I would say the opposite is true for, because being ambushed is a rare case in my experience. Maybe it's because I play a high sneak/high perception character but I'm rarely ambushed and when I am, I'm usually expecting it (like coming out of the elevator in Trinity Tower). I'm not much of a chem user myself but all the combat based ones are potentially beneficial to me since I usually know when I'm going to be in combat and what I'm going to be facing. I could see the benefit of choosing to enhance perception if I'm going to be taking on a sniping battle. And in addition to barter, there are certainly times when you kind of know that you're likely to get in to a persuade check situation. I'll agree that there's not a lot of situations where I know in advance I'm going to want to enhance intelligence.

Besides, skill enhancing apparel is essentially the same as the chems. I don't wear Reginald's Suit all the time just in case I need a charisma bonus.

Improved pattern recognition. Intuition. [See the movie or TV show Limitless to get an idea of how using more of your brain gives insights on how to accomplish things that you normally couldn't.]

I've been playing those mini games for so long I could do them in my sleep. I don't need to risk addiction.(just annoying) just to make them a little easier. I crack a lock or terminal every 2 minutes. I only need a 4 in perception and intelligence and every thing is crack-able. I have to spend very few points to do this. I actually had a reason to use me rats in previous games.

But if you never hacked a computer in your life, or even worked on one in your life, how can you expect to find a pattern?

Psycho-Jet is the only Chem I use, and that's usually in an "oh shoot" situation. It's fun to use when you can clear a room before the first body hits the ground without Vats. I suppose the others would be more useful if stats actually mattered anymore.

This is not a valid consideration. Even absent any perk points in Hacking or Lockpicking, the player character can still hack Novice computers and pick Novice locks. The character is, after all, an educated advlt from a world where computers and locks are commonplace, so the foundation principles of how those things function is an adequate starting point. Keep in mind that at most, an Attribute boost would only be able to hack/pick one level higher. That is, a Hacking perk-less character might be boosted enough to hack an Advanced computer, but no chance at all for Expert or Master computers. That seems reasonable to me.

Mentats are more useful if anything. An accuracy boost in combat and an exp boost when turning in quests? Yes please.

Even so, Chems were never useful as far as I am concerned. A few levels would get you the points you needed. There were magazines that boosted the skill beyond the usefulness of chems. The stat-boosting ones were never useful. The only ones I find that were useful in all the games were Psycho and Med-x, which actually boosted your combat prowess without boosting pointless stats.

That's your opinion.

Upping your SPECIAL stats has direct, in game effect. With perks driving the duration to 24 iRL minutes, you can definitely get your money's worth out of each dose.

Strength is a boost to melee damage and carrying capacity (and Psychobuff doubles down on the damage aspect).

Perception increases your VATS accuracy. Orange Mentats increase it by a ridiculous amount by adding a raw 10% buff and 5 perception.

Endurance directly increases your HP pool (more useful at lower levels) and decreases the cost to sprint and hold your breath while sniping.

Charisma allows you to literally fleece the vendors and gain more settlers in your towns than you would have normally. Charisma checks, too. With Graqe Mentats you can eventually take the DC vendors to the cleaners.

Intelligence is a flat XP gain increase, with means your character grows stronger faster. TBH, this is actually the least useful one IMO.

Agility increases the size of your AP pool, allowing more VATS attacks, longer sprinting, longer breath holding, and more jetpack time for your power armor.

Luck gives you faster critical gain as you hit things in VATS.

There are direct consequences to having your SPECIAL raised or lowered. I can suit into my X-01, pump my strength to 19 (With Solar Powered as well) on Psychobuff and absolutely wreck things with a super sledge or Pain Train. In my suit kitted out for better shooting (more AP gain, more agility, much lower strength) my Super Sledge, while effective, does noticably less damage vs the larger creatures, while my ability to hit in VATS increases several fold.

SPECIAL matters. Buffs to SPECIAL matter. If you want to beat the game on Very Hard or Survival without having to repeatedly savescum fights, you will pay attention to your stats and min/max.

I do not play on bullet-sponge mode. Ever. Besides, IT was not about Fallout 4, but NV and 3, where you had items that directly boosted your skills and non addictive items that did the same thing as chems, making them less important than the ones that provided direct effects for combat.

I also do not use vats that often so the increase in accuracy in it is pointless, and even if I used it, If the weapon did not do a lot of damage, it is pointless.

I think you are mis-characterizing the difficulty settings. Very Hard, for instance, is hardly bullet sponge mode -- it just requires some stricter character planning to get those damage boosts. You could deal that same amount of damage in Normal mode, but it'd literally obliterate Behemoths. I kill things plenty fast as it is on Very Hard already. if I dropped it lower, the game'd be way too easy with all the time and effort I'd put into getting and staying un-addicted to powerful combat chems.

The lower difficulties allow for looser builds and less time invested into strengthening the character. Nothing wrong with that.

As for FNV and 3, yeah, the chems were nigh unto useless there. Didn't bother with them. It was more about getting good gear with a very high condition (or in the case of FO3, all the alien paste or whatever it was called that you could find that would repair things to 100%). My T-45d power armored Wanderer with a Gatling Laser was a murderbot as his gear outclassed even the Enclaves due to condition being at 100% (or near it) most of the time.

Reminds me of, "You can please some of the people some of the time. You can even please some of the people all of the time. But you can NEVER please all of the people all of the time."

Game companies do not create games to please ME. They create games that have enough content to appeal to a LOT of people that may or may not include me. Under no circumstances can anyone reasonably demand that a game publisher deliver a game that fulfills ALL of their requirements. If anyone ever does acquire a game that provides EVERYTHING they ever wanted in a game, they really should go buy a Lottery ticket; because they are definitely experiencing a lucky streak.

Getting back to the topic of the thread, I find chems to be neither more nor less useful than in Fallout 3. It all depends on the character. Mine would never touch the stuff normally (except alcohol, but that is another thing). Fallout 3 I did not find them useful since almost every perk in the game was a skill booster perk. NV I did not find them that useful since you could normally find things that did the same job without the addiction.

They are more useful in this game, but that usefulness depends on whether the character would actually use them or not.