You Need To Be Committed Challenge -29 days, No EPs required

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MichelleCYoung
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You Need To Be Committed Challenge -29 days, No EPs required

Post by MichelleCYoung »

So, I was looking at MoreAwesomeThanYou's "The Challenge Challenge!" thread, and I got an idea for one. OK, I admit, I stopped reading after the first page, so stop me if this has already been done. Edit: This was not done anywhere on that thread, at least.

In keeping with Pescado's rules:
"Create a challenge subject to the following:
1. All scoring elements of the challenge must be treated as deterministic: Any random elements are treated as always proceed according to the optimal case (since a suboptimal start would automatically fail the optimal run test of the challenge anyway).
2. The challenge must be playable by a single player.
3. The challenge must terminate: A challenge that simply runs in an endless loop until the hypothetical player gets sick of playing does not terminate.
4. The challenge must be playable. A challenge where the player does not have any input or where the rules are contradictory in a way that makes compliance physically impossible is nonplayable.
5. The challenge must be coherent: It must model some known theme, not simply be an arbitrary collection of meaningless rules.

Such that:
1. The challenge cannot be solved (maximum or infinite score cannot be achieved) by a trivial process. If the challenge can be solved such that a hypothetical player can adhere to a strict script and achieve maximum score, the challenge is too trivial."

and I know that Asylum challenges are a lot of fun, I thought I'd have a challenge where you basically create your own asylum inmate. You have a single sim living so badly that by the time they turn into an elder, they need to be committed. Do this seven times, and you'll have 7 elders for your asylum! (I would turn aging off, if playing that asylum)


So, the rules for the You Need To Be Committed Challenge are simple.

1) Create a single adult sim in CAS. No skills, no relationships, and no university degree.
2) Start with $20,000 (for those of you who have hacks to alter this)
3) Buy a lot (NOT rent an apartment!), of any size you want. It can be blank or pre-built, but no more than $20,000
4) Play your sim, but don't do anything that is blatantly cheating, OK? You know right from wrong, so let your conscience be your guide.
4a) NO life-extension of any sort. You get 29 days, and turn into an elder, and that's all there is to it.
4b) Your single sim must stay single. They can have relationships, but may never get engaged, married, or move in a friend. Nor may they get a room-mate (Apartment Life)
4c) Your single sim MAY get a child, via regular birth or alien abduction, or by adoption. MUST get at least one child, via regular birth or alien abduction AND at least one child by adoption, both before the beginning of the third week. Maximum seven children in the house at any one time (for those with Larger Household mods)
4d) Your single sim may get one or more pets, via adoption or purchasing from a pet store, but not created with them in CAS.
4e) Children may move out or go to university, if you want, and pets can be sold or given away. If either runs away, you may call police to get them back, or not. It's completely up to you. Whatever makes your single sim the most miserable.
4f) Although kids are allowed to run away, you may NOT let them die or be taken by the social worker.
4g) It is permitted to go to community lots. However, since this extends the possible time, I have increased the goal from 100 to 150. If you put your sims on house arrest, you may go for 100. If you go on vacation, even once, extend the goal to 200!
5) If your single sim (note - this does not apply to any children that come into the household!) EVER becomes platinum, you lose the challenge, immediately. I mean even just once bouncing up into that platinum mood, and it is GAME OVER!

At the end of the challenge, immediately upon your single sim turning into an elder, DO NOT make them over. Just move them out. They have just been committed to an insane asylum, and must wait in the SimBin until you play the Asylum, with them as inmates.

Scoring:
+5 for every visit from the SimShrink.
+1 for every visit from the Social Bunny.
Yes, visits for the children count for this! If you have seven kids, and they are all lonely and insane, you get more points!
+10 points if you manage to reach level 10 in a career
Goal: 100 points. 150 points (if you go to community lots) or 200 points (if you go on vacation)


There. It's simple, but challenging. Just looking at the wants:fears ratio (4:3), the odds are against you.

You can play this with Base Game or any variation of the Expansion Packs. I believe it will actually be MORE difficult with Freetime, due to the possibility of going perma-plat with Lifetime Happiness. Although, if you start with a CAS adult and keep her miserable, you probably won't get there. Probably.

Edit: I am play-testing this right now (hence the boost from 100 to 150 for the goal, and the insistence on children. It was a surprisingly easy start!), and am doing the Downtown Time Warp for outings and the like, in between Social Bunny visits, and so I think having NightLife will be a definite advantage. But even Base Game will give you the chance to extend your time a bit, and make friends for work, by going to base neighborhood community lots. Put some coffee machines out, or just make frequent trips. Social Bunnies are important, but not as important as the SimShrink, and you can get HIM to visit you, even Downtown! Therefore, I stand by my decision to raise the goal, add the children requirements, and allow travel off the home lot. However, if you find it too easy, feel free to confine your sims to house arrest. I also made it 200 points, if you go on vacations, because of the extra time that gives you. Also, I added a +10 points if you manage to max your career, because it is taking such a long time to advance in a career, due to bad moods and slow skilling.
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Re: You Need To Be Committed Challenge -29 days, No EPs requ

Post by MichelleCYoung »

Here is my trial run through this challenge:

Part 1
Part 2

It's challenging, alright.
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Re: You Need To Be Committed Challenge -29 days, No EPs requ

Post by Radiochocolate »

Hurray, more dystopia!
I'm tempted to try this out. It's virtually a shorter opposite of a wantacy.

Once again, you creating a challenge has made me seek out numbers. Given that the info listed on SimsWikia and the output of my calculator are both correct, the point cap for platinum is 4200 points (for an adult). So even if the founder's aspiration bar is at 0 (absolute bottom), they may not fulfill wants to a sum of 4200 or more.
Here are the point spans for an adult bar, for easier reference (alas, not coloured):
Spoiler:
Deep Red: 0-600
Mild Red: 600-1200
Lower Green: 1200-2400
Upper Green: 2400-3000
Gold: 3000-4200
Platinum: 4200 and up
Thus, some wants (such as "have a baby") are strictly forbidden, some even if the corresponding fear is present (8000-3500=4500).
Since the aspiration bar doesn't go into negative (according to what SimWikia says about SimPE), one could hit bottom again and again with a few excruciating fears and many minor ones (like in the beginning of the test trial).

Comments for clarification:
- Locking of fears seems to be allowed, according to the commentary in your trial run. Locking of wants should be too, in order to keep the big ones away. Or I guess engaging in hobbies would be more effective. But just for the sake of it, let's have the lock be available for both panels.
- Can sims younger than teen meet the Therapist? I think children can meet the bunny, but I am unsure.
- Servos, yes, no, if you manage to steer away from the badge wants?
- Aspiration rewards? Trying to stay in the gold zone would be an interesting challenge, and the SimVac would help with both the "lose a skill" fear and losing aspiration points. Maybe add a bonus for managing to gather several different types of rewards while still hitting bottom red enough times to complete the challenge?

Also, wow, it really comes down to chance for appropriate fears.
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Re: You Need To Be Committed Challenge -29 days, No EPs requ

Post by MichelleCYoung »

Comments on the comments:

When Michelle Himself rolled both the want and fear for having a baby, the fear was -5000, while the want was +8000, so still not doable, even if she could hold onto them both for the duration.

Locking fears and wants should be allowed, certainly. I doubt you could do it without locking fears. And if you want to play with a college grad, so you can lock two fears, I suppose that's fair, but only if you go for the full 150 points, at least.

Children do not meet the therapist. They throw tantrums. And if their social falls all the way to social bunny territory, they will be taken away by the social worker. Hence my use of nannies. Nannies may be stupid, but they will feed and socialize with babies and toddlers. Teens, I believe, may get the social bunny, but I'm not sure about the therapist, either. I think they do things like swing on the fridge door, instead. I could be wrong, though. I haven't really experimented much with low-aspiration teens.

Servos? If you want to take a newly-crated servo, move them out of their house of origin, and plop them into this challenge, go for it. However, they will never grow up into elders (nor will vampires, for that matter!), so for immortals, I guess just count the days? 29 days for the challenge, ending at 6 pm (the time they would age up), on day 29.

Aspiration rewards - if you can earn enough points, and keep them (fears make you lose the points you have saved up, but you need to bottom out for the therapist), I think it's fair game to spend the points you earned, and use the rewards, if you are able. It's risky to get into gold, and you need to stay as low as possible, in order to keep the therapist visits frequent. But if you want to go there, more power to you.

Yes, there is an awful lot of luck involved in this. Rolling fulfillable fears is HARD.

One thing I did notice - the roaches did not show up until spring, so you might want to choose your weather wisely, if you're going for roaches and illness. Those two are powerful fears, after all. I made enemies, and ticked people off, but not one person kicked over my trash can, and I couldn't kick it over, myself. My children didn't do it, and I kicked the teens right out. Maybe I should have kept them. My simself was too busy saying goodbye to the departing teens to take care of urgent needs, and then BAM! Game over. Also, it occurs to me that I might have rolled more fulfillable fears, such as "teen fails school" or some such. But my simself had, by then, gotten to have good relations with the kids, yet was ONLY rolling fears of having bad conversations and rejections with the kids, so I thought "If they are gone, maybe she'll roll good fears again." I may have to try again with another family sim, and keep the kids, to find out.

I do stand by the rule that you must have at least one child by actual childbirth (alien or woohoo-induced), because pregnancy tends to roll the "want for baby", and that is a big risk, so it adds a lot of challenge. Also, once the kids came in, the Social Bunny did not show up nearly as often, again, adding to the challenge. It was remarkably easy with a lone sim in the household. Adding kids changed it A LOT. Now, for a knowledge male, the alien abduction would be as dangerous as woohoo for a female single. For a non-knowledge male, that alien abduction might just tank him right down to Simshrinkville. It would be interesting to see. I think, though, that most knowledge sims don't roll the actual want to be abducted until at least one member of the household has already been abducted, so the first baby would be "free." For females, on the other hand, just about anyone will roll the want for woohoo at some point in a relationship, especially if you're on an official date.
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Re: You Need To Be Committed Challenge -29 days, No EPs requ

Post by Radiochocolate »

Thanks for the correction about the points! Some dangerous wants, however, are the "Become BFFs with" (+5000) and "Maximize Hobby" (+8000).

I'm having a go at this right now (surprisingly fun and challenging, yet needs relatively little real time!), with a Knowledge male. What qualifies as "beginning of the third week" and do the children have to be produced by that time? I finally got him abducted (after caving in to the Freetime Knowledge perk "Summon Aliens"), at 3 a.m. Monday morning of week 3.
Since this is before sunrise of the third week and I want to complete this challenge so badly (plus I have yet to use a community lot or vacation), I want it to count. The adopted child moved in way before this.

Edit: he returned home before sunrise as well (between 6 and 7).

Edit again: the adopted kid got taken away by social services for failing school (the same day she got the F report card!), so it seems to be game over for me. It's way past bed time for me anyway, so I'll cut now. Maybe I'll keep playing him to elderhood, maybe not. Maybe I'll start another round; anyhow, I'd appreciate a definite answer regarding abduction.
I made the numbers though, 103 points without comm lots...
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Re: You Need To Be Committed Challenge -29 days, No EPs requ

Post by MichelleCYoung »

Radiochocolate wrote:Thanks for the correction about the points! Some dangerous wants, however, are the "Become BFFs with" (+5000) and "Maximize Hobby" (+8000).

I'm having a go at this right now (surprisingly fun and challenging, yet needs relatively little real time!), with a Knowledge male. What qualifies as "beginning of the third week" and do the children have to be produced by that time? I finally got him abducted (after caving in to the Freetime Knowledge perk "Summon Aliens"), at 3 a.m. Monday morning of week 3.
Since this is before sunrise of the third week and I want to complete this challenge so badly (plus I have yet to use a community lot or vacation), I want it to count. The adopted child moved in way before this.

Edit: he returned home before sunrise as well (between 6 and 7).

Edit again: the adopted kid got taken away by social services for failing school (the same day she got the F report card!), so it seems to be game over for me. It's way past bed time for me anyway, so I'll cut now. Maybe I'll keep playing him to elderhood, maybe not. Maybe I'll start another round; anyhow, I'd appreciate a definite answer regarding abduction.
I made the numbers though, 103 points without comm lots...
My head is splitting right now, so I'm very messy in my reply, hence the entire post quoted here, so I can actually see what I'm answering.

Yes, I was surprised at the amount of fear, too. I think it may actually change, depending on aspiration. I know that makes a difference in Sims 3, for some aspirations. And who knows what mods might do. Still, that want is downright dangerous. I was playing on my Mac, so no BFF wants, thank goodness, because you can't help those, except to just never get to best friends status with anyone (Or get there, woohoo, and then tank the relationship). Oooooohhhh! There's a challenge! Have a "baby mama" who has kids with X number of fathers, but is not allowed to become BFFs with any of them. Free time required.

Beginning of 3rd week would be 8 am on the 3rd Monday, so I think you were just fine there. Well, until the Social Services showed up. Make sure the kids go to school on D days, and always have their homework done. Remember, THEY will not get the simshrink, so it may be in keeping with the challenge to keep their aspirations tanked, but it is not actually required. When Adam went platinum (stupid A+), he cost me 5 points, for not growing up badly, but he did not lose me the challenge. The only one whose aspiration actually counts is your single starter sim.

103 points, without comm lots! That is excellent! I'm amazed at how challenging it is, actually. Points are one thing, but you have to actually manage to FINISH. I think on my next round (I WILL finish this thing - as you say, it doesn't take much real time), I will go for 100 at home, rather than going Downtown. I do love going Downtown, but it's unnecessary. I think I'll try a Knowledge male, too, this time. I haven't had an alien baby in a while. There again, though, there's a matter of luck, as well as timing. With woohoo, you can at least control when you try for baby, and the odds are better.
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Re: You Need To Be Committed Challenge -29 days, No EPs requ

Post by Radiochocolate »

I was a bit naive with the grade, from being so used to bad report cards in the TPC. At least I can have the next victim adopt her (I hope the grade gets reset, or at least that she doesn't get taken away without me getting a chance to fix it).

Do you also count the Shrink and Bunny visits with tally marks? I've found it quite helpful. I also mark down each time the clock hits 6 pm and at what point the children need to be conceived.

The fear of fire is what's kept me going. Easy to accomplish, pays out well, often combined with the minor fear of burning food; but best of all, it keeps rolling up! I did have to occasionally do other fears as well, but thanks to the constant fire fear, I could even let him fulfill a few skill wants (although they called for calculation).
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Re: You Need To Be Committed Challenge -29 days, No EPs requ

Post by MichelleCYoung »

My second try, the guy has rolled the fear of fire three times the first day, and so far, never again. Six days without the fear of fire! Surprised me by fulfilling a knowledge want (gain a cleaning skill point), just by tidying up around the house. Grrrrr.

Yes, I actually use a spreadsheet. One row for shrink visits x 5, and one row for social bunnies, x 1, and then total it all up. Because while I can do math, I don't do it very well while I'm on pain pills in the middle of the night, thinking "This seems like a good idea!" I definitely have to tally each one, because after 3 or 4, I lose count, and even with taking a picture each time, I'd have to go back and recount every single time, so yeah, I wouldn't even try without a running tally. Congrats to any genius who can.

That would be cool if you next victim adopted the kid from the first round. HAHAHA! Poor child.
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Re: You Need To Be Committed Challenge -29 days, No EPs requ

Post by MichelleCYoung »

I had to take a break from it for a while,since I actually HATE my second try sim. Dieter must die. It's not good for a challenge, when the player wants to kill off the one sim he's supposed to keep alive. I may just ditch him and start over with a different one, because I'm just that frustrated with this guy. Not with the challenge, mind you. Just this guy. If he were on my Windows machine, I'd SimPE port him over to Youngdale, just to use the axes of thwackiness on him. TWICE! OK, I admit to a bit of real-life crankiness that may be playing a part in the hatred. I prefer not to unleash myself on real people, you know. But, dang, Dieter! ROLL SOME FULFILLABLE FEARS, YOU TWIT! :pan:

You know, it is frustrating in an apocalypse when your sims fail to roll fulfillable wants, and slip into aspiration failure, but for some reason, failing to roll fulfillable fears, and NOT slipping into aspiration failure is just so much more frustrating for me.

Anyway, I am going to make the executive decision that it is permissible to cheat your way into having a Grilled Cheese sim to start with, provided you do it at the beginning of play. It is also permissible to use the ReNuYu orb to get a Grilled Cheese sim. That way, if anyone actually does want to fill an asylum with characters from this challenge, they can have one of each aspiration, with one slot left for their asylum keeper. Of course, that does require Windows and Freetime, and I've been using the Mac because I have no idea what the reason was, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. Hmm. Since I'm ready to start with a brand new sim, I might as well switch back to the Windows.
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Re: You Need To Be Committed Challenge -29 days, No EPs requ

Post by Radiochocolate »

Grilled cheese sims (even the secondary ones) are great for keeping the want panel booked up, but I haven't seen any specific major fears related to them. Plus you need to be on your watch for autonomous cooking.

I want to play a female next. Will definitely adjust the seasons according to aspiration, like I set Fall as the last season for my Knowledge. Oh, how I'd like to play right now... but priorities.
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Re: You Need To Be Committed Challenge -29 days, No EPs requ

Post by Radiochocolate »

I'm doing a second playthrough, with a Grilled Cheese/Knowledge female. Apparently eating a spoiled gc sandwich is -2500. Oh and I had her adopt the previously adopted child, who upon adoption had a C grade that slipped to D for missing school. How was I supposed to know?! CAS children don't get a penalty for not going to school the first day... I hope going to school in a good mood will be enough to keep it from falling further.
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Re: You Need To Be Committed Challenge -29 days, No EPs requ

Post by MichelleCYoung »

Eating spoiled grilled cheese is a major fear? AWESOME!

I haven't played in a week or so, because I got caught up in other things. Middle Earth, mainly. I'm on my second run-through of The Lord of the Rings, because I watched LOTR first, then said, "Wait! We have The Hobbit!" and after The Hobbit, naturally, I have to finish the story, but now I'm partway through, I keep thinking of things in The Hobbit I want to go back and check, so I might wind up watching it again in a few days, as well, because I just have to know if they did that scene this way or that way, and when I get obsessed I kind of can't stop.

But I'll get back to this challenge, eventually. It really is rather challenging, isn't it?
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Re: You Need To Be Committed Challenge -29 days, No EPs requ

Post by Radiochocolate »

Just a bit more gameplay and arranging the pictures in a good order, then I can actually say that I've completed this challenge! The founder isn't an elder yet, but the mandatory children have grown to teen and the 100 point requirement has been met (thanks to the computer and phone, there was no need for community lots).

Interestingly enough, once the children became teens they autonomously used the grill indoors, despite the several examples their mother had set.
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Re: You Need To Be Committed Challenge -29 days, No EPs requ

Post by MichelleCYoung »

So, they could potentially trigger a few shrink visits? Nice!

Too bad the shrink doesn't visit teens, either, because they could add to the count. However, unlike children, teens CAN get social bunny visits, without triggering social worker visits.
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