5 ms·

They're not really clunky, though. The two are pretty different as well. I enjoyed the first one a lot, but couldn't finish the second (weak writing, too many p

They're not really clunky, though. The two are pretty different as well. I enjoyed the first one a lot, but couldn't finish the second (weak writing, too many pop culture references, some poorly designed areas, etc.).

the_af 10y ago
The original Fallout is the best, but second one is pretty good too, even though it indeed suffers from too many pop culture references. Also, too many glitches and broken quests. But when it worked, it worked -- I still prefer its opening intro to the original Fallout's. It was grim and sad. For me -- who to my eternal shame wasn't aware of Wasteland, its spiritual parent -- Fallout was the first truly great RPG, a wonderful post-apocalyptic game in a world of Tolkien-wannabe copycats. No Elves, Orcs or magic -- mutants, ghouls and radiation instead!
- SerLava 10y ago
  > Also, too many glitches and broken quests. I have been playing Fallout 2 Restoration project, and it is amazing. Tons of cut content restored, bugs fixed, and the random encounters often include little huts and farms to pick through. Just don't add the extra talking head during installation. The modders had to do their own voice acting and it is sadly not good.
Bartweiss 10y ago
I think for some people, "clunky" means "Temple of Trials". It's still infamous as a horrible failure of game design, and puts a significant number of people off the game without ever seeing the part where diverse builds are actually viable. It's a bit liking firing up the original XCOM - it might be perfectly good, but the very beginning is so bizarrely hostile and underexplained that a modern player would never know.
- SerLava 10y ago
  Yeah the best advice there is to run away from everything. It seems to me that the developers wanted to push players towards role playing a tribal who molds themselves to the wasteland. They wanted to discourage people from rolling a charming doctorate student with a Gatling laser. I still think it's bad game design. It does make it less fun.
  - Bartweiss 10y ago
    This is a good observation, and it's remained a pain point for the series. You can fire up New Vegas and make an energy weapons sniper, but it's going to make the first few missions very painful. (And, of course, you'll replay the same problem when you hit Dead Money.) There's probably no clean fix while the weapons skills are divided, because the game needs item progression and investing in intermediate skills is so pricy. Really the only big improvement I can think of is offering a handful of quality, low-skill-requirement weapons like NV's Weathered 10mm to tide players over. Still, the series has definitely advanced from the Temple of Trials approach, where it had been overdone to make the gameplay unpleasant.
    - jerf 10y ago
      I'm comfortable with "energy weapons" being a special skill you only want to pump up later in the game. If I remember correctly, in the original Wasteland, when you first create a character, Energy Weapons isn't even an available skill. You have to find it first out in the world. The first two Fallouts work that way in practice even if you can technically spec yourself up as a primitive tribal with a bizarre understanding of Energy Weapons.
      - Bartweiss 10y ago
        This would make a lot of sense, they're theoretically special and uncommon weapons. My sense was that it came with two problems in FO3/NV. First, perks (and to a degree points) felt scarce, especially with level caps. Dumping value into any combat other than Energy Weapons felt like you were backtracking when you switched over - though points were cheap if you took any of the meta-experience perks. Second, that redundancy felt crappy because the energy weapons didn't really feel impactful enough. Some were fine, like the pistols, but the high-end stuff couldn't outpace guns. They were really heavy, and things like the Tribeam just weren't very good. The Gauss Rifle was solid, but you got it so late and it was so tiresome to maintain and keep loaded that it was hard to justify. Really the biggest perks of Energy Weapons in NV were the low Strength requirements and the Hyperbreeder Alpha, which was a hilariously cheap and easy way to fight petty enemies. On some level the balance decision just felt wrong - I understand spending more to use Energy Weapons, but why would I if they don't beat Paciencia and Ratslayer?
- Chathamization 10y ago
  Like I said, I don't think Fallout 2 had great design in general. Even still, the Temple of Trials only takes about 7-8 minutes and isn't that difficult. It was hardly the worst part of the game (for me at least). Fallout 1 only had the rat cave in the beginning, though, and that only took a minute.
deleted 10y ago
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the_af 10y ago

The original Fallout is the best, but second one is pretty good too, even though it indeed suffers from too many pop culture references. Also, too many glitches and broken quests. But when it worked, it worked -- I still prefer its opening intro to the original Fallout's. It was grim and sad. For me -- who to my eternal shame wasn't aware of Wasteland, its spiritual parent -- Fallout was the first truly great RPG, a wonderful post-apocalyptic game in a world of Tolkien-wannabe copycats. No Elves, Orcs or magic -- mutants, ghouls and radiation instead!

SerLava 10y ago
> Also, too many glitches and broken quests. I have been playing Fallout 2 Restoration project, and it is amazing. Tons of cut content restored, bugs fixed, and the random encounters often include little huts and farms to pick through. Just don't add the extra talking head during installation. The modders had to do their own voice acting and it is sadly not good.

Bartweiss 10y ago

I think for some people, "clunky" means "Temple of Trials". It's still infamous as a horrible failure of game design, and puts a significant number of people off the game without ever seeing the part where diverse builds are actually viable. It's a bit liking firing up the original XCOM - it might be perfectly good, but the very beginning is so bizarrely hostile and underexplained that a modern player would never know.

SerLava 10y ago
Yeah the best advice there is to run away from everything. It seems to me that the developers wanted to push players towards role playing a tribal who molds themselves to the wasteland. They wanted to discourage people from rolling a charming doctorate student with a Gatling laser. I still think it's bad game design. It does make it less fun.
- Bartweiss 10y ago
  This is a good observation, and it's remained a pain point for the series. You can fire up New Vegas and make an energy weapons sniper, but it's going to make the first few missions very painful. (And, of course, you'll replay the same problem when you hit Dead Money.) There's probably no clean fix while the weapons skills are divided, because the game needs item progression and investing in intermediate skills is so pricy. Really the only big improvement I can think of is offering a handful of quality, low-skill-requirement weapons like NV's Weathered 10mm to tide players over. Still, the series has definitely advanced from the Temple of Trials approach, where it had been overdone to make the gameplay unpleasant.
  - jerf 10y ago
    I'm comfortable with "energy weapons" being a special skill you only want to pump up later in the game. If I remember correctly, in the original Wasteland, when you first create a character, Energy Weapons isn't even an available skill. You have to find it first out in the world. The first two Fallouts work that way in practice even if you can technically spec yourself up as a primitive tribal with a bizarre understanding of Energy Weapons.
    - Bartweiss 10y ago
      This would make a lot of sense, they're theoretically special and uncommon weapons. My sense was that it came with two problems in FO3/NV. First, perks (and to a degree points) felt scarce, especially with level caps. Dumping value into any combat other than Energy Weapons felt like you were backtracking when you switched over - though points were cheap if you took any of the meta-experience perks. Second, that redundancy felt crappy because the energy weapons didn't really feel impactful enough. Some were fine, like the pistols, but the high-end stuff couldn't outpace guns. They were really heavy, and things like the Tribeam just weren't very good. The Gauss Rifle was solid, but you got it so late and it was so tiresome to maintain and keep loaded that it was hard to justify. Really the biggest perks of Energy Weapons in NV were the low Strength requirements and the Hyperbreeder Alpha, which was a hilariously cheap and easy way to fight petty enemies. On some level the balance decision just felt wrong - I understand spending more to use Energy Weapons, but why would I if they don't beat Paciencia and Ratslayer?
Chathamization 10y ago
Like I said, I don't think Fallout 2 had great design in general. Even still, the Temple of Trials only takes about 7-8 minutes and isn't that difficult. It was hardly the worst part of the game (for me at least). Fallout 1 only had the rat cave in the beginning, though, and that only took a minute.

deleted 10y ago

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