Sims 2 and silly design things that piss you off

[Saint_Proverbius]

Since this was brought up in another thread, I thought it might be important enough for it's own thread. I listed the deal about the passage of time on community lots and how it apparently the taxi is a time machine. You spend time on that community lot, but then you return home at the same instant where you left - only all your needs are lower due to the passage of time on the community lot. This screws up sleep cycles and really messes with college courses and timing of finals.

But here's another one I think is lame. If you have a family of sims, and one of your half a dozen offspring is getting poor marks in school, the social worker shows up and takes all your children. There's nothing you can do to stop the social worker once she's there, and even if the rest of your children are doing GREAT with A+ grades and such, she takes them all. On top of that, you can never get them back without doing a silly adoption techique with a dummy family and then move them all back in to the original house.

I've never had this happen to me, because I generally know how to micromanage the teenage sims. It's still fairly half assed, though.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Well, technically, given I used to work for the child stealing department of the Government, taking all your kids because one is being beaten is generally standard practice. Mind you in reality it's because if one kid is being beaten, the rest are too and it's also a fairly rare thing to happen now-a-days but you'll find that's pretty much on the dollar. Also keep in mind they do and try NOT take the children as much as possible. You pretty much have to batter your kids, record it on video and send it to all your friends for it to happen these days.

There are arguments for and against but I'm confident my posts here will be dug up by someone and then used against me in the court of public opinion, so I'm pretty happy.

Passage of time I found a real bitch personally too. I did think of abusing it by putting in beds at one of the community lots but I don't think you can. Might be a an item out there you can download that does that.

Also mentioned in the other thread, not able to hang or place items against diagonal walls thus rendering them as moot as they were in Sims 1.

That's all I can think of for now.

 

[EEVIAC]

The folk-jazz-rock music that bands play really irritates me. As if having to form bands with an upright bass and a hollow body guitar was bad enough, I have to listen to that shit. Choices of music style would be much appreciated.

Actually I wish the artistic endeavours were more integrated into the game. Surely it wouldn't be that hard to set up a small internet based distro to sell cd's and books and promote shows. Why can't I just sit a home and write novels and attack people who try to read my newspapers?

Old Sims take too long to die as well. The final life phase should last about four or five days, ideally.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Well, technically, given I used to work for the child stealing department of the Government, taking all your kids because one is being beaten is generally standard practice. Mind you in reality it's because if one kid is being beaten, the rest are too and it's also a fairly rare thing to happen now-a-days but you'll find that's pretty much on the dollar. Also keep in mind they do and try NOT take the children as much as possible. You pretty much have to batter your kids, record it on video and send it to all your friends for it to happen these days.

Yeah, but we're not talking about beating kids. We're talking about a kid failing in school. In Sims 1, I believe that if you had one kid failing, that kid got sent off to military school. I'm not sure if there was a way to get them back or not..

As a failure consequence though, in terms of game design, it's pretty stupid to take away all the children because one child isn't doing well. It's fairly hard to get a Fortune aspiration kid happy, after all. It's just hard to get them to line up with their aspiration wants of making money when they're a teenager. You typically have to get them a job to do that or advance their skills fairly high, and before you can get them in a condition to make money, they're miserable.

 

[Norfleet]

But here's another one I think is lame. If you have a family of sims, and one of your half a dozen offspring is getting poor marks in school, the social worker shows up and takes all your children. There's nothing you can do to stop the social worker once she's there, and even if the rest of your children are doing GREAT with A+ grades and such, she takes them all. On top of that, you can never get them back without doing a silly adoption techique with a dummy family and then move them all back in to the original house.

Amazingly enough, there's actually a hack that fixes that, making it so kids are not stolen by the SS if they're merely left at home for an hour or two while the parents are at work (I mean, gee, isn't that normal nowadays?), and that kids will not be taken for bad grades unless the number of bad kids outnumbers the number of "good" kids.

It's fairly hard to get a Fortune aspiration kid happy, after all. It's just hard to get them to line up with their aspiration wants of making money when they're a teenager. You typically have to get them a job to do that or advance their skills fairly high, and before you can get them in a condition to make money, they're miserable.

You mentioned that you had University, which means for a teen aspirational choice, Fortune is pointless, as are Family and to a lesser extent, Romance. Most of these aspirations are not things you can "do" until you graduate anyway, and given that you will always be given the opportunity to pick your real aspiration at Junior year, there's no point in choosing these. Always pick Knowledge or Popularity. These aspirations can luck out easily, and you can roll Maximize All SKills, which can literally be finished seconds after the transition, if you're as much a slave driver as I am, or Popularity (20 best Friends, fairly doable in college). Popularity is also "the" college aspiration. You'd think Knowledge would be, but Knowledge gets completely jacked: No more "gain skillpoint" want chains.

Mostly, though, if I really wanted to rail at every single thing in TS2 that ROYALLY PISSED ME OFF, it'd be an itemized list over a hundred in length. Actually, it *IS* an itemized list over a hundred items in length. For starters, how does that absolutely annoying cheer every time a sim returns home from school with an A+ strike you?

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Amazingly enough, there's actually a hack that fixes that, making it so kids are not stolen by the SS if they're merely left at home for an hour or two while the parents are at work (I mean, gee, isn't that normal nowadays?), and that kids will not be taken for bad grades unless the number of bad kids outnumbers the number of "good" kids.

Too bad they can't make a hack where it just takes the bad kids only.

You mentioned that you had University, which means for a teen aspirational choice, Fortune is pointless, as are Family and to a lesser extent, Romance.

Well, Romance offers a bunch of friend building things as well as that first kiss stuff. It's basically similar to popularity only without the screwing you get once you get to college. Popularity teens who go to college seem to have their wants filled with having the teenagers back at town head to college with them, and that's probably not going to happen.

Most of these aspirations are not things you can "do" until you graduate anyway, and given that you will always be given the opportunity to pick your real aspiration at Junior year, there's no point in choosing these.

See, I don't do this because I pick their major based on their ultimate aspiration goal. I don't think you can change majors after the sophmore year.

Always pick Knowledge or Popularity. These aspirations can luck out easily, and you can roll Maximize All SKills, which can literally be finished seconds after the transition, if you're as much a slave driver as I am,

I've never been able to maximize all skills on any of my sims, but that's mainly because I tend to play them in bunches to get as much money out of them as possible.

or Popularity (20 best Friends, fairly doable in college). Popularity is also "the" college aspiration.

See, I've never been that good at getting them socialized. I mainly use the phone to keep their relationships up or to make the friends they need, but that's about it.

You'd think Knowledge would be, but Knowledge gets completely jacked: No more "gain skillpoint" want chains.

I have to agree with that. Once they max out all skills, Knowledge is fairly screwed. It's definitely one of the aspirations with a limit on usefulness.

For starters, how does that absolutely annoying cheer every time a sim returns home from school with an A+ strike you?

Actually, I find it kind of funny because they run in an cheer and the other sims pretty much ignore them. It would be better if it were more of an event rather than a daily thing.

 

[Norfleet]

Too bad they can't make a hack where it just takes the bad kids only.

I'll take that under advisement. Maybe somewhere on my rather lengthy to-do list.

See, I don't do this because I pick their major based on their ultimate aspiration goal. I don't think you can change majors after the sophmore year.

You can. If you haven't chosen a major by Junior year, you'll be assigned to Philosophy, because you like to think about things long and hard. But you can still change it.

I've never been able to maximize all skills on any of my sims, but that's mainly because I tend to play them in bunches to get as much money out of them as possible.

Well, given that there's no money to be earned from child and teen sims, and that I generally finish all but the last point in childhood, I mean, what else you gonna do? They have no socialization ability, as children have a lousy selection of both conversational topics and social interaction options. It either takes forever while being completely unproductive, or you're doing it over a nice game of chess.

See, I've never been that good at getting them socialized. I mainly use the phone to keep their relationships up or to make the friends they need, but that's about it.

The new Uni dance move is the answer to anything. Running the Admire/Gossip/Bust-A-Move cycle once it's available to you can raise a relationship from 30 to 100 in about a sim-hour. Once there, you can just wait for lifetime to hit 50 (3 pts every 8hrs), then phone in for your new best friend. Easier than napalming a baby.

I have to agree with that. Once they max out all skills, Knowledge is fairly screwed. It's definitely one of the aspirations with a limit on usefulness.

I was more referring to the fact that if you didn't do it already, or created a sim already in college, knowledge would be screwed over by the fact that those wants don't appear while in college. Meaning you're completely and utterly buggered.

As for running knowledge OUT, well, if you hit the lifetime want, you don't care what they want after that, it's irrelevant: While they do tend to have a lack of anything afterwards, the generic wants they roll can be easily manipulated if you know how to game the system.

Actually, I find it kind of funny because they run in an cheer and the other sims pretty much ignore them. It would be better if it were more of an event rather than a daily thing.

You play much? It happening every day is enough to drive even normally peaceful people to murder. The hack that gets rid of it is one of the more popular downloads.

 

[Drakron]

Popular enough to make Maxis making the cheer only happen the first time they get a A+ in the patch/Nightlife.