Pinstar's new Apocalypse challenge

[cdpengin]

Do townies already at the top of their career count for lifting that particular restriction? For example, if my founder marries a townie that's already a professional party guest, is Slacker automatically lifted?

[kutto]

As long as they are not Mr. Big or the Diva, then yes. Or is that a Show Biz restriction?

*frantically checks rule book

[Kyna]

It's not in the rules on Pinstar's website, but he said earlier in this topic:

2. Spouses can keep their current job if they have one. If they are at the top of their career field, they instantly unlock that restriction (provided they are that generation's one spouse)

As Kutto pointed out, under the Show Biz restriction "The Diva and Mr. Big NPCs may not be moved into the house for any reason."  So your heirs can't marry either of them to lift the Slacker restriction unless you've already lifted the Show Biz restriction.

[Pinstar]

With further playtesting I found that snapdragons are utterly broken and make the challenge way too easy. However, my intent is not to squash the strategies of those who were clever enough to fill their houses with snapdragons.


I'm thinking of adding the following to the Business restriction
"Due to lack of supply chains, you cannot use any work benches"

You would be able to bring home 1 or 2 snapdragons from college and keep them in inventory until you unlock Natural Science...but you would also need to unlock business to be able to manufacture them and fill the house.


Those that started with a house full of snapdragons wouldn't have to change or delete them... just follow the proposed rule going forward.

This also adds another couple teeth to the business restriction, which could benefit from a little harshening. What does everyone think?

[Eleonora]

Sounds good to me. Snapdragons make this challenge a LOT easier, and the whole point is to make this as difficult as possible.

[Sketch Elder]

I think the rules should be left as they are even though I'm not following the Natural Scientist route myself. The NS restriction on using the Flower Arranging bench and its products is the only one that makes a really significant difference and I don't want to see any of the college careers become meaningless. Natural Scientist has two chance cards where either answer can get the founder fired, and make it impossible to follow the NS strategy, so this stragegy is already a gamble.

Making snapdragons is only practical for Sims who already have a gold badge in Flower Arranging, which limits it to the founder and possibly some spouses. Other Sims would produce large numbers of bouquets while earning the gold badge and have to do something with all of those bouquets. If the Business restrictions apply, they can't sell them. If the Athletic restrictions apply, they can't keep more than 3 of them in inventory. If the Politics restrictions apply, they can only use the 8x8 section of the lot for storage, so their house will become extremely cluttered. That already makes producing snapdragons, or any other crafted objects, impractical for most Sims until at least two restrictions have been lifted. I think that's sufficient.

[BastDawn]

I would have to agree that snapdragons make it too easy.  I'm not too far along yet, but my sims are in the green all the time from the snapdragons -- even if I make them exercise until they reach hygeine failure, it's not enough to put them in the red.  My founder got her gold badge in college and as soon as she unlocked the Natural Science career, she bought a flower bench and put three snapdragons on every floor.

Keep in mind, Sketch Elder, that if snapdragons also require Business to unlock, that doesn't make NS useless.  You need NS if you want to unlock Alien Technology.  NS also unlocks the hydroponic planter, which gives another way to increase creativity.

I'll keep going with my current family for now, but the new rule sounds interesting enough that I might start a new one.

[rohina]

Booo to all rule changes after the fact. In principle.

[dizzy]

Rule changes have to be more demanding, otherwise people are too tempted to use the loopholes that make the challenge less fun.

[Sketch Elder]

I thought about those before I posted. Natural Scientist unlocks telescopes, stargazing, and cloudwatching, but it doesn't unlock the Alien Technology by itself and there other ways of training Logic. You still have to lift another restriction, a particularly difficult one since it relies on low probablilty events, before you get access to the aspiration rewards. Likewise, Natural Scientist unlocks the Hydroponic Planter but doesn't give it to you. Someone has to take a job in Slacker, a different career, in order to earn the Planter. Even the cowplant doesn't really matter since you can use vampirism to extend your lifespan. In my opinion, the only thing Natural Scientist unlocks by itself that really matters is the snapdragon bouquet.

If you honestly believe the snapdragons are making it too easy, put them where they won't do you any good. The challenge can be as hard as you want it to be, since you can impose additional restrictions on yourself whenever the mood strikes you.

[Ivy]

I'm thinking of adding the following to the Business restriction
"Due to lack of supply chains, you cannot use any work benches"
 What does everyone think?

Okay...well you asked for it...

Oh for pete's sake, quit changing the rules just because there are folks out there who come up with different and clever strategies that in and of themselves already take a lot of work to accomplish.

Not to mention, you are further handicapping your Legacy Players who choose this as a handicap already to play...double whammy on them.  You are making it even more difficult for them to start a Generation 1 business by eliminating an entire category of options for a home-based business when you eliminate all workbenches.  What's the point of going after all your business bonuses then?

When you turn a challenge from "hard to play" into "not fun to play" you are going to turn folks off from playing the challenge at all. I
think you are forgetting that a challenge should be FUN as well as challenging. For some folks, watching their simmies with mood bars
dropping below green with no way to quickly counter it or prevent it isn't fun at all.  I'm talking your average sim player, not a power player here.

Not everyone plays the same way, and not everyone will use the same strategy.  This is where simmer's adaptations on whether or not to use a certain strategy come into play.  They can choose to handicap themselves further or not.  

If you're going to rule against snapdragons, you may as well rule against meditation as well.  Meditation is even easier to gain than snapdragons are.  Your first simmie can merely meditate his way to the top of whatever career path he wants.  Send your elders to the corner of the lot and make them meditate until they die.  Easy way to plan where their graves will be, and no worrying about where their graves will end up at.  Meditate your way thru pregnancy, no worries about hunger.  So shall we now rule out meditation now too?  

And while you're at it, you may as well rule out vampires as well.  Heck they're even easier to take care of, they don't age, and they can still reproduce.  And becoming a vampire is a piece of cake.  So there ya go, guess they're out as well now too?

Instead of rewarding clever simmers for thinking outside the box, you think everytime someone comes up with a "new" strategy that a rules change MUST be implemented or OMG it's a bad challenge now because of it. It isn't. Why can't you just let them play and be happy that they were clever in figuring out a different way to play it?

This challenge still has too many loopholes left open.  But for the sake of those not wanting to work the loopholes, just give it a rest and let them play it out and have FUN figuring it out.  Those finding the loopholes are having FUN finding them. They're going to find even more ways that this challenge should have been written from the get-go that you'll sit back and say "Now why didn't I think of that?"  Let them have their fun, let them discover ways to work within what you've already given them.  Perhaps at some point down the road make The Second Coming of the Apocalypse Challenge that includes the rules changes that you want to make after *carefully* evaluating what you've accidentally left out of the first one.  Give it a few months and give folks time to play it thru to the end.  Gather feedback and then decide what should be changed or not.  

Just remember: Having too many restrictions severely limits the paths that can be realistically taken during a challenge and still succeed.  In a challenge that already has so many restrictions, be careful what you restrict, or you'll lose more players than you gain.  When it's so restricted that only one path is the right path to take, the fun factor bottoms out, and it merely becomes a chore to follow that path to get to the end.

My 4cents, doubled now for mob inflation rates,

Ivy

edited for spelling and formatting

[rohina]

Hear, hear! Hoorah for Ivy for expressing in more detail what I (and I think, others) are feeling.

I originally suggested that Pinstar revise the language in the spouse rule, because it seemed like the intent wasn't clearly enough expressed, but all these rule changes every time someone thinks of a loophole are silly and annoying.

It's quite clear what the intent of the challenge is, and people can play "pure" if they want to, but the rules really need to stand at this point.

[Ivy]

Rohina I know without a doubt others are feeling the same.  Thank you for echoing it as well.


Ivy

[rohina]

Well, I said it again on Shoo Flee, one voice in the wilderness of yes-sheep people.

[Ivy]

Rohina, good for you!

Even a whisper can be heard above a scream, provided the right person is listening...


Ivy

[TreyNutz]

Looks like I'm going to go against popular opinion and say the restriction on craft benches sounds ok with me.  Snapdragons practically break the game.  I use them everywhere and everything is much much easier.  It's almost gotten boring.  I'll play the challenge with that rule regardless of whether it's ever made offical or not.  It fits in with the theme anyways.

I haven't started the challenge yet - won't until next month for various reasons.  But I wasn't planning to unlock NS soon anyways.  I'm curious how close to death I can keep my sims and still survive a generation or two.   

[neriana]

The workbench restriction doesn't bother me, because it does make some sense from a role-playing perspective. Unlike the not moving graves or furniture restrictions, or the no changing your hair restriction, none of which I would follow .

[J. M. Pescado]

Yeah, apparently, even monkeys believe in personal grooming.

[rohina]

Point is not the restriction so much, as the tinkering.

[shanpooter]

I'm going against popular opinion as well.  I think restricting crafting benches is a good idea.  And I also don't have any problem with refining the rules as more playtesting is done.  It is rare that anything comes out perfectly in the first edition.  Almost everyting needs updated as new holes appear. 

Not everyone plays the same way, and not everyone will use the same strategy.  This is where simmer's adaptations on whether or not to use a certain strategy come into play.  They can choose to handicap themselves further or not. 

This works the other way around as well.  The simmer can decide the hell with the rules and play the challenge as he feels fit.  It is just a game for fun after all.   

[Sagana]

This works the other way around as well.  The simmer can decide the hell with the rules and play the challenge as he feels fit.  It is just a game for fun after all.

I generally feel this way as well. I tend to play how I want and don't worry too much about it. However, a lot of people are more particular about playing by the rules than I am, and I know people have started over three times so they're playing within the new rules. They'll get frustrated.

Soooo, I'm gonna hafta go with the crowd - leave the rules alone for awhile. Anyone who plays with snapdragons knows they're too easy (I've banned them for myself in regular gameplay too) and if they want it harder, won't use them. Let it stand for awhile and let everyone play and have fun while they're excited and write up a new set of rules later on, after everything has been examined closely.

There's no real competition in this challenge anyway, so it doesn't matter if we aren't all playing the same way. What's fun to compare is strategies, and by now we all know about meditate, snapdragons, and vampires. Let's see how people who come up with some other ones do :) Could make lists - easiest strategy, most within the theme strategy, stuff like that :)

(PS: Someone like JM won't ever play the challenge at all. What he likes to do is read the rules, think up a way that'll let him "beat" the rules with some "infinite points" or "never lose" deal and declare it 'owned' ;)

[J. M. Pescado]

There's no real competition in this challenge anyway, so it doesn't matter if we aren't all playing the same way. What's fun to compare is strategies, and by now we all know about meditate, snapdragons, and vampires. Let's see how people who come up with some other ones do Could make lists - easiest strategy, most within the theme strategy, stuff like that

Actually, there is a competition: Getting a score of as close to zero as possible. Remember, each day after move in, you earn a "point". This is obviously a penalty point, since clearly the achievement is to beat it as fast as possible, not simply drag it out never filling the last restriction indefinitely. Therefore, the competition is to come up with a way to beat it in the minimum possible time, with naturally the 0-day victory being the most highly prized.

(PS: Someone like JM won't ever play the challenge at all. What he likes to do is read the rules, think up a way that'll let him "beat" the rules with some "infinite points" or "never lose" deal and declare it 'owned'

Well, yeah, once you get to that point, where you have a trivially implementable strategy, everything else is just mundane, sundry details I've done a million times before. Once you've got it down to the level where a brain-damaged chimpanzee could beat it, it's over.

[Pinstar]

I agree that these rule changes are annoying and I apologize. I'll play test my next challenge much more in depth next time.

I'm going to keep the restriction. The reason? Without it, Natural Science creates a 'perfect strategy'.

My goal was to make many different 'paths' of unlocking restrictions not only viable, but effective as well. My idea seemed to work out, as people were coming up with all sorts of combos.

Then along came the snapdragons. The snapdragons prove so powerful; they take the sting of many other restrictions. They become SO powerful that Natural Science becomes the only "Priority #1" career to unlock first. This removes a strategic dynamic of the challenge. The ability to have your motives stay in the green eliminates the sting of most of the other restrictions.  Why would you need to unlock high-fun objects, or showers... or high-level food items when you can just meditate near a snapdragon?

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.

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"



If you've been making items on workbenches, don't scrap your challenge. Just don't make any more until you unlock business.

[Sketch Elder]

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.

[J. M. Pescado]

Actually, the new perfect strategy is still to beat it as close to 0-day as luck will permit.