Uses for faction and playstyle reputation

[Tsubutai]

The game tracks reputation with four factions - the Church, Protectors, Brotherhood, and mutant Covenant. It also tracks your character's reputation as a fighter, talker, thief, and explorer. However, most of these reputations haven't yet been used in any way, so I thought it might be good to have a thread for spitballing about interesting ways in which they could be used. Here are my suggestions.

Faction Reputation
* An easy-but-boring benefit of a high faction reputation would be discounts and/or expanded item selections at that faction's affiliated merchants
* High faction reputation could confer a general disposition bonus in dialogues with faction members. Could be a somewhat unsatisfactory bonus since it's much more useful for some builds (low CHA) than others
* As an alternative to a general disposition bonus, there could be options specific to individual NPCs/quests. For example, it could be made easier to convince the preacher in the first Church quest in the Habitat to leave if you have a high Church reputation, or to persuade Storm to side with the Protectors if you have a high reputation with that faction.

Combat reputation
* This is the only reputation that is used in the current content; there are several NPCs that you can threaten (Jed, Hargrave, Sharp Face...) using your combat rep to make fights easier or avoid them entirely. These are all good. Combat reputation could also have interesting negative effects - e.g. if you're sent to bring someone in alive but you have a reputation as a bloodthirsty killer, they may panic and immediately start firing without giving you the option to seek a peaceful resolution.

Diplomacy reputation
* Could function as a sort of inverse of combat reputation, giving you a way to persuade suspicious NPCs that you do not mean them harm so you can talk and possibly get useful information or items from them as a result.

Stealth reputation
* It's hard to see an obvious situation in which this could be used in dialogue, but perhaps if you have a high enough sneaking reputation an NPC could approach you to initiate a sort of "thieves guild" questline where you have to pull off a string of heists across the habitat?

Exploration reputation.
* Again, it's hard to see how this might be used in dialogue. Perhaps you could have an NPC who knows something valuable about one of the Ship's uncharted areas but won't share it because whenever he's told someone about it before, they've disappeared into the depths of Mission Control and never come back; if you can convince him that you're a seasoned explorer, he could be more willing to share.

[Docangle]

The dev's talk about Diplomacy/Faction reputation giving you a starting bonus disposition

[skaudus]

The advantage of stacking disposition on high CHA characters is that you can forego speech tags, allowing for potentially interesting builds. I do agree with your suggestions though. The hard part is actually finding the time for them to be implemented.

[Pink Eye]

I've said this in the past; but I honestly don't like how combat reputation is used as a "get out of jail" free card. If I have a high combat rep I'm expecting people to be better prepared and or have more backup when going against me. In other instances maybe set up surprise ambushes - like Knights of the Chalice 2 where surprise encounters results in enemies acting first while denying you a full round of doing anything.

[Tsubutai]

Originally posted by Docangle:

The dev's talk about Diplomacy reputation giving you a starting bonus disposition

Hmmmm. It's certainly better than nothing, but it also feels like a bit of a boring cop-out if I'm being honest, sort of like faction merchants giving discounts for characters with high faction reputation. Personally, I prefer quest/NPC-specific effects to generic always-on ones. It also has the drawback of being least useful to the high CHA characters that are most likely to have high diplomacy reps.

Originally posted by Pink Eye:

I've said this in the past; but I honestly don't like how combat reputation is used as a "get out of jail" free card. If I have a high combat rep I'm expecting people to be better prepared and or have more backup when going against me. In other instances maybe set up surprise ambushes - like Knights of the Chalice 2 where surprise encounters results in enemies acting first while denying you a full round of doing anything.

Yeah, that would be another very sensible "negative" consequence of a high combat reputation, and would be a nice perverse reward for dedicated murderhobos.

[wizard1200]

Originally posted by Tsubutai:

* As an alternative to a general disposition bonus, there could be options specific to individual NPCs/quests. For example, it could be made easier to convince the preacher in the first Church quest in the Habitat to leave if you have a high Church reputation, or to persuade Storm to side with the Protectors if you have a high reputation with that faction.

* Combat reputation could also have interesting negative effects - e.g. if you're sent to bring someone in alive but you have a reputation as a bloodthirsty killer, they may panic and immediately start firing without giving you the option to seek a peaceful resolution.

* It's hard to see an obvious situation in which this could be used in dialogue, but perhaps if you have a high enough sneaking reputation an NPC could approach you to initiate a sort of "thieves guild" questline where you have to pull off a string of heists across the habitat?

As suggested previously, i think that every relevant npc should have 2 - 3 tags, which are related to the different reputation types and should be displayed during the conversation. If you pass a certain positive reputation treshold you get a disposition bonus (or reduced price if it is a merchant) and if you pass a certain negative reputation treshold you get a disposition malus (or increased price if it is a merchant).

Your described negative effects of the combat reputation should also apply to the stealth reputation (items disappear always after the character has visited a merchant), because it would be otherwise still a no-brainer to steal everything you can, which is sad in a rpg in my opinion.

[gerraklid]

Originally posted by Tsubutai:

Combat reputation
* This is the only reputation that is used in the current content; there are several NPCs that you can threaten (Jed, Hargrave, Sharp Face...) using your combat rep to make fights easier or avoid them entirely. These are all good. Combat reputation could also have interesting negative effects - e.g. if you're sent to bring someone in alive but you have a reputation as a bloodthirsty killer, they may panic and immediately start firing without giving you the option to seek a peaceful resolution.

i dunno for sure, but negative effect MIGHT already be there
the quest regarding delta tower when Faythe is present is an example
[i've never accumulated enough combat reputation to check the threshold value]
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2809249240
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2809249262

[Tsubutai]

Originally posted by wizard1200:

Your described negative effects of the combat reputation should also apply to the stealth reputation (items disappear always after the character has visited a merchant), because it would be otherwise still a no-brainer to steal everything you can, which is sad in a rpg in my opinion.

I definitely agree in terms of narrative/world logic, but there's a balance problem in that Steal is currently such an unrewarding skill when you compare it to Lockpick, Computers, and Electronics that it seems harsh to smack the player with penalties for using it. It'd feel a lot better gameplay-wise if stealing was uniquely rewarding and/or had some cool dedicated quests so you'd get benefits to go along with the consequences.

[wizard1200]

Originally posted by Tsubutai:

I definitely agree in terms of narrative/world logic, but there's a balance problem in that Steal is currently such an unrewarding skill when you compare it to Lockpick, Computers, and Electronics that it seems harsh to smack the player with penalties for using it. It'd feel a lot better gameplay-wise if stealing was uniquely rewarding and/or had some cool dedicated quests so you'd get benefits to go along with the consequences.

Yeah, unique quests with the corresponding rewards would be great, but there have to be either many of them to train the skill or there should be another use for steal: during stealth sequences you could steal keys to open doors (steal replaces critical strike). Another option, which Ergil suggested a few weeks ago, would be to simply remove steal, because tagging the skill is currently a trap for new players.

[Tsubutai]

:trollface on:

Just make it so that the only way to get the eye to access the lower levels of Mission Control is by beating a tough Steal check at the end of a difficult stealth section that can only be accessed by beating a tough Sneak check.

[Pink Eye]

Age of Decadence had plenty of hard checks like that.

[skaudus]

I'm assuming steal is also planned to factor in NotSpaceMiltiades' questline. And really, finding opportunities to make Steal a worthwile tag is much easier than completely scrapping all content related to it.

Pickpocketing keycards, unique loot, tying the skill with some impersonate checks are all easy to implement.

Hell, the Longslide EX you can steal from the Factory is actually an amazing pistol for when you get it. I'm pretty sure the next Habitat update will give us some cool opportunities, much like they did with Impersonate.

[Ergil]

Originally posted by skaudus:

And really, finding opportunities to make Steal a worthwile tag is much easier than completely scrapping all content related to it.

Adding interesting new content is much easier than deleting a few checks and slightly reworking one quest? Really?

[Iluvcheezcake]

Originally posted by Tsubutai:

:trollface on:

Just make it so that the only way to get the eye to access the lower levels of Mission Control is by beating a tough Steal check at the end of a difficult stealth section that can only be accessed by beating a tough Sneak check.

Maybe high lvl steal could be used to, uh, steal someones implants while they are still alive, unlike Bio
:)

[skaudus]

Originally posted by Ergil:

Adding interesting new content is much easier than deleting a few checks and slightly reworking one quest? Really?

Yes really. While only Vince and Oscar can say for sure, here are some of my reasons why:

Steal is comparatively very easy to script. It has no inherent dependencies like some speech checks. It doesn't require the complicated setting of a sneak encounter. There are literally hundreds of similar skill checks already in-game, for exploration purposes. There is no fundamental difference between a standalone [Persuasion 4] check in a conversation, a terminal with [Computers 4] or a keycard on a visible belt, nickable via [Steal 4]. (for instance, during the Spy quest, an alternative to the speech options could simply be to steal the workers' keycards)

In addition, there's already been a lot of work done on existing, as well as unimplemented steal content. Interactions in the Habitat, as well as Jia's future quests almost certainly have Steal worked into them. It really isn't as easy as saying "well just remove them".

[Tsubutai]

The problems of Steal probably deserve a thread of their own, tbh, especially since they're only indirectly related to the problem of not having uses for the Stealth reputation. However, I guess they can be summarized as:

* Steal currently doesn't provide access to any really great loot. Lockpick, Computers, and Electronics get you all sorts of rare things like components for Romeo, the energy rifle, the energy pistol in Mentzer's apartment, disruptor grenades, a subdermal armor implant, and so on. Steal only gets you some minor consumables plus one OK pistol (which is outclassed by the Hauser that you get one fight later).

* Steal can only be used in areas where it makes sense to have lots of NPCs with things worth stealing, which means it will really only be useful in the Pit, the Habitat, and Mutant Town (you're not exactly going to be pickpocketing the giant serpent in Mission Control or swiping loot from the creepers and frogs in Hydroponics...). That means that to compete with other skills that can be used in every area of the game, Steal would need to be working overtime in the populated areas.

* At present, Steal isn't really integrated with other elements of gameplay in any meaningful way. For example, in Mission Control, you stumble across high difficulty locks and computers in the course of exploring, after getting past hostile scavs and mindworms; the use of the skills feels like a natural and rewarding part of the gameplay loop. Likewise, during stealth sections you get to use lockpick and computers as an integral part of the experience, which also feels quite rewarding. In contrast, with Steal, you're mostly just running up to merchants in a safe area and pressing the 'get loot' button. The only case where it's integrated into a bigger part of the game is in Jia's quest.