I was at Level 10 in my latest playthrough and had just gotten to Vegas and only Gunrunners there, and had enough money to buy good armor and some ammo and a couple mods for the Laser rifle. Got to thinking if I could buy some of the neat weaponry early in the game, like the Sniper Rifle, Anti Material Rifle and 12.7MM SMG, it'd be neat to do. So, told Raul to go sit in his shack and went to the BoS Bunker and started Dead Money, wasn't real sure I could do it at that early level. Got through it, but couldn't open a lot of locked stuff or computers, lot of the dialogue choices didn't work due to low speech and barter scores. Came out at Level 17, but hog rich due to getting all the gold out, plus gobs of other stuff, and now I feel like I cheated the game. Bought a bunch of weapons and ammo and it seems like the normal game is too easy now; what'd ya think, cheating or just good planning, feel like I should go directly into Lonesome Road or Old World Blues to make it worthwhile?

CaptnJack

The beauty of a single player game like this, even if you are already familiar with it, is that you play it how you want. If you had fun for several hours, and feel kind of smart how you went about doing something... then you played your game.

You can't cheat against yourself. You can only change how much you enjoy something. I find it boring to just godpower a character and such... But I love trying things differently if I've already played through an area in an earlier pass through the game.

Well, you feel this way for a reason. And you did what you did for what ... ? Really, why would be fun to ruin your entertainment by degrading the difficulty level, so you'll feel bored instead of rewarded for being successful at the game?

This kind of playing are the worst of both words in my opinion. If you want to do powergaming, then do it in a proper way. Same goes for normal / balanced playthroughs, even if in this case it only means to literally play the game and let it flow naturally instead of applying a strictly utilitarian logic. Mixing different approaches are always risky, but what strange to me is how you missed considering the consequences of your actions in advance. Okay, you get some neat weaponry at level 10 ... then what? Especially that nobody selling these kind of stuff at this phase of the game (it's not a coincidence), so it was clear from the start that you have to use some kind of trick to get the desired weapon.

Even with that, you could have chosen a more fitting and stylish way to get it. Do you want a Sniper Rifle? Do your homework to learn where you can find one regardless of your level! Thus go to the building not far from Mole Rat Ranch, pick the locks and voilà! (Yes, I know that you had low level skills, but still.) Or if you're on PC just use some console commands to add one to your inventory - that'd be the most polished way I think. Or if we already speaking about DLCs, I've read several times that travelling to the to Divide - collecting stuff - going back route is a favourable way to lay your hands on some decent gear at low level. But starting Dead Money and rushing through it (because you cannot go back without completing it IIRC) just for the loot sounds like one of, if not the worst scenario to me.

Obviously you can do whatever you can in your own game sessions, but I don't see why you should continue this character. If you get to the point where have to looking for challenge because reasons like this, it's not a good look at all.

i got to the vault in dead money and once there all i could do was die. so started a new outing.

did you have fun doing it? that's all that matters.

you know if you did OWB, you would have some background about Elijah and if you did Veronica personal quest, you would know more about her and Christine.

If you had a lot of fun doing it, that's cool. It was fun, and in a single player game, the only person you can 'cheat' is yourself. Whether you do that sort of thing again or not, depends on whether your resulting overpowered character, that has no real challenge from that point on, was worth the fun of doing the things that made him that way. There's probably a learning experience about the pitfalls of short-term gratification cheating you out of long-term happiness in there, somewheres... but I'll let you sort that out for yourself.

The op could raise the difficulty, I had to do that as normal is way too easy for me outside of lonesome road.

i always do something like this, and the rest of the game feels unbalanced.

Alternatively, what is the point of waiting to do the DLC's? Once you've done everything there is to do in the base game, who cares if you are filthy rich or if you've scored some neato whiz-bang gear? What are you going to do with it now? Instead, I feel like you should challenge the DLC early so that you can enjoy the benefits for as long as possible.

OP, the reason you feel like you cheated is probably because you looked up the walkthroughs and carefully planned the vault sequence. Personally, I feel like they should have made it impossible to retrieve the gold. I have yet to do it. There's something so poignantly tragic about coming so far and the reward is... yellow metal. That you'll never escape with.

i still dont understand the appeal of gold in real life, but NV works pretty hard to make the game balanced, and if you get a uber rifle in the start of the game that carries through to the end, its a bit unbalanced. good point though, i just dont like doing the DLCS so early because then the rest of the game is "kill this insanely large amount of people with your god rifle". no challenge anymore.

I can tell you exactly why gold is valuable in real life. The better question might be, what value would it have in a post apocalyptic world? You can't eat it, you can't shoot it out of a gun. Nor would it be scarce. Whether for ornamentation or industrial purposes, there should be plenty of gold in homes and banks to meet everyone's needs.

OK Terror of Death, how do you get beyond hard and hardcoe for difficulty, I'd like to try it? I like to push myself and see if I can do things with minimal skills and equipment and since you don't have any equipment to start with in DM, except what Elijah gives you, the minimal skills thing is all you can manipulate. I'll just say, it was interesting to try, but don't know if I'll do it again; maybe Lonesome Road next time.
CaptnJack

why is gold valuable in real life? its scarce? is that it? anyway, it shouldnt have value in a wasteland. maybe the ncr wanted gold and would pay?

It's not cheating, unmodded New Vegas lacks any sense difficulty or progression. When I played Fallout 2 for the first time I could barely get past the first tutorial level. Then playing New Vegas, you get all these super weapons, infinite ammo and caps in a few minutes and you can just start blasting deathclaws right off the bat, it's ridiculous.

Aside from its unique beauty, gold has important chemical properties that make it desirable both for ornamentation and practical uses: The low melting point and malleability of gold means that even primitive cultures can fashion intricate ornaments with it. It is impervious to oxidation and is inert in the human body. It can be hammered into sheets or formed into wires a single atom thick. It is a superb conductor and yes, it is quite scarce. Gold is absolutely essential to modern electronics. It also has many uses in medicine.

From a practical perspective, who would need gold in the wasteland? House is the only faction I can think of who would truly require large amounts. His immediate industrial needs would require gold for electronics but scavenging and recycling should provide an adequate supply. In the long term, he would need quite a lot.

NCR shouldn't be at a stage where gold would be all that valuable. Whether for ornamentation or industry, there should be plenty of it around to be scavenged or recycled to meet demands. Then again, this is a society that uses bottle caps for currency.

good point, couldnt the ncr use it to back up their currency though? what else would they back it with, it doesnt seem like they have anything of value to use......

This may sound odd, but I personally like the feeling of struggling for a little while at first in the wasteland. I like working my way to the top. Although I don't see anything wrong with scoring it big ... but if you feel guilty for doing it then that may not be the way for you. I just tend to role play and have fun.

If you're feeling overpowered, might I suggest going to the Courier's Mile(on very hard difficulty) and picking a fight?

Never had the patience to finish Dead Money but I get the same feeling playing through Honest Hearts at a low level (I've gone in at Level 1 and finished it by Level 9). Zion itself scales well and is challenging at most levels but going back to the vanilla Mojave with ALSID and the .45 SMG makes all that content trivial.

Just having the extra levels and the skills that go with them can throw off the game balance. There's none of that feel of a hungry young toon having to balance off how to spend their skill points. "I can put off raising Guns for a bit so I can have the points in Speech to complete that skill check but, doh... That means I can't unlock that safe to see what's inside."

If a set of equipment makes you feel too powerful, leave it at basecamp for a while.