Fallout: New Vegas

Razgon · 2011-07-30T14:16:15.000Z

Still playing the Dead Money dlc here, and damn its cool, and very spooky - Highly recommended!

TimJames · 2011-07-30T14:54:27.000Z

Naeblis:

I wasn’t bothered by them. There are a few of them, but sometimes they have a twist in them, of you get to a new place with them, or they guide you to meet and talk with colorful people, etc.

Yeah I was just thinking how at least they really flesh out the area. Plus I’m compelled to finish quests so I guess I’ll wrap up these last few.

MarchHare · 2011-07-30T17:12:33.000Z

Shellfishguy:

I ran into a problem with the Great Khans quest also. I found them when I was just exploring the area and since I was going NCR, I decided to go ahead and discredit the legion. Then later on when the NCR gave me the the quest to take care of the Khans I couldn’t advance. I already HAD but no one would recognize that. It made finishing the game as NCR impossible, I finally had to switch tracks and finish the independent route.

I ran into the same problem where the quest “Oh Papa” (or something like that) bugged out after I discredited the Legion preventing me from advancing the quest. You can still complete “For the Republic, Part 2” by simply killing the Khans, though. It wasn’t the ideal solution for my diplomatic goodie-goodie character, but it at least allowed me to advance the plot. Besides, I had no problem assassinating Motor Runner and the Fiends, and the Khans aren’t much better.

TheWombat · 2011-07-30T18:55:41.000Z

Gus_Smedstad:

I didn’t find that to be too much of a problem unless I was using a LAER or the advanced LAER. Which was enough to make me not use them. Not because I resented burning the resources, but because carrying enough weapon repair kits to stay at top damage was somewhat prohibitive in weight. Even though I took Pack Rat and Strong Back. (As an aside, one thing I like about the add-ons is that they bring back the importance of personal carrying capacity).

No, while I was fairly skilled in both Guns and Energy Weapons, the thing that ultimately tipped me over unto using firearms most of the time was the sights. Very few of the energy weapons have scopes or can take them. That, and the K9000 is one amazing weapon, particularly once upgraded. First heavy weapon I’ve really liked.

On my energy weapons character I use primarily a very upgraded Laser Rifle, with a scope. It usually one-shots things outside of VATS (inside VATS oddly enough it blows).

godhugh · 2011-07-30T18:58:23.000Z

Having some terrible stuttering issues with Old World Blues on the PS3. Anyone else run into or heard of this? I can’t go outside to Big MT at all.

Gus_Smedstad1 · 2011-07-31T06:20:54.000Z

Just finished Honest Hearts. It was kind of small and disappointing compared to Old World Blues, taking just a few hours to finish. You don’t really get much in the way of rewards from it, either, though it might be comparatively more rewarding if you start as 15-ish character, instead of at level 28 where I began. On the positive side, the story is somewhat interesting, and the entire thing fits into the New Vegas background seamlessly, which was definitely not the case with Old World Blues, which was pretty much Wild Wasteland cubed.

I’d have been disappointed if I’d paid $10 for it, but since I got it for $2.50 during the Steam sale, it worked out.

Razgon · 2011-07-31T07:05:48.000Z

Gus_Smedstad:

Just finished Honest Hearts. It was kind of small and disappointing compared to Old World Blues, taking just a few hours to finish. You don’t really get much in the way of rewards from it, either, though it might be comparatively more rewarding if you start as 15-ish character, instead of at level 28 where I began. On the positive side, the story is somewhat interesting, and the entire thing fits into the New Vegas background seamlessly, which was definitely not the case with Old World Blues, which was pretty much Wild Wasteland cubed.

I’d have been disappointed if I’d paid $10 for it, but since I got it for $2.50 during the Steam sale, it worked out.

A few hours?? I’ve been playing it for about 6 hours now, and still havent explored everything - Do you do main missions only, or explore to find all the stuff hidden around?

I do think its not at all as good as Dead Money though, which was incredible.

JeffL · 2011-07-31T07:28:30.000Z

I have not read this thread for fear of spoilers, but, as a huge fan of Fallout3, I will be playing this soon. I played FO3 on the PC, but will be playing this one on a console (most likely my 360.) How is this one on the XBox?

Razgon · 2011-07-31T07:51:56.000Z

JeffL:

I have not read this thread for fear of spoilers, but, as a huge fan of Fallout3, I will be playing this soon. I played FO3 on the PC, but will be playing this one on a console (most likely my 360.) How is this one on the XBox?

I can’t really comment on the actual xbox game, but the game doesn’t really have any must-have mods, so you arent missing out in that department at least.

Oh, and get Dead Money, the DLC - simply awesome!

divedivedive · 2011-07-31T08:27:53.000Z

I am playing New Vegas on the Xbox, along with all of the available DLC so far. I also played Fallout 3 on my Xbox, and have had no serious problems with either. I do hit the occasional glitch, sometimes it freezes up and I have to completely boot the system, but fortunately that’s rare. More common to find other little oddities - like enemy corpses vibrating half into/out of the ground, or the environment suddenly going a bluish tinge. So yeah, some bugs, nothing that keeps me from playing. I am thoroughly enjoying New Vegas, but I’ve been holding off completing the main campaign until I play all the DLC so I don’t have the whole picture to talk about just yet.

edit: oops, meant to hit ‘reply’ to JeffL’s post.

Gus_Smedstad1 · 2011-07-31T09:54:10.000Z

Razgon:

A few hours?? I’ve been playing it for about 6 hours now, and still havent explored everything - Do you do main missions only, or explore to find all the stuff hidden around?

I basically followed every mission I could find, plus I explored any sites I happened to find. There really aren’t that many off-quest sites, I think it’s maybe 3-4 caves. I did check the Vault when I was done to see what I missed, and it wasn’t much. I’m probably exaggerating a bit as to how long it took to finish, since I didn’t really time it, but it was still awfully short.

It’s possible that I went through it faster because it wasn’t very challenging with a near-30 character with good equipment. If I had surprise - and I always did, since I had 100 Sneak - I could always one-shot at least one opponent with my hunting rifle or hunting revolver, even the Giant Green Geckos. The biggest bottleneck was not finding a lot of scrap to turn into lead for new ammo.

Razgon · 2011-07-31T09:56:58.000Z

Ah, well - I’ve been hunting all over for the Survivalists notes, and got the awesome Desert Ranger armor (The one on the cover of the game) and his rifle as well, and I found his story very interesting - That probably adds a few hours right there .-)

Sarkus · 2011-07-31T10:10:15.000Z

Honest Hearts works if you like the Surivalist side story. Not to mention his armor and gun are among the best in the game. If you missed it (which Gus must have if he only went into 3-4 caves) the I can see finding the whole thing rather dull.

Gus_Smedstad1 · 2011-07-31T10:28:55.000Z

Sarkus:

Honest Hearts works if you like the Surivalist side story. Not to mention his armor and gun are among the best in the game. If you missed it (which Gus must have if he only went into 3-4 caves) the I can see finding the whole thing rather dull.

Yeah, I liked the Survivalist diaries. I only found about half of them during my sessions, but I was reluctant to spoil myself until the expansion was clearly done. When I’d killed off the White Legs (which was very easy), I went to the Wiki to find the locations of the ones I missed. You really have to follow the Wiki to find a couple of them, particularly the final one. I mean really, who is going to be looking up there, particularly since the location doesn’t show up as an “unexplored area” on your compass?

Looking at the Wiki, not counting quest caves (i.e. Angel Cave) or trivial ones (i.e. Half Mouse Cave), there are only 4 significant caves. I found 2 of them, and had to use the Wiki to find the other 2.

The armor is one of the things I missed initially. I was wearing the Stealth Suit from Old World Blues, which I’m kind of reluctant to give up, even though it only has about 60% of the DT of the Honest Hearts armor. The gun’s merely OK at this stage of the game. The FIDO is frankly better in every regard except ammo consumption.

Razgon · 2011-07-31T10:31:46.000Z

yeah - I took the Explorer perk now, since I want to know everything, and hates to use wikies for this kind of stuff.

But eh - What do you mean by:

since the location doesn’t show up as an “unexplored area” on your compass?

How does that work?!!

Gus_Smedstad1 · 2011-07-31T10:38:34.000Z

Razgon:

But eh - What do you mean by:

How does that work?!!

If you’re near a location that you haven’t explored, it shows up on your compass as a hollow triangle. Chasing those is the easiest way to explore if you don’t have the location marked through dialog, or via the “Explorer” perk. The Survivalist’s final resting place is an exception. Even though it’s a named location, and you get XP for discovering it, it doesn’t show up on your compass, ever.

I didn’t take the Explorer perk this time around. I didn’t realize it worked on expansions. Since I’d already done the New Vegas wasteland, I didn’t feel it would really help.

quarryman · 2011-07-31T17:03:10.000Z

aghh. So I’ve reached The Strip and I’ve realised some of the elements that made me quit playing the first time.

The level design. Vegas just seems like a complete clusterfuck of loading cells. There’s no fluidity. Lots of dead ends and invisible walls with loading screens every 60 seconds. Really breaks the immersion. This extends to The Tops itself. Numerous “inaccessible” elevators". There’s something about the whole place that just smacks of lazy design.
Spoiler maybe: You complete your chat with the Yes Man and suddenly all your evil deeds are forgotten by the NCR and the Legion. A complete reset. So basically I could have massacred every last one of them and took their weapons but then suddenly, reaching a certain point in the plot absolves me of all these sins? I’m very tempted to reload from an earlier save and continue my path of an opportunistic mercenary. Then when I’m completely done, return and meet Benny. It reeks of really lazy plot design. grr.
hmm, GOTO 1. (i’ll think of this one later).

Gus_Smedstad1 · 2011-07-31T19:09:29.000Z

I’ve been playing the expansions in the reverse order of estimated quality. Having done Old World Blues and Honest Hearts, I’ve started in on Dead Money. Old World Blues was excellent if extremely strange, Honest Hearts was decent though small, but so far I’m really hating Dead Money.

It’s not the starting over from scratch. I like having to deal with resource management again, after being filthy rich and swimming in great equipment. What I hate is the combination of constant health loss from the toxic cloud, mazes, and the absence of health items, either stimpacks or food with reasonable healing properties. It’s a really bad combination, one that seriously penalizes exploration, which is normally a big part of the game. The combat against the difficult-to-kill Ghost People sucks, too.

Oh, and the traps. Bear traps you can’t see because of the lighting or shadows seem incredibly cheap, and with the lack of health supplies, it’s forcing me to creepsave and reload, which I hate doing.

Sarkus · 2011-07-31T22:06:14.000Z

quarryman:

Spoiler maybe: You complete your chat with the Yes Man and suddenly all your evil deeds are forgotten by the NCR and the Legion. A complete reset. So basically I could have massacred every last one of them and took their weapons but then suddenly, reaching a certain point in the plot absolves me of all these sins? I’m very tempted to reload from an earlier save and continue my path of an opportunistic mercenary. Then when I’m completely done, return and meet Benny. It reeks of really lazy plot design. grr.

I see your point but the alternative is that stuff you do very early on ends up limiting your options hours and hours down the road. And at least the reset makes some sense - once you become a notable factor in the world then people would realistically rethink their relationship with you if it favored them.

Gus_Smedstad:

It’s not the starting over from scratch. I like having to deal with resource management again, after being filthy rich and swimming in great equipment. What I hate is the combination of constant health loss from the toxic cloud, mazes, and the absence of health items, either stimpacks or food with reasonable healing properties. It’s a really bad combination, one that seriously penalizes exploration, which is normally a big part of the game. The combat against the difficult-to-kill Ghost People sucks, too.

The ghost people are easy once you know the trick. But in general Dead Money was an experiment by the designers in which a number of things are designed to force the player away from the proven strategies that worked in Fallout 3 and FNV’s main game. They want you to play differently then you are used to. From a gameplay standpoint I don’t really like Dead Money. It works because of the story that unfolds, IMHO. That made the rest of it worth it for me.

Dawn_Falcon · 2011-07-31T22:27:52.000Z

Gus_Smedstad:

Oh, and the traps. Bear traps you can’t see because of the lighting or shadows seem incredibly cheap, and with the lack of health supplies, it’s forcing me to creepsave and reload, which I hate doing.

Light Step perk. Really.