Roommates doing weird things

[RandomBuzziness]

OK, so this is not meant to be a bug report in any way, which is why I am posting here in General Discussion. I'm pretty sure everything is working as intended, but I have two roommates that are doing some really weird things.

Roomie #1 has this habit of sitting on a toilet for 30 - 40 minutes at least once or twice every day. She just sits there as far as I can tell, not reading books, not using a phone or tablet, nothing! The toilets work fine for everyone else. There are two identical toilets in the house and she'll do this on either one. She is a happy roommate and never complains about her needs or threatens to leave. She never does that funny I-need-to-pee walk either before or after her toilet sitting. I can't think of any traits that would cause this. She also has a habit of spraying things with a cleaning bottle even though she does not have the Neat or Squeamish traits.

Roomie #2 gets a Sad mood every time she goes outside the house. Like every time. She'll be perfectly happy inside the house but as soon as she goes outside I see her start to do that sad, mopey kind of walk. She will cheer up if my Sim interacts with her but soon afterwards will get the Sad mood again. What the heck kind of trait would cause that? The closest thing I can think of is Gloomy but she does not have that trait. It's like she has an anti-Loves Outdoors trait! I can't think of any Build/Buy object I have outside the house that could be causing this and no other Sim shows this type of behavior. She usually has a Happy mood when she is inside and she also never complains about her needs or threatens to leave. She does drop those whiney/sarcastic complaint notes every now & then but they seem to almost be at random.

I'm not complaining about any of this, I've had these roommates for quite a while now and it does keep my game interesting and at times very amusing. I'm wondering if anyone else is seeing these or any other really odd things with their roommates that does not fit with their traits?

This is a mod/CC-free test save I am using to experiment on ways of keeping roommates happy. I might temporarily pop in a mod or two to test certain things but I don't save afterwards and I always clear the cache after I remove the temp mods.

[RandomBuzziness · Accepted solution]

@DMDragonCT  Thanks for the info on that mod :D I temporarily put it in my game & confirmed that everything I was seeing is by design and definitely not a bug. Thank you @crinrict  for helping me figure this out. Any further details than that would be very heavy with spoilers. I will add a few details below for anyone interested, while trying to keep the spoilers at a minimum.

For anyone who would prefer to keep things about their roommates a little bit more of a mystery, please do not read any further than this.

***SPOILERS BELOW***

Spoiler

It turns out that roommates do have special hidden traits that were added to the game with the Discover University EP. These "roommate" traits are completely different and separate from their permanent traits and appear to be randomly assigned to the NPC at the time you ask & they accept to be your roommate. The list of possible traits is quite long with each trait accounting for specific behaviors and actions that the roommates will take.

For example, the roommate I mentioned that sits on the toilet for 30+ minutes has a trait called "Bathroom Hog". It's actually quite funny & very realistic now that I see the intent of the developers! I mean, who hasn't had a roommate or family member who hogged up a bathroom? My sister used to take forever in there! xD All of the odd behaviors I mentioned in post #1 can be attributed to various roommate traits.

One last thing that I have noticed is that these traits are removed from that NPC as soon as they are no longer your roommate. If you ask the same NPC to be your roommate a second time, they will receive new random roommate traits. I haven't yet found a cheat or mod that will let me add/delete/change roommate traits but I will keep looking.

[crinrict]

@RandomBuzziness Can you pop in SimsInfo and check if they have any unexpected hidden traits ?

Did you create them/download them from the gallery or are they NPCs ?

[RandomBuzziness]

@crinrict As far as I know they are both randomly generated NPCs. They are not from the Gallery & I do not believe they are from the pool of pre-made Townies like Alex Moyer, Clement Frost, etc.

I am not familiar with SimsInfo, is that a mod? I would love to give it a try and to see if they have any hidden traits if someone could point me in the right direction on that SimsInfo thing.

[DMDragonCT]

@RandomBuzziness  You can find the "Show/Search Sim Info" mod v3.8.1 by itasan2 over at MTS (Mod-the-Sims website).

[RandomBuzziness · Accepted solution]

@DMDragonCT  Thanks for the info on that mod :D I temporarily put it in my game & confirmed that everything I was seeing is by design and definitely not a bug. Thank you @crinrict  for helping me figure this out. Any further details than that would be very heavy with spoilers. I will add a few details below for anyone interested, while trying to keep the spoilers at a minimum.

For anyone who would prefer to keep things about their roommates a little bit more of a mystery, please do not read any further than this.

***SPOILERS BELOW***

Spoiler

It turns out that roommates do have special hidden traits that were added to the game with the Discover University EP. These "roommate" traits are completely different and separate from their permanent traits and appear to be randomly assigned to the NPC at the time you ask & they accept to be your roommate. The list of possible traits is quite long with each trait accounting for specific behaviors and actions that the roommates will take.

For example, the roommate I mentioned that sits on the toilet for 30+ minutes has a trait called "Bathroom Hog". It's actually quite funny & very realistic now that I see the intent of the developers! I mean, who hasn't had a roommate or family member who hogged up a bathroom? My sister used to take forever in there! xD All of the odd behaviors I mentioned in post #1 can be attributed to various roommate traits.

One last thing that I have noticed is that these traits are removed from that NPC as soon as they are no longer your roommate. If you ask the same NPC to be your roommate a second time, they will receive new random roommate traits. I haven't yet found a cheat or mod that will let me add/delete/change roommate traits but I will keep looking.

[SheriGR]

@RandomBuzziness Too funny.... and excellent 'spoiler info', which explains a lot. 'Bathroom hog'! I love it! I used to refer to it as a 'bathroom princess' in reference to one son. Not to his face, though. (He was a teen at that time, so this label would have been traumatizing.) Lol!!

[RandomBuzziness]

@SheriGR  Yes, it does go a long way towards explaining why some roommates have good habits and behaviors while others can be horrible (just as in real life!). To me it still does not fully explain why some of them are so hard to please. I will keep any further discussion of that aspect in the proper existing threads on that topic. I imagine there might be some tweaks to the roommate system in a future game patch, but even as it is now I do enjoy having the randomness and mystery that their quirks and oddities bring to the game. The important thing for me was to learn that all of this is by design and not a bug.

There is a long discussion over on The Sims Forums if anyone would like to see the entire list of hidden roommate traits (warning, many spoilers there!).

https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/comment/17312724/#Comment_17312724

[finelinetracksix]

@RandomBuzziness Now that is cool!

[PugLove888]

@RandomBuzziness, I just started a save in order to test having roommates.  I've had them before in the dorms and in one of the student housing houses, but since my Sim was concentrating on her degree and playing soccer, I didn't pay much attention to the roommates the, other than to note that some are messy, some are neat freaks, and some love to repair broken items. 

In my new save I used the motherlode cheat to pay my bills so I can just concentrate on the roommate dynamics/shenanigans ! (I will just have my Sim paint, garden, and play chess.)  So, upon posting the add, I had 4 potential roomies show up, and 3 of those were Mermaids, even though I am in Willow Creek!   The other potential roomie was Alex Moyer from the Tutorial.   I rejected one Mermaid because I know she has the Mean personality trait, and didn't want to chance her also having an undesirable roommate trait.  I accepted the other 2 Mermaids and Alex Moyer. 

So far the guy Mermaid is puzzling since he seemed to leave a few piles of trash, yet cleaned up the dishes, on several occasions!  He also seems to really like Monte Cristo sandwiches!  (Good thing I put in the ice cream maker so I can make that diet ice cream when my Sim gets fat from eating all the Monte Cristo sandwiches! )  

One of the other Mermaids I had the option to tell complain about public displays of affection, but I never actually saw this happen yet, so we will see.  So far Alex hasn't done anything of note.  It will be interesting to find out! 

[RandomBuzziness]

@PugLove888  I think the hidden roommate traits will only modify their behaviors rather than override their normal traits altogether. Like when your Sim roomie who sounds like he is normally a Slob randomly decides to clean the dishes. I agree with you in not accepting the Mean mermaid, she might have turned out to have some funny quirks but she'd still be mean.

Minor Spoilers follow, but I'll avoid going into great detail: 

Spoiler

Each roommate will get several modifier traits from a rather long list of possibles. The way these modifiers interact with the regular traits and with each other could create some pretty wild results, especially if the modifier is totally opposite from the regular trait (maybe this is why some roommates are unhappy no matter how hard you try to please them?). Or they might be so subtle as to be hard to notice.

Even with well-known NPCs like Alex Moyer you can never quite be sure about what kind of roommate she will be. Your last line nailed it - It will be interesting to find out!