I'm curious to see if people do what I do. Since I started to get into New Vegas modding last year, I've been trying to achieve my version of a perfect playthrough where everything plays exactly how I want it with little to no mistakes when doing the quests and completing the game. Of course, with mods, I can fix the errors of the game and have things I didn't have before like Joshua Graham or Ulysses as companions and improving the textures and graphics, getting close to perfection. I usually start off slow when building my character up and taking my time getting to New Vegas, which roughly takes twelve hours. After a while once I get everything ready for the Battle of Hoover Dam, I start the DLC's in order they were released, Dead Money, Honest Hearts, Old World Blues and Lonesome Road, completing the vanilla quests between each of the DLC's. I've put in before nearly a hundred years in one playthrough and I said to myself "this isn't enough". But before I play the game again for the millionth time (I completed the game a lot on the 360), I need to get better hardware to have better stability and handle a lot of data, that'll take about two months, just need a 1080 ti and a Ryzen 7 X1800. And lastly, I would love to get the Nick Valentine companion mod and this awesome retexture of the Dead Money companions.

Spoiler:

But I need to be a colonial before I get those two, so I'll wait.

Then it's off to New Vegas... again.

Ah, the 'perfect playthrough'...

When I first ever started playing New Vegas, it was on Xbox 360 - I hated having a pip boy on my arm and only being able to have one companion at a time. 

I had a look around online in the hopes I could solve these problems somehow, that's when I discovered modding. Soon after I bought a PC and New Vegas on steam along with it

At first I was satisfied with my army of companions and a pipboyless arm, but slowly, I wanted to start improving everything about the game

I got Mods for everything - textures, armors, weapons, lighting, bug fixes, overhauls - I couldn't stop, in my constant struggle for the perfect modded game.

The struggle went on for around 2-3 years, until I realised I didn't actually play the game properly anymore, I only modded it.

Turns out I wasn't the only one who'd fallen into this trap, a number of people in the community had.

So, In January of this year, Dragbody created a topic called The Community Playthrough, where people could share their screenshots, stories, characters, playthroughs etc on a thread, encouraging people to sit and actually play the game, which finished at the end of the month

https://www.gunetwork.org/t12079-new-vegas-new-year-2017-community-playthrough (Last January's playthrough)

We'll be doing it again in January, so I highly suggest you keep an eye out for it 

Ah, I used the play the game in a 'perfect playthrough' sort of way. I'd mod my game, usually with texture replacers, a few gameplay changes, body replacers, some weapon mods, before going through the game in a very specific order, making sure to maximise the number of quests I could complete, usually helping the NCR as much as I could, knowing that I would ultimately end up creating an independent Vegas. I generally had Nukapedia (though I much prefer The Vault now) up while playing, alt-tabbing out to look at the quests I needed to do. After all of this, I'd do the DLC, conclude Lonesome Road, and then do Hoover Dam.

Nowadays, my methodology of playing games has changed a decent bit, so I'd nowadays just do whatever quests suit my character's (read: my own) belief system, which means far less dicking around with quest orders in order to help the NCR, because the NCR sucks. This ultimately means the way I play now is more relaxed, and a 'perfect playthrough' isn't something I do anymore.

Nowadays, I'm just content to install mods that help me get immersed in the game world (with the exception of weapon & armour mods, with which I allow myself to indulge in some utterly out-of-place mods, like Star Wars guns, or even just modern guns that don't fit into Fallout's setting. As for armours, I just wear whatever I feel like wearing at the time), and make the experience feel much smoother and less dated and unfinished. As long as that goal is accomplished, every playthrough is perfect to me now. And thankfully, there's almost nothing I want as a mod that hasn't already been made.

I have also fallen into this trap. I always strived to build the "Perfect" mod list. I still kinda have that mindset, but nowadays, I have learned that there is no perfect way to play the game, at least in an objective sense. When it comes to modding a game like Fallout to have that "perfect" playthrough, you will fall into the trap of just modding it. You will look for quests, graphical enhancements, gameplay enhancements, bug fixes, etc. Hell, at some point, you will actually try your hand at making a mod or just go into the game engine and edit some things. This was the same for me. I usually go into the GECK and edit NPC's faces to my tastes. That is why Dragbody wanted to do the January playthrough. We all get a chance to close the Nexus page, keep our cursors off the GECK icon, and actually experience the game we love to mod.

The perfection is the bane of all things. I promised myself I will reboot my FO4 master character (the character that plays out my headcanon to its finer details) . I wish I'd never promised such thing. Perfection is a cruel master. I barely have managed to make my game visually look how I want, but rebuilding world the way i want it to be? I spent in summer my holidays and weekends 12 hours a day for few months to learn how to achieve the perfection via xEdit and Creation kit. I build places, change quests, tinker with NPCs, and more I learn, more I must change mods other peoples have done, and more I have to build my own from scratch. At this rate I probably never get to start new 'master character' Building perfect mod list would be plausible and quicker for me, but no in my methodological madness i have to go and change those mods too because there might be 1-2 things I do not like.

It is good to label it ' a trap' as it sure is one.

Luckily I do not have same 'need' for my random play-troughs on other characters. I can play a character just as is or even in vanilla. But if I am about to ply my 'master plan' then it goes all on levels of silly.

So i can play the game and not only mod it, and I even play my current 'master character' (his save file is some 1200 hours) and he has plenty of things still to do. However I still work on the reboot perfection on side. It is fun challenge to 'make that perfect game', but it is heavily time consuming too.