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Fallout 3 and New Vegas.
- Thread starter SionIV
- Start date
Xathrodox86
Arbiter
Gameplay, plot and quests too.
Bashar
Literate
- Joined
- Nov 14, 2015
- Messages
- 10
First time on RPG Codex. Honestly I've been ignoring this forum as "too hardcore" until recently when I realized that "hardcore" is the only real kind of RPG left in today's industry.
I wanted to chime in since I have experience playing playing the TTW, i.e. Fallout 3 in the New Vegas engine. In my opinion, it's really the only way to play FO3 and it really does combine the best of both worlds in ways; even in ways the developers couldn't have anticipated. For instance, playing Hardcore Mode in FO3 gives you a much, much greater appreciation of all those food vendors that you talk to once and afterwards forget about. If you're like me and refuse to use fast travel, you'll find yourself often planning trips based on where you can pick up meals or rest or the night, which is exactly what survivalism should feel like.
Another point about the FO3 maps that I've learned to appreciate is how well scripted the AI is. I'm not saying the AI is better, just that more effort was put in to determining things like guard routes. Since I try to stealth the game Thief style, this is welcome over FNV's random wander zones. There are many, many more locations in the DC Wasteland where you can methodically clear a map using stealth kills.
In my opinion, the different between FO3 and FNV is that the former has better craftsmanship while the latter has better design. This is probably because Bethesda had a lot more time to invest in their game, giving it that extra coat of polish while Obsidian was more focused on making sure the mechanics were balanced.
So far I've only encountered two bugs in TTW that required either editing or the console to bypass, which is pretty remarkable given the scope of the mod. Since I'm playing an older build, those may have already been addressed.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Mods also make a huge difference so I'll make some recommendations as a roleplayer and someone who likes to play in survival mode.
First the jsawyer mod. You'll have to google this one since it's not on Nexus. Basically it's Josh Sawyers effort to rectify all the things that Bethesda made him do and considered by many "FNV as it was meant to be". It applies a number of tweaks to make the game more challenging. There are other overhaul mods that supersede it but jsawyer is a good base for people who want to markedly improve the game without having to mess around a lot with mods.
The Enemy AI - Tactics helps improve the AI behaviour in the game. I recommend this in combination with the Combat Enhancer mod. These two mods complement one another and go a long way toward making the combat engagements more dynamic. The highlight for me was one time I was facing off with an NCR Ranger. The fight probably lasted about 90 seconds and by the end of it, because we had both dodged around for cover so much, we were each placed where the other had been at the start. I really wish I had recorded that because it demonstrated the potential of what the game can do at its best.
Puce Moose Tweaks are another collection of mini mods. If you're a scrounger then "Reduced Ammo and Chems" is an essential mod because it considerably reduces the amount of loot you'll find in random locations. It also reduces stacks of placed objects to singles, so where you'd normally find Energy Cell (20), there would just be a single energy cell. I think immersion players would appreciate that. At any rate, with this mod every bullet really does count. In my current run of TTW, I'm sixth level and have two dozen 9mm rounds for my pistol, and about 120 5.56 rounds for my assault rifle. I also use the "Slower Backward Movement" and "Slower Reloading" mini-mods.
Mass Recalibration changes the weights of most of the in-game objects to make them more logical. One of the biggest changes is that it gives weight to bottlecaps, in addition to most other formerly weightless objects. Even if you wanted to haul 20k caps around, it'll come at the cost of other equipment. It really gave me an appreciation of using NCR dollars as currency.
Xilandro's True Leaning mod implements first-person leaning, though shooting around corners is problematic. Unfortunately he took it off of Nexus, but I think it can still be found floating around the internet.
And now for a shameless plug, a few mods that I made that I think fellow roleplayers will appreciate:
Cover Based Stealth Mechanics overhauls stealth so that it plays a little more like Looking Glass style ImSims. In addition to affecting stealth, it also comes with the option to alter damage mechanics, including a backstab bonus (which works even while enemies are alerted, unlike Bethesda's "sneak attack") and a "Heavy Nullifier" which was implemented specifically to counter Bethesda's late-game bullet sponges without making the PC too powerful against weak enemies. Unfortunately, because of the complexity of the mod, it can be a bit buggy and has been known to mess with VATS and the compass markers. For a more stable alternative, your can also try the Realistic Stealth Overhaul.
Resourced Based Lockpicking and Hacking replaces the minigames with a resource cost. Locks and consoles cost you a set number of bobby pins or "multitools" respectively, depending on the difficulty and your skill level. This makes bobby pins and such a -resource- that you have to value against what you can expect to gain from using them. Also hacking and lockpicking occur in real time which means that you can get jumped if something hostile walks by.
Easily my least popular mod, Deus Ex Weapon Spread attempts to simulate the gun play from Ion Storm's Deus Ex (2000), i.e. weapon spread is significantly enhanced based on movement and the associated skill level of your character. Since it ties the effective range of your guns to your character sheet, I mention it because I figure it might appeal to roleplayers or die hard Deus Ex fans like myself.
And last but not least, my Roleplayer's Mod is a collection of mini-mods that on the whole tries to tie more game mechanics to the character sheet. For example, the Repair module will increase the rate that items decay based on your repair score, i.e. the lower your score, the faster items decay because of your character's perceived inability to properly maintain them. However, this can be counter balanced by having a high Barter skill, which now reduces the cost that NPCs charge to repair equipment. So there's more dynamism in how you interact with the world based on how you choose to develop your character's skills. The Actor module places a much greater emphasis on SPECIAL points in determine your skills while depressing the rate that skill points are gained on level up, which means that how you craft your character at the start of the game has a bigger impact on how you will play throughout and there are no longer enough points available to make the all around "God character" that Bethesda likes to foist on us. And the XP module changes the way XP is earned so that characters advance based on exploration and completing objectives, rather than grinding. This has the added benefit of making XP a little more finite, so that unless you're a completionist you're unlikely to reach level cap before the end of the game. Note that I plan to upload a new version containing substantial improvements in the next few days so if you're thinking of starting a new game with it, I would recommend waiting until then.
Now I'm not suggesting the above list as the -best- mods or -necessary- ones, they're just mods that I use regularly and I think fellow roleplayers might appreciate. There are a lot of good mods out there that are worth playing. I just wanted to provide these as a starting point for people who are thinking of getting back into FNV, especially if to try out TTW.
I wanted to chime in since I have experience playing playing the TTW, i.e. Fallout 3 in the New Vegas engine. In my opinion, it's really the only way to play FO3 and it really does combine the best of both worlds in ways; even in ways the developers couldn't have anticipated. For instance, playing Hardcore Mode in FO3 gives you a much, much greater appreciation of all those food vendors that you talk to once and afterwards forget about. If you're like me and refuse to use fast travel, you'll find yourself often planning trips based on where you can pick up meals or rest or the night, which is exactly what survivalism should feel like.
Another point about the FO3 maps that I've learned to appreciate is how well scripted the AI is. I'm not saying the AI is better, just that more effort was put in to determining things like guard routes. Since I try to stealth the game Thief style, this is welcome over FNV's random wander zones. There are many, many more locations in the DC Wasteland where you can methodically clear a map using stealth kills.
In my opinion, the different between FO3 and FNV is that the former has better craftsmanship while the latter has better design. This is probably because Bethesda had a lot more time to invest in their game, giving it that extra coat of polish while Obsidian was more focused on making sure the mechanics were balanced.
So far I've only encountered two bugs in TTW that required either editing or the console to bypass, which is pretty remarkable given the scope of the mod. Since I'm playing an older build, those may have already been addressed.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Mods also make a huge difference so I'll make some recommendations as a roleplayer and someone who likes to play in survival mode.
First the jsawyer mod. You'll have to google this one since it's not on Nexus. Basically it's Josh Sawyers effort to rectify all the things that Bethesda made him do and considered by many "FNV as it was meant to be". It applies a number of tweaks to make the game more challenging. There are other overhaul mods that supersede it but jsawyer is a good base for people who want to markedly improve the game without having to mess around a lot with mods.
The Enemy AI - Tactics helps improve the AI behaviour in the game. I recommend this in combination with the Combat Enhancer mod. These two mods complement one another and go a long way toward making the combat engagements more dynamic. The highlight for me was one time I was facing off with an NCR Ranger. The fight probably lasted about 90 seconds and by the end of it, because we had both dodged around for cover so much, we were each placed where the other had been at the start. I really wish I had recorded that because it demonstrated the potential of what the game can do at its best.
Puce Moose Tweaks are another collection of mini mods. If you're a scrounger then "Reduced Ammo and Chems" is an essential mod because it considerably reduces the amount of loot you'll find in random locations. It also reduces stacks of placed objects to singles, so where you'd normally find Energy Cell (20), there would just be a single energy cell. I think immersion players would appreciate that. At any rate, with this mod every bullet really does count. In my current run of TTW, I'm sixth level and have two dozen 9mm rounds for my pistol, and about 120 5.56 rounds for my assault rifle. I also use the "Slower Backward Movement" and "Slower Reloading" mini-mods.
Mass Recalibration changes the weights of most of the in-game objects to make them more logical. One of the biggest changes is that it gives weight to bottlecaps, in addition to most other formerly weightless objects. Even if you wanted to haul 20k caps around, it'll come at the cost of other equipment. It really gave me an appreciation of using NCR dollars as currency.
Xilandro's True Leaning mod implements first-person leaning, though shooting around corners is problematic. Unfortunately he took it off of Nexus, but I think it can still be found floating around the internet.
And now for a shameless plug, a few mods that I made that I think fellow roleplayers will appreciate:
Cover Based Stealth Mechanics overhauls stealth so that it plays a little more like Looking Glass style ImSims. In addition to affecting stealth, it also comes with the option to alter damage mechanics, including a backstab bonus (which works even while enemies are alerted, unlike Bethesda's "sneak attack") and a "Heavy Nullifier" which was implemented specifically to counter Bethesda's late-game bullet sponges without making the PC too powerful against weak enemies. Unfortunately, because of the complexity of the mod, it can be a bit buggy and has been known to mess with VATS and the compass markers. For a more stable alternative, your can also try the Realistic Stealth Overhaul.
Resourced Based Lockpicking and Hacking replaces the minigames with a resource cost. Locks and consoles cost you a set number of bobby pins or "multitools" respectively, depending on the difficulty and your skill level. This makes bobby pins and such a -resource- that you have to value against what you can expect to gain from using them. Also hacking and lockpicking occur in real time which means that you can get jumped if something hostile walks by.
Easily my least popular mod, Deus Ex Weapon Spread attempts to simulate the gun play from Ion Storm's Deus Ex (2000), i.e. weapon spread is significantly enhanced based on movement and the associated skill level of your character. Since it ties the effective range of your guns to your character sheet, I mention it because I figure it might appeal to roleplayers or die hard Deus Ex fans like myself.
And last but not least, my Roleplayer's Mod is a collection of mini-mods that on the whole tries to tie more game mechanics to the character sheet. For example, the Repair module will increase the rate that items decay based on your repair score, i.e. the lower your score, the faster items decay because of your character's perceived inability to properly maintain them. However, this can be counter balanced by having a high Barter skill, which now reduces the cost that NPCs charge to repair equipment. So there's more dynamism in how you interact with the world based on how you choose to develop your character's skills. The Actor module places a much greater emphasis on SPECIAL points in determine your skills while depressing the rate that skill points are gained on level up, which means that how you craft your character at the start of the game has a bigger impact on how you will play throughout and there are no longer enough points available to make the all around "God character" that Bethesda likes to foist on us. And the XP module changes the way XP is earned so that characters advance based on exploration and completing objectives, rather than grinding. This has the added benefit of making XP a little more finite, so that unless you're a completionist you're unlikely to reach level cap before the end of the game. Note that I plan to upload a new version containing substantial improvements in the next few days so if you're thinking of starting a new game with it, I would recommend waiting until then.
Now I'm not suggesting the above list as the -best- mods or -necessary- ones, they're just mods that I use regularly and I think fellow roleplayers might appreciate. There are a lot of good mods out there that are worth playing. I just wanted to provide these as a starting point for people who are thinking of getting back into FNV, especially if to try out TTW.
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Leitz
Learned
- Joined
- Apr 13, 2015
- Messages
- 350
I definitely missed a big urban area in NV. The battles there between different factions made a lot of sense. I liked the war zone structures like trenches and sandbags. I missed that in NV.
And if you think the pith helmets and roman costumes were cool you are a faggot. NV is the best game though.
And if you think the pith helmets and roman costumes were cool you are a faggot. NV is the best game though.
Beastro
Arcane
- Joined
- May 11, 2015
- Messages
- 8,089
Those thing's would have collapsed within decades (Not to mention DC of all places being reduced to bounced around rubble from taking a disproportional amount of nukes given the concentration of government targets in the city).
FO3s setting only works if you imagine it as taking place immediately after the nukes hit.
How have you not earned the "Is not a very productive member" title yet?
Important little tib bit is this:
The only reason Megaton, a town buit around a uninitiated nuke still emitting radiation, is that it looked cool in the imagination of one of the developers. Not even the placement of it makes any sense, there's no explanation for why a nuke landed inside a preexisting crater and another nuke would have produced a large one than that. The only explanation is that the developer was stupid enough to never connect the two things and assumed the town would be in a crater because that's what was in his idiot mind.
If you're going to introduce that logic into this debate then you'll have to apply it to FO3, a game whose inhabitants act as if the nukes went off mere months ago, not centuries.
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The city of New Vegas obviously suffered from engine/hardware limitations, especially The Strip that only had like half-a-dozen people standing around, but as a whole the city was pretty damn well done. Aside from The Strip there was a number of different districts, all of them serving some kind of a function in the grand scheme of things as well as having their own, inner politics. You had large, ruined portions of the city that contained a whole number of really interesting locations, such as factories and office buildings. You had the outskirts with a number of farms (including old, abandoned farmhouses as well as new, operational ones used for producing food for the city), the headquarters of several factions, and a number of camps belonging to different groups of people. Further away on the map you had locations that weren't exactly a part of the city but which were still directly connected to it in some way, the Hoover Dam being the most obvious example but by no means the only one. While New Vegas admittedly was slightly too compressed even for an RPG city, it was still very well thought out, from basic things like the food, water and energy sources all the way to the economy and the politics, both "domestic" and "foreign".
I can't really say how well it compares to D.C. since I've never played that other game, but I'd be surprised if FO3 had any locations that were even half as well-designed. I can believe the part about the D.C. looking better and having a more interesting layout, since Bethesda have been doing that kind of stuff for ages, but that's about it.
I can't really say how well it compares to D.C. since I've never played that other game, but I'd be surprised if FO3 had any locations that were even half as well-designed. I can believe the part about the D.C. looking better and having a more interesting layout, since Bethesda have been doing that kind of stuff for ages, but that's about it.
Bashar
Literate
- Joined
- Nov 14, 2015
- Messages
- 10
Another thing to take into consideration is the scope. You note that New Vegas seemed "compressed", a problem which the DC locations didn't have as much, though sometimes at the expense of being broken up. The NukaCola plant, for instance, is three zones, compared to one for Sunset Sarsaparilla. There are no shops in New Vegas that are quite as large and sprawling as the Super Duper Mart. The Museum of Science is much more impressive location than the RobCo HQ museum. I remember a number of times playing New Vegas for the first time, exploring a new location and then saying to myself, "That's it?" Maybe it's because I played FO3 first and it became the benchmark for my expectations but its scale felt right to me where New Vegas felt like a miniature model. Something I think that was corrected in the DLC. It's a shame that a lot of FO3 fans won't give FNV a fair shake because I think their opinion would turn around if they got to play the DLC, which were fantastic.
For me, someone who has played both games for hundreds of hours, I just enjoy the FO3 map more. The realism that I understand many people on this thread appreciate just comes across as bland to me. Knowing that each settlement has a visible water and food source doesn't affect me as a player and I probably wouldn't have noticed if it hadn't been pointed out to me.
I've been to DC and I've been to Nevada in real life and playing in the Capitol Wasteland gave me a much better sense of place than the Mojave desert. "The Strip" didn't feel like the Strip to me in the same way that "the National Mall" felt like the National Mall. Walking through Georgetown felt like walking through Georgetown, to the point that I e-mailed a friend of mine who lived there afterward just because the game reminded me of him. That's not necessarily Obsidian's fault, Nevada doesn't have as many landmarks as DC and those that do exist have IP restrictions. But if I'm objectively comparing the two, I just enjoy exploring FO3's map better, however stupid some of it might be. I hate those stupid vampires.
So I'm in agreement with the original poster. If Obsidian had made the Capitol Wasteland map and then given it to Obsidian telling them to "make a game around this", I think it would have topped both FO3 and FNV. But of course, if Bethesda had simply given Obsidian the time and resources needed to turn FNV into a true sequel rather than a stand alone expansion, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
addendum: Obsidian did nail the Hoover Dam, though, hands down. And the Lucky 37 did feel right, though it was a shame to have such a lovely environment devoid of any NPCs to interact with. It would have been fun if there had been a robot community simulating gamblers and employees.
Onholyservicebound
Arcane
- Joined
- Jul 27, 2013
- Messages
- 1,567
Fallout 3's wasteland is just awful, it's boring, samey, endless grey nothingness. If you were to drop me in a random point in New Vegas I guarantee you I'd probably know where I was within moments, because the world is defined and diverse, but moreso the world design isn't a completely pointless bunch of irradiated dirt with a couple of shitty power stations scattered about. That fact alone, the readability, and memorability of the entire map, instead of just the handful of impressive landmarks, puts NV above three in it's world building.
Even so, there's also the fucking terrible cityscape, which removes the brown from the grey and the dirt for endless rubble, it's like the worst part of FNV(The back areas of the strip wall), but as the entire core region of the game. It looks terrible, is mostly non interactive, there's like, 3 buildings you can actually go into out of the hundreds, and not an interesting character to be found, not that you could actually find anything in the ugly mess anyway. That's not even the worst of it, because then you have the metros, which combine the worst aspects of the previous 2/3 types of environments in Fallout 3 into one shitty awful repetitive clusterfuck that is almost on par with Oblivion's dungeons.
By comparison, New Vegas may not have as many cinematic high points, (At least without the open strip mod, which really makes all the difference) but it isn't a cluttered maze of indistinguishable bullshit. Furthermore it actually manages some diversity. From the beaches by Boulder city, places like the Red Rock Canyon, and Jacobstown's snowy mountains and the grassy path to get there. Goes hand in hand with the encounters as well, NV's are all hand placed because the world is diverse and cohesive, whereas Fallout 3 goes full random because it can, since the entire map can be described as: Generic post apocalyptic rubble.
Even so, there's also the fucking terrible cityscape, which removes the brown from the grey and the dirt for endless rubble, it's like the worst part of FNV(The back areas of the strip wall), but as the entire core region of the game. It looks terrible, is mostly non interactive, there's like, 3 buildings you can actually go into out of the hundreds, and not an interesting character to be found, not that you could actually find anything in the ugly mess anyway. That's not even the worst of it, because then you have the metros, which combine the worst aspects of the previous 2/3 types of environments in Fallout 3 into one shitty awful repetitive clusterfuck that is almost on par with Oblivion's dungeons.
By comparison, New Vegas may not have as many cinematic high points, (At least without the open strip mod, which really makes all the difference) but it isn't a cluttered maze of indistinguishable bullshit. Furthermore it actually manages some diversity. From the beaches by Boulder city, places like the Red Rock Canyon, and Jacobstown's snowy mountains and the grassy path to get there. Goes hand in hand with the encounters as well, NV's are all hand placed because the world is diverse and cohesive, whereas Fallout 3 goes full random because it can, since the entire map can be described as: Generic post apocalyptic rubble.
Makabb
Arcane
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- Sep 19, 2014
- Messages
- 11,753
Actualy there is a very easy way to make the new Fallouts great again, i don't know why Bethesda did not think of this. Bring back the world map like in f1 and f2, and when you travel to a new town/area you would explore an area the size of current map with 1 big town and rest wasteland everywhere around for example.
Random encounters would be much better this way also like in the old fallouts.
Random encounters would be much better this way also like in the old fallouts.
Xeon
Augur
- Joined
- Apr 9, 2013
- Messages
- 1,858
Kalasanty11
Learned
- Joined
- May 1, 2014
- Messages
- 154
I heard such ideas few times. Answer of typical Bethesda fan was usually: "but what about MUH OPEN WORLD, I want to be able go through entire game world without interruptions or loading screens" etc.
Makabb
Arcane
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- Sep 19, 2014
- Messages
- 11,753
Makabb
Arcane
- Joined
- Sep 19, 2014
- Messages
- 11,753
And if they would have a good engine the whole world should be connected, meaning you can drop out of the world map at any time and you walk in real time from place to place taking as much time as it passes on the world so you would have to travel for a week etc if you would want to.
Now this would be impressive.
Now this would be impressive.
Somberlain
Arcane
I'd really want to play New Vegas in the original Fallout engine but playing the original games in Gamebryo?
Makabb
Arcane
- Joined
- Sep 19, 2014
- Messages
- 11,753
I'd really want to play New Vegas in the original Fallout engine but playing the original games in Gamebryo?
Imagine if Bethesda made fallout 5 like this.
Somberlain
Arcane
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- May 21, 2007
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- 4,298
The only thing I want to imagine when it comes to Bethesda is their company going up in flames and Todd being burned alive when it happens.
Zanzoken
Arcane
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- Dec 16, 2014
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- 3,583
The core gameplay in both games is shit -- thanks Beth$oft -- but at least in FO:NV you get good world design and lore. I like the main story and a lot of the characters as well.
FO3 really has very little to offer and was a giant step back for the series in virtually every respect.
FO3 really has very little to offer and was a giant step back for the series in virtually every respect.
Deleted member 7219
Guest
Fallout 5 would remove attributes and perks. Pipboy would just do the map, radio and one line quest objectives. All dialogue would be automatic (like a shooter).
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