You absolutely made the right call. Fallout is apparently at its best when Bethesda isn't fully calling the shots. Apart from the original isometric games, that's (in my opinion) the gem of the series.
Nobody hates Fallout more than Fallout fans, haha.
The biggest thing for me is that New Vegas is both a rushed mess and the highest peak the series had reached, meaning a better Fallout game is both possible and yet will probably never happen.
All you need to do is get 2 of the 3 piles to be a higher number than the other guy's and you win. It's actually not that fun once you actually know the rules and it becomes brain-dead easy against the NPCs. Gwent is a little better. But Tetra Master is the GOAT.
It's basically blackjack, but 21-26, and must be higher than your opponent's "caravan." Kings double values, jacks remove cards, and queens and jokers are less relevant.
Plus, you have to only increase or decrease unless special conditions are met, like having the same suit or a queen.
It's actually really easy to get the hang of and make a ton of caps before you hit New Vegas, even without a Luck build.
I appreciate it man. Yes, I followed a video that primarily patched for capacity and bug fixes. It took a good couple hours of work just for that (Vortex is badass by the way). That was the foundation that would allow for the huge amount of graphics upgrades. I've played a good dozen hours now without a single crash/bug.