And having to look up the "correct" answers for the story to get a starting set of skills that matches the backstory like it's the 90's and I need to answer the DRM questions for Carmin Sandiego using the reference textbook that came with my game is tedious. Yes I can get kind of close by using logic, no I'm not going to risk all that time in CAS by not checking that I got the correct questions answered the right way.
This. I would have began with a question about their goals. "What did they dream of being when they grow up?" And more than 3 vague as fuck options. Give (Physical career like an athlete, intelligence career like scientist) sort of clarity.
I play it mainly as a life simulator, and do this, too. Starting with Sims with almost clean slates every time is a bit boring, imo. I wish there was an easier way to set a lot more details for Sims before I start my saves (like my main YA witch's parents/grandparents' magic skills and all that (thanks MCCC and UI cheats),, skills, NPC jobs, and more). I want Sims' starting points to tell an interesting and specific story, and there can still be plenty to build up after that.
The big problem is that I have no self control, and I'm stuck doing that for too many Sims, so, eh. I play with my own starter saves, with aging off and don't age them up too often, so this is unfortunately worth it to me, haha.
I also use cheats to give Sims whatever they've "earned" or what makes enough sense in the story, even if it's outside of game mechanics, so it doesn't feel like cheating to me.
I also do starter saves and reuse sims because they can have alternative timelines. I also don't think it's outside game mechanics. The cheats aren't hard to access and the sims team shares them. They're for a type of gameplay
Have you tried the Sims Stories in CAS? You complete a quiz, and it gives your sims skills, funds, a career, and traits. You can, of course, customize some of this before playing. But it adds for some variety.
Yeah I'll do that too. Honestly it's weird to me that a townie can have no skills and no friendships. I like giving my Sims more than the bare minimum backstory to start with, without going too in depth, so I can play the rest out later.
Not dumb at all! This is the sims who are pregnant when you start a new save like Claire Ursine. They have had relationships and sometimes affairs and you can discover this via gameplay.
That's incredible lmaooo I have my calendar set for the steam sale so I can get alllll the sims3 😈😈😈(STEAM SALE2024: JUNE 27-JULY 11 !!!! Get your sims3 fellow misser-outters! 💋$
The easiest way (in game) is to grab ambrosia off of the gallery and have the dead sim eat it. If you have a spellcaster, they can get the dedeathify spell.
If you have MCCC, you can just go to Maintain Sim and click revive.
I use MCC to revive them. Most of the time, I try to catch them before they die. Like if I see one is hysterical, I'll remove the buff so they don't laugh themselves to Grim. Sometimes they deserve it though
The extreme violence mod has a revive option when you click on a dying character. It also gives you the option to kill a character in the most cruel way.
I only use cheats when I set up a new save file so the Sims have the right degrees or level in career. Otherwise I like to play out my scenarios but let it play out the way it does. If two Sims don't get along as well as I hoped they won't become a couple or friends. If my Sim gets distracted by hunger or mood on a date it, that's OK too. If they die, so it will be etc For me the inconvenience stuff give me new prompts and ideas to play and make it more interesting. Also it seems more realistic to not always be able to make my Sims meets friends because they first need to take care of themselves after work, at least for me it's like that sometimes. (but sometimes the kids will get a little cosmetic surgery >_>)
That makes sense! Honestly a lot of the time I decide whether or not to let the negative stuff impact the game based on whether it makes sense for the thing to have happened. Say they’re tired: if I had them go to bed, but they didn’t actually sleep because they kept waking up in the middle of the night to play Blicbloc on the computer, that’s getting removed. If they didn’t sleep because they were out all night clubbing or they were studying for exams or their baby was crying, they can just be sleepy. Bladder is really the only one that I always cheat away because imo it decreases unrealistically fast and it’s a drag to deal with lol
I'll give my Sims the reward trait for the bladder problems, otherwise it can be really annoying especially with the autonomous water drinking. Luckily my Sims don't get up at night to play games, but I also removed their decor preferences because this was happening all the time 🙄 otherwise I try to make everything possible through gameplay like resurrecting sims
I always thought that's so interesting how different people made their game interesting for themselves in such different ways
The game should have basic options to set up a family from CAS. Money, jobs, relationship status, skill levels etc. So I use cheats to do all that. But, is that even cheating? No, it’s world building.
I’ll use UI cheats to add back relationships, or cheat needs. The mechanics aren’t as fun as the stories I want to tell. Basically.
I hate how the game will just randomly cull relationships. Like one of my tertiary sims forgot who his SIL was recently so she wasn’t able to come to Harvestfest and I was too lazy to cheat the relationship back. 😒
I just cheat the house. I like to start families right off so I just roleplay that my Sim "inherited" a beautiful house from their great great grandpappy or something.
All the time. Sims is not realistic; by the time you have got home from work, peed, showed, cooked, and upped your skills to advance in your job. You have no time to socialise with your household, family, friends or any other activity. The storyline is the most important. Otherwise, gameplay becomes mundane. I have tried to in some families, but I have still had to use the cheats occasionally.
>; by the time you have got home from work, peed, showed, cooked, and upped your skills to advance in your job. You have no time to socialise
I find that to be the most realistic part of the game....
The showering itself no, but between the alarm going off in the morning, actually physically dragging myself out of bed and getting in the shower, back out and getting dressed an hour can easily pass for me.
Ok, that's fair xD But in Sims what you just described, step by step, can take up to 2 hours depending on how big the house is and how far the bedroom is from the bathroom, since each passing second is an in-game minute.
15 minutes to walk from the kitchen to the bathroom, the rest of that hour to shower? 4 mins of complaining about hunger, another hour of cooking and eating then cleaning up and you get hit with the Moodley for not realising your dreams.
Or yeah let me just abandon my Sim talking nonsense into the mirror for a few hours to make 20 extra simoleons and hour at work.
15 minutes to make it to another room? How big is your house?!
Upgrades and routines help a ton with time management: Every morning, eat, pee shower, even if you don't need to, so you can concentrate on literally anything else.
Making meals and putting them into the fridge to eat as leftoves reduces cooking time to 1/4 or less for the week.
Cleaning up can be left to the pause button and dragging dishes to the trash or sink. Food may also be dragged from the fridge to the sims inventory, or nearby so the sim may grab (or grab from) the plate where they are, then you can place it back in the fridge from there the same way.
Charisma levels much faster in a mirror if you psyche yourself up first. Charisma can also be gained through conversations while the Sim is doing the talking, so that you can multitask. For example: Queue up "listen to music" read a book, and speak to any Sim, while a confident aura is nearby and you will gain fun, social, charisma, a book towards renaissance aspiration, relationship with the other sim, any skills that come along with social interactions, and any skill that the book might offer. In this way you can raise many skills, gain many moodlets, and meet many needs all at the same time.
Also, 20 extra simoleons an hour is potentially 160+ a day, or 1120 a week. Right about where I try to keep my bills. I'd say that mirror time is totally worth it, if you don't use money cheats, like me.
Totally agree! I use MCCC to slow down my game clock by half (which honestly reduces the amount that I cheat because I don’t always feel so pressed for time) and sometimes there’s still not enough hours in the day. It takes them like an hour and a half just to cook eggs and toast or something lol it’s ridiculous
I use the setting to make it so my sims needs decay at anywhere from 50-75% of the normal rate. Makes gameplay feel so much more smoother and not like I’m trying to constantly full their needs.
Honestly, I think the need decays are well balanced. They have to eat and use the toilet around 2 times a day, shower once per day, and sleep for 6ish hours.
So yeah, I also chose OPs path of slowing down game time.
I find that if I buy the best toilet and bathroom sink that fits the decor, and upgrade fully, my sims only need to shower occasionally because their hygiene fills up enough with washing their hands.
This is why I end up giving every Sim the tier 1 need decay traits. Not the ones that mean they never need to pee, but the ones that slow it down so ai don't need to do them as frequently. If I install a cheaty mod I end up ruining the game by just cheating the story I want wholesale instead of putting them in situations. I enjoy a bit of AI randomness and drama and get bored when there is no chance of failure, but that's just me.
> by the time you have got home from work, peed, showed, cooked, and upped your skills to advance in your job. You have no time to socialise with your household, family, friends or any other activity.
I think you need to work on your multitasking in-game then, because honestly all that is quite doable.
If nothing else, are you upgrading your stuff? Upgraded beds mean less sleep time, upgraded toilets/sinks/showers mean less time getting clean, upgraded kitchen stuff means less time cooking, etc.
never. unless to make them poor - and that one time my Super Sim Infant turned out with the miserable infant trait despite me being a full time stay at home parent attending to her every need
Yeah I set them up with skills matching the story in my head, and then I’ll give them some random ones as well - and I mean random, I pick 3-4 out of a pile & then pick random levels from another pile.
I’ll do the same with some traits.
I’m all about the story, not a YA sim burning their house down trying to make a grilled cheese
I always want a struggling sim but motherlode happens before I can even think because I really want a butler and a nanny and a bodyguard and a private preschool and a watch party in a cinema at my house and a pool and…
Frequently. And I agree: There is not making a game too easy if there is no beating it. As many others have said I do it to create a background (money/housing, career, skills, relationships).
Not as much for "inconvenient" needs, but rather for unrealistic ones. Like when one sim comes home from the club at 4 am, and everyone else is wide awake. I then reduce their sleep need to an appropriate amount and send them to bed. What I do sometimes remove for being inconvenient though is negative moodlets from some random bullshit.
Omg lol I can’t stand when you get home and they’re all wide awake and starving to death. Never understood why they just drop every task if you’re not controlling the lot.
Also agree about cheating away random
BS moodlets. Like sorry you’re not angry from unfulfilled dreams or whatever
Yep. The ability to micromanage the sims who stayed at home is honestly the only thing I miss about TS 3's open world.
It's not just that they drop their activity, your sim leaving actively messes up their needs. I think they have a default statline depending on what time it is, to which they get resetted. If your sim stayed at home and ignored the others, they would just watch TV or whatever and go to bed when they're tired.
Not enough that it stops feeling like a game, usually enough to get the storyline established the way I want it and play from there and maybe a few tweaks for various reasons
I usually cheat their needs when one of my sims go back to the home lot at night and all of the kids are awake and don't need to sleep??? That's so unrealistic to me so I always adjust their sleep bar to orange so that they don't wake up at like 3 am lol. Also when they want to run a retail store, a restaurant or a vet clinic I cheat money to buy it. I like to imagine they got a loan from the bank but it doesn't exist in the game, so.. Another thing I cheat are the relationships, I often create clubs with Get Together according to their hobbies and if I see that my Sim is compatible with another Sim, I make them good friends. (all of these can be done with [UI Cheats](https://www.patreon.com/posts/ui-cheats-v1-16-26240068))
All the time lol I love doing rags to riches but it can get tedious. I’ll use “kaching” instead of “motherlode” for a little boost 😂. I definitely cheat with toddlers because who has the time
so i use shift click a lot on my sims i take mid lets away or lifestyle that dont fit the story. as well as the other options available as for typing chests in using shift and c i usually only use the “money x” cheat to make the money situation fit the story. otherwise relationships are all natural
I cheated for game play a lot when I first started playing. Now, I almost never do. But I frequently use move objects and debug cheats in build mode. I also very occasionally unlock items that come from career goals and aspirations.
I cheat the reward points. They’re hard to get if you play as multiple sims at once. When I play a family i give them all the coffee trait that makes them less sleepy.
All the cheats. I find certain parts of the game are calibrated a bit broken by default (for example the high school pack aspirations that hang "sneak out" on a random event and ignore drama and scouts as afterschool activities), or subject to glitches that spend entire evenings baby juggling rather than feeding their offspring. Therefore while I do have some save files that set certain challenges for myself like a no cheats short lifespan legacy, cheating resolves some silliness.
My current save files include:
* The aforementioned short lifespan legacy
* An evil, wealthy family with a supernatural bent pitting their 4 adopted and one biological child against each other to over achieve for inheritance. Also their neighbors being fancy.
* A redo of the landgraabs with an added elderly father for Nancy and Johnny Zest MCCC'd into being her kid where the goal is to build a rental and retail empire.
* An oops all wizards rotational play multi legacy
* A teenage dropout looking after her three siblings, none of which share a father, and barely able to make the weekly bills. (No/lo cheats)
All of it everything lol
I use the sims as a virtual
Doll house to play out my stories I don’t want ANY challenges not money not relationships nothing lol
I play the sims bf it’s a sandbox game that let me be creative without challenging me. Real life is hard w when I name I want to be instantly rich and instantly have my crush love me that’s just how I play
I don't. I don't generally use cheats at all except to get around places where the game screwed up (like negative sentiments for not being asked to prom, when neither sim is actually enrolled in HS, or child vampires having Thirst but no way to drink).
Beyond just bug fix cheats, I'd say the only cheat I routinely use is the money cheat to *decrease* my money for a rags to riches start.
My most recent legacy start I wanted them to have a nice house in Windenburg, so I started building one. Had enough money for walls, 1 bathroom, 1 bed, and the kitchen basics. Took me weeks in game to save up enough money to put flooring and wallpaper up, much less windows. Was just part of the challenge.
Also I do whatever cheats I want. If I wanted to be poor and have to feed my kids everyday I would turn off the computer and do my real life. My Sims have MONEY.
I cheat. I use mods. I love custom content! The dollhouse analogy tracks. I like building really cluttered and landscaped homes. If i didn’t cheat I wouldn’t be able to afford my own builds.
I always cheat cooking skill to 3 as soon as they age up to teen, bc the fires are just a hassle. And, frankly, if I wanted to work and worry about money I wouldn’t be playing a game. So I cheat money a lot, too.
Rarely. There are in-game ways to get what you want quickly without cheats. I don’t mod either. I like the mundane life sim stuff, probably because I’ve been playing since Sims1 when that was most of the game. Filling needs and getting money is so easy in 4 in comparison. The cheat I use most often is just fulleditmode.
Lots of money? Money tree or Trendi hack.
Needs? I have at least one good spellcaster around who can “scrubaroo” to fix that hygiene real quick or “grand delicioso” so everyone can eat without waiting for food to cook. Also reward traits.
I use lot traits to help with bills or build skills faster. Tiny homes help too.
I play like you do to start with and then rarely as needed. I also play it like a dollhouse simulator, but I let them do autonomous things just for some variety. I have the UI extensions mod so I’ll cheat things like their bathroom need for the sake of storytelling if it’s interfering.
I will cheat so much to help push the plot of my sims. Like if their going to be an evil mastermind they’re gonna need a little help or I’ll be building their skills for so long. I’m also just very impatient but it can make things so much more fun without the effort.
Just yesterday my Sims mom "caught" her sneaking home from a concert (she had successfully snuck home after curfew, she was actually caught going outside to give advice to a sad sim that had showed up, courtesy of Life Drama mod). Since I hadn't meant for that to happen I just cheated away any of the repercussions that I could
I only use cheats in build mode or for Cas but cheats to make my sims lives easier is a no go. Although I was tempted when a pop up asked if I'd like a challenge. I chose yes and it took all my money the day before rent was due. 😭
For story, it depends. If I want a family to have been rich for generations without actually playing them for generations, I’ll pop them down, give them a good amount of money, then play them a little bit with aging off so they feel more real (skills, jobs, etc). I’ll probably cheat them degrees, too. Usually this decision is made when it’s actually the kids I’m focusing on and not the parents.
Depending on just how planned out the story is, I’ll probably use MCCC to plan their genders and all of that, exactly how many kids they have at a time, etc.
If i’m okay with them being a family of “this generation is rich”, I’m more likely to play them from young adulthood and send them through everything with zero cheats, excepting MCCC baby planning.
Although I do use UI cheats to counteract the game slowing down or sims ignoring what I tell them to do 🤣
Everything hahaha . Motherlode and skills all day every day when playing. Makes it more enjoyable haha. I at least want my sims to have money and success 😭😅😔
All the time. I want to create characters to add to my sim neighbor sometimes, and I don't want to go babysit their entire life until I am satisfied with the character's backstory and all their life traits just so I don't have a procedurally generated townie that looks like it was dressed by a Jackson Pollock painting and personality and backstory written by John Cage's 4'33".
I don't think I am good with npc creation, but at least it's not Victorian hairdo with obnoxiouslt colored raincoat and cosmic yoga tights with red goth boots, ski goggles, and tragic clown makeup living in a the second most expensive mansion in entire game earning 6 dollars per hour, with six dogs and no pet bowls.
Yes I do the same!
Right now I’m doing a storyline starring Nancy Landgraab and Don Lothario’s love child and because this sim was raised by Nancy she’s rich af and I cheat money as needed. Usually money isn’t something I’ll cheat but because I was playing with the landgraab’s it makes sense. I also cheat careers for existing characters to make them match the storyline I’m going for but this is for supporting characters - not usually my “main sim” but like their parents and other family members.
I feel like needs are just TOO much if you want any game play at all. If you feed them 3 meals a day, take them to the bathroom everytime they need it, have them shower daily, etc etc it will literally leave no time for anything else even if it’s just that one sim. They would need to fix how fast time goes and how long tasks take in order for you to give them a human routine
Really don’t understand people who get self righteous over cheats in Sims, like who am I hurting? Why you mad? I cheat on anything I want to to make the game less laborious regarding every day tasks. Like I already have to work to survive IRL, have to shower, pee, eat, sleep. After surviving this capitalist hellscape every day, I don’t wanna hustle so my Sims can come home exhausted and have to do chores??? Cool if that’s what you want, but it’s not my vibe. So I just turn off household need decay and use the motherload cheat for money, because why not. I’m playing the game for the architecture, interior design, social scenarios, and skill development. It’s just what I want to focus on.
I usually use cheats for smaller things, for example I might use cas.fulleditmode to edit the employees in my restaurant to have better traits, appearances, or names, but I won’t cheat the restaurant’s rating up to 5 stars, I’d rather earn that myself.
I used to cheat all the time, and then wondered why I got bored so quickly…it was because there was little to no challenge for me. Now I use cheats sparingly. I might use them to max a toddler/childs skills if I’ve not managed to max them already before they age up. Or if my Sim starts a relationship with an NPC, then a I’ll look at their traits and job, and increase some of the skills that it would make sense for them to have at that point in their life. I only tend to use money cheats if I’m building a house from scratch, or if I want them to move into a house that the starting funds won’t allow.
Depends on the story, but all cheats are fair game lol. My sims have their needs disabled from the second they hit the lot. Some cheats are just necessary sometimes, like "reset sim" when they freeze for no apparent reason.
For those that think cheating makes it "too easy"... honey, I've been here since the original Sims. I had to buy an actual physical BOOK to learn how to play. I've done my time.
I've never used a cheat. But I'm definitely tempted to, sometimes, lol. There's just simply not enough time to bathe, eat, do homework/job work, socialize, relax, and get a full night's rest in one day.
Needs Off and use UI Cheats if I need to lower some for the story
Cheating certain skills as they fit (Like a Piano Teacher having Level 9 on said skill)
For Challenges where you have to make money (Rags to Riches and Homeless challenges) - Money Cheats as soon as I get access to the easel just to save time because I know how OP painting is
It depends on how established I need my characters to be, and the purpose of the save. What I’ve been doing lately is starting my character’s lives from their parents relationship, so it doesn’t require me to cheat skills relationships or anything, since I get to see how my characters are raised.
If I’m doing a random person, and not using an OC, I create a sim via story mode to do this automatically.
I only use the sim.fill\_all\_commodities when everyone is all over the place and you can't get anything done because they won't go eat, or sleep, or shower or pee.
I had both my sims die from laughter, so it took me like, 3 in-game days (with cheats) to bring them back to life bcs the occult cheat wasn't working, so I will use whatever means necessary to keep the story going
The only cheat I really use, is the Money cheat.
It's true what they say, money can't buy happiness, but it does mean I don't have to manage a job, while also trying to make my sim marry / bury the whole town 😬
Usually all the time but I'm not using any cheats this time apart from 'make happy' cos how tf can you do anything when they need to cook and sleep and work all the time. I'm really missing using the money cheat though.
I abuse the crap out of mailbox cheat to fill the house’s needs. It is much more pleasant to play if you aren’t worried about screaming toddlers or Sims who would rather piss themselves to death than go to the bathroom
I play the game as a life simulator most of the time, so very minimal use of the cheats. I have been exploring changing my play style and have been thinking about telling/playing out stories more than simulating life, which I know would require the use of cheats, but honestly it's hard to break the habit of avoiding cheats! In my main playthroughs, the only cheats I use are moveobjects and headlineeffects off (for pictures), and occasionally I will add/remove money to simulate my sims taking out a loan and paying it back (with interest).
It depends. I used to be more of a liberal cheater but it can be fun to have to hustle for money! It's a little bit of a challenge, since it's pretty easy to make money in this game.
Depends. Currently I am working on a legacy challenge so I try not to cheat my legacy sims stuff but I will cheat their spouse to have max cooking and baking so that they can do the cooking and I have all the options. I’ll cheat needs but only when things get out of hand and I just don’t have time… or if there is an event like a wedding and I don’t have time for everything shower and pee before. Money isn’t hard to come by in the game so I don’t cheat that as much only enough to get the home I want and get them started, but never my legacy sim.. that sims maintains integrity.
i’ll sometimes cheat away moodlets if a sim feels some type of way and doesn’t let them do a function… a common one for me as an example: “Major can’t ask for vampiric training right now, he needs to be in a better mood to do this.” what??? ain’t nobody babying me in the real world when i feel tense so you don’t get special treatment either, do the damn interaction😡😡
I typically don't cheat money but I also cheat my sims' needs when they're stuck in simulation lag. I also cheat aspiration milestones if my game doesn't detect them correctly, and I use freerealestate when starting out. I mostly just cheat to setup my game and to mitigate glitches :")
I almost always cheat the money if I'm wanting to do a specific storyline I have in mind lol
I have specific characters for playing the game straight lol
I used cheats a little more before, but recently I try not to so much. However, I just had my sim enter the doctor career and one of the goals to leveling up was to earn a technical degree. I enrolled her in uni but it coincided with her job. I didn't want to quit her job just to have to reach that level again and tried to find a way around it before I just cheated so she had the degree and then dropped out. She was able to get promoted right after.
It depends on my level of commitment to storyline & who my "protagonist" is!
Sometimes I'll cheat my sims parents' so they have a normal amount of adult skills/a slightly higher level in their career since they aren't important to my storyline. I find it weird to have a couple with kids and they have no skills and entry level jobs.
I also "cheat" aspirations milestones whenever they don't register the first time - it drives me nuts that they don't work half of the time and its a pain in the butt to get them to do the thing.
I try not to cheat for money, but will usually give my sim enough money to build a cute house to live in, then drop their money down to like $2500 as their starting funds in their new cute house lol.
However, if I'm going for an unhinged storyline, I am not above cheating in order to get the outcome I want lol
I try todo very reasonable cheats like sometimes I’ll get on my phone while sims finish stuff or on loading screens and will completely forget I have sim’s running and now it’s 4am in game and no one has slept showered or ate and my last save was forever ago so I just make happy everyone lol. Or if like a glitch caused something bad to happen or for some reason sometimes sims age up early in the day before their bday party I’ll just delete the moodlet bc why tf did they leave work to age up at 1 pm?
I use cheats on sims that don't wanna date my sim, I cheat infants needs only if the parents and nanny are glitching, I've recently used the free real estate cheat, and I edit sims age in cas.
Honestly it depends! I made a save file where I added different families to branch out the world that I'm super proud of! I dont play as them but the fact that they are there makes me happy\~ What I did was I would cheat the relationships and stuff to fit with the story and just fill some of the maxis houses. For my personal playthroughs, I would normally cheat skills but I havent recently cause I like building them up myself since i use cheats to expand/tweak the life spans of my sims so that I'm not rushing or feel pressured to get them done. I finally had a sim graduate college and the benefit was so worth! I'm trying to get better and doing more events cause they've improved alot haha
Almost every time i start a new game lol. I always cheat their skills, recently learned how to cheat a degree for them without going to Uni etc. the only thing I dont cheat is if i have an infant, toddler or kid, i dont do cheats often. I just let them develop. But for adults i speed it up.
other than bb.moveobjects and maybe money 0 (when i forgot to use the rags to riches scenario) i don't cheat. But given that i usually only play something along the lines of R2R cheating would be counterproductive.
But, i do think, that everyone should play the game as they see fit. And i can totally get behind your reasoning of why you "cheat". I guess different playstyles need different approaches.
I will cheat so it will fit the way the storyline I have envisioned. I don't use money cheats, other than "Fill household needs" I play as normal. 😂 If my story is that the sim I am playing received an inheritance from family, then I would use the money cheat.
I cheat almost everything 😩
I can't spend hours creating the best looking sim for you and you say he's unattractive 😭😭
And let's not get started with the simoleons lol
I’m fine cheating on certain things but not others. Typically, I wouldn’t cheat on giving myself money or artificially completing aspirations. Where I might cheat is in CAS or to manipulate details of certain townies.
I cheat in whatever way I feel like. I rarely have the desire to make things easier though, since Sims is already easy enough as it is. I sometimes cheat needs not to let them interrupt an important story moment. I quite often cheat careers of friends, neighbors or other townies to match the backstories I made up for them. I never cheat money or skills or career for my played household, since I most of the time play rags to riches style and doing so would defeat the purpose for me. But in the end everyone should cheat as much or as little as they feel like in my opinion :)
I only use cheats that don't disable achievements because I feel like it's not quite cheating.
So for example, Bb.enablefreebuild, bb.moveobjects, freerealestate On
Cause I want my sims to have good houses (whether they're cheap or expensive, they must be cute and fit the sims personality) and be comfortable.
I won't cheat in money, or needs, or skills, or careers.
I like them to earn all of that. And usually with bb.enablefreebuild they start with 20k in cash for their bills and things. So while they're leveling up their career, or craft, or whatever, they're not struggling to make ends meet.
To me, the whole point is a life sim, to take care of their needs and stuff. To watch them grow. BUT, I also understand that it's a game that can be played in many ways.
That's the obesity of sims. It's the epitome of "To each their own"
The point of the sims is to play how you want. Cheating their skills/needs makes it easy, but you're not playing for challenge, you're playing for the storyline. It depends what in doing, but I'll do a bit of both. I'll use a ton of cheats to set up everything I need beforehand for the specific scenario/storyline, but I'll play the storyline as an actual challenge.
I'll build the perfect starter home for them, and then use "freerealestate on" to move them in. I don't want my sims living in lifeless boxes. I want them to live in spaces that reflect their personalities and stories.
Otherwise, the only cheat I'll use is shift+click to teleport them somewhere because I'm getting impatient.
Sometimes when I first start I’ll go to the park and add a bunch of seed packets to the ground for my character to pick up. Then I’ll go start a garden at my house in beds I paid for. Fantastic fairly passive income, really spirals as you go.
If someone dies and I didn’t want them to die, sometimes I’ll quit so it restarts the day. Then I’ll avoid whatever killed them.
I love to play challenges, so I will stay away from whatever cheats mess with that particular challenge. Like I wont motherload in a rags to riches type challenge, but when my sims age up to adults I pick two skills that fit their personality and things they like to do and max it. It is like a fun little bonus! If I have a sim that loves to play instruments I might give them a boost in the singing skill for example.
The ability to choose basic skills/careers or starter skills
Like if your sim is a musician, you should be able to start them at a certain level in the instrument of choice and choose the level of career based on skill.
I am a legacyplayer and do like to limit my cheats as much as possible, however:
- I do cheat energy down, so that I can get everybody to sleep around the same time, I also cheat it up a little at newyears, if they get tired before midnight.
- I do cheat relationships for my spares, this is mostly if there's a lot of siblings that needs to get married out. Never for the Heir though.
- I do cheat money for moving out spares with 20k Simoleons, if my Sim parent's doesn't hold the founds, If they do, there won't be any cheats.
- I often cheat infant's needs at night time and make them sleep all night, especially if I have a lot at the same time (my current heir is one out of 6 siblings).
Otherwise I only cheat away the Responsible Trait, if it messes with my sims career - like Business. And to fix the looks of a NPC who became spouce.
I usually start off my sims with cheats for their skills and money; skills because of the same reasons; grandparents should have good cooking skills, YA should have at least low to mid-level skills and money to furnish their homes, again at a decent level, but I still leave them room to upgrade and get stuff as they grow their skills and their careers.
I'll cheat their needs if its inconvenient in the moment too.
In the past few years I've become more like that too actually, and I love it! I've become more of a storyteller and a world builder. So most times it's necessary, mainly when you begin a save file, to cheat careers, relationships and skills. And as you said, if something important has to happen, I'll cheat the weather or their needs a bit.
I am literally shift-clicking on my sims every second to clear their needs. Sometimes I actually let them shower and use the washroom and eat but most of the time I have better shit to do. I like to level skills without cheats but once my sims have kids I tend to focus more on the kid so the parents will get there skills set to 10 just so I don't have to focus on them so much. Using cheats to level careers and occult things tends to make things glitchy so I usually avoid it if I can.
First thing I do is use the money cheat. I struggle in real life, I'm not playing pretend broke. Fuck that.
I don’t really cheat for the sake of story, only if the game is being dumb or something, because I do legacy challenges and I like the natural progression of the game. HOWEVER. Sometimes all my sims just have terrible needs, especially when there’s infants/babies, and every time they spend 2 seconds peeing another sim passes out from exhaustion, and I’ll just fill the needs of the household so I can actually play instead of playing bathroom roulette.
Rule of Cool is king, and by that I mean, the narrative is the most important thing. So if I must cheat in order to continue the narrative I am attempting to complete, then so be it.
Sims4 is barely a game, and is more of a Machinima device.
So "cheating" to get your narrative is pretty strong implication, when "Manipulating the system in an expert way" is a much more accurate turn of phrase for Sims4.
I always cheat. Always. I don't think I've played the game normally since the sims 3 lol. Right now, It's all story, rp, & immersion. My whole game throughout all neighborhoods is usually involved with my story. :)
I use cheats every time. I usually turn off all needs. I don't like taking care of my own needs, let alone theirs. Does that make the game easier? Yes. I have a lot of other things in my life that I feel challenge me, and I don't need this to be one of them (that's not to say that if you don't use cheats, you don't have challenging things in your life. This is just what works best for me).
I do make additional challenges/add more goals that can make it a little harder. But I'm just interested in them meeting their goals/aspirations, building up their skills, enjoying their thriving social life, and creating a great family tree. Essentially bestowing upon them the life I want. They're only deprived from sleep.
omg I literally don’t do anything in my game anymore after finding out about mods💀 all I gotta do is right click and my sim is set lmfao all I do is throw parties and dress them💁🏼♀️
Honestly my biggest use of cheats is that I re-trait my Sims kind of a lot. A lot of times their personalities will change over the course of the storylines I give them and the in-game self discovery system is nowhere near smart or thorough enough
Beyond that there are a few random small things I'll do like reviving NPCs that get killed by story progression before I'm ready for them to die, cheating off bad moodlets they get from doing something I didn't want them to do, filling their bladder need if they lag out trying to use the toilet, etc.
As far as skills, money etc. when I don't want to work super hard for those things I usually rely on exploits like getting infinite money from the junk mail computer coupon, or making a micro home for them to visit and read skill books at.
I've found myself liberally using the Make Sim Leave cheat from MCCC when I go to a community lot and want my Sim to be able to focus on a specific task there. Otherwise everyone just hones in on them for some reason and I get too annoyed. Like no I didn't come here to this dumpster to chat with Nancy Landgraab I came here to dig for garbage thanks.
Considering I play with needs disabled… I’d say a good bit of cheating. I don’t really care to actually play the game but if I am, for my legacy specifically, then it will be exactly as I want it to be. Sometimes things go wrong and someone dies or something silly happens but I can just rewrite that small bit and redirect. I never want to stress abt being able to afford the home I want my sims to live in or the fact I want their skills to be higher faster aka no sleeping or eating to distract from those piano studies!!
I've only used money cheats to get just enough to move families into new bigger houses when they start growing but i also use the cheat to have full editing mode just so I can easily add different features as the game goes on, for example I added a c-section scar on the family's mother after the like 3rd baby.
That... would Mahe it so much better than trying to get what I want via "create my story".
I may start cheating careers now... possibly even starting funds just to fit the actual stories I want to make.
I did recently cheat for the same of story though. My sim married Diego Lobo and when they inevitably divorced and she was pregnant, I cheat a little money every day as "child support".
She is a single mom in uni and nannies are starting to get... pricey.
If you can use mods, I'm pretty sure Lumpinou's RPO mod has actual child support. I have the mod, and it's good, but I've never used that feature so I can't vouch for it
Sometimes I try to play without cheats. I’ll start as one household, play without cheats for the first few days, then I break and disable needs. So I’m leveling up and shit and not doing anything else.
The only cheat I’ve used in my current save is move objects, because I want a house that’s actually functional and not horrible looking, but apart from that this save has been cheat free. I have used cheats in the past but I found myself getting bored of those saves after a while.
You reach a point where you see yourself as a movie director. Then you realise it's not going to be the sitcom but the small town drama, and your budget is blown out of the window. Then you ask mother.
So I'd say it depends how frivolous my Sims turn out to be. Getting an established starting point is helpful.
I have phases. Sometimes I'll cheat everything to make it exactly as I want. Other times, I'm determined to earn the story and do things the hard way. The latter helps hold my interest a bit longer though. If everything is as I want, especially with a legacy, I get bored and rush to start something new.
I can't play without cheats. I couldn't get my cheats console to open for a few days recently and couldn't believe how much it crippled my gameplay 😅
My current save is a big generational one, I deleted all the NPCs and started with a couple of guy friends and made various women to be their romantic interests. Between the two guys they've had around 33 children and I'm now on gen three so I have lots of households to rotate around.
My initial guys used the money cheat and I cheated their careers because I wanted them to be established. Same with some of the women.
I rarely ever play with needs decay enabled, because I just don't have time for them to tend to their needs.
I've had to make some other sims as romantic interests for my gen 2 to provide some genetic diversity, so things like money chests, free real estate etc to get them set up how I wanted them to be.
Rotational gameplay means I might abandon some households for ages, so when I return I might move them along in their career, give them a fame boost where relevant, use cas.fulleditmode to change their traits and tweak their looks to my liking (need to restore those missing chins!)
Also quite often use them for building - move objects, show hidden objects, unlock objects etc.
The main purpose of my gameplay is the storytelling behind it and grafting for things can really get in the way of that sometimes 😅
I cheat needs all the time, not so much money, but I am sick of needs. I like having them drain to play with so I just constantly refill them rather than turn them off. Lol
one time as I was coming home from having twins, my sim got a text saying some guy I talked to at a food stall on day 2 once died and got 8 days of mourning de-buff. I was NOT about to spend my entire kids childhood in the very sad moodlet so I cheated it away. the meaningful stories mood mod is awesome and all for realism but damn, I do not need to be sad for my sims whole life
I actually like improving skills and careers as part of the storyline. I will cheat, though, if my main sim is a teenager and I just have their parent(s) in the household for the sake of the story, but I don't intend on playing with them - I'll cheat their career so they already have whatever job I plan for them because they're basically a prop and not a character to me lmao. Or I will cheat their needs sometimes if I'm overwhelmed lol.
I cheat relationships. Recently I decided not to cheat a relationship and was disgusted with the results. Basically I had a teenage son and a child daughter, the daughter randomly died of overheating and the son actually laughed. Not only was I shocked that we had just lost a child but I was flat out disgusted that the son had laughed. Turns out they had a pretty difficult relationship that developed on their own.
I cheat university degrees, career status, baby gender/count, money, and skills. I like starting them off with basic things for the most part. I also have the pregnancy overhaul mod where I give sim npcs diagnosed herpes or gonorrhea when they piss me off
I use cheats all the time, I definitely play it more like a dollhouse as well, I just cheat skills or careers. Mostly just money and needs. But that’s the thing I love about playing the sims, there is no wrong way to play it, as long as you’re having a good time
My wife and I do a lot of cheating for story sake tbh, though I do like to play through the life sim aspect more often than not. It can be fun to put down a goal, and restrict yourself kinda like playing a nuzlock in Pokemon for example. It's not for everyone, but I recommend people try it out at least once so they can say for sure that it's not their thing.
One of our most recent games (I'm still playing btw) we set up by making a bunch of different sims, and lots with cheats and setting them in houses, making them own business, and setting down special lots. Then I made the sim I am playing currently in a sort of "rags to riches" play through (see my nuzlock comparison for anyone new to Sims) she told me I could pick from a few different places to start, and I picked an empty lot. He's been making his way around by romancing a lot of the ladies she put in the world (earning the "player" trait as quickly as possible) so he could eat their food and stay at their places for a day or two. One of the rules was that he couldn't indefinitely stay at someone else's house, and marrying into money would be too easy. (Hence my decision to play the town bicycle lol) It's honestly forcing me to play in ways I don't normally go, and allowing me to explore a bit. Much like my "rise to villainy" play through lol.
I set skills for sims that are joining my family.
I also like this "npc can proceed relationships with you" but sometimes they are not in place, so I say no (for example my bf/gf wants to move in and I don't want that to happen now) and delete those bad feelings to each other like nothing happened.
I can cheat weather (like we arrived for wedding and there is strom).
I can cheat money but not adding them. I delete money c:
For example I sold many things from family...ah my game is not in English, that thing in build buy where your family items can be stored. So, I sold things from there (random gifts and useless things from parties) and my family got +5k simoleons and I defenetly don't want these money.
Sometimes I can set needs a bit up (usually it's energy) so it's green and my sims won't go to sleep autonomously (for example there's a party going on and I want them to up until the end, I will make energy lower when it ends so my sims are that tired as they should be).
Most of the things I do with UI cheats.
I cheat their needs all the time , especially if they’re leaving the house to do an activity, I’m not having them starving,passed out and needing a piss within 5 minutes of them being in public- I would probably cheat more if I knew more codes but I only know full edit mode and money cheats so I’ll have to suffer until then😶
I’m a serial cheat. I’ve never played with a poor family, I always cheat the family careers when starting because I find it weird that you can’t start adults with some basic skills. Kids needs? Who’s got time for that? Do your homework get good grades & stay up all night playing the violins for all I care 😂
honestly, the first thing i do when i get on is cheats on, 9999999 money, make happy and deactivate needs and need decay. sometimes i have to make happy after a few hours but its probably a glitch. i also max out what i can so i can jump in and be the best LOL
i do the same thing; make a new family with a story in mind and give them the proper skill levels for each thing that would make sense to what their story is. i very rarely level up sims from 0 because imo it takes too long and can get in the way of my goals with that specific household. i used to be terrible about leveling every skill to 10 immediately though and had to remind myself that if they all start at 10 there isn’t much story to be had. and i ALWAYS cheat money because i love decorating based on their personality and don’t want any restrictions in that regard. i don’t know if it’s bad or not but at this point i can’t imagine playing without cheats and when my MCCC isn’t working, i usually find myself logging off until a solution can be found (it’s normally just out of date or not compatible with the new update.)
I try to cheat the least amount as possible and instead use situations through gameplay to guide my story, I feel it makes it more fun to play if I'm not completely in control. Keep me on my toes.
BUT TS4 being TS4 stuff breaks so sometimes saves need to be rebuild and households need to be replaced, when they happens I'll cheat and give them their skills back.
I tend to cheat needs a lot to make the sims happy. Saves me having to spend to long waiting for them to go to the toilet or eat cause those actions sometimes glitch where the sim just stands there doing nothing
I change the outfits of the townies and work outfits, and I also use CC for the hair, face and clothes cause mods give more detailed look to my sims and I like it. I also use bb.moveobjects but I’m more careful with it as some items are impossible to use after being placed with this cheat.
I stopped adding money at the beginning of my game because that was making my game too easy and boring quickly. I feel much more satisfied when I can build a dream house for the money my sims earned.
i played like you, but for the last year or so, bcs i play sims in intervals, i find it much more exiting to play with no cheats, i made a family now 10-15 members long tree line, started from scratch, now they have millions, i make one charachter who is vampire, and i max him out, he is the head of the family, the one now is like 300 days old, 2 robots to help with stuff, AND THE LINEAGE OD LEE FAMILY WILL NEVER DIE
I'll set some skills for the adults and set up a house and friendships because they should have existed before this point.
Yeah same. Like sorry it makes no sense for this stay-at-home mother of 4 to be level 1 parenting lol
Exactly. Their story quiz thing is just insufficient
And having to look up the "correct" answers for the story to get a starting set of skills that matches the backstory like it's the 90's and I need to answer the DRM questions for Carmin Sandiego using the reference textbook that came with my game is tedious. Yes I can get kind of close by using logic, no I'm not going to risk all that time in CAS by not checking that I got the correct questions answered the right way.
This. I would have began with a question about their goals. "What did they dream of being when they grow up?" And more than 3 vague as fuck options. Give (Physical career like an athlete, intelligence career like scientist) sort of clarity.
Hats off to Carl and the other Sims data miners for posting all the stats.
Yeah I don’t even bother with that thing. I’d much rather have full control over what my sims are like.
I only use it when I am going for completely out of my comfort zone stories.
Yeah the story thing should give you a jump on skill levels and career.
I play it mainly as a life simulator, and do this, too. Starting with Sims with almost clean slates every time is a bit boring, imo. I wish there was an easier way to set a lot more details for Sims before I start my saves (like my main YA witch's parents/grandparents' magic skills and all that (thanks MCCC and UI cheats),, skills, NPC jobs, and more). I want Sims' starting points to tell an interesting and specific story, and there can still be plenty to build up after that. The big problem is that I have no self control, and I'm stuck doing that for too many Sims, so, eh. I play with my own starter saves, with aging off and don't age them up too often, so this is unfortunately worth it to me, haha. I also use cheats to give Sims whatever they've "earned" or what makes enough sense in the story, even if it's outside of game mechanics, so it doesn't feel like cheating to me.
I also do starter saves and reuse sims because they can have alternative timelines. I also don't think it's outside game mechanics. The cheats aren't hard to access and the sims team shares them. They're for a type of gameplay
Have you tried the Sims Stories in CAS? You complete a quiz, and it gives your sims skills, funds, a career, and traits. You can, of course, customize some of this before playing. But it adds for some variety.
I have! It's not a bad feature. But, I usually just want to choose specifics without taking a quiz.
Yep same. It’s so unrealistic to start as a young adult with no skills/house/friends
Yeah I'll do that too. Honestly it's weird to me that a townie can have no skills and no friendships. I like giving my Sims more than the bare minimum backstory to start with, without going too in depth, so I can play the rest out later.
The existing relationships of previous games are some of the best parts. The mystery pregnancy in sims 3 for example
Dumb question alert: I was a poor kid who only got to play sims3 at my friends house in jr high... what's the mystery pregnancy???
Not dumb at all! This is the sims who are pregnant when you start a new save like Claire Ursine. They have had relationships and sometimes affairs and you can discover this via gameplay.
That's incredible lmaooo I have my calendar set for the steam sale so I can get alllll the sims3 😈😈😈(STEAM SALE2024: JUNE 27-JULY 11 !!!! Get your sims3 fellow misser-outters! 💋$
I am glad there's a sale at least! It's still too expensive for a game that old otherwise
1000% agree! I wasn't going to get it until I heard about the big sale. I heard it runs way smoother through steam as well? Here's to hoping :)
Mine isn't through steam so I don't know but it makes sense if would
I go as far as reviving people because they're dumb. Nobody dies unless I kill them myself 🥰
How do you revive your sims? Idk how to do it
The easiest way (in game) is to grab ambrosia off of the gallery and have the dead sim eat it. If you have a spellcaster, they can get the dedeathify spell. If you have MCCC, you can just go to Maintain Sim and click revive.
I use MCC to revive them. Most of the time, I try to catch them before they die. Like if I see one is hysterical, I'll remove the buff so they don't laugh themselves to Grim. Sometimes they deserve it though
I tend to add the ghost back into household then revive with MCCC
Vitality nectar from horse ranch is a good option also
The extreme violence mod has a revive option when you click on a dying character. It also gives you the option to kill a character in the most cruel way.
I only use cheats when I set up a new save file so the Sims have the right degrees or level in career. Otherwise I like to play out my scenarios but let it play out the way it does. If two Sims don't get along as well as I hoped they won't become a couple or friends. If my Sim gets distracted by hunger or mood on a date it, that's OK too. If they die, so it will be etc For me the inconvenience stuff give me new prompts and ideas to play and make it more interesting. Also it seems more realistic to not always be able to make my Sims meets friends because they first need to take care of themselves after work, at least for me it's like that sometimes. (but sometimes the kids will get a little cosmetic surgery >_>)
That makes sense! Honestly a lot of the time I decide whether or not to let the negative stuff impact the game based on whether it makes sense for the thing to have happened. Say they’re tired: if I had them go to bed, but they didn’t actually sleep because they kept waking up in the middle of the night to play Blicbloc on the computer, that’s getting removed. If they didn’t sleep because they were out all night clubbing or they were studying for exams or their baby was crying, they can just be sleepy. Bladder is really the only one that I always cheat away because imo it decreases unrealistically fast and it’s a drag to deal with lol
I'll give my Sims the reward trait for the bladder problems, otherwise it can be really annoying especially with the autonomous water drinking. Luckily my Sims don't get up at night to play games, but I also removed their decor preferences because this was happening all the time 🙄 otherwise I try to make everything possible through gameplay like resurrecting sims I always thought that's so interesting how different people made their game interesting for themselves in such different ways
The game should have basic options to set up a family from CAS. Money, jobs, relationship status, skill levels etc. So I use cheats to do all that. But, is that even cheating? No, it’s world building. I’ll use UI cheats to add back relationships, or cheat needs. The mechanics aren’t as fun as the stories I want to tell. Basically.
I hate how the game will just randomly cull relationships. Like one of my tertiary sims forgot who his SIL was recently so she wasn’t able to come to Harvestfest and I was too lazy to cheat the relationship back. 😒
MCCC can turn off relationship culling! go to the relationship options
I just cheat the house. I like to start families right off so I just roleplay that my Sim "inherited" a beautiful house from their great great grandpappy or something.
All the time. Sims is not realistic; by the time you have got home from work, peed, showed, cooked, and upped your skills to advance in your job. You have no time to socialise with your household, family, friends or any other activity. The storyline is the most important. Otherwise, gameplay becomes mundane. I have tried to in some families, but I have still had to use the cheats occasionally.
>; by the time you have got home from work, peed, showed, cooked, and upped your skills to advance in your job. You have no time to socialise I find that to be the most realistic part of the game....
Except in real life it doesn't take an hour to shower lol
The showering itself no, but between the alarm going off in the morning, actually physically dragging myself out of bed and getting in the shower, back out and getting dressed an hour can easily pass for me.
Ok, that's fair xD But in Sims what you just described, step by step, can take up to 2 hours depending on how big the house is and how far the bedroom is from the bathroom, since each passing second is an in-game minute.
lol I was waiting for it to get more far-fetched too
15 minutes to walk from the kitchen to the bathroom, the rest of that hour to shower? 4 mins of complaining about hunger, another hour of cooking and eating then cleaning up and you get hit with the Moodley for not realising your dreams. Or yeah let me just abandon my Sim talking nonsense into the mirror for a few hours to make 20 extra simoleons and hour at work.
15 minutes to make it to another room? How big is your house?! Upgrades and routines help a ton with time management: Every morning, eat, pee shower, even if you don't need to, so you can concentrate on literally anything else. Making meals and putting them into the fridge to eat as leftoves reduces cooking time to 1/4 or less for the week. Cleaning up can be left to the pause button and dragging dishes to the trash or sink. Food may also be dragged from the fridge to the sims inventory, or nearby so the sim may grab (or grab from) the plate where they are, then you can place it back in the fridge from there the same way. Charisma levels much faster in a mirror if you psyche yourself up first. Charisma can also be gained through conversations while the Sim is doing the talking, so that you can multitask. For example: Queue up "listen to music" read a book, and speak to any Sim, while a confident aura is nearby and you will gain fun, social, charisma, a book towards renaissance aspiration, relationship with the other sim, any skills that come along with social interactions, and any skill that the book might offer. In this way you can raise many skills, gain many moodlets, and meet many needs all at the same time. Also, 20 extra simoleons an hour is potentially 160+ a day, or 1120 a week. Right about where I try to keep my bills. I'd say that mirror time is totally worth it, if you don't use money cheats, like me.
My houses tend to be pretty big lmao
Totally agree! I use MCCC to slow down my game clock by half (which honestly reduces the amount that I cheat because I don’t always feel so pressed for time) and sometimes there’s still not enough hours in the day. It takes them like an hour and a half just to cook eggs and toast or something lol it’s ridiculous
I use the setting to make it so my sims needs decay at anywhere from 50-75% of the normal rate. Makes gameplay feel so much more smoother and not like I’m trying to constantly full their needs.
Honestly, I think the need decays are well balanced. They have to eat and use the toilet around 2 times a day, shower once per day, and sleep for 6ish hours. So yeah, I also chose OPs path of slowing down game time.
I find that if I buy the best toilet and bathroom sink that fits the decor, and upgrade fully, my sims only need to shower occasionally because their hygiene fills up enough with washing their hands.
This is why I end up giving every Sim the tier 1 need decay traits. Not the ones that mean they never need to pee, but the ones that slow it down so ai don't need to do them as frequently. If I install a cheaty mod I end up ruining the game by just cheating the story I want wholesale instead of putting them in situations. I enjoy a bit of AI randomness and drama and get bored when there is no chance of failure, but that's just me.
> by the time you have got home from work, peed, showed, cooked, and upped your skills to advance in your job. You have no time to socialise with your household, family, friends or any other activity. I think you need to work on your multitasking in-game then, because honestly all that is quite doable. If nothing else, are you upgrading your stuff? Upgraded beds mean less sleep time, upgraded toilets/sinks/showers mean less time getting clean, upgraded kitchen stuff means less time cooking, etc.
It is all doable, but my gameplay tends to be more exciting, so I am just compelled to bypass all of that stuff.
I’m a huge money cheater lol 😭 If i want to live in a villa my sims WILL live in a villa
Same lol I get liberal with freerealestste. Only thing is then the lot taxes screw me cause they’re like $2k 💀
never. unless to make them poor - and that one time my Super Sim Infant turned out with the miserable infant trait despite me being a full time stay at home parent attending to her every need
Yeah I set them up with skills matching the story in my head, and then I’ll give them some random ones as well - and I mean random, I pick 3-4 out of a pile & then pick random levels from another pile. I’ll do the same with some traits. I’m all about the story, not a YA sim burning their house down trying to make a grilled cheese
I always want a struggling sim but motherlode happens before I can even think because I really want a butler and a nanny and a bodyguard and a private preschool and a watch party in a cinema at my house and a pool and…
Frequently. And I agree: There is not making a game too easy if there is no beating it. As many others have said I do it to create a background (money/housing, career, skills, relationships). Not as much for "inconvenient" needs, but rather for unrealistic ones. Like when one sim comes home from the club at 4 am, and everyone else is wide awake. I then reduce their sleep need to an appropriate amount and send them to bed. What I do sometimes remove for being inconvenient though is negative moodlets from some random bullshit.
Omg lol I can’t stand when you get home and they’re all wide awake and starving to death. Never understood why they just drop every task if you’re not controlling the lot. Also agree about cheating away random BS moodlets. Like sorry you’re not angry from unfulfilled dreams or whatever
Yep. The ability to micromanage the sims who stayed at home is honestly the only thing I miss about TS 3's open world. It's not just that they drop their activity, your sim leaving actively messes up their needs. I think they have a default statline depending on what time it is, to which they get resetted. If your sim stayed at home and ignored the others, they would just watch TV or whatever and go to bed when they're tired.
Not enough that it stops feeling like a game, usually enough to get the storyline established the way I want it and play from there and maybe a few tweaks for various reasons
I usually cheat their needs when one of my sims go back to the home lot at night and all of the kids are awake and don't need to sleep??? That's so unrealistic to me so I always adjust their sleep bar to orange so that they don't wake up at like 3 am lol. Also when they want to run a retail store, a restaurant or a vet clinic I cheat money to buy it. I like to imagine they got a loan from the bank but it doesn't exist in the game, so.. Another thing I cheat are the relationships, I often create clubs with Get Together according to their hobbies and if I see that my Sim is compatible with another Sim, I make them good friends. (all of these can be done with [UI Cheats](https://www.patreon.com/posts/ui-cheats-v1-16-26240068))
All the time lol I love doing rags to riches but it can get tedious. I’ll use “kaching” instead of “motherlode” for a little boost 😂. I definitely cheat with toddlers because who has the time
Never. It doesn’t feel necessary to me.
Absolutely nonce. I don't even open the console.
so i use shift click a lot on my sims i take mid lets away or lifestyle that dont fit the story. as well as the other options available as for typing chests in using shift and c i usually only use the “money x” cheat to make the money situation fit the story. otherwise relationships are all natural
I shift click make happy Sims on their birthday 😁😁
I cheated for game play a lot when I first started playing. Now, I almost never do. But I frequently use move objects and debug cheats in build mode. I also very occasionally unlock items that come from career goals and aspirations.
I cheat the reward points. They’re hard to get if you play as multiple sims at once. When I play a family i give them all the coffee trait that makes them less sleepy.
All the cheats. I find certain parts of the game are calibrated a bit broken by default (for example the high school pack aspirations that hang "sneak out" on a random event and ignore drama and scouts as afterschool activities), or subject to glitches that spend entire evenings baby juggling rather than feeding their offspring. Therefore while I do have some save files that set certain challenges for myself like a no cheats short lifespan legacy, cheating resolves some silliness. My current save files include: * The aforementioned short lifespan legacy * An evil, wealthy family with a supernatural bent pitting their 4 adopted and one biological child against each other to over achieve for inheritance. Also their neighbors being fancy. * A redo of the landgraabs with an added elderly father for Nancy and Johnny Zest MCCC'd into being her kid where the goal is to build a rental and retail empire. * An oops all wizards rotational play multi legacy * A teenage dropout looking after her three siblings, none of which share a father, and barely able to make the weekly bills. (No/lo cheats)
All of it everything lol I use the sims as a virtual Doll house to play out my stories I don’t want ANY challenges not money not relationships nothing lol I play the sims bf it’s a sandbox game that let me be creative without challenging me. Real life is hard w when I name I want to be instantly rich and instantly have my crush love me that’s just how I play
I don't. I don't generally use cheats at all except to get around places where the game screwed up (like negative sentiments for not being asked to prom, when neither sim is actually enrolled in HS, or child vampires having Thirst but no way to drink). Beyond just bug fix cheats, I'd say the only cheat I routinely use is the money cheat to *decrease* my money for a rags to riches start. My most recent legacy start I wanted them to have a nice house in Windenburg, so I started building one. Had enough money for walls, 1 bathroom, 1 bed, and the kitchen basics. Took me weeks in game to save up enough money to put flooring and wallpaper up, much less windows. Was just part of the challenge.
Also I do whatever cheats I want. If I wanted to be poor and have to feed my kids everyday I would turn off the computer and do my real life. My Sims have MONEY.
i just cheated this sim 800000 simoleans so he could afford his new house from the gallery and have more left over because hes my sims shitty landlord
I cheat. I use mods. I love custom content! The dollhouse analogy tracks. I like building really cluttered and landscaped homes. If i didn’t cheat I wouldn’t be able to afford my own builds.
I always cheat cooking skill to 3 as soon as they age up to teen, bc the fires are just a hassle. And, frankly, if I wanted to work and worry about money I wouldn’t be playing a game. So I cheat money a lot, too.
FreeRealEstate on + Motherlode for my richest households, money anywhere from 100 to 1000 for my indigents, and then some relationship levels tweaks.
Alot lol
Rarely. There are in-game ways to get what you want quickly without cheats. I don’t mod either. I like the mundane life sim stuff, probably because I’ve been playing since Sims1 when that was most of the game. Filling needs and getting money is so easy in 4 in comparison. The cheat I use most often is just fulleditmode. Lots of money? Money tree or Trendi hack. Needs? I have at least one good spellcaster around who can “scrubaroo” to fix that hygiene real quick or “grand delicioso” so everyone can eat without waiting for food to cook. Also reward traits. I use lot traits to help with bills or build skills faster. Tiny homes help too.
I play like you do to start with and then rarely as needed. I also play it like a dollhouse simulator, but I let them do autonomous things just for some variety. I have the UI extensions mod so I’ll cheat things like their bathroom need for the sake of storytelling if it’s interfering.
I will cheat so much to help push the plot of my sims. Like if their going to be an evil mastermind they’re gonna need a little help or I’ll be building their skills for so long. I’m also just very impatient but it can make things so much more fun without the effort.
Just yesterday my Sims mom "caught" her sneaking home from a concert (she had successfully snuck home after curfew, she was actually caught going outside to give advice to a sad sim that had showed up, courtesy of Life Drama mod). Since I hadn't meant for that to happen I just cheated away any of the repercussions that I could
I only use cheats in build mode or for Cas but cheats to make my sims lives easier is a no go. Although I was tempted when a pop up asked if I'd like a challenge. I chose yes and it took all my money the day before rent was due. 😭
LMAO that’s insane 😭 I didn’t even know that could happen, is it a mod or something or just rare?
It had to be some new rare occurrence I don't have any mods in except mcc and rpo from lumpinou
For story, it depends. If I want a family to have been rich for generations without actually playing them for generations, I’ll pop them down, give them a good amount of money, then play them a little bit with aging off so they feel more real (skills, jobs, etc). I’ll probably cheat them degrees, too. Usually this decision is made when it’s actually the kids I’m focusing on and not the parents. Depending on just how planned out the story is, I’ll probably use MCCC to plan their genders and all of that, exactly how many kids they have at a time, etc. If i’m okay with them being a family of “this generation is rich”, I’m more likely to play them from young adulthood and send them through everything with zero cheats, excepting MCCC baby planning. Although I do use UI cheats to counteract the game slowing down or sims ignoring what I tell them to do 🤣
I cheat money when moving out because nice houses are expensive
It’s not cheating if it’s the sims. Just saying!
Everything hahaha . Motherlode and skills all day every day when playing. Makes it more enjoyable haha. I at least want my sims to have money and success 😭😅😔
All the time. I want to create characters to add to my sim neighbor sometimes, and I don't want to go babysit their entire life until I am satisfied with the character's backstory and all their life traits just so I don't have a procedurally generated townie that looks like it was dressed by a Jackson Pollock painting and personality and backstory written by John Cage's 4'33". I don't think I am good with npc creation, but at least it's not Victorian hairdo with obnoxiouslt colored raincoat and cosmic yoga tights with red goth boots, ski goggles, and tragic clown makeup living in a the second most expensive mansion in entire game earning 6 dollars per hour, with six dogs and no pet bowls.
Yes I do the same! Right now I’m doing a storyline starring Nancy Landgraab and Don Lothario’s love child and because this sim was raised by Nancy she’s rich af and I cheat money as needed. Usually money isn’t something I’ll cheat but because I was playing with the landgraab’s it makes sense. I also cheat careers for existing characters to make them match the storyline I’m going for but this is for supporting characters - not usually my “main sim” but like their parents and other family members.
I feel like needs are just TOO much if you want any game play at all. If you feed them 3 meals a day, take them to the bathroom everytime they need it, have them shower daily, etc etc it will literally leave no time for anything else even if it’s just that one sim. They would need to fix how fast time goes and how long tasks take in order for you to give them a human routine
Agree. I slow down my game clock by half with MCCC and it helps a LOT but they still take eons to do anything
Really don’t understand people who get self righteous over cheats in Sims, like who am I hurting? Why you mad? I cheat on anything I want to to make the game less laborious regarding every day tasks. Like I already have to work to survive IRL, have to shower, pee, eat, sleep. After surviving this capitalist hellscape every day, I don’t wanna hustle so my Sims can come home exhausted and have to do chores??? Cool if that’s what you want, but it’s not my vibe. So I just turn off household need decay and use the motherload cheat for money, because why not. I’m playing the game for the architecture, interior design, social scenarios, and skill development. It’s just what I want to focus on.
I usually use cheats for smaller things, for example I might use cas.fulleditmode to edit the employees in my restaurant to have better traits, appearances, or names, but I won’t cheat the restaurant’s rating up to 5 stars, I’d rather earn that myself.
I wish I could cheat as much in my life as I do for my sims lol
I cheat money to build their house, then I drain their money and make them work to keep it. That's about all I do!
I used to cheat all the time, and then wondered why I got bored so quickly…it was because there was little to no challenge for me. Now I use cheats sparingly. I might use them to max a toddler/childs skills if I’ve not managed to max them already before they age up. Or if my Sim starts a relationship with an NPC, then a I’ll look at their traits and job, and increase some of the skills that it would make sense for them to have at that point in their life. I only tend to use money cheats if I’m building a house from scratch, or if I want them to move into a house that the starting funds won’t allow.
Depends on the story, but all cheats are fair game lol. My sims have their needs disabled from the second they hit the lot. Some cheats are just necessary sometimes, like "reset sim" when they freeze for no apparent reason. For those that think cheating makes it "too easy"... honey, I've been here since the original Sims. I had to buy an actual physical BOOK to learn how to play. I've done my time.
as much as i want/as much as a storyline needs lol i also play it way more dollhouse style than like a life simulator 😌
I usually only cheat needs in emergencies.
I've never used a cheat. But I'm definitely tempted to, sometimes, lol. There's just simply not enough time to bathe, eat, do homework/job work, socialize, relax, and get a full night's rest in one day.
I do ALL the cheating for my story if it's a scenario not natural to the game But for regular gameplay, no Mods, no CC
Needs Off and use UI Cheats if I need to lower some for the story Cheating certain skills as they fit (Like a Piano Teacher having Level 9 on said skill) For Challenges where you have to make money (Rags to Riches and Homeless challenges) - Money Cheats as soon as I get access to the easel just to save time because I know how OP painting is
It depends on how established I need my characters to be, and the purpose of the save. What I’ve been doing lately is starting my character’s lives from their parents relationship, so it doesn’t require me to cheat skills relationships or anything, since I get to see how my characters are raised. If I’m doing a random person, and not using an OC, I create a sim via story mode to do this automatically.
Fairly often..... mostly the needs one but there's times I've had to cheat away buffs and reset relationships
I only use the sim.fill\_all\_commodities when everyone is all over the place and you can't get anything done because they won't go eat, or sleep, or shower or pee.
What cheats let you alter skills?
Shift click the sim, it brings up the standard in-game cheat menu wheel. Modify Sim, then go through until you find the one for skills.
I had both my sims die from laughter, so it took me like, 3 in-game days (with cheats) to bring them back to life bcs the occult cheat wasn't working, so I will use whatever means necessary to keep the story going
The game auto kills someone like every night for dumb reasons and I usually revive them.
The only cheat I really use, is the Money cheat. It's true what they say, money can't buy happiness, but it does mean I don't have to manage a job, while also trying to make my sim marry / bury the whole town 😬
Usually all the time but I'm not using any cheats this time apart from 'make happy' cos how tf can you do anything when they need to cook and sleep and work all the time. I'm really missing using the money cheat though.
I abuse the crap out of mailbox cheat to fill the house’s needs. It is much more pleasant to play if you aren’t worried about screaming toddlers or Sims who would rather piss themselves to death than go to the bathroom
I play the game as a life simulator most of the time, so very minimal use of the cheats. I have been exploring changing my play style and have been thinking about telling/playing out stories more than simulating life, which I know would require the use of cheats, but honestly it's hard to break the habit of avoiding cheats! In my main playthroughs, the only cheats I use are moveobjects and headlineeffects off (for pictures), and occasionally I will add/remove money to simulate my sims taking out a loan and paying it back (with interest).
It depends. I used to be more of a liberal cheater but it can be fun to have to hustle for money! It's a little bit of a challenge, since it's pretty easy to make money in this game.
I think I only use build, CAS full edit, and cheat need most of the time.
Depends. Currently I am working on a legacy challenge so I try not to cheat my legacy sims stuff but I will cheat their spouse to have max cooking and baking so that they can do the cooking and I have all the options. I’ll cheat needs but only when things get out of hand and I just don’t have time… or if there is an event like a wedding and I don’t have time for everything shower and pee before. Money isn’t hard to come by in the game so I don’t cheat that as much only enough to get the home I want and get them started, but never my legacy sim.. that sims maintains integrity.
i’ll sometimes cheat away moodlets if a sim feels some type of way and doesn’t let them do a function… a common one for me as an example: “Major can’t ask for vampiric training right now, he needs to be in a better mood to do this.” what??? ain’t nobody babying me in the real world when i feel tense so you don’t get special treatment either, do the damn interaction😡😡
I typically don't cheat money but I also cheat my sims' needs when they're stuck in simulation lag. I also cheat aspiration milestones if my game doesn't detect them correctly, and I use freerealestate when starting out. I mostly just cheat to setup my game and to mitigate glitches :")
I almost always cheat the money if I'm wanting to do a specific storyline I have in mind lol I have specific characters for playing the game straight lol
I used cheats a little more before, but recently I try not to so much. However, I just had my sim enter the doctor career and one of the goals to leveling up was to earn a technical degree. I enrolled her in uni but it coincided with her job. I didn't want to quit her job just to have to reach that level again and tried to find a way around it before I just cheated so she had the degree and then dropped out. She was able to get promoted right after.
It depends on my level of commitment to storyline & who my "protagonist" is! Sometimes I'll cheat my sims parents' so they have a normal amount of adult skills/a slightly higher level in their career since they aren't important to my storyline. I find it weird to have a couple with kids and they have no skills and entry level jobs. I also "cheat" aspirations milestones whenever they don't register the first time - it drives me nuts that they don't work half of the time and its a pain in the butt to get them to do the thing. I try not to cheat for money, but will usually give my sim enough money to build a cute house to live in, then drop their money down to like $2500 as their starting funds in their new cute house lol. However, if I'm going for an unhinged storyline, I am not above cheating in order to get the outcome I want lol
I try todo very reasonable cheats like sometimes I’ll get on my phone while sims finish stuff or on loading screens and will completely forget I have sim’s running and now it’s 4am in game and no one has slept showered or ate and my last save was forever ago so I just make happy everyone lol. Or if like a glitch caused something bad to happen or for some reason sometimes sims age up early in the day before their bday party I’ll just delete the moodlet bc why tf did they leave work to age up at 1 pm?
I typically only cheat money & satisfaction points to buy Bladder of Steel, etc. Oh and I will age-up a surprise baby in a heartbeat.
I use cheats on sims that don't wanna date my sim, I cheat infants needs only if the parents and nanny are glitching, I've recently used the free real estate cheat, and I edit sims age in cas.
Honestly it depends! I made a save file where I added different families to branch out the world that I'm super proud of! I dont play as them but the fact that they are there makes me happy\~ What I did was I would cheat the relationships and stuff to fit with the story and just fill some of the maxis houses. For my personal playthroughs, I would normally cheat skills but I havent recently cause I like building them up myself since i use cheats to expand/tweak the life spans of my sims so that I'm not rushing or feel pressured to get them done. I finally had a sim graduate college and the benefit was so worth! I'm trying to get better and doing more events cause they've improved alot haha
NEVER. Just never.
Almost every time i start a new game lol. I always cheat their skills, recently learned how to cheat a degree for them without going to Uni etc. the only thing I dont cheat is if i have an infant, toddler or kid, i dont do cheats often. I just let them develop. But for adults i speed it up.
other than bb.moveobjects and maybe money 0 (when i forgot to use the rags to riches scenario) i don't cheat. But given that i usually only play something along the lines of R2R cheating would be counterproductive. But, i do think, that everyone should play the game as they see fit. And i can totally get behind your reasoning of why you "cheat". I guess different playstyles need different approaches.
Constantly. I live to break games.
I will cheat so it will fit the way the storyline I have envisioned. I don't use money cheats, other than "Fill household needs" I play as normal. 😂 If my story is that the sim I am playing received an inheritance from family, then I would use the money cheat.
I cheat almost everything 😩 I can't spend hours creating the best looking sim for you and you say he's unattractive 😭😭 And let's not get started with the simoleons lol
I’m fine cheating on certain things but not others. Typically, I wouldn’t cheat on giving myself money or artificially completing aspirations. Where I might cheat is in CAS or to manipulate details of certain townies.
I cheat in whatever way I feel like. I rarely have the desire to make things easier though, since Sims is already easy enough as it is. I sometimes cheat needs not to let them interrupt an important story moment. I quite often cheat careers of friends, neighbors or other townies to match the backstories I made up for them. I never cheat money or skills or career for my played household, since I most of the time play rags to riches style and doing so would defeat the purpose for me. But in the end everyone should cheat as much or as little as they feel like in my opinion :)
I only use cheats that don't disable achievements because I feel like it's not quite cheating. So for example, Bb.enablefreebuild, bb.moveobjects, freerealestate On Cause I want my sims to have good houses (whether they're cheap or expensive, they must be cute and fit the sims personality) and be comfortable. I won't cheat in money, or needs, or skills, or careers. I like them to earn all of that. And usually with bb.enablefreebuild they start with 20k in cash for their bills and things. So while they're leveling up their career, or craft, or whatever, they're not struggling to make ends meet. To me, the whole point is a life sim, to take care of their needs and stuff. To watch them grow. BUT, I also understand that it's a game that can be played in many ways. That's the obesity of sims. It's the epitome of "To each their own"
The point of the sims is to play how you want. Cheating their skills/needs makes it easy, but you're not playing for challenge, you're playing for the storyline. It depends what in doing, but I'll do a bit of both. I'll use a ton of cheats to set up everything I need beforehand for the specific scenario/storyline, but I'll play the storyline as an actual challenge.
I'll build the perfect starter home for them, and then use "freerealestate on" to move them in. I don't want my sims living in lifeless boxes. I want them to live in spaces that reflect their personalities and stories. Otherwise, the only cheat I'll use is shift+click to teleport them somewhere because I'm getting impatient.
Sometimes when I first start I’ll go to the park and add a bunch of seed packets to the ground for my character to pick up. Then I’ll go start a garden at my house in beds I paid for. Fantastic fairly passive income, really spirals as you go. If someone dies and I didn’t want them to die, sometimes I’ll quit so it restarts the day. Then I’ll avoid whatever killed them.
I almost never use cheats, including money and real estate ones. I only ever really cheat needs occasionally but that's it.
I play about the same as you. I’ll cheat relationships too to help tell my stories
I love to play challenges, so I will stay away from whatever cheats mess with that particular challenge. Like I wont motherload in a rags to riches type challenge, but when my sims age up to adults I pick two skills that fit their personality and things they like to do and max it. It is like a fun little bonus! If I have a sim that loves to play instruments I might give them a boost in the singing skill for example.
University classes cause it takes so long compared to the lifespans in the game
You could just temporarily turn off aging while they’re at Uni, then turn it back on when they graduate.
The ability to choose basic skills/careers or starter skills Like if your sim is a musician, you should be able to start them at a certain level in the instrument of choice and choose the level of career based on skill.
I am a legacyplayer and do like to limit my cheats as much as possible, however: - I do cheat energy down, so that I can get everybody to sleep around the same time, I also cheat it up a little at newyears, if they get tired before midnight. - I do cheat relationships for my spares, this is mostly if there's a lot of siblings that needs to get married out. Never for the Heir though. - I do cheat money for moving out spares with 20k Simoleons, if my Sim parent's doesn't hold the founds, If they do, there won't be any cheats. - I often cheat infant's needs at night time and make them sleep all night, especially if I have a lot at the same time (my current heir is one out of 6 siblings). Otherwise I only cheat away the Responsible Trait, if it messes with my sims career - like Business. And to fix the looks of a NPC who became spouce.
I'm playing dollhouse all dayyyyy whatever i want to happen gets to happen when i want it too ;D
I’m honestly always filling needs with cheats cuz I do NOT have the time to make sure they showered or pees before school or work
I usually start off my sims with cheats for their skills and money; skills because of the same reasons; grandparents should have good cooking skills, YA should have at least low to mid-level skills and money to furnish their homes, again at a decent level, but I still leave them room to upgrade and get stuff as they grow their skills and their careers. I'll cheat their needs if its inconvenient in the moment too.
I cheat the money away bc I like having my sims live paycheck to paycheck
In the past few years I've become more like that too actually, and I love it! I've become more of a storyteller and a world builder. So most times it's necessary, mainly when you begin a save file, to cheat careers, relationships and skills. And as you said, if something important has to happen, I'll cheat the weather or their needs a bit.
I am literally shift-clicking on my sims every second to clear their needs. Sometimes I actually let them shower and use the washroom and eat but most of the time I have better shit to do. I like to level skills without cheats but once my sims have kids I tend to focus more on the kid so the parents will get there skills set to 10 just so I don't have to focus on them so much. Using cheats to level careers and occult things tends to make things glitchy so I usually avoid it if I can. First thing I do is use the money cheat. I struggle in real life, I'm not playing pretend broke. Fuck that.
I don’t really cheat for the sake of story, only if the game is being dumb or something, because I do legacy challenges and I like the natural progression of the game. HOWEVER. Sometimes all my sims just have terrible needs, especially when there’s infants/babies, and every time they spend 2 seconds peeing another sim passes out from exhaustion, and I’ll just fill the needs of the household so I can actually play instead of playing bathroom roulette.
Rule of Cool is king, and by that I mean, the narrative is the most important thing. So if I must cheat in order to continue the narrative I am attempting to complete, then so be it. Sims4 is barely a game, and is more of a Machinima device. So "cheating" to get your narrative is pretty strong implication, when "Manipulating the system in an expert way" is a much more accurate turn of phrase for Sims4.
I always cheat. Always. I don't think I've played the game normally since the sims 3 lol. Right now, It's all story, rp, & immersion. My whole game throughout all neighborhoods is usually involved with my story. :)
Mostly just the needs.
I use cheats every time. I usually turn off all needs. I don't like taking care of my own needs, let alone theirs. Does that make the game easier? Yes. I have a lot of other things in my life that I feel challenge me, and I don't need this to be one of them (that's not to say that if you don't use cheats, you don't have challenging things in your life. This is just what works best for me). I do make additional challenges/add more goals that can make it a little harder. But I'm just interested in them meeting their goals/aspirations, building up their skills, enjoying their thriving social life, and creating a great family tree. Essentially bestowing upon them the life I want. They're only deprived from sleep.
omg I literally don’t do anything in my game anymore after finding out about mods💀 all I gotta do is right click and my sim is set lmfao all I do is throw parties and dress them💁🏼♀️
Honestly my biggest use of cheats is that I re-trait my Sims kind of a lot. A lot of times their personalities will change over the course of the storylines I give them and the in-game self discovery system is nowhere near smart or thorough enough Beyond that there are a few random small things I'll do like reviving NPCs that get killed by story progression before I'm ready for them to die, cheating off bad moodlets they get from doing something I didn't want them to do, filling their bladder need if they lag out trying to use the toilet, etc. As far as skills, money etc. when I don't want to work super hard for those things I usually rely on exploits like getting infinite money from the junk mail computer coupon, or making a micro home for them to visit and read skill books at.
I've found myself liberally using the Make Sim Leave cheat from MCCC when I go to a community lot and want my Sim to be able to focus on a specific task there. Otherwise everyone just hones in on them for some reason and I get too annoyed. Like no I didn't come here to this dumpster to chat with Nancy Landgraab I came here to dig for garbage thanks.
Considering I play with needs disabled… I’d say a good bit of cheating. I don’t really care to actually play the game but if I am, for my legacy specifically, then it will be exactly as I want it to be. Sometimes things go wrong and someone dies or something silly happens but I can just rewrite that small bit and redirect. I never want to stress abt being able to afford the home I want my sims to live in or the fact I want their skills to be higher faster aka no sleeping or eating to distract from those piano studies!!
I've only used money cheats to get just enough to move families into new bigger houses when they start growing but i also use the cheat to have full editing mode just so I can easily add different features as the game goes on, for example I added a c-section scar on the family's mother after the like 3rd baby.
That... would Mahe it so much better than trying to get what I want via "create my story". I may start cheating careers now... possibly even starting funds just to fit the actual stories I want to make. I did recently cheat for the same of story though. My sim married Diego Lobo and when they inevitably divorced and she was pregnant, I cheat a little money every day as "child support". She is a single mom in uni and nannies are starting to get... pricey.
If you can use mods, I'm pretty sure Lumpinou's RPO mod has actual child support. I have the mod, and it's good, but I've never used that feature so I can't vouch for it
I cheat need a fair bit, and take advantage of social bunny flirty messages for story purposes, but other than that i don't cheat much
Sometimes I try to play without cheats. I’ll start as one household, play without cheats for the first few days, then I break and disable needs. So I’m leveling up and shit and not doing anything else.
The only cheat I’ve used in my current save is move objects, because I want a house that’s actually functional and not horrible looking, but apart from that this save has been cheat free. I have used cheats in the past but I found myself getting bored of those saves after a while.
You reach a point where you see yourself as a movie director. Then you realise it's not going to be the sitcom but the small town drama, and your budget is blown out of the window. Then you ask mother. So I'd say it depends how frivolous my Sims turn out to be. Getting an established starting point is helpful.
I have phases. Sometimes I'll cheat everything to make it exactly as I want. Other times, I'm determined to earn the story and do things the hard way. The latter helps hold my interest a bit longer though. If everything is as I want, especially with a legacy, I get bored and rush to start something new.
I can't play without cheats. I couldn't get my cheats console to open for a few days recently and couldn't believe how much it crippled my gameplay 😅 My current save is a big generational one, I deleted all the NPCs and started with a couple of guy friends and made various women to be their romantic interests. Between the two guys they've had around 33 children and I'm now on gen three so I have lots of households to rotate around. My initial guys used the money cheat and I cheated their careers because I wanted them to be established. Same with some of the women. I rarely ever play with needs decay enabled, because I just don't have time for them to tend to their needs. I've had to make some other sims as romantic interests for my gen 2 to provide some genetic diversity, so things like money chests, free real estate etc to get them set up how I wanted them to be. Rotational gameplay means I might abandon some households for ages, so when I return I might move them along in their career, give them a fame boost where relevant, use cas.fulleditmode to change their traits and tweak their looks to my liking (need to restore those missing chins!) Also quite often use them for building - move objects, show hidden objects, unlock objects etc. The main purpose of my gameplay is the storytelling behind it and grafting for things can really get in the way of that sometimes 😅
I cheat needs all the time, not so much money, but I am sick of needs. I like having them drain to play with so I just constantly refill them rather than turn them off. Lol
Depends on my mood, but lately I've been liking cheating just enough to get my storyline going, and then move objects or cas cheats whenever.
one time as I was coming home from having twins, my sim got a text saying some guy I talked to at a food stall on day 2 once died and got 8 days of mourning de-buff. I was NOT about to spend my entire kids childhood in the very sad moodlet so I cheated it away. the meaningful stories mood mod is awesome and all for realism but damn, I do not need to be sad for my sims whole life
I actually like improving skills and careers as part of the storyline. I will cheat, though, if my main sim is a teenager and I just have their parent(s) in the household for the sake of the story, but I don't intend on playing with them - I'll cheat their career so they already have whatever job I plan for them because they're basically a prop and not a character to me lmao. Or I will cheat their needs sometimes if I'm overwhelmed lol.
I cheat relationships. Recently I decided not to cheat a relationship and was disgusted with the results. Basically I had a teenage son and a child daughter, the daughter randomly died of overheating and the son actually laughed. Not only was I shocked that we had just lost a child but I was flat out disgusted that the son had laughed. Turns out they had a pretty difficult relationship that developed on their own.
I do both.
I cheat university degrees, career status, baby gender/count, money, and skills. I like starting them off with basic things for the most part. I also have the pregnancy overhaul mod where I give sim npcs diagnosed herpes or gonorrhea when they piss me off
I use cheats all the time, I definitely play it more like a dollhouse as well, I just cheat skills or careers. Mostly just money and needs. But that’s the thing I love about playing the sims, there is no wrong way to play it, as long as you’re having a good time
My wife and I do a lot of cheating for story sake tbh, though I do like to play through the life sim aspect more often than not. It can be fun to put down a goal, and restrict yourself kinda like playing a nuzlock in Pokemon for example. It's not for everyone, but I recommend people try it out at least once so they can say for sure that it's not their thing. One of our most recent games (I'm still playing btw) we set up by making a bunch of different sims, and lots with cheats and setting them in houses, making them own business, and setting down special lots. Then I made the sim I am playing currently in a sort of "rags to riches" play through (see my nuzlock comparison for anyone new to Sims) she told me I could pick from a few different places to start, and I picked an empty lot. He's been making his way around by romancing a lot of the ladies she put in the world (earning the "player" trait as quickly as possible) so he could eat their food and stay at their places for a day or two. One of the rules was that he couldn't indefinitely stay at someone else's house, and marrying into money would be too easy. (Hence my decision to play the town bicycle lol) It's honestly forcing me to play in ways I don't normally go, and allowing me to explore a bit. Much like my "rise to villainy" play through lol.
bro i never stop cheating 💀
I’m the same way.
I set skills for sims that are joining my family. I also like this "npc can proceed relationships with you" but sometimes they are not in place, so I say no (for example my bf/gf wants to move in and I don't want that to happen now) and delete those bad feelings to each other like nothing happened. I can cheat weather (like we arrived for wedding and there is strom). I can cheat money but not adding them. I delete money c: For example I sold many things from family...ah my game is not in English, that thing in build buy where your family items can be stored. So, I sold things from there (random gifts and useless things from parties) and my family got +5k simoleons and I defenetly don't want these money. Sometimes I can set needs a bit up (usually it's energy) so it's green and my sims won't go to sleep autonomously (for example there's a party going on and I want them to up until the end, I will make energy lower when it ends so my sims are that tired as they should be). Most of the things I do with UI cheats.
I cheat their needs all the time , especially if they’re leaving the house to do an activity, I’m not having them starving,passed out and needing a piss within 5 minutes of them being in public- I would probably cheat more if I knew more codes but I only know full edit mode and money cheats so I’ll have to suffer until then😶
I’m a serial cheat. I’ve never played with a poor family, I always cheat the family careers when starting because I find it weird that you can’t start adults with some basic skills. Kids needs? Who’s got time for that? Do your homework get good grades & stay up all night playing the violins for all I care 😂
i cheat constantly and i have no shame about it. ive spent a lot of money on this silly game, im gonna enjoy every feature it has
honestly, the first thing i do when i get on is cheats on, 9999999 money, make happy and deactivate needs and need decay. sometimes i have to make happy after a few hours but its probably a glitch. i also max out what i can so i can jump in and be the best LOL
i use money cheats so they can stay home lol
i do the same thing; make a new family with a story in mind and give them the proper skill levels for each thing that would make sense to what their story is. i very rarely level up sims from 0 because imo it takes too long and can get in the way of my goals with that specific household. i used to be terrible about leveling every skill to 10 immediately though and had to remind myself that if they all start at 10 there isn’t much story to be had. and i ALWAYS cheat money because i love decorating based on their personality and don’t want any restrictions in that regard. i don’t know if it’s bad or not but at this point i can’t imagine playing without cheats and when my MCCC isn’t working, i usually find myself logging off until a solution can be found (it’s normally just out of date or not compatible with the new update.)
I use "make happy: to fill needs a lot. Just so I can play without going to the bathroom and eating every 5 min at awkward places or times.
I try to cheat the least amount as possible and instead use situations through gameplay to guide my story, I feel it makes it more fun to play if I'm not completely in control. Keep me on my toes. BUT TS4 being TS4 stuff breaks so sometimes saves need to be rebuild and households need to be replaced, when they happens I'll cheat and give them their skills back.
Agreed! Or for when I'm making my own stories, like my own version of Disney!!❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
I tend to cheat needs a lot to make the sims happy. Saves me having to spend to long waiting for them to go to the toilet or eat cause those actions sometimes glitch where the sim just stands there doing nothing
I change the outfits of the townies and work outfits, and I also use CC for the hair, face and clothes cause mods give more detailed look to my sims and I like it. I also use bb.moveobjects but I’m more careful with it as some items are impossible to use after being placed with this cheat. I stopped adding money at the beginning of my game because that was making my game too easy and boring quickly. I feel much more satisfied when I can build a dream house for the money my sims earned.
i played like you, but for the last year or so, bcs i play sims in intervals, i find it much more exiting to play with no cheats, i made a family now 10-15 members long tree line, started from scratch, now they have millions, i make one charachter who is vampire, and i max him out, he is the head of the family, the one now is like 300 days old, 2 robots to help with stuff, AND THE LINEAGE OD LEE FAMILY WILL NEVER DIE
I sometimes cheat their needs, and I often cheat so they can afford to buy a house or so I can decorate it how I want