@Zeldaboy180, Actually teens in the previous sims games looked to be pre-teens (between 10 to 12 years) at least that I saw, you could maybe say up to 14. But then, I am a parent to both pre-teens and a teen IRL. Teens now realistically look more like adults. I learned that much when being required to check ID of customers for tobacco products. My IRL teen looked like an adult since she was 14. Heck, you might mistaken my 9 year old to be a teen based solely on her appearance. I do agree that there needs to be better gameplay features (not CAS looks) to distinguish between teens and YA, but Sims 4 lacks in the significant gameplay features department.
I see some people saying that TS4 teens represent older teens age 16-18 and I’m fine with that, but I at least would like some gameplay that truly reflected their age and separates them from Young Adults. I liked that in TS2 and 3 even their most basic default interactions were teen-like and they interacted with the world and items around them the way a teenager would.
Meaning what, exactly? Getting drunk on illegal alcohol, smoking behind the school and stealing condoms from their dad?
On a more serious note... Is it possible a lot of Americans confuse the Sims definition of YA with the literature genre YA, (which is very specifically 15-18 year old teens for some reason?)
No, those are your own stereotypes, nothing I said suggested that and my post has nothing to do with YA literature. I may be American but I’m not stupid.
Teens in TS3 went to prom, brought friends home from school or would go to their houses unprompted, throw slumber parties (or house parties when adults left) and learn to drive from a parent or older sibling. They would also interact with some objects differently than how adults would, especially in TS2. I think you are conflating the fact that there are some teens in real life that attempt (key word here) to mimic and emulate adults with a game that made it a point to separate life stages but gave no significant differences to the teen life stage. But majority of teens still act their age in reality. I have two teen sisters and work with several of them. I’m in my 20s and the difference between us is drastic.
If anyone has actually truly mistaken a teen for an adult I don’t know what to tell you. I’m more likely to mistake an adult for a teen than the other way around.
It's not stereotypes if I actually did it myself. I was a teen too, once you know even if I'm 49 yrs old now.
As for Prom... that is such an American-only (almost) thing (besides, graduation only happens in Uni in Sims 4). Oh and you do get friends over in Sims 4.
Not this again.... I LOVE how teens look i Sims 4, it's the first Simsgame with realistic, non-11year old looking teens.
Also...
These kids definitely does NOT Look like the 2nd image in the meme. I have seen "teens" looking like that on screenshots, but they have all used alpha CC and that is on the player, not the game. I mean if you use alpha CC you really have no idea how the game actually looks.
By "not this again..." you mean a valid complaint that bothers a lot of people?
You picked a sim from a trailer too of all things. Go look at the teenage charm girl from real of magic and tell me she looks like a teen.
The fact that you literally cannot tell the difference between teens and young adults visually is an issue. It's a problem.
Teens were not unrealistic in sims 2 or 3. They looked like your average 15-16 year old, which is what people want when we say teens.
We want to teach our teens to drive, we want proms, crushes, acne, mood swings, rebellion etc. We don't want a 19 year old legal adult, which is what you're passing them off as to defend them.
Which by the way, teens in sims 4 can still be grounded, and still go to school and cannot get full time jobs, so your 18-19 argument falls flat. Most teens graduate by 18, or will only be 18 for a couple months while in school. I've helped run an afterschool teen program for 7 years, and 18 is when you're kicked out of the program (unless you're still finishing the semester). If these teens are too old to even attend my teen program , then I don't want them 🤣.
Wanting a better teenage experience both visually and gameplay wise is not a hard ask, and your "not this again" comment sounds very dismissive, whether that was your intention or not. If you like them then great, but clearly a lot of people do not as these topics have not gone away since 2014.
For me, this is my biggest complaint in all of the sims 4, and has been since day 1. I was patient with toddlers, I didn't care about open world, I wouldnt even be too upset if we never got freed babies. I want shorter teens with optional clothing tags and more gameplay, as well as unique voices. They are truly the one an only thing keeping me from enjoying this game.
Teen as they stand right now are NO different from young adults if you don't own the parenthood pack, aside from one kiss neck interaction. Mood swings should have never been a pack exclusive feature, they should've been a thing day 1 in a game that focuses on emotions.
I use a shorter teens mod, and it works great. Teens look a lot better and there are almost no animation issues.
It apparently DO bother a lot of people, I just don't see why. And no, teens in Sims 3 did not look like realistic 15-16 ytears old, they looked way too young.
As for the rest:
1. Drive - without cars, good luck with that
2. Prom - American Only activity, just cementing it is a game made for Americans
3. Acne - You already have it
4. Rebellion - You control the Sim, make it rebel.
5. My argument does not fall any more flat than how children or toddlers work.
6. So your program does not consider actual teens, 19 year olds, "teens". Again confusing the definition of teen, aka between thirTEEN and nineTEEN with the legal age of 18 (which can vary by country anyway, 21 is not unheard of in a lot of countries while in others teens can legally drink at 15).
It apparently DO bother a lot of people, I just don't see why. And no, teens in Sims 3 did not look like realistic 15-16 ytears old, they looked way too young.
It seems to me that the people it bothers are really just hung up on the height thing, and then conflating their hang up by bringing up anything else they can think of to point to as also being part of the issue. But if the height of teens wasn't the same as YA's I think you'd see very few people bringing it up.
Which is weird, because people reach their full height while they are still teens. It seems to me that a lot of the folks complaining actually want tweens, but don't realize that's what they want.
Not this again.... I LOVE how teens look i Sims 4, it's the first Simsgame with realistic, non-11year old looking teens.
Also...
These kids definitely does NOT Look like the 2nd image in the meme. I have seen "teens" looking like that on screenshots, but they have all used alpha CC and that is on the player, not the game. I mean if you use alpha CC you really have no idea how the game actually looks.
By "not this again..." you mean a valid complaint that bothers a lot of people?
You picked a sim from a trailer too of all things. Go look at the teenage charm girl from real of magic and tell me she looks like a teen.
The fact that you literally cannot tell the difference between teens and young adults visually is an issue. It's a problem.
Teens were not unrealistic in sims 2 or 3. They looked like your average 15-16 year old, which is what people want when we say teens.
We want to teach our teens to drive, we want proms, crushes, acne, mood swings, rebellion etc. We don't want a 19 year old legal adult, which is what you're passing them off as to defend them.
Which by the way, teens in sims 4 can still be grounded, and still go to school and cannot get full time jobs, so your 18-19 argument falls flat. Most teens graduate by 18, or will only be 18 for a couple months while in school. I've helped run an afterschool teen program for 7 years, and 18 is when you're kicked out of the program (unless you're still finishing the semester). If these teens are too old to even attend my teen program , then I don't want them 🤣.
Wanting a better teenage experience both visually and gameplay wise is not a hard ask, and your "not this again" comment sounds very dismissive, whether that was your intention or not. If you like them then great, but clearly a lot of people do not as these topics have not gone away since 2014.
For me, this is my biggest complaint in all of the sims 4, and has been since day 1. I was patient with toddlers, I didn't care about open world, I wouldnt even be too upset if we never got freed babies. I want shorter teens with optional clothing tags and more gameplay, as well as unique voices. They are truly the one an only thing keeping me from enjoying this game.
Teen as they stand right now are NO different from young adults if you don't own the parenthood pack, aside from one kiss neck interaction. Mood swings should have never been a pack exclusive feature, they should've been a thing day 1 in a game that focuses on emotions.
I use a shorter teens mod, and it works great. Teens look a lot better and there are almost no animation issues.
It apparently DO bother a lot of people, I just don't see why. And no, teens in Sims 3 did not look like realistic 15-16 ytears old, they looked way too young.
As for the rest:
1. Drive - without cars, good luck with that
2. Prom - American Only activity, just cementing it is a game made for Americans
3. Acne - You already have it
4. Rebellion - You control the Sim, make it rebel.
5. My argument does not fall any more flat than how children or toddlers work.
6. So your program does not consider actual teens, 19 year olds, "teens". Again confusing the definition of teen, aka between thirTEEN and nineTEEN with the legal age of 18 (which can vary by country anyway, 21 is not unheard of in a lot of countries while in others teens can legally drink at 15).
I mean, do you really think its appropriate for 19 year Olds to be in an after school program with 13 year Olds, and spending the night with them? (Sometimes we do lock in at the library events all night).
Is it okay for a 19 year old to date a 16 year old?
We have acne in cas, not as a gameplay mechanic, which brings me to your rebellion point. I'm tired of having to do go out of my way to make things happen. I want the unpredictable. I get that's a gameplay preference, but that's why we have autonomy toggles.
It's actually one of the reasons I love the likes and dislikes, my sims can choose their own hobbies. I always say yes no matter what, and help use those to shape the story. It was one of the best additions to the game for me.
As for the American thing, if kind of is an American game. The studio is based in America, the developers are also American. They try to include other cultures as best as they can, which I 100 percent support. Pokemons latest region is based on Europe and its absolutely beautiful. But still, the game has A LOT of American aspects to it, way more than any other culture.
The game doesn't always generate young looking teens and I do agree that a height slider mod can make a big difference. It does in my personal game.
For the rest though..I still feel that a lot can be done in CAS to make teens look younger, plus Parenthood makes teens feel more like...i dunno teens? Sure we could always do with more gameplay for teens but same goes for kids and the rest of the lifestages.
Below are a bunch of vanilla teens that I created. They all live in my game. No mods, no CC. I tried to capture their behaviour in CAS because this is what they are like in my game.
Toby is my favourite teen. He's hilarious. He's an aspiring Mansion Baron.
This kid's face is priceless.
As I mentioned before, a teen's hairstyle can make a huge difference.
Making their eyes bigger and eyebrows straighter and softer helps too.
This is Abby...
...most of the time she is in a state of (pretend) disgust. I suppose she's the kinda gal who loves slumberparties with her girlfriends.
The game doesn't always generate young looking teens and I do agree that a height slider mod can make a big difference. It does in my personal game.
For the rest though..I still feel that a lot can be done in CAS to make teens look younger, plus Parenthood makes teens feel more like...i dunno teens? Sure we could always do with more gameplay for teens but same goes for kids and the rest of the lifestages.
Below are a bunch of vanilla teens that I created. They all live in my game. No mods, no CC. I tried to capture their behaviour in CAS because this is what they are like in my game.
Toby is my favourite teen. He's hilarious. He's an aspiring Mansion Baron.
This kid's face is priceless.
As I mentioned before, a teen's hairstyle can make a huge difference.
Making their eyes bigger and eyebrows straighter and softer helps too.
This is Abby...
...most of the time she is in a state of (pretend) disgust. I suppose she's the kinda gal who loves slumberparties with her girlfriends.
Gabriella is sort of serious...
...but she has a young face.
Stevie is your typical geek boy...
...lost in his own world...
I often start new sims as teens because of the added character values in the parenthood pack. These can add an extra dimension to the sim when they get to YA stage and beyond. The mood swings work as well. I just wish they weren't mostly at the end of a school day. I cheat phases away as they seem a bit buggy and the parent interactions drop very, very easily.
To me the teens in this game sit in the 16 to 18 bracket - traditionally the age that teens do their final two years of school before Uni here in the UK. That way of looking at it seems to fit the teens in this game quite well.
In my mind, the game is missing the middle-school years stage. Not that it bothers me. Whatever they do, it has to be an abstraction, so I think there it is fair for the game designers/developers to make an assumption that here needs to be a suspension of disbelief on the part of the player.
Awake.
Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day
The day's divinity.... The Ghost Song - Jim Morrison
I knew a guy in HS that could easily have passed for 30. Some people also naturally look older and some teens can easily pass for young adult (esp if they dress older). It's usually theyre behavior that will give away.
Honestly, teens are fine with me. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between teen and YA but usually if you look at them long enough/carefully you can tell. Even at the same/similar height teens are more awkwardly framed compared to the YA forms.
You can easily make/edit sims to look younger by giving more teen-y clothes, giving them acne, or braces.
I feel like preteen stage would be a waste because the Sims 4 already has a hard time balancing the age states as it is in terms of content.
What would be great is if teens and younger could get more behavior progressions like toddlers do. We kind of see it in parenting with its parenting system but itd be nice if teens had their own age state locked development skills like kids and toddlers do while still having access to regular skills adults use.
The game doesn't always generate young looking teens and I do agree that a height slider mod can make a big difference. It does in my personal game.
For the rest though..I still feel that a lot can be done in CAS to make teens look younger, plus Parenthood makes teens feel more like...i dunno teens? Sure we could always do with more gameplay for teens but same goes for kids and the rest of the lifestages.
Below are a bunch of vanilla teens that I created. They all live in my game. No mods, no CC. I tried to capture their behaviour in CAS because this is what they are like in my game.
Toby is my favourite teen. He's hilarious. He's an aspiring Mansion Baron.
This kid's face is priceless.
As I mentioned before, a teen's hairstyle can make a huge difference.
Making their eyes bigger and eyebrows straighter and softer helps too.
This is Abby...
...most of the time she is in a state of (pretend) disgust. I suppose she's the kinda gal who loves slumberparties with her girlfriends.
The game doesn't always generate young looking teens and I do agree that a height slider mod can make a big difference. It does in my personal game.
For the rest though..I still feel that a lot can be done in CAS to make teens look younger, plus Parenthood makes teens feel more like...i dunno teens? Sure we could always do with more gameplay for teens but same goes for kids and the rest of the lifestages.
Below are a bunch of vanilla teens that I created. They all live in my game. No mods, no CC. I tried to capture their behaviour in CAS because this is what they are like in my game.
Toby is my favourite teen. He's hilarious. He's an aspiring Mansion Baron.
This kid's face is priceless.
As I mentioned before, a teen's hairstyle can make a huge difference.
Making their eyes bigger and eyebrows straighter and softer helps too.
This is Abby...
...most of the time she is in a state of (pretend) disgust. I suppose she's the kinda gal who loves slumberparties with her girlfriends.
Gabriella is sort of serious...
...but she has a young face.
Stevie is your typical geek boy...
...lost in his own world...
Perfect example that teens can look very much like the teens. 👏👏👏
Just have to edit them to look how you want. It took me a while to get a hold of the features and styles that can make a teen look "typical teenish"
So you are proving my point. There is ZERO need for a shorter height. You just have to actually edit the teens that are created. That is a simple yet, tedious task to some. Personally, I only edit the sims my own sim interact with. Most times that just is a clothing fix, because I like variety. Not all sims look good.
I think the OG meme is definitely a bit of a stretch, despite the fact that I too have mixed up teens and young adults a few times in game myself. And while I can understand wanting a more noticeable difference to tell the two lifestages apart, I don't think it's as much as their height and stature that's a problem since teens do look wildly differently than one another.
I reached my full height and completed puberty at about 10-11 years old. Until then, people thought I was older due to being taller than most kids my age and having a mature woman's body. This stopped sometime between middle school and high school where I easily became one of the shortest kids in my class since I was done growing and everybody else was at the height of reaching puberty. Since about age 16 and even now, I often get mistaken for being much younger than I really am. I'm 24 but I definitely don't look like it due to having a bit of a baby face and now being much shorter than the average woman. Except for some changes in my style (both hair and clothing) I look the same now as I did in my teens. So the teenager vs young adult change is not at all that shocking or weird to me.
I'd be more likely to say that the problem lies in the fact that there's too much of a gap between life stages if anything. Whether you think it's between toddler and child or child and teen (since I've seen both mentioned) the real problem is that there's too much of a gap. Same as young adult and adult. (I have to consider the YA span lasting from about 19/20 to at least 40 since the "adults" easily look like middle aged folk.
My second proposition was actually going be exactly as @CAPTAIN_NXR7 pointed out... that the difference is more aesthetic than anything really. While I can understand why teen through elder all share the same clothing, I think a big part of what contributes to the problem is there isn't enough variety that is aimed towards the different age groups. Discover University is very "YA in yours 20s" in my opinion and based on how I dress in real life, I think it's extremely accurate (jeans, sweaters, sweat pants, leggings, sneakers, you get the idea) and there are some good clothing for the "adults" as well in packs like Seasons, Dine Out. But teens and elders could use a few more pieces stylized towards their age groups.
Now I know everyone has their own style regardless of age and it's still possible to create good teenage and elder looks in CAS, but they do take a good bit of work and I'm speaking in general, stereotypically. For teenagers in particular, I think a few more "experimental" looks would do the trick, as your teenage years is really the time you experiment with clothing and hair, sometimes even making atrocious decisions like when I got my hair cut above my shoulders. Just from my middle school and high school years, I'm thinking emo inspired styles, or clothing like you would get from Hollister, Abercrombie, etc like what the popular crowd wore. Or heck, go back even further to things like Mean Girls "Plastic" fashion or look at what today's teens are wearing. Basically, just some more experimental clothing, hairstyles, and accessories.
ETA: Giving them different walkstyles can help differentiate them as well, especially "perky," "bouncy" or "sluggish."
I don't think the original meme is a exaggeration at all. This is a teenager in the sims 4.
I also think the Charm family is hands down the worst family to ever exist in the sims 4, but that's another topic entirely.
Yeah, I agree that Gemma looks like 16 going on 40, but she’s not that representative of teens in the game, either. For that you have to look at Yukie Behr, Cassandra Goth or Malcolm Landgraab. They still look young to me, on the latter end of their teen years, in a somewhat glamorized TV and motion picture type of teenage representation. Seriously, as good as CAS is in S4, if you want more typical teens, they can be created.
Here's Gemma Charm looking more like a teen after a makeover. In the original her face is too full, the hairstyle is too rigid and accentuates the fullness in the face, and the clothing is all wrong. Remove all the makeup and she'd probably look even younger.
Here's Gemma Charm looking more like a teen after a makeover. In the original her face is too full, the hairstyle is too rigid and accentuates the fullness in the face, and the clothing is all wrong. Remove all the makeup and she'd probably look even younger.
Wow! That’s a great makeover. The thing I see in the game teens (other than Gemma, who isn’t typical) is that they are generating pop culture idealized teens. Whether that comes from movies and TV where the actors are pushing 30, or Social media stylists who pile on the makeup and filters, or our own community cc that makes everyone from toddlers up look like adult fashion models, I don’t know. Thing is, the tools are in the game to make them different if you want, as @simgirl1010 has shown.
I don't think the original meme is a exaggeration at all. This is a teenager in the sims 4.
I also think the Charm family is hands down the worst family to ever exist in the sims 4, but that's another topic entirely.
Yeah, I agree that Gemma looks like 16 going on 40, but she’s not that representative of teens in the game, either. For that you have to look at Yukie Behr, Cassandra Goth or Malcolm Landgraab. They still look young to me, on the latter end of their teen years, in a somewhat glamorized TV and motion picture type of teenage representation. Seriously, as good as CAS is in S4, if you want more typical teens, they can be created.
I have no issues making MY sims look like teens. However, when it's time for my teen to go off it into the world and befriend/romance other teens, what am I to do when the randomly generated townies look like balding eggs?
There's a couple of solutions to this, and there's also plenty of ways to make teens stand out WITHOUT shortening them.
They need to adjust the body portions for randomly generated townies. I'm fine with body diversity, I want some sims to be fat, skinny, black, asian, etc. But when ALL of your sims are Asian townies who have extremely wide hips, weird skin, bright hair and a pregnant belly, that is not body diversity. So it's not a teen specific issue, but it affects them.
Secondly, teenagers need their own clothing tags so that they only spawn in "appropriate" teenage clothing. This would not negatively impact anyone, as clothing tags are optional, and be removed.
Teenagers also need their own voice actors. Teenagers do not sound like adults, particularly males. Their voices are scratchy and breaky as their voices deepen.
Here's Gemma Charm looking more like a teen after a makeover. In the original her face is too full, the hairstyle is too rigid and accentuates the fullness in the face, and the clothing is all wrong. Remove all the makeup and she'd probably look even younger.
Agree 100%. Her clothes are not appropriate, her hair is meh, too much makeup, face is too round, and she has a pregnant belly which looks weird.
I made two versions of her. One where I barely changed anything, and another where I changed her hair and added freckles. Even adding freckles does WONDERS for teens of both genders and gives them a more youthful appearance, same with braces and acne.
I had to upload it to twitter for some reason, I know you already follow me so my apologies, but I have always used lightshot to post pictures on the sims forums, and they just do not want to work now.
I just responded to your tweet. I found that pic online. I can't even remember if I still have that family in my game but I'd love to try a makeover if I do.
Comments
It's not stereotypes if I actually did it myself. I was a teen too, once you know even if I'm 49 yrs old now.
As for Prom... that is such an American-only (almost) thing (besides, graduation only happens in Uni in Sims 4). Oh and you do get friends over in Sims 4.
It apparently DO bother a lot of people, I just don't see why. And no, teens in Sims 3 did not look like realistic 15-16 ytears old, they looked way too young.
As for the rest:
1. Drive - without cars, good luck with that
2. Prom - American Only activity, just cementing it is a game made for Americans
3. Acne - You already have it
4. Rebellion - You control the Sim, make it rebel.
5. My argument does not fall any more flat than how children or toddlers work.
6. So your program does not consider actual teens, 19 year olds, "teens". Again confusing the definition of teen, aka between thirTEEN and nineTEEN with the legal age of 18 (which can vary by country anyway, 21 is not unheard of in a lot of countries while in others teens can legally drink at 15).
It seems to me that the people it bothers are really just hung up on the height thing, and then conflating their hang up by bringing up anything else they can think of to point to as also being part of the issue. But if the height of teens wasn't the same as YA's I think you'd see very few people bringing it up.
Which is weird, because people reach their full height while they are still teens. It seems to me that a lot of the folks complaining actually want tweens, but don't realize that's what they want.
The Winters family Tree --- My Mods
I mean, do you really think its appropriate for 19 year Olds to be in an after school program with 13 year Olds, and spending the night with them? (Sometimes we do lock in at the library events all night).
Is it okay for a 19 year old to date a 16 year old?
We have acne in cas, not as a gameplay mechanic, which brings me to your rebellion point. I'm tired of having to do go out of my way to make things happen. I want the unpredictable. I get that's a gameplay preference, but that's why we have autonomy toggles.
It's actually one of the reasons I love the likes and dislikes, my sims can choose their own hobbies. I always say yes no matter what, and help use those to shape the story. It was one of the best additions to the game for me.
As for the American thing, if kind of is an American game. The studio is based in America, the developers are also American. They try to include other cultures as best as they can, which I 100 percent support. Pokemons latest region is based on Europe and its absolutely beautiful. But still, the game has A LOT of American aspects to it, way more than any other culture.
The game doesn't always generate young looking teens and I do agree that a height slider mod can make a big difference. It does in my personal game.
For the rest though..I still feel that a lot can be done in CAS to make teens look younger, plus Parenthood makes teens feel more like...i dunno teens? Sure we could always do with more gameplay for teens but same goes for kids and the rest of the lifestages.
Below are a bunch of vanilla teens that I created. They all live in my game. No mods, no CC. I tried to capture their behaviour in CAS because this is what they are like in my game.
This kid's face is priceless.
As I mentioned before, a teen's hairstyle can make a huge difference.
Making their eyes bigger and eyebrows straighter and softer helps too.
This is Abby...
...most of the time she is in a state of (pretend) disgust. I suppose she's the kinda gal who loves slumberparties with her girlfriends.
Gabriella is sort of serious...
...but she has a young face.
Stevie is your typical geek boy...
...lost in his own world...
I often start new sims as teens because of the added character values in the parenthood pack. These can add an extra dimension to the sim when they get to YA stage and beyond. The mood swings work as well. I just wish they weren't mostly at the end of a school day. I cheat phases away as they seem a bit buggy and the parent interactions drop very, very easily.
To me the teens in this game sit in the 16 to 18 bracket - traditionally the age that teens do their final two years of school before Uni here in the UK. That way of looking at it seems to fit the teens in this game quite well.
In my mind, the game is missing the middle-school years stage. Not that it bothers me. Whatever they do, it has to be an abstraction, so I think there it is fair for the game designers/developers to make an assumption that here needs to be a suspension of disbelief on the part of the player.
Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day
The day's divinity....
The Ghost Song - Jim Morrison
Honestly, teens are fine with me. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between teen and YA but usually if you look at them long enough/carefully you can tell. Even at the same/similar height teens are more awkwardly framed compared to the YA forms.
You can easily make/edit sims to look younger by giving more teen-y clothes, giving them acne, or braces.
I feel like preteen stage would be a waste because the Sims 4 already has a hard time balancing the age states as it is in terms of content.
What would be great is if teens and younger could get more behavior progressions like toddlers do. We kind of see it in parenting with its parenting system but itd be nice if teens had their own age state locked development skills like kids and toddlers do while still having access to regular skills adults use.
Are they on gallery?
Perfect example that teens can look very much like the teens. 👏👏👏
Just have to edit them to look how you want. It took me a while to get a hold of the features and styles that can make a teen look "typical teenish"
So you are proving my point. There is ZERO need for a shorter height. You just have to actually edit the teens that are created. That is a simple yet, tedious task to some. Personally, I only edit the sims my own sim interact with. Most times that just is a clothing fix, because I like variety. Not all sims look good.
I reached my full height and completed puberty at about 10-11 years old. Until then, people thought I was older due to being taller than most kids my age and having a mature woman's body. This stopped sometime between middle school and high school where I easily became one of the shortest kids in my class since I was done growing and everybody else was at the height of reaching puberty. Since about age 16 and even now, I often get mistaken for being much younger than I really am. I'm 24 but I definitely don't look like it due to having a bit of a baby face and now being much shorter than the average woman. Except for some changes in my style (both hair and clothing) I look the same now as I did in my teens. So the teenager vs young adult change is not at all that shocking or weird to me.
I'd be more likely to say that the problem lies in the fact that there's too much of a gap between life stages if anything. Whether you think it's between toddler and child or child and teen (since I've seen both mentioned) the real problem is that there's too much of a gap. Same as young adult and adult. (I have to consider the YA span lasting from about 19/20 to at least 40 since the "adults" easily look like middle aged folk.
My second proposition was actually going be exactly as @CAPTAIN_NXR7 pointed out... that the difference is more aesthetic than anything really. While I can understand why teen through elder all share the same clothing, I think a big part of what contributes to the problem is there isn't enough variety that is aimed towards the different age groups. Discover University is very "YA in yours 20s" in my opinion and based on how I dress in real life, I think it's extremely accurate (jeans, sweaters, sweat pants, leggings, sneakers, you get the idea) and there are some good clothing for the "adults" as well in packs like Seasons, Dine Out. But teens and elders could use a few more pieces stylized towards their age groups.
Now I know everyone has their own style regardless of age and it's still possible to create good teenage and elder looks in CAS, but they do take a good bit of work and I'm speaking in general, stereotypically. For teenagers in particular, I think a few more "experimental" looks would do the trick, as your teenage years is really the time you experiment with clothing and hair, sometimes even making atrocious decisions like when I got my hair cut above my shoulders. Just from my middle school and high school years, I'm thinking emo inspired styles, or clothing like you would get from Hollister, Abercrombie, etc like what the popular crowd wore. Or heck, go back even further to things like Mean Girls "Plastic" fashion or look at what today's teens are wearing. Basically, just some more experimental clothing, hairstyles, and accessories.
ETA: Giving them different walkstyles can help differentiate them as well, especially "perky," "bouncy" or "sluggish."
I also think the Charm family is hands down the worst family to ever exist in the sims 4, but that's another topic entirely.
Yeah, I agree that Gemma looks like 16 going on 40, but she’s not that representative of teens in the game, either. For that you have to look at Yukie Behr, Cassandra Goth or Malcolm Landgraab. They still look young to me, on the latter end of their teen years, in a somewhat glamorized TV and motion picture type of teenage representation. Seriously, as good as CAS is in S4, if you want more typical teens, they can be created.
Tales From The Myst
The Blue Moon Jukebox
Wow! That’s a great makeover. The thing I see in the game teens (other than Gemma, who isn’t typical) is that they are generating pop culture idealized teens. Whether that comes from movies and TV where the actors are pushing 30, or Social media stylists who pile on the makeup and filters, or our own community cc that makes everyone from toddlers up look like adult fashion models, I don’t know. Thing is, the tools are in the game to make them different if you want, as @simgirl1010 has shown.
Tales From The Myst
The Blue Moon Jukebox
I have no issues making MY sims look like teens. However, when it's time for my teen to go off it into the world and befriend/romance other teens, what am I to do when the randomly generated townies look like balding eggs?
There's a couple of solutions to this, and there's also plenty of ways to make teens stand out WITHOUT shortening them.
They need to adjust the body portions for randomly generated townies. I'm fine with body diversity, I want some sims to be fat, skinny, black, asian, etc. But when ALL of your sims are Asian townies who have extremely wide hips, weird skin, bright hair and a pregnant belly, that is not body diversity. So it's not a teen specific issue, but it affects them.
Secondly, teenagers need their own clothing tags so that they only spawn in "appropriate" teenage clothing. This would not negatively impact anyone, as clothing tags are optional, and be removed.
Teenagers also need their own voice actors. Teenagers do not sound like adults, particularly males. Their voices are scratchy and breaky as their voices deepen.
Agree 100%. Her clothes are not appropriate, her hair is meh, too much makeup, face is too round, and she has a pregnant belly which looks weird.
I made two versions of her. One where I barely changed anything, and another where I changed her hair and added freckles. Even adding freckles does WONDERS for teens of both genders and gives them a more youthful appearance, same with braces and acne.
I had to upload it to twitter for some reason, I know you already follow me so my apologies, but I have always used lightshot to post pictures on the sims forums, and they just do not want to work now.
https://twitter.com/LuckyLunayre/status/1479780032180633603