Vegas baby! Vegas

[Hawkbit]

I prefer NV setting, but F3 seemed more stable on my rig.  Between the launcher stopped working issues, the mouse acceleration issues and the slight hitch/lag anytime I bring up the Pipboy, it's just annoying.

I can easily look past the issues because of how much fun it is, but I wish Obsidian would have continued pushing fixes.  Like Bethesda, there's these glaring errors that they're just willing to let slide. 

[sinij]

Can't hit using VATS or by aiming yourself? I mostly used VATS because I suck at shooters, and I never had problems with accuracy.

I am excellent at shooters but I always used VATS and nothing but VATS because a) ammo economy, you easily spend 2-5x times more without b) weapon spread is so bad on all weapons that you generally can't aim them better than spray&pray.

Considering that I _loved_ F1-F2 turn based combat, I'm not particularly annoyed by having to VATSORGTFO approach. Still, it would be nice if I could aim and point-blank-hit with flamethrower for a change....

[Fabricated]

Fallout 3 and NV both seem to be about as crashy. I've had 3 CTDs in NV and 3 hardlocks in FO3 so far. I've had various graphical glitches in NV mostly to do with poorly aligned textures.

[Jeff Kelly]

FO 3 crashed 3 times on me. Hard lock up where my xbox basically freezes up completely and only power cycling helps.

I have clocked 120 hours of time played so far, though (collected all bobbleheads, most of the skill books, did every quest and every achievement I could) and I still haven't finished the Pitt or even explored all vaults and map markers yet. I'd prefer it if it wouldn't crash at all obviously but 3 crashed over a period of over 120 hours is still OK. I set it up so that it autosaves every time I rest, fast travel or enter and exit structures so I usually don't lose any progress when it happens.

NV was a lot less stable initially but it is now on par with FO3 since the last patch. I'm still contemplating however if I should wait to play it until the last two add ons come out. I'm asking myself if they'll do the same as with Broken steel and it's "almost perfect" perk.

It's silly really in FO3 I now have a character with 10 in all attributes and 100% in every skill and it bums me out a little bit that I cannot do that in New Vegas #firstworldgamingproblems.

Also after watching Skyrim footage (which as every other Obsidian game will be brilliant but more unstable than a house of cards) I want a Fallout 4. After thirty years of gaming both computer games and classic pen and paper rpgs I am burned out on medieval style worlds.

[rk47]

I don't even feel any stats except Intelligence making much of a difference to be honest. It's just the way the game rewards VATS too much that made combat easy peasy, no matter what build are you using...as long as you avoid Radscorpion rapes at early game till you get explosives. :)

[Amaron]

I LOVE iron sights in this game.   In fact if I had a complaint it would be that if I'm in a situation where I can shoot from long distance it takes all the difficulty out of the game.   I find myself tempted to move forward so the targets at least can fire back.

With and without VATS. I've literally ran straight up to enemies, crouched, used iron sights, fired center mass, and watched literally only 1 out of 6-7 rounds hit.

Using the right gun is everything in this game.    The spread on a 10mm pistol is 33 times as much as the Varmint rifle for instance.   Basically early on if you want to shoot long distance you use the Varmint rifle period.   Pretty soon you can start getting cowboy repeaters which will be your main rifle for a while.

A little shield shows up next to the targets healthbar if you're not punching through their armor too.   Sadly shotguns and SMG's are fairly useless because of the armor system.

[Lantyssa]

Shoot mirelurks in the face.  They're well armored everywhere else.

[Jeff Kelly]

I have some issues with nearly all first person shooter mechanics.

You either have magic guns with no spread no recoil and tracking that is completely unaffected by wind and gravity or guns that are more effective as thrown weapons or clubs (What we usually call 6 shots + 1 deadly throw).

They modify too many parameters all at once. A 10 mil handgun might have a crappy range but when the opponent is already on top of me then it shouldn't matter whether I hit him in the face with a 9 mil handgun, 5.56 mil rifle or 6000 degrees of molten death from my alien blaster the opponent should end up dead.

Secondly all opponents possess the gift of precognition, telepathy and second sight, because they always seem to know where I am. It doesn't matter that it's pitch black outside and that I'm camping 1200 metres outside of the base equipped with silencer, night vision googles and the Fallout equivalent of the invisibility cloak, one shot and 50 angry wastelanders dressed as parodies of roman centurions make a beeline for my position.

Which brings me to my third per peeve because they don't move, they run like squirrels on adderall with their tails on fire.

Without VATS I would have a hard time to hit any of them

[shiznitz]

Shoot mirelurks in the face.  They're well armored everywhere else.

It's Fallout.  Shoot everything in the face. 

[Amaron]

Or get an assault carbine and just go full auto on their ass.   Works roughly the same as face shootage.   Am I the only one who mostly doesn't use VATS btw?  I find it's only really useful if I've got like 4 people rushing into melee range.   In F3 all I did was use VATs so I find it refreshing.

[Ruvaldt]

I'm the same way.  I only use VATS when I'm in a bad spot, and have found the sights on guns to be perfectly fine.  I use almost nothing but rifles though so they are naturally more accurate at range.  I will say that I'm not a big fan of my scope though now that I've put it on a hunting rifle; I prefer the iron sights and wish I could de-mod that weapon.

[Amaron]

Really?  I don't even use the hunting rifle unless I want to do long range shooting.    The scope is great for sneak sniping.

[caladein]

Am I the only one who mostly doesn't use VATS btw?

No, I despise V.A.T.S. and one of the main things I love about New Vegas is that I can get by just fine with shooting people in the face myself.

[Ruvaldt]

Really?  I don't even use the hunting rifle unless I want to do long range shooting.    The scope is great for sneak sniping.

That's why I mentioned it.  I use it for long range shooting, but haven't found the scope to help me in that endeavor.  Maybe once I get sneak up some more it'll be more useful.  My normal range weapon right now is a cowboy repeater.

[Amaron]

My sneak is only 30.  I just crouch from a mile away and shoot them in the back.    If you're really far they won't find you immediately.

[Kitsune]

I have 100 sneak and the silent running perk and in light armor from fifty feet away and ten feet down things will immediately spin around and start shooting at me.  Never rely on stealth in a Bethesda game; it sucks.  The only time stealth doesn't suck is if you've cheesed the system in Morrowind to be in armor that gives permanent invisibility, at which point you're untouchable.  There's no middle ground.

[Amaron]

I have 100 sneak and the silent running perk and in light armor from fifty feet away and ten feet down things will immediately spin around and start shooting at me. 

Use a silencer?   I don't have any problem at all with 30 sneak and no silencer though so I think you're doing something wrong altogether.

[Ingmar]

Yeah I've been able to play sneak-based characters just fine (caveat, I haven't tried a melee one.)

[KallDrexx]

Do melee characters work well in FO3 or FNV?  I started playing FO3 and the game's questions made me a melee oriented character, but I changed after escaping the vault cause I felt like I would be gimped if I was a melee when everyone around me has guns.

On another note, is there any way to respec my character later in the game?

[Hawkbit]

In FO3 I was unarmed/sneak mostly and once I hit lvl 15 I simply destroyed anything in my path.  If it was a tough monster I'd drop into VATS for paralyzing palm.  Otherwise, I walked over anything. 

Before that, I used guns a bit to help supplement the damage incoming. 

For NV I'm going sniper route. 

[shiznitz]

In FO3 I was unarmed/sneak mostly and once I hit lvl 15 I simply destroyed anything in my path.  If it was a tough monster I'd drop into VATS for paralyzing palm.  Otherwise, I walked over anything. 

Before that, I used guns a bit to help supplement the damage incoming. 

For NV I'm going sniper route. 

Melee in NV > melee in FO3.  Early levels are rough but you become badass quickly.

On VATS, there are a lot of perks that boost VATS attacks only so I still use it.  About 50-50.

[rk47]

You'd probably be swimming in cash due to the sold weapons and ammos you never use if you go melee that you can spend most of them on Grenades, Drugs, and Stims to buff up. Oh, for snipers that hate getting spotted, just drop a mine before you start shooting. Retreat to one of those blind corner buildings...bam. No more hostiles.

[Shrike]

Sniping love:

1) Get sniper perk (duh).
2) Get better criticals perk.
3) Rebuild a laser rifle with +damage and the 'scope.
4) Get laser commander perk.
5) Vaporize at will.

Actually, I spend most of my time sniping by manual aiming. With decent stealth and some distance, you'll almost always crit. I like mixing it up on occasion (hello CZ57!), but death from afar was my usual method of dealing with my fellow wastelanders. Suppressed weapons do help keeping them clueless, but hardly a necessity.

[Rendakor]

My last playthrough of NV was an unarmed build (fist weapons obv, not actually unarmed); it was a ton of fun. I even went through with a melee companion, because I didn't like the ranged guys stealing my kills. Next time I play I'm going to do a real melee one, so I can roam the wastelands with a katana.

[koro]

The only thing I don't like about actual melee weapons in stock New Vegas is that they start out really crappy and stay kind of crappy for a long time until they're suddenly really fucking good.

I put down my melee-only game when I realized that I'd be running around with a big chunk of rebar for about 15 hours before finding something better.

Unless I paid up for the DLCs and their better low-end melee weapons, naturally.

[Malakili]

Still enjoying this a lot.  Only about 4-5 hours in.  I really like managing my food/drink/sleep on hardcore.

[Amaron]

I put down my melee-only game when I realized that I'd be running around with a big chunk of rebar for about 15 hours before finding something better.

Yea the melee weapons are really bleh.  I'm not touching a melee game till I figure out which mods to use for it.

[Rendakor]

I just checked the wiki for the location of an easy to get, low skill req unique and headed there asap.

[Ingmar]

The super sledge?

[Rendakor]

Love and Hate; I was playing unarmed not melee.

[Fabricated]

I have more caps than god now since I sold a gigantic pile of junk (mostly energy weapons and like 10,000+ caps in energy weapon ammo) and old weapons that don't hold up anymore even 100% repaired.

Been using a cowboy repeater, lever action shotgun, THAT GUN, and assault carbine mostly. That Gun is starting to show its age which makes me sad since it is fucking awesome. With all of these fully upgraded and a gigantic pile of ammo I bought with my energy weapon proceeds I'm now actually semi-capable of killing shit on my own. Boone and ED-E literally make me look worthless though, especially since I repaired Boone's gun. Jesus Christ, Boone is a monster.

Edit: Okay...now I may need to leave Boone behind to get something done. I finally got around to doing the 3 bounty quests for the NCR and Boone won't stop blasting the fucking heads off the named guys, which prevents me from getting the full bounty.

[Jeff Kelly]

BTW Fabricated, your new avatar picture is mesmerizing.

In the "The moment I can pull my eyes away from that I'll go out and punch the guy who created it, soon, maybe in 5 minutes I'll just have to look at it a bit more beforerhand" 

[Amaron]

I finally ran into a very annoying bug.  I did a save and it sort of stalled for a second but then came back.  I thought nothing of it but now whenever I fast travel or change zones my companions will sometimes start booking it to the middle of nowhere.

[shiznitz]

I am dropping Boone.  He makes it too easy.

[Amaron]

I am dropping Boone.  He makes it too easy.

Yea taking along ED-E and Cas is a bit overkill for me.  I'm thinking of finding a mod to nerf them.