Forum:Choice to blow up citadel or not - discussion

Decision to destroy base or citadel is an epic failure for neutral characters.
I find it odd that before the Broken Steel DLC a player can achieve a neutral karma outcome (either by just not sacrificing oneself or sacrificing oneself and contaminating the water with the FEV) but with Broken Steel you have to go all in with a karmic decision. Overcoming one thousand karma points requires a lot effort if your character was neutral prior to the decision. Which addresses only game mechanics and not the real issue of what being a neutral player means.

The game requires you to go all-in by forcing you to choose one of two unsavory choices. And then, as just mentioned, requires you to become a psychopathic do-gooder (drown Mickey and/or Carlos in pure water donations... what fun!) or killer to overcome the karma adjustment. I guess the best decision is to just call it a game and retire the character when the decision point arrives. It seems lame to be forced to retire with an afternoon school special "what would you do?" cliff-hanger ending but the alternatives to achieve karmic balance require equally sorry actions if one continues to play.

Or maybe I am just missing something obvious by being obtuse. Anyone have a better solution other than just not playing the quest to its conclusion? I would enjoy hearing the solutions of other players who prefer a neutral outcome. Thanks in advance.

Growl-tiger 16:39, April 13, 2010 (UTC)

There is a Broken Steel perk called Karmic Rebalance (level 24) that immediately sets your karma back to neutral. If you're level 30 already then welp it's obviously too late, but those three karma perks are there to realign your character after the Who Dares Wins decision. Sov68n 19:12, April 15, 2010 (UTC)


 * True, but that is besides the point I am trying to make. It is a role playing game. Why overweight the outcome so that a neutral character is forced to even consider such an alternative? Besides, why use a precious perk when there are a variety of in-game methods to re-balance? For example, as I mentioned earlier, and although such behavior is hackneyed, one can do 20 donations of purified water to net 1000 karma points to adjust for targeting the Citadel. Why force a neutral character into spree killing or psychopathic kleptomania in order to correct for targeting the Enclave crawler?


 * Growl-tiger 21:34, April 15, 2010 (UTC)
 * I was thinking for a few minutes of ways to justify saying "well you don't have to do the quest" but I couldn't do it so I guess I agree with you. It is quite silly that there isn't a neutral option to demand caps or something from elder lyons after returning to the citadel, and only receiving positive karma after having done it for free. Although this is all rather moot since I don't think Bethesda plans on addressing this issue what with Fallout: New Vegas on the way. Sov68n 23:07, April 15, 2010 (UTC)
 * I have to agree with this observation, I even tried to go for a less karmic saturated option like Rivet City or Megaton, but those options are coincidently accompanied by an 'error' message. I guess having the option to attack either one of these settlements would at least make rebalancing a bit easier (instead of 1000, a 500 -/+ karmic reward). Otherwise I guess you can try every option in the BS missions to ask for pay for your services (Paladin Tristain is a dry well... he'll just insult you for your hard work. Nice.), which is usually the game's refuge for us middle-of-the-road walkers.
 * I have to agree with this observation, I even tried to go for a less karmic saturated option like Rivet City or Megaton, but those options are coincidently accompanied by an 'error' message. I guess having the option to attack either one of these settlements would at least make rebalancing a bit easier (instead of 1000, a 500 -/+ karmic reward). Otherwise I guess you can try every option in the BS missions to ask for pay for your services (Paladin Tristain is a dry well... he'll just insult you for your hard work. Nice.), which is usually the game's refuge for us middle-of-the-road walkers.

Personally, I expect to be paid for my hard work, the only mission I did out of pure empathy was Those!, after Lesko used the worst scientific argument for killing off Brian's dad, so I decided to leave Lesko to rot in the nest of a dead ant queen and then found the poor kid a home. Otherwise, the Karmic Rebalance is the only other option besides doing the endless aforementioned tasks. JessKa89 21:27, May 17, 2010 (UTC) JessKa89

The reason the developers did not not add a neutral karma option in the climax of the greatest expansion of their game is because it would be so anti-climactic they would be laughed at in the streets. Blow up the citadel, blow up the crawler, or.... leave. GREAT. And really the only reason why the original ending had a neutral karma option is because of a fluke.209.99.201.153 00:14, May 20, 2010 (UTC)