Doing a Legion run in FO:NV

[Mexi]

None of the DLC are amazing, but I’ve always been confused that there isn’t a general consensus that DM>OWB>HH>LR.

Lonesome Road in particular is straight-up awful start to finish. Easily the worst thing MCA has ever been credited on, and I’m including Descent to Undermountain.

OWB is odd. You can tell that was the DLC that they put the most effort into, but I didn't quite like it. Plot and everything felt like a mess to me.

 

[good fucking shit happen]

My favorite playthrough was the Legion run. Leads to the best ending for New Vegas, honestly. TBH, I really liked both Caesar and Mr. House paths. They both treated you as a mentor would his protégé. You don't get that with other New Vegas paths. Like, the NCR path always felt really hollow. You don't have that cult of personality or whatever, and the Courier's loyalty to that path seemed kind of forced. Like, my canon ending would probably be the Mr. House ending. Always felt really bad

Somebody got a hard on for dictators and authoritarians I see.

I joined the legion after seeing that room filled with NCR bodyparts, that won me over.

It's a shame there isn't a proper raider faction you can join and become the leader of. Cook-Cook as a companion would have been incredible.

 

[good fucking shit happen]

None of the DLC are amazing, but I’ve always been confused that there isn’t a general consensus that DM>OWB>HH>LR.

Lonesome Road in particular is straight-up awful start to finish. Easily the worst thing MCA has ever been credited on, and I’m including Descent to Undermountain.

OWB is odd. You can tell that was the DLC that they put the most effort into, but I didn't quite like it. Plot and everything felt like a mess to me.

They went too wacky with the serial science fiction theme, that went too far.

Here's how I'd rate the DLC:

Top tier: Honest Hearts - You get to butcher tribals and that perk you get against them is very effective. Open world done right, a different locale and a cool moron mormon guy who loads guns continuously.
Good tier: Dead Money - The heist thing is nifty and you actually have to start worrying about resources, unlike in the rest of the game. You also get a decent cast of characters for that famed Obsidian (RIP) writing.
Mid tier: Old World Blues - Very open, but also very empty feeling. The writing is stupid and whacking people over the head with a sledgehammer isn't as fun without proper context. Penis fingers.
Shit tier: Lonesome Road - Linear crawl through a mutant filled waste while some asshole whines about people getting nuked in your ear. That rastafari guy needs to relax, the nukes have already been dropped, nobody cares about another one or two getting detonated.

 

[ValeVelKal]

Funny, I rank OWB first for the witty writing, the extremely creative location (and weapons) and the interesting choice to make at the end of it.
Dead Money is close second, I love it but I totally understand people who hated it (eg my own father).

Those two are better than ANY Fallout 3 DLC.

I don't have a very good memory of Honest Hearts, which I found too "normal".

I hated Lonesone Road is just a corridor of cal 50 sniping, I would it worse than any Fallout 3 DLC. Yes, even the Alaska one. At least Operation Anchorage does not try to pretend it is closing a storyline or whatever, but tells you immediately it is going to be combat-combat-combat.

 

[ValeVelKal]

It's a shame there isn't a proper raider faction you can join and become the leader of. Cook-Cook as a companion would have been incredible.

Cook-Cook is just lazy writing, but I really wished they finished the Great Khans storyline. When playing FNV I was convinced you could "join" them, and only later realized their questline had been cut short.

 

[DalekFlay]

Those two are better than ANY Fallout 3 DLC.

It has the almost as shitty writing as the main game, but I think Point Lookout is better as a DLC add-on than any of the New Vegas DLCs. But only as a relative addition, as in New Vegas is a much better game and thus its DLC is worse in contrast (IMO) than Point Lookout, a pretty good DLC for a much worse game. If that makes sense.

 

[Trashos]

You are all going to appreciate Dead Money when you acquire a taste for Greatness.

 

[ValeVelKal]

Those two are better than ANY Fallout 3 DLC.

It has the almost as shitty writing as the main game, but I think Point Lookout is better as a DLC add-on than any of the New Vegas DLCs. But only as a relative addition, as in New Vegas is a much better game and thus its DLC is worse in contrast (IMO) than Point Lookout, a pretty good DLC for a much worse game. If that makes sense.

Point Lookout was terrible. The writing was acceptable, but bullet sponge hostiles who could pierce your power armor with old rusty hunting rifles were terrible.

The degenerate hicks in Point Lookout could kill an Enclave elite or a death claw 1vs1. And that’s all the map had.

 

[purupuru]

Honest Hearts has a beautiful map, but some of the writing is really terrible, I can barely find dialogues responses that fit my character, which is almost polar opposite to what I felt about the main campaign.

Spoiler

Like in the last fight you already subdued Salt-Upon-Wounds and Graham was pointing a gun to his head, and the only options you get are 1) pass a 90 speech check to spare him 2) have the Sneering Imperialist perk and execute him 3) tell Salt-Upon-Wounds that you are going to kill him anyway but he should stand up and defend himself, resulting in a boss battle (which can be fatal to squishy characters since you get a powerfist to your face). I can see for balance reasons you should give the players without corresponding skills/perks the hardest fight, but boy was that whole scene retarded.

 

[Daemongar]

Doing a more Legion involved run and jesus, Caesar's philosophical rantings sound like half the people in our politics forum.

HEY, hey, hey everyone. I am going through FO:NV in a manner I don't like. Doesn't it suck? Stupid, eh? OMG! The choices I make are EVIL!!! I even started a fucking thread to show everyone my contempt for the way I am playing a game I purchased! Misogynist, racist, homophones or something! Everyone look at me! I am playing a game in a manner that I find Objectionable! Freedom of choice should not be allowed! It leads to all kinds of problems!

Boring and lazy? That's not me! I swear! It's the game that doesn't align with my world outlook that is the villain, not me! Honest!

 

[Trashos]

Honest Hearts has a beautiful map, but some of the writing is really terrible

Yes, that scene you are describing leaves some things to be desired. But, to be fair, the Survivalist logs feature some stellar writing, and I enjoyed the Burning Man a lot too. So I wouldn't say that Honest Hearts does not have good writing.

I would say that HH's biggest problem were the silly initial quests, and personally I also found the HH companions kinda boring. Other than that it is good (map, Survivalist logs, Burning Man, decent dilemma of leaving or fighting).

EdiT: And I also didn't enjoy the constant ambush gameplay in the wilderness. It can be considered to be thematic, however.

 

[Luckmann]

I also found the HH companions kinda boring.

DLC-area-only companions were a mistake.

 

[d1r]

I also found the HH companions kinda boring.

DLC-area-only companions were a mistake.

First time I played HH, I was hoping for a Wild Wasteland encounter with Follow-Chalks in the Mojave after HH ended. Sadly, this never happened.

 

[purupuru]

DLC-area-only companions were a mistake.

Josh said during his FNV stream that it was a technical issue with gamebryo. DLC characters won't be able to talk in the main game and vise versa. You can also observe it in Oblivion if you use a follower mod to bring npcs to Shivering Isles.

 

[KVVRR]

My favorite ending is the Yes Man ending where you make him throw Oliver off the dam. CL path just suffers from a lack of content, especially compared to NCR. From a dev perspective it was clearly the smart choice to cut so much CL stuff as achievements have pretty conclusively shown it is overwhelmingly the least popular path to pursue, but it did make that playthrough feel pretty anemic.

They're too blatantly evil for many to follow their path, which in some respect makes them poorly designed I suppose, as an option. Sawyer has talked about their better aspects on social media but very little of it is in the game and probably wouldn't justify them to many players anyway. Perhaps better to have made them Fallout 2's Enclave and not able to be joined, using those dev resources to enhance the other paths (or create a Brotherhood path).

It's really hard to make an enjoyable "evil" faction to join, in my experience. Somehow Bethesda managed it with the Dark Brotherhood, in a mainstream gamer sense at least. Key ingredient there seems to be lots of cheesy dialog to soften their edge.

Is it really? I feel like making them lawful-evil while at the same time showing them getting results and having the punishments somewhat fit the crime (albeit in a somewhat excesive way, maybe) should be enough.

 

[DraQ]

Doing a more Legion involved run and jesus, Caesar's philosophical rantings sound like half the people in our politics forum.

HEY, hey, hey everyone. I am going through FO:NV in a manner I don't like. Doesn't it suck? Stupid, eh? OMG! The choices I make are EVIL!!! I even started a fucking thread to show everyone my contempt for the way I am playing a game I purchased! Misogynist, racist, homophones or something! Everyone look at me! I am playing a game in a manner that I find Objectionable! Freedom of choice should not be allowed! It leads to all kinds of problems!

Boring and lazy? That's not me! I swear! It's the game that doesn't align with my world outlook that is the villain, not me! Honest!

How about not making your primary playable factions textbook Stupid Evil so they could also appeal to players without brain tumours?

 

[gruntar]

How about not making your primary playable factions textbook Stupid Evil so they could also appeal to players without brain tumours?

Players that judge Legion by current standards are the ones actually retarded. Obviously, in the modern world, Legion has as much right to exists as ISIS. However in Fallout world this is not the case at all. If you talk to a trader at the Fort or npcs at start of Honest Hearts you will learn that some regions, like Arizona, were at Mad Max 2 level of fucked up state before Legion brought peace and stability. Legion is violent faction because violence, often extreme, is the only common language various rider gangs and tribes that Legion conquered understands. Legion also isn't a mongol horde conquering everything mindlessly and leaving scorched earth behind, they leave settlements that peacefully surrender to them with some sort of autonomy. There is a nuance there, but you have to leave your safe space for just a little to see it.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Legion also isn't a mongol horde conquering everything mindlessly and leaving scorched earth behind, they leave settlements that peacefully surrender to them with some sort of autonomy.

That's how original Mongol Orda operated, by the way. Those who resisted and lost were slaughtered mercilessly, those who surrendered got off with tributes and giving recruits.

That's how Armenia survived the Mongols. They didn't resist, and thus were spared; recruits from Armenia participated in Mongol conquest of Arab lands.

 

[Luckmann]

Obviously, in the modern world, Legion has as much right to exists as ISIS.

Yes, this, except the other way around.

 

[DalekFlay]

HEY, hey, hey everyone. I am going through FO:NV in a manner I don't like. Doesn't it suck? Stupid, eh? OMG! The choices I make are EVIL!!! I even started a fucking thread to show everyone my contempt for the way I am playing a game I purchased! Misogynist, racist, homophones or something! Everyone look at me! I am playing a game in a manner that I find Objectionable! Freedom of choice should not be allowed! It leads to all kinds of problems!

Boring and lazy? That's not me! I swear! It's the game that doesn't align with my world outlook that is the villain, not me! Honest!

1. I didn't start a thread, the gods above turned it into one.

2. I wasn't complaining about it at all in the OP, it just struck me as amusing. Don't be so butthurt and defensive.

Players that judge Legion by current standards are the ones actually retarded. Obviously, in the modern world, Legion has as much right to exists as ISIS. However in Fallout world this is not the case at all. If you talk to a trader at the Fort or npcs at start of Honest Hearts you will learn that some regions, like Arizona, were at Mad Max 2 level of fucked up state before Legion brought peace and stability. Legion is violent faction because violence, often extreme, is the only common language various rider gangs and tribes that Legion conquered understands. Legion also isn't a mongol horde conquering everything mindlessly and leaving scorched earth behind, they leave settlements that peacefully surrender to them with some sort of autonomy. There is a nuance there, but you have to leave your safe space for just a little to see it.

Of course in a primitive world fascism has its uses, but if you want me as a free human being in 2020 to identify with it at all you need to give more reasons to suspend disbelief. Even Sawyer admits they didn't show anywhere near enough positives to the Legion for it to make sense for players as a choice. They're too blatantly evil... slavery, rape, killing 1 out of every 10 troops... with no in-game benefits shown, only briefly mentioned in dialog.

 

[DraQ]

The problem with the Legion is that:

• It fails to demonstrate its methods being necessary or even justified - even by just being there (and being arguably quite effective - they aren't just larping prewar society if it works) the alternative factions make for effective counterpoint.
• Following from more or less modern world with relatively modern ethos it can't even use "historical" authenticity as rationale - it's just a bunch of psychopathic assholes larping Romans (poorly) amongst the wastes.

 

[ValeVelKal]

You can assume that the Legions had no idea how the Roman operated. For all you know, what survived from the Romans is half a copy of "War in Gauls" and the Caligula part of the Twelve Caesars.

 

[DraQ]

Legion not only doesn't establish itself as the only workable option validating its methods,
not only does it fail to establish itself as NCR's or House's superior possibly justifying them,
it doesn't even manage to establish itself as their equal ignoring them - what happens once Caesar kicks the bucket?

It's just a one man's sociopathic larp.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Legion not only doesn't establish itself as the only workable option validating its methods,
not only does it fail to establish itself as NCR's or House's superior possibly justifying them,
it doesn't even manage to establish itself as their equal ignoring them - what happens once Caesar kicks the bucket?

Eh, CL is certainly the weakest faction in the game, but I think the problem lies primarily with lack of content, not with the content that is present. Caesar is one of the more well-written characters in the game, and he will freely admit to the Courier that he does not believe the Legion will survive his death unless there is some sort of unifying figurehead or national identity (which is why he wants New Vegas so badly, he's the only faction leader whose prime motivation is not control of the actual Dam). Graham could likely have been a worthy successor, but of course Caesar's pride and insecurity curtailed that. Caesar also will freely admit that Lanius is nothing more than a useful psychopath. That leaves only the Courier as a possible successor (or Ulysses in earlier drafts of the game I suppose).

It's just a one man's sociopathic larp.

I do agree with that, but of course Caesar doesn't because of his own failings and flaws which is a pretty typical human characteristic.

 

[cruelio]

How about not making your primary playable factions textbook Stupid Evil so they could also appeal to players without brain tumours?

Players that judge Legion by current standards are the ones actually retarded. Obviously, in the modern world, Legion has as much right to exists as ISIS. However in Fallout world this is not the case at all. If you talk to a trader at the Fort or npcs at start of Honest Hearts you will learn that some regions, like Arizona, were at Mad Max 2 level of fucked up state before Legion brought peace and stability. Legion is violent faction because violence, often extreme, is the only common language various rider gangs and tribes that Legion conquered understands. Legion also isn't a mongol horde conquering everything mindlessly and leaving scorched earth behind, they leave settlements that peacefully surrender to them with some sort of autonomy. There is a nuance there, but you have to leave your safe space for just a little to see it.

They could make sense in a world without the NCR. The NCR is so rich it's citizens can single handedly fuel the economy of House's New Vegas despite having to journey across the desert to do so. They got that way without having to resort to what Caesar resorted to, and they also started the game surrounded by hostile tribals and, to boot, the Brotherhood.

It never really made sense to me that the Legion could be a threat to the NCR regardless (guys in football armor with machetes vs. ~WWI era army with better guns). Sawyer basically conceded this in a formspring answer where he acknowledged the legion could only be a threat because of the story-contrived incompetence of Oliver.