FO: NV (Spoilers)

[Gorgon]

I finally caved at lv 20 or so and took the strong back and rat pack perks.

 

What's the 'reward' for finishing in hardcore mode. Is there one ?

[WorstUsernameEver]

I finally caved at lv 20 or so and took the strong back and rat pack perks.

 

What's the 'reward' for finishing in hardcore mode. Is there one ?

 

Achievement.

[LadyCrimson]

In most games I haven't minded weight limits much at all (tho I prefer none, obviously) but in this game the rapidity with which I'd reach 200 or 250 weight units drove me insane. Having to go back to 'town' to sell gear every 10 minutes, even w/repairing stuff to consolidate, was a serious detraction for me. Plus, using Boone, he not only refuses to wear faction armor, he also refuses to carry it. The silly goose.

[Gorgon]

I finally caved at lv 20 or so and took the strong back and rat pack perks.

 

What's the 'reward' for finishing in hardcore mode. Is there one ?

 

Achievement.

lame

[Tale]

In most games I haven't minded weight limits much at all (tho I prefer none, obviously) but in this game the rapidity with which I'd reach 200 or 250 weight units drove me insane. Having to go back to 'town' to sell gear every 10 minutes, even w/repairing stuff to consolidate, was a serious detraction for me. Plus, using Boone, he not only refuses to wear faction armor, he also refuses to carry it. The silly goose.

If I don't feel like heading back, I'll often just start repairing loot with each other. Sometimes this actually provides a net value boost.

[Thorton_AP]

okay, I'm convinced

Convinced of what, that the combat is easy?

I'm afraid h/c mode will become more of a nuisance further down the road, so I'm gonna make the game hardcore on my own. combat is going to be easy no matter what I do

 

sadly, I can't figure out how the GECK works and I don't want to use mods made by others. I decided not to use companions, not to explore too much until I get to Mr.House and Caesar. set END to 3, forget about weapon skills and spend skillpoints on medicine and explosives instead. never use VATS of course.

 

 

Play the game ironman style, never reloading your game ever.

[sorophx]

oh, I'm too weak to do it... I never played Diablo II on hardcore because I would snap if I were to lose my char after one death

[Thorton_AP]

Energy Weapons are fine, especially once you get to the high end. Plasma Defender is incredible, Guass is highest DAM weapon in the game that's not a unique. With the unique guns that are higher also being energy weapons.

 

Lasers just have trouble with armor. That's all. Plasma rifle isn't too thrilling, either, I'll admit. I found myself excelling with the Tri-Beam Laser Rifle in spite of all that, for a while.

 

 

I find laser still do fine if you get your energy weapons skill up fast enough. I am playing with a guy that bounces between Cowboy Repeater for high DT targets, and energy weapons for all else. The plasma rifle is decent, and I want to try out the laser rifle with some mods on it too.

[Gorgon]

Energy Weapons are fine, especially once you get to the high end. Plasma Defender is incredible, Guass is highest DAM weapon in the game that's not a unique. With the unique guns that are higher also being energy weapons.

 

Lasers just have trouble with armor. That's all. Plasma rifle isn't too thrilling, either, I'll admit. I found myself excelling with the Tri-Beam Laser Rifle in spite of all that, for a while.

Really ?, I was underwhelmed when I finally got the gauss rifle. It had a nice animation, but it took way too long to reload, didn't zoom very far with the scope, and low damage compared to what you could get with guns and a number of damage amplifying perks like 'Cowboy' etc, and the thing used 20 MFCs per shot if I remember. Hard to find enough to keep going.

 

Since you can't hit anything in VATS outside of 20 meters a better bet is the sniper rifle or marksman carbine. Anti personnel rifle for very resistant targets. More shots on target means more criticals.

 

You can get the plasma defender very early in the game and it's the only thing that redeems energy weapons. You won't find better. Or rather, when you do find better they gobble up all your ammo in a heartbeat and you are back to using your backup weapon.

 

By the way they should have made the flamer cause frenzy and panic. A bit of a letdown to see a raider on fire carry on like nothing was out of the ordinary.

[Enoch]

I'm playing an Energy Weapons character-- currently with a skill in the high-80s at level 17 or so-- and I have consistently had trouble with high-DT targets. The Laser Rifle is my sniping option, but it does very little to armored opponents unless it criticals. The Q-gun is my heaviest hitter right now (it's the only named energy weapon I've yet found), but I'm pretty terrible at aiming outside of either VATS or long-ranged stealth sniping, and the 'plasma delay' doesn't help that much.

 

That said, the combat is still not all that challenging. I can't take on packs of Deathclaws, but I'm only 60% of the way through the level progression, so I shouldn't expect to yet.

Edited November 8, 2010 by Enoch

[Tale]

Energy Weapons are fine, especially once you get to the high end. Plasma Defender is incredible, Guass is highest DAM weapon in the game that's not a unique. With the unique guns that are higher also being energy weapons.

 

Lasers just have trouble with armor. That's all. Plasma rifle isn't too thrilling, either, I'll admit. I found myself excelling with the Tri-Beam Laser Rifle in spite of all that, for a while.

Really ?, I was underwhelmed when I finally got the gauss rifle. It had a nice animation, but it took way too long to reload, didn't zoom very far with the scope, and low damage compared to what you could get with guns and a number of damage amplifying perks like 'Cowboy' etc, and the thing used 20 MFCs per shot if I remember. Hard to find enough to keep going.

All scopes seem to have the same zoom modifier. Cowboy doesn't benefit any sniper beyond the BB gun, apparently. It's the highest base damage non-unique gun in the game. Higher base damage than the Anti-Materiel by a good 10 points. Each shot only takes 5 MFC.

 

Since you can't hit anything in VATS outside of 20 meters a better bet is the sniper rifle or marksman carbine. Anti personnel rifle for very resistant targets. More shots on target means more criticals.

A sneak attack from the Gauss is enough to take the head off your average deathclaw. You can make an argument that the sniper rifle beats it based on that reasoning, but the sniper rifle also beats the rifle the tier above it. The sniper rifle is the outlier. The Gauss beats the AMR for damage, and the Gauss has a unique variant as one of the two strongest DAM guns in the game. The other being the Wild Wasteland alternative to the Gauss. Edited November 8, 2010 by Tale

[Gorgon]

I had a scoped trail gun (that's a lever action rifle like the cowboy repeater) with a perversely high DAM score as well as a fast DPS. I don't think I ever encountered any single target that required reloading. Only problem was I couldn't find enough ammo, and I didn't really get into the whole ammo manufacturing thing at the workbench because I didn't have a high repair skill.

 

All in all I was finding it very hard to find enough ammo when playing my first game with a high energy wp character.

[Gorgon]

By the way I took the wild wasteland trait on my last playthrough, and I would sometimes get eerie music at certain locations, but nothing special seemed to happen. I know I got the alien blaster because I had that trait, but it was the only time I noticed it.

[Cantousent]

I think the game is heavily weighted to guns over energy weapons, but you can beat the game well enough using Energy weapons nevertheless. Since armor has such an impact on my energy weapon choices, I did invest a lot of effort in crit, which has helped to even the odds a bit. Still, the early game is so perversely weighted to standard firearms that I don't even use the laser pistol until I've leveled several times.

 

On the other hand, you don't gimp yourself by choosing energy weapons. You merely don't fight quite as well. In that respect, the design is perfectly valid. Sure, the complaint that you will probably resort to standard firearms at some point, especially in the early game, is a legitimate complaint, but it doesn't equate to a particularly onerous burden on the player. *If* a player could make the game unwinnable by choosing energy weapons, *then* it would be a terrible flaw in the design.

[Raithe]

I never seemed to find anything that kicked up from the Wild Wasteland trait for me..

 

And I never stumbled across a Gauss Rifle at any point..

 

Lasers, Plasma , and Miniguns oh my, but nary a sight of a Gauss Rifle.

 

Although I did stumble on the Tesla lightning zapper thing...but I didn't really unlimber that until the final Hoover Dam battle.

[Tale]

I never seemed to find anything that kicked up from the Wild Wasteland trait for me..

 

And I never stumbled across a Gauss Rifle at any point..

 

Lasers, Plasma , and Miniguns oh my, but nary a sight of a Gauss Rifle.

 

Although I did stumble on the Tesla lightning zapper thing...but I didn't really unlimber that until the final Hoover Dam battle.

There are no Gauss Guns in the wild. Only available from the Brotherhood of Steel.

Edited November 9, 2010 by Tale

[Cantousent]

Actually, I have a Gauss Rifle I got out of some beer brewing hide-out northwest of Las Vegas. The five charge per shot consumption is brutal, but would probably be worth it if my sneak were worth a damn this time around.

[Tale]

I ended up starting my third character. Was going to wait for the patch, but couldn't. Female with 4/6/4/7/7/6/6, Agile Frame, and Trigger Discipline. It's basically a challenge run. Only using clothes and disguises, hard mode, lower endurance, and weaker limbs from agile frame.

 

The first few locations were mostly just me looting mines, setting up the field, then getting people's attention. She can't handle a straight on fight at all. And I only see that getting worse. Forces me to use every advantage, but she's also a speech character, so I expect to be able to talk around a bit of it.

Edited November 9, 2010 by Tale

[mkreku]

The two Wild Wasteland differences I've noted so far were rather discrete.

 

The first was when I went up to that sniper spot overlooking Goodsprings. I don't remember if there was always a named corpse lying there, but I am pretty sure that the four big red balls lying in a row were not! It was very odd.

 

The other time, I was in Nipton's northern parts and that weird music started playing. The only thing I found that weren't there before were two named corpses. I forget the names now, but I really should google them to see if I missed some kind of reference.

[HoonDing]

What's up with all these high INT characters? Really guyz, low INT is pretty fun. The few occasions you get dumb dialogue are really worth it.

[Starwars]

The two Wild Wasteland differences I've noted so far were rather discrete.

 

The first was when I went up to that sniper spot overlooking Goodsprings. I don't remember if there was always a named corpse lying there, but I am pretty sure that the four big red balls lying in a row were not! It was very odd.

 

The other time, I was in Nipton's northern parts and that weird music started playing. The only thing I found that weren't there before were two named corpses. I forget the names now, but I really should google them to see if I missed some kind of reference.

 

The first one is a reference to the somethingawful forums and the corpses are named Owen and Beru, a reference to Luke's caretakers in A New Hope.

 

Other than those two, I've run into two Monty Python references as well.

[mkreku]

But why four red balls..? THE BALLS THEY'RE DRIVING ME INSANE

[WorstUsernameEver]

But why four red balls..? THE BALLS THEY'RE DRIVING ME INSANE

 

Everything you need to know about Johnny.

[LadyCrimson]

There's a broken fridge near Goodsprings, with a skeleton in it, that spawns the 'fancy gambling hat' or something...(for female chrs. it's the purplish one w/the feather)...that's Wild Wasteland too. From what I understand, beside the weapon replacements, a lot of WW is mostly dialogue related.

[HoonDing]

I've been attacked by crazy old ladies in Freeside.