IWD:EE reputation system

Blackraven

A few months ago I played some IWD with the 'IWD in BG2 engine' mod and I found that my party's reputation never changed (at least for the portion that I played, up to and including Dragon's Eye). It simply stayed at 12, probably due to having a Paladin as my first character.

In vanilla IWD reputation is not displayed at all, though apparently the game did have a reputation system: I just googled a bit and I found that Paladins and Rangers could fall. Either way the game is very enigmatic when it comes to aspects such as shop prices or reputation gains or losses related to certain behavior.

Now that IWD:EE is done in the BG:EE engine, which does have a visible reputation counter, I'm wondering, will our actions indeed affect reputation (shop prices, NPC reactions etc), and will we be able to see this somewhere in the character record screen?

Edit: I wouldn't necessarily mind it if reputation weren't visible, though I do think that our actions should have consequences. I didn't really like that aspect of IWD in BG. A good-aligned party shouldn't be allowed to kill Erevain for his sword without any repercussions.

SharGuidesMyHand

Blackraven said:

In vanilla IWD reputation is not displayed at all, though apparently the game did have a reputation system: I just googled a bit and I found that Paladins and Rangers could fall. Either way the game is very enigmatic when it comes to aspects such as shop prices or reputation gains or losses related to certain behavior.

I remember one of the manuals or strategy guides for IWD basically saying, "You can be as evil as you want to, except for killing innocents, and you won't take a reputation hit."

Blackraven

@SharGuidesMyHand‌
Ah interesting, thanks for your reply. It makes we wonder if there is any recompense being good. Anyway, as people are very silent on my question, I guess we'll just have to wait and see

JuliusBorisov

Yeah, it would be interesting to find out because I support @Blackraven‌ that our actions should indeed have consequences, just as they do in BG.

I think an enhancement like this won't damage IWD but instead would make it better.

Calmar

A reputation system makes no sense in IWD since the story always *requires* you to be allied with the settlements you visit and doesn't really allow to do otherwise. There is no given reason for the player to try to antagonize places like Easthaven, Kuldahar, or Lonelywood, since your job is to protect them. It also makes no sense for the people of those places to even be *aware* if you commit a crime somewhere out in the mountains where no one can tell the tale.

Casadoom

To add to Calmar's post, throughout the game, you are presented as the one and only hope for survival to these people. Doesn't matter if you are a bloodthirsty butcher that kills anything on his path while eliminating the threat or an idealistic paladin... they need you and they know it. Unless you start killing citizens, which turns the entire town hostile which means game over, the town should not particularly care.

In BG2, however, the NPC's are generally not particularly aware of the threat that you are facing or that you are their only hope until like the final chapter.

With that said, I could understand some kind of system that progressively gives you certain discounts depending on how much you have advanced the plot and specific quest paths taken.

Schneidend

Calmar said:

A reputation system makes no sense in IWD since the story always *requires* you to be allied with the settlements you visit and doesn't really allow to do otherwise. There is no given reason for the player to try to antagonize places like Easthaven, Kuldahar, or Lonelywood, since your job is to protect them. It also makes no sense for the people of those places to even be *aware* if you commit a crime somewhere out in the mountains where no one can tell the tale.

This sort of comes about as the biggest problem with the rep system, that even if the target is completely isolated or you kill them with total stealth, you can lose rep.

Jarrakul

Reputation is weird because it's supposed to both a morality meter and a popularity meter. This doesn't really work in practice. After all, if you kill someone in the middle of the woods and no one finds out, you should take a morality hit, but not a popularity hit. A paladin should fall, but shop prices shouldn't be affected. Meanwhile, if someone successfully frames you for murder, you should take a popularity hit, but not a morality hit. A paladin shouldn't fall for being framed, but store prices should be affected and the guards should probably come after you. The IE games handle reputation more like morality in terms of what affects it, but except for paladins and rangers, the effects are purely popularity-based. Which isn't super great.

atcDave

Schneidend said:

Calmar said:

A reputation system makes no sense in IWD since the story always *requires* you to be allied with the settlements you visit and doesn't really allow to do otherwise. There is no given reason for the player to try to antagonize places like Easthaven, Kuldahar, or Lonelywood, since your job is to protect them. It also makes no sense for the people of those places to even be *aware* if you commit a crime somewhere out in the mountains where no one can tell the tale.

This sort of comes about as the biggest problem with the rep system, that even if the target is completely isolated or you kill them with total stealth, you can lose rep.

The problem with "reputation" in IWD is really just purely what it's called. I think it exists purely to determine "fallen" status for Paladins (and Rangers? Should include good clerics too).
The PNP rule is supposed to be a single willingly evil act costs a Paladin their powers. So the reputation system is the vehicle they chose for implementing that.

As Jarrakul observes above, a dual system would likely be better, but I think the existing system works well enough, unless someone can design something better.

Dreadnaught

I honestly think the Reputation system in IWD would be waste.....if they added more quests that take rep. into consideration then it would be worth it.

Nimran

I remember reading a walkthrough of someone calling their party the Rat Bastards because the game forces the player to be more of an ass than an actual evil person.

Zeckul

Reputation doesn't really exist as far as the player is concerned in Icewind Dale. The only related mechanic is that killing innocents means losing Paladin or Ranger status, and that is, under the covers, implemented using the same reputation system as in Baldur's Gate, but the player isn't even made aware of that. AFAIK the only explicit reference to reputation the game makes is to display reputation losses in the console when you kill innocents, and that seems to me a small oversight.

As far as I'm concerned, reputation was a fundamentally broken system in the Baldur's Gate series, and it's only a good thing that it has lost nearly all significance in IWD.

jamoecw

P:T is the same engine and did morality/popularity much better imo. though any sort of story stuff was generally better in P:T than the others.

Jarrakul

PS:T did morality by having it actually affect alignment, which is pretty cool. I don't recall how it did popularity, except by Charisma and what faction you belonged to, but it did a lot more with those than BG ever did.

jamoecw

in BG or IWD if you pissed off a local the entire place would turn hostile, in PS:T only those that belonged to the faction would (in some cases it was just the one guy). i didn't explore the whole thing thoroughly so it might not be bug free or consistent but it seemed better. also if you killed some random guy via text it would keep it secret from others (story driven option).

as for the morality, even your side comments are taken into account (you could do lawful actions, but do silly things and end up neutral or even chaotic, and vise versa).