Fallout 76 is getting less broken every day. Bethesda said in today’s “Inside the Vault” post that in the last week alone it’s fixed 150 bugs, with more fixes coming in the future. Two problems Bethesda is still working on, it says, are unbalanced end-game weapons and cheating.
“We want Fallout 76 to be a happy and healthy world for all players, and we know that there are concerns with players finding and abusing exploits,” the company wrote. “We’re working hard to find, fix, and address these as they show up.” The concerns Bethesda is referring to have to do with glitches that for the greater part of December and January made it possible for players to duplicate their items. While the doors to these loopholes have now been closed, a window to a new one has opened. Specifically, players recently discovered a “developer’s room” in the game that houses copies of every item.
Bethesda said in a statement to Eurogamer earlier today that the room can only be reached on PC by using cheat programs, and that it’s currently banning players found to be carrying around test items from the hidden room that aren’t currently available in normal part of the game.
“We want you to know that we take these exploits and those abusing them VERY seriously,” the post reads. “Once identified, we work very closely with our Support team to remove problem players that are abusing these exploits – whether that’s the duping exploits or those using cheat apps or mods to access areas in-game that are otherwise inaccessible (and unintended) for players in the game world.”
While the company didn’t specify a particular fix for illicitly obtained items already out in the wild, a lot of them tend to be guns equipped with the Two-Shot Legendary Mod, which Bethesda announced will be getting nerfed in Patch 5, which is expected to release before the end of the month. In that update, the additional damage provided by the mod will be reduced from 100% to 25%. It’s a massive change for that particular mod, which is nice to see.
Today’s Inside the Vault post was updated after it went live to add language about nerfing Explosive mods as well. Here’s what it says: “The Explosive Legendary mod has a reduced damage bonus, now adding +20% of the base weapon damage with explosive radius damage instead of +100%.” That all but ensures Two-Shot Explosive guns become much less important.
As a result, it’s unclear how much the next patch will actually end up affecting the overall balance of power in Fallout 76, something that’s been a concern among players for a while now. It’s become more pronounced recently as some high level players have turned away from the lacklustre PVE end game to griefing in PVP. Some players have requested that Bethesda simply separate the game out into two sets of servers for PVE and PVP.
Instead, Bethesda announced that an upcoming new mode for the game will basically use the existing PVP system found in the main game but with all of the rules of engagement stripped away. It sounds basically like a mode devoted entirely to the hellscapes of Rust and other online survival games. In effect, players will have the choice between PVP-lite and hardcore PVP, but no 100% pacifist option. More information about the upcoming mode is supposed to be revealed next week. For now though, it seems like anyone looking for new end-game content free from griefing will have to wait a bit longer.
Comments
22 responses to “Bethesda Says It’s Cracking Down On Cheaters In Fallout 76”
It’s almost like Bethesda want people to hate the game!
There should be an ‘easy’ mode that turns off hunger, thirst and PvP, allows you to carry normal amounts (300+) and store either unlimited weight or say 600 from each category (weapons, armor etc). Also reduced damage when in Pip boy would be nice!
So you want a survival game with no survival elements, no inventory management, and a cheaty way to tank damage while your friends do the killing? Yeah, this is definitely not the game for you.
They’re all things from previous Fallout games so why not! The Pip Boy one could be while no other player is around, it’s just the game is so clunky to change weapons or heal mid fight. I’m used to playing Fallout this way, I like the exploration not the grind.
Sure, I like the main games too, but Fallout 76 isn’t trying to be a main sequence Fallout game. It feels kinda like saying Gwent needs more branching dialogue because the main Witcher games had it.
For quality of life in your second part: You can favourite the weapons you’re going to use beforehand and pop them on the weapon wheel, which also binds to number keys on PC. All the aid items can go on there too, so stims and radaways and all that can be bound to a single button press. Saves you having to go into the Pipboy each time.
Ah look I really like this game too, I’m just being picky! I guess in relation to your Witcher scenario imagine they announced Witcher 4, you get all excited then the whole game is just Gwent you’d be super annoyed! It’s not as bad as that but I feel they didn’t have to go all in on changing previous mechanics.
PvP hasn’t been an issue much so far, I could be pickier about what I pick up and what I store! Thanks for the tip, favourite wheel on xbox is dpad up, then rotate wheel, then press A oops dead! After a few of that I discovered dpad left is swap weapons quickly and dpad right is instant stinpak so all good!
Picky’s fine. I’m not giving you shit, just trying to feel out where the differences in our perspectives lie.
That’s ok I’m giving myself shit for whinging so much! I just don’t get much gaming time so I find the differences between this and previous games I listed are more time wasting/grinding and it annoys me as I would prefer to do more of what I enjoy!
I’d love a companion app actually that lets you trade/manage your inventory, maybe design a camp as well all from your phone!
Going to be interesting to see if this game is a long term investment for Bethesda or a practice run for the future…
survival elements? thats not survival elements, PvP with player that are higher level(with current weapon blocks) make them infantly more powerful witch we see if every survival game, witch also kills that game becuase noobs get pawned like no tomorrow,
Hunger, thirst, sleep and radiation are all survival game elements. Plus Bethesda called it a survival RPG themselves.
Higher level players aren’t necessarily more powerful in PVP. Weapon levels cap at 50 regardless of how many levels the player has, and high level players deal reduced damage to low level players. In fact, it’s rather the opposite way around at the moment: low level players can kill high level players easier than they can be killed in PVP, because of the damage reduction effect.
Looking forward to private servers.
You know what would help bethesda right now? not banning people for exploiting a system they didn’t make right in the first place. maybe if the game was considered solid and wasn’t drowning in controversy this might work but, right now… they need to fire their PR department and start over with a new group of people there.
They knowingly broke the rules, why shouldn’t they get banned? The game having bugs isn’t an excuse, they knew they were doing the wrong thing. If a burglar enters your house and steals your shit, they don’t get let off because your front door lock was faulty.
Bad analogy. they stole nothing. they did the wrong thing but, banning people for having items that can literally just be removed from people inventory when they already have such a reputation problem isn’t helping bethesda at the moment when they really need good PR.
As I said, if the bethesda wasn’t so deep in with issues around the game already and people actually had goodwill towards it, then it would be fine. with all the problems they have this is only going to make things worse for them.
Look they did the wrong thing and should have some punishment but, jumping to immediate bans right now is just a bad move for them. a suspension and removal of items would be far better. heck relegate exploiters to their own server away from others so they can exploit each other and basically have game testers finding bugs that they can patch out quickly.
Yaaaaaay. Now if I earn one of those weapons naturally, through fair bloody means, it’ll be USELESS. Fantastic! Great job, Bethesda, fix the symptom, not the disease!
Enemies already take ungodly levels of damage, now I might as well sell any two-shot weapons I find to vendors. Oh, wait, that won’t work because THE ECONOMY IS SO BROKEN THAT VENDORS PAY 60 CAPS FOR SOMETHING WORTH 200!
This is ridiculous!
They’re making the game worse to make it better. It’s insanity!
And here’s the thing; despite its many flaws, I LOVE Fallout 76. It’s far from perfect, but I enjoy it. So hearing that they’ll make it even less fair is just disheartening.
How do you figure a +25% damage increase for a single star affix is useless? You say it’s less fair, but how was it fair in the first place for a single star affix to double damage output across the board against all target types? Not even the target-specific affixes (like +damage to Scorched) got that high.
The two shot affix in a multiplayer game was a mistake from the start, this change at least brings it in line with all the other affixes in terms of strength, instead of being the be-all end-all affix that is literally the only one anyone wants.
A bit of a heavy handed nerf in my opinion… I can see myself vendoring my two-shot crossbow once the patch goes live. As it is now it still takes 4 or 5 consecutive sneak attacks (if I can stay hidden long enough) to bring down high level enemies.
With how bullet-spongey high level enemies are, I’d rather see some universal damage buffs because enemies with high HP are *not* “harder” as Bethesda seems to think… they are actually tedious and frustrating to fight.
The health pools are a separate issue that should be addressed for sure, but I’m fully behind nerfing the two shot affix for reasons I mentioned in my reply to Davor above. Even nerfed, a +25% damage increase against all target types is still the most combat-effective affix available, with the possible exception of Instigating if you have a high damage, low ROF weapon.
At this point Bethesda could just delete all character accounts and reboot the whole thing. I would suspect a huge amount of people have exploited the games bugs at this point, sometimes it even happens by accident.
So if someone ends up in an area that, due to Bethesda’s klutzy idea of putting a dev room in an online game, fercryinoutloud, then suddenly one has to explain oneself or face instaban?
Nice way of ‘fixing’ things.
Damn glad I kept well away from this total mess. After playing 4, I figured 76 would be a disaster.
I just feel sorry for folks heavily invested in it.
A lot of online games have dev-only areas. You can’t glitch there, the only way to get to that area is with an external cheat program, so yeah they face a ban, just the same as anyone else who uses an external cheat program. Shouldn’t be a hard concept – you cheat, you get banned.
Don’t feel sorry for people playing the game, they’re having fun. Feel sorry for the people who aren’t playing it, but are still ‘heavily invested’ enough to complain about something they’ve never experienced any time an article pops up. At least the ones playing are enjoying themselves.
Cheers for the downvotes too. Would you like to share what you disagree with on my comments about legendary affix balance? Hearing your practical experience with the game’s balance would be a valuable insight.
Not getting caught up in a petty flamewar over an opinion.
Take it elsewhere.
Ah yes, you wouldn’t want to get involved in petty things. Best stick to complaining about a game you’ve never touched and downvoting others for talking positively about game balance changes you’ve never experienced.
You’re absolutely right, paf. If you want to be petty like that, take it elsewhere.