Anyone else feel relieved once they get to the “teen” life stage?

I like babies and toddlers but not children. The toddler movements and sounds are cute but then as soon as they turn into children, they move like zombies. I wish they had given Sims in the child stage as much personality as they did the toddlers.

"Tony89;c-17526541" wrote:

"A_Mom;c-17526512" wrote:
I love playing with toddlers. One of my saves right now I’ve got a mom with 7 toddlers. My rules are that I can’t play the toddlers at all, only the mom and no cheats (except aging is off). The mom has to keep all the toddlers needs in the green as well as max their skills. It’s like one of those time management games only more fun.

I don’t really like the child and teen ages because there seems to be no time to do anything except school and homework. It gets to be a grind.

Did I read that you said 7 toddlers correctly?

7!? I can barely manage one toddler geesh lol
Kudos.
Question. What happens when your toddlers grow up? Do choose one to play as an adult and start a new life and family or do you play multiple saves?

IDK, I haven’t gotten that far yet. ? If they don’t get taken away I’ll probably just stop when they’re all maxed in their skills and move on to another save. Right now it’s pretty fun. The house is a wreck. There are dirty dishes on every available surface and the floor. Those kid messes are all over too. My poor sim. I had to remove all the doll houses because the kids destroyed them all but even after I fixed them the sad poor dollies mood let wouldn’t go away and the kids wouldn’t stop crying. I’m starting to get the hang of it though and if you can keep their needs out of the red they’ll grab food off the counter when they’re hungry and put themselves to bed when they’re tired. But until they get potty trained they get dirty really fast and need to be bathed which they can’t do without help.

I have only had one save where my sim married, had a kid and that kid grew up and got married. They all lived in the same house up until the mother died. Then life happened, I had to stop playing for awhile and when I got to play again I just started something different. I usually play in spurts so I find I start over a lot to play a different story.

I love toddlers their gameplay so unique and well made. It's sad that they haven't really received any love since parenthood and toddler stuff.

Kids are pretty fun but kind of lacking too which is unfortunate. What I like about kids is that you can prep for adult skills by getting their childhood skills up. Plus if you age up well as a toddler and a child you'll get a jump start and bonuses as an adult such as faster skill building.

Parenthood definitely helped family play and those two age groups respectively.

I like teens but teens are basically just adults which is unfortunate. They don't seem to be different enough and that bothers me a lot

I enjoy toddlers. I think they’re actually easier than teens with all the teen mood swings.

It’s definitely a bit of a relief because it means the pressure of completing every child aspiration is over. I hate the social aspiration so much, it’d be way better if sims liked chatting on the computer more. Why are some interactions “until I wander off” while others are “I’ll keep going until I’m starving”?

Yes. I 100% support having all these lifestages in the game and improving them to be more fulfilling for each player. But I'm always relieved once they're kids because my toddlers keep glitching and not eating at daycare and starving so it's super stressful. Kids and toddlers don't have much they can do anyway that's super interesting.

Plus, I like to see how their genes turn out, and you don't get a good idea until the teen stage.

"Sindocat;c-17528542" wrote:
I definitely look forward to Teen, but "relieved" is a bit strong.

When my Sims have kids, a big part of the appeal is seeing how genetics express themselves, and Teen is my first good look at the adult features. I am not wild about mood swings, but they can be coped with and I do enjoy having my Teens take the initiative to work through that appropriately - work on that Emotional Control!

That said, I like my Children as well, and in my opinion TS4 Toddlers are the best they ever have been. Not all of the developmental tricks for good behavior are obvious but I notice that increasing Thinking (Mental? Which is the Toddler skill again? That one, anyway) gets them to fill their Hunger motive when eating, rather than stopping as soon as it reaches green, and helps with sleeping through the night. With children, messes become less prevalent as they become more creatively skilled, and mine seem to mostly confine their messes to their art area or outdoors.

The stage I am least invested in is infant, which I prolong only to assure that an older toddler is already potty trained before I start on the next. I also do not look forward particularly to Adult and Elder life stages. I think Elders, particularly, could use some development, and I would far, far rather see a "golden years" type game pack giving them more exploration than i would be in "freed" babies.

One thing I do notice is that my siblings stay close across life-stages. Teens need their own room, as I play them, but when Brodie got "monsters under the bed" alone in the nursery, he totally napped off the rest of the night with his big brother, who didn't mind. I love when they autonomously queue up things like this. :)

https://i.imgur.com/dU0IbCP.png

The elder life stage seems the most underdeveloped
Also my elder sims always die super fast ,
No matter the life stage they always die within a week of turning into en elderly, I wish they would stay alive without cheat and mods long enough to see their great grand kids atleast

"Tony89;d-976636" wrote:
For me playing babies through child stage feels like a draining chore. The clothing and hair are limited and terrible, their is nothing actually fun for toddlers, and kids to do, and I have all of the stuff packs for toddlers and kids, but once they get to the teen life stage, I just feel a big sigh of relief and like my game is balanced and fun again.


Anyone actually enjoy toddler and kid life stages out there??

Yes. lots of us enjoy the toddlers. Teens are the least unique to me.

I always age up babies the day after they’re born because the crying annoys me.
Toddlers, I don’t mind. The fact that they can eat adult food, instead of having to have it blended as in Sims 3, is so convenient, and they can grab it for themselves! I also like the fact that they can build skills on their own rather than having to have an adult teach them. I never bother trying to get them to max all the toddler skills, it’s impossible on the normal lifespan anyway. I get them to focus on one in particular.
I don’t mind kids either. I also never bother to get them to max all the skills or complete all the aspirations. Social Butterfly is a difficult one so I never bother with it, I usually have my kids do Artistic Prodigy or Rambunctious Scamp. Whiz Kid is OK but it’s not particularly easy getting an adult to read with them for two hours.

I did once play with the Long lifespan and got the child to master all the toddler skills and achieve all the child aspirations which was fun. I have a current save where I’m doing that too but the kids are only toddlers currently, and they’ve already mastered Imagination and Movement.

I have pretty much the opposite experience.

Sims 4 toddlers are the best Sims toddlers, imo. I love the way that they essentially grow up incrementally via their skills, and I've personally been able to get every toddler to level 5 in all skills that I've wanted to do so, even on normal lifespan with MCCC set to make skills harder. It does require making the household pretty much revolve around the toddler though, so I have to decide early on if we're going to go chill and get the level 3 trait or go for the gold. For me, all of that is fun!

Children have several child-only accomplishments and activities as well, at least if you have Parenthood and Kid's Room stuff. If they finish all of the aspirations I want them to do and get their A in school, there's still character values and scouting/drama club to max, as well as purely fun things like void critter training and puppet shows.

Teens, on the other hand, I find to be pretty meh. There's nothing much that makes them feel unique compared to young adults, but they can't really get started on careers or building a family, etc. Once they've tied up any loose ends from childhood and gotten their A, they just feel like a pause button between child and YA. Even skilling on them feels less useful with University now, since classes will build the skills for their career anyway and it's not like university is expensive enough to worry about getting lots of skill scholarships.

I know a lot of people want improvements for babies and elders, but I want them for teens the most.