The Skills Dilemma: If You Get Help It'll Cost You

[Metropolis Man]

The Skills Dilemma: If You Get Help It'll Cost You

Goal
Every year we've always offered up a skilling challenge with the goal being to max as many skills as possible. So, we're continuing that tradition, but making it tougher by forcing you to start with a Sim with nasty traits for their Aspiration - which you cannot change! On top of that - if you elect to bring in Sims to help skill with you, then it will lower your multiplier resulting in some hard decisions. 

General Challenge Rules
The General Challenge Rules always apply. If applicable, exceptions will be noted below.

Specific Challenge Rules

• Create one Young Adult Sim with traits - Lazy, Clumsy, and Insane. Aspiration = Bodybuilder.
• A new Aspiration can only be changed if a household member's original Aspiration is completed. No temporary switching. After original Aspirations are completed there are no restrictions.
• Household size cannot exceed four Sims, and once you move in a Sim they have to stay for the duration of the challenge and cannot be replaced.
• Any Sim with a maxed skill cannot join your household. If you discover that a Sim does have a maxed skill, then they have to be kicked out immediately. In this case, the Sim CAN be replaced if you choose to do so.
• You are allowed to use the Buydebug cheat for the sole purpose of purchasing a satellite to prevent abductions.
• Photography cannot be scored in this event, but all other skills qualify.
• All skills scored must be unique and must be adult skills - i.e. there can be overlap between skills of Sims, but you can only score duplicate maxed skills once.
• No life extension methods are allowed - i.e. females cannot get pregnant.
• This challenge ends when your starting Sim has their Elder birthday.

Scoring

Scoring is a combination of points awarded for each unique maxed skill plus a multiplier that varies depending on how many Sims helped you in your skilling.   

Maxed Skills — For each maxed skill your household achieved at the time your starting Sim has their Elder birthday award yourself 1000 points.

6 - 9 — For any remaining skills that are not maxed but are at least level 6, then give yourself 50 points per level.

HM — This is your Household Multiplier and everyone starts with a multiplier of 1.00 for their starting Sim. If you elect to solo the entire event and never bring in another Sim, then you take no penalty and your multiplier remains at 1.00. However, if your household number ever reaches the following numbers, then you must change your multiplier to the following (even if your helper Sim dies):

2 — .75
3 — .50
4 — .25

Total — Add your Maxed Skills and 6 - 9 points together and then multiply by your HM for your Total. I’ll walk you through an example.

Example: You have written down 16 different maxed skills on a sheet of paper (keep notes in case the team needs verification). You also got one skill to level 7. Plus, you ended up having two additional Sims move in to help.

Maxed Skills = 16 X 1,000 = 16,000 points.
6 - 9 = 7 X 50 = 350 points.
HM = .50 (3 household members).

Total = (16,000 + 350) X .50 = 8,175

In the event your household caps ALL skills in the game, then immediately stop your file at that point and note the age of your Sim (days to aging up) as well as the day and hour on the game clock. The team would need that info in order to break ties at the top of the leaderboard.

Ch-Ch-Changes
The team does not want to edit and make changes to the ruleset once this event goes live, but we may have to. If an exploit is brought to our attention or we discover something else we reserve the right to ask affected players to redo their effort.

Have Questions?
Please think hard before you ask in the challenge thread because it may be strategy. What you may consider an innocent question could cause another player to go — “oh, I did not think of doing that.” It’s always safer to PM everyone on the team (Metro, ratchie, Nutella, LenaLJ, Trip, and Blackrosea) for clarifications. Thanks.

And the Winner is...
After this event has closed everyone is encouraged to discuss how they approached the event, but the winner especially is expected to do so in detail.

This Event is Now Closed

Player	Maxed Skills	6 - 9	HM	Total
ClayMask	21000	0	1.00	21000 (15 days to age up 5:03 AM)
LenaLJ	21000	0	1.00	21000 (12 days to age up 2:25 AM)
officialghosts	21000	0	1.00	21000 (8 days to age up 6:28 PM PM)
Nikitachi	21000	0	1.00	21000 (0 days to age up 2:56 AM)
Metropolis Man	19000	350	1.00	19350
alyssa.cole	18000	0	1.00	18000
oshizu	21000	0	0.75	15750 (9 days to age up 3:56 AM)
krzyman21	21000	0	0.75	15750 (4 days to age up 11:53pm)
Kirstie	21000	0	0.75	15750 (1 day to age up 12:14 PM)
Ginj	14000	1000	1.00	15000
HelenP	19000	900	0.75	14925
december22	19000	700	0.75	14775
MissTrips	18000	1050	0.75	14287
fluffyj00	12000	2050	1.00	14050
Shewolf13	14000	0	1.00	14000
saltpastillen	13000	400	1.00	13400
Brisayshi	12000	1150	1.00	13150
Nelleam	12000	750	1.00	12750
MarianT	11000	850	1.00	11850
CynKuy	15000	650	0.75	11737
SIMantics101	14000	1650	0.75	11737
MissZoef	15000	350	0.75	11513
fivebyfive	11000	400	1.00	11400
MomOfMany	10000	900	1.00	10900
SimPoseyYum	10000	0	1.00	10000
kirkbysims	7000	1750	1.00	8750
PSDuckie	7000	350	1.00	7350
sdhoey	6000	100	1.00	6100
JocyMc	3000	650	1.00	3650
Annabec	3000	100	1.00	3100

[EtnaFan666]

So the goal is to be eternally Tense and try to manage your needs AND try to master skills while suffering from the eternally tense moodlet. Talk about Dark Souls 2 in difficulty! 

[ManiSims]

In the event your household caps ALL skills in the game, then immediately stop your file at that point and note the day and hour on the game clock. The team would need that info in order to break ties at the top of the leaderboard.

Because the game doesn't keep track of the weeks anymore, just the day/time, would it be more clear if we were to note the age of the original Sim as well as day/time?

[Nutella]

Yes that would make more sense.  Keep track of the day/time AND also the age of the original Sim.  I wonder when will EA put back the time tracking in the sims game.

[Metropolis Man]

Thank you, ManiSims - good suggestion.

[fivebyfive]

Sounds fun, though very stressful!

[Nutella]

@Metropolis Man
Sorry about the Ambitious suggestion.  I just tested it and it doesn't work, can't select Ambitious along with lazy, we need another nasty trait.

EDIT:  One option is to leave the last trait empty.

[Metropolis Man]

Oh hehe - yeah that makes sense that they conflict. Ok, I will delete Ambitious and maybe we can think of a 3rd.

[ClayMask]

Maybe outgoing so their social need will deplete faster? Or perfectionist so that some things take  longer for them?

[ManiSims]

Also traits that don't provide many benefits: the random angry moodlet from Hot-headed gets irritating and doesn't help with much except Fitness, and Snob sims only get a confidence boost around other Snobs and get bored easily.

[Nutella]

Outgoing, perfectionist, hot-headed, and snob -- all of these actually help in something.  I can't go into details on these, but the team will figure something before the challenge starts.

[ClayMask]

 I don't know of a single trait that doesn't help anything, including the ones in this challenge,  except hates children, which probably wouldn't have much impact on anything, and squeamish, which you'd have to have outdoor retreat for.  To me it seems though that if it has more downside than upside that it's worth considering.

[Nutella]

Ya squeamish was one of our first choice, but players without outdoor retreat won't be able to pick that trait.

[Nutella]

On a side note, does anyone knows how to turn off "debug"?  I tried bb.hidehiddenobjects and bb.showhiddenobjects off -- both didn't work.

[Metropolis Man]

Hates Children - yeah that just might work. Totally neutral really and would not aid your Sim which is kind of what the team is after. We want to make this tough and not let you guys choose traits that would benefit a bunch of skilling.