What's in a promise

No pictures, I'm too angry.

I want to make an announcement. It's one that I've made before but am becoming increasingly more embarrassed to say: I am a player of Fallout 76. Note how I used to say that I liked Fallout 76. For a time that was correct, I enjoyed the experience for what it was and joined up under the promise of a brighter future. (Good lord I just got Sierra Madre flashbacks. Obsidian signposted this with New Vegas years ago.) I even went so far as to buy some premium currency. (Okay, excuse time: it wasn't much and I got the game cheap anyway and I thought the game was in a good place and please don't judge me!) Now I'm sickened to even think about this game and even more sickened to think that is carries the Bethesda title. Just what has happened to this game. What has happened to this company. What will become of their future titles.

"What is your problem?" I ask myself. Well, me, it all goes back to when I first bought the game a few months after launch. I had heard about all the chaos surrounding the launch of this game and quietly stepped away, yes this was a legendarily bad launch but it would get better, it had too. Once I saw that an actual roadmap had been drawn up for the game, I decided that now was the time. Bethesda had a plan and believed the game was stable enough to start letting people in on it. And I was dumb enough to fall for it as I bought the game. (Second hand, I'm now proud to say.)

Ultimately, the game was janky, but fun. That simple description could expand out to every aspect of this game. Combat, fun but janky. Exploration, janky but fun. The Battle Royale mode, fun and surprisingly stable. Like, really stable. (Whoever coded this mode should be a damn team leader.) But with every step forward seemed to come two steps back. It's almost as though Bethesda's main division felt obliged to step in once they heard how terrible Fallout 76 is and left it once they thought it was in a good place, only for the 76 team to immediately drive the game off a cliff. That analogy may have seemed a little lazy, unclear and unfocused, but guess what, that's the game guys! All of those three things in spades.

Trouble first started to rear it's ugly head when the team saw fit to add repair kits into the game as a 'premium resource'. Previously, Pete Hines (Head of Bethesda PR) had come out to claim that Fallout 76 would feature cosmetic microtransactions only, instead of items that would affect gameplay. (A heavily disliked practise that is also known as 'Pay-to-win'.) He was very adamant in his points too, ensuring everyone that the live service could and would subsist on the goodwill of fans without twisting their arms and offering an inferior experience. Which is fair considering Bethesda were charging £60 for the game at launch. The least they could do was ensure that everyone suffered from the same experience. And yet, here were repair kits to throw all of that into question.

Fallout 76 builds upon it's predecessors predilection towards scavenging-based gameplay and forces it's players to scrounge about for rare materials in order to keep their equipment functional, and build their base, and craft consumable, and keep fed. Basically, half the game is scavenging for resources. But no more with repair kits, now all once had to do was drop Bethesda a little extra schmeckles and they could walk away with a limited quantity of kits that would instantly repair an item no matter how damaged it was. Amazing! Also, a blatant break of the promise that was made to us all those months ago. But Bethesda assured us that this wasn't the case. 'Oh, that's not gameplay effecting *really*' they said. 'It just a quality of life tool for those that want it'. (Those maggots were so close to saying 'player choice' I could just feel it!)

Then there came the launch of Fallout's raids. You know, those 'franchise first' raids that they hyped up so much. The one thing that I once joked was my sole reason for picking up Fallout 76? Bet they put their time and effort behind that right? You know what they say 'you only get one chance to make a first impression.' So how did Bethesda do here? Well... let's just say that the team made it abundantly clear that no one in their office has so much as seen an MMO before. What they delivered was an insult to the concept of 'raids' beyond any shadow of a doubt. What was delivered was something more akin to Destiny's Strikes, yet somehow more repetitive and uninteresting. I'm talking dull lifeless areas, no unique enemies/ bosses, a freakin' recycled final boss and no new gameplay mechanics. (The Vault of Glass must be turning over in it's grave.)

But wait, it gets worse. You see, despite Fallout's raids being a bigger joke than the game itself, somehow the team managed to murder their game's stability by implementing them. How? The instancing technology of course. That 'innovative' idea that was figured out and developed by online developers literally decades ago? Yeah, Bethesda managed to mess that up. The result was game instability, rampant crashes, unresponsive servers and some unconfirmed reports of players losing literally everything in their inventory for the crime of trying to play the raid. (I personally lost an entire suit of Power Armour. Thank Atom it was my unimportant set.) So there was Fallout 76, worse then it was at launch. (Or maybe people were just more invested now and so it just felt worse.) How did Bethesda build back goodwill with their playerbase? By breaking their promise even more of course.

Now Bethesda had the bright idea of bringing to life some of the suggestions from the public, only ensuring to charge players for the privilege. That's right, once again the Atom store got dumped with non-cosmetics whilst the Bethesda team assured us that we were the crazy ones, no promises had been broken. This time they added a fridge and a scavenger robot. Seems inconsequential right? And it is, in the eyes of a non-player. Let me enlighten you.

People wanted working fridges for a very specific reason; food decay. You see, as Fallout 76 had inherited everything that Fallout 4 had to offer, that means the game also received Fallout 4's food buff system. That means that players could mix items together at a cooking stove in order to make useful consumables that empowered the player. This fits perfectly into an MMO environment as many games utilize this approach to provide an alternate play style that is rewarding and encourages players to diversify their team's skillset. Look at WoW, ESO or even BDO and you'll see how well this works. (Huh, MMO's love their three-letter acronyms.)

Bethesda had the bright idea of throwing a wrench in all of this by adding a decay meter to all items, weapons, armour and food. (Even cooked.) This made food-based gameplay incredibly unwieldly as one would have to literally hunt for fresh ingredients a few hours before undergoing their important task that they need this food for. That becomes a genuine problem when some of these ingredients come from incredibly hard to find/mine source, such as Strangler Dens or Scorchbeasts. (The endgame enemies.) Players would spend all of their time wondering exclusively around high level areas (even more than they already do) desperate and eager for Scorchbeasts hearts in order to make buff food that is required to help them survive a high level area. (See the catch-22 here?) Ultimately this made food-gameplay untenable and inspired a passioned plea from the players; add fridges so that we can store our food!

Bethesda heard there cries and decided to spit in our eyes by adding said refrigerators as premium only items that you had to pay in order to use. Bethesda defended this with their 'quality of life' excuse and sycophant Redditors came to the aid of Bethesda too. (Because we live in a timeline where people are so stupid they'll beg companies to screw them over.) A civil war started to brew in the official Reddit between people disgusted by Bethesda's constant lies and those that were well practised in the art of sticking their fingers in their ears and screaming until problem went away. Which it often didn't. Want to know the worst part? The cherry on top of the fecal-cake? The fridge only slows food decay down by 50%. (I can't even verbally express how utterly, unbelievably incompetent the FO76 team are. They should write books on how to fail at every level.)

"What sparked this rant?" You may wonder, "why have you decided to speak up now even though this matter has been going on for months." Well, my inquisitive friend, that is because something happened recently. Call it the proverbial straw that broke the camels back, or just that thin thread of respectful patience that I still maintained for this studio. And no, it wasn't the delaying of the much awaited 'gamechanging' Wastelanders expansion. That was a kick to the crotch but it was pretty much exactly what I was expecting. It's going to be an absolute trainwreck which may just finally finish this game off, but I'm still annoyed that I have to wait until 2020 to see it. (Do you guys really think it's wise to place the release of this DLC close to the launch of Cyberpunk 2077? If I were in your shoes I would rather delay it until 2021.)

No, this time they broke their promise for the final time. In fact, it wasn't just a breaking of the promise, it was an absolute evisceration. The team took an axe to their sacred word in the same blog post in which they announced that their 'game saving update' would miss the end of the year. Have you no shame? Just so that everyone knows what we're talking about, let me provide an excerpt from their news update regarding an impending shift in direction for the in-game store. (Known as the Atom shop) "Our approach to these items (Atom Shop microtransactions) at launch was to keep them purely cosmetic. But after looking at all the data, it became clear that to consistently deliver content that keeps Fallout 76 fresh and exciting for all, we needed to rethink our approach to the Atomic Shop." Did you catch that? "The Data" says we have to go back on our word, oh bother! All that talk about remaining on the "Right side" of monetisation? Yeah, we've changed our mind, we'll head on other to wrong side like the hypocrites we are. 

The best part of this announcement? Undoubtedly the way in which they straight up admit that all the other items that I've mentioned; Repair kits, Kitchens, scavenger bots, (Those were in the announcement trailer, by the by. Bethesda literally ripped them from the game to charge us down the line.) all of them were game items that made the game play better. Which, due to transitive value, means that those who chose not to partake were undergoing an inferior experience. (Bethesda really played themselves with that one.) The blog also makes empty promises about not "Upset(ing) the game's balance." Whilst ignoring the way that they artificially choked Atoms in order to force players to pay for them. Don't believe me? Just before the fridges dropped, their weekly Atom rewarding challenges included one to "Kill a ghoul in a nuked area". FYI, regular ghouls don't spawn in nuked areas and glowing ones don't count. Challenges kept getting this ludicrously specific, encouraging players to give the whole thing up and fork out on atom packs. (Funny, that almost seems like it's upsetting the game's balance.)

They've even had the gall to attempt to gaslight the community in believing it was their idea. "While we had many ideas on what to add to the Atomic Shop, one of the ways (Implementing premium-only 'QOL' items) was the direct result of the community’s feedback. We heard from many of you who wanted items with some real utility. " As an active member of that community, I can absolutely promise you that was not the case. Everytime Bethesda put one of these items into the game people complained incessantly until they just ended up quitting the game for the next few months. Even the defenders, airheaded though they are, had little more to back up their arguments then "It's just one little thing, it's not like this is going to become a trend." (It's not even worth an 'I told you so'.)

At this point I, as a consumer, have had enough. I'm just sick of getting belittled by these companies, some of whom I used to look up to. Bethesda were may heroes back in days of Fallout 3, and I'll still burn at the stake to defend Skyrim from those naysayers out there. What does the community receive for their dedication and support? Lies, broken promises and being sold out through a game which, by the way, they still haven't even bothered to finish fixing before announcing their plans to re-monetise. Honestly, it makes me nauseous to think about the respect I used to have for these people when I regard the lack they show their community. Maybe I'm a bit trumped-up right now, as the wound of betrayal is very much still fresh, but I don't want to so much as look at Bethesda's logo on anything right now, I'm that disgusted in them. My heart can't sink lower than when I think about how this is the company that is going to deliver The Elder Scrolls VI. If this was the straw that broke my respect, that'll undoubtedly be the one to break my heart.