[Bethesda] Fallout 76

[Max Peck]

I got talked into (that's my story and I'm sticking to it) firing up F76 for the first time in 2 or 3 years. By the time I was done I had a shiny new Lucy MacLean character and a 12-month Fallout 1st subscription (because playing without a scrapbox is an exercise in futility).

One thing I noticed is that they've revamped the onboarding of new characters. There is now an option to start with either a level 2 or level 20 character, with a small selection of builds to choose from with appropriate SPECIAL allocation, perk cards and some starting equipment. I need to relearn how to play the game so I went the level 2 option, but it's nice to see an option for players who want to hit the ground running.

Does that level 20 thing still let you follow the stories or does it marked a bunch of them done?
Also do you get extra resources or gear or start as a newb?

I didn't take the level 20 option, but I expect that you start at the beginning of the quest lines, just with a more capable character. Even with the level 2 option, I started with some gear, so I'd expect the level 20 option comes with some level/build appropriate weapons and armor.

[Max Peck]

You can play with Fallout 1st for free for the next week. They're also offering a 50% off deal for new subscribers.

[Daehawk]

They offered a stash and a ammo box for a week from Fallout First back when I played. Those things are damn handy. I really missed them when I couldn't put stuff in them any longer. All my stuff was still able to be taken out though so no problems. But I still wouldn't pay for that. Tempted though as I was.

[Daehawk]

This Atlantic City stuff is larger than I first thought. Also Whitesprings has come alive with quests.

Games seems to have developed some crashing issues since I was here last.

[Punisher]

This Atlantic City stuff is larger than I first thought. Also Whitesprings has come alive with quests.

Games seems to have developed some crashing issues since I was here last.

Does it have the Taj or any other big name casinos?

[Daehawk]

I haven't been back and only been once. I have a quest to go back. The first time it loaded me into a run down area where I was attacked by waved of enemies until I killed enough. Im not sure where the next quest will take me. I dont think its a big open new area. I think its just quests that load you into them. Like maybe Ill be in a town or maybe a casino next time. Not sure until I go.

[Punisher]

I haven't been back and only been once. I have a quest to go back. The first time it loaded me into a run down area where I was attacked by waved of enemies until I killed enough. Im not sure where the next quest will take me. I dont think its a big open new area. I think its just quests that load you into them. Like maybe Ill be in a town or maybe a casino next time. Not sure until I go.

Oh yeah. I think thats downtown AC. we made that wrong turn too..

[Daehawk]

I grabbed that free week of Fallout 1st last night. Today I plan to move all my scrap and ammo to their respective FO1st boxes to make room in my stash. If Bethesda weren't so damn money starved they'd make ammo and scrap not take up room or weigh anything in your normal stash. But NOOoooOooooooo.

[Max Peck]

Does that level 20 thing still let you follow the stories or does it marked a bunch of them done?
Also do you get extra resources or gear or start as a newb?

I just ran across this article...

Don't worry, you're not missing out by boosting straight to level 20 in Fallout 76

Ah, so you watched the Fallout show and caught the Bethesda bug too. Instead of starting another Fallout 4 playthrough like half of my friends list, I've opted to give Fallout 76 a fair shake after noping out of it six years ago. If you're doing the same, then you'll notice a lot has changed. The main quest has been completely reworked with new branching storylines starring NPCs and factions, but one of the bigger changes comes as soon as you leave the vault.

Before you've taken your first step in Appalachia, Fallout 76 asks you to make a big choice: Start as a fresh level 2 vault dweller, or boost immediately up to level 20 as a "battle ready" dweller. I was really hesitant to take the boost at first—I was worried skipping ahead was an option intended for long-time players making a second character, and that going down that road would mean skipping introductory quests. Turns out that's not the case at all. Choosing the level 20 option doesn't lock you out of any quests whatsoever, or even meaningfully change your challenge level, since enemies generally scale to your level no matter what.

What a battle ready loadout does get you is a big headstart on perk cards, Fallout 76's primary progression path. You can choose between five presets that immediately set you up with some pretty great beginner perks and gear:

• Commando: Automatic rifles
• Slugger: Two-handed melee
• Gunslinger: Pistols
• Shotgunner: Shotguns
• Specialist: V.A.T.S.

[Daehawk]

Cant even remember if I ever had a good shotgun. Usually shotguns are what I lean to in shooters. I do like pistols though. Automatics tend to waste precious ammo early on when ammo is more scarce. I like energy weps but again ammo for them is few and far between and harder to come by in general. Early on I loaded up on 10mm and 5mm . Even at lvl 150 or so I usually run around with just a named bow and fire arrow , a gatlin gun, and some named sniper rifle and a melee. I dont play much at all now as theres nothing to do. I log in to get the free stuff and run some publics I like if they are going on or I want a particular item from them. Im considering dropping all weps except that bow for picking off ghouls and humanoid and a gatlin gun for robots and muties and damage. I can get tons of ammo for my weps now days simply by killing stuff with the weps I want ammo for. I get more back than I use unless its a full auto gun on a hard to kill enemy.

[Blackhawk]

I played quite a bit last year. I'm going to quote a few of my posts from then (with apologies to Daehawk for all of the notifications), as a few people seem to be starting for some reason I can't quite figure out. Some quick biggies:

~Always have food buffs
~Sell booze and high priced 'stuff', but save the armor and weapons to scrap. You need the materials, and it's only be scrapping that you learn recipes. Don't sell all the time - hoard stuff and do it en masse. Equip the sales card only when selling, and drink something *hic* that gives a +Charisma bonus. Then sell all your crap and unequip the sales perk card.
~Plan on having multiple loadouts (skill sets) that you can switch between. There's a buildable CAMP item that lets you save multiple loadouts. At the very least you are going to want an adventuring build and a separate crafting/CAMP build. The CAMP build will give you bonuses for crafting, harvesting, scrapping, etc.
~Unlike the other Fallout games, FO76 is not designed to make multiple weapon types on the same character viable. It takes too many cards (perks) to make a weapon do enough damage to keep up with the damage you need to do. Pick a type, and stick with it.
~Once you hit the level cap, it's all about gathering carefully chosen mutations. I think I go into more detail in one of the posts I'll quote, but there is a specific process for being able to choose exactly the mutations that you want and, more importantly, keep exactly those and no others.

[Blackhawk]

Ive read that I can ignore eating and drinking. Is that true? Ive been eating and drinking as Im always finding that stuff anyways. But if it really does nothing Id be happy to ignore it.

Sort of. They removed the penalties for not eating and drinking, but they still have benefits if you do eat and drink. If you're fully fed and fully hydrated you will get a nice buff. In addition, various foods will give you additional buffs. Early on I'd recommend grabbing all of the soot flowers you see, then mixing it with boiled water for tea. A good early option food is to grab a few corn while you're out, and then plant it in your camp. When you start, pick some corn, grab some water, and make corn soup. It fills both the food and water bars.

Later on you'll find some better recipes. The best thing to do is usually to fill your food and water bars up with multiple foods, so that you're stacking multiple buffs.

Be aware that food does spoil over time. And be on the lookout for spoiled food in your food/drink inventory - it can weigh you down. Stick it in your stash, then use a chemistry bench to turn it into fertilizer.

Two other free (and substantial) buffs that I mentioned earlier are the one for sleeping and the one for playing an instrument. Just sleep/play until you hear a sound and get a Vault Boy pop-up.

Some other quick early tips:

~Concerning perks: Don't actively spend your choices on the 'Find Extra' perks. If you get them and have extra points feel free to equip them, but you'll generally find more than enough of everything without them.
~Don't plan on having the lockpicking/hacking perks equipped on your actual build. That would take 6 SPECIAL points. What most people do is get the perks, but leave them unequipped (or only equip one) until they actually need it, as you can change your perks on the fly. In other words, you come up on a lock/terminal, unequip one of your combat perks, and equip lockpicking. You pick said lock, then put your combat perk back on. (Personally, I dumped my first legendary perk on the one that gives you 3/3 so that I don't have to worry about it anymore.)
~Particularly good perks: Blocker, Concentrated Fire, Fireproof, Lone Wanderer (a must if you're solo), Scrapper, Gunsmith (keep it equipped for the reduced wear and tear), Action Boy (unless you're avoid VATS entirely.) At the end game, Starched Genes and Class Freak are a must.
~Until you max Starched Genes and Class Freak, don't keep any mutations (RadAway removes them.) The downsides are pretty heavy. Once you have those perks, though, you can keep the mutations without the penalties.
~You'll generally want to specialize in a single weapon. You can carry as many as you want, and you can fire them, but you'll only have enough perks to really make one of them fully effective (in my current build, I have 12 perk points out of a max of 15 in Perception dedicated just to rifles.)
~At level 25 you'll get access to a card machine that will let you save multiple builds and change your SPECIALs at will. I have separate builds for combat and a generic 'crafting' build that's for both CAMP building and crafting. If I make another, it will either be a farming build or a power armor build.
~The soft cap is level 50. After that you'll keep leveling, but you'll only get perks, not SPECIALS. You also gain access to an alternate 'Legendary Perks' set, one choice every 25 levels starting at 50.
~An excellent build planner. Once you have a build, the leveling roadmap button on there is invaluable.
~My current build. Note that this is a single shot weapon/stealth/no power armor build. It isn't the most effective build in the game (if you wanted to make it more effective, you'd switch the single shot perks for Commando.) I find the game easy enough that I don't feel the need to optimize, however.
~My crafting build. Yes, it's got more perks than points. I swap the perks I'm not using for the ones I am using (IE - if I'm working on energy weapons, I swap out something else for the energy weapon perks.)
~Keep your eye out for train stations. They have vendor NPCs (whose stock is almost always over-priced), they always have a crafting bench and a legendary exchange. It's a machine that lets you turn old legendaries into a special scrip. Save that scrip until the endgame - you can turn it in for new, on-level legendaries then.
~You learn attachments for weapons by scrapping the same sort of weapon. What you get is random, and what you get slows down over time (it doesn't remove what you already learn from the pool of options, and getting one you already know just results in not learning anything.)
~A convoluted, but very useful tool for determining prices and rarity for items you find.
~If you do set up a shop, note that most legendaries do not sell unless they're priced low and people are buying them for turning into scrip. Pretty much all ammo sells for 1 cap per.
~Weapons and armor have levels, rounded to 5 (IE - you can find level 5 pipe pistols, level 20s, level 35s, level 50s, etc.) You'll want to make sure that you don't let your gear fall behind - it's easy to have a weapon that you love, say a combat rifle, keep scrapping the combat rifles you find later, only to realize that you're level 40, the combat rifle you're using is level 15, and you've been scrapping the level 40s. Or that you're wearing an armor piece that's 20 levels below you. During the leveling, it's expected that you'll recreate the same gun every few levels.
~You start with a low-level backpack with +5 carry weight. You can craft new backpacks at an armor bench every 10 levels (10, 20, etc), all the way up to a level 50 backpack. Each upgrade increases the carry weight by +5.
~You can craft with the materials in your stash. Store all junk.
~Weight warning: Scrap your junk before you store it. Unscrapped junk takes up a ton of Stash space. You might want to check to make sure you haven't deposited any junk already. Scrapping it is easy - any workbench (except a brewing station) will have an option for 'scrap.' Once you hit it, you'll have an option for 'scrap all junk.' Just hit that, walk up to your stash, and you'll have a button for 'deposit all junk.'

[Blackhawk]

Quick tip on what not to ignore when looting. The stuff you always want to grab (or the things that scrap into these):

~Aluminum
~Screws
~Adhesive
~Lead
~Acid
~Ballistic Fiber
~Springs

[Blackhawk]

(Note: Because I'm an inconsiderate bastard, I keep using 'skill', 'perk' and 'card' interchangeably. They all mean the same thing.)

A collector eh? I always collect one item in these Fallout games. Not decided on what yet. The little Red Rocket toy is cool and the Alien. Not sure yet though.

Nope. I keep a few for myself, but most of them I stick on my vendor to sell to other players (at a below-market price that's more about making it available than making a profit.) Take a look here. I don't have everything (or even close to it), but I have a lot of the more common stuff. If you see some stuff you like and I have it, I'll gladly pass it on.

Also I feel its coming time I decided on one weapon type to make ammo carrying easier. Im not really happy with the 3 I use now. Its why I carry three. Shotgun is powerful but a little slow and has no range. The 10mm I love and have always used one in these games but it lacks power and isn';t totally accurate. The laser pistol is the best as its powerful and accurate. But that sound it makes really gets repetitive after a bit.

The basic weapon types are (with only minor variations):

Melee
Pistols
Rifles (semi-auto)
Rifles (auto)
Heavy Weapons
Bows/Crossbows

You want to specialize in one. Semi-auto really only works with stealth builds (as with what I'm running.) Auto and heavy are considered the 'go to' builds.

But you do not want to limit yourself to one gun. I am built for semi-auto rifles, and I carry four: Two short range (reflex sights, some hipfire accuracy, fire rate), and two long range (high damage, sighted accuracy, etc.) Why two of each? Because there are two main damage types: Energy and ballistic. Each is good against different enemies.

The trick is that energy and ballistic weapons are the same skill, and most weapons can be modded to any of the weapon types.

So, say I find a laser pistol. It is a pistol (pistol skill applies) that does energy damage.
I mod it with a longer stock. It is now a single shot rifle that does energy damage.
I mod it with an automatic barrel. It is now an automatic rifle that does energy damage.
I mod it with a beam splitter. It is now a shotgun that does energy damage.

So I carry two ballistic weapons (up close, long range) and two energy weapons (up close, long range.) That's also three ammo types (cells for the up-close laser rifle, 2mm for the gauss long range energy rifle, and .45 for my two ballistic weapons. It's easier to carry fewer ammo types, but it screws you if you run low. It's best two plan on at least two or three ammo types, especially early on when getting large amounts ammo is a challenge (doubly so if you go automatic.)

If you're going auto, it can be worth it to grab the star's worth of the Ammosmith perk, which lets you craft more ammo for the resources.

If you do buy ammo, buy it only from player camps (they're visible on the map), and never, ever pay more than one cap per round. Even missiles normally sell for a cap.

tl;dr - most weapons can be used with multiple skill types depending on how you mod them, and it's best to carry both energy and ballistic.

I think what I need is an assault rifle. Something not semi automatic and has power and range. Not seen one yet. Maybe a sniper rifle for range.

For the prior, keep your eye out for a Handmade, although a Fixer isn't bad. For the latter, a lever action is great, but anything will work. But be careful - the assault rifle will use one skill set (the Commando line), while a sniper rifle will use a different skill (the Rifleman line.) Early on you can get away with it. But later on you won't be able to effectively use both, as you won't be able to equip the perks to use both.

----------------------------

Short version of the card/perk/stat system in case you missed the nuances:

Every card has stars on it. They all start at one star. If you get two of the same card, you can merge them to create a much stronger two-star version. Each additional card you merge adds one star, up to the card's limit (most cap at 1-3 stars, but some go as high as 5.)

The cost in perk points to equip a card is the number of stars on that card. (There are a very few that cost a little more, but I'm ignoring those for now for simplicity.) So a one-star Charisma skill requires one Charisma to equip. A one star Strength card and a two star Strength card require 3 Strength to equip both.

Every time you level up, you gain one stat point and one card that you get to pick from those available at your level (access to the card is based on player level, not stats.) Every five levels (5, 10, 15, etc) you get an additional pack of cards. (Tip: When you level up and pick a stat, you can pick any card from your level or below from any stat. Look at the bottom of the screen for the buttons to change the filter. It defaults to the stat you just picked, but you can choose anything, so you can add one Perception, then pick an Agility card.)

When you hit level 50, you stop gaining stat points, but continue to gain cards forever (I've seen level 2000+ characters running around.) (Side note - there is another perk mechanic that kicks in at 50 that will give you a use for your unneeded cards.)

Also, each stat is capped at 15. You will only ever be able to put 15 points worth of cards onto any stat, regardless of your level.

-------------------------

So, back to the weapon thing. My single-shot build requires two general rifle perks (Concentrated Fire and Tank Killer) that cost 6 Perception, and apply to any rifle (semi- or full-auto.) The semi-auto specific perks are three cards (Rifleman, Expert Rifleman, and Master Rifleman), all of which are three stars. 3+3+3+3+3=15. Just equipping my weapon skills takes 15 points of Perception, the max I can have. If I wanted to fire a full-auto rifle, I would be doing without any of the associated perks, unless I unequipped all of my semi-auto perks. Bows, crossbows, explosives, and shotguns also all have perks that require Perception. That means that I can't run a semi-auto build and also carry any of those without running them without perks (which makes a big difference.)

I could probably come up with some way of having a second weapon half-viable, but it would be at the cost of any utility perks.

I posted this earlier, but here is my current build. It's a non-power armor stealth based build (which isn't your thing), but if you take off the stealth perks and swap the three Rifleman cards for the three Commando cards, it would be a solid start (Something like this.)

As for action points is there a use without VATS? Do they affect my stam regen or something?

They don't affect your stamina regen - they are your stamina. It was that way in FO3/NV and 4, too. The bar on screen that drains when you run is your Action Points, used for running, jumping, and VATS.

[Daehawk]

I dont mind. Its neat looking back on what I was worried about when starting and how it helped me.

[Daehawk]

I got another nice bow from a elite in a public even yesterday. I usually run with Burning Love. Its 100 damage and set stuff on fire. Has extra damage against ghouls I think and such. Its great for humanoids. I cant recall off hand the name of the bow I got but its 10 points less damage at 90 but its a vampire bow that heals me a 2% or so per damage or something. Not tried it yet.

[Daehawk]

Somehow along the way I seem to have lost my X-01 helmet to my power armor. Had to go out checking spawn sites until I got my a new helmet . T-40 I think since its lvl 50. Found some T-51 but it was lower level. I have no idea where or how to get X-01 stuff again. Been too long since I played.

[Blackhawk]

Did you check with Gew Gul?

[Max Peck]

IIRC, you get the blueprints for X-01 PA from the Enclave's Whitespring bunker, in which case you can just craft the helmet yourself.

[Max Peck]

Patch Notes for today's update.

[Daehawk]

Hahah ..I actually started looking up gew gul thinking it was a named merchant ghoul and caught myself after hearing it in my head.

And thnx for the WS info. You'd think I already had it but I tried to see if I could make it yesterday and couldn't. Ill check WS for it. Is it on the BHoS merchant?

[Blackhawk]

Hahah ..I actually started looking up gew gul thinking it was a named merchant ghoul and caught myself after hearing it in my head.

And thnx for the WS info. You'd think I already had it but I tried to see if I could make it yesterday and couldn't. Ill check WS for it. Is it on the BHoS merchant?

The point was that it took you an hour to get any answer, and 28 hours later you still lack half of what you're looking for. If you checked with Gew Gul, specifically asking, Fallout 76 X-01 helmet, you would have found this page almost immediately. There, you'd have seen this:



Clicking on 'Location' would have shown you this:



You would have had your entire answer in under a minute, rather than having to get a bunch of other people to make that exact same search and look at that exact same page on your behalf, and waiting a day and a half for it.

Don't get me wrong - we're your friends, and we're happy to help you out, give advice, and answer tough or confusing questions. But for basic questions, you really shouldn't be getting other people to do it for you. For most people, the rule is: Try to find the answer. If you can't find the answer, or don't understand it, then ask for help.

[Daehawk]

BH you're missing the point of me asking I think. Im not asking to have other people go searching for me. Im asking to see if someone simply already knows the answer and can point me right with some details I wont get searching myself. No I dont expect others to search themselves. Im simply asking to see who already knows the answer. The web may say its in this location where a player here may say its in that location but also tell on where in that location or on what named npc or in what color box and on what lvl or something.

Also I ask to simply interact with others about a game we like and play. Remember Im alone in life and enjoy the people aspect to stuff like this. Sorry if it seemed I was simply being lazy.

[Daehawk]

Shit. That stuff in WhiteSprings is just mods for the X-01 power armor pieces. I need the plans to actually build the armor pieces.

Turns out thats with the Enclave....who I am in good with. Not sure how good. Not gone yet to see. Doing that now. Im pretty sure Im not near general rank lol. Dammit. Shall see.

Anyways heres the online quote for it....

To get the X-01 Power Armor, join Enclave and rank up to General. Then, enter the Enclave Bunker Armory, interact with the Archival Terminal, and download the X-01 plans from the Prototype Power Armor Schematics. Finally, assemble all six pieces in a Power Armor Station for a functional X-01.

[Daehawk]

Ohhhhhh F me. All this work and looking and stuff and I find I can simply go to camp and make it myself on my power armor stand. I was trying to use my regular armor bench. See this is what happens when I step away for a couple months.

And wouldn't you know it I make the helmet and I cant find it anywhere in my inv or stash and I dont have enough parts to make another hahaha...well that gives me something to do in the near future at least.

EDIT: AH HA!! Found it. It put it on my power armor suit for some reason lol hahah Was there the whole time. I painted it up right again. Now Im all good. Other than not knowing where my original 01 helmet got to in the first place.

I put extra bright headlamps on it to see better. When I look at it on lit up from 3rd person its my eyes glowing and not a lamp out to the side at all. Cool Really lights up the area in front of me.

[raydude]

Ohhhhhh F me. All this work and looking and stuff and I find I can simply go to camp and make it myself on my power armor stand. I was trying to use my regular armor bench. See this is what happens when I step away for a couple months.

And wouldn't you know it I make the helmet and I cant find it anywhere in my inv or stash and I dont have enough parts to make another hahaha...well that gives me something to do in the near future at least.

EDIT: AH HA!! Found it. It put it on my power armor suit for some reason lol hahah Was there the whole time. I painted it up right again. Now Im all good. Other than not knowing where my original 01 helmet got to in the first place.

I put extra bright headlamps on it to see better. When I look at it on lit up from 3rd person its my eyes glowing and not a lamp out to the side at all. Cool Really lights up the area in front of me.

That's weird - I try to click on the thumbnail to get a bigger image then Imgur tells me it can't find the page I'm looking for. I had to zoom in to appreciate it. Looks cool.

I installed Fallout76 for the first time yesterday, after having seen the first episode of the show. I'm holding off from playing for now - if only because I have too many deadlines to meet at work. Soon, perhaps.

[Blackhawk]

For some reason that happens 100% of the time, but only when Daehawk posts images. It doesn't happen with anyone else, and I have looked at his posts and they always look right.

[Blackhawk]

BH you're missing the point of me asking I think. Im not asking to have other people go searching for me. Im asking to see if someone simply already knows the answer and can point me right with some details I wont get searching myself. No I dont expect others to search themselves. Im simply asking to see who already knows the answer. The web may say its in this location where a player here may say its in that location but also tell on where in that location or on what named npc or in what color box and on what lvl or something.

Also I ask to simply interact with others about a game we like and play. Remember Im alone in life and enjoy the people aspect to stuff like this. Sorry if it seemed I was simply being lazy.

I get that. It's just going to take days to get an answer on OO. There are only a couple of people who are likely to know, and we're just not active enough anymore.

[Daehawk]

Aw I know and dont care. Its the interact thats the thing.

[TheMix]

For some reason that happens 100% of the time, but only when Daehawk posts images. It doesn't happen with anyone else, and I have looked at his posts and they always look right.

Yup. Every time I click on one of Daehawk's images. No idea why.

[TheMix]

Aw I know and dont care. Its the interact thats the thing.

Which means it would be fine if we just responded with "Sorry. Don't know. Hope you find an answer."

Now I just need to remember that.

[Blackhawk]

Or try, "Check out how I set up my camp", or "Check out the glowing eyes on my armor", or "Hey, let me tell you about this quest I went on", or "Hey, what was your favorite area in Fallout 76?" Engage with people directly - not passively - and you'll get better results. We're happy to discuss the game with you and share in your experiences. It just feels a little off to be asked questions that have an ulterior motive. We're happy to chat with you just to chat!

[Daehawk]

Not sure about the imgur problem. Works fine on my side. Small image click it it opens a big image.

[Carpet_pissr]

I'm officially down the Fallout rabbithole. Won't go into all the details, but one branch has me asking:

Why the absolutely ATROCIOUS reviews for this game when it came out, and now everyone seems to love it? Has it done the almost impossible, like No Man's Sky? I ask because due to other branches, I may consider picking this up in a bundle to be able to play Tale of Two Wastelands. But if it's a turd, or even "not great", I don't really want to play it. Any new FO title will make me wishlist it immediately, but for this one, when I saw it get trashed on release, I removed it from my wishlist.

[Max Peck]

It's had the benefit of years of polish (although it still has plenty of Bethesda jank), QoL improvements and additional content. IIRC, a lot of the initial hate was due to the game simply not being Fallout 5, as well as the fact that the game world was literally dead -- there were no living NPCs, just robots and a lot of environmental story-telling where you figured out what had happened to everyone via finding logs, notes, etc. I enjoyed it and found it to be very atmospheric, but as I recall there were a lot of people who hated that aspect of the game. One of the first major updates (Wastelanders?) advanced the timeline and had people moving back into the area from elsewhere, so now there are several groups and factions living there with a variety of storylines that can be followed in addition to the original storyline.

I'm enjoying it enough since I started playing it again, after a couple of years hiatus, that it's pushed Baldur's Gate 3 onto the backburner for now.

[Blackhawk]

I played on launch, and it was a completely broken mess.

I played it pretty heavily last year. It's much better now, but I'm not sure I'd go as far as 'great.' It's a Fallout-quality game (IE - good, but with bugs) without meaningful mods beyond some aspects of the interface. If I had to explain briefly, it would be this: It's a really good game if you approach it as a single-player Fallout title somewhere between Fallout 3 and Fallout 4, with very limited (very buggy) base building and limited cooperative play*. Be aware that they set up the monetization to strongly penalize people who don't pay.

*You can play with your friends, and there's lots to do, but don't expect to be able to follow a lot of the quests together, as you can't enter interiors with friends - everyone is split up when you go inside.

If you want a more detailed look, here's my post from last year:

Spoiler:

I posted a comment on it in the Randomness thread, and figured that I owed people who read it a full explanation. It isn't an awful game. Parts of it are great. But elements of it are so poorly implemented and frustrating that, if you care about those things, it's exhausting to play.

I've been playing FO76 for five or six weeks now, and am past the level cap (you stop gaining stats/slots at 50, but still gain perk cards, special perks, etc.) It's the only Fallout game (other than the PS2 game) that I hadn't played. And yes, I played with a paid subscription.

Short me-76 history: This was a preorder for me. I played at launch, and it was fun, but I had a technical issue that disconnected my main character within seconds every time I logged in (although other characters worked fine.) Bethesda told me that my CPU was - literally - 0.1 GHz below the requirement, so I was on my own. I walked away. A year or so later I tried again, and while I wasn't disconnected, it was a still a mess, causing me to lose several hours of work.

I have heard that it got better, so I gave it another go. Like I said, it's the only Fallout title I haven't played. Plus, my son, who's played the game quite a bit, wanted to play with me.

It isn't all bad. We have had some great times, and there are some great things here. Minute to minute it feels like a Fallout game. The questing feels like Fallout 3/4, as does the exploring, the combat (with the exception of VATS, as they aren't able to slow down time for one player in a multiplayer game), and the world. Mostly (see the con about absurdity below.) It does, however, have a lot of issues.

PROS

• You can build as much or as little as you like. You can build a complex base, or you can set down a single tiny foundation, put down a couple of crafting stations, and never touch the build menu again.
• The world is huge. I haven't even come close to seeing it all, despite having been in every corner of it.
• They've fixed some of the biggest content issues (like no NPCs or dialog.)
• They have seasonal progression, which gives resources, recipes, gear, and cosmetics. (Counterpoint - they've also taken a note from battle passes and let people buy 'boosters' to skip ahead, which is P2W crap.)
• They've added the ability to save multiple character builds and swap between them, and have made it simple to respec and swap talent points on the fly. They've also added the ability to build multiple bases, although you can only have one active at a time, so you can have a 'fun' base, a selling base, a resource farming base, etc. (Counterpoint: You only get one extra build and one extra base for free. Beyond that they cost - $5 per character loadout, $10 per camp slot.)
• Player shops have been improved. You can see them all on they map and fast travel to any of them. All of any individual's shops have the same inventory, meaning that if you build three different camps with vendors, they all have the inventory ready.
• Multiplayer event content is actually good. Events pop up all over the map (think Diablo 4), and all you have to do is click on them to join them and teleport directly to them, ready to go. (Note: See below on coop questing)
• Many multiplayer mechanics are great, like the ability to share perks with everyone in your group (although some people, intentionally or knowingly, can share perks that destroy other peoples' builds, like an auto-healing perk shared with players who rely on having low health to deal damage.)
• Alongside that, the real highlight is that the in game community is excellent. People will see new players and toss down all sorts of basic supplies. I've seen player shops near the starting area where everything is priced at 1 cap or 0 (free.) I've never been attacked, not once. (But fair warning - most of the Fallout 76 forum/Reddit groups are toxic as hell.)

CONS

• Content/Gameplay:
• It's often absurd. Not Fallout absurd, but bad Fallout fanfic absurd. They've taken everything ever seen in any Fallout game and tossed them all onto one map, then taken the silly elements that were always there and made them the focus. I've seen robots walking around wearing sheep heads. The player outfits that are available include huge numbers of clown costumes, monster costumes, superhero costumes. The power armor skins are things like glowing skulls for heads, the armor wrapped in Christmas lights. People get long-lasting buffs that make enemies you kill explode into confetti, and when they get those buffs, they force it on to everyone in their vicinity. Enjoy an hour of confetti and party whistles every time you kill an enemy. The new enemies are giant sheep monsters, werewolves, kaiju-sized moles, and so on. And you can gain mutations, a Fallout tradition. The problem is that they gave a simple way to remove all of the downsides, so everyone in the game can run 40 miles per hour in stealth, and everyone in the game can jump 30 feet high. It's become a caricature. It isn't that weird doesn't have a place in Fallout - it's that it feels more like Fortnite. It's like the Auntie Donna's crew are behind the creative decisions.
• It's easy while leveling. Like, crazy easy. The only times I've ever died was when I was jumping into level 50 content in my 20s. They have it set so that enemies drop the ammo that you killed them with, often more than you used to kill them. Shoot a ghoul with a 5.56mm rifle, and the ghoul will have 5.56mm ammo on it's corpse. Shoot the same ghoul with one round of 2mm ECM ammo from a gauss sniper rifle, and the ghoul will have half a dozen rounds of 2mm ECM. They removed the debuffs for starving, too - you can still starve, but it doesn't do anything. Most resources are so abundant that you end up throwing crap away. I don't want blisteringly difficult, but combat is so easy that it's boring. Then you hit the endgame, and you'll find that while normal mobs are still a non-threat, bosses are bullet sponges.
• Despite the ease, there aren't really enough perk points to make versatile builds as you get further along. If you want to use shotguns, you're only going to be able to use shotguns. If you use single-shot rifles, you're only going to be be able to use single-shot rifles. You can equip other weapons, but you won't have the perks that make them effective on the late-game bullet sponges.
• It is still absurdly lazy. Practically everything in the world, save for a few of the 'unique' buildings and a couple of enemies, consists entirely of assets from Fallout 4. Remember I mentioned a werewolf? They just introduced him as the exciting new event boss. Guess what? He's basically a head-swapped deathclaw, using all of the deathclaw animations and attacks. This applies to the equipment, the models, the camps, the world, the decorations, everything.
• You can build a camp, and yeah - they increased the budget, but it's still incredibly limited, and horribly inconsistent, with some items costing several times as much of your budget as almost identical items, all without any real logic or consistency. The space you get to build in is tiny, too, given that most areas are cluttered (especially if you want access to something like water), and you won't get the full area to actually work with. You can build material extractors in your camp, but the resource nodes are almost always in places that you won't have room to build in.
• The building system itself is bad. I've played a lot of games with base/home/etc building elements (and it's a gameplay feature that I love), but this is, by far, the worst. It's unintuitive, it's inconsistent, and it's often just broken. Floors are combined with foundations, but the foundations are short enough that if you're not on perfectly flat ground, they'll end up floating (other games solve this by simply making the supports longer, or making the supports automatically extend to the ground, but here? Most camps have one corner floating 10 feet in the air. You place foundations, then walls, then you want to work on the upper floor, so you take an upper floor and try to attach it to the walls. Nope. Upper floors can only be attached directly to stairs. Oh, and stairs can only be attached to foundation floors, meaning that they can't be used to get to your upper story from outside. You can make an elevated platform, but you have to have a random foundation in the middle of the yard to get to it. Why? Because. You can put decorations on your walls - posters, signs, etc. Great. The problem is that almost every wall type in the game isn't coded with an inside surface, so they simply won't attach to them, and if they do, they likely clip through them, half-hiding them. Oh, but you can hang all of you paintings and posters on the external walls just fine. Most non-decorative items can only snap into place, no free placement. Walls and half walls can snap onto floors, but railings like for a porch? Nope. If you have a platform made from upper floors, you can't place railings on them. There is a two-piece fence set in which the longer piece will snap to them, but not the shorter piece. Oh, and shelves. You can build a half a dozen different types of shelf, and you can put things on them as you'd expect - but only on the very top shelf. Build a four-shelf shelving unit in your camp, and you can't put any items or decorations on the bottom three shelves. It looks ridiculous, and is absurdly lazy coding - they took the shelves from the world that were meant to be filled via the editor and simply let players place them without making the individual shelves count as surfaces.
• You have a stash (storage box.) Every container you can keep things in is your stash (IE - they all share a single inventory.) That stash is extremely limited as far as space goes, and anything in your camp that isn't a structure is counted as being in your stash. Hey, they have a weapon display rack for that cool looking weapon you used to use. You put it on there. It's still counted against your stash. You have a vendor/shop. You find some good power armor pieces. You put them up for sale - yep, still in your stash. You end up not being able to decorate or sell items because if you do, you won't have room to store any of your own stuff.
  
  Coop questing:
  
  • Ok, this is technically part of the above, but it needs its own entry. Remember when I said that the event multiplayer was great? The cooperative questing is absolutely awful, to the point where it isn't really even practical. Here's the problem: This isn't a multiplayer game at it's heart. It's Fallout 4 with multiplayer cobbled on, and it's horribly limited as a result. Remember when they didn't have NPCs in the game at launch? This is likely why: There is no way for multiple people to resolve a quest with an NPC. If you are in a group and it comes time for a conversation, it isn't able to take one player's conversation into account for the others. What's that mean in game? It means that any time you're on a quest that requires you to enter into any sort of structure/cave/dungeon, you have to split up and everyone has to do it separately. Literally. If you are in a group and arrive at a quest location, you're given a choice: Go on the group leader's quest, which will not count for you (so the group would have to repeat it over and over as leader), or every person has to do the dungeon alone.
    
    It kills coop questing completely.
  Monetization:
• When they launched, they promised non gameplay advantages for cash. They then released a variety of them and tweaked the game to encourage their use - repair kits (by making some repair supplies scarce and making repairs always cost the maximum regardless of how damaged something is), scrap kits that let you manage your weight in the field, score boosters to skip ahead on the seasonal progression, and gum to keep you from needing food. Note that last one: Gum. Remember when I said that they got rid of the need to eat by removing the penalties? They're still selling the gum that removes the need to eat, and a not-insignificant number of your 'free' subscription bonuses end up being said gum.
• Speaking of Fallout 1st (their subscription), it's almost mandatory to play. You can play for free, but don't expect to be able to decorate much or run much of a vendor. Remember how everything counts as being in your stash? Well, that includes all ammo, extra gear, crafting materials, building materials, display items, shop items, everything. By default you get 600lbs. A piece of power armor might weigh 18. Heavy weapons are 18. 25 stimpacks is 10. 10 fusion cores (batteries for power armor) is 30. The crafting materials you have by the end game? Hundreds of pounds. And that isn't even touching on water, ammo, or anything else. If you're keeping gear and extra ammo, you're not going to have the space left for another 150 pounds of stuff on the shop. However, if you subscribe, you gain access to a 'scrapbox' that is an infinite stash for junk and and ammo box for infinite ammo, taking 2/3 of the weight out of the stash.
• The stuff in the Atomic Shop (the cash shop) is expensive - Diablo 4 expensive. $14 for a power armor skin. $3 for an emote. Shelter (think vault) rooms cost $15-$20 per room. Yeah, it's all optional cosmetics (although you'll find your building options fairly limited without it), but it's still painfully greedy. Also, they also removed the daily/weekly challenges that used to give the premium currency. (Note: I never spent a dime in there - I only used what they give me as part of the subscription.)
• Speaking of which, they abuse FOMO in their cash shop. Instead of rotating some items out now and then to get people to buy them, they rotate probably 90% of everything that they sell every week. If something is for sale, you have a week or two, or you might not see it again for a year. Literally. If you enjoy building, it's a terrible system. This month is log cabins. Oh, you wanted to build a military bunker style camp? Just keep watching - it'll show up sometime in the next six months. Although you'll have to wait again before the perimeter fences show up. And wait again before you can get the matching stash.
• They go out of their way to force you to play repeatedly with things like daily selling caps. I went out the other day and ran a few events. I had my entire inventory clogged with legendary items (really), so I went to the legendary exchange that turns them into a special currency. I was able to turn in less than half before I hit the daily cap. The rest has to be carried around or put the stash until the next day, and that's assuming that you have the capacity, and it also hinders doing any more events until they're gone.
  
  Bugs/technical
• When you build your camp, you can build turrets and defenses against things attacking, just like in FO4. But for whatever reason, they've crippled the AI attached to the turrets. It won't target enemies half of the time. I've seen a scorched (thing ghoul) standing ten feet from from a turret, shooting it, and the turret does nothing until it is eventually destroyed. I've seen them standing 30 feet away blasting the hell out of the camp, and the turrets do nothing. Other times they'll mow down anything that gets close. They don't react half of the time, though, forcing you to repair your camp every couple of hours. There is one thing that improves the turret targeting - having a spotlight nearby.
• So, spotlights. That are required to make your turrets keep your camp safe. They are placed on something or attached to a wall, and you run a wire to them. Good enough. The problem is that when you travel away from your camp, or quit the game and start again later, all of the spotlights stop working. Every one, every time. The solution? You have to go into build mode, scrap every wire attached to every spotlight and then place them again. Every time. And yeah, that's an annoying bug, and you'd think, "Hopefully they'll fix it." Remember when I said that Bethesda was lazy? Here's the bug. And here's the fix. This is a bug from Fallout 4 that has been giving people problems for eight years to the point that the community had to fix it because Bethesda never bothered. And when they made a new game with the same framework, they left the bug in. What do you think the chances are that this will be fixed, ever?
• When you have certain perks, mutations, or armor effects, and you go into stealth, you go invisible. The problem? The sights on your guns disappear and you can't aim. I made a video demonstrating it, using the perk that only makes the invisibility last a couple of seconds (so that enemies lose you.) I can't use the full time effect because I can't aim. Will Bethesda fix this bug? I'd say no, considering that it's yet another Fallout 4 bug that's been ignored for almost a decade.
• I could keep listing Fallout 4 problems that Bethesda never bothered to fix and imported into 76 (and there are many), but you get the idea. Bethesda lets modders fix their problems, which can make games like FO4 fun and smooth. The problem is that you can't mod FO76, so you're stuck with whatever they don't feel is costing them money.
• The interface and controls are horrid. This has always been an issue with Bethesda. It seems like every menu has a different set of controls. One is navigated with WASD. Another with ZCWS. Another with the arrow keys. One menu uses escape to back out, another uses tab. None work well with a mouse. If you rebind keys, you'll find that half of them are hardcoded in certain contexts. You can change from WASD to ESDF or the arrow keys for moving around, but enter build mode and you're forced to use WASD. The mouse input is jittery. There are times that I think I'm getting 30 FPS based on what it's doing, but I'm actually getting 90+. Why? Because Bethesda is lazy. They have never coded in a PC control scheme for this or Fallout 4. What they did was just map the keyboard to the controller inputs.
• They have the same problem that GTA Online has: Too many menus. This is not a multiplayer game, and it wasn't designed with the options in place for multiplayer options. Instead, they just kept tacking on new menus for each set of functions. Want to join a friend in-game? Escape to open the map. Then Z to open the actual main menu (yeah, escape doesn't actually open the main menu), then mouse to select the social menu. The social menu then opens on the other side of the screen, but it's hard to use with a mouse, so you have to use the arrow keys and enter to find your friend and invite him.
• The performance, like all of the FO/ES titles, is terrible. It's playable on my 3080, that's not the problem. The issue is that for what's on screen, the framerate is terrible. Lots of people have done lots of tests on it, and it isn't about the power of the system. It only uses a fraction of the power available. The problem is that it's so badly coded and optimized that it isn't capable of running well on anything - the engine just can't handle what's being asked of it. Keep in mind that this isn't a new engine. They made an engine for Morrowind, and they've repeatedly updated and polished it over the years for every one of their games, but it's still an ancient piece of software deep inside that isn't able to do what it needs to do. I could write a whole page on the issues that this causes in Fallout 4 (google 'triangle of death fallout 4'.)
• If you have a modern system and run the game with Vsync enabled, it's extremely jittery, even more so than I described above. That's because they don't have VSync tied to your monitor, it is just a 60 FPS cap, and not a very good one. But if you turn off Vsync to make it smoother, you'll find that if you go into very small areas (like a shack that's it's own zone), you'll suddenly be getting 300+ FPS, which completely breaks the game and makes it so that you can't even move.
• There are a hundred other examples of the endless bugs. NPCs spawning without clothes. Players spawning without bodies. This ancient power armor bug from Fallout 4. Enemy health going down, up, down, up. Enemies using the wrong sound files. The wrong names showing up. The wrong icons showing up (or not showing.) To this day you can't actually move most camps, despite it being a feature, as it will be impossible to place and the entire thing will have to be destroyed. Getting stuck in emotes. Getting locked into an animation and floating around the world in a 'sitting' or 'falling' position. The distant rendering glitch (that's not artifacting in the video, that's how the game is rendered.) Enemies freezing in place. Enemies dying and freezing in place as if they were standing. Traveling to your camp and spawning inside of the foundation, unable to move (this one is constant, as you can't specify the fast travel location in your camp like you could in FO4.)
  
  And here's the thing: I've not just encountered every one of these in my game, I've experienced every one of these in the past week (with the exception of the camp moving, which I've learned to never try to do.)

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So, here's my final thoughts.

If you want to play the game for free as a single-player Fallout game and completely skip complex base building, crafting, and player-to-player vendoring, it's a great game, comparable to other (unmodded) Fallout titles, although it's buggy a bit ridiculous at times.

If you want to play it for free with a friend cooperatively, plan on not questing together. Explore, do events, do the seasonal stuff, but questing just doesn't work in a group.

If you want to sell items to other players, spend time building/crafting, work on the end-game progression, and so on, don't bother without subscribing, and expect numerous bugs and frustrations.

I've had fun with it. I'm actually not certain if I'll quit - I may just stop doing any building and just play it like a single player game (my son and I already quit questing together, and he's gotten so annoyed over the way Bethesda's handled things that he's been avoiding playing at all.)

[Smoove_B]

It doesn't take 3 minutes to load when you transition locations like Fallout 4, so for that alone it's been a better experience (as someone that just started F76 a few weeks ago).