Fallout New Vegas Karma System

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Invites you to join us in revisiting PC gaming days gone. Today, we revisit Obsidian's Fallout: New Vegas, which seemingly every comments thread around calls the best one. Read on to see if Andy agrees.Left for dead, you wake up in the one-horse town of Goodsprings and begin a quest for vengeance in the Mojave Wasteland. That’s the beautifully simple setup for Fallout: New Vegas, which makes the vault sequence in Fallout 3, where you watch your character grow up, seem needlessly long-winded. After a quick chat with a local doctor, voiced by Saul Tigh from Battlestar Galactica, you’re set free. And it’s up to you whether you want to hunt down the people who tried to kill you, or just drift aimlessly around the desert like Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name.The Mojave is a far cry from the grim, shattered ruins of the Capital Wasteland. This part of the United States wasn’t bombed quite so heavily, and has retained some colour and life over the centuries.

Vegas

Fallout 3 was a sea of blues and greys, but New Vegas sizzles with oranges and reds. It’s a more vibrant post-apocalyptic wasteland, but still tinged with the melancholy, desolate tone that defines the Fallout series. You begin the game on the edge of the desert among isolated towns and rolling tumbleweed, then move closer to New Vegas itself, where civilisation has a stronger foothold.'

  1. Maybe but I still really do think its introduction was a great idea and I really wish new vegas had it instead of its karma system because it just seemed like something that they bolted on because fallout 3 had it.
  2. The karma system in fallout nv makes the most sense out of all karma systems I see. – DeanMc Feb 22 '11 at 15:37 'Two wrongs don't make a right' would more accurately describe the killing of the opposing faction's member in the first place: the wrongs are typically committed by opposing people, not by the same person.

I wasn't expecting much differ from Fallout 3 because both games have the same graphics and I still think of Vegas as a DLC pack or expansion rather than a brand new game heretrix Member Since.

So much of Fallout is bleak,' says writer and designer Eric Fenstermaker in a 'making of' film included in the Collector's Edition. 'Everything has been blown up, but the New Vegas Strip is unique in that no nuclear weapons hit it. So when you go in you’re immediately struck by the fact that this is one of the last places that still feels like the old world.' And although the reveal of the Strip isn’t as impressive as it could have been—a result of the slightly creaky, ugly engine the game was built in—it’s still interesting to explore an area of Fallout’s wasteland that isn’t totally ruined.West worldBut the Mojave has a very different feel when you wander out to the edges of the map, feeling more like an old western—an atmosphere enhanced by the catchy cowboy ballads that play on your Pip-Boy’s radio. 'I took a motorcycle trip through the desert and went all around the outskirts of Las Vegas,' says project director Josh Sawyer in the same making of film. 'Travelling by motorcycle, you get a lot more opportunities to see the world around you.

And it gave me a really strong feeling of what it’s like being out there in the desert, which I then tried to bring into the game.' A slick, smooth-talking New Vegas gangster called Benny, played brilliantly by Matthew 'Chandler Bing' Perry, left you for dead at the start of the game, and chasing him is, at least to begin with, the focus of the story. Benny’s appearance, specifically his garish black-and-white plaid suit, is based on real-world Vegas gangster Bugsy Siegel—one of many historical figures Obsidian looked to for inspiration when creating the game’s characters. But in the big picture, Benny is small time compared to some of the other antagonists you’ll encounter in the Mojave.There’s the enigmatic Mr House, inspired by infamous Vegas businessman Howard Hughes. He’s a pragmatist, and even a force for good in the wasteland in some ways. But you don’t get that powerful without a certain level of ruthlessness. Then there’s Caesar’s Legion, a tribal army planning to assault and capture the New Vegas Strip and nearby Hoover Dam, whose preferred method of dealing with enemies is crucifying them.

And there are other, smaller groups, too, including the Powder Gangers, the Boomers and the Jackals. You’re never short of enemies in New Vegas.One of New Vegas’ best tricks is sidelining the binary karma system for reputation. Karma is still there, but it has much less bearing on the game. How the factions perceive you is a lot more important, and it’s worth making a few friends. Get cosy with the Brotherhood of Steel and they’ll give you access to their safehouse and occasionally fill a crate with energy weapons and ammo.

But anger them and Veronica—one of the better companions—will refuse to join you. Pal up with the New California Republic and you’ll get a radio that lets you call for backup and supply drops. Upset them and they’ll send a hit squad in your direction.But the game’s greatest strength, and the reason many consider it the best of the 3D Fallout games, is the writing.

Obsidian has a solid background in storytelling, and it shows in New Vegas. Quests are more interesting, with a moral greyness that Fallout 3 sorely lacked.

In a GDC talk about designing its branching narrative, Sawyer said he wanted to avoid 'Jesus/Hitler' moments: those blunt choices where one option is selfless and noble, and the other is comically evil. 'The agony of a choice should fall somewhere between these two spectrums,' he says in the talk.

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'A player should feel like there’s something good and bad about what they pick.' New Vegas doesn’t have the moral ambiguity of some of Obsidian’s other games, particularly the magnificent Pillars of Eternity, but it’s one of the things that sets this Fallout apart from the Bethesda entries in the series. Arguably, though, the Mojave isn’t as evocative a setting as the Capital Wasteland. Civilisation's post-nuclear collapse is felt more vividly in Washington DC. It has a bleakness that you never really get a sense of in the Mojave.

That was almost certainly Obsidian's intention, to show us another side of the Fallout setting, but there’s something more compelling about the hopelessness of the Capital Wasteland on that level. Allied assaultBut in pretty much every other respect, Fallout: New Vegas is the better game. Many of the companions are rich, interesting characters with distinctive personalities, and not just dumb automatons following you around.

There are more ways to talk and think your way out of trouble. And the faction system makes it enormously replayable. In one playthrough you might side with the NCR to protect the Hoover Dam; in the next you'll buddy up with Caesar's Legion and help them capture it. And depending on who you decide to join forces with, some missions will close off and others will open up. Your allegiances really do have an impact on the game.Some of the worst things about New Vegas—dead-eyed character models, janky animation, feeble FPS combat—were inherited from Fallout 3, so I can’t really blame Obsidian for much of that. Overall, it did an incredible job, especially when you consider that it created the entire thing in just 18 months.

It also found time to make some quality of life improvements, including a radial menu that lets you easily give orders to your companions, and weapon mods. It even added a survival mode that forces you to eat, sleep, and drink to stave off death, and where companions can die permanently if they take too much damage.The debate about which 3D Fallout is best has been raging for years, and probably will forever. But for my money, New Vegas is the clear winner. Obsidian’s historical ties to the series and its deep understanding of the lore—thanks to the involvement of 'Fallout Bible' writer Chris Avellone—makes for a much more consistent, authentic take on the setting. The quests are more entertaining and varied, the characters are stronger, and the faction system makes it a much richer role-playing experience. I don't know if Obsidian will ever make another game in the series, but I'd love to see it take another yank of the one-armed bandit.

Contents.Karma levels You begin the game with a value of zero, which increases or decreases based on the players actions. There are 5 levels of karma:ValueKarmaImage-1000 to -750Very Evil-749 to -250Evil-249 to +249Neutral+250 to +749Good+750 to +1000Very GoodOverviews Karma doesn't have as much of effect on gameplay as in Fallout, Fallout 2 and Fallout 3, since reputation has a more important place.However, it does still exist and if someone catches you performing an action that causes negative Karma against their faction you will often lose reputation with that faction; for example, stealing something from where a can see you. They may also become openly hostile despite your reputation with them not being lowered enough for you to be considered hated where they will attack you.Karma's basic mechanics work similarly to the way they do in Fallout 3 (a 2001 point linear scale with -1000 being the most evil and +1000 the most good).

Unlike reputation, where one can only gain fame or gain infamy, karma can be gained and lost.Karma also no longer determines which companions you can recruit. However, when opening a conversation with after she has joined you and when you have substantially negative karma (-100) she will complain about your behavior.

You will get a second warning when your karma is even lower (-150). After that, she won't complain anymore, as long as the player stays neutral. When you continue on your path to 'the dark side' and talk to her again while having evil karma (-250) she will leave for good.

Fallout New Vegas Karma System Requirements

Note that Cass does not actually grant the player any grace period to improve their karma, so a player who doesn't know better can alienate her in the space of minutes by making three attempts in a row to converse with her. Even though she will agree to accompany an evil character, the first attempt to talk with her (which you will need to do in order to tell her to travel with you) will result in her telling the player that they 'can be a real asshole sometimes' and the first of three strikes will be used up on the spot.The values for karma gain may be bugged; currently killing Very Evil NPCs (such as Vulpes Inculta) gives only 2 karma, yet killing some Fiends and Feral Ghouls grants 100 karma.Some ending narration in the game's epilogue will also depend upon the player's karma. (See for details.)Karma titles Your karma status is defined by a 'karma title', depending of your karma points and on your level.