I don't know, what level are these people?

The game was a bit challenging levels 1 to ~15 and now it's pretty challenging at level 80 if I don't kill something with a sneak attack.

I read an article about a guy who tried to play the game without ever leaving Sanctuary. I was thinking about doing something similliar to that, and then when Sanctuary is strong enough I would start making runs outside the borders and try to avoid situations where violence is sure to ensue.

It will be interesting for sure!

Normal isn't normal though, its insanely easy, hard is easy, survival is about normal. Have you been in the .esp? The enemies are a joke, I spent hours upon hours buffing them so I could die once in a while. Most have plenty of HP but their damage is pitiful. Try this: bring down console, do god mode. Now spawn a high level Gunner, keep spawning one till he gets laser of plasma ( so you can see where the shots go) Now, stand still in zoomed out 3rd person. He will miss like 60-70% of his shots. I had to give tons of NPC's an accuracy perk, or a damage perk to make the game playable. On average I made the game about 3X-4X as dangerous to get a playable experience, playable to me meaning I can actually die if I let my guard down. Not "hmm, I could go and take a piss while being shot at... but I might possibly die while I'm away so I guess I'll pause it" difficulty level.

That's not what most people think of when "avoiding conflict" in an FO game. That's just sneaking past everything which is incredibly easy when built for it. Avoiding conflict usually means having branching quests and dialog that allows for you to actually change how the quest proceeds. Something FO4 sorely lacks.

I come from Stalker. My favorite game of all. There are modded versions of Stalker so hard it is ridiculous.

I started playing on Survival and went south. At level 7 I almost killed a Behemoth. I arranged his near death by kiting Deathclaws around the place and having them fight each other. I almost had him but he finally broke into the building I was hiding in and boom. I died, I laughed.

I arrange to have people die in Stalker. I will help in their death but tactics is what I use to get things to not be a problem anymore.

I'm an old man. I like to show up and loot the bodies. I can fight, well, but I kinda think I've failed if I have to.

No way. I think the reason Bethesda's always designed their games on the easy side is because they don't want there to be any "wrong" ways to play the game. If the difficulty is designed such that you had to focus on your combat skills from the getgo, and only the best strategies were viable... well, that's how you get complaints about dump stats, or players feeling pigeonholed in a system that's supposed to be open-ended.

It's really okay for some builds to have an easier time than others - I doubt any developer could balance a game that effectively. But if the game was so hard you couldn't play a weaker character, well, that would be a whole lot fewer ways to play.

I think the difficulty on Survival is just about right. I think the problem though is that the creatures don't scale enough to your level. At level 30 I have played on survival with no automatic weapons and don't find it very difficult. I did have my very hard moments in the past where copious amounts of drugs were consumed but now with power armor it's rare I need drugs.


I'm pretty happy with it though. I have no desire to play on a level of say max difficulty on oblivion where it takes 10 hits to kill a radroach.


Plus I still have to sneak a lot. Certain places like the glowing sea are very dangerous even with power armor.


I did try the game first on normal and found it pathetic so I started over on survival.


So far the most difficult battle was one where the enemy had a stealth boy (more enemies seem to have them on survival) and I literally couldn't see him and his gun would kill me in about 2 seconds of being shot. Lots of drugs there haha.

Says you! I stopped reading after your first sentence.

Some of us don't play the game to be insanely challenged. IMO, you should be able to play an RP any way you want to. Sometimes, when I'm lazy or doing my settlements I play on very easy, sometimes, when I'm wanting a challenge, I change over to very hard or survival.

Games, especially Beth games are designed to play the way you want to.

If you want a game with insane difficulties, Lord knows there are plenty out there. Try playing Alien - Isolation on NIghtmare. Now that was a frustrating experience. I had an easier time with Bloodborne's.

I don't disagree, but I also use the same methodology in Skyrim, F3 and Oblivion. I realized a long time ago that a weakness in all the games was that there truly was no option to diplomatically solve 99% of the conflicts so I settled for avoidance rather than negotiation. I even have a 100+ level character in Skyrim that has never killed anything or anyone using that method.

If that's what you took away from his post then you have problems, as people repeatedly stated if you don't want to be "insanely challenged" you're free to play on easy or normal. The point people are trying to make here is that even survival is piss easy from a challenge standpoint, all it makes you do is waste more ammo and time because the enemies are literally bullet sponges.

No one's asking to turn this game into dark souls, they just want meaningful difficulty options.

For who? I am sorry if the most difficult setting that this particular developer comes up with is "too" easy for y'all, but, if that is the case then you either need to mod the heck out of your game or find another franchise.

The consensus from this kind of post is that all game should only cater to those people who (and I do not understand them at all), apparently are so "good" at playing these games that they can one-shot a god, or, in the case of F4, a Legendary Deathclaw or Chameleon Deathclaw, a Mirelurk Queen or a Behemoth while on Survival.

I can guarantee that the majority of people that play these games do not have that experience.

If you have decided that your character is completely OP and that you have exploited every single thing to create a God Like character then that's your bad, not the rest of us.

I like to play on Survival occasionally, but it's plenty difficult and I certainly don't want it to be even harder.

A challenge is one thing, but insanity is another thing completely.

I am sure that, for most of us, we want a challenge and to enjoy ourselves, not frustration and an obligation to make ourselves so ultra-powerful that nothing can stand against us so then we need to complain that it isn't hard enough so the developer should penalize everybody else to cater to our "amazing" skills and "incredible" build.

Yup, because Beth has made no investment beyond making sure the game is balanced on default. Thats where their market is so that's where they put all the effort. If it was me I'd reduce hit points and the amount in stashes on the higher levels rather than leaving everything the same and changing the damage .

Either your reading comprehension is extremely bad or I'm going crazy here.

Let's clarify some things. I don't find survival in FO4 hard, I find it tedious and annoying. In a game like FO4 ramping up the difficulty just by making enemies have more hp, and do more damage while reducing your damage is a cop-out. This way of balancing things should die in a fire. Tweaking the AI etc. is the way to go.

As you say the majority of people do not have that experience, good for them. That's what easy and normal are there for. No one is forcing you to play survival, no one will make fun of you if you don't.

Again, about your last point. NO ONE IS FORCING YOU TO PLAY IN A SPECIFIC WAY, you can play naked and never fight once till you finish the game for all I care. All people are asking for is a meaningful challenge. No one gets penalized, or catered to in your expense because you would still have the options of the lower difficulties, those aren't going anywhere and no one is asking for their removal. More meaningful choices in a game are always good.

My kellog's pistol crit/luck build decimates everything. I could murder behemoths for fun at lvl 30. I'm not some uber-skilled video game wizard, and my build literally requires no mechanical skill. Pop VATS, crit crit crit -> everything's dead. Woo-hoo... such challenge much difficulty. That should not be happening.

Find another franchise? Wow. You clearly started playing this franchise at FO3, huh? And your argument makes no sense. People are saying there should be more options so that EVERYBODY is catered to. Not just those who want more difficulty. You're literally arguing against something that would in no way effect you yet would make a lot of players happy.

Ha! Beat ya to it.

personally, my ideal experience would be damage is the same for everyone vaguely human and fairly cinematicly "realistic" . You know shots to arms impair limbs, if headshots don't kill, you certainly don't get to shoot back accurately immediately but thebad guys cleverer with more varied tactics. maybe difficulty could dial this up and down. Bullet sponging humans just make me angry by their very existence.

Add a few dodges and rolls and call it a day

Again. Not my experience at all. Kellogg's gun is great, don't get me wrong, but decimate everything? It doesn't even do that much damage.

Lucky you that you're so awesome that you can do that, but, as I said, most of us aren't. And why should I be limited to the very easy or normal? As I said, I like survival. Sometimes I like a challenge. Beth has always based their difficulty levels on the enemy doing more damage and you less. Did you expect different?

There are plenty of games out there that are for those folks that like the insane difficulties, but, you know what the difference is? Most of those games do not have a mode that I can play on enjoyably. They are just punishing.

I like Survival because, while difficult, it is still doable. I still say: If you want challenges like that, play something else. Beth does not design it's games that way. Mods will come. Just wait for them.

Very well said, my good man. Agree on all points.

I'll take your word for it, but that hasn't been my experience. (Sure, now that I'm lv55 & well-perked/geared, a lot of regular enemies are easy. But that wasn't the case through much of the game. And I can still get mangled if I stroll into, say, Gunner HQ.)

Oh, this is on normal.

(also, this is a wonderful example of what I was saying earlier, about different people having different skill levels & ideas of what "hard" is.)

edit: and I agree that it would be nice if Beth was better at difficulty, so that "hard" actually satisfied a bit more of the playerbase. But they aren't good at it, they've always done difficulty by just upping HP. Every previous game of theirs I've played, people have had to wait for uber-masochist mods to get their game on.

VATS is cheating. Come here son, let me explain a few things.

I decided after leaving ESO that my crafting would be my way forward in this game. I have created a monster, but that's my fault. I play with Super Mutants and love that they have nukes. I was laughing my ass off last night as my T60e smoked around the place, yup it's real fast when properly tricked out, as nukes exploded all around me. They did not have much of a chance as I tend to be all over the place and when they lose me, another one dies to a head shot. I did beat the last one down with a big hammer but that's just me.

I have never used VATS, always thought it was cheating, and have managed to dominate all the Fallout 3D games.

Lots of players happy? Who are these players, that tiny .003% of players that constantly whine about Bloodborne and Demon Souls being too easy?

Oh please. Yes, I started at FO3, but I went back and played FO1 & 2. I can honestly say I do not enjoy turn based, Isometric style games. They were okay, but, honestly, who cares? They are ancient (in videogame terms).

Move on. Beth will NEVER create the games you and your ilk so obviously want. They will cater to the "average" player. The player who does not obsess about insane difficulty levels.

You can be as insulting as you want, but I can guarantee you that I have put more hours in to Beth games over the years than you can even imagine and do not believe that, just because a game was one way and catered to a small audience that it should always be that way.

I don't play Bloodborne, I don't play Souls. I also don't play CoD or Destiny. It's my choice.

I like Beth games the way they are. If you want to mod the heck out of them and warp them in to something that the average player can't use or enjoy, fine, more power to you, but why must you handicap and limit us? As I said, I like very easy, particularly when I'm looking for resources, but I like Survival when I'm headed in to the City and South because those are about combat and survival.

I RP. RPing in this game does not mean that I must become a God with the best armor and weapons and then test that OP build and exploited insanity against unrealistic enemies. I don't care how amazing a ghoul is. It is NOT going to take 5 mini-nukes to damage it. A behemoth is scary, yes, but it shouldn't take the entirety of the BoS and Institute armory to take it out.

If there is no chance then where is the fun.

Dying is not an enjoyable endeavor.

I was merely offering an example of how stupidly easy FO4 can be, you just provided another one, which strengthens the point I was trying to make: survival difficulty in this game is trivial.

You don't want to be limited to normal and easy mode, but you want to keep survival trivial for a large number of people just so you can play on that difficulty? And you have the nerve to say we want to be catered to.... Yeah, that sounds reasonable.

Still easily fixed though, we'll call the new mode "super survival" so you can keep telling your friends you play on survival.

I just started the main quest and I'm level 60 thinking I'm a bad ass and over powered now. I leveled mainly doing MM quests and Idiot Savant perk is riduclous. But survival is no joke. Even with my VATS Ninja build, Kellogg owned me bad. I don't know how some of you at level 10 even got to Kellogg playing in Survival. I won't spoil how I killed him eventually and his Synths but I don't believe anyone who said they beat Kellogg at low level in SURVIVAL difficulty.

A game where you have to nerf yourself in order to not become overpowered is not scaled correctly. You should always be looking for the next perk or item that will make you just strong enough to cope.

If you use VATS the game is much easier. You talking about how easy it is then admitting you use VATS is ludicrous.