While we don't know if survival is even in the game we can still make stuff up and talk about it.. So, if survival is in the game and dehydration plays a part, how would you like it to work? I would like it to be about the same as it would be in real life.. 3 or 4 days without consuming water could prove deadly. Food is a little harder though. .. we can go about three weeks without food. That obviously wouldn't work that well in the in game world. I have no idea how detrimental I'd like starvation to be. In NV, that first strength drop always seemed a bit fast to me.. yet 5 days to starve felt appropriate.

One of the big debate topics for FNV was the topic of soda adding to your dehydration level. Some people thought this was nonsense and others thought it was completely appropriate. Should consuming soda add to your hydration, diminish it or just not be counted towards one or the other?

Just like the real world I'd say, soda pop is one of the worst things you can drink in a limited water situation because it Does actually cause you to dehydrate quicker. It's the sort of thing that if that's all you got then you drink it to convince yourself your getting water, in the long run your doing more harm than good.

I liked the detrimental effects in NV hardcoe and they felt pretty well balanced compared to real life.

The only thing I didn't like about their setup there was there wasn't a *spoilage* date on foodstuffs that you gathered or created so you could pretty much farm and infinite supply of meat to last you for months without ever leaving the first town.

I would have preferred something that made the foodstuffs I gathered go bad after X number of days so I had to use it or loose it, then replace it.

I love hardcoe and have found the Fallout series to be most enjoyable when difficulty is maxed out. If they offer survival mode, just the icing on the cake! I strongly recommend any lover of the Fallout series or role player for that matter to do the same. The pain in the beginning of play is well rewarded with the immersion into the Fallout world! LESS THAN A MONTH WOOHOO!

For a while I enjoyed the whole "immersion" thing, but after a time I found that having to open the menu system to then click on icons representing food and water to just be tedious and a real bore.

Even the option to automate food and drink consumption still did not make the game mechanic seem more fun. To apply the whole mechanic appropriately I would want to see it handled differently than previous iterations have presented it to us before. The character should when first picking up such items have a first person animation that shows the item being used upon picking them up if it is needed rather than going directly to pipboy storage. Hopefully with correct eating and drinking sounds.

There are some other issues as well with a real needs system that has to be in place that were not really done well even with mods.

Visuals, Sounds, and Animations.

Rather than just stat changes, I'd rather that the difficulty came from proper gamepad controller feedback as well as the players vision being correctly altered for the given state. Changing game mechanics of the players stats sheet just feels very gamey and although it may be accurate doesn't really help me imagine that my character is having a hard time holding up that riffle or pistol and more than that the vision filters often go unused when say an appropriate visual condition would in fact be blurry vision, dark spots, or cloudy vision as a result of not enough food, drink, or sleep.

I've yet to see any "immersion mod" or game for that matter handle these states in a fashion that feels realistic, unobtrusive to gameplay, or even "fun".

Yeah, one thing that has always been a problem with eating/drinking is that it really doesn't add much to the gameplay. The effects of not eating and drinking sort of do.. but the act of eating and drinking doesn't. But that's a real problem, would people have the patience for eating and drinking to take any time. If you had animations and sound effects associated with eating and drinking would it make it any better or would it just be a bigger annoyance. In games that don't have survival I pretend to eat and drink.. It's usually nothing more than a one day occurrence before I pretend I need sleep. The simple act of carrying around food and water supplies.. taking up inventory space and weight seems more substantial a game mechanic then actually having to use it.

Actually, if you google "does soda dehydrate you?." you'll see that it doesn't. But, that's a newish revelation and many still believe that soda, particularly caffeine dehydrates you.. and Fallout, as we know, is based on old facts and old science.. so in Fallout world.. soda might actually dehydrate you. In my mind.. Nuka Cola shouldn't affect dehydration either way.. but should actually help with starvation as it's filled with loads of sugary calories.

For me nuka cola will satisfy thirst a little but also add that bit of stimulation

Sugar = good.

I just want food, water, and sleep to be useful enough to use regularly. I don't want any intensive starvation and hydration mechanics.

Kinda defeats the purpose heh heh

Soda, tea and coffee are mild diruetics; however they contain mostly water. They might hydrate slightly less than purified water, but none of these causes dehydration.

However, from a game balance perspective, it was probably better that they did not count to reduce dehydration in Fallout New Vegas as there was already way too much readily available water in the game.

If there is too much easily available food and water it becomes more of an inventory management minigame. It was necessary to install mods that gave the hardcoe mode some teeth before it actually became possible to die of starvation and dehydration.

Yeah, In NV I never had any problem finding food or water.. Maybe at the very beginning pure water was a little scarce but not enough to make a significant impact. Unfortunately finding that correct balance that everyone would enjoy is probably pretty impossible.

I like the idea of sugar as a stimulate.. It should give extra energy in the form of AP or something.. One extra AP for one hour from drinking Nuka Cola... 5 extra AP for two hours from eating an entire box of sugar bombs! The drawback could be that after your sugar rush you have a sugar crash and get minus AP for a certain length of time.

To cover the starvation point,

Sure the human body can go over a week without food. But that body would be in terrible shape.

Going more than 2 days without food would physically wreck you.

That is a complete lie.

I have a nephew who went weeks drinking only soda. He was in very [censored] physical shape but he was hydrated.


Soda does not dehydrate you. A quick googling proves you wrong.

Speaking of food and soda items...

I actually preferred to carry around Nuka Cola hotkeyed rather than Stimpak's.

Just felt it was more iconic for the character to down an ice cold Nuka Cola when-ever they needed to heal up during battle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBlhXKjSy6M

You're welcome

Too much stimulation = overdoing it, and passing out

Sooo funny!! Not sure I agree with the outcome, but funny all the same! Reminded me of that ridiculous TV show that aired on spike a few years ago, Deadliest Warrior.

I for one find obsessing over a small colored bar distracting and tedious. I'd rather food be made useful by giving a buff or something, say..... Gain 5% extra xp for 2 hours unstackable, and get to concentrate on the game content.

You know.. a box of sugar bombs should last quite awhile.. Who'd eat a whole box at once? My character in fallout apparently .. I imagine it'd be akin to trying to eat a whole box of captain crunch in one sitting. Imagine the hp's you'd lose simply from the pain in the roof your mouth.

I typically find needing food and drink boring and uninteresting. For me, there's no real gameplay in it. Certainly nothing that significantly affects how I play. The reason it doesn't is because it tends to be nothing more than a maintenance thing. As long as you have food and water on you, it effectively amounts to watching two bars (or numbers) go down and periodically hitting a button to make them go back up again. I have yet to see a system do it any differently than that. Some might apply penalties if you don't push the button fast enough, but you're still just pushing a button to refill the bar.

Compare that to something like the Skyrim mod Frostfall. I had to be cognizant of the time, the weather and other such stuff. When it started getting dark, I often had to decide if I wanted to build a fire or find a near by inn. I couldn't just dive into the water whenever I wanted because in many locations that could be deadly. I had to find ways around to make potions to help me through it. These, to me, are meaningful gameplay changes. Eating and drinking mods or features have never come anywhere close to that and I have no idea how they even could.

PS I did always use the hardcoe mode in FNV, but that had nothing to do with the eating/drinking/sleep. That part was more often just an annoyance. I used it because it game ammo weight and for the changes it made to healing. Those were things that, once again, had a real impact on how I approached the game.

I think he means stuff like having well rested, well fed, etc bonuses but not really the full on survival element. I kinda agree. I would mostly be interested in very well implemented survival (such as the Frostfall mod) where it adds a lot to the experience without asking too much focus from the player.

I'm really hoping this is the case given Beth's silence on all game play features. I hope they included this as a toggle option like in NV. So hardcoe mode needs don't show on the pip boy unless activated. The 3 basic FOD/H20/SLP hardcoe needs, I hope they include enough left over coding so modders can make the following mod features like they did in FONV:

* getting dirty/bathing <--similar to how PC clothing gets dirty in a game like GTA V, The dirtier you are, the more your charisma and speech skills take a hit. Also the more infected your wounds/injuries can become. Bathing should offer a minor amount of healing as well since it helps disinfect the body

* being able to do #1 and #2. <-- PC would have regular bowel movements (which can be toggled off for those who don't care for this level of immersion). Which would provide a logical explanation for how the PC can consume so much food on an indefinite basis. Since clearly not all the food they gobble while wandering the wasteland doesn't go into body fat/muscle. All those "functional" toilets my PC came across in NV that didn't work. You could only sit on them. SMH. Thank goodness for the Toilet Paper mod. Hopefully Beth left coding to remake this mod the way they took note of the RTS mod. Hopefully also leave coding so a mod allows PC to lose control of their bowels and pee/do #2 to themselves in battle if their health drops too low. Realistically, ppl tend to void their bowels when they are extremely terrified and/or facing their own mortality.

* Temperature/environmental ability which affects thirst. If ambient temp in the area you're in is too high, and especially if you're overburdened with gear/loot/PA, then your rate dehydration should increase. This should also affect your hunger too. And dehydrating consumables like coffee/caffeine, Nuka and Sunset Sarsaparilla colas should increase rate dehydration. Coffee should also have the negative effect of making you a temporary insomniac, and more jittery. Coffee should definitely affect your gun/shooting and ranged weapon skills.

* Some sort of coding that would allow a body injury indicator mod. This would be directly affected by the PC's nutrient/hunger level. Similar to how PN or IMCN food/nutrient mods work. Also detect how clean/dirty your PC is which would affect how fast and well your PC heals. Sleeping and stimpacks shouldn't instantly heal injuries anymore.

But the PC is an android though, so this won't matter.

I always liked the idea of thirst, hunger, and tiredness having an effect on your stats. You lose endurance, agility, strength, intelligence, and possibly charisma, are affected in increments when you're deficient in these needs.

I'm not as much a fan of death from not meeting the requirements. At least, not right away.

As an aside, if you have to drink water, there should be flasks made available in game through traders and merchants- perhaps with a range of volumes(?)- then you can fill them at any water source. Craftable or purchasable water purification tablets would be a nice touch for dealing with irradiated water.

it really depends on the level of depth you want in terms of immersion. Chesko's Frostfall is the ultimate (and perhaps best) environmental mod that affected the PC needs to date. But to get the ultimate experience, you'd need to combine this with other Primary needs mods. I used Frostfall along with IMCN, Battle Field and Injuries, First Aid, Private Needs, Wet & Cold, Showers of Skyrim/Northern Bathouses, Art of the Catch, Fishing in Skyrim, Hunterborn, Animallica, and RWS. Also added some drug mods like Cannabis and SkyHighrim for interesting interactions with NPCs around Skyrim. And some 33% of my 254 mod deck were dedicated to custom foods which was a nice improvement on the vanilla offering. There wasn't anything that crawled, flew, swam, grew, walked or ran in Skryim which my PC couldn't eat, extract alchemy ingredients for food recipes, craft into hygenic aids like soap/shampoo, or brew into some exotic liquor for further consumption. This level of detail made the game WAY more interesting to play. For all the strategic and tactical reasons.

• IMCN -- basically gave PC a digestive system and made my Dovahkin exactly what he ate. The more healthier food like venison, cheese, bread, fish, game etc. he consumed, the healthier he was. The healthier he was, the faster he healed and recovered from his battle wounds. So basically, identifying and eating foods my PC encountered around Skyrim became a mini game of sorts. Besides this, Frostfall's survival skill was designed to improve the PC's exposure to cold and the environment from eating nutritional foods. So Frostfall encouraged my PC to cook more complex foods, stews, porridges, pastries etc. to increase his survivalist rating in Frostfall. So basically, ALL food my PC consumed in Skyrim became a strategic mini game. After travelling over 8hrs or more (on foot or horseback typically with occasional carriage travel), I'd make him break camp. Then go foraging for wood for his campfire. Then hunting or fishing for his supper. He's also set traps to catch a rabbit or two the next morning breakfast. All of this took up some 2-3 hrs, so it was typically twilight when he finally got this ritual done. Then he had to setup his tent, do #1 or #2 if necessary, and go to bed. And that's with him having to tactically deal with enemy NPCs and critters he's encounter while setting up his campsite. Also, he wasn't always lucky at catching game or fishing either (thanks to Chesko's Art of the Catch mod). So there were many nights he went hungry. Or wet and cold because he failed to forage firewood while in the colder holds like Winterhold. So foraging for food and travelling went hand in hand on a daily basis. Frostfall, IMCN, RWS and Hunterborn made the constant search for food a necessity. Because food was either nutritious (ideal case), snacks/junk food which satisfied hunger in a pinch, stimulants (as in alchemy potions), hallucinogens (as in custom drug mods like Cannabis and SkyHighrim), depressants (as in vanilla/custom mod made alcohol . Since food had weight, certain foods needed to be strategically crafted (like jerky, some stews, boiled eggs etc) and carried in the inventory. So my PC could eat it later before or after battle to help with healing. With the exception of food/snacks, all the other consumables could lead to over intoxication and death in extreme cases of consuming too much). Also had a nice custom quest which gave PC ability to craft a special item. When placed in inventory or any container, this item would permanently stop food spoilage in that container. Very useful to have around my HF homes and other custom mansions.
• Private Needs (let my Dovahkin have bowels which in turn allowed him to be constipated, have diarreah, urinate on a frequent basis. This made his traveling around Skyrim (and other custom worlds like Faalskaar) very strategic. If he got constipated while on the road, he'd have to scavenge for alchemy supplies to make a laxative for when he broke camp later that evening. But the right herbal plants weren't always around. So unless he lucked out and ran across an Inn/town/village on the way and/or found a hunter/shopkeeper/inn keeper who sold the laxative ingredients, then he was out of luck. Regular bowel movements meant my PC had to strategically decide where he broke camp. Discovered the hard way that being caught in a blizzard while constipated and doing #2 could have deadly consequences. lol. Also if my PC failed to take care of #1 or #2 before going to bed, he'd likely end up having an accident when he woke up the next morning. Which might require him to bathe if he were say---going to Solitude to pay Elsif a visit. Or just being around ppl in general. Nice thing about the PN mod is that it was compatible with Showers of Skyrim and Northern Bathhouses of Skyrim mods. So my PC could frequent baths anywhere. From his private bathhouse in a custom home, to any of the main hold baths and shower rooms, to bathing in wilderness like in rivers, ocean etc. Even in dungeons if the water was deep enough. The cleaner he was, the less likely his wounds became, and the faster he could heal based on the Battle Field and Injuries mod
• First Aid and Battle Field & Injuries Both these mods basically gave my PC injuries on places of the body where he was attacked. It also tracked all these injuries/wounds sustained while adventuring on the road. PC could craft bandages and disinfect bandages (based on alcohol and other potions) to treat these wounds. If the more serious wounds weren't treated with bandages, potions, bathing and disinfection, the minor wounds could become infected. This would affect the PC's combat skills and appetite. And the lack of good nutrition would harm the health stat even more. Also for the more grave/serious injuries, if the PC failed to seek the help of a professional healer over a while time, the wounds could end up killing them from the infection. Their combat and other vital skills like archery necessary to hunt for food, or fish etc. would be impacted. So the PC's overall survival skill set would be negatively impacted

IMCN has to be the best primary needs mod even though RND was the most popular Skyrim needs mod to date. Unlike RWD, IMCN was far more complex in the stats it tracks. It monitors not just what your PC eats, but how well your PC's food nourishes them. And IMCN recognized a wide variety of custom foods (Babbette's Feast, Fishing in Skyrim, Wolferoo's 80+ recipes, Hunterborn/RWS recipies etc etc.) It also limited your food intake, and adjusted the PC body fat v. muscle makeup. Private Needs was a nice compliment because by adding PC bowels, it basically justifed all the food intake my PC constantly gobbled on a daily basis.

Well enough babble. If you didn't last this long, then TL;DR

hardcoe mode with eating/sleeping/thirst/hygeine/injuries tracking/regular bowel movements, and some sort of environmental effect on PC health features are the only immersive way to do FO4 IMO. Because that is about the only way you'll avoid ending up being "bored" and "just hitting a button to refill the bar". In which case, hardcoe mode would be completely unnecessary, since you're likely playing with tgm or some other inventory weightless/god mode health cheat on.

For me, it depends on the atmosphere of the game. In New Vegas, with it's themes of reconstruction and plentiful settlements and supplies, hardcoe mode usually just felt a bit out of place. In Fallout 3 though, with it's more post-apocalyptic atmosphere, I would have loved hardcoe mode.