The first thing I did in my game (player is level 26) is I warped myself to that group of NPCs I saw in your screenshot. Because I"m level 26 I saw a different set of guys than you did, they were the highest talon co with the highest ranked HP, as here:

http://www.finhosting.fi/~fallout/screenshots/TalonCo.jpg

Your own game happened happened to catch the lowest level talon co. in the leveled list, which was like the staff sergeant and stuff.

I checked in the GECK to see what health level etc. they had and the staff sergeant in particular was a bit low. But if there's a flunkie there, not sure what you're seeing.

I uploaded a version of NG which has the flunkie set for 240HP or so at level 9, and the staff sergeant as like 245 HP at level 16. Those particular ones aren't supposed to be bosslike enemies, they happen to be the lowest denominator of their leveled lists.

You might check the new .esp and see if it updates the lower level talon co members for you - http://www.finhosting.fi/~fallout/downloads/FoesReworked-NG-HARDMODE.esp - at least then we know you don't have a load order issue. Although looking at the mutants would tell you that for sure, the lowest leveled mutant should have 400 HP and it goes up from there.

Something I figured I might post in here, since I'm not sure how familiar you are with enemy placement in FO3.

There's these enemy-spawner objects placed throughout the world, and they are color-coded and specified for the relative difficulty of the mobs they will spawn. Like, there might be a spawner-object out there which is flagged "Easy". So what happens is, no matter your level, when that thing refreshes a new enemy for you and you walk up to it, you're going to get something that is kinda easy for you.

The range from like "Easy" to "Boss", if I recall.

So it's like, for my character at level 26, walking into the highest-category Talon Co. dudes is an easy fight. And for your character at level 16, walking into the lower-category ones is the same. And in the case of your screenshot, we were looking at exactly the same NPC REF ID - - those NPCs all came off of the same spawner object but were different categories for you and I.

So what I'm trying to say is. If what you're wanting is for every fight to be an absolute beast, it is a different sort of change than what we have been talking about. Jacking all of the enemies up to be monsters would sorta mess you up when you're lower level and are supposed to be encountering something hard. Instead of hard, you'd be faced with a lower-category Talon Co. dude who is an impossible fight for you.

Changing all of the world spawner items to be "hard" would be more along those lines. That's quite an edit, heh ...

Tarrant,

I hope you don't mind, but I DL'd the Hardmode and tried it out.

Anyway, I love harder enemies, and Super Mutants, and always wanted Muties to be much harder but not at the cost of upping the difficulty level to VH, which IMO is boring and tedius and just makes humans freakishly difficult to kill. So, I just took the mod for a run on my new character, which is at Level 6, and I have Charon and Clover with me and we went to Mason Dixon Storage.

Wow, so fun! I had a gunner with 672 HP (he was the only one I checked just to see if the HP was indeed high and he'd been hit in the fight already). I got killed so fast and I'd forgotten to make Clover essential so she died too and was complaining because she was getting shot by Charon in the crossfire. It was great. There were about five Muties there with a couple of Centaurs, all very tough and just hammering us. This was all at Normal difficulty. They were more what I've always wanted Muties to be; scary, too hard to take lightly and something to be avoided when at a low level. We did much better on reload and took them all out using strategies I use on Overlords, but ya, I'm not usually ready for Overlords at Level 6. It was great fun. :clap:


BTW, I took the version from 5/2. I went over to Fort Bannister and checked the HP on two Talons. A Flunkie had HP of 221 and a Gunnery Sergeant had HP of 417.

hehe well, more power to you if you like it!

The damage and HP has been upped to where it's quite evil, I'm not sure I can personally hack it like that but maybe when I get back to work on Foes Reworked NG for real, i'll have to try it =p

I understand now Tarrant, after reading your post. I thought what this mod did was beef up the HP of everything in the wasteland, but I see now that it only applies to the new named ones. I just encountered a gunner with 470ish HP. I'll be checking this out more, thanks.

So did I. At level 8 and went through the lower floor of Lady of Hope. My follower and I got our butts kicked

Fun! I didn't even think to go there. I'll have to take the crew over there to do the quest.

Just an idea, but on the topic of companions balancing...

What if you had to pay a daily upkeep per companion? Ie. to cover their expenses or even a stipend.

This might be an immersive way of reducing the attractiveness of power gaming via recruiting a bunch of companions?

Something like 100 caps per day per companion would be reasonable. The cost might even scale with companion level to make it more affordable at lower levels, and again this is immersive in that higher level followers are more valuable and hence worth more.

The follower mod I made (in my sig) makes you keep them supplied with ammunition after they run out of their initial batch of ammo (which on the first followers you get, that initial batch can last a while). But yeah, as the game moves forward you supply it all.

Tarrant: Yep, I haven't tried phalanx yet but I use followers enhanced in FWE which is similar in that respect. I intend on using Phalanx for subsequent playthrough with FOOK2. That is a great balancing aspect as stimpacks and ammo aren't cheap and followers tend to chew through them (particularly ammo). But I guess I still find that having multiple followers makes the game sooooo much easier, therefore I'm thinking of ways to balance this out and a regular cost might be a good way to do so - it's also simple and doesn't require micro managing.

Well..... the micromanagement aspect of Phalanx is on purpose, it resembles what you do in Fallout 2.

But as far as difficulty, yeah, Phalanx' followers were made in a difficulty-increased, increased-spawns environment. The "Increased Spawns" setting of MMM (either Mart's regular MMM or his standalone Increased Spawns) could be suggested. It makes fights balance different, and due to the extra numbers you get more loot, and it kinda works out supply-wise. My own setup (where the followers were balanced) is the standalone MMM increased spawns + foes reworked NG (not that hardmode thing) which is already embedded in FWE.

Found the solution to this, and posting it here in case anyone wants to know themselves.

You open console, target your companion, and instead of 'modav' you type the following:

forceav health [value you want it changed to]

So for example my Clover's health was 315. I typed in 'forceav health 175' and her new health was 175. Her HP bar does not look full, but this is only a cosmetic problem. She will not heal beyond 215 HP, whether it's through autoheal after combat or giving her stimpaks. This isn't a permenant change, if you want it changed back just type in the value that it was before and you're all set.

With this console method and Phalanx running this solved all problems...group fights are actually a challenge again, thank you.

I've had a good time the last few days with FOOK2, NG (not the hardmode), and the MMM standalones - more spawns (1-3) and respawn. NG loaded last. I made a merged patch with these so the SM have FOOK weapons. Game set on 'Normal' difficulty. With this setup and level 10 it's quite a challenge to keep one follower alive when fast traveling to GNR - my follower would usually be down within seconds. It took several attemps to clear the Mall and to get into the Jefferson Memorial. I had tried the Hardmode NG first but it seemed way overpowered - the Supermutants just wouldn't die!