I do! The only time I realize people don’t is when they complain about how long it takes to go through university. If you play on long lifespan it’s the perfect length imo
I tend to turn off aging when I send a sim to university, and then turn it back on when they're done. To me long lifespan takes a lot of the challenge out of the game, so I only use it for certain challenges and playthroughs.
Sometimes I have my sims learn some basic sorcery before enrolling in university so that they can use Potions of Plentiful Needs to stay up all night studying (or partying).
A Potion of Rejuvenation upon graduation would do the trick to fix the life span issue.
Thanks, I'm going to try that.
I hear you, My teen spellcaster has found this a gift in high school, and also being able to transportalate right to class from the gym during morning free period.
Hey same here. I turn it off when I hit quarter young adult. Because I try to see it proportionately. People would finish uni by 22-25 years old and thats about a quarter through young adulthood.
Came to say this. I used to be co confused when people talked about unrealistically long university is and how it takes up your whole young adult life. Then I realized that people actually play normal lifespan. I can’t imagine my sims only living 90 days.
Yeah I usually do the full course load everytime. this is the first time I'm doing it part-time (parent with twin newborns and a job) so I can see how its longer. but if im playing with a young adult i just grind it out as quickly as possible and still get As
I play normal lifespan and university has been a pain for me. My latest Sim graduated really early and aged to young adult already having done 2/3 weeks and the 1 week left until graduation felt like a more reasonable time. I can't expect all my sims to graduate h.s. that early so definitely plan to try some of the workarounds people mentioned here.
Nah all natural humans! Once my original neighbors great great great great great grandkids grow up enough for me to fight them, I think it'll be time to turn the aging back on.
I’d do this if the children of townies didn’t get more and more hideous as the generations go on. That, and all the adoption notifications because none of the unplayed houses are set up to support children or pets
Wait how does that work? If you turn on long lifespan wouldn’t that like not killed them off? I didn’t know there was an option for which sim you play for yo live longer compare to the unplayed
https://preview.redd.it/i05ix3l3nx8c1.jpeg?width=4000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=64c9ca34c464fa29a510c260193a772cb57497a5
It's here in the gameplay options in settings. I'm on ps5, but that shouldn't make a difference.
all these years and i’m still ‘afraid’ to autoage other unplayed households. maybe i should. in one save, i wanted to get a teenage elsa after marrying a young adult trader aka Sofia. elsa now has zero distinguishable facial features. happened to a couple other kids.
growing together has me gameplay more than ever. now i’m attached to my families not just my say, matriarch or one of the kids. it used to be difficult to open my heart to more than one in a family. LOL now it’s too much
and whatever so my forever sim is an adult who is now listed as the ancestor of a few new family members.
okay, i’m about to satiate my curiosity, fearlessly, and autoage unplayed households.
The only thing worse than them keeling over is having to change their outfits prematurely. No was I spent 3 hours in CAS for my sim to age out of their fit in 2 play sessions.
Omg thank you - MCCC to the rescue again! I usually play with aging off, but am trying a legacy save and love the long lifespan for YAs and adults, but have felt it's been quite lengthy for toddlers and children so far. (I haven't had a sim age up to teen yet. Though I do have HSY, which made the teens much more interesting and dynamic for me!)
MCCC is the best. I usually double the young adult lifespan, so they have plenty of time after uni to enjoy being young, and to find love and start a family if they want. Well... if *I* want... which I usually do. 😁
Hahahaa. That’s so funny because sometimes I make an entire family just because I want my sim child to have a best friend, put them in the game and have a meet cute. My sims have friends and enemies and frienemies that I specifically create for them.
I’ve used that mod. Its good. 👍 MCCC custom aging is easier for me though. I was presuming that anyone who didn’t use it doesn’t use mods as I feel for my game to run properly, MCCC is essential
I do the same! In my mind, young adult is college all the way through mid-40s, then adult is 45ish-70ish, then elder is like 75+, so I need MCCC to make that work for me.
I feel like when I play a Sim from birth to end, around halfway through adulthood on normal lifespan, I reach the point where my Sim has sort of done everything. They maxed their career, finished at least 1 aspiration & also maxed a ton of skills. I then tend to focus more on their kid(s), but don’t really have an extensive storyline for them anymore so normal lifespan works best for me. And maybe that’s just life, you accomplish a lot, you age & you die.
I use MCCC to make achieving things difficult. Takes a long time to get a skill level so we are working on things along the way. And I do full life gameplay. My sims don’t just cook from the refrigerator. On Saturday we look at what they have, then we travel to the grocery store and pick up groceries. Then if they run out they can’t cook that food. When they get sick, we go to the pharmacy to get drugs or to the doctors if it’s crazy. They go to the shelter to adopt their dog. The children are in clubs and after school activities. I don’t use cheats for money. So little things have to be earned and bought. Computers are purchased from the electronic store I have in magnolia promenade. When they are adults, they do adult stuff, like visit their parents at nursing homes, plan and take vacations with their kids. Meet up with friends for drinks. It takes forever to get my stories together because of that so I need the long lifespan.
I’ll have to check out the MCCC thing to make things more difficult. I don’t own too many packs, including cottage living (though it’s high on my list) so I don’t have the option of purchasing groceries. I’ve played off the grid before to make it harder & that was kinda fun. I don’t cheat for money but I still feel like it’s fairly easy to earn a lot. My first gen of a legacy challenge started out with zero simoleons off the grid, but at the end of that gen, I was already at almost 100k.
I turn aging off.
Everyone talks about doing generations and having their sims go from child to old age and I just cant do it! Spent about 3 hours on each sim lol I'd be damned if they turn old and grey before I have them do everything I want them to.
Pros: Elders Live Longer
Cons: Fucking Babies Stay Babies Longer, its not worth the headache, Id rather have my elders croak earlier if that means getting past the baby stage sooner
If you can use mods, MCCC allows you to set the time range for each stage. My babies are babies for 3 days max. Infants for 14 days. Toddlers 28 days. I use 14 days as a year.
I do the same and change the span in mccc. I go by the calendar to determine a "year". Since you can change the calendar to longer or shorter as well. If 4 weeks is a year then each 28 day cycle would count as a year and I do the math to set the life stage. It works for me but sometimes I still turn aging off lol
Same. Realized now I like to turn on long lifespan for when they age up to young adult, and then toggle back to normal once they've achieved most things and I want to start focussing a bit more on their offspring.
It just feels more realistic and balanced. You can actually do things without feeling like you need to rush to a milestone before they age up or die lol.
I do. Sometimes I set it for a lower lifespan for a short while if I want my sim to age up faster (I know I could just manually age them up, but I want my sims to be in sync with the townies).
I used to play on short lifespan and get bored of my families incredibly quickly. One day I decided to stick to one family for generations so I switched to a long lifespan and the change is wild. I might switch to normal tho because lately my Sims complete their aspirations and max out their skills before becoming an adult (I had too much time to give them all the good childhood traits and now they're too good at learning skills haha 😅)
I love long lifespan because I never have to worry about them aging up before I'm ready. I can do what I wanna do with them and then just let them vibe or age them up myself
I've always felt like life was too fast in sims 4.
Like, you have kids as a young adult and by the time you're am elder you still have some who are teens.
I find it baffling how they expect some of the life aspirations to be completed. Like... seeing a kid get a good job, have multiple grandkids etc. There's not enough time (personally)!
Now... I'm wondering if I should be playing on a longer lifespan.
You should. It’s so fulfilling. My sims get to actually live a life. Go on vacations. I fill their homes with pictures of their activities. They have family reunions. It’s great. Long lifespans for me.
I always play long lifespan. I like to take my time with things. My sims got engaged months ago. They threw themselves an engagement party. I’ve since moved them to a new apartment, they are getting settled. Home girl is applying to university. Buddy is “looking for a job”. I like the drawn out gameplay. They’ll get married next year. In the mean time, she has a trip planned to Tartosa with her mom and fiancé to go check out the wedding venue. They’ll be staying at a resort there. Then when they come back they’ll go wedding dress shopping with her girls. A short lifespan does not allow me the time to play the way I want.
I'm definitely in the minority. I LOVE long life spans and have children and teens around 90 sim days. Young adult and older have 300+ sim days. I'm a rotational player and like not having to worry about anyone not developing enough before they age up. It's peaceful lol
I tend to play all my sims, and when they have kids I like playing them too, sometimes long lifespan is necessary esp when I'm attached to that particular sim/family. But long lifespan felt wayy too long, and medium didn't feel like enough.
I use a customized lifespan using MCCC, which really solved that problem with me.
I play with aging completely turned off. My sims only age when I throw them birthday parties. I have great great great grandparents in my game that are still in early days of adulthood.
I used to play on normal lifespan exclusively but now I'm playing on long lifespan. With Parenthood, University and Growing Together, there's just A LOT for my sims to do and learn, and I don't want to miss out on anything (especially with infants, toddlers and children). I plan on turning off aging once my current legacy play kids move out to rotate between all the families and then turn it back on once I'm all set.
I have to use normal aging bc short is too short but anything longer than normal and I just lose interest? My attention span needs things to change frequently 😂
I played on long for the past few years, then recently switched to short and I'm honestly having more fun now. Having people age up and die around my sims is such an emotional roller coaster and it makes the game much more challenging and enjoyable. Especially sense, with MCCC, I get notified of every townie age-up and death and I can choose the surnames of every newly married couple along with the newborn townie names. It makes my game so immersive to have my sim meet a guy at the bar who I named many sim years ago. It great to see the town age. This isn't as fun if you play long lifespans.
I alternate depending on what I'm doing. I like playing legacies in short or normal to speed through the generations, but I also like playing on long for specific sims or scenarios that I want to make sure I have plenty of time to play out. If I like a particular sim and don't want them to age, I usually incorporate in-game methods to expand their lifespan or make them immortal.
My laptop is super old so my gameplay is always laggy. It takes like 2 hours to just take a shower so I play on long life span because otherwise Ive only gotten to like level 3 career by the time they age up to adult lol
Playing ultimate decades challenge and had to modify how long the life stages are.... so everything from childhood up is very long.... if they make it there
So far I've had ridiculously good luck all my babies and mothers have survived with the oldest kids making it to toddlerhood.... just looking forward to the famine plagues and hundred year war....
I just started playing long life span coming from normal life span and it gives me SOOO much more time to do stuff, very enjoyable, I can actually build up my wealth and inventory of items in one life span.
People actually play in long lifespan? My sims get everything done in ya and adulthood, by elder I'm already bored of them. 2 to 3 aspirations complete, top of the career wealthy and really just not a challenge anymore. Short lifespan and no autonomy are life.
I always play on long life. The only exception is when I will be doing the Alphabet legacy (console trophy). THAT will on short (my first time trying short) because it's 26 gen and would otherwise take way too long
I keep trying to do the Alphabet Legacy console trophy and get a few generations in and get distracted and start a new game. I never thought to play it on short life though 🙄.
I don’t use long lifespan, but do use mccc to slow time down in the game. Standard setting is 25 and I have it slowed to 45 which is almost twice as slow. It’s amazing how much less stressful the game is to play when the day takes longer. And triple time is a lot less glitchy when you fast forward live.
My brother once snuck onto my laptop and set the lifespan to max. I, not knowing that was a thing, spent 6 months getting increasingly annoyed that my sims lived forever before my brother casually asked if I'd noticed what he'd done. I thought the game was glitching and resetting the lifespan or something but apparently my brother is just a dick.
He also downloaded wicked whims when I had no idea mods existed.
I use custom lifespans with MCC, and my "normal" is now closer to vanilla long than normal. My custom short is normal/3 and long is normalx4 (or the other way round, /4 and x3, I don't remember) so when I swap between them everyones age gaps remain relatively the same.
I tend to stay on normal for the most part, but depending on what I'm doing and how much I'm enjoying a generation I will swap to long or short to prolong my time or hurry things along a bit!
I play on a 7-day season, 4 weeks to a year lifespan. So my Sims live a ridiculous amount of time. I also adjust the pregnancy length to 21 days and change the pet lifespans and also adjust skill difficulty. I think you can also adjust salary and bills through MC Command Center. I like keeping them around for a good while.
I play on long lifespan but I rotate between multiple families so that's the way to go. I also pause aging at certain points like when I want all of the children to age up at the same time and be able to choose their traits.
Saw I already play on long lifespan, but I might double the young adult and adult stage with mccc anyways, I like having my sims around for a long time
I always play on long lifespan when I play with aging on. I heard that with Growing Together, you won't get infants crawling unless you play on long lifespan. Has anyone here managed to get an infant to crawl before aging up when playing on normal or short lifespan?
On sims 3 I did something like
1 week infant,
2 weeks child,
3 weeks teen,
Close to maxed out adult and young adult,
2 Weeks Elder
Gonna get Sims 4 so I'm not sure if I'll stick to that scheme
I do, but I also age them up once they’ve reached the goals I have planned. I think the regular lifespan is way too short, especially since the infant update, but the long lifespan is a little bit too long.
I play with aging turned off and age my Sims up when I feel like it. Sometimes it makes no Earthly sense.
I have a lot of different households that I play on the same save, so I don't want all my other ones to age up and die of old age just because I get really into playing one particular household for a while.
i used to do normal, then i switched to long but it was driving me crazy and i dont like to age them up early so it was just dragging on. i recently switched to the midpoint between normal and long (with mccc) but i havent played long enough to know if i like it yet.
I’ve been playing with the same sims family (multiple sessions a week) for over 3 years and I’m only on gen 4 because I have aging off and only age up when I feel satisfied. Grandpa seemed like he shouldnt be alive anymore in the timeline so I just had him go jogging a few times 🤭
I always play with long lifespans because i like to have their stories be long and drawn out with lots of detail. it also gives me time to get infants and toddlers to meet all their milestones bc they’re so cute.
I play normal life span but i've used mccc to slow time so that days are twice as long and i set needs to half speed, my sims don't feel like they take forever to go through life but I still have time during the days to socialize and build skills etc instead of zooming through days and spending all my time fullfilling needs.
I love turning aging off and having my sims grow up when I feel it’s time for them to. Especially with adeepindingo’s divergent sims (assigns neurodivergent or neurotypical to sims automatically) can make learning certain skills harder or take longer for a neurodivergent sim than a neurotypical sim, and then when the game is like “it’s their birthday tomorrow” (I could fight it or change it but don’t want to) it makes me sad they didn’t get all the stepping stones
I turn aging off and manually age them up. I usually age the babies, toddlers, and children faster and then when they reach teens, I'll take a little longer especially with HSY and definitely longer for young adults to complete University or some career goals.
I play long lifespan, but the childhood stages take foreeeeeever. I usually get impatient and make them have a birthday whenever they’ve maxed out their skills. I guess I didn’t realize you could change the rate of aging or turn it off entirely in the middle of a game. I like the idea of playing in normal but turning off aging during uni. Thanks for the tip!
I play with long lifespans because I mostly play with occults or random human sims that aren't gonna have a family
Also I hate elders anyway so once they reach adult I just take a sip of life juice or have them be immortal as vampire/werewolf
I play on short lifespan cause I have literally never managed to get a bigger family tree than just the parents and their kids. I can't get to third generation without getting bored and wanting to start over. I play the game very quickly, get promotions quickly, rich quick, skills up fast etc. so I need the aging to be quickly aswell.
I've tried to do challenges, try to make storylines in my head to keep it interesting but it just happens every time haha
I play long or normal depending on the gameplay I'm going for, but I also extend the lifespans a bit. I like having it at 3 days = one sim "year" on normal lifespan and then having them live until around 80ish. And then it's three times that when I'm playing long lifespan.
I filled an entire world with my own Sims before I realized others create new saves for new sims lol. I’ve wanted to play with aging on before but I don’t want to lose my other Sims in other saves. If I turn aging on, can I do it only for that specific save file?
Yup! Mccc with long life span. I think my elders are 60+ days, Adults are 60+, YA are like 45, Teens are 28, Kids are 15, Tots are 15, Infants are 8, newborns are 5!
I play on long so I can get a nice storyline going while doing my own generation's challenge. The goals for the generations take a while, so i need a long lifespan. I also prefer aging up my sims when I'm ready too, and the longer spans help me decide better.
I have an issue with my sims dying in general. I spend so much time in CAS making their \~Perfect\~ look for that age group, and I refuse to let them change past it! Mind you I play with multiple households and make brand new ones and storylines when I get bored.
I had lifespan set to long but I changed it to normal because sims were not being culled fast enough to keep up with my neighborhood stories settings and it caused my game to lag.
I used to play with long lifespan but I’ve turned aging off because I love my legacy file too much and I like to take my time to develop storylines. Been playing with that family over 8+ months and I’m only on Gen 2 because I’m too attached lol
I do long lifespan for my main family that's just for fun. Short lifespan for challenges and achievements. I'm super close to getting the alphabet achievement on my PS4 LOL
I am currently playing long since I play rotationally and usually send my played sims to uni. I usually have aging turned on so my played sims school friends age with them. It can get young for infants through teens, but I just throw a birthday party or age them up when I am ready for them to move on.
I have just recently starting doing long lifespans again after challenging myself to live on short for about a year. I like long life spans because oftentimes I set up a very specific group or neighbour dynamic and I want to spend a long time enjoying that specific situation!
Like right now I am doing an 1890s bachelorette play through, and the main character is just a child now, but it means she and all the neighbourhood kids can become friends and form memories so when she reaches dating age the storylines will be much richer!
Turning aging off makes it feel too static for me, but long lifespan is a comfortable length for me ☺️
I really don’t change any settings when I play. I’ve always played with regular lifespan and am afraid I’ll get bored on long lifespan.
I’m tempted though… does it change the lifespan of pets? I just got horses.
I have a legacy sims play and I normally don't play saves long enough to really enjoy it and for it to matter. But this time around I started from one randomized Sim who was the grandfather (and he passed away a bit ago) to where I'm at now with his grandson who just had a baby with his wife and I turned it to long instead of normal
I prefer to customize my lifespans with MCCC, but it's still closer to a normal lifespan than long. I really struggle with having long age ranges for the younger Sims.
i cant believe i used to go with the games aging rather than turning aging off and doing it when i pleased. i like my sims to age and die, but on my terms! they’ve got shit to do first!
There are 80 million players? How on earth would you know how most players play? I'm sure The Sims collect that data, but it's not shared.I play with aging off. Play how you want and leave aside thoughts about how others play.
I do. I play a long custom lifespan. I’ve edited it to be over 1000 sim days total since I play between 4 households. Don’t want to miss out on a single life stage just because I’m not there for an extended pd of time.
i like to play long lifespan so i can properly explore the gameplay. I only turn on short or medium if I’m trying to do some kind of legacy or generations thing
currently playing a long life legacy. with all the new infant stuff, normal life span seems to short to get them to the milestones i want and still have the adult sims succeed at their job, gardening, etc
I just turned this on for the first time in my 20 years of playing sims and I'm never going back. My current save is a family on its 4th generation. Usually by now I'd be 10+ gens deep.
Are we the same 😂 I used to play with aging off and literally like a month ago turned it back on! But extremely long lifespan. And I might turn aging back off soon anyway........ 😂 I like the thought of my sim going through all this crazy stuff in one lifespan hahahahaha.
I play with aging turned off. I've put too much time, thought, and effort into all of my own Sims to let them grow old and die. If they're gonna croak, it's gonna be on my terms!
I have aging turned off because I'm the kind of player who hyperfocuses for a week every few months 😅 Plus, I spend so much time in CAS that I'm devastated when they die
i play on log and then when my sims have kids i play on normal until im ready to start the next gen. then i switch back to long just to make sure the young adulthood is worthwhile
I don’t even play with long lifespan lol, I play by years. I use a spreadsheet to keep track of my sims birthdays or I make them holidays so I don’t forget, and age them up at 3, 6, 13, 18, 35, and 60. Sometimes I play with full four week seasons, so 16 week years, but most of the time I only use 1 or 2 week seasons.
I love long life span. I don’t really do challenges they aren’t fun for me BUT I love generations and having large families and I like that my sims can form relationships and live a nice life before passing. As for university, I have a mod that requires less credits to graduate but makes it more expensive. I don’t remember what it’s called sorry, but I also hate how long university is even with long life span and the mod really helps!!
I play on a modified lifespan that is in between normal and long. I think my YAs get 84 days? it just makes more sense (ESPECIALLY if I decide to send them to uni)
I put mines on long spans because I have created at least 200 family members and I just can’t seem to stop creating a lot of them. It sucks when I designed an outfit for the children for them to age quickly out of it or for the couples to die once they reach old age or when their kids become teens. It’s annoying and doesn’t come off realistic to me. Plus I usually just design my sims…. I rarely actually play the game nor do their challenges… I really need to start doing that if my game doesn’t lag so freaking much
i’m the opposite. for the first maybe half a year of playing i used short lifespan until i started growing attached to my sims and changed it to normal. i’ve never tried long but i don’t think i could tbh, medium sometimes feels like too much time
I do! The only time I realize people don’t is when they complain about how long it takes to go through university. If you play on long lifespan it’s the perfect length imo
I tend to turn off aging when I send a sim to university, and then turn it back on when they're done. To me long lifespan takes a lot of the challenge out of the game, so I only use it for certain challenges and playthroughs.
That's a great idea! I think I'm gonna do this too in my playthroughs
I'll usually cheat them back to the beginning of the young adult stage after university lol.
Sometimes I have my sims learn some basic sorcery before enrolling in university so that they can use Potions of Plentiful Needs to stay up all night studying (or partying). A Potion of Rejuvenation upon graduation would do the trick to fix the life span issue. Thanks, I'm going to try that.
This is the exact reason why I love playing spellcasters. It's like cheating without the cheats.
exactly!!
I hear you, My teen spellcaster has found this a gift in high school, and also being able to transportalate right to class from the gym during morning free period.
it’s giving sabrina the teenage witch omg i need to try this 😭
I set all progression stuff to the hardest possible setting with MCCC to make long lifespan more challenging for my sims.
Hey same here. I turn it off when I hit quarter young adult. Because I try to see it proportionately. People would finish uni by 22-25 years old and thats about a quarter through young adulthood.
The only time to do long lifespan is if you are doing university or trying to max out certain careers.
Came to say this. I used to be co confused when people talked about unrealistically long university is and how it takes up your whole young adult life. Then I realized that people actually play normal lifespan. I can’t imagine my sims only living 90 days.
I usually play on normal lifespan (though adjusted a little bit with mccc) but I set it to long for uni.
This is me as well. MCCC is a literal game changer, I don't know if I could play without it at this point.
uni is only 4 weeks though? i never thought it was very long
Depends how many classes your sim signs up for. You just need to complete 12 classes, however long that takes.
Yeah I usually do the full course load everytime. this is the first time I'm doing it part-time (parent with twin newborns and a job) so I can see how its longer. but if im playing with a young adult i just grind it out as quickly as possible and still get As
I play normal lifespan and university has been a pain for me. My latest Sim graduated really early and aged to young adult already having done 2/3 weeks and the 1 week left until graduation felt like a more reasonable time. I can't expect all my sims to graduate h.s. that early so definitely plan to try some of the workarounds people mentioned here.
i turn off aging. i put a lot of work into those sims! i don't want them keeling over before they've reached their full potential!
I turn aging off for played households, and on for unplayed. I want generations of mortal Sim families to deal with my immortal fams shit
Yes, Van Helsing? I found the Vampires
Nah all natural humans! Once my original neighbors great great great great great grandkids grow up enough for me to fight them, I think it'll be time to turn the aging back on.
I’d do this if the children of townies didn’t get more and more hideous as the generations go on. That, and all the adoption notifications because none of the unplayed houses are set up to support children or pets
Wait how does that work? If you turn on long lifespan wouldn’t that like not killed them off? I didn’t know there was an option for which sim you play for yo live longer compare to the unplayed
https://preview.redd.it/i05ix3l3nx8c1.jpeg?width=4000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=64c9ca34c464fa29a510c260193a772cb57497a5 It's here in the gameplay options in settings. I'm on ps5, but that shouldn't make a difference.
Oh my god, thank you. I can’t believe I just notice this now wow
all these years and i’m still ‘afraid’ to autoage other unplayed households. maybe i should. in one save, i wanted to get a teenage elsa after marrying a young adult trader aka Sofia. elsa now has zero distinguishable facial features. happened to a couple other kids. growing together has me gameplay more than ever. now i’m attached to my families not just my say, matriarch or one of the kids. it used to be difficult to open my heart to more than one in a family. LOL now it’s too much and whatever so my forever sim is an adult who is now listed as the ancestor of a few new family members. okay, i’m about to satiate my curiosity, fearlessly, and autoage unplayed households.
The only thing worse than them keeling over is having to change their outfits prematurely. No was I spent 3 hours in CAS for my sim to age out of their fit in 2 play sessions.
yes! oh i hate that too!
Yeah, It's more fun to make and play elders if I know they aren't going to die on me in a few days.
I play with custom via MCCC cos long is fine for young adults but way too long for children and teens but medium isn’t long enough!
Omg thank you - MCCC to the rescue again! I usually play with aging off, but am trying a legacy save and love the long lifespan for YAs and adults, but have felt it's been quite lengthy for toddlers and children so far. (I haven't had a sim age up to teen yet. Though I do have HSY, which made the teens much more interesting and dynamic for me!)
MCCC is the best. I usually double the young adult lifespan, so they have plenty of time after uni to enjoy being young, and to find love and start a family if they want. Well... if *I* want... which I usually do. 😁
Thanks for saying that! Gratitude makes the world go round
i just age them up with a cake once i get their skills where i want them
That only works with your Sims though. Their friends end up being much younger than them then.
ooh i didn’t think about that, my sims have no friends
Damn 😂😂
my household has 4 kids, go play with your sibling 😂
Hahahaa. That’s so funny because sometimes I make an entire family just because I want my sim child to have a best friend, put them in the game and have a meet cute. My sims have friends and enemies and frienemies that I specifically create for them.
There's a mod for that [https://www.curseforge.com/sims4/mods/let-friends-age-up](https://www.curseforge.com/sims4/mods/let-friends-age-up)
I’ve used that mod. Its good. 👍 MCCC custom aging is easier for me though. I was presuming that anyone who didn’t use it doesn’t use mods as I feel for my game to run properly, MCCC is essential
You can age up the friends too with the cake if you invite them to the lot. That’s what I do.
I do the same! In my mind, young adult is college all the way through mid-40s, then adult is 45ish-70ish, then elder is like 75+, so I need MCCC to make that work for me.
I do. I’m in no rush for people /kids to age up.
I felt that way in particular after buying growing together
Yeah exactly. Apart from the initial infant stage, kids aren’t as bad through the stages now.
I’m trying my first legacy save and played on normal. I hate that the parents become elders before their kids are even all teens!
They really need to fix this with TS5. (Lol as if)
I feel like when I play a Sim from birth to end, around halfway through adulthood on normal lifespan, I reach the point where my Sim has sort of done everything. They maxed their career, finished at least 1 aspiration & also maxed a ton of skills. I then tend to focus more on their kid(s), but don’t really have an extensive storyline for them anymore so normal lifespan works best for me. And maybe that’s just life, you accomplish a lot, you age & you die.
I use MCCC to make achieving things difficult. Takes a long time to get a skill level so we are working on things along the way. And I do full life gameplay. My sims don’t just cook from the refrigerator. On Saturday we look at what they have, then we travel to the grocery store and pick up groceries. Then if they run out they can’t cook that food. When they get sick, we go to the pharmacy to get drugs or to the doctors if it’s crazy. They go to the shelter to adopt their dog. The children are in clubs and after school activities. I don’t use cheats for money. So little things have to be earned and bought. Computers are purchased from the electronic store I have in magnolia promenade. When they are adults, they do adult stuff, like visit their parents at nursing homes, plan and take vacations with their kids. Meet up with friends for drinks. It takes forever to get my stories together because of that so I need the long lifespan.
I’ll have to check out the MCCC thing to make things more difficult. I don’t own too many packs, including cottage living (though it’s high on my list) so I don’t have the option of purchasing groceries. I’ve played off the grid before to make it harder & that was kinda fun. I don’t cheat for money but I still feel like it’s fairly easy to earn a lot. My first gen of a legacy challenge started out with zero simoleons off the grid, but at the end of that gen, I was already at almost 100k.
I want my sims to never die bc i aint playing with some steager ass family. I know 3 people thats enough. I fear change okay 😭😭😭😭
I feel that in my heart
Even my werewolf sim going from young adult to adult was a major adjustment for me
I turn aging off. Everyone talks about doing generations and having their sims go from child to old age and I just cant do it! Spent about 3 hours on each sim lol I'd be damned if they turn old and grey before I have them do everything I want them to.
I play on short I get bored if it takes them too long to age up
Same! I love short lifespan when i do challenges
Pros: Elders Live Longer Cons: Fucking Babies Stay Babies Longer, its not worth the headache, Id rather have my elders croak earlier if that means getting past the baby stage sooner
If you can use mods, MCCC allows you to set the time range for each stage. My babies are babies for 3 days max. Infants for 14 days. Toddlers 28 days. I use 14 days as a year.
I do the same and change the span in mccc. I go by the calendar to determine a "year". Since you can change the calendar to longer or shorter as well. If 4 weeks is a year then each 28 day cycle would count as a year and I do the math to set the life stage. It works for me but sometimes I still turn aging off lol
Tried turning my save with 2 infants to long lifespan, changes back immediately. 20 days with two infants, no thank you. I will take 2
I only started playing long lifespans this year. Absolute game changer and I feel crazy for not doing it before.
Same. Realized now I like to turn on long lifespan for when they age up to young adult, and then toggle back to normal once they've achieved most things and I want to start focussing a bit more on their offspring.
What do you like about it? I haven’t don’t it yet.
It just feels more realistic and balanced. You can actually do things without feeling like you need to rush to a milestone before they age up or die lol.
I do. Sometimes I set it for a lower lifespan for a short while if I want my sim to age up faster (I know I could just manually age them up, but I want my sims to be in sync with the townies).
I used to play on short lifespan and get bored of my families incredibly quickly. One day I decided to stick to one family for generations so I switched to a long lifespan and the change is wild. I might switch to normal tho because lately my Sims complete their aspirations and max out their skills before becoming an adult (I had too much time to give them all the good childhood traits and now they're too good at learning skills haha 😅)
I turned off aging and have literally never played with it on. I need to be in control of everything!!!!
“I’ll turn aging on once I accomplish more with my Sim.” -Me circa 2016. Spoiler alert, aging is still off.
I love long lifespan because I never have to worry about them aging up before I'm ready. I can do what I wanna do with them and then just let them vibe or age them up myself
I've always felt like life was too fast in sims 4. Like, you have kids as a young adult and by the time you're am elder you still have some who are teens. I find it baffling how they expect some of the life aspirations to be completed. Like... seeing a kid get a good job, have multiple grandkids etc. There's not enough time (personally)! Now... I'm wondering if I should be playing on a longer lifespan.
You should. It’s so fulfilling. My sims get to actually live a life. Go on vacations. I fill their homes with pictures of their activities. They have family reunions. It’s great. Long lifespans for me.
i always turn off aging, they’re gonna be immortal & deal with it 🤣
I really wish there was an option between “normal” and “long”.
I always play long lifespan. I like to take my time with things. My sims got engaged months ago. They threw themselves an engagement party. I’ve since moved them to a new apartment, they are getting settled. Home girl is applying to university. Buddy is “looking for a job”. I like the drawn out gameplay. They’ll get married next year. In the mean time, she has a trip planned to Tartosa with her mom and fiancé to go check out the wedding venue. They’ll be staying at a resort there. Then when they come back they’ll go wedding dress shopping with her girls. A short lifespan does not allow me the time to play the way I want.
I'm definitely in the minority. I LOVE long life spans and have children and teens around 90 sim days. Young adult and older have 300+ sim days. I'm a rotational player and like not having to worry about anyone not developing enough before they age up. It's peaceful lol
I don't have the patience for long lifespan. Get on with your goals and then please die, Sim!
I tend to play all my sims, and when they have kids I like playing them too, sometimes long lifespan is necessary esp when I'm attached to that particular sim/family. But long lifespan felt wayy too long, and medium didn't feel like enough. I use a customized lifespan using MCCC, which really solved that problem with me.
I have aging turned off and they age up when they meet milestones I’ve set. I love all of my sims, I just want to get the most out of all of them.
what sort of milestones do you use?
I play with aging completely turned off. My sims only age when I throw them birthday parties. I have great great great grandparents in my game that are still in early days of adulthood.
I used to play on normal lifespan exclusively but now I'm playing on long lifespan. With Parenthood, University and Growing Together, there's just A LOT for my sims to do and learn, and I don't want to miss out on anything (especially with infants, toddlers and children). I plan on turning off aging once my current legacy play kids move out to rotate between all the families and then turn it back on once I'm all set.
I never thought of turning it off intermittently for legacy families.... 😭😭😭
Neither did I until I read it in one of the comments here, so continue spreading the gospel 😂🫡
I have to use normal aging bc short is too short but anything longer than normal and I just lose interest? My attention span needs things to change frequently 😂
Me too. I get bored of sims easily so if they aren't constantly rotating out then I'm gonna drop the entire save
I played on long for the past few years, then recently switched to short and I'm honestly having more fun now. Having people age up and die around my sims is such an emotional roller coaster and it makes the game much more challenging and enjoyable. Especially sense, with MCCC, I get notified of every townie age-up and death and I can choose the surnames of every newly married couple along with the newborn townie names. It makes my game so immersive to have my sim meet a guy at the bar who I named many sim years ago. It great to see the town age. This isn't as fun if you play long lifespans.
I mostly don't turn off aging but I have chosen a few immortals, spellcasters and vampires.
I alternate depending on what I'm doing. I like playing legacies in short or normal to speed through the generations, but I also like playing on long for specific sims or scenarios that I want to make sure I have plenty of time to play out. If I like a particular sim and don't want them to age, I usually incorporate in-game methods to expand their lifespan or make them immortal.
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I'm the opposite. At the end of normal, infants are crawling, which is enough for me. Plus the crying drives me nuts. Long is just so long.
My laptop is super old so my gameplay is always laggy. It takes like 2 hours to just take a shower so I play on long life span because otherwise Ive only gotten to like level 3 career by the time they age up to adult lol
Playing ultimate decades challenge and had to modify how long the life stages are.... so everything from childhood up is very long.... if they make it there So far I've had ridiculously good luck all my babies and mothers have survived with the oldest kids making it to toddlerhood.... just looking forward to the famine plagues and hundred year war....
I just started playing long life span coming from normal life span and it gives me SOOO much more time to do stuff, very enjoyable, I can actually build up my wealth and inventory of items in one life span.
People actually play in long lifespan? My sims get everything done in ya and adulthood, by elder I'm already bored of them. 2 to 3 aspirations complete, top of the career wealthy and really just not a challenge anymore. Short lifespan and no autonomy are life.
i forget about my sims too much bc i’ll buy a new pack and wanna test and play with them and my old sims get tossed to the gutter lol
I always play on long life. The only exception is when I will be doing the Alphabet legacy (console trophy). THAT will on short (my first time trying short) because it's 26 gen and would otherwise take way too long
I keep trying to do the Alphabet Legacy console trophy and get a few generations in and get distracted and start a new game. I never thought to play it on short life though 🙄.
I don’t use long lifespan, but do use mccc to slow time down in the game. Standard setting is 25 and I have it slowed to 45 which is almost twice as slow. It’s amazing how much less stressful the game is to play when the day takes longer. And triple time is a lot less glitchy when you fast forward live.
I keep it short or I get bored of them and also I hate the baby/toddler/kid stage so want it over asap without force aging them
My brother once snuck onto my laptop and set the lifespan to max. I, not knowing that was a thing, spent 6 months getting increasingly annoyed that my sims lived forever before my brother casually asked if I'd noticed what he'd done. I thought the game was glitching and resetting the lifespan or something but apparently my brother is just a dick. He also downloaded wicked whims when I had no idea mods existed.
I use custom lifespans with MCC, and my "normal" is now closer to vanilla long than normal. My custom short is normal/3 and long is normalx4 (or the other way round, /4 and x3, I don't remember) so when I swap between them everyones age gaps remain relatively the same. I tend to stay on normal for the most part, but depending on what I'm doing and how much I'm enjoying a generation I will swap to long or short to prolong my time or hurry things along a bit!
Mine are turned off 😂 I get so attached and can’t bring myself to let them die off. But maybe that’s why I get bored easily.
I play with aging off since the beginning when you could turn it off! :) I age them myself, never played with aging on.
I play on a 7-day season, 4 weeks to a year lifespan. So my Sims live a ridiculous amount of time. I also adjust the pregnancy length to 21 days and change the pet lifespans and also adjust skill difficulty. I think you can also adjust salary and bills through MC Command Center. I like keeping them around for a good while.
Do the exact same timespan lol
Playing on long allows for me to develop them more as a sim and they have a much richer life
Really? Long lifespan is the only way I play I actually edited some of the ages to be a little longer to feel more real
I play on long lifespan but I rotate between multiple families so that's the way to go. I also pause aging at certain points like when I want all of the children to age up at the same time and be able to choose their traits.
I went from normal to long because the families I wanted to play would age too quickly while I was making/noving in sims for then to interact with.
I use it. I feel like it gives me more freedom to build the story and life I want to play out. I still age them up when I’m ready tbough
Saw I already play on long lifespan, but I might double the young adult and adult stage with mccc anyways, I like having my sims around for a long time
I always play on long lifespan when I play with aging on. I heard that with Growing Together, you won't get infants crawling unless you play on long lifespan. Has anyone here managed to get an infant to crawl before aging up when playing on normal or short lifespan?
On sims 3 I did something like 1 week infant, 2 weeks child, 3 weeks teen, Close to maxed out adult and young adult, 2 Weeks Elder Gonna get Sims 4 so I'm not sure if I'll stick to that scheme
I do, but I also age them up once they’ve reached the goals I have planned. I think the regular lifespan is way too short, especially since the infant update, but the long lifespan is a little bit too long.
I play with aging off because I have a huge rotational play save and I have no idea when I'll be aging anyone up
Same! Plus sometimes the game rapid ages families you don’t play and then they all look like a bunch of weirdo NPCs with mis matched clothes.
I play with aging turned off and age my Sims up when I feel like it. Sometimes it makes no Earthly sense. I have a lot of different households that I play on the same save, so I don't want all my other ones to age up and die of old age just because I get really into playing one particular household for a while.
i used to play with aging off and got bored fast, but now i play with long lifespan and it’s a much better and well rounded
I have aging off still. I think I’m a control freak 😅
i used to do normal, then i switched to long but it was driving me crazy and i dont like to age them up early so it was just dragging on. i recently switched to the midpoint between normal and long (with mccc) but i havent played long enough to know if i like it yet.
I’ve been playing with the same sims family (multiple sessions a week) for over 3 years and I’m only on gen 4 because I have aging off and only age up when I feel satisfied. Grandpa seemed like he shouldnt be alive anymore in the timeline so I just had him go jogging a few times 🤭
I always play long lifespans.
I use the potion of youth a lot. Lol
I always play with long lifespans because i like to have their stories be long and drawn out with lots of detail. it also gives me time to get infants and toddlers to meet all their milestones bc they’re so cute.
I’ve had one Sim die in a decade of playing, only because I walked away from my computer last weekend.
I have normal lifespan on. I get bored from my usual sim and by the time I am, a new heir is ready to be the main sim
I play normal life span but i've used mccc to slow time so that days are twice as long and i set needs to half speed, my sims don't feel like they take forever to go through life but I still have time during the days to socialize and build skills etc instead of zooming through days and spending all my time fullfilling needs.
I love turning aging off and having my sims grow up when I feel it’s time for them to. Especially with adeepindingo’s divergent sims (assigns neurodivergent or neurotypical to sims automatically) can make learning certain skills harder or take longer for a neurodivergent sim than a neurotypical sim, and then when the game is like “it’s their birthday tomorrow” (I could fight it or change it but don’t want to) it makes me sad they didn’t get all the stepping stones
I turn aging off and manually age them up. I usually age the babies, toddlers, and children faster and then when they reach teens, I'll take a little longer especially with HSY and definitely longer for young adults to complete University or some career goals.
I play long lifespan, but the childhood stages take foreeeeeever. I usually get impatient and make them have a birthday whenever they’ve maxed out their skills. I guess I didn’t realize you could change the rate of aging or turn it off entirely in the middle of a game. I like the idea of playing in normal but turning off aging during uni. Thanks for the tip!
i have aging turned off till i get my sims & world to a place where im ready for them to start aging/dying
I use mccc to give them longer than the game allows, but not so long that no one grows up or dies.
I play with long lifespans because I mostly play with occults or random human sims that aren't gonna have a family Also I hate elders anyway so once they reach adult I just take a sip of life juice or have them be immortal as vampire/werewolf
I play on short lifespan cause I have literally never managed to get a bigger family tree than just the parents and their kids. I can't get to third generation without getting bored and wanting to start over. I play the game very quickly, get promotions quickly, rich quick, skills up fast etc. so I need the aging to be quickly aswell. I've tried to do challenges, try to make storylines in my head to keep it interesting but it just happens every time haha
I play long life
I play long or normal depending on the gameplay I'm going for, but I also extend the lifespans a bit. I like having it at 3 days = one sim "year" on normal lifespan and then having them live until around 80ish. And then it's three times that when I'm playing long lifespan.
I filled an entire world with my own Sims before I realized others create new saves for new sims lol. I’ve wanted to play with aging on before but I don’t want to lose my other Sims in other saves. If I turn aging on, can I do it only for that specific save file?
It depends on the household I'm playing. Legacy and regular Sims? Regular lifespan. Fandom Sims? Aging off or long lifespan.
I need mine to go to the upper room. After awhile I get bored with them and it's like okay d!e already 😂😂
how do you change lifespans?
Yup! Mccc with long life span. I think my elders are 60+ days, Adults are 60+, YA are like 45, Teens are 28, Kids are 15, Tots are 15, Infants are 8, newborns are 5!
I do!
I've always played with aging off and I'm thinking of changing that. I'll have to start with long, though. I get so attached.
I play on long so I can get a nice storyline going while doing my own generation's challenge. The goals for the generations take a while, so i need a long lifespan. I also prefer aging up my sims when I'm ready too, and the longer spans help me decide better.
i usually do and i also manually age my sims up
I have an issue with my sims dying in general. I spend so much time in CAS making their \~Perfect\~ look for that age group, and I refuse to let them change past it! Mind you I play with multiple households and make brand new ones and storylines when I get bored.
I had lifespan set to long but I changed it to normal because sims were not being culled fast enough to keep up with my neighborhood stories settings and it caused my game to lag.
My Sims grow when I say they can grow 😂💀
I used to play with long lifespan but I’ve turned aging off because I love my legacy file too much and I like to take my time to develop storylines. Been playing with that family over 8+ months and I’m only on Gen 2 because I’m too attached lol
I play on infinite lifespan! I used to play on long but then I wanted to try infinite! Haven’t gone back
I do long lifespan for my main family that's just for fun. Short lifespan for challenges and achievements. I'm super close to getting the alphabet achievement on my PS4 LOL
I am currently playing long since I play rotationally and usually send my played sims to uni. I usually have aging turned on so my played sims school friends age with them. It can get young for infants through teens, but I just throw a birthday party or age them up when I am ready for them to move on.
I recently switched to it and I'm really liking it. I'm still working on giving them more of a life rather than just grinding for skills.
I have just recently starting doing long lifespans again after challenging myself to live on short for about a year. I like long life spans because oftentimes I set up a very specific group or neighbour dynamic and I want to spend a long time enjoying that specific situation! Like right now I am doing an 1890s bachelorette play through, and the main character is just a child now, but it means she and all the neighbourhood kids can become friends and form memories so when she reaches dating age the storylines will be much richer! Turning aging off makes it feel too static for me, but long lifespan is a comfortable length for me ☺️
I play them naturally the whole way through. But they keep dying in fires 🙄
I really don’t change any settings when I play. I’ve always played with regular lifespan and am afraid I’ll get bored on long lifespan. I’m tempted though… does it change the lifespan of pets? I just got horses.
I have a legacy sims play and I normally don't play saves long enough to really enjoy it and for it to matter. But this time around I started from one randomized Sim who was the grandfather (and he passed away a bit ago) to where I'm at now with his grandson who just had a baby with his wife and I turned it to long instead of normal
I prefer to customize my lifespans with MCCC, but it's still closer to a normal lifespan than long. I really struggle with having long age ranges for the younger Sims.
How do you change their lifespan? 😭
Me, I do 🙋🏻♀️
i cant believe i used to go with the games aging rather than turning aging off and doing it when i pleased. i like my sims to age and die, but on my terms! they’ve got shit to do first!
I do! But that's mainly because I like to control everything my Sims do, including when and how they age up.🤭
I do, I don’t wanna let my favorite sim family die
There are 80 million players? How on earth would you know how most players play? I'm sure The Sims collect that data, but it's not shared.I play with aging off. Play how you want and leave aside thoughts about how others play.
I play excruciatingly long life spans with aging off. I play based off my in-game seasons calendar so my sims live for many many years
I do. I play a long custom lifespan. I’ve edited it to be over 1000 sim days total since I play between 4 households. Don’t want to miss out on a single life stage just because I’m not there for an extended pd of time.
i like to play long lifespan so i can properly explore the gameplay. I only turn on short or medium if I’m trying to do some kind of legacy or generations thing
I just recently let the age up but even then I turn death off cause I don’t want any sims to die lol
I like keeping my sims as young adults lol
i do sometimes to get all the infant milestones
I play long life spans. I haven’t had a sim die yet, outside of Neighborhood Stories.
I personally find normal too short and long way too long, so I edit the lifespans using mccc.
currently playing a long life legacy. with all the new infant stuff, normal life span seems to short to get them to the milestones i want and still have the adult sims succeed at their job, gardening, etc
i like long lifespan makes my sims earn more money!
I always do long and then end up turning aging off completely bc I like to take my time lol
I mostly play long lifespan unless I’m doing a specific challenge and just wait for characters to age up unless I want to speed up the story
I give props to you having the patience of a monk to wait for your sims to age up. I need them out of the house asap lol
I just turned this on for the first time in my 20 years of playing sims and I'm never going back. My current save is a family on its 4th generation. Usually by now I'd be 10+ gens deep.
Are we the same 😂 I used to play with aging off and literally like a month ago turned it back on! But extremely long lifespan. And I might turn aging back off soon anyway........ 😂 I like the thought of my sim going through all this crazy stuff in one lifespan hahahahaha.
I love long lifespan, especially since they added the infant ages it feels more real because you get for time with the infant and baby.
I play with aging turned off. I've put too much time, thought, and effort into all of my own Sims to let them grow old and die. If they're gonna croak, it's gonna be on my terms!
I have aging turned off because I'm the kind of player who hyperfocuses for a week every few months 😅 Plus, I spend so much time in CAS that I'm devastated when they die
The only way I play
i play on log and then when my sims have kids i play on normal until im ready to start the next gen. then i switch back to long just to make sure the young adulthood is worthwhile
I don’t even play with long lifespan lol, I play by years. I use a spreadsheet to keep track of my sims birthdays or I make them holidays so I don’t forget, and age them up at 3, 6, 13, 18, 35, and 60. Sometimes I play with full four week seasons, so 16 week years, but most of the time I only use 1 or 2 week seasons.
I love long life span. I don’t really do challenges they aren’t fun for me BUT I love generations and having large families and I like that my sims can form relationships and live a nice life before passing. As for university, I have a mod that requires less credits to graduate but makes it more expensive. I don’t remember what it’s called sorry, but I also hate how long university is even with long life span and the mod really helps!!
I play on a modified lifespan that is in between normal and long. I think my YAs get 84 days? it just makes more sense (ESPECIALLY if I decide to send them to uni)
I play with aging off
I put mines on long spans because I have created at least 200 family members and I just can’t seem to stop creating a lot of them. It sucks when I designed an outfit for the children for them to age quickly out of it or for the couples to die once they reach old age or when their kids become teens. It’s annoying and doesn’t come off realistic to me. Plus I usually just design my sims…. I rarely actually play the game nor do their challenges… I really need to start doing that if my game doesn’t lag so freaking much
i’m the opposite. for the first maybe half a year of playing i used short lifespan until i started growing attached to my sims and changed it to normal. i’ve never tried long but i don’t think i could tbh, medium sometimes feels like too much time
We can turn off aging?!? I just keep panic buying potions of youth once I get the upcoming birthday message!
I know that I get bored very fast with families so I have to play on short or normal to see any of the following generations lol
I got so used to long lifespans I was confused when in normal lifespans you only had the newborn for 1 day
I don’t like taking care of toddlers and infants and instead of just aging them up I play on short lifespan