Help me understand why Dead Money was worth it.

C

CourierKris

First time out of the vault
I've just finished the DLC today, and was dumped back into Mojave. I had to run out and do some errands this afternoon, so I had the time to think about what I felt was a huge waste of time and MSP.

When I first ended up in Sierra Madre, I looked around and immediately thought, "this is going to be a survival horror". Over the next couple of hours, I experienced a set of circumstances that were overly frustrating - not particularly difficult but unnecessarily obnoxious. Battle setups that coincidentally relied on the two stats of mine that were under 75 - Melee (ugh, 12 or 13) and Energy Weapons (somewhere around 20). I was put into a situation where the game couldn't flow (due to the stupidly annoying explosive collar beeping) and the sharing of a story with characters I didn't care a jot about. The gameplay itself was boring, and I didn't really understand the point of the whole thing. It seemed so massively disjointed from the rest of the game, that it was difficult to be motivated to finish it.

Aside from the gold bars I picked up (and the gamerscore for finishing the achievements) I got nothing out of a DLC that I didn't enjoy either. I really want to change my opinion of that, because it's demotivated me to carry on playing New Vegas. What do you feel about it, and why was it good for you?
 
What made it worth it for me was the characters and fantastic writing that accompanied them, the hints dropped regarding future DLC and Ulysses. Also, though this might have been just me, it made me appreciate my cozy NCR Safehouse a little bit more after going through all that I went through I kind of looked at the whole Mojave Wasteland in a different way.
 
Yes whole Mojave is one cozy sandbox compared to giant deathtrap Sierra Madre turned into, best survival horror since first chapter of KOTOR2. Kinda broken the game for me since I'm now richer than Mr House, 8-) but with all the whining about TW2 being too hard it's difficult to balance the needs of hardcore PC players and consoltards.
I took God/dog and raided Police station for conventional weapons first with perks like hand loader/junk rounds it's quite easy.
 
I just finished it today.

Hard...hard...hard. There were times where I was enjoying myself and there were times I wanted to throw my keyboard and CPU out the window. Those hidden stupid speakers triggering my collar were the biggest pain the arse and there was one section where I literally had to reload 25 times....put it up for the night and then reload another 10 times the following day before I finally got past it.
Nevermind the flight back to the surface. (will stop here so no spoiler) Also, did the NPCs have to continually repeat the same lines over and over again while they're with you?

I'm glad I finished it (I almost uninstalled the darn thing after dying so many times in this DLC) but I probably won't buy any more DLC due to the fact that there are so many games out now with graphics that are not from 2003 and that I think are more enjoyable.
 
CourierKris said:
Battle setups that coincidentally relied on the two stats of mine that were under 75 - Melee (ugh, 12 or 13) and Energy Weapons (somewhere around 20).
Click to expand...

Okay, I'm gonna interrupt you for a second here.

A Gun oriented player will find plenty of ammo and weaponry in Dead Money.

You find over 9000 rounds (not a joke) of .357 Magnum rounds throughout the entire place and the Police Pistol is nothing to scoff at, especially if you've got Finesse and Better Criticals.

You also get the Automatic Rifle and enough ammo for it to get you out of situations that the Police Pistol won't.
 
Not only that, but you find vouchers that let you craft .357 and .308 at any Sierra Madre vending machine, and if you're good enough at making with the chitty-chatty, you can obtain the ability to make the Sierra Madre Chips needed to acquire them from useless junk. I actually had to leave behind a couple of dozen pounds of ammo in order to be able to carry home my swag.

The only character type that's not amply pampered are the energy users, and even playing one of them I found little trouble coming out of the DLC with far more ammo than I went in with.

Maybe you were just unlucky?

As far as "worth it," I'm going to skip the points that have already been stated-- atmosphere, writing-- and point out that if you thoroughly explore every opportunity open to you at the Sierra Madre, you'll never want for anything ever again once you get back to the wasteland, ever.
 
Short before the ending, I've dropped like 7000 .357 bullets to clean up my inventory. :>
 
Dead money was more sentimental than just great loot. Made me reflect on my own life at many moments. Gameplay had exceptional features with background explaining everything. The riches to come after completion are awesome with 1100 chips delivered to the bunker every 3 days. If you didnt enjoy it much i suggest go replay it and keep your eyes open for more story development and those awesome vendor machine codes depending on what you take as valuable.
 
I'm playing through Dead Money for the third time, has anybody else noticed more stuff lying around after the most recent patches? It might be just me but I've noticed a decrease in difficulty. Before I was struggling for ammo but now I have a larger variety of weapons all in good condition and ammo is never really a problem, except for maybe the automatic rifle and holorifle. I now have a caravan shotgun, 9mm pistol, and police pistol with plentiful amounts of ammo. I've noticed more stuff lying around and more things being in Dean's secret stashes. Maybe I'm just searching better this time around?
 
I've played it 2 1/2 times now and haven't noticed any changes. After a certain point, you get police pistols en masse and never have to worry about ammo for that pistol anymore. Same goes for edibles etc - first it's hard, later it evens out. Could be that they added 1-2 things more, but I don't think it's that much crucial. ;)
 
I've never found the caravan shotgun in DM (although that might just be because I'm not observant) and it seems there's a lot more ammo lying around and a lot more stuff in Dean's stashes. I seriously had about 100 bullets for the police pistol, 60 bullets for the shotgun, 50 for the 9mm pistol, and 30 for the automatic rifle before I had even found Christine. I've never found a 9mm pistol in DM before and now they're everywhere, and while I used to be running out of ammo for everything but the police pistol I now have more than I could ever use.
 
I never found the Caravan Shotgun but I found a shit load of 20 gauge ammo and hulls from the first time I played, I used them mostly to get materials for other ammo, but now it seems there was actualy a weapon using them?
 
I found it leaning up against a wall on the way to the Police station to get Dog/God. I thought the only shotgun in DM was at the suites in the Sierra Madre where you could get the hunting shotgun and SM Armor reinforced. Did they add this in or did I just never notice it before? I know for a fact there were never 9mm pistols in DM until now.
 
Are you sure there weren't 9mm pistols before? I am pretty sure I got one and I used it as side arm to save Bullets for the Big Ghosts with Beartrap fists. but Once I got one of those things on my hands with my Unarmed CHaracter the battles with the Ghost People became unfair to them, I was destroying them all.
 
There might have been 9mm pistols before, but I sure as hell never found them. Now they're everywhere; Dean's stashes, boxes, safes, etc.

Edit: Maybe it's the level I'm at? I went in at level 20 this time when the past two times I went in around level 27-30.
 
Yeah, I went in at lv. 22 and it was HARD. I like challenges, so it woke me up, so to say. Walking out with a few gold bars and the automatic rifle were the real prizes of the day, since this was my Hero of Skill run(max Guns, 75 Repair, high Agility and Perception).
 
Courier said:
There might have been 9mm pistols before, but I sure as hell never found them. Now they're everywhere; Dean's stashes, boxes, safes, etc.

Edit: Maybe it's the level I'm at? I went in at level 20 this time when the past two times I went in around level 27-30.
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Since the very first release and before the NV patches there always A LOT of 9mm pistols scattered in Sierra Madre, Courier. ;)

I tried the DLC many times, always changing the primary combat skill used, so I tested all of them (energy weapons, unarmed, melee and guns).
I've found very gratifying that every skill needs a different startegy, unlike the main game, where you basically use them more or less the same.

As for the DLC, the survival and story aspects were what really appeal to me, not the loot or killing.
I usually pick three gold bars, the armors and two guns of each type (except the holorifle, of course).

The gold bars are scattered in my three houses I use in the game, one as a door step in the Lucky 38, another on the top of my TV box on Novac and the third in Victor's shack in Goodsprings.
The most difficult part was dropping the bars in the correct positions. :lol:
 
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