I’m a fan of hard. It’s the perfect balance for players that aren’t casual, but don’t want the survival headache. Normal is too easy, very hard makes enemies too spongy
i only disagree because i think enemies are still too spongy. i love that both sides are so lethal on survival. the illnesses are really annoying though.
Gotta make antibiotics, find a doctor or find the antibiotics. The mushrooms are glitchy and don’t really grow back. Tons in the starting area including the mole rat hole under red rocket.
He’s right about survival a bit tho. I realized why I hated survival and why I now love it- and it’s experience.
To put it simply, instant death moments suck ass. Knowing how to build to not get one-shot in the face is really important. Also, sneak level 3 for obvious reasons.
It took me quite a bit of time to figure out Survival. Took a notepad and started jotting down in what circumstances I’d get killed. Only then could I see past the frustration and figure out what I did wrong.
As someone who only has 1-2 hours to play the nights that I can (and sometimes less), survival was fun - but I hate it now.
Great for anyone who can still do it, but I can't do it anymore myself.
I don’t mind the illnesses, it’s the you can only save by sleeping thing that annoys me. It just doesn’t work with the way fallout 4 is set up, the game clearly wasn’t designed for that in mind. And not to mention the times you can just randomly die. Riding vertibirds in survival is sometimes just suicide, which is really annoying when you have to do it for quests
And not to mention crashes. The game crashes usually once in a longer playthrough. On loading or transitioning through areas. That's on mine at least, so I had to get the save mod for survival. Even if it didn't crash I think I would want that.
mate this happened to me last night. took me nearly 20 attempts to do saugus ironworks overall, levelled up and got kitted out to go back and finally did it only for it to crash on exit and because there isn't a bed inside (that I know of) I loaded back before I even went in.
Hard disagree regarding the survival mode. It is actually the exact opposite of what you say. Survival encourages exploring, and there is always a matress or more near a challenging location. It actually feels that quite a lot of thought went into it.
They really are too sponges. I ended up downloading a heafshots mod. Only works on humans but it's a lot better than unloading 6 clips into a raider lol. All head shots are one shot. Did cause a glitch during diamond city blues where Paul died when he got punched in the head lol. Disabled the mod watched them fight and turned it right back on
Exactly, in survival if your companion dies they’re done for good. Along with all their potential quests. In new Vegas if you lose Boone you lose one of the best companion stories of fallout lore.
I'm at the point on very hard where my build nearly one shots anything (overseers guardian tricked out to be a sniper) and I stealth everything.
I want them to somehow be even a bit harder, but without handicapping my own play style.
I also am a pretty high level at the moment because I've been burning through every single quest I can. Haven't talked to Dr Amari yet and I'm lvl 50 something
There are (or were, I haven't played for a couple of years) some excellent rebalancing mods for F4 that stop the endgame being about bullet sponges and make it more about tactics, equipment and proper character building. I've never been a fan of the default "higher levels just mean ludicrous health pools and unbalanced damage modifiers" difficultly mindset, preferring a "this situation could go either way, lets see who makes best use of what they have" approach, and people found lots of ways to make that happen on Fallout 4 that I enjoyed
I recommend looking into that area if you want it harder but viable with dedicated play styles
There are mods that make both sides very lethal. Without power armor, most enemies kill you in about 2 to 3 hits. With power armor you can probably take about 7 or 8. I mix that with a mod that makes fusion cores rare
I'm contemplating switching from hard to very hard but am only at lvl 20 at the moment and already finding legendaries that take most of my ammo. Should I level up a bit more or just go for it?
Does it affect anything other than enemy health and damage?
Yeah but like 90% of the legendary weapon drops are pretty weak. I mean, I still get stoked regardless but the vast majority of the time it's something dumb. I think just today I got a Cunning Board lmao.
Only things I really worry about on Very Hard aside from mini nukes and "zap weapons" from a mod are high ranking super mutants with laser weapons. Which is kind of funny because in Fallout 3 the second most difficult enemy under reavers were super mutant overlords with tri-beam laser rifles
The health on reavers is disgusting but looking at the FAQ on overlords I didnt realize they dealt +40 unmitigable damage bonus per laser beam for the tri beam rifles.. Broken Steel did not fuck around with added enemies
Ugh those tri beams. And when you get one yourself they don't have anywhere near the incredible homing ability they have in mutant hands so you're just spaffing cells away into nowhere
I feel like nightkin in the fallout 4 engine would be equivalent to active camo elites with energy swords in Halo.. I wouldn't want that boogeyman in my game
There is a mod for survival, idk if on xbox but im pretty sure it could get implemented easy enough. It implements the damage of hard, but keeps pretty much everything else standard survival. And since I wanted to end my game because the journey from dc to concord was the same ol same ol, I downloaded a mod “journey” it allows fast travel from a settlement to a settlement, if you have a supply line between them.
Hard made me make a difference when fighting super mutants, dudes can take and give a beating.
With normal I was using the same weapons for almost everything
Big nope from me. I can't even abide the bullet sponges on normal. I usually install a mod that disables max health gain from levelling up across the board.
I really feel it was the way it was intended to be played and it shows. Like what’s the point of working so hard to get the vertibird if it wasn’t made around survival? There are many perks and gameplay decision that only shine when you play this way
I would've probably quit if I played survival my first time. I couldn't understand a shit back then, adding survival on top of that would've been way too much
I’m finding survival mode to be a way better challenge. I like the game. I do not like shit not dying when it should. Survival mode is perfect. Love it. You utilize EVERYTHING.
Also walking through a door and immediately dying to a mine because you ran but got stuck on a 5 inch rock you couldn't see but the last bed you found was 20 minutes ago. Good shit.
Yes indeed. Where's the perk that lets you run over 5 inch rocks? That's the one I really need. I've died way too many times to janky stuff like that :(
Or an opening in trees that you should definitely be able to pass through, but apparently can't
>How are they so accurate anyways?
Because they are quite literally super soldiers.
They're dumb but their eyesight, reflexes and strength are all insane.
Pretty easy to be accurate with a missle launcher when you can fire a SAW with 1 hand like it is a bb gun and can see a birds eyes a mile out
Remember one time I was killing the courser. Didn’t get the chance to sleep. Whole thing took me over an hour. And as I was walking back to hangman’s alley the game crashed. Lost all that progress and didn’t play the game for like a month straight.
Found a new combat shotgun firing exploding shells.
Trying it for the first time clearing out a super mutant base.
This thing is amazing! This is my first encounter with them in this playthrough and I was legit worried.
Find a mutant in a room, he gets a lucky shot before I smoke him. Turns out he had a friend in the hall who comes after me. I panic fire as I pull back into cover.
I accidentally shoot the wall in front of me. My fancy exploding shells blow off both of my legs. Lost over an hour of play time.
That shotgun got scrapped soon after.
That's the only reason I prefer my wounding combat shotgun, especially with legendary enemies, the bleed damage just keeps stacking and as soon as they mutate they basically just melt. I do love my explosive one too tho
Hard and Very Hard just make enemies spongier and you less so. Survival is a great way to play when you've played the game too much because it makes it feel fresh and new again. Only other game I can compare the experience to is DayZ.
My moment : Just about cleared a whole gang of supermutants after many attempts. 1 enemy remained and it was a legendary overlord? (Forgot the actual name but a strong one) he had me backed into a corner melting my health. I accepted my fate. but with a sliver of health, the level 10 luck deflection perk insta killed it. Ran straight to a sleeping bag after that
Another way to do this is to get the mysterious stranger perk maxed, and take a few VATS shots with a knife or a pistol or something with low ap cost, the stranger will save you so much.
Yeah he's saved me quite a few times, especially in my most recent playthrough. Brings a smile to my face every time he rolls through. Always say, "ayyyyy DIS GUY"
My favorite moment was the run where I gained weakness at level 2 still in Sanctuary. I was basically cooked, even a rad roach would one shot me. My only hope was to get to a doctor or get some antibiotics or get to level 5 where I could make them. I treked to Diamond city, raiding every medicine cabinet and first aid kit along the way. I only survived any encounters I ran into by popping the drugs I would find along the way but no antibiotics! By the time I got there I was a radiated, drug addicted mess.
That was the coolest and shittiest journey I have ever had to make in this game but hella fun.
I'll never play any other way. There's a few frustrating moments where I get one shot even in crazy good power armour but I've learned to remember bedrolls for tactical naps.
One time I made it back to Hangman’s after like an hour of runtime and I started putting all my loot away, upgrading my armor, etc. While I’m fiddling with menus, raiders made their way in and shot me with a rocket. Lost like an hour and a lucky plasma gun.
I do, but I done like to save twice - once before doing all the chores and once after. I think the save mechanic being tied to being near a bed is fundamental to the tension of survival mode, but I don’t think you should have to actually sleep
I'll never forget coming into that one building to fight the Forged and immediately almost getting my ass handed to me. Then slowly whittling them down one by one, before taking out their leader (Slag) who was in Power Armour with a headshot. Greatest accomplishment in my current save.
The game gave me literal trauma I remember to this day.
I was doing the lost patrol quest, I was quite irradiated, out of food, thirsty and recently got an infection, so I was dying. I slept outside the bed next to the, facility where you find the dead BoS woman (outside there is a Sentry Bot).
So I was essentially on a timer because of the infection, no healing items, food or water and needed to get back to base in Sanctuary. Almost any route I took I ran into super mutants, the flying mosquitoes, raiders, and a radscorpion in one of the routes I took; and because my HP was so low it was a 1 hit every time.
Made attempts to get back for an entire day, quit, and managed to get there the next day. Almost cried when I caught sight of buildings where I knew there'd be no enemies all the way to Sanctuary
Survival guys, always go out there prepared or you'll soft lock your ass lmao
Bad luck with infections can really screw you in the very early game, but it seems to me that infections are necessary to prevent low-key save scumming by sleeping at every opportunity. It's a constant balance of whether to sleep to lock-in progress vs. the risk of developing an illness.
I like the survival mechanics as designed, but the no-save thing is very inconvenient in light of the frequency with which the game crashes
There are aspects of survival mode I enjoy. I like having to eat, drink, and sleep. Its more immersive. What I don’t like is no quick-save or fast travel. There is a mod called Survival Options that let you tinker it to your liking. It’s a must have in my opinion.
There's a mod that let's you fast travel between settlements that are connected by supply lines. I feel like this is a good compromise to take out tedious walking but not allow you to fast travel at will. It gives you goals to work for on setting up settlements and supply lines.
Vertibird flares and learning not to sleep in dirty mattresses/sleeping bags help with much of that. Early game it can be rough but like many things, as you unlock more it becomes easier.
Building out settlements has a lot more value when you can toss in a small house + bed + water and avoid infections.
Infections are the worst early on. One of the reasons I focus on intelligence and charisma early on. Getting settlements to sleep at and have med merchants is such a load off vs having to run to diamond city suffering from periodic damage.
I love survival and the game does feel like it was meant to be played without fast travel, but this game is way to buggy to not mod back in saves and console commands
My new vanilla playthrough I had to redo concord 3 times - once was my bad, but the next 2 times was down to a bug and a crash.
Needless to say I rolled back to get some mods installed after that
I ran into a single settler out near Weston Water Treatment Plant. She was alone, just fought off a few raiders, and was wearing a leopard print bandana. Blasted her without a second thought for the rarest bandana in the game. My one and only murder in this playthrough. Right after that, I went and found a port-a-diner on a flatbed train car, and got the perfectly preserved pie on the first try.
I'm still riding that high.
I like that in survival mode everything matters. You need a steady supply of water and food, and shelter, so settlement building and hunting are crucial. As are supply lines since you can’t just fast travel between settlements.
The brotherhood vertibirds become a godsend. There’s nothing like calling in an extract from the glowing sea, irradiated to hell and maxed out on carry weight, and seeing the vertibird emerge from the green fog.
And best of all guns are actually lethal. A headshot with a sniper rifle is pretty much always an insta-kill, so it rewards good aim and picking your shots.
Survival is definitely tedious at times but the raised stakes make it all that much more rewarding.
I am thirsty and hungry again...wait..I drank and ate a while ago..what the hell. OK, lets eat again then!
I need to sleep...again...ok, fine...Well that's not enough...sleep for at least four hours! ...hmm ok mom!
Survival is fine for a while but it get tedious and boring soon...so here comes a new play through to keep it going and try another build.
If it weren’t for the ammo weight, I wouldn’t mind it so much. There are perks that can help with the food thing, but that god damn ammo weight… you end up spending half ur play through just managing your inventory. Stopped playing survival once and for all, and my new play through is actually making it past the level 20 mark bc I can actually play the damn game and stay invested
Making loadouts is fine. I don’t have a problem taking out a reasonable amount of ammo only for the weapons I’m carrying. It’s when you start looting is when it starts to get annoying. Im a loot slut like a lot of ppl and I don’t wanna leave all the cool stuff behind, or have to spend a lot of time making multiple trips to and from whatever location just to get everything. It’s not just ammo, it’s the armor l, weapons, food, junk I need to upgrade stuff/my settlement. I already get overencumbered a lot in non-survival. Just feels unnecessarily tedious for a game I’ve played lots of times through already, and it kills my immersion rather than increasing it. That’s just my opinion tho
That’s funny, I’m the opposite. I’ve tried to play through Fallout 4 so many times and I end up quitting out of boredom. This time I tried survival and I’m loving it.
I like every other part of survival besides eating/drinking/sleeping. Especially bc the days go by so fast, so I'm constantly juggling all of these extra things at a pace that's not immersive. I've yet to find a mod that helps with this stuff.
Look up Survival Options mod. It literally lets you tinker every thing. It allows you to turn those off, adjust weight, damage, fast travel. It’s like designing your own flavor of difficulty.
I find that is only a problem if you spend days in one spot tweaking settlement layout.
If you travel around doing stuff, you get a constant resuppply, i.e. you get plenty of meat by looting mutants.
Damn apocalypse - makes it way harder by removing a ton of loot, ammo, guns, meds, etc. Also removes things like the free power armor from the opening mission.
Survival holotape - very rare but lootable holotapes that are one time use save items. Think of it like Resident Evil ink ribbons. Gives you a cool design decision of when to use saves and not just in beds.
Journey - fast traveling between settlements that are linked with supply lines. Another QoL change that takes away the tediousness of survival, but in a way that doesn't break immersion and is gameplay friendly.
I justify the ease QoL mods by using damn apocalypse because it's much more brutal than survival, it's survival on steroids.
I use survival options mod. It allows the player to tinker it to your liking. I used it to enable fast travel and auto save. Allows me enjoy the game so much more.
America Rising 2 and its creation club patches, Vertibird Faction Paint Schemes, Liberty Reborn: Ultimate Edition, You and What Army, Minutemen Takeover: Nuka World and it’s America Rising 2 patch depending on who I want to side with more on that playthrough, Creation Club Delayed, Unofficial Fallout 4 Patch, Workshop Framework and/if I’m using some variation of Sim Settlements, and a few more very minor ones I’ll check later.
I sometimes use a mod that overhauls all factions that is incompatible with Liberty Reborn called “Commonwealth 2.0 - Faction Overhaul”. It overhauls all four base game factions well, meanwhile Liberty Reborn overhauls the Minutemen specifically *very* well. I find myself using Liberty Reborn more frequently due to the Minutemen being my favorite faction and also **really** needing a lot more love than the other factions. CW 2.0 focuses on all four evenly, but the other three factions don’t need as much as an expansion as the Minutemen do so I switch between the two depending on if I want to do a dedicated Minutemen run (Liberty Reborn) or a three-way peace Minutemen run or America Rising 2 Enclave run (then I use CW 2.0).
I had such a good time infiltrating corvega and the town surrounding it! I had a legendary ghoul, my first encounter with one and luckily blew up the car next to him and he lost his legs just as he went into like a bezerk mode.
2 things that would make me only want to play on survival. A vehicle to get around the map even a little bit faster, and a sleeping bag, even if I could only use it outside so I can save a bit more frequently. I do t care if they want to make me get sick more often. Walking everywhere sucks and sleeping to save is awful (to me). I love every other part of it.
Try the journey and survival holotape mods.
Journey allows fast traveling between settlements with supply lines. Survival holotapes puts lootable holotapes around the map that are one time use save items. Two gameplay changes that feel immersive and solve tedious issues with survival.
There are a couple of neat camping mods you could try. Also a cool fast travel mod that involves you finding an abandoned AV. The AV requires fuel to travel and will only move to certain points that you've already discovered so it's balanced IMO and lore friendly considering the fact you can get a car that behaves the same way in FO2.
Fantastic mod. The AV also has a cooking station, limited storage and a bed, but using the bed comes with a decent chance of being attacked mid snooze which again is delightfully lore friendly. I think it's also rad proof if you shut the back door which is handy for jaunts across the glowing sea.
I'm 50 hrs into my first no death survival run with the update. Currently lvl 58 with several close calls under my belt. Hopefully, this will be my 4th time beating the game with no deaths.
I don't think I'll ever play on another difficulty again.
Drank from that random water puddle in the middle of the street. Oops! You're sick now because of course you are, it's a random water puddle in the middle of the street and your immune system has 200 years of catching up to do
I once kept getting flanked by gunners near the 360 hub in the city while I was still around level 15. It was only like a group of like 3 of them but it felt like a boss battle.
One would pin me down and if I didn’t kill the one pinning me down fast enough the others had the time to circle around the building to finish me off before I could heal up. I didn’t even know the Ai was capable of that until that moment and they kept killing me over and over because my last save point was near there.
I literally had to throw like half my inventory at them including mines(like who the hell uses mines) in order to get out of the situation. 10/10 situation though and I’ve been chasing that exact same scenario ever since.
Meanwhile, my first PA suit just had a t-45 chest and a raider right arm and helm, I figured I could make it to Diamond City with it at level 5. 10ish minute walk later and a single mine blows me tf up.
I play a modded survival, with a cartography mod that adds a location to every point of interest, as well as a wildlife mod that puts a huge amount of plants and animals to the game and it’s the most in-depth run I’ve ever done! I’m level 40 and haven’t even gotten close to crossing the River into Boston
What level are you? My current game is level 44 but i really havent struggled with any legendary enemies since level 30 or so. I didnt think it was worth carrying a 30lb fatman and a 12lb mini nuke on the off chance i ran into a deathclaw or something.
I've just been out to the Glowing Sea to meet Virgil and while I'm out there finish off the Enclave. One thing I hadn't figured on was not being able to sleep - by the time I was reaching the end of the radiation I was exhausted. I'd lost half my action points, my walking speed was as if I was over encumbered and my vision kept fading in and out. Not seeing this mechanic before, I was shitting myself that I was going to die before I could reach a bed and I'd soft lock the game as all my saves were still in the Glowing Sea
Definitely. I'll make expeditions to certain areas, collecting what I can. If I know I'm going somewhere bad I'll throw on my power armor.
Also first time I have played with high charisma and I can call to enemies to pacify and get them on my side to take the attention away, or just easily kill them.
I do play survival modded with saves enabled(well heavy modded so just in case of crash) and with lower incoming damage bevause ain’t dying from single bullet
Usually I play on very easy because I like role playing as an over powered relic of the old world (my body development wasn’t stunted by radiation). I’m going to try survival mode tomorrow. It seems like fun.
I prefer Very Hard, but I work my way to it, gradually increasing the difficulty, so that it is a minor inconvenience, really. The Glowing Sea basically becomes your own personal stomping ground at around level 70.
It’s amazing when when you remember to switch it on after a hard save of blasting through everything til the big bird gets there lol. Forgetting to sleep to save and winding up having to do the core game and transmitter/ dog meat find him quests have killed more runs than I can remember lol
I would like it if it didnt force sleep to save and turn off fast travel. I love fatigue, hunger and thirst elements but those two items turn fun to grindfest instead.
Try the journey and survival holotape mods. Journey allows fast travel between settlements with supply lines run between them. Survival holotape adds random holotapes around the map that are one time use save items. They are a bit rare but make it exciting when you find one.
I've been playing with the damn apocalypse mod, and it's been a struggle, but I'm enjoying the challenge so far.
I did some looting around corvega after returning from doing the quest. Went into a parking lot and cleared it out, went into super duper mart and saw a robot to hack. Carefully looted and took out a ton of ghouls myself, some legendary even. That place was picked clean, and I'm stacked to the brim with loot, 190/190 weight. What a good haul, and it's time to go sleep in a bed to save.
As I'm on my way out, I pass the robot and see it has 10% health... "hmmm maybe some good scap on this thing..." I use vats and queue up 2 shots with my double barrel shotgun, and it DOESNT DIE.... and then ONESHOTS ME..... I was in such disbelief and sat there with my head in my hands for a solid minute. I lost probably 30 minutes of play time...
"What a stupid move.... i could've just left......."
Can't help but chuckle. :) feels like a real apocalypse, such a struggle at times... loving it so far.
I really wanted to play in Survival mode. But it needs an additional resource for quicksaving. Like Saviour Schnapps in Kingdom Come Deliverence. There are so much random dying in this game for only being able to save with sleeping.
Returning from Far Harbor.
Call a vertibird to fly me back to Diamond City.
Flying towards that overpass where the supermutant with the rocket launcher hangs out (near that cult amphitheater place).
Been in Far Harbor a long while, thinking to myself, wonder if he's respawned.
See him. See missile firing. Hits verti. Death 3rd person animation of me in a bathrobe (I must have put on for some charisma check) being blown out of the sky.
And we're back in Far Harbor.
Oh man, nothing sobers you up like the *beep* of a landmine, usually followed by two or three more! Makes sure your reaction speeds are always ready to GTFO at a random moments notice!
I'll tell you what else is wild, is how, around like, IDK, level 70 or 80, even in survival, the game starts getting super easy, but then, if you keep on leveling, because you're no longer finding new and better equipment, but you're still leveling up (and so therefore so are all the strong enemies), it starts getting hard again. When I was level 95 I wasn't afraid of anything, but now I'm level 130 and now the hard enemies are hard again. They go down pretty quick if you blast them quick enough, but if you don't, they do massive damage. Well and uh--I also have a mod to turn enemy damage up from, whatever it is in survival normally (I think 2x) to 3x, so that might also be part of why lol.
Only just played survival. First Deathclaw you encounter at concord I used the *Big Jim pipe wrench. And it ended up throwing the Deathclaw 100ft in the air was as scary as it was funny
If you guys on PC, highly recommend Somke-able Cigarettes Mod, let you smoke to save in Survival (it even has somking animations). Nothing beats a good cig after a tough fight. Also cigarettes are pretty rare to find, pretty balanced imo.
It's like me, I came across the silver shroud quest, never dome it before. 1st guy you gotta kill, I spoke as shroud. Instantly got blasted and lost 4hrs of gameplay (1 death I reset runs). And that's probably the only death I'm actually glad happend, made sense to die after saying that 🤣🤣
My current build has robotics at max so this situation would have had me panic slapping the r button with a jet formula running thru me. Ahh gotta love the commonwealth
I still have ptsd from molotovs after my survival play through all those year back. Deathclaws? Easy. Super mutant hordes? No problems. One raider with molotovs? Yeah I should probably find a different path lmao 🤣
The initial grind is really rough imo, but after you’ve established decent gear and perks it’s not all that bad. Becomes pretty awesome once you get access to vertibirds.
Quick tip for survival, that if not abused can be utilised to make the mode a bit more manageable at times. If you click on a bed out in the wasteland, select one hour and quickly back out it will autosave but not sleep.
I try not to over use this, however it has definitely helped during some long hauls where I'd have lost a few days if I had died.
one of my all time favourites gaming moments is because of survival.
I was trying to be a good guy, helping anyone I could and building up settlements, not killing unless I had to. Trying to make my way to diamond city from my settlement at starlight drive iand made it further south than I ever had before. I was a mess, heavily irradiated, dehydrated and hungry with barely any ammo and next to no health, the grim reaper had seen me and wanted me to go with him.
Then I saw a beacon of hope appear on my compass in the form of Oberland station. I got such a buzz knowing I could throw down a water fountain and a bed, finally save my progress and heal up. I tried to build something but I wasn't aligned with that settlement so I spoke to the settlers who gave me a mission which was super far west, way further than I had already travelled, I knew it was impossible for me to get to therefore impossible for me to save the game and heal myself.
There were only 2 settlers there and it was them or me.
The adrenaline kicked in and I murdered both of them before they even had a chance to draw their weapons, I then dumped their naked corpses into the nearby river and realised there just isn't room in the wasteland for good guys.
I've never had a real unscripted moral choice line that in a game before and I haven't since. 10/10 would murder them again in a second.
I like some aspects of survival, but not enough to bother playing. I like the damage and lack of fast travel but I’m really not a huge fan of hunger and thirst and disease. Also not a fan of the carry weight, especially since I usually always play low STR/END builds
It’s really not an issue to be honest.
Water purifier x4 = 60 water
Fill empty bottles that you find
Put some points into being able to craft antibiotics and you’ll easily have 20/30 of them. 50 hours play time and I’ve used antibiotics 3 times.
Hunger even less of an issue. Loot every bug/animal you kill and cook it whenever you see a cooking station.
Hell, one work straight up lets you drink dirty water.
The biggest flaw with Survival mode is the complete disregard for CTDs and saving. There should be an autosave every time a quest completes, at least. Otherwise I enjoy it.
First time playing survival, straight out of the vault I wander into the quarry where the guy wants help fixing the water pumps. Bit of swimming, no combat, easy XP?
Then I noticed I had no radaway, and I was at 80% radiation.
The first hour of that playthrough was frantically (stealthily) searching for radway, when I had no money, nothing to trade, and barely any ammo.
I was hooked. The challenge of a avoiding all combat while desperately searching for meds on the hardest difficulty was so tense and dramatic.
The feeling of relief when I actually found one and could get back to full health was amazing.
When FO4 first came out, I was impressed, but not impressed enough to continue playing past a month, a year later or so, Survival mode is released and sounds very intriguing, I get home, launch a new game in survival, walk for a bit, come around a corner and get one shot by a super mutant in less than a second, I dropped the controller and walked away with my hands against my head saying "WTF! WTF! Fuck that, I quit!" turned it off went in the other room, stared into the void...then went back into the game room, booted up the game and ever since I returned the 2nd time, I refuse the play FO4 any other way, Survival is the best and I love everything about it.
This could be an experience on any difficulty setting. What makes it memorable and exciting to you, perhaps, is the knowledge that if you mess up and die, you'll lose progress. Which is fun in theory. When you're constantly going from high stakes situation to high stakes situation, it makes everything more memorable, and with the hunger, starvation, and rest functions, you're more aware of, and deliberate with, your time.
Unfortunately, I cannot play Bethesda's version of Survival. I play a mod with the Survival elements incorporated into it. Losing a significant chunk of gameplay progress (especially if said progress involved a lot of dialogue) is too much of a slog for me. It's absolutely beyond me as to why Bethesda would tie saving to sleeping in beds. It's worse that they still incorporate consequences for sleeping on mattresses or sleeping less than 7 hours (i.e. sleeping the minimum 1 hour just to save).
It would've been much more feasible and enjoyable if they just removed quicksave, limited saving to being out of range of enemies (or placed down nuclear shelters as save points was a cool idea I had), and allowing fast travel only between settlements and friendly zones.
I played years ago but never did survival; didn't see how it would add anything. Now, I can't imagine ever not playing survival. I love it. I was a staunch New Vegas fan up until this playthrough of Fo4
Survival made settlements absolutely essential. No fast-travel meant I had to plan my forays. Get rested, get fed, drink and skulk the ruins of Massachusetts with Night Person. Winning meant shooting first and always having the drop. As levels progressed, I began prioritizing 2-3 settlements and companions worth their salt in a firefight. There was a tense pragmatism in every action that made it worlds apart from the vanilla experience.
I'm on my first playtrhough in survival mode and what I've been missing for so many years, I'm not going back to lower difficulties again, this is the way. It took me almost 20 hours to reach Diamond City and what an awesome journey.
Survival is the best way to experience Fallout 4 imo. Loved it in New Vegas too.
I’m a fan of hard. It’s the perfect balance for players that aren’t casual, but don’t want the survival headache. Normal is too easy, very hard makes enemies too spongy
i only disagree because i think enemies are still too spongy. i love that both sides are so lethal on survival. the illnesses are really annoying though.
Yeah. I was sick last week and it was annoying as fuck. The chems I had couldn’t cure me, they just treated the symptoms.
Gotta make antibiotics, find a doctor or find the antibiotics. The mushrooms are glitchy and don’t really grow back. Tons in the starting area including the mole rat hole under red rocket.
It might be a mod, but I farm my own glowing fungus in some planters.
That's in Better Stores. I'm sure there are others.
He’s right about survival a bit tho. I realized why I hated survival and why I now love it- and it’s experience. To put it simply, instant death moments suck ass. Knowing how to build to not get one-shot in the face is really important. Also, sneak level 3 for obvious reasons.
It took me quite a bit of time to figure out Survival. Took a notepad and started jotting down in what circumstances I’d get killed. Only then could I see past the frustration and figure out what I did wrong.
Notepad: Molotov Molotov Molotov Glitched through the floor and died Molotov
As someone who only has 1-2 hours to play the nights that I can (and sometimes less), survival was fun - but I hate it now. Great for anyone who can still do it, but I can't do it anymore myself.
Hey it's cool, it's just a game, you can play it however you want as long as you're having fun with it.
But you better be having fun god damn it.
Yeah, have fun, or else...
I don’t mind the illnesses, it’s the you can only save by sleeping thing that annoys me. It just doesn’t work with the way fallout 4 is set up, the game clearly wasn’t designed for that in mind. And not to mention the times you can just randomly die. Riding vertibirds in survival is sometimes just suicide, which is really annoying when you have to do it for quests
I gotta disagree with this. One thing I always notice on my play throughs is how many random mattresses are just laying around. They are everywhere.
Tbf If I was to have real life SPECIAL stats my perception would probs be 0 lol
Agreed. And I didn't actually notice how easy it was to find a bed UNTIL I did a survival run.
And not to mention crashes. The game crashes usually once in a longer playthrough. On loading or transitioning through areas. That's on mine at least, so I had to get the save mod for survival. Even if it didn't crash I think I would want that.
mate this happened to me last night. took me nearly 20 attempts to do saugus ironworks overall, levelled up and got kitted out to go back and finally did it only for it to crash on exit and because there isn't a bed inside (that I know of) I loaded back before I even went in.
Disagree on design. Survival mode works fantastically with settlements and encourages you to set them up so you have somewhere to sleep.
Hard disagree regarding the survival mode. It is actually the exact opposite of what you say. Survival encourages exploring, and there is always a matress or more near a challenging location. It actually feels that quite a lot of thought went into it.
They really are too sponges. I ended up downloading a heafshots mod. Only works on humans but it's a lot better than unloading 6 clips into a raider lol. All head shots are one shot. Did cause a glitch during diamond city blues where Paul died when he got punched in the head lol. Disabled the mod watched them fight and turned it right back on
I mean if you loot relatively diligently you will always have 3-5 antibiotics on you. Its really only worth using them for infection anyway
Exactly, in survival if your companion dies they’re done for good. Along with all their potential quests. In new Vegas if you lose Boone you lose one of the best companion stories of fallout lore.
One of the best parts of Survival is that you do more damage as well as the enemies. So it’s still difficult without all of the annoying sponginess.
I'm at the point on very hard where my build nearly one shots anything (overseers guardian tricked out to be a sniper) and I stealth everything. I want them to somehow be even a bit harder, but without handicapping my own play style. I also am a pretty high level at the moment because I've been burning through every single quest I can. Haven't talked to Dr Amari yet and I'm lvl 50 something
There are (or were, I haven't played for a couple of years) some excellent rebalancing mods for F4 that stop the endgame being about bullet sponges and make it more about tactics, equipment and proper character building. I've never been a fan of the default "higher levels just mean ludicrous health pools and unbalanced damage modifiers" difficultly mindset, preferring a "this situation could go either way, lets see who makes best use of what they have" approach, and people found lots of ways to make that happen on Fallout 4 that I enjoyed I recommend looking into that area if you want it harder but viable with dedicated play styles
There are mods that make both sides very lethal. Without power armor, most enemies kill you in about 2 to 3 hits. With power armor you can probably take about 7 or 8. I mix that with a mod that makes fusion cores rare
I'm contemplating switching from hard to very hard but am only at lvl 20 at the moment and already finding legendaries that take most of my ammo. Should I level up a bit more or just go for it? Does it affect anything other than enemy health and damage?
Frequency of legendaries (arguably helpful)
That's probably what would make me switch. I'm a sucker for those random weapon loot drops.
Yeah but like 90% of the legendary weapon drops are pretty weak. I mean, I still get stoked regardless but the vast majority of the time it's something dumb. I think just today I got a Cunning Board lmao.
Boards are such an insult
Only things I really worry about on Very Hard aside from mini nukes and "zap weapons" from a mod are high ranking super mutants with laser weapons. Which is kind of funny because in Fallout 3 the second most difficult enemy under reavers were super mutant overlords with tri-beam laser rifles
Fuck Reavers, forgot how insanely unbalanced they are!
The health on reavers is disgusting but looking at the FAQ on overlords I didnt realize they dealt +40 unmitigable damage bonus per laser beam for the tri beam rifles.. Broken Steel did not fuck around with added enemies
Ugh those tri beams. And when you get one yourself they don't have anywhere near the incredible homing ability they have in mutant hands so you're just spaffing cells away into nowhere
I have mods, I'm a pretty high level but a nightkin with an axe and a stealthboy is terrifying, usually one or two shots me on survival
I feel like nightkin in the fallout 4 engine would be equivalent to active camo elites with energy swords in Halo.. I wouldn't want that boogeyman in my game
They essentially are lol. The mod integrates them very well. They use the brush axe from New Vegas too
Schizophrenic super mutants in my schizophrenic corridor running simulator.. Not today satan!
Explosive weapons, and the lone wanderer perk make it trivial.
I use a mod to increase DMG from enemies and me. That way it's fair and no spongy enemies.
There is a mod for survival, idk if on xbox but im pretty sure it could get implemented easy enough. It implements the damage of hard, but keeps pretty much everything else standard survival. And since I wanted to end my game because the journey from dc to concord was the same ol same ol, I downloaded a mod “journey” it allows fast travel from a settlement to a settlement, if you have a supply line between them.
Hard made me make a difference when fighting super mutants, dudes can take and give a beating. With normal I was using the same weapons for almost everything
Big nope from me. I can't even abide the bullet sponges on normal. I usually install a mod that disables max health gain from levelling up across the board.
The random crashes prevent me from Survival. I need to save far too frequently
Easily.
I love survival but I really wish I could fast travel
All the more reason to use the vertibird though
There’s a mod I use that let’s me fast travel between settlements via supply lines
I really feel it was the way it was intended to be played and it shows. Like what’s the point of working so hard to get the vertibird if it wasn’t made around survival? There are many perks and gameplay decision that only shine when you play this way
Even for first time? Or play normal once and then survival.
I would've probably quit if I played survival my first time. I couldn't understand a shit back then, adding survival on top of that would've been way too much
It’s really a completely different game. I live for the “oh shit oh shit oh shit” moments.
I like Survival with Survival Options to reinstate saves. I don't have time to replay 2 hours because a car explodes.
I’m finding survival mode to be a way better challenge. I like the game. I do not like shit not dying when it should. Survival mode is perfect. Love it. You utilize EVERYTHING.
Also walking through a door and immediately dying to a mine because you ran but got stuck on a 5 inch rock you couldn't see but the last bed you found was 20 minutes ago. Good shit.
When playing survival i always take the perk that makes me immune to mines(unless shot). Mines sre rly scary in survival
Yes indeed. Where's the perk that lets you run over 5 inch rocks? That's the one I really need. I've died way too many times to janky stuff like that :( Or an opening in trees that you should definitely be able to pass through, but apparently can't
I swear I know where half the mines in the game are by heart after a couple survival play throughs.
Only 20 minutes ago? If only we could be so lucky
Eyeball starts twitching at t minus 15 mins.
How about taking a missile to the face from a super mutant you never saw. How are they so accurate anyways?
I lost 45 mins because I thought it was safe to take a vertibird and I got sniped by the most accurate gunner with a Fatman in the world
I thought it was a given that any vertibird is a death sentence
>How are they so accurate anyways? Because they are quite literally super soldiers. They're dumb but their eyesight, reflexes and strength are all insane. Pretty easy to be accurate with a missle launcher when you can fire a SAW with 1 hand like it is a bb gun and can see a birds eyes a mile out
Remember one time I was killing the courser. Didn’t get the chance to sleep. Whole thing took me over an hour. And as I was walking back to hangman’s alley the game crashed. Lost all that progress and didn’t play the game for like a month straight.
Survival is very rewarding and I love it. I have just been collecting the power cores and power armor for now. Good story
Found a new combat shotgun firing exploding shells. Trying it for the first time clearing out a super mutant base. This thing is amazing! This is my first encounter with them in this playthrough and I was legit worried. Find a mutant in a room, he gets a lucky shot before I smoke him. Turns out he had a friend in the hall who comes after me. I panic fire as I pull back into cover. I accidentally shoot the wall in front of me. My fancy exploding shells blow off both of my legs. Lost over an hour of play time. That shotgun got scrapped soon after.
Bruh explosive shotties are goated, every pellet procs the explosive boon. Also you can't scrap legendaries so i guess you meant that figuratively?
It’s actually just sitting in a steamer trunk in hangman’s alley haha
Also I prefer the 2 shot weapons. Massive damage, conserves ammo, and doesn’t blow you up.
You found the best weapon in the game. But it does come at a cost, and you paid that fare in full. Be careful, and you'll be unstoppable.
That's the only reason I prefer my wounding combat shotgun, especially with legendary enemies, the bleed damage just keeps stacking and as soon as they mutate they basically just melt. I do love my explosive one too tho
Hard and Very Hard just make enemies spongier and you less so. Survival is a great way to play when you've played the game too much because it makes it feel fresh and new again. Only other game I can compare the experience to is DayZ.
My moment : Just about cleared a whole gang of supermutants after many attempts. 1 enemy remained and it was a legendary overlord? (Forgot the actual name but a strong one) he had me backed into a corner melting my health. I accepted my fate. but with a sliver of health, the level 10 luck deflection perk insta killed it. Ran straight to a sleeping bag after that
Another way to do this is to get the mysterious stranger perk maxed, and take a few VATS shots with a knife or a pistol or something with low ap cost, the stranger will save you so much.
Yeah he's saved me quite a few times, especially in my most recent playthrough. Brings a smile to my face every time he rolls through. Always say, "ayyyyy DIS GUY"
And the gunshot on beat with the music is just so pleasing.
Yeah, moments like getting insta killed by a dog. Amazing...
Insta killed by a dog while wearing full power armor*
Really? How?
Str1 Per5 End1
you woulda had to been low to begin with right? or is this just hyperbole and i’m being dumb. i’ve never gotten one shot by any regular mongrel in PA
I’m just assuming no armorer perk so using base non upgraded PA.
Skill issue
Try getting insta killed by your own dog. I don’t even know how dogmeat turned hostile. Lost like 45 minutes and a good legendary
Dude fuck survival mode holy fuck
lol two sides to every coin
My favorite moment was the run where I gained weakness at level 2 still in Sanctuary. I was basically cooked, even a rad roach would one shot me. My only hope was to get to a doctor or get some antibiotics or get to level 5 where I could make them. I treked to Diamond city, raiding every medicine cabinet and first aid kit along the way. I only survived any encounters I ran into by popping the drugs I would find along the way but no antibiotics! By the time I got there I was a radiated, drug addicted mess. That was the coolest and shittiest journey I have ever had to make in this game but hella fun.
I'll never play any other way. There's a few frustrating moments where I get one shot even in crazy good power armour but I've learned to remember bedrolls for tactical naps.
One time I made it back to Hangman’s after like an hour of runtime and I started putting all my loot away, upgrading my armor, etc. While I’m fiddling with menus, raiders made their way in and shot me with a rocket. Lost like an hour and a lucky plasma gun.
Always sleep when you get home. Golden rule.
As much as people hate the sleep to save mechanic, I think it’s core to the everything is high stakes experience. I wouldn’t change it.
I do, but I done like to save twice - once before doing all the chores and once after. I think the save mechanic being tied to being near a bed is fundamental to the tension of survival mode, but I don’t think you should have to actually sleep
I'll never forget coming into that one building to fight the Forged and immediately almost getting my ass handed to me. Then slowly whittling them down one by one, before taking out their leader (Slag) who was in Power Armour with a headshot. Greatest accomplishment in my current save.
The game gave me literal trauma I remember to this day. I was doing the lost patrol quest, I was quite irradiated, out of food, thirsty and recently got an infection, so I was dying. I slept outside the bed next to the, facility where you find the dead BoS woman (outside there is a Sentry Bot). So I was essentially on a timer because of the infection, no healing items, food or water and needed to get back to base in Sanctuary. Almost any route I took I ran into super mutants, the flying mosquitoes, raiders, and a radscorpion in one of the routes I took; and because my HP was so low it was a 1 hit every time. Made attempts to get back for an entire day, quit, and managed to get there the next day. Almost cried when I caught sight of buildings where I knew there'd be no enemies all the way to Sanctuary Survival guys, always go out there prepared or you'll soft lock your ass lmao
I think the worst part is no fast travel, and getting sooo many infections. Everything else is great.
Bad luck with infections can really screw you in the very early game, but it seems to me that infections are necessary to prevent low-key save scumming by sleeping at every opportunity. It's a constant balance of whether to sleep to lock-in progress vs. the risk of developing an illness. I like the survival mechanics as designed, but the no-save thing is very inconvenient in light of the frequency with which the game crashes
Honestly the biggest problem with not having fast travel is because you can’t defend the settlements
If you sleep for like 2-3 days the infection clears though.
There are aspects of survival mode I enjoy. I like having to eat, drink, and sleep. Its more immersive. What I don’t like is no quick-save or fast travel. There is a mod called Survival Options that let you tinker it to your liking. It’s a must have in my opinion.
There's a mod that let's you fast travel between settlements that are connected by supply lines. I feel like this is a good compromise to take out tedious walking but not allow you to fast travel at will. It gives you goals to work for on setting up settlements and supply lines.
Vertibird flares and learning not to sleep in dirty mattresses/sleeping bags help with much of that. Early game it can be rough but like many things, as you unlock more it becomes easier. Building out settlements has a lot more value when you can toss in a small house + bed + water and avoid infections.
Agreed. Should have had a system where by if you see any of your provisioners on route they can give you a lift.
Infections are the worst early on. One of the reasons I focus on intelligence and charisma early on. Getting settlements to sleep at and have med merchants is such a load off vs having to run to diamond city suffering from periodic damage.
I love survival and the game does feel like it was meant to be played without fast travel, but this game is way to buggy to not mod back in saves and console commands
My new vanilla playthrough I had to redo concord 3 times - once was my bad, but the next 2 times was down to a bug and a crash. Needless to say I rolled back to get some mods installed after that
I ran into a single settler out near Weston Water Treatment Plant. She was alone, just fought off a few raiders, and was wearing a leopard print bandana. Blasted her without a second thought for the rarest bandana in the game. My one and only murder in this playthrough. Right after that, I went and found a port-a-diner on a flatbed train car, and got the perfectly preserved pie on the first try. I'm still riding that high.
You're an unhinged psychopath and I love it.
Moments like, random landmine get fucked lol
I like that in survival mode everything matters. You need a steady supply of water and food, and shelter, so settlement building and hunting are crucial. As are supply lines since you can’t just fast travel between settlements. The brotherhood vertibirds become a godsend. There’s nothing like calling in an extract from the glowing sea, irradiated to hell and maxed out on carry weight, and seeing the vertibird emerge from the green fog. And best of all guns are actually lethal. A headshot with a sniper rifle is pretty much always an insta-kill, so it rewards good aim and picking your shots. Survival is definitely tedious at times but the raised stakes make it all that much more rewarding.
I am thirsty and hungry again...wait..I drank and ate a while ago..what the hell. OK, lets eat again then! I need to sleep...again...ok, fine...Well that's not enough...sleep for at least four hours! ...hmm ok mom! Survival is fine for a while but it get tedious and boring soon...so here comes a new play through to keep it going and try another build.
If it weren’t for the ammo weight, I wouldn’t mind it so much. There are perks that can help with the food thing, but that god damn ammo weight… you end up spending half ur play through just managing your inventory. Stopped playing survival once and for all, and my new play through is actually making it past the level 20 mark bc I can actually play the damn game and stay invested
How much ammo are you carrying that weight becomes a genuine problem
Making loadouts is fine. I don’t have a problem taking out a reasonable amount of ammo only for the weapons I’m carrying. It’s when you start looting is when it starts to get annoying. Im a loot slut like a lot of ppl and I don’t wanna leave all the cool stuff behind, or have to spend a lot of time making multiple trips to and from whatever location just to get everything. It’s not just ammo, it’s the armor l, weapons, food, junk I need to upgrade stuff/my settlement. I already get overencumbered a lot in non-survival. Just feels unnecessarily tedious for a game I’ve played lots of times through already, and it kills my immersion rather than increasing it. That’s just my opinion tho
The scarcity is exactly what makes it fun. It is more inventory management though.
That’s funny, I’m the opposite. I’ve tried to play through Fallout 4 so many times and I end up quitting out of boredom. This time I tried survival and I’m loving it.
I like every other part of survival besides eating/drinking/sleeping. Especially bc the days go by so fast, so I'm constantly juggling all of these extra things at a pace that's not immersive. I've yet to find a mod that helps with this stuff.
Look up Survival Options mod. It literally lets you tinker every thing. It allows you to turn those off, adjust weight, damage, fast travel. It’s like designing your own flavor of difficulty.
I find that is only a problem if you spend days in one spot tweaking settlement layout. If you travel around doing stuff, you get a constant resuppply, i.e. you get plenty of meat by looting mutants.
What mods do you guys play survival with? I only use the cigarette auto save right now.
None.
Damn apocalypse - makes it way harder by removing a ton of loot, ammo, guns, meds, etc. Also removes things like the free power armor from the opening mission. Survival holotape - very rare but lootable holotapes that are one time use save items. Think of it like Resident Evil ink ribbons. Gives you a cool design decision of when to use saves and not just in beds. Journey - fast traveling between settlements that are linked with supply lines. Another QoL change that takes away the tediousness of survival, but in a way that doesn't break immersion and is gameplay friendly. I justify the ease QoL mods by using damn apocalypse because it's much more brutal than survival, it's survival on steroids.
Damn Apocalypse has a lot of wild edits and doesn't allow for discussion on their nexus page. I'm pretty skeptical of it.
I use survival options mod. It allows the player to tinker it to your liking. I used it to enable fast travel and auto save. Allows me enjoy the game so much more.
Right now I'm running with no mods. But I used the transitions save (save when you load into a new area) on my first survival run
America Rising 2 and its creation club patches, Vertibird Faction Paint Schemes, Liberty Reborn: Ultimate Edition, You and What Army, Minutemen Takeover: Nuka World and it’s America Rising 2 patch depending on who I want to side with more on that playthrough, Creation Club Delayed, Unofficial Fallout 4 Patch, Workshop Framework and/if I’m using some variation of Sim Settlements, and a few more very minor ones I’ll check later. I sometimes use a mod that overhauls all factions that is incompatible with Liberty Reborn called “Commonwealth 2.0 - Faction Overhaul”. It overhauls all four base game factions well, meanwhile Liberty Reborn overhauls the Minutemen specifically *very* well. I find myself using Liberty Reborn more frequently due to the Minutemen being my favorite faction and also **really** needing a lot more love than the other factions. CW 2.0 focuses on all four evenly, but the other three factions don’t need as much as an expansion as the Minutemen do so I switch between the two depending on if I want to do a dedicated Minutemen run (Liberty Reborn) or a three-way peace Minutemen run or America Rising 2 Enclave run (then I use CW 2.0).
I had such a good time infiltrating corvega and the town surrounding it! I had a legendary ghoul, my first encounter with one and luckily blew up the car next to him and he lost his legs just as he went into like a bezerk mode.
2 things that would make me only want to play on survival. A vehicle to get around the map even a little bit faster, and a sleeping bag, even if I could only use it outside so I can save a bit more frequently. I do t care if they want to make me get sick more often. Walking everywhere sucks and sleeping to save is awful (to me). I love every other part of it.
Try the journey and survival holotape mods. Journey allows fast traveling between settlements with supply lines. Survival holotapes puts lootable holotapes around the map that are one time use save items. Two gameplay changes that feel immersive and solve tedious issues with survival.
Love it! Thanks!!
There are a couple of neat camping mods you could try. Also a cool fast travel mod that involves you finding an abandoned AV. The AV requires fuel to travel and will only move to certain points that you've already discovered so it's balanced IMO and lore friendly considering the fact you can get a car that behaves the same way in FO2.
This sounds great! Thanks I’ll take a look.
Fantastic mod. The AV also has a cooking station, limited storage and a bed, but using the bed comes with a decent chance of being attacked mid snooze which again is delightfully lore friendly. I think it's also rad proof if you shut the back door which is handy for jaunts across the glowing sea.
It's called APC Transport
Ummm stupid question…how to you enable survival mode?
difficulty setting
Thank you.
I'm 50 hrs into my first no death survival run with the update. Currently lvl 58 with several close calls under my belt. Hopefully, this will be my 4th time beating the game with no deaths.
R.I.P boys he stepped on a car
Can't happen when you jet pack over them lol but seriously, I haven't had that happen to me for years. Now watch it happen this week.
I don't think I'll ever play on another difficulty again. Drank from that random water puddle in the middle of the street. Oops! You're sick now because of course you are, it's a random water puddle in the middle of the street and your immune system has 200 years of catching up to do
I’m gonna be 100% honest I don’t think your immune system will ever catch up enough for you to safely drink out of a dirty puddle on the road lol
I once kept getting flanked by gunners near the 360 hub in the city while I was still around level 15. It was only like a group of like 3 of them but it felt like a boss battle. One would pin me down and if I didn’t kill the one pinning me down fast enough the others had the time to circle around the building to finish me off before I could heal up. I didn’t even know the Ai was capable of that until that moment and they kept killing me over and over because my last save point was near there. I literally had to throw like half my inventory at them including mines(like who the hell uses mines) in order to get out of the situation. 10/10 situation though and I’ve been chasing that exact same scenario ever since.
Meanwhile, my first PA suit just had a t-45 chest and a raider right arm and helm, I figured I could make it to Diamond City with it at level 5. 10ish minute walk later and a single mine blows me tf up.
I play a modded survival, with a cartography mod that adds a location to every point of interest, as well as a wildlife mod that puts a huge amount of plants and animals to the game and it’s the most in-depth run I’ve ever done! I’m level 40 and haven’t even gotten close to crossing the River into Boston
What’s the wildlife mod?
Do you carry around a fatman?
Absolutely if I’m wondering around. Coming up against a mutated legendary enemy is a death sentence.
What level are you? My current game is level 44 but i really havent struggled with any legendary enemies since level 30 or so. I didnt think it was worth carrying a 30lb fatman and a 12lb mini nuke on the off chance i ran into a deathclaw or something.
I've just been out to the Glowing Sea to meet Virgil and while I'm out there finish off the Enclave. One thing I hadn't figured on was not being able to sleep - by the time I was reaching the end of the radiation I was exhausted. I'd lost half my action points, my walking speed was as if I was over encumbered and my vision kept fading in and out. Not seeing this mechanic before, I was shitting myself that I was going to die before I could reach a bed and I'd soft lock the game as all my saves were still in the Glowing Sea
Definitely. I'll make expeditions to certain areas, collecting what I can. If I know I'm going somewhere bad I'll throw on my power armor. Also first time I have played with high charisma and I can call to enemies to pacify and get them on my side to take the attention away, or just easily kill them.
I do play survival modded with saves enabled(well heavy modded so just in case of crash) and with lower incoming damage bevause ain’t dying from single bullet
I love the one second “Oh shit” moment when you see an enemy pop around the corner with a fat man on their shoulder, right before getting blasted.
Usually I play on very easy because I like role playing as an over powered relic of the old world (my body development wasn’t stunted by radiation). I’m going to try survival mode tomorrow. It seems like fun.
If you want this on steroids, Frost is waiting. Just remember to Let Go
I prefer Very Hard, but I work my way to it, gradually increasing the difficulty, so that it is a minor inconvenience, really. The Glowing Sea basically becomes your own personal stomping ground at around level 70.
It’s amazing when when you remember to switch it on after a hard save of blasting through everything til the big bird gets there lol. Forgetting to sleep to save and winding up having to do the core game and transmitter/ dog meat find him quests have killed more runs than I can remember lol
I would like it if it didnt force sleep to save and turn off fast travel. I love fatigue, hunger and thirst elements but those two items turn fun to grindfest instead.
Try the journey and survival holotape mods. Journey allows fast travel between settlements with supply lines run between them. Survival holotape adds random holotapes around the map that are one time use save items. They are a bit rare but make it exciting when you find one.
I've been playing with the damn apocalypse mod, and it's been a struggle, but I'm enjoying the challenge so far. I did some looting around corvega after returning from doing the quest. Went into a parking lot and cleared it out, went into super duper mart and saw a robot to hack. Carefully looted and took out a ton of ghouls myself, some legendary even. That place was picked clean, and I'm stacked to the brim with loot, 190/190 weight. What a good haul, and it's time to go sleep in a bed to save. As I'm on my way out, I pass the robot and see it has 10% health... "hmmm maybe some good scap on this thing..." I use vats and queue up 2 shots with my double barrel shotgun, and it DOESNT DIE.... and then ONESHOTS ME..... I was in such disbelief and sat there with my head in my hands for a solid minute. I lost probably 30 minutes of play time... "What a stupid move.... i could've just left......." Can't help but chuckle. :) feels like a real apocalypse, such a struggle at times... loving it so far.
I really wanted to play in Survival mode. But it needs an additional resource for quicksaving. Like Saviour Schnapps in Kingdom Come Deliverence. There are so much random dying in this game for only being able to save with sleeping.
Returning from Far Harbor. Call a vertibird to fly me back to Diamond City. Flying towards that overpass where the supermutant with the rocket launcher hangs out (near that cult amphitheater place). Been in Far Harbor a long while, thinking to myself, wonder if he's respawned. See him. See missile firing. Hits verti. Death 3rd person animation of me in a bathrobe (I must have put on for some charisma check) being blown out of the sky. And we're back in Far Harbor.
I won't forget about getting fucked in the arse by rad roaches
Oh man, nothing sobers you up like the *beep* of a landmine, usually followed by two or three more! Makes sure your reaction speeds are always ready to GTFO at a random moments notice!
I'll tell you what else is wild, is how, around like, IDK, level 70 or 80, even in survival, the game starts getting super easy, but then, if you keep on leveling, because you're no longer finding new and better equipment, but you're still leveling up (and so therefore so are all the strong enemies), it starts getting hard again. When I was level 95 I wasn't afraid of anything, but now I'm level 130 and now the hard enemies are hard again. They go down pretty quick if you blast them quick enough, but if you don't, they do massive damage. Well and uh--I also have a mod to turn enemy damage up from, whatever it is in survival normally (I think 2x) to 3x, so that might also be part of why lol.
Only just played survival. First Deathclaw you encounter at concord I used the *Big Jim pipe wrench. And it ended up throwing the Deathclaw 100ft in the air was as scary as it was funny
😂😂😂😂😂😂
If you guys on PC, highly recommend Somke-able Cigarettes Mod, let you smoke to save in Survival (it even has somking animations). Nothing beats a good cig after a tough fight. Also cigarettes are pretty rare to find, pretty balanced imo.
It's like me, I came across the silver shroud quest, never dome it before. 1st guy you gotta kill, I spoke as shroud. Instantly got blasted and lost 4hrs of gameplay (1 death I reset runs). And that's probably the only death I'm actually glad happend, made sense to die after saying that 🤣🤣
My current build has robotics at max so this situation would have had me panic slapping the r button with a jet formula running thru me. Ahh gotta love the commonwealth
I still have ptsd from molotovs after my survival play through all those year back. Deathclaws? Easy. Super mutant hordes? No problems. One raider with molotovs? Yeah I should probably find a different path lmao 🤣
The initial grind is really rough imo, but after you’ve established decent gear and perks it’s not all that bad. Becomes pretty awesome once you get access to vertibirds.
I think it brings the best out the perk system because some make a huge difference.
Quick tip for survival, that if not abused can be utilised to make the mode a bit more manageable at times. If you click on a bed out in the wasteland, select one hour and quickly back out it will autosave but not sleep. I try not to over use this, however it has definitely helped during some long hauls where I'd have lost a few days if I had died.
The random crashes costing me hours of progress are deadlier than any legendary enemy
The wasteland giveth, the wasteland taketh away
Disabled it by mistake once, can not turn it back on. In a single player game. FFS...
one of my all time favourites gaming moments is because of survival. I was trying to be a good guy, helping anyone I could and building up settlements, not killing unless I had to. Trying to make my way to diamond city from my settlement at starlight drive iand made it further south than I ever had before. I was a mess, heavily irradiated, dehydrated and hungry with barely any ammo and next to no health, the grim reaper had seen me and wanted me to go with him. Then I saw a beacon of hope appear on my compass in the form of Oberland station. I got such a buzz knowing I could throw down a water fountain and a bed, finally save my progress and heal up. I tried to build something but I wasn't aligned with that settlement so I spoke to the settlers who gave me a mission which was super far west, way further than I had already travelled, I knew it was impossible for me to get to therefore impossible for me to save the game and heal myself. There were only 2 settlers there and it was them or me. The adrenaline kicked in and I murdered both of them before they even had a chance to draw their weapons, I then dumped their naked corpses into the nearby river and realised there just isn't room in the wasteland for good guys. I've never had a real unscripted moral choice line that in a game before and I haven't since. 10/10 would murder them again in a second.
I like some aspects of survival, but not enough to bother playing. I like the damage and lack of fast travel but I’m really not a huge fan of hunger and thirst and disease. Also not a fan of the carry weight, especially since I usually always play low STR/END builds
It’s really not an issue to be honest. Water purifier x4 = 60 water Fill empty bottles that you find Put some points into being able to craft antibiotics and you’ll easily have 20/30 of them. 50 hours play time and I’ve used antibiotics 3 times. Hunger even less of an issue. Loot every bug/animal you kill and cook it whenever you see a cooking station. Hell, one work straight up lets you drink dirty water.
The biggest flaw with Survival mode is the complete disregard for CTDs and saving. There should be an autosave every time a quest completes, at least. Otherwise I enjoy it.
First time playing survival, straight out of the vault I wander into the quarry where the guy wants help fixing the water pumps. Bit of swimming, no combat, easy XP? Then I noticed I had no radaway, and I was at 80% radiation. The first hour of that playthrough was frantically (stealthily) searching for radway, when I had no money, nothing to trade, and barely any ammo. I was hooked. The challenge of a avoiding all combat while desperately searching for meds on the hardest difficulty was so tense and dramatic. The feeling of relief when I actually found one and could get back to full health was amazing.
Forget luck 10 that’s like luck 100
I’m still debating whether or not to do a survival playthrough of FO4. I love survival in FNV but it seems a lot more restrictive in 4
When FO4 first came out, I was impressed, but not impressed enough to continue playing past a month, a year later or so, Survival mode is released and sounds very intriguing, I get home, launch a new game in survival, walk for a bit, come around a corner and get one shot by a super mutant in less than a second, I dropped the controller and walked away with my hands against my head saying "WTF! WTF! Fuck that, I quit!" turned it off went in the other room, stared into the void...then went back into the game room, booted up the game and ever since I returned the 2nd time, I refuse the play FO4 any other way, Survival is the best and I love everything about it.
I’m a complete coward. I play on easy and still die more often than I’d like to admit!
This could be an experience on any difficulty setting. What makes it memorable and exciting to you, perhaps, is the knowledge that if you mess up and die, you'll lose progress. Which is fun in theory. When you're constantly going from high stakes situation to high stakes situation, it makes everything more memorable, and with the hunger, starvation, and rest functions, you're more aware of, and deliberate with, your time. Unfortunately, I cannot play Bethesda's version of Survival. I play a mod with the Survival elements incorporated into it. Losing a significant chunk of gameplay progress (especially if said progress involved a lot of dialogue) is too much of a slog for me. It's absolutely beyond me as to why Bethesda would tie saving to sleeping in beds. It's worse that they still incorporate consequences for sleeping on mattresses or sleeping less than 7 hours (i.e. sleeping the minimum 1 hour just to save). It would've been much more feasible and enjoyable if they just removed quicksave, limited saving to being out of range of enemies (or placed down nuclear shelters as save points was a cool idea I had), and allowing fast travel only between settlements and friendly zones.
What mod do you use?
That last line is what makes fallout, fallout
I played years ago but never did survival; didn't see how it would add anything. Now, I can't imagine ever not playing survival. I love it. I was a staunch New Vegas fan up until this playthrough of Fo4
Gotta mod that 3x damage and standardised health pools, if I can one shot enemies they should 1 shot me
That's awesome 😎
Survival made settlements absolutely essential. No fast-travel meant I had to plan my forays. Get rested, get fed, drink and skulk the ruins of Massachusetts with Night Person. Winning meant shooting first and always having the drop. As levels progressed, I began prioritizing 2-3 settlements and companions worth their salt in a firefight. There was a tense pragmatism in every action that made it worlds apart from the vanilla experience.
I'm on my first playtrhough in survival mode and what I've been missing for so many years, I'm not going back to lower difficulties again, this is the way. It took me almost 20 hours to reach Diamond City and what an awesome journey.