What's the point of Damage Resistance?

[TheOriginalEvilD]

Well, there certainly is a huge diminishing returns thing going on. I've been playing with some tweaked power armor that has a combined DR of something around 200k, and I'm somewhere over level 100 with all the DR related perks, and depending on the enemy I still take life threatening damage. There is no possible way to build your character up to the point of withstanding damage from the strongest enemies because of the DR formula and how the enemies scale with you. Even with ridiculous/impossible DR numbers on your armor, you still get wrecked depending on what attacks you. I've even added all the various DR types like energy/physical/fire/rads/poison/etc just for good measure but they don't make a difference in the end. Even bugs and feral ghouls pack a punch.

[Zzyxzz]

Well, there certainly is a huge diminishing returns thing going on. I've been playing with some tweaked power armor that has a combined DR of something around 200k, and I'm somewhere over level 100 with all the DR related perks, and depending on the enemy I still take life threatening damage. There is no possible way to build your character up to the point of withstanding damage from the strongest enemies because of the DR formula and how the enemies scale with you. Even with ridiculous/impossible DR numbers on your armor, you still get wrecked depending on what attacks you. I've even added all the various DR types like energy/physical/fire/rads/poison/etc just for good measure but they don't make a difference in the end. Even bugs and feral ghouls pack a punch.

 

 

When you get "wrecked" its a vanilla Fallout 4 thing. Like meeting Raider A with 40 HP, easy killing him and walking around the corner only to meet Raider B with 1500 HP.

Some NPCs have damage multiplier, god knows why... Like Raider A has a pipe weapon with 50 damage and well... its fine... you take some damage its ok... but then you walk around the corner and meet Raider B who also has a pipe weapon with 50 damage BUT has a magic multiplier which increases the damage he does with that weapon by 3 times.

 

Thats also the reason, why some deathclaws hit like a wet noodle and the other ones hit like a train.

 

 

Bethesda did a real bad job at balancing the game, especially the bullet sponges... thats why i created my mod Better Locational Damage. It completely overhauls combat, damage, health and damage resistance. The damage resistance has been changed to be more valueable when damage done and damage resistance is on par.

 

Example:

Vanilla: 50 damage vs 50 resistance= 25 received

Modded: 50 vs 50 resistance= 20 received

 

In addition to that, if damage is higher when DR, it will penetrate much more than before.

The opposite is hard to fix, as the function needs to be changed completely(as its hardcoded its not that easy), but for it will reduce slightly more damage, when DR is much higher than damage.

[Deleted7103646User]

Also, Deathclaw attack ignore DR and DT, it slashes through everything, you can survive a direct hit from a mini nuke in good power Armor, but not a Deathclaw, especially if the Deathclaw has the 3x dam perk.
And if that Deathclaw is legendary and has the 3x damage perk and deals a crit (which enemies can and the player can't outside of VATS), they deal 6x damage.
Higher level enemies have dam multipliers too, just not the 2x or 3x, usually the 1.5x

Bethesda just doesn't know how to balance the game, cause they use VATS, you're suppose to use VATS to determine what kind of enemy you're facing, and then decide how to tackle it, it's silly.
Better to ditch VATS alltogether and use a mod that alters the damage perks and levels the enemies with player, and also lower enemy health to compensate for them being your level.

I made Gunners have half health, but always level with player, now they're all pretty tough, but no surprises like one soft one hit kill the first gunner, and the second takes 15 mags to kill and dealing 6x damage to you.