Fallout 3 impressions

[imported_Imp]

Well, there goes 37 hours and 10 minutes. I just started over after growing very unhappy with my first character. Too big a focus on killing, and 100% gimped when it comes to speech, lockpicking and hacking. Now I'm doing the "standard" build:

Str 6
Per 4
End 8
Cha 2
Int 9
Ag 6
Luck 5

Or something like that. I'm no longer using melee, can train myself not to pick everything I find up and only keep 1 or 2 heavy weapons on me at a time (have 4 at a time on my first character). Perception isn't much use except for the compass and some minor bonuses to skills I don't plan on focusing on. I still want to focus on heavy weapons and I like the HP/resistance bonuses from endurance. Charisma, bla, never been a speech guy in RPGs, and it looks like you can compensate with other SPECIALS or skills. Intel speaks for itself (hauling ass to Rivet City ASAP). Agility is good, I've tagged small arms, but only use VATS so much; either way, I can stand to wait for action points to regen. Luck is too much about luck so I'll leave it at that. I saved just before leaving the Vault so going to sleep on my decision.

Originally posted by: Oakenfold
Anyone having problems with the patch installing? Mine seems to lockup and not do anything, let it sit for over an hour...I will try a defrag but c'mon this is just silly.

Patch is screwy. There are a LOT of reports of that exact same scenario happening, including me. If your game still works, I'd just leave it. If you have to reinstall, the patch isn't worth it. I still crash on exit.

 

[Oakenfold]

Originally posted by: Imp
Patch is screwy. There are a LOT of reports of that exact same scenario happening, including me. If your game still works, I'd just leave it. If you have to reinstall, the patch isn't worth it. I still crash on exit.

Crap, well thanks for the confirmation. I may just wait another couple weeks to play this thing...Oh well, plenty of games right now anyhow. :thumbsup:
Btw Left 4 dead demo roxorz my boxorz on advanced difficulty

 

[DangerAardvark]

I'm going grenade chucking whacker of faces for my second playthrough. It just sucks that lockpicking and repair are almost mandatory.

 

[imported_Imp]

Just have to say that it is so much funner playing with small arms and lasers compared to melee and big guns. I'm actually having fun redoing a bunch of quests now.

 

[Slappy00]

I wonder if you get any amusing dialogue options by playing a dumb character?

 

[9mak9]

one of the coolest effects has to be shooting grenades just as they are about to be thrown.

Probably a stupid questions but does anybody know if you can take screenshots in game?

 

[ZappDogg]

Originally posted by: 9mak9
one of the coolest effects has to be shooting grenades just as they are about to be thrown.

Probably a stupid questions but does anybody know if you can take screenshots in game?

Screenshots aren't stored in a directory, but you can hit print screen and paste into your photo editor of choice with no problems.

 

[9mak9]

Originally posted by: ZappDogg

Originally posted by: 9mak9
one of the coolest effects has to be shooting grenades just as they are about to be thrown.

Probably a stupid questions but does anybody know if you can take screenshots in game?

Screenshots aren't stored in a directory, but you can hit print screen and paste into your photo editor of choice with no problems.

yeah thats what I was worried about...that'll just be a pain to do everytime...I have found so many good opportunities also

 

[ZappDogg]

use fraps then, or something similar

 

[Dangerer]

Originally posted by: Slappy00
I wonder if you get any amusing dialogue options by playing a dumb character?

Not that I know of. I started a character with very little base strength so the option to bully answers out of people was non-existent. I'd guess a character with little intelligence just doesn't get the intelligence speech option, but starting at 1 intelligence means you're pretty much just gimping yourself by more than 200 skill points by the time you hit level 20.

 

[Dangerer]

Originally posted by: Imp
Well, there goes 37 hours and 10 minutes. I just started over after growing very unhappy with my first character. Too big a focus on killing, and 100% gimped when it comes to speech, lockpicking and hacking. Now I'm doing the "standard" build:

Str 6
Per 4
End 8
Cha 2
Int 9
Ag 6
Luck 5

Or something like that. I'm no longer using melee, can train myself not to pick everything I find up and only keep 1 or 2 heavy weapons on me at a time (have 4 at a time on my first character). Perception isn't much use except for the compass and some minor bonuses to skills I don't plan on focusing on. I still want to focus on heavy weapons and I like the HP/resistance bonuses from endurance. Charisma, bla, never been a speech guy in RPGs, and it looks like you can compensate with other SPECIALS or skills. Intel speaks for itself (hauling ass to Rivet City ASAP). Agility is good, I've tagged small arms, but only use VATS so much; either way, I can stand to wait for action points to regen. Luck is too much about luck so I'll leave it at that. I saved just before leaving the Vault so going to sleep on my decision.

*minor spoilers*
I did something similar, but I was only 10 hours into my game. Personally Strength was a bit useless for me, so I kept it at 3. You can get the Str. bobblehead plus do the ant might quest to boost it to 5. Do those early on so you can get strong back which I think is probably the most important perk for anyone who'd like to play the game beyond the main storyline.

My character is a smallguns/energy weapons specialist.. I didn't realize how insanely powerful and fun to use the energy weapons were until I got my hands on one.

My starting stats were
Str: 3
Per: 5 (i need it at 5 so with the bobblehead I can get the sniper perk)
End: 3
Cha: 4
Int: 9
Ag: 8
Luck: 8 (super important for crit builds)

Perks were as follow
2: intense training to endurance..lol i guess lady killer would have worked here too...
3: intense training to endurance again to buff up my plasma rifle
4: Educated (obvious choice)
5: Comprehension, saved all my books until I got this perk
6: Gunslinger - you might disagree here, but the magnum will completely behead anything with high enough small arms.
7: Intense training to endurance again... I refuse to take bloody mess because of how unrealistic it is
8: Strong back
9: Commando
10: Finesse (love the crits)
11: Mysterious Stranger (saves my ass in situations, seems unrealistic but to be honest he shows up like 5% of the time and I find it satisfying when he does)
12: Sniper
13: Silent Running (you can literally sneak behind an enemy and punch him with this perk)
14: Lawbringer (just for game immersion purposes, I could take intense training for a more powerhouse character
15: Intense Training to endurance
16: Action Boy
17: Better criticals
18: Tag! (tag whatever skill I feel is weak by this level)
19: Concentrated fire (not the most useful skill but not much else at this level besides paralyzing palms for some end game deathclaw punching)
20: Grim reaper Spirit

I keep track of all my bobbleheads and skillbooks and right away I pump points into Lock pick. Get it to about 50 plus or minus a few points to get it to even out at exactly 50 with the available skillbooks. I try not to go overboard since it's useless unless at values of 25,50,75,100

I then pump points into Small arms and repair evenly but stop putting points into small arms completely when small arms is at 50 unmodified by anything else.

Repair I will go higher, to maybe 70 and let skillbooks + bobbleheads do the rest

Science at around the same as lock pick.
Sneak is very high but always about the same level as small arms.
Once I have those relatively high (60-70) I pump the rest of my points into barter/speech until I first encounter energy weapons, and I'll go ahead and put the rest of my points there.

My end game gear is:
Ranger Battle armor: +5 Action Points, +1 LCK, +10 Small Guns
Poplar's Hood: +10 Sneak, +1 AG
Vault 101 utility suit: +5 lock pick, +5 repair (Keep this on me AT ALL TIMES so I can repair that much more and I can save 5 points on lock pick.
Adv Radiation suit: Get this later on but I pretty much never need any radiation reduction perks or anything with this
Lesko's Lab Coat: This damn thing appeared in my locker one day.. no idea how it got there but I keep it on me at all times to save 10 points on science

End game SPECIAL after bobblehead and gear is
S: 5
P: 6
E: 8
C: 5
I: 10
A: 10
L: 10

At first I realized that with just 40 points in all skills, you can easily max out to 100 as long as you get the skillbooks and perks, but the game wasn't fun to meplaying it that way.

 

[skace]

Originally posted by: Imp
Well, there goes 37 hours and 10 minutes. I just started over after growing very unhappy with my first character. Too big a focus on killing, and 100% gimped when it comes to speech, lockpicking and hacking. Now I'm doing the "standard" build:

Str 6
Per 4
End 8
Cha 2
Int 9
Ag 6
Luck 5

Or something like that. I'm no longer using melee, can train myself not to pick everything I find up and only keep 1 or 2 heavy weapons on me at a time (have 4 at a time on my first character). Perception isn't much use except for the compass and some minor bonuses to skills I don't plan on focusing on. I still want to focus on heavy weapons and I like the HP/resistance bonuses from endurance. Charisma, bla, never been a speech guy in RPGs, and it looks like you can compensate with other SPECIALS or skills. Intel speaks for itself (hauling ass to Rivet City ASAP). Agility is good, I've tagged small arms, but only use VATS so much; either way, I can stand to wait for action points to regen. Luck is too much about luck so I'll leave it at that. I saved just before leaving the Vault so going to sleep on my decision.

The build I've been using:
5 STR, 7 PER, 5 END, 5 CHA, 8 INT, 5 AGI, 5 LCK

I think this is a good build because you don't have to lower anything and, with the bobble heads you will have at least 6 in every skill, a 6 in a skill means you can get pretty much any perk you want. On top of this, I use 3 perks increasing attributes, 1 in INT (to max it at 10) and 2 in PER (to max it at 10). Granted, the points in PER could easily be shuffled, however I don't think any other stat competes with it except for AGI or STR (STR only if you plan to go melee and AGI if you plan to use more small weapons) but PER has the big bonus of allowing you to spot enemies early.

You have to remember, you get the STR bobble head very early, so that will be 6 pretty much from the get go.

From the start I tagged Science, Lockpicking and Repair. At level 20 I have 100 Lockpick, 100 Repair, 100 Medicine, 100 Science. Then I've got 90 Energy Weapons, 95 Small Guns, 80 Explosives, 60 Big Guns, 70 Sneak, 70 Speech, 60 Barter, 40 Unarmed/Melee. The points could have been redistributed differently but this worked out to my play style.

I basically use any weapon I want and can go anywhere I want. The only thing I don't really mess with is unarmed though I do use melee weapons with only 40 skill (it might be slightly higher than that).

I can't get my exact perk build right now, but it's something like this: Commando, Sniper, Black Widow, Child at Heart, Silent Running, 3x Intense Training, Toughness, Rad Resistance, Strong Back, Comprehension, Educated, Lawbringer, Chemist (not really needed but nice), Finesse, Cyborg. On top of that, I've got the Barkskin Perk, Hemophage, Ant Sight.

All of this means I've got a solid DR regardless of what I'm wearing, a consistant rad resistance, good with pretty much any weapon, and can unlock almost all dialogue one way or another.

 

[DangerAardvark]

I'm using a mod that makes you level slower (more xp required per level and less xp from lockpicking/hacking) because I was already level 15 and hadn't even explored 1/8 of the map. Some design choices in this game are truly retarded.

I'm thinking about using another one that makes power armor much less shitty (no AGI penalty and carries its own weight) but I can't even wear the crap yet.

 

[skace]

Originally posted by: DangerAardvark
I'm using a mod that makes you level slower (more xp required per level and less xp from lockpicking/hacking) because I was already level 15 and hadn't even explored 1/8 of the map. Some design choices in this game are truly retarded.

I'm thinking about using another one that makes power armor much less shitty (no AGI penalty and carries its own weight) but I can't even wear the crap yet.

They should have made a level 20-25 that requires 20x more exp than the normal levels. But I've been capped at 20 for a long time now =/.

 

[imported_Imp]

Originally posted by: skace

Originally posted by: DangerAardvark
I'm using a mod that makes you level slower (more xp required per level and less xp from lockpicking/hacking) because I was already level 15 and hadn't even explored 1/8 of the map. Some design choices in this game are truly retarded.

I'm thinking about using another one that makes power armor much less shitty (no AGI penalty and carries its own weight) but I can't even wear the crap yet.

They should have made a level 20-25 that requires 20x more exp than the normal levels. But I've been capped at 20 for a long time now =/.

My guess is that they were catering to the 'casual' (i.e. console) crowd. IIRC, Valve did stats on who finished the 4 hour 'epic' of Episode 1 and it was staggeringly low. So thanks to all those people who never finish the game, never explore and just try to finish the main quest, the rest of us will get this crappy level cap and level scaling.


About leveling and skills: now that I'm using a character that started with 20 distributable skill points after level 2 (23 after the perk), it looks like it's going to be amazingly easy to max everything I want out. Already I have small arms, lock picking, repair and science up to 80-ish a level 12. I've also been slowly upping medicine and big guns to 55 and 40, respectively. With about 180 points left and an ass load of books, bobbelheads yet to be found, it looks like I'll have no problem boosting the rest. I probably could have given my top skills fewer points due to the potential 60 points out there, but I don't have the patience to wait that long.

Changing the difficulty to hard is also one of the best things I re-did (I thought I did when I started my first game, but I crashed, it defaulted back to normal, and I forgot to switch it back). Super mutants are actually hard now and robots crazy.

 

[ConstipatedVigilante]

Originally posted by: DangerAardvark
I'm using a mod that makes you level slower (more xp required per level and less xp from lockpicking/hacking) because I was already level 15 and hadn't even explored 1/8 of the map. Some design choices in this game are truly retarded.

I'm thinking about using another one that makes power armor much less shitty (no AGI penalty and carries its own weight) but I can't even wear the crap yet.

Yep, I thought the power armor penalties were pretty dumb. I'm level 14 or 15 and I have plenty of ammo for my laser rifle/plasma pistol, power armor is in perfect shape, and energy weapons skill is maxed out (I hate that they limited it at 100 unlike the other games).

 

[Molondo]

Exploring in this game could cause you big problems im finding
Spoilers:







I was just wondering around and i accidentally stumbled across tranquility lane, the other vault. I thought that was awesome until i started talking to other people and had the option for "where is my dad?" then i knew i stumbled across the main quest by accident.

 

[skace]

Originally posted by: Molondo
Exploring in this game could cause you big problems im finding
Spoilers:

I was just wondering around and i accidentally stumbled across tranquility lane, the other vault. I thought that was awesome until i started talking to other people and had the option for "where is my dad?" then i knew i stumbled across the main quest by accident.

When that happens I just reload and mark that area off my exploration.

 

[imported_Imp]

Originally posted by: Molondo
Exploring in this game could cause you big problems im finding
Spoilers:







I was just wondering around and i accidentally stumbled across tranquility lane, the other vault. I thought that was awesome until i started talking to other people and had the option for "where is my dad?" then i knew i stumbled across the main quest by accident.

Spoilers

I've done that with Rivet City. The worst part isn't that I stumbled onto the quest, it's that I manage to completely bypass the entire first main quest. I had to replay about a half hour cause of that.

 

[SSChevy2001]

Originally posted by: Imp

Originally posted by: Molondo
Exploring in this game could cause you big problems im finding
Spoilers:







I was just wondering around and i accidentally stumbled across tranquility lane, the other vault. I thought that was awesome until i started talking to other people and had the option for "where is my dad?" then i knew i stumbled across the main quest by accident.

Spoilers

I've done that with Rivet City. The worst part isn't that I stumbled onto the quest, it's that I manage to completely bypass the entire first main quest. I had to replay about a half hour cause of that.

That why you do the main quest 1st and right before the end do the side missions. Also like skace said the stupid levels are capped at 20. After a long while at level 20 I just cheated and gave myself the addition level ups that I had coming anyway. Level 43 now.

 

[ixelion]

I am disappointed that the music wasn't as good as Oblivion or Morrowind I really doubt it was Jeremy Soule that did the Fallout 3 music.

I also hate the pipboy interface, which is the same as Oblivion, why cant I have more info displayed on the screen at once and only switch between data\items\stats buttons.

 

[derdrache]

Originally posted by: ixelion
I am disappointed that the music wasn't as good as Oblivion or Morrowind I really doubt it was Jeremy Soule that did the Fallout 3 music.

I also hate the pipboy interface, which is the same as Oblivion, why cant I have more info displayed on the screen at once and only switch between data\items\stats buttons.

i cant wait for mods that fix this.

 

[pontifex]

one thing i never did figure out is why everything is so 50's style when it's actually more modern times?

 

[Slappy00]

Originally posted by: DangerAardvark
I'm using a mod that makes you level slower (more xp required per level and less xp from lockpicking/hacking) because I was already level 15 and hadn't even explored 1/8 of the map. Some design choices in this game are truly retarded.

I'm thinking about using another one that makes power armor much less shitty (no AGI penalty and carries its own weight) but I can't even wear the crap yet.

there is a set of "good" power armor in the wastes, part of a quest but you need to make the right choice to get it.

 

[HumblePie]

Originally posted by: pontifex
one thing i never did figure out is why everything is so 50's style when it's actually more modern times?

It's a story.

The story is that during the 50's, which is the height of the Art Deco period and the Cold War, instead of the world continuing it's normal route something else happened. Instead of a Cold War that lasted until the 80's we had a true nuclear war instead. It's a "what if" kind of atmosphere. Assuming that war like that happened, pretty much all social progression would stop from that point on. Not ALL scientific progression as some parts of humanity survived, but social progression as we have today wouldn't exist. So now jump forward from the point of the nuclear war 200 years and you have the current Fallout 3 time period. Also, Fallout 2 takes place later chronologically speaking that Fallout 3.