Is Fallout 4 Properly Balanced?

[ToroMontana]

Back in late 2018 I started a new game of Fallout 4 on Survival and while the first few levels were kinda hard, it seems that overall it's very easy to break the game with the right choices.

 

My playthru wasn't heavily modded in my opinion, mainly I have:

 

All DLCs

All Creation Club content

Fusion City+Outcasts+Project Valkyrie (3 big quest mods)

Father Companion

Marked For Termination

Simple Survival Save (allows me to save on Survival, doesn't change anything else)

+ some cosmetic stuff that doesn't influence balance and can be ignored

 

 

The 3 quest mods I didn't interact much with yet, except Club Snuggle. While there are some elements of that which seem overpowered like the easy chems or the vendors with 5k caps, this is nothing compared to vanilla's imbalance itself.

 

Now on to countering some of the Survival mechanics:

 

(Yes, I did re-enable saving, but not being able to save when I want to is an unacceptable mechanic in a game that often crashes or where vanilla quests bug out even if no mod is installed. Overall, not being able to save isn't "hard" it just takes longer to do stuff or you have to sleep more often.)

 

1. Early Game Difficulty

 

Don't even bother with combat except the easy places around Sanctuary, just stay in settlements, scrap everything, build new stuff (you even get experience), build a functional settlement with excess food and water and entertainment so the settlers are happy.

 

2. Food

 

Plant a bunch of carrots in every settlement, easiest to carry around, don't bother with any other food. Apparently a diverse diet doesn't matter.

 

3. Water

 

Build an insane amount of pumps and the workshop will always be full of purified water.

 

4. Sleep

 

Sleep. Building a bed isn't hard.

 

5. Perks

 

Get idiot savant ASAP. Ridiculously overpowered to gain levels faster.

Get settlements linked with a supply route as soon as possible to share resources.

Don't bother with companions, get 30% damage reduction and carry ASAP.

Develop chem perks. (Will be useful especially later.)

Mod perks very important

 

6. Weapons

 

Get Overseer's Guardian, insane weapon.

 

a bit later...

 

7. Carry Capacity

 

After a while don't even bother with this. Because chem duration can be extended to ridiculous lengths with the perks+chest enchant and legendary gear drops more often on Survival, it's easy to reach 21 Endurance or higher at which point running with more items than you should carry doesn't drop action points. If you have the carrying perks too, you can now run around the Commonwealth carrying all its junk (you can't sprint anymore but hey small price to pay for never having to manage inventory)

 

With 21+ End you're also way too powerful to kill even on Survival in most cases.

 

later...

 

8. Explosive Combat Shotguns and Explosive... Anything

 

You'll eventually come across this and things get even more ridiculous.

 

You are literally a God now. A fully upgraded combat shotgun with exploding bullets is more OP than MIRV and certainly easier to use. And since you can now carry the entire junk in the Commonwealth, you're not likely to run out of ammo as long as you just blindly loot everything in your path.

 

9. Endless Raids (Creation Club mod I think)

 

Who needs settlers? You can smash an entire squad of Super Mutants with an explosive combat shotgun. Also an insane way to level.

 

10. ???

 

Did I mention you're a God?

 

Yeah I'm around level 128 now. I don't understand how we can reach this point and yet have nothing challenging left.

 

 

Seems like if you want a challenge (Survival included), you have to:

 

1. avoid settlement building

2. avoid workbench mods

3. if you do come across anything with "Explosive " in front, pretend you never found it, especially combat shotguns

4. be as financially irresponsible as possible, if you plan your purchases too well, you'll be way too prepared for what the Commonwealth has to offer

5. pick only the most useless perks possible + main stats, especially nothing that has to do with upgrading weapons

Edited February 27, 2019 by ToroMontana

[SKKmods]

I cycle trough a lot of dumb challenges to keep things interesting, similar to your last suggestions my current run(s) are:

 

Dead-is-dead vanilla survival game mechanics scavenge only: no building, no crafting, no shopping just use what you find. These runs are usually terminated by the unseen molotov lob or radscorps popping. My one luxury concession: allowed to cook food and water.

 

Edit: to say yes Fallout 4 vanilla mechanics are balanced if you work with them.

Edited February 28, 2019 by SKK50

[Sephrajin]

Doesnt matter much which weapon, I love running around with my explosive 10mm pistol.

With my current playthrough @ lvl 71 (as it's like my 20th'ish game, it's a synth so it had higher stats and several perks, so more like lvl 111) I walk around super mutants with my all regular-modded 'easygirls' Outfit and make them crawl and lick my shoes, begging for mercy.

 

While this time I owned the DLC's, so first time there - yay, love Nuka/Harbor! - when I came back to the Commonwealth, it was alot….. easier….

Because for the first time, I actualy had to enhance my clothings, not only Deep Pockets... :laugh:

 

I decided for "Advanced Hybrid Weave" on 3 clothing items, Tier 1, then later upgraded to Tier 3, never unlocked Deacon (this time) for the T4 & T5's of it.

Also, the sheer armor/Health pool of the Nuka & Harbor (increasing in this order) hostiles is stunning compared to the Commonwealth.

 

For the next time, I know i'll be saving - and actualy use - the nukes for Harbor, so i'll be able to settle down faster :cool:

 

Meanwhile, I finaly understand why so many people like the 'difficulty increasing mods' so much.

But up until 'today', I did percieve the current default difficulty as very pleasing and well balanced, even with a synth g4 game (s8 p6 e6 c6 i8 a6 l6, each perk once, but cannibalism 0, :wub: scripts)

 

But after this recent experience, it feels so... lame?

 

So, I'll be searching for mods to make the Commonwealth harder, but keeping nuka/Harbor at about the same level.

And as I understand it, I might try "Sim Settlement : Conquerer" which will populate Settlements for me to conquer, either by diplomacy or other means :pirate:

And by that, it will hopefully have 'usefull' Settlements 'in place', which will therefor ease the rest of the Gameplay... ahh.. hope… dies last... :devil:

 

But at the end of the day, I'm a wimp.

--> I never ever managed to go to Diamond City/Good Neighbour before level 15, usualy around 20... :tongue:

Therefor, I'm already 'well' equiped when I meet super mutants for the first time.

 

 

(…..)

Seems like if you want a challenge (Survival included), you have to:

 

1. avoid settlement building

2. avoid workbench mods

3. if you do come across anything with "Explosive " in front, pretend you never found it, especially combat shotguns

4. be as financially irresponsible as possible, if you plan your purchases too well, you'll be way too prepared for what the Commonwealth has to offer

5. pick only the most useless perks possible + main stats, especially nothing that has to do with upgrading weapons

 

True, doing all these would be a real challenge and certainly increase difficulty!

But fun?

 

I liked to unlock my weapon mod's at Level 44 beeing in Far Harbor....

It was far more enjoyable, but still challenging with that last bit of extra dmg, than without - in Far Harbor....

Then again, the per-weapon-dmg boost wasnt maxed out, for any weapon, but it was at 60% for 2 types.

 

I see it exactly the same with Survival and game saves, if the game wouldn't CTD 'that often', I wouldnt bother, but as it is, I consider such a mod a bugfix.

Likewise for Achievements, I dont see/understand why adding - for the examples simplicity sake, lets say - a Bikini with 0 armor or having a green moon shouldnt allow me to get 'rewarded' for what i'm doing in the Commonwealth.

Then again, by usings caqs I accidently gained some Achievements too early by accident - as the first i didnt know what i was doing - aborted as soon i figured…

The 2nd was just recently, as I thought it would only complete 'vanilla' quests, where it even completed user mod added quests.... uff.... yikes.. aborted, sadly some dlc achi's got unlocked as well.. .:(

 

I dont care about achievemtns as such, but when I get one, I want to have it 'earned'.

Thus, first I did was to play 'endlessly' "Whoper" (that thing you hit with the 'hammer' (real & -) or knife or whatever (-ingame)) in Nuka Town in order to get enough.. erm… 'reward coins' (not coin, those paper things) for that 40k Achievement... at least i got some cool rewards out of it as well :wallbash:

Luckily most of those (both times) were *mostly* things you do anyway, like doing the 'main' Story ('land in far habor' ; not the actual Story/quest/achi name)…

 

Guess I'd better write this as a Disclaimer on my steam profile than here as a Story :teehee:

 

 

Buf if your thread is a Question, then yes, I think the game is properly balanced.

For an enjoably and relaxing role play, with some Shooting Action (VATS FTW).

AKA Casual, which I recently realised, I had become (here, arguable, depends on situation, but other games for sure!!).

[metaphorset]

There is no such thing as a properly balanced BGS game. Never was and most probably never will be.

 

The problem is routed somewhere between bad playtesting and Todd's power fantasy. There's even a video somewhere where he talks about "running around and shooting things".

 

Fallout 4 (vanilla) is by far the best game when it comes to balancing - especially Survival Mode, if you stay away from the OP perks - but as soon as you install Automaton,

things start to go wrong. Automaton becomes available at level 15, which might be a good starting level when you play on lower levels, but on Survival the first mission

(meeting up with ADA) is a huge step up to what you're used to. Then, every random encounter with Automatons turns into a Dark Souls boss battle without a proper arena.

It's still enjoyable, IF you like harder games.

 

Difficulty-wise I enjoy Fallout 4 a crapton more than Skyrim with its idiotic slider, because in the early stages you were not able to stay on let's say 80%, while properly

roleplaying (whatever that means in any BGS game) a specific character. Try for example a Thief archer character on "The Wolf Queen Awakened" at level 10. Or "The Break of Dawn"

at level 12.

 

In any case, once you reached level 30, the games get a lot less challenging and even boring when you have the right weapons. To counter that I rarely use Power Armor,

go with the Vault Suit leather armor combo and stay away from ballistic weave as long as possible.

 

Of course it is based on what perks you level, but in the end it's always either Todd's boring power fantasy with a few highlights or decent difficulty with occasionally reloading

older saves because dying in BGS games is a lot less fun than dying in Fromsoft's games.

[Moraelin]

A Beth game being balanced? Hahahahaha.... Oh wait, you're serious? In that case let me laugh even harder. HAHAHAHAHAHA :wink: