seems more real. love it.

@Mantriel: Drop the very hard, and go back to hard. Then gimp your character back from there. Very Hard is a waste. If other parts of the game could have changed, then yeah. After playing the game for so long, I've decided that the game was meant to be played on Normal, and that they went a little crazy with the weapons and perks, as in overboard. One of my current characters is playing on Normal with an Endurance of 3. This seems the perfect fit.

Also, a clearer way to know when to use stimpacks would be to only allow it when you are not in [DANGER] status. Any other status is fine, even [CAUTION].

Of course, you could even take it up a level and forbid use of stimpacks altogether. Or perhaps only allow it when your Medicine skill is very high, say 90+. After all, your character isn't likely to have much medical training.

This means that you can only heal through food and water, finding a bed, or doctor. The advantage of this is that I find stimpacks often heal limbs even when you didn't intend them to. So this means that crippled limbs are a real pain (pun intended), and you have to live with it for some time until you can get healed. Completely changes the game.

I remember doing this while in the DC metro tunnels - I had a crippled head (the screen blurs, with constant fade in/out of consciousness) for about 30minutes while I staggered around trying to find a grimy bed to sleep in.

At that point all quests, looting, exploration became secondary; I absolutely had to heal myself. It was great /smile.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />

I don't keep it as real as some of the suggested ideas, but I try my best. I never teleport. I always try to keep weapons to a fairly realistic number. I started with just 101 light armour, but now switch between Wasteland Wanderer and Recon Armour, then carry enviro suit. No heavy armour. I try to gear up at home for what the mission will be, like you would in real life. I try to sneak more than anything. I never go charging into enemiy groups, as I figure that would be the last thing I'd do in real life. I believe living this way in reality would make you incredibly conservative and cautious. I would like some of the options of 'hardest' like food and rest, but I can't stand the extra effort of killing stuff. It just takes way too long, and when you're walking everywhere and killing the same mutant for the 20th time, it gets stupid. My main thing is exploring, so I don't like getting held back from that too much. I agree that it's almost too easy making money though.

/trophy.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':trophy:' />

You can always go back a different way to avoid the dead areas that you just cleared out. I find that as I cannot fast travel, and can barely carry all that loot, that I have little stashes all over the wasteland, sometimes a bed comes with it! I tend to journey to my little hideouts first, then back home to whereever.

Yeah, I've done that. Problem is, I need to make notes, because I can't remember where I left most of it. lol I was trying to narrow down to 4 weapons now per trip... Two long guns, sidearm, and blade. I've found that it is very hard to choose. It would be very helpfull if it was easier to make stealth kills with a blade on interiors. Do silenced weapons have any stealth advantage? But doing it with just four weapons, you basically are forced to sneak a lot. No way you can take on everybody. But it's true that it does force you to be more careful and think more. I killed off the canibals by talking my way out of it... then dropping a plasma grenade in the middle of all of them and running. Then I picked them off with the sniper from a distance, one by one.

Yeah, I have to keep notes for each playthrough, as to where the stashes are. If you use the Perforator outside of VATS in sneak mode, they will never see you. Otherwise, if you are sneaking, if you score a successful hit while sneaking, that first hit will always be a critical hit. Including out of VATS. This critical hit involves any weapon.

HAHA i got killed when i started like in 45 minutes probably 10 times thats a bit rough ro a rookie lool but still its fun!

This is a great thread, lots of good ideas in it, after playing New Vagas on hardcoe I decided to try in in Fallout 3 and as im on a 360 I had to be creative like many in this thread. here are some of my ideas.

No fast travel.
No stimpacks.
No bobbleheads.
No skillbooks.
No named weapons.
No vats.
No power armor.

I start off with a build that gives me low intelligence and low strength, maybe three or four.
I use one long gun, one pistol and a knuckle duster for roleplay purposes, on top of that a few mines and a few grenades.
I only carry ammo for the guns I'm using and a max of about 200 bullets for each.
I only save by going through a door or by sleeping.
I play on normal at the start and then hard as I get stronger.
I dont repair things, I pay to have it done.

I don't take perks that just add points, so like gun nut and little league would be out for me as they just add five points to guns, repair, melee and explosives.

I "dump" a lot of perks, by that I mean if i'm doing a play through using small guns then I take the perks for big guns or energy weapons just to use them up.

This all sounds a bit strict as I read it back to myself, but I do bend the rules a bit, if I get glitch stuck in the rocks I fast travel to the nearest place and then jog back to where I was. I carry more guns and stims and what have you if I loot them and I am going to sell then to buy bullets or pay for repairs.

I sometimes play with the hud turned off, but when I do that I make a little cross hair out of the sticky part of a post it note stuck on the TV screen, sometimes a tiny dot or maybe two curves ( ) or something like this > < Its not brilliant but without iron sights its the best I can do.
Thanks again for a good thread.

Woah, great ideas

I allow myself the Bobbleheads of my Tag skills these days..
No named weapons.. sounds harsh. What would I do without Blackhawk? /cry.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':cry:' />
And the repair.

I'm curious to see how this works out for you. Let us know. I also dump points and perks elsewhere, much like you do. I stop adding points at certain places. For example, sneak is never allowed above 65. Repair maxes at 75 for me. I get 100 in all tag skills for sure.

I love the look of no-HUD, and yeah the crosshair disappearing svcks. Your method sounds good, I have a black cardboard "mod" that I attach to my Oblivion game so I can lose the compass. I will give it a try this weekend!

Wow, this sounds like quite an advanced mod, are you going to publish it on Nexus? /tongue.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':tongue:' />

I like the idea of losing the quest marker, but not the compass itself. I really want to know if I'm heading north or south, for example.

It would have been lovely had all of these things been customisable in the settings. No HUD does indeed look very cool, shame about losing the crosshair too (which incidentally is not centred when playing in third person anyway, so it's useless there).

Hey winawer! Yes, the cool thing, is anyone can do it. Cardboard, I wrap in gaffer's tape because it is matte black.
I was talking with a PS3 player the other day in the Oblivion forums. She and I were talking about losing markers for console players, and as roleplayers, at least for me, my characters live in the world, there is no beating of anything, just life, whether safe or crazy. As for navigation, my characters are allowed to look at a world map inside and when safe (you are spreading it out on a table). Outside, it's local map only. So we were talking of our characters navigating by the sun's position. It's quite doable btw.

As for quest markers, if you are on console, in Oblivion, I choose the Nirnroot quest, any Umbacano quest, or that Wine quest, and all quest markers will instantly disappear.
In Fallout 3 I choose the Nuka Cola quest
Unfortunately that's all I can do. I can finish a quest and never start another, but it svcks that it will trigger if I stumble across something, and I don't want to avoid areas just for that. You need the compass in the wastes.

Snip.
Big Daddy said,
I'm curious to see how this works out for you. Let us know.
Snip.

I have played the game quite a lot like this, I dont find it too hard most of the time and if I do end up dead the reload is often quite a way back, so I often just do something else. I have done the quests a lot, so now I mostly just roam around in the wasteland, living in the world is what I like to do now, walking along the roads and seeing what coms up. Seeing if i can climb up on top of things like broken bridges or buildings.


Snip.
Winawer said,
"are you going to publish it on Nexus"
Snip.

I never thought of that! I think it would be well recived over there /nope.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':nope:' /> /biggrin.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':biggrin:' />

Those glass contact stickers would work good. I think you can get them in sheets. Just print a cross on there.

That's a good call. I was unable to cut tiny pieces of the gaffers tape, as it has a cloth backing.
Ricky 531, just press the Quote button, to the bottom right of a post that you want to quote. Multi quote to quote several ppl, then one button at bottom of page to reply to all.

The best idea I like so far is not carrying stimpacks, or just carrying a limited amount... forcing you to use food and drink. I was noticing the other night that honestly... stimpacks are so easy to have, it pretty much makes having food pointless.

So now I'm trying my new '3' rule. Can't carry more than 3 of any one thing at a time, except rounds of course. Makes it easy to keep track, but I don't know... I accidentally missed a booby trap and blew my leg off, so there I am, a half hour walk from anywhere with a blown off leg and low on health supplies. It's easy to say you will stick to the rule, but it can be annoying.

I hear that. Those random wasteland doctors... are well, so random that yer pretty much left with limping to a town. I've found that as you eat, or drink, some of your crippled limbs do not become crippled, and you are able to walk freely again, but if you do get hit in combat again in the same spot, it's an insta-cripple, and if it's an arm, you drop a weapon when you get hit. So, a little unfortunate in terms of mechanics, but it works out ok in the end.
I think your new rule sounds too harsh. My medical kit, when on the first day of exploration, looks like this:
2 Buffout
2 Med X
1 Psycho
5 Bloodpacks
5 Purified Waters
15 Stims
I will do anything to avoid dipping in to these stores so I'm drinking out of fire hydrants, puddles etc. And no Leadbelly Perk. It reduces the penalty for drinking irradiated water to the point where it doesnt matter.

Yeah, what I did is actually start playing on easy. lol That way I avoid having to shoot stuff 40 times and it allows me to need less supplies. Which I know is the opposite of hard core, but it's just something I was trying. I basically just want to make it like real life. It wouldn't take 40 rounds to kill something in real life, and you wouldn't be able to carry 200 pounds of stuff. So that's what I'm trying to avoid. I wish there was a pack, because it bugs me that you're supposedly carrying all this stuff, but there you are without a single bag or anything.

Use your imagination. Just like you use your imagination when you magically whip that missile launcher out of your pocket.

I'll confess, I haven't read through, however...

Finally, I would impose some effects of altering your mental state. You must sleep at least seven hours a day, if you miss a day, turn down your sensitivity until you can sleep (tired and sluggish). When you drink Nuka-Cola turn up your sensitivity for a bit to represent jittery nerves/hyperactivity (about five minutes), turn it up higher/longer when you take chems. When you drink alcohol, turn it down a while (ten minutes or so) for slowed reaction speeds.

You should read through. It's a good read, with a lot of great views.
About the garbage. I don't pick it up. The only reason I could see doing that is if you were carrying the Rock-it Launcher.
Agreed with the Intense Training.
I can concede that up to a point for the repairing of items out in the wastes. I've thought about that approach, but I also want my characters to have to pay for repairs. I cap them if I can to a lower repair level.
On the other hand, when a weapon gets pretty damaged, and I want to hold on to it, it forces me to switch to a different weapon. I like being forced to choose, between dropping, say the Xuanlong or switching to a shotgun, with limited range.
I'm not a surgeon. I'm a slaver. My current character's Medicine level is 40. Perhaps it will go to 50, but right now, taking a stim heals about a sixth of his total health, and I like that ratio.
With an Endurance of 4, I can play Dead is Dead on Hard, reasonably well.
With an Endurance of 3, I can play Dead is Dead on Normal, reasonably well.
I allow VATS for my sidearm or my melee/unarmed. I have to choose at the beginning of the character and then that's that. With this character, I've chosen the sidearm; Small Guns is not even a tag skill.

All in all, if I could, I would load all DLC save Broken Steel, and play my game that way, but someone else now has a save for FO3 on the drive so.... yeah.

Big daddy- I hope you picked up fonv ultimate edition. Best thing is when ya get it. Before u put the game in, delete all the fonv memory off ur xbox first, saved games, patches, etc. put the game in and then dl all the patches, then turn the game off and then go back on. They did an excellent job getting rid of most of the bugs, but alot of people have found the reason why they still had bugs was because they alrdy had a bug in playthrru and it corrupted it, even after patches were apllied. But going from fresh install with all the latest patches, its ALOT better now lol.

Really would love to see ur take on the factions and ability to replay in the game. Im not knotching fo3 whatsoever, im getting back into it after a coupke years and its been fun lol.just wanted to give a heads up.

Do you know if there's a way to do something similar for FO3 and PS3, so you can have all the DLCs and have less bugs? I have the classic FO3 and I'm afraid to try the DLCs because of all the problems. Or is there a way to install two separate versions, so you could keep the classic and GOTY versions running separate?

U should be good because u alrdy have all the latest patches so all u would need is just the dlcs. Ps3 bit lil bit different.
But the best thing is is basically what I stated up above. Deleted all info and start game, dl all the patches with the dlcs included.
Its the best way to apply the fixes and have the least buggy type game, fo3 as well as fonv.