Games

random DCs, etc.

I think that some of that is people using that perk that lets you control creatures and then lugging them to unusual places.

googles

Animal Friend

But, yeah, there are deathclaw spawns at some weird places, like that one that spawns on the grounds of the Whitespring Resort, which ordinarily doesn't have much by way of hostiles running around.

There are fewer deathclaws than in previous (recent) games, though. There's nothing like New Vegas's deathclaw promontory. I can only think of a few places where I've seen them.

My bigger issue is that deathclaws -- as well as other melee enemies -- become trivialized once one has a jetpack, because one can simply hop to somewhere that they can't path to. I think there were jetpack mods for Fallout 4, and I get them wanting to stick a popular mod into the game, but I really think that it's unbalancing. Starfield has the same issue, and one can get a boostpack far earlier in Starfield than a jetpack in Fallout 76; in Fallout 76, you've played through most of the game's content by the time that you start running around with a jetpack, so it's kind of a late-game treat to look at the world differently.

In Fallout 4, a deathclaw can move more-quickly than you and can generally reach anywhere you can -- unless you can dodge into a small building or something, and that's rarely close-enough to be a factor, aside from the first deathclaw encounter in Concord. You can jump, and deathclaws can't, but that rarely gives you sufficient privileged access to get out of reach If you get caught in the open, it's hard to get away, and a deathclaw is a tough opponent. In Fallout 76 or Starfield, it's almost always possible to easily get somewhere that a melee enemy cannot get to you.

I think that if jet/boostpacks were going to become a major game element, they also needed to do major improvements to pathing and the ability of creatures to move, like adding jumping or climbing (or jetpacking, though I have a hard time seeing a deathclaw jetpacking working thematically). Or take melee enemies out of the game, which I think would be unfortunate. Or give melee enemies counters to your limited flight ability; molerats have the ability to travel underground and burrow out of most surfaces, and you can't lose them once they're following you.