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Throughout its lifespan,The Sims 2added a diverse range of systems for building skills, enthusiasm, and talent. Each system offered its own gameplay advantages, like new money-making methods, and added intrigue to in-game storytelling. Moreover, talent badges are especially important if you’re hoping to start your own business.
Whether your Sim plans on becoming a spectacular seamster or fantastic florist, talent badges are a fun and rewarding avenue of gameplay to explore thanks to the new interactions and items they unlock. Among these hidden items include fan favourites like Servo, as well as opportunities to make clothes from scratch and grow a gorgeous garden.
What Are Talent Badges?
Talent badges are medals that Sims canearn by regularly engaging in an activity. Earning badges allows your Sims todo or make a wider range of thingsin that area by unlocking new interactions with relevant items. It can also make Simsfaster at some tasks.
Which Talent Badges Are There?
Alltalent badges can be bronze, silver, or gold. If you have The Sims 2: Legacy Edition, then all the following activities are associated with badges:
How To Check Talent Badges
You can find out what talent badges your Sim hasunder the career panel. In Live Mode, open up your Sim’s career panel, shown by a Sim sitting at a desk. Then,click the badgeson the right-hand side.
Hover over the badgesfor more information about them.
Custom-made Sims and Sims from most neighbourhoods start off without any talent badges, but pre-made Sims in Bluewater Village have them. This is because this map was added with The Sims 2: Open For Business, which also introduced the talent badge system.
How To Unlock Talent Badges
You’llunlock badges by taking part in an activityrelated to that talent. For example, you’ll startearning Flower Arranging badges when creating bouquetswith the flower arranging station.
You caninteract with these items without having any talent badgesat all, so you can get started right away without any experience. However, you’ll most likely find that you don’t have many options to start with. New interactions can only be unlocked by earning badges.
It cantake a long time to unlock talent badgesbecause they mostly just measure how much of an activity a Sim has done. Be ready touse 2x and 3x speeda lot while earning them to speed things along.
Havinghigh skill levelscan also help your Sim to get badges a little quicker.
Which Items Unlock Talent Badges?
Each badge isunlocked with a different item, except for Sales badges, which can only be earned by interacting with customers:
Crazyfun Toybench From Craftin’ It! Industries
How To Get Sales, Restocking, And Register Talent Badges
Sales, Restocking, and Register badges are special because you canonly earn them if you work at orown a businessthat sells things. You’ll have to be ready tospeak to customers, stock shelves, and use a cash registerto earn these badges.
Earning the Sales badges requires you to interact with browsing customersusing interactions under the Sales menu. Similarly, you need torestock shelves and fridgesin a store to earn restocking badges. This means you can only level them when customers buy products.
Using the cash register builds progress towards the Register talent badges, but yourSim will only get the chance to finesse their skillswith the registerwhen a customer makes a purchase. Consequently, it can take quite some time to get this talent badge.
These badges are hard to grind because of how they rely on customer engagement. Allow a lot of time to get these.
What Are Talent Badges For?
For every badge your Sim unlocks, they’llget better at doing that activity or unlock new interactions related to it. There are technicallyfour levels to every talent badgeif you include the fact they don’t have one at the beginning, so that’s a lot of things to unlock.
Cosmetology Talent Badges
Unless you enjoy making townies walk around with terrible hair and makeup, you’ll want to spend some time collecting cosmetology badgesbefore you try and open your Sim salon:
Summary
Without a Badge
Your Sim will almost definitely mess up makeovers when manning a makeover station without a badge. Their clients will be left with bad hair and makeup most of the time.
Bronze
Bad makeovers are less likely once a Sim has a bronze talent badge, but they certainly aren’t a thing of the past yet.
Silver
The odds of shaving half a Sim’s head by accident are slim with this badge, but never zero.
Gold
Sims with gold badges are styling Gods and will hardly ever ruin another Sim’s day with a dubious haircut.
Fishing Talent Badges
If you plan onfinding rare fish, you’re going to want to rise up the ranks for this talent badge, as some only appear for the keenest fishersims:
Landlubbers will have to stick to Worm Bait, Boots, and Bass until they get their sea legs.
Sims with a bronze badge can upgrade to Riverblossom Minnow bait and catch Blue Catfish now too.
The unappealingly named Stink Ball Bait is available to silver-badged fishers, and so is the rare Rainbow Trout.
All that glitters maybe is gold, as Sims unlock the Sparkle Spinner bait and illustrious Golden Trout.
Every previous level of badge is included in the next level. So, gold badged Sims can still expect to be inundated with Bass.
Flower Arranging Talent Badges
Flower Arranging is a fun way of making money, indulging in the Arts & Crafts hobby, and making some Simoleons. As you unlock more badges, you’ll alsounlock more valuable arrangements:
Sims can start off by making Daisy Bouquets.
As well as daisies, the slightly more experienced florist can add Tulip Bouquets and Wildflower Bouquets to their arsenal.
Finally brave enough to combine flowers in an arrangement, your Sim can now make Mixed Flower Bouquets. A classic Rose Bouquet is also on the table.
The most skilled flower arrangers have the ability to make special Snapdragon Bouquets.
Gardening Talent Badges
This set of talent badges kind offunctions like a gardening skill. Levelling themunlocks different cropsto grow, and makes your Sim a little more green-thumbed:
Beginners can grow a range of fruits, including apples, oranges, lemons, and tomatoes. You can buy tomato seeds at plots and fruit treesin Build Mode.
Sims can now also grow cucumbers and strawberries from seeds.
Sims who are starting to get used to getting their hands dirty can tend to plants a little better, as well as growing bell peppers and pole beans.
Golden gardeners can grow eggplants and help their plants to grow a little healthier by talking to them.
Pottery Talent Badges
Arts & Crafts fanatics can multitask bygaining hobby enthusiasmand talent badgesat the same time by making ceramics:
Sims can make plates, but they won’t always be successful. Expect to throw a lot of Simoleons down the drain here.
In addition to plates, Sims can now potter vases and tea sets to use as decor.
Sims with a silver badge are well on their way to becoming muddy-fingered artisans. They’re less likely to fail and can craft pots and pitchers.
Sims who’ve earnt their golden badge rarely ever fail on the wheel and can make large clay jugs known as amphora.
Don’t have the space for pottery-making equipment in your Sim’s home? Once you reach level five of the pottery hobby you canjoin the hobby clubto get access to My Muse II - Arts and Crafts Studio’s equipment.
Restocking Talent Badges
This badge series is super similar to the two other retail-oriented badges, Sales and Register, insofar as theycan only be earnt while working at a business:
Sims are very slow at stocking shelves when they start out. You probably wouldn’t want to hire them.
Sims get slightly quicker, but they’re still noticeably newbies.
They can restock at a reasonable rate now, making them more efficient.
Sims with gold badges take no time to restock at all. They would get employee of the month every month.
Register Talent Badges
This is one of the most straightforward sets of talent badges as it basically justspeeds up a Sim’s cash register use:
Sims are very poor at using the machine and take a long time to ring customers up. You don’t really want these guys in charge during a rush.
Sims get marginally faster using cash registers, but still have a way to go.
Sims use the register almost instantly without any issues.
Robotics Talent Badge
Sims who enjoy spending time at the crafting bench canmake some useful gadgetsfor around the house, particularly at higher levels:
When Sims first approach the bench, the only thing they can make is toy robots. At least they’re cute.
This is where the good stuff really starts: Sims can now make HydroBots, which waters plants and puts out fires, and CleanBots, which are kind of like roombas.
Once they reach this level, Sims can build MunchieBots and SentryBots. MunchieBots go collect takeout from off-the-lot, while SentryBots are a home security systemperfect for stopping burglars.
Perfect robot engineers can now build Servo: Sim’s best friend and all-powerful helperbot. Sims who’ve earnt this badge also make robots way faster than their peers.
Sales Talent Badges
If customer service is your Sim’s passion, or if they pretend it is, then they can expect to get badges throughout their career. They’llunlock new sales techniquesalong the way:
Without a badge
Service Sims can approach customers and ask if they need help, and also use the Basic Sell interaction.
With the bronze badge, Sims will be able to bargain with their customers to offer an item at a discounted price.
The silver badge unlocks the Hard Sell interaction, which has both a higher risk and a higher reward than Basic Sell.
Sims can Dazzle their customers with their impressive sales prowess, meaning they’ll almost certainly successfully seal the deal.
Sewing Talent Badges
Another Arts & Crafts hobby-talent badge combo, the sewing machine unlocks all kinds of new opportunities for creative Sims includinghome-made clothes:
Sims can sew potholders to use as decor. They’ll fail pretty often, meaning they won’t sell for as much.
Even the bronze badge unlocks a lot of new items to sew, including:
Silver sewers can craft their own clothes, saving them a trip to H&M. They can also sew quilts, which take a long time but can sell for a pretty Simoleon.
Top-tier sewists can craft Custom Outfits, which can be sold for 750 Simoleons.
Toy Making Talent Badges
Surprisingly, toy making isn’t all fun and games. If your Simsmesses up making toys, they can turn evil. Here’s what your Sim can expect to make as they get their badges:
Inexperienced toymakers can only make Sir-Bricks-a-Lot: a brick with a face. Well, we all start somewhere.
After unlocking the bronze badge, Sims can make the creepy Clown-in-a-Box and the more wholesome Little Heroes Fire Truck.
Two more new toys come with unlocking the silver badge, this time the Twirl, Spin, and Wobble and Brinks' Kite.
The last talent badge unlocks the Wet n' Wild Water Wiggler, which is a big sprinkler your Sims can enjoy splashing around in.
