Here are the steps to make your copy of Fallout 3 just that much more exciting and difficult.

1. Turn off Crosshairs and turn HUD opacity to nothing.
2. Set to hardest difficulty.
3. Have fun/ Die a lot!


I'm doing this on my recent playthrough, and it really does make it harder(Except my difficulty is set to Normal/Hard, depending on my mood). The only thing you'll be able to see is what you would see in real life -- no health bar/compass, no AP bar, no Ammo indicator, nothing. It's really fun.



Some things you can add on your own are things like:

1. Making yourself a personal Max Weight amount,
2. Eating and Drinking,
etc.

I shall or should try this.

Add this to your hardcoe experience:

Every transaction must equal zero. This means that you are trading, not selling
Barter is what it is at the beginning of the game, you can never add points to it.
You cannot fast travel
You cannot repair items unless you are safe and are standing next to a workbench
You cannot be overencumbered. You have to drop it.
If the item breaks, you must throw it away, no matter what it is.
You cannot heal crippled limbs, only a doctor can do this.
All ammo has weight. You cannot carry 200 missiles, only two.
Three weapons only, couple of nades.
You cannot carry ammo that you have no weapon for.
You cannot have Educated, Comprehension, Grim Reaper's Sprint, etc.
Endurance is at 4 or less.
You cannot add points to skills that you did not use the previous level.

To name a few....

Damn, someones a pro hardcoe player.

I agree with all those points if you want to have a real hardcoe game.

I cried (not really) when Vengeance broke and I had to drop it.....

^Is that really you in the profile pic?

Jesus Christ. People actually play this way? Doesn't even sound like entertainment.

its immersion brah

...

@Granite devil yah i would NEVER play the game like this. It sounds to boring and to real to do this. Hell if i wanted to do this id do this in real life for god sakes.

Of course.

Nice sig btw haha! It is the truth.

I'm a commercial photographer... I specialize in architecture. I shot this guy when I was in school, thinking I was going into the fashion industry. My Avedon days. After apprenticing for a fashion shooter for some time, I found that architecture was what it was about for me.


Right on.

I like this a lot. I feel tempted to start over and try all of these already. In particular the weapon carry limit and not healing crippled limbs are great. Not sure about the 'No Fast Travel' bit though, it might be a bit boring without it.

Regarding 'You cannot add points to skills that you did not use the previous level.' I'm not sure I understand what this means? Can you please explain?

Well, if you use small guns for one level, how can you say you "practiced" your energy weapons? And add points to it? I have a Big Guns/Unarmed character.... yet I couldn't add points to Big Guns for about the first 9 levels, because it took forever to save enough money for the Rockit Launcher schematic, see the barter skill mentioned above. Now, I finally got Eugene, and now can add points to the Big Guns skill.

I make money by scavenging, finding Sugar Bombs and slaving. That's it. Oh, and collecting ears... I currently have Jericho as a follower. When we successfully complete a quest, I have to pay him 500 caps for the mission.

Aha, I see what you mean now, thanks.

I may adopt (most of) the following from now on. I like your ideas a lot, here are some comments.

Every transaction must equal zero. This means that you are trading, not selling. Presumably designed to prevent you from amassing a fantastic haul of caps? I think this would have a huge affect on the game.

Barter is what it is at the beginning of the game, you can never add points to it. Won't make a huge difference since I hardly ever put points into Barter anyway.

You cannot fast travel. Might be a bit boring when completing functional quest parts, especially over long distances. But at least it removes the safety that fast travel provides.

You cannot repair items unless you are safe and are standing next to a workbench. Yes, I like that a lot. No repairing without the necessary equipment, and definitely no repairing in the middle of a fight.

You cannot be overencumbered. You have to drop it. Not even overencumbered for a few seconds for the purposes of using it immediately for repair?

If the item breaks, you must throw it away, no matter what it is. Another great idea, though throwing away a treasured unique weapon might be hard to do.

You cannot heal crippled limbs, only a doctor can do this. Agreed, no dispute here. Although a condition that you can heal limbs when your Medicine skill is >90 would be an acceptable compromise.

All ammo has weight. You cannot carry 200 missiles, only two. Ammo having weight in New Vegas was a great addition. I'd like the same in F3 though enforcing it yourself might be difficult. The only way of doing this would be to limit the number of rounds per ammo type.

Three weapons only, couple of nades. Yes, a weapon carry limit. It can be divided further - one or two dual-handed guns (or one big gun) at the most, plus any one from the handgun/melee/unarmed category.

You cannot carry ammo that you have no weapon for. It should be acceptable to carry such ammo, but only the the grounds that it doesn't exceed the limit shown above. Other than that, I like it.

You cannot have Educated, Comprehension, Grim Reaper's Sprint, etc. I think that if the perks exist then its ok to use them.

Endurance is at 4 or less. Yes, the LW can take a huge amount of damage (missile in the face, anyone?) before dying.

You cannot add points to skills that you did not use the previous level. I understand now.

It's really up to you, how you want to play the game. Yes, it was difficult at first to limit myself this way, but now, it's second nature. I mean, most of my characters by level 20 would have 60K+ caps. With nothing to spend it on. And it got boring, being able to kill anything by just tapping my finger on the trigger, though blowing up vehicles with a mini gun is great fun. And as I am on the 360, no mods sadly. So I started making these rules. I just paid 600 caps for three slaves before going into the Pitt, cleaned me out but I didn't want to piss off my slaver buddies.

I found Grim Reaper's Sprint to be game killer for me. I could own people all day long with that. Now I just use VATS with my spiked knuckles. Even with all these rules though, and taking useless perks so that I am not a tank, I'm still getting powerful, though one plasma shot to me takes half my health off. I guess I am trying to make all the levels feel like it was when you first stepped out of the vault, trying to decide whether to purchase something, or repair something, running scared etc.

But most importantly, I don't want to ruin the exploration aspect for myself, because I love doing that. So I make stats low, knowing that I will find things along the way that help me. I don't get all the bobbleheads anymore, cuz well, I've done that ad nauseum.... I'm still carrying around my vault utility suit, and doc lesko's coat, because I absolutely need these clothing items to pick locks and successfully hack terminals. And Mentats. My character is also addicted to alcohol.... makes life interesting trying to shoot someone through the haze.

hardcoe == FWE with hardest settings on.

@Big Daddy: I like some of those, but I don't understand these...
The series has always used Barter, and prior to FO3... you could trade items for items.
But Bottle caps were the optional equalizer to even out a trade. I don't see why one would never use bottle caps when they are so blatantly useful to one in that situation.

I can see the logic about crippled limbs. FO3 for some reason allows bone-setting via stims, but I rather liked the way NV handled it in HC. I wish someone would put out a mod that does that in FO3.

Why can you not be educated?, or have comprehension? The GRS is terrible, but I don't see the the reasons behind not having the others, or what is also excluded by the 'etc'.

Why Endurance of 4? One could argue that Vault life makes you a vegetable, but you can't prove it. The PC could have had a regular exercise routine; (For all we know it could have been mandatory ~like the GECK).

One of the neatest things about Fallout 1 & 2 was that you did not have to spend your skill points when leveling up... They remained as a resource, and you could in fact bump your lock pick skill immediately, when you were at the locked door ~if you had the points. (I was ticked that this was removed in FO3). One may argue that this is an exploit, but using the points commits them all the same. If you add 10 to lock pick, you cannot then add those 10 to energy weapons when you find a plasma pistol inside the locker.

Why not foot travel? (Ok I can accept that FO3 FT is broken and exploitable, because it does not allow for travel hazards, or for drugs to expire, but conceptually, I see nothing wrong with it.)

I'm playing Fallout 3 Wanderers Edition which approximates quite a lot of the above suggestions, ammo has weight (it's light but really adds up), you can't just mend a broken leg with a stimpak, basically it's much harder but feels more "realistic". All settings can be tweaked, so if there's something you don't like, the need to eat and drink for example, you can switch it off.

Download and more detail http://sites.google.com/site/fo3wanderersedition/home.

@Big Daddy

How do you reconcile 'three weapons max' and 'only repair at a workbench'?

Surely you would need to carry spare parts with you, but this would break the max weapon rule, would it not?

A variant of this would be to apply the same rule that applies to Barter, namely keeping the Repair skill static from the beginning of the game. Therefore all repair jobs must be carried out by a merchant.

I don't carry spare weapons.... if I find some somewhere, I carry them with me until I can find a workbench, and am safe. If I become over-encumbered before that point, I dump the worst of the two copies. I'm an OCD scavenger. I will check every crate and box. I will gather as much as I can get, but if it needs dropping, then so be it. So, if I'm carrying a missile launcher, and find another, it's a guarantee that I will pick it up. If, however I become over-encumbered, I will drop it, or, drop something else that is of less value to me, like any melee weapon. I gather parts for all explosives, and the Shiskebab, which I have Jericho wielding at close quarters. If I'm one or two pounds over, you can be sure that I will drop a weapon, rather than the Quantum or lunchbox, which is more valuable to me.

Very interesting.

You cannot fast travel.
I do fast travel to remove any tedium drag in the game that might otherwise occur.

Transactions - fair enough.

You cannot repair items unless you are safe and are standing next to a workbench
I would have gone as far as safe personally

You cannot be overencumbered. - fair enough.

If the item breaks, you must throw it away, no matter what it is. - fair enough.
but I haven't gone that far, you can always go back for it

You cannot heal crippled limbs, only a doctor can do this. - fair enough.

All ammo has weight. You cannot carry 200 missiles, only two.
I haven't gone that far, but it's quite playable that way.

Three weapons only, couple of nades.
Four weapon types is enough to use, but I usually carry a spare of each for repair when safe.. and an assault rifle to give (barter) to anybody unarmed such as a wastelander, and some ammo. It's good to see them not dead, bartered one to the robot trader which he holstered on his back, and shortly afterwards was blasting away at a giant scorpion. Things like that make this game so much fun.

You cannot carry ammo that you have no weapon for.
I do for barter, or to dump at my base.

You cannot have Educated, Comprehension, Grim Reaper's Sprint, etc.
I've forgotten exactly what I have, not those though, gun nut yes. It's quite playable without though.

Endurance is at 4 or less. - Oh yes
I had 3 playing very hard, need to survive for a while and it will soon be ok. It's not difficult.

You cannot add points to skills that you did not use the previous level. - fair enough.
-------- ---------- ---------- ---------- -------- --------
My own kind of hardcoe is, never use stims in battle or take chems, I use a moderate armour (Recon) but later in the game it's feasible to use civvies, and only use moderate Small Guns, if you can call these moderate - shotgun, scoped magnum, hunting rifle, silenced pistol. Hmm, I carry quite lot it seems if you include a few grenades and mines and the "barter-away assault rifle", ah well, I do get a nice challenging game all the way through the game that way, and it keeps all the interest of play. I never use VATS or have a companion to help me out. I put Luck at 1, it's ok.

Ok then, some great ideas here. Lets compile them into a definitive list for the hardcoe console player. A FWE for consoles, if you will.

Ill update it if I've missed anything out.

SPECIAL, skills and perks

- No bobbleheads or Educated perk.
- Starting Endurance (increased vulnerability) and Intelligence (reduced skill points) capped at 4

Optionals -

- Certain powerful perks (Finesse, Better Criticals, Grim Reaper's Sprint etc) cannot be taken.
- No skill books can be read and/or Comprehension perk cannot be taken.

Gameplay

- Three weapon carry limit. Up to two of these can be ranged.
- Only one each of clothing/armour, headgear, facewear can be carried at any one time.
- You cannot pick up ammo for a weapon that you are not carrying.
(above three things also apply to companions)
- Crippled limbs can only be healed by a doctor or by sleeping.
- Weapon/apparel repair can only be performed by a merchant OR repair can only be done at a workbench.
- No healing or use of the Pip-Boy while in [DANGER] status.

Optionals -

- You cannot add skills to a weapon that you did not use during the previous level.
- If a weapon breaks, you must drop it.
- No fast travel.
- All transactions must equal zero. Initial Barter level must remain as it is.

I allow myself one stim during combat. That seems reasonable to me. I am wearing Desmond's Glasses, the Sheriff's Hat and the Leather Rebel. After PL however, I am seriously killing everything except reavers and overlords. So I upped it to Very Hard, from hard, and back to some basic weapons, as I just own atm. I carry a couple nades too. It's difficult though, as I'm starting to make money hand over fist, so I just give money to Jericho or Charon for missions, but I have them wait in my house, so it's not a walk in the park as it is when you have companions.

Money is no problem in this game really, it does pile up, and that's even with a very low barter. I have on rare occasions used a few stims when I am safe and can't be bothered to go back to base for a bed or make one safe to use.

I do get killed when I get it all wrong, not too often but very close, so I think I have the balance of strengths about right without cutting much out of other game-play.

Bobbleheads, I only had 2 but they can be avoided implementing I think. My Luck of 1 increased to 2 when I got the "eightball" so I put it in my locker and Luck down to 1, just being quirky, no difference really. The points saved on Luck went into Charisma for better speech interactions, and into Agility if I remember right.