Reputation tweak

[Grey Roger]

I've made a little change to dialog file "Enc_walker.c". If you're "Hero" or "Dashing" and you refuse to help a beggar, lose 1 reputation. The same beggar who would tell the world how nice you are and raise your reputation by 1 when you're "Matey" or less, now tells the world that you're not so nice after all. If you want to keep your shiny reputation, keep polishing it.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Seems fair to me.
Maintaining a high reputation shouldn't be a "once and done" thing.

I've had this idea spooking around my head for a long time to make reputation always reduce automatically back to neutral if you do nothing to move it either which way.
But I never bothered to look at implementing it.
I probably could figure it out, but I doubt anyone would even really appreciate.
It'd just make things harder, no?

 

[Grey Roger]

I don't like the idea of penalising the player for not doing anything. Were that to happen, expect complaints from players whose reputation dropped for no apparent reason.

But players who are trying to cultivate an extreme reputation one way or the other, and then actively do something against it, are fair game.

 

[Baste]

I don't play the Build Mod so what I'm saying might not matter, but if you want opinions:
I was thinking along the same lines in my stock game version but decided against it. I assume in the Build Mod beggars only ask for money like in the stock game. What if you really don't have any money to give to the beggar? Unlikely, sure, but could happen, so you should be able to politely say no.
Instead I made use of PCharRepPhrase so that the dialogue option to say no is something nicer if you don't have a bad reputation.

I also changed the dialogue a bit for the beggar who would tell all its friends as that seems like a weird thing to "offer". If you are a good person you would want to help anyway and care more about the person being able to buy food rather than talking about you.

 

[Grey Roger]

The beggar who sits outside the shipyard asks for money but, as far as I know, doesn't affect your reputation. In the Build Mod, there are random people walking around the town and port who can say various things if you talk to them. Some of them ask for money, and those are the beggars who give you reputation if you give them money - but only if your reputation is "Matey" or less. Repeatedly giving a few coins to beggars isn't going to get you up to "Dashing"!

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I don't like the idea of penalising the player for not doing anything. Were that to happen, expect complaints from players whose reputation dropped for no apparent reason.

Why would reputation be different from morale?
Morale returns back to its default value over time also.

Maybe just something simple as a daily "reputation = reputation * 0.95" might do the trick?
(Number to be determined. Plus potential rebalancing of the other reputation-changing actions might be needed.)
It might surprise players at first who have gotten used to the current simple system.
But surely once it's been in place for a while, people would get used to it?

Consider how quickly news gets out of people's heads if it's not actively being reported on.
People are quick to forget.
So why would your reputation persist forever?

I'm also hoping such a change could add an extra layer of gameplay.
Because it's no longer a "reach top/bottom rep once" system anymore, but something you actively have to keep cultivating to maintain the benefits.

It'll serve to make the game more difficult.
Which could be a good or a bad thing depending on player preference...


Do you remember when I made the Nations Relations system FAR more involved?
That was a similar sort of scenario where the game penalizes you for certain ill-considered or even accidental actions much more.
How do you and other players feel now about that so many years after I made the change?

 

[Grey Roger]

Why would reputation be different from morale?
Morale returns back to its default value over time also.

And that default goes up with your "Leadership" skill.

Maybe just something simple as a daily "reputation = reputation * 0.95" might do the trick?
(Number to be determined. Plus potential rebalancing of the other reputation-changing actions might be needed.)
It might surprise players at first who have gotten used to the current simple system.
But surely once it's been in place for a while, people would get used to it?

In other words, such a change will probably upset people for a while and may also break parts of the game. So that's two reasons not to do it.

Consider how quickly news gets out of people's heads if it's not actively being reported on.
People are quick to forget.
So why would your reputation persist forever?

News gets out of people's heads in that they stop talking about last week's celebrity and start talking about this week's celebrity. However, if they then happen to meet last week's celebrity, they'll remember the celebrity's last known reputation.

Do you remember when I made the Nations Relations system FAR more involved?
That was a similar sort of scenario where the game penalizes you for certain ill-considered or even accidental actions much more.
How do you and other players feel now about that so many years after I made the change?

It's still broken. Suppose I'm playing a Dutch merchant captain, sailing along peacefully, minding my own business, and am then attacked by a Spanish frigate. I manage to sink it. Under your system, that's an act of piracy. One or two such acts won't brand me a pirate but they will cost me my merchant licence. This, if I remember correctly, is one of the reasons why @Hylie Pistof is no longer with us - he fought against an attacker, didn't notice he'd lost his merchant licence, and then faced a near immediate mutiny because he'd amassed a fortune through peaceful merchant trading.

In reality, that's nonsense - even in modern times, let alone in the age of sail, if a merchant ship is armed in time of war and then manages to sink an enemy ship or shoot down an aircraft, it's not a crime. Indeed, in early periods, a captain - even a merchant captain - could get in trouble for not attacking an enemy ship. Later on that requirement was scrapped, civilian captains being no longer required to endanger themselves, but it still wasn't a crime if they chose to do so anyway. What the captain wasn't allowed to do without a naval commission or letter of marque was to take a ship as a prize.

And, of course, that rule against merchants trying to sink enemy ships doesn't bother NPC's, so I'm playing a Dutch merchant captain, sailing along peacefully, minding my own business, and can then be attacked by a Spanish fluyt who doesn't regard it as piracy - he's just obeying the rule that NPC ships react purely according to flags.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

In other words, such a change will probably upset people for a while and may also break parts of the game. So that's two reasons not to do it.

It's still broken.

Guess I'll remain crawled under my rock then.

 

[Baste]

It was recently mentioned on the Discord server that the current female terms for reputation don't work very well. Some are unnecessarily sexual and the nonsexual ones have different meanings that don't fit for the reputation system.

"Floozy" and "Scarlet" refer to promiscuity which is not what the reputation system is supposed to represent.
"Vixen" refers to an ill-tempered woman, and also has a double meaning of an attractive, seductive, or flirtatious woman. Again, not what the reputation system is supposed to represent.
"Femme Fatale" also doesn't work in the reputation system as it doesn't have meanings of being a horror. It means "fatal woman" and refers to a woman using charm and seduction to cause trouble for men.

The game doesn't have any gameplay mechanic for female characters to use charm, seduction, and sexual suggestions to deceive, so reputation terms that refer to that would be misleading.

"Lady" implies more about social standing. A "maiden" is an unmarried woman. A "damsel" is pretty much just "woman".

It's unnecessary to have a female version where one isn't really needed. For example, a "Bloody Terror" is a bloody terror, whether male or female.

I made a suggestion for replacement that was approved for implementation in NHRE. I'm posting it here for consideration for B14 as well:

Male	Female
Hero	Heroine
Dashing	Dazzling
Matey	Darling
Bloke	Lass
Neutral	Neutral
Rascal	Rascal
Swindler	Swindler
Bloody Terror	Bloody Terror
Horror of the High Seas	Horror of the High Seas

The terms shouldn't refer to promiscuity as that is not what the reputation system is supposed to represent. It represents overall behavior and acts, such as if you protect or harm innocents, keep your word or betray others, act honorably or deceive others for personal gain, and in general do the good thing or the bad thing.

I'm thinking that if a woman is promiscuous, then sure, call her promiscuous. If she has done some other misconduct, then call her out for that. Don't call her out for sexual misconduct she hasn't done while missing to call her out on the misconduct she has actually done. If a man steals something, you would call him a thief, not a cheater.

The neutral reputation and the bad reputations work equally well for both men and women. It's the good reputations that require female versions.

"Hero" and "Heroine" are obviously direct counterparts, just as they are in the game right now.
"Dashing" works for women too but is mostly associated with men, so therefore "Dazzling" can be a suitable female version. They both also start with "Da-" and sound similar, which is fitting for the game's reputation system.
"Darling" should work well as a female version of "Matey", and gives examples such as "he's a good matey" and "she's such a darling".
"Lass" is also fitting as a female version of "Bloke", just as it is in the game right now.

This should be much more fitting and be much clearer in what the reputations mean.