Is this just me or have others noticed this as well? I don't often play with the elder life stage, because my Sims are typically immortal for story purposes. I was finding it odd though that nearly every time I saw an NPC elder in the game they were running around and screaming into the abyss with a fear moodlet. So I decided to investigate, and it turns out that every elder in my game has a fear of death. I'm sorry, WHAT?! This better be a glitch that will be fixed soon, or else hello ageist much! Contrary to whatever huzzah for youth marketing BS might be at play here, there are many, many folks from older generations who are out living their lives & making the most of their years without feeling the need to run around like old man Simpson screaming 'DEAAAATTTHHH' at every random little thing. Seriously EA, I really hope this is just a glitch, because if not the company should be ashamed of themselves for their ageist attitudes. Please tell me it's not just me this is happening to, and that this is a glitch that is going to be fixed, like pronto.

I can't say it's a glitch or that it's going to get fixed. What I will say is it's happening to me as well. Well, two of the elders that were briefly in my current household. They were just a few short days from dying of old age when I moved them in with their daughter, who is married to my main sim. To me, that made sense because they were close to the end of their lives. The weird thing, not really related to the fear, is that Christopher died and I didn't get a notification for him. I did get a notification for his wife, Melanie, and that's how I knew he had died. I never saw him lying on the ground or anything.

I’m hoping it’s a glitch, too. I saw people talking about it so I made an elder sim to check it out for myself and I played with her a couple of sim days - no fear of death. I was like, well, this isn’t so bad, and shut my game down. The next time I opened her household, she was in a blind panic about death. I had her go to the Chalet in Windenburg to talk to the ghosts there and ‘discuss her fear of death’. The fear went away and did not return for the rest of that play session, but then I visited another household and when I went back to the elder, yup, the extreme fear was back. That seems like a bug.Like you said, it’s highly unrealistic. Not all elderly folk sit around obsessing about death. Mostly because they have a variety of ways to deal with it - hobbies, interests, social groups, playing with grandkids, spirituality (meditation, prayer, going to church/temple/synagogue/mosque). I knew an elderly woman with severe emphysema who was still happy as a clam because she went to the casino (with her oxygen tank!) and played the slot machines every day. It wouldn’t be so bad for that fear to pop up in-game if the sim had a variety of ways to get rid of it. I’m going to play with my elder sim some more and see if other things will get rid of it. Otherwise, she’s gonna be REALLY good friends with Mimsy, I guess.ETA: I’ve been testing things with my elder sim and I’m finding that while nothing else directly gets rid of the fear, it comes and goes on its own. I had her meditate until bedtime and that didn’t work, of course. But when she woke up the next morning it was gone and now, a few sim hours later it’s back. She’s having a bbq with the neighbors, though, and doesn’t even seem to notice. When things slow down, she’ll show signs of the fear again. It’s like other bad moodlets, then.

I don't have any Elders, yet. I have aging off temporarily, until my Teens begin high school. Then I will flick it back on.As for the lack of notifications regarding death, that does sound like a glitch. I lost my Global Superstar who was still a YA. The camera never even brought me to him. The only clue I had that something untoward was occurring was that little sad chime of music. And that his wife, busily making PB & J sandwiches (she had four school aged kids) suddenly had a moodlet that she lost the love of her life. If you are able to, I would roll back to the earlier save and see if the dearly departed are still with you. I took the camera to the back yard, where Erik was supposed to be tending to the Chickens. I found a tombstone marked with his name and nothing else. No clue as to what took him. I rolled back and kept him out of the Chicken yard to alter the chain of events.

I've been playing in Sulani the whole day, and every second townie I bump into is screaming in fear and running around. Some are elders, some aren't, but it sure is annoying. :( I did not check out if they had a fear, but they all had the scared moodlet.

I'm not sure if unplayed sims are supposed to get fears but it feels like they do, that means that every unplayed elder will have fear of death.It certainly feels like the cooldown timer between fears keeps going even if you are not playing your sims, I keep getting hit with fears every time I load into another household, especially fear of unfulfilled dreams and fear of dead-end job.And yes, all of my elder sims seem to get fear of death as well.

All elders have fear of death? | EA Forums

28 Replies

Simmerville
Legend
3 years ago
Was this bug with the original wants/fears introduction or did this problem appear later?
bmso85
3 years ago
"Simmerville;c-18178078" wrote:
Was this bug with the original wants/fears introduction or did this problem appear later?

It's apart of the wants and fears bug, Young Adults and Adults get this fear sometimes for no reason the same with the fear of the dark bug when in broad daylight.
MVWdeZT
Seasoned Ace
3 years ago
One of my young adults occasionally gets the fear of death. Interestingly, the way to get rid of it is to talk to an elder or a ghost, and then discuss fears with someone.
juliem_1986
3 years ago
That was annoying for me too. I even tried to remove the afraid of the dark fear mood let with the cheats and it still kept popping up. Just more glitches I guess. Oh joy lol

"FiendishlyDelighted;c-18178226" wrote:
The fear of the dark is the worst for me. Impossible to get rid of without going confident outside, and if you are trying to get your sim to "search for the truth" you need to be focused, not terrified or scared, not confident, just focused. It has literally killed my storytelling attempts at alien abduction with one of my sims -_-

Having the "brave trait" doesn't help, at all, or reduce the chance of fears. It was added in and really does more Gameplay harm than good. I'd gladly throw out all my aspiration points for a fearless reward trait to purchase to prevent my sims from getting this. I'm not sure what the devs were thinking with this one either. I mean, why didn't they just pay someone to play with it first for a week. Surely that person would've pointed out it just takes over the whole game and not in a good way.
EgonVM
Seasoned Ace
3 years ago
"FiendishlyDelighted;c-18178226" wrote:
The fear of the dark is the worst for me. Impossible to get rid of without going confident outside, and if you are trying to get your sim to "search for the truth" you need to be focused, not terrified or scared, not confident, just focused. It has literally killed my storytelling attempts at alien abduction with one of my sims -_-

Having the "brave trait" doesn't help, at all, or reduce the chance of fears. It was added in and really does more Gameplay harm than good. I'd gladly throw out all my aspiration points for a fearless reward trait to purchase to prevent my sims from getting this. I'm not sure what the devs were thinking with this one either. I mean, why didn't they just pay someone to play with it first for a week. Surely that person would've pointed out it just takes over the whole game and not in a good way.

Yup, the brave trait only prevents the fear of dark and the fear of ghosts. The fear of death has no traits that prevent it.

I do think that the fear of death should come to elders who have the fear of unfulfilled dreams or some such, because the main thing would be that "I'm not ready to go yet! I haven't fulfilled my goals!" thing. But other than that, I don't see a point of the fear of death for all elders. Yes, it does keep them from doing risky things, but it also makes them run away from the Grim Reaper.
I know that the High School Years were developed with teen life stage in mind, but elders are long no longer teens!
lucyvp86
3 years ago
I'm glad there aren't any elders in my game. There are enough issues/bugs without adding more.

Newsflash, EA, not all elders are afraid of dying. Many are out there living their lives to the fullest and honestly having more fun that people half their age, to be that free!
EgonVM
Seasoned Ace
3 years ago
Well then... Unfortunately I'm here to say that this thing is a bug.

I feel like the intention was to put the fear of death to sims who aged up to elders, but something went wrong. Due to this, every time you go through a loading screen, all the elders in your household have a chance of getting the fear of death. Even when they have overcome it before. Even when they have overcome it as an elder. The fear of death may still reappear to them. This is annoying.

What's ironic is that in order to overcome the fear of death, your sim must discuss their fears with either a ghost or an elder.
EmeraldEyles
Seasoned Ace
3 years ago
This is one 8 sim hours period in my game, and these are just the elders I managed to get screen shots of.

https://i.imgur.com/jveZcEN.png

https://i.imgur.com/R6r2xbz.png

https://i.imgur.com/HmssATm.png

https://i.imgur.com/YWOOQ1d.png

It's not just business venues either - go to a festival, elder sims are running around terrified and screaming in people's faces; go to a pub/bar, elder sims are running around terrified and screaming in people's faces; go to a nightclub, elder sims are running around terrified and screaming in people's faces; go to a park; elder sims are running around terrified and screaming in people's faces. Basically go literally anywhere in the game where elder sims might be, and every single one of them is running around terrified and screaming in people's faces.

I'd find this amusing if it wasn't for the insulting levels of ageism & the consideration of how this might effect the gameplay enjoyment of older simmers (I'm fairly confident that a lot of the older sim's players, of whom there are more than a minority on this forum alone, would not want to see every elder sim in their game acting like the butt of some absurdist joke).

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All elders have fear of death?

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