FALLOUT 76

[Lord Revan]

It's funny in their attempt at a "new twist" on PvP they managed to copy the most broken mechanics from MMORPG PvE servers where assholes would stand around the mobs other characters are fighting, praying for you to AOE them.

Hell none of the MMOs I played this year use that system anymore. WoW hasn't used it for ages and even before the realm merge it was 100% impossible to accidently tag yourself, the game would simply not allow you to damage a player unless you intentionally tagged yourself and FF14 and STO have instanced PvP.

That style of PvP tagging seems to benefit only the griefers and no-one else.

EDIT:only way to "unintentionally" tag yourself PvP active in WoW is to attack certain NPCs, enter opposing faction "safe zones" or enter certain very specific locations that tag you PvP active upon entering them (like the floor of the Stranglethorn arena).


What Fallout 76 has seems to be like the old version of PvP tagging WoW had that was removed due to being unfair and not fun except for a very Small minority so like to bully other players.

[TheFeniX]

Hell none of the MMOs I played this year use that system anymore. WoW hasn't used it for ages and even before the realm merge it was 100% impossible to accidently tag yourself, the game would simply not allow you to damage a player unless you intentionally tagged yourself and FF14 and STO have instanced PvP.

Rift was so bad because you got tagged by healing tagged players and there was no warning. No big deal for our healer since I mained Warrior. SWTOR had a broken PvP flagging system as well. But yes, World PvP is falling out of favor with most players. At least in WoW, Blizzard has made PvP so extensively terrible, you would have to assume they are doing in on purpose.

Last I was on the B.net forums, the "Fix World PvP" crowd was akin to the one guy standing in the corner of a political rally with a "Vote Nader" sign.

That style of PvP tagging seems to benefit only the griefers and no-one else.

Let me ask you: do players have "hard" collision with each other? Like in Team Fortress 2, allied players have "soft" collision. They kind of "push" off each other, but you CAN run through each other, it just takes more time/effort. However, enemy players have "hard" collision: it's like running into a brick wall.

So.... in F76, could I get 3-4 people and just surround some poor bastard and force him to either flag or sit there while we shoot him?

Not to say there aren't easier ways to grief, but this gives you an idea on why (among other,better, reasons) pretty much no MMO I can think of has player collisions.

What Fallout 76 has seems to be like the old version of PvP tagging WoW had that was removed due to being unfair and not fun except for a very Small minority so like to bully other players.

Developers are bad about this, even in the same genre. SWTOR (and FFXIV to an extent) copied all the dated mechanics of WoW with limited success. Meanwhile, say what you will about Blizz: the WoW devs are MORE than willing to steal/implement what "works" from other MMOs (such as SWTOR and FFXIV).

[Marko Dash]

Game seems live, i just checked for any last minute patches after getting home from work, and it loaded me into a map.

edit:bad news so far is that the 400lb stash limit seems to be still here.

[bilateralrope]

Bethesda manages an impressive last minute patch for the PS4.

Fallout 76 Day One Patch Is Larger Than The Game Itself, A Ridiculous 54GB

Bethesda is getting ready to release Fallout 76 to the general public, and when it arrives, it will come with a hefty day-one patch. How hefty? Try a staggering 54 gigabytes. That is on top of the 45GB base installation, which means the day-of-release patch is actually bigger than the initial install. Welcome to the modern era of gaming, folks.

This is applicable to the PlayStation 4 version of Fallout 76—it's not clear if the Xbox One and PC platforms will also have a massive day-one patch, though if we had to put money on a guess, we'd go all-in on 'yes'. As for the PS4, the total space that is required with the base install and patch comes to 96.6GB.

While the patch is rather big—stinks for anyone with slow or congested internet service—it should go a long way towards stomping out bugs discovered during the beta session. Bethesda talked about this in a recent thread on Reddit, noting some of the issues that it plans to fix. Specifically, Bethesda identified the following:

Ultra-Wide Support: We will support 21:9 post launch. Once available, or shortly before, we’ll be sure to post our patch notes that let you know when to expect it.
Larger Stash Size: We’ve seen this one come up a lot and understand the frustration. While the Stash size at 400 weight limit can get easier to deal with over time, we do plan on increasing it in the future.
Push-to-Talk [UPDATED]: While we aim to create a consistent experience no matter what platform you’re on, we understand that some of you on PC would like the option for Push-to-Talk. Our goal with voice chat being on by default is to highlight that the world is alive with real people, other players like you. We like to start with encouraging player interaction and will look into adding this in the future be adding this in the near future.
FOV Slider: We haven’t supported FOV sliders in our previous games as it is known to break a lot of animations and causes a lot of clipping to occur onscreen. You do have the option to zoom out in third person on PC by holding View and moving the mousewheel, but we won’t be able to have it for first person view.
Exploits of Various Types: Many exploits we’ve seen reported have been known and will be addressed in a future update.
Issues with social menu and inviting friends/making teams/etc.: Those who were experiencing issues with the social components will find that many of these issues have been fixed. We will continue to fix issues as they arise as fast as we’re able to, so keep letting us know when you run into them.
Hunger not being sated: Some were saying their “Hunger bar” wouldn’t replenish no matter how much they ate or how cleared of diseases they were. This issue has been addressed and will be in a future update so no more hungry dwellers.
Loud Gunshot/Noises: The issue of players hearing sudden random gunshot/loud sounds around Appalachia will be addressed in a future update near launch.

It remains to be seen how many of those things, if any, will make into the initial patch. Separately, Bethesda's Pete Hines stated in an interview with GameSpot that the plan is to support Fallout 76 "forever." He compared Fallout 76 to World of Warcraft, an online-only game that has been up and running for 14 years. Likewise, Bethesda wants support for Fallout 76 to be "never-ending."

That will depend on player interest, of course, which Hines later acknowledged. Fallout 76 is the ninth game in the popular Fallout franchise, the first online multiplayer game. That's true not just of the Fallout series, but also for Bethesda—the game studio has strictly focused on single-player games to this point as a first-party developer (The Elder Scrolls Online was developed by ZeniMax Online Studios).

Fallout 76 releases to PS4, Xbox One, and Windows PCs on November 14, 2018 (this coming Wednesday).

EDIT: An earlier version of this article stated that Bethesda has strictly focused on single-player games to this point. This statement has been clarified to reflect Bethesda as a game developer, not a publisher. Bethesda published The Elder Scrolls Online, a multiplayer game developed by ZeniMax Online Studios.

A game with a first person camera option but no FOV slider and Bethesda are falling back on the old excuse of it breaking animations. Something I've seen many devs/publishers claim, but I haven't seen any proof of said claim. I guess they don't care if people get motion sickness.

[Jub]

Game seems live, i just checked for any last minute patches after getting home from work, and it loaded me into a map.

edit:bad news so far is that the 400lb stash limit seems to be still here.

I think the stash is intentional. You're meant to have to make choices early on and then later as you get perks and don't need low level scrap you stop worrying about weight as much. Just like the base game tends to be only a bit more extreme.

It sucks if you're a hoarder who always consoles high carry weight straight away in the base game, but like a lot of complaints it seems like people are taking every small dislike and focusing on that. Take it with a grain of salt I didn't preorder and have only watched youtube play throughs, but nothing seems deal breaking to me so far.

[Jub]

Bethesda is getting ready to release Fallout 76 to the general public, and when it arrives, it will come with a hefty day-one patch. How hefty? Try a staggering 54 gigabytes. That is on top of the 45GB base installation, which means the day-of-release patch is actually bigger than the initial install. Welcome to the modern era of gaming, folks.

This is applicable to the PlayStation 4 version of Fallout 76—it's not clear if the Xbox One and PC platforms will also have a massive day-one patch, though if we had to put money on a guess, we'd go all-in on 'yes'. As for the PS4, the total space that is required with the base install and patch comes to 96.6GB.

While the patch is rather big—stinks for anyone with slow or congested internet service—it should go a long way towards stomping out bugs discovered during the beta session. Bethesda talked about this in a recent thread on Reddit, noting some of the issues that it plans to fix. Specifically, Bethesda identified the following:

Ultra-Wide Support: We will support 21:9 post launch. Once available, or shortly before, we’ll be sure to post our patch notes that let you know when to expect it.
Larger Stash Size: We’ve seen this one come up a lot and understand the frustration. While the Stash size at 400 weight limit can get easier to deal with over time, we do plan on increasing it in the future.
Push-to-Talk [UPDATED]: While we aim to create a consistent experience no matter what platform you’re on, we understand that some of you on PC would like the option for Push-to-Talk. Our goal with voice chat being on by default is to highlight that the world is alive with real people, other players like you. We like to start with encouraging player interaction and will look into adding this in the future be adding this in the near future.
FOV Slider: We haven’t supported FOV sliders in our previous games as it is known to break a lot of animations and causes a lot of clipping to occur onscreen. You do have the option to zoom out in third person on PC by holding View and moving the mousewheel, but we won’t be able to have it for first person view.
Exploits of Various Types: Many exploits we’ve seen reported have been known and will be addressed in a future update.
Issues with social menu and inviting friends/making teams/etc.: Those who were experiencing issues with the social components will find that many of these issues have been fixed. We will continue to fix issues as they arise as fast as we’re able to, so keep letting us know when you run into them.
Hunger not being sated: Some were saying their “Hunger bar” wouldn’t replenish no matter how much they ate or how cleared of diseases they were. This issue has been addressed and will be in a future update so no more hungry dwellers.
Loud Gunshot/Noises: The issue of players hearing sudden random gunshot/loud sounds around Appalachia will be addressed in a future update near launch.

It remains to be seen how many of those things, if any, will make into the initial patch. Separately, Bethesda's Pete Hines stated in an interview with GameSpot that the plan is to support Fallout 76 "forever." He compared Fallout 76 to World of Warcraft, an online-only game that has been up and running for 14 years. Likewise, Bethesda wants support for Fallout 76 to be "never-ending."

That will depend on player interest, of course, which Hines later acknowledged. Fallout 76 is the ninth game in the popular Fallout franchise, the first online multiplayer game. That's true not just of the Fallout series, but also for Bethesda—the game studio has strictly focused on single-player games to this point as a first-party developer (The Elder Scrolls Online was developed by ZeniMax Online Studios).

Fallout 76 releases to PS4, Xbox One, and Windows PCs on November 14, 2018 (this coming Wednesday).

EDIT: An earlier version of this article stated that Bethesda has strictly focused on single-player games to this point. This statement has been clarified to reflect Bethesda as a game developer, not a publisher. Bethesda published The Elder Scrolls Online, a multiplayer game developed by ZeniMax Online Studios.

A game with a first person camera option but no FOV slider and Bethesda are falling back on the old excuse of it breaking animations. Something I've seen many devs/publishers claim, but I haven't seen any proof of said claim. I guess they don't care if people get motion sickness.

FOV in 76 breaks a lot of stuff above a certain level. You can see through walls for one and I think there were some related physics bugs as well. People have nodded the ini file and while it doesn't crash the game doesn't work right.

[Marko Dash]

the weight limit would have been fine if they hadn't also level locked most of the weapons and armor.

so find something cool but aren't high enough level for it and your SoL.

[Jub]

the weight limit would have been fine if they hadn't also level locked most of the weapons and armor.

so find something cool but aren't high enough level for it and your SoL.

You're usually better breaking things down once you find the first one anyway. Most weapons aren't very good without mods and you only learn about mods by scraping weapons. Plus, by the time you reach that level, the loot tables will likely drop more and better versions anyway.

[Jub]

I'm downloading the game now, based on what I've seen and the complaints I think I'll like this game more than most.

And hot damn, that download rate, I'm fortunate to have a 100 Mbps down internet connection and it's nice to see ~20 Mbps download rates when you can get them.

[Highlord Laan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR95GO0zMuY

I'm happy at least one game journalist is honest. I'm even happier that I was right when I cynically called it back during E3.

Or, as another put it when he found the level requirement on gear, in a fucking Fallout game, put it: "Fallout 76 isn't a role playing game. It's an MMO. A dreary, lifeless, not even halfassed MMO."

[Jub]

Honestly, most games media I subscribe to have had mixed, at best, reviews of the game. The ones that haven't are people who just do LPs of games and are generally more positive about the game. Level requirements are a bit restrictive but as far as I have seen the game seems well balanced around them and new stuff of the right level drops off of everything once you're the right level to use it.

I don't think loot tied to level makes FO76 any more any MMO than it makes Boarderlands or Diablo MMOs. The game seems perfectly soloable, with groups making things faster and easier. There's story everywhere even without traditional NPCs. This isn't what everybody wanted or expected but it's closer to multiplayer Fallout than to an MMO.

[Jub]

I've finally played a bit, a couple hours last night and a few more today before work. It's what I expected it to be from the videos. My only annoyance is having to edit the ini for my monitor's 1360 x 768 resolution. Aside from that I haven't had any technical issues apart from a crash when exiting the game.

I hit level 7 or 8 before logging off. I have a small adhesive farm setup and am on the hunt for screws for some basic weapon mods. I may also ned to figure out a wood farming method to get my camp properly setup, but that's not a big deal.

I need to test if you can remove mods FO4 style for use with higher level weapons. If I can that will be a nice boon. If not that will be my first annoyance of any note with the game.

[Marko Dash]

i had to do the same, which was weird because during the beta the game had 1360x768 as an option.


Edit: also if anybody wants to join up my username is the same ingame as on here just drop the space.

[Jub]

Odd, it's an easy thing to add to the table of resolution options and not something that should have a reason to be removed. Probably an oversight to be fixed in the next patch.

[TheFeniX]

Bethesda's shitty fork can't even do Fake Fullscreen right. There isn't a single Creation Engine game that doesn't require hacks to get the resolution to be half as decent as UT99. Let me just test this shit. Oh wait, F4 has to sync my saves for some.... whatever. I don't launch via F4.exe because I have to load skse to get Achievements with mods loaded because, GASP, my Barret .50 cal and MP5 mods are like SOOOOO CHEATING. Bonus round, F4 "news" is blowing up about F76 bullshit on my Steam when I can't even buy Shitbox76 on Steam. THESE are my options on a 2015 game when I have a 4K monitor. These are the people consumers are lining up to dump $60 on video games for.

If you're thinking "what's the big deal with running 4K borderless windowed fatnerd guy?" then just stop reading here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR95GO0zMuY

I'm happy at least one game journalist is honest. I'm even happier that I was right when I cynically called it back during E3.

Or, as another put it when he found the level requirement on gear, in a fucking Fallout game, put it: "Fallout 76 isn't a role playing game. It's an MMO. A dreary, lifeless, not even halfassed MMO."

At release, Gamespot gave it a 6.5. They've since changed it to a ..... 4.7. Which is, for Gamespot, literally dumpster fire tier. Gamespot is giving a Beth title a 4.7. This is the same site that gave Fallout 4 a 9/10. Let that sink in. If it doesn't, once again, stop reading here.

This is the culmination of when a bunch of business majors are in charge of games (or really, anything). They have zero understanding of what and WHY something is popular. Only that something is, so we should "do that." Microsoft went through this shit with the original Xbox (Kameo, a decent game mind you, was greenlit because "we need a Zelda Killer). In this vein, you end up with dogshit like Metal Gear: Survive (which I'm pretty sure was double-greenlit to also destroy Kojima's legacy).

"Dull, lifeless world" is a good description since Fallout 4 was the same thing, I can't imagine why people thought removing the NPCs and adding random (real people) jackasses would somehow change that. Whoever saw their last title (F4) and said "Hey, this dead, lifeless bullshit, populated by a whopping TWO MMO quest hubs (Goodneighbor and Megat... I mean, Diamond City) and said "this is AWESOME" is their target demographic. The same guy who saw Beth promo videos of Dogmeat etc and said "this looks as good as modded GTA5." (not a joke BTW). They said "How do we make it better?" "Towns" populated by <SETTLER>. Man, you remember <Settler> <he/she> was SUCH an interesting <leveled list option here> with great gear such as <leveled list gear>. Hey, here's an idea, let's gut EVEN THAT and just let players run around and kill radroaches and some reskinned Ghouls who talk about ANCIENT EVILS."

In reality, no one fucking asked for this. They literally wanted co-op Fallout. Like they wanted co-op Skyrim and got motherfucking ESO. I want to log in and be like "Hey man, what did I miss?" "Oh, I did X quest from Y faction. Now we can craft, raid, murderjack Z." Instead we somehow got a marginally better looking 7 Days to Die that crashes more often.

I could get it if the idea was "players can BECOME the Raiders that players farm for loot, etc" but none of the systems provided can accomplish that outside a "cops versus robbers" "use your imagination LITTLE TIMMY" way because they released an early access title and asked $60 for it.

Your best bet is modders come in and add this shit in there and Bethesda can reap the benfits of unpaid (even better since you have to realistically own the game to mod it) free coders to fix their broken shitheap. Optionally, they release DLC that adds some content (such as raiders) and you cough up more money for them to click around in the dev kit and add some spawns and AI packages they had leftover from F4. This is literally the best outcome. That's how bleak this shit is. But since I am (justifiably, IMHO) so fucking done with this shit, I am going to assume even any worthwhile mods in this vein would be sold for cash money.

Because they can, because they have. Just like they told the developer of the "gone fishing" mod for Skyrim to leave the dependency for FNIS in the mod (because Bethesda left NO WAY to add animations into Skyim, Fore did it for modders) because "fuck that guy, we own his codes" (NOTE: they actually don't, and ate shit on that as Fore doesn't allow paid mods to use his system.)

Please, for the love of Vishnu, stop pre-ordering this kind of garbage*. Fallout 4 should have been a huge warning sign of things to come and people just fucking ignored it and we got... this. And I WANTED something good here. Instead it's yet another half-done Beth product I might dump $30 on when the modding community fixes it. However, said modding community REALLY dumped F4 quickly. So.... I'm even less enthused about F76.

*Drunk and yelling at clouds BTW: this IS gaming. SAS for god damn video games: bend over bitches. Shit's dead. Fun fun.

[bilateralrope]

Your best bet is modders come in

Are mods an option here ?
I've been assuming that since this is a multiplayer game that mods aren't going to be possible.

[bilateralrope]

Odd, it's an easy thing to add to the table of resolution options and not something that should have a reason to be removed. Probably an oversight to be fixed in the next patch.

A while ago I heard that the best practise in game development is to have the game pull the list of available resolutions from Windows instead of relying on the developer to list them all. Of course, we are talking about Bethesda here so best practises are unexpected.

[TheFeniX]

Are mods an option here ?
I've been assuming that since this is a multiplayer game that mods aren't going to be possible.

Yes. First come private servers. Then comes mods. (if Beth is to be believed. They are terrible, however they are not very good liars). BETH. NET EXCLUSIVES due to Beth testing the waters with Skyrim64 and then Fallout 4. However, it is debatable if Beth is competent enough to enforce the beth.net only modding criteria because they are by nature just fucking awful at finishing touches, as I will go into.

Much like valve via Half-life/Counter-Strike owners in 2003 were used to beta test Steam (on a 5-year-old game FYI): Fallout 4 players and modders (since you had to create a Beth.net account to load the F4 GECK) were the lab rats for a game they coughed up $60 for 6 months prior.

But of course Beth wants mods for F76. They sold you a skeleton and they want those modders to actually put meat on them. Rather than having mods increase the longevity of a game, they want to cut out the bullshit and just have mods flesh it out.

A while ago I heard that the best practise in game development is to have the game pull the list of available resolutions from Windows instead of relying on the developer to list them all. Of course, we are talking about Bethesda here so best practises are unexpected.

Beth's PC settings wizard is a hold-over from (at least) Oblivion. It literally has not changed cosmetically nor functionally since. I would assume Morrowind and Fallout 3 have the same wizard. That's the saddest part. You can actually force (modern) resolutions in fake fullscreen by modifying the .ini files (I run Skyrim 32-bit in 4K and had to hack away at inis to do it). But the wizard is absolute garbage tier because they still kind of operate in the "PC gamers are fatnerds and not worth pandering to, and will fix our shit anyway" idea since the big push of their modding system was "bring mods to console crybabies.*"

You can't even force vertical-sync in a Beth title (which has been avaiable in FPS since forever and is doubly-important in Beth games because "lolphysics.)"

*Anyone with any respect for console Beth consumers obviously didn't pay attention to their bullshit during the beth.net mod fiasco and Beth hand-holding them while they stole and reuploaded mods.

[Vendetta]

Bethesda have been using the same engine since Morrowind, with all the same faults and flaws and archaic design, and will continue to use it for Starfield and TES6. Like you can't unlock the framerate because the physics simulation is tied to it (remember to stare at your feet to run faster), and you can't play with the FoV too much because otherwise you can see through walls.

The reason being "learning new tools is hard you guys". They're attached to their editor by actual nails and will not let go.

Imagine what they could be doing if they owned one of the best engine development houses in the world eh?

[TheFeniX]

Bethesda have been using the same engine since Morrowind, with all the same faults and flaws and archaic design, and will continue to use it for Starfield and TES6. Like you can't unlock the framerate because the physics simulation is tied to it (remember to stare at your feet to run faster), and you can't play with the FoV too much because otherwise you can see through walls.

Ok, to be fair to the Gamebryo engine (which Beth forked off) there's nothing really wrong with using the same basic engine.... theoretically forever. Quake 2 was built off Q1, Q3 was built off Q2, etc etc. The problem (ignoring Sunk Costs) was that when Beth forked Gamebryo, they just kind of turned it into... utter shit. A large portion of that is/was Papyrus. And their scripting is... fucking terrible. The lag is real and it's only become worse. Like, for F4 there exists an entire mod to track script latency.

For the record: Rift (the MMORPG) runs off the Gamebryo engine. Whatever is going on with it, it seems pretty modular and scalable.

But it would not surprise me to learn that most the overhead in Beth games was due to Papyrus latency and overhead. The scripting for it is incredibly obtuse both for what I've modded AND for what people with actual skill in programming talk about.

The reason being "learning new tools is hard you guys". They're attached to their editor by actual nails and will not let go.

I would love to hear from their actual software people since the entire thing reeks of "shit flows downhill" as the coders seem more than competent, but management also seems more than willing to work with dated tools, they semi-update between releases, because (as said) "sunk costs."

[Lord Revan]

IIRC WoW runs of a modified SC:Ghost engine which in turn is a modified WC3 engine, so using old engines shouldn't be an issue per say, but if you don't upgrade that engine (or upgrade it poorly) at somepoint the age of the software is gonna start showing up when you start asking it to do things it was never meant to do in the first Place.

[Marko Dash]

it's getting annoying to manually change the resolution in the ini before every launch, i've taken to having a copy of the ini file and just pasting it in the folder and overwriting every time.

[TheFeniX]

Wait, it resets every time? Just set the file to read-only. I haven't had to do that for a longtime, but it works. Also, keep a backup in case an update overwrites the file completely.

[Jub]

it's getting annoying to manually change the resolution in the ini before every launch, i've taken to having a copy of the ini file and just pasting it in the folder and overwriting every time.

Mine didn't change back after I set it even after the recent patch so o.O

[Marko Dash]

Mine does it almost every time, it's hard to noctice but it keeps changing to 19xx x something even when the ini itself doesn't change, makes things look like the AA is off

i'll try read only