Relationships (MySims)

Relationships are one of the important things you should try to maintain in MySims. There are three levels of friendship, acquaintance, friend, and best friend. You may gain higher friendship by being nice to Sims and building them things for their home. Becoming a Sim's best friend may award you their outfit, special blueprint, or both! Sims that come at a higher Star Level take longer to reach a higher friendship.

Socializing

Friendship Gained — Friendship being gained from being nice.

Friendship Deducting — Friendship being deducted when being mean.

When you can socialize, you can do three actions. These are: "Talk", "Be nice", and "Be mean". When you choose talk, the character will speak to you and will come up with a dialogue that says what that Sim is saying. When you choose "Be nice", your Sim will do something nice and friendly. When you do "Be mean", your Sim will do something mean and nasty.

Mechanics

Socializing is quite complicated in MySims. The relationship level always lies between a character dependend minimal level and a maximum level. (Borders included.)

Early Sims don't require much affection, while lategame Sims are more sophisticated. To become best friends with someone, you have to reach the max relationship level. The maximum level for relationships can vary between 15 to 120. The minimum level is usually -900. This means, it's very hard to become enemies with one Sim. (Exception: Cassandra has a minimal relationship level of -200.)

Every Sim has a happiness value, different needs and a relationship level with the player.

The happier a Sim is, the more likely they are to engage in the player action "Be nice".

There are three ways to change the relationship value:

Being nice or being mean;
Giving or taking away furniture;
By completing a task.

Interactions

If the Sim is happy, you can be nice to them. If you are nice, the relationship level will be increased by 1. It also makes the Sim more happy. Depending on the Sim, they'll drop Essences like Happy. If you make them very happy, they sometimes drop character-specific Essences. (Exmaple: The Rosalyn P. Marshall drops Pencils when being repeatedly nice.)

You can always be mean. This decreases the relationship level by 1. It also decreases the happiness. If you make the Sim very unhappy, you're not able to cheer them up anymore by being nice. They will reject you. But you can increase their happiness again by completing tasks or giving them furniture as a gift.

Giving away furniture

If you gift furniture to a Sim, it's important to keep three things in mind:

The interests of the Sim;
the needs of the Sim;
the number of used Essences.

For using Essences the Sim loves, you'll get a bonus factor of 5. If they only like it, the bonus factor is 2. If they hate it, you get a bonus factor of -1.

Every item of furniture satisfies one need. The needs are:

Comfort
Cooking
Decoration
Entertainment
Hygiene
Sleeping
Storage
Tables

If you make furniture, that satisfies an uncared need, the relationship increase will be bigger. Using more Essences, that the Sim loves or likes, will also make the gift more interesting to the receiver.

[This section is purely hypothetical.] The most a piece of furniture can increase the relationship level is by 7.

Because every character has a "love interest" factor of 5 and a "like interest" factor of 2, these values will be added together. But only, if you use at last 5 Essences of the interest the Sim loves and at least 2 Essences of the interest the Sim likes.

If you satisfy an already satisfied need, you'll get a minus point (-1). But this minus point is not applied, if the resultion relationship level boost would be smaller than 0.

Maybe painting furniture with more Essences the Sim likes will increase the happiness more?

In conclusion, the biggest relationship boost you can get is 27: For completing a final task, that satisfies a need and uses Essences the Sim loves and likes.

Completing a task

If you complete a task, you increase the happiness of the Sim by 10. If it's a normal task, you increase the relationship level by 10. If it's the final task, you'll increase the relationship level by 20.

As soon as you put furniture, that was placed inside the Sim's home, back into your knapsack, the furniture item counts as removed.

If you remove furniture that was part of a completed task, you'll lose the relationship points of the task reward (10 or 20) forever.

Relationship stage

Acquaintance

The acquaintance status is the starting point of a relationship between you and a Sim. They will appreciate it if you are nice to them, and give them some stuff in their houses. This will raise their friendship status to you to friend. This is the lowest friendship level, so even though a Sim may dislike you alot, from you being mean to them or taking away their beloved furniture, the friendship level will remain at acquaintance, as there is no friendship level called "enemy". When being nice to them, they will appreciate the friendliness, but they will be a bit awkward, such as Geeky Sims shrugging when Being Nice to them at acquaintance level. If you do not get along with the Sim, they may get angry at you Being Nice to them.

Friend

The friend status is when you have pleased a Sim but not fully. This status may be reached by being nice numerous times, or by giving them a few pieces of furniture. If you are mean to a Sim, their status may drop back to acquaintance. Nothing really special happens when reaching this level of friendship, but the Sims will react more nicely to your "Be nice" actions with them. If you are nice to them often, you may reach up to best friend status and receive an award.

Best friend

The best friend status means you and a certain Sim are really close, and good friends. Reaching this level of friendship will award you with either an outfit, by Commercial Sims or a special blueprint, by Townie Sims. Uber Sims often award both. However, if you are mean at least once or take away something they like, the friendship level will drop back down to friend, but of course, the friendship level may be regained easily (if you didn't go too far in taking away the friendship). The blueprint/outfit you gained from being their best friend although will not be taken away from you if you do decide to lower some friendships.