I just finished my first full playthrough as a reluctant NCR benefactor. He basically felt that while they are definitely flawed and sometimes have questionable motives they were the best of the lot you have to choose to work with. I couldn't see working with The Legion or Mr. House or even Yes Man on this one. The thing is that there were just so dang many quests you miss if you don't go with the NCR and I wanted to experience all of them my first time. I think there were only like 5 or 6 quests I didn't do other than the ones you have to do to work with the other factions.

So anyway, what did you think of the ending you got? Obviously, they're scripted based on how you played certain parts. But honestly, I'm going to have to re-think some things.

1) I honestly wanted to help out the Followers & Freeside/The King. Once you got to know them, they're about as close to good people genuinely trying to help their fellow man get through deplorable conditions as you can find in NV. I guess things worked out OK for The Kings, but for the FOA not so good. I was crushed that the people I helped (NCR) kicked them out of the fort, but I should have actually expected it. (Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.) If I had of been there it DEFINITELY wouldn't have happened. Me and my buddy The King would have seen to that!

2) Goodsprings prospering more but at what cost? Excessive taxation? Losing their long time residents? As I said, meet the new boss... I hated that part as well.

3) Great Khans? I slaughtered every last one except for one girl who was hiding from me. I intentionally left her there to remind any stragglers coming back to their canyon who they were messing with when they and Benny tried to murder me. The narrative was a nice recap of that!

4) Primm - the new lawman told me what I was getting when I appointed him, so no surprise there.

5) Veronica - she was my main companion and mine didn't say a peep about her. Glitch maybe?

Basically, I tried to be the good guy with this run. I intentionally did not do certain parts of the main quest until higher levels as I wanted to bring as many factions together in one united front against Caesar as possible. I got the Enclave remnants to join in and negotiated a truce with the BOS. The Boomers also helped (that was awesome BTW!)

Anyway, with the exception of the Followers and Goodsprings, my ending was fairly close to what I wanted. If I could still be there and try to change those exceptions I would. And I'd also try to get the NCR to be less ruthless and not just seize peoples land and so forth.

What did you like or dislike about your endings and how did you play to get the endings you got?

I'm really curious if there's a positive ending for the Followers. I finished twice from the same save, once for NCR and once on my own, and neither ending turns out very well for them. I had the same idea as you, that as boss I would leave them alone, but Yes Man usurps control of the operation from you after the Legate fight- which pissed me off something fierce. Goodsprings does much better under NCR control, but they're all so damned boring I didn't care.

Did you do Veronica's quest? I don't know if you'd get an ending without that. But the endings do show some bugs- I (and others) got an ending that said the Vault 19 Powder Gangers went on pillaging for years even though I straight nuked the whole thing.

It was inconsistent. Apparently the NCR annexed The Strip and Freeside. This is when the Followers get pushed out. And Gannon laments that Freeside couldn't stay independent.
But thanks to the King and his being on good terms with the NCR, he was able to maintain Freeside's independence.

So which was it?

Follower Epilogues: Is it true that Cass just went and did it with a random fledling in the barracks instead of me? That's a... you know, a downer! :swear:

1) Wild Card has the best outcome for the followers in my opinion. Yeah they get swamped with an influx of new people needing aide, but that's what they're there for and that's what they want to do - help people. Better than them getting banished from NV (or massacred).

2) All of Veronica's endings are downers.

3) I thought it was cool to allow the Great Khans to live and reassemble in Wyoming / Montana.

4) The ambiguity of the Wild Card ending annoyed me (who is really in charge?). I liked the NCR ending in that it wasn't a solidly "happy" ending. The legion ending was predictable (although more interesting if you saved Caesar from dying).

5) EDE's ending was funny (beep-beep-beep)

I liked the NCR/BOS Veronica. It's not a complete downer, she keeps spending time in libraries looking for new tech they'll never use, but still stays with them. It's not even necessarilly an "until the end of her days" so it's still open.

Mr. House or Yes Man seem to provide optimum endings, though if one pays attention to Yes Man, one can see he is not human and looks to be a progression not unlike Presidents Richardson to Eden.

House gives long term stability with a human heart behind his machine facade.
Mr. House if protected stands to live on for centuries more.

Yes Man, independence of the Mojave for the Curier's lifespan, then what happens is anyone's guess, as he found subroutines to become more "authoritative".

I liked these 2 endings the most.

I havent actually played to the ending yet. I love spoilers though, so I have read up on the plots and endings in advance. Hey, it works for me.

Normally in these games, my first character always has the alignment of "aloof selfish good" meaning that I'm just wandering, I generally help people as long as they arent jerks but my main motive is to gain personal skill and power while wandering the wasteland. So my first character won't ever do the main quest. I'll hit level 30 (or as high as I can go without having to attack innocents or follow the main quest). I have to say that the result of my way of NOT doing the main quest will result in me being on good relations with everyone, except for the Powder Gangers and Caesar. However, I wont do the main quest so in essence all the small little groups will be happy, but none of the big players will ever take over.

That is exactly how I would want it to turn out. NCR and Caesar stagnate on each other and end up divided across the Colorado and never growing or making any further headway. All the small players remain free. I'm the biggest baddie on the block. Main quest never resolved, except in the sense that "unresolved" is my resolution.

So frankly, its all perfect.

My cowgirl could only go pro-NCR because she is a technophobe, but I think she sees too much evidence that the NCR is a lesser of evils, so she may go with Stagnation also.

My Melee/Science/Energy pro-Brotherhood of Steel gal will go with whatever path will be most beneficial to the Brotherhood of Steel. I would think that having House in charge would be bad for that. A more "assertive" Yes-Man would also be bad for them IMO. Caesar would be definitely bad for them. NCR are their enemies, so other than the negotiation of a truce option, there isn't really any way to "win" as Brotherhood. So again, the stagnation option may be the character goes.

So I guess what I'm saying is that stagnation (due to culture and war) between Caesar and NCR, with "me" in charge by virtue of brute force and/or preventing resolution, would have to be the sane choice for probably 90% of the characters I'd ever make. Because while I have LOTS of character ideas (in terms of background, personality, talents, motives, etc) pretty much NONE of them are pro-martial law (NCR) and pretty much none of them are crazy (Caesar). Pretty much none of them would trust partial or fully robotic "benefactors" either, and my one high tech concept wants to control other technology, not be ruled by it.

So frankly, I can't see any character concept I'd make being one that would ever do the main quest, unless I decided they got duped.

In order to make a character that would do the main quest, I'd have to go out of my way to make one in advance with that world view. I could make an NCR guy or a pro martial law / use of force type guy to go pro-NCR. I could make any number of crazy bloodthirsty murderers but most of them would be kill-all-including-Legion types. So to go Legion, I'd just have to make a Legion character. I could do a high tech Judge Dredd type to go with House or Yes-Man. But I'd have to make them with the ending explicitly in mind, and frankly I dont think I would actually enjoy those characters much.

So yeah. Stagnation for the Big Guys, with Freedom for the Little Guys. MQ unresolved.

I would have liked to have seen another path to walk down and that is where we doing all the quests in Freeside and Kings as well as BoS and even the Khans led to you being able to form your own army from them. Being able to actually step up and become a leader for the people and lead them to freedom against those who only wish to enslave. To me that is what NCR does just like the Legion just is different ways. It was easy for me to see where things were going to end up siding with Yes Man and there is no way I would allow that to happen. I still need to do Mr House's path but I know I won't like that either.

There is something said at the end of Yes Man arc by Oliver that is true. It would be very hard to try and raise an independent NV without any outside aid. Having a working hydro dam and a lake of fresh water NV would always remain a target and would be difficult at best to protect. It would be best to try and remain on friendly terms with NCR if that would be possible but really what happens in game if you go this route is now you have 2 rather strong armies on either side who would be looking for the first chance to strike back. Without NCR help I just don't think there is enough people to be able to defend all assets and if they are the enemy well ouch.

My first playthrough was Yes Man. My character was very morally ambiguous, and I ended up just straight murdering most factions I didn't like. I actually liked this ending a lot because of the whole independence thing.

Then I did a Legion playthrough (saved ceaser) I really really didn't like this ending in any way, hell I was sweating bullets when I had to murder the BoS. I did the play trough to be a bad guy, but I felt more like a stupid guy...

Definitely did her quest along with the BOS quests. That's why I'm surprised she wasn't mentioned. I fired her long enough to pick up Gannon and get the remnants on board. Then re-hired her and took her and Rex to the final battle. She was with me the whole time (when she wasn't unconscious that is, lol)

Did you take out both Vault 19 and the NCRCF?

@Tale: Blowing up Vault 19 takes out their de facto leader. I don't know how else the Powder Gangers would be considered "taken out". If that's part of it, though, then the ending still shouldn't refer to them as being from Vault 19.

@Balok: I don't suppose you talked her into siding with the Followers? That's the only other thing I can think of.

@Animation: I'm generally with your take on it- my sniper senorita would not have been a huge fan of anyone. The thing is, if you're looking at it from a view of what's going to happen, it's not as though the two sides would stalemate at Hoover Dam forever. You might notice, as you level, that the random sounds of warfare increase; the battle is going to happen one way or another. So for my character- and probably anyone who isn't psychotic- it basically becomes about stopping the Legion more than supporting a particular side. If there was an option to just freelance into Hoover Dam and let the NCR figure it out with House or Yes Man afterwards, I'd have run it that way.

As it turns out, I did both NCR and Wild Card, and I still don't know which one I'd prefer, since Wild Card doesn't leave you in charge of anything.

I liked my endings I got (across all my playthroughs) - even the sad ones were really well-thought out. In fact, the most moving one was something I got more or less by accident - this was during my playthrough of the Legion questline. Not being a big fan of the Legion I rushed through it as quickly as I could without doing many sidequests (so as to get it over with in a hurry) - and in the epilogue, there was a slide about Boone. It was the one you get if you've recruited him as a companion but haven't completed "I Forgot to Remember to Forget". I won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it but man, it really hit me hard. Possibly the saddest thing in the entire game.

As for my "real" endings, I was happy with them too - my favourites being the Wild Card and NCR routes. They were both quite satisfying.

I also love how each companion has different endings based not only on whether you did their quest, but what you say to them at the end of it. I messed around with that a bit by trying different things in different playthroughs (like Veronica leaving/staying with the brotherhood or Arcade joining the battle/returning to Freeside). Really good attention to detail.

The "perfect" ending to the MQ for me would have been thusly:

The courier unites the BOS, Enclave Remnants and Marcus & his Nightkin brethren for the final assault against Caesar, ultimately defeating the Legion. Meanwhile, the courier installs Yes Man's programming to run the Securitron's on the Strip keeping things down there in order. After the final battle, the courier negotiates a new treaty with the NCR retaining the independence of New Vegas while secretly keeping the Securitron army hidden just in case the NCR forgets their place. Call it an ace up his sleeve!

With fresh water and power supplies to The Strip, Freeside and surrounding areas and a reasonable amount of peace, new vegas began to prosper and business began attracting more and more people looking to make their stake. The King & his good friend the Courier cleaned up Freeside from the thugs and riff-raff and the Followers were able to continue their research into medicine and farming.

Basically, I would like a "mostly everybody lives happily ever after" ending, but that's not one of our options, lol. Can't we all just get along people?!?!?

EDIT: On a funny side note, I felt bad because in FO3, I made my destiny to hunt down and kill every Enclave I could find. So, it was kind of poetic justice that I worked really hard helping them and getting them to help the cause, lol. I kind of felt sorry for them they were so pitiful and old, lol.

It still is a harsh world and not everyone likes to play nice in there sandbox. Like I said I would have liked a path that led to me being the leader of a independent NV but no way do I think that kind of ending would have been all roses. But I think by doing everyone's quests to help them could lead to gaining there support for a free Vegas which is something I would think people would be willing to fight for since that is home.

From what I have experienced I am not that sure NCR would agree to such a treaty. They have fought long and hard to control the dam and to just give it up seems impossible. Even if such a treaty was signed it would only be a matter of time before it would be broken. The dam is just to valuable to not possess.