Hey everyone, I'm new here, however I've played Fallout 3 plus the expansion packs. I'm currently in the process of wrapping up New Vegas as we speak.

One thing I'm not too particular about with FNV is how it enacts morality. If there's a book, magazine, or item that you need (and it's red), it counts against your karma when you take it. If you hack into a computer or open a lock, the same thing happens too. I thought that perhaps after you had become accepted by a group, that it would go from red to yellow, but such is not the case. Is there a patch or something which changes all of this? While it may seem as a small concern, it's one that is really annoying at times. Thanks for listening.

There might be a mod.

If your on PC there are mods available for changing karma hits.

wolf

My playthrough of NCR and Mr. House both led me to the path of evil, my only good character was a member of Legion. They royally screwed the karma system, although I do think the Legion should be considered good, misguided but good. But still, it wasn't how they intended.

you know that means you are stealing? Those items are owned.

Agreed.

That's why they're red, so that you know which items and actions are going to count as stealing (and of course - stealing isn't considered terribly good for your Karma level.)

For example, I'm going over to a friend's house this evening for a dinner party. We're pretty good friends. I'd say I'd count as at least "Accepted," if translated into New Vegas's reputation system. If I went into his house, however - and started going around picking the locks on his safe and taking his books - I'd still be doing something that would get me arrested if he caught me doing it.

I always end up with the best karma, and I steal anything I need (while hidden of course). Just kill some ghouls and Fiends and you'll become a saint.

Dont steal (if you dont want to)

Also WELCOME to the Forum

From Ace Hanlon.

It's on the PS3....

Then you are out of luck.

It also happens when you come across a place which is either abandon, or you've cleaned out the enemies entirely. Like the Powder Gangers for example. I've wiped them out completely, yet the game stil considers it to be 'stealing'.

The way I view taking something in the game, is that everything is there at your disposal - the NPC will never use it, so why penalize the main character for using whatever resources are at hand?

Thanks for the reception Ace. I'm starting to like this place already!

True, but this is just a game! In real life I wouldn't go around stealing, killing, or doing even half the things that you can experience in FNV....

Your welcome.

We are all like family here...(not really)

this pretty much sums up the karma system in New Vegas.

I find Karma very inconsequential, I steal if I need/want to, and my karma has never been low. Plus, in this game, Karma is totally warped, makes no sense, and is nothing like real life. You give the best example, basically. Powder-Gangers - you don't lose Karma when you blow their head off with a shotgun; but once you've done so, taking their nearby hammer causes you to lose Karma. Yeah, that's that thing that will cause you to lose sleep at night, and have others look down on you.

well why would you lose Karma for killing a Prisoner? You shouldnt you should gain Karma.

Are you intentionally missing the point?

Please explain what point i am missing.

Powder Gangers =/= prisoners

they are criminals who have escaped prison.

That killing someone results in positive karma (which, while debatable, we'll say in this case makes sense because they are escaped convicts terrorizing locals), but taking what was theirs results in negative karma.

EX: I run into NCRCF, and kill every single person there. Massive positive karma. I then try to take all of the stuff that was lying around, regardless of how important/unimportant it is. Massive negative karma.

Stealing from a bad guy is bad, but killing them is good?



That is the point.

The system is messed up. It is called KARMA. If you kill, [censored], steal etc. and you have something STOLEN from you, there should be no karma loss, because with Karma, if you do bad things, it will come back at you. I thought this was the case in F3. I never got bad karma for stealing from raiders or shady people. Stealing from people like a farmer is wrong though and you should be penalized. I find karma in this game useless compared to Fallout 3 because F3 was more of a story about YOU, whereas NV it's about how you shape the Mojave. You only lose karma if you are an outright evil character. Such actions such as tricking Christina from DM to go into the elevator to the switching station are very few, whereas in F3 trickery and deceit were common in F3.

Yes i understand your point. I dont think obsidian cared about karma at all in this.

You should lose any karma for stealing there stuff.

Your missing the point of the Karma system as it was in the originals. Karma wasn't meant to be anything else besides a personal "so how did I turn out?" gauge for the player to look at. Like it was in Fallout 2, went they used the much better rep system.

Anyway, it's pretty heavily weighted in favor of good, since you get tiny amount put in for stealing and so forth but get huge amounts for killing raiders and such. So yo ucan pretty much steal to your hearts content and still have full + karma after hitting up a Viper nest.

actually Vipers have neutral karma, Fiends have bad karma