Should sims go through puberty?

I'm in the no camp as well. For one, timing it is very hard, as it starts at like 8 or 9 for some, and not til 14 or later for others, and doesn't happen as a singular event but a slow and ongoing series of visible and not-visible changes and isn't as readily leant to standardizing.

They'd also need to have a different timeline and way of playing out puberty for each sex, and possibly, to be fair, add in an intersex category because let's face it, not everyone is actually even physically neatly binary even though we are a mammalian species and do generally and usually come in male or female, anatomically. So a certain small percentage of Sims would need to be intersex.

Then, to be fair also, there needs to be acknowledgement of the end-game, the midlife hormonal changes and/or declines that affect men and women and intersex people, again, on differing but overlapping timelines, to differing but overlapping degrees...

They could handle it with the same slapdash stereotyping as is done with teen puberty, standardizing it to a shallow formula of: erectile dysfunction, muscle loss, fat gain, depression, and the buying of a little red sportscar for males, and for females, alternating between rage and tears, depression, muscle loss and fat gain also, and unpredictable changes in libido also, and...whatever the female analogue is to the buying of a little red sportscar, in the stereotypes.

I can see lots of reasons to leave it alone.

That's a big fat no for me, that's not something I would be interested. I have 3 girls in RL who are each 5 years apart in age, I did female teens for 15 years straight, one would turn 18 and then the next one would turn 13 that same year and then repeat again .... so no thank you!

Puberty? Probably not, but it depends on what that entails. Lifestages being actually different from each other? 100 times yes. As people have mentioned above we already have mood swings, and if you use mods, Slice Of Life has an amazing skincare and menstruation system. I think instead of adding more lifestages that will have barely any decent CAS items and 0 gameplay depth, we just need to improve what we have already.

The young sims are not very interesting to me, but I think the phases are supposed to be associative of puberty feelings.

The midlife crisis idea from TS3 is good, just to change things up a bit. It's fun when sims are different from eachother.

I would love for sims to have menstruation, free to pick in CAS, just like gender. It could be a puberty feature, then lost when entering elder state. Elders can’t get pregnant in The Sims and that would be a good 'explanation'.

Some ideas for implementation would be moodlets of nausea, cramps migraine, elatedness, lust. It should be able to bring down the timer for the moodlets by for instance exercise, eating cookies, woohooing. I want bloody sheats and clothes.
Teenagers could have an embarressing talk about it.

Edit: I thought this thread was posted in Game Feedback.

"Simburian;c-17713008" wrote:
No. They might put in the menopause and men's mid-life crisis too! :o

Didn't we have midlife crisis in Sims 3 where you had to satisfy every single want that they had regardless of how silly or relationship-wrecking it was if you wanted your sim to actually be in a good mood?

"LeanneStrong57;d-983018" wrote:
I think it would make the game more interesting than just having stages of life.

"ktalexander;c-17716182" wrote:

"Movotti;c-17712372" wrote:
The only additional thing that could be added to the concept, would be for teens to obsess over things, like particular books, movies, music, and celebrities.

I love this idea!!

"Simburian;c-17713008" wrote:
No. They might put in the menopause and men's mid-life crisis too! :o

I think it would be an interesting little touch to have a female Sim, a few days before ageing up to an elder, start fanning herself and getting overheated moodlets at random.

I'm all for changes that make the life stages more different than just what the Sims look like. Currently, I think all of the Sims from teenager to elder are too similar.

Yes I agree with this. We had acne in sims 2, so why not? And I don´t understand why we don´t have menstruation/periods in the game, maybe a base game update to a Generations pack/packs? Puberty and menopause for pre-teens/middle aged sims? I mean come on it's 2020 there is nothing shameful about periods. PERIOD.

I'm a little surprised by everyone's reactions here! I didn't think so many people would be against it. I'm personally a family oriented player so I would gladly welcome anything that fleshes out the life stages more. And puberty, as terrible as it was for many of us, is a natural phase in life.

That being said, I'm not sure what more you want them to add. In previous games, Sims could get acne and mood swings. Those features are always really fun to play with as they add a new dimension to the gameplay.

I'm not against them adding anything more realistic than that, but I'm struggling to think of how it could make the gameplay better. The Slice of Life mod had periods as a feature, but they ended up being more trouble than they were worth, in my opinion. I don't want to micromanage my Sim everytime they get their period nor do I want them to suddenly be bombarded with a bunch of "uncomfortable" moodlets, no matter how realistic that may be for some.

I think a good compromise would be adding a chance card in, instead of implementing periods or...other stuff. (I'm not sure how specific we can get on this forum, so I'm trying to play it safe!) For example, your teenage sim might have a chance card mentioning their first period. Or a chance card mentioning they bled through their pants. Then players who aren't interested in that aspect don't have to see anything and it's relatively easy enough to ignore, while also adding to that awkward teenage goodness for storytellers/family oriented gamers and helping that life state become more defined.

What do ya'll think?

"GamecubeLover26;c-17816238" wrote:
I'm a little surprised by everyone's reactions here! I didn't think so many people would be against it. I'm personally a family oriented player so I would gladly welcome anything that fleshes out the life stages more. And puberty, as terrible as it was for many of us, is a natural phase in life.

That being said, I'm not sure what more you want them to add. In previous games, Sims could get acne and mood swings. Those features are always really fun to play with as they add a new dimension to the gameplay.

I'm not against them adding anything more realistic than that, but I'm struggling to think of how it could make the gameplay better. The Slice of Life mod had periods as a feature, but they ended up being more trouble than they were worth, in my opinion. I don't want to micromanage my Sim everytime they get their period nor do I want them to suddenly be bombarded with a bunch of "uncomfortable" moodlets, no matter how realistic that may be for some.

I think a good compromise would be adding a chance card in, instead of implementing periods or...other stuff. (I'm not sure how specific we can get on this forum, so I'm trying to play it safe!) For example, your teenage sim might have a chance card mentioning their first period. Or a chance card mentioning they bled through their pants. Then players who aren't interested in that aspect don't have to see anything and it's relatively easy enough to ignore, while also adding to that awkward teenage goodness for storytellers/family oriented gamers and helping that life state become more defined.

What do ya'll think?

Haha yes, I’m a little surprised too!

I don´t play with mods/CC (cause my technique skill is -10 so I can’t fix the game if a mod/CC breaks it… :# ), so I don’t know how the slice of life mod works (just seen some of it when watching other simmers videos, and some of the realistic features look fun). I would just be happy with some moodlets once in a while and particularly around puberty/middle age. Maybe some moodlets with cramps/pms until menopause but just once in a while, not to often.

I don´t like that acne in sims 4 is a “mask” that you need to add in CAS. I hope they could improve this, make it possible for sims to get pimples every now and then, skin care treatments and some moodlets related to this.

While I do wish the various pre-adult life stages were longer, more meaningful, and with more to do, this is not one of them. I see no need for it, personally.

I thought acne was 'puberty' in the sims ?