At level 5 i have amassed every top energy weopens and most of the guns/big explosives simply by stealing them. I know you cannot effectively use them but still its simple.

The rares can be more of a challenge i guess

Let's see...

First you have to steal them

Then, you can't effectively use them.

Then, ammunition is expensive and hard to come by at your level.

Just because something can be done, doesn't mean it should be done.

Really?
I got lucky with an incinerator at level 1, for my exclusive heavy weapon build and I mean lucky no respawn glitch used.

Level 5 I managed to kill a super mutant master ( not the nightkin one ) for a random minigun on hardcoe normal.
Each of these was in short supply for ammo and on a linear playthrough.
Try not heading to the silver rush straight off, and only using limited weapons and equipment without the target X to aim with.

Let's see. You got a gauss rifle, Gatling laser, and a plasma caster? I seriously doubt you got "all high level energy weapons" by lvl 5. Yes, you can get an incinerator very early but it turns out it's not very great of a weapon and that you won't find many more good weapons that early.

I'm not sure that having foreknowledge and thus being able to/knowing how to rush somewhere to get all the phat loot without much work, early, equals 'too easy' in terms of game design/acquiring weapons overall. Generally you try to design a game (I would think) for the 1st run player who wouldn't know all that stuff.

And if you're the type of player who at low clvl's likes to explore and can beat the higher lvl baddies early, those weapons are your reward....even if you still svck at using them for a bit because of clvl, and ammo's not common, you can still use them a lot earlier than you might otherwise.

Unless you make your character with 8 strength or higher most of those weapons will be hard to use.

I say Big weapons are not easy enough to come by. With strength requirements, weapons degradation, expensive ammo there is no reason why NPC should not be well armed. I wish both FO3 and New Vegas had well armed NPC. Have some people with light machine guns, Anti material rifles, Assault rifles, grenade launchers, missle launchers and a fatman or two. A future DLC should add .50cal Machine guns :gun:

The ability to early over-empower yourself by sneaking to mid or end game maps has been standard fare for all FO games, except FOT.

Considering the open gameplay the FO series is renowned for, it's an exploit the devs can't prevent w/o compromising the core philosophy of the game itself. The redeeming factor is that most weapons aren't much use w/o the proper skills and prerequisites to employ them.

Although I've tested the exploit in FO/FO2 a few times as proof of concept, the 'shooting fish in a barrel' gameplay never satisfied me enough to base an entire playthrough on it.

Good point, and I agree. One doesn't have to rush to acquire the gear...it's left up the player whether they wish to play that way, once the player discovers how/where, and I think it should remain up to the player. It's not like they're dumping all the top tier weapons in an unlocked box in Doc Mitchell's house, after all.

umm, what top energy weapons, explosives, and guns do you have?

a gatling laser... thatll break before ya know it

plasma caster... again, itll break before ya know it.

not to mention that all those weapons want nothing to do with your ammo but chew it up and spit it out.

somehow i think you got those weapons 5 seconds from when you made this thread, that stuff your using breaks, and then where will you be?

lastly, the only thing i can "steal" thats anywhere near good is the plasma caster and that multiplas rifle. where did you get those other great items?

Yes, the Devs for NV went into some depth about weapon placements.
In NV it seems they stage them out later on in stores to buy, ( the Silver rush being the only error in this ).
Then have made finding placed weapons based on difficulty of area.
Then dropped in some heavy duty guns on certain creatures and NPC's found in nooks and canyons all over the game world.

This is handled better then in FO2, where every area was leveled one tier above the player on a linear route.
Making it quite easy to navigate round, grab the best stuff and not be challanged at all if you exploited the game.
Or if you did not and went astray having fun you would be outclassed beyond PC ability.

NV apart from the Silver rush, makes it an active choice.
Do I wait for the best stuff.
Do I rush ahead and buy / steal one.
Do I rush ahead and try to kill a non hostile for one.
Or simply go off road with a pea shooter and a cunning plan and try not to bite the dust as a mutant uses me as nice sofa throw.