Who is FO76's Target Audience?

[RS13]

I keep getting the feeling that Beth misread the reaction of fallout 4. That they got a large group of folks together, and asked "what was your favorite aspect of the game?". The reaction of many myself included would be the city building. Why the answer could be misleading is, I didn't buy the game for that feature, nor would I have bought the game at all if I knew the quests sucked that bad.

 

Yeah, this seems right. I bet this is exactly what happened, and it's why they seem surprised that there's not much excitement for this.

[mrmini]

Personally, I always thought Fallout 4 was fine gameplay wise. Story its ok, (and this is coming from someone who thought New Vegas's plot was lazy and dumb except for side quests) Personally I belive this is really for players of survival games. I've been saying though this is not Fallout 4.5 nor 5, its a survival game with the Fallout IP.

[blastcannon33]

I dont get how Tod thought that this was a good idea we asked for co-op before but that was a option and it was co-op through the main story with one other person but no instead we get another ark basically just fallout period. and the thing about fo1 too fo4 is that all these games are targeted too rpg players and people who enjoy the lore of fallout of which fallout 76 lacks both of these. i watched all the hype in you-tubers and the ones at e3 die when Tod said online multiplayer and then die completely when later when he was talking on a show saying there is only multiplayer.

[pitstop25]

I am still unsure if I will get it or not. Having played all the FO games with FO4 being the best. Lossing single player not being a part of the game is a huge ball drop by beth. Its one of the reasons I love FO4 so much and then there are the mods wow, man makes me want to cry seeing what they have done to this game. Looks like I will defiantly be playing Fo4 for many years to come and live in the hope that FO5 will right the wrongs of FO76

[MrJoseCuervo]

13 year olds with ADD, mom's credit card and a gaming addiction.

Edited June 28, 2018 by MrJoseCuervo

[AlarictheVisgoth]

TL;DR Children as young as 8th grade. And the achievement oriented, casual but competitive gaming crowd (99.999 % PvP oriented)

 

Long version:

 

if you've played any PvP/survivalist games like GTAO, Rust, CoD or competitive PvE games like ESO etc etc F76 is clearly meant for the casual gamer

 

More specifically, 8th grader squeaking griefers who will swarm the servers en mass looting, murdering, pillaging, and hording every player, settlement, NPC & resource node they can kill/scavenge. Down to the smallest textured blade of grass

 

Basically take a look at all the new player accounts that have been created over at Bethesda.net over the last 30days. 100% of them are from competitive PvP games like RUST, Ark, ESO, GTAO etc etc. Some of the more toxic ones have already received bans for the aggressive and pugilistic attitude they've been displaying towards other long time forum members. Because unfortunately, this is the way in which they've been accustomed to interacting with players on PvP forums.

 

I mean seriously, in my 18+ years of playing the TES/Fallout franchises, I've NEVER encountered the need for a thread like this

 

https://bethesda.net/community/topic/217870/griefing-pvp-tips-from-a-guy-that-pvps-suggestions-welcome

 

another topic that would've never been reality if it hadn't been for F76. And a paradigm example of what forum moderation will be like under BGS admin increased surveillance of the forums (historic first). A good number of members posting in this thread were new forum members (as in under a month). The majority of them were new Fallout/BGS gamers from other competitive PvP franchises like RUST/Ark etc. And so unsurprisingly, most of these new folks got banned/warned for flaming, trolling, troll baiting, hostile/aggressive attitudes etc etc. The inmates are already in process of taking over the asylum IMO:

 

https://bethesda.net/community/topic/216569/what-about-a-pve-server-would-threaten-your-pvp-enjoyment?page=1

Edited June 29, 2018 by AlarictheVisgoth

[zanity]

TL;DR Children as young as 8th grade. And the achievement oriented, casual but competitive gaming crowd (99.999 % PvP oriented)

 

Long version:

...

Excellent comment. You'd think Beth has chosen to throw their OLD loyal player-base under a bus, and initiated a future where these people are to be the new Beth customers. Oh wait, that's exactly what Todd announced at E3, as he put on his 'O' face while talking about the size of the playerbase for Fallout Shelter.

 

Now he assumes he gets the old 'suckers' that bought Skyrim and Fallout 3/4 'for free', the standard corporate cynicism when an old customer base has nowhere else to go.

 

But it's worse than this- far worse. OUR outlets will see corporate moderation killing OUR response to Fallout:76 when it betas then releases. I notice my F2P thread got locked- such comments hit far too close to home, and I guess the mighty Zenimax doesn't like that. We all have to pretend Zenimax is honest, and if it makes a 'mistake'- well then it was an 'honest' mistake.

 

One can now see Zenimax money BUYING the 'new' Youtube 'influencers', as clickbait after clickbait channel with astonishing viewer figures sing the praises of Fallout:76, and 'explain' how Todd has successfully put all the fears to bed.

 

Like how the recent FLOP movie, Gotti, got glowing visitor (not pro) reviews at Rotten Tomatoes. Money talks- and few outlets that will talk about (or host mods) Fallout:76 will dare to allow Beth to be seriously dissed, no matter what happens.

 

And this Orwellian rewriting of history, as the original fans discover that Fallout:76 is far worse than they feared, will turn the original fans off Beth even more. Beth has to stomp us into silence- and no that never mean 'NO' voice (not in the internet age)- just a voice that no-one hears, cos the sponsored voices are a million times louder.

 

Does anyone here state that Beth has no right to enter whatever area of gaming they so wish? Of course not. The rightful claim is that Beth had no right to make Fallout 5 this griefer infested nonsense named as Fallout:76. Rage would have been the perfect IP for this experiment (and allowed vehicles- the lack of which makes FO:76 even more of a nonsense). Or a BRAND NEW IP- you know like how most griefer based PvP games are initiated.

 

Rage or a new IP would have allowed Beth to go wild on the promotion of chaotic griefing. To have whipped up a frenzy of excitement amongst the crowd you so perfectly describe, since griefer based games are almost never AAA developments, without offending a single existing Beth fan.

 

And I'll remind us all again of the GREAT BETH LIE. That existing fans of Fallout and Skyrim had asked for this form of online play. Todd has repeated this LIE over and over, and has his Youtube influencers use this lie to bash us. Each of us here know that what fans asked for was the ability to CO-OP play the oldschool games AS-IS, with one or two friends.

 

Todd's very need to stand behind his horrific management choices (with have culminated with all THREE Beth locations forced now to work on Fallout:76) means that he considers himself at war with the original fans, just as Disney placed itself at war with the original fans of Star Wars (and then paid online PR activities to demonise said fans). And Todd has not stated, over and over, that GRIEFING is the spice that adds DRAMA to his game for no reason. The no-clip doc showed that the F2P team considered 12 vs 12 deathmatch to be their best idea for Fallout:76. Todd has purposely made ZERO mention of such game modes- he obviously nixxed such basic competitive play.

 

However, I still don't get who Fallout:76 will really appeal too. Todd's own words prove he is an OLD MAN 'hipster' who thinks he is "down with the kids", but is so out-of-touch with actual young players attitudes it is hilarious. But this gives Todd an excuse to fallback on the addiction gaming expert advise from the most cancerous voices in this industry. I don't think the griefing in Fallout:76 will be 'fun' to the smallest degree- that post you quoted about JUMPING to irritate grief another player is about it- bored griefing rather than 'constructive' griefing.

 

Beth will, I assume, allow 'private' servers fairly soon (UNLESS all serving is done SERVER side, in which case private servers would add too much expense, due to serious underutilisation most of the day). But this will be 'small potatoes' since by 'private' server, Beth simply means a server where you KNOW who is also on it (rather than the current "fill an instance with 24 randos"). If the game is as lame as it seems, the enthusiasm for arranging significant action of 'private' servers will be low.

 

If Todd thought a decent LOBBY service would boost the game (currently Todd boasts there is NO lobby, and you are immediately thrown into a random game instance with 23 randos- unheard of with this genre), he would have had a lobby system created. It speaks volumes he did not.

 

So again, I don't think this game is for anyone, but is the great experiment to get addiction gaming mechanisms perfected for the always online Starfield. Starfield has now been clearly delayed until AFTER the new 7nm based consoles arrive, and Beth can take the time to work out all the online systems they need.

[HadToRegister]

Well, I'm certainly not the target audience
I grew up on single player games on the C64, then Atari 1040STE, then PC before there was an "Online"

I loathe PVP and Co-Op play, and all of my friends also hate Online and Co-Op play, so I won't buy it because I dislike the things I mentioned and none of my friends are likely to buy it either because they like Single Player as well.
The only multiplayer my friends and I do is PnP D&D

[mrmini]

that's ok, I like both so I will probably buy it.

[S3r1ous]

With Fallout 4 they seemed to go even further away from RPG elements and tried to capture FPS market and people who like to build things, and introduce systems that randomize and generate quests instead of handcrafted ones, resulting in way blander world

With FO76 they are going to the deep end with this by completely prioritizing on Multiplayer (always online) along with the things i mentioned earlier, it wont be even as good as fo4 storywise, it will be more of shell to fit more people in

Devs these days have real annoying habit of prioritizing new audiences over quality products,

just like the movie business had developed this after the golden age ended(were worse off now),

its all about money for publishers that are enticing them to do this

Theres always ways to do this without alienating the people who played earlier titles,

who will gladly spend a lot on what they like, hell if one had just kept up with bar they set earlier that would have been atleast a pass, because ok you are trying new ideas but replacing the good ones with temperoary experiments that end up worse instead of mixing it in real carefully to further the thing along as a whole and keep all that you know really works

maybe completely different and improved modern takes that still keep on going, improve upon the base products and introduce a lot of things that people will like will be innovation and really catch on

Thats why theres such a large gap between devs and indies who make stuff on their own

(or are their of own publishers, like many of these polish devs, CD Projekt Red, Techland etc)

and everything that comes out of big business, ofcourse there are exceptions to this as well

Edited July 3, 2018 by S3r1ous