Reputation Revamp

Iecerint

The current/unmodded reputation system encourages immersion-breaking meta-gaming for evil playthroughs and could be improved, perhaps by adding perks for very low reputation to balance some of the disadvantages.

Apologies if a thread already exists; I couldn't find one with /search.

Nifft

In the other thread you had mentioned that Viconia refused to join your party due to your LOW rep giving her a low NPC reaction value.

That is just flat-out bad, either bad coding or bad game design.

bill_zagoudis

reputation is not a great system but it doesn't affect gameplay that much either, prices are unimportant and the extra combat is more of a flavour than a challenge...not saying i'd mind a change,in fact i would prefer it but no idea how...

Iecerint

Very low reputation is associated with uniformly poor NPC reaction rolls, poor prices, and being chased by the law.

Uniformly poor NPC rolls means that evil NPCs neglect to join (design oversight AFAICT), and poor prices means that acquiring cool stuff is basically harder for a character willing to do anything to get what they want.

Standard BGT/Tutu mods correct these first two issues by drastically lowering the required NPC rolls for evil NPCs (which masks rather than eliminates this issue, but it's an example of a quick/easy fix) and by introducing a quadratic element to the reputation -> prices system (i.e., prices are highest for players with reputation near 10, but they are lowest for players with very high or low reputation -- RP being that they charm or intimidate the shopkeeper into lower prices).

Being chased by the law is fine as far as I'm concerned. That's an appropriate low-reputation effect (though it's a little silly that discreet reputation reducitons still lead to the law chasing you), and it adds a fun element to the game. But the other issues, especially evil player NPC rolls, should be addressed.

Erg

Imo any change heavily affecting the gameplay, like the proposed revamp of the reputation system, should only be implemented through an optional mod.

I for one would most likely not make use of such mod if even existed, while others would be free to do as they please.

Messi

They could simply change the rep to work same way as BGFixpack(I think) does it, ie. both very high and very low rep get discounts. High because well they like and respect you and low because they fear you. I think that would be pretty easy change to make, and it wouldn't change to current rep system for good/neutral parties.

Edit: Also they really need to change the fact that evil npc's refuse to join because of bad rep. That doesn't make any sense at all.

Messi

Messi said:

They could simply change the rep to work same way as BGFixpack(I think) does it, ie. both very high and very low rep get discounts. High because well they like and respect you and low because they fear you. I think that would be pretty easy change to make, and it wouldn't change to current rep system for good/neutral parties.

Edit: Also they really need to change the fact that evil npc's refuse to join because of bad rep. That doesn't make any sense at all. They could make it so that evil chars doesn't join parties with over eg. 12 rep and good chars don't join parties under 8 rep, but that's probably too big change to how the game works and I'm not sure it would even be an improvement.

Didn't mean to quote myself. :P

Tome

I think that the Virtue mod dealt with this perfectly.

It splits reputation into two separate variables: Reputation, which represents how people in the game feel about the party; and Virtue, which represents how morally correct the party's actions are.

That way, you could roleplay a character who was incredibly evil, but donated to churches/killed in secret to make everyone think he was an upstanding citizen. Hopefully something similar comes out for BG:EE.

Nifft

Tome said:

That way, you could roleplay a character who was incredibly evil, but donated to churches/killed in secret to make everyone think he was an upstanding citizen. Hopefully something similar comes out for BG:EE.

I'd play the Hell out of that, pun intended.

A mod would also ideally change some quest rewards such that being Good actually COST YOU SOMETHING rather than almost always giving more gold and XP, and that being Evil actually benefited your PC.

Tome

Yeah, hopefully in BG:3 alignment could be treated differently:

~Good players get discounts from stores, but are hunted by disgruntled villains wary of this do-gooder threatening their plots. (steadily increasing chance of random ambushes from assassins, bounty hunters and the like) Good NPCs more likely to join. Get access to additional 'trust' options where people are more likely to open up to/trust the protagonnist due to their reputation.

~Evil Players get much more gold but are chased by law enforcement. Evil NPCs more likely to join. They have occasional access to 'intimidate' speech options that threaten adversaries with their fearsome reputation.

Both sides get equal amounts of XP and the same number of (but probably different) relics and treasures.

Nifft

Agree 100%. Both 'styles' ought to get something unique, including unique dialog options and some different magic items.

While we're fixing Good vs Evil, I wonder if it would be possible to make Law vs Chaos actually matter somehow.

elminster

I like the idea of the more/less your reputation is from 10 the better prices get. Also I agree Viconia should be fixed because its ridiculous that you have to have high charisma to convince her to join an evil party.

O_Bruce

Something like virtue mod would be welcomed, alas there is no point in wishful thinking.