New Vegas and Hardcore Mode

[Wild Slop]

Dear God please keep them safe!

Its sort of the equivalent of a child taking those little inflatable "swimmies" off their arms while in the shallow end of the pool.
Calling it "Hard Core" as a parent would lovely encourage that the child is becoming a real good swimmer.
Still going from FO3 to NV showed much improvement, no matter how nuanced, and if they can coax the next gen into seeing the fun in however little more of a challenge while still giving them the chance to back out in case of a tantrum - why not? It was a good idea anyway.

(off to the side)
Please let it be Obsidian that does Pennsylvania.
Keep the Brotherhood, the Enclave, and the Crimson Caravan (further) off the east coast...Bethesda can have Chicago.

I would like to see alternatives to caps and all the good difference one should expect to see from something that is for all intents is a world away from California for starters.

 

[circ]

Re: Dear God please keep them safe!

Please let it be Obsidian that does Pennsylvania.

Please just let this charade die.

 

[RK47]

I have to see Skyrim engine and see how it will turn out, if not I'm really tired of Fallout 4 having this VATS combat. It has its moments, but it broke the game.

 

[torpid]

The biggest issue is the abundance of stuff. If food and water weren't everywhere or easily crafted it might make for more of a challenge, but if you're thorough you end up with massive amounts of stimpaks, food, water, ammo, etc.

That's the problem of loot in open world games. Almost every enemy everywhere has some ammo, a bottle of water, and more often than not a stimpak too; every fridge and oven has food, and even closets and cupboards yield loot. Minimal scavenging provides all the resources you need. Enemies shouldn't all drop loot, and furniture and appliances shouldn't all contain victuals and supplies. But then players would get frustrated because they would look through most houses and buildings for nothing, so should every random house be open?

It's funny though: a game like STALKER, set in a place that's been abandoned for only 25 years, doesn't have random cupboards and kitchens full of usable loot, while a game set centuries after a nuclear apocalypse does.

 

[Metro]

I kinda liked the hunger and thirst, or rather specifically the dehydration mechanics because it changed the way I played a little bit. Sleeping was mostly inconsequential.

How exactly did dehydration change the way you played other than chugging a couple of purified water every so often? And the stuff was everywhere. If anything the sleeping was the part you had to go a little out of your way to handle.

 

[HotSnack]

I forgot to mention I would've like to see Hardcore mode make different ammo types (AP/HE etc.)more relevent. I've replayed NV around four times now and not once did I bother changing ammo. I guess turning up the difficulty would be a semi-fix.

I remember fighting deathclaws to be pretty exciting, where even AP ammo wouldn't completely pierce their DT threshold.

Then 1.2 came out, and it turned out that it was a "bug" that deathclaws got twice as much DT than they should have. Now deathclaws drop like any other baddie now. :/

 

[SoupNazi]

Well the thing is, the way settlements are done in STALKER and F3/NV are horribly different, and of course STALKER comes out as the winner. Because 99% of the actual settlements are not only self sustained, they are also well defended and incredibly difficult to destroy and kill everyone inside. So while they have a lot of equipment and supplies and the means to get more, the players can't just go ahead and take it.

Then you have Fallout in which you can not only very easily steal almost everything without any ever catching you, you can also kill everybody (the military base at the Vegas airport? a joke, you defeat everybody with nothing but a cowboy repeater) and steal their stuff. And you won't even get punished.

Not just that, in Fallout there are settlements that just plain outright don't make any sense, even if the game was harder (like the miners' "village" near the deathclaw nest, or even goodsprings) - completely undefended, occupied by people who can barely defend themselves in a world where giant dragon-like monsters are common and every other dude is a bad guy, this shit just doesn't make any sense.

So in the end Hardcore is ruined by the abundance of everything not only out there in the wild but also because you can acquire everything from the camps themselves very easily.

 

[G.O.D]

Ammo have weight and meds healing over time - NOW THAT'S HARDCORE!

Location: PL

Go play F3... then it won't bother you, you twat...
Its still better than nothing at all.

 

[Radisshu]

Hardcore mode was just slightly more interesting for me than normal mode, the challenge wasn't that much greater.

It did make everything feel more like the original Fallouts, though, because I'd go "FUUUUUUU" and reload when my followers died.

 

[Renegen]

Hardcore more is good, though a lot of it really is about roleplaying. It took me a while to learn that one out.

What it does is :

- make Stimpacks less godly, and therefore requiring a bit more prudence in battle. Check. No one really disagrees with this part.

- Make ammo weigh something. Give you food, water and sleep meters.
Both of these two things aim for more realism. However, what ends up happening in the context of the game is that the player will hoard as much food and water items and hoard a lot of ammo. This leads to a huge problem with inventory management and the overall feeling the Hardcore more is "too much of a hassle".

Except you're doing it wrong. To make the hardcore mode work, you must stop hoarding ressources, the natural instinct of the player, and instead roleplay. Only carry 5 pounds worth of food and water stuff. Hell, even worry where your next meal or drink will come from. Always carry only a few hundred rounds in total across all your guns. You will get that different experience, and of course your inventory problems will get solved.

 

[G.O.D]

Hardcore more is good, though a lot of it really is about roleplaying. It took me a while to learn that one out.

What it does is :

- make Stimpacks less godly, and therefore requiring a bit more prudence in battle. Check. No one really disagrees with this part.

- Make ammo weigh something. Give you food, water and sleep meters.
<snip>

Except you're doing it wrong. To make the hardcore mode work, you must stop hoarding ressources, the natural instinct of the player, and instead roleplay. Only carry 5 pounds worth of food and water stuff. Hell, even worry where your next meal or drink will come from. Always carry only a few hundred rounds in total across all your guns. You will get that different experience, and of course your inventory problems will get solved.

I can relate to the point you are making.
NV is not really a hard game you could say, but..
Hoarding is just part of the Elder Scrolls.. eh.. (Later) Fallout series (arguably the previous also) gameplay.

Doing otherwise is like restricting yourself, by creating artificial difficulty.
And for me personally, thats more than enough to eventually stop playing.

With the open-world setting, and the way some gamemechanics are set up, you will naturally find yourself doing these things, becouse it works for the gameplay (like you said).
And thats something for the devs to fix or adapt, if it breaks the game.
Instead, Bethesda in particular, relies on modders, to eventally make things like the (PC) community wants it.

I like NV and all (OE did well), but it's a damn shame they didn't have more time to implement stuff better and give it more content.. which (still) makes me feel a bit butthurt.

 

[a budda]

want hardcore?

switch off the HUD, completely, that's how such a "wasteland survival" game should be played

 

[torpid]

Yo I play with a pissing and shitting mod -- is that hardcore enough? You'll never again look at those irradiated toilets the same way

 

[Excidium]

Yo I play with a pissing and shitting mod -- is that hardcore enough? You'll never again look at those irradiated toilets the same way

But can you pick up the turd and use as a thrown weapon? Or piss on your dead enemies?

 

[Clockwork Knight]

No, but you get a XP bonus for shitting down an enemy's esophagus after you VATSed his head. It simulates the adrenaline burst you get when you do that in real life combat situations.

 

[Metro]

It actually made those items useful. It made me plan a little for going into a "dungeon" or a long trip. It made me look carefully at certain food items to determine if they would add to dehydration. It forced me to consume more food than is necessary in normal mode (i.e. pretty much none) and thus forced me to push up my rad level far mroe often than normal, making radiation a more serious concern outside of specific areas like the Ghoul vault.

Really? I just walked around with a dozen or so purified water and various food items at all times. Even if you didn't walk around with food it was pretty much at every location imaginable on the map. Food increased your rad level by such a trivial amount that I didn't find it to have any bearing on normally combating it in rad intensive areas. And usually there's a decent amount of Rad-X and Rad-away to purchase at merchants to solve that. I rarely ever got past the 'minor' level of dehydration sickness and definitely never hit that mark for hunger or sleep as they increased that much slower. I think the only food items that increased dehydration were alcohol and soda and there was never a big need to drink those (even then I think soda -- for the star caps -- only added like +5 dehydration where a purified water knocked it down by 60ish points). I appreciate the fact that Obisidian tried to do something to make the game seem more 'Fallout-y' but I never found myself planning ahead short of carrying around the stuff I mentioned. I guess that's planning of sorts but it just didn't alter the playing experience for me by any meaningful amount short of taking away ~20 pounds of inventory space (and I wasn't really short of that).

Except you're doing it wrong. To make the hardcore mode work, you must stop hoarding ressources, the natural instinct of the player, and instead roleplay. Only carry 5 pounds worth of food and water stuff.

So roleplay a guy who would go wandering around the Mojave desert for a week with no supplies other than a couple of chocolate bars and a cup of water? Never mind the fact there's no shortage of fresh water sources scattered around the map. Even with a realistic/self imposed weight limit of around thirty to forty pounds you could still carry enough to get you from town to town with ease.

 

[OSK]

I've only played with hardcore on. I don't find it annoying, but I don't find anything in it terribly game changing except the rules for healing limb damage (and that's probably only because of my obsession with taking small frame). But I like it. It gives me something other than ammo and healing supplies to scrounge around for and spend money on.

I'd rather see improvements made to the hardcore mechanics than have it removed.

 

[sirfink]

Not just that, in Fallout there are settlements that just plain outright don't make any sense, even if the game was harder (like the miners' "village" near the deathclaw nest, or even goodsprings) - completely undefended, occupied by people who can barely defend themselves in a world where giant dragon-like monsters are common and every other dude is a bad guy, this shit just doesn't make any sense.

I remember starting up a new game of NV and, due to a glorious turn of randomness, a giant radscorpion had managed to wander into Goodsprings. Slaughtered the entire town (including all the quest NPCs) while I just hid and watched it all go down. There's the bartender chick in her dress and she's got a cleaver or something useless, hacking away at the thing. Totally ridiculous.

 

[Jaesun]

I remember starting up a new game of NV and, due to a glorious turn of randomness, a giant radscorpion had managed to wander into Goodsprings. Slaughtered the entire town (including all the quest NPCs) while I just hid and watched it all go down. There's the bartender chick in her dress and she's got a cleaver or something useless, hacking away at the thing. Totally ridiculous.

That is fucking AWESOME. What's the problem?

 

[Oriebam]

Not just that, in Fallout there are settlements that just plain outright don't make any sense, even if the game was harder (like the miners' "village" near the deathclaw nest, or even goodsprings) - completely undefended, occupied by people who can barely defend themselves in a world where giant dragon-like monsters are common and every other dude is a bad guy, this shit just doesn't make any sense.

I remember starting up a new game of NV and, due to a glorious turn of randomness, a giant radscorpion had managed to wander into Goodsprings. Slaughtered the entire town (including all the quest NPCs) while I just hid and watched it all go down. There's the bartender chick in her dress and she's got a cleaver or something useless, hacking away at the thing. Totally ridiculous.

I hate to be the one to say this, but you're not supposed to think of this with RL logic, that's like saying pokemon's ridiculous and has a egotistical message because a wild missingno appeared

And so far I'm liking hardcore mode, although it contributes a bit to constant emcumbrance. It would have been more appropriate in Fallout 3, where food and good water are more scarce and the region is much more of a shithole, from what I see of NV

 

[Metro]

It would have been more appropriate in Fallout 3, where food and good water are more scarce and the region is much more of a shithole, from what I see of NV

Exactly. In FO3 99% of the water sources were irradiated and bottled pure water was rare. You had to find most of it as merchants usually only had one or two (not that you needed it in FO3 unless you played with FWE or something similar). In New Vegas practically the first location you visit -- Goodsprings Source -- provides an unlimited supply of it. Can't say I found crippled limbs that challenging either as there were plenty of doctor's bags around. Not as many as the ridiculous supply of stimpacks (you could probably find a couple hundred of those with ease) but still more than enough.

 

[Oriebam]

It would have been more appropriate in Fallout 3, where food and good water are more scarce and the region is much more of a shithole, from what I see of NV

Exactly. In FO3 99% of the water sources were irradiated and bottled pure water was rare. You had to find most of it as merchants usually only had one or two (not that you needed it in FO3 unless you played with FWE or something similar). In New Vegas practically the first location you visit -- Goodsprings Source -- provides an unlimited supply of it. Can't say I found crippled limbs that challenging either as there were plenty of doctor's bags around. Not as many as the ridiculous supply of stimpacks (you could probably find a couple hundred of those with ease) but still more than enough.

Not to mention for several reasons fallout 3 actually would benefit a lot more from this

I wonder why the bethesdafags didn't put this from the beginning or on one of the DLCs, since they already put larpy food items and most of the game doesn't seem to have required too much effort, plus it's a simple thing that would have given the game a lot of extra value(or extra DLC sales)

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I remember starting up a new game of NV and, due to a glorious turn of randomness, a giant radscorpion had managed to wander into Goodsprings. Slaughtered the entire town (including all the quest NPCs) while I just hid and watched it all go down. There's the bartender chick in her dress and she's got a cleaver or something useless, hacking away at the thing. Totally ridiculous.

That is fucking AWESOME. What's the problem?

The problem is that the radscorpion didn't get lucky and managed to get past walls and patrols or anything, it just walked into Mordorsprings.

 

[halflingbarbarian]

Just want to make sure everyone knows that NV is quite good so far the 2nd time around, with updated mods. Can't comment on the DLCs yet since I haven't started on them. Hardcore mode, I realised, doesn't add any 'gameplay' per se, but does quite a basic job of increasing immersion (lol rpg).

I am curious if anyone becomes such a compulsive gfx whore after looking at vanilla NV graphics like me? I feel the need to download hi res textures or I can't even look at the engine. Using Poco Bueno texture pack on top of transplanted NMC textures from a Fallout 3 NMC texture overhaul mod. Also using sound fx fixes regarding noise over distances and general volume, and also an AG weapon reloading/unjamming sound mod. And weapon textures overhaul. And higher res blood. Of course, and finally Fellout.

Now I just need a mod that forces texture integrity for landscapes in the distance since I can't stand zooming in on my sniper rifle scope and finding blurry shit medium distance away. Also I will be crazy for a mod that can overcome the engine's very very limited range on blood and bullet impact decals. I am using a bullet decal extender mod now but it only gives me bullet holes in walls within an unsatisfying distance, meaning if I snipe things, no blood gushes from the wounds nor the ground/walls have signs of my misses. I have such a mod now, that displays spent casings/shells on the ground for a long duration. The problem being that it works only for enemies, and for my own character only when I fight in 3rd person view (sucks); need it to work for 1st person view as well!

God I'm addicted to mods.

 

[OSK]

God I'm addicted to mods.

Are there any decent mods that aren't for graphics whoring? The only one I use is one to fix the console-ish UI.