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[Fallout] Remember when we said no NPC's or Companions in West Virginia ? Never mind.
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As far as a first playthrough of the game goes, what general direction of character strength should I be aiming for in order to just... survive the fucking ordeal? No gimmicky "all charisma lol" type shit.
High Int gives you more skill points. High Agility will give you more action points. I'm not sure charisma actually does anything in 1 so you can probably dump it. Take the gifted trait for stat easy mode.
Boy, it's been decades. But you can do perception and agility for better hit chance and more shots (action points). Going either heavy weapons, like the minigun and rocket launcher, or energy weapons (plasma rifle) plus power armor will make most combat a breeze. Rifles and called shots to critical areas, like the head or nuts works well, getting sniper rifle before you upgrade to full energy weapons is good.
Dump points early into guns to get your accuracy up, then switch to energy weapons. Or big guns.
I think energy weapons is a bit easier because you don't need a huge strength score. Getting into power armor will raise it high enough to use most guns without investing in strength, outside of some big guns.
If I remember my old build correctly, a high Perception+Agility and small arms skill would carry you right into the mid game, when you were using sniper rifles to pop mooks in the eyes from two screens away.
Intelligence is great if gotten early, as it adds skill points to each following level up (+2?)
I think I dump statted Charisma, which iirc was related to followers, most of whom had the sole purpose of shooting me in the back by mistake anyway. Had Strength down at...I want to say 4, End likewise - my plan was usually to be far enough away that I didn’t get hit.
Luck is tied to criticals I...think? It really has been years. It’s nice if you have the points from a ranged build, but not essential.
IIRC my go to messing around build was something like S4/P8/E4/C1/I9/L4
Add Gifted for extra points, bloody mess for hilarity, and you’re good. Think I tagged Small arms (early-mid game firepower), energy weapons (late game face melters) and speech (all the talky), though science and repair are early focuses too.
YMMV of course.
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I don't think it is a full drop like the WASTELANDERS expansion. There should be more to come in the following months.
I got back into fallout 4 and my friend was telling me I should pick up 76 because it’s basically multiplayer 4.
76 > 4
It is really going to depend on personal taste and what you want from a Fallout game. I've given 76 multiple chances and I just can't stand it, 4 is vastly better for me because I have a slower, more methodical playstyle than 76 feels like it's asking for. 76 is so... busy? I dont know the right word. Event popups, high respawn, go go go go it just feels like there's not much time to just BE in the world.
The performance is absolute trash, but it is cool (now that there are NPC's) having an character you create again versus FO4.
. . .also there is a ton of game here even though the map "looks" small (I actually wish we had a real map).
The one thing I loved about 4 was making settlements and doing trade routes between them. Sadly that isnt in 76 but you can still make a pretty cool camp.
I like trade routes and building up a community in 4, but I didn’t really care for having to hand craft every toiler in Massachusetts, so my settlements after the 3rd or 4th one ended up just being a hodgepodge of prefab stuff anyway.
The only thing I wish they would do with 76 is the option to have private servers with members that had persistent camps and even self scavenging/replenishing vendors for basic items that didn’t go away when they logged (or would relist items players sold to them). So you could reliably have “bob’s general store” that didn’t mysteriously vanish for a month because bob bought the new assassins creed game and won’t get online anymore.
PC runs very well for me. The janky Bethesda bugs are here in full force though no matter which version you play and they're stronger than ever though.
I say this all the time despite liking the game and putting a ton of time in but good lord, I can't believe they ever thought of making an online Fallout game in this engine. Its never been stable and probably never will be.
The smartest thing they could have done would have been ESO but Fallout.
Say, friend, have you heard the good word of Sim Settlements? 2?
The devs for this game must be going mad with this. Fix one problem, six more crop up. I'll keep playing it but is it really sustainable for them? Do they really want it to be?
Feel like you could do this game/a sequel a lot better but with its own engine instead of trying to Frankenstein gamebryo into an MMO.
They likely won’t make any major new multiplayer tech until it’s proven itself with a single player offering. 76 only exists because they had a left over fallout 4 multiplayer project and a spare studio to turn it out at low cost.
I don’t really think there’s an appetite in Bethesda for a huge risky investment in a multiplayer mmo style game, especially with how many of those are failing. Fallout 76 is likely actually financially pretty successful for them simply due to low production and maintenance costs
Microsoft may actually make them migrate for future games past Elder Scrolls 6. Or at least put in time/money into more QA if their games are going to be headliners on Game Pass going forward.
We're stuck with 76. Maybe another Fallout New Vegas somewhere along the line now that both are owned by MS.
I honestly lament for any Fallout fan who didn't get a chance to explore 76 before the Wastelanders update.
The way the game unfolded (for those who cared enough to look) is an absolute masterpiece, and the best in the series. By far. You can fight me, but it was such a departure from a "Oh look, you're Wasteland Jesus you just don't know it yet now go save the world" trope that is essentially every Fallout.
Not that the Wastelanders update completely ruined that. But there was something magical about the world be one, dead, empty wasteland, save the Vault 76 schmoes running around trying to figure out what the actual fuck happened. And the way everything weaves together, it's like watching a massive trainwreck rewind in slow motion back to that one moment where someone set off the Rube-Goldberg machine of apocalyptic fuckery.
It was a thing of beauty, and it's sad it'll probably never really be appreciated as such. From a pure story perspective and execution, it's without a doubt, the single greatest game in the series.
When it comes to Fallout 4 and 76, I will always come down on the side of 76 because it is the best realization of Bethesda's environmental and found diary storytelling in any of their games. The writing is so much better than in 4, and the growing understanding as the strands come together and you discover the succession of tragedies that led to you finding a depopulated wasteland is an amazing payoff to the experience.
Edit: I do feel like it was a mistake to bring in the overseer so early though. She shouldn’t pop up until you finish the original story.
Mods definitely make pipe guns better.
- The fucking Vault where a water chip might be is mostly inaccessible because I need a rope. Though there's a bunch of rats there so maybe I could use the XP.
- Taking attacks from the front is always better than trying to run away and leaving your back exposed.
- Trading requires dragging the NPC's bottle caps over to you. Don't give away free trade money like I apparently did.
- Healing over time SUCKS.
Edit - Next time I'm gonna roll a new character and drop the speech and doctoring skill taps. I had small guns tapped but this time I'm gonna do melee weapons and something else as well, because being able to fight is everything at the start. I also chose good natured and I dunno if I actually want that.
Good luck with melee. Seriously! I could never make it work past the early game; charging rats with a spear is one thing, but by the time you’re charging raiders with a sledgehammer, I found they chewed you up with automatic fire before you got in range.
That said, I always sucked at speccing melee.
Those early hours are absolutely the hardest though.
Depending on your tolerance for spoilers, you can pick up some rope:
Fallout definitely rewarded searching everywhere, I’ll give it that.
ETA: tagged small guns and a 10mm was absolute life in the early game. Ammo trouble?
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I don't mind seeing no npcs and just listening to holotapes to get the story. I actually enjoyed that over reading notes. But the whole everything programmed in the game being taken by other players sucked. Not to mention horrible fps on ps4. Made the shooting terrible
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198004484595
Original Fallout combat is based on several things. You are weak as hell in the early game. However, critical failures apply at ALL times. A single 9mm or 10mm bullet can knock out an elite metal armor wearing guard with a targeted shot. Ideally, you want to be killing each and every enemy in your LOS, every turn. If you don't, there is always the possibility your elite hardened power armor uber character will be swiss cheesed by a low level punk with a full auto-SMG which just so happens to tear through every vulnerable joint.
The best way to get XP and loot is doing quests and savaging. Fallout rewards cowardice.
iirc I did small guns for anything dangerous until I had good armor and a super sledge.
Once I hit that point though it was pure comedy. Like you just walked up to someone, take one swing, and then watch them slide across the screen until they hit a wall.
Weird choice.
The good news is that the rope bit at the start is about the hardest I ever got stuck in the first game. I did have to google how to get into the first vault, but from then on out I think everything else was (mostly) reasonable to intuit.
I still dearly adore the first two Fallouts, so I hope you can stick with it and get to the real good bits.
That said, if folks have some suggestions for anything that might be easily overlooked but shouldn't be missed, I'd appreciate it.