Playing on Very Hard: It Means One Thing Only...

I started the game on normal difficulty and combat seemed pretty even up until I hit level 6 or 7 and then everything started dying to one combat shotgun/chinese assault rifle blast to the head. Using the 10mm even on normal usually took 2 or 3 shots to the head. I just bumped it up to hard since it was pretty boring and things are a bit better, usually takes about 3 combat shotgun/CAR hits to the head to kill raiders and super mutants. Robots take considerably more, i've gotten to the point where I don't even bother with VATS when i'm trying to kill a robot, its usually faster just to go full auto in real time on them, takes about 2 clips of 5.56 or 8-12 shots from combat shotgun. Using a 10mm on hard difficulty and needing an excessive amount of ammo to take down a raider seems about right. Its roughly equivalent to setting FO1/2 to hard and having a skill penalty making you less accurate and hence missing more thereby using more ammo.

I haven't had any issues with ammo scarcity, seemed about on par with my FO1/2 experiences. Scarce early on until you get yourself established and then you end up with tons of it.

I'm gonna have to wave the bullshit flag on you Bowyerte. My guy is a repair guy too and while I don't claim to know the exact mechanics of the repair skill, my experience has been that the amount of repair skill you have is roughly equivalent to the max condition you can restore a weapon to. I.E. 50 repair skill will let you repair a weapon to 50% condition or thereabouts. So repairing a laser pistol to 80% condition at level 2 seems a bit farfetched and/or exaggerated. I'm torn on whether its lame to be able to find a laser pistol so early on. Part of me wants to chalk it up to the equivalent of a special encounter i.e. alien blaster. I definitely agree though that the prices are just silly. Everything is dirt cheap in FO3 for some reason. You can even buy a Fatman in good repair for a measly 500 caps, and thats with like 20 barter skill. I suppose my outlook may be a bit different if my character wasn't a repair guy and I was reduced to using guns "as is".
 
Dirtybag, I said, too, that short supply of ammo is great. I do hope you read me a bit?

Anyhow, just posting to correct myself: I was playing on Very Hard, not Hard. Spaced-out when I posted, I suppose.

I'm not sure of what games you're referring to when you say that in FPS games it's normal to shoot an enemy in the face several times before they die. The only FPS games that I play are Armed Assault and Red Orchestra (oh, and fallout 3) so it seems normal to me that a headshot would be almost always instant death. With a pistol and range, maybe 2 shots.

I didn't play on Hard with the original Fallout games - didn't feel the need to, you know. When I played on normal in those games, headshots on SIMPLE RAIDERS were 9.5/10 times fatal or crippling (it was different for characters with better armor or plot-importance, though.) But it still sounds to me like the mechanism for difficulty in the originals makes more sense than Bethesda's -- misses are a different kettle of fish from enemies simply soaking up more bullets. If I want to miss less in that circumstance, I can powergame the stat to hell and back, or I can manoeuvre to get in closer before I fire. But with Fallout 3 there's just not a damn thing I can do but click like crazy. And my character has a luck of 10, I always max it for my first character in Fallout games, so criticals are factoring in considerably.

I agree that Super Mutants and characters with helmets ought to take a few more shots, despite it being not realistic - but Beth's move to first-person perspective makes gameplay mechanics that might've been, in some form, to some degree reasonable, seem just bizarre. Granted, though, as I said, I really don't play enough "actiony" FPS games to have been accustomed to that.

Oh well - at some point, a realism mod will come along, shake things up a bit.

Take it easy, you oil-choked previously-whimsical octopi, you.
 
We modders will fix this. Be patient and enjoy the game now, and gasp with amazement with what we provide you shortly! 8-)
 
How do you manage very hard mode?

I've recently started my 3rd character and playing on Very Hard instead of Normal. I notice that the vault guards take alot longer to kill. It wasn't a problem, but it is kind of annoying to be swinging away at the same enemy for a whole 1-2 minutes. Can I expect that to be the norm throughout the rest of the game?

On the plus side: arm and leg shots might become more useful since you can't kill most things with only a few headshots anyways. Am I right?
 
I'd suggest a couple of things with this:

Big guns are fun, but are inefficient at this difficulty:
-takes more ammo to take something down
-ammo costs more considering damage done
-lose durability faster because they are firing much more often

Leg shot:

Yai Giyo (or whatever those bear-things are)
Mirelurks (especially Nuke-Lurks)
Melee Super Mutants
Deathclaws

Then headshot while backpedling. Easy.

Arm Shot:

Anything using a 2 handed weapon, non-melee.

Then headshot after that. If you want to be more bold, shoot the gun out of their hands, it will usually break the weapon so they can't pick it back up, but then it's nearly useless for repairs and selling.

That's my thoughts.

Sneak-headshots are probably an easy strategy too.
 
I sugesst using Hard instead, much more balanced but it depends on your character. Its just not that funny to waste half of your frag mines to kill single Talon merc.

Also check nexus website for mods, some are making game harder without damaging reality - XP mod, damage mod, skill point mod etc are all fine.
 
Very hard isn't difficult at all, it's still too easy.
Once you start getting upper tier weapons (fully repaired Hunting Rifles, Laser Rifles, etc.) you can still pretty much headshot many enemies to death, especially if you have a good Critical Chance.
 
Eyenixon said:
Very hard isn't difficult at all, it's still too easy.
Once you start getting upper tier weapons (fully repaired Hunting Rifles, Laser Rifles, etc.) you can still pretty much headshot many enemies to death, especially if you have a good Critical Chance.
Click to expand...

Indeed. And there are many ways - drugs, mines, sneak (for sneak-crits) Just dont rush enemies head-on, hoping to kill them with an smg, like in some call-of-honour quasi realistic shooter
 
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