University performance bar decreasing constantly

[Draigh]

Hey all,

I now have a sim doing a technology study at the university. Even though he is doing his classes and all, the performance bar seems to be constantly decreasing. Even worse, the decrease is so fast that at the end of the day with 3 classes, he ends lower than where he started.

Bug or supposed to happen? Of so, what should I do to get it to increase faster? What are good ways to increase it without cheating (I dont want to set the needs static so he doesnt need to eat and sleep between classes and studying and all...)

[Ricalynn]

What tone did you have him use during class?  Do you ever have him study? 

I would suggest going to the grocery store and grabbing a wonderpetal and eating it before sending him to class on MWF. 

I had 6 people in school doing all 6 of the degrees and each one basically had to study hard a lot and always used the work hard tone or one where they befriended their teacher.  I tended to have them working on skills that worked with their degree more than anything else, too. 

[shownder]

I'm not sure what activities a Tech Degree gains from. With my sim, in Arts, I make sure I do things to fill his needs that help with his School bar (IE: Cooking for food, Playing guitar or painting for fun, study group for social, etc...). If you look under Responsibilities in your school tab, then mouse over Skills/Objects it should tell you what activities help your bar go up.

I also found that staying up late (Studying, activities, parties, etc) and then spending the half of my first class sleeping was a more efficient way of keeping my energy bar maxed

[Miravlix]

I actually came looking to see how much studying people do.

I've only tested with two older sims thats completed their LTW, one has all the lifetime happiness reward traits that improves the sims ability to learn and he does seem to get on the deans list fairly easy. (Didn't take much for him to fall off it again)

The key is how much you study, for fresh young adults with no skills, traits or rewards to boost their learning performance, your going to spend a lot of energy on studying to get an A.

[yruvian]

And unlike in high school, socializing during class makes your performance go down instead of up. Which, I think, is kind of normal, as your sim isn't really paying attention.

[Draigh]

He is following class with a normal tone, otherwise he wont reach the end of the day without breaking down in tears from boredom. I tried two parties because he had wishes to go there, after that only focussed on study related tasks and keeping his needs up.

He has the quick learner improvement and already had high skills in his area (and acceptable skills all around) before he went to university. Started him as part of a family as a child with the Genius trait, amongst others.

Also, I am not talking about his performance going down during class. I am talking about his performance going down the moment class is over, and down so hard that within an hour or two any improvement you got from class is gone. Also, following the class or using the study-related item only very slowly improves anything (because of the constant quick drain?)

[Cas]

That's basically working as designed then.  Performance is supposed to drop when you're not in class, and when not studying/performing some skill related activity appropriate to your degree (except on Saturday & Sunday).  So, if you are going through class using a normal study rate, and not doing anything outside of class, i can imagine your performance is going to bomb.

I recommend the Try hard and suck up to teacher options during class, get your happyness rating back up each evening, and perform a few study sessions and degree related activities outside of class.

[Miravlix]

Gaining a skill point in related skills to your major, seems to be the main way to gain huge amounts of performance.

I was watching the performance bar as my sim with zero point in painting gained one point and it was a huge boost.

[Draigh]

I studied the related skills (logic and handiness) and barely got an increase (at least the bar did not go down). The lecture also stopped the bar from going down, didn't see it actually increase. And the night of studying increased it to the halfway level again. Which dropped significantly after a nights sleep.
I think it's bugged with the amount things go up and down. It goes down way too fast over here... And barely increases.
Which is strange, because when I study something in real life, I don't suddenly forget it and know even less after a night sleeping or a game of chess.

[Corylea]

It sounds as if your bar might be decreasing faster than other players' is.  Do you have any skill-modifying mods?  Have you tried a factory reset?  The bar does decline, but what you're describing sounds out of line with how things happen for me.

[x9987]

I was having the same issue, then I protested against harsh grading by teachers, where my performance started to stay in the middle.  After the first set of exams, I had my sim "Try Hard", and she passed with flying colours.  Then she was on the dean's list.  My conclusion was that it would be best to have her slack off in class, mess around outside of school, and then only have her try for exams.

[Susinok]

For 12 credit hours, my Sim "Works Hard" in each lecture class and "Studies Hard" twice per semester. She also gained at least 1 skill point. Doing this she had a full learning bar by Wednesday and could socialize a bit.

So like life, you have to work for that A. If you putz around you can skate through but do not expect a high grade point average.

[Draigh]

I did a test with three sims and static needs. Each sim enrolled with a different level course (easy, medium and heavy).

First thing I noticed: their performance degraded a lot slower than with my first sim, so it might be a bug.. or I might need to go protesting against an unfair professor...

Secondly... on the monday the heavy sim had three classes while the light sim only had one class, as expected. The performance bar for both increased to the same level at the end of all the classes. Meaning the heavy sim has a lower increase per class compared to the light sim.

Doing nothing at all besides the required schedule seems to keep my performance at about the same level, the degration over the whole day is about equal to the increase from the required classes. So getting the performance high and keeping it there is indeed not that hard if you put some effort in it.

Except when you are having an unfair professor/bug... then it pretty much ends up with your grade going down the drain...