I've never play a single Fallout game without cheating (besides Fallout 76, of course. I'm not a dirty online cheater)
The three cheats that I use the most often are money, unlock, and unlimited carrying weight.

The two main reasons is that I've always been a big hoarder due to having a mentality of "Don't use that now, I definitely need that for the future" in video games in general and my curiosity always gets the best of me. Like, I'm baffled how people can see a locked save and not wanting to know what's inside immediately or how could you resists having all those cool stuff that Gun Runners is selling. Every time I start a new walkthrough I always tries to not use cheat but most of the time I only lasted around 4 hours or so, even less when I attempt to play on the highest difficult where the enemy kills you with one or two shots while having to deal with the potato aiming (in my opinion).

To my credit though, I played Fallout 4 on PS4 before without cheats but with the lowest difficulty. It was extremely easy, but me being a hoarder is still a problem, I would rather walk to a settlement to hoard my stuff than dropping my stuff to fast travel (you can bet that Strong Back is one of the first perks that I max out). And I always feel so bad whenever I use a stealth boy (those are so rare and I'm always obsessed with them from the get go, maybe I have some Nightkin gene in me?) or using a weapon that requires ammo that I have less than 200 of.

More often than not I ended up never use any of the stuff that I "saved for the future" in a walkthrough, you would've though that these thing only happen for the first few times but I never changed. Since you can never guaranteed what's going to happen next in the Wasteland, it's better be safe than sorry.

I have done one very hard Fallout 3 playthrough and one Skyrim legendary playthrough. Never again.

Playing on the hardest difficulty without mods in most Bethesda games is an absolute chore. If you're not getting pounded by the bullet spongey enemies and wacky leveled enemies (flashback to Oblivion glass/daedric armored bandits), your playthrough will get corrupted sooner or later by bugs, glitches, etc. It's a waste of time and will make your claw your own eye sockets out.

Now I love a challenge, at least when it's believable. I hate having to shoot at enemies repeatedly and waste my ammo when they can just clip me with two or three bullets. It's not only unrealistic, but it's painful. Finding a few magazines and feeling satisfied with your gear only to get crushed to by a Captain America raider is frustrating to no end.

This is why I love Jsawyer mod for New Vegas. Enemies are a lot less bullet spongey and so is the player. Your stats play a more important role and Intelligence (imo the most overpowered stat) is nerfed.

This is why mods are absolutely essential to enjoy any Bethesda game if you're not playing it for the first time on Normal difficulty. Combat feels more responsive, fluent and tactical, even with a simple realistic damage modifier plugin.

i remember my first playthrough of Fallout 3 it was a damn chore, between scarce ammo and bullet spongey enemies but it was satisfying when i got through broken steel
ill fully admit i cheat every time or use mods to make NPCs less spongy

fallout new vegas i played hardcore first time i ever played it once to completion and i hated it,
i hated being picked off with rifles at 100 paces in power armor from a hunting rifle
but i persevered it was only at the end i said to hell with this and dropped 5 death claws from the divide and booked it to Lanius and took his head with an antimaterial rifle hopped up on every drug i collected from the lonesome road i could find
point is there's no shame in cheating if you enjoy the experience you create in fallout or any single-player game i batch file, mod and loot everything to victory every time and i enjoy it i wouldn't judge you for the shit i do regularly

paradoxwing wrote:

i remember my first playthrough of Fallout 3 it was a damn chore, between scarce ammo and bullet spongey enemies but it was satisfying  when i got through broken steel
ill fully admit i cheat every time or use mods to make NPCs less spongy

fallout new vegas i played hardcore first time i ever played it  once to completion  and i hated it,
i hated being picked off with rifles at 100 paces in power armor from a hunting rifle
but i persevered it was only at the end i said to hell with this and dropped 5 death claws from the divide and booked it to Lanius and took his head with an antimaterial rifle hopped up on every drug i collected from the lonesome road i could find
point is there's no shame in cheating if you enjoy the experience you create in fallout   or any single-player game  i batch file, mod and loot everything to victory every time and i enjoy it i wouldn't judge you for the shit i do  regularly  

I did much of the same as I greatly dislike artificial difficulty (or really handicaps for NPCs). First thing I did when I had enough was redo the game difficulty settings (In the geck) so that they would mirror the modifiers in stalker and later with FNV got rid of the 20% bleed for DT. Now as for cheating, I used to use TCL alot when getting stuck in weird places due to screwy collisions.

Fair enough, they're single player games that are more about the experience and the world rather than combat and such, i honestly find myself doing the same these days anyway, nothing major but i tend to give my self a few caps here and there if I'm a little short, or occasionally turn on god mode for a little while if i find an area to annoying and I'm under prepared, i mean its cheap for sure, but I'm having fun and enjoying the game more because of it. That's not to say i do it all the time, or i excessively try and remove any challenge from the game, just when things might drag on to long or get to frustrating. I don't really have as much time to play games as much as i used to so I wanna make sure I'm enjoying the time I'm wasting.

There's nothing to be shameful about for not using cheats. During my first playthrough, did it obviously clean without cheats whatsoever apart from that small minor bug I experienced with a quest that refused to end. Now that the main game is all done and dusted, and you know every rock, tree, and raider spawn points - then that's the moment where you explore the wonders of the console commands.

Before I started modding and using PC, I would play on console, so inherently I could proudly say I've beaten a Fallout game without cheating. However I can't...

I can tell you at least one bug I abused in Fallout 3, NV, 4, Skyrim, and Oblivion. Vendor caps glitch in 3-NV, the infinite squire EXP in 4, vendor chests in Skyrim, and scroll dupe in Oblivion... And now with console commands, I never start a Fallout playthrough without getting myself some good loot, caps, and a high level. Guess I'll always be a cheater. :/

A dirty.. filthy... grimey... cheater...

I played Fallout 3, New Vegas, 4 and 76 on console before I got my hands on a decent enough PC that I could totally load them all up with mods, so I suppose I'm used to playing without. That's not to say I don't cheat, though! A lot of the time I'll skip quests if they're broken using console commands, or give myself ammo, or clothes. It isn't like using cheats is a bad thing. After all, it's your game.

That's just a side effect of any game that has console enabled by default and even the cheat codes being so simple and same for every Fallout/TES. It starts small, usually you are just stuck somewhere and need noclip to unstuck or quest is broken and you need to manually setstage to advance. After you learn about cheats and how simple and accessible it is you start using it more often, tcl to noclip on top of that building because you cba to walk up there again or using tgm to just carry something to your base without having to take multiple trips. After that you get curious about adding items and exploring some high level stuff so you google for even more cheats. Once you lost that cheating virginity and sense of danger because you know that you can just type a few letter cheat code for god mode and to kill anything it becomes a regular part of gameplay in Fallout/TES franchise and it kinda ruins the game from gameplay perspective. Good thing I don't view those 2 franchises as serious story driven/immersive games (except when I hit that smoke hehe) but rather just a sandbox where I can create anything I want and enjoy modding it more than playing.

Same here no shame in it, I actually started with Oblivion and funnily most of the console codes are the same as far as i've seen and i still know em by heart, I even filled out notebooks of item ids so i had everything at my finger tips! what a power trip, i casually do the ocasionally 'resurrect' or 'additem f 10000' or whatever now and then

Same here no shame in it, I actually started with Oblivion and funnily most of the console codes are the same as far as i've seen and i still know em by heart, I even filled out notebooks of item ids so i had everything at my finger tips! what a power trip, i casually do the ocasionally 'resurrect' or 'additem f 10000' or whatever now and then

In my case, have played from Fallout 2 to Fallout 4 (NV-Skyrim-FO3 included) in hard and very hard difficulties, never really had (until now) a good gaming PC so I played them on console and gotta say. I had my share of fun times with each, but they are usually a chore. Bugs, crashes, engine problems, lag-fps dropping like hell (FNV-FO3 on PS3 mainly), trophies not working (FO4 on PS4), companions disappearing (Skyrim), etc. Those things really made it seem like it was an impossible job, but at the end of the day I was happy playing those games and now happier, since I built an amazing rig and got them all, even after plat'ing all of them (on consoles) I'm still having fun (mainly thanks to mods and unofficial updates, modders are truly the best of the best).