Teens are boring

"MidnightAura;c-16263211" wrote:
Parenthood improved teens but I agree they are still lacking.

I strongly disagree that if you think this you must have no imagination. In real life I’m a writer, I have plenty of imagination but my imagination and dare I say it is stifled in this game which is why I struggle with it as a story telling platform.

I had a teen who because I gave him the Mischief Aspiration the game gave him lots of mischief whims, all fine. Some of them targeted towards his Mum which I went with. I figured rebellious teen striking out at his Mum. His mum would get angry but as soon as the mischief interaction finished she would initiate friendly conversation. That limits my story telling and limits me I feel. I spent days fulfilling his whims to be mischievous to his mum and it took until the day before he aged to adulthood for the relationship bar to go red and for them to get the “disliked” marker. I’m guessing I was supposed to imagine that their relationship was difficult and certainly with all the mischief and mean interactions it should have been but it wasn’t.
During his teen years my sim (the same one) went through a rebellious stage.

Great! I thought. The reality of this rebellious stage was a weird zombie shuffle and lots of autonomous friendly interactions and hugs every time he saw his family members. The phase said he was supposed to challenge authority and not want to do his homework. But clearly no one told him as in between being super nice to his family, he automatically did his homework and extra credit and maintained his A grade in school and filled his responsibility bar to the top. I’m guessing I’m supposed to use my imagination there too and imagine he was being this smart plum, cheeky teen that needed a firm hand.

I had him break his curfew. Other than a text from his Mother at 11pm, my sim strolled in at 4:30 in the morning to find his Mum dancing in the living room. She didn’t even look up or react to her teenage son breaking his curfew. He walked into the room with a bowl of cereal and started watching the kids network, no harm no foul. Was I meant to imagine that she was unhappy her son had been disobedient and stayed out till the small hours? I know, I know, I’m meant to cancel her dance interaction and have her “parent him” but the truth is I don’t really see the point other than to grind the character value bar one way or another. My sim didn’t care that her kid stayed out all night. Had I not made her react she wouldn’t have given a monkeys. And the second the parenting interaction I choose her to use has ran, it’s back to one of them spamming friendly interactions on the other. To me that is limiting. That’s ruining the story I may want to tell. What if I don’t want them to be best buds until I say otherwise? What if I want her to be so annoyed by the presence of her son one of them walks away? They start being mean to each other? I don’t want to have to imagine that scenario and currently I do have to.

Teens need more to do for sure. The only thing separating my teens from adults and children is the friendly interactions like show off selfie, obsess about band etc. But these interactions don’t have any significant game play. I want to see my teens be able to have sleepovers, to go to after school activities, to have prom and graduate. I want to see them care about school (or not care) and to see them wanting to have their first relationship, first kiss with x. I want them to want to hang out with their friends and I wish their mood swings actually had a significant impact on their lives and relationships. I want them to sneak out and at the very least get a whim for it. All my teens want is to research vampires, buy a pool, buy a dishwasher, go for a jog, do push ups, buy a puppet theatre and watch the culture network. Which is the same whim list pretty much every sim of any age above toddler gets. I want them to behave like teens that isn’t pushed by me. I don’t want to have to pretend that my teens are something they are not basically.

Thank you so much for the detailed example.

I'll never understand the "Well, if you had a better imagination..." stance.

If I wanted to use nothing but my imagination, I'd spend much less money and buy some Barbies. At least, they wouldn't fight me every step of the way. If I think Barbie is angry at Ken, she's angry at Ken. If I think a Sim is upset with another Sim, they take a selfie, start up a conversation, then hug each other.

They prove me a liar every single time.