the Sim Settlements forums!

Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

Any ideas for challenging but fair playthroughs?

Ithrian

New Member
Messages
27
Hello All,

I am going through Fallout 4 again, but I couldn’t come up with a new unique way to try and tackle the challenges of the wasteland. I am a fan of fair challenges and I do all the basics like play exclusively on Survival and I don’t save-scum or anything, but I have been trying to devise a new set of rules to bind myself with to increase the challenge. Oh I also use GCF Game Configuration Menu to turn up my, and my enemy’s damage, up to x3. To give you an example of what I mean, I will tell you the last rule-set for a playthrough I used.


Nudist/Naturist Run: Neither I or my companions are allowed to wear any kind of clothing or armor (Because I would naturally gravitate towards Ballistic Weave which is too powerful). I am limited to 3 followers (because Lone Wanderer is just too powerful, and followers tend to a liability most of the time). I am not allowed to craft weapon mods, I must take them off weapons I find in the wasteland (because it’s too easy to create the Laser Musket of DOOM and snipe/kill most things in one multi-crank shot). [Unfortunately this turned me into a sneaky melee assassin which only caused problems when my companions screwed up their stealth; and even then the enemies rarely found me so my 10x sneak attacks still slit every throat in the commonwealth.


I try to devise a set of rules ahead of time, because I like to figure out an effective strategy within a rule-set. I want my ruleset to make sense within itself, so as not to destroy my immersion. For example, in the above, Nora was always a naturist in a world where that wasn’t acceptable, so when the bombs fell, she was free to strip down judgement free. She only has 3 followers because she is kinda creepy with her flaunting her ‘assets’ and forcing her lifestyle on others, and refuses to go alone because she wants to force her beliefs on others. Finally, she isn’t a student of engineering, so can’t build a better mousetrap… or in this case a gun.

So..... any ideas?

Ithrian
 
No sneak, no drugs, deathclaw wielder wearing only light leather armor.

T-shirt and jeans hand to hand brawler. Also no sneaking.

Note: no companions at all, ever. For both playthroughs I used that perk that gave you damage resistance while sprinting towards opponent.

I haven't tried:
Non lethal playthrough. Though I have no clue how this would actually work.

PC is only a healer, all combat must be done by companions. Also not sure how well this would work considering everything guns for the PC (make a tank style character?)
 
Last edited:
No sneak, no drugs, deathclaw wielder wearing only light leather armor.


T-shirt and jeans hand to hand brawler. Also no sneaking.


Note: no companions at all, ever. For both playthroughs I used that perk that gave you damage resistance while sprinting towards opponent.


I like this. This is interesting. I need to give it some more thought but how about this.

James "The Tiger" Mason, was the terror of the boxing circuit during his heyday, but steroid over-usage turned to all sorts of drug problems, and his eventual expulsion from the major leagues. He tried to pick his life back up by getting a sponsor, whom he eventually married, and join the military. He is proud of his new life, but days after his honorable discharge, China crossed the line, and nuclear fire rained from the skies. His wife and kid are gone, but he has one more title fight in him, and this Kellog character isn't going to last the second round.


James refuses to go down his drug addled slow suicide like before, so he refuses to use drugs in any form. He will even revel in the opportunity to be Cait's sponsor. The military taught him enough about guns to know that the world would be better without them. He needs to travel light so he can flow like a butterfly and sting like a hydraulic press, so he won't don heavy armor. He may try to sneak, but he was always terrible at it, and won't be getting better anytime soon. He isn't here to rebuild a society that was broken long before the bombs, he is here to rip Kellog's head off with his bare hands, and search for a fight too big for him, leaving him to rot in a gutter somewhere. If he helps Cait, this may turn him around, but he is pretty fatalistic and will assume his kid is dead, and that he should be too before too long. He lives for vengeance, and a good death. If he succumbs to the lure of drugs, he will lose the ability to reload after death, and whatever gutter he falls in, will be his last.


Story:

The first people he meets will attack him, the Raiders, and he will help the Minutemen basically as a consequence of murdering Gristle and his gang, but he will never go back into the museum of freedom. He will fashion the deathclaw’s hand into a claw for him, and his misery requiem will begin. If a diamond city guard mentions the combat zone, he will check it out to fight his last amidst roaring crowds, but if they don’t, he will seek revenge, and when he finds that as hollow as living, he will turn to drugs, and his death spiral will be close to its completion. If he finds Cait, he will help her, and find a kindred spirit in her plight and eventual rescue. As they begin their new lives’ together, neither will know that they rescued each other. Any children they have in the future settling down and raising synth Sean, will have that Diamond City guard to thank for his parent’s lives.


Gameplay:

He can’t buy the perk Sneak, but he can try to sneak occasionally, though he is bad at it.

He will Blitz/crit his way through life. Lone Wanderer will keep him alive until and unless he meets Cait.

After Kellog he can use drugs but not before, and only if he is in dire straits. If he does get addicted, he can’t reload on death, and that will end his story.

He won’t help settlements because he has his own problems, but if Cait saves him, he may come back and turn over a new leaf.

He will avoid Nuka World because all the advertisements say it is a place of happiness, and as a depressed person, he will actively avoid pleasure. If Cait saves him, he may go there, but by then he will go the Open Season route.
 
If you do get blitz, limit yourself to just the first level of it. 2nd rank of blitz makes melee way too easy IMO
 
I need rules to make sense. It has to work in the character concept. Tiger is a stone cold badass, so him not taking level 2 blitz when he can just seems arbitrary. What are your thoughts?
 
Last night I had another idea I wanted to share.


Felix Thane is a prick. He is an evil, shitty, delusional, narcissistic asshole who sees women as possessions and has no respect for other people or their plights. Felix is a hero in his own story and his fuck-you-got-mine outlook on life will win him no friends. Felix doesn’t realize his delusions, or they wouldn’t be derangements would they. Felix was an only child who got all the comforts of life, but was never happy. His spoiled outlook only adapted to one abusive manipulative relationship after another, that were all clearly not his fault; just ask him. He gas-lighted Nora into a submissive golden ticket, to earn money with her law degree, so he can stay home and complain about how the army unfairly kicked him out for conduct unbecoming an officer. In fact, the very day he planned to crash a party at the veteran’s hall, to explain how the army wronged him, China bombed America. Worse yet, he got frozen, but some pricks shot his Nora. (note the anger that his possession was killed, not that his poor love was hurt) At least they took that damn kid. He sure as shit wasn’t going to change diapers or anything. He told Nora that she had better keep up her damn birth control, and low and behold that stupid I love you couldn’t even get that straight.


Story:

Felix believes he is a white knight of the wastes, and will offer to help the minutemen, but will probably get thrown out the first time he steals something and just has to kill an entire settlement for getting all up in his shit about stuff they were just leaving around in a safe. He tells people about his lost child and dead wife to earn sympathy, not because he cares. He pretends to be on a quest because of the accolades it wins him, not because he actually wants to find his son. He does want to kill Kellog, but that’s because he took his pet wife away. He will recruit only female followers but they will probably leave him when he “has” to kill some settlers when he has to “defend” himself against people not wanting their stuff stolen. If anyone sticks with him, he will demand they change their hair, and decide what they wear, until her has ground them into shells of their former selves. (I will use AFT to change their hair, body size, posture, and personality if I successfully romance them, to hunched, submissive, skinny, skittish, naked, and wild haired) He will join all factions, but will be insubordinate and shitty until kicked out. He will finish the game with whatever faction is left if any. He wants to find the institute because no one has, and he wants to be known as the guy who did. He won’t believe father, is his kid, but will play along to get the recognition. The game will end when either the credits roll, or if all factions throw him out, he finishes Nuka World as the overboss.


Rules:

Felix is not an idiot, but is lazy and totally unskilled. He may not have intelligence higher than 1.

Felix cannot mod weapons, even if he finds a mod, he doesn’t know how to remove it and put it on another. He MUST only use what he can find.

Felix cannot build anything at a settlement, even a water pump, because he doesn’t know how.

Felix cannot recruit male followers. He is top dog and can only venture with women he is trying to fuck and robots and dogmeat who will do whatever he commands them to do. Porter Gage is a possible exception because Gage constantly refers to Felix as the overboss or boss.

Felix needs to “looks cool”. This is more important to him than his own safety, so cannot equip anything that is ugly in his mind. This mean only prewar clothing, road leathers, some armor like leather, or combat armor(if its black). He will also exclusively use shotguns, revolvers, and level action weapons because of John Wayne and Mad Max. He is down with power armor, but only T60 or X1, and never with a helmet.

He will claim one settlement for his own if he successfully romances a follower so he has a place to keep his women when isn’t using them.

Finally if in a battle with a former companion, or settlement turned against him for stealing or pick-pocketing and he dies, he cannot reload. His story of selfishness ended there, and the commonwealth breaths a sigh of relief.
 
Last edited:
Well I for one love no reload runs (which is why I go through so many playthroughs, lol).

The blitz thing for the first character? RP as not having the mentality to follow through on training? So at most perks can only be leveled up to half? Never mastering any skill at all, but having a bit of knowledge in just about everything? That means even melee perk will stop at just lvl 3. Which would also explain why he can never master sneak.
 
You know I want to start uploading lets-plays on the you tubes. I like watching them, and I need something to practice with before The Outer Worlds and Vampire: the Masquerade Bloodlines 2 comes out and I lets-play them. I think i will record Felix. If he dies, then I will do James. I should probably age-restrict Felix.
 
Top