Things you don't like

[Prone Squanderer]

Seeing as we've flogged the death out of how much Fallout 4 is terrible, what things in New Vegas do you not like? It can be something big or a nit-pick about the lore etc.

Playing the game recently I've gone for a character who carries a flamethrower. I don't mind the design of it, however I can't help but think it was done for the Rule of Cool rather than practicality (and yes I know it's a Fallout 3 design).

Look at the original Flamer from the first Fallout.

It doesn't have a big backpack and its grip is like any other gun (save the Minigun) so it would rest on the operator's hand instead of being pulled up. However the 3/NV Flamer not only has the big tank to carry, but the rest has to be held up by the trigger, which in my mind would tire out the operator faster since they have to actively hold it up.

Another thing about New Vegas I don't like is the fact Super Mutants don't appear to use their lips, they're constantly sneering. I understand why they are like that but I can't help but wonder how they can talk properly. I remember someone posting pics from a lost mod that changed their appearance to look more like Fallout 1's Super Mutants and they looked much better.

However this, like the Flamer, are really petty nit-picks so it doesn't kill New Vegas for me.

 

[Jogre]

I remember someone posting pics from a lost mod that changed their appearance to look more like Fallout 1's Super Mutants and they looked much better.

I found that mod.
http://www.mediafire.com/file/xt8x2n4bln2ldsp/Classic+FO+SM.rar

Although just a word of warning: Supermutant Masters seem to all look like Lou Tenant in this mod, when IMO Lou Tenant should be a unique Supermutant and not something many are modelled after, so if I were you I'd sort through the textures and apply them individually.

 

[Kohno]

what things in New Vegas do you not like?

Here's some:

- Iron sights
- Still focusing more on damage than accuracy with combat skills
- VATS not "repaired" enough
- Merging of certain skills
- Not reverting medic back to how doctor and first aid worked, and leaving stimpaks untouched by the skill
- Not getting rid of the skill thresholds and minigames from lockpicking and hacking
- The minute to minute gameplay is the same slow and dull trodding over empty terrain as it was in Fallout 3 and as it is in Fallout 4; it's nice for a while, but once you start going back and forth it really defeats the purpose the landscapes even existing and almost forces one to use that "safe travel" teleporting (at that point, the game gets reduced to hopping around the map checking off the backlog in the journal). Not good.
- And of course the lack of Legion content

 

[NMLevesque]

Flamethrowers should shoot liquid fuel, not gas, and therefore have a range of tens of meters. Fire shouldn't arbitrarily go out, and people shouldn't be able to survive being covered in it. Let alone the lack of smoke which is at least as dangerous.

The level design was weak, albeit due to time constraints. The aesthetic components are quite jarring in places, and the atmosphere never quite works. It isn't much fun to explore, and many areas become difficult to access due to stuttering/freezing/etc. Too much of the map is blocked off. Which in concert with the need to backtrack and zig zag your way across the map so much becomes quite tiring.

On a broader stroke, while I understand the point of a condensed world, I think there are better ways to make a good sandbox. What's the point of being able to walk continuously from one place to another if it just means loading screens, and awkward transition zones? I'd rather have the important placer be their own worldspaces, like the DLC maps, if it meant they would be fuller and less buggy. If people want to walk the wasteland in full, as opposed to finding generated worldspaces as they travel, then just throw in some proceduraly generated wilds. Set the shape of the landscape, set lists to draw from for the wildlife, and leave the rest to what I can only assume are algorithms. Then maybe we could have a car again, or a mount for that matter.

Overall just the untapped potential of the writing. There are so many things in game that could have been fleshed out more, and it's fairly obvious where and how it would be done. For one thing the history of most places and peoples just sort of abruptly starts not long before the game does. Earlier titles could focus on setting up the world but at this point, so far beyond the bombs, with very little left to say about 'how it all got started' the gaps in the lore become problematic. The Skyrim approach is definitely not the 'write' way. Slideshows are cheap to do, so just give the pc an imagination. Or maybe have wastelanders revive the lost art of comics, or murals, really any kind of graphic art that can be used to tell a story. People commemorate historical events this way all the time.

The different builds don't feel very unique. Mainly because it really only amounts to what kind of weapon you'll be using to kill someone, or which skills you'll neglect even though you really don't have to make any such compromises. Though it is difficult to give people true options when it's so freeform (which is how it should be), it feels like the overall design of the game necessitates letting players become good at everything. Instead of specializing in a certain approach and carrying that forward through your playthrough, it's more like the barriers are level based, as opposed to being choice based. That's probably fairly confusing, but it's hard to describe.

Either way, as far as combat goes they should have made the advantages and disadvantages of weapons more eccentric. Which would be relatively easy if the armor system had more types of resistance (though anti-melee armor seems to be missing, as are archers...), but I mean it in terms of function. e.g lasers shouldn't any spread, unless the air is made opaque. Which can happen if it's sufficiently heated, say by a laser beam or plasma bolt. Which would also reduce its damage by lowering the amount of light that reaches the target. So a laser should be problematic in prolonged engagements. It should also create a field hazard that can be seen as distorted air.

The absolute absence of tactics in battle.

That you can make Vegas independent but you can't really suggest that any of the settlements form a government of their own. I'm not even talking about being in control of said gov. I just mean that it's ridiculous you can't even bring up the possibility of anything other than rulers 1,2,3 or none of the above.

Not being able to reunite Christine and Veronica.

Having to take a bunch of companions along with me if I want a good ending, having to sequence my quests a certain way to accommodate their triggers, and being unable to simply take them all with me simultaneously so as to cut down on time.

Satchel charges, until I realize how easy it is to make them. Then I just get annoyed that they're about a billion times more effective on me than anything else.

 

[YeeCop]

The story. Gonna get hate for this, but it isn't any better than Fallout 3's story. It's basically "Aight this dude shot you in the head so go and track his ass btw Vegas is being fought for by Romans, neo-Americans, a 200 year old dude controlling a robot army, and a robot yes-man. So uhhhhh choose your faction lmao"

Even on Very Hard, there's really no need for explosives, at all really (this is biased since i don't use grenades in video games)

For the first time in a Fallout game, the Jackals and Vipers appear and not just mentioned in earlier titles. Yet by New Vegas this is way past their hey-days. Shame, cause the lore about the Vipers is so intriguing.

Not being able to reunite Christine and Veronica.

This.

Harold isn't in it. (thanks Bethesda )

That quest in the BoS bunker where you help Scribe Ibsen isolate the computer virus.

No Elvis songs for The Kings (although licensing an Elvis song for the game would mean big bucks, so I'll excuse that)

Not being able to work for the NCR and the Legion without the other threatening you for working for the other.

Not enough quests for Goodsprings.

You don't get to meet Mr. New Vegas (yes I know he's House-programmed AI)
What he looks like according to fan art:

Spoiler

Not having Marcus as a companion

Vaults are tedious to maneuver (looking at you, Vault 11 and 33)

Those PA systems in Dead Money that prematurely detonate your collar. Fuck them.

When you play "Saw Her Yesterday" in the Sierra Madre Theatre in order to confront Domino, it's just an excerpt of "Something's Gotta Give". C'mon, Obsidian. You could've commissioned an original song.

 

[Jogre]

Not being able to work for the NCR and the Legion without the other threatening you for working for the other.

That's fairly obvious isn't it?

Why would NCR hire you if you were openly working with there enemy, and vise versa.

Spoiler

Why would the runner of the most popular radio station in the Mojave wear torn clothes and work in an office with peeling off wallpaper?

 

[YeeCop]

That's fairly obvious isn't it?

Why would NCR hire you if you were openly working with there enemy, and vise versa.

Yeah, I know. You should be able to work for both of them as long as you don't do quests that piss off the other faction though.

Why would the runner of the most popular radio station in the Mojave wear torn clothes and work in an office with peeling off wallpaper?

Radio stations and their respectable DJs don't earn a lot of money IIRC. Given that the radio program doesn't earn much caps and doesn't draw as much water as the Three Casinos, Mr. House/the public doesn't care much for maintaining the quality of the Radio New Vegas studio. Hence the torn wallpaper and such.

 

[joevonzombie]

I hate the fact they were mandated to use a central location and that they had to use Fallout 3 as a template.

 

[rockitten]

The absolute absence of tactics in battle.

That you can make Vegas independent but you can't really suggest that any of the settlements form a government of their own. I'm not even talking about being in control of said gov. I just mean that it's ridiculous you can't even bring up the possibility of anything other than rulers 1,2,3 or none of the above.

Not being able to reunite Christine and Veronica.

Having to take a bunch of companions along with me if I want a good ending, having to sequence my quests a certain way to accommodate their triggers, and being unable to simply take them all with me simultaneously so as to cut down on time.

Satchel charges, until I realize how easy it is to make them. Then I just get annoyed that they're about a billion times more effective on me than anything else.

All FPS right now has that AI issue, FNV is not alone. Even game developers admit that's the major bottleneck, let's wish someday we have an "alphaGO for FPS".......

For Veronica, pity I can't bang Cass or Veronica ^^

For the "king maker" argument, I agrees, also, many "minor" factions such as Boomers, BoS and Nev Vegas are beneficial to the stalemate between Legions and NCR, they should dissent about courier's "whole heart support" for either side. In my head canon, a total victory for NCR mean doom to BoS, Freeside, Boomers and kings, so doom the whole west coast BoS are forced to make "great expedition" (a.k.a, the great retreat of ten thousands) east because of that.

Also:

1. Not enough story arc for minor factions such as powder gangers
2. Neckseams

 

[Kohno]

The story. Gonna get hate for this, but it isn't any better than Fallout 3's story.

I think you are basically right, the core storyline is really nothing special; nor was it in the originals ("go find waterchip, end mutant threat", "go find GECK, end Enclave threat") if you distill them to their very core. The difference, however, to Fallout 3 and 4 is that in 1, 2, NV that core is just the initial/background motivation for the character to start and keep moving, and the actual storyline comes from how you choose to handle your journey (as presented in the endingslides and in-game reactivity). In Beth Fallouts all you have is the main quest and some random meaningless shit nobody gives a fuck about.

That said, the initial motivator in NV could've been better... The "Find Benny and chip" didn't really ring all that important to a character who had just cheated death.

 

[naossano]

Fillers, lot of fillers.

 

[joevonzombie]

I think you are basically right, the core storyline is really nothing special; nor was it in the originals ("go find waterchip, end mutant threat", "go find GECK, end Enclave threat") if you distill them to their very core. The difference, however, to Fallout 3 and 4 is that in 1, 2, NV that core is just the initial/background motivation for the character to start and keep moving, and the actual storyline comes from how you choose to handle your journey (as presented in the endingslides and in-game reactivity). In Beth Fallouts all you have is the main quest and some random meaningless shit nobody gives a fuck about.

That said, the initial motivator in NV could've been better... The "Find Benny and chip" didn't really ring all that important to a character who had just cheated death.

I've always held that the original games and New Vegas don't really have main stories, they have core objectives like you said, the story is what the player does along the way. I think not understanding this core concept plays a huge part in what Bethesda gets wrong about the series.

 

[Kohno]

I've always held that the original games and New Vegas don't really have main stories, they have core objectives like you said, the story is what the player does along the way. I think not understanding this core concept plays a huge part in what Bethesda gets wrong about the series.

That seems to be the gist of it, yes. There's a narrative spine that holds things up and in motion, and around that you build your storyline with the games reactivity.

 

[Millim]

That said, the initial motivator in NV could've been better... The "Find Benny and chip" didn't really ring all that important to a character who had just cheated death

I think this was the entire point to be honest.
I'll give the plot a pass as I actually really like it, but I don't mind the initial hook being something that the Player may not give a crap about.

Too many times in RPGs we are forced to care about something we may not, Fallout 3 gave us a story where we were pretty much forced into the quest of finding the Father of the Lone Wonderer or Fallout 4 where we were forced to find our Son.
One of Fallout 1's drawbacks was the Timer (which I have said many times is one of my favourite aspects in the game) but it forces people to give a damn about something they may not care about.

Now we have New Vegas, where the underlining story sets us on a path, yet reaching that path opens up a whole sub-plot which expands to being part of the main quest.

One of my issues with Skyrim is how the Civil War storyline felt like a background story and not the main story.
In Skyrim, I would have preferred it if the Civil War was brought to the front with the Dragon Stuff being a side thing which is then brought forward.

One of my favourite scenes in New Vegas is when you first go to Nipton and you find it's been completely wiped out. Here we meet Ceaser. What makes this scene so great is how we weren't told much about them beforehand, yet we understand in one scene how much of a threat they are. This scene wouldn't be as effective without an initial hook.
It's essentially the introduction to greater things.

Not only that, but with our understanding of the NCR, we understand fully there is a conflict, and that conflict builds up throughout.

Compare this to Skyrim where we meet the leader of one group, and then a Dragon attacks the Town.
Any other opening would have worked here. We should have been following the Civil War story, and possibly during a Siege, we find a Dragon has already attacked the Town.
This leads to bigger things where the leader of whomever you've chosen tasks you with investigating.
Then we learn about the return of the Dragons which then puts both sides of the War to have a truce and take down the Dragons together.
We could have some build-up like maybe have a preacher talk about the return of the Dragons or a crazy guy explain that he saw one.

So no, the initial hook of being something that the player does not care about isn't a mark against the game.
It's actually a plus as that's how RPGs should be.
You're Role-Playing a character, setting yourself these kind of limitations don't work if it plays against your character.

 

[Kohno]

I don't mind the initial hook being something that the Player may not give a crap about.

Too many times in RPGs we are forced to care about something we may not

Yeah, this is true of course. But I think the problem - at least the one I had - is more about the PC's problem being hard to relate to, not necessarily so much "care".

In my opinion a better one to put things in motion would've already been a simple "The wound in your head has some complications. An infection might kill you; go find antibiotics somewhere. Oh, and aspirin. If the infection doesn't kill you, the headache will." and from there on, what starts out as a rather mundane (but relatable) task - "follow the doc's orders" - things suddenly and unexpectedly start to escalate and maybe a good reason to find that Benny dude would come up.

 

[R.Graves]

but it isn't any better than Fallout 3's story.

Yeah it is. Almost objectively. Fallout 3 is laughable with How many plot holes it has.

I don't like, instant ghouls, running ghouls, lack of legion content, inclusion of zetans. That's all.

 

[NMLevesque]

I don't see how one can compare the stories of Fo3 and NV. They're nothing alike. Fo3 decides who your character is for you, and literally nothing outside of the main quest has anything to do with it. It's linear and has fewer choices which also happen to be borderline meaningless. NV had actual themes, and conflicts that you could immerse yourself in because they dominated the atmosphere of the game. There was a philosophy behind the factions, not some crude caricature of something the developers didn't understand. It was original. No vault, no quest for a piece of technology which provides basic amenities (water, food, oh look it's water again). Instead we had a story that didn't even shoehorn us into the role of the avenger. Your motivations are your own. In Fo3 you had to care about Liam Neeson. You had to care about his stupid project, and all that other crap. Not to mention how much better the antagonists/allies were, and the lore behind it. Fo3 just sort of exists, and then stuff happens when you start playing. NV had the weight of history behind it.

 

[CourierFour]

The "Wasteland" part.

I'm not entirely sure what an actual wasteland looks like, but boy do the likes of Fallout 1 & 3 invoke a great feeling of it. The Mojave, while i like it, doesn't do that. I know that the lore states the Mojave was spared most of the bombardment by House's L38 defense system but couldn't it have been just the city proper?

Perhaps if Obsidian had more time they would've addressed this as the game map isn't finished. So much empty space on the map that contains draft geometry.

 

[naossano]

I think it was too wasteland-ish to my taste, considering the place is supposed to attract so many population. There shouldn't be any abandoned farm\ruins so close to it.

 

[Lexx]

Ffs, people, stop with this bullshit "Fo3 is the better wasteland", because it is not. It looks random as fuck with no coherence. Everything looks the same as well and no, Bethesda sure as fuck did NOT create the better gameworld.

Yes FNV looks pale at times and empty of clutter, but you can blame the engine and console hardware for that. Most people probably dont even know how much scenery content had to be cut after release just to keep the game smooth and support additional dlc content. If you want to compare, look at the Wasteland Uncut mod comparison screenshots. The difference is extreme. And then people cry about FNV being empty of details, lel.

About bombed shit: It's over 200 years after the war. At some point humans start to clean up places they live in... well not in D.C. apparently. Besides, if at all, New Vegas would probably need more humans. All of these outside farms have no reason to be abandoned. Especially with the crops still around and no visible threat nearby.

Urg, everytime when I read someone write "Bethesda should have done the world design", I just want to start a nuclear holocause on my own.

/Edit:

Playing the game recently I've gone for a character who carries a flamethrower. I don't mind the design of it, however I can't help but think it was done for the Rule of Cool rather than practicality (and yes I know it's a Fallout 3 design).

Look at the original Flamer from the first Fallout.

View attachment 8813

It doesn't have a big backpack and its grip is like any other gun (save the Minigun) so it would rest on the operator's hand instead of being pulled up. However the 3/NV Flamer not only has the big tank to carry, but the rest has to be held up by the trigger, which in my mind would tire out the operator faster since they have to actively hold it up.

I've worked on this for a while:
http://i.cubeupload.com/OPBt38.jpg
http://i.cubeupload.com/gWkGA3.jpg
http://i.cubeupload.com/KF32N6.jpg
3d model was done by me, the texture by some russian.. don't have the name anymore, eh. Never saw a release, because it still has bugs and I am a lazy piece of shit.