Fallout 76 » Discussions


My Random Thoughts on Fallout 76

  • November 14, 2018

    So I'm only about 2 hours into the game so far, but I wanted to start sharing my thoughts on the game as a whole. I'll be breaking it down per play period (I'm only playing for an hour, two hours a piece) and then later on I'll take out a few of the 'Tips' and just have this full of my actual Thoughts/Opinions rather than useful tips and little bits of information that might be useful.

    Session One:

    o- Gun Damage (or Enemy Health) seems to be a lot more balanced in this game when compared to Fallout: 76. Even at Level 1 with no additional perks I was taking out most of the health on any enemy that I came across with a single shot of a Hunting Rifle which...you know makes a lot more sense than filling an enemy with 12 bullets before they die. There are a few enemimes (Protectrons) that are logically a bit tankier against ballistic damage, but everything feels more logical and fair.

    o- At the same time, you take more damage and being swarmed feels like an actual threat. I was fighting a pack of Feral Dogs, which in F4 are easy as shit, but because they're so nimble if your fighting more than two or three it can feel quite difficult to get a shot off, and inserts a bit more panic into the fight. 

    o- To counter the above...it sucks that death is near meaningless at this point. Even though I'm Level 4 and have a decent stockpile of junk I just don't feel like dying is ever going to matter. Worst case I die, respawn and grab my dropped stuff and be on my merry way. I really feel like they need to implement a harsher system, maybe dropping all your equipment, permanently losing either a percentage or all of your junk, maybe an EXP drop (that won't drop you down a level but could take you from 1000 XP to 0).

    o- Exploration feels a lot more natural. The Survey Points are great, the inclusion of Logs (which you can harvest for Wood Scraps) and the assortment of flowers and new creatues makes going from one place to another a bit more tolerable than it could be in Fallout 4 if you'd already looted a fair few places. Your not getting awesome stuff, but everything does feel like it counts.

    o- Scrapping and Junk is insanely awesome in comparison to Fallout 4. The crafting in general is just a lot smoother, easier and more expansive and you pair that with the fact that you can easily scrap Junk, and...well it just feels like a lot of additions have been made to the system. Personally I feel like everything is useful, and you should loot absolutely everything you see, and it feels like the game rewards me for that without punishing me if I'm a bit more selective (Desk Fans FTW). 

    o- Stealth seems a bit useless early on...That is all.

    o- Liberators are the best enemies I've come across :P Mini Communist Robots are absolutely hilarious.

    o- Speaking of mobs, I have noticed a bit of an issue. Some areas seem to have ridiculous respawn rates and I have no idea why. The area directly around the Vault led to me fighting about a billion Liberators, and I had to fight the same pack (different mobs thankfully) of Dogs at one point because after killing the first lot, another spawned in literally right in front of me. It's been a bit of a pain in the ass but uncommon enough that I don't have a huge complaint with it.

    Session Two:

    o- The game just looks...weird a lot of the time. I have to be honest, for every amazing shot you have of the sun coming through the trees and lighting up a clearing, you have the glare of the sun blinding you for half a minute. It's incredibly distracting, and while you could argue that it's more realistic or something, it's just a pain in the ass some times.

    o- Throwing Knives are God-Tier Weapons...this is barely a joke. With 75 damage right out of the gate they're going to be taking down most living enemies that you'll fight (as long as there isn't a massive level difference) and they're easy as all shit to make costing only 4 Steel. GOD-TIER.

    o- Since I'm on the topic. You can recover Throwing Knives if you miss but not if you hit an enemy, which is pretty chill.

    o- So, oddly this is going to be my largest complaint. But the game really needs to have some method of highlighting corpses, maybe being able to search for them with VATS or something because with the amount of vegetation the game has, it can be really quite difficult to find enemies if they fall in the wrong place or your in the middle of a firefight, and thus go off to kill 6 other enemies and want to find all the corpses. I guess there's a reason why most MMO's (at least) have something to designate where an enemy is, because Fallout:76 needs that badly.

    o- ALWAYS HARVEST WOOD. It might not seem useful, but it's actually one of the key ingredients in the early game so I'd hunt around for Wood whenever you can. If you see stacks of wood, they can be harvested. Collapsed logs? Harvested. Wood Scraps are just too damn useful to ignore so wherever you end up (and anytime you see a cooking pot/lumber plant) collect as much wood as you can.

    o- Depending on the server size, Flatwoods could become an insanely useful place for you to pick up free (everything). The Government Supply Drops seem to mainly land there, and if you've got enough people going around they can easily build up to the point where there can be half a dozen waiting there for you, even if you haven't dropped any of them (because everyone gets something out of them).

    o- You might as well murder every Brahmin that you see. Killing those two-headed Cows really is worth it for the hide alone (Leather is useful early game) but getting the food is pretty solid as well since Ribeye Steak is a good source of HP and Food Filling Hunger Meter Stuff. Uh, yeah so any animal but Brahmin are great beccause...well they're slow, friendly and easy to murder. Which sounds terrible now that I say it, but yeah...murder innocent cows for their hide and flesh.

    o- Be weary of the fact that trying to, or entering, VATS costs you a base 5 AP (regen seems to be about 2.3 AP a second) even if you don't lock on to a target or shoot/smack them with a weapon. It's a neat little change that means you can't just use it to sweep for enemies at all times, but it's something to be aware of when your fighting with low AP.

    o- Despite entering VATS costing 5 AP, it seems to completely stop allowing you to enter it around 30 (Base) AP. It could just be that at that level you can't use a VATS attacked making it a bit useless so they streamline it, but it does mean that you can't use all your AP on scanning for enemies or something along those lines.

    Session Three:

    o- Adhesive feels a lot less rare than it did in Fallout 4. I mean, I've been finding Duct Tape and Wonderglue everywhere I go and haven't had a single issue with finding any at any point. To counter this I've struggled finding Screws (DESK FANS) and Aluminum *shudder* from the very start which has caused a bit of a pause for me. It's strange but I understand it a bit, logically speaking Duct Tape should be just about everywhere even if it's the future :P

    o- So the Main Quest...I actually quite like how it's started, I think the Flatwoods Section is incredibly well designed to get you started on new mechanics of the game (including the Event which pops up often enough that you'll probably stumble into it), Government Supply Drops, Water, Food, etc. It just kind of works while providing a decent enough framework to keep you interested in the Overseer. I'm just heading up to the Airport (which is a great idea, sending you a bit further off in relatively safe lands makes a lot of sense) so I'll see how I feel about all that, but it's a lot better than starting off with Fallout 4's because you can build your character anyway around it from an RP sense.

    o- Speaking of the Overseer. I quite like her so far, she's just an enjoyable character at the moment with so much building and development. She's actually quite likable for a character I haven't seen yet, which surprised me a bit (and she is an Overseer). Still not as awesome as the Liberators, but eh you can't have everything :P

    o- Okay so just saw a Scorchbeast for the first time (personally) and they really are quite intimidating. The one I saw hadn't done anything (as far as I know) and was just flying overhead but they feel like an actual threat that could kill you at anytime and only doesn't because your too pathetic for it to notice. Really nice Boss-Type Enemy in the early stages that makes you feel overwhelmed (I can only imagine fighting one).

    o- Without a doubt I can say that creating my C.A.M.P is a million times more interesting, fun and rewarding than the Settlement Building ever was. I think because it's so...free form that it just makes for a very rewarding, and more importantly, personal creation that feels like Yours rather than just you fixing up some old place. I don't know but I actually have really enjoyed myself so far (and will start taking screenies soon :P)

    o- I have to say...god damn is the sun annoying in this game. Like I seriously just wish they'd turn down whatever setting it is that causes the glare to be so harsh, but it's making me feel like I'm (a person that has bad vision and stays inside a lot) actually leaving the house and staring at the sun. Straight up blinds me sometimes, and I hate not being able to see. It's just a minor pet peeve in the long run and doesn't cost me much but it's still fucking annoying.

    o- Positive time. I quite like Morgantown so far, it's just open enough that it doesn't feel crowded like Boston did, but packed enough that there's so much to do. Really quite enjoyable area so far and I can imagine myself staying up here a lot more.

    o- Slight edit on Throwing Knives. Earlier I said that you can't recover them from enemies, but I was dead wrong on that. The way it works (from what I can gather) is that you can always recover your missed Throwing Knife, but about a 10% chance to recover one from a deady body. Plus the way they 'aim' is kind of awesomely strange. They've got a really nice curve to them (or not), but really at a certain range as long as you've locked on to a target, they pretty much have a great chance of hitting your enemy.

    o- Jumping costs 30 AP  |  Bashing costs around 20-25 AP.

    o- So I think that there's a real issue regarding the inventory. I think it was alright enough on Fallout 4 and had no issues with it before (not really) but it just doesn't really work that well in Fallout: 76 where you can't pause. I really think it needs some sort of searching system first of all, but honestly I'm not sure how to fix it. I do think that a more important thing would be to just give us the Fallout 4 quick-menu. I don't know if PC has hot-keys, but on PS4 it's just absolutely difficult or near impossible for me to properly swap weapons using the favourites menu.

    Session Four:

    o- Morgantown Airport is actually really, really nice. I love the whole area, the Event and the story behind it. Is it a perfect area? No but the story is actually interesting, the layout and history behind the place (and the Responders) is great and I have to say that the Event there is the best, even if it's a bit of a pain. Basically I'm just down for the rewards which includes an insane amount of weapons, the Government Supply Drop is great as well. Basically you know, I just love the area and have to give major props (primarily for the story-telling and the design of the airport).

    o- Grafton Monster, more like...Smashton Shmonster...I don't know, the point is I fought a Grafton Monster and totally destroyed it. Throwing Knives + Shotguns for the win really. It kind of sucked that it didn't have interesting loot (I feel like it should have a Legendary on it) so it felt dissapointing to fight, even more than that it just seems to get stuck on terrain (and I'm not talking about anything amazing, just small bits). 

    o- I have to say that heading down South is pretty great, the areas down there are just a lot more interesting than the more forested section. The Massive Bridge (#NameChange) is a really fun little area that I think everyone should explore, it's a really easy way to get used to Ghoul movement if your struggling (like I have, because it's slightly different to Fallout 4's) and Bloodbugs (which are easier). 

    o- Super Mutants are fun as well, I really enjoy how they function in the game and I'm really waiting to find out a bit more about them. I do like the equipment they carry, it's not as varied as, well really any other enemy type but Hunting Rifles, Boards and Gunpowder is a great collection of early-game equipment. They're tough as shit though.

    o- I think it's fairly amazing how much there is to do in the game. I'm just running about with the Main Quest and not fully exploring things but I always feel like I'm accomplishing something, and finding stuff to do later on. I mean, I'm Level 12 right now and by that point in F4 I'll have literally carved out a good fifth of the area if I try hard enough (everything from Abernathy Farm to Saurus Ironworks, to uh...Police Station with Danse) and it's just not interesting. With Fallout: 76, I'm skipping so many places just to do the Main Quest but there feels like there's so much.

    I'm probably not explaining this well because it's ranty as shit. But there's just a lot to the game which is awesome :D

    o- So...it does kind of annoy me that Scorched will attack you with a weapon and then drop an entirely differnet one when you kill them. It's most notable with Melee (or only apparent in Melee Scorched) but they'll attack you with a Fire Axe but drop a Bowie Knife and it's just...both unsatisfying and mind-boggling at the same time. Because they will still have it when they die (you can see them holding it) but you can't pry it from their corpse or anything? Just annoying and one of the few things that's really pissed me off so far.

    I'll keep updating this as I go, but these are my random thoughts so far.

  • Member
    November 14, 2018

    Speaking of mobs, I have noticed a bit of an issue. Some areas seem to have ridiculous respawn rates and I have no idea why.

    Have you noticed any enemies with a crown next to their health bar while fighting these mobs? Because they apparently cause enemies of their type to spawn until they are killed.

  • Member
    November 14, 2018

    Speaking of mobs, I have noticed a bit of an issue. Some areas seem to have ridiculous respawn rates and I have no idea why.

    I've had that happen to me as I was looting a Crafton monster (or whatever it's called), I walked away about 20 ft, turned around and there it was again. I was very glad my teammate found me at that point (we kinda lost each other in town as we were frantically looking for workshops to scrap our junk)

    Speaking of cryptids, not bad for my first day, right?

    I'm the mountie looking dude on the left.

    Stealth seems a bit useless early on...That is all.

    It depends a bit on how you do it, Stealth and melee sucks so far. To be honest Vats and Melee sucks too and that was the most powerful thing about sneak melee in FO4. But if you use ranged weapons it's not bad. The Scorched are dumb as bricks and I've successfully cleared the entirety of the Poseidon plant south of the first town on my lonesome by being somewhat sneaky

    Speaking of mobs, I have noticed a bit of an issue. Some areas seem to have ridiculous respawn rates and I have no idea why. The area directly around the Vault led to me fighting about a billion Liberators, and I had to fight the same pack (different mobs thankfully) of Dogs at one point because after killing the first lot, another spawned in literally right in front of me. It's been a bit of a pain in the ass but uncommon enough that I don't have a huge complaint with it.

    I was then nearly killed when a different player walked in as I was hacking my way into the reactor chamber, and everything I'd killed previously came back as soon as he walked through the door. That said, the guy did help me up when he found me agonizing next to the terminal... Although he didn't have the hacking level necessary for that door so that may have played a role.

    It brings me to a different point; so far I've had a really positive experience with the rest of the community, even from people who were new to the FO franchise and apparently only gave this game a chance because of its online aspects (take the random Dutch guy who helped me take out that Mothman seen above for example and who I travelled with for a few hours)

    Also, have any of you guys tried out the Workshop system yet? I captured and claimed the workshop at the plant I mentioned and set it up for resource collection but to be honest the building system there seems rather limited. You can't scrap anything, at most they allow you to remove a few vehicles (but then not the containers attached to said vehicles) and more often than not it isn't properly shown whether or not you can place an object until you've tried putting it there 5 times without success and a small message appears that doesn't seem to make any fucking sense. Furthermore, it may just be because I was alone at this point, but the attacks seemed way too frequent for the endeavour to be really worth it (especially when you're in a team and you have to share the bounty).

  • November 14, 2018

    Have you noticed any enemies with a crown next to their health bar while fighting these mobs? Because they apparently cause enemies of their type to spawn until they are killed.

    Actually the strange thing was the second 'spawn' contained one but not the first. I had heard of that so I'd been keeping an eye out for it but hadn't seen it pop up as an issue so it seems to be something else.

    I've had that happen to me as I was looting a Crafton monster (or whatever it's called), I walked away about 20 ft, turned around and there it was again. I was very glad my teammate found me at that point (we kinda lost each other in town as we were frantically looking for workshops to scrap our junk)

    Speaking of cryptids, not bad for my first day, right?

    Kay, you go ahead and be fancy with all your cryptids, while I just found my first Mirelurk :P Honestly I've been just strolling about rather than doing anything in a major area (going to a lot of Cabins) so I haven't found anything massively interesting. Going to start the Flatwoods stuff later today so maybe I'm just super boring.

  • November 14, 2018

    It depends a bit on how you do it, Stealth and melee sucks so far. To be honest Vats and Melee sucks too and that was the most powerful thing about sneak melee in FO4. But if you use ranged weapons it's not bad. The Scorched are dumb as bricks and I've successfully cleared the entirety of the Poseidon plant south of the first town on my lonesome by being somewhat sneaky

    I think it's been nerfed a little bit, because I remember that in the BETA a lot of people were running these VATS focused Melee Builds that just tore through minor enemies and it felt a bit ridiculous. Maybe it's something that modifications will fix once I start getting a few more of them, but for now I just have no desire to smack people with a weapon if it takes me three-four hits to take out a Feral.

    But yeah, maybe I'll have to go Stealth + Ranged. I am running a Hunting Rifle at the moment so it'd only make sense.

    OH speaking of VATS. Has anyone else really enjoyed (in Ranged at least) the way VATS works now? I find it just makes everything a hell of a lot smoother in combat, and kind of makes it feel a bit more fun than even F4 VATS did. I was never a huge fan of it though, so it could just be me enjoying the fact that VATS is a bit less overpowered but still has enough benefits to make it worthwhile (PS - Going into VATS costs 5 AP for anyone that hadn't noticed).

    I was then nearly killed when a different player walked in as I was hacking my way into the reactor chamber, and everything I'd killed previously came back as soon as he walked through the door. That said, the guy did help me up when he found me agonizing next to the terminal... Although he didn't have the hacking level necessary for that door so that may have played a role.

    Damn, I can imagine this being a bit of a problem as the game continues... We'll have to see but respawning does seem to be a bit of an issue.

    It brings me to a different point; so far I've had a really positive experience with the rest of the community, even from people who were new to the FO franchise and apparently only gave this game a chance because of its online aspects (take the random Dutch guy who helped me take out that Mothman seen above for example and who I travelled with for a few hours)

    Yeah, honestly I haven't met anyone :P My first session was busy but most people had left the Vault area, and my second session had three of us and that's it :P Nobodies been a dick so far for me, which is kinda nice but I imagine it might change later on. At the moment the only people who are really playing are probably Bethesda/Fallout fans, because it's just something most people aren't going to get super into (I'd imagine). Not saying that Bethesda/Fallout fans aren't assholes, but there's just a smaller sample size to take so far.

    Also, have any of you guys tried out the Workshop system yet? I captured and claimed the workshop at the plant I mentioned and set it up for resource collection but to be honest the building system there seems rather limited. You can't scrap anything, at most they allow you to remove a few vehicles (but then not the containers attached to said vehicles) and more often than not it isn't properly shown whether or not you can place an object until you've tried putting it there 5 times without success and a small message appears that doesn't seem to make any fucking sense. Furthermore, it may just be because I was alone at this point, but the attacks seemed way too frequent for the endeavour to be really worth it (especially when you're in a team and you have to share the bounty)

    Yeah, I've played around with one for about 10 minutes before moving on (The Food Processing Plant which doesn't matter to me at all) and it just didn't feel like something I'm going to care about until the late-game where some of the better Workshops are amazingly useful. It seems like too much time for not enough reward, but I did just ignore it from then on so I can't say anymore :)

  • Member
    November 14, 2018

    Dragonborn2021 said:

    I've had that happen to me as I was looting a Crafton monster (or whatever it's called), I walked away about 20 ft, turned around and there it was again. I was very glad my teammate found me at that point (we kinda lost each other in town as we were frantically looking for workshops to scrap our junk)

    Speaking of cryptids, not bad for my first day, right?

    Kay, you go ahead and be fancy with all your cryptids, while I just found my first Mirelurk :P Honestly I've been just strolling about rather than doing anything in a major area (going to a lot of Cabins) so I haven't found anything massively interesting. Going to start the Flatwoods stuff later today so maybe I'm just super boring.

    *craftily hides the fact he only managed to kill those cryptids through the insane power of cheese and good defensively positioned anti-giant ditches*

    Gonna be honest, the only thing I really planned on doing was the workshop test. The rest of the time I set up my little cabin/unfinished pub, walked around collecting plants and somehow managing to stack 3 levels of hunter's bounty by the time I reached level 5. I walked into my cryptid killing partner when I literally bumped into him on my way to my first event just to see how the fuck those worked and despite having two clear goals we ended up forgetting about those and just randomly wandered south until hitting Charleston and then crawling our way back north. This game has managed to do what FO4 did so well; just get me to run around more or less aimlessly while also ensuring I have fun and you'll eventually get a good amount of hours out of me.

  • Member
    November 14, 2018

    OH speaking of VATS. Has anyone else really enjoyed (in Ranged at least) the way VATS works now? I find it just makes everything a hell of a lot smoother in combat, and kind of makes it feel a bit more fun than even F4 VATS did. I was never a huge fan of it though, so it could just be me enjoying the fact that VATS is a bit less overpowered but still has enough benefits to make it worthwhile (PS - Going into VATS costs 5 AP for anyone that hadn't noticed).

    Yes, I love it. It's super fluid and can really help when you know all you need is a body shot. It doesn't feel too nasty either since VATS often pretends some long distance shots are impossible whereas most players with some FPS experience will be able to make them by themselves.

    Yeah, I've played around with one for about 10 minutes before moving on (The Food Processing Plant which doesn't matter to me at all) and it just didn't feel like something I'm going to care about until the late-game where some of the better Workshops are amazingly useful. It seems like too much time for not enough reward, but I did just ignore it from then on so I can't say anymore :)

    After my experience, I also think it's for a bit further down the road even if the attacks don't seem that nasty yet (only very frequent). The plant allows you to mine for Nuclear materials, Aluminium, Lead and Concrete and while all of these are useful anyways, they become kind of crucial later on.

  • Member
    November 14, 2018

    Regarding workshops, they can be useful early on because taking them can grant an assortment of plans for crafting. I've captured a couple but not really done much with them.

    I recently ran into a quest that told me at the start I couldn't complete it until level 25 which was nice to find out before I got too far into it. For context the quest requires you to craft a level 25 suit of power armour which you can't do until the appropriate level.

    I've yet to run into the Mothman; although I've harvested and eaten many of its eggs. I have run into the Grafton Monster twice; once in the beta which was a level 10 version that I killed with the help of another player and the second was a level 30 one I killed by being on the roof a two story building when I found it while it was on the ground. I also found the weak point of the Grafton monster, the blowholes on it's back.

    I know DB is on ps4, but are you playing on PC Tein?

  • Member
    November 14, 2018

    Golden Fool said:

    Regarding workshops, they can be useful early on because taking them can grant an assortment of plans for crafting. I've captured a couple but not really done much with them.

    I recently ran into a quest that told me at the start I couldn't complete it until level 25 which was nice to find out before I got too far into it. For context the quest requires you to craft a level 25 suit of power armour which you can't do until the appropriate level.

    I've yet to run into the Mothman; although I've harvested and eaten many of its eggs. I have run into the Grafton Monster twice; once in the beta which was a level 10 version that I killed with the help of another player and the second was a level 30 one I killed by being on the roof a two story building when I found it while it was on the ground. I also found the weak point of the Grafton monster, the blowholes on it's back.

    I know DB is on ps4, but are you playing on PC Tein?

    Absolutely

  • November 14, 2018

    Regarding workshops, they can be useful early on because taking them can grant an assortment of plans for crafting. I've captured a couple but not really done much with them.

    Oh shit yeah hadn't noticed that. Could be really useful to grab those plans.

    I recently ran into a quest that told me at the start I couldn't complete it until level 25 which was nice to find out before I got too far into it. For context the quest requires you to craft a level 25 suit of power armour which you can't do until the appropriate level.

    That's nice to know, both that there are level-locked quests (which may be unpopular but I feel like they're needed sometimes) and to know that they won't let you get to the very end and then realize that you can't complete it. That would suck, so...yeah very glad that it's a thing.

     

    On an unrelated note. How crazy can Flatwoods get? I've literally just gone through a playthrough where people were dropping so many Government Supply Drops that I lost count of how many I had. I think it was 7 or 8, but it could've been 9 or 10 easily. I'm pretty good for weapons and armour and food now :P Sadly not many Hunting Rifles but I've got mine (LEvel 5) attached with the True Stock or whatever it's called and just absolutely destroying everything in my way (and Reflex Sight). 

    By the way, has anyone seen a Perk Card related to throwables? Because I swear if I can I'm turning this fella into a Throwing Knife/Tomahawk [Insert Other Throwing Weapons] Master and taking the world by storm with my ridiculous weapons. Those Throwing Knives are seriously overpowered in the early game...75 fucking damage.