How to get the most out of Fallout: New Vegas (and games in general)

[Goliath100]

Do not play one the game's terms. Either roleplay or get mods or dlc, just don't play the vanilla version as it was meant too. Personally I find the game best played in the South with Boone, ED-e and a sniper rifle, roleplaying as NCR Rangers behind enemy lines, but that's just me.

 

[momijirabbit]

Fallout is all about taking in the world and doing whatever you feel like. Most importantly you will rarely be told anything straight, especially in New Vegas. You have to draw your own conclusions about people and thus decide what to do. Everyone has their own bad and good sides. And some of them you don't really find out until you are in deals with them.

Also, much of desert seems empty but there is a whole lot of content dispersed through it. Characters, hunting grounds, secretive places etc. Also all that expansive world gives you opportunity to tackle combat in many ways successfully.

But if stories, characters and events are boring to you, maybe it's not a game for your taste...

It's not that those things aren't to my taste - in fact, the reason I'm still playing and still want to keep playing the game is that I AM interested in what's going on, I'm just finding it hard to know where to begin learning about all the stories etc., especially as a newbie to the series.

Make it your mission to find and explore every Vault.

What's a Vault and where do I find one?

Spoiler

The blue locations are vaults, they are the dungeons of Fallout and usually have a puzzle of some sort, most difficult one is Vault 34 which is filled with ghouls and highly radiative but ends with a large armory filled with many endgame weapons.

 

[Easton Dark]

Do not play one the game's terms. Either roleplay or get mods or dlc, just don't play the vanilla version as it was meant too. Personally I find the game best played in the south-west with Boone, ED-e and a sniper rifle, roleplaying as NCR Rangers behind enemy lines, but that's just me.

But South-West is NCR territory.

OT:

New Vegas is empty desert with far-away quest markers. The quests are what the game is about, and you don't get any interesting ones for quite a while. It made me bored as well.

If you want an exploration version of New Vegas, get Fallout 3.

 

[BrotherRool]

I'm gonna second you on that. If you enter Nipton, you're gonna see... something that may encourage you to choose a side early (to be more accurate, it may encourage you to decide against picking one in particular). By all means, it's your game and you can do whatever you want - but if you piss off the wrong people too early, you may find it hard-going at the beginning. No matter what decisions you make, you're gonna get on someones bad side but thats part of the beauty of this game. You have a lot of control over how the factions interact with you as well as each other. However, definitely go visit Nipton before you commit yourself to a faction (that is if you do commit yourself to one - you don't have to do that if you don't want to).

I actually think it's really cool to visit Nipton at the point of the game they designed you to visit it. Once you've played the game a few times and what to be able to meta-game it sure, but Nipton is a really good introduction to the Legion and what I love about it, is it creates a very deliberate character arc in the game. I've never really seen games incorporate arcs into their quest structures like that before.

If you're playing the game without much meta-gaming, Nipton is probably going to put you in a position where you feel powerless. It's one of the first settlements you reach in the game and it's probably going to be a big shock in comparison to the Powder Gangers. The people there are very aloof and scary, treat you like consequentialess dirt and are powerful enough that you probably can't kill them unless you're prepared. Whats more the quests are designed in Nipton so that you don't need to kill them and they actively avoid putting you in a situation where that seems like an option.

I was roleplaying on my first playthrough, so my character had the crud scared out of them. She ran out of that town and didn't stop, running all the way through the night.

And then the game continues and you have your long journey to Vegas and when you arrive in Vegas the Legion want to meet up with you. This is already cool, because the idea of meeting the Legion at this point is still probably going to seem pretty scary. You've seen lots of conflicts, but you haven't had many opportunities to really fight the Legion and win. Visiting Caesar might seem like a bit of a death wish. So going to see the Legion becomes a defining character moment, overcoming those feelings that you first had in Nipton.

But then when you get there, it's big and intimidating but instead of threatening, Caesar gives you respect and tells you that he's noticed all the cool things you achieved on your journey to Vegas, he lists of quests you've done, trouble you've caused etc.

And that's in deliberate contrast to the start of the game, where the Legion treated you like dirt in Nipton. It's the game saying 'Look how far you've come, look how this journey has changed you.'


I thought that was really neat. Not many games do that. In Mass Effect you can choose to be a ruthless badass or a virtuous badass, but the game doesn't push you at all. You're still just as badass at the start of the game as you are at the end. New Vegas challenges your character at the start of the game, and then treats you differently again as your progress and challenges you in an entirely different way. (And it works for all your characters. If you're strong enough to kill the people in Nipton, the game tells a story about the guy whose was causing so much trouble for the Legion that it escalated from killing groups of raiders to the mighty Caesar himself trying to negotiate for your cooperation)

 

[Auron225]

Snippity snip snip

Fair enough I guess, to each their own. My character had a completely different reaction to that though

Spoiler: Spoilered so OP doesn't hear too much

I rolled into Nipton, saw the whole town in flames, people hung on crosses - whom you could not save. They were beyond any help. Shooting them in the head as I passed by the kindest thing I could do. I see the Legion ahead and strolled up to them and they explain what they've done and why. I didn't challenge them outright or enrage Vulpes at that moment as I knew I was outnumbered and outgunned. As soon as they started to leave, I walked past them into the town hall... and immediately saw the bodies, the blood, everywhere. Civilians, not NCR. I was instantaneously enraged and thought "f*ck no". Without taking another step into the building I ran out, and could still see the Legion walking away. I took another route past them and laid an ambush of whatever mines I'd found in their path and waited on top of a massive rock. As soon as they came into the blast zone I rained down every grenade I had on them before firing until they were all dead. It was a long fight and took many stimpaks. I was of course Vilified by the Legion by the end of the fight and was pursued by them mercilessly for the remainder of the game. It took a very long time before the sight of Legion assassins running towards me from afar didn't fill me with dread.

So certainly a different character arc in my case, and pretty cool in itself I think, but I kinda wish it didn't happen until I had been better equipped. Point being; if OP has a similar reaction to Nipton as I did, then they're going to have a hard time for a while.

 

[BrotherRool]

Snippity snip snip

Fair enough I guess, to each their own. My character had a completely different reaction to that though

Spoiler: Spoilered so OP doesn't hear too much

I rolled into Nipton, saw the whole town in flames, people hung on crosses - whom you could not save. They were beyond any help. Shooting them in the head as I passed by the kindest thing I could do. I see the Legion ahead and strolled up to them and they explain what they've done and why. I didn't challenge them outright or enrage Vulpes at that moment as I knew I was outnumbered and outgunned. As soon as they started to leave, I walked past them into the town hall... and immediately saw the bodies, the blood, everywhere. Civilians, not NCR. I was instantaneously enraged and thought "f*ck no". Without taking another step into the building I ran out, and could still see the Legion walking away. I took another route past them and laid an ambush of whatever mines I'd found in their path and waited on top of a massive rock. As soon as they came into the blast zone I rained down every grenade I had on them before firing until they were all dead. It was a long fight and took many stimpaks. I was of course Vilified by the Legion by the end of the fight and was pursued by them mercilessly for the remainder of the game. It took a very long time before the sight of Legion assassins running towards me from afar didn't fill me with dread.

So certainly a different character arc in my case, and pretty cool in itself I think, but I kinda wish it didn't happen until I had been better equipped. Point being; if OP has a similar reaction to Nipton as I did, then they're going to have a hard time for a while.

That sort of story is why I love New Vegas =D And the best part is, because you were villified I'm pretty sure Caesar will even make a comment about how much of a pain you'd been when you go see him

I think yours must be a pretty extreme case though right? It sounds like a really hard fight where you used every trick in the book. I imagine most people would die and give up. It would have been nice if they'd scaled the assassins down pre-Vegas or given you an option to get rid of the infamy before you were 2/3rds of the way throught the game though.

 

[Kyrian007]

I don't know if I'd "disagree" with the folks who are saying beeline for NV. But my first time through I did it differently. I knew I'd get there, but I also knew the game was taking me there the long way around (shoehorning players from area to another with "here there be monsters" mapping is a franchise tradition all the way back to wasteland and Fallout 1.) And as bad a word as "linear" is in games these days, bread-crumbing a path like NV does gives you a chance to have a couple dozen little and more personal adventures before diving into the main questline. I ventured from town to town, righting wrongs and standing up for the downtrodden. Which eventually made my choice in the mainquest a little more shocking to me and made the story really particularly effective (in my case.)

What also helped is companions. In Skyrim they just got in my way and annoyed me and really added nothing to the game except for extra storage space. However in NV, the companions have stories and whole questlines of their own. I'd gotten through the better part of 3 of them before even getting to Vegas for the first time. And one of those questlines and how I'd helped everyone and protected the wastelands by my actions eventually led me to my fairly surprising choice in alliance and storypath. Had I rushed straight to the Strip... I'd really have missed out.

 

[Brennan]

My reaction to Nipton was almost exactly the same as Auron225's. Grenades, so very many grenades, and me coming out the other side all sooty and wide eyed with rage. I actually took pleasure in my infamy after that, and would leave the bodies of assassins unlooted just to send the message that I wasn't doing it for any other reason than pure disdain.

I also broke trail and headed for New Vegas much earlier than you're "supposed to", like others here suggest. Once I'd upgraded my varmint rifle into a half-decent sniper substitute, I went north by skirting the eastern mountains at night (so... cazadores and fire geckos instead of deathclaws). It was slow and harrowing, but that's what made it awesome.

 

[Reincarnatedwolfgod]

snip

new vegas was the first fallout game I played as well.
When I played for the new vegas for the first time I just kind of did what ever felt like doing and messed around with mods a little. during later playthoughs just role-played characters while modding the shit out of new vegas.
you could mod new vegas if you are playing it on the pc. if want any suggestion them feel free to ask
I will just start be say I can't imagine ever playing with out this
http://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/44515/?

 

[thefascistpig]

Snippity snip snip

Fair enough I guess, to each their own. My character had a completely different reaction to that though

Spoiler: Spoilered so OP doesn't hear too much

I rolled into Nipton, saw the whole town in flames, people hung on crosses - whom you could not save. They were beyond any help. Shooting them in the head as I passed by the kindest thing I could do. I see the Legion ahead and strolled up to them and they explain what they've done and why. I didn't challenge them outright or enrage Vulpes at that moment as I knew I was outnumbered and outgunned. As soon as they started to leave, I walked past them into the town hall... and immediately saw the bodies, the blood, everywhere. Civilians, not NCR. I was instantaneously enraged and thought "f*ck no". Without taking another step into the building I ran out, and could still see the Legion walking away. I took another route past them and laid an ambush of whatever mines I'd found in their path and waited on top of a massive rock. As soon as they came into the blast zone I rained down every grenade I had on them before firing until they were all dead. It was a long fight and took many stimpaks. I was of course Vilified by the Legion by the end of the fight and was pursued by them mercilessly for the remainder of the game. It took a very long time before the sight of Legion assassins running towards me from afar didn't fill me with dread.

So certainly a different character arc in my case, and pretty cool in itself I think, but I kinda wish it didn't happen until I had been better equipped. Point being; if OP has a similar reaction to Nipton as I did, then they're going to have a hard time for a while.

But nipton was a shithole that attracted the worst pf the worst with the only two people in it who seemed like actual victims were the two girls the mayor used to attract more people

 

[thefascistpig]

Snippity snip snip

Fair enough I guess, to each their own. My character had a completely different reaction to that though

Spoiler: Spoilered so OP doesn't hear too much

I rolled into Nipton, saw the whole town in flames, people hung on crosses - whom you could not save. They were beyond any help. Shooting them in the head as I passed by the kindest thing I could do. I see the Legion ahead and strolled up to them and they explain what they've done and why. I didn't challenge them outright or enrage Vulpes at that moment as I knew I was outnumbered and outgunned. As soon as they started to leave, I walked past them into the town hall... and immediately saw the bodies, the blood, everywhere. Civilians, not NCR. I was instantaneously enraged and thought "f*ck no". Without taking another step into the building I ran out, and could still see the Legion walking away. I took another route past them and laid an ambush of whatever mines I'd found in their path and waited on top of a massive rock. As soon as they came into the blast zone I rained down every grenade I had on them before firing until they were all dead. It was a long fight and took many stimpaks. I was of course Vilified by the Legion by the end of the fight and was pursued by them mercilessly for the remainder of the game. It took a very long time before the sight of Legion assassins running towards me from afar didn't fill me with dread.

So certainly a different character arc in my case, and pretty cool in itself I think, but I kinda wish it didn't happen until I had been better equipped. Point being; if OP has a similar reaction to Nipton as I did, then they're going to have a hard time for a while.

That sort of story is why I love New Vegas =D And the best part is, because you were villified I'm pretty sure Caesar will even make a comment about how much of a pain you'd been when you go see him

I think yours must be a pretty extreme case though right? It sounds like a really hard fight where you used every trick in the book. I imagine most people would die and give up. It would have been nice if they'd scaled the assassins down pre-Vegas or given you an option to get rid of the infamy before you were 2/3rds of the way throught the game though.

Its even better talking to caesar after you've destroyed his fort with boone

 

[Roxas1359]

Its even better talking to caesar after you've destroyed his fort with boone

That actually gives you 2 points for Boone when you destroy the Legion's base with Boone, which helps in activating Boone's questline since most of the things only offer 1 point towards the quest.

 

[Keystone]

I agree with what most of the people in this thread said. I would just add that, unlike Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas's story is a clear continuation of Fallout 1 and 2, so it might be interesting to read up a little bit on those games.

For me at least, there are two major hurdles to enjoying a well-made game: getting used to the gameplay to the point that I feel like I don't suck at it, and getting immersed enough in the story side of the game at least to the point that I have a good grasp of the setting and care about at least some of the characters.

For Fallout New Vegas, I think having some knowledge of the previous games could help with understanding the plot and setting of the game, which increases immersion, which in turn generally increases enjoyment.

 

[LobsterFeng]

Try doing whatever you want. For example: I decided one day that I was going to go on a quest to kill every NPC in the game and see how much I could get away with before the game became unplayable.

Spoiler: because

 

[Chris Tian]

So I recently started playing Fallout: New Vegas after a friend gave it to me... a long time ago, but I've only just got around to it. Oh well. Anyway, on the face of it I ought to LOVE this game. It's a Bethesda RPG, a big open world, a wild-west-post-apocalyptic thing, classic guns and good music...
And yet I don't seem to be enjoying it that much.
Maybe it's because most of what I've been doing so far seems to be trekking across empty desert to find my next quest marker; maybe it's that I don't feel like I know enough about the Legion/ NCR/ Powder Gangers/ whatever to know which factions I want to ally myself with and which I want to take a stand against. I don't know, but I'm left with the feeling that I'm playing this game wrong somehow. I haven't played any other Fallout games; maybe that's the problem.

Any advice?

And for further discussion, what other games have you had experiences with that perhaps didn't click - or maybe you already loved them - but then you just figured out how to get the best possible experience out of them? I'm starting to find Civ V is kind of clicking, being a newcomer to the series, although I definitely haven't got everything worked out there yet.

If you play on PC then I would say mods. There are like a bajillion of them out there and quite alot are so good that you can hardly tell them apart from the main game.

So whatever you are missing, try find a mod for that.

For me XCom didn't cklick, on paper I should love that game to pieces, but somehow I never really get the urge to continue to play it. I have not the slightest clue why.

 

[thefascistpig]

Its even better talking to caesar after you've destroyed his fort with boone

That actually gives you 2 points for Boone when you destroy the Legion's base with Boone, which helps in activating Boone's questline since most of the things only offer 1 point towards the quest.

Wow I didn't realize that I have like 195 hrs in the game but it does explain a lot

 

[Auron225]

But nipton was a shithole that attracted the worst pf the worst with the only two people in it who seemed like actual victims were the two girls the mayor used to attract more people

So they deserved to be crucified? And enslaved? And burned alive? From what I could gather, the residents of Nipton weren't as bad as that. Some of them were assholes I'm sure but the Legion went above and beyond the call of evil of that day.

 

[thefascistpig]

But nipton was a shithole that attracted the worst pf the worst with the only two people in it who seemed like actual victims were the two girls the mayor used to attract more people

So they deserved to be crucified? And enslaved? And burned alive? From what I could gather, the residents of Nipton weren't as bad as that. Some of them were assholes I'm sure but the Legion went above and beyond the call of evil of that day.

Oh no I understand tha not evveryone in nipton deserved it your right about that but the thing us after doing some investigating on the town going through the computers it seemed to me that a lot of them deserved it

 

[Geo Da Sponge]

Try doing whatever you want. For example: I decided one day that I was going to go on a quest to kill every NPC in the game and see how much I could get away with before the game became unplayable.

Spoiler: because

Oh yeah, I was considering doing that myself, with the rule being that I had to literally kill all NPCs on sight, and dressing up as a psychotic raider to do it. Good times.

Especially when Doc Mitchell gets you all fixed up, you walk to the front door for him to give you a pat on your back and send you on your way... And then the Courier slowly turns to him with a blank smile on their face, and hacks his head off with a machete before laying waste to the town.