Will you go hardcoe from the start or will you go the other way?

I'll probably practice it on Normal first, but I'll definitely get to hardcoe. Am pretty sure that once I play it on hardcoe, I won't ever go back to a lower difficulty.

I'll go hardcoe from the start. Fallout 3 is all the practice that I need. :tops:

Meerrr. I always start off playing easy, because I want to get through the storyline. THEN I'll go back and start picking up all the extras and stuff. :L

I am turing hardcoe mode on and it's going to stay on for every character I will ever make. It's the only way to play :tops: :fallout:

normal first, followed by hardcoe. then another playthrough on which one i like best

straight to hardcoe.

hardcoe mode is sort of like hardcoe pr0n, once you are on it, you can't really "get off" on normal the same way...

Normal,then hard,then hard with hardcoe on

I don't really like very hard seeing as enemies just become bullet sponges

I'm doing as many others are doing and turning it on from the beginning, and never turning it off.

It's a good thing that hardcoe mode is separate from difficulty then.

I'm probably gonna do hardcoe first.

I know I was so relieved to hear that it wouldn't affect damage ratio

Yeah, Very Hard difficulty destroys the immersion for me in FO3 when I regularly have to use whole magazines worth of ammo to bring down enemies. That's not realistic or hard, just boring and stupid.

Very Hard should keep enemy health the same, but make them more accurate, smarter, and do more damage to you, as well as limiting the amount of stimpacks, ammo, and drugs found in the world. That would force you to change tactics and be more careful. As it is in FO3, on Very Hard all you have to be is more patient.

I'm going to start New Vegas on Normal Difficulty with hardcoe Mode on. I don't see myself ever playing through without hardcoe mode on, as everything I've read about it so far is like a dream come true for me. If Obsidian made the difficulty modes something more than just jacking up enemy HP, I might try Hard or Very Hard eventually too.

I have to agree
I find that if enemies are smarter rather than just tougher I have a better experience
Kind of like fighting behemoths
they weren't really hard, but more of a rather annoying super mutant that wont go down as easily

But I'm sure Bethsidian has its limits and reasons for AI and difficulty settings so I'll just let it slide this time

Exactly, we let it slide this time with FO3, but now Obsidian is left holding the bag!

Programming a more intelligent difficulty system wouldn't have to be much more complex than changing the enemy HP variables like they did in FO3. Each enemy in the engine by necessity already has certain variables attached to them - area of awareness, accuracy, weapon damage, etc. Sure, AI tactics would be more difficult to change, but if you changed those three variables I mentioned, that would get you by in a pinch. As for ammo or stimpaks and drugs, just make those markers when placed in the engine, with the difficulty setting determining the chance of them appearing in-game, and how much there is if they do.

For instance:
Very Easy - Stimpak is always there
Easy - Stimpak is there 90% of the time
Normal - Stimpak is there 50% of the time
Hard - Stimpak is there 25% of the time
Very Hard - Stimpak is there 10% of the time

They already have enemy markers that essentially do the same thing in the CS.

Sure, you would have to experiment to get the exact ratios of chance that work best at each setting, but you get the idea. Similarly with item counts for ammo:

Very Easy - 30 rounds
Easy - 25 rounds
Normal - 15 rounds
Hard - 10 rounds
Very Hard - 5 rounds

You could even mix and match the two approaches, or randomize the amount of ammo within certain limits, like for Normal Difficulty you may find between 10 and 20 rounds in a container, etc.

:thumbsup:

Im going very hard hardcoe then on my second character i'm going easy as it gets just cause it's fun to annihilate

I'm going to start out with my test character on normal.

Basically i pick my stats and play 30-60 minutes of the game to get the feel and see what type of character i will build.

Then jump into hardcoe after my test character is deleted.

I'm gonna complete the story straight through with a good character first (non-hardcoe) then play it with hardcoe as an evil character (so much easier when you can steal food and drink from people) which I'll use properly, after completing the game and getting the 'hardcoe' trophy (yes, I know it's a definitive ending, but that's why there are multiple saves before you say anything).

I'll play on hardcoe mode because it seems lke it would bring some more enjoyment to the game. I can imagine that a lot of people would not find it fun, and will opt to play it on Casual mode.

I'll play with hardcoe more enabled right away. The difficulty level will depend on whether OEI has tweaked how it works any, if it's the same as in F3 (bullet-spongery plus more xp the higher difficulty you choose) then I'll keep it at normal.

I don't know about other gamers, but IMHO the entirety of FO3 was in "casual mode":

• I had a Megaton fridge full of food and drink I hardly ever (mostly never) used so their value in-game, aside from their trade-in value in the vendor, were practically worthless
  
• Going head to head versus a well armed group wasn't all that dangerous if you had a shortcut mapping to your stimpacks, just spam your stimpack shortcut and you were good to go
  
• Damaged limbs didn't really matter because stimpacks had an alternate, limb-restoring function
  
• Other than resting once a day for the "well rested" bonus in your home, resting really didn't matter except for the occasional HP and limb heal when you cleared a usable bed in the field when you were low on stimpacks
  
• Except for playing on "Very Hard" and enemies were able to endure unrealistically huge amounts of damage, there was never a feeling that ammo was scarce, because you were practically a walking ammo arsenal. In fact the only time I felt, that every bullet counted was in the very beginning of the game and in The Pitt DLC, where your gear gets stripped from you for the majority of the quest (which IMO made that quest so much more interesting)

So I'm dying to play in (and stay in) hardcoe Mode. Though I'll start in hardcoe/Normal difficulty, if I find that ammo and sustenance becomes too scarce that I'm frequently dying, I reserve the option to slide the difficulty to Easy or Very Easy. Conversely, If I find myself swimming in ammo later in the game, I also reserve the option to slide the difficulty back to Normal, or even Hard or Very Hard...

Ill start on hardcoe. The Stimpack change and ammo weight are my biggest interests in the mode. If the constant eating, drinking and sleeping ends up being as annoying as feeding as a Vampire in Oblivion though ill turn it off.