Wouldn't be the way to go for me...

Yesterday i fell of a wall. It was about 3 feet high. My character had his legs broken and his head bumped at the ground so massively hard, that even his polymer combat helmet couldn't save his brain from beeing vaporized^^

Great read!

Because no amount of scavengers can haul infinite load.

Haha, I got to share this. So I started my Dead Is Dead game. Went with S:3 A:3 E:9 C:3 I:6 A:3 L:1, and I found it really easy being back on normal and having 9 endurance. A bullet to the head actually killed people, just not me. I almost got blown up in some apartments by a mine the raiders had hidden under a corpse. Luckily my reflexes was on point, but that was the first close call. I made it to Lexington and had a close encounter with a mininuke a dude decided to plant in the group of ghouls just on the other side of the wall I was hiding behind. A close brush with death, but ultimately not dangerous as I was safely positioned. I proceeded to shoot the idiot with a shotgun in the face.

I went on to assault the Corvega factory around lvl 6, and had a hell of a job cleaning up the outside. Still, I was in no immediate danger as drugs and an unnatural high healthpool kept me in the green zone. I entered the building from a stairwell on the middle of the wall. I discovered that was a bad call as I had rooms below me on both sides filled with raiders eager to kill me, so I dashed for the rooftop exit. I flee onto the roof to get a better entrance, and to my BIG SURPRISE I turn around and see 5 [censored] RAIDERS immediately outside the door, just 3 feet from my face. I smashed a molotov on someones skull, lighting myself on fire in the process, but my 9 endurance outlived their bullets and the brimstone by a tiny margin. Holy hell, I did not know aggro'ed enemies would teleport out the door you took. That was too close for comfort.

I'm getting more and more fond of molotov's.

Dead is Dead is the only way to play, of course get used to the game a bit first so your playing on auto pilot as such, changing from say playing Skyrim for 4 years back to a Fallout game is something you cannot do just like that, plus FO4 is different to FO3, even though we still have the odd FO4 is just Skyrim with guns comments, He He

The fact they added slow release Stimpacks and food health restore they same as we did with Mods in FO3 can actually help in some situations but that damn injecting animation has caused two of my deaths, that meeds to be got rid of as soon as possible, the last death was a booby trap mine that I was just too slow to get away from as I was overloaded temporarily. Old rules used to be No Repair in a firefight but that's no longer relevant but TBH I play DiD as honestly and within the rules I set, not rules that are pre-set.

Play on Medium, you may find in a whiles when you know more of the game Hard will be needed, that happened with FO3

Pick you favourite Weapons Wisely, someone else said they carry three I roughly agree, Sniper, Shotgun but maybe two smaller guns depending on ammo? Some sort of melee might be an idea if you run out of certain ammo

I have no restrictions on when I use medication or the in-game 'Drugs' a well planned close combat attack can work best with the right Drugs and slow release foods to re-build that first lose of health as you start the attack.

Do not over hurry, sneak or slow down as soon as you see or hear anything odd, Skyrim bandits in the outside world where easy to see, FO4 out in the wilds is totally different, bland clothes with a bland background not so easy.

Get a Scoped weapon built ASAP, I always take the Gun and Armour Modding level 1 perk straight away, maybe use the crosshair Mod at the Nexus, search for My Hud, it gets rid of the active thing and replaces with a +

BTW until we get binoculars added in, or I find some if Beth has put them into FO4, in many situations a Scope is your best friend.

I've got a question for those of you that limit yourself to 3 weapons: how do you deal with the need for different damage types? Sometimes you'd want energy, sometimes ballistic. How about the fatman and the missile launcher? What about grenades and mines? I just can't see myself without sniper, assault rifle, shotgun, a laser/plasma weapon, missile launcher and fatman. That's 6. If I had to take away 3, I'd probably have to be left with small-scoped assault rifle, reflex-sighted laser/plasma rifle and missile launcher, missing out on a *lot* of weapons that are in the game for very specific reasons. Additionally you'd sometimes want a high dmg, low penetration weapon like shotgun or minigun. Sometimes you need that proper sniper rifle. Plus they're cool!

I guess I could make do with a sniper, assault rifle, and pistol, for long/medium/short range. But what about the heavy hitters like missile launcher and fatman?

I have actually been playing DiD since the release. So far I have died with 8 characters:

From newest to olderst in order:

It's good to see folks play this way. I hope that the next Fallout or DLC will support options to handle all of details. A simple Hard Core option in the menu would be great!

Deleted double post.

Fallout 4 as a rogue-like? Yes please! I'll do a few runs over the weekend.

Some other general reflections also is that when playing DiD in Fallout explosives is really the most dangerous element. You always have to keep one eye open for mines, since stepping on a mine without reacting in time could easy blow you away. Also if you step even close to a lunchbox mine it is just game over.. And the most essential skill for any build in DiD imo is Awarness, since then you can actually see the lvl of your enemies in vats. This makes it so you have a chance to scan an enemy, and if you are level 3 and you see he is a legendary lvl 20 enemey then you have time to run..

I have still not figured out what difficulty is best to play on. I started on survival for my first characters, and later turned it down to hard, and then back to survival again before dying the latest time. I actually think normal/hard is a better difficulty then survival for DiD though. After replaying so many times I have found that it is hard to make any kind of focused character on survival difficulty and DiD. Since enemies are such bulletspoonges you have to bring one type of each weapon for each ammo type with you to be sure to not run out of bullets. I also found that you have to rely on having a supply of chems like Jet and Physcho handy in case for when you will be jumped by some super strong enemy, and it is not a matter of if, but really when this happens.

I am contemplating to actually turn it down to normal and instead have some of the more realistic weight rules that are discussed here, and maybe not have to rely on chems as a last resort. That way you will have less caps to buy and upgrade stuff, since you cant scavange as much, but on the other hand you wont need to have so much ammo since it does not take a whole clip to down a regular enemy, and this also makes it more possible to have a more focused loadout without having to bring everything to make sure you always have a weapon handy with enough bullets. Still have not found the perfect balance.. Wonder what other peoples experience are with this playstyle.

Btw here is a carry weight mod that might be of interest, have not tried it out myself yet: http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/214/?

If I'm doing this I'm probably going to get that mod that allows for altering the damage numbers yourself. Survival doesn't just have to mean for the player right? These guys gotta be in the same boat.

Seems tough, besides luck.

I wasn't going to post this until I had a bit more experience, but now I've got to. I started a ridiculously restricted game after spending 100+ hours as a massive hoarder, settlement-builder, and one-man-army. I just got really tired of play "Falloot" so this is what I'm going with:

So far I'm only 5 hours in but loving it. Having to decide if I want to keep that bottlecap mine or my 2 fragment-grenades, deciding if I should ditch the shotgun in favor of the laser musket, should I keep the leather jacket or don some metal? - decisions, decisions... Finding that modded out rifle will be all the sweeter when it's difficult to get your hands on by yourself.

I went with

Strength: 2 (I'm not gonna carry anything, and armorsmithing will have to wait anyway)

Perception: 3 (Only need lockpicking as I tend not to use VATS that much)

Endurance: 9 (Yup)

Charisma: 3 (I was unsure wether or not I wanted the option of lonesome wanderer. Decided I did)

Intelligence: 6 (Aiming to get nuclear scientist)

Agility: 3 (Sneak to avoid mines and of course enemies)

Luck: 2 (Fortune-finder & Scrounger)

It feels like hard is a good setting. You can still get mauled pretty heavily in a bad situation, but all-in-all it should be manageable. Reduced access to mods will keep your damage and survivability in check.

I'm expecting this approach to hit some sort of wall as the content scales out of what I can keep up with, due to lack of items and modding, but I'm willing to give it a shot and see what happens. I also know it removes a lot of what is fun with the exploration in Fallout 4 (and I did have a lot of fun with it). But I got tired of playing the wasteland entrepreneur & freight-train, so now I'm just a Wanderer

I could not agree more with this. It's always bothered me that we can carry a tractor trailer full of junk on our person. I always try and carry what I think would be a realistic number of items. Only a certain number of stimpacks, grenades, etc. My justification for how we can pick up tons and tons of crap is that I simply imagine that I "radio in" to on of my settlements and tell them to get some men to come and pick all this junk up. Again, it's all about imagination and immersion for me.

Great question and it's something that I kind of struggle with on dead-is-dead/uber-realism playthrough. As far as the fat man, you kind of have to accept the fact that there's no possible way to make it "realistic" in terms of you being able to carry multiple mini nukes. I can tell you from my experience that I have a blast when I'm in a building fighting a bunch or raiders and I find myself running low on ammo for my combat rifle. There's been times when I've had to drop my gun and pick up another, lesser weapon to finish the battle because I run out of ammo. I literally drop my weapon, pick up another and then go back and retrieve my weapon when the battle's over.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/49784/? was another one of my favorite mods for Skyrim and something I'm hoping makes it into Fallout 4. You could literally see all the weapons that your character was carrying. Bow, dagger, long sword, etc. The best part was that when you were using your bow and decided it was time to switch to your sword the mod made it where you automatically threw your bow down and drew your sword. You could, if you wanted to take the time, actually sheathe your bow and then draw your sword. But I can't tell you the number of times I was fighting a dragon using my bow to get him to land, and then drew my sword to finish him off, throwing my bow on the ground. It was fun for me to go back and grab my bow after the battle and made it all the more realistic.

Again, I'm sure some will say, that it's way too much and that it wouldn't be fun. But I have a blast playing open world games as realistically as possible.

Absolutely. I use that mod. I play on survival but I have the damage ratio for both me and the enemies set to 100% (normal damage). Basically I'm just using survival to make sure stimpacks restore health over time.

That's awesome. I've actually played quite a few dead-is-dead characters already as well.

Along with Natasha Romanov (currently level 7) I also started a male dead-is-dead character last night Jonathan Hawke. He's currently level 5 and I'm hoping to log some decent time with him tonight.

At this rate, you'll never complete the game.

Noticing your levels, I can see you've yet to meet up with rocket launching enemies. Be prepared to create an even longer list.

My 7th DiD/survival difficulty character is still going strong at level 26. Had my first close call tonight though, I blasted a Legendary protection in the back with my shotgun and it blew up in my face when I went to loot it. Completely destroyed my right arm/leg power armor and left me at 30% hp.

My build on this character is:
S:1
P:1(bobblehead to 2 for rifleman perk)
E:4(for HP and Chem Resistance perk, because I'm a total junkie)
C:6(for lone wanderer and local leader, wanted to do a lot with settlements to build up a solid financial income to support my habits)
I:6(or 7?)(whichever was needed for Chemist perk)
A:7(Ninja and Sandman perks)
L:3(Bloody Mess)

On another play through I learned that the merchant at the diner sells a "Suppressed" bolt action pistol that could be modded into a really nice silenced .308 Sniper rifle , that's been my primary weapon from level 2 to almost 25.

What mod is this? It might be something to try out for me to balance it more for trying out a more weight restricted play.

As far as immersion goes I also forgot to mention I have turned off the compass in the ini, I like to keep the screen as clear as possible. I also downloaded a mod that removes the sneak indicator and I have adjusted the healthbar to be in the bottom left corner so it is no longer in the way so much on the screen.

I also have some other selfmade rules, like no fast travel (except ways that make sense ingame, like teleportation or vertibird etc), not putting any stuff "inside" Dogmeat, not abusing the power armor, only using it when appropriate, like in the fight with the Deathclaw in the beginning, venturing into the Glowing Sea or in the immediate area if I find one in the field and there is a dangerous situation at hand in that close area.

I think it is hard to come up with rules that apply as well for all sorts of playthroughs though. I am thinking I want to do the settlement building at some point, but I have a hard time picturing it would be fun to do it with weight restrictions, since it is all about scavanging junk to build. Also I don't know if DiD is a good idea for it, since it would svck to build up your base and loose it. Any reflections on this? Or do you even do settlement building? It is almost "hard" to not play DiD when you once start it since I find battles feeling a loss less fun though when playing without DiD now.

I try to mix up my characters though with different skills and strengths. My current character is an explosive/science guy so I try to focus on using explosives. That means I need to carry quite a bunch of them though, and also scavange to be able to craft new ones.

As far as junk goes, i wish there was a mod that would let you take some time to remove components in field to make it more realistic to carry. If you needed some screws you could dismantle them at the spot from a fan or a telephone for example, instead of having to bring the whole thing. Maybe you would even need to carry a screwdriver or a knife for this, to take the screws, that would be cool. And for oil you could have a flask with you that maybe can hold 5-10 units of oil, and you could fill it up from sources you find instead of bringing 10 oil cans with you.

Interesting, that never occurred to me. Can you turn of the compass and sneak indicator only for out-of-power armor? Having a HUD when you're just out and about is a little weird, but I can see how a Power Armor might be able to plug into the pip-boy and in combination these two could display compass, enemy locations (you've got VATS after all) and the sneak indicator.

There's a few of them:

• CYO Difficulty: http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/222/?
• Pre-made Realism Difficulty: http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/217/?

There are more but those are the ones I looked at and had the hard choice to make. I went for pre-made realism as it means less work for me haha.

OP - How about a leaderboard in your first post? Not of all characters but each user's best effort which they can message to you in a defined format. Such as:

Name: General Lu Bu

PCN: Mojave Courier

Rule Set:

Survival Difficulty

Darker Nights (mod)

Real World Damages (mod)

No Fast Travel

No Container Abuse

Character Starting Stats: 1,3,3,6,2,6,7

PCLOD: Level ?

Where PCN is Player Character Name and PCLOD is Player Character Level On Death.

That way you just copy and paste and bam, its done. Sure it relies on the honesty of people, but if people lie... who cares? It's their life to twist with bad karma. And it goes without saying the higher the level the better the rank.

Too many random deaths in this game (nukes coming from nowhere in sight, falls because graphical glitches etc) so, in my opinion, Dead is Dead in FO4 is not very enjoyable. At least not right now.

Yes, the HUD in power armor is unnaffected for me and I can see the compass in there.

Thanks! I find that another way to balance things a bit, if you play on the vanilla high diffs like survival is to take perks for weapon damage and resistance. Now I try to plan ahead and take skills that fit my character, like if I play a science guy I take perks in computers and science and not necessary combat focused skills, at least not at first. But I think it is a good idea to take combat perks to make it more even for you. I find that this makes it a bit more berable on higer diffs. So even though my character might not be super skilled at weapons, I think I will take these perks just to balance the game, even though I might not consider he really having them and being super skilled as in character. Its a bit like taking the awerness skill, that is essential on a DiD run imo, so you can have some idea of what enemy you are about to face and to know if it is better to run, the perk might not be "logical" in a character based way, but it can be essential to survive on DiD survival. Now I guess I could just turn down the diff again to balance things that way more easy, and I might do that, but I have a hard time with my ego nagging at me when I turn it down I find... its annoying, i should just get over it I know, since anything DiD is kind of overkill as it is already without having to play on the highest diff..

Btw, there is a real good character sheet planner here: http://www.rpg-gaming.com/fo4.html

Since you need some SPECIAL stats beforehand it is a really good way to plan out your character and what skills they will take in the first level ups. For example like I was saying I am currently playing a science guy, so I look at what my intelligence should be like to take the skills I want to have as a character. I am really not a fan of this new system where it require you to have a set level to advance in a skill, it makes your character feel less unique as you can't just make a real good locksmith early, you can only achieve that at a late level which svcks a bit.

Also I have found that because I restart the game so often when dying I take screenshots of my map and the markers and then merge it all together from all characters in a single picture, that way I can have better idea what locations I have visited before on previous characters so I can try to take a new route with my new character to discover some new locations. Having to go through the same location over and over again with new characters can become a bit boring if you are unsure if you have been there before, so this way it makes it a bit more easy to find new fresh content on a replay. I also write down when I find a bobblehead and where, in case I would want to do a collector run someday for them.