Idea for Solo Skill Games

[Shade10398]

As it kind of stands right now skilling just takes up a lot of time of just AFKing around and just boils down the game a bit to a facebook waiting game before you can really make a lot of cash.

I know this might be hard to code but it'd be neat if we could have certain games that if scored high enough we could get big boosts to our skills. Like the group skills but instead of a Money payout it's a skill payout.

I had a couple ideas for a few skills already and these would just be a minigame that would payout skill based on your score and maybe have a small multiplier and count toward the total skill % speed

Creativity or Logic: Basically a typing test with each word being RNG. Score is based on accuracy and time remaining. (Like you are writing some kind of research paper)
Body: Basically Whack a Mole with a mouse mini game
Creativity: Piano keys or drum set that works like Simon Says or maybe like bop it
Cooking: Some kind of peeler minigame where you have to press certain keys that show up probably arrow keys to peel fruit

I understand if the engine isn't even capable of this but just seems like a healthy twist on skilling just boring basically having to AFK for em

 

[X_Lukelisx]

I FULLY AGREE. Although there is a afk timeout, it doesn't really help once somebody figures out when to anticipate for the window prompt to pop to 'wake' up the player and click x to response, so a player can simply send their character to skill, afk for 15 minutes, click 'to stay logged in' and continue afking while grinding skills effortlessly. Though it did help to resolve the problem a little bit where players stay pretty much antisocial in skill and money slots... but that's how far the tweak helped - only a little. So much for the game being known as a social interactive roleplay, many players are too focus in skilling and grinding money that is a tedious process to wait around, which encourages them to afk and thus they forget that the point of the game is typically talk and interact socially with other players, which they don't due to the one-click grind system.

Kinda tired today to write fully fledge suggestion... but I'm put out this: the 'minigame' system/mechanic could be introduced to one-player skills player that don't need to be that complex. All those objects need to is to force players to engage in gameplay (If they wish to) and talk while grinding oppose to afking.

 

[mafisa]

I agree with this idea as well.

I'm also of the opinion that other interactions should help increase skill leveling at a minimal rate, respecting the property types restrictions. Just as in Sims 2, skilling should not be bounded to skill objects, as repairing, cooking and interacting with other sims should also be activities which engage skills. Learning with the practice and not only with the theory!

I have some ideas to complete overhaul some Skills (mainly Cooking and Creativity) and I don't have the time to write them down here, but I could give some insights based off your original idea that might be easier to implement using the game's current engine. As a matter of fact though, I'm no programmer and have no experience in coding whatsoever, so that these are mere assumptions of mine.

Cooking - Chopping ingredients, using a food processor and using the stove, grill or fireplace should increase at very small rates (slower than the 30% rate) the skill.

Charisma - I think not only every single sim-to-sim interaction should increase the charisma skill, but typing should do it as well. One sided interactions should be the least effective, as they require less effort and can be performed at any time without consemption of a third sim. Interactions that require a response from another sim should be a little more effective.

Now, a perk that would really promote interaction between players is to make text chat increase the Charisma skill at a very low rate (for example 0.01 skill points per message sent). This must be allied however to a spam control coding (I don't know how the current code works, never have spammed and won't try just to see what happens) and maybe remove monosyllabic messages from counting towards a skiling point. Setting a minimal word amount would prevent spamming, I guess. This is a feature that would really boost the charisma skill at a long run, for active players.

Mechanical - repairing objects, as well crafting objects using the crafting table should give very small Mechanical skill bonuses. I advocate however that these both functions work exceptionally at any property type, since objects also wear down in Service type lots.

Body - Dancing on the dance floor, dancing with other sims through interactions, specific interactions (gained from the Body skill - I forgot their names) and running around should give small skill bonuses.
Dance floor - same leveling speed as the dance cage - what is the difference between dancing on those both devices? None.
Dancing with interactions - since they also give charisma, they should give only a small amount of Body skill so they're not overpowered.
Running - maybe we could count just as the regular leveling works: by time running the skill is increased at a 30% rate, or maybe more.

This would make skill locking more reasonable since Sims are live creatures and are constantly learning new abilities from their daily activities - and not only from specific skill objects. So you might consider that extra cooking point if you always do HC at your lot, or avoid running or dancing if you don't want an extra body skill point at the moment

 

[Raeven]

Some things to consider:

The more skills one has, the faster skill decay.
Adding skill game to actions one participates in constantly is forcing skills on everyone and removing their ability to control what they specialize in and how tings may decay.

While it is certainly true that someone who builds a bunch of furniture in his basement can get pretty good at it, and may even be talented enough to produce professional level wares, by and large we tend to accept that someone who has made a concerted effort to study and learn and school and actively go above and beyond the casual hobbyist stand out as craftsman, chefs, and experts. We don't really have a way for those people to stand out right now except skill gain and applying noticeable skill gain to every day actions erodes (or even negates) that entire idea.

Personally, I have to balk at the idea that skill gain is more important than anything else in the game. For example you are dismissing the +social (and sometimes another motive) that is gained from interactions, and seem to be believe that adding some skill gain would give them value. They do already do something. I don't want my playing and fun dancing to be some sorta workout. I like associating it with something breezy and fun and silly. I never want to be in a position where I have to decide where to refuse to help someone or spam an interaction to top off their body. It sucks enough that there are people who will stand there for 5 minutes asking for serenades instead of getting in a bed!

 

[molonom]

I fully agree Raeven !

 

[mafisa]

Some things to consider:
We don't really have a way for those people to stand out right now except skill gain and applying noticeable skill gain to every day actions erodes (or even negates) that entire idea.

You've got a point there.

I don't think this skill gain should be noticeable, though. Maybe my suggestions seemed to boost the skills too fast, but actually I think skilling should be even slower than it currently is. That would make people with 20.99 skill points really stand out while encouraging players to seek other activities and interactions. By giving a small skill boost to every day actions, long term players who tend to prefer roleplaying over skilling or money making will also be rewarded with minimal skill gains.

Bringing more skills to decay is not a problem, in my opinion. It will bring a lot more of strategy to players when thinking about which skill to lock and will encourage then to only skill more if they have the means to lock things, instead of dealing with the seemingly eternal struggle of skilling everything to 20.99 with only 30 lock points at disposal.

Therefore, I agree that actually studying something should bring someone further into knowledge than simply experimenting things. So maybe mixing both ideas wouldn't be bad at all: giving a very slow skill gain to every day actions and putting a cap over that for each skill. So for example, one might even be able to actually get, let's say, 5 body points by only dancing around, put not more than that. After that, skill will only increase using the skill objects.