One thing I want to point out is that with the height presets I use, the teens can still wear the same clothes. They look just fine. The teens are only a little shorter than young adults. Maybe half a head shorter. Just that little bit helps to distinguish them.
So if we do ever get shorter teens, they might not need a whole new wardrobe.
Might not, and if they do we’ll get shafted.
I agree with that. I wouldn't want to have nothing for my teens to wear. But if modders can do it, why can't the developers?
As I said in my original post, not only does Maxis make precious little in the way of CAS for toddlers and kids, but modders too. No matter we’re you look the CAS options for these two very size specific age categories is super limited. I think the developers don’t because T-E are the most played life spans. That’s why they’re the same sizes and share their entire wardrobe. There’s only so much budgeted for CAS and they’re going to spend it on the life stages people play the most, and that are the longest in the game. Plus , and correct me if I’m wrong but, I think the smaller meshes are maybe more time consuming and harder to make in terms of proportionality. I don’t know. All I know is that the two most size specialized outfit categories in game almost never get any new assets and when they do it’s 1-2 items tops, and I don’t want a third like that. I like my teens exactly the way they are.
You misunderstood me. I met that if modders can make teens shorter while still wearing the same clothes, which they have done, why can't the developers also enable height differences while using the same clothes.
One thing I want to point out is that with the height presets I use, the teens can still wear the same clothes. They look just fine. The teens are only a little shorter than young adults. Maybe half a head shorter. Just that little bit helps to distinguish them.
So if we do ever get shorter teens, they might not need a whole new wardrobe.
Might not, and if they do we’ll get shafted.
I agree with that. I wouldn't want to have nothing for my teens to wear. But if modders can do it, why can't the developers?
As I said in my original post, not only does Maxis make precious little in the way of CAS for toddlers and kids, but modders too. No matter we’re you look the CAS options for these two very size specific age categories is super limited. I think the developers don’t because T-E are the most played life spans. That’s why they’re the same sizes and share their entire wardrobe. There’s only so much budgeted for CAS and they’re going to spend it on the life stages people play the most, and that are the longest in the game. Plus , and correct me if I’m wrong but, I think the smaller meshes are maybe more time consuming and harder to make in terms of proportionality. I don’t know. All I know is that the two most size specialized outfit categories in game almost never get any new assets and when they do it’s 1-2 items tops, and I don’t want a third like that. I like my teens exactly the way they are.
You misunderstood me. I met that if modders can make teens shorter while still wearing the same clothes, which they have done, why can't the developers also enable height differences while using the same clothes.
I tried height sliders awhile back and the clothes looked wonky and out of proportion on short sims so I gave up on them. Has anything changed?
One thing I want to point out is that with the height presets I use, the teens can still wear the same clothes. They look just fine. The teens are only a little shorter than young adults. Maybe half a head shorter. Just that little bit helps to distinguish them.
So if we do ever get shorter teens, they might not need a whole new wardrobe.
Might not, and if they do we’ll get shafted.
I agree with that. I wouldn't want to have nothing for my teens to wear. But if modders can do it, why can't the developers?
As I said in my original post, not only does Maxis make precious little in the way of CAS for toddlers and kids, but modders too. No matter we’re you look the CAS options for these two very size specific age categories is super limited. I think the developers don’t because T-E are the most played life spans. That’s why they’re the same sizes and share their entire wardrobe. There’s only so much budgeted for CAS and they’re going to spend it on the life stages people play the most, and that are the longest in the game. Plus , and correct me if I’m wrong but, I think the smaller meshes are maybe more time consuming and harder to make in terms of proportionality. I don’t know. All I know is that the two most size specialized outfit categories in game almost never get any new assets and when they do it’s 1-2 items tops, and I don’t want a third like that. I like my teens exactly the way they are.
You misunderstood me. I met that if modders can make teens shorter while still wearing the same clothes, which they have done, why can't the developers also enable height differences while using the same clothes.
I tried height sliders awhile back and the clothes looked wonky and out of proportion on short sims so I gave up on them. Has anything changed?
I don't know. I use a preset which is maybe half a head shorter. It is a very small degree of difference. To me the clothes look fine. Nothing looks out of proportion. With greater differences in height, it might be more noticeable. Just that little suggestion of height difference makes a world of difference to me. And the preset can easily be removed if I want a taller or older teen. But I may not be as observant as some players. Just because it looks fine to me, doesn't mean it will look the same to you. The only annoying thing for me is remembering to remove the preset before I age the Sim up to young adult.
There’s no defending The Sims Studio on this one, IMO. They shipped teens at the same height as adults because The Sims 4 was a rushed product, as we all know. Quite obviously, they knew they’d have to fix it later, because they ended up patching facial adjustments to teens (which still do not suffice) to set them apart from adults. Furthermore, they promised all life stages upon development and they did not keep that promise. Clearly, they were quite strained to deliver in this area, like many other areas of The Sims 4.
Also, I have to add, at the end of the day, this is a game and it’s okay if it doesn’t match certain aspects of our world to an exact. So, some teens in our world happen to be as tall as some adults. Who cares? For design reasons, we should be able to look at a teen in The Sims and instantly know, “okay, that is a teenager Sim.” It’s the same case with other areas too like the removal of newspapers, landlines, and registers.
When you have life stages in a life simulator that is very focused on generational-play to maintain progress, they need to be very distinct from one another, aesthetically and functionally. Otherwise, what is the point?
This comment.
Why is anyone expecting realism in a game? "Life simulator" means it simulates day to day life to an extent, not mimics it to the letter.
If realism is the topic here, then we should all note that the Young Adult stage isn’t age 20+ but 18+. Our sims are able to enter universities the instant they’re YA; translate that to the real world, the typical starting age for a bachelor degree is 18 years old.
Henceforth, if the Teen stage is to represent age 10 to 17, why should we lean more on age 15 to 17 than on 10 to 14? I believe both the for and against parties of this topic hold value to their own. But when considering the “gameplay” standpoint, having differentiated height definitely builds a more holistic game experience. As one of the above member said, even half a head shorter could add to the overall feeling a long way.
There should have been some differences. It's pretty bad OP when we had to beg for a tag we could mouse over to see if that was a teen or a YA or adult, don't you think? Or when my Sim was playing chess with one (in a park) and I finally realized omg, that's a teen! no wonder my Sim couldn't flirt with their chess partner.
I think having to put a tag on them says it all.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
I'm going to have to disagree with every point the op made. You say if you look at their body shape and faces they look younger this is just not true overall the community disagrees with you, we had people sending Guru's images of their teens that looked like older adults and others wondering why their Sim could not flirt with another Sim which was actually a teen it came to the point we needed a name plate to say teen to notice the difference.
Now you say "they're a head shorter till 21" how so we were given a young adult life stage 18 is a young adult who starts University I have yet to play a Sim a head shorter in University
You also say "Most 15 or 16 year old boys IRL are as tall as their fathers" why should we only play such a small portion of a teens life when many of the teen years are spent as an adult 18-19 as you say and I really have not seen many 15 year old as tall as their fathers some may be many are not and still have growing to do.
You also mentioned people think 11 year old as teen I have yet to see this one sure many want preteens and find it very weird to have a Sim go instantly from a small child playing with toys to a fully grown man-teen besides the complete weirdness of it the many story telling possibilities are just not there with such a huge jump in time.
Sims 4 went from "You Rule" to "One of the stories we want you to tell"
Sims 3 made their teens a little shorter so that players could tell it was a teen. They need to shorten the teens in Sims 4. Most people, men & women don't grow into their full height until around 21 or 22. My daughter was 22 when she finally grew to my height.
Sims 3 made their teens a little shorter so that players could tell it was a teen. They need to shorten the teens in Sims 4. Most people, men & women don't grow into their full height until around 21 or 22. My daughter was 22 when she finally grew to my height.
Actually, that depends. I passed my mom at 12, and my son passed me at 13. I am 5’10”, My mom is 5’3””, and my son is 6’1”. I was my full height by 18, so was my son.
Depends entirely on what you want teens to look like, 13/14 year olds look very different to 17 year olds so if you want younger teens you'll probably want them to be shorter whereas if you want them to be 16/17 you'll probably want them to be taller.
For me personally I prefer my teens to look more like 14 year olds as otherwise theres not much distinction between them and young adults so I have height sliders to make them look younger but that's just my preference
I personally wouldn’t mind if teens were shorter. Or better yet, if they added pre-teens. Right now teens look like 17/18 year-olds and kids look like 7-10 years-old so there’s a huge gap between kids and teens.
I'm not entirely certain the addition of a pre-teen stage would really improve anything. The teens are themselves already not that different from adults, just based on what they're capable of doing, so unless the game went to lengths to distinguish the pre-teen stage from the teen and adult stages, it wouldn't really fix a problem, just create another one. As much as I'm in the camp that thinks '16 year old' when I think of a teenager, given the gigantic gap between seven and sixteen, I understand why there's demand for a noticeably younger teenager state, even if that's pre-teen. I just don't think it'd fix anything.
Personally, I use a height slider. I consider Sims being the same height in general as unrealistic and not for me. Unfortunately, a height slider wouldn't actually fix this problem, either. Essentially, if a built-in height slider was implemented, presumably the slider would work like any other slider, and different Sims would have randomized heights. You'd get short elders and tall teenagers, and it still wouldn't fix the visual difference problem. Or rather, there'd then be too much visual difference, and nobody would then be able to tell what anyone is.
Many people are not good at recognizing physical features. Some people are something called face blind, in which everyone essentially looks the same and the way they tell people apart is via something else: i.e. the kind of clothing they wear, or a certain necklace they favor, the color of or way they wear their hair. Making teens just a little bit shorter is probably the only solid solution to this problem. With the height slider, the only issue is with animations involving two different Sims not aligning properly. With a small enough difference between heights, the hug animations should be mostly fine, and teens can't romance adults anyway, so that height difference there on romantic interactions won't matter.
If people then want to make their shorter teens look like miniature adults, that's their business. If instead they decide to make their shorter teens look twelve, that's also their business. Everyone plays this game different and finds different things to be important to them, and that's okay.
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siempre bruja.
I don't want my teens looking twelve. I want them to be easily distinguishable from young adults.
I find it very jarring to have sims go from being a child to looking like they are 21.
The teens we have aren't by design, they are by expedience. One of the many cut corners in getting TS4 out, like no toddlers, no pools, no burglars, no dishwashers, no cars/car pools/school buses, ect.
Since growth and development is a major feature of The Sims, height is a logical distinguisher.
I gave up on EA doing anything about it soon, if ever, so I went with a mod.
This is what I want.
It's obvious who is the teen and who is the young adult.
(Okay bad example, Cassandra Goth is dressed pretty young there. )
I will see a lot of this because the two stages are rotating through my Uni prep school.
It adds more to the Junior-Senior/Freshman-Sophomore dynamic.
I personally find it so weird that Sims players (and in other media as well) consider 11 - 13 "teens" and everything above that as non-existent until they are 21. Because that's what we are talking about here. The height difference and look people WANT in Sims 4 is of 11-13 year olds IRL. But teens IRL spend most of their teens being as tall as an adult (15-19).
Some of this is modern media and culture shaped. At least in the USA for the past 20 years no one under the age of 77 has been allowed to walk outside and just 'hangout' without parental supervision...
I remember being 5 and taking city buses to cross the bridge into different cities and go to a park and nobody thinking anything of it... but I'm a child of the 70s. When I was a kid your parents tossed you out the front door soon as the sun was up and you didn't dare step foot back in the house until it was down. Go figure your own mess out. My very generation, soon as they became parents - locked their kids away in Fort Knox even though it's safer out there now than it was when we were kids.
So that's society - many people just haven't seen teenagers much anymore.
Then you have media. Flip on any TV show about high school and the actors are all in their 20s and 30s... last year I sat down and watched all of the 'Vampire Diaries' TV show - which is set in high school for the first few seasons, and has a sequel now called Legacies. In both shows there's at least one "teenager" in the main cast who was 30+ in 'real life'. Look through the cast info on a number of shows - for the age of the actors during filming, and that's no unusual.
So... popular culture has "erased" anyone over 13 and under 21... so it's not too surprising that a lot of people want that in their game - unless they have teenagers in their life they may have forgotten what teens actually look like...
I don't use Discord because it doesn't support multiple accounts and I don't need folks at work wondering what I'm doing even on my own time. Until Discord catches up with every single other voice / video conferencing system, I limit where I use it:
If I remember right, the reason they are the way they are is if they were a different height from adults, they would need an entirely separate set of animations for every animation in the game. Not saying it's a valid excuse, but animations are the most time consuming and considering we hardly ever get brand new animated objects and interactions these days as it is, it would probably be even worse if teens needed their own. So I can live with it.
This is also why kids can't do things like ride bikes. Which is NO excuse to me, and just plain stupid.
Honestly, it strikes me as a failure of Maxis to consider technology they've already invented.
Spore was built on a procedural animation system. That Maxis didn't utilize that for Sims feels like a huge oversight on their part.
I hate teenagers in TS because they‘re the most boring life stage. There is barely anything that separates them from young adults. It‘s obvious that they just copy and pasted the young adult source code and removed some lines (e.g. being able to get pregnant). Their height doesn‘t necessary bother me but it just shows how little thought and work went towards teenagers.
Second comment, sorry. I also don‘t see the point of having older teenagers. Young adults are like a real life 18-25 as they‘re now starting university, graduating from university can drink juice and can get married so why do we need a teenager life stage that is like 17-19? Young adults and teenagers overlap in TS4. t’s unnecessary. I’d prefer younger teenagers like 13-16.
I don't think it should be done now, so long into the game's life. I would worry about my saved teens being changed to suit the latest requirements. I had enough trouble when some of my adults changed sex when the gender changes came out. Same names that didn't suit their sex. I like my saved Sims and use them with a few of my own changes from Save to new Save game.
It's difficult to deal with things like this when you have well over 200 families or Sims count since 2014.
If you look like what teens actually look like IRL, the Sims 4 teens are far more realistic than earlier versions. The "always a head shorter until they are 21 years and one 1 day old" is such a tired trope.
Most 15 or 16 year old boys IRL are as tall as their fathers. Same in Sims 4. Oh and if you ACTUALLY pay attention you can easily spot teens from adults in t he Sims. Their body shape is different, their faces look younger... it's just that they are the same height, which again, is how it actually is IRL.
I personally find it so weird that Sims players (and in other media as well) consider 11 - 13 "teens" and everything above that as non-existent until they are 21. Because that's what we are talking about here. The height difference and look people WANT in Sims 4 is of 11-13 year olds IRL. But teens IRL spend most of their teens being as tall as an adult (15-19).
I think we should have more options/toggles to make a teen look how we'd like because not all teens come in the same shapes and sizes. Some are shorter than most and some are taller than most. Some develop later as some soon so I think it would be fair to make things optional to fit the teens we want in our stories.
I don't care about the height, I am short enough that all my nieces and their friends towered over me in their teens. I think for me the problem is there isn't enough teen and child specific things to make those ages interesting to play. By specific I mean restricted to those ages actually. I miss when children could play stuff like cops and robbers or tag with their friends. More afterschool activities for teens, something like prom. Just something to make those ages more fun.
I agree with this. I think there should be more activities for age groups that have seemingly been neglected. Kids did get a stuff pack which added some things (I do miss the different activities from TS2 though), however, I still think more can be added and I think more age-specific things need to be added for teens as well as elders.
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Comments
You misunderstood me. I met that if modders can make teens shorter while still wearing the same clothes, which they have done, why can't the developers also enable height differences while using the same clothes.
I tried height sliders awhile back and the clothes looked wonky and out of proportion on short sims so I gave up on them. Has anything changed?
I don't know. I use a preset which is maybe half a head shorter. It is a very small degree of difference. To me the clothes look fine. Nothing looks out of proportion. With greater differences in height, it might be more noticeable. Just that little suggestion of height difference makes a world of difference to me. And the preset can easily be removed if I want a taller or older teen. But I may not be as observant as some players. Just because it looks fine to me, doesn't mean it will look the same to you. The only annoying thing for me is remembering to remove the preset before I age the Sim up to young adult.
Why is anyone expecting realism in a game? "Life simulator" means it simulates day to day life to an extent, not mimics it to the letter.
Henceforth, if the Teen stage is to represent age 10 to 17, why should we lean more on age 15 to 17 than on 10 to 14? I believe both the for and against parties of this topic hold value to their own. But when considering the “gameplay” standpoint, having differentiated height definitely builds a more holistic game experience. As one of the above member said, even half a head shorter could add to the overall feeling a long way.
I think having to put a tag on them says it all.
Now you say "they're a head shorter till 21" how so we were given a young adult life stage 18 is a young adult who starts University I have yet to play a Sim a head shorter in University
You also say "Most 15 or 16 year old boys IRL are as tall as their fathers" why should we only play such a small portion of a teens life when many of the teen years are spent as an adult 18-19 as you say and I really have not seen many 15 year old as tall as their fathers some may be many are not and still have growing to do.
You also mentioned people think 11 year old as teen I have yet to see this one sure many want preteens and find it very weird to have a Sim go instantly from a small child playing with toys to a fully grown man-teen besides the complete weirdness of it the many story telling possibilities are just not there with such a huge jump in time.
Actually, that depends. I passed my mom at 12, and my son passed me at 13. I am 5’10”, My mom is 5’3””, and my son is 6’1”. I was my full height by 18, so was my son.
For me personally I prefer my teens to look more like 14 year olds as otherwise theres not much distinction between them and young adults so I have height sliders to make them look younger but that's just my preference
Personally, I use a height slider. I consider Sims being the same height in general as unrealistic and not for me. Unfortunately, a height slider wouldn't actually fix this problem, either. Essentially, if a built-in height slider was implemented, presumably the slider would work like any other slider, and different Sims would have randomized heights. You'd get short elders and tall teenagers, and it still wouldn't fix the visual difference problem. Or rather, there'd then be too much visual difference, and nobody would then be able to tell what anyone is.
Many people are not good at recognizing physical features. Some people are something called face blind, in which everyone essentially looks the same and the way they tell people apart is via something else: i.e. the kind of clothing they wear, or a certain necklace they favor, the color of or way they wear their hair. Making teens just a little bit shorter is probably the only solid solution to this problem. With the height slider, the only issue is with animations involving two different Sims not aligning properly. With a small enough difference between heights, the hug animations should be mostly fine, and teens can't romance adults anyway, so that height difference there on romantic interactions won't matter.
If people then want to make their shorter teens look like miniature adults, that's their business. If instead they decide to make their shorter teens look twelve, that's also their business. Everyone plays this game different and finds different things to be important to them, and that's okay.
siempre bruja.
I find it very jarring to have sims go from being a child to looking like they are 21.
The teens we have aren't by design, they are by expedience. One of the many cut corners in getting TS4 out, like no toddlers, no pools, no burglars, no dishwashers, no cars/car pools/school buses, ect.
Since growth and development is a major feature of The Sims, height is a logical distinguisher.
I gave up on EA doing anything about it soon, if ever, so I went with a mod.
This is what I want.
It's obvious who is the teen and who is the young adult.
(Okay bad example, Cassandra Goth is dressed pretty young there.
I will see a lot of this because the two stages are rotating through my Uni prep school.
It adds more to the Junior-Senior/Freshman-Sophomore dynamic.
Some of this is modern media and culture shaped. At least in the USA for the past 20 years no one under the age of 77 has been allowed to walk outside and just 'hangout' without parental supervision...
I remember being 5 and taking city buses to cross the bridge into different cities and go to a park and nobody thinking anything of it... but I'm a child of the 70s. When I was a kid your parents tossed you out the front door soon as the sun was up and you didn't dare step foot back in the house until it was down. Go figure your own mess out. My very generation, soon as they became parents - locked their kids away in Fort Knox even though it's safer out there now than it was when we were kids.
So that's society - many people just haven't seen teenagers much anymore.
Then you have media. Flip on any TV show about high school and the actors are all in their 20s and 30s... last year I sat down and watched all of the 'Vampire Diaries' TV show - which is set in high school for the first few seasons, and has a sequel now called Legacies. In both shows there's at least one "teenager" in the main cast who was 30+ in 'real life'. Look through the cast info on a number of shows - for the age of the actors during filming, and that's no unusual.
So... popular culture has "erased" anyone over 13 and under 21... so it's not too surprising that a lot of people want that in their game - unless they have teenagers in their life they may have forgotten what teens actually look like...
Honestly, it strikes me as a failure of Maxis to consider technology they've already invented.
Spore was built on a procedural animation system. That Maxis didn't utilize that for Sims feels like a huge oversight on their part.
It's difficult to deal with things like this when you have well over 200 families or Sims count since 2014.
I think we should have more options/toggles to make a teen look how we'd like because not all teens come in the same shapes and sizes. Some are shorter than most and some are taller than most. Some develop later as some soon so I think it would be fair to make things optional to fit the teens we want in our stories.
I agree with this. I think there should be more activities for age groups that have seemingly been neglected. Kids did get a stuff pack which added some things (I do miss the different activities from TS2 though), however, I still think more can be added and I think more age-specific things need to be added for teens as well as elders.