In FO3, the hacking minigame could easily be exited out of and retried. Occasionally, you may make use of the secret bracket bonuses which will eliminate invalid choices or more rarely replenish your allowance of tries.

In FONV, we have an anti-scumming "feature" that makes you wait through the entire command prompt bit before the actual minigame proper starts.

However, as before in FO3, sometimes you never get an "allowance replenished" bonus once you use up all the bonus brackets. One is leery about using the brackets before making the first pick in the event that you accidentally trigger the allowance replenishment and waste it. And once you're on your last try, and the "dud removed" bit still doesn't narrow it down to anything less than a total crapshoot before running out of bracket bonuses, you have no choice but to exit the monitor, and wait through the annoying scumming-guard.

So. I think there should always be at least one bonus bracket in each minigame that replenishes allowance.

Does the extra 5 seconds or so really bother you that much?

I don't see an issue with it...

I hate this new thing and I will never get that hacking achievement cause of it.
The hacking minigame is one of the worst minigames I've ever played, finding out how to skim through it in FO3 was nice but I still felt very dirty about using it.
I'd rather have it removed completely and be based on dice-rolls or hell, rip off Bioshock's hacking system.

I hate hacking -_____-
Though after having a lot of practice from Fallout 3 and NV i think Ive gotten really good at it. Still there are those times when you happen to make a few good choices and suddenly find yourself stuck because none of the remaining choices actually work (or no matter how hard you try you can't find it). I too find it extremely irritating having to wait through the entire command prompt.

Wha...

I can skip that stuff just fine, like in Fallout 3. :shrug:

If one still wishes to maintain the pretense that Fallout is an RPG, there is only one answer: Skill-based hacking, no minigames.

Alternative: Face the truth and start marketing under the "Action-RPG" or "Adventure Game" heading and stop deluding yourselves and your customers.

Simple as that.

I usually have more trouble with a lesser amount of letter combinations than visa versa. Even though it's supposed to be easier.. :blink:

I know it shouldn't be a problem, but I'm just that impatient, I guess.
It does serve as a fair punishment for cheaters like me, though.

It's about 5 seconds with that one mod that boosts the typing speed on the login bit to inhumanly fast levels. Without? I haven't really timed it, but I'd bet 15-20 seconds. Which is a hassle when attempting to do it again.

There's no such scumming block on lockpicks.

The problem is that it doesn't give you any way to beat ones that you're just at the skill level for; you have to completely log out and start over because there's too many words and too few brackets. And that means mandatory waiting through the bloody login screen.

I actually enjoy the hacking and picking locks minigames although it would just about as much sense if it was simply a skill-based thing.

Have 50 Science? Ok you can access Average level computers. No? You can risk it with a dice roll.

well, you don't have to wait the full time. after three lines, the game will allow me to hit the A bottom on the game controller to speed things up. this saves a second or two.

The hacking minigame isn't hard at all as long as you use a few tricks and use the bracket codes. If you do it right you should never even have to log off and retry. It seems even easier in FONV, there have been multiple times where I've used a bracket code and received some error response because there was only one entry left, even on average computers.

I very very rarely have to log off and reset the computer, once I managed to recognize and avoid a logical fallacy* I was prone to while trying to solve the puzzle.

Learn to hack better? Sure it's a player skill roll, not a character skill roll, but I don't mind because it's a nice change of pace from shooting people and tediously micro-managing my inventory.

(* just because the same letter turns up in the same place on multiple words does NOT guarantee that this letter is part of the solution)

I hate getting the "Allowance Replenished" from the brackets even before i have used any of my allowance!!!

I want to remove a dud [censored] it!! lol

I know how to hack. Probably better than most. But it's still annoying when all I get turning up are ones with only one or two letter matches and then I have to start over. Wasn't a hassle with FO3. It is now with the unneeded scumguard.

I don't see what the fuss is with the hacking game. it's not like you even need the allowance or the dud removals. Pretty simple to figure out even with only a couple of hits.

And if you use the dud removal, for me at least it seems to eliminate all but one choice anyways. Pretty simple to get it right when you only have one choice.

Seems easier than F03 by far.

I'm not sure what you're all talking about. it seems the same as FO3 to me- on the xbox I can make the screen pop up pretty fast. One thing I am ignorant of are these 'brackets codes' you mention. I've never heard of those. I don't really have any trouble hacking. I always just select the first word, then proceed to pick ones that match, after 2 or 3 its easier, as the right word has to match all of them.

As the the 'rp' of it, you skill level allows you to hack terminals of a certain difficulty. If it's not high enough you can't even begin to try. So, I don't have a problem in having to figure it out myself after that point. I mean, does that mean you want the game to do everything for us? Do you only use VATS? Or do you do some 'real-time' 'action-game' shooting too. I think it's a great balance between rpg and 'action'.

why can't the computer whiz perk just allow automatic hacking with no minigame, a perk for those of us who hate hate hate it

It's a hidden little feature. At least on the PC. You can choose any set of opened and closed parens, brackets, or braces instead of a word. So in

&@_(&#,+|)&(@&

the (&#,+|) part is a valid choice. Entering one of these codes instead of a word will do one of two things. Either it will remove a word from the screen that is NOT the correct password, replacing it with periods, or, it will reset the counter so that you have a full four guesses again. Using the code does not itself count as a "guess".

There's some strategy involved. About 80% of the time a dud password will be removed (making your further anolysis easier), but the other 20% of the time you get the allowance reset, which is a very useful thing if you're down to your last guess. So do you use the codes up front to reduce your number of possibles, or use them at the end because you might hit that valuable Rese Allowance one right when you need more chances.

:violin:

Would be better if they replace the minigame with a animation that happened in real time. That way you can get interrupted or actually have to not be seen when hacking other peoples stuff. AKA run in hack while the other guy is "frozen" out of range.

the hacking minigame is totally [censored] from the start. compare it to say the bioshock or mass effect hacking style minigames. both of those games are over in less than 30 seconds. but depending on how smart/awake/willing to bother with a stupid minigame you are, the hacking game in fo:NV can drag on for minutes at a time. my simple solution: computer whiz perk lets you hack comps automatically. for those of us who [censored] hate the [censored] hacking minigame.

I hate that "anti-scumming" too.

What's funny is you can bypass it via reload.

But then there is the loading crash (is this a feature too?)

As for weather the ME or Bioshock version is superior.....I don't know, I mean I just bail when it is about time and repeat......

As for hacking while not freezing the game: I don't seem to remember any big title would have it......

I think changing the Hacking to anything else would be really stupid, its a simple word puzzle. You don't even have to do much of the work yourself if you use the brackets.

Also lockpicking of course doesn't have an antiscumming feature because you don't need to restart the lock?

If you "need to restart the computer", why can you skip through the login on the first try on a hack?

I once spent a good three minutes on a "simple word puzzle" because it wouldn't give me any good partial matches, handily deleted the guesses I already tried with the brackets once I was on my last try, and never gave me an allowance refill. And on the second round, first bracket I clicked... boom, allowance refill, which was completely wasted because I hadn't given any actual tries.

And on an Easy-level. A freaking easy-level computer It's not an issue if you're super-l33t in science, but when you just pass the skill level, there are word choices everywhere. Even if you have 10-15ish above.

The only time hacking is ever as much a cinch as lockpicking is when you're at 75+ science and you're doing an easy/very easy hack so there's hardly any choices to choose from to begin with. Or you get luck of the draw and get an instant-right guess, a really high partial match, or a complete mismatch (where even one letter = invalid so it's easy to sort out) on your first try.

It's abfrickinsurd. Check that... it's abfrickinsurd with the scumguard. I wasn't really bothered with it in FO3, because I could figure it out and wasn't bothered with running out of choices. But now...