Dating/interaction needs to be expanded
I would love it if the developers expanded the dating / interactions
Professors
Being able to befriend professors would be very beneficial
When exploring classroom, you’ll be able to interact with the professor who uses the classroom. Like flitwick in charms, Snape in Potions, McGonagall in transfig.
You can chat to them, gift them (stuff you can buy£, ask questions (about house points, about their subject and with high enough “friendship”, personal questions) and even do tasks/errands for them for rewards. Which would normally be house points or more stats.
And to limit it, you can only do errands/talk a few times a real life day. Since obviously some would be sick of getting pestered like Snape.
Asking these sort of things may increase their liking to you or add extra friendship depending what you do. Kinda like gobstones.
(I just thought about how funny it would be to play gobstones with a professor😭)
And ofcourse you can do this in reverse. Purposely bugging them, giving them stuff they don’t like, insulting them will lower the friendship level and liking for you. Making them want to be more strict with you, more likely to deduct points for minor things and will automatically accuse/punish you if caught doing anything bad
The higher their liking, the less likely they’ll want to scold you / deduct points and maybe increase their willingness to give you house points
I know this works because I did it with my teachers growing up. I got away with so much stuff because I befriended them and talked to them a lot. Psychology, people.
And professors might be more lenient and more tempted to help & aid you if You’re stuck, make a mistake or need help overall
And yes some professors would be harder to do depending on their friendliness and how much they already like you (mainly based on your class performance).
Like Snape. Snape would be hard to befriend since his trauma/childhood making him less trustful/socialable, psychological complexity and just his liking of being alone and not pestered.
And ofcourse they will not hangout with users especially if the user is under 18 in game (not graduated)
Might be judged for this, but maybe after graduation you can still pursue friendship with the professors at three broomsticks inn in the evening. And be able to do more chatting, better gifts and able to ask more personal questions with high enough friendship. Maybe even date 👀
(I JUST WANT MORE SNAPE STUFF IN HOGWARTS MYSTERY)
And ofcourse when you get them to higher levels, you get rewards. Maybe one reward could be extra house points during your Hogwarts years. Or maybe clothing themed around them.
And maybe you’ll be able to hang out with them and do quest like hangouts as an adult in game.
Gifting expansion
Another shop should be added to Hogsmeade and the option to buy stuff from other shops for gifting purposes with coins. Like sweets from honey dukes.
(Plus, some things like sweets could give the user benefits too if they want to eat them instead. Giving us more ways to spend money if we aren’t interested in the clothing/accessories)
And every character has their own likes and dislikes towards gifts. They all like different sweets, books, trinkets, ect. The amount of XP/like you get depends how much the NPC likes them. Loved gift gives the most, like second, neutral some extra, and gifting something they dislike or hate takes away friendship xp/liking.
It could be cool if a few hours after, the NPC sends you a gift back via mail (also depending on friendship level and how much they like you)
It would be a cool addition if Snape’s favourite gift is Holiday Blacmange as a nod to the mention of him liking it in Hogwarts mystery HP timeline.
Maybe:
It might be more realistic to make it a trial and error system where you guess what they like. Like I’m real life
Love
Like
Neutral
Dislike
Hate.
And with some characters you get told a few things that they already like. Like some stuff Rowan likes/dislikes.
Hangout small expansion
Another form of hanging out that isn’t a quiz or gobstones would be like I described before. Being able to chat, ask questions (that would help with gobstones/Quiz), and gift.
More Datables
I recently reached the year I can start dating. Except I don’t like any of the characters datable. None of of my type, appearance wise and personality wise. But importantly appearance wise (appearance is important to me since I only date who I’m attracted to).
“Why do you care who you are dating in a kids game?”
If I’m playing as my OC, I want it to be accurate. And she likes what I like. I’m autistic and I REALLY want my OC’s to be accurate to how I made them.
So having more options to date would be lovely.
I’d take any tall, lean, pale boy with short ish hair and Glasses (must have glasses). I’d even take a stereotypical nerd boy, fancy pants with slicked hair, or quittich player with jersy’s and messy hair.
Also this system works in reverse for enemies
You’ll be able to see stats with main characters to see progression & How much they dislike you.
And could suggest ways you could make them like you. Their favourite things for example or compliments.
(Talking about you merula fans, I got you)
But not like the user too much to the point that it makes the story line not make sense.
Extras
This could also tells you which professors you’re able to get more house points out of based on how much they like you.
And ofcourse, this system is optional and isn’t required story wise. More extra stuff really. However relationship stats with professors could come in handy when you get caught doing something and you can manipulate their liking for you against them to not be in trouble or not a lot of trouble instead of relying on stats all the time.
This could be helpful for Hogwarts Mystery Lore since I’m pretty sure it branches off from the main story line of HP.
Final notes
This may sound complicated but in my opinion it would be super beneficial and would unlock more mechanics that helps the user.
Like when the user gets caught doing something really bad, if they don’t have the main professor befriended at a high enough level, they get punished like in the regular storyline.
But if the professor has a high enough level, they would be lenient with a minor punishment and maybe even let the user go depending on what they did.