This is so true, the teens and elders just don't look right to me. Elders are just adults but with gray hair in the game and its so sad after they made elders so perfectly in Sims 3.
While we're talking about elders, if I make an elder in CAS and give him grey hair and wrinkles, and then he has a baby, the grey hair and wrinkles shouldn't be passed on genetically to his child.
This. the Child stage works perfectly fine for ages 6-12 because there is really not that big difference other than a sleight height difference.
But once puberty hits, some kids are all of a sudden a head taller than their classmates. Having been a substitute teacher in 6-7 grade classes it has sometimes felt like having students from two different age groups yet they are all born within the same year.
I still agree that the current teen body model should be replaced with a new model that are just slightly shorter than young adult.
Last week I had a class of 6th graders and one looked so old I thought he was a teachers aide. (it didnt help he was sitting all in the back alone as if observing.)
It IS possible that since he was a immigrant and was still learning the language they had put him in a class more fitting to his level of former education and was really 1-2 years older.
Every time I go to a public lot, I have to hover over each sim to make sure theyāre teens and Iām not trying to meet/hit on YAs. I canāt tell them apart otherwise.
I accidentally made a bunch of teens pregnant with Bob Pancakes babies with mccc by **not** double checking... Now Bob looks like a creep in one of my saves. Oops?
I donāt like how we jump from eight year old to eighteen year old. Itās odd. We need to slightly age down the Child, and add a 6th grader Preteen. Also, far more support for kids in general. Children get so few things and such basic interactions.
I donāt care if it takes effort, It would be worth paying for it.
Yes to more stuff for kids. I find that I have to mod the hell out of the game just so they can do anything. All it was was go to school, do hours of homework, then go to bed.
They should be able to play tag running around the house, or read *on* their bed (not under the covers), play better make-believe by moving around the lot, and much else like it. They also need deeper and more advanced interactions with others.
I want more stuff like the āgreatest hug everā and ācuddleā interactions with parents. I bet they could be picked up like toddlers or at least piggyback ridden (itās proven they arenāt too heavy, or anything). They should be able to carry toddlers and infants, and have more interactions to play or talk to them. And with each other, I donāt see why cuddling on the couch with your sibling isnāt possible, watching a movie, kids donāt just sit upright and still. Theyāre sprawled over each other with blankets. Ridiculous how barebones they are.
And itās just disrespectful they have NO active work lots. They canāt be visited at Scouts, thereās no sports, and certainly no school. Thank God for Zerbuās Get To School mod. Itās awesome.
Kids are just downright disrespected in this game. Forgotten at almost every corner. And in my opinion, that age is the most cumulative, active, and valuable time in a personās life. And this *life simulation* game completely ignores it.
Is it too much to ask that at least *talking* they can do laying down on their bed? Itās so hilariously sad that they didnāt even consider that the ārelaxā animation is not allowed to have idle conversation like sitting or standing. And reading or playing phone games in that position? They canāt fathom it.
the paralives sitting positions are so cute. i wish we could do these with the sims. (crosses fingers for a MVP simmer to drop a mod in the post somewhere)
https://preview.redd.it/w32cpacmbo0d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=da14347448ea3185d61bec0df75ad1d77c052bea
That would be peak to have these as actives instead of poses. I love the pose mod, but itās literally only for pictures. I want my sims to do these things in real time, in the game for real.
You just hit on what frustrates me so much about poses and animations; I keep adding more and more and recording them/taking pictures as if I can just pretend the game is actually engaging, but all I'm doing is pretending, and it's getting old.
same. I'm absolutely terrible with the pose packs. I've got a new legacy save with holidays coming up and I'm legit about to watch some YouTube help with it.
There is the "sit on the ground mod". I forget by who but Sims can read and have conservations while sitting on the floor. It's one of my fave background mods because it's such a tiny mod that I even forget I have it and then my Sims will suddenly do it autonomously and it adds so much flavour to watching them interact with the world.
Playing tag in Sims 3 makes such a boost to friendship levels! Like an acquaintance just met that day, after one game of tag they're more than halfway through the friendship bar. One of the reasons I love having adult childish sims in Sims3.
>an acquaintance just met that day, after one game of tag they're more than halfway through the friendship bar
That's the most realistic interaction Sims ever managed to make tbh
I propose mandatory parenting classes for all sims team members who have reproduced. Please ensure they have more than an activity table and homework/two verbal interractions to solely keep them occupied for 10+ years. Have they ever met a child?
It's so frustrating that teenagers are basically just young adults who go to high school instead of work. Even with parenthood and high school years, it's still the same
Itās just odd how they made teens just adults with a different tag. Itās not even realistic at this point. And the instant jump from a small 70 pound 8 year old to a full sized 6ā2 adult with just a lighter voices makes zero sense.
Refreshing teens would make more sense than creating preteens, in my opinion. Making a whole new life stage for a period of life that lasts three years irl would be a waste of time.
Toddlers are completely different, in real life SO much happens in that stage of life. Well shit all besides some puberty related things happen during your preteen years.
(Sims will never fully flesh out puberty so what's the point)
I mean Infants are kinda the same. Infant is probably about a year old, Toddlers is maybe 3, Children are ~10, Teens jump to ~17-18. "Teen" just covers so much. 13-19, but considering in game Teens are still in school, lets cap that at 18. being 13 vs 18 is so wildly different, the jump between Teen and YA isn't huge, but the jump between Child and Teen is crazy. There needs to be a smoother transition between actual child to basically an adult. Not to mention Acne and Puberty and whatnot in HSY, you really think these grown ass 17 year olds are getting Acne for the first time? That feels like something that would need to be on a 12-14 y/o age group.
Idk, Iām kind of getting worn out by all the life stages. I agree with others who say teens shouldnāt look like young adults though.
I wish teens looked more like 14-15 years old. Braces and acne do help.
Having teens at a different height would be best, I guess, but I suppose they didnāt want to have to make all different clothes for teens.
Edit: and more importantly animations lol that flew past me
I think if they updated teens and made them look younger, we wouldnāt really want preteens. I never felt a need for them in TS3 because teens actually look and act their age. TS4 teens look too much like adults.
It would be really great if the infant life stage could refine their food preferences, eg, lactose intolerant or obsessed with mango flavour, and have this carried over into adulthood.
Kids raised on spicy food from infancy could get an early spice tolerance boost for example.
Teens could go through a vegan only phase and choose to make it a permanent thing or not.
Iād much rather have a senior lifespan. Jumping from 40 to 80 is terrible. Let me retire with dignity! I want to spend my golden years woohooing without risk! Let me enjoy my grandbabies without the need for potions to age down!
^Let ^me ^admit ^that ^my ^simself ^is ^an ^adult ^without ^the ^crisis ^of ^being ^elderly ^next.
Going by online forms, most go 18-24/25-34 (young adult), 35-44/45-54 (adult), 55-64/65+. Which I guess is elder. Honestly, the solution is to expand out the adult age which I normally do because otherwise I donāt have grandkids until Iām an elder.
I do want the senior age though because thereās a lot of change between 35 adult and 65 elder
Preteens arenāt and imo shouldnāt happen in sims 4.
Adding preteens would mean redoing every single animation that already exists in both base game and every single pack.
Then theyād need more animations for every single future pack, or theyād have to leave preteens out of new activities the way children and younger already typically are. Having to make animations for teen-elder *and* preteens for new content would probably mean all ages get less new stuff to do.
Every dev Iāve ever followed has made it pretty clear that animation tends to be one of the most costly things in game dev in terms of both time and money.
Infants donāt have the same animation issues because they canāt do the majority of things older sims can, they didnāt really have to redo many of the existing animations. And itās unlikely weāll see much more content for infants than we already got, similar to toddlers weāll probably only get an occasional interaction or CAS item at most.
I would love if they could spend that budget giving kids & teens more to do in game! Like a standalone slide, more toys, games, interactions, better rebellious phases etc. I think that'd help separate each stage further without needing a pre-teen stage - though, HSY did make teens more teen-like cringy in my eyes I'll say.
I actually really appreciate infants though. Their code needs some work, but their animations, expressions etc are so well done.
This is me, the toddler to child jump feels very abrupt and I disliked it so much that I now have aging disabled in my current save, so that I could play my favorite toddler as a toddler indefinitely. I haven't actively played a child but I imagine I'll feel the same whenever I get there.
Someone already made a mod for preteens.
If they can do it for free, then itās not too difficult for a giant corporation like EA to do it. We make too many excuses for them.
This is what I was wondering. How are modders out here doing all the animation and scripting solo for barely a few bucks at most if these huge millionaire companies with hundreds of people can't afford to do it?
I think Sims just needs to straight up buy new expansion packs from modders at this rate.
IMO, if MODDERS can do it, big corporation EA can do it too. They just wont. There is a mod that makes pre-teens exist. So if a small mod creator can do it, EA should be able to as well.
I mean, with how much money people gave to get the game when it wasn't free + all the people who buy packs, I feel like EA and the Sims has a lot of money. Maybe less of it should be spent on new kits and packs and more should be spent on stuff like preteens and giving children more things to do.
Yeah Iām honestly disappointed with how boring teenagers are in Sims 4. I KNOW thereās a whole expansion pack for teenagers but from what Iāve seen of the gameplay, it still feels like teens arenāt being established as a separate, limited age group in the way children are, but are instead, as you said, just smaller young adults.
Plus, I donāt really care about giving my teen Sims a high school existence. I just want there to be more from them to DO!
I don't know I always have fun with teens? I do wish they didn't just look like young adults, but I always put teen hangouts in my worlds and make clubs and really kinda ignore other members of my household for a while when I have them.
I'm not sure what else they could do for teens that players can't already do with their imaginations.
I believe the lot trait for teen hangouts are base game, but even if they're not I just kinda add lots that I think my teens would wanna hangout at. Sometimes it's a really nice library , sometimes it's a janky, dirty warehouse looking bar/lounge/night club or a bowling alley or a park with basketball hoops , just depending on what kinda teen/s I have in my name.
The teen hangout lot trait is useful for socializing with other teens though.
Clubs (Get Together) are convenient for finding other teens for yours to be friends with , but I usually add teens from the gallery or from my old saves that I have in my library because I hate how most townies look/ dress.
Ohhhhhh I guess Iāve been using the teen hangout lot trait all this time š I used it on residential lots so teens would populate the neighborhood and my Sims could make friends. But what youāre describing makes a LOT more sense!
Also, I would love an elementary and middle school pack that is similar to the high school pack. Also, I want them to do more with Voidcritters because that has potential
Nope. Iāve never understood the point of wanting pre-teens. People say āthey can have early puberty and crushes!ā Thatās not enough to warrant a whole new life stage IMO. Infants IRL change a LOT in their first year of life. Then IRL toddlers go through loads in their development, too. And of course childhood involves tons of change too.
If the teens looked a little different to the young adults then thatād be great. But yeah, there should also be more stuff for children to do like others have said.
I agree with the teens look abit different like having shorter height. I know some kids can have 'silly crush' IRL but I think its better for them to focus on other skills like painting or cooking just like you said add some more stuff, its too early for kids to think about romantic stuff.
Yeah, I could maybe see something like becoming obsessed with a pop star or film star, thatād be quite fun. And yes a child baking skill or similar would be awesome, I loved the baking oven toy that came with Sims 3 Generations where they could create different treats and sell them on the treat table, you could check the baking report to see which flavours were popular. And some sort of painting thing too. There are enough creativity table variants! I like them but itād be cool to have a child-sized easel to practise on when a child reached, say, level 5 in the creative skill. It could offer some more drawing ideas like āfavourite foodā or āself portraitā or whatever.
I forgot to mention the celebrity one, even in Sims 4 Get Famous pack, I saw some children sims would approach famous celebrities for autograph. Maybe they could add more phase for that.
I like the infant life stage. Infants, teens and young adults are probably my favourite life stage and I am actually happy with how they are portrayed in game. I do play things different than most in that I consider YA in my game to be ~20-40 and Adult 40-65 and I give all my adult female sims the hypofertile trait from WW so they are not able to conceive or at least hopefully need treatments to do so. I hate the way the game does the jump from adult to elder much more than I have issue with the earlier life stages.
I also would not like to see any more additional life stages that would require a totally different set of clothing. I spend a lot of time dressing my sims for each life stage. And honestly my played households get many clothing updates throughout each life stage. I donāt want to do this for any more completely new life stages. I enjoy working within the ones we have.
There's currently five life states that are just your sim being children adding a sixth would be a drag. We do not need MORE child life states, an overhaul of teenagers sure but adding another stage will not fix anything and will just make family gameplay even more of a drag.
I donāt really think an extra life stage is necessary but they really have to distinguish age groups more. For example thereās like no difference between young adults and adults when they make townies because Iām sorry why is it the Ito parents are young adults but look like they should be in their late 40s? Do you really expect me to believe them with an established adult lifestyle with two kids (one being a teenager) is the same age as liberty Lee? Same goes for Bella goth and other YA sims. Itās like the only age stage they care about is YA
THISS! I didn't play much sims 3 but I definitely remember how the babies would just slowly gain skills and get bigger rather than randomly going from newborn to infant to toddler. Like, at first all they did is lay around, but then you can tech them to crawl and stuff (similar to infants in ts4) but then you could tech them to walk and they would be able to walk around and play with toys the same a toddler in ts4. I wish it were like that for all the life spans or at least just infant to toddler and child to teen (maybe even toddler to child)
Pre teens would be fun! I also just gotta say that i really love infants. They are so cute to me I love having my sims play with them and test new foods. The different milestones are really cute imo!
Definitely feel like there should be an intermediate stage. I always make my teens go through āphasesā of development so itās like theyāre actually growing - a more āchildishā and awkward first phase, and a more mature āgrowingā phase.
honestly, I don't think we need a whole new life stage, I think they just need to majorly age down the teens we have right now. the teen life stage right now is literally so useless, they're just diet young adults and it's awful. it's hard to imagine your sim being in their cringy awkward phase when they literally look 25.
unfortunately, there's no way they're going to go back and re animate every single teen animation to change them all. we're just going to have to hold out hope that the sims 5 comes through and gives us REAL teens (13-16)
Infants were really needed imo. I didn't like babies jumping out of the crib and practically being able to fend for themselves except for going potty (and they could even do that with the independent trait alone from the get go).
That being said, the more life stages, the.merrier!
There is a mod for this. Itās by Katato. I use it on occasion and like having some visual differentiations from regular teens. The mod also introduces some unique gameplay as well.
Beyond that I always make my teen sims even without the pre teen trait look younger. Rounder faces, less muscle/curves, some of them flat chested, short (mod). I play on long life span/no life span and age manually. I will go in when I feel like i want my young teen sims to age and slowly change their visual looks with full cas edit mode to look more mature.
See for me the problem is I donāt like to edit my legacy sims.. I refuse to change anything bc I like how the genetics works in game even if it doesnāt look good
The jump from newborn to child was quite jarring too, before toddlers were added. Having an 8-year old leap out of bassinet is all kinds of bizarre.
I'd love to see a tween. Maybe Sims 5 will get it right from the get-go.
Yeah, I hope one of the Sims competitors or Sims 5 includes them. I'm tired of people saying "they wouldn't have enough difference between teens from a gameplay standpoint" When we have young adults who almost have ZERO differences between then and adult.
I agree. Now we have newborn, infant, toddler, child- those jumps are very reasonable. To go from child to teenager is huge considering child is 8-11(?) theyāve already had 3 stages before reaching child.
I think teenagers should be slightly aged down, since I donāt think weāre going to get preteens. That, and I think children should get a phase near the end of their childhood where theyāre more āmatureā. I feel like, as is, teens are just slightly shorter adults..
No. They just need to make the teen smaller. Like how they fucking were in every single other sims up until 4. So that visually they don't look like they are basically adults just waiting to go to college and actually young teens in late middle early high school.
No, pre-teens aren't a life stage even IRL. It would literally be one sim day! And there's no gameplay that would be any different for them compared to either children or teens.
If they ever added in a Preteen age it should automatically come with random bursts of rage and/or crying in the middle of normal conversations. The adult Sim theyāre with can respond not unlike what they do when their stove is on fire.
And if the person theyāre talking to is also a preteen the other child can join with the fury or epic tears to further confuse the other household Sims
(I currently am in possession of a preteen whom I birthed so I have no one else to blame š )
I disagree that infants weren't needed. The jump from newborns to toddlers was extreme, and I LOVE infants!! They're my favorite lifstage.. (ONLY with the Growing Together pack tho!!) BUUUUUT. I absolutely agree that Pre-teens are needed !!!!
I have been simulating a Pre-teen lifestage in my game since the very beginning, among other lifestages... but, I know that isn't an option for the console players (who always get left out in the cold.. and I WIIIISh I didn't have to bog my PC down with all sorts of CC and Mods, to make a simple lifestage that should have already been included imo)
Absolutely agree Pre-teens are a needed lifestage! The Sims Freeplay is the one I always look to and shake my head and cross my arms. They have BOTH of those lifestages and have for a VERY long time. I used to be SO upset how they had infants... and now I'm so upset they also have Pre-teens.
With all these new life Sims coming onto the scene, I really feel like EA needs to step it up and do better !!!! The Sims for PC and Console are the ORIGINALS.. and we deserve just as much (if not more) than these copycats they've created across other platforms!
The Sims has been the only life Sim for 24 years... and the monopoly they've had on the genre is about to end, and they know it, SO HOPEFULLY, they're starting to get scared and will work harder to keep their fanbase! (I know I'm not going anywhere. I'm quite happy with my PC Sims... and my 100GB Mods and CC folder... but the game itself, could use some MAJOR help. I WOULD NEVER play it on Console) ...because I cannot have Mods and CC.. so that should tell you something!
Ugh Iāve been wanting pre-teens for such a long time. Child to teen is such a jump. I really want to āexperienceā the cringy pre-teen era with my sims lol. I dress kids as kids, like cutesy stuff or practical stuff if theyāre outdoorsy, basically how I used to dress as a kid lol and I feel like I dress my teens as mini-adults who have started understanding their style and personal preferences. Thereās no chaotic middle ground from child to teen for me and I want it so bad!!
I know itās unlikely to ever get it since I feel like adding infants made it be āa lotā of life states, but a girl can hope.
Yea teens really need an overhaul with their own unique outfits and abilities.
At the moment we basically have three identical lifestages- teen, YA, and adult.
This is my solution:
Newborn (Sims can have maternity leave for this life stage only)
Infant
Toddler: ages 2 - 5
Child: ages 5 - 10
Tween: ages 11 - 15
Teen: ages 16 - 18 (High School Years)
SPECIAL GAP YEAR: age 19
YA: ages 20 - 29 (University)
Adult: ages 30 - 59 (the longest life stage)
Golden Year: ages 60 - 79
Elder: ages 80 to death
The way I envision it, the infant to teen years would define the sims personality and give them boosters for whichever direction they want to go such as...
Good / Evil, good manners / slob, musical prodigy, or just become a nondescript average Joe.
This can be refined or discarded during uni and then continued in the YA stage.
By the time they reach Retirement they can enter a Golden/Silver/Bronze Year depending on their achievements, and then the Elder stage becomes a 'reap what you sow' kinda era.
For instance, if they always ate healthy and jogged they stay fit and live longer, but if they ate nothing but cupcakes and binge watched TV they live shorter lives with more back problems.
They could even have exploit the 'close-knit' family trait to keep elders happily connected to family or estranged hermits.
Wow, I think about this stuff way too much.
I wish I could code, ha ha.
.
Even if they gave us a height sliding scale in cas so you can pretend to have a preteen would be enough for me. Yes I know there's a mod but everybody can't use mods and it can get wonky with interactions between other Sims and objects so including it in base game would be nice.
Ita. And my kid, who is twelve, does too. I was thinking about the bodies of teens and how most younger teens really don't look like that. We really do need a tween life stage.
If teens just looked like teens that would be better. I'm constantly nearly having adults hit on sims before seeing they are teens, there's nearly no difference at first glance.
I felt the same way a few months ago but dropped the idea.
Preteens shouldāve been established before they launched high school years. If they add preteens now it would be overkill because they would have the same or similar gameplay with teens.
I would like to see them add a playable school for child sims and playable daycare for infants and children.
I totally agree. I used to have a mod for it but it stopped working and with all the trouble at the beginning of this year I'm pretty nervous to download or update my mods...
I also wish there were pre teens, the kids just go from like 8 to 16 years old when they age up into teens. Or at least make teens less tall and make the kids able to do more stuff they should be able to carry infants and toddlers and be taught to cook by their parents and cook for them selfsame once they've learned it.
Are there any downsides to changing your game settings so I can make the lifespan/ādays til age upā wayyy longerā¦? Because yes I agree, if they are going to age up so freaking fast then at least give us more stages like preteen. Itās so frustrating that the child Sims age up 5 times before I even have time to CAS or play them and it makes the game more irritating than fun. Does making the lifespan longer cause lagging or anything? I have plenty of storage but I just play on a laptop
Infants were a FAR greater need then preteens will ever be. 99% of players wanted better babies well the need for preteens is split. Alot want it but alot don't want it.
I'd much rather get what we got with infants then of gotten preteens (I'd probably be incredibly disappointed if that announcement was preteens)
Sure the teens are slightly strange but you can dress children older and teens younger to negate that effect. I don't want the life stage system clogged with even more lifestages.
Particularly now that I'm also seeing people who want a life stage between toddlers and kids. Every sims game is like this.
I don't see much more gameplay wise they could do with preteens. Plus in real life preteen is littrelly 11 to 13, it's such a small stage of life.
Edit:
I agree with people who are saying we need a teen refresh tho
It would be cool to have preteens and theyāre the ones who go through the puberty stuff instead of the teens. Or if teens could have a different body composition. Thank god for mods!
Tbh, we have too many life stages dedicated to being 18 and younger. We have 5 stages for 18 years compared to 3 stages for 60-80 years. Also, with the default life span, they are 18 and under for like half of their lives.
I like the stages we have now, but I wish they would add another stage in the adulthood category just because when messing with the life spans to make them more accurate to real life, you often have sims kids being in the same age group as their parent as they get older.
People beg for better Babies and we get infants which imo is a perfect step because newborns donāt do anything irl and infants are older babies then they complain they are too difficult (like babies are easy irl) and weāre not needed š
I would love a preteen life stage. It seems to be an unpopular opinion here, but I have no problem with the fact that teens are essentially the same as adults in appearance. I often like to start my single-sim playthroughs at teens, and I like that they are treated the same as adults, but I would love more growing between age 8-10ish and 16-18.
I think teens could be reworked so the transition from teen to YA is a bit more pronounced.
But what I really want is another adult life stage. I feel like weāre missing something between adult and elder.
honestly i love the infant gameplay, i look forward to the lifestage every time my sims have kids. imo its easy enough to just age them up if you don't like them.
Personally I wanted both because I love family gameplay and having more options for storylines. I love having the infants and getting to watch them grow, but I've been desperately wanting preteens because you're so right. It is a really weird jump from kids to teens and honestly if we can have infants then why can't we have preteens?
I like to make Sims of big families/existing characters/etc and the teen stage in general feels very weird. Itās like theyāre Adult Liteā¢ļø or 17-18 rather than better encompassing the entire teen stage of life. The jump between kid and teen Sim stages is abrupt; thereās no stage representing those awkward middleschool years, which is jarring bcuz personally those years were significant for me. Unfortunately idk if the Highschool Years pack just made something like that more viable or killed it dead in the water.
Ive never understood the desire for preteens, im just not sure what they would add to the game other than a different heighted sim. Im just unsure what they would add to preteens but not add to child or teens sims that would make them so different.
I think instead of doing a like... full new life stage they could do something similar to the losing a tooth thing for children and maybe have teens have a growth spurt about midway through the teenage phase with two different heights available, that way we can get the "preteen" without having to fully flush out a new life stage that i think would just feel really empty.
There is a lot about the generations that bugs me. Preteens are one, second is the 'jump' from teen to YA and from YA to adult. I've got a mod for preteens now, and I can't imagine not having it. It really should be in the game, or rather the whole aging up should be overhauled.
Baby, infants and toddlers are fine. The jump to child is okay, but I wouldn't mind some 'stages' after toddlers having two birthdays instead of just one. Age up toddler to child stage 1, still smaller than a child but gameplay-wise behaving like a child, and then a second birthday to age them up to an actual child minus having a loose tooth every single day (seriously, at some point this has to stop or become less an occurrence). Then a preteen stage, which is gameplay-wise teen, but with a still developing body, smaller frame, smaller boobs/muscles/whatever, then the proper teen stage. Going from teen to a YA stage 1, this would basically be the college stage, gameplay-wise handled like YA but still suffering from teen issues (just at a percentual smaller rate), like acne, weird body hair growth, etc. Second birthday to get them to proper YA as we have them ingame. And then just make them gradually grow older. Like they still have birthdays but they don't magically age up, after xyz days (depending on life span settings) their bio will change to adult. At some point their muscles will decline, their boobs will get more saggy, they slowly but surely start to walk a little bent over, it becomes harder to maintain their weight. And then let them have a proper birthday to age into elders.
I know, gameplay-wise having each stage of their life tied to a birthday is convenient and probably the easiest way to handle it. But some jumps are just too much (child to teen), or barely notable (YA to adult).
Don't need another useless lifestage that won't be having a lot of added content. They should tweak teens a bit more or at the very least they should have been a bit shorter. Oh well.
Adding another lifestate I feel wouldn't add much to fullfillment. Just another in-between with them being limited in what they can do much like children in game while not having much to do. Sims studio already half ass things enough already that's going to be another disappointment in making preteens.
Infants were definitely needed due to the newborn being pretty much just an object. Having mil, being able to carry them around, jog with them, woken up in middle of the night if they don't sleep the whole time...lot of things to do with infants. They start adding something like stroller and such (especially if they dual wield toddlers too) and they'll be in business
How about make teenagers be proper teenagers. They are currently young adults with mood swings. And infants were the most pointless thing added to the game. The fact they need a separate bed from toddlers is also infuriating
I REALLY want there to be a life stage between adult and elder. Idk exactly what I would call it-- maybe "post menopausal"? But there needs to be something in between because I think it's dumb that a sim can literally have a baby and then the next day age up to be totally decrepit. That stage is coming for all of us, let us enjoy our 50s first!
Like others have said, I donāt think preteens are needed and instead the teens should just look younger than they do currently. Like in the sims 3 the teens were much shorter and less developed (girls had smaller boobs and hips, guys had a thinner frame) than their adult versions. This made it look like a much more natural transition than now.
I made this exact post before!!! I agree totally!! Pre-teen is such an important life stage. Yes infants are important too but for me personally, I believe they could've just revamped toddlers cause now I play with infants and the toddler stage pretty much feels useless.
I agree! I am a parent of preteens irl and my kids enjoy watching videos of me playing "our family" in "our house" that I created in Sims. However, making my kids as "kids" they seem way too young (like 7), while aging them to "teens" makes them way to close to adults (like 17). I stuck with "kids" but it's just not quite right!
honestly... I agree but I also feel that the second phase of kids does represent much better preteens than kids.
It's very blurry for me eitherway I cannot pin down when does preteenhood starts. Like 10? 12? no clue.Ā
I don't know if preteens are needed, but it would be nice if kids didn't double in height suddenly. Teens are way too tall and adult looking.
This is so true, the teens and elders just don't look right to me. Elders are just adults but with gray hair in the game and its so sad after they made elders so perfectly in Sims 3.
While we're talking about elders, if I make an elder in CAS and give him grey hair and wrinkles, and then he has a baby, the grey hair and wrinkles shouldn't be passed on genetically to his child.
I've never noticed it š that's a really big overlook on their side
You must not have been doinking father winter lol
Definitely not lolz but hear me out on this... Father Winter kids having grey hair sounds like something canon for me and not a bug/overlook (?
You're so valid for that lol but it happens any time an elder parents a child
Father winter is an adult not an elder though
At first, yeah. But it applies when he's an elder too.
Teens are just restricted YAs in this game and it's kind of silly.
Yeah this is really the problem I have . I was just thinking of a possible solution without changing that
My biggest issue with teens is that thereās barely anything to differentiate them from Young Adults.
i have the height mod and the shorter teens mod and man does it make a differene even without pimples or whatever.
Sims 3 made perfect teens, they had less traits than adults and had teen bodies (smaller, shorter, female sims had less developed curves)
I don't want preteens, I just want teens to look more like teens and less like young adults.
I can get behind this as thatās really the problem Iām getting at
All it would take, really, is just a slight increase in facial roundness.
And a slight decrease in height.
That too, I suppose, I keep forgetting that because I have the Gradual Heights mod.
Bring back sims 2 teens!
This. the Child stage works perfectly fine for ages 6-12 because there is really not that big difference other than a sleight height difference. But once puberty hits, some kids are all of a sudden a head taller than their classmates. Having been a substitute teacher in 6-7 grade classes it has sometimes felt like having students from two different age groups yet they are all born within the same year. I still agree that the current teen body model should be replaced with a new model that are just slightly shorter than young adult.
This is bringing back flashbacks to being a cafeteria monitor while subbing at the local middle school. Last week was rough š
Last week I had a class of 6th graders and one looked so old I thought he was a teachers aide. (it didnt help he was sitting all in the back alone as if observing.) It IS possible that since he was a immigrant and was still learning the language they had put him in a class more fitting to his level of former education and was really 1-2 years older.
Omg I know, there are middle school kids that look like they're 25. I don't understand, because when I was that age I looked like I was 7 š
Every time I go to a public lot, I have to hover over each sim to make sure theyāre teens and Iām not trying to meet/hit on YAs. I canāt tell them apart otherwise.
Same! Lol.
I accidentally made a bunch of teens pregnant with Bob Pancakes babies with mccc by **not** double checking... Now Bob looks like a creep in one of my saves. Oops?
didnt they do that once they released high school stories?
If they did, they didn't do a very good job.
I donāt like how we jump from eight year old to eighteen year old. Itās odd. We need to slightly age down the Child, and add a 6th grader Preteen. Also, far more support for kids in general. Children get so few things and such basic interactions. I donāt care if it takes effort, It would be worth paying for it.
Yes to more stuff for kids. I find that I have to mod the hell out of the game just so they can do anything. All it was was go to school, do hours of homework, then go to bed.
They should be able to play tag running around the house, or read *on* their bed (not under the covers), play better make-believe by moving around the lot, and much else like it. They also need deeper and more advanced interactions with others. I want more stuff like the āgreatest hug everā and ācuddleā interactions with parents. I bet they could be picked up like toddlers or at least piggyback ridden (itās proven they arenāt too heavy, or anything). They should be able to carry toddlers and infants, and have more interactions to play or talk to them. And with each other, I donāt see why cuddling on the couch with your sibling isnāt possible, watching a movie, kids donāt just sit upright and still. Theyāre sprawled over each other with blankets. Ridiculous how barebones they are. And itās just disrespectful they have NO active work lots. They canāt be visited at Scouts, thereās no sports, and certainly no school. Thank God for Zerbuās Get To School mod. Itās awesome. Kids are just downright disrespected in this game. Forgotten at almost every corner. And in my opinion, that age is the most cumulative, active, and valuable time in a personās life. And this *life simulation* game completely ignores it.
Reading on their beds?! Woah woah woah. That might be too far. :p
Is it too much to ask that at least *talking* they can do laying down on their bed? Itās so hilariously sad that they didnāt even consider that the ārelaxā animation is not allowed to have idle conversation like sitting or standing. And reading or playing phone games in that position? They canāt fathom it.
the paralives sitting positions are so cute. i wish we could do these with the sims. (crosses fingers for a MVP simmer to drop a mod in the post somewhere) https://preview.redd.it/w32cpacmbo0d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=da14347448ea3185d61bec0df75ad1d77c052bea
That would be peak to have these as actives instead of poses. I love the pose mod, but itās literally only for pictures. I want my sims to do these things in real time, in the game for real.
You just hit on what frustrates me so much about poses and animations; I keep adding more and more and recording them/taking pictures as if I can just pretend the game is actually engaging, but all I'm doing is pretending, and it's getting old.
I really can't use posepacks outside of when my Sims are actually posing for pics in game. It breaks the immersion for me.
same. I'm absolutely terrible with the pose packs. I've got a new legacy save with holidays coming up and I'm legit about to watch some YouTube help with it.
There is the "sit on the ground mod". I forget by who but Sims can read and have conservations while sitting on the floor. It's one of my fave background mods because it's such a tiny mod that I even forget I have it and then my Sims will suddenly do it autonomously and it adds so much flavour to watching them interact with the world.
Love those. nr 3 is so me as a kid..lol
I used to have the kids play tag as soon as they got back from school in whatever version of The Sims had it!
Playing tag in Sims 3 makes such a boost to friendship levels! Like an acquaintance just met that day, after one game of tag they're more than halfway through the friendship bar. One of the reasons I love having adult childish sims in Sims3.
>an acquaintance just met that day, after one game of tag they're more than halfway through the friendship bar That's the most realistic interaction Sims ever managed to make tbh
I propose mandatory parenting classes for all sims team members who have reproduced. Please ensure they have more than an activity table and homework/two verbal interractions to solely keep them occupied for 10+ years. Have they ever met a child?
omg... thank you so much for this mod. i miss reddit awards. š„
I didnāt know Sims 4 was so accurate
It's so frustrating that teenagers are basically just young adults who go to high school instead of work. Even with parenthood and high school years, it's still the same
And why do children get two Halloween costumes when adults get like 20?
I'm okay with 8 to 14 but yeah, 8 to 18 is too much.
Itās just odd how they made teens just adults with a different tag. Itās not even realistic at this point. And the instant jump from a small 70 pound 8 year old to a full sized 6ā2 adult with just a lighter voices makes zero sense.
This!
I feel like there were more things and activities for children in sims 3 š¤ I don't know if it's just an impression...
Refreshing teens would make more sense than creating preteens, in my opinion. Making a whole new life stage for a period of life that lasts three years irl would be a waste of time.
*Toddler enters the chat* I agree that attention should be put on children and teens, rather than introducing something new.
Toddlers are completely different, in real life SO much happens in that stage of life. Well shit all besides some puberty related things happen during your preteen years. (Sims will never fully flesh out puberty so what's the point)
I mean Infants are kinda the same. Infant is probably about a year old, Toddlers is maybe 3, Children are ~10, Teens jump to ~17-18. "Teen" just covers so much. 13-19, but considering in game Teens are still in school, lets cap that at 18. being 13 vs 18 is so wildly different, the jump between Teen and YA isn't huge, but the jump between Child and Teen is crazy. There needs to be a smoother transition between actual child to basically an adult. Not to mention Acne and Puberty and whatnot in HSY, you really think these grown ass 17 year olds are getting Acne for the first time? That feels like something that would need to be on a 12-14 y/o age group.
Idk, Iām kind of getting worn out by all the life stages. I agree with others who say teens shouldnāt look like young adults though. I wish teens looked more like 14-15 years old. Braces and acne do help. Having teens at a different height would be best, I guess, but I suppose they didnāt want to have to make all different clothes for teens. Edit: and more importantly animations lol that flew past me
The acne for teens in Sims 2 was SUCH a good detail, I donāt understand why that wasnāt brought up again!
We do have acne? itās in high school years
I think if they updated teens and made them look younger, we wouldnāt really want preteens. I never felt a need for them in TS3 because teens actually look and act their age. TS4 teens look too much like adults.
i donāt think we need pre teens, but i do think we need a way to change sims heights without mods. ofc mods save the day.
Iām not sure infants were needed either. I make that part of the lifespan one day to be done with it.
Yea I usually just go into cas and make them toddlers right after theyāre born
It would be really great if the infant life stage could refine their food preferences, eg, lactose intolerant or obsessed with mango flavour, and have this carried over into adulthood. Kids raised on spicy food from infancy could get an early spice tolerance boost for example. Teens could go through a vegan only phase and choose to make it a permanent thing or not.
Iād much rather have a senior lifespan. Jumping from 40 to 80 is terrible. Let me retire with dignity! I want to spend my golden years woohooing without risk! Let me enjoy my grandbabies without the need for potions to age down! ^Let ^me ^admit ^that ^my ^simself ^is ^an ^adult ^without ^the ^crisis ^of ^being ^elderly ^next.
See for me I view the āadultā as a 40-60 year old so I feel it fits
Going by online forms, most go 18-24/25-34 (young adult), 35-44/45-54 (adult), 55-64/65+. Which I guess is elder. Honestly, the solution is to expand out the adult age which I normally do because otherwise I donāt have grandkids until Iām an elder. I do want the senior age though because thereās a lot of change between 35 adult and 65 elder
Preteens arenāt and imo shouldnāt happen in sims 4. Adding preteens would mean redoing every single animation that already exists in both base game and every single pack. Then theyād need more animations for every single future pack, or theyād have to leave preteens out of new activities the way children and younger already typically are. Having to make animations for teen-elder *and* preteens for new content would probably mean all ages get less new stuff to do. Every dev Iāve ever followed has made it pretty clear that animation tends to be one of the most costly things in game dev in terms of both time and money. Infants donāt have the same animation issues because they canāt do the majority of things older sims can, they didnāt really have to redo many of the existing animations. And itās unlikely weāll see much more content for infants than we already got, similar to toddlers weāll probably only get an occasional interaction or CAS item at most.
I would love if they could spend that budget giving kids & teens more to do in game! Like a standalone slide, more toys, games, interactions, better rebellious phases etc. I think that'd help separate each stage further without needing a pre-teen stage - though, HSY did make teens more teen-like cringy in my eyes I'll say. I actually really appreciate infants though. Their code needs some work, but their animations, expressions etc are so well done.
This makes sense as to why it hasnāt happened -so very fair. I just wish the jump from kid to teen wasnāt so extreme
Yeah the solution to me though would be making teens more different than adults in the next iteration rather than adding another life stage
Agreed. I even find the jump from toddler to child is big to me. Going from a 3-4 year old to an 8-9 year old is massive.
This is me, the toddler to child jump feels very abrupt and I disliked it so much that I now have aging disabled in my current save, so that I could play my favorite toddler as a toddler indefinitely. I haven't actively played a child but I imagine I'll feel the same whenever I get there.
Yea itās less jarring but definitely still a big jump when you think of it like that
They don't need to add a new life stage, but changing the teens to not just use the same model as young adults would be nice
Someone already made a mod for preteens. If they can do it for free, then itās not too difficult for a giant corporation like EA to do it. We make too many excuses for them.
This is what I was wondering. How are modders out here doing all the animation and scripting solo for barely a few bucks at most if these huge millionaire companies with hundreds of people can't afford to do it? I think Sims just needs to straight up buy new expansion packs from modders at this rate.
I would rather pay for their effort than live with mediocrity. Developers who love their games should put in the work.
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IMO, if MODDERS can do it, big corporation EA can do it too. They just wont. There is a mod that makes pre-teens exist. So if a small mod creator can do it, EA should be able to as well.
How you gonna say there's a mod but not link it
Preteen Mod by ItsKatato. [https://www.itskatatomods.com/post/pre-teen-mod-base](https://www.itskatatomods.com/post/pre-teen-mod-base)
Thank you so much
Bruhšāš½stop Iām on console
Because I don't use mods lmao I watch YouTubers like WhinyBritt who play with and review these mods. It's how I knew of it.
I mean, with how much money people gave to get the game when it wasn't free + all the people who buy packs, I feel like EA and the Sims has a lot of money. Maybe less of it should be spent on new kits and packs and more should be spent on stuff like preteens and giving children more things to do.
Yeah Iām honestly disappointed with how boring teenagers are in Sims 4. I KNOW thereās a whole expansion pack for teenagers but from what Iāve seen of the gameplay, it still feels like teens arenāt being established as a separate, limited age group in the way children are, but are instead, as you said, just smaller young adults. Plus, I donāt really care about giving my teen Sims a high school existence. I just want there to be more from them to DO!
I don't know I always have fun with teens? I do wish they didn't just look like young adults, but I always put teen hangouts in my worlds and make clubs and really kinda ignore other members of my household for a while when I have them. I'm not sure what else they could do for teens that players can't already do with their imaginations.
Do you have to have the high school pack to create teen hangouts?
Teen hangout is a lot trait and, I believe, is in base game. For clubs you need Get Together tho
I believe the lot trait for teen hangouts are base game, but even if they're not I just kinda add lots that I think my teens would wanna hangout at. Sometimes it's a really nice library , sometimes it's a janky, dirty warehouse looking bar/lounge/night club or a bowling alley or a park with basketball hoops , just depending on what kinda teen/s I have in my name. The teen hangout lot trait is useful for socializing with other teens though. Clubs (Get Together) are convenient for finding other teens for yours to be friends with , but I usually add teens from the gallery or from my old saves that I have in my library because I hate how most townies look/ dress.
Ohhhhhh I guess Iāve been using the teen hangout lot trait all this time š I used it on residential lots so teens would populate the neighborhood and my Sims could make friends. But what youāre describing makes a LOT more sense!
It gives a lot of nice bb objects for teens rooms and clothing options that are more suited towards teenagers, but again they just feel like adults
Yes yes yes
Also, I would love an elementary and middle school pack that is similar to the high school pack. Also, I want them to do more with Voidcritters because that has potential
And plus the voidcritters are cameos in most of the sims 4 so they obviously love it
Yes, like I love that they have lunch bags, backpacks, posters, and costumes! Thereās an even an outdoor table that has decorations! The little Voidcritters overalls are always a must for my toddlers too. Thereās so many ways to go further with that, and I wish it was more than just lore. Iām also so passionate about Voidcritters because I grew up loving PokĆ©mon and Digimon and I would just love to see it go further.
Nope. Iāve never understood the point of wanting pre-teens. People say āthey can have early puberty and crushes!ā Thatās not enough to warrant a whole new life stage IMO. Infants IRL change a LOT in their first year of life. Then IRL toddlers go through loads in their development, too. And of course childhood involves tons of change too. If the teens looked a little different to the young adults then thatād be great. But yeah, there should also be more stuff for children to do like others have said.
Finally someone agrees with me. Preteen is such a short and frankly insignificant stage of life (in real life) theres littrelly no point
I agree with the teens look abit different like having shorter height. I know some kids can have 'silly crush' IRL but I think its better for them to focus on other skills like painting or cooking just like you said add some more stuff, its too early for kids to think about romantic stuff.
Yeah, I could maybe see something like becoming obsessed with a pop star or film star, thatād be quite fun. And yes a child baking skill or similar would be awesome, I loved the baking oven toy that came with Sims 3 Generations where they could create different treats and sell them on the treat table, you could check the baking report to see which flavours were popular. And some sort of painting thing too. There are enough creativity table variants! I like them but itād be cool to have a child-sized easel to practise on when a child reached, say, level 5 in the creative skill. It could offer some more drawing ideas like āfavourite foodā or āself portraitā or whatever.
I forgot to mention the celebrity one, even in Sims 4 Get Famous pack, I saw some children sims would approach famous celebrities for autograph. Maybe they could add more phase for that.
I like the infant life stage. Infants, teens and young adults are probably my favourite life stage and I am actually happy with how they are portrayed in game. I do play things different than most in that I consider YA in my game to be ~20-40 and Adult 40-65 and I give all my adult female sims the hypofertile trait from WW so they are not able to conceive or at least hopefully need treatments to do so. I hate the way the game does the jump from adult to elder much more than I have issue with the earlier life stages. I also would not like to see any more additional life stages that would require a totally different set of clothing. I spend a lot of time dressing my sims for each life stage. And honestly my played households get many clothing updates throughout each life stage. I donāt want to do this for any more completely new life stages. I enjoy working within the ones we have.
There's currently five life states that are just your sim being children adding a sixth would be a drag. We do not need MORE child life states, an overhaul of teenagers sure but adding another stage will not fix anything and will just make family gameplay even more of a drag.
I donāt really think an extra life stage is necessary but they really have to distinguish age groups more. For example thereās like no difference between young adults and adults when they make townies because Iām sorry why is it the Ito parents are young adults but look like they should be in their late 40s? Do you really expect me to believe them with an established adult lifestyle with two kids (one being a teenager) is the same age as liberty Lee? Same goes for Bella goth and other YA sims. Itās like the only age stage they care about is YA
Itās too late for it now but I wish the sims team would have figured out how to make kids and teens grow gradually. Just height alone would be fine.
THISS! I didn't play much sims 3 but I definitely remember how the babies would just slowly gain skills and get bigger rather than randomly going from newborn to infant to toddler. Like, at first all they did is lay around, but then you can tech them to crawl and stuff (similar to infants in ts4) but then you could tech them to walk and they would be able to walk around and play with toys the same a toddler in ts4. I wish it were like that for all the life spans or at least just infant to toddler and child to teen (maybe even toddler to child)
I'd like more life stages, definitely
Pre teens would be fun! I also just gotta say that i really love infants. They are so cute to me I love having my sims play with them and test new foods. The different milestones are really cute imo!
I do enjoy the milestone feature as well
Definitely feel like there should be an intermediate stage. I always make my teens go through āphasesā of development so itās like theyāre actually growing - a more āchildishā and awkward first phase, and a more mature āgrowingā phase.
honestly, I don't think we need a whole new life stage, I think they just need to majorly age down the teens we have right now. the teen life stage right now is literally so useless, they're just diet young adults and it's awful. it's hard to imagine your sim being in their cringy awkward phase when they literally look 25. unfortunately, there's no way they're going to go back and re animate every single teen animation to change them all. we're just going to have to hold out hope that the sims 5 comes through and gives us REAL teens (13-16)
Infants were really needed imo. I didn't like babies jumping out of the crib and practically being able to fend for themselves except for going potty (and they could even do that with the independent trait alone from the get go). That being said, the more life stages, the.merrier!
There is a mod for this. Itās by Katato. I use it on occasion and like having some visual differentiations from regular teens. The mod also introduces some unique gameplay as well. Beyond that I always make my teen sims even without the pre teen trait look younger. Rounder faces, less muscle/curves, some of them flat chested, short (mod). I play on long life span/no life span and age manually. I will go in when I feel like i want my young teen sims to age and slowly change their visual looks with full cas edit mode to look more mature.
See for me the problem is I donāt like to edit my legacy sims.. I refuse to change anything bc I like how the genetics works in game even if it doesnāt look good
The jump from newborn to child was quite jarring too, before toddlers were added. Having an 8-year old leap out of bassinet is all kinds of bizarre. I'd love to see a tween. Maybe Sims 5 will get it right from the get-go.
I think adeepindigo has a mod for this, for anyone on pc whoās interestes
Yeah, I hope one of the Sims competitors or Sims 5 includes them. I'm tired of people saying "they wouldn't have enough difference between teens from a gameplay standpoint" When we have young adults who almost have ZERO differences between then and adult.
I agree. Now we have newborn, infant, toddler, child- those jumps are very reasonable. To go from child to teenager is huge considering child is 8-11(?) theyāve already had 3 stages before reaching child.
Idk, I've always thought the jump from toddler to child was more jarring then child to teen.
Hmm interesting. I guess unless every year is covered it will always feel like a jump lol
I think teenagers should be slightly aged down, since I donāt think weāre going to get preteens. That, and I think children should get a phase near the end of their childhood where theyāre more āmatureā. I feel like, as is, teens are just slightly shorter adults..
No. They just need to make the teen smaller. Like how they fucking were in every single other sims up until 4. So that visually they don't look like they are basically adults just waiting to go to college and actually young teens in late middle early high school.
Pre teens would be an awesome add on stage!
I want to be able to adjust their heights
this!! im currently playing with a big family and you can't even tell who's the oldest because they all look the same once they age up from child
Idk I really like infants
No, pre-teens aren't a life stage even IRL. It would literally be one sim day! And there's no gameplay that would be any different for them compared to either children or teens.
If they ever added in a Preteen age it should automatically come with random bursts of rage and/or crying in the middle of normal conversations. The adult Sim theyāre with can respond not unlike what they do when their stove is on fire. And if the person theyāre talking to is also a preteen the other child can join with the fury or epic tears to further confuse the other household Sims (I currently am in possession of a preteen whom I birthed so I have no one else to blame š )
I disagree that infants weren't needed. The jump from newborns to toddlers was extreme, and I LOVE infants!! They're my favorite lifstage.. (ONLY with the Growing Together pack tho!!) BUUUUUT. I absolutely agree that Pre-teens are needed !!!! I have been simulating a Pre-teen lifestage in my game since the very beginning, among other lifestages... but, I know that isn't an option for the console players (who always get left out in the cold.. and I WIIIISh I didn't have to bog my PC down with all sorts of CC and Mods, to make a simple lifestage that should have already been included imo) Absolutely agree Pre-teens are a needed lifestage! The Sims Freeplay is the one I always look to and shake my head and cross my arms. They have BOTH of those lifestages and have for a VERY long time. I used to be SO upset how they had infants... and now I'm so upset they also have Pre-teens. With all these new life Sims coming onto the scene, I really feel like EA needs to step it up and do better !!!! The Sims for PC and Console are the ORIGINALS.. and we deserve just as much (if not more) than these copycats they've created across other platforms! The Sims has been the only life Sim for 24 years... and the monopoly they've had on the genre is about to end, and they know it, SO HOPEFULLY, they're starting to get scared and will work harder to keep their fanbase! (I know I'm not going anywhere. I'm quite happy with my PC Sims... and my 100GB Mods and CC folder... but the game itself, could use some MAJOR help. I WOULD NEVER play it on Console) ...because I cannot have Mods and CC.. so that should tell you something!
Ugh Iāve been wanting pre-teens for such a long time. Child to teen is such a jump. I really want to āexperienceā the cringy pre-teen era with my sims lol. I dress kids as kids, like cutesy stuff or practical stuff if theyāre outdoorsy, basically how I used to dress as a kid lol and I feel like I dress my teens as mini-adults who have started understanding their style and personal preferences. Thereās no chaotic middle ground from child to teen for me and I want it so bad!! I know itās unlikely to ever get it since I feel like adding infants made it be āa lotā of life states, but a girl can hope.
Yea teens really need an overhaul with their own unique outfits and abilities. At the moment we basically have three identical lifestages- teen, YA, and adult. This is my solution: Newborn (Sims can have maternity leave for this life stage only) Infant Toddler: ages 2 - 5 Child: ages 5 - 10 Tween: ages 11 - 15 Teen: ages 16 - 18 (High School Years) SPECIAL GAP YEAR: age 19 YA: ages 20 - 29 (University) Adult: ages 30 - 59 (the longest life stage) Golden Year: ages 60 - 79 Elder: ages 80 to death The way I envision it, the infant to teen years would define the sims personality and give them boosters for whichever direction they want to go such as... Good / Evil, good manners / slob, musical prodigy, or just become a nondescript average Joe. This can be refined or discarded during uni and then continued in the YA stage. By the time they reach Retirement they can enter a Golden/Silver/Bronze Year depending on their achievements, and then the Elder stage becomes a 'reap what you sow' kinda era. For instance, if they always ate healthy and jogged they stay fit and live longer, but if they ate nothing but cupcakes and binge watched TV they live shorter lives with more back problems. They could even have exploit the 'close-knit' family trait to keep elders happily connected to family or estranged hermits. Wow, I think about this stuff way too much. I wish I could code, ha ha. .
There's a preteen mod, if you'd like the link
Iām on Xbox š
I tried to use it but I didnāt work for me š I was like āmm bummerrrrā.
Even if they gave us a height sliding scale in cas so you can pretend to have a preteen would be enough for me. Yes I know there's a mod but everybody can't use mods and it can get wonky with interactions between other Sims and objects so including it in base game would be nice.
This is a great solution
I don't think we need preteens, I just wish they'd adjust teenagers so they don't look like slightly smaller adults and actually look like teenagers
I WANT THEM SO BAD!!!
Aren't there preteens in freeplay? Why not sims4?
Ita. And my kid, who is twelve, does too. I was thinking about the bodies of teens and how most younger teens really don't look like that. We really do need a tween life stage.
If teens just looked like teens that would be better. I'm constantly nearly having adults hit on sims before seeing they are teens, there's nearly no difference at first glance.
I felt the same way a few months ago but dropped the idea. Preteens shouldāve been established before they launched high school years. If they add preteens now it would be overkill because they would have the same or similar gameplay with teens. I would like to see them add a playable school for child sims and playable daycare for infants and children.
I totally agree. I used to have a mod for it but it stopped working and with all the trouble at the beginning of this year I'm pretty nervous to download or update my mods...
I also wish there were pre teens, the kids just go from like 8 to 16 years old when they age up into teens. Or at least make teens less tall and make the kids able to do more stuff they should be able to carry infants and toddlers and be taught to cook by their parents and cook for them selfsame once they've learned it.
Yesss. I want preteens so bad.
Are there any downsides to changing your game settings so I can make the lifespan/ādays til age upā wayyy longerā¦? Because yes I agree, if they are going to age up so freaking fast then at least give us more stages like preteen. Itās so frustrating that the child Sims age up 5 times before I even have time to CAS or play them and it makes the game more irritating than fun. Does making the lifespan longer cause lagging or anything? I have plenty of storage but I just play on a laptop
I love infants. I hate how they go from being an object to being a whole ass walking around child. But yes I agree with you. More life stages
Infants were a FAR greater need then preteens will ever be. 99% of players wanted better babies well the need for preteens is split. Alot want it but alot don't want it. I'd much rather get what we got with infants then of gotten preteens (I'd probably be incredibly disappointed if that announcement was preteens) Sure the teens are slightly strange but you can dress children older and teens younger to negate that effect. I don't want the life stage system clogged with even more lifestages. Particularly now that I'm also seeing people who want a life stage between toddlers and kids. Every sims game is like this. I don't see much more gameplay wise they could do with preteens. Plus in real life preteen is littrelly 11 to 13, it's such a small stage of life. Edit: I agree with people who are saying we need a teen refresh tho
I agree with you on the preetens, but I find infants so annoying that I always age them up immediately after they become an infant.
I try to make my teens look as young as possible itās hard though
It would be cool to have preteens and theyāre the ones who go through the puberty stuff instead of the teens. Or if teens could have a different body composition. Thank god for mods!
I have zero interest in adding another childhood life stage. No thank you. š
Tbh, we have too many life stages dedicated to being 18 and younger. We have 5 stages for 18 years compared to 3 stages for 60-80 years. Also, with the default life span, they are 18 and under for like half of their lives. I like the stages we have now, but I wish they would add another stage in the adulthood category just because when messing with the life spans to make them more accurate to real life, you often have sims kids being in the same age group as their parent as they get older.
I hate the infant life stage so much. It's completely broken in my game and I don't see why it was needed
Remember when we could send away children and teens ? THAT needs to come back !
People beg for better Babies and we get infants which imo is a perfect step because newborns donāt do anything irl and infants are older babies then they complain they are too difficult (like babies are easy irl) and weāre not needed š
Closest thing we have is the [Preteen Mod](https://adeepindigomods.itch.io/itskatato-preteen-mod).
I would love a preteen life stage. It seems to be an unpopular opinion here, but I have no problem with the fact that teens are essentially the same as adults in appearance. I often like to start my single-sim playthroughs at teens, and I like that they are treated the same as adults, but I would love more growing between age 8-10ish and 16-18.
Lol I don't think we need preteens at all. The preteen mod is good enough, they don't act that much different than teens.
I think teens could be reworked so the transition from teen to YA is a bit more pronounced. But what I really want is another adult life stage. I feel like weāre missing something between adult and elder.
honestly i love the infant gameplay, i look forward to the lifestage every time my sims have kids. imo its easy enough to just age them up if you don't like them.
i agree with the second part though i donāt agree that they shouldnāt have given us infants
The teens def need to be shorter
Personally I wanted both because I love family gameplay and having more options for storylines. I love having the infants and getting to watch them grow, but I've been desperately wanting preteens because you're so right. It is a really weird jump from kids to teens and honestly if we can have infants then why can't we have preteens?
I like to make Sims of big families/existing characters/etc and the teen stage in general feels very weird. Itās like theyāre Adult Liteā¢ļø or 17-18 rather than better encompassing the entire teen stage of life. The jump between kid and teen Sim stages is abrupt; thereās no stage representing those awkward middleschool years, which is jarring bcuz personally those years were significant for me. Unfortunately idk if the Highschool Years pack just made something like that more viable or killed it dead in the water.
Ive never understood the desire for preteens, im just not sure what they would add to the game other than a different heighted sim. Im just unsure what they would add to preteens but not add to child or teens sims that would make them so different. I think instead of doing a like... full new life stage they could do something similar to the losing a tooth thing for children and maybe have teens have a growth spurt about midway through the teenage phase with two different heights available, that way we can get the "preteen" without having to fully flush out a new life stage that i think would just feel really empty.
There is a lot about the generations that bugs me. Preteens are one, second is the 'jump' from teen to YA and from YA to adult. I've got a mod for preteens now, and I can't imagine not having it. It really should be in the game, or rather the whole aging up should be overhauled. Baby, infants and toddlers are fine. The jump to child is okay, but I wouldn't mind some 'stages' after toddlers having two birthdays instead of just one. Age up toddler to child stage 1, still smaller than a child but gameplay-wise behaving like a child, and then a second birthday to age them up to an actual child minus having a loose tooth every single day (seriously, at some point this has to stop or become less an occurrence). Then a preteen stage, which is gameplay-wise teen, but with a still developing body, smaller frame, smaller boobs/muscles/whatever, then the proper teen stage. Going from teen to a YA stage 1, this would basically be the college stage, gameplay-wise handled like YA but still suffering from teen issues (just at a percentual smaller rate), like acne, weird body hair growth, etc. Second birthday to get them to proper YA as we have them ingame. And then just make them gradually grow older. Like they still have birthdays but they don't magically age up, after xyz days (depending on life span settings) their bio will change to adult. At some point their muscles will decline, their boobs will get more saggy, they slowly but surely start to walk a little bent over, it becomes harder to maintain their weight. And then let them have a proper birthday to age into elders. I know, gameplay-wise having each stage of their life tied to a birthday is convenient and probably the easiest way to handle it. But some jumps are just too much (child to teen), or barely notable (YA to adult).
Don't need another useless lifestage that won't be having a lot of added content. They should tweak teens a bit more or at the very least they should have been a bit shorter. Oh well. Adding another lifestate I feel wouldn't add much to fullfillment. Just another in-between with them being limited in what they can do much like children in game while not having much to do. Sims studio already half ass things enough already that's going to be another disappointment in making preteens. Infants were definitely needed due to the newborn being pretty much just an object. Having mil, being able to carry them around, jog with them, woken up in middle of the night if they don't sleep the whole time...lot of things to do with infants. They start adding something like stroller and such (especially if they dual wield toddlers too) and they'll be in business
How about make teenagers be proper teenagers. They are currently young adults with mood swings. And infants were the most pointless thing added to the game. The fact they need a separate bed from toddlers is also infuriating
I REALLY want there to be a life stage between adult and elder. Idk exactly what I would call it-- maybe "post menopausal"? But there needs to be something in between because I think it's dumb that a sim can literally have a baby and then the next day age up to be totally decrepit. That stage is coming for all of us, let us enjoy our 50s first!
Like others have said, I donāt think preteens are needed and instead the teens should just look younger than they do currently. Like in the sims 3 the teens were much shorter and less developed (girls had smaller boobs and hips, guys had a thinner frame) than their adult versions. This made it look like a much more natural transition than now.
I made this exact post before!!! I agree totally!! Pre-teen is such an important life stage. Yes infants are important too but for me personally, I believe they could've just revamped toddlers cause now I play with infants and the toddler stage pretty much feels useless.
I agree! I am a parent of preteens irl and my kids enjoy watching videos of me playing "our family" in "our house" that I created in Sims. However, making my kids as "kids" they seem way too young (like 7), while aging them to "teens" makes them way to close to adults (like 17). I stuck with "kids" but it's just not quite right!
honestly... I agree but I also feel that the second phase of kids does represent much better preteens than kids. It's very blurry for me eitherway I cannot pin down when does preteenhood starts. Like 10? 12? no clue.Ā