I can't be the only one to notice how ridiculous ageing up is, can I?

[Belladonna74]

I didn't really know where best to post this, but I can't believe this got through testing (and this is only one in a VERY long list of grievances, annoyances, irritations, frustrations and "WTAF?!"s I have with TS4. 

A kid takes 12 Sim days to age up to teen. A teen takes 12 Sim days to age up to young adult. But a young adult takes 24 Sim days to reach middle age. Now, in one sense, I can see the logic in this, as we age slower the older we get but, as Sims all start popping out sprogs at the same age, it leads to the ludicrous situation of a young adult being the parent of a teenager. Now, here in the UK, 'young adult' is taken to mean someone between 18 and 30 (many years ago, there was a package holiday operator called Club 1830 which offered cheap packages to the Mediterranean), so that's what young adult means to me. So (and I'm trying to omit all the other nonsense as, if I was to include it this post would turn into a 10k word essay) I now have several young adults who are the parents of some, rather well-developed, teens. I'm not sure what age the teen Sim is supposed to represent, but if they were human, they'd have serious trouble with bra shopping! And since when was a * tube and hot pants considered acceptable attire for school...?!

So, to cut to the chase, I now have a kid who's at least 16 (in 'human years'), with parents who are no more than 24. A 24-year-old is barely old enough to be the parent of an 8-year-old! The teen will then metamorphose into a young adult at almost the same time as her parents become middle-aged/older adults (and I certainly wasn't middle-aged at 30!) meaning if you take 18 as the beginning of young adulthood, she's aged 2 years in the same space of time as they've aged about 6 or 8. So, presumably, the next stage lasts around 30 Sim years (30-60) so if going from 18-30 takes 24 Sim days, then going from 30-60 should take 15 (taking 1 Sim day as representing 2 years, which is what it seems to be), which would mean ageing has speeded up again, so we'll assume that, in later life 1 SD = 1.5 years, which means that 30 to 60 would take 20 SDs, which would mean that a young adult would reach middle age before a middle-aged adult reaches retirement, which would mean that a 60-year-old will end up as the parent of someone in their 40s (I'm in my 40s and my mother is in her late 60s).

What I'm basically saying tis that, although it might sound counterintuitive, either the childhood phases have to last longer, or the adult ones do. The game needs to be rebalanced so that you don't have a kid becoming a teenager before a young adult has reached middle-age (which I'll call 45. A 40-45-year-old can be the parent of a 16-year-old, but anyone under 30 can't (unless the kid was conceived when they were 13). A Sim can't go from being the parent of an 8-year-old one day to being the parent of a 16-year-old the next, when they've not aged themselves. 

This is just one in a list of over 200 things that have annoyed, frustrated, irritated, or I've found just plain feckin' ridiculous. It's likely not finished yet. Hope this makes sense! 

[thatcherjoe50]

I agree that the aging process is pretty ridiculous. That's why I've taken to turning off the aging (in the settings under gameplay) and doing it manually as I go.

[EA_Mai]

Hi @thatcherjoe50 @Belladonna74,

Thanks for your feedback!

I have merged your thread to this one by @AlHollandiyah and @Hadron1776, as you seem to share a similar opinion. You might find each others comments interesting

Edited: split the thread again because of next answer not being about the same topic.

-Mai

[Belladonna74]

Yes, thank you. How helpful, I don't think! Typical EA response - translation: "We've got your money, now * off!" I have an ever-growing list of things, I can't believe didn't strike people as ridiculous during QA and testing but, as we're talking about toddlers let's start with a couple of biggies:

1. Parents can take toddlers out the house, dump them in the middle of the street, and they're expected to find their way back home - they're toddlers, not dogs or homing pigeons! How many 2-year-olds have you ever known who've known where 'home' is - never mind how to get there...?! Kids at that age are barely self-aware, they know nothing about their environment. Kids don't really understand where home is until they've started school. To expect a toddler to find their way back home - not to mention not getting mown down by a car in the process - is frankly ludicrous! And other adult Sims seem to think this is all perfectly normal. This would seem to me a clear cut case of neglect, more so than forgetting to feed the kid one in a while. Evidently not. 

2. How is it that a kid who can barely walk can keep their balance enough not to fall into an uncovered pool? Or climb stairs without falling. Or play with all the dangerous stuff found in kitchen cupboards without ending up in A&E? Not to mention the fact the seem to grow 2 feet when it comes to getting food off worktops. Seems the game almost treats toddlers as mini-adults, as they're expected to do many things that are beyond them - or OUGHT to be beyond them, like telling jokes that make sense, for example - even 5-year-olds can't do that. 

3. Toddlers should be learning motor skills - a 1-year-old doesn't yet have the fine motor control needed to pick up a sandwich (evidently nobody at Maxis has ever given a sandwich to a 1-year-old). It's frankly ridiculous that a kid (however old they're supposed to be) can hold a pencil to do homework, but not a crayon to draw. That activity table should be aimed at toddlers, not kids. What's termed 'motor' should really be termed 'agility'. 

4. Speech. If a kid can't verbalise before it can walk, then there's a problem.

5. Diet. Toddlers all look to have kwashiorkor, which is hardly surprising given that the standard food choices for toddler are completely devoid of any form of animal protein. 

There'll be more, trust. me. I'm just too hot and too tired to think straight right now, Frankly, I expected far more for £60 (+EPs+SPs+GPs). 

[Belladonna74]

So that means then that there's * all creative for toddlers, other than the dolls house and the soft toys included in the base game? I'm honestly starting to believe that nobody at Maxis has ever been a child, let alone had contact with any! What kid doesn't play with Duplo? They don't even have access to a BRIO-style train set or mat for playing with cars on! How difficult would that have been...?! 

No sandpit, no paddling pool, no pool toys, no bath toys, no swings, no (pool) slide - we can't even teach 'em to swim or ride a bike! No bedtime routine! There's so much wasted potential - this pack really did cover the bare minimum before it was rushed out.

I'm having problems with the Voidcritter Station - despite buying all 5 card packs, it has no interactions, doesn't matter if I select kid or adult. 

[LuvMySimz]

I'm all with you on this.
Maybe the new Toddler stuff pack will solv a few of your problems like missing activities.
Let me know because I stopped playing nor will I buy anything anymore until PETS come out. I got tired of all the never ending bugs. Need a break lol.

[jpkarlsen]

A couple of things:

A Sim lives around 90 sim days total so your estimate of two years per Sim day would make them 180 years old.

Let us instead try with one year per Sim day. That makes them 90 a very reasonable life span.

So 12 days for child and teen plus 24 for YA makes 48. I would call that middle aged wouldn't you?

Then you mention your teens going to school in clothes you don't approve of. You do know that you can change their clothes right? And if you had teens in real life you would likely have had them change the clothes they wanted to go to school in on more than one occasion. 

Kids tell jokes that make little sense but you laugh anyway don't you?

Lastly do remember that this is a game that are not meant to depict real life.

Edit:

I forgot your claim that a YA couldn't have a teenager. So lets examine that.

Lets just say that the YA gets pregnant almost immediately and gives birth at 27 (24+3) 13 years later she is 40 and has a young teenager. That sounds about right to me. What about you can you see a 40 year old  being the mother of a young teenager?

[Drashkael]

Mate, just to give an example, gypsies become parents at the age of 12-13 years old. So I don't see what's your problem.

[SimCat96]

@Belladonna74 This is 4 years late and I like that the toddlers look and act older in Sims 4, but I am in full agreement with your point about activity tables. I'm also annoyed that children, who look like preteens in my opinion, seem way too old for monsters under the bed and the "I'm a Bear" phase. Those traits would add a ton of realism to the toddler phase.

[valohim666]

@SimCat96 The monster under the bed thing, I could see that for the toddlers but not the children or at least not the children as they are in this game. Definitely agree that they seem too old for that. At least you can put in those lights that seem to prevent the monster under the bed, so that sort of helps. Oh and the activity table... was it Sims 2 or 3 (possibly both?) that had an activity table that was for toddlers? Not sure why toddlers can't use it anymore.

It annoys me that teens are pretty much nothing more than adults in this game. I mean there are really no significant visual differences between them like there was in previous games. At least make them a shorter height so you can tell a difference, because if you have an adult standing next to a teen the only real way to know which is which is by putting your cursor over them. For example I see Cassandra Goth walking around in my current game, she is now at the Adult stage, yet whenever I see her I still just see her as a teen unless I get in real close and see the slight differences in her face.

Also, can we get more variety in the faces of children? Most children look way too similar, and look nothing like what they do as teens/adults. One other thing with children, why do they seem to randomly balloon in weight when becoming teens? My recent household had 5 children, and all but 2 ended up being overweight immediately upon becoming teens even though their weight was fine as children. Now that I think about it, can children even gain or lose weight or is their body type locked to just the one appearance? At least have the child gain weight so it makes sense as a teen, instead of suddenly making them look like a sumo wrestler.

I also deeply miss the age length customization options from Sims 3. Why can't those exist in Sims 4? I know there is some option for age length, but what I'm talking about lets you manually adjust the length of each stage.