Swapping Armor Sets

He implemented the option to do that.
And the Option is Bad Design. The Design is "how much of repetitive boring UI tasks are you willing to do for a small advantage". That will either make you ignore the mechanic entirely, or do boring repetitive UI tasks to the exact point of frustration. There's no good outcome, either you ignore the feature, or are annoyed by it. If you ignore it, you might as well not have implemented it.
 
Time. (Real Time, like the amount of time I spend clicking on rocks instead of doing something engaging lol)
I understand that you're hypothetically saving time (which I think is more of a compulsion or preference rather than something that is actually needed to be done). Again, the only way to know, for sure, that you're saving time, and you didn't simply mine longer than you needed to, is if you somehow knew exactly how much stone, iron, etc., that you needed, and you stopped exactly at the point you hit those specific numbers.
 
And the Option is Bad Design.
Ok, so removing all the bonuses from all the armor sets (thereby eliminating this problematic option) would fix the problem then, right? If not, please explain why.
The Design is "how much of repetitive boring UI tasks are you willing to do for a small advantage". That will either make you ignore the mechanic entirely, or do boring repetitive UI tasks to the exact point of frustration.
Isn't that a false dichotomy? How about just swapping out a single piece of armor like I do? I don't get frustrated when I do this, and I don't ignore the mechanic.

You seem to be opposed to mechanics existing in the game that you yourself don't personally enjoy, even if other people enjoy them. Remember clothing dyes? They did nothing for me. I never bothered. Does that mean they shouldn't have been implemented even though other people enjoy them?
 
Ok, so removing all the bonuses from all the armor sets (thereby eliminating this problematic option) would fix the problem then, right? If not, please explain why.
For me, yes, sure. Would be better.

Isn't that a false dichotomy? How about just swapping out a single piece of armor like I do?
Some parts of it are worse than others. I run a barter setup (hat stored in a barter box, with candies and magnum) and the reading outfit. The barter set is mildly annoying, especially if I only have one cigar, other than that, swapping the hat is a minor part of the barter effort. The reading outfit is the worse offender, you'd basically want to swap that whenever you find a book. But you end up optimizing filling your pockets with books, or just changing the way you clear vs loot...

There's also the loot bonus gear ... swapping that for every loot box? Nah. Ignored .. (worse)
Salvage gear? I don't salvage often enough to really care, but I'll keep the useful bits in a box somewhere.
Etc. They don't feel generally good, and some are outright bad.

You seem to be opposed to mechanics existing in the game that you yourself don't personally enjoy, even if other people enjoy them.
I'm opposed to bad mechanics; there are ways for armor bonuses to work. Gloves are decent, even if entirely uninspired and oddly balanced; you get damage towards a common target or damage type. Add a bit of a cooldown so you don't have any temptation to swap those Per Target, and they're in a pretty decent place. You'll just pick the ones you deem best against your biggest threats (or "grindiest" if no threats).

The bonuses could be improved, they could be removed; they can be left as they are, but I'll call them bad when I see them ;)
 
That's just an incredibly uninformed view of how people play video games lmao. MOST people generally look for better gear to increase their efficiency, that's the very reason why you upgrade from iron to steel. But when WE do it it's a mental illness? 🙄
Again, like I said to TheFlu, you're missing my previous reply where I explained which group of players I consider "addicts".
Go back and read again that part of my reply please.
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I always have all the armor sets except for the nerd outfit, and I also don’t touch the intelligence skill tree. I don’t carry them with me, but when I go mining, scrapping cars, or gathering plants, I always switch to the appropriate set. I do this properly only once every few days, coming back with a large amount of materials that lasts me for several days.
In that case I wouldn't put you in the "addicts" or "mental quirk" group.
 
I'm opposed to bad mechanics; there are ways for armor bonuses to work. Gloves are decent, even if entirely uninspired and oddly balanced; you get damage towards a common target or damage type. Add a bit of a cooldown so you don't have any temptation to swap those Per Target, and they're in a pretty decent place. You'll just pick the ones you deem best against your biggest threats (or "grindiest" if no threats).

The bonuses could be improved, they could be removed; they can be left as they are, but I'll call them bad when I see them ;)
I wouldn't mind an "outfit panel" in the character sheet where you can collect and store all the various parts for each set as soon as you craft them (much like the biome gear). Then you can switch between them with just one click of a button. That would be great and probably liked by many players here.
 
Then you can switch between them with just one click of a button.
I'd see that as quite pointless over just unlocking them as permanent buffs. If they're not "simulating gear" then they don't really deserve the hassle of swapping.
By "simulating gear", I mean roughly: decide the looks of the character, come with drawbacks (heavy armor shouldn't be fastest armor in the game ...), require inventory capacity to carry, be somewhat reasonable in their effects (+/-run speed, fine; +gun damage, what???; -food consumption, ehh???).

Great? Improvement for the current weirdness, perhaps... but still a weird mystical choice. Liked by many? Maybe; dunno if it would be enough of a change to actually be cared by anyone though.
 
Again, like I said to TheFlu, you're missing my previous reply where I explained which group of players I consider "addicts".
Go back and read again that part of my reply please.
Forums are a nightmare to track stuff I can't find it. I'll just take your word for it though.
I understand that you're hypothetically saving time (which I think is more of a compulsion or preference rather than something that is actually needed to be done). Again, the only way to know, for sure, that you're saving time, and you didn't simply mine longer than you needed to, is if you somehow knew exactly how much stone, iron, etc., that you needed, and you stopped exactly at the point you hit those specific numbers.
Not really. I go out, I mine for 30 minutes. I have some amount of ore. If I have +50% ore yields from my armour then I can go longer without having to mine again. Saving mining time.
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Is Chicken Coop a 3.0 thing?
Well it's not a 2.6 thing and they changed 2.7 to 3.0 so unless Chickens are getting the 4.0 Bandit Treatment i imagine so.
 
TFP felt like swapping clothes for temperature, roughly twice a day is too much micro; and then they add reading armors, that you're supposed to swap at basically every bookshelf. And barter armors that you want to swap twice a day, and ...

The design does not necessarily tell you that you’re supposed to swap it out at every action opportunity. I don’t hear those whispers while I play. What I hear is that I can play the game multiple times using a different mix of armor for a nice variety of strengths and weaknesses for my character.

What that means is that the design allows for more than one playstyle. If you like your playstyle then that’s great. Swap away and relish it. If you don’t like your playstyle there are others you can choose to try.
 
Do people really carry around so many armor pieces and swap all the time? All i have is two pieces of farmer armor and two pieces of mining armor in my base and only carry an enforcer headgear with me at all times.

I do play int though so the nerd chest doesn't matter to me. 50% or 100% chance to double magazine does not matter when i will read everything eventually.

If you really want to have all the bonus's all the time you could always ask TFP to Final Fantasy 9 the armor system lol!
 
There's also the loot bonus gear ... swapping that for every loot box? Nah. Ignored .. (worse)
There’s another way to play that the design suggests and that is to play as a character that is strong in looting ability. You don’t just wear that armor when looting a box or ignore it completely. You wear that armor all the time and it buffs you a certain way but has opportunity costs which mean you forego other bonuses you could have. So you would be weaker at bartering, and mining, and farming but that’s what makes an interesting character to play. Strengths and weaknesses rather than trying to be strong everywhere all the time to the point you get burnt out on managing all your possible buffs for every moment you do things.

You say it’s either do it or ignore it depending on whether you hate swapping or not at a particular frequency. But I say it’s building a particular type of character to play for that playthrough that has certain strengths and certain weaknesses.

I have fun playing despite a weakness. It’s a challenge and gives each playthrough its own quirky feel.

The design is good because it lets me play my way and others to play their way. I don’t want the devs to mess with it any more just to help min/maxers who loathe what they are doing and want to be stopped by the devs.
 
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I specified what kind of player has a (real) mental quirk
I'd consider addicts those who feel compelled to play it (or any other game) all the time to the point that it begins to interfere with their real life and ability to function as, say, a doomed-to-fail means of escape from the inescapable. I'd also consider those who do become addicted have a predisposition toward addiction in the first place that needs to be addressed, i.e. it's not necessarily the game's fault. The industry at large does prey on psychological/neurological or subconscious vulnerabilities, but so do all the rest. Perception management and "public relations" of the manipulative Edward Bernays variety is all the rage today and RNG itself is a "gambling" mechanic. So, it's definitely something to guard against the very same as propaganda, but this is different, imo.

What you're describing, which is a strong focus on efficiency, I'd consider more "left-brained" (and the grabbing, grasping mode of attention of the left brain hemisphere) than "right-brained" as a matter of degree, with sincere apologies to Iain McGilchrist because it's such a crude example. Obviously, it's not that simple. I'd hazard to guess (though could be wrong) most of us, subconsciously or otherwise, actively seek out the most efficient way to play video games, especially games specifically built for efficiency with stacks upon stacks of buffs and debuffs, etc. for reasons I'll spare ya, but don't think it indicative of addiction so much as a predilection toward the mechanical actually reinforced by the civilization we live in. In fact, some studios have lost me completely due to their reduction of art to pure mechanics because I'm in it for the aesthetics and they're not delivering anything worth contemplating, but merely endless checklists of "stuff to do". (The Arts Can't Be Reduced to an Equation.) That's why I can't stand "radiant" quests and the like. They're anything but radiant. That's also why I think a hybrid LBD/LBR system for the game is a pretty bright idea. We're not all the same and we don't all play the same.
 
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There’s another way to play that the design suggests and that is to play as a character that is strong in looting ability. You don’t just wear that armor when looting a box or ignore it completely. You wear that armor all the time and it buffs you a certain way but has opportunity costs which mean you forego other bonuses you could have. So you would be weaker at bartering, and mining, and farming but that’s what makes an interesting character to play. Strengths and weaknesses rather than trying to be strong everywhere all the time to the point you get burnt out on managing all your possible buffs for every moment you do things.

You say it’s either do it or ignore it depending on whether you hate swapping or not at a particular frequency. But I say it’s building a particular type of character to play for that playthrough that has certain strengths and certain weaknesses.

I have fun playing despite a weakness. It’s a challenge and gives each playthrough its own quirky feel.

The design is good because it lets me play my way and others to play their way. I don’t want the devs to mess with it any more just to help min/maxers who loathe what they are doing and want to be stopped by the devs.
Telling the playerbase that they should ignore the Armors full potential is a baffling choice.
 
I'd consider addicts those who feel compelled to play it (or any other game) all the time to the point that it begins to interfere with their real life and ability to function as, say, a doomed-to-fail means of escape from the inescapable. I'd also consider those who do become addicted have a predisposition toward addiction in the first place that needs to be addressed, i.e. it's not necessarily the game's fault. The industry at large does prey on psychological/neurological or subconscious vulnerabilities, but so do all the rest. Perception management and "public relations" of the manipulative Edward Bernays variety is all the rage today and RNG itself is a "gambling" mechanic. So, it's definitely something to guard against the very same as propaganda, but this is different, imo.

What you're describing, which is a strong focus on efficiency, I'd consider more "left-brained" (and the grabbing, grasping mode of attention of the left brain hemisphere) than "right-brained" as a matter of degree, with sincere apologies to Iain McGilchrist because it's such a crude example. Obviously, it's not that simple. I'd hazard to guess (though could be wrong) most of us, subconsciously or otherwise, actively seek out the most efficient way to play video games, especially games specifically built for efficiency with stacks upon stacks of buffs and debuffs, etc. for reasons I'll spare ya, but don't think it indicative of addiction so much as a predilection toward the mechanical actually reinforced by the civilization we live in. In fact, some studios have lost me completely due to their reduction of art to pure mechanics because I'm in it for the aesthetics and they're not delivering anything worth contemplating, but merely endless checklists of "stuff to do". (The Arts Can't Be Reduced to an Equation.) That's why I can't stand "radiant" quests and the like. They're anything but radiant. That's also why I think a hybrid LBD/LBR system for the game is a pretty bright idea. We're not all the same and we don't all play the same.
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Telling the playerbase that they should ignore the Armors full potential is a baffling choice.
I’m not telling the player base any such thing. I’m saying there are alternative playstyles to your own that can be chosen and that the design supports. If you are baffled by any playstyle beyond your own that’s your own limitation. Even though I don’t prefer to play the game the way you do I’m not baffled by it. I’m sorry you can’t understand how playing a character with flaws and limitations is fun and that when you can vary those flaws and strengths from playthrough to playthrough it significantly increases the replay value.
 
Telling the playerbase that they should ignore the Armors full potential is a baffling choice.
Have you ever heard of asymmetrical gameplay? :sneaky:

with sincere apologies to Iain McGilchrist because it's such a crude example
He called me today and he was indeed very upset by your statement.
But you know him... he'll get over it. 🤷‍♂️
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I'd see that as quite pointless over just unlocking them as permanent buffs. If they're not "simulating gear" then they don't really deserve the hassle of swapping.
Maybe I wasn't clear... they SHOULD BE like gear (that's how I imagine it).

Imagine crafting Lvl1 Preacher Gloves and then adding them to SET#1.
Whenever you switch to that set, the Preacher Gloves will be automatically equipped.

So, not only you can create custom set combinations, but you'll only get the bonus of the specific gear level you can craft (or loot/buy).
 
If you are baffled by any playstyle beyond your own that’s your own limitation. Even though I don’t prefer to play the game the way you do I’m not baffled by it.
I never mentioned or criticized anyone's playstyle nor I am baffled by that, It was the "ignore it completely" "The design is good" parts of your response.
 
Imagine crafting Lvl1 Preacher Gloves and then adding them to SET#1.
Whenever you switch to that set, the Preacher Gloves will be automatically equipped.

Perhaps this has already been mentioned (I didn't go back and read everything)... But a while ago, Joel (I think?) mentioned that they were thinking about adding hot-swappable armor sets to the game.

There is a mod that adds armor racks to the game (Alter's Armor Racks) and I think the idea was that it would work more or less like that, but be vanilla.

Did anything come out of this? Am I even remembering correctly?

EDIT: Also how long do you think before most of the posts are moved to a new thread? This thread has moved very far away from the sale of TFP.
 
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