The Sims 4 - Patch notes on console [January 31st, 2019]
Update: 01/31/2019 – v1.13
Hello Simmers!
Happy New Year! What do you mean that was over a month ago? How is it February already? Anyway, we are on track to keep our New Year's resolutions on t...
Howdy Simmers. Nice spread you got here for the holidays. To add to your eggnog and cheer, I have some delightful updates for you. A smattering of stocking stuffers, if you will. Snowy the Sandman, Surfin’ Santa, and Flip-Flop Wall Lights to brighten your décor. It’s just like Christmas but in the Summer. Come to think of it, it’s just like normal in Australia!
What’s in the stocking:
• ‘Soft, what light through yonder window…’ we improved the ambient lighting system, meaning the sun can shine through windows now. • Not all Save files are created equal, or even at the same time. • Sometimes you just want to pick up where you left off by hitting PLAY. Wait… what save was I playing last time? Looks like I can just hit PLAY and see. • Woo! you can search for sinks again without un-placing your toilet. • Master Volume settings are respected between game sessions. No more unexpectedly waking the rest of the house up with the sounds of…well… you know… anything. • More reliable Tracer movement and improvements to the Virtual Cursor. I’ve got nothing to say about this; it is what it is. • Am I the only one that makes laser noises when zooming around the screen? Well, now in-game noises will match better and drown you out. • Improvements to hover tips being displayed at the correct times. We’re working on it kids. There’s a lot of hover tips. • After you rotate an object in your house, why not copy the room and walls and expand to have more room to move around? • Placing live wall art can be tricky, especially if you aren’t told where it can’t go. Now we’ll guide you in where it looks best. Everyone’s a critic, even the walls. They’re a bit easier to understand now, though. Of course, you could enable the bb.moveobjects cheat and put it where you feel it looks best. • The Personality Panel tutorial won’t interrupt you anymore when you’re creating a Sim through Manage Worlds • Like to move it, move it? Now you can. If you want to Move House after using Move Lot, you can. Just remember to always back it up, back it up. • Removing the last item from a category in My Library won’t result in partial loss of functionality. This is why I never made it as a surgeon: Is this heart-shaped bit important? Oh. Oh, OK, let’s put that back then…” • Adjusting the placement of your mailbox won’t prevent you from placing other objects. • Using the Eyedropper tool no longer disables controller buttons. • Rotating rooms will no longer cycle the Build Mode catalog at the same time. I like multitasking as much as anyone, but we have to draw the line somewhere. • Flooring controls will continue to work after placing a floor pattern from a Styled Room. Even though that pattern really tied the room together, now you can use other patterns in other rooms. • Backing out of holding an object from a Styled Room will no longer cause loss of functionality. If you drop something, you’ll be able to keep using your fingers now. • While we don’t always agree with everyone’s design choices, we shouldn’t be the only judge of taste, so go ahead and select the Design Tool after managing a Styled Room. (We might still judge, but quietly. You know we’re watching you, right?) • Exiting the Bride or Groom picker will no longer cause an unhappy ending. No, that WASN’T a sign from the universe that I was making the wrong choice. • If you return to the Main Menu from the Objects by Function section, then that is your choice and we accept that. Shopping can be a daunting task, but now you can move if you just decide you have had enough of it. • Not a speck of coal here.
Happy 2018! Now that the eggnog is past the expiration date, and you’ve found the last of those pesky wrapping paper bits from under the sofa let’s have some real fun!
You wanted to be able to freely rotate objects, and now you can! With free rotate you can rotate objects to any angle - thirty degrees, thirty-two degrees... thirty-one... Forty-eight clockwise, nine counter-clockwise, three clockwise… Oh gosh, that’s something different! Forget I ever said that!
When you own a restaurant, let the food to do the talking and not the questionable décor when placing your eatery from My Library.
Sometimes you just want to back out of a decision and now you can, with added reliability.
It’s come to our attention that it is rude to ask someone their age, so we decided to be polite and not ask when you switch between an Adult Vampire to a Toddler in CAS. It can be your little secret.
Mighty Simmers, on the Ides of March I present to you another exciting update! A turning point in your Simming journey, and control by which you do it. In agreement with Julius Caesar -- experience is the teacher of all things.
What’s New?
We heard that the camera and virtual cursor movement was too quick, so we put the speed of the controls in your hands with new camera and virtual cursor speed adjustments. Change to your liking in the Game Options. Not only can you select how fast the cursor moves, you can adjust how much it accelerates to get the control scheme more to your liking.
Someone also told us in quiet whispers that you like to place multiples of things without having to select it from the Build / Buy window each time. Be really quiet about it; but now you can use our new and improved clone stamp feature to place the same object over and over and over and over.
General Issues
Sometimes the UI got a little ahead of itself. Sometimes the part of the game you thought you were controlling wasn’t necessarily the thing the UI thought you wanted to control. So, we sat the UI down and told it to do as it is told. That means you should find yourself having to back out of UI elements less often. Unless you enjoy backing out of them, of course.
The Grim Guitar now gets its own limelight on the Main Menu. You can check out how cool it is without even needing to load into a World. Plus, if you haven’t linked your account you can do that from the Main Menu to claim the Grim Guitar for yourself.
Talking of the UI, there were some sneaky UI elements that chose to remain hidden until you found them. Those hidden bits of UI should now only show when you want them to.
While we want you to know that adjusting the Sim count can affect your game, we won’t lock you behind a warning screen when you set it to Unlimited anymore.
Some things can be so good that they name it twice, but that shouldn’t count the songs you write. While we aren’t dismissing the quality of your songs, we think you should only need to name them once before you can license them.
Transferring Sims between households is great, but we heard that being limited to just the played households didn’t give you the options you’d like. Well, now you can show un-played households during transfers.
If you worked through the Personality Panel tutorial, you might be wondering how it ends. Well with the addition of Tip 7 of 7 you can complete your tutorial journey.
When navigating the Options Menu, the number of options could be overwhelming, with little to no information about what the options did. We found the tool tips for the Options hiding away and have put them back in their place, so now you can see what each option will do before you adjust it.
Rotating roof tops might be limited to musical chimney sweeps but the ghost previews are not something everyone should see, so we dealt with them accordingly.
Placing your family into a lot can be a tough choice and the first lot you pick might not be the one you want. Backing out of the lot will now let you pick another lot rather than deselecting your entire family.
My Library felt a little too small with a limit of just 50 items, which feels more like a book shelf than a library. We knocked together some more shelving space from our neighborhood flat pack store and now it truly is a My Library to be proud of!
When you are super proud of your creations, you want to describe them in detail for My Library to show. You can now scroll those extra-long descriptions rather than reading just the first part on replay.
Whims can be so whimsical but that doesn’t mean you don’t want to pin them, all of them at times. Now you can do exactly that.
Talking of Whims, if your Sim is out exploring the world or working you won’t get the hover tips for their Whims until they return to the active lot.
Dine Out
Business decisions are important and occasionally you might get cold feet and want to backout. Previously the Sims selling you a business wouldn’t let you back out of your purchase. The authorities didn’t appreciate this, so now you can back out on the World selection screen if the purchase doesn’t feel right.
Purchasing a restaurant in Live Mode will no longer cause graphical issues.
Sims can now plan a social event while dining without causing you to watch the UI panel with no way out.
Editing your Host Outfit in CAS no longer leaves the menu active on screen.
City Living
City apartments will no longer obstruct your view of the city when you decide to leave the apartment view.
When you move to the big city you generally want to take your kids with you, at least until they reach adulthood, without losing functionality. While we addressed the functionality problem, we can’t help your kids get a job and move out even if they are in their 30’s.
Sims can answer the call to work in the city without leaving you stuck answering the phone unless you have a chatty boss.
Tooltips will no longer appear over the UI icons allowing you to see what you are selecting.
The Spire Apartment no longer hides a secret hidden UI, we know you appreciate your Sims secrets, but this wasn’t one of them.
Learnings from PC and Mac will continue to make their way into your hands, and various cleaned up bits and bobs from PC and Mac are now yours.
My friends go off and learn, grow, and conquer. Enjoy! -SimGuruCleaningLady
As we approach the half way point of 2018, we bring you an update which addresses some of the feedback and reports we have been getting. We didn’t stop there either, we spent some time Spring cleaning to help get things in order.
What’s New?
When you are picking where you want to travel to and live, navigating the neighborhood could be a little fiddly on the Manage World screen. We have added the ability to switch to the virtual cursor on the Manage World screen which means you can pick where you want to go or live with extra precision.
Since the last time we spoke, we also spent more time looking for those pesky invisible UI elements which you can find yourself in and have stopped them playing mind games with you. A usable UI should be a visible UI.
General Issues
Sims like to hoard things in their inventory, some might say that they have stacks of belongings. Those stacks could be better used by being sold off to earn some extra money. While you could do this one at a time, that meant it took longer to get paid. Now, stacks of items can be sold from the inventory just as easily as it’d be to sell a single item.
Sometimes the Main Menu would suggest you didn’t have Grim’s Ghoulish Guitar when you had linked your account. We told Grim he couldn’t have his guitar back and that it belonged to you now. The Main Menu should now correctly reflect whether you linked your accounts and whether you have the Grim’s Ghoulish Guitar.
While we are talking about it, the way you claim Grim’s Ghoulish Guitar no longer tells you to sign up for a newsletter, instead you simply link to your EA Account and the guitar will be all yours.
Parties are better when you have a group of friends. Now, when your friends come over, you can complete some group party objectives.
Opening the Options Menu while the Pie Menu is open won’t cause you to become stuck on the Pie Menu. Although there are worse things to be stuck with than pie. Mmmm… pie!
When your Sims age up, you’ll no longer get stuck in the Sims info panel if you happen to select traits in the Aged Up! panel.
How many beds does your Lot have? H! Doesn’t make sense, right? Now we only allow numbers to be entered when adding details to your lot info panel for number of beds and baths you have.
Changing the category of a styled outfit will no longer make your Sim wear the first outfit. Instead you can style them to whatever outfit looks the best.
Getting access to new packs is something to celebrate. That celebration should be brief and not something that continues into CAS. Celebrations are short and to the point to keep that hype buzz feeling going.
Using the eyedropper while building caused performance issues, this has been improved. So, go crazy copying those patterns and decorating all your rooms with the same wallpaper. Unless you have style then don’t decorate like that… Please!
Get to Work
Sometimes your Sim looks so good that they feel the urge to take a selfie. Now they can snap away without you needing to worry about temporarily losing control. Although if your Sim looks directly at the flash, we can’t guarantee they won’t see floating lights for a while.
Mirrors should be for checking out that your tie is straight or to find out why everyone keeps staring at you, what they shouldn’t do is flash blue. Now they won’t, leaving your Sims to admire themselves for as long as they like.
Making your employees look good needs them to have a professional looking uniform and that decision can be tough. What isn’t tough anymore is that the controls for the sort dropdown won’t go off screen now.
Aliens might have the technology to fly across the vastness of space but what they weren’t meant to have is the ability to prevent you changing their appearance, so we took that ability off them and now you control what your Alien Sims look like.
Vampires
Vampires appreciate being listened to, so we made sure you can now scroll through the full welcome text with Vampires.
When you have the Dark Form of a female Vampire in CAS, you probably don’t want to annoy her by selecting the personality panel and causing issues. We didn’t want to get on her dark side so now the personality panel will no longer cause problems.
Dine Out
When you take pictures of your delicious food, you intend everyone you show your picture to, to be amazed by the fact you took the time to take the picture of your food going cold. What you don’t expect is for people to mock and comment on the fact your picture is under exposed. Now, prints of Food Eaten will show in full color quality, nicely exposed and with a perfect composition.
City Living
Everyone likes to Dream Big in the city. What they don’t necessarily like is having actions interrupted by those dreams, so we told the Sims to Dream Big on their own time or at least not let it interrupt what you want them to do.
While the San Myshuno's "Stargazer" Lounge is very glitzy, it shouldn’t cause your Manage World view to flash so we asked Stargazer to tone back the pizazz.
Living in a city can feel crowded at times, which isn’t helped when the Lot highlight for 21 Chic Street Apartments and Culpepper Apartments adds to the confusion of where you live. The correct Lots are highlighted now making it easier to know where you are going.
Xbox One only
We continued to go through all the dig sites we could to find out where the Sims were hiding those hard-earned Achievements that didn’t unlock fully.
To complete the unlock process simply load the Save Game you earned your Achievement(s) in and everything you earned will unlock.
You may need to load multiple Save Games if you earned Achievements across different saves.
We continued to take updates from the PC and Mac version of The Sims 4, which may not be covered in these notes, and brought them across to console.
Now while we roll up our sleeves, use a large amount of elbow grease and continue with the spit and polish, you should go and enjoy yourselves.
What a summer! As you may have heard, we have been hard at work preparing for the arrival of our fluffy companions in Cats & Dogs. We haven’t stopped there though, we have added Households, Lots and Rooms created by members of The Sims 4 Community into My Library and continued to make a number of performance improvements. Of course, we have been gathering and addressing your feedback and reports too.
Rather than giving you a high-level version of what you can expect how about I just tell you.
What’s New?
Performance improvements mean that you should be able to get into your Worlds quicker, loading times will be shorter and things will be smoother.
The Auto Save feature had been a little too temperamental for our liking so we have reviewed the feature and made improvements to the way it works so it is more reliable.
My Library expanded with creations from The Sims 4 Community. The new additions bring Households, Lots and Rooms.
We have also added the Piece of Cake Bakery which you may remember from the Get to Work announcement trailer.
We often get requests for features and one of the biggest requests has beento have the option to scale your roofs. We heard you and we added the feature into Build Mode.
General Issues
Manage Households was a little lacking in the managing part of the name by preventing you from deleting households. You can delete households you don’t need or want any more and truly manage households as you would expect.
If you max out your My Library storage you’ll be informed when you try to save more creations rather than finding out they silently disappeared.
Cursor speed and acceleration settings no longer reset after restarting the game.
While using the virtual cursor control scheme, the acceleration could feel like you were chasing an excited puppy around your lot. We got things under control and switching directions as you navigate the Lot shouldn’t feel so skittish. Remember, you can adjust speed and acceleration in the Game Options to get the feel you prefer.
The camera shouldn’t lose function when toggling bb.moveobjects in Build Mode
Trying to use the Virtual Cursor to live-drag from your inventory shouldn’t feel like a never-ending chore. Now it is as simple as select and drag, just like it should be.
Don’t you just hate it when you finish loading only to be told that there is “Game Loading In Progress” when it looks like it has finished? Us too! When a lot has loaded, it is loaded and ready to go, just like it should be.
Placing a Styled Room from My Library shouldn’t stop your controls from working as expected.
Sometimes you don’t have room in your lot to place a staircase before rotating it, now you can rotate stairs into the orientation you want without having to place them first.
Stairs aren’t the only thing you can rotate without placing them either, you can now rotate whole empty rooms and even walls before deciding where you want them.
Simmers who use the Virtual Cursor control scheme rejoice as the Pin/Unpin Whim option is now open to you.
Virtual Cursor controls have been tweaked, adjusted and tweaked again so now you don’t continue to accelerate and zip around the screen uncontrollably. Switching directions you take the Virtual Cursor in will drop the acceleration to ¼ of what it was so you have more control of where you go.
Changing your mind and re-doing something is part of getting your perfect Sim in CAS. If you do change your mind, we won’t put you into an invisible UI anymore, I promise.
Cell phones are a lifeline for a lot of people and Sims aren’t any different. We spent a lot of time getting them set up with more reliable service so the cell phone works when it is needed and doesn’t stay on screen when it isn’t.
Occasionally, the camera momentum made it difficult to have precise navigation. We’ve made a few passes at improving the camera movement to make is easier to navigate the lot.
Cancelling Save and Play while in CAS isn’t possible anymore. If you did this previously, you might want to check My Library as you might have multiple versions of your Households that you might want to tidy up.
Family is key and if you have babies you’ll know how precious they can be. That is why switching Sims now acts like it should if you have any in your household.
Get to Work
Returning to active lot will no longer spam the action queue while you are at work in the scientist career.
The returning to active lot interaction won’t queue and cancel repeatedly if you decide to idle in the alien world.
In the videos out of Roswell they got up close with an Alien and now you can too while creating an Alien in CAS. Like other Sims, you can switch to detail edit mode and get closer to the extra-terrestrial Sims.
Ever visit a new place only to think that it feels familiar but not quite right in some way? That happened to us when visiting Sixam and realizing that it didn’t look as we expected so we got the ground crew in and updated the place.
Vampires
Receiving a welcome phone call from Vlad can be exciting, I mean, how often do you get a phone call from a vampire? Getting this unique call shouldn’t stop your controls from functioning so we addressed that.
Dine Out
Canceling object placement of objects selected through Lot Type requirements will no longer put you into one of those super-secret areas in the UI.
Editing an employee uniform won’t send your controls across the screen no matter how your employees feel about their new uniform design.
City Living
When you load into San Myshuno the virtual cursor shouldn’t get stuck. It used to, but now it doesn’t.
If you are lucky enough to get an invite to a festival but unlucky enough to have a parent chance card appear at the same time you’ll be happy to know that you’ll keep control of your World and Sims.
PlayStation 4
Pressing X should work when you need it most… When you press the X button.
Improvements to the way My Library saves means you should have more space for your creations.
Celebrate good times but come on, we don’t need to see the pack celebration screens over and over. They should only show the once now and viewed new Objects shouldn’t reset to look like everything is new again.
When you select Save Household you expect the household to be saved, right? Thought so, now your Saved Households will save to My Library as you would expect.
If you chose to change your Display Settings, the virtual cursor won’t be prevented from accessing all of the UI if you opt to display things smaller.
The Action Queue is meant to expand to fit in all the queued actions, that is how we came up with the name. What it shouldn’t do and doesn’t do anymore is expand to the top of the screen just because you chose to speed up time.
Travel and romance are two of life’s luxuries. That is unless you managed to have“Travel” queue up after performing the “Ask on Date” interaction. Then you just had a mini nightmare because you found yourself stuck in Manage World. We released the controls from the UI and now you can take your date globetrotting without the worry of getting stuck looking at where you could have visited.
Xbox One
They say that good things come to those who wait. We don’t like waiting so we have improved the loading times so that you shouldn’t see an extended loading screen before getting into game.
Styled Room showcases will align correctly if you adjust your margins settings.
Does a Sim have an aura? Well they might but it shouldn’t have been as prominent as it was, so we turned down the highlighting of Sims so it isn’t as distracting anymore.
That isn’t it either, we took a look at what was happening on the PC and Mac versions of The Sims 4 and brought over changes and updates to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions.
-SimGuruLegacy
About The Sims 4 Technical Issues - Consoles
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