The almighty karma system

brfritos

brfritos

Humma Kavulaaaaaaa
This is really a topic I don't see discussed much, the FO3 karma system. It's me or this "thing" is the most childish and "black & withe" piece of shit I've come across in a game?
Common, Bethesda thinks I'm some kind of stupid, dumb and lazy SOB (wich I'm, BTW :D).

I mean, I usually play "the good guy" in the views of the game, because:
- BoS treat me like garbage, but I can't complain of that and need to do the missions.
- Yes, I don't kill children not because is wrong and my game will suffer some consequence, but because the devs don't want them to die.
- Of course, if I'm a good guy some psychos mercs will hunt me down because some reason that is never explained (like Desmond say, "they don't have the fucking courtesy of telling me why").
- On the other hand, if I blown Megaton to ashes some other psychos called Regulators will hunt me to the end of the world, but every other person in the game will never bother about it and I even are well received in any place I go (despite Megaton being one of the most famous cities of DC).
- Sure, if you are tired of being good, just go to some terminal marked in red and simply access it until your level desires. Or kill some people, even if they are shooting in you and you are only defending yourself (if they are marked green, you're damned! :P)
- But if you're evil, there's no problem, since you give Purified Water to some beggars in some places and became neutral or good too (I don't even want to discuss the fact that every other water in the game are irradiated, but not yours, of course. Why bother starting the purifier then, you don't have a problem to find clean water, do you? :confused: ).

The point is, the whole shebang (Griffon rules!!!) do not have any impact on the game, unless you're playing in a console and want the etereal achievements.

I think that karma should play an important part of the game, not because is more close to the real world, but because of consistency and fun.
Yes, fun!
Do I really need to make the Big Town quest and gain some free doctor or he's not needed (she in this case)?
Blowing Megaton worth the 500 caps (1000 in essence, but never explained why the amount is raised) if I suffer some consequences like not being abble to enter in Underworld, for example?
If I kill some children in the game, do I have the sympathy of others or they will ostracize me (and if they need to talk to me, they will spend the less time possible, so not much dialog choices are available?) Hey, even in games we don't like to see children die, but war never changes, do you known this Bethesda? :roll:

I know that the system is tied to the easyness of the game, since you have everything will need right in the beginning, but karma only serve for this?
A tap on the back?
The Talon/Regulator thing is a joke, since from level 11 or 12 they are more an annoyance than a threat.
And you, What do you think of the Karma System?

I can see a lot of problems in FO3, but I think that the good parts beats the bads, so the game is really good, I really like it, don't think I don't.
But there are some things very annoying that really bothers me sometimes, like dialog inconsistency (You Gotta Shoot 'Em in the Head quest, for example) and the karma.

Please, excuse any grammar errors, since english is not my primary language.

[ ]'s
 
And you, What do you think of the Karma System?
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First of all, is basically useless. Nobody changes his attitude, nothing changes, all it's used for is for your companions. Whoopie doo.

Second, it should be tied only to the outcome of the quests. I can be mister goody-good but since I'm a clepotmaniac that steals all the empty tin cans I can found Three Dog calls me a devil and Regulators are behind me? What the hell?
 
The karma system is much too simple in this game, and doesn't really make sense. You can go kill a ton of people in a town, everyone attacks you, but leave and come back a sort time later, and the remaining people will like you again.

People's reactions to you should be based on your karma (and charisma and speech). Dialog doesn't change whether you are evil or good, people don't have a different opinion of you, etc. It should be certain people will be glad to talk to you, based on karma, and other's not. If you have bad karma, certain people should refuse to talk to you, if you have good karma certain people will still refuse to talk to you. This way, neutral karma isn't completely useless (let's face it, it's only good if you want to recruit Butch, or gain trophies/achievements).

The only thing noticeable about karma is Three Dog's radio speeches, and occasionally if you have very good karma, people in Megaton will randomly give you junk. So, yeah, I agree with Stanislao, karma is just for recruiting NPCs to help you fight "the good fight." And for those who want to get trophies/achievements.
 
My only hope is that Bethesda listen to some critics and change the karma (and weapons) in FO4.

[ ]'s
 
brfritos said:
My only hope is that Bethesda listen to some critics and change the karma (and weapons) in FO4.
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Yeah, I'm hoping they listen to all the critics, and change more than just the karma system and weapons. Fallout 3 needs much improvement.
 
I doubt people still remember GTA2, but that game had this "respect" thing, that would have worked great in F3.

You had different factions and raising reputation with one of them would lower rep. with another. It wasn't that complicated and it could have been added.
 
Rufus Luccarelli said:
brfritos said:
My only hope is that Bethesda listen to some critics and change the karma (and weapons) in FO4.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm hoping they listen to all the critics, and change more than just the karma system and weapons. Fallout 3 needs much improvement.
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I don't dislike FO3 like manny people here, but I agree that it could be a lot better, specially the history and the quests. One of my favorite quest is "Blood Ties", you can solve it from many ways - violently or not -, decide the fate of Ian West - leave him or not - and finalize it lying or not (or simply ignore it).

Of course the karma interfere in the end and throw the quest in the gutter: if you decide to leave Ian West in Meresti and lie to the Arefu sheriff...you gain good karma! :shock:
It's too static, you don't have freedom to do what you want (is the opposite, rarely you have freedom to do some action).
If you don't believe me, check the "solution" for this, it's still don't solve the main problem, you still are a very evil person for stealing tin cans. :roll:
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=839

The worst part is discover that Bethesda did all of this on pourpuse, something like "we have to launch the game, so do everything fast, made the gameplay (but not the engine) open and let the fans do mods that correct this and that".

[ ]'s
 
isn't the children issue also in the european versons of fallout 1 and 2? (As some euro countries it not legal for games to have killable kids...)
 
as a note - while I don't hate FO3 the Karma system is one of the major weaknesses of FO3.

As for the kids, there are European countries that don't allow games to have "killable" kids. Thus, some companies removed kids from the game, but these days kids are most of the time "Unkillable" if it being sold in Europe (and most games are)
 
but you can still shoot those kids. Strange enough. Its all hypocritical in my eyes anyway. I mean either have the balls to say "we dont make it cause WE dont want it" or "we make it cause WE want to make it!".

Typical for Bethesda to go here again the midle ground. Like always. Tryign to please everyone. And in the end no one. Except the wallet. If you have some agression inside yoru soul. You can shoot kidz in Fallout 3. But it has no effect on the game they dont die (you can even get a good karma back again from the broken karma system).

But everyone is happy in the end ... no ?
 
Crni Vuk said:
but you can still shoot those kids. Strange enough. Its all hypocritical in my eyes anyway. I mean either have the balls to say "we dont make it cause WE dont want it" or "we make it cause WE want to make it!".

Typical for Bethesda to go here again the midle ground. Like always. Tryign to please everyone. And in the end no one. Except the wallet. If you have some agression inside yoru soul. You can shoot kidz in Fallout 3. But it has no effect on the game they dont die (you can even get a good karma back again from the broken karma system).

But everyone is happy in the end ... no ?
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I don't think is only "the wallet", because Fallout 3 reflects the values we have out there today.
Don't wanting to be philosofical, but in every movie, comic or TV you don't see children being killed very often. Of course, nothing beats the real life, so we only need to watch the news to see how children are immortal and well cared, hun?

My point is, FO3 was rated M. M for what, the violence? You can see things much worse in day to day life. The drugs? Please, there are some good examples in any city of the world about it (isn't right Australia?). The blasphemy? FO3 is one of the most conservative games that I ever seen, is all black & white and "God love us all".
I wander if anyone here watched the original version of "Assault on Precinct 13", of John Carpenter, not that shitty remake.
There was a scene when a girl goes to buy a icecream and the vendor was one of the criminals in disguise.
She asks him for the icecream and he pulls out a pistol and shoot her in the chest (the scene is quite graphic, BTW).
Where'd you see a scene like this today? Very few movies do this. Even in graphic novels, a relative free enviroment, you don't see this kind of thing. Even Garth Ennis, one of the most SOB in the world (in the right sense) don't do this.
Rob Zombie face it a tremendous pressure for cutting a lot of scenes from "House of 1000th Corpses" and "The Devil's Reject".
I'm not a child killer, but this shit "children are sacred" is a little too much, isn't?

As for having balls of honesty, you can count the companies that have it in one hand's fingers.
Hell, I don't want to see what iD Software will turned in the hands of Zinemax.
Wait, we're all seeing, just watch what they do to Wolfenstein.

I don't dislike FO3, the review from NMA pretty much summarizes the game, is not THAT terrible, but it's not the Fallout quality that everyone was used to.
If you want to be certified by this, play the DLC "The Pitt" in vanilla mode, then load the WttW and Karma Revamp mods.

In vanilla, if you try to kidnap Ashur's baby, the end is like you said, "everyone is happy" and nobody say a thing of what you try to do.
But with the mods, the mother don't forget what you've try to do and even complains why her husband let you live.
And everytime you bring things something to her, she continues to complain about you.

It's the first time that something that you've done had consquences in FO3, since she pays you less than the usual.

I mean, the dialogs and the game structure was ready, why they don't implemented in the first place?
I read here that one of developers complained that 50% of the content was cut from the game, but I think it's worse: the content is IN the game, only innactive.

I bet that someday someone will find how to change the main story, like you see mods that change everything, and will find that every dialog and chioces were there, only hiddden.
Is not only thinking with the wallet, I think is laziness, pure and simple.

[ ]'s
 
Ok, so you expect a company to spend millions of dollars to produce a game that will be banned in a number of European countries and get a "AO" rating in the US, which means while its not banned, it just won't be sold by retailers.

So, company has choice

1) Include killable kids, get game banned in a few euro countries, unsellable in the US and other countries.

2.) have no kids at all

3.) have kids that are not killable.


No company is going to pick 1 unless they happen to have a bad game and need the free publicity, and of the remaining two, the last one is the lesser of the two evils.

Not that fallout 3 is perfect, I am the first to say that Fallout 3, like fallout 2, is a flawed game. But child killing isn't exactly up there on my concerns.
 
No, what i expect from a company is to use their goddamned common sense.

Number 2 would be better than having a TOWN full unkillable kids that annoy the fuck out of me on purpose and taunt me for being alive.

There was no need to include them if you arent going to accept making them mortal like everyone else. It makes no sense to have IMMORTAL NPCs, like dad for example.
 
Patton89 said:
No, what i expect from a company is to use their goddamned common sense.

Number 2 would be better than having a TOWN full unkillable kids that annoy the fuck out of me on purpose and taunt me for being alive.

There was no need to include them if you arent going to accept making them mortal like everyone else. It makes no sense to have IMMORTAL NPCs, like dad for example.
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exactly what I mean.

Issue is that Bethesda is doing most of the things not cause they are confident about it. If tomorrow all consumers would demand children as targets in a game. What do you think Bethesda will give them?

If they would have not included children in the game obviously like with this town full of children (which also made not much sense ...) I think it would have been a better approach. YOu should be honest about your motivations and either remove it at all or make it sutble cause you as developer cant justify it that some people might want children as target or have the balls to make it "realistic". What Bethesda did was as usual a "try" to please everyone.

You can still "harm" children in Fallout 3. You can still aim with some assault rifle on their forehead or just throw a grenade and hurt them. Is that so much better then not to kill them? Dunno. Its just hypocritical in my eyes. Not just for Bethesda but as well to those that have been so happy about that you cant kill them in the game. People with agressive minds can still take a minigun and go completely crazy chasing those childrens around.
 
A good game would allow you to hurt children or interact with them on many other levels, with the proper consequence for your actions.

A good game designer would find a way to punish you for doing something that violent. NPCs should react emotionally, respond in a very strong way to such actions and your character might get some nightmares, maybe halucinations, some kind of burden himself.

Let's say you kill a kid. Some time passes and you are walking in a town or a tunnel and out of nowhere you see the kid you killed just sitting there or maybe saying some messed up stuff. Now that would send quite a message.

Just something that gives you the weight of the act, to make you feel you did something incredibly f**ked up.

But that would only work in a gooood game.
 
What this guy said. I think.
I dunno. I remember feeling guilty as all hell the first time I killed a kid in Fallout 2. (first time killing a kid was in it.)

I hit a kid in the groin and the message simply said "So and so was critically hit the the groin for 11 hit points. The child looks confused and begins to cry."

Hell that was enough for me to never do it intentionally again. Fallout 3 effectively kills that kind of depth by making children unkillable alone.
 
Relentless666 said:
I doubt people still remember GTA2, but that game had this "respect" thing, that would have worked great in F3.

You had different factions and raising reputation with one of them would lower rep. with another. It wasn't that complicated and it could have been added.
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Have you forgotten the town reputations system from Fallout 2? Which would have been even more the reason to add it.
 
Daggerfall had a decent reputation system, it's not like Bethesda hasn't done a karma system before. Why they have to dumb down the karma system in Fallout 3 is beyond me. Yeah, those cats who worked on Daggerfall aren't there anymore, so what. Here's something even better, use the karma system from Fallout 1/2! Would a more complex karma system be too much for gamers today? Bethesda needs to get over the fact that they are a RPG company and not cater to an audience who don't usually or never play RPGs.
 
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