I don't remember what level I was when I went into OWB, but I had decent melee skill going in, and quickly raised my energy weapons once it became clear what bullet sponges many of the enemies were.

What's more is that they were difficult to knock down and stagger from what I remember, and have very high perception making sneaking considerably more difficult.

Thanks Crane, as always. My plan is to go in light. I understand that ammo is hard to come across, except for energy weapon ammo. There are a lot of good DLC weapons to find so I plan to start light, and leave most of my core weapons at home, to mix up my experience. So Sleepytyme, All-American and Ratslayer will get left behind.

Not sure what a good energy weapon is as I've mostly avoided them. But I have a tri-beam thing that I fixed up. Instead, I will try to go with what I find there. The Proton Inversal Axe I understand is priceless in this DLC. Christine's Sniper Rifle I will try to find. The LAER, whatever that is

We'll see how it goes, but yeah, my plan is to arrive light and use the indigenous weapons I find there. Do a energy and melee run, since that is so different than what I've done so far. Good thing there's a raised cap, or I'd be stuck with a poor build.

I kicked off Old World Blues, level 40. I loved the opening, brilliant dialog with the Think Tank. It's been a quite a while since a game made me laugh like that.

Waiting this long to start this DLC paid off since I could pass every speech check, and get more XP, dialog and gear like the K9000.

I'm digging the vibe in this one so far. Got Elijahs LAER, Christine's sniper rifle, the proton inversal axe (melee is up to 52 now) and a couple more uniques. For the first time I'm actively looking to craft repair kits, to get and keep all of these in good shape. I left most of my weapons at the Lucky 38 so I could experience some new stuff, and so far t those first three are gettin' it done. I did bring Light Shining in Darkness and Sleepytyme.

Crane's right about the enemy perception. Sort of takes away the OP stealth play, which I'm built for, so it mixes things up a bit from that perspective.

I've adjusted to the combat rhythm of OWB, and it's not as bad as I thought it would be from the discussions I had read. The enemies hit pretty hard, but I think taking the Light Touch perk a couple levels ago has really made a difference in those mob fights where taking hits is inevitable. Presumably I am taking a lot fewer crits, so smaller chunks of health are being stripped away, giving me more time to kill them before they kill me. Having auto-stims plays a part too, and I see them deploy on occasion, when otherwise I might have died shortly after, I suppose. Taking Robotics Expert helps too, and I got a perk that does even more robot damage just by killing lots of robots.

Elijah's LAER kills 'em pretty good, but the barrel's made of tissue paper it seems. Picked up a .45-70 scoped hunting revolver which is pretty awesome. Christine's sniper rifle is really good too. I'm even sporting a glowing halo granting drip-feed regeneration and +1 Endurance. The regen is a novelty to talk about at cocktail parties, mostly useless, but the END bump is nice. But the real attraction, aside from looking like a bar sign, is this little ring of glowing gas grants +3 DT, or more than 10% of what I had before, and takes its own slot like eyeglasses so can be worn with a beret. Nice little bump from such a stylish and flimsy accoutrement.

Level 42 now and I reckon that by the time I finish this I'll be in perfect position to run down the ending. Yes Man it is, just can't bring myself to kill the Brotherhood. House would have had my support, but he's gone too far hasn't he? An independent strip sounds fine, with me installed as it keeper, dispensing justice in random fits of madness. I'll be swapping the roulette wheels for poker tables, tout suite.

When I went into OWB I was probably at a lower level and did not read up on it in advance, so it was tough going initially.

In fact I'd say that OWB probably has the most consistently challenging combat in any first person Fallout game.

Did you get the Stealth Suit?

Yes, I spoiled it by reading about it and being well prepared. I knew what weapons I'd find, what ammo was abundant, the enemy types I'd encounter and the best skills and weapons for taking them on. I usually don't play this way, but I also knew I couldn't turn back until I made it through, so I justify it that way

I didn't get the stealth suit yet, but if I understand how it works I won't wear it. My stealth skill is 100, and you can't go over right? With upgrades it can boost AGI and PER I think, plus faster move speed when crouched. But as far as DT it is only +1 over my Duster while weighing 800% more. DT to weight ratio is key for me. So while I will get that suit once I come across it, I'm not sure I would actually wear it.

Plus it's medium armor which would negate the light armor perks I've taken.

Old World Blues is a bit of a dichotomy. The loot is the best, or at least most unique and interesting, of the three DLC I've played in FNV. The writing, as far as I'm concerned, is the best too. It is honestly funny, in an intellectual sense. So much so that I feel sorry for the players who come away not seeing the humor, which I am sure some just won't get.

But the gameplay side of OWB fails to match it. An endless series of fetch quests. Several have been like this

Step 1 : Go find these three pieces of tech

(objective complete)

Step 2: Go find these five pieces of tech

(yeah, yeah, objective complete, where's my XP?)

Step 3 : Go find another three pieces of tech, all of which were right next to the first three pieces from step 1. Uggg

Mindnumbing. So yeah, love-hate with this DLC. The Sink is the best base in Fallout though

All Fallout games on Steam are on deep sale through the 26th. I'm considering picking up FO2 believe it or not. Three dollars for the whole works.

FO4 and New Vegas are both 70-75% off at the mo. Sadly, FO3 is not on Steam or I'd buy it for that trip down Tranquility memory lane

What am I talking about? FO3 IS on Steam. I'm gonna buy it. Lots of comments about crashing/incompatibility with Win 10

I would gladly pay full price for FO 3 if it was re-released with the current engine that is being used by FO76. I won't buy the original FO 3 though. The graphics are just too dated for me now.

I would too (well maybe not full price exactly), but having just dropped 100 hours in to the nearly-as-old FNV my brain's been acclimated.

My only concern is if I can get it to actually run. Sale's through the 26th.

Check that. Plan's dead. I think Fallout 2 is dipping too deep in to the past. And Fallout 3 sounds like a technical challenge I'm not eager to experience. I saw some guides for getting it running in Win 10 and while it may be more simple than what I saw, I'm not willing to take that test.

So back to New Vegas..... Just about done with OWB. I did the stealth suit stuff, but not the upgrades. I'm not going to be wearing this suit, although it's pretty good (and it talks to you). All that's left is the Old World Blues quest to finish the DLC main quest line and get my brain back.

Started the DLC at level 40, now 46. That's enough to have all these skills at 100

Energy Weapons, Guns, Sneak, Medicine, Speech, Repair, Science

Explosives, Barter and Survival are nearly so. Melee is around 65, I had boosted it in anticipation of needing melee weapons to counter lack of ammunition in this DLC. But it wasn't needed so I stopped dropping points. Unarmed then is the only skill I've ignored. If I see it through to level 50 then Unarmed and probably Melee will be the only ones not at 100.

Old World Blues is done and dusted. A mixed experience as I said. The writing is top notch, quite funny. The loot, perks and the Sink base are all great. The main quest line is also good. The side quests however I did not care for in the main. Repetitive fetch type stuff. Overall it was certainly worth 5 bucks.

Left at level 47, and immediately knocked off House, setting the final quests in motion. Nearly done. I'll clean up a few side quests and visit the few locations I have yet to. Then I'll be searching for my next game

New Vegas as a whole would have been a lot better if they'd had more development time IMO.

Many aspects of it felt rushed and it had a rough launch from what I understand.

Still, I probably enjoyed it the most out of any of the Fallout games I've played.

There are rumors running around online that a New Vegas 2 is under development but nothing has actually been confirmed by Bethesda so take it with a grain of salt.

18 month development time if I recall. That's lightning fast for such an undertaking.

I don't recall what issues existed at launch, even though I bought it straight off. It's really good now. Minor instability for me, probably about ten lockups or CTDs in my time revisiting this game. Thankfully it loads so fast that it's at most 30 seconds from crash to back in and playing..

I finished New Vegas, and it was a lot of fun to revisit it after so much time. I didn't time my progression quite right, finishing at level 49 instead of 50 haha. I did not end up playing Dead Money, but played all the other DLC. I took the Independent Vegas route.

Got the Hardcore achievement for playing that way start to finish and was surprised to see only 4.7% of players have gotten it. I'd expect 15%, but maybe it's just a reflection of the fact that many players never quite finish?

In the end only three skills were not at 100, Barter, Melee and Unarmed. The raised level cap makes a big difference in how powerful and versatile you can build your character.

You can learn a lot by looking at the global stats for achievements in Steam games. Not only have I seen surprisingly low percentages for achievements for finishing a game, I've also seen low percentages for achievements that you get when you finish the first chapter/level in a game.

This may be anecdotal but I've seen posts from quite a few players saying that they will start a game but never finish it because they started playing another game or they got busy with real life stuff.

Yes, and you see me talk about this a lot, I would think, trying to spot trends and patterns from achievement percentages.

I suspect rwatson is a factor. He seems to start a lot of games, but then I never hear another word.

In Fallout 4 I think achievements are watered down to an extent, because I believe mods disable achievements, and I'm sure a lot of players play with mods. So a certain percentage of the player base locks themselves out, skewing the results a bit. I think there's a mod to fix this, so who knows really?

Anyway, 5% for the Hardcore achievement seems really low, and I'd expect it to be higher despite all those factors.

Another trend I've noticed is many gamers have huge backlogs of unplayed games. No doubt a huge factor in that are all of the free games that have been given out by some of the streaming services and especially Epic.

That could be a factor, although I don't think a game is part of the percentage until you either play it or maybe install it. Just having it your library does not, as far as I can tell.

My backlog is pretty small, maybe five games or so I snapped up in sales, intending to play but never getting around to it. Frost Punk, This War of Mine, Outlast, Dark Souls 3 and Darkwood are all games I bought but have yet to play. Well Frost Punk and Darkwood I started, but didn't even play an hour.

Then there's a whole bunch of games I played for a few hours before setting them aside. Dragon's Dogma, Greedfall, Styx Shards of Darkness, the newer Doom, and more. I just bought Disco Elysium, which is on sale on Steam, and have already dropped about 4 hours in to it. An intriguing game, that one.