Why is Fallout New Vegas considered good?

[Cryomancer]

FNV has amazing factions, choice and consequence, you can use tons of different ammo types in your shotgun, amazing armor mechanics, where instead of a 9mm smg outdpsing every bolt action rifle(like fl3/4), the smg would't outdps a rifle against heavy armored enemies but would outdps against light armored enemies. You can solve the same quest in N possible ways, unique reputaiton system with fame and infamy matters not negating each other, lots of interesting places and interesting factions like "boomer", a lot of interesting DLC's, lots of cool perks, interesting hardcore mode but ... "ammo cases in inventory" makes the game trash /sarcasm

 

[Nikanuur]

I will never understand the cult-like mentality surrounding this very average game. No matter where this game is discussed online you always have the same neckbeard circklejerk... it's like yeah, it has speech checks, but they are not enough to negate its numerous shortcomings, for example—

- Invislbe walls, in far too many and inconvienient places which are not justified. This isn't F3 downtown debris blocking the side of the map, we're talking invisible walls all along easily scalable terrain.

- Lack of dungeons. Aside from the vaults, most interiors are a room or two at best. F3 had dozens of sprawling intricate dungeons, as well as the metro area.

- Fixed enemy spawns. Makes the game too samey after repeated plays. Bethesda's levelled lists are far better. In F3 you'll always stumble into some random shit going on, like enemies fighting other enemies, and if you don't encounter them you'll often hear them in the distance. Distant gunshots you hear in F3 are actual real time battle occuring, but the distant gunshots in FNV are merely stock sound effects meant to imply battle. If any random fights break out in FNV then I've yet to see it happen.

- Forcing ammo cases into inventory after shooting. It's like, please don't force shit into my inventory.

It's a decent looter shooter, but why it's held as some pinnacle of RPG design is simply unfounded.

The answer to why bringing a knife to a shootout the traditional approaches to RPG elements work, feel cool, and will always prove consistent, despite whatever modern superficialities or nagging hyperboles some may bring as an argument, is:

 

[agris]

Bethestard spotted.

Let's throw labels around because we're too stupid to engage in any meaningful discourse.

Welcome to the codex!

 

[Lemming42]

It's so much fun being a fan of a medium where we constantly have to preface discussion of "classics" by saying "yeah the combat is broken and the mechanics suck and it looks terrible and the overworld is dull, but..."

Not even joking, I genuinely love it. Like I know this happens to some extent with other mediums - low-budget films with fuzzy quality and poor direction or whatever - but no medium other than videogames has the same "yeah the actual experience of playing this will be awful, but" dynamic going on.

Can you imagine if you were about to recommend a book to someone but you had to mention that sometimes the ink just smudges and fills a whole page and the words are unreadable, and that it's also partly written in Swahili for no reason, and that some of the pages are cut into triangle shapes and will be arbitrarily harder to read and turn, and that also the cover is made of sandpaper and will hurt your hands. And also that each copy of the book is slightly different and that yours might just have random pages missing. It'd be fantastic.

 

[Terenty]

The biggest crime of New Vegas is not broken mechanics, but shitty writing and atrocious voice acting, both not worthy of wearing a Fallout name

 

[Jacov]

- Invislbe walls, in far too many and inconvienient places which are not justified. This isn't F3 downtown debris blocking the side of the map, we're talking invisible walls all along easily scalable terrain.

I have more than 1000 hours in FNV and I can point at only one invisible wall off the top of my head. And you encounter in only once per playthrough and never go there again. Idk if it's because I memorized all of them after so many hours or if it's because they are not as numerous as some say.

- Lack of dungeons. Aside from the vaults, most interiors are a room or two at best. F3 had dozens of sprawling intricate dungeons, as well as the metro area.

I think FNV's dungeons are alright but I agree that there are pretty cool ones in F3. Problem is that F3 is a shitty game and having decent dungeons doesn't help it to be better game. Though I'd kill to see F3's exploration and dungeons in a game with FNV's systems, writing and c&c.
That's the thing with newer Bethesda games like Skyrim or F4. They know how to structure cool game worlds and make players want to explore them. But they can't write/design gameplay to save their lives. And all that world design goes to waste. It's baffling to me that they threw even that out of the window and made Starfield's world procgen.

- Fixed enemy spawns. Makes the game too samey after repeated plays. Bethesda's levelled lists are far better. In F3 you'll always stumble into some random shit going on, like enemies fighting other enemies, and if you don't encounter them you'll often hear them in the distance. Distant gunshots you hear in F3 are actual real time battle occuring, but the distant gunshots in FNV are merely stock sound effects meant to imply battle. If any random fights break out in FNV then I've yet to see it happen.

More like «lack of random encounters». If I recall correctly they had them planned, but alas. We all know that story.
By leveled lists I assume you mean something like the ones they used in Oblivion? Where Whisps get replaced by like Minotaurs as you level up? Yeah, that didn't make much sense even in that game and it would make even less sense if you'd get let's say robots at Repconn replaced by Nightstalkers or something.
Skyrim and F4 just improve gear of humanoid enemies with level and change skins on some creatures. Some spellcasters get new spells and Draugrs get new spells/shouts which is cool but c'mon, they are still just Draugrs.
FNV's static spawns are actually great because they make you feel your character's progress. It's a good feeling when you return to a zone where you got your ass kicked, to now change roles and kick ass yourself. Autoleveling usually robs you of that.

And fuck F3's constant fighting in the background. Capital Wasteland feels like a warzone with all those background explosions.
And I dunno anything about «stock sounds meant to imply battle» in FNV. If you hear gunshots that means there is a battle going.

- Forcing ammo cases into inventory after shooting. It's like, please don't force shit into my inventory.

This comes down to Bethesda's shitty UI design. I don't think forcing spent casings into your inventory is that big of a problem but it could have been better if the inventory wasn't just text with no images (unless you hover over something) that you need to scroll every time to get to an item.

New Vegas is good for what it is: a diamond in the rough. Buggy, messy, ugly at times but still has its qualities: writing, c&c, systems and overall worldbuilding. Best attempt at a real time Fallout we've got so far.

 

[Silverfish]

Forcing ammo cases into inventory after shooting. It's like, please don't force shit into my inventory.

Are you really comfortable with that? Just rolling up and admitting you don't play melee.

 

[Sigourn]

And I dunno anything about «stock sounds meant to imply battle» in FNV. If you hear gunshots that means there is a battle going.

New Vegas has gunshots in some of its ambient tracks. Meaning there's no actual battle going on you can engage in.

 

[TheCumGuzzler]

Bait used to be good

 

[Eirinjas]

New Vegas is broken ten ways to Sunday. At level 20 I killed the entire Legion and was able to acquire two platinum chips.

 

[SomeGuyWithAnOpinion]

- Lack of dungeons. Aside from the vaults, most interiors are a room or two at best. F3 had dozens of sprawling intricate dungeons, as well as the metro area.

Fallout 3's dungeons were largely copy-pasted, and many of them were literally pointless.

I will never understand the love for Fallout 3's metro. It's the same metro station copy pasted with the same ghouls and protectrons, and a few 1-block city streets areas. It's very good at feeling like a bigger area than it actually is, but gameplay-wise it's basically an empty void of content.

New Vegas does have a lack of dungeons but that's because the game is designed around interacting with the big hub areas (like New Vegas) rather than doing dungeons. Most of your playtime will be spent doing quests for people, of which there are many intricate and well designed quests. New Vegas is not a dungeon crawler. When it comes to dungeons, what is there is pretty good. Even otherwise worthless locations like Broc flower cave are related to quests and contain unique items, rather than the levelled garbage of Fallout 3.

- Fixed enemy spawns. Makes the game too samey after repeated plays. Bethesda's levelled lists are far better. In F3 you'll always stumble into some random shit going on, like enemies fighting other enemies, and if you don't encounter them you'll often hear them in the distance. Distant gunshots you hear in F3 are actual real time battle occuring, but the distant gunshots in FNV are merely stock sound effects meant to imply battle. If any random fights break out in FNV then I've yet to see it happen.

What the actual fuck are you talking about?

Not only does Fallout NV have levelled lists, F3's levelled lists are an absolute clusterfuck. F3's enemy spawns are so tied to the players level that the moment you hit level 15 robobrains will start roaming the countryside in the hundreds.

At that point the entire world falls apart because you realise the entire world revolves around you.

New Vegas spawns are mostly static (with some exceptions) as a way to maintain a difficulty curve and enforce player progression, elements which are far more important than the "feel" of repeat playthrouughs.

Fallout 3 is designed as a "go anywhere" game, which is why you start right in the middle of the map. In order to facilitate this, every area scales to your level. This applies to both quest rewards and enemy spawns. This destroys the identity of every area and results in extremely repetitive and grindy gameplay, where every area feels the same because it's hard but not too hard, and the reward you get at the end will most likely be useless garbage.

Fallout 4 is even worse in this regard, and functions even more like a slot machine for randomised quest rewards against a background of samey looking dungeons and levelled cookie-cutter enemies. It's a diablo clone without any of the fun or charm of diablo clones.

- Forcing ammo cases into inventory after shooting. It's like, please don't force shit into my inventory.

God forbid a weightless item goes into the misc section of your inventory!

Sorry to be harsh but you come across as someone who doesn't actually understand anything about RPG's at all.

The post calling you a mindless Bethestard is accurate. I can see from your argumentation that you don't understand game design and haven't put any thought into your position other than basic surface-level criticism.

It's a decent looter shooter, but why it's held as some pinnacle of RPG design is simply unfounded.

New Vegas is far from perfect (and I don't get the blind love either), but your criticism is completely retarded. I can understand not liking New Vegas, there's plenty of bad design elements that can get in the way of having a good time (especially on consoles where mods aren't available), but saying it's bad and citing Fallout 3 as an example of good design is just pure stupidity, and you should feel ashamed for writing such a worthless post.


Anyone who says anything positive about Fallout 3 should automatically be discounted from any game-design discussion, because they are provably stupid.

The biggest crime of New Vegas is not broken mechanics, but shitty writing and atrocious voice acting, both not worthy of wearing a Fallout name

I never understand people who defend Fallout 1 and 2 for their gameplay. The mechanics in both games are atrocious.

NV does have some pretty good writing, but the voice acting is.....ehhh.

 

[Lemming42]

I didn't know anyone actually liked the Fo3 metro. Fo3 does deserve credit for many of its dungeons and a few of its overworld areas (mostly in DC) but the metro just slows the game to a halt every time you're forced to go into it. It's like a punishment for wanting to explore - DC has some cool areas but you're forced to navigate the tedium fo the metro to reach them.

 

[SomeGuyWithAnOpinion]

I didn't know anyone actually liked the Fo3 metro. Fo3 does deserve credit for many of its dungeons and a few of its overworld areas (mostly in DC) but the metro just slows the game to a halt every time you're forced to go into it. It's like a punishment for wanting to explore - DC has some cool areas but you're forced to navigate the tedium fo the metro to reach them.

Nobody, not even Fallout 3 fans, like the Metro.

Basically the way the Bethestard mindset works is that they pluck out isolated elements of various Bethesda games as an excuse to defend them, regardless of their actual quality.

See:

"Fallout 76 is actually good because I can play with my friends!"
"Fallout 4 is actually awesome because the Power Armour is so amazing!"
"<Literally any Bethesda game> is good because it has good environmental storytelling!"

To be fair, this isn't isolated to Bethesda fans. Fans of most trash properties will usually buy into propaganda about it, and will often redefine it's negatives as positives in order to fix their own cognitive dissonance. They want to like the game, but they know so much of it is bad, so they resolve the conflict by pretending the bad parts are actually good, or that the small good parts are actually much more significant than they actually are, to downplay the bad.

Fans of the new Deus Ex games are the same. They like to talk about how cool Detroit is and how much freedom you get for certain quests, but never mention the fact that you can bypass every obstacle using vents, most of the maps are linear slogs through office corridors, the boss fights are atrocious, and the game gives you so many praxis and so many resources that progression is pointless because there's always an EMP grenade or a rocket launcher right next to every big robot, making specialisation worthless. But it's a Deus Ex game, and Deus Ex is good, therefore the new games must be good!

Fallout 1 and 2 fans also do this, though, so nobody is immune. "Fallout 1/2 gameplay is a horrible RNG-fest of unbalanced skills and trial-and-error puzzles? Game has good story, therefore the gameplay must be good too! You just suck if you think quickoading to redo the same lockpicking roll over and over again is bad gameplay, just get good!!"

 

[9ted6]

The biggest crime of New Vegas is not broken mechanics, but shitty writing and atrocious voice acting, both not worthy of wearing a Fallout name

Fallout's always had shitty writing.

We can't forget that to reach the first game's climax you have to consult the Master's psychic wizards who exist for some reason and are never mentioned before or ever again. And the next game's plot made by the O.G. writers, the supposed geniuses, is a vaguely connected series of Family Guy level pop culture jokes.

 

[Butter]

You can literally ignore the psykers completely and still bitchslap the Master.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

I didn't know anyone actually liked the Fo3 metro. Fo3 does deserve credit for many of its dungeons and a few of its overworld areas (mostly in DC) but the metro just slows the game to a halt every time you're forced to go into it. It's like a punishment for wanting to explore - DC has some cool areas but you're forced to navigate the tedium fo the metro to reach them.

Nobody, not even Fallout 3 fans, like the Metro.

Basically the way the Bethestard mindset works is that they pluck out isolated elements of various Bethesda games as an excuse to defend them, regardless of their actual quality.

See:

"Fallout 76 is actually good because I can play with my friends!"
"Fallout 4 is actually awesome because the Power Armour is so amazing!"
"<Literally any Bethesda game> is good because it has good environmental storytelling!"

To be fair, this isn't isolated to Bethesda fans. Fans of most trash properties will usually buy into propaganda about it, and will often redefine it's negatives as positives in order to fix their own cognitive dissonance. They want to like the game, but they know so much of it is bad, so they resolve the conflict by pretending the bad parts are actually good, or that the small good parts are actually much more significant than they actually are, to downplay the bad.

Fans of the new Deus Ex games are the same. They like to talk about how cool Detroit is and how much freedom you get for certain quests, but never mention the fact that you can bypass every obstacle using vents, most of the maps are linear slogs through office corridors, the boss fights are atrocious, and the game gives you so many praxis and so many resources that progression is pointless because there's always an EMP grenade or a rocket launcher right next to every big robot, making specialisation worthless. But it's a Deus Ex game, and Deus Ex is good, therefore the new games must be good!

Fallout 1 and 2 fans also do this, though, so nobody is immune. "Fallout 1/2 gameplay is a horrible RNG-fest of unbalanced skills and trial-and-error puzzles? Game has good story, therefore the gameplay must be good too! You just suck if you think quickoading to redo the same lockpicking roll over and over again is bad gameplay, just get good!!"

The vent bit is part of the core Deus Ex experience, and it's one of the actual non linearity elements that carries on after the extremely frontloaded early levels of the game

 

[Jacov]

New Vegas has gunshots in some of its ambient tracks. Meaning there's no actual battle going on you can engage in.

Okay, I went and listened to the entirety of FNV's soundtrack (including tracks from previous games) and I'm positive there isn't a single track that uses gunshots as samples.
I also launched the game and went to Freeside and McCarran (obvious contenders for having background gunshot sounds). Stood there for minutes — no gunshots (though ocassionally troopers in McCarran would shoot target dummies). There are howitzer firing noises in Nellis but using them as an example of gunshots would be a stretch.

The only ambient gunshots in Fallout I could remember are in New Reno in Fallout 2 — they are a random background sound there.

 

[SomeGuyWithAnOpinion]

The vent bit is part of the core Deus Ex experience,

False. Vents in DX were frequently locked or trapped. In most cases they gave alternate access to certain rooms to allow ambushing, or led to small areas with extra items. In almost no cases did they let you simply bypass the challenge completely and for free, nor did they allow you to access areas that normally required resources to access.

DXHR hides a few vents behind vending machines which require the strength aug, but in the vast majority of cases, vents require no investment to access, take you straight to wherever you need to go, are extremely easy to find, and let you bypass large portions of the game. Big stealth section? Just jump in the vent and crawl past it. Vents are basically instant-win buttons that reward ""exploring"" (ie looking behind a cardboard box) and completely undermine your skill investments entirely.

To equate the two is to fundamentally misunderstand Deus Ex's core design. Yes, both games have vents. But their implementation couldn't be further different.

and it's one of the actual non linearity elements that carries on after the extremely frontloaded early levels of the game

True, but vents making the levels less linear doesn't magically make them a positive influence on the game or a good mechanic. They still completely undermine your skills, even in linear levels (in fact, more so).

 

[Sigourn]

Okay, I went and listened to the entirety of FNV's soundtrack (including tracks from previous games) and I'm positive there isn't a single track that uses gunshots as samples.

I must have misremembered. It appears it is a sound that can play at random. See this mod.

 

[Sigourn]

OT:

I think New Vegas is... controversial. I can't stomach the dogshit graphics. I guess I could deal with bad gameplay, but the graphics are puke-inducing.
I can't stress this enough: New Vegas is the ugliest game I've ever played.

On top of being so ugly, there's an alarming like of polish and consistency in its graphics. It very much looks like a mod for Fallout 3, i.e. someone reusing assets but lacking the creativity of the original designers.
New Vegas should be remembered for its writing, and rightfully so. But as a game, it leaves so much to be desired.

To the game's credit, I've played it so much I may very well have had a lifetime's worth of New Vegas. By comparison, though I did put 100 hours into Fallout 4 (of which many were spent oogling at my character's tits and ass), I was unable to finish the game. The NPCs in FO4 are all so punchable.

 

[Jacov]

I have started Fallout 4 countless times but I've never finished it. It's just Skyrim but worse. If I at least can stomach modded Skyrim, F4 even with gameplay improving mods — I just can’t.

 

[Gargaune]

Fallout 4 is even worse in this regard

Is it? Fo4 actually has spawn ranges for many of its locations. The game even warns you in a loading screen blurb that the farther south you go on the map, the more dangerous it gets, because that's how the level ranges are designed. Concord's never going to spawn Super Mutants and Weston Water Treatment Plant will always have them. Some areas will have Gunners or Mutants or Synths on your first visit, then get repopulated by other goons like Raiders if you go back past the cell reset timer as a way to mark your impact. And there's always going to be some level of Deathclaw in the Old Gullet Sinkhole.

The game has a mixed approach where it'll scale to the player's level to a point, as above, whenever they first visit a given area, then lock that first visit into the levelled list. So you're not going to clear Lexington of Raiders at level 5, then have it spawn Synth Coursers when you revisit it at level 40, but you're also never going to have that railway checkpoint overlooking Egret Tours Marina spawn a Protectron instead of a Sentry Bot regardless of how low you are.

It's more of a middle ground between Fo3's freeform scaling and FO:NV's preset encounters.

 

[SomeGuyWithAnOpinion]

I have started Fallout 4 countless times but I've never finished it. It's just Skyrim but worse. If I at least can stomach modded Skyrim, F4 even with gameplay improving mods — I just can’t.

But what about all the nude mods that aren't available for Skyrim?

 

[Feyd Rautha]

I will never understand the cult-like mentality surrounding this very average game. No matter where this game is discussed online you always have the same neckbeard circklejerk... it's like yeah, it has speech checks, but they are not enough to negate its numerous shortcomings, for example—

- Invislbe walls, in far too many and inconvienient places which are not justified. This isn't F3 downtown debris blocking the side of the map, we're talking invisible walls all along easily scalable terrain.

- Lack of dungeons. Aside from the vaults, most interiors are a room or two at best. F3 had dozens of sprawling intricate dungeons, as well as the metro area.

- Fixed enemy spawns. Makes the game too samey after repeated plays. Bethesda's levelled lists are far better. In F3 you'll always stumble into some random shit going on, like enemies fighting other enemies, and if you don't encounter them you'll often hear them in the distance. Distant gunshots you hear in F3 are actual real time battle occuring, but the distant gunshots in FNV are merely stock sound effects meant to imply battle. If any random fights break out in FNV then I've yet to see it happen.

- Forcing ammo cases into inventory after shooting. It's like, please don't force shit into my inventory.

It's a decent looter shooter, but why it's held as some pinnacle of RPG design is simply unfounded.

Some interesting points. I agree with the invisible walls, dungeons probably, I have encountered random encounters between legionnaires vs rad scorpions that then happened to also attack some passing by merchants who ended up killing the legionaries. I've also seen Powder Gangers fight geckos. But you're probably right. Would you like to pick ammo cases off the ground instead of have them automatically transfer to your inventory? But I agree, that's streamlining. However I've come to appreciate some streamlining out of convenience now that I've got less time for gaming. Let the game play itself.

 

[laclongquan]

- Invislbe walls, in far too many and inconvienient places which are not justified. This isn't F3 downtown debris blocking the side of the map, we're talking invisible walls all along easily scalable terrain.

- Lack of dungeons. Aside from the vaults, most interiors are a room or two at best. F3 had dozens of sprawling intricate dungeons, as well as the metro area.

This one actually have an excuse. Aside from console optimization which is a major consideration back in the day of PS2/3, it also fall on the F3 optimization, so to speak. You youngsters play with newer stronger machine so you didnt know, but back in those days, F3 is horribly lagging for console, and barely run on normal PC. FNV is a testing to streamline lots of F3 method in cell design to make it run faster. And FNV do run faster than F3, especially on older machine. 3d structure in terrain? Not any more: everything is flat, because it run faster. Trying the Jacobstown mountainous area, or Cottonwood Cove for change~ Huge interior? Also not any more. The Old Vegas sewer is this side of getting cut, just because of that. And holy fuck but the Last Battle areas, the 2nd Hoover Dam, from the surface of the dam to the interior of the plants, they run so heavy, and the most buggy areas of the game. But they actually not bug, just overpowering, overdemanding of resource to run all the 3D terrain assets, more hostiles, higher res of textures. If you have a modern computer you can run that area with no bug at all.
Also why random encounter no longer keep the design of making RE creatures fight each other. it make the game run lighter~

- Fixed enemy spawns. Makes the game too samey after repeated plays. Bethesda's levelled lists are far better. In F3 you'll always stumble into some random shit going on, like enemies fighting other enemies, and if you don't encounter them you'll often hear them in the distance. Distant gunshots you hear in F3 are actual real time battle occuring, but the distant gunshots in FNV are merely stock sound effects meant to imply battle. If any random fights break out in FNV then I've yet to see it happen.

This one also because the nature of FNV is a storyfag game, not a combat game like F3. Despite major marketing effort, F3 is a tactical combat game with much more element of RPG than usual, which is why we didnt object if some FPS sucker played F3 like FPS shootan. FNV, on other hand, is a major RPG game with heavy combat element added in, and so we spit on any shootan player dare to play FNV as FPS. So heavy leveled list of hostile is not needed in FNV... just, unnecessary.

- Forcing ammo cases into inventory after shooting. It's like, please don't force shit into my inventory.

It's a decent looter shooter, but why it's held as some pinnacle of RPG design is simply unfounded.

And so we come to this: any and all shootan player like to praise FNV as decent shooter and terrible RPG while it's entirely opposite. ANY, and all, of you guys like to do that. It's so often we just tire of it. So we know right away which type of suckers just speaking~