I think New Vegas's Reputation system just ruined the game for me.

So I got as far as solving Novac's problems with the ghouls, the missing cattle, and even Boone's wife (say hello to my first companion). This is as far as I've gotten in the game, having just bought it this year. Leading up to that point, when I reconned Nipton for the NCR and spotted Legion troops there, I did NOT touch them; Ranger Ghost said "I need eyes and ears, not your life," so that's what I did. Later, heading north on the road between Nipton and Ranger Station Charlie, I bumped into some merchants going my way, did some business with them and decided to tag along, keeping varmints and raiders off of them. Two different bands of Legionaries attacked them (about 5-6 Legionaries altogether); helping to fend off the first four made me Shunned by the Legion, and fending off the second two made me Hated.

Problem 1: we left no survivors. How does the entire Legion know which leather-clad bozo out of a thousand stood up to two piddly raiding parties? It was the same with the Powder Gangers, and it just seems silly.

Later, when Boone and I went to check on the Ranger Station for Andy in Novac, we had our first run-in with Legion Assassins. This was right outside the Station, so at least it made *sense*, but holy difficulty spike, Batman! They had some nice gear for us to loot... but even while we were sneaking, they came right for us like they had a GPS tracker on us. And taking them down made me Vilified by the Legion.

Problem 2: does it strike anyone else as silly when the game tells you "You have been VILIFIED by the community... that was coming to kill you anyway"? Again, the same happened with the Powder Gangers, but at least they were nowhere near as tenacious. Or omniscient, it seems.

A day later, hunting (ordinary) raiders on that same stretch between Nipton and the Ranger Station (maybe that was my mistake), TWO more packs of those Assassins - in the same day - came right at us, as if they knew RIGHT where we'd be. The third group - actually, the last man of the third group - finally killed me (only for the game to immediately load my last quicksave, but the damage was done). Really, these clowns just show up by magic (and they're not the only ones, but they are the most extreme example).

Sooo... I help one band of merchants make the trip north to Novac, help them fend off maybe half-a-dozen Legion troops on the way... and the ENTIRE LEGION knows who I am, and right where to find me, and is out for my blood? What? WHAT??

Now, I'm fine with having *some* kind of reputation system, and I'm fine with actions having repercussions, but I prefer for those things to make SENSE, especially in a role-playing game. What we have here is either a bug, or a very ham-fisted, deus ex machina way of teaching you, the player, to keep to yourself and don't get involved. When raiders with a yellow marker (as opposed to red) show up to murder the merchants you're with, just stay out of it, because if you interfere, you'll practically break the game.

Either way, I'm done with this game, maybe for good. In the meantime, I'll either play the classic Fallouts or go straight to Wasteland 2. I've got better things to do than to butt heads with a reputation system gone wild.

Spoiler alert: When you make it to the Strip your reputation with the Legion resets to neutral. Having Boone with you, you're bound to be hated by them eventually again though.

^^^ This. Both major factions actually suck up to you at that point, effectively resetting your reputation with each to neutral again.

Personally, as soon as I figured out Boone was going to go full-on Rambo toward any Legion, I just ensured I didn't bring him when visiting Legion areas. It's actually possible to get somewhat on good terms with both Legion and NCR - at least until you reach a decision point later on.

BTW the game does have a strange way of "detecting" your kills, but it IS possible to stealth kill and therefore not have the kill "count" against you. For example, I managed to stealth kill the powder gangers during the attack on Goodsprings, so that after the attack they were still friendly enough to me to allow me to visit their base without shooting on sight.

I agree that it's implemented a bit badly though - if ANYONE sees your "murder", then it counts it as the entire faction knowing about it (even if the person who witnessed it isn't of their faction).

You are right that the reputation is extremely ridiculous and in no way realistic. The game does not even necessarily require combat or interaction with a particular faction in order for that faction to start hating you more, i.e. if you agree in a dialogue choice to help NCR whilst in their New Vegas HQ, then sometimes your Legion reputation instantly gets worse, if as they had telepathically read your mind from hundreds of miles away.

However, as stupid as the reputation system is, to say that it ruins the game is a bit much IMO. By the same token, some people say Witcher 3 is ruined because you can steal everything & anything from anyone, while they are watching, and they never say jack about it and they act as if nothing happened. That's certainly a legitimate flaw in TW3, but does it really ruin the game? Is TW3 a bad game because of that flaw?

Despite the severely flawed reputation system, New Vegas is still a great game. Very few games offer the multitude of choices that it does, and most other games also have way shallower characters as well. How does it break the game though? Yes, the Legion hates you based on stupid reasons that don't make sense. But the only practical consequence is that you have to fight the Legion when they see you and/or some of their quests might become temporarily and/or permanently unavailable to you. But even if those things happen, the game is still highly playable under those conditions. The choice isn't "don't get involved or else you'll break the game," but more so "if you get involved, you are going to take heat as a consequence" (but I agree that the way how the consequence is implemented doesn't make sense).

you're better off having stopped playing

don't go back

the game is full of stupid nonsense, bad quests, mediocre writing, predictable EVERYTHING

I forget what point it was in the game but at some point I was just like "oh fuck this nonsense for the last time" and uninstalled - kept my saves for a year+, started it back up to check my feelings about it and as soon as it loaded all that came rushing back was bad connotation feeling and it was an immediate "ohya fuck this shit" uninstall delete all saves goodbye POS game

I actually thought F3 was a better game and it was still below average.

I love the original Fallouts

Wasteland 2 is decent

be sure to check out UnderRail !!!!!!!!!!!!!

To each their own - although did you try with the YUP patch? That fixes many stupid things, including bugs as well as some rep things from memory. I don't agree FNV is a bad game - I'd rate it up there as one of the best RPGs in fact - however I've only ever played with YUP plus other patches. It was a buggy mess on release, and it only ever got fixed with fan patches (typical Obsidian). They were still the best - although with FNV I can see a more realised vision of Fallout 2, in a way (bugs notwithstanding). Of course F2 also needed fan patches in the form of the RP. I did play this to the end (pre-DC edition), but to be honest once I did I completely forgot most of the plot and characters. No one stuck out as memorable or particularly interesting.

However the worst thing about it - and what's stopping me from playing it through again (as the DC edition), is the fact that there are far too many stupid loot containers placed in seemingly random locations. How the hell are there pre-war crates still locked in the middle of an active settlement? It makes no sense whatsoever.

On top of that there seems to be crap buried all over the place too, the backer shrines are lame and all look the same, and the worst offender - the combat is really boring. You'd think they could have at least not reused the exact same combat screens over and over again for the random encounters - with the seemingly exact enemy placement as well. The earlier Fallouts did this much better, and it felt like they had more variety - and that's despite Wasteland having decent cover mechanics (which are mostly pointless since the AI is retarded). I keep hearing mention of this, might have to check it out one day.

You forgot to mention Age of Decadence. It's technically post-apocalyptic, old-school 3rd-person isometric style, has decent (and difficult) combat, multiple paths, and lots of choice and consequence. One of the best RPGs of all time, easily worth playing through many times (which is needed to see all the content).

ohyes, I think you will love UnderRail

I've only played a bit of AoD but I'd agree it is great so far

I don't know what the "YUP patch" is, but I sold my CE copy of FNV for a couple hundred $ and wll never be playing it again (: the writing was mediocre, the combat bad, the quests cliche rehashes, I don't really recall 1 thing I liked about FNV, it wasn't BAD overall, it was just a boring and slightly less than average

sold my F3 CE for a few hundred (:

great investments

How did you get a few hundred for those games?? I thought only console games sold for that much, especially second hand...

And yeah if you don't like the quests and writing in FNV, nothing will change your mind. Not sure how you thought NV was crap while F2 was good, considering there are similarities (and had many of the same writers) - then again maybe that's why you thought they were rehashes? New Vegas seems to me to be the New Reno that they wanted to make in Fallout 2 for example...

Personally I thought NV did some quests and writing better than F2 (IMO F2 had too many whacky/zany/cultural references, while in NV you at least had to choose Wild Wasteland for that to show).

super-mint condition and low availability at the time I sold them - sold them both to the same guy within a matter of a week of each other I think

I sold my Dialbo 2 CE for almost $300 and then couldn't find one of the pieces and had to cancel the sale

good writing can go to mediocre with just a few changes - word choice and placement, sentence structure, etc. - read a dialogue from F2 and literarily it is well-written, read a line from FNV and it is like a 7th grader aspiring novelist wrote it

I definitely recognized a lot of F2 in FNV, and ya, that didn't sit well at all, obviously rehashing shit to make a buck, and completely removed the soul of it

Thanks for the input, all!

Turns out there are some games I can't stay mad at, and this is one of them. Aside from what I gently and patiently ranted about, New Vegas is overall pretty terrific. Next time, I might just try to scoot through that Nipton-to-Novac stretch more quickly, so as to avoid the perfect storm of ruinous randomness I ran into before. I also might not pry so hard into the matter of Boone's wife.

But for the moment, bumping into a singer from New Reno and hearing this and that about the Enclave has convinced me that I should actually play through Fallout 2 sometime, which of course means playing through the first game one more time... tee-hee!

I'll keep my eyes open for UnderRail and Age of Decadence the next time GOG has a crazy sale. It's bound to happen again sometime!