Toddlers: Negative Sentiments Towards Parents For Little to No Reason
by snoll944Original Post
@CircuitD I feel your pain. I don't have Snowy Escape and though I only just started having trouble with sentiments, when things go wrong it's one of the most annoying things I've encountered in the game. I have noticed that there are thought bubbles that pop up right around the time the sentiment is gained. These aren't normal bubbles, they have an icon in the center that represents the sentiment and a small icon at the edge showing the avatar of the character to which the sentiment is related. It's really quick though, so I too would like more detail as to where the sentiments are coming from and some way to turn them off if a player prefers not to have them.
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While I'm still hoping the sentiments are adjusted, especially where toddlers are concerned, I may have accidentally stumbled upon a workaround if you're not averse to using cheats. I don't know what the policy for cheats in TS4 is, considering it is a stand alone game and we're not in competition like other kinds of games, so I hope I don't get into any trouble for this. However, if the game is buggy and toddlers are basically ruined and my only option is to use cheats, then I guess I'll take my chances.
**If you decide to try this make sure you save your game first: Go to the menu and select "Save as...". Name it something else like "My Game Test" for example. This way if the below doesn't work, then you won't lose any progress in your existing save.
1. Enable cheats
2. Shift+click on toddler with unwanted sentiment
3. Select "remove from family"
4. Find toddler in parent's relationship panel
(Note: You may want to click on toddler's avatar and "Open Sim Profile" to double-check negative sentiments are gone)
5. Click on toddler's avatar and "invite to hangout at current lot"
6. When toddler appears at lot, shift+click and select "add to family"
Details:
I had another toddler who got "hurt" when he didn't want to be potty trained. I played roughly two sim weeks having the dad interact positively with the toddler; reading, playing, tucking in, etc. Finally, I again got frustrated but this time I used the shift+click cheat on the toddler to "remove from family". This removed him from the household but not the game. I didn't know that would happen. I saw the toddler in the dad's relationship panel. The dad still had "adoring" and "growing closer from quality time" sentiments but the toddler no longer had the "hurt" sentiment. I was able to invite the toddler "to hang out at current lot". As soon as the toddler showed up, I used the shift+click cheat on the toddler to "add to family". The "hurt" sentiment is gone and the dad can interact with the toddler who no longer is sad or angry by his presence. I've only done this once, as I said purely by accident, so I don't know if it will work every time but hopefully it helps others who are suffering as I have been.
PS - One theory I have based on the above is perhaps the "hurt" sentiment is getting stuck somehow and removing the toddler from the household cleared it. Since the "hurt" sentiment is supposed to be short term, it should not last longer than a couple of sim days. Other short term sentiments like "smitten" and "closer from happy memories" come and go regularly and quickly, so should the "hurt" sentiment.
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@AshJen87 Good eyes on the changing background color! I need to remember to check that. Sorry my tip didn't help. It's ridiculous to have to separate a toddler from his mother because of a seemingly irrational sentiment that won't go away. I know it's just a game but I do get attached to my characters. It makes me sad and really just not want to play. So I wonder if maybe my toddler had his hurt sentiment for so long that he was ready to drop it anyway, then the complete separation pushed it all the way out. I think I'll do some testing and see what results I get. I too enjoy the sentiments feature in general and hope someone is able to fix it or give us some options. Thanks for the feedback and good luck!
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@AshJen87 Thanks for that update! It's terrible that you're having this much trouble with a save that clearly means more to you than others. I almost always base my main character on myself (though he's in much better shape than I am :-) I think you were right about keeping them separated. As you said, they are "reminded" of the "pain" when they are near each other, which likely prolongs the duration of the sentiment. I spent several hours playing a separate game save with my two dads and two new toddlers. I hope this isn't considered spamming because I just wanted to share my own findings. Anyway, I think this will be my last post on the matter because I'm giving up trying to understand how sentiments are assigned but at least I have a better idea of how long they last and how to mitigate that duration. It will be a long post but please bear with me as I think it may help give more savvy folks reading this some needed input.
1. It's obvious sentiments are tied to the positive / negative relationship points earned from interactions between sims but it is not clear if there is a certain number of relationship points required to generate a sentiment. The type of sentiment applied seems random and arbitrary as I was not able to replicate specific sentiments tied to specific interactions. While some interactions generated negative sentiments, the parents and toddlers had numerous interactions that did not generate any sentiments at all. It seemed the positive interactions between adult and toddler far outnumbered the negative ones, yet none of the positive interactions resulted in positive sentiments for the toddlers, only the adults. At any rate, none of the interactions undertaken by the parents in this game play should be considered truly negative, since their intent was focused on the toddlers' well being. Also, players are unable to control sims' reactions to every interaction (especially those from toddlers' random defiant behavior) and therefore should not be penalized by long-lasting negative sentiments that significantly impact the game.
2. It seems the sentiments linger while the sims are in the same household, even when the sim with a negative sentiment is separated from the offending sim. When a toddler with a festering grudge was removed from the household, this "long term" sentiment was gone after three sim days. When a toddler with a hurt sentiment remained in the house, this "short term" sentiment lingered for four days but was gone within the same day of removal from the house. To me, this indicates sentiments will likely linger twice as long if the sim remains in the household or longer if there is no separation at all.
3. While I have not yet experienced negative sentiments between adult, teen or child sims, my guess is that sentiments were not designed to mesh with toddlers' already erratic emotions and defiant behaviors. Since these negative sentiments are gained from negative reaction to non-violent interactions, there must be a way to either remove/disable sentiments or to shorten the duration when related to friendly interactions as well as normal parenting interactions; i.e. bathing, potty training, comforting, teaching, etc. Perhaps the duration could be kept as-is or extended when sentiments are related to "mean" interactions, such as yelling.
Details:
Neither of the dads developed any negative sentiments toward each other or toward either of the toddlers, during this game play, and at no time did either dad do anything "mean". The play was focused solely on the care and feeding of the toddlers; potty training, bathing, comforting, teaching etc. The household consisted of the following characters:
Dad: Jona is cheerful, self assured and a music lover
Dad: Andrew is childish, self assured and a music lover
Toddler: Jeremy is fussy
Toddler: Aaron is independent
Within the second sim day of play, Jeremy developed a "festering grudge" against Andrew related to potty training defiance. I removed him from the household the next sim day. After the third sim day of complete separation from the household, Jeremy no longer held any sentiments. I added him back to the household after the fourth sim day of separation (around six sim days of play time). Towards the end of that sixth sim day, Jeremy developed a "festering grudge" against Jona related to defiance to flash cards: teach basic needs. This is where I gave up and removed both toddlers (see below); random and frustrating.
Within the second sim day of play, Aaron developed a "hurt" sentiment against Jona related to calming down from being angry from defiance to potty training. I did not remove Aaron at this time but kept him separated from Jona. After three sim days of separation, the "hurt" sentiment background had changed to half gray, half red. Then it changed to all grey after four sim days of separation (around six sim days of play time). Since this coincided with Jeremy's second "festering grudge", I removed both of them from the household; roughly 10:30 am sim time. By 9:30 pm sim time the same sim day, Aaron's grey hurt sentiment was gone.
I will continue to monitor this thread for updates, hopeful that someone will be able to figure this out and offer some kind of life line. Thanks to everyone trying to help!
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Product: The Sims 4
Platform:PC
Which language are you playing the game in? English
How often does the bug occur? Every time (100%)
What is your current game version number? 1.68.156.1020
What expansions, game packs, and stuff packs do you have installed? All packs except Journey to Batuu
Steps: How can we find the bug ourselves? Play with a family that has at least one parent and one toddler.
What happens when the bug occurs? Toddler(s) gets a negative sentiment when it is defiant against parent and/or parent disciplines them.
What do you expect to see? Parent interacts with toddler and upsets them in some way, whether it be something as simple as trying to potty train them when the toddler doesn't want to, trying to soothe them after a nightmare when the toddler doesn't want it, and/or anything that will give the toddler a negative moodlet. The toddler will gain a negative sentiment against the parent they are upset with. The sentiment often starts as "hurt" and often turns into "deeply hurt" or "festering grudge" over time. The toddler will get a sad moodlet nearly every time they are around that parent, and likely due to them being in the same household, the negative sentiment will take a very long time to get rid of. Sometimes weeks. There does not seem to be an option to turn sentiments off.
Have you installed any customization with the game, e.g. Custom Content or Mods? Never used.
Did this issue appear after a specific patch or change you made to your system? Yes
Please describe the patch or change you made. Began occurring after most recent patch (November 2020) when sentiments were introduced to the base game.
I have only experienced this bug with toddlers but I have only been playing one family. I have seen on this and other forums that others have experienced this same issue as well as issues with all types of sims gaining negative sentiments for little to no reason in general. I enjoy sentiments otherwise and hope to have it expanded upon in the future to have even more types of sentiments because they do add depth to gameplay, but this bug has made it incredibly difficult to play with this family. It takes away my control over the storyline because now I have to try to come up with a reason why the toddlers are upset with their mom all the time and/or try to ignore it. I don't play with mods so I can't get rid of negative moodlets, which means my toddlers are sad half of the time. I like to have parents discipline their children, but I'm so afraid of gaining more negative sentiments that I can't anymore. I hope that even though there was a recent patch to the update that EA will do another one because this is one of the many bugs that I've experienced since the newest patch. I can deal with the slow loading screens and little random glitches but this has taken a lot away from the game for me. I shouldn't have to download a mod to fix it. At the very least there should be an option to turn sentiments off, but at that rate they might as well fix the negative sentiments as well.
