2015 Challenge Tournament Overview

[Metropolis Man]

2015 Sims 4 Challenge Tournament Overview

Welcome to the 2015 Sims 4 Challenge Tournament! The 15-event Tournament runs from January 1st to December 2nd (anyone can jump in the Tournament at any time throughout the year). Two events will kick off the season on January 1st — one Minor event (ending after three weeks) and one Major event (ending after six weeks). Two more events will start in February once the first two events ends and the same cycle continues through the year. Here is a link to the official 2015 Sims 4 Tournament Events Calendar. Rule sets will always be posted 2 weeks before starting dates.

The 2015 Tournament Champion will be the player at the top of the World Ranking at the close of the Tournament Finale on December 2 and will receive two Sims 4 expansions (courtesy of Carl) as well as a 2015 Sims 4 Tournament Championship Plaque (courtesy of Metro). An Amazon.com gift card will be awarded to the runner-up (courtesy of Pam).

General Challenge Rules

Players are responsible for knowing and following the General Challenge Rules. The rules below apply to all 2015 Tournament events (Dynasty challenges are not Tournament events). There will be exceptions and you will be informed of those exceptions in individual rule sets.

Ready to Participate in the Tournament?
Awesome! Just pick an event that is currently open (live events have a thumbs up topic icon) and dive in.

Practicing for a Challenge
Practicing before a challenge officially goes live is fine, but once you create your scoring file, that’s it—you have one attempt and cannot create a 2nd scoring file. You may never use any mods while practicing for an event. All mods or programs/utilities that allow you to look at code to gain information must never be used once you begin practicing for a challenge.

Starting Dates/Closing Dates
If you look at the bottom of a particular rule set you will notice official starting and closing dates - these dates are large and are in purple. If the event is a minor event you have three weeks to finish. If the event is a major event, then you have six weeks. Playing your scoring file before the starting date or after the closing date is not allowed. The only time reference you need to remember is your local time/date. You must submit scores in the individual challenge thread before the closing date has come and gone in your local time zone. Scores submitted after the closing date will not be accepted.

Creating Your Scoring Game File
You must always play your challenge file under the most current EA patch — this applies to before creating your file as well as the duration of the event.

All challenges begin in a fresh, virgin, completely unaltered town (Willow Creek or Oasis Springs) of your choosing. Unless a particular rule set lays down restrictions, you are free to travel and/or move to any neighborhood or town.

Options - all default settings: Autonomy > Full; Auto Age (Played Sims) > Yes; Auto Age (Unplayed Sims) > Yes; Sim Lifespan > Normal

Household Size: Individual Challenge rule sets will specify how many Sims you create and their starting life stage. Always create Sims in CAS from scratch. • Cannot use gallery downloaded Sims • Cannot use cloned/twin gallery downloaded Sims • Cannot use saved Sims from your library • Cannot use saved Sims clone/twin from your library.

3rd Party Custom Content / Modifications
3rd party Custom Content that alters appearance for CAS purposes is acceptable and can be used at the player's own risk. Modifications (mods) are patches that alter some core component of game play and are never allowed. Programs and utilities that allow you to see the game code such as ILSpy are also never allowed. Remember, no mods or code utilities can be used during practice.

Cheats and Banned Content
You are only allowed to open the cheats panel for two things: a stuck Sim or a stuck object.

ResetSim Firstname Lastname. You may only use this cheat in the event of a stuck Sim. This cheat is case sensitive, so make sure to type your Sim’s name correctly).
Moveobjects. You may only use this cheat for a stuck object.

The following content is banned in all 2015 Tournament events:

Reloading a game or traveling/entering CAS to reset Whims - This is a exploit to force the game to spawn more Whims and is not allowed.
Editing Non-Home Lots - you obviously can change your own home lot, but cannot make changes to any other lots. Placing an item from Inventory on non home lots is not allowed.
Manage Worlds - you may never use the Manage Worlds screen in Tournament challenges.
Life Extension - anything that lengthens pre-Elder life stages is prohibited. Completing the Bodybuilder Aspiration is fine since it only lengthens Elder.

Exiting without saving to avoid a mistake or an unfortunate occurrence (i.e. burglar or fire) is cheating. Restarting from an earlier save is also cheating. In the event your challenge file is plagued by a game-breaking bug, then PM the team with specifics. We will then make a decision as to restarting from a previous save or simply allowing a complete restart.

Some Aspiration Milestone have you finding collectibles, etc, and these can be exploited by having items in your inventory already as the Milestone becomes active with you then removing and replacing the items to make progress on the Milestone. This falls into the category of cheating. Whims related to collectibles can also be quickly finished via the inventory exploit, so please do not do that.

Strategy Discussion
Do not discuss any strategy pertaining to a given event once that event’s rule set is posted. Casually or accidentally breaking this rule carries a warning and a possible event DQ. Remember, Tournament events are competitive and asking questions like "Can I do x?" may seem innocent, but may in fact put that idea in someone else's head if they had not thought of doing that. So, please, PM the team. Discussing strategy after being warned is grounds for being tossed from the entire Tournament. We need to have as level a playing field as possible and giving others tips and hints is simply not allowed once rule sets are up and an event is live. Posts with questions that hint at possible strategies will be deleted without notice. After an event closes you are free to discuss strategy for that event.

The Honor System
The 2015 Tournament is all about friendly competition and having fun. The Tournament attracts players of all abilities and competitiveness from casual first-timers to seasoned high-caliber veterans. We all want to have a good time no matter what we’re seeking to get out of the Tournament. Allowing everyone to have a good time means we all need to play honestly — no cheating and no exploits. If you discover an exploit then you must PM the team (Metro, Nutella, ratchie, MarianT, and LenaLJ) so we can quickly edit a ruleset. If it's discovered that you have intentionally cheated in any way, then you will be banned from the forum on the spot. We have a zero tolerance policy for cheating.

Submitting Scores
When you have finished all the requirements for a given event submit your final score right in the individual challenge thread and the team will update the leaderboard with your information. Remember not to comment on how you approached the event with specifics until the event is closed.

Any player entering a score into the Challenge Tournament must have registered or posted from an IP address that originates from their local internet provider. Players submitting scores from proxy servers will be considered to have reason to hide their identities, therefore any score submitted through a proxy server will be disqualified.

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We hope the 2015 Sims 4 Challenge Tournament adds new and exciting dimensions to your playing, and most importantly, we hope everyone has a great time. This is the first Sims 4 Challenge Tournament season, so let’s see some great participation numbers!

See you on the leaderboard — Metro, ratchie, Nutella, MarianT, and LenaLJ.

[MarianT]

I don't understand the rule about not logging in -- does that mean we have to be offline from Origin while playing?

Also, it looks as if there won't be a store, but rather game packs that are downloaded through Origin. Since these seem to take the place of expansions and stuff packs, would they be okay?

Great to see the challenges starting again!

[Metropolis Man]

I don't understand the rule about not logging in -- does that mean we have to be offline from Origin while playing?

Ah, ty. That carried over from last year's rule set. I think we did that to prevent the Happiness point exploit with that game at the loading screen. I'll remove it.

Also, it looks as if there won't be a store, but rather game packs that are downloaded through Origin. Since these seem to take the place of expansions and stuff packs, would they be okay?

Great to see the challenges starting again!

I am excited too. Good luck this year, Marian.

[Shewolf13]

I'm going to do my best to actually play in this Tournament.  It will be my first time competing, so I apologize in advance for the millions of PM's that may be coming the teams' way for clarifications XD But in all seriousness, looking forward to it!

[LenaLJ]

I'm going to do my best to actually play in this Tournament.  It will be my first time competing, so I apologize in advance for the millions of PM's that may be coming the teams' way for clarifications XD But in all seriousness, looking forward to it!

@Shewolf13: Don't worry about it, better ask one time to much than one to less

Im self overly excited about this.

[Metropolis Man]

All challenges begin in a fresh, virgin, completely unaltered town.
Unless the individual rule set states otherwise, you are free to create your challenge file in any official EA Sims 4 town. No other worlds are allowed. You play the entirety of a challenge in one neighborhood and do not move to another one, but moving about within a neighborhood is fine.

Playalot sent the team a PM ealier and was confused about the above rule. I can see why because we have "town," "world," and "neighborhood," all thrown together. So, let me clarify it.

---------------

EDIT:

Okay, does this make more sense...

All challenges begin in a fresh, virgin, completely unaltered world. Unless a particular rule set has you playing in a certain world, then you are free to play your challenge file in either Willow Creek or Oasis Springs. No other worlds are allowed. You play the entirety of a challenge in one world and do not move to the other one, but moving to and/or visiting any neighborhood within your world is fine.

[LenaLJ]

Okay, does this make more sense...

All challenges begin in a fresh, virgin, completely unaltered world. Unless a particular rule set has you playing in a certain world, then you are free to play your challenge file in either Willow Creek or Oasis Springs. No other worlds are allowed. You play the entirety of a challenge in one world and do not move to the other one, but moving to and/or visiting any neighborhood within your world is fine.

Does that mean we do not allow anyone to visit oasis springs, if they decided to play from willow creek?

[Metropolis Man]

Does that mean we do not allow anyone to visit oasis springs, if they decided to play from willow creek?

Let me investigate this a little more. Maybe there really is no reason to have such restrictions as moving or visiting to the other world. In Sims 3 there was the game clock issue when you moved to another town.

[simfulicious]

I look at it like this...the world is not actually named in TS4.  Willow Creek and Oasis Springs are towns in said unnamed world, and then there are different neighborhoods within the towns.  There aren't any time continuum issues created by going between Willow Creek and Oasis Springs.

[Metropolis Man]

I look at it like this...the world is not actually named in TS4.  Willow Creek and Oasis Springs are towns in said unnamed world, and then there are different neighborhoods within the towns.  There aren't any time continuum issues created by going between Willow Creek and Oasis Springs.

Yeah, I just did some testing myself and there are indeed no time issues as there was in Sims 3. That's important because all short events will end on a toon's Adult birthday and the longer events finish when they age to Elder. Anything that potentially messes up that is bad - that's why we have to have a global ban on life extension. Okay, well unless other team members chime in and say otherwise, I guess I can edit the rules and allow total access within the world (both towns) at all times.

[GlazeyLady]

I don't understand the rule about not logging in -- does that mean we have to be offline from Origin while playing?

Ah, ty. That carried over from last year's rule set. I think we did that to prevent the Happiness point exploit with that game at the loading screen. I'll remove it.

Hmmmmmm . . . . I thought that was to prevent people from sending/receiving potions.

[Deklitch]

I've got last place stitched up for the challenge tournament this year! LOL

[Metropolis Man]

Okay, folks - this is where we are at with moving/traveling:

All challenges begin in a fresh, virgin, completely unaltered town (Willow Creek or Oasis Springs) of your choosing. Unless a particular rule set lays down restrictions, you are free to travel and/or move to any neighborhood or town.

[Poffin]

What is the policy on paid content like limited edition, pre-order bonuses, ect.? The presence of such objects or lack-there-of will certainly change the tide of the challenges. For example, the plumbob lamps from Sims 3 expansions are very powerful because they give access to moods via decor that would normally only be available through a career. These items present an interesting strategic aspect, but not all players have them.

[Metropolis Man]

What is the policy on paid content like limited edition, pre-order bonuses, ect.? The presence of such objects or lack-there-of will certainly change the tide of the challenges. For example, the plumbob lamps from Sims 3 expansions are very powerful because they give access to moods via decor that would normally only be available through a career. These items present an interesting strategic aspect, but not all players have them.

True, but in my opinion those lamps are not going to win a challenge for anyone. We will keep our eyes out for overpowered items as more stuff is released.