Fallout: New Vegas

[Haratio TaFotter]

Now that I've had the game for a week, I think I've figured out my favorite thing: the factions.

I always hated playing as an evil character in Fallout 3 and doing everything the Enclave wanted me to do, and in the end, after blowing up the Brotherhood base, both of them hated me. This was the problem that I thought Elder Scrolls had: if you wanted to play as a good character, you were fine, but if you wanted to be bad, you wind up kinda s**t out of luck. Instead, you actually get to choose who you want to ally yourself with from a lot of different factions, good, evil or otherwise. Not to mention the different groups are far more interesting than the ones in Fallout 3.  

[nitnit]

I totally agree about the factions.

For anyone who is lurking and is a fan of the original games - New Vegas is kind of like a first person Fallout 2, but without all of the really over the top campy pop culture references. (Which is awesome)

I also really love how on occasion people will make note of you doing something that no ordinary individual could. There were a couple times were I took out a camp for a faction, and they were highly impressed. Another cool little touch was how the guy outside the quarry told me that he doubted I could take on the deathclaws when I was level 10. When I returned at level 29, he said he thinks I just might have what it takes, and handed over 5 stimpacks to aid me.


My only real gripe right now is that Karma is still wonky. It's not quite as easy to abuse as in FO3, and the game doesn't judge your actions via karma as often, but it's still questionable at times (killing certain people will cause a karma loss when it's arguable that it shouldn't be, etc) Luckily the only thing I've noticed Karma effect is if Cass will continue following you or not (she only wants to follow if you are neutral/good)  

[Haratio TaFotter]

Yeah, I agree the karma is still kinda weird. I hate killing enemies that make me gain good karma, and then killing some that give no karma whatsoever when it seems obvious that they should give good/bad.  

[SnorlaxPunk]

I'm loving this game, but it just doesn't seem to love me back.

[RANT INCOMING]

I only have two complains: freezing and glitches, which haunt the game in certain parts and sometimes just ruin the experience for me. For instance, the quest in the Ultra Luxe on The Strip called "Beyond the Beef" has bugs galore if you don't complete it in a certain way. Now, I can forgive this, because I don't give a s**t about the Ultra Luxe, but my game freezing just makes me want to tear my hair out in frustration sometimes. I am one who relies almost completely on the Auto-Save function, only occasionally saving on a part where I'm curious what the outcome will be. But when my game freezes while it's Auto-Saving, the data becomes corrupted, thus I have to load a save from two hours ago.

[RANT OVER]

However, the good parts of this game greatly overshadow the bad.  

[nitnit]

It's sad to say, but in order to really enjoy this game you have to manually save like every 15-20 mins to ensure you don't lose anything substantial.

If you've ever had to play Oblivion or Fallout 3 without any patches it's the same deal. (Well, actually, I personally found fewer graphical oddities and more crashes in Oblivion)  

[Haratio TaFotter]

The glitches can really break the game's experience for me. I can't remember how many times I've gotten my legs crippled by a mine that had glitched under the ground so that I couldn't see it.  

[nitnit]

I've never had that happen, lol  

[Haratio TaFotter]

Lol, well its not a very pleasant experience, that much I can tell you lol.

There have been times where I've been saved by this glitch though. I was once charged by 3 giant radscorpions while I was exploring at level 8-ish, and they all got stuck underground and couldn't attack me.  

[nitnit]

well, if you're still interested in the mojave wasteland I recommend waiting a couple days, there's a new patch to be released (unless it's already been released, haven't played FO:NV in a week)

http://bethblog.com/index.php/2010/11/05/more-news-on-new-vegas-updates/  

[Tron714]

One thing I liked about our Fallout 3 discussions is when we talked about how we rolled stats in the game. I finally gave in and bought New Vegas and for now all I have done is walked around and shoot up Black Powder gang and trying to avoid being good. Im gonna reroll my character and do Hardcore first but I wanna talk about weapons, character builds, and hardcore strategy first biggrin  

[nitnit]

Speech is very, very important if you want maximum caps (barter too) and ease during quests.

All of the SPECIAL stats are now good. Notable changes - Endurance is important because it determines the number of implants you can buy (implants can increase your special stats and armor). Charisma beefs up your companions. Agility now effects now fast you run in addition to giving you AP points. Luck now gives a chance for your enemies to critically miss.

Having said this, if you plan on playing hardcore you have to decide if you want to be a lone wolf or have companions. If you want companions make your charisma decent. Since they can die on hardcore you'll have to keep an eye on them. Boone + ED-E should be pretty lethal though. If you don't want them as liabilities, then having a low charisma should be fine.. gives you more points for endurance, agility, intelligence, and strength.

It's not possible to max out all of your skills by level 30... I think. You can get very close though, and with magazines you can get whatever skill you'd need to a high enough level.

VATs was nerfed I believe. As in, it's harder to hit with at far away. Other than that it's still an auto win button for close range encounters.

You can get through all the combat just fine with pretty much any of the weapon disciplines. There are now actually a lot of really good melee/unarmed weapons. Big and small guns are now one category. The shiskabob for melee and the ballistic fist for unarmed make it possible to get the 10k damage achievements for those two categories quite easily when you're a high level.

If you're going for achievements, I'd recommend getting science up there (there are not very many terminals so you'll want to hack all that you can. plus there's a good amount of science dialogue checks).

As for hardcore mode.. .well, that was a pretty big disappointment. It just makes you arbitrarily eat/drink, carry less stuff, and makes your companions die instead of go unconscious. Because of this I preferred to only use a couple weapons so I can carry fewer types of ammo. If you want to have fun running around the wasteland, Id recommend beating the game on hardcore fairly quickly, then playing on normal. (Or reverting to an earlier save and putting it back onto normal). It really adds nothing to the game's difficulty other than eating/drinking/weight and making companions a liability.

By the end of the game, the only skills I didn't use much at all were survival, unarmed, explosives and melee. There really are a lot of dialogue checks for almost every skill.  

[pathetic_negi_magician]

Haratio TaFotter

Yeah, I agree the karma is still kinda weird. I hate killing enemies that make me gain good karma, and then killing some that give no karma whatsoever when it seems obvious that they should give good/bad.

Most Raiders are unlawful neutral, doing what they can to get by. They might get some enjoyment out of it, but that could also be reflective of their coping methods to surviving in the wasteland/ desert.  

[nitnit]

I think it's stranger how feral Ghouls give you karma for killing them... They're supposed to just be savage wild creatures. It's not like you get karma for killing deathclaws/scorpions.

The only explanation I can think of is that the developers realized that it was much easier to lose karma than gain it, so they threw in +karma for killing ghouls, lol.  

[Haratio TaFotter]

pathetic_negi_magician

Haratio TaFotter

Yeah, I agree the karma is still kinda weird. I hate killing enemies that make me gain good karma, and then killing some that give no karma whatsoever when it seems obvious that they should give good/bad.

Most Raiders are unlawful neutral, doing what they can to get by. They might get some enjoyment out of it, but that could also be reflective of their coping methods to surviving in the wasteland/ desert.

That I get. I mean when I kill a Fiend, I can kinda see why I get good karma for it. I don't really see why I get good karma for killing Powder Gangers, since I feel most of them are justified. I also don't feel like I get any sort of bad karma unless I kill people who are 100% un-allied with any sort of faction.

Nit, I still wonder why I get good karma for killing ghouls. Some friends of mine talked it over, and we think you get good karma since ghouls suffer so much becasue of the radiation (so in a way you're putting them out of their misery). That's all we really got, thought its still really annoying, since they're almost unavoidable.

Also, has anyone had anything weird happen with their faction? Because I've pretty much killed all the NCR in the Mojave, and hit all the camps, and they still just view me as a Merciful Thug. I don't see what's merciful about killing and eating people...  

[pathetic_negi_magician]

Haratio TaFotter

pathetic_negi_magician

Haratio TaFotter

Yeah, I agree the karma is still kinda weird. I hate killing enemies that make me gain good karma, and then killing some that give no karma whatsoever when it seems obvious that they should give good/bad.

Most Raiders are unlawful neutral, doing what they can to get by. They might get some enjoyment out of it, but that could also be reflective of their coping methods to surviving in the wasteland/ desert.

That I get. I mean when I kill a Fiend, I can kinda see why I get good karma for it. I don't really see why I get good karma for killing Powder Gangers, since I feel most of them are justified. I also don't feel like I get any sort of bad karma unless I kill people who are 100% un-allied with any sort of faction.

Nit, I still wonder why I get good karma for killing ghouls. Some friends of mine talked it over, and we think you get good karma since ghouls suffer so much becasue of the radiation (so in a way you're putting them out of their misery). That's all we really got, thought its still really annoying, since they're almost unavoidable.

Also, has anyone had anything weird happen with their faction? Because I've pretty much killed all the NCR in the Mojave, and hit all the camps, and they still just view me as a Merciful Thug. I don't see what's merciful about killing and eating people...

In FO3, I remember that a certain ghoul in the Dunwich building gave you karma for killing him. (Though if you heard all the tapes recorded by him, you'd realize you really were putting him out of his misery.)

I also don't see how certain un-allied people being killed doesn't affect your karma, but killing others does... I wonder how they decided "let's make these people 'reduce your karma if you kill them' and these people 'not matter if you kill them'" ?