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Ideas to make the game (realistically) challenging
Wenzel
Posts: 75 Member
My apologies if a similar topic already exists. All the existing and past "challenges" (a la rags to riches) make searching for such a topic rather difficult.
As I find it boring just to play out stories that I've made up, and sims are devoid of any inner character, I was wondering about ways to add some challenge to the game. I know that some people like to set themselves very unrealistic/funny goals. But I'd rather prefer to keep the game a bit more realistic and "serious". So here are a few thoughts. Let me know what you think or add your own ideas/suggestions!
As you can see, the ways that these suggestions increase the challenge is either by reducing the time available to a sim (he can't accomplish all his goals in life before he dies; he has to make decisions) or his money.
As I find it boring just to play out stories that I've made up, and sims are devoid of any inner character, I was wondering about ways to add some challenge to the game. I know that some people like to set themselves very unrealistic/funny goals. But I'd rather prefer to keep the game a bit more realistic and "serious". So here are a few thoughts. Let me know what you think or add your own ideas/suggestions!
- keep "normal" aging or even choose "fast" aging
- increase the time it takes to increase skills (via MCC)
- increase the cost for living (increase bills via MCC)
- don't manually put dishes into the sink
- don't buy reward traits/potions
- when you sell/get rid of objects, reduce your money accordingly [use a cheat to subtract funds]. Right now, the game gives you back 80% of the sold object's original price, which is pretty insane.
- when splitting households, get rid of the free extra 20.000 Simoleons that you get for some magical reason [use a cheat to subtract funds]
- keep the budgets of sims who live on the same lot but are not family seperate (this requires you to take manual notes...)
- Restrict social interactions to realistic durations. Don't just chat with someone for 3 hours. Don't spam interactions until you reach the desired outcome; 2-3 interactions are enough for an ordinary chatting situation. Also: allow the target sim to do one interaction of his own before you trigger another social interaction. Relationships should build up more slowly and the outcome of a single social interaction should matter more.
- Buying clothes: Either go to a retail store, where buying clothes will cost actual money, or pay for any new outfit you create and use. [use a cheat to subtract funds]
- Use a mod that disables all the positive moodles that you get from environment objects. A mod I can suggest in general is this one: https://roburky.itch.io/sims4-meaningful-stories
As you can see, the ways that these suggestions increase the challenge is either by reducing the time available to a sim (he can't accomplish all his goals in life before he dies; he has to make decisions) or his money.
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Comments
Thanks a lot! I will definitively give it a try!
My best advice when someone gets bored with their game, is to walk away and try something else for a while. I will never see the point of trying to force a game to entertain when it clearly cannot. I know of someone who has played the same game day in and day out for years, and they are always grumpy and feeling dissatisfied because of it. Why waste precious time with this self-torture?
When it happens to myself, I have no qualms leaving The Sims dormant for months even, while I rotate between a handful of other games that I usually come to feel the same about. Then all of a sudden, I feel Sims-inspired anew and return to either an old exsisting household or create something new.
When I feel my frustrations with the game take over, it's time to look for something else. Afterall, it's time I won't get back. Life is too short to spend it willingly on something that makes me unhappy.
Personally, I never play the challenges out there created by others. One surefire way to get me fed up with something is to impose rules on me. I have commitment issues
So, I suppose you actually mean 'entertaining' when you say challenging. Because it's all in the entertainment, right?
A smile is the prettiest thing you can wear
Time enjoyed is never time wasted
I never start playing the game as long as I find it boring! So actually, these are my tips to make the game interesting in the first place.
If you wonder why I even bought the game, it's because of the build mode, which is pretty good.
Well no. The topic was more specific. Sure, some people are entertained by doing challenges, other people like their sims to act out the narrations they've come up with, other people prefer to build. All of these are valid ways to enjoy and play the game. This topic, however is more specific in that asks for suggestion to make the game more challenging (--> the game should offer some form of achievement, resistance; it should not just do whatever you like it to do) but in serious/realistic (not funny as in "have 30 children with one sim") way.
Having autonomy on leaves me with plenty resistance from all my Sims. Especially in Sulani - no Sim is taking my directions there seriously and will drop it from their queue repeatedly.
I often struggle to making things work as they were intended, so I'm not really looking for ways to make it more challenging.
But, having said that, getting Mua Pel'am cleaned up completely and exploring the beach cave to restore the wall painting is something that takes time at least, offering a challenge of patience and consistent effort on the player's part. I like that this isn't just easily done overnight.
Sticking through the last levels of careers can also be challenging in terms of mustering patience. Is patience a boring challenge? For some, probably. But it is a life simulator in the cute category, so I'm not sure how much challenge it is meant to contain.
Achievements are more natural in other types of games.
There is an achievement list in Sims 4, @Wenzel - have you checked that and gotten everything on it?
A smile is the prettiest thing you can wear
Time enjoyed is never time wasted
Try having your sim not sleep on the bed or any comfort objects. For them to keep their energy up, have them drink "Sleep Replacement" potion from Reward Store. Do this as much as you can without your sim sleeping on the bed, couch, chair or the floor. To score yourself, count the number of Sleep Replacement potion you have consumed.
Let's call this the Don't Sleep Challenge.
Hm, that's an interesting idea. Even though I don't like challenges, I could imagine this to be interesting in that it would encourage you to play your sim's moods a bit more (i.e. play out his whims to get satisfaction points to buy that sleeping potion). The problem being 1) the price of sleeping potions (can you get so much satisfaction during a single day?), 2) some whims are just weird and 3) you can just click away whims until you get a whim that suits you.
I have to agree maybe I've not discovered all the playstyles that the game offers yet. Also, I'm motly playing very small households (so that there is not that much autonomy).
I'm not the achievement type of guy. I don't like achievements in games. Most of the time they feel very much "put-on". I can't tell exactly what I'm expecting from the sims. I just wished that making my sims live a happy life would be more difficult. And that they would experience the world's harshness more often. Not in that "cute" way (oh no, the cake I made has bad quality!). I also want them to suffer! I want them to go through long term emotional ups and downs, I also want them to experience social rejection from time to time! All that happiness feels empty and cheap if there is no suffering on the flipside!
I mean if we're going for IRL realistic life.
Afaik, sims don't have preferences for particular jobs? I'd love if they had those.
I'd have to actively try NOT to get promoted. ^^ Part of my problem is that getting promotions is quite easy.
That's the point, I was making a social commentary based joke
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