Clothing Stats - My only gripe with this game

[The Enigma]

We've all been guilty of it multiple times while playing Disco Elysium...

NPC: "My mind is set on this matter, do not even attempt to convince me otherwise!"

PC: "Okay, okay, I can't convince you of anything now 'cause I'm terrible at rhetoric, but let's put this conversation on hold for a moment. I'll change my pants, my tie and my hat, and I'll come right back at you with the most clever of arguments!"

You all know what I mean, somehow this game allows you to turn from a total dummy to an eloquent speaker just by changing a few pieces of your attire. So much so that all this constant 'attire changing' becomes one of the main mechanics of your progression. As someone who highly values immersion, I find this plain silly and just as equally annoying.

In total we have 8 pieces of clothing available. If we consider that the best pieces provide a net bonus of +1-2 points, that's a total bonus of roughly +10 skills points in the end. Why not just offer the players a bit more XP throughout the game and let them earn/invest those 10 points normally, as they see fit? Aside from eliminating that annoying 'attire changing', it would also make those 10 additional points much more of a commitment. As it is, even someone who invested very little in a specific skill can cheese his way out of a challenging skill-check, which makes builds and stats distribution much less of an engaging/immersive undertaking.

To compensate, the devs could have expanded on the whole 'substance abuse' idea for momentary stats boosts. For example, this coarse brand of cigarettes makes you feel like a total badass (ie. Half Light), while this exotic brand increases your charm (ie. Suggestion). Hell, why not even include a few meals that also temporarily boost your stats for 6 hours. At the very least, this would make it a lot more immersive than constantly changing your clothes.

Anyway, I'm really not expecting to change anything with this post, I simply felt like getting it off my chest. It is something that I see as a great nuisance in a game that I otherwise consider a masterpiece.

[The Enigma]

引用自 Stabbey：

引用自 RJM：

I would like the clothing more if it was a case of saying "how do I want to approach this interview" and then dressing accordingly. Instead it tends to be a case of following all conversation chains until checks appear then suspending the interview, doing a quick change from the dress up box while standing in front of them and then trying the key line. It requires a large suspension of disbelief to think that this would work to change their opinion of you for the better.

However I'm not sure if it would function too differently if we had to dress for the interview in advance. That would probably just encourage most players to talk a bit then reload and see if 'hippie cop' worked better than 'sympathetic cop' or 'hardnosed cop' if they didn't like how the interview went the first time.

Yes, all that would add is tedium. Forcing the player to only change clothes in their room will not, in any way, make the clothing-based stat modifiers "more realistic", but it would sure as hell make it obnoxiously tedious.

As a rule, if you are deliberately making your game more obnoxiously tedious, you're not doing game development right.

This game is not designed with outfit restrictions in mind. You cannot just slap such restrictions in place without heavily overhauling all the other game systems.

• There is no fast travel, or even a way to automatically move from place to place without needing constant clicking. The only way is cross the map is to take up to several minutes of clicking. That kills the "change in your room only" idea.
  
• There is no way to advance time easily, you need to read books or something and you can only do that once per book, so that kills the "change X times per per day" idea.
  
• You have no way of knowing what checks you'll face in advance and need to prepare for, which kills the "change X times per day" idea again.
  
• Additionally, passing a check is not a sure thing. There are dice rolls involved, including a critical failure roll which always loses no matter what. A failure locks out checks until putting new skill points in or finding another modifier. Adding restrictions to clothing is unnecessary overkill.
  
• No matter what, it's never, EVER going to be "realistic" to get bonuses from wearing a different tie, pair of glasses, shirt anyway.
  
• Why single out that one thing as immersion-breaking, when there is so much else, largely your incredibly unconcerned partner who doesn't relieve you of duty immediately or call your station to have someone take you in to a hospital for treatment.
  
• You get the idea.

Adding heavy restrictions to switching outfits like "you can only switch outfits on your room" or "you can only switch outfits once a day" and other such nonsense is an insanely un-fun idea, and the devs would need to be completely idiotic to implement it.

Is it objectively and universally more tedious though?

Because frankly, to me constantly browsing your clothing inventory and trying to remember which shirt/scarf/shoes exactly would offer a +3 bonus to pass that Legendary Conceptualization skill-check is infinitely more tedious. Especially when important skill-checks show up every 10 minutes and it becomes a memory or inventory-management game that's distracting you from an otherwise thoroughly engaging role-playing experience. And although I can accept being in the minority regarding this, if this discussion is anything to go by the way that Disco Elysium handled clothing certainly doesn't seem to be 'universally appreciated' either.

Really, as I previously clarified I fully get behind the idea that clothing can vaguely influence your personality traits, only I think that this is currently way over-emphasized. Most clothes being purely cosmetic with an occasional quest that would offer a reward between, say, a rebellious jacket (+1 Half Life) or a pristine trenchcoat (+1 Composure) would be quite cool. You'd get to commit to a 'signature style' that does indeed slightly influence your personality. And simply rebalance the overall skill-checks to account for those fewer bonuses.

As it is now your clothes can potentially influence your personality just as much as your personality itself (see the great irony there), and yet you don't even feel like your character can ever be defined by his style because he's constantly wearing haphazard clothes that simply suit whatever short-lived situation he's currently facing.

[corbo]

The D&D style magic clothes system starts off as silly and manageable (few items.)

Later you realise that a +1/-1 on a stat is peanuts, in fact irrelevant when dice rolls are involved. Then the wardrobe becomes too big to even bother finding and switching garments.

So you choose your outfit for the looks, or fashion statement, or whatever you fancy, and you stop caring about numbers.