Difficulty? Help me decided where to start.

[Anarchosyn]

Crappy thread title, I know. However, the sentiment is very sincere.

Here's my problem:

I normally play games on the hardest available starting difficulty. I like to think. I like a challenge and, hell, I've been playing video games since the Infocom Zork, PlanetFall, Space Quest days (yeah, the latter was Sierra, I know).

However a high difficulty is only enjoyable if the game has any sense of strategy (Dragons Age) and Bethesda's formula, even in Obsidian's hands, doesn't fill me with confidence. Crappy game played on a high difficulty often just devolve into being annoying; they lack the thought provoking challenge and merely play statistical games with one's health and damage output (e.g. Alpha Protocol).

So, with all that said, I normally would play a Bethesda game on normal or maybe even easy. It seems the only difference is the amount of damage the enemy can take and Bethesda styled games are well known for having ludicrously high damage to life ratios. I remember shooting like 40~ arrows into creatures in Oblivion whilst running backwards before I said "screw this" and dropped it to easy so the amount of damage to health was more realistically tuned (and, honestly, my modus operandi in Elder Scrolls games is to get invisibility or a maxed out stealth as quick as possible and then avoid as much of their atrocious combat as possible).

Major Question: What does changing the difficulty in Fallout New Vegas actually effect?

Enemy health is a given, that's the Bethesda old standby,

Player health or susceptibility to major injury?

Radiation effects or susceptibility to such?

Enemy AI (hahaha.. just had to dream a bit here)?

Spawn rates or item availability?

If it's JUST enemy health I might play on a very low difficulty but anything else would demand a higher one. I like hard games but .. gah.. Bethesda styled games just suck .. well.. yeah.. they just suck and I wouldn't be considering unwrapping New Vegas if Obsidian wasn't behind it.

p.s. I'll definitely be playing Hardcore regardless of the difficulty.

 

[Lexx]

With normal, you deal 100% damage, enemy deals 100% damage.

With hard, you deal (I think) 75% damage, the enemy deals 125% damage, etc.

Hardcore mode just adds the need for food, water and sleep, plus the stimpak / healing changes, so it's independent from the normal difficult setting.

 

[Little Robot]

Yeah, I thought that the difficulty level feels pretty pointless. I'm playing on Normal and Hardcore, and feral ghouls are chopping off a limb with every hit.

 

[Anarchosyn]

Thanks, guys.

Normal it will be, then.

 

[Korin]

...However a high difficulty is only enjoyable if the game has any sense of strategy (Dragons Age) and Bethesda's formula, even in Obsidian's hands, doesn't fill me with confidence. Crappy game played on a high difficulty often just devolve into being annoying; they lack the thought provoking challenge and merely play statistical games with one's health and damage output (e.g. Alpha Protocol).

There's plenty of strategy involved in having the game set to a higher difficulty. If you're dying a lot, you need to change your strategy If things are killing you in two hits, position yourself better. Find higher ground. Place land mines. Stealth and reverse pick-pocket live grenades. If they're melee, cripple the legs and get some distance. I've been playing very hard since level 1, and there have been a lot of instances where you could not survive unless you thought about it beyond "shoot them in the head". I don't know specifically what else you would want in a "very hard" mode, other than improved AI but that isn't going to happen.

Hardcore mode isn't hardcore, it's just a tedious addition of extra inventory management. It's worth it for the achievement/item at least.

Also "very hard" in Fallout 3/NV is completely different than how it was handled in Oblivion. Max difficulty in Oblivion didn't even make sense unless you had perfect stats and armor that absorbed/reflected 100% damage, which basically made any mode pointless so you'd just switch it to easy anyway.

 

[Anarchosyn]

There's plenty of strategy involved in having the game set to a higher difficulty....I don't know specifically what else you would want in a "very hard" mode, other than improved AI but that isn't going to happen.

I'm glad you made this post, it has given me pause to reconsider my position (after all, I can change the difficulty if it's untenable).

To answer your question, though, what I'd have loved to see with an increased difficulty would realistically be a modification to spawn tables for enemies and items. Scaling health creates added difficulty, yes, but at the expense of realism (and thus immersion, for me at least). Having to shoot somebody 200 times to drop them seems bothersome, though I played AD&D in the early 90s so I'm very well acquainted with the higher level = higher HP tropes in RPGs.

How would I modify those tables? I don't rightly know without playing the game but I'd probably like to see harder enemies spawned into zones normally reserved for simpler ones, preferably with smarter tactics (not human levels of brilliance but at least to the level of a vapid console shooter). Cover, flanking, self preservation .. the usual we've come to expect. I'd like to see items, ala ammo and weapons, become more scarce and force a higher degree of survivalist desperation out of my play experience.

Hardcore mode isn't hardcore, it's just a tedious addition of extra inventory management. It's worth it for the achievement/item at least.

I have an old school mentality when it comes to RPGs so I don't mind the "tedium." I'm one of those guys who would like every RPG to be filled with 700 skills, 30 status screens filled with detailed (Civ-esque) statistics and use every key on my keyboard. Further, I find it immersive to deal with inventory management -- never had a problem with it in any title.

'Course, I might also walk away unimpressed. Still, it seems like a cool addition on paper.

Also "very hard" in Fallout 3/NV is completely different than how it was handled in Oblivion. Max difficulty in Oblivion didn't even make sense unless you had perfect stats and armor that absorbed/reflected 100% damage, which basically made any mode pointless so you'd just switch it to easy anyway.

I understand what you've explicitly said in this quote but can you elaborate on how New Vegas differs from the Oblivion mold? How was it that they managed to not fall into the same trap? What was the change?

 

[Nuka-X]

As said, hardcore mode isn't much for the difficulty but sure makes the game harder no matter what difficulty you're playing, you still have to take care of yourself by drinking and doing those other needed things.

 

[Bal-Sagoth]

You share my plight, I addressed this in another thread here. Seriously, you are NOT going to enjoy Very Hard in this game. I was a powerhouse by the end of the game, wearing power armor with a 100% CND Light Machine Gun and 100 in Guns. The normal regular Legion troops at the dam, coming at me in leather armor and shoulder pads were taking hundreds upon hundreds of 5.56 to even put a dent in their health. I was just standing still and holding the trigger down into this guys chest and his health was barely even budging. I just moved the difficulty down because to me, that is just damn silly, it complete breaks the game for me.

Hoping someone can get creative with mods and do something to make the game challenging without making it silly. If anyone has any ideas on how to do this, feel free to discuss.

 

[Little Robot]

I'm one of those guys who would like every RPG to be filled with 700 skills, 30 status screens filled with detailed (Civ-esque) statistics and use every key on my keyboard.

Are you a NetHack fan? More of a dungeon crawler-- but... so many commands!

 

[Anarchosyn]

I'm one of those guys who would like every RPG to be filled with 700 skills, 30 status screens filled with detailed (Civ-esque) statistics and use every key on my keyboard.

Are you a NetHack fan? More of a dungeon crawler-- but... so many commands!

I grew up playing clones of it off and on.. Never really tried the original with any serious intent, though.

 

[Korin]

To answer your question, though, what I'd have loved to see with an increased difficulty would realistically be a modification to spawn tables for enemies and items. Scaling health creates added difficulty, yes, but at the expense of realism (and thus immersion, for me at least). Having to shoot somebody 200 times to drop them seems bothersome, though I played AD&D in the early 90s so I'm very well acquainted with the higher level = higher HP tropes in RPGs.

Ah yeah, if you want a change to spawn tables and whatnot... probably your only hope will be a mod if you're using the PC version. If you want things that go down with one shot to the head, very easy/easy is the way to go. Difficulty doesn't effect experience (or anything else) negatively or positively, so the only reason to go hard/very hard is masochism.

I have an old school mentality when it comes to RPGs so I don't mind the "tedium." I'm one of those guys who would like every RPG to be filled with 700 skills, 30 status screens filled with detailed (Civ-esque) statistics and use every key on my keyboard. Further, I find it immersive to deal with inventory management -- never had a problem with it in any title.

I'm not sure what I was expecting with hardcore mode. I already knew that eating/drinking would be mostly an inconvenience rather than a difficulty increase. There's food and water everywhere and for some reason you never get sleep deprived. It might be a good or bad addition if you have OCD (bad for me).

The combat element of "heal over time" stimpaks sounded like it would be more challenging, but there's been maybe two fights where not getting the instant heal killed me. It's usually pretty easy to not get into a situation where you might need a stimpak at all or just to use it pre-emptively and keep them rolling. I must have 70+ stimpaks now and 20-30 super stimpaks I'll most likely never touch. Hardcore is at least worth doing, at a minimum, for the achievement though.

I understand what you've explicitly said in this quote but can you elaborate on how New Vegas differs from the Oblivion mold? How was it that they managed to not fall into the same trap? What was the change?

Well, it's difficult to compare the two. Oblivion is mostly melee based, so the player and opponents are all in melee range when they're in combat (you don't get a choice about distance if you're melee). Since the damage scales up heavily with a difficulty increase, it's easy to get wrecked without the correct gear. In Fallout, most of your weapons are ranged, so you have the option of VATSing or shooting from cover.

Oblivion ranged attacks also have travel times and most ranged attacks extrapolate player movement so they don't generally miss unless you're actively dodging. In Fallout bullets are instant but inaccurate at a distance.

The way Oblivion scales opponents would make the max difficulty Fallout equivalent something like very, very, very, very hard. People say they "have to shoot someone in the head a hundred times" to kill them. This isn't actually the case, I haven't encountered anything but a death claw that took more than 3-4 shots to kill. In Oblivion, you could -literally- hit something a few dozen times before they would die. Max difficulty pushes everything to an unreasonable extreme.

In Fallout you will always be able to kill them in a reasonable time, where in Oblivion you most likely would not. Oblivion is a weird game though and one of the only ones that you are strongest at level 1 and progressively weaker as levels/difficulty go up. Also, opponents in Oblivion level with you, where in Fallout: New Vegas they are a set level and won't be any stronger at level 30 than they were at level 20.

 

[mobucks]

Fallout: New FPS mod on Nexus

Makes all NPCs have 1/3 of their vanilla health. Nobody, including the player, gets more health/level. This is a better approach than doubling weapon damage, because it will not mess up DT. The PC has the same handicap to health, so things are still balanced, and i die in one Large Radscorpion sting.

Shotgun blasts to the face, obliterate face. So make sure you get the drop on your enemies! (this seems realistic, in a real firefight, you take a bullet and its time to go to hell or a medic)

To suppliment this mod,
Closer to fallout, True Damage Threshhold

Makes it so DT will absorb ALL damage if your weapon cant punch through. Whereas in vanilla a small ammount leaks through.

Really scary when you face an enemy neither you nor your companions can damage.

 

[Little Robot]

That mod sounds interesting, but I don't really understand how it would work at higher levels. If a shotgun = instakill, why would I ever need to find a Gauss Rifle? Maybe I'm just misinterpreting, but I think that a "realistic" Fallout would remove most of the "finding increasingly badass weapons" aspect. And that aspect is a big part of the fun factor of the game, imo.

The DT mod sounds really good, though. I wish I got the PC version, but I'm playing it on Xbox. My computer is too crappy to handle anything past FO2

 

[Anarchosyn]

Oblivion is a weird game though and one of the only ones that you are strongest at level 1 and progressively weaker as levels/difficulty go up. Also, opponents in Oblivion level with you, where in Fallout: New Vegas they are a set level and won't be any stronger at level 30 than they were at level 20.

Thanks for the thoughts, I'll probably be starting on the hardest difficulty then (mind you, I rarely play combat oriented characters so this *will* be fun ).

As to Oblivion.. well.. the biggest flaw is that they scaled the enemies based on level but levels were gained based on the advancement of an arbitrary set of tagged skills, none of which needed to be combat oriented. This must have been a nightmare to balance (hence why they didn't) and it resulted in some harrowing, almost game breaking, encounters with my non-combat social / stealth oriented "thief" (notably in Kvatch).

 

[Korin]

Oblivion is a weird game though and one of the only ones that you are strongest at level 1 and progressively weaker as levels/difficulty go up. Also, opponents in Oblivion level with you, where in Fallout: New Vegas they are a set level and won't be any stronger at level 30 than they were at level 20.

Thanks for the thoughts, I'll probably be starting on the hardest difficulty then (mind you, I rarely play combat oriented characters so this *will* be fun ).

As to Oblivion.. well.. the biggest flaw is that they scaled the enemies based on level but levels were gained based on the advancement of an arbitrary set of tagged skills, none of which needed to be combat oriented. This must have been a nightmare to balance (hence why they didn't) and it resulted in some harrowing, almost game breaking, encounters with my non-combat social / stealth oriented "thief" (notably in Kvatch).

Leveling in Oblivion made me /facepalm. I'm crazy OCD though so I had a stack of sheets to keep track of what skills were being leveled, so I could always get the 3x5 attribute increase. At the end of game I just set it to easy because combat was stupid though.

I'm level 21 in NV now and Brotherhood members die in 1-2 hits. I was killing deathclaws at level 16 on very hard. It's hardest earlier in the game but once you get like 100 in guns and a decent set of armor you're good to go. Just play it smart on tougher opponents.

 

[Tihi]

New Vegas seems pretty easy to me. I'm playing on normal (only because I don't like having to shoot somebody in the head 20 times) and hardcore. I've played for 7-8 hours and didn't die once. there were enemies that were harder to kill, but nothing too hard.

if difficulty would give enemies better armor (like scorpions that are almost impossible to kill at beginning) that would make sense.

 

[Ausdoerrt]

I have an old school mentality when it comes to RPGs so I don't mind the "tedium." I'm one of those guys who would like every RPG to be filled with 700 skills, 30 status screens filled with detailed (Civ-esque) statistics and use every key on my keyboard. Further, I find it immersive to deal with inventory management -- never had a problem with it in any title.

Well, my 5c, while inventory management can add to a game sometimes (ooh, I remember spending hours to sort through inventory in BG2), I find that on the FO3 engine it adds little to the game other than unnecessary tedium. Not sure why, but probably because of the crappy uncomfortable inventory system.