I'm getting this game and I want to know your opinions on what would be the best difficulty, more importantly what difficulty do you play?

It stretches credibility as it is that it takes multiple shots to the head to kill a human being, so I tend not to play on anything harder than Normal (and I tend to keep my own HP pretty low, and on hardcoe mode) unless I'm actively looking for a challenge.

I'm having fun and a good challenge on normal without hardcoe mode. I'm not HC simply because I've tried mods that added pretty much all those same features (hunger, thirst, sleep) in FO3 and it was just a chore and took away from actually playing the game.

Normal without hardcoe mode for sometime, then hard without hardcoe then when i start getting fedup then startn with hardcoe mode then after i get fedup with that use mods...I could go on for ever :celebration:

i voted for very hard and hardcoe which i have been using for 30+ hours or so now.

however im very much tempted to move down at least one difficulty setting because the amount of headshots enemies can take without even flinching is bordering on the comical tbh.

ill keep hardcoe on until i get the achievement. but im unsure if ill play using it again. i dont think it adds much. its certainly not hard to play using it, just fiddly at times and not fun.

I'm playing Normal with hardcoe Mode. Seems to be a good balance between challenging and immersive. Higher difficulties tend to have you unloading unrealistic amounts of lead at stuff. I'd rather have a slightly easier time of it than watch a raider take three .308 rounds to the head. Yeah, I'm more of an immersion freak.

That's the problem with difficulties in a lot of games. Harder difficulty shouldn't be an affect on the damage you deal and the damage dealt to you. I think there should be a difficulty where the enemies are as easy to kill as on 'Very Easy' but you can be killed at the same rate.

Ideally I would like something such as improved enemy AI for higher difficulties or more occurences of hard creatures i.e Deathclaws.

hardcoe seems to be a step in the right direction, anyone else think it should be named 'Survival mode' or something. hardcoe gives the idea of difficulty and from what I have heard it doesn't seem to be difficult just a different experience.

I play on Normal/hardcoe. Admittedly I'm just doing hardcoe for the achievement. I'm not much of an achievement chaser (in fact, I don't chase them at all), but I figured it might be a fun experience so why not give it a shot? In future playthroughs I probably won't bother, simply because carrying around water and food in my inventory is a waste of space.

With RPGs I play I usually choose the easiest setting unless doing so makes enemies die so fast they fall over before my character can even touch his weapon. A lot of games the past few years have been getting their difficulty changed to the point that today's easy was five years ago's normal. With an RPG especially I want to enjoy the story and the setting as a break from watching movies or TV. In other words, don't frustrate me (and anything greater than normal would).

I agree. Tomb Raider Underworld had a function called "player tailoring" which allowed to to set individual preferences such as ammo capacity, player health, enemy health, etc. I really wish more games would take this approach (obviously with different options depending on the game). I'm on consoles, so I can't mod. But for the PC the very first thing I would mod would be a "realistic weapons" that allowed weapons to do realistic damage to both me and the enemy.

I will play it on Normal the first time around, then go very hard/hardcoe. Sometimes i even skip straight to hardcoe.

I started on Normal/hardcoe mode... after a few hours playing i decided to play on hard/hardcoe mode and have kept it on that difficulty since.

Even though i still get slaughtered by Deathclaws and families of Cazadors! i enjoy the challenge.

Got to be Very Hard...anything less removes the RPG aspect of the game in my opinion. If you play on normal or less pretty much everything is killable with any gun at any level which makes the stats/skills choices seem a little redundant. I quite like hardcoe as well, although it's a misnomer. It's not actually harder, just a bit more immersive.

I also try and only use Vats for situations where I would definitely die without it.

I jump around between the difficulties and hardcoe mode on or off

I play on Normal and HC.

I started on Normal/hardcoe, but bumped it to Hard/hardcoe after about an hour into it. So voted Hard / hardcoe. The difference is negligible but it sits well with me. :shrug:

I started with normal difficulty without hardcoe, mainly to get a feel for the game. Then I started a new character (having a better idea about stats required for certain perks, and knowing more about how 4-eyes works etc) on normal difficulty and hardcoe mode.

I think they got a good balance - you don't have to eat drink so often it gets annoying, or not often enough where it's meaningless. It actually adds a lot of meaning to the game; instead of 50% of the objects lying around being pointless (eg, cram, dirty water bottles) they have a real use. It takes a bit of imagination to make it part of your character, but it's worth it. hardcoe mode doesn't make it that much harder. I gave my character low strength and endurance to make it more of a challenge as well. And an alcoholic. So, he has it tough.

i got it on Hard with no hard core on. just for the first time threw then ramp it up. Hard Core with very hard then im going to kill as many NCR as i can i know they are every where. and try to get as many factions a possible to send out assassins after me. be a nice jump in difficulty that should make it fun.

I'm hesitant of switching to Very Hard for fear of radscorpions that take eight clips to the face to kill. Thanks, FO3!

I'm just about done with my first play through using normal difficulty no hardcoe, just to see what the game was like. I'd say it was pretty dang easy. I'd like to try it at very hard, no hardcoe to see what the difference is. My next playthrough will be normal and hardcoe on, melee. Should be much more difficult.

I would totally disagree with that. It's certainly easier, of course, but a Deathclaw or Cazador will tear you a new one even on a lower difficulty if your level is too low and/or your gun is too weak.

I play on normal, I don't find combat fun if it's difficult. I play for the story, not to die and reload regularly! But I like hardcoe mode, it adds to the role-play.

I'm in the normal/HC camp, myself. Mainly due to the fact that the difficulty slider only affects your damage output/enemy HP. Eventually I'm going to have a nice long chat with an experienced modder and make my own 'high risk' difficulty. But then again, I don't even know how to use the GECK yet...

I normally play F3 on Hard, but this is my first foray into hardcoe, so I set it to Normal. I like hardcoe very much, by the way, I started using it and won't play any other way now. It always bugged me a bit that you didn't need to eat in F3, and you could choose between drinking and sleeping (or skip both, using stimpacks). It was rough for awhile, but I powered through, and now I have a bed that heals me and a guy with a sniper rifle backing my play. I fully expect to get up to Hard in NV as well. But not this playthrough.

Normal

HC