This is actually one of my specialist subjects that I’ve been trying to fix for ages. The underlying issue is that Obsidian changed the convention from Fallout 3. It was the case in FO3 that killing evil characters awarded no karma, killing very evil characters awarded -50 karma, and murdering non-evil characters was -100. In New Vegas, this was changed to have different values for very evil, evil, neutral, good, and very good. Note the key differences: in Fallout 3, you have to “murder”, not simply kill, and it applies to all non-evil characters, which includes neutral and good/very good. By “murder” the engine seems to interpret that as if you start the fight first. These changes causes a whole host of issues that Obsidian didn’t foresee. In FO3, civilians could be neutral if they were just average joes. They would logically give negative karma if killed. However, in Fallout NV, they would need to be good to give negative karma if killed. Some NPCs such as doctors were already assigned to good, so if normal civilians were changed to be good too, there would be nothing separating them. Some of the differences in the early implemented NPCs are probably due to them starting out differently when creating NPCs before realising this flaw. It’s pretty obvious that Obsidian did this so that the main factions could be neutral and not cause karma changes when they were killed. JSawyer tried to fix this, but probably made it worse, since he made all prostitutes good (the same as doctors) whilst leaving the vast majority of other civilians as neutral. Now prostitutes are better people than most wastelanders apparently. There’s also a more fundamental issue with the karma system, which seems to be a bug. Sometimes you simply just don’t get any karma for killing people. You can test this by killing fiends with something like JSawyer installed. The game is very inconsistent on whether it decides it actually give you positive karma. The same goes for killing civilians. I believe this might be related to faction crime flags and the game incorrectly deciding that you’ve murdered or not murdered an NPC. I never got to the bottom of that, so that’s why I never released a mod to realign NPC karma values. It was sort of pointless with the underlying bug.
@Rudolf I wouldn't be surprised if it *was* taken into account, but it was so low on the totem pole of gamebreaking problems it couldn't feasibly be worked on during company hours. Josh Sawyer did try to fix it on his own with the Jsawyer mod after all, so at the very least, he knew it was an issue.
i think its super weird how "evil" in fallout 3 is treated like everyone is just on the same side. like the slavers in paradise falls just assume you're cool and on their side because youve murdered a bunch of people?
@@daskampffredchen I feel like the dudes at paradise falls would be like “damn I’ve heard about this guy, this motherfucker is crazy…. And dangerous. Maybe we can hire him!” Lol
*drug a priest so a woman can grape him *You gained karma* *Avenge the people of Tenpenny tower after they were masacred by a psychopathic ghoul *You lost karma*
I've always thought that ghoulified soldiers at Searchlight were not actually evil, but you gain karma for putting them out of their misery and them being marked as evil in the engine is just a mechanical simplification.
The way I see it for Deathclaws, it's less about if they are morally evil or not for a creature and more of "You killed this deathly dangerous creature which makes it safe for others" Unless they really did just actually make a mistake
the fact that you used FTL music as background is so confusing - I've literally spent a good minute or so trying to figure out whether I had it launched or not
I’ve gotta be one of the very few people who was happy that the karma system was made all but non-existent in new Vegas. I didn’t like the restriction it presented in 3. “Oh you want to have this person as your follower? Well too bad, your play-style doesn’t fit them.” If you don’t have a good or neutral play through on 3 you only get access to some of the worst followers in the game who end up dying in nearly any interaction with enemies.
I think a faction marked Evil just means the player can steal from them without karma loss. Not sure where I picked that up, though, it could be wobbly.
You sure? I remember stealing from Powder Gangsters still nets you karma loss despite gaining you karma for killing em. Other example is you lose no karma for stealing from Silver Rush but you also not gain karma for killing them, so where did you get dat hunch?
It makes sense for Karma to be underdeveloped in New Vegas, since it was just a rudimentary measurement for your reputation across the entire wasteland in Fallout 3. After adding a more formal rep system, I honestly think Obsidian might've been better off axeing karma entirely (as Fallout 4, which also includes multiple factions and a form of reputation, would later decide to do). Of course, rep can also be broken by knowledgeable players. Since you get all of your negative rep with the major factions reset after killing Benny, it's objectively best to do any extra content that will antagonise your endgame faction (including nuking it, naturally) before finishing the first act of the game.
Do you have any source links for the comments by JSawyer? Writing a masters thesis related to karma systems in games and would be helpful to have those
rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/an-archive-of-josh-sawyers-formspring-from-april-2010-through-march-2013-over-1-mb-of-text.128571/ A lot of his posts are here, tho there's probably also some stuff on SomethingAwful and Tumblr
Karma is one of those systems I'm honestly glad was dropped from the series. It really makes no sense for the game to assign you an arbitrary alignment based on a numeric value. That's always seemed a little odd in the context of Fallout and little too DND-like. It really doesn't add much to the game in the first place. I don't need a karma value to tell me that killing an entire town is bad, I can think for myself.
It's funny to think that in a game where you can go out of your way to roleplay as a murderous cannibal that sneaks live grenades into people's pockets as a pastime and nukes the NCR and Legion as a practical joke, the easiest way to rack up bad karma is by stealing stuff. Imagine being branded as Satan just for petty theft, only for the game to call you Jesus after a quick shootout with random thugs just outside The Strip. Ironically, this is still better than Fallout 3 where you could nuke an entire city -- to which your father will voice his disappointment with all the intensity of finding out his child failed a maths test or something -- and undo all your bad karma by giving water to the homeless or donating a few thousand caps to some bloke at Rivet City...and then kill him to get your coin back for just a minor hit to your karma. In fact, the only way to leave a permanent reminder of your evil deeds is by poisoning the Wasteland's water, at which point you'd have an easier time convincing people you're a complete nutcase rather than an evil bastard. And if nothing else, remember that in Fallout 2 you could get good karma for killing hookers...
karma would probably have worked better on a local level rather than a global level for example, killing profligates as a legion envoy would probably be seen as "good" in the eyes of the legion but "bad" to pretty much everyone else, while on the same token, killing caesar would be seen as "bad" in the eyes of the legion but "good" to everyone else this would have solved the issue with story essential characters being given good karma or bad karma, as this would change depending on which faction you sided with essentially, karma would've been better presented locally alongside faction reputations
you can thank Bethesda for pulling obsidian way from their CHILD by giving them 2 years to work on this shit, such a shame we could have gotten a really massive game
Good thing about good karma is that it gives tou 100 more hp points if you taka a perk. At max bad karma you get extea damage n ap regen Netral is mid really only giving crits n only when low on health tho it can be really powerful for crit builts.
The karma system obviously was not a priority and probably should have been removed entirely. It worked for Fallout 3's more black and white idea of good and evil(even if sometimes it doesn't make sense in that game either) but New Vegas's Reputation system has more nuance to it, and having a karma and alignment system on top of that kind of defeats the purpose deciding for yourself what is morally right or wrong in a ROLE-PLAYING game. Even DnD started phasing out alignment for this reason.
Fallout: new vegas from what I can tell was rushed, not because of the incompetence of the devs, but due to the outrageous deadline set by bethesda softworks for obsidian to make it, I wouldnt be surprised that the game would be a bestseller, even above skyrim if they had twice the amount of time if not 3 times the amount of time to make it. It probably would have ended with a more fleshed out Karma system too.
Those who go insane from a lack of animal obtained vitamins should automatically lose Karma as they lose the capacity act humanely. Kind of like those who profess to be woke Vegans. Vitamins A, B12, and others. A fear of death is not a love of life.
I really liked Fallout 3's karma system, people calling you out or praising you for your actions is pretty immersive,and I like that some NPCs will give you random stuff for having very good karma.
@@JoahTheThread5ive Both great games I just liked fallout 3 way more I could split hairs with ya but we will most likely disagree about everything except unarmed and weapon mods other than that fallout new Vegas is barely radioactive it feels like red dead redemption at times but slower
@@JoahTheThread5ive I just completed a full run of new Vegas last week the expansions were a rip off it's a 2 second game also old world blues is stupid hahaha
Karma was a vestigial appendage in New Vegas, the reputation system was a far more advanced form of reputation tracking, Karma became a Companion reputation system
Interesting take. I think, in practice, you are totally correct. Could it be made useful? In new vegas you can't really play an evil character if you want to complete the most amount of quests. Maybe if bad karma unlocked fiend shops or if the khans were an evil only faction without necessarily being a Legion faction.
@@thomasstone4283 I don't think Karma is really salvageable because you'd have the question of "who is keeping track of you and what you do" it makes sense for each city and faction to have their reputation but it makes no sense that the entire wasteland knows how of much of a good or bad boy you are without Three Dog stalking you and reporting it. That's why it could only really work as a Companion reputation system (though modern games would just have companions have their own individual reputation systems)
@@cyberninjazero5659you could replace karma with some sort of "global fame/infamy" system Some actions like killing random civillians are objectively evil while other like saving people from raiders arent all that ambiguous This system would add all your "positive" and "negative" reputation points from all factions into a single stat (negative reputation points dont substract the positives) In theory this system should also ignore petty crimes that reduce reputation like stealing garbage or minor good actions like giving a hobo 10 caps just so you cant abuse the systen, global fame would only take into account reputation points that you get from major quests
@@thomasstone4283 I realize it is probably in the realm of exploits but aren’t there Karma sinks in new Vegas. Like there are in fallout three like basically you can figure out how to repeat something over and over that gives you negative karma in fallout three you can do this with a certain quest I forget which one but if you keep selecting a certain dialogue option over and over you lose karma
I like Sawyer's interpretation of the system. It seems to essentially boil down to unnecessary cruelty vs unnecessary mercy. If you're going to have a system like this without trying to push the player one way or another, this is probably the best interpretation to have
I disagree with him about moore though. Yeah those deaths are easy to avoid....for the courier. But look at it from her perspective. The Khans were a glorified raider gang that has been plaguing the NCR since shady sands. The only reason peace is possible now is because the NCR is too big for the khans to fight and too merciful to wipe them out. And if you listen to Bitter Root and Manny, both former khans, Khan society is all kinds of fucked up. The Brotherhood are essentially a doomsday cult that hoards technology waiting for the rest of the world to die so that they will inherit the earth. Oh and they violently attack anyone ho has technology they want. Only one branch on the east coat actually tried to fix the world and the SECOND their leaders mysteriously died, they basically became the imperium of man from 40k. The kings are a violent street gang that have been roughing up NCR charity workers for distributing food to their citizens. And they brutally beat every envoy the NCR sent to get a peaceful resolution. From her perspective, she's asking a private military contractor to take out a historical foe who has spat on every mercy the NCR has offered and is currently allied with their greatest enemy, a street gang that attacks humanitarian efforts and refuses to negotiate, and a cult of gun fetishists who think nobody but them should have access to high technology. Then said PMC goes behind her back and over her head to directly contravene her orders in order to get peace with groups that the NCR has no guarantee won't turn on them. I get that she's making this more personal than it needs to be but look at it from her perspective and she's being quite reasonable.
@@RXdash78not to mention that Crocker is useless, Hsu and Dhatri can't get anything done with barely soldiers, Kimball is a puppet, and Oliver is a self righteous yes man. Moore is one of the few commanding officers actually trying.
It's either do you want to save these puppies or let them die in a meat grinder? I like that in fallout 4 many quests you actually have rewards,if you are good you get good relationship with people and compliance if you are evil you get something they have for example being a terrible person on "diamond city blues" will make you rich i like when being evil rewards you because otherwise there is no reason whatsoever to be (yes i praised fallout 4 come on hate comments)
@@erikerik3823I actually completely agree with being evil being incentivized by money being a good thing that 4 did. In nv I noticed being an evil bastard was just so much more hard to "roleplay" as given there was hardly reward in many of the cases. The only way I was able to roleplay successfully as a violent bastard was by being a lazy bounty hunter that liked things done quick so instead of befriending the boomers/ncr he found out the safest and quickest way to eliminate them all. Caps or rewards would have gone a long way to open up more possible roleplay scenarios though.
@@calamaribowl8683meh, still useless. Played as stealth cannibal kleptomaniac and still have good carma that moment i travelled to fiends territory. I probably could have maintained negative carma by eating everything, but oh gosh i hate that animation. Even worse than that one animal pelt from far cry 3/4 for me
Karma is one of those mechanics that is interesting to use but it's just too hard to translate into gameplay. Even Reputation, which is more realistic and expanded, tends to boil down to "have X positive reputation to get reward" experience.
True. Sadly NV crew needed more dev time or a chance at a new Fallout game to expand on reputation system. Aka you being able to get quests or more dialogue choices [NCR] etc
How is it that RPGs have alignment systems that are actually two-dimensional rather than just one-dimensional, and they manage just fine? I hate this narrative of Obsidian as a pariah. The truth is they just didn't know what to do with the mechanic that was in the series since the very first game, and didn't think ahead to either use it or just remove it. The world is not out to get them, they're just not that good. I was going to say that Obsidian is not the true Fallout, but then I had an epiphany. The entire series is schizophrenic. There was never a time in the history where two main Fallout games were made consecutively by the same core team. The core principles are muddled and forgotten. To be perfectly honest, I think the series is best enjoyed when looking at it from an outside perspective. As a trainwreck that it is.
@@ChadVulpes I love it when people can't tell the difference between an anime pfp and a video game character pfp that just so happens to uses an art style similar to anime because *gasp!* It was made in Japan! Totally doesn't oust them as a xenophobe.
I always thought it was sensible for feral ghouls to give good karma because you're putting former humans out of their misery. That's why I like the ghoul quest in fallout 4 for the brotherhood of steel
There's no mind left to be in misery. The higher mental faculties that would have allowed them to identity self and recognize their own suffering has deteriorated hence the term "feral". They simply act on animal instinct and most likely an aggression caused by brain damage there's really nothing left of them to suffer. The idea of not wanting to kill them is dumb though. For a faction that's all about technology they manage to recruit a bunch of idiots, I guess logic and reason aren't part of their teachings. Just a bunch of techno tribal fools.
@@danielsurvivor1372Because like one commenter said before the Karma system is a vestigial leftover from Bethesdas simplified lazy world building in Fallout.
Personally, I like the focus on Reputations over Karma in New Vegas. And by the early 2010s, Karma trackers were so rote in games that it felt like a real evolution, not a simple substitution. But I do think they could have done some interesting things regarding Karma. Then again, the lack of moralizing in New Vegas can be part of why the world is so captivating to players. Removing Karma entirely may have been the right call.
I agree, I think reputation is a much better way to achieve what the karma system was doing. I mostly ignore the karma in NV and just look at how factions view me. I think Karma systems force morality too much. The main time new Vegas is really guilty of this imo is when you kill fiends and powder gangers.
I remember killing boxcars on my very first playthrough with an incinerator I got from the convict boss in Primm and I think I spent a good 30 minutes laughing at the fact I gained karma for burning a crippled man to death while I watched him scream in agony in slow motion.
@@danielsurvivor1372 Yeah, a sort of miniboss. More health, leather armor, and armed with a heavy incinerator. He's in the first floor of the casino Beagle being held hostage in, in the dining room.
Recently Schizo Elijah spoke briefly in one of his videos that Karma in New Vegas is more flawed and shallow than Fallout 3, which caused a lot of confusion. This video explains everything perfectly about how and why the Karma system is indeed flawed in New Vegas.
Probably has something to do with it more so being broken than flawed. Either way the faction reputation system is leagues better than the karma system for NV
It clearly wasn't really focused on at all and was only in New Vegas because it's an extra feature from F03 that would've been a pain to get rid of. The Faction Rep system does its job 1000X better anyways.
its one of the few things they totally half assed. obsidian made a great enough game. not everything needs to be polished to a mirror finish that being said, i feel like playtesting should of revealed killing feral ghouls turns you into the lord and savior of the wasteland.
I always Roleplay neutral Courier in new Vegas there is a bunch good I do but I defs have a twisted side now that I’ve done a few playthroughs I think fallout new Vegas protagonist is perfect as neutral just out of how many people see u as a vessel for opportunity they can mold I think if your neutral canonically that’d make sense you’d just kinda play devils advocate by agreeing and being somewhere in the middle feel like fo3 it’d be cannon the Vault dweller would be good cuz James is a doctor trying to save the wastes
@@BillehBobJoe bad karma actually did matter in fallout 2 since the bounty hunters would sometimes carry extremely rare late game weapons, like the super sledge. in fallout 3 having good karma was really good as it lets you join the regulators, rewarding you for basically doing what you've always been doing (killing raiders) with extra caps and exp. was kinda weird though when you gained karma for killing a raider, lost karma for eating his corpse, but then gained karma again for selling his finger to the regulators.
@@windhelmguard5295 regulators is the perk lawbringer otherwise its an unmarked location. But I don’t remember gaining karma for killing raiders and enclave who do drop the finger Two random facts lawbringer gives access to a unique raider with special knuckle weapon in the dc cementary And the leader of the regulators has a 10mm pistol that does over twice the damage of the sniper. But she cant die and never uses the pistol in combat
@@TheDeadWannabe Already did that at level 4, thanx for playing try again. Not enough items to steal in the whole game to balance out fiend and ghoul kills. I have already had a playthrough ruined by good karma kills, cannibal perk is MY solution. My OP was a comment about the benefits to the Cannibal perk on an evil playthrough. I am NOT soliciting advice, do not need any. Only advice I need is a mod for removing the karma gain for killing--available for Xboxone. BTW...I know it doesn't exist.
The Karma system isn't necessarily bad, it's just way too simple for a big RPG with huge narrative implications for anything. Like as mentioned in the video Boxcar is a great example, I think it's a bit weird to give karma for just killing NPCs who are already hostile to you or whatever, but even if you accept killing all Powder Gangers is evil, it's obviously abhorrent to kill one who's of no threat to anyone by virtue of being a cripple. But the karma system isn't set up for context, killing an evil character is always good, so unless a dev flips their karma too good, it makes it good to kill them, but then you have someone who is likely a murderer/bandit with good karma. It just needs to be way more open ended, and more time given to the morality of every little action, like stealing a gun from the Powder Gangers shouldn't be an evil action, but it should still be stealing.
I'm doing an NCR playthrough where I killed of BoS, the great Khans, and the Powder Gangers. The game said I was neutral, then all of a sudden they're saying that I'm an evil karma devil lmao
Not entirely true, if someone is part of the gang and supporting them in a way to be considered part of them they are likely contributing to hurting others. There where two instances in real life where 1 person saying no stopped a nuclear weapon from being used. Heck if you've seen how some people make due with injuries some cripples could kill you.
I actually like Neil having evil karma. It implies a lot about him, and since he definitely has a history of working under the master it's not difficult to imagine he's done some missed up things.
I think the whole issue with the karma system is that it just works on a binary sliding scale. To truly make the karma system actually good it would have to be something like the reputation system, but also, judging morality from an objective perspective everyone is going to agree with is always going to be difficult unless the answer is staring you in the face.
I think the karma system should be scrapped. It's overly binary, leads to weird situations where you're at the whims of the opinions of the quest designers and as Sawyer said, its antithetical to create scenarios that make the player think and question their ethics when you have to assign numerical good boy or bad egg points to their actions. Moreover, it's kind of immersion breaking how omniscient it makes everyone in the game towards your actions. You can't steal a spoon in stealth without the whole wasteland docking you points for it. Obsidian had the right idea with the reputation system and while they likely couldn't axe karma at the time for engine reasons, you can kinda tell they would've preferred to and I think future games should follow that line of thought.
Karma is still lowkey almost better than in F3 due to small fixed. 1) it not being as important 2) If you steal sumn and get caught, almost no NPC instantly kill you, they just take it back, which makes sense(though it makes no sense why player can't try to steal said item again) 3) It has less ridiculous karma taking or giving moments, besides ghouls and fiends. E.x. F3 takes you karma for killing Roy, one of the most evil ghoul mfs to exists in Fallout, since he will always massacre Tenpenny residents, even if you remove racists. While NV doesn't have such insane misalignments, maybe Niel having evil karma is closest we have and that one is probably engine issue. 4) that's about it xd
The issue with Karma is that the choices are given a binary good or bad outcome. It's essentially shoehorned beliefs. If you disagree with the karma outcome, it's too bad. There's no discussion to be had.
@@exiledhebrew1994 what if they deserve it? What if they were going to kill even more people? Is massacring the Legion bad? It gives good karma. Is massacring the enclave bad? That gives good karma too. What about killing the ghouls that try to kill everyone in Tennpenny Tower? If you do, you get bad karma and 3 Dogg talks shit about you on the radio.
@@PresAlexWhit killing legion soldiers is good; but massacring all legion, even slaves and merchants, is bad. Not everyone under a legion flag agreed with their ways. Killing all the Ghouls in ten penny tower is morally wrong because not all of them were genocidal, only Roy Phillips was. Killing him can be somewhat justified, but wiping out a whole settlement is not. Killing Enclave soldiers is good; but enclave are always hostile like raiders, and attack the innocent on sight; forfeiting their right to life.
It's a shame that you didn't ask Josh Sawyer for WHY Mr House is set as good karma character. Neutral seems like a perfect fit, like Caesar, you can make good arguements for why Mr House ending is best or worst, and yet game's karma suggests it's evil to kill him, aka all path besides Mr House one are evil bcus they force you to kill him. Maybe one day you can ask NV devs why they set Mr House karma to good in the first place. Was he meant to be a different character? Or is it set to good karma because at one point you were able to peacefully dethrone him in NCR path?
Apparently there is a leftover in the GECK revealing that it was possible for House to surrender to the NCR (and hilariously - start paying taxes) and become an NCR citizen. But this was probably cut because no Megacorpo CEO would kneel to taxes and faction choices were made to have "no compromises" to prevent an "objectively good" or "objectively bad" route.
@@Steelion69 i can see why they didnt want a "best and worst" ending but faction compromises sound cool as fuck and doesn't necessarily mean theres a best ending. Like you just couldn't have every faction kumbaya together but forcing house to compromise with the NCR by blowing up his robots just makes sense and is a good option for non lethal playthroughs. maybe could even make a legion version of the quest and blow up the robots under the fort and either destroy or secure the chip then offer House position of Consul of vegas if he sides with caesar during the battle.
Deathclaws *totally* could have karma - some of them have human+ intelligence! Most* (or all) were killed by the Enclave in Fallout 2, but I can't imagine some deathclaws would evolve on their own outside of experiments. Great video!
1:58 There are deathclaws that a capable of speech as part of an experiment. Whether or not this means that other death claws are capable of higher thinking is another question, but they are presumably capable of some concept of right and wrong.
She's just evil, not ultra evil. And it makes sense she unnecessarily wants you to kill nearly all factions she sends you to deal with, how tf that's not evil? In kings quest she literally wants you to instigate conflict, that's a very good way to use karma. Lose karma for doing *unnecessarily evil* actions that you can't justify without sounding schizo or gain karma for doing unnecessarily good actions. Moore is evil because she's instigating violence for no good reason besides "ewwwwww"
Due to the gray area of NV's choices I think they should have made killing grant negative karma, if the target was at least karmic neutral and not an automaton or animal. Good karma would be feasible to endgame with speech checks allowing you to bypass Lanius.
Karma just doesn't translate well into 3d fallout or atleast the core karma system needs to be scrapped and reworked because it just makes no sense most of the time. "yea stealing explosives from criminals using said explosives to kill people is wrong and you should feel bad, oh and if your a psycho cannibal just kill some drug addicts and you'll be alright"
I would say that Caesar should definitely have evil Karma, I'd even say Very Evil Karma. He has a certain degree of depth and humanity, but I don't that actually grants him much in terms of morality, in fact I think he's one of the eviler villains in the Fallout series.
I noticed Evil and Very Evil Karma in NV does lock you out of some quests, and Good and Very Good Karma probably gets you into some quests as well. An early example was when I decided to just rob every house in Goodsprings blind on one character, but all those little -5 Karma hit per stolen item quickly added up, getting me into Very Evil territory in minutes. Since I was doing an evil run anyway, I went to side with the Powder Gangers to take the town over. To my shock, I was so evil that the Powder Ganger contact said "Something about you is off, I just can't trust you, sorry" and I was actually locked out of the quest. While yes, Reputation is far more important in NV than Karma, it does still have effects with NPC's and quests, so it's not completely vestigial.
And not matter how much karma you have, and on what side you are, while you have good reputation with the faction you're good, example freeside, don't care if you are good or evil, you're still Courier for the eyes of everyone, meanwhile if you're liked/idolized in freeside no matter what karma you have, you will still get rewards from The Kings, and Ralph will still sells you his secret weapons
I'm glad Karma got left behind in Vegas; Reputation is better in how it doesn't attempt to dictate objectively what is a "good" or "bad" thing to do, it allows the player flow into it's world and make decisions base on what *they* feel is moral rather than make arbitrary decisions because it's "good" or "bad" - I know that in Fallout 3 I definitely felt more compelled to make certain choices to acheive the most benign outcome - whereas Vegas can be so morally grey and offer genuinely tough *choices* based on *how you feel as a person* which inspires many internal debates on your philosophies or feelings on certain things, after all, Fallout was always about the kinds of ethics a post apocolyptic society might adopt, having the player chase this pseudo jesus persona is just strange to me.
> says fuck within the first minute of the video (and first time I can remember in any video) > lost karma > RUclips disliked this > Smiling Troublemaker (demonetisation)
I think this is fixed with the unofficial patch. I only play with that on and from what i noticed killing evil npcs rewards 5 karma, and 100 for very evil.
I always thought killing feral ghouls gave you good karma because you were putting them out of their misery or something. Now I notice is just all jank lol
Hey you can easily become irredeemably evil, just steal everything you come across and it becomes way harder to move the number back up. Lost Cass several times not realizing what was happening because, killing slavers bad but stealing from slavers is worse??
They clearly meant to replace Fallout 3's Karma with the Faction Reputation system... but somehow kept Karma in, anyway. Vestigial, as was quoted. They should probably have removed it from the Pipboy and just set everyone to neutral.
Karma has always kinda been weird in Fallout; in the original games it was semi-justified and had logic to it (i.e kill children on accident? Congrats you are now being chased by goons) However the system has been weak even since Fo3 due to simplicity and being more a companion + manhunt gate (hence why it was basically replaced with Companion attitude in FO4) and in New Vegas was almost redundant with Factions being the more important feature. Personally I still think Karma should return - but it should more like Red Dead Redemption's Honor system (A small town with good people has a rep system, but their reactions are different depending on your karma - chasing you off when you're a very evil person, but accepting of you as a sort of wasteland hero with very good karma, killing in general does not affect karma unless the rare very evil or very good karma - but aiding a caravan against attacking tribals would gain an increase in karma, attacking dead bodies results in minor karma loss, etc)
Setting aside the issue of NPCs with nonsense alignments, a good way to do a karma system would be to put the caps on positive and negative karma as arbitrarily large, such as -60,000 instead of -100, but then put caps on how much different actions can affect karma, e.g. stealing can reduce your karma to a minimum of -X but murder can reduce your karma to a negative of -10X or something like that. Also, if there would also be very few actions which can push karma above the positive equivalent of the murder threshold, that would keep mass murderers from achieving good karma since repeated murders would push karma low enough that it would become infeasible to afterwards achieve positive karma through normal play.
I was a kid when Fallout 1 came out, didn't start playing until NV. I asked a friend, "what's up with 'karma'?" He said, "Ignore it. Steal everything and align yourself with good factions." So, I stole everything, killed House, and put myself in charge of New Vegas. Me run Bartertown 😁
Karma really didnt belong in New Vegas in the first place. The fact that all factions including Cesar's legion needed to be neutral to not tell the player whos wrong and right just highlights how unfitting the system was for the games design. I always ignore it completely in playthroughs.
Karma was never intended to affect much since the very start of the franchise. It was basically a gauge of how much of a douchebag you are. Maybe 1 or 2 characters comment on it but that’s it. What NPCs normally react to were your attributes, skills and perks/traits. New Vegas was a return to form and almost abandoned Karma entirely in favour of the MUCH better Reputation system.
Playing a “thief/assassin” for the NCR or stealing one too many items from “villain factions” will still get Cass too hate and leave (or try to kill you). This makes NO FN SENSE.
Here’s the thing although fallout 3 karma was a bigger selling point I think new Vegas had some really terrible rotten actions you could do that genuinely made me feel awful, the things u can do with the couple trying to get into the boomers, pulling the pins on the grenade prank in dialogue & some of the things u can do to make slaves collars explode there is more like feeding a companion to the white glove society selling Gannon to ceaser but yah u can do some dastardly things in fallout the wasteland is already so messed up I think it feels good to be good although funny if ur a psychopath it does feel really bad to be evil and that’s kinda how it’s supposed to feel irl but why fallout was the coolest games to me when they came out no game let u have karma like them then fo4 & 76 dropped and they got rid of it so who knows if they’ll even keep it going forward I really won’t enjoy the series if they remove it from future games
There shouldn't be a karma system at all in NV, letting it be vestigial in the game was a mistake, both taking away valuable time that could've been spent fixing other systems or on content that was later cut and providing no real gameplay value in the finished product (barring determining whether or not companions would join you - which honestly would have been better off tied to factions).
The first time I ever saw the word "karma" in FO3, I understood the mistake that had been made. Karma isn't real, folks, the universe doesn't reward you for being "good," and it doesn't punish you for being "evil." The whole concept is fake, straight out of the depraved, filthy reincarnation cults, and should never have been inserted into a game, or anything else. "Oh yeah, then what about "Instant Karma," by John Lennon?" Lennon was simply repeating a mistake that had been made before he was even born.
It’s almost impossible in Fallout 3 to be anything but the Messiah because there are hardly any evil choices to make if you don’t blow up Megaton. You have to go out of your way to kill and steal everything to be even neutral.
I did legion playthrough and I’ve killed everyone on the strip and purged many ncr camps but the game still thought I am very good person lol , karma system is broken
Truth be told I felt like the karma in New Vegas was much better than in fallout 3. Call me blind if you like but somehow I managed to not find any one of these karma bugs for the time I have played the game. I guess it is because it is a specific situation which I never had a reason to try. For example with the wastelanders in Vault 3. Usually I would first open the door and then murder them if I was on genocidal playthrough. Good to know there is a mod that fixes some stuff
I *do* in fact steal everything that isn't nailed down and I've never had my Karma drop below neutral. It's a very underdeveloped system and honestly I'm fine with that. I never liked the idea of the game assigning me good boy points, especially when the long term implications of my actions are to cause as much mayhem in the Mojave as possible.
I honestly think the Karma system is completely contradictory to the morally grey choices you can make throughout the game. Nothing is ever supposed to be black and white, every choice you can make is meant to be reasonable and justifiable in some capacity, and seeing as to how little thought was given on how to implement Karma I think it would've been better if it was just removed entirely
you know i had never really thought about this my first playthrough i made all the good guy choices but killed almost everyone and i still had high karma i had assumed it had something to do with faction reputation overweighing it but never gave it much more thought
All I do is steal and help the good guys, I'm Idolized by all the good factions and Hated by the bad and my character is still very evil according to Fallout NV karma system.
This is actually one of my specialist subjects that I’ve been trying to fix for ages.
The underlying issue is that Obsidian changed the convention from Fallout 3. It was the case in FO3 that killing evil characters awarded no karma, killing very evil characters awarded -50 karma, and murdering non-evil characters was -100. In New Vegas, this was changed to have different values for very evil, evil, neutral, good, and very good. Note the key differences: in Fallout 3, you have to “murder”, not simply kill, and it applies to all non-evil characters, which includes neutral and good/very good. By “murder” the engine seems to interpret that as if you start the fight first.
These changes causes a whole host of issues that Obsidian didn’t foresee. In FO3, civilians could be neutral if they were just average joes. They would logically give negative karma if killed. However, in Fallout NV, they would need to be good to give negative karma if killed. Some NPCs such as doctors were already assigned to good, so if normal civilians were changed to be good too, there would be nothing separating them. Some of the differences in the early implemented NPCs are probably due to them starting out differently when creating NPCs before realising this flaw. It’s pretty obvious that Obsidian did this so that the main factions could be neutral and not cause karma changes when they were killed. JSawyer tried to fix this, but probably made it worse, since he made all prostitutes good (the same as doctors) whilst leaving the vast majority of other civilians as neutral. Now prostitutes are better people than most wastelanders apparently.
There’s also a more fundamental issue with the karma system, which seems to be a bug. Sometimes you simply just don’t get any karma for killing people. You can test this by killing fiends with something like JSawyer installed. The game is very inconsistent on whether it decides it actually give you positive karma. The same goes for killing civilians. I believe this might be related to faction crime flags and the game incorrectly deciding that you’ve murdered or not murdered an NPC. I never got to the bottom of that, so that’s why I never released a mod to realign NPC karma values. It was sort of pointless with the underlying bug.
Keep up the great work
👍
@Rudolf I wouldn't be surprised if it *was* taken into account, but it was so low on the totem pole of gamebreaking problems it couldn't feasibly be worked on during company hours. Josh Sawyer did try to fix it on his own with the Jsawyer mod after all, so at the very least, he knew it was an issue.
Welp i guess being a prostitute is a noble cause in the wasteland
nothing wrong with being a prostitute lol. definitely a better person than most
i think its super weird how "evil" in fallout 3 is treated like everyone is just on the same side. like the slavers in paradise falls just assume you're cool and on their side because youve murdered a bunch of people?
Even fallout 2 didn't work that way, so yeah, it was super weird and unintuitive.
Still my favorite. Bingo bango bongo
Paradise Falls was more that you had a Reputation of being open to horrible acts but often the Karma felt weird in F3
@@daskampffredchen I feel like the dudes at paradise falls would be like “damn I’ve heard about this guy, this motherfucker is crazy…. And dangerous. Maybe we can hire him!” Lol
*drug a priest so a woman can grape him
*You gained karma*
*Avenge the people of Tenpenny tower after they were masacred by a psychopathic ghoul
*You lost karma*
Niel being considered evil is completely baffling.
I've always thought that ghoulified soldiers at Searchlight were not actually evil, but you gain karma for putting them out of their misery and them being marked as evil in the engine is just a mechanical simplification.
You are exactly right as talking to one of the patrols in the area asks you to put them out and take there tags
The way I see it for Deathclaws, it's less about if they are morally evil or not for a creature and more of "You killed this deathly dangerous creature which makes it safe for others"
Unless they really did just actually make a mistake
the fact that you used FTL music as background is so confusing - I've literally spent a good minute or so trying to figure out whether I had it launched or not
I’ve gotta be one of the very few people who was happy that the karma system was made all but non-existent in new Vegas. I didn’t like the restriction it presented in 3. “Oh you want to have this person as your follower? Well too bad, your play-style doesn’t fit them.” If you don’t have a good or neutral play through on 3 you only get access to some of the worst followers in the game who end up dying in nearly any interaction with enemies.
I think a faction marked Evil just means the player can steal from them without karma loss. Not sure where I picked that up, though, it could be wobbly.
You're right, but it makes no sense for it to be used at the 188 and not for the PG's
@@TriangleCity For sure, stealing from the 188 should be "bad" regardless. It's a messy system.
You sure? I remember stealing from Powder Gangsters still nets you karma loss despite gaining you karma for killing em. Other example is you lose no karma for stealing from Silver Rush but you also not gain karma for killing them, so where did you get dat hunch?
It makes sense for Karma to be underdeveloped in New Vegas, since it was just a rudimentary measurement for your reputation across the entire wasteland in Fallout 3. After adding a more formal rep system, I honestly think Obsidian might've been better off axeing karma entirely (as Fallout 4, which also includes multiple factions and a form of reputation, would later decide to do).
Of course, rep can also be broken by knowledgeable players. Since you get all of your negative rep with the major factions reset after killing Benny, it's objectively best to do any extra content that will antagonise your endgame faction (including nuking it, naturally) before finishing the first act of the game.
i remember getting "thief" in perks in Fallout 2 and it stopped my game cause no one wanted to talk to my character...
I always play as a good guy supporting the good guys, but my Karma is always super low because I steal so much stuff
Karma must be removed I wonder why no one made such mod for disabling it.
There is a mod that stops the notifications from showing up.
Do you have any source links for the comments by JSawyer? Writing a masters thesis related to karma systems in games and would be helpful to have those
rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/an-archive-of-josh-sawyers-formspring-from-april-2010-through-march-2013-over-1-mb-of-text.128571/
A lot of his posts are here, tho there's probably also some stuff on SomethingAwful and Tumblr
Gives a new meaning to "karma's a bitch"
Gonna need to make a video showing Johns mod running on the 360
Karma is one of those systems I'm honestly glad was dropped from the series. It really makes no sense for the game to assign you an arbitrary alignment based on a numeric value. That's always seemed a little odd in the context of Fallout and little too DND-like. It really doesn't add much to the game in the first place. I don't need a karma value to tell me that killing an entire town is bad, I can think for myself.
It's funny to think that in a game where you can go out of your way to roleplay as a murderous cannibal that sneaks live grenades into people's pockets as a pastime and nukes the NCR and Legion as a practical joke, the easiest way to rack up bad karma is by stealing stuff. Imagine being branded as Satan just for petty theft, only for the game to call you Jesus after a quick shootout with random thugs just outside The Strip.
Ironically, this is still better than Fallout 3 where you could nuke an entire city -- to which your father will voice his disappointment with all the intensity of finding out his child failed a maths test or something -- and undo all your bad karma by giving water to the homeless or donating a few thousand caps to some bloke at Rivet City...and then kill him to get your coin back for just a minor hit to your karma. In fact, the only way to leave a permanent reminder of your evil deeds is by poisoning the Wasteland's water, at which point you'd have an easier time convincing people you're a complete nutcase rather than an evil bastard.
And if nothing else, remember that in Fallout 2 you could get good karma for killing hookers...
karma would probably have worked better on a local level rather than a global level
for example, killing profligates as a legion envoy would probably be seen as "good" in the eyes of the legion but "bad" to pretty much everyone else, while on the same token, killing caesar would be seen as "bad" in the eyes of the legion but "good" to everyone else
this would have solved the issue with story essential characters being given good karma or bad karma, as this would change depending on which faction you sided with
essentially, karma would've been better presented locally alongside faction reputations
you can thank Bethesda for pulling obsidian way from their CHILD by giving them 2 years to work on this shit, such a shame we could have gotten a really massive game
Good thing about good karma is that it gives tou 100 more hp points if you taka a perk. At max bad karma you get extea damage n ap regen
Netral is mid really only giving crits n only when low on health tho it can be really powerful for crit builts.
I just turn the karma notifications off and ignore it anyways.
The karma system obviously was not a priority and probably should have been removed entirely. It worked for Fallout 3's more black and white idea of good and evil(even if sometimes it doesn't make sense in that game either) but New Vegas's Reputation system has more nuance to it, and having a karma and alignment system on top of that kind of defeats the purpose deciding for yourself what is morally right or wrong in a ROLE-PLAYING game. Even DnD started phasing out alignment for this reason.
If you think about Karma in real life it is pretty confusing do good do bad you're screwed either way
what the hell is the music in the intro bit
Just some samples I mixed together
I always thought you got good karma for killing ghouls because you are putting them out of their misery
I always assumed you got karma for killing ferals cause you were putting them out of their misery
I literally just stole everything and i have wasteland destroyer😢
Fallout: new vegas from what I can tell was rushed, not because of the incompetence of the devs, but due to the outrageous deadline set by bethesda softworks for obsidian to make it, I wouldnt be surprised that the game would be a bestseller, even above skyrim if they had twice the amount of time if not 3 times the amount of time to make it. It probably would have ended with a more fleshed out Karma system too.
You should 100% lose karma for harming animals. Just like in real life. Non-vegans have -1000 karma at all times.
Those who go insane from a lack of animal obtained vitamins should automatically lose Karma as they lose the capacity act humanely. Kind of like those who profess to be woke Vegans. Vitamins A, B12, and others. A fear of death is not a love of life.
I really liked Fallout 3's karma system, people calling you out or praising you for your actions is pretty immersive,and I like that some NPCs will give you random stuff for having very good karma.
NPCs at Paradise Falls will award the player random items if your karma is very evil too.
@@BigCoagulatedGravyHotDog thanks for reminding me.
anybody else subscribe just because he had the balls to say fuck on RUclips?
so you can say that in this game, karma is.....a bitch? (i'll see myself out for this joke)
Is it just me or is this video dim/dark as fuck?
Fallout 3 was better let's be honest 💥
Fallout New Vegas is a better RPG, better Fallout game, and just an overall better game.
@@JoahTheThread5ive get outta here millennial hahaha new vegas is awesome but it's not as good as fallout 3
@@joeoak7090
Fallout New Vegas is better in nearly every way.
@@JoahTheThread5ive Both great games I just liked fallout 3 way more I could split hairs with ya but we will most likely disagree about everything except unarmed and weapon mods other than that fallout new Vegas is barely radioactive it feels like red dead redemption at times but slower
@@JoahTheThread5ive I just completed a full run of new Vegas last week the expansions were a rip off it's a 2 second game also old world blues is stupid hahaha
Karma was a vestigial appendage in New Vegas, the reputation system was a far more advanced form of reputation tracking, Karma became a Companion reputation system
Interesting take. I think, in practice, you are totally correct.
Could it be made useful? In new vegas you can't really play an evil character if you want to complete the most amount of quests.
Maybe if bad karma unlocked fiend shops or if the khans were an evil only faction without necessarily being a Legion faction.
@@thomasstone4283 I don't think Karma is really salvageable because you'd have the question of "who is keeping track of you and what you do" it makes sense for each city and faction to have their reputation but it makes no sense that the entire wasteland knows how of much of a good or bad boy you are without Three Dog stalking you and reporting it. That's why it could only really work as a Companion reputation system (though modern games would just have companions have their own individual reputation systems)
@@cyberninjazero5659you could replace karma with some sort of "global fame/infamy" system
Some actions like killing random civillians are objectively evil while other like saving people from raiders arent all that ambiguous
This system would add all your "positive" and "negative" reputation points from all factions into a single stat (negative reputation points dont substract the positives)
In theory this system should also ignore petty crimes that reduce reputation like stealing garbage or minor good actions like giving a hobo 10 caps just so you cant abuse the systen, global fame would only take into account reputation points that you get from major quests
@@thomasstone4283 I realize it is probably in the realm of exploits but aren’t there Karma sinks in new Vegas. Like there are in fallout three like basically you can figure out how to repeat something over and over that gives you negative karma in fallout three you can do this with a certain quest I forget which one but if you keep selecting a certain dialogue option over and over you lose karma
@@smokedbeefandcheese4144 maybe, but just playing the game naturally gives you SOO much good karma.
I like Sawyer's interpretation of the system. It seems to essentially boil down to unnecessary cruelty vs unnecessary mercy. If you're going to have a system like this without trying to push the player one way or another, this is probably the best interpretation to have
I disagree with him about moore though.
Yeah those deaths are easy to avoid....for the courier. But look at it from her perspective. The Khans were a glorified raider gang that has been plaguing the NCR since shady sands. The only reason peace is possible now is because the NCR is too big for the khans to fight and too merciful to wipe them out. And if you listen to Bitter Root and Manny, both former khans, Khan society is all kinds of fucked up.
The Brotherhood are essentially a doomsday cult that hoards technology waiting for the rest of the world to die so that they will inherit the earth. Oh and they violently attack anyone ho has technology they want. Only one branch on the east coat actually tried to fix the world and the SECOND their leaders mysteriously died, they basically became the imperium of man from 40k.
The kings are a violent street gang that have been roughing up NCR charity workers for distributing food to their citizens. And they brutally beat every envoy the NCR sent to get a peaceful resolution.
From her perspective, she's asking a private military contractor to take out a historical foe who has spat on every mercy the NCR has offered and is currently allied with their greatest enemy, a street gang that attacks humanitarian efforts and refuses to negotiate, and a cult of gun fetishists who think nobody but them should have access to high technology. Then said PMC goes behind her back and over her head to directly contravene her orders in order to get peace with groups that the NCR has no guarantee won't turn on them.
I get that she's making this more personal than it needs to be but look at it from her perspective and she's being quite reasonable.
@@RXdash78 I don't rememeber her at all really, but I'm inclined to agree with you
@@RXdash78not to mention that Crocker is useless, Hsu and Dhatri can't get anything done with barely soldiers, Kimball is a puppet, and Oliver is a self righteous yes man. Moore is one of the few commanding officers actually trying.
It's either do you want to save these puppies or let them die in a meat grinder? I like that in fallout 4 many quests you actually have rewards,if you are good you get good relationship with people and compliance if you are evil you get something they have for example being a terrible person on "diamond city blues" will make you rich i like when being evil rewards you because otherwise there is no reason whatsoever to be (yes i praised fallout 4 come on hate comments)
@@erikerik3823I actually completely agree with being evil being incentivized by money being a good thing that 4 did. In nv I noticed being an evil bastard was just so much more hard to "roleplay" as given there was hardly reward in many of the cases. The only way I was able to roleplay successfully as a violent bastard was by being a lazy bounty hunter that liked things done quick so instead of befriending the boomers/ncr he found out the safest and quickest way to eliminate them all. Caps or rewards would have gone a long way to open up more possible roleplay scenarios though.
0:30 allow me to say that the transition with the explosives to the title was genius
🙏🙏🙏
I tried doing a very evil karma for a melee drug addict character but the fiends give so much karma I was *always* in the green.
The best way to counteract that is eat all corpses you see
@@calamaribowl8683meh, still useless. Played as stealth cannibal kleptomaniac and still have good carma that moment i travelled to fiends territory. I probably could have maintained negative carma by eating everything, but oh gosh i hate that animation. Even worse than that one animal pelt from far cry 3/4 for me
The only way i could get a very evil legion playthrough is stealing everything and dropping it all after to not weigh me down
I always thought it was weird how I would gain karma just for defending myself
It makes more sense when you realize the entire system was an afterthought lol
Karma is one of those mechanics that is interesting to use but it's just too hard to translate into gameplay. Even Reputation, which is more realistic and expanded, tends to boil down to "have X positive reputation to get reward" experience.
True. Sadly NV crew needed more dev time or a chance at a new Fallout game to expand on reputation system. Aka you being able to get quests or more dialogue choices [NCR] etc
How is it that RPGs have alignment systems that are actually two-dimensional rather than just one-dimensional, and they manage just fine? I hate this narrative of Obsidian as a pariah. The truth is they just didn't know what to do with the mechanic that was in the series since the very first game, and didn't think ahead to either use it or just remove it. The world is not out to get them, they're just not that good.
I was going to say that Obsidian is not the true Fallout, but then I had an epiphany. The entire series is schizophrenic. There was never a time in the history where two main Fallout games were made consecutively by the same core team. The core principles are muddled and forgotten. To be perfectly honest, I think the series is best enjoyed when looking at it from an outside perspective. As a trainwreck that it is.
@@ChadVulpes*Messes up one gameplay system*
"Um actually, they're not that good sorry guys."
Rofl okay
@@DeadHandtheSurvivor ok anime profile picture 🤭
@@ChadVulpes I love it when people can't tell the difference between an anime pfp and a video game character pfp that just so happens to uses an art style similar to anime because *gasp!* It was made in Japan! Totally doesn't oust them as a xenophobe.
I always thought it was sensible for feral ghouls to give good karma because you're putting former humans out of their misery. That's why I like the ghoul quest in fallout 4 for the brotherhood of steel
It makes sense, but considering that, like wildlife, you're almost always killing them for the sake of survival first, it shoudn't affect your karma.
I used to think that, but most of the time you kill them because they were in your path, not because you wanted to "free" them or something
Only issue is that you kill em for survival. So why is it treated as good karma choice is 99% of players will inevitably kill em for survival?
There's no mind left to be in misery. The higher mental faculties that would have allowed them to identity self and recognize their own suffering has deteriorated hence the term "feral". They simply act on animal instinct and most likely an aggression caused by brain damage there's really nothing left of them to suffer. The idea of not wanting to kill them is dumb though. For a faction that's all about technology they manage to recruit a bunch of idiots, I guess logic and reason aren't part of their teachings. Just a bunch of techno tribal fools.
@@danielsurvivor1372Because like one commenter said before the Karma system is a vestigial leftover from Bethesdas simplified lazy world building in Fallout.
Personally, I like the focus on Reputations over Karma in New Vegas. And by the early 2010s, Karma trackers were so rote in games that it felt like a real evolution, not a simple substitution. But I do think they could have done some interesting things regarding Karma.
Then again, the lack of moralizing in New Vegas can be part of why the world is so captivating to players. Removing Karma entirely may have been the right call.
I agree, I think reputation is a much better way to achieve what the karma system was doing. I mostly ignore the karma in NV and just look at how factions view me. I think Karma systems force morality too much. The main time new Vegas is really guilty of this imo is when you kill fiends and powder gangers.
I remember killing boxcars on my very first playthrough with an incinerator I got from the convict boss in Primm and I think I spent a good 30 minutes laughing at the fact I gained karma for burning a crippled man to death while I watched him scream in agony in slow motion.
Primm has a boss? Like on the first floor?
@@danielsurvivor1372 Yeah, a sort of miniboss. More health, leather armor, and armed with a heavy incinerator. He's in the first floor of the casino Beagle being held hostage in, in the dining room.
Gewd ggyun
“shooting street photography of the homeless” as an example of being completely evil is so fucking FUNNY
Anthony cumia?
Recently Schizo Elijah spoke briefly in one of his videos that Karma in New Vegas is more flawed and shallow than Fallout 3, which caused a lot of confusion. This video explains everything perfectly about how and why the Karma system is indeed flawed in New Vegas.
No, it's not flawed or shallow. It's just completely broken. Saying it's flawed or shallow implies the current system was intended. It's not.
The karma system in Fallout 3 was already flawed and shallow.
@@Maximum432 At least it was functional.
@@fordpines4661 And it's not needed in NV.
Probably has something to do with it more so being broken than flawed. Either way the faction reputation system is leagues better than the karma system for NV
Well to be fair, you can kill Mr. Burke right after exiting the vault and get good karma, even if you had no idea what his intentions were
Well. I guess the Karma knows that he was evil but I think the best solution would be if the game wouldnt tell you unless you know they are evil
It clearly wasn't really focused on at all and was only in New Vegas because it's an extra feature from F03 that would've been a pain to get rid of. The Faction Rep system does its job 1000X better anyways.
I don't think it would've been that difficult to disable, if anything it was probably more work for them to modify it as much as they did
its one of the few things they totally half assed.
obsidian made a great enough game. not everything needs to be polished to a mirror finish
that being said, i feel like playtesting should of revealed killing feral ghouls turns you into the lord and savior of the wasteland.
My headcannon is that Courier 6 operates outside of Karma's influence. It would explain some of their more "otherworldly" achievements.
I always Roleplay neutral Courier in new Vegas there is a bunch good I do but I defs have a twisted side now that I’ve done a few playthroughs I think fallout new Vegas protagonist is perfect as neutral just out of how many people see u as a vessel for opportunity they can mold I think if your neutral canonically that’d make sense you’d just kinda play devils advocate by agreeing and being somewhere in the middle feel like fo3 it’d be cannon the Vault dweller would be good cuz James is a doctor trying to save the wastes
Freeside Mfs will see you transcend morality and be like “he can’t even pay for a reputation change”
Fallout 4 ditching the entire invis tattletale system was one of the few things it did to improve the series.
it was meaningless in fallout 1 or 2 also. if you were very evil or killed children you got bounty hunters after you. similar to fallout 3 actually
Skyrim was weird about crime reporting as well, nothing like having your own horse report you to the guards
@@BillehBobJoe bad karma actually did matter in fallout 2 since the bounty hunters would sometimes carry extremely rare late game weapons, like the super sledge.
in fallout 3 having good karma was really good as it lets you join the regulators, rewarding you for basically doing what you've always been doing (killing raiders) with extra caps and exp.
was kinda weird though when you gained karma for killing a raider, lost karma for eating his corpse, but then gained karma again for selling his finger to the regulators.
Yep, they removed it alongside any form of roleplaying in F4 😂
@@windhelmguard5295 regulators is the perk lawbringer otherwise its an unmarked location.
But I don’t remember gaining karma for killing raiders and enclave who do drop the finger
Two random facts lawbringer gives access to a unique raider with special knuckle weapon in the dc cementary
And the leader of the regulators has a 10mm pistol that does over twice the damage of the sniper. But she cant die and never uses the pistol in combat
This is the ONLY reason I take the Cannibal perk at level 4, to keep bad karma until level 50 so I can take the "Ain't Like That Now" perk.
Funny how Cannibal got both directly(speech checks) and indirectly(hardcore more, maintaining evil karma) buffed in NV
You can just go to NCRCF and steal all the items to attain evil karma before level 50 to get the perk.
@@TheDeadWannabe Already did that at level 4, thanx for playing try again. Not enough items to steal in the whole game to balance out fiend and ghoul kills. I have already had a playthrough ruined by good karma kills, cannibal perk is MY solution.
My OP was a comment about the benefits to the Cannibal perk on an evil playthrough. I am NOT soliciting advice, do not need any. Only advice I need is a mod for removing the karma gain for killing--available for Xboxone. BTW...I know it doesn't exist.
The Karma system isn't necessarily bad, it's just way too simple for a big RPG with huge narrative implications for anything. Like as mentioned in the video Boxcar is a great example, I think it's a bit weird to give karma for just killing NPCs who are already hostile to you or whatever, but even if you accept killing all Powder Gangers is evil, it's obviously abhorrent to kill one who's of no threat to anyone by virtue of being a cripple. But the karma system isn't set up for context, killing an evil character is always good, so unless a dev flips their karma too good, it makes it good to kill them, but then you have someone who is likely a murderer/bandit with good karma. It just needs to be way more open ended, and more time given to the morality of every little action, like stealing a gun from the Powder Gangers shouldn't be an evil action, but it should still be stealing.
I'm doing an NCR playthrough where I killed of BoS, the great Khans, and the Powder Gangers. The game said I was neutral, then all of a sudden they're saying that I'm an evil karma devil lmao
Not entirely true, if someone is part of the gang and supporting them in a way to be considered part of them they are likely contributing to hurting others. There where two instances in real life where 1 person saying no stopped a nuclear weapon from being used. Heck if you've seen how some people make due with injuries some cripples could kill you.
I actually like Neil having evil karma. It implies a lot about him, and since he definitely has a history of working under the master it's not difficult to imagine he's done some missed up things.
I think the whole issue with the karma system is that it just works on a binary sliding scale. To truly make the karma system actually good it would have to be something like the reputation system, but also, judging morality from an objective perspective everyone is going to agree with is always going to be difficult unless the answer is staring you in the face.
I think the karma system should be scrapped. It's overly binary, leads to weird situations where you're at the whims of the opinions of the quest designers and as Sawyer said, its antithetical to create scenarios that make the player think and question their ethics when you have to assign numerical good boy or bad egg points to their actions. Moreover, it's kind of immersion breaking how omniscient it makes everyone in the game towards your actions. You can't steal a spoon in stealth without the whole wasteland docking you points for it.
Obsidian had the right idea with the reputation system and while they likely couldn't axe karma at the time for engine reasons, you can kinda tell they would've preferred to and I think future games should follow that line of thought.
Karma is still lowkey almost better than in F3 due to small fixed.
1) it not being as important
2) If you steal sumn and get caught, almost no NPC instantly kill you, they just take it back, which makes sense(though it makes no sense why player can't try to steal said item again)
3) It has less ridiculous karma taking or giving moments, besides ghouls and fiends. E.x. F3 takes you karma for killing Roy, one of the most evil ghoul mfs to exists in Fallout, since he will always massacre Tenpenny residents, even if you remove racists. While NV doesn't have such insane misalignments, maybe Niel having evil karma is closest we have and that one is probably engine issue.
4) that's about it xd
Apparently I'm a terrible person for turning in Private Stone even though he was stealing medical resources from the others.
@@danielsurvivor1372 I love the fact that in Fallout 3, if you steal a fork, the whole town will come after you and kill you.
The issue with Karma is that the choices are given a binary good or bad outcome. It's essentially shoehorned beliefs. If you disagree with the karma outcome, it's too bad. There's no discussion to be had.
you forgot the golden rule... unfortunate
Massacring people will always be morally evil
@@exiledhebrew1994 what if they deserve it? What if they were going to kill even more people? Is massacring the Legion bad? It gives good karma. Is massacring the enclave bad? That gives good karma too. What about killing the ghouls that try to kill everyone in Tennpenny Tower? If you do, you get bad karma and 3 Dogg talks shit about you on the radio.
@@PresAlexWhit killing legion soldiers is good; but massacring all legion, even slaves and merchants, is bad. Not everyone under a legion flag agreed with their ways.
Killing all the Ghouls in ten penny tower is morally wrong because not all of them were genocidal, only Roy Phillips was. Killing him can be somewhat justified, but wiping out a whole settlement is not.
Killing Enclave soldiers is good; but enclave are always hostile like raiders, and attack the innocent on sight; forfeiting their right to life.
@@PresAlexWhit massacring the legion is bad, hail Caesar
It's a shame that you didn't ask Josh Sawyer for WHY Mr House is set as good karma character. Neutral seems like a perfect fit, like Caesar, you can make good arguements for why Mr House ending is best or worst, and yet game's karma suggests it's evil to kill him, aka all path besides Mr House one are evil bcus they force you to kill him.
Maybe one day you can ask NV devs why they set Mr House karma to good in the first place. Was he meant to be a different character? Or is it set to good karma because at one point you were able to peacefully dethrone him in NCR path?
Apparently there is a leftover in the GECK revealing that it was possible for House to surrender to the NCR (and hilariously - start paying taxes) and become an NCR citizen.
But this was probably cut because no Megacorpo CEO would kneel to taxes and faction choices were made to have "no compromises" to prevent an "objectively good" or "objectively bad" route.
@@Steelion69 i can see why they didnt want a "best and worst" ending but faction compromises sound cool as fuck and doesn't necessarily mean theres a best ending. Like you just couldn't have every faction kumbaya together but forcing house to compromise with the NCR by blowing up his robots just makes sense and is a good option for non lethal playthroughs. maybe could even make a legion version of the quest and blow up the robots under the fort and either destroy or secure the chip then offer House position of Consul of vegas if he sides with caesar during the battle.
I've watched so many of your excellent cut content, that at the end, I added, ".... ended up on the cutting room floor."
Hahahaha
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Quick Tip: You can go from full Very Good to Very Evil by stealing all the dishes and food from the Ultra-Luxe's Kitchen
Deathclaws *totally* could have karma - some of them have human+ intelligence! Most* (or all) were killed by the Enclave in Fallout 2, but I can't imagine some deathclaws would evolve on their own outside of experiments.
Great video!
1:58 There are deathclaws that a capable of speech as part of an experiment. Whether or not this means that other death claws are capable of higher thinking is another question, but they are presumably capable of some concept of right and wrong.
fallout 2 is a bit over the top... took the series down an odd route
@@contramachina354 Oh totally, Fallout 2 was like, half shitpost, sometimes literally if you count Jet. But its still canon.
"This guy who has done countless genocides... Neutral.
This lady who is bloodthirsty and petty... Ultra evil."
Sure, Jan.
She's just evil, not ultra evil. And it makes sense she unnecessarily wants you to kill nearly all factions she sends you to deal with, how tf that's not evil? In kings quest she literally wants you to instigate conflict, that's a very good way to use karma.
Lose karma for doing *unnecessarily evil* actions that you can't justify without sounding schizo or gain karma for doing unnecessarily good actions. Moore is evil because she's instigating violence for no good reason besides "ewwwwww"
Yes, once again he's right.
Due to the gray area of NV's choices I think they should have made killing grant negative karma, if the target was at least karmic neutral and not an automaton or animal. Good karma would be feasible to endgame with speech checks allowing you to bypass Lanius.
There's also the level 50 perks which you can only select with a certain karma.
it got removed because it sucked and barely effected gameplay. boom I just saved yall 9 minutes.
It didn't get removed lmao
Karma just doesn't translate well into 3d fallout or atleast the core karma system needs to be scrapped and reworked because it just makes no sense most of the time. "yea stealing explosives from criminals using said explosives to kill people is wrong and you should feel bad, oh and if your a psycho cannibal just kill some drug addicts and you'll be alright"
I would say that Caesar should definitely have evil Karma, I'd even say Very Evil Karma. He has a certain degree of depth and humanity, but I don't that actually grants him much in terms of morality, in fact I think he's one of the eviler villains in the Fallout series.
Thank you for your channel. I never miss an upload.
🖤🖤🖤
I noticed Evil and Very Evil Karma in NV does lock you out of some quests, and Good and Very Good Karma probably gets you into some quests as well. An early example was when I decided to just rob every house in Goodsprings blind on one character, but all those little -5 Karma hit per stolen item quickly added up, getting me into Very Evil territory in minutes. Since I was doing an evil run anyway, I went to side with the Powder Gangers to take the town over. To my shock, I was so evil that the Powder Ganger contact said "Something about you is off, I just can't trust you, sorry" and I was actually locked out of the quest. While yes, Reputation is far more important in NV than Karma, it does still have effects with NPC's and quests, so it's not completely vestigial.
I think you were locked out of the Powder Gangers quest because you agreed to help Ringo beforehand.
Courier deemed too rancid to work with terrorists, quote, "the vibes were off"
And not matter how much karma you have, and on what side you are, while you have good reputation with the faction you're good, example freeside, don't care if you are good or evil, you're still Courier for the eyes of everyone, meanwhile if you're liked/idolized in freeside no matter what karma you have, you will still get rewards from The Kings, and Ralph will still sells you his secret weapons
The stuff in the powder ranger prison was owned by the NCR
You can explain that way for head canon if you want, but the only reason it actually happens is because of the Powder Gangers faction settings
I'm glad Karma got left behind in Vegas; Reputation is better in how it doesn't attempt to dictate objectively what is a "good" or "bad" thing to do, it allows the player flow into it's world and make decisions base on what *they* feel is moral rather than make arbitrary decisions because it's "good" or "bad" - I know that in Fallout 3 I definitely felt more compelled to make certain choices to acheive the most benign outcome - whereas Vegas can be so morally grey and offer genuinely tough *choices* based on *how you feel as a person* which inspires many internal debates on your philosophies or feelings on certain things, after all, Fallout was always about the kinds of ethics a post apocolyptic society might adopt, having the player chase this pseudo jesus persona is just strange to me.
I only wish they had ripped it out entirely and made the dialogue that is karma dependent reliant on reputation instead.
> says fuck within the first minute of the video (and first time I can remember in any video)
> lost karma
> RUclips disliked this
> Smiling Troublemaker (demonetisation)
I think this is fixed with the unofficial patch. I only play with that on and from what i noticed killing evil npcs rewards 5 karma, and 100 for very evil.
We love you Triangle City
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Jk
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Well, Josh Sawyer himself said they want to get rid of karma
1:55 I think logic behind killing creatures and getting good karma is that "less dangerous creatures in Mojave less deaths"
I always thought killing feral ghouls gave you good karma because you were putting them out of their misery or something. Now I notice is just all jank lol
Hey you can easily become irredeemably evil, just steal everything you come across and it becomes way harder to move the number back up. Lost Cass several times not realizing what was happening because, killing slavers bad but stealing from slavers is worse??
They clearly meant to replace Fallout 3's Karma with the Faction Reputation system... but somehow kept Karma in, anyway. Vestigial, as was quoted. They should probably have removed it from the Pipboy and just set everyone to neutral.
Karma has always kinda been weird in Fallout; in the original games it was semi-justified and had logic to it (i.e kill children on accident? Congrats you are now being chased by goons) However the system has been weak even since Fo3 due to simplicity and being more a companion + manhunt gate (hence why it was basically replaced with Companion attitude in FO4) and in New Vegas was almost redundant with Factions being the more important feature.
Personally I still think Karma should return - but it should more like Red Dead Redemption's Honor system (A small town with good people has a rep system, but their reactions are different depending on your karma - chasing you off when you're a very evil person, but accepting of you as a sort of wasteland hero with very good karma, killing in general does not affect karma unless the rare very evil or very good karma - but aiding a caravan against attacking tribals would gain an increase in karma, attacking dead bodies results in minor karma loss, etc)
Setting aside the issue of NPCs with nonsense alignments, a good way to do a karma system would be to put the caps on positive and negative karma as arbitrarily large, such as -60,000 instead of -100, but then put caps on how much different actions can affect karma, e.g. stealing can reduce your karma to a minimum of -X but murder can reduce your karma to a negative of -10X or something like that. Also, if there would also be very few actions which can push karma above the positive equivalent of the murder threshold, that would keep mass murderers from achieving good karma since repeated murders would push karma low enough that it would become infeasible to afterwards achieve positive karma through normal play.
I was a kid when Fallout 1 came out, didn't start playing until NV. I asked a friend, "what's up with 'karma'?" He said, "Ignore it. Steal everything and align yourself with good factions." So, I stole everything, killed House, and put myself in charge of New Vegas. Me run Bartertown 😁
Karma really didnt belong in New Vegas in the first place.
The fact that all factions including Cesar's legion needed to be neutral to not tell the player whos wrong and right just highlights how unfitting the system was for the games design.
I always ignore it completely in playthroughs.
Karma was never intended to affect much since the very start of the franchise.
It was basically a gauge of how much of a douchebag you are. Maybe 1 or 2 characters comment on it but that’s it.
What NPCs normally react to were your attributes, skills and perks/traits.
New Vegas was a return to form and almost abandoned Karma entirely in favour of the MUCH better Reputation system.
Playing a “thief/assassin” for the NCR or stealing one too many items from “villain factions” will still get Cass too hate and leave (or try to kill you). This makes NO FN SENSE.
Here’s the thing although fallout 3 karma was a bigger selling point I think new Vegas had some really terrible rotten actions you could do that genuinely made me feel awful, the things u can do with the couple trying to get into the boomers, pulling the pins on the grenade prank in dialogue & some of the things u can do to make slaves collars explode there is more like feeding a companion to the white glove society selling Gannon to ceaser but yah u can do some dastardly things in fallout the wasteland is already so messed up I think it feels good to be good although funny if ur a psychopath it does feel really bad to be evil and that’s kinda how it’s supposed to feel irl but why fallout was the coolest games to me when they came out no game let u have karma like them then fo4 & 76 dropped and they got rid of it so who knows if they’ll even keep it going forward I really won’t enjoy the series if they remove it from future games
I have some mods that improve the karma by adding karma-dependent perks
Heyyy whats with the swearing, I thought this was a christian channel
Lmao I guess you haven't seen my earlier videos 😂
There shouldn't be a karma system at all in NV, letting it be vestigial in the game was a mistake, both taking away valuable time that could've been spent fixing other systems or on content that was later cut and providing no real gameplay value in the finished product (barring determining whether or not companions would join you - which honestly would have been better off tied to factions).
The first time I ever saw the word "karma" in FO3, I understood the mistake that had been made. Karma isn't real, folks, the universe doesn't reward you for being "good," and it doesn't punish you for being "evil." The whole concept is fake, straight out of the depraved, filthy reincarnation cults, and should never have been inserted into a game, or anything else. "Oh yeah, then what about "Instant Karma," by John Lennon?" Lennon was simply repeating a mistake that had been made before he was even born.
It’s almost impossible in Fallout 3 to be anything but the Messiah because there are hardly any evil choices to make if you don’t blow up Megaton. You have to go out of your way to kill and steal everything to be even neutral.
"Almost impossible to maintain evil karma" duuude I've been permanently very evil in NV no matter what, literally ONLY from stealing
I turned off the Karma notification completely. I don’t need constant judgment for every action, I mean, who is even judging me?
I did legion playthrough and I’ve killed everyone on the strip and purged many ncr camps but the game still thought I am very good person lol , karma system is broken
Truth be told I felt like the karma in New Vegas was much better than in fallout 3. Call me blind if you like but somehow I managed to not find any one of these karma bugs for the time I have played the game. I guess it is because it is a specific situation which I never had a reason to try. For example with the wastelanders in Vault 3. Usually I would first open the door and then murder them if I was on genocidal playthrough. Good to know there is a mod that fixes some stuff
I *do* in fact steal everything that isn't nailed down and I've never had my Karma drop below neutral. It's a very underdeveloped system and honestly I'm fine with that. I never liked the idea of the game assigning me good boy points, especially when the long term implications of my actions are to cause as much mayhem in the Mojave as possible.
I honestly think the Karma system is completely contradictory to the morally grey choices you can make throughout the game. Nothing is ever supposed to be black and white, every choice you can make is meant to be reasonable and justifiable in some capacity, and seeing as to how little thought was given on how to implement Karma I think it would've been better if it was just removed entirely
Never been a fan of karma at all, it's just too artificial and binary which fallout usually isn't
you know i had never really thought about this my first playthrough i made all the good guy choices but killed almost everyone and i still had high karma i had assumed it had something to do with faction reputation overweighing it but never gave it much more thought
All I do is steal and help the good guys, I'm Idolized by all the good factions and Hated by the bad and my character is still very evil according to Fallout NV karma system.