No it’s very playable. The only big crash i ran into was after I used one piece of (apparently) bugged dynamite that didn’t stack with other dynamite. After I dropped it on the ground and left it alone no more problems.
80% of the suck in Dead Money is the explosive collars. 15% is damage you take from the poison cloud in Hardcore mode. 5% is the Ghost People, who aren’t really that bad, just kind of obnoxious since you must dismember them to keep them dead. The resource management is fun, at least for some of us, and there’s nothing wrong with the level design, just the constant damage that discourages you from exploring the outside areas. The writing is quite decent.
I’d say that with the no collars / no damage mod, it’s probably enjoyable, though I’d look for a Steam sale anyway. I got it for $2.50 myself.
Sarkus
4703
The collars are annoying as hell, but I think the story makes up for it. The ghost people thing was just kind of lame because once you figure it out its merely a minor tactical change when the whole reason they did that was because the designers were trying to get people away from just headshooting everything. So now you just VATS target a leg or something and then blow it off and they die anyway.
But I really like the story that is told. Probably my favorite FNV DLC story outside of the Honest Hearts Survivalist sidequest.
JeffL
4704
But for those of us playing on an Xbox, then, sounds like perhaps a pass on that DLC.
These are very nice, going to make sure to use them when I do a 2nd play through on PC this January.
Yeah, definitely. Mods were a major reason I got New Vegas for PC, though right now the “no collars in Dead Money” mod is the only one I personally find attractive, aside from the HUD improvements I mentioned upthread.
By and large, if a game has both 360 and PC versions, I get the 360 version if I’m ambivalent because I can trade for those on Goozex. For games I’m relatively certain about, I get the PC version. So far only Arkham Asylum has really wanted a controller over mouse + keyboard.
Wow Honest Hearts is really terrible. Well, there are the occasional cute and interesting parts, but overall it’s such a mess. So much that I didn’t even want to continue in it and reloaded to a save before departing on this debacle.
Really hope the DLC I’m tackling next (OWB and LL) is better.
Equis
4708
Yes. Best of the bunch really. Could have been much of its own game. My biggest disappointment with it was that there wasn’t really more unique locations but it already had tons of that.
and LL)
No. Think Operation Anchorage. Only worse.
Semi-official balance mod for F:NV! Why semi-official? Well, it has been done by J.E. Sawyer, the Project Director of the game.
http://diogenes-lamp.info/jsawyer_fnv_mod.zip
- Max level with all DLCs installed is 35.
- XP rate is halved.
- Base player health is quartered and level-gained health is reduced by 25%.
- Base Carry Weight from 150 to 50 (related perks/things have also been adjusted).
- Energy Weapon ammo weighs less than its nearest equivalent Guns ammo.
- Energy Weapon durability is in the same ballpark as Guns durability.
- Medium Armor has a small amount of DR proportional to its DT.
- Heavy Armor has even more DR proportional to its DT.
- Power Armor does not require a perk, but if you have the perk, the weight of the armor is essentially negated.
- Karma/Alignment values adjusted all over.
- H2O/FOD/SLP rates doubled, but the first threshold is moved from 200 to 400 (statuses roll over ever 150 after).
- Water and Food drop rates on NPCs is dramatically lower. It is difficult to stay out of Dehydration/Starvation by looting enemies.
- Water/Nuka-Cola/Sunset Sarsaparilla heal much less, but now all restore H2O (alcohols will as well, but at lowered values).
- Default Stimpaks are uncommon. A new variant, Stimpak, Expired is the default. It is not that great.
- The player’s Workbench recipe now makes Stimpak, Homemade. It is better than Expired, worse than default Stimpaks, and has the PE penalty from Healing Powder.
- All Stimpaks have weight.
- Pre-Order items have been adjusted to be more well-balanced and not worth that much if you rush to Chet’s to trade them in.
- A bunch of fixes I couldn’t make during development because of load order conflicts, time, etc. E.g.: Automatic Rifle spread re-adjustment, putting the Police Pistol on the Cowboy List, Bozar on Grunt, Junk Rounds are now actual ammo variants you can make, etc.
- Some other stuff.
As you can see, it goes in the hardcore/survival direction, making the game much more harder.
I think it could play it, but playing it in Normal instead of Hard.
As if the game wasn’t already enough of a tedious packrat simulator.
Sarkus
4711
The main story in HH is pretty weak. Where it shines is the side story stuff involving the Survivalist and his story, which shouldn’t be missed.
Some people wanted a super-realistic version of the game. Not me, but some people.
Paul_cze
4712
Only if you play it that way. Personally I like survivalist/realistic aspect, when I have to make hard choices about equipment, about what to bring and what to leave behind, etc, especially in post-apocalypsia. I will definitely try this mod out on my next playthrough. Whenever Zenimax decides we are worthy of buying their DLC :/ (Lonesome road still not available here)
The entire design of the game is wrong for only-what-you-carry survivalism. Ammo has weight, so good luck every having even remotely enough bullets.
I agree that this part
Base Carry Weight from 150 to 50
sounds maddening. But the rest is doable, and interesting.
Well, I hope Sawyer changed the design enough to make it playable, of course.
Ex-S_Woo
4716
Well, I’m thinking about picking up some of the DLC since it’s 75% off today…which ones are worth it?
From the comments Ive been reading it seems like Old World Blues is the only decent one of the bunch…
OWB is by far the best of the bunch.
Dead Money had an interesting story but also adds some love-em-or-hate-em game mechanics (I hated them).
Honest Hearts and Lonesome were forgettable and just plain boring.
On the DLC: Old World Blues is worth $10. Honest Hearts and Dead Money are worth $2.50, and Dead Money is probably a lot more fun to play with the mod to remove explosive collars. I haven’t tried Lonesome Road yet, though I picked it up in the last sale.
Sounds good to me. I played on Hard / Hardcore and found most of the game a little too easy (note: I generally suck as FPSs, so do not take this as an indication of “leet skills.”)
With the exception of heavy weapons, I found the ammo weights to be fine. The ammo weights make it pretty much impossible to use missile launchers or the Fat Man launcher, but those are pretty rare in FNV, unlike FO3. I think we’ve already established upthread that Jason and I view that aspect of the game very differently.
Just about all of the changes in Sawyer’s mod sound worth trying. Carry weight isn’t as troubling as it sounds, since you can get Boone really early, and that pretty much solves all your weight problems. Old World Blues is the one area where this will matter, since you can’t bring a companion and there aren’t any new companions available there.
kerzain
4719
[quote=“Gus_Smedstad”]
I’m curious about both, but I’d rather you elaborated in the New Vegas thread. I want to know how both can be done - I got killed trying to run to New Vegas at level 2 - and what exactly goes wrong if you get to New Vegas early. [/quote]
who knows
[spoiler]I sneaked there, died once to some critters (flies?) on the way, won a bunch of money gambling just outside of town (like 2000 caps or something), bought my way in to the city proper, and then engaged everybody (and their quests) on the strip.
This was my very first run-through of the game, and I had no idea I really shouldn’t have done this, and suddenly all the scripts broke (involving helping/killing the computer dude), and dialog options started coming up and I had no idea what they were talking about, until eventually I got to some part of (what i assumed to be) the main quest I couldn’t complete because the dialogue would get stuck in a loop.
It all seemed very end-gamey at the time, and I realized I had fucked up approaching (what I considered) the entire selling point of the whole damn game (The Strip), and it ruined the whole experience for me for that playthrough. That was around Christmas of 2010 I think, and most of the much finer details have since been forgotten.[/spoiler]
My experience was unlike kerzain’s but I need to test out spoiler posts before I respond in detail.
