Not starting out, just starting on hard until I get a feel for the game.
The game is great fun on any of the non-Survival difficulties, for at least a couple run-throughs. My next run is going to be Survival I think, because after 423+ hours I think I’m ready :).
Right now I’m dorking around with the Nuka-World “bad” quest line, after doing the “good” thing last run.
Sadly, I don’t think there’s any way to do the bad quest line, get the perks from the gangs, then kill the gangs without losing your perks, is there?
I’m not sure if it’s possible to enable Survival once you already start, you might want to look into that if you have any plans on raising the difficulty.I do know for certain that once you switch from Survival down to lower difficulty you cannot go back. I would certainly not recommend playing on the highest non-Survival difficulty setting though, it turns enemies into hp sponges.
Nah, it’s fine. I played the game back at launch, when they hadn’t added this Survival mode yet. Back then the hardest difficulty wasn’t “hard”, it was “Survival”. Some enemies were definitely bullet sponges, but you also got plenty of tools to deal with it. You just had to make sure to use everything you had. You couldn’t take on a super mutant camp with a sniper rifle or assault rifle or shotgun, for example. You had to use them all while laying down mines, grenades, and anything else in your arsenal. It really made each combat encounter super tough and exciting. Remember, in that mode you can save anywhere, so you can fight things one or two enemies at a time and then save before moving to the next enemy.
Still, I think the new survival mode sounds way better. But I was really enjoying the old one too, despite enemies being really strong.
My current run through is on Very Hard. I’m at 40, just finished the bad Nuka-World questline. Enemies are tougher than on Hard, but one-shots with stealth and the right perks still work. I have to flog the gauss rifle more than usual but it’s working.
You get a lot more legendaries, too, but…nearly all of them suck donkey wang. I mean, how many “Junkies Boards” or “Ghoul-Slaying Switchblades” do you need, reallly? Or crappy armor that gives you bonuses for situations that never occur/
If there is one mod I would recommend (and there are many), I would recommend Tales of the Commonwealth. This is a quest/story mod. It adds a number of individual stories/vignettes, and companions. The whole thing is for the most part, very well done (I have run across one quest which was a bit lackluster), with voice acting (!!!), which in this case unless most mods, is EXCELLENT! My favorite part is running across and assisting a certain group of characters (not named so no spoilers), and then following them around. At some point, they break out into not just one but THREE different marching songs, which are very well done and utterly hilarious (imagine post apocalyptic military songs about sex with ghouls and you get the point!). So this mod not only has voice acting but it has singing! Following this group around was one of the best things I’ve done in the game so far. I’d highly recommend this mod.
Thanks for the recommendation! That sounds like a nice enhancement to the base game.
P.S. It won’t help Jeff though, a quick google search reveals the PS4 can’t do mods that add sound files, so this mod is only for PC and Xbox.
I second the Tales of the Commonwealth, although it has a quest trigger that’s a little too close to one of my favorite settlements.
So, usually I play as a quasi-Lone Wanderer, because I like Dogmeat and despise the nagging from most NPCs. Also, they get in the way. But there’s a ton of cool stuff the companion NPCs offer, I have to admit.
For instance, on my current playthrough (Very Hard, stealth/suppressed weapon focus, Nuka World “bad”), I’m tooling around Far Harbor with NIck Valentine, and finally get friendly enough with him that he offers a quest I’ve never seen before, that ties in with stuff I’ve seen a ton of times, but recontextualizes it amazingly well. Makes me want, on my next run through, to try to get as many companion stories/perks as I can.
On the PIP, in the Inventory screen for Armor, at the bottom there is what looks like a “C” in a circle, with a number next to it? What does that represent?
Judging from this screenshot I found:
I think that’s credits, as in how much money you have.
Ohhhhh! Duh! I was thinking purely of stats. And I could not find it on Google. Thanks!
C stands for Caps, bottle caps.
Ah ok. I kept thinking bottlecaps started with a b, so that’s why my mind went to credits. I thought maybe they had finally phased out bottlecaps being far enough ahead of the apocalypse.
Seems I answered my own question vis a vis Nuka-World:
[spoiler]Yes, you can do the bad guy quest (at least, I did it through setting up four of the eight settlements in the Commonwealth that it says you need to get a tribute chest), then turn around and wipe out the raiders (including the settlements) and keep the perks you got from the main “bad” quest line. At least, the perks are still in my perk list.
It was funny, too. When I went to wipe out the raider settlements, the first one I came to was under heavy assault by a big force of BOS guys. Like, half a dozen in power armor and two vertibirds. They were kind of indiscriminate in their laser fire, too, sometimes it seem shooting at my companion (Cait). Weirdly, their fire never killed the Operators at the settlement, but always left them with one health. I was able to wax them though.[/spoiler]
Oh, and Preston continues to deliver…if by deliver you mean “deliver hilarious and shallow sentimentality coupled with the awareness of a dead beetle.” [spoiler]After getting a dressing down from him for leading the raiders and taking over settlements in the Commonwealth, I go and wipe out the bad guys. On my return, I talk to him…and he delivers the exact same spiel that he did after Concord oh so many levels ago, asking me to be the leader of the Minutemen! It’s like it’s a total reset.
I told him no. Again.[/spoiler]
But jeez, I have said this before, but man, this game has so much stuff in it. I continue to find new dialog, new locations, new quests, and new things. Yeah, I may not be the most adventurous player so it might take me longer to find stuff, but the content in this game just keeps on giving.
Unfortunately, the side quests, companion stuff, and ephemera are often excellent, including some great voice acting, while the main quest is simply dreadful. It’s almost as if, in defiance of logic, they turned over the main quest line stuff to the interns and let the pros handle the side jobs. Luckily, the side stuff is vastly more voluminous and engaging in the long run, so maybe this wasn’t a bad idea after all…
Probably already been mentioned but the Silver Shroud and Pickman quests are really fun and in the latter case really creepy.
What I love about this game is that you get the feeling that you are discovering secret content even though it’s not always that accidental.
What I hate is that feeling that you have to go look up the wiki entry for every place you go to so that you don’t miss a magazine or other such special item. It’s a real dilemma for me. I want to be spontaneous and have serendipity lead the way but I don’t ant to miss my special perks.
I play every open world game I can get my hands on and that includes Oblivion, Skyrim, all the Fallouts. But for this one I’m trying something that goes against my anal retentive nature - I’m trying to avoid Wiki and other guides and I’m just exploring. I read some starting tips and “things I wished I had known” articles to start, and some guides on how to do the crafting, but in terms of finding “stuff” and right decisions on quests, I’m going to try to relax, not worry about “winning” and just wing it.
We’ll see how long that lasts, LOL!
That’s exactly what I am trying to do. Mostly just quicksave and let the dice roll. Almost a self imposed iron man mode.
It would be nice if they could randomize where the comics, magazines and bobble heads appear. Not in any random burned out car but rather by general POI.
I have had to fight my lawnmowering tendencies as well as my propensity to be a packrat. I’m sure I miss bobbleheads and mags, but eh, there are a bajillion things to find and it’s not hard to get enough experience to do most of what you want no matter where you go.
I keep telling myself that I should try a run with zero crafting, period, only found stuff, other than cooking. Usually I can’t resist loading up on the abilities to mod stuff because it makes such a huge difference. But then, you rarely find anything other than the best legendaries or uniques that is even worth using in that case.