[Megathread] Fallout 76

[Jastall]

System complexity is not how RPG games are measured. Complexity tends to get in the way of narrative, rather than contributing to it. Fallout's always been about the setting and the narrative, and the same is true of Elder Scrolls.



You should take a moment to try and grasp that your subjective preferences are not objective truths.

And Bethesda absolutely sucks at narratives. Setting is more of their strength but even then they suffer from theme park design where the world usually makes little to no sense (more Raiders than targets, tons of Muties in Fallout 4 when their method of creation is super slow, little to no agriculture until Fallout 4, literally anything about the Children of Atom, so on and so forth) in the name of gameplay. Black Isle and Obsidians created far stronger narratives, far more believable settings, all with more interesting mechanics as well. I don't much care that they lacked Bethesda's penchant for interestingly placed skeletons and teddy bears.

I also really don't see how calling them mediocre is hating. Believe you me, I use far stronger words than that when I hate something. I just think they don't stand out in any particular way, shape or form. Kinda like the Fable series. Especially since Witcher 3 did the same thing they did, except better in every single way except character customization.

At any rate, all this is to say I have no faith in them. Have some if you want, it's your money they will get. Certainly not mine until the game is released and I know exactly what's what.

[Endus]

What I don't get is why people who keep saying, over and over and over again, how a) Fallout 4 is a horrible game, and b) Bethesda is a horrible developer, care one way or another what Bethesda does next, and what Fallout 76 is like. I mean, sure, I'd understand it if it was the game franchise with the games that one has loved the most in the recent times, but if Bethesda is supposedly so awful and Fallout 4 is supposedly so awful, then obviously nobody who thinks that would be expecting Bethesda to make a great, new Fallout game.

Well, take Jastall, who's talking about "depth" and is clearly referring to systems, rather than setting or narrative.

The problem is that "deep" systems tend to exclude people. They're difficult and overly complex. In many cases, one system will negatively impact upon another. I couldn't ever get into Witcher 2, for instance, because as much as I like the series and the setting (I've played 1 and 3 to completion and was into the books before the games ever existed), the mechanical systems in that game, at least at the start, were INCREDIBLY cludgy and competed with each other. Even 3 ran into problems in that respect, though not enough to make me stop playing. It's an artificial "difficulty" that propagates through obstuseness rather than any player learning curve.

And some people think that makes a system "good", because it excludes most potential players, and makes them feel "elite" for figuring it out. When really, it's just a chore most people won't bother with because it gets in the way.

If you play P&P RPGs, take Dungeons and Dragons. 3rd edition (both 3.0 and 3.5) started out okay, but the increasing amount of material that was being churned out led to the system basically collapsing under its own weight; character optimization was a nightmare because you had a gajillion choices and how they interacted wasn't always clear. 4th Edition tried to simplify it, but added so much mechanical complexity in the actual gameplay that a single combat round by one player could take 10+ minutes to work out, as you dealt with interrupts and reactions and worked out which modifiers applied where, and when. 5th edition has been almost universally applauded by players because it trimmed the system way down, and WotC is restricting content releases heavily, to allow for playtesting and to focus on integrating everything to work together. It's a system aimed at storytelling more than anything, and IMO it's the best system Dungeons and Dragons has ever had, for that. Because of that simplicity. You're not calculating a dozen modifiers to work out exactly what your outcome would be, you get your proficiency bonus, a stat bonus, and the D20 roll, 99% of the time. A contextual bonus or penalty to the roll generally works out to being either Advantage or Disadvantage, where you roll twice and take the better/worse of the two, respectively. That pattern holds for skill use, for attack rolls, for saving throws, almost everything. Character options are similarly limited, but broadly written and with some options baked in, so any one class can vary a pretty significant amount.

And really, in what they've released, they're saying that Fallout 76 will have vastly increased crafting complexity, less-directed exploration, better player agency in the world, more player choice in terms of how to proceed, more impactful decisions in terms of character progression, etc. I really just flat-out do not see the complaints, for the most part. The only complaints I've seen that really hold any weight at all are that modding will be restricted, and that griefing might exist, but they've already stated that they'll be allowing the former at a future date, and the latter is something they'll be actively tuning to penalize and eliminate. So what's the beef, really?

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And Bethesda absolutely sucks at narratives.

You're free to not like it, but you really need to stop declaring your subjective preference as if it were objective truth. Their popularity speaks volumes about how your preferences really aren't agreed upon by most people.

[Doctor Funkenstein]

Indeed.

I am sure those "accountants" sat down and thought "despite selling tens of millions copies, our customers obviously don't want single player sandbox RPGs like Skyrim and Fallout 4..."

And then they looked to games like the floundering dumpster fire that is Destiny 2 as an example of the success they strive for and the live service game their customers actually want.

<tousles your hair> It's okay, kid. One day you'll finish growing up, your brain will mature, and you'll come to realize that the world doesn't revolve around you. It'll happen. Promise.

[MakeMeLaugh]

Fallout 76 is not looking good, they pretty much removed the RPG element from the game. Why bother getting resources, crafting stuff, building a base? Just for the sake of it? That's just RUST with a Fallout skin. And seriously, one of the guys said that end game could be "deathmatch"? Oh god...

This is probably the best comment I saw about it:

Bethesda never fails to deliver. People whined about voiced protagonist, 4 dialogue choices and mediocre quests, so Todd listened and removed those. Completely.

[Very Tired]

I'm sure the accountants have a better idea of what "this customer base actually wants" than you do. You know, else they would have banked on a different game rather than continuing with a cash cow.

You don't like it? Fine. But don't try to pretend that your opinion is the one, true opinion. You're not that fucking special, kid.

Literally not what accountants do.

[Deleted]

they pretty much removed the RPG element from the game

Pretty much all Bethesda detractors have been singing the song for years now; Bethesda games have no RPG elements in them. So, you know, they didn't remove anything, since it wasn't there to be removed in the first place.

This does bring up a hilarious point though; what if now all those people who kept shitting on Fallout 4 for years will start singing its praises because 76 is "so horrible" instead? Hey, I'm all for that!

Fallout 76 is not looking good

Looking pretty good to me for what it is. It's just not what certain people want, but that's fine. You can't always get everything you want.

[GennGreymane]

[Deleted]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPl-YMq2WTM

You know Fallout 76 isn't going to magically turn into a single player Fallout 5 just by you complaining about multiplayer games constantly, right?

[GennGreymane]

You know Fallout 76 isn't going to magically turn into a single player Fallout 5 just by you complaining about multiplayer games constantly, right?

well aware, its a shame Bethesda wants their franchise to be a live service now. cant wait for the usual broken release, lack of content, false promises, and hopes it will get better like in pretty much any other live service game.

Now with Bughthesda bugs

[Deleted]

Here's the IGN interview, not sure if it was linked yet, too tired to scour through everything. It's got some interesting tidbits of detail.

[Endus]

well aware, its a shame Bethesda wants their franchise to be a live service now. cant wait for the usual broken release, lack of content, false promises, and hopes it will get better like in pretty much any other live service game.

Now with Bughthesda bugs

It's literally just this one game. They aren't changing the direction of Fallout overall.

Also, "lack of content" was never an accusation leveled at Fallout games. Not even Fallout 4.

[GennGreymane]

It's literally just this one game. They aren't changing the direction of Fallout overall.

Also, "lack of content" was never an accusation leveled at Fallout games. Not even Fallout 4.

but its one leveled at live services, especially one boasting of no NPCs to get quests from other than an overseer....

[MakeMeLaugh]

Pretty much all Bethesda detractors have been singing the song for years now; Bethesda games have no RPG elements in them. So, you know, they didn't remove anything, since it wasn't there to be removed in the first place.

Nice try. Fallout 4 still had RPG elements and a full story, even though it wasn't as good as the previous ones. Now this RUST mod has literally nothing.

[Deleted]

Nice try. Fallout 4 still had RPG elements and a full story, even though it wasn't as good as the previous ones. Now this RUST mod has literally nothing.

Hey, the more people start singing Fallout 4s praises, the happier it makes me.

[GennGreymane]

Hey, the more people start singing Fallout 4s praises, the happier it makes me.

someone saying it wasnt as good is singing praises... honestly at this point you couldnt be more obvious

[Deleted]

someone saying it wasnt as good is singing praises... honestly at this point you couldnt be more obvious

It's a massive step up from calling it complete and utter shit which is what people usually tend to want to do.

[GennGreymane]

It's a massive step up from calling it complete and utter shit which is what people usually tend to want to do.

gettin little desperate eh?

[Real2016]

People here dont play the games, only post shit.

[SirCowdog]

If they're worried that someone will gank and camp them to grief them, they REALLY clearly demonstrated they don't want that happening and have a bunch of levers in place to disincentivize that nonsense, "wanted levels" and the like. So that guy who keeps sniping you will (I'm making this up based on the phrasing) get an increasing bounty on his head encouraging other players to hunt them down.

Also, dying's negative consequences are basically "you respawn nearby at full health, go play". That's it. They're not looting your corpse and stealing your stuff. Same goes for your base; if it gets shut down, you just pop your C.A.M.P. up in a new location and bam, there's your full base again.

And always-online will hurt modding, a bit. But I always avoided the nude mods and overpowered nonsense, mostly. I'm not that worried about that angle.

Really, I think a lot of it boils down to this game being nearly impossible to pirate, if it's always-online.

It's not just a fear of being camped. It's having to deal with other people ruining what you wanted to do in the game. There are PLENTY of ways to do that without every interacting with another player. For instance, you spend a lot of time roaming around, and discover a cool cave that you'd never seen before. It's clearly meant to be something, but it's already been cleared by someone else.

Another situation is where another player follows you around and either ruins your stealth attempt, blows everything up, aggroes everything, or otherwise just makes a nuisance of themselves. Shit you just wouldn't have to deal with in a singleplayer version.

Non-hostile actions which none-the-less cause you to miss out: You see a bigass deathclaw or something and want to go fight it. But by the time you get there a group of 5 power-armored friends in a team have already smashed it. The opposite case is where you want to go do something, but have to wait for a group of people to get their asses in gear to reach the location before you begin, because you want to include them.

There are more. But the point here is that people are expressing concern about the always online multiplayer aspect because it's not what they expect from a Fallout game. Singleplayer immersion where the person playing is the center of the game just can't be realistically created in a multiplayer environment. And while I appreciate Bethesda trying to go in new direction with FO76, I think it's going to bite them in the ass.

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First Fallout 4 was boring, lame and just not Fallout. Now the next one is going to be a multiplayer only Fallout. I didn't think it could get much worse then 4 but here we are.

I'll agree the base game is pretty weak. But FO4 with the correct mods is downright AMAZING.

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Here's Metacritic's ranking by metascore;

Off-topic, but Metacritic is cancer. ;D It's just not a good measuring stick.

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You've got Elder Scrolls, Starfield from Bethesda for that. There's 2077 from CDPR. I'm sure there are plenty of other story-driven AAA single player games out there for you to play.

Plus, to me at least, it seems blatantly obvious that you'll also get Fallout 5, back in the single player business, when the time comes.

I'm still waiting for any official information confirming anything about the nature of either Fallout 5, Elder Scrolls 6, or Starfield. AFAIK we don't know jack about any of them besides one is fantasy, one is post-apocalyptic, and one is sci-fi.

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Bethesda never fails to deliver. People whined about voiced protagonist, 4 dialogue choices

Wait...what? Was this really a thing? I mean, don't get me wrong, some of the voiced lines were cringe-worthy, but it wasn't THAT bad all things considered.

And besides, all it would have taken to fix was a checkbox option: "Text only dialogue" vs "Voice Acted dialogue".

[GennGreymane]

Honestly the issue with the voiced protag was that it probably was a difficulty that led into the issue with the dialog system as a whole

say nice
say mean
say sarcastic

and more often than not.... the choice didnt reflect the words that were spoken. Plus conversations were much lighter and more bland

as for quests in FO4 other than the Cabot house, Nick's entire life story, and far harbor, the quests were not very memorable.