The Full Q&A Recap

Question: Hey guys! I wanted to ask if the issue where children of Noble Sims don’t automatically receive their noble titles at birth will be fixed in the next update. Really excited to see the full laundry list next week

EA Solaire: Yes! This one is on our list. You can follow along with the bug report here: https://forums.ea.com/idea/the-sims-4-bug-reports-en/rl-children-from-unplayed-nobles-dont-receive-titlenot-added-to-dynasty/13195661

Question: Will there be any other new items added to base game for infants in addition to the new playmat coming?

EA Cade: Just the playmat (and its variations)

Question: hi! my question is: will the soft locking in the gallery be fixed in this update? I am a console player (xbox series s) and whenever i go to download anything i cant exit out and cannot use my a and b buttons or look at pictures.

EA Cade: Heya, we’re closely monitoring this issue in the thread here on EA Forums https://forums.ea.com/idea/the-sims-4-bug-reports-en/xb-cant-interact-with-gallery-without-force-closing-game-after-patch-2-32/13366628. Keep an eye there for any updates we have to share!

Question: With the sims cleaning up diapers after changing an infant, does this mean straight after changing an infant? Kind of like how after a sim uses a toilet they immediately wash their hands?

EA Conor: Sometimes its right after changing, sometimes a little after in my playtests. But ideally its a lot snappier now.

Question: if i visit a household with an infant, with caregiver autonomy turned off, will the family still care for the infant? or would my sim (the guest) need to?

EA Conor: With caregiving disabled its off for everyone, Household and NPC

Question: Will there be modders patch notes for this one like usual? Very much appreciated

EA Cade: Yup!

Question: Does that mean infants will be removed for any unplayed households? That’s a bit dramatic

EA Conor: No just Infants currently under your care, not off-lot Infants

Question: Is the new play mats new variants of the baby play mat already in game?

EA Morgan: They’ll be releasing with the patch!

Question: Will the Gallery sorting order be reverted in this update?

EA Solaire: Yes! The Gallery sort order will be swapped back to “newest” rather than “most popular”

Question: Will the issue where photos taken in the Photo Booth turn black when moved to another save file be fixed?

EA Cade: This update will address ALL currently known issues with black photos. Please continue to report any that you come across!

Question: I also have a question about the townies coming to your house to get water. On the blog post, its said that this is not a retroactive fix or something like that (I’m not very good with those terms, apologies), so, is there any way to avoid this bug even when the update comes out? Like, do you recommend us to do anything? Moving Sims to another house, etc..

EA Morgan: It should just be fixed in new games. In old games, I don’t think there’s anything you can do to stop it from happening, unfortunately. However, there was another fix where your Household Sims won’t drink water anymore autonomously – this is fixed in all saves.

Question: Will be cuddling in bed when sleeping still an autonomous interaction (or that new interaction) or just user-directed with the next update?

EA Morgan: I dont think we changed anything with the autonomy for this.

Question: Will there be base layers added for existing packs?

EA Morgan: All base layers that we added are in base game. We could add more in the future if we wanted. They 100% work with all tops and all full body assets from all packs. There are some VERY cool combos.

Question: Will be there any new interactions or objects in base game as in Growing Together?

EA Morgan: The Laundry List calls out the new features, but we have: a free Base Game playmat for everyone, a new interaction to disable caregiver autonomy, new backup save options. There are some fun new additions to gameplay too – like how Sims will now turn off a radio after it wakes them up. Not a new feature, but additions to gameplay that make it feel smarter.

Question: Are they going to be in accessories ?

EA Morgan: They are! They work pretty much exactly like how tights do, but they’re their own top asset.

Question: ARE THE HINTS AT HETEROCHROMIA TRUE??????????

EA Morgan: No, the modder info on base layers wasn’t revealing any secrets around updates to CAS content beyond base layer information. That’s not currently planned.

Question: So we can wear leggings and a base layer!? And yeah, is an auto save feature even a small possibility?

EA Morgan: 100% yes for leggings and a base layer. For autosave, we know its a top player request and it is something we’re investigating now. When we have more information we’ll share it.

Question: Will sims have better autonomy after the update : doing what we ask them to do instead of simulation lag or canceling interactions ?

EA Morgan: We know that autonomy is a top player request, so its something we’ve REALLY been focusing on. This update has some really nice updates for autonomy, as do our plans for the next update. Please stay tuned and keep giving feedback. Canceling interactions is something that needs to be solved on a case by case basis.

For our infant update, we’ve updated a handful of cases of this pertaining specifically to infants. If you’re seeing specific interactions being canceled the most helpful thing you can do is report those instances on EA forums so we know where to target our focus. It’s something we’re very interested in.

Question: Can you guys also elaborate on the backup save thing though. As a legacy player it immediately piqued my interest

EA Morgan: Backup Saves actually already exist in game! You can go to Load Game on the main menu, select a save, and press the button for loading backup saves there. Right now, we already save the last 5 play sessions.

With our updates, we’re keeping around more old versions of the saves – keeping week and month old versions. We’ll also be showing this off in the livestream towards the end!

Question: Frequent Infant pickups and put downs, caregiver conflicts, and Sims freezing during care were major frustrations. This update includes multiple interconnected fixes to address these issues, all available in the Base Game. will this onclude the ”check on infant” sims seem to do a lot? even if the infant isnt in trouble/in low need?

EA Morgan: Check on Infant is behaving MUCH nicer now. It still happens with Caregiver autonomy on, because we want caregivers to check on the infants, but it happens much less frequently and is far less intrusive now. I’m really please with how its working.

Statement: That’s my biggest problem. Everyone is trying to pick up the baby and the game freezes

EA Morgan: This is behaving much better now! We fixed a ton of individual cases where this was happening. If there are more, please keep reporting and we’ll fix, but this aspect of caregiver behavior feels a lot better.

We also made it so if Check Infant is queued and it is next in queue, you can now cancel the interaction. If it is further back in the queue, you can’t still. We tried, but that was VERY difficult to address. But I find myself wanting to cancel far less now that Check Infant is less zealous.

Question: with this new update with the base layers, do they show as new? how exactly will that ui flow work?

EA Morgan: I believe e they do glow gold and do the UI that shows new assets.

Question: are base layers a clothing category akin to socks or gloves?

EA Morgan: They work just like tights but are their own unique thing.

Question: not really a good question, i admit, but if you wanna share a bit about the progress behind the scenes: What was the hardest issue to fix?

EA Cade: eyelids

Question: is there any fixes or content coming in the update that is only available to new post update saves right away?

EA Conor: They should all be retroactive except the ones stated otherwise

Question: What was the hardest issue to fix?

EA Morgan: Honestly, posture related fixes was 100% the hardest part of this update – pick up and put down for Infants. It’s REALLY interconnected with a lot of states an infant can be put into

EA Cade: EYELIDS!

EA Conor: Anything with low repro rates

Question: Will fixes be coming for the bugs on the gallery for console players this update?

EA Morgan: I think we have 3 or 4 different gallery updates coming with this patch. Stay tuned for the patch notes! One or two were mentioned in LL if recall.

Question: Oh yeah, I wonder how the eyelids broke? Do you think it was because of the eyelashes, when lovestruck came out? It must’ve been really hard fixing them, especially since you changed a lot of animations if I remember correctly. And by the way, I have a question about the fairy wings, how hard would it be to implement a settings on the gameplay options to make them be visible all the time?

EA Morgan: I think the eyelids breaking did have to do with eyelashes, but it was super complex to try to address. The amount of collaboration and work to make them both work at the same time was very surprising to me – I learned a lot.

As far as fairy wings being available all the time, we did investigate this for this patch actually. We fixed one instance where they weren’t showing and also fixed where they would get stuck not showing on a Sim’s UI picture. Unfortunately, showing wings all the time would create a lot of other issues though and we decided that wasn’t really a feasible thing for us to address. It’s technically As Designed.

Question: What is your favourite QoL change as part of this update?

EA Morgan: Infant caregiving is my favorite part of this update. Base layers is a close second, because there are so many tummy showing shirts I can now wear on my ‘morgan’ sim. I’ll show off some in the livestream! But infants just feel so much nicer now when you play with them and I’m a big family player.

Personally, I also hit the scandal getting stuck bug on my game at home, so I was SUPER happy for that one to get fixed as a top community issue. And the engineer who fixed it spent a few extra days also ensuring that it was fixed in old saves where it’d already happened!

EA Conor: Sims autonomously turning off the radio or TV when it interupts their sleep. It looks really nice in game! I’ve been wanting to add this for awhile. Enjoy the gif

Question: Idk if anybody asked but can we just layer anything?! Like jackets over tops etc

EA Morgan: You can put any Top or Full Body Outfit over a Base Layer Asset (which works like tights. To be clear, YOU CANNOT layer two top assets. It’s a Base Layer outfit + top or full body.

Statement: I almost cried when I read it. It took me years to figure out why my sims wouldn’t sleep

EA Conor: Honestly you’re not alone. We get a lot of videos with, “Hey my Sims aren’t sleeping.” and I always spy a radio playing in their room

Question: Sorry if that’s a silly question, but do you guys have a favorite house/Sims to play when testing the game or do you just create and randomize any Sim because you’re too busy fixing many things at once?

EA Morgan: RON LUMBERJACKSON. He’s my go to Sim that I play with when I can. It is good to mix and match though so you get more variety with how players play, but when I can choose for me – it’s Ron Lumberjackson.

EA Conor: I usually play in the cheap seaside lot in Brindleton Bay (I think its called Bedlington Boathouse), but anywhere in Bargain Bend also feels like home

EA Solaire: The Pancakes are my personal Guinea pigs anytime I need to test or troubleshoot on the forums

Statement: i’m just hoping the infant updates actually work lol i’m so tired of having multiple caregivers and none of them will feed the baby or bathe it

EA Morgan: There are always things we can improve with autonomy, even Infants still, but I do personally think its feeling a lot better. I hope you really enjoy the changes we’ve made.

Question: Did you play test your update with all the pack to prevent corruptions or bugs to add up due to this update ?

EA Morgan: We always do a lot of testing pre-update with a lot of combos. That’s on the QV side.

For this update, since we touched a lot of autonomy for infants, we did extra team playtests together to see how Infants were feeling each week and to highlight what were our top goals for the next week. These can be really valuable and we got a lot of great feedback out of them.

Statement: (On base layer swatches) I think it’s said +350 in the video ? Maybe im wrong tho

EA Morgan: If you count every variant for every asset across Toddler, Child, and Teen+ it is 350. But I think the real magic is how those assets can all be combined with the different assets from different packs.

Statement: I also hope the save update won’t break our saves

EA Morgan: Always follow the instructions around updating mods! That’s one of the top things you can do.

Question: I wonder how many times Eliza died during the tests

EA Solaire: More than I care to admit

EA Morgan: No Sims were caught in a massive, destructive fire in the making of this patch.

Question: can you elaborate on the visual changes in both CAS and build mode mentioned in the laundry list?

EA Morgan: Can you give a direct quote. We didn’t update UI, but we did fix some bugs within both. I can probably provite more details with a direct quote to know what you’re referencing.

The Quote: “We’ve also made broad tagging, sorting, and visual updates in Create a Sim and Build Mode to improve organization and consistency.”

EA Morgan: Ah! That’s general tagging updates for how things are sorting to ensure that objects and cas items are where you expect them. We did make a change to… was it jewelry? to always show in hot/cold categories. So that was a pretty big one as an example.

Question: are there plans for future qol updates?

EA Morgan: yes! We’re currently doing one focused on general autonomy updates and starting to talk about one that’ll relate to food/dining/drinks and autonomy. So we have a lot more planned for quality of life updates.

Question: Can you give us a gif showing about new layers?

EA Morgan:

Question: Ooo I think currently there are some masculine hairs from the adventure awaits expansion in need of tagging, was it already fixed?

EA Morgan: yes, those kinds of fixes! If it isn’t fixed in this update please make sure you report it on the forums so we can address it in a future update.

Question: Will there be any layers included in other packs besides base-game added to this list?

EA Morgan: For this update, all Base Layer assets are in base game. We could add them for future releases if desired, but that isn’t part of this update.

Statement: Thank you, interested to see some of this shown off in the livestream tomorrow.

EA Morgan: We just did a tech run through! Very excited to show off the update tomorrow! We won’t get through all 150+ fixes, but Base Layers, Infant Updates, and Backup Save Updates are all planned! Looking forward to seeing you there!

Question: Is prom fully fixed? I still get kicked back to manage worlds when it starts

EA Morgan: We fixed a few top community issues around that, but I don’t recall seeing that issue. Please make sure its reported on the forums or if its already there – give it a vote!