sounds reasonable.

...

it's just, karma, that's actually what kicks in when NOBODY's looking

The problem is not that the game mechanics keeping a record, the problem is that the NPC's KNEW about it. If people don't know that you've been secretly killing random wastelanders out in the wasteland, why than, should they react negatively too you?

No, it was broken in Fallout 3. We had Jericho, someone you could hire in Megaton if you had bad karma. But of course, someone wtih bad karma would have blown up Megaton. You can see how karma forces you to play a certain way. If you wanted to play a bad karma character you felt this force to select bad karma options every time. Likewise a good karma character was forced to select all good options. It eliminated the choice. Why everyone complains about a voiced protagonist but has no problem with Karma forcing you to choose certain decisions I have no idea....

And neutral Karma....it was so difficult to recruit Butch because neutral karma was too difficult to maintain and once again I was forced to select a good/bad decision only because I was leaning towards one or the other and wanted to balance it.

Stupid system....

I like general garbage's passion suggestion but as far as karma, if its gone its not going to be much of a lossfor me. It wasn'tall that useful of a mechanic in 3 and even less so in NV.

Karma was broken in NV, one of the first mods I installed was one that stopped me gaining Karma from killing fiends, what a stupid mechanism...

Karma would need a serious overhaul to be interesting enough in the game, I'd rather they'd just ditch it all together.

this.

My karma ran over your dogma.

Of course.

Absolutely not. It's a terrible idea to have obvious "wrong" and "right" moral choices.

It's so hard to be actual evil in any fallout game since it's easy to get good karma. It's really a joke. At least NV tried unlike 3 which was a railroad good guy thing.

^ This

If I had to pick and choose, I'd rather they ax it and make room for something more effective. The Karma feature was noticeable to an extent, but usually not in a good way. It was great when I wanted to be a good guy, but not when I played someone a little more loose with their morals.

Karma makes no sense in the context of games and how things work. You do something bad that no one sees and this affects you.

I'd much rather have a deep reputation system with factions/individual characters can can change and impact both the overall storyline and individual quests depending on who you help/don't help nad how you conduct yourself when people see you.

It should all be tied into things tihat people would (logically) know or see, not some invisible "bar" that either fills up good or bad and then tells the npc's "You're a good character!"

I mean if I am in the middle of a deserted wasteland and I do something bad, that NO ONE sees, the npc's should have ZERO ways of "knowing" about it.

I think it's much more believable and better if the npc's base their view of you based on the actions that they know of from you, rather it be how you talk to them, if you decide to help them with thier iproblems or not help them, etc. Things that directly affect that npc rather then some invisible force watching our every - action and then telling npc's to view you this way or that way, it's just extremely "gamey" and feels so artificial to me.

I say yes only if karma is a little more reactive. I.e. the world responds differently to players with good or bad karma.

Yeah, I agree. It struck me as kinda odd that I GAINED Karma for killing off Powder gangers, but, lost karma for taking stuff from containers, when all the residents were dead?? Seriously?

I didn't notice that karma actually DID anything in game though.... so, I just pretty much ignored it. Didn't seem to matter at all.

I like to think that was Obsidian going "This karma system is so stupid"

The way it was implemented certainly was nonsensical.

Old joke, but still funny

On topic, no. Either Mass Effect like tracking where the "good" and the "evil" are not mutually exclusive, or rather New Vegas faction reputation system. With no karma.

I never understood why karma was left in New Vegas, when you had to kill people considered "evil" which meant you always were "very good", which in turn effected the endings If you are on PC, next time type to the console player.rewardkarma -1000 and -2000 before finishing main quest or DLC quests, and enjoy some new ending slides

See? I have criticisms of New Vegas too

that's just how it is in real life, actually

it is? Generally, if no one sees you do it, then, for all intents and purposes, "you" didn't necessarily do it...... How could that possibly affect you?

you really think that if you, say, devoured 10 people, but nobody was looking (or left alive to tell anyway), it wouldn't affect you just because of that?

How?

If no one sees you do it how can they "know" you did something, good or bad?

he didn't say anything about anybody knowing - he said

:-)

I generally enjoy the karma system and would like to see it remain, but I gotta agree in New Vegas things got really silly.

Like lying about whether you downloaded Vault 22's data to turn it over (Because dangit, I was hired to do a job) nets you Bad Karma (naughty liar) but allowing the data to be wiped in the mainframe and burning out the spores nets you Good Karma.

No karma please, just adds to the black and white, good or evil problem. If it is in, then it shouldn't be more than pure flavor and at the most give access to special perks. But honestly, I don't want the game blatantly telling me when I'm good or evil. And I especially don't want people who've never met me before to know if I'm a good or bad person based on my karma.

Reputation with factions, settlements and the likes is a much better solution. Then they can each have their own moral compass and my reputation with them is solely based on that.

Me personally, sure it would, others perceptions of me, if they didn't know? How would it affect them?

From my perspective, karma had zero effect on me throughout FO:NV. My rep sure played a role, but, Karma was unnoticeable.