Pinstar's new Apocalypse challenge

[dizzy]

This is the problem with big complicated challenges. It isn't so much the inconvenience of remembering all the rules or making sure people understand them correctly as much as it is the process of revision necessary and all the little things required to make the essense of the challenge work later on. Using loopholes can kill the fun of a challenge, but part of the fun in a challenge is also in finding loopholes.

[J. M. Pescado]

The entire POINT of sim-challenges is to find loopholes and abuse them. Anything else is just boring and repetitive grinding.

[neriana]

The entire game is just boring and repetitive grinding if it's played as a strategy game.

[GayJohnScarritt]

   Something Pinstar said earlier keeps nagging at the back of my mind. 

   "With further playtesting I found that snapdragons are utterly broken"

   In what way?  Were they originally written to only last for a certain period of time/use, like the LoveTub?  Not as effective?
   Or did you just mean they've broken the challenge?

[J. M. Pescado]

They break the challenge, in the sense that since Pinstar has restricted everyone to a confined space, when a sim is near about 3 of them, he'll never need to do anything except sleep.

[Ivy]

You haven't eliminated NS as the #1 priority, you've just made Business the #2 priority and moved the point where most people will start following different paths to the 2nd generation instead of the founding generation. The new 'perfect strategy' is to get Natural Scientist with your founder and find a high-level Business townie as the founder's spouse. If your goal is to have people following many different strategies you've just made things worse instead of better.

So now expanding on that a bit, have your permaplat vampire founder get to the top of natural science and then spouse go for business as soon as possible.  Once the top of your career(s) is reached, quit your job(s).  You of course have already earned all your crafting badges in Uni (since you can use workbenches without actually owning a business) and since you played your time there well, you have a nice nest egg to make plenty of snapdragons, pay the mob and your bills to boot.  Since crafted items aren't taxed by the mob, snapdragons are ideal replacements for home furnishings.  Not to mention, people will come to you that you can socialize with if that's your thing if you actually open a business.  With the unlimited life span of a vampire now you have all the time in the world then to pop out spawn to unlock whatever other restrictions in whatever order you wish, as Frankenbeasely first stated so eloquently back on Sept 6th.  Said spouse/spawn can be vampires too, making it necessary to only get to the 2nd generation to get all 14 careers unlocked.  Death is a part of life eventually, after all...even for vampires...

This does take some planning and work and a little bit of luck on the part of those chance cards...not to mention, you are still limited to 8 sims in a household at a time, which is more planning and yes work coordinating that many at once. 

Does everyone want to play this way? Probably not.  Creative thinking or abuse of the rules? That's for each simmer to decide.  Unless of course vampires, permaplats and not to mention meditation get ruled out next... 

This is of course if you're not bothering to go for the ultimate 0day perfect strategy.

This change won't completely eliminate snapdragons. You can still get a lot of oomph out of bringing a pair of snapdragons home and unlocking Natural Science first. It just makes you choose them over other items if you wish to pursue that strategy. THAT is a more dynamic decision.

You are now laying down a path for simmers to follow logically to maximize the use out of one item that can be placed multiple times.  It's not a dynamic decision.  Well let's see...unlock natural science and business and abuse snapdragons, save money and abuse the heck out of it until the other restrictions are unlocked...sounds more like a no-brainer to me.  You're trying to compensate for a relatively small portion of simmers that would actually do this strategy.  As you have seen by reading the many forums, some folks get tired of them and choose NOT to use them at all.  If you'd go back thru this thread, snapdragons were mentioned here in this thread as early as Sept 6, after which you decided to eliminate businesses at Uni instead of snapdragons.  Hrm...something doesn't settle right about that to me...either you're not reading what we're writing here, or something is getting lost in translation...you were warned about them at any rate by more than one person.  And it's not like OFB just came out either...there are snapdragon strategies posted as to how to best maximize them, and how to best use them when combined with a business. one such link (copy shortcut and paste and open in a new window if you have a problem with the link...silly gamefaqs)

Along with snapdragons, you eliminated toy making as well.  What the heck do toys have to do with snapdragons?  Robots are already covered elsewhere, but toys? What could anyone possibly gain from a toybench besides some fun from the products? You couldn't sell them until business was restricted anyway...so honestly, what's the reason behind restricting toys?

For now this will be added to the business restriction
"Due to supply chain cuts in the region, Sims cannot use any crafting benches. Sims may still bring home crafted items from college. Flowers and Robots must be kept in inventory until their respective restrictions are unlocked"

Playing this within the Legacy Challenge as a handicap, unlocking Business was already one of the top items to get unlocked if you wanted all your business points, however...you are now handicapping your Legacy Players even further.  Without unlocking business as one of your first options, you can't possibly begin to start any of your simmies (other than your founder at Uni, and hey looky there, you can't get all of them either since you restricted businesses at Uni...) towards those 7 talent badges (unless you happen to play free-range style, which not very many folks do).  So way to go on restricting the choices even further in hopes of getting that perfect Legacy Score if someone had chosen the Apocalypse Challenge as a handicap   Even with 10 generations to get your points in, it's now become a case of "all that work for one point?"  (Only two ways to earn points in the business category...the "family business" and via the 7 gold badges-then-die-a-platinum-death simmies).   

Of course, the strategy that I first posted technically falls within the rules, it's do-able, but how much appeal does it really have? 

With all these additional business restrictions being placed within the Apocalypse Challenge...it's really starting to drain my fun meter...

Ivy
edited to explain linkage

[Giggy]

*Writes down info*
  interesting!

[GayJohnScarritt]

Thanks for that link, i NOW understand what you guys meant, when you said Business's can make oodles amounts of money.       I just got done having one of my Merchant Sims (from a Medieval Royal Challenge) get his Gold Sales/Gold Flower Arrangment/LVL 10 Venue Business from scratch.  Tried out that (A Good business) the second one, and made 200k in the last 2 days.  At that point, i sent my sim home, that was more than enough for that families needs.   LOL  He wasn't even a PermaPlat sim and no money/mood cheats other than stuff from here.
(Edited for spelling mistalkes/misquotes by John)

[seelindarun]

snapdragons were mentioned here in this thread as early as Sept 6

Which is precisely why I didn't bother starting this challenge.  I don't have OFB, and won't have it for a while.  It's not hard to realise even without play-testing that snapdragons will be a powerful advantage.

A challenge of this complexity will need refinement, but why must it be 0 or 1?  Add progressively more difficult revisions to the Apocalypse, say bronze, silver gold, add flavours for different combos of EPs, whatever.  This way, a decent interval of time passes between significant revisions, rather than changes that fall down from the sky capriciously.  Let people who have started their challenges play them out with the rules they started with, or have the choice of starting over.

Of course we can all play however we want, but a huge part of the fun is being able to talk about the game with others and have a glimpse of how *they* play.  For that discussion, we have to have a common launching point.  That's where challenges bring some of the fun of multi-player environments to a profoundly single-player game.

[Treehugger]

With the unlimited life span of a vampire now you have all the time in the world then to pop out spawn to unlock whatever other restrictions in whatever order you wish, as Frankenbeasely first stated so eloquently back on Sept 6th.  Said spouse/spawn can be vampires too, making it necessary to only get to the 2nd generation to get all 14 careers unlocked.  Death is a part of life eventually, after all...even for vampires...

This does take some planning and work and a little bit of luck on the part of those chance cards...not to mention, you are still limited to 8 sims in a household at a time, which is more planning and yes work coordinating that many at once. 

Actually you may not need vampirism to unlock all restrictions in two generations. One of reasons why I started with NS first wasn't snapdragons (because at the time I didn't realise they would have the effect they did have) but was that since alien abductions were such a random thing the sooner the stargazing started the better.  As it happened it was the third restriction unlocked and my founder has been living on elixer since then.  She could have produced enough 2nd generation sims to unlock all the restrictions (her ninth born has just become a child) except the third generation made a surprise arrival when one of her sons arriving home from college decided to do some stargazing...  Which delayed the return of his younger brother until his sister Hope could go to Uni.  Sometimes the game delights in throwing our careful planning and coordination out the window!.

Currently there are seven sims in the main household (my founder and her husband, her son Matthew, daughters Faith and Aroha, granddaughter Astra and daughter in law Robin), two kids in college (Nathan and Hope) and four households founded by the sons that moved out after lifting their restriction (Joshua, David, Daniel and Jonathon).

[seelindarun]

four households founded by the sons that moved out after lifting their restriction (Joshua, David, Daniel and Jonathon).

Are you playing these, and if so how?  By that I mean, do they found their households with the original challenge restrictions, a subset or none at all?  It doesn't matter to the challenge, of course... just curious. 

[Treehugger]

four households founded by the sons that moved out after lifting their restriction (Joshua, David, Daniel and Jonathon).

Are you playing these, and if so how?  By that I mean, do they found their households with the original challenge restrictions, a subset or none at all?  It doesn't matter to the challenge, of course... just curious. 

I haven't really started playing them yet but I intend to (been too interested in developments in the original house  ).  Leonid, their father, is a family sim and he shall get his 20 grandkids IW. (For the same reason Janet, my founder is pregnant with her tenth child and will give birth a day after her daughter in law does.

Joshua fell in love with Brandi Le Tourneau (a downtownie in the military career path he brought home from work.)  They moved into a prebuilt house on a 2x3 lot but aside from that they be following all the restrictions.

David fell in love with Meadow Thayer while he was in high school so when Joshua lifted military I sent her to college.  She moved into a bare 1x3 lot, built herself a 2x3 house to put her bed and a toilet.  Apart from using familyfunds (to give her the scholarship money she would have got if she was originally a playable sim) and the education adjuster from the insiminator (to shorten her semesters) all existing restrictions appiled to her.  It was harder playing her without snapdragons but fortunately she had enough romantic visits (can't really call them dates) from David to keep her aspiration high enough to use the energiser (alien technolgy was the third restriction lifted) She graduated magna cum laude and since she was a SS member I moved her into the shotgun shack where she moved in David after he lifted politics.  The shotgun shack got extended...

Both Jonathon and Daniel were SS members so I moved them into the other two ss lots.  They moved in and married their college sweethearts.

It's going to be interesting playing these lots with the restrictions since they don't have the plethora of snapdragons the main lot has.  Joshua's and David's lots have 2 each while the other two have none.

Culinary is the next on my list (after crime) but I can't lift that one until Aroha goes to college.

It just doesn't make sense to play the other households in the neighbourhood without the restrictions!

[Jack Rudd]

This is the sort of challenge that makes me wish TS2 had some sort of proper scenario-creation facility; I'd like to play this challenge, but would probably forget the rules at some point and do something illegal without realizing it. It'd be great if you could set the game up so that it actually prevented you from breaking the challenge rules.

[Annette]

There are so many rules, you are bound to break one without trying  I would like a summary of the rules. I'm forever going through my bits of paper....can I do this... oops I did that 
I'm finding it a fun challenge though. I have achieved some things I have never done before...such as have a platinum sim, and found uses for the maxis options I have ignored. Such as yoga, previously I was a heavy user of the UnlockCareerRewards cheat 
Now I have culinary unlocked, uneaten meals are going in the inventory....no more wasting precious food for me  I find myself thinking 'what would we do in a real disaster'. I suspect we would not waste water with all the hand washing we have to do to keep hygiene up, but as there is no option to fill a bath and share, they just have to. 

[Treehugger]

Having been in a situation where there were no showers or bath I can tell you that we would all be having spongebaths irrespective of all our neat levels are. Actually, having a private bathroom in our homes where we could take a shower or bath everyday is a relatively recent phenomenon  Once upon a time public baths were pricisely just that, a place that people would go to to not have a swim but also have a bath.  Maybe in a realife disastor they would bring back public washing facilites.

[Frankenbeasley]

It just doesn't make sense to play the other households in the neighbourhood without the restrictions!

Do you mean you apply all the restrictions to these other lots and they have to lift them for themselves? My reading of the 'rules' was that the lifting of the restrictions are presented as global so I would imagine that the new households would only have to abide by the restrictions the main household hasn't lifted. I haven't actually started this challenge yet so I'm simply explaining my interpretation of the scenario as described in Pinstar's original charter.

[Treehugger]

It just doesn't make sense to play the other households in the neighbourhood without the restrictions!

Do you mean you apply all the restrictions to these other lots and they have to lift them for themselves? My reading of the 'rules' was that the lifting of the restrictions are presented as global so I would imagine that the new households would only have to abide by the restrictions the main household hasn't lifted. I haven't actually started this challenge yet so I'm simply explaining my interpretation of the scenario as described in Pinstar's original charter.

No, like you I interpret the restrictions as being global. If they are lifted they are lifted for all the playable sims the neighbourhood and if they haven't all the playable sims have to abide by them

They are played with any restrictions not yet lifted by the main household.  So when I played Meadow at college, NS, medical, alien technology, military and politics had lifted by the main household but all the rest still stood so I played her by the remaining restriction.  So Meadow could actually go to college, build her 2x3 shack on the ground, have a shower, put her items we ever she wanted on the lot and use the energiser but all the rest still applied.

Now science, slacker and business have been unlocked at the main household the other playable are free to use technology etc.

[Sketch Elder]

I wouldn't.

[Kyna]

When my founder was fresh out of uni and still at a low level in her job (i.e. still poor) the burglar came.  He stole the bookcase - fortunately she was a slob and had left a book on the floor.  I didn't replace the bookcase, all she needed was the book.  He did her a favour, he reduced the protection money she had to pay.

[seelindarun]

Do you mean you apply all the restrictions to these other lots and they have to lift them for themselves? My reading of the 'rules' was that the lifting of the restrictions are presented as global so I would imagine that the new households would only have to abide by the restrictions the main household hasn't lifted.

I think Pinstar is agnostic regarding the 'spare' households.  Like in Legacy, the extra households cannot contribute to the challenge so the player can do what they like with them, or nothing at all.  What I was wondering is what other players are doing with these households in the early stages when fewer restrictions have been lifted.  Those families can't lift any restrictions, so if the restrictions are global, I'd think their little sim lives might be sort of grim since they can't do anything to help themselves, and yet are deprived of the usual opportunities.

Anyway, since I'm not playing the challenge yet, I thought I'd ask. 

[rohina]

I'm going to feed my spares to the mutants.

[GayJohnScarritt]

   

I'm going to feed my spares to the mutants.

   If you're going to use your spares as decoys, make sure you set up a house at the other end of the Neighborhood, far, far away from your playable house, that way the Mutants flock to that area thinking it's a rich feeding ground.     

[Jelenedra]

Or set them up in an abandoned Church, Police Station, or Hospital. According the the Zombie Survival Guide, those are the worst places to go during a zombie outbreak.

[rhodaloo]

I'm having my spare households live at the same restriction level as the main family.  At least I've made it to generation 3 so far.  Four restrictions gone, 10 more to go.   

[Alvaron]

Question for Pinstar: is it legitimate for the founder to bring back a crashed satellite from college? I sure hope so because otherwise poor Stephan Lawson's sacrifice will have been in vain.