Lets talk karma!

[demidekidasu]

My character in Fallout 3 was the most evil ***** you can possibly imagine. It was fun! I remember killing all of those thirsty beggars, eating the wasteland captives alive, killing droves of Regulators that would come after my character(followed by eating their corpses - yes, my character ATE lots of people!), letting Roy Phillips and his "followers" in to Tenpenny tower, etc., etc. You name it, my character did it! I proactively pursued the most evil paths possible and it was rather fun!

 

Now then, I imported her face data into my New Vegas save, thinking that it would be fun to continue the monstrous rampage, but it seems that New Vegas simply turns a blind eye to almost everything but stealing...

 

Seriously! For example, I thought it would be fun to see the rockets in the REPCONN Facility blow up during launch, and yes, it was indeed fun, but I did not lose any karma for it. I helped the Powder Gangers take over Goodsprings, killing most of the townsfolk in the process, but again, no karma loss. What? No karma loss for betraying the town that had cared for my character after she had been left for dead, and no karma loss for killing a group of seemingly friendly ghouls who simply dream of heading out to space, yet I lose karma by stealing an empty Nuka-Cola bottle from a house with nobody in it?

 

It just doesnt add up...

 

Also, not related to the karma system, but why are there so many of these dull and pointless locations scattered all over the map, and why is that there seems to be absolutely nothing interesting (e.g. unique loot or those journal entries that tell a story) to be found anywhere?

 

Anyone else noticed this, or am I just being too fussy? Or is it that my game glitching out somehow?

[Nohbodey]

I agree with you. What they should have done is eliminate the stupid Karma system completely and just stick with the much better Faction Reputation system they came up wit. With all the great lengths they made to present you with about four choices that can all be justified morally (though it's harder for some than others), why even leave this arbitrary system of saying, essentially "Well, this action you did was worth 50 evil points, and this other action you did was worth 10 good points. Congratulations, you're now slightly more evil!"?

 

It seems like they tried to phase out the Karma system with New Vegas, but it came out as just slipshod and annoying. No matter what my characters do, short of being completely berserk, homicidal monsters, they always end up being called "Good" or at least "Neutral." What I mean when I say slipshod is that many of the things they would decide in the previous game to be immoral are just simply ignored rather than counting for or against your karma. So you've got a system where, occasionally, the system may decide to weigh in on your actions if it's in the right mood at the right time. It's utterly aggravating.

[demidekidasu]

I agree with you. What they should have done is eliminate the stupid Karma system completely and just stick with the much better Faction Reputation system they came up wit. With all the great lengths they made to present you with about four choices that can all be justified morally (though it's harder for some than others), why even leave this arbitrary system of saying, essentially "Well, this action you did was worth 50 evil points, and this other action you did was worth 10 good points. Congratulations, you're now slightly more evil!"?

 

It seems like they tried to phase out the Karma system with New Vegas, but it came out as just slipshod and annoying. No matter what my characters do, short of being completely berserk, homicidal monsters, they always end up being called "Good" or at least "Neutral." What I mean when I say slipshod is that many of the things they would decide in the previous game to be immoral are just simply ignored rather than counting for or against your karma. So you've got a system where, occasionally, the system may decide to weigh in on your actions if it's in the right mood at the right time. It's utterly aggravating.

 

Yeah, I get what you mean, but you see, I liked the old karma system in Fallout 3. Even though it didnt really have THAT much effect on the game, it was just nice to have an actual measurement system showing how "good" or "evil" you were. And, of course, it would lead to being jumped by a group of Regulators now and again if you were evil, which was quite fun. I think that they should have made efforts to improve on it, rather than attempting to phase it out by giving us this half-baked system.

 

But who am I kidding? Games these days are getting dumber and dumber in order to make more and more money from the console markets. Understandable from a business perspective of course, but sad for those of us that want our games to be immersive and engaging experiences.

[FlankerDFR]

As a shooter gamer, I find the entire concept of leveling up and the attendent improvment in your being able to suddenly grow petunias better (I couldn't grow petunias at all a minute ago because my petunia growing skill was only 39, but I'm great at it now because my PGS is 40) to be as ludicrous as the karma system in FNV. It's almost like a Dev provided cheat system................that allows you to do something, you knew how to do all along. (Don't get your RPG sensibilities bent out of shape..............FPS games have their own tired *** shooter game dinosaur gaming cliches that should have died ages ago too).

 

Anyway................I agree the karma thing in this game is ridiculous. I've just mercilessly exterminated everyone in this location; looted their decapitated, dismembered corpses willy nilly (did I mention :teehee: at the blood splattered walls?)....................but DON'T take anything from the fridge cause my Karma will take a hit? :laugh: Even dumber is fer instance, being allied with the NCR.....................I score fame and big points for wiping out the Legion at Nelson or Cottonwood Cove. Yet if I take some caps or ammo out of a desk or locker I lose karma...................didn't that stuff belong to the the NCR until the Legion slaughtered or enslaved all the original inhabitants............so I"m just taking stuff that belonged to my faction (or allies at worst)? What the bleep??!! Where's my Absinthe &*^&^% it! I need a drink! :laugh:

[Dasim4]

Karma is a complete joke in NV. The only difference I've had it make for me is whether Cass will stay with me or not. I had been doing a lot of the aforementioned procuring of unattended items with red names so I developed a fairly negative Karma, meaning I was extremely evil, and she wanted to leave me. Instead we set off to the West side of McClarren where I wiped out every Viper in the area and was declared so good as to be a Lord of the Wasteland or something similar. It's all pretty silly and pointless to be honest. In my previous playthrough, where I didn't take Cass along, nobody ever mentioned anything that indicated my Karma level one way or the other. Honestly I think it should have a major effect as to how you are treated by the general populace. I think an evil Karma should result in good townsfolk and their tradespeople not having anything to do with you. Your dealings would then be limited to the more unscrupulous people in the game which would come with its own benefits and inconveniences. Same for having a good Karma which should disallow you from having anything to do with the more evil groups in the game. I found it strange how in this they focused so much more on group interaction than in Fallout 3, but totally failed to properly impliment the use of Karma in these dealings.

[demidekidasu]

As a shooter gamer, I find the entire concept of leveling up and the attendent improvment in your being able to suddenly grow petunias better (I couldn't grow petunias at all a minute ago because my petunia growing skill was only 39, but I'm great at it now because my PGS is 40) to be as ludicrous as the karma system in FNV. It's almost like a Dev provided cheat system................that allows you to do something, you knew how to do all along. (Don't get your RPG sensibilities bent out of shape..............FPS games have their own tired *** shooter game dinosaur gaming cliches that should have died ages ago too).

 

Anyway................I agree the karma thing in this game is ridiculous. I've just mercilessly exterminated everyone in this location; looted their decapitated, dismembered corpses willy nilly (did I mention :teehee: at the blood splattered walls?)....................but DON'T take anything from the fridge cause my Karma will take a hit? :laugh: Even dumber is fer instance, being allied with the NCR.....................I score fame and big points for wiping out the Legion at Nelson or Cottonwood Cove. Yet if I take some caps or ammo out of a desk or locker I lose karma...................didn't that stuff belong to the the NCR until the Legion slaughtered or enslaved all the original inhabitants............so I"m just taking stuff that belonged to my faction (or allies at worst)? What the bleep??!! Where's my Absinthe &*^&^% it! I need a drink! :laugh:

 

TBH, Im not sure that I would agree with your oppinion of the character leveling concept, as the game is an RPG, and gaining experience, improving your skills with a system of points, and general character development related to "increasing skill/attribute X by X number of points" is one of the most central aspects of what deffines an RPG from other genres. Obviously I do understand your argument, as of course it is frankly silly when compared to skill development in real life - but dont forget that we are talking about a game based in an alternate reality's 1950's-themed future with such silliness as giant insects and ghouls, all roaming around in a nuclear fallout that still has massively negative effects on the earth after 200 years!

 

I am glad I am not the only one concerned with the broken karma system. I am, just as I did in Fallout 3, activelly pursuing the darkest paths available to me, and it would be nice to see that the game is at least recognising how evil and sadistic my character is! As I said in my earlier post, I feel that the devs should have further integrated the karma system from Fallout 3 into New Vegas, rather than - as Nohbodey pointed out - attempt to phase it out by removing it's overall significance to the game, yet leave it in place in an unfinished state.

 

I suppose it could be argued that the new faction reputation system is superior, and I do agree. It makes perfect sense that certain factions would like or dislike you based on specific things that you decide to do. But are you telling me that one cannot be considered evil by everyone in general, even by one's allies?

 

A great example would be the quest at the REPCONN facility, and how I think it should have been integrated into the karma system:

 

Novac asks you to investigate the source of the ghouls. You discover a friendly bunch of non-feral ghouls that simply wish to follow their dream of blasting off into space and leave the decayed earth behind. You then decide it would be "fun" to rig their rocket ships to blow up during launch - whilst giving them the illusion that you intend to help them. For doing this, surely one should take a HUGE karma hit, and surely even Novac would be disgusted by the unnecassary act of evil! People would hear of this and then consider you to be evil, due to the fact that you did this for no reason other than for your own sadistic entertainment. People throughout the wasteland on the evil end of the scale would perhaps approve of what you did, and maybe like you more because they might have done the same thing and for the same reasons, resulting in them being more inclined to divulge information or grant new quests to you, etc.

 

Do you see where I am going with this?

 

The more I play this game, the more it feels like a rushed and unfinished product. Further evidence of this is, just as I said in my OP, is the fact that the map is covered in absolutely pointless and characterless locations with no notable loot to be found or background storylines revolving around them, resulting in my conclusion that the game just does not offer much reward for exploring and taking risks - perhaps a simplification of the great formula seen in the previous games from Bethesda(specifically Oblivion and Fallout 3 - different developers, I am aware, but essentially identical ingredients), intended to cater for the more casual gamer? As an avid fan of Bethesda's recent "explore-em-up" games, it annoys me that the "dumbing down" trend in the gaming industry as of late is now begining to manifest itself in these games, and it leads me to seriously worry about how Skyrim will turn out!

[Dasim4]

I think it really has a lot to do with the developers as you have stated. If you could somehow blend what the two of them have accomplished, you'd have a much better game over all. Instead you have one that is lacking in some areas and another that is lacking in other areas. I don't feel either game really nailed it completely. They need to work together more and keep pushing boundries. But as a whole I feel like this game didn't get the TLC that FO3 received even with the improvements in some areas. NV is much smaller in size and like you said there are a lot of areas where absolutely nothing happens. There are rehashed cave interiors where the caves barely take 5 mins to explore. How hard would it have been to do a unique cave or use a different model or change something so it wasn't an exact duplicate of the cave you explored only an hour ago?

 

I was just surprised at the overall reduction in size of the map especially considering how few underground areas there were. And even with a massive reduction in utilization of the whole map they couldn't find anything interesting to do with many of the areas that can be explored. The whole eastern side of the river, other than the Fort, which is very small, is closed off to exploration of any kind. There's the massive airport at the bottom with only a few random boxes to open with nothing special to be gained. The entire northern area is closed off and there's a great deal of the west that is also closed off. I can't see all of that being opened in DLC content and even if it is it will feel like they are cheating us out of a full game by hacking it up into pieces to sell later. FO3 on the other hand used pretty much the entire map from corner to corner and the DLC added even more areas outside that as well as adding to the main map with Broken Steel.

 

My main worry is that the trend of shrinking the map will continue. Oblivion was larger than FO3 and FO3 was larger than NV. If they get any smaller it won't really feel much like an open world game any longer especially if they keep adding loading zones like they had in NV. NV had too many loading zones especially in and around around NV. Every little section of street is broken up by loading zones. DC had that great open feel even in the broken up city areas. They were large and had a lot of detail in them.

 

I need to quit this because I really like NV. I just wish they had continued on with what Bethesda had done as well as add the improvements they added. Instead they backed up a good ways before going forward again and in the end they actually were a bit behind or just equal to the standard that FO3 set instead of being well ahead of it where they should have been. Maybe next time. I've still enjoyed both games very much regardless of their faults.

Edited January 31, 2011 by Dasim4

[hurrdurrmurrgurr]

I think it really has a lot to do with the developers as you have stated. If you could somehow blend what the two of them have accomplished, you'd have a much better game over all. Instead you have one that is lacking in some areas and another that is lacking in other areas. I don't feel either game really nailed it completely. They need to work together more and keep pushing boundries. But as a whole I feel like this game didn't get the TLC that FO3 received even with the improvements in some areas. NV is much smaller in size and like you said there are a lot of areas where absolutely nothing happens. There are rehashed cave interiors where the caves barely take 5 mins to explore. How hard would it have been to do a unique cave or use a different model or change something so it wasn't an exact duplicate of the cave you explored only an hour ago?

 

I was just surprised at the overall reduction in size of the map especially considering how few underground areas there were. And even with a massive reduction in utilization of the whole map they couldn't find anything interesting to do with many of the areas that can be explored. The whole eastern side of the river, other than the Fort, which is very small, is closed off to exploration of any kind. There's the massive airport at the bottom with only a few random boxes to open with nothing special to be gained. The entire northern area is closed off and there's a great deal of the west that is also closed off. I can't see all of that being opened in DLC content and even if it is it will feel like they are cheating us out of a full game by hacking it up into pieces to sell later. FO3 on the other hand used pretty much the entire map from corner to corner and the DLC added even more areas outside that as well as adding to the main map with Broken Steel.

 

My main worry is that the trend of shrinking the map will continue. Oblivion was larger than FO3 and FO3 was larger than NV. If they get any smaller it won't really feel much like an open world game any longer especially if they keep adding loading zones like they had in NV. NV had too many loading zones especially in and around around NV. Every little section of street is broken up by loading zones. DC had that great open feel even in the broken up city areas. They were large and had a lot of detail in them.

 

I need to quit this because I really like NV. I just wish they had continued on with what Bethesda had done as well as add the improvements they added. Instead they backed up a good ways before going forward again and in the end they actually were a bit behind or just equal to the standard that FO3 set instead of being well ahead of it where they should have been. Maybe next time. I've still enjoyed both games very much regardless of their faults.

To be fair Obsidian is known for its great characters and writing but terrible bug testing while Bethesda is known for adding bland characters in well detailed environments. Obsidian was forced into working their approach on the Bethesda style sandbox everyone wanted, so you can't really fault them on it. Also Daggerfall was massive but had little environmental detail, morrowind was tiny but was immaculate, Oblivion was larger and had level scaling to cheat through balancing creatures, dungeons and loot, Fallout 3 was smaller but had unique touches on every area and New Vegas is even smaller but gives a very detailed story of factions from multiple perspectives. It's a real quality vs quantity debate but since Bethesda has a larger dev team than Obsidian we can expect Skyrim to be larger than New Vegas was.

[demidekidasu]

I think it really has a lot to do with the developers as you have stated. If you could somehow blend what the two of them have accomplished, you'd have a much better game over all. Instead you have one that is lacking in some areas and another that is lacking in other areas. I don't feel either game really nailed it completely. They need to work together more and keep pushing boundries. But as a whole I feel like this game didn't get the TLC that FO3 received even with the improvements in some areas. NV is much smaller in size and like you said there are a lot of areas where absolutely nothing happens. There are rehashed cave interiors where the caves barely take 5 mins to explore. How hard would it have been to do a unique cave or use a different model or change something so it wasn't an exact duplicate of the cave you explored only an hour ago?

 

I was just surprised at the overall reduction in size of the map especially considering how few underground areas there were. And even with a massive reduction in utilization of the whole map they couldn't find anything interesting to do with many of the areas that can be explored. The whole eastern side of the river, other than the Fort, which is very small, is closed off to exploration of any kind. There's the massive airport at the bottom with only a few random boxes to open with nothing special to be gained. The entire northern area is closed off and there's a great deal of the west that is also closed off. I can't see all of that being opened in DLC content and even if it is it will feel like they are cheating us out of a full game by hacking it up into pieces to sell later. FO3 on the other hand used pretty much the entire map from corner to corner and the DLC added even more areas outside that as well as adding to the main map with Broken Steel.

 

My main worry is that the trend of shrinking the map will continue. Oblivion was larger than FO3 and FO3 was larger than NV. If they get any smaller it won't really feel much like an open world game any longer especially if they keep adding loading zones like they had in NV. NV had too many loading zones especially in and around around NV. Every little section of street is broken up by loading zones. DC had that great open feel even in the broken up city areas. They were large and had a lot of detail in them.

 

I need to quit this because I really like NV. I just wish they had continued on with what Bethesda had done as well as add the improvements they added. Instead they backed up a good ways before going forward again and in the end they actually were a bit behind or just equal to the standard that FO3 set instead of being well ahead of it where they should have been. Maybe next time. I've still enjoyed both games very much regardless of their faults.

To be fair Obsidian is known for its great characters and writing but terrible bug testing while Bethesda is known for adding bland characters in well detailed environments. Obsidian was forced into working their approach on the Bethesda style sandbox everyone wanted, so you can't really fault them on it. Also Daggerfall was massive but had little environmental detail, morrowind was tiny but was immaculate, Oblivion was larger and had level scaling to cheat through balancing creatures, dungeons and loot, Fallout 3 was smaller but had unique touches on every area and New Vegas is even smaller but gives a very detailed story of factions from multiple perspectives. It's a real quality vs quantity debate but since Bethesda has a larger dev team than Obsidian we can expect Skyrim to be larger than New Vegas was.

 

Oblivion and Fallout 3 had a great ability to engrose me into the world - and even though they fealt somewhat dated and crude, the world was utterly exciting and thoroughly interesting. New Vegas just does not seem to offer me anything worth playing for. As I said, the world is almost meaningless and feels lonely, which contrasts with my feelings about FO3 and Oblivion. I remember how I was able to lose hours upon hours exploring Cyrodil's Aylied ruins or the Capital Wasteland's Metro tunnels, and how you never knew just what to expect around the next corner...

 

Perhaps New Vegas wasnt meant to be an "explore-em-up" in the way that FO3 and Oblivion were. But if this is so, why is the game painted with the exact same brushes?

 

I really hope you are right about Skyrim, hurrdurrmurrgurr (did I spell that right? Hehe :tongue:). TBH, I just want it to do what Oblivion and FO3 did best, with some new features and extra depth added. For me, New Vegas makes me worried about how it will turn out. I know it is a different development team, but I find it hard to believe that Bethesda were entirely uninvolved with it's development. Get what I'm saying?

[frank lee]

To add to whats been said, I really liked the Karma in Fo3. One if the jollies I get from these games is playing the supergood person, making all the selfless decisions that the real world would crucify you for and being the saint that very few of us achieve in reality. So I was 'disappointed' because there's no point in playing FoNV like that. I was so disappointed I made this;

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BSNTYorSFE

 

It seemed as if the devs wrecked the karma system while trying to replace it with the reputation system which wasn't as compelling for us ethical souls even if it was bug free and consistent, which it wasn't!