Fallout: great game after bad first impression

[octavius]

in b4 octavius complains about Ian's spray n pray tactics

All part of the charm of Fallout combat.

Real men dont mind a few stray bullets in the back

It would be preferable to Ian running up point blank and getting himself killed. But running up to point blank seems to be most cunning plan of most NPCs/enemies in this game. It's like they want to start the next round with max AP. In the raider camp I had to run past Ian and stand in a doorway, and have him take care of 2-3 raiders coming up from behind instead. If not he'd just rush into melee and get himself killed.

 

[DavidBVal]

Fallout combat is okay for a 20 hour game, which is what it happens to be. And even when it gets repetitive half past the game, it is fast and brutal enough to not feel like a chore.

True that it's one of the reasons why I never liked FO2 much, but for a short nice and perfectly self contained game like FO, it is alright I guess.

 

[agris]

1. I'm using this cool new balance mod that makes the game harder by boosting some gangs, making some commonly-used weapons have more power/rate of fire, as well as other changes. One of the changes is that the barter formula has been changed, so everything is WAY more expensive now and Barter is actually useful, especially because Barter also now affects your selling.

What mod is that? To change non-random encounter creatures/NPCs requires the modder to rebuild the map iirc.

 

[pippin]

Part of what kills the fun of playing older games is reading guides. If someone wanted to play FO1 in 2016 I'd tell them to just go and play it blindly. One of the Yogcast people did it like that, and yeah, it was Yogcast, but this guy went with a low int high str brute as his character on his first playthrough, and instead of going left, he went down. Yeah. He went from Vault 13 to Junkyard and then to Necropolis.

I know, it's yogcast, but I couldn't help but grin at how he went through the game. I liked how the guy was constantly amazed at how the game allowed you to do everything you wanted in any order.
Fallout 1 truly is Wasteland 2 I guess?

 

[an Administrator]

I only used guides to figure out that i need to buy ropes from some NPC in order to get to the top floor of Vault 15.

 

[octavius]

Part of what kills the fun of playing older games is reading guides.

I'm not using any guides myself, but with a game life Fallout it's almost impossible not to have read spoilers. Also, I try out different ways of doing some things, just to see what the alternative would bring.

At the onset I thought the game was the kind that rewarded (or at least didn't punish you you for) avoiding combat, but so far the violent options have usually been optimal in terms of XP, like getting half a levels worth of XP from the Vault 13 rats and killing all the Khans raiders instead of trading. Bribing the dog with food in Junktown is so far the only exception I can think of.
There are hints that it's possible to set the three raider gangs up against other, and also there is a hint that raiders may have taken the water chip from Vault 15, so killing them off may have closed off that line of investigation. But talking to Killian he mentions problems with the Khans , but you don't get the option of telling him they that have been wiped out (which again make me think that killing them was not the "correct" option) . So obviously the designers didn't "think of everything", which makes it harder to role play a character.

 

[Jacob]

first time playing fallout i lost ian when fighting the deathchlaw mom

everyone else was blown by rocket at the mariposa base

as for guides, i only use them once when i play a second playthrough, because i forgot how to get the message telling me that the water chip isn't at vault 15

 

[Leechmonger]

I can't think of any other CRPG that beats Fallout (judged by the early game) when it comes to slow, boring combat combined with boring encounter design.

You should give Fallout 2 a shot

 

[Carrion]

Fallout? Pfft. Arcanum's trash combat completely broke one of FO2's creators in a couple of hours. The thing with FO and FO2 is that while they do have some rather repetitive encounters, the pacing of those games is generally pretty good, and as a whole there's just not that much fighting compared to most other RPGs. Arcanum, on the other hand, relentlessly keeps on throwing those trash mobs at you throughout the whole game.

 

[octavius]

What the fuck is happening? My percepetion has decreased by 3, and some other stats have been adjusted by + or -1.

According to the manual

Your statistics will, generally, not improve directly through
experience or game play. You should plan on seeing the same statistics
throughout the course of your adventures, and plan accordingly.

I dropped all my gear in Junktown, and traveled to Shady Sands, and the stats readjusted themselves.
So what gives? I can understand stats go down if overencumbered or if wearing armour gear that block senses or restricts movement, but AFAIK there's no mention of any of this in the manual. Also the one stat that went up was Charisma (due to Garl's cool metal armour?).
I've not used any drugs, nor do I have the Night Person perk.

 

[Endemic]

Sounds like a bug. What does the character screen show exactly?

 

[octavius]

1. No, but my character has been carrying an Irradiated Fruit, but I haven't seen any message about radiation, nor does it say Radiated on the character screen.

2. No

Oh well, turns out I can just sleep/travel it off, so no biggie.
EDIT: must have been that fruit. Just dropping it and walking to the other side of town regained 1 Perception. Who would have thought there were so many dangers in the Wasteland?

 

[Excidium II]

That looks like a drug/withdrawal effect of some kind, but I don't know any vanilla thing that affect those stats like that.

 

[Volourn]

" must have been that fruit."

Typical Codexian. Blaming the gays for his troubles. L0L

 

[octavius]

Seems like I entered Junktown at the wrong time of day.
All the fun bar action happened after I had taken care of Gizmo and rested some hours at the hotel, so much of the dialogue in the bar makes little sense.
After I'd taken care of Shark and the other punkz, I recruited Tycho. I went into the hotel, heading for little Sherry. She seemed like a good enough girl who could be saved from the Skulz gang, so I brough along some Beer to loosen her panties bribe her, but as I approached the whole gang attacked, and for some reason Tycho shot me in the back. I thought at first he had missed a gang member, but no, he was really aiming at the nicest guy of the Wastelands. Ian never joined the fray for some reason, but Dogmeat took care of most of the Skulz singlejawedly while I had trouble enough killing Tycho. But reading some Wiki I see Tycho is a good guy, and not a traitor, so I've no idea why he shot me in the back.
Nothing happens as it's supposed to in this game...

 

[Nael]

" must have been that fruit."

Typical Codexian. Blaming the gays for his troubles. L0L

 

[pippin]

Sherry can only be "saved" under certain conditions, though. Most of the events in Junktown are tied to the same kind of pre requisites (c&c, bitch?), probably way more than any other town in the game. How many of you helped the fighter guy, for instance? I still like the time limit to this day, for some reason it makes the game seem more focused.

 

[octavius]

How many of you helped the fighter guy, for instance?

Which fighter guy? The boxer?

 

[pippin]

How many of you helped the fighter guy, for instance?

Which fighter guy? The boxer?

Yeah. Iirc you can only approach him like twice in a week and in certain hours. I've never really done that mission.

 

[octavius]

This is getting ridicilous...no matter what I do Tycho turns hostile. And no, I never touched that urn.
When I approach Sherry, the punkz attack and and I fire first, then he immediately turns hostile against me.
So I try a new apparaoch. I leave Dogmeat outside the hotel, walk in back door and the punkz attack. I witdraw to let Tycho do most of the killing, and Ian the rest. I don't fire a single shot, and afterwards Tycho instantly turns hostile. The only time he didn't turn hostile was when Ian got killed.

Do I have to test out each area first, learn how the area works and all the ways to "solve" it, and only then do a "correct" playthrough?
Or is the Fixt mod just buggy as hell?

 

[almondblight]

Never had that happen to me. Try having him leave the party for the fight.

 

[octavius]

Reading the bug reports for the mod, it looks like it's a known (and three years old) problem with Fixt. The Skulz members are residents of Junktown, and apparantly killing any residents set Tycho off. But he was still recruitable at the bar after killing the gang members there.

Oh well, I guess I should have known better and not played a mod in Alpha stage.

 

[Volourn]

I am in middle of playing FO (again). I had no issues with Tycho. I have no party members this walk through but he helped me kill the gang there with no issues. I doubt this is the case but did you diss him in a convo earlier maybe? Probably just a bug.

 

[Agame]

Oh well, I guess I should have known better and not played a mod in Alpha stage.

Yes I would highly recommend NOT using those community patches if this is your first playthrough, they change a lot of things in the game for 'balance' reasons and as you've seen also introduce their own bugs.

Same with Fallout 2, Killaps patch thing is great if you are doing replays but really not needed imo.

 

[Endemic]

The optimal approach for that quest is using the right dialogue options (hope you have enough Speech skill) and not provoking the gang. I forget if there's any specific evidence, you may just be able to resolve it by returning 1 day after the initial conversation with Sherry.