I'm Baffled

[MrLupus]

First off, having played every title since the nineties, I feel this game delivers decently on the Fallout-vibe. But it ends there, as a game, it's a horrible, dated, glitched and bugged mess filled with decent concepts that are either poorly / lazilly implemented or made abundant by other mechanics (made abundant by the abundance of everything tbh what's the point of a survival game built around scavenging, crafting and trading when you constantly have too much of everything).

But, I can forgive that, like I said the vibe is there as a sandbox it works decently enough, even if it fails completely to deliver in terms of gameplay and mechanics, and the clunky / dated controls are somewhat compatible with the theme for some reason.

What I cannot forgive however is the concept of Fallout 1st.

Even the ability to properly organize your abundance, is locked behind a paywall, and that paywall is pretty much the same cost as a streaming service not delivering even a tenth of its entertainment value.

So to my question, who's worse than Bethesda and why do you think so? Also, why all the positive reviews to a game so filled with bugs, glitches and poorly executed concepts?

And if there are any of you out there, Why would you subscribe to, reward, this nonsense?

[Harlequin]

Due to the Fallout series on Amazon I started to play Fallout4 and Fallout76. Fallout4 makes me sick and nauseous because of the input lag and I don't want to waste time on a company that doesn't want to keep their product sustainable. (plus the fact that after all these years "old" still can't be put on other keys) Fallout76 is OK but nothing amazing and the graphics are just way too old. I really liked the series, but the games just don't grab me. So I can well understand why Fallout vets are fed up with Fallout76. The IP has so much potential and Fallout76 doesn't even tap into some of it. It's sad.

[MrLupus]

Originally posted by truthfully:

get a job buddy

Jobs are for the desperate, and those who've been gullied into believing they have something to prove. I'm neither desperate nor a sucker, sorry but thanks.

♥♥♥♥ gtg to bed, I actually do have work tomorrow XD

[Mazurka]

Originally posted by MrLupus:

So to my question, who's worse than Bethesda and why do you think so? Also, why all the positive reviews to a game so filled with bugs, glitches and poorly executed concepts?

And if there are any of you out there, Why would you subscribe to, reward, this nonsense?

A lot of companies are on par, or worse - i look at FO1st as an extended battle pass.
Diablo IV - they have seasons with that premium battle pass to earn various rewards and skins. There are a lot of gear options to glam your character but, of course, the fancy ♥♥♥♥ is behind the pay. It also seems very limited for a battle pass, but i could be missing something since i'm not interested.
FFXIV - This one is annoying, to me. They will run events and, instead of repeating the event for previous rewards, they'll put those previous rewards in the cash shop, leaving no other method to obtain them. In most cases, they do offer a new reward in the place of previous rewards. But, its usually some generic category (furnishing or pet) that seems like very little effort was put into the rewards. They fall back on the notion that these cash shop sells go exclusively to game development - depending on how you view the development of the game, that's not reassuring.
Black Desert Online - Korean MMO is all that needs to be stated for most people. It started out as an incredibly aggressive model to extract cash from players wallets. They seem to give out more freebies with each year the game is out, which makes sense from a declining customer perspective. But, they made a fleet of trucks full of cash from the sales people spent on inventory slots, storage slots, outfits (because pretty much all in-game outfits were potato sacks), pets to pick up your loot, and a bunch of other 'conveniences' prior to all of these leading loser freebies utilized to entice new players. And, depending on your view of a subscription, BDO has three. two only last fifteen days, while the other lasts 30. i've spent exponentially more on BDO than every box + subscription + cash shop purchase i've made for every MMO i've played since 1996.

A lot of new games, esp. the offline, singleplayer games, are utilizing ridiculous DLCs for things that used to just be in games. If you're not paying for a subscription, you could very well be paying for generic 'level' DLCs, pets, furnishings, outfits, et cetera, depending on the games you enjoy.
If a lot of current games with their DLCs make sense to a person, then its no different than these 'online service' games with battlepasses and subscriptions. For awhile now its been plan a full game, then rip out half and sell as DLC. In the future, it'll be a modular game that you purchase in pieces, or arcade style - swipe for a credit. Its gotten worse and will continue to get worserestednessing.
There have been a few games that have quality, post-launch DLCs. But, then you have games like Conan Exiles who came out the gate with expansion DLCs, which was their plan all along. Then they introduced a battle pass, which i don't believe went over so well - Pay for Game, Pay for DLCs, Pay for Battle pass :D

The new developer meta is this - release from early access then have a post-launch road map of additional content. i've seen far too many games pull the chute without even touching this post-launch content. They've re-defined '1.0' to mean something completely different than a fully developed and tested product, utilizing it as an excuse to fulfill their obligation of 'finishing' a game.
Now, you can develop half a game with a post-launch roadmap and pull out at any time without shouldering any backlash that the ankle-grabbing ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ wont rush to defend because they're accepting of this new standard. If your product is good, you can then invest more to continue development. If it sucks, you just saved years of money and dev time.

Which brings to the second and third questions:
Generational gaps without prior knowledge / experience of what came before, as well as completely stupid people that will defend, with absolute, irresponsible bias, anything a developer of a game they like puts out there. Think of any moron you've encountered in real life that just accepts low quality or general consensus.
If you read the reviews of games on steam, most are a thumbs up with some ridiculous meme phrase, or 'i liked it' - same with the negatives 'game suk no buy.' i've even seen positive reviews that are ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ about bugs, glitches, or only stating negative things about the game.
A lot of these reviews only have a few minutes to a few hours of gameplay, and people will defend that as 'you should know in the first thirty minutes if you like the game.' which is a pretty ignorant approach to take. Not only are there numerous reasons as to why it could take hours and hours to form an opinion on something, its also important to evaluate the entire product, not just what you experienced - esp. when a game has a lot of depth or optional / missable / replayable variables that someone just going from Start → Finish could miss.
You see positive reviews because the steam review process is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ garbage. Its been hijacked for personal bias as to whether or not you liked a game, and even then, you'll encounter a positive review thats just be a bug report.

as for myself - i picked up FO76 at launch, played for a few weeks or so, then shelved it. i came back last August, i think, and really got into exploring the world and just having fun. i mentioned this in another thread - i was extremely unhappy with Starfield, put in about 43 hours and was able to refund because it was a 'pre-release' which, at the time and maybe currently, steam will allow a full refund on a Pre-Release (not Early Access title), prior to the official launch.
i prefer to eat my bad decisions, but read a short snippet of how Bethesda /could/ be utilizing 'Pre-Release' as a method to obfuscate the negative reviews that would flood the launch. Seeing all of the negative backlash, my own displeasure, and the lack of quality in the content, i decided that this was going to be my exception - which has still been the only one and i've eaten a few other bad game purchases since. Point is, i purchased FO1st with the refund and have thoroughly enjoyed my time back while also loading my junk box, the private server, and purchasing ♥♥♥♥ i dont need with the 'free' monthly atoms.

Ultimately, people have money and would rather spend on a game than movie tickets, concerts, sports, or any other entertainment. Some people have an abundance of excessive cash that is spent rather than invested. Some people enjoy a game and want to help fund the future / continued development of a game or developer.
But, much like anything in history, the business has to change and you can stand for what you believe and miss out, or hop on the ankle-grabbing bus. You can choose a middle ground in an attempt to guide a positive change, but it doesn't work out too well.

Money already received from a customer is money you can't receive again. Unless they can make a product / service that 'requires' an 'upgrade' - they will always cater to the ones that come after you. And a lot of those people have no problem with a model they've grown up knowing, or have money they can toss at so they don't have to care, completely disregarding the downstream repercussions.

[Quagimus Decimus]

Originally posted by MrLupus:

First off, having played every title since the nineties, I feel this game delivers decently on the Fallout-vibe. But it ends there, as a game, it's a horrible, dated, glitched and bugged mess filled with decent concepts that are either poorly / lazilly implemented or made abundant by other mechanics (made abundant by the abundance of everything tbh what's the point of a survival game built around scavenging, crafting and trading when you constantly have too much of everything).

But, I can forgive that, like I said the vibe is there as a sandbox it works decently enough, even if it fails completely to deliver in terms of gameplay and mechanics, and the clunky / dated controls are somewhat compatible with the theme for some reason.

What I cannot forgive however is the concept of Fallout 1st.

Even the ability to properly organize your abundance, is locked behind a paywall, and that paywall is pretty much the same cost as a streaming service not delivering even a tenth of its entertainment value.

So to my question, who's worse than Bethesda and why do you think so? Also, why all the positive reviews to a game so filled with bugs, glitches and poorly executed concepts?

And if there are any of you out there, Why would you subscribe to, reward, this nonsense?

I'm not sure how you can be baffled after having spent all these years playing fallout games and not having figured out they all have these flaws, bugs, and issues. The only major difference is, and without a shadow of a doubt in my mind you've played all these games with mods, community patches, etc. Yet, you're somehow baffled.

Fallout has never been a survival game, may have elements but it's not a survival game whatsoever. Everything can be countered very easily with little time.

The abundance isn't needed either unless you have to have everything then the quality of life you get from fallout 1st makes sense. However you can play without the convinces of the membership entirely.

[IceMan PJN]

It's an online game, meaning it has upkeep costs. With a singleplayer game you buy it and they're done with you, but with a MMO they need to maintain servers for everyone for years, which means continued expenses long after players purchase the game. Paid extras help fund continued support.

[Raynn von Valancius]

Originally posted by MrLupus:

First off, having played every title since the nineties, I feel this game delivers decently on the Fallout-vibe. But it ends there, as a game, it's a horrible, dated, glitched and bugged mess filled with decent concepts that are either poorly / lazilly implemented or made abundant by other mechanics (made abundant by the abundance of everything tbh what's the point of a survival game built around scavenging, crafting and trading when you constantly have too much of everything).

But, I can forgive that, like I said the vibe is there as a sandbox it works decently enough, even if it fails completely to deliver in terms of gameplay and mechanics, and the clunky / dated controls are somewhat compatible with the theme for some reason.

What I cannot forgive however is the concept of Fallout 1st.

Even the ability to properly organize your abundance, is locked behind a paywall, and that paywall is pretty much the same cost as a streaming service not delivering even a tenth of its entertainment value.

So to my question, who's worse than Bethesda and why do you think so? Also, why all the positive reviews to a game so filled with bugs, glitches and poorly executed concepts?

And if there are any of you out there, Why would you subscribe to, reward, this nonsense?

Think this is pretty much the conclusion we all come to, especially since the older games can be a nightmare on modern hardware (even when using something like vortex to make it easier).

76 at this stage is basically 'something to do'. Like you said, it has the right vibes and will give you your Fallout fix, but it is a horrendous game, in almost every facet. We just don't have anything better at this point to replace it when it comes to the IP.

[Big Dave]

Don't like don't buy.

Not rocket science.

[Nothing.]

Bethesda didn't have any idea what they were doing or going with 76 beyond it being multiplayer, and to this day, they still have not decided what exactly type of game it's supposed to be.

It was originally closer to a survival-lite when it first launched, but now it's so casual you have no real need to craft ammunition for yourself anymore, and ignoring your daily needs comes with no penalties, which invalidates many of the survival-related perks or items the game launched with. The whole game has so much gated behind daily, and weekly limits, and it's all designed just to keep you coming back day-after-day, not because the content is any good, but just because it probably makes the game look better or more popular than it actually is on their player metrics, and also just because fear-of-missing-out is a powerful motivator.

76 is a real-life Vault-Tec experiment that players paid to be a part of. And to this day, the game still cruises on mediocrity, but just like any other polarizing game, it still has a captive audience who have settled for that mediocrity, and in some cases are quite content paying a subscription for it even though Bethesda has no intention of investing anything other than the absolute minimum.

[Blitz4]

Originally posted by Harlequin:

Due to the Fallout series on Amazon I started to play Fallout4 and Fallout76. Fallout4 makes me sick and nauseous because of the input lag and I don't want to waste time on a company that doesn't want to keep their product sustainable. (plus the fact that after all these years "old" still can't be put on other keys) Fallout76 is OK but nothing amazing and the graphics are just way too old. I really liked the series, but the games just don't grab me. So I can well understand why Fallout vets are fed up with Fallout76. The IP has so much potential and Fallout76 doesn't even tap into some of it. It's sad.

i feel so bad because it's probably an easy fix in fallout 4. plus we play and enjoy similar games.

it's just an involved question. i can't even make a suggestion because it's a bit technical to diagnose the most common cause, cpu or gpu bottleneck. i say test out the "official bethesda" discord channel and see where that gets you. someone that has the ability and enjoys fixing that issue would love to help. plus since it's involved, it would require faster feedback, like an instant message.

[ATV_1987]

Basically, they kept cutting a rotten pipe and added a new piece with couplings every time it blew. When they should have removed the entire pipe and installed a new, non rotting one.
Okay here is another one. They removed the tile in the shower, only to find the tiles were falling off because the cement board was wet and rotting. But instead of removing the rotten boards and fixing the main issue... they put up new tiles. Better?
Basically what I am saying is, If I installed a toilet... And it did not flush correctly because I used an old flush valve (source code)... from and older game/toilet, that also had the same problem... I would be fired.

[Xafron Chi]

Originally posted by MrLupus:

Also, why all the positive reviews to a game so filled with bugs, glitches and poorly executed concepts?

For starters it is infinitely better than it's 2018 launch. Compare it then to now from old videos and reviews. And frankly I think most developers would have abandoned it by now (Bioware's Anthem is a prime example), and they are still putting out content for it. That is honestly shocking to me.

It's also the only multiplayer Fallout experience out there, and is in an entirely new setting for Fallout.

And while it's a rather poor experience if you look at it as an RPG, it's a lot of fun as a multiplayer Fallout amusement park.

Some of your points I agree with. There's stuff in the game that feels dated. That seems to just be Bethesda as a developer at this point. I don't think dated inherently means bad though, but they could definitely rework how they do some things.

As far as bugs and glitches go, in my 60 hours so far I have definitely encountered several. Most are not a big deal, some pissed me off though, but not enough to ruin my experience. Bugs also seem to be just...deeply part of Bethesda unfortunately. For me, the "Bethesda charm" of making buggy games became old a long time ago.

And I agree that Fallout 1st sucks. Locking more storage, private servers, and custom worlds behind the subscription sucks. They could've just done the fast travel tent, cosmetics, atoms, and season passes and people still would have paid for it.

The game is not devoid of problems (there's plenty more mentioned in this thread, and more besides), but you have to take into account that the game, despite its flaws, still has a lot of positives going for it as well.

And the bang for your buck you get out of it is pretty great. This game goes on sale for about $7, which is the price I bought it at, and that absolutely would impact my opinion of it. For $7 this is an easy recommend from me. For $40, it gets harder. For $40 + Fallout 1st, it's a no from me.

I'm pretty critical of Bethesda, but this game is a lot of fun, even with all its flaws.

[Leslie Chow ⛧]

Originally posted by Xafron Chi:

It's also the only multiplayer Fallout experience out there, and is in an entirely new setting for Fallout.

Not true. Fallout online is a thing

[Heathy]

Yeah, all the worry leading up to this game, it ended up being too generous. I, too, would have preferred the game be more difficult and actually have you need to rely on others, but instead we got a very light touch and everyone being perfectly self-sufficient. There is no competition.

The bugginess of Bethesda games doesn't bother me that much its part of the charm for the most part, the lack of sink and the lack of reliance on others does become apparent relatively quickly. The game is for the most part on easy mode. I think they were just playing it extremely safe. I would have liked to have seen what the economy would have been like if things were legitimately difficult to farm. It might have had a bit more longevity. I remember wanting them to put a cool down on fast travel, force people to manually travel around the map, but that never happened either.

the game might be less buggier than it was on launch but the player base has farmed so much stuff the economy is basically balls deep into hyperinflation for most things that aren't nailed down. For longevities’ sake they should have been more stingy with rewards, they shouldn't have made fast travel spammable either. there is just no way to limit the pace in the game. you can be at any resource instantly. Them being spread around a large map makes no difference. The travel time is effectively zero.

it's just balanced wayy to far toward casual, and not at all balanced for the hardcore masochistic type of game play.

[Wack-A-Mole MLRS]

I find it is a game-yep just checked, it's still just a game.

[Blitz4]

I keep looking at the game and blown away this is from 2018. there were far better looking games back then. today on max settings, the game already looks old. and this is coming from a guy who plays older games. the AA is bad. imma have to fix it myself.

any issues using specialk with fallout76?