(SPOILER) January 2025 will start off on the right foot!

Today, I want to share a little bit of what you can expect for January 2025! Which, by the way, is closer than it seems! I hope you're ready!!

Imagine a world where your Sims no longer take just a few hours to increase their skill levels, but many days, perhaps even weeks, or an entire lifetime!

Although this mod may seem a bit intimidating from this initial description, that's not the case. In reality, it's the complete opposite. Without this mod, a regular Sim with no art-related traits, for example, could gain 2 (YES, 2) skill points in guitar in 8 hours. An artistic Sim might gain 2 points and be slightly ahead in the race. And a Sim with both artistic and virtuoso traits might have 2 points in guitar and be close to reaching 3 points.

What this mod does is tune the skills and personality traits to create a more realistic, organic, challenging, and meaningful dynamic.

This is the result after 8 hours of practice: None of the Sims reached 1 skill point, however, each of them is at different levels of skill progression. Following the same order of traits: No art trait, artistic, artistic + virtuoso.

Credits for the idea of this mod go to Alex Shemesh, so a big thank you to Alex for this amazing suggestion! Alex is right! Playing The Sims becomes a boring and tedious experience if all Sims can reach level 10 in any skill without putting in any effort or, more importantly, having a natural talent for it.

My first step here was to slow down the speed at which all skills increase. I made the process ALMOST painfully slow to reflect that acquiring skills sometimes requires a lot of effort, dedication, and consistency.

On the other hand, I dynamically adjusted each of the personality traits related to skills in the game to give them a 150% boost. This way, we make skill progression a long-term process, BUT we also boost Sims who have a "natural talent" for it.

Note: Although a 150% boost may seem like a lot, remember that skill progression is now CONSIDERABLY slower. So, this 150% doesn't even provide the current combined skill gain rate of the Artistic + Virtuoso traits. In other words, your Sim may have been born with talent, but they won't gain 1 skill point in guitar in a 8 hour of playing the instrument.

We have several goals with this mod: 

• Make the behavior, actions, and reactions of Sims even more unique and singular, as their idle moments now more frequently reflect their personalities.

• Reduce the chance of having a neighborhood where everyone is an expert in everything, making the rise of great painters, mechanics, fishermen, politicians, etc., a unique accomplishment in the community that can reflect their importance.

• Create more marked "class" dynamics, meaning we give more significance to establishing relationships, as Alex suggested.

• Make the game more challenging and benefit Simmers who think more strategically by combining character traits to boost performance in careers and skills.

In other words, we’re building a mod that makes the game more rewarding for those of us who love challenges and enjoy playing without constantly pressing speed 3. It's a mod for long-term gameplay that will offer unique benefits and make the Sims even more individualized, meaningful, and unique.

There is still work to be done, but I wanted to share this initial process with all of you. Thanks again, Alex, for this brilliant idea. Any suggestions you all have are welcome. That said, this mod will also change the relationship dynamics between Sims with opposing traits, their lifestyles, and more! After all, we are tweaking nearly all traits, and our goal is to make them more and more distinct from each other.

Tell me in the comments below what you think of this idea!