FO: NV (DLCS) Discussion

[J.E. Sawyer]

EDIT: Also seeing weapon packs coming for New Vegas is.. disappointing. As much as I love the game, spending 4 euros to get a Bozar and some Nuka Cola trinkets seems a little too much. Will wait for the inevitable Steam sales.

It's over two dozen weapons + new ammo subtypes + mods + new combat challenges and achievements.

[Lexx]

I am not surprised about the Bozar. Somehow everyone screamed about it and it's easy to implement (animations exist already). What is much more important: Will there finally be a City-Killer Combat Shotgun? :>

[WorstUsernameEver]

EDIT: Also seeing weapon packs coming for New Vegas is.. disappointing. As much as I love the game, spending 4 euros to get a Bozar and some Nuka Cola trinkets seems a little too much. Will wait for the inevitable Steam sales.

It's over two dozen weapons + new ammo subtypes + mods + new combat challenges and achievements.

 

And Bethesda is still pricing it only 6 ?/$ less than add-ons lasting from 6 to 8 hours, with all-new locations, assets, voice-acting, etc. etc. so, to be fairly honest, my judgment doesn't really change? Still, more power (and sales) to you!

 

EDIT: And of course, since I'm a blind fanboy, I'll probably get it, I just don't like the standard price.

Edited August 25, 2011 by WorstUsernameEver

[Lexx]

Courier's Stash really seems to be highly game breaking. You start the game and get bombed with 4 equipment sets, urg.

[Tale]

That doesn't really sound gamebreaking, since they don't exactly stack. And none of them are useful for late game. And ammo and repairs for some can start off pretty sparse.

 

I say this having used one of the armors and the 10mm pistol myself. The 10mm was so hard to find stuff for, I kept it for the odd radscorp that I couldn't avoid. And the armor gets traded for reinforced or regular leather on the way Nipton.

[Lexx]

What do you mean with "since they don't exactly stack?" As far as I know, you can use pre-order packs together and when you start the game the next time, you'll get the items into your inventory. Yes, they aren't useful late game, but they are more than a tiny boost in early game.

[Tale]

Because you can only wear one armor at a time. Having the tribal armor and the reinforced vault suit isn't exactly going to be any better than one or the other.

[Lexx]

But you have 4 different armors. Use one, sell the other or sell everything right from the beginning. In any case it makes the beginning easier.

[Tale]

I draw a pretty significant line between the beginning being a little easier and "highly game breaking." I accept and agree that it makes the game a little easier in the beginning. Never disputed that. I won't even quibble if you disagree with how much easier. But to say it's game breaking seems hyperbolic.

[Lexx]

Well, okay. I will never find out anyway, as I will not buy this DLC. Lonesome Road and Gun Runners' Arsenal will be the only ones. :>

[Sannom]

But you have 4 different armors. Use one, sell the other or sell everything right from the beginning. In any case it makes the beginning easier.

Dunno, maybe it works as in DS3, and the DLC items have a monetary value of zero?

[WorstUsernameEver]

But you have 4 different armors. Use one, sell the other or sell everything right from the beginning. In any case it makes the beginning easier.

Dunno, maybe it works as in DS3, and the DLC items have a monetary value of zero?

 

Nope, it doesn't. I got the tribal pack with my copy of New Vegas and I can easily sell the items and make some money at the beginning of the game if I don't have a character geared towards melee.

[Flouride]

I guess I know what I will be playing on 20th of September (unless Valve and Bethesda drop the ball on the release yet again). Might as well pick up at the Gun Runner's Arsenal since it's not that expensive.

[Gorgon]

The stores only have 2000 and not much worth buying in the beginning. You will find plently of junk to reach 2000 before they get restocked.

[J.E. Sawyer]

And Bethesda is still pricing it only 6 ?/$ less than add-ons lasting from 6 to 8 hours, with all-new locations, assets, voice-acting, etc. etc. so, to be fairly honest, my judgment doesn't really change? Still, more power (and sales) to you!

 

EDIT: And of course, since I'm a blind fanboy, I'll probably get it, I just don't like the standard price.

I'm not an expert on weapon DLCs, but I think this one rates pretty favorably for the money.

[WorstUsernameEver]

I'm not an expert on weapon DLCs, but I think this one rates pretty favorably for the money.

 

I guess we'll never agree on this since I see item packs as a "bad-thing-you-should-never-do-unless-the-price-is-ultra-cheap", so I'll just respectfully close it here.

[Gorgon]

Weapon pack DLCs do make you feel cheated almost automatically. It can't help but have taken less than a few percent of the time and resources of other DLCs. This is the kinda thing you expect from weekend modders, not real game developers.

Stick new weapons in existing DLCs

[vault_overseer]

As long as Bozar is Death, i'm fine with paying $4

[Undecaf]

I wonder how the new weapons fit in with the already existing ton of 'em. Is there any difference beyond aesthetics anymore? Can there be while still holding a decent balance?

[CoM_Solaufein]

Generally some of the bigger mods and mod packs have better selection of weapons. New weapons or weapons from the previous Fallout games.

[Lexx]

I am reading about weapon mod quality all the time, not only here but in other fora too. But it seems like people are forgotting one thing: The DLCs are released on console as well, so you have to take care of the resources you are using. A modder doesn't care about that, he can make textures and high poly models as much as he want to, it probably will run on the pc for most people. On the console, on the other hand, big texture packs and stuff can slow down the whole shizzle, make the loading times longer, etc. and you can't upgrade the hardware. Not saying that a single weapon will result in this, but if everything has too much high resolution stuff, it's going down the ****ter. Remember, Hoover Dam, New Vegas Strip, etc. was splittet up as well, simply because of the performance.

[J.E. Sawyer]

Weapon pack DLCs do make you feel cheated almost automatically. It can't help but have taken less than a few percent of the time and resources of other DLCs. This is the kinda thing you expect from weekend modders, not real game developers.

Stick new weapons in existing DLCs

This is reflected by the fact that GRA costs 40% of what any of the previous four DLCs cost.

[Gorgon]

Well I can't really argue with that.

[Gromnir]

Weapon pack DLCs do make you feel cheated almost automatically. It can't help but have taken less than a few percent of the time and resources of other DLCs. This is the kinda thing you expect from weekend modders, not real game developers.

Stick new weapons in existing DLCs

This is reflected by the fact that GRA costs 40% of what any of the previous four DLCs cost.

 

dunno... isn't that precisely the point? didn't josh makes some relevant comment 'bout failings o' crpg design at the recent gdc? sorry, we didn't actual read, but there were some lifted quote at a magazine site 'bout largely empty and meaningless numerical improvements o' weapons and abilities. all the mass effect minor mods improvements were silly, right? well, typical these weapon packs result in a handful o' new super-weapons that is effective just providing some minor statistical improvement or difference over all the weapons in the base game. is no additional gameplay offered in the weapon/armor dlcs... is just a way for folks who has already exhausted everything in the game to feel even more 1337. 'stead o' kill everything save legendary deathclaw in .6 seconds, with the dlc now you manage in .4.

 

*shrug*

 

40% seems far too high for something that not actual add anything. am just not seeing the point o' juicing the weapons a tad. by the same token, the dlcs is optional, so is not as if you gotta buy. no harm save that it would seem to be pandering to the crpg junkie mentality... needs their new fo:nv fix, and anything, no matter how trivial, will gets the addicted to pay.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

ps the weapon dlcs is kinda insta-fails... is almost a no-win. if you make small improvements to weapons, then you got the mass effect problem wherein the improvements is so negligible as to be pointless. however, if you makes genuine observable improvements to existing weapons in a game in which it is already pretty easy to kill everything...

Edited August 26, 2011 by Gromnir

[J.E. Sawyer]

You are absolutely correct that it adds no new gameplay (unless you count the challenges, which are sort of meta-gameplay). If new weapons/ammo subtypes/mods are not your thing, this is not the DLC for you.

 

Though the core game did have a ton of weapons and ammo types, there were still a lot of base types that had no uniques, or no mods, or ammo types that had few or limited subtypes. This DLC is mostly to expand that set and fill in the gaps, especially if I think the user base has a justifiable criticism of the gap. The new items are also more than just late game weapons/mods/ammo. I tried to cover the spectrum. I didn't want this to be something that's only for level 40 characters with 200,000 caps.

 

With each of the new weapons or mods that we introduce in GRA, I've tried to make the bumps more than the sort of 5% or 10% increase I criticized in my GDC talk (one of the other things I said in my talk is that ME's ammo types were actually differentiated very well, in contrast to individual base weapons). For the unique versions of existing weapons, if I've dramatically increased one set of capabilities, I've tried to leave some hole for the base weapon to continue filling, which is also what I tried to do for the base game. Often this is the ability to take some mod that the unique weapon cannot have (e.g. the Gobi Campaign Rifle cannot be suppressed).

 

I'll have to wait to see if it works as I planned, but my goal was to expand and complement the existing lineup without making core weapons obsolete.