How "Naturopath Client Career Fix" works

Recommended resources: Learn By Viewing with the TDESC Builder.

What I hope you'll learn from this: How to prevent Sims from doing certain actions when a buff is active.

So, we've ALL been there. We get Enchanted by Nature, we're super excited about the new career and the clients just... they don't stop going all over the place cleaning, using your mirrors, eating your food and using your computer.

Ken here decided to give himself a Pep Talk, because clearly, that's more effective than obeying the Naturopath you went to visit! I was done. And I didn't see a mod that fixed it. So, as always, I took it into my own hand.

I took a good, hard look at Ken. The first thing I see is that he has the role "Client". We need to edit whatever makes him be a Client.

What makes a Sim be recognized as your client?

For some reason, my first instinct was to look into his Commodities. Which I checked with Lumpinou's Sim Info Manager.

And looking at this, I was a little confused. (I'm confused as to why I tried to look into Commodities). Commodities are like Hidden Needs. This didn't give me much to work with.

After a little, I remembered buffs exist. I had nothing to lose looking there.

Looking at these, two buffs catch my attention almost immediately. Buff_AutonomyMod_Naturopath_NPC_Client and Buff_Role_Appropriateness_Naturopath_Client.

I took a look at Buff_Role_Appropriateness_Naturopath_Client inside the TDESC Builder, because I just assumed that "Appropriateness" is what tells Sims what's appropriate behaviour and what isn't. And...

Would you look at that? THE SIMS AREN'T SUPPOSED TO DO ALL OF THE THINGS IN THERE WHILE THEY'RE YOUR CLIENTS! EA already did it. But it doesn't work!

I think _inappropriateness_tags doesn't work as it should, and I honestly don't know why. But we don't need to know why. We need to find a way to forbid clients from even considering doing all those things.

The nuclear option: affordance_compatibility

What's affordance_compatibility?

As I understand it, an affordance is an animation and interaction that are compatible with the buff you're editing. I learned this while working on my Outdoorsy Lifestyle Overhaul. The problem is, I couldn't remember how I made it so my Sim would stop using the Computer when he felt bored because he's been inside for too long. And I didn't take any notes that time.

But let's not panic! We have the TDESC Builder menu on the left to guide us.

So, we know we need to edit the autonomy somehow. Well, that's a bit hidden in the menu, and I wish I could tell you I remember how I found it. I probably looked into another interaction. Either way, we can find what we need inside game_effect_modifier, which is inside the General menu.

We need to open the game_effect_modifier, and in the dropdown menu, change none for autonomy_modifier.

From there, we'll get a lot of options. Don't focus on those for now (you might get overwhelmed). Go to affordance_compatibility and change disable for enabled.

This is the meat of the mod. Make sure that the enabled part is set to literal, and that in default_inclusion is set to exclude_all.

From here, we're going to focus in exclude_lists. Enable it, open the dropdown menu, and then click on the clip.

You'll see the following Window. From here, you can either click or search for everything you want to forbid your clients from doing.

We can even forbid them from WooHooing in our lot if we want to! I don't know why would any Sim WooHoo in a lot that isn't theirs, but we can do it.

And we can add as many affordanceList as we want! My mod looks like this.

A person in Itch.io asked me if I can prevent clients from going into the pool. I think this is a good chance to update my mod and do that.

Fun fact: At first, I put "pool", but there was nothing, so I tried with "swim".

How do I know what interactions are inside said list?

Right click on the buttons beneath exclude_lists, and then click on Open Reference.

Here, you'll see every interaction that's inside that affordanceList!

As you can see, I was looking into affordanceList_computer when I took that screenshot! Putting entire lists of actions you can't do is easier and quicker than adding each interaction one by one.

Anyway, I hope this was useful, and that you learned something!

If there was something you were confused about, please let me know! I'd love to hear about you.

Bye bye!