pancakemizore
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What are your ideas and suggestions for a Chemistry System remake?
🕑 Added 2022-03-11 09:02:04 +0000 UTCChemistry System hasn't been updated in ages. We're working on a reimagining of it. Right now, we're still thinking of features to include, so we wanted to hear your opinion.
Here are some of our ideas:
Chemistry is how comfortable you are with another sim, not romantic chemistry necessarily.
- This was something we couldn't decide in the original mod. In TS2, it was purely romantic if remember right, so that's how I approached it when I first made the mod.
Chemistry can change depending on what your sims do, instead of purely being based on traits and unchangeable.
- Instead of Chemistry being purely about sim traits, I thought of it being something variable, like something that can change throughout the day. That's when I thought of chemistry as something like the Clubs feature in Get Together.
- Your sim can specify things they like or dislike to see in other sims, and their Chemistry, how comfortable they feel to that person will change throughout the day.
An early test
- I created this scripted sequence where a family of sims who love good food and take pride in great culinary skills decide to gather for breakfast.
- However, the sim who prepared the meal was feeling terrible from not enough sleep, so they made terrible food despite having great cooking skill.
- When everybody came around to eat the food, they individually got terrible chemistry with the sim, and they were encouraged to be mean to the awful cook.
- This was all accompanied with unique notification text, and if I could have worked on it more, unique interactions of your sim either comforting or criticizing with the chef.
Another thing I was thinking of was..
A lot more interactions for sims expressing themselves and their worries.
- The original Chemistry mod was really bad at this. Sims would randomly confront your sim about a dislike they had of your traits... and that's it. It happens so often on community lots that it ends up being less impactful and more "oh boy, the crowd hates me because I have the Slob trait"
- For the new Chemistry mod, I was thinking of something along the lines of your sim being able to be more vocal about their surroundings. Like, express to other sims they don't like working out because it makes them tired. That would immediately make sims who prefer others who exercise to immediately have bad chemistry with them.
A major topic I thought of while brainstorming this was sims not having enough money.
Picture this, your sim quit his job and become a painter. However, he hasn't been making enough paintings lately, so his money has gotten really low.
I added an interaction where your sim can worry about how much money they have, and the other sim can respond positively or negatively depending on how high your friendship is. Strangers don't take kindly to sims worrying about their money, but best friends will be always there for you.
But wait, some strangers would be friendly enough to hear your concerns, and some friends wouldn't care even if you talked about it all day.
That got me thinking: What if sims who express their worries to others could be a like/dislike? Like, if your sim is somebody who hides everything imperfect about themselves and only tells other sims about their successes. That would make sense for causing some cool relationship drama.
Screenshots of the UI:
Sorry for blurring it out, but I used some potentially copyrighted stuff as the placeholder icons.
And last but not least:
Will Chemistry still be the name of the mod?
- I feel like the massive increase in the scope I'm trying to tackle would make the name feel a bit weird. It's not just about how sims feel about each other romantically. It's more like, how sims behave and how they would react to you depending on the choices you make.
I dunno, I feel like this preview has gotten a bit rambly, lol. What are your ideas? Are my ideas good, or should they be changed?
EDIT:
In response to your feedback, the preferences will be available in CAS.
Another core goal of this mod that I forgot to mention, (and was kindly reminded of in the comments) was for sims to remember things that happened to them and be able to perform social interactions like comforting or criticizing.
An example of this would be if your sim's best friend made fun your sim too many times. Your sim would be able to remember this, and they could have a falling out for example. That kind of drama is what I want to introduce with the new version of the mod.
How dramatic will this mod be?
I originally decided for this mod to be super dramatic and if your sim cooked their son's breakfast wrong, the whole family would erupt in drama, but that wouldn't quite work now that I hear your feedback. Negative outcomes won't be chosen unless it would be obvious to the player, like the sim had an already negative relationship or it's happened multiple times before.
Will this mod respect my current game's relationships?
Yes. The old version of the mod randomized preferences, which lead to ingame premades and sims you created before you installed the mod to suddenly despise or feel nothing towards each other. I want the new version to respect what the player already had in mind by setting chemistry to high if they're already in a positive relationship, and to bad chemistry, if they have a negative relationship.
Comments
Pancake & Mizore
Oof. Yeah I remember that being one of the main issues people talked about with the old version of the mod. It was like, you had this perfect couple, then you installed the mod, and it just disintegrates into nothing. I'll look into setting up so that couples that have good relationships even before the mod was installed will have good chemistry.
CLSXNerdLady
I'm not sure if this is even possible, but is there a way to make the chemistry system respect pre-existing relationships? I ultimately removed this mod because a number of my sim couples (who had always been crazy about each other) had no chemistry between them. I also live the idea of adding friendships to the system, and I'd love to see something like a possibility of an instant connection for friends (you know how you meet someone and you just feel like you've known them your whole life?) I really like this mod and I can't wait to see the upcoming changes!
Pancake & Mizore
Oh right! I completely forgot about the compatibility with the CAS ui! I actually have it added right now, let me just take a screenshot. I think even if it's family, it depends on their existing relationship with the cook, maybe if they have existing sentiments or an already high chemistry, they would comfort them.
Lunani Bee
I really like the idea to make it comfortable and not romantic exclusively. Important for me would be that you could include the like and dislikes in the Maxis Likes/Dislike window in CAS. That would be just convenient. Another thing that is important to me is that it doesn't conflict with other mods that do so. I recently tested Helaene Emotional Socials and Preferences Plus mods. I really like both of them, so the idea with the interactions sounds promising to me. Although in your example, I think the family should all be kind to the person who cooked a terrible food. Like, they're family, right? Except if someone has a grunge on the cook, than it would made sense for them to be angry over the bad food. On top maybe a playful interaction would be cool? Maybe when cook and someone who ate the food are in playful mood, the eater could make a joke or tease about that time, when the cook made a terrible food, because he or she was tired. But maybe that's too complicated, I have no idea, what is possible and what not. But I am excited for what you two will come up in the future. <3
