I do love that you ask me if I've ever even played Fallout when your entire post makes it very clear you haven't.
Quite amusing if I do say so myself.
1. Where were those invisible walls in Fallout 3? I went through it 3 times and the only invisible walls I ever ran into were at the edge of the map or in the DLC. If I could hop up on a rock and hop over something, the game let me do it. In New Vegas, this was not the case in lots of areas. Even if I could hop up on top of a rock with the ability to hop over to something else, blam! Invisible Wall. They were everywhere in New Vegas, made the game feel like it was punishing me for exploring and being clever. Where were they in New Vegas? Go to the dam, you can't get up on the rock wall where you can crash the Vertibird or the small rock behind the Visitor's Center (the Visitor Center one is particularly egregious because all you'd need to do is hop the very small concrete railing on the second floor of the place to land on it... But, the game doesn't let you. You can't even hop off the top of the Visitor's Center where the Virtibird lands!), um, you can't hop up on the rock wall at the Quarry where the Death Claws are (from either side!). There's some rocks near Cazador nests along the west side of the map that the game doesn't let you climb up on, blocking you with invisible walls. These are just what I've run into on my most recent playthrough. These things are so frequent that I remember them being a huge issue and annoyance for me. I don't remember any invisible walls in Fallout 3. In fact, I got stuck in a lot of places in Fallout 3 due to my exploration where I had to fast travel to get unstuck, because I was in places the developers hadn't intended me to go, and didn't put invisible walls there to keep me out. So, if you say they were "as frequent", then I'd love to know where they are, so I can check for myself.
2. How was melee combat more varied? It was still "mash attack until win" in New Vegas as it was in Fallout 3. I'm not sure what you consider "varied". Maybe the "more perks dedicated to it" is what you're talking about? If more perks dedicated to it makes it "more varied" for you, then I can't help you when your definition of "varied" is wrong. Enemies blocking wasn't the problem. The problem was that they did it constantly with no penalty for doing it. The bigger enemies not only blocked you, but also knocked you backwards as you swung your weapon so you would miss when they wouldn't block. If we were going to "fix" the melee system in Fallout, I would've expected the one we got in Skyrim instead. That one just works a lot better than what we got in New Vegas. New Vegas, it was always just better to pull out a gun on melee fighters because they'd block you and make it a test of patience instead of skill or stats to fight them. Meanwhile, using a melee weapon (or unarmed!) against people using a gun was the same as it ever was in Fallout 3. The only real change that New Vegas brought to melee was simply the need to carry a gun to shoot the melee fighters while making melee combat exactly the same for anyone not using a melee weapon. If you call that "more varied", then I simply can't help you and your low standards.
3. I never said this was a bad thing. You're essentially taking offense at something because you're looking for a fight. You aren't looking to offer valid criticism at this point, you aren't even looking for a discussion. You're here to start a fight and little more. Since you can't read, let me reiterate: This is a list of
differences I saw between Fallout 3 and New Vegas. I know you've got 5,362 posts under your belt... But, if they're as bad as this one... I can only imagine what the rest are like. My guess so far is that you run around the forums basically trying to pick fights and troll people out of spite, not because you care about the series. In the more mature forums I frequent, you'd have probably been banned for being deliberately inflammatory. I am not here to be bullied, harassed, or to compare e-peen sizes. I'm here because I love Fallout. This will go a lot smoother if you stop trying to pick fights with everyone. Being a fan is
inclusionary, not exclusionary. That being said... The accuracy reduction between games really didn't change combat at all. I missed more often, sure, but since ammo drops like crazy in both games... It's not like the misses were really that important. Especially since the melee fighters always get closer so your accuracy goes up and the ranged fighters only slowly strafe side to side and never try to keep their distance from you (which means you can close distance to them, and increase accuracy). Basically, accuracy as a stat in both games really only truly mattered if you were sniping. Anything else... It didn't matter much.
4. Quests were less consequential in New Vegas. Sure, you get a little slide show at the end for some of them that tell you what happened... But largely, they mean nothing to the game. Fix the irradiated water or let the people in the irradiated vault go? Neither decision affects the storyline at all. Sure, it says they do via the slideshow, but it really doesn't. The most effect you see from that quest is if you help the people escape the Vault and they move in to the Aerotech Offices or whatever that place is called. They don't offer you thanks, they don't give you anything, they're just pointless NPCs. Do the sharecroppers really thank you if you fix the water? Nope. Much of the time, they go on repeating that there's something wrong with the water, even after the Quest is done in their favor. What about the Quests in the irradiated town? You run around, kill Ghouls, a few Radscorpions, the quests complete, and you get nothing and accomplished nothing. Well, you get some pointlessly mediocre loot, I guess, but there's no impact on the story or any location. What about even the beginning Questline where you're running the tutorial and you can save that NPC? Any consequence for doing so? Nope. Not even any Karma. How about for killing the Powder Gangers at the Prison? No consequence for that either. Even if you're Villified, they still let you into the Vault to complete that Questline. Even if they're wiped out at the Prison, they continue to respawn at their encampments and thrown dynamite at you. New Vegas has a crapload more Quests, but a vast majority of them don't do anything, even if the slideshow tells you they did. If you're asking about my playing the games... Yeah, all the way to the end for four endings and another Play Through on Hardcore. The main Storyline Quests were interesting and consequential, but every single sidequest in the game did absolutely nothing to the game world except sometimes triggered the slideshow to talk about it. If you really cared about "picking a side", then New Vegas is for you. I don't really care about picking sides in most games. To be honest, I care more about the fact that neither game really does anything with its Karma systems or even Reputation systems (save for people hunt you down and kill you if you're hated... The other end of the spectrum? They do jack and squat). No consequences for being good or evil karma. I care more about that than being able to pick "which side of the fight I'm on". If we're being honest, I don't know why the Courier is involved in the New Vegas plotline at all. He gets his revenge (if you choose to take it) and you deliver the chip as you were told to... You could leave and go about your business being a Courier again. But, for some inexplicable and unexplained reason... You become the deciding factor of who wins the war over Hoover Dam, even though your character really shouldn't care about it at all, and should probably get his butt back to work delivering packages. It's quite silly as far as plots go. How about the Star Bottle Cap quest? Consequential at all? How about the one where you help the Ghouls fly rockets? Consquential? How about Helios One? That one is only consequential if you killed the NCR, or you rigged the place to let you use the C-Finder once a day. How about finding the teddy bear for the little Boomer girl? Finding the missing pistol for the Brotherhood? How about getting the NCR troops better food and getting that Food Additive? Consequential? Getting Primm their sheriff? That list just goes on and on and on for "Quests that serve no consequence in game". Yeah, some of them affect the slideshow... But, since the slideshow is non-canon (it has to be so that different factions can win), you can't say anything in the slideshow is of any consequence. Especially if there are "multiple endings" for anything in the slideshow... which means they're non-canon as well. I'd also just like to point out... That I'm pretty sure New Vegas was the first game in the franchise that allowed you to side with any faction. Pretty sure Fallout 1 and 2 didn't allow you to side with anyone 'cept who the storyline dictated and any deviation resulted in "non standard game over". You have to fight and kill the Super Mutants in Fallout 1 (no way to side with them) and you have to fight the Enclave in 2 (no way to side with them). You can sort of side with the Enclave in 3, since they want the same thing you want, they just want you to dump the Modified FEV into the water to essentially kill all "non pure" humans as well as anything that exists due to radiation. But, actually siding with them as a faction in the same way you side with the Brotherhood is essentially screwing canon of the franchise in the butthole just so players can be evil Nazis. But hey, if you put the FEV in the water, you sided with them! And made sure that not even you can drink the water, 'cause it'll kill you! Yes, you're a wastelander baby in Fallout 3, that stuff would kill you, it's designed to.
7. Both fallout games were buggy as crap. I just noticed it a LOT more in New Vegas (like enemies constantly stuck in geometry or the Brotherhood Companion never triggering her quest dialogues, or other companions never triggering their dialogues... Or quests outright bugging and being unfinishable). Fallout 3 was just better optimized. New Vegas feels like it was put together in about a year with no testing. That's not to say I hate New Vegas. As I've said, I prefer it to Fallout 3. It's just that I have a lot more complaints about New Vegas than Fallout 3. See, I'm a reasonable and rational human being, I can find fault in things I enjoy. I can admit when things are subpar because I don't have silly emotional investment in inanimate objects. The worst I ever saw in Fallout 3 was an occasional crash or a freeze. New Vegas was significantly more problematic in nearly every single second of play. As for "it barely ran on Windows 7"... Eh, I'd say that's a problem of your platform. Runs on Xbox 360 just fine! Maybe it's just that games are naturally inherently buggier on PCs because of the myriad of hardware any PC could have installed and that makes it harder to nail down any kind of "specs" to run a game? Just my assumption anyway. Regardless, the console versions were far more stable, it sounds like, and in that regard, New Vegas was much more buggy and screwed up than Fallout 3 was. Take from that what you will. Just don't get all "PC Elitist" on me. I haven't the time or patience for such a childish debate of console vs PC.
8. Yes, more useless Perks. Look at the three you get access to at level 50, for instance. Aside from "nobody can critical hit you", they're basically worthless and are reliant on your Karma to obtain. Or, how about "you now get more efficient recycling recipes at a work bench!". Yeah, because I'm not tripping over new ammo constantly and I need to recycle ammo. "Fire attacks do more damage!" Okay, that affects... two weapons? Two weapons I don't use in New Vegas because of the constant blocking of one of them and the scarcity (and Heavy Weapon status) of ammo of the other one? How about the perk for "now you can do more damage with revolvers!" Do I really need that? No. I can take it, sure, but not taking it doesn't hinder gameplay, or even the usefulness of the revolvers. How about bonus accuracy to headshots with guns? Lots of those Perks in the game. Never needed them because the AI was so stone dead retarded that taking these Perks was essentially wasting the already limited Perks. You could take the melee combat Perks (and boy howdy was there a lot of them!), but you really wouldn't except for Role Playing purposes (back to my point of just shooting melee fighters while using melee against ranged fighters). There were perks to give you more Action Points in V.A.T.S., but did you really need them? Not really. The only one you needed was getting 20 points back when you make a kill. The game was so easy, even on Hardcore, that a shotgun to the face often killed most enemies in a single hit. So, V.A.T.S. one guy in the head, he dies, you get 20 points to do it to the next guy, so on, so forth, never needing more than a single Perk to help out in V.A.T.S., which renders all other Perks that give you action points pretty much worthless (as well as putting points into Agility). Perks to give you more DT were likewise fairly worthless. Once you get Power Armor (which you can do before ever hitting level 12... in fact, the earliest I ever obtained it was Level 10), you're fairly invincible to anything 'cept a Deathclaw in Hardcore Mode. 1 extra DT here or 3 extra DT there really doesn't make much of a difference. Well, unless you're Role Playing and don't want to use Power Armor. In fact, those extra DTs really don't make much of a difference if you're rocking any kind of halfway decent gun and blow enemies away in a couple shots. Perks for food healing more... Eh, worthless, even in Hardcore Mode. Food items that are worthwhile contain ingredients that are fairly uncommon and are thus unreliable as healing items. You're better off with Stimpacks and Super Stims... Chems lasting longer is only useful in Hardcore Mode and only for Stimpacks. But, you'll be rolling in Stimpacks for most New Vegas anyway... so you can safely sell food and even ignore Survival (save for anti-venom or snake-bite tourniquets). There's a Perk for "repairing any like item with any other like item". Not really that useful as the guns you'll mostly be using are guns that are fairly frequent in the Mojave anyway, so there's no reason to need to "repair with like items", unless you're deliberately using some weird obscure gun type that doesn't show up often. Like maybe a Sniper Rifle. Then there's the "Explosions are bigger!" Perk. Sounds cool and useful... The problem is, the places this is useful are also places with high civilian counts. Places where it isn't useful, you won't even be using a rocket launcher. Plus, if you take that, then you also have to waste another Perk on the "extra DT against self-inflicted Explosions" since a majority of the time, the only way you're going to be fighting enemies grouped up enough to use explosives on... Is if they're charging your position and getting into melee range. Plus, since companions are a thing now in New Vegas, you'd have to waste a THIRD Perk on the whole "companions take less damage from friendly fire" with the "bigger explosions" perk if you're playing on Hardcore. New Vegas is just littered with Perks that serve no real purpose except if you're trying to Role Play. The only Perks I ever found useful were ones that allowed me to carry more stuff. Or maybe increase my stats. I never took anything for "extra damage against X", because even in Hardcore Mode, that was a massive waste of a Perk... They were just made completely unnecessary. Rad Resistance Perks are always useless (or any Perk to do with radiation) because Radiation is such a non-issue in Fallout 3 and New Vegas that these would never come into play except if you were Role Playing. Same with "if you're crippled, you do 10% more damage for each crippled limb". Such a non-issue that it isn't even worth wasting the Perk on. Even in Hardcore, I never had a shortage of Doctor's Bags. Guess what? They heal ALL crippled limbs, not just one. Crippling often happened to me because I got hit with an explosive and not 'cause of any other form of combat. So, I rarely ever had to fight crippled, and the few times I did, that extra damage would've been pointless since I was already killing in single hits. I'm sorry, but if a perk is only useful to roleplaying, I consider it a waste and a worthless Perk. Because there are so many of these "Perks for Role Playing Purposes" in New Vegas, I consider there to be a far larger "worthless Perk" stock in New Vegas than in Fallout 3. I consider a "useful Perk" to be a Perk that you take because without it, the game is far more difficult to play. Useful perks are near mandatory, taken almost every playthrough. Useless Perks are ones that are so specific as to be useless to every playthrough except ones that are built around taking it (also known as Role Playing).
EDIT: Also, this is wall of text. If that last post took you more than a minute and a half to read... I think you need practice ~_^ Your reply to it probably took longer than it would've taken to read it. This one, on the other hand... Good luck if you made it this far! That's the beauty of Message Boards. You don't have to read it all in one sitting, you can come back later. Or read it over the course of a week. None of it needs immediate response ~_^
