This mod is a companion mod for Emotional Re-Balance, but it can be used as a standalone, and requires the Core Library.

It contains no overrides.

Overview

This mod applies a global adjustment to how emotions behave, reducing constant mood swings and making Sims more likely to remain in a consistent emotional state. Conflicting buffs no longer override each other as easily, resulting in more stable and readable behavior.

Negative emotions are slightly intensified, increasing overall difficulty and making emotional management more relevant to gameplay.

A polarity system is also introduced: prolonged exposure to a negative emotion can either reinforce and extend that state or eventually flip it into its positive counterpart. This creates a more dynamic emotional flow, where moods evolve over time instead of rapidly cycling between extremes.

The result is a more coherent and deliberate emotional system that prioritizes stability, consequence, and progression over randomness.

The polarity pairings are:

Angry ↔ Energized
Embarrassed ↔ Flirty
Scared ↔ Confident
Stressed ↔ Focused
Sad ↔ Playful
Bored ↔ Inspired

Core System

When a Sim has a buff from one emotion, buffs from its polar opposite decay faster.

Examples:

If a Sim is Inspired, Bored buffs are consumed more quickly.
If a Sim is Bored, Inspired buffs are consumed more quickly.

The effect is intentionally light and close to vanilla behavior, but it subtly changes gameplay flow by preventing long-term stacking of opposite emotions.

If a Sim remains in a negative emotion for an extended period, one of three outcomes may occur:

Nothing happens.
The emotion lingers, in this state, the opposite positive emotion cannot be added.
The emotion is channeled and flipped into its positive opposite.

Example: prolonged Stressed → metabolized → becomes Focused.

Age Influence

The probability of flipping or lingering is influenced by age:

Teens are biased toward lingering in negative states.
Elders are biased toward flipping to positive or resolving without lingering.

This is meant to loosely reflect developmental differences in emotional regulation.

Trait Influence

Flip and linger outcomes are also affected by personality traits and Parenthood emotional traits.

Baseline tendencies include:

Idealist: biased toward flipping to positive.
Erratic: biased toward lingering negative.
Hot-Headed: anger is strongly biased to linger rather than flip.

Additional trait-specific modifiers apply depending on the emotion involved.

Compatibility Note

The traits introduced by this mod are technically implemented using the Fear system.

As a result, any mod that disables fears globally or by category (including my own “Disable Fears” mod) will also disable these polarity-related traits.

If you are using fear-removal mods, this system will not function as intended.

Emotional Rebalance - Polarity