I really don't like how people are bullet sponges (especially at higher levels).
I mean, bullet sponging does not equal more challenging and difficult gameplay... well, I mean, in a way it does, but it's not satisfying.
I don't mind getting dropped in one shot if I screw up, but unloading several clips into one target, or being forced to spec your talent tree just right and upgrade your equipment to drop it down to a couple clips, just kills what the gameplay feels like it should be about.
This only lasts for the first few levels. There's already a thread about how the game is way too easy, and the difficulty completely comes to a screeching halt by the level 20 even on Very Hard. Unless you are simply neglecting your clothing and weapons (you honestly don't even need to really upgrade aside from every 3-5 levels though), it becomes progressively easier while enemy levels, tactics and damage remain static.
From what I've seen, focusing on key damage perks, upgrading as much as possible, being accurate for headshots/weakpoints.. and abusing stealth or ambush tactics.. all bring an insane amount of damage to your enemies. I play on hard, and after the first learning curve.. I realized the auto-aim for enemies is pushed way up.. even when I use my slow mo, I get 3-shotted even with dodging, full armor buffs on most of my purple and legendary gear. I'm convinced the damage "reduction" from armor is ineffective or broken. I can stack all armor on everything.. but still get dropped easily from even lower level enemies.. It's a bit confusing to see the auto-aim having that much sway over damage.
Hard is exactly what it is. But with some weird contextual situations that make it go from difficult, to "this AI is absolutely ass and unfair". I've felt the difficulty jumps and then the complete BS moments.
IE, a single shot lexington bullet doing half my HP in damage with 2k armor from a low threat enemy.. but then I can take a shotgun blast to the chest and shrug it off.. or more hilariously... take turret shots all day long with never feeling threatened as they do 1 dmg. So.. maybe some oversights and more hotfixes are due.. but some areas I just say "F*ck it" and close the game. Demoralizing but, still love the game. Just needs a lot of work.
Just a guess, but there's probably a level modifier on top of the difficulty modifier. The higher the threat level, the higher the enemy level is relative to the player. Like if you go back later to certain encounters that were "Very High", but then become "Moderate" and you didn't change your armor, you would take less damage than you previously would have.
Otherwise it's just a gear thing. If say you were level 15 and trying to take out some level 30 enemies, if you were simply wearing "level 15" items with no armor perks, you would likely get shredded, but if you were wearing legendary (which would give you an armor rating appropriate for level 25 - 30), your damage taken would be significantly less, and even less than that with points invested into TECH or the armor increasing perks.
Unless you're just experiencing some strange bug, lower level enemies don't do much damage when you're running around with 1000+ armor, and you can easily hit 3000 armor without any points into TECH besides the default 3.
You don't need revolvers for that. Any high dmg per hit weapon will oneshot. Shotguns, Katanas, Hammers, doesn't matter.
The main issue is the limited health pool relative to the insane damage the player can deal. You see all of these "30K head shot with a pistol!!!" and "100K head shot with a sniper!!!!" videos on Youtube, but so what? Most normal enemies don't even have 6K max health, and all of those that might actually even have that much can be put to sleep with System Reset or a tranq shot anyway. It's just another example of why your perk points don't matter in the slightest. The only thing they do for damage is display BIGGER NUMBERS even though it's way overkill every time.
