@Eduard:
Never underestimate the power of words. They got Caesar from prisoner to dictator in-game history wise. Out of game the history of humanity is full to the brim of people who beat impossible odds or set the world on fire by words alone. There would be no point in outright killing the inconspicuous single traveler. You might waste ammo, and you might do better to just sneak up on him with a knife when he sleeps. People loaded with power armor and high powered rifles however.... You wouldn't take a chance on those. You'd either stay well clear or wait for the person to remove his helmet. But you would perceive him as much more of a threat than the guy in a ragged outfit with no or few apparent weapons.

I partially agree. For a lot of the game enemies have underwhelming equipment. On my first playthrough, when I started the last mission, I was pretty surprised at all the good weaponry that everyone had and the fact that it's fairly inaccessible otherwise.

Part of it, I think, is that they tried to make caps useful. In FO3, after getting like 2K caps you were pretty much set. In NV, the high-end guns are far more expensive. It'd defeat the purpose of that if every enemy you killed was armed to the teeth with expensive weaponry, because pretty quickly you'd have all the good stuff, and you'd sell what you couldn't use so you'd be rich too. Weapon vendors would be useless, implants would be easy to obtain, etc.

I think smarter enemies would solve the problem better. Make them more of a threat without increasing the value of their loadout too much. Stuff like ambushes or actual snipers would be great. Realistically you might run into a small group, most of which would have low to mid level weapons, maybe with the leader having something decent. But if the encounters themselves were tailored to be actually difficult, that'd work out well.

Definitely agree that human foes were generally lacking. Brotherhood was pretty good with power armor and generally decent weaponry, although they're all holed up in a single bunker so you don't encounter them often. They can also be made way easier by turning the turrets against them or just blowing them all up. =/

Strangely, most of the equiped items are of good health, the super mutant master I killed at level 5 south of Primm had a very good condition minigun.
Those found in lockers, especially early on tend to be in shocking condition.
Thinking about it though, it does make a more pseudo game / realistic point.
A gun equiped and used even day to day by a raider is going to be better looked after than one left at the bottom of damp closet.

The traders however are the bone that I gnaw on.
I can understand leveling items to raise the challange up.
Making traders on heavy traffic routes keep the same X amount of Y tier weapons and no armour, for the entire game makes no sense.
They should have stocked a smalll chance to buy much better equipment early on.
This would also have made the sheer ammount of caps decrease, as it would have provided more options to save or buy early and hope you find ammo.

Certain quests and areas in NV did remind me of Tactics.
Quarry Junctions sniper playground / assault course, and Nelson / Forlorn Hope.
Hopefully on a newer engine some new ways to explore tactical situations open up.

if the enemies aren't going to be leveled in a game, they need to tough from the beginning and be using good weapons from the get go, its BORING to fight enemies who are using weak peashooters aka 9mm's, varmint rifles, pool ques etc, thats the bottom line, no enemies use marksman rifles until the end of the game, no enemies use energy weapons except for the fiends, no enemies use sniper rifles, so its no fun be at level 20 + in new vegas, i won't play it anymore, i played FO3 for 2 years and it could of been harder but at least the enemies did use some better weapons, gatling lasers, plasma rifles, laser rifles, chinese assault rifles, so the only way no leveling enemies works is if they have good weapons from the beggining of the game. so basically we have to fight low level enemies the entire game, thats what it is, thats a lousy game philospophy. to make a level 20 or 30 character fight level 1 enemies, thats real quality combat

Lies, your just in a low level area.

I think combat wise, the human enemies are only a little bit weak. But there's almost none of them. Except for the Legion in like 3 locations and Fiends with no armor, there are almost no human enemies. And most don't respawn. But the number of enemies to fight is soooo low. Remember that one place in FO3 in DC (can't remember the name, it had a crossroads with a bridge and like 5 explosive cars) with 5 Enclave soldiers, more coming from a chopper, Talon Company, and super mutants? NV doesn't need to be THAT intense, but there needs to be groups of enemies that respawn and aren't complete pushovers like the Vipers and Fiends.

Oh and the un-named enemies should respawn. Because the game is no fun when I go into the headquarters of the Legion and theres 3 legionaries there, yet they still somehow mount an assault on the dam with hundreds of legionaries. wtf.

it doesn't take for a new game engine, FO3 had good battles and battlezones, who dares win was a pretty good battle, waters of life, inside and outside on both sides of the capitol building, rileys rangers, la enfant plaza was killer battleground and good fighting, its just the game philosphy obsidian has, they aren't really into the exploration and battles as bethesda is, they're more story and quest driven which is fine but without good well armed enemies to fight and good battlezones, it just makes for a weak aspect of the game.

yeah that spot was la enfant plaza, there aren't any spots like that in new vegas, FO3 had lots of good battlezones and plenty of enemies to kill, maybe a bit much but it was fun, both sides of the capitol building inside and out had good battles going on, also the statesman hotel, adams air base was a killer battle zone i thought, the roosovelt academy and the chryslus building had tons of supermutants to fight, setting traps and sneaking around those huge buildings, nothing in new vegas is close to that. FO3 had lots of places like that.

Yea I loved going around and just fighting.

And on a sidenote, the next fallout NEEDS a new engine. This one's old, outdated, unreliable, glitchy, and kinda svcks.

In other words, level scaling

Legion and NCR do scale to MQ stage.
Camp golf after the strip gets NCR elite rangers + brushguns, AMR's, sequoia's.
The 188 gets heavy troopers with LMG's.

CL you see higher ranks and better weapons.
All this is not level scalled rather MQ stages which the radio announces later on after some of the strip quests.

i want random events like an Ncr patrol meeting a Legion patrol and either engaging in the battle or just watching.


or even better, a giant battle with legion vs NCR vs fiends. and yes i agree more bigger patrols plz.

Try Black Mountain?