Early game could be tough on survival, no doubt. But with power armor and the right perks (more damage, life giver last rank, damage resistance, gun nut and science), it's just a little more time consuming to kill enemies. Fast enemies might be able to get to melee range, but that's what shotguns are for.

The game is no harder than any previous bethesdas games. If you truly want difficulty, then dead-is-dead is the way to go. Adds a lot of athmosphere when you know even the slightest miscalculation will cost you your character.

Apparently melee is very powerful, even more so than guns, since they stagger enemies. Indeed, I can verify that statement myself. Had a pretty tough legendary glowing one to fight that kept resurrecting his friends when I was trying to circle and shoot hit. Died, switched tactics by taking my only melee weapon into use (an electric baton, I think?). With strength 2 and no perk points into melee, I was able to kill the glowing one by spamming attack.... He had no chance to resurrect his friends when stun-locked. GG

hmmm im playing in survival too, but never use VATS only for some bugs fights or just to mess around with it.

But the difficult level is nice, i love that enemies take time to die (and isnt that bad super mutants take like 5 shoot from my improve Plasma rifle) and Head-shoot still are only 1 in stealth mode. Im really happy with Survival mode. Plus even with PA a legendary in a pack of enemies make u run for ur life =P

been doing survival with 2 points of endurance, its brutal, the ammo part is a problem of course since all enemies are so spongey. Carry lots of guns due to this so need to switch often to use diff weapons.

This is where I'm at too. Just upped to Very Hard to see how that goes. I still die a lot in surprise attacks and I do use VATS for tough enemies or swarms.

I'm a weenie- playing in normal, Lv. 18. I just killed my first lv. 14 Stunted Yao Guai, but not before getting killed by a pair of them. I usually have played on Normal until I hit the point where things get easy, usually around lv. 30, then start bumping up the difficulty.

I do miss the hardcoe Mode eating/sleeping/drinking, but with so much more to manage with the new loot system and settlements I'm not going to complain.

Must have been some weapon.On survival I dropped a mini nuke right ontop of him.. and he walked away with little over 40% hp.

I just started a CQC build (mostly mellee and shotgun) on survival, i just need to be carfull, but its fun, and drugs come into play a little more now so thats fun ?

I love it. It's actually not that spongey. I like it because now I can focus on maximizing my build and setup without worrying about having to gimp myself to keep the game from being too easy. Every encounter is a challenge, from deathclaws to super mutants to supposedly lowly mobs like bloatflies and bloodflies, they can kill you in seconds if you're not careful, or if they surprise you from behind when you're engaging something else. The slow healing is by far the biggest difference, you can no longer use food and stimpaks to tank enemies as you mow them down.

I cant quote, or I would quote the guy I am trying to talk to. Someone said the Legendary Deathclaw mutates after you kill it? Whats that all about? I haven't seen any enemies mutate after I kill them and ive only come across a legendary radroach

I've had a bunch of creatures do this. You get them down to their last hit point and suddenly their health bar fills back up and they get bigger or change somehow and it tells you onscreen. And you have to kill them even deader.

All legendary creatures mutate at the 50% hp mark with the possible exception of ones that you have destroyed limbs on whereas they are basically just sitting ducks anyway and there would be no point. If it's still capable of fighting back though once you pass the 50% mark it'll mutate and have full hp again. Whether it gets upgraded abilities or not is something that would need to be tested. They appear to have the same amount of health and armor they just revert back to 100%. They keep limb status though so you can finish blowing a leg off or whatever without it reverting. At least this is how it appears on survival mode.

They get a cool glow effect which comes in an array of colours, with self-reflection it does feel like something changes as my adrenaline pumps more due to conditioning from previous fights

New Vegas very hard hardcoe mode was the most satisfying. "Survival Mode" pales in comparison which is a shame. You would have thought it would have been identical to hardcoe mode.

So long as you're smart about upgrading your gun damage through skills and mods, I've found it to mostly be a breeze. You just have to play smart and not go in guns blazing in front of 10 super mutants. But I'm also used to it after having played Fallout 3 on very hard, which was way worse when it came to bullet spongey enemies. Mines are your best friend. Bait enemies into them.

Bottlecap mines OMFG

OK maybe I will try that. To be fully disclosing I actually find it hard enough on normal...for now...which is a good thing.

Heh, you might want to learn the game on normal and then bring the knowledge back to survival mode then. learn how you want to build your guy, what is better to focus on first, whether you want to stick close to an area or companion or strike out on your own

No, not all Legendary creatures mutate. It is a random chance to do so during combat with them. Also tied to health, yes, but when the health limit is met they may or may not mutate. I have fought several Legendary creatures so far and only one actually mutated. And no, not because I destroyed limbs or anything. I am on Survival difficulty so that may also change things to a random chance rather than absolute. I doubt it, but it's possible.

I must not have good luck then, it definitely is tied to 50% hp, that I've tested without a doubt, but if it's a random chance to mutate I'm just unlucky because of the numerous legendaries I've killed a mere fraction of them haven't mutated, something like maybe 5 or 6 out of 50 and most (if not all) of them were crippled to the point of uselessness before reaching the 50% mark. I'm on survival as well

I think it depends on how much time you spend fighting them, too. I managed to kill a few legendaries in just a few hits before they could mutate (Thank you, The Last Minute).

Fully upgraded Gauss Rifle makes quick work of almost anything.

I've had them mutate after one hit, not sure how drugs and slowing time might affect it but they've mutated in VATS as well. Unless I either one shot them or get them close to the 50% mark and then crit them with a powerful gun and take the rest in one shot they mutate on me, barring the possible crippling. I'll have to rest it on the next legendary I find after i eat my lunch

It was a double barrel shotgun with the hardened mod i think, i dont have any perks in crafting so i got the best damage i could with no perks, so it really wasnt an impresive shotgun i did had lvl 2 rifleman for +40% damage and some armor bypassyng, that perk works with shotguns too.

Yesterday when retrieving the Silver Shroud outfit i found that glowing ghoul on the top of the building and it had a ton of health because even when unleashing all my VATS points into point blank shotgun shots in the head i couldnt get it to half his health and then as soon as VATS stoped i was dead in like 3 or 4 hits so i used the mines and baited him to them, it was fun to do but not many enemies requiere this atill i like the fact that you actually throw the mines and dont put them just infront of you like most games that allow you to use mines thats why i really wasnt using them.

About mutation yeah they dont always mutate i only saw that like 2 times maybe the last time i saw it was funny because it was a legendary rider and i oneshoted him with a headshot then he mutated instantly and oneshoted him again LOL.

That lasser musket is AMAZING to snipe things.