Every so often, I come upon a thread about whether "such and such" perk or "this or that" weapon is "O.P." (In other words, overpowered.)

Then I asked myself the other day, whilst cleaving enemies with my Wounding Machete + 4 levels of "Swing for the Fences" + 2 levels of Blitz and wondering if it was an "overpowered" combination- "'Overpowered', as opposed to what?"

I mean, what would any weapon or perk be overpowered against?

If I were playing against another player, then yes, possibly my combination of perks and weapon would be a little O.P. But wait a minute- this is a single player game. How can I possibly be overpowered against the game itself?

Isn't the game, by definition, balanced in & of itself?

Anything we do must be balanced, because it's designed into the game. We're not competing against anyone. So, what are all these threads about?

I write this, not to mock or bash, but to reassure. Relax, my friends, and enjoy your power weapons! You are not O.P., no matter what you do!! You're supposed to be playing the game this way! If you feel like you're overpowered, just raise the difficulty!!!

Since this realization, I've also almost maxed out Sneak and Ninja, and I'm having the time of my life! (Especially when I add a Stealth Blade into the mix, along with Deacon's bonus perk for stealth attacks.) This is what it's like to be a heroic hero!!

Rant over. Enjoy the game, everyone!!

The point of balance in a single player game, I think, is about making sure the game doesn't get so easy from certain things that there's no fun in playing it, or it completely defeats the purpose of some other playstyle. Especially in a game like this, where the character development and equipment progression is designed to be so open-ended.

OP has a point. There can't be any balance issues by , like, definition. Balance and overpowered vs nerfed make much more sense to talk about in a multiplayer game. My level 84 ex-BOS Minuteman/ Robot Hunter should be able to one-hit kill just about everything. I didn't mod out this here Gauss Rifle for looks. Well, I did .... but nevertheless.....

Wrong. You are competing against game AI -or in other words, against system designed by developers and performed by your computer.

While I don't necessarily agree with those complains, their point is challenge of playing the game. People want game to present them good challenge.

Over powered against a game that has an interesting game-play where you need to use your intellect and imagination and lower skills, to defeat the enemies that have greater strengths and abilities that the player. Over powered, and all that is gone, you are left with a yawn.

No, the game isn't balanced in and of itself. It's single-player, but a game is boring if the player is too powerful compared to his enemies.

There are plenty of games out there that like to torture the player. Go have fun playing those. I quite enjoy having my overpowered wastelander.

For me in a game things that should always be a threat should well always be a threat. When I walk out into the wasteland a deathclaw should always be dangerous if I'm at level 1 or level 101, it should always be a fight for my life. A molerat or radroach should mostly be a nuisance after a few levels. If nothing is challenging than winning loses pretty much any sense of achievement and just gets boring. So being overpowered for me is in relation to how much of a challenge I want to get out of the game, it's why I like the Souls games.

Agreed. Some enemies should always be a challenge regardless of your build/perks/level and equipment. THere are no such enemies in Fallout 4 as of yet. Hopefully Far Harbour adds something truly nasty.

Over powered = Anything that reduces the challenge too much. The thing is in games like Fallout 4, you are making that decision purely on your own. Yes you can be overpowered making the game pretty boring in the long run. Are you forced into being over powered though? No. So the blame should be placed more on how your brain works rather than the game.

Don't take that too harshly though, 99% of gamers want to be gods. Unfortunately that comes with a major price once you get there.

If the player can level without a cap, but enemies stop leveling at like 30-50 I'd say that's a game issue. Difficulty scaling has never been a Bethesda strong suit and Fallout 4 is no different.

I actually forgot about the scaling issue sorry my bad. Yeah that actually annoyed me a lot about Skyrim also. The Ebony Warrior rubbed even more salt into the wound on top of things. It was like yeah we realize there is a major problem with scaling so here is one dude set to level 80..

I don't understand the issue Bethesda have setting the enemy level cap higher. It's like they are intentionally shooting themselves in the foot. Hopefully something can be done about it with the construction set. It will be one of the first things I try and tinker with anyway.

Unless you purposefully make yourself terrible, your gonna be more overpowered than your enemies. It may take awhile for things like Behemoths or Deathclaws, but it's gonna happen. This is true in practically any game, as you usually do more damage and have more health.


I don't see this as a problem, I love being so pathetically OP that nothing can stop me but the best of the best, it's fun!

This is a very difficult topic in the game theory area of game design. The simple fact, though, is you want certain elements to be "OP" or "imbalanced".

In short, this is to produce a meta that people chase after and spend money/time in completing, after that, you introduce a nerf to the current meta and create a new one for people to chase and achieve.

Prime example here was sneak/sniper builds and melee/power armour builds prior to the new DLC. Now, you're going to see a lot more people looking and chasing the crafting perks. Probably when wasteland workshop comes out people will start looking toward the pacifying perks. Far Harbor will probably bring a charisma/perception driven build.

So you see, it keeps people engaged and playing, but most importantly; talking.

I don't think it is that hard of a theory to implement. Many games offer areas with infinite loot and level scaling. I don't see how the same thing would not work in a game like Fallout 4. Special LVL100+ Dungeons for example or an area where enemies level with you. A mechanic like that would give you much more longevity than how it is set now.

Oh, I totally think there should be a point in the game where you get so powerful you can cheese anything, absolutely. I just also think Wounding and Explosive effects on automatics/shotguns make you too powerful too fast, and that Ballistic Weave on hats and under-armor makes no sense and makes it harder to justify wearing much else.

I wouldn't mind if one of the last DLCs expanded more of the leveled lists to scale up to level 100, and added new ranks to perks that went up to level 100 in requirements.

Is that actually the issue? I thought they continued to level, but any place you already visited would have enemies locked in at the level you were when you first went there.

Things can still be overpowered in single play game. They just don`t matter as much in multi-player games.



Yeah. I don`t care much about something being overpowered or people using glitch for their own fun in FO4.


I still want unintended things to be removed as much as possible from the game though.



Remote hack? I don`t care if people use it, but I would like to see it removed if it wasn`t intentional change.


First, the idea and execution themselves are very stupid. Such thing was never really possible or introduced into FO before.


Using stealth boy and hacking high level enemy robots were rewarding task and strategy in game. Now hacking a robot is not really hacking.



The single player games still need to care about things being overpowered.


Otherwise, the game can go really really dull and silly. Every game still needs rules and its own sense of rationality.

If that's the case then that's still a bit of an issue since I explored most of the map before I really started questing. It would also explain why when I started hitting spots again for radiant quests I pretty much steam rolled everything.

If it is anything like Skyrim then yeah its the issue. Enemies had a lvl limit where they just wouldn't level beyond a certain point. I think the highest was lvl 70 for bosses and 40 for almost anything else. So if you were any higher. Yeah not much fun unless you like God mode.

I might be wrong, but I thought that's how Skyrim worked. Too lazy to look it up now.

Not sure why they couldn't just continue scaling with you whether you already cleared a location or not. Everything except (most) quest and unique items respawns anyway. Leveled loot seems to be locked into that initial visit level also.

Sounds about right then. I'm playing a level 119 character or somewhere close to that and I have not seen a skull next to an enemy name in a ridiculously long time. Even if they just populated areas with the highest level NPCs that would be more balanced. Now you have raider veterans with low-levels, SM warlords next to low-levels, etc., and their equipment is still not much better than laser or assault rifles--most still use pipe weapons.

If I remember correctly back to my Morrowind editing days with the construction set, it is fairly easy to make custom leveled groups so you could make an add on with custom zones where enemies had a lot higher level cap. Should nullify the problem somewhat in the coming months. Hopefully could even make a dungeon where every enemy is a lvl 100+ Legendary.

I found a mod that fixes it, I'll wait until the survival changes before I use it though. http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/6957/?

I personally love how FO4 has mixed enemies of low and high level.


If I only get enemies with level scaled to be 50+, I won`t be able to enjoy every weapon and fighting style in the game.