The Festivals are boring

"DaWaterRat;c-17947506" wrote:
After watching several Let's plays and my own experiences, I've come to one of two conclusions about the contests at the fairs.

1) they're broken, but no one knows enough about how they're supposed to work to actually make a bug report
2) your "placement" is actually based on some sort of point system and has nothing to do with the other entries because you never learn how other entries did.

(Also possible is some combination of the two.)

At first I though the fair contests to be fairly straightforward:

- the first time my Sims participated each of them (it's a family of 3) entered an oversized vegetable. The only other entry was by an NPC. My sims won 1st, 2nd, 3rd place respectively; similarly in a contest for "regular" harvestables, they all participated and won a prize each (1st, 2nd, participation), the first prize going to the family member who had submitted the rarest harvestable (the 2 NPCs submitted spinach and another common plant respectively).

- at the llama fair, my family participated with their only llama, which was of a rare colour and wearing the llamacorn set; the other submission was a regular beige llama. My llama won the first prize.

At that point I felt I had pretty much understood the mechanics - the best the submission, the best the prize, right?

Instead, after those early successes everything went downhill. :neutral:

the next time they participated in a contest it was one for chickens. They each submitted a chicken (two hens and a rooster) - they were regular chickens, but dressed very nice. The other chickens were just as regular and not even wearing a dapper outfit. None of my Sims won anything in that context, which seemed strange to me, since out of 5 contestants 3 of them were my family, I had expected them to bring home at least a 3rd place. But none of them got even a participation ribbon.

After that, they participated again in a contest for harvestables (regular ones). Only one member of the family submitted an entry - a perfect rare fruit. She only got a participation ribbon (and yes, the fruit was from her own orchard).

So I'm kind of confused. I'll have to run more tests. Maybe the result is supposed to be random? (Or the judge really wants to be bribed? :D)

One thing I noticed is that after entries are submitted, if you examine them with one of your Sim, a pop up will inform you of what your Sim thinks about that submission (whether it is a good specimen or not). I've noticed that the opinion has very little correspondence with the contest results. Sometimes the Sim will compliment an entry saying it is the best and sure to win, but it won't.