UPDATE
30/08/2016

War Never Changes - Gameplay Overhaul

Brutality

Goals :
-Making fallout admit that the fun part of an RPG is not bullet sponges but role-playing.
-Making fallout admit that the fun part of an FPS is not bullet sponges but long zooming of a zone followed by fast paced action and tense firefights.
-Making fallout admit that the fun part of sneaking is one shooting enemies with a well placed headshot or backstab, not exploiting the IA by having your bullet do twice the damage to bullet sponges.
-Making fallout admit that the fun part of a game is not bullet sponges.
-Making the mod fully compatible with existing save games and safe to remove from saves with it.






Summary :
-Guns hit MUCH harder and are much more consistent in their damage trough the game. In a pinch, a pipe gun can still hurt endgame baddies.
-Changed the gameplay, itemization, and exploit of OP perks from something designed as an ARPG (Diablo, Borderlands...) to something allowing "nerds characters" to be a viable path. Basically tuning down the draugr are training effect.
-Melee character are now much more vulnerable but deal (after training) much more relative damage.
-All perks are more viable, no more mandatory OP damage upgrade the game was balanced around. Damage perks are now a bonus, not a requirement, and you can use much more variety in your arsenal instead of being stuck with one kind of playstyle trough the whole game.

How is this mod different from other rebalance mods ?

In vanilla fallout, the player damage scales by steps. (perks, modding weapons, better base weapon). If you miss a step (bad luck, taking charisma perks...), you will fill LESS powerful by gaining a level. On top of that, endgame enemies continue crazy scaling while the player has already unlocked all upgrades. Ok, you do higher "raw" damages than in the beginning, but your relative damage compared to the enemy health bar is ridiculously low. Lvling up = being LESS powerful. Derp.
What most other rebalance mods (including new survival by bethesda) do is changing flat multipliers in damage done or putting crazy high values on headshots. So you can again kill those sponges. The main issue of these approaches is while it indeed changes the balance of the game, it does not change the scaling of Fallout4, which is the true underlying fun-killer. If you balance the damage around low-medium level, then in the endgame you two shots mutant behemoths. If you balance the damage around endgame, then the game is unplayable in the beginning as everything one shot you. Not good.

My aim with this mod is to give a tactical Fps feel to fallout combat (I'm an Arma player), and emphasizing the roleplay element by tuning down the mandatory damage perks that were too game-changing. This mod increase fallout difficulty by a fair margin (there is challenge now) but if you played a fps before it should not be a problem.



Detailed Changes :
-Nerfed HARD the health per level of NPC (from 5 to 1.5)
-Redone the damage localization of all creatures so that weakspot do consistently more damage (on humanoids headshot is X5 damage instead of X2) added the torso as a "softspot" (for 1.25 damage) on most living things. (Not robots, not feral ghouls).
-NPC now uses ammo. Or your companions have infinite ammos too. The choice is yours.
-Nerfed the HP of NPC sponges  (Some gunners had way over 1200 hp...)
-Some ennemies (Behemot, Deathclaws, Hermit Crabs) are still difficults to kill because EPICNESS.
-Nerfed the player hp per level to 0 per level. Only END above one give HP now (0.5 per END per lvl). To compensate, starting SPECIAL have been increased. Investing end from the start is now worthwhile.
-Ennemies are less spamming molotov and grenades.
-Some immersion breaking fix : Vertibirds especially do serious damages and are much more sturdy. You should see them crashing in flame less often. Shoot them in the engine if you want to take one down.
-Rebalanced the damage of guns (Mostly increased the damage and reducing the gap between each weapon). Also each ammo should have more or less the same damage in every gun now. (Excepted the pipe guns whichs does less : raiders have them so indirect player buff, and real life pipe gun are TRASH).
-Rebalanced weapon mods. Now a gun can only be improved up to around +30% damage for ballistic weapons, or +60% for energy weapons. Down from more than double damage in the base game.
-Improved automatic weapon at low level : nearly no damage per hit reduction over the basic non-automatic receiver = huge dps boost. Early game automatic weapons are now deadly and not just spray and pray ammo wasters.
-Automatic weapons do around 90% dph of their same tier-reciever non auto counterpart. (instead of 55%)
-Thanks to their increased damage, automatic weapons are now very competitive midgame weapons. (instead of being endgame weapons used to dump old ammo on sponges).
-Nerfed molotov impact damage. Due to reduced health for everyone, they are still VERY dangerous on impact but now it's the sticky fire that will kill.
-Nerfed damage dealing perks. Now a 0 perk player will do only around half the damage of a fully perked player, instead of around 6 time less in vanilla.
-Improved the non-damage bonus of secondary perks such as black widow and lady killer. It's a huge bonus in survival mode where save scumming is not  as easy to do.
-Power armor kinda buff : Because weapons do overall more damages, armor is overall less effective than before. Power armor are much more powerful compared to the rest of brutality, tank much more damage than vanilla, but still tank less bullets than in vanilla.
-Nerfed ranged stealth damage to 1.5xdmg (from 2.0 in vanilla)
-Melee weapons and perk unchanged from vanilla. Because of buffed base guns damage, melee character start very vulnerable, and then thanks to the humongous vanilla scaling can deals tons of damage.
-Companions aim better and do more damages
-Changed survival setting damage done to and from you to 1.0 (To enjoy the 1.5 beta). This mod balance is done around damage ratio set to 1. Fights are BRUTAL, and hence changing the damage done by you and to you do not change the amount of ammo you need to take a foe down/your consumption of stimpack (such difficulty, woah, gz bethesda), but instead is the difference between you getting one shot or one shooting foes.
-Changed damage done and received scaling : Below normal, the player does increased damage, and below Very hard, the player receive less damage. Also works with the new survival mode (True Survival as called by Bethesda).
-Console enabled in survival mode.

The game feels very dangerous, furious, but in a logical way

Wow! Seriously, this mod makes this game come alive again, I love the gritty survival feel that it provides.
I just had probably a 20 minute shootout at the Corvega plant and there were many times that I was incredibly near to death. Most of the time I was below 50% health. That's the feeling I love in my Fallout games, none of this bullet sponge money hoarding bulls***. Thanks

Compatibility :

Dlc and Vanilla supported.

Mostly every mods  excepts those that have functions that overlap this one (but why the hell would you use several balance mods !?)

-Not compatible with mods that changes body parts (For example those that improve headshots)
-Not compatible with mods that alter weapons/weapons mods. I can release compatibility patches on request though.
-Not compatible with mods that modify damage perks or explosion damages.

-Compatible with : any content mods (the weapons there will feel weak though), armor mods (I touched nothing there), bugfix mods, mods that change npcs, etc...

Compatbility patches available for :
Crossbows of the Commonwealth
Wasteland Ordnance
M79 Thumper Grenade Launcher
Modular Kalash Assault Rifle
The M2216 Standalone Assault Rifle
Pipe Weapons Overhaul
M1911A1 - Standalone Handgun
The M14 Standalone Rifle


Despite the fact that theses patches are available, Brutality is designed to be immersive. Adding elves, MLP fanservice and modern guns is Heresy.

WORKS ON EXISTING SAVEGAMES. You are missing out on a few special points and your health might be a bit higher than expected = still balanced.




Recommended Mods list :
Mods that are lore friendly and overall improves the fallout 4 experience without changing it too much from the vanilla game. 
All of this mods are hand-picked to blend in well with the vision of the game i have for brutality.  

Unofficial Fallout 4 Patch
We Are The Minutemen -Basic Version-
Better Settlers + Don't Call Me Settler
Improved Map with Visible Roads
Better Vendor Stalls
Companion Tracking
Immersive Fast Travel
Achievements

Feel free to use any kind of beautification mods, but be aware that mods that uses scripts (such as weather mods) or add content (armor, weapons) will make your savegame stuck with them.