Companion you hated most on a personal level?

Lily is my one favorite character concept in the whole game.
Her backstory is great. It really gives perspective about SM.
Most of them were regular folks, elderly, children, men, women, farmers, intellectual etc... Most of them didn't ask to join the Master army.
Lily shows that pretty well. Also, it is awesome that Obsidian dared to go so unconventional with a grandma companion.
(is there a grand-ma companion is any other game in the world ?)
The problem is that once you recruited her, she is lacking in dialogs.
If you compare her with Raul, Arcade, Veronica, Cass or even Boone, she doesn't have much too say, which put her in the sideline compared to other humans companions. Considering these companions, and other nightkin characters like Tabitha or God, Lily doesn't feel fully fleshed out, which is sad, as they came up with a great concept and didn't used it well enough.
But still, she is better than Rex.

 

A sane and genius-level intellect Nightkin companion would have been interesting.

Perhaps the companion quest would have been another attempt in curing the Nightkin. Or something to do with his past while he was in the Master's Army. Perhaps he was a "prototype Nightkin", which is the reason he is sane and has an IQ of 180.

 

Nightkin are intelligent.
At least, they kept their intelligence when becoming a super-mutant. (not every humans was intelligent to begin with)
If they were dumb as Harry, they would never have been got the rank of Nightkin. Nightkin were spies. You don't send someone with no brain as spy.

Then, the overuse of stealthboy brought them psychological issues, like schyzophrenia & unstability.
But they are still very intelligent.
Take Dog/God. Dog is repressing his bright side, but the brightside is still there, within the same brain.
Tabitha looks pretty dumb, but here goals and manners are twisted. But if you look further, you will notice that she is quite manipulative.
She may believe herself to be Tabitha & Rhonda, but manage to handle those two characters with skills, and use he radio to master propaganda.
She have hard time to stay focused, control herself, but she kept some mind skills.
They don't use their brain with the most effective way, but their brain are still there.
Their issues are psychological, not physical.

About Lily, sure Leo is not far, and her voice doesn't seem bright, but she seems to me as intelligent as a normal person, albeit a bit old.

 

Remember that the Super Mutants are all biologically immortal, BUT as early as the 2240s (FO2) many of them were exhibiting senility, and the Nightkin are no exception. Lily suffers both from schizophrenia AND senility, which is why she comes off as a bit "dumb" at times.

 

Not necessary means that SM become senile.
If you are a radiated normal, you will lose your intelligence.
If you are a prime normal, you keep your intelligence.
If you are already dumb/senile, being a prime normal while becoming an SM won't make you more intelligent than you were before, just not less.

 

I have not seen evidence of that yet, the robot's that I've encountered throughout the game seem to be shooting first and asking questions on a bi-weekly basis, they do not seem to retain any self awareness apart from a select few (ED-E, Robobrains) I am not denying the fact that humans can feel attached to them, I'm just saying that it should always be kept in mind that they are not alive, so feeling bad for shooting a blue giant for not fixing her robot is extremely weird.

 

I never meant to imply they weren't intelligent. What I meant was if you had a Nightkin for a companion that was both sane, and held a GENIUS level of intelligence (an IQ of about 180), that would be a great Nightkin companion. The average IQ for a human, and I assume First-Gen Super Mutant also is 100. 110 - 120 IQ is considered a 'critical thinker', 121 - 140 is superior intelligence, and 141 - 180 is a genius level IQ. There have been many people with genius level IQ's that have done absolutely nothing though, and many people with average IQ or 'critical thinker' range IQ that have done great things.

My point being, a Nightkin companion that was sane and held a genius level IQ would be interesting.

Here's a breakdown of IQ level's I found on about two years ago on a science webpage. I keep it for Fallout, so that I know what my character's IQ is when I raise or lower his INT:

1) 1 to 30 - Profound mental disability (Greatly Mentally Disabled)
2) 31 to 54 - Moderate mental disability (Mentally Disabled)
3) 55 to 69 - Mild mental disability (Slow Thinker)
4) 70 to 84 - Borderline mental disability (Not Disabled, But 'Stupid') (No offense using that word)
5) 85 to 114 - Average intelligence (Average Person)
6) 115 to 129 - Above average (Smart/Bright)
7) 130 to 144 - Moderately gifted (Talented)
8) 145 to 159 - Highly gifted (Gifted)
9) 160 to 179 - Exceptionally gifted (Genius)
10) 180 and up - Profoundly gifted (Unmeasurable Genius)

 

Damn, is INT stat could use that range efficiently...

 

Really. Every once in awhile I like to create a character where I put there SPECIAL stats at points I think my own would be (I even did adequate tests, including a basic-fast IQ test, an 'agility' test ((basically running track, with a set of times according to the Agility stat) my own. Don't ask me for the specifics because that was years ago I did those tests (originally they were done to test my own capabilities, then I decided to use the Fallout SPECIAL to rate them).

Note that the tests we did usually had a 0.0 type number, for example 5.4. However I will just give solid numbers, especially since there is no possible way I could remember the exact .0 number. So in their place I will include a - or +, - being it was below .5, + meaning it was above. If there is none, than it was .5 or around that. According to my memory, the results were something like:

Strength: 5
Perception: 5 +
Endurance: 6 -
Charisma: 5
Intelligence: 6 -
Agility: 4 (I was born with chronic Asthma. My track run time was below average, and I pushed myself).
Luck: 6 +

I did these tests when I was 16. See, it all started when I was hit by a truck crossing the street. I was in bad shape, but for the most part recovered completely (still have sciatic nerve damage). The doctor did several tests on me after I recovered to be sure that nothing serious was affected. There we did my Endurance, Perception, and very basic Intelligence tests (I later took an IQ test at a comm. college) which all had different names. About a few months later I decided to do the Charisma, Agility, Strength, and Luck tests after starting a game of Fallout. Why? I don't know. Probably because I had most of the results. I went back to the doctors and they helped me place my current results on a 1 - 10 scale.

Strength: Weight lifting
Perception: Eyesight test, Hearing test, Memory test, and General Perception (how long it takes to notice someone behind your, or not in sight, etc.) test.
Endurance: Tests ability to withstand trauma, pain, and fatigue. The way I collected this data is (besides the actual Endurance test they did, which was more or less a Fatigue test), when I was 16 I was hit by a pick-up truck. When I was fully healed, I went back and asked the doctors exactly how much pain they figured I was in, how often they had to give me morphine, and at what dose. Then I compiled and averaged the results,
Charisma: Stupid tests I did with my cousin and a friend. Basically seeing how well I could get along with total strangers was the direct point.
Intelligence: IQ test administered by the local community college (same one I go to now).
Agility: Running track and recording my time, then comparing it to a list of ten time ranges
Luck: Simple tests, such as flipping a coin, rolling a die, and basic non-complex gambling games.

Everyone of these I recorded my results, and compared them to a good-bad list of ten which had ranges (such as the IQ list I posted above).

 

No, not lost intelligence. Senile. ACTUAL senility. They even say so throughout Broken Hills that many of the Super Mutant residents ARE senile. It's not a question of the vats having done that to them, it's just a question of their age catching up with them. We're not saying they suffer from alzheimer's or dementia, just the generic description of "senile" which is attributed to all kinds of symptoms from various causes, which is why it was present in Super Mutants despite the FEV having changed their genetic structure to becoming biologically immortal. It made their bodies resilient to disease and decay, but clearly it had no such "perfection" with regards to the mind. Whatever the case, either because it makes perfect sense, or because it was another mistake/oversight in FO2, it was still established that many Super Mutants by the time they reached their early 100s had gone senile.

 

I am not sure you got what i intended to say.

The people that are irradiated don't make good super-mutants. They could be strong people, intelligent people, they could even be genious, they are wortless as they would become as dumb are brahmins.
So the master will get people from vault, to make still intelligent super-mutant. Those are for great value.
The master will dip them all into vats, including old people and children, including dumb, senile and weak.
Even no-bark noonan, if he just came from a vault, would have more value than a Lanius or a Caesar, if they come from the wasteland.
Most super-mutants wouldn't care about the value of individual they dip.
So, considering that, i have no trouble considering that many vault dweller that we dipped into the vats, were already weak, dumb, senile, juvenile, immature, etc... It didn't prevented the master from recruiting them, as they were too valuable, as vault dwellers, to be wasted.
All these prime humans, that weren't perfect to begin with, weren't healed by the vats. They didn't became more intelligent.
The way i see it, Lily, for instance, could have been already senile when she was captured, then stayed that way, when changed into super-mutant.
The vats just didn't make her more dumb or more senile that she already was to begin with. It even prevented senility to go further.
It is a possibility.

 

I got what you were saying, I was saying it was irrelevant. I pointed out that Lily was an intelligent Super Mutant (like you pointed out, all Nightkin are) but she came off as "dumb" BOTH because of her schizophrenia AND her senility. Leo was the product of her damaged mental state due to the Stealth Boy abuse induced schizophrenia, but CONSTANTLY confusing the Courier with her grandchildren wasn't; that was the product of her going senile. It was those 2 things combined that made Lily SEEM "dumb", and your arguments about her compatability with FEV and retaining her intelligence being used to "address" my points on her aging mind were irrelevant to those points.

 

We are disagreeing on the senility process.
You say that the senility process is still ongoing, that SM goes senile.
I would say that she was already senile to begin with, that being SM stopped the process (she won't get senile any further), but didn't heal the damage already done while normie.

A third theory could be that the schyzophrenia created both personalities, that the apparent senility is part of the persona that still want to be considered as a grandma, inducing herself a psychological senility.

 

It's nothing to disagree with, nor a theory, because it was DESCRIBED in FO2 by residents of Broken Hills to be senility impairing certain residents of the town due to their age. I never said that it was "ongoing", however. Because of their biological immortality, even IF the symptoms shared any origin with alzheimer's, they wouldn't die like people eventually do due to the disease. Furthermore, because all of the First Generation Super Mutants are roughly the same age (they varied in age much more when the Master was still expanding his ranks, but 80 years later that range was far smaller in comparison), just like senility or dementia is NOT guaranteed to all people when they reach a certain age, those Super Mutants who did not exhibit senility in Broken Hills by the time of the 2240s were more than likely not going to exhibit signs of senility later on.

We do know that Lily had grandchildren from her days in her Vault when it was stormed by the Master's forces and she was dipped, making it feasibly possible she was already elderly at the time of her transformation, so your theory that her mental state was already afflicted by senility and was "preserved" following her dipping has some circumstantial backing to it. But you mustn't ignore that it's stated, multiple times, that the Super Mutants in Broken Hills had "gone senile", NOT "always been senile".

 

Personally, I like all of the companions of New Vegas. At least none of them were mindless, overpowered heaps of flesh and bones like the ones in the Fallout 3.

 

Boone. I just didnt like the voice actor.

 

But he's Myron, baby. Myron!

(And the voice of Goofy's son, to boot. How could you ever hate Max Goof? You monster.)

 

I barely recognized it. I almost didn't believe it when I heard it was Myron's actor.

 

Myron was just an egotistical teenaged douchebag, but at least he was useful for some circumstances.

 

I don't care about efficiency.
He was so horrible & funny that i couldn't stop laughing from each of his sentences.
I was impossible not to have it.