Hello everyone!
I have a few suggestions I have been thinking up that might help up improve the customer feedback that has been implemented in the game thus far. Currently, customers only mention the lack of music and the ugly walls and flooring only. However, I have some ideas that might help add a little variety to the business themselves so there is a little more challenge than buying speakers and a set combined total of flooring and wall.
I propose that customers ask perhaps ask for different types of decor in the business such as more plants, paintings, and books. The way it would work is that certain customers (maybe based on district?) would favor a certain style and maybe set a fixed amount to satisfy that condition. For example, customers in the Garment District could be more practical and they might care less about decor so they might stick with the original flooring and wall combo. However, customers from Midtown might be snobby so they’d prefer paintings. This is where it could be very specific. The game needs a lot more paintings but it’d be fairly easy to get paintings of classical masterpieces as in Animal Crossing. Midtown snobs would prefer these paintings which would be priced higher and classed as high class or whatever nomenclature you’d prefer. Now, let’s say in Hell’s Kitchen, those customers are also like paintings but they are gourmands which means they’d like paintings of food. It’d be easy to use classical paintings again but of food this time. The value might be less than the classical paintings but still a lot more expensive that the Ika ones. It’d lead to a lot more variety in the business, and it’d be a little bit more challenging to fulfill the demands of the clientele in each district so each area feels more distinct as well as scaling up the need for more cash as you progress through the more affluent areas.
This idea could also be implemented with some of the other businesses that don’t sell traditional goods such as the lawyer firms. There is a bookshelf currently that doesn’t have a purpose. It actually doesn’t have books either actually. However, with this system in place, adding a bookshelf with books for decoration could add prestige to these business to add a boost to the business to appeal to customers. I don’t know how many of you have been to law offices, but things like a big meeting table and bookshelves full of law books tend to add a lot of prestige to the big firms. Obviously, they’re not just there for looks since they really are there for good reason beyond the scope of this post, but they could add boosts to your business in the game. A law firm with a certain number of these features could see more customers or have better customer feedback, etc. Same thing with having classical paintings around the place. Clients do need to come in to the law firm to meet with the lawyers to regarding their case, and a good office makes a good impression about the kind of lawyers in the firm.
Lastly, this feature could also be implemented to the employee satisfaction system. As it is, employees really only need very few needs to get 100% satisfaction. I don’t think it needs much changing, but I do think that adding a few things to the mix might a nice little bits of challenge as well. Adding plants to the business might add a nice boost the environment for both customers and employees so they all feel a sense of peace instead of that being tied to the player’s happiness. Personally, I couldn’t care less if my boss if happy so long as I get paid, but it makes more sense that employees are happier in a more relaxing environment. It would be a nice incentive to create a small break room for employees and add a chair or sofa for comfort, a fridge, and a coffee machine or water cooler to contribute to that score. To add a little wrinkle to the equation, plants could wither and detract from the score if they’re not watered. Cleaning staff ONLY would be in charge of the watering and thus there would be a bigger incentive to not use other staff to clean and add more utility to the cleaning staff than there is already.
Anyways, sorry for the length of this post, but it’s a really big idea to layout. I just wanted to put it all out there very specifically and to try to give an idea that wouldn’t hopefully add too much work to implement ie. the paintings. It could all use copyright free work although it naturally needed to be programmed.
