A few days ago Bethesda was able to answer some questions and reveal more details surrounding Fallout 76 at QuakeCon 2018, including the game’s PVP system.
One of the burdening concerns about the upcoming online survival RPG since E3 2018 has been about how the game plans to deal with griefers, who will come on to the game and ruin the fun for those who are not interested in player versus player combat. During the Fallout 76 panel at QuakeCon, director and executive producer Todd Howard was able to reveal that Bethesda Game Studios will penalize these griefers by turning into additional content for other players who want to give them a taste of their own medicine.
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“We want this element of danger without griefing.” said Howard. He further elaborated by saying that damage is scaled by how it is dealt and received, which means that it will require a lot more for players to be able to kill someone and take their loot. Howard equated the game’s damage scaling to “slapping someone in a bar” because it will be light, but won’t have any major consequences. It functions as a way for players to figure out who is interested in PVP.
The only way players can deliver full damage to another target is if both of them are openly engaged in trying to kill one another. If one player moves along and clearly isn’t interested then they do not have to worry about constantly being whacked as they try to traverse the West Virginian wasteland.
Howard explained in even better detail how this damage is going to be scaled based on differing levels of players. If you are a level 7 player attempting to gank a level 72 player, the level 7 player will only be capable of dealing a miniscule amount of damage but they can still pester you with that damage until you do eventually die. Howard refers to the griefers who will do this as “assholes” and him and the Fallout 76 have a deliciously and excitingly brutal way of responding to these types of toxic players.
If these players kill a player who constantly expressed that they have zero interesting in wanting to play some PVP then they receive a “wanted murderer” status, which makes them a target for everyone in the game with a bounty that will come from their bottle caps. This status will penalize them because not only will other players be attempting to take them down, but they will receive no rewards for anything they do in the game like caps and experience points. In-game trolling will not reward people for ruining the experience for everybody. To make things even worse for the “wanted murderer” players, they will not even be able to see other players on the map which makes them fair game for the next person who sees them trying to hide.
This announced hardline approach against griefing in the game is most assuredly welcome news for players who had concerns since the game being an online one was announced just over three months ago. This anti-griefing system is one of a few ways the team at Bethesda Game Studios is planning to combat the trolls. The other ways that have been mentioned previously by Howard is that they will able to block certain players if it gets too out of hand and those who are interested in dropping nukes for the “lulz” of it will not receive better rewards if they decide to ruin someone’s base.
Fallout 76 is a narrative prequel to previous Fallout games. It is set in an alternate version of history, and takes place in 2102, twenty-five years after a nuclear war that devastated the Earth. The player character is a resident of Vault 76, a fallout shelter that was built in West Virginia to house America’s best and brightest minds. The player character exits the Vault on “Reclamation Day” as part of a plan to re-colonise the Wasteland.
Fallout 76 is set to release on November 14th for Playstation 4, Xbox One, and PC. Bethesda has announced previously that a beta is set to launch sometime in October, starting on Xbox One and expanding to other platforms soon after. Cross-play will not be allowed for the Playstation 4 version of the game.
Pre-order your copy of Fallout 76 here.
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