I know how to do things in 3. Worlds, saves, and so on. In this game I totally redid Willow Creek and Oasis way back when, for example. All was OK. ( I have redone darn near every lot in every world and replaced many.) I then did a new save for the vampires, for example. Now when you go to the other worlds from there, some have retained my changes and some not. For my Paranormal save it has kept almost all. For now Werewolves and HS, it has kept none. WTH???? Why does it keep things in some cases and blow away all the info. in others? I have totally lost all of DelSol and Glimmerbrook. Worlds, saves, all.

Sims can travel between the worlds easily. We should not have to redo every world we have for every save we do with new expansions and so on. I get so frustrated by this game as it wipes out things constantly. There is no consistency whatsoever that I have figured out so far.

All my prior versions are totally from disk installs. Totally under my control. I do not like this being via Origin and now the new app. I may be wrong, but it seems like when we have to play through them, an outside source, it totally messes up our games?

Am the only lucky one that has these issues?

I use save normally. I should start experimenting with save as doing that more. I also may experiment with moving some lots and Sims to one of the games where the worlds are intact and may need an excel to start keeping track of what I do and try? I may rename my whole game and start a clean one to do the experimenting to not risk messing this up even more. And I sure liked the save system so much better in 3. Thank you for the reply.

What makes no sense to me is that if Paranormal read the changes in the other worlds why did HS not, for example?

This may not help, but just as a side - one of the things I now do religiously is that after a gaming session I backup MY SAVE FILE. Yes, I SAVE the SAVE.
I started doing this after a bad mod (I think) somehow corrupted my save file a year ago. Now, when I start getting funny stuff happening, and I determine it ain't a mod, I replace the save file.
Hasn't failed me yet - but I can't say I have the same problems you are experiencing.

I always use save as. I keep 4 saves going all the time. When I wish to save again, I delete the oldest. I never save on top of another save. I haven't had any the problems you say you have.

I will try to use more save as and also keep copies elsewhere. I do not like this save system in 4 at all as have no idea what each one is? Not like 3 where they are ............. UM..... named! I like some things about this game but 3 works sooooooooo much better for me. I have been cleaning my Sims things and want to go back and play some saves from years ago. And as I have a folder of them, it is so easy to pull them and the worlds in and out of the game.

I hope 5 is easier to use if any interest at all, but odds are it will be worse. Hope Mr. Hummble and his team have planned something that is not a pain to use also.

??? I do not think the slot groups can be put in folders and named? Not sure if tried that in past or not? I think I did and they did not show up in the game? This whole save system is total PITA compared to 3.

One of the problems with 4 is that it has its own "method" of backing up the saves:

Slot_00000002.save - the most current save - the one that'll be used when you start up the game again
Slot_00000002.save (ver0) - The previous save
Slot_00000002.save (ver1) - The save before (ver0)
Slot_00000002.save (ver2) - The save before (ver1)
etc.

The problem is, any of these files can be corrupted and you wouldn't know it. So if, say, the current save is corrupt, you can go to (ver0), but it could be corrupted, too, as well as (ver1) etc. (as was my case.)
Moreover, they are all located in the same folder, so if, say, you somehow accidentally delete, move or rename your save file (as a nefarious mod could easily do), ALL files are gone. No backups.

I totally agree it would be nice to be able to name the saves what you want them to be, tho.

Yes, you can name or re-name your saves in game. On the 'load save' screen, you just click where the name of a save is and then give it whatever name you want. I often do something like "3_20_23_WhateverName_v1" so I know the date I started it (or did a save as) an stuff. You can also name them whatever you want when you do a 'save as.'


I'm not sure if you can re-name the save file outside of the game. Since it shows in the load save screen what the file name is, I'm thinking no.

I rename all my saves, but the saves folder in the documents only save with a number. I'm guessing it will be confusing to the game if you rename them in the savesfolder.

I watched lots of videos on youtube before this update and exp, so I took a backup, something I never ever do. I mean a backup outside of the games folder. I save as whenever I want to do something different as a way of reminding myself, like now I saved as for this exp. Since I'm a builder I also make new saves whenever I want fresh lots to build on.

Yes, I know how to do that, but in the docs have no idea what they are unless as said by others we start keeping some info. outside of the game, and IMO we should not have to do that.

Offhand I do not remember losing a save in any other versions of Sims, and for this version to have blown away half my game is just infuriating to me. And as said, if we start moving slots groups in and out who knows what the heck will happen?

This game is not at all user friendly for things like this.

And back to my original issue, in 3 we can move travel info to new saves, and if we use Nraas Traveler it goes to our version of the world. We do not have to start over every time we have a new family/save/world/EP/whatever.

I (and many others) make a Template Save that is set up the way I want with edited lots and deleted ts4 pre-mades and my own townies and whatnot. When I want a new save for whatever reason, I do a 'save as' off my template. The only time I "have to" start over is if I want to make a brand new fresh template.

I don't find it horrible to have a post it note on my desk to remind me that a ts4 tree house is 9x9 and my current template save is "a" and my current main save is "6" but maybe a post it note is too much for you. Since TS2, I have always kept all sorts of game info outside of the games. I got the name of the save file in-game but if the save you wish to backup elsewhere (which I do for some saves) is the last one you played in, then you can just check the save file dates to find it.

That is an excellent idea to make a template to use over and over. I need to look into that. It would be a heck of a lot or work to set up at this point, but may be well worth doing. And as for notes, LOL, you cannot see around me now. I have notes, excels, notebooks, etc. :D

edit: am doing a template so that is good but my game is doing some crashing.

Just a note, but if you pop into your saves folder, click on Date Modified at the top so it sorts them in order by date and time. Voila, you can see which save you most recently accessed/used. It would be nice to be able to name them in Explorer though, granted.

I backup my saves in a cloud like Dropbox or OneDrive or Google Drive, which give you a certain amount of space for free. I have external hard drives for the game files themselves, USBs, and SD cards. (Can you tell my PC fried in the past and now I backup everything?)

You hear the warnings, you see them online all the time, but laziness prevails and the 'it won't happen to me' mentality. But it can, and it WILL. Even SSD's eventually fail, so backup your files, peeps!

(As the late, great Stan Lee would say) "'Nuff said!"

Totally true. I just wish 4 was not such a PITA as far as the saves work. It is so easy to know what the saves are in 3 and move them in and out of the game without disturbing other things. If I would try to start swapping saves in and out of this I can imagine the big fireball in space as Pes used to say.

It is a pain. Another work around is to just copy your save files and paste them somewhere safe. That way, when you start moving saves in your game folder and anything goes awry, just grab your copied saves and restore everything. The Sims 4 has always had a pretty poor interface, though. Quality of Life certainly wasn't on EA's agenda when they made the game. Money was.

(My biggest gripe is not being able to hover over CC in CAS and see what the name of it is - even Sims 2 allowed that so you could root out outdated and problematic clothing and accessories. But nope.)