No Witnesses, No Reputation Loss

[GoldenFenrir]

We all know the reputation system is flawed.

I’ve seen other mods tweaking the reputation system but never quite to the point it should be.

Reputation is all about word of mouth so when I kill that one Great Khan in the far corner of the wasteland when we’re completely alone, I should NOT be vilified by the Khans. Literally no one saw me do it so there’s no one to go crying to Papa Khan about what the courier did. How the heck did they even find out it was me? How did they even know that the Great khan was dead in the first place. I JUST killed him. What if I’m in a remote place where no one would ever even find the body? What if I used a laser weapon and turned him into goo. They wouldn’t be able to identify him. Even if they did somehow magically telepathically know that one of their faction was dead. There are literally hundreds of people and things out there that could’ve killed the Khan. Why would they assume it’s the courier? And how does everyone even know exactly what the courier looks like anyway? What if I never met Papa Khan or any other Khan before? They don’t even know the Courier exists.

 

Here’s what I propose

 

1 No witnesses no reputation loss. If I kill a great Khan in a building and kill all the witnesses then I shouldn’t lose the rep. But, obviously, if one of them escapes THEN I should lose the rep.

 

2 I’ve seen a mod that says “covered face for little rep loss.” It should be covered face for NO rep loss, especially if I’m wearing a disguise like a power armor. But it should worth both ways. If I have a covered face and help a town out, I will gain no good rep with them.

 

3 If I tell someone, then I should also lose/gain rep accordingly. Here’s an example of how it should be changed. In the Bitter Springs quest, Climb Ev’ry Mountain, you can deal with the Great Khan in the mountains different ways. It should work like this. If you let him live and go away, you should get good rep with the Khans. However, if you kill him, you shouldn’t lose the reputation UNTIL you tell Captain Gilles what you just did.

 

 

I think these things would greatly enhance the game play and its immersion.

[Reprusu]

I want this. Like in skyrim, you get the bounty if anyone sees you, but if you kill them before they get to a town or such it goes away.

[GoldenFenrir]

It could revolutionize assassin missions! TWOULD BE EPIC!

[MarchUntoTorment]

I'm not a script guy, but I doubt this'd be possible without completely overhauling the Reputation system.

 

Given that we don't fully understand how the Reputation system works in the first place... you see the problem.

 

With that said, there is a possible way around that, which would be to attach a whole heap of scripts to any reputation-altering situation (e.g., killing someone) and all NPCs in the area. But that's way beyond my ability, and has the potential to cause enormous slowdowns, as well as taking forever to perfect.

[GoldenFenrir]

There have been mods for reputation before. This one would just be a bigger project.

[devinpatterson]

I'm not a script guy, but I doubt this'd be possible without completely overhauling the Reputation system.

 

Given that we don't fully understand how the Reputation system works in the first place... you see the problem.

 

With that said, there is a possible way around that, which would be to attach a whole heap of scripts to any reputation-altering situation (e.g., killing someone) and all NPCs in the area. But that's way beyond my ability, and has the potential to cause enormous slowdowns, as well as taking forever to perfect.

 

In quests It would be done in the attached script itself. For instance in the El Dorado substation flipping the switch fires off a add rep function, and you have to re-tool the script. You would make the add rep function conditional and add some getDetected functions testing every NCR actor in teh room (vs the player presence) when it's flipped. If they all come up neg != 1 then the add rep function is never executed (ie no one saw the player, no harm no foul).

[devinpatterson]

For non quest reputation rewards or penalties (killing a random member of the faction) it was previously possible to do so while successfully sneaking. That was changed in the Dec 14th update. That would probably be a good place to focus some attention if you want it to return to teh pre patch state.