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Let's talk Toddler patch lag.
poisonedsodapop
Posts: 1,179 Member
Now I know we just got a new patch today but I feel like we should discuss the toddler patch and the lag it introduced. Now obviously, you guys probably know, I LOVE the toddlers. I've got absolutely NO fault with the toddlers. But the lag they introduced is another story. Now I've played with quite a few toddlers so I think I can address some of the issues, and others probably have seen the same things. Keep in mind I do have mods in my game but I've seen people without cc complaining about the lag so I doubt it's specific to my setup. Now, let's get into the toddler lag.
First of all, this bug has been around for a long time (since launch I'm pretty sure) but it has gotten worse since toddlers have arrived. You have a sim who is doing something, let's say eating. They are sitting at the table and eating. Suddenly they grab their plate, stand up, and wait. There's nothing in their queue aside from that delicious plate of food they are eating. But on the way to them is usually another sim who wants a hug or to kiss them. But it doesn't show in the receiving sim's queue. Usually in this situation I just make my sim sit back down to eat instead of tracking down the culprit who has interrupted their meal.
Now, with toddlers, this happens entirely different. So we have let's say three sims, Sim A, Sim B, and Sim C. A is the toddler, and we'll say the toddler is sitting in their high chair. Sim B, the sim I'm in control of, has been commanded to pick the toddler up. Sim B picks up Sim A. Sim C however was in the process of planning to interact with the toddler as well, this is not in Sim A's queue. So Sim B stands around holding Sim A because Sim C has an unfinished action with the toddler that they simply can't do because Sim B has Sim A in their arms. Now typically if you only have three sims in the household, no big. But if you have multiple adult sims and perhaps a child who wants to talk to the toddler, it becomes an issue. You have to track down who Sim C, cancel their interaction towards Sim A so Sim B can carry on with what they were doing. But as you can imagine this causes lag.
Second major toddler issue, the grabby hand of "I need something." It's adorable, you're toddler needs something while sitting in their high chair. They do a grabby hand. They summon an adult to do their bidding. It's fine right? Wrong. This grabby hand interaction will jump ahead of EVERYTHING in the queue. My sim is about to pee herself BUT, nope, toddler grabby hand. From three floors down. She will drop everything. I cancel it to walk down the stairs. I say no, toddler can wait, go to the bathroom. She complies UNTIL grabby hand again. As far as I've seen, you cannot stop your toddler from doing this interaction. There doesn't seem to be a "cooldown" to limit them from doing this. I've literally had to lock doors to get my sim to take care of their needs first, something that will only take a short while. Because the toddler just doesn't want to be stuck in the high chair. And again, this toddler will try to get everyone and anyone to get to them who can take them out. So that's a lot of queue jumping. And I have this one particular toddler who will make a mess nearly every time she eats. Then she'll want out despite still being hungry. It's a pain. I prefer to just let her grab food but sometimes she chases a sim down to be put in the highchair. Honestly, she's adorable, I love her. But when she does the grabby hand of doom I am suddenly infuriated. It reminds me of TS2 where they would chase the toddler or baby all through the house.
Another minor issue is that toddlers will not drop things in their queue when someone wants to interact with them. This may be leftover expectation from past games, but if my sim wants to pick up a toddler then that needs to take priority. My toddler will continue happily playing on their tablet, causing the sim who wants to interact with the toddler to drop their interaction from the queue, and usually walk off to do something else.
Now I don't know how easy any of these things would be to fix, or if they're fixable even, but I feel like these are just some of the issues that are causing this sudden influx of ingame lag. If anyone else has anything to add or any bugs of their own they might have seen (I know I'm missing some probably but I can't think of them off the top of my head) then feel free to add something. This is a bit of a novel here but it really sums up what I've noticed in my game.
I guess tl;dr is toddlers have issues with interaction queue priority alongside the longstanding "invisible" interaction queue bug.
Edit: Toddler grabby hand example video added.
https://youtu.be/lBxnI9Tv7vY
First of all, this bug has been around for a long time (since launch I'm pretty sure) but it has gotten worse since toddlers have arrived. You have a sim who is doing something, let's say eating. They are sitting at the table and eating. Suddenly they grab their plate, stand up, and wait. There's nothing in their queue aside from that delicious plate of food they are eating. But on the way to them is usually another sim who wants a hug or to kiss them. But it doesn't show in the receiving sim's queue. Usually in this situation I just make my sim sit back down to eat instead of tracking down the culprit who has interrupted their meal.
Now, with toddlers, this happens entirely different. So we have let's say three sims, Sim A, Sim B, and Sim C. A is the toddler, and we'll say the toddler is sitting in their high chair. Sim B, the sim I'm in control of, has been commanded to pick the toddler up. Sim B picks up Sim A. Sim C however was in the process of planning to interact with the toddler as well, this is not in Sim A's queue. So Sim B stands around holding Sim A because Sim C has an unfinished action with the toddler that they simply can't do because Sim B has Sim A in their arms. Now typically if you only have three sims in the household, no big. But if you have multiple adult sims and perhaps a child who wants to talk to the toddler, it becomes an issue. You have to track down who Sim C, cancel their interaction towards Sim A so Sim B can carry on with what they were doing. But as you can imagine this causes lag.
Second major toddler issue, the grabby hand of "I need something." It's adorable, you're toddler needs something while sitting in their high chair. They do a grabby hand. They summon an adult to do their bidding. It's fine right? Wrong. This grabby hand interaction will jump ahead of EVERYTHING in the queue. My sim is about to pee herself BUT, nope, toddler grabby hand. From three floors down. She will drop everything. I cancel it to walk down the stairs. I say no, toddler can wait, go to the bathroom. She complies UNTIL grabby hand again. As far as I've seen, you cannot stop your toddler from doing this interaction. There doesn't seem to be a "cooldown" to limit them from doing this. I've literally had to lock doors to get my sim to take care of their needs first, something that will only take a short while. Because the toddler just doesn't want to be stuck in the high chair. And again, this toddler will try to get everyone and anyone to get to them who can take them out. So that's a lot of queue jumping. And I have this one particular toddler who will make a mess nearly every time she eats. Then she'll want out despite still being hungry. It's a pain. I prefer to just let her grab food but sometimes she chases a sim down to be put in the highchair. Honestly, she's adorable, I love her. But when she does the grabby hand of doom I am suddenly infuriated. It reminds me of TS2 where they would chase the toddler or baby all through the house.
Another minor issue is that toddlers will not drop things in their queue when someone wants to interact with them. This may be leftover expectation from past games, but if my sim wants to pick up a toddler then that needs to take priority. My toddler will continue happily playing on their tablet, causing the sim who wants to interact with the toddler to drop their interaction from the queue, and usually walk off to do something else.
Now I don't know how easy any of these things would be to fix, or if they're fixable even, but I feel like these are just some of the issues that are causing this sudden influx of ingame lag. If anyone else has anything to add or any bugs of their own they might have seen (I know I'm missing some probably but I can't think of them off the top of my head) then feel free to add something. This is a bit of a novel here but it really sums up what I've noticed in my game.
I guess tl;dr is toddlers have issues with interaction queue priority alongside the longstanding "invisible" interaction queue bug.
Edit: Toddler grabby hand example video added.
https://youtu.be/lBxnI9Tv7vYpoisonedsodapop wrote: »The sim who came to get the toddler had something else queued up but the "grabby hand" took priority. I cancelled it as you can probably tell when she stopped right behind her. But they can keep doing that grabby hand motion and force sims to pay attention to them indefinitely.
Hoping some day for some toddlers. But also dreading they'll never come. JK THEY ARE HERE!
Post edited by poisonedsodapop on
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http://www.getfreeebooks.com/star-trek-original-series-fan-fiction-trilogy/
In that case, it'd be great to hear ANY update about this issue. It affects every aspect of the game and it's seriously annoying.
Ah didn't realize they were, haven't been around in awhile. @GalacticGal The grabby hand issue is specifically when they are in a high chair. Let them sit there for a bit and watch them. They'll eventually summon someone. It's almost evil sounding out of context but it is a cute animation. It just drives me batty that it overrides other things in my sim's queue.
http://www.getfreeebooks.com/star-trek-original-series-fan-fiction-trilogy/
The stress made me quite ill.
I found a couple of things that helped. I put a love seat by the kitchen door and the two toddlers used to fetch their own food from the counter and sit there and eat.
If they were really bugging me I'd make them go to bed.
I had to resort to the high chair once when the little girl was tired out and starving hungry. She'd got in a pattern of go to bed / sit up to eat/ go back to bed/ try and eat again. If it was Sims 2 she'd have been carted off by Social Services. Since this was Sims 4 I got away with snarky threats and reminders. I was distraught though. Especially when her non-too-bright mother tried to take her out of the chair to put her to bed just as she'd started to eat.
Never again. I play with aging off and must have spent several Sim weeks with that family and I don't think I managed to max out all the toddler skills. How are you supposed to do everything in a normal toddler 'life span'?
I now have two elderly toddlers, probably destined to be permanent toddlers. If they hadn't been such little nuisances I might feel sorry for them
I manage to max all toddler skills on long lifespan but it is still a challenge for some of the skills. The ones you have to focus on the most are really imagination and thinking. Thinking is probably the hardest to max imo. Mostly because you really only get it from a few things. You can use the blocks, you can use the tablet, and you can learn from an adult. Imagination can come from books, the dollhouse, normal toys, watching tv, the tablet, and I think the big plushies. Once they learn how to ask why they can learn thinking from that too, but it's a few levels in. Movement will come with time, as will communication as long as they keep talking to people. Potty training once they hit level 2 they'll pretty much do that one on their own.
I do mostly let the toddlers eat food they get from the counter, but sometimes they end up in the highchair before I realize it. Oh and then the worst part is sometimes one sim will put them in the highchair and feed them and then the other sim will show up and take the toddler out of the highchair like "no that's stupid, toddlers shouldn't go in those." RAAAAAGE. Have I mentioned I love toddlers though?
@BMSO That's an interesting bug. I rarely ever see toddlers out and about (can they even be out in places?) so I would have probably been super confused by that.
The sim who came to get the toddler had something else queued up but the "grabby hand" took priority. I cancelled it as you can probably tell when she stopped right behind her. But they can keep doing that grabby hand motion and force sims to pay attention to them indefinitely.
These two sites here may help you with your "grabby hand" problem.
modthesims "General/Other - Grabbing Hand Glitch"
simscommunity "Sims 4: Simulation Lag Fix"
This forum may be helpful as well, but if nobody has replied with an answer, I would just comment, "This happens to me too!"
Sims Forums "Why is my Game Lagging only when Toddlers are around?"
I'm sorry I couldn't make them links (from being a new member and all that
I appreciate the response. The grabbing hand glitch thread I found was made in 2010 so definitely not a TS4 thread, didn't see anything else unfortunately. The Simulation Lag Fix mod is outdated and I don't think the creator has updated it apparently not able to help with the newly added, lag, as stated by the creator recently. So really at the moment there's unfortunately no way to fix the lag. I figured it would be helpful to share this info with the simgurus though since I'd noticed these things happening in game and they contribute to the lag overall. So hopefully it can help them fix the issue.
I really hope either EA can get a handle on this or the simulation lag fix can be updated for it. I'm finding my personal game to be borderline unplayable and I'm seriously debating scraping this save and starting a new one,
Hello
I am sorry that you are having these issues in your game.
You may like to post feedback on this thread on the AHQ EA site
http://answers.ea.com/t5/The-Sims-4-Bug-Reports/WORK-IN-PROGRESS-Autonomy-issues/m-p/5819628#M32257
http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/817478/hello-come-and-introduce-yourself
http://tinyurl.com/OneRoomOneWeek
http://tinyurl.com/rosemow
My Showcase thread https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/948861/rosemow-s-rooms-showcase