Does anyone like the no-outfit-change-Story thing?

Fallen London
1

Like, literally, anyone. I’ve been trawling through the forum and the reddit, as well as my own personal friends who play, and no one likes this or thinks this was a good idea.

The ability to change outfits on the fly was a thing that I joked about, but I accepted it because it wasn’t that big of a deal. As I once pontificated pretentiously to a friend about video game mechanics, &quotThey’re all unreasonable and unrealistic. A health bar doesn’t make sense, for pete’s sake. How does our character know how close the death we are, hmm? But we keep it around because it makes things easier. It makes the game more fun. And that’s what a mechanic should do: make things more fun. It’s the willing suspension of disbelief, but for how we experience the story instead of the story elements themselves.&quot And then my friend called me a nerd and stole my unopened coke bottle, but that’s less important.

The point I’m trying to make is that nobody really cared that you could swap clothes mid-story, because the clothes weren’t really part of the story to begin with. They, and the numbers they provided, were mechanics. And we suspended our disbelief because of that. It didn’t make sense, but few game mechanics do, so why bother calling attention to it, eh?

But now they have, and they tried to fix a problem when there wasn’t a problem, and most people are not happy.

In short, I don’t like this change, and I don’t think most other people do either. In fact, I’m pretty sure this may well be the most unpopular thing failbetter has ever put in the game, period. But if you do like it, uhh… good for you, I guess?

2

I think it’s really great! The implementation could be better, but I hate that the game focused on having your outfits essentially be meaningless because you’d always be swapping things in and out to maximize your chances.

Whatever design they pick going forward, I hope it’s not back to the way it was before. I want us to have meaningful outfits and not just be a changeling that shifts outfits to maximize every endeavor.

Failing things isn’t always fun, but having Fallen London feel like a spreadsheet to be optimized is way worse.
edited by Televangelist on 7/30/2020

3

There’s always a devil’s advocate.

4

[quote=Televangelist]I think it’s really great! The implementation could be better, but I hate that the game focused on having your outfits essentially be meaningless because you’d always be swapping things in and out to maximize your chances.

Whatever design they pick going forward, I hope it’s not back to the way it was before. I want us to have meaningful outfits and not just be a changeling that shifts outfits to maximize every endeavor.

Failing things isn’t always fun, but having Fallen London feel like a spreadsheet to be optimized is way worse.

edited by Televangelist on 7/30/2020[/quote]

Well, this change still means that we’re a changeling that shifts outfits to maximize every endeavour, it’s just that the maximization has to be done BEFORE going to a location rather than after…

5

I think it’s great, it force you to think strategically about your clothes and it force you to vary the qualities you want to optimize. It also mean more risk of failure, which I think can be positive since it make for more interesting stories. So yes, I do like the change and I do hope they don’t go back to the way it was. Then again, I am somewhat masochist, so maybe it’s just that.

6

[quote=Televangelist]I think it’s really great! The implementation could be better, but I hate that the game focused on having your outfits essentially be meaningless because you’d always be swapping things in and out to maximize your chances.

Whatever design they pick going forward, I hope it’s not back to the way it was before. I want us to have meaningful outfits and not just be a changeling that shifts outfits to maximize every endeavor.

Failing things isn’t always fun, but having Fallen London feel like a spreadsheet to be optimized is way worse.
edited by Televangelist on 7/30/2020[/quote]

But… this makes it feel much more like a spreadsheet to be optimized. You just have to optimize it before you go somewhere and can’t forget things, go to your inventory, and change it on the fly. The latter isn’t a spreadsheet to be optimized, you just kinda look at your inventory and put things on.

Also deeply weird seeing it called &quotstrategic.&quot CK2’s a strategic game, this is clicky busywork.
edited by MidnightVoyager on 7/30/2020

7

I’m not ready to say yet that I like it, but it’s growing on me. It makes you have a different relationship with your inventory, and I think when I finally get into the groove of it, there are some definite upsides.

So, yeah, you’re just flipping out your outfits before you enter a storylet instead of after. My experience as a player is that this difference is not as trivial as I expected, and overall positive. For one, I’m making the decision when I’m looking at text instead of numbers. Despite being a fundamentally numeric decision, this makes me think about the setting and the meaning. For a text-based game, this is a good thing.

For another, the order of mouse clicks matches more closely the experience of my character: Decide where I’m going out, then pick my outfit, get dressed, and go do my business. This makes the outfit feel like an outfit instead of just a bunch of numbers. The sum effect of both of these is that I have started thinking of my gear in terms of preparation for a situation, rather than just numbers that can be matched against other numbers to generate probabilities.

I’ll say this: if Fallen London had been like this from the beginning, it wouldn’t be a problem. It’s the change that’s the issue. And it’s a big deal! It completely changes the balance of the game, and many quests in FL probably would have been designed different if this was the expectation when they were written. The balance of existing content is a problem. The sudden explosion from 5 relevant stats to 14 is a problem that this only partly addresses.

I do kind of like that the &quotbest&quot item for a slot or context is now more subjective rather than whether something is objectively BiS for a stat. I have switch out some gear to drop one point here for five points there, and I was happy that was justifiable. That’s a personal opinion.

Also paying Fate for outfit slots really just rubs me the wrong way. But my attitude towards Fate is a little more extreme than most players (I also refuse to pay Fate to upgrade my lab).

8

PSGarak really summed up my feelings very well. I won’t repeat what he said, but I want to go on record, so to speak, as agreeing with it, EXCEPT for his comments about Fate. I am perfectly willing to pay Fate for permanent changes to my game play (which I why I did pay Fate to upgrade my Lab, while he chose not to do so). I’m still thinking about how many &quotoutfits&quot I’d like to have, and whether I am willing to pay FBG’s price for them.
edited by Catherine Raymond on 7/30/2020

9

I, for one, find the change to be more and more grating, more than 12 hours later.

The dropdown list on the side would have made changing outfits during storylets so much more convenient. But now of course that’s locked during storylets.

Believability should be tossed out the window in favour of gameplay convenience.

Besides, consider the setting; is having things &quotreasonable&quot an issue when dudes can pop in and out of mirrors? Drink honey and get transported somewhere? What’s a sudden change of clothes and other accoutrements, really?

Heck, why not just come up with some Discworld nonsense that describe the player character swapping out clothes? That would be funny.
edited by Rostygold on 7/30/2020

10

[quote=PSGarak]So, yeah, you’re just flipping out your outfits before you enter a storylet instead of after. My experience as a player is that this difference is not as trivial as I expected, and overall positive. For one, I’m making the decision when I’m looking at text instead of numbers. Despite being a fundamentally numeric decision, this makes me think about the setting and the meaning. For a text-based game, this is a good thing.[/quote]Nothing in the choices leading up to a storylet indicate what type of check the storylet will give. The only way to indicate that is to put in more meta text… which makes a lot of people more aware of game mechanics rather than less aware. If they were to put it in the actual in-game text, then that feels like it would put more constraint on the writers to be aware of what stat-checks their storylets are going to get… which doesn’t seem like the intended idea.

It feels like mechanical information about the game is currently missing with how this system is set-up across the entire game. And… there has to be something done to fix that… something that won’t cause FBG to have to bend over backwards to make it work. Not making players have to do a lot of clicking to optimize passing stat-checks would also be great as well. And currently… nothing in game feels like that.

11

Emphasis on &quotpreparation&quot. The player needs to know what’s ahead.

How could the player know that, at least not without a lot of in-game gameplay instructions telling the player what’s ahead? Or looking at the wiki? I could already imagine that’s just more work for Failbetter’s writers, and if they happen to be people who are sensitive about spoilers, this will be awful to them.

Besides, looking at the latest Watchmaker’s Daughter content, it appears to be a gauntlet of challenges that have to be re-attempted if the player backs out of them before hitting a progress-cementing milestone. It reminds me of the Fidgeting Writer’s story, which is not exactly a pleasant gameplay experience for me.

I would agree with you on this, but I have done database maintenance before. Having player accounts with multiple active fields for outfit combinations will be a pain-in-the-ass to optimize the maintenance routines for.

Also, the game seems borked to me since 3.00 am GMT. Different browsers don’t work (not even onion ones) and the errors, if they are returned, suggest that Java scripts for the game aren’t running properly.
edited by Rostygold on 7/30/2020

12

Yeah, game down for me too.

The watchmaker’s daughter thing was an example of the frustration with the new outfits, for me.

The first time I played it, I saw the instructions, equipped a mix of stats, played through some challenges to the end. I couldn’t make one of the choices because I had low respectable, but sure, I took the other one instead, not so bad. Working as intended.

Drew it a second time, and instead of a mix of stats I put on some Respectable gear…

…only to realize that I had to go through the gauntlet of varied challenges again. And failed a bunch of them, because I wasn’t wearing good gear, because I guess I didn’t realize I wouldn’t resume at the spot I left off last time.

Guess next time I’ll check the wiki…

This makes any of this content, by the way, much less playable on a phone. I can’t grab my phone and play FL for 10 minutes, because before clicking on any storylets I have to figure out what stats they might need (possibly checking the wiki - or taking my own notes), then checking which outfit I have (to make sure it’s right) and only then clicking on the storylet. Instead of the reverse - just playing stories with whatever outfit I’m wearing, and only bothering to check on outfits if I can see I’ve got a low chance of success on something.

13

I’m receptive to the idea of more interactive outfit management for scenarios. It sounds like it could be interesting to plan my outfit out. But it really should just be restricted to specific branches that are well-suited for the mechanic. Also I’ve been having many strange problems all day since the update. Now I can’t load anything at all.

14

[quote=PSGarak]I’m not ready to say yet that I like it, but it’s growing on me. It makes you have a different relationship with your inventory, and I think when I finally get into the groove of it, there are some definite upsides.

I’ll say this: if Fallen London had been like this from the beginning, it wouldn’t be a problem. It’s the change that’s the issue. And it’s a big deal! It completely changes the balance of the game, and many quests in FL probably would have been designed different if this was the expectation when they were written. The balance of existing content is a problem. The sudden explosion from 5 relevant stats to 14 is a problem that this only partly addresses…[/quote]

I completely agree. With most storylets being based on the old system it heavily unbalances content to the point of significantly increasing the difficulty of interactions. An obvious example of this is the Nadir; if you’re not in your Evening clothes when you go in The Rosers is even poorer a chance. Ambitions where you travel, Polythreme (probably, not been there yet), many areas and items are now complicated and require a guide to optimize before you go in, something that seems somewhat antithetical to an explorative story.

In practice this change means instead of moving from the Story Tab, Possessions and back I now have to enter the storylet to check the result, exit the storylet so as to change my outfit for optimization, and then reenter the storylet in order to. This is, bluntly, a pain in the ass and I think with how large Fallen London is getting optimization and ease of use are more important than ‘realism’ at the moment.

15

Until now I haven’t left my lab after the update, since I’m working on a Cartographers Hoad and want to make another small project afterwards in order to progress on my ambition.

But what I’ve read here, fits exactly to what I’m expecting about my personal behaviour and the behaviour of other players. The fact that you’ll need to plan your outfit before will result in more wiki scouting to make sure you’ll have the right equipment.

I don’t expect everything to work without any drawbacks or problems. But if I think back to my last hunt for a certain bear, this change just results in one thing: more actions required for the same hunt because I will fail the rng-checks more often and have to deal with more menaces afterwards. That’s it.

16

[quote=Televangelist]Failing things isn’t always fun, but having Fallen London feel like a spreadsheet to be optimized is way worse.
edited by Televangelist on 7/30/2020[/quote]
Ironically, yesterday I went through my gear and recorded all their stats on a spreadsheet, with columns for different combinations of abilities for multi-stat items. On the same spreadsheet I’m starting to record the challenge types for common carousels and storylets so that I can, at a glance, tell what outfit I’ll need to deal with it.
edited by Grouchybeast on 7/30/2020

17

[quote=Jules Asimov]Like, literally, anyone. I’ve been trawling through the forum and the reddit, as well as my own personal friends who play, and no one likes this or thinks this was a good idea.

The ability to change outfits on the fly was a thing that I joked about, but I accepted it because it wasn’t that big of a deal. As I once pontificated pretentiously to a friend about video game mechanics, &quotThey’re all unreasonable and unrealistic. A health bar doesn’t make sense, for pete’s sake. How does our character know how close the death we are, hmm? But we keep it around because it makes things easier. It makes the game more fun. And that’s what a mechanic should do: make things more fun. It’s the willing suspension of disbelief, but for how we experience the story instead of the story elements themselves.&quot And then my friend called me a nerd and stole my unopened coke bottle, but that’s less important.

The point I’m trying to make is that nobody really cared that you could swap clothes mid-story, because the clothes weren’t really part of the story to begin with. They, and the numbers they provided, were mechanics. And we suspended our disbelief because of that. It didn’t make sense, but few game mechanics do, so why bother calling attention to it, eh?

But now they have, and they tried to fix a problem when there wasn’t a problem, and most people are not happy.

In short, I don’t like this change, and I don’t think most other people do either. In fact, I’m pretty sure this may well be the most unpopular thing failbetter has ever put in the game, period. But if you do like it, uhh… good for you, I guess?[/quote]

It mostly just hasn’t registered on an emotional level to begin with because I don’t really roleplay at all. But I’m vaguely accustomed to being able to Superman in and out of Fallen London problems so even though other people clearly feel stronger about it than me it doesn’t improve my Fallen London experience either.

18

[quote=0bsidian Fire]Nothing in the choices leading up to a storylet indicate what type of check the storylet will give. The only way to indicate that is to put in more meta text… which makes a lot of people more aware of game mechanics rather than less aware. If they were to put it in the actual in-game text, then that feels like it would put more constraint on the writers to be aware of what stat-checks their storylets are going to get… which doesn’t seem like the intended idea.

It feels like mechanical information about the game is currently missing with how this system is set-up across the entire game. And… there has to be something done to fix that… something that won’t cause FBG to have to bend over backwards to make it work. Not making players have to do a lot of clicking to optimize passing stat-checks would also be great as well. And currently… nothing in game feels like that.[/quote]

Agreed. For this reason, I think that keeping the option for newly introduced (and amply signposted) stories and areas balanced with this concept in mind and removing the limitation from older content is likely the best way to go. The tech for making it exclusive to some areas but not others is already there.

For the record, I can reasonably well tolerate the limitation even in the Bone Market, which is apparently rather rare. And even so, the change has introduced a great measure of anxiety for me if/when I will need to delve into one-time content, in particular the (paid) Exceptional Stories.

From the responses in this thread, made expressly to draw those who actively like the change, it really seems hard to defend, let alone like, at least when applied in such global fashion.

19

The more I play with it, the more I hate it. It’s only made the gear-shuffling worse since you have to back out of storylets every time you need to make a change, and now you also have to be second-guessing yourself any time you’re doing something you haven’t done before (or read the wiki for in advance). It’s a terrible system.

20

[quote=Aardvark]

From the responses in this thread, made expressly to draw those who actively like the change, it really seems hard to defend, let alone like, at least when applied in such global fashion.[/quote]

I can understand why some people like this. But I still think, it’s a bad idea, at least outside content that’s really designed for this.
In order to explain this, lets compare FL to a generic Pen & Paper RPG. While not abolutely accurate, I think this still fits better than compare it to RPG’s you usually play on PC/Console.

I’ve got roughly 2 Years of P&P RPG experience, as player and as Game Master / Dungeon Master / Storyteller (or how ever you name it in your RPG). So I know what it means running into a story without equipment fitting perfectly into the situation.

In a P&P context this is interesting. you have to think about how to solve the situation with the available Stuff. You can use your personal experience, wits and creativity. Some Ideas work, others doesn’t work, some would work with other equipment and a few will cause real trouble.
But in FL this is far less enjoyable, because you can’t use your own ideas. You’re limited on the Options presented to you. This is okay because the game can’t react to everything, but especially at repeatable storylets this just results in try & error. You just hit the &quottry again&quot button until it works and, in most cases, the equipment just affects the amount of prayers send to the RNG-Gods.

What I learned at P&P as Storyteller, it is that you should think about where you let the players pass and where you ask for rolls. If you ask for a roll, but the player can repeat this roll again and again and again without serious consequences, why ask for the roll at all? It just results in stretching the content. If there are real consequences on the other hand (e.g. you want to knock out a Watchman but doesn’t hit him hard enough, which means you started a fight) it’s a whole different story. But most content in FL doesn’t work like this.

Especially for repeatable storylets (e.G. hunting in parabola) your stats/equipment just influence the average amount on actions used. Limiting the clothing changes so that people can’t do the current check with the best available equipment just ends up in lower chances, which means a higher average action cost. At some cases you’ll really have to break some action because the menaces are getting to high, but I don’t think this is a real problem for an player that takes care.

Another problem is that a huge part of the community doesn’t like to go in unprepared, especially if they are aware that they can’t change their equipment easily, which might result in even more wiki-scouting.

TL;DR: Yes, in special storylets this may be interesting if you’re aware of it, but in general (and with most likely rng checks to see if something works) it just stretches the given content.