There’s never been a better time to get into Fallout 76

torp

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Slightly off topic, which game should one start with in the Fallout series?

I think i tried 76 and i didnt like it (i don't enjoy collecting and building things).

1, 2, 3 and New Vegas are actual RPGs. 1 and 2 are old school isometric turn based, 3 and New Vegas first person immersive and better than the Elder Scrolls titles if you ask me.

4 I don't know. I heard they tried to add Minecraft to it, complete with grinding for 40 shulkers of stone to get materials for your base expansion. So I skipped it.
 
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panton41

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1, 2, 3 and New Vegas are actual RPGs. 1 and 2 are old school isometric turn based, 3 and New Vegas first person immersive and better than the Elder Scrolls titles if you ask me.

4 I don't know. I heard they tried to add Minecraft to it, complete with grinding for 40 shulkers of stone to get materials for your base expansion. So I skipped it.
Fallout 4 is almost a decade old, can run on a high end toaster, and routinely goes on deep sales for the complete collection. There's no reason to not buy it at this point.

And, no, the gameplay is absolutely nothing like you described.
 
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torp

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Fallout 4 is almost a decade old, can run on a high end toaster, and routinely goes on deep sales for the complete collection. There's no reason to not buy it at this point.

And, no, the gameplay is absolutely nothing like you described.

I haven't tried it, I admit, but that's my impression from reviews and comments.

Can you skip the base building entirely? Can you play the game without the complex crafting system? I don't care about either of them.

Are the dialogue options hidden behind emoji still, as they said in the previews?

[Btw, I have a FO4 console disc that i bought for almost nothing in a store that was trying to get rid of stock. I just haven't broken the plastic seal yet.]
 
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4 I don't know. I heard they tried to add Minecraft to it, complete with grinding for 40 shulkers of stone to get materials for your base expansion. So I skipped it.
The “Minecraft” element is settlements, which, as far as I remember, feature once optionally in the first hour or so, as optional faction quests, and then (for an incredibly short period of time) are required in one of three main missions.

In other words, it’s almost entirely optional. It can be good for role play or entirely skipped outside of one portion of the game. If you have the Nuka-World DLC, you get a whole new way to interact with them, which can be fun.

But, properly using them can be fun. You can effectively set up entire farms, factories, trading hubs, etc. And you can use the drive-in movie theater, a bunch of concrete, and some of the specialized traps to lure raiders, super mutants and animals into ritualistic blood sport for the enjoyment of your citizens.
 
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Can you skip the base building entirely?
Pretty much (see above)

Can you play the game without the complex crafting system?
Yep. Buy and sell loot instead. One of my normal characters does zero crafting and gets along just fine.

Are the dialogue options hidden behind emoji still, as they said in the previews?
I never saw that in any preview but…no. You get short blurbs and the dialog is generally in line with it.
 
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Baudelier

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Because it's free (Amazon) or free with game pass, and most people don't need that exact sweater to enjoy the game?

You can get most of the outfits from FO4 free from containers and just lying around. What costs atoms is being able to craft some outfits yourself. Yes, sweater vest is one that must be bought, but If you play during one of the seasons, you can earn more than enough atoms to buy the plans for crafting sweater vest for free, no 3.00 needed/

There's also a bunch of new outfits not in FO4.
It may be "Free-To-Pay" now but, it didn't start that way. I can't help but feel the the people who paid $60 for the base game and up to $300 for the various collectors editions were happy about the change.

Also, while the sweater vest and slacks outfit is only $3, which can be earned in game. If you want any of the new fancy power armor skins, it'll cost you $18 per paint job. Close to a third of the cost of the original game.

And, that's before Bethesda went back on their cosmetics only promise adding Pay-To-Win items in the shop.

Like the various boosters. You know who else has boosters, Borderlands 3 but you can't pay cash for them. You play a science game. A game that has actually helped our understand of the genetic evolution of the various bacteria that live in our gut.
 
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0 (5 / -5)
Redownloaded it — like an idiot I got it at launch — to see if it had aged well.

Went though character creation, all good, then my character couldn’t move. At all.

Looked it up online and the fix was — SIX YEARS after launch — to manually edit some config files.

Nope.

Uninstalled.

Still trash.
I had the same exact experience lmao. I was getting super into the character creation process and I'm all excited for my adventure, and then I'm quickly reminded that I'm playing a Bethesda game. F
 
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3 (5 / -2)

NullSignal

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1, 2, 3 and New Vegas are actual RPGs. 1 and 2 are old school isometric turn based, 3 and New Vegas first person immersive and better than the Elder Scrolls titles if you ask me.

4 I don't know. I heard they tried to add Minecraft to it, complete with grinding for 40 shulkers of stone to get materials for your base expansion. So I skipped it.
I never got far into Fallout 4 at the time because other things came up, but I've heard that too. But I've also heard that the base building aspect (like, wtf were they thinking) is completely optional, so I'm minded to pick it back up again.

As for whether the Fallout titles or the Elder Scrolls titles are better, I suspect this almost exclusively comes down to whether someone is more into swords and sorcery or guns and sci-fi. As someone that's never cared about wizards and elves, I've always struggled to get into a lot of highly praised RPGs, including Baldur's Gate, but absolutely can't get enough of games like Fallout and Mass Effect.
 
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I fail to understand why this article is attempting to whitewash Fallout 76. The radiation in the Wastelands hasn't magically mutated Fallout 76 into a great game because of the success of the TV show.

First, and contrary to what the article says, Fallout 76 was riddled with crippling bugs for years. Six years after launch, the game has surely improved a lot but still remains the buggiest game from the whole FO series (while the other standalone FO games were heavily patched and modded by the community, changes to FO76 are limited because of its hosted, online-only nature).

Second, Fallout 76 is by a huge margin the least interesting of all FO games from a quest and overall story perspective. Moreover, its RPG aspects are secondary because they do not impact how the story and quests unfold. Yes, Fallout 76 allows exploring a large and varied world. But that large world is mostly empty and the exploration and quests (which are mostly procedurally generated) serve the primary goal of collecting resources and loot instead of advancing a non-existent story arc.

None of this is unexpected in a MMORPG. However, anyone that enjoyed the TV show because of its story would probably feel defrauded after playing the empty Fallout 76. They would be much better served by any other of the story-rich FO games (FO1/FO2 for CRPG gamers or FO3, FO:NV, FO4 with quality of life and hi-res graphics overhaul mods for the general audience).

In short, Fallout 76 is the only FO game from the whole series that I would never recommend to someone who has enjoyed the TV show but never played the games.
Maybe some people experienced crippling bugs. I played it in on PC from beta until the series X came out then switched from PC to Xbox, a few thousand hours between them and I never experienced any crippling bugs and my laptop was kind of a piece of shit.

Fallout 2 is my favorite game of all time, followed by Morrowind and then New Vegas. I would rate 76s story and quests about 4th in the fallout series behind 2, New Vegas and the OG. I found the story significantly more compelling than Fallout 4 and 3. The quests are not procedurally generated, I have no idea what you are talking about here to the point it seems you are just lying out your ass. You mean the unnecessary daily quests for building currency after you after already beaten the entire story line? Ok yep there are 4 or 5 possible dailys that are randomly generated after hundreds of hours hand crafted questlines. The horror.

Basically you clearly have some opinions about the game. Good for you. Doesn't make you opinions more right than anyone else and you are some clear falsehoods in them.
 
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ScifiGeek

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Pretty much (see above)

I disagree.

The natural "good" faction of the game is the Minutemen, and you have to get massively involved with base building to progress this faction. This is meant to be the primary faction option as well, it's the first one the player is led to, and its the fallback if you screw up other options. IMO this is THE faction, so saying base building is optional is not really accurate.

Plus even if you skip them you have lighter base building required to progress the main story regardless. People probably just don't remember because Minutemen are so overwhelmingly involved in it. But the Railroad definitely requires you to set up areas as a safehouse (aka more base building).

Plus you have to gather resources to build a certain device, regardless of faction.

So base building is very much NOT optional at all. Even cutting down, requires you to ignore what is arguable the natural and most important faction of the game.

Yep. Buy and sell loot instead. One of my normal characters does zero crafting and gets along just fine.

If you want to use inferior un-modded weapons and armor. The game is designed around modding weapons and armor, and gathering resources for that as well.


I wouldn't say it's like Minecraft. To me it seems more like it setting up to be like a grindy MMO live service game, but bringing those annoying grinds to a single player game, along with the junk collection, crafting, building you get endless empty random quests.
 
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5 (7 / -2)

Jordan83

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I haven't tried it, I admit, but that's my impression from reviews and comments.

Can you skip the base building entirely? Can you play the game without the complex crafting system? I don't care about either of them.

Are the dialogue options hidden behind emoji still, as they said in the previews?

[Btw, I have a FO4 console disc that i bought for almost nothing in a store that was trying to get rid of stock. I just haven't broken the plastic seal yet.]

FO4 is by far the best out of the box among the offline 3d Fallout titles in terms of gameplay. The enemies aren't all quite as stupid as "run straight at you", and the moving and shooting elements are far less clunky than 3 and NV. Neither of those aspects are great, mind you, but they're a huge improvement over 3 and NV in both areas. There are many other QOL features that are improvements over previous titles, too. It just plain looks and plays better right out of the gate.

The base building elements can be skipped entirely. It's Fallout. Virtually everything can be skipped entirely, except the very few intro sequences.

I have no idea what "dialogue options hidden behind emoji" even means. However, the dialogue options are definitely weaker in FO4 than in previous titles. Every dialogue choice basically comes down to 4 or 2 options. You always have 4 choices on screen, but if the conversation is for flavor only and doesn't lead to a choice, you have 4 responses of various attitudes. If the conversation leads to a choice, you still have 4 options, but basically 2 or 3 of them will lead to you saying Yes, and 1 or 2 will lead to you saying No. And a lot of times even if you say No, like as a quest for example, it'll put a note in your log anyway to come back later and talk to the person.

So, 4 looks and plays better than the previous titles, nearly everything in it is optional, and the story/dialogue is the weakest of the 3d Fallout titles.
 
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OK, so I remembered I actually got a key for FO76 in a Humble Bundle a few months back and figured I’d give it a try.

So: it’s the blandest Fallout by a mile and sits in an uncomfortable spot between utterly milquetoast “satire” and full-blooded American Exceptionalism (remember that in FO1, the introduction to power armour was a news report of two American GIs shooting an unarmed Canadian in the back of the head? The FO76 team didn’t).

The shooting is boring but inoffensive. The exploration is tedious but inoffensive. The writing is the dullest in a Fallout to date, but not offensively so.

2/5, second worst Fallout mechanically but at least the writing won’t give you actual brain damage, a marked improvement over FO4.
 
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methinkgud

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this entire article boils down to one single sentence:
"The community is carrying Fallout 76, i didn't notice anything else important worth mentioning."

Bingo. The game itself? Not great. But there's a metric ton of player-led factions to join, which is 95% of the fun. Used to run a moonshiners guild on xbox a couple of years ago, made the joke of calling ourselves the "Hoochclave," still have pleasant memories of it before it died. Nowadays I admin a 300+ member discord group for a different faction. Genuinely a fun game- If you ignore the game.

It's animal crossing but I get to decorate my home with severed heads and power armor. I go out, grind for a bit, do some roleplaying with friends, decorate and redecorate my CAMP, and maybe slowly chip away at the questlines I've put off doing.
 
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Doubling down on being wrong doesn't make you right. The game had over 100 hours of quests at launch. I played from beta until last year I don't give a shit what some youtuber says about it. I played it.
what you meant to say that it had 100 hours of walking from place to place and bullet sponges, half of which were glitched.

not to mention the simple fact that they promised that all future content would be free with the exception of the cosmetics... how did that turn out? how's your subscription going?

also, what happened with the mods support promise? did they keep it?
 
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ERIFNOMI

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I disagree.

The natural "good" faction of the game is the Minutemen, and you have to get massively involved with base building to progress this faction. This is meant to be the primary faction option as well, it's the first one the player is led to, and its the fallback if you screw up other options. IMO this is THE faction, so saying base building is optional is not really accurate.

Plus even if you skip them you have lighter base building required to progress the main story regardless. People probably just don't remember because Minutemen are so overwhelmingly involved in it. But the Railroad definitely requires you to set up areas as a safehouse (aka more base building).

Plus you have to gather resources to build a certain device, regardless of faction.

So base building is very much NOT optional at all. Even cutting down, requires you to ignore what is arguable the natural and most important faction of the game.



If you want to use inferior un-modded weapons and armor. The game is designed around modding weapons and armor, and gathering resources for that as well.


I wouldn't say it's like Minecraft. To me it seems more like it setting up to be like a grindy MMO live service game, but bringing those annoying grinds to a single player game, along with the junk collection, crafting, building you get endless empty random quests.
The Minutemen quests are effectively the tutorials for the settlement building. But what's actually required for those quests is hardly base building. You slap down a recruitment beacon a couple of times and mortors when you progress a little further. There's one thing you have to build no matter who you side with but I'll not spoil it. You know what it is. They use the base building system as the way you build it, but it's not really base building. All of these quests could just as easily be "go gather these resources so we can built this thing" and nothing would be different except you wouldn't get to choose where the thing is placed because you don't actually have to build up and manage a base around them if you don't want to.

The settlement building shit isn't that great, but it is largely optional outside of the first time it's introduced and tutorialized.
 
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ScifiGeek

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The settlement building shit isn't that great, but it is largely optional outside of the first time it's introduced and tutorialized.

That's not my experience at all. If you do the Minutemen, you have several requirements to go set up bases, and as I said even the railroad does that.

The game seems mired in a collect junk, build and mod with it loop.

I'd love to a see a mod that completely divested at all the junk collect build/mod stuff and all the endless radiant (AKA meaningless random) quests.

There is probably an OK Fallout 3 size game in there, but it's hard to separate it out, all the pointless grind.

My observation is that for the most part, the people that like FO4, are the people that like the resource gathering, base building loop.
 
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thrillgore

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Well shucks, as an x gamer, mostly FPS like Doom eternal and everything back to the DOS game days I thought I might give Fallout a try after seeing the series. From the experienced crowd it seems the older games are where to start and 76 might be a pass for most. What to do...
I recommend 1, 2, New Vegas, and then 3, and 4. That way you get to wrap up the West Coast story before you go into the Bethesda era. You'll quickly see why the West Coast era is fondly remembered.

Again, its not that 3 and 4 are bad, they have a lot of half-baked things.

Also, mod the hell out of NV, 3, and 4. If you can at least.
 
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ERIFNOMI

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That's not my experience at all. If you do the Minutemen, you have several requirements to go set up bases, and as I said even the railroad does that.

The game seems mired in a collect junk, build and mod with it loop.

I'd love to a see a mod that completely divested at all the junk collect build/mod stuff and all the endless radiant (AKA meaningless random) quests.

There is probably an OK Fallout 3 size game in there, but it's hard to separate it out, all the pointless grind.

My observation is that for the most part, the people that like FO4, are the people that like the resource gathering, base building loop.
You have to go help people, but you don't have to build a base. Show up, go do whatever radiant quest they give you, and they're considered to have joined the Minutemen. That opens up that location as a place you can build, but you don't need to. You can just ignore them.

The only times I can think of when you have to build something is the initial tutorial location, the teleporter to the institute, and if you follow the Minutemen quest, you need to build a generator to power the radio at the castle and later build mortors at the castle which is basically another tutorial. Those are hardly base building. Like I said, the quest could have also been someone asking you to go fetch the resources so they could do it. The only thing "base building" about it is you get to decide where to slap them down.
 
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uesc_marathon

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This game, like Fallout 4 and Starfield, is very much not for me. Basically everything post-Skyrim that Bethsoft has made. Which is bitter because Morrowind was basically my gaming life for several years, it's hard to admit that they just don't make games for me any more.

I will, however, praise one thing. This concept of 'donation boxes', where high-level players can leave old gear behind free for newbie players, that is a fantastic concept. I love it. More multiplayer online games could benefit from that. Good on you, guys.
 
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ScifiGeek

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You have to go help people, but you don't have to build a base. Show up, go do whatever radiant quest they give you, and they're considered to have joined the Minutemen. That opens up that location as a place you can build, but you don't need to. You can just ignore them.

The only times I can think of when you have to build something is the initial tutorial location, the teleporter to the institute, and if you follow the Minutemen quest, you need to build a generator to power the radio at the castle and later build mortors at the castle which is basically another tutorial. Those are hardly base building. Like I said, the quest could have also been someone asking you to go fetch the resources so they could do it. The only thing "base building" about it is you get to decide where to slap them down.

I seem to recall need to build defenses and beacons as well to prepare settlements.
 
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ERIFNOMI

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I seem to recall need to build defenses and beacons as well to prepare defenses.
Only Sanctuary, the tutorial area. One of the radiant quests is to defend the location, and you can build defenses to help with that, but if you don't have the resources or you don't want to build, the attack still comes and you can just shoot the attackers the old fashioned way.

You might have to build a recruitment beacon at the first "hey, go help this settlement" quest that I consider the tutorial to how annoying Preston is, I can't remember. Normally that quest sends you to that big manufacturing facility south of Concord (forget the name) unless you've already cleared it. But here's a tip if you don't like doing that. Just kill everyone at the settlement and report back to Preston. You can just tell him shit didn't go so well and skip it all.
 
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I disagree.

The natural "good" faction of the game is the Minutemen, and you have to get massively involved with base building to progress this faction.
I recall one “main” mission of theirs that requires actually building up a base. It’s at the same time you absolutely need one for whatever faction you’re going with. Maybe I’m remembering wrong, but I think you can raise up your rep in ways outside of base building to get to that point. A lot of fetch quests though.

Also, none of the factions are good. Buncha self-righteous doofuses all around. New Vegas had the right idea on having an absolute alternative.

If you want to use inferior un-modded weapons and armor. The game is designed around modding weapons and armor, and gathering resources for that as well.
Again, may be misremembering, but I’m pretty sure you can buy guns with mods on them already. Personally, I like the modding, but even if you do none of that, you can still beat the game.
 
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ERIFNOMI

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I recall one “main” mission of theirs that requires actually building up a base. It’s at the same time you absolutely need one for whatever faction you’re going with. Maybe I’m remembering wrong, but I think you can raise up your rep in ways outside of base building to get to that point. A lot of fetch quests though.

Also, none of the factions are good. Buncha self-righteous doofuses all around. New Vegas had the right idea on having an absolute alternative.


Again, may be misremembering, but I’m pretty sure you can buy guns with mods on them already. Personally, I like the modding, but even if you do none of that, you can still beat the game.
You can buy guns with mods on them and take them off to slap them on other guns as well. You do have to build a different mod to take its place though, which is annoying. You should be able to just disassemble a gun and get all the parts. But some mods require nothing for the base version, like you can buy a gun with a suppressor and "build" the "none" mod for the muzzle slot and move the suppressor to another gun.

Somehow, Starfield took a step back in that department. Changing mods just destroys the previous mod.
 
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riomaki

Seniorius Lurkius
9
"It's always been good" really isn't factually accurate. It's more that "There's always been something good about it." The question is really if you managed to see that early on, and if it carried you through the rough parts. As time has gone on, the developers figured out what those things were, how to better surface them, and really expanded on what worked.

For me, I just love the Fallout universe. The retrofuturism, the factions, and all the weird stories that come with it. All I could have asked for in a Fallout game was the ability to "live" in that universe and do whatever I felt like doing. And so, even though it was a byproduct of being rushed and not having Wastelanders ready at launch, that was pretty much exactly what 76 offered in the beginning and why I liked it so much. Even the most critical tend to admit it has one of the best world maps that Bethesda has ever made. I could explore it, read the stories, and define my own measure of success. And build a cool house in the process.

I think whether you can do that, as a player, is what makes it "not for everyone." Some players need the structure. They need the quest markers and goals. They need the game to teach them what to do. For other players, it's a more organic process. They see an issue and ask if there's a way to overcome it, and sit there tinkering until they find one. And it's that second group that 76 really appeals to. It's very much driven by your own goals. For any aspect you don't like, there's probably some way around it if you're clever enough. I don't particularly enjoy the ammo grind, so a key part of my whole setup is ammo efficiency. Someone who values killing bosses faster may value damage over efficiency. That's fine, the game tailors itself to both.

The game doesn't care.

There are people who will play this game and ask why it takes 10 headshots to kill a Deathclaw. And there are those who will have figured it out, and are going around Appalachia 1 or 2-shoting everything. Although Bethesda has taken steps to smooth out that experience, it's still a game that won't really hold your hand, and it will allow you to get frustrated without telling you the answer. It won't provide any mechanical restriction on going after a Scorchbeast at Lv. 5 with a Pipe Pistol, even if it costs you every single bullet and 1,000 more. It kind of expects you to realize the shortcomings of your position on your own. But I've found a lot of players can't do that. They won't run. They don't accept that they might be outgunned and need to find another way. They'll have a negative experience where they wasted all their ammo. And they'll give up and walk away complaining about how it takes a million hits to kill a dragon. Which is unfortunate... but also kind of unusual in this age of gaming when there's a tendency for developers to literally stop everything and ELI5 to players.

What keeps me playing it is that there really isn't another game that has this particular mix of ingredients. A somewhat low-stakes, understandable, hugely explorable world, where you can build a house basically from scratch, that plays like any typical FPS without the need to learn an icon-heavy MMO interface, where you can work with other players or challenge yourself to complete team-oriented tasks on your own, and a focus on PvE, all wrapped in what's essentially a looter-shooter with a large variety of guns, play styles, and effects. It ticks a lot of boxes. Other games might fill one or two, and do them better, but not all.

There are a few things about the article I feel are worth noting:
  • There really isn't a strong emphasis on "survival" elements because they removed the downsides of ignoring them. Now, there are only bonus benefits, like increased AP regeneration from Well Fed/Hydrated, and as always the XP bonus from being Well Rested. But your character isn't crippled at all from failing to do these things. I almost never sleep.
  • The only player who "takes the wood before you" at Helvetia is yourself. The game keeps track of the last 250 (or so) things you looted, and as it adds new things, it repopulates old ones you previously looted. So, that wood won't come back until you've looted 250 other things. A good way to force this, if you really want to reset it manually, is to visit this one abandoned house north of Summersville. It's filled with a ton of books, and taking them all will pretty much clear the list. For wood, though, two other great locations are Prickett's Fort and Sylvie & Sons Logging Camp. And don't forget the Woodchucker perk in Luck.
  • Legendary loot in Public Events is shared now, so there really isn't a need for players to "tag" the Legendary enemies anymore, unless they want XP. But it depends slightly on the event. Eviction Notice, which is by far the best source of Legendaries, takes place in such a wide area that you want to be toward the center of the crater to make sure you're "in range" of them all when they are killed. The other good event for Legendaries (and tons of XP) is Radiation Rumble.
  • The "Bloodied" build is more accurately the "Low Health Build." The general principle is correct - you get your HP below 20% and deliberately use radiation to stay there and use damage reduction perks, rather than resistance, to protect yourself. But Bloodied weapons aren't a mandatory element of it. Depending on the situation, Anti-Armor or Quad will actually do better. The builds that do the most damage are maximizing VATS Criticals by getting their Luck stat to 33. At that point, you can use a VATS Critical every-other-shot. Because VATS Criticals are guaranteed to hit, bypass boss damage reduction, and can deal something like 4x the damage of a normal shot, you can easily see why this build is the most damaging.
 
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totalfat

Seniorius Lurkius
17
If I could host a server, I would probably play it. I have some friends who have said the same thing. We don't want to play with random people. I'm also not paying a yearly subscription just to not run into random assholes. Give me a server to run myself. They already gave up on this dream of random people filling in for NPCs.
I have this odd tendency to gravitate toward multiplayer games and play them solo. WoW PVP servers, ARK, DayZ, Helldivers 2 (until today's patch that made it harder specifically for solo players).

FO76 is great for this. Samuel's advice to immediately join a "Casual" group as soon as you login is spot on. You get benefits of increased XP and more free fast travel destinations without any implied or stated obligation to actually run around together.

Also another big plus is the handling of griefers in this game. Other multiplayer games fail here miserably, but FO76 has basically neutered griefers and made them completely ineffective.

I very much prefer playing FO76 solo to playing FO4 at all. Give it a shot!
 
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torp

Ars Praefectus
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I disagree.

The natural "good" faction of the game is the Minutemen, and you have to get massively involved with base building to progress this faction. This is meant to be the primary faction option as well, it's the first one the player is led to, and its the fallback if you screw up other options. IMO this is THE faction, so saying base building is optional is not really accurate.

Plus even if you skip them you have lighter base building required to progress the main story regardless. People probably just don't remember because Minutemen are so overwhelmingly involved in it. But the Railroad definitely requires you to set up areas as a safehouse (aka more base building).

Plus you have to gather resources to build a certain device, regardless of faction.

So base building is very much NOT optional at all. Even cutting down, requires you to ignore what is arguable the natural and most important faction of the game.



If you want to use inferior un-modded weapons and armor. The game is designed around modding weapons and armor, and gathering resources for that as well.


I wouldn't say it's like Minecraft. To me it seems more like it setting up to be like a grindy MMO live service game, but bringing those annoying grinds to a single player game, along with the junk collection, crafting, building you get endless empty random quests.

Ah :) That's an opinion that sounds to me more in line with what i've read between the lines in previews ages ago...

So the base building can be ignored... if you don't play the storyline. Why play the game then?

It's possible that people have become more tolerant of mmo-like pointless grinds in their single player games across the years and now think it's normal.
 
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Jordan83

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Ah :) That's an opinion that sounds to me more in line with what i've read between the lines in previews ages ago...

So the base building can be ignored... if you don't play the storyline. Why play the game then?

It's possible that people have become more tolerant of mmo-like pointless grinds in their single player games across the years and now think it's normal.

I think "base building" is a severe exaggeration for what's required for the story.

In my opinion, having to use a workbench to create items a handful of times over the course of the story, or having to use a workbench to upgrade equipment hardly constitutes "base building".

"Base building" to me is entirely optional and can be completely ignored and you can still finish the main story. You cannot finish the main story without ever having to touch a single workbench in the game. If that's "base building" to you and is to be avoided at all costs, then yes, steer far, far away from FO4 because you will hate it.

I've played FO4 for quite a bit and never done any significant "base building" aside from my very first play-through, where I dabbled into trying to make Sanctuary a bit of a fortress. Every subsequent game I've started, I've said F it and just gotten on with my adventure and distractions and have never really suffered for not doing it.
 
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ERIFNOMI

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Ah :) That's an opinion that sounds to me more in line with what i've read between the lines in previews ages ago...

So the base building can be ignored... if you don't play the storyline. Why play the game then?

It's possible that people have become more tolerant of mmo-like pointless grinds in their single player games across the years and now think it's normal.
There is nothing MMO about Fallout 4, an entirely single player RPG...

The main quest doesn't require grinding. The minimal building required isn't base building. It's "we need this thing, where on the map do you want to plop it down?" You need to build a couple of things, but that's no different than if it was an NPC telling you "we need X, Y, and Z to build this thing, bring them to me" except instead of the NPC plopping it down, you do. That's not base building.
 
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Jordan83

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"It's always been good" really isn't factually accurate. It's more that "There's always been something good about it." The question is really if you managed to see that early on, and if it carried you through the rough parts. As time has gone on, the developers figured out what those things were, how to better surface them, and really expanded on what worked.

For me, I just love the Fallout universe. The retrofuturism, the factions, and all the weird stories that come with it. All I could have asked for in a Fallout game was the ability to "live" in that universe and do whatever I felt like doing. And so, even though it was a byproduct of being rushed and not having Wastelanders ready at launch, that was pretty much exactly what 76 offered in the beginning and why I liked it so much. Even the most critical tend to admit it has one of the best world maps that Bethesda has ever made. I could explore it, read the stories, and define my own measure of success. And build a cool house in the process.

I think whether you can do that, as a player, is what makes it "not for everyone." Some players need the structure. They need the quest markers and goals. They need the game to teach them what to do. For other players, it's a more organic process. They see an issue and ask if there's a way to overcome it, and sit there tinkering until they find one. And it's that second group that 76 really appeals to. It's very much driven by your own goals. For any aspect you don't like, there's probably some way around it if you're clever enough. I don't particularly enjoy the ammo grind, so a key part of my whole setup is ammo efficiency. Someone who values killing bosses faster may value damage over efficiency. That's fine, the game tailors itself to both.

The game doesn't care.

There are people who will play this game and ask why it takes 10 headshots to kill a Deathclaw. And there are those who will have figured it out, and are going around Appalachia 1 or 2-shoting everything. Although Bethesda has taken steps to smooth out that experience, it's still a game that won't really hold your hand, and it will allow you to get frustrated without telling you the answer. It won't provide any mechanical restriction on going after a Scorchbeast at Lv. 5 with a Pipe Pistol, even if it costs you every single bullet and 1,000 more. It kind of expects you to realize the shortcomings of your position on your own. But I've found a lot of players can't do that. They won't run. They don't accept that they might be outgunned and need to find another way. They'll have a negative experience where they wasted all their ammo. And they'll give up and walk away complaining about how it takes a million hits to kill a dragon. Which is unfortunate... but also kind of unusual in this age of gaming when there's a tendency for developers to literally stop everything and ELI5 to players.

What keeps me playing it is that there really isn't another game that has this particular mix of ingredients. A somewhat low-stakes, understandable, hugely explorable world, where you can build a house basically from scratch, that plays like any typical FPS without the need to learn an icon-heavy MMO interface, where you can work with other players or challenge yourself to complete team-oriented tasks on your own, and a focus on PvE, all wrapped in what's essentially a looter-shooter with a large variety of guns, play styles, and effects. It ticks a lot of boxes. Other games might fill one or two, and do them better, but not all.

There are a few things about the article I feel are worth noting:
  • There really isn't a strong emphasis on "survival" elements because they removed the downsides of ignoring them. Now, there are only bonus benefits, like increased AP regeneration from Well Fed/Hydrated, and as always the XP bonus from being Well Rested. But your character isn't crippled at all from failing to do these things. I almost never sleep.
  • The only player who "takes the wood before you" at Helvetia is yourself. The game keeps track of the last 250 (or so) things you looted, and as it adds new things, it repopulates old ones you previously looted. So, that wood won't come back until you've looted 250 other things. A good way to force this, if you really want to reset it manually, is to visit this one abandoned house north of Summersville. It's filled with a ton of books, and taking them all will pretty much clear the list. For wood, though, two other great locations are Prickett's Fort and Sylvie & Sons Logging Camp. And don't forget the Woodchucker perk in Luck.
  • Legendary loot in Public Events is shared now, so there really isn't a need for players to "tag" the Legendary enemies anymore, unless they want XP. But it depends slightly on the event. Eviction Notice, which is by far the best source of Legendaries, takes place in such a wide area that you want to be toward the center of the crater to make sure you're "in range" of them all when they are killed. The other good event for Legendaries (and tons of XP) is Radiation Rumble.
  • The "Bloodied" build is more accurately the "Low Health Build." The general principle is correct - you get your HP below 20% and deliberately use radiation to stay there and use damage reduction perks, rather than resistance, to protect yourself. But Bloodied weapons aren't a mandatory element of it. Depending on the situation, Anti-Armor or Quad will actually do better. The builds that do the most damage are maximizing VATS Criticals by getting their Luck stat to 33. At that point, you can use a VATS Critical every-other-shot. Because VATS Criticals are guaranteed to hit, bypass boss damage reduction, and can deal something like 4x the damage of a normal shot, you can easily see why this build is the most damaging.

So I just read through this whole post of yours, and in a weird way, your post had me drawing parallels and reminiscence to Eve Online. After reading this article, your post, and making those kinds of connections, I am going to give FO76 a shot.

Thanks for taking the time to write this.
 
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ScifiGeek

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There is nothing MMO about Fallout 4, an entirely single player RPG...

The main quest doesn't require grinding. The minimal building required isn't base building. It's "we need this thing, where on the map do you want to plop it down?" You need to build a couple of things, but that's no different than if it was an NPC telling you "we need X, Y, and Z to build this thing, bring them to me" except instead of the NPC plopping it down, you do. That's not base building.

It requires collecting junk, to have the resources to plop that thing down.
 
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ERIFNOMI

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It requires collecting junk, to have the resources to plop that thing down.
Fetch quests are pretty common in Fallout and RPGs as a whole.

The only one where you might not find all the resources where you're building is the teleporter, which is basically the finale to the second act, so of course it's going to require a little effort.

Still doesn't require base building. You can pick an entirely abandoned settlement and just plop down the teleporter components. You wouldn't call it base building if you handed all the components to an NPC who plopped it down. You'd call it a tedious fetch quest. That's what it is.
 
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ScifiGeek

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Only Sanctuary, the tutorial area. One of the radiant quests is to defend the location, and you can build defenses to help with that, but if you don't have the resources or you don't want to build, the attack still comes and you can just shoot the attackers the old fashioned way.

You might have to build a recruitment beacon at the first "hey, go help this settlement" quest that I consider the tutorial to how annoying Preston is, I can't remember. Normally that quest sends you to that big manufacturing facility south of Concord (forget the name) unless you've already cleared it. But here's a tip if you don't like doing that. Just kill everyone at the settlement and report back to Preston. You can just tell him shit didn't go so well and skip it all.

Not just in Sanctuary. For the Railroad, safehouse:

clear the area, then construct defenses around the settlement until the settlement's defense rating is at least 10. Barricades do not count as defenses until manned and, because there are no active settlers at this point, the player will be required to construct turrets or traps to gain the necessary 10 defense. After this task is complete, head back to the Railroad headquarters and proceed to talk to P.A.M., to claim the reward.

It's also difficult know exactly what is needed or not, until you have intimate knowledge of the game.

Initially it just looks like you need to do bunch of this stuff.
 
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