My Fallout NV experience so far

[ZombieSuicide]

Hey so I've been lurking on this site for a while now and I've finally taken the plunge and become a member just so that I could post this forum topic. I don't really have a lot of friends that are playing the same kinds of games as me so sometimes it makes it hard to gush over games like I'm about to do. I just wanted to touch on my Fallout NV experience thus far because it is such an awesome game! I love it but I wanted to talk about a couple of things specifically.

I've only played Fallout 3 otherwise but I loved that one too. NV just seems to be a very large, very good extension of that. Some obvious differences but I think the overall feel is very similar. I like the addition of the damage threshold value (I don't remember 3 having that). I really, really rely on that now to get my head around how much damage I'm actually doing.

Enemies that I hate (or hated for a bit):
Cazadors - I had no idea what these things were when I first came across them. Needless to say they tooled my ass fairly quickly. Now I use a 10mm submachine gun to take them out but granted I have to use the entire magazine to finish one off. 10mm ammo is fairly cheap and common though. Maybe using hollow point ammo is better for these guys?
The Legion assassins - I made the mistake of pissing these guys off early and now I get ambushed quite often in the wasteland. Had a lot of trouble to begin with but I've figured theses guys out. Hunting rifle helped me a lot and using VATS for headshots. Also armor piercing ammo for .308 or 5.56 (pistol) really helps. But now I got me a sniper rifle and I just pick them off from a distance. Got ambushed twice on Sunday in a 20 minute span and they didn't even half my health. That's a really far cry from dying for about an hour on the same encounter.
Deathclaws - they still kick my ass. I don't engage them and I've got no ideas on what I want to use as a strategy yet. I don't remember them being that hard in 3!

Also weapons repair kits are awesome and I use those all the time because I can't carry around 6 kinds of all my favorite guns!!! Other than that I kinda just want to talk to other people about the game. I want to mention that I'm not done so please avoid any major spoilers if possible. I think that's all.

Ps. love this site and the general forum community, it's pretty much the whole reason why I joined. I don't really do a lot of this sort of thing on the internet. I'm a big lurker.

 

[Legion]

Hello and welcome to the forums.

I find it funny how many people get on the Legion's bad side early on in the game. For me it was that small town that they destroyed. The smug guy outside the front threatened me and I was having none of it, so...

If you are enjoying the game (and have not done so already) I'd recommend getting the DLC. Which ones are worth playing tends to vary from person to person but they all tie in together quite nicely I think and personally I liked them all. They are all separate from the main story too, so you don't need to worry about missing anything major out if they are not your kind of thing.

Based upon your post it seems you have focused on Guns, what else have you gone for? Are you role playing the character in any way or just playing it however you feel like at the time?

I think when I play it again I will go for a scientist with laser weapons as a speciality, I've played it enough that it's more fun to limit my character rather than min/max them for efficiency. So I will probably make them have wear no armour (lab uniform instead) and not take any extra abilities such as lockpicking.

 

[karma9308]

A good way to take out cazadores is to aim for the wings. VATS if you can, but if you take out at least one wing, they get stunned for a short period then are only half as agile, making them a much easier target.

How far into the game have you gotten? Since you mentioned legion assassins, I'm assuming you've made it past Nipton at least.

 

[ihavetwo]

Let's be honest here, there isn't a point in the game where fighting more than one deathclaw is a good idea. Unless you have all the c4 in the world you are going to die.

I have trouble fighting things on very easy difficulty.

 

[ZombieSuicide]

Yeah I messed with the Legion fairly early, they're just asking for it being such pricks. I didn't really have a well thought out focus for my character this time around which was kind of weird because I usually do. I did in Fallout 3 that's for sure. But I ended up focusing heavily on guns and kind of just adjusting whatever else I needed along the way. Right now I'm also strong in speech (because it's so damned useful) and lockpick (because I like to steal things...). I use magazines to help boost skills when I need them as well.

Will have to try targeting the wings for cazadores. I'm not that far in, I'm just getting to New Vegas now in the main quest line. I've got the robot companion, E-DE, he's nice.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

The Deathclaws are actually pretty easy to take out for a character focusing on small arms, even with the difficulty maxed. Just need to get your hands on the Ratslayer from the Broc Flower Cave. Compared to a standard Varmint Rifle, the Ratslayer has a built-in suppressor, built-in extended magazine, built-in night vision scope, better scope zoom (3.5x as opposed to the standard 2.86x of the Varmint Rifle), higher DPS, lighter weight, one of the tightest bullet spread patterns in the game (improved even moreso if you use Match grade ammunition with it), and one of the highest critical strike multipliers in the game for a firearm. It's also incredibly durable (it can fire close to a thousand rounds before breaking) and can be repaired with a ton of different fairly common weapons if you have the Jury Rigging perk (like shotguns, lever action rifles, hunting rifles, even BB guns and anti-materiel rifles)

Find a Deathclaw, stay very far away from it, go into Sneak, and plink away at it from a distance with the Ratslayer. Because of the suppressor it won't notice you, and because you're sneaking you'll be chaining critical strike after critical strike. You can easily clear out Quarry Junction of its Deathclaw infestation this way, even when it's still early in the game.

It's a strategy that can prove useful for most of the game, honestly. The Ratslayer is just that damn great at what it does. You can eventually move on to other rifles if you want, though most of them have significantly bigger drawbacks than the Ratslayer. The regular Sniper Rifle requires you to find a Suppressor attachment, its ammunition is less common, and it has really bad durability. Christine's CoS Silenced Sniper Rifle has the suppressor already built in but still suffers from low durability. Lastly the Anti-Materiel Rifle (assuming you have the GRA pack) also requires a suppressor upgrade, has the least common ammo type of the bunch, has a pretty high strength requirement (8), also has low durability, and is pretty heavy.

 

[madwarper]

The one thing I liked most about FO3 is once you get out of the Vault, you can go exploring in any direction. However, in NV, from Goodsprings, you're pretty much shoehorned into following the main quest south and west to hook around to New Vegas, because just about every other path is guarded by Cazadors and Deathclaws.

Also, while there are 4 different paths to take the main quest in NV, there's little variety. You're going to be dealing with the same 4/5 side quest factions regardless of who you side with.

Finally, Boone. That's all that need to be said.

 

[ZombieSuicide]

Ratslayer, Broc Flower Cave, got it. That sounds rediculous!!! (in a good way) I mainly use the sniper rifle for long-distance, high impact encounters. So it's good for Legion encounters and I don't worry about a suppressor because they're coming to kill me anyway, ha ha! I have the DLC's, just got to get around to them. I have this horrible habit of playing the main quest line for a bit and then getting really distracted for the majority of Fallout games.

I also like the way NV starts. I love the way 3 starts as well but NV just had more direction. I don't know, it just seemed to work both ways for me. And I didn't like Boone too much. He's too trigger happy and him and his twitchy finger are part of the reason me and Legion are on the outs. I liked Veronica and Cass but I hear there's a dog again?! Dogmeat was one of my favorite parts of Fallout 3.

I'd like to do another playthrough eventually where my character is just despicable. Terrible, I know.

 

[Someone Depressing]

I fudged up with the Legions early... so, I killed every character associated with them.

Tactiiiiiiiiics~

Welcome to the forums, by the way. We don't have central heating and the matresses have empty bottles in them. Enjoy your stay.

 

[GonzoGamer]

I got New Vegas at launch so I liked my second playthrough a lot more. It actually works now.
Do you have the DLC? I actually liked the DLC more than the core game. If you like weapon repair kits and/or Venture Bros, I suggest you at least get Old World Blues.
Yes, I ended up using speech a lot more in New Vegas than I did in 3. It usually provides the best, most profitable option.
Don't bother with the Survival skill unless you're doing hardcore mode.
And don't bother with Grim Reaper Sprint in NV, they nerfed it bad.

 

[Roxas1359]

It's okay, I think everyone can say they messed with the Legion on their first try. I know I did, and it was all the more sweeter when I found out what kind of assholes they were.

As for Cazadors, I always recommend saving Antivenoms when dealing with them, and only use them after you've killed all the Cazadors in the area. As for Deathclaws, I recommend taking off your armor so that it is not damaged, because Deathcaws ignore the DT that armor gives you anyway so with armor on you are basically still fighting them naked. To take them out easier, armor piercing rounds do wonders on them, and explosives don't hurt. There is also a glitch in New Vegas to where if you stand up on certain rocks the Deathclaws will run away from you. If you don't have armor piercing, then plasma actually does very powerful damage to them as well.

Finally, to answer your question about the dog, yes there is a Dog companion in New Vegas named Rex. To get him, you'll have to do some quests for The King in Freeside and offer to fix Rex up for him. He'll let you keep Rex once you finish the quest. I also recommend ED-E because of how awesome he is.

Anyway, enjoy New Vegas and welcome to the forums. Every have and New Vegas questions feel free to ask.

 

[TaboriHK]

Mods. Mods mods mods. Seriously. Project Nevada at the least, but definitely go from there. It will take you a few hours to learn the basics, but every hour spent learning and troubleshooting is worth 20, easily.

 

[TKhanman]

Hey so I've been lurking on this site for a while now and I've finally taken the plunge and become a member just so that I could post this forum topic. I don't really have a lot of friends that are playing the same kinds of games as me so sometimes it makes it hard to gush over games like I'm about to do. I just wanted to touch on my Fallout NV experience thus far because it is such an awesome game! I love it but I wanted to talk about a couple of things specifically.

I've only played Fallout 3 otherwise but I loved that one too. NV just seems to be a very large, very good extension of that. Some obvious differences but I think the overall feel is very similar. I like the addition of the damage threshold value (I don't remember 3 having that). I really, really rely on that now to get my head around how much damage I'm actually doing.

Enemies that I hate (or hated for a bit):
Cazadors - I had no idea what these things were when I first came across them. Needless to say they tooled my ass fairly quickly. Now I use a 10mm submachine gun to take them out but granted I have to use the entire magazine to finish one off. 10mm ammo is fairly cheap and common though. Maybe using hollow point ammo is better for these guys?
The Legion assassins - I made the mistake of pissing these guys off early and now I get ambushed quite often in the wasteland. Had a lot of trouble to begin with but I've figured theses guys out. Hunting rifle helped me a lot and using VATS for headshots. Also armor piercing ammo for .308 or 5.56 (pistol) really helps. But now I got me a sniper rifle and I just pick them off from a distance. Got ambushed twice on Sunday in a 20 minute span and they didn't even half my health. That's a really far cry from dying for about an hour on the same encounter.
Deathclaws - they still kick my ass. I don't engage them and I've got no ideas on what I want to use as a strategy yet. I don't remember them being that hard in 3!

Also weapons repair kits are awesome and I use those all the time because I can't carry around 6 kinds of all my favorite guns!!! Other than that I kinda just want to talk to other people about the game. I want to mention that I'm not done so please avoid any major spoilers if possible. I think that's all.

Ps. love this site and the general forum community, it's pretty much the whole reason why I joined. I don't really do a lot of this sort of thing on the internet. I'm a big lurker.

Welcome to the Escapist Sir!

Regarding the Legion assassins you might want to try putting on a legion uniform when you need to do some traveling by foot. They won't spawn if you wear a disguise because it changes your standing with them.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

And I didn't like Boone too much. He's too trigger happy and him and his twitchy finger are part of the reason me and Legion are on the outs. I liked Veronica and Cass but I hear there's a dog again?! Dogmeat was one of my favorite parts of Fallout 3.

Yeah... but the Legion sucks, and shooting them on sight is usually a good call. Plus, Boone's got his reasons.

Boone, at one point, was objectively the best companion in the game. There was a glitch that made it so his critical strike chance went up each time he fired his rifle, and the increase would last until you exited the game. So after just a few shots he'd be running around with a 100% chance to crit. With a decent rifle, he was actually capable of doing better damage in combat than the player character.

Post-fix he's still pretty good, though. He's usually the companion I have following me around if I'm playing a ranged character. Most of my ranged characters are NCR-aligned snipers anyway, so Boone's a total bro. A total bro with a .50BMG Anti-Materiel Rifle. And that NCR beret that he gives you is easily one of the best head-slot armors in the game for most character builds.

 

[Storm Dragon]

I liked imagining my latest playthrough of New Vegas as being titled "THE GRANDIOSE ADVENTURES OF NUNCHUCKS MCKRAKEN!"[footnote]For full effect, imagine the title being read by Alex Louis Armstrong from the FMA English dub[/footnote], because 1) I named my character "Nunchucks McKraken" and 2) I like the word "grandiose".

Legion assassins are tough if you're careless, but eventually they simply become a reliable source of income. I find that the best way to deal with Deathclaws is to confront them directly. From a mile away. With a .50MG Anti-Materiel Rifle. Loaded with explosive rounds. And I have just one bit of advice for Cazadores: STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM CAZADORES.

 

[Brian Tams]

Deathclaws - they still kick my ass. I don't engage them and I've got no ideas on what I want to use as a strategy yet. I don't remember them being that hard in 3!

Fun story. A Deathclaw once slapped me so hard that I flew half away across the Mojave and ended up phasing through a mountain.
As for strategy, backpedaling and prayer beads have worked pretty good for me. In FO3, all you had to do was prick them in the legs with a pair darts and let the poison cripple them. But its harder to pull of in NV. Still, crippling their legs is still sound, since it'll give you an advantage in speed.

EDIT: You might also want to try quoting users, so they know when you've responded to them.

 

[Risingblade]

I'm so glad they decided to nerf the Cazadors in one of the patches, those blasted things were like flying poison deathclaws on steroids

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

Let's be honest here, there isn't a point in the game where fighting more than one deathclaw is a good idea. Unless you have all the c4 in the world you are going to die.

I have trouble fighting things on very easy difficulty.

Or a good ol' fashioned Anti Materiel Rifle with Armour Piercing rounds.

The game might as well end once you acquire that weapon.

In response to the topic: the game always became insultingly easy to me by the end, disregarding DLC content, nothing really poses a challenge past level 30.

 

[Westaway]

Let's be honest here, there isn't a point in the game where fighting more than one deathclaw is a good idea. Unless you have all the c4 in the world you are going to die.

I have trouble fighting things on very easy difficulty.

Or a good ol' fashioned Anti Materiel Rifle with Armour Piercing rounds.

The game might as well end once you acquire that weapon.

In response to the topic: the game always became insultingly easy to me by the end, disregarding DLC content, nothing really poses a challenge past level 30.

I found the opposite. Despite being an extremely high level with amazing gear Deathclaws would still one shot me. To be honest I think it's kind of bullshit how they ignore DT. It's an important part of the game, and by the end you should be able to tango with them in close range without dying immediately. Sniping them from rocks is boring as shit.

But in general the way they implement difficulty is ridiculous. I made the mistake of doing Old World Blues at a high level and was frequently using well of 50 bullets on lobotomites with absurd amounts of health.

 

[ihavetwo]

Let's be honest here, there isn't a point in the game where fighting more than one deathclaw is a good idea. Unless you have all the c4 in the world you are going to die.

I have trouble fighting things on very easy difficulty.

Or a good ol' fashioned Anti Materiel Rifle with Armour Piercing rounds.

The game might as well end once you acquire that weapon.

In response to the topic: the game always became insultingly easy to me by the end, disregarding DLC content, nothing really poses a challenge past level 30.

The problem with the AMR is that it is expensive, heavy, loud and, slow and when you are going up against more than one Deathclaw at a time the slow fire rate will get you destroyed.