hi speedy simmers~~

i used to run this game a bunch a few years ago (even without submitting most of them) and sadly had to stop when my computer wouldn't run sims and obs at the same time xD but i wanna get back into it properly! just looking at the runs on here... they kind of seem a bit jumbled. the skills and aspirations haven't been updated to add in the newer ones, the basic rules aren't the same across all the runs, and there are some runs that have been verified that didn't follow the rules (whether we want to update the rules or just... not allow runs that don't follow them xD)

i've not been a mod on here before, so i don't know what's possible. but is there a way to have the skills in their own area rather than being in the misc column with other random runs? i don't know if you can have multiple level run types, or if you can create a separate drop down on the full game section, but it might be nice to reorganise the runs we have atm if we can for new runners!

i know we have a bunch of runs with nothing verified for them, so maybe it's not smart to add more runs xD (but also, there's only so many times you wanna speedrun maxing x skill). but maybe it's be fun to add in some new runs that aren't based on skills/aspirations. there was another post about adding in the 100 baby challenge or other runs based on community challenges. and while the 100 baby would take forever (trust me, i did it over multiple days and it took 36.5 hours), maybe we could do a 10 baby version? there are more in game achievements that could be fun runs, like "have a sim die while running a store", "bring the hermit back to society", "cause 10 npc deaths on your home lot", "play a household for ten generations or more", "get in and out of every emotion in 24 hours" or "have a sim die at their own wedding". they don't really add achievements in anymore, but they'd be fun and not super grindy. scenarios were suggested before too, and while some of them have been time limited, there are a bunch that are always in the game now. maybe we could do a 5 or 10 scenario run? or just other fun ones, like have an entire household of 8 sims die in different ways.

i also have a question about some of the skill runs. is there a reason why the vampire lore or parenting skill runs "without expansions" says that it's "not a valid category!"? is there a reason why for skills/aspirations that require packs, that the "without" one isn't just the base requirements? so bg + whatever 1 dlc it needs, rather than adding everything into the "with expansions" category... i'm sure we all know how expensive it is to buy a bunch of sims packs, so it seems kind of mean to say that someone with the bare minimum has to compete with someone who has every pack and therefore more stuff (like tiny homes to give the skill boost). expansion runs are a free-for-all which is fine, but it makes more sense to me to say that the "without expansions" runs are just whatever the base reqs are for that run (also this is just in the rules for like, strangerville... so there's inconsistency across all the rules at this point).

i also noticed that people had said they had issues with mods not getting back to them about why their runs weren't verified so they couldn't make changes or upload a good run, or that people were verifying themselves (i'm guessing because there aren't enough active mods since there are several who've not been active for years), but maybe we could get another mod or 2 to help. i've been out of the game for a bit, but i'd be more than happy to help out!

sorry this is one big ramble, but i love speedrunning sims 4 and i'd love to get more people back into it! (also i just want to spring clean so badly)

Hi Jiji!

I also noticed that the runs here are pretty jumbled organizationally.

There's a lot of short, load-heavy runs that ought to be retimed to game time for fairness' sake, too. For example, Zavada's 2nd place time in lifetime aspiration is actually faster than the (more recent) 1st place by an entire 2 seconds if you take out load times (which is a lot in a category that's performed in less than 30 seconds in real time).

I'd love to help spruce up the place and rearrange the categories! I wouldn't mind handling retimings, either, and have done a bit of the work privately already.

I think it'd be tolerable to have the rest of the skills (about half the skills in the game are missing, really) if they were all sequestered to their own section, just like aspirations ideally should be as well. (There's a category for it but it's empty at the moment.)

I'd really love more challenges that are based on achievements or that reflect ways people play the game as well. I think the existing achievement(ish) categories result in some of the most interesting and diverse routing and exploits (eg mansion baron in half a minute). The ghost woohoo category is fun because it's unique-- you can't just shove ghosts in a woohoo club to skip the relationship.

It forces out different parts of the game out in general. I wasn't even aware of the hermit's existence until your post, for example. (Though with the 10 babies one I think there maybe should be a restriction on how you acquire the babies, otherwise it just turns into adoption menuing simulator.)

I think all of your listed categories could be really fun if you or anyone else would be interested in starting the categories off! I feel like the best way to avoid having tons of empty achievement categories is just to have people submit their runs through the forums, but that might not encourage interest to the same extent.

I also agree that without expansions should be changed to base game + mandatory DLC. At least half the skills in the game are DLC based, and they're sometimes more complex than the BG skills. BG + 1 DLC allows more interesting routing based on stuff that isn't just clubs, tiny house, and incense over and over.

I would love to be a mod so let me know if I can help! I've been doing runs lately and have the spring cleaning bug looking around too ><

Hi hi!

I've had a bunch of irl things come up the past few months, so I've not been as free to help out here D: Hopefully things are easing up a bit more now so I'm going to be continuing the spring cleaning!

I was hoping we'd be able to add the skills to the levels as a separate category, but I think a good way round is to have an aspiration and skills category on the main menu, then the individual ones when you click in (I wish this website would let us add multiple level categories but we're limited). I think I've figured out how to do it, and I'm hoping to start moving the runs over to the new categories today!

100% I'd love to add more silly challenges or ones based on larger community challenges we've found fun ways to run. I'd thought that maybe some of the scenarios would be fun runs too. Some are just grindy for skills/career progression but some are more involved. I love the strangerville aspiration run because there's more of a challenge to it. Perhaps if we had a new run suggestion post here, then we can discuss potential new runs together! There's always the option of adding extra variables to runs, so in the 10 baby run for example, we could have an adoption one and a... normal way I suppose xD As much as I enjoy runs that have skill building, I think runs that involve more fun routing to figure out are more enjoyable to play.

I've gone through most of the rules now, so they should be adjusted to show that expansions are everything and w/o has more detail to explain it. I've not renamed with/without expansions, but hopefully the rule clarifications should help everyone. Also a bunch of the rules just didn't make sense or were repeated so hopefully it's easier to understand them a bit now!

hi ! i agree with you two regarding the categories, especially scenarios. I feel like some of them are such a good fit for running; I was wishing they were categories months ago haha. Definitely feel that some popular community challenges would do way better here than Max ___ Skill, no hate to them.

If there's a new run suggestion post, I'm looking forward to contributing :)

excellent! i'll get making a new forum post for a suggestions tabs! and get the skills/aspirations/scenarios sorted too :)

(also if anyone is wondering where the get married/have a baby and the cps runs have gone, i was trying to add further options and it's messed them up, so i've archived them temporarily while the site admin helps!)