Well to be fair I finished it last night, so I didn't "just" finish it as in moments ago, but here goes...


I played in hardcoe mode and just finished the game and at no point was I ever worried about starving to death, dying of dehydration, or succumbing to exhaustion, although I did have to monitor those things and deal with them on an ongoing basis, they never impacted me in a major way. Additionally, while ammunition had a weight, I didn't think it was realistic to be able to carry upwards of 300 pounds of gear, particularly without power armor, mainly due to issues of volume. I can comfortably carry about 80-110 pounds of equipment/gear on my back and mounted on the front/chest area of tactical body armor, along with the 20+ pounds that the armor itself weighs, but it begins to become a volume issue, there's only so much volume any given pack can handle. Also, it should go without saying that the more you carry, the slower you are going to move. There shouldn't be an expectation that the character can move as fast with 299 pounds of gear (one pound under the 300 pound max limit) as he can with just his shirt and a pistol, why doesn't movement speed gradually decrease as pack weight increases?

Armor weight should only count against your weight/carry limit for one third or one fourth of what the armor actually weighs, since most tactical body armor is nicely and evenly distributed across the chest, back, shoulders, torso, etc, it doesn't feel like 20-25 pounds in any one particular location. That said, the weight carry limit should be set around 120-160 pounds, with possibilities to increase it due to strength enhancing implants, wearing power armor, having better packs, etc.

I often wonder how the main character can physically carry six or seven rifles/shotguns and still remain combat effective, in reality he'd be running around with six rifles slung and one in his hands, and he wouldn't be able to maneuver or change from prone, to kneeling, to standing, etc. He wouldn't be tactically flexible.

In future Fallouts you should probably have use of a "Pack Brahmin" which will serve as a pack mule and carry a half-dozen of your rifles, while you are only able to carry a set number of weapons on your person at any given time. I'd say the limit should be one shotgun (not full length, but rather something along the lines of a breaching weapon, a pistol grip pump, see the Remington Witness Protection model) in a holster on your back (or attached to a carbine/battle rifle along the lines of the Remington Master Key system), one rifle (with a bayonet), three pistols, and several knives.

Item weight isn't the only factor in determining what you can carry because packs have a limit on volume and there are only so many places on the body to strap a weapon or place gear.



Fallout 3 was ridiculously easy, Fallout New Vegas was somewhat more challenging. Taking down the entire vault full of fiends, on my own, wasn't particularly difficult, but I wouldn't expect it to be difficult for somebody who knows what they're doing to kill a bunch of drug crazed freaks who are little more than thugs with guns. I brought companions along but I had them hang back and I simply used them for carrying weapons and gear that I looted from dead fiends. I took down every single fiend in the bunker, mostly with my 5.56mm carbine and my .45-70 gov't lever action rifle.


I had a problem with the anti-material rifle, the .50 BMG, how sometimes torso shots would only do a few damage to a target... The longest shot in history, about 1.52-1.53 miles, made by a Canadian sniper in Afghanistan, was a torso shot, and the guy was instantly killed, because that's how powerful the round is, that's how much power it still has even at 1.53 miles. If you get hit above the waist you're almost certainly going to instantly die due to the hydrostatic shock/trauma that will be caused to the head due to the force of the impact. If you are hit in the leg expect to lose your leg and bleed to death. The .50 BMG was really underpowered in the game in terms of people being able to survive being shot in the torso once or even twice. Also, it doesn't matter what the load is, since standard .50 BMG ball (as opposed to High Explosive, High Explosive Armored Piercing, Armor Piercing Incendiary, etc) is itself armored piercing. You shoot a vest of tactical body armor with a .50 BMG and it doesn't matter what bullet type you are using, it will go through on the first shot. Hell, the round is primarily intended for taking out light armored vehicles and going through the engine blocs of unarmored vehicles. I would wager that if you had an entry/tactical team stacked up ready to make entry into a building, and the front guy was shot with a .50 BMG, the round would go through his level IV plate, go into his body, exit through his back armor/plate, go through the next guy's plate, and continue for at least four or five guys.




Bottom-line suggestions for Bethesda...

The game was a bit too easy and you could use a guy like me (perhaps me) for a weapons consultant for your next game. I have a lot of practical and theoretical knowledge of weapons/ballistics, I like the genre/game series, and I'll work cheap. I appreciated the presence of real weapons that we all know and love (well perhaps that all of us in America at least have an opportunity to know and love) such as the Browning HP pistol, the AR-15, the M4 carbine, the 1873 Winchester, the Colt Single Action Army, etc. Still, the weapons left room for improvement.

I have a friend, a former Marine, who was instructed in all manner of primitive survival and urban/close quarters combat on Uncle Sam's dime, and he can pretty much go into the bayou, the desert, the woods, or the desert, with just a knife and thrive in regards to living comfortably, having a fire, making traps, hunting implements, staying hydrated, etc. Somebody such as him (perhaps him) would be quite a consultant to have for issues dealing with survival and hardcoe mode survival for future Fallouts.


There was really no point in the game when I felt I was going to die unless I could put the characters survival skills/perks to use to stay alive. The points put into survival skill were essentially wasted points as there was no challenge of survival. One problem that should exist with a low survival skill should be mistaking poisonous food for edible food, since everything in the wasteland that you could pick off of a branch or dig out of the ground was edible and safe, that's just not the case.


Overall the game was a low-mid B, maybe an 82 or an 85 out of 100, fixing the bugs will raise it up by a few points, but it wasn't the same as say Fallout 2 or even Fallout 3. Fallout 3 had quests that were much more compelling and gripping. That said, I really did appreciate the ending of Fallout NV as it tied up all loose ends and showed the repercussions of all the seemingly small decisions made throughout the game. In regards to that aspect of the game, Bethesda hit a home-run on that.

I never worried about any foe aside from death-claws (until I obtained my anti-material rifle) and cazadors (until I obtained my .45-70 gov't rifle) and even then I only worried about them if there were three or more and I had lost the element of surprise. Death-claws are potentially brutal to a player who has yet to reach at least level eight, maybe level twelve or so, but they're not that brutal once you know how to fight them, obtain the proper rifle, and use the element of surprise.

By the way, there was some mention about a reward for your efforts in finishing HC mode... Was this something other than an Achievement/Trophy??

Ok a couple of replies to that well thought out post....

1 The record for the longest sniper kill was broken earlier this year...only by 45m :gun:

2 This is a game, if you want realism gp play MoH/CoD/BC2 etc :wavey:

3 I agree that hardcoe mode is abit weak, but there will be clever ppl make mods to address that situation very soon

hardcoe seems to have almost worn off as I levelled up since I can't remember the last time my limbs got damaged for instance.

There is a perfectly good pack animal in the game already, ED-E the floating supply crate. All my ammo, clothes and food is in there and if I find a particularly large horde I'll get Veronica to carry the rest.

Call of Duty and Medal of Honor are pretty much laughable in the way of realism. In Modern Warfare 2 you actually hang over the entrance of a cave and then stab a guy to death. My Marine buddy (not the one who is a formerly active Marine, this buddy is an active Marine) and I had a great laugh at that scene. We both agreed, COD Modern Warfare 2 was, in my words "absolutely so James Bond" and the both of us almost fell over laughing at the cave scene.

I didn't know that about the record sniper kill, although I'd heard passing mention it had been broken I hadn't heard any details. Thank you for the mention of the 45 meters, that's nice to know.


hardcoe was indeed weak.

I'm still trying to figure out what exactly my reward is going to be. I am wondering if I had to launch a new game and will end up having access to something new/neat, since I honestly do not know. As it was, all that happened was some achievement trophy popped up when I completed things in hardcoe. If that was all it was and all it is ever going to be then I find it quite a disappointment.

"2 This is a game, if you want realism gp play MoH/CoD/BC2 etc "





That was a joke right?

Seriously put yourself in the shoes of your character and ask yourself how often would you think you might need sleep food or water? It is the Mojave desert so you would prolly need much more water then anything else but then again can you actualy rate your personel endurance IRL? with a number 1-10? Woudl you say your strength is anywhere above 4? Have you ever carreid more then a 100 pounds on your back? When weight is packed right you would be surprised how much you can carry with your leg muscles and back. I would presume with Death Claws chasing you IRL your need for sleep would be small as your body would be always in high alert. As far as food most people like myself one meal a day is about what the average joe eats with a snack here and there.

LOL funniest thread ever, some guy making fun of the game just cuz he wants a job. your one of many to say the game is to easy then make excuses. dont let the game make it hard for u, make it hard for yourself, make rules for yourself or your guy. its a RPG. and to bad the number of people saying the game is to hard is about 3x more lol.


Edit: n its a game its not supposed to be realisitic.. i dont remember seeing deathclaws or a giant wasteland out my window in reality lol

Well Im on very hard on hardcoe first time and can say it doesnt feel so tense

Maybe its due to the fact I have 26K caps and theres never a worry wether I need to get drink, eat, sleep or cure radiation

or that Fast travel has not a harsh enough penalty

or also that most enemys dont prove to be a real threat while the creatures that are a threat can kill me in 2 hits so I avoid them at all costs

and maybe due to the fact stimpacks dont have a weight aswell as ammo weight barely was enough for me to notice any effect


Well what ever it is, im sure they will make a better hardcoe version or give us the ability to alter the gameplay

As far as I can tell, Hard Core reward is the Achievement.

I doubt most Americans can do a single chinup or pullup, they also cannot run several miles, or even a mile.

I have one friend who bench pressed about 350 pounds for a police physical (that was the most they allowed under their scoring system) and I have another friend who did 60 pushups for his exam (the most they allowed on that event). As for me, I'm not a bench pressing sort of guy (on events like that I'm going to do what they ask, maybe 10-20% more, and then move on to the next event), my time to shine is when it comes to running. With the running I did the 300 meter dash in exactly 45 seconds, which I think is pretty decent since it ranks me around the 98th percentile by the Cooper standards, meaning that if some suspect happens to take off running, unless he's an accomplished runner/sprinter or he's some guy in that 2% above me, I'm running his sorry butt down.


With the pack I've always used I am able to carry about 80-100 pounds (about the maximum limit I can cram into the pack due to volume issues) and comfortably carry it, because it has a strap to go across the chest and it has a belt with kidney support pads that goes around the waist/belt-line area. The weight is not fully on the shoulders as with most packs, but it is distributed evenly to the back, shoulders, waist, and somewhat into the chest.


In a post-apocalyptic world I imagine things would turn around pretty quickly in regards to physical fitness as you wouldn't see too many people around who couldn't physically survive on their own merits. If you cannot outrun a bear, or shoot it down, you're bear food, that's basically how it works in such a situation. The choice is either get fit and stay fit, or get eaten, basically.


The longest I've ever gone without sleep was about 65-70 hours at which time started to have auditory hallucinations. Additionally, I became incredibly paranoid and hostile. Ultimately I wound up sleeping for about 16 hours straight. You need at least 2-3 hours of sleep every 24 hours to avoid hallucinations and issues of sleep deprivation psychosis.




If I had to throw numbers out about my perception of my Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility and Luck, here goes...


S- 6
P- 8
E- 7
C- 8
I- 9
A- 6
L- 4



Rationale behind the numbers...

S- When uninjured I frequently just randomly hit the deck and do pushups until I get tired, get bored, or until some show I might have been watching comes back on (I like doing pushups during commercials), I also try to do pullups/chinups whenever I go by the pullup bar in my garage. Likewise, when not injured, or perhaps when not seriously injured, I try to train BJJ/grappling at least five or six hours each week, and back before I was pretty banged up, I was training upwards of twelve hours each week. It certainly goes a long way to hardening the body.

P- After years of hunting and being outdoors I feel pretty well versed in spotting movement and picking up on sounds, to the point where I can spot a squirrel shake his tail from about 100 yards out. I'm also usually the first one to spot deers, skunks, possums, etc, in the tree-line heading for the road, when in a vehicle. My peripheral vision has allowed me to avoid hitting any animals as of the present time, since I spot movement on the sides of the road, ahead of where I am, and adjust my speed accordingly, in anticipation of the animal making a dash across the road.

E- When you can grapple/wrestle/etc for two to three hours at an open mat, with only a few quick water breaks, along with biking 15+ miles in a single go, and being able to run on a regular basis (although I don't run much because oddly enough running anywhere except a rubberized track/turf will cause me injuries and pain that I don't suffer via grappling, which you would think would cause more injuries), you know you have a solid degree of endurance.

C- I've been told that I could sell anything to anybody and I've pretty much always made great impressions on everybody I've met, even if they find me eccentric. One professor wound up liking me so much that when I called him ten minutes after a quiz, when class was over, and told him that I was beating myself up over one of the questions and how I answered A instead of B, he changed it to B for me and told me not to worry (it turned out B was the correct answer). Another professor gave me a take-home exam to do since I missed the test day and when I asked him when I should have it in by he told me to bring it back to him sometime before the semester ended, but to take my time with it and do it at my leisure. One day I was delivering a package to a lady, a regular customer who I'd interacted with a number of times, and I noticed she was unloading bags of groceries from a vehicle, I helped her unload all of the bags and then she made me a sandwich for lunch (and no I wasn't with some place such as UPS that would have thrown a fit over an employee stopping to help a woman take her groceries into her house and then receiving a sandwich). In college I had a following of 10-30 people (depending on the year) who would sit around and listen to me talk about issues regarding religion, politics, current events, history, etc for anywhere from 2-8 hours (the longest I ever spoke for was about 7-8 hours after being asked to discuss some issues of scripture and politics by other students who wanted to hear what I had to say, the discussion began around 8 pm with about 30-40 people present, and it ended around 3 am with about maybe 15 still there). Most of my high-school teachers told me that I might consider a career as a soap-box demagogue.


I- I hold a bachelor of science, I was appointed to the dean's list multiple times, and I know a solid amount about history, economics, guerilla warfare theory, weapons, weapons maintenance, via study of history, study of other books, training, etc, with a reasonable amount about things such as statistics and chemistry. In high school one of my teachers once photocopied one of my essays (for an advanced class) and passed out a copy to all of her students, telling them that they should read it and consider it an example of a stellar essay and as a guide for how to model/write an essay paper. Although I'm no physicist and I'm no engineer/chemist/chemical engineer or anything along those lines.


A- I'm reasonably flexible due to my level of activity but I have sustained a number of nasty injuries over the year and I find it hard to function as easily as I used to be able to do. I'm more agile than the guy off the street or some other random joe sixpack but I have a lot of room to improve and I need to work on getting my flexibility back. I've never really had any major injuries in my childhood or teen years, despite falling from high places, landing odd ways, crashing over the handlebars of my bike right onto the pavement, etc. Although I haven't maintained that ability to remain uninjured these days since I seem to get banged up here and there, but not as bad as might be expected given the activities I engage in.

L- Random things don't just happen for me, I seem to have a lot of random curveballs thrown my way such as my car being wrecked after an idiot hits me while I'm stopped at a red light minding my own business, etc... I don't have windfalls, I don't have bags of money just fall into my lap. I have to make my own way in life and basically, as they say, make my own luck. A lot of great things have happened for me but usually due to some combination of prayer, preparation, persistence, and colossal effort. I've never had a knock at the door from some guy wanting to hand me a case of cash or bottle caps.


My tag skills would probably be Guns/Small Guns, Barter, and Speech, or Guns/Small Guns, Speech, and Unarmed.

My main perks would be Hunter, Retention, Swift Learner, Comprehension, Educated, Gunslinger, and Commando.

It is supposed to be a sci-fi action game in the context of a post-war/apocalypse survival situation. I don't recall looking out my window and seeing a nuclear war, but I highly doubt survival in a post-nuclear war wasteland will be as easy as it seems in Fallout 3 and Fallout NV.

It became so annoyingly easy that I began hunting death-claws in an attempt to spice things up. I must have killed 20-30 before I was done and it still seemed a bit lame since I would either sneak and snipe them dead with one shot from the anti-material rifle or I would lose the element of surprise, wind up rushed by them, and have to use 4-6 shots from the anti-material rifle, to stop them, as I ran backwards. Why does it matter if they know that I am there or not? If the rifle can kill them in one hit when it is a surprise, what changes when they know it is coming? The caliber is still the same and the round still has the same power/energy, doesn't it?

Wow, that's simply a colossal disappointment.

People expect the hardcoe mode to be very difficult, but it also depends on what difficulty you set it too before hand.

You can play Very Easy hardcoe, not so bad and you don't have to drink and eat as often. But on Very Hard its a pain >.<

Realism? The game would basically have 4-6 hours of combat and the entire game would take 5-10yrs to play, which would end in being killed or retiring. Don't get me wrong there would be alot of drills and training, but also more so of gaurding a perimeter and seeing no action. hehehe


And yes, players actually crave more "James Bondish" gameplay...

Im not sure how to reply to your statment about yourself as I dont know you but you gave yourself some pretty high numbers in regard to yourself which keep in mind 5 would prolly be above average. So what would make this game more difficult for hardcoe and yet even though were talkign about a game, still be realistic to the real world as far as survival and what not?

I have yet to see a realistic game. The closest I've seen is SOCOM and that still is not even close. In the end if you want realism go out your front door and run around, get chased by the cops for deciding that you didn't like someone and shot him in the head. Or, join the military and do it for yourself. Point being there has not been 1 realistic shooter out there. Some shooters have realistic components but in the end a realistic game is not a fun game (unless its a simulator like Grand Turismo).

The reason being its a game and it gives the player a reward for being sneaky. Why are you trying to make this game realistic?! Theres mutated animals, Gatling Lasers, and Perks. For crying out loud this game is not intented to be remotely realistic.

Don't believe steroetypes, it makes you out to be ignorant. we are not all obese. I'm pretty weak, but i can do a few pull ups, upper body has never been my strong point though. I'm a fairly decent runner, 6 1/2 minute mile, 8-9 minutes for multiple miles. now that's not great but there are a bunch of kids in my school who can both out run me and out lift me and a lot more who can do one or the other. On the other hand there are those who are do 8-9 minutes for one mile or worse and those who can't run a mile straight but i believe the majority at my school can run at least a mile and do at least a single pull up.

on another topic.


I believe the reason for you hitting higher damage when you're sneaking is because they don't expect it so they can't try and dodge or block (like a knife) and you have time to aim so it goes through cracks in armor even if you don't really aim for uncovered areas the game takes into account that you could or something like that.

I was basing that on the assumption that 5 is average/normal.

There are approximately 250,000 people in the county where I live. My honest assessment of myself is that I most likely have better endurance than about 95% of them, I can carry more stuff on my back (based on personal experience) than probably 90% of them, I can outshoot probably 97-98% of them (with a rifle anyway- maybe 90% in regards to a pistol), and I can probably hold my own in hand to hand combat against 249,900, with the other 100 being those who happen to be accomplished collegiate wrestlers, submission grapplers, actual MMA fighters (not tough guys with beer bellies and tap out shirts), etc, of which there aren't a whole lot around, most "fighters" or tough guy tap out types are just barroom brawlers who specialize in brawling with other drunks, they don't train any technique and a lot of them scoff at something such as ground fighting/grappling since it involves "guys rolling around on the ground" which they write off as "totally gay."




What I would like to see is the character having to do stuff such as pitching camp, starting fires, etc, how does the character always shoot animals and get hides/meat, without any survival skill factoring into it? Would most people know how to properly field dress an animal, skin it for the pelt/hide, and butcher it for the meat? There should be a requirement that the character make a test, a combination of intelligence, perhaps perception, with a factor of luck, in regards to using the survival skill to obtain meat from a dead animal, otherwise the game animal is wasted and only a few pounds of useful meat are left while the rest was improperly handled and is going to be left to rot, the same goes for hides/pelts. It shouldn't be a given that the character always obtains a useful/valuable hide/pelt from an animal, where is the allowance for the possibility of improperly skinning an animal? Also, when going to repair a weapon, where is the allowance for the possibility that the repair goes totally wrong and both weapons are now useless unless taken to a professional, or even if taken to a professional?

How about an allowance for the possibility of improperly tending to your own wounds and making the wound worse such as a limb injury that may randomly flare up from time to time and cause problems in combat or a festering wound that may cause cumulative damage over time...

It seems a bit hokey that the character can have his leg crippled by a mine, apply a doctor's bag to it, and walk/run off as though nothing happened. There should be an allowance for the possibility of the wound causing long-term damage, stitches tearing, bleeding beginning again, etc, especially during/after hard combat. You cannot go toe-to-toe with a super mutant and not have it aggravate a previously crippled arm or leg. Likewise, repeated concussions should have a cumulative impact on the character's intelligence and other intelligence based skills. If you suffer twelve concussions in a month you're probably going to find yourself unable to due something such as repairing your own crippled leg or taking parts from two damaged guns to make one functioning gun.


At no point in the game did I ever feel that my character's abilities were hindered or at least significantly hindered, due to injuries he had sustained or was presently suffering from. Even when impacted by concussions and crippled limbs the character had no problem shooting his way through five or six fiends. I'd say in the real world that's just not the case, I can be rolling/sparring with guys and with a certain movement a certain way all of the sudden I find myself experiencing pain from an injury I thought was five months in the past. I can only imagine what it would be like to try to handle a firefight against six people if I had just begun to recover from a major concussion twelve hours earlier.

Well technically we have no idea what the 23rd century will be like, so hey Gatling guns may be the rage for home security >.<

I am part of that "we" in regards to Americans since I am an American, I'm not some European or Canadian throwing stones at the USA, I live in the USA and always have lived in the USA. I am basing my statement about Americans (my fellow countrymen) on my observations, made over what has thus far been my entire lifetime, that most Americans are overweight and many are obese. Americans with appropriate/healthy levels of physical fitness are certainly the minority in the United States of 2010. Remember, overweight means anything over the commonly accepted medical standards for height/weight or for body mass, which could mean just five pounds overweight, obese means weighing 25% or more over the allotted weight. Most Americans are NOT obese but most ARE overweight (to some extent).


It's good to hear you value physical fitness, don't give up on anything, keep at it. When I first tried to do pullups/chinups I couldn't do a single one, so I had to build up to it by just hanging from the bar until I could one, then two, etc. That's the method my Marine buddy used to get up to 15 and the method I used to get up to 12 and if it wasn't for a recent injury and colossal back pain, I'd be out at that pullup bar working on pushing myself to 15 and then 20. I also had the help of my friend, who would push me up and help me build up to being able to do them on my own.



There's a reason you don't see any/many fat folks in the Fallout universe, if you can't outrun a predator you become a snack. Keep running and stay with it, running isn't something I do a whole lot of because I always seem to injure my knees unless I'm running on a track (which I seldom have access to).

If you tried to tell somebody in the 1700s that one day they would have weapons that could fire 200 rounds via a belt-feeding mechanism, and kill people 1,500 yards away, they would have called you insane.


If you tried to tell somebody in the 11th century that one day they would have weapons that would kill a man at 300 paces via a chemical reaction propelling a projectile, they might call you a witch.


Who knows what the future holds.