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I think you really need to understand that the FO76 beta is not really a beta, it's happening a few *weeks* before the official release. That is not sufficient time to totally redesign any complex system. The only fixes you are going to see on release are simple bugs that are found like the frame rate one that was discovered last week. They don't have time to redesign the basics of PVP combat.

The PvP caps exploit isn't a bug, anyway. It's the system working as intended. The 'fix' would be not being able to collect bounties on your friends list or anyone you've ever grouped with, and even that wouldn't stop it.

---
The frame rate issue wasn't discovered last week though. It's been a known issue of every Beth game since Morrowind.

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The big issue this week is Pete Haines (the Beth PR guy) discovered there was a stash limit in the beta, and unlike what folks on the Fallout forums thought, it won't be going away after Beta, or in any near future patches. The outrage has been fun.

But yes, you read that correctly. The guy in charge of marketing the game thought that your stash had no cap (and told people so back in october). He's since been informed there was, and it was for 'important reasons.'

But they're 'looking into it' now.

8 days from release.

 vonjankmon wrote:
I have a feeling that this game is going to land with a resounding *thud*. The 10 year old engine isn't going to make the game appeal to people unfamiliar with Fallout, they're going to look at some video game play and roll their eyes at how the game looks and functions. Many of the big Fallout fans are fans due to story, which this game is lacking in significantly. So it'll be difficult to bring in new players to the series while at the same time alienating a not insignificant portion of their existing player base.

On top of all of that they decided that they were going to somehow make PvP work without it being the sole purpose of the game, a mechanic that has sunk something like 95% of all games that have tried it. I mean hell, we're not even out of beta yet and someone has already posted how a group of friends can bypass the penalty system meant to prevent rampant PvP.

Once they allow private servers and modding they'll likely get my money when it's on sale so I can play with some friends but without those two options it is a hard pass for me.

I am very familiar with Fallout, and consider myself a big fan (I have a Fallout memorabilia collection and the cookbook lol). I LOVE FO76. There is story, its just not delivered by NPCs (in human or mutant form anyway) and a significant part of what I am enjoying so far is that the fact there is no NPCs to interact with has changed the way I am playing the game, and actually adds suspense to the story lines I am finding in the game. IMO the desperation in some of the letters and such that I have found is more significant to me (since I am the only one invested in it) than some random NPC telling me how they felt about whatever is going on. I am free to make up my own mind about how I feel about what I am reading in what others have left behind.

I can tell you that this world has not yet felt lonely to me. And to be honest, how much interaction do you actually have with NPCs in Fallout (other than your caravan.. I mean companion who you talk to once then use as a pack mule)? To me its not a significant enough of a percentage to completely turn me off to it. I have had some fantastic interactions with other players so far, and I have a feeling the RP side of this game is going to be awesome.

As far as the 10 year old engine: FO76 on my Xbox is absolutely beautiful. There is still greenery in the world and its not all brown and desolate (looking at you New Vegas). It still feels like if things work right there is hope for the area. To me, I don't think Fallout NEEDS a giant engine upgrade and all sorts of stuff in order to be an awesome game. It still holds up, visually, compared to many other games. I think the next iteration of Fallout will come with an upgrade, but I didn't fall in love with Fallout 3 because I was hoping that some day it may look better, nor FO4, nor FO76. It still holds up rather well.

Anyway, I am not trying to say you are wrong or anything, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but speaking of the Fallout fan-base in such giant swaths is probably a bit excessive. I don't think they have slighted me in the least, just given me a different way to enjoy the Fallout universe, and the ability to choose if I want to do it with others or not.

Also, if anyone does pick up the game and is looking for someone to take on the wastes with, I am on Xbox, Bloodknigh is my user name and I am on the West Coast so I play a lot in the evenings and weekends

That very much matches my experience regarding the storytelling. Some of the writing in the notes and holos is leagues better than in previous titles and the voice acting in the case of the latter seems to be of a higher standard as well; perhaps as they're not having people deliver lines about the next batch of randomly generated Raiders you need to kill, or how there [random item X] that they need you to go and pick up, they've had room to inject a lot more character into proceedings.

I might be mistaken, but from what I've seen, everyone who speaks in the game is named. They're an actual character, rather than listed as Settler or Raider, and if they're saying something, it's because it's important. Either it's shedding light on a piece of lore or part of the world, or it's telling you something useful like where they stashed their valuables before the bombs ect. It seems a lot more tailored and there's very little in the way of generic writing (with Robots filling that role where it's needed).

Ditto on it looking amazing; yes, a lot of the assets are the same as FO4 (which, to be honest, still looks pretty great now with a lighting mod or two on) but the visual diversity elevates that selection greatly. Even if it's using the same tech as FO4 or Skyrim SE, it's doing a lot more with it and even the little bit of the world I've explored thus far has had plenty of lovely vistas and little locales in it. And that's before I've even really ventured into anything beyond the starting biome.

It certainly has its differences to the single-player Fallout experience, but the core elements of the franchise's identity, be they mechanical, visual, tonal or narrative, have all survived (and in some cases thrived) the transition to a multiplayer experience. It's 100% still Fallout.

IronWarLeg, I am legitimately glad you are enjoying it but it is just not for me. I play Fallout for the stories and the feeling of impacting the world, that is honestly where FO:4 fell very short for me. Nothing you did really impacted the world at all and the story was just awful. FO76 just seems to be doubling down on that, which does not appeal to me unfortunately.

And I think you are right about my comments on the Fallout fan-base to an extent. Having given it a bit more thought I guess it may be more accurate to split it into three groups, the potential new players, the more modern fans that are familiar with FO3, NV, and 4, and then the old school fans that came into the series with Fallout 1 and 2. (We won't mention Brotherhood of Steel...) This game is not likely to appeal to the old school fans due to the lack of story and impact but could very well appeal to the more modern fans that are familiar with the FO 3 and 4 systems.

I will say though that one reason that FO:NV is generally considered the best of the newer FO games is that is brought many of the story and impact aspects from the older FO games into the next generation of them. Bethesda stepping away from that does not seem like a particularly smart move to me.

 vonjankmon wrote:
IronWarLeg, I am legitimately glad you are enjoying it but it is just not for me. I play Fallout for the stories and the feeling of impacting the world, that is honestly where FO:4 fell very short for me

Some of the RPG elements did have some options, New Harbour seemed better here. But the main plot line once you met the institute became so railroaded and lost all RPG elements to it. Whatever you did had no impact on the story overall, regardless of the way you played the game there was simply no real choice.
a
This is not an RPG in the Fallout sense. I'm not really sure what it is, but Skill Ups review seemed to have the best explanation. They've taken all the things from FO4 and modded into a multiplayer game. The problem being is that the base game was designed as a RPG game. So the combat mechanism was designed in that vain. This is more heavily a shooter RPG and hence this just doesn't work. The way the NPCs behave are designed for the old VATS system.

That's before the general issues with the AI. I'm going to be generous and assume all the bugs will be resolved (which would be a first for BSG) - lets not mention a multiplayer game where the speed of your actions were linked to the frame rate. If you scroll to 3:03 hrs and watch the combat in this video around the radar station (about 10 - 12 minutes) it shows the extent of the problems (if you wait to the end it's almost an instant respawn he gets fed up and quits).




This game needs so much work I simply can't see that in the time available they can sort this all out. My thinking is that this is going to be another No Mans Sky debacle. Though at least hello games stuck with it and is now a decent game, what is the chace BSG does the same?

And the PVP system was also pointed out as flawed because of the agreement to engage system. As it stand the person that engages second has a huge advantage. Suppose someone shoots you first then you now have the choice of engaging or not. If you want to engage then you just pull out a shotgun walk to right in front of them and then double tab the shots straight out. You get full damage for both shots that gives you such a massive advantage in the PVP.

One thing I have found that isn't exactly to my liking is that the AI spawns, when you are indoors, are linked to people coming in the building. For instance: I was in one of the buildings in Charleston and I was clearing the floors from the top down, looting as I went. I make it to the second to last floor and I start hearing AI walking around and making noises above me. I walk out to the lobby and everything I had killed was back. At the top was another player who had come in. It didn't click for me there, I figured they respawned based on a timer, as I wasn't exactly rushing, but once it happened another couple of times in other locations, I tested it out and this seems to be the case. I don't know if the outside mobs are on a timer of their own or based on proximity as this hasn't happened outdoors (unless I have completely left the area and come back) but indoor mobs seem to be linked to people coming in and out of the building/structure. I do hope this is something they figure out how to remedy.

I understand they probably cant, and to be fair to the spirit of the game, probably shouldn't, have everyone enter their own instance, but this can make things difficult when trying to clear a particularly difficult structure.

I get that it isn't a perfect game for everyone, and we all know Bethesda has a sterling reputation for releasing completely bug free games, but none of this has broken it for me. I enjoyed the hell out of the beta and look forward to picking it up on launch.

I have to be honest that this game has turned into a train wreck that I am having a hard time looking away from, not proud of that but I'm only human. Several modders have come out now with concerns over the game because it leaves to much trust in the client side, so even with the very limited beta there are already mods that have been developed that work. There's a lock pick mod that lets you see where the sweet spot is that is working already and we're likely to see a lot more that are going to be a lot less benign than that shortly after launch. They also capped FPS at 63 to correct the timing issue, which I don't think is a big issue in the slightest but is apparently pissing off some people with very high end rigs.

To me this situation is worse than the No Man's Sky release because many of the issues with FO76 are due to the old engine that was not designed for online play. There are just some things that are likely going to be unfixable and are just going to have to be accepted. Bethesda better hope those things are not basically game ending.

 vonjankmon wrote:
To me this situation is worse than the No Man's Sky release because many of the issues with FO76 are due to the old engine that was not designed for online play. There are just some things that are likely going to be unfixable and are just going to have to be accepted. Bethesda better hope those things are not basically game ending.

I've defended bethesda's engine a good number of times in the past as it's built for very specific reasons and that an 'old' engine isn't necessarily a thing.

Now? Now, I'm curious who was smoking what when the calls for this game were made. They should even have access to engines actually capable of this thanks to some of their publishing deals, but they went with the engine intended to handle NPC management and ease of single player world building for their kinda MMOy empty world rust clone? Nah man, go bug IdTech or someone, the people who write the good engines that actually do multiplayer and empty environments fine.

They've legitimately gone against the only saving graces of their engine's architecture here.

I'm just waiting for the hacks to start rolling in if they trust the client this much. Will it top GTA5?

YeOldSaltPotato wrote:

 vonjankmon wrote:
To me this situation is worse than the No Man's Sky release because many of the issues with FO76 are due to the old engine that was not designed for online play. There are just some things that are likely going to be unfixable and are just going to have to be accepted. Bethesda better hope those things are not basically game ending.

I've defended bethesda's engine a good number of times in the past as it's built for very specific reasons and that an 'old' engine isn't necessarily a thing.

Now? Now, I'm curious who was smoking what when the calls for this game were made. They should even have access to engines actually capable of this thanks to some of their publishing deals, but they went with the engine intended to handle NPC management and ease of single player world building for their kinda MMOy empty world rust clone? Nah man, go bug IdTech or someone, the people who write the good engines that actually do multiplayer and empty environments fine.

They've legitimately gone against the only saving graces of their engine's architecture here.

I'm just waiting for the hacks to start rolling in if they trust the client this much. Will it top GTA5?

I think the funniest (in a gallows humor kind of way) thing about this is that there is one *super* easy fix for FO76. Just allow private servers and modding, done. The public servers could be a giant wild west of hacking and no one would care because everyone would be happily playing with just their friends on private servers that were likely heavily modded. I would shell out $60 to play in a cool Fallout world with just my friends. I mean they paid out the money for voice actors for all of the tapes and writers for the same along with all of the computer notes and such, it would seriously have been trivial to just include NPC's, make it a legit FO game, and let people play with their friends. Or if they just allowed modding the community will fix the game for them, see the New California and Miami mods out there.

 vonjankmon wrote:
Several modders have come out now with concerns over the game because it leaves to much trust in the client side, so even with the very limited beta there are already mods that have been developed that work. There's a lock pick mod that lets you see where the sweet spot is that is working already and we're likely to see a lot more that are going to be a lot less benign than that shortly after launch.

That this was going to be a hacked was a likelihood but could be controlled with good server side controls. That so much is managed by the client side is sent in unencrypted data is a nightmare waiting to happen. Not onyl that but many people are already fulyl aware how to mod Fallout 4 and it is essentially the same piece of software. However the worst thing I heard is the potential that someone can hack the stream and identify everyones IP address. Not even sure that is legal under UK data protection legislation....

 vonjankmon wrote:

YeOldSaltPotato wrote:

 vonjankmon wrote:
To me this situation is worse than the No Man's Sky release because many of the issues with FO76 are due to the old engine that was not designed for online play. There are just some things that are likely going to be unfixable and are just going to have to be accepted. Bethesda better hope those things are not basically game ending.

I've defended bethesda's engine a good number of times in the past as it's built for very specific reasons and that an 'old' engine isn't necessarily a thing.

Now? Now, I'm curious who was smoking what when the calls for this game were made. They should even have access to engines actually capable of this thanks to some of their publishing deals, but they went with the engine intended to handle NPC management and ease of single player world building for their kinda MMOy empty world rust clone? Nah man, go bug IdTech or someone, the people who write the good engines that actually do multiplayer and empty environments fine.

They've legitimately gone against the only saving graces of their engine's architecture here.

I'm just waiting for the hacks to start rolling in if they trust the client this much. Will it top GTA5?

I think the funniest (in a gallows humor kind of way) thing about this is that there is one *super* easy fix for FO76. Just allow private servers and modding, done. The public servers could be a giant wild west of hacking and no one would care because everyone would be happily playing with just their friends on private servers that were likely heavily modded. I would shell out $60 to play in a cool Fallout world with just my friends. I mean they paid out the money for voice actors for all of the tapes and writers for the same along with all of the computer notes and such, it would seriously have been trivial to just include NPC's, make it a legit FO game, and let people play with their friends. Or if they just allowed modding the community will fix the game for them, see the New California and Miami mods out there.

Problem is, private servers could absolutely wreck the infrastructure set up. Obviously I don't know all the details of how everything is set up on their end, but their expectations are their infrastructure has to handle one instance of the game world for about 25 people. Now imagine a scenario where they have to double or triple that. The worst case scenario is their load is split to handle 25 times their expectations (each individual player with their own private instance of the game, all running through their infrastructure). I don't care how much they invested in servers for launch (but it's probably a projection based on preorders and estimations for day one sales) but they aren't going to be able that kind of additional load, no matter how many software tricks they've got compensating (load distances, interior areas, and whatever else current MMOs do to ease the burden server side).

Given its Beth (king of day one bugs) and the conversion from single player to online play is new, it's going to be a problem anyway. They've got zero chance of managing private servers any time soon.

Just let the players do it. Provide the server code and people will take care of the rest.

Obviously they won't do that because they want to get income from microtransactions and you can't do that if people are running their own private servers. It may all fall apart though if they aren't able to lock things down sufficiently to prevent the modding community from just providing everything they would potentially want to include from micro transactions.

Flip side is that they could just charge a bit extra for private servers, if I could pick the game up on sale I *might* consider shelling out a bit more for that. Not sure whether I am in the minority or majority on that though.

 vonjankmon wrote:


Obviously they won't do that because they want to get income from microtransactions and you can't do that if people are running their own private servers. It may all fall apart though if they aren't able to lock things down sufficiently to prevent the modding community from just providing everything they would potentially want to include from micro transactions.

I think the horse has well and truly bolted on the mods already.




https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout76/?tab=new+this+week

Not sure how BSG will be able to control it without rewriting part of the code (and I doubt that is going to happen).

 vonjankmon wrote:
Just let the players do it. Provide the server code and people will take care of the rest.

Obviously they won't do that because they want to get income from microtransactions and you can't do that if people are running their own private servers. It may all fall apart though if they aren't able to lock things down sufficiently to prevent the modding community from just providing everything they would potentially want to include from micro transactions.

Flip side is that they could just charge a bit extra for private servers, if I could pick the game up on sale I *might* consider shelling out a bit more for that. Not sure whether I am in the minority or majority on that though.

I dunno micro transactions can still work with private servers considering TF2 has been doing it for a LOOOOOONNGGGG time. man that game makes me feel old.

 Desubot wrote:


I dunno micro transactions can still work with private servers considering TF2 has been doing it for a LOOOOOONNGGGG time. man that game makes me feel old.

The issue is that mods will basically do what the microtransactions do, but a) likely better and b) be free. For example there is already a reskin available for the pip boy in the nexus which is something that is in the microtransactions store as well.

 Whirlwind wrote:

 Desubot wrote:


I dunno micro transactions can still work with private servers considering TF2 has been doing it for a LOOOOOONNGGGG time. man that game makes me feel old.

The issue is that mods will basically do what the microtransactions do, but a) likely better and b) be free. For example there is already a reskin available for the pip boy in the nexus which is something that is in the microtransactions store as well.

Hmm thinking about it though if its all client side the only benefits for nexus reskins would be for your own personal benefits, no one else would see your mods. while an offical atom buck will get you an outfit, an emote or whatever that others can actually see.

for traditionally solo players i dont think they would care. but multi player gamers usually get theses sort of things to show off so just modding wont really be for them outside of graphical overhaul type things.

though i may be completely off on how the servers work .

 Desubot wrote:


Hmm thinking about it though if its all client side the only benefits for nexus reskins would be for your own personal benefits, no one else would see your mods. while an offical atom buck will get you an outfit, an emote or whatever that others can actually see.

for traditionally solo players i dont think they would care. but multi player gamers usually get theses sort of things to show off so just modding wont really be for them outside of graphical overhaul type things.

though i may be completely off on how the servers work .

That's true, but then I've never really got the I have to buy something so someone else thinks better of me.

The emotes one is interesting as I assume that must already programmed in because it requires a specific set of actions of the rag doll. As such from the client side all you need to do is find a way of calling that action and sending it to the server to say you are doing this. Hence it shouldn't be too difficult to mod these in if you wanted to. It could look like you are doing something completely different on your own side.

 Whirlwind wrote:

 Desubot wrote:


Hmm thinking about it though if its all client side the only benefits for nexus reskins would be for your own personal benefits, no one else would see your mods. while an offical atom buck will get you an outfit, an emote or whatever that others can actually see.

for traditionally solo players i dont think they would care. but multi player gamers usually get theses sort of things to show off so just modding wont really be for them outside of graphical overhaul type things.

though i may be completely off on how the servers work .

That's true, but then I've never really got the I have to buy something so someone else thinks better of me.

The emotes one is interesting as I assume that must already programmed in because it requires a specific set of actions of the rag doll. As such from the client side all you need to do is find a way of calling that action and sending it to the server to say you are doing this. Hence it shouldn't be too difficult to mod these in if you wanted to. It could look like you are doing something completely different on your own side.

My assumption was that it would take the place of an existing emote but wont show up for other players.

As for showing off in multi player games.. some times i dont get it ether and some times i stop to think dafaq am i doing. but some times its nice to show off some exclusive something or show off a special im better than you skin (like overwatch gold guns before it became a joke) or those unique and special australium items in tf2. its just the culture and one of the few social interactions people can do.

 vonjankmon wrote:
Just let the players do it. Provide the server code and people will take care of the rest.

Obviously they won't do that because they want to get income from microtransactions and you can't do that if people are running their own private servers. It may all fall apart though if they aren't able to lock things down sufficiently to prevent the modding community from just providing everything they would potentially want to include from micro transactions.

Flip side is that they could just charge a bit extra for private servers, if I could pick the game up on sale I *might* consider shelling out a bit more for that. Not sure whether I am in the minority or majority on that though.

Happily the minority. Publishers really don't need lessons on selling more basic software functions as piecemeal microtransactions.
That's an incredibly anti-consumer path to propose.

Voss wrote:

 vonjankmon wrote:
Just let the players do it. Provide the server code and people will take care of the rest.

Obviously they won't do that because they want to get income from microtransactions and you can't do that if people are running their own private servers. It may all fall apart though if they aren't able to lock things down sufficiently to prevent the modding community from just providing everything they would potentially want to include from micro transactions.

Flip side is that they could just charge a bit extra for private servers, if I could pick the game up on sale I *might* consider shelling out a bit more for that. Not sure whether I am in the minority or majority on that though.

Happily the minority. Publishers really don't need lessons on selling more basic software functions as piecemeal microtransactions.
That's an incredibly anti-consumer path to propose.

I totally agree and I hope I would be in the minority but if I could play FO76 with a bunch of my good friends without worrying about griefers or other idiots ruining my experience and it only cost me a bit of cash I'm not sure I could resist. The story in FO4 was terrible and it put a dent in my love for Fallout but 20 odd years of loving the Fallout games means my will power is not entirely where it should be on this particular franchise.

The fact that there are already so many mods for FO76 is amusing. I think Bethesda is in an interesting position right now, they have to try and control it somehow, other wise they won't make enough money off of the micro transactions to keep the game running. However it will be interesting to watch how they try to go about it. Storage becomes an issue (towards cost) if Bethesda has to store hashes for *every* possible combination of micro transaction purchase a player makes. For instance, the hash value for the default game files is easy, but if one player buys a special dance move while another player buys a new skin for their pipboy then you suddenly have 3 hashes you need to keep track of and that number sky rockets quickly the more stuff you sell. I also don't know enough about the FO engine to know whether you could make a change but make it so that if the server did a hash check somehow fool it into thinking you were using the unmodified files, some kind of redirection code or something. And even if Bethesda solves the issue somehow it's going to be a very *very* careful PR dance to implement the fix without royally pissing off a bunch of players that are obviously going to already be using the mods by the time they figure something out.

Bethesda being unprepared at launch for this eventuality is very surprising to me, I had assumed that they found a way to avoid this issue as it seemed like a kind of super obvious problem you would need to address early in the process of developing this game but apparently Bethesda somehow assumed that everyone wouldn't mod Fallout for the first time in 10 years...

Honestly this game could literally be dead at launch, Bethesda will not eat the cost of running the servers, the micro transactions were supposed to provide the income to 1) pay for the servers and 2) provide some profit to justify continued support for the game, without money coming it this could be very short lived, which would be a PR disaster itself.

Personally, my idea scenario is that Bethesda realizes that they f'ed up, puts the game on sale and provides the code to run personal servers. The mod community can go crazy like it normally does and I get a FO game I can play with friends that will likely have NPC's put back in by the modding community in short order.

 Paradigm wrote:
It's definitely the dungeons that eat up your healing and ammo very quickly, due to the enemy count being a lot higher. The Poseidon plant south of Flatwoods that was packed with Scorched, Ghouls and Turrets was a dungeon around the same size as Corvega in FO4 but with around 3x as many enemies.

That and it had an entire hangar-sized room that put put a constant 10 Rads and had only a single exit not locked behind Hacker 3... Went through a lot of Stims and Radaway getting out of there, and spent a decent chunk of time overencumbered and searching for a workbench, because there was no way I was leaving all that loot behind even if that did mean getting massively irradiated and shot to bits.

I think that actually raises an interesting gameplay element as well; with dungeons being more demanding and loot and scavenging being way more important than previously, there's a nice risk/reward and return-on-investment layer to proceedings. If you blast through a dungeon and don't really find much of value in the first half of the area, do you back out and cut your losses of supplies, knowing you could spend another 20 minutes in here and still not find anything worthwhile, or do you press on in the hope that there's a mother lode of good stuff around the next corner? I guess to some extent that was there before, but it definitely feels more pronounced now, as the good stuff isn't just collected in one chest at the end of the dungeon as FO4 tended to do.

I tried to get there and almost got close enough to touch the cooling tower. But only almost. Damn distractions along the way!

I went through Charleston and into a mining company HQ, though. Kinda smallish but with its share of Scorched and toxic water. Notably the Scorched there were second tier versions with level 10 guns, so I assume that's also the case in the power plant. Those pump action shotguns sure can put the hurt on you, especially if your best armor is starting area leather. Exploring the building att levels 11 to 13, I did end up doing most of my healing with food, though. Barely used any stimpaks at all. I found the bigger issue with all the hacking and slashing was that my machete almost broke, with no workbench inside to fix it. I had to rely on one found on the Scorched halfway through. Luckily that one was higher level, so I only lost the bleeding effect on mine, but precious little overall damage.

The biggest revelation was just how detrimental radiation is, at least on low levels. Those 10 rads per second add up quickly and I had to go through three or four pools to get anywhere, including one time I had to stand in there to read a terminal. Realistically I should have just taken Rad-X, but Fallout 4 has had a bad influence on me and I kind of forgot the stuff even exists. And you know what? I like it. Radiation didn't play much of a role in Fallout 4. Like, you had to work really hard to get a tan. After the first game when NPCs tried to convince me the Glowing sea was a big deal and I should bring along serious protection, well, I didn't even bother anymore. Ran around the Glowing Sea naked because it really wasn't that bad. Fallout 76 restores some meaning to radiation. It's not dire in day to day activities, but you keep accumulating it because of the need for food and water and not much in the way of protective geear available at the start, but going into an actual, irradiated area can become a serious issue. It's a really nice change.

The respawn mechanic is interesting, too. I can't say for sure because I only witnessed it peripherally, but it seems towards the end someone else entered the same building I was in and the Scorched respawned. And because it was late and I wasn't thinking straight, I had to go through them again only to find that I was going the wrong way right after killing the last Scorched. Nice thing though is that that netted me a couple of new mods from scrapping their shotguns, so along with the extra XP that wasn't a waste of time or resources.

I think this is a good way to keep players going, too. It makes exploration a little more worthwhile (at least in the beginning. I obviously can't speak for higher levels) because any kind of haul has a fair chance of justifying the resources spent during exploration. I'm pretty sure there's a chest at the end of every dungeon with better loot, though. So far my red chest of awesomeness rate has been 100% abd the ast one gave me my first piece of metal armor (a chest piece). Along with the quest reward and a Fatman (that I can't use yet) I found somewhere in the last room (may have been the big chest, but again I was tired on only found it in my inventory afterwards, so no clear idea of origin) I think they're still trying to entice people to see a dungeon through to the end.

I find that being weighed down isn't all that terrible indoors. Cross country travel gets tedious when you run out of AP all the time. Inside, though, I hardly ever got the feeling that I was weighed down because I frequently stopped to pick up some more stuff and going even greater distances later on was no issue because of the limited size of the building.

So is anyone actually still playing this game? There are enough reviews out at this point to basically confirm that the game is a giant gak show. It will be interesting to watch what Bethesda does moving forward for this game, maybe when it's in the bargain bin and they have fixed all of the major bugs I may pick it up to kill some time exploring the world but I just don't see myself purchasing it under any other circumstance, which is sad, this may be the first Fallout game I don't own. (And I own the Brotherhood of Steel game to put that in perspective)

 vonjankmon wrote:
So is anyone actually still playing this game? There are enough reviews out at this point to basically confirm that the game is a giant gak show. It will be interesting to watch what Bethesda does moving forward for this game, maybe when it's in the bargain bin and they have fixed all of the major bugs I may pick it up to kill some time exploring the world but I just don't see myself purchasing it under any other circumstance, which is sad, this may be the first Fallout game I don't own. (And I own the Brotherhood of Steel game to put that in perspective)

I am still playing it, and enjoying the crap out of it

Still a lot of other players in the servers as well. I put about as much stock in reviews these days as I would those posts on Facebook that tell me how shocked I am going to be about something. No point in wasting time trying to sift through all the review bombs and the people unhappy because Bethesda didn't do what THEY wanted Bethesda to do. Ill just drop the $60 that I have planned to spend since the game was announced anyway and make up my own mind.

Don't get me wrong, the game is not without its flaws, the biggest for me so far has been that bodies will disappear sometimes as I am running up to loot them so I don't get any loot, but overall I have really enjoyed it so far. Hell, the environment and locations themselves have been worth it. I know I am not changing anyone's mind about the game, but I feel I got my 60$ worth.

Anyway, I am up to level 21 now and plan to get it for my 13 y/o son when he gets his Xbox for Christmas so we can roam the wastes together.

 vonjankmon wrote:
So is anyone actually still playing this game? There are enough reviews out at this point to basically confirm that the game is a giant gak show. It will be interesting to watch what Bethesda does moving forward for this game, maybe when it's in the bargain bin and they have fixed all of the major bugs I may pick it up to kill some time exploring the world but I just don't see myself purchasing it under any other circumstance, which is sad, this may be the first Fallout game I don't own. (And I own the Brotherhood of Steel game to put that in perspective)

It has some presence still with some streamers/youtubers, but even the ones that really like it trip over bugs and issues, and comment on some of the abject failures of basic multiplayer functionality. (Though some of that will supposedly be fixed- like push to talk, and maybe issues if a group member loses connection, they can't get back into the same game session with you unless someone else logs out by happenstance). The ability to lose progress when you log out doesn't help either.

That said, 'bargain bin' pricing is a big question since they're only selling it directly (not steam or gog or whatever). For the parent company, ESO didn't take off until they went free to play, put it on steam and started spamming expansion material. Free to play is likely out, but I do think they need to come up with some sort of monetization scheme, content to draw people in, and a wider sales base.

Voss wrote:
That said, 'bargain bin' pricing is a big question since they're only selling it directly (not steam or gog or whatever). For the parent company, ESO didn't take off until they went free to play, put it on steam and started spamming expansion material. Free to play is likely out, but I do think they need to come up with some sort of monetization scheme, content to draw people in, and a wider sales base.

Beta Keys for Starfield and Elder Scrolls 6?

Depends what type of game they are. If they're actually a return to single-player exploration games, probably not. If they're going to follow in the footsteps of 76 or ESO, yeah.


But both are way too far in the future to attach beta keys to any sort of 76 content. Even if this game has a long lifecycle planned, I doubt it will be that long.

I took the week off to play 76, but got sick from the little nurglings in the process. The time that I have played, 40+ hours, have been great. The game has bugs but I dont mind them, even playing the game overburdened for the majority of it.

There is no point in going wanted, unless you can take their junk and store it before they kill you. I've had numerous run ins with people outside of events during normal exploration and giving them supplies and the heart emote. I've only engaged in PVP once but being overburden hindered the process. It really feels like everyone is trying to work together for the most part.

Traps and landmines are complete trash and dont work at all which either make you wanted when someone steps on one or doesnt kill an enemy right away.

The story is interesting enough so far, its just enough to keep you going. The side missions are great, love them all. There is some bugs where you either dont have your missions load in you they are from the last checkpoint. Reloading can fix this but I just start where the mission is and get the extra XP.

The XP system seems off, I gained 3 levels the other day within an hour killing stuff 10 levels higher than me, but fighting stuff around my level it can take me a whole night to gain a level.

I would recommend the game to a Fallout fan, but the average game probably not.

I bought the game on Wednesday, and performance was fine for the first hour in the Vault and en route to Flatwoods. But now the framerate has tanked.

Turns out I need a new processor.

I don't know about reviews as I only read people's opinions on them rather than the reviews itself, but it sounds like some points are invented to make the game look worse, which seems silly because there are already plenty of legitimate issues with Fallout 76 and Bethesda and they really don't need much help to make themselves look bad.

Generally though, I think the game is enjoyable and perfectly playable if you are into the aspects that do work. Exploration and quests are fun and learning new lore is definitely worth spending your time on (unless you're one of them curmudgeonly only old lore is good lore types). There are some things that seem jarring to me like caravans from Fallout 4 being copied one for one with a Protectron trader, pack Brahmin, and two Eyebot guards which I didn't find very immersive, but generally I had a lot of fun expanding my view on the setting so far. With the disclaimer that I'm slow and only around level 25 so far, so that assessment may change.

The survival part is for the most part ok, though personally I don't find the food and water drain rate particularly immersive. It doesn't seem like I have two or three meals a day and more that I stuff myself whenever and wherever needed. Maybe I'm not the right person for survival mechanics, though. The two things Bethesda has completely backwards though are irradiation from picking up water and the stash limit. I am a fan of making radiation hazardous and a real concern, but the implementation of picking up irradiated water to cause some of the most significant radiation damage you have to put up with is in my opinion very flawed. Protective gear should help, but you don't find that early on. So the alternative is Rad-X, only it's a reasonable valuable item so you're not going to take any unless you plan on using it to good effect. Which in my case has led to using the ten minute duration to pick up 2000 bottles of dirty water instead of the 30 or 40 I needed at the time. The alternative would have been to waste most of the Rad-X, which is counter to the core idea of survival. You don't waste a precious resource, and making the game mechanics so that you are encouraged to do that seems counter-intuitive to me.

Which brings me to the stash limit. The real issue with picking up those 2000 bottles isn't that you sit around a river for 10 minutes and frantically tap the same key, it's that when you are done you can't boil the water, bring along what you need and stash the rest. The stash limit is completely non-functional past level 15 and does not mesh with the design of the game's core mechanics. You are encouraged to loot anything and everything. You get quest rewards aplenty and you are able to dress fancy and take selfies, and are thus encouraged to keep around any number of outfits and other fashionable equipment. You can dismantle items for rarer components and at the same time get drowned in common components. Except you have a stash limit that let's you keep just enough stuff so you can do emergency repairs to the equipment you are carrying, with precious little room on top of that to keep your little treasures or hoard rare materials you don't need at the time but know will come in handy later on. In addition to being bad design in general, it's completely ass backwards as a survival mechanic. Survival is marked by scarcity and making the best use of what little you have, hoping to one day get to a point where you are so good and well stocked that you can live comfortably. Fallout 76 turns this on its head. It's a world of abundance where you can find everything you need easily as long as you look long enough, with no fear or deprivation or negative consequences when you run out and can't restock immediately. The only thing that stops you from keeping everything around is an artificial stash limit. Basically, Fallout 76 is not a survival game because the world puts hardship on you, but because you do that all by yourself. Completely voluntarily. And that, as far as I'm concerned, makes it a complete failure as a survival game and a silly endeavor to play it as such.

It's not like you can't just do as I do either. All that crap you would stash, you can just carry that around with you. The consequences for this are marginal. You can't sprint or fast travel. You get slowed down occasionally. And you lose all your junk if you die, though it is retrievable and as opposed to if you throw it away because of stash limits, all the time you don't die you have way more resources handy at a moment's notice. And as far as I can see, there is no real limit to how much you can keep on your person, which highlights just how dumb the stash limit is.

So I'd say as long as you like exploration and shooting or stabbing stuff, you can get a lot of enjoyment out of the game even now. If you are looking for a survival experience, you'll likely be disappointed.

PVP isn't something I care for, but I will say that at least on PC there seems to be a majority of people who want to do their thing in peace or band together, which suits me fine. I don't really see much point in PVP and the game would be fine without it. The only game mechanic it would influence is contesting public workshops, but those are pretty pointless anyway. Woohoo, you have considerable resource production at your disposal so you can get everything you ever dreamed of, except you don't have room stash it and all that ever accomplished is you spend time sitting around and produce something you'll immediately throw away! Great job, Bethesda! Awesome game mechanic!

Bugs, well. Bethesda's games have bugs on release. Online games have bugs on release. Normal game studios do beta tests to minimize that. Bethesda doesn't. Doesn't take a genius to foresee the condition the game would be in on release. Me, I can say that I was lucky with bugs and the worst I had was having to log in three times to get my quests back, along with some disconnects and two or three items disappearing from my camp. Seems other people have more game breaking issues than that. The real issue is that this is all down to Bethesda's attitude. I'm one of the people who did not use the community patches for their single player games, and it's very apparent how little Bethesda tries to iron out bugs from release to final version. The problem with an always online multiplayer game is that this attitude just doesn't fly. They can't rely on modders to fix their game for them, but apparently don't care to do it themselves. And look, shock horror, the game is bugged and people complain. Who would have thought?

One thing the game is definitely not is an RPG and you will probably not have a good time playing it if that's what you're looking for.Even if you aren't a fan of Fallout 4 and think its RPG elements there were toned down too much, you get a persistent world and a persistent character with a basic ability to define your character at the start of the game and then develop those strengths and live with the weakness throughout the game. Fallout 76 doesn't have that. Your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. starts at one point each, so the moment you create your character, you don't have a character. Just a blank page you can develop in whichever direction you want, which breaks immersion pretty hard for an adult person that was elected because of or grew up among those chosen to survive because they where deemed exceptional individuals capable of rebuilding a nation. You add to that the ability to swap perks at will and you get a character that is fluid in nature and is only defined by the player's ability to limit themselves, not through the character's own limitations. Now you throw that character into an environment that resets every time you log off and you lose much of what makes an RPG. I'd also throw in the ability to respawn after you die and then go to the spot you died and pick up your stuff. In a world where you are mostly alone, it's hard to roleplay this as getting rescued from the brink of death and nursed back to health, which would be a compromise in a game that emphasizes the story but also allows convenient gameplay elements like respawn. Instead you just pop up near where you died and have to pretend that that didn't happen, in spite of going back and grabbing you stuff. It's not great for immersion.

I haven't yet played with teammates, so I don't know if there are any issues there.

My take on Fallout 76 at this point is that the game is playable and you can have a lot of fun with the things that do work, provided you are looking to play that way, but the game has lots of issues that you (or Bethesda) can't just handwave away and that need to be addressed down the line.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
I bought the game on Wednesday, and performance was fine for the first hour in the Vault and en route to Flatwoods. But now the framerate has tanked.

Turns out I need a new processor.

As someone with a computer that isn't the best anymore either I find low settings on everything with view distance of half the slider gives me a smooth game with very infrequent and short (less than a second) lags. It may not be as pretty as higher settings, especially some textures, but I got used to it and the world still looks immersive and vistas look pretty, even if it lacks in fine detail.

But you'd better believe that I'd rather play on low graphics than play a slideshow. One of those I can live with. The other, not so much.

For reference, automatic detection found both my CPU and GPU lacking.

I don't have much experience with online games, but I suspect not all of the issues I experienced while zeroing in on the settings that work for me were down to my computer's specs. I suspect Fallout 76 could use some more optimization.