Well, by adults, I pretty much mean like an Adult Sim. I suppose if you only see Elder Sims sparingly you wouldn't notice, but if you have a household you don't let age quickly or even at all at some point... Once an elder you'll see them often popping at the hip and out of nowhere shrug, look around him or herself lost asking something that sounds like "Suhgoya?" Perhaps if they do not have the active trait, most wouldn't care... But dang... If they get energized and autonomously decide to hit a treadmill...
I cringe. I cannot help but cringe, because once they are done you get to see their look of agony avatar and if you love the particular Sim, it gives a huge guilt trip, or you have the case where you purposely let them exercise and teleport them to the bathroom to take a bath or bubble bath immediately to ensure you don't see that, but the bleeding teleport fails and... yay... my Sim is in agony. Guilt trip + aggravation over the teleport.
Still, having known more adults and elders better than most age groups my entire life so far... Man, I know this is The Sims... but, I'd think if an elder Sim has the active trait, they would be able to stay active and not near kill themselves. The joint popping and the dementia-like actions, would be more like unknown traits that your Sims might have when he/she/whatever becomes an elder based on the traits they already have. Like the popping of the joints would be more common in lazy Sims and the dementia-like stuff would happen more often in Sims who don't exercise their mind a lot - don't read, research, do logical activities and such.
Or, perhaps, when your Sims becomes an elder, one could choose some sort of common habit or loss that comes from aging, like a sub-trait. Your Sim has aged up to an elder! New "traits" you can add: Hard of Hearing, Blind as a Bat, Wields a Cane, Steers a Walker, Fearless Flatulence, Champion Complainer (Grump who misses the good old days), Like Aged Wine (wise as heck), Pops like Popcorn (arthritis), Lost Time (dementia), Rocking Chair Marathoner (loves rocking chairs like how most Sims love molding clay)... I'm sure those Simmers I've seen talk about retirement homes would love that sort of variety in their residents.
Dang... if this cannot be changed, I hope someone might get inspired to make a mod like this...
For now, my active elder is actually aged as just a Sim Adult... It saves the Sim and me a lot of agony, but it is still annoying that I have to make them young again just so they act more like the elder they are based after as opposed to the stereotyped caricature I'm stuck with otherwise.
i meant adult Sims, too, of course! i do see plenty of them (and, like you said, don't let them "age quickly" or "even at all at some point"--i *have* had households that included them before) and the only "elder behaviour" they show is the way they grab their lower back, you know, like in CAS, which i think is what you're referring to. i always thought it was their back, for some reason.
so yes... the tiring quicker could be a thing. i have used the active trait, but not recently. i do remember that my elder Sim still rolled the "go jogging" whim often.
but i *do* agree with you re: the active trait. there should be more of a noticeable difference. and i agree that, while my elders are not sedentary or anything, there isn't an obvious way to see if they're *especially* active unless i'm controlling them at all times. i remembered (for the sake of fairness) that one elder went to the other side after woo-hooing 3 times in a row. 😉 so i assume he didn't have the "active" trait? or did he?
"one could choose some sort of common habit or loss that comes from aging"--like the exact opposite of the "Long Lived" reward trait Sims acquire after completing the "bodybuilder" aspiration... which *enhances* their life (well, lengthens it) and not makes it, you know, feel more elderly?
idk about "typical elder" traits. i think their retiring is ok. they get their pension, right, so they could be able to get discounts on whatever they buy through the computer (this isn't a thing already, right?) and just... get the benefits elder people should get after retiring.
(the cane could be okay, too. tbh i'd want to use that on some of my YAs and As too!)
and... maybe retiring home, but that would be... not as active as a club of elders who get together to do whatever activity they choose/is related to their skills/etc.? the club system could work for this.
so i'm not disagreeing... even if i have *not* seen them behave like "stereotypes", it could be a little more balanced. not have them be *super* active or behave *exactly* like A/YAs, but not act decrepit like what you've seen.
one of my Sims is supposed to be... in-between adulthood and old age... so she is aged as an A, but i use the hair like looks like grey streaks *and* the wrinkles around the mouth and on the forehead.
while not making her sedentary, i have her act less like an an adult "would". maybe do more gardening and reading, and go jogging less often. hell, i even click "go here" and then "jog here" to pretend (because the actual "jogging" action is super buggy) she is walking, then running for a little while, then resting again. 😉
so i know you might want something like this to be default behaviour because you've seen the elders act way too...elderly! so something in-between could be better suited.
so again, i *do* understand what you say about them being a caricature. i would like a "grumpy old Sim" though, and also the "Wise" one, that would be great. like i said, it deserves to be more balanced.
i hope i wasn't too long-winded (yeah, right) and that some of this made sense. =)
Eh, when noting the "typical elder" traits, I just threw that in there as a possible replacement to them always cracking at the hip/back and doing that "dementia" action. I have no idea about discounts when they buy things... I never noticed anything like that.
Yeah, I mentioned the cane concept because I've seen old school Simmers talk about missing that option from the previous Sims Versions. In turn, I figure add in a walker, since it doesn't seem too far different from the cane.
The mention of a retirement/nursing home, wasn't a suggestion for EA to make one, but was in note to things I've seen some people who are interested in such a thing mention. I believe there already exists a mod so that a Sim can work at such a place and merely thought if elder Sims got an extra trait or sub-trait, it would make them more interesting elders to work with.
My elder Sim is actually based on a person I know in real life, which may be the real kicker. I find it a bit amusing that to make your Sim seems more elderly deals with gardening and reading. As said, this Sim is based on someone I know and she gardened a ton when younger and still gardens to this day. Gardening is actually hard shizz. It can even be hard in the Sims when you have the Freelance Botonist aspiration. So freaking needy, those plants are... and unless you have help they can take half the day away watering, fertilizing, weeding and spraying them for bugs.
Actually, I'm not trying to say the elder Sims act way too elderly, but they seem to be stuck in a very limited, cookie cutter animation loop.
If a Sim has the active trait, they will continue to desire being active and get energy spikes at times, so when they are elders, why not tone down exercise choices... like "go for a jog" could be changed to "go for a walk". High endurance things on workout machines will no longer be options for them. Though, if someone wants to kill their Elder Sim via exhaustion and muscle pain, they would just have to make their Sim "push the limits" two more times - kind of like the whoo-hoo death.
The other "traits" I had listed were actually semi-jokes. Rather than have your Sim cracking at a joint or suddenly look lost and speak to no one out of the blue, how about making them hard of hearing, so they misunderstand what another Sim said to them? Or make them blind as a bat so that rather than suddenly clutching their hip/back they are instead trying their hardest to read a sign? 'Just more options outside of the two animations that make them seem elderly - hence the "Pop like Popcorn" for the suddenly pop and clutching their side/back and "Lost Time" for when they do that whole dementia-like action for those who want their Sims to have those habits. The "Fearless Flatulence" was a definite joke, inspired by the goofball trait, but I wasn't particularly serious about it.
Yeah, though... I was totally serious about the "Champion Complainer" and the "Like Age Wine" suggestions just like I was about the canes and walkers, though. I would totally dig a grumpy elder and could see other Sims talking to him/her/whatever either becoming bored as heck by the complaining, inspired or energized by an amazing story of the past and whatnot. Then a wise elder Sim... that is how I think of the person my elder Sim was based on. They would be the one Sims would actually care to get advice from, would have an extremely high chance of being cheered up by in a thoughtful way and such.
There, we are equally long-winded. :D
unseenlarks,
Ah, understood. (Regarding your personal story.) I think I got passionate about the gardening because now that the person I've based my elder Sim off of is an elder by age standard, I get to help in the grunt work of her gardening. Give me the hedge clippers... I get to hack all the unwanted tree limbs (and there are a lot of trees) and prune all the plants that have grown quite tall, gather them all up and pile them. Stepping in stray animal *, getting dirt and fallen tree debris shower all over me and gaining "battle scars" from the thorny suckers are the perks. Relocating heavy potted plants when the weather changes is a blast, too. The thorns always get me then. Eh, the things you do for those one loves. :}
Yeah, I can definitely see canes and walkers being for anyone, but I only put in ideas on a limited level since the Sims is fairly limited despite the great progress it has made over the years. Ah, AI... so dang complex. Until then, however... if there were at least canes and walkers available, those who have the time could likely make mods that make them available to all Sims that are big enough to use the set size for a cane or walker. I would have also thrown in a wheelchair suggestion as I have seen a decent amount of Simmers request mods for that or at the very least a set up with chairs converted to look like wheelchairs so they can make snapshots of their Sims as their characters should be.
I guess I just see the Sims elders as a bit flat because as mentioned in previous posts, I spent a good amount of time with RL elders... I even live in a retirement town. Elders can be cool as heck, especially when they have stories to tell.
That kill elder, thing... I wasn't implying you wished to, I just know there are Simmers who like to off their Sims or NPCs in the game for kicks.
'Sorry if the dementia comment has made you uncomfortable. It is a fairly common term for me, since a late relative of mine actually had it... and then there is a friend who had a late relative who had Alzheimer's. Thus, the action I speak of seeing being present in all the Sim Elders action loops whether they are part of my Sims Family or just a NPC... I find that pretty insulting. When I see the action, it just takes me back to my family member who had dementia. It just feels like a huge stereotype of all elders having weaker, forgetful minds because they are old. Here is the action: at 1:57 and 2:24 They do that often when there is no one around as though they are talking to thin air.
I dunno, maybe I am just somehow "lucky" and my Sims keep winding up in places where they are near an elder Sim and that animation decides to take action. I mean, the last game I played with one of my Sim families, they went on a romantic date so one could propose to the other and as I was working on getting them in a romantic mood, the elderly bartender gets off shift and right as she is outside the bar she does that. There is no one near, she looks around lost, asks some sort of confused question to thin air, sighs and plops into a wilted position. WTF?
Not all simmers agreed with your thoughts in this conversation(since there were plenty of simmers in the past that felt/thought that the elder sims were simply to young looking and acting and wanted a more gradual aging process) maybe a alternative is to have various amounts of healty and unhealthy lifestyle choices affecting the amount of various gradual aging process after affects/by products given to the elder sims.
Huh... 'never saw this post under this before until now. Anyway, yeah, I get that. The world is full of diversity. That is why I wanted to know if the creators would ever consider giving the Elders a bit more diversity and tweak things so that they could still do things Adult Sims do, but at a more moderate pace that wouldn't send them into the red zone and possible death if they did something "strenuous" again too soon afterward. Thus, the main thing I mentioned was Active Sims. If my active elder wants to exercise, they should be able to. Thus, I wondered if things could be tweaked to add more options to them. Rather than running and winding up in pain, give an option for elder Sims to be able to power walk or just walk when they want to exercise.
Then the other thing was the idle animations. While they were truthful, they were also too stereotypical and a bit insulting. I wondered if they could be given different ones and if so, maybe those could go with different traits only elder Sims could have. At least that way I wouldn't constantly see elder Sims look like their back went out and hear a loud crack in the process or appear suddenly lost, shrug their lower arms out and ask, "Sequioa?" to thin air. (I saw what you did there in Growing Together, EA!)
So, when you say previous Simmers wanted alternatives and a more gradual aging process... that was sort of what I was saying in my posts, but along with that to "flesh them out more" with elder only traits. (I'm glad Growing Together does that some.)
