>>3903029
>Obsidian don't do 'grey'.
Good.

Yeah that's what happens in Fallout

>>3903029
You might not believe this, but the game's moral complexity evolves along with the rest of the game's systems, it's almost as if they built an actual narrative arc and tailored the gameworld to convey it. Crazy thought, huh?

>>3903272
Does not make for a good bait OP, sorry

>>3903029
https://arch.b4k.dev/v/thread/729908950/#729908950

>>3903337
Flip a coin: is anon reposting his own thread on another board? Or is anon reposting someone else's thread on another board?

>>3903029
Or side with Cobb because Benny was right about you, and Doc saving you was a mistake.

Fallout 3 has more moral ambiguity than Fallout New Vegas.
Some retard is going to think that I am saying Fallout 3 is the better game.

>>3903612
How dare you say that Fallout 3 is the better game

>>3903029
You can ignore it. Which seems pretty Grey. I recommend following the road north and to find the secret loot in the quarry

>>3903029
NV is very black and white at first, but once you meet house some things become grey, like how "good" the NCR really is, or how you have to take down all the side factions just to please him. once you get to yes man things get even greyer because he explains why house wanted to take down each faction, and the player gets to decide whether or not each would be good for the future or not.

>>3903029
The Goodsprings-Powder Gangers situation allows you to establish the morality of your character from the get go in a reasonable and logical way.
You take the town's side as a way to return the favor since they saved you, or disregard that and side with the bandits which is what anyone would logically do as they are reportedly better armed and numerous than the militia raised by the town.
>painfully obviously good/evil
Considering Goodsprings as a "good side" is retarded anyway, if you speak with the townies some are willing to fight, others want to throw Ringo to the wolves and some don't care. Sunny wants to help Ringo (whom you don't even know) and should be considered good, Mitchell gives you supplies, Trudy and the others need to be persuaded so they're not exactly that good.

The goodsprings powder ganger situation feels pointless and boring but I keep feeling obligated to do it every playthrough even though I saw it for the rudimentary tutorial town junk it was on my first time. It even has an ending slide.
I wish there was more to it.

>>3903629
I wish there was a resolution if you ignored this quest, like timed quest that if you don't side with the townspeople the Powder gang end up finding Benny and killing him

>>3903629
This. The neutral option is not getting involved.
It makes for a pretty dull game.

>>3903029
Morality is a secondary consideration to faction reputation in New Vegas. They still kept the karma system but it's not the primary concern. In Fallout 3 Karma was a much bigger deal because it affects your perk choices, which player house you can get, which companions you have access to, and influences your random encounters. In New Vegas the only companion who factors in your karma is Cass (and you have to kill her anyway to complete Birds of a Feather, so it's a feature that can quite possibly just never come up in your playthrough), and you only get 1 random encounter related to karma and you need to have evil karma for it.

>>3903029
Goodsprings foreshadows the main quest of NV by showing both sides of a conflict, making you pick a side and then having to gather allies for the side you picked.
Similarly, Primm and Nipton are used to introduce NCR and Legion respectively by showing how they both deal with a town full of criminals.

>>3907788
Mechanically there is zero incentive to side with the Powder Gangers because the primary reward for having them "take over" the town is increased reputation you can use to do Eddy's quest line without hassle. The problem is that donning a Powder Ganger disguise you get from their corpses if you side with the townsfolk gives you the exact same mechanical benefit. In ending slides, siding with the Powder Gangers is treated the same as if you had killed all the townsfolk yourself without involving them, so it's narratively unsatisfying as well because they don't even run the place and it just becomes a ghost town.

>>3907791
Is there any reason to side with the Powder gang at all unless your character is cartoonishly evil

>>3907807
Not really. The Powder Gangers are an Act 1 villain before the greater power struggle of the region is made fully apparent to the player. You can say you get a couple rewards from Eddie, and you don't get attacked by Powder Gangers along I-15 or at their camps, but the faction is irrelevant pretty quickly into the game (by design, mind you).

Thematically this is best exemplified by Nipton being full of Powder Gangers when it was razed. You're trading these ex-cons who've been bothering you for the last few hours for an actual disciplined army who pose a greater threat to the region, as well as the player (if you so choose, anyway).

>>3907821
It'd make sense if the Powder Gang and the Great Khans were the same faction. Cause then you'd side with Cobb for some piece of information about the guys that shot you or something like that. It'd also make sense to do Eddie's quest to get them to join the Legion's side

>>3907777
>finding Benny
that would be a weird ending

>>3907832
Not Benny. Ringo

>>3907823
>It'd make sense if the Powder Gang and the Great Khans were the same faction.
Not really.
Again there's a reason the Powder Gangers aren't too connected to the greater plot of the game.
Notice how logically, most of the factions that are critical to the end game of the story are encountered after the first stretch of the game, which is Goodsprings to Novac.
Jessup's group serves the purpose you're suggesting perfectly fine.

Furthermore, the Khans would have no trouble killing Ringo or taking over Goodsprings. Joe Cobb and his crew are much smaller and weaker so it makes sense for the player to be the deciding factor in them taking the town.
Another thing is that setting up the Khans this early into the game, while also making it so they'd be an antagonistic faction that would require you to kill a bunch of farmers and the guy who saved your life will make it so an overwhelming amount of players will never bother to engage in their content. That hostility will carry from Goodsprings to Red Rock when you're actually supposed to meet them and decide their fate for the endgame.
Again, the Powder Gangers having a limited role serves a vital purpose in introducing all these aspects of the game's design and structure in a manner that doesn't permanently or prematurely lock players into a route or style of how they want to approach the design.

>>3907890
>Jessup's group serves the purpose you're suggesting perfectly fine.
and I mean that in regards to giving you information on Benny.

The biggest problem with New Vegas is the narrative hook doesn't work after you reach Benny (I'd argue the whole Benny plot doesn't work either. Going alone after someone who shot you and you know nothing about, stupid. Guy is chilling right beside the billionaire he just mugged, stupid).

Your character is a mailman, he has no reason to stay in New Vegas or get involved in its local politics. All these kooky leaders defer to you and give you the time of day but from their perspective you're some random pleb wandering around aimlessly. You don't have anything to offer them. It's very obvious that the writers were most excited to do the Choose Your Colour politics stuff and put the story and characterisation on the backburner.

The whole mess comes to a fore in that DLC with the dreadlocks guy because he's pontificating and waxing eulogies about your character as if this mailman is the centre of the universe. But he has no reason to know or care about you. No one in NV does.

>>3907966
Sounds like Fallout 4 would be more up your alley if you want a protagonist with a pre-defined backstory.

>>3907966
there's a point where you're complaining about the game simply existing and that having any narrative at all is an affront to you specifically
>narrative hook doesn't work after you reach Benny (I'd argue the whole Benny plot doesn't work either.
that's an opinion
>You don't have anything to offer them.
that's untrue and every single faction leader explains to you why that isn't the case.
>most excited to do the Choose Your Colour politics stuff
it's an rpg
>characterisation on the backburner.
no

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>>3907966
>The biggest problem with New Vegas is the narrative hook doesn't work after you reach Benny (I'd argue the whole Benny plot doesn't work either. Going alone after someone who shot you and you know nothing about, stupid. Guy is chilling right beside the billionaire he just mugged, stupid).
There was an ending where you left the Mojave, but it was cut because it was dumb.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cFUp9zr_ms

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>>3903612
If you're referring to the Tenpenny's quest, Then maybe.
But the main quest itself is just a plain good guy vs bad guy story.
Now that I think about it, Colonel Autumn's motive makes no sense at all.

>he wants to restore Enclave's reputation by activating water purifier
>kills an innocent scientist anyway

>>3903029
Goodspring is just a glorified tutorial level. It basically just teaches you multiple ways to beat the towns quest and the basic function on reputation system. Somehow Josh Sawyer and his team managed to show you how game mechanic works without telling you directly.

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>>3908026
>glorified tutorial level.
It is the tutorial level. You outright get a prompt when you're about to leave of "do you want to rebuild your character?".
Nothing glorified about it.

>>3908057
What about the skills check?

>>3903029
My son, don't you see, there are no nice people or "innocents" in the world.

/cynicism

>>3903029
>uhhh wow wtf??
>this literal tutorial town is literally a tutorial?
retard

that said, while goodsprings as a faction is literally designed solely to introduce you to the full range of faction/reputation mechanics within the span of 15mins; the powdergangers dont have as good of an excuse. they actually ARE given a few quests outside the ghosttown gunfight one, they HAVE a base, a leader, some vendors, a doc, and even hit squads if you piss em off. theyre clearly supposed to be an actual faction. but it obv ran into the same problem as the legion ran outta time.
its explicitly stated that both the gangers in primm, as well as the ones in vault 19, are powdergangers. but no matter what your rep is when you get there, vault 19 isnt hostile, and primm IS. neither groups are even labeled as faction members

I think it’s good game design to have both grey and black and white. For one, if you’re role playing as evil, then you do butcher the town that saved you. And that’s fun. Loot them. Carry on questing. But if you’re just a normal player sometimes the battle between good and evil is fun. And then sometimes it’s fun when both parties have a good case. I remeber thinking the party system was a bit jank (can’t remeber why) but the quests were not the weak point of that game.

>>3907780
>staying neutral and not picking sides makes for a boring story
golly gee

>>3908123
>its explicitly stated that both the gangers in primm, as well as the ones in vault 19, are powdergangers. but no matter what your rep is when you get there, vault 19 isnt hostile, and primm IS. neither groups are even labeled as faction members
Lore wise, it shows that Powder Gangers as a whole is not meant to be a cohesive unitary faction, but rather a bunch of autonomous splinter groups with shared origins.
Gameplay wise, in both Primm and Vault 19 their main purpose is to serve as quest NPCs. Same reason all fiends and raiders are hostile, unless they're a part of a quest that specifically makes them non-hostile. I don't think it's a problem.

>>3908066
those are used to introduce you to the skills system, how your build may deny you access to things, as well as magazines to overcome that limitation

yeah its almost like the game is shit

the NCR legion crap is more black and white than stormcloaks and imperials but no one called skyrim nuanced

good thing for obsidian they knew how effective shilling on 4chan was

>its actually good that powder gangers are a meaningless gang that aren't attached to anything.
Buddy I like new vegas but come on. How do you even type that without reflecting on it
>>3908311
Man, what a dummy you are

>>3908320
>>its actually good that powder gangers are a meaningless gang that aren't attached to anything.
why is it a bad thing?
Why have this complaint in particular when every other faction is connected to the greater plot of the game? It's not as if Obsidian simply forgot to have them show up at the dam, but rather consciously excluded them because the Gangers are ultimately only a small group of thugs who are barely organized to begin with.
Also, I'll remind you that part of the function of the Powder Gangers is to illustrate to the player that the NCR, although having a military and rule of law, is incredibly disorganized and couldn't even keep their own prison under control.
>They're transferring away three more of my men. They tell me it's all to keep the situation at the Dam under control, but what about this place? The situation here has become dangerous for my men and I - I know it, my men know it, and the prisoners know it. It's only a matter of time before something happens.
They're a symptom of the larger issue of the NCR's mismanagement (and General Oliver in particular).

house is too sympathetic in this game, i think they really wanted you to side with him
>b-but what if hes lying
its not like he can do any damage to a world thats shit to begin with

>>3908375
Nah. Powder gangers needed more

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False equivalence

>first conflict: help the town that selflessly saved your life or side with bandits to slaughter them for no reason
The capacity for choice is much greater in New Vegas not because it does not give quests with more outcomes (it does, btw) but because it gives more meaningful choices for how to resolve the quest in the achievement of those outcomes.

>>3908490
That's still all make-work bullshit if there are still only three outcomes.

>>3908519
>there should be an option where you never leave the tops
hey alright buddy
>>3908478
i can imagine some bleeding heart calling him a fascist because... uhh, he doesn't let just anyone in and you have to prove you're not a deadbeat first?

The game should have n outcomes for every quest in the game

>>3908590
>be Larian
>advertise “17,000+” ending permutations for BG3
>ship game
>theres… 3? 4?
>…
>Profit

>>3903029
The game allows you to kill both the powder gangers and the town inhabitants.

>>3903029
More importantly, it doesn't feel like jet induced fever dream, like F3 does. It has silly things too, like all Fallout games, but at least it feels more real and serious.
F3 is just terrible at everything besides being a hobo looter, which is nice, but I can do that in NV.

>>3907966
>Going alone after someone who shot you and you know nothing about, stupid
The Courier was hired to deliver the Platinum Chip with some very worrying clauses in the contract on what will happen should he fail. If the revenge angle doesn't work for you, then maybe that one's a good reason for chasing Benny.
>Your character is a mailman
If the Platinum Chip delivery went smoothly, then yeah, he would've been just a mailman. Too bad that's not the case.
>You don't have anything to offer them
Do you just completely forget all details about a game after playing them? There is a very good reason as to why all three factions want you in their team after getting the Platinum Chip. Hint: it's related to House.
>pontificating and waxing eulogies about your character as if this mailman is the centre of the universe
>Why is a character who is holding a grudge acting so irrationally?

>>3908019
For some reason, they act like the person turning the machine on, matters in some way. Like, if a badguy hits the, "instantly kill me" button, it's worse than if the MC does it.

I never understood why Mr house has you keep working for him or why the ncr and legion both want you. It is entirely possible to play a character who gets the platinum chip nd delivers it who is entirely illsuited to handle the rest of the main quest. Following benny isn't *that* impressive especially for the ncr and legion to want you too.
Everyone is just a bit too obsessed with the courier and sucking his dick to be honest.
And that guy saying it's a good thing the powder gangers are irrelevant is off his rocker. They should have done more to tie goodsorings and the powder gingers into the world. It feels like such an irrelevant place yet gets its own ending slide. The correctional facility gets its own slide despite so little going on there and being easy to miss.
My proposal is the powder gangers doing more to establish themselves politically and guaranteeing their safety through short sighted alliances with maybe the kahns or the legion. With an additional route to have them fight for hoover dam in exchange for pardons (and giving them less cartoonish characterization)
I would give Goodsprings a follow up quest similar to primm where they decide if they'll align with the NCR. Having both primm and goodsprings being NCR would result in more normal patrols of the entire western part of the map

>>3908946
F3 is better at being a hobo looter than NV to me. The invisible walls and worse dungeon design of NV kills it for me. NV may as well be a bioware game where you just click on points on a map to do encounters and dialog with your party

>>3903029
growing up is realising Fallout always sucked and was hard carried by the aesthetics.

>>3908591
>be Larian
>people suddenly start saying "Larian" over and over
>Profit

>>3908528
>and so the courier decided to become the new room mate of mr. house
it is quite luxurious though

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>>3908478
>house is too sympathetic in this game, i think they really wanted you to side with him
No, he's a heckin' nazi chud.

>>3914715
Yes, that's what he said.

>>3908375
>Also, I'll remind you that part of the function of the Powder Gangers is to illustrate to the player that the NCR, although having a military and rule of law, is incredibly disorganized and couldn't even keep their own prison under control.
>>They're transferring away three more of my men. They tell me it's all to keep the situation at the Dam under control, but what about this place? The situation here has become dangerous for my men and I - I know it, my men know it, and the prisoners know it. It's only a matter of time before something happens.
>They're a symptom of the larger issue of the NCR's mismanagement (and General Oliver in particular).
Slightly off topic but when the game came out the NCR was essentially supposed to be an analogy for modern day America meanwhile Caesar's Legion is whatever authoritarian govenment that isn't a democratic capitalist republic or whatever, and at that time it was believable that a criticism of America is that theres too much laziness and decadance and corruption and that would never happen in an authoritarian place (hence why the NCR is corrupt and lazy and retarded) but then when Russia failed to invade Ukraine and China fucked up with Covid it makes it kinda hard to believe that standards of living would be better in Caesar's Legion than in the NCR in any way

>>3914719
>but then when Russia failed to invade Ukraine and China fucked up with Covid
Bruh^2.

>>3910866
Fallout 3 also had infinitely respawning mindless enemies in the super mutants and subway ghouls, meanwhile most dungeons in NV do not repopulate, and the only source of high level infinitely respawning enemies would be the NCR or Legion hitsquads

>>3914721
I mean it's true. In fiction and propaganda we believe that simply being super tough and scary and no-nonsense and executing any subordinates who fail you means you are really efficient but IRL that just means your subordinates will just never report any failures and eventually everything will just collapse on itself because every single subordinate just reports 200% efficiency

>>3910861
>and giving them less cartoonish characterization
They're pretty realistic for a bunch of retarded violent criminals tho. The only way to make them more realistic is to have them segregate based on race and have gay prison rape

>>3908375
yeah it also shows how ncr creates problems like powder gangers even if their intentions are noble. and on the flip side is legion who are cartoonisly evil and radical but they just kill/enslave all future problems.

>>3907966
It’s because of this problem that House and Yes Man feel more narratively cohesive and relevant to the Courier than the NCR and Legion routes do. House hired you to deliver the chip to him in the first place and he actually gives you advice on how to deal with Benny and what the chip even is, while for Yes Man you just take everything into your own hands and play with fire. The Legion and NCR routes require you to intentionally go out of your way to partner up with factions that wouldn’t give two shits about you if you weren’t their only way to knock House out of the game. The whole dynamic the Courier has with Benny directly involves House while Yes Man is discovered by concluding the conflict, while the NCR is uninvolved with Benny while the Legion only becomes involved with him if you fail to confront him efficiently.

>>3903029
Obsidian always does a shit poor job. They have made nothing worthwhile, and NWN2 was their worst

>>3907966
Is it so wrong too assume a character might have similar motivations to the player like "wanting to see where things go" or "wanting more money and status to get better stuff". This just feels like overthinking things to me. The plot hook was to get you into the world, not to drag you literally everywhere. Even continuing a main quest in games like these is a choice.

>>3915080
>This just feels like overthinking things to me
A large portion of this thread are the sorts of complaints that people only have after a decade+ of the game existing and either playing it to death or playing it once and forgetting literally fucking everything about the game's actual structure. As well as how the player is lead around and how much the game accommodates and encourages the player's own decisions independent of the game's main storyline.

Complaining that the Powder Gangers didn't get enough screen time is silly and asking "what's the player's motivation for running around the Mojave and engaging in the story?" is just fart-huffing. These weren't complaints people had before 2015.

>>3908123
Powder gangers don't have hit squads, the fuck are you on about

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>>3915138
there's one near Primm going to the Prospector's Den

>>3915141
>picrel
Based, I love Obsidian's rich writing.

>>3907978
I would have liked that. I always like it when like a haunted mansion horror game just lets you leave if you want. Obviously you're not going to because that's the game but it changes the tone in an interesting way. In an RPG it forces you to accept that you're playing a guy that wouldn't leave.

>>3915141
>powder gangers
Such a gay name. Why not pick something more hardcore?
>dynamite dudes
>boom boys (not boomers, don't you ever call them that)
>TNT titans
>

>>3915148
Tunnel Snakes RULE!

>>3915138
They do, but they are rare and kind of different, not really a hit squad that fallows around, just some ambush.
>>3915148
You can call them powder garbages.

>>3915148
Powder Niggers

>>3915311
>a lot of PG npcs are black or brown
Hmm.... what did Sawyer mean by this?

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>>3903029
you are the same person who made the BG2-Thread arent you?

>>3915764
Someone should survey NCR NPCs to check if they also make up 13% of the population.

>>3908019
>Tenpenny
The nuking or the ghouls? I assume you mean the latter? Either case, I don't think nuking a town for spectacle nor letting ghouls massacre misguided xenophobes (most of which can be convinced the ghouls are good people) are "ambiguous".

>>3908019
You can always tell an evil character by how well he's dressed.

>>3903029
I think it's actually worse than that.
It has that weird amerimutt morality where serious crimes have no repercussions or are even considered a virtue.

Like you see people casually talking about murdering mr house which to me is weird. I barely know this person let alone have any just cause to murder him.

>>3907966
>Guy is chilling right beside the billionaire he just mugged
The part that really doesn't make sense is that House knows Benny is in the Tops with the chip but he doesn't do anything until you show up