Fallout: 76 - Take Me Home, Country Roads

Whoever said that Bethesda would fix this with a battle royale mode, congratulations. You won. I think.

I don't think the Battle Royale mode was what fixed it. It might have given them more money to hold out with until they could fix it, but that wasn't the deciding factor. This new NPC stuff? That's probably going to be the big push that settles it.

ETA: I was never against the game, I just never saw it as worth my time considering all the complaints and the lack of friendly non-vendor characters.

Edited by Journeyman on Jun 10th 2019 at 7:45:10 AM

The NPC thing though is a quiet admission that the premise of the game is fundamentally a failure. If you have to go against your marketing and pitch. Bethesda can talk it up as much as they want, but this is pretty pathetic damage control.

well its working at least in part. I'm reinstalling it to check things out and a friend just bought a copy as they are cheap as all hell now.

Got to admit I first got it for the build your own pip boy kit, the game was an aside but I had fun with it at the time, it just lacked decent engagement for most quests (while some were above par for your average fallout game, so credit where its due)

Jim Sterling had the best reaction on twitter.

That people applauding the fact the game will have NP Cs really just shows that Bethesda fucked up so much that they lowered the bar so low that merely rising an inch off the ground seems like an accomplishment.

it ain't been implemented yet. It's just being announced.

I admit seeing people on the internet act like this update makes total sense and buying bethesda's spin on how this was totally 100% the plan makes me furious at how correct Todd was when he said launch doesnt matter.

Honestly, this isn't exactly a new line of thinking and he'd not be the first to do that.

Look at No Man's Sky, Destiny 1, The Division.

All games that had bad launch and "completed" after launch to general acclaim.

I now eagerly await to see how Bioware watch this and somehow screw Anthem even more.

"Hey, so we've heard our fans and have decided to remove all NP Cs from the game, because without them, all the other issues cease to exist."

Sorry, sorry, OT. I am always keen for more Fallout, but PVE co-op multiplayer would on;y have sold me if there was decent plot in the world. Basically, I want to play co-op fallout with a friend, not some instanced MMO. This seems to be moving things in that direction, which I think is all people really wanted.

The difference is whether doing that is just a one time mistake that got corrected or a mistake that keeps happening over and over again.

For instance, I remember the disastrous launch of Total War: Rome II back in 2013 and how it took about five years for Creative Assembly to finally fix the game. It was, indeed, a notorious failure at first for CA, but from what I have heard of their next Warhammer games and their newest Three Kingdoms game, they learned to do it right the first time.

Remember, Fallout 76 is not the first time that Bethesda launches a buggy game nor the first multiplayer game based around one of their IPs, they should have learned something by this point.

Why would they learn, when their fans keep giving them money?

That's not how learning works.

I guess they've learned that fans won't stop buying their shit and making excuses or even crack jokes about their issues. So there is no real incentive to improve.

Fallout 76 was a shoddy product at launch. They knew it was a shoddy product at launch. They simply relied on the goodwill of Fallout and Bethesda fans and the fact that years of patch culture has normalized this shit for us.

Edited by M84 on Jun 10th 2019 at 11:47:02 PM

In case anybody's interested, Jim Sterling has made a video, let's say, analyzing Fallout 76 and it's related media, let's say, occurrences since launch.

I mean, crap quality merch and an unstable launch... At least there's some gameplay with longevity under there.

Bioware thought they could do the same thing Bethesda does; but Bethesda almost revels in its notoriety (Similar to how everyone tolerates a bit of jank in Obsidian games) - because they're seen as quirky and not everything thinks "Zenimax are ruddy HUGE" - they think they're a bunch of RPG guys.

Bioware get shredded as everyone has higher expectations (possibly unjustifiably so).

But yeah, 76 I think managed to go under the radar with Anthem taking a lot of the flak - though that just might be my own media intake influencing.

it's like you've never played a fallout game. Gameplay has been and still is improving. Fallout 4 was a massive improvement mechanically over 3 and new Vegas, being much more graceful and offering many features that reduce frustration. 76 actually managed to improve on a lot of those mechanics. Getting rid of the fat walk when over encumbered. A lot of animations can now be interrupted and there's a faster run speed allowing fleeing an encounter to be more viable. Scrapping, to make junk looting more profitable. Workbenches, etc.

More attractive lighting and textures, better facial animations, the option to rename all items to organize your clutter.

Each new game that comes out makes each previous game difficult to play. I'd say that indicates the games very much do improve.

I'm pretty sure the opposite happened. Anthem was largely ignored, Fallout 76 is reviled. Quite often, in my experience, by people who tend to later reveal they haven't actually purchased or played the game

Edited by blkwhtrbbt on Jun 10th 2019 at 11:14:58 AM

Hey, this wasn't just me saying it. They already outright admitted they knew the game wasn't going to be particularly good at launch.

And Anthem's disastrous launch did take up a lot of attention. As did that Kotaku article revealing why it was a disaster.

And I'm not just talking about Fallout games. I'm talking Bethesda games in general such as Elder Scrolls.

They've always been buggy messes. It's just that they had enough engaging open-worlds and storytelling and npcs to make up for that. Or used to at least.

Seeing everything wrong with Bethesda manifesting in 76 the way it did at launch has really made me lose confidence in Bethesda. Something I didn't think was possible since I loved Skyrim. I loved Morrowind. I even really enjoyed Oblivion.

Edited by M84 on Jun 11th 2019 at 12:23:40 AM

I've played Skyrim, New Vegas, F4, and now 76. I just don't see what people mean by buggy messes. Except Now Vegas which, will CTD every other hour on a pc built to give times the recommended specs. Maybe ive just been exceptionally lucky? I dont get bugs except little ones, like a person sometimes does the swimming animation while walking.

I feel like I'm being gaslit because everybody knows how buggy Bethesda games are but *shrug*

I've had to put up with bugs that would break quests. I've had npcs get themselves killed in ways that shouldn't have happened. I've never been able to complete a game without relying on console commands to fix shit.

So don't tell me Bethesda games are just fine.

And those were...acceptable...in games where console commands and fan-made patches and mods were available.

Edited by M84 on Jun 11th 2019 at 12:37:05 AM

With learning their lesson, there really isn't much of a lesson to learn anyways. A lot of F76's flaws were things that either: A) Weren't going to be repeated anyways; or B) Weren't going to change anyways.

For example, not putting human NP Cs in the game was a big mistake, but the problem is that even if everyone loved the game they never intended that to be the norm. Actually, most of the flaws involving multiplayer fall into that former category.

With the other category, most of those are problems with an engine and it's probably too late and expensive for them to change that for Elder Scrolls 6.

The part that just really annoys me is the recent admission that they knew going in that the game was not up to par. They knowingly let a half-assed product go on sale.

They had better put in a lot more effort prior to the launch of Elder Scrolls VI.

Edited by M84 on Jun 11th 2019 at 12:42:01 AM

Again, i keep hearing that but ive apparently been exceptionally lucky. Ive gotten as much buggy gameplay from Cod or

Elder Scrolls 6 is a mainline, brand and franchise defining game. I have no doubt 6 will not have the same design flaws as F76.

Edited by blkwhtrbbt on Jun 10th 2019 at 12:14:46 PM

If they're using the same engine as Protagonist suggested, they'll still have problems.

I almost wish they'd just switch to Unreal or something, like Squeenix did with KHIII.

Edited by M84 on Jun 11th 2019 at 1:15:28 AM

Would the Scrollout looting system work in Unreal?

I guess so. I know that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 will use UE 4 because the developers experienced in X-Ray Engine have left GSC Gameworld.

Another thing they can do is throw money at id so they make an open world version of id tech... 7? I know id tech 5 can do open world but it's limited. In Rage 1 layouts are still linear and you load into locations. Like settlements, bandit camps/hideouts, sewers... it's the canyons you traverse with your car that's the "open" part but they're narrow. How to explain better, unlike Fallout 3 for example, id tech 5 can't handle one big square map iirc.

Edited by Dhiruxide on Jun 10th 2019 at 7:24:01 PM