i feel the need to have a little discussion about traits and aspirations
i notes that in the CAS editor, aspirations are arbitrarily tied to certain "bonus traits", where as in the actual game, it doesn't matter which traits you have because you can change your aspiration at will (which i like)
this leads to several unnecessary problems:
1)it encourages you to pick your aspiration on sim creation based on the bonus trait, because you can always simply switch the aspiration out right away once in the game
2)it forces you to have an aspiration based trait, thus lowering customization
3)it means you cannot have two "bonus traits" on your character, such as Collector, and Quick Learner, or any other combination of bonus traits thus once again, lowering customization
4)and it means that sims you create to move into a household to interact with your sims but not intended to be played, can be stuck with ether an aspiration or a trait that doesn't necessarily fit what you were going through
Example: i wanted to create a fat and lazy sim, who desires love, but has very little to no viable success in the romance department
i gave him the traits, lazy, gloomy, and geek, great, but when i pick his aspiration (soulmate) he is also given the alluring trait, which goes against the concept
this character is meant to be moved into my world, and interacted with by my main sims, but if i wanted him to have any other trait, AND the aspiration of soulmate, then i would have to play him, thus, labeling him as played, giving a forever green plumbob over his house, and subjecting him to played sims only rules, such as played sim only aging
solutions:
i would rather be able to pick a fourth trait independently of aspiration, then be forced to pick my aspirations based on the trait they will get
this would probably mean a minor adjustment to how CAS works, however since the game doesn't care what trait and aspiration combinations you have, it would require no work on the gameplay aspect
Ex2: in the example above, instead of having alluring, id rather give that sim, the slob trait
EA Staff (Retired)
