Okay, I have Combat set to "wimpy" and game set to "Easy". I've used FALCHE2 to essentially cheat and give myself a lot of APs.

And still, I'm getting asskicked. It's essentially negative-sum as far as money is concerned. Bandits kick my ass with superior numbers and guns, and the creatures I actually have a chance against have nothing on them to salvage and trade, save for the Geckos. I run out of ammo or get chewed to nubbins from point-blank fighting with spiked knuckles. I can barely get enough money to feed my 10mm pistol with JHPs much less get a heavier weapon or better armor or stimpacks to not get killed.

And I get accosted with Encounters at least twice just from going from Klamath to The Den. I have absolutely no chance of getting form The Den to Vault City alive unless I move one square at a time, save, and then reload whenever I inevitably get an encounter where I stand no chance of winning. And I'm not gonna waste so much time doing that.

And as for XP... as stated earlier, the only things I have a chance against are critters which give paltry amounts of XP fighting against, so leveling up is gruelingly tedious even just for one level.

So what's the secret? How did people get through the game without wanting to break the game disk in half in frustration?

Do I have to cheat even more with FALCHE?

Whilst I cannot support cheating, which is what you've done there, FO2 is rather difficult early game..

Here are my suggestions

1) Save, save, save, save, save
2) Walk into every house, take everything, it all has value, sell for Armour, and meds.
3) Tag either Melee or unarmed to start the game on your first few tries.

There is a saying made by a game designer that I've heard...

"Whenever a player can blame the designer instead of themselves for losing, we've lost them."

How exactly did FO2 get to become so vaunted with such a critical flaw of kicking the player's ass early on?

That was one of the greatest parts about Fallout 2 was the case that you could actually die when fighting against a numerically superior force. The single shot pipe rifle. and double barrel shotgun will be some of your best friends, until you can get your hands on some better firearms.

The problem with that is rushing to that conclusion - just giving up early. I had trouble in some bits - trying to kill that dude in Vault 15 gave me headaches - but it wasn't too unbearable. agent_c's advice is sound.

Games weren't always as forgiving as they are today.... Theres a lot of older gamers who complain about newer games "holding their hands".

If you were hit with one of those man portable nuclear weapons in Fallout 2, regardless of what sort of armor you were wearing, you would be dead. Fallout 3, makes it too easy to engage 1000's of enemy combatants, and walk away with only a scratch.

There's a difference between "holding hands" and "kicking them while they're down".

Just now... Random encounter, slavers with slaves. Right as it starts, BAM, a slaver whacks 23 HP off of me from afar. RIGHT AS COMBAT STARTS. :swear:

WTF? So wanting a snowball's chance in hell is wanting to have my hand held?

I'm seriously thinking this game's regarded through rose-tinted glasses.

Well if you think about it, the slavers have the initiative, after all you wandered into them, they didn't wander up on you. Secondly, depending on your level honestly, it's a fairly realistic encounter, that a veteran slaver, who has been fighting most of his life, could easily take on and damage a lowly tribal wearing a vault suit.

I don't give a damn about realism, I want to have fun playing a game. And getting my ass kicked repeatedly when I'm trying to get started is NOT fun, it's frustrating. If I had a chance to run away, it may be fun, but I can only do that because I cheated and gave myself a lot of AP. And there's also the point that he knocked a good 40% of my HP off right as combat started.

This is not realism. This is a game. It's meant to be fun. And getting asskicked with absolutely no chance to win or at least escape is not fun.

A proper challenge level is a fair chance at success, but also a fair chance of player-caused failure.

Let's put it in a simpler situation.

You're playing a Tomb Raider like game. You're walking along through a corridor, then without warning, *SCHWINK!*, you get skewered by floor spikes. No warning, not even holes in the ground to give a pattern matching challenge to the player to forewarn the astute. You're dead, no way around it.

Sure, it'd be realistic to set traps that are hard to see, but this is a game. This is a developer failure for making an impossible-to-detect trap, not a player failure to note a pattern anomaly indicating a trap (since there was none).

Would that not piss you off and make you reconsider the wisdom of buying this game?

Though honestly, can you really claim that Fallout 3 is fun? To be honest, being at the starting level, and being able to kill all of the Vault Security Forces, and even being able to walk into Megaton and rampage through a whole city, while taking little to no damage....that's just a bit absurd. Fallout 3 is not really fun, because there is basically no challenge to the player, and so longer as you can quickly push buttons, and find limited cover, your basically set for any fight.

This is not about FO3, this is about FO2.

Hmm, some question:
What did ya tag/lvl?

Also, this may be a bit of a cheat, but if ya know ya getting into battle, press A before the black screen turn into battle. This would give ya the first turn, I think.

And I know how ya feel the first time around in Fallout 2. Its an ass. Once ya eventually get the hang of it, its would still be an ass, but ya would be decent enough to survive.

Small guns, Unarmed, First Aid. I got a 10mm pistol that is hungrier for ammo than it should be because I miss most of the time, and spiked knuckles that I looted from the cattle rustler guys. I see a shottie that the weird-accented guy in the Den has, but I can never afford it because I gotta feed the pistol to have any chance.

Just whack the Italian-American guy, and take his inventory. It'll make the game a whole lot easier, and his fighting skills are poor at best.

What will the karmic ramifications be for that?

Is the town lawless enough not to care that I killed him?

Right off the bat, go down to San Francisco and do the schematics quest, you level up a whole bunch and get all the best equipment, no cheating required.

Personally, First Aid is a waste. It does not really help ya in the long run and easily level by books. But if ya want something like First Aid, tag Doctor instead. WAY more useful and important in some part of the game.

If money ya concern, try doing some quest for Becky at the casino or encounter wise, save and walk around outside of Den until ya get an encounter with Bandit ATTACKING Caravan. The Caravan would pick those Bandit off (granted if they have enough fire power) and ya can help out. In the end, if the Caravan kill the bandits, just loot all the corpses! Just don't present ya weapon around teh guards.

Oh, and speaking of the Den, if ya did not know, watch out for those kids in Den! They steal your items when ya walk by them into/out of the building! The best way to avoid this is go into combat mode and use up the AP to get into or out the building!

^^^^^----and Kill that Flick/Italian Dude if needed as mention above.

I blew Flick away, and got a good bit of loot, no one seemed to care. It's a pretty rough town, after all. And running to SF is a bit of a cheat.

Considering you're using "Player Knowledge" not "Character Knowledge", that can be classed as cheating.

Hmmm...have you done any side quests in Arroyo, Klamath, and the Den? They can get you some much needed experience and maybe a few caps bucks, and healing items without a lot of fighting (or at least, fighting things that you can at least take on). Definitely try looking for the right plants so you can have Hakunin make Healing Powders out of them; they're not as good as Stimpaks, and their Perception-drain is annoying, but they're better than nothing. Also, you don't need to tag 'em, but for your first few levels, definitely put a few points into Melee or Unarmed, because it's going to be a while before you scrounge up a gun and decent amount of ammo.

You could blow away to the two major dealers, and honestly no one in the Den will lift a finger.

Whacked Flick. I rationalized it because that little runt by the door was picking my pocket (but I'm not keen on being a kid killer) and giving it to him. I now have a .44 Magnum, a Hunting Rifle, a Shottie, and a plethora of other stuff I still need to assay. Ahhhh, feels a bit better.

Apparently it's nothing karmically, as I'm unchanged at 200 (I'd have more but I went grave-robbing :unsure:), and the only reactions I had were a hiked up junkie fleeing and a surly junkie shuffling off. Had to kill one junkie that was blocking the damn doorway :banghead: in the process...

Well, at least keep the other merchant alive just for selling things. As for teh NPC blocking ya way, there a command for that. Hold Left Click Mouse and ya see a box command with a hand/arrow. That would move any npc away.

...

Ahwell, his brain was probably jet-baked anyway...