I want to point out some things:
- Your choices should influence your companions. They change their behaviour or their point of view depending on what you say. They like you more or less depending on your actions. All I want is NOT to have a pop up box "you have gained influence on companion x" right after the dialogue.
- As some people already said, it makes no sense that every villager sees your karma and likes or dislikes you because you helped a granny over the street in another town or you robbed a bank at the other end of the continent.
- In most cases it is rather immersion breaking if you get a message "you have gained x influence, karma or whatever" right after you select a dialogue or action.
My suggestion:
We hide the stats from the player.
They keep the numerical influence value for companions, but you cannot see it. When you select something, you see the reaction of your companions, but you do not get a message that shows your reputation. In case of romance, you need to do several things and have an influence of +10 (which you cannot see) before your companion likes you.
The same about karma: It exist but you cannot see it. It effects your source powers and only very powerful mages or demons can see it. But most normal people react only to things they see themselves.
Prof. Dr. Dr. Mad S. Tist
World leading expert of artificial stupidity.
Because there are too many people who work on artificial intelligence already
