The "What are you playing now?" Thread

[Jack Brickman]

Got a Fallout 76 beta invite from a friend and played for about two hours. It's kind of like Fallout if they took out the stuff that made Fallout fun. You know...all the NPCs, the story, the solitary survival and sense of exploring a lonely, hostile world. It's basically just a Fallout skin for Rust at this point. All a bunch of crafting and constant micromanaging of weapons and armor to keep it repaired. Hard pass.

The game also runs like absolute dog shit. I know it's a beta, but for a game that looks as dated visually as this game does, it should sure run a hell of a lot better. Reminds me of playing PUBG back in the early pre-release days when I had to turn the graphics all the way down just to get a decent frame rate.

 

[Marcus]

Got a Fallout 76 beta invite from a friend and played for about two hours. It's kind of like Fallout if they took out the stuff that made Fallout fun. You know...all the NPCs, the story, the solitary survival and sense of exploring a lonely, hostile world. It's basically just a Fallout skin for Rust at this point. All a bunch of crafting and constant micromanaging of weapons and armor to keep it repaired. Hard pass.

The game also runs like absolute dog shit. I know it's a beta, but for a game that looks as dated visually as this game does, it should sure run a hell of a lot better. Reminds me of playing PUBG back in the early pre-release days when I had to turn the graphics all the way down just to get a decent frame rate.

I have the beta but have yet to play it. That’s disappointing to hear, although Bethesda games typically aren’t without their warts (especially when it comes to glitches). Hopefully the final product is better.

 

[Jack Brickman]

I have the beta but have yet to play it. That’s disappointing to hear, although Bethesda games typically aren’t without their warts (especially when it comes to glitches). Hopefully the final product is better.

Yeah, but the main difference with this one is that they can't let the fans fix it for them via mods and unofficial patches like they usually do with their games since it's online-only.

My main issue is that it just doesn't really feel like Fallout. I mean, it looks like Fallout, but doesn't feel like it, if that makes any sense.

 

[Marcus]

Yeah, but the main difference with this one is that they can't let the fans fix it for them via mods and unofficial patches like they usually do with their games since it's online-only.

My main issue is that it just doesn't really feel like Fallout. I mean, it looks like Fallout, but doesn't feel like it, if that makes any sense.

Makes perfect sense. That’s why I couldn’t get into ESO at all.

 

[cavman]

Yeah, but the main difference with this one is that they can't let the fans fix it for them via mods and unofficial patches like they usually do with their games since it's online-only.

My main issue is that it just doesn't really feel like Fallout. I mean, it looks like Fallout, but doesn't feel like it, if that makes any sense.

Mods are planned with private servers. But I don’t like the game regardless. Feels so empty and boring.

 

[Jack Brickman]

Mods are planned with private servers. But I don’t like the game regardless. Feels so empty and boring.

Exactly. Not having cities/towns with NPCs to give you additional quests was a big mistake, and I don't think the presence of other players adds much.

It feels like a mix of Rust and Destiny but it's somehow worse than both and it also runs like a hot pile of dog shit on my PC, which could play games like Witcher 3 on the highest settings so I don't really think it's the problem.

 

[TyGuy]

Got a Fallout 76 beta invite from a friend and played for about two hours. It's kind of like Fallout if they took out the stuff that made Fallout fun. You know...all the NPCs, the story, the solitary survival and sense of exploring a lonely, hostile world.

But what if you don't like NPCs and prefer non programmed/scripted dialogue? We have plenty of people that can do a an amazing job role-playing as an NPC anyway.

 

[Jack Brickman]

But what if you don't like NPCs and prefer non programmed/scripted dialogue? We have plenty of people that can do a an amazing job role-playing as an NPC anyway.

Then I guess this game is for you. I found it boring as fuck. It's Fallout without the story, and the best part of Fallout is always the stories you encounter in the game.

But if you don't like NPC's, it sounds like you don't like story-based games in general, so not sure why you'd be a Fallout fan in the first place since it has historically been a story-driven RPG franchise all about how your decisions can impact the world around you.

There's none of that in the new game. Your decisions inherently can't impact the world around you, because you have to share that world with a bunch of other assholes who might make different decisions than you as they follow the same path.

The game is basically just grinding for grinding's sake. You grind so you can craft new things to grind some more to craft new things. The problem is that there's a lack in payoff. Because the story can never really go anywhere, you're basically just running around grabbing crafting ingredients and killing things without much reason behind it. Ostensibly you're supposed to be rebuilding society, but we know that's not going to happen, so it's all a pointless trek to craft new and better shit so you can go find materials to craft newer and betterer shit. That, to me, is boring.

Grinding needs to have a purpose. A payoff. For example, you have to grind a lot in Witcher 3 to level up all the way, but your decisions have an actual impact on how the game plays out, and the whole point of the game is to advance the story and see how things end for Geralt, who is a fully-developed character in his own right. I've been playing Odyssey, another game that has a lot of grinding required, but the payoff there is story revelations and plot twists in addition to new and better gear.

All Fallout 76 has is the quest for new and better gear, and that's just not enough in and of itself to me, especially in a game with Fallout in the title. A game needs something more, or it needs to be fun enough that the gameplay loop alone justifies the time spent playing it (like Team Fortress 2, for example). But the gameplay in Fallout 76 is worse than the gameplay in previous Fallout games, and the game runs like a wet pile of dog shit.

 

[Walter White]

Been hoping for decent multiplayer survivor games on Ps4 for a long time. Thought Fallout 76 might be the one, but reviews don't look great and I haven't been that impressed with the gameplay I've seen (although I haven't seen that much).

The Forest is coming out tomorrow for Ps4 though so hopefully it is optimized well. That's a game I have wanted to try for a very long time but never had a PC.

 

[Ren]

FO76 needed the survival aspect to carry it. Right now, it's very shallow. I hate that you can see everyone on the map. I hate that you have to flag for PVP. Survival games are fun if you actually have to struggle to survive. What is the threat of danger from other players in this game?

They have a lot of work to do to make this game a success.

 

[Stark]

The Forest is coming out tomorrow for Ps4 though so hopefully it is optimized well. That's a game I have wanted to try for a very long time but never had a PC.

wait what?

I can't believe I didn't hear about this.

 

[gourimoko]

Then I guess this game is for you. I found it boring as fuck. It's Fallout without the story, and the best part of Fallout is always the stories you encounter in the game.

But if you don't like NPC's, it sounds like you don't like story-based games in general, so not sure why you'd be a Fallout fan in the first place since it has historically been a story-driven RPG franchise all about how your decisions can impact the world around you.

There's none of that in the new game. Your decisions inherently can't impact the world around you, because you have to share that world with a bunch of other assholes who might make different decisions than you as they follow the same path.

The game is basically just grinding for grinding's sake. You grind so you can craft new things to grind some more to craft new things. The problem is that there's a lack in payoff. Because the story can never really go anywhere, you're basically just running around grabbing crafting ingredients and killing things without much reason behind it. Ostensibly you're supposed to be rebuilding society, but we know that's not going to happen, so it's all a pointless trek to craft new and better shit so you can go find materials to craft newer and betterer shit. That, to me, is boring.

Grinding needs to have a purpose. A payoff. For example, you have to grind a lot in Witcher 3 to level up all the way, but your decisions have an actual impact on how the game plays out, and the whole point of the game is to advance the story and see how things end for Geralt, who is a fully-developed character in his own right. I've been playing Odyssey, another game that has a lot of grinding required, but the payoff there is story revelations and plot twists in addition to new and better gear.

All Fallout 76 has is the quest for new and better gear, and that's just not enough in and of itself to me, especially in a game with Fallout in the title. A game needs something more, or it needs to be fun enough that the gameplay loop alone justifies the time spent playing it (like Team Fortress 2, for example). But the gameplay in Fallout 76 is worse than the gameplay in previous Fallout games, and the game runs like a wet pile of dog shit.

This.

I'm a huge Fallout fan, and this game is a massive disappointment....

 

[gourimoko]

FO76 needed the survival aspect to carry it. Right now, it's very shallow. I hate that you can see everyone on the map. I hate that you have to flag for PVP. Survival games are fun if you actually have to struggle to survive. What is the threat of danger from other players in this game?

They have a lot of work to do to make this game a success.

I agree with all of this too... Had it truly been a survival game, it'd have been something completely different. Maybe that would've worked. But I figured what Bethesda meant by "survival" was what Obsidian implied in New Vegas, which was just a Hardcore mode that forced you to eat, drink, sleep and made you far more conscious of radiation and your health.

As I wrote in a post months ago, I was fairly confident that they were just going to take FO4, and repurpose it into a multiplayer game; and that's basically what they did, simply removing VATS slow-down and enforcing "Survival" mode.

It's definitely a let down. And this'll be the very first Fallout game since the original that I really won't spend any time playing. It's a damned shame...

 

[Surge]

I haven't played Call Of Duty in several years but I'm having a blast with Black Ops 4. So far I've only played multiplayer team death match.

 

[Walter White]

wait what?

I can't believe I didn't hear about this.

Yeah, I literally just saw it yesterday. I think they announced it the day before it was happening as far as I know. I think it was known to be in the works like a couple years ago but finally is happening.

Have you played it? Curious on opinions of the game. The only thing that I don't like is that the cannibalism seems to be going a bit far.