More Awesome Than You!

Since we (and by we, I mean other people) have had some time to digest how the Sims 3 works (and doesn't), I was wondering what the prognosis would be for tweaking (bulldozing) the current socialization outcomes in the game. It is incredibly boring to me that Sims nearly all like each other, quickly become best friends (or lovers) with the first schmuck they bump into, and essentially require more effort to -keep- them from acquiring friends.

I know the game isn't supposed to be completely realistic, but this is going way too far. Who becomes friends with everyone they meet? Who can get people to love them just by harassing them for an afternoon? Who has no one that hates them (except the spouses of the people who fell in love after an afternoon harrassing)?

I want to see Sims argue more. I want a 'best friend' to be rare enough to mean something. I want true love to be a rare thing found only after a string of near-endless disasters. When my Sim goes up to talk to a girl, I want to actually wonder if she'll slap him instead of knowing they're a few hours from falling in love.

So, out of curiosity, how realistic are the chances of seeing a more challenging and unpredictable social system? I'd imagine there are some numbers that could easily be tweaked for a nudge in the right direction. Perhaps exploiting the 'boredom' rules Sims have to sour relationships based on harassment would work. Greatly increasing the negative from incompatible traits could help as well, but at this point, I'm unsure what data is XML-ready, and what is locked away.

At any rate, this seemed like the right place to push for a Sims 3 with MORE HATE.

We're looking into it.

Perhaps introducing the 'mean-spirited' trait will help you some. I have a household of 3 mean-spirited and one good sim, and they all pretty much hate each other - even the fairly compatible pair I tried to couple together.

I was upset that my Evil sim wasn't nastier (I based him on a RL person). But then I went off to play the Wolff's house, let story mode progress, and when I came back, he and his best friend hated each other. Thankfully, it introduces some much-needed drama to the game.

I also find it hilarious that the Townies run around like headless chickens when they detect his Aura of Evil.

It is, however, irritating that Morgana doesn't hate Thornton's paramour. I keep hoping she'll catch him cheating on her.

Heh, I have two Good sims in the Test house, and one Evil. The Evil one is best friends with the two Good sims, actually having better relations than with the other five sims in the household. Mean-spirited and insane ones do work for some discord. Little insane/neurotic Hadley is already pissing everyone off, and she's only a child.

I've noticed that the Loner trait can also make relationships take longer to build. Of course, I doubt the designers had that much insight, so this is most likely just selective memory or bad gameplay on my part. In any case, try stacking a bunch of antisocial characteristics and see what happens. The evil suggested earlier, in addition to loner and mean-spirited, started making trouble in my neighbourhood.

Try the Hot-Headed trait.  I had that on my first TS3 sim.  I couldn't just queue up actions and leave him unattended because he would suddenly become offended by something and begin to queue up a string of back and forth insults.

I second the hot-headed one. I had a funny mini drama going with a hot-headed teenager. He had sort of a girlfriend who was also hotheaded. When left to their own devices they would yet all each other, end their friendship and then he'd roll wants to be mean to her.  Then he'd befriend her in school an desperately want to hang out with her -- but when he did, he'd start yelling at her.

Another good one is inappropriate.  I had this sim I made who cracked me up. Every time I would leave him and work on other family members, he would say or do something that would cause the other sim to get a "humiliated" moodlet.  I usually missed exactly what he said to them -- but it happened a lot. I'd be doing my own thing with some other sims and see the son yelling at his dad from in the corner.  I'd click just in time to see the humiliated moodlet and a "Sonny is furious with Dad" His wife was hot-headed.  This made for an interesting combo. He'd come up and complain about one of the kid's problems and she'd start yelling at him and then roll a wish to leave him.