Reputation System

[BladeO]

Don't know if this was discussed. Anyhow, I think Daggerfall's reputation system was pretty good, is it possible that something like that could work in P:E? Of course I would be happy with anything as long as it's not something like the rather bad reputation system in the Baldur's Gate games.

[Sacred_Path]

The one cool thing from Daggerfall I'd like to see in another game is that factions included not only your usual suspects (Fighters' Guild, Mages' Guild), but peasants, nobles, merchants, the underworld and scholars, with appropriate consequences. Of course Daggerfall doesn't offer anything to do really except rising through your factions' ranks. In a deep game like PE that would be a balancing nightmare.

Edited December 8, 2012 by Sacred_Path

[BladeO]

The one cool thing from Daggerfall I'd like to see in another game is that factions included not only your usual suspects (Fighters' Guild, Mages' Guild), but peasants, nobles, merchants, the underworld and scholars, with appropriate consequences. Of course Daggerfall doesn't offer anything to do really except rising through your factions' ranks. In a deep game like PE that would be a balancing nightmare.

Yes, I meant the peasants, nobles, etc thing too. Especially the nobles.

What do you mean that Daggerfall doesn't have anything to offer other than risin through ranks? The reputation system affected the MQ quite greatly IIRC. If you did the wrong things you could easily land yourself in an impossible situation.

[Sacred_Path]

Yes, I meant the peasants, nobles, etc thing too. Especially the nobles.

What do you mean that Daggerfall doesn't have anything to offer other than risin through ranks? The reputation system affected the MQ quite greatly IIRC. If you did the wrong things you could easily land yourself in an impossible situation.

 

I meant that it's an open world sandbox, it doesn't even have a mandatory main quest. Playing around with the factions is central to its design, not an aside.

 

And yes I was talking exactly about the fact that you could screw up the game/ the game balance. Which wasn't bad in Daggerfall. It's a single character sandbox, so you basically live by the consequences of your actions. Reload or roll a new character if you're stuck. In a story driven game, that would just be bad. In PE, I don't want to replay a large chunk of my game because my underworld allies have contracted me to kill a plot essential NPC, or because I pissed off the merchants and can't buy/ sell for a reasonable price anymore.

[rjshae]

I wonder whether every individual in the game going to belong to at most one faction? Perhaps you have characters that have weighted faction viewpoints? I.e. 25% Faction A, 50% Faction B, and 25% independent. In that case, the reaction of the character may be more complex; perhaps leaning weakly toward a factional viewpoint, but being open-minded enough not to immediately like or dislike you. Likewise, if you attack a character who is only a partial faction member, perhaps that faction will not immediately consider you hostile?

[specialagent]

And as your reputation increases with any given faction, their in-game respect for you increases. I know that this was a criticism aimed at Skyrim, where your accomplishments weren't exactly recognized by the general populace. Something else that could be limited could be exactly how many factions you could fully rise the ranks in. Would it be possible to be the head honcho of both the (generic example) Fighter's Guild and the (generic example) Assassin's Guild if the two sides hate each others' guts?

[TSBasilisk]

I would hope not. Locking the player out of at least one faction on a playthrough helps to increase the benefit of replayability, so long as the two are distinct and fully-developed experiences.

 

I also hope that this functions a bit more like actual "reputation" rather than a "we love you" bar. Having a reputation means people know of you, what you've done, and how you did it. Reputation can be good or bad. The devs mentioned at one point they want the player to become known for their choices, such as diplomacy vs strong-arming, so I hope reputation is about people knowing about that.

 

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As for the multiple reputations, I can see how four overall reputations might effect different NPCs.

 

First: General player reputation - all NPCs have heard about you due to certain actions, wherever you may be.

 

Second: Nation-specific reputation - The more derring-you-do in a specific nation, the more the people of that nation in particular recognize you.

 

Third: Class-specific reputation - A hero of the peasants will be more warmly received at a tavern than at a court function.

 

Fourth: Faction-specific reputation - The shortest grapevine, if you help out a specific faction, the members will know about it sooner rather than later.

[Laos]

Nothing is more silly than the New Vegas / Fallout-esque "Alignment" system. People are not that one-faced, and I don't want my character to be so one-faced.

 

Alignment should be have a variety of conditional rules applied that depend on your relationships between public agencies (nations, governments, and mayors), private agencies (businesses and factions) and the general "pulse" of a community. Along with these relationships there should be layers between those closest to the epicenter of your event (The town you complete the quest in) to the farthest (on the other side of the world) - unless it's actually a big deal, it shouldn't make everyone around the world excited and happy.

 

The best way to equate reputation and actions is to use some sort of score process where each network range will degrade as you go farther out, and that events in general should affect on two scales

 

1. The scale of the relationship to the agency - if you kill rats for the fighter's guild then the fighter's guild will give you a +5 to reputation, while the town will give you a +3, and the

 

2. The scale of distance to the location - if you kill rats in Town A for +3. the fighters guild in Town A will give +5, +3 in Town B, etc.

 

3. Then you apply conditionals. If the "Pro Rats Club" in the town finds out, they give a -2 to your stat. If the neighboring village hates the town, they reduce your reputation for helping them (perhaps a proportion is best here) and so on.

 

most of all The idea of reputation should be a bell curve. For the most part it will do little to effect your relationships with characters, but if you work really hard to make someone like / dislike you if will reap you the benefits / consequences.

[Tamerlane]

But... New Vegas didn't have a strict good/bad reputation system? Merciful Thug, Wild Child, Dark Hero, etc.

 

Or if you meant "Karma"... well, that didn't really do much, and PE doesn't have individual morality meters, anyway.

[wanderon]

As I recall one of the devs made a statement at some point to the effect that opening doors in one faction might well close some doors in another - I particularly like this idea for it's positive impact on replayability.