Adult life stages need to be longer, proportionally
Okay, so I am well aware there are mods for what I'm gonna talk about, I in fact use them myself much of the time, but just cause there's a mod doesn't mean it not a problem, so I'm gonna talk about this cause it's been bugging me for a while. I think I've seen a mention of this kind of thing else where, but I'm not sure it had its own thread and I can't remember where it was anyway.
The young adult and adult life stages just aren't long enough in proportion to other aspects of the game.
First, if you play out all the earlier life stages (baby, toddler, child, teen), you get a total of of 37 days, while young adult and adult gets comes to 48 days, plus 10 odd days as an elder. So, let's say your sim had the big happy family aspiration and needs 4 grandchildren--that means you basically need to have children IMMIDIATELY, and then have THOSE children have children as soon as they age up, in order to even have a chance of completing it without mods, or cheats, or greatly abusing youth potions lol.
It doesn't even really make sense to me. Let's say young adult starts at age 20 (could be make arguments for other ages, but I'm gonna try to keep it simple). Then, I would say elder starts at 70, but let's make it 60, just to give the benefit of the doubt. So, baby through the end of teen stage is about 20 years, and then young and adult and adult should be 40 years (age 20 to 60). So, logically, young adult and adult together should equal to the twice the total time spent in the younger life stages, in order to be proportional, so, closer to 75 total days as an adult vs 37 as a pre-adult.
And then there's University. Oh boy, university. You need to basically spend at least 3 weeks going to university to get ONE degree. That's 21 days--nearly an entire young adult or adult life stage, of you're playing on the normal lifespan. Now, in real life, the (typical) time spent at university is about 4 years, but let's say it's 5 to make the math easier: 5 out of 40 adult years, or about 12 percent, or 1/8th of that time. But 21 days out of 48? That's nearly 45 percent of the total adult life span. Which is just...ridiculous. I'm not sure there's a way to make those 3 weeks not ridiculous, cause if we're saying 21 days = 4 years, then the total adult life span would need to be something like 200 days in order to be proportional, so not sure how to fix that exactly, but as it is now is definitely far too skewed.
I mean, let's say you want to play a sim on normal life span, have them go to university, then get married, then have kids, then play with their grandchildren. So you go to university as soon as you age up, complete everything perfectly in 3 weeks (21 days), manage to meet your soul mate while at school, get married and have a baby right after graduation, have that baby grow up to young adult (+37 days for a total of 58 days), and, oh wait you're probably dead by now. This is a pretty basic thing that shouldn't be that impossible to do.
Expanding the adult life stages to a total of 75 days would absolutely help make this kind of thing more feasible. Also, being able to adjust the amount of credits needed to graduate to suit whether you're playing on short, normal or long lifespan might help as well. But, at the very least, the adult life stages should be proportional to the other lifestages. It doesn't make sense to spend 37 days as a minor and only 48 as an adult before becoming an elder. That's not what life looks like, and it throws off all the dynamics with multiple generations. I've seen some people wanting to add more life stages like pre-teen or a stage between toddler and child, but I cannot imagine that working unless that also expand the lengths of the young adult and adult life stages in order to compensate to be proportional to these extended childhoods.
Anyway, I hope I've made my point. Again, yes, I know there's mods, I use them, but I don't think I should have to for something as basic as this. And I really don't think this would be too hard of a fix either. Thank you for your time, if you've read this whole rambling thing lmao.
The young adult and adult life stages just aren't long enough in proportion to other aspects of the game.
First, if you play out all the earlier life stages (baby, toddler, child, teen), you get a total of of 37 days, while young adult and adult gets comes to 48 days, plus 10 odd days as an elder. So, let's say your sim had the big happy family aspiration and needs 4 grandchildren--that means you basically need to have children IMMIDIATELY, and then have THOSE children have children as soon as they age up, in order to even have a chance of completing it without mods, or cheats, or greatly abusing youth potions lol.
It doesn't even really make sense to me. Let's say young adult starts at age 20 (could be make arguments for other ages, but I'm gonna try to keep it simple). Then, I would say elder starts at 70, but let's make it 60, just to give the benefit of the doubt. So, baby through the end of teen stage is about 20 years, and then young and adult and adult should be 40 years (age 20 to 60). So, logically, young adult and adult together should equal to the twice the total time spent in the younger life stages, in order to be proportional, so, closer to 75 total days as an adult vs 37 as a pre-adult.
And then there's University. Oh boy, university. You need to basically spend at least 3 weeks going to university to get ONE degree. That's 21 days--nearly an entire young adult or adult life stage, of you're playing on the normal lifespan. Now, in real life, the (typical) time spent at university is about 4 years, but let's say it's 5 to make the math easier: 5 out of 40 adult years, or about 12 percent, or 1/8th of that time. But 21 days out of 48? That's nearly 45 percent of the total adult life span. Which is just...ridiculous. I'm not sure there's a way to make those 3 weeks not ridiculous, cause if we're saying 21 days = 4 years, then the total adult life span would need to be something like 200 days in order to be proportional, so not sure how to fix that exactly, but as it is now is definitely far too skewed.
I mean, let's say you want to play a sim on normal life span, have them go to university, then get married, then have kids, then play with their grandchildren. So you go to university as soon as you age up, complete everything perfectly in 3 weeks (21 days), manage to meet your soul mate while at school, get married and have a baby right after graduation, have that baby grow up to young adult (+37 days for a total of 58 days), and, oh wait you're probably dead by now. This is a pretty basic thing that shouldn't be that impossible to do.
Expanding the adult life stages to a total of 75 days would absolutely help make this kind of thing more feasible. Also, being able to adjust the amount of credits needed to graduate to suit whether you're playing on short, normal or long lifespan might help as well. But, at the very least, the adult life stages should be proportional to the other lifestages. It doesn't make sense to spend 37 days as a minor and only 48 as an adult before becoming an elder. That's not what life looks like, and it throws off all the dynamics with multiple generations. I've seen some people wanting to add more life stages like pre-teen or a stage between toddler and child, but I cannot imagine that working unless that also expand the lengths of the young adult and adult life stages in order to compensate to be proportional to these extended childhoods.
Anyway, I hope I've made my point. Again, yes, I know there's mods, I use them, but I don't think I should have to for something as basic as this. And I really don't think this would be too hard of a fix either. Thank you for your time, if you've read this whole rambling thing lmao.
