Ranking Every Trait in the Sims 4: A Tier List

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most sims4 traits are boring tbh idk why traits effect pets more than they effect humans lmao

as a neurodivergent person , i love the erratic trait. heres why, when representing mental illnesses they had 3 choices: 1. approach it with nuance and respectfulness (nice idea, but unrealistic and goes against the cartoonish nature of the game.) 2. eliminate it entirely and make it nonexistant in the game (of course it would be nice to live without mental illness, but representation is important i think) 3. do what they did, make an umbrealla trait to encapsulate a wide variety of symptoms and behaviors. I dont always give my simself this trait, but the stimming, talking to themself, sometimes unintentionally being a little mean, etc...i think it's funny and i wish there was more comedy around mental illness cos it feels like we're in on the joke rather than being laughed at. of course i 100% respect that you feel iffy about it, it's not for everyone.

The way I was screaming at my screen when you ranked the bro trait thinking it was the good trait 😭

the hates children trait is sooo funny to me and honestly i wouldve put it in good for story personally, one of my sims had a deadbeat dad and whenever they met up, he was just mean to his poor kid. it was reflective of my own experiences so when he died of a random cowplant death with neighborhood stories, it felt really cathartic and no-one was sad about it cos they hated him so much.
The dazed thing was MESSED UP fr but now they updated it that no-one can woohoo a dazed sim at all ( i noticed cos i was having no luck wooing a sim before realizing it was a juiced community)

I don't think the unflirty trate was meant to describe an aromantic sim.
I think it's rather describing a sim, who despite liking romance, is not confident with flirting, not good at flirting and stuff like that. They would 100% not be the first one to make a move, they probably wouldn't flirt in public,...
It might be fun to combine it with the loyal trait for some story telling I guess. 🤔

I LOVE the erratic trait. I think trying to sanitize the "poor mental health" experience doesn't help anyone. People DO act like this irl, and it's not really ableism to have a sims trait that portrays some of these things in a very Sims 4 kind of way. I find that a lot of sims players like making these "perfect" sims who are pretty, smart, and always kind, etc, and while that's totally a fine way to play (and I often play this way), IT'S OKAY TO HAVE MESSY SIMS! I don't use it often, but every so often I like making a family with a sim that really struggles with mental health and whatnot. I find it to be really realistic, I like giving them the "golden star" sibling who skates through life while they don't, and I like that the sims team wasn't afraid to give us a trait that will represent a lot of these things that people actually struggle with.

uh oh that means my sims ambitious father will mock her for being a goofball... he also dances autonomously even though he hates dancing and then he gets upset. what a weird sim. i love this game

ambitious sims mocking goofball sims actually made the trait so much funnier to me like what 😭

It does make sense that ambitious sims mock goofball sims because IRL there’s a lot of tension between people who think life is about achieving goals and people who think life is about having fun

Child of the islands allows you to call elementals, as you said. If you woohoo one of the elementals you can have a child with Sulani Mana which is kinda cool!

The main problem with traits in my opinion is that they're a. too niche and b. too little. Just the fact that we can only choose 3 is already a downgrade because sims cannot have a lot of nuance if you have to choose so little and from an already small catalogue, which is why people tend to overuse the same traits. In fact, I always wanted to have a vegetarian sim but then I remember "I'm taking 1/3 of their entire personality just for a dietary restriction that I can just recreate myself" and I end up discarding the idea. And not only that, but the traits we have are very specific to certain packs and situations, so we can't have any sort of difference between sims unless we play a very specific pack storyline. Imo, it would've been cool if the sims team explored an alternative to traits similar to the personality charts from sims 2 where you had a set amount of points and you could redistribute that around different personality bars to make them unique. But maybe you could also add traits similar to the sims 3 system for things that act in a binary way, as in you either have it completely or not at all. Like sea sickness, dog lover, vegetarian, lactose intolerant, etc.

The high maintenance trait isn't actually so annoying if your sim meditates - as soon as they get a tense or uncomfortable moodlet, they can meditate, and an hour or so of that gives them the cathartic moodlet, making them fine again. I'm playing a sim who is high maintenance and wants to find inner peace because of it - might be impossible to stay in a good mood for 24h (or whatever it was) but well see :D

i gave my sim the jealous trait for funsies and it was SO annoying oh my god!! she'd get anxious about not being with her partner when they lived IN THE SAME HOUSE

as an erratic person, i love the erratic trait lmao

The bookworm one is amazing cuz it makes your sim learn faster and gain happiness from reading books. It's not boring

The Playful moodlet is dangerous. My sim was just got married she's happy she's good but she got hysterical without me noticing it and died. And I had 2 ghosts (one is my founder). Luckily the well was kind enough to give me an ambrosia and revive her

I think Evil or mean should’ve atleast been in the okay tab. Since they eliminated tragedies like burglars and unexpected deaths, at least the evil or mean trait add some realness to the sim.

I used to always give my simself the paranoid trait because I've got such bad anxiety, but I gave the socially awkward trait a try and in my opinion it is better because u get some really cute sentiments about the Sims you do open up to and u can talk about being nervous and stuff. I think it's quite sweet and it's better than having a sim that starts running around like a maniac because of a thunder storm lmao.

"Art lover doesn't really add anything" (Edna Mode voice): Culture, dahling! Lol

I dont really see how the erratic trait is ableist since it’s not supposed represent neurodivergency imo. I think it represents a very severe type of mental illness which might seem a bit exaggerated in the game but the truth is that some people DO act similar to it. Therefore it’s not ableist but realistic. I’m glad they stopped calling it the “insane” trait though that was messed up.

Kleptomaniac is my favorite trait ngl. It fundamentally changes how I play with the character, it's challenging -- which is what I want

The Sims 3 has more traits and I feel it has more impact in the gameplay than the ones in The Sims 4

you mixing up the good and bro trait gave me so much anxiety

The bookworm trait works great if you want a Sim to learn a lot of things very fast. They learn way faster from reading than regular Sims, plus, it's very easy to fix the stressed mootlet. Just let them read for an hour and the bar is all the way back to green!

What you said about goofball being dangerous is so true. I had a sim just recently married, just had a baby, so he was ecstatic about life. Goofball moodlet. Dead. I was SO mad. Have never used that trait since.

It’s funny i love the erratic trait because it is the closest we get to mental illness in the game, but i wish it wasn’t as abelist. I just enjoy seeing my sim talk to themself and do random things. My favourite trait in game though is maybe the jealous trait

the maker trait is really helpful imo if you want your sim to use the eco lifestyle stuff, i played without it and my sims got so annoyed at the fabricator and candle making station that they were always upset

I didn't know about those "disco-naps"! Thank you!

I much prefer Green Fiend than Freegan. Freegan sims hate having a career. While Green Fiend loves gardening and stuffs. It's genuine an adjacent Love the Outdoor trait.

idk I really like the socially awkward one. I always use it for anxiety and it just makes gameplay so much more relatable

i love the erratic trait personally, i think it makes the game so much more interesting to have your sim be unpredictable and a bit silly / realistic

I find the high maintenance trait makes my sim act kinda how my autism presents so I really like it but it can be a tad annoying but like so is real life so I like it

I agree with your tier list, however in my opinion the Jealous trait I find annoying. Also my Simself is a Childish, Goofball, Geek since I feel like those traits really suits me in rl and every time my Simself gets to hysterical, I have to quickly take her to the nearest mirror because that trait can be annoying at times but honestly in rl I do act like a Sim anyway haha.

As a person diagnosed with bpd with a partner who understands me greatly, it hurt very much when you said feeling tense while your lover is talking to non-family is toxic... It's not like we're choosing to feel this way, and it's not like we want to restrict them either. We just want to be sure that we will not be abandoned again. I'm so lucky to have a lovely gf who understands how I feel and doesn't call me toxic for having emotions I can't help having. Sorry for my English, I'm not a native.

for rags 2 riches art loves is great tbh since u can earn like 300-3K per painting (depending on level ofc)

The game seriously needs a "Loves Spooky Things" trait when I recreate characters (And to a less extent my Simself) I run into some variant of "Socially Awkward + Bookworm + Good + Loves Horror" combo a lot (Cure Peace being happy over Ghosts, Kotonoha Katsura implying she likes movies akin to Friday the 13th, Cure Mint having dreams of being a Runaway Bride and other things along those lines) I'm on PC with Mods but vanilla was a nightmare for character recreations with 3 traits

Putting the erratic trait in the 'annoying' category is bold considering you don't like controversy. Maybe you should've just skipped that one

i had no idea thats why those sims showed up in the park like that. what the hell

i love it when i have a gloomy sim thats a ghost cause then its basically a narcissist, getting inspired from themselves lol

The bookworm trait I found was good for me if you can live off the grid

u saying that there should be ways of being neurodivergent in the sims just to call the socially awkward trait annoying 😭😭

As a person that struggles with mental health myself, I basically *never* play *without* a sim with the erratic trait. The random mood changes and messy situations they end up in are so real and honestly so much more fun. The issue is that it's one of the only traits that do actually give your sims some resemblance of realness and personality, which is messed up - mental disorders aren't supposed to actually be a part of your personality. The gloomy trait also feels that way. Anyways, I'm taking what's offered in this cartoonish world!
Edit: I actually play with a sim that has both paranoid and erratic traits. I love this dude dearly. He's become very accomplished, btw.

12:45 I have psychosis and I always gave my simself that trait and was totally fine with it, but I also didn’t like myself very much back then.
Idk how I feel about it now. I still use it and ig Sims being fantasy makes me not think too much about it

Personally I would put the adventurous trait in the annoying category. It hasn't had too much impact on my gameplay, but it's SO annoying how sims get bored all the time when doing a skill that's high level.

I really enjoyed your video and thoughts. It's fascinating seeing how differently people play the Sims when you listen to their method of picking traits.
Personally I think 'Hates Children' and 'Adventurous' are great for storytelling but it depends on your narrative, which is different for all players. I agree with most of your list though, I think most long time players would.

I feel like along with more trait slots, there should be separate slots for personality traits and physical traits, like a space for all the lactose intolerant and maybe some possible neurodivergent traits to go, and then the other stuff goes to personality

It's possible to befriend a rabbit with the animal enthusiast trait, but it takes a lot of work : You need to give it a lot of gifts, talk with it a lot,... And come back the next day, several times.
Cheerful Sims tend to get playful, TO playful at time. They have way more chances to die from laughter than any other Sim. In fact, ALL traits that increase the chance that a Sim become playful are dangerous. Those that make that moodlet last longer are particularly so.
The genius trait is great for a Sim in the scientist career.
A Sim do not need the proper trait to be able to perform the «respectful introduction». If you have Snowy Escape, then, ALL Sims can use that interaction. They just need a charisma skill of 3 or more.
What would be great would be to have 3 major or main traits, then, 3 secondary traits and 3 minor traits. Major/main traits have full effect.
Secondary traits have somewhat reduced, but still significant, effect.
Minor traits are more like flavour or fleshing out traits with only small effect.

i used the childish trait once, my sim got on his child's laptop to play games and would never get off, not even to take care of his kid leaving the mom to do everything

I had one sim with the jealous trait recently and he'd get that tense moodlet even when his husband was like in the other room

omg finally someone else who likes the bro trait 😭

it's interesting you mention green fiend doesn't do much for you! my sim has this trait and because i have a little garden outside her house, she's always gardening, talking to the plants and helping them grow!
she constantly has an inspired moodlet from doing green activities and of all my sims traits i feel it has the largest impact to her actions!

Ah, this made me want to do my own tier-list for traits in TS3. 😄

Tbh i think that the hate children trait is good for storytelling, is not a bad trait though. But that's just my opinion idk what you guys think.

Bookworm has more about it than art lover. You get wants to go to the library and read, you also get to analyse books as well as read them. It requires doing all 3 things to not develop fears so your sim is kinda pushed into reading and being a bookworm more than most traits impact the game.

Ooo this idea is actually very cool and original, I like it!

I like using the more traits mod to expand my options because a lot of traits work better when combined. For example, I’m currently playing an aromantic sim and added the unflirty + noncommittal traits as the 4th and 5th traits and it works perfectly.

I do have to say I like child of the Island if you want to play an medium type character that regularly see ghosts. At least that’s what I've used it mostly for. It’s not really perfect but ehhh good for story imo.

Gave my sim romantic and loyal. She autonomously did a romantic action AT HER WEDDING AND I COULDNT HAVE A KID UNTIL SHE CONFESSED

The doll houses never STOOD a dang chance.

I like the erratic trait as a person with mental issues just because i also talk to myself and get randomly sad or angry and stuff and I like that talking to themselves fills social. But I also agree with everything you said about the park and that. Also I currently have an erratic sim who will randomly yell at her friends without even having an angry moodlet. She’ll be all blue or green and then just start insulting people, even close friends, out of nowhere and that really bothers me.

Been playing with an Over-Achiever sim for several months, only just now learning that *that's* why she's maxed so many skills and it's not just me playing very efficiently...

I've got a foodie sim right now, and i thought it would be fun bc shes based off a pre existing character, but honestly its so annoying at times. Whenever she gets a drink from the fridge she gets uncomfortable, and when im not focusing on her she does it ALL THE TIME. Like why are you even doing that girl????
I also gave a sim the hothead, and now he ruins parties whenever hes invited

I remember once when I was doing this zodiac legacy challenge , my first sim had the loyal trait and one of the things that you weren’t allowed to do was cheat and you would fail if your sim did.
I must’ve been paying attention to someone else during this but my sim decided to flirt with her HUSBANDS BEST FRIEND
I only found out because of the fact that she could apologize for being disloyal, I decided to just ignore it because it was fully autonomous but still what

I think the overachiever trait is funny when you combine it with all the other boosts you can get to skill gains. Suddenly you get to lvl 6 in a skill in the same time as another sim uses to become lvl 2

Im sorry but Ambitious trait is so annoying in my eyes. Most of the time your sim will have bad moon bcs of this. They just come back from work? Well too bad bcs bad trait from not going to work is STILL HERE AND WONT COME AWAY

It’s funny to me bc one of my favorite sims has like 2 of the “worst” traits, he is evil and hates children, in my opinion I prefer this kinda traits that make u struggle a little, I mean, I have a house full of vampires and evil guys, it’s just make all the interactions super funny to me, the only thing that I found annoying about the evil trait is that they can also be evil to their own partners, which is kinda upsetting bc I want them to have a good relationship. I mean he can be evil with everyone instead of his partner.

Sad when paying bill...aren't we all? XD

For SO LONG i thought the jealous icon was some sort of pepper... It was like 5 or so months ago i realized that it was an eye...

Personally, I LOVE the jealous trait. I've used it with multiple traits and it starts THE BEST drama when it comes to romance stories. I'm using it within the high school years pack and if you create a sim with good and balanced traits you'll end up playing for hours.

Tysm for saying this I'm neurodivergent and I got a little scared bc a few abilist simmers used erratic sims as insane weird people and I didn't wanna say anything abt it ❤

I don't understand why people call something ableist when it's a fact, there are many mentally issued people in the world, why is that ''ableist''?

I have an evil sim but because I keep her mood up I've never seen anything really bad happen. Her evil laugh while programming and playing games is hilarious. My wife claims I do that in real life.

Yeah, let's just say there's a reason I have a ton of cc traits in my game. I love ones that add good neurodivergancy.

“They’re more upset from paying bills.”
I’ve never related to a video game character more.

As one of them neurodivergents, I tend to cheat with the traits and whenever the story telling goes to a depressive episode i mix the erratic, solitary and melancholy traits, and it makes the most disfunctional sad sim lol. But I, at least, don't find it that problematic but it would be better to be able to give your Sims more traits, because most traits become useless when you only can pick three

another use of the cat lover trait is that you get bonus satisfaction points from the "Feel the love" intereaction with cats, 250, up from 150~

As a neuroatypical person (or neurodivergent I suppose) person, I agree with you on the Erratic trait and the way it's problematic. For those who cannot play with mods (console users) or those who choose not to use mods, then I can see where this trait may be useful to represent things within the trait that aren't problematic. I've since replaced it with several traits relating to either mentally interesting things I experience (anxiety, MDD, CPTSD, ADHD, ASD) and find that to be a lot better than using this trait. I feel less 'eeeh' about it because of the troubling aspects of it.
TLDR: I agree.

“You were in a club meeting like 2 days ago”. 😭

The fact you only have 1600 subs is awful. You deserve so much more

I'm surprised you don't think energized is a useful mood. It slows energy decay!

5:03 my good and bad sims actually were married for their whole lives so it IS possible

Every Room is a Different Trait

If you play sims 3 u should totally do this but with sims 3 traits which are way better

not all mental illnesses are neurodivergencies, using the terms interchangeably is really annoying and inaccurate

Glad I'm not the only that gives my sims loner so they won't need to fill their social xD

I get it but I love all the traits because you can use all of them in so many storytelling cause I really want to try hard and make some cause I've loved sims since 10ys old but I love learning more about sims from everyone 🥰💜

i used to always give my simself the erratic trait but ever since they introduced socially awkward i haven’t used it

Does anyone know if there is a glitch with the dog/cat lover traits? I have a couple with a dog and it keeps offering them to pick up the cat lover trait even though the only animal they both know and interact with is their dog lol

My fav trait I give my sim as myself is Childish, Erratic and Longer.

Evil is so fucking annoying. When my sim is having the PERFECT conversation with someone then they randomly choose to insult them which makes the conversation awkward and it infuriates me

perfection. 💗✨💎

I've never actually had a sim accidentally die from hysteria or do anything annoying (though I guess it is because I don't have that many packs)
Edit my sim just accidentally became hysterical because he had a bunch of happy moodlets then his mom autonomously voodooed him with the frolic interaction dw he didn't die he's a teen. Teens can't die because of emotional deaths

Why was the goofball trait the catalyst for all my most tragic storylines lmao?
"This guy will be a bit whimsical" and then he orphans a family of 6 bc he had a bit too much fun?

I'm sure you know by now but you add tiers by clicking the cog wheel on the right. Great vid.

the paranoid trait is my favorite because same

There’s not enough slots! I wanna make complex personalities but there’s not enough room for me to do anything 💀
It’s getting to the point where I’m sitting for 10s of minutes unable to decide what traits I want and having to choose between traits
And don’t recommend mods cause I’m a console player

I'd say Active is a pretty solid trait. Energized makes it so your energy needs decay slower so you'll need to sleep less if you spend a lot of time energized

in my 100 baby challenge my matriarch started to always get hysterical after having a baby and eventually i wasn’t able to get her to calm down so that’s how she died…

Bookworm can be kinda good because sims can get better at their skills by reading i think