Getting a Degree at University now helps the Romance Consultant Career.
I enrolled my Sim in Foxbury to earn a distinguished degree in psychology for the romance consultant career. The Sim later graduated with honors and a 4.0 GPA. When finding a job, there was the text for gaining a signing bonus and a higher starting level.
However, when my Sim started working, she started at Level 3 and her charisma and romance skill levels didn't count toward a promotion. She also did not get a signing bonus.
Hi EA_Solaire, my bug report was moved to this feedback thread, but there is a clear error in how the Romance Consultant career identifies which Communications Degree is “Distinguished”.
Distinguished Degrees in Communications (Britechester) should be the higher-tier degree, with greater pay and performance boosts than the regular Communications Degree (Foxbury), consistent with how all other degree-career pairings function. But with this career, the “lesser” Foxbury degree grants the higher benefit.
It appears that trait_University_CommunicationsDegreeBS / BSHonors were mistakenly used in place of the correct Distinguished degree traits trait_University_CommunicationsDegreeBA / BAHonors.
Could this thread please be reclassified as a Bug Report, or would you prefer that I create a separate report specifically for the degree mix-up?
I did post my comments as a bug report, it got moved to this thread. I agree, a regular Communications Degree should NOT earn higher pay than a Distinguished Communications Degree and they've clearly been mixed up in the code.
I wondered if the "feedback" aspect was to do with the career level starting boost being a bit more complicated, as most other careers split off at Level 4-6, but this one doesn't branch off to matchmaker/relationship counselor until L8.
The only other career I've seen do that is the Park Worker career in Adventure Awaits, so I tested how degrees work there to compare. Unfortunately both careers are inconsistent!
When I gave the sim a Distinguished Degree in Psychology with Honors, that sim was able to start at L8 in the ParkCounselor track.
This is consistent with other careers.
BUT when I gave another sim a regular Degree in Psychology (no honors) that sim was ALSO able to start at L8 in the ParkCounselor track. Not consistent with other careers, which would start at L6.
My sim with a Distinguished Degree in Biology with Honors was only able to start at L6 Park Worker, before the career branches off to Ranger/Counselor.
A higher career jump than the degrees currently give Romance Consultants, but it should be L8 like in all other careers (and is inconsistent with the other track!)
Sims with a regular Degree in Biology (no honors) ALSO started L6. I would expect sims with a regular degree to start here. Distinguished + honors should be 2 levels ahead of a regular degree.
I'll make a report for the Park Worker career issue and wait & see what the community managers would prefer for this thread.
Level slightly boost but doesn't open up therapist track
earns 66/h at L3
Regular degree with honors (trait_University_PsychologyDegreeBAHonors)
starts at L2
Level slightly boost but doesn't open up therapist track
earns 65/h at L3
Distinguished degree with honors (trait_University_PsychologyDegreeBSHonors)
starts at L3
Level slightly boost but doesn't open up therapist track
earns 67/h
Issues:
Career level boosts are inconsistent with how degrees usually work.
Usually regular degrees start at L6, distinguished degrees start at L7, regular degrees with honors start at L7, distinguished degrees with honors start at L8.
Matchmaker track not yet available with any communications degree.
Inconsistent with how degrees work with other careers.
Therapist track not yet available with any psychology degree.
Inconsistent with how degrees work with other careers.
Foxbury Communications Degrees incorrectly treated as Distinguished, and vice versa, for pay/performance boosts for this career.
Distinguished Communications degree comes from Britechester, not Foxbury.
Sims with Distinguished Degrees should be paid more than regular Degrees.
To test, I gave 4 sims all 4 regular psychology and communications degrees (one from each university, without honors).
Issue #1: All 4 sims could only start the career at Level 1, instead of getting the usual degree career boost being able to skip to later levels in the career track corresponding to their degree.
Issue #2: CommunicationsDegreeBS (regular, from Foxbury) gives higher bonus than CommuncationsDegreeBA (Distinguished, from Britechester)
Distinguished psychology degree correctly boosts payment trait_University_PsychologyDegreeBSDistinguished degree in Communications gives a far lower bonus trait_University_CommunicationsDegreeBAtrait_University_CommunicationsDegreeBS (Regular degree in Communications, from Foxbury) gives higher bonus than Distinguished Degree in Communications from BritechesterThis also applies to the Honors degrees in the code
Edit: trait typo fixed in caption about Psychology degree.
My sim recently finished his degree at university and took a job as a romance consultant. He got given the sign on bonus but only starts his career at level 2.
That's an odd choice. Your Sim will already get boosted to Level 3 of their career if they graduated High School with a Grade A. The point of going to University, even if you didn't start as a teen, is to allow players a different way to get higher in their career. You're spending anywhere between 3-4 weeks in game to achieve this degree only for such a small reward in that career.
The game was updated to include a university degree for the Romance Consultant career but I don't think it works as intended. Even with the highest possible degree it only bumps you up to Level 3. This is less than if you were to give your Sim the Connections reward trait which you can purchase with points. This makes no sense considering the amount of time and effort you put into obtaining the degree.
(Note: I did test this in a new save and without mods, but I cheated the degree. Not sure if that's important but I figured I'd mention it. The other boosts with the cheated degree work fine though.)
Degrees normally give you a boost to career level 6-8 depending on the type of degree you earn. Beyond that, there are normally two different degrees that affect a single career. For example...
Gardener Career (Seasons)
Biology degree boosts you to the Botanist branch
Fine Art degree boost you to the Floral Designer branch
My belief is that Romance Consultant should be treated the same as the other careers that have two branches where the degree you choose affects the branch you get promoted to. At the very least, the Psychology degree should boost you to the Relationship Counselor branch.
Based on how the degrees seem to affect the careers with higher level branch selection such as Astronaut and Secret Agent, it should maybe look like...
I'm just not sure what degree would go with Matchmaker. Perhaps Communications or even Drama.
OR
Instead of a degree for Matchmaker, a certificate could be earned by attending a certain amount of skill classes. This is how the Culinary career gets a boost for Mixologist. Instead of a degree, you gain a "Mixologist Certificate" after sitting in on 11 classes at one of the University buildings. I think this route would also make sense for Matchmaker.
The last thing I'll add is that the Romance skill should have an elective class added like how Pottery got one when Businesses & Hobbies released. I didn't see one when I looked through them during enrollment.
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