[Polygon] It may not be possible to save Fallout 76

[Gankzymcfly]

Ok? I am well aware of what it was, i'm saying it's not a technical issue with the game, that's a design/asset creation/management problem, not an engine limitation.

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Yea I never claimed it was a technical limitation/issue...but if I did please direct me to the post where I did so. I responded to somebody who claimed the game was a technical marvel at release...imo a game that copy pastad a significant portion of its terrain is anything but a technical marvel, regardless of the actual tech that facilitates the copying and pasting....Microsoft word is arguably a technical marvel, but me smashing my keyboard into a text window and producing gibberish is not.

 

[Hzsn724]

Sounds like Friday the 13th. Every patch since launch has made that game worse.

 

[Box]

You can't unofficially patch an online game Bethesda.

 

[TheYanger]

Yea I never claimed it was a technical limitation/issue...but if I did please direct me to the post where I did so. I responded to somebody who claimed the game was a technical marvel at release...imo a game that copy pastad a significant portion of its terrain is anything but a technical marvel, regardless of the actual tech that facilitates the copying and pasting....Microsoft word is arguably a technical marvel, but me smashing my keyboard into a text window and producing gibberish is not.

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You...literally explain IN this post that I'm quoting, that you said it as response to someone calling the game a technical marvel. You're complaining about something that is 100% unrelated to technical quality.

 

[Kenai]

i wonder how long til they find a way to have the fans patch the game for them

ff14 was fine at launch people just didn't like it. I had more fun with it then, then after Reborn

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I disagree. Played FF11 for almost 6 years, tried 1.0 on a whim that December following its launch during a college holiday break (CE was in a bargain bin for $20, go figure) and quit after about 3 weeks despite it being F2P by that point. Ran inconsistently, class design was all over the place, map design was legit awful (f*ck 1.0 Black Shroud, worse than FF11's jungles in every way and that's impressive considering it's a starting zone), leve system designed to punish you for playing the game by artificially lowering exp gain as you played more (???), and by far the WORST player buy/sell system I have ever seen in my life in those Wards or whatever they were called. And that's just what I personally experienced! People might have stomached it if the best parts of 1.23 had been out from the get go and the worst offenders in the system were dealt with more quickly, but there is a reason Yoshida "dropped a meteor" on that dumpster fire and build it back up from the ashes.

But back to the topic. Compare this to 76, and I am seeing dangerously similar issues where the game will probably need a "relaunch" to make people even *consider* touching the game en masse again. The base structure of the game just isn't fun, no meaningful roadmap of improvement is on the horizon, or at least not available to us (this was mentioned before itt and is a big red flag) and what's there obviously hasn't caught on. The redeeming qualities just aren't there, or aren't plentiful enough to matter.

 

[Deleted member 46948]

Very rarely is it worth it to "save" games. Once the public perception is negative, the amount of work needed to turn that ship around is proportionally higher than just making a new game. I can't think of any case where that's every worked besides Final Fantasy XIV, which was one-of-a-kind-newsworthy in that it did.

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No Man's Sky and The Division are good examples of recent games that have been turned around completely.

 

[Cavsfan767]

The whole no NPCs thing KILLED it for me. Love FO gameplay and this is no exception. But what the fuck was Bethesda thinking?

 

[CthulhuSars]

No Man's Sky and The Division are good examples of recent games that have been turned around completely.

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This is true but as pointed out those were completed games. I think if Bethesda really wanted to put the time and effort in they could turn things around slowly as there is a base that enjoys the game. It might not be a money maker but it would restore a lot of faith in the community as they did not abandon and pull the plug on it.

 

[truly101]

I wonder if its possible to just take the map from 76 and turn it into a proper fallout game. I'm not saying it would be easy, but it seems like they could at least salvage something from it.

 

[Sagroth]

May be a bit early to say but Outer Worlds seems to be the Fallout in spirit we deserve and Bethesda will never deliver.

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My fiancee and I are both super hyped for Outer Worlds, and it's a day one purchase for me.

 

[Gamer @ Heart]

No Man's Sky and The Division are good examples of recent games that have been turned around completely.

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The division didn't launch broken, it just got alot better. Same with NMS. It was hyped to the moon, but it was functionality competent even if it was a little too mechanically simple a launch.

Fallout 76 is broken to it's core. Unlike say, destiny, there isnt a great game in need of content underneath. 76 is a reskin of 4 with poorly thought systems layered on top. The only thing thats worth saving is it's perk system.

I put 55 hours into it thanks to their incompetence making my Redbox rental somehow have a digital licence I could continue to boot for 3 weeks before they patched it. Every step of the way I was fighting a technical and design mess because exploring a world is fun. Following the patches for the last 3 months have shown me the leadership at Bethesda has no confidence in their product unlike Ubisoft with the division/seige to turn this ship around outside of an incredible and unlikely 2.0 launch that makes the necessary changes to support this game long term.

 

[Troublematic]

I hope there's a game there to be salvaged. I'd hate Bethesda if they just turn tail and run like EA did with ME:A. I appreciate when devs and publishers have the wherewithal to actually correct their mistakes and offer those who first bought the game something of value rather than cowardly mitigate their own losses and give the middle finger to those who bought their game.

 

[Tokyo_Funk]

If Bethesda were smart about this, they can turn things around and make something new out of their failures. Then again it is Bethesda who re release games with very old bugs still in the original version on new platforms. Eat the humble pie and make something of it. Or just let Obsidian make a new Fallout after The Outer Worlds.

 

[Tokyo_Funk]

No Man's Sky and The Division are good examples of recent games that have been turned around completely.

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Rainbow Six Siege is also on that list. Operation Health was the starting point of success.

 

[Kard8p3]

As someone who has only recently gotten into FFXIV, but has heard of how it originally was, I think just blowing everything to hell and starting over is the only way.

 

[Zombegoast]

Just relaunch it like FF14.

 

[skeezx]

i just don't think gamebryo/creation/whatever they're calling it now can handle the MMO-lite/GaaS kind of paradigm this game is intended to work within.

and i actually had an okay time with the game, IMO a lot of stuff is overblown (worst thing i can say is it can be overwhelmingly boring at times, nothing about technical issues) but yeah, it's just a bad fit. now if they used the Fallout 4 base engine as a rough starting point and completely overhauled it to hell and back, you'd have something there. but it's probably too late for that without changing the game completely

 

[hydrophilic attack]

this game seems like such a mess lol

 

[StereoVSN]

The question is if the game seriously damaged Fallout IP. Personally I think yeah, there was some serious damage done and it will take a while to recover.

Also, good luck to Bethesda launching another game with online component.

 

[g23]

They should have used the ESO engine for this.

 

[Deleted member 6730]

The question is if the game seriously damaged Fallout IP. Personally I think yeah, there was some serious damage done and it will take a while to recover.

Also, good luck to Bethesda launching another game with online component.

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I think by the time the next Fallout comes out no one will care. I see this as an experiment gone wrong. Bethesda wanted to make a multiplayer game because multiplayer games are popular and couldn't really do that.

 

[Laughing Banana]

Especially when you consider that games like Division 2, Anthem, Apex, and who knows what else is going to eat its share of the food too.

 

[Laughing Banana]

I think by the time the next Fallout comes out no one will care. I see this as an experiment gone wrong. Bethesda wanted to make a multiplayer game because multiplayer games are popular and couldn't really do that.

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Fallout as an IP is strong enough to resist utter destruction from a single gaffe, even something as major as Fallout 76. I think a single player RPG in fallout universe will still get people excited. But they sure as hell won't create any MP game with its brand anymore, that's for sure, lol.

 

[Zips]

The sooner they just forget that game exists, the sooner all the angry gamers ™ will move on. Cut to the next Fallout release, everyone* will have forgotten about it and will be excited once again.

*some

 

[IIFloodyII]

Has there been any major updates (content wise) or at least word of one? The last time I saw people talking about it, it was about how people found dev rooms, which had every item in the game and were getting banned, but people found a work-a-round and would make a new account and trade the items.

 

[Dreams-Visions]

Sorry for those who got duped out of their money.

 

[Deleted member 27751]

My biggest gripe with Fallout 76 from the start was the sheer lack of standard features seen in today's online games. No proper hub systems for players to conglomerate (yes I understand the CAMP is suppose to be that, in a way but it fails to be even anything), no trading mechanics, no grouping systems, an inventory stuck in the past, game design that is jumbled together with some cool highlights but so many lows and worst of all no proper PvP system instead a half-baked idea that further hinders the game.

So much of 76 is half-baked it makes me wonder just what motivation they had in shipping it like it was and still is. Was it the need to float the company that bit longer because their other titles are taking longer to produce? Did they really think this was good enough? Did they just want to do something cool but forgot to actually bake it fully? Who knows really, but all I do know is that the world of 76 is gorgeous and amazing, yet the actual core gameplay elements are stinking piles of poop.

 

[justiceiro]

Since sim city 2013 i don't remenber this kinda of mihappens ona single game.

 

[Laughing Banana]

Also, it's February right now and apparently Peter Hines is still MIA in Twitter? Lol.

 

[Deleted member 4413]

BGS proper should have distanced themselves from this game. I get it, the Bethesda name sells, but this is hurting the Bethesda name more than anything. The same BGS that developed Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 4, etc didn't even develop this game, idk why they felt the need to pretend they did all the work.

Now Starfield and TES6 will be tainted by this shit.

 

[MrBob]

Not to try and get this thread too off track but there was a Juicehead video recently about a Skyrim mod called Skyrim 76. Unsurprisingly it pokes fun at Fallout 76.




I really need to try this out. As someone who actually bought 76 it's nice to have a little levity after the past couple months.

 

[Deleted member 176]

A lot of outlets were excited about the game. Does that make polygon garbage? Tons of people who bought the game were wrong about the game. EVERYONE was duped and tricked into buying that pile of hot steaming shit.

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This seems wrong

 

[Acorn]

Not to try and get this thread too off track but there was a Juicehead video recently about a Skyrim mod called Skyrim 76. Unsurprisingly it pokes fun at Falloiut 76.




I really need to try this out. As someone who actually bought 76 it's nice to have a little levity after the past couple months.

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This is great

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

If FFXIV can be saved, anything can be. Saying otherwise is complete bullshit.

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If somebody kills me and replaces me with a more successful person with the same name, don't consider me saved.

 

[rainking187]

Really sucks because I doubt we'll see another Fallout game until after Starfield and ES6, unless they want to do a Fallout Shelter 2.

 

[ZeoVGM]

Bringing up FFXIV in relation to this is completely ridiculous and not remotely the same situation.

The amount of time, effort and money put into saving XIV --- which was redoing the whole damn game -- is not something that Bethesda will do with Fallout 76. They can move on from this disaster and put out a standard single player Fallout game next gen that wins people back.

This isn't nearly the level of disaster that XIV was, which Square needed to succeed.

 

[Gankzymcfly]

You...literally explain IN this post that I'm quoting, that you said it as response to someone calling the game a technical marvel. You're complaining about something that is 100% unrelated to technical quality.

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Like i said if 85% if your product is copy pasted, its far from being a technical marvel. If GTA 6 comes out and looks 100 times better than gta 5 but its just 1 building copy and pasted over and over again, nobody is going to claim the game is a technical marvel over gta 5. The things you listed in your earlier post "design/asset creation/management " are all things that contribute to you having a technical problem with your game.

 

[ty_hot]

My first Bethesda RPG is Skyrim VR, a game relaunched many times, in many platforms, and still my first and only half hour playing it feels like a game with so many bugs, glitches that seems like it is still way before any beta or even alpha release. That much [lack of] polish should only be showed behind close doors, only to show the general idea of the game, not become an actual release 8 years after the first launch lol. No wonder their first "online" game is what it is...

 

[Cincaid]

There are a couple of things I'm dying to know:

• How involved was the main studio in Maryland on this, and how much was simply offloaded onto the newly opened Austin studio? Not to mention every other studio that was involved, according to Todd Howard. I know that the marketing made it sound like "all hands on deck", but it wouldn't surprise me if Austin was responsible for 80+% of the game development. Remember what a buggy mess New Vegas was when it released, even more so than the traditional Bethesda games? It sounded like Bethesda more or less just dumped their buggy engine onto Obsidian and asked them to perform miracles with it, without offering much support, and this scenario could very well be something similar.
• If Maryland wasn't as involved as I suspect, what have they been doing for the past four years since Fallout 4? Pre-production on Starfield (which usually starts towards the end of a current project) and now full-on development? They hinted as much on previous year's E3 press conference, but when will they have something to show for it?
• How will Fallout 76's failure affect their development on Starfield and ESVI? I truly hope they had some serious lessons learned from this experience, even if much of Fallout 76's issues stem from its online components (and I truly hope Starfield and ESVI will stay away from that). Worst case scenario would be that Fallout 76 was some form of horrible proof of concept for Starfield's online integration. If that's the case I doubt they'll manage to convince anyone to trust them on that game.
• What will Bethesda talk about on this year's E3 show? Will they even mention Fallout 76 if it continues its spiral into complete failure? Will they finally show something (read: gameplay) from Starfield, to try and win back some much needed goodwill? And will they show something more of ESVI, other than a vague 15 second teaser? Or will they take the easy way out and just avoid this year?

 

[Halabane]

The turn around on TESO needs to be talked about, they really tore into the guts of the game and made it into something else.

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I believe Zenimax did that. Bethesda was the publisher. Zenimax made that game not Bethesda.

 

[Laughing Banana]

The whole no NPCs thing KILLED it for me. Love FO gameplay and this is no exception. But what the fuck was Bethesda thinking?

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I legit suspect the whole no-NPC thing is not a design decision that resulted from a "we want our gameplay to be like this" but rather "we just can't be bothered to do it with our engine", haha.

 

[boris_feinbrand]

They will NEVER, EVER get away with this. They can't just walk away from it now. No one will ever trust them again with the Fallout IP. Hell, I think this might even affect TES VI's sales as well. They are absolutely FUCKED.

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The gaming scene has the collective long term memory capacity of a gold fish. Also the need to be entertained triumphs over any self interest every single time.
Bethesdas next game will be fine if it "works" (works for Bethesda standards) and marketing hypes it up enough. F76 was a marketing dud from the get go. I mean even the initial presentation felt like an apology.