[NEEDS INPUT] [DU] Sims fail university despite meeting all criteria

[raiijk]

@SimGuruNick I have a save with the same issue that I can send to you - I'm unable to direct message though...

[MADLES89]

Product: The Sims 4
Platform:PC
Which language are you playing the game in? English
How often does the bug occur? Every time (100%)
What is your current game version number? 1.61.15.1020
What expansions, game packs, and stuff packs do you have installed? Discover University, Island Living, Get Famous, Seasons, Cats and Dogs, City Living, Get to Work, Realm of Magic, Jungle Adventure, Parenthood, Dine Out, Spa Day, Tiny Living Stuff, Laundry Day Stuff, Fitness Stuff, Vintage Glamour Stuff, Backyard Stuff
Steps: How can we find the bug ourselves? Have a sim enroll in university. Make sure they do their homework and complete presentations / exams. Wait for the end of the term.
What happens when the bug occurs? Even if the sim has completed all homework, written all final papers and taken all of their exams, they still fail their classes, and are potentially expelled from university.
What do you expect to see? If my sim completes their homework and submits their papers and presentations, they should at least pass their classes. (With higher grades awarded if they have edited their papers / practiced their presentations)
Have you installed any customization with the game, e.g. Custom Content or Mods? Not now. I've removed them.
Did this issue appear after a specific patch or change you made to your system? Neutral/Not Sure 

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My sim is on her third term of university I think, and I have never had this problem before. (I have had mods installed, but I removed them before this last patch came out.) She did all of her homework and took all of her exams (she had no papers or presentations). Despite that, and with no warning, she failed all of her classes. Thanks to homework etc, she has pretty decent levels in all of the skills pertaining to her classes, so I have no idea why she keeps failing. I also attempted multiple times, having exited the game without saving after she failed first time. The second time it happened (I made sure all of her homework was done and that she took all of her exams and didn't miss class) I exited the game without saving again, but to be perfectly honest, I was getting frustrated and didn't bother trying a third time. As far as I know, I haven't done anything wrong. I have no idea why she keeps failing her classes even with high skills and all of her assignments completed. 

[simvasion]

@MADLES89 Have you tried Taking Notes during the classes? That option increases class performance but not skills. All the other options will increase other things like skills instead of class performance. It will say what it does in the hover tooltip.

Did you email your professors to check how they think you’re doing? If you need to increase your performance you can try studying at a computer, research terminal or from a course book.

[AlHollandiyah]

I have been wondering for a time if passing or failing might be coupled with skill gain. If so, that might give a problem with skills that are already maxed at the start of a term. Because then you would do all the same work, but you would still be marked down for not gaining any skill, which is obviously impossible beyond level 10.

[AlHollandiyah]

After running over I-Lost-Count (I'm guessing more then 20) reruns of the first two terms I think I can make a conclusion:

Every single run except for the last one, I used the weekend in to grind the 3 major related skills to max, and in the second term I would fail 1 or 2 classes consistently. Not only the paper one, also one of the exam ones would be lower then A+, despite doing the same amount of activities as far as homework and classes are concerned.

In the last one I purposely avoided any skill building outside of class, and ended the first term with all 3 skills at level 6. Then in the second term I would avoid building skill outside of class even more to leave something to work with for the third term. And lo and behold, she got an A+ on all 4 subjects WITHOUT any studying.

I also noticed grading doesn't appear to be linear to job performance, as in both terms of this last try I got an A+ with anything from 78% to 88% while in the maxed skill saves I would get a lower grade on a 98% to 100% job performance. What these other factors are I can't tell from the Show Sims Info mod I used to keep track of this progress.

This does give a problem for any semi-related second or later degrees, as by then your sims will have very high skill levels in the overlapping skills, and therefore risk failing despite putting in all the work. Which is a bummer for my new ultimate sim challenge as I want to have her work and get all 13....

As a WORKAROUND I suggest that at the start of any term you check if your sims has maxed out any of the two skills that are in that terms classes, and use either cheats or mods to lower that skill to 9 or perhaps even 8, to make sure that there is skill building available that term.

I hope that this data helps the Devs locate the bug which turns out to not only affect the paper class but also other classes (although not as much) and fix it in one of the future patches!

[shaurra]

Product: The Sims 4
Platform:PC
Which language are you playing the game in? Français
How often does the bug occur? Often (50% - 99%)
What is your current game version number? .
What expansions, game packs, and stuff packs do you have installed? .
Steps: How can we find the bug ourselves? .
What happens when the bug occurs? No matter if my sims complete all homework, go to every class, complete term papers, presentations etc. they still get a failing grade for classes. They study on the computer and their skills are at the correct level for each class. This bug makes University worthless.
What do you expect to see? .
Have you installed any customization with the game, e.g. Custom Content or Mods? Never used.
Did this issue appear after a specific patch or change you made to your system? Neutral/Not Sure 

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No matter if my sims complete all homework, go to every class, complete term papers, presentations etc. they still get a failing grade for classes. They study on the computer and their skills are at the correct level for each class. This bug makes University worthless.

[AlHollandiyah]

@shaurra  Have you tried using the "Take Notes" interaction when your sims are in class? I noticed a big difference after I started using that, getting good grades even without any additional studying on the computer! Other then that, does your sim have one of their respective skills maxed out before the end of the term? If so, try setting them back to level 8 or 9 with a cheat or mod as a workaround, not getting any skill gain seems to have a bad effect on grades as well.

[MaryStudios]

I haven't had it happen because of that but I have had them continously stuck on suspended for 0 days and I have played with that sim for three days strait and it still says that it's zero days. Not sure if the two could be related at all though.

[icezaz]

I have exactly the same bug. Already maxed out the required skill for that class (e.g. level 10 Charisma). Created excellence quality of presentation/term paper and submitted it. Have submitted finished homework every day even on the Final exam day. Even asked professor about the grade (which showing that I should get a good grade) before the class is finished but the result is still F. 

I guess this is a related to data overflow that all positive value just roll over to negative value.

"Very annoying" 

Version: 1.61.15.1020

[AlHollandiyah]

@icezaz  That's an interesting idea, personally I was wondering if the marks are partially made up by the amount of skill gain which will always be zero if a skill is maxed out already. Have you tried setting the skill back to 9 with a cheat and working it up again? If you have a backup save from before the grading, could you try and see if that works?