|
When I first started loving with ini stuff I used this guide for Fallout 3, but the inis are largely the same. For most things you can crank the settings 5-10x the normal maximum on a modern PC and not have any real issues. The one thing I will caution is the uGridsToLoad command. It does have a very large impact on how good the immediate surroundings look, as it will change how many outdoor grid sections around you are loaded, and thus how many have things at higher levels of detail. Unfortunately, it also means that sometimes things spawn in earlier than they should, and has a knock-on effect for how many cells remain loaded when you're indoors. Because of that it can have a bad effect on stability and it might not manifest until late in the game. I would avoid that one, but almost everything else is good to mess with.
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2019 01:47
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 3, 2024 15:17 |
|
|
Never touch Ugridstoload unless you like falling through geometry. It is a hassle but using FnvLODGen or xLODGen and generating distant LOD models is a safer method of making the distant terrain look better.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2019 02:06
|
|
|
Honest Hearts confusion: This is my first playthrough of NV since it was released and my first time through the DLC. I'm playing an independent character who sympathizes with the Followers. I murdered Mr. House and Caesar and will probably end up fighting the NCR too. Having just started the Honest Hearts DLC, what possible motivation do I have for not killing Joshua Graham upon meeting him? I've been googling this and he seems like a character fans love, and he's integral to the DLC's plot... but the DLC already told me he's a founding member of the Legion. I don't care if he's trying to redeem himself after getting tossed off the grand canyon for losing a battle that's part of a bigass genocide. Is that all there is to it here?
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2019 06:35
|
|
|
Kill him if you want. You won't have much to do in the DLC quest wise, but the game lets you kill anyone for a reason
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2019 06:42
|
|
|
unexplodable posted:Honest Hearts confusion: The major theme of New Vegas is letting go of the past. Can you let go of his past and help him do the same? You can also help free him from his past via a couple .45 rounds to the head, of course. Be the change you want to see in the world. But yeah if you kill him the DLC will basically be over, though you can still poke around Zion if you like.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2019 06:47
|
|
|
unexplodable posted:Honest Hearts confusion: Joshua is working with the Dead Horses and Daniel to prevent the Sorrows from being wiped out by the White Legs. Even if you think his crimes are unforgivable (He certainly does IIRC, though through your actions he can begin to forgive himself and let go of his anger), if you kill him that will doom the Sorrows to destruction.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2019 06:53
|
|
|
Thanks for the insightful replies. I definitely do not want to help caesar's men let go of their hosed up past. I don't know who the Dead Horses, Daniel, or the Sorrows are. It sounds like some bad poo poo's about to go down on account of my actions. War war never changes!
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2019 07:50
|
|
|
unexplodable posted:Thanks for the insightful replies. I definitely do not want to help caesar's men let go of their hosed up past. I don't know who the Dead Horses, Daniel, or the Sorrows are. It sounds like some bad poo poo's about to go down on account of my actions. War war never changes! I'm kinda wincing at this because the best part of Honest Hearts is its themes and characters, and by killing Joshua you're basically cutting yourself off from almost everything that makes the DLC great. I personally really like Honest Hearts, and would recommend at least trying to talk to everyone before you start shooting. (And you don't have to redeem Joshua to advance the plot, you just have to not kill him). Also, explore all the caves and read all terminals. Trust me on that one. More words on Honest Hearts if you decide to ignore my advice, just so you know what you're missing: The premise of the DLC is that there's a tribe, the Sorrows, that have been living in what was once Zion National Park for the past two hundred years or so. Being isolated, self-sufficient, and respectful of their environment and its natural beauty, they are perhaps the only group in the wasteland that does not inherently resort to violence - they have an old-world innocence that everyone else lacks. Unfortunately for the Sorrows, that's changing as the result of the White Legs. A violent tribe that wants to be absorbed by Caesar's Legion, they were tasked by Caesar to hunt down and destroy the New Caananites, the survivors of Utah's Mormon population and Joshua Graham's tribe. In this, they've been mostly successful, and are now seeking to destroy the Sorrows as well, as New Caananite missionaries have been in contact with them in recent years. One of those missionaries, Daniel, wants to help the Sorrows escape the White Legs by leaving Zion. Joshua and the allied Dead Horses tribe, on the other hand, would prefer to just straight-up murder the White Legs - that's what Joshua learned as a part of the Legion, and that's what he's going to keep doing to protect what's left of his tribe and to get revenge. This leaves the player with a dilemma, as typically violence is going to be your primary method of navigating the wasteland. But what value is there in not being inherently violent? Is innocence something that can or should be preserved? What about natural beauty? There's a lot going on in Honest Hearts and while the quests are short and there not much to them, I absolutely love the characters, themes, and, of course, the tale of Randall Clarke. It's a great DLC and one of my favorite New Vegas experiences. Acebuckeye13 fucked around with this message at 08:25 on Nov 6, 2019 |
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2019 08:23
|
|
|
The same can be said for the whole of New Vegas (even compared to other Fallout games) but Honest Hearts is a very American game. I think I've missed a lot of context of Daniel's missionary attitude and the way American National Parks are organized (as I understand hiking there is something a lot of Americans do). Plus those tribes are clearly Native Americans but I'm not sure to what degree.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2019 09:17
|
|
|
JawKnee posted:Kill him if you want. You won't have much to do in the DLC quest wise, but the game lets you kill anyone for a reason I really wish I had realized that on my first run through the DLC. It's a great DLC, but on my first run, I was going "What the gently caress I came here to set up a caravan route and now all my business partners are dead, gently caress you saying I need to work for you." I was already confused because I had no idea who Joshua Graham was. Never heard of him. Told not to mention him. Okay, sure thing boss. "Now let me tell you the story of Joshua Graham," he says. Why? Why are you telling me this? Everyone's slaughtered, then "Let me take you to Joshua!" I showed up to his cave with a head full of WHO ARE YOU, WHY SHOULD I CARE, gently caress OFF DUDE. If I had just shot him right then, and resolved things that way, Honest Hearts would've jumped up in my initial appraisals. Note to unexplodable: none of this is meant to encourage you to do what I should've. It's a good DLC. fake edit: ilitarist posted:Plus those tribes are clearly Native Americans but I'm not sure to what degree. I believe they're supposed to be the descendants of whoever was in the area when the bombs fell. I recall a comment from Sawyer saying that they wanted the tribes to all have a range of skin colors and apparent ethnicities, but the limitations of the engine meant they needed to pick only one. So you just get that sort of vaguely tan look.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2019 11:11
|
|
|
Pretty sure the Sorrows are explicitly All tribals (in the Fallout sense, meaning cultural groups that formed after the bombs fell, generally having survived without access to technology or non-oral education/history and being rather "primitive" as a result) rather than being actual Native American tribes, I think. Aoi fucked around with this message at 14:32 on Nov 6, 2019 |
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2019 11:23
|
|
|
Yeah, I meant that those tribals are supposed to evoke Native Americans, unlike, say, Fallout 2 tribals who were more like African tribes visually. Zion also looks much more like a western movie setting involving shooting Indians compared to Mojave.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2019 11:42
|
|
|
Ah, granted, on your first point, to a degree. On the second, I'm not sure I would agree, it's just that all the tribes of the Mojave...got turned into the families on The Strip, so they don't look like tribals anymore, except for the Great Khans. Well, and the dead village outside of Goodsprings, who got killed by the Fiends. Colonialism is one of the understated but important themes of New Vegas, after all. House colonized the Families and more or less wiped out their original identities in the process, the NCR colonial-warred upon the Khans when they pushed into the Mojave, Caesar colonized and culturally-genocided the 86(7?) tribes into his legion, and Zion is a war between three arguable colonialist-sorts manipulating the three tribes to change for their ideals: Caesar with the White Legs, Joshua with the Dead Horses, and Daniel with the Sorrows.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2019 11:56
|
|
|
ilitarist posted:The same can be said for the whole of New Vegas (even compared to other Fallout games) but Honest Hearts is a very American game. I think I've missed a lot of context of Daniel's missionary attitude and the way American National Parks are organized (as I understand hiking there is something a lot of Americans do). Plus those tribes are clearly Native Americans but I'm not sure to what degree. Zion National Park is an absurdly beautiful area with a ton of trails that go through both the floor of the valley as well as up into the cliffs. The game map doesn't really match up with how the park looks or is laid out in real life, for the most part, but there are a few areas where it does.       (Southern Utah in general is an extremely beautiful area with all kinds of cool geography and I recommend everyone get out to some combination of Arches, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands, Zion, etc.) The various tribes are definitely inspired by Native American cultures, which makes sense as the Southwest US is home to a ton of tribes. The Dead Horses, for instance, take their name from Dead Horse Point State Park, and speak a combination of Navajo (It's only an hour or so north from the Navajo Nation) and German (there are always a ton of German tourists in the Southwest). Acebuckeye13 fucked around with this message at 12:43 on Nov 6, 2019 |
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2019 12:40
|
|
|
Those are great. You can see the inspiration but of course, they were limited by the map size and fidelity. Plus of course climate changed since the war.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2019 13:04
|
|
|
the sorrows weren't vault dwellers, were they? they were kids from some sinister School
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2019 14:00
|
|
|
Yeah, their background was deliberately vague.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2019 14:06
|
|
|
Killing Joshua Graham for his past enables Caesar to commit more genocides in the present and future
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2019 14:14
|
|
|
Dang, my bad. Yeah, had a brain fart there. The Sorrows are from 'some bad place' and arrived in Zion as children/adolescents, I was conflating them with...the other group that suddenly showed up en masse in Zion. Either way, fairly explicitly meant to be a non-Native American group in ancestry, was the crux of things in my post.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2019 14:25
|
|
|
I believe that's also where their dialect comes from. It's not some faux-Native American stuff that Obsidian just made up. It's meant to resemble a patois made from a mixture of English, Spanish, and Japanese.Acebuckeye13 posted:I'm kinda wincing at this because the best part of Honest Hearts is its themes and characters, and by killing Joshua you're basically cutting yourself off from almost everything that makes the DLC great. I personally really like Honest Hearts, and would recommend at least trying to talk to everyone before you start shooting. (And you don't have to redeem Joshua to advance the plot, you just have to not kill him). I think this is a good argument for not looking up spoilers on the story before you go into it. By looking up everything that's coming, unexplodable has now decided on all of his choices in advance and had to be talked into not cutting himself out of the entire DLC because of his preconceived notions about Joshua Graham. There's no greater way to miss the point of the game than to just immediately shoot him in the face and leave.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2019 15:17
|
|
|
That's so weird, I'd assume shooting the war chief of a tribe would have turned them hostile. Either way, killing their war chief seems like a really good way to hand over Zion on a platter to the White Legs/Caesar. Good work! MariusLecter fucked around with this message at 15:32 on Nov 6, 2019 |
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2019 15:28
|
|
|
Play the full dlc, it's so worth it. I thought I'd hate it, I even stopped playing after getting to Joshua the first time. When I felt like I could trudge through it, I decided to play. By gently caress was I happy I did. There is a reason people love Joshua Graham as a character, he has some of the best lines in the game. If your lucky and you stick with it, you might also just hear one of the best lines of cathartic acceptance ever made. Trust us. Reload of you shot him, stay the course. Don't let the fire inside consume you.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2019 18:23
|
|
|
I have to say, I went through Honest Hearts not really caring about any of it until I finished. The ending slides gave me a better impression of the weight of it all that made me far more invested the next time around, though. Part of it is probably that I had planned to skip it because the premise wasn't interesting but got interested by Ulysses talking about the White Legs in Lonesome Road, so them turning out to be just enemies you can't interact with put me off.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2019 19:47
|
|
|
aniviron posted:When I first started loving with ini stuff I used this guide for Fallout 3, but the inis are largely the same. For most things you can crank the settings 5-10x the normal maximum on a modern PC and not have any real issues. I think I accidentally fat fingered something with the inis that messed things up so bad that I got constant hard locks mixed with infinite loading screens to the point where I gave up and wiped out my install and started over.  2nd time around seems to work fine though.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2019 21:49
|
|
|
Internet Wizard posted:Killing Joshua Graham for his past enables Caesar to commit more genocides in the present and future Not only that, but killing Joshua Graham is the entire reason Caesar is even involved with the White Legs and the area in the first place. Killing him is his primary objective, his secondary objective is conquering the area. Both of which you complete for him if you choose to kill Graham. Hell, Caesar plans to turn on the White Legs even if they succeed, just like he did to the Twisted Hairs. And if that isn't reason enough, Graham's already suffering so much. His burned body is worse than any prison you could put him in, and death would only free him from it. Also after reading all the possible outcomes, I think escorting the Sorrows from Zion might be the smartest option. They learn to accept their new home and the Dead Horses form a thriving community, whereas if you just help Joshua crush the White Legs then the Sorrows and the Dead Horses just keep fighting eachother, never fully thriving like they could. Punkinhead fucked around with this message at 22:25 on Nov 6, 2019 |
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2019 22:22
|
|
|
unexplodable posted:Honest Hearts confusion: Joshua Graham is definitely not a good person, before or after becoming the Burning Man, but he may be the best option for the people who rely on him at this moment, out of the ones available.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2019 22:24
|
|
|
How do people feel about New Vegas and it's "take the third option" approach to certain decisions? BioWare games rightly get flak for presenting moral choices that alternate between altruism and psychopathy, while New Vegas choices often have a "good, bad, or negotiate happiness for both sides" decisions, which are quite prevalent in the NCR questlines. After playing Witcher 3, which usually does "two options equally bad" (though there are some obvious "this is the right choice" choice) it makes me reflect that the third option choices in New Vegas often aren't really a third option as much as a Best Option because they don't really take much more effort to accomplish. Stuff like negotiating peace between the Kings and NCR seems to be a tricky proposition, or you could just talk to Hsu or call in a favour with the King and then there's no problem. I feel like taking a third option to achieve a best case scenario should involve a lot more effort and self sacrifice on behalf of the player in order to be meaningful. The best Ive seen New Vegas come to this is in Dead Money where ending Dog and God's torment prevents you from receiving their help in the fight against Elijah. Even that isn't a major downside, and Speech is such a universal skill that there's really no point to kill Dog, God or both unless you want to be a dick. I'd like to see a third option really punish you as a player, like giving you a tangible, permanent debuff to represent the effort involved in appeasing everybody. You make your game permanently more difficult to make life easier for the people you help. It's a similar problem to Deus Ex where pacifist runs are easier than lethal runs and they also reward you better for not killing people. It creates optimal playstyles that limit player expression by harming you for being violent. I feel it should be the opposite, so that taking care not to kill people is an actual challenge, just like satisfying all belligerent parties in a Fallout game should be a lot more difficult than just making a beeline for 100 speech and not suffering any downsides.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2019 22:39
|
|
|
I'd say one of the weakest parts of New Vegas is that Speech essentially "wins" every conversation. Most skill dialogue options tend to do that, but Speech is near universal with it. I think Dean Domino is the only notable example of a skill check (technically) not being the "best" choice in dialogue, but your mileage may vary with Dean. It does tend to declaw a situation when there's two options that only help one side, but then a third everyone-wins option is available. Not necessarily, but it does seem to show up in some narratively important scenarios, like Dog and God or the Followers-NCR treaty that I feel can make it seem a little too easy for a happy ending.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2019 23:02
|
|
|
I've got Honest Hearts on the brain and there are very few speech checks in that, relating to the fate of the White Legs. Although it is a problem in the vanilla quests, for sure. I have fun by ignoring what the "optimal" answer would be and just picking whatever I think my current character would do, even if it fucks everything up.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2019 23:11
|
|
|
PinheadSlim posted:Also after reading all the possible outcomes, I think escorting the Sorrows from Zion might be the smartest option. They learn to accept their new home and the Dead Horses form a thriving community, whereas if you just help Joshua crush the White Legs then the Sorrows and the Dead Horses just keep fighting eachother, never fully thriving like they could. They already have a home in Zion to thrive in, sending them out to a harsher life that they 'learn to accept' is bullshit. Conflict between the Sorrows and Dead Horses is their own business and seeing it as a deal breaker is some noble savage poo poo. Daniel being a White Savior about it when mediating between them and giving up because they aren't his naive playthings anymore is hilarious. MariusLecter fucked around with this message at 23:21 on Nov 6, 2019 |
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2019 23:15
|
|
|
The DLCs are generally better about the choices you make, and they're much better about the ways that you can engage with NPCs through dialogue, given the number of ways you can try (and fail) to debate with Ulysses at the end of Lonesome Road, or how you can affect your relationships in Dead Money through your decisions (one upping Dean or belittling Christine). I think the DLCs also benefit from the narrower focus limiting what choices you actually have, and focusing more on how you accomplish your choices. Honest Hearts can only end in an evacuation or a massacre, but the means by which those choices are accomplished have stronger ramifications, as shown by Joshua's temperance following the choice with Salt Upon Wounds.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2019 23:21
|
|
|
I tend to agree about third/best option solutions as well as speech; even on my first play of the game, every single quest where I was going to need to make a choice it was like "nah there will be a third option, just go talk to someone." I don't like this for two reasons: The first is fairly simple, in that I agree it takes away some of the meat of the game, using speech is almost always the optimal and also easiest path to do everything. Sometimes there are quest solutions that are sort of neat that I never knew existed, like the Great Khan ending options, because it's always easier to just have speech up by then. While it's obviously too late now, when the game came out I think you could sidestep this issue by doing what Fallout 1 & 2 did- don't highlight dialogue options with [SPEECH]. Players rapidly become aware that it's an 'I win' button for dialogue whenever something is in brackets, there's no point to thinking through what you want to say, just click button and receive optimal solution. I like the analogy of the guns skill though- being better at guns doesn't aim the gun for you, it just makes you accurate so that you can aim it where it needs to be. Similarly, I think having speech options not highlighted means you get the tools to persuade people, but you need to be good enough at reading the other person to know which option is the best to pick. (I suspect I know why Obsidian took this route though- Fallout 3 had quite a few options in dialogue that only came up if you met the conditions, be it a special stat, a quest step completed, or something else, and often they went unlabeled. As a result, a lot of people have the idea that there are never options in dialogue based on your stats or actions, but in reality, they're just not obviously signposted. I think Obsidian went too far in the other direction, though.) The other reason is a bit less direct. It flies in the face of the setting a little to suggest that every problem can be solved and solved easily if you sit down and talk with people. The entire premise of the series is that the apocalypse happened because diplomacy failed. Sitting down and talking like adults wasn't enough, somebody wanted what the other guy had enough that they were willing to kill, and on a massive scale. War never changes, except when it does, you know, because if you just take a minute to talk to everyone I think deep down you'll find that they're nice guys, those raiders, they're just misunderstood.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2019 23:25
|
|
|
aniviron posted:The other reason is a bit less direct. It flies in the face of the setting a little to suggest that every problem can be solved and solved easily if you sit down and talk with people. The entire premise of the series is that the apocalypse happened because diplomacy failed. Sitting down and talking like adults wasn't enough, somebody wanted what the other guy had enough that they were willing to kill, and on a massive scale. War never changes, except when it does, you know, because if you just take a minute to talk to everyone I think deep down you'll find that they're nice guys, those raiders, they're just misunderstood. There are still plenty of individuals/groups that there's no compromise or peace with, like the Vipers and Fiends, but the narrative structure of a game puts more focus on the interactions with those that have the potential for change, like the Khans and the Mojave BoS. A lot of the game is about our relationship with the past, learning what we can take from it and what we need to let go of. Part of that is how we treat those who have done wrong in the past, but are no longer doing it, or are struggling with whether they ought to change. I feel like the zeitgeist, especially on SA, has leaned a lot more vindictive and earth-salting than it was when the game first came out. Also the Boomers unironically Did Nothing Wrong.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2019 23:42
|
|
|
Paracelsus posted:Also the Boomers unironically Did Nothing Wrong. Except for killing thousands of people, only a percentage of which meant them harm. just like the player character
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2019 23:44
|
|
|
Malpais Legate posted:I'd say one of the weakest parts of New Vegas is that Speech essentially "wins" every conversation. Most skill dialogue options tend to do that, but Speech is near universal with it. I think Dean Domino is the only notable example of a skill check (technically) not being the "best" choice in dialogue, but your mileage may vary with Dean. I've always found he idea that you can avoid the final boss by telling the extremely fanatical zealot warlord "Na-ah, YOU suck", causing him to abandon the quest that defines his life, pretty weak rather than a sign of great writing. I didn't have a problem with most of the other speech checks, though.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2019 23:47
|
|
|
PinheadSlim posted:Except for killing thousands of people, only a percentage of which meant them harm. we're talking about the new Vegas faction, not the generation
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2019 00:12
|
|
|
MariusLecter posted:They already have a home in Zion to thrive in, sending them out to a harsher life that they 'learn to accept' is bullshit. Yeah I generally found Daniel to be pretty worthless. His whole crusade about innocence seemed at odds with everything in the current world. Even the followers of the apocalypse had guards and people with guns. I went with his choice once and probably won’t do it again.
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2019 02:58
|
|
|
Regarding the Honest Hearts Sorrows tribe, I think the references to their past are intended to invoke: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_boarding_schools
|
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2019 03:49
|
|
|
aniviron posted:
Is this true? It's been a bit since I played Fallout, but I don't really remember the setting featuring any real attempts at diplomacy. On the contrary, it seems that in the setting's alternate history the United States slipped into fascism and neighboring countries. I'm certain that someone will chime in that this isn't an alternate history, but the relatively peaceful period following World War II kind of undercuts the conceit that Fallout is a compelling portrait of real world politics. Which is fine, because the premise of the game is getting to a setting where raiders fight super mutants fight ghouls in the ruins of civilization. The optimal third option should be harder and the speech skill shouldn't be an "I win button," but I think the optimal third solution for a game like Fallout is fine. Requiring more effort for optimal third options will make the option more satisfying, but I don't necessarily want to close the door to multiple options. The first Fallout is an example of how to do this well. Beating the Master through dialog not only required passing speech and science checks, it required, earlier in the game, finding information that proves his plan won't work. Not every game has to be a meditation on the ambiguity and struggle of life. Disco Elysium is wonderful, one of the greatest games of all time, but I think it's having an effect to story similar to what Dark Souls had to gameplay. prometheusbound2 fucked around with this message at 15:47 on Nov 7, 2019 |
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2019 15:32
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 3, 2024 15:17 |
|
|
Wikipedia suggests it's more "War because non-renewable energy sources are running out" rather than anything about "diplomacy fails":quote:Fallout is set in a timeline that deviated from between the end of World War II and the start of the Apollo program, where technology, politics, and culture followed a different course. While technology advanced, cultural and societal progress stagnated, giving the general world a Raygun Gothic appearance with advanced technology.[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_(video_game)#Setting
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2019 16:09
|
|
