Hi all,

Bought New Vegas over Steam last week. We got the Ultimate Edition, which apparently includes all the DLCs. Both I and my wife are loving the quests, the dialogue, the factions - just the sheer amount of options available.

We are both big fans of the FWE (Fallout Wanderer's Edition) mod for Fallout 3, and so without hesitation we went for hardcoe mode right away in NV. Otherwise we're playing on what I guess is the default difficulty setting.

And in combat, my character seems to just barely scraqe by. My wife is having much less frustration and difficulty with hers. Clearly, this injustice cannot stand!

So here's what we're dealing with. I wanted to make a sort of cowboy-style character (seemed fitting), so at character creation I tagged Guns, Speech, and Survival. For my SPECIALs, I dropped INT down to 4 and increased AGI and LUCK to 7, and I think END and CHA to 6. Maybe I also dropped STR to 4 and upped PER to 6.

Regardless, on level-up I have been faithfully increasing Guns by at least 5 skill points. Currently at level 9, my Guns is at 72, Speech is next highest at 60, and Survival lags behind around 40. I had also been putting some points into Repair early on, so that's in the 30s. Other skills are in the teens.

I figured that, with a Guns skill in the 50s or higher, I would be able to pretty much drop stuff with a head shot, or a shot to the torso followed by a head shot. But I'm finding that pretty much any enemy I fight can withstand multiple shots to the head at point blank range (within 20' or so) with a .357 magnum. Since I started with the DLCs, I started with some pretty good gear, but it doesn't seem to matter - the Caravan Shotgun, Weathered 10mm - hell, even Maria doesn't get the job done quickly.

I don't have all the stats on my wife's character, but the basics are that she uses Energy Weapons and Explosives. Her EW skill is around 60; her Explosives is probably lower than that. Just last night I saw her take out 3 Fiends at once with a single Frag Grenade. A little later when I was playing and ran across 3 Fiends in a different area, it took me multiple reloads before I could kill them all.

Oh, and she also has a companion:
I don't. Haven't had the opportunity yet, and anyway I was sort of wanting to be a lone wanderer kind of dude.

Anyway, I know this is getting into what is considered wall of text territory, but I just wondered if a) I'm crazy, b ) hardcoe mode or NV in general gimps Guns, or, c) my wife is simply a better player than I am. And, if c, can our marriage survive???

I think creatures in the Mojave are harder to kill and just more resistent than on the DC ruins. I mean. The cazadores... Jesus

Guns are not weak, they are actually more powerful than Energy Weapons (which doesn't make a damn lick of sense).
You are surprised that in a game with damage numbers, health numbers and defense numbers when a .357 pistol, one of the weakest ones, can't kill someone instantly from shooting them in the face? hardcoe Mode is not Realism Mode, the damage and health follows RPG mechanics, not realism/simulation mechanics.

If you want to kill enemeies quickly you need top tier weapons or at least close to top tier weapons.
Brush Gun.
Trail Carbine.
That Gun.
.44 Magnum.
Sniper Rifle/Anti Material Rifle.

Those weapons work better, try them out.

Your STR is at 4, a lot of weapons require 5+ STR, if you do not meet the STR requirement for a weapon then the accurcy will be off.


Now Explosives have a lot of perks tied to it, so if she took those perks then her damage will be fantastic, that's why she can drop enemies easily, Explosives is really powerful, but it's a doubleedged sword as if you stand to close you get hurt too. So while she may be kicking ass out in the open she will have a problem using Explosives in close spaces.

And Boone is considered a pain in the ass by a lot of people, not cause of his personality (although I loathe it), not cause of his affiliation (although I loathe it), it's because he steals all the kills from a mile away.

So your wife is using Explosives which is really powerful, she has a companion that is disliked cause he steals the kills while you run arond with low tier weapons and 4 STR expecting the gameplay to be the same.


[edit]


So anyway, get better weapons, get better armor, get better perks, get more stimpaks, doctors bags and hydra and you should an easier time to it.

FInally, the difference from New Vegas to FAllout 3 with damage is the defense mechanic.
Fallout 3 used Damage Resistance.
NV uses Damage Threshold.

20% DR means that "0% damage is taken off.
20 DT meansa that 20 damage is takne off.

Someone shoots at you with a weapon that does 60 in damage then with DR 12 points are taken off the damage, whereas with DT 20 points are taken off the damage.

If enemies don't go down easily it's because their DT is higher than your damage. If you see a little red shield pop up next to the enemies health bar then it means you need a stronger weapon or use different ammo.

You can buy and craft special ammo from NPC's/workbenches respectively.

c) she is just a better player than you

that little gun you have is worthless, i'd default to my fists before i pulled out a .357, upgrade to lucky or a .44 if you want to use pistols. boone, well boone is a badass among badasses (i can be walking around and have him shoot totally out of the blue, few seconds later i find a corpse in the direction he shot with nothing else around)

Nah! Guns in FONV are really power and like Gabriel said generally they are more powerful than energy weapons (which is funny because in FO3 it's the other way around), but a few tips:

• Put you strength up by two points
  
• Get the "weapon handling" perk, once you can of course
  
• The .357 magnum IS a good handgun at lower levels, but as you increase in level get some better guns (or in this case handguns).
  
• Crouch for accuracy (you probably already knew this)
  
• Increase your guns skill

And that's it just keep trying!

For a great gun get the ratslayer. It's the unique version of the varmint rifle and it is completely superior in every way to a fully modded VR and can be obtained very easily. It's silenced, has a night scope, low weight, very good chance at scoring criticals. Just sneak and go for head shots and the game should become much easier.
You should do Honest hearts. It has amazing loot. Especially for a guns character. Aside from having two of the best light and medium armors in the game you can find two very good guns that never will become obsolete.
Some other good guns to look for are the hunting rifle and the trail carbine which become great guns for sniping once you get the scope modifications. Both are more good alternatives to the sniper rifle and anti-material rifle for a low level player as they are less expensive expensive to buy and maintain.
Also, the hunting shotgun is a very good gun but you should get the perks stay back and shotgun surgeon to maximize it's potential.
When you get to a higher level the brush gun/medicine stick, anti-material rifle and gobi campaign scout rifle are some of the best guns.

For some useful perks I recommend:

Hand loader-Lets you create powerful ammo variants . If you are struggling to get the job done with your guns then taking this perk is the first thing you should do to help rectify the problem.

Cowboy-+25% damage with revolvers and lever action guns among other things. The only problem is you also need 45 melee to get the perk.

Grunt-+25% damage with 9mm and .45 pistols and SMG's, light machine guns, service rifles, assault and marksman carbines and various explosives. You also need 45 explosives to get the perk though.

Fight the power gives a boost in DT and critical hit chance against the NCR, Leigon and BoS.
Sneering imperialist will help against various tribals and raiders with a boost in damage and accuracy.

I hope some of this advice helps.

In two words... yeah, kinda.

Hey, not trying to be confrontational here - and I really do appreciate the advice. I'm new to the game, though, and figured that any gun with "Magnum" at the end of its name would be pretty effective when fired between the eyes of some thug. One of the things that's difficult about an entirely new game is figuring out all the options, and in NV there are a frickin' ton! In F3 there was just the one type of Magnum, so I guess I assumed they are all pretty much the same - the badass pistol.

Thanks for the breakdown of DT vs DR - that explains why those Legion hit squads were always kicking my ass!

As I said, I played the FWE mod quite a bit for F3 and perhaps that skewed my expectations. In that mod, things were made more difficult not by raising defenses, but by making guns deadlier all around. So yeah, you could kill stuff in a few shots - which felt right - but you yourself could also die in a few shots. Again, felt right. I guess I was expecting something similar in NV.

So, need to get some guns, need to get some guns... any general tips where I can find some? I can't recall if Gun Runners had anything on that list.

Im pretty sure you wont thank that later on in the game, as people say some guns are overpowered. Thats all I'm going to say...

What you describe sounds normal for first time players.

There are a lot of factors that affect what I'll call weapon efficiency (i.e. how many shots to kill an enemy). These include: enemy armor (DT), your skill (sounds fine for your level), critical hits, sneak criticals, weapon condition, perks, and challenges. (Challenges with certain weapon types earn you small incremental damage bonuses. You'll start to see messages once you've killed a certain number of enemies, often at 50, 100 and 150 increments.)

Don't know if you're in first person or VATS, but a lot of your efficiency could be weapon spread related. For best results, crouch before shooting. If you are in first person, use the ALT key (or right mouse button) to aim before shooting.

The .357 Revolver is essentially beginner weapon. It does good damage per shot for a starter weapon, but revolvers are slow to fire compared to pistols, and they are slow to reload. Keep your eyes open for more powerful guns. Try to use different guns as much as possible to get a feel for them. Switching from a revolver to a rifle can throw you off until you get used to it.

Also, and it is not always apparent, companions with guns are extremely deadly and efficient in New Vegas. It may appear that the plasma princess is doing the killing when in fact it might actually be the companion with the hunting rifle who's hanging out at the back of the group. You don't see tracers so it's not always obvious unless you just let your player stand their idle and watch what the companion with the hunting rifle can do (in fairly short order) to a pack of Fiends.

I'd recommend to hang on to that Varmint Rifle that Sunny gives you. It has 3 good mods and a very common ammunition type so will be useful through most of the game, not against everything you meet but against enough stuff that it's worth keeping.

P.S. Guns are generally more powerful than energy weapons in New Vegas but it is hard to compare apples and oranges. The best single shot damage rifle is an EW. But there are pluses and minuses to both types, for example the best gun requires higher strength to use properly. The main drawback of energy weapons is not damage, but rather ammunition costs for EW's tends to be quite high compared to guns, but there are perks to alleviate that. And with GRA and the DLC's and final patch the two types are closer in performance than they were originally.

Riot Shotgun with Slugs, "and stay back" perk with Shotgun Surgeon.

Thats extremely potent combonation.

You need to update your gun catalog.


New Vegas weapons work in Tiers of strength. Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3, Tier 4, with Tier 4 weapons being the strongest. The weapons are VERY well balanced, so you could arguably complete the game with Tier 1 weapons (I went a long time with a Cowboy repeater as my main rifle, which is ~Tier 2), but in terms of raw power (damage-per-hit), Tier 4 is superior. All the guns you named in your first post are tier 1-2.

Try getting your hands on a Hunting Rifle. That's basically the first Tier 3 weapon you can come across, and thus feels far more effective than other guns you've run across beforehand. Once you mod it with a scope, you've got your very first sniper rifle. Sniping lets you utilize sneak attack criticals quite easy, and for the Hunting Rifle, that means 100 damage dealt, 200 on a sneak attack critical headshot.

As for headshots, keep in mind how the damage system works. Distance has no influence on damage. Accuracy? Yes, so it is good to be closer to a target when using a Shotgun or SMG in order to assure that more shots hit the target. However whether you nail someone in the head from across the room or at point-blank? This makes no difference. A headshot is an automatic x2 damage factor.

Since you say you're a cowboy-type, I assume you also picked the Cowboy perk. This is something you'll appreciate in the long run if you enjoy hard-hitting guns. There's basically three gun-type perks for increasing damage, the first two being Grunt and Cowboy. Grunt increases your damage with modern weaponry whereas Cowboy increases your damage with lever-action rifles and revolvers. Likewise, guns that benefit from Grunt tend to have a low damage-per-hit but high damage-per-second, whereas Cowboy weaponry tends to have high damage-per-hit but a modest damage-per-second. The final gun perk to increase damage is Hand Loader, which unlocks new ammo types that can be crafted at a reloading bench. While not all the new ammo types are practical, I can tell you that .357 magnum, .44 magnum and .45-70 Gov't (Cowboy type ammo) get some of the best bonuses from this perk.

The .357 magnum is a tier one cowboy weapon, with the Cowboy Repeater being Tier two. If you do have the Cowboy perk and wanna utilize it, at this stage in the game you should be looking into investing in a Trail carbine and a .44 Magnum, both Tier 3. Afterwards, the Hunting Revolver and the Brush Gun are the Tier 4 guns. There's also multiple unique Cowboy weapons that are ALL viable for all parts of the game. The Medicine Stick (Brush Gun) is a beast that's capable of exceeding 120 points of damage a shot with the right perks, the Ranger Sequoia (hunting revolver) is incredibly accurate and hits hard, Lucky (.357 Magnum) is accurate and crits A LOT while consuming a very cheap and common ammo type, and That Gun and the Mysterious Magnum are also good picks.

Also be aware that guns have a STR and guns skill requirement. If you don't meet these, your accuracy will suffer. I believe the Medicine Stick for example wants 6 STR and 100 Guns skill to be used optimally, which is easy to achieve. (The Weapon Handling Perk adds 2 STR to your score when factoring in how well you use weaponry, but NOT into your base Strength score)

But yeah, you just need to invest in better weaponry. Scrouge for things to sell, make money, buy something that looks appetizing. To be honest, your wife's energy weapons character will feel weak in the long run, as energy weapons can feel severely lacking in damage-per-shot later on. She's probably doing better because while Guns range from Tier 1 to Tier 4, Energy weapons tend to exclusively fall into Tier 2 and 3, with a few Tier 4 exceptions. Thus for the moment, she probably has stronger weaponry than you.

Sure it does, it's not like energy weapons perfected their directional capabilities before the war. I don't get why people always assume energy can be directionally dispersed easily and effectively.

if ur going for the cowboy approach, id say hand loader and cowboy perk is essistial. U can find a newer rifle thats better than the varmint rifle in the primes sheriffs office underneath the bed. With guns, repair is an essetial skill with it because of the ammo u can craft.. With the right bullets and right skills, the revolver can last ya until ya get that gun from novac, also a hint u dont have to "buy" it, theres another way to get it just look around.. Also the 44 revolver is beastly, but even myself its sometimes hard to aim far away so its good for medium to close range combat, but if ur close id get a hunting shotgun or revolver shotgun with the 2 perks stay back and shotgun surgeon. Can really help out alot on those death squads. The 44 rifle is beast, but I would wait until u can get medicine stick before upgrading due to vanilla version having a bug that will shoot way to the left sometimes.
Also the gun runners vendortron sells weapons due to ur weapon skill and or lvl. So once u get ur gun skill up to 100 is when ur gonna see the the good guns lol.
Also as a fo3 fan, on the road to 188 and boulder city, by a sign is a man who can be recruited to the tops, ....make sure u have the skill checks to demand a payment, ull love it lol.
Also if playing on pc, I highly recommend the uncut freeside open mod, fook, and uncut outside debts mods. They add alot of uncut content, fix alot of bugs, and add even more lore friendly weapons and armor and npcs.

Play fallout 1 and 2.
Then you will know what he means.

I have and considering Power Armor has also been nerfed it's kind of a moot issue at this point. Yes the games have been re balanced.

Is your wife rolling about the floor laughing at your struggles?

If she is dont rule out the possibility that she is turning up the difficulty when your not around.

I do this to my step brother who plays on very easy on skyrim, FO3 and nv,cracks me up every time.

I need to get out the house more.

Energy Weapons tend to be stronger than Guns on average, but they're expensive as [censored], so it's a trade-off.

Guns are fairly power once you get to a high enough level to have had the ability to maximize all your stats, skills, perks and equipment.

explosive are a powerful tool against multiple clusters of weak enemies, like raiders.

Ultimately you just gotta do your research and play around with stuff till you find something that works for you. I personally go for a sharpshooter type with high agility, per, int (for skill points) and at least luck 6 so i can take better criticals, commando, sniper, finesse and demolition expert at the least. after that i add damage related perks as needed, like lady killer (there are a lot of female raiders it seems) robotics expert, hunter or entomologist. also i use Vats a lot so i always take, action boy(2), math wrath, and grim reapers sprint and nerves of steel.

other perks that may help are weapon handling, laser commander, plasma spaz, shotgun surgeon, pyromaniac, and meltdown to name some weapon type specific perks. as well as Grunt, cowboy, sneering imperialist... anything that improves your weapon of choice. i tend to stay to the more generic perks as i jump around to different types of guns a lot depending on the circumstances. and also so i can get some utility perks like Jury Rigging, Hand loader, pack rat, comprehension and educated.

and yes your marriage can survive, as long as you comes to term with who wears the pants in the family:)

companions are also nice. Boone and ED-E are boss. enhanced sensors and spotter perks are a nice combo not to mention backup sniper are always good. Rauls maintenance perk is also a favorite of mine, and Rex is good at keeping stuff at a distance.

Your low INT of 4 is drastically reducing the amount of skill points you get per level.

If you have 6 charisma then you have no excuse not to get animal friend. It's far superior to AF in FO3-IMO one of the best perks in the game.

Plus you don't have to splat the poor little mole ratties and ickle nightstalkers

Great advice everyone, thanks - I really appreciate it.

I don't have the Cowboy perk, and I'm not sure if I will be able to, since doesn't it require a Melee score of 45 or thereabouts? My skill points are pretty precious now. Maybe I can begin working on it once I get Guns maxed out, but I have Speech to work on, and then Repair...

Right now I know I have Gunslinger and Shotgun Surgeon... Run & Gun (the one where you don't lose accuracy from moving)... and I can't remember what else. Was pretty proud of myself actually last night when I figured out how to craft some ammo for the first time. Of course, it was .357 ammo . Oh well.

Guess next time I play I'll do some fast travelling to vendors and see if I can invest in some better weaponry. I have a feeling I don't want to walk into Caesar's camp unprepared...

it's either a 45 mele OR a 45 guns, which you have, so you will be able to get the cowboy perk, you just need one, not both.

Some good vendors include: Gun runners (you've already visited probably), (Quartermaster) Bardon (At the Hoover Dam offices, 50 speech required), Alexandar at the 188 trading post (50 Guns required, he's usually under the bridge), Mick (only at Mick and Ralph's! In Freeside, 30 speech required) and Daniel Contreras at Camp McCarran (To get better Guns off him you need a unmarked quest for him and not turn him in, your choice really if you turn him in I think he is longer a vendor.) Here are some good vendors I can think of, off the top of my head and hope this helps.

So? I usually have at least 4-5 skills maxed by level 25-30, with another few in the 70s or 80s. This isn't FO3, you don't need 10 INT to round out your character.

Incorrect, you need both.