Play Style: Cheats or no Cheats?

[KirbyAndKat]

I have noticed I don't have to use the cheats as much. EA just keeps making it easier. With stuff like the motive mobile to raise your bars, The trees from Lunar Lakes with the fruit to raise skill levels. Put out a bunch of those and pig out on fruit. , The Genie to clean your house in one click.
Don't need cheats with items like that. 
It's not really cheating if it's in the game, right. 

I don't like those rewards..to me they spoil gameplay.

But I plead the fifth: I DO CHEAT. I use testingcheatsebsbled true to quickly drag needs up, delete annoying, ugly default, SP generated sims/NPCs, and remove moodlets like the Disgraced one. I'm not a heavy cheater..like I was in previous sim games.

[Esther1981]

@ Hosfac, yes I enjoyed it very much. I had been having a problem when after playing for 5-30 minutes of the game, I would get bored and quit. Without cheating, I can now play for more then 4 hours at one time and not even realize how much time has gone by until I look at the clock. It's like I just discovered the game!! Yes I realize it sounds funny me saying I'm a cheater lol. Not in real life though.

Thanks DeNile!

Thanks Louise, I noticed that! When I was just starting, I was putting fruit in the fridge and forgot to pause, and suddenly the camera moved. I looked up and he had the hungry moodlet and walked to the fridge to eat without me telling him too!!

@ Jeana, yeah he is very grumpy lol. You're not alone in cheating. I've only played one game the non-cheating way! So if you look at the hundreds of games I've cheated on, versus the one I haven't, I'm still a 99% cheater haha.

Hosfac is right. I never said I'd never cheat again. Plus if I play the Halliwell's anytime soon, I will definetely be cheating as there are too many of them right now. 6 sims and 4 animals, and I'm only used to handling 1 sim right now without cheats.

Rica, I know you're probably sick of me saying thank you, but without your support I would have given up. I thought I couldn't do it, but you believed in me. Thank you.

I have used and abused the Motive Mobile hehe. I love that thing, but it also reminds me too much of needs static. I've also used buydebug to get him a chest and the hover bed, but it was only after he completed 2 of the skill challenges for gardening, kinda like the grim challenge Metro did 2 years ago.

[Hosfac]

@ Hosfac, yes I enjoyed it very much. I had been having a problem when after playing for 5-30 minutes of the game, I would get bored and quit. Without cheating, I can now play for more then 4 hours at one time and not even realize how much time has gone by until I look at the clock. It's like I just discovered the game!!

I bet.  You probably encountered so many things you never saw before that it almost would feel like a different game.  New challenges for you, enjoyment, and a renewed interest in the game...not seeing a down side here. 

I think it's awesome that you essentially found something new about the game that you liked.

Plus if I play the Halliwell's anytime soon, I will definetely be cheating as there are too many of them right now. 6 sims and 4 animals, and I'm only used to handling 1 sim right now without cheats.

Oh no...definitely start small and work your way up lol!  That many Sims, not even including the animals, is a serious balancing act and if you've been playing with static needs it would more than likely be a bit overwhelming.  Maybe try a couple in simple careers (like sports or business, careers that don't have a lot of skill metrics) next time and have a single nooboo, and try to raise it so you get to pick all of it's traits.  It's not all that difficult to accomplish, but would get you some experience with multiple Sims.

[Esther1981]

I bet.  You probably encountered so many things you never saw before that it almost would feel like a different game.  New challenges for you, enjoyment, and a renewed interest in the game...not seeing a down side here. 

I think it's awesome that you essentially found something new about the game that you liked.

I did!! I was constantly thinking, "I've never seen that before!" and my favorite "Whoa! When did they add that?!" It's awesome!! There is no downside at all!! Well, other than me not updating and playing my Dynasty. Whoops. Thank you, I do too!

Oh no...definitely start small and work your way up lol! 

I plan on it! Right now it's just Adolfo, and he's working on finding the young again potion so he can get married to Agnes and focus on her LTW before thinking about starting a family.

[Wench]

Glad to hear you gave it a try Esther!  I for my part am giving the other side of the fence a try with static needs in the Clones challenge.  Interesting, but I don't think I could use that all the time.  Perhaps just leaving testing cheats enabled and occasionally bumping a meter into the green if I'm struggling.
I'd certainly recommend sticking to families of 4 or less sims if you are going to be playing without cheats for a bit.  It can get very hectic quickly trying to manage the needs of too many sims at once and if you are used to playing with cheats on it might put you off quickly.

The thing I love about Sims is that its a sandbox game that you could do whatever you liked with.  If you want to just mess about with cheats on to take the frustration out of the game, that's fine.  If you want to set yourself difficult challenges to get a sense of achievement, that's fine too.  I even know some people that play The Sims by creating sim versions of themselves and the people they dislike just to be able to go be mean to them because they can't in real life.  Its all good, as long as you are having fun!

[ArianaJade]

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with cheats. I love the idea because it frustrates me whenever I'm trying to do something and my sims needs go red. But if I drag a needs bar up, I feel like I've cheated (probably because I have, haha). So if I'm playing a game, I basically only use resetsim and moveobjects on.

But I do use them all the time when testing things for my dynasty or when I want to find out how something works. And sometimes it's very difficult to resist the temptation to Edit in CAS the paparazzi who stands outside my DecaDynasty house wearing swimming trunks and a cowboy hat all day.

[EnglishRose]

I never use money or mood cheats, but I do use moveobjects, resetsim when necessary, and I change my sims' traits around quite often. I also use the ctrl+click to get rid of negative moodlets sometimes - again, not the ones related to specific motives, but things like hearbroken or the (incredibly annoying!) 'falsely accused' one. (When that happens, I do also drag back up the relationships that have been damaged by it).
But basically, nothing major - I've tried it a couple of times but I get bored quickly, and looking after a sim's mood is nowhere near as hard as it was in the sims 1 or 2.

[xFezIsAFreakx]

I started my Immortal Dynasty and I think I've recieved a pleasant surprise in realising that not cheating really isn't that hard!

[Esther1981]

Thanks Wench! Me too! I know Fez!! At first it was hard and extremely frustrating as I was used to being able to max skills quickly. He didn't start out well, but thanks to Rica's encouraging PM's I decided I'd go until he died, which he never did!! Now he has alot of LTR's that help, so if I can do it, anyone can! 

[RoseLena10]

Well I put it depends because there are times that I use "motherlode" and all those great cheats, but there are also times that all I use is resetSim, just if there is an emergency, and sometimes testingCheatsenabled. I prefer using no cheats because it's more of a challenge.

[Karanina]

I chose hardly ever. The only cheats I ever use are resetSim and in my most recent game I've had to use the shift-click into household one, ONLY because for some reason my sims can't propose to anyone. The relationship bar is FULL and there's never a propose option. It seems to be only on NPC's, like the babysitter.
I like the challenge of not cheating. Anyway, I was wondering what this "needs static" thing is that everyone keeps saying? Is that a mod? or is it a general term I've never heard of? I've been playing Sims since day one, so I'd be surprised if it were a term...

[Hosfac]

Anyway, I was wondering what this "needs static" thing is that everyone keeps saying?

It's a testing cheat that keeps the needs of all Sims in the household at full.  You access it by entering "testingcheatsenabled true" into the command line and then shift+clicking on the mailbox.

[Tuesday]

Tuesday - there is actually a workaround that doesn't require Buydebug to get omni cheats.  I think you can find it under the Skills forum.   You basically send your Sim to order omni seeds, cancel the action before they get to the mailbox.  They perform the action like they are at the mailbox and you get seeds the next day

This right here is why I should have joined the forum sooner.

I'm considering running an immortal dynasty (The Carringtons - a Dynasty Dynasty - partly because it's really easy to make an elder male Sim with a strong resemblance to John Forsythe and all you'd really have to do to keep it pretty much on track is have 'em leave their first wife and get remarried to Vita Alto.  I know, it's a stupid joke that hardly anybody around here will get but I'm the only person who has to think it's funny.) and that will involve even less "cheats" than I normally use.

[Karanina]

Oh i see!!! Not something I would ever use!

[Wench]

I chose hardly ever. The only cheats I ever use are resetSim and in my most recent game I've had to use the shift-click into household one, ONLY because for some reason my sims can't propose to anyone. The relationship bar is FULL and there's never a propose option. It seems to be only on NPC's, like the babysitter.

Aren't babysitter's teenagers anyway?  You shouldn't be able to propose to them without using a mod of some sort. 

I get what you mean though.  I'm still not used to playing a game where you find you need to know all of the cheats just to fix things as they break!  If it wasn't so much fun I wouldn't bother 

@Tuesday - The Carringtons made me smile too.  Might need to find some CC with huge huge shoulderpads!