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please don’t integrate karma! (addendum: at least not how exists in LD)

Posted 2021-10-17 18:19:02
I support this.
I'm new so my opinions won't be as nuanced as a lot of other people's, but I really don't like the idea of tying arbitrary human morality to the wolves. I'm sure there's a big range of how anthropomorphized people choose to think of their packs, so I don't think it's fair to include such a human element as a core feature of the game.

"Good" and "Evil" just don't exist in nature, hunting and eating other animals is how a wolf survives and it isn't morally wrong. For the raccoon kit example, who's to say rummaging through the food stores wouldn't cause the whole raccoon family to starve anyway? What makes that morally "correct" in comparison to eating the kits?

I think a personality system could be interesting, if your choices define something about who your lead is, but I don't like the idea of painting wolves as evil because they have to kill to survive.

Lark
#49408

Posted 2021-10-19 09:19:32 (edited)
I wholeheartedly agree with this thread. As much as I love LD, I always found the karma system confusing and a bit hard to grasp. When I started, I could hardly differentiate between "good" and "evil" options! It was also strange how that game encouraged "good" decisions, yet, bad karma often had more useful rewards.
I saw it as a relief that it does not exist in Wolvden, as this game seems more realistic and closer to nature. I personally much more prefer playing as a real-life wolf for fun, than to worry about all the karma options. It would be super confusing for newbies as well. For instance, if I get the same encounter more than once, I always try out all of them, not only out of curiosity but because I would like to know which gives me the rewards I need the most! What kind of karma would that be?
If they truly want to introduce karma, it should be optional in my opinion, or they can try out something that relies on pack interactions! It would be amazing and interesting to add features that allow us more interactions with our wolves in the form of different flavor texts.

𝕽𝖞𝖑𝖎𝖊 🦇
#47026

Posted 2021-11-01 10:20:31
Support. Karma systems feel too "on rails" to me and water down the game. I won't stop playing over it or anything but I'm very much not looking forward to seeing that system ported over here.

ytre365
#41230

Posted 2021-11-05 08:24:36 (edited)
I support. I wasn't too excited when I've seen that one either.

I would appreciate more, as it was mentioned, the personalities in-depth work and encounters being influenced by that. If my leader is stoic/aggressive, the encounters should be encouraged that way.

It could be also connected more to the talent trees that are planned - aggressive/stoic groups having different tree than friendly/romantic ones.

That is honestly the way I'd imagine to have the "good" and "bad" separated, to have it interlinked with other aspects, other than having a malicious angel or helpful bad guy based on a clicking game in encounters.

Mima
#6900

Posted 2021-11-05 17:22:53
Support!

Since it's going to happen anyway, I really hope it's not made out to be the way it is on LD. I don't want to have to feel like I'm walking on eggshells every encounter, trying not to do the 'wrong' thing for my wolf's personality. All I want to do is pick whichever outcome gives the most for my pack. Despite what LD shows, there IS a grey area, and in this case, it's a wolf's survival. Judging us on what we pick in explore - for example, eating the raccoon kits - is like giving us negative karma every time our wolves feed from a carcass. (Since it's an animal that may have had intelligence like our wolves.) No, that doesn't make us evil, we're just trying to live as wild wolves making it through another day.

I'd be more accepting if it was the pack interaction karma, that's something we can control without feeling like it's a struggle between choosing karma and choosing the best outcome. Sounds a lot more fun that way too.

Whirligig (Hiatus)
#11137

Posted 2021-11-14 07:05:53
No support. I think it adds more to the gameplay and more of a nuance to your wolf. If people want to stay neutral they could just pass the karma encounters, if they were added to explore. If they would add karma to events, I'd like them to add a neutral options. Not sure if that was a thing in Lioden events. People seem to want to make Wolvden into a perfectly safe space where no negative outcomes are allowed. Like humans etc. It's tiring.

Icewolf
#9914

Posted 2021-11-14 08:09:56
Lioden doesn't have many neutral encounters at all, and most of the beneficial ones gave you negative karma.

Really just a not-so-subtle reminder that being nice gets you nowhere in the world. And I'm not sure that's a good message to send ANYWHERE.

TacticianLyra
#2886

Posted 2022-02-28 22:45:08
Support. I don't want a game that dictates my decisions if fear of getting or losing karma. That isn't remotely fun to me. I come to games for things that aren't realistic, or are only partly realistic. Humans worry about "karma" and how it'll come back to them, but wolves and other animals don't care.  I especially do not want to have to fight over territory if it's going to have long term issues or affect my "status.". I am happy remaining neutral and would be really disappointed of karma wasn't something we could opt-out of. When I first started on Lioden, I was getting negative karma and I couldn't figure out why. I hadn't seen anything wrong with what I did--I wasn't rude that I know of and have no idea how I was considered mean!

Sunny
#30082

Posted 2022-06-21 22:38:34
Oh absolutely supporting this! I love having a karma system, but honestly hate the way it was done in Lioden. I think Karma should be affected in only certain situations, like, I understood pride interactions in the last game, of course killing cubs caused bad karma, I could argue that even that system was inaccurate due to lions actually killing other males cubs in rl, but, that decision was driven by the player, who can actively breed outside of their own pride, so it made more sense in a game controlled by a person who was killing cubs just because they didn't want or like them (I'm guilty of this ) but... I don't believe wolves kill cubs? So they'd have to really dig in deep with the way the pack interacts and functions

I really hope the team pours their whole heart into making pack interactions if they do make a new karma system though, just so it feels immersive and authentic, basing interactions on personalities of the wolves involved and giving you unique options for every personality type, not just "Hey, you're good personality, so you get -- option" or "You're bad, so -- option" or "Neutral, so --". Like my lead rn is Precise, I'd love to have interactions and options that reflect that specific personality. Idk.. but one thing I think many of us can agree on, is that Karma shouldn't be affected by explore options. There are waaaaay too many options and too many living areas, there's a lot that we'd get bad karma or good karma for, it'd be far too stressful and annoying having to memorize what does what and where those options appear at. Plus wolves aren't like lions, male lions don't hunt for food, that's a lionesses job 90% of the time, so you killing a farm horse or their chickens? Not necessary! I can see why Karma would have worked for situations like that, killing just to kill because you were the big strong lion king was understandable that it'd make you evil, but wolves hunt regardless of status, gender, etc. There shouldn't be a karma hit for me deciding to kill the baby seal, because he's easy prey when I need to find food for my pack, or for stealing someone else's muskox calf because again, my pups need food!

the games are similar, but also very different, I hope to see the karma system reflect that choice...

༺Fantina༻ (Hiatus)
#3052

Posted 2022-10-21 03:38:50
Huge support! I play Lioden a lot more than Wolvden, and when I realized there wasn't a karma system it felt like a huge weight was taken off my shoulders haha

Karma is fine on LD. However it throws such a huge wrench in characterization and the roleplay aspect that it makes explore feel mindless, and not even connected to me playing as my king. On one hand, I can turn off my brain and zone out- click the encounters I know will get me rewards and the karma number I want- but on the other hand, this means I cannot have fun thinking what my king would actually do personality wise in that situation. Sure, I could ignore karma and pick what I want for my king's personality, but that's throwing away huge rewards. A lot of high level good and bad karma items are absolutely neccessary in my eyes, expecially on the end of bad karma.

Meanwhile, on WD, since there isn't any karma system, I can actually sit down and think "huh, what would my lead do in this situation? She has this personality, so maybe this?" and characterize her further based on her actions in explore. The roleplay aspect is a lot more involved here, so explore feels so much more fun and refreshing because of this. Sure, occasionally, you have to sacrifice a character choice to pick the one that gives you a better reward- but it's not absolutely all present in almost every encounter, like LD. It leads to your character feeling a lot more nuanced.

All this is to say when I saw the newsletter I was greatly disappointed! I hope they reconsider and backpedal on the karma system, or at the very least, pick something less good-vs-evilish.

Auris
#40721

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