October 2022 marks Fallout’s 25th anniversary, and Game Pass gave me a free month of Fallout 1st, so I decided to reinstall the game and see how it’s progressed since I last played (nearly two years ago), especially with the new Pitt area to explore.
I think I like the game even less now than I did before, even with the various improvements that have been made. Even with a month of Fallout 1st membership, Fallout 76 couldn’t hold my attention for a week.
Quality of Life
There have been a few great quality of life improvements since I last played. Some of these have been around a while, but it’s been long enough since I played that this is my first time interacting with the new features.
There’s the punch card machine that lets you have multiple builds and easily switch between them. You can build one at your camp and there are several in the world (at the train stations and major hubs). I saved my stealthy rifleman build and added a power armor build. Unfortunately, that’s all you get for free; each additional slot (up to 13) costs 500 atom points – Fallout 76’s premium currency.
Legendary cores were added as a resource used to re-roll legendary weapons (or make non-legendary weapons legendary), which is a great way to work toward making your perfect gun. I don’t like that re-rolls change all legendary affixes on a weapon (instead of just targeting particular ones), but at least it’s something.
Storage was increased to 1200 back when I was still playing, but hasn’t increased since. The magic scrapbox is still a Fallout 1st exclusive.
The Pitt
The Pitt is a new instanced zone that you travel to for missions. It’s basically just a bigger, more quest-oriented Daily Ops map. Unlike Daily Ops, stealth builds are actually usable in The Pitt, which is nice. I’ve run it a few times, and it’s not bad, but the last part (with a heavy radstorm) is just annoying. The first time I played, I was unprepared and just kept dying over and over. I eventually gave up and just ran as far as I could before my next death.
There’s unfortunately not much more to say about it. It’s just a big quest map.
Unchanged
Most of the game seems like it’s basically the same, for better or worse.
Seasons are unchanged. Daily and Weekly objectives are still annoying chores, and leveling up on the scoreboard is still annoyingly slow. This hasn’t changed at all and it’s still terrible.
Gameplay still favors power armor in the late game, which is disappointing because there’s so much more you can do besides power armor. I guess it makes sense for a “live service” game, though, since you have to keep grinding for power cores to continue using your armor.
The seasonal world events are still around, and while they’re not bad, they’re just a chaotic horde mode (kill waves of enemies until you win). The alien invasion for the anniversary was fun.
The interface is still extremely clunky and difficult, thanks to having everything revolve around the Pip-Boy. I get that it’s a common Fallout thing, but this game is more complex, so it starts to get in the way. I guess it’s better for controller players than a virtual cursor, though.
And it’s still lacking that Fallout feel that made the older games so enjoyable.
Boring
Like I said above, Fallout 76 couldn’t even keep my attention for a week this time around. I was off playing other things I enjoy more. I used to enjoy the base building, but coming back to it, I found it very unintuitive and restrictive. I enjoy the weapon crafting, but I wasn’t really interested in pushing to re-roll “perfect” weapons with legendary cores. I had already finished most of the main storyline quests, so I was left with the boring repeatable “daily” quests.
Unless something big changes, I don’t think I’ll be coming back to Fallout 76. It’s a shame because they could do so much with it, but the foundation just isn’t there; they’d need to completely rethink the game to fix its numerous problems. And with so many better options available, it’s hard to recommend.
After my Fallout 76 Review, I had some additional thoughts about the game regarding some of my frustrations. There was also a “Bombs Drop Event” this past week – celebrating the day everything went to hell in the Fallout universe – which provided one-week access to Fallout 1st perks, so I now have some firsthand opinions about those perks.
Build Frustrations
I touched on this in my review, but I wanted to elaborate on some of the frustrations I have about build balance. I understand a game with as much variation as Fallout is difficult to balance for multiplayer (which is another reason it probably shouldn’t exist as a multiplayer game), but the amount of imbalance continuously annoys me. I’ve built my Fallout 76 character as a stealth sniper – a style I’ve always enjoyed because it deals high damage without the use of heavy weapons. When I’m free exploring, this build works great, as I can typically handle anything I find in my travels without much difficulty. Unfortunately, this build is at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to most high-level content. Most of the Fallout 76 endgame is structured around public events and the new “Daily Ops” introduced in the One Wasteland for All patch. These events all work in a way that makes the rifleman build weaker than the alternatives.
In “Daily Ops”, enemies have two mutations that make them more difficult than usual. One of these mutations is permanent and provides them with heightened perception that makes stealth useless. These events also require you to defend points in the area, which means all the enemies know where you are and you can’t hide from them. You can manage through with a rifle, but stealth just won’t work, so all the perks I have to boost my stealth and my sneak attack damage are worthless. I also don’t have any perks in the same stats to replace them, so I just have several wasted points when I’m playing these events.
In most other endgame events, you’re either fighting a boss or defending against waves of enemies. The rifleman build works for a few of these where the enemies are relatively few and weak (the lower-level events), but in most cases high-powered single-shot rifles put you at a disadvantage; mostly just because of the way experience works in the game. Players will gain experience for any kill on an enemy they’ve damaged, regardless of who gets the kill. As a result, players who carry heavy, rapid-fire weapons like gatling lasers or miniguns tend to gain experience the fastest, as they can simply spray an area and hit nearly everything. In most high-level content, I find myself fighting alongside players in power armor toting gatling lasers, gatling plasma, or miniguns (usually explosive miniguns). The only way I’ve found to keep up is by using a tesla rifle, which shoots lightning that will arc to multiple targets (or off the environment), allowing me to hit multiple targets at once; though it will also arc to players, so if there are several hulking power armors between me and an enemy, I’m still not likely to get a hit. Even the players who aren’t carrying heavy weapons are typically using automatic rifles, which works the same way.
Rifles also end up being extremely weak against bosses. Because of their low rate-of-fire, rifles perform very poorly when fighting a boss with high resistances. Even with all my bonuses and using my highest-powered rifles, I can’t cause much damage to high-level bosses, while players with heavy and automatic weapons will regularly chew through bosses much faster. Semi-automatic rifles have a damage boost over automatic weapons, but it’s not enough to make up for the difference in fire rate. With the disadvantages rifles have in most of the multiplayer content, it seems they should be much stronger to compensate (likely to the point that a rifle-focused build should one-shot most enemies), or automatic weapons weakened to bring them in line. (I doubt either will ever happen.)
The only “disadvantage” to automatic rifles and heavy weapons is the amount of ammunition you need to carry (and its weight). There are perks to reduce the weight of the ammunition (to the point where it’s practically weightless), so that’s already balanced out. You need the crafting materials to craft ammunition as well; but lead, steel, and gunpowder are easy to find and there are perks to increase the amount of ammunition you craft. Maybe you could point to the amount of scrap you need to keep on hand as a potential disadvantage, but it turns out there’s a way around that, too; it just costs real-money dollars.
Fallout 1st
After a one-week trial of Fallout 1st, I can say this much with certainty now: it’s not worth the asking price and the scrapbox should be given to all players.
The scrapbox is a storage item you can place in your camp that stores an unlimited amount of scrap. When I started the trial week, I immediately crafted it and moved all my scrap over. Half of my 800-pound stash was scrap material. Over the week, I grabbed everything that wasn’t nailed down so I could scrap it and put it in this magical box of scrap-holding; just so I would have a stockpile once I could no longer add to it. (When your Fallout 1st subscription lapses, you can still remove items from the scrapbox; you just can’t add to it.) And while I certainly won’t hoard as much junk now that I can’t put it all in this container, I did notice a change for the week I had it: I was less stressed. Constantly having to worry about your storage space is annoying. You can’t just sell all the scrap, since vendors will only buy so much per day. I can sell to other players, but until someone buys it, the scrap continues to take up space. So ultimately, I’m left carrying a significant amount of my junk on my person, with the Pack Rat perk reducing the weights to make it manageable. This one item actually made the game more fun, and I don’t think it’s a good idea to lock items that make the game fun or less stressful behind a subscription fee.
The Fallout 1st trial also game with use of the survival tent, which is a freely-movable fast travel point with some storage and crafting items. This was convenient to use, but this is one of those items I’m OK having behind the subscription. I’d love if everyone had access to it, but it’s not as game-changing as the scrapbox. While the fast travel tax is annoying, it’s not as stressful as the inventory management needed to handle all that scrap.
Finally, the trial gave players a few free items – a wallpaper and a flooring. Woo. Sure, give these to subscribers for free; doesn’t bother me at all.
The trial didn’t provide the stipend subscribers get (understandable; it’s approximately $16.50 worth of premium currency), but I think the stipend is just thrown in there to make it seem “worth” the asking price. Personally, I don’t think giving away $13 (or $8.25/month at the $99/year) of my real-world dollars is worth it for $17 of Fallout fun-bucks. Just give me a $5/month or $50/year option just to get a few free items and the tent. That seems worth it and much more fair to players.
Seasons
The past week also provided players with double experience and double score for the season. I was able to progress very rapidly (both because of the bonuses and because of the scrapbox; less time managing my inventory means more time actually playing), and managed to get to rank 80. I still think I’m going to have to play daily to just barely finish the season, but at least it feels more attainable. I think this serves as a sign that the amount you have to put into the season needs to be reduced, as the current model adds to the stress. I feel like I should be able to finish the season in about a month if I play daily. If Bethesda wants to keep players engaged for a longer time, they need to provide content, not yet another thing to grind through.
Fallout can be better
I think Bethesda could learn a lot from Bungie and Destiny here. I can complete a Destiny season in about a month of regular play. The “subscription” is a $60-70 expansion pass each year, and that pass comes with a lot of new content – strikes, patrol zones, Crucible and Gambit maps, gameplay modes, events. While paying for the expansions and seasons will give you several items up front, everything is attainable by free-to-play players (aside from some cosmetics). Even the cosmetics in the Eververse store can be had with enough gameplay – you can finish quests for Bright Dust and buy items from Eververse in the weekly rotations. Sure, Destiny is a grind, but I never feel particularly disadvantaged.
The only experiences in Destiny that I don’t get to experience are the raids and challenging quests. These events are interesting and provide some great gear, but typically require a well-coordinated team and a large time investment. While I’d love to have that gear, I’m just fine without it, and the only time it actually affects me is during PvP, which I don’t really like anyway. There’s also enough alternative options to reduce the sting of getting taken out by a weapon I’ll never be able to have. This is the one area where I feel Fallout does better, multiplayer-wise: I can play end-game events because they don’t require a well-coordinated team; just players who can fight back enemies. Daily Ops are like Destiny strikes, and the world events are like Destiny’s public events. They’re not always quite as interesting in Fallout, but they’re accessible, and that’s what I like most about them. Bethesda just needs to work on making everything in Fallout 76 that accessible.
Back in July, Fallout 76 came to Xbox Game Pass and I decided to give it a try. I had avoided the game since its launch because everything I heard about it sounded distinctly non-Fallout: PvP focus, no NPCs, etc. Even since I started playing, there have been updates that have improved the game, so Bethesda is definitely doing a good job making the game better. I’ve played frequently since I started, and since I’ve reached level 100, I feel like this is a good time to put my thoughts about the game down. As with all games, there are good and bad elements, but ultimately, however, I don’t think Fallout works as a multiplayer game.
The Good
A player camp from Fallout 76 with a lovely diner design.
Just recently, the One Wasteland for All update has been a great update and actually solved a lot of problems I had with the game before. The update causes enemies to scale to your level, so you’re free to explore the wasteland without encountering the random high-level creature. Before, there were several low-level quests that would lead a player into high-level territory, preventing progress until the player is higher level. Since the update, I’ve been able to freely explore places I was less comfortable exploring before, and I can join any event I like. I’ve seen players just freshly out of Vault 76 (in the level 1-10 range) joining endgame events and contribute just as well as the level 400+ players. Everyone is fighting the same enemies, but always at their level.
Me (left) and a few others playing instruments during an event.
My favorite parts of the Fallout experience have always been exploring the wasteland and learning about what happened before the bombs fell. When I started, the Wastelanders expansion was already out, which introduced NPCs and new quests, so I can’t compare to how the game felt before that point, but the Appalachian wasteland feels like classic Fallout now. I learn about characters and their stories without ever meeting them; I learn about what happened both before and after the Great War; I get to learn about the real-world West Virginia in it’s fictionalized version. The classic Fallout experience is all here.
A picture of my CAMP in Fallout 76.
In Fallout 4, one of my favorite features was building up the various settlements, but the build limits always felt restrictive – I remember my settlement in Sanctuary had a wall around the island, a single building, and a bunch of shops on a concrete foundation. In 76, you get your own “C.A.M.P.” to place and build up wherever you like. While the amount of space you get to build within and the budget for building still feel restrictive, I’ve loved building up my wasteland home. It’s my own personal workshop, shelter, and farm. I’ve spent hours building and decorating. I get excited when I find new plans for something else I can build in my camp. The building elements from Fallout 4 have been expanded and improved in Fallout 76.
A player CAMP from Fallout 76 designed to look like a Brotherhood of Steel checkpoint.
Finally, there are certain multiplayer elements of the game that I really enjoy. I enjoy seeing other players visit my camp and make use of my workstations or buy from my vending machines. I love seeing how other players have built their camps. I enjoy the world events that groups of players can join and face waves of enemies. Bethesda has made it really easy to join up with other players in many different ways. I generally play solo, and you can play the majority of the content completely alone. Most endgame content has to be played with other players, but you don’t have to team up with other players during events. I like being able to play the game alone with other players wandering around, occasionally encountering another player in the wasteland or at my camp, then continue on my way. And generally, other players are very friendly and well-meaning, which improves the overall experience of the game.
The Bad
While there’s a lot to the game that I enjoy, there are some constant annoyances that I encounter that continually detract from the game. Most of these issues are ultimately caused by the multiplayer aspect of the game, unfortunately making what could be a truly fantastic game disappointing.
I don’t enjoy PvP in the slightest. There are plenty of games that I completely avoid because they’re primarily competitive (e.g., the entire “battle royale” category). In Fallout 76, you can turn on a “pacifist” flag that will prevent you from hurting other players and other players hurting you. While I’ve never killed another player (and never intend to), I’ve been killed by other players twice. The first time was after I picked a lock in a workshop claimed by another player. Typically locks have red text when unlocking them is bad (I assume); this one wasn’t, but still put a ten cap bounty on me. Later, I was turning in a quest when I was one-shotted by a high-level player. The second time, I was preparing to defend a workshop I had claimed from a wave of enemies, when I was one-shotted by a player, losing 50 caps. Both of these experiences soured me on Fallout for a short time, so I can’t imagine how bad things were when the game first came out. The experiences will also shape how I plan to play from now on – I never intend to stay at a workshop for very long, for instance, to avoid opening myself up for PvP. (I don’t understand why you’re forced into PvP for owning a workshop anyway.)
My teddy bear collection.
You do a lot of building things in Fallout 76. This requires a lot of scrap that you need to keep around to build things. Unfortunately, the stash at your camp only holds 800 pounds of stuff, including guns (which can be very heavy), armor, chems (also oddly heavy), miscellaneous items, and junk – including your scrap. Apparently early players could only keep 400 pounds in their stash and I have no idea how they managed, as I’m constantly fighting my 800-pound limit. It’s difficult to actually keep the items you’d like to keep because of the stash capacity. Making matters worse, vendors and the legendary exchange machine (used to scrap legendaries) have a limit to how much you can get from them per day, meaning I’ve sometimes had to quit the game to come back the next day and get rid of unwanted gear. In general, weight management is a giant pain, even with perks and equipment to reduce weights or increase carry capacity. I’ve gotten better at managing my own inventory since I managed to complete the quest line to craft a backpack (a quest that takes far too long to complete), but I still occasionally face problems with the weight of items.
Most games like this contain a lot of grinding, but Fallout 76 takes it to a new level. Nearly everything you do in the game is another grind: gaining experience beyond level 50; earning gold bullion; earning reputation with the raiders and settlers; finding good legendary equipment and scrapping the bad for legendary scrip; gaining perk coins to level up legendary perks; seasonal score; daily quests. At a certain point, the grind just gets boring. One thing I’ve used to break up the grinding are some of the quests in the game – what I mentioned above as one of my favorite parts of Fallout. Unfortunately, 76 almost seems to discourage completing quests – the rewards for an hour-plus quest line are worse than a fifteen-minute event. It seems like spending time with the lore of the game should be rewarded better than a short event; especially considering those quests can only be completed once anyway.
There are also numerous, lingering bugs in the game – things typical to the Fallout series, but aren’t a major issue in single-player games. Controls have stopped working while at a terminal or picking a lock; equipment has spontaneously duplicated itself; I’ve been unable to use a workbench because it’s “in use” by no one. The worst issue I’ve encountered is in combat: I’ll have to “kill” an enemy multiple times, when my headshot doesn’t register properly (their health bar is reduced to zero) and they heal back to full health after a second or two. Some of these are likely things I’ve seen in past Fallout games, but they’re made worse simply by being in a multiplayer game.
The Ugly
This happens relatively often.
There are some parts of the game that aren’t necessarily bad, they’re just implemented in a way that doesn’t work well.
There are a few “cap taxes” in the game that aren’t necessarily bad (they’re meant to pull caps out of the economy), but they’re annoying. I don’t have any problem with the vendor-based tax (10% of what a player pays doesn’t go to the seller), but the fast travel tax is simply annoying. It can cost more than 30 caps just to travel across the map. Bethesda recently made the two faction bases – Crater and Foundation – free to fast-travel to (and you visit them frequently as part of their quest lines and daily quests), so you can use them as a free fast-travel before paying to get to wherever you’re headed. However, making any location free for fast travel only makes it obvious how silly it is to charge caps for fast travel in the first place. If they need to take caps out of the economy, just put something worthwhile, expensive, and repeatable into the game. You can buy mutation serum recipes for around 20000 caps, and they’re worth buying; the game just needs more things like that.
A picture of the interior of my CAMP in Fallout 76.
In the latest patch, they’ve introduced a new event called “Daily Ops”. These are meant to be short, objective-based missions within an instanced area. Unfortunately, these events aren’t balanced very well. The enemies will have a random mutation, and some are incredibly annoying. One that was common for several days was “resilient”, where enemies can only be killed with a melee attack – not even a nuke would kill them. In addition, the enemies always have a “perceptive” mutation which allows them to see any player, even my high-stealth invisible character. Since I play a stealth build with relatively low resistances, I’m at a severe disadvantage playing the daily ops.
The seasonal system is a huge grind and requires you to do things you may not enjoy. Daily goals may include claiming workshops, playing the new “Daily Ops” event, or killing a particular type of enemy. Most of the time, these goals are pretty easy to accomplish, but the limited nature prevents much progress on the seasonal scoreboard. Destiny handles this much better, where you gain progress for earning experience, so you can simply do whatever you want and be rewarded with seasonal progress. I’ve been playing nearly every day since the latest season began (about a month now), and I’m only just getting to the halfway point. Even if I continue to play every day through the rest of the season (until November 24th), I’ll probably only barely reach the end. Games that demand my attention daily generally turn me off these days, and the least Bethesda could do is make the seasons last longer or provide ways to complete the season faster.
Finally, there’s the “Fallout 1st” subscription. I’m not opposed to a subscription for the game, but the asking price here – $13/month or $99/year – is far too high. I have no interest in private servers, and I don’t care about the premium-currency stipend (if I’m desperate to buy things, I can just buy the currency separately), but there are a few quality-of-life items locked behind the subscription. Fallout 1st players get a “scrapbox” to hold all their scrap with unlimited storage, and a “survival tent” they can place as a mini-camp to act as a free fast-travel point. If the price were much lower – maybe $5/month or $50/year – I’d consider joining for the QOL items, but at it’s current price, it’s just not worth it, and this leaves a lot of the non-paying players feeling like second-class citizens.
Summary
A player camp in Fallout 76. I like the “kill laugh love” neon sign above the door.
I’m disappointed and frustrated by Fallout 76. I can tell there’s a good game in there, but it’s buried under annoying systems and tons of grinding. It’s at least at a point where I can recommend it to fans of the Fallout series (barely) – but I definitely wouldn’t suggest it to anyone else. I want desperately to love this game, but I keep finding things that annoy me and make me want to stop playing. I’ll likely try to finish this season, but I may not play any more after that (especially considering there are a lot of games coming at the end of November that I’m going to want to put time into).
