The sniper rifles are so powerful it makes me cry.

The Deathclaw promontory was with the hardest location in the whole game for me. If 5 and more Deathclaws are running towards you in a small area, it's kind of a "reload now"-sign already.

I've managed it after lots of try&error to clean up with my Anti-Materiel rifle. Guess I wouldn't have made it with any other weapon, because I needed to ninja-kill as much Deathclaws as possible with as much headshots as possible.

 

Nah, that's what the Alien Blaster is for. Half a dozen Deathclaws charging from different directions at once all end up in piles of blue dust before they can even reach you.

 

I really didn't have much problem with that area, but then, a sniper rifle seems to be a Deathclaw's best friend. Juiced up on drugs and with a Stealth Boy active, it's not that much trouble.

 

Sneak and the Sniper Rifle pretty much broke the game for me. With a suppressor, you can kill people at will, hidden and nobody else notices the dead body.

 

Yip - as long as you are "hidden" (^^) you can kill almost everybody (except quest related npcs) without anybody noticing it. I e.g. once killed a MP inside the NCR embassy - with another guy sitting just 1m away.

As for killing deathclaw - you just need crouch down on a ledge or something like that. AI / pathfinding can´t handle that. Well, and a sniper who can´t be reached is the winner. But it is a shame that you have to use sniper gear / coward tactics - a minigun should by design just cut through deathclaw crowds.

 

I tried sneak criting a veteran Ranger.. in the head.. but lost no health..?

 

whats about this hate for the sniper rifles ... I have trouble to get it ...

Dont get wrong, I dont see it as insult. But really as someone mentioned how much can you talk about balance in a singleplayer game when its only the player that cares about. Sure it can become a cakewalk. BUT not from the first day you play the game ! With a high leveled character using the best armor, best weapons with the highest skills. Why should he not just fear only very few enemies in the wasteland ? Thats why I level up god damnit

For example. If you make the snipers so weak that they become useless there is no reason in using them. Second you will not get always everywhere amunition for it, its enough sure, but its not the 10mm or 9mm I tell you. Third the sniper particularly the gobi rifle are not available to you at the very begining, the crate which has the rifle needs a lock pick skill of 100 AND you need some high skills in guns to be a one-hit-wonder with the snipers. I also in the 2-3 times I played the game now didnt found that many sniper rifles in the wastes ~ doesnt mean there are no one around, just that they are not as common like the caravan shootgun for example.

I can see why you think its powerfull but for me its part of beeing a "sniper". As one can read with the experience Lexx had, you are powerfull but when youre surounded by 5 deathclaws its reload-time and I had those too, with ghouls, robots and cazadours. The second time I got the sniper I thought it would be easy now, quite the opposite. Radscorpions ... have a nasty sting. Its not always that easy.

Also to say that, some people are gunslingers with small arms like the colts and such. Some use energy weapons like the gaus rifle killing everything in their way. Others do it with shootguns and fear no enemy with the right weapons and skills. They all could be seen as "overpowered" when its simply to have a choice. Certain meele weapons do a lot more then 100 damage and can kill everything in close combat. Does it mean they are overpowered ? No. You have to give those that love meele something they can use effectively or its a useless item.

The real problem with the sniper is the dump AI one might say as they dont care if the head of their friend next to them exploded if you scored a critical sneak attack. Every other inteligent beeing would search for cover as fast as possible.

I think in the end it really comes down to what kind of weapon you prefer as eventually the player will ALWAYS find ways to exploit every advantage he has. Be it with a sword, rifle or what ever else you have. Its just the way it is. The only thing I find a bit "sad" is the heavy weapons like minigun, machinegun etc. which even with high skills eat so much amunition that I personaly found them useless so I changed their spread and acuracy a bit with the GECK which makes now less of a miss weapon at least on point blank range dont want them to make snipers but you know when the enemy is just 5 meters from you I want to hit them. Well ... the same of course counts for enemies using them.

I am not sure but I think its cause of the auto aim feature ... eventually.

happens to me somtimes as well. Even with 100 in guns and all relevant gun skills very high, I aim for the head, but the guy is just droping his weapon with full health!

I never understood what "auto aim" has to search in a PC shooter game with a mouse ...

Luckily there are ways to fix that
*Modders doing developers work since ... ever I think.

 

I dont see them as "better then anything else" just in competition with "anything else" which is the way how it should be in my eyes. You can be in many situations either as good or even better with other weapons, like the balistic fist or bumper sword and high meele skills.

~ I do agree the AA rifle and gobi rifle are kinda powerfull even in close combat, if you have enough space around to walk backwards. But I mean ... a 50 cal to the head of a raider that is simply "only" using a football helmet as protection should leave some impression.

 

For some reason this doesn't work for me - I still get the reputation drop even if there's noone to see it... Or do followers count as observers?

 

The Followers don´t like violence, so ... *scnr*

Nah, but having companions with you might be the problem - as they likely want to join the fight. But it definately works. After upgrading the Securitrons, I e.g. sneaked up the stairs only that far to see the head of the "give-me-all-your-weapons-before-you-leave-this-shack"-guy, and sniped him down. Then just walked normally out of the room - the other legionairs doesn´t bother. They surely see him dying, but the point is they didn´t see me shooting.

To me, that is not the point - it´s more like you end up being forced to use a sniper rifle in some situations - because all other weapons fail. If you e.g. play a big gun character, you can either ignore all deathclaws in your playthrough, or buy a sniper rifle. A deathclaw laughs about 200 AP 5.56 mm bullets (fully upgraded LMG) and wouldn´t the ai be forced to attack you, it would just ignore you if it sees you are wielding a minigun - as that high tier weapon does 0.0 % damage.

 

even with armour pearcing amunition ? I know it can be hard to come by and I do absolutely agree that weapons like the minigun (in my eyes) are ... useless, but at least the machinegun should leave some impression with armor pearcing rounds. Of course when youre surounded by deathclaws ... I doubt there is much you can do, with any weapon. There is this cave ... where it happens to be FULL of deathclaws with one LEGENDARY deathclaw inside even, and just as you open the door you have to fight 3 of them alone. Well ... now thats fun.

I think something that would have made the sniper weapons better would be better scripted AI. In both F3 and Vegas the AI is extremly dump, not only people will always charge at you but you can kill them with ranged weapons one by one. Every living beeing that has half a brain would flee and search for cover. Not to mention a human.

By the way since for some the snipers seem to be the best alround weapons, I am curious how do you handle with the sniper fights with 5 deathclaws around you which happen to be close enough to hug you ? Walking backwards and preshing VATS like crazy all the time ?

 

My biggest problem is that sniper rifle ammo is SO common ... when I am level 24 on my Cowboy Character and am using 44 mags because 45-70govt rounds are so fucking sparce I practically have to pray to Jesus that a shop might hold 5 regular rounds since you can't break down hollow point rounds even with hand loader ... I mean wtf ... I can easily pick up the sniper rifle and craft .308JSP rounds and basically turn Gobi Sniper into a "Brush Gun" same DAM just looks gay for a cowboy to be using oh let's not forget it has a long range scope on it ...

 

Anyways Screw sniper rifles I just cleared Death Wind Cavern (DeathClaw Santuary) on Very Hard with Melee only and I threw a right cross that litterally knocked The Legendary Death on his ass and thanks to Turbo and my other chems I survived his first attack and I got to curb stomp the Legendary Deathclaw to Death. (When Oppenents are on the ground your unarmed VATS attack is called stomp apparently).

 

Ok and to prove my point as to why unarmed is the bomb ... 16xTurbo and 5xSlasher/Psycho/Med-X/True Police Stories/Stealth Boys/Buff Out/Cateye and 60xStimpacks and SuperStimpacks Gave me the power to litterally run through Dead Wind Cavern in like 2 minutes. (When you stack things the time duration on them double the two times I was hit my health stayed at max) ... Could of been because it was a lucky young deathclaw and I had 520/460 HP (buff out gives you 60 temp HP) but I ran through the whole ordeal just hit R1 as fast as possible. Everything bows down before the Drug Addicted Fist of Bane (Bane has been my character since fallout 1 ... Drug Addict Paladin of the BoS know for getting the job done ... by whatever means possible)

 

Certain stores sell a plenty of those rounds. Like the BoS store, and, so I hear, the one near Great Khans. Also, you can craft it, no?

Seriously, I just don't get all these arguments about "my character build is better than yours" type of thing. There's lots of different fun ways to play this game, this is what makes it great. There's satisfaction in both mauling deathclaws to the ground with your bare hands, and taking out a whole enemy camp without them even noticing with a sniper rifle.

 

Its not just that sniper rifles are OP, its also that big guns\explosive are pathetically weak. And energy weapons are not that great either.
Oh well, hopefully good rebalance mod will come for the time I want to replay NV.

 

Energy weapons are fine, really fun to play but a bit dangerous for companions who like to get melee for friendly fire reasons. The biggest energy weapon downside is that there's a lot less variety than guns, as well as a lot fewer modding options. That and, most laser weps don't have ironsights.

 

Aye - and you get the good modells quite early. E.g. the Laser RCW is a very good allrounder weapon - especially against cazadors

The Spray´n Pray perk helps to minimize friendly fire. But I agree, the modding is a bit boring - you can´t even mod your pistols.

The Laser pistol has a huge clip from the very beginning - that could´ve been splitted with a modification.