You pretty much hit it on the head. Not sure why they felt those critters needed instantaneous underground teleportation, it's pretty silly by any measure. Nothing can burrow underground that fast, mutated or not. I've seen radscorpions instantly teleport right next to me from my max gun range, after missing them with a very long range sniper shot. Have to shake my head and go "Really, Beth??"
It may be a bit silly but I enjoy their instant teleporting and they stalk you for a long time
I really enjoy the burrowing enemies. Maybe the Radscorpions should be a little slower but the Molerats are fine as they are IMO, considering their above ground speed.
I don't think 'broken' is quite the right word here, as they're working as intended. However, I agree that their burrowing abilities should have been toned down a bit. As others have already said, it's ridiculous that I can one moment be sniping a radscorpion way off in the distance, and the next moment have it flying out of the ground right next to me. They were trying to make them more difficult to kill, and as a game mechanic it does accomplish this, but it's just a bit too much.
I had one Rad Scorpion following me from Tenpines Bluff to Starlight Drive In where he finally killed me on one sneak attack.
It's ridiculous. Interesting idea but implementation is ridiculous.
It needs to be tone down. I don't mind them burrowing but the teleporting is annoying.
The ability even transcends the barrier between life and death. Yesterday, by Shaw High School, I saw a radscorpion on the surface, far down the road, and hit it with 3 or 4 sniper rifle shots. Then it was like the poor arachnid was fired out of a sling shot or cannon - in a fraction of a second it flew through the air (along the top surface of the road) and landed beside me, dead.
And they ALWAYS come up behind you. I once saw a radscorpion attacking a Checkpoint who spawned in the air above us because there wasn't a dirt pile large enough.
And the stalking is idiotic. I had a molerat tracking me from Shamrock Taphouse to nearly Cambridge Crater (jetpacking across the rooftops). I shoulda lost him miles ago, or at least when I went into sneak mode on a tall building he couldn't warp through. As soon as I hit the ground, he pops up. Of course, he also caught an Explosive-Vented blast, and then a point-blank Recoil Compensated Advanced Gauss Rifle burst that does 529 damage
But I don't think it's so much the mechanic that's broken (except for the teleporting), so much as the possibility to play as anything other than a full-on-aggro-in-heavy-armor-with-super-weapons type. I mean, I didn't really consider F3 to be much of an RPG as I knew them, but this is closer to something like God of War or Devil May Cry in my opinion than even Oblivion was. There's no dynamic adaptation of the game mechanics to adjust to a stealth character.
Molerats doing it is just good ol' whack-a-mole -fun, but something is broken with the way Radscorpions do it. Sometimes they take their time, sometimes they warp instantly next to you before they even finish their burrowing animation (hell, I'm not sure do they even begin playing it).
I like that there are enemies who can ambush you, if you don't see the rad scorpions coming they can take a bite out of you with little warning, which enemies could not do in the older games, instead simply running at you across the open, which would be just as suicidal in this game as it was then. I do think some of the more powerful variants should not use this ability as much, deathskull ones can be a bit excessive, but having at least some variants do it is interesting.
I kind of want more enemies to have safe approach options to mix things up a bit.