Currently carrying 536 stimpacks and the inventory just keeps growing. Had to start storing Radaway and RadX since they have weight. No matter how many I store, I always end up with at least 20 in my inventory by the end of any adventure.

Sneaky sniper is the norm not the exception. The game forces you into it from lvl1 to 10 unless running away from everything is your style.

I'm a Borderlands style player so auto weapons and their perks are very important. I also don't use PA I want to be able to move fast and run away if required. So the toughness perks are also required asap.

It is very hard to recommend a difficulty to anyone because you need to know what kind of player you are. If you are a turn base gamer that pauses the game anytime it gets heated then easy to normal will be about it.

If you like the heat then Hard to Survival mod is for you. I never noticed the bullet sponge thingy since I have always softened up my targets with a few well placed nads.

A 15 minute Borderland style attack on Gunners Plaza vid. Game difficulty is Very Hard note all the legendary gunners don't really pose much harder to kill.

I am not a settlement maker I've only heard about the MM from the Quincy ruins. Drugs and high end arms dealing is my game so there is no need to pickup dirty ashtrays or clipboards

WARNING: discovery spoiler are in the video.

https://youtu.be/hLEkfTrwztM

hth and don't give up. DiD can be very rewarding and keeps you observant also light steps perk is a cop out please don't take that and remove have the games difficulty.

play stealth sniper build so once that gets going survival is very easy

main problem with this games difficulty is no AI improvement when increasing difficulty

for start of game yeah it can be hard on the harder difficulties but i few things i use to get me going

first explore the areas around sanctuary, theres plenty of unmarked loot locations (lots of which theres no enemies and just shiny shiny loot) and very small enemy pockets, also theres the 44 pistol which although you only get like 6 rounds for is an awesome get the [censored] out of jail card if needed at early level. the sentry bot at the robot disposal ground can be used for runs too just follow it and use it as a shield. There is a hell of a lot of unguarded loot within an immediate vicinity. this gives great start to game with drugs/ammo/armour (10mm pistol you already got and thats excellent) but also all the stuff for selling. with all the junk/ammo/weapons/food/drugs etc you can find you will have a great account to start buying up what you need at drumlin dinner which is right next door pretty much. also gaining all this junk early and easily allows you to pimp arms&armour very quickly which makes a huge difference

you can have a pretty awesome 10mm without any ranks in gun nut and even better with gun nut 1 which only requires you to be level 3.

radstags. radstags usually run from player (except legendaries) so are really good source of xp but also radstag meat. cooked radstag meat is good healing but also good caps. they can be bullet svcks but dogmeat sicks them good and theres tonnes of 38 at start of game, just dont waste your 10mm on them save that for the real fights

dogmeat, dogmeat is great tactical advantage, you can use him to distract enemies. especially good to charge him in to aggro enemies then run him out and behind some trees or something. most time enemies will chase him round in circles while you blast away at them.

drugs. completely unnecessary for my build once gets going but in early game drugs make a huge difference and turn many battles from no chance to cake walk and they everywhere.

crops. not only do we all know the 3 crops of goodness for adhesive but they sell for a pretty penny too. abernathy farm is right next to sanc and you can pick their crops any time you want without owning them. caps stack up quickly from those

if you a melee build theres a great weapon not far from start and you dont have to cross anything difficult to get it. general zhous chicken for sale at drumlin diner. yep its expensive but there is so sooo much loot to be had at start including all the high priced drugs you can find that its easily affordable. even for a non melee build such as mine it is an awesome weapon for start of game. drumlin diner is easy to get to and you can even get there easily without encountering a single fight (except you know when you first get there, the trudy and wolfgang thing). the sword saves on ammo and basically makes all the melee enemies very easy at start of game.

also at drumlin dinner, if you lucky you can find some great starting weapons there with decent mods, ammo can be an issue though.

dont underestimate the power of the double barrel shotgun its brutal at close range, dont reload though get your 2 shots off then switch. only reload when you have the time as it can cost you dearly otherwise

cover, the cover mechanic svcks but is still very useful at start of game. including just squatting behind trees. get yourself decent position to start the fight and you can control the fight.

for the deathclaw in concord i try to use the cars as much as possible blow as many of them up while its next to them as possible

large bayonet on pipe rifle at start of game does ridiculous damage and requires no gun nut rank

start any fight you can on your own terms. this is probablyt the most important for me, if you can control the start of the fight from where you want you can control the whole fight (usually). the 10mm pistol is my main weapon at start (and untill i get a sniper and only gets replaced when i get deliverer) so i like to start fights if i can at max range, higher ground (dont think makes difference in this game but its drilled into me), with surrounding cover and an exit plan worked out so if i need to boost im boosting to cover and/or im not gonna aggro other enemies. unfortunately theres no binos in this game but you can still scout an area, see how many/where they are/ how they armed enemies and plan accordingly. if you just charge in on survival you gonna have a bad time.

thats all i can think of off top of head

edit: oh yeah, forgot about explosives. very powerful on the hard levels

Are you honestly comparing Borderlands to Fallout?

Talk about apples to alligators - okay apples to pears. Close, but far apart.

If you're so unhappy with it, why don't you go back to playing Borderlands?

I've never been good at "shootem" up games, so I play on very easy and easy, and that's enough for me. On strategy games like the Gal Civ and Civ games I up the difficulty level. But games like TES and FO 3 and 4, I am on easy.

It's just a difference in gaming playstyles is all...

your neurosis is a DiD playthrough...mine happens to be HAVING to complete games..if I find even the smallest amount of interest in a game, I must finish it to whatever end it has..I'm no completionist, and I also can't do the whole immersion thing in games either, I just play games, but I have this need to see the ending of games at least once...and to do a DiD, for me, would drag that out too far for my enjoyment...

however, I possibly wouldn't mind a DiD alongside others, such as some on forums..(now that I've seen FO4 to at least one ending)..honestly tho, I think I would rather do it in Skyrim...I'd rather feel like I'm competing against others, than against myself..that's another reason I can't do DiD as a normal way of playing games...I like the satisfaction of beating others (I'm a former CoD tournament player..yea I know..whatever, I was in my 20's)...

I could never do DiD with a Bethesda game as there are too many glitchy things in them so it would just be frustrating. For example. my char got stuck on a fence at Hub City Auto Wreckers during my last session and couldn't get off it.

heh, I had this happen about 3 or 4 times...I would walk by a roached out car, and for whatever reason, it would like clip to my character and insta-kill me...

(although I believe in both our cases, that would be a reasonable reload situation, in a DiD playthrough)

What!

You don't count mantraps as a legitimate death?

I think the game designers have put a few in deliberately.

That piece of wreckage poking out of the water right next to the gangplank is there to trap you if you lose your footing.

That hole in a ramp right above a gap in two walls with no way to get out wasn't an accident.

Anyway I'm quite old and remember the days of the 8 bit Nintendo console games.

Memory was very expensive back then so game saves weren't a thing.

You got a few lives and if you didn't make it you were sent back to the level start.

If someone unplugged the console or there was a power failure. Game Over. Back to the start.

I prefer game saves.

I started the Game in Survival Mode and i never changed it back. I played many Hours before i used a Mod to change the Bulletsponge. My Tactic is very simple, just getting a short Hunting Rifle with the glowing Iron Sight. There is one to 100% in Walden Point. I would like to Start with an .44 Revovler but since you can just buy Ammo with Level 16 and above it just makes no sense to wait. Funny Thing is you could get a few .44 Revovler with Level 1 but no Ammo

I like to wear a Black Suit but iam also using a Mod to wear my Legendary Armor Parts + the Suit. Iam playing with modified Survival Damage Mod. Player makes 3x more Damage (default 0,5) and Enemies making 11x more Damage (default 2,0). I dont use PA at all. I mean a like it. Its cool looking Stuff but i like my Suit more.

I also tried this more Legendary Enemies Mod for some Weeks. I even used a Version with 50x more Legendary Units, but i never saw any Different, so i changed that Value for my self to 100x and still there wasnt any Change. So i deleted it.

The Tactic itself is: Shooting, taking Cover, Reloading and ofcourse Savegame reloading sometimes.

I just try to play fairly conservatively, in the beginning of the game, I use things like cover and such to avoid getting munched up or I break line of sight when I need to recover. My initial goal is to usually bolster my armor rating which goes a long way to evening the battlefield so I try to get the Railroad quests done early for BW mod. That's really about it, focus on my primary weapon skill as well as whatever associated perk I need to customize that weapon. From that point the game becomes a bit of a cakewalk even on survival. I've skipped the ballistic weave on some playthroughs but even still it's pretty easy, albeit I can't be as aggressive. I was never a DiD type person because I would just burn out and get bored too fast starting over, rediscovering landmarks, doing quests I had already done. I mean once you reach level 20ish or so, death becomes a non issue, but before that, you can expect to die at least a few times before you start to get your build fleshed out.

Started up a new game last night on Hard, and have made it up to level 7 with no deaths. Not sure what it is but everything seems to go down fairly easily compared to my early experiences with Hard.

Might just learn to like this difficulty after all . . .

Straight out of the vault:

S: 1

P: 4 (for lockpick) E=5

E: 7 (for hp and various perks) E=11

C: 6 (for Local Leader) E=17

I: 7 (for Chemist) E=24

A: 2 E=26

L: 1 E=27

I like using lots of Chems and also enjoy VATS a lot, but for this build I wanted to buff HP and DR, so I did higher E than I usually do. Currently Level 7 and just finished getting Piper's perk so I'm all set to go exploring now and level at a good rate. I avoided discovering locations until I had Piper than I just went to the closest location with a terminal controlled safe and spammed safecracking with 3 hour wait intervals to get her to max affinity. Tedious and gamey but efficient.

I did tossle with a few of the mobs in the immediate vicinity of Vault 111 and while I did have to run from raider thrown molotovs, and eat lots of raw meat to stay alive and be able to keep fighting, with "gamey" tactics (running around dodging molotovs, killing a couple, then charging the last one and blowing their head off with VATS) it actually wasn't that hard. I think I fixated on how many shots they can absorb at range too much in my first couple tries at Hard. If you get in their face you can kill a low-tier mob in one shot to the head (or torso on a bug). The pack of mongrels kept me on my toes but I managed to take them all out too: open fire and damage one badly at range, back pedal and sidestep in hopes of keeping them at range (hopeless they immediately were on three sides of me) take some bites and then sprint away at top speed and turn and gun down one of them. Run again, and repeat. Now they are dispersed in the open and not quite so eager to attack. Crouch and go back into hide. "Snipe" one with the iron sights 10mm and provoke it to charge, switch to double barrel (looted off the raiders) and blow his head off when he is at point blank. Repeat for the last one and Voila! Level 2!

Perks by level

2 Life Giver

3 Hacker

4 Locksmith

5 Chemist

6 Toughness

7 STR+1 (to 2) + Gift of Gab + Wasteland Survival 1

Planned

8 Life Giver 2

9 Toughtness 2

10 STR +1

11 Armorer 1

12 Gun Nut 1

13 Gun Nut 2

14 Armorer 2

15 Rifleman 1

16 Rifleman 2

I'd like to do an auto weapons play through but I find I get plenty of damage out of semi-auto just by firing as rapidly as I can left click and without wasting ammo.

I figure if I can make it to level 16 without dying my chances are good to make it to the next major threshold which is Armorer 4 at Level 39 and from that point I doubt I would ever die.

BTW, anyone know if effects from armor piece stack or if the effect only applies to the body part it protects? For example, the dense armor mod, if I want to be largely impervious to explosives do I need dense on all five pieces (well six given the mod I'm using that allows armored stuff under armor)? Or is that wasted?

Well, according to how "most" DiD advocates/users seem to regard it, you can legitimately reload a save after the game or some external circumstance (power outage, drunken roommate, puking cat, whatever . . .) causes you to die. The idea is not just to be a dike to yourself, but to force yourself to play carefully, and do not get in over your head. When you just plain [censored] up, then you suffered a "legit death" and cannot both reload AND adhere to DiD. At least that is how I, and Neil and a lot of the other DiD users in the Skyrim forum seem to relate to it.

Hrrrm I always play on the hardest mode in any Bethesda open world game, and I still find it much too easy. But there are the occasional deaths when, say, I fail to realize a car is on fire next to me. I played this game so thoroughly that it will probably be a while before replaying, but maybe I will try an "ironman" playthrough. I will have to make a few exceptions for my own stupidity though...specifically, forgetting to change out of my Charisma outfit after buying stuff and then getting into a fight. That kills me more than anything, lol.

First playthrough I was like: whoooa this game is too hard for me, was playing at normal difficulty. I had absolutely no idea what stats, perks, armor, weapons to get. Was my first fallout game. At about level 10 I ditched the char and started reading about builds.

Second playthrough I switched to survival difficulty at about level ~25 to get better legendary gear and the game seemed like only 20% more difficult. Maybe cause I was playing stealth vats sniper.

Third playthoguh was rough rough. Melee at survival from level 1. And vats stealth. This means you are a glass cannon at start, and I was expecting this, all the guides said this. But you are gonna be way too overpowered at past level 30. You ain't gonna sink many points in endurance or endurance perks (in fact I didn't put any points in endurance perks). I took 10 agi for maximum vats shots and blitz, enough str to get armorer, enough charisma to get lone wanderer, enough luck to get idiot savant, 1 in perception and intelligence.

First 10 levels were a nightmare, I was being killed from like 3 bullets, so I had to push Codsworth in front to tank for me, hell, even fight for me most of the time, my sneak skill wasn't high enough to go undetected, and my hp, armor and weapon damage not high enough. Crafting shadowed and muffled leather armor helped with stealth. Blacksmith helped with upgrading weapons. I bought Rockville Slugger as soon as possible: -40% vats cost. Also, I tried to unlock ballistic weave as soon as possible. At level 20 the game became more bearable. At 25-30 game became easy. At this point you can have your strength maxed and get rooted perk, witch works with vats. Blitz level 2 and ninja level 3 will make your stealth melee char godlike - that is at level 33. Blitz practically makes your vats melee attacks ranged and x10 sneak multiplier from ninja makes you 1 hit kill everything.

That Blitz melee build sounds fun to try sometime!

Ah, ok. Might perhaps try it sometime. I sort of do a variation of it already - I often reload when messing up a fight even if my char doesn't die as I'm embarrassed and want to do it "perfectly".

But, just to take another example of Bethesda glitchiness, up until the latest beta I had this annoying issue with weapons becoming invisible/unusable when switching, so my char couldn't do anything for 10-20 seconds except avoiding damage. Wouldn't want to do a DiD playthrough when handicapped by that. But that is (more or less) fixed by the latest beta.