Testers Wanted: Harder Harder Grades - Version 2.14 (Updated 9/17/2008)
syberspunk:
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
laracon:
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?
ElfPuddle:
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.
Magicmoon:
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.
syberspunk:
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
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