More Awesome Than You!

Pescado, will you please expand the "toggle LTW" function on the debugger to include children (and perhaps toddlers!) since EAxis, in their infinite wisdom, has lowered the aspiration bar yet again. I just had two toddlers transition to childhood and achieve lifetime permaplat. Apparently learning to walk, talk and use the potty is all it takes to reach Simish Nirvana now.

Is this something that started with the Freetime patch?

No, just Free Time. Filling that Lifetime Aspiration Meter is always ludicrously simple, but it seems that the younger the sim is when he begins, the easier it is. My two sims now have a memory that says: "Over my entire lifetime, I've aspired to certain things. It's nice to know that I managed to achieve most, if not all, of them. I can die happy now." This was awarded on the first day of their childhood. They (twins) learned to walk, talk, use the potty, snuggle, play with blocks and bang on a couple of toys. They made BFF with their parents and each other. They grew up well. Apparently that is all that's necessary for a permaplat life.

With every expansion EAxis reaches a new nadir of lame. Harder jobs, harder grades, and my own rules have previously helped keep the game interesting, but how can I overcome this?

Harder Aspirations?

I've been wondering whether it's possible to do custom aspirations. Obviously, they wouldn't be selectable from CAS, but perhaps someone could put together a selector object with custom aspirations and any necessary custom wants and fears. I've been thinking about looking into this, but I figure it's an advanced task. Still, I have ideas I want to implement, dammit.

I had simEmma at double permaplat halfway through her life, just from maxing all skill points, getting her LTW, getting married, and having kids. That plus snapdragons means she's now no more than an afterthought in my play. Borrrrrring.

The FFS Lot debugger has this nice entry: Toggle LTW Bit. That works perfectly to change from permaplat to normal and back. The Insimenator should do the job too

Are you waiting until the next hour in the game? 

If you toggle the permaplat off, then at the next hour you should see the sim's aspiration drop slightly (although it will still be in platinum).  And if you toggle it on, the aspiration may not rise to platinum until the next hour.


Quasim, I suggest you read Simzoidberg's post again.  They stated they have tried that option on the lot debugger, but it doesn't seem to be working for them.

Does InSim work for children? Because the option to toggle is NOT available for them on the lot debugger.

I'm also finding that the toggle LTW bit on the debugger is not removing the life time aspiration type of permaplat.  Extremely depressing, really.

I don't see why it would - the debugger toggles the LTW bit, which causes permplat, but if that's no longer the only cause of permplat, you'd think the test for "am I permplat" would still return true because of lifetime aspiration. Unless lifetime aspiration permplats a sim by toggling their LTW bit? But that would make no sense.

I'd just be happy if something could drain the life time aspiration meter.  I suspect the check for permaplat from life time aspiration is along the lines of "is my meter full?"

I'm no expert of course, but it's giving me the whatsits!  This is where something like Hook's old semi-permaplat would come in handy if it could be made to work.

I would like to see one more check added: "Is this sim an elder?" If the answer is no, then no permaplat. And even there, I want the Peggy Lee mod...
after three days of satisfaction they plummet to that line between red and green...

"Is that all there is, is that all there is?
If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing.
Let's break out the booze and have a ball,
If that's all there is..."

I have never seen this happen. Are you sure that it's not the work of the non-Awesome?

Quite sure. It's probably because I play with longer lifespans--durations I feel are appropriate, but without turning ageing off. This is really messing with my play style. Before FT keeping them young a while longer was not a problem--it was funny to watch my Family sims struggle with a houseful of toddlers and role up fears of having a baby, and I routinely strip all my sims of skills when they have a birthday--toddlers can carry no more than 1 point earned into childhood, children no more than 2 points, teens no more than 3 or half of what they earned, whichever is less. (Banging on a toy xylophone doesn't enable you to play like Horowitz, and being a high school jock is not enough to get you into the major leagues...)

But I don't think that really matters all that much. Every snuggle, every tickle, every toddler skill fills that lifetime bar and nothing ever drains it.

It sounds like it's a combination of your playstyle of extended lifespans and also that you are filling their hug/play/read/talk wants.

After 4 days my toddlers are maxed out in 2 skills (and close to maxing out a third), have the 4 toddler skills learnt (including learn a nursery rhyme) and are best friends with whoever taught them the toddler skills as well as BFF with any other toddlers on the lot.

I reroll their wants on the lot debugger so that they want to learn the toddler skills when I want to teach them.  And I reroll after every skill point gained, so that they will start getting the wants to gain numbered skillpoints for more aspiration points.

This means my toddlers are getting a decent amount of aspiration points out of their toddlerhood, yet at transition to childhood they only have 4 - 6 LTA points to spend (including those already spent).  The only toddler wants I don't bother to satisfy are the ones that want me to "interrupt a sim that is busy to come give me some social that I don't need anyway, since my social need is fine".

Agreed. However, it sounds like you are not in much better shape (assuming you would like to avoid permaplat) delaying the onset until sometime in the sim's childhood or teen years.  I'd like to prevent or undo such nonsense entirely.

Well, that was my playstyle - to max all skills as a child - but not any more.  I realised that my gamer side (max out all as early as possible) was leading to boredom in my game later on.  Permaplat adults sitting around yawning while power idling are not fun to watch.

I realised that to maximise the fun aspects of the game I had to let some of my must-max-everything gamer tendencies go.  I no longer allow education bookshelves on my lots, for example.  I'm letting my sims have more free will, rather than driving them to skill.  I'm considering ideas other people are using in their games to slow the boredom down (e.g. applying skill penalties for unlucky events such as burning food or clogging the toilet, halving skills on every age up, not allowing smart milk, only skilling if the sim has a want to skill, etc).

It's the way I was playing that was causing the boredom problems in my game, and once I realised that I started changing some of my self-imposed rules & altering my playstyle to make the game more interesting for me to play.

I think that's your problem. The LTA gain per aspirational hour is calibrated for base sim lifespans. If your sim lifespans differ grossly from the base figure, you obviously need to change the payout. Notice how YA sims, according to the propaganda material, have an LTA rate that is MUCH lower than other sims? It's because they're operating on asynchronous time that has a different scaling factor. Basically, by breaking the game in ways that were never intended by EAxis, you have created a uniquely Croiduire problem.

Frankly, watching them grind skills isn't all that interesting to watch either! And I was raised to believe in "work before play", so it just runs contrary to my nature NOT to do so. It bugs me to the point where it gnaws away at any fun that can be derived otherwise. I simply can't find it fun to do it any other way. Work before play, business before pleasure.

Well, that is what I was doing.  Grinding the skills as a toddler/child.  Then watching them yawn for much of the rest of their lives while on their home lot.  If I only train the skills the sims want to train I'm breaking up the boring grind - and I'm getting less permaplat knowledge teens.  The next change I'm going to try is making less knowledge sims as they're far too easy to keep in platinum aspiration.

So where do I look to find where that calibration is set? If I can change the increase to essentially zero for toddlers and children, and tweak it to YA levels for all other age groups, that would solve my problem nicely.

OK, I have come up with fix. It's not neat and automatic, but so far--repeat: so far--it seems to be working well, and after a fair bit of testing I haven't had any signs of an impending meltdown, but since I am completely UNawesome, this comes with NO promises. Anyway, in SimPE under FreeTime beneath the predestined hobby field there are three fields. Enter 0x0708 in the top blank and 0 in the next two. That will drain the LTA back to close to 0. If any points have been assigned, you will also need to delete the tokens from the sim's memory. That's it. In my game the short-term aspiration meter now moves up and down again like it should, and the LTA meter is rising properly as wants are gratified.

I haven't got to toddlers aging into children yet because I'm playing Sims right out of Uni, but I did have one toddler that was one day from turning and she had been skilling comstantly and had learned everything and she wasn't even close to filling her meter.  There has to be something that is causing this.  I know I have something wrong(that I don't want to fix) my Sims are still getting perma-plat from making their lifetime wants.  I like it because I'm able to ignore stupid wants.  I don't play Sims any different whether their perma-plat or not--I've never had to resort to auto play-with all these EPs there are so many things they can do.  In my opinion, it is a relief not to worry about that bar and after that is when the real fun begins.