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TS4 "T" Word, the Good and the Bad
CharKittyBoo
Posts: 569 Member
I'd like to start another toddlers thread because I got an idea from my cat today and I'd like to see if anyone else agrees, but also to address a few other things.
One of my cats acts more like a dog or a baby in that he gets very lonely when my mom leaves the house. He stares at the door and then circles the house making sad meow-crying noises. With the new emotion system in TS4, it could add some of the realism people love if toddlers became sad and lonely when neither parent was home. Depending on the relationship with the toddler, a sibling or family friend could comfort them.
Now, for people who are against toddlers, this probably isn't the thread for you, but I'd like to hear your feedback as well. Most negative comments I see on toddlers just say that they were annoying, and/or they kept playing in the toilet.
But as we already know, TS4 is very different from TS3, so toddlers would not be the same in both games. Are there any other reasons that toddlers were not to your liking? If you just didn't enjoy family play then did/do you also not like children or teens? I'm genuinely curious.
I'd like to take on the challenges that come with toddlers, no one ever said having kids was easy, and it is pretty easy in TS4 right now. If toddlers were to come, we can change the number of days our sim spends in each life state, so even if you don't want to completely skip over it, you can still get your handful of cute screenshots in a couple sim days and then move on.
I've read a lot of threads where people talk about wanting for more mischievous actions for their sims to do and more grungy furniture to make a messy, irresponsible household really look like you intended, and toddlers appear the perfect troublemaker to me! Surely, they would be a playable sim and you could have a say in how much mischief they get into, so why not?
I want them to scribble on the walls instead of paper and have little accidents every once in awhile, because we all know that putting up with the bad stuff helps us to appreciate the good stuff, and that's the kind of game I want to play. TS4 is great at adding in fun stuff, but I'd like to see a couple more naughty actions appear for me to choose from, ones that have more than just a conversational animation.
If we get sandboxes the option to kick the sand and make a mess, for kids to take out all their toys and make a mess in their room or to have kids fight over a toy they both want to play with.
I spend most of my time at my sims house, because then I can keep an eye on the needs of my sims and get done any work they have to do, so I'd like to see more interactions that sims can do without a special location or item. And smaller things like I've suggested could all probably be added in the patch that will solve the relationship decay issues.
What interactions would you like to see? Specifically for kids, teens, babies, and toddlers, but other life stages interactions are welcome as well.
One of my cats acts more like a dog or a baby in that he gets very lonely when my mom leaves the house. He stares at the door and then circles the house making sad meow-crying noises. With the new emotion system in TS4, it could add some of the realism people love if toddlers became sad and lonely when neither parent was home. Depending on the relationship with the toddler, a sibling or family friend could comfort them.
Now, for people who are against toddlers, this probably isn't the thread for you, but I'd like to hear your feedback as well. Most negative comments I see on toddlers just say that they were annoying, and/or they kept playing in the toilet.
But as we already know, TS4 is very different from TS3, so toddlers would not be the same in both games. Are there any other reasons that toddlers were not to your liking? If you just didn't enjoy family play then did/do you also not like children or teens? I'm genuinely curious.
I'd like to take on the challenges that come with toddlers, no one ever said having kids was easy, and it is pretty easy in TS4 right now. If toddlers were to come, we can change the number of days our sim spends in each life state, so even if you don't want to completely skip over it, you can still get your handful of cute screenshots in a couple sim days and then move on.
I've read a lot of threads where people talk about wanting for more mischievous actions for their sims to do and more grungy furniture to make a messy, irresponsible household really look like you intended, and toddlers appear the perfect troublemaker to me! Surely, they would be a playable sim and you could have a say in how much mischief they get into, so why not?
I want them to scribble on the walls instead of paper and have little accidents every once in awhile, because we all know that putting up with the bad stuff helps us to appreciate the good stuff, and that's the kind of game I want to play. TS4 is great at adding in fun stuff, but I'd like to see a couple more naughty actions appear for me to choose from, ones that have more than just a conversational animation.
If we get sandboxes the option to kick the sand and make a mess, for kids to take out all their toys and make a mess in their room or to have kids fight over a toy they both want to play with.
I spend most of my time at my sims house, because then I can keep an eye on the needs of my sims and get done any work they have to do, so I'd like to see more interactions that sims can do without a special location or item. And smaller things like I've suggested could all probably be added in the patch that will solve the relationship decay issues.
What interactions would you like to see? Specifically for kids, teens, babies, and toddlers, but other life stages interactions are welcome as well.
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Comments
I have had many toddlers in my game before but not for a long while now. The thing that puts me off the life stage is not because they are 'annoying' as in TS3 I have found many work arounds to make them easier to get the three basic skills but I find that the life stage will always be limited.
For me personally I don't find myself noticing a Sim's personality, judging by traits until they become a child. Toddlers are always the same to me and they will always be limited in what they can do. They only have relationships with family members and naturally everything is usually more focused on YA/ adults and elders with some focus on teens. That was the case in both TS2 and TS3.
Toddlers cannot go on dates, go to social events or get a job. Their skills other than the basics are limited as are their clothing and hair styles. For me a Sim gets more interesting once they are a teen and by that point I feel like I really know that Sim.
To me a toddler is just a toddler and no different to any others.
I'll be honest, I personally thought toddlers in The Sims 3 were poorly implemented. They are cute, but it was just an endless cycle of feeding, hugging, and putting them to sleep, punctuated with episodes of teaching them how to eat / walk / poop. Not to mention the player gets punished with bad traits if any of these things aren't done properly. Sure, I'd love to have well fleshed out life stages, including toddlers. But if given a choice between no toddlers vs toddlers implemented badly, then I'd say leave the game as it is.
But to answer your question, a mechanic that I think would be interesting is having adult sims being able to give commands to toddlers. Things such as having the toddler sit still, or stop fussing, eat food without playing with it, etc. But the chance of toddlers being obedient vs mischievous to a particular adult sim would depend on an additional secondary relationship bar (sort of like how friendship and romance bars are separated). So a high rating on this bar means the toddler is more likely to listen to the adult, while a low rating would mean the toddler may completely ignore or just throw a tantrum and give everyone negative moodlets (or whatever they are called nowadays).
This mechanic could also apply to older children as well, obviously with modified interactions, which could add to a sort of family dynamic between parents and children, since this gives players a real incentive to have all family members interact. Also this can potentially solve the issue with family member relationships being culled, if it's possible to force the game to keep all relationships in which this "family bar" is present.
I would like to see more interaction options between 2 toddlers and between a child and a toddler. I really liked the action toddlers had in TS2 where they could argue over a bottle. I agree that toddlers should have actions to make messes. Perhaps they could even occasionally throw little tantrums over something! But what I'd like to see is more interaction between siblings, new "play" interactions for children (playing cops and robbers etc). I would like community to be able to have areas that you can leave the toddler with a babysitter and other children (like at some gyms there are babysitting services) so the toddler could be taken with to more locations. When taken to locations, I would like other sims to react to the toddler. For example, family-oriented sims would like to go to admire the toddler and sims with "dislikes children" trait would be annoyed by them, kids might make faces at toddlers in an attempt to make them laugh etc.
Make the game life stages seem real like a family.
Very good for story telling (my stories have lots of tots in them so just my opinion.)
I like to teach them walk talk potty.
They cute.
They keep the house wives or house husband busy instead of doing nothing at home when everyone goes to cool and work.
They added skills that they keep for the rest of thier lives by thier toys like communication (talking toy) music (music toy) art (drawing on the drawing board.)
Give Parents (and it should teens) a special parenting skill
New Jobs (such as babysitting and day care provider)
Toddlers Bad
Cried in the middle of the night waking your tired sims up.
Teaching them to potty took forever.
Always tried to clog the toilet by playing in it.
Always wanted to play in puddles and get dirty.
That's my thoughts
If the Sim team is having trouble with toddlers, or it wasn't interesting enough to implement, then just leave it out. All it is, is a step for me to click age up one more time. Meh. Only thing I liked about toddler is that I was able to design the house a little more, like the toddler chair in the dining room and having a potty trainer object in the bathroom. I don't really play with kids, but I appreciate the Kids Stuff Pack because I really like monsters. So, I think Sims 4 did more than enough for me to have an adopted kid. When I get more time away from college, I'll start on that right away.
I want toddlers to do stuff. Scribbling on walls....I usually don't like it when my pets chew things up, but I would like a toddler to draw stuff on walls. I want them to make fridge pictures. I want a daycare to be implemented as an active career or something that would take care of toddlers and play with them. I want them to have playdoughs that work similar to the clay object, just more colorful and only can be used by toddlers (and can be eaten by them). The toddlers should be able to be held by the parents and walk a short distance so we can bring them outside. This will distinguish between a baby and a toddler. The baby is held to the bassinet, while the toddler is basically like a baby that can do stuff and they have a crib.
....The more I think about this, the more I realize I really don't care for toddlers in Sims
I think this would make more sense if I was actually a family player. I'm too young to really understand what it's like to have a baby of my own