Lvl 54 "Hero to the Downtrodden!"

21 Posts

Right now almost nobody (and I'm afraid myself included) do much with the house.
In BW1 there was an incentive to keep heading back to town to grab new quests or items, but with that gone (which I think is good by the way, it gives it more of a journey/quest feel) I don't find myself visiting my house much.

I do like the concept of having a base of operations where you go back to to prepare and show off your accomplishments though, so here are some of my thoughts on how to get people to work on their house / garden:

- IDEA Coupons -
I think that a lot of the players are resistant to buy stuff for their house because it always costs coins, which can be spent as easily on new trinkets, or energy. In BW1 this was avoided by just giving you the customization for free, but I kind of like the idea of players having to make choices for decorating as well. What you could implement is an IDEA coupon system, where for every 4 catalogue pages you find you get 1 coupon which can be exchanged for a free house customization item of your choice (which you have already unlocked).

- Functional Decoration Items -
It's hard for something like this to not devolve into either a farming subsection or completely sacrifice form over function, but players WILL invest in house ornaments if they get something out of it.
Furniture could for example have a comfort rating, which gives a small amount of extra energy every day? (e.g. a comfort rating between 1 and 5, where every 5 comfort rating gives you 1 extra energy when you come to collect it (cool-down 20 hours, same as the fruit baskets)
Or a magical cauldron that slowly accumulates mana up to 20 which you can harvest at any time.
Basically, small functional elements that makes players care about their home and connect to it.

- House Competition -
I didn't quite care that much for this in BW1, but this could of course also be another way to get players to decorate their houses.

Does anybody else have any thoughts here? I'd love to get a conversation going about this.

Lvl 54 "Hero to the Downtrodden!"

21 Posts

Thanks for the reply Marleen, that's indeed pretty much what I had in mind with the coupons idea as well, yeah!
(Might've actually read your post back when you made it and forgotten about it, didn't mean to steal your idea, sorry.)

Taking the developer comments in the other thread (that house development should be a good way to spend money) into account though, I think it could still be nice to have such coupons / vouchers or have functional decoration items (because people WILL pay for those).

2 Posts

I actually love the idea of making your house a refuge! Getting a daily energy bonus based on the "comfort level" of the house would be such a great idea, and definitely make me want to spend some coins and time on it.

Lvl 44 "Professional Bush Whacker"

27 Posts

In light of items being free, the house is still just decoration. A comfort level would be interesting, but maybe just a regen bonus for being in the house by itself. Kind of like increased XP in WoW when you log out in a city.

I never visit my house, so I don't care what it looks like. But if I was there more often, I might actually place the items places.

Another idea is having the items be interactable. If I can sit in my chairs, water the plants, etc, you might have a mini-Sims game of maintaining your house. That might be fun by itself, but it also might be a way to sync with the other bonuses.

(Energy regen only when house is clean, house takes energy to clean, could be a sizable mini-game and strategy element.)

Lvl 44 "Professional Bush Whacker"

27 Posts

I don't like the Sims games either (and I worked on them). I just think it is an option for how to make the House more fun. That may not work for everyone, but I think it has been proven as a mechanic that has a broad appeal.