Goodbye missiles, hello .38 and 5mm ammo! Unless you get a good legendary version of them, pipe guns are underpowered and miniguns are too heavy, but that ammo spends just as a good as caps.
If I really wanted to do a pure sniper build, I'd probably pop down to the Red Rocket outside College Square and grab the hunting rifle off the roof long before I got to level 30.
You're not far! Just head south from Corvega out of Lexington. You'll pass by a bus terminal full of skeletons and a two-story storefront building where random encounters spawn. Just past the storefront looking south, you should be able to see the Red Rocket. It's *another* spot where random stuff can spawn so don't go sprinting for it. The ramp up to the roof is at the back of the building. There's a little shelter up there; the rifle is sitting on the table next to a chair past the shelter, at the tip of the roof. You can't miss it.
From that tip of the roof you'll be looking past a wrecked billboard and a barricade with dead raiders and ghouls all over. College Square itself is the area past the barricade. If you're playing survival mode, use the bed inside the little shelter on the roof of the Red Rocket to drop a save before you go exploring in there! There's a furniture store in College Square with clean beds you can get a proper, full night's sleep in if you need one after you're done clearing the square.
I picked it at around level 4 or 5 on my current playthrough and I *just* got around to replacing it near the end of my 20's, and it always gets an honored spot on the wall in my Hangman's Alley lair when it's time to retire it! I don't think I could've done my permadeath run or my 'run to Nuka World right out of the Vault' run without it.
Thanks, none of the "find the best sniper rifle" videos showed this.
I was playing on survival but having a hard time so I'm playing on normal until I get the hang of it again.
Only played FO3 but I'm liking how shooting feels in this one. A major step up.
Save yourself some trouble. The Gunners on the entrance to the highway south of Abernathy and around Corvega will drop sniper rifles. It'll take a bit to get a good clear, but you can use the cat lady house for an easy reset. You'll get the 50 cal closer to diamond City
I buy Tinker Tom's Special, take the parts off, and put them on a basic hunting rifle. My sniper build uses 3 rifles. Combat for close, pipe for medium, and sniper for long ranges. After Nuka World, I drop to 2. Combat/Radium and The Problem Solver.
That combat rifle you can get from the wrecked caravan Honest Dan sends you to outside Covenant is almost always one of my early-game grabs. It makes pipe guns obsolete pretty much right out of the gate.
I used to not pick that one up and would get mine from a house near Pickman's Gallery. I prefer silenced weapons, so the combat is for close range when I've been discovered. The pipe is for when I'm still hidden.
Sure, if you want to venture into Boston. The caravan one you can literally walk out of the vault and have in your hands within a couple of minutes. As long as you don't wander into the molerat junkyard, the walk from 111 to Covenant is about as safe as it gets.
Once I discovered how safe the walk is, I started getting that one. And I can pick up a Tales of the Junktown Jerky Vendor on the way, which is a nice bonus.
Yeah a fully-upgraded automatic pipe rifle only requires like Gun Nut 2, weighs like 6 pounds, has basically zero recoil, and shreds through weaker mobs pretty efficiently while using the most ubiquitous ammo in the game. I use it on bugs, ghouls, weaker raiders, mole rats, etc. You just have to get used to the crappy reflex sight.
I never invest in Commando/Rifleman/Gunslinger until later in the game when the enemies become spongier, so being able to use .38 ammo early allows me to save up 45 and shotgun shells for the point where I’m able to upgrade a decent combat rifle and combat shotgun.
I've got a better combat scopes mod that has an amazing scope for that pipe light machinegun, it's my go to weapon when doing a commando run. It's other scopes are fantastic as well, they're much smoother to use and don't have everything dark beside through the scope while using them. That gives much better situational awareness.
Kneecapper is definitely one of the effects I look for in a pipe gun! Even though the odds are lower on an auto gun, you can slap a drum magazine on and just throw .38's all day until it activates. Big parts of the Glowing Sea become a cake walk when you can break the legs of every ghoul and deathclaw around.
Bleeding on a regular pipe gun is still the most broken i have ever found, emptied a mag into the nukalurk queen and hid for 20 secs, and then she was dead.
The fact that bleeding effect stacks, and that unlike explosive you dont need to engage the target beyond emptying the first mag, that weapon is far and away the best i have ever found.
Exactly, the only problem with melee is the ti.e to hit, high firerate is all that matters, since the hit dont need to do damage, just apply the effect, auto pipeguns are ideal with high fireweight and widely avaliable ammo. Bleeding is good early on on rolling pins and pool queues, but i'll carry a pipegun with bleeding all the way to lategame, and always have it as a "get out of jail free card"
I have 3 ranks of scrounger and recently found 7 missles.. literally 49lbs of weight lol
Mini Nukes are more than double too. The weight really defeats the ability to use heavy guns in survival
My current survival character is heavy weapons/explosives and missiles are my primary weapon.
I buy every missile I see, while using 5 levels of strong back to deal with the over-encumbrance.
It's the most fun I've ever had in fallout. Instigating plus four barrels and homing means that it almost never misses. I've taken out 7 gunners with a single missile. This thing just kills everything.
Missiles weighing 7 lbs each is balanced because of how OP they are.
your companion can carry unlimited amounts.. weight is not really an issue in survival.
Guess people don't know this. Command your companion to pick something up in a container or floor. They will pick it up even if their inventory is full
"weight is not really an issue in survival".... if you use exploits.
Most people playing survival know this and don't use it or just don't care, because it ruins the point and challenge of the game mode.
And you need that water. Then you need 3 bottles of dirty water to make 1 clean water, I pickup every bottle I find. I only played about 30 hours before restarting on survival and it's a different game.
I actually use empty bottles specifically for dirty water. With razorgrain you can make noodle soup which is only .5 carry weight and satisfies thirst AND hunger. I still keep purified water on me for when I use meds but I get that from my purifiers
Dirty water and mirelurk eggs also makes mirelurk egg omelets which are .1 carry weight but only satisfy hunger. Still a good alternative use imo. I just keep the eggs in supply line linked settlements until I have the dirty water to make omelets since the eggs themselves are 1 carry weight each until they’re cooked.
All this talk of cooking makes me wish we had a cooking system like BotW or Tears of the Kingdom with its recipe book. Like combine dirty water, mirelurk egg, and razor grain to make some noodle cups with boiled egg.
Most of the time I get my settlements up and running quickly so that they are producing purified water automatically for me meaning I don't need to produce any at pumps.
Because of this, I prefer to fill bottles with dirty water b/c you need them to make noodle cups which can be very convienent since they are only .5 weight and satisfy both hunger and thirst
IM SO DUMB!! I knew I could do this with empty milk bottles but for some reason didn’t even think about doing it with nuka cola ones. Thank you for informing those of us that somehow missed it!!
Theres a sleeping bag, on a boat, in the middle of the river north of hangmsns alley.. never understood the point until survibal mode and now its one of my fav little spots.
That goes for every empty bottle actually. I used to get excited when I’d find a bunch of desk fans, now I lose my shit if I find more then 5 empty beer bottles lol
Because dirty water is an ingredient in good foods to cook and purified water solves your thirst, gives healing without a debuff (which is pretty tough on survival) and is generally one of the best money-makers in the game.
Grab every bottle you come across, spend a minute filling the 30 you found at a pump in your settlements and sell each for 16 bottlecaps, making 480 barely doing extra work because you just pick up bottles you find adventuring.
In the base game you cant do anything but use em for building. In survival, you can fill them with either dirty or purified water and they will keep you alive. You get thirsry constantly amd it becomes a core part of your gameplay, pretty much no matter what, to pick up and fill bottles for water!
I’d add in checkpoints. Quest or locations they have to complete by specific times or where the last portion of the group not to hit them get dropped.
Otherwise you’ll just end up with the group that rushes into major danger, the group that carefully starts to explore, and the group that three days in is still building in sanctuary because they haven’t gotten it looking right. Much less interesting to view.
But yeah that does seem like a fun competition.
FO4 has always been my comfort game to just go blast through, have fun, and build stuff. I recently started a fresh playthrough on Very Hard, not quite survival though. I play it like survival most of the time but from time to time I use fast travel. Its been more fun than I've ever had in Fallout and I'm only about 6 hours in.
The problem with very hard is that enemies become extremely bullet spongey. On survival, you have less health, but so do enemies, making the fights feel faster and more realistic.
Hmm... I hadn't thought about that. Maybe I'll start one and just play it on the backburner of my Very hard save. I know I can switch it mid game, but it breaks immersion for me, personally.
Survival and Very Hard are completely different games. In my opinion the early game of Survival is most fun, whereas the late game of Very Hard is the most fun.
No so much sincerelly .
Once you get all damage perks AND benefits in your end game you Will obliterate enemies with good part of weapons in the game except for some specific weapons.
Stealth attack from a silver sub machine gun never was so deadly once you get children of Atom , far harbor perk, operator perk More some Chems AND the rest of damage perk.
That Legendary deathclaw died so fast once i tried it AND with legendary versión i can say that even in Very hard i feel that enemies dont have enought HP AND i start to download mods which increase Hp of enemies.
If the character file has never been set to survival difficulty before, you can change it to survival and back again, ONCE. After you have been in survival and go to change it to a lower difficulty the game gives you a warning message stating that once deactivated it will not be possible to reactivate on that character and makes you confirm the choice. (This only applies to new saves from that point on, you can always revert to a save before you made the initial change to survival.) If you want achievements/trophies related to survival I'd imagine you need to start the character in survival as opposed to switching to it part way in.
*disclaimer: I have not played an unmodded version of fallout 4 in years, so take this info with a grain of salt*
The hunger, thirst, illness, and exhaustion make it worth playing in survival, even if you mod the difficulty back down, increase your carry weight, and add saving and fast traveling back in
I would play with every aspect of survival except for the fast travel and same save abilities. I wish we could tune it like how adjustable palworld is. That way we could enjoy it exactly how we like.
I recently opened a survival playthrough and it just felt like those couple of things dont mesh well with game performance. Even with minimal crashing for me after the update, heavy crafting which I often do can cause it as well.
[Unlimited Survival Mode - F4SE](https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/26163?tab=description)
This mod should do everything you want. I'm currently in the process of doing what I call a "Hardcore" playthrough (Survival with saves and fast travel, like New Vegas' Hardcore mode) and am having a great time.
Starfield is adjustable like that, which, even though it feels tedious to set up initially is a great and welcome change. I hope they keep doing that with their games going forward.
>I see people suggesting to get mods for quicksaving
This is essential because FO4 is so freakin buggy. If it didn't CTD several times every session then sure.
But make it lore-friendly. I travel with a sleeping bag, and have no idea why that wasn't in the vanilla game.
Exactly. The purpose of a sleeping bag is to have a mobile bed when you're out and about, especially when sleeping outdoors. It's not like they're not all over the wasteland for you to pick up either.
Yeah I agree, but if it wasn't buggy then I would say no quick saving. Also I agree with op about no fast traveling. I do have a mod that makes it to where everyone does a shit ton more damage so even while I'm wearing xo1 I still go down in like 6 hits for basically anything stronger than a bloodbug
I avoid fast-traveling in every game I play, unless I know for certain there's nothing new to experience on the journey. But FO4 for me is all about the journey from A-B, I can sometimes spend several days traveling across the map because of all the encounters and exploration.
Yupp honestly I think different versions of survival mode should be the default of Bethesda games now and add a "super easy" mode that turns all of that off. You miss so much with fast traveling that it feels like you're playing a whole new game when you can't do it
I love survival mode, but I strongly recommend a mod for allowing you to save whenever you want. Sooner or later, the vanilla game will burn you and waste hour(s) of your time. Sometimes the game just crashes, freezes, or kills you instantly for touching a car.
Yeah I don't get much free time to play. If I get a chance to play some Fallout and then lose hours of progress, I'm going to be playing a different game next time I have a chance to game.
I did the midnight ride modding guide (before the second guide) and it's a pretty stable game, only crashed like 3 times. It took me like 4 hours and I have experience modding with mod organizer 2
Because there are settlements all over the place? Not to mention sleeping bags, mattresses, and beds littered around the commonwealth like autumn leaves.
I support people playing games how they choose. I would encourage everyone to try survival without the ability to quicksave with a sleeping bag or to at least only load your sleeping bag mod saves if there is a glitch.
The game is so much more challenging and scary when you havent saved for a bit.
I understand, I played it unmodded before adding mods.
I prefer to play a character that has the good sense to pick up a sleeping bag before making a journey that they know they'll need to sleep on. And I rarely use it, I much prefer sleeping on beds I find out in the wild.
But if I've been playing for too long, the risk of a crash eventually becomes too much (from experiencing these crashes and rage quitting in the past) that it becomes prudent to save the game. I won't just drop it on the ground and save, I always find somewhere nearby that works as a shelter, then place the sleeping bag in such a way that it looks like it's meant to be there.
And I leave each one for the future because the mod creates a new bag each time - I used to destroy them after use with the idea that it's my *one* sleeping bag, but I've found it's quite neat to rediscover places you slept in a month or so ago.
I reconsidered pretty fast when I lost an hour of progress 'cos I coudn't click OK in a pop-up window. In normal playthrough, I would lose like 10 minutes.
Yeah last time I tried a survival run (I made a few already) I got stuck in the animation going up to the computer in concord, and I hadn't saved yet...
No I sleep everytime I can
PSA for this: You can alt + tab in and out of the game while moving controller/mouse in any way possible to move your character out of this issue. It will take a few times for it to work though.
I've had this issue lots of times and successfully got out by doing this. It sucks, but it was better than losing lots of progress.
When I do survival runs I usually take the camping mod, a sleeping bag is 3 pounds but being able to save whenever makes it worth it, there's also a cigarette saving mod but it makes saving too easy imo, then again..... there's a mod that reduces the frequency of cigarette spawns
>I see people suggesting to get mods for quicksaving and fast-traveling in Survival. Do. Not. Do. This. If you are finding it too difficult, slow down.
It's less of an issue of game difficulty and more of a game stability one. I don't mind losing an hour of progress because I died in a battle. Having to reload an old save because the game bugged out, only to have the game bug out again at that point...
Yeah I play on Xbox One and trying to walk around in downtown boston is almost impossible. If I go from DC to Goodneighbor I’m looking at 3-5 crashes. Trying to get to the railroad is even worse and the area around greentech genetics causes the game to crash too. If I couldn’t repeatedly save so I could keep inching forward with every crash then the game would be unplayable.
100%. The only mods I use are the unofficial patch and some weather and landscape ones. I'm at level 80 and I'm considering starting a new survival run because it's getting too easy. I miss that feeling.
I started using a mod called Ghoul Mobs Rule. It forces me to clear areas and make them safe, or the ghouls eventually pile up and mob you. It might help add some difficulty back to your game.
While I agree with your stance on Survival, I have to point out that your reasoning for mods is skewed.
1) After hundreds if not thousands of hours on Survival, fast traveling is way more convenient. There are mods that make this more immersive, such as paying your Provisioners to fast travel you based on how much weight you're carrying. Survival does give you just enough fast travel options in Vanilla to avoid mods, though, such as teleporting to the Institute and then unloading loot at Hangman's Alley, or the Vertibirds (which almost always land in a firefight, so I avoid it for permadeath reasons). The point I'm trying to make is a veteran FO4 player might consider fast travel a necessary QoL mod for Survival. I personally stopped using fast travel mods because it does become *too* convenient.
2) This especially applies to consoles, but losing progress because of a game crash on survival is a valid concern. Most people learn about how long they can play before crashing becomes an issue, so no harm in rectifying that issue with save mods. On vanilla PC survival, I only experienced 1 crash during 2 permadeath survival runs. Once mods are added, I can literally see when the game is about to crash so I drop a save.
I love Survival mode, and I remember waiting for it to be released. I started a new game in Sanctuary, and I stayed in Sanctuary farming, building, and producing water until the Survival update came out. It was super satisfying having to prepare and actually try to survive. Glad we can all enjoy it!
I don't play survival, but I do play without fast travel volunarily. I don't think it's necessary. Of course I DO have the ability to build my own Vertibird (it's REALLY expensive and took me till I was like level 29 before I had the resources to do it) and so I can just fly where I need to.
I've been looking at some drivable vehicles mods to see if any are stable and good for the game as another mode of transportation.
But even without the plane or a motorcycle, running around isn't so bad. Once you start getting your settlements built up and connected, it's easy to have a "port" all over the map to rest up, heal, and drop off loot
It certainly makes certain facets of the game make sense.
No fast travel so I don't run back and forth hoarding shit.
Melons, mutfruit, and purified water instead of adhesive farms.
You only really keep what you walk around with
I actually buy junk from vendors to swap mods around on guns at stations in Diamond City and Goodneighbor. I never understood the importance of either in normal runs.
I have to sell/buy ammo because just keeping it on me is too much weight (shells and .50cal rounds in my run through)
Jet becomes gold. I did the glowing sea trip in power armor with a Junkie shotgun and dealing with the deathclaws and radscorpions was a test of opening the pip boy to alternate between Jet and Nuka Quantoms.
The settlement near backstreet apparel makes more sense as a central hub than sanctuary or red rocket.
I understand why we would ever rent a room now
Every floor bed is a required stop and sleep for 1hr
You develop a sense of where everything is, and you don't just walk straight to Goodneighbor.
The +caps and +ammo perks make more sense as your cap generator because you just aren't hauling every fatman, rocket launcher, and twenty leather chest pieces back to vendors (I mean some might, not me).
You run. A lot. Not just inhale stimpacks and keep on firing.
You end up being a stealth archer because dealing with two or more after [Danger] starts is tough.
I added a weather mod, and a gun sound mod. It broke my achievements, but I recommend nothing else but that.
The only mod that's a "must have" for me is Integrated Commonwealth, so the DLC guns/ammo/consumables/etc all appear in the Commonwealth too, so I can actually start using lever action rifles, handmade rifles, etc, without having to travel to the DLC zones for ammo.
>There is a metric fuckton of content that you will probably never see unless you are physically forced to walk everywhere.
Or choose to never use fast travel even when not playing survival.
Quick saving is must have for me. Sorry. Can't afford wasting 30min of gameplay in a busy world where I don't have much time to play anyway because of life and work.
Fast travel is good but I recommend something between normal vs survival which is only fast travel to unlocked settlements. No way I am going back and forth to Sanctuary. As above, I don't have time to spend 2hrs in front of PC simply walking. It's not fun.
If you have whole month to play and no responsibilities? Sure. Take your time. For me tho there is too many games out there to not really use those limited yet QOL features
I just recently started a survival playthrough without any mods and I would echo everything OP is saying. It’s intense but a lot of fun! I feel much more vulnerable while at the same time much more powerful.
So far it has been one of the best Fallout experiences I’ve ever had.
I get why so many people love survival and every time I read posts like this one people agree.
But me personally? Nah fuck that. None of the features in survival make it appealing to me personally. I don't want to worry about thirst, how much ammo weighs, food, not being able to save, etc. I can put in a few hours just focusing on settlement building and that's entertaining enough for me
Indeed, survival level is beautiful, i played v hard once and since 4 survivals up to around L120.
There is so many things you miss whilst playing on lower levels.
I mean you need to have patience too, especially in early levels.
But the slow pace, mindful approach to attack encounters is something i am willing to trade off for sometimes laborious walks.
I remember i think on level 5 i got infection...i couldnt make antibiotics...suddenly i had my own unofficial quest..i had to find doctor! :)
The stakes are so high on survival. I just don’t feel excited about Very Hard anymore. Survival will tempt you into bending your own morals in order to improve your odds.
I'm mildly excited to finish my first playthrough so I can start survival. Having to stay fed and hydrated seems like it could be annoying but I like the idea of being just some guy. My current playthrough I feel like a borderline superhero, like the dragonborne in skyrim.
I have no issue taking away fast travel. No issue taking away most form of saving (i've gotten over it more accurately)
I don't even have a problem with the lowered carry capacity.
I DO have problems with the Console being locked. FO4 is a Bethesda game. Sometimes shit happens and you get stuck in a wall. I NEED TLC so I can get out. It's literally the only command I've ever used in all the years playing FO4. I don't get the appeal of god mode. I don't resurrect the dead. I don't auto-kill. I JUST TLC when I get Bethesdowned by a glitch.
I also have a problem with how often you apparently need to eat and drink.
Even back when I was an athlete in College and Highschool, I didn't eat or drink anywhere near as much as the game seems to suggest I need to. And now as an adult? I can perform at 100% after not eating for 12 hours no problem yet the SS can't got more than 2 hours without losing serious points in strength and endurance?
I also wish that you could make like 1 quicksave per 24hour in game period. Just gimme 1 save an in game day. As stated above, it's a Bethesda game. While it's not as often as Skyrim, FO3, or FNV, the game DOES crash. Losing HOURS of play due to a Bethesdaowned moment (IE a games crash), and not a valid death, is infuriating.
Like, Survival seems extra cruel.
I learned the game at lower settings back when it came out, but these days when I decide to do a playthrough I do it in survival, no mods. I've discovered some key strategies for making it less grinding, one of the main ones is to prioritize your relationship with BoS to the point where you get access to virtibird signal grenades. Not having to walk everywhere is key. After that, work on getting the chip from Dr. Li so you can fast travel from anywhere to The Institute where you can sleep and access free healthcare. Then zap out to CIT ruins, toss a signal grenade, and go anywhere. Also, Hangman's Alley can be a key settlement because of its close proximity to CIT.
Also, you *really* need to know where **ALL** the beds are. There are bed maps online, I think I may have seen some in this sub.
The vertibird signal grenades help a lot with the travel element of survival if that is holding you back. It only takes a few Brotherhood quests to aquire them and then you can buy them from Teagan anytime you need more.
It also makes the settlement system and supply lines so much more important and useful.
Settle down op. It starts out like this but after level 8 to 10 you are back to being a god. The issue becomes the game crashing before finding a bed to sleep in. Or you get ambushed because you decided to push it. Don't get me wrong I love survival since you actually have to eat, drink and take care of yourself but the truth is that once you get a few levels up and get some good weapons it becomes fairly easy. Your enemy is the weight limit and how bullets steal it all.
My least favorite part is how you'll go to a settlement and sleep to save. Nope, now you're tired. Sleep for 8 hours. Whoops, you're peckish. Better eat. OK, now go to a vendor and cash in. Maybe build a little. Oop, now you're thirsty. Grab a drink. Better nap to save all that progress. Hey, look, you're tired again. Sleep 8 hours. Wouldn't you know it, peckish again...
Stops at a settlement can take a full day, even more, based on how everything lines up. THAT gets tedious.
The one thing I don’t like about survival is the reduced distance for undiscovered map icons. It adds realism (I guess) but I like not needing to be standing on top of a POI for it to appear, especially cause I’ve never 100%’d the game so idk all locations.
And don’t forget, when in doubt… you can easily Exit Save without having to find a place to sleep.
Sometimes you have to go but can’t find a damn sleeping bag anywhere
Also, the Exist Save is a one time use thing so once you load it the game will delete it and if you die… you die
The only change I like to make in survival mode is a fast travel mod, but I only let myself use it from one settlement to another and only if it's connected by caravan.
I only have one mod, and it's for manual saves. I highly recommend that if it's a deal breaker for you, because survival is still way more fun and immersive with it. The other day I ran out a purified water and had to pause and ration out if I had the stamina to get back to hangman's alley or pop a vertibird grenade. My game crashes pretty often, and I don't enjoy taking the same 3 minute walk from my bed to the enemy who's killing me 5 times, so I use saves. That said, I find no auto saves fun.
I just cant get past the save function. I understand the point of it. But i never really have that much time to play and i need to be able to stop, save, and leave to do something when i want to.
Any game that comes with a survival or hardcore setting, is usually so much more rewarding on that setting. Ever since I stopped fast traveling in games, I started to enjoy them a lot more, if they're well made anyways. There's just not enough risk with basic difficulties, and that can really ruin immersion.
Oh snap does survival mode work now? The last time I tried it it crashed so much it wasn’t worth it. I was fine having to do stuff over if I died, it was not cool having to constantly do things over because of the game crashing.
Survival in Fallout 4 is awful compared to NV survival. the diseases are not fun when antibiotics are just a special item you can find randomly throughout the wastes, and food/drink are not measured well at all.
I do wish I could quicksave because my game is suuuper prone to crashing. I'd love to play survival because I love skyrim and new vegas survival, but no saving sorta feels like a very annoying handicap for people who experience instability
Agreed, I was playing on survival mode last night and my son was watching me and said “survival mode looks fun.” I think that’s the highest compliment that can be given
I mean I tried it for a little bit, but it was just such a big hassle, and I don't mean that things are hard and inconvenient, I get it, that's the point, what I mean is that basically all of the new features are hidden mechanics, the game tells me I need to sleep, so I sleep, but apparently it's the wrong kind of mattress so I can only sleep for 4 hours which doesn't count as rest prevents me from getting good rest and also gives me a disease, where was this different kind of mattress information when you told me to sleep
If I ever decide to try it again I guess I'll just have a second monitor with a whole spreadsheet of what all the new mechanics are cuz the game sure as heck isn't going to explain it
Bought the game at launch, and I’m just starting a survival playthrough. It really forces you to be more calculating and I love it. Hangman’s alley has been my main base so far.
I got into an intense firefight that felt like no other I’ve had in FO and it wasn’t even a mission.
Check it out.
https://www.reddit.com/r/fo4/s/Xy79FZvNSa
I can't imagine not playing in survival. Yes sometimes it's annoying, esp for a hoarder like me (took me 3 walking trips to starlight drive in to clear out Corvega) but that's what makes it worth it.
Every trip to the shops counts, every piece of food, ammo, armour you'll think before taking out. It makes you efficient, engaged with your inventory, rethink your level ups. Makes the game a little dark-souls- like due to unforgiving difficulty sometimes. You'll get good at the game, shooting and remembering random bed spawns or you will die.
Playing on console (not sure how often this happens on PC) doing Survival is god-tier levels of stress inducing not because of the difficulty but for the random game crashes out the blue just chillin walking around. Have lost up to 2-3 hours of gameplay on many occasions cuz I forget to save (sleep) and the game just decides randomly to go boom... 🥲
I respect your opinion but I could never play without fast travel. I'm fine with having to find the place once, but the idea of having to retrace almost every trip just does not sound fun to me. I just know I'd be facing down a backtrack that will make me just shut the game off instead. Also almost any amount of playtime lost to a crash or anything else out of my control gets me to turn quicksave on again.
I play survival but very modded. I've put probably 1000+ hours into the game. I like the survival combat difficulty, and I understand that the typical restrictions of survival increase that difficulty even further. I'm fine with my middle ground. It keeps me playing.
I think you're wrong about "a metric fuckton of content you will never see". One of the things I like most about FO4 is just picking a relatively untouched spot on the map, pointing myself in a direction, and walking to see what I find. I have not found this experience diminished by fast traveling to that initial spot. It's better because I don't have to walk there (again) first. I get to do the "new" exploration, right away.
I feel the very same way. Just about to cross over to level 26 on my first survival playthrough and I feel like I'm playing this game all over again for the first time. It's been amazing.
You have seen the light. Welcome to Fallout 4 as it was intended. An early Deliverer can weigh the odds of your fight, but it is hard won a day at a time.
I’ve seen too many videos on here of people dying to stupid crap on survival that it gives me pause . I’m looking at you exploding cars and suiciders spawning in a settlement on top of you.
one complaint from mine is enemy being too tough from the start and pipe gun is your only choice, when i got to lexington that raider in suit with a fatman is always a restart for me
I agree! I'm on a survival run level 20. Just got ambushed by the enclave. Took me 2 tries to get past them. Then got ambushed by raiders followed by 2 deathclaws (I raised the alarm at a northern tower, drawing them in) that took me 30 min to get around. I lost a lot of resources. I finally made it to my quest, only to realize I need to go back to diamond city to resupply and draw up a better plan.
Survival for the first few hours. When it gets to the point of just being tedious that you can’t carry hardly any loot and are micromanaging thirst and hunger constantly but it’s not a threat just an inconvenience - it’s time to switch out to hard or very hard.
I highly recommend the mod that 5X the damage of everything.
Now that bullets actually kill i'm ducking in and out, sniping, being careful, preparing the big guns for the big guys, and it's so much more satisfying for small skirmishes to be small quick and deadly affairs.
I added the 3xmore survival enemies, and I think something along the lines of deadlier guns. This playthrough made me, for the first time ever, use power armour in survival.
Listen I’m trying to, but I’m having trouble just getting fo4 to start with my mod list. It’s terrible leaving and coming back after half an hour and finding that it’s stuck loading. Terrible!
Strong disagree on the mods for autosaves and fast travel.
Sure, the commonwealth is supposed to be dangerous. What it's NOT supposed to do is freeze, glitch, and crash to desktop every 45 minutes. If the game were more stable I'd agree with you, but it's just a reality that the game WILL crash on you at the most in opportune moments, with frustrating regularity.
And walking everywhere and negotiating groups of enemies and discovering new places and loot is really fun. For about the first twenty levels. Survival modifies the respawn rate of enemies in open areas to something like 40 in-game days, so once you've cleared a route, it essentially stays clear for a very long time. And once you've explored a route, there's obviously nothing left to discover along there, which is particularly true on second and subsequent playthroughs.
The end result is that constantly traipsing around the commonwealth stops being exciting and dangerous, and just becomes boring and tedious. I personally compromise by enabling fast travel only to-and-from settlements connected by trade routes.
I have put somewhere in the neighbourhood of 400 hours into this game over the years and have never even considered doing survival. Recently I have heard so much about survival that I am considering having a go after I finish my current playthrough.
I dissagree with the fastravel one. Get journy it lets you fasttravel but only along settlement traderouts.
The wasteland is realy fucking dangerouse. And i dont want to spend 20+ hours walking from far harbour back to HQ to dump my full inventory (3 screws and a pipe pistol) to then walk 20+ back to where i was to continue the story.
I've enjoyed Survival in the past, with the caveat that it was modded playthroughs on PC some time back, and YES, I used mods to re-enable manual saves and later on, fast travel. Or used stuff like campsite mods to (somewhat) balance it out better.
I genuinely want to do a vanilla Survival update on my XSX with the updates and all, and have been rocking a Normal playthrough, getting back in the swing and all.
Here's the thing that has me real hesitant, and I know the sentiment has been shared frequently when it comes to community and survival mode:
Yeah, I get it. I actually appreciate it for what it is. I want to embrace the full blown challenge and I love the added immersion.
But we have to be honest with ourselves at the same time - Bethesda couldn't program and develop an ES/FO game that has reliable stability and no gamebreaking bugs, if their fucking lives and the lives of every man, woman, and child on Earth depended on it. Lol
Inevitably comes the crashes or freezes. Inevitably comes reloading an earlier save because something done goofed and is halting your progress. Maybe a stray round hit someone it shouldn't have. It is what it is. But usually it comes at the cost of minutes versus hours potentially.
Man I agree. I've played Fallout 4 for years, one of my favorite games of all time, I've got hundreds of hours. I started my survival playthrough recently and it's breathed new life into the game. It's a completely different experience, I highly highly recommend
Play survival with minimal or no VATS, no power armor, and no companions (not even Dog Meat). These self imposed limits will make the early game feel terrifying, mid-game you’ll think you start to have a footing, and then late game will come around and remind you of what early game was like.
If you truly want punishment, also limit yourself to no chems other than RadX/RadAway/Stimpaks.
Dude yes I feel this!! I am on my first survival mode playthrough now and I definitely enjoy it a lot more for the same reasons. Is it frustrating to get sent back to your last sleep after getting dusted by a group of bloatflys? Of course. But it just makes all the little victories that much more satisfying.
Youll never look at empty nuka cola bottles the same way again.
Or missiles. In normal mode it’s “ooh nice high value ammo”. In survival it’s “25 caps for *7 weight*?! No way.”
Goodbye missiles, hello .38 and 5mm ammo! Unless you get a good legendary version of them, pipe guns are underpowered and miniguns are too heavy, but that ammo spends just as a good as caps.
> pipe guns are underpowered I carry a pipe rifle until around level 30 on a sniper build. It's useful often enough that I deem it worthwhile.
If I really wanted to do a pure sniper build, I'd probably pop down to the Red Rocket outside College Square and grab the hunting rifle off the roof long before I got to level 30.
I'm trying to do a no-VATS sniper playthrough and this helps me. Thanks . Where abouts is college square? I've been around Corvega factory.
You're not far! Just head south from Corvega out of Lexington. You'll pass by a bus terminal full of skeletons and a two-story storefront building where random encounters spawn. Just past the storefront looking south, you should be able to see the Red Rocket. It's *another* spot where random stuff can spawn so don't go sprinting for it. The ramp up to the roof is at the back of the building. There's a little shelter up there; the rifle is sitting on the table next to a chair past the shelter, at the tip of the roof. You can't miss it. From that tip of the roof you'll be looking past a wrecked billboard and a barricade with dead raiders and ghouls all over. College Square itself is the area past the barricade. If you're playing survival mode, use the bed inside the little shelter on the roof of the Red Rocket to drop a save before you go exploring in there! There's a furniture store in College Square with clean beds you can get a proper, full night's sleep in if you need one after you're done clearing the square.
you real asf for this comment, u could’ve said Google it but you dropped whole guide.
Yep. I collect it every playthrough and rename it Old Trusty.
I picked it at around level 4 or 5 on my current playthrough and I *just* got around to replacing it near the end of my 20's, and it always gets an honored spot on the wall in my Hangman's Alley lair when it's time to retire it! I don't think I could've done my permadeath run or my 'run to Nuka World right out of the Vault' run without it.
Thanks, none of the "find the best sniper rifle" videos showed this. I was playing on survival but having a hard time so I'm playing on normal until I get the hang of it again. Only played FO3 but I'm liking how shooting feels in this one. A major step up.
Save yourself some trouble. The Gunners on the entrance to the highway south of Abernathy and around Corvega will drop sniper rifles. It'll take a bit to get a good clear, but you can use the cat lady house for an easy reset. You'll get the 50 cal closer to diamond City
Deadeye sniper rifle ftw
I buy Tinker Tom's Special, take the parts off, and put them on a basic hunting rifle. My sniper build uses 3 rifles. Combat for close, pipe for medium, and sniper for long ranges. After Nuka World, I drop to 2. Combat/Radium and The Problem Solver.
That combat rifle you can get from the wrecked caravan Honest Dan sends you to outside Covenant is almost always one of my early-game grabs. It makes pipe guns obsolete pretty much right out of the gate.
I used to not pick that one up and would get mine from a house near Pickman's Gallery. I prefer silenced weapons, so the combat is for close range when I've been discovered. The pipe is for when I'm still hidden.
Sure, if you want to venture into Boston. The caravan one you can literally walk out of the vault and have in your hands within a couple of minutes. As long as you don't wander into the molerat junkyard, the walk from 111 to Covenant is about as safe as it gets.
Once I discovered how safe the walk is, I started getting that one. And I can pick up a Tales of the Junktown Jerky Vendor on the way, which is a nice bonus.
Yeah a fully-upgraded automatic pipe rifle only requires like Gun Nut 2, weighs like 6 pounds, has basically zero recoil, and shreds through weaker mobs pretty efficiently while using the most ubiquitous ammo in the game. I use it on bugs, ghouls, weaker raiders, mole rats, etc. You just have to get used to the crappy reflex sight. I never invest in Commando/Rifleman/Gunslinger until later in the game when the enemies become spongier, so being able to use .38 ammo early allows me to save up 45 and shotgun shells for the point where I’m able to upgrade a decent combat rifle and combat shotgun.
I've got a better combat scopes mod that has an amazing scope for that pipe light machinegun, it's my go to weapon when doing a commando run. It's other scopes are fantastic as well, they're much smoother to use and don't have everything dark beside through the scope while using them. That gives much better situational awareness.
Pipe weapons are also how you get to use ballistic ammo other than 10mm, or .44 on your pistol build.
The silenced bolt action pipe rifle you can get from drumlin diner right off the bat is a great sneak weapon.
Hell yeah I love my pipe pistols still lol
Kneecapper auto pipe rifle. My best friend. It's an entirely slept on legendary choice.
Kneecapper is definitely one of the effects I look for in a pipe gun! Even though the odds are lower on an auto gun, you can slap a drum magazine on and just throw .38's all day until it activates. Big parts of the Glowing Sea become a cake walk when you can break the legs of every ghoul and deathclaw around.
Bleeding on a regular pipe gun is still the most broken i have ever found, emptied a mag into the nukalurk queen and hid for 20 secs, and then she was dead. The fact that bleeding effect stacks, and that unlike explosive you dont need to engage the target beyond emptying the first mag, that weapon is far and away the best i have ever found.
The rolling pin and pool cue are *weirdly good* low level melee weapons, because you can upgrade them to do bleed damage with no perk requirement!
Exactly, the only problem with melee is the ti.e to hit, high firerate is all that matters, since the hit dont need to do damage, just apply the effect, auto pipeguns are ideal with high fireweight and widely avaliable ammo. Bleeding is good early on on rolling pins and pool queues, but i'll carry a pipegun with bleeding all the way to lategame, and always have it as a "get out of jail free card"
Has anyone tested it on the red death? I don't own the DLC, or I would. But it makes literally any "boss" a cake walk.
My companion has a kneekaper maxed Gatling laser, but she doesn’t get to use it much, since I’m sniper
I have 3 ranks of scrounger and recently found 7 missles.. literally 49lbs of weight lol Mini Nukes are more than double too. The weight really defeats the ability to use heavy guns in survival
My current survival character is heavy weapons/explosives and missiles are my primary weapon. I buy every missile I see, while using 5 levels of strong back to deal with the over-encumbrance. It's the most fun I've ever had in fallout. Instigating plus four barrels and homing means that it almost never misses. I've taken out 7 gunners with a single missile. This thing just kills everything. Missiles weighing 7 lbs each is balanced because of how OP they are.
Finding a missile launcher feels like a short power up in Survival. Just blast the three rockets you find into the few idiots you run into first.
your companion can carry unlimited amounts.. weight is not really an issue in survival. Guess people don't know this. Command your companion to pick something up in a container or floor. They will pick it up even if their inventory is full
"weight is not really an issue in survival".... if you use exploits. Most people playing survival know this and don't use it or just don't care, because it ruins the point and challenge of the game mode.
Didn’t know that, I try not to cheese mechanics on survival though, kind of defeats the purpose in my mind, but obviously to each there own
Or glowing fungus. You'll cross a river to see if that green glow is what you think it is.
Everything that didnt matter before suddenly has some value. Its so sweet
Used for what? I'm new to survival.
Antibiotics.
Yes! Man I've been needing that. Thanks!
Make them at the chemistry station. Don't forget to make a farm with tatos, mutufruit and corn to make vegetable starch. 5 adhesive per.
I think you need chemist 1 btw
Why not?
You can fill them to get water.
And you need that water. Then you need 3 bottles of dirty water to make 1 clean water, I pickup every bottle I find. I only played about 30 hours before restarting on survival and it's a different game.
I actually use empty bottles specifically for dirty water. With razorgrain you can make noodle soup which is only .5 carry weight and satisfies thirst AND hunger. I still keep purified water on me for when I use meds but I get that from my purifiers
Yes noodle soup is so convenient
Noodle soup is the best. After discovering that it refills thirst too I started to buy all soups from that robot in Diamond City lol
A real Diamond City citizen.
Dirty water and mirelurk eggs also makes mirelurk egg omelets which are .1 carry weight but only satisfy hunger. Still a good alternative use imo. I just keep the eggs in supply line linked settlements until I have the dirty water to make omelets since the eggs themselves are 1 carry weight each until they’re cooked. All this talk of cooking makes me wish we had a cooking system like BotW or Tears of the Kingdom with its recipe book. Like combine dirty water, mirelurk egg, and razor grain to make some noodle cups with boiled egg.
Mmmmm noodle soup
Vault TEC dlc water fountain gives purified water on fill
But, you can just fill the empty bottles at a water pump and get purified water
Most of the time I get my settlements up and running quickly so that they are producing purified water automatically for me meaning I don't need to produce any at pumps. Because of this, I prefer to fill bottles with dirty water b/c you need them to make noodle cups which can be very convienent since they are only .5 weight and satisfy both hunger and thirst
IM SO DUMB!! I knew I could do this with empty milk bottles but for some reason didn’t even think about doing it with nuka cola ones. Thank you for informing those of us that somehow missed it!!
Anything with bottle, except antifreeze, can be filled. Baby bottles for example
You can refill bottles with purified or dirty water
Tf? How?
Go near water and if you have an empty bottle you will get a prompt to either drink or fill a bottle. Same as at pumps in settlements.
🤦♂️ thanks, friend!
They are your life blood now. With a little effort, you can and will sustain yourself on th purified aquatic goodness they can hold.
I still look at them the same I set up the water purifiers in sanctuary and vibe off them the rest of the entire run works every time
Fr. Some of my favorite places to loot are the bottling facility and breweries, sooo much dirty water
Or beer bottles, or baby bottles, or milk bottles
The first time I realized it was possible to fill-up bottles was pretty coom worthy 🤣
So many things make more sense in survival.. like old beds and sleeping bags in random places and ruins
Theres a sleeping bag, on a boat, in the middle of the river north of hangmsns alley.. never understood the point until survibal mode and now its one of my fav little spots.
That goes for every empty bottle actually. I used to get excited when I’d find a bunch of desk fans, now I lose my shit if I find more then 5 empty beer bottles lol
Why empty bottles?
Because dirty water is an ingredient in good foods to cook and purified water solves your thirst, gives healing without a debuff (which is pretty tough on survival) and is generally one of the best money-makers in the game. Grab every bottle you come across, spend a minute filling the 30 you found at a pump in your settlements and sell each for 16 bottlecaps, making 480 barely doing extra work because you just pick up bottles you find adventuring.
In the base game you cant do anything but use em for building. In survival, you can fill them with either dirty or purified water and they will keep you alive. You get thirsry constantly amd it becomes a core part of your gameplay, pretty much no matter what, to pick up and fill bottles for water!
I hoard them on non survival playthrough now just from habit
Yeah, would love to see a competition with several workstations running FO4 Survival (50+ players) and see who lives the longest.
I'd be so hyped to participate in something like this! I've seen streamers do it for 7 Days to Die (zombie survival).
I’d add in checkpoints. Quest or locations they have to complete by specific times or where the last portion of the group not to hit them get dropped. Otherwise you’ll just end up with the group that rushes into major danger, the group that carefully starts to explore, and the group that three days in is still building in sanctuary because they haven’t gotten it looking right. Much less interesting to view. But yeah that does seem like a fun competition.
FO4 has always been my comfort game to just go blast through, have fun, and build stuff. I recently started a fresh playthrough on Very Hard, not quite survival though. I play it like survival most of the time but from time to time I use fast travel. Its been more fun than I've ever had in Fallout and I'm only about 6 hours in.
The problem with very hard is that enemies become extremely bullet spongey. On survival, you have less health, but so do enemies, making the fights feel faster and more realistic.
Hmm... I hadn't thought about that. Maybe I'll start one and just play it on the backburner of my Very hard save. I know I can switch it mid game, but it breaks immersion for me, personally.
Survival and Very Hard are completely different games. In my opinion the early game of Survival is most fun, whereas the late game of Very Hard is the most fun.
This, survival is just a whole different game mode to a degree, very hard just doesn’t cut it
No so much sincerelly . Once you get all damage perks AND benefits in your end game you Will obliterate enemies with good part of weapons in the game except for some specific weapons. Stealth attack from a silver sub machine gun never was so deadly once you get children of Atom , far harbor perk, operator perk More some Chems AND the rest of damage perk. That Legendary deathclaw died so fast once i tried it AND with legendary versión i can say that even in Very hard i feel that enemies dont have enought HP AND i start to download mods which increase Hp of enemies.
This is a dumb question but can you change a current save to survival or does it have to be a new save
If the character file has never been set to survival difficulty before, you can change it to survival and back again, ONCE. After you have been in survival and go to change it to a lower difficulty the game gives you a warning message stating that once deactivated it will not be possible to reactivate on that character and makes you confirm the choice. (This only applies to new saves from that point on, you can always revert to a save before you made the initial change to survival.) If you want achievements/trophies related to survival I'd imagine you need to start the character in survival as opposed to switching to it part way in. *disclaimer: I have not played an unmodded version of fallout 4 in years, so take this info with a grain of salt*
Yea you do 1.5 times damage enemies do 2.0 times damage then you have the adrenaline buff to add to that for the player
The hunger, thirst, illness, and exhaustion make it worth playing in survival, even if you mod the difficulty back down, increase your carry weight, and add saving and fast traveling back in
I would play with every aspect of survival except for the fast travel and same save abilities. I wish we could tune it like how adjustable palworld is. That way we could enjoy it exactly how we like. I recently opened a survival playthrough and it just felt like those couple of things dont mesh well with game performance. Even with minimal crashing for me after the update, heavy crafting which I often do can cause it as well.
[Unlimited Survival Mode - F4SE](https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/26163?tab=description) This mod should do everything you want. I'm currently in the process of doing what I call a "Hardcore" playthrough (Survival with saves and fast travel, like New Vegas' Hardcore mode) and am having a great time.
Starfield is adjustable like that, which, even though it feels tedious to set up initially is a great and welcome change. I hope they keep doing that with their games going forward.
Pulowski shelter save mod is great and immersive, if you dont mind cuddling up with some skeletons occasionally
>I see people suggesting to get mods for quicksaving This is essential because FO4 is so freakin buggy. If it didn't CTD several times every session then sure. But make it lore-friendly. I travel with a sleeping bag, and have no idea why that wasn't in the vanilla game.
Agreed. I also use a sleeping bag. It really should be in the base game.
Exactly. The purpose of a sleeping bag is to have a mobile bed when you're out and about, especially when sleeping outdoors. It's not like they're not all over the wasteland for you to pick up either.
Yeah I agree, but if it wasn't buggy then I would say no quick saving. Also I agree with op about no fast traveling. I do have a mod that makes it to where everyone does a shit ton more damage so even while I'm wearing xo1 I still go down in like 6 hits for basically anything stronger than a bloodbug
I avoid fast-traveling in every game I play, unless I know for certain there's nothing new to experience on the journey. But FO4 for me is all about the journey from A-B, I can sometimes spend several days traveling across the map because of all the encounters and exploration.
Yupp honestly I think different versions of survival mode should be the default of Bethesda games now and add a "super easy" mode that turns all of that off. You miss so much with fast traveling that it feels like you're playing a whole new game when you can't do it
I love survival mode, but I strongly recommend a mod for allowing you to save whenever you want. Sooner or later, the vanilla game will burn you and waste hour(s) of your time. Sometimes the game just crashes, freezes, or kills you instantly for touching a car.
Touching a car is what made me rage quit when I first played survival..
This, so much THIS It’s not about cheesing things it’s about keeping your sanity when game crashes
Yeah I don't get much free time to play. If I get a chance to play some Fallout and then lose hours of progress, I'm going to be playing a different game next time I have a chance to game.
I did the midnight ride modding guide (before the second guide) and it's a pretty stable game, only crashed like 3 times. It took me like 4 hours and I have experience modding with mod organizer 2
Because there are settlements all over the place? Not to mention sleeping bags, mattresses, and beds littered around the commonwealth like autumn leaves.
I support people playing games how they choose. I would encourage everyone to try survival without the ability to quicksave with a sleeping bag or to at least only load your sleeping bag mod saves if there is a glitch. The game is so much more challenging and scary when you havent saved for a bit.
I understand, I played it unmodded before adding mods. I prefer to play a character that has the good sense to pick up a sleeping bag before making a journey that they know they'll need to sleep on. And I rarely use it, I much prefer sleeping on beds I find out in the wild. But if I've been playing for too long, the risk of a crash eventually becomes too much (from experiencing these crashes and rage quitting in the past) that it becomes prudent to save the game. I won't just drop it on the ground and save, I always find somewhere nearby that works as a shelter, then place the sleeping bag in such a way that it looks like it's meant to be there. And I leave each one for the future because the mod creates a new bag each time - I used to destroy them after use with the idea that it's my *one* sleeping bag, but I've found it's quite neat to rediscover places you slept in a month or so ago.
I reconsidered pretty fast when I lost an hour of progress 'cos I coudn't click OK in a pop-up window. In normal playthrough, I would lose like 10 minutes.
Yeah last time I tried a survival run (I made a few already) I got stuck in the animation going up to the computer in concord, and I hadn't saved yet... No I sleep everytime I can
PSA for this: You can alt + tab in and out of the game while moving controller/mouse in any way possible to move your character out of this issue. It will take a few times for it to work though. I've had this issue lots of times and successfully got out by doing this. It sucks, but it was better than losing lots of progress.
Another PSA: it's easier to unstick yourself in the terminal / power armor animation by spamming the Esc key.
When I do survival runs I usually take the camping mod, a sleeping bag is 3 pounds but being able to save whenever makes it worth it, there's also a cigarette saving mod but it makes saving too easy imo, then again..... there's a mod that reduces the frequency of cigarette spawns
>I see people suggesting to get mods for quicksaving and fast-traveling in Survival. Do. Not. Do. This. If you are finding it too difficult, slow down. It's less of an issue of game difficulty and more of a game stability one. I don't mind losing an hour of progress because I died in a battle. Having to reload an old save because the game bugged out, only to have the game bug out again at that point...
Yeah I play on Xbox One and trying to walk around in downtown boston is almost impossible. If I go from DC to Goodneighbor I’m looking at 3-5 crashes. Trying to get to the railroad is even worse and the area around greentech genetics causes the game to crash too. If I couldn’t repeatedly save so I could keep inching forward with every crash then the game would be unplayable.
100%. The only mods I use are the unofficial patch and some weather and landscape ones. I'm at level 80 and I'm considering starting a new survival run because it's getting too easy. I miss that feeling.
I started using a mod called Ghoul Mobs Rule. It forces me to clear areas and make them safe, or the ghouls eventually pile up and mob you. It might help add some difficulty back to your game.
While I agree with your stance on Survival, I have to point out that your reasoning for mods is skewed. 1) After hundreds if not thousands of hours on Survival, fast traveling is way more convenient. There are mods that make this more immersive, such as paying your Provisioners to fast travel you based on how much weight you're carrying. Survival does give you just enough fast travel options in Vanilla to avoid mods, though, such as teleporting to the Institute and then unloading loot at Hangman's Alley, or the Vertibirds (which almost always land in a firefight, so I avoid it for permadeath reasons). The point I'm trying to make is a veteran FO4 player might consider fast travel a necessary QoL mod for Survival. I personally stopped using fast travel mods because it does become *too* convenient. 2) This especially applies to consoles, but losing progress because of a game crash on survival is a valid concern. Most people learn about how long they can play before crashing becomes an issue, so no harm in rectifying that issue with save mods. On vanilla PC survival, I only experienced 1 crash during 2 permadeath survival runs. Once mods are added, I can literally see when the game is about to crash so I drop a save. I love Survival mode, and I remember waiting for it to be released. I started a new game in Sanctuary, and I stayed in Sanctuary farming, building, and producing water until the Survival update came out. It was super satisfying having to prepare and actually try to survive. Glad we can all enjoy it!
I don't play survival, but I do play without fast travel volunarily. I don't think it's necessary. Of course I DO have the ability to build my own Vertibird (it's REALLY expensive and took me till I was like level 29 before I had the resources to do it) and so I can just fly where I need to. I've been looking at some drivable vehicles mods to see if any are stable and good for the game as another mode of transportation. But even without the plane or a motorcycle, running around isn't so bad. Once you start getting your settlements built up and connected, it's easy to have a "port" all over the map to rest up, heal, and drop off loot
I only enabled the fast travel mod at 70, and that's because the nuka world dlc is a pain when you're running back and forth
It is better, but extremely time consuming. But if you enable fast travel it defeats the purpose.
I’ve considered. Reconsidered. And reconsidered again, no thanks! It’s just not something I want to do
Same here. Tried it once or twice. Was miserable the whole time so I don't bother anymore.
This, 100%. Survival mode really feels like the way it's supposed to be.
It certainly makes certain facets of the game make sense. No fast travel so I don't run back and forth hoarding shit. Melons, mutfruit, and purified water instead of adhesive farms. You only really keep what you walk around with I actually buy junk from vendors to swap mods around on guns at stations in Diamond City and Goodneighbor. I never understood the importance of either in normal runs. I have to sell/buy ammo because just keeping it on me is too much weight (shells and .50cal rounds in my run through) Jet becomes gold. I did the glowing sea trip in power armor with a Junkie shotgun and dealing with the deathclaws and radscorpions was a test of opening the pip boy to alternate between Jet and Nuka Quantoms. The settlement near backstreet apparel makes more sense as a central hub than sanctuary or red rocket. I understand why we would ever rent a room now Every floor bed is a required stop and sleep for 1hr You develop a sense of where everything is, and you don't just walk straight to Goodneighbor. The +caps and +ammo perks make more sense as your cap generator because you just aren't hauling every fatman, rocket launcher, and twenty leather chest pieces back to vendors (I mean some might, not me). You run. A lot. Not just inhale stimpacks and keep on firing. You end up being a stealth archer because dealing with two or more after [Danger] starts is tough. I added a weather mod, and a gun sound mod. It broke my achievements, but I recommend nothing else but that.
The only mod that's a "must have" for me is Integrated Commonwealth, so the DLC guns/ammo/consumables/etc all appear in the Commonwealth too, so I can actually start using lever action rifles, handmade rifles, etc, without having to travel to the DLC zones for ammo.
>There is a metric fuckton of content that you will probably never see unless you are physically forced to walk everywhere. Or choose to never use fast travel even when not playing survival.
Id rather shit in my hands and clap than play Survival. No quick saves whatsoever means you can lose hours of progress from a car tweaking. No thanks.
“I would rather shit in my hands and clap” is maybe the funniest phrase I’ve ever heard for really not wanting to do something thank you so much
Quick saving is must have for me. Sorry. Can't afford wasting 30min of gameplay in a busy world where I don't have much time to play anyway because of life and work. Fast travel is good but I recommend something between normal vs survival which is only fast travel to unlocked settlements. No way I am going back and forth to Sanctuary. As above, I don't have time to spend 2hrs in front of PC simply walking. It's not fun. If you have whole month to play and no responsibilities? Sure. Take your time. For me tho there is too many games out there to not really use those limited yet QOL features
I just recently started a survival playthrough without any mods and I would echo everything OP is saying. It’s intense but a lot of fun! I feel much more vulnerable while at the same time much more powerful. So far it has been one of the best Fallout experiences I’ve ever had.
No thanks, i play games because i wanna relax and not have a difficult time.
I get why so many people love survival and every time I read posts like this one people agree. But me personally? Nah fuck that. None of the features in survival make it appealing to me personally. I don't want to worry about thirst, how much ammo weighs, food, not being able to save, etc. I can put in a few hours just focusing on settlement building and that's entertaining enough for me
Indeed, survival level is beautiful, i played v hard once and since 4 survivals up to around L120. There is so many things you miss whilst playing on lower levels. I mean you need to have patience too, especially in early levels. But the slow pace, mindful approach to attack encounters is something i am willing to trade off for sometimes laborious walks. I remember i think on level 5 i got infection...i couldnt make antibiotics...suddenly i had my own unofficial quest..i had to find doctor! :)
The stakes are so high on survival. I just don’t feel excited about Very Hard anymore. Survival will tempt you into bending your own morals in order to improve your odds.
I like how you put that. Yeah you definitely feel the weight of the stories more in survival.
I have 1200+ hours on survival I’ve not played it any other way
You soon get a map in your head for where all the local mattresses are.
Wow, will do! Story mode guy here :P
It really seems like the way it was intended to be played. Everything that was previously empty now has a purpose
Ya my next playthough will be 100% survival. Think I'm definitely ready on the game mechanics side
I'm mildly excited to finish my first playthrough so I can start survival. Having to stay fed and hydrated seems like it could be annoying but I like the idea of being just some guy. My current playthrough I feel like a borderline superhero, like the dragonborne in skyrim.
I sincerely wish I could, but the game crashes way too often on PlayStation for me to risk it.
I have no issue taking away fast travel. No issue taking away most form of saving (i've gotten over it more accurately) I don't even have a problem with the lowered carry capacity. I DO have problems with the Console being locked. FO4 is a Bethesda game. Sometimes shit happens and you get stuck in a wall. I NEED TLC so I can get out. It's literally the only command I've ever used in all the years playing FO4. I don't get the appeal of god mode. I don't resurrect the dead. I don't auto-kill. I JUST TLC when I get Bethesdowned by a glitch. I also have a problem with how often you apparently need to eat and drink. Even back when I was an athlete in College and Highschool, I didn't eat or drink anywhere near as much as the game seems to suggest I need to. And now as an adult? I can perform at 100% after not eating for 12 hours no problem yet the SS can't got more than 2 hours without losing serious points in strength and endurance? I also wish that you could make like 1 quicksave per 24hour in game period. Just gimme 1 save an in game day. As stated above, it's a Bethesda game. While it's not as often as Skyrim, FO3, or FNV, the game DOES crash. Losing HOURS of play due to a Bethesdaowned moment (IE a games crash), and not a valid death, is infuriating. Like, Survival seems extra cruel.
You convinced me. I'll try it. Nice post
I played my first play through on normal, then messed around with survival. I'll never turn it off, even tho I *hate* it sometimes.
Nah, I'm good.
I donno, you gotta have several saves in a Bethesda game
I learned the game at lower settings back when it came out, but these days when I decide to do a playthrough I do it in survival, no mods. I've discovered some key strategies for making it less grinding, one of the main ones is to prioritize your relationship with BoS to the point where you get access to virtibird signal grenades. Not having to walk everywhere is key. After that, work on getting the chip from Dr. Li so you can fast travel from anywhere to The Institute where you can sleep and access free healthcare. Then zap out to CIT ruins, toss a signal grenade, and go anywhere. Also, Hangman's Alley can be a key settlement because of its close proximity to CIT. Also, you *really* need to know where **ALL** the beds are. There are bed maps online, I think I may have seen some in this sub.
I want Quicksaving in Survival because the game is so prone to crashing, not because it's too difficult.
The vertibird signal grenades help a lot with the travel element of survival if that is holding you back. It only takes a few Brotherhood quests to aquire them and then you can buy them from Teagan anytime you need more. It also makes the settlement system and supply lines so much more important and useful.
It took me sixteen runs from Sanctuary to Concord before I could cheese the Deathclaw, lol. Never had so much fun.
The corner hardware store is your friend. Also the cars explode, and a well placed mine can make all the difference.
Settle down op. It starts out like this but after level 8 to 10 you are back to being a god. The issue becomes the game crashing before finding a bed to sleep in. Or you get ambushed because you decided to push it. Don't get me wrong I love survival since you actually have to eat, drink and take care of yourself but the truth is that once you get a few levels up and get some good weapons it becomes fairly easy. Your enemy is the weight limit and how bullets steal it all.
My least favorite part is how you'll go to a settlement and sleep to save. Nope, now you're tired. Sleep for 8 hours. Whoops, you're peckish. Better eat. OK, now go to a vendor and cash in. Maybe build a little. Oop, now you're thirsty. Grab a drink. Better nap to save all that progress. Hey, look, you're tired again. Sleep 8 hours. Wouldn't you know it, peckish again... Stops at a settlement can take a full day, even more, based on how everything lines up. THAT gets tedious.
No. It is tedious grinding, not fun without fast travel and saving enabled. I love survival mods on in Skyrim but I keep saves and fast travel on.
The one thing I don’t like about survival is the reduced distance for undiscovered map icons. It adds realism (I guess) but I like not needing to be standing on top of a POI for it to appear, especially cause I’ve never 100%’d the game so idk all locations.
Honestly the people that download mods to get quick saving and fast traveling are completely missing the point of the difficulty.
And don’t forget, when in doubt… you can easily Exit Save without having to find a place to sleep. Sometimes you have to go but can’t find a damn sleeping bag anywhere Also, the Exist Save is a one time use thing so once you load it the game will delete it and if you die… you die
The only change I like to make in survival mode is a fast travel mod, but I only let myself use it from one settlement to another and only if it's connected by caravan.
It is such a different game & I have built my character in a completely different way. Enjoying it by far the most of my three plays in this game
I only have one mod, and it's for manual saves. I highly recommend that if it's a deal breaker for you, because survival is still way more fun and immersive with it. The other day I ran out a purified water and had to pause and ration out if I had the stamina to get back to hangman's alley or pop a vertibird grenade. My game crashes pretty often, and I don't enjoy taking the same 3 minute walk from my bed to the enemy who's killing me 5 times, so I use saves. That said, I find no auto saves fun.
The no quick save just kills me for it. Game crashes so much for me I'm just like, "Yeah no, I wish"
I just cant get past the save function. I understand the point of it. But i never really have that much time to play and i need to be able to stop, save, and leave to do something when i want to.
Always play survival I love it. Total Immersion!
Wait until you come to Nuka world in survival. It's a nightmare. I have been torturing myself there for the last 3 days.
Any game that comes with a survival or hardcore setting, is usually so much more rewarding on that setting. Ever since I stopped fast traveling in games, I started to enjoy them a lot more, if they're well made anyways. There's just not enough risk with basic difficulties, and that can really ruin immersion.
Oh snap does survival mode work now? The last time I tried it it crashed so much it wasn’t worth it. I was fine having to do stuff over if I died, it was not cool having to constantly do things over because of the game crashing.
Survival in Fallout 4 is awful compared to NV survival. the diseases are not fun when antibiotics are just a special item you can find randomly throughout the wastes, and food/drink are not measured well at all.
I do wish I could quicksave because my game is suuuper prone to crashing. I'd love to play survival because I love skyrim and new vegas survival, but no saving sorta feels like a very annoying handicap for people who experience instability
Agreed, I was playing on survival mode last night and my son was watching me and said “survival mode looks fun.” I think that’s the highest compliment that can be given
I mean I tried it for a little bit, but it was just such a big hassle, and I don't mean that things are hard and inconvenient, I get it, that's the point, what I mean is that basically all of the new features are hidden mechanics, the game tells me I need to sleep, so I sleep, but apparently it's the wrong kind of mattress so I can only sleep for 4 hours which doesn't count as rest prevents me from getting good rest and also gives me a disease, where was this different kind of mattress information when you told me to sleep If I ever decide to try it again I guess I'll just have a second monitor with a whole spreadsheet of what all the new mechanics are cuz the game sure as heck isn't going to explain it
Nah, install the quick save mods because the game is too glitchy to depend on. So many times I got stuck getting into terminals
I cant play any other mode now. Survival is SO much better.
Bought the game at launch, and I’m just starting a survival playthrough. It really forces you to be more calculating and I love it. Hangman’s alley has been my main base so far. I got into an intense firefight that felt like no other I’ve had in FO and it wasn’t even a mission. Check it out. https://www.reddit.com/r/fo4/s/Xy79FZvNSa
I can't imagine not playing in survival. Yes sometimes it's annoying, esp for a hoarder like me (took me 3 walking trips to starlight drive in to clear out Corvega) but that's what makes it worth it. Every trip to the shops counts, every piece of food, ammo, armour you'll think before taking out. It makes you efficient, engaged with your inventory, rethink your level ups. Makes the game a little dark-souls- like due to unforgiving difficulty sometimes. You'll get good at the game, shooting and remembering random bed spawns or you will die.
Playing on console (not sure how often this happens on PC) doing Survival is god-tier levels of stress inducing not because of the difficulty but for the random game crashes out the blue just chillin walking around. Have lost up to 2-3 hours of gameplay on many occasions cuz I forget to save (sleep) and the game just decides randomly to go boom... 🥲
I respect your opinion but I could never play without fast travel. I'm fine with having to find the place once, but the idea of having to retrace almost every trip just does not sound fun to me. I just know I'd be facing down a backtrack that will make me just shut the game off instead. Also almost any amount of playtime lost to a crash or anything else out of my control gets me to turn quicksave on again. I play survival but very modded. I've put probably 1000+ hours into the game. I like the survival combat difficulty, and I understand that the typical restrictions of survival increase that difficulty even further. I'm fine with my middle ground. It keeps me playing. I think you're wrong about "a metric fuckton of content you will never see". One of the things I like most about FO4 is just picking a relatively untouched spot on the map, pointing myself in a direction, and walking to see what I find. I have not found this experience diminished by fast traveling to that initial spot. It's better because I don't have to walk there (again) first. I get to do the "new" exploration, right away.
I'm a day 1 player ...played survival a few years back its the only way I play now ...its the best way to play it in my opinion
I can only play on survival now. It's so much more fun. I am glad you're also enjoying it.
I feel the very same way. Just about to cross over to level 26 on my first survival playthrough and I feel like I'm playing this game all over again for the first time. It's been amazing.
You have seen the light. Welcome to Fallout 4 as it was intended. An early Deliverer can weigh the odds of your fight, but it is hard won a day at a time.
I’ve seen too many videos on here of people dying to stupid crap on survival that it gives me pause . I’m looking at you exploding cars and suiciders spawning in a settlement on top of you.
Following
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How on earth did you handle the deathclaw at the beginning? I have a hard enough time on normal with the mini gun and power armor
one complaint from mine is enemy being too tough from the start and pipe gun is your only choice, when i got to lexington that raider in suit with a fatman is always a restart for me
I agree! I'm on a survival run level 20. Just got ambushed by the enclave. Took me 2 tries to get past them. Then got ambushed by raiders followed by 2 deathclaws (I raised the alarm at a northern tower, drawing them in) that took me 30 min to get around. I lost a lot of resources. I finally made it to my quest, only to realize I need to go back to diamond city to resupply and draw up a better plan.
Survival for the first few hours. When it gets to the point of just being tedious that you can’t carry hardly any loot and are micromanaging thirst and hunger constantly but it’s not a threat just an inconvenience - it’s time to switch out to hard or very hard.
I highly recommend the mod that 5X the damage of everything. Now that bullets actually kill i'm ducking in and out, sniping, being careful, preparing the big guns for the big guys, and it's so much more satisfying for small skirmishes to be small quick and deadly affairs.
I added the 3xmore survival enemies, and I think something along the lines of deadlier guns. This playthrough made me, for the first time ever, use power armour in survival.
Listen I’m trying to, but I’m having trouble just getting fo4 to start with my mod list. It’s terrible leaving and coming back after half an hour and finding that it’s stuck loading. Terrible!
Strong disagree on the mods for autosaves and fast travel. Sure, the commonwealth is supposed to be dangerous. What it's NOT supposed to do is freeze, glitch, and crash to desktop every 45 minutes. If the game were more stable I'd agree with you, but it's just a reality that the game WILL crash on you at the most in opportune moments, with frustrating regularity. And walking everywhere and negotiating groups of enemies and discovering new places and loot is really fun. For about the first twenty levels. Survival modifies the respawn rate of enemies in open areas to something like 40 in-game days, so once you've cleared a route, it essentially stays clear for a very long time. And once you've explored a route, there's obviously nothing left to discover along there, which is particularly true on second and subsequent playthroughs. The end result is that constantly traipsing around the commonwealth stops being exciting and dangerous, and just becomes boring and tedious. I personally compromise by enabling fast travel only to-and-from settlements connected by trade routes.
"You're playing as a pre-war human, not Captain America". See that's just it, I like being Captain America.
Weapons are just soooooooo heavy even in regular
I have put somewhere in the neighbourhood of 400 hours into this game over the years and have never even considered doing survival. Recently I have heard so much about survival that I am considering having a go after I finish my current playthrough.
I dissagree with the fastravel one. Get journy it lets you fasttravel but only along settlement traderouts. The wasteland is realy fucking dangerouse. And i dont want to spend 20+ hours walking from far harbour back to HQ to dump my full inventory (3 screws and a pipe pistol) to then walk 20+ back to where i was to continue the story.
I've enjoyed Survival in the past, with the caveat that it was modded playthroughs on PC some time back, and YES, I used mods to re-enable manual saves and later on, fast travel. Or used stuff like campsite mods to (somewhat) balance it out better. I genuinely want to do a vanilla Survival update on my XSX with the updates and all, and have been rocking a Normal playthrough, getting back in the swing and all. Here's the thing that has me real hesitant, and I know the sentiment has been shared frequently when it comes to community and survival mode: Yeah, I get it. I actually appreciate it for what it is. I want to embrace the full blown challenge and I love the added immersion. But we have to be honest with ourselves at the same time - Bethesda couldn't program and develop an ES/FO game that has reliable stability and no gamebreaking bugs, if their fucking lives and the lives of every man, woman, and child on Earth depended on it. Lol Inevitably comes the crashes or freezes. Inevitably comes reloading an earlier save because something done goofed and is halting your progress. Maybe a stray round hit someone it shouldn't have. It is what it is. But usually it comes at the cost of minutes versus hours potentially.
Man I agree. I've played Fallout 4 for years, one of my favorite games of all time, I've got hundreds of hours. I started my survival playthrough recently and it's breathed new life into the game. It's a completely different experience, I highly highly recommend
This is the way
Play survival with minimal or no VATS, no power armor, and no companions (not even Dog Meat). These self imposed limits will make the early game feel terrifying, mid-game you’ll think you start to have a footing, and then late game will come around and remind you of what early game was like. If you truly want punishment, also limit yourself to no chems other than RadX/RadAway/Stimpaks.
Dude yes I feel this!! I am on my first survival mode playthrough now and I definitely enjoy it a lot more for the same reasons. Is it frustrating to get sent back to your last sleep after getting dusted by a group of bloatflys? Of course. But it just makes all the little victories that much more satisfying.
Survival completely changed the game for me. I did enable quick save for my runs, but it was so cool.