Boosting Mischief Skill

[imayu94]

Hello!

I've been reading the guide for the mischief skill and following it mostly to level my Sim's skill. I've been using Troll teh Forums interaction to level up, but I'm not sure if I'm using the right emotion with it. I've been partnering it with playful, but it's supposed to glow pink right (playful)?

Or is that particular interaction just really can't be boosted? If so, what other interactions can I do to significantly boost this skill? 

[stitching_JA]

Any of the social interactions under the "mischief" menu increase it.  You can order a voodoo doll using the computer after level 3, bind it to someone, and then use the doll to build skill.  You can send chain letters using the computer after level 4 (I found that increased skill fairly well, but it decreases relationships with recipients).  Prank calls with the phone are similar to the chain letters - you have to keep queuing them, and they can hurt relationships.  Also at level 4, you can use the observatory to spy on the neighbourhood.  That method gives a fairly steady increase, you don't have to keep queuing actions, and it's fun for the sim, but you may end up getting emotions such as flirty or embarrassed due to seeing different things in town. 

Playful is the right emotion for building mischief.  Is your sim selected when you looked at the bar, or did you have another sim in the house as the active sim?  I've noticed that the bar only highlights in a colour if the sim building a skill is the one I have selected.  The rate of skill change doesn't seem to change when I select a different sim, but I only see the highlighting on the active sim.

[imayu94]

Thanks for your reply!

I've checked and I did have the sim selected (mostly because he was the only sim in the household), but the skill bar is still not glowing pink. The interaction circle was pink though, so that was confusing. Out of curiosity, I put an angry painting in his room, and the skill bar glowed red, and the interaction circle was red as well. So I'm still not very sure about this thing.

Thanks for all the other ways to increase mischief. I never used the observatory and I'll see if I can use that better sometime.

[Nutella]

In my dynasty, I had one sim that roams free, he likes to get on the computer and troll the forums ..... I let him do it and guess what, his mischief skill was through the roof without me even trying to level it.  Try that, on the computer, click on socialize then troll the forums.

[imayu94]

That's actually what I've been doing to level it up. But I was just wondering if I was using the right emotion to boost it. Angry makes the mischief skill bar glow, and playful doesn't, for me. But they both change the color of the action circle, so I guess both are useful? I'm not really sure.

[ClayMask]

On another thread, DarkWalker looked into the code and reported that angry is actually the right emotion to raise mischief.  Before he said that I had also thought that it was playful.

[Nettlejuice]

I've been using mean after Malcolm Landgraab would spam mean interactions with my heirs and raised mischief faster than she was.

[dethdukk]

On another thread, DarkWalker looked into the code and reported that angry is actually the right emotion to raise mischief.  Before he said that I had also thought that it was playful.

Clay is right.  A lot of people assume that playful is the correct mood for mischief, but it isn't...  Anger is actually the right mood.  On that note, Happy does provide a minor xp boost to all skilling, so while it might be slower, it also might be easier than making an angry room. 

[imayu94]

Thanks for the replies! So playful doesn't have much effect on leveling Mischief? Or it's just not as significant as Anger? It really is confusing since the indicators are mixed up.

My sim has a hot-headed trait so he does have those fast earning points during the day. 

[dethdukk]

Thanks for the replies! So playful doesn't have much effect on leveling Mischief? Or it's just not as significant as Anger? It really is confusing since the indicators are mixed up.

My sim has a hot-headed trait so he does have those fast earning points during the day. 

Playful has no effect on leveling mischief at all.  I believe (believe) that it does provide a bonus to if the mischief interaction will "succeed", but there is no exp benefit whatsoever.  Anger will give... +40% I believe if you're very angry, and very happy gives +20%.

Easiest way to level mischief is probably to make some angry paintings and make an "angry room" to troll the forums in.

[Carl]

Thanks to Nutella for bringing my attention to this. It's clear that I need to remove Playful as the Ideal Mood for Mischief as it doesn't affect the Skill in any way (not even effective level), but it doesn't appear that Angry is really the best route for Sims to level the Skill. The post by @DarkWalker indicating Skill gains from various Emotions lists all Anger states as producing a +20% Skill gain for Mischief.  Happy increases all Skill gains by 20% for regular Happy and 40% for Very Happy, same with Very Confident. You'd want to be in one of these two in order to level it faster than by being Angry. I don't have time to directly test that data at the moment and give a comparison, but doubt it's changed.

While Enraged Sims get a +3 boost to effective level (a dangerous emotional state). Regular angry gives +1, but being Happy gives the same bonus for plain 'Happy' but +2 to ALL skills at Very Happy. I'm not sure effective level is all that important for Mischief, but again it's not necessarily good to be enraged just to gain Skill.

This is a somewhat complicated one anyway, because if you have enough Happy Moodlets, getting a Sim angry can be a challenge. It's certainly doable with the Angry paintings, but much easier to just make a Sim Happy to get the same boost. I've got some editing to do on this guide and I'm sorry for overlooking this data that was posted some time ago. Playful just seemed natural when initially working on that page, given the pranks etc. and I completely missed the mark with this one.

If you get a Sim Playful and had Happy moodlets, you lose the skill boost to Mischief entirely. A beautifully decorated room with some other +Happiness Moodlets on the Sim is the route I'd go to raise the Skill. I'm making edits to the live page now so that people get the right info.