I must say i was angry at first
ESPECIALLY WHEN THEY F'ED UP GRIM REAPERS SPRINT

however the perk every 2 levels thing let me actually take advantage of the perks more than i did in fallout 3
in FO3 i made my whole mission to make my stats perfect, so within my first 12 or so levels i must have used intense training 8 or 9 times but in this game i didnt use it at all.
It made the game a little harder and a lot more fun, especially getting less skill points so you cant have more than half of your skills at 100 by lvl 30

Im quite happy with the new leveling system

I'm actually glad Grim Reaper's Sprint got cut down and Almost Perfect was scrapped. They made you too sweet in FO3. Too bad Ninja and Slayer are unobtanium because Lockpick and Science Hoover up points just to be able to steal the good sh@t. There needed to be 5 or 6 skill books per skill, too. 4 isn't enough, even with the 4 points Comprehension gives from reading them.

I understand why Grim Reaper was nerfed and appreciate the limits Obsidian placed on perks. It forced me to carefully consider the perks I choose and the skill points needed in advance. I think it also helps with the roleplaying aspect of the game because rather than becoming an omnipotent jack of trades, I must decide on whether I want to be a gunslinging cowgirl, a VATs fiend, etc..

I don't see a problem with the perks tbh..

If you're hell-bent on getting a perk every level, go to www.newvegasnexus.com and look for a mod that changes that for you.

GRS was too powerful, but with nerfed VATS I found it can be slightly more powerful (like 30AP) consider it is a high level perk.

You can never be too "over-powered" in a single player game. Save those "balancing" issues for MMOs (yes, quotes intentional). In a single player RPG if something makes the game too easy to suit you, don't take it or use it. Simple. For the rest who like having a gleaming engine of death at the end of the game - fine. For some that option makes the game fun.

Get 10 agility, nerves of steel, grim reapers sprint and math wrath and you pretty much got infinite AP especially with energy weapons or unarmed builds. Its cheaper in Fallout 3 where any build got it at level 20, but its still possible in this game. Almost perfect was just stupid; whats the point to the intense training perk when you get that at level 30 anyway?

With the comprehension perk you only need like 76 lock pick and 76 science (unless you have 10 int) to be able to hack every terminal and open every lock, i've literally found 5 locks that needs 100 lockpick (most of them in casinos) and like 4 terminals, the only important being Raul. So just use a magazine + mentats to open those locks/hack those computers.

Conversely, some of us like to be challenged in a single-player game to make the victories that much sweeter. If you want a gleaming engine of death, just cheat and drop the difficulty. Simple.

The momment Grim Reapers Sprint was announced as the winning Perk for the Fallout 3 fan made contest almost every person except the developers could see giving 100% of your AP back after each kill was too much.

Crazy Eye was a far better perk from that contest.

Anyway New Vegas is better for the perk nerfs, perks should aid you not make the combat trivial.

This. Plus I discovered that there is a Vault jumpsuit that adds +5 to lockpicking. Plus, if you become Idolized by the Followers of the Apocalypse, Julie will give you an overcoat that gives you +10 to Science and Medicine. Plus, I discovered that Party Time Mentats stacks its effects with regular Mentats, meaning you can get a grand total of +4 to Intelligence and Perception from taking both to increase your skills by +8. Plus, you can grab all those books and use magazines.

On my first playthrough, I only had 5 Intelligence but using this method to give me a temporary bump to 100 when I needed it, I had every single skill that I wanted within reach of pumping up to a temporary 100, with my primary combat skill (Guns) at a natural 100.

I wonder why they didn't just come up with new perks, dump the old ones that were of less or no use. Was kinda dissapointing to see the same perks second time round.
I know there's a few new ones but, that just doesn't cut it. (of the new ones wild wasteland is pathetic, i'm sorry but i've yet to see anything funny after about 20 hrs of play with that perk with this character. four red balls is not funny that's obscure.)

There's alot of baggage from fallout 3 that was dragged into new vegas, i like alot of the new content barring the bugs of course, alot of the new ideas are an improvement. I'd just like to see more, and for me i think redoing to pip-boy so it's more user friendly and has less sub-menu's would be really nice.
Or for hardcoe mode, having the water/food and sleep meters on display at all times rather than within a sub-menu.

After that comes dialogue changes, there's still a few dialogues that are weak (flags of our misfits being a prize-winner for weak dialogues), and less repitition of comments from npcs. How about they don't say anything at all sometimes? specifically the companions, will they shut the [censored] up when i'm aiming down a scope to pick off a rather nasty deathclaw? i don't want to hear "let me aim that for you next time" when i get a headshot!
I don't want to hear "i could really use a drink" when i'm hunting cazadors.

After that editing out or removing the invisible walls, and working over that terrian with something simple like radiation or just a sheer cliff-face?

then perhaps, throwing in some missions that have nothing to do with ncr? that would be nice, i mean other than the baby-eating legion, or the moronic anarchist fiends and gangers there are no fun bad guys to side with. just a believeable nemesis of the ncr would be nice.
Don't get be wrong the concept of legionaries isn't a bad one, but do they have to be arrogant thugs? I mean why not have more arrogant thugs working for ncr? because barring the civil rights abuses the legion is prettymuch a mirror of ncr.
What i was expecting from new vegas was rival gangs playing off against each other for control not just of the strip but of areas of the mojave, towns and the like. organised campaigns to take income and territory from their rivals, how about a showdown sequence, you with a six shooter against one other opponent with a six shooter? bar room brawls? how about cattle rustling?
how about the brotherhood taking on a more stealthy role? lets face it if they take their power armour off they look like ordinary humans, so why can't they just infiltrate areas of the strip and such to get a count of their opposition? quick raids of power armoured brutes against the odd ncr outpost? disguised as a legion attack perhaps?

Or how about the enclave taking a role? the supermutants being more proactive than sitting on their asses at jacobstown or black mountain?
What about a plausible story behind the deathclaws? or even a deathclaw rampage through a town (not goodsprings thank you).
a stampede of bighorners?

Raiders using more steathy tactics like attacking from oh i don't know cover? rather than just wandering about their day asking for an ncr sniper to shoot them?
how about an attack from them through the sewers to take camp mccarran?

how about a train-shootout?

no?

I can't believe I"ve read it wrong for years. I always thought it said "Grim Reaper's Spirit".

doh

As much as I hate to say it (because I love really hard games and like how they have nerfed/removed OP perks) I have to agree with you. It is a single player game, so balance shouldn't be "as much" of a concern. They should still try to balance the game in most areas, but having one or two perks that are crazy powerful should not be an issue because it is up to the users to take them.

Its true some perks are rather stupid or often wont do anything useful. Like plasma spaz.. most builds it wont actualy do anything it can only help if you were rather close to having anouther shot anyway and with most plasma weapons you arnt.

I love the change to VATS, Grim Reaper's Sprint, and perks set to every other level.

Overpowered is boring.

I think that if people want to be overpowered, why not? They should be able to. People who don't want to be overpowered should be able to play that way as well. Flexibility is good.

Here's an idea: make perks available at every level increase, but make them optional every time. Want to get to level 30 without ever taking a perk? Fine, go for it. Want to take every fun perk available? Knock yourself out (since nobody else will be able to).

Also, I think that using the word "nerf" as a verb should result in being chased by a pack of deathclaws. In Vault 34.

Nerf.

And a game needs to be designed to be balanced.
If we went by "Oh but if you don't want to be too powerful then don't use it" is not a good argument imo.
I say that if you want to be too powerful then play on Casual Mode with Very Easy.

I don't know I agree with this.

Challenge is part of the fun in a game, if a game is not challenging then you blow through it to see the world, get bored and put it back on the shelf. I can't tell you how many games I've done that with. Great for a playthrough, but they didn't have staying power.

I'm on my fourth playthrough of New Vegas, because of the increased difficulty more different builds are viable, so it actually makes a difference if I do a legion/melee playthrough or a wild card energy weapon build run.

When there is one superpowered build, it means the game just has no challenge, if you happen to find that build first, well there it is.

Now I know you can just not take it, but if you're at that point in your boredom with the game you're intentionally misbuilding your character to try to make the game as challenging, you're one step in game boredom away from just drawing dirty shapes on walls with a sniper rifle using the bullet impact decals.

But....but I do it because I'm to lazy to spend 10 minutes in a duel with a Deathclaw. :cold:

Going toe to toe with a Deathclaw Alpha on Hard with Pushy is a sight to behold. :disguise:

My character in FO3 was a GOD.

10's in all the specials (Almost perfect + Bobbleheads)
100 in every skill.
All the badass perks.

It was boring.

However, the pendulum seems to have swung too far in the opposite direction, VATs is nearly useless and some of the weapon categories are worth jack squat while others are newly valuable (E. Weapons and explosives being useless, melee and unarmed being a lot more viable).

GRS in F3 was the great equaliser...if you had a relatively non-combatant character, GRS gave a massive boost and let you take on anything.

For those who enjoyed exploring, GRS made it a lot safer (I had 12 Talon spawn around me once, GRS saved my butt).

Sure, it was hardcoe, but no one had to take it.

I've taken GRS now, and to be honest I'd probably have been better off taking either a second level of action boy (for 15 AP points up front), or taking the perk that decreases the AP point costs of my weapons/attacks. The latter seems to be the better option.

Depending on your perk choices, GRS is almost irrelevant now, so it's pretty much gone from being a 'must have' for some people, to a minor perk. A better option may be to award it earlier, but have several levels of it - so that at level 10 you get 20 AP back, at level 14 you can take Level 2 GRS for a max of 40 AP, and so on. The heavy VATS users can then give themelves 'godliness', but at a cost of other perks.

I personally think they did a great job overhauling the perks. I hated all of the +skill perks in Fallout 3. The ones in NV are actually interesting and have a more meaningful impact to gameplay, IMO.

Which is why I'd like to be able to try out more of them without doing an entirely new playthrough (or maybe even several entirely new playthroughs to get them all).

For example, I really wanted to try the Meltdown perk, but by the time I got my Energy weapons skill up to 90, I was at a late level and didn't want to waste a perk on something that was mainly just for fun. I was too busy deciding between Action Boy, Math Wrath, etc. to try out a frivolous perk. I'm not doing an entire new character just for that reason either (I will do a new character, but once again I won't want to waste a perk). So essentially, the devs created something that I, and likely the majority of other players, will never see or use.