I'm about to start my second playthrough, and I want to use a few mods that caught my eye the first time I played, unfortunately they all make the game quite a bit easier, so I'm after some mods to swing the balance back the other way.

The mods I want to try are -

Bobblehead Hunt - because there was a distinct lack of reward for exploring in vanilla
Reinforced Chinese Stealth Armour - because it looks awesomesauce
Perk Every Level - because leveling up on odd numbers felt like a bit of a non event

All I've got to balance it so far is no auto aim. Anyone got an suggestions? Something that makes the AI notice when you stealth kill something 2 feet from where they are standing would be nice.

Have you thought about using http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=34759?

Yeah, I've tried it, don't really like it. Arwen kinda breaks itself if you increase the difficulty level. I already play on Very Hard and Arwen at normal isn't really any harder. It just makes the whole "shooting in the head is the only viable tactic" thing even more prevelant.

I found http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=35015 on the nexus. if that doesn't do it try doing a search while there, you know better than anyone else what you want from you gaming experience.

Arwen's was designed to play on Normal. It makes the game hard enough on that difficulty level already.

At least, it will in the future. Right now it's not complete yet. But once that hardcoe module is finished... You should see the FO3 version.

Well that's sort of my problem, I've trawled through nexus and can't find anything I like, was hoping some people knew of some stuff that isn't posted there, or something I might have missed. I don't like mods that claim to make the game more difficult by slowing leveling rates or increasing the hardcoe stuff. That doesn't really make the game harder. When you are lower level you are also fighting stuff that is lower level so it really doesn't make a huge amount of difference, you just don't see the tougher stuff until much later in the game and increasing the hardcoe rates just means you have to go into your pipboy and click stuff more often, which isn't harder, just inconvenient. You're never more than a few feet from a water source, food or a bed.

What I'm after is something that smooths out the curve so that you become less of a tank at the end of the game but doesn't achieve this by just making everything take 50 head shots to kill. Slower back pedaling is a nice example, I'll be using that. Stuff that makes the actual combat harder as opposed to just increasing non combat obstacles like how much stuff you can carry.

Randomized Snow Globes
http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=35512
- Moves the snow globes around so they're not always in the same place.

Also look for anything that randomizes things, like moving quest objectives to a different location, etc. for replays. (I made a mod for FO:3 that randomized where the skillbooks appeared. It's still on my to-do list for FO:NV.)

I suggest a weight re-balance mod, something that makes chems and the like have weight. Maybe a hardcoe balance mod where you have to drink/eat/sleep more often.

Something that adds increased spawn points might be good.

Again, nice ideas but I really don't consider those to be difficulty improvements (apart from the increased spawns) Not being able to find a snow globe isn't going to help you kill a deathclaw, and having to go back to a merchant to sell stuff more often isn't going to make a ghoul more challenging.

I'm specifically after mods like auto aim that makes the actual combat in the game harder. What I really want, but can't seem to find, is a mod that makes stealth criticals less achievable on groups of NPCs. In vanilla you can take out whole groups of deathclaws just by shooting one of them in stealth. Non of the others go into caution mode, and the one you shot will walk towards you by itself.

That would be an AI improvement package mod, of which I haven't seen one yet for FO:NV.

(And the one for FO3 was okay, but not great...)

Fook did it perfectly well in FO3, in fact Arwens does it well as well, I just don't want all the extra crap like reducing run speed. I really don't like mods that add tedium for the sake of "realism". But yeah, all that really needs to be done is to put anything near something you've just shot into the caution state. Even if they don't find you it at least stops you from chain sneak attacking a whole group of NPCs without them even reacting.

It would appear, what you are looking for does not exist.

Necessity breeds innovation. Maybe you should make a mod

Get Imps food mod.

Well again, I'm really not worried about immersion or realism mods. I'm after difficulty mods, as in combat difficulty, I already have a "food doesn't heal" mod, beyond that I can't see how any aspect of the hardcoe system is going to make it harder to shoot unless you make it so that you get hungry so fast that you lose stat points mid fight, but then that would be pretty annoying.



Not yet no, but there are several in the works, was just hoping someone might have been close to releasing something close to what I'm after. I mean really what I'm after in Marts Mutant Mod with soft unleveling, ghoul rampage and increased spawns as well as some of the Fook tweaks to stealth and AI. Unfortunately those are a long way off.

http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=34836
http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=35715
http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=35998 (radioactive storms can be a great challenge)
http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=35171 (though depending on your playstyle, this could be more annoying than difficult to use)
http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=34954

I use Hardercore from Rhoark and it's amazing but it alters some things in immersion and realism , so for you i think it's a no-go

Why don't you try http://newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=34921 ? i've never used it myself but the premise seems very good.

:facepalm:

I've tried that one. It's totally imbalanced, it basically makes light armour completely worthless and Power Armour = God mode. At least you understand what I'm asking for so thanks for the suggestion

The gold standard is either Arwen_NV_Realism_Tweaks or Puce Moose Tweak and Balance Center http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=35015

I use a mix of both.

Jesus christ, I think just about every mod has been posted in this thread. Go look for yourself instead of letting others stab wildly in the dark at what you're looking for. Or better yet, make your own to suit your needs (It would be as easy as editing values in your case)

I am actually looking for exactly the same type of mod, and agree with you that increasing the tedious aspect of gameplay does not make the game harder, just less fun. I just started my second playthrough with the "fallout - new fps" that somebody recommended to me on a different forum:

http://newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=34736

So far so good, but I'm not far from the start. If you've tried this one, let me know what you thought of it.

Put on your Reinforced Chinese Stealth Armour and find some Deathclaws.

At this point I think that the only way to make the game more challenging is to enforce some RPing decisions. Try a non violent character, a melee tribal, a dandy who wants only the best suits and no crude weaponry or food... Possibilities are endless if you use your imagination.

The Perk every level mod is only game breaking if you powergame when picking your character's perks, if you go for some perks that are of minor use it won't be game breaking.

Likewise bobbleheads add points to stats but stats are not that important and the difference is probably not that huge -a minor boost to everything that's true but not as overpowered as some custom modded weapons or armours for instance.

IMO the Reinforced Chinese Stealth Armour is probably the thing that will break your game and make it too easy. My advice would be to lower its stats or edit it in some way as to make it useful but not too powerful.

No Fast Travel (and you don't need a mod for that) does make the game more difficult by the way (but it wil increase the number of encounters so it also means more XP). hardcoe mode is pointless when you use fast travel and teleport all over the map (something that is both cheesy and incredibly easy). No Vats is also a fun way to make the game more challenging (if you use vats in the first place of course).

Other than that my advice would be to try to RP a character that will do certain things and won't do other things depending on the background. I could think of a down on his luck gambler/scoundrel the blacksheep from a well off family who enlisted as a courier but really wants to get enough caps to enjoy the easy living he's grown accustomed to and who despite being broke won't do tasks that he deems to be beneath him... That's just an example. Playing such a character will probably make for a different game if not a more challenging one.

I gave that one a shot but it kind of kills the RPG elements of the game, armour, weapon and ammo choices all become a little trivial and HP and survivability remain virtually the same from level 1 to 30. I don't think the improvement in combat is worth sacrificing a huge chunk of the leveling curve.




Look I know you're trying to help, and I do appreciate it, but I've said so many times that I'm looking for combat difficulty increases. Things that I'm definitely not interested in would be role playing, increasing hardcoe rates, walking everywhere, slowing down how fast you can travel between places, reducing the amount of stuff you can carry, increased radiation rates etc. Basically anything that concerned with "immersion" or "realism" probably isn't going to be what I'm after. None of these things make the game harder, unless you consider clicking a sink slightly more often difficult. You are no more likely to die with the arguable exception of walking everywhere, which does mean you have to fight more random things during the course of the game, but it's virtually always stuff you've killed previously. Repetition isn't a particularly exciting challenge for me.

What I'm after are mods like this ( ive only got working mods for the first two)

No Auto Aim
No healing food/drink
Increased AI reaction from stealth attacks
Soft leveled lists (random higher level spawns)
Increased spawn numbers
Slower stimpack healing
Increased damage from enemies with guns at higher levels(without increasing your damage vs them or making them drop more powerful weapons)

That kind of thing, stuff that makes it harder to kill and easier to die without just turning every enemy into a bullet sponge (they are already spongy enough) or putting the player in situations where they can be 1 shot killed as that realistic battle and combat dynamics mod does.

Reading this thread makes me want to hurt myself. I really don't get how so many people can confuse tedium with difficulty. If I didn't know better I'd think that you people played / still play EverQuest or something, because I know from reading and posting on their forums that waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too many people still confuse tedium with difficulty.

what you call tedium is good roleplaying for others. Imho, worrying about things like food, radiation, caps, scavenging and the like fit the "after the nuke wasteland" setting of the game. Some players want to more heavily roleplay the setting or make it more of a survival sim(in zombie games they might like Fort Zombie -admittedly a poor example - or the in-development Dead State) while others just want to get into the combat side more (Dead Rising, Left for Dead). To each his own eh?