Cirtdear
Savant
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2020
- Messages
- 236
My review of Fallout 76.
Preface: I haven't played very many games regardless of genre, both singleplayer and multiplayer. I know even less about modern games are capable of. I do consider myself an expert on how badly the original Fallout series has been ignored/copied and how unfulfilling bethesda's games are from a replayability standpoint.
I got 76 out of curiosity and because there was a free trial going. It also helped they added human npcs with Wastelanders.
In total i've played around 20 hours of the game in just a couple days using the free trial through steam. I've never played before and am not certain exactly what content was added by Wastelanders or not. I have not beaten the game.
Fallout 76, as gameplay is concerned, is a modern Fallout Tactics. Instead of recruits from a recruit pool you have perk cards from a card deck you assemble. The game gifts you some extra cards once in while. Similar to how tactics would gift you new recruits.
As you level you get points you can spend on your SPECIAL card slots. The total of these points restrict how many cards you can have in a slot. You can mix different cards (many of which come in different tiers) as long as they match the same stat. It appears you can entirely respec at any time. But you must still invest in the cards you want in the first place by unlocking them after a level up.
Further, from a tactical point of view what 76 lacks in a proper character sheet it makes up for with the return of Fallout 4's crafting system.
SURPRISINGLY Fallout 76 puts Fallout 4 to shame in multiple ways: Its world is far bigger, its level design is far better, and the unexpected point that the quest design is more rpg friendly.
Unlike Fallout 4, not only do you have more things to get involved in but there is a lack of a forced logical order to do them. This results in being able to take an interest in one thing or the other at your leisure. It represents player choice in one way and consequence in another way: the way you choose to feed your progress into your other progress.
It is also apparent because quest chains have now been largely decoupled from each other, the npcs are far lessed forced into some larger plot and have the potential to have more subtlety within their own.
The dialog is better in 76 than some of Bethesdas previous Fallout games. This is likely because background circumstances are broadly more generic. Writers don't need to be as presumptous either and can actually focus just on the characters.
Fallout 76 is still limited like other MMOs. Nor is it the holy grail of online rpgs. It especially does not rise to the sophistication of a singleplayer CRPG. Which is why I began with comparing it to Fallout Tactics despite the fact 76 now has Human NPCs with "dialog trees" and Fallout Tactics does not.
Before I wrap up I want to point out the negatives.
-The overseer from your vault seems to be an implausible and impulsive person with way too many plans.
-Unkillable essential npcs. Bethesda still has not learned not to tease us with npcs that we can't kill.
-Lower levels in a PvP match can easily beat your higher level character. We're talking just a couple fresh out of the vault can destroy your 10+ higher level character.
-No chat system means no coordinating anything. Although the game does provide you a means to join events with others.
-The game will often scale enemy levels way up to match a player's in the area. Do not even try to visit such places if they are much higher than you. I propose some mitigation is necessary here.
-The game will most often spawn level 1s, 6s, and 9s. I don't know why but this has held as true up into my character's 20s.
-Scorched are 1/4 to 1/10 of the time to turnup frozen in place. It ironically helps fill in for the usual standing-burnt-corpses that are everywhere and normally serve that function.
-Rare but annoying when it happens, are invincible enemies. Don't even think about wasting your ammo. You'll get no XP. Usually these are also frozen in place and you can walk away.
-The input system harms an otherwise solid experience. From the customization of your character's appearance, to the strife of needing to pull up your pipboy in an emergency, to having no minimap/radar so you have to pull up a global map constantly, to the confusion over escape or tab key to exit out of a particular menu/gui, to settlement/c.a.m.p- building process being slower now that is is more keypress dependent for navigation.
-After you've been around long enough to get enough MISC category quests they will overflow ontop of your vital AP/health/food indicators.
-It's quite unpleasant if you don't have the caps (currency) to fast travel. You'll be forced to leave your body far behind if you don't have a nearby location discovered.
-The game won't recognize immediately you are no longer encumbered even if you are 5 pounds under your max. It seems to take a few minutes before it registers.
-Too little ammo of the type that matters. I survived but would have liked more use out of my weapons before inevitably switching between them.
Do I recommend buying the game? No. I can't. But you should consider it. Especially if you get it at a discount, need something to do, and don't mind losing 40 to 50 gigabytes of space.
Is it a real Fallout game? I can't say. There's too much left to do. I also can't know for sure without replaying it once.
Preface: I haven't played very many games regardless of genre, both singleplayer and multiplayer. I know even less about modern games are capable of. I do consider myself an expert on how badly the original Fallout series has been ignored/copied and how unfulfilling bethesda's games are from a replayability standpoint.
I got 76 out of curiosity and because there was a free trial going. It also helped they added human npcs with Wastelanders.
In total i've played around 20 hours of the game in just a couple days using the free trial through steam. I've never played before and am not certain exactly what content was added by Wastelanders or not. I have not beaten the game.
Fallout 76, as gameplay is concerned, is a modern Fallout Tactics. Instead of recruits from a recruit pool you have perk cards from a card deck you assemble. The game gifts you some extra cards once in while. Similar to how tactics would gift you new recruits.
As you level you get points you can spend on your SPECIAL card slots. The total of these points restrict how many cards you can have in a slot. You can mix different cards (many of which come in different tiers) as long as they match the same stat. It appears you can entirely respec at any time. But you must still invest in the cards you want in the first place by unlocking them after a level up.
Further, from a tactical point of view what 76 lacks in a proper character sheet it makes up for with the return of Fallout 4's crafting system.
SURPRISINGLY Fallout 76 puts Fallout 4 to shame in multiple ways: Its world is far bigger, its level design is far better, and the unexpected point that the quest design is more rpg friendly.
Unlike Fallout 4, not only do you have more things to get involved in but there is a lack of a forced logical order to do them. This results in being able to take an interest in one thing or the other at your leisure. It represents player choice in one way and consequence in another way: the way you choose to feed your progress into your other progress.
It is also apparent because quest chains have now been largely decoupled from each other, the npcs are far lessed forced into some larger plot and have the potential to have more subtlety within their own.
The dialog is better in 76 than some of Bethesdas previous Fallout games. This is likely because background circumstances are broadly more generic. Writers don't need to be as presumptous either and can actually focus just on the characters.
Fallout 76 is still limited like other MMOs. Nor is it the holy grail of online rpgs. It especially does not rise to the sophistication of a singleplayer CRPG. Which is why I began with comparing it to Fallout Tactics despite the fact 76 now has Human NPCs with "dialog trees" and Fallout Tactics does not.
Before I wrap up I want to point out the negatives.
-The overseer from your vault seems to be an implausible and impulsive person with way too many plans.
-Unkillable essential npcs. Bethesda still has not learned not to tease us with npcs that we can't kill.
-Lower levels in a PvP match can easily beat your higher level character. We're talking just a couple fresh out of the vault can destroy your 10+ higher level character.
-No chat system means no coordinating anything. Although the game does provide you a means to join events with others.
-The game will often scale enemy levels way up to match a player's in the area. Do not even try to visit such places if they are much higher than you. I propose some mitigation is necessary here.
-The game will most often spawn level 1s, 6s, and 9s. I don't know why but this has held as true up into my character's 20s.
-Scorched are 1/4 to 1/10 of the time to turnup frozen in place. It ironically helps fill in for the usual standing-burnt-corpses that are everywhere and normally serve that function.
-Rare but annoying when it happens, are invincible enemies. Don't even think about wasting your ammo. You'll get no XP. Usually these are also frozen in place and you can walk away.
-The input system harms an otherwise solid experience. From the customization of your character's appearance, to the strife of needing to pull up your pipboy in an emergency, to having no minimap/radar so you have to pull up a global map constantly, to the confusion over escape or tab key to exit out of a particular menu/gui, to settlement/c.a.m.p- building process being slower now that is is more keypress dependent for navigation.
-After you've been around long enough to get enough MISC category quests they will overflow ontop of your vital AP/health/food indicators.
-It's quite unpleasant if you don't have the caps (currency) to fast travel. You'll be forced to leave your body far behind if you don't have a nearby location discovered.
-The game won't recognize immediately you are no longer encumbered even if you are 5 pounds under your max. It seems to take a few minutes before it registers.
-Too little ammo of the type that matters. I survived but would have liked more use out of my weapons before inevitably switching between them.
Do I recommend buying the game? No. I can't. But you should consider it. Especially if you get it at a discount, need something to do, and don't mind losing 40 to 50 gigabytes of space.
Is it a real Fallout game? I can't say. There's too much left to do. I also can't know for sure without replaying it once.
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