Alien Ears Become Round(er) When Ageing into Children

[BeautyBot]

It's not just the ears either. Aliens' facial anatomy changes and warps each time they age up. If you don't want to do plastic surgery every time they age up, you're out of luck until EA decides to fix this game-breaking bug that makes an entire supernatural race unplayable and hasn't been resolved or even addressed since GTW came out...SIX YEARS AGO. I literally cannot fathom how it's possible that they don't know about the bug (they do, trust me), nor can I fathom what possesses them to ignore game-breaking BS like this for YEARS. To get anything added to this game or fixed, you have to yell at the top of your lungs about it forever before EA will give a crap enough to fix it (see: custom skintones, custom makeup, new hair for POC -- all of that was "impossible" until people were literally protesting in the streets and EA started getting called out on Twitter for their lack of options for POC, esp WOC). Same thing with the bunk beds, ladders, etc -- stuff they promised us was IMPOSSIBLE to do...as if we couldn't see the that the modding community was 'magically' creating custom skintones, custom hair COLORS, functional bunkbeds and ladders, decent furniture with more customization swatches, plus tons of other stuff EA swore was impossible...and that they were getting it done way faster than the Sims 4 team has ever achieved anything. Tell me why one individual can create functional bunk beds and make them available for download on a mod site, but it takes the entire TS4 team literally 7 years to do it???

It's so darn insulting to devoted players who have stuck with the series. Stuff like this alien anatomy never being fixed just says "Hey, you. Yes, you. Sci-fi nerd and alien-enthusiast. This game is not for you, because we don't actually give a dang about this supernatural race, or the people who want to play with this supernatural race. Download a mod to fix it! Oh, you're on PS4? No mods? Sucks to be you, I guess. We'll just be over here counting our simoleons -- you know, the ones you spent to buy the entire collection of a game we refuse to lift a finger to fix even when modders have basically done the work for us and all we need to do is implement their work into the vanilla game and expend a minimal amount of energy troubleshooting and fixing very obvious, easily-fixed bugs. Have fun!"

I honestly think it comes down to gender. The Sims has always been more popular with women, and the overwhelming majority of players are female. The complete Sims 4 collection costs over $1000 at full retail price. Compare this to other huge games with tons of content marketed towards men: The Witcher 3 was $60, then you also got SIXTEEN free DLCs and 2 paid DLC expansions. If the Sims 4 was played mainly by men, EA would be getting ripped to shreds by both the media and the gaming community, and would quickly turn their act around. But because they see Sims players as silly little girls or bored housewives who want to play with a digital dollhouse -- and are too stupid to know that these bugs are easily fixed, and too stupid to realize what a freaking rip-off this game is in terms of cost vs. content -- they know they can get away with doing the absolute bare minimum when it comes to maintenance and bug fixes.

Cyberpunk 2077 is a disaster, but it's only cost me $60, there's gonna be free DLC and some paid expansions, plus online play. And even now, with the buggy vanilla base-game, I can create a character who looks and dresses much more like me than my Sim-me does. It's pathetic how limited the customization options are in this game, from CAS to BB. TS4 has been one long, expensive, painful slap in the face of loyal fans of the franchise who have been playing since February 4th, 2000. I think we deserve a lot more than this overpriced, underdeveloped, buggy-AF mess EA is calling a Sims game -- especially since a good deal of us have been loyal fans (read: customers) for upwards of a decade (or two, in many cases).

There are some really promising Sims-like games coming out in the not-so-distant-future. If EA doesn't get its house in order in regard to TS4, they better be ready to lose some long-time players when TS5 comes out. If they want my money after this, they can earn it. TS5 doesn't just need to be "good" -- it needs to be leagues better than TS4, it needs to go back to what worked in TS2 & 3 and then build on that instead of splitting up vital aspects of gameplay into individual game/stuff/kit packs (IE, Vampires, Realm of Magic, and Paranormal Stuff + Spooky Stuff all should have been one pack a la the Sims Supernatural. If you have vampires and witches, you shouldn't have to buy a THIRD pack for Bonehilda, who has always been included in the magic/supernatural-related EPs in TS1, TS2, and TS3), but most of all, TS5 must provide more varied, customizable content where you can choose any skin/hair/eye color you want, color your furniture, walls, and flooring any pattern you want, make your clothes any material or color you want (like in TS3) while also improving upon it, instead of just reaching bare minimum, splitting it into 50 different packs, and calling it a day. They need to pretend TS4 never happened, start from scratch, and rebuild it from the ground up for next gen hardware to give us the game TS4 should have been. Because this ain't it, sis.

Once it's in the hands of the players, The Sims 5 needs to, y'know, actually be patched and updated on a regular basis and EA needs to post a bug tracker or something to let us know when the bugs plagueing our games have been acknowledged. That's the worst part of TS4 for me -- spending all that money, only to get a game that is broken in ten different ways and has game-breaking bugs that are yeaaaars old with zero communication from the devs on when or if they're fixing it. That's the rub, really. Because it's like, okay...I can spend $100 on a AAA game (I'm counting paid DLC here) and get a game where the devs are transparent about bugs and other issues and keep their paying customers updated on when to expect fixes....or I can spend an obscene amount of money on a poorly-designed AAA title that has tons of bugs that have been there for years, zero transparency from devs, and constant moneygrabs where content that should already be in the game or part of an EP is instead separated into a game pack or a stuff pack or a "kit" (ugh)  and I just...why. Why would anyone want TS5 after what TS4 has become?

If these ridiculous bugs with Alien faces, constant white-cake baking, and broken careers/furniture/objects aren't fixed, and we aren't given any more hair or eye color customization options (or FINGERNAILS ffs) and they never fix how blurry and horrific chest tattoos look on female sims (and they don't add more tattoo options, along with nail colors) then I'm done with the franchise. This is ridiculous. The free DLC made by players they've released recently for the anniversary is a nice step, but they need to add so much more of that stuff --  for free -- before this game will be even close to playable. Men don't even have BODY HAIR FFS. People who play with mods forget how awful it is for those of us on console who are stuck with the vanilla game in its current unplayable state. They're trying to generate good will within the fanbase with these little microscopic free DLC they didn't even make themselves, but it's so obvious they're just desperately doing whatever they can to make people stop complaining...as long as it doesn't require any actual work or money on their part. Improving the game, though it would likely result in higher sales volume, may take time and effort and money that cuts into their bottom line. They'd much rather rest on their laurels while fans do the work, as seen by the fact that they literally will not fix anything until everyone is screaming about it. Even then, they leave stuff like this alien bug in the game for years.

[br0se]

Product: The Sims 4
Platform:PC
Which language are you playing the game in? English
How often does the bug occur? Every time (100%)
What is your current game version number? 1.76.81.1020
What expansions, game packs, and stuff packs do you have installed? Too many. Currently missing: Eco Lifestyle, Snowy Escape, Dream Home Decorator, Realm of Magic, Journey to Batuu, Paranormal, Nifty Knitting, Tiny Living, Moschino and My First Pet.
Steps: How can we find the bug ourselves? Go to CAS, change the genetics of a an alien character at any age (make their nose bigger, move their eyes closer together, etc. It doesn't matter what you do but it should be something easily visible to see), and age them up. The best way to see it is using a teen alien sim and age them up to Young Adult in CAS or in-game. It appears to be strictly pure-alien sims only as alien hybrids remain unaffected.
What happens when the bug occurs? Alien sim loses all customized facial features and it reverts to the more default "alien sim" look (big, wide eyes and tiny narrow nose) upon aging up. It does live occur in-game as well.
What do you expect to see? I expect the sim to retain customized facial features, with at most maybe a slight extension of chins or widening of faces upon aging up. Not the structure itself changing shape and reverting to the default alien preset facial features.
Have you installed any customization with the game, e.g. Custom Content or Mods? Yes
Did this issue appear after a specific patch or change you made to your system? Neutral/Not Sure 

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Apologies in advance if there is another thread already about this bug, but I couldn't find it. 

This is not a game-breaking bug but it is a giant pain in the buttocks to have to constantly reset and fix my alien sims faces each time they age up. Especially when I forget about the bug and don't make an effort to make a good visual reference picture for when they do age up, which leads to me losing their customized look and having to try and make the closest I can from memory.

In the pictures attached, I provide a visual example of the bug as it shows up in CAS. It does occur in-game ("live"), I just didn't take a picture of it. First two pictures with the blue alien sim are those with him as an adult (customized face) and upon aging up to an elder in the second pic, he loses his customized appearance and gets the widened eyes + tiny nose look. These pictures were taken with mods/custom content installed. I disabled mods, restarted the game and tested it again; same result. So it's not because of my mods. Although picture 2 & 3 are similar, you can tell they're different because in the one with CC/mods installed, blue alien sims has CC eyelashes, while in the third picture he doesn't.

Note that this bug only seems to affect pure alien sims, not alien hybrids (from my brief playtesting experience).

[AyKooChao]

@br0se I’ve heard that it affects hybrids too.

[Misse7237]

That this problem is still here to this day!

I remember back when i played with Aliens in sims 4 for the first time and i LOVED my alien untill i aged her up.. such a game breaking thing to happend! It complitely turned me off from playing the game for a while.. i eventurlly have played after but i havent touched aliens at all.. and to see that this bug is still here so many years after.. is so upsetting. I remember making a post about it back then and people blamed it on CC or that aliens aint humans so maybe they just age different or that they could not even tell the difference in the face wich baffels me.

also the excuse with Aliens might age different then humans.. NO.. It should not break the whole genetic system of their face, what is the point of making a unique alien if its gonna be changed anyway? IMAGINE if this happened to normal sims or other occults  -.- God i am so tired of people excusing EA's lazyness and greedyness.

This just reminds me of when vampire skill tree was broken for over around a year.. and i used a mod to fix it since EA took FOREVER to fix it.

why is it that the modding community can fix stuff in under a month but EA a multibillion company is too greedy to fix * for years.

I am just shaking my head.

[DracuAlice2017]

I made a reply a while ago, but I still have this problem with aliens. In the first screenshot is my alien sim as a young adult. The second screenshot is him aged to an adult. Something that I haven't seen anywhere else is that the features also change when switching genders of the alien. The third screenshot is my male alien changed to a female. I expect there to be slight changes, but nothing significantly different than the original.

[SqueamishNerd]

After aging up one of my aliens to teen I simply don't recognise him any more. Does this look like the same sim to you? Also, why does he have so visible nasolabial folds as a teen? Teens in TS4 usually don't have those. I've checked in the facial details category, and he has no facial details added to him, so these nasolabial folds are "built-in".

[SerenaBeanie]

Is your teen sim on the ‘fat’ side of the thin to fat scale? (You can turn on the cas.fulleditmode cheat to check; it will appear to the left of the sim in CAS.) ‘Fat’ sims get a facial override that includes these folds and rounded cheeks instead of whatever genetics you give them. I don’t like it either but it is a separate issue to the alien genetics bug. 

[SqueamishNerd]

@SerenaBeanie Ah, yes, he is on the fatter side, so that explains the nasolabial folds.

[SqueamishNerd]

I wrote earlier about how alien sims get rounder ears when aging up from toddler to child. I think I have found part of the problem. I noticed that alien toddlers and alien children don't have the same number of presets for ears. Alien teens and up have the same number of ear presets as toddlers, but the ones they have look like the ones for children plus one extra.

Ear presets for alien toddlers:

Ear presets for alien children:

Ear preset for alien teen and up:

Toddlers and teens and up have 6 presets for alien ears, while children only have 5 presets for alien ears. Not only that, they also don't seem to be tagged similarly between the ages. Marked in green are the presets one of my alien sims have for different ages, and there's a lot of difference in look between the preset he had as a toddler compared to the one he got as a child. Also, his ears are only pointy when he's a toddler, from child and up he has round ears despite the preset being pointy. The same happened to one of his sisters, they have the same ear presets. Their other sister has another preset, she keeps her pointy ears when aging up. So, it seems like the presets aren't connected properly between toddler and child. I assume there's something like that going on with the rest of alien genetics, hence why their faces look very different between ages.

Edit: Added numbers to the pictures, to show which presets are supposed to go together. Notice that my sim switches from preset number 6 to number 4 when aging up to child. Also notice that preset number 2 is missing from child aliens.

[bxnniepop]

Still having this issue in February 2022… it’s really frustrating. I’m doing the “Human Enough” challenge and I’m tired of going into CAS and redoing my sim’s face every single time i try to age them up… I wish the Sims Team would add THIS to their “laundry list”