First Playthrough

[WaterR22]

Hey people, I've had quite a few fallout 4 playthroughs and I loved it, so want to try something else from this series. My problem is that fallout 76 is a piece of s#*! (never played, though, so if I am wrong, tell me pls). So I thought I would try something older, but I am afraid, that old game stuff like grindy gameplay, bugs, and overall minuses caused by absence of sufficient technology years back would f*#@ up the game for me.

 

So question is: are there mods that would unf*#@ my experience?

Thanks.

 

P.S. I am talking primarily about New Vegas, but I am open to suggestions, so if you think I should try something else from this series, I will be glad to hear from you!

 

[madmongo]

Ok, first thing's first.

 

Fallout 1 was an RPG.

Fallout 2 was an RPG.

Fallout 3 was an RPG.

Fallout New Vegas was an RPG.

Fallout 4 was a shooter.

 

One of these things is not like the others.

 

So the first thing you need to ask yourself is what exactly was it that you liked about Fallout 4. Depending on your answers, you might not like Fallout New Vegas at all.

 

Compared to Fallout 4, FNV's combat system is crude and clunky. It's fine for an RPG, but it's not really up to the standards of a modern shooter. If combat is one of the things you liked about FO4, then FNV is going to be clunky and annoying, and mods aren't really going to be able to fix it.

 

Power armor in FO3 and FNV is basically clothing. It doesn't really feel like power armor. Fallout 4 dramatically improved power armor, and once you experience that, going back to FO3/FNV just makes the power armor feel lame. If you liked stomping around in power armor, FNV is going to disappoint you.

 

There are fundamental differences between an RPG and a shooter. In an RPG, the focus is on conversations and interactions, and the decisions that you make have a dramatic impact on the game. In a shooter, the emphasis is on shooting. Conversations are just a way to move the story along so that you can get to the next bit of shooting. This is a major difference between FNV and FO4. In FNV, conversations matter. Choose the wrong conversation option and some NPCs may not ever really talk to you again, blocking off major quests. FO4 has stripped down conversations with basically 4 options:

 

Option 1: Yes.

Option 2: No, but still yes.

Option 3: Sarcastic yes.

Option 4: Something different, but still yes.

 

RPG players find this extremely annoying, because your conversation options mean nothing. You can get some entertainment value for yourself by always choosing the sarcastic option, but whatever you choose you end up in the same place. Shooter players love this though. They can click through quickly and get back to the shooting action.

 

This is particularly obvious when you look at the overall story options. In FNV, there are three main factions, or you can go it alone and be independent. That means that you have four main endings. Two of these have two different endings though, so there are actually 6 different main endings. How you act throughout the game also gives you 15 different endings just for the player. Each faction has multiple endings. Each companion has multiple endings. For RPG players, this is great! You can really sink your teeth into the stories and choose how you want things to turn out. For shooters, this is a nightmare. Shooter players don't want to wade through all of this crap. They just want to shoot things!

 

Compare this to FO4. In FO4, you only make one decision that matters - which faction you want to win. So there are 4 endings and that's it. Great for a shooter, horrible for an RPG.

 

The funny thing about an RPG is that you can play it as a shooter. If you want to just go around shooting things and you don't care about the story, that works in an RPG. There are very few characters that are unkillable, so if you want to go on a complete murder spree, knock yourself out. If you want tougher enemies, there are mods for that. Just keep in mind that the one thing you can't mod is the game engine itself, so in some respects the combat is always going to be clunky.

 

The opposite isn't true. It is very difficult to play FO4 as an RPG. The options just aren't there, and because it's a shooter you almost can't role play at all through the game unless your character is a psychopathic killer.

 

Because conversations matter in FNV, there aren't many options to be a sarcastic a-hole. So if you liked that about FO4, the options aren't there so much in FNV.

 

FNV is an RPG, not a shooter, so it's not grindy like FO4 is. Enemies also aren't bullet sponges. If you like difficult combat, there are mods for that. But the base game isn't a shooter.

 

Be careful with mods. FNV is a 32 bit game so it's very easy to run it out of memory. FNV's texture caching system seems to leak memory, so high resolution graphics mods will make the game run out of memory faster. Unfortunately, this leads to you having a choice between having a pretty game or a stable game. But not both. You have to choose one or the other. You'll want the 4 GB patch (depending on where you got your game that might already be included - it's part of the GOG version but not the Steam version).

 

NVSE (New Vegas Script Extender) is required for a lot of mods, and the last I heard it doesn't work with the Epic version of FNV. So if you got your FNV from Epic, that might limit some of the mods that you can use.

 

So the question now goes back to you. What was it that you liked about Fallout 4? Your answer to that will determine what mods you should get.

Edited June 11, 2023 by madmongo

[laclongquan]

If you want to play FPS, or Fallout 4 FPS-style....

 

It's recommended to play FNV Dust. This total conversion mod will deal with most RPG issue madmongo mentioned above by pushing things through a different history. So you dont need to deal with dialog and quest.

 

The equivalent to FNV Dust would be Fallout4 Frost

 

There's another FNV total conversion mod called Obscurum Pandemic which is quite like Fallout 4 in that FPS mechanisms. Problem is, OP leave Fallout universe altogether so it's not exactly a Fallout mod. 2nd problem is its humouros political writings that written precisely to troll you, yes YOU.

 

And yeah, OP has its equivalent in Fallout 4 : Obscurum IV Statesec.

Edited June 12, 2023 by laclongquan

[JimboUK]

Fallout 76 is closer to Fallout 4 than New Vegas is, New Vegas was made by a different developer with a different philosophy. It's cheap so maybe it's worth trying but if you start running around shooting people not only will you find a large percentage of the content becomes unavailable you'll also have factions trying to kill you, actions and choices have meaningful consequences, unlike Bethesda's titles.