This topic was discussed in a recent thread that was closed due to flaming. Some of you feel strongly about this topic and I'd like to ask your cooperation in keeping things civil. Thanks!

(I put the thread in this forum because it will discuss items from New Vegas DLCs, in case you are wondering.)

Here's the thing that concerns me. It was fun to mess around with a demigod character in F3 because, to me, it fit the pulp fifties setting Bethesda chose to emulate. That chapter of Fallout was designed to be larger than life (to great consternation in some camps) and the exploits of the Lone Wanderer (and companions) didn't seem that anachronistic.

New Vegas is a different sort of game experience. While retaining some pulp science fiction elements (giant bugs, Mr. House and his robot army, etc.) the overall feel of the game is grounded in politics and humanity. It's the player's interaction with the scripted story that fuels the game. In the vanilla game, while the Courier becomes extremely capable (in combat and/or in diplomacy), he is still vulnerable. Still recognizably human. Still challenged by the wastes. Even the latest patch, while energizing some weapons, took care to reduce the effectiveness of others.

But now we have Dead Money and 3 to 7 more DLCs, and the 'human' courier is starting to lose focus.

5 more levels and more Skill Books. More to come?

The BAR and Holorifle. Just plain superweapons. I don't use the BAR but the Holorifle? One shot kills everything.

The Sierra Madre terminal/dispensor in the BoS Bunker. Free, essentially effortless supplies for the rest of the game.

Now, some of the items above are TOTALLY optional. Nothing can force you to use the dispensor, read a skill book, or carry any weapon. It's up to player choice. You could argue that there is nothing wrong with giving players choice, and I guardedly agree with you. But part of me likes to look at the game as a whole, as a piece of design, and then unbalancing items become irritating. It's like the devs are saying, "Remember all that work we put into making this game challenging? Never mind!"

But the extra levels and attendant skill points are something else. There is no provision for the individual player to decide he is happy to stop. What was entertaining in Fallout 3 (roaming the wastes as a demigod) is just boring in New Vegas; the sandbox in this game is not designed for it, and the emphasis on grounded human concerns does not support it.

So, am I full of it? What are you looking for in a game like this?
Do you agree that enough is enough, or do you want your character to become an all 10s & 100s powerhouse of destruction?
Should the Devs take player choice vis a vis leveling into account? Should we just play characters with no intelligence? :biggrin:
Is game design integrity more important than player enjoyment?

Play nice, now.

I think it's fun to have a balanced game where it kicks my ass all the time no matter what level or gear I might have.
And where I can't become a demi god with all skills at 100.
But New Vegas is already designed, it will all go downhill from here anyway.
No way to fix it really unless they change the core of the game which I sincerely doubt they'll do.
So I'm probably going to self nerf myself some more until I finally get enough of it's crap design and go back to the older games and wait for FO4.
/Negative as [censored] hell.

Simple for a challenge.
Drop all items.
Only a brahmen skin outfit and a lead pipe are allowed. Wealk throught the cazador corridor by jacobs town to red rock. No antivenom.
Put it on youtube if yousurvive.

hardcoe mode V hard.

I'm looking for fun in this game, just like with every other game. I want to have fun.

Now, my kind of fun? It involves 100s across the board in a powerhouse of destruction. Like what I ended up with in FO3 and what I strive for (or as close as possible) in New Vegas. I want permanent stealth fields while I'm crouching. I want one-hit kills. I want to be able to one-shot a Mojave Deathclaw with a Lead Pipe while I'm standing toe-to-toe with it. I want to be a master of everything so that I am denied nothing in the game. In short, I want to be a god in video games. That's fun for me.


Regarding the whole... "self-gimping" thing...

What other people call "self-gimping" I call "choice". Because that's what it is. If you are "self-gimping" all you're doing is choosing to not use something. Some people complain about having to (self-gimp) make a choice. Who complains about choice in a game when the game is built around the concept of choice? I collect all weapons and armor. I have a Holorifle. I have Remnants Power Armor. Do I use either one? Nope. I carry around a Sniper Rifle and wear Reinforced Leather Armor. I'm not gimping myself, I'm using what I want... I'm making a choice. You don't like that dispenser in the bunker? Make a choice and don't use it. You think that Holorifle is too powerful? Make a choice to carry something else. You thought the Sniper Rifle was (ugh) over-powered (ridiculous)? Make a choice and use the Varmint Rifle for sniping. This Machine pwns everything? Make a choice! Use something else!

But I'm sure nobody wants to hear any of that.

Should players have the option to cap themselves? That question seems odd to me. I've played a lot of RPGs. The level cap is the level cap. Everybody I've ever known who plays RPGs wants to gain levels. In most cases, we're all actually very unhappy about being capped at all! I don't know what to make of arguments based on limiting one's level or XP gain. I guess it wouldn't hurt to have the option there. So long as it is just that - an option. I might not understand it or use it, but that will be my choice.

Players shouldn't have to gimp themselves though.
The game should set up it's own rules with the players to follow it.
I can't scream Yahtzee! when getting 1, 2, 1, 1, 2.
I have to follow the rules.

So I want to play the game as I choose to, but have the game set up certain rules for me to follow.
I don't want to fear me becoming "too" powerful by using Combat Armor MK II and Holorifle.
I don't want to fear me getting too many skill points because I made a scientist character with 7 INT and Educated perk.
The game should be balanced towards being hard, so that we strive to become better and use the ultimate gear in order to barely survive the stronger enemies.

That is what I consider fun.
To have the game set a lot of limits to us, limits that make sure we have a decent challenge all through out the game and have us have the ambition to be as good as we can possibly be.
But the thing is, we become as good as we can possibly be with little effort.
Getting even 5 skills to 100 should require lots of planning and the right build.

The game should be brutal, that way we strive towards becoming as much of a god-character as possible.
And no matter how good we become we still don't become a demi-god.

That is my opinion of fun in a game.
Challenge.
Both with combat and limitations to skills and stats and tons of action and consequences.
FO3 and New Vegas threw that out the window. (New Vegas still don't have much action and consequence with SPECIAL, it has with factions and quests but not much with character building.)
And the DLC's with their new shiny toys ain't gonna help either. ("If you don't like them then don't buy them" But I want to buy them, for lore.)

/opinion.

This is why I loved the old Fallout games.
They were hard as hell with dialogue, stats and skills and combat.
I love brutal games like those.
I was raised to them.
Hate that just about every game nowadays hold my hand.
Games should at least have their difficulty sliders "mean" something.
*sigh*
I so wish that the S.T.A.L.K.E.R series would come to the 360 or that I could run them on my computer.. (I know that S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2 is coming to 360 but I want to play the old games as well.)

Well, it appears there are those players that want to be uber couriers and rule the Mojave with superior skills and powerful weapons. There are also those players that prefer to be challenged more by creating a courier that has some skills with weapons that are not overpowered.

I don't believe both groups can be satisfied by one game unless the developers create the game so that the player can create an uber courier if the player chooses to. As this game currently exists, I don't believe it can satisfy both groups.

Seems to me to be a moot point.

Exactly, which is why for me the game balance can only go down from here with the DLC's.
I doubt FO4 is going to be much different but I really hope that Fallout: Arizona is a game that is designed for hardcoe players.

Wow why not just buy a pc and make a mod that kills things just for detecting you while your at it.

"I so wish that the S.T.A.L.K.E.R series would come to the 360 or that I could run them on my computer.. (I know that S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2 is coming to 360 but I want to play the old games as well.) "

So long as they don't have the enormous number of bugs that the original PC version had!
:wink_smile:

Well I heard on NMA that most of the bugs are fixed in Clear Sky and Call Of Prypiat(?) but dunno about Shadows Of Chernobyl.

SoC is fine after the last patch (at least my version seems to be).

Don't like an item? Don't use it.

Personal responsibility. Take some.

That really helps with 13 skills, 100 skill cap, 30 level cap, perk every other level and fixed enemy spawns.
This whole thing about "Take personal responsibility" is just to excuse the way the developers balanced the game.
We shouldn't have to gimp ourselves because they [censored] up on balancing the game.

Yet, we are forced to do so, and yes, I "am" gimping myself and taking some personal responsibility. (Stopped using the weapon repair kits thingie by the way, still think the vending machine should be patched though.)
But by doing this I feel incredibly limited, that I can't enjoy the full game cause it will make it a cake-walk.

So actually, I feel that a lot of options is taken away from me by doing this.
"But if you want to use those things then do it".
But... I can't... Cause that will unbalance crap again.
"Then don't use it."
Then I feel that options are taken away from me...
"Then "use" those things..."
But then the game becomes unbalanced... Again.
"Then don't use them!"

See where I'm getting at?
It's a dead end.
Self-gimping can fix some things but it also means the game becomes a lot more limited.
And if one wishes to experience the content of a game one has purchased for one's own money one has to fear that it unbalances crap again.
Self-gimping isn't a fix for me.
And "not" self-gimping isn't a fix for me either.

There is no fix at all for me.
It's either lose out on content or be a demi-god. (With more variables of course.)

Point is, saying we should have some personal responsibility isn't the magical solution.

If u didnt like the dispenser then why collect the holodiscs?
If you didnt like the Holorifle then you should mount it on a shelf instead.
YOU dont need to pick up or use everything you come across in the game.
I also see that it is hard to choose to not become a demigod because there is many unbalancing things....so i made a few challenges.

The Demigod Test(see if you got what it takes to be a real demigod)
Only rule is no companions, Mods, unique weapons or power armour, difficulty normal or higher, Follow each challenge in any order but must go by rules.
Challenge #1 kill a mother/daddy deathclaw or normal deathclaw naked with bare hands,no V.A.T.S but can use chems(no stimpacks)

Challenge #2 get through dead money (If you have) just by running away from the ghosts,kill them when you need to for certain quests.

Challenge #3 get through the game without using chems or implants, stimpacks can be used to restore limbs if you cant find a doctors bag.

Challenge #4 Attack the brotherhood of steel and win using a rolling pin, dont use power armour.

Challenge #5Have fun.(this one seems to be the hardest one ever for some people)
Fair play if you actually do any/all of these. I would like to see a link to any video or screenshot when possible.

So buy it on PC and mod it. Otherwise, deal with it. Everyone else does.


Nope. Game's balanced fine. Developers didn't design the game specifically for your gameplay style. They designed it to appeal to a wide range of tastes. Looked like they succeeded.

By your "logic", the fact that the devs included an adjustable difficulty setting means the game's "unbalanced" as well.


Instead, you would like that options are taken away from other people in order to cater to your whims. That seems to be the common theme for some people here. People whinging because the game isn't exactly what they want. Amazingly arrogant.

Don't like something? Don't use it. Easy to do. Don't like the game being unbalanced? Simplest solution is to exercise your power as the consumer and don't buy any more DLCs and don't play them. Again, easy to do. All simple solutions that require nothing on your part except for a bit of discipline.

One should not have to.



It isn't "my specific game style".
Fallout games used to be brutal.
Just like how they used to have a map node system.
Just like how they used to have longer and more detailed dialogue.
It was part of what Fallout was.
Is it as brutal now?
Not for me, definitely not for me.
And I'm no "pro" at this game either.


Very Hard is barely hard.



No options are taken away...
All that happens is that things get rebalanced.
A weapon that does 57 in DAM might be lowered to 52.
A creature with 220 in health might have it raised to 250 with 5 DT as well.
Nothing would be taken away from you, well, maybe some skill points so you can't max out 40 skills but I hardly consider that "taking away something" from you.
It would just "limit" certain things.
And hell, considering how the game world is right now with completely fixed enemy spawns if they made the world evolve then it would even "add" to the game.

And uhm, you don't care about game balance from what I've seen.
So for you the game don't have a problem with this.
And since I see a problem with this I want patches to fix things.
Now why would you not want these patches?
Is it because you like being over-powered?
I do not know.
But you're defending the game being poorly balanced with that it's player choice.
You're just as selfish as I am in this debate.

If the game would have been balanced towards being hard from the start then most people would have just accepted it.
If someone thinks it's too hard, they could just drop the difficulty.
But the problem here is that if someone finds it too easy at Very Hard there isn't much to be done.
We "could" gimp ourselves and yes it can make the game harder, but we shouldn't have to do it.
You're against it becoming harder for some reason, saying it takes away options from people.
It doesn't.
It makes it harder for everyone but maybe not as brutal as L4D2 on Expert Realism Co-op mode on Swamp Fever.
What if the game became more balanced?
How would it hurt you or others?
You can't be over powered any more?
How is that a bad thing?
It adds to challenge to the game by setting new rules and tweaking old ones.
This is how I consider it, that a game should naturally be hard, not too hard mind you, but just hard.
That way we aspire to become better, to improve ourselves.
If we still feel it's too easy we can use that extra bump Hard or Very Hard to make the challenge harder.
If we feel it's too much we can bump it down to Easy or Very Easy in order to casually play the game.
So what do I want?
A world that feels more alive to the PC, after reaching lvl 15 let Powder Gangers spread out some more, let them have a deal with some weapon provider who gets them cowboy repeaters, grenade launchers and 3 dynamite sticks bundled together.
Just doing a small thing like this adds to greater challenge, it allows the world to level up "with us".
I see nothing wrong with it and it could really balance out the combat to a degree.
If skill point distribution followed the 1:1, 2:1 and 3:1 ratio with tagged skill following 1:1, 1:1 and 2:1 then we could still max out our main skills, the ones we tagged and maybe one or two more and the level cap wouldn't be so problematic to have at level 40.
Just cause I want the game to be balanced doesn't meant that I want things removed, it doesn't mean I want the player to be limited to one weapon and a stimpack.
It just means that things are balanced out so that the game is always a challenge for the player.
How is this a bad thing?

And yes, we could limit ourselves to a pre-war dress and a rolling pin but why should we have to do that?
Shouldn't we be able to use a Riot Shotgun that we just spent 6000 caps on?
Shouldn't we be able to distribute skill points that we earned wherever we want to?
Without it becoming too easy?

Saying "don't use it" means we have to limit our gameplay to make up for that the world is stiff and predictable and that skill point distribution isn't balanced.
I don't consider that a valid excuse.
There are ways to balance the game out.
And I see no fault in doing so.
I only see positive things with it.

Only people who are going to be mad are those that like to be overpowered, but if they like to be that they could always drop it down to Very Easy yknow. (Player responsibility yknow. )


I want to buy them.
I want them for lore, I want them for story, so I will buy them, and I will damn well complain like a little brat if they unbalance crap..

Gabriel77dan, I was counting on your contribution to this thread. (I hope you'll forgive my presumption.)
I don't think you'll be very happy with the gameplay in New Vegas as the DLCs roll in. I have a feeling the guns are going to get bigger and the levels are going to keep going up. You seem to place great value, as a player, on difficulty and challenge. I remember the old Nintendo days, when some games were almost impossible to beat but when you finally finished the sense of accomplishment made up for the hours of frustration (Dead money reminded me of an old Nintendo, come to think of it. Platforming & all...).

I think the days of deliberately hard games are behind us now. Many more people are playing and many more individual tastes have to be accounted for if the product will be profitable. As much as I know you hate to hear this, you may have to rely on self-gimping and player options in the future (well, now, actually). I personally play games for relaxation; my real life is stressful enough - I don't seek stress in entertainment. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in that.

You raise an interesting point, though (I think it was you -- long posts & all) -- the New Vegas sandbox is static. I'm at the point now where I am rarely surprised by anything. I hardly ever sneak anymore, and that was my default mode for ages. I don't know if the engine can handle it, but a reshuffling and subtle leveling of enemies in the wasteland would be a good thing. It would be refreshing to be surprised; it would be satisfying to discover Gangers with better weapons. I don't want it to be a grueling experience, mind you, but a step up in challenge would keep me from getting bored.

As for the leveling issue, I have to admit that I am a player who likes to level. I try to make the end of the story coincide with my last level-up because completing quests, killing, disarming, etc. feel empty to me without that little experience gain. But I don't like my characters being jacks-of-all-trades if I don't want them to be. Maybe we can dump skill points in skills we have already reached 100 in? (I saw this in another thread -- it was that guy Styles, I think, who suggested it) I'm not even asking for improvement, but if I have, say, a (meaningless) 120 in guns it wouldn't bother me as much as having to have 100 in Unarmed when my character has never thrown a punch.

Yeah I kinda feel that the old days of struggling to complete a game is kinda gone for me.
It's sad, but it's a reason as to why I don't buy as many games now.
Don't get me wrong, I also like to play casual games or lower the difficulty on certain games to just chill out.
So I go both ways with it. (Pun?)



Wouldn't need to be FO3's random level encounters either.
Like, yknow the highway to the east of El Dorado Dry Lake?
Well, how about at lvl 15 we can occasionally see powder gangers there, not every time, but from time to time.
And if we complete Crazy Crazy Crazy then super mutants and nightkin have nowhere to go so we can find a group of them (5 to 8 mutants) there every once in a while as well.
And by clearing out Quarry Junction the deathclaws can show up in packs of 3 to 6 there as well.
Not too often, not too seldom.
It's still a fixed location but you never know.. Will it be nightkin or powder gangers?

And this might be more complicated but it would also be nice with for these things to happen in certain "zones".
Like, if I kill the super mutants at Black Mountain and I return there, then the super mutants will have respawned "exactly" where they died.
But with the zone it's like this, that in this zone, which covers a long stretch of this highway, there is a 20% chance each day that powder gangers will spawn there, if left alone then they will disappear in three days.
But nightkin and super mutants have a 30% chance of spawning along this highway as well.
And deathclaws have 15% chance.

This means that if you're reeaaally lucky, you might encounter a group of all three through chance which would seem very random.
Anyway, this "zone" covers a large part of the highway and some parts of the sides of it.
When a deathclaw pack spawn there they won't spawn at the exact fixed location every time.
They will spawn anywhere inside of this zone, which means you don't know "exactly" where they'll spawn.

This is of course not "excluded" to this highway, there are lots of places which would make perfect sense for something to appear at.
Like, after Crazy Crazy Crazy, you can find super mutants and nightkin groups occasionally "around" Black Mountains area.
You can even find them in completely offsite places, like Ivanpah Dry Lake, of Searchlight Airport, but the % of super mutants showing up there is slim, 7 to 12% chance.

Could be done with all hostile factions and creatures, give certain zones or fixed locations which all have certain % chances of showing up there, but the % chance might not activate until a quest is completed or until you've reached a certain point in the main quest or a certain level.

It would be more complicated but I think it would make the world more spontaneous.


If they followed the 1:1, 2:1, 3:1 and tagged 1:1, 1:1, 2:1 ratio then we could have more levels though.
Maybe need a decrease in health per level and change perks to once every third.

But it could allow for more levels

1-50 1:1
51-90 2:1
90-100 3:1

If a skill starts out at 13 from character creation and you don't tag it then it means it will need 147 skill points to reach 100.
With 13 to 17 skill points per level it would require "a lot" of levels to fill it out.
While tagged skills are raised easier.

With less health per level, maybe 3, and perk every third, I believe we could have a 50 or maybe even 60 level cap.
But there are a lot of variables that need to be thrown into the mix though.

But the 101+ could work as well, maybe with 150 in lockpick we get better chance to force pick locks and won't have to do the minigame. (Yknow, give "slight" bonuses, but no bonus could work as well, wouldn't feel as rewarding as that extra little plus but still.)

Put it on to very hard/hardcoe. If you have done that well take it in mind that you can always start a new game. If you have played to level 35 and have got all the weapons, just start a new game. Thats the beauty of fallout new vegas, so many options that you simply can just make one game and keep at it. The number of options will only increase with the new DLCs, making people make more saves to do them all. Basically if it gets too easy, make a new game and start again.

I'm not at lvl 35.
I've not even started the platinum chip part or even met Benny.
And the game is still incredibly easy at VH/HCM.
Can't really restart the game, I want to finish the main quest. :shrug:

Want challenges? Use a weaker weapon/armour combo.

Freedom of choice... the game gives it to you. It's your choice whether to use it or not. Don't complain because you keep making consistently poor choices. Just make better choices.

Amazing that the same people who laud the fact that in-game choices have consequences rage that their own choices have consequences.

Isn't the point of the gameplay in an RPG to try to get better - hence the characterprogression and (usually present) balance? The choices people want are "in-game" choices, not "out-of-game" avoidance of getting better (there is difference in choosing between two sides in the game, and choosing between the rules the game offers and your own rules - making the player create his own rules poses an unneeded and unwanted out of the game chore). If you take away the "getting better" part by default, what is there in the game to strive for anymore but ironman builds, seeing if one can run naked through a forest of barbed wire while fighting against horrymonsters of hell with a crippled left hand and holding a [censored] with the right? What kind of "freedom of choice" is having to gimp oneself by out of game rules in order to make the experience good?

Selfgimping is always a possibility regardless of the game or the difficultylevel (and should never be forced upon the player), but a balanced act isn't always there. The difficultysliders are there for a reason and they should work the way they appear to advertise themselves (easy, normal, hard etc).

It always has been, and it works in FNV. Try going to Deathclaw promontory at level 3 with a silenced 22. Then at 25 with an AR. Levelling up + better weps/armour = RPGness. The complaints here revolve around this very basic principle, which leads me to believe that Fallout is the only "RPG" some people have ever played. RPGs have traditionally been about getting your character/party to a god-like status.



And they do.

The balance of the game is proven to exist by the fact that I can play at any difficulty level I want, either by using the difficulty bar, or choosing weaker weapons/armour, or a combination of both. There's no such thing as "self-gimping". This is just a term used to describe poor decisions or a lack of willpower. Nothing forced on me.

Ways to balance the game

1) Bring back Skilled so we can have perks every 3 levels not two

2) Make it so skills are given out like this: 1-49 costs one skill point. 50-74 costs two skill points. 75-100 costs 3 skill points.

3) Bring back the ability to go past 100 in skill points would be better then idea #2.

4) Make any future level optional.

5) Have some more NPC with heavy firepower, Light Machine Guns, Combat Shotguns, Anti-material rifles, Gauss rifles, missile launchers, .50cal Machine Guns would be great and a Fatman using enemie would be great.

6) Add http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Sentry_Bot_(Fallout_2), http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Auto-Cannon and http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Gun_Turret.

2's a good idea. Combine something like this with an increased level cap to increase playability, and you're on a winner.