Doing a Legion run in FO:NV

[DalekFlay]

Game can be kinda random in what kills your reputation with a faction. I have slaughtered a ton of Legion without it hurting my rep, but because I did it with a silenced weapon from sneaking it didn't hurt my rep. Then I kill one random Legion guy in the middle of nowhere with a shotgun and BOOM, I'm down to "thug" rep or whatever. I mean I get the game's justification, there are people watching me and I wasn't sneaking, but it's like a whiplash. Especially since that guy showed up out of nowhere and attacked me when I discovered a lost NCR patrol.

 

[Poseidon00]

Always wanted to do this with a throwing spear/survival focused char. Slightly modded those two skillsets to make them a bit more useful of course. I have never done the DLCs so maybe i'll complete those too.

 

[ValeVelKal]

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.

Well, in a world where ranged weapons do no absolutely dominate melee and where heavy clothes has a significant stopping power vs bullets why not.

 

[Ol' Willy]

in a world where ranged weapons do no absolutely dominate melee and where heavy clothes has a significant stopping power vs bullets

 

[vota DC]

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.

I think It Is late 1800 vs ww1. Legion recruits have weak pistols and those slow rifles. That Is the reason why with a surprise attack legion can win at Nelson even with 1:3 odds.
They also understand the power of cannons but can't use advanced cannons like the one scavenged at Yuma.

Oliver Is the reason why NCR fails to defend Hoover Dam if Courier isn't involved but even with better generals NCR doesn't have the force to counterattack because politicians use those power armor soldiers to defend ranches in California.

Armor makes no sense. They use those machines to sharp their machetes, they could produce their own armors instead of scavenge sport gear.

 

[DraQ]

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.

This and this.

 

[DalekFlay]

You could craft a scenario where the Legion wins by overwhelming numbers used as cannon fodder. If they've been assimilating tribals across vast swaths of the Southwest, and they have zero respect for individuality, then you could craft a situation where they throw thousands of Legionaries at the NCR lines and overwhelm them despite massive casualties. The engine would never have been able to depict this though.

 

[typical user]

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.

To create an enjoyable "evil" faction you first need to make them plausible. No society is evil to it's roots. It's against human morals/ethics and prime insticts to be inherently evil. Caesar's Legion is weird because it is huge army and no one questions crucifixtions, slavery, women objectification inside. I don't remember a single Legion member saying something like "I don't agree with everything Caesar says but he is the founding father and a great leader. I follow him because to do otherwise I would end up like Burned Man, but there will be time where he will have to listen to us" or "Caesar created a philosophy suited for waging wars. We will need to rethink some of our policies, people will revolt if we blindly follow his teachings in the time of peace". Instead you have fanatical zealots even among the highest ranking leaders. Caesar created Legion because he thought Roman Empire is so outlandish and it's customs so outdated that it might work in post-nuclear Dark Ages.

If Legion had more merit, some justification stories about stripping women of their rights, something plausible to why they are bringing machetes to gun-fights then more people would play them. House on the other hand, he is an authoritarian asshole, centered around himself, he doesn't even once from what I remember say that he wants cooperation, instead he wants to be one above all, have the final word when he doesn't even know or care what people on his streets think about him. But he does provide constructive criticism to democracy as a whole, because the other option he sees is NCR. If you reveal to him you support The Legion he will be horrified in his last moments. Also House is believeable option while Caesar we all know will probably scorch New Vegas to the ground, kill everyone who disaggrees with his vision and go somewhere else because his nation needs an enemy. It's best summed up by NPCs outside Legion commenting on Caesar's death and how it will make Legion fall apart in following years - because no one there cares what Legion stands for, they only follow because of Caesar who created this one big snowball.

You don't have to agree with everything I wrote about them, those factions are still interesting and the fact we can hold political/philosophical discussion shows New Vegas is above competition's designs. Speaking of them - let's look at The Institute. In Fo4 their MO is explained by infamous quote "It's too complicated for you to understand". Because Institute is evil and there is no effort made to make them plausible like with The Legion. All it could take, would be the same trans-humanism idea The Master from Fo1 followed. The Institute could be about making everyone a synthetic, equal and stronger than normal humans. There could be a story about them being betrayed by wastelanders on their first contact. Instead we got a lulzy faction which kidnaps people, injects them with a FEV serum that causes painful death or turns them into raging mutants which they proceed dump on the surface to screw even more people and their only justification is "we are doing it for science and you can't understand science".

The "Dark Brotherhood" is the 1:1 copy of Fo1 Brotherhood. They were a technological police back then. As such in Fo4 they had the most merit. They sack the supplies from settlers because they are at war, they wanted to conquer the Commonwealth to confiscate everthing more advanced than microwave so no one would get any funny ideas like The Institute. People compared them to Nazis because Brotherhood feared synths and wanted them destroyed/killed, they saw them as tools of war and something that could one way or the other end humanity - although that is never discussed in Fallout 4 since the developers are on the level that makes them think Kid in the Fridge quest was initially funny, so Maxson was spewing propaganda slogans 24/7. And those who played the game didn't really knew "The OG Brotherhood" and didn't really wanted to dwelve on the AI dilemna.

Anyway House is evil, Legion is cartoonishly evil. It sort of works but like I wrote above to make more people like them and them more enjoyable, there should be some sort of inner opposition like in NCR or New Vegas when we talk about Mr. House.

 

[Ol' Willy]

You could craft a scenario where the Legion wins by overwhelming numbers used as cannon fodder. If they've been assimilating tribals across vast swaths of the Southwest, and they have zero respect for individuality, then you could craft a situation where they throw thousands of Legionaries at the NCR lines and overwhelm them despite massive casualties

Because Sowyer knows jack shit about real conflicts and automatic weapons or is completely insane about "muh balance", the shit like "firearms faction" vs "melee faction" is possible. No, you can't overwhelm with sheer machete wielding numbers someone who uses fucking machineguns. Isandlwana is the thing from the past.

 

[DalekFlay]

To create an enjoyable "evil" faction you first need to make them plausible. No society is evil to it's roots. It's against human morals/ethics and prime insticts to be inherently evil. Caesar's Legion is weird because it is huge army and no one questions crucifixtions, slavery, women objectification inside. I don't remember a single Legion member saying something like "I don't agree with everything Caesar says but he is the founding father and a great leader. I follow him because to do otherwise I would end up like Burned Man, but there will be time where he will have to listen to us" or "Caesar created a philosophy suited for waging wars. We will need to rethink some of our policies, people will revolt if we blindly follow his teachings in the time of peace". Instead you have fanatical zealots even among the highest ranking leaders. Caesar created Legion because he thought Roman Empire is so outlandish and it's customs so outdated that it might work in post-nuclear Dark Ages.

Having just recently gone through Caesar's entire dialog tree I can say they make some passing allusions to justifications, it's just not developed super well. It's the standard nationalist dictator shit... we need a "strong man" to purge us of deviance and weakness... we need one culture without diversity, which weakens us... etc. Cass also briefly discusses how some caravans like Legion territory because there's no raiders or crime, if you follow Caesar's laws then you have a safe and happy existence (if you're a man). I'm not gonna make real world parallels and bring the drama, but I think there are numerous real world examples of large groups of people following in this fascist vein. The difference is the you-know-whos of history usually presented it with less obvious malice and more as a "saving OUR people" kinda way. Caesar is, as you say, a cartoonish version.

You don't have to agree with everything I wrote about them, those factions are still interesting and the fact we can hold political/philosophical discussion shows New Vegas is above competition's designs. Speaking of them - let's look at The Institute. In Fo4 their MO is explained by infamous quote "It's too complicated for you to understand". Because Institute is evil and there is no effort made to make them plausible like with The Legion. All it could take, would be the same trans-humanism idea The Master from Fo1 followed. The Institute could be about making everyone a synthetic, equal and stronger than normal humans. There could be a story about them being betrayed by wastelanders on their first contact. Instead we got a lulzy faction which kidnaps people, injects them with a FEV serum that causes painful death or turns them into raging mutants which they proceed dump on the surface to screw even more people and their only justification is "we are doing it for science and you can't understand science".

My first playthrough of Fallout 4 was an Institute playthrough and god help me, I don't think I could have properly explained their ethos afterward. Fallout 4 has a lot better writing than 3 in my opinion, but the modern Bethesda derp can only be prettied up so much. Having just dipped back in, mainly focused on the DLC but I did do a Railroad ending finally, I can say there are the barest of hints they basically want to wipe the surface clean and start over with their much smaller number, which required them to make synths to do all the labor and whatnot. How the FEV plays into that god knows, and also why aren't you actively doing shit to take down all the surface settlements then? I don't even remember the Institute ending honestly, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't wiping the slate clean.

 

[vota DC]

Most of legionaries are people that come from a tribe that was butchered by Caesar. If they bear that they also don't question about women rights and other stuff.
Anyway why they don't use more grenades? Fireweapons jams and they do mass training to fight in all conditions, melee included so since they train so much they should be great at hurling grenades. Grenades to make enemies break ranks or come out from trenches and then melee like Arditi would be great.
Also the game doesn't have shields while riot (or ballistic) shields and testudo formations would be great.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

You could craft a scenario where the Legion wins by overwhelming numbers used as cannon fodder. If they've been assimilating tribals across vast swaths of the Southwest, and they have zero respect for individuality, then you could craft a situation where they throw thousands of Legionaries at the NCR lines and overwhelm them despite massive casualties

Because Sowyer knows jack shit about real conflicts and automatic weapons...

I know it’s cool to hate on JES here, but that’s just not true (and actually inconsistent with a lot of criticism generally directed towards him). If anything, Josh is overly well-read and slavish towards historicity.
Regarding firearms faction v. Melee faction:

CL is not a melee only faction. Their elite are all given firearms. You can complain about them not having access to automatic weapons, but if you give a highly trained shooter a bolt-action rifle and pit them against a bumpkin with a tommy gun it’s not hard to guess who’s likely to come out on top.

And as Hanlon makes fairly explicit: Caesar (and House as a shadow proxy) is waging a war of attrition that the NCR can’t even afford to win; they just need to get the fuck out of the conflict period.

Re: the inability of savage masses to overwhelm armies with far superior technology/weaponry/organization:
There are plenty of historical examples of having just that happen. It’s certainly not common, but hope springs eternal.

 

[Nano]

It annoys me when people complain about evil routes in RPGs being "too evil". I dunno about you, but I prefer my evil playthroughs to be maximally sadistic.

 

[Mexi]

Most of legionaries are people that come from a tribe that was butchered by Caesar. If they bear that they also don't question about women rights and other stuff.
Anyway why they don't use more grenades? Fireweapons jams and they do mass training to fight in all conditions, melee included so since they train so much they should be great at hurling grenades. Grenades to make enemies break ranks or come out from trenches and then melee like Arditi would be great.
Also the game doesn't have shields while riot (or ballistic) shields and testudo formations would be great.

The way Caesar's generals explain it, I think they value formation above all else. At least, IIRC, it was some of Caesar's centurions or maybe himself that said how they march into battle. I think explosives wouldn't work here. Too chaotic and unpredictable, imo. By the way, damn, I fucking love this game. Little things like that for world-building...

 

[KVVRR]

It annoys me when people complain about evil routes in RPGs being "too evil". I dunno about you, but I prefer my evil playthroughs to be maximally sadistic.

Most of the time the problem isn't them being too evil, is that it's just not a practical way to make a faction/society. If you're able to justify it within the world then a lot less people would have a problem with it.
I don't want to beat a dead horse but just look at the Board in Outer Worlds, those guys are blatantly evil but also completely incompetent and moronic, to the point that their rute conflicts with not just the player but also the player character's motivation nine times out of ten.

 

[purupuru]

It makes sense that Legion has much less presence in Mojave than NCR, they lost that first battle of Hoover Dam after all.
BOS lost at Helios One and went full hikikomori, not even teased as a major faction like the Khans, but you don't see their fans complaining about it.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

It annoys me when people complain about evil routes in RPGs being "too evil". I dunno about you, but I prefer my evil playthroughs to be maximally sadistic.

Agreed. There's a reason people hold up PS:T and MotB as excellent "evil" RPGs.

 

[DalekFlay]

I think a problem is not just lack of Legion content, but also the fact you literally get NCR quests throw into your face across the entire map. Can't walk around without seeing some guy with a bear on his armor. Meanwhile your first run-in with the Legion is Vulpes and at best you can go "Wow, based" to his deeds on Nipton. There are NCR quests littered all over the map, with rewards and money and stuff. By the time you arrive to Vegas, the NCR will love you unless you went out of your way to hostilize them. The Legion barely appears until you run Benny out.

Then again, lack of time for Legion quests, I know, I know.

I think the NCR is the "base" of the game no matter what. Even the House and Independent questlines mostly have you bouncing off the NCR and Legion in various ways, rather than having their own unique locations and whatnot. The game definitely should have more Legion content East of the river, and Sawyer has said many times it was meant to but they had to cut it down, but I still think the overall setting is NCR focused and there's not much you can do about that. Considering the setup, I think the other factions feel surprisingly well developed... there are Khan quests, Brotherhood quests, even quests for Powder Gangers and Fiends iirc. But yes it all revolves around the NCR because that's how the game world is set up.

 

[cruelio]

Fallout 1: tribe NCR
Fallout 2: nascent NCR
NV: post-Tandi NCR

Face it, it's a NCR world, everyone just lives in it.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

I think the NV would have significantly benefited from a pure Brotherhood path, possibly at the extent of the Legion path. I really like the way the Brotherhood's story plays out in the "evil" endings of House and the Legion (authoritarians tend not to work well together for very long), but the Brotherhood's storyline really doesn't work in the NCR path at all (honestly just feels like it's shoehorned in to fit with Bethesda's mandate that the Brotherhood must overall be "good" guys), and it's only slightly better in the Independent/Yes Man path. Perhaps this is the benefit of 2020 hindsight, but isolationism as a geopolitical/social ideology clearly has a lot of appeal, and I wonder if a BoS exclusive path wasn't a missed opportunity.

 

[vota DC]

Fallout 1: tribe NCR
Fallout 2: nascent NCR
NV: post-Tandi NCR

Face it, it's a NCR world, everyone just lives in it.

In Fallout 1 NCR seems just a joke since you have important cities like Hub while Shady Sands Is a farmer Village that they don't even know about crop rotation.
In Fallout 2 NCR Is very big (700k population) but despite this it Is not much involved in the game.
New Vegas Is just NCR game....they are everywhere except Goodspring which has only local vs powder ganger conflict so every main faction Isn't involved.

 

[DalekFlay]

(honestly just feels like it's shoehorned in to fit with Bethesda's mandate that the Brotherhood must overall be "good" guys)

Bethesda went full fascist with the Brotherhood in Fallout 4, so I'm not sure this is a mandate. Maybe it was then and they had different plans.

Either way you could definitely imagine a scenario where Legion quest resources went instead to the Brotherhood where you gave them the securitrons or something and they took the damn and strip in some kind of move to have their own city state away from the NCR. You'd have to beef them up to more than one little bunker, but it could be done. Honestly though I'm kind of happy Obsidian didn't make them a huge focus of the game like Bethesda has, so maybe in this imaginary world where Legion quest resources went somewhere else I'd just beef up the House playthrough or add multiple NCR outcomes (say, a general versus a diplomat).

 

[Butter]

(honestly just feels like it's shoehorned in to fit with Bethesda's mandate that the Brotherhood must overall be "good" guys)

Bethesda went full fascist with the Brotherhood in Fallout 4.

 

[DalekFlay]

If there were a brotherhood main quest I'd guess you'd call in reinforcements from out West at some point, similar to how rangers show up for the NCR.

 

[vota DC]

I think Brotherhood would be like Mr House: in most of settlements you have pro NCR or pro legion choice but rarely pro House and including that in every settlements would be very difficult.
They could have done that Brotherhood plans to hack and upgrade House robots with an alternate way, so if you go Independent you must ally with them for the strong independence else you get the anarchy ending (After all you are only a Courier, House at least Is ancient) because you can't upgrade robots without House OR Brotherhood. Also that would explain why House despises them and requires to destroy them.