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Slot mods after the November 2019 patch

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@SimGuruModSquad @SimGuruTwoLegs,

Hi, I'm not sure which SimGuru is currently covering this forum. If I have tagged the wrong person, I apologize; please let me know who I should tag.

Since the last patch, there have been numerous reports about broken items with custom deco slots (bookcases, tables, shelves, etc.). The problem appears to be the addition of an apparently arbitrary limit on the number of bones an item can have. This change has impacted packages with custom added slots, causing these items to crash the game.

Before this patch, there was no reported limit on the number of deco slots that could be added to an item that functioned in the game. Since this patch, no mod can have more than 195 bones in the rig resource. This limits the number of slots that an item can have and still function in the game.

The result is that many CC items are now causing the game to crash. People have been making Sims 4 CC items with more than 195 bones for years. Thus, this change is causing a very large number of items to crash the game. Fixing this on our end would require all creators to modify all the creations they've made for the last several years.

What we're hoping is that EA will back out this possibly unintended change so that the years of work our community has put in on an enormous amount of content does not require creators to fix all of these many items. There is no graceful way for us to fix this with a batch fix, and making these items game-safe would reduce their appeal to players (it would require removing slots that players want). I would like to emphasize that this change is impacting a very large number of CC packages.

If examples of the problem are needed, please let me know, and I will provide them.

Comments

  • TURBODRIVERTURBODRIVER Posts: 68 Member
    Hey! As far as I know, Maxis is aware of this issue, but we won't know what will be the decision on it until the next game update, which might come sooner than later. You might have seen a retweet about this from QA:

    In-game rigs are limited for different types of objects, so I'm not surprised they made the decision to keep things consistent without realizing that its inconsistency was being exploited on a large scale. A decision to back out from that change means leaning towards mods compatibility, which Maxis has past examples of doing so. I would even like to see the rig bones limit lifted for all objects, but that's just a dream.

    My most optimistic view on it would be to have someone offer a mass solution. I would nicley ask Andrew from Sims4Studio to introduce a batch fix for CC furniture slots, that would solve most people's issues.
  • _orangemittens__orangemittens_ Posts: 512 Member
    We cannot batch fix this very well while sticking to EA's convention of a bone for every slot, because we can't make a batch fix that "knows" which slots the creator would most like to retain and which they're willing to give up. For example, a batch fix solution would leave many bookcases with one shelf with slots and no slots on all the other shelves - i.e., not what's wanted. Further, the reason many items have lots of slots is that players want items with lots of slots, and the presence of lots of slots has never been a problem before.

    The optimistic view is that EA will remove this arbitrary limitation so creators don't have to repair over three years' worth of custom content. Has there been any response from EA as yet? I don't want to start advising people to start ripping slots off things until we know for sure what they plan to do about this issue.
  • zap608zap608 Posts: 82 Member
    I agree with OM. As a creator that designs objects with slots to avoid the useless MOO cheat, I am not willing to start pulling slots from my objects to please EA games. The other issue that might be worth some thought is that a lot of people pay for items like this because the game doesn't provide them. I imagine they are rather upset.
    Find me; Freeasabird, The Shed @ Sims 4 Studio. Custom content for The Sims 4.
  • TURBODRIVERTURBODRIVER Posts: 68 Member
    We cannot batch fix this very well while sticking to EA's convention of a bone for every slot, because we can't make a batch fix that "knows" which slots the creator would most like to retain and which they're willing to give up. For example, a batch fix solution would leave many bookcases with one shelf with slots and no slots on all the other shelves - i.e., not what's wanted. Further, the reason many items have lots of slots is that players want items with lots of slots, and the presence of lots of slots has never been a problem before.

    The optimistic view is that EA will remove this arbitrary limitation so creators don't have to repair over three years' worth of custom content. Has there been any response from EA as yet? I don't want to start advising people to start ripping slots off things until we know for sure what they plan to do about this issue.

    Oh, hey, just noticed your name. You definitely have the best perspective on this situation in that case. Very true, there's no reliable way of handling any mass solution. Since most of the affected objects will be counters, tables, and shelves of varied shapes, in a situation where Maxis would not revert this change, a way of filtering these objects would be useful.

    It would be nice to know what are their plans but the current state is unknown. The bug was passed on to the developers by the QA, but the solution is yet to be decided on, or at least yet to be implemented. This can possibly not come anytime soon, but I can confirm that this is one of the top 3 crash causes after the recent patch. I don't know how common this kind of furniture is, and I don't think they know either, so this should supposedly be a reason to release a hotfix early next week if the scale is large enough.
    It's possible a fix won't be out right away with the volume of issues introduced by the new patch. They aren't as game-breaking as this, but if more of them can be covered at once, that would push the hotfix release a little.
  • GelimynGelimyn Posts: 1 New Member
    Part of the appeal of the Sims in general is the major amount of customization that we have in the form of Custom Content, from create a sim to build and buy.

    To have a shelf, bookcases, and the beloved Bramblefinch Apothecary Cabinet, that has been part of my Sims experience (in some cases for years) suddenly stop working and crash literally E V E R Y save I have is so disheartening.

    I am with everyone else and I TRULY hope this issue is fixed on EA's end.
  • _orangemittens__orangemittens_ Posts: 512 Member
    Studio can add a feature that goes through and sequesters items with more than the arbitrary number of slots dictated by the game. However, if EA is going to fix the problem promptly, this step would be a waste of time.

    Judging by the very large number of posts and PMs about this problem at Studio forums, there are a lot of affected items. That makes sense given that people have been making slotted CC for years and Studio's slot editor makes it very easy to add tons of slots in minutes. Further, manual fixing by the creator means that resolving this problem on the community side will not just be a PIA for creators. Every player with a now-broken slot mod will have to track down the site where they got it, see if the creator updated, and redownload if an update is available.

    In the past, when issues like this have occurred secondary to unintended patch changes, EA has been very good about letting us know the plan quickly. Hopefully, it will be the same this time.
  • 123Caitluck123Caitluck Posts: 5 New Member
    I really hope EA is going to do something about the furniture issue's. I feel so sad that I can't play this game anymore...
  • theavocadoesareheretheavocadoesarehere Posts: 2 New Member
    hi! this might be a dumb question but how do i know how many slots and item has? thanks!
  • LuvMySimzLuvMySimz Posts: 642 Member
    edited November 2019
    hi! this might be a dumb question but how do i know how many slots and item has? thanks!

    open Studio and click the Ctrl key, the shift key, and the c key on your keyboard. This will bring up the cheat box. Type in slot195 and navigate to your Mods folder. Studio will prepare a list of all items in your folder that have over 195 slots.

    You can read more about it here -> http://sims4studio.com/post/133811/thread
    „ - Criticism may not be agreeable, but it's sometimes necessary - “

  • spazin1015aspazin1015a Posts: 15 Member
    I am stillhaving issues if anyone can direct me. I have removed all the slot195 listed items but my save will still not load. Ugh
  • webdznrwebdznr Posts: 572 Member
    Thank you devs at S4S for the shower update. However, the slot thing I guess is still causing crashes? Do we know a status on this? I haven't updated or purchased University yet due to all the people having crash problems with CC. Maxis needs to fix this! I guess I'm done with future purchases. Up to this time, I owned all the packs. I also have a ton of CC and won't play without it.
    The Sims 4 :: Think 'inside' the box.
  • LunarSims101LunarSims101 Posts: 6 New Member
    My game loads up perfectly. I can use CAS and edit lots but I cannot press play on a family. Frankly, it's irritating that I can play around with everything but the sims in live mode. I refuse to play without CC since I use it for story telling.
  • LuvMySimzLuvMySimz Posts: 642 Member
    edited January 2020
    Deleted bc wrong thread
    Post edited by LuvMySimz on
    „ - Criticism may not be agreeable, but it's sometimes necessary - “

  • LunarSims101LunarSims101 Posts: 6 New Member
    So, I've realized that the update might not be the issue. I accidentally downloaded the Legacy Edition of the game and as stated, I'm still experiencing problems from earlier.
    > @LunarSims101 said:
    > My game loads up perfectly. I can use CAS and edit lots but I cannot press play on a family. Frankly, it's irritating that I can play around with everything but the sims in live mode. I refuse to play without CC since I use it for storytelling.

    It loads up, I press play on a select family, it goes to a loading screen, and then it crashes completely. Every time.
  • SimGuruTwoLegsSimGuruTwoLegs Posts: 25 SimGuru (retired)
    Hey all. I'm still gathering information, but I'll share what I know so far.

    The bone limit for a rig is 180. This limit has actually been in since the game's launch in 2014 and we intended for all rigs, Maxis made or otherwise, to follow it. However, a flaw in code allows mods/CC to very unsafely exceed that limit which results in a fairly consistent crash in the current patch, though prior patches have also seen the same crash, just at a low enough frequency for this problem to fly under the radar. As we never truly allowed for arbitrarily large bone counts, there's unfortunately no simple change or rollback we can make to remove the limit.

    We are working on a change to more gracefully tolerate large rigs by allowing rigs to load up to 180 bones before discarding any remaining. This is admittedly unideal, but it will allow the game to start without crashing and for the excessively large rigs/objects to function as much as possible within the 180 limit.
  • BANGKOKSIMSBANGKOKSIMS Posts: 1 New Member
    Hi I'm own Bangkoksims Fanpage and I we supporting you For many years.
    https://www.facebook.com/bangkoksims/

    I'm having a problem Because I like to making the bone more than 180.
    This is My cc https://www.picz.in.th/image/rgdg.gyymXP
    how do you solve this problem??
  • _orangemittens__orangemittens_ Posts: 512 Member
    Thanks for responding @SimGuruTwoLegs. It's a bit of a surprise to discover this rig bone limit five years into the game. It's even more surprising to hear that slotted items were causing the game to crash before this patch as no one reported anything like that to us. We typically hear pretty quickly if something is going wrong, even if it's occurring at a low level. Had we known about this rig bone safety limit, we would not have been blithely helping people to exceed that limit for the last four or so years.

    That said, if all deco bones are removed from a slotted item, the slots still work. Is there a downside to retaining deco slots that lack a corresponding bone?
  • daninoidaninoi Posts: 1 New Member
    > @LunarSims101 said:
    > My game loads up perfectly. I can use CAS and edit lots but I cannot press play on a family. Frankly, it's irritating that I can play around with everything but the sims in live mode. I refuse to play without CC since I use it for story telling.

    I had this issue as well, when I turned off the mods it worked but I don't want to play without mods or ccs. Seeing that MCCC isn't the issue, does anyone have any other suggestions besides removing mods? (That's my last option) I deleted cache, did the repair option and updated everything.
  • kkswayzekkswayze Posts: 1 New Member
    Hi! My sims game is not loading households. It lets me use CAS, and thats it. It wont let me load in to lots, and it will crash every time and say, "The Sims 4 has stopped working". I have tried everything and i know it is bc of the furniture thing, with 195 slots, but i was wondering if yall have heard anything about what the Gurus have said about it. i just want this to be fixed bc i cant live without my CC! Thanks, kkswayze.
  • RedFactionFRRedFactionFR Posts: 3 New Member
    > @SimGuruTwoLegs said:
    > The bone limit for a rig is 180

    Hi @SimGuruTwoLegs . I don't think I will get a better opportunity to talk to you in the future so I'm taking a last shot :)

    I have been trying to figure out about this 180 bones limit for a long time.
    Maybe you saw the message I sent you on Scumbumbo Werld's discord in May or even the ticket I opened (https://answers.ea.com/t5/Technical-Issues-PC/Crash-to-desktop-upon-sims-rendering/td-p/7927298) to the developpers' attention in June.

    I am very eager to know more about this limitation and the technical reason behind it.
    Getting rid of it would lead to amazing new possibilities so I'm crossing my fingers for a good news on your side !

    Cheers!
  • theavocadoesareheretheavocadoesarehere Posts: 2 New Member
    > @LuvMySimz said:
    > (Quote)
    >
    > open Studio and click the Ctrl key, the shift key, and the c key on your keyboard. This will bring up the cheat box. Type in slot195 and navigate to your Mods folder. Studio will prepare a list of all items in your folder that have over 195 slots.
    >
    > You can read more about it here -> http://sims4studio.com/post/133811/thread

    hi, so i did what you told me and deleted all my files with over 195 slots but live mode still crashes nonetheless.. i really don't know what's crashing my game at this point, is there any possibility of something else being the cause of it? thank you so much!
  • szanne7777szanne7777 Posts: 43 Member
    I do hope @SimGuruTwoLegs sees your 11-23-19 comments, @_orangemittens_, as there is just a ton of cc with this issue :(
  • LuvMySimzLuvMySimz Posts: 642 Member
    > @SimGuruTwoLegs said:
    > The bone limit for a rig is 180

    Hi @SimGuruTwoLegs . I don't think I will get a better opportunity to talk to you in the future so I'm taking a last shot :)

    I have been trying to figure out about this 180 bones limit for a long time.
    Maybe you saw the message I sent you on Scumbumbo Werld's discord in May or even the ticket I opened

    https://answers.ea.com/t5/Technical-Issues-PC/Crash-to-desktop-upon-sims-rendering/td-p/7927298

    to the developpers' attention in June.

    I am very eager to know more about this limitation and the technical reason behind it.
    Getting rid of it would lead to amazing new possibilities so I'm crossing my fingers for a good news on your side !

    Cheers!

    WOW! I had no idea that the slot issue limit to 180 bones was already mentioned in June. Good to know. Thanks for posting here.
    „ - Criticism may not be agreeable, but it's sometimes necessary - “

  • LuvMySimzLuvMySimz Posts: 642 Member
    > @LuvMySimz said:
    > (Quote)
    >
    > open Studio and click the Ctrl key, the shift key, and the c key on your keyboard. This will bring up the cheat box. Type in slot195 and navigate to your Mods folder. Studio will prepare a list of all items in your folder that have over 195 slots.
    >
    > You can read more about it here -> http://sims4studio.com/post/133811/thread

    hi, so i did what you told me and deleted all my files with over 195 slots but live mode still crashes nonetheless.. i really don't know what's crashing my game at this point, is there any possibility of something else being the cause of it? thank you so much!

    It could be a lot of things. CC: beds, pillows, blankets/covers, showers... But honestly, this thread is the wrong thread to discuss bug issues.
    „ - Criticism may not be agreeable, but it's sometimes necessary - “

  • _orangemittens__orangemittens_ Posts: 512 Member
    Yes, the probable bone limit for Sim rigs was discussed at Studio HERE last year. However, that discussion was strictly about Sim rigs, not object rigs. The statement by SimGuruTwoLegs above is the first time I've ever heard EA indicate that any such limit existed for objects. Again, if we had known about this, say about four years ago, we would have handled our approach to object slots and teaching people about object slots a lot differently. So differently, in fact, that our community wouldn't now have potentially thousands of objects with hundreds of deco slots out there that will require alteration to comply with the sudden enforcement of this arbitrary-seeming bone limit for objects.
    Adding lots of deco slots to an object is not arbitrary. Players want to use every inch of a surface, and they want to personalize the organization of things on that surface. The whole idea is to make surfaces in the game act similar to surfaces in real life. In real life, people are not limited in where they can place things on a table, for example. My guess is that some creators are going to get around this arbitrary limit by slicing objects up so each section of a larger surface item can have the desired number of slots. That is unless we can safely have deco slots that are unassociated with bones. If deco slots don't really require corresponding bones, then the issue with slotted objects is not really that big of an issue.
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