No Negative Traits - On
Start without Positive Traits - On
Developing Leaders - Off
Correct. This is and was meant to mean 'no traits at all'.
Joseph is almost right about a lot of things there but let me clear up the record on this:
GAMEOPTION_PURE_TRAITS(Pure Traits)
All tags on all traits are given to be declared inside the code as having a positive and negative value. In this regard positive and negative meaning beneficial or penalizing. A negative number on some tags may mean a positive benefit.
We introduced the idea of having Positive and Negative traits. If you ever play developing leaders it becomes clear that there are positive traits (the 'blue set') that are overall beneficial to the leader and the negative traits (the 'red set') that are overall a penalty to the leader. By default, leaders in C2C are supposed to be assigned 2 Positive Traits and 1 Negative Trait. These are those they start with under most game option configurations.
This concept still exists.
Where the disagreement took place was when the traits were being redesigned, many of us wanted Positive Traits to have some small percentage of negative penalties within the trait profile and to have Negative traits also have some small percentage of positive value within the trait profile. There were many who felt this was dramatically overcomplicating things.
Those like myself who argued FOR this blend of benefits within traits individually argued that no personality feature a person can have is all good or all bad itself. All have strengths and weaknesses but also all can be generally more beneficial or more detrimental as a whole.
To quell the argument and out of respect for my opponents in the discussion, I created Pure Traits.
The trick behind Pure Traits is to have the code take all harmful values on a positive trait and disable those tags in that case and to take all the beneficial values on negative traits and disable those tags in that case. Thus the traits are 'Pure'. They are uncorrupted by the slight introduction of negativity on Positive traits and the slight introduction of benefit on Negative traits.
This option is still entirely valid and fundamental to trait design in C2C no matter what form the traits would take (hopefully any trait designer would understand the philosophy of course.)
GAMEOPTION_COMPLEX_TRAITS(Hidden and disabled currently by default - awaiting my design approach implementation)
I created this as the shell of the way in which I would introduce my own trait set so as to not stomp all over Slick's efforts with my own vision. I dramatically disagreed with he and ls612 over so many design decisions that I was in the process of designing these traits when SO asked me to just drop it and get back to the Combat Mod. The option could be removed but I would leave it there so that I can introduce, eventually, my set AS an option first so that those who dislike it could go with the core instead. And whomever works the core traits I can simply not care if I disagree with them.
GAMEOPTION_LS612_TRAITS(Focused Traits)
ls612 had his own vision of how traits should be designed. Can't blame a guy for having such a strong conviction that he cannot accept the direction Slick and I (also in nearly as intense disagreement with each other) wanted to go. I patently disregard this option myself since I know the fundamental disagreements between us that he infused into it. But I don't mind the option's existence ... I do still mind the offensive insinuation in its text that it's 'obviously superior'.
Start with No Positive Traits offers us the following toggles:
1) On Developing Leaders it allows you to start off with no traits at all and earn your way into both positive and negative traits. If No Negative traits is on then you will not earn any negative traits along the way.
2) With Developing Leaders off you either get only the default negative traits leaders are assigned in their definitions, or you have No Negative traits on and thus simply play with no traits at all. Which of late has been popular for some because of the imbalances I pointed out to both slick and ls612 whom were unfortunately the only ones to implement their sets.
To clarify: SGT Slick's set is the core default. However it has been tweaked a bit since initial introduction by himself (without announcing all tweaks as he went on the forum) and other modders given that it is the 'core' set. It is Focused Traits that is ls612's alternative set.
I don't think its time to try to address these options and initiate the removal of any of them yet. I want to complete my set first and see how it is received by playtesting. I also don't mind if people are playtesting ls612's philosophies. I would hope people can tell the difference enough to comment on those differences. They seemed pretty dramatically different to me.
But aside from that 'alternative set' the rest of the leader options are not just to quell old arguments but to keep those old arguments from ever being a contestable issue again. It was proven that we could not come to consensus on these divisions of design philosophy. It is where this happens that options must be defined.