Fallout 76

I'm still playing Fallout 76. Should you? Short answer: I have no idea.

Travis gives this a solid "Rad" on the Ghost Scale

This is fun, with very few issues, and is well worth your time.

Travis gives this a "Rad" on the Ghost Scale

This is fun, with very few issues, and is well worth your time.

I said in one episode of Cheerful Ghost Radio, that Fallout 76 is probably the best game I've ever played that I can't easily recommend people buy. I think that still holds true. Fallout 76 is problematic, but depending on what you're looking for there's a lot of fun there as well.

I'm not playing it nearly as much as I used to but I still pop in a few hours a week. I ran out of fresh content a long time ago. In fact that's my biggest complaint as the game stands now. Once you've launched a nuke there's not much left for you to do that you haven't done before. So you wander nuke zones and fight the scorchbeast queen to get better gear and level up to refine your... Read All I said in one episode of Cheerful Ghost Radio, that Fallout 76 is probably the best game I've ever played that I can't easily recommend people buy. I think that still holds true. Fallout 76 is problematic, but depending on what you're looking for there's a lot of fun there as well.

I'm not playing it nearly as much as I used to but I still pop in a few hours a week. I ran out of fresh content a long time ago. In fact that's my biggest complaint as the game stands now. Once you've launched a nuke there's not much left for you to do that you haven't done before. So you wander nuke zones and fight the scorchbeast queen to get better gear and level up to refine your build. That's basically what I'm doing now, in hopes of having some new content to work toward.

There are many aspects of the game that don't work, but many that do, and they work very effectively. If you're into Bethesda games for their environments, world-building, and exploration, Fallout 76 may be the best title yet for that. And when I see people say that Fallout 76 is just a quick cash grab that they clearly didn't care about making well, I can't help but think that those folks don't care about those aspects. The world is just beautifully done, and so much care has been put into the design of this massive world. The Whitespring resort is the centerpiece for this: a very faithful reproduction of the Greenbrier (you'll be coming to Whitespring a lot, because like its inspiration, The Whitespring also houses a government bunker that plays an important role in the game).

Aside from the design, I think the quests work well until they dry up. I said in my first impressions post on this game that the gameplay loop I fell into was getting quests, getting distracted from those quests by all the neat stuff you come across, make frequent trips to camp because you're carrying too much, and eventually completing quests and getting new ones. It was really satisfying. The quests themselves were essentially just vehicles to get you from point A to point B in a lot of ways; the depth previous games' quests is missing entirely from this entry due to the lack of any interactive dialogue. You'll run into robot NPCs and one friendly super mutant but while they can talk to you, you can't talk to them, so there are no narrative choices here and the quests are a bit shallow. Each quest will play out the same way every time (for the most part).

So no, this is not a typical Fallout game. How does it play as a survival game? Well, I don't know. I don't like hardcore survival games. It seems people who do *loved* Fallout 4's survival mode and dislike Fallout 76's survival aspects. I'm the opposite: Survival-lite is fine with me. Essentially what survival means in Fallout 76 is that you have to eat, drink, and watch out for diseases, and other players can come wreck your stuff. You don't lose anything meaningful when you die, just junk items (though if you've been farming for screws and you lose them all, that hurts).

Like I said before, the endgame kinda dries up. Nuke zones were supposed to be the endgame but they're ultimately a little lackluster. It seemed like we were sold on drastic changes to the environment in nuke zones, but the changes are minor. Functionally, the flora that grows in the area changes to nuked flora that you can use to make crafting materials for advanced items, and the enemies are higher level and give more loot, and you get a ton of rads that you have to manage. But aside from that it's just a yellow haze over everything. It's still fun to run in because generally about 3/4 of the 24-player servers show up to participate and wreck a bunch of glowing ghouls. It's mayhem and it's glorious, but even that can get boring if you do it enough.

Before I bought Fallout 76, other players were my biggest concern, but I have yet to meet a jerk in-game. I've read some horror stories, and it seems like as the content dries up, some high-level players get a kick out of destroying camps. The anti-griefing measures aren't up to snuff, really. Thankfully it's nearly impossible to grief with nukes (you get a 3 minute warning when a nuke is launched) and it would be a stupid waste of a nuke anyway. But the other big anti-griefing measure is bounties. If you attack a player enough without them attacking back, or if you break items at another player's camp, you get a bounty. However, all you need is a teammate to kill you. You lose your bounty, they collect some caps, and can give them right back to you. There's a minor cap loss because it isn't 1:1 for caps lost:caps gained, but caps are fairly easy to come by, so essentially there's no penalty for being a dick. There's currently no way to fully turn off PvP. A new unrestricted PvP server option is coming "soon" so hopefully they'll go there instead, but if they enjoy messing with other players it may be more fun for them to stay on the normal servers because they aren't changing how PvP works in normal servers. At least, if they are planning to, they haven't said so.

As it stands now, the game is less buggy than it ever has been but there are still some doozies. Scorchbeasts are supposed to be the big, bad, fun enemy to take down (like dragons in Skyrim) but it seems like their sonic energy wave (or whatever it is) is bugged more often than not, so whenever one sees you, your screen is just filled with blue and nothing else until you blindly run away. When they work properly, they still aren't great fun but they're manageable.

In addition, item duplication is rampant, and the most recent methods used involve doing something that tanks the server stability. Every time one is patched out, it seems like a new method is discovered. They're starting to do ban waves, but to add to the troubles this game is facing, it seems like some legit players are getting caught in that (but it's worth noting that plenty of dupers would claim to be legit, so take that with a grain of salt).

But even after the issues, I'm still going back in for more because the good stuff outweighs the bad for me. It may not do the same for you. It's hard to rate this game. I want to give it a Must Play for the fun I'm having, and Skip It because of the issues, so I think I'm going to average it out to a low Rad, but don't take that as an endorsement.

jdodson Admin wrote on 02/11/2019 at 12:07am

https://www.polygon.com/2019/2/10/18219293/fallout-76-vault-63-location-inside-dlc-cut-content

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 02/11/2019 at 11:17pm

Yeah I think it's a little disingenuous for Polygon to call it content cut before launch, it seems like this stuff is their future content. There are three vaults aside from 76, and people have managed to clip into the others, but I don't think anyone had gotten into 63 yet.

While I'm here I should also comment on the fact that a patch a couple weeks back was a doozy. They managed to not notice a merge failure, so a ton of bugs from older versions cropped up and nobody caught that before the update was released. They patched up a few but I think right now it's buggier than it's been since early December.

This game is a bit of a mess. I just hope they can clean it up because I DO love it, despite its numerous flaws, some glaring.

jdodson Admin wrote on 02/12/2019 at 09:01pm

> Yeah I think it's a little disingenuous for Polygon to call it content cut before launch, it seems like this stuff is their future content. There are three vaults aside from 76, and people have managed to clip into the others, but I don't think anyone had gotten into 63 yet.

I didn't read that. I agree, it's not easy to know what was planned, cut, etc. Unless they have some source saying so, it's just a guess. As an Engineer who likes releasing stuff, it's a good thing to cut scope to meet a deadline.

> They patched up a few but I think right now it's buggier than it's been since early December.

Yowza. F76 didn't land in spot where most people thought it was high quality from go so it's hard to hear they are still dealing with that sort of thing. Hopefully they can end that narrative and deliver something everyone enjoys.

> This game is a bit of a mess. I just hope they can clean it up because I DO love it, despite its numerous flaws, some glaring.

Me too.

jdodson Admin wrote on 02/12/2019 at 09:02pm

My point in sharing that was really a tip that more stuff might be coming later, but it seems you know about this Vault, which makes sense.

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 02/13/2019 at 03:04am

Oh yeah definitely, I got that. I didn't think you came here to trash it, or take any stance at all really :D

But yeah they have a new, more dangerous PVP mode coming out in the spring (if it isn't delayed due to focusing on the bugs at hand... which it should be) and then they're opening the vaults as group raids.

Something *everyone* enjoys won't happen but they have a sizeable group of people who want to love it. They just have to drive it home.

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Fallout 76: First Impressions After a Few Hours

I've played about 6ish hours of Fallout 76 so far, so I think I have a decent handle on how things are shaping up, though I'm far from comfortable in the game yet. Whether you enjoy the game or not, there's a lot of depth to uncover.

First and foremost, this is not the Fallout you're used to. Don't go into it expecting that, or you're bound for disappointment. It's an online survival game more akin to something like Rust than Fallout, but it does have that Fallout feel and setting.

Speaking of the setting, it's interesting jumping into a Fallout setting that I'm more familiar with than the previous entries. The first city you visit is Morgantown, which I've visited a... Read All

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 11/17/2018 at 07:04am

The game kind of had the opposite effect on me pre-launch. At first, I wasn't interested, thinking it'd be more like GTA Online, plenty of PVP. Overtime, I watched people on YouTube play and I became more interested in it. Now I've played enough of it, I've generated a mostly positive opinion on it. I've never encountered a PVP problem or instance. Once I think someone shot at me, but I don't know if they meant to or what, but I didn't retaliate and that's all there was to that encounter. I don't often run into people, most of them don't seem to have a mic set up, some do. With the "auto" voice chat setting, I've noticed I can hear and talk to people that are within the area around me and I've done that. I noticed the talking icon over people's heads and thought something was wrong on my side, but now I'm sure they were just using the "team" voice chat setting.

Now for my disappointment, the bugs. I've run into plenty of them and I'm disappointed that some of them haven't been patched yet. You cannot complete the Bureau of Tourism quest as part of it is repairing a dispenser. Once you go to the dispenser you'll see the diamond on it showing you that's your quest piece, but it does not allow you to interact with it. This was an issue during the beta that has not yet been fixed. In fact, I feel like we're playing the beta version. I could probably remark about other bugs I've run into, but at least I got the voice chat one figured out ("it's not a bug, it's a feature").

I'm looking forward to seeing you online so I can play with you. I've been playing alone since it went live (which it did early, too). It's a bit lonely actually, but it's ok.

I haven't done much w/ my C.A.M.P. but I did set it up near the airport. I have started with a stash box and cooking pot, but I have since gathered enough materials to create a tinkerer's workshop, too. I want to make the weapon and armor workshops as well.

But yes, this is a bit like Fallout 4. The area looks different, obviously, but some of the mechanics from Fallout 4 are there, like crafting, etc. I'm also used to the area as I live about 150 miles from Charleston, WV. I've seen the golden dome IRL and in-game. WV is only half an hour away from me and I've been there. Looking around my area of VA during fall really does look very similar to the game. I think that's neat.

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 11/17/2018 at 02:42pm

Yeah I confirmed those chat settings:
Area is clear, everyone in the area can hear you.
Team is clear as well, everyone on your team can here you.
Auto sets it to team if you're in a team, or area if you aren't.

It's odd since this is a game that doesn't seem to encourage team v team so I don't know why you wouldn't want it to area all the time. If someone walks up to you, you can't even talk to them.

So I set mine to area even though I still haven't bothered with a headset.

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 11/17/2018 at 02:57pm

I updated the post with a couple things I should have put in last night.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 11/17/2018 at 11:52pm

Wow! I'm surprised you're done w/ RDR2. Was it a short game or did you just play the hell out of it?

I bought the digital version of Fallout 76 from Bethesda.net. Therefore, I got the pre-order bonus of the classic Fallout games (Fallout, Fallout 2, and Fallout Tactics). I have Fallout on Steam. I've tried to play it, but didn't really get into it.

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 11/18/2018 at 02:41am

Haha, no, it was not a short game. I don’t have a way to track how long I’ve played but I estimate near 100 hours and I’m not exactly done with it, just finished the missions. There’s still a lot to find!

And yeah the original Fallout games are very different. I played the first game back near when it was released and had some issues getting into it. I loved the idea but the gameplay wasn’t doing it for me. I love what Bethesda has done with it.

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 11/18/2018 at 06:57am

I updated the end of the post with some more thoughts after playing more tonight with Greg. I wouldn't put on a headset for just anyone, Greg! :D

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 11/18/2018 at 09:22pm

Something happened with Greg last night and it happened with me today. My camp just entirely disappeared! I think in my case it's because I joined a server where someone had their camp right across the road from me, so it kinda bumped me out. Good news is that it's easy as pie to just pop it down somewhere else.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 11/18/2018 at 10:01pm

:) I'm glad you did put on a headset. I use mine all the time. I don't really expect to talk to people, but it can happen.

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 11/19/2018 at 04:26am

If I lived alone and they had push-to-talk I would probably keep mine on too

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 11/19/2018 at 10:13am

BTW How did you make your door? I see the door and can craft one, but I don't see a door frame.

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 11/19/2018 at 01:33pm

It’s an alternate wall. Select your wall then press left or right. I kinda stumbled upon it by accident.

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 11/19/2018 at 09:34pm

So the patch is out and seems to fix the Bureau of Tourism bugs and some other things. But... it looks like for consoles it requires redownloading the whole damn game!

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-11-19-fallout-76s-first-major-patch-is-a-whopping-47gb

It’s 15gb on PC so yay for us but WTF. There’s no reason you should have to redownload assets and such.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 11/19/2018 at 11:34pm

Good for the fixes!

jdodson Admin wrote on 12/03/2018 at 12:25am

After sitting on the game a bit are both of you still glad you got it?

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 12/03/2018 at 12:50am

Yeah. It's kind of frustrating at times, because it takes me to places I feel like I have no business being. That's because there are some really nasty creatures there that kill me. I die a lot, but I also don't always run around in power armor and I stick to using two or three guns mostly. But yeah, I don't regret getting it. It's been fun playing with Travis.

jdodson Admin wrote on 12/03/2018 at 12:56am

Great. It's a game that I expect to get a ton of updates so when people are upset with what it is now, it's odd because it seems to be what people said it might be. Which is to say, not done at all but available to play if people want.

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 12/03/2018 at 03:52am

Honestly I think a large majority of the complaints are way unfounded at best, absolutely ridiculous at worst. Which is a pity because it drowns out the discussion of the *real* problems of the game, of which there are many.

But my biggest problem with the game is how I don't want to stop playing it.

I'm getting toward the end of the main quest. My next (and really, only) step for the main quest is to launch a nuke. Not sure what endgame is like. If it was a singleplayer game, that wouldn't really matter. You hit the end and you're done, right? Go explore if you want but otherwise you're all set! But the endgame could make or break it.

But for what I've played, it's not a perfect Fallout game or a perfect survival game but the elements of each make it something compelling and a lot of fun, especially when you have a buddy (hi Greg!)

jdodson Admin wrote on 12/03/2018 at 04:45am

> But my biggest problem with the game is how I don't want to stop playing it.

Awesome problem to have. So how many hours have you played so far? PC right?

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 12/03/2018 at 12:48pm

PC and I have no way to tell how many hours as far as I know. A lot. Too many. 😂

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 12/09/2018 at 01:04am

I just got an in-game achievement for exploring the game for 76 hours. I'm I'm still only level 43 or so.

jdodson Admin wrote on 12/09/2018 at 05:12am

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 12/09/2018 at 07:07am

I got that achievement yesterday I think. Just tipped over level 59 tonight, the nuke zones are really fun. I still have yet to launch my own.

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Fallout 76 has been announced with a trailer (embedded). No other information has been provided. After watching the video, it sounds like it takes place in West Virginia, a neighboring state of mine. I would expect some serious irradiated wild life as WV's theme is "wild and wonderful." Let me know what you think and share any additional info you have.

News source: https://www.cnet.com/news/fallout-76-is-the-next-bethesda-adventure-in-the-post-apocalyptic-wasteland/

Travis Admin wrote on 05/30/2018 at 07:47pm

“Sources” claim that this is an online survival game.

https://kotaku.com/sources-fallout-76-is-an-online-survival-rpg-1826425333

So Greg, your Ark love might translate well to this. I’ll probably end up buying it because it’s Fallout and I love Fallout but I don’t really love the genre so... hopefully they can do something interesting with this to make me interested. But if I’m not that’s fine. It’s cool that they’re branching out to other genres but that’s kind of a wall that stops my hype train.

That’s assuming these sources are accurate (they seem to be).

Travis Admin wrote on 05/30/2018 at 07:56pm

Some lore: Vault 76 is a control vault in Virginia that wasn’t an experiment like the other vaults. It was scheduled to open 20 years after the bombs dropped, but based on the trailer it’s 5 years past that “reclamation day” and you appear to be the only one in the vault.

Azurephile Super Member Post Author wrote on 05/30/2018 at 08:05pm

Ah well see the reason I love Ark so much isn't because it's an online survival game, but because it's a crafting, taming creatures, survival game. I did the online stuff, some time after I played single player, but I ended up getting back into single player and I'm not sure if I'd do the online thing again. That said, if this is a strictly online game with other people, I probably won't get into it. I'm not strictly against playing games online w/ others, but I have a strong preference to play online with friends only (ie, you guys w/ Terraria). I did enjoy my online time w/ Ark and I got some new friends and had some fun, but there was a lot of babysitting (of creatures, especially newborns) and when it came to PVP and time for war, I left.

What I'm wondering is why it's not called Fallout 5. Perhaps that's because it's an online survival. So, maybe the next single player version of the game will be Fallout 5, granted I'd prefer that instead of online survival.

Travis Admin wrote on 05/30/2018 at 08:52pm

Yeah they wouldn’t call it Fallout 5 if it’s not the core game sequel. Kinda like New Vegas a few years back but even more different than that.

Azurephile Super Member Post Author wrote on 05/30/2018 at 10:50pm

Ah, ok. I didn't think of it like that. I'm so used to the Final Fantasy series and how almost always those numbers are not related.

jdodson Admin wrote on 05/31/2018 at 02:05am

If it's a survival game where you can run your own servers that might be fun. Reason why those are fun is that you can build up a server ALA Terraria with rules and stuff and kick off dipshits. I know a lot of the new survival games do that and I think Ark does too.

Travis Admin wrote on 05/31/2018 at 02:21am

Agreed 100% Jon. That would drive it home for me.

jdodson Admin wrote on 05/31/2018 at 02:28am

Right. It's hard to play those games and build up a small hut while some "doin' it for the LOLs" guy snorting cheeto dust wrecks your house and kills you. I mean, that's not how I would define fun anyway.

Azurephile Super Member Post Author wrote on 05/31/2018 at 02:34am

Yup yup! You can have your own server w/ Ark. PixArk is the last game I ran as a server, only because some features are still missing in the single player game. I like to run TShock for Terraria, too, when I get to a point where I want to change the time (for fishing quests) and use warps. But yeah, those kind of people you mention, Jon, suck. I believe they're called "griefers" and "trolls." There's also those kids (and perhaps adults) w/ the "yo mama" jokes/insults and calling everyone some other bad things (I don't feel like repeating those).

Yeah, a Cheerful Ghost Fallout 76 server sounds great!

Azurephile Super Member Post Author wrote on 06/01/2018 at 03:39am

Check out this video. As long as there's a single player mode, I'll be happy to get it. https://youtu.be/8RgbeA4H0FY

Travis Admin wrote on 06/01/2018 at 09:39pm

That video makes me want to check out The Forest actually! And yeah there are a few ways they could do Fallout 76 right.

Azurephile Super Member Post Author wrote on 06/11/2018 at 12:45am

Did you see this from the MS press conference? https://youtu.be/toS9OiU-y0k Wow 4 times bigger than Fallout 4?! My only gripe (regarding what we do officially know) is the setting. I live near WV and I really don't care to explore that area in a video game. Sure, it can be nice and quaint, but I'm not really down for that whole country scene. Still, it won't matter, I'll still most likely buy this game. Apparently XBox users can pre-order on the 15th. I don't know if I'll preorder, I think I'd like to see when it's going to be released. What do you guys think?

Travis Admin wrote on 06/11/2018 at 01:00am

We will find out more at tonight’s Bethesda conference. I’m skipping Westworld for it

Travis Admin wrote on 06/11/2018 at 01:08am

But no matter where it’s set it’s still post apocalyptic so I mean it’s not much different from West Virginia today amirite? Got ‘em!

I jest, West Virginia is beautiful and surprisingly progressive in the populous areas.

jdodson Admin wrote on 06/11/2018 at 01:20am

Watching the pre show now. Can’t wait to find out what 76 is! Bethesda is playing it so well because we don’t really know. It’s such great marketing.

jdodson Admin wrote on 06/11/2018 at 01:24am

People are thinking there is gonna be a new Elder Scrolls but at best that’s coming next year.

Azurephile Super Member Post Author wrote on 06/11/2018 at 01:30am

Yeah, @Travis, WV is beautiful. Surprisingly progressive? That's new to me, but you said populous areas, which makes some sense. But yeah, you're right post-apocalyptic, won't really matter. It'll be cool, I'm sure, I'm just not a fan of the country, I'm tired of it really.

@Jon I don't believe we'll see another Elder Scrolls game for a while. I'd say maybe, just maybe, in about 5 or 10 years. The last I saw, they said that the technology isn't up to par with what they want to do. Who knows what that is, but it's definitely going to take some time.

Azurephile Super Member Post Author wrote on 11/06/2018 at 03:10am

So, I've been watching some videos of people playing Fallout 76 and it looks more interesting than I originally thought. The people I've watched have rarely encountered other people, except for their friends of course. There's been little to no PVP in the videos I've seen. You can't even PVP until you're level 5 and apparently you won't take much damage at first, unless you fight back, then it's on, otherwise you're pretty much ok. There are quests that are easier to do with someone else and connecting with a friend seems to be kind of easy. I feel like the more of these videos I watch, the more tempted I am to get it.

I'd also like to note that it looks a lot like Fallout 4, except more familiar to me as I'm about 150 away from Charleston, WV. The WV border is only about a half hour away.

Have any of you watched your favorite YouTubers play this game? Has your mind changed as to whether or not you'll get into it?

If I didn't have Ark to keep me occupied thanks to the new DLC coming out tomorrow, I think I'd most likely buy 76. Even still, I may get it when I'm done with Ark's new DLC.

Travis Admin wrote on 11/06/2018 at 03:32am

I've been reading a lot about it on /r/fallout and the big issue seems to be that the revenge system to prevent trolling encourages it.

Basically, player A kills player B, player B can then take revenge and get tons of loot.

The issue is that, player C can stash all their stuff and take terrible gear and then go run in front of player D's shots, or annoy player D by standing in doorways to trap them, or any other number of things so that player D kills player C. Then, player C goes and gets better gear and easily gets revenge on player D, and gets all the gear player D is carrying.

There's still tweaking to do, but if they get it right I'm still open to buying it.

Azurephile Super Member Post Author wrote on 11/06/2018 at 04:15am

Wow that seems like a lot of could happen whereas in the videos I've been watching nothing like that has happened. I did see in one video that showed a wanted person on the map though, so someone was killing players.

Azurephile Super Member Post Author wrote on 11/06/2018 at 04:18am

I've also seen some of them server hopping. So, if you get on a serve and someone is doing something unfriendly, you can jump on to a different server. It's interesting. Mostly server hopping was used to grab Power Armor.

Azurephile Super Member Post Author wrote on 11/08/2018 at 01:27pm

One problem I saw was that there seems to be no push to talk button. Instead it's open mic and you'll hear anyone on the server. At least, that's what it seems happened with one of my favorite YouTubers. Maybe open mic is more localized for the area or maybe it's on the whole map. Others that I watched didn't seem to have this problem, so I don't know what they did differently. I may figure it out eventually, because I think I've pretty much decided to get it. I just don't know if I want to pre-order it. Let me know if you (anyone here for that matter) decide to get it. It'd be cool to play with friends and I have a good headset to use.

Travis Admin wrote on 11/08/2018 at 02:38pm

Yeah there’s no push to talk which is a complaint I’ve read.

I am like 50/50 on whether I’m getting it but I won’t at launch because I’ll have a ton of RDR2 left.

Azurephile Super Member Post Author wrote on 11/08/2018 at 10:07pm

Lucky! I don't have a console for RDR2 and I don't want one. I want it to come out on PC lol. I think I will get Fallout 76 though, eventually, maybe close to launch.

Travis Admin wrote on 11/09/2018 at 03:50am

> and I don't want one

I dunno man, the PS4 has so many amazing games now that are either exclusive to it, or exclusive to consoles.

I do bet that whenever the PS5 and Xbox ... Scarlet? Is that what they're calling it? Anyway, when the next gen comes out I bet Rockstar releases it for those and PC, the way they did RDR2

Azurephile Super Member Post Author wrote on 11/09/2018 at 05:12am

Yeah, but I heard that RDR2 performed better on the XBox One. I'm not sure I have money for a new console. I'd like to have a Switch, but can't afford one. Yeah I hope it comes to PC, but who knows. They didn't release the first one. I have it for PS3 and would love to have it on Steam.

Regarding Fallout 76, I'm feeling more confident about it and seriously thinking about it. If you get it, I hope you get it for PC so we can play together. :) Otherwise I might tough it out on my own. We'll see, I don't know what I'm going to do.

Azurephile Super Member Post Author wrote on 11/09/2018 at 05:19am

Although I did buy a New 2DSXL recently along with Pokemon Ultra Moon, but that was somewhat with birthday money I had leftover. I'd probably have to save a bit for a new console, but then there's not a lot of console games I'm aware of that I'd want. Right now Vinny uses the PS3 for gaming, I use it for streaming (watching YouTube and Hulu). My hope with a new console is that streaming would be much better, because at times I can't connect to Hulu and YouTube has trouble loading videos (sometimes).

Travis Admin wrote on 11/09/2018 at 05:08pm

It does perform a little better on the Xbox One but it’s not a huge jump and the PS4 exclusives like God of War and Spider-Man far make up for some minor deficiencies in one game :)

Azurephile Super Member Post Author wrote on 11/09/2018 at 09:20pm

There's also Kingdom Hearts and FFVII: Remake coming.

Travis Admin wrote on 11/10/2018 at 02:15am

Yep! This generation is full of great stuff.

Azurephile Super Member Post Author wrote on 11/10/2018 at 06:19am

I decided to go ahead and pre-order Fallout 76. Apparently you can pre-load one of the console versions now (I think XBox) and PC and the other console pre-loads will be available later.

Travis Admin wrote on 11/14/2018 at 04:17am

I was foolish to think that I'd hold out. I won't be playing it soon (RDR2... won't... let... me... go) but I will have it as soon as my Amazon shipment comes in.

jdodson Admin wrote on 11/14/2018 at 04:20am

> Amazon shipment comes in.

What version did you buy?

Travis Admin wrote on 11/14/2018 at 04:48am

I got the special edition but not the mega special edition with the power armor helmet. This one:

https://www.amazon.com/Fallout-76-Tricentennial-PC/dp/B07DN8YWLW/ref=sr_1_3_twi_gam_4?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1542170827&sr=1-3&keywords=fallout+76

Travis Admin wrote on 11/14/2018 at 04:55am

And yes Greg I got it on PC!

I'd prefer PS4 (until I get a 4k HDR monitor) but anyone I know who I'd want to play with would get it on PC probably so it made sense.

Azurephile Super Member Post Author wrote on 11/14/2018 at 10:33pm

Yay! My name is GregoPeck on there. Unfortunately, it seems voice chat isn't working. I saw some people talking by an icon above their head, but couldn't hear them. Later I ran into a group that I could hear. I'm also sure no one could hear me. So, it seems a bit messed up at the moment.

I've been playing since yesterday, it actually went live before midnight.

jdodson Admin wrote on 11/15/2018 at 02:36am

Pretty good review on RPS

https://youtu.be/OxH1QHmcyv4

Travis Admin wrote on 11/15/2018 at 02:37am

How is it so far for yo Greg?

Azurephile Super Member Post Author wrote on 11/15/2018 at 04:27am

Well, it performed really shitty at first. The game auto set my settings to Ultra and it took forever for shit to load in, so I changed it to High and it's performing better, although still sometimes things don't load in well. It'd be nice if voice chat worked, although some people may be relieved from the lack of open mic. Otherwise, it's cool and there's plenty to do. I think we're still playing with the beta version as we have not received a major update. There are definitely bugs that I hope get resolved soon.

Travis Admin wrote on 11/15/2018 at 04:52am

I've read that it's buggy as hell right now for everyone. Some missions unplayable, audio not working properly so someone on the other end of the map can hear your gunshots, lots of things. I heard there was a massive day-one update too so that's odd as well.

Azurephile Super Member Post Author wrote on 11/15/2018 at 05:28am

I think the consoles got a day-one patch, but PC didn't. Some have said we got a small patch, but that's it. I'm looking forward to seeing Bethesda take care of bugs.

Azurephile Super Member Post Author wrote on 11/15/2018 at 07:55am

I think I fixed my voice chat issue. I think it was a Windows 10 privacy setting that was causing me a problem. Eventually, I found someone that could hear me and I could hear her.

Azurephile Super Member Post Author wrote on 11/16/2018 at 01:58am

Let me know what your name is when you get in so I can send you a friend request. Someone sent me one, but I have no idea who. The game does list people I've recently seen, but I didn't see where exactly that friend request came from. For us, it'll be easy once I know what your in-game name is.

Travis Admin wrote on 11/16/2018 at 03:40am

I sent you a friend request from panickedthumb so I’m probably not the one you didn’t recognize.

First impressions after a couple hours: this doesn’t have a narrative like the other Fallout games, and we knew that going in, but it definitely feels different and strange because of that. But Bethesda has always had a knack for environmental storytelling and it seems like they ramped it up for this game. Discovering the little stories left around every nook and cranny has been great.

The online aspect is interesting so far. I haven’t even connected a headset, I figured I’d just use text chat but hang on... they don’t have text chat. That’s an odd omission but they are “looking into” adding it. Push to talk is coming soon apparently. But I managed to communicate with rudimentary gestures with a couple players and we were working on the same missions so we kinda watched each other’s backs without any formal plan. The emergent gameplay was great here. I ran into one joker (I hesitate to say troll) who was blasting “Never Gonna Give You Up” over his headset and following people around “dancing” with emotes. It was way more funny than annoying.

The survival aspect is pretty well done. Imagine a Rust kind of system but way less strict. It’s more refined than the survival mode they added to Fallout 4 and a could imagine them learning some things for their next single player games.

Overall it’s not bad. It’ll take some time to really judge it but so far I’m not really put off by anything, which is unexpected for an online-only title.

Travis Admin wrote on 11/16/2018 at 03:44am

Oh and performance-wise, it’s noticeably prettier than Fallout 4 but runs better on my system. I have a buttery 60fps even in really asset-heavy areas. But I noticed that no matter how I set my video settings, the robot NPCs still stutter. I assume that’s because their movements are being calculated server-side so they’re the same for everyone but I don’t notice it with enemies or other players so that’s an odd thing worthy of mention.

jdodson Admin wrote on 11/16/2018 at 03:59am

Thanks for that write up Travis. I think you should turn some of it, or all of it, into a first impressions post. Mostly because I don't want it to be buried here and also because you're the first person i've heard say good things about Fallout 76.

Azurephile Super Member Post Author wrote on 11/16/2018 at 04:17am

Ok well I didn't see the friend request anywhere nor did I see your name. I thought that's what you might use, I'll try to get you added/a request sent. It is like Fallout 4, except it's a survival game, meaning you have to eat and drink. The bad part of this is pretty much everything will give you rads, even after cooking/boiling it. There are also plenty of bugs. Right now you can't complete the Bureau of Tourism quest because you're supposed to repair something and the game doesn't give you a prompt to repair that device.

I thought voice chat wasn't working, but it does. I think it might have been due to Window 10's privacy settings, I had to change it to allow all programs access to my mic. Finally, I found a couple of girls that could hear me. I also later found some other guys that I could talk to, too.

The game does look good and it's not bad, but there are definitely things that need to be fixed. And yet we still have no patch. :(

Feel free to write up something, Travis, I support what Jon's said to you. It's complicated, but I'm not sure I'm in a great position to write a great review, maybe I just need some more time with it.

Azurephile Super Member Post Author wrote on 11/16/2018 at 04:21am

Ok, I did a friend search for your name, found you and now it says "friend added." It's shown me that you're offline. I don't think the Bethesda launcher has a friends list, like Steam, so I'd know when you're on and playing. Hopefully, I'll get on sometime when you're on and I can find you and help you out. I feel kinda deep in the game, there are still some things I need to do, but that all can take a backseat. :)

Travis Admin wrote on 11/16/2018 at 04:50am

You say “and yet we have no patch” but we kinda do. It was a day one patch, but it looks like the PC version is actually at a higher point release than consoles.

It’s a patch, it just doesn’t fix everything, and there’s still a lot to fix.

Azurephile Super Member Post Author wrote on 11/16/2018 at 05:17am

Right. I guess I feel like I've run into things that clearly require patching, but haven't been patched yet. Also, the lack of a push-to-talk button....well my headset has a push-to-mute button, so yeah lol. I noticed on the "auto" voice chat setting, that you won't hear people unless they're close, which seems to be the same as the "area" setting. If you can hear them, you can probably see them. One girl could hear me, but I couldn't hear her and I think her teammate said it was because her voice chat was set to "team." So, I think that setting mutes you to everyone except your team.

Travis Admin wrote on 11/16/2018 at 04:34pm

I think auto will set you to team chat if you’re on a team, or area if not.

And yeah I plan on writing something up when I have a few more hours in. It’s still too early even for a first impressions post

Azurephile Super Member Post Author wrote on 11/16/2018 at 10:49pm

I could write something...for starters, I wasn't even convinced about buying it until I watched YouTubers play the beta. Even then I was still a bit hesitant, too afraid of the PVP stuff, but it's not as bad as I thought it'd be. I don't often see other players, although I can see them on my map.

Travis Admin wrote on 11/17/2018 at 06:30am

Posted: https://cheerfulghost.com/Travis/posts/3941/fallout-76-first-impressions-after-a-few-hours

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