You need Toddler Potty Fixes from Simbology. It may go a bit further than you would ideally like, since the potty only has to be emptied when it's full, rather than after every use, and this can lead to the ridiculous situation of the assisting Sim emptying it while the toddler is actually 'going' (eww!!!). But you can, of course, avoid this by directing someone to empty it after each use.
http://www.simbology.com/smf/index.php?topic=10.0

The fact that it's really hard to interrupt another Sim if they're busy. For example, trying to dismiss the butler while he's trimming hedges, trying to accept deliveries while the driver is wandering idly, trying to do ANYTHING with the cow mascot, or trying to talk to a Sim that's walking away. Ugh, these situations drive me up the wall. But if the option Call Over is available, it helps if they're stuck watching TV, swimming, etc. and you want to talk.

I remember how my sim was trying to greet visitor who was cycling between front door and back door and stopped to wait only for few seconds. Imagine two sims walking around the house and first one every 2-3 minutes ringing a door bell.

I wish playing pool built a skill--preferably the logic skill. (Yes, I'm posting this half-hoping that someone knows of a mod for this. I did look but didn't find anything.)

It actually builds up a hidden pool skill. If your sim is training enough at home, he can very soon go to community lot with pool table and hustle and win anyone except Unsavory Charlatan. I think UC cheats.

Also teens with a high enough pool skill can get a $1000 scholarship.

That is useful information! Is there also a hidden poker skill that makes them more likely to win more money?

There is no poker, sorry, but a bunch of others: https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/Secret_skill

I hate it when a sim couple tries to avoid crowds to be romantic with each other, but when the romance begins one person or a group of sims come over to watch and try to talk to them and impose on their space. There really should be a mod for that like "walk away from private moments mod" or something. It happens every time my sims are out at a restaurant or club or any community lot for that matter and they try to get away from the crowds only to have people come over and spoil the mood.

I am used to pause after every interaction on a date and just ignore a crowd. If you really want to be romantic alone, try find community lot with several hot tubs and occupy one of them. Other sims will not join when there is cuddling couple in it.

I also got annoyed with that and found some smart doors here that when installed allow sections of a community lot to be closed off and made private for romantic couples wanting a private moment together.I installed these hacked doors and will also use them to close off common area kitchens equipped with stoves in apartments which couldn't be locked off any other way.

Family Sims doing the "Kids, I'm home!" thing and the kids dropping EVERYTHING to run and hug them. I thought I had a mod to prevent that, but I guess not. I appreciate the thought, but not so much the execution. Also, speaking of kids, getting their fun to rise quickly is very difficult without a TV.

The dolls house is useful for getting fun up quickly.

Try dancing! I had some kids without a TV and dancing did it for them, just popped on a music station and went wild (probably doesn't work on Shy sims). Also Jumping on beds gave them fast funs.

If it's more than one kid, Red Hands.
If you have a pool, the waterslide works great. I think they need to slide three times to fill a deep red bar after school.

Rarely use TV, a lot of my families don't even have one. TV is slow compared to red hands and pool slides. Another quick and fun way is a cheap $12 flamingo, get them to kick it.

A pet peeve of mine is the front door. No, you don't need to go ring the doorbell i have on the backdoor of my garage for some reason...
Another one? My trashcan gets knocked over every 5 seconds when someone dosent like me. The maid had a negative relationship with the toddler, and decided knocking over our trashcan was a great idea. (i dont know why. Maybe she got tired of her playing in the toilet?)

Try Pescado's frontdoorhack.
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/ffs/al/hacks/



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TVs raise Fun based on personality and/or age group. Children should watch Kidztube. Teens should watch the music station (SimStationDance?). Grouchy sims should watch spooky movies. There are more personality ones, but I forget the rest. One great thing about raising Fun via TV is that all sims watching will also raise Social by chatting with each other while they watch.

In my game, TV raises Fun really well when a videogame console is added to it.

If you want them to kick something instead, try this - they won't have to waste time standing it back up.
https://www.modthesims.info/showthr...954#post5650954

I never knew TV shows have different effects based on personality! I did know how ages have different TV preferences (children-kidztube, teens-dance channel, young adults-sports channel, adults-SBN, elders-yummy channel), but not about the movies!

I have Don't mess with my trash in my game for a very long time and my sims can sleep in peace.

Or (for trashcans only) you could go with a golden oldie Simlogical's NoKickTrash

One annoying thing is when I use a bin house that was from EA I always have to double check it before moving anybody in because it's likely missing a sim's crossing sign and also the burglar alarm and a fire alarm and has things it shouldn't like a stove and tons of other junk that adds to the cost.My expert cooks would already have their own furniture if moving in from an aparment and that would apply if they moved up from a starter home.I don't like newbies having access to a stove right away after losing one family to a stove fire after one unskilled cook tried using the stove when I was new to the game and didn't know that could happen.

Dismissing service sims is a pet peeve of mine too. Never understood why Maxis didn't add an option to cancel the maid, gardener, and butler over the phone. No, they had to wait until TS3 to do that. For grocery deliveries, though, I use Squinge's Drop Groceries, which "makes the delivery person drop the groceries at the front door instead of standing there waiting to be greeted". I think there's one for chinese food & pizza, too, but I can't find it.

ETA: TadOlson, you can create your own copies of the houses to use. Put them all down, edit them, add/delete whatever, then make a copy--the cleanest way is probably to create a package file and check it with the sims 2 Clean Installer before reinstalling it, but you can also just add it back to the lots and houses bin. And then you can delete the old Maxis lots you don't like/need anymore.

I've often done that to fix houses I wanted to make use of because EA often dosen't do the best job of designing homes.I've often found annoyainces like stoves being present without a fire alarm or sprinker being there to stop a fire from killing sims and there's often no back door which can cause traffic jams trying to exit the home and result in somebody missing work or school.I've even found their apartment designs so bad that I just scratch built my own apartment lots and mine are way better designed and most are made affordable and many are even subsidized because most sims moving into apartments are doing so because they can't afford home ownership and would go bankrupt living in owned housing.

Oh yeah, Maxis definitely has some bad apartments--dorms, too. I've renovated a bunch to give sims more breathing room and better amenities. That's how I've started building apartments, actually, by tinkering with the Maxis ones. Now I've got a bunch that fit my own tastes, like having the top floors--3 & up--be dummy floors, and keeping all the livable spaces on the first two floors, and leaving room for things like tv lounges, laundry rooms, and computer labs. I remember playing the DeBateaus in their apartment, way back when. I spent ages making it really nice and then it was a pain in the butt to play because they were so high up and the elevators were so slow--plus I think only one sim at time can use them?? There were some missed carpools and school buses for sure in that household. The sentinel apartments is another routing mess--similarly the spiral staircase causes frequent jams and sims going in the opposite direction have to wait for the other to pass. Now, all the apartments I build from scratch use modular stairs for those reasons and if there's an elevator, it's really just for show, or as a second option to the stairs.

But for regular housing, what usually bothers me the most is that Maxis tended to build some really odd-shaped rooms, which for me is just unfunctional cuz in an unmodded game, there aren't really a lot of 1-tile furniture options and sims can have issues using diagonals, especially without the later EPs. So I usually like to renovate things to square things off, eliminate useless 1-tile hallways, make the roof more presentable and/or seasons proof, and add extra bedrooms. For example, it bothered me that there really isn't a suitable option for the Capps--Goneril & Albany--when you first play Veronaville. IIRC, all the tudor style houses in their price range have 1, maybe two bedrooms, and it's a family of 6. They need 3 bedrooms minimum, imo. Otherwise, I don't really mind that there aren't things like fire alarms--I generally like to leave houses empty and let my sims fill things up.

Hmm, you know now that I'm thinking about it, a lot of what makes Maxis' builds so bad are poor game design/decisions. I guess they didn't test lots very well (perhaps only ever had 2 things in a bedroom, maybe? ), or else they would've seen that the lots didn't work well with their routing and they could've fixed one or the other. And I'm not sure why anyone would design an elevator that could only be used one at a time, but after about 5-10 minutes playing on a lot with one, you see the problem. Ditto for spiral stairs and the rest of the one piece staircases. Things like useable diagonals might be hard to spot during testing, but they could've fixed it by the time M&G came around. It took us that long just to get quarter tile placement, though, and I still need mods to do things like use an easel or watch TV from an angle. At least we finally got more flexible starting funds, so that larger families like the Capps can move into an appropriate house size.