Fallout: New Vegas companion problem...

[JJ Wasyl]

Howdy pardners!
I've recently purchased F:NV and started my playthrough on Very hard (Hardcore) difficulty. By the time I dragged myself to the 188 trading post (Veronica's place) I was down to 32 hp, my police baton, both legs limping, addicted to every usable chem and had only a handful of caps on me.

Then I recruited Veronica.

Literally 1h of gameplay later, I could just stand and watch how she took over the mojave wasteland, punching anything that moved into submission. I could waltz in anywhere and turn that place into my own personal hell.

This makes the game utterly boring and I am on the verge of giving up. Luckily, I've got a save from before recruiting that avatar of destruction, but I still need a companion to survive. Do you have any suggestion for a follower, that doesn't win the game for me?

 

[Karoshi]

Howdy pardners!
I've recently purchased F:NV and started my playthrough on Very hard (Hardcore) difficulty. By the time I dragged myself to the 188 trading post (Veronica's place) I was down to 32 hp, my police baton, both legs limping, addicted to every usable chem and had only a handful of caps on me.

Then I recruited Veronica.

Literally 1h of gameplay later, I could just stand and watch how she took over the mojave wasteland, punching anything that moved into submission. I could waltz in anywhere and turn that place into my own personal hell.

This makes the game utterly boring and I am on the verge of giving up. Luckily, I've got a save from before recruiting that avatar of destruction, but I still need a companion to survive. Do you have any suggestion for a follower, that doesn't win the game for me?

You can search for some mods that make the Mojave harder, like Project Nevada. With this mod you can manually choose what feature you would like to add or disable (stronger primary needs for food, Bllettime like in Max Payne and much more).

As for companions... they are all overpowered. Raul and Arcade were the weakest from my point of view, with Boone being the strongest. You can find Raul at Black Mountain (the town with crazy Supermutants), and Arcade at the Mormon Fort close to New Vegas.

If you are going to venture to get Raul, get some Radaway and prepare for a tough fight. If you want to get Aracde, then you better have the Bachelor perk or incredibly low intelligence. If you don't, you will have to grind some reputation before he joins you.

 

[Doom972]

Keep her. The levels, equipment and number of enemies that you encounter in the wastleland are scaled to your level. Soon enough it'll be challenging.

Spoiler: If you want to see her get torn to pieces

Take her to the quarry full of Deathclaws north of Goodsprings.

 

[Aeshi]

How high is your Charisma? Because that increases companion damage, so if you have high Charisma that might explain her "OPness".

As for which companion(s) to get I've always been fond of E-DE myself, Enhanced Sensors basically means you're never going to get ambushed again.

 

[JJ Wasyl]

You can search for some mods that make the Mojave harder, like Project Nevada. With this mod you can manually choose what feature you would like to add or disable (stronger primary needs for food, Bllettime like in Max Payne and much more).

Thanks, this is what I needed. As for Raul, there was no need for anything... 10 minutes and it was over :/

 

[Karoshi]

... So... reading this thread... apparently most people used companions of one form or another... you guys didn't think they were incredibly annoying? Especially that bloody nightkin... but ESPECIALLY Boone. Whiney little man. The only one I liked was ED-E and that was only after the Lonesome Road.

Just an option OP, could go solo. Like me!

... We shall burn you at stake and dump your corpse into Colorado River, infidel.

No, seriously. The companions were the best part of the game. Boone's a badass, Arcade has some good snarky and ironic dialogue and Raul is my favourite, with his Spanish accent and raspy ghoul voice.

Though I do understand if one might want to travel on their own. It gets soon very old when out of nowehere you see in close motion someone's head explode and realize your follower went on a killing spree once more. Worst jump scares ever.

 

[ItsNotRudy]

Howdy pardners!
I've recently purchased F:NV and started my playthrough on Very hard (Hardcore) difficulty. By the time I dragged myself to the 188 trading post (Veronica's place) I was down to 32 hp, my police baton, both legs limping, addicted to every usable chem and had only a handful of caps on me.

Then I recruited Veronica.

Literally 1h of gameplay later, I could just stand and watch how she took over the mojave wasteland, punching anything that moved into submission. I could waltz in anywhere and turn that place into my own personal hell.

This makes the game utterly boring and I am on the verge of giving up. Luckily, I've got a save from before recruiting that avatar of destruction, but I still need a companion to survive. Do you have any suggestion for a follower, that doesn't win the game for me?

Once you get to fighting hordes of Legion/NCR soldiers, Deathclaws and Cazadors you'll beg for companions. You could always equip her with weaker gear I suppose.

 

[Karoshi]

The best companions are the ones in Dead Money. I liked those characters. Silent Girl was an absolute pleasure to work with, Dog was... uh... interesting... and Ghoul Musician was the type of negative morality I could get behind. Or the Toaster from the Blues. Or ED-E, like I said, from Lonesome Road. And if I could romance anyone it'd be the lightswitches.

Uh... sorry OP.

I do agree on that. All vanilla companions must be Rambo reincarnate considering their gun-ho attitude and Dead Money did have the best story, atmosphere and characters. Christine was my favourite and I respect how well she handled herself while going through a nightmare.

Sorta offtopic, but I always regretted before playing Dead Money that almost no game has a mute character. "Too hard to write and even harder to make it work. The only company which could pull it off would be Obsidian" said I to myself. Guess what, I was dead right =D

 

[JJ Wasyl]

Well, I can think of a certain theoretical physicist, whom you can fashion to have any personality you want, while he kills stuff.

More seriously though, I remember beating Fallout 3 without ever recruiting anyone (I guess I dodged a bullet, seeing how they are even more complained about), and honestly, I had hoped I could do the same with New Vegas. But being on the verge of death all the time, being unable to take on anything except the main quests was sorta annoying. Nonetheless, that mod helped me nerf veronica and ED-E, now I can enjoy the game...

 

[fezgod]

Usually I kept a companion until I finished their questline, then moved on to another one. But I never had any issue with any companions being overpowered because I'd rather have a videogame companion that could handle themselves (i.e. Alyx Vance) than one who would either be a nuisance or one that I would have to babysit for the entire fucking game.

 

[Tom_green_day]

Boone was pretty crazy, but I found Veronica was best for the banter she had in the dialogue tree. Soon enough companions become less overpowered and more leveled, to the point where at best they become a distraction so there are less enemies attacking you at once.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

Weird.

Maybe I just fail at the game, but even on Normal WITHOUT Hardcore on, I didn't find Veronica all that useful.

I mean, I still kept her because Felicia Day. I like making Science focused characters who look like Neal Patrick Harris, giving them a lab coat and then pretending this is an alternate version of reality where Doctor Horrible actually managed to destroy the world and now he and Penny run around together punching Deathclaws in the face.

But anyway. First, go check out some tougher enemies. The trading post where you pick her up is the start of what I like to call the Dialog Phase of the game. It's a lot of talking to people, political intrigue and other faffing about in New Vegas proper. It's much easier combat wise than the next and previous sections.

First go attack an outpost from the faction you dislike. Then if she's still not needed, head to the area just above Sloan. If somehow you're not begging her to stay by then, get difficulty enhancing mods. They will make it all good.

In terms of other companions, Rex is pretty weak in combat, but his perk is incredibly useful. He basically highlights any containers that hold ammo, food or meds. Raul is also a good choice because Danny Trejo is the man.

 

[Jfswift]

There's a girl at the Mojave Outpost to the southwest that you can recruit. Cassidy Rose I believe. She's got a great personality and decent combat skill but nothing game breaking. I don't think she affects the game balance too much, just be careful with hardcore mdoe because once she's gone, she's gone for good.

BTW, on the off chance you didn't already know this, please make multiple backup save files. I can't emphasize this enough.

 

[JJ Wasyl]

With the mod on, I got Veronica killed in some explosive fight with the NCR in the prison (apparently you can avoid it, but I couldn't help myself). Now I ventured to the "Big Empty" at lvl 15, which means I am mostly doing laps around the sink while taking potshots at nightstalkers.

BTW, on the off chance you didn't already know this, please make multiple backup save files. I can't emphasize this enough.

Noted, although I've already had a lot of experience with Fallout 3's mood swings.

Aaand a little off-topic, do you guys travel light, or carry a lot of stuff on you? Especially in hardcore. I know I usually drag an arsenal with me, which chews up almost all carry capacity.

 

[Karoshi]

Aaand a little off-topic, do you guys travel light, or carry a lot of stuff on you? Especially in hardcore. I know I usually drag an arsenal with me, which chews up almost all carry capacity.

Oh God, don't even mention it. I have 10 guns with me at all times, usually even more. I know that technically I don't need this stuff, but I physically can't part with my guns.

At least I left my other armour sets in the locker, otherwise I'd have 20 points of free space. By the way, you do know that the companion are pretty helpful if you use them as pack mules?

 

[Zenn3k]

Howdy pardners!
I've recently purchased F:NV and started my playthrough on Very hard (Hardcore) difficulty. By the time I dragged myself to the 188 trading post (Veronica's place) I was down to 32 hp, my police baton, both legs limping, addicted to every usable chem and had only a handful of caps on me.

Then I recruited Veronica.

Literally 1h of gameplay later, I could just stand and watch how she took over the mojave wasteland, punching anything that moved into submission. I could waltz in anywhere and turn that place into my own personal hell.

This makes the game utterly boring and I am on the verge of giving up. Luckily, I've got a save from before recruiting that avatar of destruction, but I still need a companion to survive. Do you have any suggestion for a follower, that doesn't win the game for me?

Well, on HC they can perma-die, and there will be lots of places that'll be too much for her to handle alone.

Find a big nest of Cazadores and you'll be looting Veronica's corpse in a few seconds flat (assuming you survive as well).

I think you're just experiencing her being OP for the enemies you have in your game right now, if you JUST made it to 188, you haven't even dealt with Benny yet and the game doesn't really even open up until you walk into Vegas and deal with Benny.

Bottomline: She won't stay OP forever, in fact, she'll likely eventually die a horrible horrible death. Just let her punch everything for awhile, she likes to punch things.

HAPPY GAMING.