You could make all new versions of all your tools refer to her as a poopoohead. Not constructive, but perhaps mildly pleasant to think of her using programs that hate her.

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.

There are definite modifiers to that friendship bar and actions. Mood, what they're thinking ("friendly", "flirty", "irresistable"), other relationships (if they have another boyfriend, they have to like your sim more to have any chance of cheating unless other modifiers apply), Traits... and probably one or two more I haven't noticed.

Mood and other relationships seem to be the biggest causes of the "Eww, no!" reaction, but Traits are definitely factoring in as well. It's entirely possible that a Snob sim is going to be a pain to romance for a poor sim. Other situations may be coming up that the game isn't giving good feedback about.

But, frankly, the social part of the game being so ridiculously easy is my only real complaint with the game, so I wouldn't want it any simpler. Once you add Charisma and a couple perks, any troll sim can take any new acquaintance from meeting to impregnated in a couple sim-hours, regardless of that sims' personality or previous relationship. Further, the "living town" never takes note that "Big Humpy" down the street has fathered half the town's children with twenty different women. No child support, no public scorn... no, the ladies just keep stepping up to be served.

It's difficult to feel like you're running around in an open world, when that world doesn't notice you're there. You can't even get them to erect (ahem) a statue of you. There's no way to leave a lasting impression in the Sim world other than by raising a clone. Sim life is even more futile and meaningless than real life!

Well of course I can do that - my point was just that the mod would be improved if it only cancelled autonomous instrument use.

Even better would be if it (or another mod) could remove performing for tips on residential lots. It's annoying and really weird to have a teen drop a cup for tips on the floor of the living room, and have house guests run from all over to toss money into it.

Marhis, I tried your mod, works pretty well ( thanks ), but I did notice one thing that could use a tweak:

Sims cancel playing the instrument when Fun is full, even if the player directed them to do it... so playing instruments no longer works well for upping skills. I would think the ideal fix would be to just cancel the autonomous music-playing when Fun is full?

I can tell I'd be fired within a week if I worked at EA. There are so many issues that greatly mess up the game and could be fixed in minutes, I'd be a complete pain-in-the-ass until they were all gone, or I was.

Definitely.


They all sound like good changes. They should help fix one of the issues discussed here: that relationships are too likely to start out positively. I'll definitely be using your mod the next time I play.

I'd also be interested to know your thoughts on this thread, and if your mod is a "first step", what's step #2?


I understand! I've quit playing the game many times. I can usually only go about a month before the lack of variety and challenge bores me. Hopefully I'll either find enough mods like yours (and some others here and elsewhere) to keep me playing longer, or I'll at least be smart enough not to uninstall this time - reinstalling hurts.

STR/LTR would still unlock new interactions, and determines friend/crush/bestfriends/lover status. It would be a progress meter - it's currently both a progress meter and the determining factor in success, which is just loony logic.


True. But the phone call allowing STR to go to 100 is what allows the "cooking" to push LTR to 100. So to remove that result, you can either (a) Remove "cooking", or (b) remove the ability for phone calls to push STR to 100.


I thought of that as a solution as well, but it still wouldn't address the silliness of lower-tier interactions maxing out relationships and invalidating higher-tier actions. Why risk Caress if Charm never fails? Why is a friendly hug enough to keep your spouse madly in love with you?

Capping how high each action can raise your STR/LTR would handle that, and make removing "cooking" unnecesarry. If you want to keep your wife at 100/100, you may have to 'satisfy' her now and then.


Well, currently, it's predetermined that every relationship you put a tiny effort into (and most you don't) will be a raging success. In this system, some relationships will be successful, some will be doomed, and some will sit in-between.

As I said, some player-control could be achieved by factoring skill levels, chemistry and mood into the 'compatibility' numbers, since these are aspects that the player can modify:

"She likes hats? Gimme a hat, stat!"
"She loves Logic? I'd better play some chess!"
"Maybe I'd better wait to suggest a kiss until she's a bit less angry... or full platinum."

So the Sims' starting stats and Likes would a big factor, but those controllable aspects could be enough to push a "just friends" girl into a potential Lover.

Additionally, some randomness to interaction results could be added, so that borderline relationships could go either way, and would always be volatile. The result would still always trend towards the 'compatibility' number, but small random spikes in either direction would appear like spats or passion.

Of course, if one were to make a single Sim-relationship as volatile as the real thing, upon finishing the mod, the next step would likely be to reduce the numbers of friends/loves required by wants in the game. That said, I'd love to replace the tedium of grabbing 20 or 50 interchangable Sims and grinding out STR/LTR at no risk of failure, with something like 5 or 10 required relationships that involve searching for compatible Sims and hoping that your Chat leads to friendship or that she accepts that Flirt and it leads to love.

You're assuming that's not what I'm going for.

I only care about my one Sims' immediate bloodline. I keep him and his heir in good shape, but the rest of the people on the property are there because I like to see how they will fare with -no- help. So I -want- them to be able to stupidly die, as long as it's in disastrously amusing ways, and they mostly stay out of my way. Only the fit survive!

The upside is that the occasional SuperSim emerges - I even had one reach her lifetime want w/o me ever touching her... that was a surprise.

The downside is that my "One Sim" is widowed many times over... oh, who am I kidding, that's an upside too! Spread the genetic seed!

It's only when they get caught in loops like they do with babies/toddlers that they really irritate me. And you can't kill every Sim that goes crazy on the baby, or else the house gets very quiet very fast.

Excellent! Thanks.

"Subtlety"... you might need to explain that term to JMP.

I don't always want to kill a fly with a mallet, then drop a piano on the mallet, then hit the piano with a meteor.

Don't get me wrong, the mallet+piano+meteor is quite nice at times (coffee cups AAAAAHHH), but I like having the little Sims do things on their own, so a lobotomy is a bit severe. A middle ground between drooling statue and caffeinated OCD freak would be great.

Hmm, the coffee-cup issue made me think of another one... is anyone aware of a mod that actually works to make homework get dropped on tables/desks? I -swear- the original TS2 handled this properly.

Yeah, I'll have to try that one out as well - it implements some of the things I was thinking of. It sounds like the initial meetings of Sims should be far more varied, since those first chats won't skew so heavily towards a positive result. I

AutonomousCasualRomance also seems to do a pretty nice job of basing interactions on attractiveness more than just 'we had a nice chat - let's get married!'

I like MasterDinadan's idea of specific actions being required to boost relationships past a certain point. It makes me wonder if the following would work well:

1) Cap how much STR/LTR you can get from a specific action. For example, Chat might only be able to take you to 25/0 (side benefit: some of us might get to use the later Talk... options for the first time!). Friendly Hug might cap at 60/30. To gain a platonic friend, you'd need to Share Interests, Play, etc - Chat would -never- do it, since it would stop giving points at 25/0, and the passing of time would only take this to 25/25. To gain a Crush, you'd have to do more than Flirt/Charm, and to gain a Love, you'd have to do almost everything.

2) Change all interactions that currently succeed/fail based on STR/LTR to succeed/fail based on compatibility (likes/traits/chemistry for romance). ACR does this quite well for romantic actions based on an 'attractiveness' rating, so it's definitely possible. For example, Tickle might only require a compatibility rating of 10, while Friendly Hug requires a rating of 50. The exact stats and numbers to use would take a lot of tweaking/testing to decide. For added depth, things like mood (good mood = more accepting) and similar skill-levels (we're both Logical / we both hate Logic = more accepting) could be factored in to give additional ways to make two Sims more (or less) compatible through player actions. But the compatibility rating would determine the highest action a Sim would accept, determining the limits on their relationship.

As for Popularity/Romance Sims... well, life would get harder for them.   But a simple "What do I think of...?" action to give a clue to compatibility before spending too much time getting to know them would help. I'd think the best way to implement such an action would be to have it return text describing how much potential for growth remains in the relationship. Like if you can still gain many STR/LTR points before hitting the cap, your Sim might say, "I'd like to get to know X better." But as you approach the cap, the text might change to "I don't think there's much more to know about X." So Popularity/Romance Sims could see if there's a potential for Best Friends from a brief encounter (chatting etc), while it might take a date or more to know whether the Sim is a potential Crush/Love. It could add benefits to Woohoo Wants using ACR, since they could avoid Loves and stick to more casual affairs.

So STR/LTR would be the -reward- for successful actions, not the determiner of whether those actions succeed. Escalating actions would be required to escalate the relationship - no best buds from phone calls or lovers from flirting and pecks on the cheek. And the characteristics of the individual Sims would determine 'compatibility', making relationships unique, and gaining friends and lovers challenging and rewarding.

Just curious if anyone knows of a mod (other than the baby controller, which is a bit more aggressive than I'm looking for) that makes Sims change the baby's diaper after it poops itself. Currently, they seem to stupidly think that shoving a bottle in the kid's mouth will fix it - that's the WRONG END!

Does the nobabyharassment mod help this? Or does that just make them ignore the stink-tot?

I know -we- can't see the baby's needs, but it's rather annoying that the Sims can't see them either... or smell them, for that matter.

Basically, if my Sims would just:

1) Change diapers
2) Stop force-feeding the kid
3) Stop washing clean kids
4) Stop holding the toddler
5) Stop holding the baby (I'd prefer 'hold the baby less', but I suspect that's too vague)
6) Do everything else they like to do (talk/play/etc)

I'd be a happy pappy. Do any current mods handle that?

That's a cop-out. Plenty of games manage to be challenging. Plenty of games manage to prevent you from knowing exactly how successful you'll be before you even start.


Unless you intentionally make it happen, no.

1) Chat until relationship is at X.
2) Use other interactions you know will succeed until relationship is at 100.
3) Rinse. Repeat.

That's a 100% sure-fire method of obtaining a new best friend or love in the current game. Personality traits, likes/dislikes, chemistry all become meaningless. Every Sim in the game will be a blissful friend or lover without fail.

To me, that's not interesting, challenging, or fun.


You're stating it as if it can't be done with 100% accuracy, it's pointless, as if it were a problem to be solved, with only one 'correct' solution.

I'm not interested in a perfectly accurate model at all. I'm looking at it as something that can be improved - the game ---is--- trying to model social dynamics, so unless they've already done it perfectly, why not try to improve on their attempt?

I'm also looking at it as a game system that currently fails to provide challenge or variety to the player. To improve that, you don't have to accurately model social dynamics, all you have to do is present a believable -appearance- of social dynamics.


Yeah, exactly. That's why I was thinking of it as a possible place to tweak and expand, since there's a clear 'decision' branch there.


No, something less than near-100% predictability is what I want. The Chemistry system doesn't currently address that at all. I'm talking about 2 Sims' personalities affecting all interactions instead of the STR/LTR which is currently used nearly all of the time.


As far as I've seen, successful chats are nearly always +5. Failed chats are -2. I can't recall ever seeing a -5. I wasn't suggesting this would be some brand new system, in fact the point was to make it as small (and hopefully easy) of a tweak as possible. In this case, the result would be a completely balanced scale from -5 to +5, with every value in-between, instead of the current system that skews -heavily- towards a +5 result. I guess I should have been more specific to get a real response.


Actually, I don't recall ever stating a goal for such a Mod to "take off" - I was merely asking for advice on what was possible before I devoted time to digging around in the internals. If people loved it, great. If not, well, then it'd be like 90% of the mods floating around.

I've already described the kinds of traits the game provides that can be used to determine compatibility. Specific figures are pointless before you even know what is possible. Further, specific figures would only be a first guess anyway, as such a system would require a great deal of tweaking to get a good result. Lastly, if public reception of such a mod were a concern, I'd likely make an effort to make the values changeable by the user.

As for it always resulting in formulaic gameplay, that is simply false. Removing the extreme predictability and known success of actions requires the player to react and rethink depending on the situation and the results.


Because I'd like to tweak an aspect of the game I find imperfect, I should go track down some nonexistant game and play it?


What game? If you don't do anything, it's not a game, it's a fishbowl. If there's no challenge or risk of failure, it's a dollhouse.


So? Shouldn't they be? Families currently don't add any challenge, they just add tedium and micromanagement.

Besides, I see sites like this as addressing that side of things, by providing mods that allow Sims to be left alone more without them doing something incredibly stupid and/or deadly, allowing the player to focus less on the mundane chores and more on the big decisions.

I'd just like some of those big decisions to involve not knowing the outcome of your choice before you've even put it in action.


Thanks but considering the Sims doesn't really have any competition, that's a fairly empty suggestion. Besides, I don't really need validation of my playstyle. It seems obvious that for many people, the only way for The Sims to provide uncertainty or a challenge is if they tie one (or both) hands behind their back via artifical rulesets and intentionally -not-playing- the game. If everyone else is okay with that, fine. I'm not trying to organize a political movement, I was just asking if some areas of the game even -could- be tweaked, not if anyone else wants them tweaked, or thinks I should go cross my fingers and hope for a "Fantasy Sims" game to appear under my pillow...

Very nice!

Is it possible for a Sim to have multiple overlays? (hair + nipples + tattoo)

Is it possible to set a 'default' overlay? For example, making the anatomy bits default to on for all new sims... those featureless townies always creep me out.

Good relationships would still be possible - just not a 'perfect' relationship with every single person in the Sims world.

STR would be unaffected, so you could still have somewhat incompatible Sims have short-term happy interactions.

The cap on LTR would take some tweaking to get working well, but I would think that ideally most Sims would still have plenty of other Sims who match in the "true love" or higher LTR range. Some would be barely over that point, meaning it would take constant attention (and a bit of luck) to keep them in love. Others would be in a safer range, but still not 100, so would be more volatile than current relationships, but still not generally hard to keep on good terms. Finally, a rare few would be a 'perfect match', able to hit 100 LTR, and those 'true loves' would be an exciting and important find while playing the game.

IF such a system were added, I'd think a simple interaction like "Check Sim Out" would be needed, to give players a bit of a clue as to what range a Sim falls into. Not an exact number, but something like "This Sim really rubs me the wrong way.", or "I don't think I could ever get tired of spending time with this Sim", etc.


Well, not exactly.

I'm not that concerned with Sims' autonomous behavior (although I agree a bit more negative behavior would be more realistic / interesting). I'm more concerned with making the Sims an interesting and fun game to -play-. The current game makes me feel like I'm exploiting it any time I do pretty much anything, because the results are so easy and predictable. Anything I want my Sim to do or be, will happen. I frequently install the Sims, because I absolutely love the concept. I frequently uninstall the Sims because I grow bored with my Sims always turning out perfect and I have no interest in playing completely 'hands-off' and watching a fish tank of pixellated people. I NEED to control SOMEBODY!

If I decide to make a Don-Juan Sim, I don't want his romatic aspirations to -always- be an easy success. I'd love it if (based on his skills and personality), he occasionally got slapped / yelled at / attacked. If I make a Sim that's looking for true love, I'd love for that 'special someone' to actually feel special, not just be any random Sim I pick. If I make -any- Sim, I'd love for them to have an assortment of varying levels friends -and- enemies, without me having to force the issue by randomly poking people. The social aspects of the Sims are the most interesting concept to me, but the implementation strips away 90% of the potential.

But you may be right that capping the LTR may not be the ideal method to improve things. It just seemed to me (as a game programmer, albeit with limited knowledge of Sims-modding) to be the easiest method.

Ideally, I'd change the +/- for every social interaction.

1) Make non-chat interactions capable of a negative result, even if STR/LTR is high enough to succeed. This would eliminate the current ease of maintaining relationships by sticking to the 100% safe interactions. If your Sim is incompatible with another Sim, attempting to kiss them could result in a relationship -loss- (you banged noses and drooled on them, you schmuck!).

2) Make all interactions have varying +/- STR/LTR effects, based on compatibility. Kiss a Sim that your Sim is very compatible with, and the gain might be double the current amount (sparks fly!). Kiss one that is incompatible, and the gain would be less substantial (fizzle). Similarly, the +/- for chats would be based on how -much- the Sim likes that topic. Talk sports to a sports nut, get +5. Talk sports to someone with only a casual interest, get +2. Talk sports to a sports hater, get -5.

I think that would accomplish the goal as well, and be significantly easier for the player to figure out what is happening and why. It would make autonomous interactions more interesting as a side-effect. But are (1) and (2) possible to mod?

If so, I might take it on as a side-project, although I'm not sure if programming games as a job, AND as a hobby would be a healthy prospect.

I see...

So are the point totals given for success/fail in Chat alterable? Altering those would accomplish something similar.

Is the success/fail result for other social interactions moddable, or is it hardcoded to check only how much the Sim likes the other Sim?


You really HATE your sims doing anything without you, huh?


Well, it IS a game, and the game has already set the rules, they are just far too lenient for those rules to mean much.

The Sims has already established that compatiblity is determined by common Likes/Dislikes, Chemistry, and similar Traits (Nice, Lazy, etc). The current game just makes 100/100 so easy and likely that those factors become insignificant.

So I'd assign a point value to each Sim characteristic I want to include to total -100 to +100... it's just a matter of tweaking weights. Then to find the LTR cap for 2 Sims, you just see how many of those points they have.

It would certainly be a better model than all friends and lovers being equal and perfect.

I'm not trying to answer some grand question of the universe, I'm just trying to make an aspect of a game more interesting, challenging, and fun.

Nice!


Not nice!


I wasn't actually thinking of adding any interactions, or changing the logic that determines which action gets picked.

I was trying to keep things (relatively) simple, by limiting changes to the logic that determines the results of the action.

For example, a Sim would still decide when to try to Chat with another Sim in the same way. What would change is the logic that decides if the chat "succeeds" or not, and/or the +/- point changes on success/failure.

So the Sim wouldn't be doing anything smarter/dumber than they currently do, the result would just be less likely to push their relationship to 100, and take into greater account the two Sims' personalities.

Such a mod might make Decay work better as well... two incompatible Sims might forget they hate each other, but if their conflicting personalities make interactions have a 90% chance of failure, they'll remember soon enough.

If that were combined with their personalities also determining their min/max LTR, you would no longer see all relationships going to -100/-100 or 100/100, and each relationship would feel unique.

But, if Sims' personalities affected their max LTR with other Sims, AND made interactions less positive / more volatile, the result would be that chemistry and compatiblity would be more important, making any relationship successful would be more rewarding, and making 'incompatible' Sims a successful couple (or friends even) would be an actual challenge.

In that situation, two Sims with similar interests and personalities would have a max LTR of 100, and would be more likely to have positive interactions, so could probably remain at or near 100 with nothing more than conversation over a meal now and then.

Conversely, somewhat compatible Sims might have a max LTR of 80, and would have a few more negative interactions, making it necesarry to set aside some "couples time" if you want them to stay on good terms.

Somewhat incompatible Sims might have a max LTR of 60, making their relationship a real struggle, and very volatile / prone to fights + making up, etc...

Very incompatible Sims might have a max LTR of 20, making it impossible for them to get along beyond the short-term, and making them very likely to become enemies at the drop of a hat.

Seeing that kind of wide array of personalities and interactions in the game would make it infinitely more engaging to me, and greatly reduce the feeling that beyond their appearance nothing about a Sim really matters. If a player chooses a friend/mate for their Sim that is incompatible, the increased maintenance required to keep the relationship going becomes a balancing factor (maintenance might be the wrong word as well, since their social interactions wouldn't reliably push their STR/LTR upwards any longer - them interacting could just lead to a fight) - you might even choose to have your Sim cheat on their spouse because another Sim is easier to get a long with... the social/relationship system in the game would have far more depth.

Out of curiosity, are the following possible to mod currently w/ what is known about BHAVs, etc?

1) Capping a Sims' LTR with another Sim (I know Life Stories does this for 'your' Sim)

2) Changing how a positive/negative social interaction is calculated (like if a Chat is successful or fails)

3) Changing the calculation for how many points a social interaction gives (like a positive Chat giving +5 STR)

Actually, there is something quite close to true randomness, which is why there are no real differences.

A little less randomness and a little more reliance on the Sims' stats would provide real differences between Sims. The randomness not favoring everyone becoming buddies would add more differences.

A true learning AI will have to wait at least until The Sims3. But something that on the surface appears like a unique AI for each Sim would be a great improvement over the current extreme predictability.


The Life Stories concept greatly appeals to me, as I like to play a single a single Sim as a roleplaying endeavor. I try to never play the other characters in my house, which does mean that my little Sim is a frequent widower, but what are ya gonna do?

The huge flaw in Life Stories is that the game are SO heavily scripted that the game is 99% on rails. A looser story with more choices and branches could retain the scripting aspect that makes the game different than The Sims, while giving the player some feeling of choice and control over the outcome of the story. But that's another topic...


Yeah, there's a lot of overlap in our posts. With relationships that are more heavily affected by likes / traits / etc, you could easily have characters that are generally jerks, even occasionally to each other, but if they share a lot in common, would get to have lots of make-up-sex...

I'm a games programmer, but I haven't had time enough to delve into the Sims' modding abilities to know if the ideas are even feasable or not. Perhaps it's all just a pipe dream for the Sims3... then again, the Sims seems to not have much focus on having a 'game' as it does on letting (forcing?) you be the 'puppet master'. Sure, that's fun as well, but it would be great to occasionally not know if my little Sim is going to succeed or not, so maybe I'm waiting for another (mythical) game...

Well, that's when you would use the "off" option on such a mod...


The boring thing is how it's -extremely- likely that the numbers will go to 100. It would make the game infinitely more fun to actually -play- if some Sims just plain didn't like the Sim I was controlling.

Imagine you take your Sim to a night club... you have him check out the room, target a nice-looking lady, shimmy up to her, lay on the charm... and she spurns him. Currently, the normal reaction in the Sims is to just do it again... and again... because the numbers nearly always head to +100. I feel it would be far more interesting if that weren't the case, and that night at the club might be spent having the Sim try his luck with a handful of ladies before finally finding one that he connects with... or not, and wandering home alone.

(Did I just share too much about my Friday nights?)

Throw in the ability for initially positive relationships to max out well below true love, and you have short flings and failed relationships that don't require boinking the maid while your lover is asleep on the couch. If we can't just walk into a crowded room, pick someone at random to be our soulmate, then harass them until they acquiesce, why are those jerk Sims so lucky?

I'd love it if there were a version of the Sims that was actually fun and unteresting to -play- as a game (an RPG of sorts), rather than having my interaction with the world essentially feel like a cheat.


I bet you didn't actually have -nothing- in common with them - I mean, you both dislike terrorists, right? Take a look at every skill stat, personality stat, aspiration and like/dislike in the Sims, and I'll bet you'd find something, even in that limited approximation of human personality.


Part of the effect of changes like these would be making some aspects of the game harder... but currently most of those goals are so easy as to lack any challenge beyond your free time and attention span.


I just thought of how many of my childhood friends started out with a fight... but after that initial negative, we found we had a lot in common, and some of those guys are still my friends today. Conversely, I'm sure everyone has known people they had an instant connection with, only to find out as time went on that the initial positive didn't outweigh their differences.

The Sims is so heavily skewed towards a world where everyone is buddies that some of the most interesting social aspects are lost. Not to mention the loss of what could be challenging and rewarding gameplay. It also makes each Sim feel remarkably similar and interchangable. If my Sim is an out of shape and anti-social romance Sim, it doesn't really matter - he just needs to accost people an extra time or two before they fall madly in love with him. Even with an expert player controlling him, his life should be extremely hard. It would make him feel more like a unique little being, and would make helping him succeed feel like a true accomplishment.

Lately I've been wondering if there's any way to make the social aspects of the Sims a bit more challenging, as well as make them have the slightest bit of realism to them. I mean, it seems odd that you can force anyone to love you just by constantly getting in their face and yammering at them. Or that nearly everyone is so darned friendly! So I guess I'm asking if anyone knows if any of the following are possible to mod in the game (or if a mod already exists)...

1) Making negative reactions in social interactions stronger / more likely. Currently the game's math is strongly skewed to make Sims move towards friendship even when they have little in common ("I hated you at first, but now that you've forced me to chat with you for hours, I love you!").

2) Making a pair of Sims' personality traits determine their min/max friendship levels. For example, if 2 Sims have nothing at all in common and have clashing personality traits, their maximum long-term relationship score might be 25 - even if they manage to have a conversation without hating each other, there's no basis for them to become lifelong pals/lovers. Finding someone who you hit it off with (best friend / lover) should be a big deal, even for a Sim!

3) Making crushes/love require higher relationship scores than friendship, to avoid the current situation that seems to be "Hey, we had a nice talk and you are the proper gender, so I love you!" Contrary to bad romantic comedies, men and women can be friends w/o wanting to jump each other.

4) Making a Sim's personality traits determine what relationship level is needed to Woohoo. Let's face it, some people are slutty. This could also expand to the other romantic options.

Basically, I'd just like socializing for my Sims to be a bit challenging, and to make finding them friends/romance more rewarding. Plus, they make my social skills look even worse than they are!