Mystery No Longer – 10 Scoops on Fallout 76
One of the most mysterious titles on the docket for 2018, Bethesda Game Studios has been extremely tight lipped about Fallout 76. Until now. I attended the big Fallout 76 gameplay reveal event last week in West Virginia, and grilled the Bethesda team about the game relentlessly. Good news! They gave me almost all the answers I was looking for, and IÂ had a good time with the game too.
1. There’s a Plan for Handling Griefers and Jerks.
One prominent narrative since reveal has been fans wondering what Bethesda is going to do about jerks. As you know, jerks run rampant on the internet, and the potential for those jerks to ruin things for other players can’t be overstated.
From what I saw, Bethesda has the bases well covered thanks to 3 key decisions. PvP is obviously something that’s present in Fallout 76, but players have the option to exclude themselves from accidental PvP through Pacifist mode. When it’s active, Pacifist mode ignores any fire that could be construed as accidental. What that means practically is that errant shots won’t trigger PvP.
Another important point is that players both have to engage in PvP for it to be legitimate. If xXxNoScope420 kills you, and you didn’t engage back, he or she becomes a murderer, complete with a bounty on their head. Murderers are prominently marked, and can even be killed by their own team to collect – a very effective deterrent.
Finally, there’s been concern about Nuke griefing. Don’t be worried. Getting a nuke is very difficult even if you know how to do it, and if you do choose to nuke somebody’s CAMP or Workshop, they can repair the whole thing with one button press and very little resource cost. So it might be funny on occasion, but it’s definitely not worth it.
2. Perks and SPECIAL Have Been Overhauled
The concept of a starting build is gone in Fallout 76 – all your SPECIAL stats start out at zero, and you’ll apply a single point each time you level up. Each category now maxes out at 15 points.
Perks are no longer permanent, now operating on a card based system. Your SPECIAL stats give access to Perks you’ll unlock when levelling up, each of which has a point value. You can alter your Perk build at will in the menu, so respecing on the fly is easy as pie, and makes experimenting with Perks much more approachable.
3. There’s Building, But This Isn’t A Builder
If you hated the Workshop mechanic in Fallout 4, well, you’ll probably hate it here too. But that said, building in Workshops and CAMPs has been drastically improved in Fallout 76. Placing objects seemed more fluid, and there’s a bonkers number of structural elements to choose from when you’re tricking out your CAMP.
It makes a lot of sense to have a CAMP with some crafting stations and other creature comforts, but outside of that you can completely ignore the Workshop features if you don’t want to engage with them. Then again you might want to, as battling others to control the Workshops on the map seems like a pretty great time.