When FO:NV was first announced and we heard Josh tell us that there would be so many more weapons, lots of us giggled like school girls at a Justin Bieber concert. Now that I've put hundreds of hours into the game, I find myself asking if this was neccesarily as good a thing as it sounded. Everyone remembers the Chinese and .32 caliber Pistols from FO3. I don't think more than a few masochistic folks liked using them as they were so bad. We've kinda got a similar situation in NV. Since I bought the game with the classic pack, I never need the 9mm or .357 pistols in the beginning of the game, the service rifle was pretty lousy and some of the other weapons, like the assault carbine, minigun, etc. just seemed to never reach my inventory at the right time and see much use.

I have heavily modded my game's firearms more to my liking, but before that, in numerous playthroughs there were some weapons I almost never used. Does anyone acutally run around with a pool cue or knife? The single shotgun after leaving Goodsprings? The service rifle when you can get a cowboy repeater before it? Even after I modded my guns and some weapons became much more utile, there are still tons of weapons that just collect dust in my house.

One of the side effects of having more weapons is that there are less of each specific weapon available in the game world. This means that for folks who don't obsessively build repair kits (like I do) its a lot harder to keep those weapons in top condition. Couple this with all the weapons that just don't ever get used much, was it such a good thing to have all the extra weapons? I'm still not so sure, but it makes me think so eveything I look in my inventory and see those poor unused weapons, beckoning, lonely, just wanting a little love. An unloved weapon is such a shameful thing.......

-Gunny out.

I agree with yah here. I have so many guns in my inventory and most of them dont get the love they deserve. I think that they got a good number of "crappy" weapons in the game also. I dont use the bad ones though...because there bad. But i tend to use the .357 alot because its bad ass and im a fan of revolvers.

The thing is, the new guns are all crap, except for some like the Laser RCW. They have a long way to go on balancing.

I used to use Lucky alot, but after I modded the reload and firing animation speed down to something more realistic, I find I just prefer automatics more (just like IRL). Revolvers are fun to shoot, and a gate loading single action is actually real fun to load IRL, but for combat I wantz me my .45 (or as close as I can get) What are some of the weapons you've never used? Me, the ballistic fist. I haven't done an unarmed guy yet.


Do you mean the guns that weren't in FO3 (ala not the 10mm pistol/smg, etc..) or just all the guns? I guess I don't know what you mean by "crap". Do you think they need more damage? Less? What's not up to your liking?

-Gunny out.

There is always low tier weapons which fills the bottom of the fool chain. Unfortunately for those weapons (just like .32 and Chinese Pistol in FO3), they are not place where with less competition.

Knife is a lot more fortunate than pool cue as player can found one around Goodspring (IIRC there is one in Mitchell's).

There can never be too many different weapons , actually we could use more ..

This

I will say that they did a better job of placing first tier weapons at the beginning of the game. It's just that my having the weathered 10mm made two of those weapons instantly obsolete, just like leaving the vault with a 10mm made the .32 and the Chinese pistols immediately obsolete. I do feel they screwed the pooch on the varmint/service/cowboy repeater/hunting rifle/trail carbine progression. You get a cowboy repeater before a service rifle, and then you can get both a hunting rifle and a trail carbine at the same time. They could have paced these rifles a little better so you could use each of them a little more then progress onto the next.


There are 23 pistols, 26 rifles, 6 smgs, 11 shotties, 19 heavy weapons, 16 explosives, 47 melee and 18 unarmed weapons. What did they miss that's fundamentally different that what they didn't?

-Gunny out.

I'm used to action-rpg's so the plethora of useless (or at least not often chosen by players) weapons just feels normal to me...eg, it doesn't bother me at all. But I do understand the point being made.

However, I like having those 'useless' weapons because on repeated playthroughs that's half of what makes the replay fun for me...trying to see how far I can get in the game using just the 9mm, for example (pretty far). Just because a later gun is more powerful than another weapon doesn't make that weaker weapon "useless." It's the player's decision to go for power over finesse/greater challenge/roleplay (or whatever...) - or to not.

Well, the Guns in NV are some what divide into Bolt-action, Cowboy, Military, PDW and Shotty "progression trees". Varmint, Cowboy Repeater and Service Rifle are all in the same tier but in different tree. As we know the level-actions in NV are much better than their real world counter part so there is no wonder Cowboy Repeater is so much better than the other two.

Service Rifle and Varmint Rifle however have their own strength and weakness, and Service Rifle is slightly better in intense situations, that's probably why it is place much further than Varmint Rifle.

Of course there's always some of us that do this. If you haven't, you gotta try the FO3 "Chinese Pistol" playthrough in your underwear. It's just that most players won't do this wacky fun stuff, and I usually don't until I'm starting to run dry on decent characters. The first maybe 8-10 times through a game, I'm probably using the best weapons that make sense for my character. I'll finish up the "normal" playthroughs with my sociopathic whirlwind of death unarmed character, then move on to my silly "Lead Pipe in my Pajamas" playthroughs.

I agree that the rifles are tiered by action. But it doesn't neccessarily work that way in the game. Maybe if you're working towards the cowboy perk, but there's no reason to use the military arms or the hunting arms over over the cowboy guns. If they were working it as sets of equal tiers the really [censored] it up.
-gunny out.

i wish they would take some guns from F3 like the Combat shotgun, R91 assualt rifle, and the chinese assualt rifle. Those guns were the Bees Knees!

I guess my point was that I'd rather a game give players choices than to not have them. Give loads of weapons, let the player decide what is fun to use and what is not. I don't like being limited and I don't like games that give me only a few choices, so to speak. Probably one reason I didn't like early FPS very often.

As to the repairing of weapons...I don't see a problem with that either. If you make repairing weapons w/out the weapon kits easy to do, then no one would bother with the repair skill, making it a throw-away skill. If you want weapons to be in good repair all the time, for cheap, you use Repair and horde the items to make kits. If you don't want to take that time/raise that skill, it's a little tougher. That's as it should be, imo.

Other than esthetics, the Riot shotgun is essentially the same as the FO3 combat shotgun. The lack of an automatic assault rifle was filled by the two squad automatics and the automatic carbine. While the carbine is a little underwhelming, the LMG and the AR easily replace what the two FO3 assault rifles did for us. Would inclusion of more 5.56mm automatic weapons really add anything other than different meshes and textures laid over the same statistics?


Good point. One of the reasons I so enjoy playing Borderlands it to get maor gunz. I love me some red chests.

-Gunny out.

:laugh:
I spent hours doing red chest runs.

I like all the guns you can have in NV, and the mods you can put on them just makes them even better.

I do mod runs in NV. And I get a little weak in the knees that first time at the big kids table: the first trip to the Gun Runners kiosk. My current pc spent almost c100,000 there her first trip. I guess with less weapons, I'd miss running around collecting them all, regarless of whether I use them or not. But then again, with less weapons, finding a new one, or better, a unique, can be a real game changer. Sometimes in NV it's like "Ho-hum. Another unique. Here, Boone, you carry the damn thing......."

-gunny out.

We know Josh screw this one up when you "sit down and get the numbers right". Problem is Josh "believe" level-actions would be useless with more spread and AMR is right where it should be; that's why he decide to hammer the .308 guns and call it done.


Actually, Riot Shotgun is much better than FO3's combat shotgun (mainly the spread). Not to mention FO'3 combat shotgun is too "Russian" looking.

AR is in a smaller caliber and LMG is a "Big Gun". The praise of Automatic Rifle tells us that people love weapon variety, and really 5.56mm automatic rifle is suppose to be intermediate weapons......however, I would prefer AK series over AR series.

And believe it or not, broadsword, gladius, cleaver, kukri or even hand axe deliver similar damage to human body; however any decent RPG would give them different advantages for different character/build.

I don't think there are too many weapons. It's good to have some variation on every tier. But what's lacking is an obligation or need to use all the weaponry. The soft requirements for example, in my experience, are way too lenient. Once you get your hands on a powerful weapon for which you lack in both skill and strength, there is very little encouraging to use "lesser" variants anymore as ammunition is aplenty and the penalty to accuracy (spread and sway) and damage is relatively small (the damage should, imo, remain quite static and relatively powerful while accuracy should hold more ground on skillprogression - it'd be a much more rewarding system that way, imo --- this concerns only firearms of course, melee and HtH are and should be different animals). That quite effectively leads to some weapons being redundant as they have no real use.

A way to fix this (imo) would be more restrictions and higher penalties. That may sound like "Beat me harder, goddamnit, I ain't all purple and bleeding yet!" but what I aim is quite the opposite. A more rewarding experience, and more useful items all based on the way one builds ones character. A "forced" - in a way that tells the player that this is now what you will have to manage with until you raise in skill - use of the lower tier weapons.

Just a quick thought though - I ain't in a comprehensive mood.

As somebody pointed out above the problem isn't having too many weapons. It's, once you have a really powerful weapon, there isn't any point to keeping a lesser one anymore other than choosing to do so for self-imposed difficulty. It's easy to keep your chosen weapons in working order with repair kits or NPC repair, and there's mountains of ammunition available at merchants.

To that end, I would favor a redesign where:

- the gap between weapons is much less pronounced. Given the way the game's damage mechanics work, the spread is simply too wide between "cheap and cheerful" weapons like anything fueled by 5.56mm and the Brush Gun and its .45-70 round. Sure the .45-70 is a giant brick of lead, but as far as accuracy and controlled rapid fire on target, assault rifles win. Some weapons should still be marginally "better", but there should be more tactical suitability and personal choice, and less planned obsolescence. If you like the service rifle, by all means keeping using it instead of the marksman carbine or hunting rifle or whatever your alternatives are.

- weapon *condition* and weapon *cleanliness* should be two different things. Weapon condition should be the actual physical integrity of the weapon and its components. Finding a weapon in really good condition should be incredibly rare and pretty much limited to pulling stuff out of pre-war caches. Condition should be next to impossible (or straight up impossible) to improve short of finding another copy that you can scavenge parts from (and even then it should be hit or miss whether the spare you're pulling parts from has anything better than what you're using). Everybody in the wastes, player included, should have their equipment in some degree of broken. Versus, cleanliness is what you can easily fix with some oil and a bore brush.

- as an extension of the above, better weapons become difficult to repair to the point of potentially only allowing a single NPC the ability to repair something really unusual. Using your high-class super-powerful BFG should be a calculated decision of cost versus need, not a matter of course where you use it all the time because...well, why not? Using common weapons should be practical for the simple reason that they're easy to find parts for and everybody knows how to maintain them.

- ammunition in general is uncommon and valuable, and for things not in wide use, highly precious. Sure, the NCR is cranking out fresh ammo, but they're only going to make stuff that their troops use (vast majority being 5.56mm). The Gun Runners make every type of ammo apparently, but they are one small shop doing everything with half a dozen guys; how is that they can create a thousand pounds of fresh ammo every three days? It's ludicrous. Not being able to use your favorite weapon for the simple fact that there's no ammo available for it, forcing you to use an alternative, would help enormously.

So. Not too many weapons: too much variation in what's worth using and what's not. Tighten up the performance gap, and make common weapons more attractive from a repair and ammo consumption standpoint.

I like to have variety in game's like these. So, In my opinion, no.

I never really use these or many, many other weapons, but they do get used against me, and I think I'd miss raiders trying to batter me with pool cues and the like. And what could be more fitting for the dregs of the NCR than the crappy old Service Rifle?

It's true that once I've got Lucky, Trail Carbine, Brush Gun and a good SMG (for instance) I hardly touch anything else though. It's not like you need a whole host of different tools for different jobs really, just one long-range, one CQ and one high DPS gun'll do you for the most part. I suppose the rest add flavour, but trying to succesfully balance so many weapons is very ambitious, to say the least.

Need more weapons! :ahhh:

Tommy Gun
Colt .45
Browning .50cal Machine Gun
M72 Gauss Rifle

Ability to make bombs out of teddy bears, suitcases, briefcases and mail boxes.

Yeah, when chasing dumb but fun challenges. I found pool cues ideal for crippling Fiends when trying to complete 'Were You Using That?' Baseball bats and nine-irons came off a bit too deadly.

Personally, I found the gap between Service Rifle and Marksmen Carbine quite small. Accuracy aside, damage and ROF difference is quite small. Weapons like Combat Knife and Straight Razor can match higher tier weapon like Super Sledge and Fire Axe.

Lever-action rifles are the ones at fault, not weapon stats in general.


Then what about high quality/tier weapon instead of weapon with good *condition*? and how about the uniques? the ideal is pretty similar.


Interesting, but what about powerful ammo/charge that cost a great deal of weapon condition?


So you are saying the meta game should favor Melee and Unarmed instead of making them as lethal in combat? Even Gunrunners doesn't have that much ammo in stock (aside for surplus).