Fallout New Vegas - Suggested Experience Rate? Mods?

[vinraith]

OK, to preface: I've played about 40 hours of New Vegas under an old version of Project Nevada, back when the game and the mod were fairly new. Recently I've decided I'd like to go back, start over, and make another run at it. At present I've got Project Nevada, Nevada Skies, and DFB Random Encounters installed, along with all the official DLC except the Courier's Stash.

Anyway, the newer versions of Project Nevada default to a 100% experience rate (same as vanilla). I'm a bit surprised and confused by that, as I've always felt leveling in these games was much too fast and FWE, along with previous versions of PN, seemed to confirmed that these guys felt the same. I can't remember what the old default rate for PN was (50%? 66%?) so one thing I've been trying to do is settle on the "ideal" experience rate. I know a lot of folks around here have played through a modded up New Vegas, so I'd be interested in suggestions/advice on that point.

I also figure that, before I restart again, I may as well take the usual survey of suggested mods. I'm mostly interested in new content. I think the graphics are fine as-is, and since I've only ever gotten about halfway through the main plot I don't want to mess with that either, but some new content to play with while I'm working my way back to where I was would be a welcome thing. I do, of course, want to avoid any conflicts with the current stuff I'm running, though.

So, any advice on either of those two points would be most welcome.

[Heliocentric]

Let's be honest, this kind of open world game always suffers the "slide of attrition" If you are well equipped and careful/talented you end up over powered. If you end up on the opposite side of the difficulty slope (say you took non combat skills as primary) you get screwed harder and harder as you level up.

Does any mod handle this issue? I've only been a passengers and puzzle/stealth section solver for my wife and I've yet to play it much.

[vinraith]

Let's be honest, this kind of open world game always suffers the "slide of attrition" If you are well equipped and careful/talented you end up over powered. If you end up on the opposite side of the difficulty slope (say you took non combat skills as primary) you get screwed harder and harder as you level up.

Does any mod handle this issue? I've only been a passengers and puzzle/stealth section solver for my wife and I've yet to play it much.

That issue is one of those which Project Nevada is there to solve (or Wanderer's Edition for Fallout 3). The issue is that the new version of PN as so much customizability, I'm a little lost as to how best to use it.

[gundato]

Yeah, I forget which mod I was using with Fallout 3, but it was one of the popular "fix the difficulty mods". It was okay, but mostly it just made supermutants into bullet-sponges (even moreso) and still had the limitation of having no appreciable effect at high levels.

I am interested in seeing what gets suggested here though. I am getting in the mood for either F3 or New Vegas.

[caljohnston]

I had it set to 15% in Arwen's realism tweaks and it was fine.

[SirKicksalot]

I want to use J Sawyer's mod but thanks to my recent FNV purchase adventures the game doesn't even work. I'll have to sort it out with Steam support when I find some time.

[vinraith]

Yeah, Sawyer's mod is kind of a half-step toward what Project Nevada does, and a reasonable middle ground for a lot of people I'm sure. Personally, I think Sawyer's is missing some necessary "punch" in the survival difficulty department, but then I'm big into making survival in these games a primary concern. He's still got food and drink restoring health, for example, which just doesn't work for me.

Edit: However, you've actually provided a suggestion to my original question, in that Sawyer's mod apparently halves all XP awards. 50% is a nice, round number.

[fiddlesticks]

There's a ton of mods for New Vegas changing just about any aspect of the game you could imagine. Here are the ones I would recommend the most.

First off CASM. Honestly, everyone should use this one, even people who want to play completely vanilla otherwise. It disables the normal Autosaves present in the game and replaces them with its own, highly configurable system. What this does is dramatically decrease the likelihood of savegame corruption. Seriously, I cannot stress this enough, do yourself a favour and download CASM.

Then there's Better Game Performance, which does exactly what you think it would. I don't really notice its effects all that much, but it might help if you have a less powerful computer there's no real downside to installing it, so you might as well.

Cirosan's Classic Overhaul is a rebalance mod that makes your abilities more dependant on your stats, so your Strength has a bigger influence on your Carry Weight, your Perception affects your accuracy, your Agility your movement speed, etc. It also restores some perks from the earlier Fallout games and introduces some new ones, which are generally very well balanced. It's compatible with Project Nevada and similarly customizable, so you can just pick whatever changes you like.

Speaking of perks, there's More Perks which gives you, well, more perks. It's generally well balanced and a good choice if you feel tired of picking the same powerful perks every time you play the game.

As far as actual content mods go, I'd definitely recommend New Vegas Uncut which adds a lot of content to the game that Obsidian cut out, either because of time constraints or memory issues on consoles. Every change is its own mod, so again you can simply pick the ones that sound appealing to you. My personal favourites are 1, 3, 4, 5, 7 and Outside Bets, but it's up to you.

Beyond Boulder Dome has also been released recently. I haven't had a chance to try it out myself, but supposedly it's very good. It's similar to the various DLCs in that it gives you a completely new area to play around in with new quests and a new companion. Be aware though that it's still in the Beta stage, so it might be a bit buggy.

[mnemnoch]

Id like to suggest to put the exp in 66% or above till you hit level 6, then turn it down to 50%. As it lessen the frustration of dying constantly while your starting.

For the mods, I seconded using CASM, its a life saver.

NV stutter remover is also a must have along with the 4gb patch.

The Weapons Mod Menu is another essential as it allows you to attach and remove mods from weapons.

Bingles Melee complete allows you to craft some unique and sometimes funny melee weapons. There is also an option to allow NPC to wield them.

Weapon mods expanded from the same guy that started weapon mods in F3 and Beth implements it in F:NV. I would also recommend Weapon Retexture Project but you said your fine in the graphics as is.

For new content, I highly recommend all the patches from this DjMystro. Lots of dungeons, quests, back stories via notes and terminal. Some people are complaining an abundance of loot so download the low loot patch if you're too concern about it.

Tales from the Burning Sands an adventure mod that more about puzzles and light in combat. (Highly recommended!)

Theres also the Monster Mod that add alot of monsters some of them are from Stalker. But if your concern about "lore" then skip this one. As its adds, werewolf, alien (district 9), xenomoprhs and like I said a bunch of monsters from Stalker.

If by chance that you like Monster Mod, grab Angel Park 2 as it adds a new area where he put most of the monsters in that mod and create a story for it.

For added difficulty or challenge there is IWS and Harder than you

Just remember, the more mods you add, the lesser the chance of them working together. Use the Mod manager and FNVEdit to lessen mod incompatibility.


my 2 cents

[BwenGun]

Last playthrough I had some good fun with New Vegas Bounties in concert with Project Nevada, though the balance isn't great as the Bounties are designed to vary from tough to suicidally hard using Vanilla values. Though for about half the mods missions I managed, just about, using trickery, guile and the judicious application of an anti-material rifle, I was forced, eventually, to modify the Project Nevada difficulty levels to Vanilla values whilst pursuing the latter half of the mission chain as after a certain point the high health and dangerous weapons the targets and their minions sport makes it impossible to complete with the Project Nevada tweaks in play.

[vinraith]

Thanks for the suggestions folks. I'll definitely grab CASM. I'm intrigued by New Vegas Uncut but am a little concerned about Project Nevada compatibility. I'll have a look at Tales from the Burning Sands and the other quest mods suggested.

And yeah, the idea of keeping the exp rate a little higher until reaching level 5 or 6, then tapping it down, seems like a really good one.

[TheGodzillaHunter]

Last playthrough I had some good fun with New Vegas Bounties in concert with Project Nevada, though the balance isn't great as the Bounties are designed to vary from tough to suicidally hard using Vanilla values. Though for about half the mods missions I managed, just about, using trickery, guile and the judicious application of an anti-material rifle, I was forced, eventually, to modify the Project Nevada difficulty levels to Vanilla values whilst pursuing the latter half of the mission chain as after a certain point the high health and dangerous weapons the targets and their minions sport makes it impossible to complete with the Project Nevada tweaks in play.

I can second New Vegas Bounties . It is a really well done mod, though, as BwenGun said, the balance can be a bit off and some of the loot can be overpowered, but this can be solved by simply not using/selling it. There is good (by mod standards) VA and the story was entertaining and fits the Western feel of New Vegas.

[somini]

http://newvegas.nexusmods.com/mods/34840
Perhaps this is included in some of that more complete mods, but I couldn't play it without this. It alows you to bottle water found in taps, toilets and other bodies of water, provided that you have an empty water bottle.

[vinraith]

@somini

Thanks for that. I'd completely forgotten my irritation at not being able to bottle water the last time I played. As best I can tell PN doesn't handle this, so there shouldn't be a conflict.

Edit: Actually PN does change the water system, so there is a conflict. Loading BtW last resolves this by overwriting PN's changes, but since I'm not totally sure what PN does to the water system yet I think some research is needed.

[ArtVandelay]

I've just restarted playing New Vegas on hardcore. I'm using a few mods and having much better experience on my second playthrough (I also enjoyed the first but this is even better). The main two mods I'm using are Project Nevada, without the rebalance module, and Cirosan's Classic Overhaul, with all modules. CCO reduces XP gain to 66% which has been working pretty well. It changes some other things that I really like and over all makes the game slightly more difficult. I am also using bottle that water without any issues.

I am using the following to improve the graphics and atmosphere and haven't had any conflicts with them.

Project Reality (weather and darker nights)
A mod that improves the texture of dust storms
Electro City for street lights
Weapon Mods Expanded

I tried using CASM but it caused my game to not work but I have no idea why.

[vinraith]

Yeah, I ended up settling at a constant 66% XP rate, seems to be working just fine.

I'm about 30 hours in now so I'm not looking for any more suggestions, but for the record I'm running:

Project Nevada
Project Nevada DLC patches
DFB Random Encounters (set to very easy to balance out the disparity with PN rebalances, and it still provides the most challenging fights I tend to have)
Nevada Skies - Vanilla (darker nights, weather)
CASM (which seems to be helping with stability, at least so far, but I've yet to reach New Vegas proper where I had the most trouble on my first playthrough)
The Mod configuration menu (for configuring DFB and PN from in game menus)
Machienzo's Radio New Vegas fix (a small mod that restores some lost music content)
Mojave Music Radio Extended (for more period-appropriate music on the radio)

I also experimented with Bottle That Water, but it causes water to recover HP so I dropped it again. I tend to think that, while it's totally logical, it makes the survival end of the game a tad too easy as well.

[Frenetic Pony]

ENB just published a beta version of his thing for FNV: http://www.enbdev.com/download_mod_falloutnv.htm

Shove this stuff into the same directory as the exe and you'll get a better looking game, no real downside if you've got a decent pc.

Also I'd be remiss not to pimp my own mod: http://newvegas.nexusmods.com/mods/35260
I, personally, like it better than Nevada Skies, obviously :O . I was going to make one for Skyrim, but I got bored more quickly with Skyrim and just got too annoyed with Bethesda's awful, awful editor and game engine to actually get anywhere.

[Sigh]

Yeah, I ended up settling at a constant 66% XP rate, seems to be working just fine.

I started up a new game after reading this thread (with some of the mod recommendations), and I set my XP to 50%. I'm finding it to be a bit too low. I'm 30ish hours in, and only at level 13. I don't think the vast amount of caps you earn balances out with the lack of xp, because I'm am just cruising through most fights. It probably helps that my character that do anything but swing a club around, but still.

[Olero]

I also ended up starting a new game (or 2 actually, one a "good" character, and one a "bad" character) again and am pondering on what mods to use. So far I have these mods planned:

• Project Nevada
• Nevada Skies
• More perks
• CASM
• Some radio mods
• Magazines reworked
• (MDM, NVSE & FOMM)

And probably:

• Goodsprings farmhouse or another player owned house
• Some graphic enhancing mod
• An alternative/shorter start mod (if they exist)

So, questions, questions:

1. Is there a good graphical mod to improve the graphics to the max? One that doesn't conflict with any of my planned mods? I've tried the New Vegas Hi Res Texture Pack(s) (??) before, but they were incomplete.
2. Any good player owned houses that are lore friendly and not overpowered?
3. Is there a way to not start the game with the "whooaa, easy now" Doc Mitchell slow train? Preferably something like the live another life mod from Skyrim.
4. Are the Vegas Uncut mods stable enough?? Do they conflict with Project Nevada??
5. I'd really like a good UI mod. Any good one that isn't conflicting with Project Nevada? Or does PN has a good interface mod inside? (I know it has the inventory sorter, but I'd like a less consoly, more PC inventory interface)
6. In the same vein; any good HUD mods that work along PN?
7. Any other good mods I'm missing?? I'm not looking for moarr enemies/items/recipes/type 3 body replacers ;). I am looking for bug fixes, adding missing contend and lore friendly little tweaks.

[fiddlesticks]

So, questions, questions: Is there a good graphical mod to improve the graphics to the max? One that doesn't conflict with any of my planned mods? I've tried the New Vegas Hi Res Texture Pack(s) (??) before, but they were incomplete.

There's NMC's Texture Pack and Poco Bueno, both of which replace the game's textures with higher-res equivalents. I haven't used either one of them though, so I can't tell you how good they are. I do recommend the Weapons Retexture Project however.

Any good player owned houses that are lore friendly and not overpowered?

My personal recommendation is Lombard Station, made by a member of Something Awful. It fits your criteria perfectly.

Is there a way to not start the game with the "whooaa, easy now" Doc Mitchell slow train? Preferably something like the live another life mod from Skyrim.

Roleplay Start lets you choose one of the 7 major factions in the game and adjusts your starting location accordingly. The factions are the NCR, Caesar's Legion, Brotherhood of Steel, Great Khans, Freeside, Powder Ganger's and the Fiends.

Are the Vegas Uncut mods stable enough?? Do they conflict with Project Nevada??

Yes and No.

I'd really like a good UI mod. Any good one that isn't conflicting with Project Nevada? Or does PN has a good interface mod inside? (I know it has the inventory sorter, but I'd like a less consoly, more PC inventory interface)

Darnified UI is pretty good and, as far as I know, works very well with Project Nevada.

In the same vein; any good HUD mods that work along PN?

One HUD seems to be the standard these days and is fully PN compatible.

Any other good mods I'm missing?? I'm not looking for moarr enemies/items/recipes/type 3 body replacers ;). I am looking for bug fixes, adding missing contend and lore friendly little tweaks.

J. E. Sawyer's mod fixes quite a few bugs, but it also comes with some heavy gameplay changes. You'll have to determine for yourself if it's worth it.