For me - who likes to micromanagement everything - this EP is a real bummer. Especially since I am such a hugh fan of university packs for "The Sims". However, at the moment I only see one "solution": Play one household in uni and complete the whole university experience and after that switch households.
I'd love to see a singing career in game, EA! You can't let the singing skill go to waste! My TS4 EPs: GTW, GT, CL, C&D, S, GF, IL, DU, EL, SE, CoL, HSY, GrT, HR, FR GPs: OR, SD, DO, V, P, JA, SV, RoM, DHD, MWS
I want to take multiple sims to school together. I made a whole new save of teens and got them all into friendships/relationships. This is a huge oversight by the devs and I won't buy the pack unless it is fixed or a modder at least figures out a fix. I was pretty plum that I had to put all my sims in different dorms unless I wanted to play them all in one family (the dorms should have been more like apartments than a penthouse.) I've already had to redo a bunch of neighborhoods and turn them into college towns with dorms. I always wait a week or so to get a pack to see what people have to say and this is pretty much the worst part of the whole pack for me. University has always been my favorite ep next to Seasons and I am struggling to even want to buy it with news like this.
From what I read, you can turn on "testingcheats" and then shift-click sims to add them to your Uni household as enrolled. I don't have the pack myself yet, so I can't tell you the exact tech facts, but from that thread (I don't remember which one) it sounded like enrolling multiple sims was not a problem - you don't even need to go back home to do it one by one. Assuming they were staying in the same uni housing, though.
Well. As a notorious rotational player with over 20 household in my main saved game I am experimenting with a fresh testing game. I have 2 played household in it at the moment both living on University grounds. One is attending Foxbury and lives in a dorm and the other, the Best Friends household (pre-mades that came with the new expansion) is in the other University and in their own dorm as well.
I started playing the Best Friends through a half a week and I did have them do a lot of work on their courses, finish term papers and do all their homework on time. They only needed to finish exams (for those courses that stipulated it) and one of them had a presentation to do. Then I left them and created a new Sim because I really wanted to try the Physics extinquished program in Foxbury because ROBOTS!! and my Lex Luthor got accepted and I am working on him now.
Reading this thread made me abit annoyed because I thought that those households that I enroll at start of term and leave alone will finish off their schooling (might only have to pop in once in a while to re-enroll them into the next term which is what I am testing.
Today, I went back into Best Friends and immediatly I get a pop up to re-enroll them, which I did, chose their courses, made sure they stayed put in their dorms and payed their intuition or got them a loan when needed (really have no accepted scholarships). I saw that they both got A+ for the finished term.
Now I am back to Lex and am going to play him throughout leaving the Best Friends alone for this term and see what will happen. I am hoping they will get a pass and at least an average grade and not a fail and a chuckout
I also noticed, may not be insignificant, but when I was in 'choose world' I noticed that by Britechester it only says that I have 1 played household even though I have both Best Friends household and Lex Luthor's household (2 seperate played households). In my other games whenever I have more than 1 played household in a world it says exactly how many households I have played in each world. For instance Willow Creek is 9 played, Oasis has 5, etc. Maybe a bug?
I play every premade household in Sims 4 - which means that I rotate A LOT! Unfortunately I have to rotate between terms if I want my Sims to get good grades. If not - I think it’ll be okay. I merged some households and moved them into the same dorm.
Thanks to all the people who are sharing their experiences so far of rotational playing. It’s super useful for me to know the best way of tackling it once the game is released on console - especially as I won’t be able to mod the game so will need a tried and tested method to make it work. Frustrating though that the uni game mechanics have messed about so much with an otherwise pretty easy to use rotational play style!
Seconding @lauradean89's offer of thanks! I have a large rotation & had been planning --for years!--to have all the teens go to Uni together, as they did in--was it TS3?--I forget! Those particular teens didn't live long enough to go to Uni, nor did their parents, but the grandkids can go!
I find it ironic that when The Sims first came out, I initially only played one household, but the game itself taught me to play rotationally (so the other sims would have some progression!). Worked fine with TS1&2; got a little tricky with TS3's story progression until they gave us the ability to mark a household (first via NRAAS, & then Maxis gave us the option, if I remember correctly). With TS4, it has become plain that the game is primarily designed to be played with one-household per save-game. Rotational players are an afterthought. It's too bad! Maxis taught me to play rotationally! You'd think the game would be designed with that option being as important as single-household play. But that ain't the reality. /shrug /sadsmile
The way I'm playing rotationally is to have a family complete a full term before switching. When the enrollment question comes up I x it out and if in a dorm move back home. Then I can play another family. It's working out well. Uni is hard enough without leaving mid term. I'm playing each family a bit longer now but that's OK. I leave aging on and don't think it's a factor here but I'm only rotating between two families so perhaps if some rotate more families per game it will be.
Have you tried not enrolling them and leaving them in the dorm??
I'm playing the Pleasants household and a Sim in the city rotationally. Well, the Pleasants got suspended while I was with the city sim, even though all of their homework was completed and studied on top of it. I don't know if they missed class or what.
I believe in Sims 2 the other sims got like average grades if you didn't play them. I think you should be able to pause households or something in this. The only other way I can think to play is to have all uni sims move in together. That's what I used to do in sims 2. But that defeats the purpose of being able to do uni at other world's.
In Sims 2, when you switched houses nothing happened to their grade. The sims stayed exactly where you left them and this is how it should have been with this game. I have no idea why they would add progression in an expansion with no progression in the base game.
I'm playing the Pleasants household and a Sim in the city rotationally. Well, the Pleasants got suspended while I was with the city sim, even though all of their homework was completed and studied on top of it. I don't know if they missed class or what.
I believe in Sims 2 the other sims got like average grades if you didn't play them. I think you should be able to pause households or something in this. The only other way I can think to play is to have all uni sims move in together. That's what I used to do in sims 2. But that defeats the purpose of being able to do uni at other world's.
In Sims 2, when you switched houses nothing happened to their grade. The sims stayed exactly where you left them and this is how it should have been with this game. I have no idea why they would add progression in an expansion with no progression in the base game.
Yes, in TS2 Sims were left in stasis when you left the lot. But that is never how it's been for TS4. It's not unique to this pack.
TS4 may not have story progression, but time does still progress when you leave the lot. It's the same reason that babies will still be born when you rotate away, and why their skills and relationships change based on how they act when they show up on public lots or social events. It's also why seasons continue to change and why holidays will still go on when you switch houses. Aging may be able to be turned on or off, but time never stops.
For me - who likes to micromanagement everything - this EP is a real bummer. Especially since I am such a hugh fan of university packs for "The Sims". However, at the moment I only see one "solution": Play one household in uni and complete the whole university experience and after that switch households.
I was thinking the same. The other alternative could be having a sim attend university from home and rotate once the term has been completed but that would bypass the whole university experience.
For me - who likes to micromanagement everything - this EP is a real bummer. Especially since I am such a hugh fan of university packs for "The Sims". However, at the moment I only see one "solution": Play one household in uni and complete the whole university experience and after that switch households.
I was thinking the same. The other alternative could be having a sim attend university from home and rotate once the term has been completed but that would bypass the whole university experience.
I did no testing yet, but I planned my routine. Every year in Fall I will have a group of locals (who got accepted for Uni) form a new household. This household I will play through all terms in one go. Although all other households will be on halt, at least I might be lucky to graduate more than one sim at the time. The group will stay on Campus for 2-3 years, even if they are done with their terms, just to make it realistic for their household back home. If possible, I might play them only 1-2 terms per rotation.
I plan to have a dorm (residential lot, but need to learn how it can be organized) where basically my locals stay. If those graduated can't stay there, I will simply move them into an additional household in Britechester while they wait to return to their hometown. Residential lodging allows my students to attend both Universities. In the long run there might be years with only students for one of the universities, the I might place them in a regular dorm.
I also need to find out if students in one dorm all need to be on the same term, or if I can move in 2 students one year, and add one more student the next year, while the two first are still not graduated.
I might skip sending students every other year or so, but while the pack feels fresh I will probably enjoy spending the extra time there. I'm having a local "education program" that my locals can join to attend Uni, it's too early to see how it will work
I think switching between terms (before enrollment) is the best way to go but hopefully EA will add an option to let us freeze the progress of played sims attending university, in the same way that we can freeze aging for played sims when we are not actually playing them. Or maybe a modder can do it.
Thanks @SilentKitty please let us know how you get on and good luck 😊
Sure thing. The plan is to get the both of them into Foxbury. One household will be played actively and the other on will just get accepted and then I will leave that one until the term has ended. If I understood it correctly then the passive played household should pass with average grades. First household is accepted into Uni but still waiting for the second one.
Ha ha, had this idea of the two of them becoming the best of friends but actually they have the worst possible chemistry. It just keeps going into the red so they became enemies instead. Fun!
The way I'm playing rotationally is to have a family complete a full term before switching. When the enrollment question comes up I x it out and if in a dorm move back home. Then I can play another family. It's working out well. Uni is hard enough without leaving mid term. I'm playing each family a bit longer now but that's OK. I leave aging on and don't think it's a factor here but I'm only rotating between two families so perhaps if some rotate more families per game it will be.
This way of playing makes more sense. Finishing up the term, then moving sims back into their own house before switching households. Thank you.
The problem I have with this way of playing is that I want my college town/college to be populated with my sims that go there, but if I am constantly unenrolling them and sending them home, this won't happen unless I turn all the housing into residential lots (which bypasses a big feature of the pack). Because I don't want to miss out on the roommates and I want to see the right sims in the area, I play out a term, and then re-enroll sims with just one class before leaving the lot and crossing my fingers they get as decent grade. So far, when I go back to check on them for testing purposes (I play rotationally with over 100 families so it will be awhile before I play them again) they have always gotten an A or A+. It must be because they are skilled.
I tried a few different housing arrangements. In a dorm if you don't enroll you have to pack up and go. Unless it was a bug this was not the case for university housing with roomies. I never got a re-enrol message until I initiated one and when I said no to that I had to go. Before then I stayed on for a couple of days just hanging out. But it was awful. Many, many students kept dropping by so it was constant party time. Two of my roomies left but I think I could have assigned beds to others. Next I tried buying the small residential house. That was the best. I could have stayed unenrolled as long as I wanted to. A bit more expensive but I had a garden and and did programming. Lonelier of course for a single.
I just played through one of my households going to uni. From the day I started the household and got them to apply to the end of the first term it took 10 sim days, including the day they returned home. That's quite a chunk, considering I only usually play each household for 4 days.
I decided that I will only send students to uni once per season, that way I can use up 10 days there (of a 28 days season) and share the remaining days out between my remaining 6 households and still get to play the others for 3 days each (instead of my usual 4).
I haven't sent anyone away to college yet but maybe the sim(s) I send to the dorms will finish all terms, then graduate before I move on to the next household. I think that's what I did in sims 2. I play with aging off anyway.
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I'm playing the Pleasants household and a Sim in the city rotationally. Well, the Pleasants got suspended while I was with the city sim, even though all of their homework was completed and studied on top of it. I don't know if they missed class or what.
I believe in Sims 2 the other sims got like average grades if you didn't play them. I think you should be able to pause households or something in this. The only other way I can think to play is to have all uni sims move in together. That's what I used to do in sims 2. But that defeats the purpose of being able to do uni at other world's.
In Sims 2, when you switched houses nothing happened to their grade. The sims stayed exactly where you left them and this is how it should have been with this game. I have no idea why they would add progression in an expansion with no progression in the base game.
Yes, in TS2 Sims were left in stasis when you left the lot. But that is never how it's been for TS4. It's not unique to this pack.
TS4 may not have story progression, but time does still progress when you leave the lot. It's the same reason that babies will still be born when you rotate away, and why their skills and relationships change based on how they act when they show up on public lots or social events. It's also why seasons continue to change and why holidays will still go on when you switch houses. Aging may be able to be turned on or off, but time never stops.
True their relationships may change because of interaction between sims while you are not playing and babies will be born in they are pregnant when you leave. Career progression doesn't change from what I have seen and neither does school progression so why change it with University?
I agree, because this means defacto that sacrifices have to be made between the sims that start as students, let alone the townies, like the merfolk, who gets to uni on their own.
I'm playing the Pleasants household and a Sim in the city rotationally. Well, the Pleasants got suspended while I was with the city sim, even though all of their homework was completed and studied on top of it. I don't know if they missed class or what.
I believe in Sims 2 the other sims got like average grades if you didn't play them. I think you should be able to pause households or something in this. The only other way I can think to play is to have all uni sims move in together. That's what I used to do in sims 2. But that defeats the purpose of being able to do uni at other world's.
In Sims 2, when you switched houses nothing happened to their grade. The sims stayed exactly where you left them and this is how it should have been with this game. I have no idea why they would add progression in an expansion with no progression in the base game.
Yes, in TS2 Sims were left in stasis when you left the lot. But that is never how it's been for TS4. It's not unique to this pack.
TS4 may not have story progression, but time does still progress when you leave the lot. It's the same reason that babies will still be born when you rotate away, and why their skills and relationships change based on how they act when they show up on public lots or social events. It's also why seasons continue to change and why holidays will still go on when you switch houses. Aging may be able to be turned on or off, but time never stops.
True their relationships may change because of interaction between sims while you are not playing and babies will be born in they are pregnant when you leave. Career progression doesn't change from what I have seen and neither does school progression so why change it with University?
I think the issue here is that University is broken up into time-bound terms. This is not the case with existing careers with the exception of freelancers and acting. The game does seem to do the same thing it does for base game careers and check off that the Sim went to the rabbit hole classes; however, it's not going to give them credit for turning in presentations or taking exams because those are specific tasks that have to be completed on a deadline, much in the same way a freelance gig works. (Degrees that require a paper or presentation are probably better off in this regard, because you can complete those at any time during the term unlike a final exam that is scheduled at a specific time.)
Personally, what I'm waiting to find out is when does the "term" clock start ticking? If I enroll Sims one at a time from their home lots, but don't immediately go play them in their dorm, does the term only start once I begin playing them? Or is it better to split them into one household first and enroll them all at once?
I'm playing the Pleasants household and a Sim in the city rotationally. Well, the Pleasants got suspended while I was with the city sim, even though all of their homework was completed and studied on top of it. I don't know if they missed class or what.
I believe in Sims 2 the other sims got like average grades if you didn't play them. I think you should be able to pause households or something in this. The only other way I can think to play is to have all uni sims move in together. That's what I used to do in sims 2. But that defeats the purpose of being able to do uni at other world's.
In Sims 2, when you switched houses nothing happened to their grade. The sims stayed exactly where you left them and this is how it should have been with this game. I have no idea why they would add progression in an expansion with no progression in the base game.
Yes, in TS2 Sims were left in stasis when you left the lot. But that is never how it's been for TS4. It's not unique to this pack.
TS4 may not have story progression, but time does still progress when you leave the lot. It's the same reason that babies will still be born when you rotate away, and why their skills and relationships change based on how they act when they show up on public lots or social events. It's also why seasons continue to change and why holidays will still go on when you switch houses. Aging may be able to be turned on or off, but time never stops.
True their relationships may change because of interaction between sims while you are not playing and babies will be born in they are pregnant when you leave. Career progression doesn't change from what I have seen and neither does school progression so why change it with University?
I think the issue here is that University is broken up into time-bound terms. This is not the case with existing careers with the exception of freelancers and acting. The game does seem to do the same thing it does for base game careers and check off that the Sim went to the rabbit hole classes; however, it's not going to give them credit for turning in presentations or taking exams because those are specific tasks that have to be completed on a deadline, much in the same way a freelance gig works. (Degrees that require a paper or presentation are probably better off in this regard, because you can complete those at any time during the term unlike a final exam that is scheduled at a specific time.)
Personally, what I'm waiting to find out is when does the "term" clock start ticking? If I enroll Sims one at a time from their home lots, but don't immediately go play them in their dorm, does the term only start once I begin playing them? Or is it better to split them into one household first and enroll them all at once?
Yeah your theory makes sense to me. I still believe if they would have thought about rotational players the easy fix would have been to pause when the households are not active. There is no reason to keep the terms going for sims that are not actively being played in my opinion.
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From what I read, you can turn on "testingcheats" and then shift-click sims to add them to your Uni household as enrolled. I don't have the pack myself yet, so I can't tell you the exact tech facts, but from that thread (I don't remember which one) it sounded like enrolling multiple sims was not a problem - you don't even need to go back home to do it one by one. Assuming they were staying in the same uni housing, though.
I started playing the Best Friends through a half a week and I did have them do a lot of work on their courses, finish term papers and do all their homework on time. They only needed to finish exams (for those courses that stipulated it) and one of them had a presentation to do. Then I left them and created a new Sim because I really wanted to try the Physics extinquished program in Foxbury because ROBOTS!! and my Lex Luthor got accepted and I am working on him now.
Reading this thread made me abit annoyed because I thought that those households that I enroll at start of term and leave alone will finish off their schooling (might only have to pop in once in a while to re-enroll them into the next term which is what I am testing.
Today, I went back into Best Friends and immediatly I get a pop up to re-enroll them, which I did, chose their courses, made sure they stayed put in their dorms and payed their intuition or got them a loan when needed (really have no accepted scholarships). I saw that they both got A+ for the finished term.
Now I am back to Lex and am going to play him throughout leaving the Best Friends alone for this term and see what will happen. I am hoping they will get a pass and at least an average grade and not a fail and a chuckout
I also noticed, may not be insignificant, but when I was in 'choose world' I noticed that by Britechester it only says that I have 1 played household even though I have both Best Friends household and Lex Luthor's household (2 seperate played households). In my other games whenever I have more than 1 played household in a world it says exactly how many households I have played in each world. For instance Willow Creek is 9 played, Oasis has 5, etc. Maybe a bug?
Frustrating though that the uni game mechanics have messed about so much with an otherwise pretty easy to use rotational play style!
I find it ironic that when The Sims first came out, I initially only played one household, but the game itself taught me to play rotationally (so the other sims would have some progression!). Worked fine with TS1&2; got a little tricky with TS3's story progression until they gave us the ability to mark a household (first via NRAAS, & then Maxis gave us the option, if I remember correctly). With TS4, it has become plain that the game is primarily designed to be played with one-household per save-game. Rotational players are an afterthought. It's too bad! Maxis taught me to play rotationally! You'd think the game would be designed with that option being as important as single-household play. But that ain't the reality. /shrug /sadsmile
edited for clarity
For those of you who have, how long have you been away from your sims in college before rotating back? And what was the result?
Have you tried not enrolling them and leaving them in the dorm??
In Sims 2, when you switched houses nothing happened to their grade. The sims stayed exactly where you left them and this is how it should have been with this game. I have no idea why they would add progression in an expansion with no progression in the base game.
Yes, in TS2 Sims were left in stasis when you left the lot. But that is never how it's been for TS4. It's not unique to this pack.
TS4 may not have story progression, but time does still progress when you leave the lot. It's the same reason that babies will still be born when you rotate away, and why their skills and relationships change based on how they act when they show up on public lots or social events. It's also why seasons continue to change and why holidays will still go on when you switch houses. Aging may be able to be turned on or off, but time never stops.
I was thinking the same. The other alternative could be having a sim attend university from home and rotate once the term has been completed but that would bypass the whole university experience.
I did no testing yet, but I planned my routine. Every year in Fall I will have a group of locals (who got accepted for Uni) form a new household. This household I will play through all terms in one go. Although all other households will be on halt, at least I might be lucky to graduate more than one sim at the time. The group will stay on Campus for 2-3 years, even if they are done with their terms, just to make it realistic for their household back home. If possible, I might play them only 1-2 terms per rotation.
I plan to have a dorm (residential lot, but need to learn how it can be organized) where basically my locals stay. If those graduated can't stay there, I will simply move them into an additional household in Britechester while they wait to return to their hometown. Residential lodging allows my students to attend both Universities. In the long run there might be years with only students for one of the universities, the I might place them in a regular dorm.
I also need to find out if students in one dorm all need to be on the same term, or if I can move in 2 students one year, and add one more student the next year, while the two first are still not graduated.
I might skip sending students every other year or so, but while the pack feels fresh I will probably enjoy spending the extra time there. I'm having a local "education program" that my locals can join to attend Uni, it's too early to see how it will work
Sure thing. The plan is to get the both of them into Foxbury. One household will be played actively and the other on will just get accepted and then I will leave that one until the term has ended. If I understood it correctly then the passive played household should pass with average grades. First household is accepted into Uni but still waiting for the second one.
Ha ha, had this idea of the two of them becoming the best of friends but actually they have the worst possible chemistry. It just keeps going into the red so they became enemies instead. Fun!
The problem I have with this way of playing is that I want my college town/college to be populated with my sims that go there, but if I am constantly unenrolling them and sending them home, this won't happen unless I turn all the housing into residential lots (which bypasses a big feature of the pack). Because I don't want to miss out on the roommates and I want to see the right sims in the area, I play out a term, and then re-enroll sims with just one class before leaving the lot and crossing my fingers they get as decent grade. So far, when I go back to check on them for testing purposes (I play rotationally with over 100 families so it will be awhile before I play them again) they have always gotten an A or A+. It must be because they are skilled.
I decided that I will only send students to uni once per season, that way I can use up 10 days there (of a 28 days season) and share the remaining days out between my remaining 6 households and still get to play the others for 3 days each (instead of my usual 4).
I haven't sent anyone away to college yet but maybe the sim(s) I send to the dorms will finish all terms, then graduate before I move on to the next household. I think that's what I did in sims 2. I play with aging off anyway.
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True their relationships may change because of interaction between sims while you are not playing and babies will be born in they are pregnant when you leave. Career progression doesn't change from what I have seen and neither does school progression so why change it with University?
I think the issue here is that University is broken up into time-bound terms. This is not the case with existing careers with the exception of freelancers and acting. The game does seem to do the same thing it does for base game careers and check off that the Sim went to the rabbit hole classes; however, it's not going to give them credit for turning in presentations or taking exams because those are specific tasks that have to be completed on a deadline, much in the same way a freelance gig works. (Degrees that require a paper or presentation are probably better off in this regard, because you can complete those at any time during the term unlike a final exam that is scheduled at a specific time.)
Personally, what I'm waiting to find out is when does the "term" clock start ticking? If I enroll Sims one at a time from their home lots, but don't immediately go play them in their dorm, does the term only start once I begin playing them? Or is it better to split them into one household first and enroll them all at once?
Yeah your theory makes sense to me. I still believe if they would have thought about rotational players the easy fix would have been to pause when the households are not active. There is no reason to keep the terms going for sims that are not actively being played in my opinion.