It's so strange. The only bugs I recall ever experiencing is the interaction delay ( where it'll take half a Sim hour for your Sim to do something ) and the time lag only once. Everything else, I either don't notice or don't have.
Whatever the case, I'll help promote the message that the bugs, at least a good half of them, need to be fixed. I don't want the Sims 4 to end up like the laggy mess the Sims 3 did. It took me over a month to get Sims 3 stable.
I hope they can fix the festival spawning bugs, where one festival spawns on top of another one and objects spawn on top or inside of food carts making them inaccessible:
I'm surprised this still hasn't been fixed. It's been an issue since the launch of City Living.
I hope they finally fixed the time jumping bug. It's making the game almost unplayable for me.
And this is a bug that's been in the game since the launch of the base game, but has worsened since. I really wonder if it's something they can fix. To me, it suggests that it's a problem with the engine -- perhaps it just doesn't support the simulations ongoing in TS4. The other games never had this problem. TS3 froze due to poor optimization, but it never once had issues with time having to jump forward and backwards, as well as time going on even after pausing.
@Sk8rblaze Did you read TwistedMexi's little analysis of the code? There's a bit in there where they speculate that because the system has Python and I believe C++ communicating with each other via Protobuf, this may be the cause of our time distortion/lag issues. Python and C++ usually don't interact or "talk" to each other, Protobuf is there to do it on their behalf. TwistedMexi speculated that it's possible this system is responsible for the time distortion, because having both C++ and Python is actually inefficient (they speculate Python was added as the game was rushed to online singleplayer), and the delays we may be feeling in the game may be delays caused by data slowly going from Python to Protobuf to C++ and then making the return trip. In a nutshell, the data of Sims 4 has a longer "path" to walk than the data of Sims 3 did, and that might cause bottlenecking or delays, and may be why things like x3 speed cause problems and make it difficult for the simulation to keep up. This also explains the differences in reaction between Sims 3 and Sims 4: Sims 3 simply freezes because it's one system that's become overburdened with things to simulate, thus it lags and locks up until it slowly gets certain processes out of the way and can pick up speed again. Sims 4? If all data must cross two systems, then yes it's conceivable that perhaps the Python end might keep running and keep simulating, unaware that there's been a delay on the C++ end, thus all Python systems snap back once they DO realize the delay and realize they must re-sync with C++'s work.
What's plum to me is....let's say TwistedMexi's theory is 100% true and 100% on-target. They will never come out and tell us. To tell us would be admittance they sold us an absolute dud that was horrendously unprepared to support a game of this size, and that's far too damaging to their company image to ever admit. The result is we're left here, eternally speculating, because all we know is there's heavy, highly-meaningful bugs that have existed since release, and for whatever reason they haven't touched said bugs since release. They ask for save files, and while that may still be useful, we just sit here scratching out heads because it's clear this particular issue universally affects all saves and is a core problem with the game.
To me, all we can do is just be very very loud. I doubt they can't fix it, it's just a matter of they won't. To fix it would be a huge undertaking, and until they're motivated to do so, they won't. There's a reason I'm turning into a broken record that brings up bugs every chance I can. Sims 3 was left in unacceptable condition, and they will absolutely do the same with Sims 4 if we allow them to. Sims 3 got worse and laggier with each expansion added in, I see no reason the same would not apply to Sims 4.
Adding packs in general just means more stress on a system. Skyrim once famously had a very delayed DLC release for PS3 because the DLC was the tipping point that would make PS3 versions of the game TOO laggy, so there's evidence that more packs = more potential for lag regardless of game title. That same example...? Another reason I mention it is because in actuality, the problems that befell Skyrim had existed in EVERY Bethesda title since Morrowind, it's just the problem worsened and worsened as the file size of the games grew with the Playstation version always acting as "the canary in the coal mine" due to the different tech of the Playstation being affected by the problems first. Morrowind players never saw a problem, Oblivion players said the game would slow down and become unplayable on extremely long playthroughs, Fallout 3 players said it'd slow after they beat the game, New Vegas Playstation players had to pick and choose only 2 of the 4 DLC to complete per file if they wanted to finish the main game, and then finally with Skyrim the problem had worsened to such an extreme degree that the company had to do something about it since it was affecting player's saves in the middle of the base game and could NOT handle any DLC add-ons. If they didn't act, they'd lose all their Playstation customers while taking a huge hit to their reputation for having sold people a dud. Again, that was an issue with Bethesda's engine and how it interacts with Playstation, but they had to fix it, and so they did. Took a while (6 months iirc), but they did it. This stuff is doable, it's just hard, extensive work.
The very same applies here: noise needs to be made, complaints need to be lodged, and it needs to be made clear this problem is so huge it ruins the entire experience. Until that happens, I doubt they fix it. And if they can get away with selling us packs until they close the doors....? They'd absolutely do it.
My fear is that they're just absolutely going to wait until it gets so bad that you can't find a single post here that isn't complaining about the problem. That or as I said, the game is just barely "functioning" by the time they're ready to close the doors of development, thus they leave it as is.
Interesting.
There was prior mention that the simulation was running separate.
There is surely hardly a huge amount of data to worry about? TS4 is loading instances - it is not like it is worried about a world simulation - ie tracking dozens and dozens of Sims within a world and their interactions and needs.
What is being simulated, other than what is resident in that neighbourhood?
TS4 is surely comparable to a prototype of TS3 in terms of simulation - ie a limited instance (limited lots, limited Sims, limited interactions, etc) as opposed to an entire world? It doesn't care that much - surely - it is not worried about a NPC Sim (other than one you can see), etc?
Ask Brian Bell - he will confirm.
bmbell@ea.com
^ He will know.
It's so strange. The only bugs I recall ever experiencing is the interaction delay ( where it'll take half a Sim hour for your Sim to do something ) and the time lag only once. Everything else, I either don't notice or don't have.
Whatever the case, I'll help promote the message that the bugs, at least a good half of them, need to be fixed. I don't want the Sims 4 to end up like the laggy mess the Sims 3 did. It took me over a month to get Sims 3 stable.
Certain playstyles accelerate the effects faster than others. People who use x3 speed, family players, or people with older save files are more likely to encounter these issues. They can also vary quite a bit in how they manifest; my most recent file tends not to have interaction delay (except with party events or when interacting with toddlers), but does often get little hits of time distortion and time snapping back. I also definitely get the little oddity where...say I send a Sim to dig a crystal, the game will probably alert me what crystal the Sim got just as the animation has begun.
As I said though, part of the problem is that each new pack can conceivably be expected to worsen the problem. People that own City Living seem to complain quite a bit about lag and distortion issues while in the city, and toddlers also added to this to some degree. I only recently played my first toddler, and I was AMAZED some people claim Toddlers cause no lag for them because the first thing I noticed was how much time my Sim would spend standing around when interacting with a toddler. The problem is gonna get worse before it gets better, and that's why it's important to nip it in the butt as fast as possible.
The way I see The Sims being fixed is for EA to get off it's backside, and start sending more money Maxis's way so they can hire more people to go over the game with a fine tooth comb. The Sims is one of the largest video games in history. And would very likely be hard to fix and maintain by a small group of people. Especially if that same small group of people are charged with making the game, and all of it's add-on's too. A degree in rocket science is not need here, just common sense.
Wait a minute - it was Brian Bell who basically said that if The Sims Studio did not operate within the constraints, then problems might arise:
The most common trap that catches people when working
with this system is inadvertently creating operations whose
blocking channel sets do not match the actual behavior in
the simulator
● This manifests as…
● Operations happening too early, or “out of order”
● MASSIVE desynchronization due to operations being serialized
on the renderer, but not on the simulator
All I know that with the swimming bug, i.e. as in no swimming, just floating for a minute then getting out. Oh they still like to dive, they just don't swim. It's like having a really big expensive fountain in the yard.
Oh and I like the jokes too.
In my house, dog hair sticks to everything but the dog.
Wait a minute - it was Brian Bell who basically said that if The Sims Studio did not operate within the constraints, then problems might arise:
The most common trap that catches people when working
with this system is inadvertently creating operations whose
blocking channel sets do not match the actual behavior in
the simulator
● This manifests as…
● Operations happening too early, or “out of order”
● MASSIVE desynchronization due to operations being serialized
on the renderer, but not on the simulator
EDIT:
That would be the behaviour system.
This describes the problem with the game to a tee. And is something that I have also suspect by watching how my own copy of the game runs. The game seem to be lacking in the constraints department. I mean why would a player needed to download a MCCC mod if this wasn't true? An MCCC mod tool is a tool design to keep a player's game check. What would really be sweet about tomorrow's game patch is that it had in it something that will bring Sims 4 back into check or back under control.
Here is one that might be the result of Sims 4 being out of control. Vampire sims stalking normal sims in the game. I wasn't even aware that this was even possible. Here in this situation it's like the game has taken on self awareness, and starting to act on it's own accord.
So, Desync is in effect - because that is how it was designed.
^That could affect a lot of things.
Very possible since it means desynchronized or unsynchronized or in other words, ' Out of sync '.
ETA: Come to think about it. This also could explain away why players are experiencing sims just suddenly becoming stuck all of a sudden in their games as well. Especially if two sims act at the same time on another sim or an object. The two sims would cancel each other out. Resulting in the two sims just standing there waiting for the other one to finish when neither of them are interacting with that other sim or object. Causing both sim to become stuck in the place they were when it all started to fall apart.
All I know that with the swimming bug...It's like having a really big expensive fountain in the yard.
Oh and I like the jokes too.
A really big expensive fountain that isn't even as useful as an actual fountain
IMO, pools in The Sims have never been used to their full potential. Though they had been improving until TS4.
I built one pool in TS4, realized how truly useless it was and deleted it. Never have bothered with a second build.
It's one of those added features that you can tell was rushed to quell the anger over the bare bones base game.
I like the jokes as well.
I just wish the jokes followed more substantial bug fixes.
In any case, it hits the fan tomorrow. Try to stay away from the spray
I expect a wall of text with needless "jokes" that bloat the size of the patch log by a ridiculous margin, accompanied by about 3-4 bug fixes, amongst them a fix to a sofa casting shadows incorrectly.
Would love to be wrong.
Basically. I loathe the plum jokes more than anything
I really do question if someone in the office is just extremely bored, or if the purpose is specifically to make the patch notes look larger than they actually are. I'd be curious to see patch notes with the fat cut out, just to see how big they look when you only list bug fixes.
I don't get it either, cause I find them exceedingly annoying. Every time the patch drops there's a number of bugs I'm hoping to see fixed, but I have to read through a bunch of junk just to realize the fixes I want aren't in there.
I just wanna know if they have a fix for the Doctor Career, the Detective career, the Friend of the World reward trait, improvements to culling, fixes for lag and time distortion, improvements on musical chairs, improvements to the wonky AI that makes sims walk aaaaaall the way over to wave to someone regardless of if you've canceled the action, improvements to AI prioritizing (aka no more grabbing a dish off the filled dining table then going all the way up to the third floor for a cup before going back to the next dining table dish), the general lag around toddlers, rejoining a career ruining your career unlocks, alien face distortion, Get to Work retail employee AI being terriawful, standing while watching TV, obsessing over certain objects (was once woodworking, now I recall complaints about Basketball by people with CL), Sims canceling your commands to do random other desires they queued up that they KEEP re-queue'ing no matter how frequently you cancel them, Vampires with Tamed Thirst constantly doing the thirsty animation regardless of thirst level, vampires randomly acting inappropriately around the sun (staying in it or random sun resistant ones bursting into flames), Dine Out food quality, the Serial Romantic Reward Trait being iffy, Singing sometimes sticking and repeating after your sim stopped singing, being invited to celebrate a promotion I didn't get, being invited to a "wicked sweet party" at the nightclub at 8am, festival lag/overlap, vampire break in power being buggy, no practical method of telling random strangers to screw off when they join in on the convo between my sim and their date and cause certain romantic interactions to fail due to the "Awkward conversation" OR preventing said problem from occuring, ghosts of long dead sims not properly being culled from the relationship panel but by god my Sim's best friend lost 60% of his relationship bar, ghosts often filling random homes around town if you have "fill empty homes" checked and you need to manually evict them, collection reward plaques never arriving in the mail....
I could go on and on. Sadly none of those are minor bugs, either. All of the ones I just listed have the potential to seriously hinder or interrupt gameplay. It's not a list of petty nitpicking, but a list of serious bugs impeding progress and annoying ones that take you out of the game and make you rather fed up with the micromanaging sims often need due to sub-par AI.
Agreed with everything said here. I wonder how long its going to be when they actually fix the bugs, bc there is lot that has been there since day one, especially musical chairs and the werid AI. Makes me question their pushed promise of 'smarter sims'.
So, Desync is in effect - because that is how it was designed.
^That could affect a lot of things.
Very possible since it means desynchronized or unsynchronized or in other words, ' Out of sync '.
It is more a case of TS4 runs the simulation and renderer independent - so, basically 2 threads; however, you have to communicate between those two.
Yes it is, and something I had said quite possibly be happening to Sims 4. I don't know if you ever read that post about Sims 4 trying to run it's self in the past. But I did, but it was so long ago that I have forgotten which thread it was in. I said this in a response post to another Simmer's post about their game acting up. Oh I think it was in a response to another Simmer posting how their vampires kept on getting a drink of water. They kept on talking about that on here, and I kept on listening to what they said about that. As they kept posting more and more about their situation in their game, it occurred to me that it sounded like their was trying to run it's self.
There are a lot of irritating glitches but the thing that annoys me the most right now are the useless pools. I build these beautiful swimming pools and they swim for less than one sim minute before getting out. The pools on community lots are empty. So annoying. I hope they fix that.
There are a lot of irritating glitches but the thing that annoys me the most right now are the useless pools. I build these beautiful swimming pools and they swim for less than one sim minute before getting out. The pools on community lots are empty. So annoying. I hope they fix that.
Also, time related glitches and unresponsiveness.
Yeah, I know how you feel because I too was annoyed when that was happening my game. In fact, I had made a beautiful public garden venue, and an open air market venue using those new street vendor stuff from CL. And no sim bother to even show up at either venue in my game. Talk about a big disappointment.
I kinda wish we could have a heads up about patches, instead of them only announcing them when they come out.
The same here. In fact they use to give us some heads up on what was in the next game patch in the past. Especially if it was something special, like new clothes, hair style, or an object.
The jokes were fun..............the first 6 or 7 patch notes. Then they just became boring ang cringey.
This is pretty much how I feel about the patch notes too. Obviously, looking at the various opinions here, not everyone feels the same. We all 'draw our lines' about how much is too much in different places.
Personally, I can enjoy a -bit- of humor in the patch notes. IMO, I feel the problem is that lately, it seems the notes are 90% jokes and 10% substance. I'd really like to see those numbers reversed. That and some of the jokes . . . well, they're a statement and 5 bullet points and they really stopped being funny by the first bullet point, IMO. YMMV.
I really don't understand the hate for the patch jokes! I absolutely love them. With all there is out there to complain about you want to take a little fun away too?
From what I've read here the jokes aren't the problem. It's the fact that they bloat up the patch notes with unecessary text when some people just want to get to the point and learn about what has been fixed or changed and what has been added.
A tl;dr version in addition to the normal patch notes would be a good solution in my opinion.
I agree. A TL;DR thing at the end would be great since I want to just get into knowing what is being added or patched. Then, if I wanna be entertained, I could just scroll up again and read the jokes.
There's a bit in there where they speculate that because the system has Python and I believe C++ communicating with each other via Protobuf, this may be the cause of our time distortion/lag issues. Python and C++ usually don't interact or "talk" to each other, Protobuf is there to do it on their behalf. TwistedMexi speculated that it's possible this system is responsible for the time distortion, because having both C++ and Python is actually inefficient (they speculate Python was added as the game was rushed to online singleplayer), and the delays we may be feeling in the game may be delays caused by data slowly going from Python to Protobuf to C++ and then making the return trip. In a nutshell, the data of Sims 4 has a longer "path" to walk than the data of Sims 3 did, and that might cause bottlenecking or delays, and may be why things like x3 speed cause problems and make it difficult for the simulation to keep up. This also explains the differences in reaction between Sims 3 and Sims 4: Sims 3 simply freezes because it's one system that's become overburdened with things to simulate, thus it lags and locks up until it slowly gets certain processes out of the way and can pick up speed again. Sims 4? If all data must cross two systems, then yes it's conceivable that perhaps the Python end might keep running and keep simulating, unaware that there's been a delay on the C++ end, thus all Python systems snap back once they DO realize the delay and realize they must re-sync with C++'s work.
This entire speculation is very wrong and I really hope people stop bringing it up - some people might mistake it as a fact and then spread it even further.
TS4 uses Python for a similar reason why TS2 and TS3 use C# for their AI/simulation (yes, TS2/3 also use two languages, instead of C++/Python they use C++/C#). Using a separate scripting language is extremely common in video game development. If you wanna know why you can read it here. The speculation that adding Python has something to do with the game previously being an online game is completely nonsense. It doesn't matter which language they ended up use for scripting; the game was never going to be all written in C++.
And TS4's simulation lag is something that occurs at the Python end and has nothing to do with the communication between C++ and Python. The time resync is a deliberate design choice at the Python end and has nothing to do with resync with C++. Instead of freezing like TS3 does when it lags, the time distortion is implemented on purpose to reduce the perceived lag by players. By the way, when TS3 freezes you'll also notice things like trees and stuff are still moving in the background; this is because the lagging occurs in C# (which handles gamplay) but the backend still runs fine. TS3 is not "one system" as you claimed; it's exactly the same as TS4.
Highchairs... no more leaving your toddler, after they've finished eating, sitting in their chair while you go off and play basketball, pick your nose in the kitchen or run off to bed for the night!
With the toddlers patch, I expect that to be fixed!
I hope they can fix the festival spawning bugs, where one festival spawns on top of another one and objects spawn on top or inside of food carts making them inaccessible:
Yes! This needs to be fixed. Also the butler bug, where butlers keep switching out families and sometimes I get one butler for all my wealthy families.
And please fix the Executron Executive desk chair already!
Comments
I like them. Especially the toddler ones.
Whatever the case, I'll help promote the message that the bugs, at least a good half of them, need to be fixed. I don't want the Sims 4 to end up like the laggy mess the Sims 3 did. It took me over a month to get Sims 3 stable.
There was prior mention that the simulation was running separate.
There is surely hardly a huge amount of data to worry about? TS4 is loading instances - it is not like it is worried about a world simulation - ie tracking dozens and dozens of Sims within a world and their interactions and needs.
What is being simulated, other than what is resident in that neighbourhood?
TS4 is surely comparable to a prototype of TS3 in terms of simulation - ie a limited instance (limited lots, limited Sims, limited interactions, etc) as opposed to an entire world? It doesn't care that much - surely - it is not worried about a NPC Sim (other than one you can see), etc?
Ask Brian Bell - he will confirm.
bmbell@ea.com
^ He will know.
I don't get it, in Sims 3 there doesn't seem to be this problem but Sims 4, we got it. I too REALLY hope they DO fix that glitch!!
Certain playstyles accelerate the effects faster than others. People who use x3 speed, family players, or people with older save files are more likely to encounter these issues. They can also vary quite a bit in how they manifest; my most recent file tends not to have interaction delay (except with party events or when interacting with toddlers), but does often get little hits of time distortion and time snapping back. I also definitely get the little oddity where...say I send a Sim to dig a crystal, the game will probably alert me what crystal the Sim got just as the animation has begun.
As I said though, part of the problem is that each new pack can conceivably be expected to worsen the problem. People that own City Living seem to complain quite a bit about lag and distortion issues while in the city, and toddlers also added to this to some degree. I only recently played my first toddler, and I was AMAZED some people claim Toddlers cause no lag for them because the first thing I noticed was how much time my Sim would spend standing around when interacting with a toddler. The problem is gonna get worse before it gets better, and that's why it's important to nip it in the butt as fast as possible.
EDIT:
That would be the behaviour system.
Oh and I like the jokes too.
Here is one that might be the result of Sims 4 being out of control. Vampire sims stalking normal sims in the game. I wasn't even aware that this was even possible. Here in this situation it's like the game has taken on self awareness, and starting to act on it's own accord.
^That could affect a lot of things.
ETA: Come to think about it. This also could explain away why players are experiencing sims just suddenly becoming stuck all of a sudden in their games as well. Especially if two sims act at the same time on another sim or an object. The two sims would cancel each other out. Resulting in the two sims just standing there waiting for the other one to finish when neither of them are interacting with that other sim or object. Causing both sim to become stuck in the place they were when it all started to fall apart.
EDIT:
The key being resyncing what was desynced.
IMO, pools in The Sims have never been used to their full potential. Though they had been improving until TS4.
I built one pool in TS4, realized how truly useless it was and deleted it. Never have bothered with a second build.
It's one of those added features that you can tell was rushed to quell the anger over the bare bones base game.
I like the jokes as well.
I just wish the jokes followed more substantial bug fixes.
In any case, it hits the fan tomorrow. Try to stay away from the spray
Agreed with everything said here. I wonder how long its going to be when they actually fix the bugs, bc there is lot that has been there since day one, especially musical chairs and the werid AI. Makes me question their pushed promise of 'smarter sims'.
Also, time related glitches and unresponsiveness.
This is pretty much how I feel about the patch notes too. Obviously, looking at the various opinions here, not everyone feels the same. We all 'draw our lines' about how much is too much in different places.
Personally, I can enjoy a -bit- of humor in the patch notes. IMO, I feel the problem is that lately, it seems the notes are 90% jokes and 10% substance. I'd really like to see those numbers reversed. That and some of the jokes . . . well, they're a statement and 5 bullet points and they really stopped being funny by the first bullet point, IMO. YMMV.
I agree. A TL;DR thing at the end would be great since I want to just get into knowing what is being added or patched. Then, if I wanna be entertained, I could just scroll up again and read the jokes.
TS4 uses Python for a similar reason why TS2 and TS3 use C# for their AI/simulation (yes, TS2/3 also use two languages, instead of C++/Python they use C++/C#). Using a separate scripting language is extremely common in video game development. If you wanna know why you can read it here. The speculation that adding Python has something to do with the game previously being an online game is completely nonsense. It doesn't matter which language they ended up use for scripting; the game was never going to be all written in C++.
And TS4's simulation lag is something that occurs at the Python end and has nothing to do with the communication between C++ and Python. The time resync is a deliberate design choice at the Python end and has nothing to do with resync with C++. Instead of freezing like TS3 does when it lags, the time distortion is implemented on purpose to reduce the perceived lag by players. By the way, when TS3 freezes you'll also notice things like trees and stuff are still moving in the background; this is because the lagging occurs in C# (which handles gamplay) but the backend still runs fine. TS3 is not "one system" as you claimed; it's exactly the same as TS4.
With the toddlers patch, I expect that to be fixed!
Yes! This needs to be fixed. Also the butler bug, where butlers keep switching out families and sometimes I get one butler for all my wealthy families.
And please fix the Executron Executive desk chair already!
Hip-hip-hooray!
I hope Pets is patched in.