Augmented/Easier/Harder Skill Challenges Mod

News Updates

11/04 - Late in the game on this one, but hey, better late than never eh? Into The Future expansion update, patch 1.63. Couldn't find anything added to older skills, so shouldn't be any problems.

6/28 - Got Island Paradise a few and, after a LOT of trouble with my installation, finally got around to testing it. Seems my old mods all work without any trouble with the new 1.55 patch/expansion. Just needed to add an update to include the new scuba diving skill. Oh, and someone asked for a 'all challenges be one' mod, so that's here too.



Overview

Ever wanted the sims' skill challenges made a little easier to accomplish? Or are they already too easy so you want them harder? Or how about just changing up all the skills altogether? Well this mod aims to do just those things!



What this is

This is three flavors of mods that focuses on the sims' skills and/or skill challenges. Each flavor is a rar file containing multiple packages, one for each skill, so you can pick and chose which ones you want to add.

The first flavor is the Augmented mod where I went in and editted the data for each non-hidden skill (except the gambling from the Lucky Palms world) to both make the challenges easier and the skills 'better' (faster to do, more rewarding, etc). Detailed data for this is further below somewhere (it's quite a lot).

The second flavor is simply making the challenges for each skill easier by cutting the required number to fulfill each challenge by half (or somewhere around there if unable to be half) but no other changes to the skills. That is to say, for instance, if you needed 100 jokes told to be a comedian for the charisma skill challenge, now it's 50.

The third flavor is the opposite of the above, instead doubling each required number to fulfill each challenge to make it harder, but no other changes. In most cases anyway, a few challenges I left alone so they wouldn't be impossible for those with just the base game (like the recipes learned for cooking). That is to say, for instance, if you needed 100 jokes told to be a comedian for the charisma skill challenge, now it's 200.

A new fourth flavor is added as per request. This one, similar to the second flavor, reduces every challenge metric to one. No other changes were made.

Why I did this

I originally just wanted a challenges mod that covered alchemy as I was using RainbowBrite's mods. It kinda snowballed from there when I discovered that each xml file included a lot more data than just challenges (yeah, I just couldn't leave well enough alone...).



Requirements

The mod was made with the 1.50 patch, but it SHOULD work with most patch levels, except for writing and photography as they had elements recently added with university.

Also this mod was made on a sims game with all the expansions and stuff packs installed, but you'll only need the base game + whichever expansions added the skills you wish to use the mod for. For instance, you won't need late night if you have no plans on using the mixology part of this mod. Wanted to make sure even those with JUST the base game could use this too.

I'll jot down here which expansions has which skills (rather than sending you off to http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/Skill to see for yourself; aren't I nice?).

Base game: Athletic, Charisma, Cooking, Fishing, Gardening, Guitar, Handiness, Logic, Painting, Writing.
World Adventures: Martial Arts, Nectar Making, Photography.
Ambitions: Inventing, Sculpting.
Late Night: Bass/Drums/Piano, Mixology (merges all the instruments into one here).
Pets: Riding.
Supernatural: Alchemy (also adds to writing here).
University Life: Science, Social Networking, Street Art (also adds to photography and writing here).



Other notes

As I mentioned, RainbowBrite's mods were a huge influence on this, as well as SolaceinSound's writing mod. Thanks to them.

I should also point out that the band instruments (guitar, drums, bass, piano) are all a single xml file, hence why there's a single skill titled 'musical instruments' for them instead of each in their own file.

I decided to break up each flavor into seperate skill mods, so the augmented mod will have a cooking package, charisma package, athletic package, etc inside it. This is so if you want keep say your martial arts skills completely alone but want to change your sculpting skill, you can do so. Or you can just load the whole flavor into your game at once. Or you can even have the harder fishing skill challenges alongside the easier gardening skill challenges. Just don't mix flavors of the same skill obviously.

The files that were used were each of the skills' XML files, so any mod editting those alongside these will conflict (such as using SolaceinSound's writing mod with my writing skill augmenting mod).



Augment Skill Mod details

Click the button to uncover the details of what exactly I did to each skill set for my mod. Also listed the options I didn't change as well as why I left it alone (in most cases)



















































Concluding
Thanks to RainbowBrite, SolaceinSound, Armiel (submitted several horribly mangled attempts at this posting thing before I found his post to properly format this blasted thing!), ModtheSims, Twallen, my dog Bandit, Peter Jones, Will Wright, Majin Buu, my fiancee's cats, and doughnuts. Oh, and YOU for reading through all this. Hope you found something here of interest!