You know, more games should accommodate Ironman playstyles, but it should never be outright forced like that. People play games for different reasons.

I am not of the opinion that buying a game should ever come with a guarantee of completing it; or being force fed everything in it. I see that as little different than selling a chess program with a guarantee that it lets you win.

What's [supposed to be] good about RPGs is that they support different kinds of characters, and those character differences ideally affect the way the narrative plays out. It's disheartening when any PC can take any path interchangeably; and worse when players feel entitled to any path with any PC. The games really lose credibility and a strength of the genre [IMO] when they start to adopt that kind of servility.

... that had nothing to do with what I said, though.

It was related to Ironman, and a little bit related to New Vegas' decision to make Wild Wasteland a user elected trait instead of simply forcing it to be the world as it is.

Generally I am in favor of less options for a more uniform [and polished] experience, rather than having a dozen exceptions in play.

Companions should definitely be able to die. In fact, I'm of the opinion that all NPCs should be able to die, but that might be too much to ask for. It sure was a breath of fresh air in New Vegas, and I don't remember anyone complaining about it. New Vegas also did better than Fallout 3 sales wise, so maybe it's a feature people would like lol.

In any case, they would have to create a better AI because I hate babysitting.

There were characters in the series that were terrible fighters, but had other uses; or some with no use at all. Keeping them alive was the player's option. If they wanted their company, they had to keep them alive.


*I really hope one of the Devs put the Periah back into Fallout ~now that NPCs are immortal.

I'm ok with companions dying if it's at the hand of the player. I don't like seeing pieces of the branching world-narrative die - it creates a hollow world. I see talk of companions being glorified meat shields, but I also recall the numerous times my companions got knocked out in Skyrim, and I had to fend for myself against overwhelming odds. That's a pretty [censored] meat shield if they're DBNO in the midst of a fight.

I agree.

So far it is sounding pretty good.

The one thing I'm hoping for no instant heal on companions.

I admit I would make them essential but it did drive me up the wall, when we would have a hard fight and was low on Stim packs and they would get up and instantly be back at 100%.

It was made worse because I was using the wonderful Project Nevada and stimpacks healed over time.

I tried a few mods to prevent instant heal but never got it just right.

I remember that Fallout 3's Dogmeat took forever to heal back because he had soooo many hit points.

I don't want them to heal exactly like the Sole Survivor, but I don't want them pulling a Wolverine and being back at 100% after every battle.

Perhaps after going down and being stimpacked during combat or after combat they will get up with only half or two thirds hit points.

Hopefully the human companions can do some healing of themselves if they have the supplies.

Maybe give them their own supply of stimpacks and they heal like 20% of their health per stim pack.

The best thing would be if Bethesda gives us some settings for this so we can fine tune it to our play style.

Turn Instant heal on or off.

Set the level of damage they get up with after being stimpacked or once combat is over.

Set a damage level where they will start using any stimpack or radaway they are carrying.

I'm wondering with the new radiation mechanics, are companions going to need to use radaway too?

Would be one way to balance things.

Totally agree!

I hate it in Elder Scrolls where you can be the guild master of the Figher's, Mage's, and Thieves' Guilds simultaneously.

I'm hoping next Elder Scrolls, they at least require you to step down as guild master before becoming guild master of another guild.

But I do like the trend of providing more options via the developer or via mods to fine tune the game to your own play style.

Some times I like to play hardcoe mode with JSawyer's mod to take it to the max and some times I don't have a lot of time to micromanage and I add an unlimited weight mod.

But it is good that Bethesda seems to be going for max replay value for Fallout 4 with Special stats taking center stage.

F3 and FONV got so easy once you knew the game and got past the first half.

I figure there will be a soft level cap where most people will have completed the main quest and DLC and at that point you have the choice to start a new different Sole Survivor or to keep playing your Sole Survivor and go for MOAT.

While I'm glad there are no level cap on the game for MOAT players, I think we can agree that it is just harder for developers to fine tune a game to remain challenging at all levels and to have real replay value.

This way we get the best of both worlds.

I want Death as a companion, Bill and Ted style.

"You can be a king or a street sweeper... but sooner or later you dance with the reaper."

Exactly!

Sadly they don't die, at least not while serving as your companion. It merely gives me even less of a desire to recruit them as companions in the first place. I'm more of a lone wolf anyway, but if they can't die why do I care about these people or look out for them in combat, they effectively become bullet sponges.

They could die in hard-core mode from anything.

I've only played NV in HC mode.

I've never played NV in extra tedium mode. (admittedly, I've only played NV 1.7ish times.... but I'd still never play it like that.)

I have to wonder if 'companions can't die' also means you can't kill them. If you haven't added them to your group yet, then could they be killed? Just wondering for no apparent reason.

This also makes me wonder about how many 'essential' NPC's there will be in the game. I liked how Morrowind did it myself, just a pop-up note telling you the MQ is screwed. But then I've never played a character that just indiscriminately killed NPC's either ... except once, and that was when I was in Skyrim playing a vamp and was doing those missions for them where you were basically told to go to some town and kill any merchant or whatever. That's when I discovered exactly how many essential NPC's there were in Skyrim, which is a lot.

Yeah, that's a good point. Essential NPCs have rarely bothered me because 99.9% of the time I don't kill non-hostile mobs. (Even in Fallout 3 later playthroughs, the only people I've killed when non-hostile were Roy Phillips and Dave. I think. /ponder.)

...that also reminds me that I've only seen Lucien in two of my Oblivion playthroughs, because my total "murders" across all characters is like.... 5? Some from the arena, the others from friendly-fire accidents during large battles.

The only thing I found annoying with it, was that for some inexplicable reason the Player was locked out of map travel if when the PC was overloaded and/or

(I think) if they had crippled legs.

It sure is gonna be jarring though when your dog takes a mini-nuke to the face only to spring back up again when you've cleared the area of enemies, no?

Well the flip side to that is the dog running into the blast zone after you launch it because of stupid companion AI. I suppose being essential makes up for being stupid.

No more "jarring" than it's been to have stunned/KO'd/knocked-out/killed/ characters stand back up (either on their own, or by application of a consumable) in myriad games before.

The Companions not dying in NV didn't mean they were invincible.... (Have you actually played NV before?) When they "Die" they are knocked unconcious. And yes they stayed down the whole fight. (However if someone could knock my melee, Veronica down with full brotherhood power armor, the fight was usually over once the enemy reached me) And yes you could play the entire game solo if you wanted.

Well I guess that makes it absolutely okay then. Other jarring things exist in games, therefore calling anything jarring is pointless, thanks Kiralyn2000!