What are Needs in Sims
Needs in the Sims 4 are basically what keep your Sims happy and healthy. They need their needs met to function properly and to reach their fullest potential. If your Sims’ needs slip and are left uncared for, the Sim will start to get negative moodlets, impacting their day-to-day mood and social interactions. Sims can become so upset from unmet needs that they will refuse to engage in social and activity interactions.
It’s pretty easy to see how your Sims are doing with their needs, as it is color-coded, so just remember Green means Good and Red means BAD, and of course, yellow and orange are in between. However, you will start seeing negative impacts after you get out of yellow.
The Six Core Needs
There are six core Needs in the Sims 4 for ‘normal’ or non-occult Sims. Occult Sims have different needs, and we will address those in other blogs. Normal Sims have the Needs of: Hunger, Energy, Bladder, Hygiene, Social, and Fun. And of course, traits play a big factor in this as well, for example, if you have a Neat Sim, they will get more upset and have more negative moodlets from low hygiene. Just as a Sim who is a Loner won’t be as impacted by social interactions as a Sim who is Outgoing.
Hunger
Your Sims’ Hunger should always be a priority, as Sims can die of starvation. It is quite simple for a Sim when it comes to hunger: eat or perish. Of course, there is time, but you’d be surprised how fast it can happen. The good news is that there are loads of things for your Sims to eat, and you can always get cheaper, small snacks or find fruit and vegetables to help as well.
Energy
We all need to sleep, and this includes your Sims. Your Sims can sleep or take a nap, whichever you wish for your Sims to do. Just know that if their meter reaches its lowest point, they will sleep wherever they are. This becomes problematic as you cannot do anything else until they regain some rest, and ain’t no one getting good rest like that.
Bladder
When you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go; this is also true in the Sims. If your Sims’ bladder bar goes all the way to the red, they will wet themselves. This causes embarrassment and a huge decline in hygiene and embarrassed moddlets.
Hygiene
Just like we do in IRL, your Sim has to keep clean. If a Sim has low Hygiene other Sims won’t want to be around them and will give other Sims a debuff if it gets bad enough. How embarrassing! Your Sim with low Hygiene will have negative moodlets as well, but it won’t outright kill them even though they may eventually die of embarrassment.
Social
Sims are social creatures, even if they have the Loner trait, but they all need to socialize; some Sims just more than others. If Sims do not get enough socialization, they will become sad. In my opinion, this is an easy one to fix, as there are generally plenty of Sims walking around in the world, and you always have your phone to text others or a computer to talk in chatrooms.
Fun
For a Sim to have the best life and to stay happy, they need to have some Fun. Fun for Sims depends on their traits, likes, and dislikes, but can be anywhere from watching TV to going Skiiing. I find the opportunity for video games in a Sims house is the easiest way to have fun for everyone, and as a bonus, another Sim can come chat with them as they are playing! Or better yet, get a gaming console for the TV, so multiple Sims can play video games together, chat, socialize, and have fun all in one place.
What Happens If You Don’t Fill Needs
So it is pretty Sim-ple, if your Sims go for a time without their Needs being fulfilled, they will perish. Of course, you have plenty of time, but Sims can die quite easily from their needs going unmet. Even if the Sims can’t die from poor hygiene, the negative moodlets stack up and increase the likelihood of them dying for other reasons.
Of course, if your autonomy settings are on, your Sims will try to fulfill their needs for themselves; they are not great at it, just ok. Now, if you have autonomy turned off, you will be babysitting your Sims and telling them to do each and every needed task for them to sustain life. This is what we expect tho from a life simulator, right?
5 Tips for Successful Needs Fulfillment
1 – Do Not Leave Your Sims Alone For Long Periods of Time
Even if you have Autonomy turned on, do not leave your Sims alone for hours, unless that is the challenge. They are just not suited to be without guidance for too long. They will set fires, forget the pool has ladders.
2 – Constantly Monitor Your Sims’ Needs
Pay attention to those Needs bars; they can sneakily go down super quick. You don’t want to be down more than one at a time if you can help it. The better you stay on task and keep them in the green or yellow, the better life your Sims will have, in theory.
3 – Make Sure Your Sims Sleep
This is the need that you need to make sure stays out of the red at all times. If your Sims’ sleep meter is drained, it is lights out, and they will fall asleep anywhere and everywhere with their booty in the air. Which then stops any and all progress on keeping up with the other Needs and everything else the Sim is doing.
4 – Set a Routine
Just like IRL, it is just easier to set a routine. Even if it is as simple as sleep, toilet, eat, shower, work, eat, tv. It helps, trust me. Of course, this gets more complicated the more Sims you add to the household.
5 – Unselected Sims Autonomy On
Do yourself a favor, unless you are playing a challenge, and turn the Unselected Sims Autonomy on. This way, when you are playing one Sim, the others will attempt to take care of themselves. Yes, I said attempt, it’s not foolproof, and they are Sims.
Final Thoughts
Keeping up with your Sims’ Needs can be quite a job, and the more Sims you have, the more complicated it gets. I always think it’s a good idea to use mods to increase my family size and have loads of kids and pets, and then I quickly regret my decision (even with cheating). I hope this article helps you understand the basics of Sims’ Needs, and if you need more help or want to learn how to cheat your Sim’s needs, keep reading below 😉
Sims 4 Needs Cheats
You didn’t think I’d let you struggle too long without cheats, did you? As someone who rarely plays without cheats, I have to share!
Cheating Sims’ Needs for PC and Mac
To use any cheatcode you must first turn on cheats by pressing at the same time CTRL + SHIFT + C on PC, and CMD + SHIFT + C on Mac. A textbox will come up, and you type testingcheats on or testingcheats true (both work). Once testing cheats are on, you can then either shift/cmd-click on the Sim or mailbox and fill all needs, or use cheat codes to fill specific ones in the table below.
If you are using the cheatcodes for specific needs or motives, as they are called in cheats, you will need that cheat textbox to turn it on and off, which is the same: CTRL + SHIFT + C or CMD + SHIFT + C.
Cheating Sims’ Needs for Console
To open the textbox on the console, press all four Shoulder Buttons on the Controller at the same time. For Playstation this is L1 + L2 + R1 + R2, Xbox, this is LB + LT + RB + RT, Nintendo Switch, this is L1 + R1 + L2 + R2. Once you get the textbox open, you then enter testingcheats true. Once testing cheats is turned on, you can enter the text cheat codes.
The Needs/Motives Cheats
| fillmotive motive_Hunger | Fills Hunger Need |
| fillmotive motive_Energy | Fills Energy Need |
| fillmotive motive_Bladder | Fills Bladder Need |
| fillmotive motive_Hygine | Fills Hygiene Need |
| fillmotive motive_Social | Fills Social Need |
| Ffillmotive motive_Fun | Fills Fun Need |
