Fallout 4 Survival Mode is Now in Steam Beta
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You lose the ability to fix the game every time something breaks. This shouldn't be about adding a ton of extra difficulty, it should be about increased gameplay depth and immersion.Makabriel said:
Apart from that, not being able to save in a Bethesda game is just ASKING to have a crash/bug destroy an hour of playtime.
Edit: on the bright side, if the mode does ship as is, modders will probably be quick to fix it.
FO 4 is the first FO game by them that has given me really serious bug issues, that I had to use console command to fix. So disabling that is a bit of an annoyance to me. In fact, I had so many bugs with FO 4 that I had to bookmark the various fixes so I could correct them, as they happened almost every game session. So yeah, I can understand that frustration, given if you have a problem that pops up consistently every 10 or so hours of gameplay.Makabriel said:
For sure, they've done a better job polishing this game than previous titles, but I've had to use console commands twice now on characters who've straight up disappeared. It was never something game ending, but it would have resulted in a smaller quest being broken and a settlement having an extra merchant despite them being gone.Makabriel said:
If I can't have my console, I'm not going to bother.
I have a certain character archetype that I would have been able to survive well enough on a Survival Difficulty: A sneaking silenced weapon user with some admittedly overpowered modded armor. The Rebel armor is great but it has like 450 armor rating with Level 4 Ballistic Weave on it. It starts at 125ish and doesn't take a severe amount of resources to make.
I have a certain character archetype that I would have been able to survive well enough on a Survival Difficulty: A sneaking silenced weapon user with some admittedly overpowered modded armor. The Rebel armor is great but it has like 450 armor rating with Level 4 Ballistic Weave on it. It starts at 125ish and doesn't take a severe amount of resources to make.
I hope the mode is tweakable when fully released. Can't we just pick aspects of survival mode we want? I would just like everything to be more squishy myself included and the whole food/water thing. Everything else can stay out.
Usually when the terrain flakes out in Fallout 4 and wedges you into a wall, rock or, whatever, you've got two options. You can open the console and clip out or fast travel... which, survival disables. Combine that with a punitive, and nonsensical save system, and this will create a fail state due to no fault of the player.Makabriel said:
Eh, Console being disabled AND not being able to save whenever is a deal breaker for me, at least until someone on Nexus mods this. And not because I want to cheat, but because Bethesda games cannot be trusted. They are a little buggy at the best of times, and completely broken at the worst.
Concerning not being able to open the console; this sucks because there have been quite a few times where an NPC (that I need) will bug out, disappear, or die (through no fault of my own) or a quest will break somehow and I won't be able to complete it OR I get stuck in some terrain and am unable to get out via normal means, however, thanks to console commands, these things can usually be fixed in some way.
Concerning saves, the biggest issue I see for me personally is the game crashing. Now, this doesn't happen all the time, but it does happen often enough that me not being able to save whenever I want is a huge problem. And no, I don't have any mods or anything like that installed, I play the vanilla game on lowered graphics and the game still crashes out of nowhere at times. And the last thing I want is to be playing the game without having saved in the last hour or two, and have the game crash on me... no thanks.
Concerning not being able to open the console; this sucks because there have been quite a few times where an NPC (that I need) will bug out, disappear, or die (through no fault of my own) or a quest will break somehow and I won't be able to complete it OR I get stuck in some terrain and am unable to get out via normal means, however, thanks to console commands, these things can usually be fixed in some way.
Concerning saves, the biggest issue I see for me personally is the game crashing. Now, this doesn't happen all the time, but it does happen often enough that me not being able to save whenever I want is a huge problem. And no, I don't have any mods or anything like that installed, I play the vanilla game on lowered graphics and the game still crashes out of nowhere at times. And the last thing I want is to be playing the game without having saved in the last hour or two, and have the game crash on me... no thanks.
I see a lot of people pulling the same arguments as whenever an "easier" version of a game comes out, when some of us ask that Bethesda allow quicksaving and the console back in survival mode.
Here is my perspective:
Is Fallout 4 a multiplayer or competitive game with some kind of tangible reward for beating it? No. So then there's literally no reason to get upset about someone wanting the option to use quick saving or the console commands during Survival mode.
Personally, I want to play the survival elements, such as having to eat, drink and sleep, while keeping my ability to quick save. The game is far too long, and too unpredictable to not allow it. There are also a few console commands that I use to enhance my experience, such as tweaking a few graphical effects and the FOV.
If YOU want to play the game as hardcore as possible, then that's fine, but I don't, and that means I have to miss out on some possible gameplay mechanics that I'd like to experience.
And it's not like we are asking the developers to put in a new feature that wasn't already present in the game, quicksaving and the command console were already available, meaning they stripped away those features when playing in survival mode. All I ask is the ability to toggle those on again.
Here is my perspective:
Is Fallout 4 a multiplayer or competitive game with some kind of tangible reward for beating it? No. So then there's literally no reason to get upset about someone wanting the option to use quick saving or the console commands during Survival mode.
Personally, I want to play the survival elements, such as having to eat, drink and sleep, while keeping my ability to quick save. The game is far too long, and too unpredictable to not allow it. There are also a few console commands that I use to enhance my experience, such as tweaking a few graphical effects and the FOV.
If YOU want to play the game as hardcore as possible, then that's fine, but I don't, and that means I have to miss out on some possible gameplay mechanics that I'd like to experience.
And it's not like we are asking the developers to put in a new feature that wasn't already present in the game, quicksaving and the command console were already available, meaning they stripped away those features when playing in survival mode. All I ask is the ability to toggle those on again.
Survival Mode is... poorly balanced. It has several issues.
You get this "Adrenaline" Perk that increases the damage you deal in combat by 5% per rank. You gain a rank by killing 5 targets. You loose ranks by sleeping. Since you MUST sleep (or your character suffers increasingly terrible debuffs) this sort of comes out being a wash.
Fatigue is a new mechanic that is similar to Radiation damage, except that it reduces your maximum Action Points. Fatigue increases by not sleeping, eating or drinking. If you don't use VATS, Fatigue does not seem to be a big deal.
You have a Wellness stat now. If your Wellness is low, you'll get "sick" (random debuffs). Your Wellness goes up by sleeping, eating and drinking often. It goes down by using chems, taking a MASSIVE hit every time you use Rad-away (I get some illness after using 3 Rad-aways). Sickness is nearly identical to being Addicted. Visit a doctor or take an Antibiotic and it goes away. However, if your Wellness is still low, you'll just get sick again in a few minutes. I understand that they wanted to add some penalty for relying on chems (especially Rad-away), but this just seems tedious.
Food and water are not a huge problem. Getting "restful sleep" is. You can't sleep as long on a blood stained mattress as you can in a down filled bed. This often leads to taking "cat naps" at every opportunity.
Companions that are "knocked out" of a fight won't die. They leave you, and return "home". You do have a short window to heal them before they get fed up and leave, but I have had a couple of instances where the fight ran long and they left before I could heal them. With fast travel disabled, this became annoying fairly quickly.
Removing fast travel makes the Minutemen faction incredibly tedious. I avoid Preston or unlocking the Castle to reduce the amount of walking involved in saving every sorry sod in the Commonwealth.
The decision to reduce maximum carry load coupled with no fast travel makes looting for settlement expansion a chore. Since everything now has weight, you must carry the essentials to survive (water, food, clothing, weapons, healing items, etc) so there is less room for typewriters and duct tape. The respawn timers of "cleared" areas is doubled, so you can make 10 actual trips back and forth looting large locations without fear that things will respawn.
I've found that Survival Mode makes low level gameplay punitive and mid to high level gameplay tedious.
You get this "Adrenaline" Perk that increases the damage you deal in combat by 5% per rank. You gain a rank by killing 5 targets. You loose ranks by sleeping. Since you MUST sleep (or your character suffers increasingly terrible debuffs) this sort of comes out being a wash.
Fatigue is a new mechanic that is similar to Radiation damage, except that it reduces your maximum Action Points. Fatigue increases by not sleeping, eating or drinking. If you don't use VATS, Fatigue does not seem to be a big deal.
You have a Wellness stat now. If your Wellness is low, you'll get "sick" (random debuffs). Your Wellness goes up by sleeping, eating and drinking often. It goes down by using chems, taking a MASSIVE hit every time you use Rad-away (I get some illness after using 3 Rad-aways). Sickness is nearly identical to being Addicted. Visit a doctor or take an Antibiotic and it goes away. However, if your Wellness is still low, you'll just get sick again in a few minutes. I understand that they wanted to add some penalty for relying on chems (especially Rad-away), but this just seems tedious.
Food and water are not a huge problem. Getting "restful sleep" is. You can't sleep as long on a blood stained mattress as you can in a down filled bed. This often leads to taking "cat naps" at every opportunity.
Companions that are "knocked out" of a fight won't die. They leave you, and return "home". You do have a short window to heal them before they get fed up and leave, but I have had a couple of instances where the fight ran long and they left before I could heal them. With fast travel disabled, this became annoying fairly quickly.
Removing fast travel makes the Minutemen faction incredibly tedious. I avoid Preston or unlocking the Castle to reduce the amount of walking involved in saving every sorry sod in the Commonwealth.
The decision to reduce maximum carry load coupled with no fast travel makes looting for settlement expansion a chore. Since everything now has weight, you must carry the essentials to survive (water, food, clothing, weapons, healing items, etc) so there is less room for typewriters and duct tape. The respawn timers of "cleared" areas is doubled, so you can make 10 actual trips back and forth looting large locations without fear that things will respawn.
I've found that Survival Mode makes low level gameplay punitive and mid to high level gameplay tedious.
I'm loving it. It's got mad focus on tactical elements and getting the drop on enemies while taking no damage yourself, which is what I was already doing, and it's got a lot of punitive elements like no fast travel, bad stimpacks, and having to manage your inventory like a fussy saint, and relying on your partners less, which is what I was already doing. It was built for people like me.
People complain, but they don't understand the fear of losing your progress is what gives you your adrenaline IRL as well as your character's. Where before your only risk was having to revert a whole minute to your last quicksave, you now put forth your every resource to preventing a death from occurring in the first place. It gives you a desire to explore for refuge and a bed to save at and makes you thankful for when you find one in a place you would normally have never paid attention to.
People complain, but they don't understand the fear of losing your progress is what gives you your adrenaline IRL as well as your character's. Where before your only risk was having to revert a whole minute to your last quicksave, you now put forth your every resource to preventing a death from occurring in the first place. It gives you a desire to explore for refuge and a bed to save at and makes you thankful for when you find one in a place you would normally have never paid attention to.