More so compare to the Vault Dweller.

Even with those tag, its still the matter ya in a tribe where physical matter counts, reckless of what ya tag. As the Elder said: You survived. The Chosen One cannot be weak or we are all doomed.


I see ya forgotten there was radscorpions in the Trial as well. Story wise, it make sense that there is hardly anything useful that a tribal would use to start his/her adventure other then a spear and some special herbs.


To make ya think. To make ya actually consider what to do before hand. To prepare for the future. Even with some equipment, ya still will died numerous of ways.

Then ya put ya status wrong, or that ya more focus on that of a pacifist instead of a fighter, or ya did not strategist it well.

Wrong stats you mean? Gifted+Good natured & small guns+energy weapons+doctor worked like a charm in FO1 (and in FO2 - after Klamath)

But mine was weak! That's the point! Physically at least... he was a good sniper the elder didn't seem to care about that one bit, but he still did great later in the wasteland! You see what I'm saying? - A sniper is an easy character to play in FO2 but unreasonably hard in the very beginning!
Your explanations about the tribals are sensible and I think the same but that doesn't change the fact that the game's beginning is 'disproportionally' harder than the rest of it.

I did not forget it at all... they were however weaker than those that the vault dweller had to fight - (so... more points to the vault dweller? )
+ believe it or not I actually had more trouble with the ants (because of about 10% less chance to hit iirc)...

And that can work well in Fallout 2. Its usually that it is hard on all players. But ya will survive and thrive in the end.


My toon was weak, mainly he a gunner, but more or less that when it comes to fighting those ant, its more that ya have to stragize on how to handle the battle. Me? I did the hit and run tactic. One punch and run away. Repeat and rinse. And with a crappy one shooter, I still run and hit.

And again, the Vault Dweller still have a firearm.

And that's what I did eventually after much frustration. I didn't think of it at first because I never had to do that in FO1
and then I never had to do it again in FO2!
And I was the Chosen One! I killed armies of super mutants without breaking a sweat, but I had to run away terrified by a couple of ants.

Exactly! You should get some sort of gun in the beginning of FO2 as well. You don't like the idea of a gun because maybe it will spoil the 'primitive tribal' concept? then give me a sling... not a sling? at least give me some fricking rocks to toss at them! they're everywhere and I can't even use them!

And, in fact, if the devs were so worried not to spoil the 'primitive tribal' concept then what were they thinking putting those plastic explosives right in the middle of their primitive temple??!

Ya have a phobia of ants?

I said its a forbidden artifact that can go boom!

Yep, the chosen one will single handedly annihilate hordes of enemies... as long as they have less than 6 legs and no antennae! :wacko:

The Temple is a very bad part of Fallout 2 and a very badly done tutorial. It's unnecessarily penalizing for new players and boring and unavoidable for veteran players. That's the opinion of many old Fallout 2 players that i recall. Among other things Fallout 2 is not as good as the first Fallout but it's still very enjoyable.

Even the devs themselves aren't happy with the temple, and were basically forced to include it by the marketing department.

But you can at least run through it quickly, unlike all the unskippable cutscenes in the boring Fallout 3 tutorial.

One of the things that truly amazes me is just how ungodly horrible my companions' AI is, I mean great jumping Zeus I have to reload about 2/3 of my special encounters because these morons shoot and kill each other in the opening volley of gunfire. :facepalm:

No matter if I give them different spacing commands, once a special encounter begins where we are surrounded by enemies (And that happens extremely a lot) these lousy twits can't wait to riddle each other with bullets instead of the enemies. I usually lose Sulik or Vic during the first turn of combat because Cassidy's CAWS went medieval when aiming at a distant raider...or freaking wild dog! The other two, should they survive, have equally horrible aiming skills. I need all enemies to be standing on one side of the map exclusively and manage to walk a couple of rounds for my companions to spread out or at least 1 immediately goes down from friendly fire! IDIOTS!

My current tactic is basically go zone by zone (Square by square on the map) saving and reloading as soon as the initial encounter allows me my turn from the last zone to avoid the encounters and therefore not have my own dumb dumbs shoot each other...no easy feat when walking from Vault City to NCR as I did last night let me tell ya <_<

Man Tycho and Ian were never this horrible in combat, the only one I actually needed to keep an eye on was Dogmeat, and even then most shots that hit him were from nearby enemies. But F2 companions: :banghead:

More proof, if it ever were required, that nothing good ever comes out of letting the marketing department make product decisions.

It helps a lot to limit your companions in thier aramament (IMO). Vic doesn't get better then a shotgun, and nothing that can burst. Sulik is fine with his Sledge. Cassidy might get a rifle from me, but again shotguns go well. But above all, don't stand between your guys and the enemy targets.

Honestly, it's more realistic than Fallout 3, where all your followers, can operate any firearm, just as well as you can.

I disagree; it is not more reslistic, particularly as I only give them the types of weapons that they specifically mention they are proficient in using. Not to mention the fact that it is extremely more realistic to believe they have a much higher profficiency in working firearms and other such weapons from years of experience travelling the Wastelands as opposed to the Chosen One (Or any other PC) who mysteriously becomes an expert with "magic" points allocated on a level up screen independent of time passed or any such use of weapons.

Even if I agreed with your stance of it being more realistic, I would much rather have a balance between realism and gameplay. In fact I wish my gameplay not being disrupted by continuously unending friendly fire incidents which occur in the outset of just about any special encounter. In all honesty all this does is ruin my gaming experience as I have only 2 options:
1) No longer bother with F2's companions from them being so lousy that they keep on dying from friendly fire in every next encounter and go it alone, making their inclusiuon in the game redundant and pointless.
2) Continuously have to reload my game (Sometimes 2-3 times in a row) in order to avoid these encounters and keep my companions alive, making playing the game a frustrating experience to say the least.

So I'll take the followers from F3 any time over the horrendous AI that has been implemented into the companions from F2.

My two cents...

The FO2 followers advance with time. Every time you level up, there's a chance they will level up as well.

Admittedly, the AI in Fallout 1 and 2 weren't exactly the main selling points of those games. (I mean, let's face it - the fact that one of the most useful additions to Fallout 2 was the "push" command...) And yeah, getting between one of your followers and an enemy, when they're armed with a weapon that's capable of burst fire is generally a bad idea. I don't think anyone's saying the old games weren't without their weaker points.

Thanks for the tip Ausir, is there a way to view their stats? I noticed that Sulik has a leather jacket in his inventory, can my actually companions use armor? I didn't think so but since I saw that in the inventory I wanted to be sure.

nu_clear: I wasn't trying to belittle Fallout 2 if that was the impression I gave, all of the games have their shortcomings but believe me I'm really enjoying F2 a lot!! I'm just frustrated with my companions killing each other in the first turn of almost every special encounter. Funny enough, they hardly ever hit me; but they massacre each other over and over if an encounter begins with us surrounded. They supposedly are shooting at the enemies of course but somehow almost always manage to kill another companion with one shot because they have a rather powerful shotgun or rifle (In the case of Vic and Cassidy, I have Sulik with the SMG). It has something to do the way they are grouped together when a special encounter first opens; when hostiles surround us, they just immediately open fire without moving and usually just hit each other and kill themselves. Oddly enough I never had this problem with Ian and Tycho in F1, although they did manage to hit me a couple of times every now and again

No need for clarification, I got that.

But yeah - sometimes combat with a bunch of companions is like watching the 3 Stooges... Eventually I ended up only ever giving them single-fire weapons.

The stats are in the Fallout Bible, I was meaning to put them all in The Vault but had some other priorities.

Yep, that's why I recommended the weapons I mentioned above. Sulik + SMG = painful comedy. Sulik + Sledgehammer = useful damage and knockback inflicted on enemy. I just can't trust any of them with anything burst capable. Yes, this limits thier capabilities and puts more of the work on you character, but in the end you don't need to babysit them so much. You can give Vic a good knife, and he'll use it, but he's not up to taking much of a pasting (in my experience). Cassidy actually does fine with one-shot shotguns so I leave him at it. Myron is never going to be good, but give him a needler and hope is the best you can expect. The Robobrain never does well either, and often isn't much use with weapons of any kind no matter what it says. Your wife/husband does allright but I never spent much time playing the game that way. Armor helps a lot, Sulik, Vic, Cassidy, Myron and your "other half" can all wear it so pass on those hand-me-downs instead of just selling your old armor.

Because I played FO2 first and played Fallout later, I wasn't suprised when the companions were even worse. I'm sure plenty of folk can tell stories about keeping Dogmeat alive or Ian blowing your character away, but the big downside was that you couldn't even move them out of your way if they followed you and blocked your path trapping you inside a small room and blowing that save.

And yes, they can use armor. You can tell them to wear their best armor and use their best weapon.

FO2 might feel hard to a newcomer in the beginning but theres a line to cross in the game from which point you become very powerful that makes you forget how weak you were in the beginning.
But I admit, from what I remember some things were quite hard to figure out as a newcomer. Remember theres no rules how to get rich in the wasteland though. With the help of the turn based combat you can often rely on luck. And your luck is made by proper use of the RELOAD button. For example.. some outcomes of a battle are much better than others. And some encounters are much better than others. Some make you rich without you having to lift a finger... for example when two different groups are fighting each others and you can stand aside and watch, eventually finishing off the remaining survivors. Those instances will quickly give you plenty of loot that'll make you rich fast. Once you're rich in FO you'll never be poor again there's no turning back. Then the trick is grinding XP and levels... but that is not an impossible task when you get grip of it, and being rich makes that so much easier.

FO2 is not the hardest amongst RPGs
I consider Baldur's gate to be much much (and I really mean f*cking much more) harder that FO 2. Were talking about a very unforgiving game there.