So Book of Life = Easy Mode?

[Piemanthe3rd]

So I only just started playing Sims 4 and one of my first Sims was a writer. Got him to level 10 then began shelling out Books of Life.

The thing that I noticed though was that they suddenly made the game really easy. Most mentions of the book were about how they were good for reviving dead Sims, but being that they restore living Sims moodlets fully it seems like a fairly simple way to make your families never need to sleep or eat ever again.

It just seems a tad OP to me. Has anyone else felt the same?

[Ricalynn]

Welcome to the forum!

I use books of life in my dynasty(Carl's forum exclusive) to help meet goals.  They are basically the moodlet managers from sims 3 without the fail rate or the van from generations without having to get in.  Sims has always had something that would fill needs completely.  Even without the books, you could use moodlet solvers (a reward potion) to do the same and those with a scientist from Get to Work EP can clone them for even easier access to them without spending the reward points. And not to mention the club perk Rally the troops from Get Together EP.

It comes down to how you play.  If you're not in a challenge game and like to do everything realistically then yes it might feel like cheating but you did a lot of work to get that cheat (the aspiration). 

While having access to them there is one thing I've recently started to do, only use them once a day.  For me it's the start of the day to get everyone's needs high and then after that I feed them, wash them and I might let them nap.

[CuriousSim]

Still, writing is one skill track, that takes loads of time. You don't get it for free. Sims isn't a shooter/puzzle game, so I wouldn't categorize a month's worth of gameplay as being "easy", necessarily. When I first tried Sims 3 many, many, years ago, I quit it entirely, for a very long time, because I put so much time into it. I might actually take a break from this one too. Being able to earn rewards, that allow gameplay to be a bit easier, is appreciated. It's still a challenge, every time you start a new player.

[Playalot]

I think the amount of work it takes a sim to get to the point they can actually write the BOL negates how easy it makes sims lives afterwards. That and the fact that the author can not write a book for him/herself so you basically have to have two author sims in a household if you want every sim to have use of a BOL.

They are basically a motive cheat that is not a motive cheat.  At launch they were just about the only way to easily manage sims needs not counting the moodlet solvers. As @Ricalynn has pointed out there are now quite a few ways to achieve this.

The thing I like about the BOL is that once your author sims are dead (barring revival) you have to go through the process (grind) again to get another author sim.

[Piemanthe3rd]

Suppose you are right that it does take some time to be able to write one, it just felt like it didn't take me too long overall. Plus I realized that once I had one sim able to make it I could then use the book to essentially power another sim through the writer skill pretty much without ever stopping.

Truth be told all I have to do is not use it all the time I suppose. Just one of those temptation things.

[Playalot]

I like that is there as an option to use or not. I make all these 'rules' up about how I can use it in my game such as only sims that have completed one aspiration can have one etc. Keeps it all a little more interesting.