The developers of the life simulator The Sims 4 have announced a large-scale update to the notification system in "Live Mode." The idea behind the update is to distract players less with alerts and not interfere with gameplay.
The "silence phone" button will now work for recently added in-game content, allowing players to better manage notifications. The developers clarified that this button now "prevents calls on any topic."
- Unfamiliar Sims will no longer ask for advice on personal life – this will only be a detail for friends.
- Freelancer Sims will no longer receive calls and notifications about irrelevant careers.
- The player's Sims will only be invited to festivals and trips by those who are friends with them.
- Now Sims can call multiple times asking if they can visit. A repeat call can only be made after two weeks.
- Sims who are on the lot will no longer call the player's adult Sims with questions about childhood and childhood experiences.
- The player's Sims will be less frequently offered to go dancing or to a bar.
A "Festival Notifications" section has been added to the settings, where players can configure which worlds' festival notifications they will receive.
The developers listened to community feedback and "disabled some annoying calls in Live Mode" – players will no longer see calls on the following topics:
- They say you and so-and-so are friends now. I like him/her! ("Get Together!")
- They say you and so-and-so are enemies now. He's such a scoundrel/She's such a villain! ("Get Together!")
- They say you and so-and-so are good friends now. Your popularity is growing! Obviously, you're very interesting. ("Get Famous")
The developers also reported that, as part of the fight against save corruption and in continuation of the March 10 update, they moved Scratch files from Documents to AppData on PC to prevent conflicts with cloud backup services. As a result, "endless loading" on Mac has become less frequent.
A full description of the notification system update in The Sims 4 is available at the following link.