Enthusiasm gain mod - V2.00 (19 Oct 08)

[tunaisafish]

Enthusiasm Rate Changes (V2.00) for FreeTime

INSTRUCTIONS:
Place file(s) in your 'Downloads' directory.

DESCRIPTION:
  3 package files that alter how hobby enthusiasm works.

  File 1 contains an important fix so interests no longer screw up, a saner algorythm
  to control the rate your sim gains enthusiasm, and better matching interests to hobbies.
   
  For those that want an additional challenge, also install one or both of the optional
  files in addition to file 1.

  File 2 makes the One True Hobby more important than other hobbies.
  File 3 makes enthusiam harder to achieve.

TUNA's CHOICE:  I play with both these files installed.
  File 1 - tunaisafish_enthusiasmrate
  File 2 - tunaisafish_enthusiasmZharder

RTFM for more info.

Enjoy

Edit:
Removed outdated version.
New version is here.

[tunaisafish]

Update:

Added non-destructive interest gain for OTH.
Removed some options into the 'Zharder' file.

[Dopp]

"3/ The enthusiasm bar will take 50% longer to fill than just having main."

I'm sorry, I really don't understand this part. Also, Zharder isn't showing up anywhere.

[tunaisafish]

Sorry, I wrote the notes when the files had different names on my machine.
I changed them before uploading so people would not have the older one laying around.

By 'main' I meant tunaisafish_enthusiasmrate.package
By 'Zharder' I meant tunaisafish_enthusiasmZharder.package
I posted the zip earlier today, both are in there.

Put both package files in for the harder challenge,
otherwise just use the enthusiasmrate file alone.

[Dopp]

Baaa! 50% slower is a great help.

[tunaisafish]

Updated.  Interest gain wasn't working as expected. Now OK.

Baaa! 50% slower is a great help.

Not so sure I like it *that* slow myself.
I'm playing with both files installed, and now just tweaking the timings for a good balance.
Although 'good balance' is very subjective.

[EsotericPolarBear]

Seeing as how I like to leave my sims on auto-hobbinate when I'm working with other sims, slower is better because it makes them appear to be doing something useful instead of sitting around waiting for me to poke them.

[Dopp]

I like the 50% slower because I want to avoid unwanted hobby club membership from basic survival activities. Eating should not be accompanied by rapid fan swarm.

[EsotericPolarBear]

I like the 50% slower because I want to avoid unwanted hobby club membership from basic survival activities. Eating should not be accompanied by rapid fan swarm.

This..this is good!  What do you call it?

Food?  It's marvelous!  I must find more of it!

[tunaisafish]

v2 just posted.
snippet from the txt file...

FILE 1: tunaisafish_enthusiasmrate.package
This is the main file.  Install this to get...

 ANNOYANCES FIXED:
 1/ a) Interests are not increased by hobbie activity.  Except for the Sims' One-True-Hobbie.
    b) Only one relevant interest will still gain an increase when a sim in engaged in the OTH,
       instead of all relevant interests. (See table below)
    c) The interest is increased in a non-destructive way and will not decrease random other
       interests as the original EA code always did.
 2/ Illiminated interest-enthusiasm bleed.  To achieve the maximum gain rate, the primary
    interest is the one that matters.  Each hobby now has a unique primary interest.
    eg. With EA code, a sim with the Games hobby would also get maximum enthusiasm gain in
    Film&Lit and Music&Dance.
 3/ Sims no longer lose their bonus effects at higher enthusiasm levels.
    (Due to the way integer maths works, adding 50% to 1 still equals 1.)
 4/ Steadier gain rate of enthusiasm during long interactions.
 5/ Pets no longer given useless enthusiasm.

 FEATURES:
 1/ Modified conditions by which sims will recieve an increase in enthusiasm gain.
    'Interest' is now the dominant factor over the gain rate.
    Sims with a high interest (5+) will get a faster gain, (8+ interest faster still).
    If they are interested, then relevant high skill (5+ & 8+) will increase the rate too.
    The OTH still gets a 50% boost.
 2/ Relevant interests to hobbies changed. (See table below)
 3/ Enthusiasm gains on a hobby lot recieve a super bonus.
    An extra 2/3 added to the final rate after all other bonuses
    Yes, now there is a reason to go there.

[Nameless Horror]

I've been playing with all three hacks in my game now for a week and I really love it, but when I run the HCDU it says that tunaisafish_enthusiasmrate.package is conflicting with tunaisafish_enthusiasmZharder.package and tunaisafish_enthusiasmtuning.package. I have absolutely no idea how hacking works so I was wondering if this is going to cause problems or not. I redownloaded the updated file but it still shows a conflict.

[seelindarun]

HCDU may show a conflict because all 3 of these packages modify the same BHAVs.  That's by design, so that the modder can provide different variations of the same hack and make it somewhat easier to support all versions.  The naming convention should force the last package loaded by the game to overwrite earlier modifications made by the other packages. 

If you follow the installation instructions provided, you don't need to worry about the conflict reported by HCDU.

[tunaisafish]

Glad you like it Nameless Horror:
Yes, seelindram explains it perfectly.  Nothing to worry about.

If you look at the output from HCDU you'll see that the optional files only override 'Constants' in file 1.
This saves me updating all files with any changes I make to the code.
Less work for me, and reduces the chance of me introducing errors.

Another idea in the pipeline...
- Adding another threshold for the primary interest, below which *no* enthusiasm would be gained.
  The value that makes sense to me is 4 points.
  After all, if another sim dares to talk to them about a topic when they have interest below 4 they will get a relationship loss.
  At this stage, I'm thinking of a value of 2 for the main file, and override to 4 in zHarder.
  This will be bypassed for the OTH.

Sound good?

[Dopp]

It sounds (almost) Awesome.

[J. M. Pescado]

Personally, I think the solution is to alter the gain table. Right now, it is basically the same as the skill gain table: The number of ticks per 1% increases as you gain. This is not quite realistic, as in real life, it's easier to gain enthusiasm in something that you already have (and are doing) than it is to pick up something new and completely different (particularly if you aren't any good at it). A simple solution is to thus invert the gain table, so that gaining level 1 is harder than level 2 instead of vice versa.

[tunaisafish]

A lot of things are S-curve shaped.
A steep-shallow-steep.
If you consider that sims will have hardly any bonus's at the start, it's steeper than the table suggests.

It's not really real-life enthusiasm anyhow.  Being enthusiastic about something does not mean you are good at it.
If you consider the rewards that you get as you gain this 'enthusaism', they have more to do with hobby knowledge, or hobby skill.
Looking at it like this, then sim-interests are a more realistic property that resemble reallife enthusiasm.

[J. M. Pescado]

A lot of things are S-curve shaped.
A steep-shallow-steep.

An S-shaped curve could work also.

If you consider that sims will have hardly any bonus's at the start, it's steeper than the table suggests.

Enthusiasm isn't intrinsically self-feeding, though. All the "rate bonii" one can acquire as a result will only improve the gain rate to compensate for the (currently) diminishing gain rate. If one already HAS them (we implicitly assume this is the case, as it is trivial to do so), then they will not improve more.

It's not really real-life enthusiasm anyhow.  Being enthusiastic about something does not mean you are good at it.

This is true, but sucking at something tends to act as a damper to enthusiasm. There are plenty of people who are enthusiastically bad at things, but this, while not that rare, is also not the common case.

Basically, my view is that inverting the table or rewriting it to be S-shaped (more bothersome, since now you've injected new arbitrary values), will serve the primary purpose, that of preventing a sim from acquiring "trash" hobbies too easily.

[tunaisafish]

An S-shaped curve could work also.

Might knock one up for people to try.

Basically, my view is that inverting the table or rewriting it to be S-shaped (more bothersome, since now you've injected new arbitrary values), will serve the primary purpose, that of preventing a sim from acquiring "trash" hobbies too easily.

Not bothersome at all.  An S-shaped tuning file need only contain some constants I've already edited.
Arbritrary values?
This mod mainly tweaks the values that were already being used, and fixes the bugs and annoyances.
The hobbylot bonus is new, is that what you meant?

Play testing this so far seems to be holding up to my original ideas of what I wanted to achieve.
My sims have been able to concentrate on their OTH and hobbies of high interest while avoiding the trashy wants
of hobbies they apparently detest.
Was puzzled to why enthusiasm loss no longer happened on cue, but tracked that down to nohobbyspam
and the increases to the 'grace period' in that.  Even without bonus's, just maximizing some skills was driving the enthusiasm
bar high enough that they hit the point of no return that nohobbyspam implements.

The EA decay values are *very* slow for lower levels.  Mulling some ideas over for a saner decay as this is probably a good place to
get rid of the trash hobbies without making it harder to gain the hobby skills your sim is interested in.

I didn't expect the values I chose to be perfect first time, but even if this implementation sucked.
It's gotta suck less than the EAxis one

[J. M. Pescado]

Yeah, I changed the "grace period" so that it doesn't drop while your sim isn't alive and on the lot, and tweaked it so that lower-levels do not generate a grace period. Otherwise it becomes impossible to avoid being spammed at max level no matter how hard you hobbinate because you cannot stack up any buffer space. So I made it possible to stack buffer.

[tunaisafish]

Yeah, I changed the "grace period" so that it doesn't drop while your sim isn't alive and on the lot, and tweaked it so that lower-levels do not generate a grace period.

Ah it's a bug then.  The lower levels are still getting the EAxis grace period of 6.
Level 4 and above get level * 6.  24hrs to 60 hrs.

Was finding that after studying the cooking skill and reaching level 4, the grace period of 24 was stopping it from dropping just from eating.
This is the level where they start to get that want to win the cooking comp.  A wantslot that trash hobbies should not occupy for very long.

Otherwise it becomes impossible to avoid being spammed at max level no matter how hard you hobbinate because you cannot stack up any buffer space. So I made it possible to stack buffer.

Yeah agree about that level 10 decay of 20 hrs being far too short.
I Think the decay should be based on sims though.  An interested sim's enthusiasm bar should falll slower.

[J. M. Pescado]

Ah it's a bug then.  The lower levels are still getting the EAxis grace period of 6.
Level 4 and above get level * 6.  24hrs to 60 hrs.

Tweaked it a bit. Should now be (level-3)*6, plus the stacking for level 10, no resistance for sub-level-4 trash hobbies.

[tunaisafish]

Tweaked it a bit. Should now be (level-3)*6, plus the stacking for level 10, no resistance for sub-level-4 trash hobbies.

Yep, that worked better in play-testing.

There's a new version up here.

I've provided an alternate decay option that is based on interests+OTH.
So sub-level-4 will get some resistance for OTH, and low-interest hobbies won't qualify for the resistance.
Changed the constants too, which makes a big difference.
There's more in the RTFM

I've got the rest of my enthusiam hacks over at theSporum now too.
People using them can subscribe to the announcements thread to keep up-to-date with changes I make.

[Chlorap]

I really want this mod, but the link isn't working. I've googled and it seems to be the only mod of its kind. If you know of others like it, please link me.

I want my sims to gain enthusiasm more slowly. I'd like it best if every sim gained enthusiasm at 3/4th the speed of elders. So if an unmodded elder gains the 1st point in 60 minutes, then with my perfect personalized mod any sim would gain the 1st point in 80 minutes.

Is there any way to do this myself using simPE?

If not, does any of you have tunaisafish's mod that you could send me?

[shastakiss]

Different name but it seems close
If there are any DSstore files in there, disregard them - macintosh thing.

[Chlorap]

Thanks, snoopy, I'll definitely use this for now. Do you know if the files you sent me (v3.02) still make enthusiasm harder to gain in general? The text describes each file and it doesn't say anything about slowing enthusiasm gain.

It says to delete the old three files:
tunaisfish_enthusiasmrate.package
tunaisfish_enthusiasmZharder.package
tunaisfish_enthusiasmtuning.package

If the v3.02 doesn't slow enthusiasm gain, then these files are the ones I'm looking for. I have all EPs and SPs. They should work, right?