Hey YouTube! The Sims 4 is such a huge game at this point,
that there are plenty of things players might not know. I'll mostly focus on the Sims 4 base game
but I invite you to watch and share your own tips for new players in the comments. We'll get on with it right away but please
do like this if it's helpful. The first thing I'll go over is somewhat of
a secret. At specifically level 9, and I mean only level
9, of the Mixology career, your Sim can get a chance card that gives you the ability to
make a special drink called Snagglefluster. When you pay $200 for the recipe your Sim
will be able to craft the drink. It gives you the the most powerful single
skill boost in the game. While this one's kind of tedious to acquire
and needs you to stay at one level until it pops up, you don't need anything special to
make Amygdelight. This can be made with low level Mixology but
only when focused, and it is amazing for logic, programming, and rocket science while boosting
all mental skills. It's super effective! By the way, if you save just before work you
can reload over and over until you get the Snagglefluster recipe. Just be sure you're rank 9! I covered this in a niche video but, since
the developers removed ideal moods Careers, energized became the best mood. All of the positive moods get the same boost,
but while energized your Sim's energy will deplete slower. This means it has that extra oomph over the
others that makes it better. So take a brisk shower before work or do something
else to get your Sim pumped up. Here's a thing not available at launch, which
was a bit silly. This feature has a little more than meets
the eye. You can eat harvestables from your inventory
since they added it in a patch, and boy are they great. You get varying degrees of emotional boosts
from them based on quality, from +1 to 3 happy and it fills a little bit of hunger. Simply eat a normal, nice and magnificent
one to get all 3 buffs. These stacking is probably a bug, but given
the volume of actually important bugs that need fixing I'll be ticked if they fix it. While careers are great for making money they
can be highly variable. Gardening, Painting and Writing are generally
very solid money makers. You can do tons of different things to fund
your Sim's life, but these 3 are easy to pick up and will serve you well. You can even pair gardening with something
else. Without Seasons, just finding one uncommon
or rare fruit with a decent value is enough to snowball into a massive income. I've yet to test it but if you're a Seasons
owner I think flower arranging is in the top 3 best money makers in the game, when you
make high level arrangements. It only takes a little time and they regularly
come out to 3,000-4,000 Simoleons. This can be boosted by the Marketable Reward
Trait. We'll get to something more interesting about
this in a moment, but there's actually a gourmet cooking skill in Sims 4 , which is tucked
behind the regular or homestyle cooking skill. It's natural that you need to know what you're
doing to be a gourmet chef. Hitting level 5 in regular cooking will unlock
this skill for you, which has a menu of much more complex dishes that give even better
mood boosts. Something about Gourmet Cooking is, when you
make high level meals with a competent chef and the food's excellent quality, then the
Sim will get an Epic Meal buff that lasts 6 hours and makes them +3 happy. What is more, this buff is actually super
powerful. It lowers hunger decay to only 20% of the
normal rate. This buff is even better if you take stoves
and grills master from outdoor retreat. Use this to prep food for the week. You will only need this one group meal because
of the awesome buff. Eatin' gourmet leftovers here. Bonus traits are established only at first
Sim creation in Create-a-Sim and are based on the category of aspiration you choose. Pick a knowledge one to get a bonus to all
skill gains, or take a creative aspiration to get muser, a really powerful one that improves
crafting artsy things when inspired. If you take an athletic bonus trait you'll
get high metabolism that will actually keep your Sim's muscles meter from decaying below
what you set and helps to curb weight gain. Since I made my Fat Sims video, it would appear
a lot of players don't know that many foods, but not all, in The Sims 4 actually have calories. There is a fitness and fatness system. When they eat foods that contain calories,
your Sim puts on a little fat. It really doesn't take much and every Sim
who eats a variety of foods will put on weight because there isn't a metabolism in the game. Eating that whole cake by yourself will fill
the fat bar you can see when making a Sim in cas about 25%. Only cardiovascular exercise can fix it, as
lifting weights doesn't burn calories. Nobody said Sims was realistic, but... yeah,
every minute on a treadmill or jogging will take away a tiny bit of fat. Being chunky has no negative impacts on your
gameplay except maybe more graphical clipping because of them being bigger (laughs) The game's muscle system will gradually decay
your muscles, unless your Sim has high metabolism which makes the minimum the starting level. So it locks in the lowest it can go. Skill Gains are influenced a lot by emotions
and damned near everything in the game revolves around moods. It's really not worth trying to learn a skill
while your Sim's uncomfortable, but just about anything positive will do. While the developers removed ideal moods from
careers, they still matter for skills so you get a bigger boost from being in the best
type for that skill. Under the hood, there are four categories
of skill and it helps to realize these so you'll always know the ideal mood - there's
creative, social, mental, and physical. Creative are boosted by inspired, mental are
focused, physical is energized, and social is confident -- in general. I think focused is the only category that
will trip you up, but gardening and handiness are mental skills that benefit from it while
mischief is actually a social skill. That one's the odd one out, out of all the
skills, as it's actually boosted by a negative emotion: angry, but also playful or confident. In an homage to the beloved grilled cheese
sandwich, Sims can make eating these their aspiration. If you eat 3 grilled cheese in a row, a Sim
will unlock the only hidden aspiration in the game. You can then switch to it and follow the steps
to become a Melt Master. Completing this will let your Sim summon a
sandwich at will. Unfortunately it's of normal quality, so not
for food snobs. Every new player should realize you don't
need to get hung up on aspiration choice at the main menu and should more focus on the
bonus trait you want. This is because Aspirations can be changed
at any time unlike The Sims 3's Lifetime Wishes system. You can game this so much, it makes the game
trivially easy though. But yeah, you can do some programming then
switch to a cooking aspiration when you're making dinner that night. If you feel it's not too tedious. that is. It's obvious that having a pretty home helps
a lot with how you feel, and it's true as well for Sims. When the room's clean and has nice objects
in it, they'll get a little mood boost. Look to the build mode environment score. If it has one, it's boosting mood. Those listed at 1 or so aren't as useful,
but the increases are exponential. Points for individual objects are hidden under
the hood, but get enough high point items and you can get up to +3 happy while your
Sim's in that same room. You can decorate outdoors, as well. Like with Amygdelight you can do other things
only while in a certain mood. If your Sim's focused, they can make mathematical
diagrams and other paintings that give emotional auras or bonuses to everyone in the room. Being energized lets you make a workout drink
at the bar if you level fitness a bit. Other special unlocks relate to our next thing. When your Sim's in a bad mood, certain interactions
like cry into pillow or try to calm down can appear when you click on objects. Mirrors are used pretty frequently for this
when embarrassed or hysterical. These show the emotion they're connected to
by color. If your Sim does these things, you'll see
that the timer on the bad moodlet decays much faster than usual. So these do actually help your Sim move past
a bad mood, even grief. Since we've brought up gardening, let's also
correct a mistake from early in my YouTube Career. Fertilizing plants is entirely based upon
the value of the object used to fertilize. Two important break points are 20 Simoleons
and 50 Simoleons. These are the to best tiers of fertilizer. Something that costs 49 will do the same as
something that is valued at 21. At 50 you've hit the cap. Anything excessively over $50 will do nothing
more for you, so treefish are awful fertilizer now because they're just too high to waste. Use this to your advantage and sell those
fish and harvestables that are way outside those two break points. I got this one wrong with an early video because
of old code left in the game that matched up pretty well with what I was finding. Now let's talk about lot traits. These sort of feel like cheating to me but
they're missable. They were added with the City Living expansion
but free to all players. You can add lot traits without spending any
form of currency, so yeah... feels cheaty and a bit of a missed opportunity to maybe
build up a lot to make it better with value. But you can add these wonderful traits that
boost specific types of skills, or maybe make it more likely your lot will be visited by
vampires. Or maybe boost the odds that your offspring
will be a little blood sucker. While lot traits are highly effective, the
actual Sim traits system has a very small impact on the game. It may make things harder at first, but you
can overcome nearly everything. Some traits stand out a bit more than others,
with loner getting stressed around groups of Sims but having a much slower social decay. Music lovers get some nice abilities related
to listening to music, and bros always being in a good mood when with other bros. Jealous if actually a trait added later that
might be handy to your storytelling, as it has a bit more depth in terms of its handling
of relationships. New players may not think of it, but many
veterans actually take the time to set up a game world. You can establish who lives in the town with
manage worlds, and remove the built in households or add in your own Sims. Since townies tend to be ugly, you can kind
of improve the population while doing this. What's more, if you make a backup save game
with this from day 1, you can return to this town any time and move in the Sims you want
to play. The game makes you create a Sim to start a
new game, but you don't need to play them. Just move them in and go to manage worlds. There are a few means of boosting emotions
that are nearly OP. With the Spa Day Game Pack you can use bathtubs
to take a few types of bath that have really long-lasting boosts but cost only a little
money. Outdoor Retreat presents cloudgazing or stargazing,
where Sims lie outside and look up for inspiration. This lasts 6 hours. For players with the base game, I love pondering
chess moves, the shower and mirror interactions to get in a specific mood, then boost that
with a happy buff from a quick bite of produce from my Sim's inventory. I hate getting random calls sometimes in Sims
4, but it's possible to silence your Sim's phone using the little button up top. It won't make the ringing noise, but you may
still need to close it. Still this is handy if you don't like the
sudden noise and prefer never to socialize your Sim with others, in an attempt to replicate
reality. While on the phone, we can also talk about
the notebook which lets you collect information about the game. You can learn about the types of fish and
the bait they prefer and more notably, the combinations of plants that will result from
grafting by researching plants and going to the notebook. Whims are this feature that's mostly sidelined. They do exist, they just haven't been developed
much by Maxis in a long time as far as I know. They're off by default, give small amounts
of satisfaction and let you kind of pursue what you Sim wants.. when they don't want
stupid things. As a plus, you'll generally get more satisfaction
with them on this is because occasionally you'll complete them by total accident. So you'll get more if you enable them, even
if you don't bother to check what your Sim wants to do. I myself didn't really realize you can just
drop a house from the gallery at any time onto your lot. It's a really great feature for us non-builders. You can use this to try out other players'
houses, and don't forget rooms exist as well. But do realize that some have been made with
cheats and those with moveobjects that have a lot of things stacked can be poorly designed
sometimes. I'm not knocking the builders here, but there
are areas where Sims will say they can't move and you'll need to delete or move something
to allow them to path there. This is fine and easy to fix, you just need
to be aware of it in case the builder put form ahead of function. Gamers know this in general, but Sims can
attract casual players. Do you use 'o' to go to the needs panel? I for inventory ? Just about everyone uses
1-3 to control the game's speed but changing the bottom right panels with a mouse can be
tedious and a lot of time can be saved by learning the keys for these. You can also use space bar to change the current
Sim or press period and comma to rotate objects. Some of you place then rotate with the mouse,
I know you do, because I used to. I'll just link to my hotkeys in the description
because there are tons. If you play Sims longer term, you should definitely
know how to back up your save game. Simply head into your computer's documents
folder, and go into Electronic Arts then The Sims 4. Now select the saves folder and right click
or hit control + c to copy. now to go a different hard drive - the important
part, paste it. If you don't' have another drive, you can
use something like google drive to upload your zipped save file to and have it in another
location that . A copy on the same drive is generally useless because that's exactly what
you're trying to avoid, the drive failing and you lose everything. But it can come in handy when it comes to
save file corruption or something like that. With woodworking, your Sim can actually make
furniture! It's not immediately obvious but you can purchase
the woodworking table for $750 or so, off the top of my head, and it'll allow your Sim
to make some decorative objects as well as bathtubs, tables, wall shelves, dining objects
and some other furniture. This is part of the handiness skill, so you'll
also get to upgrade things. Something not immediately obvious is that
when you have the needs panel open and a Sim's low, you can actually click these little buttons
by the meters. Doing this will make your Sim search for a
nearby way to solve that motive. The only one I find annoying is that when
you click on energy, they'll often just take a nap which isn't great. It can save you a little time moving the camera
around and clicking things, but they aren't always going to choose the best activity. Still, it's a lifesaver in multi-Sim households. If things are hectic before work, worry not. Bladder and hunger in particular are optional
if your Sim's in a hurry. Sims can actually take care of those on company
time. It's better to avoid this situation, but if
they get in the red they will fix it themselves and not have a bladder failure. Speaking of work, while your Sim is there
you can click the little box up top left of their portrait to access a menu that lets
you set work tone. This will give them bonuses in certain areas,
like lower work performance but regenerating social or leveling a skill. I'd say the most common is to use work hard,
which lowers fun a great deal but will increase work performance. It's good to pause just as the Sim goes to
work as you can miss an hour or two of bonuses if the game's on super speed. Don't bother with work hard when your meter's
almost full. When it's full, it's full, and there's no
point in any further hard work. You can go back to work hard when you've got
the promotion. Multitasking was touted as a new feature in
Sims 4, and while it can be OK at times, it's not always a good idea. If you need to get something done, talking
to other Sims will make it take longer. Sims can listen to music while painting or
something stressful like programming to keep their fun need high. That's useful, and it's fairly effective to
talk to Sims while enjoying a movie or something like that. It makes it take longer to eat or finish crafting
something though. It's a bit random, but let's talk about a
Sims gender preference, fruitcake and handedness - things they're born with. I think I just invented a brand new sentence
(laughs). You should know that all Sims are attracted
to all other Sims in The Sims 4, there are no preferences - everybody's potentially attracted
to everybody. You have a lot of control over gender, how
Sims prefer to dress, how they use the toilet, and whether they can be impregnated or not
in Create-a-Sim. Two other things are determined when a Sim
is created. They can be right or left-handed, and they
may or may not like Fruitcake. When the welcome wagon comes, give the fruitcake
a try and see if your Sim likes it. Liking fruitcake can be a big bonus for Sims! It never spoils, so it's a great food to carry
around. You'll also get a happy boost when you eat
it along with any other food bonuses that come based on the quality of the fruitcake. Even better there is a gourmet fruitcake you
can make that has even better bonuses. So give your fruitcake lover the best! Your Sims can save up to buy powerful reward
traits, but I feel it's worth noting that the emotion potions and a lot of those single
use rewards are a rip off. The game gives you other ways to do a lot
of those things, especially the boosts and they don't last long enough for the price. Find other ways to boost emotion instead. Your Sim can prevent kitchen fires by not
cooking hot foods while at low level cooking. Nobody ever set their house on fire making
a freaking salad?! Cooking hot meals is the main culprit of oven
fires in Sims 4. Learning up to level 3 cooking, you'll see
the rate drop a lot and more frequently get higher quality foods that give your Sims a
little mood boost. Handiness, like Cooking, is one of the only
skills just about every household should have. By purchasing parts on the computer, you can
upgrade plumbing once you've gained a few skill levels. Continue with it, and this will extend to
kitchen appliances and electronics. Things can be made unbreakable or to be more
effective. One of my favorites is the bidet, and gives
a happy boost for a clean butt every time you have a sit-down toilet session. Another makes your showers faster! Depending on the Expansion and Stuff Packs
you have installed, you may have access to some neat objects I covered in another video. Things like the celestial crystal crown, bee
boxes and patchy are in buy mode but not tied to any skills and thus fairly easy to overlook. I really wish I could say the same for the
talking toilet from city living but it has an annoying tendency to make Sims go gawk
at it despite its nice features. Well, that's actually what they're going to
gawk at, but it's annoying. Children can get great bonuses if they complete
childhood aspirations. They all give a permanent life-long skill
boost in one of the four categories we discussed . If you have Seasons, you can take this further
by putting your child or teen in scouts which has a bonus to all skill gains. The strategy I'd do is to work on scouts only
a little in childhood but go for it big time in the teen years since it can be harder to
do all the childhood aspirations. Focus on what is most important to you. OK so... That was a metric crap ton of loading screens
to endure setting up these shots but I had fun working on my editing skills in this one. I saw some 'tips' pages on the web that just
basically listed gameplay features without teaching anything so I decided to one up them. Let me know if I pulled it off and share or
like it if you thought it was good! It really helps. Thanks for your support as always, everyone
and have a great day. I guess I just want you all to be happy, because
I say that every time.
