Teens are boring

"MLadyAzzera;c-16263670" wrote:
While I do agree it would be nice to see teens fleshed out more, I think sometimes simmers like myself it does not occur to them how to play in new ways. There are a few things I've done to make the teen life stage more interesting in my game.

1.) GP Parenthood - I play up to their mood swings as much as possible. Ex. If they have the loud music swing, I put a stereo in their room and lock the door for every sim but the teen, have them jam out as much as possible, and learn to play an instrument.

2.) EP Get Together - I love to form teen only clubs. I usually make their main lot a teen hangout. I have a teen coffee club who go to internet cafes, a swim club who hang out by the pool, a spa club that tends to have snobby teen sims, and a karaoke club. I think my next teen club may be a movie club or a video game club. It's cool to see my teen sims begin to become more independent without their parents around and begin to create their own relationships. I also have a bowling club, book club, and paint club that teens to elders can join, which is nice because as in real life, sometimes as a teen you meet older people who have the same interests (like the sims, lol). I try to pick a club for my teens that relate to their personality traits.

3.) GP Dine Out - Ah, young love. I like to give my sims a high school sweetheart and will often take them out on dinner dates. I remember my awkward teen dates at restaurants and I like to put my sims through the same experience. Also, I like to have them continue a romantic relationship into young adulthood, but I would like to try to have a teen couple break up because I'm too nice for my sims and been trying to play a bit more out of my comfort zone. That, and you know...real life...

4.) GP Parenthood - I like to have my sims break curfew and go with their friends to somewhere like Ancient Ruins to have a bonfire and some late night swimming and maybe even getting that first kiss. I like to have them skip school the next day, because you know, teens always make great life choices...(not)


Does anyone else play teens in different ways?

I play the same way. My experience though is slightly different in some ways as as I said before if I habe a rebellious teen, the "moodswing" has very little impact and while I do try to play on it as soon as I let them be idle it's back to the sims being friendly towards each other. I had a teen who went through a phase of wanting to be alone but yet all her whims were to hang out with her Dad and her sister and she naturally chose activities that favoured being in the same room as them if not talking to them, the only way she could have been on her own in keeping with her moodswing was to lock her in the room.

It's my experience that I can play my teens as teens but they don't really behave like teens either in form of whims being generic and available for all age groups and there's very little teenage behaviours and game play exclusive to them. Social interactions not counted as that's not game play and many of the animations are the same for others. For example show off selfie is the same as share photos.

I play all the versions of the sims. My play style doesn't change for teens unless it's the sims 4. It's almost like my teens don't want to be teens. Again see my previous post about teens not caring about how they do in school I,e wanting to get a specific grade, wanting to have their first kiss with a special someone, wanting to go steady, go on dates, wanting to hang out with friends doing teen activities. I have to imagine they want all that when I'm clicking away repeated whims about vampires, buying pools, dishwashers, puppet theatres and whims to cook meals. Teens need more teenage whims to make them feel unique.

How much more can we do with teens? Feel like they reached their limit with this game.

Only other thing I can think of playwise is earning their drivers license but we dont have cars :/

One of the biggest things we need for Teens is, oddly enough, a feature that lets you send a sim off the lot for a set amount of time (not work, just something to get sims you don't want in the way out of the house). Then you can send the parents away for definite period of time and have a Wild Teen Party! What would also be a cool addition to that feature is that siblings could call the parents and spill the beans to trigger a sequence where the parents come home, clear the place out, and scold the host! Now that would be awesome.

"NorthDakotaGamer;c-16263248" wrote:
The game is meant to be played as you want them to react. Of course, leaving the Sims to automously react is not going to give the response you may want. When I play, telling the story, I direct the reactions I think should occur. I do this by using my own imagination.

See my signature. there are so many things that Sims 4 could do with teens. in the older games they could sneak out, run away, ask for permission to go out (or just go without permission), graduate, go to prom, pull pranks, have sleepover parties and learn to drive. if they just added these things teens would be 100x better in this game.

"MidnightAura;c-16263695" wrote:

I,e wanting to get a specific grade, wanting to have their first kiss with a special someone, wanting to go steady, go on dates, wanting to hang out with friends doing teen activities. I have to imagine they want all that when I'm clicking away repeated whims about vampires, buying pools, dishwashers, puppet theatres and whims to cook meals. Teens need more teenage whims to make them feel unique.

I wholeheartedly agree about wants being too repetitive. I find myself constantly X-ing out the same couple of wants over and over again, as if only 6 different wants show up 80% of the time. Not to mention wants that cannot be fulfilled. Today my toddler wanted to paint on an easel at the romance festival that was going on near his apartment. More Wants are needed with an improved balance to the Want generator system.

To me, teens are more interactive and more playable than children. That's because they can learn anything, do most of the stuff, and still go to school etc.
If there ever is going to be a feature implemented that you can set the age spans like we could in TS3, I'd shorten the child stage a lot and keep the teens the same. But to each their own.
(btw I use a lot of mods to make teens more interesting :lol: )

"Toreshinbo;c-16263898" wrote:
To me, teens are more interactive and more playable than children. That's because they can learn anything, do most of the stuff, and still go to school etc.
If there ever is going to be a feature implemented that you can set the age spans like we could in TS3, I'd shorten the child stage a lot and keep the teens the same. But to each their own.
(btw I use a lot of mods to make teens more interesting :lol: )

You have piqued my interest. There are mods to make teens more interesting?!

> @kemisz said:
> Toreshinbo wrote: »
>
> To me, teens are more interactive and more playable than children. That's because they can learn anything, do most of the stuff, and still go to school etc.
> If there ever is going to be a feature implemented that you can set the age spans like we could in TS3, I'd shorten the child stage a lot and keep the teens the same. But to each their own.
> (btw I use a lot of mods to make teens more interesting :lol: )
>
>
>
>
> You have piqued my interest. There are mods to make teens more interesting?!

MCCC makes teens more interesting in that you have the ability to make teens pregnant, and make them autonomously try for baby and/or Woohoo, that can result in them becoming pregnant. If a teen becomes pregnant, and when their parents find out, they get angry moodlets about their child becoming pregnant. Another mod I have is the Teen Prom Mod imported from content in the Sims 2 and 3 which is pretty fun since you get to meet a bunch of teens for your own teen sims to have friends, and even romantic relationships with, plus it brings ALL teens in ALL worlds to that venue, so that is pretty neat. I wish Prom was added to the game though officially. Hopefully that happens if and when a University expansion pack occurs

"AmySims09;c-16263164" wrote:
You're only limited by your imagination o:

Except there's nothing to imagine, other than only daydream that teens are driving_cars/pulling_pranks/riding-a-skateboard/attend-afterschool-activities/graduate/etc. Equivalent to watching pay dry at a wall and pretending your playing TS4 and having fun. Doesn't work for me personally If I were to be honest :)

That's alright.

"NorthDakotaGamer;c-16264030" wrote:

"DragonCat159;c-16264020" wrote:

"AmySims09;c-16263164" wrote:
You're only limited by your imagination o:

Except there's nothing to imagine, other than only daydream that teens are driving_cars/pulling_pranks/riding-a-skateboard/attend-afterschool-activities/graduate/etc. Equivalent to watching pay dry at a wall and pretending your playing TS4 and having fun. Doesn't work for me personally If I were to be honest :)

Guess I DO NOT "need" what you just suggested to have fun playing teens in Sims 4. But then, I also love the simple gameplay Sims 4 offers. If I want more challenge, my go-to game for that is Story of Seasons trio of towns, and that is doing more mundane tasks than Sims 4 offers.

That's alright. Just saying it doesn't really help fuel imagination for me because that's there's barely anything that would do such a thing to immerse into a vivid belief or at the very least not pull me back into disbelief. Teens are almost adult identical to ya/adults with their body physique. How do I not mixed up and confused them to an awkward college student that goes to adult school? Actually, they're not even awkward enough to put the minimal-effort into defying them as such age group individuals, as they don't differ from adults so much in that teen phase/gap. Random acne (TS2) and autonomous mischief pranks (TS3) at least fuel the imagination to believe that they still have adolescence soul in them. That's what fuels my imagination: anything gameplay-impacting that distinguish them from other age groups. I bet 90% players wouldn't tell what/who is a teen or not apart from older sims If it weren't for the age status bar. Lack of imagination I believe has little to do with the issue, and the fault is actually should be lack of mechanics/features.

"Mess around" - a woohoo interaction, in text-string disguise and stripped off without a moodlet.
"Exchange promise rings" - pretty much *hey, marriage/engagement (roleplay) but in a millennial way*.

Wow, that really impacts and fuels my imagination *sarcasm*.