Who's jumping into hardcore mode first? - Page 6

10-22-2010, 03:38 AM

If you fast travel across the map for water ... you will be thirsty after fast traveling back will you not?

The fact you can heal out your radiation over and over, in my mind, means just drink w/e the hell you find out of sinks and etc. Heal up rads with the closest doc when you can instead of fast traveling to goodsprings to solve hydration sickness.

There is non irradiated water all over the place, and finding irradiated water is ridiculously easy

Im waiting for my superhardcore mod heehee ... where I need to eat 2 boxes of cram and pork n beans every 6 hours lol

Oh an jogging across the mojave for 3 hours during the day would take liters and liters of water (or gallons if you prefer

)

MrChris · 10-22-2010, 05:07 AM

yeh, managed to dehydrate myself quite badly legging it from some deathclaws (thought I had a stealthboy oops lol)

I typically go for Maize as food, or some iguana bits, cos they get rid of lots of hunger and don't radiate much if at all

drink from somewhere like Goodsprings and you don't get radiation, other sources of water have rads sure, but not a lot like you said

getting into firefights when half of your body is crippled is quite intense as well lol, bless that dam service rifle

Evilsearat · 10-22-2010, 05:53 AM

Did it on the first go. I'm level 12 now and hunting deathclaws. I've never once found it tedious; they implemented it very well. You just need to make sure you make full use of your companion's ability to haul around your ammo, food, and water.

Trodamus · 10-22-2010, 08:12 AM

For a slightly more comprehensive list of what hardcore mode does:

-Health items do not heal instantly. This obviously makes combat a bit more difficult, as it removes the pause-stim-shoot tactic of FO3. Stimpacks heal based on your medicine skill, so without many points in this you'll blow alot of stims to heal fully up and will be useless in combat.
-Limbs are not healed by stims, but by medical NPCs or doctor bags. This adds a nice bit of tension in my experience so far, especially early on when doc bags are somewhat rare (though you can craft them with the new survival skill). This really makes you appreciate the effect that a crippled limb has on accuracy, or how much your vision is effed up when your head goes bad. VATS accuracy goes to the pot with a crippled limb, and ironsights aiming goes all wobbley too. Typically, I save doc bags for emergencies, else limp back to a medic.
-Ammo has weight. Not much, but it does.
-Companions can die permanently. In FO3, this was the default, but in NV by default they are flagged as essential and will get back up after a fight. In hardcore mode, they say dead. If they don't die, they still quickly auto-heal up to full out of combat.
-You must eat, drink and sleep. This is tracked in a similar fashion to radiation poisoning; you acquire a food / water / sleep score from 0-1000, with benchmarks at 250, 500 and 750 counting as starvation, dehydration and whatnot. You'll start getting stat penalties as these go up.

Water may be found and this mode does make you appreciate finding dirty water in a medicine cabinet. Alternatively, you can harvest flesh from animals (mutated and not), which you can fry up into tasty things at a campfire using the survival skill. Better food items reduce your food stat more and give you other bonuses to your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attributes.

Thus far I wouldn't say hardcore has drastically increased the difficulty, outside of the new stimpack rules, but it does add some nice tension and immersion, as well as increasing the value of certain items you might have discarded in FO3. Now you will actually buy water and food when you go into a bar, rather than unloading mininukes for extra cash somehow.

blazur · 10-22-2010, 08:15 AM

Great summary, Trodamus. Should also note that sleeping in a bed no longer instantly heals all your health. In fact, the only thing it seems to do now is regulate your sleep meter.

All in all I'm really enjoying the extra level of challenge this mode offers.

Trodamus · 10-22-2010, 08:16 AM

Also, certain items increase your H20 or Food scores, making you dehydrate and whatnot faster. Notably, alcohol isn't a great choice for drinking when you're running through a desert.

Largely, however, I've noticed I only really need to eat and drink something decent once per day, and catching one-hour catnaps on abandonded matresses does just as well to keeping me going.

I may try to compile an exact list of status effects from these conditions later.

Ghost Dog · 10-22-2010, 10:00 AM

Hardcore all the way, were just going to mod it to hell anyway.

wteSmithy · 10-29-2010, 08:51 PM

I second that, very concise summary Trodamus

New Vegas may only be a progressive of the plot (with the same engine) but these little tweaks all add up to a much better experience. This has other RPG games trailing a bit behind, i.e. Stalker being the obvious as that didn't progress as much as we all wanted it to through the two sequels.

I'm back to exploring - getting lost mostly to start with - and playing on the hop a bit, which does adds to the excitement all over again.

This time, at least people won't have trouble playing New Vegas unlike when Fallout 3 first came out it would stress any rig with settings nearly maxed out. I was wondering how long it will be before we have a new Fallout game/enginefrom Bethesda? And has anyone seen a texture overhaul mod for New Vegas yet, post here if you see a quality mod.

10-29-2010, 09:01 PM

Yep, Hardcore from the get-go.

Doesn't really make it harder per se, it just means you have be more selective in what you carry. A weight allowance reduction mod would have a similar effect, except your inventory wouldn't be crammed with random nibbles.

It's not like you have to sleep every night. Keeping a supply of water and doctors bags are the main concerns.

JK_DC · 10-29-2010, 11:57 PM

It wasn't realistic enough so I got a harder hardcore mod which is better. Now I actually have to sleep 5 hours a day. That is okay because the realistic night mod I also got makes it difficult to see at night. Now to get a brighter Pipboy mod. hehe

MrChris · 10-30-2010, 12:33 PM

I enjoy hardcore mode a lot, it isn't necessarily what I would think of as "hardcore", but it at least puts more thought into the game and adds some more depth

wouldn't enjoy normal mode after playing it tbh

10-22-2010, 08:12 AM	#79
Trodamus Join Date: Mar 2009 Reputation: 135 Posts: 406	For a slightly more comprehensive list of what hardcore mode does: -Health items do not heal instantly. This obviously makes combat a bit more difficult, as it removes the pause-stim-shoot tactic of FO3. Stimpacks heal based on your medicine skill, so without many points in this you'll blow alot of stims to heal fully up and will be useless in combat. -Limbs are not healed by stims, but by medical NPCs or doctor bags. This adds a nice bit of tension in my experience so far, especially early on when doc bags are somewhat rare (though you can craft them with the new survival skill). This really makes you appreciate the effect that a crippled limb has on accuracy, or how much your vision is effed up when your head goes bad. VATS accuracy goes to the pot with a crippled limb, and ironsights aiming goes all wobbley too. Typically, I save doc bags for emergencies, else limp back to a medic. -Ammo has weight. Not much, but it does. -Companions can die permanently. In FO3, this was the default, but in NV by default they are flagged as essential and will get back up after a fight. In hardcore mode, they say dead. If they don't die, they still quickly auto-heal up to full out of combat. -You must eat, drink and sleep. This is tracked in a similar fashion to radiation poisoning; you acquire a food / water / sleep score from 0-1000, with benchmarks at 250, 500 and 750 counting as starvation, dehydration and whatnot. You'll start getting stat penalties as these go up. Water may be found and this mode does make you appreciate finding dirty water in a medicine cabinet. Alternatively, you can harvest flesh from animals (mutated and not), which you can fry up into tasty things at a campfire using the survival skill. Better food items reduce your food stat more and give you other bonuses to your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attributes. Thus far I wouldn't say hardcore has drastically increased the difficulty, outside of the new stimpack rules, but it does add some nice tension and immersion, as well as increasing the value of certain items you might have discarded in FO3. Now you will actually buy water and food when you go into a bar, rather than unloading mininukes for extra cash somehow. Last edited by Trodamus: 10-22-2010 at 08:14 AM.

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10-22-2010, 03:38 AM	#76
c6burns Guest Posts: n/a	If you fast travel across the map for water ... you will be thirsty after fast traveling back will you not? The fact you can heal out your radiation over and over, in my mind, means just drink w/e the hell you find out of sinks and etc. Heal up rads with the closest doc when you can instead of fast traveling to goodsprings to solve hydration sickness. There is non irradiated water all over the place, and finding irradiated water is ridiculously easy Im waiting for my superhardcore mod heehee ... where I need to eat 2 boxes of cram and pork n beans every 6 hours lol Oh an jogging across the mojave for 3 hours during the day would take liters and liters of water (or gallons if you prefer )

10-22-2010, 05:07 AM	#77
MrChris Join Date: Jan 2005 Reputation: 3003 Posts: 7,547	yeh, managed to dehydrate myself quite badly legging it from some deathclaws (thought I had a stealthboy oops lol) I typically go for Maize as food, or some iguana bits, cos they get rid of lots of hunger and don't radiate much if at all drink from somewhere like Goodsprings and you don't get radiation, other sources of water have rads sure, but not a lot like you said getting into firefights when half of your body is crippled is quite intense as well lol, bless that dam service rifle

10-22-2010, 05:53 AM	#78
Evilsearat Join Date: Oct 2008 Reputation: 15 Posts: 214	Did it on the first go. I'm level 12 now and hunting deathclaws. I've never once found it tedious; they implemented it very well. You just need to make sure you make full use of your companion's ability to haul around your ammo, food, and water.

10-22-2010, 08:15 AM	#80
blazur Join Date: Oct 2007 Reputation: 175 Posts: 3,702	Great summary, Trodamus. Should also note that sleeping in a bed no longer instantly heals all your health. In fact, the only thing it seems to do now is regulate your sleep meter. All in all I'm really enjoying the extra level of challenge this mode offers.

10-22-2010, 08:16 AM	#81
Trodamus Join Date: Mar 2009 Reputation: 135 Posts: 406	Also, certain items increase your H20 or Food scores, making you dehydrate and whatnot faster. Notably, alcohol isn't a great choice for drinking when you're running through a desert. Largely, however, I've noticed I only really need to eat and drink something decent once per day, and catching one-hour catnaps on abandonded matresses does just as well to keeping me going. I may try to compile an exact list of status effects from these conditions later.

10-22-2010, 10:00 AM	#82
Ghost Dog Join Date: Nov 2007 Reputation: 244 Posts: 1,851	Hardcore all the way, were just going to mod it to hell anyway.

10-29-2010, 08:51 PM	#83
wteSmithy Join Date: Dec 2009 Reputation: 6 Posts: 78	I second that, very concise summary Trodamus New Vegas may only be a progressive of the plot (with the same engine) but these little tweaks all add up to a much better experience. This has other RPG games trailing a bit behind, i.e. Stalker being the obvious as that didn't progress as much as we all wanted it to through the two sequels. I'm back to exploring - getting lost mostly to start with - and playing on the hop a bit, which does adds to the excitement all over again. This time, at least people won't have trouble playing New Vegas unlike when Fallout 3 first came out it would stress any rig with settings nearly maxed out. I was wondering how long it will be before we have a new Fallout game/enginefrom Bethesda? And has anyone seen a texture overhaul mod for New Vegas yet, post here if you see a quality mod.

10-29-2010, 09:01 PM	#84
Levethian Guest Posts: n/a	Yep, Hardcore from the get-go. Doesn't really make it harder per se, it just means you have be more selective in what you carry. A weight allowance reduction mod would have a similar effect, except your inventory wouldn't be crammed with random nibbles. It's not like you have to sleep every night. Keeping a supply of water and doctors bags are the main concerns.

10-29-2010, 11:57 PM	#85
JK_DC Join Date: Jan 2009 Reputation: 193 Posts: 2,209	It wasn't realistic enough so I got a harder hardcore mod which is better. Now I actually have to sleep 5 hours a day. That is okay because the realistic night mod I also got makes it difficult to see at night. Now to get a brighter Pipboy mod. hehe

10-30-2010, 12:33 PM	#86
MrChris Join Date: Jan 2005 Reputation: 3003 Posts: 7,547	I enjoy hardcore mode a lot, it isn't necessarily what I would think of as "hardcore", but it at least puts more thought into the game and adds some more depth wouldn't enjoy normal mode after playing it tbh