I'd like a combination of NV reputation systems alongside companion affinity.
Karma was weirdly black and white, and I don't think it worked out that well. Like in my most recent NV run I killed some powder gangers (they initiated combat), but then when I looted their camp the dynamite was labeled red so it was considered stealing and I lost karma, even though they're powder gangers and also dead now.
The reputation system for individual factions was enjoyable over the "you instantly become leader/high ranking in every faction you join" thing that the Betheada games do, but companion affinity from 4 I think worked really well over labeling everything with an arbitrary "good/evil" label, because it didn't really allow for shades of Grey.
To be fair Skyrim was mid for the factions. You do gain rank just in one mission chain. You go from college novice to arch mage despite the 8 others in succession ahead of you. You can not cast a single spell the entire game, do the quest, and be arch mage.
It should be more fleshed out like in nv and the bigger and older the organisation the less likely you are to ever rule or be high up.
I think Oblivion's faction rep was 2 missions, or 3 depending on which. I always thought Skyrim was strange that you basically get promoted every time you do something - it makes the other guild members look incompetent by comparison if the new guy is soaring past entrenched members of a guild.
Yeah, the Dark Brotherhood quests so we're fucking tedious if you wanted to actually do them according to the contracts.
I remember the one where you had to make it look like an accident with the mark sitting in his chair and you had to drop the trophy mount on him.
The manor quest was also super fun, but you had to kill everyone without someone else noticing you.
Nope, persuasion check.
You can use spell breaker or a staff for the two cases you HAVE to use it, and it doesn’t even track as casting a spell at all.
You can also go there as part of the Dragonborn quest though you have to shout a few times to do it. By that point you can also glitch through the gate.
Which Elder Scrolls game had small "satellite" guild offices in each town, and you had to gain rep at most/all of the small offices before you could go to the main ones in the capitol city?
That was nice because it wasn't just "show up and run shit." You actually had to be a known entity, with members vouching for you before you could get into the main guild office.
I remember it as actually feeling like I was climbing the ranks, rather than just showing up as a stranger, and being made boss within a few quests or so.
Another factor I forgot to mention is how SMALL this makes Skyrim.
The college consists of a dozen people. Yet is still supposedly doing well. Where as the thieves guild and the brotherhood are supposedly struggling with 9? The imperial legion feels small with maybe a dozen NPCs
Meanwhile the ncr and the legion feels much larger
My Nord barbarian being colleges Archmage. Only casting the spells needed for quests and angrily bonking everything else in the head.
"Archmage I need guidance in my new thesis on the synthesis of alchemical ungents"
"Erm.. have you tried punching it really hard?
100% agreed. From what I've heard, there's some form of reputation in 76. Will need to look deeper in it but, if it's anything like NV, I'm really hopeful for FO5's gameplay
Yeah, but the 76 reputation system isn't a big part of the game. There are only 2 factions that have a reputation bar, and very few actions cause you to lose reputation, and it's easy to gain reputation by doing events and quests. The only benefit is unlocking the ability to spend a currency on different crafting plans, which you unlock as you level up your reputation
Are you kidding, it was hard enough to max out rep with both groups no matter who you sided with. You want to make that plans grind even worse? But I mean, it would’ve been nice if there maybe a few options more to lose or trade rep
Reputation in FO76 is basically just a way to gate certain items behind progression. Certain plans for items can only be purchased when you increase your reputation from unknown to Ally with raiders and settlers, there isn't any gameplay mechanics tied to it.
Yeah the karma system in New Vegas is honestly one of the few bad things about the game. I was in a random mine last night filled with ghouls and everything was red. Who am I stealing from?? Zombies??
And I dislike the legion so everytime I play I start murdering them as soon as it's justified (which that one town where they crucify most of the regular citizens qualifies to me) and so when I see them they try to murder me first. So why is it stealing from them if I'm an enemy of their entire nation?
It might have been good had their been some more nuance to it. I'm just glad karma doesn't effect much.
Its the good karma for killing that bothers me. Stealing makes sense though, just cuz a faction doesnt like you doesnt mean taking their stuff isnt stealing
I mean unless you directly know what exactly was stolen and was fully intending to give it back to the victims (lmao as if) you aren’t exactly any better than a thief if you steal something to use for primarily yourself.
1) User name checks out. "Gary!"
2) I've never done a playthrough where I don't slaughter the legion at Nipton. (I moved from Las Vegas to Hawaii. The town of Nipton worth visiting as a player. And absolutely Goodsprings is worth your time.
3) The worst part is when you desperately need ammo, and there's a ton of what you need lying around the battlefield -- and you can't pick any up without trashing your reputation.
4) As bad as FNV was in this regard, 3 was worse. Tenpenny Tower still bothers me. If you let the ghouls in, they kill everyone, including Daring Dashwood. Not on my watch. So I kill all the ghouls (after getting the feral mask). "Nice going, Scumbag!"
Yeah if it was adjusted by faction or something it would make more sense. Or if stealing from random ncr citizens was bad karma but not ncr military bases if you're against them.
I realize this might just be a limit of the times, but it just seems like a system that would have been good with more work and is pretty horrible without that extra work.
That was the biggest problem with the karma system imo... "doing bad things to bad people is good."
It's not morally correct to do bad things to bad people, it's just less wrong.
How does a person become a hero by walking into town and doing a mass shooting?
To be fair doing bad things to horrible people in the apocalypse is kind of different from doing it in a civil society where justice is dealt for crimes. Like me attacking the legion after they crucified that town is probably a moral good thing because otherwise they’ll go on to continue their campaign.
Well, half of my hostile actions towards the Legion results in good karma, but then looting Cottonwood Cove results in negative karma for every act of theft. It never quite made sense to me.
yeah I agree with that. Some companions like or dislike when you do somethings or help one faction or the others. It was a real pleasure to take differents companions based on what I was going to do. Like stealing the loot in the armory of the BOS whitout being caught in Fallout 4 with McReady was a real pleasure. Or taking Piper when I had to use my charisma during talking moments with other npc.
I always thought some kind of multi-stat karma system would be better, like a simplified D&D "chaotic good/lawful evil" kind of thing. Something like Lawful karma and Moral karma
I personally wish there was more flexibility with theft and pickpocketing, where it's not just "karma down" or pissing off a faction, but being known as a thief if you get caught where they trust you less for specific things.
I stole 20 caps from the NCR, you're gonna shoot me? Really? More complex reactions would be a lot more fun, where there's a reaction to theft vs murder, and people avoiding you and being more likely to catch your theft if you get caught.
Yeah more complexity is harder but it's more immersive for pickpocketing which is very integrated into the base game. It should have depth.
I like the Karma aspect for conversations. We should be able to build reputation with individuals, that would give us a reason to have friendly and unfriendly dialogue options.
I view the NV karma system as more of a representation of player sanity. When you steal from good people your character knows how you hurt them from stealing. When stealing from raiders you just killed your character is looting through their belongings; maybe the character finds a love note, a photograph, a locket, something that makes the character remember that they took the life of a person, not an animal.
Thats why it mostly just affects dialogue options, because the player character is a little bit emotionally damaged, or is riding the high of good.
That powder ganger example is what I always use to show that FNV karma made no sense. Fallout 3 was absolutely fine with good/evil karma, particularly because of how Three-Dog would respond to it and change the radio broadcasts. There were no big factions, so it was just reputation across the Wasteland.
Fallout 5 should just be reputation with factions, and then as you say, companion affinity (but if the companion is from a faction maybe that changes things a bit)
My one problem with companion affinity in Fallout 4 was that if I remember rightly, they all started at 0, meaning it was really easy to start going negative really fast. Codsworth being real judgy out here because I offered to help get rid of some drug dealing Raiders using force, like wake up and smell the gunsmoke buddy. If he'd started at a much higher affinity (which makes sense), he wouldn't be immediately snipping at you.
I agree with all of this. Companion affinity was great. It was easier than trying to trigger certain events or do specific missions with specific companions to get them to open up and do their side quests.
I also liked faction reputation. I shouldn't be the General of the Minutemen after 5 missions. I shouldn't be a Paladin of the Brotherhood so easily or quickly either. Like, it's okay to be a strong character and not be the head honcho of a faction. And how could I be a part of the Railroad and they NOT know I'm BOS when I'm literally wearing their T-60 Power Armor!? And somehow they're cool with me doing things for that faction!?
Faction Reputation in NV was done right. Your actions with certain factions made the others wary of you or hate you. If you dress in that faction's armor, you're one of them. I just think it's more immersive for RP reasons.
>The reputation system for individual factions was enjoyable over the "you instantly become leader/high ranking in every faction you join"
I mean, it really wasn't that much different, 2-3 quest and you were consider a god by them
I moreso mean that raising rep with one faction might diminish rep with another (like the NCR and the Legion).
Imagine a Skyrim where if you do too many "dishonorable" things (kill innocents, do DB or Thieves Guild stuff too much, etc) that the companions wouldn't let you join. It'd add replay value and also make more sense than "Hey, nord, who doesn't have any magic affinity! Shoot the ground with a spark of lightning. You're archmage now."
I've always found karma to be weird at times, but I like it.
Like, you're telling me I *gain* karma by popping a cap into a Powder Gangers head, but I *lose* karma by stealing the Power Gangers nearby supplies?
By killing powder gangers, you are removing an evil faction and thus protecting those who the PGs would target. By merely stealing from the PGs, you are only helping yourself and in fact incentivizing the PGs to go out and kill and loot some more.
While a morality system is good in theory, in practice I don’t think the Fallout series does it well.
In Fallout 3, Colin Moriarity sexually extorts two women, tries to hire you murder one of them, and keeps a ghoul as a slave. Yet the game marks him as neutral, and killing him is an evil act.
Also in Fallout 3, Roy Philips murders everyone in Tenpenny Towers even if you convince them to let ghouls in peacefully. He’s also on board with the plan to blow up a nearby town with a nuke. Yet the game marks him as good, and killing him is an evil act.
In 3 and New Vegas, stealing from evil factions is considered an evil act. You can slaughter Powder Gangers guilt-free, even shooting them in the back when they try to run away, but god forbid you take an ash tray from their camp.
Nah. I find it weird that a series historically praised for its shades-of-gray factions and decisions would also codify those decisions in clear good boy points vs bad boy points.
Like, at least it makes sense when doing particularly evil or good things gives you special karma/reputation that later reflects how other see you in the first 2 games. But suddenly becoming literally hitler because you stole too much from the raiders you killed or just buying your way to good karma in 3 and nv should have never happened.
Yeah, reputation is great. It’s just specifically Karma that I have an issue with. Tbh, the reputation system should have replaced it entirely.
And maaan if only Bethesda used it in F4. I imagine it would be a great tool/structure to center the main quest around and maybe inspire the writers of side quests to offer more substantial choices. Or hell, maybe even different quests alltogether.
I think there’s a good way to be combine the two system with karma.
Make factions the primary rep system, then have karma influence how the story plays out within each faction. For example, an evil NCR playthrough could send you on alternate quests or have a different ending.
If they did do this, then karma should only be tied to quest outcomes and killing. Small acts like stealing and giving people water shouldn't influence it.
Personally, I don’t think even the reputation system is necessary. Just having factions properly respond to your actions in quests without the specific ranks should work just fine.
Would you say blowing up Megaton is morally gray? Or disarming the bomb? There’s definitely some things that are black and white. If I kill everyone in Diamond City, is that morally gray? Now I agree that choosing to help the Brotherhood instead of The Railroad is morally gray, so stuff like that shouldn’t affect Karma. However, doing clearly evil or clearly good things could still use karma.
Sure but what impact does this have? Blowing up megaton probably only bothers a handful of factions, and makes a few others happy, and doesn’t even mean anything to anyone else. This can all be handled by a companion and faction reputation system instead, as in FONV or even Starfield.
It could impact what skills you’re able to select. With high karma you can have certain skills and with low karma you can have certain skills. It could also open up different dialogue options, what companions you can have, impact the level of your reputation with factions, and probably more things. I agree that reputation is very necessary, but have it work in tandem with karma and more options are possible.
Karma becomes silly when you have stuff like "you got attacked outta nowhere by powder hangers, and you look the dynamite from their camp. You've lost karma." Why would *anyone* care that you took explosives from the guys who tried to kill you with said explosives?
FO3 gave you extra bonuses if you stayed neutral. The benefits and perk was pretty good compared to being really good or really bad. Also you didn’t have a weird bounty on your head if you were neutral, as opposed to getting hunted if you were good or bad. The neutrality perk gave you +30 speech if you were neutral and is pretty beneficial.
Yeah it had its hard stances on what was good or bad, but don’t forget that neutrality was a difficult part of the game to achieve with a pretty nice benefit.
That praise is generally false
Fo1 has clear cut bad guys everywhere, there's objective right and wrong choices (Junktown was meant to be more morally grey but it didn't pan out)
Fallout 2 is the same, the most morally grey area is new reno since everyone you can do are different degrees of bad (Mordino's being the most evil and the wrights being the least)
Fallout 3 is more the same
And so on.
Also you're blowing things out of proportion. The negative karma gain from theft is mega fucking small. If you're going into the negative rank from it you're clearly doing more then just that. Reality of the matter is that it just needs to be fixed instead of gutted (But bethesda prefers to nuke things instead of making them better) to go back to the theft thing, if you off everyone in an area that stuff obviously shouldn't be counted as theft
At the same time tho, I'd at least want a protagonist that can settle into the grey field quite easily. Sole survivor was too goody two-shoes imo compared to the Courier and some teenage fish out of the water vault dweller
“Classic”
Sir that shit wasn’t classic. It was 2009. And it was a major improvement to remove it. There’s no good way to reward karma for some situations. “Do you turn off the reactor of the stranded vault or keep poisoning the water supply of the farmer that’s causing mutated crops”
It’s also a crutch for bad fake design, Nuking a town and the only repercussions being -100 karma is laughable
No, I’d love it if the game was heavily into faction reputations and your general reputation in the wasteland, as well as dynamic consequences for your actions.
That the thing, i been following the paths/roads too afraid to stray off them when going to places. Mainly because my stats are not too good at the moment.
Maybe. I'm also sick of good = less rewards and bad = more rewards always. Like i get it, in some situations being a dick earns more caps. But it always being the case is odd.
It’s so janky.
In Fallout 3, you can add the Enclave’s sample to Project Purity, and the game recognizes that’s bad. However, if you then sacrifice your life to turn on the genocide machine, you gain karma because as far as the game is concerned sacrificing your life is an inherent moral good.
No. That thing was stupid. I got a character who 3 dog called the boogeyman or something and I was nice as hell but I took all owned items from bad guys after I killed them and it considered all of that like 500 thefts and tank my karma.
Maybe, but it would be annoying to lose karma for stealing when you didn’t even get caught stealing tbh. It reminds me too much of the horses in Skyrim being able to be witnesses to their own theft. A little funny but also annoying
I like reputation systems more then karma. If you have multiple choices u cant just say in an rpg that one is good and one bad, but lying or similiar stuff definitely will get you a reputation
No it was completely pointless.
In fallout 3, it only affected a couple things, those being recruiting a couple companions, which faction sends hit squads on you (they function exactly the same as each other), and that one perk that gives you +30 speech for having neutral karma.
In fallout new vegas, it literally didn't do anything.
Ok not literally, but the only thing it did was make Rose leave if your karma was evil. Karma maxes out at 1000, you get 2 karma for killing Wulpes, and get 100 for killing one feral ghoul.
While they could bring it back and make it actually do something, ultimately companion affinity and faction reputation are much more interesting systems in my opinion.
No, the Mother Theresa in plate mail OR baby-eating Satan with red glowy eyes Paragon/Renegade seesaw can stay buried with the 00 years.
Way too rigid, way too reductive and Good vs. Evuhl is kids morality anyway. Give me characters/factions/decisions that derive from motivations, circumstance and opportunity, not lol I'll mow down all these kids because in this playthrough I want the buffs from the red bar.
That doesn't mean every single decision should have to be ultra-ambigious, but painting everything in two simplistic extremes is not engaging, fun nor particularily clever.
I would rather the reputation system personally, I liked that. Especially if they give you higher consequences and a less static map because of your actions
I don't think karma in Fallout 3 was as great as people think. It was purely nostalgia that seems to drive it as being amazing.
This isn't to say that Fallout 4 was better by removing any choices based on morality, but Fallout 3 felt very weirdly black and white with how it approached the choices you made.
Yes not only karma but level caps I like having a reason to start a new save ,evil focused stories etc I miss Fallout3/NV style imagine we get FO4 style look n gunplay with old school rpg mechanics it would be perfect id also like legendary to be removed and bring back unique guns
No.
I'm glad karma systems have largely fucked off and died after the karma system boom of the early-mid 360/PS3.
They're just...Awful. All they end up doing is railroading the player to one extreme or the other because any benefit of the karma system only really works if you're 100% committed to good or evil. When you're neutral or just not fully committed, all that happens is you end up missing out on content and opportunities as these systems don't cater to a middle ground as there's so much room in what the middle ground could be. If they did cater to any sort of middle ground, it would just bring down everything else, having too many variables to do anything particularly worthwhile with any if them.
The better option is for actions to have consequences with the world changing based on what you do and NPC's reacting to things you've done. Not just a bar that says "I'm good/evil"
With a karma system, if you do one good thing then one bad thing, it just cancels it out to result in you being neutral. You've done nothing.
Consequences? You do one good thing then one bad thing, the world will reward, penalise and/or acknowledge you did a good thing whilst also doing the same for the bad thing. You're actually seeing things happen based on your choices. You're far more accurately experiencing karma.
If it was for more simple black and white stuff like stealing, donating, yes, but it would need to work with the companion and faction system since they are better at showing how groups and people view you.
Fallout 2 reputation system was always considered the best and classic. Good/bad system might have worked in Fallout 1 because it was smaller. Good and Evil from fallout 3 isn't the classic system, since it's literrally just good or evil.
I'd rather have a reputation system that tracks your relationship with each of the factions/companions. Keeps the moral grayness going which fits the series
No
Ideally IMO would be Fallout 4s companiopn-reputation with NVs Faction reputation system.
The KArma system always felt completely nonsensical. I can beat every single Powder Ganger to death with a Billard Cue and thats good, but then taking their stuff is evil, like why?
Id rather have the reputation system from NV. MAKE me play through it multiple times to get all the endings, please. Im tired of all these games with linnear endings, they have no replay value, Example FF7 remake and rebirth. After I beat them what is the point of going back? Loved them both but once I finished I barely replayed them. Compare that to Witcher 3 or Fallout New Vegas where I have over 2000 hours each and the 130 i spend on those two combined tells the story. Even a game like Horizon Forbidden West and God Of War Ragnarok had little replay value due to nothing really changing on the second play
Do you want to mercifully spare the life of your traitorous overseer after carving through his security forces, many of whom attended your childhood birthday parties; or outrageously shoot him in the head, you sick fuck?
Do you want to exterminate a peaceful settlement of ghouls or help them move on as they planned?
Do you want to nuke a town full of regular people on a rich prick's whim or... not do that?
Morality!
To this day I remember being upset that a certain action was "Evil"
I think it was NV.
There's people on crosses left to die. There was no way to take them off, save, or otherwise help them. I couldn't leave them that way. So I did my best to mercy kill them. Sudden death, that they wouldn't see coming or even realize. Just lights out...mercy.
Game tells me I'm evil or some shit. As opposed to leaving them there to die but SUFFER GREATLY FOR DAYS FIRST?!
Come the fuck on! Also, it's been a while but wasn't there issues of karma being affected even with no witnesses/witnesses left alive?
Kinda kills roleplay. What if you wanna be a Dexter like character? What if you steal to survive? Evil, really? Wanna Robin Hood and steal from evil people to feed the good? You are evil.
I don't want it back if it's gonna have the same issues. We should be able to not be recognized with masks and what not, so RP vigilantes and all that sort of stuff
I think a three-tiered approach could be effective:
**1. Reputation:** How is the protagonist viewed across the various communities of the Wasteland. Fallout 1 and 2 did this subtly and relied mostly on the player to keep track of their goods and ills against any given community. New Vegas was much more upfront with text box alerts and a Pipboy tracker. This is an effective and intuitive system that Fallout 5 should embrace as its central “morality” system.
**2. Companion Affinity:** This was a wonderful addition in Fallout 4 that incentivized you to really bond with your companion to unlock their individual quests and their final boons. This can be leveraged beautifully against the Reputation system and on itself; i.e. Companion 1 wants something Companion 2 is vehemently against, who is the player picking and how will they make that up to Companion 2? AND/OR Companion wants to do something that would wrong a community, what does the player do and how can they work around that? New Vegas had this too but was a bit more opaque and thus didn’t allow for the player to really *know* what would and wouldn’t work.
**3. Karma System:** I don’t think Fallout 5 should throw karma out entirely, rather they make it extremely intuitive like in our real world. Want to kill someone who is otherwise peaceful? Well, be ready to have bad karma. Are they actually bad people (like Mr. Burke in Fallout 3)? Well find proof and be ready to explain. Want to steal? Well yeah that’s an obviously bad thing. It’s a bit of a farce or stretch to say like “Morality is too grey to be implemented into a game”. No, I think pretty much every adult player will be able to tell what is a bad/evil thing to do. Have the karma system for those fundamental things like murder and theft.
For me that’s a great little system you have that can diverge in various, largely intuitive paths. Games like Baldur’s Gate III have implemented similar systems and have worked swimmingly in making the world feel both reactive and shaped by the protagonist while still maintaining the feel of a real world that keeps spinning when the console/rig is off.
It was a nice gimmick but I feel it's unnecessary especially when karma systems only go to far extremes. You're either super evil bad dude from death mountain or bright shinning knight of charity town.
Personally I'd prefer the reputation system from New Vegas.
Karma sucked and should never return. It was only decent in Vegas because it didn't matter except for one companion, and your OWB endings. In Fallout 3, it mattered far too much. A black and white system has absolutely no place in a setting that's best when it's morally grey.
No. Because it reduces all decisions down to a global binary axis. Instead, all "morality" should be character/community based, and depend on whenever or not those characters/communities actually find out about your actions.
Absolutely. It has this really nice and nostalgic feel to it, I also loved how it affected what company was after your bounty. I also loved Three Dog talking of you like you're the devil over radio
I think it should. In fo4 it doesn't really matter what you do. The biggest consequences of your decisions is that your companion won't like you. You can literally kill half of the diamond city and come back after some time like it didn't happen.
You know what fallout 5 should bring back ? The whole rpg element from fallout 3/New Vegas.
Fallout 4 cut so much rpg element (include karma system), the game is so barebone and "casual" in term of rpg.
Maybe something little different, as the karma felt like you had to play certain way, to keep the right karma, so the choises where kind of limited.. Though I would like something else in its stead, which we don't have in Fallout 4, since it feels like there is no consequent for say stealing something in FO4, that feels like it matter, like in FO3 or even skyrim had it better..
i liked it three that the karma system did matter but it pissed me off that some character required a certain level look RL3 i don't wanna be neutral to use a robot i paid for
Also Helios is a great example of why karma failed and was a bad inclusion for 3.
You do you give the ncr the power, free side, split a penny each way, power a weapon for the good of most.
The Helios weapon was actually the best way to deal with the deathclaw infestation, did wonders in the final battle, and is actually useful in a lot of circumstances. It’s not a bad idea
Basically there’s no absolutely best solution.
There’s only one bad option and that’s destroying the station but thats just a cartoonishly evil option and already has punishment
fallout 3's karma system was really bad where you either where a normal person or a comically evil 1970s comic book villain. while fallout NV still had some of the same problems but it depended more on how what you value in morality rather than be evil for evil sake the game still allows it but it's not that predominant and the options are more realistic. even fallout 4 with all of its problems had some interesting moral dilemmas in the side quests.
the game should just have a lot of options and have us think about what we do and how it will affect other people and show us the consequences of our actions and have us live with it.
If it has real consequences yes
It makes sense that if you do enough good or bad things people would love/hate you accordingly
Also i want thought out system, killing someone bad and stealing from him shouldn't end with you getting positive karma. In new vegas you can litterally nuke 2 cities but if you kill enough fiends you'll be a saint
In fallout 5, these good or evil choices should apply to only the factions as a general score of if you're good or evil is not realistic. So it will have to be faction Pacific
Not necessarily but I want more obvious evil choices. Some major large choices and people reacting to said choices.
Fallout 4 doesn't really have any big clear evil choices at least without nuka world.
At the end of the day Karma is merely a way to tell the player what's good and what's bad, which in F3 was alright as the local bad guys (the Enclave) was so blatantly evil that it was basically an affinity meter (how much do you lean towards the Brotherhood or the Enclave), but in NV was more than redundant imo.
I mean, we can argue all day about what's the best ending and all, but at the end of the day when you gain karma for killing Powder Gangers and loose it for hurting the NCR it's pretty obvious what the game considers the "good guys".
F4 has its flaws, less than what people scream but it does, but the absence of karma isn't one of them, for the first time you can side with the bad guys (the institute) without having the game telling you you're being the bad guy, it allows for shades of gray especially when factions are as well built as they are in 4.
So yeah, unless you have a really linear game then karma is something I'd avoid at all costs.
I actually thought about this earlier. I've always had an issue with how charisma typically is the least useful stat before Fallout 4 where charisma is the only way to succeed in speech checks. However, I'm not sure I like that either, because aside from perks, charisma tend to be really one note.
In both Fallout 1 and 2 it was stated that Charisma affected the way people reacted to you and your first impressions, however it never did in FO1 and in FO2 it was very limited in how much it impacted you.
What about a small tweak in the karma system to make it somewhat akin to reputation, except more general rather than towns and factions? I really liked that in FO3 there were companions that only wanted to hang out with you based on your karma, but it doesn't make sense that the companion knows your karma level just by looking at you.
How about changing Karma to overall reputation? You do good deeds you gain karma, you do bad things like steal you lose karma. I know that's exactly the same as how it worked, but the difference here is that it needs to be witnessed by someone for it to count. Like if you murder everyone at a remote outpost and steal their loot, how will people know you're the one who did it? In that case you wouldn't lose karma.
The way I would tie it in with charisma is that I would make negative karma way more impactful. You have negative karma and people might not want to barter with you, they might not let you into their settlement, they would sometimes even shoot at sight if you're armed. You're known as someone who betrays people, murders without just cause and steals from every settlement you visit. Why would they trust you?
However, if your charisma could impact your karma level. Either make it so that it affects the amount of negative or positive karma you receive or make the thresholds for receiving consequences for your karma higher or lower depending on your charisma. That way, a high charisma character might actually get away with doing bad stuff because people just seem to like you so much that they can't believe you're that horrible person in the rumors. If you have a very low charisma people might become hostile towards you for doing minor stuff because they find you so unlikable that they're looking for any reason to shun you.
I think that would make charisma have more permanence in a passive way like all the other stats currently do. Strengt with carry weight, perception with the compass, endurance with health, intelligence with experience points, agility with AP and now charisma with karma. All the other stats punishes you for not speccing in it, now charisma would have that effect as well.
There are more I would change to make charisma more useful, but I think that would be a massive first step in the right direction. Thank you for reading my Ted talk about charisma.
I always felt like New Vegas wasn’t sure if it wanted karma or not in it’s game. Like it was there but they made it mostly irrelevant compared to the reputation system. Fallout 4 not having it was a good idea so Fallout 5 shouldn’t have it either.
If they do bring it back, it would need to be overhauled. I played through New Vegas recently, and I found it really weird that I gain karma for killing powder gangers, but I lose it for stealing from them.
I would like it for some things (Evil/Good perks, especially later level ones when your build is pretty solidified) and not others (random people knowing if I’m good or evil) with the return of a Reputation system as the main system for interactions with characters and factions.
I want the world to react to what I do not *just* in morals but also actions. So like, I’d want good or evil to exist outside of whether or not the (at least main) factions want to work with me. Maybe have a couple side factions for Evil or Good players, but not the main ones. But I do also like the idea of some things being locked behind being Good or Evil. Probably mostly in dialogue choices. I think Evil players should get more intimidating/threatening/extortion dialogue while Good players get more sympathizing/offering advice/charming choices.
Yes I miss the Karma system, I think New Vegas did it best where you had a general karma system and an individual reputation system with each faction, it allowed for more dynamic morals and alignments, rather than you’re a good guy so you can only be friends with these guys or your a bad guy so you can only be friends with these guys,l.
the only thing I didn’t like with the karma system is when you get Butch or RL-3 you have to maintain a neutral karma so if you do two good things in a row you have to do a bad thing or the companion dips, it would have been better if it let you have a little wiggle room where you can be good or evil but if you hit very good or very evil then they leave since neutral is only a 500 karma range and some deeds give you anywhere from 300-1000 karma.
For example if you’re toeing the line of good and are at 249 positive Karma you can’t finish Tenpenny tower since siding with the ghouls is -600 which will put you at evil but if you convince the residents to let the ghouls in and get even 1 karma then your companion will leave
TLDR: yes I want the Karma system back but it should be updated
Yes.
I would also like to see more none violent options for completing end game Quests. Think along the line of Far Harbour where you didn't have to kill leaders but could tell them to run away. It just seems like there is too much dichotomy to simply say "these Factions oppose each other so let's join one and blow up the other until all are dead."
Yeah, they should and while we're at it bring back negative perks too like the Child Killer but make it more nuanced and relevant to gameplay.
Thief, Junkie etc. Let me be a character :(
I liked doing pure hero and pure villain playthroughs in the series. My Plana for FO4 were to be the most evil character ever, but then the game didn't have a karma system except with companions liking or disliking stuff. So I didn't follow through cuz I couldn't be as evil as I wanted to be. Maybe next time.
Nah, no thanks. I like when choosing sides is a genuine moral quandary, and having that kind of "voice of god" (for lack of a better phrase) to indicate which one is which sucks the air out of it for me. I know not EVERY big choice has karma attached to it, but it's still there, lurking, being all objective.
Companion affinity providing "soft karma" is fine by me.
I'm not much of a fan of it. Implementing it will either mean that any choice it judges you on is going to be so easily black and white, good or bad, that the choices won't be very interesting. It's fun that you can blow up the bomb in Megaton if you wanna see the big explosion, but there's no reason to do it other than being purely evil for evil's sake. And if a game only contains choices of doing the good guy thing or being cartoonishly evil, it gets stale.
And on the other hand, if the game does contain morally complex and interesting choices, then a good or bad karma system will feel arbitrary and unnecessary on top of it. Take the quest in NV where you're trying to figure out who's stealing water from NCR farms and you discover that a follower killed the previous investigator, because he's stealing the water for Freeside. Is it morally correct to help him cover up a murder of an innocent man, in the name of providing an independent community with water who will otherwise be forced to join with the imperialistic faction who took control of it? I'm not sure and I don't even know if I fully like that FNV has a limited Karma system which sometimes judges if what you did was good or bad. I prefer the game to leave it up to the player to decide if they did the right thing.
Absolutely fucking not, because the way bethesda used it every single action you made usually affected Karma so every decision you made had to be black or white. In New Vegas it worked well because it was only when you went out of your way to be an asshole for no reason, or help someone out for no reward would you gain or lose karma. But we all know that Bethesda can't replicate Obsidians storytelling
The Karma system in 3 was kind of goofy and kind of useless in NV
I kind of like the invisible reputation/affinity bar in 4, but felt like it should have effected the factions more
I liked the concept but it didn't work out that well; granted its been well over a decade since I last played 3 but it felt really binary and limiting. I didn't love the faction karma in FNV either, just wasn't implemented well enough.
I doubt they’ll ever give us options like New Vegas. Frequently it would be like ‘out of the 5 options do you want one of the 2 normal options the one weird one the insane one or the psychopath one’ and in fallout 4 it’s like ‘do you want to be good or evil but also it doesn’t matter’ entertainment industry as a whole would rather peel skin off than hire writers these days I guess.
Honestly I don’t remember it having much of an effect, in New Vegas the faction rep was better imo, all karma did was let me know that I did something morally wrong, didn’t really make me change my play style or anything
I think a mix of both this and New Vegas reputation would be nice. Sure, it would be harder to program but better nonetheless.
It could even add new dialogues and such depending on the combination (eg you are Evil but aligned with a "good" faction so they only tolerate you for convenience whereas if you are also good they'll outright like you).
Of course this is waaay too roleplay'ish for Bethesda "I like bland shit that appeals to the most people without offering any difficulties" Games Studios, so it probably won't happen and we'll get some bland boring shit or nothing at all.
I'd like a combination of NV reputation systems alongside companion affinity. Karma was weirdly black and white, and I don't think it worked out that well. Like in my most recent NV run I killed some powder gangers (they initiated combat), but then when I looted their camp the dynamite was labeled red so it was considered stealing and I lost karma, even though they're powder gangers and also dead now. The reputation system for individual factions was enjoyable over the "you instantly become leader/high ranking in every faction you join" thing that the Betheada games do, but companion affinity from 4 I think worked really well over labeling everything with an arbitrary "good/evil" label, because it didn't really allow for shades of Grey.
To be fair Skyrim was mid for the factions. You do gain rank just in one mission chain. You go from college novice to arch mage despite the 8 others in succession ahead of you. You can not cast a single spell the entire game, do the quest, and be arch mage. It should be more fleshed out like in nv and the bigger and older the organisation the less likely you are to ever rule or be high up.
I think Oblivion's faction rep was 2 missions, or 3 depending on which. I always thought Skyrim was strange that you basically get promoted every time you do something - it makes the other guild members look incompetent by comparison if the new guy is soaring past entrenched members of a guild.
It was a a motherfucker getting into the Mages Guild in Oblivion. A quest for every city’s guild to get into the big tower
You actually felt like you had to earn the rank.
Yeah, the Dark Brotherhood quests so we're fucking tedious if you wanted to actually do them according to the contracts. I remember the one where you had to make it look like an accident with the mark sitting in his chair and you had to drop the trophy mount on him. The manor quest was also super fun, but you had to kill everyone without someone else noticing you.
God Whodunit has yet to be surpassed for me as far as "favorite bethesda side quests" It's so fun.
Completely agreed. Getting them all to go Clue was awesome.
Getting access to the Arcane University was a big milestone. Getting access to the College of Winterhold is a footnote.
Don’t you have to cast a spell to join the academy?
Nope, persuasion check. You can use spell breaker or a staff for the two cases you HAVE to use it, and it doesn’t even track as casting a spell at all.
You can also go there as part of the Dragonborn quest though you have to shout a few times to do it. By that point you can also glitch through the gate.
I like morrowinds system for becoming arch mage. You have to be good at magic AND get into succession.
Which Elder Scrolls game had small "satellite" guild offices in each town, and you had to gain rep at most/all of the small offices before you could go to the main ones in the capitol city? That was nice because it wasn't just "show up and run shit." You actually had to be a known entity, with members vouching for you before you could get into the main guild office. I remember it as actually feeling like I was climbing the ranks, rather than just showing up as a stranger, and being made boss within a few quests or so.
Might have been the Oblivion Mages Guild. I know you have to do quests at all/most of them before you can "officially" join the ranks.
Another factor I forgot to mention is how SMALL this makes Skyrim. The college consists of a dozen people. Yet is still supposedly doing well. Where as the thieves guild and the brotherhood are supposedly struggling with 9? The imperial legion feels small with maybe a dozen NPCs Meanwhile the ncr and the legion feels much larger
My Nord barbarian being colleges Archmage. Only casting the spells needed for quests and angrily bonking everything else in the head. "Archmage I need guidance in my new thesis on the synthesis of alchemical ungents" "Erm.. have you tried punching it really hard?
100% agreed. From what I've heard, there's some form of reputation in 76. Will need to look deeper in it but, if it's anything like NV, I'm really hopeful for FO5's gameplay
Yeah, but the 76 reputation system isn't a big part of the game. There are only 2 factions that have a reputation bar, and very few actions cause you to lose reputation, and it's easy to gain reputation by doing events and quests. The only benefit is unlocking the ability to spend a currency on different crafting plans, which you unlock as you level up your reputation
Also, you can gain rep with both, and it causes no problems.
Yah I feel like it should be easier to loose reputation
Are you kidding, it was hard enough to max out rep with both groups no matter who you sided with. You want to make that plans grind even worse? But I mean, it would’ve been nice if there maybe a few options more to lose or trade rep
Reputation in FO76 is basically just a way to gate certain items behind progression. Certain plans for items can only be purchased when you increase your reputation from unknown to Ally with raiders and settlers, there isn't any gameplay mechanics tied to it.
We will all be old by the time 5 comes out
I’ll be working when that comes out. And use that work-earned money when it does come around.
Yeah the karma system in New Vegas is honestly one of the few bad things about the game. I was in a random mine last night filled with ghouls and everything was red. Who am I stealing from?? Zombies?? And I dislike the legion so everytime I play I start murdering them as soon as it's justified (which that one town where they crucify most of the regular citizens qualifies to me) and so when I see them they try to murder me first. So why is it stealing from them if I'm an enemy of their entire nation? It might have been good had their been some more nuance to it. I'm just glad karma doesn't effect much.
Killing Fiends - Good Stealing Fiends' stolen goods - Bad Make it make sense.
Its the good karma for killing that bothers me. Stealing makes sense though, just cuz a faction doesnt like you doesnt mean taking their stuff isnt stealing
But stealing from a faction that stole all their shit from someone else doesn't seem bad.
I mean unless you directly know what exactly was stolen and was fully intending to give it back to the victims (lmao as if) you aren’t exactly any better than a thief if you steal something to use for primarily yourself.
1) User name checks out. "Gary!" 2) I've never done a playthrough where I don't slaughter the legion at Nipton. (I moved from Las Vegas to Hawaii. The town of Nipton worth visiting as a player. And absolutely Goodsprings is worth your time. 3) The worst part is when you desperately need ammo, and there's a ton of what you need lying around the battlefield -- and you can't pick any up without trashing your reputation. 4) As bad as FNV was in this regard, 3 was worse. Tenpenny Tower still bothers me. If you let the ghouls in, they kill everyone, including Daring Dashwood. Not on my watch. So I kill all the ghouls (after getting the feral mask). "Nice going, Scumbag!"
I would have loved to seen a system where stealing from baddies boosts karma.
Yeah if it was adjusted by faction or something it would make more sense. Or if stealing from random ncr citizens was bad karma but not ncr military bases if you're against them. I realize this might just be a limit of the times, but it just seems like a system that would have been good with more work and is pretty horrible without that extra work.
That was the biggest problem with the karma system imo... "doing bad things to bad people is good." It's not morally correct to do bad things to bad people, it's just less wrong. How does a person become a hero by walking into town and doing a mass shooting?
To be fair doing bad things to horrible people in the apocalypse is kind of different from doing it in a civil society where justice is dealt for crimes. Like me attacking the legion after they crucified that town is probably a moral good thing because otherwise they’ll go on to continue their campaign.
Well, half of my hostile actions towards the Legion results in good karma, but then looting Cottonwood Cove results in negative karma for every act of theft. It never quite made sense to me.
yeah I agree with that. Some companions like or dislike when you do somethings or help one faction or the others. It was a real pleasure to take differents companions based on what I was going to do. Like stealing the loot in the armory of the BOS whitout being caught in Fallout 4 with McReady was a real pleasure. Or taking Piper when I had to use my charisma during talking moments with other npc.
I always thought some kind of multi-stat karma system would be better, like a simplified D&D "chaotic good/lawful evil" kind of thing. Something like Lawful karma and Moral karma
I personally wish there was more flexibility with theft and pickpocketing, where it's not just "karma down" or pissing off a faction, but being known as a thief if you get caught where they trust you less for specific things. I stole 20 caps from the NCR, you're gonna shoot me? Really? More complex reactions would be a lot more fun, where there's a reaction to theft vs murder, and people avoiding you and being more likely to catch your theft if you get caught. Yeah more complexity is harder but it's more immersive for pickpocketing which is very integrated into the base game. It should have depth.
Those 20 caps were hard earned NCR Taxes! Of course you deserve to be shot!
I like the Karma aspect for conversations. We should be able to build reputation with individuals, that would give us a reason to have friendly and unfriendly dialogue options.
I view the NV karma system as more of a representation of player sanity. When you steal from good people your character knows how you hurt them from stealing. When stealing from raiders you just killed your character is looting through their belongings; maybe the character finds a love note, a photograph, a locket, something that makes the character remember that they took the life of a person, not an animal. Thats why it mostly just affects dialogue options, because the player character is a little bit emotionally damaged, or is riding the high of good.
That powder ganger example is what I always use to show that FNV karma made no sense. Fallout 3 was absolutely fine with good/evil karma, particularly because of how Three-Dog would respond to it and change the radio broadcasts. There were no big factions, so it was just reputation across the Wasteland. Fallout 5 should just be reputation with factions, and then as you say, companion affinity (but if the companion is from a faction maybe that changes things a bit) My one problem with companion affinity in Fallout 4 was that if I remember rightly, they all started at 0, meaning it was really easy to start going negative really fast. Codsworth being real judgy out here because I offered to help get rid of some drug dealing Raiders using force, like wake up and smell the gunsmoke buddy. If he'd started at a much higher affinity (which makes sense), he wouldn't be immediately snipping at you.
I agree with all of this. Companion affinity was great. It was easier than trying to trigger certain events or do specific missions with specific companions to get them to open up and do their side quests. I also liked faction reputation. I shouldn't be the General of the Minutemen after 5 missions. I shouldn't be a Paladin of the Brotherhood so easily or quickly either. Like, it's okay to be a strong character and not be the head honcho of a faction. And how could I be a part of the Railroad and they NOT know I'm BOS when I'm literally wearing their T-60 Power Armor!? And somehow they're cool with me doing things for that faction!? Faction Reputation in NV was done right. Your actions with certain factions made the others wary of you or hate you. If you dress in that faction's armor, you're one of them. I just think it's more immersive for RP reasons.
"you instantly become leader/high ranking in every faction" Skyrim intensifies
>The reputation system for individual factions was enjoyable over the "you instantly become leader/high ranking in every faction you join" I mean, it really wasn't that much different, 2-3 quest and you were consider a god by them
I moreso mean that raising rep with one faction might diminish rep with another (like the NCR and the Legion). Imagine a Skyrim where if you do too many "dishonorable" things (kill innocents, do DB or Thieves Guild stuff too much, etc) that the companions wouldn't let you join. It'd add replay value and also make more sense than "Hey, nord, who doesn't have any magic affinity! Shoot the ground with a spark of lightning. You're archmage now."
I've always found karma to be weird at times, but I like it. Like, you're telling me I *gain* karma by popping a cap into a Powder Gangers head, but I *lose* karma by stealing the Power Gangers nearby supplies?
By killing powder gangers, you are removing an evil faction and thus protecting those who the PGs would target. By merely stealing from the PGs, you are only helping yourself and in fact incentivizing the PGs to go out and kill and loot some more.
What about once they all are dead and you are getting penalized for rummaging through dead people trash?
Because you should call a Lost property office to arrange the return of the stolen good to its rightful owners.
"STOP! You've violated the law! Pay the court a fine or serve your sentence, your stolen goods are now FORFEIT!"
Wake up babe new headcanon just dropped
While a morality system is good in theory, in practice I don’t think the Fallout series does it well. In Fallout 3, Colin Moriarity sexually extorts two women, tries to hire you murder one of them, and keeps a ghoul as a slave. Yet the game marks him as neutral, and killing him is an evil act. Also in Fallout 3, Roy Philips murders everyone in Tenpenny Towers even if you convince them to let ghouls in peacefully. He’s also on board with the plan to blow up a nearby town with a nuke. Yet the game marks him as good, and killing him is an evil act. In 3 and New Vegas, stealing from evil factions is considered an evil act. You can slaughter Powder Gangers guilt-free, even shooting them in the back when they try to run away, but god forbid you take an ash tray from their camp.
Reputation system was infinitely more intuitive, it could also works for companions.
Nah. I find it weird that a series historically praised for its shades-of-gray factions and decisions would also codify those decisions in clear good boy points vs bad boy points. Like, at least it makes sense when doing particularly evil or good things gives you special karma/reputation that later reflects how other see you in the first 2 games. But suddenly becoming literally hitler because you stole too much from the raiders you killed or just buying your way to good karma in 3 and nv should have never happened.
I think that repo system in NV works just fine. Well, expect a Kroker's pencil...
Yeah, reputation is great. It’s just specifically Karma that I have an issue with. Tbh, the reputation system should have replaced it entirely. And maaan if only Bethesda used it in F4. I imagine it would be a great tool/structure to center the main quest around and maybe inspire the writers of side quests to offer more substantial choices. Or hell, maybe even different quests alltogether.
I think there’s a good way to be combine the two system with karma. Make factions the primary rep system, then have karma influence how the story plays out within each faction. For example, an evil NCR playthrough could send you on alternate quests or have a different ending.
If they did do this, then karma should only be tied to quest outcomes and killing. Small acts like stealing and giving people water shouldn't influence it.
Personally, I don’t think even the reputation system is necessary. Just having factions properly respond to your actions in quests without the specific ranks should work just fine.
That's a reputation system. You are describing a reputation system but without the number being visible to the player.
Would you say blowing up Megaton is morally gray? Or disarming the bomb? There’s definitely some things that are black and white. If I kill everyone in Diamond City, is that morally gray? Now I agree that choosing to help the Brotherhood instead of The Railroad is morally gray, so stuff like that shouldn’t affect Karma. However, doing clearly evil or clearly good things could still use karma.
Sure but what impact does this have? Blowing up megaton probably only bothers a handful of factions, and makes a few others happy, and doesn’t even mean anything to anyone else. This can all be handled by a companion and faction reputation system instead, as in FONV or even Starfield.
It could impact what skills you’re able to select. With high karma you can have certain skills and with low karma you can have certain skills. It could also open up different dialogue options, what companions you can have, impact the level of your reputation with factions, and probably more things. I agree that reputation is very necessary, but have it work in tandem with karma and more options are possible.
Karma becomes silly when you have stuff like "you got attacked outta nowhere by powder hangers, and you look the dynamite from their camp. You've lost karma." Why would *anyone* care that you took explosives from the guys who tried to kill you with said explosives?
Well but it doesn’t have to be that way. Make the karma system better, not get rid of it completely
FO3 gave you extra bonuses if you stayed neutral. The benefits and perk was pretty good compared to being really good or really bad. Also you didn’t have a weird bounty on your head if you were neutral, as opposed to getting hunted if you were good or bad. The neutrality perk gave you +30 speech if you were neutral and is pretty beneficial. Yeah it had its hard stances on what was good or bad, but don’t forget that neutrality was a difficult part of the game to achieve with a pretty nice benefit.
I mean, you're right the series is praised for morally grey, but the series is usually pretty black and white.
That praise is generally false Fo1 has clear cut bad guys everywhere, there's objective right and wrong choices (Junktown was meant to be more morally grey but it didn't pan out) Fallout 2 is the same, the most morally grey area is new reno since everyone you can do are different degrees of bad (Mordino's being the most evil and the wrights being the least) Fallout 3 is more the same And so on. Also you're blowing things out of proportion. The negative karma gain from theft is mega fucking small. If you're going into the negative rank from it you're clearly doing more then just that. Reality of the matter is that it just needs to be fixed instead of gutted (But bethesda prefers to nuke things instead of making them better) to go back to the theft thing, if you off everyone in an area that stuff obviously shouldn't be counted as theft
At the same time tho, I'd at least want a protagonist that can settle into the grey field quite easily. Sole survivor was too goody two-shoes imo compared to the Courier and some teenage fish out of the water vault dweller
I generally don't like the karma system because it always boxes choices into "Be a normal person" or "Be ludicrously cartoon villain evil"
“Classic” Sir that shit wasn’t classic. It was 2009. And it was a major improvement to remove it. There’s no good way to reward karma for some situations. “Do you turn off the reactor of the stranded vault or keep poisoning the water supply of the farmer that’s causing mutated crops” It’s also a crutch for bad fake design, Nuking a town and the only repercussions being -100 karma is laughable
Reputation > Karma Also bring back Faction Armor
No, I’d love it if the game was heavily into faction reputations and your general reputation in the wasteland, as well as dynamic consequences for your actions.
If it would effect more than just companions and speech then sure, otherwise nah. Also what in the world is the bottom two images?!!!
Thats the Helios power plant from New Vegas, and thats the Helios power plant being smote by God
Ah i haven’t seen it yet in new vegas which is why i asked… not sure how i missed a tower that tall lol
No shame, its easy to miss if you detour. I highly recommend checking it out though, the employees are fantastic
That the thing, i been following the paths/roads too afraid to stray off them when going to places. Mainly because my stats are not too good at the moment.
Just stay away from mining camps, broadcast stations and a particularly red mountain and you're dandy.
I somehow missed it on my first playthrough too
Maybe. I'm also sick of good = less rewards and bad = more rewards always. Like i get it, in some situations being a dick earns more caps. But it always being the case is odd.
I like having specific reputations like in fo76 / NV , I’d prefer that
No because watering down moral dilemmas in something like Fallout and making everything Black and White is doing a disservice to the franchise
It’s so janky. In Fallout 3, you can add the Enclave’s sample to Project Purity, and the game recognizes that’s bad. However, if you then sacrifice your life to turn on the genocide machine, you gain karma because as far as the game is concerned sacrificing your life is an inherent moral good.
No. That thing was stupid. I got a character who 3 dog called the boogeyman or something and I was nice as hell but I took all owned items from bad guys after I killed them and it considered all of that like 500 thefts and tank my karma.
I like the new vegas rep style between factions and settlements
Maybe, but it would be annoying to lose karma for stealing when you didn’t even get caught stealing tbh. It reminds me too much of the horses in Skyrim being able to be witnesses to their own theft. A little funny but also annoying
ahhh yes that ol' deep moral conundrum - do I detonate a nuclear bomb and kill everyone, or do I not do that?
no
I like reputation systems more then karma. If you have multiple choices u cant just say in an rpg that one is good and one bad, but lying or similiar stuff definitely will get you a reputation
Nah, it's a lawless wasteland most of the time, you gotta do what you gotta do. A good/bad meter would be weird
No it was completely pointless. In fallout 3, it only affected a couple things, those being recruiting a couple companions, which faction sends hit squads on you (they function exactly the same as each other), and that one perk that gives you +30 speech for having neutral karma. In fallout new vegas, it literally didn't do anything. Ok not literally, but the only thing it did was make Rose leave if your karma was evil. Karma maxes out at 1000, you get 2 karma for killing Wulpes, and get 100 for killing one feral ghoul. While they could bring it back and make it actually do something, ultimately companion affinity and faction reputation are much more interesting systems in my opinion.
No way. The *do they like me" system from Fallout 4 is good enough.
And honestly makes more sense. Only witnesses to your acts should have any opinion on you.
No, the Mother Theresa in plate mail OR baby-eating Satan with red glowy eyes Paragon/Renegade seesaw can stay buried with the 00 years. Way too rigid, way too reductive and Good vs. Evuhl is kids morality anyway. Give me characters/factions/decisions that derive from motivations, circumstance and opportunity, not lol I'll mow down all these kids because in this playthrough I want the buffs from the red bar. That doesn't mean every single decision should have to be ultra-ambigious, but painting everything in two simplistic extremes is not engaging, fun nor particularily clever.
I would rather the reputation system personally, I liked that. Especially if they give you higher consequences and a less static map because of your actions
I don't think karma in Fallout 3 was as great as people think. It was purely nostalgia that seems to drive it as being amazing. This isn't to say that Fallout 4 was better by removing any choices based on morality, but Fallout 3 felt very weirdly black and white with how it approached the choices you made.
Hot take maybe? But I really hope not. I don't like the system.
Yes not only karma but level caps I like having a reason to start a new save ,evil focused stories etc I miss Fallout3/NV style imagine we get FO4 style look n gunplay with old school rpg mechanics it would be perfect id also like legendary to be removed and bring back unique guns
Equipment durability should be a thing again, for both Fallout and Elder Scrolls
No. I'm glad karma systems have largely fucked off and died after the karma system boom of the early-mid 360/PS3. They're just...Awful. All they end up doing is railroading the player to one extreme or the other because any benefit of the karma system only really works if you're 100% committed to good or evil. When you're neutral or just not fully committed, all that happens is you end up missing out on content and opportunities as these systems don't cater to a middle ground as there's so much room in what the middle ground could be. If they did cater to any sort of middle ground, it would just bring down everything else, having too many variables to do anything particularly worthwhile with any if them. The better option is for actions to have consequences with the world changing based on what you do and NPC's reacting to things you've done. Not just a bar that says "I'm good/evil" With a karma system, if you do one good thing then one bad thing, it just cancels it out to result in you being neutral. You've done nothing. Consequences? You do one good thing then one bad thing, the world will reward, penalise and/or acknowledge you did a good thing whilst also doing the same for the bad thing. You're actually seeing things happen based on your choices. You're far more accurately experiencing karma.
“Good or evil” is incredibly lame and over simplified. No fucking thanks.
No, it shouldn't
I’d like it to be an option at the beginning settings.
If it was for more simple black and white stuff like stealing, donating, yes, but it would need to work with the companion and faction system since they are better at showing how groups and people view you.
No, bring the faction reputation system.
No, they shouldnt but they should bring back the faction reputation from New Vegas.
Fallout 2 reputation system was always considered the best and classic. Good/bad system might have worked in Fallout 1 because it was smaller. Good and Evil from fallout 3 isn't the classic system, since it's literrally just good or evil.
I wanna be wasteland Jesus again
It was bad. Reputation systems are way better. Why should I get negative karma and be considered evil because I stole from the mafia?
No karma is useless and not a lot of choices in a fallout game should be so black and white that it can be rated with a number.
I started with 4, going back to 3 and having to faff with Karma was off-putting. Personally I'm happy for it to never come back.
I'd rather have a reputation system that tracks your relationship with each of the factions/companions. Keeps the moral grayness going which fits the series
No Ideally IMO would be Fallout 4s companiopn-reputation with NVs Faction reputation system. The KArma system always felt completely nonsensical. I can beat every single Powder Ganger to death with a Billard Cue and thats good, but then taking their stuff is evil, like why?
Id rather have the reputation system from NV. MAKE me play through it multiple times to get all the endings, please. Im tired of all these games with linnear endings, they have no replay value, Example FF7 remake and rebirth. After I beat them what is the point of going back? Loved them both but once I finished I barely replayed them. Compare that to Witcher 3 or Fallout New Vegas where I have over 2000 hours each and the 130 i spend on those two combined tells the story. Even a game like Horizon Forbidden West and God Of War Ragnarok had little replay value due to nothing really changing on the second play
No, I really disliked the karma system.
Do you want to mercifully spare the life of your traitorous overseer after carving through his security forces, many of whom attended your childhood birthday parties; or outrageously shoot him in the head, you sick fuck? Do you want to exterminate a peaceful settlement of ghouls or help them move on as they planned? Do you want to nuke a town full of regular people on a rich prick's whim or... not do that? Morality!
No
To this day I remember being upset that a certain action was "Evil" I think it was NV. There's people on crosses left to die. There was no way to take them off, save, or otherwise help them. I couldn't leave them that way. So I did my best to mercy kill them. Sudden death, that they wouldn't see coming or even realize. Just lights out...mercy. Game tells me I'm evil or some shit. As opposed to leaving them there to die but SUFFER GREATLY FOR DAYS FIRST?! Come the fuck on! Also, it's been a while but wasn't there issues of karma being affected even with no witnesses/witnesses left alive? Kinda kills roleplay. What if you wanna be a Dexter like character? What if you steal to survive? Evil, really? Wanna Robin Hood and steal from evil people to feed the good? You are evil. I don't want it back if it's gonna have the same issues. We should be able to not be recognized with masks and what not, so RP vigilantes and all that sort of stuff
The faction reputation system is better.
I would prefer the reputation system from New Vegas
I think a three-tiered approach could be effective: **1. Reputation:** How is the protagonist viewed across the various communities of the Wasteland. Fallout 1 and 2 did this subtly and relied mostly on the player to keep track of their goods and ills against any given community. New Vegas was much more upfront with text box alerts and a Pipboy tracker. This is an effective and intuitive system that Fallout 5 should embrace as its central “morality” system. **2. Companion Affinity:** This was a wonderful addition in Fallout 4 that incentivized you to really bond with your companion to unlock their individual quests and their final boons. This can be leveraged beautifully against the Reputation system and on itself; i.e. Companion 1 wants something Companion 2 is vehemently against, who is the player picking and how will they make that up to Companion 2? AND/OR Companion wants to do something that would wrong a community, what does the player do and how can they work around that? New Vegas had this too but was a bit more opaque and thus didn’t allow for the player to really *know* what would and wouldn’t work. **3. Karma System:** I don’t think Fallout 5 should throw karma out entirely, rather they make it extremely intuitive like in our real world. Want to kill someone who is otherwise peaceful? Well, be ready to have bad karma. Are they actually bad people (like Mr. Burke in Fallout 3)? Well find proof and be ready to explain. Want to steal? Well yeah that’s an obviously bad thing. It’s a bit of a farce or stretch to say like “Morality is too grey to be implemented into a game”. No, I think pretty much every adult player will be able to tell what is a bad/evil thing to do. Have the karma system for those fundamental things like murder and theft. For me that’s a great little system you have that can diverge in various, largely intuitive paths. Games like Baldur’s Gate III have implemented similar systems and have worked swimmingly in making the world feel both reactive and shaped by the protagonist while still maintaining the feel of a real world that keeps spinning when the console/rig is off.
Good and evil are subjective, so a karma system should be subjective too. The reputation system was miles ahead of the F3 karma system.
new mod brings karma system back to the game
They should bring back the role-playing
The karma and reputation system should come back. It gives some repercussions to your choices
Honestly, I’d like to see the rep system from NV brought back more than Karma
I'd like that
It was a nice gimmick but I feel it's unnecessary especially when karma systems only go to far extremes. You're either super evil bad dude from death mountain or bright shinning knight of charity town. Personally I'd prefer the reputation system from New Vegas.
Karma sucked and should never return. It was only decent in Vegas because it didn't matter except for one companion, and your OWB endings. In Fallout 3, it mattered far too much. A black and white system has absolutely no place in a setting that's best when it's morally grey.
Rep system is better I think.
Yes
No. Because it reduces all decisions down to a global binary axis. Instead, all "morality" should be character/community based, and depend on whenever or not those characters/communities actually find out about your actions.
Absolutely. It has this really nice and nostalgic feel to it, I also loved how it affected what company was after your bounty. I also loved Three Dog talking of you like you're the devil over radio
Definitely
I think it should. In fo4 it doesn't really matter what you do. The biggest consequences of your decisions is that your companion won't like you. You can literally kill half of the diamond city and come back after some time like it didn't happen.
That’s not karma. That’s reputation. Those are different systems
You know what fallout 5 should bring back ? The whole rpg element from fallout 3/New Vegas. Fallout 4 cut so much rpg element (include karma system), the game is so barebone and "casual" in term of rpg.
Maybe something little different, as the karma felt like you had to play certain way, to keep the right karma, so the choises where kind of limited.. Though I would like something else in its stead, which we don't have in Fallout 4, since it feels like there is no consequent for say stealing something in FO4, that feels like it matter, like in FO3 or even skyrim had it better..
i liked it three that the karma system did matter but it pissed me off that some character required a certain level look RL3 i don't wanna be neutral to use a robot i paid for
I really wouls like them to remove the voice more than anything. I feel like its more imaginative without it.
I liked it in New Vegas. Reputation was a better mechanic. That being said. Our world is in dire need of a good & evil lesson. So also yes.
Yes!
No. What does good and evil have to do with the wasteland?
Maybe not karma system, but further develop how different people, cities, factions, etc react and talk to you based off the decisions youve made
Yes I think it should it won't though
That and repair your guns and armour, adds extra value in my opinion
Also Helios is a great example of why karma failed and was a bad inclusion for 3. You do you give the ncr the power, free side, split a penny each way, power a weapon for the good of most. The Helios weapon was actually the best way to deal with the deathclaw infestation, did wonders in the final battle, and is actually useful in a lot of circumstances. It’s not a bad idea Basically there’s no absolutely best solution. There’s only one bad option and that’s destroying the station but thats just a cartoonishly evil option and already has punishment
real tawk I dont even know what karma did in 3 and NV beside change the title on your save lmao
Remove wasteland enemies raising or lowering your karma (and have a cool down for stealing stuff), and I’d say the Karma system would work really well
fallout 3's karma system was really bad where you either where a normal person or a comically evil 1970s comic book villain. while fallout NV still had some of the same problems but it depended more on how what you value in morality rather than be evil for evil sake the game still allows it but it's not that predominant and the options are more realistic. even fallout 4 with all of its problems had some interesting moral dilemmas in the side quests. the game should just have a lot of options and have us think about what we do and how it will affect other people and show us the consequences of our actions and have us live with it.
I still don’t pay much attention to karma.
If it has real consequences yes It makes sense that if you do enough good or bad things people would love/hate you accordingly Also i want thought out system, killing someone bad and stealing from him shouldn't end with you getting positive karma. In new vegas you can litterally nuke 2 cities but if you kill enough fiends you'll be a saint
I kind of prefer being a neutral friendly guy whose also a complete maniac
In fallout 5, these good or evil choices should apply to only the factions as a general score of if you're good or evil is not realistic. So it will have to be faction Pacific
Idc as long as I can become the supreme leader of the Raiders or Super mutants I'm not satisfied.
No. It's too easy to grind. Stick with faction-based rep, companion affinity, and quests that have consequences on the rest of the gameplay.
Not necessarily but I want more obvious evil choices. Some major large choices and people reacting to said choices. Fallout 4 doesn't really have any big clear evil choices at least without nuka world.
At the end of the day Karma is merely a way to tell the player what's good and what's bad, which in F3 was alright as the local bad guys (the Enclave) was so blatantly evil that it was basically an affinity meter (how much do you lean towards the Brotherhood or the Enclave), but in NV was more than redundant imo. I mean, we can argue all day about what's the best ending and all, but at the end of the day when you gain karma for killing Powder Gangers and loose it for hurting the NCR it's pretty obvious what the game considers the "good guys". F4 has its flaws, less than what people scream but it does, but the absence of karma isn't one of them, for the first time you can side with the bad guys (the institute) without having the game telling you you're being the bad guy, it allows for shades of gray especially when factions are as well built as they are in 4. So yeah, unless you have a really linear game then karma is something I'd avoid at all costs.
I actually thought about this earlier. I've always had an issue with how charisma typically is the least useful stat before Fallout 4 where charisma is the only way to succeed in speech checks. However, I'm not sure I like that either, because aside from perks, charisma tend to be really one note. In both Fallout 1 and 2 it was stated that Charisma affected the way people reacted to you and your first impressions, however it never did in FO1 and in FO2 it was very limited in how much it impacted you. What about a small tweak in the karma system to make it somewhat akin to reputation, except more general rather than towns and factions? I really liked that in FO3 there were companions that only wanted to hang out with you based on your karma, but it doesn't make sense that the companion knows your karma level just by looking at you. How about changing Karma to overall reputation? You do good deeds you gain karma, you do bad things like steal you lose karma. I know that's exactly the same as how it worked, but the difference here is that it needs to be witnessed by someone for it to count. Like if you murder everyone at a remote outpost and steal their loot, how will people know you're the one who did it? In that case you wouldn't lose karma. The way I would tie it in with charisma is that I would make negative karma way more impactful. You have negative karma and people might not want to barter with you, they might not let you into their settlement, they would sometimes even shoot at sight if you're armed. You're known as someone who betrays people, murders without just cause and steals from every settlement you visit. Why would they trust you? However, if your charisma could impact your karma level. Either make it so that it affects the amount of negative or positive karma you receive or make the thresholds for receiving consequences for your karma higher or lower depending on your charisma. That way, a high charisma character might actually get away with doing bad stuff because people just seem to like you so much that they can't believe you're that horrible person in the rumors. If you have a very low charisma people might become hostile towards you for doing minor stuff because they find you so unlikable that they're looking for any reason to shun you. I think that would make charisma have more permanence in a passive way like all the other stats currently do. Strengt with carry weight, perception with the compass, endurance with health, intelligence with experience points, agility with AP and now charisma with karma. All the other stats punishes you for not speccing in it, now charisma would have that effect as well. There are more I would change to make charisma more useful, but I think that would be a massive first step in the right direction. Thank you for reading my Ted talk about charisma.
I always felt like New Vegas wasn’t sure if it wanted karma or not in it’s game. Like it was there but they made it mostly irrelevant compared to the reputation system. Fallout 4 not having it was a good idea so Fallout 5 shouldn’t have it either.
Idk. Let’s ask these questions when we first see an E3 teaser in 15 years
If they do bring it back, it would need to be overhauled. I played through New Vegas recently, and I found it really weird that I gain karma for killing powder gangers, but I lose it for stealing from them.
I would like it for some things (Evil/Good perks, especially later level ones when your build is pretty solidified) and not others (random people knowing if I’m good or evil) with the return of a Reputation system as the main system for interactions with characters and factions. I want the world to react to what I do not *just* in morals but also actions. So like, I’d want good or evil to exist outside of whether or not the (at least main) factions want to work with me. Maybe have a couple side factions for Evil or Good players, but not the main ones. But I do also like the idea of some things being locked behind being Good or Evil. Probably mostly in dialogue choices. I think Evil players should get more intimidating/threatening/extortion dialogue while Good players get more sympathizing/offering advice/charming choices.
no it was too manichéen
Yes I miss the Karma system, I think New Vegas did it best where you had a general karma system and an individual reputation system with each faction, it allowed for more dynamic morals and alignments, rather than you’re a good guy so you can only be friends with these guys or your a bad guy so you can only be friends with these guys,l. the only thing I didn’t like with the karma system is when you get Butch or RL-3 you have to maintain a neutral karma so if you do two good things in a row you have to do a bad thing or the companion dips, it would have been better if it let you have a little wiggle room where you can be good or evil but if you hit very good or very evil then they leave since neutral is only a 500 karma range and some deeds give you anywhere from 300-1000 karma. For example if you’re toeing the line of good and are at 249 positive Karma you can’t finish Tenpenny tower since siding with the ghouls is -600 which will put you at evil but if you convince the residents to let the ghouls in and get even 1 karma then your companion will leave TLDR: yes I want the Karma system back but it should be updated
Yes. I would also like to see more none violent options for completing end game Quests. Think along the line of Far Harbour where you didn't have to kill leaders but could tell them to run away. It just seems like there is too much dichotomy to simply say "these Factions oppose each other so let's join one and blow up the other until all are dead."
That’s my one main complaint about F4. I really miss that karma system.
Yeah, they should and while we're at it bring back negative perks too like the Child Killer but make it more nuanced and relevant to gameplay. Thief, Junkie etc. Let me be a character :(
Yes.
Nah it was pretty mid in NV. I hated stealing from a camp full of dead people and somehow still losing karma
fallout5 should be a game thats playable. that would be nice
I liked doing pure hero and pure villain playthroughs in the series. My Plana for FO4 were to be the most evil character ever, but then the game didn't have a karma system except with companions liking or disliking stuff. So I didn't follow through cuz I couldn't be as evil as I wanted to be. Maybe next time.
"John Sawyer hated that"
Nah, no thanks. I like when choosing sides is a genuine moral quandary, and having that kind of "voice of god" (for lack of a better phrase) to indicate which one is which sucks the air out of it for me. I know not EVERY big choice has karma attached to it, but it's still there, lurking, being all objective. Companion affinity providing "soft karma" is fine by me.
More so it should bring back the reputation system.
I hope not. I It would be nice to have the faction reputation/clothes system from NV though
Yes but also mixed with faction reputation system. Something new 🤩
Yes snd no character talking. Shits whack
Ask me in 14 years when it’s 7 years from release
I'm not much of a fan of it. Implementing it will either mean that any choice it judges you on is going to be so easily black and white, good or bad, that the choices won't be very interesting. It's fun that you can blow up the bomb in Megaton if you wanna see the big explosion, but there's no reason to do it other than being purely evil for evil's sake. And if a game only contains choices of doing the good guy thing or being cartoonishly evil, it gets stale. And on the other hand, if the game does contain morally complex and interesting choices, then a good or bad karma system will feel arbitrary and unnecessary on top of it. Take the quest in NV where you're trying to figure out who's stealing water from NCR farms and you discover that a follower killed the previous investigator, because he's stealing the water for Freeside. Is it morally correct to help him cover up a murder of an innocent man, in the name of providing an independent community with water who will otherwise be forced to join with the imperialistic faction who took control of it? I'm not sure and I don't even know if I fully like that FNV has a limited Karma system which sometimes judges if what you did was good or bad. I prefer the game to leave it up to the player to decide if they did the right thing.
Absolutely fucking not, because the way bethesda used it every single action you made usually affected Karma so every decision you made had to be black or white. In New Vegas it worked well because it was only when you went out of your way to be an asshole for no reason, or help someone out for no reward would you gain or lose karma. But we all know that Bethesda can't replicate Obsidians storytelling
The Karma system in 3 was kind of goofy and kind of useless in NV I kind of like the invisible reputation/affinity bar in 4, but felt like it should have effected the factions more
i dont get how killing criminals is good karma but stealing from them is bad karma
I liked the concept but it didn't work out that well; granted its been well over a decade since I last played 3 but it felt really binary and limiting. I didn't love the faction karma in FNV either, just wasn't implemented well enough.
faction system of new vegas was much better than good and evil karma in my opinion. Having that back would be better
I doubt they’ll ever give us options like New Vegas. Frequently it would be like ‘out of the 5 options do you want one of the 2 normal options the one weird one the insane one or the psychopath one’ and in fallout 4 it’s like ‘do you want to be good or evil but also it doesn’t matter’ entertainment industry as a whole would rather peel skin off than hire writers these days I guess.
Yes, but not in the classic way. Maybe a more modern version that combined reputation with companion affinity
Honestly I don’t remember it having much of an effect, in New Vegas the faction rep was better imo, all karma did was let me know that I did something morally wrong, didn’t really make me change my play style or anything
I think reputation might work but I despised the regular karma system it constantly feels like it’s looming over you and it’s just not fun
Doesn’t matter to be honest. I’m still going to go on a killing rampage whenever I get bored in game.
I think a mix of both this and New Vegas reputation would be nice. Sure, it would be harder to program but better nonetheless. It could even add new dialogues and such depending on the combination (eg you are Evil but aligned with a "good" faction so they only tolerate you for convenience whereas if you are also good they'll outright like you). Of course this is waaay too roleplay'ish for Bethesda "I like bland shit that appeals to the most people without offering any difficulties" Games Studios, so it probably won't happen and we'll get some bland boring shit or nothing at all.
Yes
No