Making friends.. Is it tougher to do in TS4? It sure seems to be!

[Chris41279]

So I've been trying to figure out the "Secret Formula" to expeditious friend recruitment to no avail! What makes it even harder to do, is the "Get to know" option is like a needle in a hay stack. It doesn't show up that often for me. Currently, my SimSon is working on the "Social Butterfly" aspiration while his mother is working on the "Friend of the World" aspiration.

This is NOT an easy task. It sure seems much slower going than TS3. Maybe I'm hallucinating, but I'd like to hear your experiences and whether or not you've figured anything special out that works!

[Dellena]

It seems about the same to me.  If you're wanting to make multiple friends, go to the park and start a conversation with a sim with a lot of other sims nearby.  Keep clicking on sims and use the Friendly Introduction to add them to the conversation.  Then I usually just sit back and let them talk.  I might direct the conversation a few times with things like Get To Know to a new sim.  It still takes time, but that's normal.

[Chris41279]

I've tried the whole sitting back and letting the convo go its own path... except people just start walking off after only a few moments of chatting. Is that natural or am I doing something wrong?

[Playalot]

It gets easier/quicker when your sims charisma skill levels up. Here's a couple of things I've found:
A one-to-one conversation that you really work on will level up to friendship quicker than a group conversation.
Not having any down time between conversation options works quickly. Sort of conversation bombardment! Basically if you direct the conversation non-stop, your charisma builds up and then making friends becomes easier.
Using the 'ask to mentor' option when possible (usually at the gym) will build a friendship while you work out quite quickly.

[Playalot]

I've tried the whole sitting back and letting the convo go its own path... except people just start walking off after only a few moments of chatting. Is that natural or am I doing something wrong?

I don't give them a chance to walk away! I just keep queuing up conversation options non-stop!

[grimsoul]

And a little before they leave when you click on them there will be an option to ask them to hang out. Us this to get them to stay longer.

[jillz]

What makes it even harder to do, is the "Get to know" option is like a needle in a hay stack.

I've noticed that the selection of actions when you click on another Sim is random & based on their current Emotional State every time you click on them. In order to find the Get to Know action everytime, you need to go into "More" and then "Friendly" and then keep hitting "More" until you see it. It's always an option it's just buried down a few menus.

Alternatively, you can go into game options and change the Social Options wheel back to Sims 3 style, where you get a radial dial with the categories instead of the random actions you see first.

As an aside, this is how I ended up with 5 kids in the first generation of a game I'm playing. I decided that every time "Try for Baby" was available the first time I clicked my Sim's spouse, they were going to Try for Baby. And Sims are very fertile in this game when they Try for Baby. I think it only failed 2 or 3 times. And I had FOUR boys and only 1 girl. Second generation, 2 boys, no girls. I'm hoping I get some more girls in the 3rd generation!

[Namaya]

I actually find it very easy to make friends.. I don't really know what Im doing but whenever I start a conversation with a sim they always end up as friends in the end. Once you are friends, the sims drop by all the time so you cannot forget about them.

What I find waaay too easy in this game when it comes to socializing is Woohoo and try for baby. Especially when you have a flirty sim you can try for baby with a total stranger after flirting with him/her for less than one ingame hour.

[KhaineGB]

I find hitting pause and queuing up 6 actions seems to work quite well. When I get down to the last action in the list, I hit pause and add another 5.

That seems to work nicely. I also only do this one-on-one, which builds relationships nicely.

[Susinok]

Some friendships have been faster than others. Deep Conversations are your friend. That interaction does a lot. Try to make them laugh, too.

On the romance angle, I had two Sims raise their romance to about half during a conversation in the park. On their date they maxed it, but the friendship bar is still only about 30%. She moved in with him, friendship will come. I could have proposed but chose to hold off a bit on that one.

I have another Sim couple who can barely get their friendship but and the romance bar is at 10% and slides down a bit every day. They have similar traits, so it's not a clash of good vs evil or anything like that. They just aren't feeling it.

My third Sim couple progressed as you would expect. Friendship first, then romance afterwards.

The key to a good date is having your needs all the way green before heading out the door. Do the interactions the box tells you and the date will get a gold medal.

[Ellenser]

I wouldn't say that making friends is "tougher" in the Sims 4, though I do think it is a bit more time consuming and a longer process to build up a relationship. In previous games I could get the relationship bars up all the way or nearly all the way very quickly, whereas there seems to be a limit to that.

On the plus side, all you have to do to raise or maintain a relationship is invite the random people over every once in a while and get in a big group conversation. Or just say hi to them whenever they show up at your house. Very easy to do now, especially with the new multitasking functionality in the Sims 4.

[ManiSims]

I agree with everyone saying it's quite easy- if a bit more time consuming- to make friends. One thing I have been notcing in my game is that the relationships decay very quickly. Thankfully, friends are always showing up at your house and with multitaksing it's easy to get your Sims doing what you want them to while chatting with someone else at the same time.

[MissZoef]

In my experience it depends on what sim you are talking to. With some sims I became friends pretty easy, but with some others sims it doesn't seem to work at all. Sometimes they just keep getting embarresed or bored and the other sim pretty much doesn't like any interactions I do. Maybe it's a personality thing as well?

[Playalot]

Personality definitely has an impact. With one sim I had a group having a 'hilarious repartee' conversation, then I tried the same joke/chat options on another stranger sim and it said he was bored.  I became all indignant on my sims behalf! How dare you be bored talking to me, I'm amusing!

[saltpastillen]

Lol @Playalot - I have also found that the higher the relationship with another sim, the more likely they are to find you interesting, so getting over the initial getting to know you bump is the hardest, after that it is pretty much smooth sailing.