New Vegas, Hardcore

[Don Incognito]

Thank you for the kind welcome, sirrah!

Just remember, when wandering the wastes, the right tool for the right job. For those unholy poisonous monstrosities born from the Big MT, you simply can not beat a good SMG with the relevant hand-loader ammo. For radscorpions, hard to argue with going all explody on 'em, but I usually stick with a cowboy-style revolver or rifle as I am awful with explosives. High damage, low DPS. Might take a couple clips, but they'll go down, especially with some support from a certain floating eyebot I hope you have acquired by now.

Honestly, don't worry about your companions going down in Hardcore Mode. The only times that has happened to me was when I was doomed anyway (blundering into a deathclaw herd), even with only 1 Charisma point. Me, Boone, and ED-E, with only 1 CHA point, completely laid waste to Caesar's encampment without either one of them getting anything lower than 50% health. Me and Lily and ED-E accomplished much the same in Hidden Valley.

Doesn't hurt to give them some beefed up armor, though.

 

[maninahat]

Oh, I found a neat way of making a shit ton of money at casinos with a luck of 1.

It's a way of exploiting the way the random chance works on the roulette wheel when you have low luck; whatever you bet on, the game will do the opposite to guarantee you lose. So to get around this, go to a casino, and place 1 dollar on red. Then place the maximum amount on the black. Then let the wheel spin. By this method, the ball will always land on black, and you'll win 199 caps every time.

What happens is that the game doesn't distinguish between the sizes of bets; as long as you lose, it doesn't care. So it senses the initial bet you place on the red, and tries to make you lose by making the ball land on black. It totally fails to comprehend any money you bet on black after you've placed that first chip on red.

Of course, having a low luck has its own disadvantages, but whatever. Those spare points are worth it.

 

[Don Incognito]

I much prefer high luck. Not for the complete reversal of the casino gods, but for the much higher crit chance. I tend to play high crit characters, so high luck with high crit special weapons (Lucky, That Gun) and the Better Criticals perk is my personal nirvana. YMMV, of course.

 

[6_Qubed]

I much prefer high luck. Not for the complete reversal of the casino gods, but for the much higher crit chance. I tend to play high crit characters, so high luck with high crit special weapons (Lucky, That Gun) and the Better Criticals perk is my personal nirvana. YMMV, of course.

Oh lawd, is dat sum TV Tropes lingo I'm detecting?

Yeah, I've got my companions now, like some kinda weird lesbian Hispanic Time Lord (err, Lady). Gotta be honest, even though Boone + ED-E + a decent sniper rifle = good times all around, I have way more fun with Veronica. Though admittedly I do get a little conflicted with holding off on entering Vegas proper until I've pissed off the NCR and Legion as much as I can get away with just so I can wipe both slates clean soon as I pass the credit check. The reason that sucks is because I just love the little squee noise 'Ronnie makes when she finally gets the Old World dress of her dreams. Honestly, learning a new unarmed attack in the deal is just gravy at that point.

Well, just made it to Freeside, so I guess it's time to muck about with the locals. But first, to the Atomic Wrangler, for gambling and whores!

 

[Netrigan]

I enjoyed New Vegas, but I do think hardcore mode wasn't quite what it could've been.
Food and water isn't exactly scarce and if you try, you'll never really run out.

I spent a few hours playing on hardcore mode before giving up for exactly this reason. Most of it is tedious bookkeeping where you constantly have to remember to eat or get rid of unused ammo types and so on. If you enjoy micromanaging stuff, I guess it's alright, but I don't find that kind of thing fun.

 

[Danceofmasks]

>Hardcore mode
>Can only carry 1 2 handed weapon, 1 1 handed weapon and 1 1 handed melee weapon
>10 clips of ammo per weapon, no carrying of any ammo that isn't used by carried weapons
>Swapping weapons require dropping the old weapon and all the ammo for it
>No carrying stimpaks; they can only be used on the spot when found. This also applies to food and water.
>1 doctors bag because fuck head crippling
>3 grenades maximum
>No companions (because Boone is a fucking ranged god), or making it so they're ineffective (because Obsidian make good characters)
>No drugs
>1 antivenom because cazadors can 1 shot you otherwise
>Repairing must be done on the spot as well
>Quick travel is allowed because there's nothing to see and so few random events
>Can carry as many caps as you want but
>Anything else that isn't weightless can not be picked up.

^ Actual hardcore mode. Makes melee weapons useful for ammo conservation, you constantly are swapping out weapons as they run out of ammo or break, and food, water, caps and health suddenly have become precious resources instead of shit you're overflowing with. Playing like this turns FONV into a pretty fun survival game, which is what HC was supposed to do.

Running out of ammo and limping off with 3 bars of health left ducking desperately in and out of cover as some raider is shooting you, ducking into a broom closet, D:'ing because you realise your trapped and then 'ing because theres a first aid container in there so you can heal up and take down that last raider with your knife is an experience that is unique to playing like this, and I loved every minute of it.

I wouldn't call that hardcore mode ... it's more of a challenge mode.

I take hardcore in general gaming terms to mean turning all difficulty sliders to the max, then playing with no checkpoints or reloading (i.e. only saving when quitting the session, and living with the consequences of everything, including bugs).

Which means an Obsidian game is actually really difficult ... 'cos game breaking bugs will ruin almost every run.

 

[Richardplex]

snip

I call it actual hardcore mode because it accomplishes what Obsidian was trying to do in their hardcore mode. I personally call it survival mode.