what happened to the big guns skill??

new vegas seems crap the last fallout was much better.

new vegas doesnt have much to offer.

I feel the opposite, I think FNV is much better than the linear barely-Fallout game that was Fallout 3.

They broke up Big Guns between Guns, Energy Weapons, and Explosives, and added a few too. None of the Fallout 3 Big Guns are gone, there are more now.

Big Guns was dissected into the other ranged combat skills cause they wanted a functional tier system and for every combat skill to be as viable as the next from start to finish. (Which they utterly failed at IMO.)

Fallout 3 was "fallout bethesda poin of view, nothing like the olds fallout"

I see another FO3 vs. FNV thread arise... Agh I got headaches again...

Instead of categorizing weapons by size, New Vegas does it by types of ammo used.

That makes sense... right up until you hit things like Flamers.

"Letsee... laser, laser, laser, plasma, laser, plasma, plasma, pulse laser... fire?!?"

Or, if you prefer "Battery, battery, battery, battery, battery... napalm?!?"

FNV has way more to offer over Fallout 3, in Fallout 3 nothing you did made a big impact anywhere else, it was linear as heck, I was pissed when I found out about essential NPCs, "unconcious" my ass, I shot him with a nuke, FNV, you can kill anyone and you can still go through the game, I can kill everyone I choose, I couldn't kill James in Fallout 3, because Fallout 3 had 1 fixed story path and nothing you did could change it. In FNV there are 4 storylines and one of them cant be [censored] up, but it has a reason, not "Oop! -unconcious -", I'd take FNV over F3 any day.

Well heat is a type of energy too. Hence "energy weapons".
Though it uses liquid as ammo. Ok I screwed up. :sweat:

Oh **** me not this topic again! :ahhh:

Well if the laser and plasma batteries had battery acid like car batteries( just a nuclear compound), all their ammo would be liquid based. Heck even look in the Repcon museum for the plasma display. Colored liquid in cylinders. So maybe they are liquid based.

Plasma is basically superheated fire (i believe the explanation is that it consist of hydrogen atoms stripped of their electrons.)

Besides, they can't be liquid-based batteries, MFC means Micro-Fusion Cell. Basically you've got a mini nuclear reactor in that battery.

Consensus. I disagree with the OP.

We all do.

Big Guns was dissolved and it's weapons brought under with the other weapon skills.
This is however an odd thing to bash the entire game on, though?


Plasma is the fourth state an element can take. A superheated ionized gas that behaves like a liquid.
It's not just hydrogen, a lot of elemental gases can become a plasma as long as they are contained and heated to the right point.

Indeed... Seems silly at first glance, but when you play for a while, and see how it all works... You begin to truly appreciate
the often uncanny accuracy of first impressions.

This is odd to me. I'd never trade NV for FO3; and I'd only trade NV for an expanded and enhanced 3D fallout 2.


I don't think so. I'd call it a horrendous balance issue to allow a non military trained PC full access to very specialized weaponry skills at no cost (skill commitment).

The game allows PC's that train to expert in pistol, to simultaneously train to expert in miniguns. :bonk:
(And the same with grenade experts being simultaneously flamethrower and rocket specialists).

A flamethrower is a low tech energy weapon, it doesn't fire a solid projectile, it projects heat just like all the other energy weapons. It makes perfect sense to me. It's the energy weapon tree's shotgun.

A flamethrower projects a physical fluid that does not go precisely where the weapon points; training involves safety measures & maintenance.
A laser rifle would project a weightless beam that is unaffected by wind, and has no recoil... Training would be more concerned with refraction, eye protection, and even the color of the target. Safety and maintenance skills would be entirely unrelated.

Big guns in Fallout 1 was bad enough, but at least ammo & weapon weight limited what you could pull from you pocket, in Fallout 3 it was as bad a Doom 2.

So basically the same exact thing I just said. It projects heat in an unreliable pattern just as a shotgun projects solid lead in the same manner. It's a low tech energy weapon, just because it isn't a phaser doesn't change that.

No; similarities with the shotgun don't mean anything here IMO. Shotgun pellets don't set the area ablaze. Training in one energy weapon should not give skill in another ~but even so; flamethrowers are too far removed from any other "Energy" weapon to be lumped in together by a catch all skill. (same with pistols and miniguns)

Big Guns was too difficult a skill to balance for early game characters, IIRC. What do you use for a starter big gun? The flamethrower was the weakest in FO3 and it's mid tier in NV... You'd have a varmint rifle, a recharger rifle, and.... a flamethrower? That just doesn't jibe with me. Big Guns should be end game weapons, and they fail at that now in NV. They are crap for the STR and skill requirements you have to meet.

You don't :shrug: ; You use a pistol like everyone else.

The shooter mindset infects this RPG's design (and shouldn't). Its not about gun tech, it should be about the PC and the events in the plot.
(Combat should not even be a major concern, as some PC builds will not be combat oriented). Guns should not fit neatly into a tier tree at all; that just leads to the low end guns becoming useless late in the game. The PC should be (with sufficient skill), able to sneak through a gauntlet of enemies, taking them out with a silenced 22, as well as barge through using a flame thrower.

Its supposed to be an RPG, (descendant from one of the best RPGs)... but it plays like a multiple-choice shooter, and the constant skill mergers make it very obvious where they are going with it, and its become very silly IMO.

Those were one of the best additions they could have done, and I'm glad that they did.

*What could do you have against it?

I'm definitely on your side as far as this being an rpg over a shooter. I despise that this game is a one shot kill fest at high levels, but I still disagree with your view on the way gameplay should flow and progress... If you pick a weapons skill you should have an option weapon-wise from the start of the game.

I also disagree on your view of the sneak skill, that would just be overpowered. Remember the FO3 stealth suit? How exciting/challenging was the game after you found that? Yeah...



They have the costliest investment with payoff that pales to those with lesser requirements. How could anyone not have something against that? I don't think they shouldn't have steep requirements, I think they should have a larger payoff for meeting said requirements.

Fallout 3 wasn't supposed to be exactly like the old Fallout Games, that's why its in the Capitol Wasteland as opposed to the West or California, or even Chicago (Mid-West). Tactics wasn't standard Fallout lore, obviously the games companies all wanted to expand their games play field. New Vegas see's a return to the south west, why... Another expansion to the story: we're likely to see the commonwealth more and further rise of the Brotherhood of Steel, who knows the collapse of the New California Republic.

:foodndrink:
We agree, but maybe not quite for the same reasons.

I disagree that an RPG should not be a "one shot kill"; I've seen the idea posted for years that "Its an RPG, you're supposed to have to shoot them 10 times", but it never made sense to me. Hit points are an abstract (not a particularly great one either). They imply experience and greater ability, mixed with karma/luck. The Level one Peasant gets stabbed with a knife and he dies; The level 15 hero gets stabbed with the same knife and he calmly says, "its just a flesh wound". (behind the scenes, it includes the hero's past experience with knife fights, dodge attempt, and attempt to roll with the strike, and/or make the best of his armor). When scrutinized it still can't be fully rationalized. IMO the same two (chained to a wall) should both die from the same (unresisted) hit to the head.

As for weapon choice... I can't agree. In an RPG, the PC may start out having skill with Katana ~that doesn't mean he should find one where he starts (even though Baldur's Gate 2 did it ~in their case it was plausible, because the weapons you find are your own).

No, I never came across it (I've read of it though).

High level PCs and NPCs should be able to do one-shot kills due to their skill, and potentially the use of sneak attacks.

Location should not make a difference at all. However the name should. I would buy a third installment because I liked the second ~not because I like the current vogue in gaming and hoped to find one Fallout themed. The only reason I'm interested in FO3 (and NV) is my interest in FO1. What they have added, I can do without; what they omitted, I miss from the series, and consider it a design flaw. :shrug: