Larian Banner: Baldur's Gate Patch 9
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
#350365 29/03/08 04:05 AM
Joined: Feb 2008
Location: Indonesia
enthusiast
OP Offline
enthusiast
Joined: Feb 2008
Location: Indonesia
As I have seen in a previous post, a point that was very strongly brought out was that in DD, the reputation system wasn't fair, as it made the game too one-sided (in terms of alignment). What I was thinking was, it should be the same system like Fable: The lost Chapters. In the game, for every foe you killed you would get "renown" (fame, that is), which would be the determining factor for how well-known you were, thus being what affected trade prices, etc. And then for certain different types of foes you killed, you would get "alignment points" (i.e for killing Town Guards or innocent bystanders you would get "Evil alignment points" and for killing bandits you would get "good alignment points"). Alignment would (to a certain degree), determine how friendly different NPC's of different alignments were towards you, and would also affect the effectiveness of certain spells/weapons. Of course, tha maximum points for either renown/alignment would be very high, so it would not be like the second you killed a guard you became a demon or the second you killed a bandit you became an angel, which I think was very good and much better then the reputation system in DD.


"Oh Lord, how long will the search go on?"
Joined: Mar 2003
A
veteran
Offline
veteran
A
Joined: Mar 2003
To be well or less known shouldn't be linked with killing.

A world doesn't entirely consist of killing.


When you find a big kettle of crazy, it's best not to stir it.
--Dilbert cartoon

"Interplay.some zombiefied unlife thing going on there" - skavenhorde at RPGWatch
Joined: Feb 2008
Location: Indonesia
enthusiast
OP Offline
enthusiast
Joined: Feb 2008
Location: Indonesia
Originally Posted by AlrikFassbauer
To be well or less known shouldn't be linked with killing.

A world doesn't entirely consist of killing.


Sorry, I forgot to elaborate. Killing only contributes an almost infesitimal amount to either renown or alignment points. What it depends on is mostly quests because unlike DD, almost every quest has two sides to it, or sometimes more than that! wink So of course, you start out unknown with a neutral alignment but as you progress in the game, the maximum amount of points for either alignment (good or bad, takes just about the same long) or renown (you only become "Legendary" after about 17 hours or so, depending on the player) you of course end the game (well, generally) Legendary. The major problems with Fable was that the "paths" was never fixed (i.e you could always switch between what you wanted to do, so even for instance,
you could kill the bad guy and destroy the sword of Aeons (good alignment choice), but still end the game wearing the mask instead of destroying it (evil ending) and vice versa (take the sword "evil choice", but destroy the mask "good ending").
(read the spoiler unless you're in the middle or beginning of the game) grin
another problem with this otherwise nigh unparraleled game of it's genre was the fact that there was no such thing as difficulty level, and this (plus the fact that you can't completely lose the game), made it too easy and not much of a challenge. frown Anyways, I hope this fixes that, sorry Alrik about the way I made it sound... wink


"Oh Lord, how long will the search go on?"
Joined: Mar 2003
Location: London, England
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: Mar 2003
Location: London, England
I'd have to say that killing probably SHOULD play rather a large part in defining alignment/reputation. A bit of indiscriminate massacring should have a heck of a lot more influence on how people think of you than whether you managed to retrieve Generic Quest Item A.

If you wipe out the local bandits, their victims will love you a lot more; if you wipe out a local village pretty much everyone will hate you, including the bandits (You're a rival AND wiped out their normal victims. Who will grow their food for them now?).

It should not be the only determinator by any means, but I think it's an important one.


Please click the banner...
Joined: Mar 2003
A
veteran
Offline
veteran
A
Joined: Mar 2003
Elliot, with all respect, but to me this sounds like a model of my theory that killing as a way to solve problems is in one country rather accepted than in others.

Of course, the sheer impact of killing a band of bandits, for example, is huge.

But to me, this doesn't necessarily mean that this hopuld be the only method with dealing them (just to stick by this example).

Another method would be to "poison" their beverages with a potion that makes them sleep deeply, and then carry them into a prison.

Or with Orcs, to do a similar thing: In div the player had to poison their wells ... Eventually to kill them ... Why not use a "peacemaking" potion with that which magically changes their minds and makes peaceful orkish farmers out of violent warriors ?

The *result* would be the same: The former victims would be saved from the bandits or Orcs, and the fear is gone.

Last edited by AlrikFassbauer; 29/03/08 09:29 PM.

When you find a big kettle of crazy, it's best not to stir it.
--Dilbert cartoon

"Interplay.some zombiefied unlife thing going on there" - skavenhorde at RPGWatch
Joined: Mar 2003
Location: London, England
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: Mar 2003
Location: London, England
Alrik,

It's impact that determines reputation. I love the idea of taking prisoners, I must admit, and the removal of the bandits by any method will please the villagers just as much I have no doubt. The inclusion of a magical prison which you could carry around to keep prisoners in is something I have wanted to see in a CRPG for a long time.

I also like the idea of being able to bribe or trick the bandits into going after the Orcs (To borrow the setup in your example) - thereby causing significant damage to both sides and making your own life a lot easier.

The idea of giving EXP for 'defeat' rather than 'death' is a good one and would allow for many variances.

I see no reason why your reputation gain should be less for any of these methods than for any other.

The 'peacemaker potion' strikes me as too easy a solution, though. I prefer to try persuading the Orcs to make peace - although your potion DOES open the rather interesting question of a load of vengeful humans now going after the Orcs once they are incapable of fighting back... What would the hero do about that, considering he caused the situation in the first place? Hmmm... smile

These ideas are all easy enough to implement in a proper RPG, because the GM is human and can adjust to any sneaky plans the players come up with. But I'm not sure they have the technology to do it with a computer yet, sadly. Which is why most CRPGs are all about the killing. I'll love it when they do, though smile


Please click the banner...
Joined: Feb 2008
Location: Indonesia
enthusiast
OP Offline
enthusiast
Joined: Feb 2008
Location: Indonesia
Originally Posted by Elliot_Kane
I'd have to say that killing probably SHOULD play rather a large part in defining alignment/reputation. A bit of indiscriminate massacring should have a heck of a lot more influence on how people think of you than whether you managed to retrieve Generic Quest Item A.

If you wipe out the local bandits, their victims will love you a lot more; if you wipe out a local village pretty much everyone will hate you, including the bandits (You're a rival AND wiped out their normal victims. Who will grow their food for them now?).

It should not be the only determinator by any means, but I think it's an important one.


Oh well, time for a bit more elaboration. wink When I meant killing, I meant as in when you enter one region and there are say, 10-50 bandits the act of killing them is rather small (+10 Renown, +2 Good alignment per bandit) BUT having got the quest to wipe out a certain bandit camp (unlike DD you can get more quests
for a bigger variety of things, quite a few of which are combat oriented, like this one for instance) once it's done your quest log pops up, says "quest solved" (if you fail a quest it says "quest failed") and displays a tab saying what you got
(say +5000 renown, +500 Good alignment points, +10000 gold, +7500
experience points, if you fail you still get some experience points, I think) from completing the quest. (And vice versa for the "massacre trader's camp" quest) But best of all, it's actually pretty fair for whether you want to be good or evil (unlike a FEW games I've played ;)) Regardless of the degree to which Renown and Alignment are affected by combat, I personally think this would be a much better substitute for the reputation system in the original DD (not to mention the "fairness" of your personal choice of alignment). grin


Edit: P.S it was so much fun having me playing "the good guy" getting my halo and all and having my older brother play "the bad guy" getting his horns and all, and then (in an extremely funny way, of course) comparing our two characters when they were the same advanced and "promoting" the strong points of our own characters while "undermining" the weak points of the other guy's
character. grin

Last edited by twoheadedragon; 30/03/08 07:50 AM.

"Oh Lord, how long will the search go on?"
Joined: Aug 2004
U
veteran
Offline
veteran
U
Joined: Aug 2004
Originally Posted by Elliot_Kane
It's impact that determines reputation. I love the idea of taking prisoners, I must admit, and the removal of the bandits by any method will please the villagers just as much I have no doubt. The inclusion of a magical prison which you could carry around to keep prisoners in is something I have wanted to see in a CRPG for a long time.


Great idea!

Originally Posted by Elliot_Kane
The idea of giving EXP for 'defeat' rather than 'death' is a good one and would allow for many variances.


A game that acually did this was Vampire:Bloodlines. You didn't get any experience points for killing opponents, you only got them from finnishing quests. This way you got just as much experience if you killed everybody as if you sneaked up behind them, did what you were supposed to do, then sneaked out. Sometimes you even got rewarded if you weren't seen!

Übereil


Brain: an apparatus with which we think we think.

Ambrose Bierce
Joined: Jul 2007
stranger
Offline
stranger
Joined: Jul 2007
This idea could actually get along well with the »reputation for each faction« that has been suggested before. Various solved quests would give you reputation of different qualities; so a single quest could both improve your standing with the dwarves and harm your relations with elves. Depending on what you did it might also be seen as just or immoral in a more general way (based on ethics common to, say, most humans or several races in the game world).
In the same manner each quest could be assigned an »impact« value; your help in apprehending a village thief is seen as good deed and appreciated by the villagers, yet »level 1 news« would not spread out of a region, whereas solving the game's epic main quest would create stories that spread over the entire game map in no time.

My idea would be to keep track of rumours about the PC for each region seperately. NPCs would only know you by the rumours that made it to their region. I imagine news of above local level would spread one or two regions away, though perhaps not instantly. As for the NPC- the way they relate to you would depend on what they've heard of you (IF they would recognize you in the first place) and your interactions with them. Each NPC would interpret the rumours differently(and could even have a change of heart during the course of the game); you would score points at a typical dwarf for having helped helped the dwarves in the past -and also score points for harming the elves. But there may be some pacifist dwarf who dislikes your harming the elves part. Also there would need to be a modifier for how informed a particular NPC is. A bard may know the stories from several regions away while a crazy old mage who spends all his time in his cottage working on new spells may very well fail to recognize a renowned hero.

Moving on to crime: crimes could create stories abut you much like solved quests. Your stealing from merchants would only give you some notoriety limited to the region in which you were caught commiting it, but news of the murder of innocents could spread out of a region, especially in the case of mass murder. It would give an additional minus to the interactions with the races of which the victims were and regardless of what good you might do, most NPCs who heard of those murders would always feel at least a bit uneasy in your presence. Finally if there has been a bounty put up on your head then guards may recognize the PC as a murderer even further than the »impact value« of the crime would suggest.

Joined: Jul 2005
Location: Belgium
old hand
Offline
old hand
Joined: Jul 2005
Location: Belgium
The reputation per faction/region seems a good idea as long as you don't get too much different factions/regions. It would also make more sense than an overall fame-rating.

Something else that popped to mind: what about hiding your identity and temporarily altering your reputation with certain factions? would you be able to dress up as someone? IE kill a guard of a city where you are hated and chased by the citizens, take his raiment and be able to move through the city whitout being recognised, some citizens might even come to you with a problem. If you take off your raiment, you're cover would be blown, resulting in being chased again.


Joined: Feb 2008
Location: Indonesia
enthusiast
OP Offline
enthusiast
Joined: Feb 2008
Location: Indonesia
That reminds me a little of commandos:3. It takes place during World War 2 and you are the allies. You control various unit types from snipers to sappers to spies. All your units have the ability to take a dead German soldier's (or even officer's) uniform and disguise himself.

BTW, welcome back Isorun, how do you like the new Forum look? wink


"Oh Lord, how long will the search go on?"
Joined: Jul 2005
Location: Belgium
old hand
Offline
old hand
Joined: Jul 2005
Location: Belgium
I've got 2 games in mind when talking about reputation. The first is TES4: Oblivion, where you have the fame and infamy statistics. Fame causes the initial disposition of normal people and good guys to be higher, while infamy raises your initial disposition by bad guys. I don't like this system, cause if you got a very high fame, people in an almost completly excluded little village are all friendly towards you, while you've never even seen them before and news of your deed spreading to this village seems very unlikly.

The other game is WoW, although it's completly uncomparable to Divine Divinity, the reputation system is pretty good for an MMORPG in my opinion. You got many different factions and many sell items that only become avaible once you got a high enough reputation with that particular faction.
The best exemple is the Scryers and the Aldor in Shatrath City, you've got 2 factions living side by side, you can't get in good standing by either faction cause if you do a quest for let's say the Aldor, your Scryers reputation drops by the same amount as your Aldor reputation increases. You have to chose to either side with the Aldor or the Scryers, and cause both of them hand out unique rewards it can be hard to chose a side. This has nothing do to with Good or Evil, it's just a clash between factions.

So let's say that in the main quest of the Next-Gen Game, there are 1 to 3 factions evovled. Doing main quests should have a huge impact on your reputation with those factions and then maybe a smaller reputation change towards the factions who live in the region where you did the quest(maybe even create this sort of wave effect like, the region where it happend gains an X change in reputation, regions around the original region an X/2 change and according to the scale of the act you did, further regions may aslo recieve a reputation change). Ofcours if it's something really important, every faction that is not completly excluded would hear of it and your reputation with them would change.
To keep all this trackable, maybe we could have a 'Reputation Page' or something similiar in our journal. And let's say that if you click on one of the Reputations, there pops up this little diagram with your reputation changes the last few days.

Twoheadeddragon: slowly getting used to it, I'm sure it'll be an awesome forum when Lynn and the other Larians have implented everything they want.


Joined: Jul 2007
stranger
Offline
stranger
Joined: Jul 2007
Originally Posted by isorun
Doing main quests should have a huge impact on your reputation with those factions and then maybe a smaller reputation change towards the factions who live in the region where you did the quest(maybe even create this sort of wave effect like, the region where it happend gains an X change in reputation, regions around the original region an X/2 change and according to the scale of the act you did, further regions may aslo recieve a reputation change). Ofcours if it's something really important, every faction that is not completly excluded would hear of it and your reputation with them would change.
To keep all this trackable, maybe we could have a 'Reputation Page' or something similiar in our journal. And let's say that if you click on one of the Reputations, there pops up this little diagram with your reputation changes the last few days.


Sounds like good suggestions. Both with the reputation page and news spreading over entire organizations.
Every item of news about you (read: quest solution) could also have a predifined spread pattern. Usually solved quests of some importance would generate rumours; these should probably not fade in effect with distance travelled, but instead lose credibility. When determining the rumour derived part of an NPC's relation score, the NPC should consider all the credible rumours first (typically those from the same region). If the resulting score is positive, the NPC will then disbelieve all the negative but less credible rumours (perhaps decrease effect to 1/3 or so of the value), while accepting all the positive ones (full score modifier from those) (vice versa with the score being negative). There should also be a more reliable way for news to spread far and wide within an organization. Guards could be better informed about regional murderes then the common folk. And if you sabotage guild B on guild A's behalf, then news should spread reliably within those two guilds (unless you chose a stealthy solution in which case guild B may not figure out who was responsible).

Originally Posted by isorun
Something else that popped to mind: what about hiding your identity and temporarily altering your reputation with certain factions? would you be able to dress up as someone? IE kill a guard of a city where you are hated and chased by the citizens, take his raiment and be able to move through the city whitout being recognised, some citizens might even come to you with a problem. If you take off your raiment, you're cover would be blown, resulting in being chased again.

Disguise seems like it could be hard to implement with the system I've detailed in my two posts here. The game would first of all need to know what you are typically recognized by, as rumours normally don't include pictures. There has been some wishfull thinking about your reputation carrying with it information about your combat style that the enemy AIs you come across can make use of. IMO something like that would be hard to do, but in order to have camouflage the game would pretty much need to keep track of: A) your legendary weapons you've used or whether you often use some exotic weapon, B) your commonly worn shining armor C)spells that only you can cast (and have cast on a quest before...) or your signature combat spell combinations D) (optionally) your common combat tactics (stealth or brute force?). If you can hide enough of these, then you may not be recognized by NPCs who do not know you (If one NPC of the group recognizes you, he/she probably informs the others. Also, some important NPCs would probably have some form of the true seeing skill) Disguise as a feature should allow the character to complete a quest (or commit crimes) without revealing his true identity. The player would need to activate a »disguise mode« while putting on different clothes or completely covering himself with a robe. That would be to insure that you are still assigned all your hard earned fame even when you change your armor. While disguised, you would have to refrain from using A1 or C1 and shouldn't use much of of A2, C2 and D. -Else you could blow your cover. As I already mentioned, NPCs who already know you should be able to recognize you by your face and voice (unles you master some sort of a disguise skill...), so there could also be some kind of a »mind fog« spell which would provide you with complete disguise by itself, yet shouldn't affect more than one NPC per skill level (just to keep things interesting). Anyways camouflage should probably be ineffective as a means to disassociate MAJOR crimes and grand-scale quests completions. Sooner or later someone would pay a diviner to figure out your identity. In the first case it could be the royal guard and in the second it could be some wealthy person (or bards?) interested in a story. Diviners may not be a foolproof way to read even important past events, yet after being taken to a few crime scenes they should probably be able to describe the perpetrator with certainty.

Joined: Jul 2007
stranger
Offline
stranger
Joined: Jul 2007
Hmm... can't edit posts?
Anyways after pondering the above for a while I now think disguise needn't be that complex at all... the really interesting part is just staying unrecognized by the NPC's that don't know you yet. So we would need a disguise mode that works with putting on a disguise and perhaps a »mind fog« spell like I mentioned. Disguise could probably also keep you unrecognized if you used it for stealing, but the PC could be recgnized as the person who solved a quest even if disguised – we can blame diviners for that. Or maybe some sortof spell that reveals facts about "important events" of the past few days in the surrounding area could be fairly common?

Joined: Feb 2008
Location: Indonesia
enthusiast
OP Offline
enthusiast
Joined: Feb 2008
Location: Indonesia
Yeah, just for fun they could name the spell "CNN" or "BBC". grin


"Oh Lord, how long will the search go on?"

Moderated by  Bvs, ForkTong, Larian_QA, Lar_q, Lynn, Macbeth, Raze 

Link Copied to Clipboard
Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.5