The Apocalypse Challenge: Possible change to Life of Crime restriction

[Pinstar]

In play testing, I'm finding the life of crime restriction to have two problems: It is not too harsh and it is complex.

I have a proposal to fix both problems, but before I make this a rule, I'd like this board's opinion.
This is not an official rule. If implemented, your current Apocalypse families would still be fine. You would just start using this in place of the old life of crime restriction.


The mob has gotten greedier, nastier. They realize they have everything to gain.
Once per week by midnight, exit to the neighborhood screen.
Open the cheat box
Type in Familyfunds <your family name> 0
You may sell and re-buy your fridge before the mob takes all of the family's money.
Rather than basing their protection demands on your objects, they simply rob you blind.

The restriction on the lie finder would remain the same as the official rules.

Lifting the restriction would stop the mob payments, just like it does now.

What do you think?

Again: This is just a proposal. I'm getting community feedback before doing any major rules changes.

[neriana]

I think that is too harsh. The mob is parasitic; it counts on those it gets protection money from actually doing somewhat well, and can't drive them to complete desperation. I think reducing the family's money by 50% or so would be better.

[Treehugger]

Only if you allow Uni businesses... 

Seriously though I would I furnished the house quite differently if this rule had been around at the beginning. I went for the cheapest objects that wouldn't take too much to replace but this rule encourages players to go for more expensive items less in keeping with the challenge.  I mean why not splurge out on that 60 simoleon per roll wallpaper if the mob is going to take all your cash anyway and buy the most expensive windows you can afford, you can always sell them if you run short...

How about the mob collecting 10% of the worth of the property.  If you have OFB there is an icon in the left side of the screen when you go into build or buy mode that lets you know how much the property is worth.  If the business restriction has been lifted add to that 10% of any business that the family owns.

[TreyNutz]

This isn't consistent with the setting of the challenge.  It encourages players to purchase the most expensive objects so their family funds are as low as possible.  The other method encouraged players to purchase the least expensive objects so they would pay lowest amount of protection money.  It also encouraged players to limit the objects they purchase because selling everything and rebuying is such a pain.  Purchasing the minimal number of the cheapest objects makes much more sense in an apocalyptic world.

[rohina]

I agree that the flavour of this penalty is wrong. Selling the furniture was annoying, but this change is just too radical, because it encourages completely different behaviour. I would suggest a percentage of the value of the lot, rather than just taking the cash.

[Ivy]

Again: This is just a proposal. I'm getting community feedback before doing any major rules changes.

Don't expect me to make any more major rules shifts like that again. Just little tweaks and clarifications.

 

Besides the obvious "You're upsetting folks who already have families in play..." and "I expected you not to change any more major rules..."

The family funds cheat came with Nightlife.  Nightlife didn't add any careers, so essentially it isn't necessary to have Nightlife in order to play this challenge.  It did give you the backpack ability, but for those with only Orig+Uni bringing back 3 items from college can be adjusted for.  And if you graduate, that's only 2 items to account for...not a huge deal.

Believe it or not, there are lots of folks who don't have all the expansion packs.  I say this because we come across it daily in our group.  Adding this in would require them to compensate by having to do something even more tiresome, such as spend their all their money until it was gone.  With the limited amount of space and items that you can buy, they're going to run out of options other than *keep putting down wallpaper or flooring over and over and over again til your money's all gone" and even then, it's almost impossible to get down to exactly 0.  That was how it was back in the "good old days of Classic Legacy" before the family funds cheat was invented when you had to use a smaller lot to start off with for those with lower end computer systems to adjust at the beginning.  I remember those hours spent wasting money wallpapering and flooring with an ill taste in my mouth.  Having to do that on a weekly basis would be *nightmarish*.

My 2 cents, adjusted for mob inflation,

Ivy

[neriana]

With all the hassle regarding protection money, especially for people without the expansion packs, perhaps it would be better to institute different penalties for the criminal career altogether. Perhaps Sims would not be allowed to buy anything over a certain price. Or how about no decorative objects, because they just attract thieves? Having no burglar alarm and being unable to call the cops could be transferred to this one as well, since the law enforcement restrictions are still quite tough without it. Sims are too afraid to stand up to criminals, so they let burglars take whatever they want.

[rohina]

It's a good point about not having NL, although there is an awesome solution to the familyfunds thing.

[Treehugger]

Another thing about familyfunds Is that it deduct the money from the last establishedn household with that name. For example my founder had six sons; Joshua, David, Jonathon, Daniel, Matthew and Nathan.  If the five eldest move out after lifting their restriction there will be six householdwith the same name. Whatever household I use the cheat in it will take it from Matthew's (assuming he's the last to move out) even if he is in the sim bin.

[Avalikia]

I think that the rule should reflect the total networth of the family (and businesses, if applicable), not their cash on hand.  If I was playing this challenge with this rule, once a week just before the mob came I'd simply purchase the most expensive things I could afford until I had next to no money left.  Even if I couldn't sell them back, I'd be able to retrieve a lot of cash when I lift that restriction.  I use networth already to determine how much my nobles need to tithe to my royal family in my medieval neighborhood and it's really easy to do.  10% would be easy to calculate, but if you wanted to change the rule to this you'd probably want to playtest the percentage to see if it's a good number.

[Paperbladder]

Having Nightlife is irrelevant for this, you could just send a money order to the mob family using all the funds.

Maybe someone could develop a tracker that would rebuy everything in the house every week, and take the money it spends out of the family funds.  In addition maybe the tracker could also take X% of what's left in the family bank.  However, I dunno if object value can be refreshed automagically and if the family funds can be drained by an object.  Still, the change makes the restriction less annoying than what it was.

[Treehugger]

Not anybody has the cheat that allow you to send money orders.

There is no way of implementing this rule for everybody without people having to introduces hacks into the game.  Familyfunds is limited to those players who have nightlife installed and even then only works if there is only one household of that name.  Once family members are able to move out/go to uni it will only work with the last established household or last sim to move out/go to uni(if they are still sittin in the sim/student bin. I speak from experience.  There is some strategising around the problem but since this glitch benefits the original household is anybody going to bother?

My view is don't introduce new rules, especially ones that rely on hacks or glitchy cheats.

[Roux]

I haven't tried the challenge yet (not in the mood at the moment), but what about if the rule was that you have to sell off enough items to account for at least 10% of the overall family worth?  I say at least 10% because obviously, it would be nearly impossible to get exactly 10% by selling items.

I think it's universal from base game + no/any/all expansions that you get the family worth at the neighborhood screen.  Players with OFB would have to add in the value of any owned lots.  If OFB players cannot sell off enough items at the family lot to account for 10%, then they'd have to go to their business(es) and sell off items there.

Now, please commence the hole-poking in this suggestion. 

[Pinstar]

That settles it, I will NOT be changing the Life of Crime restriction to this. I will be posting an easier way to calculate it so that you pay the same amount of $ as you do currently, but without having to sell and re-buy all the objects in the house.

[Frankenbeasley]

Couldn't you just set it so that each week you have to buy a decorative item/items to the value of N% of your family funds? If this item is then placed in a non-accessible area then the Sims wouldn't be able to get any benefit from the items but would have to pay higher bills. I could imagine the mob forcing Sims to buy useless objects at unreasonably high prices and it makes it a lot easier than either selling & rebuying or exiting to the neighbourhood.

[travellersside]

Actually, that could be amusing. Some decorative items appreciate in value, which would have a minor effect on your bills too.

[ElfPuddle]

Just a brief thank you, Pinstar, for listening to our opinions.

[Frankenbeasley]

Just a brief thank you, Pinstar, for listening to our opinions.

Hey, there's a button for that sort of thing..... 

But I agree.. it even sort of makes up for getting no response whatsoever on a legacy question at his site.

[J. M. Pescado]

There's a way you can remove money from a family even in the basic game: Plaster your outside or some empty piece of terrain in some floor tile, then sell that floor tile, and do this over and over until you've lost enough money this way.

[Ellatrue]

It's better to plaster it with the most expensive floor tile you can find, then cover those tiles with the cheapest (preferably something only worth 0 or 1 simolean).

Then sell those. In this way you can get rid of much more of the money at once. It actually doesn't take that long.

[lindaetterlee]

Pinstar did you make a decision yet?

[Jelenedra]

I think they decided to leave it unchanged.

Although I still think there should be a choice between selling everything and a monetary "donation" of say... half of what your sim earned that week? Keep track of how much your sim had on Monday, and keep track of salary and bonuses (anything that does the popup window so paintings and novels would count too). The bad thing would be businesses....

But anyways. One requires time consuming selling and rebuying, the other requires anal retentive book keeping. I'd prefer the bookkeeping myself.

[Aggie]

Pinstar, I was thinking: if you really want to make Life of Crime more challenging (and slightly more important to lift), you could have the Mob take 60% of the gross household income instead (if they have enough to cover everything, that is). If you don't have enough to cover the loss, you'd still have to delete items and buy back whatever you could, but you could change it to say that once you reach a certain amount in your household income (say, $10,000 or so), the Mob will notice your growing wealth and will tax you accordingly.

Or else you could just keep it as it is. Whichever. I simply found that the Life of Crime restriction was merely a nuisance the longer I played, not a challenge. Maybe having this sort of thing would make it more restricting.

ETA: To clarify what I meant: if your household has just enough money to cover replacing items that week, then they'd still have to delete/repurchase everything. However, if they had oodles of money (i.e. if the cost to repurchase everything was 5,000 and they have 20,000 in the bank), they could be taxed 60% of their income (12,000 instead of 5,000). I'm not sure how you'd go about determining when this would have to be done, but it was just a thought. But again, this would require NL because of the Familyfunds cheat (unless one used the terrtain tool to level/unlevel the area to reduce wealth).