I do play on survival but I have modded my damage done to same as normal difficulty. Good balance of high enemy damage but no sponges Also I disabled the compass..

Doesn't playing on "Hard" solve that though? It is more challenging than "Normal", but at the same time you don't need to spam stimpaks or waste too much ammo

Yes. I will never play on "Survival" again. It's pointless and you die ALL the time. I play to have fun. I do not play to be constantly frustrated and disappointed in my own performance.

TC - you wanna play on Survival, more power to you, but I'm after story, and don't really care about "challenge".

I always play a game on normal first to gauge the difficulty of the game and then adjust for later run throughs.

Now that the story is over I started a new game with lower to just have fun and explore. Survival just took the fun out of the game.

This right here is the reason why I also play on normal. I wish Survivor mode was a different option in the menu like FO:NV was.

I play on Hard. It is pretty hard, and ghouls are scary. Ammo is a problem. I do not use "Aid" (like mentats, buffout) because I am too lazy and don't feel like doing the micromanagement for each fight. So Hard is great for me.

I haven't played the game yet and probably won't until after the first of the year but I almost always play on as easy a setting as available. It isn't because I "can't" play it otherwise, it's just because I enjoy the exploration and the quests and the journey much more than I enjoy the combat and the feeling of survival. It's also why I usually play a very sneaky character. I like to avoid confrontation. If I could resolve all quests in a diplomatic way, that is what I would do. I mean, I'm quite fine with combat but I don't like to string it out to make it a hill to climb. I just want to get it over with and go out and find some more goodies. In real life if I was to shoot something I'm going to put them down quickly.

Yeah, combat is my least favorite thing to do in a game.

Normal here as well; gamewise anyway.

I play survival and find the mode way too easy. Can't wait until we get mods like Project Nevada to FO4..

I started playing on survival just because I thought that the increased random legendary creature would be cool. I did ok but still died to some bloatflies, and a three pack of wild dogs. I finally stopped exploring and went into Concord, and got through to the deathclaw, and got hit once in Power Armor and died. Loaded again and died.... I finally used the power armor and mini gun to kill most of the bandits and then ran into the corner building and spent about 40 minutes sniping the deathclaw and letting poor dogmeat get beat up while I fired from inside the house, over and over till I finally got him with a land mine. After that I decided to take it back down to normal. I may bump it up later, but for now it's just fine for me.

^ that was one of the toughest fights in the early part of the game no matter what difficulty you are on. that and Corvega. Don't let it discourage you from Survival.

Normal, this is the one game where harder difficulties are significantly harder.

I killed her with 4 hits from my Kremvh's Tooth.

Ninja achieved Flawless Victory! \o/

Must've killed at least 4 Queens in the last day and a couple of Kings. I think Hunters are overall one of the toughest enemies in the game. I tend to kill a good 80% of Mirelurks in melee combat, even if discovered. I've taken no melee damage perks btw; my focus has been primarily on Utility Perks.

You know Mirelurk Gear Rex isn't really that tough unless you stand still or try to stab it in the face. I think I killed one with a Missile Launcher because it was broad daylight on a flat plain, which made sneaking, hiding, waiting to become hidden and then waiting for it to establish a predictable patrol pattern a really tedious waste of time for my liking. Had it down to 50% Health from a couple of Sneaky Stabs up the behind, blew it's face off with about 5 missiles afterwards. It's corpse propped up against a tree.

I do dislike how readily Fallout 4 gives you the Fatman Launcher though. I must have over 30 by now, so I ended up just scrapping some because they were weighing me down and it was a trek back to my nearest outpost.

But yeah, the difficulty is starting to seem easier even with my crappy gear. I'll definitely bump it up when I start taking damage Perks at level 50.

Started hard, went to very hard. Survival baddies are too bullet spongy. That queen was annoying but like most things in this game there's always a slightly cheat way to do it so I just used the building as cover right near the fortress and popped in and out shooting her as she didn't leave and just sorta stood there.

Normal, beacause handicap difficulties are a cheap way to make games more challenging. It also forces you to use certain builds and gear. I hope they add more creative difficultiy levels.

Started on Normal, moved it up to Hard as allegedly I'll see more Legendary enemies that way, I'm waiting for the maths whizz's to work out if thats tru or not (-;

I started on normal, since simply making enemies spongier doesn't add much for me. After getting better weapons and armor I upped the difficulty gradually to hard, and finally very hard (after lvl 50), because a combination of power armor and some really sweet legendary weapons meant I was a god among mortals. I just restarted the game, and I'm back to normal.

At some point I'll try a modded difficulty setting where the enemies/everyone does more dmg, and that's it.

I'm new to Fallout and not a good player generally, but f.e. because I like Requiem for Skyrim, when I read that you get handed over power armor and a minigun at start and for free I decided to play on Survival. The apocalyptic world should be dangerous and punishing. Important is the over-time healing, otherwise the game is too easy I think. I don't mind bullet sponges if they are not normal humans and normal humans I can usually kill with one or two bullets.

What I would wish as hardcoe mode would be more damage for the player but also a restriction for the weapons you can take with you. It's too easy to solve everything with the plentitude of weapons at the moment. In the second playthrough I will restrict myself. Currently I usually only park my power armor and try without it first, wearing Grognaks loincloth (i don't like the boots however) or nothing. Although I die quiet often it's fun. The mod I would appreciate the most would be a simple "shorts for males" clothing mod, so I would not have to run around in underwear;)

Same here. I always play Bethesda games on normal difficulty for those reasons. If I want to play a challenging game I'll play Dark Souls which is challenging by design and not because they gave all the enemies ridiculous damage resistance.

Wouldn't exactly say that playing on an easy difficulty makes you a "noob".

You should see how many times I died in survival. Yet I press on.

Its really only if you want a challenge.

I play on normal difficulty, for much the same reason as everybody else. Also, I take umbrage with the OP for suggesting that the only reason you would play on a lower difficulty than 'Hard' is that you are a noob. I've played and completed Oblivion, Skyrim, FO3, NV and a host of other RPGs from other publishers, such as Dragons Dogma and Dark Souls. A noob I ain't, so enough prejudging, thank you. I play on Normal as, like other Bethesda Softworks games, I play for the atmosphere and the adventure. I want to search new places, discover vistas, creep around in old abandoned factories, soak up the irradiated mileu created by gamesas. The enemies I encounter are a part of that world and add to the sense of danger. On Normal, the world and the enemies add to each other and work in partnership to create a stunning environment. What a higher difficulty would do, would make my play through less about the world and more about the enemies. Instead of exploring for the sake of exploration, my goal would be predominantly trying to find ways to survive, and so detract from what I consider to be a huge aspect of the game. On subsequent playthroughs I will increase the difficulty, but I'm on my first playthrough and so I play on Normal.

I play on Very Hard and its perfect, at times getting a little too easy though with gear and perks.

I lower the difficulty each time I die, until I reach normal - I feel that if I need to reload I am doing something wrong. My survival game did not last past my level 3 encounter with the deathclaw in Concord.

the difficulty for me in this game is carrying stuff around , i'm a hoarder

i have mixed feelings about " bullet sponge " effect , but so far i can't say that i had problems defeating the game

i would suggest the following change : ( for survival mode )

1) reduce sneak damage from : 5.9 x to 2.0 x

2) reduce enemy health by half

3) buff enemy damage abit

4 ) reduce the damage of high end weapons ( plasma rifle / gauss rifle ) and bring them inline with .50 cal / .308

P.S : buff the miningun for the love of god it has very very low damage