slowpoke checking in: New Vegas

[Jick Magger]

Ironically the energy weapons sucked big times at first. It took a few patches to make them work, IIRC.

The biggest problem was that it simply wasn't a practical option. Only standard enemies who carried them tended to be higher-up bandits, ammo was hard to find and make, the only vendors who kept a consistent and plentiful supply of energy weapon parts and ammo were the Van Graffs or the Brotherhood of Steel, both of whom could and for the latter, would, go hostile on you for making certain decisions in the game, and compared to other weapons the unique weapons department for energy weapons kinda got the shaft. The only saving graces (the aforementioned recharger series) were only viable for the first few areas of the game, whereon they quickly get outclassed by other weapons in other skills. The patches that came with Dead Money, along with Dead Money itself supplying the player with one of the best energy weapons in the game straight out the gate, that they became a more practical option.

 

[Xor]

I wish someone would do this in the fucking Fallout 2 or FOnline engine. :/ Then I could actually play it again. It would be the 2nd best Fallout.

I thought about taking a crack at it, but Fallout 2's modding tools are godawful. I haven't looked at FOnline, though.

 

[Gord]

The biggest problem was that it simply wasn't a practical option.

On top of that they also had serious trouble overcoming DT, meaning that with a half-decent armor you didn't have to worry about enemies with energy weapons.
Conversely, figthing enemies with high DT wasn't fun either if you used energy weapons.

 

[Carrion]

Fallout loses all combat challenge after you wipe out the raider camp. Fallout 2 gives you a ludicrous amount of loot through random encounters as you approach Vault City. New Vegas still has those cazadors and deathclaws.

Anyway when I said balance I was referring more to all skills being useful and all combat skills being viable from start to finish, not so much "Does it remain challenging from start to finish?" which is a struggle for numerous RPGs.

Yeah, I do agree that New Vegas makes much better use of most of its skills. Definitely of the strongest points of the game.

Disagree, melee and unarmed are simply viable compared to firearms.

Well, I don't think they really should be as viable as they are. On my first playthrough I seriously struggled with deathclaws until I realized I could knock them down with the ranger takedown and then just beat them to death, and all this without putting a single point into the unarmed skill. On my second playthrough I played an unarmed / melee / energy weapons character, with the focus on melee, and I beat everything to death with a super sledge much easier than I did with any other weapons.

Of course, it's pretty hard to properly balance close-combat skills in a game where everyone has firearms and tons of ammunition. Melee and unarmed would work better as secondary skills for those moments when you're low on ammo, but unfortunately that never happens in the game.

You can make bad or absurdly overpowered characters through either really inefficient or good perk and equipment choices.

Everything is relative, of course, but the base attributes are so high that even a poorly developed character can most likely beat the game on any difficulty level without major difficulties.

It has its dump stats, but having really low strength hurts when it comes to gun sway and low agility affects your drawing and reload speed. Traits are all about giving you a weakness to compensate an advantage. Missing out on good perks would be a weakness.

Those are mostly just minor inconveniences that you probably wouldn't even notice on your first playthrough. I've played a couple of characters with low strength and neither felt gimped in any way, not even when using weapons with high strength requirements. Missing out on good perks would make your character suboptimal, not necessarily one with actual weaknesses.

I already walked and killed my way to wherever I was going, why would I want to see those sights and fight those enemies again? It adds nothing.

Fair enough. I'd rather have a limited fast travel option instead (like only from point A to point B for a fee instead of just being able to jump around the map for free), especially in hardcore mode where the survival aspect is supposed to be somewhat of a big deal.

 

[toro]

Yup great game.

Though it seems people in general prefer FO3 which is puzzling.

Humans have limits. This is one of them...

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Jasede]

I wish someone would do this in the fucking Fallout 2 or FOnline engine. :/ Then I could actually play it again. It would be the 2nd best Fallout.

Do FPS games make you dizzy?
If it's the combat - in this game it isn't that much worse than the lackluster original combat and you have the choice of getting rid of the twitchy aspect by using "VATS". It's really quite worth seeing what the wasteland looks like rendered in 3D since Obsidian did a really good job when it came to making decent environments (for the most part), especially considering the engine and assets they were given to work with.

Or the system requirements?

 

[Broseph]

I wish someone would do this in the fucking Fallout 2 or FOnline engine. :/ Then I could actually play it again. It would be the 2nd best Fallout.

Do FPS games make you dizzy?
If it's the combat - in this game it isn't that much worse than the lackluster original combat and you have the choice of getting rid of the twitchy aspect by using "VATS". It's really quite worth seeing what the wasteland looks like rendered in 3D since Obsidian did a really good job when it came to making decent environments (for the most part), especially considering the engine and assets they were given to work with.

Or the system requirements?

I fucking love this game, and the combat is a definite over Fallout 3, if only because everything about it is so more balanced. Just finished Lonesome Road with my level 38 white knight jack-of-all-trades. I quite enjoyed it. I am playing in normal and hardcore mode and it can still be pretty challenging sometimes, but I kind of regret not using Sawyer's mod. I definitely think the level cap shouldn't have been raised so high.
Going to do a grimdark evil Legion character next, I think. Should be an interesting experience.

 

[Black]

The sales figures were great, too.

Yeah, great for bethesda, such a victory!

 

[Carrion]

If it's the combat - in this game it isn't that much worse than the lackluster original combat and you have the choice of getting rid of the twitchy aspect by using "VATS".

I think it's a lot worse. Fallout's combat was far from perfect, but your skills and attributes had an effect on your every move it unlike in New Vegas where it feels more like just an afterthought or a desperate and largely unsuccesful attempt to make FO3's combat system tolerable (for example, agility mostly just affects your action points in VATS instead of actually making you more agile, perception just increases the radius of your magical radar instead of making you more accurate, and you can be fairly deadly even if you don't put points into combat skills). Fallout also had great death animations and the combat just felt right and brutal despite its shortcomings. New Vegas' combat is like it was from a slow-paced 90's shooter, except that is also has a gimmicky cheat mode (VATS), severely underpowered weapons and really sterile cartoon violence that looks like crap. Fallout has got the basics covered but little else whereas in New Vegas the basics are all fucked up and badly hidden under tacked-on "RPG" features.

I do agree that Obsidian did otherwise a great job with the tools they were given.

 

[Hirato]

Agility has a small effect on your movement speed, as well as your draw/holster/reload speeds. They're small and largely insignificant so they're easy to miss, and not to mention, heavier armour reduces your mobility too.

And I don't find the VATS cheatmode that useful outside of short range combat.
I find with the more long range shots, VATS give me readings like 3-4%, but if I aim manually, I practically pull off clean, perfect shots every time, and this is a fact I find both irritating and annoying.

But eh, this stuff was pretty much inherited from FO3 as is.

 

[Roguey]

Anyone who thinks Fallout 1 or 2 has better combat than New Vegas is just plain wrong (calling it comparable is acceptable). "But stats--" ah who gives a shit. Bad ideas are still bad if they meet your expectations.

perception just increases the radius of your magical radar instead of making you more accurate,

Weapon skills affect your accuracy though. It does ultimately feel like a holdover that should have been dropped since it's a stat that doesn't work in a realtime fpp game.

and you can be fairly deadly even if you don't put points into combat skills).

With the overpowered top tier melee weapons, sure (and even then only in certain situations, those being the "feast or famine" skill). Not so much all the wobbly-guns that also benefit from the damage increase that comes from increased skill.

severely underpowered weapons

No. You're also contradicting what I quoted before this. "You can be fairly deadly with severely underpowered weapons" how does that even work? I guess one might consider them underpowered if you expect to kill everything in 1-2 hits, like good old eyeshot criticals in Fallout 1/2.

Fallout has got the basics covered but little else whereas in New Vegas the basics are all fucked up and badly hidden under tacked-on "RPG" features.

What a horribly empty statement. Fallout's combat was marginally-tactical single character turn based hack and slash. AP ammo was flavor-only in the first and downright useless in the second. Agility is the best stat regardless of your character concept. Armor had increasing AC, DT, and DR values so the only way to go was up, there was no reason at all to use anything but the best power armor at the end of both games since there was no downside. The turbo plasma rifle was the undeniably best weapon in the first. Without SFall, some of those battles (especially in 2) were relentlessly slow. The ability to perform sneak attacks is a high level perk that only works for unarmed attacks, not melee, and even then it's only double damage and doesn't double critical damage so you might as well go with slayer. Sneaking itself is just some weird unreliable RNG with no feedback (and stealing is even worse). Bruiser was a fuck-useless trait: 2 points of strength for 2 action points? 2 action points is equivalent to 4 agility points! What math-illiterate moron thought that was acceptable? Probably the same jerk who thought there was nothing wrong with the AP formula.

Agility has a small effect on your movement speed, as well as your draw/holster/reload speeds.

It doesn't affect movement speed at all, it was that way originally but testing showed that it sucked, so they dropped it.

 

[dibens]

Anyone who thinks Fallout 1 or 2 has better combat than New Vegas is just plain wrong

Fuck it then, I don't want to be right.

 

[suejak]

Yeah, Fallout 1 and 2 had shit combat. Nothing tactical about it.

 

[evdk]

Yeah, Fallout 1 and 2 had shit combat. Nothing tactical about it.

Still better than the F3/NV clusterfuck.

 

[Roguey]

Only through the haze of nostalgia or misplaced priorities.

 

[evdk]

If misplaced priorities are having fun, then sure, why not.

 

[agentorange]

If you took out aiming for the eyes and crotch the combat in F1 and 2 would be totally boring.

 

[Broseph]

Call me a declining newfag, but I had more fun with New Vegas's combat than the original Fallout.

 

[CrustyBot]

I'm not opposed to the idea that F1/2 and FNV combats were heavily flawed and of comparable quality, but...

Anyone who thinks Fallout 1 or 2 has better combat than New Vegas is just plain wrong (calling it comparable is acceptable). "But stats--" ah who gives a shit. Bad ideas are still bad if they meet your expectations.

Anyone who thinks Fallout 1 or 2 has better combat than New Vegas is just plain wrong (calling it comparable is acceptable). "But stats--" ah who gives a shit.

"But stats--" ah who gives a shit.

RPGCodex gives a shit.

 

[Average Manatee]

NV combat will never match the first time you got an SMG in FO1/2 and bursted your most hated NPC to death in a riddle of bullets on the opening round.

 

[Jick Magger]

And then you give Sulik one and the first thing he does with it is ventilate your spine.

 

[ColCol]

And then you give Sulik one and the first thing he does with it is ventilate your spine.

That's why you don't give a dirty tribal advance technology. Leave him with a hammer, it's all his derp brain can handle

 

[Jick Magger]

Good thing I went with K-9 when I found him, I guess. Force-fed Cassidy a vial of Jet when he had the same amount of success with the automatic shotgun I gave him.

 

[oscar]

Sulik with a super-sledgehammer is actually pretty good. He knocks shit down, you shoot it in the eye.