[UNSURE] [DU] Troubles getting/keeping roommates

[MsMediocreMolly]

same thing is happening to me but i do not have any mods available. It doesnt happen within 24h though, but only one roommate has stayed. I gave all but two double beds and the ones in single beds stayed, those in doubles didnt. I thought this was a coincidence worth exploring but so i replaced all beds with singles and assigned everyone a bed. They still left. They live in a literal mansion with everything they could ever need. I do not understand. I am also not getting potential roommates despite having posted an ad. I had to manually find them myself, I invited my gaming team to a party and asked them to be roomies. Most have left. I have no idea how to fix this. 

[SheriGR]

@MsMediocreMolly Please 'me to' this post at the beginning (page one) of the thread. Then please look through the posts for advice and workarounds that have helped for others. Sorry for your frustration.

[RandomBuzziness]

@MsMediocreMolly I've only been playing Discover University for a few weeks now. I love playing long games so I always disable aging and I set the season length for 28 days. I've had three roommates so far and none of them have opted to leave. Only one of them has even made mild complaints. I never did have any luck in getting NPC Sims to respond to my roommates-wanted ads, so all three of these were NPC homeless Sims that I asked directly.

• They've all seemed happy enough with living in a private, dorm-style bedroom with a single bed, desk, dresser, and nightstand, all using DU build/buy items. I also put some DU decor items on the floor and walls. After they move in and place their personal items on a few of the surfaces I will go in and add a few more decorative items there too. They always sleep in their assigned bed every night. Giving them a private room with a fair amount of decor seems to keep them happy.
• I don't set up a separate kitchen area for them. They always eat meals from the refrigerator that are prepared by my Sim. None of them have ever cooked or brought back meals from off-lot. Providing them good quality meals seems to help.
• They do seem to like making & drinking coffee (as @SheriGR  pointed out to me!) so keeping a coffee maker helps.
• For my bathrooms I use mid-grade plumbing with upgrades. They all use the toilets just fine and never do the I-need-to-pee-really-bad walk to an off-lot location. These are medium-quality toilets that have at least one upgrade. I definitely add the self-cleaning upgrade at a minimum.
• Same with the showers, they use them before they get the green fog of funk & never go off-lot to bathe. These are also medium-quality stand-up showers with at least one upgrade. The shower/tub combos are bugged right now so I avoid using those. Having upgraded bathroom plumbing seems to keep them happy even when they are not top-quality fixtures.
• Two of them were friends with my Sim before I asked them to be roommates. The other was only an acquaintance, but they became friends afterwards. Doing friendly interactions with them seems to help, especially when they are angry or sad and need cheering up.

Roommate #1 was with my Sim for 30+ days but I lost her when my Sim moved to a new house in a different neighborhood. She's still a homeless NPC in my game so I may ask her to move back in at some point. I never had any problems with this Sim.

Roommate #2 had this odd habit of sitting on a toilet for like 30 - 40 minutes at a time, I'm not sure what could have been causing that! It was not the toilets, they worked fine for everyone else. She was with my Sim for almost 30 days but she would not stop trying romantic interactions (flirting, serenading, etc) with my Sim so I eventually asked her to leave (my Sim already has a sweetie ;-D). Everything was fine other than that. She is also still a homeless NPC in my game and she comes back to visit sometimes.

Roommate #3 has been with my Sim for about 20 days now. She won't stop going outside to shovel snow, which for some reason gives her a Sad moodlet, but everything else seems fine with her. She probably wishes we lived in Sulani instead of Brindleton Bay! xDDD Fortunately for her, Spring is almost here :D Shortly after she moved in she left two notes complaining about things being dirty, but there have been no other problems/complaints since then.

Note that in all this I am playing a single Sim living with one or two roommates, similar to a college dorm situation. I'm not adding a roommate to a larger family. I don't know if this makes any difference or not.

[Aramiteus]

Hello,

Seems really something about their needs. 

I've got the message about leaving then pressed shift right click to open the cheats menu.

Then there cheat needs and then make happy. 

Soon after that I received the message that the roommate feels okay again and will stay.

[pwrhngry432]

Sorry I'm just now seeing the response to my post so this is a little late, although it seems like this issue is persisting for all of us.

@SheriGR: The first thing I do with every single new roommate is I assign them a bed, so I know that isn't the issue. And they don't appear to be getting randomly unassigned, because when I get the notification the first thing i do is make sure that they have a bed assigned to them and that there are no locked doors to any area they need to get into. I make sure each person has a desk, a dresser, and two bed side tables, and use overhead lighting so I don't have to worry about taking that space from them. I'm not sure what you mean by "moo t" in regards to placing the furniture, can you elaborate on that.

I do typically use CC, however I have disabled it and tested a new game file without them, and still encounter the same issues, which alongside other people's accounts lead me to believe this glitch transcends the use of mods/cc in the game.

As for the un/reassigning of beds to the roommates sims and their needs not being met due to issues with their own autonomy, while its something we can look out for and cheat our way out of as players, it becomes incredibly tiresome and I'd rather have them fix the glitch than constantly having to compensate for it over and over again as a player. 

EDIT: I do not mean this post as antagonistic in any way, I'm just really hoping the devs see this thread so that they're aware of this bug and can address it properly.

[SheriGR]

@pwrhngry432 I completely agree... the roommates code needs some love... and I look forward to improvements. 

I may have had a typo on the moo reference. I'll check. What I mean is that at this point, since roommates are overly fussy, I think it's safer to not use moo to place items in areas roomies will use to meet needs (including their bedroom). Moo refers to the 'bb.moveobjects on' placement cheat. 

Sorry for any confusion due to that comment. 

[RandomBuzziness]

I think the game gives roommates random quirks that have nothing to do with their traits, just to make them more unpredictable. I also think some of them are predetermined to not work out as roommates no matter how hard you try to please them.

For anyone who feels like trying an experiment: When setting up a roommate's bedroom, try using the Build/Buy items from Discover University for the bed, desk, dresser, and night stand. Also throw in a few DU decor items on the floor and walls to make it look like a dorm. This is all I've ever done for my roommates and they seem happy enough. For the bathrooms try doing a few upgrades on the toilet, sink, and shower. I don't use fancy or high-end bathroom fixtures but my roommates use them just fine and seem to show a preference to whichever shower has the most upgrades. Definitely avoid the bugged shower/tub combos for now. 

I've had my roommates for 90+ game days without any of them complaining about their needs or moving out. They always autonomously use the things in my house to fill their needs. One of them does leave those complaining notes but I think some of that is just done randomly. I do not use testingcheats or mods to keep them happy.

[Aramiteus]

They have several needs Independent from the normal commidities (Bladder, etc.)

I had one that wanted loud Music (Quirk). When I turned the Music down to medium he started to complain.

The I turned the music up again to loud again and felt fine again. This is a nice idea from the devs :-).

Nevertheless a hint would have been nice for whats wrong.

[SheriGR]

@Aramiteus I had one roommate who I had tried for a few days as nanny during the toddler decay bug in the household (btw... worst nanny ever - he did absolutely nothing with or for the toddler!). He seemed nice enough and the family had socialized with him some before so I gave him a try as roomie.

He proceeded to fully make himself at home - more than any other roomie did. I played all of the instruments, used all of the entertainment and exercise stuff, ate and had his girlfriend over a lot. A lot! (She may as well have moved in). Then I get some pop-up that this dude is not fully content (the typical pop-up about needs or something - this seems to always happen once at some for a new roomie - as if it's required). I check around when I get a notice to make sure their crap in their room has not been sat on top of their computer or things like this, then move on.

Then suddenly he was gone. Moved out. I didn't hunt him down. Good riddance. Moving on to someone who's less of an ingrate...

Moral of the story?  Some roomies are just jerks and maybe are not meant to work out - or to be a real handful. Sometimes it seems to be the best plan to move on to a different roommate.

On the other hand, like you said, I think it's fun & interesting (except when it isn't) that you don't control the roomies, and that they can have their own quirks.

Also, you mentioned quirks. I've noticed a flirty interactions quirk in all of my roomies. It can be very frustrating in a home with a family or couples. I think this quirk, if it's there and I'm not imagining it, needs to be tweaked down. Roomies should not be any more spontaneously romantic (without encouragement) than normal sims. The exception to this would be a sim with the 'romantic' or similar trait, in which case you would expect it.

[pwrhngry432]

Thanks for the clarification regarding "moo". I've never heard it called that before but it makes sense now that i process it haha. Yeah i think the quirks need to be a bit more... noticeable. Like if my sim is enrolled in university, between going to class, doing homeowork, and other assignments, its really hard to find time to socialize with roommates and find out these quirks before it's too late. Like maybe a popup message saying something like "you notice that your roommate seems to like louder music" or "your roommate likes to get... very close". All in all i really like the idea of the roommate system but it just needs a little more time and refinement to be truly sucessful