Fallout: 76 - Take Me Home, Country Roads

See I hated the decaying gear mechanic not just in Fallout but in most other games. Very few games seem to do a decent job of balancing it quite right which almost always winds up with me feeling it is more akin to fake difficulty in the end.

On the other hand handled right it could be made interesting in a more survival focused game.

edited 30th May '18 5:00:35 PM by TuefelHundenIV

@Protagonist 506, there's a multiplayer mod in the works for Skyrim too, called Skyrim Together. But these are fanmade additions to games that were designed first and foremost as entirely singleplayer experiences. That's not the case here. Bethesda are building Fallout 76 as a multiplayer game, or at the very least as a game with significant multiplayer features, out-of-the-box. If this is going to be a Live Service type of game, or even if it has Co-op, that will significantly change the way it's designed at every level. If it really is a "Rust clone", then that will mean gameplay is completely different from the Bethesda standard of open-world RP Gs.

I mean, if this game is Multiplayer by default, will you even be able to mod it?

edited 30th May '18 5:09:24 PM by Gault

An alternative would be to use some sort of mod service that automatically downloaded every available piece of additional content to every player's system, so that even if players didn't use a given mod, their games would still recognize it. And maybe instead of "mods," which most people expect to be free, this service could involve "mini-DLC" that players could buy with a digital currency available in bulk. And as a bonus, since this is an online game, players would be encouraged to purchase that powerful Chinese Stealth Armor mini-DLC after seeing their competitors use it.

We have too many ifs and not enough answers, so I see no reason not to cool our jets and see. If a source has been burned for leaking before and they now have a few "sources" inside the company, I would say back off what they say and wait for confirmation. You're probably taking somebody else's bait in a calculated move to punish a known leak.

As for the ones complaining about it being multiplayer, if true, I understand the criticism but it is 100% inaccurate to claim nobody wanted this. I'M in the camp that has said, for years (you can probably find a post from me somewhere in this thread or one of the other FO threads) that I would love a Star Wars Galaxy-styled FO game where players work together to build their own communities and factions in the wasteland. I said outright this would be the PERFECT setting for such a thing. Even the rumored leaks don't fill in all of those gaps, but if this game comes even close to that Bethesda can have my money once I've read enough reviews and devlogs to know it's actually playable without frequent crashes.

One might worry about griefers running around, but there are very simple-to-say fixes for that. FORMALIZE player interactions. Make it so the only way two players can harm each other would be for one to challenge the other. MM Os have done that for years, and it works well enough. There's other possible fixes for non-combat griefing. It's just that most companies who branch into this stuff or do it for the first time don't go through the programming needed for it.

@Soble: While I do like survival mechanics, I'm really not fond of equipment breaking for a few reasons. For example: almost every game with weapon breaking exaggerates the fragility of weapons that they're actually less realistic than games without weapon breaking. It's a bit like batteries for flashlights in games: yes, they have a finite battery life. But their battery life is usually measured in many hours.

From a mechanical standpoint, I think it's an unnecessary restriction. Most weapons in Fallout require resource management to use anyways, in the form of ammo. And really, from a mechanical standpoint all the equipment breaking really is is a second form of ammo. There's not a good reason to give every weapon 2 ammo bars.

On the flip side, I think F4's weapon crafting was actually pretty neat. The way I see it, the big issue for a wastelander would actually be finding a quality gun, more so than their weapons breaking.

So literally just have it be Fallout Online like they made Elder Scrolls into a generic MMO with Elder Scrolls Online? Yech. No thanks.

This is the problem- people want things that don't make sense. The essence of the Bethesda style of open-world RP Gs is complete and total freedom. Go anywhere, do anything, kill anyone. This was most faithfully expressed in Morrowind and New Vegas, and expressed to varying degrees in those franchises' other games. More than anything else, it's also what makes Bethesda's open-world RP Gs what they are, is this kind of design philosophy. You can't have that in a multiplayer game. At least, not in the kind of multiplayer game that you are describing.

In Rust, you actually can kill anyone at any time, but because it involves many players it can't put you in some sort of privileged position, so it has to be the case that anyone can kill you at any time as well. This kind of game is completely, radically different than Skyrim or New Vegas. They're certainly no longer part of the same genre. These are two philosophies of game design that are fundamentally at odds with one-another. It's like oil and water, they don't mix.

edited 30th May '18 6:40:52 PM by Gault

Someone on deviantart drew my friend. I'm pretty sure they've hit 'meme' status.

https://neonaeonflux.deviantart.com/art/TheYadda-747432969

As a reddit user who was there when he first posted it, I'm loving this behind-the-scenes peek you're giving us.

I could see it working as an online multiplayer game if done in the vein of Red Dead Redemption or GTA's open world online modes - maybe with an offline story-based mode for the single-player peeps; like the multiplayer mode becomes the "survival mode" of the base game, with the added threat of other players to hurt or help you. My main concern is having the settlement-building crap shoved in my face still; I'd rather just trek through the wilderness, camp out in abandoned buildings, and do quests than try and rebuild civilization. I ignored the hell out of settlements in FO 4, if that's the crux of this game I'll be more disappointed by that than by any kind of online aspect.

I'm tentatively optimistic assuming an online/multiplayer mode isn't mandatory and if Bethesda doesn't fuck up the lore by introducing the Bo S or other franchise mainstays too early in the timeline. If this does take place 25 years after the war like it seems to, then that's a great unexplored time period to play around with and create some original factions and stuff out of. Also if it's a cool northwest mountain setting like it seems to be implying, that's pretty neat too.

@Gault: Your freedom model could work as long as Bethesda incentivizes not killing people on sight. Rust is a bad example because it does very little to give you a reason not to just outright murder everyone you see. The devs seem to be thriving on the "murder first, loot right after, never bother to think that person might have actually been helpful." It's trash. And a lot of us utterly hate the thought of putting hours in as a team building stuff up just to watch some asshat strongman tear it all down for fun. So my formalizing suggestion cuts that out. I'm not asking to be above everyone else. I'm asking for everyone to be allowed to decide whether to gamble what they've built in a raid. Hell, they could make it a server option, even, with that option being explicitly part of the title of the server. Then you could have both parties satisfied.

On a more optimistic note: if all this multiplayer-only crap turns out to be fake like those "Fallout 4 only has a male protag" ones from years ago then I will be ecstatic.

Well, the Kotaku leak had been very accurate besides that one tidbit.

I'm not referring to the Kotaku leak - I mean the one from /r/Fallout by some alleged "former employee" who tried to give herself credibility by providing her full name (a simple google search revealed no such person had ever worked at Bethesda). She made a bunch of ridiculous claims about how Fallout 4 was just a linear FPS or some nonsense and a shocking amount of people bought it right up until the E3 premier, which thoroughly disproved almost all of her claims.

edited 30th May '18 9:11:56 PM by Dirtyblue929

If they do something along the lines of the Sim Settler mod with the building, that could be good. If it's more manual, clunky micro then nah. Or reduce it down so you're building firepits and basic generators in already extant buildings...

Yeah, base building was nice in concept, but finicky controls and an inability to modify terrain made it limited and frustrating to use. Also, lighting large spaces was a pain, and you'd reach the build limit way too soon.

How are they going to include VATS in a multiplayer game?

They'd have to just not have it. Not that I'm complaining. VATS always was a clunky mechanic that ill-fitted a first-person shooter.

I really liked VATS, actually. I'm not very good at shooters anyway, so the extra help was very welcome.

Id point out their model isnt total freedom. I could in theory go anywhere in Fallout 4 but if I'n not high enough level im going to die horribly to various Beef Gates.

Might be of interest to some people:

Trailer for two YouTube video documentaries, one about the history of Bethesda (releasing 5 June), and the other about the making of Fallout 76 (12 June). Coupled with the way they initially announced the game, this does indicate Beth seem to have a fair amount of faith in 76.

As to my own thoughts about the game so far: well, I am trying to be a bit tight-lipped and not gear myself up for anything until we get more details. Assuming the leaks are true, it would depend a bit about how the game exactly handles survival elements. It's said there are still quests and story; if it runs akin to a sort of mini-Fallout 4 Survival Mode, I'll probably be up for giving a good go. But that in itself is vague. If it's, like, Rust "but Fallout", I'll be a bit more disappointed.

A week and three days now until the Beth E3.

edited 31st May '18 10:45:17 AM by Lavaeolus

In case anyone missed the hot sauce bet thing this has you covered. https://screenrant.com/fallout-tabasco-sauce-bet-bethesda/

Well, I mean, of course they have faith in it, or they wouldn't go this route. It's just a question of how the fans will react.

I'm firmly in the "Wait and see" camp

Honestly, the first thing I wondered after seeing the title (Fallout '76) and hearing the song ("Country Roads") was if the game would have a 70's vibe to it, the way the previous ones (back to ''Fallout 3" anyway) have a 50's vibe. I'm not an expert on such things, but is "Country Roads" the first song from post-1960 to be associated with the series? I fully realize I'm probably reading too much into stuff, here.

Off the top of my head, the cutoff for New Vegas's music was JFK's assassination (22 November 1963). Which, if you're curious, is why this snazzy Sinatra number didn't make it in. Fallout 1 and 2 were more '50s (though of course they don't have the big radio stations), with New Vegas sort of stepping forward a bit.

A quick skim through the wiki, Fallout 3 I think is mostly songs from the '40s and '30s; 4 introduces a lot more '50s ones and three '60s ones, the oldest of which is from 1962. I might be missing some.

In any case, yes, I think Country Roads is the oldest they've gone. First '70s song, if I'm not missing any. Well, tell a lie, I think Fallout 3's 'Anything Goes' is using a 2004 version of the song, though based on Cole Porter's version and including his vocals.

edited 31st May '18 2:03:06 PM by Lavaeolus

I find it weird that people think no one want's a fallout multiplayer game they being talking about make one for at lest ten years [1]