Karma from killing

J

Josan12

Vault Senior Citizen
Having realised that robbers, highwaymen etc give the player approx +5 karma each when killed, I now realise why it's so hard to make an evil character (i.e negative karma)
For every evil quest's negative karma gain, it's pretty much immediately cancelled out (and some) by the endless hordes of these 'bad guys'. (i suppose i could just resist killing them - but wheres the fun in that?)

So not only does it imbalance the karma system, but also makes the (IMO) childish banal morality judgement that robbers are 'Baddies' and the player is a 'goodie' and thus killing them is a good act (worthy of FO3, don't you think?)

Does anyone know how i can stop robbers, highwaymen etc giving this +5 karma when the player kills them?
 
Check their script in the destroy_p_proc function for "inc_evil_critter", this should be the karma macro. Removing the line should "fix" this problem.

Code: 
#define inc_evil_critter        if (source_obj == dude_obj) then begin                                          \
                                    set_global_var(GVAR_BAD_MONSTER, (global_var(GVAR_BAD_MONSTER) + 1));       \
                                    if (critter_kill_type(self_obj) == KILL_TYPE_children_kills) then           \
                                        inc_childkiller                                                         \
                                    CHECK_REP_BERSERKER                                                         \
                                    CHECK_REP_CHAMPION                                                          \
                                    inc_general_rep(REP_BONUS_KILLED_EVIL_CRITTER);                             \
                                    set_global_var(TOWN_REP_VAR,(global_var(TOWN_REP_VAR)+REP_TOWN_KILL_EVIL)); \
                                    debug_msg("Added "+REP_TOWN_KILL_EVIL+" to Town Rep");                      \
                                end

Other than that, I don't know.

Though, if one removes inc_evil_critter, I think inc_neutral_critter and inc_good_critter should be removed as well, shouldn't it?
 
There is another solution Josan...kill children. :twisted: After the bounty hunters chase you, kill them all (another great way of getting Gauss gun ammo - kill high level bounty hunters). Killing a bounty hunter is something like -10 karma each. It works for me... I got to -6000 karma at one stage. :mrgreen:
 
.Pixote. said:
There is another solution Josan...kill children. :twisted: After the bounty hunters chase you, kill them all (another great way of getting Gauss gun ammo - kill high level bounty hunters). Killing a bounty hunter is something like -10 karma each. It works for me... I got to -6000 karma at one stage. :mrgreen:
Click to expand...

True, but the childkiller perk is bad news for NPC's and quests. Quite how everybody knows is a mystery of course.

Thanks Lexx - that did the trick. I've simply made robbers and highwaymen etc neutral rather than evil. Will playtest.
 
Josan12 said:
Thanks Lexx - that did the trick. I've simply made robbers and highwaymen etc neutral rather than evil. Will playtest.
Click to expand...

I like this "fix". An evil PC should just run from these encounters to avoid getting good karma?, nah I don't like that solution at all. How is this handled by other critters in the wasteland btw? Like super mutants (etc.)

Should this also be an option in the RP?
What is your view on this, Killap?
 
Killing bad guys should still give "good" karma, whatever your intentions were.

Making them count for no karma one way or the other (i.e. neutral) also doesn't work. This doesn't take into consideration those players who are trying to "make amends for their pasts" or are just playing as good guys.

Another solution might be to make the highwaymen, robbers, etc. non-hostile to "evil" players (maybe Sword of Despair and below). Then, if you want the good karma, you can initiate combat. Of course, I don't really care for this solution because I think those robbers would attack anyone who is not part of their group, not just "good" people. Still, maybe you could justify it by saying they feel some sort of affinity to you as a kindred spirit. Or, perhaps it could be set so that there is still a chance (dice roll) that they will be hostile, even to an "evil" character.
 
Sorry for digging up this old thread but the same thought occured to me as well in my newest playthrough.
I don't get the idea that shooting robbers should be rewarded by getting positive karma. They are trying to rob you regardless if you are good or bad.
Usually the evil character has no hangups shooting people, so naturally he kills the robbers taking their stuff in the process. It's not that he is specifically going after these guys with the intention to rid the world of wasteland scum. Also he can't do that unless he has a high Outdoorsman skill enabling him to specifically choose these encounters. Even then he might just be the predator that preys on smaller predators to support himself not necessarily meaning that he has any good intentions regarding the greater good of society. To use a real world example small-time drug dealers getting fucked by big time pushers is not regarded as a service to society in general.

Apart from that shouldn't you get positive karma for killing Radscorpions, Supermutans, Centaurs, Floaters or even those stupid mantises. In the end they are a danger to public safety as well, so if you get rid of them wouldn't you make the world a better place as well.

I suppose i will try to alter the scripts like lexx suggested but would appreciate some input about my thoughts on this.
 
While both you and MIB88 gave valid points, I still think that positive karma bonuses should be lowered. The whole game is designed to be played by good character, so removing as positive karma bonuses as much as possible is a good thing for vanilla/RP game. However the proper solution would be do redesign some quests/ add new ways to be a "bad guy". And not just monster, like joining the Slaver Guild and go around enslaving people, or start raping children. More of a gray egoist who betray people/agreements to serve his own needs.

The second important thing should be done in order for "bad guy" role play to work is that the player should be limited in resources in a way, that when he choose to act like an asshole, it's for an actual reason (like getting more money, more EXP, etc.), basically he would trade karma for other benefits. Currently, the game mostly rewards you for being good in all kinds of ways (take Fred from Den for example). You save someone, you get loads of EXP, money, loot AND good karma. You don't even think about being "asshole" because there is no point except "for principle". If there would be a real choice to make, then the game would be more "personal" and more people would choose to be bad and not "champions of the wastes", saving every single community...
 
I'm getting weirded out by this too, the more playthroughs I put in. Random robbers giving karma not making sense? Try this - you get the Raiders quest from an asshole (Seargent Stark) and you get rewarded for it by the biggest asshole in the game (Lynette, who otherwise gives the most "suicidaly stupid evil" quest in the game), but killing each individual raider still gives you karma. And you don't have to me the slightest bit good, but can be several kinds of evil person and still want to do it.

Or take Vault 15 - unless you're playing a smart character (or even simply not playing the RP), you have to kill the raiders in there. And you get a bunch of Karma out of it.

There's also a ton of other considerations regarding this topic on my mind, from a pure desing perspective. But I wn't get into them here. Just reading the "evil playthrough" guide on gamefaqs is educational, it's an excercise in avoiding doing stuff practically from the get go, and trying to balance out the comparatively lagre Karma rewards from doing stuff you really want to do anyway. Saving Smiley for the Gecko Skinning so you can earn some money (and which any "good" character would just do without thinking twice) simply reset his karma to 0. Early game, but that's what it's like all game long pretty much.

EDIT: And related very much to the topic, there's a tip in there that literally sayes that if you meet trappers around Kalmath "don't kill them as it gives you good karma". So killing trappers and stealing their hard earned stuff gives you karma, but killing other guys who do that ALSO gives you karma XD
 
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I am not fond of the karma killing either.
First, because i don't think killing anyone should be considered as a good action per se. (completion of objective, gain of XP, yes, but making you a good guy, no)
Second, there aren't much option. It is running, dying or gain karma for defending yourself.
 
I had an an actual idea the other day. The karma itself is a measure of how people in the wasteland see you. SO, if you stumble upon of few raiders in random encounter and you kill all of them, raising Karma is illogical, since NOBODY survived to tell others what you did (so that would affect your karma). So I propose remove any karma changes from all random encounters altogether, OR, change random encounter scripts so that you get negative/positive karma only when you leave the encounter and at least one enemy/witness left alive.
 
Let's ignore the fact that "Karma" in itself is a stupid stat...

... But if it would be me, I'd give negative karma for every single kill, and good karma for every good deed being done.

Example: Killing Metzger and his Dudebros is bad, because they are still people. But this results in shattering the slave ring, which gives a huge karma boost again, ultimately resulting in a positive gain for this action.
 
Unless you relied on the slave trade to make a buck, karma is so subjective. If you're a good person (karma wise) - the baddies naturally wont trust you - and the opposite goes for baddies and good people. I think it's unrealistic to imagine a game can accurately cover the gamut of the human condition, a truly good person would never kill...or would they? :look:
 
That's why a reputation system makes more sense than karma. A reputation system in Fo1/Fo2 wouldn't make much sense, though, as the factions aren't overlapping enough (or at all). Unlike e.g. New Vegas, the Fo1/Fo2 gameworld is too big for all the factions to know each other.

(This has always been my problem with FOnline TLA and 2238, by the way. The gameworld is so huge, but apparently even the stupid farmers in Modoc know the Gun Runners in the Boneyard. It just makes no damn sense.)
 
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I have the same problem with karma. Only one way to solve this - is to change and recompile all scripts, which gives or takes player's karma.
I mean, that you should change karma amount for killing good/evil NPS (the same with any kind of quests) . When player kills good NPS, he loses, for example, -50. For killing evil NPS, he gains +5 karma points.
 
My opinion on this matter:
1) there is no point in just changing global reputation changes in all scripts if you just want to make so good reputation is more difficult to achieve. It's pointless, because right now this reputation is just numbers. Whether you have +50 or +900 is irrelevant. Of course it will be a good thing, but it will require to recompile several hundred scripts (about 120 if you only count random encounters).
2) if you want to really make global reputation work, you need to put some design in. Like making it so being bad (not necessary "evil") is always more profitable in terms of resources. You need to limit resources in game dramatically and force players to choose between "more powerful, more respectful, more rich" and being kind, just. It's all about proper balance. It should be easiest (and most profitable) to play kind of "gray" character and harder to be either very bad (because of loss of many options in towns; bounty hunters; etc.) or very good (less resources).
3) My vision of how global reputation can work... There are specific type of communities in the game, where people live to help each other, make families, rebuild their country, etc. It's Klamath, Modoc, Redding, NCR, etc. Citizens in there share in common that most of them want to live in piece and prosperity.
Other kind of communities are such as Raiders, robbers, New Reno gangs, etc. They don't care about rebuilding the country or making family as much as making their present life good by all means.
So in this case, the high positive reputation makes you feel "welcomed" in communities of the first type, because they feel that you probably won't start any trouble, interrupt their peaceful existence, but maybe will help them instead (or become a part of the family.. like in Modoc). Second type communities will treat you as weak pathetic.
High negative carma makes you hated in peaceful communities (robber, rapist, rogue) - all kinds of trouble can be expected from you, so you're not welcomed. On the other hand, with high negative carma, people like Raiders, New Reno families MAY start to respect you, offer you jobs or place in their groups.

So I suggest we either start to think how can make it work like so, or just forget about it as a meaningless number in a Pip Boy :)
 
The problem with the last suggestion is that communities are not uniform, and there are "lawful evil" communities like Vault City which are undoubtedly civilized only horrible, and the NCR which are also civilized but often have very corrupt officials. Things also kinda (but inconsistently) work like that allready, except using karma as a modifier seems to have been largely unimplemented after klamath.

A reputation system would actually work really well in Fallout 2, and the world isn't that large or disconnected as far as lore and caravans go, many people are talking about other places, trade, economic relations, scheemes and stuff. The main problem is that a whole main quest path is obviously missing as it was seemingly dropped out of development, and some places seemingly got designed by people not communicating with other people.

If there was an obvious and developed klamath - den - redding - new reno - vault 15 - vault 13 path simmilar to the one which takes you to VC, it would connect redding, new reno and at least the NCR rangers to the world better and then you would have factions with interests overlapping. The elements are even there:

- the crashed vertibird (and enclave is using them to trade with the salvatores)
- the chemicals in the church (same as ones salvatore's are trading to the enclave)
- the new gang guarding them, and the old gang who used to guard what was being kept there before
- metzgers dealings with the enclave which he needs the radio repaired for
- the bos bunkers
- the redding miners and mine owners and the struggle between everyone to control it
- the mordino and salvatore animosity
- two different sets of raiders with their own agendas
- most mafia bosses having obvious second in commands which you could do quests for before the boss gave you the current ones
- the salvatore and mordino animosity (mordino's final quest)


what it looks like to me is that what was supposed to happen is that the old gang in the den used to guard all the jet for mordinos, but then metzger made a deal to start working for the salvatores. this caused a shortage of jet in the den, which means they have to get it from redding through other means, which would provide an actual in game pointer towards redding. Redding was supposed to have level appropriate quests in addition to the late game ones it does now which involved the mine owners and all of the million unused people in there. This would then eventually point you to New Reno, and if you could talk to both the raiders, NR would be connected to both (help the ones harrassing VC or Recruit the ones in Vault 15, who may have their own agenda) and then the game would actually both make sense, be as connected as lore impies, and have room for a karma or a reputation system.

If you also put hubologists and NCR rangers agents along that path, you also connect SF and NCR to the rest of the game, make Metzger into an actual player and his gang not easy to wipe out (but say have an early game rangers quest to bust the slaves out by disabling the power generator and cutting the fence, possibly freein 2 captured rangers which were pretending to be tribal while imprisoned) - everything works.

Would be a lot of work, but before something like that is actually done, the game will always be too half-finished / underdeveloped to be able to support a proper reputation / faction system.



And before someone sayes "what are you talking about, I always go to Redding after the Den and then to New Reno, it's legit", no it isn't. The only reason people do it is because it pops up on the map and is close, actually doing that is not very well supported by the game at all currently. It's practically the only place in the game where you get explicitly told "you're not high enough level to be here", and for good reason, because what was supposed to lead you there was left out of the game, and what you were supposed to be doing there after the den was too. The gun you get for killing frog morton takes doing all VC quests and and easter egg to get otherwise, and the wanamingos are tough enough to fight with late-mid game equipment, you go there after the den and get anything out of it (like busting the safe) you're breaking sequence HARD XD

Not to mention that the enemies around it can kill you before you get a turn if you go there early, and if you kill frog somehow you're being chased by some of the hardest random encounter creeps in the game. I've got a long list of other stuff about Redding and sequence breaking too XD After a bit of digging, a lot of playing, and some analysis, I've concluded it works pretty well as the place you go to after NCR and Vault 13 (which is why there's a special brahmin drive from NCR which takes you there of all possible places).




But if all that was actually sorted out, then you could have a proper rewarding karma/faction system, as you could set up a progression of rewards along various paths and forks for being evil and being good, or just have more opportunities to advance the goals of various factions at all stages of the game.

The new reno mafia families allready have it, except most of them are only connected to other stuff by lore so you mostly can't affect any of it (besides bishop) outside of NR.
 
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@lujo
You went deep again to identify things in the game that are going over most people's head given most are too focused on the player progression and main plot points. Bravo.

I would suggest moving this over to your game progression thread for further discussion and/or longer term goals. :)
 
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^ Ty. Doesn't have to be moved or included in any discussions yet. while playtesting phoboses mod which is rapidly becoming RP++ anyway (in the latest changes you can now effectively trap geckos, like 4 realz with meat placed on traps. he even made mole rats respond to cheezy poofs like the brain does ^^), I'm also making notes on how to simply tie up all the elements needed for this in the neatest and most non-disruptive fashion. So it's technically on it's way. It's been a long time coming, though, and it might be a while, but it's deffinitely on my list XD When I have it all down to a science I'll lay it out from A-Z, and then we can have a discussion with any implications or concequences, I'll still do it for myself and phobos if he want's it in that particular mod.


(Heck, we allready figured out how to fix the SAD huge loot bonanze problem at the same time as "everyone's scared of slavatores while salvatores are wimps in actual combat" problem in the exact way to tie the lore togather with the situation on the board with so little work done on it it's funny :) and this was very off topic, but just to assure people stuff that would allow for a proper karma/rep/faction system is slowly but surely forming and coming down the pipeline)

EDIT: Short point is, without that line to follow where doing "evil" stuff would advance the "plot" or simply open up more quests/rewards than it closes (as opposed to the VC path where it's the other way around - you can do evil stuff but, good stuff advances the "plot" or the community micro-plotline or whatever), simply messing w numbers won't work. :) And that's kinda it.
 
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