Confirmed- fallout76 nerfed 'settlements'

[zanity]

The disaster of Fallout76 continues to unfold (most of you are still in denial).

 

IGN has a new video interview with Todd today. He EXPLICITLY confirms those tiny trivial 'settlements' from the release videos are as big as they get- like I said in another thread, Fallout76 uses a 'land first' new engine where other details are simply 3d 'sprites'. Your 'settlement' can be a handful of these 3d sprites- nothing like the settlements seen in Fallout 4.

 

Sim-settlements the mod is a trillion times more advanced than the settlement system in Fallout76 (confirmed from Todd's own mouth).

 

PS Todd still cannot say how many player slots Beth is going to enable in the finished Fallout76, after the game is more than 4/5ths finished. That is just how uncertain Beth still is about the 'emergent gameplay'.

 

Todd still cannot explain how a game owner will prevent rando griefing in a game where the master server ALWAYS fills all the other player slots.

 

Indeed, today, Todd explained how wonderful it might be if in your world, another player set up a 'shop' that could sell you ammo. Oh my, the 'fun' awaiting any sucker who'd lay down a AAA purchase price for this game is clearly without limit.

 

Rust works cos people KNOW what they are getting into with such games. The are the diametric opposite to the Skyrim/Fallout gamer. And it is great that games like Rust exist- more choice is always better.

 

But what would happen if EA announced that COD games would now only appear once every FOUR years, and the next one had the same co-op game play as Unravel 2? COD is not Unravel. Both are great games for their fan bases, but those fan bases want very different thibgs from their gaming experience.

 

The management of Bethesda is now as senile and malicious as one of those bad mad Roman Emperors. And when you end up hating Fallout Rust for being the very type of game you normally try to avoid (as is your right), and say so publically, Beth will excoriate you in the public press just as Disney has excoriated Star Wars fans who hated 'The Last Jedi'. The modern trend is to state that the original fan who made an IP successful in the first place is an EVIL person for suggesting the IP can continue in the same vein as that which made it successful in the first place.

 

It was a trivial and risk free enterprise for Todd to trun over the fallout and skyrim IP to third partiy devs to produce another chapter using essentially the same engine. Such new chapters would each have earned Zenimax well over 800 million dollars each. Yet Todd refused to do this. Even tho core teams at Beth could have still continued working on their versions of the same IP. Why? What mega-corp turns down massive amounts of risk free profit?

 

But Todd does not want the risk of outside devs making him look bad by comparison, and has the clout to sabotage the key IPs from a position of pure profit. The NV fiasco still rankles with Todd- he hated the praise that game received and swore never to put himself in the same position again. An outside dev is welcome to do yet another port of a title associated with Todd, but NOT an original mainline entry.

 

So Fallout Rust is entirely 'out of the brain' of Todd, and we are now seeing exactly what this means.

[Rabbit1251]

Getting rid of Settlements and their Micro-Management has been my dream ever since I started playing Fallout 4. Good riddance, says I!!

 

 

The Rabbit

[SKKmods]

Its a broad church of beliefs out there and I also mostly ignore settlements, but I value the choice to build stuff if I want (one water pump, done).

 

The cost of multiplayer in apparently reduced choice (settlements, mods, NPCs, iron sights or whatever) is driven by tech and dev budget. These decisions and our response suggests that most single player RPG folks who use imaginations to help power worlds are not in the target segment for this product. Move on.

 

No worries, Fallout 4 will not be the high water apex of open world choice forever and I still have plenty of mod concepts to do and play before Fallout 5.

[dikr]

I went through all five stages of grief on this one really quickly, and came to accept that it's going to be a very different kind of game with a Fallout sauce. It's completely in their freedom to milk the franchise as they own it, as it is their freedom to try "new and other stuff". I guess a lot of people are still coming to terms with the fact that this won't be Fallout 5.

 

In that sense we should judge this game by completely different standards. And my guess is, if and when it falls flat, it won't be for the reasons that most people are complaining about now (mods as an afterthought on private servers and maybe CC restricted, "omg reel peeple in ma gaemwurld!", etc.). But it will be for MMO reasons (as it's going to be an MMO!)

 

That means the following as far as I can tell:

 

- If there's mainly shooting and fighting over the same old instances and a little bit of building, people will be bored very soon: you need a ton of appealing, alternative gameplay options in mmo's; social stuff, competitions, group challenges, deep character development, etc.

- The shooting and fighting needs to be top notch with much better combat animations and mechanics to stand up against a ton of other games in the mmo world. (Going prone would be nice for a change).

- If you don't cater to the free for all pvp crowd AS WELL as the pve fans, there's going to be fire and brimstone; best to have dedicated servers for both demographics rather than on the fly anti-grief / invulnerability buttons. (And dedicated RP servers for both demographics too, please.)

- If there's too much instancing or instance switching, the world will not feel whole or perpetual. This will kill one of Bethesda's strongest points.

- If revenue models aren't fair / cash shops are too prominent, there will be more fire and brimstone.

 

The best experience I had playing MMO's were games with a perpetual and rich gameworld without a ton of instancing where people play with roughly the same group on dedicated servers, learn to know each other and carve out a reputation for themselves. Imo this is crucial if they want to preserve the RPG aspect of their games.

 

If there's one reason why this game could appeal to me, despite being a life long fan of single player Beth games and a modder, it would be the RPG aspect, as roleplaying with real and like minded humans beats the bland experience we got from most npc's in FO5 by a mile.

Edited June 12, 2018 by dikr

[Dukoth]

you know: I'd take these discussions far more seriously if people weren't having them EVERY TIME Bethesda released a game

[Thuggysmurf]

 

But Todd does not want the risk of outside devs making him look bad by comparison, and has the clout to sabotage the key IPs from a position of pure profit. The NV fiasco still rankles with Todd- he hated the praise that game received and swore never to put himself in the same position again.

Did Fallout NV make Todd look bad in your eyes, or did it expose Emil Pagliarulo? The primary praise for FNV is that the story and dialogue are superior.

 

Sure, as game director, Todd should have vetoed the 4-option dialogue wheel and invested more resources in story and dialogue for FO4, but does the majority of blame for the lacking RPG elements, story, and dialogue fall on him?

 

BGS has always had a talent gap between world design and story. I look at FO4 and see an HR issue, not a Todd issue.

 

In FO76, Bethesda has focused on their strengths (exploration/world design) and taken their weakest links (quest designers and dialogue writers) out of the equation, while trying to appeal to a larger audience. While I personally may dislike what I've seen of FO76, I can't fault BGS for doing something that makes good business sense.

[SirGalahad]

I don't play MMOs because too many other gamers are complete ******** online. I've no desire to share my Fallout experience with randos or put myself in a position where some basement dweller wrecks my game with the full support and encouragement of a developer

 

I don't have to play Fallout 76. Hell, I just started Fallout 4 a few weeks back. I can instead move on to another game in my library or mod Fallout 3 and 4 for years of continued fun. Moreover, I love Skyrim, but I don't play Elder Scrolls online. In my experience, too many gamers become unbearable behind the curtain of Internet anonymity. I bump into one twit named after genitalia or dancing naked in the town square, and I'm done.

 

And then the thing with settlements? Talk about moving backwards . . . . Very disappointing, but I saw the writing on the wall as soon as Todd showed off the ability to launch nukes. I rank nukes up there with scalpers buying up all the collector's editions before release. So. Much. Fun.

 

Who knows, maybe Bethesda will be able to microtransaction the entire game industry into sharing their mobile-first, nothing matters gaming vision.