Well, I’m not actually good at FPS-type games, so it’s not easy for me. I don’t think it would affect the difficulty of combat all that much, though… it would just make it less of a pain in the ass, for me at least. Also, I think it’s more realistic to be able to shoot from cover, as that’s how people actually shoot each other. It takes me out of the game a little to have some dumb raider running towards me blasting away, not giving a shit how many shots I’m getting on him.
And I would never advocate implementing it into the game in such a way that you HAD to use it. If it were a pause-and-select-target kind of thing, you could simply choose not to pause. I know a lot of people would hate it; I just think that having the option would be useful for those of us who like the series but aren’t big FPS fans.
On another note, I’m definitely in the minority here, but I actually like the slow-motion… when it follows my bullet as it rips a motherfucker’s head off? That is freaking cool. I can see how it would get annoying, so I think it’d be useful to be able to turn that off, but I like it.
Also, where the fuck can I get some money? I’ve been playing for hours, and I’m still at like 300 caps, which will be long gone as soon as I go back and buy more stimpaks. Can’t imagine how I’ll ever amass enough to wealth to buy any serious weapons.
I actually only found myself wishing I could turn off the slow motion once or twice, usually I liked it Would be nice to have the option, though.
As for caps… I dunno, just kill lots of raiders and sell their gear. if your repair skill is high you can repair their stuff and sell it for much more than it would normally be worth, same with weapons (at one point I found myself running around with around 7 nearly-broken assault rifles, stupid super muties… cha-ching ) Also making weapons and selling them is a good way to get caps. I never really found myself strapped for money, to be honest. I also sold a lot of the ammo I never used, like .5mm and frag mines (again, at one point I found myself with nearly 25 frag mines and around 30 frag grenades. Had some fun with that, I did )
Possibly. The int bobblehead is in the science lab in Rivet City, which can be a lot more difficult to actually reach, due to Super Mutants, at early levels of the game.
Remember to change your clothes and eat your mentats and other boosters before doing certain things like repairing and trading.
Another question for those of you who finished the game already. again, how long did it take you, and how many side quests did you tackle, what percentage of the wasteland do you think you explored, how much do you think was left out there for you to do?
What do you think all those rocks and stuff are for? So you don’t have a button to hide behind and pop out in one fluid motion, big deal.
They’re just not used to people shooting back.
From what I’ve seen, if there is cover nearby, they’ll use it. Like in Bethesda (I think), I ended up flanking a Raider who was shooting at me from inside a ruined truck.
Someone mentioned scouting for Rangers and being paid for every location already discovered.
Buying weapons, other than grenades and mines, isn’t really necessary. Some of the best stuff is easily found on bodies, you just need a good Repair skill (at least 45%) and spare weapons to keep them in working order. My problem is keeping enough ammo on hand, particularly for the Minigun that I picked up from a Super Mutant. You can get Shishkebob schematics from Vance by brokering a deal for Arefu to supply him with bloodpacks in exchange for The Family to protect the settlers.
Do you recommend a way of getting there (relatively) safely while at the same time not risking meeting people that I shouldn’t met until after I’ve met someone else first? (I’ve heard that certain quests can be entered in the middle of them if you go somewhere else first, and everyone acts like you should already know what they’re talking about.)
I completed it with my first character in around 37 hours. I imagine I explored less than 40% of the wastes but about 80% of the city. At the end he had Small Guns, Speech, Sneak, Lockpicking, Science and Repair at 100. I think he was level 17. On default difficulty it was incredibly easy.
My new character is about 15 hours in and has barely touched the inside of the city, less than 20% of the wastes. He’s going to be a stealthy, melee fighting, grenade tossing SOB (combat difficulty turned up to ‘hard’). No stone will be left unturned! It started off very slow but since I got my Melee skill up and convinced Dogmeat to join me; it’s a piece of cake. Dogmeat is one hell of a tank and grenades, with a high explosive skill, are awesome. We’ve taken out a room full of robots, a squad of SM Brutes and countless numbers of raiders together. The only times I’ve had to pull out my backup Combat Shotgun was when we accidently pulled a Mirelurk king, when we pulled a pair of Mirelurk Hunters (those buggers hurt!).
To get to Rivet I’d suggest following the river on the Megaton side. You might need to avoid a pair of Super Mutants at one point but the rest should be relatively safe thanks to some heavily armoured friends.
I got this game last week, and have been having a lot of fun with it. And I may be in the minority, but I even enjoy the lock-picking / hacking mini-games.
Hacking was probably the hardest part for me to “get”. For people who are having trouble with it, I found some really useful tips:
Some “control” strings are hidden in the code. These start with “<”, “(”, “{” or “[”, and have the corresponding closing character on the same line (these don’t line wrap like the potential passwords do). Clicking on the whole string will either remove a “dud” password (most common, about 80% of the time) or reset your guess allowance. Rarely, I think they also add one to your tries remaining, but I’m not positive. The number of these are probably determined by the difficulty of the terminal and your science skill.
This may have been something I missed in the manual or tutorial, but the “(x/y) correct” result is based on letter and position. So if “HEAD” and “SHAM” both match (1/4), then the third letter of the password must be “A” (as opposed to possibly having an “A” or “H” if position didn’t count).
When narrowing down potential passwords, the only words you have to consider are ones that match your previous guess with the exact same number of letters as the guess matched the password. So if “WEARING” matched two letters of the password, you can eliminate “CALLING” as a candidate, since those two words match 3 letters (one of which must be wrong).
What I do is to first use all the control strings to remove duds. Then I pick one of the words left and see how many letters match (call it “x”). Then I write down all the words that match “x” letters of the first attempt.
Then I pick a word from that list and see how many letters of that match the password (“y”). I cross out all the words on the list that don’t match “y” letters of the second word. Repeat for the remaining password attempts.
If y=x or y>x, then the letters in common of the first and second word are usually correct. This isn’t guaranteed: if the actual password is “COSTLY”, then “HARDLY” and “CORDON” both match two letters, but they’re not the “RD” the two attempts have in common. But in practice, looking for words that remain that do match the overlapping letters tends to work.
Following the above I can usually hack a terminal with only one or two retries (although I usually wimp out and cancel the hack if I’m down to my last attempt with more than one candidate).
Can Dogmeat be killed btw? How tough is he exactly? I found him last night and he’s been with me ever since. I love the fact that he growls whenever there are enemy near. But…he just runs in to attack anything that attacks me and I don’t want to see him get whacked. There doesn’t seem to be any kind of command to put him on passive or tell him when to attack or not attack.
My second character I decided not to bother with the quests (at least I’m not going out of my way to find them) and just wander around the wasteland more or less at random. I’m having a hell of a lot of fun with just the random encounters and finding new places. I found some ant lord guy last night and had a blast going through his lair, killing his minions and finally taking him out.
See, this is what I don’t get. They made the hacking minigame, interesting, challenging, and it scales well in relation to difficulty and the science skill. And then they go and make it pointless by resetting the tries every time you log off.
So, yeah you can spend the time and write down the possibilities, and use the command strings provided to you by your science skill, etc… or you can just try a word at random three times, exit, log back in, try another 3 words at random, etc…
Dog meat can die, according to reviews I’ve read. In fact, most people dislike the companions because they get in the way and end up leaving them back at their home.
First play through, roughly 10 hours. The only side quest I really completed was disarming megaton’s bomb. I was just screwing around with the game mechanics and wanted to get a feel for 'em. I’d say just doing the main quest you experience 5% of the game, at best.
My second play through I made sure to hit all the various towns/places/settlements. I’d say I’ve experienced close to 60% or 70% of the wasteland, not counting random encounters. Probably spent… 24 hours on it, maybe 30? I don’t have the main quest past “Glaxy News Radio”.
To Rivet City? To be honest, just don’t go into any secondary buildings along your way there if you’re really dedicated to getting to RC at the beginning of the game. However, you will almost definitely run into a barricade (or two) and you’ll have to deal with heavily armed Super Mutants and Centaurs, at the very least. Swimming might actually be a good way to get across, but you’d absorb a lot o’ rads. You might want to time a run to Rivet City to coincide with the radiation portion of the Wasteland Survival Guide quest.
But you shouldn’t have any opportunities to break any quests, I don’t think.
Yes, and very tough. But once he’s dead he can’t be brought back to life. And you can tell him (via dialog I believe) to hang back.
Is there a health bar or something for him? Do you have to heal him? Thus far i’ve just kind of let him do his own thing. I remember reading before I got the game that you can send him out to look for goodies, but that he doesn’t always come back…so I’ve refrained from using him for that purpose.
It’s too bad he isn’t a horse though…I could use the help lugging around all this crap I have! I’m constantly tossing stuff out.
Pretty sure that you need to either target him in VATS or take a shot at him to see his health bar. You can give him stims like any other party member to heal him, I think.
I do, however, agree with most folks who say that party members just get in the way. I don’t use 'em, myself.
And yeah, lugging stuff around… can’t say enough about the strong back perk and fast traveling back to your apartment often to drop off loot.
) Also making weapons and selling them is a good way to get caps. I never really found myself strapped for money, to be honest. I also sold a lot of the ammo I never used, like .5mm and frag mines (again, at one point I found myself with nearly 25 frag mines and around 30 frag grenades. Had some fun with that, I did 
