The Sims 4 is gearing up for a highly anticipated expansion pack release on Friday, Nov. 10: Cats & Dogs. In preparation, the developers have delivered an obnoxious amount of bug fixes. There are so many, it took us like an hour to read through the full patch notes. If you want to commit to that, you can find them here. But we’ve done the reading for you and breaking down the most important updates below.
Four new roofs are available in build mode: pentagonal, hexagonal, octagonal and round. There’s also an advanced curvature mode. When you have a roof selected, hit Shift + C to expand your roof curvature edit options. Gabled and hipped roofs have additional manipulation points, so their eaves can be adjusted on all four sides.
Photography is now available to all players, with each camera available in build mode. The photography skill can be learned up to level five and photos taken with the camera can have frames added to them after you place the photo in the world.
As a safeguard against households accidentally getting deleted, you can now use the ‘My Household’ tab to ensure they will stay in the game forever. There is a Maximum Sim Count option which can be set to unlimited, though it isn’t recommended due to potential performance issues.
We’ve always been able to enlarge objects, and now you can shrink them. Shift + ] makes objects larger and Shift + [ will make them smaller. (When you are ready to stop shrinking everything, use the same shortcuts to bring the object back to normal size). Get fancy and use it alongside the MOO cheat (moveobjects on) to have decoration / building possibilities.
Those are the most impactful changes, but there are countless small fixes as well. Here’s a quick list:
-Teen Sims will automatically place their homework in the inventory. Hallelujah. No searching the entire house. “Archetypal “Rebel” teens decry the modification, claiming cruelty to animals and saying, “What’s my dog gonna eat now?!” the patch notes read.
-Sims will once again receive a playful buff while taking a bubble bath.
-Been having trouble with the skip feature? So have we all. Thankfully, the game clock should no longer skip forward and back when changing from 3x or ultra speeds back to speed 1. “The game clock will also no longer flutter, skitter, or scamper, dance, prance, carom, cavort, canter, or run… no, it will run,” say the patch notes.
-When you boot up an old save, Sims will no longer all rush to the restroom.
-Decorating a lot takes a lot of time. Now, deleting a household via the Manage Household dialog will no longer remove the option for a new family to move into the lot and keep the old family’s furnishings.
-Who doesn’t love a nice puddle splash? Childish Sims will play in puddles now! Angry Sims with the appropriate mischief level (and or evil or mean children) will stomp on puddles!
-Attempting to complete the Smash Dollhouse whim by smashing a dollhouse will now award satisfaction points upon said smashing
-The pizza delivery Sim will now leave after an appropriate amount of time after the delivered takes the delivery from the deliverer.
-Toddlers can once again nap on chairs. Lazy Sims can once again Nap Lazily upon Living Chairs.
-Socializing with your adopted child will now properly satisfy the Socialize with your child 10 times goal of the Big Happy Family aspiration.
-You can now host social events such as Birthday, Wedding, Dinner, Costume, House Parties or Dates on Generic Lots.
-The chance of alien abduction has increased, slightly.
-The Public Throne now provides Hygiene 3 (lol).
-Birds will no longer fly through the Jasmine Suite Apartments.
Are you ready to try these new roofs ahead of Sims 4: Cats & Dogs? Let us know in the comments.
