Fallout: New Vegas - NMA's Impression

crpgnut said:

Hmmm, I don't know why your posts make me think you don't like Bethesda…Silly me!

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Man, I forgot how people keep a detailed backlog on everything I said and did ever.
However, while I do not have access to the same log you do, I'm going to assume that these quotes come from a time when Fallout 3's direction had already been made clear, and I was showing my disdain in this direction? Yes, once it was clear they were adapting Fallout 3 to be more like Oblivion I was dismayed. That's not the same thing as disliking Bethesda inherently. As in, before they took and changed Fallout 3 they were simply a developer that made games that I could appreciate as good (I still do, though I do poke fun at Oblivion), but that aren't for me. That's why I felt the tag "hater" as if I was predisposed to hate Bethesda was unfair.

This took ages to dig out so damn you for tempting me into doing stuff and please appreciate my HARD WORK

Drum roll please.

I present you: my very first response to the news that Bethesda got Fallout, ever. Official biographers, please take note.
I refuse to judge this.

Bethesda has done some pretty good games in its history, nothing to indicate whether they will fuck it up completely or make a decent Fallout 3. There's no way of telling

I'm not sure about this whole "developing alongside Elder Scrolls"-thing, but we'll see.

It's a matter of wait and see, y'know

You could say I was pre-disposed against making Fallout 3 into an FPS/RPG hybrid. I wasn't pre-disposed against Bethesda though. Big difference. One is simple a disagreement on design direction. The other is "being a hater".

BillSeurer said:

Both Fallout and Fallout 2 had tedious quests. Cattle drives anyone?

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And if Fallout 1/2 jumped off a bridge, would you do that too? Those games weren't perfect, y'know. It's not like "they did it" somehow excuses it.

DeepO said:

Most of the quest itself is a mundane fed/ex (though it ends on a high note), yes, but it´s laid out in a way which pushes player towards exploration so he´s very likely to discover more points of interest in the process. Quite a few quests are designed this way and while I think it works great for the first playthrough

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Oh yes! In general Obsidian took a very different approach to free-roaming/exploration than Bethesda did. I feel it has its advantages and disadvantages, especially with such heavy recycling of engine/mechanics. Will probably rant on that forever in my review.

DeepO said:

The way quests incidentally lead to more quests or intertwine/cross with each other is imo one of the game´s main strengths, even though in its current state it´s not always absolutely airtight and sometimes can lead to bugged situations.

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True!

Okay, fair enough. I called you hater in the same way I call myself fanboi though. I'm not truly a fan of everything Bethesda, just as you don't truly hate everything about them. Peace.

One thing we "might" agree on is that I hate Bethesda's PR crap. I actually like Pete Hines as a person, but I disagree with how they promote their products. It's terrible. I didn't think there could be worse PR till I saw Dragon Age advertised.

Well, terrible but effective. Just read the MCA interview for Lightspeed (just posted by RPGWatch). It really works, and it's not as seperate from development as other companies (which has both advantages and disadvantages). Must be kind of a relief for Obsidian to see a game promoted so extensively and consequently sell really well (it seems to be a hit from first reports, good for them).

BioWare's trailers are kind of getting to me in their crappiness.

I just realized something, the return to sender quest wasn't that difficult since I had already found most of those ranger stations. Just do other quests first or explore the wasteland before you take on that quest. Then you can just fast travel there

skavenhorde said:

I just realized something, the return to sender quest wasn't that difficult since I had already found most of those ranger stations. Just do other quests first or explore the wasteland before you take on that quest. Then you can just fast travel there

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That's actually the reason I find most of the fetch-me-this type quests bearable. I'll see how they weigh on my enjoyment now that I started my second playthrough (melee is horrendously overpowered outside of Very Hard/Hardcore btw).

Yes, I also found melee a lot easier. Also, having 10 Strength makes inventory management a lot easier, especially since I don't any guns.

Stick to very hard +hardcore then for melee weapons because I just got my butt whooped big time by four dogs at a very important camp. Those suckers could take a beating!!!

It might not have helped that my melee score was around 15 and my strength was 8 (boosted by some food I was able to bring in). They still ripped me to shreds. Even the one dog I faced before them was a challenge.

I'm playing around with a character that dumped charisma, luck and perception so he could get very high int/str/end/agi (10/10/10/7). Picked up ED-E to gain perception. Once I got the special super sledgehammer (Oh Baby), the game has been a walk in the park. Pretty much everything is killed with a single blow at this point.

I honestly don't recommend playing such a specialized character - combat becomes somewhat dull after a while.

I'll try out a scientist/futuristic/energy weapons character soon. I suspect ammo will be the main issue.

I am level 10. 10cha, 7per/int, 5agi 3end/str. Took (i am not sure about their names) little build and daredevil (boosting AP at the cost of damage resistance).

I tagged and put 5 points every level in science/energy weapons (dividing the rest between repair/lockpick/speech). I have more micro fusion cells than I can carry and 10000 caps. I use medium armor.

I have yet to find a challenge I couldn't beat, so its viable at normal difficulty. Once I recruited Boone it got almost too easy.

Everything is too easy with Boone.

I found companions to be overpowered in FO3. I was hoping Obsidian wasn't going to make them too strong in NV.

Maylander said:

Yes, I also found melee a lot easier. Also, having 10 Strength makes inventory management a lot easier, especially since I don't any guns.

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Melee/unarmed are overpowered as all hell, and kind of the only way to go in hardcore especially if you're a scrounger. But sniping is overpowered too. The crit bonuses on sniper-rifles and the fact that the AI doesn't always respond to getting shot at making the Gobi sniper rifle way overpowered.

It's big guns and energy weapons that mostly suffer. Skip them.

JDR13 said:

I found companions to be overpowered in FO3. I was hoping Obsidian wasn't going to make them too strong in NV.

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They're overpowered but kind of dumb. In hardcore they'll die all the time by running into the arms of a deathclaw or glowing ghoul.

Still, if you play non-hardcore and medium/hard difficulty, you can basically just walk around doing nothing and rack up experience as Boone runs around in circles sniping Cazadors to death.

JDR13 said:

I was hoping Obsidian wasn't going to make them too strong in NV.

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It´s not that bad. The game does become notably easier in some ways once you have two followers by the virtues that three is more than one, pc isn´t directly penalized for having companions and humanoid ones can become rather strong if you give them good equipment. Still, on hard/very hard they can all die easily in a lot of situations, especially when in interiors or when dealing with faster enemies. Nonhumanoid ones are balanced alright and serve more as portable containers.
Companions´ effectiveness also depends on pc´s charisma as it affects their damage and defense.
So, while it isn´t perfect, it imo isn´t gamebreaking either. At least once I´ve switched to very hard, it felt ok.

That said, Boone is a notable exception because he´s a sniper and very good at that, he probably has maxed perception and agility, so for most of the exterior combat he does present a big skip in difficulty. Once he gets into close combat he quite falls in line with the others. Also, the fact for most players he´s likely to be among the first companions acquired doesn´t help here.

No doubt, in time there will be mods which will balance companions better.
Personally, I´d make them initially weaker, especially offense-wise and offer more perks which could boost their abilities, make pc´s charisma affect them more and incur some kind of penalty on player who uses them, though I´m not sure what kind it should be, maybe less experience for enemies dispatched by them, I dunno.

This all of course applies for hardcore mode only. They´re all definitely overpowered on non-hardcore, because they can´t die there and merely fall unconscious for a few seconds.

Boone isn't the only exception. Veronica can have more than 100 points in melee if you have high charisma, and has very high melee/unarmed regardless. Give her Pushy or Oh Baby! and power armor and it gets kind of silly.

I've heard Arcade Gannon's energy weapon skills kind of go through the roof too but I haven't used him much. He shoots fast with that plasma pistol of his though.

One kind of game-breaking thing regardless of hardcore or not (I think, I might be wrong) is that their equipment doesn't deteriorate. That's a big difference maker. Just repair it fully (or as high as you can go), and they make that PA and super sledge last forever. No ammo needed either, for their own weaponry (which tends to be pretty good).

JDR13 said:

I found companions to be overpowered in FO3. I was hoping Obsidian wasn't going to make them too strong in NV.

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Never found much use for them in F3.

The eyebot is kinda weak, he was unconscious (killed if I hadn't modded it) about 50 times before I got Boone. It could defeat ghouls on it's own, but they are superweak anyway.

Boone is insane. He kills of whatever before I fired a shot and I have yet to see him get unconscius.

I have yet to see a good first person party system. FONV doesn't have one without mods. Still it's the best I have seen for a single companion (2 actually). But that doesn't say much. Computer controlled NPC have to be overpowered, else you have to babysit them. Hate that. I still wish I had party commands in FONV. Some optimizations here and it can work really well. Challenges and xp reward should drop for additional npc's however.

Brother None said:

Boone isn't the only exception. Veronica can have more than 100 points in melee if you have high charisma, and has very high melee/unarmed regardless. Give her Pushy or Oh Baby! and power armor and it gets kind of silly.

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Well, yep, but that´s imo more a problem of melee/unarmed being overpowered in general and companions are still quite vulnerable in close combat even with good armor.
I consider Boone to be an exception because with him there´s rarely any close combat (in exteriors).
Btw, I´ve given fully maintained ballistic fist to Cass and she kicked unholy levels of ass too.

Brother None said:

One kind of game-breaking thing regardless of hardcore or not (I think, I might be wrong) is that their equipment doesn't deteriorate.

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Yeah, that kinda sucks, but … at least it´s convenient! Making their gear deteriorate would help the balance significantly though. More convenient, but not all that elegant, solution might be to let their gear function as if it was at, say, half maintenance all the time.

I certainly agree that all humanoid companions are overpowered, I just don´t think it´s that dramatic and prefer this to them being useless.
The biggest problem imo is that player isn´t directly penalized for using them so it´s pretty much always easier to have them than to have them not. Reducing, or entirely eliminating, experience gains for enemies killed by a follower could be one of the (dirty) solutions.

JemyM said:

I have yet to see a good first person party system. FONV doesn't have one without mods. Still it's the best I have seen for a single companion (2 actually). But that doesn't say much. Computer controlled NPC have to be overpowered, else you have to babysit them. Hate that. I still wish I had party commands in FONV. Some optimizations here and it can work really well. Challenges and xp reward should drop for additional npc's however.

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I know some people might consider me a schmuck for this, but I honestly think the system in Mass Effect 2 works out okay; you can tell the companions where to take cover and when to move in addition to hotkey their abilities so you cast it instead of the AI.

Maylander said:

I know some people might consider me a schmuck for this, but I honestly think the system in Mass Effect 2 works out okay; you can tell the companions where to take cover and when to move in addition to hotkey their abilities so you cast it instead of the AI.

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ME2 does work ok when it comes to giving orders, but is extremely limited when it comes to inventory and creating characters. I think a few hotkeys would be nice to have in FONV though. Especially "flee"

The AI companions have never worked well in any of the FO games.

FO1 & 2 had the huge problem of your companions taking a 1 in a million chance shot to hit the enemy that turns out to be a 1 in 5 chance to blow your PC or some other follower into chunks. Gah!

And I remember in FO2 one time when Sulik went off on a rampage killing the people of New Remo when I was fighting the mobs.

Heck, this goes back to Ultima 7. All my companions would suddenly go running off to fight something before I even noticed it.

After finishing Fallout New Vegas I made a CRPG-Meter for the game.