Reputation System

[Detective Costeau]

Just some thoughts on the reputation system.
I love the idea of gaining better or worse reputations with different factions, but as it's currently implemented some things about it feel frankly nonsensical.

1) How exactly does every single crab in Qud (or whatever random non-sapient faction) know I shared water with Mehmet? For that matter, how do they all know to hate him? I can get the idea of 'word gets around' if you become friends with someone that a specific village hates, but for unintelligent creatures this really makes no sense, even by Qud's somewhat loose standards of 'sense'. Reputation with 'factions' of unintelligent creatures doesn't seem to make a lot of sense, at least not as the system is currently set up.

2) The ways to raise reputation with factions seem quite limited in a lot of cases. Probably the best example of this is Bey Lah- if you leave Eshkind in charge, she can teach you dual wielding, which is awesome. The problem is, it requires 450 reputation, and as far as I can tell there's no reliable way to actually *get* 450 rep short of getting lucky and killing a few legendaries they hate, which is down to completely random chance. If there are going to be rewards for faction rep, it feels like there should be some reasonable way to actually *get* those rewards.

Basically my issue right now is that it feels less like a system for being rewarded for being nice or punished for being mean for a specific faction, so much as one where you just watch your reputation occasionally shoot up or down a hundred points or so due to chance.

[Water Ｖａｐｏｒ Merchant]

Reputation is difficult to handle in most games that use it. I've been playing a lot of Grim Dawn lately (a Diablo3 like ARPG) and it's faction system is fairly similar to Caves of Qud in that killing enemies decreases your rep and completing quests increases your rep (with tiers that unlock certain benefits or liabilities after achieving so much rep). Biggest difference is some factions are always hostile and others always friendly, so it's less a "rep" system than it is a difficulty modifier.

For rep to really feel natural in Caves of Qud it'd need a major overhaul that has rep function in much more specific ways depending on the faction. For instance, it makes sense that having certain physical attributes will always increase your rep with some factions, like carapaces with shelled reptiles. What doesn't make sense is killing a legendary tortoise and leaving no survivors somehow making you lose rep. Like, who's getting that information out, specifically to every turtle in Qud, both above and below ground?

I'm not sure how the latter situation should be resolved just because it'd probably involve some massive mechanical reworks, but it is a point of contention I have with the rep system that I think should eventually be addressed, if not before release than maybe as a free update included with the first round of DLC.

[raixel]

I agree, but i also think it'd be really hard to fix it in a balanced way without redoing the whole rep system. That being said they could do something like "after killing a legendary, any remaining followers attempt to flee off the map. If they make it, that changes the rep by x amount" (say if a legendary snapjaw had 4 followers, and was loved by snapjaws and hated by plants, each follower that makes it off the map gives you -25 snapjaw rep and +25 plant rep). That would at least explain why/how the message gets out

Though it still doesnt explain why every single member of every faction all across Qud instantly knows. Maybe its something like the Elves' death message in Dennis McKiernan's novels...

[Water Ｖａｐｏｒ Merchant]

Originally posted by raixel:

I agree, but i also think it'd be really hard to fix it in a balanced way without redoing the whole rep system. That being said they could do something like "after killing a legendary, any remaining followers attempt to flee off the map. If they make it, that changes the rep by x amount" (say if a legendary snapjaw had 4 followers, and was loved by snapjaws and hated by plants, each follower that makes it off the map gives you -25 snapjaw rep and +25 plant rep). That would at least explain why/how the message gets out

Though it still doesnt explain why every single member of every faction all across Qud instantly knows. Maybe its something like the Elves' death message in Dennis McKiernan's novels...:D:

Kinda like this idea, though this would be a massive Nerf and/or buff to mob factions like the Naphtalli tribe that rely on huge numbers to make up for their overall weakness, just kill one Legendary Chrom Idol to make dozens of them scatter for huge shifts in reputation. Defuses a potential threat and gain a fat faction bonus on top.

[raixel]

Originally posted by Water Ｖａｐｏｒ Merchant:

Kinda like this idea, though this would be a massive Nerf and/or buff to mob factions like the Naphtalli tribe that rely on huge numbers to make up for their overall weakness, just kill one Legendary Chrom Idol to make dozens of them scatter for huge shifts in reputation. Defuses a potential threat and gain a fat faction bonus on top.

True, but in this theoretical idea all the followers combined would only give you the max that you already get instantly for killing the legendary in the current build. So say the legendary chrome idol was "loved by the naphtalli", (so youd get -100 naphtalli rep for killing him). The chrome idol has 20 naphtalli followers. Each follower that made it off the screen would only do -5 naphtalli rep. So say you kill 10, 10 get away, thats a rep loss of 50. If all 20 make it, thats -100

Sorry if I didnt explain it that well.

As far as the scattering, yeah, thats true. Maybe every follower that made it out will suddenly move into the map screen youre on from the edges after (x) turns as if they had been chasing you down. Like they went to deliver the message and then started seeking vengeance

I dunno - just throwing out ideas. Is an example of how hard it is to come up with a workable solution to the "instant rep" issue.

[Via]

While a subject like this contains various approaches, can't say that the answer is one. So, my preference is 'When realism and game mechanism conflict, always take sides with mechanism. Except for hardcore simulators, eg flight, driving.'
(Again, wildly long something below is only my personal opinion.)

In some games, the reputation system is another word of quest branch. GrimDawn which is already mentioned, STALKER, etc. I love them and those designs are correctly self-contained, but they're not true rep system and hardly affect the gameplay.
On the other hand, CoQ allows all races and societies to have reputation, and interference with every unique NPC can change it. This is a foundation of true rep system and a big attraction of CoQ. I can kill the unique ape, but in return for that, all apes hate me through a run. If I don't touch the unique ape, I get a neutral race. This is a risk-return and game mechanism.

Imo, eliminating reputation changes from non-verbal creatures leads to reduce game mechanism. It turns a race that has the background into hack-and-slashable monsters. I think that 'wipe out from the map' is also a bit suspicious, because CoQ is basically a game that player wipes out threats in the map. If extermination had been difficult, it would work as a mechanism.
Well, it's certainly doubtful how annihilated apes report my evil deed to allies in the distance, but I accept it as collective unconsciousness or type of story like 'cats tore up a man who killed an innocent cat'.

I agree to A Merchant of Menace's opinion that more ways to change reputation are necessary. This is a very good system or a foundation of that, so I hope it will be more dynamic and intentional. More dangerous neutral races when getting angry. More potential allies. More dilemmas and choices.
However, it's not very good that player can earn rep too easily because it would destroy the game sooner or later. I guess careful and strict adjustment is required.

[raixel]

I think too, that we do ourselves a disservice using "real world" concepts of intelligence as far as rep.

Qud is a world where you can imbue inanimate objects with sentience and crazy mental abilities are common. In my head canon, thats exactly what a legendary of a typically unintelligent race (say a crab or worm) *is* - a member that has gained sapience (sapience in its own way, of course, this doesnt necessarily mean that a typical Qud mutant or true kin can actually speak verbally with it).

Because of its sapience, it naturally draws others of its kind to it and its species instinctivelyall revere it as almost a god. Hence they get pissed if you kill it. How do they know when it dies? Thats the weird thing, but as Via said...collective unconciousness? Maybe part of becoming a legendary is the ability tap in to the "overmind" of your species as a whole, like a mindflayer from D&D...who knows

One of the weirdest ones I ever found was a legendary turret (the only legendary) in a sultan worshiper's encampment. It was surrounded by a horde of various non-legendary sultan worshippers, and was deep underground next to the sultan's treasure chest. In my head, i came up with crazy stories of how this legendary turret ended up leading a band of sulltan-worshippers. Perhaps,the sultan placed it there to guard the treasure but died. And being so close to the sultan's artifacts for so long imbued it with a measure of sapience, and when the sultan worshippers made their pilgrimage to the sultan's homeland, they found it and believed it an aspect of their god....the possibilities are endless.

But yes, the rep system being fleshed out and with more added to it would be awesome.

[DuckBoy]

In fairness, if you phase cannon someone out of existence, I don't think anybody even knows you did it. You can trash people in the middle of town as long as you do it in one shot. ;)