Too Many Toddlers is too easy
Before anyone points this out, I know Too many toddlers is a time-limited scenario and thus, giving commentary on it specifically is a little silly. My commentary for the challenge is more for the ...
Forum Discussion
Did your toddlers have the independent trait? Because if not, they can't have ever used that potty without being taught?
That said, I think the intent was still a "make your own rules" setup - an odd choice perhaps, but in keeping with their long-running "play your way" theme. If you want scenarios to be easy / just want the satisfaction of passing them, then you can do the bare minimum. If you want to make things difficult for yourself, you can also do that. I played too many toddlers in a base game starter home with no tub (could only wash toddlers in the sink; this also makes the "change diaper" interaction actually worth something since washing them in the sink doesn't auto change it the way a tub does). I also had on Simple Living, as well as a couple mod lot challenges to make gardening more difficult; and I set the rule for myself that the feed options on the high chair weren't allowed because that food was free and therefore not realistic. I also decided not to buy the nightlight that stops nightmares so mom would have to get up and comfort the kids multiple times each night. None of my toddlers were independent. I started the family short of money and so had the mom trying to simultaneously earn money for food and bills as well as keep the kids both happy and learning.
Of course, I still completed the challenge in a few days... but then the race is on to see how far you can get. Only one of my toddlers maxed all 5 skills before their birthday. And mom was pretty run down by that point.
So... I agree, and I don't. Yes, the scenarios are too easy. Yes, there are a lot of things (lot traits, toddler traits, free food on the highchair, wabbit tablets) that could make things easier still. But you don't have to actually take the easy route, and it can sometimes be fun to use a scenario (or just an online challenge) within a story you're telling. It's the same way you can make the traditional rags to riches more interesting by defining a narrow range of options for making money.
Yeah, I ran Too Many Toddlers as a speedrun challenge. I made a mom and 3 toddlers in CAS, put them in a Micro Home for the double skill gains, and spent the rest of the money on toddler skilling items. (I put Mom in the freelance writer career, so she could work when the kids were sleeping and didn't have to leave them unattended.)
I finished in 2 Sim days. *flex*
If I'd cheated the Matriarch reward trait onto Mom we would have finished in under 1 Sim day. I've had Sims who have legitimately earned Patriarch/Matriarch take their toddlers to my designated "tot training micro home" and return home 24 hours later with an aged up child with the Top Notch Toddler trait because of the stacking buffs. (I play either long lifespan with a lot of Potions of Youth, or aging off, or Vampires, or Spellcasters with the Immortal trait who guzzle Potion of Rejuvenation, which is how someone with 4 grandchildren is still having kids.) I love the Top Notch Toddler trait, but toddlers stress me out, lol, so I always try to speedrun them.
(I legit had triplets early on and was DEEPLY TRAUMATIZED, but I learned from the experience!)
All that said, I don't think the scenario was intended for me (someone who's done the Seven Toddler challenge and who speedruns Top Notch Toddler so she can have the juicy reward trait without having to deal with toddlers ASAP). I think it's intended for people who are less obsessed than I am 😉 who are like, "Okay, so I built the perfect house and made my Sim look super cute and now I have no idea what to do with them."
It would be nice, though, if some of the future scenarios had easy, medium, and hard mode!
PipMenace, you asked if the toddlers had the independent trait. One of them did, I randomized them, but even she could not get that skill high enough without an adult. The toddlers kept mostly just wetting their diapers...
Before I go to technicalities I want to say I completely agree about adding layers of difficulty and fun through personalized rules, and that this has been the richness of player-made challenges since forever. I guess I would be less critical about the challenge if it lead to... something nice? Like unlocking new build items, unique CAS assets, unique reward traits etc. So it would make sense to make it "easy" enough that people can pass it with a wide scale of ways... But with how things are now, the challenge is the reward, nothing unique happens afterwards, and as a gameplay prompt with no added mechanics, sub-goals or rewards this is rather shallow.
You mentioned only having a sink, and not using high chairs and so forth... And I think that is a great idea in theory, except... It turns out just plain neglecting your children works potentially "better". That is exactly the "troubling discovery" I explained in my first message. I do not say this is how the game should be played, quite the opposite actually, I would LOVE to have positive family interactions to have a higher positive impact on the outcome, but here are my discoveries broken down:
1. It is easier to wash toddlers in a good bathtub than in a sink... But it's even easier and completely free to not wash your toddlers. They will not get taken away and their skills will continue to rise even if they are constantly dirty.
2. It is cheaper to feed toddlers in a high chair, but ordering pizza takes almost no effort and one cold pizza on the floor feeds the toddlers for almost a whole day and no adult is needed at all.
3. Children learn using the potty faster when assisted by an adult... But they do not need the potty skill at all to get the top notch toddler reward trait, and can just keep dirtying their pants like point 1 shows.
4. Expensive learning toys are slightly OP... But giving each toddlers only one toy and a stack of blocks seems like a somewhat sure method of maxing out their skills before they'll change activity less and are forced to repeat.
5. The parent can do a lot of things to make the toddlers happier... But because toddlers will not be taken away because they are wet, crying and smelly, it is even more practical to just don't and order pizza, play blickblock, blow your bubble bong and mix drinks until the toddlers naturally evolve into well rounded children.
With points 1-5, I am not saying you should neglect children, not in Sims 4 and absolutely not in real life. All I am saying is that the mechanics of the game are now oddly stacked in favor of very neglectful parenting styles and are not rewarding caring and nurturing parenting enough to make the time investment all that sensible mechanics-wise even if storytelling-wise they are obviously a good choice. To make the game, and challenges like this, more rewarding as a gameplay experience, they should probably be executed in a way that encourages the player to take meaningful actions in order to complete the scenario.
Xochiquetlz_xkvn Super interesting points! Seems like the opposite kind of "maximizing" works as well, and in a record time too! I love your idea of difficulty levels for the challenges, that would give them even more value both in general and replay-wise!
@Strangelovekraft Yeah, in this case, I would say something like:
Easy mode: 3 toddlers.
Medium mode: 5 toddlers.
Hard mode: 7 toddlers!
Conversely, the scenario could check what lifespan settings you're using as part of the challenge. I started it with aging off (because that's how I had it for the last game I started?) and then realized that was BAD for the challenge, ROTFL, and changed it.
I think the issue is partly that I don't know if the game knows whether you're neglecting your toddler or not beyond whether they eat or not. Someone posted here a month or so ago to suggest that the best way to handle toddlers was to put them in their high chairs and never take them out and only have the parents interact with them to feed them, and to set the parents to making bar drinks so they wouldn't autonomously help their child. So... there would have to be some kind of new coding that detects that, and how would they know the difference between incompetent and malicious parenting? My triplets, which I had when I wasn't very used to playing with toddlers, were perpetually filthy because I panicked and had grandma and grandpa move into the house to help with them, so grandma would put the kid on the potty and start potty-training them and Mom would come and pluck them off the potty before they were finished and put them in bed, etc.--basically too many adults stepping all over each other trying to autonomously care for three toddlers. So if toddlers were taken away for being dirty, I would have definitely lost those triplets. It's clear to a human, the difference between putting your toddlers in a "toddler dungeon" and well-intentioned parents and player flailing, but from a code standpoint it's hard to tell. (Is that a micro home or a toddler dungeon? Is the toddler dirty because Mom decided he was too tired to be potty trained and plucked him off the potty, or is the toddler dirty because Mom is playing Blickblock? Add in autonomy, where Mom might decide to play Blickblock if she has low fun even if her kid needs a bath, and...)
Great points!
I agree the issue overall is mainly the game mechanics. The game does not really have a metric for "child wellbeing" or "child abuse" beyond hunger level or freezing etc. and I whole-heartedly agree that since the game has a lot of issues such as different adults taking countering parenting actions, "innocent accidents" like a toddler being smelly for a while should absolutely not result to having a child taken away.
I guess my best solution to all this would be to make it more like aspirations, which is I guess a controversial take in itself since this was created to add dimension past just aspirations... While this may divide opinions, at least it would make the challenges a little more challenging and a little less game mechanic grind? The scenario could consist of a checklist of various things, which I have understood the Well Rounded -scenario already does? In the case of child care, instead of just "toddlers reach X level skills" the challenge could be to read to them Y times, serve Z home-cooked meals to them, potty train a toddler A times and play with them with a dollhouse B times, that kind of a thing.
I guess the real finishing line still is: Are the challenges "worth playing" if they present you with a very barebones or perhaps unbalanced challenges and reward you with only reward points that are in themselves underused and underdeveloped in the game and tied to a whole gameplay system the developers seem to have partially given up on, whims.
As imagination starters? Sure. For people who already enjoy making their own stories, this adds a great spin! I see this being the scenario concept's greatest strength.
As challenges? In the "challenging" sense, not really. The level of "challenge" itself is not very challenging, and a completely arbitrary challenge like "just make a million however" feels incredibly bland. The purpose of player-made challenges has always been about giving players satisfying "puzzle games" to play with, stretching their play styles and overcoming odds. As an introduction to challenges, though? Absolutely! This would be a great way to perhaps prompt new players to discover new styles to play.
For the reward? Absolutely not. As said, the reward point and reward store system has been on it's death bed for years with the whim system seemingly abandoned and the reward store only rarely touched with new improvements, Paranormal being a refreshing exception.
- @PipMenace I actually didn't know about the nightlight, it just never dawned on me, some of the more well-behaved toddlers usually don't get too many nightmares, so maybe I just never needed to use it, but that's interesting to know.
