Re: Developers - omg STOP with the stupid Mischief skill

I dislike comedy and I literally had to tune it out of every file that would level comedy because Sim's disliking it wasn't enough. So I know how you feel, I only have 1 Sim I allow Mischief and it is only inherit due to the fact I have them learning the school of Mischief for my storyline.

But what about Proper Trait? It is suppose to disapprove of mischief.

I also use the Lock Skill mod, it allows me to lock Sims from learning any skills I don't want them too. But it does announce every time (including repeating) you learned the skill (when you haven't) when using an interaction that levels it. But I rather that—then an unwanted skill. This has been a game saver for me, I hate when my Sims learn things I didn't want them to.

I found this to be a problem too and the only solution I found was to have my sims dive in and enjoy it and set them to like mischief, deception and maliciousness because of the insults. And then I had a nasty surprise when I decided to do an aspiration on it which required using the voodoo doll. I did not know this would cause a sim to pick up the Thanatology skill which is relationship wrecking. I had to add mccc back to my game a few days ago because I could find no other way to go through my sims and remove that skill from everyone. So for those that didn't know that like I did not, AVOID USING THE VOODOO DOLL!!!!

Honestly, I think the Mischief skill should be renamed to Bullying and harassment skill because that's exactly what it is. 

I hate mischief and after disliking it and all related activities around it, ALL of my sims just autonomously get the skill anyway.  I have read on many forums that there are A LOT of other players that feel the same way.  The only way to attempt to disable it, without installing a mod (mcc), is to turn off autonomy which makes it so they don't care of their children (worse than it is even when they are autonomous). 

Perhaps the developers think this is fun and/or funny, but I don't and neither do other players.  I can't stand it to the point that I either restart a new game until ALL my sims start getting the mischief skill, or I may just give up and completely keep playing the game.  

Please make it possible to stop mischief without having to turn off autonomy on the Sims.  From a very frustrated player.

So far I have been mod free due to reading about lots of issues with mods.  I do use cheats, but so far no cheat has worked.  I turned off autonomy and that stopped it, but it also stopped the enjoyment of the game.  Probably going to give up and just quit playing... come back later and see if they fixed it.

They'd need to overhaul autonomy like this and/or likes/dislikes to actually whitelist/blacklist from autonomous use. I mean I hope they do, it would solve a lot of issues for a lot of people.

There are a few of things I feel like they should do about Mischief, and after seeing these kinds of posts I'm confident that quite a few people agree:

• Either stop emphasizing Mischief so much for the Goofball trait, or rename Goofball to Prankster if that was their true intention for it in the first place. If they do decide to go with rebranding the current Goofball trait into Prankster, then please give us an actual "Goofball" trait alongside it that's centered around comedy, jokes, and generally silly behavior. And likewise, if they choose to rework the existing Goofball trait as I described instead, then perhaps include a "Prankster" trait alongside it to prefer Mischief in its place.
• Give the Disruptive trait heightened priority for Mischief interactions. From what I've heard, they're currently no more likely to use them than the average Sim. They are supposed to love being a nuisance and messing with people, aren't they?
• Expand the variety of interactions available within the Mischief skill. Not all pranksters are malicious. Include more options for lighthearted pranks and gags that are more likely to make both the prankster and the "victim" laugh in the end, and maybe redo the categories to reflect this. Interactions like "give fake bad news" are actually quite mean, and ones like "invite to fake party" and "instill with false confidence" are legitimately getting into psychologically abusive territory.
• Stop giving heightened priority to Mischief interactions for Loners and Geeks. Nothing about those two traits says "I want to be a deliberate nuisance" on their own. Loners are not comfortable around other people, and Geeks are just nerdy enthusiasts. There are plenty of harmless Loners and Geeks out there too.