Relationship Satisfaction - Waffle Explains It All (Patreon)

RELATIONSHIP DROPS ARE A BUG, THEY ARE UNRELATED TO SATISFACTION. 

This issue is NOT RELATED to Lovestruck. It is ENTIRELY IRRELEVANT to Lovestruck. It has NOTHING TO DO with Lovestruck. It is NOT RELATED to Relationship Satisfaction. PLEASE stop spreading misinformation about how the game works because you don't understand something and have not made any attempts to. No, "Your entire relationship status implodes and disappears" is not an element of the relationship satisfaction system.

The first thing you need to know about Relationship Satisfaction is that if your Sims completely ignore each other it takes ten straight days to go from maxed out to minimum satisfaction. So if your Sims are having a hard time with this, you're trying to rub two incompatible sims together. Relationship Satisfaction drops over more than a week's time, if yours is dropping faster your sims aren't compatible. That's not a bug. It's called gameplay. It is a challenge you can overcome or move on from. Sometimes people aren't compatible. Next time, don't buy the pack that makes people sometimes romantically incompatible if you don't want that to happen.

Like most things, Relationship Satisfaction is basically a hidden mood. In this case it's more like a hidden...uh, relationship. It's treated the same as friendship and romance as its own relationship meter, except the difference is it can decay for one sim while not decaying for the other, and vice versa.

How does Relationship Satisfaction "work"?

• Relationship Satisfaction is a -75 to 75 value stat, which is not the same as Friendship and Romance (or any motives), which are all -100 to 100

• When Sims enter a relationship it's set to 25 by default on sims with the Romantic or Lovebug traits.

• When Sims enter a relationship it's set to -25 by default on sims with the Romantically Reserved or Noncommittal traits.

• The Satisfaction Perameters are as follows:

  • Very Unsatisfied: -75 to -60

  • Unsatisfied: -60 to -30

  • Neutral: -30 to 30

  • Satisfied: 30-60

  • Very Satisfied: 60-75

• From 75 to -75, it takes 10.7 days. This does technically mean that from 75 to Very Unsatisfied takes less time, but only 1 less. From Max to Very Unsatisfied (75 to -60) is 9.63 days.

• BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE: When entering any given Satisfaction type, the decay rate is altered. When a sim is VERY SATISFIED, the decay rate changes dramatically depending on the OTHER Sim's satisfaction. A Very Satisfied sim will lose satisfaction SLOWER if their partner is also Very Satisfied, and a faster the lower their partner's satisfaction is. I will not go into full detail on this as it's loads of numbers and combinations.
  

How do I control Relationship Satisfaction?

• Satisfaction Decay can be altered in several ways:

  • Sims in the Romantic Consultant career can share satisfaction Tips, which can succeed or fail, giving a buff that either decreases decay and increases gain, or does the opposite.

  • Sims with the Fear of Being Alone gain satisfaction slower and lose it much faster when performing interactions- in fact, only 6 failed interactions will lower it completely. In this case it's actually safest for them to not communicate romantically at all until they overcome the fear!

  • Satisfaction decays faster for Lovebugs

  • Satisfaction decays .0007x speed for sims with the Polyamorous "Affection Afficionado" reward trait (!!!!!!)

  • Satisfaction decays slower for Romantically Reserved Sims and Romantic Sages

But how do Sims actually Gain or Lose satisfaction when interacting?

Relationship Satisfaction is Unidirectional, which means that what happens for one sim may not happen for the other. If a Sim likes physical affection, and the other does not, and the Sims do something physically affectionate, it will increase for the Sim who likes this, and decrease for the Sim who doesn't. This applies to all romance preferences. Sims CAN be incompatible romantically to a degree, as long as they exhibit balance in their relationship.

If one Sim ONLY cares about Woohoo and the other Sim ONLY cares about affection, they're gonna have some trouble. But say they both meet in the middle ground on gifts. They can give each other gifts to circumvent the losses from their incompatible interactions. The affectionate Sim may be willing to spend time woohooing the other, and the other can make up for them not being very interested in it by giving them gifts in return. Sound a bit weird? I mean, yeah. It is weird. That's very transactional- but the system allows you to tell those kinds of stories and have it actually mean something.

The gritty details:

• There are 3 possible outcomes for an interaction- Small, Medium, or Large relationship satisfaction change (positive or negative, so 6 total)

• Sims get a Gain if they like the interaction type, or a Loss if they dislike it.

• If Sims don't have a preference at all, they get a gain. The preference simply multiplies the gain! What this means is that if two Sims don't engage with romantic preferences at all, romantic interactions will ALWAYS increase their satisfaction.

• Losses may happen with failed interactions. I'm having trouble reading the tuning to be sure, but I believe a loss happens if the interaction fails regardless of preferences. So romance will lower Satisfaction if one of the Sims is not in the mood and the interactions keep failing. A lot of players burst through social situations on speed 3 and miss that interactions can fail. I have no idea how people don't know this is a thing, but they don't. Pay attention!

• These gains/losses are also altered based on which level of satisfaction each Sim has, as mentioned before. So it won't always be the same.

• What this means is that preference dislikes will cause drastically harder satisfaction gameplay than preference likes, which will only make it smoother. If you want the entire system easier don't put dislikes on your Sims. if you want it more complicated, give them a variety of Likes/Dislikes and then figure out how to balance the Sims' lives to make them work- and if you can't, congrats! You made incompatible Sims.

• Relationship Counseling offers buffs that can increase or decrease the gains or losses or both. You can figure out what any given Buff is doing by the name/description, in most cases.

• Sometimes you'll get romantic phone calls from a partner that offer a pleasant surprise, or are desperate to get back together, or a few other scenarios. These dramatically increase or decrease satisfaction depending on the call and your answer.

• Going on dates doesn't directly contribute to satisfaction, the interactions performed on them do.

And...honestly, that's about it!

This is an INCREDIBLY rich and complex system, but at the end of the day it's also very simple.

Interactions your Sim prefers increase satisfaction. Interactions they have no thoughts about increase satisfaction. Interactions they don't like decrease satisfaction. Interactions going wrong decreases satisfaction. Sims don't share satisfaction level and have their own feelings on it. Satisfaction level determines how strong successes and failures are when it comes to further satisfaction changes.

Just have your Sims be romantic in a way that makes sense for them. It's not that hard! You can get back up to max in an afternoon, especially if your Sims share a preference or two. From there, even if they don't romantically interact, you have 9.6 days before they're very unsatisfied. A peck on the cheek every morning and a goose every time they come back from work is frankly enough to keep them going.

(And if they don't work together, they don't work! Sometimes people don't work! Take the lesson and apply it! Break those bastards up! Dump your republican boyfriend! Leave your emotionally dismissive girlfriend! Just do it!)

And if you find Relationship Satisfaction too easy, I play with my own mod to make it harder, and have since day 1. And guess what? My Sims are fine!

Want to put your Sims in a situation where their satisfaction can change faster- for better or worse? Try my new mod, which adds a modifier to rate of change on Create-A-Date dates.

NOTE TO CONTENT CREATORS: I write these posts on my own time, using my own research into mechanics, using my own ability to understand tuning and navigate through it to find what it does, where, and how. If you use this information for any purposes, such as making videos about game mechanics, please, please, please, credit me and link to these posts as the source. I know for a fact content already exists where I am the source and not credited.

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