Do you water ritual with everyone?

[Coffee]

I started out doing the water ritual with everyone I could because it seems friendly. But since everyone you treat with has their own enemies, I'm starting to wonder if it's a wash or worse. For example, when I got to the ape village, the plant person already hated me, and I think I must have treated with someone who had beef with Phyta. That was kind of a bummer---lost my plant friend before I even met them---so I've been avoiding it.

Yet it'd be weird to have such a in-your-face mechanic like this if it was really a negative to be avoided every time. Unless that's just part of the roguelike random challengeness?

[DJKingGhidorah]

It's definitely part of the roguelike aspect, because the factions liking and disliking each Water Ritual-able character are (with a handful of exceptions relating to non-random characters from the main quest) pretty random. As you have already discovered, it's unwise to reflexively water-bond everyone you can without examining the consequences, but I wouldn't say it's a wash either.

For one thing, bear in mind that the type of reputation each character has is also semi-random. By default, all characters are loved by the primary faction they're a member of, so you'll always get positive reputation with one faction. But whether their other reputation elements are hate/dislike or like/love is also not fixed: some characters may be disliked by two factions (meaning there are elevated negative consequences of water-bonding them) and other characters may be liked by two factions and not disliked by any (meaning there are no negative reputation repercussions for water-bonding them).

[Detective Costeau]

The random reputation hits are enough that I would suggest always checking them before doing the Ritual, and skipping on quite a few to avoid the problems it can cause. Being hated by some factions doesn't really matter, but there are a few that can cause serious issues if you're not careful in my experience.

The reputation system is one of the worse implementations of randomness in Qud IMO.

It's more frustrating than anything else with how easy it is to end up hated by factions that you can't really afford to be hated by- e.g. I've had games where I was at 'kill on sight' status with the Yd Freehold even though that character had never met or even heard of them yet, because they really liked some random legendary snapjaws I killed in self defense on the opposite side of the map from them.

It wouldn't be so bad if all of the story-critical factions had some system like the Mechanimists do to reliably gain positive reputation with them. As it stands you can end up hated for silly reasons, and have to jump through a bunch of hoops to fix it. It's something that could really use an overhaul, I think.

[Manwich]

Because there are mechanics which increase your gains (without increasing your losses) seems to suggest that it should be ok in the long run to do it. In fact, I think it would be quite the feat to be able to do the Water Ritual with everyone that is eligible.

Reputation issues seem to escalate when you start butchering every legendary enemy you cross. Blood is thicker than water.

I do think there are tactical decisions as well, because you don't want to lock yourself out of some opportunities. I, for example, cannot complete the Barathumite quest right now becausae Baetyls won't talk to me. Now I have to find a trade good to increase my reputation, or locate someone that is friends with them. Both of which are procedural.

[Manwich]

Originally posted by Coffee:

For example, when I got to the ape village, the plant person already hated me, and I think I must have treated with someone who had beef with Phyta. That was kind of a bummer---lost my plant friend before I even met them---so I've been avoiding it.

This example highlights what makes the reputation system pretty genius. So imagine now if you go and find some Phyta figurines. Equip them. Walk back to the town. "No plant man, look, I worship the same idols you do, we're friends now".

[Coffee]

Originally posted by Manwich:

Originally posted by Coffee:

For example, when I got to the ape village, the plant person already hated me, and I think I must have treated with someone who had beef with Phyta. That was kind of a bummer---lost my plant friend before I even met them---so I've been avoiding it.

This example highlights what makes the reputation system pretty genius. So imagine now if you go and find some Phyta figurines. Equip them. Walk back to the town. "No plant man, look, I worship the same idols you do, we're friends now".

I killed him. :(

[Pixel Peeper]

No, of course not.

Whenever I see someone with reputations, I decide if I'm going to ritual them (using a Love Injector if needed), kill them (regardless of whether they're friendly or not), or leave them alone based on the potential reputation changes.

Managing your reputations is a huge part of the game. If you just ritual anyone who's friendly and kill anyone who's hostile, your reputations are likely to go down the drain.

[glass zebra]

I look and every creature I consider a water ritual with and every legendary I am about to kill to check if there are some factions I really do not want to be hated with (or check if I have "enough reputation left" to kill them anyway).

True Kins also have to care about that much less due to the face implants and for some factions you can easily boost your reputation temporary (e.g. for Phyta there is cooking with algae and/or grave moss). That temporary boost or proselytize can also be nice to make a water ritual with an enemy to turn them neutral again.


I mean no. I mean to do that, but sometimes I forget and get interesting surprises.

[Coffee]

It's too bad reputation doesn't fade back to neutral over time. Even good reputation should fade back to neutral. This would be an easy fix for a convoluted system.

The factions are too many, too sprawling to manage or understand. If there were five factions, then, okay, you could intelligently weigh the consequences, manage your reputation, and remember a finite number of ways to +/- your reputation with each one. But there are dozens. I suspect only a few really matter, but it would take lots of spoilering to figure out which ones. And although there are some ways, for some factions, to +/- your reputation, the only way to know that is either random chance (which, given the genre, is a fleeting victory at best) or the wiki (for stable methods) and even then it looks like many or most factions have no reliable way to + rep. I don't think you could even just go out and kill a faction's enemies to + rep with them, because the love/hate tags are random (e.g., plants don't always hate robots, you can't go kill legendary robots to + rep with plants). Even just de-randomizing faction alliances across runs would make it manageable. If you knew that robots and plants always hated each other---or goats and spiders, or who knows what---then you could deal with it.

I'm starting to think the entire world map could be non-randomized, and the game would be improved. Right now, the procgen doesn't make anything feel fresh, because there's no character; I'm not sure I'd notice if I played the same map twice, given that everything is arbitrarily random so I just autoexplore and pay little attention to any specific map. Maybe that'd be a good project. A group of people could start with a procgen'ed game and and painstakingly clean up every map to make a world that feels "built" and immersive and distinctly appropriate to the lore that should govern that map (e.g., no subterranean marsh area with a random single corner marble wall, diagonal to a single glass wall, with turrets, glowfish, and a jewelry merchant for no discernible reason). Throw in some mods with handmade lore-appropriate questlines, and bam! you really would have Skyrim in tiles!

[glass zebra]

Imo there are probably not that many more than 5 "relevant" factions. I hardly care if pigs or bears hate me. You do not have to spoiler yourself in any way to not mess up the reputation system. If you see someone who is liked by a lot or liked by someone with whom you do not have a ton of reputation: don't kill them. Take it the other way around for water rituals and you are basically good to go.

You do not need to know all consequences if you avoid having them. Just don't throw your water at every single being you meet or kill reputable beings. Sharing secrets is another way to make sure you get more + reputation from a water ritual than -. That part is solely good for your reputation. The randomisation makes it frankly interesting instead of players always killing and water ritualing the same creatures each run without reacting to the world generation. I think removing the randomisation is one of the worst things that could happen to Qud and I am sure I am no alone with that opinion.

[Pixel Peeper]

Originally posted by serikos:

Imo there are probably not that many more than 5 "relevant" factions. I hardly care if pigs or bears hate me.

Interestingly, Bears know where Legendary Ichor Merchants are. It can be immensely beneficial to befriend them and ask them for secrets.

Robots, Insects and Oozes are really good reps to have, with a half-dozen other factions yielding significant benefits, but I tend to like to have good reps with everything. If I dump one rep it's probably going to be Snapjaws, maybe Goatfolk, and probably a few sultan cults that I have no hope of (or interest in) befriending.

Though having cults as friends can be super rewarding... I'm not hating having access to hundreds of friendly Baetyls (some of which give +800 rep), and since we're on the subject of reputations, a cult that has about 6 legendaries per floor in three different sites means I can tweak my reputations quite a lot. Just gotta figure out which ones to ritual and which ones to kill on the way out.

But yeah. Just ritualing everything that's friendly and killing everything that's hostile is madness.

[glass zebra]

They can also "have a use", otherwise the system would be somewhat pointless. I meant that if you just want to play through the game you probably only need the main quest villages, phyta and baetyls (and maybe some I forgot?) neutral. I was thinking OP was maybe on the train of thought of "messing up your game" by accident.

Water ritualing seems somewhat of a deal lorewise. It is a way to form alliances and create friendships. Doing it with every single creature you find is probably not the intended default. On your first water ritual you do get the popups how the world notices and reacts.

There are some hardcoded relationships. E.g. Barathrum is always hated by Putus templar. If you are anxious about interacting with the reputation system (I definitely had reservations when I started diving into Qud), just be careful and you should be fine.

[Demented_shade]

i don't find myself agreeing with most of your ideas.

The randomized elements add alot to the game in my opinion, causing combat to occur between other creatures without your involvement and its better for multiple playthroughs. While it is bad to have a fully randomized game as some other games have shown, having randomness to pad out the game when you can't fill up the map anyways because that would be a ton of work and you have some good handcrafted content here and there works well. They can remove a randomized tile to add on handcrafted stuff, not so easy to fill such a huge map with nothing but handcrafted content.

The reputation system shows you what factions are affected by looking at the person, before you kill or water ritual them. Your faction reps are also kept track of in a menu tab. Therefore you don't have to remember any of it and rep changes are reliable. If you want to know which factions you should gain rep with just play the game, maybe start with the factions that tend to pose a threat or have more dangerous members if they're hostile to you. Besides that method its ok to not know much as you can do multiple playthroughs. There are reliable ways to water ritual or increase rep with most factions, and i don't understand how you can say the opposite unless you haven't played much or by "reliable" you just want to simply walk up and talk to hostile creatures instead of finding a workaround.

[Coffee]

All good thoughts! I probably just need to learn more.

A couple examples could help me out. Yesterday, I was wondering if I could increase my rep with the goatfolk or Naphtaali, because I was working on the quest for the warder in the mushroom village. I found myself perpetuating a wholesale slaughter of both of those factions. But I couldn't figure out a way to increase my rep enough to avoid the slaughter. There's a helm that helps the goatfolk, but it's only +100, and I think I would need 250. There's nothing for the Naphtaali on the wiki. I don't know who their enemies are, so I can't go kill legendary [whatevers]. I don't know how to find a goatfolk or Naphtaali to do the water ritual with; even if I could, I'm not sure I could get close enough without going through an aggro one and aggroing everyone in sight.

Is there any way I could've gotten + rep to avoid slaughtering all those folk?

Right now I'm pondering how to + rep with the Mechanimists. I figure this should be easier, because they're not all aggro. I've intentionally avoided doing the water ritual with their enemies (which I see by looking at the person with the ritual option). I think I can probably find someone to treat with at the Stilts. I'm really hoping I can get through quests involving them without just slaughtering them all. That would be a nice use of the rep system.

[Pixel Peeper]

Factions that start hostile with you by default are harder to befriend. Usually you have to do the water ritual with legendaries that they like, or kill legendaries that they dislike.

Love Injectors are huge when it comes to reputations. They allow you to ritual legendaries that are hostile to you. Goatfolk, for example. Or dawngliders, which grant two different reputations through the water ritual (I've even seen legendaries that had three innate faction reputations!). With the proper skill and secrets, you can get +225 reputation with at least one faction by using a Love Injector on them. Unfortunately it doesn't work on robots, so legendary robots and Naphtaali are not options. For those you'd have to be a True Kin and manage to rebuke them.

Bookbinders and scribes also sometimes sell Schrodinger pages which can raise your reputation and give you the location of villages. Using Polygel to duplicate a "chapter unspecified" page can be very rewarding.

In your particular case, doing the Kyakukya warden's quests should not have lowered goatfolk reputation because Mamon Souldrinker is not affiliate with goatfolk, he's with the Children of Mamon. It's a mostly irrelevant faction because they basically only come up for that one quest.

Getting reputation with the Mechanimists is super easy, there's a hole in the Stilt cathedral you can throw tech items into. A simple laser rifle gives something like +150 rep. A Hand-E-Nuke gives +1,000 rep.

[Lexyvil]

It depends. I learned the hard way that some monsters can permanently sap stats (specific Bats in the thicker jungle, and enigma snails), so I try to do whatever I can to raise my relationship with them to never worry about them again.