4097

Still making my way through the non-survival vanilla game and enjoying it thoroughly. Reading the posts about survival mode here though have got me thinking how I’ll adapt when my save anywhere, fast travel anywhere luxuries are taken away from me.

One thing that has crossed my mind is that some of the janky combat and bad beat deaths that I occasionally endure and ultimately forgive due to a recent save or fast travel to get me back to where I was might become more than annoyances in survival mode.

Has anyone found that survival mode has exposed some of the combat weaknesses to frustration levels?

4098

So I booted this up while I was a bit loopy coming down from general anesthesia and here’s how it went from the perspective of inside my head:

wait, I didn’t get to set survival mode anywhere – what gives? – oh, there, it’s a difficulty setting – ooh, look at the warning about how dire it is – okay, this is cool – ooh, look at all this stuff in the help section about survival – okay, this is cool – dadgummit, stupid prologue – oh yeah, the prologue was pretty cool! – back to “dadgummit, stupid prologue” because I’ve seen it all before – wait for the salesman to come to the door – what triggers him anyway> – try stuff, try stuff, try stuff – ding dong! – finally – random dialogue option, random dialogue option, random dialogue option, I don’t care – oh, how to do my stats – alt-tab over to Qt3 to find kristigames’ post – alt-tab back – wait, was that a 1 on strength or endurance – alt-tab back, write it down so I don’t forget – okay, now what triggers nuclear war? – try stuff, try stuff, try stuff – ah, cogsworth saying come and see – TV announcement, now I can go outside – walk, walk, walk, walk – MUSHROOM CLOUD – okay, this is cool – walk, walk, walk, long-ass cinematic of hubby getting shot, baby shaun getting kidnapped – okay, gameplay – I forget, does it matter if I read all the terminal entries? – better safe that sorry – click, tab, click, tab, click, tab – gah, another terminal – click, tab, click, tab, click, tab – hey, a gun, whee! – oops, radroach killed me, how humiliating – respawn at cryo chamber – fuck the terminals – okay, in the open world – skip through cogsworth dialogue, whatever – kill bloatflies – okay, this is cool – leaving the suburbs – worrying about combat, fatigue, ooh, now I’m thirsty – okay, this is cool – oh, right, the dog! – okay, this is even cooler – hello, dog! – gah, mole rats everywhere! – oh, right, the dog has it under control – past red rocket gas station – okay, this is cool – into concord – okay, this is cool – okay, this is way cool – bandit fight, go dog, go people on the roof helping me fight – okay, this is cool – now I’ve got raider clothes and arm armor – okay, this is totally cool, imma go survival the shit out of this game – now what? – oh, right, into this museum bit – okay, this is cool – what, who’s shooting? – two guys above me? – okay, this is cool – shoot, shoot, wait, how do I use stimpacks, was I supposed to put these on a hotkey? – dead – s l o m o d e a d a n i m a t i o n – okay, this is cool, since I deserved that – okay, reloading – hey, wait…

…I’m way back in Vault 111 because I didn’t sleep.

Okay, this is cool, but probably not when you’re loopy on drugs.

-Tom

4099

Wow. Create a bed as soon as possible and start getting into a rhythm of water, food, sleep!

By deadly? We mean it.

It’s funny, I had some long stretches and then died over the last month, and I almost killed the dog a few times (in rl). But I finally just got it ingrained into me: Bed first. Most important tip. Make them, find them, use them.

ps – Don’t use stimpacks to heal. You gotta cook food Tom!
pss --I probably died in that Museum of Freedom a dozen times and had to reload at early moments – then I just dragged the dog out for a walk. Real dog.

4100

Uh, use stimpacks to heal. Just be sure to a)pick up empty bottles of all sorts, and b)fill them up at the well you constructed back at your settlement. You did build a well right after you built a bed, right? And you did know that you can create purified water from interacting with the well whilst carrying empty bottles, right?

4101

I beg to disagree – stimpacks are the WORST way to heal. If you are crippled? Yes. Otherwise food. Often, it takes 2 purified waters to get rehydrated after a stimpack and they are SLOW. But perhaps your mileage is varying. No reason to burn water if you can help it. Often food (if you are fed) has a good or average buff as well. Sell excess stimpacks (they are still relatively valuable on survival) or use them at the chem station with Chem perk to make something better.

Treat them like doctor bags in F:NV hardcore.

The problem is say you are carrying around 15-18 purified waters, then after taking some chems (other chems like radx, not just stimpacks) they also make you de-hydrated. Plus you have the timed thirst.

Of course, if the player isn’t using vats much then the action point penalty is probably ok. You can ramp up adrenaline then and go more shooter --but wow I find that deadly business there.

4102

Okay, in case it wasn’t clear, I was heavily drugged at the time! But, yeah, I figure next to following advice from you guys who have blazed the trail before me, the best way to learn something is to die from not doing it.

-Tom

4103

Kristi, I think Stimpak only increases your thirst level by 1 (Rad-X is two, I think?), which makes stimpak+purified water a pretty good option if you’re heavily wounded (~50% hp or less). If you’re at 70 or 80% though then just food or water is the way to go, like you said.

And no kidding about VATS, damn. My plan was to go VATS-less but I’ve quickly come around once I actually started playing. I’m still trying to decide if putting points into Luck is worth it though. Blitz + stealth + dagger is so effective at taking out targets that I just don’t see the use for any of the Luck perks, at least not yet. Once I get my melee sneak multiplier to 10 it’s gonna be even more crazy. I do have Action Boy though, that really helps with hit and run tactics.

Give FO4 a chance, Stellaris and TW probably still need patching anyway ;)

4104

Bat you have some guts going melee in survival! Yeah vats is a way to quickly react to a surpise and give yourself a sec to think as well. I actually have vats set to my mouse3 for almost instance reaction, but also to sorta cheaty search for enemies by a click to the foreground (and mines).

I have a tendency to sell excess stimpacks, or convert them into refreshing beverages (which If I didn’t say it on that “chemist” perk tip a bit ago, heals MUCH faster than either food or stims). Food is in abundance as soon a you get the secret thing (no spoiler). I sorta thought nuka quantums might be a way to go, but it appears they heal slow-ish too. I may experiment. A refreshing beverage can put you from 30 percent to 100 in mere seconds.

I’ll take look at this stimpack heal stuff later today. I turned away from stimpacks so long ago, it could have been either adjusted in a subsequent patch, or I am blind to their better attributes. I do wish there were “bars” that progressed on food, water etc so we could see when we were about to be affected like F:NV.hardcore.

4105

Ironically I find the melee stealth playstyle much easier than ranged :P.

edit: Amazing, rank 4 passive of Big Leagues (aoe sweep) works in VATS too! This changes everything.

4106

Do you mean Corvega? I don’t remember a Córdoba in the game, but maybe I missed a place?

4107

VATS melee is great indoors using sneak against single targets. Get close, just around a corner, go third person view, select target in VATS and you teleport right to them and strike them, and because you aren’t using a gun, others aren’t alerted. Blitz increases the teleportation range even further. It’s pretty deadly.

4108

Blitz is amazing. I took my lvl 32 character to the behemoth near Walden Pond to test out the damage and I two-shot him from stealth with the Pickman’s Blade . I’d love to know the actual numbers behind blitz because when I tried killing the behemoth at level ~25 my damage was much lower and the only thing that has changed since then is one more rank in Big Leagues and the final rank of Blitz.

Once I get the last rank of Ninja (half a level to go!) for the 10x melee sneak multiplier I’ll try retaking the castle for the Minutemen.

4109

Has anyone found a way to buy Inon Zur’s soundtrack (the ambient music, not the radio stuff) somewhere other than iTunes? Can’t find it on Amazon, Google, etc. music stores, and I have no interest in locking myself into Apple’s music just for this. Just want somewhere where I can buy and download the soundtrack in DRM-free MP3, and I’d rather not go the torrent route because I want to give the artist money. Anyone?

4110

Holy moly. Just when I thought that the game was getting a little too easy (at lvl 32) I’ve decided to take up Preston on his quest offer (not like I had a choice :^)) and ventured to mid-east side of the map to some metro station to clear out the raiders. On the way there I died about 20 times to a pack of particularly nasty Rust Devils - luckily I slept in a bed that was mere 50 meters away from where they spawned, unfortunately for me it was during the day, in clear weather and on a flat plain so they could see me coming. Eventually I got them down and moved on to the metro where I was greeted by a raider welcoming party. I had to assault them multiple times and then retreat, slowly whittling down their numbers. But the main part still awaited - the metro itself. The last part was much easier because stealth works best indoors, but still. Entire quest took me a solid two hours to complete, in vanilla I’d have probably finished it in 15 minutes.

I’ve probably said this before in Skyrim threads but I think these games offer one of the best stealth/assassin experiences, even edging out some pure stealth games. And yes I know that the AI is considered ‘stupid’ for resetting back to its default behavior once the danger passes but without that the whole thing just wouldn’t work imo.

And the game pace without saving is so much better, it’s crazy. Even the conversations with npcs are more engaging now, no more reloads to pass that charisma check. Not to mention that you have to be careful about what you say, I saw a gif on reddit yesterday where a guy got blasted by the old lady with the shotgun when he refused her (at the Diner, with the jet addicted kid) :).

This mode really does wonders for immersion.

4111

Survival definitely turns Glowing Sea trips into butthole clenchers.

4112

Slight spoiler alert

Died 14 times trying to get Kellog’s pistol --ur–playing the main quest. The laser turrets murdered me – tg for some bunk beds. Playing my “The Americans” Russian spy/soccer mom character with just a pistol. Luck/stealth build works well, but when it comes to a straight up battle you can be toast in a few seconds.

Time to .44 my way into stuff now. Level 30 at death of kellog (I didn’t talk to him at all just threw grenades and blazed away).

4113

Yes! Which is exactly as it should be. Trying to make a radioactive wasteland matter in a game with glib fast travel was the dumbest thing ever. In other words, par for the course for Bethesda’s game designs.

-Tom

4114

Yep, the more I play survival the more I’m convinced that these games shouldn’t have fast travel at all. I’ve seen so many interesting unmarked locations just by traveling to quest objectives. Same goes for random encounters and I just love how they gradually change depending on the story part you activate. Once I finished the first Automaton mission I started getting these rust devils/robot patrols which really spiced things up. I’m about to finish the act 1 of the main quest and I can’t wait for BOS to start dropping in at random.

Also, just walking in the urban downtown area of Boston can be such an amazing experience that changes completely based on the time of day. Gotta give props to Bethesda’s artists, they’ve done wonders with this engine.

4115

I just did this quest at lvl 44 and had a grand time. Plenty of room to go in and out of stealth. Damage with 10x multiplier is just obscene, I almost oneshot Kellog (still using Pickman’s) and he was marked as skull, despite me being relatively high level for this quest.

4116

There’s also a conveniently placed fatman and mini-nuke near where you find Kellog, one shot from that will wipe him out.