I don't, it's silly. I always used a mod that kept my karma neutral. If there has to be a mechanic that follows you around judging you for your actions they should just use a factional reputation system.

I loved it in Fallout 3 and I'm sure I'll love it again but a reputation system does work better howwwwwwwwwwever at the same time I love the karma system and if anything we should get both systems so people of the wasteland can judge you, you can get chased after by talon company (obviously with the reputation system you could with factions) and you can get general comments from the population and via three dog about your positive or negative actions.

Idk, did they take it out? Confirmation please.

I liked the idea of Karma and I wouldn't necessarily want it removed. But at the same time I didn't think it was done well in Fallout 3. It meant practically nothing, in my opinion. It gave access to different companions, sent random enemies after us and caused people to give us gifts. That hardly seems worth it.

If Karma had a lasting, significant impact on the game world, I think it would be a great game mechanic. Unfortunately, Bethesda has never handled this kind of thing well, so I'm not holding my breath. Karma, if it comes back, will probably be largely cosmetic again.

I think he's asking a hypothetical question.

It had some stupid moments but mostly worked, it became an joke in NV where you was killing off factions and looting the piles of bodies, however clearing out ammo crates gave bad karma.

No confirmation, just checking to see whether people like the system would like to see it return for this iteration.

My problem with karma is that the only reason I can see for it's existence is as a way for the game to react to your choices. But you can do that with a factional reputation system and you wouldn't be weighing the player down with trite moral judgements. FO3 had Talon Mercs that came after you sent by someone for evidently being too nice. That doesn't even make any sense. In FO:NV the NCR and Caesar's Legion would also send assassins (a rose by any other name) after you but you knew who you miffed and why. And doing it that way seriously unhitched the moral aspect. I dislike the moral aspect cuz the game doesn't know why I do what I do, it can only react off my actions not my motivations. Which bugs me when it comes to morality. It's not like I can explain my reasoning to the game's higher power.

If you want reaction so that a radio announcer can tell everybody about what a dike/hero the PC is make an invisible 'general' faction. Shooting merchants/people for no reason would result in a poorer reputation (or negative karma) for the 'general' faction. Doing things like saving puppies increases it. You're not dealing them with something nebulous and layered in various motivations like morality but in people's reactions and opinions which is a whole lot more observable and immediately understandable.

It's a nice gauge of your character but it paints the world in black and white. Every action you did was either good or bad, there was no 'neutral' karma. I'd rather it be cut from the game.

reputation is so much better, it does everything karma does, does it better and makes way more sense

Ditto!

Quite an even poll right now.

No, I don't want karma back. I feel it puts major restrictions to the development process and is in no way needed.

However, the same thing goes for a reputation system. Not that tracking your deeds is in any way wrong (it's definitely a must-have) or that factions shouldn't return (they should) but neither the Karma, nor the Reputation system offer enough flexibility.

I would like to see a Passion-system based on the individual NPC. It would be a hidden system without any indicators but the actual NPC reactions.

I didn't mind it, it just wasn't done right. It was far too easy to become a white knight, you actually had to put hard work into being a bad guy. Should be the other way around.

For example you always got good karma for killing ghouls, but not raiders. Even if you nuked Megaton, just kill a few ghouls and you'd be the saviour again.

So I'd just like to see it balanced out and only awarded for major acts.

I think that karma helps to build a reactive game world, but a system more akin to Skyrim's way of recognizing your deeds (with assassin's and mercenaries tracking you and what not) is a better way to handle things. This would help to avoid arbitrarily labeling the player as good or evil; the game can't necessarily judge why I do certain things as a player because I don't think morality is so black and white.

Maybe I killed that dog despite its owner's wishes because it was suffering under her well-meaning but insufficient care.

No.

I don't like it when a game tries to tell me what is considered good or bad in terms of morality as it isn't always black and white.

I'd rather we have an overall wasteland reputation that is affected by what we do.

Essentially, it'd work almost the same way. You do things that help people then you gain points in it and people from other factions or other locations might've heard of your actions and may have a different view on you when you talk to them for the first time. A faction will ultimately judge you based on what you've done for/against them as a whole but individuals will judge you according to your overall wasteland reputation as well.

But I'd rather they skip the point system with this and go with what Fallout 2 did. If you dug up graves you got the title Grave Digger, if you killed children you got Child Killer. If you killed tons of raiders you got Champion Of The Wastes.

I'd rather that NPC's views on you be affected directly towards titles such as this rather than points leaning one way or the other. You dig up graves then you might come across a character that've heard of what you've done and refuse to talk to you because they find you reprehensible. Because a point system can always be abused, just look at the water beggars or store stealing in Fallout 3.

No to karma. The only karma system i ever liked was in Mass Effect with Paragon/Renegade since it was a military setting it made sense. I would like reputations to be in there though.

geting good karma for killing raiders is annoying i blow up megaton i kill peopel left and right i steal i enslave npcs and yet im very good becose i kill raiders

Wait, is that a feature from vanilla Skyrim? It's been so long since I played the vanilla game, that I started thinking that it was a feature of one of the mods. I like it a lot. Makes the world feel more reactive and real when I steal something and the owner sends assassins after me.

I don't think "Saintly good" vs. "Irredeemably evil" makes for a particularly deep story in a setting like this.

Getting harassed by Talon Company JUST because I'm a "good guy" was incredibly contrived, and didn't help the narrative one bit.

No. Not the way it was done in FO3 at least. I hated how it felt like a teetering scale, rather than an actual character review. Not to mention a lot of its provocations didnt make sense when triggered during some occasion.

It shouldnt just be the factor of wether people shoot at you on sight or not, but it should just be some sort of influence to a bigger guage. Like how FNV had the faction loyalty system where they respect you based on your service or hate you based on your alignment. Well, karma should influence how you are trusted by locals specifically from locals, and get you attention from sub-factions based on it (Slavers / Raiders / Cannibals / Mercs)

It could also influence the types of relationships or trusts you could have. Like if you're evil: you can get followers or lovers from Raiders for example. It should be like a sub-influence to your reputation. Maybe even help you move up ranks within certain factions based on how you follow their tasks. Like a quest score.

Or at most, it should be connected to Charisma and change your dialogue responses based on your character's in-universe personality based on that Karma - kind of like how intelligence does.

I don't know about kharma, but I do want some sort of faction based reputation system that doesn't require members to be psychic. My biggest complaint about the otherwise nice New Vegas system was that each faction automatically and immediately knew about everything you did. Kill a lone Legionnaire out in the middle of nowhere and your reputation with the Legion took a dive even though there was nobody around who could have witnessed it. That was annoying.

i dont think karma and faction mecanics should both be in i think faction is way better karma is just annoying

But if we take it out how will people be able to tell the difference between Fallout and Skyrim? We don't want to create another Skyrim with guns now do we?

All joking aside, the current system needs to be removed. If I kill a gang of raiders I shouldn't receive a penalty for looting their stuff. (I'm looking at you New Vegas) They attacked me. How comes looting the Megaton sheriff wasn't bad but taking a rifle from his house is? Reputation system is the way to go. If I get caught my rep goes down. If I dont, it remains unchanged.

My problem with the Karma system was simply that even if you did something completely out of sight, miles away from civilization, everyone KNEW what you did! If you killed/stole from someone out in the middle of the wasteland, everyone seemed to know you did it! Unless of course you sniped them from half a mile away while being sneaky. But they don't seem to know that Jeannie May sold Carla too the Legion...

If they have the Karma system, I hope this time, when you do something no one see's or no one lives too tell about it, they won't charge you for it.

Yes, it's important that game mechanics keep a record of what kind of person you are and acknowledge it. Otherwise it comes down to "nobody is watching anyway, why not act like a total selfish [censored]?"

i liked the idea. it just didn't seem to make much of a noticable difference.