigh* I like this stupid game, I swear, but it definitely needs some upgrades. Also, if you guys want a funny tale of a Sim getting all the negative character value traits, I can recommend James Turner's Parenthood LP -- the origins of Max Power. XD Seriously, it's great.
Yes, since happy boosts all positive emotions like inspired and confident, but negative emotions do not boost each other at all, happy wins hands down and there are many sources of it. Decor in particular is problematic. I think a hot-headed Sim should react MUCH more strongly than a regular Sim to angry moodlets, and that'd be better than giving them a regular +1 angry that disappears in a few short hours. Sims must be amazing at letting things go, because things from a week ago can sometimes bother me today. Not ruin my day level but you feel the world is against you sometimes when problems stack up. In addition to being too weak, they don't ever get to stack up because they all have the same duration (in many, many cases).
@@CarlsSimGuides Yeah -- Decor should only ever give one very minor mood boost, and the negative emotions need to help boost each other/be stronger in general. (This is particularly apparent if you watch CallMeKevin or GrayStillPlays or anyone else who does Sim torture -- it's amazing how happy the Sims stay even when you're actively trying to torment them!)
It makes sense, since he has the traits of a narcissist, of course he's happy when he's throwing a tantrum or arguing. Negative people enjoy being negative.
Im just gonna give one example. Non committal sims should NEVER be able to marry and not have serious gf/bf. Its called non-committal. But they can have romantic interests, and lovebirds status. But the sim guru would explain, we dont wanna messed up your game, so we still allow that option. hence, why no depth.
Eh, plenty of non-commital people get married irl. I reckon NC sims should be able to get married but will only be able to propose or accept a proposal if they are feeling super happy at the time (overriding the discomfort from being committed). But being married should mess with their happiness more and more as time goes on until they are extremely sad or angry af all the time, basically they could learn new skills and improve relationships way slower as a result, and risk dying from being so unhappy. Ie more severe consequences. Also, in the base game, noncommital sims don't like committing to one relationship or career. Its not just romance. At the moment you can play that off and keep a non-committal sim happy in one career by constantly switching relationships, or keep them in a happy relationship by constantly switching jobs. It's way too simple, and unrealistic. I think this is okay but there need to be consequences for constantly switching careers (eg unhappy that you are suddenly earning way less in a new career than you were before, tense because they have to get used to a new routine, sad nostalgia because despite themselves they are missing the little things about an old lover or job) there should be a way to balance this but only after a lot of trial and error. And the longer a specific state (eg having X job or Y lover) remains a consistent cause of various negative emotions, the more long-term unhappiness or tension is built up over time, til they have to deal with it positively or negatively. I guess i agree with your conclusion but not the suggestion you gave lol
Thank you so much for this video! I always really wondered how much traits changed how a Sim would react to different situations. You put so much time and effort into these videos! I wish you so much success! Thumbs up.
People are watching my videos more than ever, and it's exciting. I'd love to do this for life. I don't have some calling for it, I've just learned a lot in 18 months and hope it continues like this so I can make use of everything I learned. Thanks for the well wishes :)
@@CarlsSimGuides I really hope that you can make a living at this. I have followed the supercarlinbrothers since they had only a couple thousand subscribers. They now have over 2 million, and have hired, I believe, five people for their office. They have recently tried to tackle the Sims 4 with hilarious results. I wish you equal or more success. You're providing a rare service that any and every Simmer really needs. I have been playing The Sims since the first pack came out, but had no idea about several of the things that you brought to my attention.
It's entertaining for me too. I'm enjoying the process of learning to edit and get better footage, so it's definitely super exciting people actually watch that when I make it!
I've been playing Sims Medieval lately and you have to take two positive traits and a 'fatal flaw.' It works really well because unless you locate a quest of self improvement to get rid of one (Another interesting feature), it's something your character has to live with.
It's just weird that you're automatically happy if you're in a nice room even if you just lost your spouse...? People's happiness isn't based on the... Decorations. You'd think they would have thought about that.
This is why Meaningful Stories and Personality, Please! are absolutely my must-have mods, even above MCCC. The only thing I wish is that MS would rebalance the decorated moodlet instead of getting rid of it altogether. I would still like it to show up, as a nice, weak moodlet, if the sim is in a super well-decorated, fancy pants place.
This was one of my favorite videos 🤣really enjoyed it,as much as I love the sims 4, I wish they would fix that issue with everything being so easy even when bad.🤷🏼♀️
Hi again Felicia. It turned out to be a fun one to make but definitely had disappointing results. I don't want to go negative and make all my vids about TS4's shortcomings, but I do feel it helps generate discussions that could help the game to improve.
I feel like they could easily fix the traits issues, at least a bit, by changing weights. Non committal should definitely stop you from being married unless youre really in love with another sim and even then the whole time you should have a tense or uncomfortable moodlet until you cheat or break up. They could also update emotions to stack negative ones similar to how the positives stack.
First I would love to say, your videos never disappoint me! I just love them! ( yes fan girl here lol) but I do agree with you about the traits you can pick anything and it feels like the same sim just a different window dressing.
This may actually be the best video you've ever made. The humor aside, you really revealed the problems with the emotions engine. I think emotions are great and I hope they don't get rid of them for Sims 5, I hope they make them better and more realistic. I know a lot of people would rather see them go because they don't do much, but I think there is a lot of potential for emotions to greatly impact gameplay.
James Turner's Parenthood LP aimed to get all the negative character values and he had to work way harder to get them than I do to get all the positive ones (perfectionist that I am). I get not wanting it to be too easy to get negative values such that neutral parenting accidentally yields negative traits, but it shouldn't take THAT much effort.
Yeah that doesnt surprise me. Some of the rewards for the cards that come up are very strong, and could wipe out a day's progress at farming negative points.
As someone who has loved all the Sims games, including Sims 4, I think this is the best illustration of your frustration with the game that I’ve seen. I think what you’re up against is that some of us like this Sims malleability-it’s a feature not a bug. I love your idea of using some sort of slider to make the game more personality driven. If the Sims team figures this out-this might be my favorite version.
Disagree, I don't think this is malleability at all. The opposite, in fact. I can't personalize my sim no matter what traits I use, they will be exactly the same as any other and ruled almost entirely by the room decor. I don't find that to be a feature at all, it's a critical part of the game that does not function in the way it logically should.
I created a family with one sim that was good and family-oriented and another that was evil and hates children and had them adopt a kid and... nothing happened. The hates children sim actually got a POSITIVE moodlet for adopting the kid and had no problem having pleasant interactions with them. Occasionally the evil sim would be mean to one of the others, but they'd hardly register it and everything would be fine and dandy the next second. The good and evil sims would sometimes get negative moodlets for being around each other, but they were always overpowered by other positive moodlets so their relationship was fine. Also the good sim kept autonomously trying to be mean to stray dogs.
I think the sims game you prefer, is down to the style you like to play. If you like to be in control all the time, and create very specific things, sims 4 is great. If you like more challenge, chaos and consequences, the earlier games is probably to prefer. The positive things with the sims 4 is if you want to have a sim with bad traits for the fun of it, but not completely ruin the ability to do things in the game.The bad thing is that it tends to easily become too perfect or boring, because of the way most people play the game. It would be interesting if they added an 'impact' game mode you could choose, where personality traits had more impact on moods and behaviour than they actually do. This way, both types of players could enjoy the game.
Let your bad Sim live in an apartment building. Somehow when you have neighbors even the nicest people turn evil when the noise goes on after midnight! I never saw a Sim hate their neighbors at 100% without me doing anything but allowing the radio to play all night! Also letting an immature Sim become part of your household can cause a lot of chaos around the holidays! All but one gnome was happy when the immature guy attacked one gnome and they all turned on us! Worse, when the next holiday came around the gnomes were still angry! Too funny!
"At least I learned to do this!" OMFG. "Oh yeah, and THIS!" WAHAHAHAHA! I had to pause the video until I could breathe again. You're such a nice guy. I never see it coming when you do stuff like that. hahahaha Yeah, I agree. Sims 4 sims are so homogenous, you can basically ignore any trait as a mild incovenience no matter how bad. The insane (oh, excuse me, ERRATIC) trait is interesting at first but gets annoying when it interrupts everything you ask the sim to do, but other than that, I can't think of any trait that really stands out to make a sim unique.
get a vampire with the worst possible vampire traits. It becomes surprisingly hard if your vampire needs large amounts of blood, hisses and instantly burns in sunlight.
I made a total creeper with lunacy(crazy?), hates kids, and evil. I made him a detective and then made a prison in my basement. Also traumatized the landgraabs and adopted thier son
Whenever I make a sim a bookworm they have never once chose themselves to read a book, I always have to make them read a book they end up putting away and never finishing
I really hate how inconsistent this game is when it comes to moods and traits . Like if you have an evil sim or your sim hates another , there’s no reason they should be happy and smiling all the time .🙄
In my opinion, the creators should’ve made it so Sims ONLY got happy after they completed Whims, sort of like Sims 3 or 2. Décor isn’t going to make your day spontaneously a joy when your loved ones die, but Sims 4 makes this seem possible, LOL. It’s difficult for Sims to be angry, sad, etc. when being happy is so easy because there are too many happy Moodlets.
I remember I made one of my sims insane (now erratic) when the game first came out. He would constantly choose mean interactions with other sims and his relationship with his family was s***. Fair to say I never picked the insane trait again. However, I did play with some erratic sims from the game recently (like the grandma from Sulani and the one from Windenburg) and it was SO MUCH easier. All they did was occasionally talk with some objects. They definitely watered down the bad traits...
Because of this problem you need mods to play this game so it can be little more difficult so you don't get bored. Kind of sad how much you have to rely on mods
Yeah - I really don't like to use them because it may creep into my writing or change how something works in a video. I prefer to have the experience console players have, as well as the massive chunk of the players who don't use mods due to intimidation or lack of knowledge. Because of the many recommendations I'll be trying the meaningful stories mod and doing a review of it.
Entertaining as always my good man. Thank you. As far as making emotions better there is the option of mods. I use roBurky's More Meaningful Stories myself, it actually does have uncomfortable boost other negative emotions as you were talking about. It also removes the happiness from decor so I have actually had sims out in public staying sad or embarrassed after a death in the family or a fight with their partner. Link for anyone interested: roburky.itch.io/sims4-meaningful-stories
Thanks, Blake. I'm definitely considering a followup review given two of you already recommended it, but also we've been on this chain for a while with me doing related stuff. It makes sense to look at something that improves the situation for now... hoping this isn't necessary for much longer. We need a hella good patch this year to fix up this gameplay. Even if that turns out good for my taste, console players can do absolutely nothing to improve things and there are probably more of them than we think.
I would love a review of the mod. I have been thinking about downloading it. I do agree people shouldn't have to rely on mods to make a core feature of the game impactful. But welcome to Sims 4 where people are happy all the time and you have to try for negative outcomes.