2015 Challenge Tournament Overview

[Metropolis Man]

Just wanted you in the challenge team to know that I adore the challenges you put together. I might not always turn in a score but always read the strategies afterwards. I have learned so much about this game this way, and have taken a lot of the "extreme measures" tournament players used to my regular game file and increased my own enjoyment of my casual games.

I appreciate each and everyone who takes part in these tournaments - thanks for sharing!

Awwww Thank you so much, saltpastillen. What a great post to wake up to.

On a different note, happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there. I do not think my own mom (who I am traveling to see today) has quite ever gotten the fact that yes, it's possible to get paid to play computer games, but I love her to death.

[Metropolis Man]

The rulesets for next two events will hopefully be posted next week. The long event has been decided - Nutella thought a retail store event would be a good one, so the team will flesh that out over the next week. But, the short event is up in the air and I am open to suggestions. The one idea I keep coming back to is a "Hobo to Hero" kind of event - you'd start with 2 Sims on a bare lot and push them to enemy status as well as ravenous and on the brink of starving. Then you'd be allowed to actually begin improving their situation - getting married, finishing an aspiration, etc. So, the goal would be who could accomplish maybe half a dozen key things the fastest. If you have some thoughts on this - like what should some of these key things be, then speak up. Also, having your two Sims ravenous and enemies is tough enough, but if you can think of another moodlet that would also slow things down, then suggest it. Thank you.

[ClayMask]

I was looking over the old challenges for ideas, and I saw one that might be fun.  Do you know if the Renaissance Sim aspiration work now, glitch free? If so, we could see how fast we could complete it, without using the connections reward.  Edit:  Would this be different enough from a career challenge, or too similar?  I'm not sure.

I have a couple of other partial ideas.  A challenge involving active careers, or a challenge where we can't use potions to satisfy our needs.

Any of these ideas could be combined with hobos to heroes if you wanted.

[MarianT]

Something similar to the 3 Little Sims challenge -- 3 sims on a lot; you can control only one each day and have to switch at midnight. Any traits, but each has to have one of gloomy, loner, hot-headed, insane, lazy, mean, or glutton. Any aspirations, but can't switch until they've completed one. Score on how high they get in a career and skills.

[ClayMask]

I like your idea, MarianT.

If you do hobos to heroes, we could start out on the cheapest empty lot with no funds, for an additional challenge.

[Metropolis Man]

I kind of like Marian's idea. Tentative title = Hobos to Heroes: Rotation Transformation.

[Shewolf13]

The only current idea I have might work better for a longer challenge, but what about seeing how many generations you can get by the time your founding sim gets to elder?  Using the criteria from baby boomer or the like to age them up?  To be able to bring in the next gen, they have to get to at least stage 2 of their chosen aspiration?  That's the only one I got off the top of my head anyway.

[Metropolis Man]

So, the basics of the next short event - it looks like we'll do 3 Sims. Play each one for one day and switch at midnight like Marian suggested. We can keep the "3" theme going throughout the challenge:

You cannot officially begin improving their hobo state until all 3 Sims have:

Ravenous moodlet
Are enemies with each other
One more thing - make a suggestion

You're done with your file when you achieve 3 things

*cap a career
*cap a skill
*purchase 3 rewards

Those are just suggestions.

This would be a timed event. You would not be allowed to play after Adult birthday. You'd post your score with days to age up plus the clock time, so the team could rank who completes the three tasks the fastest.

Marian, you're the rotational play pro so offer up more suggestions (great new Guide article by the way). I want to keep this very simple as always.

[Metropolis Man]

The other scoring route we could go is not a race, but finishing at Adult birthday like we have with other short events, and then tally up career levels and skill levels. I think my original suggestion would be more of a pressure cooker and tougher and something different than finishing at the birthday.

[ClayMask]

I like the race idea, since we haven't done any of those.  If it includes cap a career, I do think there will be a lot of people that won't finish by the adult birthday, so I think the limit of not being able to play past the adult birthday should be lifted.  If they did play past it, they would just have to add 21 days to their total played as an adult.  Would each person be meeting all of these requirements?

[Metropolis Man]

I like the race idea, since we haven't done any of those.  If it includes cap a career, I do think there will be a lot of people that won't finish by the adult birthday, so I think the limit of not being able to play past the adult birthday should be lifted.  If they did play past it, they would just have to add 21 days to their total played as an adult.  Would each person be meeting all of these requirements?

Yeah maybe Lena could come up with a simple spreadsheet that would translate someone's "days to age up" to total days played depending on the life stage of the Sim. I think everyone has to complete the requirements - and capping a career may be too much. We'll see. Maybe just eliminate career stuff altogether and put a household funds requirement in there that is doable - like 25k. MarianT suggested all have to be Best Friends, so that's a good idea based on that they start as enemies. Then there's possibly the requirement to purchase 3 rewards each. That might be enough in itself - no skills, no careers.

Attain 25k (or whatever amount we decide on) household funds
All 3 must be Best Friends
All 3 have to purchase 3 rewards costing at least 1k Satisfaction each

I kind of like that because we have done skills. We have done careers, so this will be different. 

[ClayMask]

I like the best friends thing, but a Sim can only have one best friend. so they couldn't all be best friends.  Either they all could be good friends, or one pair could be best friends and good friends with the other.

[Metropolis Man]

Okay, on Hobos to Heroes this is my thinking: I'd like to get a "3" theme going:

30,000 household funds
3,000 Satisfaction accumulated across all 3 Sims (spending for rewards is fine)
300 Whims completed across all 3 Sims (easy to check stats)
30 skill levels completed across all 3 Sims
3 Good Friends total for the household - one Sim could have 3, or each could have one - does not matter.

So, when and if you accomplish all of the above - and you could not start until your Sims are Enemies with each other and Ravenous - then you'd pause your game and note the time left to age up. Easy. What do you guys think?

[ClayMask]

Are we still only going to be controlling one Sim each day?  If we are, 30 skill levels sounds like a lot for a fast event.  I would say 13 sounds better, since who knows what the Sims will be doing when we're not controlling them.  If we can control all three the whole time, 30 sounds fine.  Otherwise, it sounds good, although getting 3000 satisfaction sounds not very challenging.  Would we be able to check on our Sims that we weren't controlling that day?

[Metropolis Man]

Are we still only going to be controlling one Sim each day?  If we are, 30 skill levels sounds like a lot for a fast event.  Otherwise, it sounds good.  Would we be able to check on our Sims that we weren't controlling that day?

One Sim per day - you'd change at midnight to your next Sim. The 30 skill levels is across all Sims (not one Sim) and I do not think skills would have to be unique. I do not think it would take too long.

I think the craziness of rotational play - Marian can back me up here - is you have to totally leave other Sims alone. You cannot even check on them because then there would be the chance of you assigning them to do something. You just have to leave them to their own devices.