I actually haven't tried the game on any other difficulty - as soon as I saw it while exploring the title screen, I set it and never looked back. I die a lot, and I will say that if you can't stand bullet sponges you should probably avoid it.

But the flipside to that is that I actually do have to think more strategically. I find myself having to be a lot more pragmatic with my ammo, Stimpaks can't instantly rescue me (I can fluctuate between 4 to 24 stims at any time), and the extra loot from more Legendary enemies is very welcome. And food actually matters! That's all I ever wanted! (Well, at least until you get the last rank of Life Giver ). And the bullet sponginess isn't *so* bad, so long as you keep your damage output high. For my first playthrough with a 10 Endurance character and relatively weak killing power, it took *lots* of bullets to take out Glowing Ones and Deathclaws (until I got a Gauss Rifle for those exact situations!), but my Doomgal character is having a much better time of it.

So what do you guys think of Survival Mode? How's the difficulty you're running on?

Still running it on normal - it's ok, but I think I've got my eye back in now, so it might be time to bump it up. Pretty sure I'm not supposed to be taking down skulled Mr Gutsy's and Protectotrons with a .38 cal pipe rifle.

May I assume that Survival mode in FO4 is not the same at it was in FO3? ie, in 4, everything just hits harder while you do not, yes? It doesn't add fatigue or hunger/thirst the way it did on FO3?

Survival Mode doesn't add hunger/thirst/sleep meters, no, but it significantly reduces the speed that stims and food heal you. I haven't counted, but if feels like it takes about 30 seconds... it's really slow. I don't know how it changes damage dealt/received, either, but I'd assume it halves/doubles it from normal, respectively. That's a guess though.

I'd recommend everyone at least try it. I'm having a wonderful time. I don't think I'll be able to do a pure melee character on Survival, though.

The problem I had with survival mod is that it required VATS when you had swarms of enemies especially bug enemies or lots of ghouls. I play on hard or very hard (still deciding on which one) and I like it because I never have to use VATS. I would love to have the slow healing feature from survival though just without having to shoot a raider 5 times in the head point blank before he dies. I can only suspend disbelief so much after all.

Started on hard and think it's the perfect balance for me... an early deathclaw encounter while I was in power armor (stolen from a raider with only 2 parts on it) took 11 stimpacks for me and tons of kiting and trying to control him while aiming for headshots... nothing is a bullet sponge, trash dies in 1 hit, legendaries take multiple hits and have potential to kill very quickly, I think vh/survival would be too bullet spongey/hard for those harder mobs... every time I watch people on yt just waaaay too many shots with minimal impact.

I wrote this in another post, but I'm pretty much in the same boat as you. I like the game somewhere between hard and very hard /w survival healing. If your on PC you can use the console to do that.

Set your game to survival mode and you can change the modifiers for the damage you deal and the damage you take through the console.

setgs fDiffMultHPbyPCSV

setgs fDiffMultHPtoPCSV

Survival and Very Hard have the same multipliers: 0.5 and 2

I was under the impression that Survival Mode did the same damage adjustments as Very Hard, just added the slower regen in the mix.

Anyway, I can't say if enemies are annoyingly spongey. The first time I played, it took me forever to kill the Deathclaw at Concord because I was sloppy and ran out of 5mm and Fusion Cells. Really the most trouble I have is just running out of ammo. But if I can save my best weapons for those really tough enemies, they're not so bad compared to everything else.

The only real bullet sponges are the "boss" type enemies, which you feel they should be really like a huge mirelurk surviving a critical hit mini nuke. You get a sense of achievement defeating such a ridiculously hard enemy.

When you can beat a legendary assaultron dominator with your DAMN FISTS on SURVIVAL, you will get a sense of achievement.

Those beams.

Those blades.

Currently at level 33 in survival mode. Game is cake at this point. Nearly maxxed out the rifle perk and using a shotgun with bleed damage I mow through even legendary Deathclaws before they get near me. Other than that I usually use the Combat rifle to kill most everything else. I rarely use VATs even when I first started in Survival. Just a matter of manipulating your enemies into a controllable area. Health regen is a pain so I will usually tank up on food, take cover and wait. Usually while I am in cover one or two bone headed mobs will make their way to me and I'll kill them off, or play peek a boo with them in the environment to survive and kill them. In short survival is relatively tough to begin with but after the mid 20s the tables begin to turn in your favor.

I have played only Survival since I bought the game. I like to crank up the difficulty to max in any game I buy, though programmers crank up HP + Damage 95% of the time. I can't think of a game where that isn't the case.

Survival difficulty is insane, even if I am used to very difficult situations in games. I can die in 2-3 hits at level 31 to Legendaries, wearing Polymer BOS armor. Something like withered Ghouls will kill me in 2-3 hits, and legendary enemies willl need to be killed twice every time. A deathclaw will take 7 missiles the first time and about 3 fatmen after mutation.

It really is the most difficult combat I have experienced recently in a game, mainly because of how Beth have spiked up damage and HP to insane levels. You will need to either wear Power Armor all the time or learn how to jump on containers, boxes and similar to avoid full on contact with mid to upper level enemies.

Very Hard's pretty easy when you're always rolling in Power Armor. I spec Heavy Weapons. And melee a lot on the little guys. Rarely stimpak

I have Hotkeyed jet and psycho jet And that what I use most of the time for hard fights. My biggest problem with the game is that I can seem to find an okay gun. Just situational of guns like my musket shotgun or over powered double shot combat rifle.

Definitely Survival is the only difficulty worth playing and its not really that hard, this game is pretty easy honestly, but its actually fun on Survival because you are not just killing everything with no effort at all.

Wow, youse guys are more hardcoe than I, that's for sure. I had a hell of a time getting through my first playthrough on Survival, and it's still pretty tough on my second, violence-loving character. I'm still not sure how I should handle Survival Mode once I finally get around to a melee-focused build - maybe I'll do Melee and Big Guns?

It definitely gets easier as you level up, naturally, although I'm in my mid-40s now and I don't feel like it's getting too easy. Even after emphasizing Endurance I was still pretty frail.

I really enjoy playing on Survival mode. Most of the game is a lot more fun if you have to play smart, because it feels like careful recon and skilled takedowns are rewarded.

The only times when it's super frustrating is when the quests are set up in such a way that you have to talk to an enemy face to face immediately before the fighting starts, like your encounters with Kellogg or Sinjin. It just really svcks to be stuck in those kinds of fights that act like you should be able to just stand there and chew bullets all day.

I'd normally like things to be very deadly, but I can't get along with the whole bullet sponge thing. Best is 'deadly for everyone' because that's what it would really be like with guns. Playing on normal and not bothering with armour is a good way to impart that 'realism'.

Playing on survival ofc . Always liked to play sneak + melee/unarmed in fallouts, in tactics it was outright op. Problem is, it doesnt work here. Melee/unarmed is so slow i just keep it as last resort. Still freaking fun stalking the city from corner to corner and trying to survive. I wouldn't lower the difficulty but im afraid they are going to nerf it much in later patches.

I met some legendary blood bug something on survival while lvl 18. Got hit once, then the poison drained all my hp away. Crazy.

I have my person literally 0 damage resistance. I don't wear armor and can die in a hit or two. That said I'm playing survival and still wreck most enemies with long range and shotgun if they get close. They are really bullet sponges if you have good weapons.

I rarely die and it is almost too easy. I can't imagine playing the game on normal! To each thier own though of course!

i started on normal but have increased the difficulty as i got higher and higher in level and started to one shot stuff, at lvl 69 on very hard, super mutant primals were pretty damn tanky.. until i got a minigun that had the explosive bullets trait (89damage per bullet+ 15 area damage) and now everything just melts, though ive got be real careful because i cant use it in close range or else i blow my self up as well in full X01 mark6 armour

Well dont know for the other one but when the fight started with kellog i poped up vats and got like 2 shots on his head with my shotgun and then a critical immediately after, it was funny because he was "invisible" but infront of me so he died anyways, the synths were a cakewalk after that.

Thats what i do when i got into close range fights normally.

Also loving survival mode, you would miss so much of the tension and atmosphere of the wasteland playing on anything less; it's a vast terrifying place!

25 hours in and farthest I'd dared to venture before yesterday was Diamond City and that was only a brief visit. Yesterday I set out south to see the sights, separate to my main save, got as far as the glowing sea and Vault 95, died quite a lot haha

I first played 4 Dead is Dead characters on Survival. Most of them survived until level 10.

You can manage on survival on DiD, but you have to be very combat focused and take perks in weapons, defence and armor and a lot of chems in case of an emergensy.

I also started one on hard and that feels like a much better balance for DiD if you want some more room for freedom without having to just focus on combat.

Also playing one non DiD on survival that is focusing on completing the main quest. It does get a bit bullet spoongy sometimes, but it can vary very much. I had wished they went more on the route of how Deus Ex handled the highest diff "realistic" that instead made both the player and the enemy more easy to kill.

I must have been playing a different game... survival mode is a snoozefest. Then again, I crouch when walking everywhere, I don't rush into areas and I am always scouting ahead so I barely every get jumped. The only time I died is when I am lazy or bored. Sometimes, I get through areas while wearing the stupid +2 cha suits because I forget to switch back to my armor... why are you guys having such a hard time?

Oh I should probably point out I went all crafting on my character so I had modded weapons and armor. My favorite is a the .45 cal assault rifle (dont remember which it was) but it did about 50 damage per bullet and had good range and firing speed. I found so much 45 cal ammo I actually couldnt run through it fast enough. When I stopped playing at about level 27 I had like 2000 ammo still... never mind the 3000 .38 ammo and 4000 energy cells.... My backups were a 10mm with 30% armor penetration (excellent weapon but very short range), a sniper laser good but a lot is resistant to energy, and a sniper .38 pipe gun with 50 radiation damage (which seems to be completely useless as nothing, not even humans, seem to be vulnerable to radiation even with 3 points invested into the int nuclear perk).