why is every enemy in very hard mode a bullet sponge?

[cattykins]

i don't wanna abuse the game and use the water farming strategy to buy my way out of the difficulty, but i'm constantly finding myself with 0 ammo and enemies that deal 10x more damage than me no matter where i am on the map, even with power armor. it's starting to become more tedious and annoying than fun

[Nite69]

use sneak attacks and a silenced weapons it will multiply the damage, also get your gunnut skill up and upgrade your weapons, it won't be long before you are strong enough to do single shot kills, The overseers guardian is the best weapon in game btw you can find it in Vault 81

It depends where you are too, stay in the north areas until you level up cause they get harder the further south you go

[cattykins]

Originally posted by Nite69:

use sneak attacks and a silenced weapon it will multiply the damage

as if i haven't already tried this. unfortunately, it's pretty hard to sneak attack enemies when they have all considerably more health than you, and even with multiplied damage the attack barely do anything. after trying to stealth attack them, all of their friends are on me and doing 40 - 50 damage per shot and i almost instantly die

[Zes]

in that perspective, survival difficulty might be easier than hard mode..

use sneak criticals (wait 7-8 seconds between shots)
aim for the head
dont sleep too long (to have more adrenaline)
mod your weapons for the best damage
take appropriate weapon perks to increase damage
ninja perk might be useful to take

and do not take damage

[Zes]

+ take scrounger early on
- even with water selling / ammo buying strategy, you wont find enough ammo on traders until you build your own weapon dealers (lv14)

[Bored Peon]

In survival adrenaline makes a difference. Every time you sleep you lose it.

So do not go after the really tough stuff after first waking up, find some trash mobs to kill to buff your adrenaline back up.

[Relic62]

The further Sth you go the harder the enemies, you have not mentioned your level either that could help us to determine what you need, tho its sounds like you need good armour and a killer rifle, and spec into lone wanderer if u don't have a companion, as mentioned above get the Overseers guardian from vault 81 off the trader, also sells good left and right arm armour as well, tho they cost 7000 caps each the guardian costs around 1500 caps approx at the lowest buy/sell lvl. Mod all weapons and armour as well.

[RossenX]

1. Get GCM (Game Configuration Menu)
2, Tweak the difficulty damage taken/output to your taste.
3. Have fun.

IMO, making a game 'harder' by making you do less damage while taking more damage is a very lazy way to do difficulty. So i keep the damage at 1 to 1 and then tweak stuff like spawn rate of legendary monsters and how many enemies spawn etc.

If you want less sponges, just set the damage taken/given to 2 or 3 or more that'll make you take more damage and also do more damage.

[cattykins]

Originally posted by Bored Peon:

In survival adrenaline makes a difference. Every time you sleep you lose it.

So do not go after the really tough stuff after first waking up, find some trash mobs to kill to buff your adrenaline back up.

not playing survival, i'm playing very hard mode.

[Iron Knights]

There's a reason it's called Very Hard Mode. And now you know. Yes, this is not a mode you try when low on junk, low on perks and low on levels. Survival is for bragging mole rats.

[Bored Peon]

Originally posted by platinumpersona:

Originally posted by Bored Peon:

In survival adrenaline makes a difference. Every time you sleep you lose it.

So do not go after the really tough stuff after first waking up, find some trash mobs to kill to buff your adrenaline back up.

not playing survival, i'm playing very hard mode.

Well it also depends on your level. I usually end up quitting at around 100 because it takes 5-6 shots to kill anything.

It also depends on where you are as well, most static mobs cap out at like 45 at the most. The ones equal to your level are from random encounter locations, which those are the bullet spongers.

[Three-ay-em]

literally the reason why my setup consists of power armor and gatling lasers lmao

[Iron Knights]

Level 200 spent 3x 80 rounds on Legendary Supermutant Warlord, on a 2-Shot Auto Assault Rifle ~290dps.

[cattykins]

Originally posted by Bored Peon:

Originally posted by platinumpersona:

not playing survival, i'm playing very hard mode.

Well it also depends on your level. I usually end up quitting at around 100 because it takes 5-6 shots to kill anything.

It also depends on where you are as well, most static mobs cap out at like 45 at the most. The ones equal to your level are from random encounter locations, which those are the bullet spongers.

it takes me like 12 - 15 shots to kill most raiders at level 26.

[Death Approaches]

0 ammo is a different problem, if you can't aim, don't take high rate-of-fire weapons! You'll spurt all your bullets into nothing. Go for single shot but highest power per-hit, not DPS. Try adjusting your mouse sensitivity so you're not over/under compensating. it's not a combat sim, you don't need to lead your shots, there's almost no travel time, no ballistic trajectory or technique either,

also DRUGS! ...and VATS.

They went to such great effort to put in meds in this game and with the addition of chemist "blended" drugs, not just the few seconds ones that slow time VATS style, or make you a god for 15 seconds... to forego them is just missing out on part of your game.

Let's take 5 of the big "easy" ones at once... psychobuff, bufftats, overdrive, orange mentats, and jet fuel... all last 8 minutes, you can clear multi-floor structures with ease. Now go shoot/bash those guys. And laugh and how hard it was previously. And should you get addicted to one or more? why, have a refreshing beverage. clears those pesky things right up.

With a couple nukas especially quantums to refresh stamina and AP should you run out? at lvl 20 you can take out 50+ leveled equals, you can clean out Gunner's Plaza solo, just wiping the floor with 10x scrubs, without taking anything near fatal damage.

You'll have to use VATS of course; it moves to fast otherwise, that is why it exists you know, not just for "lame people" who can't handle real-time combat, it's meant for these exact situations, 25 gen1s are fun to shoot but you missed, now aggro'd the clump of 16 supermutants behind them too? Who's got time to figure all the angles before big green nuke-baby runs up and detonates his suicider self in your face? VATS and drugs, baby!

Drop em all. You can do it in a t-shirt much less power armor, if you plan it.

[cattykins]

Originally posted by Death Approaches:

0 ammo is a different problem, if you can't aim, don't take high rate-of-fire weapons! You'll spurt all your bullets into nothing. Go for single shot but highest power per-hit, not DPS. Try adjusting your mouse sensitivity so you're not over/under compensating. it's not a combat sim, you don't need to lead your shots, there's almost no travel time, no ballistic trajectory or technique either,

also DRUGS! ...and VATS.

They went to such great effort to put in meds in this game and with the addition of chemist "blended" drugs, not just the few seconds ones that slow time VATS style, or make you a god for 15 seconds... to forego them is just missing out on part of your game.

Let's take 5 of the big "easy" ones at once... psychobuff, bufftats, overdrive, orange mentats, and jet fuel... all last 8 minutes, you can clear multi-floor structures with ease. Now go shoot/bash those guys. And laugh and how hard it was previously. And should you get addicted to one or more? why, have a refreshing beverage. clears those pesky things right up.

With a couple nukas especially quantums to refresh stamina and AP should you run out? at lvl 20 you can take out 50+ leveled equals, you can clean out Gunner's Plaza solo, just wiping the floor with 10x scrubs, without taking anything near fatal damage.

You'll have to use VATS of course; it moves to fast otherwise, that is why it exists you know, not just for "lame people" who can't handle real-time combat, it's meant for these exact situations, 25 gen1s are fun to shoot but you missed, now aggro'd the clump of 16 supermutants behind them too? Who's got time to figure all the angles before big green nuke-baby runs up and detonates his suicider self in your face? VATS and drugs, baby!

Drop em all. You can do it in a t-shirt much less power armor, if you plan it.

all of my companions hate taking drugs and will therefore hate me for doing them.
as for the ammo problem, i'm using standard heavily modded 10mm and the deliverer for stealth kills. they both have high damage but still take 12 - 15 bullets to kill literally anything.
as for V.A.T.S.. 3 perception.