The karma system

[Aeradic]

Personally, I like the karma system, it's something new for me. So I'll try to explain it as I understand it at the moment. Every choice a character makes in their life in Inzoi has consequences. The words, actions, and deeds of each individual character affect not only themselves and their future, but also the overall state of the game world now and in the future. The manual says that if a zoi with bad karma dies, they become a ghost and will not be able to leave until they fix their bad situation by interacting with living zois. Because of the many ghosts, living zois will create fewer families and, as a result, fewer babies will be born. I suppose that as a result, we can get a ghost town where you are unlikely to meet a living character. Only sad disembodied spirits will remain, doomedly scurrying around. This is just my guess, which I have not yet had time to test. I think that for this to happen, many generations of zois need to live. With offspring that can only appear in the family, everything is clear (it turns out that this idea and the karma system are closely related to each other, and if you change one, you will inevitably have to change the other). But what will happen to special NPCs, for example, sellers in kiosks, or those who provide repair services, I do not understand. Sooner or later, I plan to implement the idea of ​​​​a ghost town in my game. I wonder if it gets to this state, will it be the end of the game or this situation can be corrected by taking positive actions. And I hope that the developers will never abandon this system of cause and effect, and will not leave it without attention and improvements. Because this function fills Inzoi with deep philosophical meaning, and significantly expands the player's sphere of influence. The player controls not only the characters from his active family, but keeps his finger on the pulse of the entire game world and determines the path of its development.

[Angel]

I wish that was true. I know for sure many choices matter, but some don't matter at all. Don't ask me which ones.

[Aeradic]

Sure, I know there are special interactions that are marked as affecting karma. But even when I choose normal actions, I think about how appropriate it is and what benefit or harm it can bring in the future. Every detail matters more than it might seem at first glance. Maybe I imagined too much, and it's just in my head. Maybe I expect too much from this game. But I sincerely hope that this is what the developers intended.

[Angel]

My Zoi got married twice, got a baby from her first husband while married to the second husband, and that all without a divorce. And with karma max. That shouldn't have happened.

[CharlesK1974]

So far, my main family, a trio of "girlfriends", have the best karma in the whole Dowon Community.....Girl Talk, wine toasts, karaoke, and flirting with the fellas at the coffee bars every night. The worst karma belongs to this gay couple who are built like professional wrestlers and are appropriately named Greasy Taco and Lividius Tarzan. When I last checked up on THEM, they were starved, sleep-deprived, and ready to get into a fight in spite of both of them being too weak to even focus.

[OTIS]

I'll be honest, the Karma system both confuses and worries me. When I play the Sims 4 I like to play my single family. I get so engrossed with their day to day lives that I let the AI run the townies and other families. I hope I am not forced to change families all the time to correct their karma. I know some people like managing multiple families but that is not for me. I just fill the empty lots with buildings and empty houses with families and let the computer handle the rest. So I hope the karma system does not screw up my favourite play style.

[Rob]

I totally ignore the karma , I set it in the settings at the start of each new save then never bother with it again . I did look once in one save and saw there were approx 20 zois with good karma and the option to praise them for it and thought , I cannot be bothered clicking that 20 times and never went there to look again

[Syn[a]]

Originally posted by Aeradic:

Personally, I like the karma system, it's something new for me. So I'll try to explain it as I understand it at the moment. Every choice a character makes in their life in Inzoi has consequences. The words, actions, and deeds of each individual character affect not only themselves and their future, but also the overall state of the game world now and in the future. The manual says that if a zoi with bad karma dies, they become a ghost and will not be able to leave until they fix their bad situation by interacting with living zois. Because of the many ghosts, living zois will create fewer families and, as a result, fewer babies will be born. I suppose that as a result, we can get a ghost town where you are unlikely to meet a living character. Only sad disembodied spirits will remain, doomedly scurrying around. This is just my guess, which I have not yet had time to test. I think that for this to happen, many generations of zois need to live. With offspring that can only appear in the family, everything is clear (it turns out that this idea and the karma system are closely related to each other, and if you change one, you will inevitably have to change the other). But what will happen to special NPCs, for example, sellers in kiosks, or those who provide repair services, I do not understand. Sooner or later, I plan to implement the idea of ​​​​a ghost town in my game. I wonder if it gets to this state, will it be the end of the game or this situation can be corrected by taking positive actions. And I hope that the developers will never abandon this system of cause and effect, and will not leave it without attention and improvements. Because this function fills Inzoi with deep philosophical meaning, and significantly expands the player's sphere of influence. The player controls not only the characters from his active family, but keeps his finger on the pulse of the entire game world and determines the path of its development.

I like the karma system too, and your text is well written. I imagine the Ghost Scenario as a Bad End, or something similar. only that you can help the Zois to find salvation, to fill the city with life again. like angel work or something.

Originally posted by OTIS:

I'll be honest, the Karma system both confuses and worries me. When I play the Sims 4 I like to play my single family. I get so engrossed with their day to day lives that I let the AI run the townies and other families. I hope I am not forced to change families all the time to correct their karma. I know some people like managing multiple families but that is not for me. I just fill the empty lots with buildings and empty houses with families and let the computer handle the rest. So I hope the karma system does not screw up my favourite play style.

I can understand you, I also concentrate most only on one family or one person.
but I won't be angry with Inzoi even if it's like this later.
I know that both are completely different games with completely different game concepts, from the beginning, No Sims clone, No Sims Killer. They only share a few core elements of the same genres.

Originally posted by General Note:

Inzoi is not The Sims and not a The Sims Like. So of course the feeling of playing will be completely different. The Sims was neither the first nor the only life simulation game in the world.

[The Former]

Originally posted by Angel:

My Zoi got married twice, got a baby from her first husband while married to the second husband, and that all without a divorce. And with karma max. That shouldn't have happened.

I mean, Asia has some wild views on polyamory sometimes!

[OTIS]

I do not know about the Sims killer thing. I mean Sims dominates the genre to the point that a lot of people would think it is like the only life simulator out there. Inzoi seems to be capable of giving it very serious competition. The first to realistically be able to do so. But only if they give the players the same amount of freedom. The karma system seams like it might do the opposite, and force players to play a particular way, thus taking away some of the freedom sims players enjoy. And even if they are two different games, they are going for the same target audience. So the makers of Inzoi should consider The Sims to be their primary competitor and take that into consideration. Giving the players an enormous amount of freedom is the most important thing in games like this. We'll see if the karma is good or bad, but my previous post voices my concerns.

[Aeradic]

Originally posted by OTIS:

But only if they give the players the same amount of freedom. The karma system seams like it might do the opposite, and force players to play a particular way, thus taking away some of the freedom sims players enjoy. And even if they are two different games, they are going for the same target audience. So the makers of Inzoi should consider The Sims to be their primary competitor and take that into consideration. Giving the players an enormous amount of freedom is the most important thing in games like this. We'll see if the karma is good or bad, but my previous post voices my concerns.

It's not like The Sims, where your character can go to your neighbor's house and break his kitchen sink and toilet, and nothing will happen to him. In The Sims, no one gets hurt for that. Or, conversely, your Sim can fix all the broken appliances in the entire town, and it won't affect the game at all. The character will just level up a certain skill and that's it. What I mean is that this InZOI feature is customizable. The game already has certain parameters related to karma that you can adjust and use to your liking. This suggests that the developers did not intend to force anyone to play a certain way. They figured out how to implement this idea in the game, and gave players the tools to manage it. So far these tools are few, and I do not fully understand how they work, or if they work at all at the moment.

Originally posted by OTIS:

When I play the Sims 4 I like to play my single family. I get so engrossed with their day to day lives that I let the AI run the townies and other families. I hope I am not forced to change families all the time to correct their karma.

I also prefer to play with one character or one family and don't want to play for each family separately. To ruin the karma in the city, I used the settings in the city management menu.

Civic Consciousness - Highest. So that karma-related interactions always achieve maximum success.

Conversation Karma Positivity - Lowest. So that characters don't like to have conversations that can improve karma.

Conversation Karma Negativity - Highest. So that characters prefer communication that leads to worse karma.

Positive/Negative Emotion Control - Lowest. So that characters experience as many negative emotions as possible and perform corresponding actions under their influence.

City Safety - Lowest. So that characters are most likely to be involved in crime.

I understand that the last two points do not directly affect the state of karma. But I think that in the end it can also help to ruin karma (seems logical).

Yesterday I tried to implement this bad karma scenario for the city in a separate save. But so far I have not been able to achieve any noticeable results. After spending three hours in the game on speed 4 and with the minimum in-game day length of 48 minutes, I found that ghosts manage to quickly improve their situation and disappear forever. So far I have not managed to accumulate enough ghosts to hope for the implementation of the "ghost scenario" in life.

[Aeradic]

Originally posted by Syna:

I imagine the Ghost Scenario as a Bad End, or something similar. only that you can help the Zois to find salvation, to fill the city with life again. like angel work or something

Yeah, that would be the best plot for a life simulator. I'm super excited about this idea.

[CharlesK1974]

As long as don’t introduce something too silly like a Karma Chameleon, which would be a towering Kaiju thing that eats Zois with bad karma. My apologies, but I had that Culture Club song in my head just now.

[Aeradic]

This idea impressed me so much that it is difficult for me to find the right words to fully express my delight. InZOI creators created a world whose state can change for the better or for the worse depending on the behavior of the characters inhabiting it. This is determined by the player himself, who is given the tools to manage karma. He can strive to build an ideal world where everything is good and everyone is absolutely happy. Or he can turn it into a doomed and slowly dying city, filled with terrible things, which has lost all hope. Or he can constantly balance between good and evil, not allowing extremes. Everything depends on the choice of the player, on his desires and preferences. Thus, in the game, not only your active family comes to life when you play it. The entire surrounding world comes to life.
I think that InZOI team has a clear plan of action and they understand what they are doing. I hope that they will not spoil such a grandiose idea with all sorts of nonsense.

[Scarlett]

agree!! the karma system is the depth that sims absolutely lacks!! in sims everything is cosmetics and labels while in inzoi the actions you do, actually IMPACT the LIFE and GAMEPLAY. sure its still in early access and not fleshed out, but the foundation is there. we just gotta be patient what the devs are gonna do for updates. inzoi right now has much more depth than sims ever could, even with every dlc installed, in sims everything feels like its just there so it exists, but it doesn't actually impact anything.

[OTIS]

I like the idea of actions impacting life. In sims you can do anything, be anything. Which is why I love it.

But as people point out you can break into peoples homes and repair and break stuff and even set fire to things. And for the most part nothing happens, it has no effect on game play at all. There is a reputation system, but it is shallow and the worst case scenario is a couple of sims treating you poorly. Personally I never do this in the game and sometimes have to be reminded that you can. To be honest the Sims has no real system where your actions can effect game play.

So I do hope the Karma system does what Scarlett says it should do. Add depth to the game by making such actions have more impact on the game, which as we all agree the Sims doesn't do very well.

But it also has the possibility of restricting game play too. Forcing you to switch households every few hours to correct the bad karma the AI generates for the townies. Making you micromanage every household as a result.

So while the Karma system looks good, that is my biggest concern with the system.