So by now many people have figured a way to get from Good Springs to New Vegas very early on in the game.

Do you think going straight to New Vegas ruins some of the early level areas. Primarily around Goodsprings, the Mojave Outpost, and Nipton.

IMO, the loot, xp rewards for quests, and enemies become a bit irrelevant if you run straight to New Vegas. Once Im in New Vegas rolling in caps, implants and weaponry, it is hard to convince myself to go back to those early level areas.

Not to say that the quests themselves become irrelevant, just the rewards, earned xp and loot seem to matter much less once you’ve become situated in New Vegas.

In an open world RPG, the option to approach the game in a non linear fashion is a big attraction for me. Yet In F:NV I feel that if you follow the “long route” New Vegas, certain area retain the relevancy until later in the game.

So what do you think? Does pulling the “New Vegas run” at an early level ruin certain areas of the game?

Sorry if a similar topic has this covered, I remember some vague discussion about this topic but I can't remember when/where.

I've not done it (I actually didn't even know it was possible), so I don't know from experience, but it does seem like coming back and saving Primm from 4 - level 5 Powdergangers might just not be as fun when you're level 16 and have some excellent weaponry and armor.

Well, consider there is a few skill books down there, I don't see why not.

If all you care about is the exp and level of loot, then imo yes, it does, at least somewhat. However, just because you can reach Vegas at lvl 1, so you can min/max stats, say, doesn't mean you're an instant killing machine w/100 skills who should go marching around a big Vault yet. If you're not using companions, you may go back and at least do a few easy things to gain a few levels or so before tackling other stuff. Or maybe you like being idolized or always having a 'complete' map, so you go back for that. Just depends what you want/what your goal for rushing was in the first place.

Myself, I always tend to go back & do at least the main things down there because I'm a completionist. I have specific reasons why I rush to certain areas in the game...say, to get a companion as early as possible, or just to see if I can do some specific quest/challenge at a very low lvl w/starter gear...but doing it so I can 'skip past the boring parts" isn't actually my own motivation.

Why would you run to new vegas and skip part of game? and yes it kinda does, but again who would some one do it?

yeah on my current playthrough I'm trying to complete the area.

On my previous character I ran around chasing skill books and doing quests when i felt like.

obviously i still get side tracked on my current playthrough, but I'm having a much more enjoyable time completing areas this time around.

This is contrary to my fallout 3 play style where I would pretty much skip around the entire game. Maybe it is just because I'm still getting a grasp on the map.

Well not like you skip the area consciously, but strategically going to new vegas, getting a house, caps, and implants is a good way to optimize your character early on.

I just made a decision not to base my character out of new vegas until later in the game and I find that exploration and the story in general is much more enjoyable this time around.

I've done it a couple times sneak north from Goodsprings to the New Vegas area I didn't go into New Vegas because I still wanted the exp from the previous main quests. Its worth doing but it will make the 1st part of the game really easy if you head back to goodsprings with Combat Armor on and other stuff.

I can understand doing that with a single character in a playthrough but not with every character you create..

This is funny, I was just thinking about if it was possible to go to New Vegas right after leaving Doc's House. Since you get around 10 or so Stimpacks in his house I figured it was possible but I don't know if it is or not. If there is please tell lol, would probably do it for my next account but anyways, It would ruin a few quests I think because wouldn't you be able to talk to Benny in The Tops if you could?

It would ruin half of the game if you could talk to Benny but you could always go back and do Primm and Novac later, I will whenever I make another character and do this.

I would rather get to New Vegas with slightly better equipment, and far more caps, than I walk out of Doc Mitchell's house with.


Put it a better way. Exactly what is the advantage of running strait to New Vegas soon as you create the character?

I don't see the problem in just following the main road south, east and then north, to go straight to New Vegas. You don't encounter very difficult enemies if you stick to the road. You can just not do quests you may trigger (ie Prim or Nipton). There is loads of exp in this game, and lots of quest, no reason to do them all before completing the game. So, if your character is more of a city dweller, than a wasteland wanderer, he/she might want to get to Vegas asap. Nothing wrong with that. Start in Freeside, doing quests, making money etc, earn enough to get into the Strip. This seems legitimate to me. Whether you go back to finish 'low-level' quests doesn't matter, only worry about what your character would want to do.

The main one I'm aware of has to do with making enough caps (via entering NV w/ certain items) in order to buy an INT implant, in order to max skill points per level from lvl 1, without having to spend that 1 extra point during character creation. It is min/maxing the system I guess. Beyond that...there is no "big advantage" except for personal challenge goals & preferences.

There are two main ways to get to NV at lvl1, one is short, one is longer...they've been talked to death before, if you search a little I'm sure it's there. But the main thing is you pick your way carefully & just do not fight anything. You avoid. The 'long way' means you can still pick up lots of stuff/gear if you want, without fighting or doing quests (not only boxes, but think of the npc's that fight each other...) so you are actually somewhat fairly equipped and moneyed by the time you get there.

Myself, I don't actually enter The Strip, so I'm not sure about quest continuity if you do that. If you don't enter The Strip, however, nothing breaks. You may find some of those random encounters coming at odd times and places, and dialogue will seem out of place, but nothing badly "breaks."

Edit: ninja'd. yes, the long way is the main road, just don't fight. Sneak a little, run a lot, be patient, loot everything on the way. The shorter way is thru the deathclaw territory.

I had a character w/ the agility of 9 and it was pretty easy to just run from the good springs cemetery to new vegas. It was pretty easy to outrun most of the enemies, especially since I've heard many people say agility doesn't affect run speed.

I don't think talking to benny early breaks any quests. You just get a boat load of xp for completing the "find benny/chip quest."

@ratt80 - did you go through the deathclaws? I've often wondered if there might be another, slightly different route in that direction, but I haven't bothered trying to find one.

Also...the main reason I do it (I prefer the main road route, w/some minor detouring off the road) is because for some reason, I find it to be extremely satisfying to sneak by everything when I'm lvl 1. Even tho it's not that hard, it sure is fun, imo. I get all the FT points along the way, and I get to see a whole lot of funny npc interaction/fights while I'm sneaking along, too. I can even be escorted/protected by some friendlies. It's a blast. I'm rather addicted to starting all my chrs. that way now.

I have noticed that a fair few quests get broken if you do them out of order, especially around the Fiends and McCarren. It's not that hard to get past the monsters, in fact that aspect is kind of entertaining. Since you're too weak and under armed to fight tough enemies, you have to do some cagey sneaking-- with low sneak. :unsure:

Haven't tried to run it yet. Should be pretty hard, I'm guessing...

Seems kind of pointless to me. Besides not wasting any possible skill points, but seriously...

Breaking certain Fiends/McCarren/Khan stuff doesn't have anything to do with sneaking to those areas at lvl1, tho. At least, that's been my experience.


Gaming is all pointless, in a way....if it entertains someone, it's not pointless to them.

I make the trek early on but only after I've done a bunch of stuff around Goodie and have thousands of caps and then I don't go to NV, I only go as far as the hospital for an implant. Then I go back and continue progress more or less as the game has designed it. I think the game is too easy as it is and running through NV is just going to make it even simpler yet.

Yeah, that's what I do too. Altho once I grabbed Boone on the way back and had him kill all the Gecko's during the tutorial quest. Because it was funny, and because I could. :laugh:

True.

That's a 5-7 skill point difference in the end...Only the most obsessive Mix/Maxer would even care.

Anyway, with my current character it took me 17 hours to make it to the 188. With the over 6k caps I made along the way I could buy some choice weapon mods the two arms merchants where offering. Then go hit gun runners and crimson caravan for even more mods/ammo. Blew through about 3k caps in a quick hurry, but I'm well armed for the Mojave for the next 15 levels. The street cred I gained with the Khan's might come in useful later.

So really, you're not gaining anything much by rushing to Vegas. Nothing close to what one could gain (18-28 SP and A3-21's Plasma Rifle) by doing the same thing with Rivet City in FO3.

Because of the way vendors scale there's no large advantage getting to Vegas right off the bat in terms of character power. You CAN skip quests but you'll want to do them for the XP anyway.

About the only thing it does for you is give you an easy fast-travel vendor location, some cheap XP once you can pass a credit check and get into the strip, and potentially slightly earlier access to player housing, but potentially not and for a lot more trouble than hoofing it overland to novac

This kinda annoyed me. Why can't I join a caravan heading to city XY like in Fallout 2? Or is this feature in NV too?

I'm pretty much doing the opposite on my current play through. I want to hit level 30 and get as many quests in my quest log out of the way before setting foot in the strip.