At the beginning of the moth Carl released a video on his YouTube channel called :
The Best Skills in The Sims 4 - Both Base Game and Expansion/Game Packs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwV0yfO0mbo and in it he talked about his favorite skills. This video and my recent project of making a super sim has had me thinking about my favorite go to skills, what skills are the most useful for every sim, and the skills I enjoy the most. Other words my favorite skills. So I thought I would start a poll as I like polls and a discussion thread. I thought it would be OK if we listed our least favorite skills as well. What skills are your favorite skills? Why? What skills do you least enjoy? Why?
My favites skills listed in order and why I love them.
1) Gardening
I love this skill. I look for one of four things in a skill, need and mood management, income potential, general utility and depth/cross skill compatibility. This skill hits all of these areas. It is in my mind the most deep of all the skills and the one that impacts other areas of the game. The produce/flowers improves so many other skills like cooking, baking, fishing, gourmet cooking, logic and herbalism. It impacts the science greatly and some skill required to do the activities and have needed ingredients. To a lesser extent it needed for casters as well, but Copypasto reduces their dependance on the skill. Being a caster also has perks, and spells that effect the skill. It even can save sims from death itself. It can also be used to kill a sim as well. Add in the management it requires, how season and weather effects it, grafting and the number of unique gameplay items connected to it the depth is clearly there.
Gardening is also useful in managing hunger and mood. Produce is edible and provides a happy buff depending on the quality of produce and the buffs stack. And while it starts slow Gardening is an excellent source of income. Long term while it isn't the best money maker it comes close.
Gardening does have a downside, it is not feasible to do in mass in an apartment or a small lot as it eats up lots of space. It is time consuming for a sim (well if the sim doesn't employ a gardener or use the scarecrow and has lots of things to keep track of if you are to maximize productivity. Plants die if not cared for after all. But in honesty I like that it has a down side. It adds challenge and that is something the game I feel needs more of. It is clear why I love this skill.
2) Wellness
I love this skill as it is a powerful mood management tool for both the sim with the skill and those he/she chooses to use it on. Teleporting while not as useful as in other sim games has its uses as well. Besides there is something about watching an overweight sims do Yoga that makes me smile.
3) Handiness
This skill is a solid if not remarkable money maker and repairing objects as they break is a money saver. But that not why I love the skill, handiness has a huge passive effect in the game through upgrading objects. This alone is why ever sim family has at least one sim mastering the skill.
4) Dancing
This is not a powerful skill greatly effecting the game play of my sims. It is in fact quite a low powered/low impact/low game play skill that only really is useful in managing fun and passively gaining relationships. But 100% of my sims master it. Why? well it is good at keeping sims I am not interested in at the time busy as I focus on sim I am actively managing. Besides a skill need not be great to be loved.
My least favorite skills in no particular oder.
Herbalism
I think the hunting it requires since it require going vacation is just annoying. I also don't find it useful. And outside of it's aspiration (that has a nearly useless reward trait) and the constant foraging it game play is not unique.
Baking
This skill is just plain redundant. It is cooking but doesn't unlock the best of the three nearly identical food related skills gourmet cooking like cooking. I know it exists to open a store to sell the bake goods but other skills like flower arranging are just better for that. I just see why making food needs three skill. It is redundant and boring.
DJ Mixing/Guitar/Piano/Pipe Organ/Singing/Violin
Individually I like them just fine. The issue is they are the same skill basically spammed 6 times. Same aspiration, effects the same career, same nearly everything. I get why they are different skills but the sameness and lack of bands just makes them redundant like baking. They should have added a unique tweek to each that made them special in some way. Different moods they can buff or something. Pipe organ is the worse as the others are portable and it just isn't.
What skills are your favorite skills? Why? What skills do you least enjoy? Why? Please vote. Please discuss. Thank you.
Poll