Fallout 76

First time I played this was during a free weekend some years ago via Bethesda's own launcher. This was before the game was even on Steam so it was pretty new. Then it released on Steam and in one sale or other I bought it and played it for around 25 hours (this was in May 2020) before Toni said it'd be fun if we played it together. So I stopped playing on my own as to not discover everything about the game by myself and waited to pick it up until we decided to play it together. After Generation Zero this became our new co-op game. 

Both of us loved Fallout 4 and 76 is the same engine and same style so we both expected to really love 76 as well. But it has been a kind of a roller coaster. It nails the Fallout vibe, which we both love, but the gameplay leaves some things to wish for.

To start with it has the most unintuitive multiplayer ever for a multiplayer game. We can't just both start the game or we'll end up in different instances. One of us has to load into the game and then the other person has to go through the Social menu to join that person's game. When we do that we are not automatically in a group (which would make sense since we're actively joining in on each other). We have to invite each other to group even though we just joined each other's games. And even with that grouping seems to have mostly been designed for Events and Daily Ops (dungeons). Questing together is mostly not together. A big chunk of quests have instances that you can enter as team leader or join someone else in your group who's already in, with the caveat that only the team leader gets the quest progression. So if you want to play those instances together you'll have to do it more than once. Each player has to enter as team leader and have the others join to get quest progression. With the result that we mostly solo those places. So even when playing together the game doesn't allow us to play together. I remember that these areas weren't instance-locked the first time I played during the free weekend on Bethesda's launcher and my only guess is that they implemented this change so people wouldn't have to wait around for spawns. Which would be a stupid attempt to solve a problem that every online RPG ever has - other players. 

Daily Ops (dungeons) allow you to be as small groups as two people, but as such a small group it was also pretty damn impossible to complete. At least without using up all our ammo and stimpaks, and dying several times and having our armour parts break...

And that's another complaint we both have: the enemies are too bulletspongy. Legendary class enemies will use up an absurd amount of ammo, and they'll kill you in 3-4 hits so better put your stimpaks on the quick access wheel. But even when they aren't legendary class, some enemies just require too much ammo, both with VATS and without. Super mutants, Yao Guai, Deathclaws, FUCKING ROBOTS... 

We're both trying out builds and mixing and matching perk cards to help with armour/ammo/damage, but the entire level system past level 60 is just way too limiting. I don't need another five cards if I don't have the means to add them without losing something else. Legendary perk cards are too few and far between. Level cap should be at 80 instead of 60. 

I like guns that shoot fast and have big mags so I'm running a Commando build. Bf likes to do a lot of damage so he's running a Shotgunner build. That said even at level 75 I'm running around with three different kinds of automatic rifles, that use different kinds of ammo + a melee weapon as backup should I run out of ammo in THREE RIFLES. Because it has happened. I have also run out of stimpaks on more than one occasion. 

We start every session in good moods and happy to get back into it. But every session is marred by some annoyance. 

One thing that always annoys me is how you can't fast travel anywhere in this game without getting slapped in the face with a Daily Quest when you arrive. Stop throwing them in my face! Just put a fricking exclamation mark on the map like everyone else. FFS. If I'm going somewhere it's probably because I have a quest pointing me there. So I'm already on a quest. Usually a quest that I can't do an infinite amount of times and so I will prioritize that. Just stop cluttering my journal.

Another annoyance is the imbalance between resources and the appalling scarcity of some constantly needed resources. Ballistic fiber is rare af and required for basically every repair ever. Lead is required to craft the ammo I need. Bf needs plastic for his ammo. And modding requires adhesive. So we're running around a post-apocalyptic world picking up every pencil, duct tape, glue, toy, and plastic plate (and fight over the few pieces of ballistic fiber) that we can find, until we're overencumbered. Which doesn't take long and we spend about 80% of every session as overencumbered. 

We don't hate the game, either of us, but it would be a massively improved experience if we didn't have to get annoyed each session. And we will continue playing it at least as long as there are quests to do (not dailies; actual quests) and maybe it will get better as time goes on. But if SPECIAL is capped at 60 then it shouldn't take until level 100+ for the gameplay and mechanics to become good. Usually online games struggle with endgame, but in the case of 76 it seems to be all that matters. Everything before endgame is just a struggle.

Both of us gave in around level 80 and bought Fallout 1st because our stash boxes got filled up with crafting mats and more legendary weapons and armour from events than Murmrgh and the legendary scrapper could manage to deal with (a daily cap on vendor currency is pretty crap tbh), and we needed the Junk Box to shove all the mats in. Both of our CAMP vendors were filled to the brim with stuff we wanted to get rid of (why isn't it possible to send excess ammo to vendors?)

Launching our first nuke was the first sign that we approached the end of the game and boy did the game turn that into a FUCKING GAUNTLET. Robots upon robots upon robots upon robots... I now have a burning hatred for sentry bots and assaultrons. 

We got past level 100 before we decided that we were done with FO76. At that point we had finished all the main quest lines from base game and DLCs and the majority of the side quests and we were basically just running around doing events and challenges. When I got past level 90 I was finally at a place where I could dump both my melee weapons and two of my three rifles and only run around with my favoured rifle, because I finally had enough resources and caps and perks to be able to comfortably acquire and craft the correct ammo. Enemies were still spongy (seems to be that way for everyone that doesn't have a legacy weapon) but it was mostly manageable. 

So yeah, Fallout 76 was a wild ride with both of us ready to throw in the towel more than once, but instead we persevered and got to the endgame where we found a lot of things were mostly repetitive. 

Still... Would I consider going back sometime? Yes. 

After all this complaining did I still mostly have fun? Yes.

Fuck you, 76. I enjoyed you against all odds.