The wild, wild wastelands of West Virginia are vast, untamed, and unforgiving. Chances are that if you’re reading this, you’ve either been there or you’re planning a trip soon. But you’re fresh meat, aren’t you? You’ve been locked up and tucked away in a cushy vault for your whole life. It’s natural to feel a little apprehensive. We did use the word “unforgiving” for a reason, after all.
Okay, seriously now, even as a veteran Fallout survivor, Fallout 76 is going to throw you a few curve balls. Sure, it’s going to lure you in with incredibly familiar Fallout 4 aesthetics and mechanics, but boy, are you bound for a rude awakening in several departments. While quite a bit of it looks, feels, and even plays nearly the exact same way it would in the previous Fallout title, there’s still a lot to learn. And trust us, we learned a lot of it the hard way.
Well, go ahead and boot up your Pip-Boy, because we’re going to go over a few notes on how to adapt, survive and overcome! The vast wilderness of post-apocalypse West Virginia is far from insurmountable, and we’re going to go over twenty-five things we wish we’d known before we stepped out of the vault and onto the country roads. By the way, they definitely didn’t take us home. They pretty much took us everywhere but home, just for the record.
Oh, and a special thank you to Joey for letting me include him in a few of these screenshots! Thanks, pal!
Just a little note before we get started, a lot of this was written during the Fallout 76 BETA runs. While most of it is common sense and knowledge, it’s always possible Bethesda will decide to shake things up a bit after release. I mean, we are talking about Bethesda here. Anyway, onward, Vault Dweller. We’ve got some things to talk about.
25 You Can Change Your Face On The Fly
This may not seem like a big deal to you, but for someone like me, this is huge. I know that I’m not that only one that can pour hours into sculpting my character’s build, ensuring their cheekbones are just high enough, and making certain that scar is just the right amount of faded.
You can swap your character’s appearance at any time from the menu. It’s just a few clicks away, and it is easily the most freeing experience I’ve ever had with a Bethesda game. Too bad I’d already sunk an hour or two into perfecting my survivor. Still, no tracking down a plastic surgeon for me!
24 Time Stops For No Man
You’d be surprised how difficult this can be to get used to. Whether you’re looking at your map, your Pip-Boy, a computer terminal, or trying to swing a bobby pin into position to pick a lock, the game’s still moving without you.
The VATS system is also rendered in real time now, working more like an aimbot than anything else.
It really pays dividends to favorite your weapons and healing items well ahead of time, and it pays even better to have a buddy watching your back. Failing that, make double sure you’ve cleared an area before you settle in to dig through a terminal or check your map.
23 When You’re Down And Out…
Getting jumped and beat down by a surprise pack of ghouls or a less than scrupulous survivor can suck, but Bethesda seems to keep the victim in mind here. You don’t lose much outside of any junk or crafting materials you happen to be carrying, and if you’re quick, you can get back to the spot where you fell out and recover it.
While it’s nice that you aren’t set back by much, if at all, it can definitely make the world feel a lot less risky when you’re out exploring, which isn’t necessarily a good thing. Where’s the payoff if there aren’t any stakes?
22 Equipment Is Level Restricted
An annoying, but sensible move on Bethesda’s part given the multiplayer setting we’re operating in. This means you won’t be able to have your high-level friend hold onto premium grade gear for you to get started with, much less transfer it to another character to twink out your new guy or girl.
On the other hand, it definitely feels like a punch to the gut when we stumble across a rare piece of loot only to find we won’t be able to equip it for twenty to thirty more levels.
21 Pay Way More Attention To Food Items
For those of you that liked running in survival mode, you’ll know the ropes. But for the rest of us, well, purified water isn’t just a cheap healing method anymore. It’s worth its weight in gold. You’re gonna need to eat and drink regularly to keep your thirst and hunger in check, or there will be consequences.
The thirst meter, in particular, has an annoying habit of running down incredibly quickly.
This one’s a balancing act. Food and drink items still restore health, but you’ll also need to keep an eye on how many rads they’re going to hit you with. You also want to be careful not to gorge yourself on uncooked meat from wasteland critters, as there’s now a chance raw foods will also stick you with a disease. Oh, your perishable food can spoil, too.
20 Ghouls Got Guns
Well, not really. They’re a new breed of enemy called the Scorched, diseased humans that still remember a thing or two about handling a pistol or shotgun. They’re not too rough on their lonesome, but big packs really can lay down the hurt with a hail of gunfire.
Of course, your regular, run of the mill feral ghouls are still there, and they don’t seem to have evolved much from their previous iterations. They’re creepy, quick, and chase you relentlessly. The Scorched provide a more tactical threat for you to handle in your day to day struggle.
19 Caps Are Pretty Scarce
Long gone are the days of hoarding thousands upon thousands of caps, buying up whole cities’ worth of ammunition and chucking ten missile launchers at a vendor to resupply your wallet. Caps are generally found in very small amounts, rewarded by the handful for events and quests, and items generally sell for very little to vendors.
So the solution here is simple. Save more often than you spend. Sure, it’s gonna be tempting to grab that shiny new 10mm pistol when you encounter your first robotic merchant in Flatwoods, but you’re gonna find one eventually, and you’re going to wish you’d saved those precious bottle caps later on.
18 Other Players Will Hunt You If You Get A Bounty
Raiding, robbing, and sometimes just trolling from your fellow survivors is something to be expected. And maybe, just maybe, you are said raider, robber or troll. Just keep in mind that Appalachia has a way of biting back.
Hostile actions will result in a bounty being placed on your head for all to see whenever they open the map.
They’ll even be notified via a server-wide message. What’s more is that if you’ve got a bounty, you can’t see other players on the world map. You want to be careful here as you can get a bounty from taking items off a claimed workshop or a stray grenade hitting someone’s CAMP buildings, and players are more than happy to bump you off for a small sum of caps. Speaking of raiding…
17 Raiding Ain’t Easy
The thing is, unless you shoot back, the damage done to you by players is reduced significantly. This number can be increased by pieces of legendary equipment with special properties that also reduce player damage.
You can further boost this number by keeping some of that sweet, sweet Med-X on hand.
After this, just pop a healing item or two whenever the damage begins to stack. Chances are your attacker is going to give up after fruitlessly expending absolute tons of ammo and effort just to make a dent in your health bar.
16 You Should Respond To The Responders
The tough guys among us may be tempted to pass up the quintessential “good guy” faction of the West Virginia wasteland, but you’ll be missing out on a bunch of quests that are not only rewarding, but provide you with a valuable tutorial on surviving in Fallout 76.
From cooking recipes to establishing your CAMP, the Responders’ line of quests will help in getting you accustomed to what’s new, and you’ll be able to pick up some crucial supplies while you’re running around and getting them done. That isn’t to say that it’s necessary, but incredibly useful and rewarding for newcomers.
15 .308 Is Your Best Bet
Ammo, along with most other commodities, is a bit more rare than we’ve gotten used to over the past few Fallout titles. Fortunately, there are several types that are a little easier to come by than others, thanks to your new Scorched pals. And yes, we’re using the term “pals” pretty loosely.
The Scorched make a habit of carrying shotguns, pipe weapons, 10mm pistols and perhaps most commonly, hunting rifles. Between the hunting rifles and bolt action pipe weapons, you’ll wind up with more .308 rounds than you know what to do with, making a modded out hunting rifle an excellent choice in go to weaponry.
14 You’re Gonna Carry That Weight
You have a limited carrying capacity, that’s no surprise. And carrying too much reduces your ability to run, makes you unable to fast travel, and all that usual jazz. This is easily mitigated by scrapping all of your junk at literally any workbench you come across. What’s really got players up in arms is that your personal stash also has a limited weight capacity.
This one’s a real drag for builders, as it limits the amount of resources at your disposal.
Thankfully, Bethesda will be raising the limit to something a bit more tolerable than the outrageous 400 unit cap. One can only hope that limit end up being pretty ample, given that we’re all closet hoarders.
13 Your Stash Has A Way Of Getting Around
Every single workbench on the map is connected to your stash. You can’t use anything that isn’t a stash box or CAMP module to actually deposit items, but when it comes to crafting, there’s no need to head home for the good stuff.
As you can imagine, this is insanely convenient. Whether you need to scrap up some ammo on the run or fit a new modification onto your rifle, all you need to do is locate the closest appropriate workbench to get yourself sorted out. You’ll also randomly find stash boxes tucked away in the game world, allowing you to dump your loot and keep moving without interruption.
12 You Gotta Get Crafty
Crafting is more necessary than ever before in the series with Fallout 76, and you’ll want to get your own crafting stations up and running as soon as you’ve got the materials to do so, considering you won’t want to be wasting your valuable caps on expensive ammunition.
Seriously, I made the mistake of buying bullets one time. Once. Never again.
So get frugal with your ammo expenditures until you’ve got a little lead, a little gunpowder, and a tinkering bench to keep your guns happy and full of bullets. It’ll also keep your pockets full of caps.
11 It’s Never A Good Day For A Swim
You’re probably used to taking rads if you decide to go for a dip in any of the wasteland’s ponds, rivers or lakes. But what you’re probably not used to is being susceptible to waterborne disease if you spend too much time wading.
This can really suck if you’ve set up your CAMP near a water source, thinking you’d be smart and build an industrial water purifier to make yourself king of the clean, non-irradiated water, then found out that your fast travel spawn point dumps you off in the middle of the river, afflicting you with a new and exciting status ailment every time you travel home. Hello, parasites!
10 Fast Travelling Gets Expensive…
You can indeed fast travel around Appalachia, but it comes at a cost. That’s not even an ominous set up for anything crazy, it actually costs you caps to merrily skip your way from one locale to the other without getting your hiking boots dirty.
The cost is relative to the distance that you’d like to cover. Going somewhere that’s just a brisk jog away might just take five caps from your pocket, while making it halfway across the map could cost you thirty-three. Neither of these sums might seem significant to the uninitiated, but with the relative scarcity of caps in Fallout 76, it definitely adds up.
9 … So CAMP Conveniently
Speaking of fast travel costing you your valuable bottle caps, there are some ways to mitigate your costs. There are two locations in the game that don’t cost you a dime to travel to, those being Vault 76 and your CAMP.
Your CAMP is mobile, you can easily pack it up and set it down wherever you like without losing your structures. So whenever you find a new area that you’d like to be able to get to without costing you anything, just set down your CAMP and make it your new base of operations. You’ll be able to get there without emptying your wallet anytime you like.
8 No Need For A Tow Truck (Power Armor & You)
Naturally, for a lot of people (myself included) one of the first things you’re going to do is track down a nice set of Power Armor. You may be a little dismayed if you find one equipped with an armor piece you can’t yet use, preventing you from actually claiming your lovely marvel of pre-war technology.
What you can do is strip all the armor pieces into your inventory, and what’s more is that you can stow the actual Power Armor chassis conveniently in your inventory, then keep it safely in your stash box until you’re ready to give it a spin.
7 You’re Awfully SPECIAL To Me (The Perk System Is Weird)
Your SPECIAL attributes are all there, so that’s a relief. But the perk system is definitely a new spin on things. You’ll receive a choice of one “perk card” when you level up, with a booster pack of four random cards every five levels.
While it works and is fun, it feels a little strange and random.
Instead of the four randomly selected cards, wouldn’t you rather have a more direct choice for your character’s progression? Something about major parts of your character’s build being susceptible to RNG feels a little off and potentially frustrating.
6 Use The Buddy System
Granted, grouping up with your fellow survivors is something near the point of having an online Fallout experience, but I feel the need to stress just how fun and useful this is after spending time both soloing and tackling the post-apocalypse with a friend.
Each of you can fast travel to the other’s location for free, they can revive you when you’re knocked out, you’ve got someone to stand guard when it’s terminal or lock picking time, and you can share quest objectives to make the experience rewarding for everyone involved.
