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thatpinkcoconut's avatar
5 years ago

How to make the game harder?

Lately I've been finding the game really easy that it's starting to bore me. My main issue being the ridiculously accessible Happy (and other positive) buffs and the rarity of negative emotions.
Please give me ideas on how to make the game more challenging... as well as things to avoid that make the game easier. Please don't give me the "it's a sandbox game. you make the game easier/harder depending on how you play it" card. I'm aware of that. I'm only here for the suggestions. Thank you.

Some things to note:
I play vanilla (without mods)
I own all the packs.
I'm fine with challenges but not really into them (too lazy to track things).

15 Replies

  • "Rouensims;c-17723533" wrote:
    "thatpinkcoconut;d-983674" wrote:
    Lately I've been finding the game really easy that it's starting to bore me. My main issue being the ridiculously accessible Happy (and other positive) buffs and the rarity of negative emotions.
    Please give me ideas on how to make the game more challenging... as well as things to avoid that make the game easier. Please don't give me the "it's a sandbox game. you make the game easier/harder depending on how you play it" card. I'm aware of that. I'm only here for the suggestions. Thank you.

    Some things to note:
    I play vanilla (without mods)
    I own all the packs.
    I'm fine with challenges but not really into them (too lazy to track things).


    Play a house full of loner elders and wild toddlers. Have only one person earn money. Only feed toddlers in highchairs. Cheat the starting money to zero. Make them accept every single offer that comes on the phone, no matter what it is. Give them only the cheapest, most uncomfortable furniture. Don’t give them a toilet, so they have to walk to the park every time. Don’t allow them to ever earn money from selling anything. Never cook and only have junk food. Don’t have any entertainment items like books or TVs. Make them wash dishes by hand. Give the only worker an active job, then you can either take extra time by joining them, or prevent them from earning extra money from promotions by not joining them. Give them a huge multi-story house so they take a long time to walk anywhere. Lock all the doors and keep them in the house all the time so they can’t get their needs met outside. If a fire starts, don’t have them extinguish it themselves but wait for a fireman to extinguish it. Give them crazy NAPs and have them live off the grid. Get a Sim to paint a sad painting when they’re sad, then keep it near the easel so they’ll paint more sad paintings, then put sad paintings all over the house and enable the sad mood on the paintings. Make all the elders mean so they’ll be mean to each other. Make every day a fight day holiday. Put all your elders in a club and make the rules be that they have to be mean, fight, scare, and steal. Make your elders mermaids and give them no pool or tub. Or make them all vampires and give them all the inability to go into the sun. Buy the infamous club perk that makes everyone dislike them when they meet them. Give them no rock climbing training and make them all scale Mt. Komorebi. Give them only non-upgraded murphy beds to sleep in. Give their house negative lot traits. Create a long, winding maze they have to use every time they go to the kitchen. Enable all weather effects and give them no roof. Give everyone the paranoid trait. Don’t let them have a fridge, so they can only eat what they harvest or find in garbage cans. Don’t give them a garbage can at all so the house becomes disgusting. Make them do laundry. Give them a really tiny house (without enabling tiny house perks) so they’re always on top of each other. Make them live in the TLC apartment in San Myshuno, or the one with noisy neighbors. Have no adults work, so the whole family only lives on a teen’s part-time earnings. Turn the whole world industrial so they’re always coughing. Don’t allow anyone to ever clean anything. Play in Strangerville without solving the mystery, so the drains will be constantly clogged with plants. Give them the Gremlins lot trait. Make every day Harvestfest and keep the gnomes angry. Have them use the bubbleblower a lot so they’ll be dazed all the time. Have a whole garden full of cowplants and challenge yourself to keep them all alive, or keep them all hungry so your Sims occasionally get eaten. Never let Sims take pictures of/with each other, or they’ll become instant buddies. Change the settings on every holiday so Sims don’t get time off work for them.


    Jesus has left the chat.
    Satan has joined the chat.
    Satan has left the chat.

    Jokes aside, wow most of this I haven't thought of. Thanks!
  • Don't use aspiration rewards. Don't switch aspirations. If you have a toddler in your family - do not control them and NEVER peek at their needs. Play only as one Sim with free will of only fro that Sim. If Vampire - no sunlight resistance.
  • @thatpinkcoconut You’re very welcome! I’m glad it was helpful. :)
  • The only thing I find horribly easy in TS4 is the rate that sims earn simoleans. They only need to get a few promotions in with their careers and the simoleans just start mounting up and there is not enough ways to keep it down.

    I don’t really play the sims for difficulty that much though so I’m not really after many challenges. I don’t find any issues besides what I mentioned above. I guess it depends how you play. Personally I just enjoy playing with my families and that keeps the game fun for me.
  • I must say I would not be able to play without mods XD So I really admire anyone who does play like that voluntarily! I only played vanilla game a few days ago after the patch when I waited for my essential mods to update. I played with a family of 4 people in Sulani - The married couple, mother of the wife and their son. I got the husband to work as a conservationist and when I started to renovate and furnish their home they ended up with less then 200simoleons XD I also tried to make their home off the grid. Maybe try to lower their starting money with the cheat *money x* and only give them part time job. Also playing with a big family is obviously harder then with 2 or 3 sims.

    If I could suggest, I would definitely tried out at least a few of them mods (if you play on pc that is...) that make the game harder like https://www.simrealist.com/snb.

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