Ostriig on 30/4/2016 at 23:06
I might give that a go, depending on how my inventory sorting turns out in Survival. I'm hoping that a side effect of the reduced carryweight will be not ending up with my inventory being a dumping ground that I just can't be arsed to clean out after a point, so there ought to be less to sift through.
On a different note, I really hate sounding like a self-entitled backseat designer, but damnit if it doesn't look like they managed to do exactly what I was afraid of - micromanagement simulator 2016. Oh, you were well hydrated five minutes ago? Well, now you're parched again. Oh, you're gonna ignore that for another five minutes? And take a Stimpak? Well, now you're much thirstier, you're gonna have to click on four items of water. And then you'll be parched again in five minutes. But don't worry, we'll break up the monotony by giving you an illness half-way through.
It seems like you can't clock more than ten minutes without absolutely having to nurse some status effect. My first thought would be that this is because they're balancing the needs system against the overly abundant resources of the vanilla game. Which, yes, will likely even out in the numbers game, but ends up fuelling this fractured gameplay where you constantly have to ping back to the PipBoy. I've only put in a couple of hours, so maybe it smooths out later on, but I rather expect it to play out more like a fiddly Skyrim mod than STALKER.
What a shame.
Ostriig on 1/5/2016 at 11:39
A little more whining while I wait for my food to cook. I'm having a hard time imagining how some players can actually deal with sleep-to-save, I did see a bunch of threads on the official Bethesda forums begging them not to allow manual saving. I stuck with it through clearing Corvega last night, and it was slow going when I first played it on Normal, now it was a lot harder. Especially since there's still enemies who don't have the decency to kick the bucket after a shot to the head. I wiped several times on entering through the roof hatch alone and it was frustrating enough, I imagine if I'd had to start over from hell knows where I'd have just given up on Survival altogether.
Also... Dogmeat. Survival Mode graduates him from annoying to an outright hazard. It's worth noting that, technically, he is programmed to get in the way since he goes in the direction your cursor's pointing. In cramped spaces, he's a nightmare. And it's a pity, because you can clearly see all this work that went into modelling his behaviour, and it's generally very compelling, but his constant blocking really grates on you. My suggestion would've been to reduce his collision bounds, preferably to the player alone, to allow you to "squeeze" past him in tight spaces. Yeah, there'd be clipping, but I'd take that any day over not being able to backpedal from an incoming grenade. Raiders looove grenades. Supermutants do, too. And gunners. You get the idea.
Bonus point for him falling off Corvega and popping up a marker to get down and give him a Stimpak. See, I couldn't just jump from where I was, too high up, and if I'd gone the long way around to the stairs, he might've taken his cue to return to Red Rocket. That's where the console comes in. Click, moveto player, Stimpak, problem solved.
One last observation on fast travel. I'm not bothered yet, but I imagine that soon enough I'll want a mod to let me build fast travel points between settlements, otherwise managing them would probably be unfeasible. I don't mind not being able to collect scrap for settlement building (can only afford to carry stuff I need for weapons and armour modding), I plan to cheat myself some wood and steel on each one just because I don't wanna strip the vanilla locations completely, I like most of them, but setting up effective supply lines and shifting settlers between places is just something that I can't see myself walking all over the placer for all the time.
I do like the needs concept, though, which is why I want Survival in the first place. Jury's still out on the implementation, but the core is great. Suddenly, I have a good reason to be happy on looting Radroach meat or finding a cooking station. And as a piece of advice, do carry purified water with you. You'll need it.
Jason Moyer on 1/5/2016 at 22:06
I am kind of surprised that they didn't disable fast-travel by default while letting you build those mats that serve as fast-travel targets at settlements. That would actually be a pretty awesome compromise between being able to fast travel everywhere and not having it at all.
Ostriig on 5/5/2016 at 08:57
I imagine they thought it would be "too easy", as it would be just a formality to plop a mat somewhere in a settlement. Would work for me, but doesn't seem like the direction they went for. I thought they might consider linking it to building caravan stops instead, since those have a higher barrier of entry, but that would still be a bit of a bother seeing as you have to do some stuff for Bunker Hill first.
Put in another 45 minutes last night and ran into another issue with Dogmeat. Dumb mutt fell off a building again, but the "heal your companion" objective vanished after two seconds on its own. Finished the fight without having strayed away and he's just idling about in the same spot, not wounded but unresponsive. Re-enabling him did nothing, only got him back by shooting the bugs out of him, then applying a Stimpak. Admittedly, that was rather satisfying, just hope it didn't leave any bummed out flags behind as I've overwritten the save.
zombe on 8/5/2016 at 12:08
Reached level 32 with my new char - so, i guess it's time to share my thoughts (no vats, no powerarmor, no followers of any kind [can't stand the excessively stupid artificial stupidity], no 'nades, no chems [if at all possible *]). A "no regrets" build -> if there is any point in game a perk would look like a waste then i am not allowed to take it (so, no loot enhancing perks, no exp boosting, no price reductions, no gun-nut past the first perk etc etc).
*) 0 chems taken so far, but i carry a few of the good ones around for dire times. Stims and other such cures are not classified as chems.
Sickness:
* most are very minor and you can just ignore completely.
* antibiotics are plentiful when you really want to get rid of something on the field in the middle of nowhere (carrying about 3 with me and storing 10-20 at home).
* 0 cured by doctors (i tend to forget i actually have doctors in all my major settlements. Also, look previous points).
Have died twice so far, both completely my fault.
1. @level 11, when returning from Tenpines with the quest. When i went there i saw a bunch of bloatflies and decided to avoid them since without vats and/or specialized weapons they are all kinds of complete pain. Well, when i returned i kind of forgot where they were and got jumped ... and one of them was a legendary ... and i totally panicked. While i managed to kill them all - i died of poisoning a second later as i forgot to take the 250 poison resistance chem, foolishly opting instead to concentrate on not missing any of my time-limited shots. Did not take any jet either while the situation clearly called for it.
2. @level 27, in the city (somewhere around the mass fusion building). After clearing a building from the inside and using the bed to save i thought to exit the building from the front door - knowing that there are at least 4 baddies outside there ... somewhere. Well, there indeed were 4 in immediate kill-the-moron 180 degree flanking position with one of them being legendary ... there were also and additional 3 in the immediate vicinity that managed to contribute before i hit the ground. Seeing that there was no cover and considerable chunk of my health was gone before fade in even ended - i died. Psychojet would have probably saved me as i had a high damage 32 mag combat shotgun drawn and everyone was close to my face ... but the mistake was just way too stupid (the seconds i had i was thinking of "why the fuck did i just do that" instead of "psychojet").
Have managed to survive all the 'nades thrown at me ... with a few really-really close calls. The merits of valuing cover and escape routes when dealing with 'nade spammers.
Focusing quite a lot on settlement building - with additional limitations:
* Supply line between two settlements only allowed if they are close by via the natural paths without other potential setlements inbetween. I want a sensible supply network or none at all (had to postpone connecting my primary Hangmans settlement considerably as the nearby settlement had its radient quest spawn very inconveniently and had no spare settlers to send to Graygarden to connect from there to Starlight [to avoid killing Starlight settlement growth]).
* Settlement must be logically functional and sufficiently built up (if you do not have the resources to do so then DO NOT GET THE SETTLEMENT).
* Obviously, a shut-up-Preston or equivalent mod is needed to avoid getting spammed by settlement quests you absolutely cannot do under thous rules.
Not using any settlement attack mods this time and surprisingly have not had an attack ... figures.
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Food and water are slightly annoying - they do not seem to have a buffer region (ie. no negative effects at slightly hungry / slightly too full ... it would double the need_to_eat/drink time while leaving the actual consumption etc completely the same). Brainfart at Bethesda side.
Sleep to save. I have not used the manual save even once (exceptions excepted: 3 times to fix loading errors - as save and reload is all that can fix them) without having a bed nearby (also always checked if the game would let me use the bed beforehand). I'm astonished how many beds there actually are. Have never slept in any non-proper bed (PS. if you sleep in anything for 0 hours then you CANNOT EVER get any diseases vs any time in any quality of bed has a small chance ... good to know if you do not use manual-save mods and have to use a bed to save).
Have had 4 crashes (Two of them caused by me insisting to run as soon as i can after the engine force-disables running due to nearby cells not being fully loaded in yet. The other two in proximity of excessive alt-tabbing ... my music player does not like whatever the game is doing to the system ... it is weird at times) - all just seconds after saves thankfully.
TCL is the most used console command, especially helpful to get around the astonishing amount of stuck in getting behind terminal animation (In case anyone did not know, TCL toggles collisions on/off, which means the animation can ignore all the obstructions inbetween - even got stuck in the concord museum terminal this playthrough x_x). TCL for the win!
There is way-way too much ammo and food everywhere and no way to spend the caps.
* I am on non-rad food diet ... occasional because-i-feel-like-wanting-that excepted ... and who can say no to Nuka-Cola, really.
* Trying to mod all my guns to take rare ammo (which luckily does more damage anyway), so i can buy them expensively with cheaply sold other common ammo. Almost there. It will probably help, but not solve the problem.
* Cannot see anything providing a sufficient caps sink - even with all the shops in settlements i still have over 19K caps already.
Leveling is insane fast! I went from sanctuary directly to Red Rocket to Concord and felt over leveled all the way.
* Slightly unrelated funny: reaching the roof and realized that i can't actually get down from there without the power armor (that i do not use) ... felt like a complete dumbass going straight back in and past Preston ... "don't mind me, just passing through, yes-yes i have not forgotten about the raiders and what the revolting old hag said".
* Concord then spawned a Yao guai at the camp site. Took a shot at him ... he was slightly surprised and confused whether that was wind dusting his fur or was some idiot shooting at him with a shitty pistol. I opted, wisely, to vacate the area immediately.
* Next the Diner (where i completely failed and consequently barely survived the standup ... oh, well, first time i have ever lost the thug drug shop :(. It's really convenient to have TWO stationary shops near Starlight so early). The second time past it a Rad-scorpion spawned. Since i had my first real guns at that time i opted to take a shot at him ... and then immediately "opted" to expediently take refuge in the Diner. Was land locked there in Tremors style for a while till it gave up and went away. That was awkward.
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In short, quite enjoying it.