Late to the Party

C

cx40hero

First time out of the vault
Hi all, I’m David from the Midlands and I’m VERY late to the party. I only stated playing Fallout a few months ago (3 GOTY). I’ve never been into ‘modern’ gaming and am much more at home with my Super Nintendo than anywhere else. A few months ago while helping my friend move house I was kindly donated a 360 with a ruck of games.

I set it all up and under my friends more than enthusiastic recommendation started to play Fallout 3….. and wow…. What have I been missing!

Anyway, I’ve played through the main quest and most of the DLC’s but looking through the collection he gave me last night found New Vegas Ultimate Edition.

I’ve never played it before and no very little about the game, DLC’s or main quest line, hence, I’m very excited to finish work today and get home!


I imagine this has been asked a million times but I thought I’d try again.


Without any spoilers, what are some good starting stats in the game for a first timer?

Are there and perks I should keep an eye out for?


The main thing for me is to be able to spend my time and enjoy the game but I don’t want to get several hours in an find I’ve made an ‘unplayable’ character by making poor decisions at the offset.


Glad to be here on the forum an look forward to being a part of it


David
 
It really all depends on how you want to play the game. I usually go for the charismatic scientist, so I put my SPECIAL into Intelligence and Charisma mainly, with Agility being useful for energy weapons.
Then I pour my stats into Energy weapons, Speech and Science.
That way, it makes the game a lot .ore interesting for me.

If you want to shoot things, I'd recommend Agility and Perception while Melee is Strength and Endurance.
In terms of Perks, I'll go for Lady Killer, Confirmed Bachelor and Wild Wasteland. Those are my go to three whenever I play the game anyway.

New Vegas is a lot more forgiving in the 'Unplayable Character' camp than most RPGs. You won't really get your dick bitten off if you make a few mistakes and missteps, you should be fine for the most part.

Also, if you're planning on doing the DLC. I recommend this order;
Honest Hearts
Dead Money
Old World Blues
Lonesome Road

I say do HH first because it's the easiest and will allow you to level up a few times.
I'd suggest doing Dead Money around level 25.

I'm kind of envious of you tbh, you get to play New Vegas for the first time (I've been playing since release and I still find new stuff every playthrough).

On a side note, where abouts in the Midlands you based if you don't mind me asking?
 
The DLCs have a suggested order, by their "recommended level", which - if followed by that order, should introduce you to DLC-story elements in "the correct order" - without spoiling anything, some encounters (or rather just lore-flavors) make more sense if encountered before others, although either way represent no major loss I reckon.

For this reason, though, I always do the DLCs in the order they come recommended: HH (No requirement), OWB (L15), Dead Money (L20), Lonesome Road (L25)

This is quite a pragmatic approach though, but personally I make it work :v
 
One of the nice things about New Vegas is there's really no such thing as an "unplayable" character. Some of the choices you make at the beginning can influence how you end up playing the game at first as you figure out how things work. You get to make improvements to your character as you progress in levels; skill points and perks. There is even a perk in New Vegas you can use to raise SPECIAL scores of your choice a total of 10 times. There are also a couple of other occasions you get the chance to gain an extra SPECIAL point. You can even pay one the doctors in the game to give you 1 implant for each SPECIAL ability that raises each score by 1. That's expensive, but what are going to spend those caps on if you're dead? The "Traits" offered during character creation are entire optional. You can choose none, one, or two. The original game gave you only that one chance to choose, but one of the DLCs, late in it's story, gives you a chance to tweak your characters personality and make some of those initial choices again. Traits are still optional.

Intelligence affects how many skill points you get per level and Luck raises all skill points a small amount depending on how much Luck you have. As you progress in levels, what skills you raise depends on what sort of character you want to play. What is your own style? I'm a tool monkey in real life so I like to concentrate on skills that affect crafting like Repair and Survival. As you level up and you gain access to more perks, they have pretty good descriptions and you can see the ENTIRE perk list, even ones you don't have access to yet. The game is paused while you're choosing. Just read through the list every time you level up and you can plan on which perks you'll want the most as you progress. I tend to avoid perks that just raise skills, because it's conceivable that you can raise all skills to 100 anyway at higher levels.

One thing worth noting is that firearms and their ammo are far more accessible than energy weapons early in the game. However, choosing Guns or Energy Weapons as a tagged skill affects what sort of weapon Doc Mitchell gives you when you're leaving his house at the beginning.

DLCs in this game are all great. Order is really optional. The entrance to the last one, Lonesome Road, is the one you can come across first. I have mods that give me access to a Hunting Rifle and a scope before I leave Goodsprings. With that, I can take on Lonesome Road as soon as I'm done with the area around Primm. I'm an experienced player, though. That might not be the best choice for you. Also, with New Vegas, mods are not available for Xbox 360. But, if you have a PC, FNV Ultimate Edition is currently available in the Steam Summer Sale for $9.99. That's less than I paid for just the DLCs.

Rule of thumb, no need to panic with this game unless someone starts shooting at you and you're out of ammo. With the reloading bench, there's no real reason to run out of ammo. Get Benny. He has it coming.
 
Millim said:
It really all depends on how you want to play the game. I usually go for the charismatic scientist, so I put my SPECIAL into Intelligence and Charisma mainly, with Agility being useful for energy weapons.
Then I pour my stats into Energy weapons, Speech and Science.
That way, it makes the game a lot .ore interesting for me.

If you want to shoot things, I'd recommend Agility and Perception while Melee is Strength and Endurance.
In terms of Perks, I'll go for Lady Killer, Confirmed Bachelor and Wild Wasteland. Those are my go to three whenever I play the game anyway.

New Vegas is a lot more forgiving in the 'Unplayable Character' camp than most RPGs. You won't really get your dick bitten off if you make a few mistakes and missteps, you should be fine for the most part.

Also, if you're planning on doing the DLC. I recommend this order;
Honest Hearts
Dead Money
Old World Blues
Lonesome Road

I say do HH first because it's the easiest and will allow you to level up a few times.
I'd suggest doing Dead Money around level 25.

I'm kind of envious of you tbh, you get to play New Vegas for the first time (I've been playing since release and I still find new stuff every playthrough).

On a side note, where abouts in the Midlands you based if you don't mind me asking?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice buddy, I live more on the Shropshire border about 10 miles from Marked Drayton :)
You local?
 
Ah it's Birmingham for me, although I'm away from it for a couple weeks
 
If ive read right im not supposed to talk about gameplay here correct?
If thats the case I'll set up a seperate thread for my stupid questions when I find the correct section :)
Had a quick play last night and cleared out the people attacking Goodspring.
I can tell im going to love this game :)
 
Strength is mostly just needed for weapon requirements. Even if you want to fight at close quarters, you can always still maximize the effectiveness of unarmed weapons without maxing it out.

Perception is not a big deal. It's a requirement for some of the better perks but otherwise, with your weapons skills up, it won't really matter in terms of accuracy. That whole 'detection range' thing where you see enemies sooner is kind of irrelevant when you can just tap VATS while looking around.

Endurance is nice to have, since it increases max hp, but there are lots of ways to avoid needing much of it.

Charisma is not important. You'll be swimming in caps without it if you manage your inventory well. Its speech checks aren't a big deal. Charisma perks are kinda boring.

Intelligence makes things much easier, as you get higher skill levels earlier and don't have to worry much about wasting skill points. It can come in handy in some conversations. 3 or lower is fun for dialogue reasons.

Agility is pretty useful if you use VATS, which you might not do much despite how all important it is in Fo3. Otherwise it's a perk requirement you might want to keep in mind.

Luck is really nice to have. Criticals make the biggest impact on damage output. Winning at Blackjack with 9 or 10 luck is helpful. There are two piecs of clothing that increase it IIRC.
 
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