The Perfectly Happy Challenge

[Metropolis Man]

Okay, Eftyen, you're on the board.

[meamalso2]

Metropolis Man, what you do will defiantly keep you elated! However being elated by a tad and having 200 extra mood produces the same results, meaning you could have stayed home from the spa and earned happiness points from wishes    That is the same reason I chose against Loves The Outdoors, it would just be overkill on something I can do without it.

[Metropolis Man]

Well, I've done a couple weeks of hacking on the computer with my test character and yes, I can see how this would rack up lifetime happiness points IF the wishes came on a fast and regular basis as they do with guitar tip playing. They don't. At least for me so far. Hours go by before the next tier fires. I've even had an entire night's worth of hacking go by with not a single "Earn X from Hacking wish" fire. Right now I've finished the 2500 one and I'm assuming there's a 5k one, but it's not fired yet.

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EDIT: I got the 5k one, and I thought the cycle would start over. Then, I got a 10k for hacking. So, that was a biggie and netted around 5700 lifetime happiness points. But, again, the wishes don't fire quickly. I got the 10k one right at the end of a hacking session, at 7am. The entire next hacking session 9pm - 7am absolutely no hacking wishes fired at all.

[Metropolis Man]

Metro... When you are finished with a cycle... do you completely clear all of your wishesbefore you sit down and start hacking?  It seems like they come up faster when you have nothing in the hopper than if you have just one open wish slot.

I'll keep that in mind the next time I give it a shot. I've only successfully completed one full cycle — up to the 10k wish and the 100 one hasn't fired again.

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EDIT: I did another full night of hacking with a completely clean slate for wishes and not a single wish popped up. I wonder if this recycle thing you guys are talking about was viewed as a bug by EA and fixed in a recent patch?

Did you notice your income going up as your logic skill went up?  I didn't track anything specific, but noticed that as my logic wenrt from level 5 to 10 that I seemed to make more $ over the night of hacking.

Well, I didn't even start hacking until he maxed out Logic from reading the 3 books. So, it was a nice baseline.  

[mordana666]

Well, I've finally completed the challenge, and Happy had a great life. She not only maxed out Cooking, Gardening and Fishing - which was to be expected - but also writing, martial arts, handiness and nectar making. Nectar making is without a doubt the singular most important skill for keeping a sim happy. Unlike writing, which also rolls big point wants, making nectar is fun. Plus mood is enhanced by drinking the final product. I've never played on long lifespan before, and felt quite emotional when the final day of the challenge rolled round. I did more with Happy than I thought it was possible to do with just one individual sim. I shall miss her. Still, she did have a great life - she wrote 5 best-sellers, read a total of 72 books, squished her way to 222 bottles of nectar, ate angel foodcake for every meal, and eventually broke a space block. The local restaurant never rang to offer her a gardening opportunity, but heck, that's their loss! Final score - Perfect Food, Fish and Produce = 364,000  Life Time Happiness Points = 387,216  I really enjoyed the challenge, and can't wait for the next one. I'd just like to thank Carl for the nectar making guide on the site. Without it I would have been stumped, as I'd never made a single bottle before the challenge. Good Luck to everyone else doing the challenge, and if your just thinking of doing it, then I highly recommend it. You'll have a blast!  Mordana

[jmz95]

Well, I've finally completed the challenge, and Happy had a great life. She not only maxed out Cooking, Gardening and Fishing - which was to be expected - but also writing, martial arts, handiness and nectar making. Nectar making is without a doubt the singular most important skill for keeping a sim happy. Unlike writing, which also rolls big point wants, making nectar is fun. Plus mood is enhanced by drinking the final product. I've never played on long lifespan before, and felt quite emotional when the final day of the challenge rolled round. I did more with Happy than I thought it was possible to do with just one individual sim. I shall miss her. Still, she did have a great life - she wrote 5 best-sellers, read a total of 72 books, squished her way to 222 bottles of nectar, ate angel foodcake for every meal, and eventually broke a space block. The local restaurant never rang to offer her a gardening opportunity, but heck, that's their loss! Final score - Perfect Food, Fish and Produce = 364,000  Life Time Happiness Points = 387,216  I really enjoyed the challenge, and can't wait for the next one. I'd just like to thank Carl for the nectar making guide on the site. Without it I would have been stumped, as I'd never made a single bottle before the challenge. Good Luck to everyone else doing the challenge, and if your just thinking of doing it, then I highly recommend it. You'll have a blast!  Mordana

Wow, that final score (364,000 + 387,216 = 751,216) puts you at the top of the leaderboard! Even without 5 perfects, your LHPA is amazing! I've yet to try it but it looks like I will be looking up to your score when I finally get on to it. Way to go!

[Metropolis Man]

Great job, mordana! Looks like you're well on your way to doing great in the upcoming nectar challenge!

[wildredchild]

I have finally finished.  Took my time on this one and had a great time.

Perfect recipes, perfect plants and perfect fish 384,000
Plus LHPA                                                   266,279
Total = 650,279

[Metropolis Man]

I updated the leaderboard, wildredchild. Good job finishing up.

[mordana666]

I'm not so sure about the nectar challenge Metropolis Man   I'll probably do great making the nectar, but having parties isn't one of my strong points. When I play, my sims only leave the house when absolutely necessary - I've yet to try a popular sim, or the political career track for that matter. It's funny how art imitates life sometimes. I'm hardly a great mixer in real life, and my sims tend to replicate my lifestyle. On the other hand, it might be good to push myself and try something new. Good luck with your challenge jmz95 - I wish I could give you some tips on getting a good LHP score, but it just happened. I will say that sometimes it's not an advantage to anticipate your sims wants. Eg - If you don't buy a crib when a sim is pregnant, they will eventually roll a want to 'buy a crib'. That happens for alot of other things too! Happy started making nectar, but I didn't buy a storage rack or build a cellar. She eventually rolled wants for both, netting 6,500 points in the process. My sims don't get much unless they actually roll a want for it, poor things! Well done on finishing wildredchild.

[Metropolis Man]

I'm not so sure about the nectar challenge Metropolis Man   I'll probably do great making the nectar, but having parties isn't one of my strong points.

Parties are piece of cake. I'm pretty good at that part of the game, so I can share with you plenty of tips when the time comes.

[meamalso2]

Congratulations to jmz95, and where did you find the guide to figure it out? (I want to trove it too!) I still don't think anyone else will figure out what trait I used!

[mordana666]

Maybe you could write a guide for the perfect party Metropolis Man  I bet I'm not the only player who dreads them. It all stems back to playing The Sims on the Playstation. It didn't matter what I did I couldn't have a successful party. Which means I couldn't move out of Dudley's house. I've never even tried since. 

[Metropolis Man]

Maybe you could write a guide for the perfect party Metropolis Man  

I just might do that.

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EDIT: I knew I had previously thrown out some tips. Here's the old thread —

http://www.carls-sims-3-guide.com/forum/index.php?topic=148.0

The one thing I'll add to what I said in the thread is dancing to the nicest stereo. It's fantastic and can engage everyone. Basically you have your Sim start. Pause the game, and then start clicking on everyone else to join. It's the same kind of cue as Ask to Join when watching TV. But, it's so much more fun and enjoyable to watch from a player's perspective.

[Pam]

Maybe you could write a guide for the perfect party Metropolis Man  I bet I'm not the only player who dreads them. It all stems back to playing The Sims on the Playstation. It didn't matter what I did I couldn't have a successful party. Which means I couldn't move out of Dudley's house. I've never even tried since. 

I've seen this same sentiment many times now.  And while I understand the desire to "construct" your own perfect party and meet the challenge with your own methods, I fail to understand why the simple solution of purchasing the lifetime happiness reward of Legendary Host seems to be so unappealing.  I mean, like Morgana here, if it's such a drudge to accomplish, why not take the easy way out?  Personally, I'm not a party person in real life and I don't care for parties much in the Sims 3, but I do hold them if my Sim has a wish for it.  If I have the Legendary Host reward, I know it will be a success no matter what I do and my Sim will get that extra wish for a great party granted.  It's only 5,000 points, so it's one of the cheapest rewards you can buy.  Just sayin'... 

[Metropolis Man]

I've seen this same sentiment many times now.  And while I understand the desire to "construct" your own perfect party and meet the challenge with your own methods, I fail to understand why the simple solution of purchasing the lifetime happiness reward of Legendary Host seems to be so unappealing.  I mean, like Morgana here, if it's such a drudge to accomplish, why not take the easy way out?

Hey, far be it for me to discourage someone from taking a worthless reward like Legendary Host instead of building their skill and getting more satisfaction in conquering a weak part of their game. Oops. Did I say to much?  

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EDIT: Okay, to be fair I got to thinking: maybe my ease in throwing epic parties in the past had to do with my Sim inviting over only friends because that's what I've tended to do. So, I just did a test with my upcoming nectar-challenge test character in Riverview. He didn't even know anyone, so it's going to be pretty hard to throw a party when no one is known. So, he went to the library, shook hands with 2 different people, and went home. The next day around 11am he made some fresh Autumn Salad, had his stereo on and made the call for the party. Keep in mind these were only acquaintances he invited. Only one of them showed up. He called the guest to the meal, and then just danced with her for 2 hours. She left and said the party was a blast and I got the "epic party" message. I don't know what to say. I've always felt that feeding and fun were the most important components. I've done so much more in the past that wasn't even necessary, like having the area beautifully decorated. I'm at the point with parties where it's almost laughable to get that epic party message. I mean, c'mon. An epic party needs to be epic. Not dancing with practically a total stranger and throwing some Normal Autumn Salad at her. That's epic?!

[e^(pi*i)]

An epic party needs to be epic. Not dancing with practically a total stranger and throwing some Normal Autumn Salad at her. That's epic?!

Now I feel like I've missed out on some fundamental parts of living. I love dancing with strangers and eating Autumn Salad.

Fun Fact: I'm not exactly sure what Autumn Salad is, and I've never had it.

[mordana666]

Thanks for the link Metroman. And I will bear the 'legendary host' reward in mind Pam, thanks for the tip.

[ik]

I have a problem. I have started the challenge since I am home on sick leave for a couple of days and got well into week 8 with about 190k lifetime happiness and 156k perfect points, but the game got buggy . I had already lost the ability to use bait for fishing sometime in week 6 (I think). The action just cancels out every time I try, but I decided to go on anyway. But now my ponds and oceans no longer allow me to click, so there is no way I can fish . I still miss 13 perfect fish (plus making perfect recipes involving fish will be much more difficult if I have to rely on supermarket fish), so unless I get this fixed there is not really any point to continue . Does anyone have any ideas how I could fix this bug? It has happened in a vanilla game, I do not care to play with downloads (had enough of that back in the sims 1 days ).

[Metropolis Man]

Sounds like a similar issue that happened to Schipperke. ik, try resetting your Sim. Don't know if that's the solution or not. Check the Tech section to find out how to do it. Hope you feel better soon.

[Pam]

I've seen this same sentiment many times now.  And while I understand the desire to "construct" your own perfect party and meet the challenge with your own methods, I fail to understand why the simple solution of purchasing the lifetime happiness reward of Legendary Host seems to be so unappealing.  I mean, like Morgana here, if it's such a drudge to accomplish, why not take the easy way out?

Hey, far be it for me to discourage someone from taking a worthless reward like Legendary Host instead of building their skill and getting more satisfaction in conquering a weak part of their game. Oops. Did I say to much?  

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EDIT: Okay, to be fair I got to thinking: maybe my ease in throwing epic parties in the past had to do with my Sim inviting over only friends because that's what I've tended to do. So, I just did a test with my upcoming nectar-challenge test character in Riverview. He didn't even know anyone, so it's going to be pretty hard to throw a party when no one is known. So, he went to the library, shook hands with 2 different people, and went home. The next day around 11am he made some fresh Autumn Salad, had his stereo on and made the call for the party. Keep in mind these were only acquaintances he invited. Only one of them showed up. He called the guest to the meal, and then just danced with her for 2 hours. She left and said the party was a blast and I got the "epic party" message. I don't know what to say. I've always felt that feeding and fun were the most important components. I've done so much more in the past that wasn't even necessary, like having the area beautifully decorated. I'm at the point with parties where it's almost laughable to get that epic party message. I mean, c'mon. An epic party needs to be epic. Not dancing with practically a total stranger and throwing some Normal Autumn Salad at her. That's epic?!

That's not really a fair comparison to just invite two people and end up having an epic party.  When I invite the max number of people, sometimes less, I never get the epic party message.  Music, birthday cake, dancing, etc. just don't cut it.  And so, for people who don't particularly need to conquer the party beast, throwing a party is a major headache.  I just want people to know that the Legendary Host reward is a viable option. 

[Metropolis Man]

That's not really a fair comparison to just invite two people and end up having an epic party.  When I invite the max number of people, sometimes less, I never get the epic party message.  Music, birthday cake, dancing, etc. just don't cut it.  And so, for people who don't particularly need to conquer the party beast, throwing a party is a major headache.  I just want people to know that the Legendary Host reward is a viable option. 

I hear ya'. I did some further testing for the nectar tourney anyway and parties will not be involved where you're serving sims nectar. It's just too much of a unknown and would cause major frustration. It was causing me frustration and that's the point when I knew it wouldn't work.

[kat]

Metro, sorry to disappoint but I think I am going to have to pull out of this challenge, there is far more to WA than I realised and I am still finding my feet with it! Look forward to the nectar making challenge though as I need to improve my skill/knowledge level there. I have made far too many 'terrible' bottles!

[Metropolis Man]

I understand, kat. One tip I'll give you is to try and run a test character for a few days to get your bearings before diving into any challenge. I do this all the time. And it's not cheating. You're simply getting familiar with how you want to approach a strategy and then you're set for your "one shot" when you do create the real character(s). Let me know if I can throw you back on the leaderboard.

[ik]

Sounds like a similar issue that happened to Schipperke. ik, try resetting your Sim. Don't know if that's the solution or not. Check the Tech section to find out how to do it. Hope you feel better soon.

thank you for your reply. unfortunately, resetting the sim did not help any . she still can not click on any pond. this means she will miss out on approximately 80k points from missing fish and not achieving her lifetime wish . i guess that means i am out of the running for this challenge.