Has The Sims 3 gotten too easy?

[azokka361]

Yes! I tried to do a homeless challenge once, but found Tiberium on the first day. Sometimes life isn't fair  .

[JudesSims]

I just spent an hour reading through the Apocalypse Challenge. Is this even possible? It looks extremely complicated. It does look interesting but I'm afraid my old, medicine riddled brain wouldn't be able to cope...LOL. Has anyone finished this?

[Shirin]

I'll agree, in some ways, it has gotten easier, but the thing I do to make things harder (if that's what I'm after)? I ignore the options to make things easier. There is nothing that says that I have to use the Midas Touch Elixir, or the Motive Mobile, or the Moodlet Manager. If I think those are going to make my game easy and boring, then I simply don't utilize the easy/boring stuff.

As an example, I'm taking a second shot at the Townie DecaDynasty (I was really bored with the first one), and decided to fulfill one of the founder's LTW -  Surrounded by Family. Now, I dislike nooboos. I dislike them a lot. So what did I do? Twins on the first pregnancy, and two hours after they're born, the founders decided to have another - so now there's another single nooboo. I'm going to give them a few days of peace and quiet, then back to the nooboo factory!

Also, I really dislike nooboos. A lot.

[MarianT]

There are some things that make it easy -- the baby swing, elixirs, etc. I'm not sure that overall the game is easier. Diving is hard to max, but street art is very easy. One way to keep the game from getting boring is to try different ways of doing things. Don't pick a spouse on the basis of his or her car or go looking for the Midas touch elixir. One thing I've been doing is assigning traits based on zodiac signs (I put together a list). Or have them take the first job in the paper. I had a sim actually get demoted.

[Audren]

I think the game has gotten easier, but I kind of help myself because I don't have any of the premium content that would make things really easier. Combined with my relative lack of strategies, and I think it's still somewhat tough, though not as much as when the game launched.

[Kaye]

I've never thought of TS3 as hard or easy overall.

To me, I think it depends on where you start. I recently started on an empty lot and after building a small house, my sim had under $100 left. Barely enough to pay the bills. The game's going to be hard for a while before it gets easy.

[Caterina]

I just spent an hour reading through the Apocalypse Challenge. Is this even possible? It looks extremely complicated. It does look interesting but I'm afraid my old, medicine riddled brain wouldn't be able to cope...LOL. Has anyone finished this?

I have played all the way through it twice.  I give myself a little bit of slack when it comes to some things like missing a curfew or having a visitor on the home lot too long.  It was before Seasons came out so there was less information in the rules.  I played it for fun and didn't beat myself up if I made a mistake.  The only rule I didn't break was if on the first day you stay out too late, you get eaten by zombies.  I have had several sims eaten by zombies on the first day and I had to start over.  I printed out the rules and put them into a binder for easy reference.  I also kept a copy open in a word document for easy searching if I needed clarification of a rule. 

It really is a lot of fun to see how their life is impacted and how it changes as they lift a restriction.

[JudesSims]

I have played all the way through it twice.  I give myself a little bit of slack when it comes to some things like missing a curfew or having a visitor on the home lot too long.  It was before Seasons came out so there was less information in the rules.  I played it for fun and didn't beat myself up if I made a mistake.  The only rule I didn't break was if on the first day you stay out too late, you get eaten by zombies.  I have had several sims eaten by zombies on the first day and I had to start over.  I printed out the rules and put them into a binder for easy reference.  I also kept a copy open in a word document for easy searching if I needed clarification of a rule. 

It really is a lot of fun to see how their life is impacted and how it changes as they lift a restriction.

Thank you! I have started it just for fun to see how I do. I did disable the zombies though. So, technically I've already failed...LOL Poor Jade is having quite the (lonely, starving) time so far.

[Turoskel]

When I had nothing more than base game, WA and HELS and after playing a couple of games with sims who had become quite rich the ease of getting money was bugging me so I decided to make a poor virtuoso mooch sim to see how easy it would be to live off nothing but tips and mooched food, I built her a scruffy one room shack with no cooking facilities and surrounded by weeds, hay bales and junk, the house cost enough to take almost all her starting cash, she had just enough money left to buy a guitar.

Well the first few days were okay, she played her guitar constantly and mooched food from people, she actually ended up eating better than most of my other starting sims, then once she could play for tips I sent her into town to do so, I had no idea about performances affecting tip money and she never left that guitar alone so had racked up a huge number, her first tip session she got 10,000 

A few days later Sherman Bagley asked her to move in, and then Jon Lesson, two of the richest men in Riverview, I just gave up then and decided trying to be poor was a total fail, and this was pretty much with just base game if you discount WA.

In some ways though it depends on the game I'm playing, more often than not with my self sim she starts as a lone teen, on an empty lot sometimes with a house, trying to juggle school make her money last, keep her needs up and everything is not easy because I don't allow myself to use the shortcuts, I like the challenge, seasons added another challenge because of the weather, she's either a crispy critter from the sun or she's a popsicle from the cold, of course once she graduates and gets a job it all gets easy again and unless I have a new LTW to finish the boredom sets in, that's why I like the dynasty challenges, I like a goal to work towards and even this late in the day with gen seven a kid it still throws curveballs at me.

So yes it can be too easy, which is what drove me to start playing challenges but they have made it even easier in some ways because I now know far more tricks than I used to, like the guitar performance thing.

[hazelnut]

I do try and avoid all the short cuts but it just seems strange that I have to make an effort to make things harder. I have nothing against people using all the tricks the Sims is about having fun and playing the game your way. I also know that I can make things harder for myself I made the mistake of playing on the medium setting for awhile and now normal aging seems to last forever. After playing the life state dynasty where you can cake up as soon as you finish your tasks waiting for a Sims actual birthday is torture.
I just wondered if anyone else felt the same way as me but it looks like I am in the crazy room by myself actually getting frustrated because the game is too easy.

Rachel

Nope, I'm in the crazy room, too.  I like playing poor Sims and, since my Legacy, where I was going all-out for an insanely rich family (with just the base game and Ambitions), very rarely collect any of the income from real estate purchases.  I've started an Apocalypse Challenge but gave up in generation 4 or 5 because it got too easy.

After reading your medium-lifespan Immortal Dynasty I started a test run on short.  I gave up in the first generation because I realised I'd need a better strategy for Black Ops but may try again sometime.  It was frantic but fun.

Waiting around for birthdays on normal speed does seem to take ages, especially with teens.  I'm looking forward to the new dynasty partly because it's on the faster speed.

[ratchie]

I haven't tried an immortal dynasty on short I thought that getting ops maybe a problem. I might give it a go just to see if I can do it.

Rachel

[hazelnut]

I haven't tried an immortal dynasty on short I thought that getting ops maybe a problem. I might give it a go just to see if I can do it.

Rachel

Yes, I'm pretty sure the ops would prove to be the biggest obstacle and maybe completely impossible.  Might be fun finding out, though .

[McHazy]

I agree, it has gotten way too easy to make money. I try to stay away from the LTR Inheritance as I never know what to do with the money. I like to earn what I pay for. Since I've uninstalled WA  (my pc doesn't seem to like more than 4 EPs, and I really wanted UL!) I like that you have to pay the bills twice weekly as I don't have no more bills either. I'm happier when I have a challenge.

[Saltypaws]

I try to come up with different ways to play.  Maybe we have played so long and now it seems easy.  I do agree though and have tried to find ways to make it harder.  I did try putting it on the shortest life span to see how much I could get done before they turned elder or passed away and that seemed to help some.  That was really a challenge, to say the least, because I am so use to playing on long or epic.  Maybe there is something that someone can think of, that we haven't tried to make it more challenging.  Of course we do have all of the challenges and dynasties, so not sure what is left.

[LivvieLove]

I've never thought of TS3 as hard or easy overall.

To me, I think it depends on where you start. I recently started on an empty lot and after building a small house, my sim had under $100 left. Barely enough to pay the bills. The game's going to be hard for a while before it gets easy.

This is how I feel about it too. I feel the game can be as easy or as difficult as you make it. If you ever get sick of making money, you can always turn into Oprah with the townies...
"You get a Margaret Vaguester, and you get a Margaret Vaguester... EVERYONE GETS A MARGARET VAGUESTER." Now THAT could delete funds pretty quickly. (Lol, sorry I couldn't resist an Oprah joke).

Just a thought, but if you know that you feel the Sims is easier to play, maybe you should add restrictions on how to play to make it more of a challenge? Like don't get your Sims the best objects, or buy a middle of the road car with every bill you pay and keep it in the family inventory to keep the cash flow pretty low. Don't take certain careers or LTR. I feel like a lot of that kind of stuff could maybe spice up the Sims game.
I always try to challenge myself. I used to be the person who would use the starting funds of my Legacy to travel to China just to grab all of the books to sell later. Now I'm more of a "let's see how challenging this can get."