LadyCrimson

I completely agree. It's called designers giving the player choices to do as they will. If the will isn't strong enough to NOT use those things, that's not the game's problem. Now, if my personal desire for combat challenge was 'fixed' just by not using a sniper rifle, I'd be fine with that, and conclude that the game wasn't 'easy' so much as only that one weapon is overpowered, so I should stop using it. But with a lot of testing & trials, for me at least, it's NOT just because of one weapon. It's the whole general concept of how dmg/weapons/DT blah blah works. But again, not trying to say there should be any mandatory change. Would just like another difficulty option. I personally would have no problem with this. Actually, I'd have no problem with a game that had no character-level at all, IF it was a well designed system. You could gain skill/stat increases in other ways besides "ding I'm lvl 18, time to spend points!" But the progressive clvl concept is so old and tried and true it's hard to alter it. People expect it, want it, etc.

Same here. They're raising the lvl cap? I hope it only applies to the DLC because the vanilla game doesn't need a higher lvl cap re:skills and such. Slaves to the clvl #....

Multiple companions....one overpowered companion can be a joyful hoot....having two op'd human npc's is (mostly) solid, amusing fun as well, since it feels like they're working as a team, in a way. But having three human companions becomes less fun and more just random chaos, especially verbally. I think I'll stick to two...one that I keep all the time and the other slot for rotating the others in and out.

I think I'd probably prefer sneaking past the deathclaws via Slovic to Neil's Shack and then doing the blk mt. quest as intended, but that's very good to know for when I want to mess around, thanks.

All right....if you want a gun/ranged companion but want to be Legion, get Raul. He's as good as Boone with guns and his Perk that slows down equipment decay is nice. He also acts as Repair merchant (still costs caps) but that part is a little buggy at the moment. If you know where he is/what to expect & prepare for it, you can probably get him around lvl 8-10 with no problem. Just do not speak to Ranger Andy before you get Raul, if you care about doing his side quest. Do not. Mostly, he's the Legion version of Boone/Arcade, because Raul is neutral in that regard. He has no faction loyalty like Veronica, either, far as I can tell. Good option for those reasons. Hard for me to develop a 'schoolgirl' crush on him tho, what with all his "Yes boss" servant attitude and rotting skin. But he is funny.

I picked Raul up a bit ago, and if you like npc's that have interesting/amusing things to say on a regular basis, Raul is the one. Seems like half the time when I click on him he has some comment before the dialogue options actually pop up. Very random things, long sentences. I'm not sure how many of these bits there are or if they'll stop or just keep repeating eventually, but Raul's definitely a cool cat. Too bad his quest is so utterly broken. I mean, is anyone going to go to Black Mt. before Novac? Probably not. He's also a pistol or rifle guns dude and good with 'em. I dunno...I think all the companions can do those things, virumor. I've seen Boone, Arcade and now Raul one shot stuff from great distances. Seems about equal to me, just depends on land configuration/their position, the weapon, stuff like that. I took Arcade & Boone to the quarry last night and they dropped all the deathclaws including the Mother like flies with no help from me. I think they were competing for headcount. :D (edit) I'm not sure the multiple companion mods don't create some conflicts in minor ways...nothing terrible but they do get confused sometimes. Also, in Vault 19, with those keyed doors that close behind you after you step through them, either Boone or Arcade kept getting 'trapped' behind doors because they tend to follow single-file and for some reason I can't get far enough away from the door to make the 2nd one follow, before the door shuts. I know when I had Boone/ED-E this wasn't a problem, so I guess the mod I'm using spaces them too far apart? Not sure. It annoyed me enough I left the Vault. lol

I don't hate enemy scaling with a passion, but I do recall purposely avoiding leveling in MW & Oblivion because it happened too rapidly and unexpectedly. The point about companion weapon skills/crit multipliers is that they'd still be quite strong when they're not lvl 100, because they're AI aimbots who don't have to use a control pad/mouse and eyes/hands to aim and a little more binary sway isn't going to make their scripts super-weak. They'd miss slightly more often, use a little more ammo because of it, do a little less dmg. and less instant-death shots...but they'd still be pretty powerful and you could still rely on them fairly well for non-combat builds. As to difficulty/xp....we've already gone thru that one. I'd never suggest a mandatory change for that. They could implement an optional one perhaps, because not everyone is playing on the moddable PC. Something akin to the Diablo2 single-player /players8 thing, perhaps, only you could have it be another difficulty option ala Hardcore, to cut xp. gained in half or whatever.

@mkreku - you probably won't remember, but I was initially very unimpressed with Boone (and companions as a whole) for various reasons, until I'd used him a lot more/bumped diff. up to Very Hard where he seemed for some reason a lot less fragile than in Normal. Maybe I just got used to the change in tactics required for a companion tho. Anyway, I like his whole story, which you have to get his rep pts. and do his quest for. Also, I like the fact he's quiet or at least terse and to the point. If I have to listen to things over and over (and ALL companions do that), I prefer the lines to be short. Arcade, for instance, is a dear but his constant lengthy reminder that he sucks at sneaking makes me want to slap him. And Lily's repeated lines...argh. But no, you can't use him and go Legion. Or Arcade Gannon either. Well, you can to a point, but he won't join if your rep is high w/Legion.

Yeah, that sounds about right. Except my experience with Morrowind, iirc at least, was that it was a little more difficult because it did have scaling enemies as well as you having to at least raise skills for certain types of decent success. My issue with NV is I could win all combats keeping weapon skills at 20, and I'm not including the peaceful way out of the endgame, either. I've mod-enforced myself to stay at lvl 1 and I could still win general combat much of the time based on gear alone. IMO.... --Sniping should have accuracy penalties for extreme non-VATS distance shots that s-lvl & perks cannot alleviate. --Firing any weapon while actually moving/packpedaling/running should also have more unavoidable accuracy penalties (non-VATS). --Companions should never raise to 100 in tagged weapon skills (I believe their non-tag skills never get higher which is why most are terrible at sneaking). Leave them at 50 or 75 at most. Their crit. dmg multipliers should be lowered. They have the advantage of being AI-speed aim-bots after all. ps. I'm not saying I like scaling enemies to make things tougher, btw

I don't see why it's not at least somewhat plausible to peacefully arrange a one-time solution to a hostage negotiation. It's not like you're making the NCR & Khans make overall peace. True, they could've made the dialogue go on for a few more screens to make it trickier or something.

Yeah, while good builds can be decent for most weapon types, the pistols & rifles definitely feel highly favored at the moment. Energy weapons would be the same, except for the DT issue with those, which I think they're planning on changing. I just haven't been able to like energy weapon builds...maybe it's their gun sounds. It's not as satisfying to me for some reason. But I've pretty much given up on making the overall combat balance super difficult (for non-melee) builds, I just focus on quests, random mayhem and letting my companions amuse me by killing everything. Lucky for me, such amuses me greatly, and seemingly endlessly. hehe I'm still convinced weapons matter more than clvl or skill-lvl. Sure skills make for less sway and more overall dmg, but it's still possible to kill almost everything at lvl 5-8 as long as you get your hands on the gear, and so much of the basic higher lvl gear is super easy to get at those lvls. It's just not a game designed for truly difficult combat.

Yup. Sniping them from 200-300 yards away doesn't a screenshot make, hehe. Besides, companions need fun too. Also, I was lvl 12 or 13 and I have neither Finesse or Better Criticals yet. Is a speech/barter type chr. so a lot of those things have to wait until later, which with my mods take a long time to reach.

Well, based on this thread I finally had to try that quest. It seemed to work for me, but all I did was enter the tower around 1:30. He was already in there and immediately started his radio message, which I listened to. I didn't go up and confront or kill him, or go back to talk to Hsu first, just left and headed straight for the monorail. Defused the bomb, went to Hsu, who said he'd arrest Curtis & all done. I went back to check the tower and was allowed to loot Curtis' corpse, who somehow was mysteriously dead next to the radio even tho I hadn't even touched him.

lol, maybe you need a mod that lowers the payout ratios so you can gamble a lot more without winning tons of cash, if that makes sense. (edit) I rarely have more than 20-30k caps, stopped gambling, and I don't spend much on anything but ammo (usually don't bother with implants). But I need to get an implant or use more IT to boost my CHAR. so I can hire a 3rd human companion. I hear Raul's a gunslinger and has some funny lines. The three together oughta be good. *rubs hands together*

Yes. Try it & see. Put in 10, take them to a few fights where they may take some damage but you know they'll win, don't heal them with the Wheel, and then check their inventory. Chances are good they'll have used a couple. Sometimes it seems like they use one if walk over a mine, too, but not always...like I said, they don't use them a lot...eg it won't save their butts in a serious fight. Friendly fire -- the only time you have to worry about it is if you get a sneak critical on their head or something. Winging them with occasional stray hits doesn't do much dmg. However, if you put grenades in their inventory, sometimes they'll toss them where you used to NOT be, but you don't know it and move there. -------------- Lastly, my own amusement again: OMG, Boone & Gannon together...it's my new favorite thing. So hysterical when they're both in "hunting" mode, going back & forth, back & forth saying their lines. They once got "stuck" doing that for 5 minutes, I nearly peed my pants laughing so hard. They always start out shooting standing close to each other then Gannon pulls way out in front (pistol vs. rifle?). They go absolutely perfect together. Thank you multiple companion modders!! Boone: Hmm. Gannon: What's going on? Boone: Keep looking. Gannon: Huh.. Boone: Company! Gannon: Herree we go Boone: Can't run from me! *bangbangbang* Gannon: *pewpewpewpewpew* Boone: Eat this! Boone: Gone. Gannon:I guess that could have gone worse!

Side note: with my low exp. modding, I have to do as many quests as I can in order to level up. My 'only slightly modded' main current chr. has done almost all of the non-Legion quests from the area south of New Vegas/Freeside (Red Rock, all the NCR camps, McCarran/CrimsonCaravan, Searchlight/Cottonwood etc) and killed many monsters over and over, and she's still only lvl 14. I find it satisfying tho. My heavily modded, mod-testing, goof off 'what if' character just runs around blowing things up & ignores most quests in favor of wanton death & destruction.

The hats were in ...something else I don't like about melee in this game:having to stare at the overly huge image of my bat/hammer/whatever that takes over 1/3 of the screen.

Yeah, I do skip the monorail one. I like having that route into Vegas still intact.

I've pretty much given up on trying to get "good" combat screens of FNV, because even with video stills you either end up w/a shot of companions, or they look like some variation of the ones below, which imo is boring. Just coming straight at ya. True of all 1st person games, actually. I guess that's why you end up with so many huge "post your character armor/gear" threads instead of "cool/fun screenshot" threads.

That's my point about it being buggy. For me that option was never available, even tho I had enough to pass any checks. If I clicked on the check sentence option, he'd just arrest me w/no other dialogue/opportunity to get out of it and if I didn't want to be immediately arrested I'd have to kill him in the open, taking the rep hit.

Oddly enough, I don't like the Sims, but I do like making npc's in rpg's do silly things if available. They put those hats & clothes in, after all. Maybe I'm role-playing. Yea, that must be it. You think they'd wear their armor & weapons 24 hrs a day for months on end? Nooooo, I don't think so....gotta make time for sleep & par-tays! Most of the time I am playing the game. But the funny makes me smile.

I think you have to do the small quests for Contreras 'til he gives you the package to give to the guy in a shop in Freeside. Then you can tell Boyd you have proof, and she'll reward you without further delay/no computer hacking. Or kill him first then tell her. But if you want to keep him as a merchant you have to say 'goodbye' to the ncr in the store before he tries to arrest you, tell Contr., and then go back to store & use stealth to kill him. No rep hit.

I just have a strange sense of funny I guess.

For some people, Veronica never levels past 12 without a fixer mod. That's a fairly bad bug. I've no objection to fixing the guns skill scaling for Boone, either. I think he'd still seem overpowered even so. Ranged/guns just are. I also didn't realize for a long time that they'd sometimes use stimpacks if they were in their inventory. Occasionally useful, but they don't use them until their health is pretty low, and in Hardcore probably not very effective. Wheel's better. ------------------------------------------------- Another mod, this one about aesthetics. I think it gives companions the 'lucky 38' random idle-type routines, except when they're still hired with you. They'll still re-equip weapons/attack enemies if they come in range, and you can still put them in normal 'wait' mode instead. Funny stuff. It works with the CHAR.-based more-companions mod I posted earlier but overall doesn't seem to stack well with most companion mods. It's just for kicks anyway. http://newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=34955

Found this mod that allows more companions but bases number you can have on your Charisma. I like that RPG concept (since Charisma is otherwise mostly useless to most). Seems to work. I'm happy with 2 humans and 1-2 non-humans. http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=36949