I actually really like the no-outfit-change during stories, but I’m only here for the story and in-character roleplaying, and don’t really care about stats or grinding much. (I’m not aspiring for PP or the Cider anytime soon, if ever.)
The easiest solution is to add a toggle in Settings for the new outfits rule like they did for the new map. Call it "Unlock Outfit Selection" or "Classic Outfit Mode" or something. And if they want to push the new system, leave "Classic Mode" on for existing accounts (or for accounts with POSI), but turn it off for brand-new accounts.
That way those of us who like the new system can play with it, while those who paid for a lot of gear using the old rules, or who are doing lots of end-game grinds, don’t get screwed by the change. edited by Six Handed Merchant on 7/30/2020
Arbitrarily clicking perhaps not before switching outfits or deciding to take a challenge with the wrong gear equipped was something you could always do. So even if doing that is anyone’s idea of fun the change at best just doesn’t affect them. You can play with the new system even if they revert the change. It only impacts the majority of players that hate it. If anyone wants to randomly waste some clicks/actions to improve their enjoyment of the game just let them, but there’s no way to defend forcing it on everyone. Especially after 10 years of selling gear for real money which players bought based on the expectation they could actually use it. edited by Mona on 7/30/2020
One of the major issues here is that the old stats and the new end-game stats don’t overlap. If you want to pursue a Parabolan hunt, you need high Dangerous and high Glasswork.
Guess what? The Glasswork items dramatically reduce Dangerous. So you’re stuck tanking Glasswork because that story option doesn’t carry a menace increase on failure, but the Dangerous main options do. Okay. So it’s just increasing action cost for no reason.
Similarly, did you forget to put on your Persuasive clothes before going into a Board Meeting? Well, you can’t back out because it’s time locked, but failures don’t carry a penalty. Hooray. You’re just going to spend more actions.
This is, overall, lower-fun design.
Editing to add: The Bone Market is another good example because you can freely change gear in the main storylet, but building a skeleton requires a significant range of mutually-exclusive end-game stats. Which means you’re just having to exit out of that storylet constantly, which increases clicking, but not fun or immersion. edited by Toran on 7/30/2020
[quote=J. L.]Particularly with stories such as hunts and the boardroom in existence[/quote]Oh hell, I’d forgotten about this week’s board meeting. Damnation. I’m struggling not to use stronger language here.
Honestly I’m not sure the boardroom is significantly affected. You’ll likely need a couple extra actions for making the corruption/obfuscation/etc checks, but aside from Feducci going pure Persuasive should be mostly the same. (Or you can go for Player of Chess and use Furnace as normal.)
I’m also here for the story but find this mechanic is making me focus on game-play more than I’d like. It has required me to spend more time reading the wiki to ensure I have the right outfit with balance of items to be able to follow a particular thread. It’s also made me loath to actually commit to starting any exceptional stories when I have no idea what the requirements might be and if I will be able to make in-character decisions.
There is less control over my character and less ability to follow the narrative that suits him.
This reminds me of Dragon Age so much.
First game, there are a couple of narrative choices that might affect the final outcome. So mostly you followed the story, and got a couple of surprises along the way.
By the third game, playing without a wiki, a walkthrough and a forum’s help was impossible, if you cared about the outcome at all. Random choices or lines or turns might render entire branches lost or unplayable - because it had to be complicated and rich, and strategic. In the end you didn’t follow a story, you completed a chore.
Of course what is happening here is not of the same magnitude but still… those who are here for the story now have to make spreadsheets instead of actually playing.
[quote=Optimatum]Honestly I’m not sure the boardroom is significantly affected. You’ll likely need a couple extra actions for making the corruption/obfuscation/etc checks, but aside from Feducci going pure Persuasive should be mostly the same. (Or you can go for Player of Chess and use Furnace as normal.)[/quote]The thing is that unless you reduce your persuasive to stack certain items (which might be tricky to balance), it will be a pain to make those repeated obfuscation/respectability checks as the difficulty rises. And with multiple agenda items… those actions will stack up.
Full agreement here. The initial intention might be right, but the result is sadly just an action sink (at least at the current state). If I need 12-15 actions for a storylet that I’ve done in 10 before the update, it doesn’t make the game more exiting, it just reduces the speed of progress.
It isn’t that much affected unless you make a mistake and go in wearing the wrong outfit. Then you have the choice between using up far more APs than should be needed to pass the checks, or leaving the meeting and waiting for another week to try again. That seems a little punitive for making one single playing error.
Care to elaborate what exactly you get out of the removal of an option that makes it an improvement for you which couldn’t be accomplished by simply ignoring said option previously?
Preferences are preference. It is distressing to see people criticizing each other on these Forums just because they have a favorable opinion about the "No-Outfit-Change-Story" thing.
Let’s be real though. Aside from the fact nobody likes this update, it’s causing frequent crashes of the website and is not functional at all on mobile. I don’t see why they haven’t rolled it back yet.