I for one miss the "Karma System" and believe that the poor dialogue "choices" in FO4 are a product of distancing itself from Good/Evil and embracing relativism.

I'm glad they ditched it, in a genre where the moral grey is king, trying to codify white or black actions is just silly, if anything ditching it will open up better dialogues in the future, since now they dont need to take into account whether something should be classed as "good", "bad" or neutral.

The removal of karma didn't change anything because karma added nothing compelling to the game in the first place, save for the stupid companion requirement of FO3. In which companion relationships are ten times better handled in FO4.


Also what remmus said. I disliked how the game labeled what was right or wrong on its own terms when there are a number of ways to look at a situation. I'm looking at you Blood Ties for condemning me for killing off terrorizing cannibal gangs.

They designed FO3 with the idea of doing evil stuff. This time around maybe they didn't really felt that much interested into being edgy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GABzWHuIZ_4

Beth devs are older and more mature, so they no longer feel the joys of being evil. It doesn't help that together with the overly pretentious hispterism and excess of interest in gray morality in all media, plus with the outrage of activists who want to promote real life morals into gaming, it seems nobody likes games where you just do evil stuff anymore, not many defend them. Look at Hatred and how much it was bashed despite it being a very stupid concept with absolute no relevance. Even Bethesda haters, those who like to svck Obsidian's [censored], they hate good and evil binary choices. This is where the industry has evolved to, in a couple of years killing NPCs will be completly forbidden, we are almost there already, just look at all the essential characters, and the 100% essential kids in all gaming industry. It's time for us to resign, being evil is always bad, even in videogames.

But FO4 is here and the choices svckED! The choices were 4 of the same and I never once felt like there was a consequence to my dialogue choices...you know, like real life.

Be that true or not, the removal of karma surely isn't the reason for it. Karma points don't offer any consequence if they don't effect anything meaningful in the first place.

Well said!

And that had nothing to do with a absence of a karma system. The current dialogue system, whatever ones opinion of it is, is just a side effect of Beth's experimenting with voiceacting.

I'm pretty sure the ending of FO3 (albeit minimal slideshow style montages) conformed to the "Karma System". This to me added more to the role-playing aspect. It's just another instance that "Progressivism" isn't always progressive.

I wasn't very fond of the karma system, General.

Agreed, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have moral choices, If I remember correctly we have a whole 2 moral choices in the entire game. 90% of dialogue forces you to be the concerned good father, want to be evil, sinister, in between? Too bad says Bethesda

I do agree dialogue need work. But having or no Karma system dont add nothing to dialogue. Actually im glad they remove a broken system as karma was.

I can go either way on it. I liked the Karma system, but the lack of a Karma system doesn't really bother me. In many respects, I found the whole thing to be kind of silly in the first place. If I murder some random wastelander with no witnesses and no possible way for anyone to know...why is it affecting my reputation? How?

The Karma requirement for companions in FO3 really bugged me, and companions in Fallout 4 are infinitely better than they were in Fallout 3. Take Clover, for example. Why is there a Karma requirement to purchase a slave? I'm replaying FO3 currently. Last night I went to Paradise Falls for the first time with this character, and I rescued the kids that were taken from Little Lamplight. I did so by BUYING them back. I didn't tell Eulogy Jones why. I just basically told him that I wanted some slaves. Then I went to recruit Clover and remembered that I couldn't because I'm doing a good guy play through. So...I just bought some slaves like 15 seconds ago, but now my Karma is too high to buy a slave. Okay.

There are plenty of choices in FO4, but it does definitely lack in comparison to previous games. This isn't due to Karma being gone though. It's due to the choices just not even being there in the first place.

Karma System is the one thing that the Fallout games should have abandoned long time ago. I don't want some Karma system to tell me which faction or decision is good or evil.

And it definitely doesn't affect the choices in the game. There are other things that limited choices in some places, none of them having anything to do with the Karma System (which did more harm than good for the choices anyway).

dialogue choices have to with a voice PC not the karma system.

Dialog choices don't have anything to do with having a voiced protagonist either. They have to do with the choices not being there in the first place.

Is there any reason that the protagonist in Fallout 3 or New Vegas couldn't have been voiced? Why couldn't a voice actor have simply recorded those lines?

No, the dialogue is bad simply because it's boring. It has nothing at all to do with a lack of karma.

Voices Protags never stopped a game from having more choices.

The problem is that Beth simply tends to make linear side quests (or side quests with two primitive choices if you are lucky). This is an ancient problem of theirs, not something unique to FO4.

I would prefer gray choices rather than absolute right and wrong to be honest, so I'm glad they get rid of the karma system. Me, stealing from raiders suddenly give bad karma doesn't make any sense. Especially considering certain factions like RR, which is not stealing if you're friends with them but then when you attack them with the BoS or the Institute, all the items become stolen instead of spoils of war just like with the raiders hideout.

I especially love how Ceasar's most loyal and stereotypical Courier killing chem-addicted Fiends is the nicest person in Mojave!

I hated that stealing from bad people gave me bad karma.Stealing bullets from raiders and power gangers means I could have saved lives.

fair enough

Agreed. Never was perfect. Then again, who on this earth is?

One Direction.

Oh my gosh, they are like so like perrrfect!!! Harry is like oh so cute!!!!!

Mr. House, of course.

And lack of Karma System, but that's not "who" I guess.