My build is stealth sniper. it pretty much breaks the game.

I started at normal and it was more enough for me in the start, at around level 40 i switched to hard, was able to single hit to kill most as I mostly sneak and most enemies are far lower level than you.

And yes dying and reloading is part of the game, I play with endurance of 2 and no endurance perks, found in FO3 and Skyrim than keeping my health low makes the game more interesting.

One issue in Oblivion was that both you and enemies ended up with giant health pools but with limited damage.

You had to hit the enemies a lot to kill them, they also had to hit you a lot to kill you and you could always drink an restore health potion.

I see can how that goes after about level ~10?

But what about the first levels? What do you do to level up until you get a decent scoped weapon and enough sneak to be effective?

What about starting SPECIAL? What about perk sequence? Do you just run away from stuff you cannot handle early on?

Also, a big one for me I've found on Hard is: explosives, they are frickin' LETHAL on hard. It almost seems like: Sneak to 4 and Armorer to as high as possible are the most important skills for a Hard play through, if you don't want to be using "VATS scan" to look for land mines all the time, AND avoiding mobs that can one-shot you with a single frag.

I am the same. I think by that level, the differences between the difficulties will tend to be negligible, though it is true that, you get the surprise random "upper tier" that you just cannot put down and which dishes out hardcoe damage.

Mainly I'm curious about "How to play one complete play through Dead is Dead on Hard." Can it be done? How would it be done?

If that can be done, and one has done it, then step it up to Very Hard and try the same thing.

I always start on normal. Oce I get comfortable I restart on hard. As to strategy, I kind of take things slow, work more on leveling.

First playthrough was on normal to get to know the game, my second playthrough is on very hard. I had to change tactics between the two playthroughs, because on normal you can basically rush through a dungeon/raider base/whatever without problem as you need only a few shots per enemy, while on very hard the enemies are very bullet-spongy and often require a carefully planned course of action. Also on normal I was very seldomly dying [I think after the deathclaw in Concord I only died two or three times in a ~100 hours playthrough, mostly because of falling from buildings], while on very hard dying is common, especially at lower levels.

Been playing on survival since level one,just like a challenge.I'm level 21 and it's challenging at times but that's what I like I wanna be pushed and want to think my fights through and I'm not a sneak build either I am automatic weapons and demolition.

yes at high level you get some high level enemies in the mix who have very much health and might have other features like stealth.

not seriously much more damage, this depend on weapons and rocket launchers and fatman rules here, you run into both at low level.

Some legendary enemies will use the legendary weapon against you.

An legendary automatic laser rifle with radiation damage hurt.

So no one is playing, or has managed to play on Hard (or harder) from start to high level while adhering to a "reasonable" Dead is Dead ethos? (reasonable meaning you make some allowance for dying and reloading as a result of game glitches, or external factors [dog starts puking just as you get into a fight and you get distracted from the game, etc.])?

I think I'm going to try this, and I encourage anyone else who wants to take up the challenge!

I do have some mods installed that make the game a bit easier, but also one that makes it harder (and scales as you like)

AmmoMass is my first forays into fiddling with the FO4Edit and I haven't managed to get it to work yet. Intent is to add weight to ammo, ranging from 0.012 to about 0.1, and 1 for fusion cores I think.

The MoreWeaves and Armorsmith Extended definitely make it easier by allowing most outfits to receive weaves of various tier and also to be worn under armor pieces.

At 5x the Customize Legendary Spawn will make it harder to survive, but also progressively easier to thrive as you loot better legendary weapons.

I play on hard, as normal is just a wee bit too easy. I don't like kicking it up any further than that though because bullet sponges isn't a satisfying way to increase difficulty.

In early levels, I use the power armor a lot. The one advantage of the T-45 (which is otherwise the pipe pistol of power armors) is that the only material needed to fix it is steel and a small amount of circuitry for the torso, all of which can be found almost everywhere so you can repair it in the field when you run across a power armor station.

As to dying and reloading, I have my own little death system. Because dying and reloading feels a little cheesy, but because I'm not willing to commit to the hardcoe dead is dead style play, I do a sort of hybrid approach. Every night I make sure my character sleeps, and when he wakes up in the morning I make a waking save (I do a named save in the console that includes the date, but any 'new save' will do just so it won't be written over). If my character dies, I have to go back to his 'waking save' ... the idea being that it was a dream. That way, I have to be really careful because dying could cost me a lot of progress ... but not cost me my entire character.

Yeah, I know, it's silly, but it works for me.

That is definitely a better system than just reloading from the most recent save!

Honestly, for me, Hard, Very-Hard and Survival are only really possible with a stealth build as I am not all that good at melee.

Admittedly, it can be rough going for the first 30 levels or so, but, honestly, it's all about using weapons, armors and your surroundings to your advantage. Cover is your friend, as are companions (as with most Beth games).

I will admit that, when I am playing on Very-Hard or Survival, I almost always spend the first 10-12 levels around Sanctuary just dealing with lower level enemies and building things and gathering equipment before I head out in to the real world.

Sure, there are deaths, but, as I've gotten better, there are a lot less of them.

Personally, I can only play on the higher difficulties now that I've been through the game a few times and know how the AI works on the NPC's. Strategy and tactics.

i switched to very hard around maybe level 10. also, i have a stealth sniper, but put more emphasis on settlements, so more or less charisma perks instead of damage perks. also i don't upgrade my weapons or armor as well as i could, so i might not be as heroic as i could be. i'm not a very good stealth sniper.

i can often take out a village full of raiders or even gunners without much trouble, but there are a few enemies that sneak up on me. i have the sniper rifle for range, but still use a 10mm for mid range and a shotgun for close fighting. on occasion when i get killed, i have to figure out a better way to address the situation. there are times it's taken a few attempts. i think a lot of the fun in those instances is formulating a strategy to kill something that outlevels me, which is probably going to mean shooting at it, running away, then shooting again. other times is a combination of artillery -> snipe -> 10mm -> drugs -> shotgun. other occasions i'll run back to base and get the power armor, then just blow stuff up. while that doesn't work with 'dead is dead,' i think it's more fun to learn the mechanics and what options are available, make a plan, and execute the plan.

The additional bonus to my system is that I have my characters entire history available due to the sleep saves.

My current character's name is Morgan Quinn. I chose the name as an experiment, as both names are names Codsworth will use so I wanted to see whether he would use the first or last name. He calls my character Mr Quinn. At any rate, when I do the waking saves I save them in the console so I can name them. My format is initials and date so for example my last save was named MQ11-23-87.

I can litterally go back to almost any date in my characters history and pick up again from there if I wanted. It's easy for me to find the most recent save prior to a game breaking bug to avoid the bug, or to explore an alternate story path or to just go back to Halloween so that I can check out the decorations that I missed while out adventuring on my 'real' timeline.

Survival since day 1.

dropped down to Very hard after first month.

it's not much less hard, per se, but it at least lets you use the billions of stimpacks & makes them relevant again.

*raises toast*

"Here's to John Sawyer, Obsidian, and Fallout New Orleans!"

>clink<

I have been playing DiD quite allot recently, mainly on the Hard and V. Hard settings and tbh it's getting kinda tedious. On the V. Hard setting i met my first Legendary (hound) at lvl 2 just outside Concord, needless to say it was all over pretty fast and a quick trip back to the vault for a restart, this has happened a number of times now.

What I am now doing is starting off at normal setting then upping the difficulty every 7 levels until i get to V. Hard so basically at lvl 21 i am on the V.Hard and then keep it there. I have found this method to be far more enjoyable. It's a much slower pace, no charging about and just killing everything in sight as a little more thought has to go into the engagement. I also start with a fairly rounded build (4, 4, 4, 6, 6, 2, 2) with the special book going to luck (for the 22 total) so i am not OP like some builds can get you.

There is still the odd upset with a fat man and another trip back to the vault but on the whole i get to progress much further before the inevitable.

I play survival and honestly, it's not that hard. Just make sure you know the build you're going for, and start taking the combat focused perks 1st, if dying a lot is a big concern for you...


My starting perks (stealth):


S 2

P 5

E 1

C 4

I 3

A 7

L 7


Once I collect all the bobbleheads, I'll have access to all the perks necessary for my stealth build.


Also, what exactly do you mean by "dead is dead"? Anytime you die you start a new character? That's pretty hardcoe!

When i started the game i ran away and hid a lot.

Slowly built up my toughness with incremental improvements of weapons and armour and later on took revenge on those foes who gave me a hard time.

i started the game with high intelligence and high strength which is good for melee and fast levelling up.

I did have a couple of problems with running away and stalking the target early on because sometimes i couldn't find them.

One particular lady with a target above her head was very hard to find as she had gone up on one of the ruined elevated roads and I was looking for her on the ground.

It took me ages to find the way up there.

Anyway they are easier to deal with early on if you can separate them from their supporters.

The hardest bit for me early on was the quest where you rescue the radio chap and get Strong as a companion.

That took a few goes and lots of landmines.

Yes, when you die that's it, back to the beginning and lvl 1 though for me personally it's actually back to Sanctuary and a save at the point where i have scrapped most of the stuff there so lvl 1 and a smidge.

Started my first char on Very Hard. Discovered Survival and tossed my Very Hard guy. It's been Survival all the way since. I play the hardest settings available in any game I play.

Great fun and nearly hard enough to demand some tactical thought. Still I understand it now and it's a bit of a walk in the park. At around level 60 my guy became impossible to kill and I parked him at level 65 while I contemplate my betrayal of everyone.

My level 29 guy is doing well with a full auto build and very seldom uses PA. That's really to handicap myself and to explore the normal armors which I ignored the first playthough..

I could do a DiD on Survival now but I'm not going too. Too much work, and this is my toy.

Well my dear puppy, I play on Survival with a modded dmg multiplier.

Offers more than a challenge but doesn't make me hairless, so it works.

Throwing Tacks gets it; and yeah, a "very early Level 1" save is legit. Totally get why you'd make it "post-Sanctuary scrapping"

So how far have you made it before dying Tracks?

That would get old really quick for me. How many characters have you started now? Have you completed the game?

he said... mods.

Nope, have not completed ANY of the faction quests. Neither have I ever "finished" Skyrim. Nor FO3, nor FONV. In aggregate probably ~4000 total hours of play on all those games, and I have honestly NEVER finished them.

I did finish FO2 many, many years ago. I've never understood the allure of "finishing" gamesas games (or Jagged Alliance or many other genres). Civilization, yeah, I've completed no-reload playthroughs in that game many, MANY times, and also games like Arma where you complete a mission.

In total, looks like 11 characters. Maybe 13 if you count ones I made but then didn't actually play more than ~1 hour. Two or three characters account for the lionshare of play time though. I had one Character (4th of 5th one, "Elsa Randloph") that I played for ~300 hours up to level 74 and she only died once (On Normal, but with maybe 10 or 15 hours of 'checking out Hard/V Hard/Survival once the toon was past level 60). My current play hasn't been DiD and has really just been exploratory.

I'm tempted to try a DiD Hard playthrough, though using the "post-Sanctuary scrapping" save or something similar.

I think if I can survive long enough to get Sneak 4 and/or Armorer 4 (for dense armor mod) at that point, survival won't be that tough as the random "boom" that kills you instantly will be taken out of the equation. Then it is just a matter of "Good FPS best practices"