Fallout 76 - online Fallout spinoff from Bethesda - now on Steam with Wastelanders NPC expansion

[Kyl Von Kull]

Who knows, has Zenimax released anything particularly popular in the last couple of years? Prey didn’t sell too great, the latest Wolfenstein sold a lot less than its predecessor, Dishonored is on hiatus after 2 and Death of the Outsider didn’t perform particularly well. I know all the Skyrim re-releases are pure profit, but they have to keep the lights on at a lot of different studios: BGS in Maryland, Austin and Canada, Arkane, Id, and I’m sure I’m missing others. I guess TES online probably helps rake in the cash flow.

But the Zenimax family has been growing very rapidly, buying new studios and opening lots of new offices in recent years. What do they have to show for it? Arguably Skyrim and F4 could keep them running for ages and they made a bundle from the Oculus lawsuit, but if the owners have been paying themselves dividends the company might be more cash poor than you’d expect.

F76 feels like Todd throwing management a bone—a cheap cash grab ahead of the holidays. But Zenimax isn’t a public company, they shouldn’t need to release cheap cash grabs to help boost the numbers for 2018, and certainly not in this totally unfinished state. These guys, more than any other player in the industry, should have the leeway to delay a game a few months so the release isn’t a total clusterfuck. But maybe they have less leeway than we think.

We can only hope.

 

[Gerrard]

:tno:

It's like a metaphor for the bethesda fanbase.

"Players instead of NPCs" was the best metaphor. Todd is a mememaster.

 

[moon knight]

Who knows, has Zenimax released anything particularly popular in the last couple of years? Prey didn’t sell too great, the latest Wolfenstein sold a lot less than its predecessor, Dishonored is on hiatus after 2 and Death of the Outsider didn’t perform particularly well. I know all the Skyrim re-releases are pure profit, but they have to keep the lights on at a lot of different studios: BGS in Maryland, Austin and Canada, Arkane, Id, and I’m sure I’m missing others. I guess TES online probably helps rake in the cash flow.

But the Zenimax family has been growing very rapidly, buying new studios and opening lots of new offices in recent years. What do they have to show for it? Arguably Skyrim and F4 could keep them running for ages and they made a bundle from the Oculus lawsuit, but if the owners have been paying themselves dividends the company might be more cash poor than you’d expect.

F76 feels like Todd throwing management a bone—a cheap cash grab ahead of the holidays. But Zenimax isn’t a public company, they shouldn’t need to release cheap cash grabs to help boost the numbers for 2018, and certainly not in this totally unfinished state. These guys, more than any other player in the industry, should have the leeway to delay a game a few months so the release isn’t a total clusterfuck. But maybe they have less leeway than we think.

We can only hope.

Dishonored 2 and Prey are great games tho. they didn't sell because of PC performance issues and lack of advertisement. But with Fallout 76 Zenimax has spent a lot in ads, I think.

 

[ZeniBot]

bullshit on Prey and Dishonoured not getting ads. They had billboards of that shit all over my hometown. None of that could've of been cheap.
Its more that none of the games they're producing are to what the market wants. Their games are advertised its just that its a very competitive market and unless you've got a star product that makes everyone take notice most people aren't going
to care. I think Zenimax is relying too heavily on their "reputation" at this point and aren't putting any resources into where things matter. Simply put, you cannot just sell something based on IP and Branding but that's exactly the strategy that Zenimax has been using. As such they're starting to have massive quality control issues not only with their games but also with their marketing campaigns. They don't know what products they have, they don't know what those products represent they have no fucking idea how the consumer is reacting to it because they're so used to just forcing shit down everyone's throats and once the intimidation effects of having powerful board members fades away, suddenly no ones coming to their rescue and its all turning to shit because no one is scared of them, no one likes them, no one cares if they go bust.

The very economy that Zenimax created with DLCs will ultimately be the very thing that kills them in the end. They created a monster that they've lost total control of now. Its only downhill going forward.

 

[Oracsbox]

Nice video balances rage and ridicule for 76
I hadn't realised they were charging money for content that was already in fallout 4 like the postman uniform ! :D

 

[Volrath]

Dishonored 2 and Prey are great games tho. they didn't sell because of PC performance issues and lack of advertisement. But with Fallout 76 Zenimax has spent a lot in ads, I think.

They're not great games at all. They're derivative dumbed down pieces of shit that were done better 20 years ago.

 

[Oracsbox]

Dishonored 2 and Prey are great games tho. they didn't sell because of PC performance issues and lack of advertisement. But with Fallout 76 Zenimax has spent a lot in ads, I think.

They're not great games at all. They're derivative dumbed down pieces of shit that were done better 20 years ago.

Agreed,adverts aplenty saw this shit everywhere,they didn't sell because they were average crap.I couldn't even get through the demo/trial of Disjointed 2 it instantly bored me.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I still fail to understand what does Dishonored have going for it for a player who beat the first two thief games when they were new.

 

[Metro]

I still fail to understand what does Dishonored have going for it for a player who beat the first two thief games when they were new.

Might as well ask what Thief 2 had going for it when you had already played the first Thief. Dishonored might be derivative but it's still an okay game by modern AAA standards. Although I sometimes forget some Codexers are fine with playing the same game fifteen times year-in and year-out.

 

[Oracsbox]

I still fail to understand what does Dishonored have going for it for a player who beat the first two thief games when they were new.

Nothing
It was trying to be a thief game but instead you was an assassin who was penalized if you killed people ! It's shit.
Too many games do this "you're a bad muthafucka" by the way don't kill anyone it's rude ! Wtf !

 

[Bigg Boss]

No Carpenter... No!

Dementia.

 

[Oracsbox]

No Carpenter... No!

Dementia.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Polygon published a piece titled “Fallout 76: four tips to enjoy the game in its current state,” and it almost reads like satire of games journalism.

Here’s my advice for finding a way forward in a troubled game, one that’s unlike anything the franchise has ever seen before.

Translation: my employer is holding a gun to my head and forcing me to give the game neutral-positive coverage.

Bethesda has extended the game’s tutorial well outside of Vault 76. You’ll still be learning about new systems even after you’ve marched two towns over. Most importantly, following along with the Overseer’s questline is a good way to learn recipes, and the only way you’ll learn how to interact with the game’s elaborate crafting systems.

The bottom line is that if you don’t do the work early on, eventually you’ll be stranded far from Vault 76 with a handful of low-level weapons on the verge of breaking and no idea how to get them fixed. Even worse, you’ll miss out on ways to make carrying around lots of loot easier and more efficient.

Translation: you’re totally fucked if you try to play this like a normal open-world game.

Once you do begin wandering off the beaten path, extracting the narrative of Fallout 76 can be a bit of a challenge. That’s because everyone in and around West Virginia, save for the other player characters wandering around alongside you, is dead. In fact, much of the game’s environmental storytelling requires that you become fluent in sorting through layers of different kinds of corpses.

Translation: you really have to exercise your imagination to pretend there’s any narrative here, but Polygon gets a lot of ad revenue from Zenimax...

My recommendation is to pump up your Perception stat at least every other level. Because of Fallout 76’s dodgy netcode, enemies are fairly hard to hit. Adding to the challenge of hitting a running target is the frame-y nature of the game’s underlying engine and some random number generation going on behind the scenes that can make you miss, even if your crosshair is over the target. All in all, there are plenty of reasons why you’ll rarely hit what you’re aiming at.

That’s where Perception comes in. It’s the key to getting more action points, which will allow you to spend more time with an assisted targeting system called VATS. Hitting the button for VATS doesn’t slow down time, like it did in previous games. But it will automatically lock onto your targets and give you a percentage chance to hit. It’s your only hope in chaotic, close-range encounters with packs of AI.

Translation: combat is utter dogshit, now how can I say this without getting blackballed by Bethesda?

One final note on the game’s social system. Even the most curmudgeonly haters (read: me) can get some benefit out of it. First things first, turn yourself to passive mode. That will minimize your chances of going to war with someone, and reduce the chance that you get killed and lose your place.

Second, just approach someone in the game and ask if you can create a party with them. There are several perks in the game, especially those associated with the Charisma stat, that only work if you’re grouped with another player.

Also, understand that the microphone sensitivity in the game is touchy. Even if you’re not in a party, either turn on push-to-talk or use an in-line mute button on your headset. Everyone else will thank you.

Finally, don’t feel compelled to be joined at the hip with other players. You can be on the other side of the map and still be in the same party and enjoying some of the benefits that parties can bring. Once you have someone on your friends list, you can also spawn on them. That has proven handy for me at times when the game crashes or when I die at the hands of the buggy, warping enemy AI.

Translation: at least the horrible multiplayer features can occasionally help you work around the horrible bugs.

There are no perfect games, and as it stands right now the experience of playing Fallout 76 can only get better. For fans of the Fallout universe, the important part is that there’s some worthwhile bits to be found in this awkward, multiplayer-only adventure. So quit complaining and go have some fun now, because once the hive mind moves on to the next hot thing the experience simply won’t be the same.

Translation: yes, the game is currently awful, but by the time Bethesda patches away the problems, it likely won’t have much of a player base anymore, so if you were hoping to play Fallout 76 with other people, this is your only chance.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.polygon.com/platform/amp/2018/11/24/18106919/fallout-76-solo-guide

 

[AwesomeButton]

Might as well ask what Thief 2 had going for it when you had already played the first Thief.

This analogy makes no sense at all. Dishonored obviously has multiple different mechanics, but they serve no purpose, and might just as well not have existed. The stealth is a heavily dumbed down, "streamlined" version of Thief's stealth, the assassinations are built around the "button - awesome" philosophy, and the "magic" is really built-in cheats with nice visual effects.

Multiple explanations for this overall dumbing down can be put forward, and the requirement that the game can be played on consoles is but one of them. Still, it's a major one, because it affects how the character moves, how responsive he is, etc. Thief / Thief II didn't suffer from this restriction.

It was trying to be a thief game but instead you was an assassin who was penalized if you killed people ! It's shit.
Too many games do this "you're a bad muthafucka" by the way don't kill anyone it's rude ! Wtf !

For me it wasn't the restriction on killing but how braindead simplistic the gameplay was.

 

[Child of Malkav]

From my understanding they are trying to continue the immersive sim design philosophy while making it more accessible to modern, well.....let's call them people for now. The problem is that, by streamlining, they dilute the formula a lot and they end up somewhere in the middle, not satisfying the old fans by going full old school and not satisfying new fans by making it easier to grasp or whatever.

Even if they were to release a high quality classic like DX 1 it would simply not sell. Why? No idea. For the same reason Prey and Dishonored didn't do well. But at the same time, Zelda Breath of the wild did good, idk how good but more than enough and that game had a lot of immersive sim elements and in an open world no less.

Maybe it's funds, maybe it's approach or maybe one good way to do it is to make a full AAA crap and then start introducing more and more immersive sim stuff until you end up with a really good sim but with AAA polish.

Idk. If I did I'd probably be working in the industry and making millions. Look at Bethesda, it's unbelievable, they make the same game, one in the past, one in the future using the same engine, same assets, same everything and they're making money even when they're failing.

Explain that and you have your answer.

 

[moon knight]

From my understanding they are trying to continue the immersive sim design philosophyr.

That's actually an intersting way of seeing the Bethesda games.

They are immersive sims. Where all the systems are broken.

It actually makes sense.

 

[Child of Malkav]

From my understanding they are trying to continue the immersive sim design philosophyr.

That's actually an intersting way of seeing the Bethesda games.

They are immersive sims. Where all the systems are broken.

It actually makes sense.

Should have been more clear. I wasn't referring to Bethseda, I was talking about Arkane Studios.

 

[Herrick]

Even if the game was bug free it still wouldn't look very interesting to play. It looks like it has the same subpar combat of the previous games with a crappier version of VATS. No NPCs was a bad move. I've no interest in an online version of Fallout where other players named ScroogeMcFuck69 are running around like chickens with their heads cut off.

Maybe if they released an offline version Super DLC-laden Game of the Year version then I'd buy it when it goes on sale for $5...maybe.

 

[Metro]

This analogy makes no sense at all. Dishonored obviously has multiple different mechanics, but they serve no purpose, and might just as well not have existed. The stealth is a heavily dumbed down, "streamlined" version of Thief's stealth, the assassinations are built around the "button - awesome" philosophy, and the "magic" is really built-in cheats with nice visual effects.

Multiple explanations for this overall dumbing down can be put forward, and the requirement that the game can be played on consoles is but one of them. Still, it's a major one, because it affects how the character moves, how responsive he is, etc. Thief / Thief II didn't suffer from this restriction.


For me it wasn't the restriction on killing but how braindead simplistic the gameplay was.

Let me know when you find a modern faithful adaptation of Thief, then. Closest thing I found was Mark of the Ninja but that's a 2D platformer. Point remains: obviously in a modern AAA game you are not going to get the depth of yesteryear.

 

[Nuclear Explosion]

I still fail to understand what does Dishonored have going for it for a player who beat the first two thief games when they were new.

Dishonored isn't a stealth game. It's closer to Deus Ex than to Thief. Deus Ex's stealth gameplay mechanics are also much simpler than Thief's are.

 

[Cael]

It's getting worse.

"On that note, there’s no effective way to opt out of player-vs-player (PvP) combat in the game. If someone starts attacking you, you’ll get cash rewards and take reduced damage, but eventually they’ll wear you down and kill you — and then take some of your stuff before you can respawn and recover it."

Yeah, this game is going to be a griefer's paradise.

 

[TheImplodingVoice]

Todd Howard in an interview very soon : "So we read online that a handful of people aren't happy with Fallout 76. And we heard you and not only did we hear you. We listened! As of today we are happy to announce that Fallout 76 will be free to play."

 

[Herrick]

It's getting worse.

"On that note, there’s no effective way to opt out of player-vs-player (PvP) combat in the game. If someone starts attacking you, you’ll get cash rewards and take reduced damage, but eventually they’ll wear you down and kill you — and then take some of your stuff before you can respawn and recover it."

Yeah, this game is going to be a griefer's paradise.

All right so I don't know a lot about Fallout Lore. That reviewer said, "Fans of the Fallout series of role-playing games know the vaults were less about surviving a nuclear holocaust and more about a twisted social experiment — one vault’s water chip was designed to break and there were no spare parts, another vault was full of clones of some poor sod named Gary, another vault was designed for the rich and famous, another one’s blast doors were rigged not to close, a handful of ‘control vaults’ were designed to actually work properly, you get the idea."

Are they talking about the water chip of Vault 13?

 

[LizardWizard]

Already a dupe, xp and infinite carry-weight glitches. They might as well just allow player mods at this point

 

[Turjan]

Already a dupe, xp and infinite carry-weight glitches. They might as well just allow player mods at this point

Have they done anything against players who use mods so far?