Fallout 76

[Dweller_Benthos]

I just topped level 500 lol. I've seen people with levels in the thousands. They have too much time on their hands haha. There are a few things that reward you for higher levels after 50, like getting extra "super" perk card slots, which max out at level 300. These are usually pretty high powered cards, the ones I recall having are for poison protection, lock picking (I can open all locks and terminals without doing the mini game of lock picking or hacking), a couple other things that I don't recall right now lol. I should look them over again and see if I should trade some out. One bit of advice I thought of last night while playing and remembering my early game, you don't have to do every event you stumble upon. There are several workshops around the map that when you enter the area of an unclaimed one, the quest to claim it usually starts. You can safely ignore these, almost no one uses workshops anymore, they are kind of a hold over from the original game. Mostly they were supposed to be used to gather materials and manufacture certain things like food or ammo. Very rarely do you see one doing that anymore, ammo and food are easy to get by other means. Workshops are also one of the only places other people can kill you (as long as you have pacifist mode on in the settings, be sure to do that first thing) as you can contest a claimed workshop and if the owner wants to fight you for it, they can. I only saw this once a long time ago, and never since have I had someone fight for a workshop. The only time I even claim one these days is when it's required on the scoreboard. A few of those times, someone else will claim one of mine just because of the same reason, and I for sure don't fight them for it, there's almost no point anymore. There are also a few other semi-random events like that, where you'll be given the option to try them, and they are usually repeating, so don't think you're missing out if you skip them, and sometimes in the early game they are above your level, so trying them could just get you in trouble. Same goes for server events that happen every 20 minutes, if you're doing something else, don't bother with them, they will pop around again repeatedly. Just pretty much follow the main quests and you should be fine. And like in Fallout 4, the further you wander from the starting area, the harder things get, so the middle of the map is pretty mild, west is slightly harder, north more difficult than west, and east more than that, south east being the hardest. Plus the new area directly south is not quite as hard as south east. There's a lot to explore and do for sure.

Maybe we should split this Fallout 76 discussion into it's own thread out of the Starfield thread?

Hoping you don't have to bug out due to fire, fingers crossed!

[PZ]

Thanks for the hints, D_B! 

I barely started the game so far, but so much to do during the summer (the task list put forth by the wife   ). I've made great progress in the outside living space!

Fires are taking over the middle part of the state, and the smoke has arrived. I can't even see the mountains today, and the air quality is quite poor.

[Dweller_Benthos]

Yeah summer stuff needing to be done sure cuts into the gaming time, thing is, winter stuff also cuts into the gaming time, lol!

We had smoke from Ontario fires a summer or two ago that was pretty bad, but at least there wasn't much risk of actual fire here, hopefully they don't head your way.

As far as Fallout 76 goes, I finished the current scoreboard, at least as far as I'm going to, up to level 100, which is where the most of the loot is contained. After level 100, you have to get to level 150 and have spent a certain amount of points in the previous levels to unlock level 150, where there are just repeatable bonus loot, most of which I don't really need and that amount of grind I can do without, so I'm giving the game a rest for a bit. I may hop in sometime the next couple weeks and w0#k on one of those achievements that require 100 kills of a certain enemy with a certain weapon, but I'm not going to obsess about it. Once the new scoreboard comes up, I'll probably start back up again with that, or if there's another major update.

[PZ]

We're surrounded by fires in Washington, Oregon, and Montana. Thankfully no major fires really close. My youngest just was called to a fire in Montana, so he's off for another one. It is off the grid enough so that they do not get service. I can't say I like the idea of him doing that kind of w0#k though. 

I'm in Alaska right now and it's raining to the point of flooding, while it is bone dry back at home! Man, what a hectic time we've been having the past few weeks. It is to the point where I welcome winter just so I can slow down a bit.

Just a quick question about FO76 - how long do you think it takes to get to a level where you do not need to struggle in the game?

[Dweller_Benthos]

We are dealing with the remnants of hurricane Debby, so lots of rain, even more to the west slightly.

Level 50 is the generally accepted level where things get easier in FO76, where you can get all the perks you're going to get (except for the super perks which come later up to level 300) once you have enough perks you can then get a build sorted. That's one thing different about 76 over the other Fallouts, perks are very important. In the other games, you could take perks that were fun or handy but you could also do without them or some of them, and still get by, but in 76 they are vital, and having the perks that match the way you want to play is very important. I was very stressed about mine to begin with as I had a nice explosive full auto build going, due to a friend giving me a nice explosive assault rifle (the bullets explode on contact) thing is, if the enemy was too close, I'd also take damage from the explosions and near kill myself. So I had to get the perk that nearly negates damage from explosions to be able to survive using my own weapon lol. The bonus to that is I can stand in a mininuke blast and not get hurt, or not very much. Now though after getting the good shotgun, I've switched mostly to a shotgun build. Each weapon type for the most part has three perks that go with it, single shot rifles, pistols (I think), shotgun, full auto guns, heavy guns, etc. You can't max out them all as you don't have enough perk points, so you have to choose. You can swap perks on the fly though with no penalty, and you can create perk builds for different situations, so it's not an either/or choice, you can always switch. But I swapped out to the shotgun build for the new shotgun which already has some bonus damage on it and it's pretty decent. Low level enemies are one or at most two shots to kill. Higher levels of course take more. I still carry the explosive rifle for long range stuff and a few other weapons that do heavier damage including the new flame thrower which is a beast and with my explosive perks does a ton of damage.

Ammo is the other stumbling block early on, though it might not be as bad these days. I used to have to go mining for lead and explosive to make ammo and was always short. There are a few things like the ammo converter now and usually enemies will drop at least some of the ammo type you used to kill them, so staying in ammo is much less troublesome than it used to be.

So the long and short of it is, if you've picked up a nice weapon that has a decent bonus on it, start equipping the perks that apply to that weapon to boost it.

[PZ]

We've been seeing the news about the hurricane.  It kind of feels a little like that in Alaska right now because it is raining every day, and some of the streets are closed due to flooding. Nothing near hurricane wind speeds though!

I never thought perks would be so significant. In other games I've not really worried about them, but it sounds like it is essential in FO76. I guess level 50 might not be too difficult to achieve, but I'll see how it goes.

Here at the folks place I'm getting a bit over 500 Mbps download speed so I'm downloading games onto a 4tb portable ssd. I didn't bring my Nitro 17 because it is too heavy, so I'm using my wife's Surface laptop to do the downloads. I' can't play much in the way of the cool games, so just basic stuff for now.

Looking forward to winter season where I ca ditch all my outdoor chores!

[Dweller_Benthos]

Yeah usually we mostly get rain from hurricanes, if they reach this far, with a bit of wind but nothing "hurricane force" about it. The bulk of it was west of here where they got a couple inches of rain, we got about an inch or so I think. Total over the last couple days last week was maybe upwards of two inches. Considering it's been dry this summer, that's not a bad thing, since I think we're still under average for the year.

Yeah perks in FO76 are very important, and making sure you have the correct ones to match your weapons is very important. There are a lot of people who go with a "bloodied" build where they have a high power weapon that only reaches it's full potential when the player's health is low, so you will see players with their health bar almost filled with radiation damage and just a small percentage of usable health at the very bottom, usually less than 20% of their total health. This makes a bloodied legendary weapon very powerful and as long as they can kill the thing coming at them before it attacks, they can survive. A couple weapons I use have the legendary effect called aristocrat, where the more money you have, the higher the damage they do, it's much easier keeping yourself nearly maxed out in money than it is juggling your radiation and health to keep a bloodied build working, so I try to go with that as much as possible, and have a few health boost perks installed so I can tank a large amount of damage and get in the thick of things where a bloodied player has to hang back to avoid getting killed. You don't get the enormous amount of damage from your weapons that a bloodied build would, but it's a much more fun way to play if you ask me.

As it is, dying has little consequence so even then it's not a huge deal.

Yeah I don't think a surface laptop would give you good performance on many games lol. No big, time for that stuff later, and I think there's a big update coming out in September or October with a new boss fight to look forward to as well.

[PZ]

Looks like I'll need to research weapons to decide which line of perks would be best. Because I normally play assassin-type games, I'm not sure what might be good just yet. In the Far Cry series, I like overpowered weapons, but because I use mods, my weapons are waaay overpowered, i.e., one-shot-one-kill for just about everything.

Yeah, I knew I was not going to be able to do much with the Surface, but the gaming laptop is big and heavy so I opted for the Surface. Because download is so fast, and most of my stuff is in Steam I could download what I thought I might be able to play just to try it out. I settled on American Truck Simulator which I like quite a bit, but it takes up about 20gb, and it makes the Surface run quite hot.

On a different note, tomorrow we are scheduled to go on a day trip train ride to Seward with observation deck, and plenty of food and beverages. Should be quite fun!

[Dweller_Benthos]

I've seen videos of people doing stealth assassin builds and they can be very powerful but I think they are very difficult to get working and may only be viable in certain specialized circumstances. If I was starting over I'd probably try for a shotgun build again or a commando build with a full auto rifle, hopefully with explosive bullets, adding the explosives perk to that makes it quite deadly. Problem is, explosive guns degrade very fast and you are constantly repairing them.

I'm surprised you can get truck simulator going, the Surface must be more powerful than I thought, but running hot seems about right lol.

Train trip from the observation deck with good food sounds really nice, have fun!

[PZ]

hmmm..... Sounds like the assassin route is likely not feasible in FO76. So, I'd better lean toward automatic weapons, and exploding projectiles sound interesting. However, I like it simple so maybe the shotgun is perhaps a better option. I might try each for a little while to see how it feels.

Yeah, I'd astounded that the Surface can handle ATS, but it runs so hot the bottom is almost too hot to handle, so I'm just using it to build my mod list and load order so it is only a few minutes that it is running. This Surface belongs to my wife, so I better not chance ruining it.

Seward was a fun trip, but it turns out that is one of the stops for the giant cruise ships - one was actually there. Consequently the prices are astronomical - we shared halibut fish and chips, which cost $36 for a single order! The aquarium was really nice, but also pricey at $35/person. The train ride was loads of fun and the seats in the glassed observation area was great. We saw everything from glaciers to bald eagles. Loads of fun, but cost a bit too much. The food was only mediocre, so overall we did not think it worth returning, but for a single experience it was good.

[Dweller_Benthos]

Yeah, a handmade auto rifle with commando perks is what I ran for a long time, with explosive bullets and the demolition perk which makes your explosions a bunch more powerful, it served me well for a couple hundred levels. The demolition perk also helps with grenades, and making normal frag grenades into MIRV grenades is even more powerful. The only downside like I mentioned is that explosive guns degrade really fast and you have to fix them a lot. This can be done at the weapon workbench or on the fly using repair kits which you get as bonus loot for a lot of quests and events.

Yeah if your laptop is running so hot you can't touch it, might want to back off a little lol. 

Ah well at least you had a nice train ride out of it, and $36 for a single fish & chips dinner is pretty outrageous! But I guess they know they have a captive audience with those cruise ships and charge whatever they want.

[PZ]

I'll probably try to do something like you did with the weapons. Are they easy to find/build? I probably need to research things a bit before I dive in. Right now I'm rather intrigued by the truck driving simulations, America and Europe. Not really playing the game, but expanding the America map to cover Canada and Mexico. There are lots of modders creating content for the game. You can tell some guys are totally immersed, probably not something I'll do because I'm such a casual gamer. It sure is nice to drive beautiful places I've actually visited.

Yeah, the Surface got hot enough so I did not keep it turned on for long. Funny thing it runs ATS just fine, but it just gets too hot. 

[Dweller_Benthos]

Yeah a hand made is a pretty basic weapon and a tier or two above pipe guns. You can get them as drops often or you can just make them. Make the highest level you can and if you have the materials, add legendary effects as well, which are random of course, the one annoying thing about them. There is talk of them changing the legendary system in the next couple updates, I haven't looked into it closely though. Currently you need legendary cores and legendary modules to make a legendary item, and one of them is easier to get than the other, I forget how many I have of each. But a lot less of one than the other. So I guess that whole crafting system is being redone. We'll see what they come up with, the grumbling on reddit about it is that one or the other is being converted to a currency type which you can use to buy legendary items as well, which of course, are random, I never do it unless I need to get rid of some of that currency type.

[PZ]

Thanks for all the help, D_B 

The Fallout series are quite daunting for a gamer like me, so it is most welcome to have advice from a veteran. I just had to do an update of more than 5gb in FO76!

[Dweller_Benthos]

There is a lot to keep track of for sure. It's not just a shoot 'em up game though it can be, there are other things to consider.