Testers Wanted: Harder Harder Grades - Version 2.14 (Updated 9/17/2008)

[Magicmoon]

When I first looked at this I thought "Nah", but I have decided to give it a try.  You're right, it IS boring when they all get the same grades and mine always have A+ as a matter of course.  This is probably in a large part due to the homesometimesfasterfun mod (Dizzy's?), so I suppose I need to take that out as well.  My poor Sims won't know what's hit them. 

I had to give up quite a few mods that I used to use. Not because they were conflicting, but rather because of the sameness of my Sims and lack of challenge. I took out (but left in a backup folder) Monique's reading skills, skilling with homework, homework faster, fun and a couple of others. I did leave in the one where they go do their homework at 7pm, and I love the skillinator bookcases because I think Sims should decide for themselves what skills to work on unless they need a specific one to level up at work.

I even added harder jobs and harder grades. All my kids were getting A+ and all the adults were maxing out their skills so early in life that they never had to work on anything to get to the next job level. And what good are aspiration items if the Sims are never going to use them anyway? Also without harder jobs they often started at a job level so high that they missed the level that gave them the aspiration items.

I keep telling myself to quit helping my sims because I have never seen most of the desperation actions in my game.

With newer mods like harder grades the game is actually fun again.

[syberspunk]

Also without harder jobs they often started at a job level so high that they missed the level that gave them the aspiration items.

Hrm. I was under the impression that aspiration career rewards were available after reaching the top of the career.

I keep telling myself to quit helping my sims because I have never seen most of the desperation actions in my game.

Heh. Yeah. I'm a fairly benevolent 'god' so I pretty much satisfy all my sims wants. I do have some plans for some jealousy related heartbreaking mischief  but I'm in the middle of tryin to 'fix' things so it works out properly. Heh.

With newer mods like harder grades the game is actually fun again.

I'm glad to hear that this mod is useful for you.

Ste

[jsalemi]

Hrm. I was under the impression that aspiration career rewards were available after reaching the top of the career.

No, they usually available at level 6 (I think -- it may be 5, but no higher than 6).  The original career rewards are usually tied into the one skill that has to be maximized to reach the top of the career. The 4 Uni career rewards don't build skills, but have other interesting effects like eating sims and then resurrecting them to be eaten again.

[syberspunk]

I updated the format to 8007 for all files. This should make it backwards compatible for players with only Uni or the basegame. If you have NL or later, you do Not have to update.

Ste

[lindaetterlee]

Ok, I hate to ask but is it possible to make it harder. My sims are still getting all A's. Dang it I want some natually trashy families. You know unedumacated.

[J. M. Pescado]

Maybe you're just too good at the game from excessive MATY.

[lindaetterlee]

Actually that is the problem. I have found your harderjobs also too easy. Could we have a nuclear edition? lol

[syberspunk]

As requested, I've tweaked the code a bit and this might make it harder. As I mention above, I'm not sure how significant the impact is. This will need to be tested and obviously feedback will be greatly appreciated. Let me know if it's suddenly too hard or still not hard enough. I can play around with it until it seems reasonably hard. I also found that many of my students are still getting A+'s fairly easily, and that's still not even trying that hard. I'm not even trying to skill them all up, but with a couple of Knowledge sims who always want to do homework and gain skills, it's pretty easy. Although not all of my sims are constantly A+ students, so that's a good thing.

Ste

[lindaetterlee]

Thank you. I will test ASAP.

[lindaetterlee]

Ok after many hours of testing it seems to be getting a bit harder lol but still not unbeatable. My sims didn't automaticly come home with A+.  One came home with a A+, The other's grade droped to a b- from a A+, and the Last was at a c+ and went to a B. So i think it is getting alittle more challenging. Since The only thing different about these sims were there starting grades. They have same personality, signs, interests,and mood was maxed when the went to school. Also aspiration was normalized for this test.

[syberspunk]

Thanks for the report. Do they ll have the same aspiration too? I'm not sure what you mean by 'normalized' - as in the aspiration level on the aspiration meter? Or did you set all the aspirations to the same aspiration type?

I can probably tweak it further. I'll have to look at the code and think about it a bit more. It's been awhile since I've looked at it, and I've forgotten what each of the variables were.

I don't mind making it harder, but I also wouldn't want getting an A+ to be totally impossible.

Oh and I just remembered, before I try making it even harder... the thing about grades is that, once you achieve a higher level, it's kind of hard to fall back down. Grades usually only drop if the sim's mood is low, if they fail to do homeworks (I think it checks if there are more than 1 unfinished homeworks laying about), or if they miss a school day.

Would you want a version where grades can drop randomly? Despite fulfilling all the regular skill and mood requirements?

Ste

[ElfPuddle]

When it comes to grades, I don't think falling randomly is a good idea. Although it might add a certain "je ne sais pas" to some games, my little micro-managed simmies would not do well. Or maybe it's I who wouldn't do well. Either way, not my preference.
Hard = good. Impossible = not good. Random = queasy tummy.

[syberspunk]

Yeah. I kind of feel the same way. I wanted to make it harder... as it takes a bit more effort, but not totally impossible.

Anyhew... I've tweaked the code a bit more, in v2.11 to actually add some small randomness. I'm not too fond of chaotic randomness, but I figured this might be what Linda is looking for. If I've misinterpretted that, please let me know and I'll gladly remove the randomness. Of course it needs testing so I can get feedback on just how much harder it has made things. Which requires some few sim days of gameplay to see the 'long' term effect. I'd like an idea of how general long term play is affected. People have different play styles, but it seems pretty easy, just through regular gameplay as opposed to aggressive skilling, to get a lot of skills from toddler to teen, and get really good grades. I do what more of a challenge, it has to be a fair challenge, and not something that only super aggressive skilling can overcome.

And since it's a separate version, of course you don't have to use the harder harder version. I like giving people options.

Ste

[lindaetterlee]

I love 2.11. It is great. PERFECT. You is the bomb lol

Ok now that i have regained my adulthood. I repeated the same test. Btw when i said normalized I took the aspiration meter to zero then tested it at the top of every color stage. Top of green. Top of Glod. Then Plat. These were all children. The children did wonderful. I found it gave them a slight edge. IE. One might leave for school in a ok mood and get A+ were as one would leave in a amazing mood and remain at the same a- or b+. All in all great mod at making the game more like real life. Sometimes Life gives you lemons then squeezes the juice in your eyes .

[jenflower]

Thank you so much for this! For the first time ever, I actually pay attention to their interests as a child to see how that will affect their grades.  It was a huge success to have my first 'overachiever' teen last week...it's not a run of the mill occurrance anymore. 
 
I think the 'interests' section of the game was entirely underused by Maxis and I am happy to see that you made something to incorporate it into our gameplay. Thanks!  I love this!  I use it with Monique's automatic homework at 7PM mod and my HomeworkSometimes mod and it works great.

Do you have any plans on making something for University?  I find it way too easy to graduate.  Maybe increase the skill-building handicap while they are at college...for example: have lazy sims gain the body skill even slooooower than usual while at college.  It will make us think twice about what major we have our sims choose to pursue.

Awesome awesome. Thanks again! 

[moonluck]

Thanks for this! I got my first D sim with this I was so surprised because the was kind of neglected. I like jenflower's idea for college to for this mod, ether that or something that shortened it because it's so damn long.

[jsalemi]

I like jenflower's idea for college to for this mod, ether that or something that shortened it because it's so damn long.

Pescado's University Final Clock -- lets you send them to their final exam whenever you want, without having to wait the full 72 hours: http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,134.0.html

[Sandilou]

Hi Ste,
I''ve been using version a version of hardergrades made 17th March, which didn't flag up any problems on the HCDU.  But v 2.11 flags up a Bhav with the current version of Inteen.  Are they compatible? 

Sandi

[moonluck]

I like jenflower's idea for college to for this mod, ether that or something that shortened it because it's so damn long.

Pescado's University Final Clock -- lets you send them to their final exam whenever you want, without having to wait the full 72 hours: http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,134.0.html

I know I use that but it would be a lot easer if the time was just shorter. Plus it it makes me feel like I realy am cheating in my (hack with) Legasy family.

[syberspunk]

I have no plans to make a similar hack for Uni. Theoretically, I could mod it in a similar way as this hack... but then the normal skill requirements wouldn't make sense. As it is, to do it right, I would probably have to mod requirements for all majors and what not, so the skill requirements that show up in the UI panel are highlighted properly, and I'm kind of too lazy to do that right now.

As for InTeen... I think it's gone through a couple of more updates recently. If you are finding a direct BHAV conflict, then I would say they are most likely incompatible. I've made a bunch of changes to the BHAVs, especially in the later version(s) to prevent the constant cheering. The older 2.0 version is probably still compatible. The less cheering and 2.11 versions are probably not compatible because they include those changes. So... for now, if you are using InTeen, you should probably stick with version 2.0. If I find the time, I might be willing to make a compatible version.

Ste

[jase]

I haven't confirmed this for sure, Ste, but it probably conflicts with the Get Off the Bus behavior(s).  I forcibly disable cheering when a child or teen sim returns home because their parents are moving out after graduating/flunking college (and they're supposed to move with them).  The damn kids spend an hour spankin' it over their report card that they oft will miss their ride off the lot.  It's part of the whole University Family/Teens on Campus thing that comes standard with InTeen.

[Ancient Sim]

I'm using the Harder version of this (which is hard enough as I don't rush skills or job promotions come too easily) ... anyway, one of my kids is 4 days into child and hasn't had any homework yet (due to homeworkfasterfun).  She's also only been to school 3 days out of the 4, due to moving house during one of them.  Nevertheless, on her 4th day of childhood she managed to nab herself an A+, which very few of the other neighbourhood kids have managed to do, despite being taught how to study.  Now, that's what I call a clever kid! 

[siouxsn]

I'm really looking forward to using this. Just last night I was thinking that I need to have more differences between my sims. All the kids get A's and go off to college. (It's my all or nothing mentality and I've got to work on that! LOL) So thanks so much for this hack, I know you put a lot of work into it and I appreciate the help with creating a better sim world.

[syberspunk]

Jordi was kind enough to pm and provide me a copy of an InTeen compatible version of this. So I have removed the 2.0 version and replaced it with the InTeen v2.11 by Jordi.

Here are the details:

There is a minor conflict between Harder Harder Grades v2.11 and the inTeen. I have fixed it in my own game, let me know if you want a copy of it.

Basically the inTeen does an additional check for career (presumably for the "mature teen" stage?) and without it in your mod there are some silly sideresults such as random grade drops.

Thanks Jordi.

Ste

[Magicmoon]

Does the Inteen version need updated for Pets? If so, is there be one in the offing?