Lame Party Scoring

[Gus Smedstad]

Once again I ran into why I don't like parties in TS2.  My Sim threw a wedding party, and initially it went badly.  Ex-wife and new fiancee got into a slapping fest and the party quickly reached "real dud."  I managed to salvage that by luring both of them into a Kicky Bag game with my Sim, which meant that they started gaining relationship points with each other, and pretty soon it was up to "not bad."  I then ran the wedding... and when the animation was over, the party status was "disaster."

Based on what?  I don't think anyone left, there was food out, entertainment, and no fighting over the bathroom.  So what happened?  There's no way to know.

 - Gus

[RainbowTigress]

Parties are scored by the amount of relationship points gained.  I have had roof-raisers with little to no entertaining objects, just having the sims do relationship-building activities, especially the higher level ones if they are available.  If you are having a wedding or birthday party, and the event does not occur within a certain period of time, like if the timer is about an hour away from expiring, the party controller will drop the score way down.  If you can't get it back up before the timer runs out, then you're stuck with that rating.  I alway save right before my parties because I've had problems in the past with stuck parties and such.  So just like with the headmaster, I save right before I have my sims send out the invites.

[J. M. Pescado]

Once again I ran into why I don't like parties in TS2.  My Sim threw a wedding party, and initially it went badly.  Ex-wife and new fiancee got into a slapping fest and the party quickly reached "real dud."  I managed to salvage that by luring both of them into a Kicky Bag game with my Sim, which meant that they started gaining relationship points with each other, and pretty soon it was up to "not bad."  I then ran the wedding... and when the animation was over, the party status was "disaster."

If a wedding party does not have a wedding fairly early, approximately slightly before the final hour, the scoremeter will dive to "disaster" for having a wedding party with no wedding.

This is purely cosmetic, however: If you complete the required wedding scenario in time (give time for the gathering and cutscene, don't cut it too close!"), and note that at least one arch-wedding may be a requirement, the party will reclaim its score.

The same applies to Birthday Parties (requires at least one cake, although everyone will get credit as long as at least one cake was used by somebody).

[Pegasys]

Yeah, I recently had a "Disaster" birthday party because it was too close to 6 pm so the kid transitioned without the cake. I've learned to get the special event out of the way first. 

This doesn't effect the score, but I never put out champagne before the couple gets married anymore. Everyone gets way too busy toasting the bride and groom to notice the ceremony taking place.

[gali]

I have a rule about parties: they have to be started not before 1 PM, and this - after checking that all the appliances work right, the bathrooms are clean, the trash was taken out, and the bills are payed.

After 1 PM you have more possibilities to run into a "disaster" party, because if you start at 1 PM sim time, the party is over after 6 PM (5 sims hours), and at 6 PM the kids have to go home (Night Life).

Second - you MAY NOT invite to your party RIVALS of any kind, certainly not ex-wife or ex-husband, or some lover of yours or your spouse. Any expression of hostility in your party decreases the rate points.

As Rainbow said, parties are scored by the amount of the relationship points. For instance - if some townie passes by, you have to send your sim to greet him, and try to befriend them - mostly by telling jokes (joke, joke,joke); don't try to chat, because you don't know if they have mutual interests. This action adds a lot of points to your party. I never let any townie that passes by to continue his way out.

Third, do you know that in Night Life you get more aspiration and influence points when you DON'T throw a wedding party (8000/5000), than when you throw a wedding party (5000/2500)?
This way you are leaded by the simulator NOT to throw so many parties - and that is a relief....

 

[Lythdan]

Actaully, the kids and teens don't go home 'til the parties over if they're invited with the 'throw party' function.

[RainbowTigress]

I always have wedding parties for my sims whether they want them or not because *I* want them.  The autosocializer is great for parties.  I'll pick two sims that either aren't friends yet or have a low relationship and set them on Macro Socialize.   Then I use Macro Socialize friends for the others, usually the one who threw the party, because they invited all their family and closest friends.  As JM has mentioned before, having high dance skill so your sims can use "Bust A Move" is a great help for making friends because you get about 8 points STR per interaction.  While I set up some sims doing this, I can pay more attention to other guests, taking pictures, setting up poses, fulfilling wants, etc.  I try to get the main event out of the way as soon as possible.  I also use the Mind Control Mirror to make sure all of the guests are queued to "Watch" the wedding, not punching each other, playing the piano, etc.  At the end of the wedding, I try to make sure the bride and groom are not busy and they have a free path to the road because if their path is blocked, they won't get into the limo. 

In the case of birthday parties, I have had the experience of the party ending in a disaster because I didn't send the sim to the cake fast enough and they transitioned when the clock hit 6 pm.  Even though I had them set up to blow out the candles at 5:30, they stood there waiting while everyone took their time wandering over to watch, and it was too late.  So if I am going to throw a birthday party that will go past 6 pm, I will add a day to their age so they won't grow up too soon.  I have to wait until after 6 pm then for the blow out candles action to become available, but I don't mind that.  I always like to wait until everyone comes home from school and work if they are working that day.

[sudaki]

My parties always turn Disaster right after the wedding/birthday, and then after a few seconds go up to Roof Raiser or whatever. The weird thing is, I've never had one turn Disaster before the event, always immediately after. Maybe I just have great timing...

[Ancient Sim]

Luckily, my Sims never ask for birthday parties and haven't done since I had the base game (I think they did then, but I'm not sure).  I hate parties in real life, so I avoid them in the game as much as possible.  The only Sims I have asking for parties are YA's (asking for anything but graduation parties, they never ask for those) and elders who want birthday parties after they've aged (unfortunately, JM's mod for this doesn't work anymore, at least not for me).  I do hold a few wedding parties and I've finally got the hang of what makes them work, although it helps NOT to have the bride die of 'flu under the wedding arch ... (that one was still a roof-raiser, though, on account of how she dropped dead a split second after the box came up).

[C.S.]

In the case of birthday parties, I have had the experience of the party ending in a disaster because I didn't send the sim to the cake fast enough and they transitioned when the clock hit 6 pm.  Even though I had them set up to blow out the candles at 5:30, they stood there waiting while everyone took their time wandering over to watch, and it was too late.  So if I am going to throw a birthday party that will go past 6 pm, I will add a day to their age so they won't grow up too soon.  I have to wait until after 6 pm then for the blow out candles action to become available, but I don't mind that.  I always like to wait until everyone comes home from school and work if they are working that day.

We can throw birthday parties before 6pm?? I never knew that, how do I do it? I only get the option to throw a birthday party at 6, any earlier and it's only Sport or House parties.

Hosting birthday parties for babies is still kind of tricky for me. Did one just yesterday, exited without saving because the baby wouldn't do the age transitioning (checked with the mind control mirror and of course, bladder so low it was about to soil the nappy), there was only about an hour left on the timer (baby was sleeping before that) with everybody cheering for the past 30min or so and 'Good time' plummeted to 'Disaster'. I'm still figuring out how to use the 'eye in the sky' to good effect .

[RainbowTigress]

You can throw a party before 6 pm if it's the day they are going to transition.  They will show 1 day left, and at 6 pm, they will age a day, showing 0 days.  That's when it gets tricky.  Sometimes I just procrastinate too long throwing the party, and I'll slip in there and add another day and have them throw the party at 6 pm.

I usually don't bother with birthday parties for babies.  If their parents keep having trouble growing them up, or if I just want to go ahead and grow them up early, I use the baby controller to Grow up Baby.

[C.S.]

Hmm, I'll make sure to check more often when it's the day they are to grow up, I have another baby in another family. I bother with parties for babies because I figured, well, sims only grow up that many times, and any old enough to aquire any skills are usually busy doing just that - they can party when they go to college, or they've secured every available scholarships, whichever comes first .

I used the Grow up baby option in the eye in the sky once, but I had to cancel out the cake icon with the 'Birthday!' queue first, and the party score still never recovered. I thought maybe it doesn't count if they didn't grow up with the cake?

[RainbowTigress]

No, growing up with the controller or any other method other than the cake doesn't count for scoring the party.

[Regina]

I don't do birthday parties anymore--they just got too much to keep up with.

I threw one hum-dinger of a wedding this evening, though!  The bride's whole family was there, including their spouses and most potential spouses (I did forget one!).

Hmmm.  I'm trying to remember now.  There was Rob, Regina, George, LeAnn, James (forgot James' girlfriend), Wally and his ex-vampire girlfriend, Countess Jan (have to remember to change her name!), Cara-Berri, and Cassie!  Oh yeah!  A neighbor guy came by the house to greet them so he joined in on the fun, too.  Anyone hungry age omelettes and mainly they all sat or stood around socializing.

[Gus Smedstad]

Third, do you know that in Night Life you get more aspiration and influence points when you DON'T throw a wedding party (8000/5000), than when you throw a wedding party (5000/2500)?

I don't understand your reasoning.  How can you get aspiration points for NOT fulfilling a want?  That makes no sense.

In this particular case, my Sim had both "Marry Janey" and "Throw Wedding Party" locked.  As an aside, I do rather like the "get engaged to X" and "get married to X" wants vice the generic "get married" want; it makes the desire personal.

 - Gus

[J. M. Pescado]

Yeah, I recently had a "Disaster" birthday party because it was too close to 6 pm so the kid transitioned without the cake. I've learned to get the special event out of the way first.

If you lock them onto the cake shortly before 1800, they will transition via cake just fine since the cake will not be aborted for the regular age transition. This can be tricky and it is advised that you save before attempting this, but I always do this when I decide to have a party to keep the day.

[Jysudo]

I had a odd situtation. Don't know which of my hacks are causing this ( not that I care  )

Whether the party is a good or bad one, the sims always register the party as a roaring sucess and they will be happy for the rest of the day. I am happy to have sims who are delusional 

[J. M. Pescado]

Everything above "Snoozer" is great. Some parties may visibly display as "disaster" due to some required condition not being met until the very last moment, after which the display is not quick enough to reupdate so the party ends looking like a disaster, but isn't.

[Jysudo]

Everything above "Snoozer" is great. Some parties may visibly display as "disaster" due to some required condition not being met until the very last moment, after which the display is not quick enough to reupdate so the party ends looking like a disaster, but isn't.

I always thought that everything below "good time" is considered a bad party. That used to happen to me but it didn't happen anymore.
 
Now everything is "have a great party" even if its below Snoozer. But I will try  to have a bad party again and see if it happens.

[Assmitten]

Parties are scored by the amount of relationship points gained.  I have had roof-raisers with little to no entertaining objects, just having the sims do relationship-building activities, especially the higher level ones if they are available. 

Rainbow, do you know if a Sim on the phone, relationship-building with another sim, counts toward the party score? I had a sim befriending someone this way during my last party the whole time, and I was wondering if the autoyakking was helping with the score.

[J. M. Pescado]

Rainbow, do you know if a Sim on the phone, relationship-building with another sim, counts toward the party score? I had a sim befriending someone this way during my last party the whole time, and I was wondering if the autoyakking was helping with the score.

Yes. Yes it does.

[RainbowTigress]

I wasn't sure about that.  I had wondered about it once or twice but never tried it to see.  Thanks for answering that question for us, JM.

[J. M. Pescado]

Other scenarios may also be affected by off-lot conversers: For instance, the Greek house scenario, if one of the Greek house members is on the phone, will instantly end and possibly be uncompleteable if you hang up the phone, disintegrating the off-lot Greek house member, which the scenario interprets as one of the members leaving.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I also find that lots of toasts helps the score - as long as you have plenty of bathrooms!

[gali]

I also find that lots of toasts helps the score - as long as you have plenty of bathrooms!

Very important comment, ZZ!

each party I put 5-6 stalls outside + the bathrooms I have, and none of the sims get accidents. This adds very much to the success of the party.