The Centurian's Solo Challenge

[Pam]

Wow, Metro!  Are you going to share your secret with us?

[Metropolis Man]

Wow, Metro!  Are you going to share your secret with us?

All will be revealed. I promise. AFTER I post my final numbers, of course.  

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EDIT: After things settled down last night with all of the trick or treaters, I played Johnny some more. I finished his "training" period and he now regularly makes a minimum of 1.5k per tip. There really doesn't seem to be a ceiling with the technique I'm employing — the training. But, there's no money making involved when a guitarist trains to make more tips. So, at least for me, I got bored with it and said "enough is enough" and decided to settled Johnny into a "normal" daily routine. And I'm not using the Moodlet Manager to turn him into a 24/7 robot. I want the nice moodlets provided from a good night's sleep.

Anyway, here's some more info on Johnny:

Traits: Ambitious, Vituoso, Over-Emotional, Loves the Outdoors, and Artistic
Lifetime Wish: Rock Star

Here he is standing outside the ocean view home I built for him on day 1 —



There wasn't much money left after I built this. But, I wanted a decent bed, a decent shower, and the best fridge and stove.

Here we are at Week 7, Day 3 —



Not a huge difference really. I had to slightly expand the bedroom to make room for the top of the line bed. The bathroom has the nicest shower/tub, and the kitchen has the nicest chair now. I also hung 2 pieces of art in the bedroom and the kitchen to provide the Beautifully Decorated moodlet during sleeping and cooking/eating times. There's nearly 8 more weeks of play for Johnny and he has 450k in Household Funds. I may get greedy and train him for a couple more days at some point just to break up the monotony of his daily routine.

[Holmes]

If he loves the outdoors why not have him sleep outside? (I argue it's not an exploit in that I've personally slept for some weeks outdoors, (in the real world, not magic simland) and, yes, loved it. My girlfriend, not so much, granted.)

You can still get bonuses from decoration outside, interestingly enough. (and, I think realistically)

My character in this hit 1.7m in week 10 (just in cash). Still (painfully) working on it. Omni plant/fishing does seem ludicrously lucrative.

I'll report my final results soon (though that may involve giving up at the 2 or 3m mark and just writing since the gardening is not the funnest thing on earth to micromanage).

-Holmes.

[Metropolis Man]

If he loves the outdoors why not have him sleep outside?

I just can't do that. Too bizarre. Same reason why I don't do the Moodlet Manager and turn him into a robot.

You can still get bonuses from decoration outside, interestingly enough. (and, I think realistically)

Yeah, I added some nice stuff for the outside of his home lot for when he "trains" for tips. What's completely unrealistic about your technique is just throwing up a single wall to attach a toilet. I'm not knocking you. Do whatever you want. It's just a mental and visual thing for me.

My character in this hit 1.7m in week 10 (just in cash). Still (painfully) working on it. Omni plant/fishing does seem ludicrously lucrative.

That's awesome. It's looking like it may come down to you and me at the end.

[Holmes]

On not sleeping outside (that being too 'bizarre') there I respectfully disagree. I do (personally) love sleeping outside and if I lived in a climate that permitted it more often, I'd do it more often. (Yes, even when it rained, though I concede I'd want a tent then). But this is, as you say in response to another matter, a matter of personal taste.

On erecting a single wall (two! for you need a shower and a sink!), you said "What's completely unrealistic about your technique is just throwing up a single wall to attach a toilet". Yeah, you're definitely right there. That's more or less an exploit, and, arguably, it's throwing away a decent chunk of the game (the lovely house design, decor, etc).

I'd have no objection to a "Holmes rule" (or "Metro rule") in future challenges that actually required at the very least a private bathroom. But I'd not play a challenge that required my sim to sleep inside unless there was a very very good role playing reason for it!

And my sim writes outside. (so am I during the day, in this glorious but chilly Fall) You'd better believe it. Why the heck coop yourself up inside when there's a glorious world of sunshine and NO RAIN OR SNOW AND NO MOSQUITOES. heh. Sorry for shouting there. You can guess I live in a place with a lot of rain, snow and mosquitoes. (at least only about two at the same time. And this is the one time of the year where there is not much snow and no mosquitoes.).

That's awesome. It's looking like it may come down to you and me at the end.

Woo hoo! I guessed the right code for quoting. Yeah, I'm actually pulling for you. My approach requires really painful micromanagement that is akin to having nails driven into your skull. And even then, I know I've thrown away at least 10-20% of revenue I *could* have attained.

I really don't care if I "win"; I'm just pleased to be able to contribute a strat to the community here. I do promise to do a nice write-up for us all, win or lose. (And, ok, granted I do like the fact that it beats writing). So I care a little.

3 point something million end of week 12. 3.25 I think; too lazy to tab back in.

The hysteresis of gardening is surprisingly strange.

And that last sentence is a quote I dare you all to use in real life.

Cheers,
-Holmes

[Metropolis Man]

I'd have no objection to a "Holmes rule" (or "Metro rule") in future challenges that actually required at the very least a private bathroom. But I'd not play a challenge that required my sim to sleep inside unless there was a very very good role playing reason for it!

I can't see ever having that rule myself. I totally respect your approach to play and I think the great thing about all of the challenges on this site is you can really tackle them from multiple angles.

Yeah, I'm actually pulling for you. My approach requires really painful micromanagement that is akin to having nails driven into your skull. And even then, I know I've thrown away at least 10-20% of revenue I *could* have attained.

Me too. Hindsight is always 20/20, right? This is going to be incredibly close, Holmes. I feel it.

3 point something million end of week 12. 3.25 I think

You're about a week and a half ahead of me. I'm at the start of Week 11. Like I said I think it's going to be really close. My Happiness points are not even a concern to me at this point — they contribute too little to overall score. And that's just a reflection that this was my first Sims 3 challenge I've hosted and wasn't nearly as knowledgeable with the game mechanics and how things should be scored for balance.

[Pam]

I still want to know about this secret guitar training.  I've got a guitarist who can play for tips and it would be awesome to make that kind of money!

[Metropolis Man]

I still want to know about this secret guitar training.  I've got a guitarist who can play for tips and it would be awesome to make that kind of money!

Okay, okay. I know I've been beating around the bush, so here it is —



Tip playing income quadruples if a sim is wearing an old man robe at the park. Don't ask me how. Don't ask me why.

Now, if you still want the REAL answer, stay tuned. 

[PJSim]

Eh, what?

 

[Metropolis Man]

And that's a wrap! It was a lonely end for Johnny B Goode. I took a screenshot of him playing all alone in front of the Theatre minutes before the challenge ended, but the image hosting service was taking too long to upload images, so I gave up.

He accumulated over 5 million in Household Funds. The Furnished Lot value was just 31,400. I know some of you are very interested to hear how a guitar player can earn so much from just playing for tips and as promised....here's the answer: Number of times compositions have been performed. The higher you can push that statistic in your Guitar Skill Journal, the more tips you make. I have no idea what the mathematical relationship is, but it's clearly a very strong one. But, it also seems to be a relationship of diminishing returns. When I first read about this trick on another forum I couldn't wait to cue up 8 songs and get started to see the results. Tips really skyrocketed at first, but then the more time I invested in this "training" that I hinted at, the less return there seems to be.

But, here's the kicker to this trick — you DO NOT have the guitarist perform the entire song. It's not necessary. You just cue up 8 songs, and as soon as he bends his knees to signal that he's starting a song, you cancel and he moves to the next one. And the cancelled song registers in the Skill Journal! Unbelievable. It really shouldn't be that way, and I can't believe that EA isn't aware of this and hasn't patched it.

So, long story short, Johnny did a lot of training by performing compositions in his backyard for no one. Then, he'd go out and rack up the money. But, let me tell you — that training takes an iron stomach. After a while you want to shoot yourself in the head to put yourself out of the boredom. And in a challenge like this one where nearly the entire score is derived from money, you have to walk a fine line — time spent training is time away from tip playing.

I'll update the leaderboard and remove the stats from my Frank Frazetta painter.

[Pam]

Awesome work on that one, Metro!  Thanks for sharing the secret.  I'll be trying it now for my current guitarist Sim. 

[Metropolis Man]

Thanks, Pam. Now I'm just holding my breath for Holmes' last post.

[Holmes]

Wow Metro! You seem to have discovered something fascinating. Indeed, in my present half-brain-dead state, I don't fully understand what you've written, and I'll review it tomorrow. And ask you questions.

I "win" but if you weren't using (abusing) the moodlet manager, then you're probably the real winner. I did use the moodlet manager to eliminate pretty much all desires, so that might make my sim a "robot" in your parlance. And I did the usual Holmes 2 walls approach to home building; that's not terribly material, but it is a bit of an exploit. (My final home consisted of a sprinkler, 2 unfinished walls, cheap counter, top stove, top fridge, best dining room table, best stereo, best chair, best desktop computer.)

We've both demonstrated there are pathways other than writing to max cash.

My "victory" is surprisingly narrow; 6,250,443 simoleons. 337,970 lifetime happiness. Oh duh... yeah 28,819 for home and grounds (how it's so expensive with what I have above, I have no clue; my guess is my garden jacks the price up).

I tend to think my approach could be bettered by about 15-20%; I struggled with optimizing omni production of fish, and I have some oddball theories about what reduces gardening income. (I'll post, I promise!).

I'm stunned by the degree to which you and I exceeded what many reasonable people (including our host, Carl) thought was the "best" approach. I'm doubly stunned by your getting north of 5m on guitar playing.

Very cool.

-Holmes

[Holmes]

Hah, ok I get what you are saying. That is definitely an exploit lol. But very cool.

Suggestion: please restore your Frank F painter stats (marking them as such). It's an interesting piece of information, from a very capable player who tried the painter route.

After digesting what you've written, I prefer my way as a sustainable logical approach, but wow, your approach is a really nifty exploit of a bizarre bug. I like.

And come to that, I still felt as though I was pounding nails into my skull. Microing when I caught better death fish was particularly painful.

-Holmes

[Pam]

I'm just a saaaad panda sitting all by myself at the bottom of the leader board.

[Metropolis Man]

Awesome job, Holmes! WOOOOT! See, I knew it was going to be really close. Yeah, I've got this thing about the Moodlet Manager now. To me, it's almost a cheat. I mean, I know it's an in-game feature, but I just absolutely cannot bring myself to use it anymore. I'm kicking around a new challenge idea and may very well ban it, since the whole idea of the challenge is skill building.

Don't worry about Frank's old stats being gone. I'm pretty sure I also have that info in my final post for Frank. So, if someone is really curious they can find it. But as far as the leader board, I just want to show a player's best individual effort.

[Holmes]

@Pam pfft, you had a lot of fun playing the challenge, and demonstrated something very useful: that going for a career is a bad way of making money. And your sim had a really nice story. I went nearly brain-dead from monotonous garden micro-management!

Mind you my sim is still a young adult (go go Ambrosia!) and can now get on with life. I don't think she's going to fish much though. Or garden that much.

I will write more, filling up some of the blank spots of my post in the "Story" section, but it may be a bit. I've developed a sudden aversion to gardening . Also, Dragon Age:Origins is being released today and I suspect it may consume a wee bit of my free time.

@Carl Thanks, and thank you for the challenge. This is the first Sims challenge I've played (And I played both Sims 1 and Sims 3. Skipped 2 due to work and life being too consuming).

Yeah, the moodlet manager is almost as game-y as my 2 wall house, though both are indeed part of the game. I'd be fine with it being banished from a challenge (though I wouldn't normally play without it, and having it as part of this particular challenge was quite neat as it put me into a dilemma: go for Super Green Thumb first, or hold out for Moodlet Manager. Given that not having SGT slowed down my acquisition of the Omni plant (I was slower to get the requisite quality steaks, since I didn't have the quality bump from SGT), I think I made the wrong choice.)

One "unrealistic" thing I'd mildly dislike seeing banned (oddly enough) is the teleporter. It provides a certain degree of equalization for skills like fishing. (Sure, yes, I've shown that the fishing/gardening combo is overpowered, but fishing on its own isn't so much. And add in long trips to wherever you need to go and suddenly writing/gardening become more powerful relative to fishing (once you have the requisite fish).) On the other hand, you can get a lot of those advantages with a fast car.

On Frank: good point.

Any recommendations on a subsequent challenge? I really liked this one... As I noted above, I'm going to be playing DA:O for a bit, but I'll definitely be returning to Sims 3.

-Holmes

[Metropolis Man]

One "unrealistic" thing I'd mildly dislike seeing banned (oddly enough) is the teleporter.

I don't have any issues with the Teleporter. Not like my opinion on the Moodlet Manager.

Any recommendations on a subsequent challenge? I really liked this one...

This one and the Baby Boomer were really well received. Take a look at the views counts in the threads and the number of players that have finished each challenge. I can definitely see both of them receiving an overhaul for a 2.0 version once World Adventures is released. In the meantime, I'm finishing up a new rule set as we speak, and will be hosting another challenge soon....

[Yeshanu]

I'm back. 

And seeing as how I'm now near the middle of the leader board, I'm going to try again. Holmes and Metro have given me something to think about, that's for sure!

[Pam]

I'm proudly holding onto my spot in last place.  Nobody can touch me!

[sims96fan]

Holmes, is there a $5000 deathfish and how do I get it?

[sims96fan]

Metro, how many compositions need to be performed to get $1000 and $1500 tips?

[Pam]

Metro, how many compositions need to be performed to get $1000 and $1500 tips?

20 squillion.

[Metropolis Man]

Metro, how many compositions need to be performed to get $1000 and $1500 tips?

20 squillion.

Ha ha. If I told you I'd have to kill you!  No, seriously, if you can push the performance number to like 500 or so, you should see some really big tips.

[Titus]

Metro, did you complete the guitar opportunities to unlock the bonus to tips ? I wonder if this bonus is additive or multiplicative to the bonus given by the number of compositions played