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[majikero]

I'm doing Old World Blues and started it a level 12. Maybe I should put it back to Hard instead of Very Hard. My persistence to use clothes for cosmetic reasons is biting me in the arse. Those damn nightstalkers wont even go down to a gauss rifle shot to the head in one hit. Slapping their shit around with the proton axe and superslam is very difficult when there is 4 of them.

In short, Very Hard is a bullshit difficulty that only adds more health.

[Astral]

Most Bethesda games do similar things with the "difficulty," by just making enemies more bullet spongey. There's no increase in AI or tactics, it just takes more bullets to take an enemy down. That's why I prefer mods like Project Nevada's Rebalance module, which more or less makes your health (and enemy health) static, based entirely off endurance rather than a combination of endurance and levels, as well as increasing damage all around. You're just as squishy as the things you're trying to shoot, making large engagements hectic at times.

[Darkmere]

It's not flat health or anything like that. NV's DLC's have a buggy damage threshold modifier (honest hearts at least has the same problem) that makes enemies resistant to .50 AP rounds, even. Setting the difficulty to normal is the equivalent of very hard in the vanilla wasteland.

I don't know if it's intentional or not, given the abysmal QC that went into the series and the big "fuck you ship it now" from the publisher. Still, normal is about where it feels right.

[Mech#4]

I remember for the "Lookout Point" DLC for Fallout 3 the enemies had flat damage buffs and resistance increases. So regardless of your armour class they would always do at least 15 damage or something.

[Iceblaster]

I remember for the "Lookout Point" DLC for Fallout 3 the enemies had flat damage buffs and resistance increases. So regardless of your armour class they would always do at least 15 damage or something.

30.

Only reason I know is because in one of Many a True Nerd's Kill Everything vids for FO3 had a comment pointing that out.

The weapons there however, weren't as fun. The DB shotgun was the sawn off but slightly better, IMO, and the Lever Action Rifle was boring.

Though my favorite weapon for FO3, the Infiltrator, comes from The Pitt and holy shit is it fun if only because silenced assault rifle with a scope. Well, not fun, but more like 'overly complicated weapon for a simple job' gun

[majikero]

Skirmisher mod is really fun. Taking off heads by smashing spears in people's faces is awesome. Not sure if I should get the perk that makes ninja throwing stars or the one that can make exploding knives.

[Krevsin]

So I played through Project Brazil's first act last night. It was really well done.

[Lightningfalcon]

So I played through Project Brazil's first act last night. It was really well done.

Damn it.  Everytime someone mentions that mod I get excited for a moment thinking that it has been updated.

[Krevsin]

So I played through Project Brazil's first act last night. It was really well done.

Damn it.  Everytime someone mentions that mod I get excited for a moment thinking that it has been updated.

Yeah, it's been pretty quiet until about a month ago. Apparently they lost a lot of their team and cut out a lot of stuff so it looks like the project has been scaled down to a more manageable size as befits a smaller team.

[Neonivek]

Most Bethesda games do similar things with the "difficulty," by just making enemies more bullet spongey. There's no increase in AI or tactics, it just takes more bullets to take an enemy down. That's why I prefer mods like Project Nevada's Rebalance module, which more or less makes your health (and enemy health) static, based entirely off endurance rather than a combination of endurance and levels, as well as increasing damage all around. You're just as squishy as the things you're trying to shoot, making large engagements hectic at times.

This is also another reason why I think Fallout 3 is better than New Vegas

True enemies did get beefier in Fallout 3 ANYWAY (to a limit) but generally speaking when it wanted to challenge you it pitted you against more enemies with different weapons and tactics... and your rate of growth always outpaced the enemies' so even though you might be fighting 20 bandits, you can kill them in the same amount of time it took you to kill 3 earlier in the game.

As opposed to Fallout New Vegas... where they send the ultra elite squad of... 3 guys in togas who for some reason are many times more difficult then anything else in the game because New Vegas hates immersion... and you will fight them at the start of the game and you will fight them at the end of the game without difference.

Honestly Fallout 3 should be looked to as the exemplar for how to do scaling right... period.

[Astral]

Minus turning every enemy in previously low-leveled zones into their elite variants, such as Super Mutant Masters completely invading the Capital Wasteland. I feel the issue is worse in 3, where the limited subset of enemies means that once you hit a certain level, you end up getting whatever the maximum rank enemy can be, meaning you won't see any low level enemies anymore.

New Vegas did have some areas that are not leveled, so you would occasionally get places you could stomp through with no problem, or have places that you would have to come back to at another time, such as the Deathclaw beef gate at early levels preventing you from taking the easiest route to New Vegas.

All Bethesda games seem to have issues with level scaling, as they end up trying to keep everything on par with you, rather than having a range of acceptable things to throw at you. Which is why I'll never attempt another one on anything but PC, as the mods that make the game actually challenging without simply requiring more bullets (or arrows, or sword hits) aren't present on console.

[GiglameshDespair]

Honestly Fallout 3 should be looked to as the exemplar for how to do scaling right... period.

Fallout 3 leapt with difficulty at max levels with Broken Steel installed as Giant Albino Radscorpions and Ghoul Reavers. All supermutants became Overlords with automatic DR skipping damage (40, I think?). Reavers could detect you with maxed stealth and a stealthboy active. Albino radscorpions were the definition of bullet sponge.

[Sergius]

New Vegas has leveled enemies in ranges, so in Area A there might be 3 different ranks of Viper Gang Members, in another Area B maybe the Deathclaws will be slightly beefier. But the areas have a "lower" and "higher" level that these will scale to. Area A only cares whether your level is 10 or 14 or in between (and will not scale higher or lower), Area B cares if your level is greater than 18-21, and so on. If you visit while you're level 1, you'll get the version 18 enemies, and if you're level 50 you'll get level 21 enemies.

And even then you get like bigger groups with more varied powers of enemies, not just every enemy is a Gang Leader.

[scriver]

Yeah, F3 as the best example on how to do leveling... No way I'd ever agree with that. Just counting Beth-engine games both New Vegas and Morrowind did levelling better. I'd add Skyrim to that list too, but most of my play in that is fairly low level, so I don't know.

As for the best game at handling level scaling? The first one that comes to mind is BG2.

[Flying Dice]

Skyrim's also got better level scaling (at least in comparison to Oblivion and FO3, heh); no swarms of bandits with full sets of top-tier armor and weapons around every corner once you hit the right level.

Of course I can't speak to the difficulty because the only character I've played up to really high levels was a sneak attacker that, in the usual TES fashion, one-shotted everything from bunnies to dragons; all of my others I tend to delete before level 30 because I really like that sweet spot at around level 10-20 where the melee combat mods mix with mostly-human enemies and no truly outrageous bullshit on either side.