Hello dear Fallout fans. I'm curious about ppl for which F3 was their first fallout game.

You see, I enjoyed Fallout 3 a lot. Everything was fun. All the weapons, VATS, SPECIAL, skills and of course the lovely exploration!
New Vegas made it even better for me with hardcoe mode and an additional layer of complexity with different ammo types and Damage Threshold mechanics.

Of course I was heavily exposed to old school fallout players propaganda about how fantastic the original Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 were. So I bought fallout 1 and fallout 2 on steam.
I was prepared that I had to learn the game mechanics from the beginning. A little different SPECIAL, Skills, Perks, combat system. I was quite happy to learn them.

Playing both games I felt hugely disappointed to the extent that I really couldn't continue playing Fallout 2 to the end.
I didn't like the quests, the way they were made. Solving them was a real pain with pipboy only showing one sentence without any sort of directions.
The game is full of plain and boring skill checks. You cannot repair this, you cannot lockpick this, you cannot "science" that because your skill is below some X amount. Even survival in FNV, unlocked new recipes, offered dialog checks, and altered the effectivity of consumables. No mini-games, no nothing.
The combat is heavily biased towards small-guns-aimed-shots-into-the-eyes. What is the point of high end weapon skills like big guns and energy weapons if the they are only found later into the game and don't have any low end counterparts? In FNV Guns skill offered choice from the simple 9 mm pistol to the mighty Anti-Materiel Rifle and Minigun! What is the point of burst low damage per bullet weapons in F1 and F2 if enemy DR and DT eats up all the damage? AP bullets, that deal 1/2 damage? Seriously? Then you have enemy crits that ignore all your armor and reduces your HP to nothing. Great.

One last thing to make fun of my experience in Fallout 2 that was the final nail in the coffin for me: (mind spoilers)
Toxic Caves.
I come to rescue Smiley. I have no guns. Meleeing geckos is not viable strategy. Ok. I go and level up. Get a gun. Come back, kill the geckos, get to smiley and see the elevator.
Now I need two skill checks: lockpick and repair. Wait! You cannot lockpick the door, you need some electronic lockpicks! Where th F do I find them??? There no such dialog option to ask anyone.
Guess what! The smart game designers have hidden it somewhere in a god forsaken place in New reno arms dealer, in a basemant that has its entrance hidden behind a shelf. You cannot see it normally.
You have to walk to it. What is the probability that I would stumble upon that basemant RANDOMLY with so many houses in Fallout 2? And guess what, they hid the electronic lockpicks in a fridge that you cannot see because of the wall.
Again you have to walk to it for it to reveal. No normal player would find these damned lockpicks in his life without a walkthrough guide.
Adding insult to injury: after i successfully lockpick the elevator in the toxic caves (after months of travelling to toxic caves), i get down to a guarding robot that simply instagibs me to pieces. Oh! You don't have high enough throw skill to use your pulse grenades (also hidden in that [censored] fridge in new reno arms basemant) against the robot.
AND ALL THIS FOR A BOZAR found in that room with the robot??? Oh and Remind me to put some skill points into big guns category next level.. If only I found a strength implant because right now I neither have enough inventory space and cannot use this Bozar effectively.

Fallout 2, man It was a [censored] when I first played It never new what to do...Even when I was on the fist level,I think It was a vault cant remember....? Could have been Fallout 1, Its been a while. I have Fallout 1 and I want to play It but Im a little tight for time.

Good troll?

Or are you being serious? Because for starters you can walk right back out the way you came with Smiley. The hidden area is something you're meant to come back to when you have the means to access it and handle the encounter. Presumably many levels later. Or you can ignore it completely. It has nothing to do with completing the quest. There are also many places to obtain electronic lockpicks other than New Reno.

Solving quests was a real pain? If you pay attention to the dialogue all quests are pretty clear about what they want done and where you're supposed and who you're supposed to talk to to get it done.

Most of the the other stuff you criticize is just called good RPG design something F3 was sorely lacking in. If you haven't been putting points into lockpick don't expect to be any good at picking locks. That's prettymuch what an RPG is. No points in throwing? You're probably gonna svck at throwing grenades (but you still can and even have a shot at success.) There are also no skill thresholds in F1 and F2 so I don't know where you're getting that your "skill is below X amount thing." Furthermore there are dialogue checks they just don't have big tags at the ends of them.

Burst weapons in F1 and 2 are insanely deadly at short range but not nearly as effective at medium to long range. Which is a good thing and keeps them from being overpowered. Why carry along a hunting rifle if an SMG can tear up your enemies. Eyeshots are overpowered. However shots to the head are what you're going to resort to 99% of the time in F3 and New Vegas as well so I don't know why you consider this so unforgivable in the originals.

Gonna dissect this a little.

Quests hard to solve: Not really, just listen to the characters then keep a keen eye on the area around you to figure out what to do, this game is great because there is no handholding, you have to think for yourself to solve the quests.

Skill checks: Well, what did you expect? This isn't a new game, this game does not have any handholding or god characters, you want to be able to do a lot of stuff then you have to work for it and you have to work really really hard.

Combat bias: To the eyes? It's the regular method really but you don't "have to" fire the weapons at the most powerful spot on them, could always pick Fast Shot to nerf yourself or aim at legs on animals and arms on humanoids.

Energy Weapons/Big Guns accessability: That's the way it should be, they're meant to be hard to get and really powerful, not like NV and FO3 were both are crap. (Excluding Missile Launcher from NV and Fatman from FO3.)

Criticals: This is my general view on the combat: "It all comes down to criticals", critical hits are an itch, but that's what is good about the games, they're brutal, sometimes things can go south real fast just cause of an enemy's lucky crit shot, that's what I like about the old games combat, it's unpredictability.

The Awesome That Is Smiley: Waitwaitwaitwaitwaitwaitwait... Have you never played an RPG where an early area is locked for high level players to return to? :huh:

Oh well, seems that the 2nd generation Fallout games have set too much of an imprint on you.

Agree's with Gab and okie. I never ever had a problem with confusing quests, or combat. Electronic lock pick are sold alot of places at the end of the game areas. You don't really need them i nthe beginning anyways. Also Good luc kwith the robots you would have encountered down there if you did manage to get in at such an early level.

Stick. To. Main. Quest.

You follow those words in Fallout 2, and you'll game it like a pro.

Thanks for all the replies, but I haven't read anything I could not expect from hardcoe F1,2 fans.

No skill thresholds yet you must try to pick some locks 100 times to open them. At least in F3 I know how high my lockpick should be to open them.

About energy weapons and big guns: the concept is flawed. A special skill that has no utility half of the game. In FNV you can have a laser pistol at the starting location and work you way up slowly to the mighty gattling laser and gauss rifle in the later stages of the game. And If you happen to find them sooner, you are still balanced by the availability of the specific ammo.

I really hate that I am forced to take small guns as a tag skill in F2. Only ppl that are on second playthrough might find a way to ignore it.

You talk about how great RPG F2 was.. I bet all your ranged combat builds ended up with Sniper perk.

I am really happy for what Bethesda did to F3 and later Obsidian to FNV. If they catered to your idealistic RPG needs, you would never see the revival of the series.

Lockpick: Then raise your lockpick skill and use a lockpick kit.

Energy Weapons and Big Guns: In FO3 and FNV they were nerfed like crazy and are nothing like they used to be, a minigun burst is meant to be destructive, yet in the 2nd generation you have to stand really close to your target and spam a third of a mag to down one enemy. While their availability was lesser in the old games it was designed that way for a reason.

Sniper perk: I've actually never used Sniper perk. :mellow:

Tagging small guns: That's the way I figured how it was designed to be. Small Guns is the starting combat skill. Once you know the game better you know how to get the other weapons and their ammo.

Happy about redesign: You're happy that they dumbed the game down and nerfed skills and weapons?

Hah, you basically hated everything that I used to love with the series, no wonder you expected it from hardcoe fans.


What's ideal for you doesn't mean it's ideal for all of us. I Hadn't played any RPG for years before Fallout 3 and it delivered me one of the biggest facepalms in my days of gaming the second I saw map marker appear when someone just mentioned me GNR without any directions to it.

And what's it worth even though I like some aspects of Fallout 3 & NV, the series was dead for me since 2003. Fallout 3 and NV couldn't deliver me the experience the originals did, they were life changing unlike FO3 and NV. Even though I like them I can imagine my life without them, instead I probably couldn't even define what I'm now without the originals.

Bottom line - diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks...

Also keep in mind that we're talking about games that are over a decade old. Graphics aren't the only things to have evolved over time - gameplay concepts (especially as they apply to quests and other RPG trappings) have as well.

As well - I don't think any "sane" fan would try and argue that Fallout 1 and 2 were beyond perfection, any more than I'd imagine anyone would seriously try to say that Fallout 3 or New Vegas had absolutely no room for improvement, either. The games are going to have some flaws in them.

F2 was a challenging game, in finding stuff mostly, and was Fallout 3 dumbed-down by comparison, no not really, it depends on how you played the games and what you actually did in them, but that was a matter of choices. Fallout 2 can got to grips with pretty quickly , the same with Fallout 3, and Fallout 3 is actually harder at the beginning than Fallout 2 was.

That’s speaking as a so-called hardcoe F1,2 fan. I was once in love with F2 but am now in love with Fallout 3 for the improvements in game-play. I can understand your frustration, that after having played Fallout 3 with it‘s polish, and then going and playing Fallout 2 where the mechanics produce a diminished role-play it can be a shock.

That aside, in both games the basic Small Guns skill is a fundamental objective and really worth building on, tagged or not, but if not much good with basic Small Guns then game-play needs more strategic or tactical thought, that's the only real difference.

Actually, strategic or tactical thought is needed just as much in Fallout 3 and the options in 3 are very well-catered for. It can also depend on the difficulty level that you play on as well, and whether you restrain yourself on taking the most powerful guns and armours etceteras, but that‘s down to choices of play again. Personally I don’t go for the most powerful and best stuff.

The point is that Fallouts 1, 2 and 3 can equally be successfully played without the most powerful stuff if you get your game-play strategies and tactical play ok. However I agree that the polish of the Fallout 3 game does make it a bit of a shock if going and playing Fallout 2, but that’s mostly about the mechanics diminishing Fallout 2’s role-play, the game-play strategies are fundamentally the same, but hey, Fallout 2 at that time way back was the best thing since sliced-bread, and RPG’s have made great strides since then, Fallout 3 has excelled in that respect as most will agree, reviewers and awards as well.

Ammunition in Fallout 2, I had piles of it stashed all over the map mostly because I couldn't carry it all, it's not too much of a problem really.

If you are still playing Fallout 2 the way to go is, strategic and tactics, talk and listen to everybody, if one way doesn't work, think of another way ... basically it's the same as how we should be playing all Fallouts, they are all basically the same underneath and best played using those fundamentals. Hope some of that is a bit of help.

Not all hardcoe fans of F1,2 have a somewhat jaundiced view of Fallout 3, far from it.

yes yes this! I got used to gameplay concepts of the last decade, something that has clearly evolved since 2000. As for RPG, i used to play a lot of fantasy rpg with the Dungeons and Dragons rulesets. Although those games were a numberfest much more complicated that SPECIAL, the gaming information output was much more informative for me to control my skills.

Speaking of F2, I finally got my hands on a Bozar which proved to a total overkill for my Finesse Fast Shot character. Not having small guns tagged, and being unabled to aim shot while enemies had an additional 30% DR has made the game quite unbearable. But hell, I was ready to accept anything but not to see small guns aimed shots in the eyes again. Still the finesse is a real pain for burst weapons, it's either overkill or no damage at all.

Try Melee. There are loads of opportunities early in the game where NPC's teach you how to fight, you get Melee and Unarmed skills up to 100% really fast by barely putting points in them, and it's pretty deadly. But you will still have to shoot guns some times, or have followers that do, because being surrounded by spread-out ranged enemies is a pain, even moreso without a gun

Only if your character isn't any good at lockpicking. If you don't invest in a skill why on earth would you expect to be any good at it?

As for F3's lockpicking you notice the problem yourself. A character with 50 lockpick skill attempting to pick a 50 skill level lock should be straining the limits of his abilities with a good chance for failure but you can bypass any risks by playing a childishly easy minigame that has nothing to do with your character's abilities. Poor design for an RPG.



Yes. Energy weapons and big guns work differently in the earlier games in that they don't really work at all for much of the game because you won't find one. However it should be pretty apparent by the time you're finished with Klamath that energy weapons and big guns aren't going to be on the ground for a while. They're really more late game skills which are meant to be far more powerful than more utilatarian weapon skills like small guns (although F2 screwed up the balance with the Gauss Rifle IMO). Definitely flawed but considering how overpowered guns are in comparison to all other combat branches in New Vegas and the fact that the big guns/small guns/energy weapon divide in Fallout 3 is mostly just cosmetic differences (thanks to the elimination of ammo weight and weapon strength requirements) it's not the crippling failure you'd like it to be.



Not really. Unarmed and melee are both viable choices for the entirety of the game if you design your character properly. In fact based off the Temple of Trials first time players often tag melee or unarmed.



Nope. In fact I think I've only used the Sniper perk once just to see if a character build around it is as devastating as people claim.



Glad you enjoy it. But a lot of your initial complaints just seemed to stem from being frustrated by good RPG design and a lack of effort to dedicate yourself to really learning the game rather than the original games being so inferior to the new Fallouts. :shrug:

imo finesse & fast shot are two conflicting traits. One is to induce more criticals while the other is for bursting weapons, etc.

I could be wrong I never played with these two traits combined. However for a hardcoe sniper fast shot isn't a great option and visa versa.

Yeah when they removed strength requirements from weapons, made ammo weightless, cut the number of skills from 18 to 13, made skills stop at 100 instead of 300, ensured with a high intelligence you could easily max out most of the skills, reduced the impact of SPECIAL, added in bobbleheads to enhance your attributes and skills for free, got rid of DT, AC, variable damage resistance, eliminated traits entirely and so on it wasn't dumbing down it was just creating a more "realistic roleplay" right Curtis?

As for Fallout 3 being harder at the beginning than Fallout 2? That's pretty funny. Somehow I don't remember my level 2 character with minimal skill in unarmed combat and below average strength being able to punch out a band of raiders in F2.



So hardcoe you didn't even know how traveling in the wasteland worked.



Please explain how strategic or tactical thought of any depth is involved in hitting raiders in the face until their health bar disappears while using the occasional stimpak.



Indeed. They should've just made the original Fallouts in the style of Half Life as you have brilliantly explained when you stated that you were "roleplaying" as Gordon Freeman and since it would be real-time combat and a first person perspective the role-play would've been far more realistic than the tedious board-game like play of the early Fallouts where ridiculous concepts like a distinct "character" effect how the game is played. Some RPG.



And I had every piece of ammunition I had ever collected stored on my person in Fallout 3 because it didn't weigh anything. It was very realistic and not dumbed down at all.



Yes all Fallouts are basically the same underneath since if one way doesn't work you should think of another way. A less intelligent person would think any game would be played with the same fundamentals but you notice that this is proof that all Fallouts are basically the same underneath. Thank you Curtis for summing up so succinctly as is your way.

Fallout 1 is my favorite of the series to date; (though if I had to pick only one to have access to, it would be Fallout 2). *This is admittedly premature, as I have not played much of NV, and have never visited the NV-strip yet.

Are you asking for advice & hints to make FO1 & 2 more fun? It really depends on what one considers as fun. The fun I had in Fallout's combat was to face off against many opponents, and beat the odds by shrewd choices and a bit of gambling; And ideally scraping by without casualties; (unless roleplaying an indifferent cretin that wouldn't care). For me, this meant taking an active role in preserving one's NPCs, and not just letting them fend for themselves.

I think I had more fun in the Glow than any other area of the game ~especially reading the logs and journals. I had my best times in Fallout 3 out in the wastes away from the towns, and talking NPCs. The landscape and isolation out there is something that I really feel they did an excellent job creating; and in re-creating the mood of the series.

The game is designed simulate skill. The more skilled your PC is, the easier it is to succeed, but there is more to it. One does their best work with the right tools, and in Fallout 1 & 2, you get a bonus when using a suitable tool. Also The game does have thresholds, but it uses them in the dialogs. High enough, (or low enough), and you get additional choices, or results.

Lock pick is one of the few skills in the game that cannot be increased except by leveling, (though you can get the bonus for using lockpicks on the lock you are trying to pick).


I don't see that as flawed... I see that as either you develop the skill or you cannot those weapon systems effectively. :shrug: ~Simple as that. There should be no guarantee that you can use a plasma pistol, if you focused your PC on conventional firearms.

I don't recall ever tagging "small guns" ~ I don't believe that in 12 years I never tagged it (I have to assume that I did), but it was so unusual for me, that I honestly don't recall playing a PC with Small guns tagged. Most of my PCs were melee specialists, and Small Guns was easily raised into the 80's (91 max IIRC), by using books. Tags in Fallout are different than in Fallout 3, and progress at ? of the normal cost.

I never used Sniper, except maybe to see what it was ~and reload.
Something else too... Aiming in Fallout was not as it is in FO3's VATS. First, APs were equated to time, and were very expensive. Fallout 3 gives you endless regenerating APs. Targets in Fallout had a linear progression of difficulty (with commensurate results, if the gamble paid off). Fallout 3 uses proximity instead, and you can get 95% to hit the head with mediocre skill in the weapon.



What does this mean exactly? You mention it twice in your post, but I cannot fathom how the mechanics (of either game) would [adversely] affect roleplaying in the least. The only aspect that does affect it AFAIK, is the writing. :shrug:


Wait a minute.. How have RPGs 'evolved'(?) If anything they have gotten simplified, and get by on graphics and sound ~Neither of which is actually needed for an RPG.

Fallout was originally based on the GURPS PnP rule set; (Though they lost the license mid-way, due to the extreme violence in the game). They had to write their own rules to replace GURPS.
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj125/Gizmojunk/Fallout_GURPS-1.jpg

The deminished ability to fully role-play the role that you are playing.

So what role exactly? did you think you were playing in Fallout2, and what abilities would you attribute to that role? and what abilities should that role have?

That's what I'm asking. :tops:

Each PC in every game of FO2. was a great [gr.gr.?] grand kid of the Vault Dweller (Founder of Arroyo), and the child of the Village Elder. Their personal abilities varied a lot, but most of the ones' I played knew how to fight in some fashion.

Yeah, for example - I've always found the way they handled running in Fallout 1 to be rather telling. Even in Fallout 2, if you're set to walk by default - you only have to double-click on a hex to make your character run to that location. In Fallout 1, I believe you have to find a hot-key or something. Either way - I remember once going back into F1 and finding it very counter-intuitive that I couldn't simply use the mouse to change from running to walking, given an overhead view and all.

And there's a lot of that - you see a deal of progression even between those two early games - and they're only, what, a year or two apart? The running, as I said. And probably the most important addition to that game (and one that's even still present in Fallout:NV after all these years) is simply the "push" command. It is pretty much guaranteed that at some point in Fallout 1, you're going to find yourself stuck in a tiny room or a doorway, because NPCs are blocking all of your exits. So in Fallout 2, being able to "push" them out of the way was a significant improvement.

And probably the greatest change you'll see between game philosophies is simply how unforgiving the early Fallout can be. Fallout 1 and 2 are very unapologetic in that regard.

Weapon weight in Fallout 3.
It needs to be understood that weapon no-weight was done that way for game-play balance in Fallout 3... the balance between resource management, and other aspects of game-play ... to produce a game that was well-balanced in all aspects, RPG being the dominant ... otherwise if it would have been a game all about resource-management, sacrificing other aspects of play such as better RPG interactions etceteras.

There is no denying that Fallout 3 is a very well-balanced game having aspects of role-play and game-play that is so well-proportioned in all aspects of play, as to produce an outstanding Fallout 3 sequel that was rated as "Number 2 of the Top 100 RPGs ever produced".

RPGs have evolved so much over time, and with so much more content, size and variations of play within the games, side-quest sizes have hugely increased and some are mini games in themselves with good content to match, often having no simple answers. RPGs have evolved so much along with better qualities. Gone are the days of crippled animation.


Thank you Bethesda for leading the way in this.

Which doesn't answer my question, but then I never expected you to. Never mind.

Way to be rude, repeat your question and I'll answer it.

How is it for balance sake to take a series that stresses inventory management, and weighted equipment prioritizing, and make the weapons & ammo weightless?

That to me, indicates developer intent for a shooter game. The original Fallouts would never let you stockpile rockets like that without having to sacrifice for the added weight. The games were far more responsible about weapon use... You could not just randomly shoot anything and waste ammo, yet FO3 was designed wholly opposite, with the expectation of run & gun.

Standards have fallen of late, IMO. Worse... they seem to praise the new norm and revile the inspired.

Isn't Dagger Fall still the biggest TES game? (That is the impression that I got.)

How exactly? You asked, and I answered. What exactly did you expect? ~Please be specific.

TBH, it was a hybrid.
There aren't any other shooters like F3 out there, so you cant really go to that end, calling it a shooter wrapped in fallout wallpaper (as i've heard the kids at the cool table say).
Of course some of the RPG mechanics suffered.
Regardless of how anyone feels about it- it was balanced, between those playstyles.

I've posted this here and other places like DAC (hahahahah) but the idea of moving away from 3-d iso is exciting.
its not perfect yet, I admit..
but i like where it is headed.


Now as far as the OP is concerned. Going from F3 backwards-realize that F1 and F2 are different games.
you cant jump into them expecting EXTREME INSTANT ACTION!!!! or any of that.
Enjoy them on their merits, just as you would ask players that played the originals first to do.