Lot Designation Bug Found

EmmySim79

For some unknown reason, since update 16.12, Residential lots are losing their 'residential lot' status and reverting to generic lots. Since the game then thinks the house is a generic community lot, all Sims in the immediate area begin treating it as such. I believe this is the reason some of us are accumulating unwanted/uninvited visitors and losing our 'ask to leave' interactions.

Unfortunately, there is no way to change a residential lot back if it is occupied without first evicting the Sims living there. This means a total loss of relationships when the family is moved back in, if this bug is to strike.

Not sure how this bug was triggered, but I think it also coincides with another report on the forum where lots that have been saved to library and/or gallery, also lose their status. Therefore any lots then re-placed with effected ones from the library/gallery will be generic. Not good for the personal space of any Sim living there.

This really needs a fix, please??

pbox

Venue types have changed in the current version, yeah. On what occasion are residential lots " losing their 'residential lot' status" for you, does that happen every time you exit Build/Buy, or just when placing lots, or something else .. ?

EmmySim79

Tried testing it out and for now it only seems to happen when I replace an existing house with one I've saved from the gallery/library.

luthienrising

That's some fabulously helpful detail on this problem. You might want to double-post over here: http://answers.ea.com/t5/The-Sims-4-Bug-Reports/bd-p/The-Sims-4-Bugs

pbox

There is a bunch of new lot and venue tuning with this patch .. I just posted an inquiry over in Modding. I'm interested in the venue / lot type tuning stuff myself because the patch also broke a mod of mine; right now I'm a little SOL with that since the tool I was using won't read the new data format =/. But if there's any way to work around that by way of XML tuning (even just turning off types or requirements entirely -- there might now be different ways to do that), it might fix both things at once until there is a real fix.

I'm not really holding my breath since there's probably DATA tuning involved for this as well but who knows.

pbox

@EmmySim79 does this happen when you place residential lots saved with the current version of the game too, or only with old ones?

If it's the latter then I think the reason for that is that prior to this patch, all of the venue types had different IDs (internal numbers that the game uses to tell which is which) so those are now not recognised any more. Didn't test this very throughly, I'll take another look later, I just realised myself when I verified I have the same issue with/without my mod (which I managed to update now) that I was using a pre-patch lot for testing so that test might have been kinda pointless =P.

EmmySim79

Actually yes, pbox, I think that's it. All lots I've saved since the update have retained their lot status where as all the ones saved prior to the patch are not labelled correctly as they don't show up in the library when I use a relevant filter and in testing those are the ones being placed as generic regardless of what they were saved as before.

pbox

Can you save pre-patch lots properly?

I was trying to place old lot, save, then place again -- but after saving it and then opening Library I cannot find that lot there. What does work is click on the "Show Details" button in that popup that goes "you just saved a lot to the library" and place it from there -- it will show up with a broken venue type icon and name (screenshot) but when I change that to Residential, and then return to World Map, it is properly being recognised as Residential.

Going to test now if it might also work in a less roundabout fashion (e.g. place old lot, change type to whatever, change type back to Residential) but it is a little worrying when lots now won't save properly =/

However I am using my venue requirements mod currently, I havent tested without CC .. that mod only changes stuff for the public venues though, not Residential.


--

Verified I'm seeing the same issue without any CC in a new game:

On inhabited lots the type can't be changed while a sim is living there (no matter whether going from Live mode to Build, or loading the lot in Build Mode directly from the World Map), I guess this is by design. So they end up in a Generic and need to be moved out to fix the lot type.

Placing a pre-patch Residential on an empty lot and then exiting to World Map also results in Generic as before.

What works, though, on uninhabited lots, is placing a pre-patch Residential, then changing the type to whatever and back to Residential -- this will show up properly as Residential in the World map.

I can also save the latter two lots properly (i.e. when I didn't fiddle with them, just save directly), as in, they will show up in the Library overview. So the saving issue may have been a CC issue.

satorimoon

> @EmmySim79 said:
> Actually yes, pbox, I think that's it. All lots I've saved since the update have retained their lot status where as all the ones saved prior to the patch are not labelled correctly as they don't show up in the library when I use a relevant filter and in testing those are the ones being placed as generic regardless of what they were saved as before.

This was exactly the issue I posted about earlier. It has been causing me headaches since the patch yesterday. They need to fix this asap! I was replacing the venues on the map and they would sometimes lose their lot type when I would go back to the map view. I was only working with the world maps and venue types, so did not connect the problem to residential game play.

EmmySim79

Ouch my brain hurts…

Right, lots saved prior to patch will not have a specified type in the library, as pbox stated. They don't have the same ID's. When I place a pre-patch lot it will change from what ever lot type I've set it in build mode to generic as soon as I return to manage world screen. In order for the game to recognise it and keep it residential, I have to go back into the lot, change it back to residential again and then it works and stays as specified. For now…

Post-patch lots will retain there specified type in the library, allowing you to find them via the filters but will also revert back to generic lots after placed when I exit to manage world screen.

This is what's happening 99% of the time, but sometimes, inexplicably, lots are being placed and staying as specified, not changing to generic. Both pre-patch and post patch. Trying to find the trigger which is causing the game to change lot ID after it's placed is hurting my brain…

Not so worried about this happening with community lots as they can be easily changed back via build mode…annoying, but a fix. What is causing problems is when a family home is placed from the library, (lot type changed, unbeknownst to the Simmer) and a family is then moved in. The house will then function as a generic community lot, instead of a normal Sim home.

pbox

So my saving issue was a different one, see http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/804605/1-3-18-1010-library-has-become-write-only-for-modded-lots -- maybe that also interferes with being able to save *some* lots.

antifairy0

My problem is that I cant change a lot type from generic to residential because it says its owned, but its not owned. I even moved a household into it without it asking to merge and evicted it.