Fallout: 76 Catch-All

Thank you. I’m excited. I picked The earlier Fallout games to the bone so I’ve been hoping 76 would become a good game.

There's a lot to do and see, and if you like the environmental storytelling style, 76 does it better than any of the prior games.
Mechanically, the game's unbalanced to the point of being broken for pvp, but it's fine for pve. So long as you keep your pvp setting off, you only have to worry about greifers if you control a workshop.

In fact the workshop griefers also help with workshop turnover.

In the hundred of hours I've played, I've only once been greifed at a workshop. I have had some people contest it while I've been elsewhere, but I let them take it. 95% of the time, people that want a workshop will find another one to claim, server hop to find a server it's not claimed on, or just wait until you log off and claim it then.

chooka1 wrote:

Ah. So, the pay aspect is really just cosmetics?

No - they locked the scrap box (raw materials inventory) behind the paywall which - in my opinion - which makes Fallout 1st practically mandatory once you get to a certain point.

Sorry, can you clarify what you mean by Fallout 1st practically being mandatory?

Unlimited crafting material storage is behind a pay wall.

garion333 wrote:

Unlimited crafting material storage is behind a pay wall.

In other words, if you really start getting into building and crafting, you quickly hit a point where it’s damn difficult to hold enough material to keep you actively building and crafting for very long at all.

…unless you pay for the Scrap Box.

It's really nowhere near mandatory. You can hold A LOT of stuff in your stash, you just can't hoard every single thing you come across like you could in Fallout 4. The stash limit is 1200 I think now. I can hold 8 complete armor sets i have no use for, 15 different weapons I'll realistically never take out, every cosmetic outfit/hat I've come across, a crap ton of ammo, and still have enough space to keep 100-200 of every scrap material in my storage. I was doing that back when it was only 800 too, I just have more ammo stashed now.

The real issue is that normal play will have you getting far more scrap than you can do anything with. You won't need it to build with because when you're first building your camp or modifying your gear you won't have enough scrap to need the overflow storage from your normal stash. You won't need it to repair your gear that often if you're overrepairing your equipment and using durability perks (like you ought to be), and the game gives you a bunch of 150% repair kits for just participating in the endgame events (which you'll start doing long before your run out of normal stash space). It's very easy to reach the daily cap limit the vendor bots have, so you can't even sell it all.

The only reason for the scrap box is so you don't have to throw away scrap you don't need now but *might* need later, except scrap is extremely easy to get. Unless you completely tear down your camp and rebuild it on a regular basis (instead of just storing the parts and using them in your redesign) you won't need the scrap box at all.

If you do decide that you just have to have it, you can just get a single month and spend it loading up the scrap box. You can still take out scrap as needed once the month is up, you just can't put anything new in.

Thank you. I see.

Some initial impressions—perhaps wrong—after reaching level 11:

Stingy with the loot. It seems like I’m always running low on ammo and I have not found much good weapons or armor. There seems to be a lot less stuff to find.

Mixed feelings about the water and food buff. I know I need to eat and drink but I don’t feel like there is a noticeable payoff for managing.

Limited music selection. If I hear that Beach Boys song one more time…

I miss traditional VATS and slo-mo kills.

The SPECIAL and peek cards is intriguing. I do prefer the sheer number of choices in 4.

I’m always pushing the weight limit yet don’t have too much stuff. I guess I should stash more materials? I read sow where I should scrap rather than sell anything I’m not using?

Is this a single player focus with occasional MP interactions or am I missing something here?

Pretty good. I’ll stick with and see if the game gets its hooks in me.

The death penalty isn’t too bad.

Does anyone like 76 better than the last couple of fallout games? If so, why?

Chad

Yes, ammo is scarce. It's part of the survival aspects of the game.

I agree, 100% on the food and water. Eventually you won't even notice it, rendering it even more of a bad addition.

I like the map better than any prior Fallout games, but I'm also huge into exploration. Less city, more outdoor = win

chooka1 wrote:

Does anyone like 76 better than the last couple of fallout games? If so, why?

I'd rather hang out in the green woods of West Virginia than the brown ruins of Boston or DC. I bounced off 3 and 4 because the world wasn't compelling enough to get me to stick around long enough to get into the story or mechanics. Fallout 76 got its hooks into me for two reasons: my wife loves Fallout and wanted me to spend time with her in the wasteland, and I actually liked exploring and just being in the setting.

I also really liked the way the story was told before the NPCs were added in. I liked unearthing a tragic past like some sort of archeologist. It's not how I'd want every game to deliver its story, but I liked the way it felt here. And I do understand that Fallout's history of having interesting NPCs and conversations makes it a particularly bad fit for this sort of experiment. But as someone who wasn't yet invested in the franchise, I dug it.

Often PC vendors will sell the extra ammo that they don't use.

76 is my favorite Fallout game. It's definitely better than any of the Bethesda Era ones (yes, including New Vegas). I think 76 has the best and most bleak Fallout story, but that was prior to Wastelanders reintroducing human npcs. You also had to discover and piece together almost all of the story yourself. The sense of isolation and hopelessness were greatly enhanced by having no humans left, and it made the threat of the Scorched seem more immediate, especially when you'd see a scorchbeast turn an enemy into a scorched version with their crop dust attack. It's more normal now with human npcs all over the place, and I can't help but feel new players are missing out by not getting to experience a humanless Appalachia first. Raider enemies are a welcome addition but there's far too many unconcerned settlers wandering about outside the main settlements. Seeing some dude just casually chopping wood a few hundred yards from a scorchbeast crater kind of breaks the sense of that the scorched are supposed to be an extinction level threat.

The main story is definitely built with the expectation you'll be playing it solo. The events and overall gameplay assume other people will be there too. Everyone who damages an enemy gets xp and loot from a kill, so there's no fighting over spawns The biggest issue with other people is that some people get selfish about legendary enemies, one-shotting it before anyone else has a chance to tag it. I'd say that's only about a fifth of players though. Most people will go to great lengths to let nearby players know there's a legendary enemy around and wait for everyone to tag it before they kill it. The only other loot-related issue is that a lot of the rare loot is static spawns like plans and clothes, and an area can be cleared out before you get there.

Mechanically it does enough things slightly better that it makes it hard to go back to FO4 even though I too miss slow-mo VATS. There are more perks in 76 than 4, but it can take awhile to get all the cards, and some are completely worthless compared to others.

Loot stingyness never gets better, but you'll learn where to go for good loot. For gear, your best loot is gotten through legendary enemies and event rewards, and then modified yourself. Most of the stuff you get from enemies will be scrapped or sold. Some of the best items won't be in the legendary loot tables for you until you unlock the plan for them first. That's done either through buying them with rare currency gained from events or rewards from events & dispatch missions.

Aid items and food are mostly scavenged and sometimes crafted. There are fairly essential perks that reduce their weight by 90%. Same with ammo. As you level up you'll get more perks or plans that can help with weight management. Don't bother stashing much for food or aid items. I have like one of each of the main aid items and the rest I carry on me. The weight perks only apply to your inventory, not your stash, so I can carry far more on me than I could fit in my stash. I've got a amount of each item I like to keep and sell off the rest. For food I mostly just eat what I find or can make when I come across a campfire or stove. Most of the food in my inventory goes bad before I remember to use it though.

For ammo, invest in perks that let you craft it yourself, and learn where to go for the materials. Steel I generally get from scrapping weapons. For lead there's a mine where you can get hundreds of lead ore in one run. Gunpowder I mostly loot from scorched or super mutants, but it can be crafted too (though you'll need lots of acid, which the campfire tales event is great for, as it can be scrapped from insect parts).

Definitely scrap all the weapons and armor you find to unlock the mod plans for them. When you're in the workbench menu to modify them, you can see how many plans you have vs how many there are. Aside from a few mods that can only be learned by finding a plan, scrapping them gives you a chance to learn one. Only start selling them when you've learned all the plans you can from them.

Music selection is super limited. I typically keep the music off and listen to Spotify instead. The new dj helped, but she needs an update now and desperately needs some new tunes.

Stengah wrote:

I can't help but feel new players are missing out by not getting to experience a humanless Appalachia first.

I agree. I kind of expected them to institute some sort of phased instances for folks. Guess it wasn't in the budget.

I can understand why though. Isolating new players from old ones would not help either group. The story suffers for it, but it's better for the player base.

See, I disagree. 76 to me is an acceptable placeholder while I wait for the next epic single-player adventure from Bethesda. The land feels very empty without NPCs, though I haven't been back since the introduction of NPCs.

I need to get back in, but I'm on a Conan Exiles binge at the moment.

Thank you for all the wonderful comments to consider. Some great insights and specific suggestions.

Sincerely,
Chad

Stengah wrote:

I can understand why though. Isolating new players from old ones would not help either group. The story suffers for it, but it's better for the player base.

Nevin73 wrote:

See, I disagree. 76 to me is an acceptable placeholder while I wait for the next epic single-player adventure from Bethesda. The land feels very empty without NPCs, though I haven't been back since the introduction of NPCs.

I need to get back in, but I'm on a Conan Exiles binge at the moment.

Well, I wanted phasing so you could do the lonely stuff then bring in the NPCs once you finish the storyline.

Problem is, Bethesda games aren't exactly as linear as, say, WoW.

Nevin73 wrote:

See, I disagree. 76 to me is an acceptable placeholder while I wait for the next epic single-player adventure from Bethesda. The land feels very empty without NPCs, though I haven't been back since the introduction of NPCs.

I need to get back in, but I'm on a Conan Exiles binge at the moment.

It felt incredibly empty without human NPCs, that was what I liked. It fit the story being told very well.

I do have to dive back in on GamePass. It'll give me a chance to start over while playing with my son.

There’s a prompt at crafting benches to “tag” materials, when you’re in the world a little magnifying glass icon will appear next to the name of any item that can be dismantled into the tagged materials. Tag lead and gunpowder and you’ll never be short on ammo again.

A trick for some of the harder to craft ammo types: every enemy killed in a dispatch mission will drop ammo for the gun you have equipped when they die. Enemies killed with melee weapons or guns that use a plasma/fusion core drop random ammo. Whatever gun you kill the final boss with will get a bunch of ammo (2-4 cores). You can use a gun that kills enemies without using lots of ammo to stock up on that kind of ammo. It's particularly good for getting ultracite ammo without needing Flux to craft it. It's a great way to stock up on flamethrower fuel and 5mm ammo (use a gatling gun, not a minigun). You can also use a gauss shotgun to stock up on ammo for a gauss minigun.

Huh, didn't know that. Great tip, thanks!

You can also run a dispatch mission solo and just ignore the medal timer to just stockpile ammo.

I got F76 through Bethesda. Does anyone know if I can link up with someone playing on GamePass?

So far as I know, yes. Gamepass on PC has the same version as Bethesda.net and Steam.

Yes, all versions use the same servers. If you buy Atoms they seem to be store-specific, but that's it.

Starting over, put about 30+ hours into this a few years ago. The NPC's are a shock, I really liked that previously there were none so this doesn't feel right but I guess I will get used to it. Still don't like the card perk system, took me a few minutes to work out how to get cards in place when I had unused skill points, very odd for a FO game.
Just pottering round the starting area got to L5, probably get a few more levels going to the lumberyard which may be a stretch!

I’m still not clear when I earn a perk cards back. Can someone fill me in?
As I understand it, when I scrap weapons and armor that leads to plans to craft those items?

Maybe 10 or so hours in. I wrote this before, however, stingy drops.