4599

Yeah, the higher the difficulty the more starred “legendary” dudes you face. And sadly, the more “Instigating pool cues” you get.

4600

Unfortunately, Jeff, the skull just means significantly higher level than you. You’re looking for a star near their name (which might also have a skull emblem as well.) The starred enemies are the ones that drop legendaries items. It can be armor or weapons, and many times will not be something you might use (but it might be good for a follower.) I flip between hard and very hard and the amount of legendary enemies changes a bit along the way. I’ll usually run into at least one per marked location that I visit, sometimes several.

Here’s an example of one with both star and skull.

Here is a breakdown of what changes on the difficulties:

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4601

And are the legendary drops any good? I think in all the drops I ever got, only 1 was decent, the rest were crap. I also got a lot of repeats.

4602

Some of the legendary drops are great. For weapons, in particular; the armor, if you have the Far Harbor DLC, isn’t as good as what you can get there in general unless you have a very specific build that can use the armor affixes.

For weapons, though, the explosive ones, the ones that do X% more damage, the ones with a high chance to cripple limbs, and the plasma or (less so) radiation-damage ones are pretty sweet when up-modded.

4603

Some are, yep. There is also a mod that kind of helps with things a bit called Legendary Modification. As an example, perhaps allowing you to remove the legendary effect from something you get, adding it to another item instead, similar to removing a weapon mod. It’s very customizable and as cheaty as you want to make it, or not.

I’ve had quite a few drops that were +stats on gear or nice VATS or explosive mods on weapons. The problem is that you want something pretty exact, usually, depending on your build. As an example, if you’re wearing only combat armor and using a sniper rifle, you aren’t going to get those drops all the time. Players will sometimes farm frequently spawning locations for legendaries due to that.

You can sell and break down legendary items though no matter if you are modded or not. If I remember correctly they are worth more for resale.

4604

My plan was to play a sniper. I’ve found a chameleon armor piece and a .50 cal deadeye legendary sniper rifle. It’s almost like the game looked at my perks and said here you go. Or it could just be RNG serendipity. :)

4605

Those are amazing drops for your build for sure. Ammo for that .50 cal though … eeesh. Make sure you pick the scrounger perk if you don’t have it yet.

I’m playing a stealth pistol build and have gotten a VATS enhanced rifle and shotgun as well, allowing me to rotate those in when needed. I already have the Deliverer as my main weapon, I doubt I’ll ever replace it.

4606

That Modern Firearms mod sounds good enough to get me to try and recover my Steam account. Though I hear there are mods on the Bone now.

4607

At some point, I was thinking of trying that once I get back into Fallout 4. How is it working out? Also are there any mods that revamp the skill trees? I have always thought there were a bunch of useless skills in it.

4608

It’s a very, very easy build to get into and play. You overload agility from the start, pick pistols, pick stealth, pick faster action point regen, pick abilities to enhance damage from stealth, and then later add extra damage from additional perks as needed. I followed this person’s guide, but as I got into upper levels, I varied it a bit. The build is mostly agility related, so you can gimp your other S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attributes at the start, adding them back as needed. Also note that the build doesn’t really, “break Fallout.” Especially not on very hard difficulty. And if you don’t enjoy VATS, you’re not going to like the build very much.

The build also relies on the Deliverer if you’re using pistols, or at a minimum, one that is suppressed. You can get through the very early levels with a follower, after that it is easier to ditch them, to be honest.

Generally, combat goes something like: stealth into the area, target roaming guards, vats, hopefully one-shot, if not, kill them off and run away, resetting their ability to see you (around a corner or object, stealth off, stealth back on.) You then work through the rest of the facility without as much worry of additional enemies joining in, or finding you. It’s immersion breaking in the way that only Bethesda’s stealth implementation can be. But, note that you’re a sitting duck for large groups of enemies, and you usually don’t have much health to absorb damage with.

It is nearly identical to playing a stealth archer in Skyrim.

EDIT: Replace my use of stealth with sneak. Sorry for the confustion.

4609

That’s pretty much what I do with the sniper rifle. I have a legendary combat shotgun with the freeze on crtical trait which has saved my bacon a bunch of times…feral ghouls or hounds rushing me.

The synergies at the top of the luck branch are crazy good though. Critical banker, grim reaper sprint and 4 leaf clover are awesome. Somehow watching heads explode never gets old. :)

4610

Yep, I ended up adding perk points in luck and later adding some of those into my build as well. They are very nice to have.

4611

Modern Firearms is fun, but goofy, and I’d not recommend it for a first time run certainly. It pretty much obsoletes all the other weapons because you get crazy powerful stuff, and if you set it up with the hot key mod you can swap suppressors and sights and fire-modes on the fly. It’s also sort of confusing in its implementation, and it is quite lethal. But it sure does add variety.

4612

Tip for anyone who hasn’t discovered it:

If like me, you think the Splatter Cannon is the best weapon in the game (Mirelurk queens go down in about three seconds), but are short on caps for the 7.62 ammo, you can farm quite a bit by repeatedly fast traveling to Dry Rock Gulch, then make the short trip west to the pair of sheds just outside the Galactic Zone. Every time, a fight will break out between one of the park gangs vs gunners/super mutants/scavengers, and you can just chill behind the closest shed and let them fight it out, then scoop up the goodies afterwards.

I noticed it after getting the Power Play quest, so it may not trigger until then. Sometimes the fight will be between the park gang that you shorted and one of the other two gangs.You can also do the same thing by visiting the Nuka World Red Rocket. A similar battle will almost always break out at the three-story house just to the east.

4613

So I’m still only just level 10, just entered Diamond City and initiated the Valentine quest line. I also agreed to an interview with the reporter woman, but refused to take her as a companion. I currently am just letting my dog come with me, and honestly if I didn’t need him to carry crap for me, I’d prefer being alone.

In fact, the carrying crap syndrome is something I need to manage. It took me several tries to get to Diamond City, because on the way I’d pick up so much junk I would always get overloaded and then I’d head back to Sanctuary or Red Rocket to use it for crafting weapon and armor mods. BTW - is there a secret to finding more adhesive? That seems to be a constant gap in my inventory. But I have the search icon on for all the the things that I want to craft, and so I end up picking up everything I find that has that search magnifying glass icon next to it. And with 240 carrying capability, that loads up quick.

My build so far, only level 10, I’ve got a decent sniper rifle, though .308 ammo can be challenging to find, I’ve been steadily modding up a 10 mm pistol, which is my standard weapon, a combat shotgun for close up stuff, and I’m carrying a short heavy assault rifle for those times when the 10mm isn’t enough and I don’t want to waste my sniper ammo. Don’t have the ability to mod anything for suppression yet. Trying to put points into Gun Nut and Stealth and Rifleman, with some into Gunslinger. I’m also maxxing Locksmith as much as I can - I hate hitting a locked safe and not being able to open it, Not prioritizing the hacking skill yet.

Gonna get rid of the laser sniper weapon I found. It’s cool, but I’m just going to go ballistic. Also eschewing automatic weapons. I’ve got a missile launcher that would be cool but it’s heavy.

Armor - not using Power Armor, at least for now, Just modded raider armor for the most part, so my armor isn’t the greatest.

Does the scrounger perk find more rare ammo or just more of what you’d normally find? I want to eventually mod my sniper rifle up to silencer and .50 cal, but I can barely find enough .308 to use it as much as I’d like.

For this game, I’m being totally non-anal retentive (not like me in these games!) I’m role playing, not worrying about making perfect choices or finding every bobble head or magazine. I’m just exploring what looks interesting, and going where I want. In fact, in the underwater pipes quest, when I read what I read on his computer, I just killed the guy rather than doing the task he asked me to do, LOL!

I’m having a lot of fun, it’s nice to be back in such a truly open world filled with so much to discover and do.

4614

Oh, I also discovered that changing the PIP boy colors and HUD to a bright amber (which I prefer over the green) made things more readable, plus the PIP boy flashlight now gives a nice bright light rather than that night vision green. ;)

4615

Diamond City is great for stocking up on ammo. You can’t buy it in huge batches but I find 20+ .50 cal at 2 different vendors. Also Goodneighbor has 2 vendors with .50 cal ammo but you might not have discovered that. Basically I make sure I haul enough loot out of any given poi and then sell it for the ammo. Even with 1 star in scavanger and 1 in lockpicking I wouldn’t say ammo is flush. I try to stay above 200 .50 cal ammo in stock. I’ve got more 10mm than I can shake a stick at though.

I’ve abandoned sanctuary and built a concrete bunker at Taffington boathouse. Having a great time slowly fixing up the place. I do go and defend some of the settlements when they are under attack for no other reason that I feel guilty. I’ve missed a bunch since the notification is not always apparent. I also turned off all the radio beacons. Once I finish the main quest and hit 50 I might spend some points on charisma and get local leader and try and save the commonwealth. Who knows though. Some of the settlers at Sanctuary like marcy really get on my nerves. :)

4616

The settlers who constantly complain about:

Raiders, usually half way across the map
Kidnapping, often the same person over and over again
Something big and mean “nearby,” which means, again, across the map
Super Mutants, who for some reason don’t eat the settlers but again are usually over in Connecticut anyhow
Etc.

Go “bad” in Nuka-World and take over the Commonwealth for the gangs, yo.

4617

JeffL you should consider the Lone Wanderer perk, it still gives affects if your only companion is Dogmeat. I’d also recommend you eventually shift toward power armor, if for no other reason than the extra weight capacity. You could remove it prior to going into locations if you’re worried about stealth, etc. I’m playing a stealth build and still wear power armor. It’s worth it.

You’ll eventually find more adhesive than you’ll know what to do with. I’m not sure if it was level related but I eventually started finding packs of it (several rolls) and industrial strength variants. I think there is a perk that helps with items like that but I don’t know the name of it.

The scrounger perk helps with both the rare ammo and more of what you find, period. .308 ammo is one of the types covered.

Enjoy just playing the way you want and picking the perks you want. I’m so much of a min/max style player that it’s really hard for me to turn that off and just enjoy the game. I’m also a pack rat, collecting everything and not worrying about having to have every item I see. It’s one of the reasons I enjoy Skyrim a bit more for that reason. I don’t have any settlements to build, so I’m not carrying back every bucket, broom, and miscellaneous item I see.

One of your comments made me think of one of my nitpicks for Fallout 4 though. I can’t stand that hacking/lockpick levels are tied to perks. I know that’s the way it has always been, but I prefer the Skyrim approach. Don’t require perks, but tie the difficulty to perks. A smaller picking window and lower lockpick durability if you don’t have perks for example. I just seems like you cut yourself off from things you could find if you don’t waste 6-8 perk points on them.

4618

I remember back when I played the game, I grew vegetables in Sanctuary to get adhesive. But I don’t remember the details of that.