I have currently 5 different kind of shops / businesses run by my rotationally played households in Bliss Bay. We all know that there are many business related bugs since months but for the most part I was still able to play the businesses and make profit despite the bugs.
Now after the update most of the businesses seem to be completely messed up if not actively played. 3 things especially are new since the update and were not an issue before.
- All shops / businesses which have bookshelfs in them look like this:
There are tons of books on all available surfaces and it seems that nobody is bringing these back to the shelves. This happened occasionally before but with one or two books here and there. Now the whole property is full with books on every single table and side table. And I have an employee who has the task to clean.
- The Zois who are working in the businesses seem to not be able to properly finalize tasks anymore. Look at the counter how many started and never finished coffees there are. I saw the same in my flower / sculpture shop the unfnished sculptures and flower bouquets are blocking the crafting tables there as well.
- All shops which have display cases don’t sell anything in these anymore. There are recipies selected and normally the employees were able to fill the display cases during working hours. Now in all businesses these stand completely empty. It is the same for food display cases as well as for flower / sculpture display cases:
The only shop which seem to still operate more or less normal is my hair salon + clothing store. And it is quite understandable as there are no items being produced and put on sale, thus there is less what can go wrong.
Can you tell me if you see the same? Are these really new bugs to the already bugged business system? Or am I missing something?
I actually thought that the business system should have been enhanced with the latest update but the opposite seems to be the case…
I will check it with my coffee shop.
I wonder if it is related to the premium restaurant fix they suggested. At least regarding the displays. I think there was also something in the recent hotfix about restaurants. I wonder if it broke the businesses more…
@EllaEstella oh and regarding the books. I wonder if it happens because since the update, every Zoi seems to be reading a lot more. So maybe the customers that come into your shop keep taking books?
@Minthyuyu what did they change regarding the restaurants?
This could actually be that it is even something newer than the update itself. Because now that I think of it: I am always checking once an in-game week in the other households which I currently don’t play if all is still as it should be. And I did not not notice this the first / second round of checking after the update. But now it is in every shop.
With the books, I don’t know if that is because of them reading more, could be.But why are they not bringing the books back? Previously they were also reading but the majority of Zois were bringing the books back to the shelf. Now it seems every Zoi just places it somewhere but not in the bookshelf.
Even in my Club / Lounge where there is not a single bookshelf I see books left on the bar and the tables.
Where are these even coming from? Are the Zois bringing the books with them to leave these in my stores?
And all display cases are empty of course.
@EllaEstella They added this with the latest hotfix:
I know this might sound unrelated, but if we consider how broken the businesses are for a while now, I am not really surprised if this messed something up with the general business coding when it comes to businesses with craftables. I will check in my business, because I am pretty sure the issue didn’t happen when I played my coffe shop in [0.10.1].
Oof… with the books, that reminds me off the bug Mazi pointed out the other day, where people fill every surface with books with a weird, broken multitask prompt. Passively, if they didn’t find a surface, my Zois would also put those books in their inventory instead of the bookshelf for some reason. My whole house was full with books if I wouldn’t have interrupted the Zoi. So maybe every Zoi just randomly carries books around now??
@Minthyuyu Oh no… right, the bug from @Mazikeen was also with books or with journals…
So yes, maybe they now all carry so many books in their inventories that they bring these with them and then place these all over the place in our stores. Definitely very, very annoying behavior…
And the fix really seems unrelated to the empty display cases issue as you say but who knows. Of course if they changed something for the restaurants to work better it might have broken something for the other shops.
Really annoying. So you think both are rather new bugs, right?
Let me know if you see something similar in your business as well, would be very interested to know if this is only in my game or happening for others as well.
@EllaEstella just launched the game to test it​
.
Just so I do this right. Do the empty displays also happen, when the business runs autonomously while I control the family or would you need me to let it run while I play a different family? I can also test it both ways.
Edit: I’ll keep you updated, but these bugs would be new ones.
@Minthyuyu Thank you so much for testing 
I was not playing the family of the shop owners when I noticed this. I was playing other families who do not own a shop and then just checked back on the shop owners to see how it is going. Then I saw all these books and empty display cases in each of the shops.
@EllaEstella sure thing, no worries​
Okay! So far, I can tell you that my employee is just sitting around for 3 business hours, doing nothing xD
As a question: Do you play with SmartZoi on all the time?
No, I have it off normally. And since the update anyway as there were many issues reported with it. So I did not even try to turn it on.
If they only sit around - this could also explain why the display cases are empty.
Okay!
So after a while, my employee made one coffee (also finished making it), and then used the vacuum (the 5 uses) and used it three times in a row… I am pretty sure, that the employees do even less what they should than before.
I mean, before they were sort of all over the place, but this seems worse than before. They do even more whatever they want.
Do you think it might be related to likes/dislikes? Since Zois seem to act stronger according to their likes (at least that was my impression) now. My employee Zoi likes cleaning, per example. This is just a guess though
It could be, they seem to now have a stronger preference what to do next vs. before the update. But I would have thought that the employees should do job tasks during the working hours… But you’re right: they kind of were not following their tasks even before the update.
I don’t know if this also has something to do with messed up schedules for the Zois. I see that some employees do not even go to work anymore. And I see this also with my actively not played Zois who are sleeping on benches in the city instead of going home or are not going to their jobs for whatever reason.
Unfortunately the autonomy changes did come with quite some downsides…
I just saw your post, where your Zoi slept on the bench…
It seems the autonomy changes make it harder to play rotational households. Something is really off…
That is also what I meant earlier regarding me taking a break from the game. I really don’t want to be a downer, but the [0.10] update sadly came with a lot of issues and eventhough they delayed the release, since it was scheduled for august, it is very, very unpolished. Especially for bigger households…
@EllaEstella and just as I was tapping back into the game, my employee is taking another break…
So: He took a break, made one coffee, vacuumed 3 times (with the 5x vacuum), made one more drink and now takes a break again…
Considering that customers clear out displays now since 0.9, I assume that the employees just don’t restock in time anymore since they seem to do whatever now. This would explain why your displays are empty. If I wouldn’t control my operator Zoi, everything would just sit empty.
Yes, I agree… Unfortunately the new update came with many new bugs and issues. Even the things which should have changed for the better have partly changed for the worse e.g. the cleaning, the businesses and even the autonomy is working rather more strange than before…
The worst part is that there are still so many old bugs which have not been fixed for many months and we are getting new ones on top of it.
@Minthyuyu yes, this is very likely the case then. As the customers buy the entire display case and the employees are not working then this is the result.
Thanks a lot for checking So this seems then not to be only in my game.
Remains the question with the books. That is really still a bit of a mistery…
I really had hopes for their “fundamentals first” mentality and I really, really wished they would take care of those bugs, since they promised us not too big features, but therefore improved and deeper systems… This is so important. I don’t need huge new features.
If we take the game as it is right now, but actually get the depth and polish we need, it would make the game so much better…
Sorry for the rant​
I completely agree with you. I had exactly the same hopes. Seeing them focusing on fundamentals first made me think that we would get exactly that: bug fixing and polished systems, better autonomy etc.
And honestly I am still wondering why some quite serious bugs seem to not get any attention at all. Many do not even land on the “known issues” list. I really think this should be prioritized more.
@EllaEstella anytime​. Glad I could help.
I’ve been begging for craftables business fixes for such a long time, so I’m always especially interested in bugs related to that.
I haven’t spotted any books so far in my coffee shop and I am not sure if my earlier theory is right, so I would also list it as a bug, because that is definitely not normal xD
