Omg that first trip into the glowing sea, in a basic suit of power armour… followed by the vertibird evac taking your all the way back home is unparalleled gaming!
Pro life hack, if you complete the first Cabot house quest you'll get a vial of suspicious serum or whatever it's called. Pass a speech check to keep it for yourself. Basically makes you immune to rads for the first journey through the glowing sea. And they give you +5 strength, which is super helpful for loot transfer runs. If you complete the final Cabot quest and free Lorenzo, you'll get an infinite amount of serum, but you can only get one if you don't already have one on you or in any container. In other words, you can't stockpile them.
Survival mode is the intended way to play Fallout 4. Everything about the game design points to it, and it seems Bethesda removed it as the default difficulty last minute after playtesting to casualize the game for a wider audience at launch. Everyone should try it for a playthrough, it's a completely different game experience and is one of the best survivalcraft game experiences we've ever seen. There's no cooler feeling than building up a really cool base, walking outside and tossing a signal flare, and then having a helicopter land and pick you up to run a mission. The gameplay loopfrom survival mode is insanely satisfying and immersive, and then when you toss on the wild aspects of the Fallout theme it becomes an instant banger. Fallout 4 is one of the most underrated games of all time, and it's largely due to the fact that many people have never played it in survival mode.
They say they did the same with Starfield (such a disappointing game tbh), really hope they stop that trend. Release these games as they are intended and bring the easier mode out later, if at all. Too many games these days offer little to no challenge.
While i tried survival and i like the fact that you deal and recieve more damage i still dislike the settlement system and find it boring. I think the base game should have an option to let settlers build the bases themselves... Sorta like sim settlement mods
@@IIMatt_DII Majority of players dont want challenge, they want a game with a good story mode. That is the best Fallout they got a good story other than that the game is kinda random. When completed the story you dont wanna play it over again.
This sounds great until you inevitably run into major glitches. And without console commands, fast travel, and lots of saves to choose from, you’re going to have a very bad time.
Saving being disabled might be the only reason I won't play Survival. Because we're talking about a Bethesda game. Being able to save often is mandatory. I can't imagine losing hours of progress on a challenging mode like this because of a random crash.
It doesn't crash that often. Besides, just find a bed. You shouldn't be playing for hours without sleeping anyway, as your character will get some severe debuffs while tired. As for beds, look around, there are all sorts of random beds and bedrolls hiding in random spots. If you just get through some challenging mission or got some good loot, find a bed and save.
@@Cyberwar101it also disables the console for debugging, and limits you to 3 save slots if you need to revert something. “Just use a bed” is an asinine response that makes it difficult to take you seriously. One MIGHT be able to argue the console restriction as a challenge but save slot restriction is just unacceptable with how often things glitch
@@Skullhawk13 To be fair if it does get too much or if a bug does happen you can always lower the difficulty to re-enable the console, save, fix the bug, then use the command to re-enable survival mode and boom you are on your way. Abuseable yes but that is up to the player to decide if they want to do it or not. I myself have had to do it cuz a few quests bugged out or i got stuck in terrain. Takes all of maybe 3 minutes and you're back on the survival train.
So ive been playing Fallout 4 since launch. Ive played multiple playthroughs for every faction many times. I have never once played surival, mostly due to the unstable nature prior to the next gen update. That was until bout two weeks ago. I started to play my first survival mode & its the single most immersive play since launch. I joined the brotherhood as quickly as i could to have a reason to fly on the vertabirds. Im actualy freeing settlements for me, not the minutemen. It literally changes so much.
I only play on survival. It makes new character builds fun to start. Saving is a breeze when you know the locations for beds across the common wealth. Just save at every bed location. And settlements actually have a purpose and besides looking cool.
That feeling you get when you find a trashcan full of glass bottles 🍾🍾🍾 EDIT: LMAO thank you for all the likes. This is my first top comment ever and it's insane to see 🤣
@@officialtibby The excavation site at the start has a good 30ish or so, and if you base at Red Rocket/Sanctuary you can literally run back and forth looting them forever. It respawns all loot every time you exit and re-enter the cell. It's kinda cheesy but an option in a pinch if you need them dirty waters for noodle cups.
So. Very. True. Empty bottles equal life. 🤣🤣 One of my first stops is the Speakeasy in Concord. I pillage that place of bottles long before rescuing Preston and the gang.
@@officialtibbyMuch keener on picking up those aluminium cans and anything with fibre optics, copper, screws, gears and adhesive. Glass bottles turn up all over the show. But you don’t get empty bottles when you drink Nuka cola.
I got fo4 in april, and started out immediately with a survival save, and I think that experience is a huge part of why fo4 is now one of my favourite games.
I wish there was a full span in survival, like survival: easy-hard. I want to play survival but getting hit with two legendary enemies randomly can make you just run away
Another fantastic thing about the Survival mode is: You realy FEEL the progress on your character. When you are level 90 or even higher you are much stronger then at the beginning and even many of the survival mechanics get alot easier IF you build a propper settlement network. BUT: There are still moments where you die instantly or chanceless, just because the a Legendary Enemy places a headshot with a high damage rifle or you walk careless over a mine. So yes, you get much stronger in the "late game" but you reach never a point where you are a Demi-God.
Spot on take! The strategic benefit of developing trade routes for added security while out travelling is no joke. I remember the first time I made trade routes in the base game, I strove for efficiency. I made sure all my routes had centrally located hubs, minimizing travel times and overlapping redundancy. It. Was. Beautiful. And then I popped my Survival cherry. Now my trade routes look insane. Overlapping. Long. Redundant. And EVERY Trader from my caravans are dressed in the FINEST formal outfits I can find, all fitted with MAX ballistic weaves, and over-armed with the most overpowered weaponry that an Infinite Ammo Loophole could POSSIBLY provide. That's always the goal now. Because NOW when the game random-rolls some eff-you Yao Gui in the middle of my well-planned hike... I got backup all across the map at all times now. I always laughed when gamers complained about how pointless settlements were in Fallout. "Pointlessly added on" was a common perspective. Not in Survival. That useless brahmin trader might just save you three hours of gameplay!
Subbed. Agree 💯 %. Couple things: RadAway also increases your tiredness fatigue state a lot, which makes taking it very tactical. You might not want to take it if you have higher adrenaline and want to keep rolling. Also, Vertibirds are relevant even if you can fast travel because of settlement attacks. The game looks at the amount of time since you were notified of the attack, and how long it took for you to arrive there to defend, then places attackers accordingly. The longer it took you, the more enemies that spawn inside the perimeter of the settlement. If you fast travel, the game clock advances based on how long it takes to walk there. Which could be hours. If you take a Vertibird, the game clock advances in real time, and is only minutes. You could potentially arrive before the attack even spawns, and therefore the enemies will all spawn outside the perimeter of your settlement.
I love playing this game and recently came back to it for a new play through. I have around 600 hours and have been convinced to get over my fears and start playing survival. This game is already so immersive, if you follow the lore, but who wouldn't want more immersion
Yup, anytime I'm about to shoot something really dangerous at long range like a behemoth or deathclaw, I always lay down a few mines in front of me. That way if my shots don't kill them, I can at least lead them into the mines to finish them off.
I just started my first survival mode run yesterday and when combined with a mod that makes the lighting nighttime/interiors much more realistic and was shocked to find that Fallout 4 is almost as brutal as Day-Z. After the first few hours I arrived at all the same conclusions that you've covered in this video. I'm at lvl 7 and have an infection but the doctor in Diamond City is effectively out of reach, as I can barely leave Sanctuary. You are spot on in how this mode makes so many existing game mechanics that I don't touch in my lvl 90 character, suddenly extremely relevant. After getting taken out by swarms of bloat flies, I'm thinking that the best shot at getting healed is sticking around Sanctuary until I have the level required to build my own clinic. Leaving Sanctuary for ANY reason or ANY distance now requires planning. With my infection, I have to carry at least 20 units of water just to get through a 12 hour day.
There's a doctor in Covenant and there's also a ghoul doctor on south of Walden Pond,close to a Behemonth and a school bus. You don't need to travel to Diamond City
@@RafaelCavaleirodaHipocrisia Yeah, just go get cured by the Pond Doctor. And die of rads before the Behemoth has time to club ya. Do you happen to sell Health Potions to wounded Brotherhood Scribes with mangled feet? ;-)
Pro tip: Your first unlocks in the perk tree for survival mode should be Scrapper and Chemist. Being able to make your own antibiotics is essential from the very start and scrapper will give you so many more materials to build with!
Been playing survival for years, i have it modified a fair bit, agony is a very good mod i recommend, each illness now has a specific drug to cure it and broken bones/being crippled requires surgery instead of a stim pack. Definitely one of the best mods around.
That’s kinda the point if you couldn’t tell, it’s there because I need the game to be harder. It’s obviously not for everyone. I’m just putting the recommendation out there for those that might be interested.
@@iamjesus8fearme yeesh. So many words to say you’re an ignorant person who just hates immigrants when their existence has no bearing on your actual life or community. In my community, they’ve been a huge plus. In many communities, immigrants are always a plus.
This is the first video of yours I've ever seen. I'll tell you right now that if you stick to this path it will pay dividends! I've never played Fallout on Survival period. I've always been a played that enjoyed the story first and foremost. Then the settlement building and power fantasy that Bethsda really gets right. Listening to you describe the Survival aspects so incredibly vividly has put a Survival playthrough right at the top of my list for my next game to play. Really well made and thoughtful script! Job well done! (Edit: subscribed - I look forward to more from you!)
I couldnt agree more. I played trough fallout 4 without the dlc's back in 2017 for the first time. now i returned after the show ofc, and i went with survival difficulty with every dlc, currently i am at far harbor at level 53 i went there right after getting KELLOGG's outfit which im gonna use throughout my gametrough. i first visited diamond city when i was 33, i spent most of my time exploring the northern part of the map doing side quests getting settlements doing supply lines, getting defences clean water beds, i never did that in the base game just the story ones. I made a main hub for myself and my followers in the Hangman's Alley settlement next to diamond city because its in the middle of the map. Im planning to join the Brotherhood because the fast travel option is really appealing to me, i even have my main weapon im going to use mostly until i find a better one but rocking the 45-47 cal rifle which has the explosive bullet legendary effect, doing the wasteland cowboy style with my militia hat as well. I love the challange that a simple raider and random encounters can just wreck me, i go for survival perks first so i can drink anywhere and eat anything without getting rads. I love this game so much in this difficulty, never approached even a simple encounter more tactically and constantly planning anything and looking for beds so i do not lose 30 to 60 minute progress, also using the minuteman artilerry strike is a blessing because if you manage to build them at every settlement you can call airstrikes at any location for the bonus sruvivability. So yeah great content, keep it up!
You did a fantastic job of summarizing why survival mode makes the whole game feel complete. I tell anyone who is nervous about starting it that once you get the hang of it anything less then survival feels like it’s just not the same game.
I'm usually a big wimp when it comes to choosing difficulty settings, but with the delay to Fallout London I decided to have another go at F4 and chose Very Hard. A few days of playtime later, after a slightly more difficult start, I'm level 120 and nothing is a challenge any more. I decideed to switch to Survival and boy am I glad I did, it's a totally different experience. Having to travel everywhere means you get to know the map for more intimately. I've discovered new areas I hadn't seen in hundreds of hours of play time. The only downside is the frustration when you get the inevitable crashes. It's worth noting that the Institute teleporter is also useful in other modes with fast travel, as it doesn't take any time, compared to fast travel which advances time based on the distance. E.g. if you're just about to fail a settlement defense quest, you can teleport to the Institute and then from there teleport to the settlement.
Highly recommend starting over, the early to mid game on survival is where all the fun is. To avoid crashing on PC, make sure you use RTSS to cap to 60fps, and restart your game every 3 hours. I haven't had a crash in a really long time because I restart my game every 2-3 in game days to flush the memory. Go out, do your mission for 1-2 days, come back home and drop/sort your loot, sleep, maybe go sell some loot/buy ammo for a day, reload the game and repeat.
One thing to mention regarding the Railroad: In general, Survival mode makes playing a cautious, stealthy playstyle a lot more appealing. Apart from the squishiness of your character, the severe carry weight limitation also encourages the use of smaller or fewer guns, etc. As such, the railroad's ballistic weave is a huge benefit to lightweight, stealthy armours, and obviously the Deliverer is a great gun for this playstyle as well. So joining the railroad does have tangible benefits that are enhanced by survival mode, and also really nicely match the story and vibe of the faction.
Once you've played survival mode there's no going back, imo. Also agree with your point about the Railroad. Ballistic weave doesn't really change its value between game modes, though acquiring "The Deliverer" near the beginning of mid game can really make a big (somewhat temporary) difference in Survival mode.
Fantastic video summarizing my feelings on survival mode. It really is the way the game is meant to be played. I'd love to see more content or tips for survival mode. My main build is a gunslinger VATS build, four critical hits in the bank and just one is enough to take down a deathclaw. The penetrator perk allows you to target deathclaw's belly or sentry bot fusion cores with a critical hit, which is super helpful. And pistols are great, because they're lightweight. Still using Kellogg's iron as my heavy hitter. I have brahmin at most settlements and grab plastic whenever i find it, which lets me craft an ungodly amount of jet to use for barter, or to sell for 75 caps each at vault 81 (but only one at a time). RadX and radaway are also very good for barter. You get so many and rarely use them due to the debuffs on survival mode.
I have a high level endurance character on survival mode. It’s still really fun, but there are less scary and chaotic moments now. I think mid game is the most fun for survival
Yess absolutely! Another thing to point out, to which you may have did, is that you also get double xp in survival mode so you will level hp much faster. Due to the show, one of my best friends wanted to get into Fallout 4 and wanted my advice. I wholeheartedly recommended survial mode, even though its his first fallout game ever. Its truly a different game. Its hard as hell in the beginning but once you master it, the journey is so worth it. Honestly, its a similar ethos to FromSoft games, a million props to Bethesda for really pulling that ff. My friend ended up trying survival mode and was getting his butt kicked in the beginning, but im proud to say that he stuck with it and became hooked. If you got the time, definitely try it out, this video does a great job of describing how different the game is but you have to try it for yourself to understand
Survival mode with sim settlements is so cool. The start is rough, but once you get to around lvl 14-16 it really starts. Building travel routes via settlements you build up is incredible especially with sim settlements watching your towns build up. Saverettes is also a good mod as it limits your saves but helps you not lose hours to an unlucky trap or fatman
Survival Mode makes several Perks go from useless to almost necessary. Nobody takes Lead Belly unless they're in Survival Mode. Aquaboy/Girl is the same way.
never use them in survival either... wildlife is abundant, and swimming in rivers to avoid conflict spots is useful only in very early game, so, technically, not at all.
I’m currently playing on normal difficulty so I can get a feel for the dlcs( it’s my first time playing them) but this is the first time I’ve heard about the change to survival mode. And I gotta say you’ve put up a very convincing argument on why I should play it once I finish Nuka world I’ll start it up
The only reason to play n normal/hard mode is to get the hang of the mechanics. Once you’ve played survival you will never see the game the same again!
I'm playing a chem-fiend in my first survival playthrough, and I LOVE the depth it adds to my character. Not only do I have to guzzle water in order to stay hydrated, but I care way more about the debuffs too! It's at the point where every single opportunity I have to take any drugs that remove debuffs present themselves, I do. It makes combat super easy in the moment, but when I run out of chems, I die CONSTANTLY. Love this shit.
Hey dude! Love the video. Glad to find a small channel to sub. Fallout 4 Survival mode is such a fun challenge. Personally, I only made it about level 20/Confront Kellog before I put it down, simply because of the constant debuff from healing items like Radaway, etc. It was fantastic, but sooner or later, it was annoying using more resources than what I collect venturing out from my safe settlements into the wild. Still fun though!
I like the benefits of setting up supply lines between settlements. You will encounter friendly caravans along their route. Not only can they lighten your load, but also back you up in an encounter.
Great video, very well done, however there is one minor gripe I have with your explanation of heavy weapons at 14:51 Don't get me wrong, I understand where you're coming from. If this video was made before "next gen" update to Fallout 4 I would agree wholeheartedly, without question, but.... We now have the "next gen" update which introduced some heavy weapons that are still quite heavy per se, but ridiculously overpowered. If there is a best time to play heavy guns run on survival difficulty, it would be now. Here's my logic behind it. Heavy Incinerator, together with full suit of Enclave Hellfire MKVI power armor (highest possible of the Hellfire variant) can be obtained as early as level 2 (theoretically) with no glitches or exploits. Of course, you won't be level 2 because you're going to level up few times in the process of getting it, but all you need is one perk point investment in heavy gunner perk, so, that's why level 2 :) Once you have one star in heavy gunner, you'll need some Psycho for 25% more damage, and probably Psychobuff for additional 25% damage, as well as one single crit built up in VATS. Once you have all of that, head towards the junkyard with the bot to get a fatman, one mini nuke and 3 fusion cores. That shouldn't be the problem at all. Get into that partial power armor nearby, you'll need the frame. Now, go to Slog, while avoiding all the combat encounters, it can be done if you stick to the north of the map. Once you reach the Slog, very close by, under the highway overpass, find the Enclave camp, there will be 3 patrolling soldiers and a turret there, go in sneak, pop your drugs for more damage, wait until all 3 soldiers are close together and boink the one in power armor with the VATS crit to the head while using fatman. If they are close enough, everything will be dead. If they are not all dead, let the settlers from the Slog help you finish the strugglers. After that, you'll have a full set of top tier power armor, Heavy Incinerator weapon that uses flamer fuel which becomes available at around level 10-11 and it's abundant at merchants, while not being heavy. Weapon scales with heavy gunner and demolition expert, but you need to be careful of it's splash damage. In base state, it does around 50 damage + 40 or so burning damage, which is ridiculous for early stage of the game. Your end game weapon would be a Tesla Cannon, which can be obtained from two quests added with next gen update, or dropped by random encounters with Enclave. It uses the... fusion cells, which you would use for your standard laser guns... That said, it's never been more easier to play survival with heavy weapons than now. And even if you get bored by how ridiculously OP you are you can still switch to miniguns, harpoons, flamers, gatlling lasers, even rocket launchers and have plenty of carry weight to spare later in the game.
I believe Survival Mode is the way Bethesda games should be played, It makes a lot of otherwise useless machanics important. The one thing I wish they did differently in Fallout 4 is how Antibiotics cure everything. I wish different diseases had different medicines, that would make gathering ingredients a lot more important. For instance, in order to cure idk Breakbone Fever you have to combine Wild Mutfruit, Bloodleaf, Brain Fungus and Abraxo Cleaner. That would be cool and somewhat accurate.
I love survival mode. Being chased by bloatflies, only to accidentally walk into a super mutant camp where a BOS vertibird explodes over your head, finding the body of the pilot and looting it, then getting attacked by the camp, only for dogmeat to get downed so you have to kill what you can and circle around and come back to save him... its something else i swear
If the next edition of fallout has survival at release it will be exclusively how I play my first run through. I had so much fun on multiple modded runs of survival in 4 before I ever did one without any mods. Completely changed the experience and made the role play even more immersive. If you’re not gonna do chems. You REALLY need to plan for it. If you’re running a sneak sniper, you better have a light automatic sidearm for when you’re rushed by dogs or even mole rats. My personal fav is definitely “Buck Norris” A9 E10, mostly unarmed and heavy use on chems,alcohol, and water so you’re getting huge melee buffs, and you’re carrying little to no ammo
Fast travel does take up in game hours so if you fast travel to or from a far away place (like Sanctuary) it is night time which means the shops are closed. For this reason my main base is always in Oberland Station because it is the closest settlement to downtown that has a decent amount of space. Although in survival mode Hangman’s Alley is the undisputed goat, despite it’s real lack of space.
Home Plate in Diamond City is my player home, but I use a mod to link all of the workbenches in the market to the workshop. But mods aside, Hangman's Alley absolutely is the best, especially after unlocking the Institute teleporter.
Hangmans alley is only good for a trading FoB imo, the random encounter spawn right next to it is annoying, and you can place a fast travel mat outside the orange door towards Diamond City to have your Vertibird land right on the road outside the stadium for trading. Red Rocket is the GOAT base. Access to Sanctuary for 750+ purified water/day and Abernathy for Vegetable Starch/Razorgrain, nothing beats Red Rocket when you have Vertibirds.
@@Aliothalewith Hangman’s Ally as home base you don’t need veritbird rides to make it a viable home base in survival mode. Even for some long distance destinations you can simply use the nearby river for transportation (with the aqua girl/boy perk of course). Thanks for the tip about choosing Diamond City as a vertibird landing spot to avoid that random encounter though (although I got a two shot laser rifle off one of those encounters).
@@Aliothale random encounters can be super useful though. Meeting the legendary traders or some easy victims. Granted, as soon as mechanist or dust devil robots spawn it is a shit show. But, that random encounter crossroads is easily circumvented. Just don't exit through the western gate. Use the eastern gate, turn right towards DC, and next crossroad you turn right again, passing by the spawn point at a reasonable distance. And to get to Hangman's, just use the institute teleporter to get inside the institute, pop back out and walk across the bridge. 🤷🏼♂️ The size of the settlement is sufficient as well. Just need one pump and 2 farmers, tops. Plus beds of course and maybe a trader and/or doctor.
It actually blew my mind how much more fun I had in survival mode, almost like its the way you should play it, the no fast travel bit is the most imposing part, but thats because you forget you unlock vertibird flares, and teleportation grenades, which makes them way more nessecery, and flying over Boston shooting things you see is way more immersive
Something unmentioned: the additional recipes make use of a bunch of ingredients that are pointless in the base game, and the food requirements and now-powerful cooked meals buffs also push the use of previously ignored ingredients. Stuff like silt beans, melon/gourd blossoms, wild crops, used in basic recipes for simple buffs that are, at the start of the game, exceedingly powerful. Granted there's still a lot of bugs relating to those things but it's nice to see the forethought that was put into the survival aspects, before being ripped out by corporate.
Awesome video. I think the only thing you didn’t mention is that enemies no longer appear on the compass. Top tips from my playthroughs are refreshing beverages remove addictions and rads with no debuffs. I hot key Jet and Psychobuff (+25% DAM) for those hairy moments. Rank 1 chemist is needed for both and can be crafted at chemistry stations. Ingredients are fairly common.
Psychojet, Med-X, and Psychobuff. I keep them on 7-8-9 with water/noodles on -/=. Pop all 3, down some water to negate, go beast mode. I use 1-melee, 2-refreshing beverage, 3-pistol, 4-rifle, 5-sniper/DMR, 6-heavy guns. My 0 hotkey is blood packs since they can be bought, have no penalty for using, and you can carry 50-100 of them for 5-10lbs. Way better than using food to heal or wasting a beverage when you're only missing a little bit of HP.
I tried survival at least 4 times but kept quitting in frustration due to dying what seemed like hours since sleeping (and saving). But I was getting board with hard mode so I decided to stick it out with survival, I was still having issues until I leveled up a bit and finally got use to it and made it to a point where I was not so squishy I died every 15 minutes. After completing the main quests in survival I went back to hard mode to sort of take a vacation but I need to do survival agin now with the Enclave stuff in the game (they gave me a very hard time first run through).
Survival completely changed how i engaged with the game. Making proper settlements went from dumb chore for obsessives to essential network of safespots and supplies. The game feels built around it.
Great!! One of the best videos explaining the greatness of survival in fo4. You have a new subscriber. New Fallout games will always have to cater to the majority that only wants to run around in power armor guns blazing with almost infinite carry weight and ammo weighing 0, but hopefully we get a survival mode like this in the future too. I will show this video to people that I think are ready for survival mode. Once you go survival there's no going back 👍
The limitation of only saving in beds makes the game too incredibly frustrating because of the engine's instability when modded. It's much worse to lose progress to a game crash than it is to lose progress to my own mistakes. I always have to mod out that particular feature.
A very detailed description of the Survival mode. You really covered everything and I couldn’t agree less with you: survival mode is the best. I would’ve missed a lot of fun if I haven’t tried it
Quick Tip: save manipulation. When you find a bed, but don't want to sleep? Go up to the bed. Press the sleep button, set it for 1 hour. Once you press sleep IMMEDIATELY EXIT IT. You won't actually sleep and you'll see that the game auto saved for you in the corner. Great video btw sorry for *potentially* ruin the saving bit lol
The Railroad also gives you the vertibird travel after you help them destroy the BOS, with the one they stole from them, also ballistic weave is asewome
There is a plus to Railroad in Survival. Ballistic Weave - light, stealthy armour suddenly becomes a lot more valuable when need to reduce weight whilst protecting yourself from one-shot kills. And it's exactly the kind of armour a guerrilla unit would want to use. It's why I do the freedom trail in Act 1 (pre-Kellogg) - even if delaying the main quest blocks off the fast travel options offered by BoS and Institute (which are only really useful once you've opened up a decent chunk of the map).
But its so funny that the railroad npcs wear the heaviest armor in the game despite this fact😅 Also like vertibirds you don't have to stay siding with them, once you do that one first jackpot quest and talk to the merchant in the hq you can keep armoring your clothes even if you kill them off
I’ve been playing survival on perma death for the last few weeks and experiencing all the highs and lows that come with it. Had a number of restarts and being frustrated as hell but something keeps me coming back.
This video felt like I was in the position of everyone ive told about fallout survival, and it being the true way to play the game 😅 it really does change the whole feel of the game, im currently playing New Vegas again on "Hardcore mode" and its so easy because I've been through the worst fallout has to offer haha
Great analysis, I agree with you! I just wish we were affected by the weather in survival too. But honestly I think I didn't ACTUALLY play Fallout 4 until I played survival!
I played a bit of survival mode yesterday for the first time. My first death was accidentally killed myself with a molotov trying to throw it through a doorway.
Survival mode reminds me of a lot of playing Morrowind, a game where half of it is you getting horribly lost somewhere. You realize how important it was to bring the supplies not for a day incursion but DAYS of getting lost. At first it seems getting anywhere is slooooow but then you discover the world and suddenly you're leaping about. Talismans of mark and recall, almsivii intervention, divine intervention. Knowing where every port goes, where every mages guild goes, where every silt strider is and what's near what. It's this convoluted web that was such a joy to master. Survival fallout has so much of that feel plus so much more added benefit. Struggling to get on my feet again in goodneighbor resorting to petty thievery out of desperation. Ect. The final note is both good and bad. The good is power armor is actually USEFUL. The bad? it's almost impossible without the t-45 you get at the start of the game until you get to level 16-20ish. You need at least 100 DR to do ok, preferably 180-200 AND you need a decent pool of HP because enemies will still be doing 5-10 damage a hit.
Just finished a survival run with no armour, no dog, no companions, no power armour. Died a few times. Got to level 150. completed all dlc's. I have just started a new survival run. Leather armour only, no dog or companions. Just finished level 50 no deaths so far. To make the game harder, I don't put any points into strength or intelligence. Therefore, I have to buy or find weapon and armour mods. No gun nut or armour workshop. Overseers guardian is my primary weapon and the .308 pipe rifle found in last house in concord upstairs. Buy the silencer from diner eventually modding to .50 cal when available from vendors. Leather armour is shadowed and pocketed. Leather chest piece is from diamond city vendor as it gives more time for chems to work. I have hot keyed psycho/jet and quantum cola. Don't be afraid to do drugs and buy addictol. Noodle cup is my go to meal for food and drink at same time. Helps with carry weight. Also mirelerk eggs only weight 0.1 when cooked with dirty water. Save whenever a bed is near is case game locks up, which it does occasionally. I play with PS4 no mods. Survival mode is brilliant for strategy. To get to Nigil in the glowing sea, I took rad x, glowing blood pack, cooked bloatfly, cooked mutant hound and stealth boys. No hazmat suit or power armour. Love the challenge
Was wondering how do you help settlements without fast travel ? And I have come to dislike being told one needs help and one is being attacked. If I even see it up on the corner
@@Kevin-ti3rz In survival, settlements are not a priority. I do any missions related to them but don't really care if they get attacked. Sometimes they win or lose without my help. However, in my own settlement in Hangman's Alley, as it is more central in the game, I put all my valueable components, screws, glue etc in a box, not in the workshop and get them when needed because if your main settlement gets attack and they lose, the game steals the components from the workshop. It has happened to me a few times when I couldn't get back in time. Very annoying. Building settlements is better when you can fast travel.
@@Kevin-ti3rz you can trigger the settlement raids just by flying over in a vertibird, you don't actually have to land. I'll typically fly to the settlement, provide fire support from the air, then fly home. Saves me the cost of a second vertibird grenade.
This was a brilliant take on a difficulty I have only touched here and there and has inspired me to give Survival another go. Well done. Earned a sub from me.
Love this video. Ive been watching so many people giving bad advice about the game cause they have never played survival. So many little quirks you dont know about until you played a true survival run. And frankly anyone that uses mods to make survival easier might as well go back to very hard. Does the game randomly crash, very little now but yes, but you can also lose that same amount of time from not paying attention and stepping on a trap, getting to close to a burning car, or simply missing that super mutant that just launched a nuke at you. You start looking for those hidden beds, collecting every almighty empty bottle you find and learn what junk is best for selling and what is best for building. Settlement designs become very important and even equipping settlers helps, you can no longer just fast travel to save it. So you need to make sure it can defend itsself or you may be walking all the way across the map just to repair it. Supply lines are also essential cause thats how you get access to all the junk for building, modifications or repairs.
Came back to this game. My last recorded play time was back in 2016. I installed a mod where you can fast travel to any settlement you own. Makes my game a lot enjoyable. I still im pose rules on myself not to use gast travel a lot but when your settlements get attacked, i can actually go and help them.
Do a Fallout series with you playing survival slowly and building out settlements as you go. Treat it as if you were really surviving and attempting to later thrive. Each settlement would have a purpose and help the next or just be a quick stop outpost. Search up the dlc play order and use the first one google gives you. Robot DLC at 15 when you can do it is the first. This is my first time ever playing the game and I’m song this on survival and having an absolute blast!!! It would be a huge series for your channel and give people a reason to binge. I’ll be watching lol
I have a counter to what you’ve said about the Railroad being no more useful or logical to side with compared to the other factions. BoS circumvents being squishy via Power Armor, which they give you a nice suit for free whenever you want it and supply Fusion Cores. Plus the signal grenades, this we know. My counter is: The Railroad circumvents being squishy via the Ballistic Weave perk. Stealth is much more viable than a guns blazing build simply due to one shot stealth critical hits. You are much easier able to attack good damage protection from say, lvl 5 weave Military fatigues and the Marine Combat Armor (I prefer Deep Pocket for the most variance in carry weight, it adds more than ultralight build saves per set), and retain your stealth bonuses to boot.
When Survival Mode invariably becomes easy - and it does - try the mod Frost Survival Simulator. Once you've mastered Frost, you'll wonder how you ever considered Survival a challenge.
the survival mode changes this into a completely different game my first play through the world felt empty lifeless just checking checking off missions the mechanics get changed a bit then boom you have the best survival game ever made makes it feel super intense doing anything because there is high level risk makes some fights super terifying and stressfull its so intense and fun thank you for making this video you worded everything and explained it for everyone so well this is probably the best game ever made now because of this mode its so much fun dude
The best armor i use in survival is the Railroad ballistic weave jacket. it's light, has really good damage resistant and you havent gotta worry about having extra pieces of armor to weigh you down. Sure you can get much tankier armor but in terms and style and tacticality the ballistic weave jacket is the one for me
I started playing this game shortly after finishing the series on Amazon a few months back and Fallout 4 is now one of the best games I’ve EVER played 😀 I like sssooo addicted to this game 💯💯🔥🔥🔥🔥
I loved survival. I just 100%'d the games achievements with it. So cool. The no save unless you sleep is such an easy way to turn people off, though. That made my brother drop it back down to very hard immediately because of that. Oh well
An incredible overview of Survival! This mode has ruined me on Fallout 4 gameplay. I can’t play it any other way now because, as you stated, once you play in this mode, regular gameplay seems waaaay to easy. Even on very hard mode. I love this game and Survival mode has only increased my enjoyment.
Playing on survival in VR is wild. I’m playing as a sniper with a hunting rifle, but I have a sawed-off in my back pocket that I’ll line up in VATS and blow heads off like crazy. VATS functions like bullet time in VR, but it also lets you move in VATS. You can either use AP to dodge an attack or use it to blow someone’s head off. It’s so fucking awesome.
I went to Survival Mode in my first F4 playthrough. "What the hell, I played Vegas and F3 on hardcore, used tons of mods to make the game harder, this shouldn't be a problem." Well, I got killed so many times the game lost all joy. Ended up staying away for 6 months before I restarted it on Normal Mode. I was too low level and went straight for Diamond City which is surrounded by high level foes. Should I wait to a certain level before engaging Survival Mode? Or just slink around Sanctuary until I'm a certain level?
Here are some mods from the Nexus that help with some of the worst annoyances of Survival Mode while maintaining the challenge and immersion. Gimme My Bottle- consuming bottled water or Nuka Cola returns an empty bottle to your inventory. Salvage Beacons- gain the ability to craft salvage beacons and a beacon control station (which requires power and an assigned settler). Overloaded? Drop all your excess loot into a container, add a beacon, and the closest settlement with a control station will send a team to recover the cache, adding it to the settlements workbench. Personal APC and The Red Wave- these two both provide a vehicle that acts as a limited player home while returning limited fast travel. The APC can be found outside of Concord, the Red Wave is a small fishing trawler you can obtain in Far Harbor. Both need the right perks and materials to repair them, must be fueled to move them (fusion cores for the APC, oil for the Wave), and can only move between about a dozen already discovered locations. But they can ease travel times in a realistic way. This last one is a bit of a stretch, but I won't do survival without it- Smokeable Cigarettes and Cigars. It turns cigarettes and cigars into an Aid item and lets you break down packs, cartons, and boxes to get more. Smoking gives a trivial buff, is highly addictive, and withdrawal penalties are fairly severe (although treating nicotine withdrawal is easy- just light another). So why use it? Because in Survival Mode, it creates a single Quicksave slot that is overwitten everytime you light up. About to hit the Super Mutants at Revere and dreading having to replay the last 2 hours if it goes badly? Just finished scrapping your new settlement and don't want to have to redo it? Take a quick smoke break and carry on.
Honestly one point I have to argue against is the no fast travel in survival, mainly because, aside from travel annoyance, as you said a lot of things point to survival being the initially planned main difficulty, Fast travel is no different. Fallout 4s fast travel doesn’t just pick you up and plop you down, it plans a path and sims you’re character moving from point A, where you are currently, to point B, your destination, applies the time differential, and loads you back into the drivers seat. Not only allowing for the time of day to change from fast traveling, but if you enable fast travel in whatever capacity in FO4’s survival, your meters deplete as if you moved there yourself, and you still run the risk of contracting diseases from the journey. Fast travel from vault 111 to the lowest possible point in the glowing sea somehow? Be prepared to eat 3 stockpiles worth of food, all the clean water in the commonwealth, and pass out where you can, you may not have felt the boredom of moving all that distance, but there’s no escaping the effects of singlemindedly moving all that way without any attention towards your own needs.
I loved my Skyrim survival mode playthrough. But I will admit I used the horse for supply runs and the like a bunch, as well as sleeping for weeks at a time to get farms near whiterun to respawn their stuff lol.
To me the hunger, thirst, and disease chance are about 2x too much, especially it feels weird since I change my timescale to 8, something felt off to me. But I did do a full playthrough on survival with the gopher mod for quicksave and despite the intense thirst rates etc, survival was a good mode for sure. Fun experience.
only beef whit survival is that you need to invest in local leader perk to be able to connect settlements... you should be able to appoint companions for the transport work
Survival is definitely the best part of Fallout 4. Would be interested in your take on the perk progression. I started one with 1 END, INT, CHR that felt really strong out of the gate
I basically finished the game on the older survival mode, it was tons of fun. The slow healing on stimpaks was cool. Playing the dlc on new survival was a bit jarring, especially because that Island in the south was my main home & I had to walk in power armor or swim across the water to get back & forth until i built a vertibird pad there
Any other game made by a different developer and this experience would be thrilling, but Bethesda games crash at random, even today many years after its release is plagued by game breaking bugs and glitches. The only way to finish this game is using mods, which defeats the whole point of the survivor mod. I really wish Bethesda let a capable developer have a shot with the franchise.
ive burned bed spots on the map in dangerous areas into my brain, oh lord does it feel good to find one after getting a good legendary
I like the adrenaline buff so I avoid using field beds. But if I'm in a tough spot they are certainly welcome.
Omg that first trip into the glowing sea, in a basic suit of power armour… followed by the vertibird evac taking your all the way back home is unparalleled gaming!
Pro life hack, if you complete the first Cabot house quest you'll get a vial of suspicious serum or whatever it's called. Pass a speech check to keep it for yourself. Basically makes you immune to rads for the first journey through the glowing sea. And they give you +5 strength, which is super helpful for loot transfer runs.
If you complete the final Cabot quest and free Lorenzo, you'll get an infinite amount of serum, but you can only get one if you don't already have one on you or in any container. In other words, you can't stockpile them.
@@technicolorskies5432 That serum in survival is horrible
@@liquidsleepgames3661 why? +5 strength means extra carry weight.
@@technicolorskies5432 i guess I thought it came with a worse draw back then the suppressed immunity. I thought it had a permanent draw back.
@@liquidsleepgames3661 as far as I know the drawbacks arent any worse than any of the other chems. But I could be wrong.
Survival mode is the intended way to play Fallout 4. Everything about the game design points to it, and it seems Bethesda removed it as the default difficulty last minute after playtesting to casualize the game for a wider audience at launch. Everyone should try it for a playthrough, it's a completely different game experience and is one of the best survivalcraft game experiences we've ever seen. There's no cooler feeling than building up a really cool base, walking outside and tossing a signal flare, and then having a helicopter land and pick you up to run a mission. The gameplay loopfrom survival mode is insanely satisfying and immersive, and then when you toss on the wild aspects of the Fallout theme it becomes an instant banger. Fallout 4 is one of the most underrated games of all time, and it's largely due to the fact that many people have never played it in survival mode.
They say they did the same with Starfield (such a disappointing game tbh), really hope they stop that trend. Release these games as they are intended and bring the easier mode out later, if at all. Too many games these days offer little to no challenge.
While i tried survival and i like the fact that you deal and recieve more damage i still dislike the settlement system and find it boring. I think the base game should have an option to let settlers build the bases themselves... Sorta like sim settlement mods
@@IIMatt_DII Majority of players dont want challenge, they want a game with a good story mode. That is the best Fallout they got a good story other than that the game is kinda random. When completed the story you dont wanna play it over again.
This sounds great until you inevitably run into major glitches. And without console commands, fast travel, and lots of saves to choose from, you’re going to have a very bad time.
@@RandySnarshFallout 4s story isn't good.
This is, hands down, the absolute best overview video of Fallout 4’s Survival Mode available on TH-cam.
thanks man, that's very nice of you to say :)
probably not but its sufficient in explaining survival mode
That’s why he needs to do a series run of it!! Good stuff.
it really is
Saving being disabled might be the only reason I won't play Survival. Because we're talking about a Bethesda game. Being able to save often is mandatory. I can't imagine losing hours of progress on a challenging mode like this because of a random crash.
Amen to that!
that's fair, losing progress stopped me from retrying survival mode for ages
It doesn't crash that often. Besides, just find a bed. You shouldn't be playing for hours without sleeping anyway, as your character will get some severe debuffs while tired.
As for beds, look around, there are all sorts of random beds and bedrolls hiding in random spots. If you just get through some challenging mission or got some good loot, find a bed and save.
@@Cyberwar101it also disables the console for debugging, and limits you to 3 save slots if you need to revert something. “Just use a bed” is an asinine response that makes it difficult to take you seriously. One MIGHT be able to argue the console restriction as a challenge but save slot restriction is just unacceptable with how often things glitch
@@Skullhawk13 To be fair if it does get too much or if a bug does happen you can always lower the difficulty to re-enable the console, save, fix the bug, then use the command to re-enable survival mode and boom you are on your way. Abuseable yes but that is up to the player to decide if they want to do it or not. I myself have had to do it cuz a few quests bugged out or i got stuck in terrain. Takes all of maybe 3 minutes and you're back on the survival train.
So ive been playing Fallout 4 since launch. Ive played multiple playthroughs for every faction many times. I have never once played surival, mostly due to the unstable nature prior to the next gen update. That was until bout two weeks ago.
I started to play my first survival mode & its the single most immersive play since launch. I joined the brotherhood as quickly as i could to have a reason to fly on the vertabirds. Im actualy freeing settlements for me, not the minutemen. It literally changes so much.
I only play on survival. It makes new character builds fun to start. Saving is a breeze when you know the locations for beds across the common wealth. Just save at every bed location. And settlements actually have a purpose and besides looking cool.
And there are things you can find or learn that makes your life easier. Wasteland Survival Guide anyone?
Cooking food and getting purified water all those things suddenly matter when they don't otherwise.
@@midnight347 yeah, that's why I love survival.
@@rossnorris2351The one in Sunshine Tidings is a must on Survival, especially with Grilled Radstag being so good for carrying more junk.
@@silversungaming9451 very true
That feeling you get when you find a trashcan full of glass bottles 🍾🍾🍾
EDIT: LMAO thank you for all the likes. This is my first top comment ever and it's insane to see 🤣
beantown brewery in Cambridge has around 100 glass bottles lmao, it was a good day when I realised that
@@officialtibby The excavation site at the start has a good 30ish or so, and if you base at Red Rocket/Sanctuary you can literally run back and forth looting them forever. It respawns all loot every time you exit and re-enter the cell. It's kinda cheesy but an option in a pinch if you need them dirty waters for noodle cups.
Thank you!@@Aliothale
So. Very. True. Empty bottles equal life. 🤣🤣 One of my first stops is the Speakeasy in Concord. I pillage that place of bottles long before rescuing Preston and the gang.
@@officialtibbyMuch keener on picking up those aluminium cans and anything with fibre optics, copper, screws, gears and adhesive. Glass bottles turn up all over the show. But you don’t get empty bottles when you drink Nuka cola.
I’ve seen many videos singing survival modes praises, this is definitely the best. Great work!
I got fo4 in april, and started out immediately with a survival save, and I think that experience is a huge part of why fo4 is now one of my favourite games.
I wish there was a full span in survival, like survival: easy-hard. I want to play survival but getting hit with two legendary enemies randomly can make you just run away
Another fantastic thing about the Survival mode is: You realy FEEL the progress on your character. When you are level 90 or even higher you are much stronger then at the beginning and even many of the survival mechanics get alot easier IF you build a propper settlement network. BUT: There are still moments where you die instantly or chanceless, just because the a Legendary Enemy places a headshot with a high damage rifle or you walk careless over a mine. So yes, you get much stronger in the "late game" but you reach never a point where you are a Demi-God.
I've seen many videos on people playing survival mode but this is the first time I've felt like trying it out, after watching this
Well armed provisioners between settlements are a great way to get protection on routes between locations without, or in addition to companions
Spot on take! The strategic benefit of developing trade routes for added security while out travelling is no joke. I remember the first time I made trade routes in the base game, I strove for efficiency. I made sure all my routes had centrally located hubs, minimizing travel times and overlapping redundancy. It. Was. Beautiful.
And then I popped my Survival cherry. Now my trade routes look insane. Overlapping. Long. Redundant. And EVERY Trader from my caravans are dressed in the FINEST formal outfits I can find, all fitted with MAX ballistic weaves, and over-armed with the most overpowered weaponry that an Infinite Ammo Loophole could POSSIBLY provide.
That's always the goal now. Because NOW when the game random-rolls some eff-you Yao Gui in the middle of my well-planned hike... I got backup all across the map at all times now. I always laughed when gamers complained about how pointless settlements were in Fallout. "Pointlessly added on" was a common perspective. Not in Survival. That useless brahmin trader might just save you three hours of gameplay!
@@geremy4 …3 hours of gameplay ? On survival. Never heard of it 😂
Subbed. Agree 💯 %. Couple things: RadAway also increases your tiredness fatigue state a lot, which makes taking it very tactical. You might not want to take it if you have higher adrenaline and want to keep rolling.
Also, Vertibirds are relevant even if you can fast travel because of settlement attacks. The game looks at the amount of time since you were notified of the attack, and how long it took for you to arrive there to defend, then places attackers accordingly. The longer it took you, the more enemies that spawn inside the perimeter of the settlement.
If you fast travel, the game clock advances based on how long it takes to walk there. Which could be hours. If you take a Vertibird, the game clock advances in real time, and is only minutes. You could potentially arrive before the attack even spawns, and therefore the enemies will all spawn outside the perimeter of your settlement.
I love playing this game and recently came back to it for a new play through. I have around 600 hours and have been convinced to get over my fears and start playing survival. This game is already so immersive, if you follow the lore, but who wouldn't want more immersion
I always carry landmines in survival mode. So useful in early game.
Until they blow you up and you haven’t found a bed for nearly an hour
Why so useful!?
@@landonfrigault8096 kiting enemies threw them is my "useful"
Agreed, allot of creatures and ghouls run in a straight line towards you. Just make sure you also run backwards.
Yup, anytime I'm about to shoot something really dangerous at long range like a behemoth or deathclaw, I always lay down a few mines in front of me. That way if my shots don't kill them, I can at least lead them into the mines to finish them off.
I just started my first survival mode run yesterday and when combined with a mod that makes the lighting nighttime/interiors much more realistic and was shocked to find that Fallout 4 is almost as brutal as Day-Z. After the first few hours I arrived at all the same conclusions that you've covered in this video. I'm at lvl 7 and have an infection but the doctor in Diamond City is effectively out of reach, as I can barely leave Sanctuary. You are spot on in how this mode makes so many existing game mechanics that I don't touch in my lvl 90 character, suddenly extremely relevant. After getting taken out by swarms of bloat flies, I'm thinking that the best shot at getting healed is sticking around Sanctuary until I have the level required to build my own clinic. Leaving Sanctuary for ANY reason or ANY distance now requires planning. With my infection, I have to carry at least 20 units of water just to get through a 12 hour day.
There's a doctor in Covenant and there's also a ghoul doctor on south of Walden Pond,close to a Behemonth and a school bus. You don't need to travel to Diamond City
@@RafaelCavaleirodaHipocrisia Yeah, just go get cured by the Pond Doctor. And die of rads before the Behemoth has time to club ya. Do you happen to sell Health Potions to wounded Brotherhood Scribes with mangled feet? ;-)
Pro tip: Your first unlocks in the perk tree for survival mode should be Scrapper and Chemist. Being able to make your own antibiotics is essential from the very start and scrapper will give you so many more materials to build with!
Great take on the ludonarrative overlap of the settlement mechanics. Great video
Been playing survival for years, i have it modified a fair bit, agony is a very good mod i recommend, each illness now has a specific drug to cure it and broken bones/being crippled requires surgery instead of a stim pack. Definitely one of the best mods around.
for you. For you, it’s one of the best mods around. For you
That’s kinda the point if you couldn’t tell, it’s there because I need the game to be harder. It’s obviously not for everyone. I’m just putting the recommendation out there for those that might be interested.
@@ja6975 You don't have to say something that is very obvious. It's obvious that it's his opinion. Saying so would be pedantic.
Is it on PS4?
@@iamjesus8fearme yeesh. So many words to say you’re an ignorant person who just hates immigrants when their existence has no bearing on your actual life or community. In my community, they’ve been a huge plus. In many communities, immigrants are always a plus.
This is the first video of yours I've ever seen. I'll tell you right now that if you stick to this path it will pay dividends!
I've never played Fallout on Survival period. I've always been a played that enjoyed the story first and foremost. Then the settlement building and power fantasy that Bethsda really gets right.
Listening to you describe the Survival aspects so incredibly vividly has put a Survival playthrough right at the top of my list for my next game to play.
Really well made and thoughtful script!
Job well done!
(Edit: subscribed - I look forward to more from you!)
I couldnt agree more. I played trough fallout 4 without the dlc's back in 2017 for the first time. now i returned after the show ofc, and i went with survival difficulty with every dlc, currently i am at far harbor at level 53 i went there right after getting KELLOGG's outfit which im gonna use throughout my gametrough. i first visited diamond city when i was 33, i spent most of my time exploring the northern part of the map doing side quests getting settlements doing supply lines, getting defences clean water beds, i never did that in the base game just the story ones. I made a main hub for myself and my followers in the Hangman's Alley settlement next to diamond city because its in the middle of the map. Im planning to join the Brotherhood because the fast travel option is really appealing to me, i even have my main weapon im going to use mostly until i find a better one but rocking the 45-47 cal rifle which has the explosive bullet legendary effect, doing the wasteland cowboy style with my militia hat as well. I love the challange that a simple raider and random encounters can just wreck me, i go for survival perks first so i can drink anywhere and eat anything without getting rads. I love this game so much in this difficulty, never approached even a simple encounter more tactically and constantly planning anything and looking for beds so i do not lose 30 to 60 minute progress, also using the minuteman artilerry strike is a blessing because if you manage to build them at every settlement you can call airstrikes at any location for the bonus sruvivability. So yeah great content, keep it up!
You did a fantastic job of summarizing why survival mode makes the whole game feel complete. I tell anyone who is nervous about starting it that once you get the hang of it anything less then survival feels like it’s just not the same game.
Except for when you lose a bunch of progress from the amount of crashes.....
I'm usually a big wimp when it comes to choosing difficulty settings, but with the delay to Fallout London I decided to have another go at F4 and chose Very Hard. A few days of playtime later, after a slightly more difficult start, I'm level 120 and nothing is a challenge any more. I decideed to switch to Survival and boy am I glad I did, it's a totally different experience. Having to travel everywhere means you get to know the map for more intimately. I've discovered new areas I hadn't seen in hundreds of hours of play time. The only downside is the frustration when you get the inevitable crashes.
It's worth noting that the Institute teleporter is also useful in other modes with fast travel, as it doesn't take any time, compared to fast travel which advances time based on the distance. E.g. if you're just about to fail a settlement defense quest, you can teleport to the Institute and then from there teleport to the settlement.
Highly recommend starting over, the early to mid game on survival is where all the fun is. To avoid crashing on PC, make sure you use RTSS to cap to 60fps, and restart your game every 3 hours. I haven't had a crash in a really long time because I restart my game every 2-3 in game days to flush the memory. Go out, do your mission for 1-2 days, come back home and drop/sort your loot, sleep, maybe go sell some loot/buy ammo for a day, reload the game and repeat.
One thing to mention regarding the Railroad:
In general, Survival mode makes playing a cautious, stealthy playstyle a lot more appealing. Apart from the squishiness of your character, the severe carry weight limitation also encourages the use of smaller or fewer guns, etc.
As such, the railroad's ballistic weave is a huge benefit to lightweight, stealthy armours, and obviously the Deliverer is a great gun for this playstyle as well. So joining the railroad does have tangible benefits that are enhanced by survival mode, and also really nicely match the story and vibe of the faction.
you are right, good point
Once you've played survival mode there's no going back, imo. Also agree with your point about the Railroad. Ballistic weave doesn't really change its value between game modes, though acquiring "The Deliverer" near the beginning of mid game can really make a big (somewhat temporary) difference in Survival mode.
Fantastic video summarizing my feelings on survival mode. It really is the way the game is meant to be played. I'd love to see more content or tips for survival mode.
My main build is a gunslinger VATS build, four critical hits in the bank and just one is enough to take down a deathclaw. The penetrator perk allows you to target deathclaw's belly or sentry bot fusion cores with a critical hit, which is super helpful. And pistols are great, because they're lightweight. Still using Kellogg's iron as my heavy hitter.
I have brahmin at most settlements and grab plastic whenever i find it, which lets me craft an ungodly amount of jet to use for barter, or to sell for 75 caps each at vault 81 (but only one at a time).
RadX and radaway are also very good for barter. You get so many and rarely use them due to the debuffs on survival mode.
I have a high level endurance character on survival mode. It’s still really fun, but there are less scary and chaotic moments now. I think mid game is the most fun for survival
Yess absolutely! Another thing to point out, to which you may have did, is that you also get double xp in survival mode so you will level hp much faster.
Due to the show, one of my best friends wanted to get into Fallout 4 and wanted my advice. I wholeheartedly recommended survial mode, even though its his first fallout game ever. Its truly a different game. Its hard as hell in the beginning but once you master it, the journey is so worth it. Honestly, its a similar ethos to FromSoft games, a million props to Bethesda for really pulling that ff. My friend ended up trying survival mode and was getting his butt kicked in the beginning, but im proud to say that he stuck with it and became hooked. If you got the time, definitely try it out, this video does a great job of describing how different the game is but you have to try it for yourself to understand
Survival mode with sim settlements is so cool. The start is rough, but once you get to around lvl 14-16 it really starts. Building travel routes via settlements you build up is incredible especially with sim settlements watching your towns build up. Saverettes is also a good mod as it limits your saves but helps you not lose hours to an unlucky trap or fatman
Survival Mode makes several Perks go from useless to almost necessary. Nobody takes Lead Belly unless they're in Survival Mode. Aquaboy/Girl is the same way.
Yes, fist time taking lead belly 😂.
never use them in survival either... wildlife is abundant, and swimming in rivers to avoid conflict spots is useful only in very early game, so, technically, not at all.
I'd take lead belly simply to be able to use more food items instead of relying so much on stims
@@reacher8042 or for nuka-cola. It has more us in survival and gives rads
If you take lead belly your not a pro
Playing my first survival playthrough now, and it feels like fallout 1 and 2 to me. A true successor imo
I’m currently playing on normal difficulty so I can get a feel for the dlcs( it’s my first time playing them) but this is the first time I’ve heard about the change to survival mode. And I gotta say you’ve put up a very convincing argument on why I should play it once I finish Nuka world I’ll start it up
The only reason to play n normal/hard mode is to get the hang of the mechanics. Once you’ve played survival you will never see the game the same again!
I'm playing a chem-fiend in my first survival playthrough, and I LOVE the depth it adds to my character. Not only do I have to guzzle water in order to stay hydrated, but I care way more about the debuffs too! It's at the point where every single opportunity I have to take any drugs that remove debuffs present themselves, I do. It makes combat super easy in the moment, but when I run out of chems, I die CONSTANTLY. Love this shit.
@@decoded360 yeah, same here. It Is a question, if there is a way to play survival different than full of drugs 😡🤣🤣
Hey dude! Love the video. Glad to find a small channel to sub. Fallout 4 Survival mode is such a fun challenge. Personally, I only made it about level 20/Confront Kellog before I put it down, simply because of the constant debuff from healing items like Radaway, etc. It was fantastic, but sooner or later, it was annoying using more resources than what I collect venturing out from my safe settlements into the wild. Still fun though!
I like the benefits of setting up supply lines between settlements. You will encounter friendly caravans along their route. Not only can they lighten your load, but also back you up in an encounter.
Great video, very well done, however there is one minor gripe I have with your explanation of heavy weapons at 14:51
Don't get me wrong, I understand where you're coming from. If this video was made before "next gen" update to Fallout 4 I would agree wholeheartedly, without question, but....
We now have the "next gen" update which introduced some heavy weapons that are still quite heavy per se, but ridiculously overpowered. If there is a best time to play heavy guns run on survival difficulty, it would be now.
Here's my logic behind it.
Heavy Incinerator, together with full suit of Enclave Hellfire MKVI power armor (highest possible of the Hellfire variant) can be obtained as early as level 2 (theoretically) with no glitches or exploits.
Of course, you won't be level 2 because you're going to level up few times in the process of getting it, but all you need is one perk point investment in heavy gunner perk, so, that's why level 2 :)
Once you have one star in heavy gunner, you'll need some Psycho for 25% more damage, and probably Psychobuff for additional 25% damage, as well as one single crit built up in VATS.
Once you have all of that, head towards the junkyard with the bot to get a fatman, one mini nuke and 3 fusion cores. That shouldn't be the problem at all. Get into that partial power armor nearby, you'll need the frame.
Now, go to Slog, while avoiding all the combat encounters, it can be done if you stick to the north of the map.
Once you reach the Slog, very close by, under the highway overpass, find the Enclave camp, there will be 3 patrolling soldiers and a turret there, go in sneak, pop your drugs for more damage, wait until all 3 soldiers are close together and boink the one in power armor with the VATS crit to the head while using fatman. If they are close enough, everything will be dead. If they are not all dead, let the settlers from the Slog help you finish the strugglers.
After that, you'll have a full set of top tier power armor, Heavy Incinerator weapon that uses flamer fuel which becomes available at around level 10-11 and it's abundant at merchants, while not being heavy. Weapon scales with heavy gunner and demolition expert, but you need to be careful of it's splash damage. In base state, it does around 50 damage + 40 or so burning damage, which is ridiculous for early stage of the game.
Your end game weapon would be a Tesla Cannon, which can be obtained from two quests added with next gen update, or dropped by random encounters with Enclave. It uses the... fusion cells, which you would use for your standard laser guns...
That said, it's never been more easier to play survival with heavy weapons than now.
And even if you get bored by how ridiculously OP you are you can still switch to miniguns, harpoons, flamers, gatlling lasers, even rocket launchers and have plenty of carry weight to spare later in the game.
I believe Survival Mode is the way Bethesda games should be played, It makes a lot of otherwise useless machanics important. The one thing I wish they did differently in Fallout 4 is how Antibiotics cure everything. I wish different diseases had different medicines, that would make gathering ingredients a lot more important. For instance, in order to cure idk Breakbone Fever you have to combine Wild Mutfruit, Bloodleaf, Brain Fungus and Abraxo Cleaner. That would be cool and somewhat accurate.
I love survival mode. Being chased by bloatflies, only to accidentally walk into a super mutant camp where a BOS vertibird explodes over your head, finding the body of the pilot and looting it, then getting attacked by the camp, only for dogmeat to get downed so you have to kill what you can and circle around and come back to save him... its something else i swear
If the next edition of fallout has survival at release it will be exclusively how I play my first run through. I had so much fun on multiple modded runs of survival in 4 before I ever did one without any mods. Completely changed the experience and made the role play even more immersive. If you’re not gonna do chems. You REALLY need to plan for it. If you’re running a sneak sniper, you better have a light automatic sidearm for when you’re rushed by dogs or even mole rats. My personal fav is definitely “Buck Norris” A9 E10, mostly unarmed and heavy use on chems,alcohol, and water so you’re getting huge melee buffs, and you’re carrying little to no ammo
Fast travel does take up in game hours so if you fast travel to or from a far away place (like Sanctuary) it is night time which means the shops are closed. For this reason my main base is always in Oberland Station because it is the closest settlement to downtown that has a decent amount of space. Although in survival mode Hangman’s Alley is the undisputed goat, despite it’s real lack of space.
Home Plate in Diamond City is my player home, but I use a mod to link all of the workbenches in the market to the workshop. But mods aside, Hangman's Alley absolutely is the best, especially after unlocking the Institute teleporter.
Hangmans alley is only good for a trading FoB imo, the random encounter spawn right next to it is annoying, and you can place a fast travel mat outside the orange door towards Diamond City to have your Vertibird land right on the road outside the stadium for trading. Red Rocket is the GOAT base. Access to Sanctuary for 750+ purified water/day and Abernathy for Vegetable Starch/Razorgrain, nothing beats Red Rocket when you have Vertibirds.
@@Aliothalewith Hangman’s Ally as home base you don’t need veritbird rides to make it a viable home base in survival mode. Even for some long distance destinations you can simply use the nearby river for transportation (with the aqua girl/boy perk of course). Thanks for the tip about choosing Diamond City as a vertibird landing spot to avoid that random encounter though (although I got a two shot laser rifle off one of those encounters).
@@Aliothale random encounters can be super useful though. Meeting the legendary traders or some easy victims. Granted, as soon as mechanist or dust devil robots spawn it is a shit show.
But, that random encounter crossroads is easily circumvented. Just don't exit through the western gate. Use the eastern gate, turn right towards DC, and next crossroad you turn right again, passing by the spawn point at a reasonable distance. And to get to Hangman's, just use the institute teleporter to get inside the institute, pop back out and walk across the bridge. 🤷🏼♂️
The size of the settlement is sufficient as well. Just need one pump and 2 farmers, tops. Plus beds of course and maybe a trader and/or doctor.
It actually blew my mind how much more fun I had in survival mode, almost like its the way you should play it, the no fast travel bit is the most imposing part, but thats because you forget you unlock vertibird flares, and teleportation grenades, which makes them way more nessecery, and flying over Boston shooting things you see is way more immersive
This was an amazing video! Thank you for taking the time to make it.
Something unmentioned: the additional recipes make use of a bunch of ingredients that are pointless in the base game, and the food requirements and now-powerful cooked meals buffs also push the use of previously ignored ingredients. Stuff like silt beans, melon/gourd blossoms, wild crops, used in basic recipes for simple buffs that are, at the start of the game, exceedingly powerful. Granted there's still a lot of bugs relating to those things but it's nice to see the forethought that was put into the survival aspects, before being ripped out by corporate.
Awesome video. I think the only thing you didn’t mention is that enemies no longer appear on the compass. Top tips from my playthroughs are refreshing beverages remove addictions and rads with no debuffs. I hot key Jet and Psychobuff (+25% DAM) for those hairy moments. Rank 1 chemist is needed for both and can be crafted at chemistry stations. Ingredients are fairly common.
PsychoJet is a staple in my hotbar lol
Psychojet, Med-X, and Psychobuff. I keep them on 7-8-9 with water/noodles on -/=. Pop all 3, down some water to negate, go beast mode. I use 1-melee, 2-refreshing beverage, 3-pistol, 4-rifle, 5-sniper/DMR, 6-heavy guns. My 0 hotkey is blood packs since they can be bought, have no penalty for using, and you can carry 50-100 of them for 5-10lbs. Way better than using food to heal or wasting a beverage when you're only missing a little bit of HP.
I tried survival at least 4 times but kept quitting in frustration due to dying what seemed like hours since sleeping (and saving). But I was getting board with hard mode so I decided to stick it out with survival, I was still having issues until I leveled up a bit and finally got use to it and made it to a point where I was not so squishy I died every 15 minutes. After completing the main quests in survival I went back to hard mode to sort of take a vacation but I need to do survival agin now with the Enclave stuff in the game (they gave me a very hard time first run through).
Survival completely changed how i engaged with the game. Making proper settlements went from dumb chore for obsessives to essential network of safespots and supplies. The game feels built around it.
Great!! One of the best videos explaining the greatness of survival in fo4. You have a new subscriber. New Fallout games will always have to cater to the majority that only wants to run around in power armor guns blazing with almost infinite carry weight and ammo weighing 0, but hopefully we get a survival mode like this in the future too. I will show this video to people that I think are ready for survival mode. Once you go survival there's no going back 👍
Fantastic video. I started a survivor playthrough for the first time about 2 months ago and I can definitively say it's the best way to play.
The limitation of only saving in beds makes the game too incredibly frustrating because of the engine's instability when modded. It's much worse to lose progress to a game crash than it is to lose progress to my own mistakes. I always have to mod out that particular feature.
A very detailed description of the Survival mode. You really covered everything and I couldn’t agree less with you: survival mode is the best. I would’ve missed a lot of fun if I haven’t tried it
Quick Tip: save manipulation. When you find a bed, but don't want to sleep?
Go up to the bed. Press the sleep button, set it for 1 hour. Once you press sleep IMMEDIATELY EXIT IT. You won't actually sleep and you'll see that the game auto saved for you in the corner.
Great video btw sorry for *potentially* ruin the saving bit lol
nah fake saving has been a must for me for ages. any bed I come across gets a fake 1-hour nap lmao
I never knew about this, only started playing Survival recently and hate having to reduce any adrenaline I've built up.
You still suffer the penalty from sleeping. All it does is not advance time
The Railroad also gives you the vertibird travel after you help them destroy the BOS, with the one they stole from them, also ballistic weave is asewome
wow I didn't know that, I never beat the game with the railroad lol
There is a plus to Railroad in Survival. Ballistic Weave - light, stealthy armour suddenly becomes a lot more valuable when need to reduce weight whilst protecting yourself from one-shot kills. And it's exactly the kind of armour a guerrilla unit would want to use. It's why I do the freedom trail in Act 1 (pre-Kellogg) - even if delaying the main quest blocks off the fast travel options offered by BoS and Institute (which are only really useful once you've opened up a decent chunk of the map).
But its so funny that the railroad npcs wear the heaviest armor in the game despite this fact😅
Also like vertibirds you don't have to stay siding with them, once you do that one first jackpot quest and talk to the merchant in the hq you can keep armoring your clothes even if you kill them off
I’ve been playing survival on perma death for the last few weeks and experiencing all the highs and lows that come with it. Had a number of restarts and being frustrated as hell but something keeps me coming back.
This video felt like I was in the position of everyone ive told about fallout survival, and it being the true way to play the game 😅 it really does change the whole feel of the game, im currently playing New Vegas again on "Hardcore mode" and its so easy because I've been through the worst fallout has to offer haha
Crazy how much fallout content is coming out rn
yea it's the tv show i reckon (that's why i'm making it lmao)
Great analysis, I agree with you! I just wish we were affected by the weather in survival too. But honestly I think I didn't ACTUALLY play Fallout 4 until I played survival!
I played a bit of survival mode yesterday for the first time. My first death was accidentally killed myself with a molotov trying to throw it through a doorway.
an embarrassing number of my deaths come from accidental molotovs lmao
14:56 I don't even use shotguns for the same reason. The ammo is just too heavy.
Survival mode reminds me of a lot of playing Morrowind, a game where half of it is you getting horribly lost somewhere. You realize how important it was to bring the supplies not for a day incursion but DAYS of getting lost. At first it seems getting anywhere is slooooow but then you discover the world and suddenly you're leaping about. Talismans of mark and recall, almsivii intervention, divine intervention. Knowing where every port goes, where every mages guild goes, where every silt strider is and what's near what. It's this convoluted web that was such a joy to master.
Survival fallout has so much of that feel plus so much more added benefit. Struggling to get on my feet again in goodneighbor resorting to petty thievery out of desperation. Ect. The final note is both good and bad. The good is power armor is actually USEFUL. The bad? it's almost impossible without the t-45 you get at the start of the game until you get to level 16-20ish. You need at least 100 DR to do ok, preferably 180-200 AND you need a decent pool of HP because enemies will still be doing 5-10 damage a hit.
I love this video! Thank you for the video. Survival mode gives Fallout a whole different vibe. I love it.
Just finished a survival run with no armour, no dog, no companions, no power armour. Died a few times. Got to level 150. completed all dlc's. I have just started a new survival run. Leather armour only, no dog or companions. Just finished level 50 no deaths so far. To make the game harder, I don't put any points into strength or intelligence. Therefore, I have to buy or find weapon and armour mods. No gun nut or armour workshop. Overseers guardian is my primary weapon and the .308 pipe rifle found in last house in concord upstairs. Buy the silencer from diner eventually modding to .50 cal when available from vendors. Leather armour is shadowed and pocketed. Leather chest piece is from diamond city vendor as it gives more time for chems to work. I have hot keyed psycho/jet and quantum cola. Don't be afraid to do drugs and buy addictol. Noodle cup is my go to meal for food and drink at same time. Helps with carry weight. Also mirelerk eggs only weight 0.1 when cooked with dirty water. Save whenever a bed is near is case game locks up, which it does occasionally. I play with PS4 no mods. Survival mode is brilliant for strategy. To get to Nigil in the glowing sea, I took rad x, glowing blood pack, cooked bloatfly, cooked mutant hound and stealth boys. No hazmat suit or power armour. Love the challenge
I feel like the mysterious serum would be especially useful for your style of play
@@technicolorskies5432 After the 150 level play through, I actually used the mysterious serum discovering the whole area of the glowing sea.
Was wondering how do you help settlements without fast travel ? And I have come to dislike being told one needs help and one is being attacked. If I even see it up on the corner
@@Kevin-ti3rz In survival, settlements are not a priority. I do any missions related to them but don't really care if they get attacked. Sometimes they win or lose without my help. However, in my own settlement in Hangman's Alley, as it is more central in the game, I put all my valueable components, screws, glue etc in a box, not in the workshop and get them when needed because if your main settlement gets attack and they lose, the game steals the components from the workshop. It has happened to me a few times when I couldn't get back in time. Very annoying. Building settlements is better when you can fast travel.
@@Kevin-ti3rz you can trigger the settlement raids just by flying over in a vertibird, you don't actually have to land. I'll typically fly to the settlement, provide fire support from the air, then fly home. Saves me the cost of a second vertibird grenade.
You've convinced me to boot up fallout 4 again, really good video I hope your channel grows bigger!
12:38 Not destroying the institute is doing the right thing for the commonwealth.
I think I've just been convinced to play on survival mode for my next playthrough
This was a brilliant take on a difficulty I have only touched here and there and has inspired me to give Survival another go. Well done. Earned a sub from me.
thank you :)
Survival is so good, I wish my first playthrough was in survival
Love this video. Ive been watching so many people giving bad advice about the game cause they have never played survival. So many little quirks you dont know about until you played a true survival run. And frankly anyone that uses mods to make survival easier might as well go back to very hard. Does the game randomly crash, very little now but yes, but you can also lose that same amount of time from not paying attention and stepping on a trap, getting to close to a burning car, or simply missing that super mutant that just launched a nuke at you. You start looking for those hidden beds, collecting every almighty empty bottle you find and learn what junk is best for selling and what is best for building. Settlement designs become very important and even equipping settlers helps, you can no longer just fast travel to save it. So you need to make sure it can defend itsself or you may be walking all the way across the map just to repair it. Supply lines are also essential cause thats how you get access to all the junk for building, modifications or repairs.
In survival mode I dont fear giant super mutants, military robots or deathclaws... I fear cars
Came back to this game. My last recorded play time was back in 2016. I installed a mod where you can fast travel to any settlement you own. Makes my game a lot enjoyable. I still im pose rules on myself not to use gast travel a lot but when your settlements get attacked, i can actually go and help them.
Do a Fallout series with you playing survival slowly and building out settlements as you go. Treat it as if you were really surviving and attempting to later thrive. Each settlement would have a purpose and help the next or just be a quick stop outpost. Search up the dlc play order and use the first one google gives you. Robot DLC at 15 when you can do it is the first. This is my first time ever playing the game and I’m song this on survival and having an absolute blast!!! It would be a huge series for your channel and give people a reason to binge. I’ll be watching lol
I've been itching to do a fallout series for ages, this might be a sign to do it lol
@@officialtibby people love it man. I’m a fan of a good paced out run all built up like you are really living it. It will kill.
I have a counter to what you’ve said about the Railroad being no more useful or logical to side with compared to the other factions.
BoS circumvents being squishy via Power Armor, which they give you a nice suit for free whenever you want it and supply Fusion Cores. Plus the signal grenades, this we know.
My counter is: The Railroad circumvents being squishy via the Ballistic Weave perk. Stealth is much more viable than a guns blazing build simply due to one shot stealth critical hits. You are much easier able to attack good damage protection from say, lvl 5 weave Military fatigues and the Marine Combat Armor (I prefer Deep Pocket for the most variance in carry weight, it adds more than ultralight build saves per set), and retain your stealth bonuses to boot.
9:54 the placement of these fences was... Painfulll
i'm sorry dog i'm trying my best with the building system
When Survival Mode invariably becomes easy - and it does - try the mod Frost Survival Simulator. Once you've mastered Frost, you'll wonder how you ever considered Survival a challenge.
the survival mode changes this into a completely different game my first play through the world felt empty lifeless just checking checking off missions the mechanics get changed a bit then boom you have the best survival game ever made makes it feel super intense doing anything because there is high level risk makes some fights super terifying and stressfull its so intense and fun thank you for making this video you worded everything and explained it for everyone so well this is probably the best game ever made now because of this mode its so much fun dude
The best armor i use in survival is the Railroad ballistic weave jacket. it's light, has really good damage resistant and you havent gotta worry about having extra pieces of armor to weigh you down. Sure you can get much tankier armor but in terms and style and tacticality the ballistic weave jacket is the one for me
I've just resigned myself to playing Fallout 4 for the rest of my life. Even with all its faults, I just can't find another game that's as engaging.
Damn. Someone articulated exactly how I’ve been feeling these past four years.
Imagine if the story was as interesting as New Vegas, it’s the only flaw with Fallout 4 I can think of
I started playing this game shortly after finishing the series on Amazon a few months back and Fallout 4 is now one of the best games I’ve EVER played 😀 I like sssooo addicted to this game 💯💯🔥🔥🔥🔥
Started playing 76 after the show and I gotta say, 4 looks like shit in comparison, both has their strong snd weak points but I agree.. Fallout 4 life
a casual lets play in survival mode would be cool :)
then you should check my channel my friend, i have good news for you
Bro casually walking with a 22lb of iron stuck in his chest
This is a wonderful breakdown of what is different, and how it is different, in survival mode for Fallout 4. *** best wishes for you exams!
I loved survival. I just 100%'d the games achievements with it. So cool. The no save unless you sleep is such an easy way to turn people off, though. That made my brother drop it back down to very hard immediately because of that. Oh well
Survival makes the game feel bigger, Paladin Dance’s first mission was super hard on my first survival play through. It changes the game.
An incredible overview of Survival! This mode has ruined me on Fallout 4 gameplay. I can’t play it any other way now because, as you stated, once you play in this mode, regular gameplay seems waaaay to easy. Even on very hard mode. I love this game and Survival mode has only increased my enjoyment.
Refreshing beverages are OP in Survival
I also play with no vats (only for finding enemies sometimes). It really adds difficulty to survival
Playing on survival in VR is wild. I’m playing as a sniper with a hunting rifle, but I have a sawed-off in my back pocket that I’ll line up in VATS and blow heads off like crazy. VATS functions like bullet time in VR, but it also lets you move in VATS. You can either use AP to dodge an attack or use it to blow someone’s head off. It’s so fucking awesome.
DUDE THAT SOUNDS SUPER DOPE ALREADY ON ALMOST EVERY CONSOLE GONNA GET A PC AS WELL CANT WAIT TO TEY THAT DUDE
I went to Survival Mode in my first F4 playthrough. "What the hell, I played Vegas and F3 on hardcore, used tons of mods to make the game harder, this shouldn't be a problem." Well, I got killed so many times the game lost all joy. Ended up staying away for 6 months before I restarted it on Normal Mode. I was too low level and went straight for Diamond City which is surrounded by high level foes.
Should I wait to a certain level before engaging Survival Mode? Or just slink around Sanctuary until I'm a certain level?
There's quite a lot of good stuff to do around sanctuary to level up first
Here are some mods from the Nexus that help with some of the worst annoyances of Survival Mode while maintaining the challenge and immersion.
Gimme My Bottle- consuming bottled water or Nuka Cola returns an empty bottle to your inventory.
Salvage Beacons- gain the ability to craft salvage beacons and a beacon control station (which requires power and an assigned settler). Overloaded? Drop all your excess loot into a container, add a beacon, and the closest settlement with a control station will send a team to recover the cache, adding it to the settlements workbench.
Personal APC and The Red Wave- these two both provide a vehicle that acts as a limited player home while returning limited fast travel. The APC can be found outside of Concord, the Red Wave is a small fishing trawler you can obtain in Far Harbor. Both need the right perks and materials to repair them, must be fueled to move them (fusion cores for the APC, oil for the Wave), and can only move between about a dozen already discovered locations. But they can ease travel times in a realistic way.
This last one is a bit of a stretch, but I won't do survival without it- Smokeable Cigarettes and Cigars. It turns cigarettes and cigars into an Aid item and lets you break down packs, cartons, and boxes to get more. Smoking gives a trivial buff, is highly addictive, and withdrawal penalties are fairly severe (although treating nicotine withdrawal is easy- just light another). So why use it? Because in Survival Mode, it creates a single Quicksave slot that is overwitten everytime you light up. About to hit the Super Mutants at Revere and dreading having to replay the last 2 hours if it goes badly? Just finished scrapping your new settlement and don't want to have to redo it? Take a quick smoke break and carry on.
Honestly one point I have to argue against is the no fast travel in survival, mainly because, aside from travel annoyance, as you said a lot of things point to survival being the initially planned main difficulty, Fast travel is no different.
Fallout 4s fast travel doesn’t just pick you up and plop you down, it plans a path and sims you’re character moving from point A, where you are currently, to point B, your destination, applies the time differential, and loads you back into the drivers seat.
Not only allowing for the time of day to change from fast traveling, but if you enable fast travel in whatever capacity in FO4’s survival, your meters deplete as if you moved there yourself, and you still run the risk of contracting diseases from the journey.
Fast travel from vault 111 to the lowest possible point in the glowing sea somehow? Be prepared to eat 3 stockpiles worth of food, all the clean water in the commonwealth, and pass out where you can, you may not have felt the boredom of moving all that distance, but there’s no escaping the effects of singlemindedly moving all that way without any attention towards your own needs.
I think that's the best explanation I've heard of the Survival mode in Fallout 4, thanks for your thoughts and all the best in the exams.
Play survival mode with the right mods and fallout 4 is the best rpg ever hands down
Which mods would you recommend?
I loved my Skyrim survival mode playthrough. But I will admit I used the horse for supply runs and the like a bunch, as well as sleeping for weeks at a time to get farms near whiterun to respawn their stuff lol.
To me the hunger, thirst, and disease chance are about 2x too much, especially it feels weird since I change my timescale to 8, something felt off to me. But I did do a full playthrough on survival with the gopher mod for quicksave and despite the intense thirst rates etc, survival was a good mode for sure. Fun experience.
only beef whit survival is that you need to invest in local leader perk to be able to connect settlements... you should be able to appoint companions for the transport work
Only problem being not having enough saves to go back once the usual "buf that sof locks you" happens
Survival is definitely the best part of Fallout 4. Would be interested in your take on the perk progression. I started one with 1 END, INT, CHR that felt really strong out of the gate
I basically finished the game on the older survival mode, it was tons of fun. The slow healing on stimpaks was cool. Playing the dlc on new survival was a bit jarring, especially because that Island in the south was my main home & I had to walk in power armor or swim across the water to get back & forth until i built a vertibird pad there
I feel like not enough people know that the railroad also has vertibirds
Any other game made by a different developer and this experience would be thrilling, but Bethesda games crash at random, even today many years after its release is plagued by game breaking bugs and glitches. The only way to finish this game is using mods, which defeats the whole point of the survivor mod. I really wish Bethesda let a capable developer have a shot with the franchise.
So many perks I took in survival I wouldn't glance at in base