Update to Outfits!

Fallen London
101

One last thought: if what you (FBG) wants is to &quotcreate more opportunities for us to introduce strategic gameplay built around selection of Outfit, and allow for you to make more creative sartorial application of a wider range of clothing&quot, then do just that: introduce NEW content with those limitations. Then you can see how it works out, and how the community responds.

What you did here is the equivalent of putting out a patch to Diablo 2 forcing players to set up camp and spend time changing whenever they get new gear. More realistic? Sure. How the game was designed? No. More fun for the player? Hell no.
edited by Wylte on 7/30/2020

102

Why on earth can’t I change outfits on an island? Was I not able to fit a change of clothing on my boat?
edited by Nephemiah Hamilton on 7/29/2020

103

[quote=Frederick ]Why on earth can’t I change outfits on an island? Was I not able to fit a change of clothing on my boat?
edited by Nephemiah Hamilton on 7/29/2020[/quote]

Speaking of boats, it was my understanding that there was plenty of clothing-unequipping going on inside my Majestic Pleasure Yacht. Am I now trapped in my Respectable Grey Gown for the entire journey? The horror…

104

That was a fine feature that had a couple of annoying bugs. The amazing thing there is that they didn’t fix it and also didn’t fully remove it. There are still a few storylets and cards scattered around that use costs, and don’t tell you your current total before or after.

105

Does FBG even have anybody whose job is making sure the game is, you know, a good game? (and don’t ask me to define good game until you can define good art, I think it’s on a similar level of nebulousnesness). Quick googling says they hired writers, programmers, artists, managers, narrative designers …
&quotGame designer&quot is probably too much for a full job there though. Even more much than &quoteditor&quot.

[quote=Lady Karnstein]
I can’t comment on the 20 fate/additional slot much. I mean, absent this change, I can see why people would be annoyed, but it is not too unfair.[/quote]

It’s completely arbitrary. The price is arbitrary, the fact that it’s outfits and not, say, number of companions or qualities [1] is arbitrary, the number of outfits you can have is arbitrary.

[1] just imagine it - you play a new ES and the game cheerfully tells you to insert money to continue because you reached your limit on how many qualities you can have at once

106

While I agree with your overall point, I think you’re partially mistaken. From what I’ve heard on the Discord of other people’s experiences, the menace areas and some other locations do let you change outfits. It’s ridiculous that so many don’t, though.

107

[quote=Kloxe][quote=Frederick ]Why on earth can’t I change outfits on an island? Was I not able to fit a change of clothing on my boat?
edited by Nephemiah Hamilton on 7/29/2020[/quote]

Speaking of boats, it was my understanding that there was plenty of clothing-unequipping going on inside my Majestic Pleasure Yacht. Am I now trapped in my Respectable Grey Gown for the entire journey? The horror…[/quote]

And what of the guests I invite to my yacht? Will they no longer dress for dinner? Or will they play deck tennis and shuffleboard in their evening clothes?

108

And now for something completely different: the button for saving outfit changes should be way more distinctive and obviously standing out when there are changes to save. It also shouldn’t have a checkmark in that case. A checkmark says that changes are successfully saved.

109

[quote=xKiv]Does FBG even have anybody whose job is making sure the game is, you know, a good game? (and don’t ask me to define good game until you can define good art, I think it’s on a similar level of nebulousnesness). Quick googling says they hired writers, programmers, artists, managers, narrative designers …
&quotGame designer&quot is probably too much for a full job there though. Even more much than &quoteditor&quot.[/quote]

I believe the word you’re looking for is &quotplaytester&quot.

110

[quote=colinsapherson]And finally, I’m also thinking of all those poor failure texts that never get read and may do so a little more now.

[/quote]

I have bad enough luck to be one of the wiki editors that put in the failure and I will tell you that getting to know the failure text and outcome is not fun, especially when failure is just straight punishment without progress or worse, a progress setback.
edited by Rostygold on 7/30/2020

111

I think the change to outfits just doesn’t fit the kind of game FL is. This stuff just doesn’t make Fallen London more fun.

Fallen london is fun because you read cool creehy horror stories in weird places. Putting in more hurdles to changing outfits and progressing does not make it more fun.

Fallen London is addictive in the straightforward grindy “push button, see number go up, make progress towards long-term goal” or “collect ALL THE THINGS” way. Making outfits harder to use does not improve this.

Fallen London is fun because of the roleplay - you can act out a character, a bit. Putting in more requirements for outfit-switching does not help with this.

This change might be try trying to make outfits more strategic. But the “strategy” of picking equipment to optimize your stats just isn’t what makes Fallen London fun! This isn’t a strategy game. It never has been. I don’t think people play Fallen London because they enjoy optimizing their stats, or the “challenge” of picking the best options…

112

I remember that one. That was not good. Giving the player more gameplay-pertinent information is important; those actions withholds that information instead.

Indeed, they didn’t clean that part up. The Bazaar Side-Streets still have those options.

113

I do wish people would stop calling the change “strategic”. I like strategy games, I like Fallen London, and Fallen London has some strategic elements. But “guess in advance which qualities need to be at which levels and dress for that” is not strategy. At best, it is a math test. More often, it is just a test of “did I remember to change clothes before I committed myself to this?”

114

[quote=Tystefy]
I believe the word you’re looking for is &quotplaytester&quot.[/quote]

It’s absolutely not. It’s the difference between a good chef (designer) and a food critic (tester). Only one of those will 1) save you from wasting resources on doing something you shouldn’t do and 2) know what (and how) to do instead.

115

On the plus side, your comment did just save me from making an unnecessary bug report!

116

[quote=Kloxe][quote=Frederick]Why on earth can’t I change outfits on an island? Was I not able to fit a change of clothing on my boat?
edited by Nephemiah Hamilton on 7/29/2020[/quote]

Speaking of boats, it was my understanding that there was plenty of clothing-unequipping going on inside my Majestic Pleasure Yacht. Am I now trapped in my Respectable Grey Gown for the entire journey? The horror…[/quote]
You can change on your boat. Just not while inside a storylet (which the islands all are). As far as I can determine, with a few exceptions (e.g. Flash Lays) anywhere you can draw cards you can change your outfit.

This is &quotfine&quot for repeatable content, where you can stumble through once then return with an optimised outfit, but not so much for one-shot areas like those in many existing ES. Of course, islands are aggravating because you waste actions navigating the island, then more returning to it once the carousel kicks you off. There is supposed to be a zee rework coming that might ameliorate some of that… if this change hasn’t been reverted by then. I really hope it will be reverted by then.
edited by Wlerin on 7/30/2020

117

[quote=Amélie Vaincœur]
This makes every single location outside of London proper literally unplayable, and menace-locations… geez, I don’t want to think about it. Having to play Chess against the Boatman is bad enough as it is, but at least I can prepare for it most of the time… maybe even equip a mood right before going there. But ending up there surprisingly without being able to boost my Watchful at all?

What if I get sent to New Newgate while wearing a Pirate Hat? I won’t be able to unequip it, right? So how am I going to get Suspicion to zero?[/quote]

This is the craziest part about this change. The very existence of negative stats on gear should have alerted them…

What if I get into a majority Shadowy storylet with all my +Shadowy and -Dangerous gear only to realize partway through that there are really cool options involving the Dangerous stat that I’ve just destroyed my ability to complete? I guess those options are mostly gone until I have the lategame brute force to get through them.

And the &quotimmersion&quot justification rings so terribly hollow when you consider the fact that, for a play session of any length, you inevitably have to spend a full 10 minutes between every 1 action walking away to do something else. Immersion in this game is practically impossible.
edited by Kaleestraza on 7/30/2020

118

Not only is this change just frustrating and user-unfriendly game design, but it doesn’t even make all that much sense in terms of realism. There are plenty of equipment items that are so small that our characters could easily hold more than one item from the same slot simultaneously, as well as items so weird or abstract that it actually makes no sense that our characters wouldn’t have them on their person at all times (like the scar you get from the fighting rings). It’s also entirely plausible that our characters could pack useful equipment to bring with them on lengthy ventures, like heists.

Now, is it entirely realistic that my character could change out of a fancy suit and into Mongolian armour in the middle of a pitched battle? Probably not. Is it realistic that my character can’t hold a gun and a pocket watch at the same time, or wear a monocle and a fedora at the same time? Also no. Either option is unrealistic in its own ways, so at least make it unrealistic in a way that doesn’t have a high chance of screwing players over if they don’t read wiki spoilers to make sure they’re bringing the right equipment into an important story.

119

[quote=Optimatum][quote=Amélie Vaincœur]This makes every single location outside of London proper literally unplayable, and menace-locations… geez, I don’t want to think about it. Having to play Chess against the Boatman is bad enough as it is, but at least I can prepare for it most of the time… maybe even equip a mood right before going there. But ending up there surprisingly without being able to boost my Watchful at all?

What if I get sent to New Newgate while wearing a Pirate Hat? I won’t be able to unequip it, right? So how am I going to get Suspicion to zero?
[/quote]While I agree with your overall point, I think you’re partially mistaken. From what I’ve heard on the Discord of other people’s experiences, the menace areas and some other locations do let you change outfits. It’s ridiculous that so many don’t, though.[/quote]If that’s true, it does make the overall change a tiny tad less terrible.

It doesn’t help with the stated goal of achieving &quotreasonable&quot or &quotrealistic&quot mechanics, however.

Menace areas would include the Mirror-Marches, which are part of Parabola. So I can change gear in one part of Parabola, but not in the others?

A few days ago, I increased my Monstrous Anatomy quality by learning from a Parabolan Albatross how to become partially invisible even in the Is. But I can’t change my Boots in the Is-Not?

Even the cheapest Boat allows you to travel anywhere on the Unterzee. But you wouldn’t bring even one change of clothes?

There’s no rhyme or reason to be found anywhere in this change.

A way to make this work would be if certain areas allowed you to bring only a specific fraction of your gear, i. e. depending on your Boat, you’re allowed to bring a specific number of Hats, Boots, Companions etc along for Zee-travel. You get to choose these from all the ones you have. Same for the Bone Market: depending on the size of your Stall, you get to bring along a certain number of gear. Going on a Heist? Make it depend on your Shadowy how much stuff you can bring with you. Add extra options to increase the number of gear: hire Clay Carriers with Docks Favours, buy a cutting-edge Transportation device designed by F. F. Gebrandt with Fate etc. pp.

Not only would this fit the way the game works already; picking the equipment most suited to your plans would be an interesting challenge instead of the plain nuisance of the current system.

One last point: there was beta testing for the new map, but no beta testing for this huge change in game mechanics? Come on…

120

I’m not going to join the pitchfork wielding mob and I feel that a lot of the angry comments (especially on the discord) about the developers and Failbetter are unfair and verging on abusive. This game has given me years of enjoyment and it has been my pleasure to support it and the people behind it.

HOWEVER. I do have to join in the the chorus of people pointing out that this change makes the game less fun.

I’ve got a dozen exceptional stories banked to play when I finish my Ambition (which, ironically, was supposed to be today) but I’m going to put off any attempt to play something unrepeatable until the dust settles on this issue.