Difficulty/Fallout 4

Difficulty is a modifiable in-game setting

Overview
Fallout 4 has six difficulty settings: Very Easy, Easy, Normal, Hard, Very Hard and Survival. Difficulty will increase and decrease various aspects of gameplay, such as damage dealt, damage received, effect duration and magnitude, and Legendary spawns. Survival contains many other changes to gameplay which are covered on a separate page.

Damage Dealt
Difficulty modifies the damage dealt to enemies. Lower difficulty increases the amount of damage dealt, while higher difficulty decreases the amount of damage dealt.

Damage Received
Difficulty modifies the damage taken from enemies. Lower difficulty decreases the amount of damage received, while higher difficulty increases the amount of damage received.

Effect Duration
By default, only Survival difficulty changes this setting, which is set to 10. Effect Duration changes the duration timer of an effect. If an effect lasted 10 seconds, a value of 10 would increase the timer to 100 seconds. The setting works in conjunction with Effect Magnitude.

Effect Magnitude
By default, only Survival difficulty changes this setting, which is set to .1. Effect Magnitude adjusts the HP gained from an effect. If an item healed 10 HP per second for 10 seconds, a setting of .1 would cause it to heal only 1 HP per second for 10 seconds. As Survival increases Effect Duration by a multiplier of 10, the Effect Magnitude of .1 would cause an item to heal 1 HP per second for 100 seconds.

Legendary Rarity
By default, all values are set to 1% regardless of difficulty. Legendary Rarity affects how many enemies have the potential of having the Legendary status. The setting works in conjunction with Legendary Chance.

Legendary Chance
Works in conjunction wit the Legendary Rarity setting. Legendary Chance affects how likely it is that an enemy in the Legendary Rarity pool will have the Legendary status.

XP Gained
By default, only Survival difficulty changes this setting, which is set to 2. Higher values will increase all XP gains, while lower values will decrease them.