Veteran simmer here. Been playing The Sims since the early 2000s, and never have I seen anything in any of the games that's this finicky, and it makes no sense. I've been playing with this pack a lot lately, and in DU, the only grades I ever seem to get are A+ and F. Nothing in between. I once got a C- I believe for one class on my first attempt, but every other grade I've ever gotten an A+ or an F, and what makes matters worse is I barely do anything different between these two.I'll do all my studies, term papers, presentations, homeworks, go to classes and get an A+ for everything. I'll miss one class due to my character not choosing to go early for some reason, or forget to take notes once, whilst doing all these other things, and get an F in all classes. This is so far from realistic. Is this a glitch? Because it makes no sense, and should NOT be how the game functions. I've heard other people complain about similar problems, and the only feedback a lot of people on the forum seem to give is what I must be doing something wrong - I am, I missed a class, obviously. But missing ONE CLASS shouldn't lead to an immediate F.

I think that the passing grade has a lot to do with skill levels. It seems like there are hidden skill level requirements in order to succeed in each class, and the more you do homework and study for those classes, the more those skills go up. But if you bring in a Sim who started with a very low level in the needed skill, the work they do might not boost it enough to get a decent grade, so they fail, even if they're doing all of the projects and homework. I was having some random problems like this as well and someone else mentioned this caveat. I haven't really brought any new Sims to Uni in a long while because I play a bazillion households and don't want to be stuck in that gameplay, but I do think there's something to this. The devs did warn that Uni was designed to be challenging so it was most likely intended. Try making note of which skills are increased by which classes and maybe try to do a little extra boosting for those skills and see if that helps.

I hope some more people contribute to this. Having it be so all-or-nothing is annoying. Like, being challenging is fine. But the only thing possible is straight As or flunking out? Come on!

"LiELF;c-17450708" wrote:I think that the passing grade has a lot to do with skill levels.You know what? This makes 100% sense, and I think you've got it.My sim is a Drama student. He had level 7 Charisma, but only level 3 comedy. He was getting A+'s in charisma classes, but Fs in comedy, despite mostly doing the same things. He missed a comedy class, and I assumed this was the issue instead, and that it was just immediately sending me from an A to an F for small mistakes.If there is a clear skill level that needs to be met before even getting a grade at passing level, this should be clearly stated in the UI like in The Sims 2 and in careers, in my opinion. I shouldn't flunk just because my skill isn't at a level not even visible to me, despite DU's uni information saying I can do a multitude of things to raise my grade with no hard guidelines, not just building skill.I guess I'm not sending newly created sims to uni anymore and just ones who have grown up in my game. Building skills to whatever the hidden level is from 0, plus having a social life, plus school work, just isn't really viable in one week.

"Magnezone;c-17450744" wrote:"LiELF;c-17450708" wrote:I think that the passing grade has a lot to do with skill levels.You know what? This makes 100% sense, and I think you've got it.My sim is a Drama student. He had level 7 Charisma, but only level 3 comedy. He was getting A+'s in charisma classes, but Fs in comedy, despite mostly doing the same things. He missed a comedy class, and I assumed this was the issue instead, and that it was just immediately sending me from an A to an F for small mistakes.If there is a clear skill level that needs to be met before even getting a grade at passing level, this should be clearly stated in the UI like in The Sims 2 and in careers, in my opinion. I shouldn't flunk just because my skill isn't at a level not even visible to me, despite DU's uni information saying I can do a multitude of things to raise my grade with no hard guidelines, not just building skill.I guess I'm not sending newly created sims to uni anymore and just ones who have grown up in my game. Building skills to whatever the hidden level is from 0, plus having a social life, plus school work, just isn't really viable in one week.Yeah, I mainly play Uni for my Sims to party and hook up. (Sims 2 style!) The studying was always just the obstacle in between. But with Sims 4 Uni, I have to give the students no more than two classes per semester so they can actually have time to enjoy their college years. But that ends up confining me to drag out longer times spent in those households because switching out can mess up their grades and progress and I don't dare leave my students unsupervised. It's really too bad because University was one of my very favorite Sims 2 packs. But I just can't set it up and play it the same way. The time progression messes it all up.

"LiELF;c-17450771" wrote:It's really too bad because University was one of my very favorite Sims 2 packs. But I just can't set it up and play it the same way. The time progression messes it all up. I actually really like the way EA went about setting up this uni pack, and I think it's more interesting with a lot more going on that TS2 or TS3's iterations, but I also do not play The Sims 4 the same as I play 2. I play The Sims 2 rotational style, whereas The Sims 4 I just play with aging off, making new files for whatever I want to do. If I have kids, I manually age them when I want to. For example, one of my sim adopted a son, and once I'd done with what I wanted to do as a child, I aged him to a teen, and kept him in that save file as a teen from then on.I see people with huge family trees and tons of time spent on one save file, and my head wonders how they could possibly do that in The Sims 4 - family play is so dull. The Sims 4 is my "make interesting young adult & adult sims live their best life" simulator, I guess.For people who play rotational family play and/or use aging, this pack seems set up pretty badly in a lot of ways - from the fact that it takes so long to get degrees, to the fact that it doesn't work well with swapping between families.

Not gonna lie, Discover University makes no sense

Cornwallfr
5 years ago
As a vet simmer, and TS2/3 uni lover, what makes the least sense for me is simply sending sims there. Reason why, 'Get famous' offers all we need from a career perspective with the 'career hopper' perk.

If I went to TS2 uni, graduating would allow me to unlock the best moneymaking career as an artist.
If I went to TS3 uni, graduating in science & medecine would allow me, as I reach 'world renowned surgeon' to triple my pay/hour.

Nothing of the sort here, nothing justifying sending sims to uni. I would simply waste my poor sims' time, promotions and raises. Therefore I haven't played with any feature of this expansion since two days after it's launch.

So +1 to the title of the thread.
Magnezones
5 years ago
Sorry for double post. I'm on mobile and editing and reformatting the previous post to reply to this response is a bit of a headache

"yourfriendjess12;c-17456634" wrote:
i literally cannot agree more, ive played university for probably a month now on two families, both getting on probation on their first term, one of them getting suspended the second. they do all of their homework, go to class, do presentations and refine them etc, and i got all F’s. my sim is an adult now because he has been at university for too long, to graduate it should only take two weeks so you can still live out your young adult hood life. he has children and is married and it’s not realistic that he’s still in uni!!! i put so much effort in and it gets knocked down and it’s not even worth it

Turn aging off whilst you're at uni, manually. This pack does not seem to be intended to be played with aging on. TS3 uni also lasted 3 weeks with no extra credits, the difference is, it turns aging off for you whilst you're at uni. In TS3 I play long life spans anyway (custom, 160 days) so even if it didn't turn off aging, it wouldnt make the hugest different as my combined adult and young adult span is nearly 100 days.

Off topic but related to my previous statement, if TS4 had custom lifespans by default like TS3 I probably would play with aging on. But I don't since I hate kids in 4 and they live FAR too long on the long lifespan.
LiELF
Seasoned Veteran
5 years ago
"Dijktafone;c-17456701" wrote:
As a vet simmer, and TS2/3 uni lover, what makes the least sense for me is simply sending sims there. Reason why, 'Get famous' offers all we need from a career perspective with the 'career hopper' perk.

If I went to TS2 uni, graduating would allow me to unlock the best moneymaking career as an artist.
If I went to TS3 uni, graduating in science & medecine would allow me, as I reach 'world renowned surgeon' to triple my pay/hour.

Nothing of the sort here, nothing justifying sending sims to uni. I would simply waste my poor sims' time, promotions and raises. Therefore I haven't played with any feature of this expansion since two days after it's launch.

So +1 to the title of the thread.

To be fair though, not everyone owns Get Famous, so it can't be counted on as a feature for DU.

Also, getting a degree in Sims 4 Uni does allow Sims to start in a branch path of a career that they studied, so they do skip the lower levels. But the branch path appears separately as a career choice, so it can be overlooked and a little confusing at first.
Cornwallfr
5 years ago
"LiELF;c-17457120" wrote:
"Dijktafone;c-17456701" wrote:
As a vet simmer, and TS2/3 uni lover, what makes the least sense for me is simply sending sims there. Reason why, 'Get famous' offers all we need from a career perspective with the 'career hopper' perk.

If I went to TS2 uni, graduating would allow me to unlock the best moneymaking career as an artist.
If I went to TS3 uni, graduating in science & medecine would allow me, as I reach 'world renowned surgeon' to triple my pay/hour.

Nothing of the sort here, nothing justifying sending sims to uni. I would simply waste my poor sims' time, promotions and raises. Therefore I haven't played with any feature of this expansion since two days after it's launch.

So +1 to the title of the thread.

To be fair though, not everyone owns Get Famous, so it can't be counted on as a feature for DU.

Also, getting a degree in Sims 4 Uni does allow Sims to start in a branch path of a career that they studied, so they do skip the lower levels. But the branch path appears separately as a career choice, so it can be overlooked and a little confusing at first.

Of course not all D.U players own G.F. But the real point here, is that E.A. provided us beforehand something better than anything D.U can provide on its main selling point: degrees, hence, careers and wages. And that's not even close. Which leads to the other points: other university expansions provided us with something we couldn't find anywhere else, while here, it's the opposite.

They have no excuse for that.

And for those who don't own Get Famous, do you think they're not better off working right away, with the perk 'connections' helping them start at level 4?
I'm asking cause I really don't know.
Magnezones
5 years ago
"Beardedgeek;c-17457211" wrote:
"yourfriendjess12;c-17456634" wrote:
i literally cannot agree more, ive played university for probably a month now on two families, both getting on probation on their first term, one of them getting suspended the second. they do all of their homework, go to class, do presentations and refine them etc, and i got all F’s. my sim is an adult now because he has been at university for too long, to graduate it should only take two weeks so you can still live out your young adult hood life. he has children and is married and it’s not realistic that he’s still in uni!!! i put so much effort in and it gets knocked down and it’s not even worth it

...How?
The only people I have seen that get probation are Sims played by youtubers that deliberately screw up their studies.
I am still think you either have a bad mod, or you are doing something completely wrong. I have gone thru Uni now 5 times, and I got ONE (1) F one time, and that was because I missed one class. As in completely didn't go one day. Since the term is only a week that is probably the equivalent of not showing up IRL to class for a month, so that makes sense.
.

I'm like fairly convinced it's a bug only some people are getting, though I'm not sure what could be causing it. As I said, I only get straight As or Fs despite doing little between the two all that different. That's not right, surely?
LiELF
Seasoned Veteran
5 years ago
"Dijktafone;c-17457932" wrote:
"LiELF;c-17457120" wrote:
"Dijktafone;c-17456701" wrote:
As a vet simmer, and TS2/3 uni lover, what makes the least sense for me is simply sending sims there. Reason why, 'Get famous' offers all we need from a career perspective with the 'career hopper' perk.

If I went to TS2 uni, graduating would allow me to unlock the best moneymaking career as an artist.
If I went to TS3 uni, graduating in science & medecine would allow me, as I reach 'world renowned surgeon' to triple my pay/hour.

Nothing of the sort here, nothing justifying sending sims to uni. I would simply waste my poor sims' time, promotions and raises. Therefore I haven't played with any feature of this expansion since two days after it's launch.

So +1 to the title of the thread.

To be fair though, not everyone owns Get Famous, so it can't be counted on as a feature for DU.

Also, getting a degree in Sims 4 Uni does allow Sims to start in a branch path of a career that they studied, so they do skip the lower levels. But the branch path appears separately as a career choice, so it can be overlooked and a little confusing at first.

Of course not all D.U players own G.F. But the real point here, is that E.A. provided us beforehand something better than anything D.U can provide on its main selling point: degrees, hence, careers and wages. And that's not even close. Which leads to the other points: other university expansions provided us with something we couldn't find anywhere else, while here, it's the opposite.

They have no excuse for that.

And for those who don't own Get Famous, do you think they're not better off working right away, with the perk 'connections' helping them start at level 4?
I'm asking cause I really don't know.

The thing is, you still have to work for something either way. So yeah, why would you go to Uni if you're famous enough to have job connections?

But while the end result is similar, I don't see why having one would negate the need for the other. How many famous Sims is someone likely to play for that one same perk over and over? I haven't used it myself, so I'm not sure where it actually starts you in a career path, but I know that a degree in DU will start you on a specialized career branch. I think you can also make more money with a degree but I can't remember, I didn't really pay attention to that.

You can also take elective courses, which allow you to do things like starting skill-based professions and activities (like Veterinarian) with more skills so you start off with some advancement.

So I personally don't think DU is a bad pack. I think it's pretty decent. But I also think Sims 2 Uni was a lot better and Sims 4 DU just doesn't have that level of entertainment. But I believe that's mostly the fault of a weaker base game in general.
Cornwallfr
5 years ago
Yes. I would totally be down to go to uni if the experience in itself would justify it. Alas, no greek houses this time around, no 'big sim on campus' type of memory, no need to make connections... those tiny little things that I endear so much. In tS3 the campus was big, I loved the students, the outdoor academic activities.

As for the original topic, I have no clue how grades are constructed. All I know is I ended up with an A (not an A+) despite being maxed out in all skills, and always doing everything on time.
kwanzaabot
5 years ago
"Dijktafone;c-17459377" wrote:
Yes. I would totally be down to go to uni if the experience in itself would justify it. Alas, no greek houses this time around, no 'big sim on campus' type of memory, no need to make connections... those tiny little things that I endear so much. In tS3 the campus was big, I loved the students, the outdoor academic activities.

As for the original topic, I have no clue how grades are constructed. All I know is I ended up with an A (not an A+) despite being maxed out in all skills, and always doing everything on time.

You've gotta get creative with Greek Houses.
The University Housing lot type lets you restrict it to Clubs (which was weirdly never mentioned in the livestreams), so there's your Frat House. All you gotta do after that is make a Club, call it "Alpha Kappa Beta" or what have you, and invite Sims to it.

ta-da, you've got a Greek House.
(EDIT: some weird word choices in that profanity filter btw EA)
Magnezones
5 years ago
"kwanzaabot;c-17459372" wrote:
I mean it's a bit like real university tbh.

(Australian uni grades are a bit different so bear with me here) but getting a Credit or a Distinction or High Distinction are functionally no different for me. If I'm one percent short of a Credit, I still get a Fail. If I get a solid 50%, that's a Credit, and I pass the class and I'm allowed to graduate.

As and Bs and Cs aren't worth anything except clout.

I get what you're trying to say but that's simply not how the game itself functions given you start higher in your career depending on what your grade is. Why make grade an integral part of the experience when you only seem to be able to get A+ or F?

"Dijktafone;c-17459377" wrote:
Yes. I would totally be down to go to uni if the experience in itself would justify it. Alas, no greek houses this time around, no 'big sim on campus' type of memory, no need to make connections... those tiny little things that I endear so much. In tS3 the campus was big, I loved the students, the outdoor academic activities.

As for the original topic, I have no clue how grades are constructed. All I know is I ended up with an A (not an A+) despite being maxed out in all skills, and always doing everything on time.

Look, I have a lot of problems with TS4 but I think we're going to have to simply agree to disagree here. The Sims 4's universities are done better than every iteration in the franchise thus far, in my opinion, and I rarely have this high praise for TS4.

TS2 uni has little you can do exclusive to uni except for the Secret Society which aside from having the resurrection machine, I found really underwhelming upon my return to the game when UC came out and even though TS2 is my most played, I don't bother with it. If I get in it, it's entirely by accident now from befriending randos for the popularity/romance aspirations. And of course joining Greek Houses which I hate because I don't want to control the other random premade sims that are part of them.

The Sims 3 University, other than doing social groups and jobs and a few neat new lot types (which you can already make in TS4 via other expansions except the comic store), am I missing anything that's hugely different from TS2? Social Networking is cool but doesn't have much to do or integral to the university experience.

Whereas TS4 has all the Organisations and tasks and meet ups/events you can do with them, as well as the Secret Society which I haven't looked in how to join, and soccer/e sports. The ability to study from home is also huge to me. Study from home adult learning is becoming a more and more common thing, so I like the ability to do this in game. And the skill the game comes with, Research & Debate, adds to the university experience and ties the pack together nicely.
Cornwallfr
5 years ago
I'm talking premade greekhouses, with the main goal being to joined a storied and prestigious one, as opposed to create one out of the blue :)

It's just a matter of playstyle, preference that's all. If they were there, I'd be happy to see a beloved returning feature, and simmers who don't like it simply wouldn't have to mind.

Anyways, this plus previous posts is why this E.P as a whole makes little sense to me, and disappointed me so much that I am going to be infinitly cautious if I chose to buy an expansion in the future.

As to agreeing to disagree, none of us have to do that; it's a sandbox game, so to each it's own. A matter of + vs -; New features vs non returning ones. For those who end up with a positive result, that's a win, for those who end up with a minus result, well not so much.