Enclave oil rig is very underwhelming

[Kalameet]

While i had the CD-ROM of FO2 sitting at my desk for a long time when i was a kid, i was never successful at beating the game.

Well today i finally managed to beat FO2, with RPU and ♥♥♥♥, and become a real wasteland hero with 1mln karma and saving everyone (deathclaws included!)

Anyway, i have to say FO2 stopped being fun after Navarro. Once i hit the oil rig, all i faced was a massive "stop right there and dump all your non-human companions, and skeak in undercover"

That wasn't fun. I tried making my way shooting like mad but It was unpractical as the oil rig is way too much riddled with enclave foes. I'd swear It's the most massively populated area after New Reno.

The shock-puzzle trap room was just plain unfun, and felt like a terrible attempt to prolong a 3minute zone run onto a 30min one.

Getting the presidential key (for blasting Horrigan with turrets) was also an unnecessary metagame-driven slog, as the President couldn't be killed the classic way, without alerting the whole damn area. But pumping him with superStims and explosives worked, duh.

I mostly failed to understand how to trigger the final sequence, so i resorted to threaten the energy scientist to cause a reactor meltdown.

Granite & Friends couldn't be recruited no matter what, as i didn't care to pump points into speech (i had 72%). who cares.

Horrigan felt like a terrible end boss compared to the Master (Fo1). I felt he was just sitting there just to make an excuse of a fight for that forgettable area (i had to reload twice due to bs crits)

[Johnny Casey]

I love the fact that you gotta blow up the computer, not the reactor itself to cause the meltdown. I always end up trying to blow up the reactor and then scratch my head wondering why it's not working.

[LeoBerlin]

Originally posted by Johnny Casey:

I love the fact that you gotta blow up the computer, not the reactor itself to cause the meltdown. I always end up trying to blow up the reactor and then scratch my head wondering why it's not working.

Man it took me so many tries to figure that out lmao. Almost drove me nuts. At somepoint i even thought i had to get into that separated room somehow.

@Kalameet
The Shock room is annyoing yes. Everything else you said is basically wrong/not true.

[Kalameet]

Originally posted by LeoBerlin:

@Kalameet
The Shock room is annyoing yes. Everything else you said is basically wrong/not true.

Please elaborate further then.

FO1 still has the best endgame areas, where entering/leaving guns blazing feels very rewarding.

Entering guns blazing on the oil rig felt like a "uh no, don't, no matter how clinical insane you could be".

There's literally nothing that justifies why Horrigan should intercept the player right before the place goes boom. There's literally no way to avoid fighting him (and i'm not talking about using the turrets)

AFAIK, obtaining the presidential key requires metagame knowledge and that's terrible game design to me.

[Johnny Casey]

Originally posted by Kalameet:

FO1 still has the best endgame areas, where entering/leaving guns blazing feels very rewarding.

I won't say it was 'rewarding', but rather, it was 'easier' to do so in the first game, as a few mutants with couple of freaky monsters or robots aren't really much of a threat to begin with. Enclaves are much tougher enemies where the ever-popular '140 in either small guns / energy weapons skill and aim for the eyes' strategy isn't all that effective.

Originally posted by Kalameet:

Entering guns blazing on the oil rig felt like a "uh no, don't, no matter how clinical insane you could be".

The turrets and robots are kind of a problem, but you can definitely do it, even if you're not alone. You just gotta make sure none of your party members are told to 'stay close to me' with the distance setting, so it would mean no Marcus and Goris allowed there.

Originally posted by Kalameet:

There's literally nothing that justifies why Horrigan should intercept the player right before the place goes boom. There's literally no way to avoid fighting him (and i'm not talking about using the turrets)

Isn't that room the only exit of the oil rig? It makes sense to me that an ultimate bodyguard in the area is blocking the only way out when the place is gonna fall apart. As for having no choice but to fight him; well, the game lets you sneak through the end game area without a single threat of combat by simply equipping an armor, so it compensates that. Plus, you got all the supports in the world to bring him down.

Originally posted by Kalameet:

AFAIK, obtaining the presidential key requires metagame knowledge and that's terrible game design to me.

The terminal in the room full of turrets will mention that you'll need a presidential pass, so the game informs you about the existent of the item before-hand, and it is possible to outright kill the president in combat and not 'alert' the whole base, if you done that while sneaking, along with high enough sneak skill.

[Kalameet]

Originally posted by Johnny Casey:

Originally posted by Kalameet:

AFAIK, obtaining the presidential key requires metagame knowledge and that's terrible game design to me.

The terminal in the room full of turrets will mention that you'll need a presidential pass, so the game informs you about the existent of the item before-hand, and it is possible to outright kill the president in combat and not 'alert' the whole base, if you done that while sneaking, along with high enough sneak skill.

According to the wiki, a sneak kill on the president is not guaranteed, and that has been my case. While I myself didn't have a stupid high sneak, i utterly devastated Navarro by doing a stealth burst (lol) with Bozar.
I did the same thing with a scientist on the oil rig, but sneaking in a kill on the president didn't worked at all. Had to do the annoying C4+superstim thing.

[The Great Cornholio]

I think you can bring your companions inside if they have power armor

[[OCe]Kagari]

How do you guys have companions? I wasted like 100++ stimpaks because I alerted the whole base and beaten all the oilrig soldiers alone, I also lost count how much I load my save when fighting Horrigan

[kud1]

Hmm? Did you know that charisma is responsible for recruiting companions? The number of companions you can have is charisma divided by two, rounded down. On top of that, there is a perk that allows you to have an extra companion. If you have 1 charisma you can't have any companion, with charisma 2 or 3 you can have one, with 4 and 5 you can have two, and so on.

[[OCe]Kagari]

Originally posted by kud1:

Hmm? Did you know that charisma is responsible for recruiting companions? The number of companions you can have is charisma divided by two, rounded down. On top of that, there is a perk that allows you to have an extra companion. If you have 1 charisma you can't have any companion, with charisma 2 or 3 you can have one, with 4 and 5 you can have two, and so on.

uhh, yeah I only had 1 charisma, I thought it was a dump stat like in NV, oh well

[Jaeus]

I remember one of these runs as a kid where I went in with a like full party of 6, hacked the turrets, bartered some Enclave assistance, and poor Frank was fighting about 20 to 1.
Honestly, my biggest gripe is that Frank ruins a Pacifist run. No matter how you deal with him, he's always going to get added to your Kill tally. But at that point the game is over so it also doesn't really matter.

That said, I can see the criticism that the Enclave Rig is too scripted and narrow, making it a lot less fun than the 2 endgame spots of Fallout 1. I don't remember Fallout 1 that much from when I was a kid but I do recall the endgame was basically that you had to go and deal with the Military Base on one end, and the Master's Necropolis(?) on the other end, and both were proper locations in the game you could approach normally, and in a variety of methods.

[Anderson]

Oil Rig is fine.

Puzzle Room isn't amazing, but at least something different.

You don't have to do guns blazing, you can just sneak through, get the guy to blow the reactor (or do it yourself), and then just get through horrigan.
Horrigan is a decent final boss. Better than the Master in terms of combat mechanics, though less interesting as an actual antagonist, since you see him once, and a few more times just in recordings. He doesn't have any character otherwise.

You don't have to use the turrets to beat Horrigan. Just talk to the soldiers in the room just before, and they will help you. With them on your side, you can take on Horrigan and the turrets with good chance of winning.

[:|]

I am 100% agree with you. I did not pump charisma at all, did not get the presidential key, i was there solo without companions. So i was doomed to die every time i try to deal with that boss. Labyrinth in the last location, with electric floor, for me it is and attempt to take excess stimpacks. After all i did, in the end game just checks my charisma stat and also i need to pick the key from a dead president, and only then i will able to finish it and watch my endings. I really think the f1 boss and location and endgame at all were better than that, but 99% of time i spent in f2 were funny, interesing, cool and so on. Sorry for my english, just cry from the heart, if you can call it that.

[Bunda]

I feel you. The last areas of the game feel rushed. San Fran is kinda interesting, but the fact that ALL bookshelves and lockers are empty kinda shows that they just didn't bother filling it.
And the oil rig is so frustating, almost no NPCs there to talk to, no places to use your skills. They had a bomb there, you'd figure repairing it or using science in the terminals to trigger it would be a cool solution, but nah. The whole releasing FEV in the vents serves almost no purpose too. It clears the reactor room out of scientists, so there's that, but wouldn't it be cooler if that was one way to sneak kill the president instead? I even thought it was an alternative to the entire meltdown thing, just release the virus and leave everyone to die, but no, there must be a big explosion in the end... Bringing companions inside was soooo convoluted, I had to do so much testing and even after figuring how to do it, the enemies on some areas would just attack regardless, so I had to sneak by entering combat mode and ending it after getting past them. So much trial and error there. It didn't feel hard, it felt broken.
And the final boss... bleh. I was looking forward to 1X1 Frank Horrigan in a punching match, had a melee character ready for it, but... that just isn't an option. you either fight along or against the turrets, the option to disable them just doesn't work. Same for Granite. If you have Granite and the turrets by your side, it's too easy, you don't even have to do anything, and if you have them both against you, it's too hard. It feels unfair either way. I had the turrets by me and Granite by Horrigan, and it was still too easy. I'll just assume that Granite with you and the turrets with Horrigan is the balanced option, but with a speech skill of 85% I couldn't attempt that.
Edit: I stand corrected, I just tried the final boss me and my companions against Granite's squad, Horrigan and the turrets and it still wasn't hard. Next time I'll try fighting Horrigan with groin punches only.

[УберСтас]

I agree there, Fallout 1 final location had more unsettling feeling. It's probably caused by this specific thing with Fallout 2 - it was released 85% finished, so alot of moments starting with San Fran (or even Vault 13) were rushed and some things were cut from the game.

[DuckieMcduck]

Fallout 1 was also rushed, however what they couldn't finish iirc was The Glow. It was meant to be much bigger. Fallout 2 went the other way around and added a bunch of bells and whistles, but very unfortunately it left the main hook of the game weakened.

Enclave base was such a miss in the sense that it lacked the richness of everything else. It had basically no one to really talk to (in Navarro there were quite a few folk). It's also narratively stupid because you go in with a whole ass tanker into the rig and somehow nobody noticed or went to check. The President claims their FEV is basically done and there's nothing you can do (you never actually see the virus or the vaccines). It didn't feel like a place but rather a shoehorned section, weak all around. The game may as well have ended when you got the GECK.

It all instead ends with Frank, which is a godawful boss. Not because he is difficult, and takes ~10 minigun turret crits + 8 armor piercing rockets to kill, but because it stifles the ways in which you can go around him. They're all combat oriented; you can't sneak around him, you can't steal his gear, you can't rig a trap, you can't lockpick the exit, can't talk to him, can't give him money. You either seduce Granite or shove the president card in there. In my first playthrough of FO1 I didn't even see the Master but got the nuke, which to me was very fun because I actually felt like I infiltrated the place and sabotaged it "for real", then went back to try other things. Meanwhile the Enclave place is extremely railroaded from start to finish, and I was impressed there was actually no other way to go about it.