My Fallout NV experience so far

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

I use the anti material rifle. I also have the suppressor and carbon fiber mods on it, silent and light weight. The only ammo I use for is the explosive rounds. Aim at the ground near the Deathclaw and you will usually get a crit while sneaking, meaning they are slowed down considerably, if not killed outright. They will once you gun score is high enough. Works wonders against the Legion mobs too, if you can spot them from a distance and go in to sneak, aim for their legs too. Once you restore law to Primm and break the bank at the casino that opens there, you should have enough money to buy it at either the gun runners store near New Vegas or from Alex under the bridge at the 188. The suppressor is the first mod you should get for it.

 

[Drummodino]

Welcome to the forums, I hope you enjoy your stay!

New Vegas is a great game, my favourite out of the open world Fallout and Elder Scrolls games (sorry Skyrim). My main character was primarily focused on guns, repair and speech and I never found the game too challenging even on hardcore. I did run around with two companions most of the time though which helped a lot. ED-E is amazing and I always use him with Veronica being my other. With ED-E spotting guys from miles away I could snipe them easily and if anything got too close Veronica would punch them into next century.

I also recommend the DLC. Opinions are quite divided on which are good and which aren't, personally I loved Dead Money and Old World Blues. The other two aren't bad, but I didn't enjoy them as much.

Now I kinda want to play it again... Maybe I'll finally get around to my modded play through.

 

[Reincarnatedwolfgod]

welcome
anyway I played 1024 hours of fallout NV according to steam so know how handle many of the hard enemies. if your play new veags on the pc and want any mod recommendation feel free to ask and may make a thread about new Vegas mods.

snip

Cazadors- they have no armor so hollow point rounds is recommended. I also find using a grande rifle/launcher is pretty good against them them. although some times a single cazadors will dodge many grenades with it's superior speed. at some point one says screw this and just uses a gun on them instead.

deathclaws- a long range rifle(sniper, scoped hunting, anti-malarial) being at a long range and a bunch of armor Pierceing rounds. I also killed a deathclaw with a bottlecap mine once in my current playthrough. I don't have much advice for dealing with them in confined areas like a cave beyond bring mines, stealthboys, be a high level, and bring very good equipment with you.

The Legion assassins- I use a mods that make reduces the the frequency of there attacks. it makes there attacks more surprising when don't know exactly when to expect an attack. OK maybe you can expect them but i am unable to keep track if it has been 7 in game days since my last attack.

 

[balladbird]

I too would like to welcome you!

For my part, when I fiiiiirst played the game, I wanted to like the legion. Vulpes Inculta was pretty cool, I loved his mannerisms, and the Legion seemed like a brutal, but organized and efficient, faction. Sadly, the game kept going, and it gradually became more and more obvious that the Legion was a stupid evil faction, and that their methods were self destructive, and impossible to maintain for long... so by the third act I've always run afoul of them and slaughtered most of their named cast.

Fortunately, by then I met Mr. House, who, despite being based on an Objectivist archetype, resonated with my lawful-aligned, order-above-all personality, so I got over being disappointed by the legion. I've played NV so many times over the years, for hundreds of hours. I've seen every ending and obtained every trophy, but, as far as personal canon goes, my incarnation of the courier will always be Mr. House's faithful right-hand man.

 

[Paragon Fury]

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.

Boon with rifle > Deathclaws. Except a couple of the named big ones.

Also, if YOU take the time to get the perks and points to use Big Snipers, Player Character > Deathclaws.

Barring that though; explosives. Lots and lots of explosives.

 

[Paragon Fury]

I also recommend the DLC. Opinions are quite divided on which are good and which aren't, personally I loved Dead Money and Old World Blues. The other two aren't bad, but I didn't enjoy them as much.

Dead Money = Good Story, Horrible Gameplay. Some cool items.
Lonely Hearts = Decent Story, Decent Gameplay. Great Environment and items though
Old World Blues = Excellent Story, Good Gameplay. AMAZING Items.
Lonesome Road = Great Story, Good Gameplay except for a few parts. Items are hit and miss.

 

[Drummodino]

I also recommend the DLC. Opinions are quite divided on which are good and which aren't, personally I loved Dead Money and Old World Blues. The other two aren't bad, but I didn't enjoy them as much.

Dead Money = Good Story, Horrible Gameplay. Some cool items.
Lonely Hearts = Decent Story, Decent Gameplay. Great Environment and items though
Old World Blues = Excellent Story, Good Gameplay. AMAZING Items.
Lonesome Road = Great Story, Good Gameplay except for a few parts. Items are hit and miss.

I actually enjoyed Dead Money's gameplay. Losing all your gear sucks, but it forced my character to adapt. I hadn't put any levels into melee combat before then, but being forced into that environment minus all my great firearms made me start investing in it. I thought it was a really cool progression for my character, being forced out of his comfort zone and having to learn new skills to survive. I loved the atmosphere too and the characters were great.

The new melee skills also helped in Old World Blues, since most of the enemies there were pretty resistant to guns I ran around with a Proton Axe. Good times

 

[The Towel Boy]

Hope you have all the DLC since it expands upon the story further and makes the game seem more vivid and even more to do!

I also recommend the DLC. Opinions are quite divided on which are good and which aren't, personally I loved Dead Money and Old World Blues. The other two aren't bad, but I didn't enjoy them as much.

Dead Money = Good Story, Horrible Gameplay. Some cool items.
Lonely Hearts = Decent Story, Decent Gameplay. Great Environment and items though
Old World Blues = Excellent Story, Good Gameplay. AMAZING Items.
Lonesome Road = Great Story, Good Gameplay except for a few parts. Items are hit and miss.

I actually enjoyed Dead Money's gameplay. Losing all your gear sucks, but it forced my character to adapt. I hadn't put any levels into melee combat before then, but being forced into that environment minus all my great firearms made me start investing in it. I thought it was a really cool progression for my character, being forced out of his comfort zone and having to learn new skills to survive. I loved the atmosphere too and the characters were great.

The new melee skills also helped in Old World Blues, since most of the enemies there were pretty resistant to guns I ran around with a Proton Axe. Good times

Yeah they are completely right about the DLC, just the exception of Lonesome Road not having a good story. The specialty weapons for the game are also amazing, and the DLC expands upon that, especially with the Gun Runners DLC.

 

[Ravinoff]

I'm pretty fond of the Gun Runners Arsenal unique hunting rifle for killing Deathclaws. Guy in the Novac dinosaur sells it, it's crazy expensive (like 12,000 caps) but it's amazing for a sneak-attack gun. Can't be scoped (unless you're on PC, in which case go get Weapon Mods Expanded and bolt a scope on it, you'll never need another gun), holds less rounds than the regular hunting rifle, and there's no silencer for it, but it's several times more durable than the sniper rifle. And of course, it takes .308 rounds but hits as hard as an anti-materiel rifle on crits. Wish they hadn't nerfed handloaded JSPs, used to be that you could process all your .308 into .308JSP for a flat damage boost with no downsides, but now it degrades your weapon twice as fast.

DLC-wise, my favourite was Old World Blues, hands down. Every encounter with the Think Tank is absolute gold. I get that the other three tie into the story, but Dead Money was terrible, and Honest Hearts was mediocre at best and most useful as a source of high-tier ammo (White Legs tribals carry 12.7mm and .45-70 at higher levels). Lonesome Road was...eh. The story of it felt like an ass-pull, and I wasn't too fond of how it made up a bunch of canned backstory for my characters. That said, the loot is nice and you get one of the cooler armours through it.

Side note: did the scattered Deathclaws on the High Road in Lonesome Road exterminate anyone else? Says on the wiki that some sadist made them level-scaled so they out-damage the Legendary Deathclaw in Dead Wind Cavern. As in, at level 48 or so in the advanced riot gear, they killed me in two hits.

 

[Comando96]

Deathclaws

Single shot, Long Range High Damage + Sneak attack critical damage + DT or Armour piercing perks and ammunition... and Boone, get him to tag along with you.
I'd also advise you aim manually at their heads.

Best advise with Deathclaws is to keep an extreme distance... and kill them from there. If there is a large group then avoid engaging entirely. The outcome of an engagement (excluding Fallout quirkiness) is determined largely by how the engagement begins. If you see Deathclaws, then think smart and position yourself far away, and pick them off from afar... I've killed many with hunting rifles, but to be safe you'd want a sniper rifle and even then an Anti-material rifle is the only sure bet to truly decimate their ranks.

The main feature of Deathclaws in F:NV as opposed to F3 is they made Armour a much more standardized feature of the game, so now shooting at Deathclaws with bullets isn't any use unless each shot penetrates through their hard scales and THEN damages them.

...oh yeah... buy a scope for the Hunting Rifle, and use that instead of the Sniper Rifle for your average foe. Best investment you can make. Well... a Scope + 1,000 .308's which you can purchase from the NCR's shady vendor Daniel Contreras who you can locate within the McCarran Supply Shack. Seriously I walked into Zion with just my Armour, a Katana, my Hunting Rifle and 1000 308's on hardcore difficulty (ammunition actually has weight). Its all I had and frankly all I needed.

 

[TheSYLOH]

Deathcaws ignore the DT that armor gives you anyway so with armor on you are basically still fighting them naked.

I've been seeing some people contest that.
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/959557-fallout-new-vegas/57664180
Even if that is correct you can still call bullshit! and mod it out.

Thing is, once you hit melee range, you are pretty much screwed anyway.
The trick is to shoot their legs to get more shooting time.

Crouch + AMR + Explosive ammo + headshot also tends to end indvidual deathclaws.
Avoid low dmg weapons even if they have higher DPS because deathclaws have high dt.
I love the holorifle for death claw hunting, its cheaper to shoot and good for single deathclaw hunting.
Still stumbling into quarry junction was one of the most scary experiences in Fallout.

Really though, I recommend you get the DLC.

Old World Blues and Dead Money are the two best DLCs in all of Fallout, for compeltly different reasons. Old World Blues is a hilariously fun sci-fi romp, it's all 50's goofiness we love the Fallout series for. Dead Money is survival horror and has one of the best examples of game play reinforcing theme I've seen.

Spoiler: Dead Money Spoiler

The central themes of Dead Money are obsession, mistrust and letting go, with the latter most being the arc words: "getting in that's not the hard part, it's letting go" At the end after you've breached the vault you see a stack of gold bars, you see the absurd number of caps that each is worth, then you realize that you will never escape with all of them, because they are far to heavy

Honest Hearts is fun, really emphasises the sci-fi western feel.

Lonesome Road was a giant let down, it was being built up so much by the other DLC, but it was just boring.

Dammit now I want to play New Vegas again, still haven't finished Project Brazil(the fan rebuild) yet.

 

[balladbird]

Still better than everyone in Fallout 3 combined. Although that really isn't saying much considering AI still occasionally manages to commit suicide from the nearest tower trying to get past a small rock (yes, I have seen it myself) and it's hard to go even a minute without finding some new plot hole in that game.

But yes, I found them disappointing too (although I'm not surprised, dictatorships like that have never been efficient, only looked efficient).

true, but the comparison is a bit of low-hanging fruit. Comparing any of the factions in NV to to the Enclave from FO3 is like comparing Shylock to Snydley Whiplash. XD The writing is just on a different level.

To be fair to Caesar, it wasn't really the system itself that was flawed, it was his personal greed and lack of foresight. If the legion were content to only control the territories they held in the east, the system he established could probably have stood for decades. Unfortunately, because the stability of the legion is dependent upon a strong and nearby central government, attempting to expand it too wide would inevitably cause it to collapse in on itself.

That was why I couldn't, in my character's position, justify siding with the legion. As intriguing as I found the concept and the characters, there was just no logical reason to side with an army that was committing suicide-by-over expansion (same with the NCR, in that regard, though they had the boon of not being misogynist slavers) aside from the courier being a mixture of chaotic evil and stupid.

Killing House because he likely would become not so different from Caesar (House doesn't tolerate anyone opposing him, he showed that with Vault 21), and with no one to oppose him, would eventually become just plain Caesar.

I don't deny that it's possible, but I believe the odds of House becoming corrupted are fairly low. For one thing, his current living arrangements make it impossible for him to fall to the usual corrupters (huh, that's not a word? it should totally be a word) of leaders of men: greed, gluttony, and lust. He's proud, yes, but it's not as though his pride is baseless, and as he assures the courier, he has no interest in anything as banal as being worshiped like a god.

the true freedom path is tempting, but where I personally find it inferior to the House path is that it puts all the power and responsibility in the hands of people with no experience leading others, and no unified plan for the future. New Vegas is liberated, but aimless and chaotic, even in the best circumstances, and the courier, for all his talents, was never a leader. House had the correct combination of traits: experience, a long term vision for the future, and a plan in place to bring that vision to fruition.

 

[Windcaler]

Welcome to the forum, hopefully you'll find a lot of interesting discussions here

I find your views of new vegas kind of interesting. Ive always felt the capital wasteland was a lot bigger then new vegas due to NV's clear lanes of travel but to each their own. Even though mechanically speaking New vegas is better Ive always felt like Fallout 3 had more of a soul and its wasteland was more explorable then New vegas'. Ive always preffered Fallout 3 on that basis

Deathclaws are more of a nusance for most characters. The only time I like going against them is when I play my unarmed character who can just beat them down. Its pretty amusing going hand to hand with deathclaws and winning

Cazadors are also annoying (although they were worse before a patch that nerfed them) but I feel like they fit perfectly in the fallout universe. Personally Ive always found the best weapon to use against them is a good shotgun. They were designed to be the "anti-sniper" creature but with so many of them around New vegas I just cant afford to stick to a regular rifle (also I play hardcore only so comapanions die very easily to them)

For DLC I think my favorite was Honest Hearts. It really felt like that DLC was trying to say something on a philosophical level which I really like. Games that tread into thought provoking issues are games that really stick with me. Old world blues...its funny and wacky but I just didnt feel like there was much substance behind the comedy. Dead money is really good if you like a survival horror type feel. Lonesome road...I still dont know what to say about it. Ive only played through it once and that seemed to be enough for me. I just dont like it I guess and it doesnt try to do anything interesting, its just a guy with a grudge against the courier (not you the courier). Youre basicly being punished for actions which you didnt take and that just rubs me the wrong way.

 

[Sandernista]

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.

Really? I never had any trouble with lobotomites, even at high levels. Now robo-scorpions... that's another story. I've unloaded barrels full of ammo on those pricks.

The one thing I liked most about FO3 is once you get out of the Vault, you can go exploring in any direction.

Except there was nothing to explore. Fallout 3 followed the triple A design to a T, a bunch of set pieces with nothing but empty wasteland, supermutants and metros full of ghouls in between.

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.

I'm trying so hard not to spout out a "git gud", but your post really calls for it. I applaud Obsidian for making more interesting "biomes" and diversifying regions with differently leveled creatures, instead of populating the entire map with the same list of leveled creatures.

Certainly much better than running into deathclaws around every corner at higher levels.

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.

Again, certainly better than running from one corner to the opposite and then making a choice after you've ran back and forth a few more times.

It makes sense when you think about the motives of the four factions, all of them are looking to control the Strip. None of them want to destroy it and yet Obsidian still lets you make that call. The power players in Vegas aren't going to change depending on which faction you choose, but the various factions who are focused on are different among them.

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

I'm not even sure what you mean here. Are you praising a character that had more to him than any character in Fallout 3?

I wouldn't have come at you like this if your post was worded differently. We don't need another thread comparing the steaming pile of shit and bad game design that was FO3 to the masterpiece FO:NV.

 

[Windcaler]

Except there was nothing to explore. Fallout 3 followed the triple A design to a T, a bunch of set pieces with nothing but empty wasteland, supermutants and metros full of ghouls in between.

I have to disagree. New vegas seemed to have a new settlement down every road. There was very little that was a "no mans land". However in Fallout 3 all of the DC area was considered no mans land due to the mass of super muntants in the area. Another good no mans land was just about everywhere north of paradise falls. You had oasis and that was it for settlements and even that was a secret settlement. You might be able to add in the republic of dave and cantabury commons too but I dont personally consider them in fallout 3's "no mans land".

I'm trying so hard not to spout out a "git gud", but your post really calls for it. I applaud Obsidian for making more interesting "biomes" and diversifying regions with differently leveled creatures, instead of populating the entire map with the same list of leveled creatures.

Biome difersification was good I agree. However the distance between various biomes was not. IMO Bethesda did a much better job with skyrim in seperating biomes and making them feel big enough to be meaningful then obsidian did in new vegas. Even then the only different biomes I recall is the mountainous desert and the forest around jacobstown. Unless youre couting DLC, which I dont since theyre supposed to be seperate from the map.

However I dont think that biomes were his argument. It sounds like hes talking about the same "lanes of travel" I talk about when I say the game feels smaller to me. Madwarper may correct me if Im mistaken

I'm not even sure what you mean here. Are you praising a character that had more to him than any character in Fallout 3?

Im not sure what you mean either, the hyperbole is quite thick in that statement. Are you telling me that boon is a more complicated character then say Reily or Vance? All of those characters had more complicated and arguably meaningful backstories then Boone's simple revenge fantasy and death wish.

I wouldn't have come at you like this if your post was worded differently. We don't need another thread comparing the steaming pile of shit and bad game design that was FO3 to the masterpiece FO:NV.

If you dont want another thread comparing the two so venomously then why are you trying to turn this thread into a new one? Can't we all just discuss our opinions in a calm and reasonable manner and simply agree to disagree with each other?

 

[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.

Boon with rifle > Deathclaws. Except a couple of the named big ones.

Also, if YOU take the time to get the perks and points to use Big Snipers, Player Character > Deathclaws.

Barring that though; explosives. Lots and lots of explosives.

My strategy was at a distance use the YCS/13 (is that what it is called?) or use the stupidly OP Automatic Rifle.
But the YCS is a unique gauss rifle so it is slow and the Automatic Rifle was from Dead Money so I didn't mention it.
Seriously though, the Automatic Rifle + Armor Piercing Rounds will kill Rawr from Lonesome Road in a couple shots.