OFB (Sims 2) Tips Anyone?

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Chickie
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OFB (Sims 2) Tips Anyone?

Post by Chickie »

Hey Everyone! :D

I got UC from Origin so now I have a lot of expansions that I didn't have before. I have a prima game guide for OFB and that's helped a lot. That said, my hard sell/dazzle sell always goes badly! Is this a thing? I did some research online and it said that it helped if the person was outgoing and had charisma. They have that going on and they're pretty nice too. I wait for the buy bar to be halfway or close to the top before trying it but I get the doom cloud. I also use the business perk of choosing a mark and/or assessing the customer's mood before trying to use the sell options. I figure it has to work somehow or the game wouldn't offer the options, right? What am I doing wrong?

Also, if anyone has any tricks of the trade for OFB overall I'd love to hear what you've learned! I've been experimenting with premade sims before trying things with my own. So, I'm using Gilbert Jaquet (sp?) for the J'Adore Bakery (we're actually turning a profit so at least there's that) and Checo Ramirez for Ramirez Fine Furniture (which is a hot mess...red red red) in Bluewater Village? I think that's the name of it. The premade OFB neighborhood. I think I got both businesses to Rank 4 if I correctly recall.

I appreciate any help you can provide! Happy Simming everyone! :toast:
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Heather
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Re: OFB (Sims 2) Tips Anyone?

Post by Heather »

Hmm, I've had the occasional dazzle go wrong, but usually it works quite well for my sims, and I don't have a tendency to play a lot of outgoing or charismatic ones... I think it sometimes depends on the customers? I know certain customers will never be receptive of a dazzle/hard sell, regardless of their mood, or your sim's outgoing/charismatic personality.

Maybe try playing with the assess mood perk? It might let you know which customers to avoid dazzling. :lol:

My best businesses are usually clothing shops, with a makeover chair. I dazzle the townies into buying new clothes, and then offer them a free makeover once my sim has a high enough badge is cosmetics/styling. They make a profit from the clothes, and use the makeovers to get old stars from happy customers. :)

Also, plantsim shopkeepers are fantastic, because you just need a greenhouse light (or several, if you're not keen on picking it up whenever they move to anther area for a while), and a shower to keep them happy.
Chickie
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Re: OFB (Sims 2) Tips Anyone?

Post by Chickie »

Thank you so much! :)
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Taube
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Re: OFB (Sims 2) Tips Anyone?

Post by Taube »

I don't have any advice on dazzle because I don't run many traditional shops. That said, I love the ticket machine and running venues! You can run home businesses where sims pay to come hang out at your house, or you can come up with all kinds of fantastic venues out on the town. My favorite that I made semi-recently was a shady gambling den with poker tables, TV, and video games plus some bathrooms and a bunch of snapdragons. Between the snapdragons and the poker tables, people basically never left. It got up to level 10 and was quite busy, so it was a ton of fun to play. You could also think about running a nightclub, a bowling alley, or a music studio - anything sims really like doing, they will often do until they're about to have a need failure, and you get money and stars all the while. These are low-effort businesses, so if you're looking for more of a challenge, selling is definitely the way to go, but playing around with venues can be fun too. :)
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Re: OFB (Sims 2) Tips Anyone?

Post by Chickie »

Thank you! That's good to know.
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Scribal_Goddess
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Re: OFB (Sims 2) Tips Anyone?

Post by Scribal_Goddess »

Playing my legacy neighborhood, dazzle usually works best on customers that your dazzler is friends with, or have a bunch of customer stars already. Same with hard sell. I haven't noticed if it has any basis in charisma or outgoingness, but I play only two businesses regularly in that neighborhood, and only one makes a lot of money and has an owner working on badges.
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MichelleCYoung
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Re: OFB (Sims 2) Tips Anyone?

Post by MichelleCYoung »

I LOVE venues! Easy to run, easy to make profitable. First, set your ticket prices low until you've built it up a bit, and then you can gradually set it higher, while you build up the sales badge. Once you've got gold, you can manually set the ticket price to a price in the thousands ($9,999 seems to be popular. I'm not sure if $10,000 is too much, or something). Dazzle will be required, multiple times, for this, but once you get them in, they pay that every hour!

Next, you want to make sure that your salessim has a place to mood-up, especially to sleep or caffeinated, because dazzling drains the energy. If you have a mod to allow sleeping on community lots, that's fine, but a tent allows you to sleep in the tent, even if you are playing absolutely mod-free!

What's even better, though, and I JUST LOVE this: Set up a flower-making bench, and make a bunch of snapdragons. Spread them around the lot, and put them around several tents. Your customers will pay to stay, and then, they'll actually pay to sleep in the tents, when their mood gets low. With enough snapdragons, energy is the only mood that will kick them out, so tents are awesome! Again, no mods required to sleep on the lot! And they keep paying you every hour! I've had customers stay for weeks on end, because I just stayed there, and never closed.

If you have your customers staying for a long, long time, you may need to ask them to leave, once they have 5 gold stars, just to make room for new customers. If you're not ready to boot your best customers, then don't let them have access to a tent. Locking doors and gates are your friends. Your own sims get to sleep, but the other customers have to leave when they get tired. They'll come back, but you do get to cycle through some other customers, too. One of my best businesses was a hangout, with snapdragons, chairs, some music, and a ticket machine. Sims payed to hang out and chat, and the snapdragons kept them happy. Friendship faces flying as fast as the stars! Excellent for community building, and a big money-maker, as well.

Finally, make sure your owner/employees/family members socialize with your guests, because even just telling them a joke will help them earn stars.

Seriously, venues are THE BEST businesses.

Also, here's a tip for people playing an asylum: Open a home-based business. You'll have a steady stream of visitors, so your inmates can make friends, and that not only boosts your score, but also frees up your "keeper" sim from having to build up the friendship count for their career. Or, if your keeper wants lots of friends, they have oodles of guests to befriend. And if you add a fishing pond, the inmates will fish, and whatever they catch will go into the keeper's (business owner's) inventory! It's a great way to make money or get fresh food for the household. You don't even have to sell tickets to get these benefits. Free venues are really useful, for the social benefits, the inventory management, and the business perks. If your inmates are suffering, your keeper can "rally forth" to save them. Or use the money perks to pay the bills.

My second favorite, after venues, is a store that sells items out of the catalogue. Yes, the toys, flowers, robots, pottery, etc. are good, but with the wholesale perks, you can make a lot more money, with less effort, selling catalogue items. Plus, you don't have to worry about running out of stock. I make the items to sell, just to have the items for my sims to use, but mostly stick to catalogue goods. Although, if you have witches, you can send them to the witch lots, and let them build their magic skills, use the throne, create reagents, potions, lamps and thrones to sell, use the throne, create more stuff, use the throne, and eventually you have a good stock of stuff to sell at your store, with absolutely no monetary investment, so you make even more profit in sales, even without a wholesale perk. Witch cauldrons create things for FREE.

As for restaurants - I do not like running them. They are a pain in the neck, and not very profitable. However, if you want to design a really nice restaurant for your sims to enjoy while they are out on the town, I do recommend running it as a business, up to level 5, or so, just to play-test it. You can see what works, what doesn't, and tweak it as you go. When you are fully satisfied with it, sell it to the community. Selling a business to the community is hugely profitable, even if the business, itself, is not.

I really like setting up venues, playing them to get the business levels, and make sure they run well, adding snapdragons and the like, so my guests are REALLY happy there, maybe even adding tents. Then, at Level 10, I sell it to the community, and all my playable sims can then enjoy the venue for free. It's the only way to get snapdragons on a community lot. Likewise, you can set up a venue with career rewards, and make an excellent skill-training ground. Sell tickets to playables, if you want, or sell it to the community, and the playables can then go there for free.

I put in a mod that allows skilling on community lots, because I don't see why doing something that would build a skill at home should NOT build the same skill elsewhere. It is just not realistic that skill-building would be blocked. With that mod, though, I can basically create a vocational school for my townies, which is another thing I really love about OFB.

WARNING! If you do use a lot of snapdragons, always watch them closely for the first several hours. Mostly, they'll give off pink clouds, that boost the moods, but every now and again, you'll get a stinker that gives off green clouds, and drains the moods. Delete that one (it sells for a good price, even if it's faulty), and make another snapdragon to put in that spot, and watch for pink clouds. Once you have all the snapdragons you need, and have verified they all give pink mood-boosts, then you can pretty much play on fast speed, and it's easy money.
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Cherelle
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Re: OFB (Sims 2) Tips Anyone?

Post by Cherelle »

I noticed that if the sim doesn't have a lot of nice points, then dazzle usually doesn't work on them. Also, as previously mentioned, if the sim is friends with the person they are doing hardsell/dazzle on, it will more likely work.

OFB is probably my favorite EP. It's so much fun running a business and trying to get it to Level 10. My favorites are home-businesses because you can have your Sim just work right on the lot. I also love selling anything that come from the benches (Toy, Flower, and Robot) because it's things you can't get from the buy menu. Also, the cosmetology chair is great because you can give townies makeovers without having cheat.

Let's see, a tip. If you are hiring townies to work for your business, make sure you have an "employee room" so they can take a break and bring up their needs. It should feature things that will bring up fun, hunger, and bladder. Or, they will complain and I think quit. Also, lock the door or random sims will just come in and watch TV the entire time lol.
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