[quote=Flyte][color=rgb(194, 178, 128)]On Wednesday we made a number of changes to outfits. One in particular has provoked a lot of discussion and controversy: the restrictions on changing outfits within storylets and certain game locations.
We’ve been following these discussions, and wanted to share some information about what we’d like to achieve in this area, and the changes we currently expect to make.
Goals
There are three things we’d like restrictions on outfit changing to achieve:
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Allowing us to create new gameplay challenges that are more varied, strategic and replayable.
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Giving worth to a greater variety of equipment. Previously, equipment with a best-in-slot bonus for a single stat was far more valuable than equipment with multiple good bonuses (with very limited exceptions).
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Reducing the amount of clicking involved in mechanically optimal play.
Plans
The current approach has achieved the first and second of these goals. However, we think it has not achieved the third, and that it has even made that aspect of the game somewhat worse.
The main reason for this is storylets the player can freely enter and leave. Previously players could switch their outfit while in that storylet; now they can do exactly the same thing, except they have to back out of the storylet first, switch their outfit, and then re-open it.
We think this is genuinely problematic, so we’re going to scale back the restrictions on outfit changing, so players can do this straightforwardly in a greater range of situations. That will happen sometime in the next few weeks.
We haven’t decided yet exactly what the new restrictions will be, but we can say that we won’t be completely removing them – that would put us back where we started in relation to the first and second goals. At the very least, we’ll be keeping restrictions on outfit change in some game locations – for instance, when you’re conducting a heist.
And of course, we’ll also be looking at places where outfit restrictions cause mischief for a specific story, like Flint or player marriage.
It’s also possible that we’ll add more free outfits, either for everyone or as things unlocked in the course of play. We’d expect to make a decision on this after we’ve scaled back the outfit changing restrictions and seen how they affect the game for a wide range of players.
We realise some players who enjoy heavy optimisation would still prefer us to remove restrictions on outfit changing altogether. We know we may not be able to convince you, or at least not right now, but there are a couple of points we’d like to make which we hope will make it easier to understand our perspective.
First, this style of play is not as widespread as it might sometimes seem from discussion in our community spaces.
We’ve consistently found that people play and enjoy Fallen London in a wide variety of ways, and that those who’re particularly invested in optimisation are more likely to participate frequently in forum (and now Discord) discussions.
Second, we think the long term benefits of these restrictions are not yet obvious, because we can’t overhaul all of Fallen London to take advantage of the new gameplay possibilities with our limited resources. Right now, we’re a team of 15 people split across four projects (Fallen London, the Sunless Skies Sovereign Edition, and two Secret Things). When we add functionality to enable new design possibilities, it takes time for us to create new stories that take full advantage of it, or to rework older ones.
It might be worth mentioning in this connection that when we introduced broad difficulty seven years ago, that change was considerably more unpopular. In the short term, it meant that players failed more challenges, and the bulk of the game’s content still hadn’t been designed to take advantage of the benefits it offered. However, it stopped being controversial quite quickly, and the design possibilities it opened up greatly improved the game.
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[color=rgb(194, 178, 128)]Finally, we’d like to thank everyone who has shared their feedback and thereby helped us to make Fallen London better.[/color][/quote]
Let’s translate it from polite-speak into proper English.
"We thought it would be funny. Why bother with content, when you can restrict gameplay and call it an achievement?
Okay, it did result in challenge, it did result in different outfit optimisation. Also gameplay started to resemble running while shoe-tied - oh, dear, that’s the punchline! Why aren’t you laughing?
Oh, you want to walk straight? What a buch of sour-pusses! Okay, we’ll lift the restriction here and there. Maybe, we’re not sure, it was such a wonderful idea, after all.
No, we’re not rolling it back, that would mean we’ve done all this for nothing, and this simply cannot be, by definition. No, not at all.
Oh, and look, you’ve been abusing being unrestricted whole this time. Now, who’s the real baddie, sweetheart?
We’ll even throw some freebies we hoped to make strictly paid, don’t be so glum. {Well, chagrin aside, actually, they have right to make them all paid, they’re not taking away the slots existing, and they’re in a tough financial situation because of a a quarantine, so here’s that}.
Some of you do not want to laugh still? Screw you.
You know, people are different, some change outfits once a season.
Well, the truth is the game is not balanced for such a restriction, at all, and some parts are specifically written to use being non-restricted, but we have neither capacity nor particular desire to fix that. But this is not a cause to oppose this wonderful feature! Okay, new stories will be balanced, when we write them. Eventually. Maybe. If we remember about balance.
Look, we’ve done similar thing years ago! Though we had less content, shortage of workers and additional projects during that time and quickly overhauled the game, but it’s the principle that’s important!
Consider yourself lucky I deigned to answer your obnoxious whining, because I’m told to say something polite, whatever."
edited by Aro Saren on 8/1/2020