Boring Bones Tv
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(SPOILER) January 2025 will start off on the right foot!
🕑 Added 2024-12-22 16:04:44 +0000 UTCToday, I want to share a little bit of what you can expect for January 2025! Which, by the way, is closer than it seems! I hope you're ready!!
Imagine a world where your Sims no longer take just a few hours to increase their skill levels, but many days, perhaps even weeks, or an entire lifetime!
Although this mod may seem a bit intimidating from this initial description, that's not the case. In reality, it's the complete opposite. Without this mod, a regular Sim with no art-related traits, for example, could gain 2 (YES, 2) skill points in guitar in 8 hours. An artistic Sim might gain 2 points and be slightly ahead in the race. And a Sim with both artistic and virtuoso traits might have 2 points in guitar and be close to reaching 3 points.
What this mod does is tune the skills and personality traits to create a more realistic, organic, challenging, and meaningful dynamic.
This is the result after 8 hours of practice: None of the Sims reached 1 skill point, however, each of them is at different levels of skill progression. Following the same order of traits: No art trait, artistic, artistic + virtuoso.
Credits for the idea of this mod go to Alex Shemesh, so a big thank you to Alex for this amazing suggestion! Alex is right! Playing The Sims becomes a boring and tedious experience if all Sims can reach level 10 in any skill without putting in any effort or, more importantly, having a natural talent for it.
My first step here was to slow down the speed at which all skills increase. I made the process ALMOST painfully slow to reflect that acquiring skills sometimes requires a lot of effort, dedication, and consistency.
On the other hand, I dynamically adjusted each of the personality traits related to skills in the game to give them a 150% boost. This way, we make skill progression a long-term process, BUT we also boost Sims who have a "natural talent" for it.
Note: Although a 150% boost may seem like a lot, remember that skill progression is now CONSIDERABLY slower. So, this 150% doesn't even provide the current combined skill gain rate of the Artistic + Virtuoso traits. In other words, your Sim may have been born with talent, but they won't gain 1 skill point in guitar in a 8 hour of playing the instrument.
We have several goals with this mod:
Make the behavior, actions, and reactions of Sims even more unique and singular, as their idle moments now more frequently reflect their personalities.
Reduce the chance of having a neighborhood where everyone is an expert in everything, making the rise of great painters, mechanics, fishermen, politicians, etc., a unique accomplishment in the community that can reflect their importance.
Create more marked "class" dynamics, meaning we give more significance to establishing relationships, as Alex suggested.
Make the game more challenging and benefit Simmers who think more strategically by combining character traits to boost performance in careers and skills.
In other words, weβre building a mod that makes the game more rewarding for those of us who love challenges and enjoy playing without constantly pressing speed 3. It's a mod for long-term gameplay that will offer unique benefits and make the Sims even more individualized, meaningful, and unique.
There is still work to be done, but I wanted to share this initial process with all of you. Thanks again, Alex, for this brilliant idea. Any suggestions you all have are welcome. That said, this mod will also change the relationship dynamics between Sims with opposing traits, their lifestyles, and more! After all, we are tweaking nearly all traits, and our goal is to make them more and more distinct from each other.
Tell me in the comments below what you think of this idea!
Comments
Boring Bones Tv
Amazing! Baby skills remained intact and so did pets, as they tend to be harder to improve by default and require more than 1 sim to do so.
Alex Shemesh
yeeeeees!!!! this is so fucking cool! so the point is to get the classes and books more involved? that's great! on an unrelated note: are toddler and pet skills affected by the mod? and what about university gameplay? haven't touched it for like 10 years so I don't remember if there is mandatory skill gain in there or not π
Boring Bones Tv
I did better! (i think!) actually, imagine that a couch potato Sim now needs to have a mood of 95 for the exercise interaction to BE AVAILABLE to the player. In other words, autonomously, these types of Sims will never be seen exercising, but now, for the player, making them exercise will also be a unique event, since with my other mods, making Sims reach this level of happiness is a HUGE challenge! xD For painters (or for those who hate art) I had to use a somewhat unintuitive but functional approach. Since I couldn't stop those who hate art from painting (although autonomously they would never do that), what I did to stop the player from painting was... That now the easel cannot be used by Sims who don't have at least level 0 of painting skill (remember that all Sims start with level -1 of skills in general). So even for an artistic person, he needs to learn before he can start painting (something natural in real life, since no one spends money on paint, canvas, etc. without at least knowing how to paint)
Alex Shemesh
!!!yeeeeees!!! great thinking
Boring Bones Tv
Well, good news! Career progression is slower, and the game takes into account whether or not the Sim has the required skill, providing a little boost if so. The Sim may not be fired right away, but they definitely have time to develop their skills. In my test, for example, in the music career, Sims took 1 week to go from level 1 to level 2. Having skills provided some opportunities that contributed positively to advancement, including hourly salary bonuses. Not having guitar skills in this initial case did not result in dismissal, but it also did not bring any benefits. I hope you like it!! It's been challenging to progress, but that's great because it contributes to long-term gameplay.
Alex Shemesh
getting couch potatoes to exercise is its own kind of challenge but maybe it's a couch potato that likes swimming? I haven't checked the bard actions nearly as much all I know is that playful Sims or childish ones can play in playgrounds and sleep in a treehouse and others can't and that the geniuses can teach skills to others
Alex Shemesh
that is so fucking cool! again thank you so much for doing it!!!
Boring Bones Tv
Good point! Hmmm!! Interesting,I'll check these parameters!
Boring Bones Tv
Thannk you!!! For me, its a pleasure! I'm looking into ways to make some interactions impossible for certain traits as you suggested, HOWEVER, I was happy to notice that by default the game already excludes, for example, Potatos Couch from exercising on exercise machines. However, if I'm able to eliminate the possibility of the player choosing to do this, it could be an interesting, even more challenging direction. However, if I'm not able to, just the fact that autonomy already removes them from this type of activity, it's a good path forward!!
Boring Bones Tv
Since I changed the parameters based on personality traits, giving them significant boosts, I decided to keep the boosts (which are already quite positive) of supernatural creatures in their default state, as they will be added to the updated boosts. In other words, one way or another, supernaturals will continue to have their own benefit, reflecting their more "powerful" nature.
Alex Shemesh
also, what about skill gain for jobs? maybe increase the amount of time the job will "wait" for you to gain the skill before firing you if you don't...?
Alex Shemesh
will supernatural creatures be affected? what about spells and potions for skills? or are you leaving that area alone for players who decide they *do* want a quick boost in skill, but don't want to remove the mod?
Alex Shemesh
holy shit man ! I have no words except thank you so much , for indulging my runaway thought and being so open and creative!!! π€―
