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Life Stage Debate: How to make it fair
For the past three years, ever since Sims 4 came out, some people wanted new life stages such preschooler/young child/prechild, preteen/tween/young teen, and young elder/pre-elder/middle age. Other people didn't want anymore life stages. As the demand for wanting or not wanting these life stages grew, it became a debate. Should we have these life stages or not? Its still going on now. Its like deciding which is better: chocolate or vanilla? Cats or dogs? Boys or girls? Need or don't need life stages? This is normal. Debating over things is perfectly normal. Its in our nature to do this. However, when it comes to life stages, it gets serious for people. We have four types of people: People who want extra life stages, people who don't want extra life stages, people who don't care, or people who want gradual aging instead. Will Maxis listen one side and choose them over the others? Or listen to all four sides and decide what's best for this game? We may not truly know.
We all need to realize we won't agree on the same thing. That's okay but you need to listen to what other people have to say. Ask questions to get answers. Why and how do we need these life stages? Why don't we need them? Why and how are they unnecessary or redundant or unwanted? Why are they wanted? What is something unique or special these life stages will bring? Explain why you think these life stages won't bring anything special or unique into this game? How different is this life stage from the other? How is this life stage the same as this one (or more)? How would extra life stages fix aging the way it is now? Try to understand what the person wanting or not wanting them is saying.
There's a whole bunch of things we don't need in this world such a books, tv, phones, computers, toys, sweets, fancy or fashionable clothing, accessories, etc. Just food, water, shelter, and basic clothing. We don't need people to provide us with entertainment because we can entertain ourselves. Yet we have these "extra" things in our life! That's how its going to be with Sims and the additional life stages!
1. For the people who want extra life stages: You want realistic and less rapid aging. Who grows from a small toddler to a big child? A small child to a fully developed, adult-sized teen? A youthful adult to an elder with completely gray hair? Okay, let's add in young child (5-7), preteen (11-14), and middle aged adult (55-65). These "little extra" life stages are more useful than you think. It helps slows down aging and make your character develop even more. Also the life stages are very different from others such as height or appearance.
2. For the people who don't want them: There redundant. Unnecessary. Waste of time. No different from any other life stage we have. Young children are toddlers or children, preteen is child, and middle aged adult is adult. Let's stick to what we have. Besides, it will require a whole of animation. Can't we have shorter teens instead?
3. People who want gradual aging: Forget life stages, Sims should grow taller and older each day. 1 day= 1 inch that add into height. Children start to go through puberty and teens start out as short after their birthday and grow taller (maybe even go through a growth spurt). Adults' hair graying and face start to winkle. Elders shrink with more hunched backs.
4. Height sliders: Sims can look slightly short or slightly tall or all ages but it could mess up animation and require to redo it again. Maybe not! Just make them slightly shorter or taller. But those little changes can still mess up animation. You would never know.
My opinion:
First of all, gradual aging may not be possible at this point. Too complicated or too much. Height sliders are possible, but could mess up animation, but who knows. Yes, adding more life stages does require more animation. I think its supposed to be like that. Maybe middle aged adult could be easy cause they can share the same as YA, Adult, and Elder and preteen and young child need their own animation. Why can't we have middle aged adult life stage? We have freaking young adult which is no different from adult! I think middle age adult is a good idea for a sim who is nearly elderly and about to retire or beginning to retire. Adults are too young to retire. Most people retire over the age of 50 and adult seem to be 36 to 49 (mid 30s to late 40s, a young middle age). Middle age (older) would be mid 50s to mid 60s (55 to 66). Young Adult is early 20s to early 30s (21 to 33). Middle aged adults have more wrinkles than adults but less wrinkles than elders. And graying hair colors but can have non-graying hair colors.
Anyway, Maxis needs to be fair about this. They should listen to everyone. Not just those who don't want or those who do want it. Here's my solution to this problem: Make life stages like young child, preteen, or mid age optional life stages and add an option to disabled/enable a life stage. You could have it or not have it in your game. Simple. Here how it works: A box with a check mark boxes to select the life stages you want in your game. Unmark it if you don't want it. Mark it if you want. These life stages will be disabled in CAS or aging process if unmarked. They don't have to include additional life stages or they can include them if they want. Its up to you, Maxis, its up to you.
Note: I felt like Maxis focused too much on young adults in the past with all the partying and stuff. This year they need to focus on improving other life stages such as toddlers, children, teens, adults, and elders. They are heading off in a good start with toddlers and the parenthood gp. Hopefully we'll get more family-related gps.
We all need to realize we won't agree on the same thing. That's okay but you need to listen to what other people have to say. Ask questions to get answers. Why and how do we need these life stages? Why don't we need them? Why and how are they unnecessary or redundant or unwanted? Why are they wanted? What is something unique or special these life stages will bring? Explain why you think these life stages won't bring anything special or unique into this game? How different is this life stage from the other? How is this life stage the same as this one (or more)? How would extra life stages fix aging the way it is now? Try to understand what the person wanting or not wanting them is saying.
There's a whole bunch of things we don't need in this world such a books, tv, phones, computers, toys, sweets, fancy or fashionable clothing, accessories, etc. Just food, water, shelter, and basic clothing. We don't need people to provide us with entertainment because we can entertain ourselves. Yet we have these "extra" things in our life! That's how its going to be with Sims and the additional life stages!
1. For the people who want extra life stages: You want realistic and less rapid aging. Who grows from a small toddler to a big child? A small child to a fully developed, adult-sized teen? A youthful adult to an elder with completely gray hair? Okay, let's add in young child (5-7), preteen (11-14), and middle aged adult (55-65). These "little extra" life stages are more useful than you think. It helps slows down aging and make your character develop even more. Also the life stages are very different from others such as height or appearance.
2. For the people who don't want them: There redundant. Unnecessary. Waste of time. No different from any other life stage we have. Young children are toddlers or children, preteen is child, and middle aged adult is adult. Let's stick to what we have. Besides, it will require a whole of animation. Can't we have shorter teens instead?
3. People who want gradual aging: Forget life stages, Sims should grow taller and older each day. 1 day= 1 inch that add into height. Children start to go through puberty and teens start out as short after their birthday and grow taller (maybe even go through a growth spurt). Adults' hair graying and face start to winkle. Elders shrink with more hunched backs.
4. Height sliders: Sims can look slightly short or slightly tall or all ages but it could mess up animation and require to redo it again. Maybe not! Just make them slightly shorter or taller. But those little changes can still mess up animation. You would never know.
My opinion:
First of all, gradual aging may not be possible at this point. Too complicated or too much. Height sliders are possible, but could mess up animation, but who knows. Yes, adding more life stages does require more animation. I think its supposed to be like that. Maybe middle aged adult could be easy cause they can share the same as YA, Adult, and Elder and preteen and young child need their own animation. Why can't we have middle aged adult life stage? We have freaking young adult which is no different from adult! I think middle age adult is a good idea for a sim who is nearly elderly and about to retire or beginning to retire. Adults are too young to retire. Most people retire over the age of 50 and adult seem to be 36 to 49 (mid 30s to late 40s, a young middle age). Middle age (older) would be mid 50s to mid 60s (55 to 66). Young Adult is early 20s to early 30s (21 to 33). Middle aged adults have more wrinkles than adults but less wrinkles than elders. And graying hair colors but can have non-graying hair colors.
Anyway, Maxis needs to be fair about this. They should listen to everyone. Not just those who don't want or those who do want it. Here's my solution to this problem: Make life stages like young child, preteen, or mid age optional life stages and add an option to disabled/enable a life stage. You could have it or not have it in your game. Simple. Here how it works: A box with a check mark boxes to select the life stages you want in your game. Unmark it if you don't want it. Mark it if you want. These life stages will be disabled in CAS or aging process if unmarked. They don't have to include additional life stages or they can include them if they want. Its up to you, Maxis, its up to you.
Note: I felt like Maxis focused too much on young adults in the past with all the partying and stuff. This year they need to focus on improving other life stages such as toddlers, children, teens, adults, and elders. They are heading off in a good start with toddlers and the parenthood gp. Hopefully we'll get more family-related gps.
Post edited by KlumsyKate on
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Comments
XD
I do wish there was something extra, though. YA and adult have no differences, from what I can tell. I know in the Sims 2, YA was added for sims that went to college. (I didn't play the Sims 3 as much so I don't want to reference that game.) I'm pretty okay with the baby/toddler/child progression, honestly. Teens are a little better with the parenthood game pack.
I just don't think height sliders, shorter teens, added life stages, etc will be coming to the Sims 4. If and when they make the Sims 5, perhaps they will consider these ideas.
Because it means more CAS assets will have to be made for them in future packs, and take away from what little we have for the stages we already have in game.
The exception would be for middle age, no new stuff would have to be created for them, or any that fit the clothing/hair category of teen +.
We desperately need something between children and teens. I can't say I care about any other lifestages.
Slightly off topic, and actually might sound weird, have you ever want to celebrate their birthdays, but not age them up?
I wish, after the sim blew out the candles a pop up would ask "Age Sim up?" and you choose, Yes : No
My Mood:
So naturally, I'm in the position of more is generally better, but only if there's enough material in it for a unique lifestage that stands out from others. Setting aside the obvious problem of limited development time, I think there could be a number of life stages more than what we've had in any sims game and they could be done with the kind of attention to detail that toddlers get, making them memorable, distinctive, and fun to play with.
Ultimately, I pretty much see it as a given that the lifestage path could get more detail and more stages without detracting from the game experience... to me, it all comes down to the logistics of it and what's realistic for them to able to develop, given limited time and budget.
The idea that some don't want it, I don't see as a hurdle at all. In TS4 we already have the cake (and can eat it too XD) and in hypothetical future iterations with more life stages, there could simply be a feature that jumps ahead more than one lifestage at a time, for people who want to skip around (or a toggle, as you described). That some don't want it, as far as I can tell, really only matters as a problem in the "limited time and budget" area. Some people want dev time spent on lifestages, some want it spent on other things. That, I think, is where most of the actual contention lies. People want different things out of a game that simulates life and there's always going to be some contention about where the limited dev time is putting its attention.
I would love to see children get the one trait that they have, pre-teens get two traits, teens get three traits, and then the adults get four traits. So that means an extra trait to be added to the over all gaming.
This stage would also experience growing pains, and some mood swings. The boys would experience weird pitches in their voices, or what many would say cracking of the voice. The girls would experience the joys of their chest beginning to develop, and the pain that goes along with it. Again those pains would only be temporary. This stage would still be dependent on their parent(s) or guardian(s). This would also mean that some extra days would need to be added to the older life stages to encompass this life stage.
Yeah. Celebrating without aging could make your sim look like their growing a year older, not just aging up to a life stage. I would like this to be put into the game.
Yep. If they correctly made teens and babies, a lot of people won't ask for this stuff. I've seen a lot of threads about preteen and middle aged. If the devs gave adults more graying hairstyles like the brown and black pepper n' salt we wouldn't need to request for a middle age but didn't add for some reason. Maybe never thought about it. People wouldn't ask for preteen if teens looked younger and shorter, like real teens. They screwed up with aging and nobody would have to go through this. But yeah we need them preteens for real. I can't stand the jump from child to teen.
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Eek! I love it all! These ideas are so cute. The awkward phase for all sims!
I've thought about that too. Just was never sure how'd they implement it, and if it'd make any sense.
Pre-teens could be the solution, since changing the length of current teens will create huge problems. They have to redo all the CAS assets and the animations will probably not work properly anymore. I have seen a lot of suggestions on these forums to make pre-teens distinct from teens, like the changing voice of boys, the growing of breasts for girls, growing pains, crush bars instead of romance bars and first crushes, mood swings (that have already been added in Parenthood), separate traits like the toddler traits that are only temporary for the life stage.
Even though I would like to see pre-teens and I like all of the suggestions, I fear we won't get them, simply because it is time consuming to create them and the developers are probably better off saving that time for other features that are wished for, like witches, fairies, new worlds, seasons, pets, farms, grocery stores, hobbies, etc. If we would get all of that, than the lack of pre-teens won't be that much of a deal anymore (in my opinion of course).
A middle-aged life stage would probably mean less work and is therefore more realistic. I could see Sims in that life stage getting a midlife crisis. They suddenly want to change their job and the might become stessed out over the nearing end, getting nightmares about lack of progression. Sims that do well might instead become happier and earn more money at work to save up for retirement.
I like the idea of an option to enable/disable life stages. I think this option should be there for all life stages, not only potentionally new ones. That way we can select our own preferred aging process. Maybe some people don't want toddlers or children or maybe others don't want elders and want all of their Sims to die when they ware still adults (maybe perfect for Simmers who like to play historical challenges? During the middle ages the average age of the population was much lower than today). I don't know how possible this is, it's up to the developers to decide that.
If preteens are functionally identical to kids or teens, then it's more or less just an aesthetic phase than anything else. Nice perhaps, but very difficult to make for a rather small benefit, and thus I doubt they'd do it. Likewise if the preteen phase is super fleshed out but only lasts for 4 days or so, then it takes away from their value. It it's longer and lasts 14 days, then once again we have issues where parents are dying just in the process of raising kids.
Before something like preteens gets made or gets seriously considered...? People would have to make solid suggestions on positive ways they affect gameplay and bring something new and interesting to the table, and they would probably need to cut into the age duration of both kids and teens. Currently they both last 14 days, but I imagine pre-teens would need to knock them down to 10 while lasting 8 themselves.
Teens however are currently very boring, so again if people cannot name a fun or interesting way to implement pre-teens, I simply don't see it happening. Better to upgrade teens first before making a new phase entirely.
Newborns and infants
I Think in the first 24 sim hours a baby is born, it will be a newborn. Newborns are treated like infants in TS4 right now, they are basically an object you just have to feed and change it's diaper until it falls asleep.
Then, when it ages up, it will be an infant. Infants are treated like babies in TSFP. You can take them out of their cribs, let them crawl around, they can be fed in high chairs, play with toys, they have all kind of furniture (like new cribs), you can bathe them, they can even be the selected sim and you can play them. (But this time, they will be able to use their diaper.) Children and toddlers can interact with them, and you can even create an infant in CAS! Granted there is an older sim to take care of them.
What do you guys think?
Just vibing...
Check out my stories The Diversity Club and Lost Pride here on the forums!
they have a finite amount of resources to work with, so when people put up ideas, it's a battle for those resources. for some, the result would be worth it, for others it might not. Being able to turn it off doesn't change the fact that resources went into developing it over something else that I actually wanted
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Yeah, preteens are highly needed for the majority of us. Its realistic to see a 8 year old age into a 12 year old and then age into a 16 year old. I feel like there should be life stage where babies and toddlers are combined. They're like 9-12 month olds; they're taller than newborns, they are free from the crib, the can crawl, play with toys, each in high chairs, ect. Maxis needs to heavily improve on aging and family gameplay.
I want shorter teens or teens that look like teens and act more like teens.
ETA: I felt that toddlers were coming in pretty late, and they need stuff and content as well, so I would rather that the devs spend time on improving stages, fixing serious bugs, and bringing back major staple content from the past than take a lot of time working on a brand new stage.
Especially at this point of the game's lifespan. I feel that production of the Sims 4 will be finished soon, and then maybe Sims 5 will be announced in a few years...
(She/her)
I personally don't want any more life stages but I know EA/Maxis will do whatever they decide to do, and it's up to me to buy/upgrade or not.
Sim Stuff by Pegasys
It would mean toddlers again.
I disagree strongly disagree with the statement marked bold above. They do need to be fair about this. Its like a child gets more scoops of ice cream then the other. Not a same amount. Just imagine how many disappointed fans there would be if Maxis choose one side instead of them?
the best they can do is go for what the majority wants, and since I don't think the majority wants preteens or young children over pets and seasons, we probably won't be seeing the former for quite a while.