FO 76 / BGS Debate Topic

[zanity]

My hunch is that it will fall flat. Not twitchy enough for the FPS / BG crowd (you need a much more fleshed out combat system for that), not laid-back, rpg'ish and persistent enough for the long time single player fans.

 

It could however be a fun game catering for its own crowd and maybe even better; a prequel to further developments where a vast and persistent FO or TES world can both be multiplayer and RPG friendly, with dedicated RP servers, crews fighting over resources, PVE instances, base building, etc. i.e. a full fledged mmorpg like EVE online. That would be a positive future in my book. As roleplaying in single player games means we are always dependent on Bethesda writers for immersion, which can't compare with the amount of roleplaying potential and player created 'content' brought by a like minded crowd of players. (I wish they hired the FONV writers on FO4 tbh).

 

However ... I don't have Bethesda high in my book in regards to decision making. A game like that would require careful balancing between PVP and PVE minded people, a balance which few companies ever pulled off.

 

So far it seems they are throwing the biggest USP's of the franchise out with the bath water (open modding and a vast, persistent gameworld), and that can't end well for us, I expect.

 

/skeptical

Let's take your points one by one.

 

1) The 'twitch' FPS nonsense. Twitch FPS games are a FRACTION of the online biz. The one thing I'd never accuse Howard of is going after the 'COD'/'Battlefield' biz. The ONLY people claiming this are Skyrim/Fallout fans who have ZERO knowledge of gaming outside their own direct experience. Being ignorant is not a crime. But using one's own ignorance in advance of an argument is palin daft. Please Google RUST and rust-like games and learn a little about the archetypes that Fallout:76 is inspired by.

 

And actually, until the mega success of Fortnite (originally created by the 'people can fly' Polish peeps of Painkiller fame), online FPSs were NOT the big online money spinners. Fallout:76 predates the recent success of Fortnite.

 

2) "prequel to further developments"- this is an even bigger nonsense. As you yourself note, TES (a game BGS could never have made themselves) already exists and proves the point of standard online RPG play. Fallout:76 has literally nothing to do with the TES genre, by design.

 

Is Borderlands 3 in any way based on the disasterous flop Gearbox insisted on making after Borderlands 2? Of course not. Arrogantly making a half-baked game against your own fan base wirshes (in order to cash in on some perceived industry trend) is NEVER a technical learning experience.

 

3) "balancing between PvP and PvE". Is that like making curry flavoured ice cream because some people like ice cream and curry? Can't you see what a conceptual nonsense that is in the sense you mean it (purposely blending two game genres).

 

People don't get fallout:76 because they refuse to look where it came from. I've tried to explain over and over. It NEVER came from a point of sane game design. It never came from a TOP DOWN process. It came from industry worst management practices- ie., Todd is God.

 

In the beginning was a vague idea of getting some netcode in the Fallout 4 project, and seeing if there was a simple way of solving the STATE issues that happen when more than one Human plays Skyrim or Fallout 3/4 at the same time. The removal of NPCs in Fallout:76 proves that many years later, Beth still couldn't figure out how to solve this.

 

Then came Todd's cynical purchase of Battlecry, and the inital failure to find anything for this team to do. On the verge of Zenimax shuttering Battlecry, their work on some form of Fallout multiplay became their lifeline.

 

At no time was Todd designing a game. Having a new "do it on the GPU" engine crafted for some future open world titles was a no-brainer for Todd given the growing size of internal BGS resources. But this engine used in Fallout:76 is a rotten joke compared to any AAA work from other publishers, and focuses on being very light weight rather than sophistication in environmental rendering. Fallout:76's engine is really a high-end mobile engine (aimed at the latest Nvidia Tegra parts, or Apple's best ioS parts).

 

Settlements become CAMPS in Fallout:76- a handful of 3d sprites.

 

Gameplay in Fallout:76 thus becomes whatever the brains trust thinks they can drop into this system. Tedious pointless crafting passed off as 'gameplay' in a world where it is a different instance each time you log in. Pew pew against the other Human or computer controlled sprites, for no good reason at all. Death, after all, is meanigless (as Todd has stated so many times). Permanent character progression, for there is nothing so fun for a player than finding out the other randos on the game are so much more advanced.

 

None of this is 'gameplay'- all of this is simple desperation- which is why the public demo (sold as a 'beta') happens on the Xbox a few weeks before the game releases.

 

Where did the inspiration for Fallout:76, Rust, come from? Like so many online experiences, from modders who subverted the online play in one game into something quite different. But Beth will never ever allow unofficial modding of Fallout:76. Official gameplay modding by outside users would, to Todd, be an agreement that the game had failed. Which means that after release the game has to be fundamentally altered by the self same people who could not think of a single good thing in the original dev period (3-4 years?).

 

I'm not privvy to inside tech knowledge of Beth's netcode, but from the released videos, and noclip doc, and constant talk of 32 players max, I think the netcode is clearly junk. Fortnite does ONE HUNDRED, with a complex world with real time destruction and unlimited building across the entire map. Fortnite's netcode could score 10, which would make PUBG's netcode 3 or less, and Fallout:76 is looking like a 1 or 2. Beth's insane reluctance to even allow internal gameplay demoes to invited peeps (as CDPR did with the very unfinished Cyberpunk) is the biggest red flag in the world.

 

Real journos would want to see those 32 players all on the same screen - to witness the robustness of the netcode. They'd also want to be shown the POINT of the game.

 

Today Fallout:76's main feature is a big map, lightly filled with low density building features. No major towns or cities- the new engine doesn't do that. No computer controlled CHARACTERS- the online state engine can't handle them. No vehicles- Todd won't allow them, saying they signify a RAGE post apocalypse, not Fallout.

 

No settlement building- the rando game instance feature makes such an idea pointless.

 

We suppose some team vs enemy action for the radiant quest system. Which means scalable enemies matching leveled up players. Yet none of this 'obvious' gameplay has been shown or discussed in any detail by Todd. Because Todd makes it painfully clear this is the TES path he doesn't really care about in Fallout:76. Todd is all about PvP- the RUST survival inspiration.

 

Yet every time you log in you enter a random map instance with 31 other randos. YOUR survival has to start from scratch on a server where the other randos have been playing for random prior periods. This is SO NONSENSICAL, it makes the laughable promises made by the Star Citizen team look gold-plated by comparison.

 

Being of a technical background, I cannot help but dissect the known facts of Fallout:76. 100% of Fallout:76's potential success comes from ROLLOVER good will biz from Fallout 4 and Skyrim. Like a film sequel that stinks in every way still earning 60% of its well received predecessor. But this does NOT mean the film or game is good, or that punters are glad they spent their money on the sequel.

 

But Todd is 100% focused on 'cosmetic' (loot box like) sales on the CC- the first of these Beth games to have official modding only. Part of Todd's thinking is that if players pretty much only have cosmetic junk to differentiate their Fallout:76 experience- and that experience is already dire- then maybe, just maybe, the direness will actually boost cosmetic sales. But who wants to waste more money on a AAA title that is no fun to game in?

 

It gets worse. Streamers... There was a dreadful no-hoper battle-royale game relesased a few weeks back. No actual players (literally). But tons of game journos and streamers playing the game for the lols and clicks.

 

Todd knows Fallout:76 will have a period of extreme streaming success. Steamers do NOT care if a game if good. THEY only care about the 'drama' just like Todd. And streamers can give the impression of a success where there is none. And curiously by doing so sometimes granting celeb status to a game that actually brings in new players. And streamers LOVE bling. And streamers LOVE being paid to promote things.

 

Which means a big publisher can knowing release a total cr-pfest and yet know that disgusting social engineering can bring in a metric ton of sucker sales (see 'No Man's Sky' for a perfect example).

 

E3 proved Todd Howard is no longer in the good game biz. Weaponised social engineering in the game biz is where Todd thinks the new action is. And he said this loud and clear.

 

Todd is no moron. He sees the success of TES that Zenimax forced on Todd (TES is not a BGS game). He knows that having outside devs work on Skyrim and Fallout trad successors would cost Zenimax pennies (in industry terms), deliver new titles every couple of years from each external dev, and guarantee many hundreds of millions of dollars of profit for each title. He knows these traditional works would be loved by Beth's core IP fans.

 

Yet Todd clearly refuses to do this, and the posts I respond to NEVER EVER question why. I'm responding to a post that postulates Beth might be on the path to radical new gameplay modes in Fallout- when the same poster fails to notice Fallout ALREADY has a game design capable of being exploited again and again and again- cheaply with certain success.

 

It's as if Ford sez "we won't make cars with 4 wheels again, but trust us you'll love our new flying cars that we haven't a clue how to build". And people who use Ford cars, instead of saying "WTF", argue the merits of Ford's new 'flying' cars that won't.

 

And the real question no-one wants to answer. Why is Fallout:76 not Rage:Online instead. If Todd had even one percent confidence in this new gameplay idea, he wouldn't leech on the trad Fallout fanbase.

[mrmini]

The biggest hurdle I actually see is pretty much every survival game I've seen is been smaller studios starting out as early access. Meaning they all start out smaller and buggier and get slightly betterish. the only other real attempt was Metal Gear Survive and i'm not actually counting that. So 76 is our first real attempt by a bigger company.

The real question is can you attract the Ark, Rust, No Man's Sky players? the Fallout base is not multiplayer fans I get that, and any modding will be done on offline and private servers (which I think Beth should go full in on, they can rent them out, and people can play together how they see fit)

 

So yeah, I'm hopeful for this for the most part and generally don't think Bethesda does anything to terribly. Granted it think this massive amount of cycism in modern gaming is its downfall.

 

So my advice if this doesn't work for you, that's ok and Starfield is right around the corner.

[dikr]

 

*Long post starting of as a critical reply but rapidly evolving into another Bethesda / Tod Howard themed essay*

 

Hey Zanity, not sure where you get the time and energy from to get so invested in the whole FO76 pre-launch discussion with all the lengthy replies and the topics you started but it sure as hell isn't worth mine to argue about the details. At least not at this stage. I merely voiced some ideas I have about a potential good direction (in my personal view), and a lot of bad ideas that I'm very skeptical of and in which I'm probably in the same camp as you are.

 

You yourself wrote somewhere else that we can only truly judge the game when it is been released for a year. I have subscribed to that piece of wisdom with every game purchase since the release of Age of Conan and will leave it at that. We shall see how it all pans out and what effect the fallout will have (pun intended).

 

I recently read a book called "The subtle art of not giving a f*ck" by Mark Manson, pointing out to its readers that you need to be very selective in the things you get invested in on route to a happy and fulfilling life and I can recommended it wholeheartedly.

 

Cheers,

 

dikr

[J3tAc3]

(quote)

Darn good read!

[AlarictheVisgoth]

Will be interesting to see if they go the red head unnatural first born of Exceptional A$$h@ts & C* games.

 

Take that shaft-the-single-player-for-the-shareholders-money-making route. Add insult to injury by ganking the majority SP population with this online aberration. Which --given Howard's insistence this is not a Fallout prequel (despite fact it has already influenced 18+ years of franchise lore based on it's Vault opening date) but an independent title -- they couldn't even be bothered with giving a new/distinct franchise name? Permanently defile the franchise by adding:

• introduce better, non monetary online store micro transactions in form of Vault boy NUKE! cash cards
• Add drip feed DLC which feature the latest pop culture celebs
• succumb to player PR pressure & lie about making the game too survivalist-RUSTy to appease survivalist try hards
• succumb to player PR pressure & lie about making the game too DOTA/PUBG-ish to appease PvP & achiever try hards
• succumb to player PR pressure & lie about making the game too GTAO/CoD-ish to appease PvP & griefer troll try hards
• succumb to player PR pressure & lie about not making the game too GTAO/CoD-ish to appease PvE minded gamers i.e. releasing a weak passive mode? that would encourage PvP griefing
• lie about making the game griefer & cheater free due to poor in game moderation
• lie about server performance aka have a sh#tty P2P server connection/dynamic the way GTAO has been dysfunctionally operated since day #1
• lie about not hiding the best content behind paywalls
• lie about future 3rd party content & make CC the sole official source for mods, thereby obsoleting the Nexus
• List of paranoia too long here.

Regardless, I personally (and spitefully) hope F76 will follow the epic swan dive KCD (and it's even buggier unfinished DLC) did in the industry. And break KCD's record for being a non existent entity on Steam's top 100 popular games within 3 months of release. /end of rant> :laugh:

Edited August 9, 2018 by AlarictheVisgoth

[AlarictheVisgoth]

"....Today only Howard and Hines are allowed to officially talk about Fallout:76. Few notice how insane this is. But Howard, a STUDIO HEAD, has the last word hands-on control of Fallout:76 gameplay. Do you know how awful it is when a film producer takes creative control of a movie? Howard should be the last person at Beth with control of gameplay, but in the case of Fallout:76 it is clear that only his vision directs this title.

...."

It's painfully clear Howard is in the grips of a belated midlife crisis.

Some men reassert themselves of their physical prowess by undertaking a grueling physical challenge like an iron man triathalon.

Some men cheat on their significant others.

Howard cheats on his entire franchise fan base......

".....We want more Fallout and more Skyrim- each new title of which is likely to earn Zenimax another BILLION dollars. Is this a crime?..."

To make this an effective reality, BGS & Howard NEED TO PUT QUALITY RPG STORY WRITERS ON THEIR STAFF. THEY NOW HAVE THE $$$$ AND RESOURCES TO MAKE THIS A REALITY SO WTF NOT FFS? Instead of bringing Obsidian devs into the fold & healing the legal rift NV created, BGS/ZoS inflamed the issue. And now Howard has adopted the irreversible hard line stance behind the ZoS rally cry of "Never ever a NV again". In order for future TES 6 & Fallout (if these are truly going to be an SP reality with ZERO online elements) to be successful, they'll need high quality writers.

FO4 dropped a few noticeable slots in Steam top 100 lately. Wonder what's pushing this? Could adverse PR pressure be a reason why FO4/Skyrim legendary editions are being released at a massive 60% discount on Steam this week? To keep the fan base preoccupied and/or distracted from F76 developmental status? Hmmm.......

Edited August 10, 2018 by AlarictheVisgoth

[AlarictheVisgoth]

 

Anyway, to answer OP:

 

Pros:

-- It's something different.

-- It isn't impacting the release of single-player TES, Fallout, and Starfield games.

 

Cons

-- Probably trash.

-- If it isn't trash, its success may impact the release of single-player TES, Fallout, and Starfield games.

 

That's what ZoS said about ESO before they canonized ESO's bastardized lore with that anorexic dragon break excuse of theirs.

 

TES (and Fallout) lore and culture is being watered down.

 

TES (and Fallout) fan base is being invaded by Dark Souls/Rust hard @$$hat try hards, PvP minded/online FPS trolls who've tired of grief fest ganking the likes of Ark etc.

 

You just need to look at the cesspool ePeen bragfest the F76 forums have devolved into. The number of new fan boy account profiles registered there since start of this summer. The number of socially challenged morons with new accounts who've already been banned for flaming & trolling on the forum. The number of village idiots who're already making vapid, superficial theads the likes of "Will you be a griefer or non griefer" polls. The "Oops! Will you do unfriendly fire" type threads. The "Please Bethesda, make this a MMO/more PvP hardcore" threads. The semi naked players in raider armor and war paint with xxXPoudinPu$$yh@tXxx gamer names everywhere....

 

FML. The BGS forums is organic proof of the extent in toxicity that the Fallout fan base has devolved to since E3 earlier this summer.

Edited August 10, 2018 by AlarictheVisgoth

[zanity]

"

It's painfully clear Howard is in the grips of a belated midlife crisis.

Some men reassert themselves of their physical prowess by undertaking a grueling physical challenge like an iron man triathalon.

Some men cheat on their significant others.

Howard cheats on his entire franchise fan base......

There's a psychological reason too. Todd defines his career as the 'creator' of the Elder Scrolls and (new) Fallout IP- which is a complte falsehood. Instead, as a PRODUCER, Todd has ensured a faith-like financial 'belief' in the Elder Scrolls franchise, and in this SINGLE sense Todd has been important. But the creatives behind the two franchises have been anyone BUT Todd.

 

Now many excellent game IPs have bit the dust cos of grossly incompetent producers- Britain should have been a powerhouse of game publishing, for instance, because of its history of insanely good coders and artists. But British game producers (at a studio level) are the worst on the planet, and rejoiced in always screwing over the actual talent. Many of the world's best games come from Britain today, but are published by foreign labels (see Rockstar's Red Dead 2 for a prime example).

 

So in this ONE sense, Todd did a grand job, But now Todd's ego has exploded (and yeah- I'm sure that mid-life crisis you mention certainly is a factor). At the same time he's handled the post Fallout 4 key franchise projects (mostly Star Field) in the most hopeless way possible (we now know Starfield is in the same state as Cyberpunk at CDPR during the dev time of Witcher 3, ie., it has gone literally nowhere across the 4+ years Beth was supposedly working on it, and now Todd uses the excuse of waiting for the new console hardware from 2019 or later).

 

But Todd had a trump card to play to his Zenimax bosses. Sell them on the pie-in-the-sky 'gaming as a service' nonsense for Fallout. Everyone in the biz knows 'gaming as a service' is a concept loved by terrible software houses for the belief that software in that sector can be far more primitive than AAA single player stuff.

 

But who cares? Who cares? All that really matters is that if Todd were not such a nasty egomaniac, he would have met the real fans half-way by using 'down the side of the couch' Zenimax change to fund quick sequels to Skyrim and Fallout 4 using existing tools and engines provided to external devs.

 

Todd's Toxic Army tells us it would be "BAD" if Todd ever allowed another Fallout NV situation. No reason- just that Todd doesn't want it- so therefore it must be, by definition "bad". Of course smart peeps know if an external dev had great critical success with, say Skyrim 2 (the mainstream audience that loved Skyrim would rather have a grounded Witcher like Skyrim 2 than a high-fantasy new Elder Scrolls region- and it would be far easier anyway for an external dev to do Skyrim 2) then Todd, having nothing for probably the next 3-5 years from BGS (proper entry in a major IP), would be fatally humiliated in the eyes of Zenimax.

 

And YES, Starfield, currently the next major franchise entry, is that far from release. I went from assuming Starfield was to be announced at this year's E3 to understanding it would take a miracle for it to release even 3 years hence after carefully studying everything Todd and co revealed. If you know how this industry works, you know what state a project is in when the lead producer allows enough data to slip.

 

This makes Fallout:76 the most important game release of Todd's career to date. He has screwed up that badly as the studio head. An experimental title in gaming's most dangerous and difficult genre becomes the make-or-break release for Beth's top boys.

 

Needless to say, in any media biz, you do NOT wage war on your loyal fanbase with any make-or-break project. Todd has broken every rule of this biz (or the book, film, TV and music biz).

 

Of course, in the film, music and film biz, if a major corporation can knock out a cheap quick sequel guaranteed to see at least 80% of the success of the last, they'd kneel down and thank the gods. Not so Todd.

 

And Zenimax. Well they follow the rule of foolish investors. Absolute trust in stock that has always delivered so far. Where are the industry experts at Zenimax keeping an eye on their companies? Zenimax can force Beth to do whatever they wish.

 

Final thought. In the same world, same biz, and same release period that sees the insanely good RDR2 from Rockstar (I literally could not believe the tech achievements of their gameplay PS4 pro demo released today- the engine and assets look that good on a now primitive AMD APU), A company equally big and rich releases the utterly pitiful Fallout:76. RDR2 has insane single player (NOT 'solo' player) and insane multi-player and will make all the money in the world as gamers and critics alike struggle to avoid drowning in their own drool. From the horrific GTA 3 engine thru the astonishing GTA 4, GTA 5, and now GTA 6 engines, look how far Rockstar has travelled. Now compare to Bethesda, and weep.