Influencing reputation with donations?

[ljbo]

That the characters actions and behaviour with respect to people influences reputation is great. But will there be a way to offset what the player may thought of as mistakes? Donations to temples come to mind, or paying bards to sing our character legends? The former is of course vanilla BG while the latter is from the BG NOC Mod.

[ljbo]

BG NOC Mod.

That was a typo: I meant BG NPC mod

[Lephys]

One would think something such as donations would have their place. But, they could only get you so far (I don't see where someone's going to like you more and more and more just because you keep putting 100 dollars into the jar -- if that were the case, then people would simply begin worshipping that one rich guy who drops a check for 1 million into the temple donation box). Also, what with group/faction reputation AND some form of individual reputation, it would also be interesting to see people who are suspicious/resentful of ostentatious actions. "Okay, you gave away a bunch of money... I still haven't seen you actually do anything that proves you care about any of this. There are sick people around here dying. Money's great, but they need medicine, which is in a shortage. No amount of money's going to make a bunch more medicine magically appear." etc.

[Amentep]

I really don't like donations being available as a way to game the NPC influence system. BGII: "Oh I'm being too bad to keep Aerie - I'll donate to the church" followed by "I'm being too good to keep Korgan, I'm going to go whack a villager who is by themselves so I get a -1 rep without triggering the guards...".

 

I'd be okay with donating to the local church being a way to improve the characters local area reputation.

[Prometheus]

There will be similiar Reputation mechanics to Fallout new vegas. You have two scales for each faction, one for positive and one for negative reputation. Imo there should be no way to reset the negative( or positive) scale. I have no problems if you can increase the positive scale through donating money, but there should be limits. e.g. You can only donate four times or after the fourth donation you gain no reputation anymore.

[Lephys]

It'll work more like a whole bunch of different bars, really. But, yeah, the idea behind a negative AND a positive is at least the right idea, like New Vegas. That, and, as far as I know, individuals will still have "their own bars" (Steve might be a member of The Holy PeopleFolk, who might generally look upon you with favor because you did something great for them, but Steve, himself, could hate your guts.)

[Walsingham]

Bill Gates gives how many BILLIONS to charity? And how many people have a kind word to say about the guy?

 

Conversely: spider-themed pubic wig Russell Brand.

 

Case closed, I feel.

[Hormalakh]

I think that "making a mistake" should be part of the game as it gives more weight to decisions made during the game. Donating to a church or any other organization should have positive and negative effects.

 

also i'd rather good actions not suddenly outweigh your "bad" actions, so you're suddenly good, but rather they just make you "mixed."

[ljbo]

Interesting answers!

 

The problem as I see it is that there will always be an easy way to lower reputation beside any story-related role-playing, by being a complete jerk, e.g. killing innocent people (the beauty of the NPC mod was to offer a more tasteful alternative). Increasing reputation without doing picking do-good quests was on the contrary impossible in BG without the temple donations. But as I understand several of your comments, PE will have different groups of people have a different opinion of our party, so any given performed quest could increase our reputation in some part of the world and lower it elsewhere. If that is well implemented, then I agree that temple donations is not that important. Not as a global mechanism a least. But it could be part of local story-telling as two of you mentioned indeed.

 

Thanks!

[Kjaamor]

[Urthor]

iirc at one point Sawyer mentioned that they were looking for wars of having "large negative outflows of money from the game economy," late game so you're not rolling in it as much and have something to spend it on.  This seems like a decent method for that.

 

 

Maybe make reputation changes consume a rare item, price that rare item at 20k in some store as well as make it a reward to a quest or two.  

[Hassat Hunter]

I personally would rather want influence (of any kind) be from actions... money (or giftgiving like a BioWare game) always makes it feel like you're simply grinding out, rather than suffer the consequences of your choices...

[Quetzalcoatl]

Obsidian's reputation system is much more sophisticated than Baldur's Gate reputation system (which contrary to its name, was actually more of an aligment system, and a flawed one at that).

[Amentep]

Are you friendless?

Do people cross the street to avoid you?

Are you lonely?

Do you feel that no one understands you?

 

Donate 10,000 GP and improve your reputation!

 

Yes, you can be the life of the party through a simple investment of 10,000 GP in our Church! Our package includes - mentioning your good deeds at mass! Putting your picture in our "donator" wall outside the church! Sending our choir out to literally sing your praises through town!

 

And that's not all, act now and we'll throw in a glowing review of your best points in our monthly newsletter!

 

But why stop there? For a limited time offer, if you agree to do 109 fetch quests for the church (our mail needs to be delivered too) we will have our sister churches in the region to also work to raise your reputation. Act locally, but think globally! As in think global reputation boost!

 

But act now, this offer is ending in 10...9...8....

Edited May 29, 2014 by Amentep

[Stun]

Hey, did you just kill Drizzt and now every shop in the sword coast is charging you 40% more for their wares?

 

No problem. Just go to the temple of Lathander and donate 100gp + 100gp + 100gp + 200gp + 200gp + 200gp and your armed robbery murder will be forgiven, merchants will love you again, and you might even have better dreams!

Edited May 29, 2014 by Stun

[Sensuki]

I think that this should work only where it makes sense, rather than just a "well if your reputation sucks, just pay to raise it so you can do X quest option".

 

ie. If you cause bad things to happen at the Dyrford, but donate some money to the Temple out of your own free will at the end of Act 1 to make up for your decisions then the Dyrford faction might go from Poor to Mixed or something.

[Sabotin]

Maybe a useful compromise would be that charity and donations amplify the reputation gained from other sources?

[ljbo]

Hey, did you just kill Drizzt and now every shop in the sword coast is charging you 40% more for their wares?

 

No problem. Just go to the temple of Lathander and donate 100gp + 100gp + 100gp + 200gp + 200gp + 200gp and your armed robbery murder will be forgiven, merchants will love you again, and you might even have better dreams!

The very fact that our reputation would decrease after killing somebody in the depth of the woods without any witness was stupid to start with. Flaming fists being a great example as well. 

[Lephys]

The thing is, reputation isn't something that should "increase or decrease." That's too ambiguous. If you murder everyone in sight, your reputation's going to "increase"... but that doesn't tell you what your reputation will be. Just that you're going to be more known than before. But known for what? That's kind of the point.

 

Luckily, PoE's rep system is supposed to be like this: It's like Legos. Everything you do builds your reputation, and different actions contribute different blocks. If you murder 700 children, then go donate at the temple, your reputation is made out of both of those blocks. One doesn't wipe out the other. If individual people (or factions) decide that your monetary contribution is more important than your children-murdering spree, then so be it. But it's not like you just wipe one away or something.

 

Hell, if you're so notorious, you'd think the temple wouldn't even let you in there to donate. "WE DON'T WANT YOUR BLOOD MONEY! GUARDS!"

[AGX-17]

Influencing reputation with "donations" makes sense to a point, but a good reputation system would focus more on a character's overall actions, i.e. a PC who resolves disputes/gets out of binds primarily through combat would be regarded as someone combat-oriented/violent (as a subset, their competence in combat might come into play; someone who quickly and efficiently dispatches enemies might be regarded highly as a killer, as opposed to someone who gets into a lot of fights and struggles to defeat even average thugs, who would be regarded as a foolish hothead.)

 

That said, I tend to slide more toward the sentiment expressed by the comic posted by Kjaamor about Fallut 3's garbage karma system. It doesn't matter how much money you donate to charity if you're directly responsible for massacres and war crimes which will be regarded throughout history as prime examples of evil. If you're "that guy who went into a convent an massacred all the nuns and all the poor orphans in their charge" in a society that doesn't adhere vehemently to Ayn Rand's philosophy, you're never going to be considered anything but a villain trying to soften their image with ill-gotten money.

[PrimeJunta]

If you donate lavishly, you should get a reputation for being generous... or foolish. It should not erase past misdeeds.

 

Perhaps if you're running for political office and want the backing of the faction you're funding...

Edited May 30, 2014 by PrimeJunta

[Lephys]

Here's what I'd love to see:

 

You feel like bettering your image, so you "generously" donate to some temple. Some people who don't know what else you've done see ONLY the donation, and think well of you. Others who know what you've already done are skeptical at best, and still hating you at worst. It turns out one-or-more of the temple officials are corrupt, and are skimming from the donations, etc. Those people couldn't care less what you did, and/or are MUCH more appreciative of your donations than people who are simply judging your act of generosity.

[constantine]

'Umm.. I'm kinda sorry I robbed your town's shops blind, murdered some nobles and their guards.. I.. had a lot going on at the time and my vision was clouded.. Will 2,000 gold make up for my errors ..? They will ?! Oh ..! We're good then ?! Oh, thank you City of xxxx, I'll be your hero from now on !!!'

[Hassat Hunter]

"Wait a second... those are the same 2000 gold you stole from the shop..."

 

Pilfering (dunno if really the proper word, google translate gave it to me ) is a thriving business in RPG's...

[Lephys]

"Wait a second... those are the same 2000 gold you stole from the shop..."

No no...

 

"Wait a second... these are the same coins someone stole from the shop... YOU FOUND IT!"

 

*Reputation + 100 with shop owner/city.*

 

"Now if only we could bring that filthy thief to justice."

 

On that note, I actually liked the fact that the Elder Scrolls games tend to actually address the idea of shops noticing that stolen goods are things that are missing. The only bad thing is that they somehow just psychically know sometimes. "There are 1,000 candles in the land, but I KNOW that that particular candle is stolen! Therefore, I will not touch it... and also, GUARDS!"