Does anyone else agree with me that Fallout 3 was much harder and more challenging to survive out in the capital wasteland? That place was desolate and scary and I have respect for anyone that managed to survive out there on some of the harder difficulty levels. New Vegas certainly feels less scary when your out exploring. The capital wasteland was an infested mess of hell.

Does anyone know what location in the Fallout world is described as being the worst, the most bleak, desolate, hell-like and which areas are a little more normal - by that I mean less challenging to survive in?

No.

I could(no joking) weapon heckle a Deathclaw or a Supermutant to death with a Hunting Rifle on early levels in F3. WTF.

In NV(also playing on hardcoe) the damage threshold [censored]s you up. No more weapon heckling Power Armored enemies or Deathclaws.

It's a bit harder than Fallout 3 because of the damage threshold system and because enemies aren't leveled, but hardcoe mode is still a bit of a joke. But better than no hardcoe mode.

For me - Fallout 3 seemed to be very difficult and challenging to survive - and New Vegas is a little easier.

It could feel easier due to it being so similiar to Fallout 3 in its gameplay. You're used to this so you're much more capable in handling what it offers.

Generally, though, I think New Vegas more challenging due to - as someone already said - enemies are not leveled as much and on another note, the skillpoints and statincreases are much scarcer. And another layer of challenge comes decisionmaking (if one cares about the story and wants to experience it to the fullest, that is).

Both of the games are still incredibly easy overall, though. There's no struggle to be found (at all in FO3 - and not too much in Vegas either, though a bit more in places).

I agree with you. In Fallout 3 I never had that many caps or ammo. But in NV I never have trouble with the economy, though I just spent 500 caps for some stupid quest item in "Come Fly With Me". And now i have about 2-300 caps left. But it'll do!

In FO3 stimpacks and caps were handed out like candy. I wouldn't say FONV is particular harder although when I met my first radscorpion it felt like fighting a German Tiger Tank, almost killed me.

No.

Maybe... I seem to die less.

Well it's definitely less combat-oriented.

Fallout 3 was the easiest game I ever played, I had 10,000 caps in like the first hour of playing it, not to mention I could kill a deathclaw with a crappy pistol.

New Vegas is MUCH harder.

I think NV is slightly harder, actually. I'm level 24 and only now am I coming into the ability to take out Deathclaws without dying horribly and even then there isn't much margin for error. In FO3 I'd double tap them in the head with Lincoln's Repeater and move on without thinking much about it. One thing that makes it a bit "easier" in NV is that they fixed the bug with scopes so your rounds go where you want them now.

I'm level 27 and even after climbing atop a bulldozer in the Quarry and sniping with the Gobi rifle and attempting every kind of ammo I had I still almost got my butt handed to me from those deathclaws!!

FO3 was easier for me because stats and skill points just rained down on you.

You could get most skills to 50 without spending a single skill point, just by initial baseline points, skill books and bobble-heads. It was possible with a smart build to have every skill capped out at level 18 or 19, even easier to cap out every useful skill, as in leaving 1-2 weapon skills at base and dumping points into other things.

Add to that some insane weapons (fat man, MIRV) and some OP weapon combinations (like dart gun + sniper rifle) and the ease of gaining high-DR high-durability powered armor... and it was very easy to have a character that (using the old version of grim reaper's sprint) could enter a room with 50 deathclaws and kill them all before they could hit you once.

In New Vegas weapons seem to come slower, and you have to upgrade weapons to ones with rarer ammo and more upkeep costs to beat DR.

The biggest increase in difficulty to me comes from the fact it's harder to sequence-break because large tracts of important land have tough enemies that are not level-listed to minimal threat until you hit an arbitrary level. That and the lack of bobble-heads means that you can't boost key stats quite high right off the bat. It also prevents you from building intentionally gimped builds that are designed around having a total of 10 free stat points and 150 free skill points or more.

Both games are easy. FONV is perhaps 10% less easy than FO3 which is probably counterbalanced by the fact that your companions, Fawkes apart, are somewhat more powerful in FONV.

It's easier in some ways, and harder in others.

From a non-hardcoe standpoint:

-New Vegas DT makes certain enemies, like Giant Radscorpions, far tougher than in FO3.
-Fallout 3's level scaling random encounters means that you are consistently challenged at a higher level than in the NV wasteland; think constant encounters with Albino Radscorpions and Super Mutant Overlords
-Fawkes excepted, companions in NV are far stronger due to the fact that they don't die; some, like Boone and Veronica, are also quite easy to recruit and hit EXTREMELY hard

So NV is harder in some ways, while FO3 is harder in others.

I actually find New Vegas to be the second most difficult of the Fallout RPGs following Fallout 2. Fallout 3 I've found is the easiest as it takes little effort, and you have to actually go out of your way to die most of the time.

^This

As well as, all in all, there are many more places to go ,besides the countless metro tunnels in 3, in NV. Deathclaws are scary as hell! Boom boom boom dead, and I'm a level 20?! F that man, Imma go find a fat man.

New vegas is more challenging, more fun, and hardcoe mode is a huge improvement.

Fallout 3 was easy sauce compared to new vegas. But thats because i played on hardcoe. If I did normal mode in new vegas it might have been the same as fallout 3, maybe fnv would have stronger deathclaws but thats it i think.

IMO there's actually less areas with truly challenging enemies in New Vegas.

Since there is no random encounter or level scaling system, you have a few Cazadore and Deathclaw-filled areas that are extremely hazardous for anything besides a near-max character. However, aside from those, a lot of the locations are bunched together, and they really aren't that tough.

If you were a high level in FO3, there were always high-level opponents facing you. This was most notably with Broken Steel, which added the incredibly tough Overlords, Albino Radscorpions and Feral Ghoul Reavers, but it happened in the vanilla game as well.

I think comparing FO3 with Broken Steel installed is somewhat of a bad comparison because Broken Steel was designed to boost the difficulty level. I'm sure that if/when the open-ended post-game sandbox DLC for FO:NV comes out we'll see something similar done in NV.

For the sake of fairness I was comparing vanilla stock FO3 to NV as it is now. The FO3 DLC actually had some very challenging encounters, even Point Lookout had some pretty nasty enemies, I want to know how a shotgun in the hands of a redneck could do that much damage to someone in T45 PA. Heck even The Pitt had some pretty nasty baddies, especially if you were a melee character in close range with someone with an auto-axe.

The Cazadore King Legendary Deathclaw (or whatever it is called) scared the [censored] out of me.....nothing in FO3 could come close.

Oh, in FO3 I used Dog Meat and Charon and they almost never died even I stood and watched them fight the Broken Steel content. Maybe I just got lucky?