One of the things we mentioned in a previous hardcore post was the Legendary enemies, and many of you probably assumed that we shamelessly stole were inspired by that idea from Fallout 4. Well, you were right, sort of, as always we did add our own twist onto the idea.
Legendary enemies are special variants of normal enemies that can spawn in specific locations or within enemy groups. Whether or not a legendary enemy spawns in each encounter is determined by chance based on the difficulty of the game and the amount of hardcore modules enabled. Certain scripted encounters/locations might have legendary spawns that are guaranteed.
Chance of spawn:
- Difficulty - 1% per difficulty level (Highest = 5%)
- Chance increases per each Hardcore module enabled (up to max of 95%):
- HTS - 5%
- Diseases & Temp - 15%
- Ammo, Chem and Med Weight - 5%
- No Fast Travel - 10%
- Companion Death - 15%
- Blind Mode - 20%
- Iron Man - 25%
Legendary enemies are always between 3-10 levels above the player’s current level. This level is randomly chosen when the enemy is spawned. Legendary enemies will always spawn with either one legendary weapon, one piece of legendary armor, or a weapon with a legendary attachment. Specific enemy classes might have higher chances of dropping items from certain pools than normal.
Legendary equipment is spread among several “pools” of items, such as Armor, Attachments, Low-end Weapons, Standard, and Prime Picks. When determining what legendary equipment is spawned, first a pool is chosen (different pools might have differing chances), then a random piece of equipment from that pool, and finally a random compatible Legendary effect is applied on the selected item. When a piece of equipment is chosen from a legendary pool, that pool has a lowered chance of being chosen when the next legendary is being spawned, giving more variety. A specific weapon/legendary effect combo will only spawn once in a given playthrough (Meaning while you will be able to get the same type of weapon such as assault rifle multiple times, it will only ever spawn once with a specific legendary effect).
Pool chances and what they include:
20% - Armors - Armors
15% - Attachments - Attachments
20% - Low-end Weapons - Weapons of questionable usefulness (rake, shovel, lead pipe, etc)
40% - Standard - Everything not in other pools
5% - Prime Picks - Any heavy and explosive weapons
Note: Throwables cannot spawn as legendary items