Fallout 76 is an absolute fucking disaster. "How will Bethesda recover?"
#1 Posted 29 November 2018 - 03:20 PM
#2 Posted 29 November 2018 - 03:23 PM
#4 Posted 29 November 2018 - 04:34 PM
#5 Posted 29 November 2018 - 04:45 PM
Forge, on 27 November 2018 - 03:08 PM, said:
subtle is subtle
#6 Posted 29 November 2018 - 05:03 PM
#7 Posted 29 November 2018 - 05:28 PM
Though comparing it to Battlespire would be too generous as that at least had NPCs.
This post has been edited by leilei: 29 November 2018 - 05:32 PM
#8 Posted 29 November 2018 - 09:15 PM
#9 Posted 29 November 2018 - 09:49 PM
maybe they should have opted for a mobile-only platform
This post has been edited by Forge: 29 November 2018 - 09:51 PM
#10 Posted 29 November 2018 - 11:00 PM
I do agree Bethesda has had a free pass for way too long with the typical "the community will fix it" attitude that seems to surround their releases. Many other developers would get raked over the coals for trying to release a game in such a poor state, and rightfully so. If you look at what other developers are putting out in terms of quality for open-world games, in stability and presentation, Bethesda is looking increasingly half-baked with their efforts.
#11 Posted 29 November 2018 - 11:16 PM
Two questions then:
They have a lot of time to check even these things?
Or do they end up PLAYING while WORKING!?
(clearly the fault is always of the game )
#12 Posted 30 November 2018 - 12:57 AM
1) Fallout 3 was pretty good for a first outing but there are a lot of elements in that game that already foreshadow a lot of trouble. First: Bethesda managed to fundamentally misunderstand the world of Fallout so the foundation was already weak. What Bethesda got from Fallout were the random encounters and the black humor so they based the whole game around those ideas to the point where instead of a post-apocalyptic world the Capital Wasteland feels like a messed up amusement park where you can blow stuff up while funny shit happens.
The thematic core of of the franchise is a semi-realistic, brutal world that takes the effort of actually trying to portray what would happen with society in a post nuclear war scenario. Overall it's about how humanity catapults itself back to the dark ages and how it manages to gradually pull itself back together (F1 is an animalistic world where some people manage to form strong settlements, F2 is about those settlements trying to branch out to restart actual modern civilization, New Vegas is about society choosing a form of government so a part of the US can function as a state again). Throughout this story the games constantly reflect on our world and while there is a lot of random, funny shit in there even most of the humor serves the purpose of showing some dark shit with a sense of levity. Sure, when you hear that Myron invented Jet from brahmin shit you laugh your ass off but how he tells you that story also shows that in this world people are so desperate that they literally get high on shit and that even after the end of the world there are people who will gladly prey on the weak for some money.
Second: F3 shows a very clear lack of creativity from Bethesda. When it comes to its story Fallout 3 is nothing more than a badly written remake of the first two games: you get the same arc, the same factions and the same story beats in a kinda pointless fashion since the thematic core is already nowhere to be found.
Third: F3 has no respect for the principles of classic CRPGs. Your character will be a jack of all trades guy by the end so you don't have to make decisions in your build and your choices in affecting the world are very limited. Yes, you can make choices and some of them are meaningful but it's nowhere near the freedom of an old school CRPG. That's a huge problem for a Fallout game.
2) Fallout 4 is like a worse version of the third game. Even the main story has a disconnect with what you're actually doing in the fucking game, your choices basically disappear, the RPG system is even worse, the writing is garbage and environmental storytelling can be summed up in skeletons holding teddy bears. Weapons have nicer animations but the shooting still sucks because the gameplay is again just Elder Scrolls with guns: hell, Bethesda released an FPS in 2015 where enemies charge at you in a straight line and just start bashing your ass until you make their HP disappear. You can't design combat that is worse than that.
So what the fuck were people expecting? Bethesda sucks at Fallout and they clearly do not want to get better at it. New Vegas was literally a template for amazing modern Fallout (Obsidian made that game only in 18 months btw. because Bethesda didn't give them more time) and that design was just there for the taking for Fallout 4 but nope, instead Bethesda just made it shit again. Honestly at this point Fallout 5 will only be good if Bethesda just gives up and hires Chris Avellone as a lead designer (=people who know the setting) instead of Todd Howard and that Emile guy.
This post has been edited by Zaxx: 30 November 2018 - 01:11 AM
#13 Posted 30 November 2018 - 02:32 AM
#14 Posted 30 November 2018 - 03:23 AM
The thing is that overall I don't think I'd care much about the badly written story or the fact that Beth puts out laughably dumb CRPGs if they'd actually do something interesting with other aspects of the game. I want better shooting with well-designed enemies, bigger settlements, the return of vehicles from Fallout 2 and Tactics and generally more choice in affecting the story. If some innovation was there and the gameplay was good I wouldn't care about the fucked up lore and the run of the mill characters since at least they don't fuck with the west coast setting.
This post has been edited by Zaxx: 30 November 2018 - 03:25 AM
#15 Posted 30 November 2018 - 06:42 AM
Obvious cash-grabs, half-done products, loot boxes, and forced social justice and politics by companies are finally getting long overdue backlash.
The video game industry has self-declared themselves untouchable. The old guard are over-paid and outdated. The new guard are under-paid and want socialist equality across the board. Video game stimulus is addictive like drugs and gambling, the product is over-valued. The mentality is that customers will always buy snake oil based on name recognition. Demographics are off from being out of touch; internally and externally. Products suffer.
Fallout 76 is the same thing that happened back in the 80s. E.T. was rushed out the door as a barely functional and badly designed game, in order to get holiday sales. Atari didn't give a shit about the end product or the customer, they were at the top of their market and felt untouchable - it was an obvious cash-grab. A cash-grab that killed the home console market for years until the nintendo came out.
Fallout isn't going to kill the video game market, but it should cause a ripple effect, in conjunction with the rest of the customer dissatisfaction that's going on with the AAA companies, like EA and Blizzard.
Ripping code from Fallout 4, Skyrim, and Elders Scroll V, without even bothering to remove the comments out of the code that point directly to those games, is the epitome of laziness. Charging full price, add in loot-boxes, promise missing features in future updates - they obviously have zero respect for their customers and fan-boys.
History repeating itself.
This post has been edited by Forge: 30 November 2018 - 07:17 AM
#16 Posted 30 November 2018 - 07:40 PM
This post has been edited by Grand Admiral Thrawn: 30 November 2018 - 07:42 PM
#17 Posted 30 November 2018 - 09:08 PM
Grand Admiral Thrawn, on 30 November 2018 - 07:40 PM, said:
That's how I feel about it too, honestly it's just sad to see that Bethesda seemingly can't do anything new with the franchise. I want new factions and just stories centered around new ideas like in the old days.
For example I'm really fed up with how Bethesda is in love with the Brotherhood of Steel. Sure, fans love those guys but it seems like that we're at a point where they don't even care about introducing new stuff or changing up established factions because if there is a BoS guy on the cover people will just buy it.
It's getting ridiculous and if you compare that to the Black Isle games and Obsidian's stuff honestly it's just jarring. The BoS had a huge part in F1 but then Black Isle wanted to introduce new stuff so they came up with the Enclave and fully changed everything that was in the first game. When it comes to the BoS F2 basically says that while the idea of collecting and hiding old tech is nice their old ideals about secrecy will cause a regression in their numbers so that's what happens: the BoS is still there but they are only guarding their old bunkers and they practically have no military presence. The super mutants change too: sure, you can go back to Maripose and you'll see the remnants of the Master's old army but most of them moved on and became more civilized.
New Vegas carries on with these concepts too: there the BoS is still in regression, the Enclave doesn't even really exist and when you run into Marcus again you see that at this point the super mutants are actively searching for a cure to help the nightkin. The focust shifts to the NCR and Caesar's Legion and that's great because it shows how the world progresses. For example the NCR was just a little settlement called Shady Sands in Fallout 1, it's a sprawling city that wants to expand further in Fallout 2 and by the time of New Vegas they are ready to re-establish the democratic state in the Mojave. That's awesome, that's how you keep a world interesting while Bethesda is just repeating the same clichés (and even if they introduce new stuff like the synths they don't really commit to those ideas).
When it comes to the lore F76 is just the same old shit again and seemingly Bethesda does everything in order to keep it that way: they fuck up the established lore so the BoS can have a presence in Appalachia, they don't give a crap about how the Enclave should work so those guys could be used agan too etc. And I get it, some people criticised New Vegas because it didn't feel post-apocalyptic enough so if you progress that civilization you can lose some of the original charm but progress is the way to go, not remaking the first two games all the damn time.
This post has been edited by Zaxx: 30 November 2018 - 09:15 PM
#18 Posted 05 December 2018 - 06:55 AM
I've got a couple friends that have been playing it non-stop so I thought I'd give it a shot.
Without any of the glitches, the base game would simply be okay. Not bad, not great, just aight.
That said though, I probably won't touch it again because of how glitchy it is. I knew it'd be bad because of Bethesda's track record and this was a multiplayer component being added to an engine that hasn't had online stuff, but MAN, when you want to take over a workshop by killing all the NPCs around it, paying ingame caps to take it over (which are earned far less frequently than in previous games) using resources to build up the workshop to defend it (which you have a small stash limit) while it generates resources in real time (slowly) and then the server crashes and you lose ALL of it with zero compensation, AAAAND it happens 4 times in a matter of days?
Yeah fuck this game.
#20 Posted 05 December 2018 - 07:06 PM
#21 Posted 05 December 2018 - 07:54 PM
#22 Posted 06 December 2018 - 12:50 AM
This post has been edited by Ninety-Six: 06 December 2018 - 12:50 AM
#23 Posted 06 December 2018 - 05:09 AM
Ninety-Six, on 06 December 2018 - 12:50 AM, said:
Unless Zenimax want the ship sinks.
#24 Posted 06 December 2018 - 07:35 AM
Ninety-Six, on 06 December 2018 - 12:50 AM, said:
Honestly I think this shitshow can end up being beneficial to id Software: if Bethesda Game Studios fucks up while id doesn't then id will have a stronger position inside Bethesda. Who knows, maybe if BGS can't improve the Creation Engine or don't develop some shiny new tech in a few years id will be the leading development studio.
This post has been edited by Zaxx: 06 December 2018 - 07:35 AM
#25 Posted 06 December 2018 - 08:38 AM
Then again, maybe not. Destructible demons is really cool. As is invasion and the meathook and whatnot. And the sword.
This post has been edited by MusicallyInspired: 06 December 2018 - 08:39 AM
#26 Posted 06 December 2018 - 09:29 AM
MusicallyInspired, on 06 December 2018 - 08:38 AM, said:
This is why I'm not worried about Eternal. Doom 2016 was amazing but when it comes to scale, mechanics and whatnot there is clearly a lot that can be done with that franchise.
This post has been edited by Zaxx: 06 December 2018 - 09:29 AM
#27 Posted 06 December 2018 - 09:37 AM
#28 Posted 06 December 2018 - 02:53 PM
About freaking time, too......
#29 Posted 06 December 2018 - 07:30 PM
"You know you didn't have to shoot either one, right?" - that's pretty good advice for Fallout 4 players.
#30 Posted 07 December 2018 - 06:46 AM
Major Tom, on 06 December 2018 - 02:53 PM, said:
About freaking time, too......
....and in the process leaked everyone's private information. It's like when they try to do something right, bugs happen anyway.