Highlights
- Some perks in Fallout: New Vegas are weak and not worth choosing, like Mile in Their Shoes and Mister Sandman.
- XP-boosting perks like Swift Learner become useless at high levels.
- Some perks, such as Friend of the Night and Broad Daylight, are unnecessary and overshadowed by other gameplay mechanics.
One of the many great things about the fan-favorite post-apocalyptic RPG Fallout: New Vegas is how it flushed out a lot of the fodder perks from the previous game and replaced them with a boatload of better options to choose from. Ones that offer significantly more beneficial abilities to turn the unnamed Courier into an unstoppable force, whether with words or violence.
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Of course, there’s a handful that are utter stinkers to choose from. Some of them are brought over from the previous title, Fallout 3, while others are either too niche or barely useful at all when it comes to overcoming the many threats of the deserts of New Vegas.
9 Mile In Their Shoes
Mostly Useless Stat Buffs, The Best Of Which Can Be Earned In Other Ways
From the Old World Blues DLC comes the ‘Mile in Their Shoes’ perk. It's an oddly-specific one. Consuming a portion of Nightstalker Squeezin' grants the player 4 minutes of bonus abilities: +1 Perception, +5 Poison Resistance, and +5 Sneak.
The effects are too small to have an impact. Perception isn’t all that useful of a skill, and it can easily be boosted by wearing most pieces of non-armored headgear. Poison Resistance only really applies to some select mutated critters, and the boost in Sneak isn’t going to turn anyone into an undetectable shadow. It all comes from a single item dropped by a single enemy type. The ‘Heartless’ perk (from having the Courier’s heart replaced with a mechanized one) comes with Poison immunity anyway, so, why bother?
8 Mister Sandman
An Oddly-Specific Situational Perk
‘Mister Sandman’ is a carry-over perk from Fallout 3. In that game, it didn’t have much of a use, and it’s not too helpful here either. In short, it allows a user to instantly kill a person in their sleep without suffering any impact on one’s Karma, all the while offering a small amount of bonus XP.
This perk isn’t necessarily bad, but the requirements are so specific that it comes across as a tad too situational. Clearly geared towards stealth builds, having to be at level 10 isn’t too much of an ask, though a Sneak skill of 60 points is quite a big ask for an ability that is only good for taking out maybe one or two important figures.
7 Lessons Learned / Swift Learner / Roughin’ It
Minor XP Boosts That Become Useless At High Levels
Three XP-boosting perks are lumped together here since they, too, are awfully similar. ‘Swift Learner’ is yet another perk from the previous entry, and it offers 10% additional XP with each application. ‘Roughin’ It’ and 'Lessons Learned' were introduced as part of the Lonesome Road DLC, allowing the player to gain the ‘Well Rested’ status effect when sleeping outside, and offering percentage boosts to XP based on one's skill level (at level 26 or higher).
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The golden question remains: what happens when players hit level 50? Well, both perks are rendered utterly useless. After all, being Well Rested offers nothing more than an additional 10% XP. That can be done in normal indoor beds without the need for a perk anyway. Even worse, ‘Roughin’ It’ is available only at level 28 with a Survival skill of 100 points! Ridiculous!
6 Infiltrator / Computer Whiz
Both of these perks function a bit similarly. With ‘Infiltrator,’ breaking a lock by forcing it won’t be the end, as it will offer a player a second attempt. As for ‘Computer Whiz’, if a player is locked out of a terminal after failing four attempts at hacking in a row, they’ll get a second attempt.
There’s really no point in acquiring either of these perks, as there tend to be alternate methods to, for example, access certain locked-off locations. A careful player would have no need for either of these, anyway. Saving before picking a lock or hacking can prevent disaster altogether, so there’s no need to unlock these on a normal run.
5 Friend Of The Night
The Pip-Boy Has A Flashlight That Accomplishes The Same Thing
Ever wanted to unlock a perk that eliminates the need for a fairly common and accessible drug by coating the screen with a tint of blue at night? Sounds rubbish already, but what about the fact that there is no way to toggle it? Yep, that aptly sums up the ‘Friend of the Night’ perk nicely, which increases the player's vision in dark places, but only at night.
Anyone who remembers The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion may remember an effect called Night Eye. It pretty much did the same thing. Was it useful? Well, it varied, but at least it was an optional ability via spells or enchantments. The same effect happens after taking Cat Eye chems, which aren’t too difficult to find, but they're temporary. Even then, there’s always the Pip-Boy light to illuminate areas. And, speaking of which…
4 Broad Daylight
Useless During The Day, Mostly Useless At Night
Geared towards stealthy players, ‘Broad Daylight’ (packaged alongside the challenging Lonesome Road DLC) makes it so that having the Pip-Boy light on does not affect one’s sneaking skills. Naturally, it’s going to be a useless perk in the day when the Courier is outside, since the sun, shockingly, exists. Alas, its effect is barely noticeable on the whole, and utterly niche as well.
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Worse still, it’s only unlockable at level 36, of all things! Leaving it so late in a player's progression is a questionable design choice on the whole. Yet again, there’s an easier solution that renders the perk useless: turn off the light and pop some Cat Eye if need be. Yet another perk is rendered useless compared to a finite but common item in-game.
3 Lead Belly / Rad Absorption / Irradiated Beauty
All These Fancy Ways To Remove Radiation When There's Probably A RadAway In The Next Room
Many of the radiation-based perks from Fallout 3 were rubbish, and it’s no different here in Fallout: New Vegas. For starters, ‘Lead Belly’ reduces radiation from drinking sources, which offer little health in the first place. Plus, lakes are far more common and are already free from radiation.
Radiation slowly decreasing over time with the ‘Rad Absorption’ perk is rubbish, as RadAway does that far quicker and more effectively, and the perk requires a hefty 7 points of Endurance. Ditto with the New Vegas-exclusive ‘Irradiated Beauty’, except it reduces radiation via sleeping and requires a whopping 8 points of Endurance instead! The benefits of all three perks are anything but ‘rad.’
2 Here And Now
Leveling Up Is Not Hard, So A Free Level Is A Pointless Addition
Ah, yes, the obligatory ‘pick this perk to cheat and get one step closer to the maximum level cap’ perk. There’s nothing that makes it differ from its iteration in Fallout 3, as it functions the same as before. All it does is level up a player instantly on the spot, with no other bells and whistles to go alongside.
What’s the point of choosing it in the first place, then? Well, maybe if a person were speed-running to reach level 50 (with all the DLCs in their possession), this may come in handy, but that’s just ridiculously specific. In truth, it’s a slot-filler, and this is the sort of game (and the sort of Perk Tree) where slot-fillers are the bane of its existence.
1 In Shining Armor
A Coding Error Means This Perk, Literally, Does Nothing
Fallout: New Vegas had a brilliant DLC called Dead Money, which included a collection of brand-new perks to try out. This included the tantalizing ‘In Shining Armour,’ which, supposedly, offers +5 Damage Threshold against energy weapons while wearing metal armor. Even better, it applies to power armor and radiation suits. To top it off, it has an additional +2 DT when wearing sunglasses.
Due to a mistake in its coding, this perk has no effect at all. Those who are not trying out mods for the game must dodge this like a blast from a Laser Rifle, as there is nothing to gain here.
