Get rid of all the g!$$#&n f@@!ing piece of s~+* radios and speakers in the villa and I'd totally agree.
I also found Honest Hearts infinitely more annoying than Lonesome Road.
Final DLC Rankings (Worst to Best)
4. Lonesome Road: Essentially a long corridor filled with very powerful enemies. I loved Ulysses and the Divide, but actually playing was a chore.
3. Honest Hearts: I was very over leveled for this one, but there wasn't much story-wise. Graham, the best part, fell kind of flat for me (although I love the implication of my Black Widow Courier having his, Daniel's, and Chalk's clothing) coupled with a baffling "moral dilemma" that gave me Final Fantasy flashbacks.
2. Old World Blues: the only DLC to make me laugh out loud, Old World Blues has a truly unique aesthetic, and the Big Empty is a joy to ex0lore.
1. Dead Money: essentially Peak Obsidian; brilliant characters and themes marred by time and budget constraints. I almost feel like they wanted this DLC to play like Bioshock, and they fell flat on their face. But I love it regardless.
Almost a perfect reversal of my own experience! Just swap Lonesome Road with Honest Hearts and then invert the order.
Dead Money sucks, especially since it has so little to do with the rest of the damn story. The good parts are wholly embodied by its forcing you to play a little differently compared to the rest of the New Vegas environment.
Old World Blues is kooky fun, and it sets some stuff up, but honestly, it's a tonal mismatch with New Vegas. It feels more like it should have been part of Fallout 3. I also honestly loathe the amount of high-end loot you can get just by walking in a straight line and mauling a few weak enemies. Amusing in places, it's a gigantic Monty Haul session that doesn't feel like it belongs.
Lonesome Road has its problems, but it also lets us see a little proper urban desolation, and the fact that it shows us a place where the post-apocalypse suffered a fresh apocalypse and got even worse appeals to me. Still too much loot, and with only Ulysses to talk to, the story is very patchy and railroady- you only make one real decision in LR, and it's at the friggin' end.
Honest Hearts gives you a place worth fighting for, an intimate look at what war does to those who embrace it too fully, good voice acting. Also... the Survivor's Journals are pure magic. Problems: Too friggin' easy, and the White Legs have no redeeming characteristics whatsoever, so stomping the crap out of them is a clear-cut correct choice almost every time. Choices are generally low-stakes.
Why's that?
Honest Hearts is as much a railroad as lonesome road.
I live in the Midwest so I've had my fill of the preaching so that part is annoying.
The tribal armor looks like improvised diapers with car parts thrown on for effect.
You have to walk g*~&+#n every where.
Other then Rubs-His-Chalk I didn't find anyone overly interesting, except for the dead person that left s%@@ in the caves.
I liked the backstory, but it had almost no bearing on the one you take part in, besides explaining the bandages and rubbing on his guns.
There ain't s&*+ for treasure!
Still on the Lonesome Road. :-\
Been busy with work, the wife has been working overtime, and then there's the Siberian Express that's gripped us of late. :-/
Still have ED-E with me, but not for long.
Not messing with Rawr this time.
Holidays and all. :-)
Also need to add the mutant template from the Numeria book to create Mole Rats, and such to add to my Iron Gods campaign. :-)
Actually bothered with Rawr for my on-again off-again Mister House play through.
One flare, one dose of Turbo, a Blade of the West with the knockdown perk, and the poor thing didn't even get off a single attack...
I just hit him with a flare then start shooting him in the kneecaps with Annabelle.
I just like beating a deathclaw to... er... death with a melee weapon.
Good to see you, Amicus.
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I've played through New Vegas from start to finish at least a dozen times. Never actually rolled a character it felt like it made sense to side with the Legion. Even people whose backstories I created involved "Growing up in Legion territory" with the intent of siding with Caesar eventually figured out through their adventures in the wasteland that there's a better way of living.
I actually forgot I was doing a legion play through this time.
My Good-Karma Legion female playthrough is still waiting in the wings.
You wanna talk about a totally delusional character... it doesn;t help that it's really EASY to start helping the NCR good and early, and none of their grunts seems like terrible people, whereas the Legion are both hard to get on the good side of early and are pretty much irredeemable jerks from top to bottom...
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New plan.
Forget Lonesome Road.
Whatever it is I did, clearly they deserved it, so I'm just walking away, let Custer, or whatever his name is keep it.
Screw you guys, I am going home.
Also it seems I forgot I was going fist death punch and explosives and started pumping up guns.
My skills are a mess.
This is why pathfinder uses average party optimization, for every person that picks weapon focus or selective channeling, there's someone like me who pipes in "I take cosmopolitan!"
Also it seems I forgot I was going fist death punch and explosives and started pumping up guns.
My skills are a mess.
Eh...Guns are always worth a few points. You find so many of the damn things.
So, started with the legion missions.
What's that awesome hand weapon by them again. I forget...
My skills are a mess.
If you have all the DLC so the level cap is 50, between skill books and a little luck with workbench crates you can max out every skill fairly easily, so I wouldn't worry about it.
I generally take the Skilled Trait for its drawback alone (-10% XP rate), so I usually finish with 100s all over. The real drawback with having a mid-low INT character is that you can't pass certain checks in conversations (which is heartbreaking in Dead Money when you just can't understand Christine.)
So, started with the legion missions.
What's that awesome hand weapon by them again. I forget...
"Recompense of the Fallen" the unique dog tag fist? That's in Marcus Aurelius's desk at Cottonwood Cove. Alternatively, you're thinking of the Ballistic Fists that Caesar's personal guard uses, but you can get those all over (from Blake at Crimson Caravan, the Khan armory, the Brotherhood store, Mick & Ralph's special inventory, etc.)
Oh yes, I'm on Legendary Game Of The Century Edition or whatever it is. :-)
Skilled you say, can't say i've ever taken that perk.
So far, blasting through the legion missions. Helped some chick for Caesar's henchman, didn't tell him she thought she was working for the NCR. Didn't want to ruin the surprise.
Skills aren't as messy as I thought they were, I think I'm 18th level now...
Skilled is a trait, not a perk. Traits are like in Pathfinder, except that you can only ever have two, and each has a benefit and a drawback. Skilled was introduced in Old World Blues and is the one trait where its drawback (-10% XP rate) is kind of a benefit (the actual benefit is +5 all skills). I like the -10% XP rate since it's way too easy to hit the level cap with a bunch of stuff left to do otherwise, particularly if you're doing RP things like "sleeping regularly in a place you feel safe."
I always get those two mixed up, with the same style of menu and all. :-)
Next time at least.
I think I made it up to 46th level once before getting bored and hitting the dam.
I like how they make the terrible things the legion does as optional, like outing that one lady who also works for the NCR (I didn't).
It's just nice to see that even though they're pieces of s&%* they still have feelings (to exploit).
Oh yeah, snap decision last night; I'm f**$ing over EVERYONE, House, NCR, Legion, EVERYONE.
I feel like in New Vegas before the DLC even after knowing of Benny's plan with Yes-Man, I felt somewhat unqualified to run Vegas. After dealing with the Sierra Madre, BIG MOUNTAIN, Zion, and the Divide (potentially being on good terms with a number of incredibly smart or incredibly wise individuals at the end), I felt a lot more qualified to do so.
I mean, particularly if you've got the Think Tank working for you, and left Joshua and Ulysses alive.
Never been able to muster up enough F*** Everybody to nuke everybody at the end of Lonesome Road though, I mean I've done it, but then I backtracked to before I did it because I felt bad.
If the areas you nuked were cooler I might do it more often.
I gave up on Lonesome Road for now though.
I don't speak of the Sierra Madre.
No specific reason why.
I used to hate Dead Money, and now I kind of love it...
The loot is rubbish, but the story is good and the atmosphere is wonderful (particularly on Very Hardcore).
If anything, I hate it even more.
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*wanders in*
Oh...I almost forgot. Finally finished the game some time back, as in before Christmas. I'd basically been doing an NCR run and was pretty satisfied with the way things turned out doing it that way; most of the factions I ran across that were even halfway decent seemed to be doing fine when all was said and done. When and if I ever do another playthrough I'll probably either go House or Yes-Man...not sure if I could stomach a Legion game. I did lots of Int/Speech and pew-pew-lasers so I'm not sure what sort of setup I might do in another game. To be honest, I really enjoyed Int/Speech so I might always prioritize those skills no matter what.
Anyhoo, I'm still going to keep peeking in here because I love reading about the shenanigans that everyone else gets up to in their games :D
*wanders out, goes to play more Pillars of Eternity*
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I started playing New Vegas again recently. Tale of Two Wastelands, to be specific. Started in Fallout 3 as the Vault's Chaplain (an occupation I've never gotten before, actually) and made a goody-goody sort of character.
Of course, this being the Wasteland, my character got worn down a bit. After making the hard decision to execute Doctor Lesko to prevent any further "mishaps" and having to kill a bunch of people to escape from Tranquility Lane (yeah, it freed them from their eternal torment, but I was still murdering them) followed by your dad's lack of sympathy or real concern for his son, I left the Capital Wasteland and became a Courier, hoping it would lead me away from unnecessary bloodshed.
Nine years later, we learn what a naive child Bellerophon (a name he assumed after he met his bestie Ulysses) was.
Just reached the Strip, plan to join the NCR. Have some business to settle with Benny before I leave, though.
After SEVERAL restarts, I have learned several valuable lessons:
+Speech is priceless, Charisma is worthless.
Actually, if you're running a Good-Natured non-combat monkey, Charisma is priceless because it keeps Boone/Veronica/Raul and Rex/ED-E scads more effective while you cower and flail with your crapsack weapons skills...
+Thou shalt worship at the altar of the riot shotgun.
Or the 12.7mm SMG/.45ACP SMG
+Variant ammo is a thing.
Oh lord yes.
After SEVERAL restarts, I have learned several valuable lessons:
+Speech is priceless, Charisma is worthless.
+Thou shalt worship at the altar of the riot shotgun.
+Variant ammo is a thing.
I initially thought that Charisma was worthless, but then I discovered how amazingly useful the Animal Friend perk is (it protects you from Nightstalkers!) so now I try to start with CHA 5, which lets me qualify for all the good charisma perks with the implant. You'll notice Charisma more on hardcore because it does make your companions fight better and it's nice to have to avoid reloading old saves so often because Raul got mauled by Cazadores again.
If I'm totally min-maxing, the stat I usually dump is strength. I think, excepting the silenced sniper rifle, energy weapons are stronger than guns (more stackable bonuses) and you only need a strength of 3 to use the unique recharger pistol they sell in Novac and that's a disc one nuke if there is one in this game (plus you can get up to +3 str from implants and getting your spine reinforced and the weapon handling perk exists). The best stat, naturally, is Luck.
I started playing New Vegas again recently. Tale of Two Wastelands, to be specific. Started in Fallout 3 as the Vault's Chaplain (an occupation I've never gotten before, actually) and made a goody-goody sort of character.
Of course, this being the Wasteland, my character got worn down a bit. After making the hard decision to execute Doctor Lesko to prevent any further "mishaps" and having to kill a bunch of people to escape from Tranquility Lane (yeah, it freed them from their eternal torment, but I was still murdering them) followed by your dad's lack of sympathy or real concern for his son, I left the Capital Wasteland and became a Courier, hoping it would lead me away from unnecessary bloodshed.
Nine years later, we learn what a naive child Bellerophon (a name he assumed after he met his bestie Ulysses) was.
Just reached the Strip, plan to join the NCR. Have some business to settle with Benny before I leave, though.
I like to take his suit after I'm done with Benny, and then toss it in the hole the prick tried dumping me into. I realize it has no game impact, but it feels good. :-)
That sounds like a fun play through though. :-)
The best stat, naturally, is Luck.
Amusingly, I almost NEVER pump Luck. I don't take points from it at creation, but I don't add to it either.
Intelligence is always the best stat to jack up, personally.
I don't really dump anything though, especially strength. Annabelle and Esther can't carry themselves after all, and I'm certainly not leaving them behind. :-)
Perception and Charisma are the safe ones to dump in New Vegas for the most part, unless you're building for some of the Perks that need them.
Charisma doesn't have any raw stat checks that I know of, and Perception's main benefit is made obsolete by Enhanced Sensors.
The reason I always try to bump luck is that it gives a plat n% bonus to your crit rate that stacks with everything else that improves your crit chance.
It also makes "winning the casino games" much easier (thank you Josh Sawyer). But with 10 Luck, 1st Recon Beret, the Finesse and Laser Commander Perks, and both levels of "Set Lasers for Fun" you have a 34% chance to crit with a laser weapon, which something like Pew-Pew will multiply by 2.5x giving you a 84% crit rate. Later on, Ulysses Duster will let you get that to 100%.
There is the raw charisma check to play with the mini boomers at Nellis, but I think that's the only one. Intelligence was more important in the base game, but now that the level cap is 50 and each DLC includes a full set* of skill books, it's not that hard to cap everything you care about and have a lot of game left.
I think my standard power array for very hardcore is SPECIAL: 3/5/8/5/5/6/8 with the small frame and skilled traits retraining out of small frame into built to destroy at the Sink Auto-Doc once I get Tunnel Runner.
For crits you can also go the fun Chance's Knife route and basically turn into a walking blender. It almost makes you feel bad for Raiders and such that stumble into your path.
That's a route I'm planning on for Bell, since I'm specced about equally into Guns and Melee Weapons.
Hunting rifle, always start with the knees.
Made it to Zion at level 2!
I probably could have been level one, but I did the tutorial for the free gun and ammo.
Amusing fact: At extremely low levels, the White Legs use shovels as their primary melee weapons.
I have the ultimate edition myself, and thanks to the grenade rifle, I can just go atop the fiends camp with the cazadors and blast the crap out of them while they can't reach me. Then I grab a few fire axes, haul it to red rock canyon and chill there for a bit before I (save scum until I) get Love and Hate and a coupke of other nice goodies.
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F&@# you Alduin!!
Where's my bow!
...gren-ade... launcher... never mind on the bow!
Guess who hit a feral ghoul with a stick of dynamite when it was five feet away and wasn't disabled at all.
Take that a+*$*%~! I learned absolutely nothing about throwing three sticks of dynamite at a charging ghoul (except maybe hitting with the first one).
Not sure why there's still so many feral ghouls wandering around. Their heads explode so easily. And then all the time wasted on posturing.