There's something very anticlimactic about traveling the wastes with your buddies for weeks of game time and dozens of hours of real time, only to be notified by a text message when one of them is killed. Does anybody out there NOT reload when this happens? And if you don't reload, is there anybody out there who chooses not to because of STORY reasons, or just because you're trying to play as hardcoe as possible?

Personally, I'd love to see a mechanic that actually infuses companion deaths with some drama. How about 10 seconds of 100 damage threshold and 100% VATS accuracy on whoever killed your buddy? If that's too much for a mechanic, it'd make a fun perk – "Avenger" – earned after you kill the person who killed your first companion.

no way. i would hate that. in that ten seconds you could defiantly kill whoever it was with one shot from almost any gun. what if it's the legendary deathclaw that did it? being able to kill it in one shot would ruin the experience for me.

Err... My companions are immortal... :spotted owl:

Mr. House: Well, yeah, you could take out a Legendary Deathclaw with such a perk, but you'd also permanently lose a companion, and those are way rarer than Mini Nukes, so I'm not sure that's such a bad trade.

Shinji Ex: Companions can die in hardcoe mode.

I didn't reload when Cass got zapped by a certain organization.

That doesn't count

Why not?

If I recall correctly, FarCry 2 does this well.

When my companions die in hardcoe...I'd like it to be like this. Not some cheap work either. A cinematic occurs where you kneel by them and depending on gender/sixuality (confirmed bachelor/chemmez feme blah blah/lady killer/black widow) you'll hold them in your arms and pick from a few things to say scuh as, "Come on , don't you die on me. We've been through a lot together..." or something similar.

I'd like it to have a lasting impact on the character. Like perhaps if...Cass dies (outside of scripted events), if your character drank whiskey, he'd have a higher chance of getting addicted. I'd love dramatic companion deaths, perhaps then I could finally say, "I cried when Veronica was slaughtered by a deathclaw."

A dramatic scene would be sort of cool (if it played after combat was over).

I usually reload if my companion dies because they're sort of dumb in combat. Also it seems like a lot of times the monsters will gang up on my companion instead of me, which makes them die even faster.

Whether I reload or not depends on the situation itself. I don't reload if I fail like I'm at fault with how I played. Actively taking on a tough group of enemies and having a companion die means no reload for me. But due to bugs, or to their stupid AI (no no don't run after that pack of deathclaws!), I'll reload.

Anyways, no. I prefer it being "undramatic" as it were. Perhaps I'm only having a companion tag along for my own selfish reasons, perhaps I don't care about that companion at all. Better to not assume anything for the sake of being dramatic.

This is from an engine that reduced the 3rd person view to hide the horrible animation of the legs, and your wanting scripted dramatic scenes?

There is like barely double digits in cinematics, and thats including the credits; however there are lots of various endings.

It is not in the slightest feasible, however an Avenger style perk would be handy for non-hardcoe, when your companion is unconscious you get a perk similar to Nerd Rage perhaps.

Reno

The only game that i know that has unscripted death cinematics like that is Farcry 2. If your companion is wounded you can go into a cinematic and stim them. If they are too badly wounded you will either be forced to abandon them, Shoot them or euthanize them with over stim packs.

Far Cry 2 does handle companion deaths well. I didn't cry when anybody died ... but I felt bad for screwing up, and I didn't reload.

I'm not recommending an Avenger perk because the game is too HARD, I'm recommending some kind of recognition that companions die because the mechanic for it is too anticlimactic. There's a distinction here between narrative reasons and gameplay reasons. I'm recommending tweaking the gameplay for a moment so it doesn't get in the way of the narrative – but I'm interested in the other specific suggestions.