homepage Forums Land & Armor Combat Tactical Simulations - General Re: Fallout 4 (now with extra New Vegas!...and a dash of 76)

Can you expand on this? Why should I try them? I have the DLC and plan to do them, just curious why you're saying to give them a go. In my first, normal run I got a quest called Far From Home I think, and I believe that's the portal to Far Harbor. Nuka World I've not gotten a sniff of, aside from finding a single bottle of the mixed Nuka Cola in Concord I think

Survival mode is getting its hooks in. Parts of it are frustrating at times, but maybe in the end that will prove its charm. I've hit level 8. My approach is completely different, much more plodding, so the rate at which I increase my level may suffer a bit, but that's not a big deal. Starting over gave me a chance to re-roll my starting build.

Strength (3) -- I'm again not too concerned with melee, and while carry capacity is even more important in Survival, there are perks I plan to take that will overcome any drawbacks to low Strength. 3 points gets me to Armorer, which is key for me.

Perception (4) -- I wouldn't mind another point or two, but there's only so many to go around (at the start). Four points gets me to Locksmith, and the easily-obtained bobblehead to level 5 and Demo Expert. Perception affects VATS accuracy, and I will be using VATS a lot, so another point or two here eventually might be in order.

Endurance (2) -- It's Survival, so I really agonized over this, wondering if it would be a mistake to go so low. I didn't know if Endurance acts as resistance to the various illnesses and other maladies you pick up. Seems it does not, and if true then going so low is OK. I then spent the You're SPECIAL book in the baby's room to boost it to 3. That gets Life Giver. Staying alive is the single most important thing (duh!), and Life Giver is a nice boost to the health pool, which can make the difference between surviving an attack versus reloading that save from 45 minutes ago. You get Lead Belly at level 2. So far it feels like I could get away with not sinking points in to it, but on the other hand it will be such a quality of life improvement. Lead Belly would simplify the whole food/hunger thing, and allow me to eat all the junk food encountered in the wastes. I've held off so far, as there are many perks I want. But I think eventually I'll go Lead Belly 3 to make it a non issue.

Charisma (3) -- Gets me to Lone Wanderer which will be one of the most important perks I will take. The DR, extra damage dealt and carry capacity will be great in Survival. +100 capacity is nearly double what I get with Strength 3 so that's a massive boost. I have yet to take it, as I am using Codsworth at the moment. I named my character Bond and the way he greets me as "Mr Bond!" in his English accent is so perfect. But soon I'll ditch him for LW. The difficult part of this is how far out of reach Local Leader is now. I may regret this as the lack of fast travel makes settlements seem more important. If it's regrettable enough I can train it up plus the bobblehead and get LL eventually.

Intelligence (4) -- This tree is pretty good in Survival, with some of the mid-level perks like Chemist looking very attractive. But again, only so many points to go around at the start so compromises must be made. Four points gets me to Hacker, which I don't care much about really. Another point though gets to Scrapper which I do want (need lots of screws for gun mods!). So at some stage I'll want another three points in INT to get those perks (Scrapper, Science, Chemist).

Agility (7) -- The key attribute to how I want to play. Sneak and VATS are cornerstones. Sneak, Action Boy, Ninja and Sandman will all be crucial to killing them before they kill me.

Luck (5) -- I like this tree a lot and 5 points gets me to Idiot Savant. With my lower INT it will proc more often and the potential is amazing. When it fires on quest turn-in it's OP. At level 2 you get 5x the XP. On some quests that means 2000 points instead of 400. And while this is rare, just a few times is a massive boost.

For perks I went like this so far

Level 2 -- Idiot Savant. Too good to pass up and might as well get it straight away, and can pay off just hanging around Sanctuary Hills and crafting or building up the settlement. I hate the sound it makes when it fires, but I like the XP.

Level 3 -- Rifleman. Semi-auto long arms are great in this game, and this boosts them all. Sniper rifles, laser rifles and non-auto shotguns too. Weapon modding means any automatic can be converted to semi-auto with a receiver change.

Level 4 -- Sneak. Awesomely powerful in FO4, and most Bethesda games really. A number of perks synergize and make sneak attack damage crazy good. And avoiding detection, or escaping more easily will be crucial for staying alive. And one of the best parts of the sneak perks is the ability to not trigger traps and mines. Losing a big chunk of progress to an unseen mine or trap sucks big time, so these perks are invaluable.

Level 5 -- Life Giver. +20 health per point, and at level 3 you get regeneration. I wouldn't pick this outside of Survival. That deeper health pool will save me countless times I am sure.

Level 6 -- Sneak 2. Harder to detect and ignores traps.

Level 7 -- Ninja. In my normal run I ran with Deacon for hours to get a 20% sneak attack damage bonus. Ninja is +250% with one point, +300% with two points and +350% with three. Plus, sneak attack melee damage is 4x, 5x and 10x. I won't use that often, but it is handy in some situations and helps to overcome my low Strength.

Level 8 -- Haven't actually spent this point yet, as there are about eight I want to spend it on. Lone Wanderer, Lead Belly, Scrounger, Action Boy, Sandman, Gun Nut, Armorer, Mysterious Stranger and Gunslinger at least, not to mention the next levels of the perks already chosen. So many great perks in Fallout.

The entertainment and rewards are superior to most of the base game IMO, and one of them at least is considerably more challenging.

You'll probably want to gain at least 10 more levels before even attempting it.

No worries there, I was around level 33 in normal and had yet to go to either. In this run I have yet to get anywhere near Boston. Farthest I've ventured is the Sunshine Holdings Co-op or whatever it is called to get the Wasteland Survival magazine there to double the meat from kills. I really have to take it slow because everything one-shots me at this stage.

For instance I made it to the diner where the woman's son has been hooked and the dealer is looking to get paid. The first time I told her I'd help and was shot dead before I finished the dialog lol. So back to the save and this time I brought my loungeware and spiffy hat, and talked to the dealer first. I attempted the speech check telling him to lower his weapon, failed and was dead in a single shot. So back to the save and this time told the diner lady to pay up, passed the speech check and everyone lived.

At least early on I really need to be careful of how approach things. It's brutal out there!

The trick with survival being that tedious is to either mod the base game to get the elements into it you liked, or mod out the elements in survival you don't. It's your sandbox.

Bingo. You also have different types of gamers. Some gamers need to be challenged while playing and if they are not, they get bored while other gamers get frustrated if they feel they are being challenged too much.

You should have seen what the game was like soon after release, where you'd get spawns of ridiculously high level or numerous enemies early in the game, like the time when my first build of Sanctuary Hills was attacked by a pack of well equipped supermutants.

It looked scripted as they came sprinting over the bridge, two of them very quickly knocked out my turrets with multibarrelled rocket launchers, and then they commenced to trash the place. Another time, my first Hangman's Alley build was attacked by literally hundreds of Synths, the biggest battle I've ever been involved in in Fallout, so many that the majority of them wouldn't even render. I ended up having to resort to mini nukes and nuclear grenades and I was down to a sliver of health with my inventory completely depleted by the time it over.

Another time, The Slog was attacked by about 50 feral ghouls, luckily I had it pretty well fenced off and had equipped most of the settlers there with miniguns. What made those kinds of attacks really challenging was that it was difficult to find certain kinds of building resources at that time, especially oil, so that really limited the amount of defences that you could build early.

So far the only thing I don't like is how sleep triggered afflictions are done. I'd like to cut those out, but otherwise I'm fine with how things are working. The save restrictions are a killer, but the effect it has on my mindset and approach to the game is well worth the trade off. It's like how someone might say that turning off external cameras in Silent Hunter is a big hit to situational awareness, but maybe don't consider how this simple thing transforms the game experience and forces the player in to a different approach to things.

The fast travel restriction is a b!tch too, but again it forces a different approach and so far I'm OK with it. But unless I eventually get Local Leader I think this is the one that will ultimately prove the most annoying. Maybe the vertibirds will be a good substitute. A pretty cool one anyway. But no longer can I sweep stuff up, fast travel to dump it, fast travel back and do it again. Everything must be planned out. My kit, what I carry, what I pick up, where I go and what I choose to do all have to be carefully considered and planned or I'll be back staring at the last bed I slept in.

The sheer lethality of the enemies is brutal, but I have no problem with that. It's a good thing and once again affects my approach. I like this. In normal there was nothing I wouldn't take on aside from Swan. In Survival I'm looking for the best path to avoid and evade half the time.

I think one key will be to establish a good settlement network, get beds, decontamination arches and doctors set up at strategic locations around the map. Speaking of the arches, I have yet to build one, but that seems like it would make Lead Belly not needed. Of course they won't be everywhere I need them, but minor radiation is no big deal, and a quick easy way to remove it without the heavy drawback of RadAway is great. I'll see about building one of these tonight.

I'm squarely in subset A. Survival mode is a natural option for me. For anyone that likes the Misery mod, FO4's Survival mode will be right up their alley. In a few posts above I was saying how powerful I was feeling already by level 30. So this shift in to this mode is going to help keep me engaged and feel a sense of challenge and accomplishment that was already waning in normal. Or at least I hope so.

Have you invested much into melee?

Combined with a sneak build, that can really save you a ton of ammo and hassle in many situations.

If only I had just made a post detailing everything I had invested in! Haha, yeah I make long posts. No, nothing in melee aside from the Ninja perk which gives a sneak attack melee damage multiplier. You are right that it would conserve ammo, but that's not really an issue, so far anyway and I expect it will only get better. Then again, weight is more of an issue and I won't be carrying a lot of weapons to spread ammo usage around so it could become as issue on long missions like Corvega.I haven't taken Scrounger either, as it feels like I can get away with it. I really only need 10mm, .308 and .45 rounds. The rest can get sold or stored. Each bullet doesn't weigh much, but it sure adds up fast.

Hit level 10 in this Survival run.

Level 9 -- Rifleman 2. More damage, plus ignores 15% of target's armor.

Level 10 -- Locksmith 2. More stuff.

Decontamination arch will have to wait a bit, needed some mats, but I think I went and found everything i need. I went exploring and found Covenant, which I hadn't found in the normal run, just hadn't been through there yet. The doctor there can clear my list of afflictions. 15 caps is nothing, but it's another 40 to get the rads out of me. I'll still build an arch to see if I want to keep building them in other settlements.

From my perspective, I don't find the recent Fallout games (4 and 76) to really be conducive for a stealth-based approach. I've been much more effective just having a high armor and HP rating and going in "guns ablazing" with a heavy weapon like a mini-gun or laser gatlin gun. Fallout simply doesn't play like true stealth games such as Dishonored or Splinter Cell.

I can't agree with that at all. But that's one of the great things about RGP-style shooters, they often have many viable approaches. For me stealth in this game is the best and most powerful way to go. Sneak attack damage can be absolutely insane with the right perks, and the ability to remain unseen and to evade after detection is really strong. If I'm calculating it correctly it appears that with the right perks sneak attack damage can be boosted over 500%. In Survival I think it's a no-brainer. Heavy weapons just aren't that viable in this mode. They are heavy, and have big ammo requirements. For me stealth's the way to go for sure.

In Fallout 4 the weight of your apparel factors in to your detectability, so it's necessary to go light if you want to make the most of it. So I'm in leather, for now anyway. Later I can go Muffled and Shadowed which makes stealth even more effective.

The Sandman perk will be the kicker once I get it. This adds up to +50% damage to silenced weapons, which overcomes and then some the damage reduction from the suppressor itself. Lowered range is the main issue.

Or maybe the main issue is finding silenced weapons in the first place. While I was out exploring I stopped at a few vendors to check, and only Trudy at Dumlin Diner had one, but it's a rather crappy silenced handgun chambered in .308. In order to add suppressors I need at least Gun Nut 2, and maybe higher on better weapons? I went all-in with Armorer in the first run, but not too far in to Gun Nut since I was finding plenty of good weapons. But this time I think I'll drop points in to Gun Nut eventually so I have more control over how my weapons are configured. Get Sandman, and silence everything. And get Deliverer.

Me:



At least 1/3 of my kills were with a knife, the huge stacking sneak attack damage bonuses often allowed me to one-shot even boss level characters.

Another 1/3 fell to silenced sniping, it was only when I failed in the stealth attack or during a scripted event would I "go loud".

You should try using a knife next run

Yeah, I agree that sneak attacks are awesome. I'm building my whole run around those and VATS. When your sneak is high enough, through perks and attire, it's not hard to keep things at least [Cautious], and attacks then are still sneaks. In my normal run I had Sneak 3 or 4, plus muffled and shadowed armor and I had super mutants standing 5 feet from me and looking right at me and not able to detect me.

Sneak 5 even causes enemies to lose you if there's any reasonable distance between you. Add to this the ability to ignore traps and mines (extra valuable in Survival I think) and it all adds up to be a very effective way to play, and in my view the most effective from both a survival and damage dealing perspective. And in Survival the more surgical nature of playing this way dovetails nicely with the weight and inventory limits. Each round fired does more damage so fewer need to be carried.

Panzer didn't use this mode right? In non-survival walking around in power armor and carrying a minigun wrecks I am sure. But in this mode I don't think it would be very effective. Too much of a target, and the weight of the weapon and ammo is prohibitive. But players would only care about that in Survival mode I reckon.

Survival is a natural extension of New Vegas' Hardcore mode, which was my favorite way to play that game. The rules shift has an effect for me far greater than what it might seem at first glance. It's about changing my mindset and approach to the game. And so far I really like how it has transformed Fallout 4 for me.

Correct. It just seemed to be more hassle than it was worth to play the game in that mode.

Yeah PM, I totally get it. Horses for courses as they say, eh?

I would expect only a small percentage of players would engage this mode, and even a smaller portion to stick with it. It sure got its hooks in for me, and I don't think I'd play a different way now. Same thing happened with Vegas.

There are certain enemies in some of the DLCs that are considerably more difficult to apply stealth attacks against, especially when it comes to melee, but for the most part, I think stealth is overpowered in Bethesda games as a rule.

Agreed and I made the same point earlier in the thread. But I really like playing this way. The power armor/mini gun type of playstyle has little appeal. I've always been in to sneaking, stealth, loner style play. I like sub sims, helo sims, sniper, ranger, black ops type stuff. I've played Fallout 4 about 100 hours so far and I bet I haven't been in power armor for more than an hour or two.

On the other hand I see the appeal in that style of play, its just not what I find up my alley.

Hit level 12

Level 11 -- Idiot Savant 2. More XP

Level 12 -- Sneak 3. Harder to detect and ignores mines. This used to be called Light Step I think. or was that a different game?

I built the decontamination arch and man that's nice. Instantly removes radiation, though it does require power, which is not a big deal. It's so easy and effective that I wonder if I should make a house rule and not use them. Radiation is obviously a core thing in a post-apocalyptic setting, and these arches trivialize it. Maybe I'll build a couple here and there but not abuse them.

I've hit level 12 but I've only completed four missions so far. Mostly doing a free-roam sort of thing, looking for better kit, gaining XP and exploring the map. As part of the Minutemen quest line the fine folks at Tenpines asked for help. These two settlers, who have nothing, ask the Vault Dweller, Lone Wanderer Sole Survivor to help them by clearing a hundred armed dudes out of a massive factory! It's a request that seems all out of proportion to their measly existence.

I did this Corvega mission first run of course and found it pretty tough. Lots of enemies, vertical interiors with perforated walkways that the NPCs have no trouble seeing and shooting through. I was probably only about level 3 then, so hopefully I will be a little better off this time. In preparation I went there and found a crumbling house on a hill nearby and sniped all the NPCs I could see outdoors, up high in the structure and those near the entrance. But the interior still needs to be cleared. I don't have enough ammo to do it at the mo, but I would probably find enough as I fought through the facility to keep going. While I was sniping, radroaches attacked and one was legendary (legendary radroach is funny) and he dropped a legendary leather chest piece with -15% damage from human enemies which should help with this.

I have yet to take Lone Wanderer perk and I am debating if I should take a companion. More firepower versus compromised stealth. Not sure which way to go and anyway my options are limited. I managed to lose Codsworth somewhere near the Super Duper Mart. Told him to hold position and then walked away and he has not returned to Sanctuary. He's the worst for stealth too. So that really leaves Dogmeat and Preston. I might be better off going solo. I'll kick it around. Maybe go start the BoS questline and get Danse. But he doesn't become a companion option right away. I can always go in, have a bash and leave if needed.

I was level 6 when I first tackled the Corvega plant, mind you it was on regular difficulty but it was my first playthrough and the game was less forgiving then.

I didn't have much ammo at that point so the key for me was melee stealth kills and also using mines.