Personally I would be 100 percent with Construction being a cash sink little to no practical use in the game.Let people move the furniture round and make a house. If we're afforded the option at least to be free and appreciate it as a house then I believe that would be a happy medium. You have ta give it usage or performance since it stands it is a waste of money and that I just leveled it to get to Prif. And being able to sit down at a chair is your answer to this?
RuneScape for a way to add functionality
I believe Higgs was focusing on modifications that turn the homes into more of an RP focused area rather than a service centre. And something more such as a Player Owned Barracks or base camp could be a good alternate to add support functionality.
I believe they're more looking at it as a means to add performance without it being radically different concerning training and it's influence on external aspects of the game. Much like incorporating RP performance, than traditional support/artisan skill functionality. By making them a location to socialize/facilitate gatherings or something, sort of like a normal residence.
I can sort of see where they are coming from, on account of the nature of a'house' being what it is IRL, the seeming overwhelming desire of the playerbase is to earn the POH into more of a Player owned base camp or Barracks, a place to go to make prepping for other tasks faster/easier for some player. Which admittedly a lot of this functionality is already easily accessed other areas like Max guild or Wars Retreat. Other than what present POH's already have.
Which the notion of a Player owned barracks/base camp/village could be something cool to amuse for a rework. A larger scale area to train construction, starting with your house, then moving on to a settlement for NPC's who may then become workers of some sort that create options for passive XP gain like POF combined with miscellania. Greater your level the different typed of buildings that are functional your camp could have, from a smith to replace the armor rack, to a lender, or a mage for tele's etc.. Where you would need to provide materials because of their functionalities to operate, in addition to a Base amount of materials and a foundation level to create the construction that those NPC's would work in anyways. Together with the choice to organize them in a manner that suits the players liking, where combat support function NPCs could be closer to the home tele place for access. Along with other npc's could be further. Obvi I am literally just spewing thoughts with little to no believing prior, so it could all be unbelievably flawed but I feel it might be a start of something to think about.
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