Incoming long post: TLDR Attire rule change is good, rationale is questionable, play more Base Set cards and cheap influence. Also a note for Will to address his implied question about “design space”.
I think this rules change is good for the game and doesn’t negatively impact much of anything. I do like that it brings Attire in line with Weapon and Horse, it probably should have always been this way. However, I do have concerns with the way this article discusses the rationale for the change. I get that these changes are made to improve new player experience, but these interactions will not go away with this rules change. They will just be slightly less consistent. If Puppet or Decimator Array are problematic, those cards need to be addressed directly. Personally I don’t think either of the examples presented are actually problematic, these are incredibly resource heavy and time intensive combos that can be disrupted by standard interaction (jobs, attachment hate, hand rank counter tech, send home, etc.). The Attire rule makes sense, and if it helps deal with problems indirectly that is great, but as presented it sure looks like design is taking sweeping actions after seeing some complaints about three card combos that can be unfun against decks that don’t have any way to interact with them because people refuse to play interaction in their lists.
In all honesty, if a list doesn’t have a way to deal with attachments, hand rank manipulations, or extremely telegraphed chess plays that deck wasn’t going to do well against many popular decks. This reminds me of when people complained about dudes and deeds every week: the problem isn’t the deck type, it’s people refusing to be prepared to play around it. It is just as unfun to lose to multiple turn 1 jobs, or to being unable to stop a landslide, or to getting Blood Cursed into oblivion, as it is to have one of these wonky combos fire on you. The answer to all of these is to play more interaction, more influence, and manage your resource economy better. These are important lessons for all players to learn, especially new players.
@Will What they are talking about in “freeing up design space” is that more options now exist for the design team, not that there will be more cards printed. Before the Attire rules change, any new Attire or cards that interact with Attire would have to be designed in such a way that there wouldn’t be any balance problems if they were equipped with other Attire on the same dude. Now that isn’t an issue, because a dude can only have one Attire. The term was also thrown around a lot with the Showboating ban and the Nicodemus errata because those cards constricted design space. Any card that altered skill checks, had a high value and a low skill check, had an effect when pulled, or had a high skill rating had a potential to be problematic with Showboating. Nicodemus was problematic with effects that gave dudes influence, created token dudes, or made deeds more easily defended. Now the design team has more room to explore those themes without having to worry as much that an effect will be degenerate or oppressive.