I can't wait until we can get some mods that bring some of this new FO76 stuff into Fallout 4. The new Power Armors and that 10mm SMG would be cool additions. From what I've read, you can load the new textures for the Power Armors (the textures that you have to pay for in the atom store) on the Power Armor in Fallout 4. At least that's what some guy on Reddit did and was able to show what those textures/paintjobs look like.
Still no word on using the mesh files yet, though.
So I have been playing almost non-stop for three days. (Am also baby sitting my puppy who had knee surgery) I am now level 51. I think I am up to over 60 hours now.
Story: (There are no spoilers below.)
I feel that I have barely scratched the surface of uncovering the overall story. What I had found is actually quite compelling.
Believe or not, no NPCs might make for a better story in the end, hear me out. Lets compare this to Fallout 4. In Fallout 4, if you follow the main story, you can beat the whole game in just about 3-6 hours. Why, because the companions and other NPCs hold your hand the whole way. Hell, you are made a general over all the minute men simply because you showed up an saved four people. I mean how desperate was Preston! The NPCs in FO4 force feed you the story the whole way.
Instead in Fallout 76 you end up reading more of the story in terminals. It actually feels more like old-school Fallout in this regard. If you hate reading terminals, then you will probably miss a lot of the story and be confused by some of the aspects of the game world. However, if you do read them, you find a lot of subtext to the story, much more than FO4 ever had. And some of it directly relates to the fact that everyone in the world is working to re-build. This mean all those other players in the world with you are actually working together, even if they are not directly interacting.
The world:
Lets talk about the world itself. It really is huge, and quite dense. The different biomes in the game really give a different feel to the various areas. Think of how awesome it was to first visit the glowing sea in Fallout 4. Now imagine those areas are nearly the size of the FO4 map. After all this time playing, I still haven't even visited about three quarters of the map, let alone done quests and story missions in those areas. In FO4, I probably would have been to every location in the game a few times over by this point. Bethesda did a very good job of ensuring that almost every area marked on the map is unique in some way.
Multiplayer with strangers:
So far I have not encountered a single bad player. Even when I hunted down a few wanted players. More on that later.
Meeting another player goes like this: You see them, you say hi on the mic, if they don't reply you wave. Without push to talk many turn off their mic, and I don't blame them. I have it on because my headset has a button on the side for mute. However, when you do encounter someone with a mic, it can be amazing. You ask them if they need anything. So far most players I have encountered just want to be lone wanders, and respect it if you want to do that also. A few times you end up running along side folks who are doing the same mission, it is easy to join up with them temporarily, and then part way afterwards.
Playing with friends:
I have played about 90% of my time as a lone wanderer. And the game feels like any Fallout game to me. Explore, loot, repeat.
Playing with friends is a bit of a mixed bag. Playing with friends is at times amazing, and at other times a bit frustrating. Herding cats cats comes to mind. When everyone is focused on the same task, things actually can be a bit too easy. However, everyone has to repeat the same steps, which can lead to some issue with having to wait for someone to access a terminal, or having someone backtrack because they missed a step. Many of the missions are setup for multiple players, with multiple parallel tasks, however everything I have encountered can be completed by one person. Even an event which required swapping two key cards within three seconds of each other.
I will say that playing with just two players can be better than four. Just less time waiting for everyone to scrap, craft, catch up. With a buddy focused on the same task, and watching your back, it is amazing fun.
Being Wanted:
I have been wanted only once so far. It was for the crime of opening a tool case too close to someone's workshop. I spent the next four hours running around in fear. Once you can't see everyone on the map, and someone could come from anywhere, it is actually quite nerve racking. Even if the only thing that happens is you get shot. What happened: Someone showed up and kindly asked if I wanted to lose my wanted status, he let me put away my items, and remove my armor, then killed me. I saw the same player a few times later, and he helped defend my workshop even.
Once they do private servers, I would love to play on a "hardcore" server, where players don't actually show up on the map. However, I do get why they put people on the map, so you can avoid or find people as you desire.
Hunting wanted players:
I now search the map periodically for wanted players. Hunting them down and trying to get close enough to say "Hands up!" is actually quite fun. I have actually only managed to hunt down two wanted players. Both of them were wanted for similar reasons as myself.
The first, one I hunted down I did the same as the guy who hunted me. I asked if he wanted me to help him out, and he said yes. He got shot and we parted ways.
The second one I hunted down was a bit more fun. He had wanted level 30, so I figured he did something bad. (It turned out he accidentally shot the fence at someone's camp setup near his workshop). In either case, as a high level player with a cloak, I snuck on him as he was fighting off enemies. I knew he had audio on, as he was playing with speakers pumping back into his mic. I asked if he wanted help getting rid of his wanted. But instead of replying, he started looking for me, and then when I put one shot into him, he fast traveled back to his workshop. Then started the exciting mission of hunting him down again.
I managed to sneak past all his defenses and get right behind him. This time I gave him only a instant of warning, before shooting him. I think he was surprised more than anything, as at first he was quite angry. (That I did it in his base) Then he explained his bounty, and we parted ways. Despite the outcome, the actual act of tracking someone down gets your adrenaline up. Mostly because you have no idea how they will react, totally different that hunting a boss or other creature.
Currently i plan on hunting down any wanted player I see on the map.
Nukes:
I haven't even encountered one yet. I have a half dozen codes, but still no idea how to even launch them. (Please, no spoilers, I will find out eventually). I figure they will become more common over time as people learn how to launch them, but still rare simply because the codes are randomly spread over the map.
C.A.M.P.ing:
Yes, the workshop budget is way too low to build a massive fortress. But it is also too low to build even a modestly decorated camp. However, it is great to build a more lore friendly shack in the woods. Your camp will be attacked randomly as you revisit it, mostly with low level enemies.
Random encounters:
There are still plenty of completely random encounters with vendors, and unique robot characters. Two of them below in spoiler text:
Out in the middle of the woods, I hear some marching music. I started to try to track it down. What I came across was a Pied Piper eye-bot with a half dozen rats following him. 100% random, totally funny.
The second random encounter was visiting my camp, and then finding a Mr. Handy and a Ms. Nanny, stuck in a infinite conversation loop. They were saying some funny crap, but never stopping or moving on. I shot them after they go through their fourth loop of dialog.
Vats:
I never really used VATS in Fallout 4. I didn't like that it paused the action. I always considered myself to be a good manual aim player, and I never use auto-aim assist in any game before. I even turn off the center cursor, and use iron sights or a scope to be more authentic. And I still do that in Fallout 76. However, I am also very much enjoying the new vats system. I have a high perception and agility character, and it is satisfying to use vats to walk into a room and clear off five enemies in less than two seconds flat, all with a revolver. It feels a bit like a old western movie in that regard. (I have perk cards that aid with all this)
Perk cards:
These make the game very customizable to your character. I have my character setup for non-automatic rifles and pistols. I have friends setup for energy weapons or defense. Others working towards 100% power armor builds. Just be careful with your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. arrangement, although they had said that re-specing will be possible.
Bugs:
There are plenty of bugs, floating objects, and other issues. Bethesda probably could have used a few more months of testing on this. But the world is huge, and so it would be impossible to find every in-world bug.
So far I have no encountered a single crash to desktop, although I have had friends experience it. I have had lag in areas with water, or too dense of objects, but nothing too serious.
The bad:
The workshop limit is too low to build much more than the basics. The stash limit can be raised a bit, but that will just delay horders. A huge part of the game is supposed to be about needing something, then going out in search of that resource. After all this time, my stash hovers between 350lbs and completely full. I have at least 100 qty of most materials, and discard the rest. With a low workshop budget, you really only need materials for crafting weapons, armor, and other player items. What really needs to happen is sorting stash by combined weight, not individual part weight, so I can figure out that it is the 60 missiles I have acquired that are taking up all my space.
Frame rate lag. I am running a GTX 1070 16GB, and a i7 processor. Most of the time the game is buttery smooth, even during even fights. However, if a fight occurs in an area with water, or lots of objects (rendering and physics) I do get lag, not necessarily in the frame rate, but in the animation of characters. Where manually aimed shots don't connect. My only saving grace is that vats works great here.
They have to fix the push to talk to allow more people to actively use the audio. And they need to add directional audio, currently a play 300 feet away comes over your headset like they were in teamspeak.
Skipping this Fallout:
If your are skipping this game due to what you see on review / youtube / twitch. Or what you read online, well I just feel bad that your missing out. I would say unless you can only buy one game this year, give it a shot.
I do hope once they allow for private servers, that people can setup more lore friendly environments. I personally want to play on a server that requires microphones to play, has no player icons on the map, such that encountering a player becomes a real random encounter.
If your are skipping this game due to what you see on review / youtube / twitch. Or what you read online, well I just feel bad that your missing out. I would say unless you can only buy one game this year, give it a shot.
I am skipping this game because it is not solo-only. I do not want to play with other people. I do not want real people anywhere on my map. I don't want to run into anyone, ever. And this review makes it even worse because one of the best things about FO4 was being able to build sprawling settlements. Take that away and that's even one less reason to bother with this thing.
I am skipping this game because it is not solo-only. I do not want to play with other people. I do not want real people anywhere on my map. I don't want to run into anyone, ever. And this review makes it even worse because one of the best things about FO4 was being able to build sprawling settlements. Take that away and that's even one less reason to bother with this thing.
You have literally come in this thread, on an online forum where you interact with other people, to complain over and over that you don't want to get online and interact with other people, and you have spent more time doing that than you would spend interacting with other people in fallout 76. You're so bitter about this game that you're making yourself "play" all the parts you think you'll hate about it, without actually seeing any of the enjoyable bits.
I guess I should note just how rare is it to encounter other players. With a good mix of low/mid/high level players in a server, you won't see people very often. I have gone entire six hour play sessions without encountering anyone. But I understand if you want that to be impossible instead of rare.
Most of the time they are just heading to their own missions and a lot of the time only a wave gesture is exchanged. This was true even on missions where I was just ahead or just behind someone on the same mission. People so far have been very respectful of lone wanderers. During one mission I was in the same room as another player, I asked what portion of the mission he was on, and it was the same as myself. Than the mission split into three sub-missions. I told him I was heading toward point A, and he said he was heading toward point C. We did this so we didn't end up in the same spot again.
Being able to see the other players on the map helps. You can open you mission list and see if that area is populated, and pick another mission in another area where no one is located.
So, the thing that I dislike the most is that when you're teamed up with someone and running a quest it's more like you're running it in tandem than together. If the quest requires you to listen to a holotape, then cook a thing, then interact with a terminal, you each individually have to follow the steps involved. It's not terrible, but it isn't very elegant either. The other night my wife and I were both listening to the same holotape at the same time for the same quest, but it was effectively like playing single player content in a shared world.
The public events work better for multiple players, but they are limited in scope from what I've seen so far.
Still, we're having fun with it now that the patch has hit and my Xbox isn't crashing every time I load a holotape.
huh, I guess it works differently for events, those are the only things I've done teamed up, and we each earned progress based on what the other person did.
I have played the BETA and got the Power Armour Edition (XBox1S) and the Pip-Boy kit. So far the game has been pretty stable with no real glitches and no real interaction with other players but those that were turned out positive.
An example was building a quick CAMP near Riverside Manor to scrap and cook and a similar level player came along and commented that it was not a great location on audio. I had my mic turned off but before I could respond he dropped off a bag of supplies and wandered off!
The PIP-Boy kit was fairly intricate to assemble and looks good when completed. More importantly it actually fits my arm when finished unlike the Fallout 4 PIP-Boy. No electronics at all and cries out for some working Nixie tubes under the grill and a working screen but there is plenty of room inside for those and seems set up to allow them to be added during construction.
The Power Armour helmet is impressive but could do with a better paint job to add realism as a display piece. Overall worth the money asked and fits even my huge melon OK!
huh. I'm probably 10+ hours of game-play into it, and I've barely scratched the surface of what the game has to offer as far as quests, weapons, gear, abilities, and enemies; and the entire right side of my screen is covered in possible quests for me to go do, and I've gotten to make a nice cozy little bunker for all my base and building needs. I've yet to run out of room in my stash, and no one has tried to shoot me in the back of the head, so I'm having a grand time.
The only 2 things I'd add are a text interface for speaking to folks within range of you, since I've yet to run into anyone with a mic, and it's impossible to ask "hey want to go knock this one thing out real quick?" without one, and about 40-50% more folks per map if they want grouping up to happen more.
Reviewers these days are under a huge time constraint to play the game, and get a review out before the other guys. If you rush through this game, without any feel for exploration and making your own adventure, then it probably isn't very fun. Gathering materials and building the right character takes time. As far as I am concerned the people who are playing only to farm for the biggest power armor, most legendary loot, or most mutations are not gamers, they are pure horders.
I like what one person posted on reddit, that the ******** will hopefully self-select themselves out of the game.
Although last night I had my first encounter with what I would call a semi-toxic player. It was some level 150 guy who launched a nuke, and spent the whole time running around the nuke area, bitching that people were taking too much of "His" materials and kills. The other 15 of us in the nuke area were just playing for fun, and grouping up to fight the hordes that spawned. Playing exactly as the game was designed.
I think once they add push to talk, more people will turn on their mic. I doubt they will ever add text chat, simply because I bet they want to base source code to be the same for all platforms.
Well, I'm glad folks are having fun. The internet sure is going to town on this. From a neutral stand point, it's hard to get an accurate read on how this game really is. I still haven't got a chance to play yet. I did receive my Power Armor Edition, but when I ordered the only thing left at the time was for Xbox One, which I do not have. Essentially, I bought it for the helmet. Having nearly completed my first T-51 helmet build, I regret getting the PA Edition. I tried to cancel my preorder, but it was too late apparently (despite the fact that the game still didn't arrive for days after the launch date). I was hoping to use the refund money to buy the PC version, but since I got shafted on that, I'm without a PC copy. And with the holidays looming, and a wife and two kids to buy gifts for (among others), I don't have the cash to buy myself a sixty dollar game.
dude, if you don't want the helmet, drop that whole set of stuff you ordered on the ebays for some after market cash. It's not like they're still selling the power armor editions, right? That'll more than make up what you need to buy a regular edition of whatever system you want, and probably then some.
Side note; I now have my own water purifier, and that makes me happy.
dude, if you don't want the helmet, drop that whole set of stuff you ordered on the ebays for some after market cash. It's not like they're still selling the power armor editions, right? That'll more than make up what you need to buy a regular edition of whatever system you want, and probably then some.
Side note; I now have my own water purifier, and that makes me happy.
eBay's littered with em'. Anyhow, screw it, I'll just keep it. I mean, I'm gonna have to wait to get the PC copy anyways. Might as well wait with a power armor helmet.
Speaking of Power Armor helmets, did anyone notice that the voice changer sounds identical to the Sentry Bots from FO3/NV? I was kind blown that it didn't make your voice sound like it does in the Power Armor from FO4, but I guess that would be something nice to shoot for as an upgrade.
I wonder if anybody will paint theirs. I'm glad I have my version, so I can do as many paint jobs as I want (and can reasonably afford). Like this one (w.i.p.):
Well, it's also incomplete, so yeah, I haven't grimed it up yet. But I will.
Also, while I won't claim the red is a perfect match, they most certainly do use a darker red for this one. An important thing to remember for screen accuracy concerns, is that this was actually the Vim Cola helmet first. They simply recycled the texture from the Vim helmet for the Nuka Cola one.
Now, I can understand wanting to use the hue of red more commonly used with the Nuka Cola logo, which is a brighter red. Similar to our discussion of the Vault Tec paintjob from FO4. The paint job should have in reality been with cobalt blue, but it wasn't and to use it would not be screen accurate (or at least close to it). It's sorta one of those deals where it is what it is.
Ironically, the Vault Tec paint scheme in FO76 is the more common Vault Tec hue of colors. Looks pretty sweet, too.
I'm torn on getting this now because PC Gamer said it dropped to $36. Part of me says to go for it and the other says if that few people are playing that they dropped the price a second time in a couple weeks, it may not be around as long as they intend.
