I switch between outfits a lot, which can be tricky to do when playing on mobile. Even on a real computer, it’s pretty unsatisfying to have to switch outfits over and over. I want to focus on the story, not fiddle around with a drop down menu.
What if there was an option to automatically switch to the best preset outfit you have for every action? It would just use whichever outfit has the highest relevant stat. This would save people a lot of clicks. There could be a small checkbox on the myself page you could toggle on and off at will.
What is the difference from what you are proposing and the “morning”, “evening”, etc. preset outfits in the “myself” tab? I don’t know if I understood the nuances.
I believe he meant an automatic switch of outfit. Though I’d suggest putting it in a checkbox on the actual option you plan to pursue (like the second chances) as the game can’t predict what you are about to do.
Significantly, this would skip over the “switch tab, wait 10 seconds for it to load, try to remember what you were doing so that you know what outfit to switch to, click back to main tab, wait for it to load, try to remember what you were trying to do …” process/annoyance.
What I mean is, whenever you perform an action the game would automatically switch to whichever of your 4 preset wardrobes that maximizes the used stat.
For example, let’s say your morning outfit gives +10 to persuasive and that’s the best persuasive bonus out of all your 4 presets. If you perform an action that uses persuasive, you’d automatically change to your morning outfit.
That might get kinda annoying if you’re trying to minimize your Persuasive to get the most stat gains from a certain action. This wouldn’t be a problem for me since I’ve never bothered trying to min-max in that way (and I’m statcapped now anyway), but it’d probably aggravate other people.
Those are rare enough that they could just make it two mutually incompatible checkboxes, or you can manually choose the optimal option.
Otherwise, a checkbox to auto-equip optimal gear would make equipment optimization easier, with the occasional edge case or other situation where you’d need it manually, like persuasive minimization in the nadir.
EDIT: Okay, i assumed something the feels like it’d be better was what they were suggesting- a tickbox on the action, so that when you need to take the action, you can tick "Stat Maximizing gear" and temporarily equip optimal gear- or even just have the game act like you did. edited by Grenem on 4/4/2016
You could uncheck the box whenever you want. That would turn off automatic switching whenever its inconvenient.
Even if it only worked for single stat actions, that would still be useful enough.
And it’s very simple to calculate the overall odds of success across two different random checks. Even if one stat was lowered while another was raised, it would be very easy to calculate which outfit has the overall highest success rate for any given action.
Oh, right, I forgot that there was a checkbox option in your suggestion. In that case I think it’d be a pretty nice mechanic that I’d definitely appreciate.
[spoiler]"Best" is subjective, I’m afraid.
If I’m wearing a Set of Workman’s Clothes (-1 level of Suspicion) and my Suspicion had reached 8, and I use the "select best outfit" function you’re suggesting, will it be mindful about other circumstances? Or will it just pick the best attributes and send me straight to New Newgate Prison in the process?
If I have an action which requires an attribute as well as An Experienced Zailor, if I’ve got ‘M. Demeaux’s Advice for Captains: Commemorative Edition’ equipped to compensate for my lack of the ‘An Experienced Zailor’ quality, will "select best outfit" pick the highest stats for that attribute, leaving me without the required quality?
If an action requires both Bizarre and Persuasive, how will it quantify the decision-making? What if you can still succeed at the action by passing one check, but get better rewards if you pass both?
It’s a nice idea in theory but it sounds like a lot of work to code, for minimal actual gain.
Perhaps adding the equipment dropdown list to the main page as well (between Fate and Attributes, on the left-hand side?) would be a simpler way of handling this, so that changing tabs is not required. It’s not as though the task is exhausting anyway, especially when compared to how it used to be handled.[/spoiler]
EDIT: Okay, so I mis-read that as it changing items individually rather than picking a predefined outfit for the task. Dropping my previous bit into a spoiler tag.
I still stand by the end bit of my comment here, though:
[quote]It’s a nice idea in theory but it sounds like a lot of work to code, for minimal actual gain.
Perhaps adding the equipment dropdown list to the main page as well (between Fate and Attributes, on the left-hand side?) would be a simpler way of handling this, so that changing tabs is not required. It’s not as though the task is exhausting anyway, especially when compared to how it used to be handled.[/quote] edited by Kittenpox on 4/4/2016
The main difficulty with switching outfits is when playing on a phone. Small touch screens and drop down menus aren’t best friends. Even switching tabs requires a bit of deftness, and it’s a hassle to do it repeatedly.