More Awesome Than You!

What do you think of the moodlet hybrid system in TS3, compared to the old need bars from previous games?

After a week of playing with TS3's moodlets + bars, I have to say I hate it. The moodlets are extremely overpowered, IMO. Joe Sim here can be smelly and socially neglected, but still be happy as a clam because he ate a tasty breakfast! There also seems to be a huge amount of good moodlets vs. bad moodlets ( or perhaps I'm not seeing them ), which throws off the balance even more. Perhaps my biggest rant is the absolutely retarded art style in the moodlet thumbnails. Any moodlets involving the emoticon-esque face are cheesy ( the "It's Dark" moodlet takes the cake ), and there's a few more that make me shudder.

I'm not saying that moodlets themselves are horrible, I would just like to see a facelift of points-weighting and perhaps some replacement thumbnails.

Sounds like real life, I can be overwhelmed with depression but feel great after a really good meal.

I'm in favor of it...in concept. The "mood fluctuating wildly depending on microscopic states of irrelevance" in TS1/2 were pretty much why perma-plat became the desirable state in TS2. As for the motives themselves, TS3 eliminates only 2 motives, both of them the least interesting ones of TS2. The TS2 "environment" motive wasn't really a MOTIVE anway, and TS3 removed it and replaced it with simply the "decorated" moodlet", which is basically exactly the same. Besides, the environment motive was STUPID. The comfort motive? Well, it was removed for being boring as well, although technically, it still exists in the form of a moodlet for comfy chairs, and the "Fatigue" hidden motive.

Well, being smelly and socially neglected both have negative moodlets attached. You clearly weren't that smelly or neglected, because the neglected moodlet is like -50, way more than the food moodlet.

There definitely are more "good" than "bad" moodlets. Also, you're a veteran player of the previous games. You're not likely to trip most of the bad moodlets because you don't suck enough.

Agree about the art style, TS2 art > TS3 art. Replacement art is very easy to do, though.

The points-weighting isn't really WRONG, it's just that there aren't really too many occasions for negative moodlets that exist in the game. I mean, what would you propose? Replacement thumbnails? Go right ahead. They're very easy to find and override.

As someone who has to deal with a rather crippling-at-times state of depression, that sort of thing can help but not quite to the degree the game believes. What would have been a better moodlet for that if they were going for realism, imo, would have been something like 'talked to an old friend'. I don't see that one in there, I see moodlets for making a new friend but not maintaining a high link with one they've already got. The moodlets probably shouldn't be so strong though... if it's meant to simulate a sort of depression, perhaps the 'over emotional' ones should be the only ones getting the super high boosts? ... I'm pretty damn sure not everyone on earth has depression to battle against.

I have been messing with some thumbnails and decals from TS2 and TS3 to see if I can make a different UI myself, but I'll be damned if I can find where that information is stored. I'll probably just upload the images and let someone else do the real work.

Fill a household with pissy sims. While Gen 2 was growing up and in the extremely early stages of Gen 3 in my legacy household, most of the sims were grumpy, insane, overreactive, or mean-spirited, if not two of those traits. They would alternate chatting and hugging with making fun of traits and general insults. At one memorable point, every single resident was in orange-to-red mood despite having almost perfect motives.

i haven't had much of a problem with balancing in the motives, although it's true--there are some important ones that should have been added, that weren't. injuries, anyone?


that makes a lot of sense; the sims, or the sims 2 at least, is a depression simulator. the social bunny, the crying and irritability (awesomemod's lesswhiny option comes to mind), and the constant fighting (i had one family spend two sim days, with motive cheats on, doing nothing but getting into fights. the husband lost his job) all seem like symptoms of depression.

If you give your sims the "Grumpy" trait, they become rather depressed. It's a rather peculiar implementation of grumpiness, really. I'd be a grumpy person, except that I'm not at all like the description: I am more about RAEG than sadness. Grumpy seems to mean "Emo" in the world of the Sims.

I was surprised when I had a grumpy Sim interacting with a hot-headed Sim, and the grumpy and hot-headed traits came up as being incompatible.

I kind of like the system, but the only time I've ever had to worry about negative moodlets was when a Sim died in the house; then everyone feels pretty heavily down for the next couple of days. I'd like to see more negative moodlets, and some of the current ones make no sense: why is my Sim who doesn't like children over the moon that he's just had triplets?


I don't think Sims are supposed to be clinically depressed. I think the unhappiness is just regular feeling down, which can be alleviated more easily.

Yes, when you realize it really means "depressio", "emo", and not cranky, you'll see why. Grumpy in TS3 is like Strong Sad.

Like how "Neurotic" is really more of "Paranoid". Love the trait, but it wasn't what I was expecting with "Neurotic".

In TS2 keeping Sims happy was all about fulfilling wants and keeping their motive bars in good shape.

In TS3 keeping Sims happy is all about either having them do things that make them happy or putting them in comfortable surroundings AND keeping their motive bars in good shape.

I still pay more attention to motives than anything else, although I did learn that in TS3 motives can and should go much lower than they do in TS2 before worrying about them.

I absolutely love the moodlets.  Yes, some of them seem fairly over-powered, but I know I'd be as happy as most of my Sims are if I was able to live outside on a huge lot with a lovely view too! LOL

TS3 sims are not affected by minor fluctuations in mood, so a sim does not become gradually more upset merely as his motive bars drop, even though they are all still in decent shape. TS2 essentially had a "mega-moodlet", in the form of platinum ASP, that made the mood bar totally decoupled from the motive bar, similar to how it is by default in TS3. All in all, TS3's system is mostly what I was moving towards anyway in the Undiscovered Shinies.

If this is the case, then why does SupCom have them fill motives when they're half-full? If I remember correctly, it a problem in TS2 when that happened; why is it suddenly a problem now?

I think the moodlets are a great idea, and I'm looking forward to seeing how they evolve. Having a great time in a beautiful setting with your love? Damn right that's going to more than offset that fact that you're a little hungry.

Right now the bar that's pissing me off is hygiene. Yes, daily bathing is good and good for you. But say my sim has a bath before bed. Then she gets up to sit at her desk job all day, comes home to eat a salad, and sits around reading for a while. Her hygiene should not be ready to tank like she's been filth farming the English countryside ("Ooh, Dennis, there's some lovely filth over here!"). Yes, it's been 24 hours since she took her bath. Certainly another one wouldn't be a bad idea. But a calm, easy, sedentary day should not lead to "ZOMG, I need a bath NAO!"

Because I like to be proactive and anticipate and counter problems before they actually occur, and therefore, my AI reflects this.

I may be wrong about this, and I know that the game in general is counter to this idea, but it seems as though the moodlet system also leaves things a bit open-ended, i.e. perhaps some mods could make interesting use of it.

This gets annoying when I activate SupCom on a sim to have it perform some task and it decides that it would rather sleep for the rest of the afternoon instead of doing anything productive. Perhaps your AI could treat the energy motive differently than the others since it takes so much longer to drain and refill, and a 40% full energy bar is not something that needs to be attended to immediately at 4pm?

Actually, the calculation for energy is special. What it's doing is that it is determining the sims's "Wake Up Time", then sending them to sleep at the point where Expected Recharge Time intersects "Time To WakeUp", which should result in the Fully Rested moodlet at full power right before work. The machine is smarter than you are.

The only thing that bothers me about the moodlets and having only six bars is that comfort is no longer a factor, when it comes to furniture selection. Depending on where I place a bookcase, the sims will choose a cheap and uncomfortable-looking patio/dining chair over a comfy sofa, which is illogical. At least in TS2, furniture had a comfort rating, and sims would choose the most comfortable item over what happened to be nearest the bookcase. I just make sure that I place bookcases close to the better furniture, but it's silly that I have to do that in the first place.

I wish that were really true. The chair selection algorithm in TS3 is maddening compared to the TS2 one: In TS3, a sim will aggravatingly like 3 hours across the lot to reach that ONE chair, which is intended for some OTHER purpose and block it for everyone else. AwesomeMod actually had to take steps to CORRECT it to prevent them from obsessing over distant chairs in other rooms!

I could see neat and perfectionist sims needing a daily shower. Others, more like every other day. Apparently, this is how frequently most of my friends bathe. I do so at least once daily, often twice. I'm half German and I hate being oily.

Constant bathing is unhealthy and oil is good. The oil is what protects your skin from nasty things, and removing all the oil is hard on your skin. In the absence of doing anything particularly grimy, you should bathe maybe once a month, certainly no more than once a week, tops.

My sims are waking up at 6am, heading down to the library to do some skilling before work under SupCom, then when they get to the library they turn around and go home so that they can go back to bed for one more hour.  Then the car pool arrives, and they've wasted that extra hour - they didn't get any skilling done, nor did they make it back home to their bed to charge up the "fully rested" moodlet. 

Can you please stop them going back to bed if they just got up and it's only a couple of hours before work time?

If they're waking up prematurely, something weird is causing them to wake up without authorization that is throwing a wrench into the works. I have not isolated what causes this rare condition, and haven't successfully reproduced it reliably.

The reason they wake up at 6am is because I'm sending them to bed so that they will wake up at 6am.  I like my sims to get up 3 hours before work starts, that gives them time to use the bathroom or to do some skilling if they don't need the bathroom.  The reason I like skilling in the morning is that instead of the sims rushing out to the carpool as soon as it arrives (on the hour) the sim can skill until 30-40 minutes past the hour and still make the carpool.

SupCom seems to think that 2 hours before work starts is a better time to wake up, and will send sims back to bed if they get up 3 hours before work starts - but first it sends them off to the library or gym (depending on which skill was queued), then when they get there it decides to send them back home to bed.

I think I'm really understand what your meaning. My sims just like yours, always in very happy and elated mood. Guys, did you notice this too? I think it's abnormal too. The normal should be in fair mood. Very Happy and Elated mood only for special event or special condition, not almost every time. Our sims is just a normal human, not a Buddha.

I do something with the moodlet value. I notice there's 3 moodlets that have a huge influence with our sims mood. The well rested, decorated (nicely/beautifully decorated) and entertained/having a blast. This always make my sims mood high, since three of them has a high value and long timer. I reduce the value into half of the original. Like having a blast moodlet, I lowering to 20. Entertained to 10. well rested to 10. Decorated to 5, nicely deco to 10 and beauty deco to 20. I also increase the value of achievement moodlet, like fulfilled to 40. I think fulfilled moodlet will makes sims very happy and elated like in the real life, so I increase it to 40. Watching a movie, concert, etc, I also increased to 40. Married, first kiss, first romance, etc, more than 40, maybe 50 to 70.

I also double the strength of bad moodlet. Like very hunger to -30, must have a pee to -40, rude awakening to -40, etc. This make the bad moodlet has a strong influence and makes the mood hit yellow, orange even red. Like if you really must have a pee in the real world, your mind is so distracted, you can't think another, so urgent, your mood is bad too, that's why I make really must have a pee to -40. I do the same with rude awakening, like in the real world, when you in deep sleep and suddenly being awaken by something, you must be very angry, right? -40 will make the mood into yellow to red.

I do a lot of changes, and I don't remember all of them. There's too many, almost all may be. I'm very satisfy with the result, although psychological, it's makes the game a bit harder, may be in my head only, since I saw a lot of yellow mood in my sims picture. But most of the time my sims has a fair mood, they are so happy when fulfilled/achieved something, just happy in good condition and uncomfortable for urgent matter. I'm still in research to achieve the best value of moodlet, so I haven't publish it to any sites. The setting sometime is not right, I need to fix that. Or I accidentally write a wrong value that I haven't notice or fix it.

You can download and put the moodlet.package to the usual place. And see the different. May be you should delete the scriptchange.package too. It's still not perfect but I hope you like it. You can anything with it, like change the value and fix the mess I left.

I also do change to the bed setting, that I don't included in the zip file, since it still in testing. and It look like it didn't work, I should play a lot to see if it work to all bed I applied. I make all bed to have a bed sleep change of possibility. I think sims sometime can has a nightmare, sleep in wrong position, etc. That the meaning of bad sleep I think, that's why I applied to all bed.

Interesting. How does the algorithm work for an unemployed sim?

Everything else in your description sounds logical, and it might be something I'd want to try after a while when I too am completely bored with perma-happy Sims. But this statement would definitely make me unlikely to try your mod in my game--it's vague and sounds like a potential for gameplay borkage. What is it that you say is not set right and still needs to be fixed? If you're talking about the levels at which you set one or more buffs/debuffs, that would hardly be catastrophic. However, if the "wrong value" is something else in the file, how wrong is it? What makes you say that, what is it that you see happening in your modded gameplay?

You don't need to worry. It work great and I satisfy with it. You can delete or modify the value by yourself if you find there's something not right or suitable. It's still in alpha or beta stage anyway. That's why I haven't publish it to any sites. :)

Since I just make it in this couple of days, I still haven't figure it out the right balance or standard of value. That's the hardest part, I need to play for a long time to find the right balance and make a standard for it. So far I use my own calculation in my head to find the right value, but I satisfy with the result so far. Just a little minor thing that may be I write the wrong value that it should be and make the game a little unbalance for some moodlet. I'm still in research. You can change that manually if you found it. May be you can give a suggestion, we can share the value, test it together to find the perfect and realistic value.

So far I divine the moodlet into several groups:

Good moodlet:
Minor Condition: like environment, decorated, squeaky clean, mint teeth, etc.
Have Fun: entertained, having a blast, evilness delighted
Big Have Fun: Party, watch a concert, watch a movie, etc.
Social/mental condition: flattered, inspired, etc
Achievement: fulfilled, honor student, etc.
Big Achievement: marry, first romance, first kiss, etc.

Bad moodlet:
Minor Condition: bad/dirty environment, sleepy, need to pee, grungy, etc.
Major Condition: tired (very sleepy), must have a pee, smelly, etc.
Social/mental condition: offended, embarrassed, upset, etc.
Disaster: lost a friend, etc.
Big Disaster: Fired, divorced, mourned, etc.

I just haven't find a standard of value and connection between all of them.

What I do so far is find the problem why my sims always feel very happy and elated, which major moodlet influence it. And I found 3 kind moodlet:
Decoration: Decorated, Nicely Decorated and Beautifully Decorated (value 40)
Entertained: Entertained, Having a Blast (value 40)
Sleep: Well Rested (value 40)

Each of three of them has 40 value, total you always get 120 positive mood. The timer is also importance too, since three of them has a long timer. That makes my sims always very happy almost entire day and almost everyday too. I cut all of them into half of the original value. Well rested to 10.

Like Mira Krisma said too, the bad moodlet don't have a great impact. I notice this too. There's 2 stage of bad moodlet of sleepy: Sleepy and Tired. I notice that Sleepy has no negative moodlet, so I increase it to -10. Tired to -30 or -40 (I forget). Just like want to pee, hungry and low hygiene too. -40 will make a yellow mood, 2x~3x -40 will make a orange~red mood.

I also modify another bad moodlet like upset to -40, caught after curfew to -40, etc. The rest I forget, since I directly edit the xml file and I don't know which one I change at that tme, how many the value I type, etc. But so far I satisfy with the result, there's no major issue. Just need to find the right balance between all, make a standard and applied to all.  ;D

Just download and try it. It's very worthy and won't destroy the entire gameplay, just a little modification like another mod too. I hope you like it.  ;)

From monitoring the habits of the unemployed, their schedules are completely whacked out and acyclic, much like real life.

I think this is really more a question of labelling than it is of the actual numbers. Unless your sims are well into the upper bubble, mood-wise, they're still being penalized for it at work, so tey're not THAT happy. The game just makes them seem that way to make the sheeple feel better about how they're doing. Based on the actual in-game effects, "Very happy" really correlates more with "mildly irritated", and all you really need to do is to change the labels and everything is fine.

That what I thought.
It seems like the Moodlet system was create to make inefficient players feel better about their playing ability. My Sims are constantly "very happy", when it's clear to me that they have some motives that are dropping, and they haven't had any wishes fulfilled recently. The mood indicator at work is often not the grinning bright green emoticon at this level, as you said.
I guess there must have been a barrage of complaints that The Sims 2 was too hard, or something. Now it seems extraordinarily simple to keep your Sims content enough to work on skills/friends/collections/whatever nearly nonstop for their entire lives.
Thank God there's an option for shorter lifespans.

That does make sense. I was annoyed that my unemployed sim wanted to get a good day's sleep before starting on her painting and I thought it would be more productive to go ahead and paint until she got tired, but I guess it all evens out in the end. The machine is smarter than I am.

Can you explain what "filth farming the English countryside " means?  Do you mean manure?   There's no such thing as "filth farming" in England, but we do fertilise our crops.. Also, a day out in the country , in England, usually leaves you smelling of fresh air, not manure. I read also, with great interest, and much amusement, the long discussion on English grammar (re -Grammar police discussion). I am totally mystified by the 'cat of love'.

It's a Monty Python reference. You're probably too cultured to get it.  ;)

Yeah, but appearances are very deceiving. You will note that while they SEEM content, if you actually evaluate their real performance given their allegedly "very happy" status, they are, in fact, a good deal less than content. As always, it is the numbers, not mere words, that describe the true state of things. It is simple enough to change the words so that they match the numbers, rather than giving false-positive assessments.

Oh that completely explains why the silly trollop is crying all the time.  Nice to see I haven't lost my touch but you think EAxis could at least label it properly.

My wish is that negative moodlets did a lot more. My sim had her husband die one day and she got the -50 broken-hearted moodlet. The next day her sister dies and she got the witnessing death -50 one. Besides the +30 she has for beautiful vista, she's an elder and I think it'd be better if she died from a heart attack or stress or something at this point. So her mood is depressed, so what? She cries sometimes but it doesn't interfere with anything she has to do.

I think as an elder maybe these depressed states should affect happiness or have some added affect. I have sims whose moods are very low from witnessing a death but their fun meter is full? It makes no sense.

I'm not even going to mention how sims have a blast from attending a party where someone dies.

I'd totally have a blast at a party where someone dies! Especially if it's Ness, or Emma, or one of the other people I really hate.

But in real life fun and happiness are two totally different things.  It's totally possible to be depressed over something happening, but go out with friends and have a great time.

You people and your silly "complex emotions" are nuts. Why can't you be more like me? I have only a simple continuum of rage and irritation. I am even less complex than a sim. Emotionality, who really needs it?

There, Pes. Now someone with way more posts than me has alerted you that SC is way overzealous about sleeping.