The Sims series is almost as famous for its countless mishaps as it is for bringing the simulator powerhouse to life. The Sims 4 is no exception, and it is clear that this cycle of bugs and patch notes will just repeat itself over and over again. At least upgrading to Python has helped make some bug fixes with each update as bugs are easy to find, but there are still some bugs that took far too long to fix.
The good news is that there is a vibrant modding community out there that does this for them, even if the developers are struggling to produce a game with limited bugs. Sometimes they even do better.
10 How Much Cleaning Was It Taken in Bust The Dust?
When the Bust the Dust pack was first released, players had to spend practically all day cleaning to keep dust at bay. It got so bad that EA eventually had to release a patch for it. Now there are options for this in the game, including the ability to turn off dust spawning entirely.
Unfortunately, disabling this feature takes pretty much all of its contents out of the box, leaving behind a ton of cosmetic vacuums for players. At least it can now be scaled up so Sims can go out and actually do something other than clean up a meltdown.
9 Bunk beds were very broken
Bunk beds were a highly anticipated addition to the base game for Sims 4. The problem was that they were even more broken in the beginning than they are now. Sims couldn’t use half of the beds, essentially rendering them redundant.
Placing objects under the loft bed is still a hassle without switching game modes, and even then, it might be worth considering using cheats or downloading custom content instead. At least both beds can now actually be used.
8th The case of the incredibly disappearing beach towels
Island Living has added a slew of great new content, from Sims getting tanned to a mermaid. The problem was there was a lighting bug initially where every time a Sim put a beach towel down to get the perfect tan, the towel would go away.
Fortunately, the bug was pretty minor and could be easily fixed in the next patch. However, if it keeps happening, adjusting the lighting settings will help bring the thing back into view.
7th Sims just cook like that
For a while, Sims were even more needy than usual. Whenever a Sim ran out of things, they just went into the kitchen and started cooking. It didn’t matter if they were hungry or not, they just cooked. And cook. And cook.
So if the player did something else and didn’t pay extra attention, their Simoleons would be drained by a very bored Sim who just let everything rot. Then the Sims pretended it was such a big problem that there were dirty dishes everywhere.
6th Non-interactive Sims kind of killed the point of the game
Right before the Seasons debut, a patch was rolled out that allowed some players to have Sims who would directly refuse to interact with each other. Despite the player’s best efforts, more sociable Sims would feel terribly lonely no matter what was done to correct the situation.
It’s just funny starving a Sim of social interaction when it’s intended; it’s kind of groundbreaking when it isn’t. Eventually the bug was fixed, but it took the Get Famous expansion months later to release.
5 Only one plant can be watered
There was an issue during the Seasons update where a Sim would fixate on only watering one of their plants at a time. If the player told them to water plants, they would only water one, maybe two, and do so to infinity instead of going to all of the plants.
It was most obvious with low level gardeners, but it was still a lingering problem for some time and required the player to take care of their ledges and physically adjust each plant they watered.
4th This pile of leaves is not good enough
Piles of leaves were fun little additions to the game that Sims could interact with in a variety of ways. Children could play in it and especially spirited adults could spend a little intimate time together in the crowd. The game didn’t care if the piles of leaves were burning or not, which led to some hilarious happenings.
Although I always had the option for Sims to WooHoo in one of the stacks, it took way too long for that option to actually be implemented. Clicking on the action would do nothing regardless of the romance ad of the Sims in question. What a joke.
3 Who needs a clean counter?
It was a little annoying to own a retail business in Sims 4 and keep it clean for a while. The Homely Retail Counter was the worst culprit as it just didn’t want to be clean. The only way to do this was to sell the meter and buy a new one because no matter what collection of options the player tried, no one would clean it.
It didn’t matter what was on the counter or not; it would just never get clean – which then upset Sims about the nearby chaos and spiraled everything from there. At least players can now let their colleagues counter cleanly out of defiance.
2 Opening umbrellas around the house will only cause trouble
Seasons added a lot of new features and therefore introduced a lot of bugs. Bringing umbrellas into the house and carrying them around was more annoying than anything, but this particular mistake lingered for far too long.
It would have been fine if just the occasional quirky Sim or maybe a vampire brought umbrellas into the house, but it was everyone’s business. If a Sim had an umbrella and it was raining outside, they’d never put it away no matter where they were.
1 Toddlers were a buggy mess
The introduction of toddlers to Sims 4 really brought something great to the game. If you ignore the series’ issue with the smaller Sims in general, toddlers were a massive buggy mess when they arrived and it took way too long to fix.
They didn’t want to eat and their parents didn’t care about them; they only existed to be taken away for neglect, no matter what the player did to prevent it. It was disgusting and completely pointless to have toddlers. After the patch, players can enjoy themselves and their rotten little munchkins without fear of neglect.
About the author
Viktor Koble
(70 published articles)
Viktor is an avid FTM player on a wide variety of games from Dungeons and Dragons to Stardew Valley, Don’t Starve and Assassin’s Creed. He lives at home with his wife, cats, and ferrets, all of which are probably the only thing he can talk about more than games. Apart from that, he loves different art forms. He loves to draw, write and experiment with different art styles. Find him on his blog for a better overview.
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