I love New Vegas, its my favorite game of all time. And it is for a lot of other people too. This unfortunately means that its almost impossible to say anything negative about the game on Reddit without getting massively shat on. The only point you seem to be allowed to criticize is the bugs, which gets rebutted by "but they only had 18 months to make it" or "Bethesda was in charge of QA", as if any of these things excuse it for you as a customer.
So now that the game is 10 years old and most of us have played it tons of times, I thought it would be a good time to make a thread where we can actually criticize this lovely game. I'll start, now bear in mind this is of course all degrees of subjective so don't throw "uR nOT obJEvTiVE" at me just yet:

1. The bugs has to be meantioned first. The game ran horribly at release and still did for a long time after. Its first many years later with patches and mods that we reached something that can be called mostly stable. I'm playing it right now only with stability mods on and it still crashes about once every 1-2 hours, and its still very buggy and janky.
   
2. Caravan, this game's made up card game, is horrible. Firstly its very buggy somehow. I am surprised they couldn't even bug fix a solitaire-like card game, but here we are. Secondly even when it works its not very fun. It takes minimum 3 cards to make a caravan and only one king or jack to ruin it. It means it heavily favors just fucking up your opponent and hope you win the war of card attrition. The game used to be stupidly easy but was then patched so now the AI will spam kings and jacks constantly. After I got the 30 games achievement I dropped it. Lastly the game doesn't do anything with Caravan. There is no quest to become the Mojave champion or such. I get this isn't needed but it would have helped make it interesting. The only other games in the game are casino games which all depends on your luck stat. I would love being able to play high stakes Caravan.
   
3. Cut content. Roleplaying is best when you actually have good reason to join both sides. In Fallout New Vegas the NCR gets the majority of the content. If you side with the Legion you can finish all the faction quests in a few hours, meanwhile the NCR has so many quests I always have to check the wiki to remember them all. Its such a shame. It doesn't help that for 3 of the endings you can work with the NCR but only 1 for the Legion. I don't get this when in 2 of those endings you end up double crossing the NCR anyways, why not allow the player to double cross the Legion? The difference being that the NCR will stand down and the Legion will then try to fight you and your army.
   
4. Caesar's Legion is weird. I love most of the faction. I love the ideological conflict between a faction trying to redo democracy but running into the same problems with corruption vs a brutal but safe dictatorship. I like talking to everyone and its cool to see how different peoples' options are of the factions. Some just hate the Legion outright because of their massacre. Some see the value of having a safe society, Cass mentions how she considered running her caravan in the Legion instead of the NCR because its safer. Its cool. However I can't get over the fact that this faction is a big ancient Rome LARP. They run around in football gear. Why not just make them look normal, or similar to Romans but not literally Romans. Its such a well crafted faction that gets ruined by this pretty silly design.
   
5. Independent is basically the House route but with you instead. You don't get to choose what your plans are other than your interactions with the small factions, which also doesn't feel special. You don't ever get to use your securitrons. It would have been extremely cool to be able to send your army with you to wipe out or subjugate factions instead of just doing the same quest you do if you side with House. Again, you are also forced into a choice between an uneasy alliance with the NCR where you double cross them, or killing both major factions. You can't make it clear to them beforehand that you don't want to be annexed.
   
6. The economy is poorly balanced. In Fallout 3 you barely made any money and vendors were just as poor, so it took a long time to accumulate wealth. Most players would just use gear they found instead of paying for it at a store. In Fallout New Vegas you can easily have 5000 caps by the time you reach The Strip. I had twice that when I reached it 2 days ago. Stores have tons of money and are more than willing to buy all your junk. The economy just breaks when vendors are willing to buy all the crap you pick up at such high prices as NV has. I think you can get them to buy for 90% of their value, that's fucking insane. I try to not level up barter too quickly as it just makes the game too easy but I also hate crippling myself like this. The game's vendors need to be selective about what they buy and how much they pay for it. You need 2000 caps to inter the strip, that's pretty much nothing. The game even gives you tons of ways around the credit check so clearly they meant for it to be a hurdle.
   
7. The map. I'm not saying its bad, but going from Fallout 3 to NV makes you miss the feeling of being able to go in any direction and always find something. New Vegas is very railroaded. It has a ton of mountains and invisible walls to make the player go specific places (Edit: a lot of people are citing this one setence and using it to rebut me, guys read the whole damn thing). I can still let myself get lost in Fallout 3, in NV I always know exactly which way I'm supposed to go. The game has no counterpart to F3's Andale or Oasis. There are no small outskirts places for you to discover in some random spot. All the towns are along the main roads, with a handful of cool places that are off the beaten path. I love following the road through Primm->Nipton->Novac->Boulder City->Vegas, its an excellent experience for following the main story and finding a ton of side content, and I love they gave returning players the option to head straight north and try their luck. But when I just want to do some side content I always feel like I have to follow a track. I AM NOT SAYING THE MAP IS BAD. Just that it follows a certain design that some don't like. I like it when I just want to do the main story, its a really nice experience that way. But if you want to just go in any direction like in a Bethesda RPG you will get disappointed. There are tons of invisible walls and mountains in the way. Imagine if you started in Freeside instead and just had to get the cash to get into the strip (more than 2k). Then you can choose to follow the I-88, go towards Jacobstown, Bitter Springs, do stuff in Freeside or the other communities around Vegas. Would be a great alternative start for returning players.
   

Edit: some extra

1. Combat is ass to say it bluntly. For some reason people always excuse the poor combat in RPG's because its not the games' focus or because its almost tradition at this point. I don't see why I as a player and paying customer should make excuses for a product I paid for. Its embarrasing how poor the AI is in the game, how poorly combat works and how unbalanced the game is. I can go through a ton of the game with my Couriers Stash 10mm and Vault armor and just blast entire legion or NCR camps, and then suddenly difficulty can turn on a dime and an enemy can kill me in 3-4 hits. Difficulty in RPGs is such an important thing as it directly influences your decisions. In Fallout 1 and 2 I did my best to not bite off more than I could chew. In NV can do pretty much anything other than go to Sloan at the start, which is a part that most have noticed too.
   
2. The selection of guns is fine, but not armors. Without ultimate edition you don't get any good early game armor in the game. The only option is leather armor. Mid game you fight to get either power armor or combat armor mk2, and late game is all about Riot Gear from Lonesome Road. They could have made armor interesting by giving it stronger buffs and debuffs. PA and metal armor has a -1 to agility but often +1 to strength. Why not give such traits to all armors and maybe even make it stronger? Too much of the armor is also faction armor which you don't want to be wearing unless you are infiltrating somewhere.
   
3. Speech is too much like Fallout 3 and not enough like 1 and 2. In 3 and NV dialogue either ends in a skill check (too often speech) or you having to do a task if you can't pass the check. What's being said is largely unimportant unless it leads to a different outcome. In Fallout 1 and 2 dialogue was much more about reading each option and thinking about how the character you were talking too would react. You often couldn't just [speech] 50 do what I want. NV has a few moments where you actually does have to argue and its some of its strongest parts.
   
4. Crafting could have been more. This is more of a "what could have been" argument, but personally I don't see why you shouldn't be able to craft a lot more guns or armors. I don't want Fallout 4's style of somehow being able to craft tons of pre war objects you clearly don't have the tools to make, but just having a good selection of makeshift guns and armors would have made crafting and also survival much better.
   

These are my thoughts. Please feel free to share yours!

THANK YOU MODS FOR LETTING THIS THROUGH!
Please click HERE for the PDF version if you would like to download the dd.
(credit: research compiled by IG:@wydstockbros)
To get things started, I'm not a financial advisor, I'm not a bot, and this one goes out to you, Chamath.
---
tl;dr
AMC is the global leader in a $17 billion dollar industry that’s been beaten senseless to the ground with so much room to run. After pioneering deals with streaming services, buying out their competition, and upgrading their facilities worldwide, 80% short interest is highly inappropriate for its TRUE fundamental value — $69.69 a share.
🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀$AMC TO $69.69🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀$AMC TO THE MOON🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
---
"I'm questioning whether they[WSB] are actually doing the research when it comes to things like GameStop and AMC ..." - clueless CNBC dude.
I fuckin miss movies. And when I say movies, I mean the whole damn experience. I wanna buy my $15 popcorn, pour an ungodly amount of butter and jalapenos on that shit and munch in a recliner seat watching in laser 4k quality. I like this company. I like this stock.
For the past few days, I've been scouring Google for news articles and company data. I've also been trying to find some detailed DD in here but they’ve all been pretty limp-dick when it came to AMC. And most of the news articles I've read were surface-level AT BEST with a grim outlook based on first-glance analysis. Guess these analysts are just too damn lazy to dig deep.
Because when we dive into these issues, we can easily see that the theater giant may not be in as bad a situation as the media/analysts are claiming.
In fact, I believe that AMC is absolutely misunderstood, overlooked, and undervalued.
Here is why I am more confident than ever that $AMC will not only reach $30 but is in the perfect setup to see ATHs and WELL ABOVE.

I. Ugly Start, Beautiful Setup

Chances are if you are currently holding a significant position in $AMC, then most likely you've already read up on the company and its current standing in the cinema industry. You've probably read about how the corporation has nearly $5 billion dollars worth of debt with many of its locations still closed as the pandemic remains a global issue. You may have realized that new movies haven't been coming out. But more than that, you're seeing that movies are just being released on streaming platforms anyway. You might be concerned for AMC, or even the industry as a whole.
All of these concerns are very valid and based on real uncertainty, but let's break down each of these points and see if they’re as bad as analysts claim.

II. A Discussion on Debt

Media outlets keep honing in on this debt like it’s an ugly scar of the corporation. But what we need to focus on is why that debt came to be, how the money was spent, and how this debt was a strategic play in order to cement AMC into the new era of cinema-streaming.
We can categorize the money used into four parts:

• New equipment and amenities
• Lease payments
• Maintenance costs (utilities, wages, etc.)
• Expansion (buying out the competition)

Pay close attention to the last category because this one is important. Over the past five years, AMC has been acquiring smaller theater companies like Odeon. After buying out these companies, AMC then had to suit its "new locations" with the standard luxury amenities AMC is known for. This makes for a significant bulk of their debt totaling over $3 billion in just acquisitions. This was the investment that helped solidify AMCs spot as the world's largest cinema chain.
On the topic of maintenance costs, AMC managed to raise enough money to get through 2021. With ongoing news of vaccines, we can hope their efficacy leads to a speedy reopening near mid-late 2021. But when the economy does reopen—and AMC is back at full operation—what will it look like?

III. The Future of AMC

There's an elephant here.. right in this very room. Yes, streaming and cinema have had some serious beef in the past. In fact, some cinema chains are having tensions with streaming to this day. But what has AMC done in regards to streaming? They were the first to settle deals in order to partner up and take part in streaming revenue.
Yup, you read that right. AMC is both having their cake and eating it too.
Why would motion picture companies do this? Why not just end the cinema industry? To put simply, analysts are deeply underestimating the value of the "cinema experience". Just as I mentioned in the intro, I miss the cinemas. But I am definitely not alone. But let's not talk about me and the hypothetical "people'', instead let's talk about research studies.
In a 3-year study done in Korea, researchers found that shortening the window of cinema exclusivity and releasing movies on streaming early did not have a significant effect on ticket sales. And though this is a limited study done outside of the US, remember that AMC is a global corporation and these results have a hopeful outlook for the future relationship of cinema-streaming for AMC worldwide.
"But wait, you still haven't mentioned what streaming gets out of this?"
It's not what streaming "gets out of this" but rather what these motion picture companies maintain in keeping a healthy relationship with cinemas. During the peak heat of the movie theater-streaming feud, AMC halted the showing of Trolls and vowed to never show a Universal Pictures film in its theaters again if they were to continue releasing their films on streaming platforms without a proper cinema-exclusivity window. But today, we can see that the tensions have fallen and both motion picture companies and AMC have found a way to mutually benefit each other.
Now besides streaming, AMC has been investing in luxury amenities as seen by their chairs, 4K laser projectors, MERV air filtration, and ultra-surround sound speakers. With so many locations and so many amenities, they are offering full theater rentals with high demand during the pandemic. AMC has further cultivated their century-old movie experience into modern times. And this pandemic didn’t just change their amenities.
They had to learn how to cut costs and have more efficient operations in order to survive. This only spells good news for when they emerge with better operations, more money to spend, and higher valuations. So that begs the question, how high can the company's share price go realistically?

IV. Valuation

First, let's look at the Movie Theater industry as a whole in comparison to a few other popular entertainment industries:
Movie Theater US Market Size $17.1 billion
Casinos US Market Size $15.7 billion
Amusement Parks US Market Size $14 billion
Music Label Music Production US Market Size $9.4 billion
Music Publishing US Market Size $7 billion
In the world of entertainment, cinema is a very lucrative business.
And, again, who is the largest movie theater chain in the world? Yup, AMC.
Clueless CNBC dude mentioned that we retail traders don't trade with a fundamental reason but is there a fundamental reason in shorting a $17 billion dollar industry GLOBAL leader down to its grave? Does AMC deserve to die? I surely don't think so.
Now I won't touch upon squeezes in this since I'm sure many of you folk have already read/heard enough about them, but I will leave this quick intuitive article about it. And yes, these shorts can and will be squoze once we have faith in our upper valuations and investors(we) begin buying again.
And buy again we will. As many users flee limp-dick Robinhood and join one of the real brokerages, their positions/funds will be settled and ready to trade come next week. Where do you think these angry RH refugees will be putting their investments? That's right, exactly into the positions that RH stopped them from buying last week: which includes $AMC.
If you were part of the RH user base and your plays were affected by the blatant market manipulation, it's not only "not too late", but I believe it is an opportune time to BUY.
How high can it go then? When will I know it's too late to take a position?
So when we talk about valuation, many people fear the uncertainty of a stock rising far past its current value. Well, I think Chamath Palihapitiya said it best:
"Everybody that bought that stock is also underwriting how they want to own it."
In our current price-action environment, it's not too ridiculous to see how we are forming the foundations for AMC to continue rising beyond ATHs. We are already hitting nearly $16 on the day and rallying +53% while enduring heavy trade restrictions. Who's to say that this passion cannot continue? Now I’m no expert and can’t tell you how high this can go, but I am personally eyeing $69.69 as a target.
With so many current factors at play including hype, short covers, and ITM options having to be exercised, this is actually the BEST entrance to manifest its ATH valuation and chart some never before seen territory in its price action. It's like the manifest destiny of stock valuation. In fact, we may never see this opportunity for AMC again if we don't act now and solidify its value upward.
At the end of the day, prices are what the buyers/sellers settle upon so WE can pioneer that value if we damn well please. This is what a free market is all about.
Will there be people that disagree with this?
Sure.
Will people continue to short AMC as it goes up?
Absolutely.
Do I think that AMC being shorted 80% and rising is fair?
Really? See section III.
But institutions are selling off! Like Silver Lake liquidating their 44m shares.
Yes, then the next day $AMC dipped to $7.50 and has since recovered… with AMC $600m less in debt.
We all know who is shorting AMC, and I am sick of these hedge funds who think they, alone, can decide whether or not a company is worth a damn.

V. Conclusion - Resurgence

We are at the cusp of AMCs resurgence. Because most of us have been kept from participating in social activities, we can better understand that the public is yearning for a sense of normalcy. Sure we've gone pretty far with just watching movies on our TVs or computers through the pandemic, but that doesn't scratch the itch for many folk.
What you're investing into when you invest in AMC is the entire experience in tandem with its new streaming deals. And having been beaten so low—while still holding such great fundamental prospects— its share price is ready to blow up.
In the future when “The Deep Squeeze” is turned into a movie, we’ll be a part of history.
And you’re going to want to see it on the big screen.
--
Position: $50k in calls and shares
🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀$AMC TO $69.69🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀$AMC TO THE MOON🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀

Trials of Osiris. Once the greatest most anticipated heart pounding, anxiety inducing game mode ever! To succeed you must be... Flawless.
At least, that's what it used to be. Now it's more like a casino.
Top tier players waltz into games with people far below their own skill level. They utterly annihilate them, then move to the next table. So to speak.
Round 1 farming is a plague. An infection caused by a faulty system, tokens.
It's not the tokens fault, they themselves fill their role rather well, it's how people acquire them that's the issue.
THE PROBLEM
Sweats McGee, plugged into his Gfuel IV drip and his gaming catheter, holds his Felwinters close to his heart. Trials has come, and it's time to get free tokens.
He tightens his stompees, maybe does the laces on his dunemarchers a little tighter today, and thanks the space dorito for ice magic, before heading out to 0 win farm.
His 3 stack comes up against an innocent trio of new lights, fresh meat.
After a completely one sided duel, McGee is a few tokens richer. But instead of moving on to more of a challenge, he resets his card!
Back to 0 wins, and a new trio of new lights, and most importantly, quick easy tokens...
This is the issue. The top players have figured out that the best way to quickly farm god rolls, is to stay on the bottom rung! Poor Tommy who saw the cool new game mode on the game he got for Christmas stands no chance against these heartless monsters.
If saint could see what what you were doing, he'd call it shameful.
A redesign of the reward system is in order. How do we satisfy all levels of players with an activity meant to be the ultimate crucible experience?
Well actually, I've figured it out. We make tiers.
Easy way to fix trials: 2 separate tiers.
Tier 1, non flawless this week.

Rewards only drop from a certain win streak ONCE per week. No more resetting to get tokens all the time, quit whining. People in tier 1 can ONLY match people in tier 1. To pad out the lack of farmability, increase the rewards from tier 1 substantially. Not just more tokens, I'm talking a gun or armor piece with high stats per win. Once you hit flawless? Boom tier 2 time.
Tier 2, The summit of the mountaintop.

Rewards can be earned multiple times in this tier, but you can only match up against other players in tier 2. No more pub stomping at 0 wins for tokens and then resetting. Every match will be against a flawless player of that weekend. Also, rewards will be redistributed, significantly. Way less tokens at a 2 tier one win streak. Way more for going flawless at tier 2. Also, guns and shit, back to the 3, 5, and 7 drops. Have a tier 2 flawless weapon drop like some insanely good shit too. I'm talking 66+ stat armor guaranteed! A definite drop of both an adept weapon AND mod from one run too.
Tier 2 flawless will be the hardest, truest challenge. We shouldn't skimp on rewards.
People who hit tier 2 will always queue for tier 2. A tier 1 player that weekend CAN queue into tier 1 with Tier 2 players, BUT NOT the other way around.
The tier 2 players who are piggybacking in tier 1 will receive 0 rewards at every point in a tier 1 flawless run!
Conclusion
If you managed to read this far, respect. This was awfully wordy. The way to keep top tier players out of the bottom rung is to force them out, or remove the incentive of it. Let me know your thoughts in the comments, I'd love to discuss!

Hello all New Vegas enthusiasts! I am currently working on a mod to rebalance New Vegas, similar to the popular JSawyer mod, but sort of my own take on it. I have over 2000 hours in the game and it has become pretty easy to me, especially after completing multiple "1 life" runs of the game. In my time playing this game, I've noticed a lot of strategies that veteran players have that could be considered "overcentralizing" or "cheap". My mod will be an effort to remove a lot of these options, and to rebalance some things that I have almost never used in all my time playing New Vegas. This includes mostly perks, a couple of weapons, and the clothing apparel. I'm making this post to try to get some ideas on changes from other veterans! I will list a few of the changes I've already made here.
-Removed the three free Black Combat Armors at Durable Dunn's Sacked Caravan -Changed Orris' weapon from a hunting revolver to a .357 magnum revolver -bighorners now give much less XP when killed -snowglobes have been rebalanced to give 500 caps -Casino gambling limits have been lowered (you will be kicked out of the casino more quickly) -Your character dehydrates/starves/gets sleep deprived more quickly -The 1st recon beret no longer enhances critical hit chance -all 'clothing' which has no DT will receive a buff in the form of increased skills or attributes -Silenced .22 SMG has replaced the 9mm SMG in Mr. House's basement (I thought this weapon was quite cool, but extremely rare to find in the game world)

After 80 hours of playing on PS5, I got my platinum trophy.
Cyberpunk 2077 is really good, albeit pretty buggy, throughout my playthrough on PS5, my game crashed probably 50+ times but I wasn't too mad as I manually saved frequently and any progress blocking bugs were fixed after a quick load of a checkpoint.
I played as a Male Street Kid V and I didn't mind his VO, there were times where he came off as kind of a try-hard tough guy but It honestly felt charmingly dorky because of the moments where V is just being himself and isn't being that dorky try-hard; And while the life-paths ultimately didn't impact anything major, I enjoyed the flavor dialog you get when the life-path exclusive options pop up, some even opened up different way of completing certain quests, which I thought was pretty neat.
The gameplay felt good to me after some tinkering around with the sensitivity options, I mainly just used power weapons and only really used Skippy as a Smart weapon and I really liked how punchy the sound of guns were; melee was fine for an fps game, though I didn't like how magnetized some of the enemies attacks were, so regardless if you dodged, you still risked a hit; parrying felt weird, I feel like it only worked half the time and when it did, it was when I was nowhere near for a good hit; kinda wish there was some kind of grappling to mix things up between light and heavy attacks.
Looting, I felt had issues, I always grabbed something that was way far off to the side of the thing I was actually trying to grab, it was even worse when it was a gun under a body where you had to find a sweet spot to grab it.
I rarely dabbled in crafting if only to get Comrade's Hammer and Overwatch to Legendary but there are things I hope they add in the future, mainly batch crafting for things like ammo and grenades rather than holding square for 10 minutes just to have a decent amount, also a counter to see how much of that item you already have would definitely be helpful for things like ammo crafting.
I REALLY wished this game had more to offer in terms of customization, there was no customization options for vehicles, for guns you only really get scopes and muzzles for things that appear on certain weapons along with mods which are purely for stats, there's so many decent options for outfits but you tend to be forced into having clothes that look bad but have better stats and mod slots and not something that's cool to you, hopefully transmog gets added along with barber shops and plastic surgeons. Also, a little nitpick of mine, but the lack of cloth physics on coats for V was kinda sad, its definitely possible as River and Takemura's coats have physics applied to them, maybe its just a PS4 version issue and it'll be something they might add with the next-gen version but I honestly doubt it.
Cars handled fine for me and I really liked the look and feel of some of the cars, even the more luxurious cars that I tend to avoid in most open world games. In the beginning, the driving felt like a more manageable, better handling version of GTA IV but as I got better with it, it clicked to me, its JUST Saint Row 2's driving which I really liked because I feel like SR2 has the best driving controls in any open world game.
Night City and the Badlands were really masterfully created, each area had their own style that really appealed to me and I look forward to how much better they can look in the next-gen version; I can't say I have any areas that I would consider my favorite as I really enjoyed the map as a whole but there was nothing that really grabbed me like the West End in Vampyr for example.
The story was REALLY FUCKING GOOD! All of the characters felt real and really fit with the character of V, I really liked how much V grows throughout the story from being a cocky street kid to someone who cares about the people close to him but is scared of his situation.
Johnny starts as an obnoxious asshole but you can definitely tell that V changes him to be a better person (at least in my game), and you start to sympathize with his actions and reasonings and he becomes a really likeable and funny character in most of the side missions; And his ending where he takes over V is just sad, loses the guy he was trying to save and Rouge, I interpreted that ending as Johnny getting a second chance at life he didn't want and while he probably doesn't want to ruin this second chance, he's more than likely mentally checked out and is just waiting for his time to come. Keanu did a really good job with Johnny and I honestly can't think of anyone who would have done a better job.
I really like Judy, she such a bittersweet character, she loses Evelyn, who she definitely had feelings for, tries to help the workers at Clouds but gets screwed over by someone with ulterior motives and as an end result decides to leave NC, looking for her happiness, and judging from her texts and ending message, she does. (except the Suicide ending, loses the girl she had feeling for and one of her closest friends both to suicide, even though I romanced Panam, Judy's message hit the hardest and was incredibly sad)
Panam, in my opinion, on top of being a great character in general, has the best romanceable storyline in a video game, with Jack from ME2 being a close 2nd; the whole relationship dynamic between Panam and V felt natural and made you feel invested in the character, from two people reluctantly paired together by Rouge due to similar objectives and keeping things strictly professional even when V awkwardly flirts with her, and you start to get closer and become friends when you help her with Aldecaldo problems, but then "With a little help from my friends" happens, the "follow your impulses" comment that V makes that Panam follows through with later on was an interesting way of V giving her hints on his feelings, the biggest moment that completely sells the relationship, happens during the campfire; early in the mission, V can talk about Jackie to which Panam will say "I'll remember that" AND BOY DOES SHE REMEMBER THAT, during the campfire, you can toast to Scorpion, an Aldecaldo who died earlier in the questline, everyone, including V toast to Scorpion... except Panam who says "to Jackie", that moment sold me on Panam as a love interest, she cares about V so much that she toasted to a guy she never met just off of the basis that V told her how close he and Jackie were and that he missed him, everything before that was nice but that was just the cherry on top, after that everything is just heart warming and cute as they both completely go all in on their relationship, and the Nomad ending reinforces this but I'll touch on that later.
River was really cool, I dug his character and questline (which is insanely fucked up, but really cool), I laughed when his sister was flirting with V and Rivers like "Nope, bro-code", he's also got a SICK coat.
I didn't like Kerry at first, he seemed like a complete douche, gets you to hijack and burn an band equipment van because someone was covering his song, then drags us into helping him intimidate Us Cracks who where just trying to pay homage and respect to him, after the moment where he understood and accepted that, he became a much better character; trashing the yacht was a pretty fun moment too.
Vik was basically the Uncle character, he cares about V but isn't afraid to hit him with reality, I immediately payed my tab as he deserved it IMO, the fact he also gives V a tip during the final Beat the Brat fight was cool given his history in boxing.
Misty is an absolute sweet heart, you bond with her over Jackie's death and you can tell how important she meant to him and vice-versa, getting her to bond with Mama Wells was neat too, her telling you stories about Jackie while your trying to find something for his memorial was really cool.
Takamura was cool, I dug the moments you can tell V's attitude rubbed off on him, even though you can tell that he's 100% Arasaka, I felt that he would accept you as a friend even if you have different opinions on Arasaka than him (he doesn't, tells you to burn in hell). That parade mission was really cool and the selfie he sends you, 10/10.
I wish we had more time with Jackie, he seemed like a really cool character and experiencing those moments of growth between Jackie and V and meeting Misty and Mama Wells would have been great and really would have made that moment with Panam feel even better had we had more time with Jackie in the beginning as the bond between Jackie and V would have meant more when he does unfortunately die.
The endings vary from absolutely depressing all the way to heartwarming and hopeful.
The suicide ending fucking sucks in the best way, V believing that killing himself is the best way of keeping those he cares about safe and ending his situation with Johnny, but the messages speak otherwise; Misty telling Vik to send a message as a way of coping, Mama Wells praying for you as she probably felt like she just lost two sons in V and Jackie, Judy... fucking hell man, couldn't imagine what was going through her head during that message, Panam's rage at realizing that the man she loved killed himself even though she offered to help him with his situation, River understanding as his previous partner suffered the same fate but also knows its incredibly sad that there's one less good person in NC, Kerry being pissed that V felt that suicide was the right choice as he probably understood as Kerry was in a similar situation and was disappointed V didn't know better and Misty being mournful.
I already touched on the Johnny ending, but I honestly feel bad for Johnny because he didn't ask for a second chance and now he has to live with V and Rogue's deaths on his conscience, on top of probably burning any and all bridges with V's friends and loved ones.
The Arasaka ending is some borderline horror shit, being trapped in space with a corp who's researching your condition with probable ulterior motives, having nightmares because of the repetitive testing, calling your friends who tell you they miss you and to come back home (though, Panam was pissed when I called her) and in the end you have two choices, sell your soul and become an engram for an unknown amount time to Arasaka who probably wont give a shit about you after that or go back to earth and wait out the remaining time you have left.
Become a legend of Night City but ultimately feel you have nothing to lose as you'll die soon anyway and take an offer from Mr. Blue Eyes (Who's incredibly sketchy) to rob a space casino for info he wants.
Nomad Ending is the best ending IMO, not only because I romanced Panam which made the ending even better (and I know that if Female V romances Judy, she joins the Aldecaldo's as well and is also a really good, feel good ending) but also because it left more opportunity for a DLC Expansion than the other endings as well as a satisfying ending to V's story as a whole; the night before the raid was really nice, testing out the new systems on the basilisk with Mitch and the bottle challenge with Cassidy were cool but that's all I could do as the rest of the activities during this were glitched, cuddling with Panam on the overlook was nice, her getting some stress off her chest and V reassuring Panam that he cares about her and will be there for her no matter what was really sweet; the raid was cool, I was hoping Mitch didn't die when he went back to pilot the basilisk solo and I'm glad he didn't die as I grew to like him as basically a Nomad Vik, Saul dying kinda sucked as he seemed to be cooling down his ego and wanting to work things out with Panam for the betterment of the Aldecaldos but Adam stomping his head in was funny, at least Rouge got to blow him up before she dies in Johnny's ending; the moment at the Dam between V and Panam was nice, V saying that he's glad he met Panam and the Aldecaldos and that he has nothing left in Night City, and the moment with them on top of the basilisk was cute; the messages were nice during this ending, though I was kinda disappointed Judy has the same message for all of the non-suicide endings, Misty's Tarot reading message is incredibly important as to why I think Nomad is the best ending, there's already a bunch of threads that touch on that but it definitely says a lot when its the only ending that gives V a shred of a chance that he might cure his disease and survive.
Overall, I really enjoyed my time with Cyberpunk 2077, I'd probably place it as my second game of the year (with Tony Hawk's Pro-Skater 1+2 being my personal GOTY) due to bugs but I know In due time that the game will be something really great by the end of its life span and i hope that if a Cyberpunk 2 does happen, it'll be even better than Cyberpunk 2077; I haven't been able to get this game out of my head since I started playing it and I cannot wait to do this all over again when the PS5 version and all the DLC's come out.

When I was about to start a new playthrough, I initially loaded up heavily on mods. Way too heavily, in hindsight.
Had multiple quest mods that added NPCs. Mods like The Living Desert that added even more NPCs. Versions of mods like Uncut Wasteland that adds even MORE NPCs.
Had texture packs, as well. (NMC Small and Poco Bueno).
Almost immediately I would get hit with an "Out of Memory!" followed by a CTD.
Okay, fine, maybe I've got too much intensive stuff going on. I get it.
So I got rid of both texture packs, got rid of nearly every major mod I had that added NPCs except for a couple I wanted to keep, and things seemed to be going okay until...
Bam. Again. "Out of Memory!" -- CTD.
Compared to the load orders I see other people have, I know for a fact my list is light -- In the sense that I don't have many "overhaul" mods, I don't have mods that upscale textures (aside from WRP), and no mods that throw hundreds of NPCs on the screen at once
The majority of what I've downloaded are miniscule in both scope and in file size. You'll see in my Mod List below. Most of it is minor mods that either tweak certain gameplay elements, fix certain bugs or issues, or simply add individual items.
And I know for a fact that I installed ALL of the essentials correctly (NVSE, NVAC, NVTF, 4GB Patcher, JIP-LN, YUP, JohhnyGuitar NVSE, MCM, etc.), I followed Gopher's 2020 Modding Guide on YouTube to the letter.
The only thing I didn't install from his guide was a mod to change the UI -- I had a bad experience trying to mess with installing a UI mod a couple years ago, resulted in me having to uninstall and reinstall my entire game because I screwed up. I've sworn off from UI mods since then, I'm fine with just using the Vanilla UI.
I'm not running an ENB, either.
Regardless, after about 30 minutes of playtime, or, more often, entering/exiting interiors, I'm quickly greeted with O.O.M. messages.
Here's my Mod List:
________________________
ADAM Reborn
Alex's Backpack Mod
Black Mountain Dish Explosion Restored
Clarity - Orange Tint Remover
Colonel Autumn Preset
Dead Money Missing Return Options v2
Distributed Necklaces and Chains
Economy Overhaul
Explorer Perk Extended
External Frame Backpack
Fix for the Legion Armors
FOV Slider
Free the Slaves
Fuckable Companions
Functional Post Game Ending
Gas Masks of the World
Gun Runners Arsenal Merged
Honest Hearts Letter
Honest Hearts Rain
Intimacy Overhaul
JIP Improved Recipe Menu
Just Loot Menu
Just Vanilla Sprint
Legion Quests Expanded
Lonesome Road True Faction Allegiance
Mojave Raiders
Mojave Wildlife - FO3 No Chanced Spawns Version
More Beard and Moustache Options
NCR Trooper Overhaul
No Peep Sight
No Rain in Lucky 38
One HUD
OneTweak (Fake Fullscreen)
Prerelease Restored
Primm Reputation Restored
Project Nevada (Yes I know, it's an old mod, I'm just using it to get access to the equipment like the added guns, I've disabled pretty much every Core feature it attempts to implement, and I only have the Core, Equipment, and Rebalance modules installed)
Rainy Days V2
Real Recoil
Reload Animation Fix
Return Vance's Gun
Russell
Simple DLC Delay
Sneering Imperialist Expanded
Stewie Tweaks
The Courier (Armor Mod)
UIO
Ulysses Bark Fix
Uncut Wasteland (The version that doesn't add extra NPCs)
Unofficial Patch NVSE
Wasteland Seeker Armor
Weapons Animation Replacer
Weapon Mesh Improvement Mod
Weapon Retexture Project
Weapons of the New Millennia
___________
Any relevant patches that exist for any of those mods listed above to ensure compatibility with other mods have already been downloaded and taken into account.
I know that just from taking a first glance at my mod list, it looks like a lot.
And yeah, I never said it was a "minimal" load order, but I like to think that it's still a pretty light load, especially since I've seen other people's load orders here. And I've seen the kind of intensive stuff they run in the game.
And like I said, I originally had a bunch of stuff like Crowded Casinos, The Living Desert, Less Empty Primm, quest mods like New Vegas bounties, Courier's Cache, Depths of Depravity, etc. --- And all of that stuff has since been cut out of the list in order to lighten the game's strain.
Literally the only NPCs I'm adding to the game, at this point, are more raiders in certain locations with Mojave Raiders, more animals in certain areas with Mojave Wildlife, and maybe a couple extra actors through Prerelease Restored and Uncut Wasteland. But surely, that's not enough to be making my game shit the bed, right? What could be going on that's causing these Out of Memory Crashes?
My mod manager of choice is Vortex, for reference. Again, I followed Gopher's guide for modding New Vegas, and he used Vortex as well. So if you've got a problem with me using Vortex and wanna tell me all about how I should be using Mod Organizer 2 instead, take it up with Gopher. I personally prefer Vortex anyways. Has never given me more headaches than MO2 did.
If anyone has any advice on how to handle this Out of Memory issue, I'm all ears. I've tried to narrow down my mod list to only the stuff I truly desperately want to keep in the game, but if there's something I need to get rid of I'm willing to do so.
And I should mention I am playing this game on a gaming laptop that runs both this game and several newer titles perfectly fine. I'm not trying to run this game on a toaster, I have a heavily modded Skyrim Special Edition that also runs just fine, so it's not like my machine has a predisposition against Gamebryo engine, or anything like that.
Thanks for reading.

Mods please pin this as a resource!
Current Conditions of the Market:
Let me be clear: this is not the typical conditions of the market where stocks fluctuate double and triple digit percentages per day. There’s a place for that - the casino. In recent weeks, herds of new traders are pouring into the trading scene hoping to get a piece of the volatile market that has turned the rags to riches, or the other way around. The stock market as a whole, under normal conditions, moves gradually in both directions, guided by trends, innovation, speculation, earnings report, and financial changes. What we are in right now is a hysteria-filled environment that is risky for both veteran traders and novices. Any uninformed, reckless decision can produce different results - by chance. Be wise and do not let chance underlie your success or bankruptcy stories. Please do your research first before investing into anything and whatever you do, do not make the mistake of over-extending yourself with margin (brokerage-provided capital) that you cannot repay should things go south. People have and continue to make this fundamental mistake that will ruin them financially for years. Stock investments should be about long-term growth, stability, and supplemental to your income. Investments should give you access to the opportunity of financial freedom, but should not be your primary source for income. Do not listen to stock gurus and paid-only discord groups - they don’t make money from stocks, they make money from you. Lastly, this atypical market condition is the perfect storm for spontaneous “pump and dumps” where stocks become inflated, and based on fool’s theory or musical chairs (whichever you prefer), the last one that gets out gets burned. Be smart, be patient, do the research.
Basic Stock Jargons & Short/Long Positions:
Long - you’re buying and holding a stock with the intention for it to increase in value.
Short - you’re borrowing shares from a lender (brokerage, investment firm, individual investors), selling it to someone, and hoping to buy it back at a lower price. Your profit is the difference in the sell and buy back price. I’ll provide a real world example because this concept it a bit more complex:

• Person A is a share lender. They want to lend the share and get paid a small interest rate as compensation.
• Person B asks Person A to lend him that share temporarily. Person B does not pay anything upfront, but he promises to pay Person A in the form of interest over time.
• Person B finds a buyer Person C. Person C wants to buy a stock so it can go up. Person C is “long” on this stock. Person B, however, is short on this stock because he wants the value of the stock to go down.
• Person C pays Person B $10 for the stock. Now, Person C has spent $10, and Person B has gained $10.
• Two hypothetical situation happens now:
  • Scenario 1: Stock value increases to $15. Person C is now up $5 and he sells because he’s making nice gains. Person B needs to buy back that share at $15, but he only gained $10 profit initially. Now he needs to fork up $5 to buy back the share, and then return the share back to the lender + any interest accrued. In this scenario, the “short” lost money, the “long” gained money, and the “lender” made interest money.
  • Scenario 2: Stock value decreases to $5. Person C is now down $5 and he sells to cut losses. Person B needs to buy back that share at $5, but he already has $10 in profit initially. Now he pays $5 for the share, leaving him still with $5 profit, and returns the share back to the lender + any interested accrued. In this scenario, the “short” made money, the “long” gained money, and the “lender” made interest money.
• The above scenarios help to show why “shorts” (typically hedge funds or experienced traders) might want to manipulate the stock price to go down. Hedge funds have an incredible amount of power in the market, which I will explain in a bit, and can often create serious price movements to invoke price action that benefits themselves. Shorts, therefore, have the opposite intention of longs. They want share prices to go down, and in the process, can bankrupt certain companies that rely on the stock market liquidity to stay afloat. In other words, when investors leave a stock because it is dropping in value, the company loses that money that they could have used to pay off debt, grow the business, develop new products, pay for expenses, etc.

Market Manipulation:
Market manipulation is not new to the scene. Investors have long known of the existence of stock market manipulation tactics, and every day, we may observe some levels of manipulation in specific stocks, specific categories or industries of stocks, or the entire market. Market manipulation is defined as any actions performed with the intention of moving a certain stock price in favor of the manipulator. In this case, these are the wealthy “whales” or hedge funds, both of which have enormous capital capable of shifting stock prices at alarming speeds. Keep in mind, not all hedge funds do this and not all hedge funds are “shorts”. Some are “neutral” and act as lenders to make money, some are “growth-based” and invest just like everyday traders with the intention of raising share prices, and others are “short” which are probably perceived to be the sadistic groups of the bunch. Below, I will be discussing how manipulation occurs and on different scales.
Manipulation Tactics on a Spectrum:
Market manipulation can happen in certain stock, sectors, or the entire market. There are probably far more types of manipulative tactics than we know, but I will describe the most basic types and the strategies behind it.
Scenario 1:
Let’s say a hedge fund just opened a short position on stock X. Stock X is rising in value because general investors see it as a potential growth stock. Hedge funds are not too excited about this increased share value, so they can “hedge” or protect themselves, by selling put options. When they sell puts, they are anticipating that the stock will continue to surge, which causes the puts to become worthless at expiration, but on the contrary, they will be collecting the “premium” or money paid upfront by traders that bought the put. At the same time, this hedge fund will slowly “cover”, or buy shares of Stock X, so that the increased value of the shares will offset the short position which is losing money. The manipulation here is by using the sheer amount of capital in hand to bolster the stock, both creating favorable conditions for the puts that they sold and the share that they purchased as cover. If they want to add another level of manipulation to this, they can also purchase call options, which will result in profit if the stock price goes up. In this scenario, hedge funds make money at the expense of put option buyers and other shorts that do not have manipulative power or capital to recreate this same strategy.
Scenario 2:
Let’s say a hedge fund just opened a short position on Stock X. Stock X is rising in value because general investors see it as a potential growth stock. This hedge fund does not want to risk extra capital to cover their short position (by buying shares, selling put options, or buying call options), so they try a different route. Keep in mind that hedge funds are typically heavily invested in many stocks and assets, meaning they have a lot of power in deciding the direction of many stocks that have potential to instill widespread fear across the entire market if it drops. Take for example, if Apple and Google began to hurl downwards, this can create panic in the market where everyday traders might sell their shares at a loss. This in turn might ripple through the market as other investors in other stocks are predicting a downward trajectory across the market since these big name stocks are losing value so rapidly. Conveniently enough, hedge funds own a lot of these big name “FANG” stocks.
If I am a moderately sadistic hedge fund, I can sell off a large holding of shares (in the scale of multi millions or billions) that are in the same sector as Stock X, which would incite fear across the sector, creating panic sell offs. The price will drop sharply across the board, including Stock X, and the short position will produce big profits. Because this hedge fund sold off a large chunk of their shares at a good price, they can now cover their short position (essentially getting rid of it), and then buy up these same stocks that were let go earlier, only this time at a much cheaper price. The hedge fund has now made money not only on the short position, but now they got into the stock at a cheap price in which they can explore other manipulative tactics to bolster the price again. This can be done by encouraging analyst upgrades, publicizing “newly” purchased positions without disclosing the fact that they previously owned it, etc.
Scenario 3:
This one involves technology: algorithm trading (commonly referred to as algo trading). This one is a really intricately designed manipulative tactic that investors really have no way of getting around. Algorithm trading is the process of using high-speed super-computers and a team of traders to constantly monitor market activity and trade when opportunities arise. In this case, the hedge funds do not have to do any direct manipulation of the market, which makes this 100% legal. How this works is by taking advantage of how trading works and the time it takes for a trade to be made. For you general investors, we have mobile apps and web-based trading platforms to trade. When we like a stock, we have to go through the motion of inputting the stock ticker symbol, the amount of shares, the price we are willing to pay, hit submit, and confirm the trade. For hedge funds using algorithm trading, all this is done autonomously, which makes submission of an order several magnitudes quicker. When an order is submitted, it goes through a brokerage (Fidelity, Webull, ETrade, TDA, RH, etc.) and the data is rerouted to a clearing house (intermediate party that verifies and processes the trade). Clearing houses are responsible for making sure your orders are filled, but they take it on a first come first serve basis. So if a stock is moving quickly, hedge funds have a serious edge in getting in cheaper and faster as well as getting out higher and faster.
Algorithm trading is integratable as part of the buying and selling strategies mentioned in the two previous scenarios, which is why they can almost guarantee profit. Algorithm trading also uses a lot of data in their backbone to determine the trades that have a high chance of profitability, and it acts on various factors such as volatility, volume, interest activity, news, etc. In some cases, these algorithms can be set to do some extremely sadistic things. I’ll start by talking about “market orders” vs “limit orders”. Before you make a trade on your brokerage, you will notice an option that says “market order” or “limit order”. Market orders are an agreement that you will purchase the stock or option contract at the best price in the market in the momentary space in time. There is of course a huge risk to that because in that short moment in time, there may not be anyone selling at a good price, and instead, some people might set sell limits at ridiculous prices. For example, some people set a sell limit at $1000 for GME. If you did a market order, and you get really unlucky, you might end up snagging a share for $1000 each, when the actual share value might be $300. However, when you set a “limit order”, you are agreeing to buy a share at a maximum price that you designated.
In the event that a hedge fund siphons a ton of shares of a company, the algorithm can be set to sell these shares at a ridiculous sell limit. Remember, when they buy or sell, it’s processed significantly faster at the clearing houses, so if you’re that one unlucky trader that went for a market order on a stock, you might end up purchasing it at a huge premium set by the hedge funds themselves. Moral of the story: DO NOT PURCHASE AS MARKET ORDER - ALWAYS PURCHASE AT LIMIT ORDER.

OK, lets have a little come to Jesus moment. Some of you have been here a long time and are used to shit that can't go tits up, going tits up. You’re golden.
But there a lots of noobs here or people who have taken big hits on GME etc and have missed, what I think, is one of the core values of this sub.
THIS SUB IS ABOUT THINKING FOR YOUR SELF - MAKING UP YOUR OWN MIND - PROTECTING YOUR OWN INTERESTS
The reason this sub works, the thing that makes it interesting, is random people from random backgrounds, jobs, countries etc posting theories about a stock or a trade, trying to convince others why it will work, getting kicked around from some people about why it won't and then we get to see who was right.
Every play needs a flag bearer - some William Wallace – who is putting their nuts (or tendies) on the line, and is going over the top, with or without you. If they win, the glory is all theirs (and whoever joined them). If they fail, the glory belongs to all of us.
Good ideas get upvoted - the flag bearer gets generals and lieutenants, cooks, fluffers and shitloads of memes. Bad ideas get downvoted, fluffers, and shittier memes. You can decide to jump on, or bet against it.
For the vast majority of the time, Deep Fucking Value (Praise Be Upon Him) had no one ready to die on his hill. Do you know how many fucks he gave?
So while we sit around and tug each other up over Deep Fucking Value (Praise Be Upon Him), lets be very clear: almost no one took him seriously for most of the year while he was spruiking his theory, and very few people have the balls and conviction to really think outside the box, ignore the noise and put their money with their mouth is, like he did.
We all know the orthodoxy on GME eg dying business yadayada. The orthodoxy was wrong; he was right. Which means the groupthink on GME was wrong.
At no point did Deep Fucking Value (Praise Be Upon Him) wait for someone else to stroke his forehead and tell him it was all going to be ok, tell him when to BUY or HOLD or whatever else. Everyone has seen his original posts, and the reception they got. If he haD listened to WSB, this whole play would never had happened. YOU KNOW WHY HE IS THE KING OF TENDIE HEAVEN - BECAUSE HE MADE UP HIS OWN MIND.
For this sub to work, to have value, it has to be a battle of ideas. LET THE GOOD IDEAS SHINE; LET THE SHIT GET DOWNVOTED.
The last few weeks have become a bit embarrassing on here. Yes, a lot of people saw this as their chance to change their life circumstances or that of those around them. Cool cool. A lot of people wanted to have a YOLO. Thats cool too.
In the end, WSB was trying to drink the milkshake of some powerful whales, who thought they would drink our milkshake first. Live by the sword, die by the tendie. You can’t make the MOTHER OF ALL omelette without breaking a fuckload of eggs. It’s Thunderdome - someone is going to get carried out. If you don’t understand this and aren’t totally cool with it you shouldn’t play.
What this sub isn't about, in my humble view, is a place for noobs to come on and ask the same questions ad nauseum. IT ISN’T ABOUT SURRENDERING YOUR CASH AND RESPONSIBILITY FOR MAKING DECISIONS TO SOMEONE ELSE. IT ISNT ABOUT GROUP THINK.
Nor is it a place where everyone is going to agree, or collude to pump up a stock. No one can tell you which ideas are Purple Mattress King and which ideas are Tanker Gang. Its definitely not some crystal ball tendie printing machine. Its a place where half-assed ideas come to die, and occasionally, make some degenerates Matchbox 20 money.
Equally, if this sub just becomes an echo chamber for the same idea or theory, and no one wants to look under the rug and call bullshit, this place is dammed. It works because for every 10 people who want to buy ornamental gourd futures, or go long on Vale because Papa Musk might have written some Dan Brown Da Vinci code shit in a tweet, there is 1 guy who calls bullshit. That why this place is awesome and following theories on here is such a lotto; a literal casino.
Its good to be skeptical; fucking stupid to ignore data points that challenge your orthodoxy without trying to understand them.
DFV (Praise be Upon Him) had open chats about GME for months were people could question his thinking You don't win by sticking your head in the sand. You win by finding out what the other side thinks, and working out how to beat the fuck out of them with a bowling ball, and drink their milkshake.
To all the people who have taken an ass beating, I hope you hang around and learn how to protect your stack. IM STILL BAGHOLDING SOME GME TOO. But if you only were ever here to get rich quick of this one play, the sub is probably better off without out you.
To win, you have to think for yourself. Do your own work. Make up your own mind. Work out who here to follow over the top, and who is going to get you killed.
To all the old hands who write the awesome DD and put up with us morons, thanks. And to the mods, thanks for keeping this girl going.

Hi all, I've decided to a playthrough of NV using NV randomizer. I was a bit cautious of my load order however, and loot has decided that my load order was fine, but I had a feeling that was wrong. I myself tried to sort it to my best order, but I wanted to see if anyone else could help me with this.
Load order below
[X] FalloutNV.esm
[X] HonestHearts.esm
[X] DeadMoney.esm
[X] OldWorldBlues.esm
[X] LonesomeRoad.esm
[X] TribalPack.esm
[X] MercenaryPack.esm
[X] ClassicPack.esm
[X] CaravanPack.esm
[X] GunRunnersArsenal.esm
[X] YUP - Base Game + All DLC.esm
[X] Functional Post Game Ending.esm
[X] NVStripOpen.esm
[X] MoreMojave.esm
[X] WMR.esm
[X] Unofficial Patch Plus.esp
[X] Unofficial Patch Plus - Addendum.esp
[X] Functional Post Game Ending - YUP Patch.esp
[X] Uncut Wasteland.esp
[X] Functional Post Game Ending - Uncut Wasteland Patch.esp
[X] Functional Post Game Ending - Uncut Extra Collection Patch.esp
[X] Functional Post Game Ending - Strip Open Patch.esp
[X] Functional Post Game Ending - Populated Casinos Medium Patch.esp
[X] TMCOTT - Restored.esp
[X] No-PipBoy-in-Power-Armor.esp
[X] JustHitMarker.esp
[X] Real Recoil.esp
[X] newjanet.esp
[X] FOVSlider.esp
[X] CASM with MCM.esp
[X] Titans of The New West.esp
[X] Universal Pip-Boy Glove Remover.esp
[X] LeBonk.esp
[X] Combat Music.esp
[X] RayGunMod.esp
[X] Quick Grenade Hotkey.esp
[X] ReinforcedCombatArmorGloves.esp
[X] High Noon Restored.esp
[X] LQE-OutsideBets.esp
[X] Beyond The Beef Tweaks.esp
[X] JSawyer Ultimate.esp
[X] YaYeetTest.esp
[X] JustHoldBreath.esp
[X] FasterSemiAuto+YUP.esp
[X] Cosmetic Wardrobe No-PipBoy-in-Power-Armor compatibility.esp
[X] JustHitIndicator.esp
[X] No Bloody Mess.esp
[X] Julie Farkas Says Take Care.esp
[X] Restored Caravan Dialogue.esp
[X] Cass Barks.esp
[X] YUP - NPC Fixes (Base Game + All DLC).esp
[X] donnerVexillariusNoGoggles.esp
[X] Enslave Gannon fix.esp
[X] Leather backpack -eng.esp
[X] NukaVend.esp
[X] Lucky 38 Reloading and Cooking.esp
[X] Pacersgambit.esp
[X] NVFACEEDIT.esp
[X] VarmintRifleOnly22LR.esp
[X] PLASMA.esp
[X] WorkingCrimsonCaravanTraders.esp
[X] BetterArmedBrightFollowers.esp
[X] OWB-Path Lights.esp
[X] BartonThornTrigger.esp
[X] Functional Post Game Ending - Outside Bets Patch.esp
[X] outsidebets.esp
[X] PerkEveryLevel.esp
[X] Hacking 1x Word (Firmly) NV.esp
[X] realistic headshots.esp
[X] realistic headshots VATS.esp
[X] AMRZoom.esp
[X] Light Step ED-E.esp
[X] IncreasedLegion1_1.esp
[X] Faster Terminals.esp
[X] SaveCass.esp
[X] UltrajetRecipe.esp
[X] CraftedMantisGauntlet.esp
[X] Improved Casinos 2X.esp
[X] LeatherBackpack - eng.esp
[X] populatedcasino-medium.esp
[X] BetterMerchantCaravanLimit.esp
[X] RestoredCaravanPlayers.esp
[X] Better Burned Man.esp
[X] ReElijahfied.esp
[X] AllCompanionsEssential 2.0b.esp
[X] Vulpes Inculta.esp
[X] ROXIEDONTDIE.esp
[X] lexx-hh-letter-english.esp
[X] WMR_HonestHearts_S.esp
[X] WMR_OldWorldBlues_S.esp
[X] WMR_LonesomeRoad_S.esp
[X] WMR_Vanilla_S.esp
[X] WMR_DeadMoney_R.esp
[X] WMR_GunRunnersArsenal_S.esp
[X] LonesomeRoadScorchedSierraPowerHelmet.esp
[X] HZSmoothLight.esp
[X] NVDLC04 Allegiance w Duster.esp
[X] athornysituation.esp
[X] rotfacetoriches.esp
[X] Missile Launcher DeBulked.esp
[X] veronica_no_hood.esp
[X] StripOpenMain.esp
[X] More enemy at final battle.esp
[X] RangerSequoiaSafehouse.esp
[X] uylssesbarksfix.esp
[X] C1849.esp
[X] Uzi.esp
[X] FO3WeaponsRestoration.esp
[X] GoodspringsWastelandAdventurerRestoration.esp
[X] Primm Reputation Restored.esp
[X] The Mod Configuration Menu.esp
[X] Duplet.esp
[X] OldWorldBlues - Keep Big MT Active.esp
[X] B92FS.esp
[X] G3SG1.esp
[X] Courier's Stash Scattered.esp
[X] Realistic Radiation Suits.esp
[X] Strip Wall Billboards.esp
[X] DEagle.esp
[X] MeleeReachFixed.esp
[X] Passive Startup Messages.esp
[X] ScopelessHolorifleReplacerWithIronSights.esp
[X] ArmoredDresses.esp
[X] BooneTheAdult.esp
[X] Convenient Fast Travel Markers.esp
[X] NoGloveOrBackpackShishkebabGehenna.esp
[X] Moreaddictions.esp
[X] Uncut Bison Steve Trees.esp
[X] Jet Effect From Fallout 4 0.2.esp
[X] JSawyer Mod Vanilla Number of Perks.esp
[X] Legion Quests Expanded.esp
[X] AAACourierRiotGear(Craft).esp
[X] outsidebets_meyersfix.esp
[X] RadawayAddiction.esp
[X] housepresence.esp
[X] ncrandlegionpatrols.esp
[X] FNV Pneumatic Pistol.esp
[X] FIXforLegionArmors.esp
[X] GSFarmhouse Enhanced.esp
[X] Combat Leather Jacket.esp
[X] TraitMod.esp
[X] Zebumper - Hygiene.esp
[X] Windows of the Mojave v1.2.1.esp
[X] WeightlessJunk (From Inventory Saviour).esp
[X] DangerousPrimm.esp
[X] Uncut Extra Collection.esp
[X] AddictedToYou.esp
[X] hz_Automatic Weapons Fix.esp
[X] Mrhouseassasins.esp
[X] Crazybruceradio.esp
[X] hz_1 by 1 Reload Fix.esp
[X] This Isn't Goodbye.esp
[X] Cosmetic Wardrobe.esp
[X] The Weapon Mod Menu.esp
[X] MARKSMAN.esp
[X] NVRandomizer.esp

FalloutNV.esm
DeadMoney.esm
HonestHearts.esm
OldWorldBlues.esm
LonesomeRoad.esm
GunRunnersArsenal.esm
ClassicPack.esm
MercenaryPack.esm
TribalPack.esm
CaravanPack.esm
YUP - Base Game + All DLC.esm
FreesideOpen.esm
Functional Post Game Ending.esm
TLD_Travelers.esm
Momod.esm
DFB - Random Encounters.esm
Weapon Mod Expansion.esm
Uncut Road to Legate's Camp.esm
Project Nevada - Core.esm
Project Nevada - Equipment.esm
Caliber.esm
You're Fucked - Sneak Danger Indicator Replacer.ESM
WME - GRA.esm
WME - DLCs.esm
WeaponsOfTheNewMilleniaAndMTindle.esm
Project Nevada - Rebalance.esp
Project Nevada - Cyberware.esp
Project Nevada - Extra Options.esm
SomeguySeries.esm
oHUD.esm
WastelandEncounters.esm
YUP - NPC Fixes (Base Game + All DLC).esp
Ultimate Invisible Wall Remover.esp
NPCs Can Miss.esp
No Scope Wobble.esp
JustVisualObjectives.esp
JustHitMarker.esp
Inventory Search.esp
Immersive Hit Reactions.esp
Uncut Wasteland.esp
Uncut Extra Collection.esp
populatedcasino.esp
Functional Post Game Ending - Populated Casinos Patch.esp
DFB - Random Encounters - Dead Money Additions.esp
Project Nevada - Rebalance Complete.esp
Project Nevada - All DLC.esp
FreesideOpenPatch.esp
HarderThan.esp
Momodlorefriendly.esp
RavenXP.esp
MonsterModLorefriendlyDLC.esp
HarderThan-HH.esp
DFB - Random Encounters - Honest Hearts Additions.esp
DFB - Random Encounters - Update - MCM.esp
CASM with MCM.esp
Project Nevada - Gun Runners' Arsenal.esp
dD - Enhanced Blood Main NV.esp
EVE FNV - ALL DLC.esp
WOMT-CalX patch.esp
WME - DLCs Arenovalis.esp
DFB - Random Encounters - Old World Blues Additions.esp
WME - DLCs.esp
Wasteland Loot.esp
WME - GRA - Complete.esp
Hidden Treasures.esp
Functional Post Game Ending - Uncut Extra Collection Patch.esp
Uncut Skeletons.esp
WME - GRA - All Weapons.esp
Weapon Mod Expansion.esp
WME - GRA - Just Guns.esp
Bozar_50MG.esp
NewVegasBounties.esp
NewVegasBountiesII.esp
Addiction immunity.esp
Readius_NV.esp
You're Fucked - Sneak Danger Indicator Replacer.esp
Project Nevada - Dead Money.esp
Project Nevada - Honest Hearts.esp
Project Nevada - Lonesome Road.esp
Project Nevada - Old World Blues.esp
Project Nevada - Cyberware Additions.esp
Project Nevada - Rebalance [Rarity Fixes].esp
WME - GRA - Arenovalis.esp
WME - GRA - Vendor Reform.esp
WME - GRA - Weapon Integration.esp
The Weapon Mod Menu.esp
The Mod Configuration Menu.esp
RipRoundsHH.esp
MigNammo.esp
MonocyteImplantImproved.esp
LiveDismember.esp
FP gun follows crosshairs.esp
E725 Doubled Stimpak Drops and Finds.esp
E725 Crazed Gunman.esp
E725 Clever Pony Perk.esp
merchantammo.esp
more advanced ammo.esp
RIPRounds.esp
merchantammoGRA.esp
DeadMoneyRealisticGoldBarWeight.esp
CRL9K_ThisMachineSound.esp
CRL9K_SequoiaSoundChange.esp
Project Nevada - WMX.esp
Project Nevada - WME.esp
TheInheritance.esp
Russell.esp
KingOfTheRing.esp
NewVegasKiller.esp
Badmothafucka.esp
NewVegasBountiesIII.esp
Dry lake and sloan quarry dust storm remover.esp
Northern Passage Cave Entrance.esp
WME - GRA - Unique Integration.esp
Ghost People in BigMT.esp
BLIND.esp
FNV NPCs Travel.esp
Uncut Bison Steve Trees.esp
Functional Post Game Ending - YUP Patch.esp
TLD_UnderpassDisabler.esp
NewVegasBountiesFSOPatch.esp
Quick Trade.esp
HarderThan-IncreasedPerformance.esp
HarderThan-PN.esp
MoMod-Aliens.esp
MoMod-Terminators.esp
​
I don't know what's going on. I have CaliberX, Mod Limit, EVE, and NVSE manually installed. I can't load the game without a CTD. The load order was done by LOOT through MO2.

Hello and welcome to Cyberpunk: Game Enhancing Ideas!
(Includes Spoilers)
CDPR's newest release Cyberpunk 2077 is a breathtaking, immersive, and overall very enjoyable title. Although the game has received criticism recently for a barrage of performance issues throughout the game I have still managed to fall in love with all aspects of my current playthrough. Cyberpunk 2077 has been out for about a week now and I have already completed most map content, story and side missions, and acquired most of the collectables. I have invested well over 60 hours into the Cyberpunk universe on the PS4 and while exploring the vast stretches of the badlands all the way to chaos of Night City I have been taking down some ideas I'd love to see implemented in the future of Cyberpunk!
​
Disclaimer: I am aware of the current state of the game on last gen consoles and where CDPR is currently focusing their efforts as stated, so these are merely ideas for when new content is being released after the game is in a good state. Also these ideas will not be features that are currently broken in game or not working properly, they will be expansions off current game features and new features. If you have any opinions on the list below please feel free to comment, also what all would you like to see in Cyberpunk 2077? Let me know down below!
Cyberpunk 2077: Game Enhancing Ideas
1.) Expand on the Final Mission!
I enjoyed the story and side missions leading up to the final mission in a way that has brought me to enjoy Cyberpunk the way other great RPG's like Skyrim have done, these kind of titles are few in far between. The relationships you create along your journey through Night City with the NPC's really elevate the whole experience. Since I have completed the main story and side jobs I am now left exploring a world where the great relationships I have made do not seem to matter. Just the same three dialog options for the remaining NPC's. Ultimately I do think this would be a great starting point for future DLC content. For example the Space Casino Heist or Arizona with Panam and the Aldecadoes. The writing behind the NPC's in Cyberpunk is outstanding, it's a shame to see the NPC's resort back to normal civilians with boring dialogue.
2.) Tougher Enemies
Now I am aware you can scale the game up to the current highest difficulty of "Very Hard" which I am currently playing on and I am aware of the concept of "New Game Plus". However I do think that toward mid to end game the enemies you face in the open world do not pose much of a challenge. Even the Cyberpsyco encounters are water under the bridge. Seeing some new more dangerous enemy mechanics and more threatening encounters would really elevate the risk factor in a game like this! The current largest threats I've noticed are the mechs and the occasional miniboss that ultimately feel very weak and drop sub-par rewards.
3.) Events that Respawn/Alter the Map
This concept is for you endgame completionist folks out there like myself who do not enjoy seeing Night City and the Badlands turn soft. Having completed most of the current map of all gigs, NCPD encounters, assualts, cyberpyscos, etc. The map is beginning to feel dead in a way that makes me wish I'd have indulged at a slower rate. This also ties back to the previous point where all the encounters felt fairly easy and unmemorable. There are occasional great encounters/gigs but once completed they are gone for good. In response to this issue I think there should be more encounters on the map, encounters that respawn (maybe new enemies), or even abandon places we've completed turned into new nomad settlements or being used by NPC's for vendor purposes and such. Exploring the Badlands and roleplaying a sniper cowboy out there was really enjoyable for me but now there isn't much left to shoot out there! If you think this sounds crazy, trust me your map will be completed before you know it!
4.) Expanding on the Badlands!
The Badlands and deserted plains in Cyberpunk ended up being where I spent a good chunk of time. The encounters out there all seemed to be more unique and I approached them all with caution and curiosity. For example a group of trailers with minefields and turrets present, or a Wraith stronghold being heavily guarded. The Gigs in the Badlands were unmatched and my true favorite part of the free roam experience. However I noticed that this part of the game began to lose its glory very quickly as I began to complete all of the content out there. I purposely would walk between encounters with my tech sniper out to extend my time out there as opposed to taking a vehicle. To remedy this issue I would like to see CDPR expand on the badlands with more content, maybe refresh older content, add wildlife, or even expand the playable area. The Badland is badass! Please let me live out my long range fantasy with more content!
5.) Wildlife
Now I get it Cyberpunk 2077 is in the dystopian future and wildlife doesn't seem to have a place but I know raccoons, coyotes, and other simple scavenger life like that should be able to exist especially in the badlands region. This would be a small implementation that would be a great change of pace! If CDPR was feeling a bit experimental they could even add hostile wildlife like mountain lions, swarms or wasps/hornets, or even coyote packs! Think Red Dead Redemption
6.) Grappling Cyberware
This one is just self explanatory, it's 2077, Batman's been doing this for years. We can shoot rockets from our hands, mutilate people with Mantis Claws, or punch holes with Gorilla arms but we don't have grappling technology. How?!
7.) Cloaking Cyberware
Again it's 2077 and we do not have invisibility/cloaking cyberware!? You could even make it lesser invisibility by making the NPCs or playable characters show up blurry like in the movie Predator. This doesn't have to be true 100% invisibility but at least somewhat.
8.) Sniper Rifle Breath Holding
A staple in first person shooters, the ability to hold your breath to make a long range shot is necessary for long to mid range engagements. I feel like if anything on this list, this concept should be implemented sooner. The weapon sway of the sniper rifles is insane and taking the shots require me to be scoped in for almost a full minute before I land the hit. Cyberware could be added to expand on this to alter the duration of hold breath or the steadiness.
9.) Weapon, Armor, and Vehicle Customization
How could any list like this be complete without customization options. Customization options add so much to the players in game experience. Not only for the role playing aspect but in game functionality as well. Like that fancy sports car but cant take it off city streets? Don't worry spend those eddies on some off-road modifications. Found a really sweet legendary jacket but it is hot pink? Fine then dye it. Love your new LMG but it only holds 50 in the magazine? Upgrade to that 100 round clip you scavenged off a dead body. Customization options are really important additions to RPG's such as Cyberpunk and would be a great addition in the future if CDPR experimented with them.
10.) Silencers for More Weapons
Now if you couldn't already tell my playthrough was centered around a slow motion tech weapon gunslinger. But playing this build I have three tech weapons slotted so my ability to make stealthy kills goes out the window. It would be great if CDPR introduced mods for tech weaponry so they could be muted like the silencer on your favorite normal pistol. This is a small change but would really open up tons of new gameplay styles!
11.) Map details on Fast Travel Points!
I can't even begin to tell you how many times I've had to exit a fast travel menu so I can waypoint a gun shop or mission across the map. I would love the ability for the fast travel system to have the icons so I could travel without having the previously set a waypoint. Little quality of life addition here!
12.) More Off-road Vehicle Options!
What kind of dystopian future doesn't have nomads riding viciously on dirt bikes through the Badlands? I know one, Cyberpunk 2077. This game could definitely use an expansion to it's off-road options. Maybe start with a dirt bike or maybe a Quad. I shouldn't have to take my 100k eddy street bike out through the desert.
13.) Aerial/ Hovering Vehicle Options!
Now this is a bit of a stretch from the previous point, but do you remember piloting that Basilisk tank? Hovering above any and all obstacles in your way was amazing, but that experience dies after you complete the relative missions. Introduction some vehicles with such capabilities would fit in with the setting of Cyberpunk and definitely would be badass. As for piloting aerial vehicles like helicopters and AV's this is dependent on CDPR's perception of vertical gameplay and how far they would like players to reach.
14.) Weather Conditions
The dust storms in the main story missions were so cool and altered the way the player traversed through the world but like many things this excitement died as soon as those missions were over. Reintroducing the severe storms and other weather anomalies could add a very diverse and enjoyable aspect to free roam. Maybe something like acid rain could hurt the player and make it more beneficial to use the gas masks you find everywhere. Also darker nights outside the city would be cool. There ain't a thing but a busted street lamp surrounded by miles of desert on each side but the game is still illuminated like I'm on Jig Jig street.
15.) Night Vision, Night Vision Scopes, and FLIR.
Cyberpunk is 50+ years in the future but I cannot equip a thermal scope on my futuristic revolver to see an enemy behind a bush? This idea would play very well into the previous idea as well by making night vision capabilities more beneficial in low light environments.
16.) More Weapon Models and Unique Iconic Weapons!
The game has an impressive amount of weapons but aside from certain models they all perform fairly similarly and look similar as well. I currently use the tech revolver Comrades Hammer but this model actually shares the same exact model with another weapon of the same classification. In a game as massive as Cyberpunk I think more weapon models are due, also customization options could definitely help make weapons more unique here as well. Next we have the Iconic weapons. This concept is seen used in may RPG's in the form of exotics or Uniques but in Cyberpunk the Iconic weapons seem to function the exact same way as there base counterparts. This could be expanded on by adding more functionality to the weapons or even outstanding modifications to them like maybe you find an Iconic rifle that is covered in some sort of electric pulsating effect. Just try to make the Iconic gear feel more special. They have done this with the iconic smart pistol "Skippy" and that Iconic outshines most others! They could definitely do it again...
17.) Diverse Weapon Stats
For maximizing an endgame build after all else has been completed on the map I am often in search of materials to build the best versions of my gear possible. (More specifically the weapons because they are more unique). I recently saved up a ton of materials to make several copies of my favorite gun "Comrades Hammer" but I soon realized that even though the game shows stat brackets like for example: Crit Chance (81%-97%), there are not that many possibilities. Instead you might craft 10 of the same gun but there are only two or three different stat options. To expand on this I have noticed that on the weapons they say they have the option to craft stats that they cannot even be crafted in for example lightning damage might be a potential role but you only ever get thermal and physical. I think this aspect of the game has really great endgame potential for min/maxing your build but is limited by it's set amount of possible weapon/armor roles.
18.) Hidden Locations and Delves
Lastly I think Cyberpunk 2077 would benefit from the implementation of more hidden gem locations or random occurrences. Things like a smugglers tunnel with some great encounters throughout and maybe even better loot at the end. Or passage ways in the city that lead to a crime scene that you wouldn't normally stumble across. These spots shouldn't show up on the map but be a treat for players who are exploring the game without navigating around the map. I found myself often roaming around using my map to jump from encounter to encounter which took away a lot of joy from the game, it felt like the only enjoyable content was at the encounter and everything in between was just filler. Some unexpected encounters would spice things up a bit!
​
Conclusion
Well that's about all I've got at the moment but I am sure there is WAY more ideas that Cyberpunk could benefit from adding in the game. I understand the developers are at the moment looking into improving the current state of the game so these are just ideas for the future. Let me know what you all think down below, share some of your own ideas, maybe one of my ideas seems like trash let me know! Looking forward to any and all contributions! Would be great if this thread takes off and we can get some attention from Developers at CDPR! A man can only dream...
​
-KRod

Hey, folks. I wasn't going to post this since I didn't think it met the criteria for tech support, and probably isn't all that interesting, but I figure I might as well - if it doesn't make the cut, the mods will take it down, and I'll get a better story another day.
Me again with another story from the wonderful world of casinos. As my name implies, I'm a slot techician, which means I fix the machines and get asked 1024 times a day if I can rig it to win as if it's the funniest shit I've ever heard.
Like my other story, any names, brands, amounts, and locations that may appear have been changed for anonymity. Procedures may be changed if altering them does not break the flow of the story. Industry-standard terms (e.g. "TITO") have been left as-is.
With COVID still a major issue in my jurisdiction, I haven't been able to satisfy my crippling Altoids addiction as well as I had been before April - and to make things worse, I had grabbed the wrong tin when I'd gone to the store yesterday. (Why they'd decided to make peppermint and cinnamon look so similar, I'll never know.)
I and $supervisor from the previous story were in the tech shop, shooting the breeze and relaxing between calls, when the radio earpiece crackled up with the sweet sound of... background noise. I'm pretty sure I heard a voice in there somewhere, before the channel went dead. It definitely wasn't an accidental key, since the assault on my ear lasted a solid ten seconds.

$me: "Repeat that? All we got was background noise."

The radio crackled back to life, and the quality of it wasn't much better, but at least they were talking in the vicinity of their microphone this time - it was enough for me to hear the location "1-Foxtrot-2301".

$me: "You said 1-Fox-2301?"
$radio with excessive background noise: "10-4."

I stand up and stretch my legs a moment, and $supervisor and I walk out to the machine that bore the location plate reading 1-FF-2301. That one was a game we'd recently converted into a 3-pack of linked games that "shared" a bonus, which linked all 3 upper screens together. Of note is that the "shared bonus" was on a timer as a sort of attract mode, rather than triggered via gameplay - it would appear at certain intervals, and players would have to get a certain combination on the payline to play this bonus mode. After a period of time elapsed in the shared bonus mode, the game would return to normal play, to repeat again a few minutes later.
This was my first shift back after the games had been converted, so I hadn't had the time to read the game rules before then. (Still haven't, actually.)
The attendant - Rebecca, one of the ones that would actually try to troubleshoot some issues before calling us - was there when we arrived. She explained the issue to me and $supervisor: The patron wasn't seeing the win tally at the end of the shared bonus, when the timer reached zero and returned to normal play. Rebecca had tried explaining that it wasn't like a free-games bonus where the win was tallied at the end, but the patron wouldn't accept the answer. Rebecca then checked that we didn't need her, and excused herself to handle other calls.
So, we watch the game. Soon enough, it goes into the shared bonus mode, and almost immediately I notice that it's a "game within a game" bonus, where the paytable is changed but wagering is still required to play (compared to a free games bonus, where the paytable is usually the same, but a wager is not required). And as the patron is playing, she's mashing the spin button like it was the "fire" button on a Galaga coin-op. Eventually, she gets awarded a "trip" to the shared bonus on the upper screens, and wins... a good chunk of money, actually.
And then we see the issue: as it was tallying at the end of the "trip", she began playing Galaga again with the spin button, skipping the tally animation on the upper screen.
Eventually, the timer ends, the game exits the shared bonus mode, and the patron is upset that the win didn't show up on the upper screen.

$patron: "See? It didn't show the 'big win' with the little numbers!"
$me: "It showed, you just skipped it. When you press the spin button, it'll skip the little numbers."
$patron: "But I didn't! It didn't show when the timer hit zero!"
$me: "You weren't in the bonus when the timer hit zero. It tried to play right after you went in the bonus, but you pressed 'spin' and skipped it."
$patron: "Are you sure?"
$me: "Yes, ma'am. We can wait for another bonus and show you, if you want."

The patron nods, and eventually the five or so minutes passes before the shared bonus mode triggers again. A couple of spins into it, the patron gets another trip to the bonus. The bonus plays out, and I see her reach for the spin button.

**$me: "Ma'am, no, wait. Don't press the button yet."

The patron looks at me confused, and I gesture towards the screen, which reads "BIG WIN" with the numbers quickly counting up to a number I'd normally expect to see on my check stub. After a couple of seconds, the patron gives the 'Ohhhhhhh' of Understanding and thanks us.
Reels turn on, electronic bells ring, and someone, somewhere, wins a jackpot large enough for it to be taxable. As for me, I just curse the peppermint Altoids I'd grabbed yesterday.

December 11, 2020 Update

It's time for holiday festivities! In addition, there are big changes to Elite and Boss monsters in this update. There are also revisions to the Ice Magic and Deer skills. And, of course, various other things as well. Read on for more info.

Ri-Shin Celebration

The holidays are upon us! While Alharth doesn't celebrate Christmas, it does celebrate Ri-Shin Day, and New Years' Day. Townsfolk who are your Friends will offer you gifts when you speak with them. (Make sure to have your favorite combat skills active in case they give you a piece of randomly-generated gear!)
There's also a Ri-Shin festival waiting to happen in each city and township in the land, but they will need your help getting their trees assembled. Look for townsfolk in festive red Ri-Shin hats to get started.
This year, there's also a new way for the community to work together. This is an experiment -- we've never tried anything like this before. You'll receive an introductory quest for this part of the event after you've assembled a few Ri-Shin trees. (If you're a Druid, you'll be briefed immediately upon login.)

High-Level Elite/Boss Changes

As mentioned in the last patch's notes, we're working on making high-level combat take longer. This will eventually include both solo and group combat, but we're focusing on group combat right now. Some of the big-picture details are in flux a bit as we experiment and see what's going to work (e.g. "how many Elites is a tank supposed to be able to handle at once?" answer: "we're not sure yet").
We've been improving the "tanky skills" in preparation for these longer fights, but it's been hard to get good tanking data because most high-level Elite monsters simply haven't needed a tank: a group of players could blast them to death in seconds. So it's time to make Elites live longer and see what happens!
In this update, Elite/Boss monsters have a lot more health and armor, and Bosses deal less damage. We'll be watching your feedback (and our combat data logs) to try to figure out where to go from here. We may need to temporarily revert these changes, reduce them, increase them, or add more systems into the mix to address specific problems.
Bosses (but not Elites) also deal less base damage than before. The actual amount varies by boss-tier and the bosses' personal stats, so it's hard to generalize, but at level 80 an "average boss" deals about 25% less base damage.
Both Elites and Bosses deal less damage with their Rage attacks, also. The median reduction in rage-bonus-damage is about a 40%, but again it's hard to generalize too much.
Here's some more details about the implementation.

• Prior to level 35, elites/bosses have about the same overall health+armor, but some of their health has been switched to armor as a side-effect of the formulaic changes. This will make them a bit harder, so be careful!
• Starting at about level 35, elites/bosses gain more health and armor than before. This increases fairly gradually until level 50, then it starts going up more quickly. By level 80, the total health+armor of most elites and bosses has almost doubled! (And a lot of that increase is in armor, which means the monster has more mitigation for longer.)

Elite/Boss Loot Changes

We've also added some additional rewards for killing Elites/Bosses. When you loot an Elite, you'll now automatically "find some Councils" on the corpse. The amount is based on the monster's level, with some random variance. Bosses also drop extra money in the form of Council Coinpurses. (And bosses with curses drop more money sacks.) Finally, the most deadly tiers of bosses have a higher chance to drop high-rarity gear.
(These quick generalized changes were made because we didn't want to revise every monster's custom loot table just yet. But hey, maybe it's fun enough to remain permanent. Let us know what you think after you've had some time to try it out.)

Ice Magic Changes

Ice Magic is supposed to be a versatile wizarding toolkit: it can provide exceptional crowd control, potent survival tools, and decent damage, depending on which abilities you use. Its crowd-control abilities were already top-tier, so we've focused on other aspects of the skill in this update. There's a few nerfs and a lot of buffs.
Fire Magic Over-synergy
The biggest nerf to Ice Magic is actually a change to a Fire Magic treasure mod:

• (Chest, Hands) "Calefaction causes target to take +45% damage from Cold for 12 seconds" => now +16% damage

We realized this mod was overpowered shortly after it was introduced, but it was a "let's wait and see if this is actually a serious problem" scenario. A lot of accidentally-overpowered treasure turns out to be fine, and sometimes an accident like that can really make everything "click" and help define a skill. But not this time. It was hamstringing our ability to make Ice Magic more powerful on its own, so it had to be reduced to a more reasonable level. (And it's still probably the most powerful cross-skill synergy mod in the game.)
Cryogenic Freeze
Cryogenic Freeze needs to take its rightful place in the Ice Magic survival toolbox. It has TREMENDOUS mitigation, and it's intended to be something of a "freebie" for Ice Mages: it's useful without needing to invest lots of treasure mods into it. The only cost is that you have to make room for it on your ability bar. (And treasure makes it more versatile and useful.) Of course, Cryogenic Freeze has the extreme down-side that you are completely frozen and cannot move. But now instead of a forced 10-second lockdown, you can control the duration precisely.

• Cryogenic Freeze now lasts 20 seconds or until dispelled by using the ability again. The reuse timer is 20 seconds, which begins as soon as Cryogenic Freeze ends.
• Power cost increased; all treasure effects recalculated in potency

Ice Armor, Ice Veins, and Shardblast
Ice Armor has been buffed up a bit. We've also worked to make Ice Veins and Shardblast more useful. You can now use either one to reset Ice Armor's timer, allowing you to immediately put your armor back on. Which, in turn, allows you to take advantage of Ice Armor's healing mods again!
This "Ice Armor loop" technique can be very powerful but requires a lot of treasure mods to reach full potential. It's also possible to use Ice Armor in a more passive role, and there are mods to support that style also (such as the ones that boost Cold damage).

• Ice Armor: highest tier of ability has slightly higher mitigation (+27 vs crushing, slashing, piercing, and ice), and all tiers now grant extra mitigation from Elites (+54 additional at highest tier)
• Ice Veins: power cost and base damage increased. All treasure potency recalculated
• "Ice Armor restores 80 Power over 30 seconds" => "Ice Armor costs -19 Power and restores 51 Power after a 6-second delay"
• "Ice Armor restores 170 Armor over 30 seconds" => "Ice Armor mitigates +16 Physical and Cold damage, and mitigates +32 more against Elite attacks"
• "Ice Armor boosts Cold attack damage +34" => +50
• "You regain 44 Health when using Ice Nova or Shardblast" => "Ice Nova and Shardblast deal +61 damage and cost -12 Power"
• New treasure (off-hand): "Ice Veins heals +16 Health and resets the timer on Ice Armor (so it can be used again immediately)"
• "Ice Veins heals 120 Health over 10 seconds" => 180 health over 10 seconds
• Ice Veins is now marked as a Minor Heal ability (making it eligible for equipment that boosts Minor Heals).
• New treasure (head): "Ice Armor instantly restores 80 health"
• "Shardblast resets the timer on Ice Armor (so it can be used again immediately)" => "Shardblast deals +X% damage and resets the timer on Ice Armor (so it can be used again immediately)" *

Cold Sphere Changes
Cold Sphere's old Rage attack (at high level) was a 10-second root. This was too much of a good thing and it's now a 5-second root at all levels.
We've tried to make Cold Sphere useful in two different scenarios: for Ice Mages who are using a different skill as their primary damage source, they can invest in Cold Sphere mods to get a bit of extra damage on the side (plus its innate root is always handy).
For players who ARE using Ice Magic as their primary damage-dealer, Cold Sphere's damage-boosting mods are often not worth using, but there's a new mod that gives it a Cold-vulnerability debuff. This makes Cold Sphere an interesting (but not mandatory) option for any Ice Mage.

• Cold Sphere: increased base damage-boost of all pets level 50+. The "root" effect from their rage attack is reduced from 10sec (!) to 5sec
• "Your Cold Sphere's attacks deal +34 damage and taunt -65%" => "Your Cold Sphere's attacks deal +50% damage and taunt -25%"
• "Your Cold Sphere gains 156 Armor" => "Your Cold Sphere gains 90 Health"
• New treasure (chest): "Your Cold Sphere's attacks deal +24 damage and cause the targets to suffer +12% damage from future Cold attacks (non-stacking)"
• New treasure (head, hands): "Your Cold Sphere's attacks deals +170 damage, but their Max Health is -80"

Other Ice Magic Changes
Added a bit more damage overall. Nerfed one of Frostbite's mods, but don't be misled: it's still an extraordinarily good debuff. (And it will only become more powerful as combat duration increases! In fact, we may need to tone it down some more later.)

• Ice Nova: power cost and base damage increased. All treasure potency recalculated
• Frostbite ability: ability base damage increased slightly
• "Blizzard deals 328 armor damage and generates -120 Rage" => "Blizzard Damage +255"
• "Frostbite deals +154 damage and raises the target's Max Rage by 79%, preventing them from using their Rage attacks as often" => "Frostbite deals +176 damage and raises the target's Max Rage by 33%, preventing them from using their Rage attacks as often"
• "Freeze Solid resets the timer on Ice Spear (so it can be used again immediately)" => "Ice Nova deals +110 damage and reuse timer is -2 seconds" *
• "Freeze Solid restores 161 armor to you after a 15 second delay" => "Freeze Solid restores 112 armor to you"

One-Tier Mods Changed\*
You may notice a couple of asterisks above. Those are treasure mods that previously only had one "tier" of effect. The revised versions add more tiers to each mod, allowing the mods to become slightly more powerful at high level. This resulted in a slight quirk: pre-existing items with these mods are still stored as having the first tier of the mod. This means even high-level items will have the lowest-tier version of these mods.
This isn't really a huge deal in terms of potency, but if you want to fix it, you can Transmute the mod off the item and then Transmute it back on -- it will be the appropriate tier when it's re-added. (And this month, Transmutation is cheap for the Ice Magic and Deer skills.)

Deer Changes

The earliest animal forms were all experimental designs, and Deer was originally the prototypical "off-tank" skill. Then we decided that off-tanks weren't useful in a game without raids, so Deer was revised in a few other directions. But the most recent revision made Deer fairly tanky again, so let's build on that. Here's a fresh idea: what if Deer was like an "off-tank"?
In old-school MMO terminology, an off-tank can act as a tank for an elite enemy (or multiple solo enemies), but may have trouble tanking some bosses -- although dedicated healers can help there. What makes them unique, though, is an ability to take over aggro for anyone... including a tank! (Hence the name "off-tank", because they can pull monsters off the tank.)
We'll try to give Deer that ability and see what it's like. There's new treasure that gives you a new sidebar ability "Feign Injury", which "temp taunts" a target. Temp taunting works like regular taunting, except it decays at a rate of 20% per second. So a temp taunt of +10,000 would be 10,000 Taunt at first, then a second later would be recalculated as 8,000, then a second later as 6,400, etc. So this ability should help Deer get aggro from anyone, anywhere... at least for a few seconds.
An off-tank should also have solid taunting and survivability, and deal decent damage. So that's what we'll try to do here. In addition, the Deer skill has always had incredible mobility (which is what makes them an interesting off-tank), and we want to keep that too.
Rethinking Deer Pet
Deer players can summon an ally deer to aid them. Previously these deer had an innate 300% taunt multiplier and were intended to be sort-of off-tanks themselves, sharing tanking duties with the player deer. We recently gave these summoned deer the benefits of our experimental genetics system, which could randomly give these pets incredible health and armor. Better for tanking! But yet... at high level, a well-equipped player deer can easily out-taunt and out-tank a pet deer. This just feels like an unwieldy design.
We've dropped the idea that these pets are tanks, and focused them on damage. They no longer have an innate taunt bonus or souped-up genetics. However, they have higher base damage, and the pet's taunting-related treasure effects have been changed into a damage boost.
There are also new treasure mods that summon additional deer for a few seconds at a time. This makes for a fun solo build, although it's somewhat mod-intensive and also pretty chaotic. But a fun kind of chaotic! (For those who don't want chaos, we've also bumped up Deer's more traditional murder methods.)
It's useful to know that every attack your pet deer makes is considered a "deer kick". This is relevant for one specific treasure mod:

• (Hands, Necklace) "Deer Kick implants insect eggs in the target. Future Deer Kicks by any deer cause target to take 310 Nature damage over 5 seconds"

This mod is unchanged, except that it no longer stacks more than four times: twice for each piece of equipment it can show up on. (That's *not* a limit of 4 stacks of damage, it's 4 stacks of the debuff that applies the damage!) Also, we've reworded the effect to clarify that pet deer can trigger the damage.
Removed treasure mods
We've tried hard to avoid breaking existing equipment by repurposing obsolete Deer effects with new ones. However, in one place this was impossible. A head-slot mod was removed without any replacement. If you had this mod on a piece of head gear, that item has become "Legacy", meaning it will stop working after a month. You can fix this by using a Transmutation table to remove the mod off of your helm, or you can speak to the Legacy Golem in Serbule to receive a randomly-generated replacement item. (Transmutation of Deer treasure is much cheaper this month, to help you adjust to these changes.)
Specific Deer Changes

• Doe Eyes: Power cost increased. Ability now resists more physical damage, especially against Elites, and lasts for 24 seconds instead of 10. (At level 77 it now gives 36 mitigation, plus 72 more vs. Elites)
• "After using Doe Eyes, your next attack deals +169 damage" => "Doe Eyes reuse timer is -2 seconds, and after using Doe Eyes your next attack deals +190 damage"
• "Doe Eyes restores 95 armor" => "Doe Eyes mitigates +16 physical damage (Crushing, Slashing, Piercing) for 26 seconds. Against Elite enemies, mitigates +32 more"
• "Doe Eyes heals 80 health" => "For 10 seconds after using Doe Eyes, you mitigate +36 from all attacks, and a further +72 from Elite attacks"
• Ability "King of the Forest": base damage and Power cost increased slightly; all treasure stats tweaked slightly as a result
• "King of the Forest gives you +15 mitigation of any physical damage for 20 seconds" => this effect was available on two slots, but only applied once. This was intentional at the time, but now we're trying to make all treasure mods stack together when possible. New (stacking) version: "King of the Forest mitigates +14 physical damage (Crushing, Slashing, Piercing) for 10 seconds. Against Elite enemies, mitigates +28 more"
• "Cuteness Overload heals you for 114 health" => "Cuteness Overload Damage +270"
• "Combo: Deer Bash+Any Melee+Any Melee+Deer Kick: final step hits all enemies within 5 meters and deals +100 damage." => deals +240 damage
• Summoned Deer no longer have the benefits of the experimental genetics system, but have higher base damage
• Summoned Deer no longer have an innate 300% taunt bonus
• Summoned Deer can randomly be male or female
• "Summoned Deer Taunt +X%" => "Summoned Deer Rage Attack Damage +Y"
• "Antler Slash has a 50% chance to restore 48 armor" => this effect has been replaced with an entirely unrelated effect. (head, chest): "You can use the Deer ability Feign Injury, and it temp-taunts +11300. (Equipping this item will teach you the ability if needed.)"
• (Hands, Feet) "Deer Bash deals +120 damage and knocks the enemy backwards" => "Deer Bash has a 15% chance to summon a deer ally for 30 seconds"
• New (ring): "Cuteness Overload deals +160 damage and knocks the target backwards"
• New (Head, Necklace): "Pummeling Hooves deals +45 damage and has a 8% chance to summon a deer ally for 30 seconds"
• "Antler Slash deals +X% damage" => "Antler Slash hits all enemies within 5 meters and taunts +Y". NOTE: this effect used to be available on two slots, Head and Hands. It is now only on Hands. See above about Legacy items.
• "Psychic Mitigation +34 while Deer skill active" => "Psychic and Nature Mitigation +34 while Deer skill active"
• "Nature Mitigation +34 while Deer skill active" => "Burst Evasion +8.5% while Deer skill active"
• "Deer Kick Damage +85" => "Deer Kick Damage +45 and grants you -10% Fire Vulnerability for 10 seconds"
• New: (main-hand) "Combo: Forest Challenge+Any Melee+Any Melee+Any Epic Attack: final step deals +150 damage and summons a deer ally for 30 seconds."

Live Event Token Prize Changes

We've revised some of Riston's special prizes so that they use abilities instead of items. For those that have already purchased a Vendor Fox in a Box or the Small Box of Space, the summoning item in your inventory has been converted to a skill book that will teach you the new ability. This skill book can only be used once, so use caution if you must transfer this skill book to another character on your account. Also with this change, you will have to purchase these items per character now if you wish to have it on more than one character on your account.
Other important notes:

• Once you learn the Vendor Fox in a Box ability, the ability requires you to have some type of crate in your inventory. Any crafted storage crate and most pet crates (when Animal Husbandry is released) will work to allow use of the ability. The crate will not be consumed. The cool down timer on the ability will reset in 2 real-time hours, but you still need to spend 2 hours in-game before you can use the ability again. (You can see that timer in your effects bar under the effect 'Boxed Fox'.)
• Once you learn the Small Box of Space ability, there are no other requirements. Just use the ability to summon your storage box. The cool down timer for this ability has been extended to 90 minutes (from 60 minutes). The cool down timer on the ability will reset in 90 real-time minutes, but you still need to spend 90 minutes in-game before you can use the ability again. (You can see that timer in your effects bar under the effect 'Spaced Out'.)

As time goes by, we will slowly be adding more and more items, abilities and services to the game that will require Live Event Tokens. For this update, we have added a new 50 token prize! Find Riston in the Red Wing Casino to check it out!

Other Changes In This Update

• Bug fix: Rabbit: "Bun-Fu Blast deals +80 damage and restores 44 Power after a 9-second delay" => this did not add damage to Bun-Fu Blast as expected
• Bug fix: Rabbit: "Bun-Fu Blast deals +78 damage and hastens the current reuse timer of Bun-Fu Strike by 3 seconds" => this did not add damage to Bun-Fu Blast as expected
• Rabbit: added Astounding Familiar Controllers (level 80 ice magic tiara) to loot
• Flight in-combat: the Power penalty for flying while in combat now has a much higher cap (meaning flying while in-combat for more than a few seconds costs more Power than before)
• Added a "quit" button to the login and character-select screens
• Fixed AI bug that caused monsters to hate the first attack that hit them more than intended
• "Carbon-form Scrutinizer Array" only gave a +5 pathology bonus instead of intended +10 bonus
• The visual appearance for Winter Court Murder Armor (level 80 Hardcore armor) did not glow as intended
• "Rubgag's Dancing Shoes": sprint buff now only works out of combat
• Worked around Unity shader bug that could cause treants to turn into nightmarish blobs of polygons
• Fixed bugs that caused "corpse stink" particles to continue emitting after the corpse was closed