More Awesome Than You!

(http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/terror/green.gif)

Harder Harder Grades v2.14 for TS2AL v1.0p0
Made by: syberspunk

Since Pescado has an unofficial harderjobs hack in the works, that got me to thinking there should be an equivalent for grades as well. This hack makes it slightly harder to get an A+ for children and teens. It seems to easy (at least to me) to get an A+ in school for our sims. But A+ don't come so easily for some people in real life. Apparently the sims' schools aren't all that challenging. :rolleyes: In anycase, this hack now requires sims to have logic points and essentially puts a cap on grades based on those points. Here's how the "logic" of the mod should work:

Edit: 7/6/2006
As requested, Version 2.10 should be even harder. This is untested and thus feedback would be appreciated. Basically, I just reduced the contribution from each of the four base skills. Each skill normally contributes 1/4th of their total value, which is then modified based on personality traits and aspiration. I reduced this to 1/8th instead, which theoretically should make it harder. I'm not sure how significant an impact this will have. It could be fairly subtle to blatantly noticeable. Please provide feedback as to whether this is now Too hard, or still not hard enough.
Further tweaks to the code to make it a bit harder to climb the grade ladder so to speak, as well as thrown in some randomness of grades dropping. Needs testing obviously.

Edit: 5/31/2006
Added/modified code to lessen cheering. Cheering should only occur if a student has an A- or greater, and their current grade is better than their previous grade. Modifications have only been moderately tested. As such, I have uploaded a separate archive .zip but the .package name is still the same. Just overwrite the previous file. If it doesn't work properly, you can always redownload the older 2.0 version. Please check how it works in your game and provide feedback if possible. :)


Note: Since a few people requested it, and I thought it was a great idea, I decided to make a version that uses other skills. I will keep the original, simpler version based on logic only available. However, I will also attach version 2.0 as a separate download. The 2nd version still has the same name, so if you choose to use the much more complex version, all you need to do is download and install it in the usual place and let it overwrite the older, simpler version. :)

The newer version 2.0 also has a slightly different RTFM included in the .zip archive. I am including those differences here in the first post, so previous users can note the difference and decide if they would like to "upgrade" to the newer version, as well as let new users see the differences between the two versions and decide which they prefer.





Incidentally... I'm not sure if this was a bug or just "poor coding" but the way it originally worked is that, if a sim was in a very bad mood they were guaranteed to lose a point. Sims in a very good mood were guaranteed to always gain a point. Even though there was code checking if a random # between 0-100, since the threshold was always 100 or more, the checks always returned true. What's the point of having randomness in there if it always returns true?

It appears that Maxis initially wanted to make grades slightly harder and slightly random and then changed it. Who knows whether this was done "by design" to make it super simple and super easy, or it was abandoned or incomplete, or their "design" was flawed. :shrug:

I've tested it out in my game, but have not yet observed the long term effects. A lot of my playable sims have high logic already, so the effect is less noticeable. But play testing in the Pleasant house, Lilith Pleasant with no logic points was stuck with a D after returning from her first day of school. Using the boolprop cheat to up her logic points, she returned with a C.

INSTALLATION:
This MUST be in your Downloads folder, typically found under:

C:\Documents and Settings\UserName\My Documents\EA GAMES\The Sims 2\Downloads


Compatibility:
:!!: Tested in Nighlife and works as planned, so far. ;) Please test it out and let me know if there are any problems. This probably works in Uni and the Base Game, although it hasn't been tested. Feel free to try it out and leave feedback, which is always appreciated. :)

I have tested this in my game and it appears to work fine.

This hack is compatible with most, if not all mods by MATY crew (Pescado, TJ, and CBoy), dizzy, and probably more. Again, up to you to help me determine any possible conflicts.


:!!: REMINDER and fine print (to cover my ass ) :
Remember to ALWAYS BACK UP YOUR DATA BEFORE INSTALLING NEW HACKS. By using this hack, you agree to absolve me of any responsibility or liability for any potential loss of or damage to your data. You have been warned.

:!!: HOW TO REPORT: Conflicts, problems, or errors
I would appreciate any constructive criticism and feedback that is actually helpful. With that in mind, it would be helpful, when reporting any conflicts or issues, that you include the following:

1) thorough but reasonably brief description of what you were doing
2) clear, comprehendible explanation of your problem
3) list of hacks that may be related to grades
4) archived (.rar or .zip) of log produced by error

Posts which do not include a clear description of what your problem is will be pretty much ignored. (i.e. posts such as "This does not work! I am taking it out! You suck! Nice try! etc.") I can't and won't help you if you don't explain what's wrong.

Please be nice when trying to explain your problem and I might be nice and help you.

:grouphug: Finally, my Thank Yous go to:

J.M. Pescado, twojeffs, dizzy2, and jase439 for being excellent tutors and providing excellent models in their mods. As always, thanks to those creators who've put out some excellent modding tutorials, Quaxi and co for SimPE, and dizzy2 for disaSim2, and the finally letters T and S, and the number 2, all of whom, without which this mod would not be possible.

If I left anyone out, I apologize in advance. You know who you are and you deserve my thanks.

Version History:
v2.00 - Tweaked code to add dependency on additional skills based on personality and aspiration
v2.02 - Added/modified code to lessen cheering.
v2.03 - Changed format to 8007 for backwards compatibility.
v2.10 - Even harder version as requested, needs feedback please.
v2.12 - Updated for Seasons
v2.13 - Updated for Free Time
v2.14 - Updated for Apartment Life

Here's some pics:

We see Angela only maintains her B with no logic points.

(http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c237/syberspunk/TS2%20mods/hardergrades/hardergradesedit.jpg)

Bumping up her logic points, she manages to score an A. Since she has 6 logic points, she normally would only get a 30% chance of getting an A, but since she's in a really good mood, that boosted her up to a 60% chance.

(http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c237/syberspunk/TS2%20mods/hardergrades/hardergrades6edit.jpg)
(http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c237/syberspunk/TS2%20mods/hardergrades/hardergrades5edit.jpg)

Finally, with her logic points maxed out and a great mood, she has a 50% chance of getting that A+.

(http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c237/syberspunk/TS2%20mods/hardergrades/hardergrades4edit.jpg)

Here's Lilith with her miserable D. With no logic points, her cap is at a D (the game starts her off intially with a D-), with only a 1% chance of improving. With a single logic point, her grades improve to a C.

(http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c237/syberspunk/TS2%20mods/hardergrades/hardergrades7edit.jpg)
(http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c237/syberspunk/TS2%20mods/hardergrades/hardergrades8edit.jpg)

Cool, I'll definitely try this out.

But shouldn't the other skill points help out as well, just less than for logic? It's not like school is all maths. They even grade PE :P.

Hrm... heh, well I wasn't a big fan of PE in high school myself. lol. I totally forgot about that and I guess I blocked that out. ;)

Um... I'll think about it. I guess I'll wait for more feedback. As it stands, I was just thinking about school in general, mostly focusing on the academic side. I would say 90% of your classes require intelligence, which I am using logic to represent in a simple way. I suppose I could make it even more complex with regard to other skills and personality, but then again I'm lazy. ::)

And if I did use other skills, I'd have to think about how to keep things on a metric scale. I'd have to think about which skill points or personality traits to use, and what's a reasonable threshold and what not. I guess it isn't that bad. Oops, hit the submit button too quickly. Some possibilities are, as you mention, body skill, as well as creativity, seriousness, laziness, and charisma. The thing is, I don't want the hack to get too unwieldy for me. I'd have to think of a reasonable way to use these as factors. How should they affect things, and do I want to have differences for different specific values for each trait/skill, or have some general threshold based on a sum of these traits/skills. And then, what reasonable thresholds should be set? At least with one skill, I don't have to worry or think too much about it. :P

Anyways, I suppose I'll think about it after some feedback. If anybody else is interested or feels this needs more tweaking, I'm definitely open to suggestions. If there's a high demand, maybe I'll consider it for an upgrade later. :)

Ste

This looks very cool!

In the interest of the arts (just the bias of an English/Drama teacher, I know)...would it be too unwieldy to use all skill points rather than logic...

You might then lessen the percentages, as you'd need 70 points to distribute, rather than 10, but if you've lumped them all together, it would mean less work. Maybe? I'm scared to even think about looking into hacks, but it was a thought. Either way, this looks great, and I'll be downloading as soon as I've posted.

My students can attest that I firmly believe in grades being hard to earn! ;)

Great idea and I'll definately try it out.

I have to agree I think it would be a good idea to actually include all the skills in some form, if it would be possible. You know.. you've got your home ec types (cooking and maybe cleaning), your shop types (mechanical), the jocks (body), drama and the arts (charisma, creativity), as well as the logical types who excel in sciences and mathmatics.
Or would that be making it too easy again?

Perhaps a way to cap things in relation to certain skills?
Talking out of my wazoo here. I'm not the logical sort. ;)

This is pretty awesome, and makes the game a little more challenging when playing kiddies (Who are the easiest sims to play) and the teens. Plus I can't stand to have all my sim teens getting A+. This will make it easier to keep their bad grades, or decent grades constant.

This sounds great! Thank you  ;D


Will this play nice with "homework sometimes faster fun"?

This really makes sense! Thanks Steve-I'll try it out ;D

I definitely second the request for other skills to be taken into consideration. English, for example, needs a good deal of creativity on top of logic. Foreign Languages would entail some sort of charisma, as speaking and such are a big part of such classes. PE, of course, needs body. Art and Music classes need creativity as well. Etc.,etc. W/ all the emphasis on "well-roundedness" in academia these days, you'd expect it to matter for sims too.

Love the idea of this Ste :)

I also think more skills should be in the equation, but why not all seven?

Could use a weighted score for higher levels, perhaps based on the cumalitive 'base time' that it takes to achieve new levels.
Pescado has posted the 'ticks' in the War room.
It might also be an idea to add something to check the spread of skills.  ie. sims would be penalised for each skill where they have zero points.

My toddlers normally have about 6 in of each of the toy skills before they become kids.  Would like them to at least have to do some more study to get the As :)

I finally managed to install TS2 back again, all the up to OFB, as well as get my neighborhoods back in working condtion (well at least they seem ok so far :P).

I had been working on this before OFB was released, but stuck it on the backburner while I was scrambling to update my hacks. Now that I've taken some time to look at it again and test it out, I feel like it's ready for a release. :)

I've put some of the details up in the first/main post. I decided to use 4 main base skills, as they seemed the most "logical" to me. Even though cooking, mechanical, and cleaning might apply to certain classes, such as home-ec or shop, I felt that the other 4 were more applicable, and I could better associate them with personality, interests, and aspiration while still making sense in having some logical effect on grades.

Things work on the same general principal, with the four skills each contributing about 25% to the overall random chance of grades improving, if a sim hasn't already met the regular criteria for each "grade level" in their base skill.

Although the weighting is a cool idea, I didn't want to have to deal with 'ticks' and time dependent modifiers. That would require me to learn a bit more, and I'm too lazy to do that right now. Lol. ;D Instead, I took a much "simpler" approach, using my original idea as a basis, and expnanding it to incorporate 3 other skills.

The end result is, in general it will be much harder if your sims don't have any skills at all. They will pretty much be stuck at D or C. Therefore, CAS Teens will most likely have the hardest time with this. All other younger sims should do reasonably well, depending on how much time you devote to skilling (and more specifically, which skills you focus on). If you use macrostatics and or the baby controller, your sims will most likely do very well, and in the end, it probably won't be that much harder. Overall, it should be harder to get an A+, but if you have a lot of skills, and are in Gold or Platinum Aspiration levels, then you should get A+'s as easy as before. In this respect, the hack rewards players who keep their sims aspiration levels high. If you bothered or managed to fulfill LTWs, you probably don't want it to be so hard for those sims. So this is an 'out' for those sims.

Anyways, please test it out and let me know if you have any problems with it. I always appreciate feedback. Let me know if it is still too easy or if it suddenly becomes insanely hard. I think it's reasonably balanced. In my test runs, I used the Pleasant house as usual, and there was still some randomness in there. Despite the difficulty, sims could still get an A+ if they had a lot of skill points, so it isn't totally impossible. However, I feel it is still balanced, because you do need several skill points still, and in this way your grades will sort of reflect the time you spent "studying" or building up those skills. :D

Ste

This is an excellent idea and I hope it works out fine.

How about extending it to only allow entry to college for teenagers at a certain grade?

It's been a while since I had kids & teens to play with, so I apologize for the lenghty waiting....

This is a FANTASTIC addition. Thanks so very much, syberpunk. My in-game kids are finally having to actually do more than show up to class. Just like like my RL students! Thanks again.

I am using version 2 of this hack. For the first time since playing this game my simkids have a variety of grades instead of every single one having an A+, so I really love this mod.

But the endless cheering (that previous hacks and the Maxis Patch had fixed)  has returned to the game. Yes, I want them to cheer the FIRST time they get an A or A+. Even cheering when they go from A to A+ is cool. But now every single day the kids come home and do that endless cheering thing because they got an A. Well, they got an A yesterday and cheered, isn't that enough? One kid has had a grade of A for 4 or 5 days running and has cheered every single day.

Can you restore the functionality of the patch where they only cheer the First time they get a good grade?

BTW, I removed the no cheering type hacks when the Maxis Patch came out and the endless cheering thing had stopped until I put this mod in.

I have up to nightlife installed.

When I get a chance and find some time, I'll take a look into this. Sorry about the constant cheering. And thanks for the feedback. Definitely appreciated. :) I had only played with this a little in testing to make sure the changes in the dependency on skills worked, but haven't played my regular game in a long time to see what the long term effects were.

Ste

Do you think that I should put one of the old no cheering hacks back into the game? Or do you think that doing so will break things since that was fixed with the last Maxis patch?

If it is only going to be a week or so before you get around to messing with this mod, I can wait until this mod has reached its awesome potential.

I sure am enjoying mods like this that make my Sims different from each other. It gets pretty boring when the exact same thing is going on in every single household (like ALL of my sim kiddies getting A+ grades.)

Thanks again for such a great mod.

The key which suppresses the cheering is the "Got A+" memory. Since your sims haven't gotten an A+ yet, they won't receive the memory key and thus stop cheering.

On the other hand, the cheering is nowhere near as obnoxious as it was in the original, since it does not stomp queues anymore. I actually don't mind it now, since it causes sims to RUN, usually to the vicinity of The One Desk, as opposed to plod slowly, which means it takes tham about an hour and half to unload even with The One Desk as close as it can reasonably be.

Oh. Thanks for explaining that. Makes sense.

But what is The One Desk that you refer to?

The One Desk...the only desk on the lot. It has nothing to do with The One Ring...that's another story entirely.

Actually, there can be more than one desk on the lot, and it does have something to do with The One Ring: The One Desk rules all the other desks on the lot, hence "The One Desk".

It's just like The One Door and The One Fridge: Sims will sado-randomly elevate one item to The One status, and always use that one when possible even if another item of the same type is closer.

Oh, ok. I use Inge's assignable desks. You just have to make sure that there is an unused space right next to the part of the desk where they put their homework because they place their homework on the desk while standing in that square. If that square is blocked they put their homework on the ground instead. So each of the kids put their homework on their own desk. I found that using regular desks that if one child decides to put his homework on the same desk as the child that got off the bus before him, he will put his homework on the ground (Or worse hide it somewhere) instead of choosing a different desk.

I thought that the One Desk was a more awesome object that I had somehow missed...and of course desperately needed since JM made it.

New version available that lessens the cheering that some of you may find annoying. Please download and test. Feedback is always appreciated. :)

Ste

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. 

Just out of curiousity, you mention the Aspirations being involved in the equation, so presumably the mod works differently for teens than it does for kids?  Anyway, I shall look forward to testing this and I will report back.  As you live in my Pleasantview, don't be surprised if you are attacked by a bunch of extremely angry teenagers the next time you go outside to water the nearest plant.  I'd certainly look out for the Beaker twins, they're NASTY.  Then again, they've both been maxed-out on Logic almost since they were toddlers, so they probably won't suffer much.  Let's hope they don't.

It was JenFlower's and nope, you don't need to take that out. It works fine. I use that hack too.


For those that don't have the typical teen/adult aspirations, the mod will look set the 'base' skill according to their interests. So... for children, Family, Pleasure, and Grilled Cheese, you could manipulate the base skill by changing their interests. Unfortunately, this is sort of blind to the user. But I tried to group interests in such a way that the skill that would be based on them seemed logical i.e. the more scientific interests would lead to a base skill in logic, whereas the more creative ones would have creativity, etc.

Ste

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.

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


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


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

Ste

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. :)

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

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.

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

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

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. :P 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

Thank you. I will test ASAP.

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.

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. :P

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

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.

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

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 :).

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! 

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.

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

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

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.

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. :P

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

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.

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! 

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. :)

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:


Thanks Jordi. :)

Ste

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

Since I'm the one who made it, I'll answer it: I do not plan to update anything (or even check if updates are needed) before the Inteen is out of beta. Otherwise I can just keep on modifying it.
It looks like no update is needed (the relevant code has not changed in beta 1) but I won't guarantee it.

Update report for inTeen Pets Beta 3:

Test version of compatible versions for 2.03 with less cheering and 2.11 ("harder harder grades") are up at the inTeen forum: Other mods and the inteen (http://box156.bluehost.com/~aestudi1/forums/inteenimater/viewtopic.php?p=834) Please comment there.

Ste, feel free to grab and redistribute them if you like. They're mostly your work after all =p

Inteenimated versions work with Beta 4 as well.

I must be a little confused. Can someone tell me what I did wrong? I'm using harder, harder grades.

The way I understood the directions, as long as the child is doing homework they should either go up a grade or at least maintain the grade they have irregardless of their base or other stats.

The parents had a hard time while the child was a toddler, so not being able to use the smart milk they used a lot of the tot's time for training, which left little time for toddler skilling. Upon turning a child, he had 1 charisma point and 2 logic points, IIRC.

First day of school: Came home with a C- report card. His fun or hygiene (can't remember which) level was kind of low when he left for school, but all of his other stats were high and he was in plat asp. That night he is taught to study by dad.

Day 2: Returns from school with a D- report card.  Plat asp, and good stats when he left for school. He does his homework. Several pop-ups of the child complaining that even though he is a kid he knows the importance of doing his homework. (I figured that this pop-up was because of the low grade rather than because homework wasn't done. Maybe I'm wrong and the game didn't recognize that he did his homework?)

Day 3: Returns with an F report card. Social worker shows up within the hour.

I am using the Inteen version and I know that problems were to be reported there for that version, but I couldn't figure out where the thread for posting was. Besides, I think this is a problem with me not understanding something, rather than it being a bug.

I know that this mod is based on interests, skills, moods, etc. although I often forget which interests need which skills while I'm in the game. But even without proper skills, I thought that they weren't supposed to drop grades as long as they do their homework.

I've been using this mod for awhile in another hood and haven't had any kids drop levels in this particular way. The only time I had a problem was when they "lost" their homework because of problems that happened during bus unloading time.

Harder harder grades (2.11) requires good to high skills to even maintain a grade. Grade drops are normal here unless kids have good skills, mood, and aspiration.
Since it is too hard, I use harder grades  (2.03) myself. IIRC that version does not have random grade drops.

I maintain the Inteenimated versions here: http://box156.bluehost.com/~aestudi1/forums/inteenimater/viewtopic.php?t=271
If you got them before Jan 14, redownload. I had to fix one or two minor issues with the mod(s) + inteen.

I can't quite remember what I did now. It's been so long. Hehe. Um... I looked at an earlier post, and I think I pretty much introduced some randomness into it, that basically made it much harder.  I don't think I am using the harder, harder version myself.  The requirements are essentially the same.  In general, the "problem" is kind of getting over that initial hump/barrier when your sims first start off as students.  If their skill set is already at a disadvantage, it might be a bit tough for you in the beginning.  The complaint about the original version of harder grades was that, once you got over that hump, it was fairly too easy to maintain good grades.  Hence, the addition of some more randomness.  Apparently, I describe it as "small randomness" whatever the heck that means. Don't ask me. :P

Heh. I would probably have to look at the code again, which is a bit of a doozy.  Since I haven't played in a long whiles, nor have I had any children/teens lately to test it out with, I wasn't sure just how hard the harder, harder version would be.  You might have just run into a string of sadorandom rolls, causing the sim to drop or get stuck at the same level.  Do you any of the homework hacks?  I think I am still using twojeffs' update to jenflower's original hack.  I don't think I use his own version (with the new features he added).  If you don't use one, are you getting a lot of homework that your sims aren't finishing?

Ok, I am re-reading your message and...


... since the sim is a child... the base skill should be determined by his interests.  If it turns out that logic and charisma are not the base skill, then those points will contribute poorly to improving their skill.  The harder, harder version probably makes it even harder to improve if you don't have many skill points.  Grades have a greater chance of dropping when there are unfinished homeworks lying around.  If that isn't the issue, then I suspect the grade dropping is due to the lack of skills.  I will try and take a peek at the hack sometime tonight, and see if what I did was unreasonable.

If you think about it tho... completing a homework and turning them in doesn't necessarily mean your sim did it correctly. Heheh. :P So... you could interpret it as... the dependency on the base skill representing just how well the sim did the homework.  If they have more points in their base skill, or sufficient points on average among all their skills, that could translate into good homework.  But if they are lacking in skills, maybe they are just turning in crap. :P

Ste

The only homework mod I have is Monique's which calls them to do their homework at 7pm. The first day the child was taught to study, and has done his homework each day. He goes to school with plat asp.

Although I never expected this child to excel, I didn't expect his grades to drop a whole level each day since he did his homework. So maybe you did add some random dropping of grades.

I added up all his interest points. His 2 highest scores were 21 points each for body and logic. I don't know how to give a child body without either having a parent with an asp reward, or cheating. Actually I just remembered BobL-Numenor Toddler Mirror, which gives toddlers body, but I let the toddlers choose which toys to skill with so that all Sims aren't the same.

Is the hardergrades the version that only goes by logic points? Or does it also work as described with the difference between the two mods being the amount that points affect their grades? I downloaded the harder,harder grades because I didn't want logic to be the only skill that mattered, because then all Sims would have to work hard on logic at the expense of other skills, making Sims too similar to each other for my tastes.



Perhaps you should make it where they don't randomly drop a grade during childhood as long as they did their homework, or at least make the drop a half grade instead.


I don't blame you for not wanting to dive back in. If hardergrades behaves the same and isn't the one that relies on logic only, then I'll go back to that one.

In the mean time, I updated the Inteen post-patch mods last night and now this kid pops back off the school bus every morning, so I have to track down that error. Maybe the kid is retarded and needs the "short bus" to pick him up. That would also explain his lousy grades.

(I exited without saving back when the SS worker showed up in my first post).

Ok, I took a look at the code, and the harder harder version has some minor randomness... so I think that your sim just happen to be lucky (or unlucky) to roll the odds that made them drop so much... unless you had more than 1 homework lying around.  I think more than 1 unfinished homework pretty much guarantees a grade drop.

If that wasn't the issue, then with the harder harder version:

If your sim's base skill < 100 And their grade is >= D OR
If your sim's base skill < 400 And their grade is >= C OR
If your sim's base skill < 700 And their grade is >= B

Then there is a randomness thrown in.  The sim's skills and personality contribute to this.  So... the more skills they have, the better.  Their chances of getting a better grade are boosted by mood, personality, and asp (and/or interests).  Plat mood doubles their chances.  A random number is generated and if it happens to be > the odds (as calculated based on those attributes), then there is a 20% chance that the sim will drop a grade.

So it seems to me that your particular sim just happen to have bad luck.  It probably didn't help that your sim only had 3 skill points total.



You could always just use the 2.0 harder (just one harder) version.  That one still has the skill, personality, and mood based dependencies, without the arbitrary 20% randomness.  I just made that harder harder version because Linda had requested something to be even harder.

If you want a version that only depends on logic, then you can use the original 1.0 version.



If it isn't clear, the 2.11 version is the harder harder version, with the randomness.  If the randomness is too much, I think I kept the 2.0 version still attached.  It uses all the other skills (not just logic) without the extra hard randomness.  The 1.0 version is the one that only uses logic.



I posted in your Oops... thread already.

Ste

Updated for Seasons.  It looks like code was added, possibly to handle some odd cases, but it didn't look like those changes were necessarily specific to Seasons.  So, this hack should still be compatible with anything, even up to basegame.

Ste

Confused here: so if I want the harder grades that takes into account other skills for seasons, I should just re-download 'hardergrades2.0.zip'?

Yes.  Sorry.  I was lazy about renaming the zip file. :P

Both the "hardergrades 2.0" and ther "harder harder grades" were updated.  I'll re-edit the readme and the .zip files later to include the version number so maybe things will be less confusing. :)

Ste

I was cruising around MTS2 this morning and came across two new homework mods. I just thought you might like to know about them

One uses a combination of aspiration and personality to determin time required to do homework http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=230191

And the other grades yesterdays homework on percentage completed and deletes it on the Sims return home from school http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=230189

I don't know if I'm going to put them in my game or not, but if I do I shall report back here on compatibility (or lack thereof).

Ignore me - I've just noticed that you're thanked for your help in the MTS2 homework thread. Sometimes I despair of me, I really do.

Ste,

Risking the scary man to tell you that this is borked in AL -- it prevents kids from walking to school.

The latest AL Fixes shows conflict with this. Is it a matter of load order or are they not compatible?

*** POSSIBLE CONFLICT DETECTED ***
File Type: BHAV
Procedure Name: Interaction - At School
Group ID: 0x7FBE051B
Instance ID: 0x0000201A
Packages Containing This Procedure:
\downloads\Hacks\MATY\alfixes\alfixes.package
\downloads\Hacks\MATY\Syberspunk\hardergrades2.0 AL\hardergrades.package

I will have to check this out.  Thanks for reporting it.  I haven't had a chance to download Pes' DC for AL just yet, since I'm still in the process of just updating things.

I will need to look at Pes' hack.  I most likely will have to update my own hack so that it includes whatever fixes he may have added.  But I won't know for sure until I look at it.  I'll update when I can.


Ste

Apologies for the necro, but I spent  a good while searching for this info before eventually deciding to poke the BHAVs and get it myself, and it seems like it'd be a Good Thing if other people don't have to do the same. Since syberspunk never posted this anywhere public, here's the list of skills and their associated interests:

Logic: Paranormal, work, school, sci-fi
Body: Crime, health, sports, travel
Creativity: Money, culture, food, fashion, toys
Charisma: Politics, environment, entertainment, weather, animals

If your sim has the same number of points in two interest groups, the first one (in order of the list) will determine his/her base skill.