What game ending-outcome would you like?

[Gashjackel]

Well remember the big door only opened once you showed up. No way in unless he opens the way which he only does for you.

[mdingman]

ok, we're getting kinda off topic i kind of started that sorry, i just hate it when people bash the Legion when they haven't even done a Legion playthrough and know absolutely nothing about them, and @Gashjackel, if you like Mr. house, that's your preference, i just always found him kinda sketchy and easy to kill, also too reliant on others

[drakeelvin]

Well I'd really like an ending where the Courier could take control of New Vegas and have the future based on all those decision branches and karma.

[mdingman]

My personal favorite is the Legion ending. I would really want a sequel that had you at the reigns of the legion kicking the NCR's ass(I never liked the NCR, they seemed like the typical inefficient, corrupt, and weak democracy)

[RealmEleven]

My personal favorite is the Legion ending. I would really want a sequel that had you at the reigns of the legion kicking the NCR's ass(I never liked the NCR, they seemed like the typical inefficient, corrupt, and weak democracy)

 

I agree with your assessment of the NCR. However, Caesar has made a rather serious strategic error. He is trying to cross directly into Clark County via what amounts to a bottleneck at the dam. Bottleneck's are easy to defend, and even the Brotherhood could do it without their armour if they decided the water was worth fighting for (and their great leader understood how to use fire zones to make a bottleneck impassable). As it stands, it's the Boomers who control the bottleneck, they just haven't realised it, and may not even be interested in throwing their weight around. I think that Bethesda have done a masterful job of portraying the sheer humanity of all the factions and their leaders.

 

I don't think that taking the dam directly is a viable option for the Legion (even if that's how it goes in the game). If the player was to take over the Legion, the obvious move, seeing as they're coming from the east, would be to hold the line and send the attacking contingent north, where they can cross over into Nevada via White Pine, and swing south-west to take the oil fields just over the county line in Nye. With oil, they could dominate the negotiating table and bring armor, air, mobile artillery and combined arms to the battlefield (assuming they can scavenge all those vehicles with nothing but explosive fumes in their tanks). Unless you can enforce the discipline necessary to bring Legion standards of conduct more in line with what the locals consider civilised, you won't get people liking the faction, which means that you won't get people finding the stuff the Legion needs for what comes next. The historical Legion was liked, and was often helped by foreigners because they knew that Roman rule would put an end to local and regional tyranny. If the player could raise the integrity, discipline and popularity of the Legion, some of the battles might involve local uprisings in support of the Legion's arrival. Who knows? The player might even get the option to declare the town of such local insurgents a Vibo Valencia in its own right.

 

With oil and mechanisation, the Legion would be in a position to drive south, effectively cutting off those NCR troops stationed in Clark County. By sweeping west [EDIT: I mean east] before the main NCR force responds, the Legion could make easy work of it all the way to the dam. With community support, oil and water, they'd rule the region.

 

As to a Brotherhood ending, I think you'd have to have the player blow the whistle on them to one of their reps from out East. With the right kind of evidence, the main contingent just might be tempted to come over and pull the others into line while taking the opportunity to show the locals what they think the Brotherhood is really all about. However, I think a failure to combine arms is a major tactical weakness for the Brotherhood. Power armour units need to be supported by unarmoured units, for the same reason that tanks depend on infantry support.

 

I can't say that knocking off such a likable chap as the game's Caesar would be very pleasant for everyone. There could be definite strains of et tu Brutus. Getting Caesar out of a bind and being named as successor might take the transition along a brighter path. The preliminaries for an NCR ending, on the other hand, probably could use a good purge. I could see a player on the NCR path sowing the seeds of revolution, dodging the spooks while inciting rebellion and generally toppling the government. Later, in a leadership role, the player could be issuing the edicts necessary to pull the officers into line, although the friendly fire option mentioned earlier sounds like a tempting way to reform key NCR officer positions before getting into power. In an NCR ending, the Nye oil fields are still of vital importance, but the NCR is demoralised and spread very thin. If they left the dam, then the Legion could just reach out a take it. There are some places that are just being over-regulated, and I think it could be set up so that with a judicious choice of posts to cut, the revolutionary player could have the dam and the Nye oilfields in NCR hands without losing anything vital to the Legion. Although I agree that followup could eventually see the NCR pushing east or the Legion pushing west, I tend to think that there is an awful lot that would need doing beforehand.

 

However, as all the factions are very human and they all have their skeletons, I think that the option for the player to start her/his own faction from scratch might also offer a good ending that would be especially satisfying if the player is involved in the big decisions that determine the character of the faction and the nature of the skeletons it too must inevitably carry. The player faction might progress by establishing a base, and expanding territory through negotiation, positional strategy and conquest. Eventually, this could lead to winning a place at House's intended negotiating table or simply continue under the Nevada flag to drive out both the Legion and the NCR. Those oilfields up in Nye County would still be important (material for future regional expansion mods), and this could make the player faction option a particularly difficult one. A challenging continuance might see the Legion and the NCR form an alliance. In this case the player would need to gather the necessary intelligence to position her/his forces so that the upcoming assault can be repelled. Of course, where those forces prevail may see some special attention from the player. However, a competent leader in a winning position will not hesitate to use this position to discourage future conflict. A potentially serious problem in this respect is, if the Nye County oilfields were to fall into Legion/NCR alliance hands, the player faction would be looking down the barrel of a resistance fight that would have to focus on the subversion of enemy materiel in order to succeed.

 

I don't have a problem with the player character assuming major leadership roles, as I don't think this changes what the player does in the game very much. Real leaders have expertise outside and unrelated to the field of "leadership" and real leaders regularly get their hands dirty in those non-leadership fields of expertise that they have. Only the fake leader or charlatan plays the "great man" and pretends that everything falls to everyone-else. Having said this, I think that in the context of a game environment where day-to-day survival is at the top of the menu, things like charisma or interpersonal skills (i.e. "speech") would definitely not affect leadership very much. In my experience, people follow competence, and it is the environment that dictates what this competence must be in. So in the context of Fallout: New Vegas the player character's ability to lead would be best based on fame or karma levels and skill levels such as survival, stealth and, to a lesser extent, overall weapons proficiencies and negotiating skills (i.e. barter). It might even be worth introducing new skills such as "tactics" (dealing with response to conflict) and "strategy" (dealing with preparation for conflict).

Edited March 20, 2011 by RealmEleven

[mdingman]

I don't think the Boomers CAN throw their weight around, they can harass people temporarily but they don't have nearly enough manpower or supply to actually take, let alone hold, anything. I do agree with the whole bottleneck thing though, but the concept is sort of trashed as the Legion attacks throught the intake pipes.(on a side note, why didn't the NCR shoot down the B-25 with their AA gun? And if you haven't noticed, the B-25 did nothing at all, there are still NCR in the places it bombed, it looked cool though and it was completely unexpected, at least for me.) However, I don't think the oil is important at all, since there isn't any left. That's the whole reason for the nuclear war, the US and China were fighting over what oil was left.

 

However, i do agree that the Legion should flank, but i think it should come from the south, via cottonwood cove, seeing as how they already have a beachead established there. and as for the people accepting Legion society, if you talk to Caesar he already has plans to change the Legion to be more like the Romans in society, but this is to happen after he takes New Vegas. And, actually, most people end up being fine with the Legion's current society anyways(especially the Khans), as the narrator states in the endgame.

 

I don't think that the Brotherhood can really do anything either, they just don't have the manpower. Even if they got support, if they tried to take over the core of the Brotherhood would split off, like the Brotherhood Outcasts in F3. And, with the exception of the East Coast Brotherhood, the locals don't like the brotherhood anyways. They're also too reliant on technology. Caesar shuns tech(at least for now) because he recognizes that if he uses tech too much, that tech will eventually fail, and there isn't enough tech to replace it. So, he leads a low-tech(but very effective) faction until he regains the ability to create and fix tech in an efficient manner.

 

As you said, before the push east or west a lot would need to be done, but i think that the next game should be once the push has started, when the winning faction has secured their gains and mobilized for invasion, and the losing Faction has scrapped together what defenses they could.(I think the Legion would put up a much better defense). Unless you chose the house/ lone-wolf ending, then you/house secures the Mojave and prepares for an assualt, while Legion and NCR regroup and prepare for an invasion. I think that the player should come in as the s**t hits the fan, get put right in the thick of it, and make a decision. By the way, i think that the new character should have some previous loyalties, instead of coming out of nowhere with no past and basically becoming a mercenary.(for example, the player is born into the Legion and joins the army, but is wounded and maybe the BoS takes him in, and then both sides want him to fight for them, and he has to pick between the two. I know that's a horrible example that should never be used in a game but it's the best I could come up with off of the top of my head.)

 

Having Caesar name you his successor was my intention in the first place. Basically, i would like to see the next game go like this: The Legion ending happened, and Caesar named you(the new character, not the courier, probably someone already in the Legion) his successor. Lanius assassinates Caesar in an attempt to take over the Legion right as the Legion invades California to finish off what's left of NCR. The Legion is split between the Preatorians/Centurions and all the higher-ups/officers who are loyal to the ideals of the Legion, and the normal soldiers who are loyal to whoever is running the Legion(which Lanius claims he is).The main quest would then proceed to have the player choose between:

1. taking over the Legion, crushing Lanius' faction and NCR, and turning the Legion into the Roman society that Caesar intended it to be

2. Siding with Lanius, becoming HIS successor(with the option to assassinate him and take over his faction), and turning the Legion into the vicious slaver nation that most people(incorrectly) think that it is.

3. Side with the Brotherhood(as their home is in California), and have them get rid of everyone else(this would be the hardest path since the brotherhood is outmanned, outgunned, and the player would have to find A LOT of outside help to give them a chance at success.)

 

I didn't include an ending for NCR seeing as how they probably couldn't recover from losing so many men in the Mojave, and they are so tied down with economic and corruption problems that they wouldn't stand a chance.(they actually resemble World War I Germany as it neared defeat)

-Inflation is killing their currency

-They don't have the caps to pay for their soldiers(188 Trading Post Arms Dealer)

-They would have horrible morale(it's bad enough in FoNV, but after Kimball is assassinated, their army is destroyed, and the Legion pushes into California itself morale would be worse)

-California is being depopulated, and the NCR soldiers are increasingly young and very poorly trained

-The government itself is corrupt(they give the land to rich brahmin barons while farmers have to scrape by on subsistence agriculture) (one of the people @ NCR Sharecropper farms)

Edited March 21, 2011 by mdingman

[RealmEleven]

I still think a revolution ending for the NCR would be very satisfying. Imagine if Kimaball were to survive assassination attempts long enough to be fed face up into la guillotine...

 

If the Legion were to prove itself with respect to regionally held social expectations, it would not be hard for them to back or even foment the revolution, and if out of the ashes a stronger Revolutionary California Republic were to arise grateful to the Legion, this could give birth to a potentially unholy alliance that would most definitely keep House in his box, and drive the philosphers wild with guesswork.

 

Of course, I would not want to see any of the other possible endings mentioned forgotten. They all sound like they'd deliver their own special flavour of fun.

 

Vive la guillotine!

[mdingman]

definately, other endings would be cool as well, i was just putting my personal favorite out there. I don't know if the Legion would support your RCR concept, interesting though it may be. the way I see it, best case scenario, the RCR ends up like the Khans and gets assimilated, worst case scenario, they end up like the Fiends.

 

Your RCR concept still is much more plausible than people pulling for the Followers, though. I mean, COME ON!!!! The Followers couldn't control anything if they wanted to! They're a bunch of doctors sitting in Freeside who suck at fighting so they hire a bunch of mercs who also suck at fighting.(I know, i wiped them all out with mysterious magnum, 1 shot kill for everyone there, i took almost no damage, i lost 3 points of health, and i was wearing dapper gambler suit/hat with authority glasses). Even if they joined w/ the BoS, they would have nowhere near the manpower to do ANYTHING!!! The brotherhood couldn't hold Helios One, they certainly can't hold the Mojave!!!

 

as funny it would be to see Kimball get guillotined, i don't think he's comin back from how i killed him. I basically put a pile of mini nukes on the stage(using a stealth boy of course), and then I went into the tower, killed the ranger, and sniped the mini nukes. The explosion killed everyone in the crowd(except for the frumentarius, he wasn't even scathed) and Kimball went flying OFF THE EDGE OF HOOVER DAM!!!! (on a side note, his head was still on the stage, which i found a little strange, and his leg ended up next to the Vertibird)

Edited March 23, 2011 by mdingman

[RealmEleven]

as funny it would be to see Kimball get guillotined, i don't think he's comin back from how i killed him. I basically put a pile of mini nukes on the stage(using a stealth boy of course), and then I went into the tower, killed the ranger, and sniped the mini nukes. The explosion killed everyone in the crowd(except for the frumentarius, he wasn't even scathed) and Kimball went flying OFF THE EDGE OF HOOVER DAM!!!! (on a side note, his head was still on the stage, which i found a little strange, and his leg ended up next to the Vertibird)

 

Oh dear, now it's not just two burning men, but one of them has really lost his head. And, I imagine he'd be hopping mad at that...

[mdingman]

ROFL i actually heard somewhere that the burned man was a possible follower in Van Buren, but I don't know how someone could possibly survive what he went through. Why would you want him as a follower anyways? i don't even know why Caesar made him legate, his tactics were horrible, he sucks at warfare!

 

By the way i want to make an amendment to my perfect ending: Instead of having you kill the BoS, Caesar forcibly assimilates them into the Legion and uses their knowledge of tech to rebuild the Mojave and create factories so that the Legion doesn't have to abstain from using tech due to not having enough parts for repairing weapons(I know that you could say that repairing works fine for the character, especially with the jury rigging perk, but when you're talking about repairing/producing weapons for the entire Legion, you can't just use what you have scavenged/looted).

Edited April 1, 2011 by mdingman