Harder finances hack?

[J. M. Pescado]

Now, the reason I like fun-drain is it lets my sims engage in fun social activities without being plauged by ADHD.

What, and ruin my future OFB business vending ritalin?

[Grater]

Well, maybe you could diversify into depressants, to cure my sims of their persistant happiness.

[maxon]

There's a banking computer by Monique over at MTS2 that lets you get mortgages for your sims (adds to the bills), the sims can invest money and donate to charity.  Combined with JMP's no 20KHandout hack - I find I can keep the sim poorer for longer.

[kasumiarmstrong]

It does get boring being able to afford everything.  I normally modify careers so that the payroll doesn't doesn't help.  And I add more "stress" to the jobs in hopes that the sim'll need a good fix when they come home.  I don't know, I'm retarded.    That and Inge's mortgage shrub and Monique's computer really hurts them. Poor things.

[Gwill]

No20khandout is my all time favourite hack.
There is too much money in the game, and all of it belongs to playable sims.  Maybe I should start transfering money to random townies so my sims can occationally get the chance to marry a rich sim without having to first move them into the househod and out again with a share of the funds (or even worse, "motherlode").

[Paperbladder]

I was utterly disappointed on how easy University was, even with a CAS moron.  Also, the rest of the game was even easier.  Anyone with an Art Major could be level 9 in the Slacker Career.  That means a lot of time at home and a lot of money.  Not to mention the LTW system that just makes the game really boring.  I'm also surprised that people still need money cheats at all in this game.

I really like Pescado's hacks that actually put sims at a disadvantage such as the no20Khandouts.  It's awesome to have sims that are poverty-stricken and not being able to have proper bathrooms.  Along with his new hack allowing sims to not get promotions as easy, the game might actually be a challenge.

[Gus Smedstad]

Fun drain is nothing when you have the Sport of Kings.

Every time you mention that I think of Frungy.

I don't agree that expansion can't help but make the core game easier.  For example, if downtown Dates consumed real time instead of producing a time-warp that takes place instantly, they would be pretty much like any other aspiration raising social activity.  New objects don't have to be better, just different.

I'd be happy enough with the rewards from college being just the extra Want boxes.  Having 6 Wants instead of 4 doesn't make the game significantly easier, but it certainly makes it more fun.  Oh, sure, there are more potential rewards, but most Wants are crap.  The extra Wants and the 2-lock rule lets you pursue two long-term goals instead of just one.  The Family Sims remembering they want their present pregnancy while pursuing the 10-kids Want comes to mind.

I'll chime in and say I like the no20K handout as well.

 - Gus

[tunaisafish]

I'll chime in and say I like the no20K handout as well.

Yep, me too, together with the 'money order'.

The biggest thing that bugs me with the finances is just how cheap the houses are, relative to other stuff.
Maybe this is a national thing?  In the UK we don't build houses with partition walls, that sort of stuff is reserved for offices, and even then the price would be much higher when you add the labour cost.

Perhaps raising the price of walls would be a simple solution, with Inge's mortgage shrubs to get your sims housed initially.
Not many ppl I know own their houses outright.  We all live on credit nowdays  

[TheCheat]

I don't agree that expansion can't help but make the core game easier.  For example, if downtown Dates consumed real time instead of producing a time-warp that takes place instantly, they would be pretty much like any other aspiration raising social activity.  New objects don't have to be better, just different.

It would be easy to fix this (without having 2-4 hours suddenly disappear for any Sims still at home). After you send your Sim home from a community lot (either a date or just on a lot), the game could remember how much time that Sim spent there. When you return to the home lot and that amount of time has passed, then that Sim would return home. In the meantime, you could still make sure the other Sims in the household were passing time like normal while the Sim that went to a comm. lot is still "at" the lot.

[anyeone]

Every time you mention that I think of Frungy.

*squees* at random Zoq-Fot-Pik reference

[flowerchile]

Now, the reason I like fun-drain is it lets my sims engage in fun social activities without being plauged by ADHD.

What, and ruin my future OFB business vending ritalin?

Sims needing ritalin, now that would make for an interesting challenge..Count me in

[skandelouslala]

I don't agree that expansion can't help but make the core game easier.  For example, if downtown Dates consumed real time instead of producing a time-warp that takes place instantly, they would be pretty much like any other aspiration raising social activity.  New objects don't have to be better, just different.

It would be easy to fix this (without having 2-4 hours suddenly disappear for any Sims still at home). After you send your Sim home from a community lot (either a date or just on a lot), the game could remember how much time that Sim spent there. When you return to the home lot and that amount of time has passed, then that Sim would return home. In the meantime, you could still make sure the other Sims in the household were passing time like normal while the Sim that went to a comm. lot is still "at" the lot.

That is a pretty good idea.

For finances, I wish sims could go into debt.  There should be some aspect for borrowing money and then having to pay it back to a banker or something.  Like let them buy/build a big house that they can't afford, but they'll have to find a way to pay for it.  A big bonus at work would mean a lot more of you were 20k in the hole, that's for sure lol
Don't ask me how going into debt and paying it back and all that would work, I haven't thought that much out yet.  

It's too late for this to happen now, but they should have started things out being more expensive..or at least added more expensive things in the last two  EP's.  The cars were a let down..I figured with them it would be easy to throw away some of that excess money but not really.  A college graduate sim with a college degree required job at the highest level can easily buy one of the most expensive cars after 2 days of work.

[Pegasys]

What gets me about finances is that if you have more than a few thousand, you really never have to work at all, unless you want a nice big house. I'm playing around with a Sim who has about 15k (leftover from roomate who died) and a small house. I decided not to get him a job, and his money is going down extremely slowly even with a maid. He'll easily make it all his adult years without worries. It seems to me that without a job, and not a huge amount of money, there should be more financial concerns. Thats why hacks like no20khandout are invaluable...

I think the bills aren't nearly high enough; there should be something like rent which is around $1000 every billing cycle; more based on size of house and/or #of Sims;  not $128 every billing cycle for a smaller house. And service fees aren't expensive enough either. A maid or gardener should be something that not all Sims can afford.

I lived for a long time in the Bay Area, Calif. Sheez, talk about sticker shock every time rent or mortgage was paid. That's what I'm talkin' about.

[BlueSoup]

I have the harder jobs hack, but it's still not been that much effort to get them to the top of their careers fairly speedily.  The first batch of Uni grads are mostly there now, and their offspring are now teens, almost in Uni themselves.

With career chance and promotion bonuses, all of the families have renovated houses and nice furniture.  With all the rampant spending, it's not been that hard to keep their liquid assets down to only a couple thousand Simoleons.  That's sure to change though as they continue on with their careers.    I've also taken to sometimes taking away funds with the familyfunds cheat.

[J. M. Pescado]

What gets me about finances is that if you have more than a few thousand, you really never have to work at all, unless you want a nice big house. I'm playing around with a Sim who has about 15k (leftover from roomate who died) and a small house. I decided not to get him a job, and his money is going down extremely slowly even with a maid.

Well, obviously, when you can get away with paying all the serviceworkers Mexican-style wages, it's easy to hire them all.

Maybe I should make them cost 8-10x as much! After all, the NPCs should be making a living, too, and sadly, the $40 a day you pay them is pretty lame. Maybe if you had to pay them 8-10x more so that they were actually earning a credible salary....OUT OF YOUR POCKET....

I think the bills aren't nearly high enough; there should be something like rent which is around $1000 every billing cycle; more based on size of house and/or #of Sims;  not $128 every billing cycle for a smaller house. And service fees aren't expensive enough either. A maid or gardener should be something that not all Sims can afford.

Why would the number of sims themselves directly matter? A house is a house....and that's the things: Rental bills (like in Uni) *ARE* much higher. But sims own their houses, they do not rent them, and thus their bills seem considerably lower.

I lived for a long time in the Bay Area, Calif. Sheez, talk about sticker shock every time rent or mortgage was paid. That's what I'm talkin' about.

Yeah, see, you're renting, or (*stares in blank shock*) borrowing money from them damn usurers. Bloody loan sharks. I've never borrowed money from them in my life. What I couldn't afford, I did without. If that meant being effectively HOMELESS, well, so be it. You'd be surprised how cheaply (and effectively!) one can live out of a beat up used jeep. Sure, I could of *spit* BORROWED MONEY, or RENTED SOMETHING, but frankly, I was repulsed by the very idea. And this is why today, I have money: Because my money stayed in my pockets and didn't go to someone else. Remember: Thrift is a virtue.

But it occurs to me that the reason sims earn so much money and keep it all....is because of the...complete lack of income tax. Mmmm. Income tax. There's an idea. I could make an actual income tax. That $50K chance card won't feel so great when you find out that you now owe $30000 in income taxes.

[Renatus]

I would definitely use a hack that made service NPCs more expensive. Income tax would also be an interesting idea, if it's feasible. I like my pretty pixel people to have more or less happy lives but it's gotten dead boring to not have any unpredicted crisises, even when I always take chance cards and don't micromanage.

[angelyne]

You'd be surprised how cheaply (and effectively!) one can live out of a beat up used jeep.

That wouldn't work real well in Canada in the winter, believe me

But it occurs to me that the reason sims earn so much money and keep it all....is because of the...complete lack of income tax. Mmmm. Income tax. There's an idea.

I like that.  A mod to pay income tax according to the family salary.  death and taxes.  Now our sims wouldn't be able to escape either heh.

I also like the idea of a mortgage.  To be able to buy a house, a sims would have to be able to afford a downpayment and then the mortgage payment.  If they can't afford a downpayment, they would have to rent.  I know you disapprove of both, but they are an infortunate fact of life for many.  And to be consistent we should do away with that ridiculous 20k that starting sims get.  You start off like most people do in life, with zero, unless you have parents who are willing to help out.   This would be great.  And sims would have the choice of living in a beat up jeep and save enough money to pay for a house, or rent something right away. 

[Grater]

Awesome. Raising bills and NPC expenses, and adding taxes for rich families would go a long way to keeping the financial side of things interesting. Would it be possible to have a weekly tax based on how much was earned (or networth change) during the week?

The more I think about it, the more it makes sense to increase the drain side of thing rather than reducing the income, helping to avoid stagmentation.

I can use the mortage shrub (hacked to $10000, 3% interest) and familyfunds to start off families in debt / poverty.

There are also some inventory exploits, for example having university students bag everything that isn't bolted down in dorms and the SS lot. Of course I can always just abstain from this except when it makes sense, for example I ofen end up with orphaned teen families (this has almost nothing to do with taking delight in parenticide!), and it sucks when the teens move to college and lose all the value of their house, and then they can't afford to move back into it after uni. But I can at least use the inventory to let them carry all their possessions around as they transition between lifestages.

[J. M. Pescado]

Awesome. Raising bills and NPC expenses, and adding taxes for rich families would go a long way to keeping the financial side of things interesting. Would it be possible to have a weekly tax based on how much was earned (or networth change) during the week?

In theory, yes. There's a few corner cases that have to be covered, such as move-ins, but it's certainly theoretically possible to assess an income tax.

[ebonyspiral]

I don't agree that expansion can't help but make the core game easier.  For example, if downtown Dates consumed real time instead of producing a time-warp that takes place instantly, they would be pretty much like any other aspiration raising social activity.  New objects don't have to be better, just different.

It would be easy to fix this (without having 2-4 hours suddenly disappear for any Sims still at home). After you send your Sim home from a community lot (either a date or just on a lot), the game could remember how much time that Sim spent there. When you return to the home lot and that amount of time has passed, then that Sim would return home. In the meantime, you could still make sure the other Sims in the household were passing time like normal while the Sim that went to a comm. lot is still "at" the lot.

I would love to see this implemented!
...for my sims to come crawling home in a taxi at 5am from a long night downtown and then struggling to make it to work without passing out It's not fair that they regain the time spent away to recover from their indulgences!
Then any sims left at home while, say, their partner was out could invite another sim 'friend' over for company  ...yeah, I play my game like a bad soap opera...

Anyway, I'm guessing this isn't possible with a hack?...

[angelyne]

The more I think about it, the more it makes sense to increase the drain side of thing rather than reducing the income, helping to avoid stagmentation.

You're right.  We would be as rich as our sims if we had big bonuses, and no taxes and no mortage to pay and no debts. (man I wish !!)  How much stuff can you buy, especially if you have a small lot.  Taxes and debts would make the game more realistic.  You'd have fortune sims getting deeper and deeper into debt trying to feed their addiction, and then going into into aspiration failure when they get repossesed. 

It's be nice if we had different types of loan bushes with various % rate.  You'd have one called Mortgage, then one called credit line with a 7% interest rate and then a credit card with like a 29% interest rate.  You could sink deeper and deeper into debt as you had bushes.  Unfortunately there is no bankrupcy in the game.  Too bad.

Also it'd be nice to create a couple of low paying careers, the working class type.  Maid, Janitor, Cashier, Waitress with long hours and low pay.  You could play a family that's struggling to get along. It makes for interesting scenario possibilities

[Ancient Sim]

Taxes are a sort of amusing thing for me.  It all started when I was about 7 and we had to tell our teacher what our fathers did for a living.  When I told my teacher that my father worked in the tax office, she said "Oh, so he's the one who has all my money, is he" and I had no idea what she was on about.  Then when I was a little older and understood slightly more, I found it extremely puzzling that my father had to pay income tax when he was collecting it for a living.  I just couldn't get my head around that one at all.  He tried to explain it to me, but I insisted it wasn't right and he shouldn't pay any tax (this was all basically because he said he couldn't afford something I wanted for Christmas).  The funniest part though was when I went self-employed and my Dad kept ringing me up to basically say "You can't get out of it, you know".  I couldn't even lie about what I was spending on 'essentials', either - he knew what was in my house. 

Having said that, I do think tax is a good idea, but it might be confusing unless it's country-specific.  I'd want the right rates for the UK and also LET 'EM PAY COUNCIL TAX.  Damn crippling thing that it is.

[Paperbladder]

I would really like an income tax hack.  It would make the game more realistic, and with a bill increase it would mean the second generation would actually have to work for a living.  Hey, that scholarship money in University has to come from somewhere.

[crazi_aboutu]

Speaking of university ........why is freee???  They don't have to buy books and they keep collecting money...... and private schools are anotehr thing ...you hav eot pay to go to private scholl but our simmie's go for Free???  would be nice if they had ot pay for these things too.

[Gwill]

I just assume taxes have been deducted from my Sim's wages before payout.
That's how it works in Norway anyway.