Update to Outfits!

Fallen London
41

Much of this update is good - especially the tab to quickly switch outfits.

The additional outfit slots - I can see a cost for having some, but 20 Fate feels steep. An ability to unlock 2 for high level players through special stories (therefore having one for each primary stat, a BDR one, and one for the Glasswork/Mithradacy… etc), would be welcome.

I can see the narrative reasoning - to a point - to not being able to change outfits. I can see the intention behind wanting to have players use more variety in their outfits.

But all challenges in this game are based around maxing ones stats. FL is great, but it is grindy. We grind a lot of these items, enjoying the story as we do, to get that extra bit of chance vs. RNG.
The game has been written, and balanced, for 10 years with the ability to change gear on the fly.
Yes, in some instances it might not make too much narrative sense of switching suits when following someon from a corridor to a chamber. But in other instances being able to carry a pocketwatch and some other gadget; or having a companion working “with you” are much more flexible. Parts of the narrative also require quite substantial ‘leaps’ of imagination.

I think this was done with good intentions - but locking outfits and gear, is forcing players to play a way you might ‘prefer’. That rarely goes down well. I tried to do a few things in Parabola today since this change, and I hate it. All I’m doing is using up additional actions to get back out, and put the right gear on - or force myself through something I’m incorrectly equipped for as fast as possible, and then just repeat it.

It’s just making me resent doing it more, and wanting to play less.

42

As an Exceptional Friend myself, I’m thrilled that I get more outfit slots. But for casual players, there being no in-game way to expand your wardrobe hurts. I’d be a lot happier with this change if there was a way to get a larger wardrobe in-game; perhaps in Polythreme or using the advanced Bone Zone currency, but there should be a way.

And the Bone Zone itself just got so much worse due to the difficulty of selling your stuff. Ugh. One step forward, two back.

43

Gonna chime in here with regard to negative feedback on outfit locking. I have a large backlog of Exceptional Stories I’m kind of nervous about getting into now because I may or may not end up in situations where I can’t optimize my stats. It’s one thing to have certain areas signposted as “Can’t change here!” like you do with the Watchmaker’s Daughter continuation, but as it stands this makes the game frustrating to play rather than fun.

44

If you want the new strategic possibilities from having certain storylets lock your outfit, that’s actually a great idea, do that! But don’t retroactively apply the change to all storylets regardless of whether it’s a good idea!

Like, should you be able to change your outfit in the middle of selling a skeleton? No, not really, it was silly and invalidated the BDR requirement.

Should you be able to change your outfit while assembling a skeleton? Yes! Of course you should! It makes perfect sense that you’d be able to do that and it’s downright necessary to get decent success chances on the various bones!

Should you be able to change your outfit during board meetings? I’d say no. This adds a nice new dimension to how you choose board members (mostly in the form of bye bye Feducci). Meetings would be more interesting that way, although you should really add a message that says “Remember to change your outfit”.

Should you be able to change your outfit during a parabolan hunt? This one stings a little, but I’m gonna actually say that no, you shouldn’t. Now parabolan hunts require a balance of Dangerous and Glasswork, which is probably how it should work.

Should you be able to change outfits while looking at any given card in your opportunity deck, or while in any non-must storylet that you access from London? YES, OF COURSE YES! It would be dumb to not let us! We can just Perhaps Not out, why add that small tedious step??? If you can Perhaps Not out of it without issue, let us change our outfit while in it!

45

Agreed. I have an alt that I made for the purpose of seeing failure texts, especially those within ESes that an end-game player will never be able to see because their base stats are too high. Now instead of being able to adjust my equipment on the fly to achieve low stats in those stories and see the writing, I’ll have to spend Echoes and actions on drinking Bottled Oblivion after every single story, to return all my stats to zero and minimize the risk of accidentally succeeding a check because I can’t change my outfit.

It’s a fringe case that certainly does not apply to most players, but just another example of how this change adds tedium and busywork for no benefit.

46

Yeah, I also came here to diss on the outfit lock.

Thank you for adding more outfits but… the lock is a terrible, awful idea and makes the game a burden to play. Takes away a lot of the fun. There’s no point to it other than to confuse and enrage.

47

I think I understand the intention of this, and I can give it a try. I believe it’s going to be very inconvenient sometimes, but it seems to be a deliberate design decision and Failbetter can take the game to whichever direction they consider. The least I can do is give it a try.

This, however, is which strikes me the most. With all the new content and stats, Failbetter has increased the need of more outfits to play comfortably (I have 175 companions and I can’t find anything there). So, limiting so much the number of outfits and charging this price for more seems… a bit surprising, coming from Failbetter.

[quote=Hannah Flynn]

  • You can now rename Outfits.[/li][li]You can now filter equipment by a specific quality.[/quote]

This is great, especially the stat filter. The ability to switch outfits in the main tab and the indicator of Hinterland Scrip are very useful too. Thanks! ^^

48

I know this is the literal edge of end-game content, but also, that should mean it was designed with this update in mind:
Jericho Locks is awful. You enter a storylet to interact with the town, then enter further storylets to get to places. Meaning that for a Mithridacy check to gain Esteem of the Guild I have to back out of two levels (1 click to ‘Leave’ the sublocation, 1 to ‘Perhaps Not’ out of the town), then it’s 3 clicks to enter the Lockside again (!), and 1 further click to reach the relevant storylet. 6 clicks, not counting the actual item swap. And this is irrespective of how many outfits I have, because having a ‘Mithridacy’ outfit just saves me going to Possessions and manually selecting the items.

Why.

49

Also: the new story could be at least something good about the storylet lock, but it’s unaccessible for those who chose the ending with the Big Rat :(

50

&quotin particular where your character wouldn’t reasonably be able to access their wardrobe, or a convenient steamer trunk&quot is SUCH a dumb reasoning lol

my character shouldn’t be able to cary 50 thousand dead rats around either, but here we are

awful change. just awful

51

Wow, I can’t think of a time an update drew this much criticism and negativity. I have reasonable hopes that such an overwhelming response will make FBG consider tweaking or addressing at least some of the problems that have been pointed out. I imagine the reaction has been similar on Discord and at other venues?

Personally, like most people, I am quite fond of the ability to obtain new outfits and of the way outfits can be accessed from Story tab and organized. I agree the price in fate is quite steep, but it is more or less in line with costs of other Fate-locked perks and stories (e.g. Lab upgrades, Fate-locked expeditions, action refreshes etc.). It would nonetheless be great to have a couple grindy, expensive, but non-fate ways to unlock an additional outfit.
Like others, I am less than thrilled with the retroactive application of the storylet lock, as I’ve also been neglecting Exceptional Stories for a long time and now may risk missing out on unique rewards and/or lore as the crucial parts of the stories tends to take place within storylets and otherwise locked areas. I’ll likely wait before starting with my Exceptional Stories to see if this limitation might be somewhat mitigated in response to the feedback.

And I agree that in some areas, this will create extremely annoying, tedious and punishing tug-of-war between the narrative and the interface, which really seems like a very bad thing to implement in this very, very good game. And I’m saying that as a person who actually loved the Bone Market as it was, even before being rid of card-dependence.

I guess that either older stuff, or the &quotstorylet lock&quot should be extensively rebalanced. If both stay as they are at this very moment, I fear this may actually put people off and damage the game, which I feel has so far been in an overwhelmingly good place recently.

[quote=NotaWalrus]If you want the new strategic possibilities from having certain storylets lock your outfit, that’s actually a great idea, do that! But don’t retroactively apply the change to all storylets regardless of whether it’s a good idea!

Like, should you be able to change your outfit in the middle of selling a skeleton? No, not really, it was silly and invalidated the BDR requirement.

Should you be able to change your outfit while assembling a skeleton? Yes! Of course you should! It makes perfect sense that you’d be able to do that and it’s downright necessary to get decent success chances on the various bones!

Should you be able to change your outfit during board meetings? I’d say no. This adds a nice new dimension to how you choose board members (mostly in the form of bye bye Feducci). Meetings would be more interesting that way, although you should really add a message that says &quotRemember to change your outfit&quot.

Should you be able to change your outfit during a parabolan hunt? This one stings a little, but I’m gonna actually say that no, you shouldn’t. Now parabolan hunts require a balance of Dangerous and Glasswork, which is probably how it should work.

Should you be able to change outfits while looking at any given card in your opportunity deck, or while in any non-must storylet that you access from London? YES, OF COURSE YES! It would be dumb to not let us! We can just Perhaps Not out, why add that small tedious step??? If you can Perhaps Not out of it without issue, let us change our outfit while in it![/quote]

This is a very, very good way to put things. I second this post wholeheartedly.

52

I believe the reason why has been covered extensively, so just add me to the pile of those disappointed.

53

Or it would be very useful, but for the fact that every time I’ve wanted to use it thus far to switch outfits it had a lock icon on it! It is more of a tease than a utility, at this point.

54

You cannot change outfits in your laboratory. There wasn’t a lot of need to, but I hope you weren’t planning on using new stats and Watchful together.

At this point I would rather revert and give up having preset outfits entirely in favor of being able to actually use equipment effectively. But even better would be more outfits without the unhelpful locking!

55

Harder for everybody, full stop.

While I like the idea of making mixed-stat outfits relevant–and understand the creative freedom it gives the developers to add new items to the game that will actually see use, among other things–I don’t think this is the right way to go about it, especially given the mountain of existing content balanced around outfit switching mid-story. Especially for players who haven’t reached endgame (although much of the existing endgame content is hurt by this as well). Especially with how temperamental RNG is. Especially given how many stories (even Fate ones) are one-shot only. And even those that aren’t, if you’re not glued to the wiki it’s hard to know what stats to bring–and the choices available don’t always make that much sense. That design flaw never mattered much before because you could always just switch outfits. Now, though.

I also find charging 20 Fate for something that used to be available with a free browser extension (and which the new outfit switching restriction somehow manages to make both a requirement and irrelevant) highly distasteful. It would be less distasteful if there were, perhaps, an in-game way to expand your outfit slots without Fate/EF, perhaps up to 5 or 6, requiring Fate or a Subscription to go higher. But even then.

The rest of the content additions (Hinterland Scrip visible in the sidebar, outfit switching from the sidebar, PROPER SEARCH, outfits not immediately updating) amazing, but the above two things get a BIG no from me.
edited by Wlerin on 7/29/2020

56

I have to agree with the sentiment expressed by others before me, that I’d much rather not have the extra outfits at all if I were to get rid of this new lock “feature”. How did someone over there manage to make such a wonderful new addition crippled by a terrible new subtraction? I am very bitter about this and I’m glad I’m not alone. But I’d be much happier if we didn’t have to be bitter about this.

57

God, I hope the outfit lock changes get reverted. This has, in a stroke, made the game both more unsatisfying and more… I can’t find the words, but something along the lines of ‘the feeling of beating one’s head against a wall’ – at once hard, unenjoyable, and unavoidable. This makes the game unenjoyable and unattractive to play, so much so that I can’t in good conscience recommend it to new players unless this gets fixed, and am seriously considering cancelling my Exceptional Friendship. The game has 10 years of content balanced around switching one’s outfit and gear whenever you want, and this manages to make the entire game either more tedious (requiring moving to an area where outfit swaps are possible) or more failure-prone and unsatisfying, if you’ve put on the wrong outfit and have to settle for a greater chance of failure while at the same time kicking yourself for not having the right stats.

Terrible change. Please reconsider it.

58

Well thank -god- we can at least still change stuff while at the Lab and Bone Market. This restriction on when we can/can’t change gear is just terrible imo, it’s only going to serve to screw people out of one-chance checks they had no way of predicting were coming up (-especially- in premium stories, -especially especially- if said stories start using the newly-introduced stats that many of us are only managing to boost to decent levels with the Lost & Found items), and just generally make doing any action loop that requires more than one stat utterly tedious.

What’s next? Having to choose what possessions I bring with me to each storylet, and just being doomed if I chose to allocate my slots to Prisoner’s Honey and Tales of Terror when the no-Perhaps-Notting story actually needed Candle Stubs and Nevercold Brass? I mean think about it, it’s not like my character can &quotreasonably access&quot their entire horde of supplies from anywhere in London, right?
Gameplay and Story Segregation exists as an incredibly prevalent trope in games for a damn good reason, as more often than not taking the &quotWe need to make how X inventory mechanic works more realistic&quot approach just leads to a far worse gameplay experience, and I think this change is no exception.

Can’t wait to find out how unbearable this makes the 2/3rds of Paisley I hadn’t yet gotten around to playing!

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edited by Xorph on 7/29/2020

59

I’ll have to add my voice to the choir of discontent.

I’m paying good rostygold for the porters from the Docks to carry my gear on archaeological expeditions and I’d expect they could carry my Watchful hat or boots as well, but alas. Thanks for the outfits update, I hate it.

60

Well. This certainly is an update. I have a lot of conflicting feelings about this, some well-reasoned and others knee-jerk reactions. So instead of writing an impassioned plea or complaint essay, bullet points time. Starting with the positives, because it’s tempting to focus on the doom and gloom.

The Good:

  • More outfits has been requested for years.[/li][li]Changing outfits on the story tab has also been requested for years, if by fewer people. Thank you![/li][li]Manual outfit saving is also welcome, especially with the advanced stats. I constantly equip one item for one challenge and forget to change back. Excellent change.[/li][li]Searching for specific stats is extremely important for large inventories.[/li][li]This change targets the constant powercreep of new Best in Slot items. I don’t like the method, but making a wider variety of items useful is great. More mechanical emphasis on good stat spreads is welcome.[/li][li]Greater depth to outfit use allows for creative use in stories. See Paisley.[/li][li]Watchmaker’s Daughter!!!

The Bad:

  • This change makes existing content harder in ways it was not designed for.[/li][li]Making additional outfits Fate-only is an extremely bad look. Adding a feature requested for years but only available to specific players? Asking us to pay money to reduce an inconvenience that didn’t exist before? Please no.[/li][li]I often forget which outfit I’m wearing, or with the new stats, what tweaks I made to address some challenge. Being able to easily switch outfits makes this a nonissue. Without that, I have to focus more on mechanics and less on story.[/li][li]Most early-game equipment boosts one stat and penalizes another. Will this make balanced outfits too difficult for early-game players? [/li][li]The seven new stats are almost always mutually exclusive on equipment. Outfits can’t balance all of these, especially if we need the main stats too.[/li][li]Though the sidebar reduces clicking, having to back out of storylets to change outfits adds them. This could be changed by allowing outfit-switching in storylets you can ‘perhaps not’ from.[/li][li]Apparently many, but not all, locations outside London don’t let the player change outfits even outside storylets. Restrictions and consequences the player can’t reliably predict increases wiki reliance.[/li][li]Other locations are designed entirely inside storylets, like Port Carnelian, but changing outfits there would make narrative sense. Are Governors only allowed one uniform for their entire term? This too increases wiki reliance.[/li][li]This has substantial impact on Ambitions and other one-off stories. Many have storylets the player can’t back out of. Inevitably, some players will have to choose between dispreferred but mechanically convenient options and narratively-preferred options they aren’t prepared for. This increases wiki reliance and just feels… not fun.[/li][li]The occasional stories where failure permanently locks or progresses past content. For example, in Ambition: Bag a Legend, one segment has the player infiltrate a location owned by the Masters. Failure on any challenge here kicks the player out, potentially missing content, and they cannot return. Now, most of the challenges there use a special non-outfit-based quality… but some use regular Shadowy. There’s no way to know that going in. Balanced outfit stats will help, but less so than an optimized Shadowy outfit. This, again, increases wiki reliance.[/li][li]Fate stories. Now, these are designed to be accessible to more players, so difficult stat challenges aren’t a concern. But any content bought with real money is automatically higher stakes. Many players already want to be prepared to reach the &quotright&quot outcome; this adds more to be prepared for. The wiki doesn’t cover these stories, but people can ask here or on other platforms; it’s the same effect.[/li][li]Wiki reliance. As a wiki contributor, I consider my work primarily archival. It’s there so people can find information—whether narrative or mechanical effects—without hunting through the game themselves. I am profoundly uncomfortable with the possibility that people’s enjoyment of the game could rely on the completeness and accuracy of my strictly-volunteer work. Nor do I want anyone to feel pressured to check mechanics of content they’ve yet to play and spoil it for themselves in the process.

While I do appreciate the intent behind the big change, I’m very skeptical of its effects. Outfits are abstracted because it makes the game more enjoyable. I frankly don’t care whether it makes narrative sense for the player to constantly have their wardrobe at hand. Do we need explanations for how the player has thousands of wine, candles, and rostygold at hand too?
edited by Optimatum on 7/29/2020