LadyCrimson

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

That Contreras quest is really buggy. Even when I pass the skill check the guy in the store never gives me the option to 'work with him' and I didn't have to hack Contreras' terminal in order to get Boyd to arrest him, among other things. But I finally figured out how to get This Machine without taking an NCR rep hit/losing him as a merchant. I also discovered if you kill Contreras you get all his money, including any you spent buying all his stuff. You can abuse that quite badly if you want, if you don't care about him being a merchant rest of the game. Plus you can still turn him into Boyd, and his corpse ends up lying in the jail cell floor! haha!

@virumor - So I take it that the multi-companion mod is working out ok in terms not causing more bugs? I mean, they made it sound like too many companions w/variable inventory might be a problem & that's why they didn't allow it in the first place. I could definitely get into at least having two human npc's. I wasn't that into the non-human ones. Decided my fave armor looks-wise (besides the chained prostitute clothing, heh) is the combat-reinforced (17dt). Because it doesn't look pinkish like the Mark-2 ones. The YCS/186 energy rifle (rifle version of Pushy): Craigy immediately equipped it for that sexy DPS, but...it confirmed his *Energy* weapon skill definitely isn't bugged, because 70% of the time his shots with it badly miss (the dot flash in top of pic). Course when he does hit, it's almost instant death. It was amusing for a while but it sucks up ammo like soda through a straw so back in storage it goes. I bet Arcade Gannon would like it?

That 2nd Divinity2 pic made me think of Drakan. I always like flying transportation mounts in games...just not fighting from their backs. That's always awkward.

Yeah, that's what I ideally like in expansions as well. I like new areas too, but I like when they mix some new stuff into the original game. Kind of like what they did with Diablo2:LOD/patches. There was the whole new Act5 bit, but also skill changes, item changes, etc. that were implemented across the board. However I don't like the way Blizzard completely changes skills & rules as drastically and constantly as they do...I mostly want to see new enemies, npc's, skills/options etc. to choose from to add incentive to start a new chr with, plus the new "area". You can still give players the option to use their leveled up chr. to leap into the new area if they want...but...yeah.

I went against my usual magical inclination and went for swords, and came out some kind of Paladin.

Hm. That longer description doesn't intrigue me too much. My only experience with DLC is Borderlands, and while I did like those quite a bit, I found one issue I have is that they felt disconnected from the main/original game that got you hooked in the first place. Just new set pieces for your chr. to run through, with harder difficulty or new monsters etc. I understand why that is (DLC isn't "expansion") but I'm not sure if I can look past that for a game like this vs. BL. But I'll still give this a shot when it's out for pc, I'm sure. I'm weak willed, and I must have more. :D

@cant - I know, it's crazy, isn't it? Even pre-Vegas-main-plot, where I've spent a lot more time, I still come across the occasional quest I missed or skipped (and forgot I'd skipped) before. I think I read there's over 150 known quests...even if you can't do them all in one run, that's still a heck of a lot to discover.

Largely agree, hindsight is always 20/20. I certainly wasn't trying to plink Cottonwood cove at lvl 3 on my first playthrough. heh It's what I love about this game tho...for me even when I know how to do something, how to do a quest, there's so many different ways to approach it combat wise (even when using the same weapons tactics) that I can do it over and over and still giggle. Yeah, I had to reload there a few times too. Close quarters is my enemy. I finally had to use a Stealthboy to get to the top ridge (still had to fight the smaller ones on the way) and it seemed to confuse the legendary one enough that I could snipe it from there.