How much do you utilize VATS? Do you find that it makes a significant difference? I should have mentioned that I've been playing completely without it so far.
I use it about half the time I'd say. I would prefer not to use it, but I find that combat is a bit too frantic at times, especially when you spend as much time as I do looking through a scope.
Enemies like Glowing Ones or Feral Ghouls are just too fast to fight with a scoped weapon - and I tend to use weapons with a fast firing rate to build up critical hits when dealing with multiple fast enemies.
I'm not a big fan of the critical hit system, as it seems you don't get them outside of VATS - and you actually make them manually.
So, for certain tough fights, I use VATS to ensure a critical hit on limbs for instance - because that slows them down and makes the fight easy.
The other half of the time, I can take out enemies very comfortably using a modified sniper rifle and a suppressor. Humanoid enemies are very enjoyable to kill as a stealthy sniper
That said, once I get my hands on a double-shot sniper rifle and I get a few more of the right perks, I expect to be able to kill most enemies in one or two shots using stealth.
But I have no idea what to expect from the high level mobs. I could well be in for a surprise
I don't use the Power Armor at all - and I don't intend to. It's completely counter to my playstyle - and it's not exactly a great way to approach in a stealthy fashion. I like that they've made sound and armor weight such a big deal when sneaking - because it means you're more or less forced to wear light armor. Well, at least so far.
I've never played a Bethesda game that kept being challenging throughout - so I'm sure I'll be one overpowered bastard eventually.
