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Discover University: Really Disappointed
Haniiee
Posts: 33 Member
Since the last few games packs have been fairly underwhelming, I decided to wait a while before purchasing Discover University. I watched a lot of LPs and the gameplay features looked great, plus there was a lot of new objects and clothing included.
However, when I did purchase the game, all I got was a whole host of bugs and I feel like the game didn't get the attention during development that it actually needed:
1. Time has completely broken. Speed 1 and 2 are fine, but speed 3 is basically useless. It works for a couple of seconds then it will either slow down to the point where I may as well have selected a slower speed myself, it will freeze or it will start jumping back-and-forth. Ultra speed when everyone sleeps always freezing at 3.18am no matter what.
2. It is impossible to tell how my sim is progressing in her studies because there is no way to keep track. A progress bar the same as careers can't have been difficult to include! I have had my sim improve her skill level, complete homework, submit outstanding term papers/presentations, not miss any classes and complete additional study, but she is still at risk of failing the term.
3. On Foxbury Capmus, all the university buildings are rabbit holes, but Foxbury Commons has a loading screen, even though it is in the same area. If I walk back from class to my house, there is no loading screen, but if I walk back from the commons to my house, the game lets her walk all the way to the front door and then triggers and loading screen.
4. There isn't a stove in university housing, but if you eat too many quick meals or microwave meals your sims get a negative moodlet. So you have to keep going to the commons or travelling to another lot to get a proper meal.
5. The progress icon for homework does not move until the homework is actually complete. The progress on the career tab works, shoing 25%, 50% etc but it is really annoying having to keep switching between tabs when I shouldn't have to.
There are a few other little things I've noticed but these are the main ones that ruin my gameplay and make me want to rage quit all the time!
What do you guys think?
However, when I did purchase the game, all I got was a whole host of bugs and I feel like the game didn't get the attention during development that it actually needed:
1. Time has completely broken. Speed 1 and 2 are fine, but speed 3 is basically useless. It works for a couple of seconds then it will either slow down to the point where I may as well have selected a slower speed myself, it will freeze or it will start jumping back-and-forth. Ultra speed when everyone sleeps always freezing at 3.18am no matter what.
2. It is impossible to tell how my sim is progressing in her studies because there is no way to keep track. A progress bar the same as careers can't have been difficult to include! I have had my sim improve her skill level, complete homework, submit outstanding term papers/presentations, not miss any classes and complete additional study, but she is still at risk of failing the term.
3. On Foxbury Capmus, all the university buildings are rabbit holes, but Foxbury Commons has a loading screen, even though it is in the same area. If I walk back from class to my house, there is no loading screen, but if I walk back from the commons to my house, the game lets her walk all the way to the front door and then triggers and loading screen.
4. There isn't a stove in university housing, but if you eat too many quick meals or microwave meals your sims get a negative moodlet. So you have to keep going to the commons or travelling to another lot to get a proper meal.
5. The progress icon for homework does not move until the homework is actually complete. The progress on the career tab works, shoing 25%, 50% etc but it is really annoying having to keep switching between tabs when I shouldn't have to.
There are a few other little things I've noticed but these are the main ones that ruin my gameplay and make me want to rage quit all the time!
What do you guys think?
3
Comments
The time issue was something that they have mentioned in the patch notes, but it does not seem completely fixed. I get some delay around 3.18 am as well, but it only lasts for a couple of seconds.
It's pretty annoying that the game is forcing you to travel to the cafeteria. If you use mods, then I recommend LittleMsSam's mod Allow Stoves on University Housing Lots mod to place a stove in the University Dorm. I also did not like that they just reused the vendor from a market stand in the cafeteria so I use cafeteriavendorfix by Bienchen.
I think the pack is okay, I find the roommates pretty annoying though if you live in a University Dorm. I use some mods to get rid of their annoying behavior as well.
Not had the bad grades issue myself but I did see some people mentioning that it's often the skill based elective that seems to have this issue. Are you making sure your sim's keep up their skills? Some people noticed this was causing some bad grades.
Can't say as the others bother me, since they're not really bugs as such. The progress icon for the homework has been mentioned to the Devs, I believe but the loading screen and quick meals aren't bugs.
I like the pack though. It's the best University pack the series has had, in my opinion
Things that bug me are:
1) The dormies that I have made over, and have come to like, move out of the dorm and you rarely see them on campus.
I am not sure if they have graduated before my sims. I wouldn't mind a few moving out, but not all of them.
2) The secret society cult that makes your sim a slave to sprites.
I have no interest in that game play and will not use it. I will use Get Together to create my own secret societies.
I was looking forward to having secret societies back in a University pack, but this a skip for me.
3) The way food is implemented. I am really tired of the ridiculous amount of food that is left to rot in the dorm.
It might have been okay if the cleaning bots would autonomously clean it all up. That would have made the robots a lot more useful.
4) There are no extra trait lots to be earned during and after Uni.
I like to play University as a transformative experience for my sims. This means personality as well as skills.
And the food in the dorms... that is just ridiculous. Sims in Sims 2 could autonomously bring back a pizza if you were in a sorority, but the worst problem I had was everyone always eating them even if they didn't need to and getting fat. They always cleaned up (and you could make new pledges clean).
The secret society was also super disappointing. Getting kidnapped in the middle of the night? Sweet. Having to bring sprites food, metals, and harvestables that you can't get on campus? Not sweet. Without a stove accessible, it's real hard to satisfy a sweet tooth. I've barely found any mining areas on Foxbury's campus, so I can't bring metals. And without the ability to garden, you're seriously out of luck. It's slightly infuriating.
Another issue: if you decide you want to switch active households halfway through the term-- maybe you've got one sim at Foxbury and one at Britechester-- the sim you left will automatically fail the semester! Then they get put on probation. :(
If you're working on a presentation or final paper when 6pm hits at the end of the week, that paper will suddenly change to the name of one of your new classes, but you can't present or turn it in. That means you get not one bad grade, but two.
Also on Foxbury's campus, riding a bike takes longer to get to class than walking does. Overall, combined with other above comments, this pack is messy and feels completely untested. The ideas are fun--personally, I find the rotting food and piles of garbage highly entertaining!-- but the poor implementation totally ruins it for me.
I've tried the trick of going to 1 and back to 3, and the clock will speed up somewhat, but slows to a crawl again. It has nothing to do with DU - I had the lag problem prior to that. (And it's not caused by having too much in your inventory - I've created some test Sims for a single purpose, nothing in their inventories, only the essentials in the house, and had lag.)
Certain lots are prone to this problem, and I think it might be related to having something nearby that attracts a lot of Sims. I had terrible lag at the Salt House in San Myoshuno during festivals. Other lots that have been a problem are next to a playground or fishing hole. I've had no trouble with lag at the small house lot in Britechester. I can see why it could be a problem with dorms, since by definition you'd have a lot of Sims in the area.
Who thought it was a good idea to use the career tab to list your classes in separate windows, one on top of the other?
The way they decided to implement bikes this time is really weird. It's almost like a new walk style, just slightly faster and with a bike attached to the Sim. I guess since "roads" don't exist as such, it was probably the only way the could've made them. This is why cars are almost impossible to make unless they're restricted to ONE world (whatever new world they decide to make with proper roads).
Yes, I think that's exactly it - the bikes are more or less clothing accessories. They're useful for getting about a bit faster (at least until my Sims have enough wellness to teleport).
I'm actually quite pleased with DU - I knew I'd never use some of the features, such as dorms and roommates, but that's what sold me on the pack - I didn't have to move my Sim into a dorm or join secret societies. It gives my Sim new goals to accomplish, but I don't have to follow her around and fill tick boxes - it's up to me to organise my Sim's time so that she gets her classwork done.
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Same here. My university student is an adult with other responsibilities and for the time being I have no interest in living on campus. She's completed the distinguished culinary degree and entered the career at level 7. While working full time she's started on her second degree and will do the education career next.
This is why i want to buy this ep as soon as i can afford it. I've always hated having to leave behind the rest of the family and having to stay one week (at least) in campus having the same routine to make my sims complete a degree. Because after the first time it was always just the same... my main interest in uni packs was always to actually get the degree and that this degree would have an impact in their carrers. And while i haven't played yet, i know what i'll do: I will completely ignore the dorms and the campus and ill have my sim's degrees always from home. I think i'll enjoy this uni pack much more than all the others in the past.
I'm also curious about the roommates feature, maybe to use it in apartments with single sims or for a family that wants to make some simoleons from that extra room at their home.
What i was very disapointed hearing about, is the bikes. I can't understand how did devs came out with bikes without having made it possible for children to use them.
I can't remember about TS2, but I know that you can add university/college/community college buildings in TS3 to your hometown so that you don't have to leave it. There are also rabbithole rugs for them if you want to custom build your own university/college/community college buildings.
And if you don't want to even bother with any of that, you can just buy a diploma with lifetime reward points!
Didn't know about the diploma though. Have to check it. But it misses the effort, the classes, homeworks, presentations and so...
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Also HATED that I had to SELL MY HOUSE to send my sim to school??? That makes NO sense. I moved in a random townie to "hold" the house as is while my sim was away at school. I don't think I'll be sending any more sims to school and the rest will take their classes from home.
Also once you go to pick classes, the game moves you IMMEDIATELY with NO warning. I didn't have time to pack my laptop, or medicine, or anything else I wanted my sim to bring with them. It says in the description to bring things and then gives you NO time to pack at all. I had to quit and lose about 2 hours of playtime just to make up for the fact.
As for the commons being behind a loading screen? What? It's another lot, of course it's behind a loading screen. That's how Sims 4 works. It's no difference from you being able to walk all around the area outside in Oasis Springs when visiting the museum but having to load when going to the Lounge. Also, all other dorms are also behind a loading screen, but I guess you never noticed?
As for grades? I never take more than three classes a year, so I have no problem staying between A and A+ on all grades at all time. Maybe slide down to B+ on a single grade in year two, before you get credit for showing up on events. Seems to me almost all people I have seen on Youtube that get bad grades just skip homework, or come late to all classes. OF COURSE they will get bad grades then.
Why does this not make sense to you? You move out. You leave that house. Aka you don't live there anymore.
As for classes... the game tell you when you get your acceptance letter to pack up your stuff.
I wrongly assumed moving into a dorm (temporary) would be treated the Same as going on vacation (also temporary) to either vacation world. You don't sell your home to go on vacation, and you shouldn't sell your home to go to uni.
If there was a warning on the acceptance letter I missed it. I only noticed a note when choosing where to live after picking classes when I was enrolling, it had a note in there about it, but by the time I saw that it was too late to go and pack some things up. I assumed my sim would be leaving the following morning, not 2am when he enrolled.
This same thing happens when the sim goes for another semester. I wasn't warned when the current semester was going to be over, and my sim was kicked from his dorm (his laptop was delivered to him) without any sort of preamble. It was very jarring and simply unrealistic in that regard.
This is odd. IF I chose to switch dorms I get an event timer, like when you're on a date or something, in the upper left corner showing how much time i have to pack my stuff before moving out. AND the game gives me a notification "you better start packing up your stuff".
I found it anointing that when I had my hard working student get suspended, even though she did all her homework. I even tried adding more skills with level 10 to help her but it didn't make a difference.
Now I just give my selected sims a degree without going to University.
I have not experienced this with any of my four Sims in University. I got the Billing bug, but that one is easy to cheat past.
What exactly happens with that bug?