Fallout 4 Survival Mode Beta

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Bethesda Announces Fallout 4 Survival Mode Beta

ATTENTION MOD USERS: THIS OPTIONAL UPDATE WILL DISABLE YOUR MODS WHILE ACTIVE!
 
This is to ensure that the new features can properly be tested. If you have previously opted-in, you must opt-out of the beta via Steam to continue using mods.

Phew, with that out of the way… the Survival Mode beta has launched! There is a lot of exciting stuff to take in here: the wellness system (which simulates hunger, thirst, and exhaustion), all new illnesses and antibiotics, crippled and broken limbs, and a long list of other masochistic immersive features to enhance gameplay! 


Image: “Not So Tasty” by Xazomm

As a big fan of the New Vegas Survival Mode and an even bigger fan of Skyrim's survival mods such as Frostfall and iNeed, I'm really excited about these additions. I think they'll add the desperate yet rewarding post-apocalyptic feeling that I felt was slightly missing after New Vegas. Bethesda even mentions four tenets of design regarding the new features: Strategy, Exploration, Resource Management, and Role Playing. Nice.

Sure, it'll likely be more difficult but as they say, nothing good ever comes easy. As one of the developers noted:

“My routine is completely different this time around. Sanctuary is my sanctuary. Each day I venture out in search of supplies, and I return home with stuff. I take it one day at time. I need to live.”
– Rick Vicens; BGS Animator, Survivor



Image: “Show Off Your Settlements” by “Corfus

Sounds awesome! So if you're ready (remember, this update will disable modding while opted-in), give it a try and be sure to provide feedback to Bethesda. After all, it is a beta test and I'm sure your input will be invaluable. For the full story, head-over to the the official Bethesda Blog.

Good luck, out there!

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  1. skubblebubble
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    Sigh.

    NMM needs to be fixed.

    1) stop setting plugins.txt to readonly.
    2) put an * in front of the active mods.

    That's it.

    Until then,

    Go into your user folder eg: c:\users\username\appdata\local\fallout4

    set plugins.txt to NOT readonly. This will let the game keep your active modlist and sort order.
    put an * in front of what you want to actually use.
    Alternatively, load the game, select mods, and toggle what you want.

    The game will sort mods on its own if you let it.
    So use NMM etc, to get the order (or do it yourself)
    then edit plugins.txt

    It will use what's in plugins first, then any other esm/esp it sees.

    That should fix things for now. (or at least get them working)



    edit: the latest beta is also merging with the mods/CK beta.
    You don't get the CK (unless already in), nor access to beth's modsite, although the menu does pop up. (that's coming)

    I don't know if you have opted out if you get any of that, but, if mods stop working suddenly, try the above.
    1. Ombragine
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      Indeed, it will be great to have an NMM option for that even it is not a big deal to change manually the plugins.txt file.
    2. Davexxl
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      Hi
      sory it doesent work after try to start the game crash or doesent start
      seams like a stay in a loop endless. sorry about mu english i am german
      greetings dave
  2. SoftisNeleris
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    Well, the survival beta has now become the actual survival mode. Great. I had a hardcore mode mod with hunger, thirst, sleep, and all sorts of good stuff as well as mods that balance out the damage all ready. After less than 15 minutes, I want my old stuff back. DO YOU HEAR ME BETHESDA?! YOU FUCKED UP MY GAME, AND THIS SHALL NOT BE FORGIVEN.

    p.s. sorry for the caps, but I just pissed the hell off by this. I spend days trying to figure out how to get back into the game, and now it's fundamentally broken.
    1. NinjaCowboy48
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      its not there fault the new update causes compatibility issues with a few mods i had to uninstall like 20 mods to fix y mods
  3. Fatalmasterpiece
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    In response to post #36538710. #36546365, #36563250, #36563570, #36594350, #36615955, #36631860, #36632370, #36734090, #36777275, #36780610, #36877765 are all replies on the same post.


    Spoiler:  
    Show

    killgore wrote: I played FNV story in 1 run before f4 release in survival mode and in FNV it was well done if a bit on the easy side, you had use for food and water and all items so it was good

    now this survival mode of f4 is a pile of poo because it's not the same game at all
    FO4 is about building and crafting stuff aka hoarding items around..the sleep I can play with the lack of fast travel NO the game is entirely around crafting stuff this is not an action fps
    also this game is badly designed from the start, that loose max health with rads breaks half the perks, I would bet on the fact it was an after tought
    so maybe before trying to make ( I say try because we all played better survival mods than that...crap) maybe they should try to fix the base game mechanics which are badly broken
    the whole eat drink system doesnt even work because you are a builder and can create your own food and drink very easily, so its just a matter of building sources and using them

    to have a proper survival mode you would have to rewrite 70% of the story remove all crafting change half the perks redo the whole game loot it's never happening so its only a waste of dev time, leave the serious adult stuff to modders Bethesda
    and keep improving on your fallout-craft since you decided to do that

    printerkop wrote: I have to agree with you on the fact that it is silly that you can create tons of food and water, so it ain't really survival, more resource management, make sure you grow enough and carry it around and you'll never get hungry or thirsty, yeah, just for one second till you hit the hotkey your water and food is under.

    after playing it for a while it became a bit tedious to have to drink and eat all the time.
    in that regard it definitely has nothing to do with survival.

    the combat however is nice only the first 20 levels, after that you become a tank again and again almost can't die in combat anymore, only when they throw 20 molotovs in 10 seconds at you or shoot a mininuke (which are sometimes ridiculously powerful because the enemies have 3x damage perks), or some ridiculously high level enemies spawn all of a sudden right in front of you.

    i do like the game, but it needs a serious overhaul to be really challenging and fun from beginning to end.

    I might give that a go once the creation kit is released, but i doubt if it is easy to do since the AI is just bad, it needs to be rewritten, right now they just make enemies have a lot of HP or have weapons with humongous damage, while some are just flies you can swat, there's no real balance here.

    STALKER did this a lot better, enemies and player both had the ability to kill eachoter in a few shots, and they ran around and hide behind cover much smarter. They where also always there, they didn't spawn, you could see the enemies in the PDA all across the map infact walking around.

    That being said, you could ignore the crafting stuff alltogether and just play the game, only use looted weapons from enemies and only take bullets with you, also, when you take the no rads from eating and drinking perk you don't need to worry about food and drinks, you can just gobble up an animal after you killed it.
    it is doable, but i agree that it still needs to be rewritten if you want to call it survival mode.

    EDIT: hah, just when i typed this i got an email from Bethesda that i can BETA test the Creation kit, time to dig into the scripts some deeper.

    MagnaBob wrote: STALKER imho was and is the best FPS game ever. It was certainly the most deadly.

    killgore wrote: it's not that I hate survival modes but I played several "needs" mods in oblivion-skyrim-f3 and fnv and all of them were better than the official survival beta of F4 so I'm a bit disappointed :/ especially after new vegasi
    also the 1st 2 dlcs are : craft robots & more crafting items so yeah for me F4 is a crafting game now I went with it and have fun building stuff..I just hope they won't do that to the next elder scroll

    loved stalker too but my favorite fps AI I think was FEAR(1) if you made any noise they were coming to you guaranteed and often 1 enemy per corridor not all from the same direction

    I mod bethesda games since 2006 so I've seen what the modder community can create and it's way better than the survival beta

    faky wrote: Have to agree with this but original 'survival' mode was poo as well.
    If anything i'd say this overhual is bit better from original but once kit is out we will get what i should have been.

    That beeing said they could tweek some stuff like make your settlers actually do some stuff for settlement instead of freeloading.

    Like to send them to collect those mats so you dont have to hoard stuff around without maybe some rare stuff. An eg. that game which they made you know fallout shelter it could have been more like that the settlement management.

    Also fast travel could be swaped with vertibirds not like you can controll them manually anyway and you have to unlock them first.

    printerkop wrote: that would indeed fix the only problem i have with the game, that settlers just make sure there is enough materials to build the rest of the settlement.

    That way you only have to set up the initial base, and you won't have to hoard materials and can just play the game, and just build stuff when you get back in your settlement.

    cause the scavenging for desktop fan's and getting overencumbered get's mighty tiresome after a while.

    HighGuy92 wrote: You're an idiot. If you know so much about how to make a survival game, why don't you go make one and then come back and say how bad this game is? No? I thought as much.

    Ethreon wrote: Has 4 posts, comes and insults someone for disagreeing with them.

    printerkop wrote: he was probably high and forgot his manners in the process.

    Viseriod wrote: The idea of using vertabirds as fast travel is genius. I still think that making a version that you pilot would be more fun. But atleast in the spirit of survival mode, having the vertabird require fuel and potentionally shot down in route should be a feature. Man this is giving me so many ideas... printerkop, if you don't make a mod for this I just might! Come on besthesda, come out with the creation kit or make this a feature already!!!

    SeamusCameron wrote: Pack Brahmins (mod), Automatrons, Companions, and Lone Wanderer Dogmeat combo, Scavenging Benches(or whatevertheycallems). Those all aid you in hoarding and transporting scrap to make your super, ultra, mega, minuteman base of ultimate doom. They also become much, much more important. You really have to think about how much food, water, and ammo you're taking with you into the Boston wastes. It definitely has a bunch of rough edges (no indicators for how much you need to eat/drink/sleep? No values on food and water? C'mon Beth, that's a no brainer) but I'm really starting to like what could be done with it. Ultimately modders will make it immensely better but it's a nice platform to start from.

    hivKORN wrote: Survival Mode Patch whatever is boring, everything but not good!


    The part that I take away from this is almost nauseating. That is the simple fact that Bethesda has changed this IP so much people are identifying it as an "Action FPS". The sickening part isn't that people are calling it that, rather that they are right to do so. The second Fallout game came out right after I started my second year of university, had someone told me then where we'd end up I'm not sure I'd have invested myself into the franchise.

    Funny enough right around that same time, a studio that now is lost to time and only remembered by few were already making what would be the framework for the action FPS genre. The one I'm referencing is the Stamper brothers studio named RARE. Now they new how to make a solid action FPS, even back then. Microsoft bought them out a few years later and just stuck their original IP's in the vault never to see the light of day again. Just another feather in the cap. Those IP's were of course the now legendary Goldeneye, followed by the even more polished and awesome successor, Perfect Dark. We miss you dearly Joanna. I'm sure when the time is right and enough childs blood has been poured into the sacrifice chamber. Major Nelson and Co. will pull it out for one last shaming so they can perform the coup de grâce.
     


    Same thing happens to every game company. Squaresoft released some of the greatest RPGs like Chronotrigger and then went down the poopshoot to make more money with games that appealed to a wider audience. Bioware isn't the same company it was 10,15 years ago and is becoming more like EA... 
  4. killgore
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    I played FNV story in 1 run before f4 release in survival mode and in FNV it was well done if a bit on the easy side, you had use for food and water and all items so it was good

    now this survival mode of f4 is a pile of poo because it's not the same game at all
    FO4 is about building and crafting stuff aka hoarding items around..the sleep I can play with the lack of fast travel NO the game is entirely around crafting stuff this is not an action fps
    also this game is badly designed from the start, that loose max health with rads breaks half the perks, I would bet on the fact it was an after tought
    so maybe before trying to make ( I say try because we all played better survival mods than that...crap) maybe they should try to fix the base game mechanics which are badly broken
    the whole eat drink system doesnt even work because you are a builder and can create your own food and drink very easily, so its just a matter of building sources and using them

    to have a proper survival mode you would have to rewrite 70% of the story remove all crafting change half the perks redo the whole game loot it's never happening so its only a waste of dev time, leave the serious adult stuff to modders Bethesda
    and keep improving on your fallout-craft since you decided to do that
    1. deleted7103646
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      I have to agree with you on the fact that it is silly that you can create tons of food and water, so it ain't really survival, more resource management, make sure you grow enough and carry it around and you'll never get hungry or thirsty, yeah, just for one second till you hit the hotkey your water and food is under.

      after playing it for a while it became a bit tedious to have to drink and eat all the time.
      in that regard it definitely has nothing to do with survival.

      the combat however is nice only the first 20 levels, after that you become a tank again and again almost can't die in combat anymore, only when they throw 20 molotovs in 10 seconds at you or shoot a mininuke (which are sometimes ridiculously powerful because the enemies have 3x damage perks), or some ridiculously high level enemies spawn all of a sudden right in front of you.

      i do like the game, but it needs a serious overhaul to be really challenging and fun from beginning to end.

      I might give that a go once the creation kit is released, but i doubt if it is easy to do since the AI is just bad, it needs to be rewritten, right now they just make enemies have a lot of HP or have weapons with humongous damage, while some are just flies you can swat, there's no real balance here.

      STALKER did this a lot better, enemies and player both had the ability to kill eachoter in a few shots, and they ran around and hide behind cover much smarter. They where also always there, they didn't spawn, you could see the enemies in the PDA all across the map infact walking around.

      That being said, you could ignore the crafting stuff alltogether and just play the game, only use looted weapons from enemies and only take bullets with you, also, when you take the no rads from eating and drinking perk you don't need to worry about food and drinks, you can just gobble up an animal after you killed it.
      it is doable, but i agree that it still needs to be rewritten if you want to call it survival mode.

      EDIT: hah, just when i typed this i got an email from Bethesda that i can BETA test the Creation kit, time to dig into the scripts some deeper.
    2. MagnaBob
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      STALKER imho was and is the best FPS game ever. It was certainly the most deadly.
    3. killgore
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      it's not that I hate survival modes but I played several "needs" mods in oblivion-skyrim-f3 and fnv and all of them were better than the official survival beta of F4 so I'm a bit disappointed :/ especially after new vegasi
      also the 1st 2 dlcs are : craft robots & more crafting items so yeah for me F4 is a crafting game now I went with it and have fun building stuff..I just hope they won't do that to the next elder scroll O_O

      loved stalker too but my favorite fps AI I think was FEAR(1) if you made any noise they were coming to you guaranteed and often 1 enemy per corridor not all from the same direction

      I mod bethesda games since 2006 so I've seen what the modder community can create and it's way better than the survival beta
    4. faky
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      Have to agree with this but original 'survival' mode was poo as well.
      If anything i'd say this overhual is bit better from original but once kit is out we will get what i should have been.

      That beeing said they could tweek some stuff like make your settlers actually do some stuff for settlement instead of freeloading.

      Like to send them to collect those mats so you dont have to hoard stuff around without maybe some rare stuff. An eg. that game which they made you know fallout shelter it could have been more like that the settlement management.

      Also fast travel could be swaped with vertibirds not like you can controll them manually anyway and you have to unlock them first.
    5. deleted7103646
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      that would indeed fix the only problem i have with the game, that settlers just make sure there is enough materials to build the rest of the settlement.

      That way you only have to set up the initial base, and you won't have to hoard materials and can just play the game, and just build stuff when you get back in your settlement.

      cause the scavenging for desktop fan's and getting overencumbered get's mighty tiresome after a while.
    6. HighGuy92
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      You're an idiot. If you know so much about how to make a survival game, why don't you go make one and then come back and say how bad this game is? No? I thought as much.
    7. Ethreon
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      Has 4 posts, comes and insults someone for disagreeing with them.
    8. deleted7103646
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      he was probably high and forgot his manners in the process.
    9. Viseriod
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      The idea of using vertabirds as fast travel is genius. I still think that making a version that you pilot would be more fun. But atleast in the spirit of survival mode, having the vertabird require fuel and potentionally shot down in route should be a feature. Man this is giving me so many ideas... printerkop, if you don't make a mod for this I just might! Come on besthesda, come out with the creation kit or make this a feature already!!!
    10. SeamusCameron
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      Pack Brahmins (mod), Automatrons, Companions, and Lone Wanderer Dogmeat combo, Scavenging Benches(or whatevertheycallems). Those all aid you in hoarding and transporting scrap to make your super, ultra, mega, minuteman base of ultimate doom. They also become much, much more important. You really have to think about how much food, water, and ammo you're taking with you into the Boston wastes. It definitely has a bunch of rough edges (no indicators for how much you need to eat/drink/sleep? No values on food and water? C'mon Beth, that's a no brainer) but I'm really starting to like what could be done with it. Ultimately modders will make it immensely better but it's a nice platform to start from.
    11. rataje
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      Survival Mode Patch whatever is boring, everything but not good!
    12. Firo2012
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      The part that I take away from this is almost nauseating. That is the simple fact that Bethesda has changed this IP so much people are identifying it as an "Action FPS". The sickening part isn't that people are calling it that, rather that they are right to do so. The second Fallout game came out right after I started my second year of university, had someone told me then where we'd end up I'm not sure I'd have invested myself into the franchise.

      Funny enough right around that same time, a studio that now is lost to time and only remembered by few were already making what would be the framework for the action FPS genre. The one I'm referencing is the Stamper brothers studio named RARE. Now they new how to make a solid action FPS, even back then. Microsoft bought them out a few years later and just stuck their original IP's in the vault never to see the light of day again. Just another feather in the cap. Those IP's were of course the now legendary Goldeneye, followed by the even more polished and awesome successor, Perfect Dark. We miss you dearly Joanna. I'm sure when the time is right and enough childs blood has been poured into the sacrifice chamber. Major Nelson and Co. will pull it out for one last shaming so they can perform the coup de grâce.
  5. nami1987
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    Im using the beta and mods work fine. You just gotta re enable them in the in game menu. Its easy
  6. mantrax24
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    Hi,
    since the last update, Fallout 4 doesn't detect my mods anymore ( i use the nmm and everything seems ok ). But when I launch my save, it tells me that my mods are no longer active, etc..
    I checked, i'm not using the beta, my friend has the same problem and we have no idea what happened since we found nothing on internet. Any help please ?
  7. powerneed
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    we need to someone to fix this disable soon bet its just one line of code somewhere
    1. MajDamage
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      As far as I can track down... Close NMM. Open your Plugins.txt and put an Asterisk in front of all of your .ESM and ESP files. NOT Fallout.ESM or the DLC! Just the mods. Save the file. Note:if you open NMM after this, it will disable anything in the plugins.txt with * in front of it.

      Note#2: I was able to get my saved game to partially load this way. Most of those in the closed beta are saying this works. It caused a CTD for me right after the game load. I have reverted back to 1.4 for now. I have tried all sorts of configs to see if I can get this process to work. Others have stated it works... and it partially works for me. So, give it a try if you are on 1.5.

      Example Plugins.txt:
      Fallout4.esm
      DLCRobot.esm
      DLCworkshop01.esm
      *SpringCleaning.esm
      *Homemaker.esm
      *SettlementKeywords.esm
      *Snap'n Build.esm
      *ArmorKeywords.esm
  8. AndrosForever
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    Why mention Skyrim necessity survival mods but not current Fallout 4 necessity survival mods? I have Primary Needs installed, and it does a decent job at creating the need for food and water on a regular basis to stay healthy.
    1. BigFatWarPig
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      he said he enjoyed them. might be that he never testet those mods for fallout 4
  9. jeanguard
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    I don't know if it has already been suggested, but i find the survival mechanics from the game " the long dark " immersive, especially on the food / water part. Aswell when you're hurt, you need antibiotics, painkillers etc... plus the cold gestion, who's not necessary on fallout 4, but imo it's pretty good.

    A " matchup " between fallout and this game, to add a survival way with a better realism could be fun !

  10. zer0thegreat
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    Okay I can;t explain it but my mods still work after I went into the beta so I never had to worry about this.