Hey there ya casuals, fellow casual here with a little weighing on my mind, figured I’d stop in and see about some discussion on the matter. Now, I want to start this by saying I’m not angry, this isn’t a post like you may be seeing on some... other subs. I’m not here to rant, more share a concern I’ve had today after seeing the patch notes and trying out the new patch for myself. Now, I do NOT claim to be the voice of the community, my opinions are exactly that, MY opinions. I will not claim to speak for anyone else as I know not everyone sees this the way I do, and that is alright, we are our own people. But without further waste of time, let me get into it.

The recent patch dropped and you know what? It’s a great patch. Fixed a lot of things that did need fixing. Broke a lot of things too, but as someone who has worked in development before, I can attest that when you fix a bug, two more pop up, it’s just how these things go. I’m sure those things are noted and will be fixed soon, no biggie. But my concern isn’t over the unintentional bugs that popped up, but more over the intentional fixes that weren’t really founded in plausibility. To name a few of these fixes, I mean the nerfs to things that just weren’t broken, namely demolition expert, pipe weapons, white knight, plans, and so on.

Now, I’ve been playing since the first night, I even live-streamed the very first BETA on Xbox, so I’ve been in 76 since the beginning. I remember the exact moment I saw a TSE weapon being fired, I knew right then and there that TSE would be a problem. Hell, I was positive they would have been nerfed before launch, probably before even the BETA was over, but my point is they NEEDED to be nerfed. Though, I feel the 20%/25% Nerf they got might be a tad harsh, sometimes to balance things you need to take something overpowered down to the bottom and slowly raise it back up to see where it needs to be, so I understood. But that’s the not the issue I have, my issue lies with the overkill.

In an effort to reduce the effectiveness of these weapons, they nerfed the effects, as well as almost any perk that can touch them as well. TSE getting a 20/25 percent nerf alone was a huge nerf, but by also nerfing Demolition Expert they also hit most explosives in the game hard, making explosive weapon builds nearly unviable. If you roleplayed as a crazy pyro who ran around with grenades and a grenade launcher to lay waste to Appalachia, you might as well be tossing teddy bears at your enemies now. Most explosive weapons (outside of TSE) have already sub-par base damage, making them hard to justify over other builds (mainly melee), but now they lost 40% of their only major buff. Which this would be fine if their base damages were boosted, but in an effort to kill TSE, a whole branch of damage took a big hit when the initial nerf to TSE already did what it needed. The nerf to Demolition Expert was unneeded and just hurts other playstyles.

But that’s not the only playstyle that takes a hit now. Believe it or not, there is a community for Pipe Weapon players, people who love their highly customizable pipe guns and run them into end game. It’s never been a super viable style as TSE weapons made most things obsolete, but with the nerf to TSE we could see other styles come back into major use. The problem is, the extended efforts to kill TSE overuse has seemingly convinced them to nerf other things too, which means licensed plumber got hit, breaking a playstyle that was already pretty bottom tier. Pipe Weapons were already a playstyle that was so weak that it solely relied on one semi-decent perk, but now that perk really isn’t worth the points, and thus the playstyle has a good chance of dying out totally.

White Knight, not sure really what to say here other than good idea, bad implementation. Removing 90% condition damage from anything kind of defeats the whole point of condition damage even being a thing, I totally get that. And this is a Survival game first and foremost, so it makes sense to make it harder to survive, I totally get that too. But where it was poorly implemented is that the need to repair has been upped, but the means to repair has not. What I mean here is that a big reason people relied on this perk before is that the repair costs of high end gear gets so expensive that often it’s completely cheaper to just get new gear than to repair what you have. So using the perk pre-nerf made eventual repairs easier because you had more time to save up what you needed. The perk needed to be nerfed, but the lingering problem is that Ballistic Fiber has needed to be more available since BETA, the lack of fiber has always been a problem. Now, I know there are ways to get it, but there are so few items in the world that break down into fiber that you are almost forced to farm it to keep your armor up. There are already few places to farm it, and with ALL armor now taking more damage, you will need more than before, more people will be farming it more often than they used to, and you now will have to fight over farming locations over one single item. So by nerfing this perk, you’ve upped the repair costs without upping ways to get said cost, meaning players will now have to dedicate more time to doing a monotonous task semi-regularly, time not spent playing the game. In a game franchise whose bread and butter is exploration and discovery, forcing players into a handful of locations to stay afloat can severely hinder experience of the game.

But another issue arises with white knight, something that rose with the other perk needs as well, killing a playstyle. Now, take this lightly, I don’t mean said playstyles are totally dead now, I’m not overreacting like people on other subs, but it is an issue that should be looked at. By nerfing white knight, you effectively nerf armor as a whole. Whether that’s intended or not, doesn’t matter, upped repair costs WILL play a factor when people are choosing their gear. Player armor has already been a significantly less effective choice when compared to the benefits of Power Armor, players have been asking for buffs to regular armor pieces since BETA. By nerfing armor, you widen the gap between the two options, making one an easier choice in the long run. Power armor has gotten nerfs in way of shortening core charge time, but even then cores aren’t hard to find and the benefits greatly outweighs the costs here. Whereas the costs for armor are starting to outweigh the benefits. So with this patch, we did moderately balance the TSE playstyle, bringing it way down. But the issue I’m seeing is a whole number of already hurting playstyles got hit too, such as armored players, pipe gun players, and explosive players. Add that on to sneak not working properly in some instances, meaning sneak snipers can have a bad time as well. What you are kind of left with are power armor users running melee, or to a lesser extent Power armor users using full auto.

Fallout is a fantastic universe and franchise, and I’ve absolutely adored Fallout 76 since that first BETA. Don’t take my concerns here as me hating on it, this game is still one of my favorite games of 2018, and is shaping up to do the same in 2019. But I’ve played online games where the devs started taking nerfs and buffs totally into their own hands without talking to the community about them first, and players often started losing patience with the team, sometimes leaving totally. What happens is the game starts relying on a dev controlled meta, pigeonholed into whatever playstyle the devs are favoring at the moment, and those who put everything into that meta can lose it all when the devs suddenly change focus and shift the meta themselves without warning. It’s their right as devs, it’s their game, but dev shifted metas can shake even the most loyal players sometimes, and while I hate to admit it, 76 can’t afford that right now. TSE needed to be brought into line with other playstyles, but because of seemingly random nerfs the meta has just been shifted from TSE to Melee without much in between.

I’m not complaining so much as I am being a concerned player. I don’t want to see 76 hurt, I love it too much. But nobody talked about some of these changes before they went live, we just got the patch notes and boom, meta shift. I greatly appreciate their transparency on the issues by giving us explanations of their patch notes, but said explanations don’t really matter much when it’s really only a one sided discussion the day of the change. What 76 really needs is a test server where groups of players can give direct feedback before a patch goes live. Once the patch goes live, we often have to wait til the next patch to fix what’s broken now, and that can mean weeks of living with huge problems. With a test server, those problems can be fixed before they are even an issue.

But again, this is all just MY two cents. And I appreciate you following along. Sorry it’s so wordy, but I felt I needed to get this off my chest. Again, I love 76 and I want to see it flourish. But I would be lying if I said I’m not concerned a little with some practices.