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#654604 07/08/19 01:38 PM
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Regarding BG1, BG2, I must say that I had a love & hate relationship with the reputation mechanic. Personally, BG1, BG2 really handles well the reaction of the game when you do evil deeds.

When you do bad stuff:
-reputation goes down
-price of goods goes up
-encounter with guards increase
-evil chars get happy, good char get angry
-You can recover reputation by performing good deeds, or paying money to temple

From what I remember, we really felt the consequence of bad deeds and I felt great about it.

However, I always felt the best thing to do was to create a loyal good char to get as much reputation possible to get lower price possible and avoid encounter with guards.

Most of the time, one of the only bad thing I did was killing Drizzt for his nice stuff and then paid a bunch of money to the temple to get 20 reputation once again.
For the most part I would keep reputation mechanic the same but yet I have a huge concern with previous rep mech.

Was there any advantages of playing an evil char in previous BG games apart of having few NPC on your side?

What I would like to see in BG3 is more ways to benefit evil chars (Maybe: can access black market stuff, join weird secret guilds, maybe skills and spell that can only be used by evil chars)

Summary:
I would like a more equitable distribution of consequences/advantages for each alignment. I would like that you have ways more benefit to playing an evil char and more consequence of playing a good char (for example, can't sell stolen stuff if you are good and things like that).

Your view on this?

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I find it problematic to have an equivalence between the "good" side and the "bad" or "evil" side. In any world/setting and in any society, you are not going to find such an equivalence. So from a story-writing and world-building standpoint, having good and evil being equivalent is not going to work. Either the good side should be preferred, or the evil side should be preferred (like in Tyranny). Trying to have it both ways will result in nothing mattering in the world.

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The reputation system in Baldurs Gate was horrible, probably the worst mechanic in the game. It was nearly impossible to play a non-good character and evil companions like Viconia left you when you rep was 18 or higher, which meant I had to cheat constantly to keep her in my party.
The worst part was that your alignment wouldn't change even if you went on a killing spree.
BG3 needs an alignment system like NWW or Pathfinder where your choice affects your character's alignment.

Originally Posted by kanisatha
I find it problematic to have an equivalence between the "good" side and the "bad" or "evil" side. In any world/setting and in any society, you are not going to find such an equivalence. So from a story-writing and world-building standpoint, having good and evil being equivalent is not going to work. Either the good side should be preferred, or the evil side should be preferred (like in Tyranny). Trying to have it both ways will result in nothing mattering in the world.


That's not possible in Baldurs Gate 3 because Good and Evil are very real powers in the world of the forgotten realms.

Last edited by Hawke; 07/08/19 05:18 PM.
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Originally Posted by Hawke
The reputation system in Baldurs Gate was horrible, probably the worst mechanic in the game. It was nearly impossible to play a non-good character and evil companions like Viconia left you when you rep was 18 or higher, which meant I had to cheat constantly to keep her in my party.
The worst part was that your alignment wouldn't change even if you went on a killing spree.
BG3 needs an alignment system like NWW or Pathfinder where your choice affects your character's alignment.

Originally Posted by kanisatha
I find it problematic to have an equivalence between the "good" side and the "bad" or "evil" side. In any world/setting and in any society, you are not going to find such an equivalence. So from a story-writing and world-building standpoint, having good and evil being equivalent is not going to work. Either the good side should be preferred, or the evil side should be preferred (like in Tyranny). Trying to have it both ways will result in nothing mattering in the world.


That's not possible in Baldurs Gate 3 because Good and Evil are very real powers in the world of the forgotten realms.

Yes good and evil both exist as real things in the FR, but unless you are in a few specific locales (Thay, Zentil Keep, etc.), in most of the setting the people of the area are of good or neutral alignment and not evil. So obviously you the PC will have a much easier and more productive experience if you are also good/neutral rather than if you are evil. Hence my observation of there not being an equivalence between the two. Good/neutral PCs are by definition going to have an advantage versus evil aligned PCs. But the reverse will be true if you were playing in Thay, for example.

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That was something I found it funny in the old BG series.
So, I understand if you are a merchant and you want to lower your prizes to those gentle and noble souls that saved the land from impending disaster and kitties from trees several times.
But, If you are a merchant and then enters a spawn of baal, killer of dozens of Flaming Fists, armor made of the skin of dead dryads, weapons stained in fresh blood, a reputation of killing grannies that look at him funny and eat baby unicorns for breakfast... Are you really going to charge him double price in your sales? What could possibly go wrong?


Last edited by _Vic_; 07/08/19 10:26 PM.
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I know there's at least one mod out there that gives you discounts for very high and very low reputation.


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As Hawke, I think reputation system in BG1 and BG2 was at best useless. And a dumb mechanic the rest of the time.

I honestly don't like it much in D:OS either.
I think the only game (that I played) that made reputation well is Tyranny.

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Originally Posted by _Vic_

But, If you are a merchant and then enters a spawn of baal, killer of dozens of Flaming Fists, armor made of the skin of dead dryads, weapons stained in fresh blood, a reputation of killing grannies that look at him funny and eat baby unicorns for breakfast... Are you really going to charge him double price in your sales? What could possibly go wrong?

That's an interesting perspective.

I think it will be a good idea to positive incentives to Good, Neutral, and Evil.
Some illegal shops and certain NPCs might react better to Evil reputation. And I think the party should be able to pay money to get bad reputation.
In Baldur's Gate you can donate to a temple and get good reputation.
It would be an improvement if you can donate to the Thieves guild for example and gain bad reputation.

The hard part is to figure out positive incentives for Neutral reputation.
I can't think of much myself.

Last edited by vometia; 19/08/19 07:51 AM. Reason: formatting
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Maybe discounts in your friendly neighborhood druid store?

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I think a renown system is more likely then a BG1 style reputation system, all the characters will likely remember your actions. Alignment us less important in 5e mostly fluff outside a few spells.


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