My Fallout 76 game review

[Mdk25]

TL;DR A microtransaction based MMORPG, with a near perfect feedback-loop.

Like many others, I started playing Fallout 76 in the wake of the Fallout TV show being released on Amazon Prime in April.
Unlike many others, I’m actually a long time Fallout fan, started with Fallout 1 & 2, played Fallout tactics, Fallout BOS, and obviously the newer Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas, and Fallout 4.
I really enjoyed Fallout 4 for the most part.
The graphics there was greatly improved, skills/perks tree was revamped, and crafting and base building was introduced.
I however do acknowledge that some things became worse in Fallout 4. The combat became less turn based, the story wasn’t as good (especially compared to Fallout 1 & 2), and there was too much useless text/fluff. I understand providing some backstory for world building purposes… But at some point some backstory turns into too much backstory, turns the backstory into fluff you don’t want to read anymore.

I realize this is a review for Fallout 76, and not of previous games :)
But I do feel it’s important to mention the previous games, to understand how Fallout 76 fares in comparison.

First of all, this is a much dumbed-down, combat-centered version of Fallout.
The focus of the game is (in that order):

1. Battles with monsters
   
2. Character building
   
3. Crafting
   
4. Base building
   
5. Trading
   
6. Missions / Quests

Unlike the “regular” Fallout games, where the focus is on open-world RPG, and the ability to solve missions in different ways (sneaking, stealing, speech checks, paying money OR combat). Here the focus is on combat 95% of the time spent on missions.
Between missions, you’ll spend most of your time upgrading your character, gear and your base.

FEEDBACK LOOP / MICROTRANSACTIONS

Microtransaction based games are games where the player can spend real money to purchase items, in game-currency or a game-pass. This is a common practice in modern free-to-play mobile games. Noted examples: Candy crush, Plants vs. Zombies, Brawl Stars, etc…
And have no mistake - Fallout 76 is a microtransaction based game. You can both buy in-game currency with real money and buy a monthly game-pass that gives you additional advantages in the game. For example the free-to-play “Brawl Stars” also has the same microtransaction options.
The main characteristic of any microtransactian based game is the feedback loop.
Think of a hamster in a hamster wheel, that is given a treat as long as it keeps running in the wheel.
The more the hamster runs, more treats it gets, which gives it the incentive to keep running.

“Regular” games are sold on content-per-$$$ basis.
You pay a fixed sum of money upfront, and in exchange you get a game with a set content.
The more hours of enjoyment you get from the game, the more worthwhile the game is to you as the player.
This is not the case in microtransaction based games.
Here the goal of the game is to get you to spend as much money, and for this the goal is to keep you playing as long as possible (preferably indefinitely). Much like a casino.
Similar to many mobile free-to-play games, you are limited in the number of things you can do in a day (vendors have a limited number of caps per day, you can only trade a limited number of legendaries for scrip per day, etc.), while you are encouraged to come back and play every day (daily free items, daily missions for “seasonal” bonus awards, daily refresh for caps & scrip, etc.)
So while in a “regular” game you can play the whole weekend, and then not play at all for the whole week, you would not lose anything. Here playing 1 hour for 7 days, can potentially net X7 more awards than playing 1 day for 7 hours.

Another “first” in this game, is fast travel between points now costs money, probably in order to make the players spend their caps instead of hoarding them, so they would need to grind more of the game to get more caps.

MULTIPLAYER-ONLY

Similar to Diablo III & IV, this game even when played alone, is a multiplayer-only game. Which has deep effects on the gameplay.

• You cannot save & load the game. When you leave your inventory and location is noted, and when you return you are spawned approximately in the same location. So unlike a “regular” game, where you can save and leave before a big boss battle, and then return to finish it later. Here you cannot do it. If you leave and return, the boss will simply not be there anymore.
  
• This also means you can’t pause the game if you have something IRL to attend to. And you can’t play the game for a couple of minutes. Every play sessions needs to be long enough to finish a task from start to finish.
  
• For this reason there is also no modding support for the game. Any quality-of-live improvements from previous games - will not exist here. No better UI. No mods for improved carry weight. No nothing.
  
• Like the aforementioned Diablo games, this game is centered around grinding. Until level 50, you are progressing, doing quests, improving your character, crafting items of increasingly higher levels and better stats, etc. Starting level 50, you stop progressing, and the game starts to revolve around min-maxing, building the perfect build, and grinding for more resources and better random rolls on legendaries.

The fun parts of the game:

CHARACTER BUILDING

Character building is different from other Fallout games, and is somewhat akin to Fallout 4.
Similar to other Fallout games, you spend points on S.P.E.C.I.A.L skills.
Similar to Fallout 4, the more skills points you have, the more various perks (perk cards here) you can assign to that skill.
What is new here, is that starting from level 25 you can freely reassign skills, and create different skill combinations based on specific load out you want to use, or specific crafting you’d like to perform.
Compared to Fallout 4, you have much more limited skill selection of skills you can use at any given time, so you need to be much more focused on the specific build.

MODDING YOUR WEAPONS AND ARMOR

Similar to Fallout 4, you can improve your weapons with various mods and improvements, to make them more deadly, shoot farther, be more accurate, faster, etc. (for weapons) and improve various defense types, improve skills, or add additional carry weight or action points (for armor).
All of these require plans (or recipes for food items), which are scattered throughout the game, given as rewards for finishing tasks, or can be bought for bot vendors or human vendors.
Unlike Fallout 4, each weapon can also have up to 3 “legendary” improvements, which give special bonuses you cannot get otherwise. But which are completely random, and you have no control over. You can however, keep re-rolling them, in exchange for scrip. Which you can get (a limited amount of every day) by grinding special events - this is where the game’s feedback loop comes into play).

BASE BUILDING

Similarly to Fallout 4, you can build a base here (even several) called “C.A.M.P”, and design it in accordance with your heart’s desires.
And I’ve seen really beautifully designed houses people have built.
You can also build a huge variety of various improvements that give various bonuses or advantages, from giving you various resources (it collects over time), to recharging fusion cells, or giving you crafting stations you can use to craft weapons, armor, food, medicine, ammunition, grenades, mines, etc. etc.
Unlike Fallout 4, you can place your base virtually anywhere on the map (

TRADING

Another fun thing you can do in the game is you can trade with other players.
You can either trade with them directly (mostly designed to trading things between friends).
You can place items on the floor for them to pick up.
Or any player can set up a vendor/shop in his base, and set any price you like for any of the item you’d like to sell. (The game also has recommended prices for everything)
So this creates a fun little mini-game for you to understand what items people would be willing to pay money for (and how much they would be willing to pay for it).

PLAYING WITH FRIENDS (optional)

I have not encountered it much in the game, but if you have other people who play Fallout 76, you can play together.
Either on a private server (if you’re paying for Fallout 1st) or a public server.
But most people are playing alone, and join groups with random strangers to do daily tasks together.
There are many bonuses for playing together with other people, either friends or complete strangers, and the game actively encourages that.

OVERALL

This is not a bad game (in its current state).
Not by a long shot.
And I have over 140 hours in this game, so it’s definitely doing something right.
There is (in its current state) tons of content, fun stuff to do, a very live and vibrant Fallout world, which scratches the itch very well. (No wonder Amazon gave away the game for free when the TV show was released)
However, even after playing that much hours, and paying for Fallout 1st, I still have this nagging feeling like I’m playing a free-to-play mobile game.
Like the game deliberately limits your carry weight on the one hand, and forces you to carry an increasingly larger amount/weight of items on the other hand in order to progress in the game.
And the only way around it? You guessed it - pay a monthly subscription fee.
So while it may not be a Pay-to-win or Pay-to-play kind of game, it’s definitely Pay-to-progress or Pay-to-enjoy kind of game.

[Calistrasza]

Okay.

[Sirius]

What in the ChatGPT hell is this nonsense.

Stopped reading right here

Origineel geplaatst door Mdk25:

Like many others, I started playing Fallout 76 in the wake of the Fallout TV show being released on Amazon Prime in April.
Unlike many others, I’m actually a long time Fallout fan, started with Fallout 1 & 2, played Fallout tactics, Fallout BOS, and obviously the newer Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas, and Fallout 4

because the basic assumption is already wrong.

Well done.

[pApA^LeGBa]

Stopped reading at "microtransactoin based"

You can play the game without microtransactions without any problem.

[Serrel]

Dang! ChatGPT wasnt really an evolution but a devolution :)

[Fatal AR]

You can play without spending a single cent. Atomic Shop items are completely optional and most of them are just cosmetic. The only items that are a must-get are pretty much resource items like coffee machine, cookie jar, company tea machine, mirelurk steamer, probably a collectron if you don't want to farm certain stuff like nukas, gifts, or soup if you are a
vegetarian commie. The catwalk if you are into CAMP building. And you can get enough atoms to get all that stuff and way more if you complete the challenges that gives you atoms as rewards or completing the season pass (former score board) to unlock enough to get yourself something nice if you spend them wisely. You can even use your atoms to buy the season pass to unlock rewards locked behind FO1st if you want 'em so badly.
I only spent real money to get fo1st for two months, sure i spent the atoms you get from the subscription but my reason to get it wasn't for the atom. I wanted to play in private world with my friends and needed to use the scrap box to stash insane ammounts of stable flux.
So yeah, ( ° ͜ʖ͡°)Ɑ͞ ̶͞ ̶͞ ﻝﮞ

[4mysou1just1]

Meh

[sadness]

k

[PotatoBasket]

Fair opinion.

[Kriminaal]

Reviews are opinions.

I don't get the micro transaction thing. I paid 11 bucks for this game 3 years ago and have never spent another penny since. Steam says 1400 hours but my actual in-game time is about 900 (per the achievement explore for 7600 hours lol). Anyway, I have 3 bases, every PA, UNY SS armor, about 20 guns for 3 different builds, tons of skins (So many my wife says, "Oh a new outfit huh"). I have a huge Missile Silo Shelter with everything you could possibly want. I mean, c'mon, micro-transactions ? If you are like me and you think "NOT" spending money is winning, then we've won my friends, we've won.

I am older though, I don't have that FOMO or Instant Gratification bug youngins seem to have nowadays. I've played Raid Shadow Legends, a pure Pay-to-Win mobile game and kind of sort of did ok not paying for a while but the itch did eventually get me. Now that's a micro-transaction mobile game if it got me to spend 5 bucks on a shiny gold shard!

[Gillx83]

It is not a microtransaction-based MMO.

Microtransactions do nothing for player power.
People like you make me sick.

[Gillx83]

Origineel geplaatst door Leslie Chow:

TL:DR & blocked ( ° ͜ʖ͡°)Ɑ͞ ̶͞ ̶͞ ﻝﮞ

Same, I blocked this "person" who thinks it is an MMO.. first of all, it is a shared world co-op action game with RPG elements.

It is not an MMO nor microtransaction based.

Define MMO... FO76 isnt it.

[ZeroFate]

"and paying for Fallout 1st"

This is where you lost me. You fell for the trap. You are helping destroy what gaming should be. You are helping them turn gaming into a cash cow instead of entertainment. Costs are only going to keep going up for everyone if you keep up this behavior of throwing cash at them. They literally carved out content and then hid it behind a monthly bill. One of the scummiest monetization methods that exist.

You suck.

[Vinnolo]

you are wrong right on the very first line, this game isnt an mmo, just a multiplayer game

[pApA^LeGBa]

Origineel geplaatst door ZeroFate:

"and paying for Fallout 1st"

This is where you lost me. You fell for the trap. You are helping destroy what gaming should be. You are helping them turn gaming into a cash cow instead of entertainment. Costs are only going to keep going up for everyone if you keep up this behavior of throwing cash at them. They literally carved out content and then hid it behind a monthly bill. One of the scummiest monetization methods that exist.

You suck.

I mean if no one pays for 1st and atoms the game will be shut down. Servers aren´t exactly cheap to maintain. It´s an online game, having some sort of regular income is a must to keep the game running.

I think this is the better way instead of just charging everyone a monthly fee to keep up with server costs. People can choose if they pay or not. And as in every game that has micro transactions there is whales that buy enough atoms to always buy everything from the atom shop and ofc have FO1st. That way people can choose to not pay a single cent after buying the game.

Would you really prefer no micro transactions but everyone has to pay monthly?

[Ben]

blocked and reported