This game is really easy, what mods add difficulty?

[Mouse]

Its basically my first real time playing NV, and i'm playing very hard + hardcore, but honestly the experience has been very easy. Don't think i have died once. I had to drop Boone as a companion because he was too OP. The hardcore elements might as well not even be there. The only real difficulty it adds is having to manage your ammo more carefully. I'm level 10 i think, I followed the main quest and i'm at Vegas rn. Also what is the point of all the survival stuff? I guess it's just for roleplay purposes? I initially put a bunch of points in survival because i thought it would be necessary on a hardcore run but nope. You don't need anything from that, vendors have everything you need and you get rich very very quick in this game. Now that i am done complaining lol

What mods do you recommend for making it a more challenging experience? I don't like to stray too far from the vanilla experience though!

[Mr_Faorry]

Hardcore mode is a joke that barely makes the game more difficult (stimpack/ doc bag changes being the only one of note) and is more intrusive and annoying than anything else.
Survival skill is used for a couple skill checks but otherwise is even more useless than Big Guns which it replaced.

Bleed: https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/61141
Ups the damage multipliers of body parts making combat shorter but deadlier and damage more realistic, it also adds a bunch of new effects to make things that bit deadlier again like explosives/ edged melee weapons causing bleeding damage or energy weapons causing burning dots. Combat will no longer be the battle of the bullet sponges when using this.

Player HP Control Suite: https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/68561
Lets you alter the health formula for your character so that you don't end up with 500+ HP by max level like you do in the vanilla game (which was ridiculous). I personally set base health to 50 and then make each point of Endurance increase HP by 15 with the other 2 settings set to 0 making max HP 200 if you have 10 END with no HP from levelling up.

DLC Weapon Integration: https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/47880
It both increases immersion and difficulty, it'll distribute the weapons throughout the world meaning that you can find them being used by npc's and as loot, but more importantly you can find them being used by npc's. Trust me when I say Legion Hitsquads armed with 12.7mm SMG's will ♥♥♥♥ you up, raiders armed with grenade rifles can one hit you early to mid game if you're using both the above mods too, MFC Cluster Grenades are ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ scary.

Mojave Arsenal: https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/62941
Does the same but with the ammo variants, so enemies can use HP or AP bullets which can throw an extra complication into the mix since now sometimes they may counter you just like you've been countering them.

Honestly those last two just should have been the default state of the game as there was no reason to not distribute those items across the levelled lists, must have just been time constraints striking again.

There's also these two which just add more stuff to fight
The Living Desert: https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/64623
Adds a whole bunch of new patrols, camps, etc for basically every faction including enemies and potential enemies. It's also pretty reactive, so wiping out the Powder Gangers at the NCRCF for example will decrease how many Powder Gangers you encounter, lifting the BOS lockdown will spawn BOS patrols around the wasteland, that sort of stuff.

Mojave Raiders: https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/64660
Adds more raiders so you'll be facing greater numbers more often, also makes their equipment more degraded so you make less caps by selling their gear.

[Facetable]

The mods that have already been recommended seem to cover most bases, though something that may be worth trying after those and after you've played through most of the content of the main game/DLCs would be DUST

https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/57927

Its a mod set 20 years after the events of the main game and essentially portrays a scenario where everything that could go wrong in the Mojave went wrong. I think it adjusts many of the game's settings to increase difficultly though, so I'm not sure about compatibility with other difficulty mods.

Also in regards to survival as a skill, it actually is a pretty strong skill albeit not for what you'd expect: Most of the food items aren't really worth cooking for hardcore as you can pretty much sate your hunger off of the low skill steaks. But there are consumables that require survival to make such as Slasher, Battle-Brew, and Turbo(Turbo recipe is a quest reward). which have powerful effects and are otherwise rare to come by.

[Mouse]

Originally posted by Mr_Faorry:

...

Thanks, Looks like a good list, exactly the sort of things i had in mind.

I think i was expecting the hardcore mode to be more like the survival mode in FO4, but it's nothing like. Glad I am not missing anything by abandoning the survival skill, i was duped into investing in it by a couple of comments i saw when reading about Hardcore mode.

Definitely think the world needs more enemies, with better weapons. Also something to make the companions weaker would be good. And maybe something to make it less easy to make money. Think i have 25k already, not seen anything i can't afford and I have a 10ish barter skill adn as i said only level 10. Pretty crazy to me, especially compared to FO3 for example where you have to go around scrounging for scrap for $.

[Mouse]

Originally posted by Facetable:

The mods that have already been recommended seem to cover most bases, though something that may be worth trying after those and after you've completed the Main quest/DLCs would be DUST

https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/57927

Its a mod set 20 years after the events of the main game and essentially portrays a scenario where everything that could go wrong in the original game's setting went wrong. I think it adjusts many of the game's settings to increase difficultly though, so I'm not sure about compatibility with other difficulty mods.

Also in regards to survival as a skill, it actually is a pretty strong skill albeit not for what you'd expect: Most of the food items aren't really worth cooking for hardcore as you can pretty much sate your hunger off of the low skill steaks. But there are consumables that require survival to make such as Slasher, Battle-Brew, and Turbo(Turbo recipe is a quest reward). which have powerful effects and are otherwise rare to come by.

Looks interesting could be good for a dedicated survivalist playthrough. That's what this one was going to be, but since it made no difference it just morphed into a generic guns / good character. Stereotypical melee/evil char next, so maybe those chems and crafting will be more important for that run. Hopefully its harder. Found a couple of Turbo actually, the description is Turbo +1 so i have no idea what that means lol. Makes you faster I assume? Or does it slow time like Jet in FO4? lol

[Mr_Faorry]

Originally posted by Mouse:

Definitely think the world needs more enemies, with better weapons. Also something to make the companions weaker would be good. And maybe something to make it less easy to make money.

This just reminded me of another mod actually, it doesn't make companions weaker but it makes enemies no longer prioritise companions over the player 99% of the time.
Player Combat Priority: https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/71699
Enemies are going to be more likely to target you than your companions with this.

As for a tougher economy New Vegas Economy Improved is a solid pick: https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/71604
I personally prefer the 'lite' version myself.
Economy Overhaul: https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/62899 by the same guy is another solid pick too and one I used for years.

[MrPatalchu]

Also check out JSawyer Ultimate Edition [www.nexusmods.com]. It's a mod that was originally made by the games lead designer and has since been reworked and optimized. It makes the game more challenging but doesn't alter the vanilla experience too much.

[psychotron666]

Survival is useless? Lol it gives you way better healing than medicine does

[Mouse]

@MrPatalchu. Also seems like a great mod, thanks. Spoilt for choice here!

@Psychotron666 I haven't needed anything better than stimpacks thus far. The regen is fast enough and you can spam them and stack that regen because they are common and cheap anyway. They don't require collecting ingredients nor an investment in a skill which otherwise you probably wouldn't use. Seems better to invest those skill points into something more useful, even Medicine if you want better healing. Of course i am still relatively new to NV so i could be talking a bunch of ♥♥♥♥, but that's my impression so far :D

[Stealth-Boy 3000]

Surprised no one recommended AWOP till now. Haven't tried it out myself tho

[Mr_Faorry]

Originally posted by Stealth-Boy 3000:

Surprised no one recommended AWOP till now. Haven't tried it out myself tho

Because it's kinda crap tbh. It's poorly balanced, plays hard and fast with lore, and has a bunch of unvoiced quests.
If all you want is to run through massive sprawling dungeons and shoot stuff then you'll probably enjoy it, if you want to actually play the game I wouldn't recommend it.