What did New Vegas DO WRONG? / Would isometric New Vegas with finished content be GOAT?

[ilitarist]

I like the combination and retro looks of 50s. Those adverts and propaganda movies and old teaching films - even real ones look dystopian, and goofy ones you see in Fallout combined with what it brought (nuclear apocalypse) work really well.

Old posters show you happy stepford citizens prepared for anything that may come, they love their country, they hate those Chinese commies - this is horrible, it's inhuman, it's dystopia. Then you have another kind of horrible in horrible mutants and raiders. Then Fallout combines those two giving you nuclear war shelters really being sadistical experiments, patriotic oldmen who are really homicidal maniacs, religious zealots behaving just like your typical protestant church but worshipping atomic annihilation, scientific society solving problems of humanity by turning everybody into mutants, robots who will fry you while glorifying American Way of Life.

There's no conflict, post-apocalyptic horrors are complimented by horrible pre-war happyland.

In Fallout 1 there were glimpses into how screwed up the old world was and it made a point by making that world looking like a combination of our past and our future. Fallout 3 went all the way into being more about screwed-up Old World than about Wasteland, embracing the parody of reality. Fallout 2 was similar to Fallout 3 in that regard but severely lacked that serious content I liked in Fallout 1, it was just a Disney land of tropes: ghost farmers city, mafia city, mad mutants city, primitive tribal village. Fallout New Vegas was much more balanced about everything: Old World is important but not that prevalent, serious stuff is in there, everything is horrible in its own way.

 

[Master]

i wouldnt call FO1 grimdark in any way. Thats another thing FNV failed at, being the way it is, its moved even further away from the first game. That may not be bad in itself but its not really Fallout then, is it.
Id say the game is more inspired by Bioshock than anything else. Did anyone notice this? All of the games bad guys seem like Andrew Ryan wannabes. Especially Mr House but also Elijah, Joshua, Ulysses, Casear. They all follow that pattern Bioshock seemingly established, of how a videogame badguy should be; some great man who you hate but also come to respect and understand after you hear him talk and talk and talk endlessly... Man i hate that shit. Hell you even get an achievement called "A man chooses" if you whack Mr House with a golf club. Yeah you can tell Chris Avelone was really impressed by BS, when he played it on his Xbox.

 

[Sigourn]

Is it, though? In New Vegas, you open the Pip-Boy (like in Fallout and Fallout 2), select the armor tab (of which there aren't any in the classics, meaning you have to scroll through junk items), and select your piece of apparel. Granted, if you were one of those autist players that grab everyting they can, it could get cluttered. But nowhere near as much as the FO1 and FO2 interfaces.

Except you can't rebind the key to open the inventory. My muscle memory is set in from being able to rebind keys in games for almost 20 years. I hit I and nothing.

That's fair enough, though I argue that clunkyness isn't related to a lack of hotkeys. The issue with Fallout is not the hotkeys, because every menu is independent from each other (Skilldex is independent from Character menu, which is independent from the Pip-Boy menu, which is independent from the Inventory menu). I reckon Bethesda really fucked up in that regard because it is very annoying to have everything in the Pip-Boy menu.

Again, I'm not arguing about whether opening the character menu is better or worse in FNV, but that the inventory and trading menues are pretty shit in Fallout and Fallout 2.

Also, WL2 did have a bartering skill.

I didn't say it didn't have a barter skill, only that how bartering is actually done is retarded. I can't seem to find a picture of how trading is in the Director's Cut, but from what I hear the middle columns

That is, "Sell, Trade, and Buy" are completely gone. Which means you are NEVER trading, you are just selling and buying now. I don't think I need to explain the difference. Director's Cut (what I played) fucked it up. Moreover, I find it weird that you think Wasteland 2 had a great UI. To me it's absolute shit. The only pros of it are the nice icons, literally nothing else. It used repeating icons so often that you had no choice but to hover over the icon to know what the hell it was. In a Bethesda game, you instantly know what each item is because its name tells you so.

The only reason you need to open menu during that time is for a reload. In that case, AltF4 or CtrlAltDel to restart the game entirely is quick and painless.

Except it isn't. You are saying I literally have to use outside commands, quit the game, and restart it again. When opening the menu and loading the save would be much faster and actually painless.

You are so very late to this party, really.

Again, very late to the party, and again, it's a 1999 game, bitch.

LATE.TO.THE.PARTY.

Again, it's the early phase of game development.

You could have just said I was completely right.

EDIT: What does "late to the party" even mean, I refuse to believe people were so retarded that back then they thought "wow this is completely fine and functional!". If that was the case, then progress (in any way or form) would be impossible.

In that case, your taste sucks. Sorry to break it you, buddy. I am not a guy who sprout refs all the time but I am not out of immershun just because of that, either

Again, your taste sucks.

Let me repeat. Your taste sucks. Fallout 2 is better than F1 anyday of the week.

Sorry for wanting muh Fallout to stick to Tim Cain's principles.

Fuck off, Sulik fag.

And anyone who says FNV's "villains" sucked is a retard, because The Master was literally a man who thought he was doing good until proven wrong.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

The Master was literally a man who thought he was doing good until proven wrong.

Like most goddamn villains, kid.

 

[Sigourn]

Like most goddamn villains, kid.

say what

A lot of videogame (and literature, and TV, and movie) villans are just evil for the sake of evil, with no thought put behind them.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Like most goddamn villains, kid.

say what

A lot of videogame (and literature, and TV, and movie) villans are just evil for the sake of evil, with no thought put behind them.

I'm so sorry for you.

 

[Glop_dweller]

However, I want to lift the "blatantly stupid" criticism of "YOU CAN'T GO NORTH". Well, alright, technically, you can. This is true. However, I do feel that the way you're dissuaded from doing so felt hamfisted. It is very obvious that you're meant to go south and they way of Nipton and that it's basically assumed that you do. It never sat well with me, even if I could theoretically go north.

This is one complaint I definitely don't get. Codexers are always complaining about level-scaled encounters, but the one game that dares to put high level monsters to block player early gets shit on for it?

Sadly they seem to get flak for anything done closer to an RPG than Bethesda. It's sick IMO. Bethesda isn't stupid, but (I think) the game mechanics are almost certainly calculated to be so; on purpose—for higher profit from their intended mass-audience... who are mainly just interested in empowerment fantasy, rather than roleplaying. Their games appeal to this crowd by effectively never saying, "No" to the player... when the core tenet of RPGs is to say, "No" when the character is unable to achieve something (due to lack of ability, or bad luck).


I thought NV was a good half-step in the right direction (towards Fallout; away from TES). Unfortunately they could not have gotten away with a full ISO/3D & turn-based RPG in the proper style of the Fallout series; not while developing on Bethesda's leash.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Well after all these years I finally completed Lonesome road.

And holy shit I fucking hate Ulysses. Biggest fucking cry baby.

Lonesome road was the worst of the DLCs.

EDIT: Oh and ED-E was the true spotlight character of Lonesome Road: tanked Marked men and Deathclaws, told me his story of struggle to go home, and sacrificed himself to stop the nukes.

Make you rest in peace Divide ED-E.

 

[aweigh]

F: NV is the rpg that has best done companions and factions out of any RPG i've played since i been playing RPGs, easily surpassing fo1 and fo2.

*mic drop*

 

[Sigourn]

I've had the pleasure to play four out of five cRPGs considered "the best ever" by the Codex and I wholeheartedly agree with aweigh. The only thing missing is PS:T's party banter, which makes the companions feel much more alive. (BG2's is annoying as fuck, though)

 

[Trashos]

I see a lot of criticism here that I disagree with (or that was fixed by the JSawyer mod, eg, the 50 level cap and the weight limit), but I will come back to it at a later time.

Caesar's Legion.

Content:
More quests, mostly infiltration.
- "I put a spell on you" was a good quest, I wanted more quests like that.
- They should have an elaborate "attack this specific location" quest, the same way that NCR attacks Nelson.

Ethics:
- I would have put women in the kitchen, not reduced them to property. House management has been an honorable occupation throughout history, and it would be enough to distinguish them from NCR, where women often govern and run groups of people.
- Caesar was cool but he was mostly a practical man, and the Legion also needed a serious philosopher to support their ways. Vulpes Inculta could have been utilized as Legion's philosopher (great voice acting too) or maybe Ulysses. Generally, Vulpes was criminally underutilized.

Battle of Hoover Dam
There are some quests that affect the way the battle of Hoover Dam plays out (eg, Oh Papa, if you are sided with House). I wanted more quests to have an effect there.

Brotherhood of Steel
Once the lockdown was lifted, I wanted to see them attack Helios I, especially in the case that Harding takes over. If I played as NCR, I would have to defend it.

Powder Gangers
Underutilized. When I play against the NCR, I would like them to be able to help me in different quests. Right now, there is little to no reason to side with them.

Weapons
Pistols are underwhelming. I tried very hard to like them, and I still don't. One way to fix this would be to give them significant accuracy bonuses at close and early middle range (maybe include a perk that does this) or give them bigger critical chance bonuses. Pistols are easier than rifles to handle, so that should make sense.

Hardcore mode
- As mentioned by other posters too, food and water are too available. Consequently, investing seriously in Survival skill never becomes a priority.

Player progression
Player progression is a bit too forgiving, even with the JSawyer mod (that has a level cap of 35). By the end of the game, the player is too powerful, and consequently there is not much role-playing imposed towards the end of the game. Characters wilth high Intelligence end up similar in every playthrough.
- I would bring the level cap down to 30 again.
- I would nerf the Skilled trait (it is so good it feels like a cheat) to give lesser skill bonuses.
- I would nerf the Comprehension perk. Players should expect that they are going to fail on checks that involve skills they haven't seriously invested in. This would make skill investing more challenging, but also more satisfying.
- At certain places there are available keys that open relatively hard locks. Bad move. If I haven't invested in lockpick, I should be punished for that.
- Too many skill books available, that make the issue worse. I would cut 2 skill books per skill.

Economy
Economy is too easy to handle, but at least there is mod that fixes that and makes Barter useful.

 

[ilitarist]

- I would have put women in the kitchen, not reduced them to property. House management has been an honorable occupation throughout history, and it would be enough to distinguish them from NCR, where women often govern and run groups of people.

Something like this would indeed make them less cartoonishly evil. Plus I don't get how female courier supporting Legion is supposed to work. I don't agree they need separate philosopher character - Caesar prides himself as a philosopher king, after all - but someone should have explained that female courier is a tool of Caesar, not a human being with defined gender so her gender doesn't matter.

Hardcore mode
- As mentioned by other posters too, food and water are too available. Consequently, investing seriously in Survival skill never becomes a priority.

It's not even about availability. This is a feature for Fallout 3 or 4 or 1. Fallout New Vegas (and Fallout 2) is about mostly developed world. This feature may make sense for expansions but in the main game Mojave is full of people. This is a game where there are quests like settling disputes between major cattle owners and fixing a sewage system under a huge city. Thus the mod feel: many game systems are made for a survival game in a Wasteland but you're actually in a developed place with some pockets of bandits and monsters.

 

[Commissar Draco]

In Old Rome society womyn were wives, priestesses and also merchants it would make greater sense to put them onto those roles than to make them simple breeding tools cause it would actually free more men to combat duty; even as frumentari the Legion spies they would work fine as men are talking much to women they bed to and not to mention nobody would expect that for much of time given how shoddy NCR counter intelligence seems to be.

(Yes I loved the I put a spell on you quest from both sides but from Legion it was superb... I suspected anothe bloodbath but ended up having much fun shifting the blame on Private Joker and final pranking him in the end.)

But indeed it looks like Obsidian wanted to make Legion for serious but then put some cartonish villain stuff to not trigger the SJW. Game would be easily the best of Fallout's if not the Beth engine.

 

[ilitarist]

What does it have to do with SJW?

If anything they did everything to trigger people. You can join those slaver sexist guys and some characters present them in sympathetic light. Even if most of Legion are bastards you can at least see that Caesar himself is not so bad - certainly not worse than, say, House. You think about SJWs much more than devs do.

Also the quest with the captured legionary was great. Not so many moving parts but it was one of the few memorable dialogues in the game.

 

[Zero Credibility]

One of the big problems with the Legion is their introduction. Chances are you meet them for the first time right after they raze a town and horribly murder everyone in it. Sure, it was not really a nice place, but few places are in the wasteland, and most of it was the mayor's fault. And then you get Vulpes Inculta giving his villain speech to a PC that is even at that point more than capable of wiping the floor with him and his flunky recruits. I know I can never resist blowing his head off, and many players also do just that.

Then you get vilified by the Legion and attacked by them, so there is no reason not to do quests that are conveniently along your way that fuck them up even more. Sure, when you get the chip all is forgiven and you start from a blank slate, but that always struck me as a hamfisted solution for when they realized most players would already side against the Legion hours ago. Since I just spend hours and hours of play working against the Legion at every opportunity it always felt really silly to me to side with them now.

 

[DosBuster]

The problem with the legion is that half of it was cut.

 

[circ]

I always did the same. Guy with football outfit starts talking shit to me. LOL, suck a bullet pal.

 

[DosBuster]

Nipton not been the first impression of the Legion

I thought it was pretty good when you investigated the town and found out Nipton was just a giant prostitute ring where the top brass only cared about making caps.

 

[Trashos]

I thought the Legion's introduction at Nipton was epic, tbh. Sure, they should be harder to beat in the case that you take them on, but other than that Vulpes makes a strong case for the decline of morals in NCR territory.

Hardcore mode
- As mentioned by other posters too, food and water are too available. Consequently, investing seriously in Survival skill never becomes a priority.

It's not even about availability. This is a feature for Fallout 3 or 4 or 1. Fallout New Vegas (and Fallout 2) is about mostly developed world. This feature may make sense for expansions but in the main game Mojave is full of people. This is a game where there are quests like settling disputes between major cattle owners and fixing a sewage system under a huge city. Thus the mod feel: many game systems are made for a survival game in a Wasteland but you're actually in a developed place with some pockets of bandits and monsters.

You 've got a point. Still, the Mojave looks like it developed slower/later than the West, so I think that Survival systems belong here more than they did in FO2. Most locations look like they were recently developed, and *most* people are struggling to get by. For example, Westside is stealing water from NCR farms, much of the water is irradiated or sold under license etc. In other words, Average Joe can get by, but he has to hustle for it.

At any rate, since the survival system was included, I wanted it to be more challenging/meaningful. Generally, I am in favor of making all skills as meaningful and investment-worthy as possible.

 

[Zero Credibility]

Even if you think that's enough to make them deserve what they got, chances are you only find that out after the meeting with Vulpes Inculta. To get there you literally walk between crucified people and then the asshole that did this begins speechifying you. Badly. Yeah fuck that, eat a bullet you freak is a perfectly reasonable response at that point.

 

[DosBuster]

JE Sawyer himself talked about the legion being straight evil:

So, the Legion is the way it is because Caesar is a warlord who maintains control through his cult of personality and the fear of his disapproval (with severe consequences). The historical Caesar was known for being unusually merciful, but he was playing to societies that were much more accepting of mercy. Caesar taught the Legion mercilessness, so that is what they expect, what they consider strong.
There’s nothing really morally grey about Liberia’s Charles Taylor, but he’s a real guy who did astoundingly terrible things for the sake of maintaining power. In the context of F:NV, I don’t think Caesar and the Legion need to be thought of as “grey” like the player’s other options. I think they can be what they are, as they are, because the lie of their fiction is intended to provoke thoughts about truth, i.e. the nature of humans who rise to power in such circumstances. When we say “war never changes”, we’re talking about things like this.

https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/133867000061/3-disclaimers-i-love-new-vegas-love-the-legion

 

[DosBuster]

Also, for the person who was talking about how the game world feels quite flat:

Most of the vertical elements in F3 were found in the ruined sections of DC. When we developed the parts of New Vegas away from the strip, we tried to reflect the building style of Las Vegas itself, which is flat in overall topography and relied heavily on Usonian/ranch-style houses as it expanded. The Strip wasn’t the place to have vertically-oriented combat because those were population hub areas.

In retrospect, we should have partitioned the different neighborhoods of New Vegas into their own world spaces (data/load-wise) and found ways to emphasize more vertical elements. When we worked on the various DLCs, we did emphasize vertical elements much more in both exploration and combat.

 

[ilitarist]

You 've got a point. Still, the Mojave looks like it developed slower/later than the West, so I think that Survival systems belong here more than they did in FO2. Most locations look like they were recently developed, and *most* people are struggling to get by. For example, Westside is stealing water from NCR farms, much of the water is irradiated or sold under license etc. In other words, Average Joe can get by, but he has to hustle for it.

At any rate, since the survival system was included, I wanted it to be more challenging/meaningful. Generally, I am in favor of making all skills as meaningful and investment-worthy as possible.

Yes, it's a pity Survival skill is so underdeveloped. The most useful recepies are for crafting ammo, I think, and those have miniscule skill requirements IIRC. Survival gives you stuff like Gecko hide modified leather/metal armor, but to get it you have to travel all over the world and you just get metal armor with bonuses. And you'll need 90 skill to unlock it all. Even Fallout 4 did it better - crafting is a big enough investment itself so you don't need skills to craft most of the chems, but those are dangerous unless you are invested in using them. In FNV you can spend a lot of character development to be able to get good food and chems and become useless addict.

 

[ilitarist]

Also, for the person who was talking about how the game world feels quite flat:

You're probably talking about me cause I complained about the world flatness.

And it was also me who asked Josh about that flatness I think.

 

[Starwars]

- They should have an elaborate "attack this specific location" quest, the same way that NCR attacks Nelson.

There is a Legion side to that quest as well where you attack Forlorn Hope.

I think Josh is right in that not every faction needs to be "morally grey" or whatever. The Legion are villains, and maybe it wouldn't have hurt for there to be a slightly more human side to it all, but I think Caesar's motivations for it all is a great background for "the villains". I don't need to buy it myself. But I can make a character that does.

But yes, I do think the Legion needed some more content. And also, some of the more simple things like, if you rise up in the Legion, there should've been a greater sense of... well, rising up in the Legion. It's a bit annoying when I've done all this shit for Caesar and one of his dudes in Cottonwood Cove still yells "get moving profligate!" or whatever.