Traits that matter

[Gus Smedstad]

Just now I was bitching that my Sims all feel the same, regardless of personality traits.  Yet that's not entirely true.  Some seem to be more visible than others.

Ones that have stood out for me, mainly because of moodlets or meaningful additional behavior:

Neurotic - lots of Cleaning wishes pop up, and check-the-sink behavior.  And Freak Out, though I usually forget to use that.
Neat - mostly wishes, the "extra clean" action isn't very visible.
Grumpy - mostly because it's a permanent -15 or 20 (not sure) invisible moodlet.
Hates the Outdoors - much more visible than Loves, since they constantly get the "go indoors" Want, and occasionally the "hide in house for 2 days" want.
Loner - the "too many people" moodlet often turns work from a neutral mood to a negative one.
Insane - I haven't played any of these, but it's bleeding obvious when a townie is insane.
Childish - similar to Insane
Kleptomaniac

There are several that have definite game bonuses, but aren't very visible.  Genius has well-defined effects, for example, but my non-Genius sims want to play chess just as often, and the bonuses don't stand out when I'm playing.

There are some that seem near-pointless, like Daredevil or Evil.  Slapping "evil" or "extreme" on every action doesn't change a damned thing.  Evil does get the "enjoy suffering" moodlet, and the "Steal Candy from Baby" action, but it's pretty minor.

 - Gus

[Motoki]

Insane - I haven't played any of these, but it's bleeding obvious when a townie is insane.
Childish - similar to Insane

Well the bulk of these traits really center on idle animations so that's why it's very noticeable for townies, not so much at all for playing controlled sims since most of us will probably constantly have them doing things.

It does open up more socials but many or negative or useless, unless you want to play tag as an adult.

Childish does also get cuddle time moodlet for sleeping with a teddy bear in their inventory like a toddler or child does, and I admit I rather like that ability.

There are some that seem near-pointless, like Daredevil or Evil.  Slapping "evil" or "extreme" on every action doesn't change a damned thing.  Evil does get the "enjoy suffering" moodlet, and the "Steal Candy from Baby" action, but it's pretty minor.

Remind me of Austin Powers:


Scott: I like animals... maybe I'd be a vet!
Dr. Evil: An evil vet?
Scott: No! Maybe like work in a petting zoo.
Dr.Evil: An evil petting zoo?
Scott: YOU ALWAYS DO THAT!

[J. M. Pescado]

"Workaholic", has a SIGNIFICANT effect because your sim can grind performance to make sure he gets the promotion.
"Unlucky", makes your sim Invincible.
"Ambitious", permanent +2 work PPH, +?% to all asp awards.
"Brave", immune to freaking out at fires, +3 work PPH LE/Mil
"Evil", immune to Darkness, +3 work PPH Criminal, +5 to hit.
"Mean", +5 to hit (doesn't stack with Evil)
"Loser", 100% miss chance vs. non-Loser.
"Over Emotional", +?% to all moodlets.
"Green Thumb", can resurrect deathflower bush.

That's basically the list of traits that have a meaningful make-or-break effect (job PPH is a big make-or-break factor because stacking PPH bonii can make or break your promotion cycle). Also, evil petting zoos FTW.

[Heinel]

For some reason I had always felt that all extreme actions should give the adrenaline rush moodlet, not just that stupid "watch this!" thing.  It makes so much more sense that way.

[Gastfyr]

Personally, I love the Frugal sims ability to find cupons in the newspaper and online (but not so much online because of how freaking long it seems to take).  It's true that a good portion of the cupons are for stupid stuff, but I love the 75% blowouts when they're for something I actually want or at least can use.  It's certainly one of my favourite traits.  I barely ever send any of my sims to the spa unless I have a cupon for it.

I find the Family Oriented sims ability to teach toddlers faster is quite helpful in a game devoid of Smartmilk and the Fall season.  I have been so spoiled by TS2 since Seasons -- I used to plan my sims pregnacies so the babies would be toddlers in the Fall.  It was so freaking easy that way...  *sigh*

[J. M. Pescado]

Personally, I love the Frugal sims ability to find cupons in the newspaper and online (but not so much online because of how freaking long it seems to take).  It's true that a good portion of the cupons are for stupid stuff, but I love the 75% blowouts when they're for something I actually want or at least can use.  It's certainly one of my favourite traits.  I barely ever send any of my sims to the spa unless I have a cupon for it.

I like the coupon CONCEPT, but the fact that they never look for them in any kind of DIRECTED manner, always pulling utterly useless coupons for stuff no one ever wants, sort of undermines the point when you evaluate the actual time-cost involved in doing so.

[Motoki]

"Workaholic", has a SIGNIFICANT effect because your sim can grind performance to make sure he gets the promotion.

Does working at home actually do anything to raise job performance? I sat there watching my sim do it for several sim hours but her job performance bar did not go up at all.

Also, does Lucky effect chances of anything? I feel like it does but don't have any hard data on it.

Supposedly Angler and Natural Cook give some Fishing and Cooking bonuses respectively. I feel like they're relatively minor though.

[Silverdrake]

One significant aspect of Traits is when sims share traits (obviously, I guess!). It makes conversations and friendships easier between them, and I *think* they get some extra interactions (have to check that).

I like the exciteable trait, because they get extra positive moodlets for meeting up with friends. It's cute!

I have an evil sim who reached the top of the Criminal career, and he has an Aura of Evil (which must come from the career and not the trait, but maybe he rose faster because of the trait), and he scares the townies just by being near them. It can sometimes be annoying, because they all start running around like headless chickens.

[Gus Smedstad]

Natural Cook gives you +1 food quality, once you get the "Kick It Up A Notch" interaction.  Usually you must do this manually when they cook, but they sadorandomly decide to do it on their own now and then.  They can give +1 food quality to foods other Sims cook with this action as well.

There's a thread in the Facts & Strategry board which gives the effects of Lucky in XML.  There's a host of stuff it affects.  Mostly it prevents failures like item breakage, getting shocked, and getting robbed, making them impossible.

I discovered last night that a Sim Commitment Issues still enjoys getting married, and even though she Dislikes Children she still enjoys being pregnant and rolls Baby wants once pregnant.  I was sort of expecting the Commitment Issues / Dislikes Children combo to give her the Fears of a Romance Sim, but in practice it just means she has to like her boyfriend more to get married, and wasn't reluctant to spawn at all.

 - Gus

[CharleeRose]

"Workaholic", has a SIGNIFICANT effect because your sim can grind performance to make sure he gets the promotion.

Does working at home actually do anything to raise job performance? I sat there watching my sim do it for several sim hours but her job performance bar did not go up at all.

Also, does Lucky effect chances of anything? I feel like it does but don't have any hard data on it.

Supposedly Angler and Natural Cook give some Fishing and Cooking bonuses respectively. I feel like they're relatively minor though.

Working at home should cause their work performance to increase.  I've had workaholic sims earn enough to get a full promition in one sleepless night on their computer.

Natural cook is a tiny bit more subtle but they will never burn food and can save you a bit of money when keeping your sims happy with food related moodlets with the "kick it up a notch" interaction they get with meals.  It makes it very easy to get "perfect" meals out of less than perfect ingredients.

The only thing I have noticed with Angler (and this could be strictly cooncidence since I've only ever made 2 sims with that trait) is that they seem to catch better quality fish a bit sooner than sims without it.  I don't find that overly usefull because any sims given enough time to max out the skill will end up catching plenty of high quality fish anyway.

[Motoki]

There's a thread in the Facts & Strategry board which gives the effects of Lucky in XML.  There's a host of stuff it affects.  Mostly it prevents failures like item breakage, getting shocked, and getting robbed, making them impossible.

I feel like getting robbed is pretty darned near impossible anyhow, but then again I have always felt the Sims games made the chances of it too low.

I discovered last night that a Sim Commitment Issues still enjoys getting married, and even though she Dislikes Children she still enjoys being pregnant and rolls Baby wants once pregnant.  I was sort of expecting the Commitment Issues / Dislikes Children combo to give her the Fears of a Romance Sim, but in practice it just means she has to like her boyfriend more to get married, and wasn't reluctant to spawn at all.

Ugh, that is so stupid. The descriptions written for those traits make it sound like they want nothing at all to do with marriage or kids ever.

[uknortherner]

There's a thread in the Facts & Strategry board which gives the effects of Lucky in XML.  There's a host of stuff it affects.  Mostly it prevents failures like item breakage, getting shocked, and getting robbed, making them impossible.

Bit of a shame that doesn't happen with my so-called "Lucky" sim then. She's been robbed three times in two weeks and electrocuted twice whilst repairing an expensive TV (which keeps breaking, I might add). All of these happened with the "feeling lucky" moodlet active. The Lucky trait seems to be a waste of a slot and seems to do little more than make her applaud herself in that stupid, timewasting manner (you know the one - where the sim will yell out a load of gibberish whilst clapping for no apparent reason and will queuestomp anything to do it) whenever she gets out of bed or out of a car, as though waking up or arriving for work was lucky in itself.

Useless, useless trait.

[maxon]

Natural cook is a tiny bit more subtle but they will never burn food and can save you a bit of money when keeping your sims happy with food related moodlets with the "kick it up a notch" interaction they get with meals.  It makes it very easy to get "perfect" meals out of less than perfect ingredients.

I don't think that is entirely right - I had a natural cook sim and early on, before he developed too much in the way of cooking skill, he cooked and burnt a meal.  I made the error of putting the leftovers in the fridge and the couple were 'bleughing' out over it for ages after he actually cooked the meal - every time they got a plate of it.  I think the last serving of it is still in there.  He's gone on to rataouille and more exotic stuff now.

[LVRugger]

Natural cook is a tiny bit more subtle but they will never burn food and can save you a bit of money when keeping your sims happy with food related moodlets with the "kick it up a notch" interaction they get with meals.  It makes it very easy to get "perfect" meals out of less than perfect ingredients.

I don't think that is entirely right - I had a natural cook sim and early on, before he developed too much in the way of cooking skill, he cooked and burnt a meal.  I made the error of putting the leftovers in the fridge and the couple were 'bleughing' out over it for ages after he actually cooked the meal - every time they got a plate of it.  I think the last serving of it is still in there.  He's gone on to rataouille and more exotic stuff now.

I believe that the Natural Cook will not set fire to the kitchen, but can still burn meals when learning. That's what mine did. Once they get good, they get really good. I took Zazazu's advice and had my level 10 NC make a bunch of food and store it in that fancy fridge from the culinary career for his kids when he died. They ate for weeks without cooking.

[Zazazu]

I discovered last night that a Sim Commitment Issues still enjoys getting married, and even though she Dislikes Children she still enjoys being pregnant and rolls Baby wants once pregnant.  I was sort of expecting the Commitment Issues / Dislikes Children combo to give her the Fears of a Romance Sim, but in practice it just means she has to like her boyfriend more to get married, and wasn't reluctant to spawn at all.

Ugh, that is so stupid. The descriptions written for those traits make it sound like they want nothing at all to do with marriage or kids ever.

I've not had a spawner with the Dislikes Children trait before, but I currently have one with Commitment Issues (who is also Family Oriented). He immediately rolled the want to break up with his spouse after marriage. He also would autonomously worry over the commitment to others...especially to his mother-in-law, who would get pissed off about it and then try to hit on him due to her new widow status and Flirty trait.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the best point of Neat. The macro-clean ability of "Clean House".

[Motoki]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the best point of Neat. The macro-clean ability of "Clean House".

They have that? Wow I am going to have to use it. I've been looking for something like that since SC doesn't have that option unlike the TS2 SC (or whatever the heck it was called).

Sometimes they get negative moodlets about something being dirty and I really don't feel like searching every damned object in a large room with a lot of junk in it to figure out what it is, or sometimes I just want them to clean everything and be done with it without having to queue each item to clean up individually.

[Motoki]

Yeah, Neat sims make awesome cleaners. They will autonomously clean as well. The downside is they refuse to use a toilet unless it is absolutely pristine clean, so I usually pair my Neats with Handies for the upgrades.

Hmm, when I edited my nannies (aka babysitters modded to be Elders) in the CAS I made them neat. Userunknown had them always generate being slobs unless that was not him but some sort of EAoid 'feature'.  I will keep an eye on them and see if they also autonomously clean.

So far they've just been doing stupid things like play foosball, but that just makes them remind me of the TS2 nannies even more.

[ciane]

Perfectionist also makes higher quality meals and can sell a painting for more money than would be received without that trait.

I find the lucky trait to be a great advantage. The birthday cake hasn't caught on fire and a burglar hasn't shown up.

[Gus Smedstad]

He immediately rolled the want to break up with his spouse after marriage. He also would autonomously worry over the commitment to others...especially to his mother-in-law, who would get pissed off about it and then try to hit on him due to her new widow status and Flirty trait.

That's the sort of thing I wanted to see.  I deliberately paired the Commitment Issues / Dislikes Children female with a Family Oriented male to see if I could get any fireworks, but so far she's been a happy little breeder.  The only effect so far was that she rejected his first marriage proposal, but readily accepted when I took the time to build up the relationship a bit more.  That, and the -15 moodlet for being around her own spawn while she fulfills the "Teach to Talk" want she rolled.

I'm not sure what "worry over commitment" looks like, though.  It's an animation?

 - Gus

[CheritaChen]

It's an interaction like Chat or Enthuse about (X).

[witch]

It can cause quite a relationship hit as well.

[PirateFaafy]

Since I'm a skill whore, I find that genius can be useful, as getting your Logic skill up more quickly means getting your other skills (aside from Charisma and Body) up more quickly as well. Bookworm can be useful if you skill from books, though the speed boost isn't always noticeable.

The boosts that lucky gives are pretty negligible compared to the fun that unlucky provides. Indestructibility is useful in high-risk households.

[Motoki]

Bookworm can be useful if you skill from books, though the speed boost isn't always noticeable.

Does bookworm make writing books take less time too? Some of those longer books take forever.

Does it also stack with the library study environment bonus?

[J. M. Pescado]

The boosts that lucky gives are pretty negligible compared to the fun that unlucky provides. Indestructibility is useful in high-risk households.

Lucky isn't an intrinsically useful trait because all the benefits it gives are generally to avoiding events that are already easily avoidable or counterable. The same arguments generally apply to Unlucky as well, but Unlucky comes with an amusing perk that lets you torture them better.

[Sam]

Bookworm can be useful if you skill from books, though the speed boost isn't always noticeable.

Does bookworm make writing books take less time too? Some of those longer books take forever.

I wish xP They write better, but not necessarily faster (I've not noticed a difference in speed, anyway).

As for daredevil, apparently it means you don't need to worry about a smoke alarm. They love to get involved with fire, and I've heard of one case where he put one out before the firefighter NPC got a chance. My latest one often hopes for a fire to start - interestingly enough though, there's been no extreme anything on his menu. Maybe he needs to up his body skill first? (Does that even do anything? My first daredevil was Christopher Steel, and although he had the "Extreme" thing, it didn't seem to make any difference.)

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the best point of Neat. The macro-clean ability of "Clean House".

They have that? Wow I am going to have to use it. I've been looking for something like that since SC doesn't have that option unlike the TS2 SC (or whatever the heck it was called).

Sometimes they get negative moodlets about something being dirty and I really don't feel like searching every damned object in a large room with a lot of junk in it to figure out what it is, or sometimes I just want them to clean everything and be done with it without having to queue each item to clean up individually.

Oh yes, I regularly abuse that feature Neat sims do have one drawback though - when leaving children's books scattered about the floor so the toddlers can read, you have to watch them like a hawk. I had to keep stopping the neat father from putting them away, and had to leave off the "clean house" while the kids were tots.