For many, it won’t be even partially redeemed until NPCs hit
Bethesda is starting to explain what those upcoming quality of life upgrades for Fallout 76 entail, and the first big reveal deals with public events.
You know, those lovely random quests that perpetually dot the world map, found in MMOs like World of Warcraft and FFXIV (known as “FATES”), as well as looter shooters like Destiny. The gist is that you could be walking around and join up with other players organically to complete short tasks, and earn rewards in the process. Now Fallout 76 had these to an extent, but Bethesda is overhauling them, complete with the new agreed-upon moniker reclassification.
For starters, Bethesda is making fast travel to public events free. Yes you read that right: in the past, it would cost caps (in-game currency) to do it, an MMO travel staple, but now you can just go and have fun (novel concept). Bethesda also says that it plans on making public events much easier to spot on the map, and provide more information like player counts that are actively engaging in the event already, various timers, difficulty ratings, and a quick overview of what you’re going to be doing.
Dying at a public event no longer incurs big penalties (it’s just an increasing respawn timer now instead of dropping your junk), and you have to activate the event manually instead of it just happening randomly when no one is around to participate. Oh, and public events share cooldowns: so you don’t need to rush around and choose between them, instead you can opt to chain quest events. Just one of these changes would have been a huge step forward, but Bethesda thankfully opted to bundle a bunch of them together.
If this is a taste of what’s to come, the “Complete Edition” pack, with the eventual NPC update, could allow 76 to hang with the rest of the series (obligatory “never forget how it launched” mention).
Inside the Vault [Bethesda.net]
