Raising the game's difficulty level (read the 1st post and vote, pls)

[linolino]

actually i gave this a pause because of nightlife. i'm waiting a little bit for the already made hacks to be updated, since i'm going to use them as a base

[Andygal]

I would agree with aspiration decay when at work/school, but not while asleep.

[Motoki]

Personally, I'd like to see some prices get changed. Like the maid for example. Even the most broke assed sims can afford one which seems silly to me. I know maid service has been dirt cheap since TS1, but imo it should be reserved for wealthier sims.

[Vesca]

Am particularly intrested in the higher bills, npc-cost and aspiration awards.

I think the bills are quite low - actually, they're ridiculously low.  You can live in a huge mansion, packed with the finest of everything, and your bills are still under 1000 simoleons.

Motoki also mentioned how utterly inexpensive it was to hire a maid and I totally agree with that.  Maid service should be set up for the wealthier sims.  It certainly is that way in real life.  Same issue with the maintenance man/woman, although I think you should have to pay more when the poor soul gets fried.

[linolino]

New poll on this thread!
The first post is updated, please read it and then vote. the poll is above the 1st post!

[Sagana]

If I want more difficult play, I just don't use the aspiration objects (or career rewards - although I don't usually go that far). I've gotten so the only one I use on a regular basis is smart milk as I feel a great need to quickly have my sim toddlers learn to walk and be potty trained. Other than that, I ignore the aspiration awards and maxing out skills becomes more difficult and there's less "quick money". I also start a fair number of sims in CAF as adults as they're harder to play. Oh and set goals for myself, like even if they *need* a new bed or a bookcase or something, if they're asking for paintings and rugs I buy those instead. If they want to spend money/time stupidly, it's their simulated life

[linolino]

but i couldn't do that. you see, it's not that i don't like those objects. quite the opposite. actually i loved the idea of the rewards objects when the game came out. however it's the easiness that we can get them that bothers me.

The game is cool, but i think it misses more unlockable features, special items that are hard to get and such.

That's why i want to raise considerably the rewards price, so it won't be a regular object any sim can have at anytime. Its much more exciting this way. eg: if you had to pay a lot of asp points for a money tree, wouldn't you think it is a special item, and would care for it very well so it wouldn't die and would pass it from generations to generations? well, at least i think this ould be great.

now with nightlife, i would also like to raise the price for all cars, they are too cheap

[Motoki]

I also feel like the game is getting easier with each add-on. Without the addons, you had to choose your aspiration at creation or growing up to teen wisely. Then with uni you got one chance to change it and now with NL you can get an object that requires a very low number of aspiration points and basically change your aspiration at will.

Without the addons, the career rewards were a bit harder to get and collect all of them and you only got them when being promoted a specific level. With uni you graduate pretty much being able to get a high level job in any career and get the rewards the minute you accept the job as long as you are at the minimum required level. You can easily use the computer and newspaper to change jobs one after another and get most of the rewards all at once.

I also think those aspiration rewards make the game way too easy and cheat-like and are very, very easy to get. I'd almost be for removing them or disabling them, but then that kind of makes the want system pointless I suppose. At very least I think they should be harder to get. I have numerous sims with over 200,000 aspiration points and I wasn't trying all that hard either.

[linolino]

yes! YEY! let's make the money tree 50,000 asp points, and the elixir 100,000! and the money-make machine to 200,000!! and the ReNuYu-Orb to 300,000!!! Now THAT will be fun! And i mean it! How extremely suprised and disappointed I was, when I saw the orb was less than 7,000 points!

[Sagana]

> I'd almost be for removing them or disabling them, but then that kind of makes the want system pointless I suppose.

It doesn't for me - I actually like the aspiration desires. I treat them as things my sims want, some way for them to tell me how they're thinking of things, and the achievement is really it's own reward. So I check out what they need and if they're ok then we work on what they want. I don't necessary work on skills or a promotion or whatever unless they want to (they usually do). I like the ones they have to work towards and lock those and ...I dunno rate the ease and quality of their life based on them (I don't mind if they don't get them - it just means they have harder lives, more trouble figuring out what they want out of life and the like, just like some people). And then, I build sims with ideas in mind for their characters, so when the wants match well I get all excited - for example I recently created a finance and popularity couple to be parents to babies I have stories in mind for. I was all pleased because they had lots of lightning bolts for each other (tho I didn't pay any attention to their signs or stuff) and wanted the right LTWs/career aspirations for the story I have in mind, both came up with lots of flirt and woohoo wants even tho they aren't family or romance oriented, and both of them shortly came up with "have a child" So I felt like they worked perfectly (yes, I'm very character oriented). And when they achieve LTWs I feel like they've had satisfying lives (tho failing sometimes is good too) and other wants are icing... I dunno, just works for me.

I just don't like the aspiration awards - they feel like cheating to me, much more than hacks. I use Rennie's baby mobile so my kids all grow up to toddlers with 3 or 4 body pts and that feels "right"  (it's exactly how my grandson tones up his body but jumping in a machine so you never have to sleep or use the bathroom or whatever. That feels like a cheat.

Guess I'm weird. But I like the game that way and it *is* harder.

[Hook]

If you want to give it a try, I've uploaded a mod to cause aspiration to decay at 1/2 the normal rate while asleep or at work or school.  I've been running it with SemiPermaPlat in Nightlife, but I really don't like the combined effect that much.

If you try it out, let me know if the decay is too fast or too slow for your tastes.

If you want to tweak the values in SimPE, I've included an unchanged copy of the adult aspiration decay constants so you can see what Maxis considers normal.  Don't change the adult constants, just the sleep and OOW ones.  The original sleep and OOW constants were all zero.

Hook

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[linolino]

thx hook, let me just ask you this:
the decay rate is normal at all times except when asleep and off the lot that is half the normal rate, right?
So.. My sim goes to work at 9 am and comes back at 3 pm, and the decay would occur to him at 10 am if he didn't go to work. Normally, since he do goes to work he misses the decay. but what will happen if i have your mod installed?

[Hook]

Forgive me lino, I don't understand your question.  But I'll try to answer it anyway.

Decay will happen for all Sims, all the time, at the top of the hour.  But if your Sim is at work or asleep, the decay will be only half as much each hour.  Does this help?

Hook

[linolino]

yes, thanks. i'm sory abut the bad contructed question. hehe