slowpoke checking in: New Vegas

[Manjuice Nutella]

On second thought I think it's kinda lol how pathetic the limitations of this engine truly are; Once upon a time I've done a mod that overloaded and blowed up everyone else's computer and raped the fragile Strip optimization and stability in the ass :D Optimization didn't really help either

 

[Carrion]

Anyway I don't see the fuss about the "omg shitty combat and even worse engine, can't play it", stop saying like it fucking breaks the game. Since we're at mainstream, every BioWhore game has much more outrageous, hideous, repulsive, despicable combat than every Bethesda game (yes, even including Morrowind's poking), even though it's more "polished" engine; and nobody isn't as harsh on those abominations as they are on NV. At least weapons are numerous and nicely designed.

New Vegas' combat is clunky and with many shortcomings, but it isn't anywhere near the abhorrent abomination you make it sound like.

I'm only harsh on New Vegas because I love it. I don't give a shit about the combat in BioWare's new games because I couldn't care less about those games in the first place. On the other hand I think New Vegas is a great fucking game, and because of that it's a shame that one huge component of the game is so lacking compared to everything else. With a better combat system and S.P.E.C.I.A.L. the game would be right up there with the classics. Now it's just a really good game that truly excels on some areas but which is still too notably trapped in the engine of its retarded cousin.

It's not just a question of bad combat (Arcanum's combat is probably even worse), but the fact that the combat system does a pretty poor job when it comes to properly utilizing character and skill systems, which undermines the RPG aspects of the game.

 

[Zakhad]

Didn't try any of the DLC's.

Your first mistake, as you pointed out, was ignoring this game because of how terrible Fallout 3 was.

Your second mistake is not trying the DLC's. Old World Blues is OK but more comedic relief than serious, Lonesome Road sort of good, if you like shooting 900000000 deathclaws while listening to Prosperian ramblings and Honest Hearts is just bad. But dear god man, play Dead Money. If the base game restores your faith in humanity, Dead Money will go so much further. I can not recommend it enough. It has atmosphere up the wazoo. Just be warned if you got used to how ridiculously easy the rest of the game is, the first half of DM is a lot harder. It's actually a challenge on Hard, and supplies are really scarce. No more tons of Anti-materiel Rifles or Micro Fusion Cells lying around.

Slowpoke response to a slowpoke thread, but: cannot Brofist this comment enough. Dead Money is the best part of New Vegas. Atmosphere-wise, gameplay-wise, everything. It took me ages to play it because the reviews for it were bad, but I should have remembered that most gamers are functionally retarded, and ignored the reviews.

That said, it still wasn't really hard enough. Even with Jsawyer/hardcore/extra-hard diff. Was only really, "die over and over" difficult, I think, for those hurr durr shooter fans who just rushed through without scavenging any supplies or checking for traps, and who got nailed by the gala event. Which they fucking deserved, but which is where a lot of the bad reviews probably come from.

Also: loved the Wizard of Oz thing in OWB (mainly because I only got it quite late in my first playthrough, and so thought it was clever), but player-housing as a major expansion focus is an irritating sims-ism that should die; HH was too short, but not bad; and LR had way too much pointless pontificating from Ulysses - even MCA can write a bad character, it turns out.

 

[Manjuice Nutella]

I'm willing to turn a blind eye to Ulysses' motivations (I guess he kinda rambled about psychopath stuff and tried to justify a wrong cause even if he sucks at his philosophy, it's a very human thing to do), if it weren't for the retarded Fallout 3 tropes.

Hurr, I will remove this invisible wall by detonating an intact nuclear warhead lying just there in the middle of the street and explosion of said warhead is just enough to remove a few cars.

 

[Zakhad]

Hurr, I will remove this invisible wall by detonating an intact nuclear warhead lying just there in the middle of the street and explosion of said warhead is just enough to remove a few cars.

Complaining about the science of the new fallouts? I think that bird has comprehensively flown.

*eats hundred-year-old food while launching mini-nuke at impossibly-spliced canine-snake creature before removing rads with mutant mushrooms*

The wasteland would in reality be a cancerous hellhole with very little life in it at all (kinda like 4chan).

 

[Carrion]

Complaining about the science of the new fallouts? I think that bird has comprehensively flown.

*eats hundred-year-old food while launching mini-nuke at impossibly-spliced canine-snake creature before removing rads with mutant mushrooms*

The wasteland would in reality be a cancerous hellhole with very little life in it at all (kinda like 4chan).

It's not really a question of how well it fits reality, it's about how well it fits the Fallout setting. The first Fallout had a certain pseudo-scientific logic to it, like using F.E.V. to explain the mutations instead of explaining it with radiation. In general, if there was something that they wanted to have in the game but which couldn't actually happen, they came up with some kind of an in-game explanation for it. It was far from being realistic, but it had a clear internal logic, which is something you should expect from any decent sci-fi. FO2 was of course a lot more absurd in many ways, but FO3 really took it to another level by having straight-up fantasy stuff, completely trivializing nuclear warfare and having a main plot that revolved around a problem that wasn't even an actual problem. Basically they included everything that was "cool" and didn't care whether it would make any sense in the setting or not.

New Vegas inherited some of that stuff (people are turned into ghouls through radiation in Searchlight, for example), but for the most part it followed the FO1 route and at least tried to explain the weird stuff. Lonesome Road pretty much fucked it up, though. Blowing up nukes just like that is kind of a problem in a game world that has supposedly been completely devastated by nuclear warfare. I can easily accept things like night crawlers being a result of some kind of fucked up scientific experiments, but what the hell are tunnelers supposed to be? They're kind of like humans, but they're living underground, so are they like mole people or something? Apparently they've been created by radiation, but since when has radiation done anything like that, even in the Fallout universe? It's just something that they pulled out of their asses or Fallout 3 or something. I think Lonesome Road had a lot of other stuff that violated the Fallout lore as well, but I can't remember what it was right now.

 

[Gord]

The science behind the games has always been, let's say, questionable, although indeed it grew a bit worse over time.
I rationalized that in Lonesome Road you exploded the (conventional) detonator of the warheads while the nuclear chain reaction didn't trigger due to old age or such.
The biggest problem with LR for me were the endless trash mobs, it really grew old fast - especially as Ulysses simply wasn't a very compelling villain/character in the end with all his pseudo-philosophical rants and the confusing backstory of the courier on top.
I just wanted to be over with it and see the resolution (which never really came).
Guess it was the same for Obsidian when they made the DLC.

 

[Zakhad]

Complaining about the science of the new fallouts? I think that bird has comprehensively flown.

*eats hundred-year-old food while launching mini-nuke at impossibly-spliced canine-snake creature before removing rads with mutant mushrooms*

The wasteland would in reality be a cancerous hellhole with very little life in it at all (kinda like 4chan).

It's not really a question of how well it fits reality, it's about how well it fits the Fallout setting. The first Fallout had a certain pseudo-scientific logic to it, like using F.E.V. to explain the mutations instead of explaining it with radiation. In general, if there was something that they wanted to have in the game but which couldn't actually happen, they came up with some kind of an in-game explanation for it. It was far from being realistic, but it had a clear internal logic, which is something you should expect from any decent sci-fi. FO2 was of course a lot more absurd in many ways, but FO3 really took it to another level by having straight-up fantasy stuff, completely trivializing nuclear warfare and having a main plot that revolved around a problem that wasn't even an actual problem. Basically they included everything that was "cool" and didn't care whether it would make any sense in the setting or not.

New Vegas inherited some of that stuff (people are turned into ghouls through radiation in Searchlight, for example), but for the most part it followed the FO1 route and at least tried to explain the weird stuff. Lonesome Road pretty much fucked it up, though. Blowing up nukes just like that is kind of a problem in a game world that has supposedly been completely devastated by nuclear warfare. I can easily accept things like night crawlers being a result of some kind of fucked up scientific experiments, but what the hell are tunnelers supposed to be? They're kind of like humans, but they're living underground, so are they like mole people or something? Apparently they've been created by radiation, but since when has radiation done anything like that, even in the Fallout universe? It's just something that they pulled out of their asses or Fallout 3 or something. I think Lonesome Road had a lot of other stuff that violated the Fallout lore as well, but I can't remember what it was right now.

Arg, made long post and the website went down for me, eating it. Oh well, was mainly just agreeing with you, and then falling into a rant about how terrible fallout 3 was, especially little lamplight and FUCKING MERESTI FUCKING VAMPIRES, which make me want to slam a Bethesda designer's face into the screen every time I think of them. "Vance". Fuck.

With LR, the warheads seemed not much worse to me than the mini-nukes, which I'd had time to come to terms with (but which were always stupid).

Would have loved a longer Dead Money over all the rest of the DLCs, but they were still better than FO3's rubbish (and rubbishly balanced) add-ons. I've never seen a less thought-out levelling system than FO3 (especially with Broken Steel).

The biggest problem with LR for me were the endless trash mobs, it really grew old fast - especially as Ulysses simply wasn't a very compelling villain/character in the end with all his pseudo-philosophical rants and the confusing backstory of the courier on top.

Agree about Ulysses, obviously, but didn't mind the back story that much - particularly the suggestion that you yourself were once an operative for the legion, but forgot/denied it (if siding with NCR). Was the most interesting part of LR, I thought.

 

[Gord]

Agree about Ulysses, obviously, but didn't mind the back story that much - particularly the suggestion that you yourself were once an operative for the legion, but forgot/denied it (if siding with NCR). Was the most interesting part of LR, I thought.

The idea, in principle, was fine, pulling an Planescape: Torment and all that.
It's the execution that was lacking. While Ulysses at least had some build-up throughout the game (and esp. the other DLCs), this particular thing came quite out of the blue and was handled somewhat hamfisted, imho.
Would have worked better had they dropped more clues about that in the game. Does your character have amnesia due to the head-shot? It is never really brought up much prior to LR. You are an empty canvas and could just as well been shot on your first big task as a courier. And then comes LR and suddenly you are supposed to have done all that shit Ulysses is accusing you of.
Why not drop a few hints earlier? Have a few flashbacks showing that there's something you seem to have forgotten, let you meet some people that are connected to that earlier life of you, etc.

 

[Zakhad]

Agree about Ulysses, obviously, but didn't mind the back story that much - particularly the suggestion that you yourself were once an operative for the legion, but forgot/denied it (if siding with NCR). Was the most interesting part of LR, I thought.

The idea, in principle, was fine, pulling an Planescape: Torment and all that.
It's the execution that was lacking. While Ulysses at least had some build-up throughout the game (and esp. the other DLCs), this particular thing came quite out of the blue and was handled somewhat hamfisted, imho.
Would have worked better had they dropped more clues about that in the game. Does your character have amnesia due to the head-shot? It is never really brought up much prior to LR. You are an empty canvas and could just as well been shot on your first big task as a courier. And then comes LR and suddenly you are supposed to have done all that shit Ulysses is accusing you of.
Why not drop a few hints earlier? Have a few flashbacks showing that there's something you seem to have forgotten, let you meet some people that are connected to that earlier life of you, etc.

Yeah, I mean you can suggest a longer past in some conversations ("I haven't been through Utah in a while" in HH, for example), but I don't think it doesn't fit. It would certainly explain why couriers are able to function at all (considering how much trouble caravans have), and why Legionaries attack caravans and NCR citizens but leave you be.

Also, I always thought the question of whether Ulysses actually recognised you was up for debate. I'm not sure it was clearly suggested, but the idea that he was projecting his own history on to the player seemed to me to be a distinct possibility, given that you can choose to deny any memory of the events he describes, and given his own rather shadowy presence in the whole story of the divide that he tells. That said, I skipped LR on my last playthrough, so maybe will change my mind about that possibility when I've played it again.

I'm conflicted about the Courier being a blank canvas: amnesia is great when done well (Torment) but laziness everywhere else. I thought the courier was closer to the protagonist of KotOR2, in that you could determine some of your past in conversation, and there always seems to exist the suggestion that you're hiding things about what you've done, maybe even from yourself. At the same time, the courier can be too blank - you never really get to develop the character beyond smart/dumb, evil/good, legion/NCR/Indep, etc. Which is in part a problem with the engine (first person shooter-y) and in part an inheritance of the original games, which never really took you in that Torment direction - you were always too much the outsider in those games to develop a personality, I think.

 

[Gord]

Maybe they intended it to be similar to KotOR2 in that regard, yes.
There's also this one guy with the guitar you can recruit for the casino, who tells you about how he's looking for his father and one possible response is that you might at least potentially be old enough to be his father, iirc.
So yes, there are several hints in dialogue that the PC has a much longer backstory than the average twenty-something protagonist in many games.
On the other hand, nothing of this sounds like an amnesia, quite the contrary.
Which is why I took Ulysses for a mad man who confused you with someone else (or as you said, is projecting his own deeds upon you).

 

[Carrion]

There's also this one guy with the guitar you can recruit for the casino, who tells you about how he's looking for his father and one possible response is that you might at least potentially be old enough to be his father, iirc.

I don't remember a response like that, but his dad was already seen in the first Fallout:

Or at least I always assumed he was talking about the Mysterious Stranger.

With LR, the warheads seemed not much worse to me than the mini-nukes, which I'd had time to come to terms with (but which were always stupid).

Oh yes, they were both equally bad. On the other hand I didn't even fire a Fat Man until my third New Vegas playthrough because the weapon and its ammunition was so rare, so it didn't bother me that much.

 

[Zakhad]

Or at least I always assumed he was talking about the Mysterious Stranger.

I think, since he gives you his dad's gun (which is called "the Mysterious Magnum") if you pass that barter check, that his parentage is pretty much definite, no assumption needed.

Speaking of that quest, I loved the FO2 ref in the other part of it, where the singer from New Reno mentions why he has to flee so far from the new head of the Bishop family: "he knows the Wasteland, and he likes to wander it." The only question is which of the Bishop women the Lone Wanderer impregnated. My money, based on my last playthrough of FA2, is both of them.

With LR, the warheads seemed not much worse to me than the mini-nukes, which I'd had time to come to terms with (but which were always stupid).

Oh yes, they were both equally bad. On the other hand I didn't even fire a Fat Man until my third New Vegas playthrough because the weapon and its ammunition was so rare, so it didn't bother me that much.

Not sure I've ever fired one, but I watched my younger brother play fallout 3 when it first came out, and he used it a fair bit. I was fairly disgusted by the whole concept. The "rock-it launcher" was similarly stupid, but thankfully was not included in NV at all. Wasn't a huge fan of the deathclaw gauntlet in any incarnation. Fallout 1 and 2 could get pretty silly, but the weapons were always serious business, which I thought was part of the flavour: grimy and efficient brutality alongside over-the-top black comedy.

 

[Gozma]

Bought this yesterday evening and I already regret it.

If you don't like Bethesda Morrowind-style floating camera "find box, open box" gameplay, competent Obsidian writing will not save it for you.

 

[Dustin542]

The idea, in principle, was fine, pulling an Planescape: Torment and all that.
It's the execution that was lacking. While Ulysses at least had some build-up throughout the game (and esp. the other DLCs), this particular thing came quite out of the blue and was handled somewhat hamfisted, imho.
Would have worked better had they dropped more clues about that in the game. Does your character have amnesia due to the head-shot? It is never really brought up much prior to LR. You are an empty canvas and could just as well been shot on your first big task as a courier. And then comes LR and suddenly you are supposed to have done all that shit Ulysses is accusing you of.
Why not drop a few hints earlier? Have a few flashbacks showing that there's something you seem to have forgotten, let you meet some people that are connected to that earlier life of you, etc.

It was just another package to the Courier along with a long line other forgetful packages they delivered is what I think they were going for. What happened there may have went off after you were long gone or discounted the rumble as just another earthquake.

 

[CappenVarra]

Bought this yesterday evening and I already regret it.

If you don't like Bethesda Morrowind-style floating camera "find box, open box" gameplay, competent Obsidian writing will not save it for you.

True. Isn't that sort of check exactly what demos are for? After an hour in DAT ENGINE I decided that, writing notwithstanding, I would rather stab my eyeballs with rusty table accessories than continue playing... Somebody should probably convert the writing into a hypertext CYOA or something so I can check it out someday...

 

[Gozma]

I have softened up on it a little after I found the console command to quadruple my walkspeed after thinking how much better the boots of blinding speed made Morrowind. Just have to purposely not kite shit so the combat isn't completely ruined. Doom was my first big FPS, so if my camera isn't flying at 90 miles an hour I can't handle first person. The indoor dungeons are pretty good and generally have interesting ideas running through them, like the corporate takeover shit at the R-something-or-other building. The quest compass and fast-travel also let you conveniently do one quest at a time unlike Morrowind where I would generally just get a million quests and randomly finish them while wandering around.

 

[Hirato]

http://newvegas.nexusmods.com/mods/40583
I installed that mod about 20 hours in, it made the movement speed bearable in my opinion.
Much like yourself, I've mainly been exposed to the FPS genre through games which advertised their speed as one of their selling points, so I'm 100% with you there.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

If anything, I think the movement is a bit too fast. But after the nightmare that is Morrowind's early game, I'm not complaining.

Speaking of that quest, I loved the FO2 ref in the other part of it, where the singer from New Reno mentions why he has to flee so far from the new head of the Bishop family: "he knows the Wasteland, and he likes to wander it." The only question is which of the Bishop women the Lone Wanderer impregnated. My money, based on my last playthrough of FA2, is both of them.

Most likely the mom. Probably a good thing, considering the daughter is a drug addict.

By the way, the Lone Wanderer is the hero of FO3. You play as the Chosen One in FO2.

 

[Gozma]

I remember thinking that:

There is a deathclaw egg omelette woman that complains the Chosen One killed her grandmother's deathclaw in Modoc
And
There was some other person that mentioned the Chosen One did some awesomely selfless thing like helping some town or something

And I was like the same chosen one probably wouldn't do both those things, reformat your drivers fanservicebot

Edit - How far into the game should I be before I mess with any of the DLC areas? I assume they are lootstorms that will fuck the curve up

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Killing a giant lizard of death is generally seen as a good thing. It's possible he didn't know that thing was someone's pet.

I mean, like you can introduce the little buggers in the Den to the wonders of nitroglicerine without noticing they belong to Tubby.

 

[Carrion]

Edit - How far into the game should I be before I mess with any of the DLC areas? I assume they are lootstorms that will fuck the curve up

I did something like this on my last playthrough:

- Honest Hearts after I got to Freeside and did a bunch of side quests around the Vegas area (around level 10-15)
- OWB after doing Boone's quest and a bunch of NCR quests including Camp McCarran and entering The Strip (level 20-25)
- Dead Money after doing the quests involving Brotherhood of Steel, Cass and Veronica (level 30+)
- Lonesome Road after doing pretty much everything in the main game except the endgame (level 45+)

I think the difficulty for the first two DLCs was fine, but I maybe could've started the last two DLCs a bit earlier since Dead Money was pretty easy and I reached my level cap way before finishing Lonesome Road. As far as loot goes, HH has a couple of good weapons and one light armor that are really good but not totally overpowered and which also fit the main game pretty well. It also has a stun gun which is borderline overpowered with the right perks. Maybe there was some doomsday cannon that I'm forgetting but in general the loot wasn't completely over the top or anything. OWB has a lot of pretty overpowered stuff but I didn't really even want to use most of that since the wacky stuff just felt completely out of place in the main game. There's some potentially game-breaking stuff in that DLC, though. Dead Money has one weapon (or maybe two, I can't remember) that many consider to be really good, but I don't think I ever even used it outside of the DLC. Lonesome Road has some powerful stuff, but since you probably finish it last you'll be so powerful anyway that you can just easily waltz through the main game with or without those weapons.

The only DLC stuff I really used in the main game was the stun gun, a pistol and an armor which were all from Honest Hearts. I think I briefly used a couple of OWB energy weapons too. Everything else I kind of ignored or just didn't have enough time to play with, like all the Lonesome Road stuff. In any case, if you finish all of those DLCs, the endgame is going to be a walk in the park with or without those weapons.

 

[Zakhad]

If anything, I think the movement is a bit too fast. But after the nightmare that is Morrowind's early game, I'm not complaining.

Speaking of that quest, I loved the FO2 ref in the other part of it, where the singer from New Reno mentions why he has to flee so far from the new head of the Bishop family: "he knows the Wasteland, and he likes to wander it." The only question is which of the Bishop women the Lone Wanderer impregnated. My money, based on my last playthrough of FA2, is both of them.

Most likely the mom. Probably a good thing, considering the daughter is a drug addict.

By the way, the Lone Wanderer is the hero of FO3. You play as the Chosen One in FO2.

Dammit, knew I was getting that wrong, but couldn't be bothered wiki-ing it.

Actually, my favourite moment of pure nostalgia has to be the crashed highwayman (especially with Josh Sawyers's patch, which adds the classic pack vault 13 stuff there). I love the boot full of MF cells, and then the fallout 2 music started playing and I... needed a moment.

 

[Zakhad]

Edit - How far into the game should I be before I mess with any of the DLC areas? I assume they are lootstorms that will fuck the curve up

I did something like this on my last playthrough:

- Honest Hearts after I got to Freeside and did a bunch of side quests around the Vegas area (around level 10-15)
- OWB after doing Boone's quest and a bunch of NCR quests including Camp McCarran and entering The Strip (level 20-25)
- Dead Money after doing the quests involving Brotherhood of Steel, Cass and Veronica (level 30+)
- Lonesome Road after doing pretty much everything in the main game except the endgame (level 45+)

I think the difficulty for the first two DLCs was fine, but I maybe could've started the last two DLCs a bit earlier since Dead Money was pretty easy and I reached my level cap way before finishing Lonesome Road. As far as loot goes, HH has a couple of good weapons and one light armor that are really good but not totally overpowered and which also fit the main game pretty well. It also has a stun gun which is borderline overpowered with the right perks. Maybe there was some doomsday cannon that I'm forgetting but in general the loot wasn't completely over the top or anything. OWB has a lot of pretty overpowered stuff but I didn't really even want to use most of that since the wacky stuff just felt completely out of place in the main game. There's some potentially game-breaking stuff in that DLC, though. Dead Money has one weapon (or maybe two, I can't remember) that many consider to be really good, but I don't think I ever even used it outside of the DLC. Lonesome Road has some powerful stuff, but since you probably finish it last you'll be so powerful anyway that you can just easily waltz through the main game with or without those weapons.

The only DLC stuff I really used in the main game was the stun gun, a pistol and an armor which were all from Honest Hearts. I think I briefly used a couple of OWB energy weapons too. Everything else I kind of ignored or just didn't have enough time to play with, like all the Lonesome Road stuff. In any case, if you finish all of those DLCs, the endgame is going to be a walk in the park with or without those weapons.

No love for the Holorifle/LAER? I always use the shit out of energy weapons, and those two have to be the best (especially with laser commander/set lasers for fun).

I didn't do OWB on my last playthrough, too unbalanced, and an interesting setting, but much more high-tech/OTT than the rest. Dead Money isn't really hard, that was just a reputation it gathered from hopeless console-tards. As long as you search for weapons/vending machine codes/chips, you'll be fine. I suppose it's "hard" in that you have to change your playstyle (search more, watch for traps, no sleep, skirt the cloud) but ehhh.

Also, the major imbalance in the DLCs in vanilla FNV is the experience rewards, which are out of all proportion to the main game (especially OWB, which basically gifts you a few levels just for talking to the think tank). A patch that fixes this is advisable - Jsawyer does so, but I think there are others.

 

[Carrion]

No love for the Holorifle/LAER? I always use the shit out of energy weapons, and those two have to be the best (especially with laser commander/set lasers for fun).

I'm not a fan of energy weapons in general, although I did use Elijah's LAER and jury-rigged Tesla cannon a bit. I didn't really find the holorifle that good or enjoyable, even after modding it. Then again, that might've just been a result of Dead Money's HP bloat since I never bothered to try it in the main game. I guess it does do a pretty nice amount of damage if you look at the numbers.

Also, the major imbalance in the DLCs in vanilla FNV is the experience rewards, which are out of all proportion to the main game (especially OWB, which basically gifts you a few levels just for talking to the think tank). A patch that fixes this is advisable - Jsawyer does so, but I think there are others.

OWB also gives you some pretty insane perks, although you can fortunately un-choose them at the end of the DLC. Still, I think the difficulty curve is more or less screwed anyway unless you pick the Logan's Loophole trait.