New Skills

Late Night introduces four new skills for your Sims to develop and master: Mixology, Piano, Drums, and Bass.

The latter three skills perfectly complement the existing Guitar skill, allowing you to form bands and pursue a side career in music performance for fun and money.

The Mixology skill ties into the all-new bar scene in Late Night, which is a major part of going out and having a good time.

These new skills are useful not just to give your Sims something to do when not pursuing traditional careers like Law Enforcement or Military.

They also affect your Sims’ personalities (fame becomes those who perform on stage or behind the bar) and give them additional subjects to talk about in conversations.

The Skill Panel is an easy place to track your Sims’ skill levels. Any skill the Sim has learned appears in the Skill Panel. A meter next to the skill shows the Sim’s level.

Move the cursor over the meter to see how close the Sim is to the next level. Click on the page to the right of each skill measurement to read the Skill Journal.

The Skill Journal offers a detailed look at that specific skill, such as how long the Sim has been working at the skill and how many of a certain object/item related to that skill the Sim has made.

The Skill Journal also displays skill-specific challenges associated with that skill. Challenges are requirements that, when met, result in improved results or financial rewards for activities related to that skill. Each skill challenge is associated with a title.

Use the Skill Journal to track progress on a skill and look at any skill-specific challenges.

Use these tips to speed skill development:

Sims in a good mood develop a skill slightly faster.

Expensive equipment does help develop a skill. The cheap bar suffices for first developing the Mixology skill.

But as you get into the top half of the skill, you really should splurge on a better bar for practicing at home. Besides, it’ll come in handy when you throw parties.

Use community equipment when just starting out to save a little cash. You can use bars at some of the dives for free while visiting the establishment. The same goes for the instruments in certain lounges and bars.

Unless you feel pressed for time to start developing a new skill, save books on the subject for skill levels higher than 2.

Reading a book reduces the amount of time needed to attain the next level—within reason. Reading the beginner’s level skill book for Mixology is not going to do you a tremendous amount of good when working toward level 9.