3501

All your criticisms are good, but nevertheless, there’s something about the setting and style I like better than other recent Bioware and Bethesda games including Fallout 3.

As noted elsewhere, you can deal with cazadores if you’re careful and have a good ranged attack by crippling their wings, but they are admittedly more annoying than they should be considering their numbers and placements. Even though I kind of enjoy sneaking around the landscape avoiding or assassinating random mutated roadblocks, after a while it gets a bit old, especially when you have exactly one road to go through and there’s a cazadore swarm buzzing around there too fast to snipe.

3502

You were doing something wrong. I don’t know what, but something. I found the end bosses trivial with my level 28 character. Miniguns with AP round ftw.

3503

Please read what I wrote, not what you think I wrote. I never said they were “culturally the same”. I said they accomplished the same things with the same means. That’s still a similarity.

3504

The one outstanding common attribute between Caesar’s Legion and Taliban is zero tolerance to drugs. If you do some of Khan’s quest you have to free a Khan runner caught selling drugs. From the cross.

The writers clearly wanted CL not to be out-and-out bad guys. Especially when you talk to Caesar (before lobbing a mini-nuke at his him), he spoke of Hegelian dialectic, how CL will transcend its brutal roots and how the end (human progress) justifies the CL’s current means. The writers clearly have loftier ambition than pulp science fantasy.

3505

A comparison does not have to agree in all aspects. What I said is still true - they achieved the same thing via similar means - imposing order on warring tribes via conquest and strict justice. That statement is true no matter what else is different.

3506

Certainly, and I was being a bit facetious. I was really just trying to score some cheap points re: American complicity in the Mujahedin movement.

//spoilers

Bethesda does try to play this well-intentioned-sociopolitical-experiment-gone-wrong angle vis-a-vis Caesar’s origin story, but it’s trivial and it’s clearly established that Caesar was never a true believer, so there was never anything there to pervert.

Anyways, with respect to Chris Nahr’s points, I found that Cazadores were easily grounded by the riot shotgun. My biggest issues with Cazadores came as a result of some weird scripting bug in their venom DoT: if I tried to stimpack a venom’d party member, often it would drop their hitpoints into the negative and kill them instantly. As a result, encounters became a headache of micromanagement, as I either had to ensure that my NPCs stayed out of the fight or that the cazadores were neutralized before they could land any hits.

3507

Reading comprehension ftw. That’s exactly what I said: you need the most powerful equipment in the entire game to beat the end bosses. I didn’t have a minigun, much less AP rounds for it. The only place I ever saw one was at the Brotherhood of Steel shop, unlocked only after you join them IIRC.

By the way, in the spoiler thread I saw another guy who bragged how easily he wasted those bosses. Sure enough, he was using some alien gun that I had never even heard of. Powered armor seems obligatory, too – I got killed in three seconds flat by either boss with my defense 25 combat armor.

3508

So… like pretty much every game ever? That’s why the end-game weapons and armor exist in videogames, so you can use it against the toughest enemies and beat the game.

It would be a problem if the game gave you good loot but not powerful enemies to use them, having instead the same normal (weak) enemies, making the game too easy.

And if you don’t have a combat skill at 100 (hell and that’s with a character not focused in combat, or you would have two combat skills at 100), a power armor and a named highend weapon like a minigun you are doing something wrong. Visit more places, explore more, do more quests.

Combat was a bit too easy, not too hard. Except in maybe 3-4 places in all the game. And that was in hard mode. I finished with a stupid surplus of everything (40K in money, and that was without exploiting the casinos!, two power armors, dozens of good stimpacks, thousands of ammo, good weapons i never tried out, etC).

3509

Except it’s not “end-game” weapons and armor. The weapons and armor that you do find during the end game are crap, relatively speaking, in specs or repair state or both. You had to get the actually useful equipment from completely different, unrelated, supposedly optional places, at various points earlier in the game.

And if you don’t have a combat skill at 100 (hell and that’s with a character not focused in combat, or you would have two combat skills at 100), a power armor and a named highend weapon like a minigun you are doing something wrong. Visit more places, explore more, do more quests.

You nerd machos are too precious. Again, that’s exactly my point, and thanks for confirming it: New Vegas expects you to powergame and maximize combat skills and equipment even on Normal, and even if you don’t intend to specialize in combat.

So the broad variety of skills & perks on offer, and the apparently optional character of many quests & locations, are both quite misleading. There are really only two choices: you get a speech skill of 80-100 as an easy shortcut, or you optimize your character for combat and find the very best equipment. That’s why I call the game poorly balanced. Never mind the extra goof that within this combat-focused system, the combat-only VATS and its related perks are completely worthless.

This also reminds me that the greater variety of weapons that was previously claimed as an improvement over Fallout 3 is a red herring since most are nearly useless after the early game. Woo, five different shotguns that barely even scratch an enemy…

3510

Basic miniguns aren’t the most powerful weapons in the game by a fair margin, so, no, you did not say exactly what I said.

That power armor you envy? The basic stuff’s DT is 2 points higher than the armor you were using, while the very best (which I did not have) has a DT 8 points higher.

This also reminds me that the greater variety of weapons that was previously claimed as an improvement over Fallout 3 is a red herring since most are nearly useless after the early game. Woo, five different shotguns that barely even scratch an enemy…

This isn’t true. Well, the shotgun example might be. SMGs, assault rifles, sniper rifles, heavy weapons, melee weapons, energy weapons? A number of viable choices in each category.

3511

Okay, but I just checked the Fallout wiki and even the basic minigun has ~25% more DPS than the plasma caster which was the most powerful weapon I had. Moreover, the minigun has ~4.5 times the damage capacity per clip, and you had AP ammo. So you definitely benefited from a more powerful weapon than I had, and one that’s pretty rare, too. The wiki claims a few random drop locations but I only saw it at the Brotherhood shop, as I said.

That power armor you envy? The basic stuff’s DT is 2 points higher than the armor you were using, while the very best (which I did not have) has a DT 8 points higher.

Then I’m sure I don’t know how you could possibly survive against those end bosses, unless you somehow killed them extremely quickly with your better weapon. Are you some kind of hyperactive mouse jockey who is generally good at shooters and completely avoids getting hit?

This isn’t true. Well, the shotgun example might be. SMGs, assault rifles, sniper rifles, heavy weapons, melee weapons, energy weapons? A number of viable choices in each category.

I never found a single sniper rifle, and only a single assault rifle with little ammo before the end game. That’s with exploring about half the locations on the map. SMGs and some flamethrowers and energy weapons are indeed useful until mid-game, but later on random beasts will still tear you to shreds before you’re done killing them. Melee weapons may actually be the best choice, but I didn’t specialize in melee so I didn’t try them.

3512

When you say found I would guess that means exactly that as I bought my sniper rifle and assault rifle, the M4 look-a-like. Using those I had no problems against Cazadores. Hadn’t attempted a gang of deathclaws all at once but didnt have a problem taking a few down individually with said weapons.

3513

Well, I do think you’ve done something wrong when you’d never seen a minigun by endgame.
There’s the nightdude that goes after cattle near Novac around midnight - you can meet him pretty early on and he has a minigun.
It’s in horrible condition, but a scripting but makes him respawn over and over again if you wait a few days, so you can wrestle a fully repaired Minigun from that one source alone if you’re patient.

That said, I also thought combat was a bit on the hard side (a better word would be annoying, though) occasionally.
My problem is more related to how they took out all the punch from VATS.
I agree that it was overpowered in FO3, but in FNV, it’s a joke.
And - at least on my rig - fighting without it is no option either in most cases, as the engine is not fit to depict engagements with multiple enemies and still offer a fluent experience (fps-wise).

A 100 guns skill dude should be able to one-shot Cazadars with a decent rifle in VATS, but in reality it mostly takes three shots to get the job done, which is too much.
I didn’t have real problems, except in a few cases where I had to make a run for it and come back later, but many engagements were fiddly and relied on singling out enemies by exploiting AI limitations and stuff.

rezaf

3514

Let’s not delude ourselves, every Fallout had a good deal of combat. Not as much as other RPGs, but still. And a fair share wasn’t optional combat (or the way to make it optional is sometimes complicated or it’s just running a lot trying to evade monsters). The good thing about them, Fallout New Vegas included, it’s that you also have other stuff that gives you choice, have a good amount of entertaining dialogue, npcs and quests without combat, and all that serves to give you a varied, rich experience.

But of course the game have combat and you are supposed to find good equipment and maximize one or two combat skills. This is not a graphic adventure, you know. Maybe you were misinformed.

Jeez, the game gives you a hand, and you take the whole arm. Fallout have more options and more “paths” to sucess than other games, and be glad of it, but of course not every imaginable “path” is possible in 100% of the game, and not every path have the same rate of sucess, and not every path have the same amount of work and same depthness. And it will be like that for a few decades, until we have super AIs to develop videgames for our entertainment.
It’s like the endings. Other games have one ending. Fallout have 4 main ones, with a few alternatives more, and not counting the game over stills. So Fallout New Vegas do it much better than other games. And still, some people have complained about how is not possible to do A and B and have then a different type of ending 5. Which would be pretty cool, but developers have to say “stop” in one moment and not putting more stuff in their games. Of course 10 endings would be better than 4, but to have four is already a fuckton of work.

I am beginning to think you are taking a virtue of the game, what it makes Fallout different from other rpgs (different ways to resolve problems, violence is not always the best option, choice & consequences), and somehow are converting it in a flaw, because the virtue doesn’t go as far as you would like.

I also would like to have that part of the game expanded even more, but these type of rpg game are already huge, complex and full of bugs, it’s not easy to make them even more complex, with even more options, with totally alternative but still balanced full featured sets of gameplay mechanics (dialogue gameplay, stealth gameplay, combat gameplay, exploration gameplay, driving gameplay, interactions with npcs and objects, etc). 5 games in one sounds nice, but there are technical and budgetary limits to that.

3515

OK, so you had the opportunity to get it and decided not to, so this is the game’s fault?

I never found a single sniper rifle, and only a single assault rifle with little ammo before the end game. That’s with exploring about half the locations on the map. SMGs and some flamethrowers and energy weapons are indeed useful until mid-game, but later on random beasts will still tear you to shreds before you’re done killing them. Melee weapons may actually be the best choice, but I didn’t specialize in melee so I didn’t try them.

The sniper rifle is available in several stores. Did you never go to Gunrunners? According to the internet it’s available for sale there at level 12. They were also for sale at the 188 trading post. I assume the BoS shop and NCR quartermaster probably sold them, too.

I beat the end boss with a sniper rifle I bought from a store, modded with a silencer I also bought from a store, firing regular non-AP ammo I bought from a store. Looking at the wiki, the Plasma Caster seems quite powerful, it’s definitely a top tier weapon, so this whole thing is kinda weird.

3516

I killed him with a brush gun I bought from the Gun Runners and used for at least half of the game, whenever I had enough ammo for it. He wasn’t so tough.

3517

Yeah. If anything, I’d complain that F:NV didn’t do enough to motivate me to find and use new and more powerful weapons. As my primary weapon I used the varmint rifle for a long time, then briefly a Cowboy Repeater, then got a sniper rifle before I was halfway done and used it the rest of the way.

3518

This, because:

  1. You can scope the varmint rifle, then,
  2. The cowboy repeater and its .357 ammo absolutely eats early and mid-game enemies, then,
  3. The sniper rifle eats the late-game enemies.
3519

When i tried to fight deathclaws it certainly encouraged me to upgrade from my cowboy repeater…

3520

The varmint rifle? That one was almost completely useless from the moment I got it! Apparently I somehow played a different game that got accidentally sold by the same name. Did every single one of you specialise in guns from the start?