It certainly isn't as shallow as Sea of Thieves. It is an expanded Fallout 4 world with the same gameplay as vanilla Fallout 4 without the main quest and living npcs. Quests are from logs, notes, robots and other things. Map is much larger than Fallout 4, but just as densely populated. Stuff everywhere.
The multiplayer part though is... weird. Like it is tacked on, but without an actual direction. It isn't made for PvPers and annoying for soloing. If I could run around alone and just explore by myself I'd like that better than what it is so far. However, that said, I rarely run into people with the way I play. I play it the same way I did 3 and 4. I see an unexplored location on my compass bar, run towards it and explore, then on to the next one. If you like that part of the gameplay from the other games, you will have much to do in 76. It's huge.
That said, negatives
- If you run up to someone and launch a mini nuke at your feet, you kill them without being tagged as PvP. You can then hurry back and steal their junk loot as well without getting a bounty.
- If you enable the pacifist option, you make it impossible for you to harm other people, but they can still hurt you. Even if they are marked red.
- Your base size (for moving) is limited by blueprint size which doesn't increase. You can save up to 10 blueprints of a base you've built, but if you exceed the blueprint amount you won't be able to save everything. I guess not unless you tag certain parts to different blueprint points. Cost is per item. Walls are less than things like generators and work benches.
- Visual bugs and texture flickering on shadows at times
- Too much loot. You will never run out of ammo after level 5. The "survival" element is as shallow that it might as well not even be there. It's a non issue to constantly be fed and supplied.
- Not enough weight storage (like ammo has weight now, but can't be sold for money). Scared this, along with blueprint size, will end up as quality of life microtransactions. By level 8-10ish you will most likely have maxed storage capacity even with scrapping everything down. At that point, you will start destroying things like dropping 900 ammo of a type you don't use.
All in all. Not as bad as I thought. I am having fun exploring, but it's not a 60 dollar game. It's like an early access title at this point, with "oh, in the future we will add...".
The No Clip documentary seems apt in the parts where in every section of that when potential multiplayer issues came up, their responses were basically "Let's wait and see what happens". Like they have no direction other than letting people in a Fallout sandbox and then seeing how to fix issues later.
Based on where I see people on the map though, I think 80% of the players play it like me. Lots of individual players exploring at their own pace. Nobody really gathers for events unless the event spawns on you. So at this point, I think the multiplayer aspect of it is more of a detriment than a boon for the majority of players.
However, I do hope that their ability to add multiplayer now will factor into their development of Fallout 5 letting people play Co Op. That'd be great. With a main host where the world revolves around them, but letting a friend tag along for the ride as a follower instead of a NPC.
Tl;dr: 6/10. Meh. Enjoyed side questing in vanilla Fallout 4? You'll find enjoyment in this. It's much more of the same.
The multiplayer part though is... weird. Like it is tacked on, but without an actual direction. It isn't made for PvPers and annoying for soloing. If I could run around alone and just explore by myself I'd like that better than what it is so far. However, that said, I rarely run into people with the way I play. I play it the same way I did 3 and 4. I see an unexplored location on my compass bar, run towards it and explore, then on to the next one. If you like that part of the gameplay from the other games, you will have much to do in 76. It's huge.
That said, negatives
- If you run up to someone and launch a mini nuke at your feet, you kill them without being tagged as PvP. You can then hurry back and steal their junk loot as well without getting a bounty.
- If you enable the pacifist option, you make it impossible for you to harm other people, but they can still hurt you. Even if they are marked red.
- Your base size (for moving) is limited by blueprint size which doesn't increase. You can save up to 10 blueprints of a base you've built, but if you exceed the blueprint amount you won't be able to save everything. I guess not unless you tag certain parts to different blueprint points. Cost is per item. Walls are less than things like generators and work benches.
- Visual bugs and texture flickering on shadows at times
- Too much loot. You will never run out of ammo after level 5. The "survival" element is as shallow that it might as well not even be there. It's a non issue to constantly be fed and supplied.
- Not enough weight storage (like ammo has weight now, but can't be sold for money). Scared this, along with blueprint size, will end up as quality of life microtransactions. By level 8-10ish you will most likely have maxed storage capacity even with scrapping everything down. At that point, you will start destroying things like dropping 900 ammo of a type you don't use.
All in all. Not as bad as I thought. I am having fun exploring, but it's not a 60 dollar game. It's like an early access title at this point, with "oh, in the future we will add...".
The No Clip documentary seems apt in the parts where in every section of that when potential multiplayer issues came up, their responses were basically "Let's wait and see what happens". Like they have no direction other than letting people in a Fallout sandbox and then seeing how to fix issues later.
Based on where I see people on the map though, I think 80% of the players play it like me. Lots of individual players exploring at their own pace. Nobody really gathers for events unless the event spawns on you. So at this point, I think the multiplayer aspect of it is more of a detriment than a boon for the majority of players.
However, I do hope that their ability to add multiplayer now will factor into their development of Fallout 5 letting people play Co Op. That'd be great. With a main host where the world revolves around them, but letting a friend tag along for the ride as a follower instead of a NPC.
Tl;dr: 6/10. Meh. Enjoyed side questing in vanilla Fallout 4? You'll find enjoyment in this. It's much more of the same.
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