So I've been stuck at home the last couple weeks with a mysterious infection and don't seem to be able to do anything else productive out of my sick days, so I've decided to finally write down a few old ideas for new gameplay concepts. I would really appreciate the insight and feedback from the community on these.
Culinary Overhaul: Agriculture, Cooking and Health systems
I - Agriculture, Harvesting and Foraging
I really think FreeSO (and regular The Sims Online and EA Land, for that matter) lacks the agriculture system implemented in The Sims Unleashed. I would like to see it come back with a few perks that would improve it and bring a new, long-term objective for our players. This would bring inumerous benefits with it, counting among them a higher variety of activities available for the players to choose upon, widening the current horizons beyond the inifnite cycle of skilling and moneymaking.
So, my idea is to divide this system in two different parts:
1. Agriculture
Just like in The Sims Unleashed, seeds are available on supermarkets, markets and shops. They can be used to plant fruit trees and vegetables, which can be harvested in the long run after receiving the correct care.
These vegetables and fruits can be then either used to obtain more seeds, or sold in your shop for other players, or even be used as ingredients to prepare special dishes in service lots, which will grant one of the following temporary buffs and bonuses to the Sim who eats them: faster skill leveling, temporary extra skill lock points, slower mood decay, slower skill decay, extra overfill (beyond the current white limit) for a specific mood, payout bonuses, career payment bonus, double career shift counts, etc.
1.1 Cooking
The player can now create specific dishes based on recipes built in the game for specific effects (see examples above) or they can create their own custom dish, name it and even select a picture for it (based on the already existent dish pictures, such as the Omelette, Salisbury Steak, Chicken Salad, Cake, Burger, Turkey, the microwaved lasagna, beans, pizza, etc). They can do this by clicking their fridge. A special menu will pop-up showing up the ingredients that the player has stored and allowing him to combine up to 5 different ingredients to create special dishes. New dishes can be unlocked by leveling the cooking skill. The already unlocked and known recipes will appear in the menu showing up the necessary ingredients and, if the players has them, a button to cook.
This will allow for service lots to work as actual restaurants for special dishes, or keep working as they currently do for the regular salisbury steaks only fro whitening up.
1.2 Restaurant-type service lots
If someone wants to order a special dish, a system similar to the current restaurant carrer should be available: owners and roomates should be able to take orders at the table, upon which a menu will open up and the visitor will be able to select their desired dish among others in a list prepared by the property. This will prevent scam, allow better roleplaying and ensure both players receive what they want: the food and the money for it.
2. Foraging
Just like it was introduced in The Sims 3, this system would present the players an amount of natural herbs that can be only found in the Wild. This would therefore introduce some new concepts in the game:
2.1. Wild Herbs / Plants
Plant objects that, after being foraged, disappear/are destroyed and respawn in a random location of the property, on an outside tile, after a specific amount of time (respawn rates should be adjusted to each type of plant in order to create different rarity rates).
Unlike plant objects, Wild Herbs can't be purchased from the Build or Buy mode by the property Owner or it's Roomates. The amount of plants as well the different species are generated automatically by the game based on factors such as: climate (sand, grass, dirt or snow soil, for instance) number of objects in the property, size of constructed area as well as amount of build mode trees in the property. These facters should boost the amount of wild herbs in wide, natural reserve properties and reduce them in over-populated, over-built areas.
The harvested leaves and berries can therefore be sold for other sims or be used to craft special potions using the Laboratory in the welcome type lots. I think welcome lots are the perfect choice to work as a kind of shelter, offering tips for new players, as well as faster moneymaking and skilling, but also working as a kind of pharmacy or even hospital for these unfortunate souls affected by a disease. Potions might be sold here as well. (Maybe a Remesh from the current Laboratory kit is necessary, so that we keep the money object aspect of it separated from the new gameplay aspect). Unlike the special foods cooked with the ingredients, the potions offer no buffs but imediate effects over the player, such as: gender exchange, name exchange, face swap, memory erase (forget 1 skill point from the selected skill), relationship booster (selected relationship from your web will increase to 100/100), relationship eraser (erase all the relationship with selected sim in your web and remove it completely from your web, also blocking him). Potions will also be the only way to heal diseases also to be introduced with this gameplay concept.
2.2 Natural Park properties
This could be a total conversion of the current useless "Offbeat" property types.
These will be the only property types where natural herbs will spawn. Here fishing as well as other activies such as camping, as seen on The Sims Vacation will also be introduced.
Remember that for this kind of property, less is more. If you want to own a paradise for harvesters and alchemists on the rise, you will want to keep your cottage at a minimum size only to give most basic greening needs for your visitors.
Since plants will have defined spawn rates and times, it might happen that a single property completely runs out of herbs after a given time. Players interested in keeping their search would be encourajed to seek for another lot or come back later on. This would help to bring dynamic to this gameplay design, keeping the player from doing the exact same things for a long period of time. They can divide their days between harvesting, cooking and potion making, for example. Or just save everything for some batch working later.
2.3 Diseases
As a matter of fact, every challenging game must have also downsides to whatever decision the player takes, and not only upsides. Otherwise the gameplay is not balanced at all. What do I mean by that? Isn't it strange that staying up for 5 days in a row, filling the energy bar solely with serenades and coffee has no consequences for the player at all? Isn't it strange that working out several hours (even days) in a row to reach those 20.99 points in Body skill bring no harm at all for our Sim? Some diseases (to be seen in the gameplay aspect as Debuffs or Nerfs) should be seen as a balancing factor to the game, making the player think twice before letting their sim sit down 4 days in a row without any kind of social interaction whatsoever, just beause they want to max out cooking or mechanical. Here are just a few ideas. Ps: Time take in account here is sim time, not real time.
- Extreme craving
You receive this debuff after studying more than 13 hours Cooking in a 36 hour interval. After reading so many different recipes and seeing so many different images from juicy dishes, you are haunted by the very tastes and smells your imagination is tricking you with. Your hunger motive will decay 3 times as fast as normal and yes, you can die because of this. Your cooking skill will also increase at 75% of the normal speed. This will not heal unless you drink the correct potion.
- Brain Damage
You receive this debuff after skilling logic for more than 13 hours in a 36 hour interval. Your energy level will decay 3 times as fast as normal and your logic ability will skill at 75% of its normal speed.
I think every skill shoudl have their 'overtraining' disease as well as other normal diseases such as cold from being too much outside in snow type properties or depression from having no much social contact for example. Please help with ideas and rate overall this gameplay concept. I would love to hear from you guys how doable do you think this actually is and if you would like to see such changes in the game.
Hugs,
Jaquelyne
Culinary Overhaul: Agriculture, Cooking and Health systems
I - Agriculture, Harvesting and Foraging
I really think FreeSO (and regular The Sims Online and EA Land, for that matter) lacks the agriculture system implemented in The Sims Unleashed. I would like to see it come back with a few perks that would improve it and bring a new, long-term objective for our players. This would bring inumerous benefits with it, counting among them a higher variety of activities available for the players to choose upon, widening the current horizons beyond the inifnite cycle of skilling and moneymaking.
So, my idea is to divide this system in two different parts:
1. Agriculture
Just like in The Sims Unleashed, seeds are available on supermarkets, markets and shops. They can be used to plant fruit trees and vegetables, which can be harvested in the long run after receiving the correct care.
These vegetables and fruits can be then either used to obtain more seeds, or sold in your shop for other players, or even be used as ingredients to prepare special dishes in service lots, which will grant one of the following temporary buffs and bonuses to the Sim who eats them: faster skill leveling, temporary extra skill lock points, slower mood decay, slower skill decay, extra overfill (beyond the current white limit) for a specific mood, payout bonuses, career payment bonus, double career shift counts, etc.
1.1 Cooking
The player can now create specific dishes based on recipes built in the game for specific effects (see examples above) or they can create their own custom dish, name it and even select a picture for it (based on the already existent dish pictures, such as the Omelette, Salisbury Steak, Chicken Salad, Cake, Burger, Turkey, the microwaved lasagna, beans, pizza, etc). They can do this by clicking their fridge. A special menu will pop-up showing up the ingredients that the player has stored and allowing him to combine up to 5 different ingredients to create special dishes. New dishes can be unlocked by leveling the cooking skill. The already unlocked and known recipes will appear in the menu showing up the necessary ingredients and, if the players has them, a button to cook.
This will allow for service lots to work as actual restaurants for special dishes, or keep working as they currently do for the regular salisbury steaks only fro whitening up.
1.2 Restaurant-type service lots
If someone wants to order a special dish, a system similar to the current restaurant carrer should be available: owners and roomates should be able to take orders at the table, upon which a menu will open up and the visitor will be able to select their desired dish among others in a list prepared by the property. This will prevent scam, allow better roleplaying and ensure both players receive what they want: the food and the money for it.
2. Foraging
Just like it was introduced in The Sims 3, this system would present the players an amount of natural herbs that can be only found in the Wild. This would therefore introduce some new concepts in the game:
2.1. Wild Herbs / Plants
Plant objects that, after being foraged, disappear/are destroyed and respawn in a random location of the property, on an outside tile, after a specific amount of time (respawn rates should be adjusted to each type of plant in order to create different rarity rates).
Unlike plant objects, Wild Herbs can't be purchased from the Build or Buy mode by the property Owner or it's Roomates. The amount of plants as well the different species are generated automatically by the game based on factors such as: climate (sand, grass, dirt or snow soil, for instance) number of objects in the property, size of constructed area as well as amount of build mode trees in the property. These facters should boost the amount of wild herbs in wide, natural reserve properties and reduce them in over-populated, over-built areas.
The harvested leaves and berries can therefore be sold for other sims or be used to craft special potions using the Laboratory in the welcome type lots. I think welcome lots are the perfect choice to work as a kind of shelter, offering tips for new players, as well as faster moneymaking and skilling, but also working as a kind of pharmacy or even hospital for these unfortunate souls affected by a disease. Potions might be sold here as well. (Maybe a Remesh from the current Laboratory kit is necessary, so that we keep the money object aspect of it separated from the new gameplay aspect). Unlike the special foods cooked with the ingredients, the potions offer no buffs but imediate effects over the player, such as: gender exchange, name exchange, face swap, memory erase (forget 1 skill point from the selected skill), relationship booster (selected relationship from your web will increase to 100/100), relationship eraser (erase all the relationship with selected sim in your web and remove it completely from your web, also blocking him). Potions will also be the only way to heal diseases also to be introduced with this gameplay concept.
2.2 Natural Park properties
This could be a total conversion of the current useless "Offbeat" property types.
These will be the only property types where natural herbs will spawn. Here fishing as well as other activies such as camping, as seen on The Sims Vacation will also be introduced.
Remember that for this kind of property, less is more. If you want to own a paradise for harvesters and alchemists on the rise, you will want to keep your cottage at a minimum size only to give most basic greening needs for your visitors.
Since plants will have defined spawn rates and times, it might happen that a single property completely runs out of herbs after a given time. Players interested in keeping their search would be encourajed to seek for another lot or come back later on. This would help to bring dynamic to this gameplay design, keeping the player from doing the exact same things for a long period of time. They can divide their days between harvesting, cooking and potion making, for example. Or just save everything for some batch working later.
2.3 Diseases
As a matter of fact, every challenging game must have also downsides to whatever decision the player takes, and not only upsides. Otherwise the gameplay is not balanced at all. What do I mean by that? Isn't it strange that staying up for 5 days in a row, filling the energy bar solely with serenades and coffee has no consequences for the player at all? Isn't it strange that working out several hours (even days) in a row to reach those 20.99 points in Body skill bring no harm at all for our Sim? Some diseases (to be seen in the gameplay aspect as Debuffs or Nerfs) should be seen as a balancing factor to the game, making the player think twice before letting their sim sit down 4 days in a row without any kind of social interaction whatsoever, just beause they want to max out cooking or mechanical. Here are just a few ideas. Ps: Time take in account here is sim time, not real time.
- Extreme craving
You receive this debuff after studying more than 13 hours Cooking in a 36 hour interval. After reading so many different recipes and seeing so many different images from juicy dishes, you are haunted by the very tastes and smells your imagination is tricking you with. Your hunger motive will decay 3 times as fast as normal and yes, you can die because of this. Your cooking skill will also increase at 75% of the normal speed. This will not heal unless you drink the correct potion.
- Brain Damage
You receive this debuff after skilling logic for more than 13 hours in a 36 hour interval. Your energy level will decay 3 times as fast as normal and your logic ability will skill at 75% of its normal speed.
I think every skill shoudl have their 'overtraining' disease as well as other normal diseases such as cold from being too much outside in snow type properties or depression from having no much social contact for example. Please help with ideas and rate overall this gameplay concept. I would love to hear from you guys how doable do you think this actually is and if you would like to see such changes in the game.
Hugs,
Jaquelyne
