Carl's Sims 4 Gameplay Overhaul Mod - Public Version  

Formerly known as Carl's Difficulty Mod, the heavily updated Gameplay Overhaul mod evolved to the point it needed a name change. It seeks to alter how things work on a fundamental level with many systems and add depth where there was none. It also improves various features to make them more enticing.

New Update and Discord

Patrons $5 and up can now access my Discord and directly influence the mod, get early previews, and participate in polls etc. to help change the direction of development.

EVERYTHING Carl's Gameplay Overhaul changes:

In the Patron-only ($5+) Version:

The two versions are equal at the moment, while I work on Retail Reloaded and other upcoming features. You can get Gameplay Overhaul Lite with the $5 tier that will offer extra compatibility with other mods. It includes everything but difficulty features in order to be more compatible with other mods.

You can download the patron-only version here 

Here is What's in The Public Version of Gameplay Overhaul (Updated Mar 2, 2022)

The free version can be downloaded at the bottom of this post. This is the entire mod, while I work on Retail Reloaded for Early Access.

Quick Fixes in V1.481:

• Waiters will be a bit less obsessive about the waiter station
• Found a bug that could cause significant lag
• Fixed a bug when the game will not spawn hosts. I force them to spawn, and they will go directly to the host station.
• Overall stability improvements, thanks to testers on our Discord!

About Dine Out Reloaded V2

Several aspects of waiters have been redesigned in this new version. If you would like to learn about my thought process and how I went about fixing them, see here: https://aqxaromods.com/the-sims-4/articles/46-redesigning-sims-4-waiters-for-dine-out-reloaded-v2.html

To me, this makes Dine Out feel like an actually decent Game Pack instead of a buggy mess! In Summary:

• Waiters will no longer be assigned meals. Any waiter can pick up a meal. This improves the restaurants efficiency.
• Waiters will attempt to 'rescue' meals that were never delivered, often times saving a table from never being serviced.
• Waiters are allowed potty breaks late in a shift.
• Waiters will almost always avoid putting dish stacks on tables. They now have a brain, and will first attempt to put them in a waiter station. This helps a LOT with efficiency.
• Customer obnoxious behavior has been further toned down. Children drawing on floors should be fully eliminated. I'm sorry Alexander, do that crap at home.
• Some traits are blacklisted for waiters. Like Knox can no longer be one, and slobs cannot be waiters due to how they handle dishes.
• Waiters are further less likely to drop food on player visits, and are super happy to be serving you. Angry stomp waiters should not be a thing very often.
• Sometimes employees wouldn't spawn. This is a base game bug that my mod kind of made worse. It was due to hosts. If a host can't be found, someone will replace them.
• New options are available on the mailbox. Relationship difficulty is now a thing, and will control how fast Sims make friends.
• Tooltips are available on mailbox items, briefly explaining what the setting does. Even the obvious ones.
• There is a new cheat: Carl.Fixfriends - if you type this, it will remove all friends under 15 relationship who are not family or not in a club. If you use a number like Carl.FixFriends 5, it would only prune those under 5. The relationships are fully removed.
• Along with the above, you can turn on AutoClean Friends on the mailbox (default: off). This will prune Sims with exactly 0 friendship and romance each day as a means of keeping the relationship panel tidy.
• If menu items didn't appear for you, I'm hoping this will actually FIX THAT.

Quick Update - New Cheats: There are now a Carl.FixInventory and Carl.SellInventory cheat available with the mod. These are used in live mode, even if they are used to help manage the household inventory. Carl.FixInventory will transfer all obects that can be in a Sim's inventory to the currently active Sim. Carl.SellInventory will sell everything from the household inventory, no matter what. Use this one with care. I expect the first to be most useful to players.

Quick Fix: Wild Foxes will once again appear as a lot challenge. Sorry about that!

v1.47 - burglars Improved, Part 2:

• Burglars should no longer go looking for objects on the third floor.
• Sims awake when the burglar enters, giving you a better chance of reacting.
• Large dogs have a 35% chance of attacking and thwarting a burglar for you. More is planned in this area.
• Small dogs can sometimes attack burglars, but not nearly as often. They can still stress the burglar out and make them give up.
• Burglar Alarms - You will find the Stop! Thief Burglar Alarm Model X in build mode for $1500. This will help to summon...
• Detectives - For now these crime fighters will always thwart burglars, given your amazing burglar alarm you paid a ton of money for. However, in the future, a new type of burglar awaits that may be much more slippery!
• If you don't own Get to Work the Burglar Alarm offers the possibility of scaring them off.
• Bugfixes and improvements to burglars and their uniform in particular. It was not always sticking around. It should be fixed now.

v1.46 - Burglars Improved, Part 1:

• First off, burglars can no longer swipe through walls.
• Burglars can now be stopped in over 20 different ways, from sorcery to mermaid powers and vampire abilities. Most afflicting buffs that are negative will work.
• There is a new cheat. Carl.Burglar - type it past 10PM when Sims are asleep to insta-spawn a burglar.
• A Good Neighborhood Lot Trait has been added, which will cut down burglar appearances drastically.
• A Bad Neighborhood Lot Challenge has also been added, and will double the frequency with which you're invaded.

I'll begin work on an alarm system soon for Burglars and come up with other little ways to optimize their behavior and means of combatting them.

V1.45 - Burglars Feature!:

This release features a new Burglar situation that can occur at night from 10PM to 4AM while Sims are sleeping. The Burglar is very efficient and will go for several objects, assuming they don't get something really valuable. You have the option to click them and "Fight for Stuff" to try to get your belongings back. Should you lose, you might take a hefty penalty! The Burglar's outfit was created by Ravasheen (https://ravasheen.com/)

This is phase 1 of my burglars. Next, we ill have an alarm and I will tune it based on your feedback. I also plan to make other ways to make the Burglar go away, and also create a lot challenge called 'Bad Neighborhood' that will make Burglars appear more often. There will also be a lot trait that makes burglars very uncommon.

Other improvements in this patch:

• Gravestones - Head to a cemetery (any lot with tombs) and you'll find a new 'Inter at Cemetery' button on the tomb in your inventory. This will conveniently transfer the Sim to one of the slots in the pre-made graveyard. You can find one searching for #GameplayOverhaul on the gallery or use those made by other players that have blank tombstones.
• Tips for Guitar and Other Instruments are greatly improved. Can be from 10 to 90 at level 10.
• Less Autonomous Chatting - Sims are less likely to cluster up in groups talking away.
• No View Art - this interaction causes immersion issues in a lot of situations. I've taken the ability away form the AI, unless they are at a museum or art gallery.
• Children Make Messes less often and no longer need 90 responsibility to stop. They'll stop this at 35, instead.
• Celebs perform "Hype" less often.
• A CRITICAL bug fix for the new fishing update that prevented some lots from loading.

V1.44 - Fishing Reloaded:

Fishing in the Sims 4 has taken serious hits by EA changes over the years. It became unprofitable and even more random than it was. I've taken the bait and tackled the problem, bringing more sensibility to the skill and made it profitable once more:

• All Fish require some type of bait -  if a fish had no bait, I've given it a logical choice such as little fish liking plants, big fish liking medium fish etc. Little fish won't enjoy those larger than them. All other fish bait preferences remain unchanged.
• Bait is much more powerful, taking randomness out of fishing.
• Bait is now listed for all catches in the top-right notification panel. If listed, it means that bait had a very strong effect and the fish likes it.
• If a fish hates a bait, it's unlikely to be caught
• Rares require bait to catch but are worth much more.
• Both Uncommon and Rare Fish had their price to weight value brought back to what they were before EA nuked them.
• Fish remain fresh much longer! 3x as long, actually. To give Sims on long fishing trips the opportunity to get to a fridge.
• The notebook for fishing is garbage. Don't look at it, I couldn't un-screw this horrible decision they made to list baits regardless of their impact.

V1.43 New Option - Disable Relationship Caps!

People requested it, and I want to provide you with options. You will now find an option on the mailbox that will instantly disable the daily relationship gains for both friendship and romance in one go. DELETE YOUR DIFFICULTY SETTINGS.INI FILE to update!

V1.422 Less Annoying Conversations & Quick Fix Jan 3, 2021:

I just fixed a big related to some foods that have decorations not being edible. Additionally, I changed the way NPCs can converse with others. They must be MUCH closer to initiate a conversation and can no longer do so across the neighborhood, making your Sim sit there and wait for ages for them to arrive.

V1.421

Quick Fixes: Fixed an issue where a lastexception might come up entering build mode.

V1.42 - Dine Out RELOADED (January 1, 2022)

This update improves Dine Out but does not explicitly require you to have Dine Out. Its changes will take effect if the pack is installed.

• Chef Bug Fixed
• More Sitting!
• Faster Cooking
• Paparazzi NOT Allowed
• No Singing Autonomously
• No Viewing Paintings
• No Celebrity Hype
• Kids Cannot Make Messes
• More Customers
• Less Dropped Food

Quick Update - New Cheats: There are now a Carl.FixInventory and Carl.SellInventory cheat available with the mod. These are used in live mode, even if they are used to help manage the household inventory. Carl.FixInventory will transfer all obects that can be in a Sim's inventory to the currently active Sim. Carl.SellInventory will sell everything from the household inventory, no matter what. Use this one with care. I expect the first to be most useful to players.

V1.41 - LEAVE and Dating

• Dating: Sims interrupt others who are dating less often
• Dating is about how Sims FEEL not Goals
• Good Date: If both Sims are happy, you get a good date.
• Benefits: A good date will help for 3 days! The two Sims will have an easier time with romance interactions during this time.
• Good Date is a fine buff that will not impact your Sims' emotions.
• LEAVE Function: Sims can be told to LEAVE immediately. This does not work only on dates, but everywhere on any NPC. You might be careful with it in some scenarios where an NPC is essential!
• Goals can still be pursued on dates, but they will not be a factor on whether the date was good or not. The Mod's Satisfaction System must be enabled to use these new features.
• Bugfixes and Improvements: The Satisfaction Daily reward is now more reliably calculated based on total positive and negative moods.

Enjoy and email carl@carlsguides.com with LastException from your Documents/Electronic Arts/The Sims 4 folder if you have one related to my mod.

V1.40 - Gardening and Foods:

• All foods have calories. This evens things out. Many had 0.
• Fitness: Sims now have a basal metabolic rate, meaning they burn calories every day.
• These two combined mean Sims can lose weight through both exercise AND DIET.
• Elders who have average fitness are able to work out longer
• Elders are able to swim more now, despite EA seemingly thinking swimming is more dangerous for Elders. IRL it's a great activity for them. Easy on the joints eh.
• The New Potion of Youth will restore Sims to the youth, but also reduce their body fat if it's high, making them a fit young adult.
• Gardening: Plants need watered a bit more often, rolling back a change EA made
• Gardening: Plants can spawn Rares much more often with grafting, giving you a reason to use what was a great feature of the base game before EA changed it.
• Gardening: Sprinklers have increased range and can do about twice as many plants.
• Gardening: Robots from Discover University are much more capable helpers, not taking hours to water a large garden.

Plus all previous updates:

• Important things like Go Here and Open Fridge are always in the #1 spot.
• The Social Menu is reorganized and greatly improved.
• Emotion: Bad moods hit harder and last longer. Difficulty settings are available on the mailbox. Default hard, medium in between and easy = base game. Of course.
• Financial: Gains of money are halved, but this can be disabled on the mailbox.
• Financial: Bills are increased substantially, to force your Sims to budget. Set this to easy on the mailbox to disable it.
• Satisfaction: is tied to happiness. Having a really good or bad day can add or subtract from a Sim's current satisfaction. Satisfaction is given at 7am each day.
• Satisfaction: gains from Aspirations are reduced a bit to reflect their low difficulty.
• Relationships: It takes time to build friendships. Sims can only gain so much each day.
• Relationships: Having matching or opposite traits helps determine compatibility between Sims.
• Relationships: Friends and family are more forgiving of failure in socials than strangers.
• Relationships: Friends and family are the best way to gain social.
• Relationships: Less calls from Sims who are not friends. It's required to invite you out.
• Relationships: There is a new Hang Out party type with no goals. It eases bad moods to be with your friends and helps slow social decay.
• Relationships: Hang Out will give Sims satisfaction the following day.
• Relationships: Charisma increases the amount of friendship a Sim can gain in a single day.
• Careers: These now have a difficulty setting. Defaults to hard, but can be set to medium or easy (base game level). Hard slows gains but friends and logic can help.
• Careers: Logic helps with all careers, giving this skill a purpose.
• Careers: Meeting coworkers is more reliable.
• Careers: Having friends actually boosts your career gains, especially with Coworkers.
• Fitness is now a useful skill, and provides Sims daily satisfaction gains when they've "had a good workout" and not gotten too fatigued.
• Fitness:  Failing to level it will lead to aging a bit faster after adulthood. However...
• Charisma and Logic: are both improved. Logic helps with career gains, charisma helps with friendships much more.
• Potion of Youth: Greatly improved and now takes a Sim back to Young Adult at a higher price tag.
• Be Careful: Fires are a bit more likely to spread to objects if not extinguished quickly.
• Naps: Naps did little, so now freeze your energy decay for a couple hours after taking one. This helps you get a bit more oomph out of using them.
• Less Sniffing: Sniffing the air (Bust the Dust) and other repetitive routing events happen 75% less often.

Extra Details

Income

First, incomes are halved from all sources that count as income. Anything from selling a painting to career payouts and insurance payments after a fire. This is to slow down the early game and make you think about what you want to buy, and enforce some budgeting.

Bills 

Bills are increased substantially, primarily via property tax. I wanted it to be this way because not everyone owns Eco Lifestyle. Rich Sims will need to keep money flowing in order to maintain their lifestyles. What's rich? Well, Bob and Eliza Pancakes' home will cost them about 8k a week up to 10k if Neighborhood Action Plans are enabled. Their default is only 4k.

Relationships

Sims will suffer heavy penalties to relationship gains and losses, but only with strangers and acquaintances. Family (not just household members) and friends will not be as heavily penalized. Sims will gain less friendship and lose more on a failed social, so don't spam them without regard for conversation tone, the emotion of your sim and the emotion of the target.

A New Purpose for Friendship

Sims don't gain much social need from Sims who are not friends or family, starting at friend and up. You'll only receive half social when talking to strangers, encouraging your Sim to socialize and maintain friendships.

Career Gains

All career gains are reduced by 40%, making it harder to get promoted in a single day. This will make reaching level 10 a bit harder, and heavily penalize your Sim when they got into work in a bad mood. You'll still gain some performance, just not very much. If you skip work, you'll lose 1.5x the usual work performance. Both the gains and losses can be offset with Logic and Charisma (read on)

Emotions

Emotions ill be a bit harder to manage, in particular on other Sims. Major life events such as divorce and the death of a loved one will have their durations tripled. All negative moodlets that are weak are twice as strong in order to overcome the massive amount of happy sources in the game. If the duration is under 6 hours, it's doubled. Those with a duration longer than 6 hours are tripled. Strong moodlets like a bladder failure have a single point added to them to make it a bit more dangerous but are not doubled thanks to player feedback.

A New Purpose for Charisma and Logic

It's a very minor thing, but Charisma and Logic are rather boring so I've given them a tiny extra feature. First, Charisma will help you to regain some of the relationship penalties. Each level will add about 2% to your gains and subtract 2% from your losses. This will not bring it to base game levels, but it'll offset those penalties a good bit.

Charisma also joins Logic in the Careers system. Having Charisma will reduce the amount of work performance you lose when skipping a day. Logic increases work performance by a couple percentage points per level, giving you some reason to bother with it.

Things I Hate

I dislike how often the game does things like sniffing with the vacuuming pack, or slipping on ice/mud. I've reduced the frequency of these events to only 25%

The camera exploit has been removed from the game and you'll lose half a point of friendship for using it because I'm a jerk. It's not a big loss if you really want to take a picture, just a slap on the wrist to let you know not to do that =)

Things YOU Hate

Sims you barely knew - and pets you were neutral toward - will no longer give a 2-day +2/3 sad debuff. This is ridiculous. My mod knocks this down to about 8 hours +1 only. It should no longer last your toddler's entire childhood if the maintenance man dies and the mod will make it hit +2 only. Previously it was hitting at 6 days for +4/+6 YIIIIKES.

Overall Goal

You will need to budget, plan, and care for your Sim's emotional state much more. In order to get rid of negative moods, you'll need to actually make use of the emotion decay activities like punching bags when angry or talking to others about how you feel in order to get rid of those negative moods. Sims you talk to are much more likely to be in a bad mood, making success rates drop and making them harder to befriend. Careers and Relationships are tougher, but investing time into logic and charisma can help reduce the difficulty a little over time. 

HOW TO INSTALL

If you already have the mod, delete all files related to it - the config, log, package and ts4script files from your mods folder. Four files. Download both the ts4script and package files and place them in your Documents/Electronic Arts/The Sims 4/Mods folder. If asked, choose yes to overwrite/replace existing files if you are updating without following instructions lol.

Make sure script mods are enabled in your Game Options > Other > Script Mods Allowed. This is a fix if the mod does not appear on your mailbox.

Russian translation: by trail_of_blood