I did (not) cheat

EnkiSchmidt · February 14

We've had polls about if and under what circumstances we use cheats, this thread is more for sharing stories and pictures.

Recently my sims climed up Mt. Komorebi with the express intent to explore the caves. Well, the first one was closed, what wouldn't have fot my narrative, so I shift-clicked and opened it with a cheat. But before I allowed myself to do so, I had to come up with a justification why my sims would be able to do so. (It's how I approach all cheats, if I can explain why it would make sense in-game, the cheat is allowed.)

In this case they used the fireworks they had brought as distress signals as explosives:

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They could also have used their lightsabers/machetes, but that would have exposed them to sharp ice shards.

What was your most outrageous justification for using a cheat?

Lenny_Ogg · February 14

I really tried without cheating in the beginning of The Sims 4 over 9 years ago, but I'm a builder and not being able to let my Sims live in the houses I've built for them was just not working for me.
Now I'm mainly telling stories and follow my own gameplay and to achieve this, I cheat. For me, this game would not work without cheats.
I don't worry about cheating in The Sims because I hurt no one by doing it. Multiplayer Games are different.

For example the teleport cheat. It just takes too long to let them walk around big lots and sometimes my rooms don't even have doors,
like 'The Veil' our goth club. We just had too much deco to spread, no place for a door hahaha
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I also use the money cheat, not to make my Sims rich. They are actually always broke ^^' Just to build houses for them.

And I cheat aspirations rewards, like the Master Chef, so that the food doesn't spoil.
Kiyoshi was so happy with his cheese cellar

haneul · February 14

I use bb.moveobjects for building and resetSim if a Sim gets bugged or stuck.

I don't really cheat. Sims 4 is easy and offers a lot of cheaty stuff as part of normal gameplay (Trendi, the reward/aspiration potions and traits, etc.).

EnkiSchmidt · February 14

@haneul You're right, it's an easy game. For the player, less so for my sims (who are currently on the run from the Strangerville police and in this situation have very limited options only.)

@Lenny_Ogg I feel less bad for using freerealestate, because often the lots my sims live at don't belong to them. Like yours at Belgrave, they only lived there and to be allowed to do so had to abide by restrictive rules.

Atreya33 · February 15

@EnkiSchmidt nice idea about the ice cave. I had no idea we could open it with shift clicking. This might be useful one day. I will probably excuse it by being magical because chances are very high to have an occult in what ever household I play.

My main excuse for using cheats: to set circumstances to fit with the story of the watcher (or me). I don't cheat skills, money , aspiration points,...

Cheats I don't feel guilty about :
- freerealestate: for some sims it just feels as if they should start in a decent house. The bills will be higher so there is a bit more pressure to start earning money without cheats.
- set pregnancy for twins (through mccc) sometimes I have a story in mind that involves twins
- unlock outfits and build/buy. I want access to all assets in the game. If it exists my sims should be able to buy it or wear it. Only exception is the clothing from nifty knitting or craftable furniture. If there is gameplay involved in making them, then sims have to make them. But a bed that's locked because I haven't played the painting career in a certain save? No not for me.

and of course build cheats but I don't consider them cheats because they don't change anything in gameplay. (unless making it harder because some objects are inaccessible)

JAL · February 15

I also don't mind the freerealestate cheat, I use it all the time, especially for NPC sims or when starting a story. Lately I used it to symbolise a loan, and have written down the value of the house, so that they need to pay it back to the bank.
Unlock outfits or bb - that's just my call to make.
university.finish_term: I regularly use cheats to get someone through university, never when I actively play them, but NPCs or when I play rotationally since they won't pass university without it on their own. My justification is that the sim in question would go to their classes, do their tasks, on their own. If it's a sloppy or lazy sim I might let them fail instead.
When playing rotationally, I usually cheat the sims needs to be what would be realistic at the time I enter the house when switching households (so if in the morning, they are hungry but rested, in the evening they are tired but have eaten for example...)

In general, I use the cheats I want when setting up a sim and their home, because I like a starting point for the story. That might include giving or taking away money, fixing their houses the way I want them to be and so on.

When playing I don't use much cheat during gameplay, not when a sim is the active sim. However, I do use a lot of mods to make the game behave the way I want it to, and I use the control any sim mod a lot, so that I can control the sims my active sim are interacting with. Without it, parties and weddings are unplayable in my opinion.

haneul · February 15

EnkiSchmidt wrote: »

@haneul You're right, it's an easy game. For the player, less so for my sims (who are currently on the run from the Strangerville police and in this situation have very limited options only.)

I like how you cheat. The way you play sounds fun.

I just use a lot of mods and interpret what happens in-game in ways that suit my storytelling purposes.

ChampandGirlie · February 15

I also use the Testing cheats whenever I need them to reset a sim or to move a household that I am not playing or if I am not doing rags-to-riches. I edit sims in CAS whenever I want and I don't really think of that as cheating, more like editing during gameplay. I have used cheats for concepts that I add to the game. For example, I set up this private boarding school and then I gave it an endowment with money cheats. That is realistic but uses cheats to set it up. The attendees pay school fees except that there are scholarships. I have no problem with something like adding my own scholarships on top of the ones already in the game. That is just an example of how I use cheats.

If I do give them more money, it is more like Kaching than Motherlode for most houses. I have used Kaching if I think an excessive amount of objects have broken in the house which is like an insurance payout. The cheats are there to set up the game how you want.

SweetieWright_84 · February 15

I use the free real estate cheat to move my sims into a house I built specifically for them. Usually at the start of a new household. From then on, they have to ear their money and houses.

I also use career and skills cheats for households that should already be established. It makes sense to me that an adult couple with kids (teen and under) should have gained some parenting skills, as well as skills for their careers.

I'm more likely to have my single young adult sims struggle a bit more than established families. Not to say established families don't struggle, but it seems like they'd be a little more likely to bounce back, so to speak.

JAL · February 15

@SweetieWright_84 I completely forgot skill cheats! I definitely use them with new family set ups, or if my sim marries an NPC. It doesn't make sense an adult or elder would be entirely without skills so I give them skills to match their history, occupation, family history and personality.

NRowe · February 15

Just remembered a rather unique situation of mine.
My Sim (Natasha, these days going by Sasha) died unexpectedly. I decided to go the 'resurrect her in the game' route.

Wishing well (Plan A) only gave her an angelfish (an ingredient of ambrosia). Therefore I decided to send them to the magic realm (them being my Sim couple), which they had access to though story and purchase a death flower from the vendor. Potion of youth is, of course, a rewards store item. Well I didn't want to have to cheat my Sims top levels in cooking and gourmet cooking so I cheated to move in a new Sim whom I gave the requisite skill. Sabrina is now a good friend of the family. (She didn't live with them...)

EnkiSchmidt · February 15

@NRowe I really like your solution with asking Sabrina to cook. That way the story goal was achieved, but the sims had no unfair longterm advantage. And now they have a new contact in the world, it's perfect, actually, because it happened so organically.

Another thing that came to mind is that I sometimes "cheat" with screenshots. Sometimes the order things happened in gameplay isn't ideal, so I change the filenames to sort them differently. Like merging two mountain expeditions to make them look like a single one. (Expedition A had two sims in and one of this duo was also part of Expedition B, so it fit. I only had to delete a couple where the weather didn't fit.)
I mean, when I look back at my pictures months/years later, I want to be entertained.

JAL · February 15

@EnkiSchmidt That I wouldn't even call cheating, just creative story telling. Sometimes when I play a story I might forget to take a screenshot or the one I took is back. Then I can reenact that event to get the right screenshot. But then I consider story telling one aspect, and the game to be another.

Simmingal · February 15

I cheat as long as it makes my gameplay more fun to have done it

simultaneously theres no really point of playing if I am just inputting codes for everything

Mstybl95 · February 16

Not me owning snowy escape since day 1 and not knowing there are caves to explore.

I cheat to make the game harder because sims 4 took the game out of the simulation and just left the cheats. So I have to go out of my way to reimplement an actual game. If that makes sense.

Build Cheats:

Building cheats are an absolute must! Not only do I create intricate homes and community lots, but I also redecorate outside of the lots to have functional objects for everyone to use (with a mod called TOOL). It makes the world so much more lively.

Here are some pics of my useable off lot objects in Willow Creek:

You can see that one of my sims is interacting with the chicken coop off lot. I added swans and a boat to the river. I also added more fish and alligators. Everything you see off lot is interactable. I make sure of it because I play with it all.

They're using an off lot hot tub and the camera on the tripod behind them on one side of the fence lets them take pics on the other side.

Grilling and filling the bird feeder

Using the in ground barbeque pit

Here is Henford on Bagley and you can see my animals live off lot and are fully interactable.

As you can see, there's a person I'm not playing interacting with one of the cows

This is a different Willow Creek neighborhood where I added more off lot stuff.

Using off lot toddler slide

Here's the apartment in the eco lifestyle world where I put things outside the apartment and they're still usable.

So anyway, that's just the build cheats. I can't fathom playing this game without that.

Gameplay cheats:

The way I cheat is mostly with mods, but my main goal is always to make it a game with real consequences rather than just making it super easy and posing my sims. I prefer to let things happen organically and then accept the fate. The main thing I use is the club system. That way only certain sims have access to certain areas and it makes my world feel more organic because the clubs show up (actually might be broken after For Rent) - it used to anyway. But it's still super easy to get sims together, bonding, and skilling. I create community lots so they have places to work and skill and I remove anything that's not a basic skill from their homes. It forces me to get out and go somewhere. I also have mods that allow live in businesses and I've been using those mods along with for rent apartments to create huge communities that look like cities. I love it.

And beyond that, I don't think using cheats for whatever is hurting anyone. It's your game, do what you will. This is the best creative outlet for lots of us, if you can imagine it and implement it, then do it!

EnkiSchmidt · February 16

@Mstybl95 If it makes you feel any better, day one owner of Snowy Escape here, too, and I only ever knew about the first cave, the one from the screenshots. Only this year did my sims (and I) find the second cave, in the summit area. I just never took them around that paticular corner.

Your improved neighborhoods look great and so alive

Wish I had the patience to spend more time in build mode.

Mstybl95 · February 16

@EnkiSchmidt - the funniest part is that I actually take my sims skiing there all the time. I play the heck out of that world and I had zero idea there were caves...I saw that picture and was like...where is that? LOL apparently I don't actually explore and click around.

I was just there last night. Now I gotta go look for these caves.

JustMeAlb · February 16

A lot less hesitant to use bb.moveobjects instead of trying to figure out why an awning made a whole chunk of the build disappear, etc.

I'm more and more often using aspirations.complete_current_milestone when something like writing a song doesn't get counted because I forgot to have that aspiration selected at the time. Sometimes I'll use that cheat because the sim had already done that a million times before the aspiration milestone came up.

Often I use the money cheat to take away funds because the game just seems to throw Simoleans at our sims and I want it a bit harder to earn money. And who in the heck would buy fish that had been left forgotten in the inventory for who knows how long?

EnkiSchmidt · February 16

@JustMeAlb Or paintings from a no-name sim with no connections whatsoever. Getting to know the correct sims is an important step for my would-be artists and entrepreneurs.

@Mstybl95 Oh, the caves are not down there. You find them by doing the mountain hike event. The first cave you will see after climbing the third steep wall, the second in the area after that. Make sure your sims have a climbing skill of 5 or higher and don't forget to buy climbing gear at the computer!

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I did (not) cheat

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