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Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#1 Old 6th May 2019 at 9:17 PM Last edited by zystem : 13th May 2019 at 1:11 AM.
Default What's something new I could do in the game?
I've noticed that when I play my game, I always just do the same thing. Every family I create is the same one, even if they look different. At the end of the day, they all have the same outcome: get married and have a kid.

I want to do something different. What's some new ideas I could do for gameplay? And what kind of Sims could I create? Aliens? Demons?
(I'm not interested in challenges BTW, sorry!)

edit: I've taken some suggestions and I'm currently running a foster home. All I can tell you is I am never adopting a baby or toddler ever again!

22. male. he/him. autistic.
REST IN PEACE JOTARO KUJO. JUNE 2020 - JANUARY 2021.
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retired moderator
#2 Old 6th May 2019 at 9:35 PM
You could try want based play; try to get them a job, partner, household items etc based on their wants. That way you could end up trying things you haven't done before.

Or, use a random generator to create a family, or sim. I like this one:
http://modthesims.info/d/512487

Or, build a new neighbourhood. Decide on a theme, such as modern, futuristic, medieval, retro, industrial etc and go collect some CC to go with that. Then build a little neighbourhood with buildings based on that theme, and populate it.
Alchemist
#3 Old 6th May 2019 at 9:38 PM
some things that might give you ideas::
-look at other player's content
-read stories (player-made and/or non-sims2 related)
-read various tutorials
-read the Prima Guides
-go through game's "Learn to Play" section
Mad Poster
#4 Old 6th May 2019 at 9:52 PM
There's a whole thread on keeping the game interesting, but if you're starting to bore yourself the key thing is to smash the box you're thinking in. (If you're not bored with this playstyle, don't let anybody make you feel you have to do anything differently. The only person who has to be pleased is you.)

Sooner or later, most sims will get married and have at least one child, but this doesn't have to be their whole story. Treat them as real people. Make backstories for them: where are they from? Why don't they have any skill points when they start? What is their LTW, and why do they want that? Make complete families with all lifestages so you already have a married couple with a kid and can experiment with the lesbian sister-in-law, the elder widower who finally wants to sow his wild oats, the teen whose goal in life is to Rule the School on the side.

If you have trouble making backstories, use the Maxis neighborhoods or one of the many new, safe, populated hoods that have been created over the last few years; or borrow backstories from media. Soap operas, sitcoms, even superhero comics can supply you with all the starting situations you need.

Instead of one family, make a small community and play them in rotation, using different guidelines for every household. I know you don't want to play a challenge, but you can borrow ideas from challenge rules without actually playing a challenge. You don't have to go to the effort of making an entire integrated economy in order to have certain households run businesses which are the only/primary means of other households buying groceries, getting makeovers, or acquiring new outfits, for example.

Look at the aspirations. What does it mean to be a Knowledge sim, a Family sim, a Romance sim? Not the superficial stuff, but at a deep pscyhosocial level, why do people choose these aspirations and what role do they play in society? Then look at individual sims and think about them in the context of the aspiration mechanic. How is this Romance sim distinct from that Romance sim? Why is this serious sim a Pleasure sim while this playful sim a Knowledge sim? (And if you never have serious Pleasure sims or playful Knowledge ones, maybe that's part of your playstyle rut and you need to do something about that, too.) Make a set of siblings with the same aspiration and wildly different personalities, or identical personalities and aspirations directly opposite each other on the aspiration choice dial, and play them in parallel, guided by their wants and autonomous behavior.

Don't use Maxis careers. Make them make their own livings by running businesses, busking, writing novels or restaurant guides.

Or - play Maxis careers to the hilt. Give military, criminal, and law enforcement personnel a random chance of dying on an ordinary work day. Decide there's a war, draft people, and make a "war neighborhood." Make sims in the intelligence career live double lives and send them on missions. Have your musicians form "bands" with the social groups feature and send them out to play venues; send them "on tour" to vacation neighborhoods. Have your ecoguru or your cult leader start communes. Invent issues and policies for your politicians to take stands on in ways that have implications for how your hood is played.

Just...dig into those mechanics, engage with your sims as people, and never be bored again!

Ugly is in the heart of the beholder.
(My simblr isSim Media Res . Widespot,Widespot RFD: The Subhood, and Land Grant University are all available here. In case you care.)
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#5 Old 6th May 2019 at 10:44 PM
I play an integrated hood which means every sim has a role, be that a doctor, teacher, maid or criminal.

I use the sims hobby. This might just be a hobby or I might let them make money off it.

Then I have motivation levels. I add neatness together with activity and minus the playful points. I have different play rules for the 3 scores.
8+ High Achievers. These are the sims who do all the study and take on the professional jobs. They can teach and train other sims in skills too including toddler skills. I set them as smart on the batBox. They can learn more skills in each group. I set this on the simblender under skilling limits. 3 as a toddler, 5 as a child, 8 as a teen and 10 adult.
1-7 are my Average sims. These sims I play far more by wants. They do not get the smart boost and do not skill or train unless they roll the want. So don't want to potty train their toddler? Then they don't. Don't want to skill at Uni? Then they don't and they might fail out.
they have a skilling range of 2-4-8-10. 9i really wish scholerships were lower than 8) But they have to have a fair go at getting those too.
0- are the Low Achievers. from toddlerhood on these sims free range. If that means they spend the day playing down the toilet so be it. However, I do strew around toys and I do direct them near them. What will they choose? These sims most times take on the NPC jobs. Their skilling range is set to 1-3-6-8 and they cannot attend uni. They can autonomously skill (I have mods in that allows for that) They can be called over and asked to join. How they go also depends on their family. if the parent or grandparent is a high achiever the outcome will be different if the parent is low themselves. The overachieving grandma can swoop in and do all the toddler training. No overachiever and the parents don't roll wants then the toddler won't even get potty trained which may lead to wetting the bed as a child. (another mod)

I play to wants but I have a few more rules surrounding those. I still get to decide which of those wants that I fill. Hobby wants I fill only if related to the sims hobby or interests or skill. So the sim wants to win a cooking contest they need to have either cuisine as their hobby or have 10 interest in food or 10 skill in cooking or be high achievers.

Earning money also has rules. there are tons of ways to make money in this game but I don't want everyone's way to be the same.
Cooking contests, dance contests(Goes on hobby and interest in entertainment), digging for treasure (can only be done by my archeologist and a few really hard done by farmers), painting (art and craft hobby and is open to financially struggling sims), deposit money and gain interest (Monique's computer) give financial advice ( open to sims who completed Uni, whos first or second aspiration is fortune who has 10 interest in money) give speech on the podium (works in politics or law), make the hobby car (Is the mechanic/fix-it person or has 10 in mechanical) Can make and sell pottery (arts and crafts hobby) Write restaurant review (owns a restaurant or has 10 cooking or hobby cuisine) grow food or fish to sell (farmers and nature sims) What I can think of, off the top of my head. I have more obscure ways, for example, I have my midwife attend all home births and so long as the sim can afford it she gets paid $50 for doing this. My fix-it guy also gets $50 if I call him over. Tend bar or the cafeteria or DJ. All sims can write a novel if they roll the want and most do as I have a lot of written novels in my hood.

When they grow up I pick the sims favourite colours based on what they are wearing. They may get clothes and room deco based on this.

I have a random generator of additional interests and pick the top 3 and write these down in the sim's bio.

Occasionally I might roll a random event.

Try the new Trait mod. I have only dabbled a tiny bit as I am waiting on it to be further along.

It's not making sims aliens or demons that make them interesting it's making them fundamentally different. Otherwise you will end up with another identically played family who look like aliens. Most of my families have children because I love children and genetics, having children also doesn't make them the same, it's how you play them. If you strive for perfection for every sim so each sim learns all toddler skills, gains an A+ at school, gets a 4 GPA at college, has a rabbit hole job rinse and repeat, yes they will get boring. Make some less perfect, make some sims poor or rich to begin with. I have homeless sims, sims living in tiny crummy apartments, sims in nice houses and a few in large lovely houses.

Apart from playing them differently also look at all the game has to offer. The various hobbies, business', travel and more obscure things like pet breeding or pool hustling. One of my low motivation sims enjoys making money by hustling pool down at the bar.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Theorist
#6 Old 6th May 2019 at 11:19 PM
I only just took back up playing again after over a decade of not and so far most of my time has been spent trying to reaquaint myself with different features and trouble-shooting various things that are problematic (like take a Sim on vacation and end up with them stuck there--that's nearly maddening). I don't know if you've ever tried any but I've played a few challenges I really enjoyed. I don't normally go in for really long unless it's something I come up with but I thoroughly loved the Asylum Challenge, and another one I played was the Poverty Challenge where the dad could never get promoted past the first level or two of his job (my Sim ended up being a security guard) and the wife couldn't work because she was always having babies (although getting her a job and collecting maternity leave was allowed). I had a mod for breast feeding which made it seem more realistic to me, and this family raised four kids in a tiny basement house (because they could never afford to build walls), bedrooms so small the two bunkbeds I put in for the kids barely fit, and the only thing the mom could fix because she never had time to learn any cooking skills was mac and cheese. There were no aspiration rewards like money tree, thinking caps, or smart milk allowed--those toddlers only ever managed to get potty trained and that was just out of necessity. They had a couple of potted veggie plants (Echo's garden plants) for their food. Another one I did was called Internet Love or some such, and there was one where I had to download a really awful house and play a single Sim throughout their life all the while trying to get the house upgraded. My Sim for this one had a dog and ended up with a boyfriend (they still need to get married), and drank a lot of Elixir to stay relatively young enough to marry her boyfriend in the end.

Oh, and because I forgot to say, I've never been a big fan of off-the-lot jobs so my main Sim family is sort of a Free-Time OFB challenge family, as in they run a home business which has to change from generation-to-generation based on the pre-destined hobby of the heir. I'm toying with the idea of instead using the mod that allows time to pass on community lots and moving their business out of their home instead just because that's easier to manage but haven't decided for sure.
Field Researcher
#7 Old 6th May 2019 at 11:38 PM
I have some changes in my game that happen at the roll of a die. Every rotation (I play a neighbourhood with many different families), I roll to see what might happen.

This can include - divorce, affair, unexpected death, getting fired from your job, losing a significant amount of money, being forced to move, adoption.

It often means I have to change the plans that I had for certain sims.
Mad Poster
#8 Old 6th May 2019 at 11:42 PM
The Traits mod is such a refreshing one-you use the randomizer to get the most combinations and it'll give you some other way to play the pixels.
For instance-A 'hydrophobic' pixel who is also an athlete does not ever want to go to the pool. So make them work out some other way. The "pickpocket' trait is fun to watch as the pixels will sidle up to each other and scam each other.
Make a medieval neighborhood-as realistically as possible.
Use hacks to make life more difficult to live.
But as Peni said, there is an entire thread devoted to how to avoid boredom. It's a good idea to read through it, pick and choose what you want to do to break up your inertia.
It is easy to get bored with a neighborhood...which is why most of us have 2 or 3 (or more) to choose from when playing. Each one is different and that requires you pay attention, especially if you take prolific notes.

Receptacle Refugee & Resident Polar Bear
"Get out of my way, young'un, I'm a ninja!"
Grave Matters: The funeral podium is available here: https://www.mediafire.com/file/e6tj...albits.zip/file
My other downloads are here: https://app.mediafire.com/myfiles
Mad Poster
#9 Old 7th May 2019 at 8:21 AM
I see my hood as a community.

Every Sim plays a part in the community - which starts by visits to community lots.

The most important lot is my Unemployment Center - Sims go not only to look for a job, but also to teach and be taught (gaining skill points, sharing hobby tips, etc).Groups of sims is an element of the game I like: Sims in the same career are sent on annual gala dinners as well as a team building fishing trip together.

Business owners have to attend the annual business dinner and also have to take their staff out to lunch (employees who don't show are fired).

Sims have to buy everything they need from the owned businesses.

Musical sims form bands and perform at venues. The retired rock stars draw large crowds on Sundays in the hall in my retirement subhood. (@Peni Griffin - I am going to send my elder rock band on a tour now, thank you! A final tour, since the elixir of life is running out there - they will go out with a bang )!

If the family is still boring - adopt a kid and a pet Get them a new roomie or have them quit their jobs and start farming
Mad Poster
#10 Old 7th May 2019 at 9:34 AM
Something I'm thinking of trying. Build a hood just by utilizing the apartment system (meaning create it with cheats) to give it a semi-open world atmosphere where a house gets filled with new townie residents.

Other thing, I sort of made a hood where I start with one sim. From there, who moves in that household depends on heir's aspiration. For instance, Populiarity sims only move in sims that they consider closest friends, to the point till whole house is filled.

Create a "Foster" household: single Sim, who adopts 7 children at a time, raises them, kicks them out after they grown up and repeats. Once the "owner" dies, the legecy is carried over by first adopted child unless one of the other children has Family aspiration which would be willing to carry over the challenge.

Speaking of aspiration, spice that up: choose the one that fits or alluded they'll be aspire after observing their childhood. If there still isn't enough diversity, may I suggest using a dice to determine their ultimate passion?

Limit aspiration reward usage and availability for the sim (or household (...) by initial member's) with their assosiacated aspiration. Meaning, counterfet machine only for fortune, hot tub for romance, sunglasses for populiarty, thinking cap & vacuum for knowledge ect.

Put Sims Interest to good use by incorperating into storyline and/or interchangability into gameplay mechanics. What Sim is interest should be their expertise, let it determine their career choice, hobby, belief, lifestyle or whatever.

P.S. Sorry for my bad english.
Theorist
#11 Old 7th May 2019 at 11:38 PM
Quote: Originally posted by zystem
I want to do something different. What's some new ideas I could do for gameplay?


You could get out of your comfort zone and play completely opposite of how you normally play and see if you like it. Rolling of the die/dice and using ROS (Random Occurrence Scenarios) can add lots of unexpected (and sometimes tragic) events to gameplay as well. Sometimes, even small changes can make a difference in how much more you enjoy the game.

I very recently decided to really mix things up and take a break from playing my usual custom neighborhoods that are ALL country villages with cottages, farming fields, farm animals, loads of trees and quaint businesses that are all owned by playable sims who have to rely on one another for their livelihood, and instead create a metropolitan area/urban-ish custom neighborhood where all of the homes will be apartments (using Nysha's Apartment Rent Control mod) and brownstones (for homeowners) that are surrounded by lots of deco downtown type buildings and other city type 'hood deco.

Sims will also own very few of the businesses/community lots ('cause I honestly need a break from playing a more integrated type of 'hood), and will instead freelance, work in custom careers (that have low wages), Maxis careers (with modded lowered wages) or deal with unemployment and have to try and make money other ways...which should make things more challenging and entertaining. The sim bios/backstories will be more 'big' city oriented as well - there will always be a sim looking to make it big as a singer, dancer, actor, artist, model, journalist or who will simply do what they have to in order to not have to leave town due to not being able to afford the higher cost of city living.

This is my first time creating from scratch and really playing this type of neighborhood as a main 'hood.

Either way, sometimes coming up with fresh game ideas can be just as fun as implementing them. So, take your time and really think about what would interest you.


“Seize the time... Live now! Make now always the most precious time. Now will never come again.” ― Jean-Luc Picard
Forum Resident
#12 Old 8th May 2019 at 3:23 AM
Try fulfilling fears, ruining a sim's life, keeping them in low aspirations. See what happens... I found it very difficult to have a "bad seed" sim. I wound up kinda liking him and feeling bad for him. haha. It could be interesting to play the "troubled child" in one of your cookie-cutter families. Bad relationships with parents and siblings... no friends... bad choices. Get into fights and junk like that. Plenty of options to throw drinks in people's faces and poke them in the chest. Cheat on lovers, get divorced, move out, quit jobs and/or get fired. Get kicked out of college. Use aspiration rewards with low aspirations. Why not?


-grinEvilly
>=)
Instructor
#13 Old 8th May 2019 at 4:43 AM
turn on free will and let sims take control on their own lives instead of you. it's much more fun that way (to me).

LGBTQ+. Fans of RAMMSTEIN, GOJIRA and Architects. Check out my favorite YouTube channels: Second Thought, Adam Something, Climate Town, and Not Just Bikes
Theorist
#14 Old 8th May 2019 at 6:40 AM
I (literally) just stumbled upon this and thought of this post. It's random generators, and while I believe they're designed for writing, I think they'd work decently well in tryin to mix things up in game play.

https://springhole.net/writing_role...kstory-idea.htm
Field Researcher
#15 Old 12th May 2019 at 9:56 AM
When I get bored I just make everyone gay bipolar alcoholics.

So, my art imitates my life.
Forum Resident
#16 Old 13th May 2019 at 10:10 PM
Some things I did to break up the monotony:

I created a 'boot camp' for wayward teens. They were locked in cells at night which consisted of a bed, toilet, sink, and bookshelf. During the day, they weren't allowed back in their cells. Instead, they worked the (huge) garden, sewed, made toys, cooked meals, cleaned, etc. to 'earn their keep'. They were all required to join the military career to learn discipline and give back to their sim community. They listened to lectures (using the podium) from the manager of the camp and were encouraged to be neater, more active, and nicer. In the evenings, after shower time, meals, and homework, they could play chess or paint to relax. On weekends, family members or friends were allowed to visit for a short while. At the end of their stay, they could go to college if they had scholarships. The others were required to move out and start their own lives. The goal was to make them productive sim citizens. Some fell in love with others at the camp and moved out together, others made friends and moved out with them, some moved back home. May not be your cup of tea, but I had a fun time with it.

The other thing I did was plop a sim down in a vacant lot with only a pond, gave them $100 and tried to keep them alive and moving up in the world. I had some mods to accomplish this - skilling at community lots, sleep on floor at home, and squat anywhere bushes. To make it harder, I added bigger bills, more realistic food/fish prices, and lower wages mods. I hoped that they could afford a small shelter by winter so they wouldn't freeze to death. They showered at community lots until they could afford a bath/shower. I used outdoor showers and sinks (custom content) to make it more realistic if they didn't have a structure by then. Others could move in but any money they brought was taken away. The backstory was that they lost their business, had to use all their money to pay off debts, and lost their homes. So, they moved to a new community as they had a friend there with a vacant lot available. It sounds like a challenge, but I made my own rules. It was challenging and fun to see them improve their lives. Some of them did quite well for themselves eventually. Not for everyone, but I liked doing something harder for a change.
Forum Resident
#17 Old 21st May 2019 at 7:12 PM
I mostly play integrated hoods, but I find that there's never a shortage of things to try. When I have a single sim, sometimes I'll have them adopt two cats or two dogs and then try to get them to have puppies or kittens. I pretend that there's a "Simon's List" where sims can find roommates (I don't use the roommate feature in game because I like to have all my sims playable.) and I'll move in a single sim with another single sim (life is better with friends.) I have my sims throw a lot of parties. For Christmas, for New Years, for Halloween, and for birthdays with Jasana's cake (they can celebrate and blow out candles without actually aging )

The parties are great - it's how I make sure that my hoods have that lived in feeling. Sims get to know each other, romances form, and in a hood where there are only three community lots, it's a way to start bringing in new sims that I can make playable. They're also really fun - there's always drama with old flames and such, and I enjoy the gift giving and decorating for the holidays.

Other things that are fun besides having a family: taking an adventure sim and playing out that career by having them go on vacation and try to have adventures: meet all the hidden npcs, collect 'rare' items, take pictures, and come back to their home hood with their amazing array of collectibles from far-flung locations. I like to make over all the vacation destinations and really work them up into more realistic locales. Sometimes I build them as subhoods so that I can really have sims 'move' to other countries. I want to experiment with building custom vacation hoods, as well as custom subhoods so that I can have both.

I like to have at least one mad scientist too for the same reason. I take all the in-game experimenting equipment and build a laboratory where I mess about with all those things on unsuspecting sims (mwhahahaha) and it's quite fun!

I want to try modern royalty in at least one of my vacation hoods turned subhood or mainhood - I think it'd be super fun! I find that building different kinds of lots inspires me to try different kinds of play.

The sky is the limit! I've got a system for court cases and when I play prisons and such I like to send my sims to court to try their luck! They may or may not make it out with a lighter sentence!

I build a lot of municipal buildings - so police and fire stations, where sims can train and have to work in those careers. For playable firefighters I have to summon them to a lot when it's burning without a fire alarm. If they arrive in time and don't panic, and are able to put out the fire, then all goes well. If not... then there's more at stake than there was. It certainly makes things a little scarier!

The same with my police sims. They wear their uniforms as everyday wear so that they can catch criminal sims in the act! And once they catch a sim, that sim goes to jail to await trial... and then to prison...

There are all the supernaturals - and the supernatural wars between them. Vampire clans warring, witch clans using bad magic on each other, my Genie offshoots desperately trying not to be forced to grant wishes out of hand... so many things!
Mad Poster
#18 Old 21st May 2019 at 10:20 PM
I haven't yet dared this, but someday when I have a hood that that I really want to destroy I will do a Zombie Apocalypse.
That's a fun thing, I've heard.

Receptacle Refugee & Resident Polar Bear
"Get out of my way, young'un, I'm a ninja!"
Grave Matters: The funeral podium is available here: https://www.mediafire.com/file/e6tj...albits.zip/file
My other downloads are here: https://app.mediafire.com/myfiles
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#19 Old 21st May 2019 at 11:20 PM
Here is something new -for me. I have made an ubber hood and am playing playables that I never played before (which is most of them) and I am having fun ruining the lives of Don, Daniel and Mary-Sue and I might add Jessica whatever her name is, from I think it's belladonna cove? Most people probably have played the pre-mades but it's new for me. I got to see the breakup action for the first time in 15 years. Mary-Sue and Daniel. Yep 15 years of play and never seen a divorce.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Mad Poster
#20 Old 22nd May 2019 at 6:32 AM
I am looking forward to see which playables are going to win your heart
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