Very Evil Karma NPC's

[CaptJ]

Huh? Shoveling shit gives negative Karma? When? And why backing off from a fight gives negative Karma as well?

Huh? Shoveling shit gives negative Karma? When?

My mistake. It was a slight hit to your Broken Hills reputation.
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Become_an_Expert_Excrement_Expeditor

And why backing off from a fight gives negative Karma as well?

The Chosen One can either ignore him (-5 Karma)

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Hoss_(Fallout_2)

My point is that Karma in FO2 is basically General Reputation and things like stealing doesn't decrease it.

 

[The Man From Nowhere]

Positive karma for killing raiders and fiends is bulshit.

Of course I'm going to shoot down any bastard who comes straight at me with a tire iron.

 

[Einhanderc7]

Yeah those tire irons are fancy, I have a whole wall filled with them. Even got a couple that are rust free, can you believe that?

 

[The Man From Nowhere]

I received negative karma once for pick pocketing a key from a fiend to free Vault 3 captives.

 

[Alphons]

Karma in NV is broken- I think even one of the devs said that. They were trying to scrap FO3 karma and make new one, but they hadn't time to implement all parts of the new one, so in some ways NV karma is worse than FO3. For example killing Gangers gives you karma, but picking their guns from the table where they were splitting loot from robbery takes karma.

Best karma system should give you karma for good things, that maybe not exactly everyone aproves, but they know that it's better that it was done(mercy killing Gangers in Nipton, helping Boxcars with Med-x, rescuing Gangers in Booted). You would lose karma for bad, discovered things(so only detected thefts would count for it)
Another way would be getting rid of it entirely and using Reputation only.

 

[Einhanderc7]

I honestly find it odd that there is a karma system at all in such a game. I can understand a reputation based on local interaction of a town or merchant. But any over arcing tracking system is literally pointless in the wasteland.

 

[The Man From Nowhere]

I'm playing a strictly mercenary courier right now, not necessarily evil but not good and trying to stay as neutral as possible and this is proving a bit difficult. Alot of the quests inherently grant good karma.

I killed three fiend leaders for a bounty and went from neutral to very good karma just like that. Though the intention for my character was just being a bounty hunter, regardless of who just for the caps.

 

[Black Angel]

I killed three fiend leaders for a bounty and went from neutral to very good karma just like that. Though the intention for my character was just being a bounty hunter, regardless of who just for the caps.

Damn, that sucks. Iirc, most dialogue in Fallout1&2 can be summarized as 3 options, Good/Neutral/Evil, where Good is something like, "I'll do it because I want to help.", Neutral, "I'll do it, for a prize.", while Evil... I can't think of a dialogue option, because outright refusing to help sure as hell won't give negative Karma, but if, for example, you're doing a fetch quest and you decided to keep the items for yourself, or just end up with killing the quest giver, it would give you negative Karma.

Hell, Fallout 1.5: Resurrection has the Karma system right for the most part. I'm playing Arcanum right now, and most dialogue options can summarized as those 3 options (goody-two-shoes, doing-it-for-the-money, and asshole-douchebag).

 

[CaptJ]

I honestly find it odd that there is a karma system at all in such a game.

It is because it is using Fallout 3's engine. How the ending slides change depending on your MC's karma is a bit interesting. However, karma shouldn't be something that pops up all of the time. I think most actions should be classified as neutral. Killing anything that is hostile towards you is neutral (including those that you pissed off). Killing evil people is neutral. Stealing is neutral; because otherwise, it would leads to some weirdness. However, stealing from someone that you can donate to gives negative karma. On the other hand, nuking any side in the end of Lonesome Road gives negative karma. None of this, you are only doing it for your faction bs.

 

[Risewild]

I totally agree that karma is really stupid and definitely very badly implemented. But I can see what Bethesda tried to do. The problem here is that you are all considering Karma as a personal thing when it is a universal thing instead.

It doesn't matter if we kill an evil, sadistic, psychopath in self defense (reasoning: because we are defending ourselves it should be neutral), it is still a good act because we removed this person from this world, it will prevent this evil from continuing doing horrible things. If we kill a savage ghoul in self defense, it is again a neutral act, but we are finally ending the suffering that this human being endured for so long (maybe even centuries), this in a universal scale is a good thing (I guess) while in a character's personal scale is a meh. In these examples, your actions are contributing for a better world, and karma is about making the world a better or worst place.

If you steal something, you're becoming a worst person (in theory, each case is a case), so by becoming a worse person, you're making the world a worse place too (I guess).

Also, I can't remember anymore to be honest, but I think that you only lose karma from stealing from any "evil" faction if you're in good terms with them, the exception is that if you steal from NCR or Legion, you always get bad karma, even if they hate you.

Karma in NV is broken- I think even one of the devs said that. They were trying to scrap FO3 karma and make new one, but they hadn't time to implement all parts of the new one, so in some ways NV karma is worse than FO3. For example killing Gangers gives you karma, but picking their guns from the table where they were splitting loot from robbery takes karma.

I also think that FNV was going to totally revamp the karma system but they run out of time. There are things that make no sense in FNV karma and look rushed and not much effort was put into it, while others we can tell got great care to be implemented. I think that it wasn't a "you're good or bad" in your face thing, but it was to be used as a hiden value that would unlock dialogue options and reactions from NPCs (in dialogue too).

But the final verdict from me? I can see what Bethesda tried to do with the Karma system, but it sucks anyway. Not only that, but it was badly implemented too. In FNV it seems like it was gonna be refined, but it ended up mostly a really messy and stupid thing too.

 

[CerberusGate]

Correct me if I'm wrong but the JSawyer mod does fix this issue of Karma distribution or at least showcases the kind of Karma assignment they wanted. Characters like Moore are set to Evil (as they should) while Karma boosts/drops from killing/stealing are negated (due to attributes being properly set).

It's still far from perfect but I recall that taking marked items in certain places no longer cause Karma drops with the mod installed which is a lot better than the base game's Karma implementation.

 

[Einhanderc7]

The reason I disagree with the karma is because it is fundamentally flawed with a core group of moral position. It's an automatic assumption that bad people are bad, and good people are good. It completely goes against the ambiguous choices that made Fallout great.

The default state of Fallout is to approach everyone as neutral and make a judgement based on player perspective. Any addition to that automatically forces the player to conform to what ever wacky morals Bethesda and it's developers has.

It also assumes that in no way can you change that characters mind on a topic, because they are fundamentally good, bad or neutral they will only act based on their predetermined state. This forces players to attempt to identify what is considered good in the game space, and play accordingly if they wish to experience what Bethesda considers a "good" play through or vice versa.

It limits freedom, makes literally no sense, confusing, and is very restrictive.

In conclusion the Karma system should have been removed from the game as it is a very poor design choice that deviates from the basis of design.

 

[Black Angel]

The reason I disagree with the karma is because it is fundamentally flawed with a core group of moral position. It's an automatic assumption that bad people are bad, and good people are good. It completely goes against the ambiguous choices that made Fallout great.

....

In conclusion the Karma system should have been removed from the game as it is a very poor design choice that deviates from the basis of design.

While I agree with most of your post, I'll have you read again what Risewild said. Because now that I think about it, Karma system from Fallout 1 (or rather, Fallout 2) is actually very different, and separate, from D&D-esque alignment system. Good-Neutral-Evil&Lawful-Neutral-Chaotic alignment system of D&D is, as you mentioned in the first part of your post, personal on the smallest scale and a moral position of a core group on largest scale. Meanwhile, Karma as Risewild explained is a universal thing, NOT personal thing like you stated, and I quote, "...fundamentally flawed with a core group of moral position." A core group of moral position is not universal.

In the world of Fallout, any actions that significantly changes a status quo, even if it's on a very personal level, would definitely send a ripple through the wasteland. Because of that, sooner or later an actions would be heard of, and when the ones whose status quo has been changed give out a name, the world on the global scale, hell even universal scale, would have something to say about that action and the person who committed it. That's how Karma works, because it's not a matter of what just a person or a core group has to say of an action, but the collective number of an entire community's opinion on it decided what it is to them. Which is why every time you encounter a group of caravan, they will agree to trade with you, or not, based on what you've done so far. At least that's how it works in Fallout 1&2, and even Fallout 1.5, so it's not as broken as the system of 3 & NV.

Which is why I wholeheartedly disagree that it should be completely removed entirely from the game. Just take the system from Fallout 1&2, and even 1.5, and improve upon it so it's more subtle and interwoven greatly into the gameplay.

 

[CaptJ]

I think what I want is just general reputation to come back. I do miss reputation perks.

While I agree with most of your post, I'll have you read again what Risewild said. Because now that I think about it, Karma system from Fallout 1 (or rather, Fallout 2) is actually very different, and separate, from D&D-esque alignment system.

I think Karma in FO2 is a misnomer. It works exactly like it does in FO1 when it was called General Reputation.

 

[Black Angel]

Yeah, I guess naming it General Reputation won't really hurt anything. It's just that outright removing the system is what I have a problem with. There's really no such system in Fallout 4, and the wiki states a companion approval rating "works on a similar level" instead.

 

[Einhanderc7]

While I agree with most of your post, I'll have you read again what Risewild said. Because now that I think about it, Karma system from Fallout 1 (or rather, Fallout 2) is actually very different, and separate, from D&D-esque alignment system. Good-Neutral-Evil&Lawful-Neutral-Chaotic alignment system of D&D is, as you mentioned in the first part of your post, personal on the smallest scale and a moral position of a core group on largest scale. Meanwhile, Karma as Risewild explained is a universal thing, NOT personal thing like you stated, and I quote, "...fundamentally flawed with a core group of moral position." A core group of moral position is not universal.

I understand your perspective, however I'm talking about the modern karma systems implementation in game, not player "feels". I will elaborate. I am all for player perspective being the driving force of what is good or bad, however when you have something broad hard wired into the game as it is, well, it defeats the purpose of the player coming up with their own conclusions altogether. Its also another wall the player must contend with that restricts their choices. The modern Karma system is not comparable to the original system of 1 and 2. I'm not even discussing their implementation.

The universal Karma system does nothing but punish the player for minor choices, and when they are given a karma point for a larger action its just as cheap. There is no incentive or justified consequence to the player's action other than some rigidly overt "you did bad, you bad guy now" or "yay you good dude now yay".

The original Fallout games did their best to maintain their events in a grey area of moral ambiguity, relying very heavily on how the player perceives the situation and at the lowest level possible. The modern Karma system simply prevents the game from operating in the moral grey areas and restricts player choice.

 

[CaptJ]

The universal Karma system does nothing but punish the player for minor choices, and when they are given a karma point for a larger action its just as cheap. There is no incentive or justified consequence to the player's action other than some rigidly overt "you did bad, you bad guy now" or "yay you good dude now yay".

I get what you mean I remember reading a comment on video talking about Tenpenny Tower where the person said that he would have killed the ghoul if it didn't gave negative karma. So a guy decided not to kill a backstabbing murdering prick because the game would have given him bad boy points. Gamifying morality is the stuff of dystopias.

 

[Prone Squanderer]

I get what you mean I remember reading a comment on video talking about Tenpenny Tower where the person said that he would have killed the ghoul if it didn't gave negative karma. So a guy decided not to kill a backstabbing murdering prick because the game would have given him bad boy points. Gamifying morality is the stuff of dystopias.

I don't play F3 now, but I used to always shoot the bastard. Apparently not liking ghouls means you deserve to die.

EDIT: Didn't that guy know about the water beggars?

 

[Alphons]

I get what you mean I remember reading a comment on video talking about Tenpenny Tower where the person said that he would have killed the ghoul if it didn't gave negative karma. So a guy decided not to kill a backstabbing murdering prick because the game would have given him bad boy points. Gamifying morality is the stuff of dystopias.

I'm gonna say it again-Tenpenny Tower quest and location is one big karma system disaster.
Tenpenny is made throughout the game as some ultimate evil guy(one of the very evil NPCs, Power of Atom quest, he is the only real target in Shoot them in the head quest and ultimate psycho who snipes ghouls from his balcony), but in the game is shown as one of the only guys that succeed in running a town. Tower has qualified medic, rad-free water and competent guards. He also lets Roy inside if you convince all citizens to let ghouls inside, even against his policy.
Head of security(some spanic name, if I recall correctly) is supposed to be another racist prick("If we let them in, they'll kill us!"), but in the game is shown as a right guy in right place, considering his speculations are true.
Also Three Dog gets even more annoying if you complete it saving guys in the Tower.
And Power of Atom- save everyone and get house, access to quests, merchants, clinic and guy that buys scrap or kill everyone, get smaller house, lose access to quests, merchants, clinic and guy that buys scrap- man, I had spent like a week without a sleep making a choice.

 

[Jogre]

Head of security(some spanic name, if I recall correctly) is supposed to be another racist prick("If we let them in, they'll kill us!"), but in the game is shown as a right guy in right place, considering his speculations are true.
Also Three Dog gets even more annoying if you complete it saving guys in the Tower.

Technically speaking, when yo make the decision you don't know his speculations are correct, and have no reason to believe they are, unless you've already made the wrong choice.

This guy happens to be right about a certain group of Ghouls, but could have easily just been a paranoid wingnut if it were any other group of ghouls.

It's understandable why the game treats letting the ghouls in as a morally good decision, because for all intents and purposes, unless you metagame, it is. The Character himself has no idea what is going to happen as a result of this decision, and therefore to the best of there knowledge they are just helping a bunch of Ghouls find a place to live.