Clothing sets as an alternative to 'stylish'

Stylish isn’t likely to come back in any way shape or form, but I would still like to propose an alternative that could, hopefully, keep to the original spirit of the trait, providing incentive to wear less than optimal clothing that would be aesthetically appealing to the character.

Themed costumes - grim reaper, vampire, santa, wizard, gimp, etc. - and armor sets - police, survivor, leather, military, etc. - that are already present in the game could make for a good character trait in the same vein as stylish but only for matching sets of clothing, with the added requirement of no mixed clothing styles. Players would need to chose between either committing to the bit or not getting the bonus.

A more pie in the sky version of this idea would have a negative modifier for wearing clothing that doesn’t match and extending that to ‘normal’ clothing as well if they have clashing colors (orange/blue, green/red, yellow/violet) or are overtly garish (leopard print tights, looking at you). This would, hopefully, make for characters that would have to pay closer attention to what clothes they wear, which would be more in line with the original spirit of Stylish.

A related but even more pie in the sky idea I have is that wearing different outfits could also be factored into social interactions. In the vein of ‘The Postman’, a character could adopt a persona related to their clothing set when interacting with NPCs, with the number of items from a set that they’re wearing increasing the likelihood that they’ll be taken seriously. A character could, for instance, be seen as an accomplished survivor if they wear survivor gear, making their recruitment pitch that much more compelling. This would essentially require a major rewrite of the social system so I know that it isn’t realistically, but I’d like to hear what other people would think of it.

Why did they delete Stylish? What’s the point of that?

Personally, i would like a “cosplay” perk. Mood bonus for wearing more exotic stuff like the kimono, Santa suit, tricorne, jedi robes, plate armor, Boston Chan costume or fursuits.

To quote Kevin,

This trait has never worked as intended and I don’t think it will ever do so.
The intended effect is the player compromises defense/effectiveness/etc of their clothing to gain a bonus to morale.
The actual effect is players wear the smallest amount of non-impactful stylish clothing possible to get the bonus they want such as jewelry, or lobby for more practical clothing to get added to the stylish list.

The trait ‘could’ be improved to work as desired, but the reality was nobody was interested in doing that work, meanwhile people kept trying to get decidedly non-fancy things flagged as fancy which just sorta wasted everyones time. Fancy turned out to be a bit too subjective and open to interpretation.

The traits welcome to be brought back as far as I can tell, just in a way that achieves the actual goal.

I’d invite you to go do so, more perks is always nice. The only real issue I’d see is people immediately looking to get the bonus for ‘Cosplaying’ their favorite COD/Tarkov character, so wanting the bonus on tactical gear anyway :stuck_out_tongue:. I think that’s going to be the real crux of any good reimplementation or rework of the concept, doing so in such a way that heads off petty minmax arguments from rising up in the first place.

What existing clothing sets would work for this perk? Obviously the costume stuff, but would the survivor/nomad armor sets also be workable?

If this were to lean harder into ‘cosplay’ would it make sense to tie it in to the starting options? I.E. that at character gen a person who picks cosplay then gets the option to pick a costume set for their character to start with? Possibly to counteract the desire to declare plate armor and chain mail cosplay items you would need to discover recipes for these more practical outfits through publications like Sew What, BostonCon, clothing design portfolios, etc., and include a few non-standard bits and gubbins to make them a bit different than just the normally available stuff, like including glue and glass shards to make a particularly sparkly cape.

actually what if certain clothing sets can effect interactions with NPCs. this is actually a existing thing in CDDA. for example the Isherwood’s Reaction to a Marshal Badge

we could add more Clothing Reactions. i not sure one exists for the Dino Costume at the Refugee Center, for Example Interacting with Dino Dave when you are wearing a Dino Costume might be a Funny Reaction

this would be a Interesting way of Expanding NPC Interaction. even with Bandits.

for Example wearing a Full Clown Costume may make a Random NPC that would Hold you up instead Run away in fear from you [Fear of Clowns NPC personality Trait]

To be fair, “fancy” would be pretty subjective.
You couldn’t get me to ever wear a suit with a bowtie and dress shoes.
But if I found something like a heavy platemail, scrap armor, a fursuit or a short maid dress with arm warmers, I would always wear that for style over generic survivour stuff, even if they don’t exactly fit the definition of “stylish” for most people. I think the only thing that everyone could agree on is that more jewelery like the diamond and gold stuff and crowns are Stylish.
So that Kevin guy kinda has a point here.
Still sucks to lose the fun roleplaying trait.

As an alternative.

I suppose everyone has different traditions. But personally, when I come home, I change into my home clothes. What if we take that as a basis? That is, make the character feel good about coming home and taking off their armor. Something like this: “is my home, it’s safe and I can relax”. Or “I’ve come home after a hard day”.

But each player will have a different understanding of what qualifies as home clothes. So we need a mechanic that evaluates a complete set of clothes, not a flag that is added to a specific piece of clothing.

For simplicity’s sake, I’ll use the word comfortable clothing. It’s not an exact definition, I just need to somehow separate it from the rest of my clothing and armor. And when I use the word clothing, I’m not talking about a specific item of clothing, like pants. I’m talking about all clothed items worn on a character. Thus comfort clothing can include only one pant or include a complete set: pants, socks, underwear, t-shirt, and so on.

Here is the concept of comfortable clothing. Clothing is considered comfortable:

  1. The warmth value of all parts of the character’s body is in the green zone: -30…+30 or -20…+20. The bonus is higher the closer this indicator is to the optimal value: 0. It is calculated for all parts of the body, by the worst result. So if your mouth is freezing, no bonus. This is clearly not comfortable clothing. If it has a value of -30 and the other parts have a value of 0. The bonus corresponds to -30. Accordingly, for maximum bonus, the heat of all body parts, must be close to 0.
  2. The encumbrance of all body parts, should be in the green zone (or at the beginning of the yellow zone). I would suggest up to 20 units and split into two or three ranges. The lower the encumbrance, the higher the bonus.
  3. If even one item is on the OUTER layer, the clothes are not considered comfortable.
  4. If at least one item of clothing, has an armor value higher than 3 (?), the clothing is not considered comfortable. (Not sure, obviously needs to be discussed). Perhaps we need to look at the total armor value? The idea is that you don’t need armor when you’re safe, and if you do, you’re clearly not safe. On the other hand, we have a mess: 6mm thick cotton corresponds to 1mm thick steel.

Thus, a character can wear any combination of clothing items. If everything he wears meets the conditions, he gets a morale bonus. (Permanent or temporary?) Or not wear and get a nudist and comfort bonus if it provides warmth in the house.

On the other hand, the check is done with a function. And requires no maintenance when adding new stuff.

P.S. I’m not interested in creating a related topic on github. And I lack the knowledge to implement it in code.

That is an interesting idea, but I don’t know how anyone can really qualify the word ‘comfortable’ in a way that wouldn’t end up with the same problem stylish had. As an alternative, what about a way to designate a specific clothing set (possibly from a number of pre-selected lists) as the player’s ‘comfort’ outfit that would give them a morale bonus, and maybe pair that with some sort of negative morale bonus when those clothing items become damaged or are soiled?

Edit: in a similar vein, perhaps another alternative to ‘stylish’ would be a trait that gives a morale bonus for wearing a sentimentally ‘treasured’ item that would be purely cosmetic - photograph, jewelry, a stuffed animal, particularly lucky socks, a bullet casing. If the item becomes damaged, again, it would create a morale debuff until it’s repaired. I’m not sure if there’s a good way to tag one specific item for this perk. Does anyone who have more experience have any advice on the feasibility?