Two questions about in-game housing and decorations...

[ZedClampet]

If you have a house in a game, do you decorate it? What about in a game like Enshrouded where you get "rested" boosts for decorating? If you do decorate, how seriously do you take it?

For me. I like games that give you boosts for decorating. but a lot of times I'll just craft the things I need and place them anywhere where there is room. This is mostly because in survival games, your base tends to evolve as you play and gather more crafting tables, and unless you know exactly what's coming (like in a second playthrough), it feels like wasted effort to keep having to move things around due to decorations. especially in games where you have to destroy and rebuild to move something.

In games without boosts, like Nightingale. the closest I got to decorating was to put up lights so we could see. The main thing that hinders me is complicated crafting recipes. It's just not worth it to me to go through all of that trouble. In both Atlas and Ark, we could get decoration mods that had incredibly simple recipes such as "1 wood". and then I definitely decorated.

So how about you?

 

[Brian Boru]

I don't recall having such an opportunity, but if I did my approach would be very like yours—minimal and haphazard on first play, more deliberate on subsequent playthrus.

It's like character customization—I'll spend maybe 5 minutes on it first time, but 15-30 on later plays, especially if there's photo mode.

 

[Pifanjr]

I don't really care about decorating, neither in real life nor in the digital realm. Only on very rare occasions will I get a sudden urge to make something look good, though that urge doesn't always last long enough to actually finish whatever project I start on.

If I get a bonus for decorating, I might put in the effort to make it look good, though I'm more likely to do the bare minimum to get the bonus.

 

[Frindis]

Zelda: Tears of The Kingdom is the first game I have been invested in decorating and buying different building slots for my plot. One of the main reasons is that the small building sets that you buy look a lot like something straight out of a Studio Ghibli movie (the game has a lot of similar art) and that motivated me to put together something nice. Now I have a small horse stable, a cooking area, a bed with a small fish pond next to it, an armory stand for my favorite bow, shield, swords, and a cozy living area in the middle. It basically looks like a lot of small buildings in different colors that you glue together, kind of like Lego in a sense.

Having a cooking stand is nice because it gives me the ability to make food with different buffs like sprinting and climbing speed. The Horse stable is nice for easy access to my favorite horse and my bed is very nice since you can teleport to your house whenever you like and get the health back to max after a fight or two. It is a place I can call my own and I think that is cool since the game is so incredibly big. It makes you become more part of the world.

 

[ZedClampet]

What's kind of odd for me is that I love decorating in games about decorating, like House Flipper or Garden Simulator, but mostly ignore it, at least until late game or a second playthrough. The major exception to that is co-op games where I'm really into it and want to play when Guido isn't playing. I don't want to do anything important without him. so I usually do busy work that he doesn't like, like farming. cooking and decorating.

 

[Colif]

I don't really care about decorating, neither in real life nor in the digital realm. Only on very rare occasions will I get a sudden urge to make something look good, though that urge doesn't always last long enough to actually finish whatever project I start on.

looks around his room... hmm, its been in mostly the same layout for at least 15 years... (I have photos to prove it). The last time it was in a different layout was just before we had a flood caused by broken pipes in bathroom that was being upgraded. Fun days.

Nope, I don't care for it myself. Other people in house wish I would do something about it... maybe I will look at it this week... decorating & cleaning are same thing to me. And by decoration, I mean moving furniture around... walls have been blank since the late 80's... this room and me go back a long way. I need to reorganise it but there is always something better to do.

I feel I have played a game that let you in the past but it doesn't spring to mind. Sure, I played Skyram but I didn't ever get to stage of decorating things. Okay, I played the sims long ago but I enjoyed making houses more than worrying what they looked like inside.. too much. Never really bothered in Fallout 4 and NV either.

 

[ZedClampet]

Skyram

Is this like Goat Simulator except you can fly?

 

[Colif]

Is this like Goat Simulator except you can fly?

It could be a mod where they replaced the dragons with goats
they have done worse

 

[neogunhero]

I like to decorate but try to make it look believable and not too out of place for the game world. For example, my bases in Fallout 76 all looked like real wastelander/scavenger outposts, where a lot of other people in the game would decorate their homes to look like brand new modern aesthetic builds that looked very out of place amongst the wasteland. I put a lot of time and effort decorating them in that game mainly because the chance of people coming to your base is so much higher than other survival games since you can fast travel to anyone’s base if they have a vending machine open for business. Fallout 76 doesn’t incentivize you to decorate through things like bonuses, but just knowing people most likely will come over, you may want to make it look a bit nice. In a game like Rust, I don’t bother with decorating because people are going to blow it up no matter what it looks like.

 

[ZedClampet]

I like to decorate but try to make it look believable and not too out of place for the game world. For example, my bases in Fallout 76 all looked like real wastelander/scavenger outposts, where a lot of other people in the game would decorate their homes to look like brand new modern aesthetic builds that looked very out of place amongst the wasteland. I put a lot of time and effort decorating them in that game mainly because the chance of people coming to your base is so much higher than other survival games since you can fast travel to anyone’s base if they have a vending machine open for business. Fallout 76 doesn’t incentivize you to decorate through things like bonuses, but just knowing people most likely will come over, you may want to make it look a bit nice. In a game like Rust, I don’t bother with decorating because people are going to blow it up no matter what it looks like.

I forgot all about F76. I definitely decorated in that game. Game was restrictive in how much space and how many items you could use to build, so it was kind of a puzzle trying to get the most out of what you were allowed while also being aesthetically pleasing. I think you were allowed 3 bases and I built them all. Actually one house I kept destroying and rebuilding as I thought of new things to do with it. Probably my best house was by the river in the west. Had an outbuilding that I turned into a store and had lots of Nuka Cola stuff. like the animated Santa. Loved that game. but if I play Fallout again it will be 4. even though no one will ever see what I build.

 

[Pifanjr]

I forgot all about F76. I definitely decorated in that game. Game was restrictive in how much space and how many items you could use to build, so it was kind of a puzzle trying to get the most out of what you were allowed while also being aesthetically pleasing. I think you were allowed 3 bases and I built them all. Actually one house I kept destroying and rebuilding as I thought of new things to do with it. Probably my best house was by the river in the west. Had an outbuilding that I turned into a store and had lots of Nuka Cola stuff. like the animated Santa. Loved that game. but if I play Fallout again it will be 4. even though no one will ever see what I build.

I didn't decorate anything in Fallout 4 either. I just put all of my workbenches in one house and built a wooden shack with 8 beds for whoever wanted to live in my settlement.

If I ever go back to Fallout 4 I'm going to skip the settlement management and crafting mechanics entirely.

 

[ZedClampet]

If I ever go back to Fallout 4 I'm going to skip the settlement management and crafting mechanics entirely.

Those are really the only reasons I would consider actually playing it. I've played all the other Fallout games. but no longer have a taste for shooters. I'd rather play games that allow me to explore my creativity.

 

[Colif]

Nothing in fallout 4 would make me want to play it again... probably why I didn't get very far. In NV you had to play almost entire story before you got power armour. So to start F4 and get one almost right away felt wrong. I never really recovered from that... and you couldn't make own back story, you played the one they gave you. Maybe NV ruined Fallout for me as it was better than anything Bethesda has made. It set a false mark nothing has reached...

 

[neogunhero]

I forgot all about F76. I definitely decorated in that game. Game was restrictive in how much space and how many items you could use to build, so it was kind of a puzzle trying to get the most out of what you were allowed while also being aesthetically pleasing.

My biggest issue was just trying to find a good spot. The terrain is so uneven, there are almost no flat spaces, so that was always a struggle to build around. You couldn’t make your foundations very tall either, so eventually a part of the foundation clipped into the ground. Then when you do find a good spot, the next time you go to play, you have to keep finding different servers because someone else decided to build in the exact same spot as you. Very frustrating but I roughed it out and made some awesome bases in that game.

If I ever go back to Fallout 4 I'm going to skip the settlement management and crafting mechanics entirely.

I personally really enjoyed those mechanics in FO4. By no means was it perfect, they are very flawed and very easy to abuse and exploit, but that’s what made them fun to me. I would usually just confine my settlers into a locked in farm that just produced infinite food, which I then could go sell for a decent profit. The time I did take it more seriously, I build a very nice little shantytown reminiscent of Diamond City but smaller. A nice village of shacks, shops, and bustling with people, it was quite nice to just walk around and relax in.

Nothing in fallout 4 would make me want to play it again... probably why I didn't get very far. In NV you had to play almost entire story before you got power armour. So to start F4 and get one almost right away felt wrong. I never really recovered from that... and you couldn't make own back story, you played the one they gave you. Maybe NV ruined Fallout for me as it was better than anything Bethesda has made. It set a false mark nothing has reached...

None of that really bothered me but I totally get what you mean. FO4 was very easy, did away with all but the most basic of RPG elements (perks and dialogue choices but that’s it), and was much more action focused. Honestly, it’s a mixed bag of all sorts of different mechanics and elements, doesn’t perfect any of them, so it kind of becomes a “jack of all trades, master of none” kind of game. I think that is actually why I liked it so much and it’s my most played FO game.

 

[Colif]

perks/traits/dialogue choices could have been another thing I missed. Some of them were OP. Could change game completely.

Wild Wasteland

Wild Wasteland is a trait in Fallout: New Vegas. Taking this trait adds and/or changes certain random encounters and locations which would not appear the same in-game without the trait. Events and locations modified/added by the trait are indicated as such by a unique sound effect and an...

fallout.fandom.com

They made it into a shooter, and I used to like using vats, I don't play shooters generally and vats meant I didn't have to aim as much. I know vats still exists but its not the focus anymore.

 

[Smellincoffee]

In Stardew Valley, my house is filled with kegs for brewing wine, and plants. That's about it. I used to decorate a lot in The Sims as a kid, but these days my builds are just functional boxes. I did like decorating the camp in RDR2, though.

 

[Zloth]

If you have a house in a game, do you decorate it? What about in a game like Enshrouded where you get "rested" boosts for decorating? If you do decorate, how seriously do you take it?

Sometimes. I was pretty functional in Subnautica but, when Subnautica: Below Zero let me stick my own screenshots everywhere and put my own songs on the jukebox to play through the base, I played around with it far more. In No Man's Sky, the small bases were essentially just places to teleport to and get some resources, so they stayed pretty functional, but I tried to make my main base look a little nicer. (Unfortunately, the main base also needed more stuff placed, so it got pretty cluttered.

If there's a rest bonus, I'll probably put something in, but then I'll be guided by how the buff works with my playstyle.

I did a lot more with the supergroup base in City of Heroes, but there was a key difference there: other people used the base.