Ok so I am 20 hours in my first Fallout 4 playthrough and I am playing on Survival difficulty because I heard that you get more legendary enemy spawns or legendary drops on Survival difficulty, although I am not sure about the accuracy of this information (it'll be great if anyone can confirm this) and I still haven't come across not even a single legendary opponent or a legendary drop so far.

I did find a vendor who is selling an armor piece with 'star' against its name but that's about it.

So I am wondering if there is actually any benefit of playing the game on survival difficulty, because it does badly breaks my immersion in the game world when I shoot a raider 5 times in the head and he is still standing on his feet with half of his health intact (makes sense for zombies or mutants but not for humans), I mean even fantasy has its limits, even in game world it seems unreal to shoot a human 5 times in the head and he still keeps coming at me with the same vigor, even a machine would suffer massive damage if you shoot it 5 times in its central processing unit.

I am willing to put up with this nonsensical reality of the 'survival' game world if there is a good chance of getting better items, otherwise I would rather play the game on 'Hard' difficulty where things are much more realistic and game fantasy actually makes an intriguing and colourful sense to keep me interested.

Thanks.

You just have bad luck. It says ingame that you get more legendary spawns.

I felt like the Legendary spawnfest started abit late, but at level 30 or so, every group i engaged had a Legendary rank with them. So it starts abit slow i guess. Its not always the loot is useful either, but the weapons are mostly good.

Where?

I looked up in Help menu, couldn't find it or may be I missed the info somehow.

I play on default. I get legendary spawns out the butt and I find "starred" (unique or legendary) items in vendors all the time. I think the only real difference is that enemies are bullet sponges and the weapons may be stronger.

I walked into an area today near Finch Farm, had 3 legendary Super Mutants all in one area. and like I said I play on default.

Loading screens, for one.

20 hs and what is your level??? the spawn on Legendary i think are base on level too, bc i can tell u that pretty much any legendary will own u at level 1-5.

And i got my first legendary when i was waling to Concord, one of the 2 bloodbugs on the Bramid was legendary, lets said i couldnt kill it no meter what i did.

Legendary weapons, armor, and a harder difficulty if hard was too easy for you, and it makes you waste a lot more ammunition.

I've been playing the game on normal difficulty and have been getting loads and loads of legendary drops. I'm about 70 hours in though.

The biggest difference is a difficulty level.

Why bc u have a permanent debuff of dmg while the enemies have a permanent buff to dmg on Legendary mode. Plus the heal regeneration factor that make u die more time that nothing else since Stimpack heal u over time

Ya but hard and survival give you even more and (in my experience) better legendary equipment. (Found a +3 luck combat armor leg on survival)

I get more than enough legendary spawns on Normal. My weapons crate is overflowing with countless legendaries I'll never use, only about 50 hours in too.

I'd say just play on Normal.

I'm playing on Normal as well, because I'm running a sniper character, and when I headshot some fool who doesn't know I'm there with a slienced .50 cal rifle, I expect him to die, not start shooting back. Once I hit level 30 or so I started running into tons of Legendary enemies. Most of them have dropped mostly useless leather armor pieces tho, so maybe on higher difficulty settings you actually get useful stuff?

With relevant perks you should one shot on survival fine.

Agreed. Also, notice if the enemy is wearing a helmet or not. They can soak up a lot of the damage.

The appearance of some roaming enemies appear to be gated behind certain quests. I don't think I saw legendary enemies until around level 10-12. At 20, it starts getting pretty good with spawns. So the combination of triggering by way of main quest, your level, difficulty, and the area you are in will all have some effect on the appearance, I think.

Survival Benefit : Satisfies my masochistic urges.

im at lvl 43, and recently changed from normal to survivalist. within a moment, i noticed significant change in the amount of leg. spawns. however, this does not rule out the level requirement theory. maybe it's beth way of restricting the game to not allow plater to become too OP early on.

It really does. I cannot explain in words that feeling I get when I finished clearing out a level, stepped and tried to fast travel, failed, and suddenly got ambushed and completely destroyed by mirelurks popping out of the ground. I usually fight at long range and well prepared, but that was like something straight out of Starship Troopers. On lower difficulties, I would barely even yawn as I know I have enough stimpaks to tank them for hours. After reloading, I had to use everything I had on me... drugs, nades, mines, more drugs, to survive that encounter.

Agree. The rush when you succeed (read "Survive") is incredible! Try doing it with no enhancements (I always forget). It's great!

In my experience, legendary enemies don't appear until after a certain level threshold (~ 10-15 if I should guess). So if that assumption is true, there's no point in playing on survival *early*. I'd start at normal, and as you level up, you'll be able to both dish out and survive more damage, so normal will become easy. That's when you crank up the difficulty to what you feel like you can handle. And then you play some more, and then you crank it up again. At least that's how I played it.

I started out at normal and enjoyed it a lot. But after hitting teen levels, I opted for hard. After getting an explosive combat shotgun, a missile launcher, and a steady income from my settlements, I was well equipped enough to bump it to very hard somewhere in the 20's. I enjoyed that progress a lot. I'm now sporting a fully upgraded gatling laser, power armor, and some other badass legendary weapons and playing at survival @ lvl 50.

So for what it's worth, that's my take on the difficulty levels. I don't see why anyone finds survival fun during the first 10-20 or even 30 levels.

I am playing two games one with a friend and one on my own... Same difficulty the one I am playing on my own I am at level 12 and ran into at least 10 legendary enemies.. My other game I am level 19 and ran into maybe 2 legendary enemies... so there you go its completely random..

How do you know a legendary enemy when you meet them?

20 hours into the game and no legendary ?

Try areas farther from Sanctuary, the areas around Diamond City would be a good place.

I've played on normal and after 20 hours I've encountered like 10 Legendary enemies, and found like 20 Legendary items, including those the vendors were selling.

I dunno if the luck stat contributes to chances of finding legendary, can someone know for sure ?

I started the game in survival and lowered it to very hard because of what you and others have said about shooting a guy 5 or 6 times in the face for practically no effect. I love the challenge and the tension of being a a couple of steps away from death all the time, but at some point it just becomes annoying. I think what finally turned me off survival was a Legendary bloatflies and other small animals. How can a freaking fly take 3 clips of fire and keep on flying around like nothing? After a while it starts to feel cheap. It makes me think survival difficulty is meant for at least level 30+ characters.

I've encountered plenty of legendary and skull marked enemies though, I don't know why you're having that problem.

They should have made it the way it is in the Metro games where you can make everyone a glass cannon. You can one and two shot enemies but they can do it to you too.

So is there an actual measure by which survival difficulty increases the legendary enemy spawn rate or legendary item spawn rate?

For example, in some ARPGs like Diablo, it tells you exactly the %age by which the drop rate and spawn rate will increase with each difficulty level, is there a similar chart or table available for F4 so that one can know for sure exactly how much % age increase in spawn rate and drop rate we get when we switch to Survival?