[Bethesda] Fallout 76

[Blackhawk]

So, essentially, it feels like a single-player Fallout game with the possibility of occasionally bumping into someone, doing a few emotes, and going on your way. If they do decide to shoot you (they rarely will), they'll do almost no damage. You can emote a chuckle and wander off, and they'll likely get bored before they do enough damage to kill you.

It is only when you shoot them back, or claim certain specific locations that it switches you over to full damage with other players, and even then it's just temporary.

Any base griefing is honestly less of a hassle than random Fallout 4 raider attacks on settlements.

[Madmarcus]

For some reason I can't log in. I've reset my Bethesda.net password but I still get an error when I try to use my existing account or create a new account.

Solved - they really need to change their cryptic error messages and simply say what is wrong!

[Madmarcus]

I'm not sure how I like this. It definitely does not feel like a single person Fallout 4.5 so far. To be fair that might be because I am in the starter area right after the game was given away for free but I really didn't want to have to bother about hearing people try to talk to me when I don't have a mike and really just want to be left alone. I suppose it would help if I had well developed MMORPG reflexes and could do the "no mike" emote without thinking about it but I don't.

Looks good even on my poor system and exploring is fun so I'll stick with it.

[Daehawk]

Installed the free play. Will bother with it for 3 days I guess to see what it is. I made it from the vault to the bar at the foot of the hill and the camp. Took me a minute to figure out how to exit the game lol.

Made me want to play Outriders.

[Punisher]

I never bothered with this because I didnt want to play a PVP game. Since that has changed AND I can get it free from Amazon I'll have to give it a try next week.

[Sudy]

...but I really didn't want to have to bother about hearing people try to talk to me when I don't have a mike and really just want to be left alone. I suppose it would help if I had well developed MMORPG reflexes and could do the "no mike" emote without thinking about it but I don't.

I wouldn't worry about that unless your experiences are drastically different from mine. I do a lot of content with random groups and I've only gotten a talker once, and he seemed to be an older fellow who was just trying to be helpful. I ran across one tool who didn't know he was broadcasting to area (or didn't care) and was ripping my friend and I for being low level and was afraid we were farming his spawn, but it was a freak thing and didn't amount to much.

No kids blasting the dubstep or spouting slurs or anything. And that's over at least a couple hundred hours at this point. In fact, the community seems to be well known for being largely friendly and non-toxic, seemingly aided by the absence of text chat (which, as an MMOG veteran, I found unthinkable at first). (It can be added with a mod on the Steam version, but not on the Xbox PC version that's included in the Prime giveaway.)

My first impression of the game was quite different than what it evolves into by level 50 or so, and it's a quick ride there. As I mentioned previously, the endgame stuff is only barely gated... I've hardly touched the main questlines. It gets repetitive, but remains fun beyond that point. I've probably only visited 90% of known map locations at level 150. I do wish the community aspects were more involved, but that would probably be accomplished by playing with an external guild.

I find it interesting because while assets are certainly recycled and remixed, for me this game accomplishes being visually fresh enough that it hasn't yet gotten stale like it would have a generation or two earlier. I do wish itemization were a little more interesting... popular builds have their god rolls, and there are only several main affixes that seem worthwhile. Eventually you'll just be spending endgame resources to reroll endlessly, but there are still several main builds I haven't even tried yet.

[Madmarcus]

Your response is both heartening and depressing to this non MMO fan. So far I've had two guys following my around, talking at me, and shooting at me (which I expect was supposed to get my attention as it was infrequent enough to not be a real attack). The last online game I really played was The Secret World and it felt like we all simply ignored each other if we weren't actively teamed up. Of course that had mostly/only text chat and I could ignore it. I find it harder to ignore someone constantly saying hey!

I'm here mostly for the journey to 50 and exploration. It was free so I doubt I'll stick around for a lot of endgame looting and rerunning content.

[Sudy]

If their shots weren't landing or only a couple hits, they may have been wanting you to stop, yeah, so they could gift you some stuff. Especially if they were also using the gift or trade emotes. (If anyone drops a bag near you, feel free to take it all--it'll be stuff they don't need and want you to take. Or they could just be dropping their trash coincidentally.) However, if they were harassing you verbally and/or seemed more aggressive you may have just ran into some jerks, I'm sorry.

Almost everyone joins a Casual team for various (many of which are perk-based), but they don't actually meet up or play together, or talk. But you have to manually join those--you wouldn't be sent an invite.

[Max Peck]

If push comes to shove, you can always just switch off voice chat through the audio settings if it's annoying you.

[D.A.Lewis]

Almost 2 years in and the game is now part of my life. Any where from 30 to 90 min a day. I would sum the game up as a single player game with multi player features. You can probably play the whole game without interacting with a player. But there are some fun multiplayer events that are great in a crowd. Also setting up a vending machine and selling stuff to other players is a great way to help nubs and low level players. There is some griefing but it is minimal. Just be careful taking over a workshop, that opens up that area to PvP. The thing is however, when a higer level player comes in and kills you all they get is some minimal junk. They dont get your armor, they dont get your weapons nor all your money (maybe 50 IIRC). The game is really not set up fo PVP and the griefers take advantage, but they are rare and the player base is pretty famous for its welcoming nature.

My only problem with the game is the inventory restrictions. I would say at least a third of the game is inventory management. 76 does have a camp building component just like fallout 4, but it is limited in its number,ONE. And they place a limit on the size.

[Madmarcus]

I've played for roughly a week after the Prime giveaway. I like it but I don't see it lasting for years.

Pro -
No saves but minimal cost to death is a nice change. I don't think I want it in all open world games but it is refreshing.
Fun world to explore that can really feel like a single player game at times.

Cons -
The perk card system is poor. Too much hidden information and access gated by RNG. It is one of the areas where it really shows that the endgame isn't at level 50 it is at level 300 or so when you can actually have had a chance to get all of the cards you want and possibly rearranged your SPECIAL stats to match things that you hadn't planned for because you didn't know they existed when you started.

[Daehawk]

Fan made video that left Bethesda themselves speechless.

[Blackhawk]

The joy of playing Fallout 76 with my son.

[hepcat]

[Blackhawk]

I posted a comment on it in the Randomness thread, and figured that I owed people who read it a full explanation. It isn't an awful game. Parts of it are great. But elements of it are so poorly implemented and frustrating that, if you care about those things, it's exhausting to play.

I've been playing FO76 for five or six weeks now, and am past the level cap (you stop gaining stats/slots at 50, but still gain perk cards, special perks, etc.) It's the only Fallout game (other than the PS2 game) that I hadn't played. And yes, I played with a paid subscription.

Short me-76 history: This was a preorder for me. I played at launch, and it was fun, but I had a technical issue that disconnected my main character within seconds every time I logged in (although other characters worked fine.) Bethesda told me that my CPU was - literally - 0.1 GHz below the requirement, so I was on my own. I walked away. A year or so later I tried again, and while I wasn't disconnected, it was a still a mess, causing me to lose several hours of work.

I have heard that it got better, so I gave it another go. Like I said, it's the only Fallout title I haven't played. Plus, my son, who's played the game quite a bit, wanted to play with me.

It isn't all bad. We have had some great times, and there are some great things here. Minute to minute it feels like a Fallout game. The questing feels like Fallout 3/4, as does the exploring, the combat (with the exception of VATS, as they aren't able to slow down time for one player in a multiplayer game), and the world. Mostly (see the con about absurdity below.) It does, however, have a lot of issues.

PROS

• You can build as much or as little as you like. You can build a complex base, or you can set down a single tiny foundation, put down a couple of crafting stations, and never touch the build menu again.
• The world is huge. I haven't even come close to seeing it all, despite having been in every corner of it.
• They've fixed some of the biggest content issues (like no NPCs or dialog.)
• They have seasonal progression, which gives resources, recipes, gear, and cosmetics. (Counterpoint - they've also taken a note from battle passes and let people buy 'boosters' to skip ahead, which is P2W crap.)
• They've added the ability to save multiple character builds and swap between them, and have made it simple to respec and swap talent points on the fly. They've also added the ability to build multiple bases, although you can only have one active at a time, so you can have a 'fun' base, a selling base, a resource farming base, etc. (Counterpoint: You only get one extra build and one extra base for free. Beyond that they cost - $5 per character loadout, $10 per camp slot.)
• Player shops have been improved. You can see them all on they map and fast travel to any of them. All of any individual's shops have the same inventory, meaning that if you build three different camps with vendors, they all have the inventory ready.
• Multiplayer event content is actually good. Events pop up all over the map (think Diablo 4), and all you have to do is click on them to join them and teleport directly to them, ready to go. (Note: See below on coop questing)
• Many multiplayer mechanics are great, like the ability to share perks with everyone in your group (although some people, intentionally or knowingly, can share perks that destroy other peoples' builds, like an auto-healing perk shared with players who rely on having low health to deal damage.)
• Alongside that, the real highlight is that the in game community is excellent. People will see new players and toss down all sorts of basic supplies. I've seen player shops near the starting area where everything is priced at 1 cap or 0 (free.) I've never been attacked, not once. (But fair warning - most of the Fallout 76 forum/Reddit groups are toxic as hell.)

CONS

• Content/Gameplay:
• It's often absurd. Not Fallout absurd, but bad Fallout fanfic absurd. They've taken everything ever seen in any Fallout game and tossed them all onto one map, then taken the silly elements that were always there and made them the focus. I've seen robots walking around wearing sheep heads. The player outfits that are available include huge numbers of clown costumes, monster costumes, superhero costumes. The power armor skins are things like glowing skulls for heads, the armor wrapped in Christmas lights. People get long-lasting buffs that make enemies you kill explode into confetti, and when they get those buffs, they force it on to everyone in their vicinity. Enjoy an hour of confetti and party whistles every time you kill an enemy. The new enemies are giant sheep monsters, werewolves, kaiju-sized moles, and so on. And you can gain mutations, a Fallout tradition. The problem is that they gave a simple way to remove all of the downsides, so everyone in the game can run 40 miles per hour in stealth, and everyone in the game can jump 30 feet high. It's become a caricature. It isn't that weird doesn't have a place in Fallout - it's that it feels more like Fortnite. It's like the Auntie Donna's crew are behind the creative decisions.
• It's easy while leveling. Like, crazy easy. The only times I've ever died was when I was jumping into level 50 content in my 20s. They have it set so that enemies drop the ammo that you killed them with, often more than you used to kill them. Shoot a ghoul with a 5.56mm rifle, and the ghoul will have 5.56mm ammo on it's corpse. Shoot the same ghoul with one round of 2mm ECM ammo from a gauss sniper rifle, and the ghoul will have half a dozen rounds of 2mm ECM. They removed the debuffs for starving, too - you can still starve, but it doesn't do anything. Most resources are so abundant that you end up throwing crap away. I don't want blisteringly difficult, but combat is so easy that it's boring. Then you hit the endgame, and you'll find that while normal mobs are still a non-threat, bosses are bullet sponges.
• Despite the ease, there aren't really enough perk points to make versatile builds as you get further along. If you want to use shotguns, you're only going to be able to use shotguns. If you use single-shot rifles, you're only going to be be able to use single-shot rifles. You can equip other weapons, but you won't have the perks that make them effective on the late-game bullet sponges.
• It is still absurdly lazy. Practically everything in the world, save for a few of the 'unique' buildings and a couple of enemies, consists entirely of assets from Fallout 4. Remember I mentioned a werewolf? They just introduced him as the exciting new event boss. Guess what? He's basically a head-swapped deathclaw, using all of the deathclaw animations and attacks. This applies to the equipment, the models, the camps, the world, the decorations, everything.
• You can build a camp, and yeah - they increased the budget, but it's still incredibly limited, and horribly inconsistent, with some items costing several times as much of your budget as almost identical items, all without any real logic or consistency. The space you get to build in is tiny, too, given that most areas are cluttered (especially if you want access to something like water), and you won't get the full area to actually work with. You can build material extractors in your camp, but the resource nodes are almost always in places that you won't have room to build in.
• The building system itself is bad. I've played a lot of games with base/home/etc building elements (and it's a gameplay feature that I love), but this is, by far, the worst. It's unintuitive, it's inconsistent, and it's often just broken. Floors are combined with foundations, but the foundations are short enough that if you're not on perfectly flat ground, they'll end up floating (other games solve this by simply making the supports longer, or making the supports automatically extend to the ground, but here? Most camps have one corner floating 10 feet in the air. You place foundations, then walls, then you want to work on the upper floor, so you take an upper floor and try to attach it to the walls. Nope. Upper floors can only be attached directly to stairs. Oh, and stairs can only be attached to foundation floors, meaning that they can't be used to get to your upper story from outside. You can make an elevated platform, but you have to have a random foundation in the middle of the yard to get to it. Why? Because. You can put decorations on your walls - posters, signs, etc. Great. The problem is that almost every wall type in the game isn't coded with an inside surface, so they simply won't attach to them, and if they do, they likely clip through them, half-hiding them. Oh, but you can hang all of you paintings and posters on the external walls just fine. Most non-decorative items can only snap into place, no free placement. Walls and half walls can snap onto floors, but railings like for a porch? Nope. If you have a platform made from upper floors, you can't place railings on them. There is a two-piece fence set in which the longer piece will snap to them, but not the shorter piece. Oh, and shelves. You can build a half a dozen different types of shelf, and you can put things on them as you'd expect - but only on the very top shelf. Build a four-shelf shelving unit in your camp, and you can't put any items or decorations on the bottom three shelves. It looks ridiculous, and is absurdly lazy coding - they took the shelves from the world that were meant to be filled via the editor and simply let players place them without making the individual shelves count as surfaces.
• You have a stash (storage box.) Every container you can keep things in is your stash (IE - they all share a single inventory.) That stash is extremely limited as far as space goes, and anything in your camp that isn't a structure is counted as being in your stash. Hey, they have a weapon display rack for that cool looking weapon you used to use. You put it on there. It's still counted against your stash. You have a vendor/shop. You find some good power armor pieces. You put them up for sale - yep, still in your stash. You end up not being able to decorate or sell items because if you do, you won't have room to store any of your own stuff.
  
  Coop questing:
  
  • Ok, this is technically part of the above, but it needs its own entry. Remember when I said that the event multiplayer was great? The cooperative questing is absolutely awful, to the point where it isn't really even practical. Here's the problem: This isn't a multiplayer game at it's heart. It's Fallout 4 with multiplayer cobbled on, and it's horribly limited as a result. Remember when they didn't have NPCs in the game at launch? This is likely why: There is no way for multiple people to resolve a quest with an NPC. If you are in a group and it comes time for a conversation, it isn't able to take one player's conversation into account for the others. What's that mean in game? It means that any time you're on a quest that requires you to enter into any sort of structure/cave/dungeon, you have to split up and everyone has to do it separately. Literally. If you are in a group and arrive at a quest location, you're given a choice: Go on the group leader's quest, which will not count for you (so the group would have to repeat it over and over as leader), or every person has to do the dungeon alone.
    
    It kills coop questing completely.
  Monetization:
• When they launched, they promised non gameplay advantages for cash. They then released a variety of them and tweaked the game to encourage their use - repair kits (by making some repair supplies scarce and making repairs always cost the maximum regardless of how damaged something is), scrap kits that let you manage your weight in the field, score boosters to skip ahead on the seasonal progression, and gum to keep you from needing food. Note that last one: Gum. Remember when I said that they got rid of the need to eat by removing the penalties? They're still selling the gum that removes the need to eat, and a not-insignificant number of your 'free' subscription bonuses end up being said gum.
• Speaking of Fallout 1st (their subscription), it's almost mandatory to play. You can play for free, but don't expect to be able to decorate much or run much of a vendor. Remember how everything counts as being in your stash? Well, that includes all ammo, extra gear, crafting materials, building materials, display items, shop items, everything. By default you get 600lbs. A piece of power armor might weigh 18. Heavy weapons are 18. 25 stimpacks is 10. 10 fusion cores (batteries for power armor) is 30. The crafting materials you have by the end game? Hundreds of pounds. And that isn't even touching on water, ammo, or anything else. If you're keeping gear and extra ammo, you're not going to have the space left for another 150 pounds of stuff on the shop. However, if you subscribe, you gain access to a 'scrapbox' that is an infinite stash for junk and and ammo box for infinite ammo, taking 2/3 of the weight out of the stash.
• The stuff in the Atomic Shop (the cash shop) is expensive - Diablo 4 expensive. $14 for a power armor skin. $3 for an emote. Shelter (think vault) rooms cost $15-$20 per room. Yeah, it's all optional cosmetics (although you'll find your building options fairly limited without it), but it's still painfully greedy. Also, they also removed the daily/weekly challenges that used to give the premium currency. (Note: I never spent a dime in there - I only used what they give me as part of the subscription.)
• Speaking of which, they abuse FOMO in their cash shop. Instead of rotating some items out now and then to get people to buy them, they rotate probably 90% of everything that they sell every week. If something is for sale, you have a week or two, or you might not see it again for a year. Literally. If you enjoy building, it's a terrible system. This month is log cabins. Oh, you wanted to build a military bunker style camp? Just keep watching - it'll show up sometime in the next six months. Although you'll have to wait again before the perimeter fences show up. And wait again before you can get the matching stash.
• They go out of their way to force you to play repeatedly with things like daily selling caps. I went out the other day and ran a few events. I had my entire inventory clogged with legendary items (really), so I went to the legendary exchange that turns them into a special currency. I was able to turn in less than half before I hit the daily cap. The rest has to be carried around or put the stash until the next day, and that's assuming that you have the capacity, and it also hinders doing any more events until they're gone.
  
  Bugs/technical
• When you build your camp, you can build turrets and defenses against things attacking, just like in FO4. But for whatever reason, they've crippled the AI attached to the turrets. It won't target enemies half of the time. I've seen a scorched (thing ghoul) standing ten feet from from a turret, shooting it, and the turret does nothing until it is eventually destroyed. I've seen them standing 30 feet away blasting the hell out of the camp, and the turrets do nothing. Other times they'll mow down anything that gets close. They don't react half of the time, though, forcing you to repair your camp every couple of hours. There is one thing that improves the turret targeting - having a spotlight nearby.
• So, spotlights. That are required to make your turrets keep your camp safe. They are placed on something or attached to a wall, and you run a wire to them. Good enough. The problem is that when you travel away from your camp, or quit the game and start again later, all of the spotlights stop working. Every one, every time. The solution? You have to go into build mode, scrap every wire attached to every spotlight and then place them again. Every time. And yeah, that's an annoying bug, and you'd think, "Hopefully they'll fix it." Remember when I said that Bethesda was lazy? Here's the bug. And here's the fix. This is a bug from Fallout 4 that has been giving people problems for eight years to the point that the community had to fix it because Bethesda never bothered. And when they made a new game with the same framework, they left the bug in. What do you think the chances are that this will be fixed, ever?
• When you have certain perks, mutations, or armor effects, and you go into stealth, you go invisible. The problem? The sights on your guns disappear and you can't aim. I made a video demonstrating it, using the perk that only makes the invisibility last a couple of seconds (so that enemies lose you.) I can't use the full time effect because I can't aim. Will Bethesda fix this bug? I'd say no, considering that it's yet another Fallout 4 bug that's been ignored for almost a decade.
• I could keep listing Fallout 4 problems that Bethesda never bothered to fix and imported into 76 (and there are many), but you get the idea. Bethesda lets modders fix their problems, which can make games like FO4 fun and smooth. The problem is that you can't mod FO76, so you're stuck with whatever they don't feel is costing them money.
• The interface and controls are horrid. This has always been an issue with Bethesda. It seems like every menu has a different set of controls. One is navigated with WASD. Another with ZCWS. Another with the arrow keys. One menu uses escape to back out, another uses tab. None work well with a mouse. If you rebind keys, you'll find that half of them are hardcoded in certain contexts. You can change from WASD to ESDF or the arrow keys for moving around, but enter build mode and you're forced to use WASD. The mouse input is jittery. There are times that I think I'm getting 30 FPS based on what it's doing, but I'm actually getting 90+. Why? Because Bethesda is lazy. They have never coded in a PC control scheme for this or Fallout 4. What they did was just map the keyboard to the controller inputs.
• They have the same problem that GTA Online has: Too many menus. This is not a multiplayer game, and it wasn't designed with the options in place for multiplayer options. Instead, they just kept tacking on new menus for each set of functions. Want to join a friend in-game? Escape to open the map. Then Z to open the actual main menu (yeah, escape doesn't actually open the main menu), then mouse to select the social menu. The social menu then opens on the other side of the screen, but it's hard to use with a mouse, so you have to use the arrow keys and enter to find your friend and invite him.
• The performance, like all of the FO/ES titles, is terrible. It's playable on my 3080, that's not the problem. The issue is that for what's on screen, the framerate is terrible. Lots of people have done lots of tests on it, and it isn't about the power of the system. It only uses a fraction of the power available. The problem is that it's so badly coded and optimized that it isn't capable of running well on anything - the engine just can't handle what's being asked of it. Keep in mind that this isn't a new engine. They made an engine for Morrowind, and they've repeatedly updated and polished it over the years for every one of their games, but it's still an ancient piece of software deep inside that isn't able to do what it needs to do. I could write a whole page on the issues that this causes in Fallout 4 (google 'triangle of death fallout 4'.)
• If you have a modern system and run the game with Vsync enabled, it's extremely jittery, even more so than I described above. That's because they don't have VSync tied to your monitor, it is just a 60 FPS cap, and not a very good one. But if you turn off Vsync to make it smoother, you'll find that if you go into very small areas (like a shack that's it's own zone), you'll suddenly be getting 300+ FPS, which completely breaks the game and makes it so that you can't even move.
• There are a hundred other examples of the endless bugs. NPCs spawning without clothes. Players spawning without bodies. This ancient power armor bug from Fallout 4. Enemy health going down, up, down, up. Enemies using the wrong sound files. The wrong names showing up. The wrong icons showing up (or not showing.) To this day you can't actually move most camps, despite it being a feature, as it will be impossible to place and the entire thing will have to be destroyed. Getting stuck in emotes. Getting locked into an animation and floating around the world in a 'sitting' or 'falling' position. The distant rendering glitch (that's not artifacting in the video, that's how the game is rendered.) Enemies freezing in place. Enemies dying and freezing in place as if they were standing. Traveling to your camp and spawning inside of the foundation, unable to move (this one is constant, as you can't specify the fast travel location in your camp like you could in FO4.)
  
  And here's the thing: I've not just encountered every one of these in my game, I've experienced every one of these in the past week (with the exception of the camp moving, which I've learned to never try to do.)

---------------------------------------------------------------------

So, here's my final thoughts.

If you want to play the game for free as a single-player Fallout game and completely skip complex base building, crafting, and player-to-player vendoring, it's a great game, comparable to other (unmodded) Fallout titles, although it's buggy a bit ridiculous at times.

If you want to play it for free with a friend cooperatively, plan on not questing together. Explore, do events, do the seasonal stuff, but questing just doesn't work in a group.

If you want to sell items to other players, spend time building/crafting, work on the end-game progression, and so on, don't bother without subscribing, and expect numerous bugs and frustrations.

I've had fun with it. I'm actually not certain if I'll quit - I may just stop doing any building and just play it like a single player game (my son and I already quit questing together, and he's gotten so annoyed over the way Bethesda's handled things that he's been avoiding playing at all.)

[Sudy]

Admittedly I've skipped most of BH's amazing-looking review and tips for now. But just wanted to chime in to say that I played hundreds of hours last fall, I think I got to around level 200. I played another character to 35 or so a few months ago. I primarily played with a gaming buddy, and it was a ton of fun to explore together. But eventually you run out of things to explore. I found base building to be a lot of fun... many people hop from camp to camp just to check them out and see if you have anything interesting to sell. But the base building mechanics are extremely awkward and glitchy. You can do some amazing things if you know the tricks, but my patience being limited I could rarely realize my concepts.

Story/setting-wise it's miles away from FO1 and 2, though in line with Fallout 3 and I assume 4. But we've had that discussion before. That doesn't make it bad. But it feels like a whole other universe. Do I recommend the game? Honestly I don't think I'd play it solo. I never completed any of the main story questlines, they just weren't fun to me. (From what I've experienced, it does have an interesting story if you're willing to listen to all the audio logs though.) Later on it turns into a public event grind, at least if you want to continue progressing as quickly as possible. This gets boring as half of the events suck, and sometimes you'll be joined by high-level players who don't let you get a hit in or just launch mini-nukes to grief.

I'm an in-game hoarder and eventually got tired of loading up my inventory to the point I couldn't walk and finding my way to a work bench or back to base to break down and store everything. The game is free on Xbox Game Pass for PC (or whatever it's called now), but paying the $15 or whatever for the monthly pass felt mandatory to me as it gives you unlimited scrap storage and other quality of life stuff that really should be in the main game. Or at least, you shouldn't have to pay for the client also (but that's not an issue for Game Pass users). You do receive enough premium currency to make the cost worthwhile though if you like to buy stuff, and there's some really cool stuff in the shop from time to time if you like building. Note that the Game Pass version is more difficult to mod than the Steam version, and some mods just don't work. And mods really improve some aspects of the game. It's playable without, however.

Item grinding and crafting is moderately engaging at best. Most of the legendary items come from public events, and you break them down for mats to roll random legendary perks on the items you craft. Some of the min-max builds just don't seem fun though, e.g. the ones that depend on the neutered food/drink survival system (completely optional at this point; food spoils so quickly) for buffs, or "bloodied" builds that involve staying at extremely low health all the time. I didn't experiment with power armour because I hated the thought of running out of power cores (though I hoarded a ton). Some of the mutations are also pretty much mandatory, there are some you'll want on every character. Getting them naturally from rad exposure is random so it's not practical. Instead, you buy serums to apply them, and need to support them with several perk cards in your build to mitigate their negatives and ensure you don't lose them when you cure rads. Several of the perks are misleading. E.g. they say they only apply to solo play but they also apply in a group, or the bonuses for SMGs apply to some pistols, etc.

The power curve is not friendly to new players; those initial 50 levels can be quite challenging. Then, once you get the perk cards you want and a good gun it loses almost all challenge. You'll probably find random players who will drop starter legendaries for you at the beginning though. The community is mostly great. However, there's no text chat feature frustratingly. It's voice or nothing, and few players use it. There's a mod that adds text chat, but it doesn't work on the Game Pass version.

They have seasons with lots of cosmetic rewards and camp items, but there's not a lot of new major content outside of new events. Apparently the map is as large as they could manage with the engine, and they don't seem to have any plans to create a second map/world.

[Blackhawk]

Admittedly I've skipped most of BH's amazing-looking review and tips for now.

Actually, while I gave a lot of detail and examples, we're pretty much agreed on most of your points. Except for...

The power curve is not friendly to new players; those initial 50 levels can be quite challenging. Then, once you get the perk cards you want and a good gun it loses almost all challenge.

That was the opposite of what I found. The first 50 levels were so easy that they were dull. Save for jumping into level 50 events at low level, I never died (and even then the only time I died in high level events was when they involved high radiation - hello, Eviction Notice, which would drop me in two or three seconds if the scrubber broke.

[Sudy]

The power curve is not friendly to new players; those initial 50 levels can be quite challenging. Then, once you get the perk cards you want and a good gun it loses almost all challenge.

That was the opposite of what I found. The first 50 levels were so easy that they were dull. Save for jumping into level 50 events at low level, I never died (and even then the only time I died in high level events was when they involved high radiation - hello, Eviction Notice, which would drop me in two or three seconds if the scrubber broke.

Wow, that's interesting! I would say that the first 50 levels may have been the most interesting, but unless I was using gifted twink weapons (and even then) I was often just walking around with an unmodified pistol, shotgun, or hunting rifle and taking down any of the harder enemies quickly was often extremely challenging.

But later in the game once I had most of the perks I needed for a build, it took just a couple of good weapon acquisitions to make the game extremely easy. I found a quad ammo railway rifle with VATS bonuses and all of a sudden I was pumping rounds into supermutants' heads and downing them in two seconds.

VATS gets kind of boring, but it's satisfying. I can't imagine playing the game in FPS mode, the gunplay is so clunky. I know a lot of the heavy weapons builds etc. don't use VATS though... I never got around to trying them.

[Blackhawk]

Wow, that's interesting! I would say that the first 50 levels may have been the most interesting, but unless I was using gifted twink weapons (and even then) I was often just walking around with an unmodified pistol, shotgun, or hunting rifle and taking down any of the harder enemies quickly was often extremely challenging.

Ah. Anything worth carrying for more than a few minutes got the workbench treatment, and I usually did so on whatever near-level legendary I'd most recently found that fit my build. I'm running a stealth single-shot build, which is considered to be a fairly weak leveling build to begin with, and I only used VATS occasionally. I have yet to step into a suit of power armor except to claim a couple of frames. FWIW, I was alternating between offensive, defensive, and utility perks, so I always had a few cards equipped that helped with combat.

[Sudy]

Oh, yeah, I did mod what I had with the recipes I had. But early on that wasn't many. I still felt underpowered but I'm willing to concede you're the better gamer.

I didn't try stealth because it didn't seem fun to me with the engine and mechanics (sneaking and sniping in particular), but I know it was a popular playstyle my friend loved. I spent most of my time running around with auto-rifles like the plebs.

[Madmarcus]

The power curve is not friendly to new players; those initial 50 levels can be quite challenging. Then, once you get the perk cards you want and a good gun it loses almost all challenge.

That was the opposite of what I found. The first 50 levels were so easy that they were dull. Save for jumping into level 50 events at low level, I never died (and even then the only time I died in high level events was when they involved high radiation - hello, Eviction Notice, which would drop me in two or three seconds if the scrubber broke.

I split the difference. I found leveling to be easy but with enough variation that it wasn't dull. I'd alternate between a slow, steady, safe single shot marksman style and a more run and gun style when I simply wanted to fool around and kill things. When I got bored I'd switch. I'm sure it meant that I was completely ruining my stock of cards since I was supporting two play styles but I didn't care since I knew I wasn't going to hang around for any sort of competitive endgame.

[Daehawk]

Ive been playing this for a few hours tonight. Learning mainly. I already had left the vault and went to that bar and the free camp in a demo or something as I still had that character. Kinda hoping I can change his ugly looks as I was only playing around then lol. If not oh well.

Learning what to loot and what to not bother with all over again. Ive simply placed my camp off the road between that bar and the little 'volunteer' town. Ive become a full member there. Which basically means Ive passed the 2nd tutorial area. Sporting my 10mm pistol and a jumpsuit.

I have a key thats is a quest...just says find out what it goes to. No marker or anything. Guess Ill have to look online . I figure it must be for around this newbie area Im in so want to do that as soon as I can.

[Daehawk]

The text of the pipboy and computers Im finding tough to read. Its not the color as I always leave it green in Fallout games. It just doesn't seem sharp.. Is there a way to change it without a mod or something? A simple fix?

[Blackhawk]

The text of the pipboy and computers Im finding tough to read. Its not the color as I always leave it green in Fallout games. It just doesn't seem sharp.. Is there a way to change it without a mod or something? A simple fix?

Not really. For the Pip-Boy, try the 'view' option. The key will be listed at the bottom of the screen when you have it open. It may or may not help. For the hacking/reading monitors? Blech. Those things are tiny compared to the other games.

[Blackhawk]

The

Also, let me know your name (your account name, not your character) and if I see you on, I'll hook you up. I'm not on as much as I used to be, though. I believe mine is Greybird.

[Daehawk]

I have no idea at the moment what mine is. It auto logged me in..I mean it was already typed..must be that demo or something I played.

I did see I can change my appearance. Ill try to remember to look for my account name.

[Blackhawk]

I have no idea at the moment what mine is. It auto logged me in..I mean it was already typed..must be that demo or something I played.

I did see I can change my appearance. Ill try to remember to look for my account name.

Main menu (or the version of the main menu that's in-game.) Click on 'Social'. It'll be at the top right.

[Sudy]

I'm not actively playing right now but if anyone ever needs some scrap or wants some crafted starter weapons I'm also always happy to help out. I have hundreds of hours' worth of scrap. Just PM me!

May not have much of the rarer stuff like ballistic fiber or screws etc., but pretty much anything in existence you'd need for building a camp.

[Daehawk]

Im really still learning so not worth giving stuff to. I dont plan to have a camp or to build stuff. Though having other npcs in my camp may change my mind. I picked up a lady that plays guitar and sings at that radio tower near the start. She came with 2 random other npc guys...like hired guns or something. They stand at my sign on the side of the road and she sits and plays guitar and sings lol. Ill move the camp I guess when I explore more. Ive not moved past that first little tutorial town area. I see some quests will make me do that.

Also I still dont know what this key is for and have a quest to find out. I looked online but all it brought up was one from a DLC and I dont have any of those..just base game. So not sure.

[Blackhawk]

First off, you really should build a camp. You don't need to construct an elaborate camp, but you're going to want a place where you can set down your crafting stations, and possibly generate water and some crops for food.

A couple of foundations or the large item with the pillars under 'stairs' would be plenty. Just lay down a bed (sleep for a minute or so to get a buff), one instrument when you learn them (playing for a minute gives you another good buff), and you will have room leftover for crafting benches and a stash. Put it near a river and you'll (eventually) be able to place water purifiers. And that is just for a single piece with no real 'building.'

A tip on where to put it if you're not wanting to go deep into the game: There are several places you can fast travel for free. The Vault 76 is one of them. Your camp is another. Put your camp somewhere central, but away from Vault 76, and you'll save a lot of caps on travel. Mine is by the little structure due north of the crashed plane icon on the map, and southwest of the 'Bolton Greens' sign on the map.

[Daehawk]

Ah you put your's over the mountain from the start. Im still in Flatwoods looking around. Guess I should try to make a perma spot for my camp soon. Before I get into more stuff.

[Daehawk]

Ya it was Daehawk. I accepted the friend invite from Greybird. I rememebed it was you. For some reason I cant alt-tab out of FO76 even with it running in a full window. Thats odd. Makes doing a lot of stuff more difficult.

[Blackhawk]

I alt-tab out constantly without any issues.

[Daehawk]

What are you running it as?.....a window?

[Daehawk]

Its 3:30am and I need to go to bed. I usually go to bed by 1am. This game got its hooks in me tonight. I made a big circuit all around that newbie area from the bar up north and around east then down to where Blackhawk said he made his camp and put mine in that area around there near the river. Then on south and followed the railroad tracks until I got to the Vault Tec Agriculture farm place where there was a , Im guessing, an instant quest spawn of robots gone wild that I put an end to. Then went back west through that southern newb town and back up near the bar.

I found me some power armor. I had to remove all the armor bits and just wear the frame but it helped. Fast traveled back to my camp. Was wondering what Id do with the armor. Leave it someone could take it I reckoned. Log out in it not sure. No armor frame for it yet. Then I noticed I could put it in my inv. Well dont that beat all. A power armor frame in my pocket. What will they think of next?

I had my first death...to a turret that shot me through a truck where it shouldn't have been able to shoot me. I respawned near as I could and went right back and finished that all off and got my little duffel bag of junk back. Its mine dammit! Not yer'ins!

With long'ish oily hair, a goatee, and dark rimmed glasses my character looks like some beatnik hipster Gorden Freeman.

BED!

[Blackhawk]

I found me some power armor. I had to remove all the armor bits and just wear the frame but it helped. Fast traveled back to my camp. Was wondering what Id do with the armor. Leave it someone could take it I reckoned. Log out in it not sure. No armor frame for it yet. Then I noticed I could put it in my inv. Well dont that beat all. A power armor frame in my pocket. What will they think of next?

The frame will reappear in your inventory a few minutes after you step out of it, or you can just look at it and pick it back up. You an also put it in your stash. It always weighs 10 pounds, regardless of what's attached to it. That's a good thing - it means that you can grab a frame, put all of your power armor pieces on it, then pick it up and throw it in your stash, and it will still only weigh 10 pounds. If you stored all of the components separately they'd probably weigh a hundred.

Once you've been in a frame, it's yours. Nobody else can touch it.

[Daehawk]

Ah well thats all good to know. ya I couldn't take it with all the armor pieces on it so I looted them. Then I was overweight but when I got in the frame I was not so that was good. I only had 2 cores though...it got me all the way around that area and back to base to store it away. Didn't know I could put it in my pocket until then. Was afraid Id found something nice only to run out of gas so to speak and lose it out in the wilds.

I was kinda hoping that woman I recruited would travel with me as a companion but she just stays at base playing that annoying guitar.

Also I got a fine tuned buff for playing some instruments in a music hall..not sure what it did though or how long it lasted.

One think I wish the game did was tell me how much ammo I had for a gun when I inspect it. Like in a ammo shop I cant tell how many of each type I have while in the store buying menu. Thaht sure would be handy.

[Blackhawk]

FWIW, cores will be few and far between early on. Most people adventure without it at low levels, and either store it in their CAMP until they have a few perks related to it, or keep it in their pocket and only bring it out for tough fights.

[Daehawk]

Ive read that I can ignore eating and drinking. Is that true? Ive been eating and drinking as Im always finding that stuff anyways. But if it really does nothing Id be happy to ignore it.

[Max Peck]

There are workshops by the power plants that have fusion core processors, so it can be worth the time to clear one and crank out a few cores when you need to stock up.