Fallout 2 Is Too Hard At The Start

D

DwayneGAnd

Look, Ma! Two Heads!
I started playing on normal difficulty and combat setting for once. The game is just too hard at the beginning, particularily in the temple of trials, the toxic caves, and Klamath underground. Why couldn't Interplay keep the difficulty at the same level as Fallout 1? It's as if the game expects you to have tagged either melee or unarmed at the beginning simply because you're a tribal!

Can someone please give me some good tips to use to have an easier time in the beginning of the game, without decreasing the difficulty and combat level? It would be much appreciated!
 
R.Graves said:
I disagree. The game isn't hard; you just suck.
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No, Fallout 2's early game is just incredibly hard compared to Fallout 1.

Fallout 1 had a difficulty hill. It starts easy, gets difficult towards the middle, and is somewhat medium difficulty towards the end.

Fallout 2 has difficulty walls. For the first five minutes, it's easy, but all of a sudden BAM: Difficulty spike. Then a good chunk of the game is super hard but then all of a sudden the difficulty plummets into ridiculously easy but incredibly tedious territory, and then ends off with a boss fight that's an absolute pain in the ass.

To borrow from SomecallmeJohnny, imagine Fallout 1 is a comfortable stroll through the park on your way home. Fallout 2 is getting to the end of your walk and discovering your house is right behind the incomparable Mount Sonofabitch. You've got to make that pain in the ass climb to the top, but once you're up there, it's all downhill from there, until you realize that you dropped your keys somewhere and you have to kick in the door.
 
Grinding, saving often, and flee when you can.
Fallout 2, especially with the RP, has quite a steep difficulty curve, true. The amount of really tough random encounters can be ridiculous, and just reaching The Den is tough at times.
But there isn't much more help you can get here. You already asked about every single mechanical aspect of the game, and by now you should have a whole library full of meticiously munchkined characters available for you, and you should know the intricacies of the game engine perfectly.
 
For Temple of Trials: punch, than run away. The ants have like 5 AP, the scorpions 6, so you can run up-and-down and not get hurt. I made it with 2 ST, and only tagging energy weapons, so ye, it works.

For Klamath Underground: get a weapon. Vic' Pipe Rifle gives you some distance, and you can get spiked knuckles from the Daltons. With those you can reach the 9mm pistol in the tunnels, and that's comfy. You can play hit&run with that against King Raat, or get Sulik.

For Toxic Caves: I assume we're not talking about the second level with the robot.
Against the geckos you again play hit&run. Yes, a bit more difficult, but not by much. Of course try to avoid getting chased around by 2 geckos the same time as long as possible. And spend your SP right, namely on some fighting skill - at the beginning all game has the problem of law skills. Also, you don't have to do this right away. Go to Modoc and do some things there first for more exp. And if you still find yourself lacking, get to Vault City. Nothing prevents you doing so, and it won't even violate the story.
 
DwayneGAnd said:
I started playing on normal difficulty and combat setting for once. The game is just too hard at the beginning, particularily in the temple of trials, the toxic caves, and Klamath underground. Why couldn't Interplay keep the difficulty at the same level as Fallout 1? It's as if the game expects you to have tagged either melee or unarmed at the beginning simply because you're a tribal!

Can someone please give me some good tips to use to have an easier time in the beginning of the game, without decreasing the difficulty and combat level? It would be much appreciated!
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Don't.

Attack.

Enemies.

Who.

Will.

Beat.

You.

You have all the time in the world, use that time, there's no limit like in Fallout 1 (barring the 13 year cap, which can be ignored if you use Sfall and tweak a line).

Watch battles between raiders and other dudes and pick up their weapons, free shotguns and rifles.
 
Talk to everybody, do their quests. If you do the quests, there is no need to do any random encounters.
 
Bear in mind the Temple of trials and the local area near arroyo are designed to help players test builds and obtain a general understanding of the game. They opted for this approach when players found Fallout 1 to be so punishing (At least until they figured the game out).

The reason for this is because the late game can be rather difficult if you generate a poor character. While one could say they wanted the players to play a specific way, it only prevented new players from trying crazy stuff until they were more comfortable with the game.

From a design perspective Fallout 2 is very forgiving to new players, and their early builds giving them a great deal to do early in the game to level up compared to Fallout 1. This also prevents the "trail and error of Fallout 1" the temple of trials is referencing by compacting a bunch of skill building exercises together for the players to test their builds on.
 
Make custom character with 9+ action points and you'll be pretty much invincible in Temple or Klamath. Punch mutant one time with your manly fist, step six hexes away in the same turn and repeat.
 
Einhanderc7 said:
Bear in mind the Temple of trials and the local area near arroyo are designed to help players test builds and obtain a general understanding of the game. They opted for this approach when players found Fallout 1 to be so punishing
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Huh? Fallout 1 could be a little tricky early on, but it's remarkably forgiving for a cRPG.
 
Ben Soto said:
Huh? Fallout 1 could be a little tricky early on, but it's remarkably forgiving for a cRPG.
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True, Fallout 1, at least in my opinion, has quite good pacing. You get to Shady Sands very quickly and can earn some easy XP there, get Ian, get a nice submachinegun and stuff in Vault 15, and then get a free hunting rifle and leather armor in Junktown. After all the quests in Junktown you're set to go to the Hub where you get better stuff relatively easy, although that's where you can get fucked up quickly like trying to nail Decker early or messing with the Tough Guards with the BoS dude. But all in all the pacing is excellent in terms of difficulty curve. It won't even let you kill yourself early by helping Irwin at level 4 or so.
 
I found Fallout 1-2 both easy until the literal endgame enemies.

Even deathclaws are chump change compared to mutants and Enclave.

Fight a deathclaw with good aim with a hunting rifle, and you can kill it, with some nice crits.

Fight a mutant and you'll be cut in half or blown apart before the second turn.
 
The only real fight for me is the deathclaws in F1 (from F1-2), and they are optional.

In F2 I can end up before the ending clvl 99, 10 all stat, 300% skills all, so I rly not see a point for these threads. Go and start playing for all sake!
 
I have been playing the fallout games for years! Don't tell me to start playing when I've been doing that ever since I got them!
 
Then why are you asking about every single detail of the games? Why does, after all those powergaming build questions, Fallout 2's beginning still feel to hard for you? Why do you need to know the best weapon to beat Horrigan, or how much gear to pack in New Vegas? If you wanted to actually start discussions or ask opinions, you should have done that. But it just sounded like powergaming boredom for the most part.
 
because I'm starting to play on the tougher difficulties. And the fact that I have yet to truly master the games.

Sheesh! The point of a forum is to discuss topics and start discussions. I do just that and everybody treats me like Fallout characters treat mutants and ghouls! Some people!
 
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