Lot Challenges Coming: Correct The Grocery Prices To Foster Fun Experience

this has annoyed me for the longest time!! i hope with the new update they fix this issue so it ends up being cheaper purchasing the ingredients before making the meal, as that would make the most sense. it seems so silly to even both with buying fresh ingredients because you end up spending hundreds on food, when that price could be halved with cooking without any fresh ingredients. the only way I've found to create cheaper meals is to keep a garden to get fresh fruit and vegetables from there as it saves heaps of money in the long run

Probably just me but I kinda like my sims spending a fair amount of money on groceries adding to that challenge if you're not growing them, since there's so many various ways to accumulate money. Always felt like my sims didn't really have anything to eally spend their money on besides paying for bills.

Definitely see what you mean with the adjustment of some igredient prices still.

When using fresh ingredients the amounts are substracted from the cost total per meal. Maybe the spaghetti from the fridge costs only §6 because they don't use any fresh ingredients. So if you cook spaghetti with some fresh ingredients you pay only for the ingredients you don't have, but the costs of fresh ingredients used from your inventory isn't factored into the total cost.

"crocobaura;c-17925510" wrote:
When using fresh ingredients the amounts are substracted from the cost total per meal. Maybe the spaghetti from the fridge costs only §6 because they don't use any fresh ingredients. So if you cook spaghetti with some fresh ingredients you pay only for the ingredients you don't have, but the costs of fresh ingredients used from your inventory isn't factored into the total cost.

Um, the §6 cost is indeed when a sim doesn’t have any fresh ingredient. My point was that acquiring those ingredients directly from the fridge is §6, but actively (realistically) buying those ingredients from a market stand would cost us more than §58. This reflects a heavily imbalanced economy for food preparing.

I’ve retrieved another point of reference—a serving of spaghetti in a Dine Out restaurant has a price tag of §16 when the markup is set to 125%, which means the supposedly base cost is roughly §13. None of these are anywhere near the cost of getting the ingredients...

You could harvest for free from plants growing around neighbourhoods, or collect them from the spice festival. It might take some planning, but I think a lot of the ingredients can be obtained this way. Seeds can also be obtained from the holiday gnomes or patchy. If you're not opposed to gardening, your sims can grow their own little garden and can make money from the surplus.

"mikamakimon;c-17926143" wrote:
You could harvest for free from plants growing around neighbourhoods, or collect them from the spice festival. It might take some planning, but I think a lot of the ingredients can be obtained this way. Seeds can also be obtained from the holiday gnomes or patchy. If you're not opposed to gardening, your sims can grow their own little garden and can make money from the surplus.

Yes, I’m aware that we can just have our sims grow the needed produce. As my original post stated, the whole point of this feedback is that households that don’t farm or garden can have a fun and fair experience with this challenge. Likewise, the produce stands and farmers’ market would be quite useless if this kind of pricing continues.

"Simmer_chiyen;c-17926102" wrote:

"crocobaura;c-17925510" wrote:
When using fresh ingredients the amounts are substracted from the cost total per meal. Maybe the spaghetti from the fridge costs only §6 because they don't use any fresh ingredients. So if you cook spaghetti with some fresh ingredients you pay only for the ingredients you don't have, but the costs of fresh ingredients used from your inventory isn't factored into the total cost.

Um, the §6 cost is indeed when a sim doesn’t have any fresh ingredient. My point was that acquiring those ingredients directly from the fridge is §6, but actively (realistically) buying those ingredients from a market stand would cost us more than §58. This reflects a heavily imbalanced economy for food preparing.

I’ve retrieved another point of reference—a serving of spaghetti in a Dine Out restaurant has a price tag of §16 when the markup is set to 125%, which means the supposedly base cost is roughly §13. None of these are anywhere near the cost of getting the ingredients...

You can make a party sized serving of spaghetti from the same amount of fresh ingredients as a single serving. If you are worried about costs you could try making larger meals. Also, when you buy ingredients directly from the fridge, you aren't getting the fresh ingredients like fresh tomatoes and fresh pasta, you are probably getting canned tomato juice and dry pasta. Canned tomato juice is strangely cheaper than fresh tomatoes in real life too.

"crocobaura;c-17926968" wrote:

"Simmer_chiyen;c-17926102" wrote:

"crocobaura;c-17925510" wrote:
When using fresh ingredients the amounts are substracted from the cost total per meal. Maybe the spaghetti from the fridge costs only §6 because they don't use any fresh ingredients. So if you cook spaghetti with some fresh ingredients you pay only for the ingredients you don't have, but the costs of fresh ingredients used from your inventory isn't factored into the total cost.

Um, the §6 cost is indeed when a sim doesn’t have any fresh ingredient. My point was that acquiring those ingredients directly from the fridge is §6, but actively (realistically) buying those ingredients from a market stand would cost us more than §58. This reflects a heavily imbalanced economy for food preparing.

I’ve retrieved another point of reference—a serving of spaghetti in a Dine Out restaurant has a price tag of §16 when the markup is set to 125%, which means the supposedly base cost is roughly §13. None of these are anywhere near the cost of getting the ingredients...

You can make a party sized serving of spaghetti from the same amount of fresh ingredients as a single serving. If you are worried about costs you could try making larger meals. Also, when you buy ingredients directly from the fridge, you aren't getting the fresh ingredients like fresh tomatoes and fresh pasta, you are probably getting canned tomato juice and dry pasta. Canned tomato juice is strangely cheaper than fresh tomatoes in real life too.

I guess the latter point can be one’s own head cannon if they choose so. The game doesn’t provide such mechanics though—the quality of food is determined by the quality of produces and the skill level of sims. The §58+ ingredients are all of normal quality, hence the final dish quality wouldn’t be any higher than all from a fridge, assuming that the cooking sim doesn’t have exceptional cooking skill.

Economy-wise, that still doesn’t make much sense. Even if we serve in party size (§25), the cost difference is still more than twofold. Moreover, my previous restaurant reference point stands nevertheless, unless we’re to believe that sims’ restaurants all use canned ingredients...

"Simmer_chiyen;c-17928291" wrote:

"crocobaura;c-17926968" wrote:

"Simmer_chiyen;c-17926102" wrote:

"crocobaura;c-17925510" wrote:
When using fresh ingredients the amounts are substracted from the cost total per meal. Maybe the spaghetti from the fridge costs only §6 because they don't use any fresh ingredients. So if you cook spaghetti with some fresh ingredients you pay only for the ingredients you don't have, but the costs of fresh ingredients used from your inventory isn't factored into the total cost.

Um, the §6 cost is indeed when a sim doesn’t have any fresh ingredient. My point was that acquiring those ingredients directly from the fridge is §6, but actively (realistically) buying those ingredients from a market stand would cost us more than §58. This reflects a heavily imbalanced economy for food preparing.

I’ve retrieved another point of reference—a serving of spaghetti in a Dine Out restaurant has a price tag of §16 when the markup is set to 125%, which means the supposedly base cost is roughly §13. None of these are anywhere near the cost of getting the ingredients...

You can make a party sized serving of spaghetti from the same amount of fresh ingredients as a single serving. If you are worried about costs you could try making larger meals. Also, when you buy ingredients directly from the fridge, you aren't getting the fresh ingredients like fresh tomatoes and fresh pasta, you are probably getting canned tomato juice and dry pasta. Canned tomato juice is strangely cheaper than fresh tomatoes in real life too.

I guess the latter point can be one’s own head cannon if they choose so. The game doesn’t provide such mechanics though—the quality of food is determined by the quality of produces and the skill level of sims. The §58+ ingredients are all of normal quality, hence the final dish quality wouldn’t be any higher than all from a fridge, assuming that the cooking sim doesn’t have exceptional cooking skill.

Economy-wise, that still doesn’t make much sense. Even if we serve in party size (§25), the cost difference is still more than twofold. Moreover, my previous restaurant reference point stands nevertheless, unless we’re to believe that sims’ restaurants all use canned ingredients...

Most restaurants use canned and pre-prepared food because no one wants to wait 2 hours for freshly made anything. :lol:

I do agree with you that it is annoying that they don't really make much sense in that context, but you could call it a farmer's market tax if you will. RP reasoning could easily say you are going out of your way for top class ingredients and that is why they are so much more expensive compared to typical supermarket stuff in your fridge.

Either way, I am not going to complain about it being too pricey because it never really feels that way in game. At least not for me. Plus it is meant to be a challenge.

Actually, one I already think is already stunted. I expected cows to cost a lot more. It is nothing to pay $2000 for a good milk cow. Simoleons seem valued less than $, too, so I am really surprised they aren't at least a thousand simoleons.