2016 Sims 4 Challenge Tournament Overview

[coolsim9999999]

I think having some challenges that use the Short life span would be really fun!

@coolsim9999999
I'm pretty sure our fearless leader @Metropolis Man would be balancing such a challenge to suit a shorter life span.
For example, all participants across the board would earn a corresponding lower number of points during a shorter challenge period.
A shorter challenge period would also make it easier to do multiple practice runs in advance, if we so wish.

So, @Metropolis Man, please count me in favor of some challenges using a shorter life span!

@oshizu --- If players/Sims would have to accomplish less, then, I certainly agree with using short life span for challenges !

[Metropolis Man]

This is great feedback. Thank you, everyone. Nearly any challenge we have come up with -- careers, having as many babies as possible, earning as much Satisfaction as you can, doing as many Aspirations as you can, etc - can all simply be redone to a shorter life span. We all just need to get into the mind set that next year if the team does decide to go with Short life span events, that scores we not be a high as this year -- assuming that some of the scoring components are the same.

[reggikko]

The challenge model that may not work with the shorter life span is the ones where you try for the fastest time. The top players would likely finish before time is up, but you would wind up with a lot of people tied for the maximum time, unless, of course those type of challenges were used in the YA-elder challenges so that players had 20 Sim days to complete them. I agree that the current 40-day YA-elder challenges can be a bit of a slog, especially if the Sim is basically doing one activity like writing books the entire time.

[Magpie2012]

Also, call me nuts, but, I shudder at the thought of trying Baby Boomer on the Short Lifespan! I barely got through it on Normal lol

Maybe keep the harder challenges on Normal Lifespan for the bottom-rung scorers, such as myself, who still want to believe they have a chance, and take the "easier" challenges and make them Short Lifespan (thus increasing their difficulty)?

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[Metropolis Man]

In a sense shortening the life span for Sims next year would make things more difficult mainly because you'd have less room for error - there would not be much time for you to recover from mistakes. But, whatever goals the team sets up for an event - making money, having lots of kids and moving them out, capping as many careers as you can - life span really does not play into difficulty. You simply would not be able to make as much money, move out as many kids, put together as many collections, etc because you'd have less time. But, chances are - you'd do exactly the same strategy on Short as you would Normal. You're always going to try and hit it out the park right out the gate no matter how much time you have.

[coolsim9999999]

@Metropolis Man --- I guess short life span would give us more time to practice before the start of each challenge and our scoring file.  Then, we would have more time before each challenge to really figure out a detailed strategy to use during our scoring file.  Your last few posts have made me feel much better about the possibility of using short life span for challenges.

[Minnie Mouse]

@Metropolis Man I think it would be awesome to do challenges using the short lifespan. Length was definitely a huge factor for me - I just didn't have enough time to practice, come up with a good strategy, and then finish a scoring run all the time. Sometimes I would find myself rushing through, and other times I would wonder if I should start (or in some cases, even finish) a long challenge. For example, I really wanted to participate in the finale, but I just didn't have the time to commit to another 6 week challenge.

I agree with the thinking that shortening the challenge won't increase the difficulty - like you said, it just changes the range of scores. Sure, you have less room to compensate for error, but you also get a lot more practice time (if you want it)!

[Metropolis Man]

I just wanted to prepare all Tournament players for my cleanup this coming Friday. I do this every year - move threads to the Graveyard to make room for new incoming Tournament threads. So, if you log into the forum on Friday and nearly everything in the challenge section is gone (except Dynasty stuff, of course) you'll know why. On Monday I will post the first two rule sets of 2017 and a few other threads as well.

By the way, do you guys have an opinion on starting days for Tournament challenges? As of now I set the 2017 schedule up for Monday start dates and Sunday close dates. January 2 is the tentative start date for the first two events. I did this instead of January 1 thinking players who wait until the last minute to finish up events would have a full weekend to finish their work. But, if enough players want January 1 to begin the season, then I can change the schedule to Sunday start days and Saturday finish days. So, speak up soon if you have an opinion. Thanks.

[christinal3106]

Is there anyway that you guys would consider doing any sims 3 challenges anymore?  I wonder if there would be more participation if you threw a sims 3 challenge in there occasionally.  In my situation this year in the tournament, I started probably 6 different challenges, and I just can't get into sims 4 gameplay at all anymore.  I have decided I am not spending anymore money on that game.

[Metropolis Man]

Is there anyway that you guys would consider doing any sims 3 challenges anymore?  I wonder if there would be more participation if you threw a sims 3 challenge in there occasionally.  In my situation this year in the tournament, I started probably 6 different challenges, and I just can't get into sims 4 gameplay at all anymore.  I have decided I am not spending anymore money on that game.

Whew...I do not even have it installed on my computer anymore. I could reinstall it easy enough, but I don't know. You're a very good player and I hope you'll continue participating. Maybe the shorter time frames we have planned for next year will help. Each event will take less of your time since the life stages will be played on Short instead of Normal.

[Minnie Mouse]

I really like the Monday start/Saturday end idea. I would definitely prefer that to a Sunday start/Saturday end.

On the topic of Sims 3; I would participate in Sims 3 challenges if I could figure out how to get the game to work right. I've installed it on my new gaming computer (which has FAR more than the required specs), but it keeps crashing after about ~20 minutes of gameplay. Changing the graphics settings doesn't help either. ah well...

[Magpie2012]

Monday start works for me too. Those of us who work icky hours have the weekend to cram

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