BUILD MODE CRITIQUE - build mode is needlessly complicated and should be simplified

[big bungo]

build mode is *rough*. it's overly complicated for no reason and is very, very clunky. sure you could get used to it after maybe playing for a long time, but there's genuinely no reason for it to be this way. it just creates an accessibility problem where there shouldn't be one. i'm not talking about it "being too hard for younger players", i'm almost 30 and have been building in the sims for over 20 years and I'M struggling with this. building should be fun in any game that features it, not frustrating to the point of not wanting to touch it at all.

off the top of my head, here are the things i have issue with:
-walls do not automatically connect to each other when you manually build walls next to pre-existing walls, and you instead have to click on the wall to stretch it against the wall beside it, which causes texture clipping.

-you can't just delete a single section of a wall, you have to delete the whole wall and redo the entire thing.

-in order to build a foundation, you need to build a room, raise the floor, and then delete the walls. why? there is no reason for it to be this way. foundations should be their own unique tool, not directly tied to and hidden behind room creation.

-you can't just select a floor tile and drag it across the floor to easily create whatever formation you want manually. you have to place down a massive square tile (that can't be placed down anywhere near furniture by the way) that you have to manually resize yourself to be smaller. it does not start out as a small 1x1 tile and cannot be adjusted into a formation that isn't a square or a rectangle.

-the ground isn't actually a part of the world, it's a floor tile that you have to set to have a grass texture on it. how are players supposed to do landscaping and create beautiful and natural looking gardens if the ground itself is a floor tile? there is soil in the outdoors, there are supposed to be patches of soil beneath trees and bushes. players may want to have small parts of their lawn not have grass.

-there are needless build and furnishing restrictions that have no reason for existing. you can barely overlap anything. you try to place a window against a wall with a piece of furniture near it, it gives you a "Furniture cannot overlap" message even if the window itself wouldn't overlap with the piece of furniture in front of it. you try to place a floor tile on the ground that has furniture in the area, it gives you a "Furniture cannot overlap" message. you try to place a window at the bottom of a wall against the floor, it gives you a "Cannot place on the corner of a wall" message (even the developers are aware of this one because the house preset that loads in when you enter the build creator has a sliding door with no floor attached on the other side acting as a window because you can't place windows low enough). there are no reason for these restrictions, and they *need* to be loosened significantly.

-building off my last point, you literally cannot build fences on a floor tile. this includes grass which, as i said, is a floor tile. this restriction should not exist and is EXTREMELY frustrating.

-if you want to make a room that connects to the house but isn't built on the same level/on the foundation, it's not possible. you can *attempt* to, but the wall height will not line up and there's no way to put a roof over it because the walls cannot connect and because the walls are not the same height.

-this is more a visual thing, but when placing handrails around a hole in the floor, the handrails are not built along the edge of the floor tile and there is instead a large gap between where the handrails are and where the edge of the floor tile is. it looks really ugly to the point that i can see myself not using handrails/fences at all and instead just using half-walls.

i will say that, at least when it comes to furnishing, the "place freely" button is very much appreciated. i was annoyed that it seemed like you couldn't move furniture to be right up against walls, but the "place freely" button allows you to do this and does not have any placement restrictions.

as it is currently, build mode in its current state is fine for making very, very basic builds. the issue comes with wanting to get creative with the layout and do more interesting builds. is it possible? yes. the house presets have shown this to be the case. but will it be "easy" or enjoyable for most players? absolutely not. build mode needs a lot of work, especially when it comes to placing walls, fencing and flooring, as well as the ground being a floor tile.

i'm making this post in hopes of the developers taking my feedback into account and make adjustments. feel free to leave your own gripes with build mode here in the comments as there may have been things i've missed/didn't notice or didn't think to bring up because they weren't too much of an issue for me.

[(Czari) C.A.S.S.I.E. lover uwu]

+1

i absolutely hate how foundations work ngl, literally had to create a house without it cuz i was so frustrated lmao

[Miss_Pixy]

+1

[Mysterycookie]

Originally posted by big bungo:

-you can't just delete a single section of a wall, you have to delete the whole wall and redo the entire thing.

I agree with so much of what you said except this part. I can click on a single wall panel and remove it one by one

[big bungo]

Originally posted by Mysterycookie:

Originally posted by big bungo:

-you can't just delete a single section of a wall, you have to delete the whole wall and redo the entire thing.

I agree with so much of what you said except this part. I can click on a single wall panel and remove it one by one

really? i was unable to do it when i tried, but maybe i just did it wrong. that's on me then

[JapaniKatti]

+1

[Fox]

+1

[Duex]

Originally posted by big bungo:

Originally posted by Mysterycookie:

I agree with so much of what you said except this part. I can click on a single wall panel and remove it one by one

really? i was unable to do it when i tried, but maybe i just did it wrong. that's on me then

nah you are correct, it is not possible to delete individual wall sections once a wall is built

[big bungo]

Originally posted by Duex:

Originally posted by big bungo:

really? i was unable to do it when i tried, but maybe i just did it wrong. that's on me then

nah you are correct, it is not possible to delete individual wall sections once a wall is built

that's what i thought! maybe mysterycookie thought that i meant the entire built wall and not small individual segments of a wall like in the sims, which is what i actually meant

[Akuomaru]

I'm using a translator.
I can't put my kitchen appliances on the kitchen floor cabinets. Maybe I'm stupid and don't understand something, but why can I only place the microwave on the floor? Why can't I just pick up an item and put it down, why do I have to press something extra. Has anyone experienced this problem? How can I solve this problem?

[Akuomaru]

I really enjoyed building a house in this game. I spent a wonderful 4 hours building. But now I'm nervous about the microwave

[Mysterycookie]

Originally posted by big bungo:

Originally posted by Duex:

nah you are correct, it is not possible to delete individual wall sections once a wall is built

that's what i thought! maybe mysterycookie thought that i meant the entire built wall and not small individual segments of a wall like in the sims, which is what i actually meant

ahh maybe, I tried building a bit using 2 diff wall sizes and they wouldn't connect to I stopped playing with house building. But during that attempt I was able to click on and delete individual wall panels that I had placed, but I never completed the wall in the concept of an entire room enclosed

[Jack]

Originally posted by big bungo:

build mode is *rough*. it's overly complicated for no reason and is very, very clunky. sure you could get used to it after maybe playing for a long time, but there's genuinely no reason for it to be this way. it just creates an accessibility problem where there shouldn't be one. i'm not talking about it "being too hard for younger players", i'm almost 30 and have been building in the sims for over 20 years and I'M struggling with this. building should be fun in any game that features it, not frustrating to the point of not wanting to touch it at all.

off the top of my head, here are the things i have issue with:
-walls do not automatically connect to each other when you manually build walls next to pre-existing walls, and you instead have to click on the wall to stretch it against the wall beside it, which causes texture clipping.

-you can't just delete a single section of a wall, you have to delete the whole wall and redo the entire thing.

-you can't just select a floor tile and drag it across the floor to easily create whatever formation you want manually. you have to place down a massive square tile (that can't be placed down anywhere near furniture by the way) that you have to manually resize yourself to be smaller. it does not start out as a small 1x1 tile and cannot be adjusted into a formation that isn't a square or a rectangle.

-the ground isn't actually a part of the world, it's a floor tile that you have to set to have a grass texture on it. how are players supposed to do landscaping and create beautiful and natural looking gardens if the ground itself is a floor tile? there is soil in the outdoors, there are supposed to be patches of soil beneath trees and bushes. players may want to have small parts of their lawn not have grass.

-there are needless build and furnishing restrictions that have no reason for existing. you can barely overlap anything. you try to place a window against a wall with a piece of furniture near it, it gives you a "Furniture cannot overlap" message even if the window itself wouldn't overlap with the piece of furniture in front of it. you try to place a floor tile on the ground that has furniture in the area, it gives you a "Furniture cannot overlap" message. you try to place a window at the bottom of a wall against the floor, it gives you a "Cannot place on the corner of a wall" message (even the developers are aware of this one because the house preset that loads in when you enter the build creator has a sliding door with no floor attached on the other side acting as a window because you can't place windows low enough). there are no reason for these restrictions, and they *need* to be loosened significantly.

-building off my last point, you literally cannot build fences on a floor tile. this includes grass which, as i said, is a floor tile. this restriction should not exist and is EXTREMELY frustrating.

-if you want to make a room that connects to the house but isn't built on the same level/on the foundation, it's not possible. you can *attempt* to, but the wall height will not line up and there's no way to put a roof over it because the walls cannot connect and because the walls are not the same height.

-this is more a visual thing, but when placing handrails around a hole in the floor, the handrails are not built along the edge of the floor tile and there is instead a large gap between where the handrails are and where the edge of the floor tile is. it looks really ugly to the point that i can see myself not using handrails/fences at all and instead just using half-walls.

i will say that, at least when it comes to furnishing, the "place freely" button is very much appreciated. i was annoyed that it seemed like you could move furniture to be right up against walls, but the "place freely" button allows you to do this and does not have any placement restrictions.

as it is currently, build mode in its current state is fine for making very, very basic builds. the issue comes with wanting to get creative with the layout and do more interesting builds. is it possible? yes. the house presets have shown this to be the case. but will it be "easy" or enjoyable for most players? absolutely not. build mode needs a lot of work, especially when it comes to placing walls, fencing and flooring, as well as the ground being a floor tile.

i'm making this post in hopes of the developers taking my feedback into account and make adjustments. feel free to leave your own gripes with build mode here in the comments as there may have been things i've missed/didn't notice or didn't think to bring up because they weren't too much of an issue for me.

You make some valid points.

Hope the Developers look at your post and take the feedback on board.

What surprises me most is that plenty of Streamers have been part of their Playtests for 2 years - Yet, none of them indicated these issues during the Playtests? - Not too mention giving these Streamers Early Access(full game) over paying consumers on Early Access Launch.

We'll see how it goes. There's numerous red flags which I've seen within the past week. The lack of safeguards. Lack of awareness for specific content being uploaded etc etc.

I'll keep my fingers crossed that they listen to feedback from players like you. And not from streamers who stream for content. Not to help develop the game.

[Secret Doll]

I tried build mode for about 10 minutes, and got incredibly frustrated starting with the floor, for the exact reasons you stated. I'll give it another try but it's incredibly frustrating that a game this far into development has such frustrating issues.

[big bungo]

Originally posted by Comstock:

What surprises me most is that plenty of Streamers have been part of their Playtests for 2 years - Yet, none of them indicated these issues during the Playtests?

that's the thing tho: they did. i know for a fact that content creators who were given access to inzoi since the first playtest have expressed their opinions on the build mode and have let those frustrations be known, and while there have been SOME improvements, they're very minimal and it feels like most of their feedback was just straight up ignored for some reason

the youtuber who i watched the most during the playtests (acottonsock) did a whole video where she tried to build a house and she got so frustrated with it that she went completely silent for a chunk of the video. she sent that video to the developers, and all of the things that frustrated her are still present in the demo and seem to not have been tweaked at all. the only improvement i noticed was with the roofing

i think a good amount of those content creators didn't really spend much time in the build mode either and instead focused on the character creator and live mode, which is understandable, but i wish more attention had been brought to build mode and its issues

[Jack]

Originally posted by big bungo:

Originally posted by Comstock:

What surprises me most is that plenty of Streamers have been part of their Playtests for 2 years - Yet, none of them indicated these issues during the Playtests?

that's the thing tho: they did. i know for a fact that content creators who were given access to inzoi since the first playtest have expressed their opinions on the build mode and have let those frustrations be known, and while there have been SOME improvements, they're very minimal and it feels like most of their feedback was just straight up ignored for some reason

the youtuber who i watched the most during the playtests (acottonsock) did a whole video where she tried to build a house and she got so frustrated with it that she went completely silent for a chunk of the video. she sent that video to the developers, and all of the things that frustrated her are still present in the demo and seem to not have been tweaked at all. the only improvement i noticed was with the roofing

i think a good amount of those content creators didn't really spend much time in the build mode either and instead focused on the character creator and live mode, which is understandable, but i wish more attention had been brought to build mode and its issues

Yeah im familiar with acottonsock. I guess that kinda points to your concerns even more.

I'll be super honest. inZOI has been a game i've been personally looking forward to for a long time. But the past week. Won't go into much detail cause I don't wanna go off topic for your thread(which is a great post). But I'm now in a position thinking "I'm just gonna wait a year and see where inZOI is in 2026".

I totally get the "Im so glad to uninstall the sims now" crowd. But. Krafton aren't angels. They're selling an Early Access game for $40. That's a premium price for a starting point. I can't imagine how badly monetised the Game will be after 1.0 launch.

So while I wish the inZOI project and everyone who plays it so much good luck and alot of fun. I do see myself distancing away from the project and investing into something else.

I do personally hope you enjoy your time if you buy it on launch 🫂