Fallout 76

[maflynn]

Bethesda just announced Fallout Worlds. This is probably one of the biggest changes to FO76 aside from Wastelanders (brining back human NPCs) and the announced instanced travel location called the Pitt

As an aside, there was an interview with some of the Bethesda people that I stumbled upon and it seems they're laying out the groundwork to keep FO76 running for the next 3 to 5 years which is also good news, though I don't have a link to that.

Announcements

 

[Huntn]

Bethesda just announced Fallout Worlds. This is probably one of the biggest changes to FO76 aside from Wastelanders (brining back human NPCs) and the announced instanced travel location called the Pitt

As an aside, there was an interview with some of the Bethesda people that I stumbled upon and it seems they're laying out the groundwork to keep FO76 running for the next 3 to 5 years which is also good news, though I don't have a link to that.

Announcements

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I hope there will be another solo Fallout Game. When I think of the Commonwealth polluted with fellow gamers it would just not be the same. There is only one sole survivor. The Castle is only taken once, the Institute is destroyed only once.

I realize in a multiplayer game that those kind of events would likely be split off into an instance yet there is the lore of the solo experience that would be impossible to remain pure. In some ways some of the small server size games like ARK:Survival Evolved and Conan Exiles feel more real than something like large server games like World of Warcraft.

Now Fallout 76 servers hold only approx 24-32 players, so this is not as bad as WoW, but what bugged me were the server messages that came across regularly reminding you that you are in a theme park.

 

[maflynn]

I hope there will be another solo Fallout Game. When I think of the Commonwealth polluted with fellow gamers it would just not be the same. There is only one sole survivor. The Castle is only taken once, the Institute is destroyed only once.

They really don't talk about it, but the general consensus is that we'll be seeing a new fallout game after the next elder scrolls game comes out. That won't happen until StarField, which doesn't hit the streets until 2022, and so 2024 or 2025 may be when Elder scrolls is out, and add a couple of years after that for Fallout (I'm just thinking out aloud)

 

[maflynn]

So I started replaying with my alt - for those who don't know, you can have multiple players on your account, so I had created one a while back - its a low level (6).

What's interesting is that struggle in starting over. I forgot how hard it can be in the beginning. Now, with my main player I'll just be a bullet sponge as I dish out damage. With the alt, I need to duck for cover, choose my shots and keep stimpacks handy.

I'm replaying the main quest lines, with an eye to the future to do the raider side of the quests on the wasterlander DLC. For now, I need to level up, but what's odd is because my main player is over level 300 (its in the 4 hundreds) I get access to all slots for legendary perks, which I dutifully populated

 

[imrazor]

So I just bought Fallout 76 and have been knocking around Appalachia for a bit. It's been moderately entertaining so far, just wandering around trying to survive and crafting stuff. The biggest annoyance so far is getting stuck at crafting stations waiting for a server response. Happens way too frequently. Is there any way I can configure F76 to, I don't know, poll the server more often or something?

 

[maflynn]

The biggest annoyance so far is getting stuck at crafting stations waiting for a server response. Happens way too frequently

The latest update opened up a vulnerability for dupers and cheaters. Part of how they do that it’s to crash their server instance but that impacts every instance and you get that message.

there’s also a bug at crafting stations what you get stuck and the only fix is too fast travel

Bethesda has been hot fixing the vulnerability so hopefully thing improve

 

[imrazor]

@maflynn I've also noticed some pretty bad lag at times, and I have a solid internet connection (15-20ms latency, 400mbps.) Is that typical, or something on my end?

 

[maflynn]

I've also noticed some pretty bad lag at times,

No not really. I did notice some delay/sluggishness when starting the game up and getting logged the past few days. Once that's done, and I'm in the world I've not incurred any performance or latency issues.

As I continue to play using my alternate character I've noticed something that I long forgot. The game slows down quite a bit and you need to be careful and choosing your battles.

My alt is now at level 12, and I'm currently doing the Signal Strength quest (its part of the long series of quests coming from Rosie in top of the world). With my main, I have high SPECIAL and mutations, and a jetpack, so I can run a long distance, jump high and use the jetpack to get up to high sections of the map. Plus since I have nearly the entire map found, fast traveling is the easiest way to get around

My alt as none of that, so I'm finding that I need to walk to each locations, and sometimes I stumble upon a group of scorched or super mutants. Its fun to get back to basics on this.

I remember now to horde everything especially aluminum, since that's in short supply, I'm not at a point in the game play where I ought to farm for certain components, but rather just keep playing the quest lines.

I'm playing the alt in my private world for a couple of reasons, when I started off, there were a lot less players and I rarely ran into them, now its quite full comparatively, secondly if I see a public event start up that I like, I'll be kicking myself for being in my alt and not really ready to do those.

 

[imrazor]

@maflynn Yeah I've noticed it repeatedly. It may be because I've been variously trying to connect over WiFi, Powerline and even cellular. Cellular wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be, but all three incurred noticeable lag. For example, picking up an object might happen a second or so after activating it. I'll try moving my gaming laptop into the same room as my router/modem and hook it up via ethernet and see how it goes. It might also because I'm not using a "private world", but one of the public world spaces.

I even got this FO76 running on my M1 MacBook Air with the Crossover 21 Beta but its not pretty (in fact it looks more like Fallout 3 than 4), and using it in the great outdoors practically requires VATS. Indoors I'm getting up to 50 fps, so its a lot more gunplay friendly in interiors. If anyone is interested I'll post a video on it.

EDIT: Oh I snuck through West Virginia Lumber Company and cleared it by myself at level 7 or 8. Got a very nice sniper rifle and laser scattergun as prizes. I'm up to level 11 now...

 

[maflynn]

picking up an object might happen a second or so after activating it.

Wow, no I can easily say that I've never incurred such an issue, now or in the past. I've played on VPN, and off of VPN (my home pc connects to work and on lunch hour I'll not disconnect). My connections is wifi, and I've played at home and at hotel/resorts using their wifi which is typically really slow but I've never had issues that you described.

What I do notice with slow wifi is a delay in drawing, so I'll fast travel to my camp and if I'm on slow wifi, there's a significant delay in getting the camp drawn

I googled the issue, and I found these links, not sure of they're helpful
This one seems to be selling something so take some of what's written with a grain of salt

How To Fix Fallout 76 Lag And Other Performance Issues

With Fallout 76 making its way into the world of MMO titles, reports linking to Fallout 76 arise. Well,, we got the fix here.

www.killping.com

How to fix Fallout 76 lag without much effort?

www.fileinspect.com

One common theme with the recommendations is drivers ensuring you're up to day. What's your setup?

I'm running an AMD 3700x with a Nvidia RTX 2060 super, pushing a 34" ultra-wide monitor and it runs fine. I have a 2018 Razer Laptop using a RTX 2070 and that's buttery smooth as well.

cleared it by myself at level 7 or 8

That's awesome

 

[maflynn]

The one of the advantages of doing a play through with an alternate is that I can use my high level player to craft weapons and armor and transfer it to the alt. Of course some of the more interesting items aren't available until I rank up. Right now hunting rifles and metal armor is the best I can do.

Transferring stuff is using more of an exploit (I'm really using that word loosely). With a fallout first sub, the private world remains for about 10 minutes, so you place something in a suit case by a chain station, quit the world, change players and then go back to that same world. So far that has yet to fail me, but I have heard that it can fail, as others put a lot of high valued stuff in a suit case, only to not see it with their alt. I'm only moving stuff that I can lose and not miss.

 

[maflynn]

I was back using my main today, and it was a fun time, I was on a server with high participation so I was able to do a bunch of public events. My Legendary core count climbed from 96 to 120. You need 5 cores (and various legendary modules) to craft a three star legendary.

The only fly in the ointment is the current world was very unstable, getting a lot of server error messages and freezing my session. Luckily I didn't get kicked out when I was playing the events. They recently applied a hot fix, well that didn't work

The down side of crafting legendary weapons is RNG is horrible, I've already burned through 50+ cores over the past week or so trying to craft some legendary weapons that are better then what I'm rocking

Now that I have the hellcat power armor (you get that when you complete the BOS Steel Reign DLC), thanks to the latest update we can not only craft legendary weapons but legendary power armor, so I may try rolling some hellcat PA parts

 

[imrazor]

I haven't invested in Fallout 1st at this point. I was figuring on beating the main quest, then seeing if it was worth dropping that much coin on a subscription. The scrap box sounds great, as do private worlds.

OTOH, I have yet to be griefed. Most of the other players seem reasonably mature. And there's no chat scrolling by to ruin my immersion. Big plus there. I've interacted with some of the other players' vendors, but haven't actually tried trading directly with a player.

Right now I'm having a blast sneaking around with a bow, killing Scorched from the shadows. Usually they don't even realize I'm there. I've got my Agility up to 5 or 6, but what I really need to do is up my Intelligence to the point where I can craft silencers. But for the moment having great fun turning zombies into pincushions. And man, bows do a lot of damage. (Rather unrealistic actually, but hey, it's just a game and not a reality simulator.)

I think most of the connection problems I was having are related to the hardware I was using (M1 MBA.) It just can't handle the graphics, which is a surprise given how well it handles stuff like Baldur's Gate 3. Then again, Bethesda games are always unoptimized piles of garbage - until modders fix them. But no one can mod this game yet.

 

[maflynn]

I have yet to be griefed

The Fallout76 community is really a positive one, yes there are griefers, but by large large its a helpful community.

For me, the subscription is well worth it due, to the unlimited scrap. In starting off in the game, its probably not a huge issue, as it will take time to collect enough junk to really filling up. I'm finding this out as I play with my alt. I also like the survival tent, which offers the stash boxes and more importantly a free fast travel spot that you can put anywhere.

As you invest in the game you can determine if you'll be invested enough to continue and whether you think Fo1st has value

 

[imrazor]

I'm only 13th level and I find myself having to constantly shed items because I can't carry much more than a crippled hamster. By design? Could be.

How does the scrap box work? Does it automatically scrap whatever you put into it, or do you have to break down 'whole' items first at a workbench? I've found stash boxes across West Virginia; are 'public' scrap boxes available for you to access your collection?

One question that is not obvious to me - when crafting do you only have access to the scrap on your person, or is your entire stash/scrap inventory at your disposal? Is it different in CAMP or permanent workshops (like the race track near Vault 76?)

 

[maflynn]

I'm only 13th level and I find myself having to constantly shed items because I can't carry much more than a crippled hamster. By design? Could be.

How are you investing in your special? Early on I feel its good to invest in Strength and Intelligence. Strength gives you the carry weight, and INT gives you more Exp to rank up. I'm at level 16, and so far I'm leaning towards a rifle build, though up till now I was closer to a pistol build due to the fact that you get somerset special revolver.

Anyways one thing you can do is "scrap" your junk, that is go to a work bench, select scrap, and hit the T key. That breaks down the junk to baser elements. You can also scrap your weapons individually that way as well and this help maintain your carry weight. My carry weight is currently 175 and I easily have 120 to 130 without any junk.

Since food and water are no longer needed, that is you don't incur health damage if you go hungry, I don't carry any of that, and I try to only keep no more then 20 stimpacks on me at any one time

How does the scrap box work? Does it automatically scrap whatever you put into it,

The scrap box only works with junk, you can't throw weapons in there to break them down, but any junk items automatically get broken down as you place it in there. In the stash box you can keep a typewriter whole, but in the junk box, its automatically broken to its baser components. The biggest thing is that its unlimited, my main player has 20k steel, 20k lead, 1800 acid, etc etc. Starting off the game where we have so little components to use, its less of a draw.

One question that is not obvious to me - when crafting do you only have access to the scrap on your person, or is your entire stash/scrap inventory at your disposal? Is it different in CAMP or permanent workshops (like the race track near Vault 76?)

Yes, if you have a camp down near charleston, but are at a workshop near the racetrack you have access to all of your components to build what ever you want. it used to be, that if you had the stuff on you, could you build something but now its what ever is in your stash, regardless of location.

 

[imrazor]

Right now my camp is just behind Fort Stockton, with a lovely view of Summerville from atop the mountain. There are a couple of spawn points not too far away, but I've only been bothered by supermutants once. Lowly though they may be, my basic turrets made short work of big green idiots. Though its not rich in resources, there's plenty of junk to be had from the fort and it does respawn every once in a while. My most pressing need is water, dirty or otherwise, so I may have to move my CAMP to a water source soon. I may be missing a source of running water in the fort.

My focus has been on Agility and Perception so that I can make more effective use of VATS. It's not as useful as in earlier Fallouts due to the realtime nature of it, but it's still pretty handy. I'm also carrying around a fairly comprehensive arsenal of pistols and a couple of rifles. Add food, water and scrap to the mix and half the time I'm moving around encumbered. Thanks to my avatar's Agility and perks though, the AP lost from running while encumbered recovers pretty quickly.

 

[maflynn]

I just achieved level 20, and things opened up a bit. I now have the two ally quests for Beckett and Daguerre. There's other allies but those two have the most involved quests. I finished up a personal matter (the overseer's quest), and that opened up the BOS main quest (not the latest BOS DLC). I forget but the Brotherhood of Steel quests while involved and hard bring you closer to being able to launch a nuke. There's also some Free States quests in the mire but I forget how those are triggered.

As I said in my prior post I'm waiting to level up higher, to complete the Top of the World quests (Rosie) because the next one brings me into the Wendago cave and that's really hard. Last time, I was only able to do that by sneaking and avoiding the mirelurk hunters and king.

One thing I'm noticing is that One Wasteland is keeping the enemies leveled. When I first started playing, different portions of the map presented different levels of opponents. Flatwoods was low level, the mire high levels. Now they all keep up with you. That's great as a high level player but as you move from low level to medium level its actually makes it a bit harder.

I'm pushing to get to level 25 because I can craft level 25 weapons using my main character - I love using the lever action weapon and I'll probably craft that. I may try creating a legendary for it, but my luck is horrible I don't know if I want to use up my limited supply of legendary cores.

The other aspect of getting to level 25 is being able to move your SPECIAL points around at a Punch Card Machine (at the railroad stations). In waiting for that time, I've not used any of my recent perk points, I'll save them so that they'll have more impact on my character

I forget what level the random nature of perk cards stop and you can start choosing, right now we have no say.

 

[imrazor]

Yes I’ve noticed a lot of enemies that are exactly my level. Some around Flatwoods seem capped at 5th level, but most others are exactly 14th level (my current level), though I did run into a Mothman which was 20th. This has pluses and minuses. I like that it keeps the challenge fairly constant, but it’s also ‘unrealistic’ in that as your character gets tougher old enemies don’t become easier to handle.

It may be my imagination, but it also seems like when you’re in co-op with other players enemies are leveled to the player engaging them. For example I ran across a very high level player engaging some raiders, but sniped his opponents with only a shot or two required to kill what should’ve been very high level enemies. Maybe they were already weakened...?

 

[maflynn]

brings me into the Wendago cave

Given One Wasteland, I decided to try the Wendago cave which is near the end of the Key to the Past quest which is part of the Top of the World series of quests. Before One Wasteland the creatures were their own high level, now as I was level 20, they too were.

but it also seems like when you’re in co-op with other players enemies are leveled to the player

Yes, that's part of the magic of One Wasteland (the change to level all creatures). If I go to Charleston using my main character, I'll be seeing level 70+ opponents, but with my alt they're level 20 or under. I hated this change at first but as I lived under the new rules, it did make things challenging and more fun. The only issue is insects are generally too high a level but not for my alt.

I'm now on the free states quests with the finishing up of Rosie, and its still been very fun. I've been playing my alt completely in my private world, where as my main is usually in the public world.

Another plus, today's maintenance appears to fix the bug of getting frozen at a crafting station

 

[maflynn]

I'm nearing the end of the BOS quest lines. I just completed Recruitment blues, and the most hated quest - getting a government ID. They took the pain/frustration of getting a license at the DMV and basically put it into the game. Its behind me and I'm off to watoga.

I'm probably at this point ready to switch over to the Wastelanders DLC series of quests. I'm not sure if I'm at a high enough level, I originally did when my main character was level 100 or 200. Anyways the purpose of re-playing was to focus on the raider side of the DLC. At some point you need to choose, which faction (though you can still be friendly with the other). I heard the raider side was more enjoyable to complete.

I'm pretty happy with the weapons I have currently, a nice lever action rifle, which is my favorite and will suit my nicely up until I get to level 45, which at that point I'll have to craft a new one

The Ally quest for Beckett if memory serves me gets me a decent .50 cal, so I'll probably do that as I get closer to level 50

 

[imrazor]

I haven’t had a lot of time to play recently, but yes the crafting bug appears to be fixed. Currently pursuing the Order of Mysteries quest. I can’t really make up my mind on a weapon, but have perks for pistols, bows and shotguns supplemented by a sniper rifle.

Personally I love the bow. The damage is overpowered and it is completely silent. Crafting arrows can be a pain thanks to the aluminum requirement, and things can get rough if someone gets in melee range. But it is so fun to take out a bunch of supermutants without them even knowing what’s killing them.

 

[maflynn]

I've been spending more time with my alt, instead of the main character, I could be grinding for legendary cores (needed for crafting legendary weapons) but in all honesty, its not something I like. I see on reddit so many people saying that they have over 1,000 legendary cores but are running short of legendary modules (the other component needed). For me, I have about 100 legendary cores and if I get 5 a day, I'm lucky. I think most of them get that by doing Daily Ops a co-op/team based activity that you can do many times a day. I play solo so that doesn't interest me.

Back to my alt, I completed the main BOS quest line, (not the DLC). Previously I was in the level 50 range when I completed the BOS questline, now I'm in the mid 30s, but thanks to the One Wasteland the opponents were close to my level. With that said, I still needed power armor and a .50 cal machine gun, since I had to kill a scorch beast and nearly endless waves of scorched.

I've switched gears, starting the Wasteland DLC quests along side Ally quests as mentioned above. I may do the tadpole questline, at the end of that, you get a backpack (a free smaller one is available) The backpack gives you increased inventory. One of the things to complete with that, is giving a stim pack to a downed teammate - this requirement is the hardest since I play solo. My only hope is to a end game event and hope someone goes down so I can give them a stimpack. I'll burn that bridge when and if I get to it.

As for the main quest line, all that is left is the Enclave series of quests and launching a nuke. I'm not big on doing a silo run and launching a nuke, so that will probably sit there for a very long time. I think I was in 200 level mark on my main character when I finally launched a nuke.

 

[maflynn]

Its been a fun time, re-playing the quests - I finished up the two ally quests, and that was enjoyable, I may do the he Mistress of Mystery next. I've into the wastelander's DLC, where I'm at a point where I want to start the treasure series of quests.

Trying to do the tadpole quests and as usual that's as frustrating as before, I may see if the "small" backpack will suit my needs, instead of grinding for the regular/large one.

Overall its been really enjoyable, but this morning I've been spending my time farming for components, I'm woefully low on springs, and while I'm at it, I farmed for lead as well.

 

[maflynn]

Meat week begins Tuesday, I'll try to spend some extra time doing that, its always a fun and a highly participated event. I typically play solo, but these events, like meat week and fasnacht are enjoyable to do in the public world

My alt has made some nice progress, I'm fully involved in the Wasterlanders main quest to get vault 79's treasure. My main character did the settlers questline, and I heard the raiders might be more enjoyable, so here I am doin the raiders. I could have sworn, that I could play both and then choose near the end raiders or settlers, but it seems once I selected the raiders the option to talk to the settlers disappeared ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I've mostly been on my main, trying to build up my legendary cores, and I've accumulated 70, I hope to get near 100 by the end of the week. I did get a nice god roll weapon, one that I've been trying to get for some time. An aristocrat exploding lever action. With the aristocrat legendary effect, the higher amount of caps, the more damage - the opposite of the bloodied build. I'll probably look to roll some decent legendary armor pieces as my cores increase.