CROSS-CONTENT DISCUSSION: Factions and Reputation (May contain spoilers)

[Befo]

This is one I hadn't seen posted yet, so I figured I'd get us started. FNV has a reputation system, FO3 does not, but the factions in FO3 are perfect for the Rep system.

I'll start out by showing the Major and Minor factions in each game (I used the Wiki to help, so if I have missed any please let me know.)

Mojave Wasteland - Major Factions:

Brotherhood of Steel

Caesar's Legion

Great Khans

NCR

Powder Gangers

 

Mojave Wasteland - Minor Factions:

Boomers

Followers of Apocalypse

Freeside

Novac

The Strip

Goodsprings

Primm

There are other sub-factions, but I have only listed the ones with Reputation assigned to them, according to the Wiki. Following a similar format to the one above, here are the CW factions. Whether or not they should be assigned reputation is the point of this discussion. 

Capital Wasteland - Major Factions:

Brotherhood of Steel

Brotherhood Outcasts

Enclave

 

Capital Wasteland - Minor Factions:

Raiders

Talon Company

Regulators

Megaton 

Tenpenny Tower

Arefu

The Family

Canterbury Commons (not listed on the Wiki, I added this one)

Slavers

 

Other minor CW factions:

Chinese Remnant

Republic of Dave (might need to move this one up)

Reilly's Rangers (might need to move this one up)

Underworld (might need to move this one up, not listed on the Wiki, I added this one)

Little Lamplight (might need to move this one up, not listed on the Wiki, I added this one)

Andale (not listed in the Wiki, I added this one)

The Institute

The Railroad

Littlehorn and Associates

Rivet City (Wiki lists RC Council and RC Security as separate factions, might need to move this one up)

Super Mutants

Vault 101 (might need to move this one up)

 

CW DLC Factions:

Pitt Slaves

Pitt Raiders

 

CW Religions (Don't know if these should be included in rep or not):

Apostles of the Holy Light

Church of the Children of Atom

Point Lookout Tribals

Saint Monica's Church

Treeminders

That's it for the breakdown of factions. I'll update and edit the OP here with more info as the discussion progresses. 

I guess the major questions are:

1) Is it possible to add reputations to the FO3 factions?

2) Should we even bother adding reputation to the FO3 factions, or just wait to have rep until the player reaches the MW?

3) How do we deal with factions like the Brotherhood of Steel, which exist in both the CW and MW?

4) How would certain quests or objectives change FO3 reputations?

5) Should the various religions be included in the reputation system?

6) Which factions/sub-factions should be given reputation and which should be left out, and why?

7) What should the effects of reputation be? (bonuses for Accepted/Liked/Idolized, penalties for Shunned/Hated/Vilified)

 

Discuss!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Risewild]

I am no developer but I can answer to the best of my abilities some of the questions .

1) As far as I know yes we can add reputation to FO3 factions.

2) I think that there are plans to add reputation to FO3 factions in the future.

3) Brotherhood of Steel from FO3 already has it's own faction in TTW, so it is not related to the NV one.

4) I don't know if it was already planned something about quests or objectives, but I think the game already does something like that, ( ex: if you attack slavers or help slaves in some missions then slavers will attack on sight) so I think that we just need to polish it or something so it works in stages or something (vilified, accepted, idolized, etc.), I might be saying something really wrong on this one since I have no idea how to code, mod or how the game deals with stuff like this, so anyone with more knowledge should correct me if I'm wrong.

5) I haven't think about that, so I really don't have an opinion yet, will have to consider several things before I reach a conclusion.

6) Well in my opinion all major ones should have a rep system, also the regulators and talon company, because you will get hunted by them if your karma is too bad or too good so maybe the higher your karma the better would be your rep with the Regulators (something like "due to your good deeds your actions reached the ears of the regulators making you liked by them" and "Due to your good deeds word is that some evil powers are considering putting a contract on your head"). I will leave the other minor ones out of this post because like the religions I didn't think about it yet.

7) Well, bonuses would probably include price reduction, the BoS could reduce the price of repairing your stuff too, if Megaton gets a reputation system maybe associate it to the gifts people get for you if your karma is high enough, so if you have a high reputation with Megaton you will get lower prices and if you have the max reputation (Idolized) you will get price reduction and get a gift from time to time, the same with Paradise Falls for example. Need to think about this some more to come out with suggestions .

Hope my post helped starting the discussion you are expecting .

[TJ]

I've attempted adding FO3 factions/ rep on the demo version previously. I had Megaton semi functional around the time work stopped on it. I never did manage to get disguises to work quite right though. Quite a bit of work goes into getting it functioning properly, but definitely well worth the effort it would take to get it set up.

[Befo]

Just what I was looking for, Risewild. Good feedback. I am in the same boat as you; I am more of a player, not really a modder and definitely no coder. So while I can spout ideas all day long, it is up to someone else to make it happen. My modding skills are very limited, usually I just change a value or two here or there to tailor things to the way I like them, or maybe solve a conflict. My only thought it posting this thread was that this was a discussion that needed to be had yet hadn't been started, and I had a few ideas to toss around. 



I think a few of these are going to be tricky. For instance, Megaton and Tenpenny rep.

[collapsed title=Spoiler] While some things would obviously give Megaton faction, such as working on the WSG, fixing the pipes or helping Leo kick his habit, there is little that would make you lose it, beyond blowing the place to hell. If you blow it to hell, the rep for the place is pretty worthless, so why bother with it? It could give you Tenpenny rep, but the regular citizens of Tenpenny Tower don't really seem to care one way or the other if you blow up Megaton, much as they don't care when you snipe Tenpenny in the head. Only the Old Man himself and Burke as his lackey seem to care about Megaton. [/collapsed]



Talon and Regulator might also be tricky. They are based upon Karma instead of regular reputation, and the Regulators at least have a perk associated with them already. We'd want to avoid anything that may bork turning in fingers for the perk. Plus, karma is easier to change than Reputation, at least in the CW. You can always give a ton of purified waters to the Megaton bum to gain Good Karma, or engage in a kleptomania spree for Bad Karma. Plus, the way I understand that Rep works, you gain points on one scale, and lose them on another, whereas Karma is both on the same scale. This results in the Mixed Reps in FNV, but when you have a faction tied to Karma as well, I foresee issues. 



Just a few thoughts. I'll save most of my other ideas until we get some more feedback. 

EDIT: Just noticed TJ and Pwinkle wrote something while I was typing mine out, hehe. Didn't mean to leave you guys out. 

[JaxFirehart]

Ultimately karma will go out the window in DC, most factions will respond based on rep alone with individuals responding to karma (basically the same as FNV). The East and West BoS (as well as the outcasts) are all separate factions with separate reputations. For the enclave I intend to start the player as vilified with them and give no opportunities to improve that standing, which completely defeats the purpose of a reputation...

Every settlement in the game will have its own reputation tracking, including tiny ones like Arefu and large ones like Rivet City.

I am fairly familiar with disguises and should have no trouble rigging them up. I did it for the old Demo version (i even overhauled the entire disguise system to make it more reliable).

Basically I would like to set up every conceivable faction to have reputation, even if it seems pointless, so that modders can modify it without having to do it themselves. I personally would love to set up an alternate story where you can side with the enclave (as a mod). I'm sure others would like to do similar things.

One potential issue I see is Tenpenny Tower. Off the top of my head, I don't see any way to handle the ghouls without setting up two reputations. Then we need some way to toggle which one is displayed when you hover over tenpenny tower.

As for megaton being one sided, I agree, unless you go on a killing spree or nuke the place, you are almost guaranteed to become idolized early in the game, and I think that's fine, personally. It's not quite in line with how FNV is set up, but the settings are so different that some allowances must be made.

To be honest, I think there should be a separate thread for EACH faction and we can discuss in there whether or not reputation fits and how to implement it etc...

[TJ]

[quote=JaxFirehart]I am fairly familiar with disguises and should have no trouble rigging them up. I did it for the old Demo version (i even overhauled the entire disguise system to make it more reliable).[/quote]

That is too cool. Looking forward to seeing this implemented.

[quote=JaxFirehart]As for megaton being one sided, I agree, unless you go on a killing spree or nuke the place, you are almost guaranteed to become idolized early in the game, and I think that's fine, personally. It's not quite in line with how FNV is set up, but the settings are so different that some allowances must be made.

[/quote]

I think Megaton would be similar to Goodsprings. If the Player does the schoolhouse and the tutorial you're almost guaranteed to be idolized. Goodsprings only has like a 15 for rep though if I remember right. Megaton should probably be 20-30, but not too much higher than that.

[Befo]

[quote=JaxFirehart]

One potential issue I see is Tenpenny Tower. Off the top of my head, I don't see any way to handle the ghouls without setting up two reputations. Then we need some way to toggle which one is displayed when you hover over tenpenny tower.

[/quote]



I know you aren't really planing to do bugfixes or changes to Vanilla, but there used to be a mod out there that allowed the ghouls and Tenpenny residents to live together if you chose that route in the quest, instead of having Ray Phillips get his panties in a bunch a few days afterwards and killing all the Tenpenny residents anyways. It was called Tenpenny Ghouls at Peace or Ghouls Cohabitate I think. It always irked me that you worked your butt off to make everyone happy, and get rid of the residents that didn't want the ghouls there, then Ray just decides to kill the rest off anyways. 



That may be one solution to having the two factions present, to work this mod into the game. If the player chooses to kill the ghouls, then thats one way; if they kill the residents by letting the ghouls in through the basement, thats another. This is for the third option of having both. 



Found them:

Tenpenny Ghouls at Peace - http://fallout3.nexusmods.com/mods/7383

Ghouls Cohabitate - http://fallout3.nexusmods.com/mods/10721

[charwo]

I have an idea:

There should be an Enclave faction thing. The reason wouldn't come into play until the end of FO3 and then into Broken Steel, but having a high reputation with the Enclave could be used to post game to negotiate peace. Think about it! While seeing all that death and destruction with Liberty Prime and then into Adams Airforce Base, peace is more challenging than war. The ability to convince Eden to destroy himself without wiping out Raven Rock, for Autumn to stand down. to get people like the Remnants analog to surrender or help form an American government would make a much better ending. This would really be talking the monster to death: The Enclave believe they are serving America while spitting on America's very ideals: so show them that. You are a Vault Dweller: you know about the history and ideals and spirit of America as any Enclaver.

You might also be able to use assets modified from Zeta and Anchorage. Imagine that Chase put those specific characters in Anchorage because he was preserving them in case the Apocalypse came. Then take those synthetic shells from the commonwealth, think Amitage at least and then download Sgt. Montgomery and Chase and Doc Amadi, and then modify Zeta so Torricreden's squad can live again/survive, even have Col. Hartigan survive by being disabled, but not instantly killed from the thaw. Then have all of them, who lived in America call out the Enclave bit by bit, showing them how heinous they've become. It should be hard, but it would represent a golden ending. It would make the storming Adams or even the Jefferson Memorial unnecessary. Destructive war replaced by a budding peace.

[yukichigai]

[quote=JaxFirehart]

One potential issue I see is Tenpenny Tower. Off the top of my head, I don't see any way to handle the ghouls without setting up two reputations. Then we need some way to toggle which one is displayed when you hover over tenpenny tower.

[/quote]

The easiest way is to have two map markers for Tenpenny Tower, one initially disabled and set to immediately display, one not.  You have the existing map marker associated with the Human Tenpenny faction and the disabled one associated with the Ghoul Tenpenny faction.  If and when the Tenpenny changeover happens you simply hide the one marker and enable the other.  The changeover CANNOT happen without the player having visited Tenpenny Towers first, meaning they will have the map marker already.  Swapping them will remove the existing map marker and seamlessly replace it with a new one at the same location, but with a different reputation attached.

Hell, if you set the initially disabled one to use the "real" map marker as an Enable Parent you can do all of that with one function call (TenPennyMapMarkerREF.disable).

[falloutmaster]

Perhaps a few things one killing a faction leader causes the faction to be in chaos, maybe start a new optional objective in the fallout 3 main quest like sneaking past the enclave troops at the memorial to avoid harming them and giving autumn the purifier code instead (I volunteer for voice acting) of him killing you he offers you to join the enclave and you can reprogram eden back to his basic state and unleash the fev into the BOS water supply instead of the purifer or kill them up front, and make it possible to fail both BOS and Enclave main quests and have a indenpent route like in newvegas, this would require alot of re scripting to make a possible new quest but it would be better. thats the newvegas style of how fallout 3 would be like reputation is a whole other ball game