It is a shame that teens look identical to young adults/adults. Even though they likely won't ever be sized down, because of how much work it would require, I hope they add something to make them stand out more.
Let em get acne. Maybe give the option to give some sims braces. Unique walk styles even? Little things like that would make a big difference I think (I know walk styles aren't so little, but whatever.)
Yes! I loved that they could get acne in the sims 2, and if people don't want their teens to have it there can be a cream to buy like @ChloeDeCookie said.
Teens in the sims 2 and 3 were generally more... teen-like. They could run away if their relation to their parents was bad. Throw tantrums. Mess with their younger siblings. Get arrested...
Bring that back!
I agree! I miss when the teens would get in trouble for staying out too late. Now the parents just don't care lol
I wish they had height sliders. Or that they make teens shorter than young adults. It's hard for me to find my teens a date because every time I'm about to click on a sim, it says young adult. Teens and young adults are almost identical if you don't get a good enough look at them.
Why would they need different clothing meshes for different heights? Do they have multiple clothes meshes for weight adjustments?
I was wondering the same thing. Because a fat sim can wear the same exact thing as a skinny sim. Why can't a Short sim wear the same exact thing as a Tall sim? I'm sure in order to add height sliders, they must adjust some animations in the game and other things, but I do not think that they have to make totally different clothes for short/tall sims.
Yeah, new animations. Be nice to have a tall/average/short presets, and be done with it. That would be 'adults', 'teens', and 'children', age wise. They did it in Sims 2 and 3. Just include an option to use other age heights for 'wrong ages'. Need to 🐸🐸🐸🐸 with weight and such and face morphs, but simmers enjoy that.
Why do you need sliders for teens they are shorter then the YA already if you can't notice that then maybe you just can't see it. I like having all the clothes fit the teens and older because its gets annoying to pick out different clothes for all the age groups.
Why do you need sliders for teens they are shorter then the YA already if you can't notice that then maybe you just can't see it. I like having all the clothes fit the teens and older because its gets annoying to pick out different clothes for all the age groups.
Now this is possibly because they want to leave room for preteens, which sounds great! However, in some ways it does make it a bit difficult for SOME simmers to distinguish the difference between the teens and YA. In TS2, the height difference was very obvious. In this game, it's nearly identical. If you get a good look at the faces, there is a difference. But judging during the game play makes it kind of hard to tell. Well, In my opinion and in the opinion of some other people. As far as the clothes, I have no issue with it.
hey i think it would be cool if EA actually created this i downloaded the slider mods and their feet disappeared into the ground and they walked weird plus they didn't fit in the frame
Why do you need sliders for teens they are shorter then the YA already if you can't notice that then maybe you just can't see it. I like having all the clothes fit the teens and older because its gets annoying to pick out different clothes for all the age groups.
Now this is possibly because they want to leave room for preteens, which sounds great! However, in some ways it does make it a bit difficult for SOME simmers to distinguish the difference between the teens and YA. In TS2, the height difference was very obvious. In this game, it's nearly identical. If you get a good look at the faces, there is a difference. But judging during the game play makes it kind of hard to tell. Well, In my opinion and in the opinion of some other people. As far as the clothes, I have no issue with it.
Yep. There's two heights in the game: Children and Teen/YA/D/E. They had to do it this way, as they were reusing (in my opinion) 'Olympus' material.
Why do you need sliders for teens they are shorter then the YA already if you can't notice that then maybe you just can't see it. I like having all the clothes fit the teens and older because its gets annoying to pick out different clothes for all the age groups.
I am surprised the never gave a reasonable answer on why teens are the same height...oh wait...
Hey,
Welcome to Sims 4, and thanks for the constructive feedback! I'm glad you're having at least a little fun with our game.
First of all, I 100% agree that it is a problem that you can't immediately and clearly tell whether a sim you want to date is a teen or an adult. Pro tip though: you can always take a look at your social menu options - if your sim is an adult, the "Romantic" portion of the social menu will not be there if you are talking to a teen. Admittedly that is not ideal in terms of immediate user feedback, but it might save you the time and simoleons for the drinks next time you try to pick up a stranger at the bar
I wanted to clarify a couple of points you are making in your review about teens and animation. You seem to be saying (I may be misunderstanding you of course?) that Sims 2 and 3 had complete sets of animations for teens, in addition to the adult set. I worked on all three projects, and I can assure you that that is not the case - teens in both games shared the vast majority of the animation content with adults. Because of the height difference, this led to a couple of negative consequences for those games:
One, all adult animations on Sims 2 and Sims 3 had to be animated so they played back without obvious visual issues on teens. Because the teen's arms were shorter, this meant that animators could not hit the full range of poses possible for the character (e.g. the arms could almost never extend all the way). If you are an animator, you know that "extreme" (in the sense of fully extended) poses are important for expressiveness and animation quality. So in practice the shorter teen height meant that animations both on Sims 2 and 3 could never be as expressive as we wanted them to be.
Two, the height difference meant that there was a not insignificant amount of animation on Sims 2 and Sims 3 that could not be shared for technical reasons. In those cases we had to duplicate the adult animation and hand adjust it for the teen. Each case of this is "invisible" content, in the sense that it did not add any more stuff to do or special behavior to the game but ate up valuable animation time. It's hard to put a number on how much content we lost to this, but I can say with some confidence that teens in the Sims 2 and Sims 3 did have significantly fewer teen-specific interactions than we wanted to make for them because of the invisible work we had to do in order to support their size.
Our decision to do away with the shorter teen was really driven by a desire to improve animation quality, be able to make more fun content for the game in general (children, I believe, benefitted the most from this), and add more special behaviors for the teens themselves. I still think that it was the right decision, but as an animator I am not neutral on the issue We are listening to the community to tell us whether the trade off was worth it, and what we can do to improve the teen experience. I'm happy to hear you say that after playing for a bit it is not as big a deal as you feared.
-@SimGuruMarion
You guys keep missing the point. They can't be shorter because of animation issues and because of this, preteens are likely possible just like Sims Freeplay.
I am surprised the never gave a reasonable answer on why teens are the same height...oh wait...
Hey,
Welcome to Sims 4, and thanks for the constructive feedback! I'm glad you're having at least a little fun with our game.
First of all, I 100% agree that it is a problem that you can't immediately and clearly tell whether a sim you want to date is a teen or an adult. Pro tip though: you can always take a look at your social menu options - if your sim is an adult, the "Romantic" portion of the social menu will not be there if you are talking to a teen. Admittedly that is not ideal in terms of immediate user feedback, but it might save you the time and simoleons for the drinks next time you try to pick up a stranger at the bar
I wanted to clarify a couple of points you are making in your review about teens and animation. You seem to be saying (I may be misunderstanding you of course?) that Sims 2 and 3 had complete sets of animations for teens, in addition to the adult set. I worked on all three projects, and I can assure you that that is not the case - teens in both games shared the vast majority of the animation content with adults. Because of the height difference, this led to a couple of negative consequences for those games:
One, all adult animations on Sims 2 and Sims 3 had to be animated so they played back without obvious visual issues on teens. Because the teen's arms were shorter, this meant that animators could not hit the full range of poses possible for the character (e.g. the arms could almost never extend all the way). If you are an animator, you know that "extreme" (in the sense of fully extended) poses are important for expressiveness and animation quality. So in practice the shorter teen height meant that animations both on Sims 2 and 3 could never be as expressive as we wanted them to be.
Two, the height difference meant that there was a not insignificant amount of animation on Sims 2 and Sims 3 that could not be shared for technical reasons. In those cases we had to duplicate the adult animation and hand adjust it for the teen. Each case of this is "invisible" content, in the sense that it did not add any more stuff to do or special behavior to the game but ate up valuable animation time. It's hard to put a number on how much content we lost to this, but I can say with some confidence that teens in the Sims 2 and Sims 3 did have significantly fewer teen-specific interactions than we wanted to make for them because of the invisible work we had to do in order to support their size.
Our decision to do away with the shorter teen was really driven by a desire to improve animation quality, be able to make more fun content for the game in general (children, I believe, benefitted the most from this), and add more special behaviors for the teens themselves. I still think that it was the right decision, but as an animator I am not neutral on the issue We are listening to the community to tell us whether the trade off was worth it, and what we can do to improve the teen experience. I'm happy to hear you say that after playing for a bit it is not as big a deal as you feared.
-@SimGuruMarion
You guys keep missing the point. They can't be shorter because of animation issues and because of this, preteens are likely possible just like Sims Freeplay.
All that time wasted on adjusting the animations for Teens in TS2-TS3? Who knows how much content we could have had in TS3 if Teens were as tall as they are in TS4.
I'm glad they made the decision for Teens being as tall as Adults, it means more time is spent on New Animations, and not spent on adjusting animations for shorter teens.
As for Pre-Teens, I think they'd be nice to have. But, there is also Toddlers. Time will tell what is in store for the Life Stages in TS4. And maybe, new Life States as well?
I am surprised the never gave a reasonable answer on why teens are the same height...oh wait...
Hey,
Welcome to Sims 4, and thanks for the constructive feedback! I'm glad you're having at least a little fun with our game.
First of all, I 100% agree that it is a problem that you can't immediately and clearly tell whether a sim you want to date is a teen or an adult. Pro tip though: you can always take a look at your social menu options - if your sim is an adult, the "Romantic" portion of the social menu will not be there if you are talking to a teen. Admittedly that is not ideal in terms of immediate user feedback, but it might save you the time and simoleons for the drinks next time you try to pick up a stranger at the bar
I wanted to clarify a couple of points you are making in your review about teens and animation. You seem to be saying (I may be misunderstanding you of course?) that Sims 2 and 3 had complete sets of animations for teens, in addition to the adult set. I worked on all three projects, and I can assure you that that is not the case - teens in both games shared the vast majority of the animation content with adults. Because of the height difference, this led to a couple of negative consequences for those games:
One, all adult animations on Sims 2 and Sims 3 had to be animated so they played back without obvious visual issues on teens. Because the teen's arms were shorter, this meant that animators could not hit the full range of poses possible for the character (e.g. the arms could almost never extend all the way). If you are an animator, you know that "extreme" (in the sense of fully extended) poses are important for expressiveness and animation quality. So in practice the shorter teen height meant that animations both on Sims 2 and 3 could never be as expressive as we wanted them to be.
Two, the height difference meant that there was a not insignificant amount of animation on Sims 2 and Sims 3 that could not be shared for technical reasons. In those cases we had to duplicate the adult animation and hand adjust it for the teen. Each case of this is "invisible" content, in the sense that it did not add any more stuff to do or special behavior to the game but ate up valuable animation time. It's hard to put a number on how much content we lost to this, but I can say with some confidence that teens in the Sims 2 and Sims 3 did have significantly fewer teen-specific interactions than we wanted to make for them because of the invisible work we had to do in order to support their size.
Our decision to do away with the shorter teen was really driven by a desire to improve animation quality, be able to make more fun content for the game in general (children, I believe, benefitted the most from this), and add more special behaviors for the teens themselves. I still think that it was the right decision, but as an animator I am not neutral on the issue We are listening to the community to tell us whether the trade off was worth it, and what we can do to improve the teen experience. I'm happy to hear you say that after playing for a bit it is not as big a deal as you feared.
-@SimGuruMarion
You guys keep missing the point. They can't be shorter because of animation issues and because of this, preteens are likely possible just like Sims Freeplay.
All that time wasted on adjusting the animations for Teens in TS2-TS3? Who knows how much content we could have had in TS3 if Teens were as tall as they are in TS4.
I'm glad they made the decision for Teens being as tall as Adults, it means more time is spent on New Animations, and not spent on adjusting animations for shorter teens.
As for Pre-Teens, I think they'd be nice to have. But, there is also Toddlers. Time will tell what is in store for the Life Stages in TS4. And maybe, new Life States as well?
Yep. Making teens short will be a pain. Preteens will defiantly be super nice.
I am surprised the never gave a reasonable answer on why teens are the same height...oh wait...
Hey,
Welcome to Sims 4, and thanks for the constructive feedback! I'm glad you're having at least a little fun with our game.
First of all, I 100% agree that it is a problem that you can't immediately and clearly tell whether a sim you want to date is a teen or an adult. Pro tip though: you can always take a look at your social menu options - if your sim is an adult, the "Romantic" portion of the social menu will not be there if you are talking to a teen. Admittedly that is not ideal in terms of immediate user feedback, but it might save you the time and simoleons for the drinks next time you try to pick up a stranger at the bar
I wanted to clarify a couple of points you are making in your review about teens and animation. You seem to be saying (I may be misunderstanding you of course?) that Sims 2 and 3 had complete sets of animations for teens, in addition to the adult set. I worked on all three projects, and I can assure you that that is not the case - teens in both games shared the vast majority of the animation content with adults. Because of the height difference, this led to a couple of negative consequences for those games:
One, all adult animations on Sims 2 and Sims 3 had to be animated so they played back without obvious visual issues on teens. Because the teen's arms were shorter, this meant that animators could not hit the full range of poses possible for the character (e.g. the arms could almost never extend all the way). If you are an animator, you know that "extreme" (in the sense of fully extended) poses are important for expressiveness and animation quality. So in practice the shorter teen height meant that animations both on Sims 2 and 3 could never be as expressive as we wanted them to be.
Two, the height difference meant that there was a not insignificant amount of animation on Sims 2 and Sims 3 that could not be shared for technical reasons. In those cases we had to duplicate the adult animation and hand adjust it for the teen. Each case of this is "invisible" content, in the sense that it did not add any more stuff to do or special behavior to the game but ate up valuable animation time. It's hard to put a number on how much content we lost to this, but I can say with some confidence that teens in the Sims 2 and Sims 3 did have significantly fewer teen-specific interactions than we wanted to make for them because of the invisible work we had to do in order to support their size.
Our decision to do away with the shorter teen was really driven by a desire to improve animation quality, be able to make more fun content for the game in general (children, I believe, benefitted the most from this), and add more special behaviors for the teens themselves. I still think that it was the right decision, but as an animator I am not neutral on the issue We are listening to the community to tell us whether the trade off was worth it, and what we can do to improve the teen experience. I'm happy to hear you say that after playing for a bit it is not as big a deal as you feared.
-@SimGuruMarion
You guys keep missing the point. They can't be shorter because of animation issues and because of this, preteens are likely possible just like Sims Freeplay.
All that time wasted on adjusting the animations for Teens in TS2-TS3? Who knows how much content we could have had in TS3 if Teens were as tall as they are in TS4.
I'm glad they made the decision for Teens being as tall as Adults, it means more time is spent on New Animations, and not spent on adjusting animations for shorter teens.
As for Pre-Teens, I think they'd be nice to have. But, there is also Toddlers. Time will tell what is in store for the Life Stages in TS4. And maybe, new Life States as well?
Yep. Making teens short will be a pain. Preteens will defiantly be super nice.
Yeah. To be fair, I do respect them for giving a good reason on making the teens the same height as the YA. I'm just used to teens being shorter because I've always played the sims 2. It's something I'm adjusting to. I would love preteens though.
I am surprised the never gave a reasonable answer on why teens are the same height...oh wait...
Hey,
Welcome to Sims 4, and thanks for the constructive feedback! I'm glad you're having at least a little fun with our game.
First of all, I 100% agree that it is a problem that you can't immediately and clearly tell whether a sim you want to date is a teen or an adult. Pro tip though: you can always take a look at your social menu options - if your sim is an adult, the "Romantic" portion of the social menu will not be there if you are talking to a teen. Admittedly that is not ideal in terms of immediate user feedback, but it might save you the time and simoleons for the drinks next time you try to pick up a stranger at the bar
I wanted to clarify a couple of points you are making in your review about teens and animation. You seem to be saying (I may be misunderstanding you of course?) that Sims 2 and 3 had complete sets of animations for teens, in addition to the adult set. I worked on all three projects, and I can assure you that that is not the case - teens in both games shared the vast majority of the animation content with adults. Because of the height difference, this led to a couple of negative consequences for those games:
One, all adult animations on Sims 2 and Sims 3 had to be animated so they played back without obvious visual issues on teens. Because the teen's arms were shorter, this meant that animators could not hit the full range of poses possible for the character (e.g. the arms could almost never extend all the way). If you are an animator, you know that "extreme" (in the sense of fully extended) poses are important for expressiveness and animation quality. So in practice the shorter teen height meant that animations both on Sims 2 and 3 could never be as expressive as we wanted them to be.
Two, the height difference meant that there was a not insignificant amount of animation on Sims 2 and Sims 3 that could not be shared for technical reasons. In those cases we had to duplicate the adult animation and hand adjust it for the teen. Each case of this is "invisible" content, in the sense that it did not add any more stuff to do or special behavior to the game but ate up valuable animation time. It's hard to put a number on how much content we lost to this, but I can say with some confidence that teens in the Sims 2 and Sims 3 did have significantly fewer teen-specific interactions than we wanted to make for them because of the invisible work we had to do in order to support their size.
Our decision to do away with the shorter teen was really driven by a desire to improve animation quality, be able to make more fun content for the game in general (children, I believe, benefitted the most from this), and add more special behaviors for the teens themselves. I still think that it was the right decision, but as an animator I am not neutral on the issue We are listening to the community to tell us whether the trade off was worth it, and what we can do to improve the teen experience. I'm happy to hear you say that after playing for a bit it is not as big a deal as you feared.
-@SimGuruMarion
You guys keep missing the point. They can't be shorter because of animation issues and because of this, preteens are likely possible just like Sims Freeplay.
Then I hope we get as fun and well made EP's as back then, with lots of detail. Actually... I think it's fair to ask for even better EP's.
I am surprised the never gave a reasonable answer on why teens are the same height...oh wait...
Hey,
Welcome to Sims 4, and thanks for the constructive feedback! I'm glad you're having at least a little fun with our game.
First of all, I 100% agree that it is a problem that you can't immediately and clearly tell whether a sim you want to date is a teen or an adult. Pro tip though: you can always take a look at your social menu options - if your sim is an adult, the "Romantic" portion of the social menu will not be there if you are talking to a teen. Admittedly that is not ideal in terms of immediate user feedback, but it might save you the time and simoleons for the drinks next time you try to pick up a stranger at the bar
I wanted to clarify a couple of points you are making in your review about teens and animation. You seem to be saying (I may be misunderstanding you of course?) that Sims 2 and 3 had complete sets of animations for teens, in addition to the adult set. I worked on all three projects, and I can assure you that that is not the case - teens in both games shared the vast majority of the animation content with adults. Because of the height difference, this led to a couple of negative consequences for those games:
One, all adult animations on Sims 2 and Sims 3 had to be animated so they played back without obvious visual issues on teens. Because the teen's arms were shorter, this meant that animators could not hit the full range of poses possible for the character (e.g. the arms could almost never extend all the way). If you are an animator, you know that "extreme" (in the sense of fully extended) poses are important for expressiveness and animation quality. So in practice the shorter teen height meant that animations both on Sims 2 and 3 could never be as expressive as we wanted them to be.
Two, the height difference meant that there was a not insignificant amount of animation on Sims 2 and Sims 3 that could not be shared for technical reasons. In those cases we had to duplicate the adult animation and hand adjust it for the teen. Each case of this is "invisible" content, in the sense that it did not add any more stuff to do or special behavior to the game but ate up valuable animation time. It's hard to put a number on how much content we lost to this, but I can say with some confidence that teens in the Sims 2 and Sims 3 did have significantly fewer teen-specific interactions than we wanted to make for them because of the invisible work we had to do in order to support their size.
Our decision to do away with the shorter teen was really driven by a desire to improve animation quality, be able to make more fun content for the game in general (children, I believe, benefitted the most from this), and add more special behaviors for the teens themselves. I still think that it was the right decision, but as an animator I am not neutral on the issue We are listening to the community to tell us whether the trade off was worth it, and what we can do to improve the teen experience. I'm happy to hear you say that after playing for a bit it is not as big a deal as you feared.
-@SimGuruMarion
You guys keep missing the point. They can't be shorter because of animation issues and because of this, preteens are likely possible just like Sims Freeplay.
All that time wasted on adjusting the animations for Teens in TS2-TS3? Who knows how much content we could have had in TS3 if Teens were as tall as they are in TS4.
I'm glad they made the decision for Teens being as tall as Adults, it means more time is spent on New Animations, and not spent on adjusting animations for shorter teens.
As for Pre-Teens, I think they'd be nice to have. But, there is also Toddlers. Time will tell what is in store for the Life Stages in TS4. And maybe, new Life States as well?
Yep. Making teens short will be a pain. Preteens will defiantly be super nice.
Yeah. To be fair, I do respect them for giving a good reason on making the teens the same height as the YA. I'm just used to teens being shorter because I've always played the sims 2. It's something I'm adjusting to. I would love preteens though.
There is always something special about playing previous games that sticks with you. It would have to be the existence of Werewolves in TS3, I miss them in TS4. I enjoy conversing with other players here, it gives you a sense of what is happening in the game. And it is a lot of fun sometimes. :P
I am surprised the never gave a reasonable answer on why teens are the same height...oh wait...
Hey,
Welcome to Sims 4, and thanks for the constructive feedback! I'm glad you're having at least a little fun with our game.
First of all, I 100% agree that it is a problem that you can't immediately and clearly tell whether a sim you want to date is a teen or an adult. Pro tip though: you can always take a look at your social menu options - if your sim is an adult, the "Romantic" portion of the social menu will not be there if you are talking to a teen. Admittedly that is not ideal in terms of immediate user feedback, but it might save you the time and simoleons for the drinks next time you try to pick up a stranger at the bar
I wanted to clarify a couple of points you are making in your review about teens and animation. You seem to be saying (I may be misunderstanding you of course?) that Sims 2 and 3 had complete sets of animations for teens, in addition to the adult set. I worked on all three projects, and I can assure you that that is not the case - teens in both games shared the vast majority of the animation content with adults. Because of the height difference, this led to a couple of negative consequences for those games:
One, all adult animations on Sims 2 and Sims 3 had to be animated so they played back without obvious visual issues on teens. Because the teen's arms were shorter, this meant that animators could not hit the full range of poses possible for the character (e.g. the arms could almost never extend all the way). If you are an animator, you know that "extreme" (in the sense of fully extended) poses are important for expressiveness and animation quality. So in practice the shorter teen height meant that animations both on Sims 2 and 3 could never be as expressive as we wanted them to be.
Two, the height difference meant that there was a not insignificant amount of animation on Sims 2 and Sims 3 that could not be shared for technical reasons. In those cases we had to duplicate the adult animation and hand adjust it for the teen. Each case of this is "invisible" content, in the sense that it did not add any more stuff to do or special behavior to the game but ate up valuable animation time. It's hard to put a number on how much content we lost to this, but I can say with some confidence that teens in the Sims 2 and Sims 3 did have significantly fewer teen-specific interactions than we wanted to make for them because of the invisible work we had to do in order to support their size.
Our decision to do away with the shorter teen was really driven by a desire to improve animation quality, be able to make more fun content for the game in general (children, I believe, benefitted the most from this), and add more special behaviors for the teens themselves. I still think that it was the right decision, but as an animator I am not neutral on the issue We are listening to the community to tell us whether the trade off was worth it, and what we can do to improve the teen experience. I'm happy to hear you say that after playing for a bit it is not as big a deal as you feared.
-@SimGuruMarion
You guys keep missing the point. They can't be shorter because of animation issues and because of this, preteens are likely possible just like Sims Freeplay.
Then I hope we get as fun and well made EP's as back then, with lots of detail. Actually... I think it's fair to ask for even better EP's.
Better has a different meaning for players in TS4. The addition of Toddlers and a Generations pack could be Better. Or any variety of packs could be Better.
In all fairness, the current animations they're making in TS4 are new. TS3 reused a bunch of animations from TS2, new additions were usually anything other than animations. In conclusion, we are going to see new things as each month passes.
I'm 100% sure they're listening to us, and are getting ideas from their fans. A thank you from us every now and then couldn't hurt. Positivity is a ray of warm light that should be shared with everyone, like a dandelion puff blown in the wind to only create more dandelions.
But if they change the height of teens with a slider, they will have to change the clothes also, and they just made it so one size fits all.
I prefer recognizable teens too one size fits all clothes. I wonder if it's really that hard for them to adjust clothes a little and make them fit smaller sims. I know there is CC that makes YA haircuts fit even children. So it must be possible for clothes as well I should say.
I am surprised the never gave a reasonable answer on why teens are the same height...oh wait...
Hey,
Welcome to Sims 4, and thanks for the constructive feedback! I'm glad you're having at least a little fun with our game.
First of all, I 100% agree that it is a problem that you can't immediately and clearly tell whether a sim you want to date is a teen or an adult. Pro tip though: you can always take a look at your social menu options - if your sim is an adult, the "Romantic" portion of the social menu will not be there if you are talking to a teen. Admittedly that is not ideal in terms of immediate user feedback, but it might save you the time and simoleons for the drinks next time you try to pick up a stranger at the bar
I wanted to clarify a couple of points you are making in your review about teens and animation. You seem to be saying (I may be misunderstanding you of course?) that Sims 2 and 3 had complete sets of animations for teens, in addition to the adult set. I worked on all three projects, and I can assure you that that is not the case - teens in both games shared the vast majority of the animation content with adults. Because of the height difference, this led to a couple of negative consequences for those games:
One, all adult animations on Sims 2 and Sims 3 had to be animated so they played back without obvious visual issues on teens. Because the teen's arms were shorter, this meant that animators could not hit the full range of poses possible for the character (e.g. the arms could almost never extend all the way). If you are an animator, you know that "extreme" (in the sense of fully extended) poses are important for expressiveness and animation quality. So in practice the shorter teen height meant that animations both on Sims 2 and 3 could never be as expressive as we wanted them to be.
Two, the height difference meant that there was a not insignificant amount of animation on Sims 2 and Sims 3 that could not be shared for technical reasons. In those cases we had to duplicate the adult animation and hand adjust it for the teen. Each case of this is "invisible" content, in the sense that it did not add any more stuff to do or special behavior to the game but ate up valuable animation time. It's hard to put a number on how much content we lost to this, but I can say with some confidence that teens in the Sims 2 and Sims 3 did have significantly fewer teen-specific interactions than we wanted to make for them because of the invisible work we had to do in order to support their size.
Our decision to do away with the shorter teen was really driven by a desire to improve animation quality, be able to make more fun content for the game in general (children, I believe, benefitted the most from this), and add more special behaviors for the teens themselves. I still think that it was the right decision, but as an animator I am not neutral on the issue We are listening to the community to tell us whether the trade off was worth it, and what we can do to improve the teen experience. I'm happy to hear you say that after playing for a bit it is not as big a deal as you feared.
-@SimGuruMarion
You guys keep missing the point. They can't be shorter because of animation issues and because of this, preteens are likely possible just like Sims Freeplay.
All that time wasted on adjusting the animations for Teens in TS2-TS3? Who knows how much content we could have had in TS3 if Teens were as tall as they are in TS4.
I'm glad they made the decision for Teens being as tall as Adults, it means more time is spent on New Animations, and not spent on adjusting animations for shorter teens.
As for Pre-Teens, I think they'd be nice to have. But, there is also Toddlers. Time will tell what is in store for the Life Stages in TS4. And maybe, new Life States as well?
Yep. Making teens short will be a pain. Preteens will defiantly be super nice.
Yeah. To be fair, I do respect them for giving a good reason on making the teens the same height as the YA. I'm just used to teens being shorter because I've always played the sims 2. It's something I'm adjusting to. I would love preteens though.
There is always something special about playing previous games that sticks with you. It would have to be the existence of Werewolves in TS3, I miss them in TS4. I enjoy conversing with other players here, it gives you a sense of what is happening in the game. And it is a lot of fun sometimes. :P
I am surprised the never gave a reasonable answer on why teens are the same height...oh wait...
Hey,
Welcome to Sims 4, and thanks for the constructive feedback! I'm glad you're having at least a little fun with our game.
First of all, I 100% agree that it is a problem that you can't immediately and clearly tell whether a sim you want to date is a teen or an adult. Pro tip though: you can always take a look at your social menu options - if your sim is an adult, the "Romantic" portion of the social menu will not be there if you are talking to a teen. Admittedly that is not ideal in terms of immediate user feedback, but it might save you the time and simoleons for the drinks next time you try to pick up a stranger at the bar
I wanted to clarify a couple of points you are making in your review about teens and animation. You seem to be saying (I may be misunderstanding you of course?) that Sims 2 and 3 had complete sets of animations for teens, in addition to the adult set. I worked on all three projects, and I can assure you that that is not the case - teens in both games shared the vast majority of the animation content with adults. Because of the height difference, this led to a couple of negative consequences for those games:
One, all adult animations on Sims 2 and Sims 3 had to be animated so they played back without obvious visual issues on teens. Because the teen's arms were shorter, this meant that animators could not hit the full range of poses possible for the character (e.g. the arms could almost never extend all the way). If you are an animator, you know that "extreme" (in the sense of fully extended) poses are important for expressiveness and animation quality. So in practice the shorter teen height meant that animations both on Sims 2 and 3 could never be as expressive as we wanted them to be.
Two, the height difference meant that there was a not insignificant amount of animation on Sims 2 and Sims 3 that could not be shared for technical reasons. In those cases we had to duplicate the adult animation and hand adjust it for the teen. Each case of this is "invisible" content, in the sense that it did not add any more stuff to do or special behavior to the game but ate up valuable animation time. It's hard to put a number on how much content we lost to this, but I can say with some confidence that teens in the Sims 2 and Sims 3 did have significantly fewer teen-specific interactions than we wanted to make for them because of the invisible work we had to do in order to support their size.
Our decision to do away with the shorter teen was really driven by a desire to improve animation quality, be able to make more fun content for the game in general (children, I believe, benefitted the most from this), and add more special behaviors for the teens themselves. I still think that it was the right decision, but as an animator I am not neutral on the issue We are listening to the community to tell us whether the trade off was worth it, and what we can do to improve the teen experience. I'm happy to hear you say that after playing for a bit it is not as big a deal as you feared.
-@SimGuruMarion
You guys keep missing the point. They can't be shorter because of animation issues and because of this, preteens are likely possible just like Sims Freeplay.
Then I hope we get as fun and well made EP's as back then, with lots of detail. Actually... I think it's fair to ask for even better EP's.
Better has a different meaning for players in TS4. The addition of Toddlers and a Generations pack could be Better. Or any variety of packs could be Better.
In all fairness, the current animations they're making in TS4 are new. TS3 reused a bunch of animations from TS2, new additions were usually anything other than animations. In conclusion, we are going to see new things as each month passes.
I'm 100% sure they're listening to us, and are getting ideas from their fans. A thank you from us every now and then couldn't hurt. Positivity is a ray of warm light that should be shared with everyone, like a dandelion puff blown in the wind to only create more dandelions.
I like conversing with other players too it opens my mind to other game ideas and other point of views
Hopefully our ideas are heard and they make some changes or come out with some cool expansions packs. I would love to see supernatural, seasons, generations, into the future, maybe even a prehistoric expansion pack lol
Hopefully our ideas are heard and they make some changes or come out with some cool expansions packs. I would love to see supernatural, seasons, generations, into the future, maybe even a prehistoric expansion pack lol
Thinking about the possible CAS additions and Life States in those packs is exciting! It has been some time since we last got a new Life State.
Comments
I agree! I miss when the teens would get in trouble for staying out too late. Now the parents just don't care lol
Agree totally
which survey was this? I want preteens in the game as well.
I was wondering the same thing. Because a fat sim can wear the same exact thing as a skinny sim. Why can't a Short sim wear the same exact thing as a Tall sim? I'm sure in order to add height sliders, they must adjust some animations in the game and other things, but I do not think that they have to make totally different clothes for short/tall sims.
Well, according to this link, teens are the same height as YA and it was confirmed by one of the sim guru's
http://simsvip.com/2014/06/27/the-sims-4-same-height-for-teens-adults-elders/
Now this is possibly because they want to leave room for preteens, which sounds great! However, in some ways it does make it a bit difficult for SOME simmers to distinguish the difference between the teens and YA. In TS2, the height difference was very obvious. In this game, it's nearly identical. If you get a good look at the faces, there is a difference. But judging during the game play makes it kind of hard to tell. Well, In my opinion and in the opinion of some other people. As far as the clothes, I have no issue with it.
It was a Survey while back about Expansion packs it had toddlers and preteens on it for a Generation pack.
Oh yeah, I heard about that survey. I hope they follow our wishes and we get what we want.
Yep.
Yep. There's two heights in the game: Children and Teen/YA/D/E. They had to do it this way, as they were reusing (in my opinion) 'Olympus' material.
Uh, maybe because they ARE the same height?
You guys keep missing the point. They can't be shorter because of animation issues and because of this, preteens are likely possible just like Sims Freeplay.
All that time wasted on adjusting the animations for Teens in TS2-TS3? Who knows how much content we could have had in TS3 if Teens were as tall as they are in TS4.
I'm glad they made the decision for Teens being as tall as Adults, it means more time is spent on New Animations, and not spent on adjusting animations for shorter teens.
As for Pre-Teens, I think they'd be nice to have. But, there is also Toddlers. Time will tell what is in store for the Life Stages in TS4. And maybe, new Life States as well?
Yep. Making teens short will be a pain. Preteens will defiantly be super nice.
Yeah. To be fair, I do respect them for giving a good reason on making the teens the same height as the YA. I'm just used to teens being shorter because I've always played the sims 2. It's something I'm adjusting to. I would love preteens though.
Then I hope we get as fun and well made EP's as back then, with lots of detail. Actually... I think it's fair to ask for even better EP's.
There is always something special about playing previous games that sticks with you. It would have to be the existence of Werewolves in TS3, I miss them in TS4. I enjoy conversing with other players here, it gives you a sense of what is happening in the game. And it is a lot of fun sometimes. :P
Better has a different meaning for players in TS4. The addition of Toddlers and a Generations pack could be Better. Or any variety of packs could be Better.
In all fairness, the current animations they're making in TS4 are new. TS3 reused a bunch of animations from TS2, new additions were usually anything other than animations. In conclusion, we are going to see new things as each month passes.
I'm 100% sure they're listening to us, and are getting ideas from their fans. A thank you from us every now and then couldn't hurt. Positivity is a ray of warm light that should be shared with everyone, like a dandelion puff blown in the wind to only create more dandelions.
I like conversing with other players too
Thinking about the possible CAS additions and Life States in those packs is exciting! It has been some time since we last got a new Life State.