So I asked the same stuff in a different forum but the only response I got was about sniping, which is great but i do more than snipe lol. I guess to begin I just picked the game up this week, I'm already level 25, been playing a lot. I've noticed tho that all the weapons dropped are just modifications of weapons I already have, so do the legendary guys the only ones that drop different weapons and gear? I've been using the same weapons since I was about level 10, just modded them to make them better. But it seems as if they are losing their effectiveness, is this just the enemies getting stronger? I used to be able to knock out about half the health of an enemy my level with a single sniper shot, if not kill them, now I barely get maybe 25% of their health. Which isn't a problem, just not sure if I am doing something wrong, maybe I should be hitting harder or something. I do have the non automatic rifle perk to level 3 i believe, maybe 4. As well as gun nut rank 2, which next level im buying rank 3 so i can give my sniper a .50 cal mod.

So whats the story, did i hit a point where naturally enemies are just gonna get stronger and im gonna do less and less dmg or maybe i got the wrong stuff to do it with.

Also my other question would be on settlements. I would love to focus on just a couple instead of trying to focus on all 500 of them. Should I ignore the others and build 3 really good ones, or do i need to work on them all?

Thanks in advance

the way enemies are leveled in the Commonwealth is far NW area of map, Sanctuary, is the lowest level enemies. mainly raiders and bugs. low level weapon drops, mostly .38's. extreme SW, SE and NE are highest level enemies and environments. better weapons, better legendaries, etc.
The weapon drops will level with you as you radiate out towards the higher level areas of the map.

a lot has been said about Settlement building, but by experience, I would say start small. keep simple rules for provisioners like one into settlement, one out. making hubs can ruin your day and overcomplicate things.

the more of them you get, the higher the workload on you with radiant attack quests and re-building constantly.

Yes, enemies will generally improve, but as you have seen guns (bullet guns anyway) reach a plateau around mid-game where you are. The way you push through that plateau is to change to different weapons (lasers, gauss, plasma) OR you keep increasing your perks along the direction you want to play so that damage of the ballistic weapons keeps going up in certain circumstances. I'm guessing that was the advice people gave you on the other forum - stuff like getting Ninja and Sandman perks?

After u max out a weapon thas it aint no level higher or nothing unless u get a legendary weapon so it can add damage boost but u can take a weapon from sanctuary and upgraded to the max and the damage will be the same if you found the same exact weapon on a high lvl area

As you progress through the game higher ranks of enemy foes appear.

As you have found the higher ranks are tougher.

As you level up you automatically get more health.

It's up to you to make yourself tougher and more hard hitting to match the enemies.

As you know you do this by choosing perks that align with your play style and choice of weaponry.

The legendary foes drop weapons that have various legendary affects.

The effect could be extra damage of some sort along with the regular damage.

If you have a gun that you like and you find something similar with a useful legendary effect you can mod the legendary gun to match your existing weapon.

For instance I like a shotgun that is fast reloading, has a bigger magazine with low recoil and higher accuracy.

The one i use has a legendary affect of additional explosive damage and is very useful on larger targets at medium to close range.

I went through a few shotguns as I progressed through the game, upgrading each found likely prospect and testing it in battle to see if it was better than the previous one.

When I found a better one I discarded the older one.

Sometimes i would mod a gun and find it inferior to what i was already using even though the displayed stats indicated otherwise.

Here is the enemy difficulty map: http://nerdist.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Fallout-4-Map.png

Are you playing at survival ? Are you playing stealth or not ? Are you playing mosltly vats or not ? Enemies get stronger according to zones and new stronger enemies named differently appear as you get higher levels, like the Supermutant Warlord for example.

To do more damage, aside for damage perks that you allready know, there are better weapons than those ballistic ones, laser and then plasma guns. Or a Gauss if you want to be godlike (you can buy one that does ~550 damage). To mod this energy weapons, aside from Gun Nut you need to invest in Science perk too. Also, have a legendary effect to this weapons and your damage will be more than decent. Some legendary effects worth considering: Shoots an additional projectile, Instigating - if you play stealth, explosive - for shotguns and minigun, Bleeding - good for auto guns. I think you allready know that vulnerable parts of the body for each type of enemy. Level 30 is still kinda average in terms of what hp you have and what perks you can get, at level ~50 things will be easier.

For settlements, 3 are enough, they can provide you with enough adhesive for modding, mutfruits and purified water for selling and making money. Or maybe you wanna go depper and build shops there, still 3 will be enough. But no one is stopping you if you like to build more than 3.

Here are the weapons you can expect to see in FO4: http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_4_weapons

Damage can be rised by perks, weapon mods and legendary effects. For sniping you should look at the very powerful (some say grossly overpowered) Ninja perk in the agility tree. You need 7 points in Agility for it. With it headshots from sneak are usually one-hit-kills. If you don't find pleasant legendary weapons, you can buy some, my favorite is Overseer's Guardian, a two shot combat rifle. From the lady in the Castle you can buy a Gauss rifle modded to max damage early on. I don't like Gauss rifles, so I never did.

From time to time stronger enemies appear in the game. I'm around 50 and face really tough guys currently. For the legendaries I feel a bit undergunned with my semiautomatic rifle which deals 180 damage.

You can do with settlements what pleases you more or less. I have three bigger ones (not that big, 14 to 18 settlers), the rest I do not really care of and help them only for the minimum necessary. You need allegedly 8 settlements to go further in the Minutemen quest line, but the size does not matter presumably.