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.

[White T-Shirt No Bra]

I've been able to build somehow a decent starting home but it took me so much time...
things i dislike the most at the moment for build mode is that flooring & the way I have to paint walls.. Also not being able to places windows on the wall roofs since it's not considered a wall. Beside all this, demo is very good

[mirta000]

+1

My main issues are three, otherwise I can survive on furnishing, I dread building a house.

1. The game expects me to build EACH ROOM INDIVIDUALLY before I do the full house. If I'm doing the house first, I'm scr*wed, because I can't figure out how to mark something AS a room, unless all the walls were build together, which means that if I want to change the titles, or the wallpaper, I would need to do it for either a) THE WHOLE WALL, or b) the whole building, because, once again, wallpaper is "per wall" or "per room" and floor tiles are "per 7.5m X 7.5m area" or "per room".

Imagine if I want to like... Change the bathroom when I'm already living in a house. I would have to bulldoze the whole structure O_O.

2. Doing inner walls deletes the roof. Once again, the game thinks that for some reason, I will do each room individually, then will connect it into a house, then will roof my structure. This is bonkers.

3. Foundation, if it exists, requires a PHD. I gave up on building a foundation.

I found no issues with placing furniture, so I can furnish pre-built places, but the build mode itself is literally a 1/10 for me. It is not functional.

[Desna]

Sad to say, but making a good builder may be out of the devs capabilities. They were good at recreating the sims play with updated graphics, but the builder is much more complex.

[mirta000]

Автор сообщения: Desna

Sad to say, but making a good builder may be out of the devs capabilities. They were good at recreating the sims play with updated graphics, but the builder is much more complex.

Which is surprising, considering that simpler, more primitive games can do a bit of building better. For example, I was playing Two Point Museum and while that's not comparable, wall building, painting and tiling was a lot more incremental, allowing me to easily create the rooms that I wanted.

[tpeyton]

Автор сообщения: big bungo

Автор сообщения: SurrealUniverse

I can’t even figure out how to make a foundation lol. I just want a front porch.

yeah i couldn't figure out how to build a foundation either. there's no foundation tool. i have a feeling you have to build rooms and then raise the floor in order to create a foundation, which is just... really convoluted.

When you click on the "building" icon, you need to scroll down past the house picture to see the section for platforms. I haven't used it yet. I think it is past the windows and door section. I also find building in this game to be way more challenging than the Sims. I have also been frustrated with the walls.

[tpeyton]

Автор сообщения: 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.

I agree a thousand % with your post. I too have been playing the Sims since it's beginning. I know how to build, but building in this game is more challenging than I had expected. Keep in mind that for us Simmers, we have to get used to a new layout and game play that we may not yet be used to. However, I agree that building in any game should not be so difficult that leads to any level of frustration. I was surprised that options for grass and other ground material was not included in the outdoor section they already have in place. As far as the walls go, there is an icon on the left side of the menu that allows you to move and adjust the wall. When I used it, I was able to delete 1 wall panel as needed. Also, if you overlap two walls where one end is extended, you can delete individual panels. I found this out through trial and error.

I was wondering since we are playing in the demo version, maybe we don't have all the features that is contained in the early access version of the game. I am basing this thought from watching a video where someone was building a house. In that video, I noticed that there was grass already on the ground and you can also see other houses in the background. Keep in mind that demos sometime do not contain all features of the full version.

[big bungo]

Автор сообщения: tpeyton

When you click on the "building" icon, you need to scroll down past the house picture to see the section for platforms. I haven't used it yet. I think it is past the windows and door section. I also find building in this game to be way more challenging than the Sims. I have also been frustrated with the walls.

ohhh okay, so it isn't in its own section on the little picture of the house then?? i think it would be better suited as its own section on the little picture of the house, but it's good to know how to do it now at least lol thanks for letting me know

[fujikazu]

To make a foundation is easy... once you realize you don't look for anything that says or gives you any idea it will make a foundation.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3451937711

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3451938770

Click the bordered arrow next to the hammer, click the room, scale, drag up. This is a secret art of the old masters so it is well hidden.

[big bungo]

Автор сообщения: fujikazu

To make a foundation is easy... once you realize you don't look for anything that says or gives you any idea it will make a foundation.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3451937711

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3451938770

Click the bordered arrow next to the hammer, click the room, scale, drag up. This is a secret art of the old masters so it is well hidden.

ah, so it IS like i thought it was. i stand by my original point then. i wouldn't say that it's "well hidden", it's just convoluted and hidden behind an unrelated system rather than being its own dedicated tool

i see no reason that you should have to build a room first in order to make a foundation. i'll add this to my post

[fujikazu]

Автор сообщения: big bungo

Автор сообщения: fujikazu

To make a foundation is easy... once you realize you don't look for anything that says or gives you any idea it will make a foundation.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3451937711

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3451938770

Click the bordered arrow next to the hammer, click the room, scale, drag up. This is a secret art of the old masters so it is well hidden.

ah, so it IS like i thought it was. i stand by my original point then. i wouldn't say that it's "well hidden", it's just convoluted and hidden behind an unrelated system rather than being its own dedicated tool

i see no reason that you should have to build a room first in order to make a foundation. i'll add this to my post

That last line was a joke.

[big bungo]

Автор сообщения: fujikazu

That last line was a joke.

i'm aware. i was responding to your post as a whole and i didn't want to give anyone reading the thread (the developers included) the impression that i thought the issue was that it was just "well hidden" rather than it not being its own tool that is the problem

also, i do appreciate you explaining how to create a foundation since i wasn't 100% sure how to do it. so thank you for that

[EeazyLee]

+1 they need to work on that asap it is crucial for a Game like this

[big bungo]

Автор сообщения: mirta000

Which is surprising, considering that simpler, more primitive games can do a bit of building better. For example, I was playing Two Point Museum and while that's not comparable, wall building, painting and tiling was a lot more incremental, allowing me to easily create the rooms that I wanted.

it's interesting to me that a regular simulation game can get building right but inzoi couldn't (not intended as an insult toward inzoi, just an observation that i couldn't figure out how to word in a way that isn't blunt). as you said it's not comparable as building isn't the focus, but it does let you easily build what you want and you have fun while doing it

[Bouncer]

It is definitely a major mess that absolutely needs to be fixed, but there is an optimistic way to look at it. Character creation and build mode are important for a game like this, but the life sim itself is far more important and requires vastly more work.

If this game launches in Early Access with this rather excellent CC, this complete mess of a build mode, and a very well done life sim, they would've done a fantastic job.

It just remains to be seen if the neglect of build mode is because of correct priorities, or a lack of overall quality.

[Houstonheart]

The interfaces defiantly need to be refined. Not simplified as much as presented better with better fast options, as well as camera movement.

better over head camera movement for wall placements and surface snapping.