I love the difficulty. I was just complaining about dialog in another thread, but the combat is a huge improvement. This is the most fun I've ever had with combat in a BGS game, and the balance has been surprisingly good overall.

• Challenging combat.
• Resource scarcity exists at least through the mid game.
• Weapons, armor and items in general offer interesting trade-offs.
• The crafting mod system is better than I would ever have believed.

I'm just really,really happy with what they've done, and I'm having a great time with the game.

It's very hard. I keep dying a lot, supplies are actually hard to find and I'm actually paying attention to the stat on the armor pieces and trying to pick the best ones that I think will keep me alive.

I'm also learning a lot about the perks and leveling system in the game. I guess I actually had to plan out the perks first before I just started hitting random perks at random because they looked cool.

All in all, this game kicks the asses of both Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas. I actually feel vulnerable in this game.

Glad I saw this thread, thought it was just me. Still can't getover how much tougher ghouls are. In 3 they were just cannon fodder, but not so this rime

It is hard but fun. I'm playing on normal and I've died quite a bit.

I ran into a Mr. Gutsy that was a few levels above me. I tried to take it out from a distance with a sniper rifle.

I managed to blow off it's gun and thought I had won. Turns out that was a big mistake.

It began glowing red and chased me down. The explosion that followed blew me apart.

Also, for those that don't know, this game has a cover system.

To use it just walk up to a wall until your gun lowers. Then just aim down the sights. You will automatically lean out of cover.

I really do love the combat in this game. It's so much better than in previous games.

I find melee to be VERY EASY to play out... I've been doing mostly melee and I've rarely had issues. Though, don't get me wrong, the game is harder for sure in general. Much harder than previous tittles. But within the game itself? Melee isn't that hard. Then again, I kinda got lucky and the first time I've used a shop, the lady was selling a special Chinese Sword, which has a great DPS for melee due to the high damage output and speed being MED (not SLOW).

So are most people playing the Survival difficulty mode then? I decided to play the vanilla game with normal for a change. But then recently found out this mode actually does exist from one of the screen shots as the game loads. It's not exactly hardcoe mode, but it does reduce the amount of healing benefits which food can instantaneously provide the PC over time.

What difficulty?

Oh and I actually meant to write unarmed when I wrote that. Melee itself does indeed get great (yeah that sword is AMAZING for how fast you can get it). Unarmed though, ugh.

Where?

I'm playing on Normal. I always play on Normal on my first playthrough as Normal should be what the game should feel like, while the others are there for people who want it easy or more hardcoe.

I can't remember where but there is at least one of every station in Sanctuary Hills, which is a good thing. That means you can still have a full base without requiring to get the Local Leader perks.

Started on hard and struggled at the start but when i got some weapons i did well, bombed it up to very hard and struggled at the start again but got more good loots and kinda evened it out. I still struggle if I come up against a legendary super mutant or something and I'm cornered. Might bump it up to survival depending on how the next few hours go.

Found the chemistry station in Sanctuary. It's well hidden unless you have really searched thoroughly. I did, but I didn't do as good a job for this. It's behind a house near the gate across from the cooking station. I'm glad to see it.

Thanks for making me look!

Now if I can just find some Mutfruit I can actually start making adhesive.