Hey @ebuchala, what is it about this version that brings you playing "closer" to your sims? Do you find it a negative or a positive change?
I love it, actually. I find the sims more engaging. In 3, I played God-mode most of the time. Zoom out so I can keep track of everything and keep those actions queued up to take advantage of every minute of the day. Speed 3 during some things (skilling up, sometimes cooking, etc.).
With 4, I like feeling like I'm in the room watching things play out, seeing the interactions, watching the animations. I'm definitely enjoying this aspect of the game more than I did 3. I think it didn't take me long in TS3 before I was zooming out a bit and watching overhead. It's funny, too, because when they first advertised this game, I was a bit put off by how much bloom there was (or how it looked, anyway) but now that I'm playing it, I had tons more issues with bloom in TS3, especially at night.
Definitely a positive change for me. I like feeling like I'm in the middle of things, an invisible observer, poking and prodding things in different directions. Dance my digital puppets, dance. *laughs maniacally*
Origin ID: ebuchala I'm not a psychopath. I'm a high-functioning psychopath. Reaper
It would really help to identify a teen from YA by having a text next to the Sims names thst would say if he/she is a teen, YA, adult, etc...
I.e like this:
|*sims name here* (young adult)|
Hope you understood what i meant
Origin EA ID: Xaldin257 Friend requests are welcome.
Some of my creations in the gallery use CC so remember to enable them in the gallery's options to see them all.
They need to be shorter, elders and teens should be the same height. I get they made elders slump around but everything they interact they straighten themselves right up its pointless. Redo the heights for elder and teens. Give them the those interactions and make exclusive interactions for teens. That way it isn't a "waste" of resources because right now there height really disturbs me.
There supposed to be like 14 years old and there aren't many 14 year olds walking around that are the same height as their parents it's just unrealistic.
As far as I'm concerned teens ARE young adults no questions asked.
If they were teens the Dev team should step up and make NEW animations because they are a DIFFERENT life stage
It would really help to identify a teen from YA by having a text next to the Sims names thst would say if he/she is a teen, YA, adult, etc...
I.e like this:
|*sims name here* (young adult)|
Hope you understood what i meant
Yeah, I like this option or the one someone posted earlier about using some sort of icon for the life stages.
Someone in the tech thread suggested using different skins to distinguish age groups so Teen would be very smooth, YA would be mostly smooth with some roughness being added, Adult would add some wrinkles and other age spots, Elders would have wrinkles, age spots and whatever other details that would show the age difference. I think that would work pretty well, too, since it would be a seamless part of the game.
Origin ID: ebuchala I'm not a psychopath. I'm a high-functioning psychopath. Reaper
There supposed to be like 14 years old and there aren't many 14 year olds walking around that are the same height as their parents it's just unrealistic.
When i was 14 i was a little taller than my mom, so it not that unrealistic
Origin EA ID: Xaldin257 Friend requests are welcome.
Some of my creations in the gallery use CC so remember to enable them in the gallery's options to see them all.
For teens, as many others have said. I'd like to see more special milestone events. A few simmers in my Generations thread have posted many things for teens, but these are a few that I realllly like:
I'd honestly love a fair chance for my teen to get braces (perhaps it can be a 50/50 chance), and maybe that could bring forth a "Family Dentist" Branch within jobs.
Secondly I'd love a teen prom, however why must it be in the school? All of the proms I've went to (junior, senior, and as date for a junior prom as a freshman lol). So I think it would be waaaay better if the teen prom were like a social event where your teen sim can request a 'venue' to have their amazing moment at.
How about returning afterschool clubs? only this time the teen has to meet up at the 'community lot' of where the club is held. and teen can gain many skills and actually socialize with other teens in the club.
Maybe not only have the ability to start a teen party, but what if another townie teen decides to set up a party at either their house or at a community lot late at night. Then your teen could decide to "sneak out" and go to the party xD
Edit: omg almost forgot!! Allow our teens to pull more pranks!
For teens, as many others have said. I'd like to see more special milestone events. A few simmers in my Generations thread have posted many things for teens, but these are a few that I realllly like:
I'd honestly love a fair chance for my teen to get braces (perhaps it can be a 50/50 chance), and maybe that could bring forth a "Family Dentist" Branch within jobs.
Secondly I'd love a teen prom, however why must it be in the school? All of the proms I've went to (junior, senior, and as date for a junior prom as a freshman lol). So I think it would be waaaay better if the teen prom were like a social event where your teen sim can request a 'venue' to have their amazing moment at.
How about returning afterschool clubs? only this time the teen has to meet up at the 'community lot' of where the club is held. and teen can gain many skills and actually socialize with other teens in the club.
Maybe not only have the ability to start a teen party, but what if another townie teen decides to set up a party at either their house or at a community lot late at night. Then your teen could decide to "sneak out" and go to the party xD
Edit: omg almost forgot!! Allow our teens to pull more pranks!
I LOVE these last two. Those are wonderful suggestions!
Origin ID: ebuchala I'm not a psychopath. I'm a high-functioning psychopath. Reaper
I love the teens in The Sims 4, they act more like adults which was what I always wanted. I don't want them to change anything about the teen's behaviour in the game. Behaviour-wise, teens are a massive improvement.
I think the only thing people really dislike about the teenagers is that they're physically indistinguishable from young adults which makes it hard to see who is a teen and who is an adult when you go mate-hunting for legacy challenges.
I don't mind the teens being the same height as the young adults (they get all the same nice clothes because of it!) but teens definitely need to be... slimmer? Lankier? Less full-figured? I'm not sure. The devs said the teens are supposed to fill-out when they become young adults but honestly I have never seen a teen look any different at all upon their young adult birthday.
@Mstybl95 I completely agree. I think it would be really helpful if we had more teen - exclusive clothing. And maybe even some teen-exclusive gaits. That would make it easier to tell them apart.
As far as interactions -- idk if it's been said already but I miss the "sneak out" you could do in TS2.
It's quite simple as far as I'm concerned: for me the leaps between baby-child and child-teen are too large for my imagination to handle. I really don't understand a response like SimGuru Holmes gave. Yeah, they are almost as tall as young adults. But not quite. Besides, they look totally different (ugly in my game, I wouldn't object if they improved that but that's another story) than YA.
In real life a lot of teenagers are taller than their parents, but not at twelve. I can cope with the somewhat odd element of teens in S3 looking exactly the same at 12 as they do at 19. I can't cope though with a child turning into an adult (which, at the end of the day, is what happens in S4). There just is something wrong with the visual continuity.
I honestly have a hard time telling the difference between a Teen, YA and an Adult Sim (even the Elders look young)! I basically want DIVERSITY in my game, and giving the teens a different hight would have set them apart from the YA, Adults and Elders.
I would love for our Teen Sims to have their own set of hairstyles and clothes, and I wish they would be more goofy, clumsy, embarrassed, crazy in love, angry (and so on) than the other age groups.
I don't want my Teen Sims to look and act like they grew up too fast!
My thoughts in regards to height reduction.
Talking about making teens shorter is all good and well, but I doubt it will happen. Yes it's something I'd like to see, and I have suggested it already, but having come from Sims 3 where it was the norm, my opinion is slightly skewed. Something simple like a height difference is going to require a large amount of time and effort, and not to mention a budget. The developers simply don't have the time, manpower, resources, or finances to completely overhaul an entire life stage.
A lot of the disconnect is that players see Teenagers as more of the Sims 3 teens where they were 13-15, whereas teens here are 16-18. Teenagers this age ARE often about as tall as their parents, as it is generally on the tail end of puberty rather than right in the middle as is the case in Sims 3. Favor for either could be argued either way.
The ideal would be to include the mid-teen era between child and teen, but that would add in an extra block to a sims's life span, which means adults would have to be compensated, which throws off the whole life span. I mean, if the YA lives for 20 days, the Adult for 20, and the elder for approximately 10, then you've got babies for 5, toddlers for five, children for 10, preteens for 10, teens for 10, suddenly you have sims that live out very long chidhoods, and it decreases the safe breeding window for adults. If the young adult got married and had kids, it wouldn't be a problem, but if you wait until adult hood, well then you may die of old age before your children grow up. So that would have to be considered.
Making them shorter is also preferable to have a visual distinction, but there you have to factor in every interaction and every emotion. Sims working out angry, or sad, or flirty, etc.
My belief is that reducing the height by just a slight amount would be enough. When you go into CAS and see the age options the teen icon is slightly shorter than the adult. That's the image I want to see in-game. I don't believe the decrease needs to be a dramatic amount. Some things would still need to change where hands are concerned, but it would have little effect on socials. Sim hands are all the same size for example, because they serve as "markers."
Every sim animation relies on the hands being in the same spot. So if you made teens shorter, could you make their arms shorter as well? Keep the hand location the same, and tweak the legs/arms. Shorter legs, shorter arms, overall shorter body. Registration points stay the same, animations should still work.
Again, I do agree, I doubt it will happen. From a technical point of view I still think it's possible, and from a player point of view, it would make a more convincing life stage. I do not have a developer point of view, or a corporate point of view. I'm sure there's a NDA involved somewhere, and developers probably have tested teens before. In the end, it is a judgement call for the company, and while they DO want to listen to players and appeal to the widest fanbase, they can only do so with requests within the realm of feasible possibility.
Uhhh.....Different animation? hairstyles? Teen specific moodlets? like if a teen gets sad, they get the "nobody cares" "I'm all alone" moodlet sounds like a emo teen no?
I hope they have more teen related moodlets or activities like pranks, getting grounded actions that would be more teen like because I basically see them as young adults mostly because they barley have any unique actions for their age at least from what ive seen anyway. I also really really hate that they can have full blown tattoos.
I hate teens in the sims 4, they are just pointless. It just feels like your playing as a young adult for 2 life stages and its gotten to the point that i just age them up again straight away with a cake when they turn into a teen. What's the point unless they add back the memories from the sims 2 which i loved, if they added them back i would make an effort with first kiss and stuff like that. I think the life state symbols (child,teen,young adult, adult and elder) need to be added so that when you hover the mouse over the sims and their name comes up it shows their life state symbol. Also ache and pranks would be funny but im never going to be able to get past the teen height thing if im honest.
I want them to be more distinct too. Hoping for a generations type EP that maybe will add a lot more dimension. I agree with the fact that once we hit teen level they pretty much look the same until they are an elder. It'd be nice to either make the teens look a little different or add a pre-teen phase.
I agree that something needs to be done with the appearance of teen Sims. It would be best if it was height, but even if it was just a more youthful complexion and a thinner/lankier look. I also think that many 16 year olds are at their full height, so if you think of these as older teens, then it makes sense that they are that height. But they should look younger somehow. I also like the idea of the age marker by their name so you know how old the person you're trying to marry is. It'd be nice if there was an indicator like a + that notified the player if the sim was going to have a birthday in the next 3 days or so.
As far as adding new ages such as toddler and preteen stages and their effect on the overall lifespan of a teen, I think it is possible if they adjust all ages. For example, if a preteen is a mix of a teen and a child, they may take some days off of each stage. Aren't babies only 2-3 days? Someone said 5 above. In Sims 3 I often created my own age lengths. My sims lived 140 days, 70 sim years. I decided that 2 days = 1 sim year. That was how I equalized ages. They could use some kind of formula like that to determine how many days a sim should spend as a toddler, child, young teen, old teen, young adult, adult, elder. BOY that is a lot of age transitions! I'm not against it if it's what players want, but it is a lot.
Personally I think the young adult stage needs something to distinguish it from adults. And it should probably be shortened. Originally the stage was just for University in Sims 2. What is a young adult anyway? Many people think of it as those first few years after high school. Some say it's your 20's. But the lifespan is the exact same length as the adult life stage. That seems a little strange to me. Almost like they're saying a sim is a YA from the time they leave high school until they're about 40, and then they're an adult until they're about 60. Then they're an elder. But really, people aren't young adults until 40 years old. That's getting up there to still be considered young. I don't consider myself a young adult anymore, and I'm far from 40.
> @jonilla1 said: > It would really help to identify a teen from YA by having a text next to the Sims names thst would say if he/she is a teen, YA, adult, etc... > I.e like this: > > |*sims name here* (young adult)| > > Hope you understood what i meant :D
> @Dreamie209 said: Secondly I'd love a teen prom, however why must it be in the school? All of the proms I've went to (junior, senior, and as date for a junior prom as a freshman lol). So I think it would be waaaay better if the teen prom were like a social event where your teen sim can request a 'venue' to have their amazing moment at.
> @astridentanja said: > It's quite simple as far as I'm concerned: for me the leaps between baby-child and child-teen are too large for my imagination to handle. I really don't understand a response like SimGuru Holmes gave. Yeah, they are almost as tall as young adults. But not quite. Besides, they look totally different (ugly in my game, I wouldn't object if they improved that but that's another story) than YA. > > In real life a lot of teenagers are taller than their parents, but not at twelve. I can cope with the somewhat odd element of teens in S3 looking exactly the same at 12 as they do at 19. I can't cope though with a child turning into an adult (which, at the end of the day, is what happens in S4). There just is something wrong with the visual continuity.
First, someone said something about emotions, and that got me thinking. What if the teens frequently had "Very" emotion. Such as very angry, very happy, very sad. Just because, because teens are overly emotional. I know sims can get the very, but it should be easier for the teens or randomly more likely if you will.
I also like the idea of groups someone mentioned, similar to Sims 3 University. BUT I think those groups should be limited to teens. Adults often don't care about those things in the way that teens do. It could be related to some special aspirations. The teen chooses the group, such as prep, and then has an aspiration (separate or in place of?) to complete specific to their group. The aspiration could result in a trait that will distinguish them from others as they grow older. I really think this could make the teens more fun. I enjoy the kids aspirations, I think we need a few more, but they're fun. I would enjoy having something like this for the teens. And if they did incorporate preteens, they could finish whatever child aspiration they have at the beginning of the age transition and then begin their teen group aspiration, thereby mixing the two age groups. IE your child was working on being Rambunctious when he transitioned to pre teen. After a few days he finishes that aspiration and gets to "mature" a little by choosing his social group. Some child aspirations would more easily flow into teen groups (rambunctious to jock), but they could choose whichever group they wanted.
Someone mentioned skateboarding as an activity. I think that would be great fun. They said it should only be for teens. I slightly disagree. I think that kids and teens should be able to skateboard and build skills (kids after motor complete?). And YA and adults can skateboard only if they reached a certain level of skateboarding before becoming a teen. So they can't pick up the activity as an adult, but if they already were into skateboarding then they could keep the activity. What about adding bikes back to, but as an activity not just for getting around like in TS3. Many kids love to ride bikes for fun.
I also like the idea of returning the dances, parties, clubs. However, I like the parties, etc. being "rabbit holed," especially with TS4. I don't want to have to go play my teen at the dance while the rest of the family is left to their own devices where I can't see them. UNLESS they could make it so the dance is say 4 hours, you play the teen at the dance for 4 hours and then you return to the family as they were and play them for 4 hours without the teen. That is the one thing I miss about the Sims 3 open world. I do not like some of my sims being home doing their own thing.
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I love it, actually. I find the sims more engaging. In 3, I played God-mode most of the time. Zoom out so I can keep track of everything and keep those actions queued up to take advantage of every minute of the day. Speed 3 during some things (skilling up, sometimes cooking, etc.).
With 4, I like feeling like I'm in the room watching things play out, seeing the interactions, watching the animations. I'm definitely enjoying this aspect of the game more than I did 3. I think it didn't take me long in TS3 before I was zooming out a bit and watching overhead. It's funny, too, because when they first advertised this game, I was a bit put off by how much bloom there was (or how it looked, anyway) but now that I'm playing it, I had tons more issues with bloom in TS3, especially at night.
Definitely a positive change for me. I like feeling like I'm in the middle of things, an invisible observer, poking and prodding things in different directions. Dance my digital puppets, dance. *laughs maniacally*
I'm not a psychopath. I'm a high-functioning psychopath. Reaper
I.e like this:
|*sims name here* (young adult)|
Hope you understood what i meant
Some of my creations in the gallery use CC so remember to enable them in the gallery's options to see them all.
There supposed to be like 14 years old and there aren't many 14 year olds walking around that are the same height as their parents it's just unrealistic.
As far as I'm concerned teens ARE young adults no questions asked.
If they were teens the Dev team should step up and make NEW animations because they are a DIFFERENT life stage
Yeah, I like this option or the one someone posted earlier about using some sort of icon for the life stages.
Someone in the tech thread suggested using different skins to distinguish age groups so Teen would be very smooth, YA would be mostly smooth with some roughness being added, Adult would add some wrinkles and other age spots, Elders would have wrinkles, age spots and whatever other details that would show the age difference. I think that would work pretty well, too, since it would be a seamless part of the game.
I'm not a psychopath. I'm a high-functioning psychopath. Reaper
When i was 14 i was a little taller than my mom, so it not that unrealistic
Some of my creations in the gallery use CC so remember to enable them in the gallery's options to see them all.
I'd honestly love a fair chance for my teen to get braces (perhaps it can be a 50/50 chance), and maybe that could bring forth a "Family Dentist" Branch within jobs.
Secondly I'd love a teen prom, however why must it be in the school? All of the proms I've went to (junior, senior, and as date for a junior prom as a freshman lol). So I think it would be waaaay better if the teen prom were like a social event where your teen sim can request a 'venue' to have their amazing moment at.
How about returning afterschool clubs? only this time the teen has to meet up at the 'community lot' of where the club is held. and teen can gain many skills and actually socialize with other teens in the club.
Maybe not only have the ability to start a teen party, but what if another townie teen decides to set up a party at either their house or at a community lot late at night. Then your teen could decide to "sneak out" and go to the party xD
Edit: omg almost forgot!! Allow our teens to pull more pranks!
I LOVE these last two. Those are wonderful suggestions!
I'm not a psychopath. I'm a high-functioning psychopath. Reaper
I think the only thing people really dislike about the teenagers is that they're physically indistinguishable from young adults which makes it hard to see who is a teen and who is an adult when you go mate-hunting for legacy challenges.
I don't mind the teens being the same height as the young adults (they get all the same nice clothes because of it!) but teens definitely need to be... slimmer? Lankier? Less full-figured? I'm not sure. The devs said the teens are supposed to fill-out when they become young adults but honestly I have never seen a teen look any different at all upon their young adult birthday.
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As far as interactions -- idk if it's been said already but I miss the "sneak out" you could do in TS2.
Although those shoes affect your step , don't forget whose legs you're on...
In real life a lot of teenagers are taller than their parents, but not at twelve. I can cope with the somewhat odd element of teens in S3 looking exactly the same at 12 as they do at 19. I can't cope though with a child turning into an adult (which, at the end of the day, is what happens in S4). There just is something wrong with the visual continuity.
I would love for our Teen Sims to have their own set of hairstyles and clothes, and I wish they would be more goofy, clumsy, embarrassed, crazy in love, angry (and so on) than the other age groups.
I don't want my Teen Sims to look and act like they grew up too fast!
Talking about making teens shorter is all good and well, but I doubt it will happen. Yes it's something I'd like to see, and I have suggested it already, but having come from Sims 3 where it was the norm, my opinion is slightly skewed. Something simple like a height difference is going to require a large amount of time and effort, and not to mention a budget. The developers simply don't have the time, manpower, resources, or finances to completely overhaul an entire life stage.
A lot of the disconnect is that players see Teenagers as more of the Sims 3 teens where they were 13-15, whereas teens here are 16-18. Teenagers this age ARE often about as tall as their parents, as it is generally on the tail end of puberty rather than right in the middle as is the case in Sims 3. Favor for either could be argued either way.
The ideal would be to include the mid-teen era between child and teen, but that would add in an extra block to a sims's life span, which means adults would have to be compensated, which throws off the whole life span. I mean, if the YA lives for 20 days, the Adult for 20, and the elder for approximately 10, then you've got babies for 5, toddlers for five, children for 10, preteens for 10, teens for 10, suddenly you have sims that live out very long chidhoods, and it decreases the safe breeding window for adults. If the young adult got married and had kids, it wouldn't be a problem, but if you wait until adult hood, well then you may die of old age before your children grow up. So that would have to be considered.
Making them shorter is also preferable to have a visual distinction, but there you have to factor in every interaction and every emotion. Sims working out angry, or sad, or flirty, etc.
My belief is that reducing the height by just a slight amount would be enough. When you go into CAS and see the age options the teen icon is slightly shorter than the adult. That's the image I want to see in-game. I don't believe the decrease needs to be a dramatic amount. Some things would still need to change where hands are concerned, but it would have little effect on socials. Sim hands are all the same size for example, because they serve as "markers."
Every sim animation relies on the hands being in the same spot. So if you made teens shorter, could you make their arms shorter as well? Keep the hand location the same, and tweak the legs/arms. Shorter legs, shorter arms, overall shorter body. Registration points stay the same, animations should still work.
Again, I do agree, I doubt it will happen. From a technical point of view I still think it's possible, and from a player point of view, it would make a more convincing life stage. I do not have a developer point of view, or a corporate point of view. I'm sure there's a NDA involved somewhere, and developers probably have tested teens before. In the end, it is a judgement call for the company, and while they DO want to listen to players and appeal to the widest fanbase, they can only do so with requests within the realm of feasible possibility.
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I agree that something needs to be done with the appearance of teen Sims. It would be best if it was height, but even if it was just a more youthful complexion and a thinner/lankier look. I also think that many 16 year olds are at their full height, so if you think of these as older teens, then it makes sense that they are that height. But they should look younger somehow. I also like the idea of the age marker by their name so you know how old the person you're trying to marry is. It'd be nice if there was an indicator like a + that notified the player if the sim was going to have a birthday in the next 3 days or so.
As far as adding new ages such as toddler and preteen stages and their effect on the overall lifespan of a teen, I think it is possible if they adjust all ages. For example, if a preteen is a mix of a teen and a child, they may take some days off of each stage. Aren't babies only 2-3 days? Someone said 5 above. In Sims 3 I often created my own age lengths. My sims lived 140 days, 70 sim years. I decided that 2 days = 1 sim year. That was how I equalized ages. They could use some kind of formula like that to determine how many days a sim should spend as a toddler, child, young teen, old teen, young adult, adult, elder. BOY that is a lot of age transitions! I'm not against it if it's what players want, but it is a lot.
Personally I think the young adult stage needs something to distinguish it from adults. And it should probably be shortened. Originally the stage was just for University in Sims 2. What is a young adult anyway? Many people think of it as those first few years after high school. Some say it's your 20's. But the lifespan is the exact same length as the adult life stage. That seems a little strange to me. Almost like they're saying a sim is a YA from the time they leave high school until they're about 40, and then they're an adult until they're about 60. Then they're an elder. But really, people aren't young adults until 40 years old. That's getting up there to still be considered young. I don't consider myself a young adult anymore, and I'm far from 40.
> I actually play zoomed in a lot in 4. Hardly ever did in 3 but almost all the time in 4.
Me too.
> It would really help to identify a teen from YA by having a text next to the Sims names thst would say if he/she is a teen, YA, adult, etc...
> I.e like this:
>
> |*sims name here* (young adult)|
>
> Hope you understood what i meant :D
Or an icon.
A name or an icon, whatever the developers would think is the best option
Some of my creations in the gallery use CC so remember to enable them in the gallery's options to see them all.
Secondly I'd love a teen prom, however why must it be in the school? All of the proms I've went to (junior, senior, and as date for a junior prom as a freshman lol). So I think it would be waaaay better if the teen prom were like a social event where your teen sim can request a 'venue' to have their amazing moment at.
I second that.
> It's quite simple as far as I'm concerned: for me the leaps between baby-child and child-teen are too large for my imagination to handle. I really don't understand a response like SimGuru Holmes gave. Yeah, they are almost as tall as young adults. But not quite. Besides, they look totally different (ugly in my game, I wouldn't object if they improved that but that's another story) than YA.
>
> In real life a lot of teenagers are taller than their parents, but not at twelve. I can cope with the somewhat odd element of teens in S3 looking exactly the same at 12 as they do at 19. I can't cope though with a child turning into an adult (which, at the end of the day, is what happens in S4). There just is something wrong with the visual continuity.
That last part makes a lot of sense.
First, someone said something about emotions, and that got me thinking. What if the teens frequently had "Very" emotion. Such as very angry, very happy, very sad. Just because, because teens are overly emotional. I know sims can get the very, but it should be easier for the teens or randomly more likely if you will.
I also like the idea of groups someone mentioned, similar to Sims 3 University. BUT I think those groups should be limited to teens. Adults often don't care about those things in the way that teens do. It could be related to some special aspirations. The teen chooses the group, such as prep, and then has an aspiration (separate or in place of?) to complete specific to their group. The aspiration could result in a trait that will distinguish them from others as they grow older. I really think this could make the teens more fun. I enjoy the kids aspirations, I think we need a few more, but they're fun. I would enjoy having something like this for the teens. And if they did incorporate preteens, they could finish whatever child aspiration they have at the beginning of the age transition and then begin their teen group aspiration, thereby mixing the two age groups. IE your child was working on being Rambunctious when he transitioned to pre teen. After a few days he finishes that aspiration and gets to "mature" a little by choosing his social group. Some child aspirations would more easily flow into teen groups (rambunctious to jock), but they could choose whichever group they wanted.
Someone mentioned skateboarding as an activity. I think that would be great fun. They said it should only be for teens. I slightly disagree. I think that kids and teens should be able to skateboard and build skills (kids after motor complete?). And YA and adults can skateboard only if they reached a certain level of skateboarding before becoming a teen. So they can't pick up the activity as an adult, but if they already were into skateboarding then they could keep the activity. What about adding bikes back to, but as an activity not just for getting around like in TS3. Many kids love to ride bikes for fun.
I also like the idea of returning the dances, parties, clubs. However, I like the parties, etc. being "rabbit holed," especially with TS4. I don't want to have to go play my teen at the dance while the rest of the family is left to their own devices where I can't see them. UNLESS they could make it so the dance is say 4 hours, you play the teen at the dance for 4 hours and then you return to the family as they were and play them for 4 hours without the teen. That is the one thing I miss about the Sims 3 open world. I do not like some of my sims being home doing their own thing.