Active Careers, Promotions, and the Performance Bar

[oshizu]

My current dynasty heir is doing the Scientist, starting at Level 4 thanks to the Connections reward.  Feels like it's taking forever!!! 

After following the sim to the lab for two days, his performance bar is just a tick away from promotion, so I send him by himself on the 3rd day.  He's currently Level 6.
After each promotion, though, his promotion bar starts at lower than the halfway mark.  Grrrr

My question: Would his post-promotion performance bar start higher if I follow him to work that third day?

[officialghosts]

I haven't really played with non-active careers since before GTW, but I'm pretty sure all career performance bars start at the same place after a promotion. Whether or not you go on the third day shouldn't be important.

As for the problems you've had leveling the career, I know how you feel. Ever since they "fixed" them back in December careers have become one of my least favorite aspects of the Sims 4. (Especially after going back and playing careers in 3) If you hadn't, I would suggest taking Entrepreneurial or Carefree (so your sim can work hard all shift) to try and get the extra push and get promoted in two days.

[oshizu]

@officialghosts, thank you for your reply about the post-promotion performance bar.

I don't have an issue with the non-active jobs.  It's a dynasty file, so I've chosen to let the founder/heirs all share the Entrepreneurial reward, but only one heir gets Carefree.
Normally, I wouldn't be so impatient with promotions.
But the Scientist's mother has the Successful Lineage aspiration so if the Scientist doesn't reach Level 10 before she dies, my dynasty fails.
The sim in question will hit Level 7 today and is 7 days from adulthood, so he's fine.
But his mother turns elder today, which is why I'd like to know if it's possible to do the last 3 levels in 10 days (with weekend off). 

The scientist also has maxed charisma and has used Negotiate Bonus only once.  I guess I need to be more aggressive with this interaction....

 

[officialghosts]

No problem!

That makes sense. I don't really know how to help with careers as I usually try to avoid dealing with them, so all I can suggest is just the typical "send sims to work in the best mood possible with the correct emotion", which is important even for active careers. I'm unsure if befriending coworkers of leveling logic actually effects the Scientist performance at all, but those are options you can try. And definitely try negotiating more promotions.

If it takes your sim 3 days to get promotions, and he has one weekend off, he should max the career in 11 days. Unless the mother's elder hood is absurdly short, you should be fine. (The shortest elder lifespan I've had was 10-11 days, but that was an elderly townie I moved in.)

[oshizu]

I really appreciate your feedback.
This time, I "joined" the sim on the third day as well and you were right: joining or not joining has no effect on the performance bar right after a promotion (which starts right under the "o" in "Performance."

Twice, I've been just one tick away from promotion on the third day. I don't know if Negotiate Bonus will give me enough of a kick.
Thanks for reminding me that the elder stage is not always 10 days long.  The mother has max fitness, so she'll hopefully have more than 10 days.
It will be close.

In the doctor career, did it also typically take 2-3 days per promotion?

[officialghosts]

It usually took 3+ days, but that was simply because my performance bar kept getting plummeted into the red because of incorrect diagnoses. However, now that I'm able to diagnose sims correctly, I'm able to get promoted every other shift/every two days. However, there's also the fact that correctly treating a patient gives a bonus to work performance; I'm unsure if the Scientist career has a similar/equivalent booster.

[oshizu]

I'm impressed that you're getting a promotion every other workday with the Doctor career.
Thanks for sharing about the performance boost with a correct diagnosis.

Since your guide appeared, I'm really looking forward to trying the doctor career out.
Even with your detailed guide, I'm afraid to try the doctor career in a dynasty file without practicing in a separate file first. 
Seems to be the most complex of the three active careers.

As a last resort, I'll switch the aspiration of the scientist's mother from Successful Lineage to the plan B aspiration...

[Playalot]

Try to time your 'negotiate a bonus' interactions so that your scientist will be promoted after a day at work after using it. If you use the 'negotiate a bonus' when your sim will most likely be promoted anyway, it's a bit of a waste. I mix 'going with' and 'sending alone' like this.... go with and work hard out and get over half way... then negotiate for bonus...then send alone and choose 'work hard' = a promotion every second or maybe third day. Also send your scientist to work very focused, use the Clear Mind Distillation from the Outdoor Retreat game pack, if you've got it as that will last 6 hours at excellent quality, view a focused mathematical drawing, ponder moves, play chess...etc etc.
Also, when at work you can drag mathematical drawings out of your inventory and place all around the work place (or space prints as the give a +7 focus aura). Remember that you can create copies so if you draw one then you can make a million copies. They do go down in focus aura but just make more to counter that.

[ClayMask]

Negotiating a bonus won't give a full tick mark in performance, but it will give most of one.  It seems to vary slightly in exactly how much it gives.  You can do it up to every 48 hours.  About 10-20% of the time it will lower performance instead, so don't use it unless you think it will make a difference in whether your Sim can get promoted one day early.

[Playalot]

I know it can fail but I've had 100% success with three generations of sims now in my dynasty. Every time I have used this interaction it has been successful. All daily tasks completed and the sim in the 'very' ideal mood.

[dodi90]

Actually this has been discussed more deeply in other thread. I actually test Entrepreneurial trait and found that it DID NOT give extra work performance for a work day. According to XML, it only give a chance for extra kick in the end of the job but it seems fairly low chance. The negotiate bonus however is good because you can queue up to two interaction and you can get TWO performance boost in a day. You can not do more than two however since after doing the first two, the queue will simply be blank. The 'ideal mood' also didn't matter much in active career when you're going with them, they only matter if you go passively but since active career lack the daily task, your performance will move up rather slowly if you choose so.

[Playalot]

The ideal mood does matter when 'going with' your sim as often tasks will simply fail especially at the earlier levels of the career. I have also found that if you have completed the tasks necessary for the next promotion (as in the doctor career) then sending your sim to work passively in the 'very' ideal emotion moves the promotion bar just as quickly as the ordinary non-active careers. Especially if your sim works hard the entire shift. I don't look at XML, I can only report gaming experience.

Also the doubling up of the negotiate for bonus interaction is probably not a viable option in this case as oshizu is playing a dynasty. While it's not really a cheat it is really an exploit which isn't ok during a challenge.

[dodi90]

I'm not really familiar with dynasty rule so all I can offer is standard gameplay solution. Other way to raise work performance is taking : Make Connections from Computer Wiz reward trait, Hacking work performance (which can be done daily with chances of failure), Negotiate a bonus.

By the way what daily task are you talking about in active career? Did you mean promotion requirement as I recall there is actually no daily task for active career as in passive career (for example chef have task to make drinks or meal). Or did you mean that after you finish a day job for one day, the next day assume that you have completed all daily task (like the one in the passive career) thus giving you performance boost?

[Playalot]

As I said, ...tasks that are necessary for the next promotion. For example the doctor career at L7 needs 3 surgeries. The only reason I mentioned how I use negotiate for bonus was because oshizu asked about it in relation to her dynasty, which, in my mind was the main topic of this thread... how she could speed up the rate of promotion for her dynasty heir.

[Carl]

To expand on what has already been said, Performance bars' base are lower and lower the more we're promoted (they start at like 35 but gradually fall to like 15) which in part explains why upper level jobs take longer. This in addition to the often shorter hours of ordinary careers.