Xsjadoblayde said:
However, is it even worth it?
I think so. I personally enjoyed the mode a great deal.
Xsjadoblayde said:
Are the limiters too cruel and arbitrary?
Nah, not at all. The two biggest issues that I personally experienced, are simply the slow healing of health/rads in survival mode. It makes trying to spam stimpaks in combat a non-tactic. You just can't do it. If you are taking massive damage, you need to run away, heal, and hide for a bit while the healing takes effect. The other being the limitation on saving, which is only when you sleep in a bed of some kind (or bedroll). Which can make for chunks of lost time if you go for a while without saving, and then run into a lethal threat. However, this is one reason why having the network of settlements is actually a benefit. Because you will then have a certain rest point relatively close, no matter where you are exploring. It also makes the "supply lines" actually useful, since you can't just fast travel around. Being able to access your crafting resources from any location you control, because you set up a supply line, is damn handy when you need to build something in a hurry.
Xsjadoblayde said:
Does it require save-scumming? Should I see the main story through first before attempting this mode?
Can't save scum, as you can only save at sleeping locations. Though it's perfectly viable to save inside say, a vault, in a quiet room, before going into a dangerous area. And it doesn't matter if you finish the main story first or not. The story doesn't change at all, how you progress through it changes, as your forms of travel/crafting/saving are significantly different.
Xsjadoblayde said:
Also, if one were to go in blind...what tips are there worth knowing? Will it require specific, optimised character builds and a defined quest line for any chances at success? Will I spend SPECIAL stat upgrades in one area only to find that later levels render my character useless?
Not at all. Though you will find the lower levels VERY dangerous, as one of the major changes in Survival is that everyone (you and the enemies) do a LOT more damage to each other. So while you are more likely to kill enemies quickly, they are also likely to kill you quickly too. Once you get into the 20+ to 30+ level range however, you become sufficiently tough enough that it's not a big deal. A few bits of advice I will give you though:
1.
BEWARE GRENADES, ESPECIALLY MOLOTOVS. In Survival mode, molotovs are pretty much a one shot kill for you and most regular enemies. Seriously, if you are going up against npcs with molotovs (which are really damn common among raiders and the like), you should watch your ass. Also, be careful if you plan on using them yourself. A badly aimed molotov that explodes near you will kill you instantly. If you plan on using grenades/molotovs, invest in the explosive perk (i forget the name), that improves your damage/radius for explosives, and
get the perk that gives you a throwing arc on screen This is super useful as it will drastically reduce the number of times you will kill yourself, because you didn't line up the throwing arc on that molotov right, and it glances off the top of the doorframe you are chunking a mollie through.
2.
Get the Aquaboy perk, at least the first rank The second rank is very nice too, but not as necessary. Aquaboy 1, is great. I, I really can't stress how useful it is in Survival. There is water in FO 4. A lot of it, and a lot of it is around, between, and in front of a lot of places you will need to go, back and forth. Aquaboy 1,
removes all rads for swimming, and lets you breath underwater indefinitely. For getting around a hostile zone, when you just do NOT want to fight, being able to jump into the water, dive down, and just swim along the river to a dangerous location...take ZERO RADS, and never have to surface for air? Yeah, it's suuuuuper useful. It turns the water in the game from a super dangerous hazard/obstacle, into a super safe and easy form of distance traveling. And since you can't fast travel, you have to move through every inch of that map...and encounter every enemy along the way. Also, using Radaway makes you prone to infections for a long time, so you want to not use it if you can avoid it. And you soak up so many rads from water it's not even funny.
3. Use doctors for healing/radiation scrubs. As I said above, don't use Radaway
unless you absolutely have to. The debuff on your immune system that using it lasts a LONG time, and the random types of infections you can get (which can really suck), are WAY more likely to happen if you are under the "weakened immunity" debuff from Radaway. It's much better to just spend 50 caps (I think it's just 50), and get a rad scrub, with no side effects, from a doctor.
4. Make sure to have water sources at every community (and some food), and make sure they make more than they need to survive. You want a surplus of water. You will drink water a lot in Survival, way more than food. You can get a steady, free supply of Purified Water at ALL of your settlements, if you just build a water purifier, or several water pumps. Just make sure the amount is significantly more than the population (6 settlers, but you make 10 water for example). The surplus will go into your Workshop bench periodically, along with your crops, and you can harvest those to take with you on your journey.
5. Buy at least 1 rank of Chemist, and Medic/Doctor if you want.
If you want to make drugs/stimpaks/etc, you need at least one rank in Chemist to even use the Chemistry station. And trust me, you want to be able to make drugs. I never used them myself, but damn if they weren't an easy source of money. You can make Jet relatively easy with materials that are fairly easy to come by. You can make stimpaks and psycho pretty easy too, and they sell for lots of caps. Taking the Doctor perk is useful simply for improving your Stimpak/Radaway usage. If you get hit with a lot of rads, it's better to only have to use 1 Radaway to clear out the damage, than having to use multiple. It's not
necessary to do that, but I found it very useful, and let you get by with far less stimpaks/radaways, letting you sell off the excess for massive caps.
That's about it with specific tips from someone who played Survival mode into the 60+ level range. Most of the other things I could mention are basic FO 4 tips that are valid regardless of gaming mode, but those are things I found to be of particular use in that mode.
I found the mode very fun, but that's me. I found the "no fast travel" alone, reshapes the entire game for me, as you had to seriously consider your routes to everywhere. Possible threats to and from, where you might have to detour, where you can save along the way in case you run into a random Deathclaw, etc. It just made the game world more involved, and immersive for me. Your mileage might vary, but I loved it. It's not as hard as they like to make it out to be. It's tough in the lower levels to be sure, you can die super fast if you're not careful. But you eventually can grow up to be a very powerful character, and it becomes no more dangerous than any other mode....except for molotovs, those things seem to ALWAYS be deadly. Seriously, watch your ass with molotovs, tossing them, or having them tossed at you.
