Fallout 1 is really hard to play, offers a now outdated playstyle and at times can show it's age but the story, characters and world reel you in coming back for more not matter how hard the game can be to get through.
Fallout 2 improved on alot of the mechanics of the first while having a world that seemed more open and fun even though all in all the story wasn't as good, some aspects of the story are ham fisted and it also really shows it's age fallout 2 also keeps you coming back for more time and time again.
Fallout 3 can at times be weird, buggy, static and the gunplay is one of the worst of the series, the story while cool and well told has boring parts and at times can feel predictable what really shines is the bleak world that takes you back to the feelings of Fallout 1 while still allowing for a fun if not buggy memorable experience.
Fallout New Vegas is a gold standard in story telling everywhere you go, NPCs, factions and weapons are fun to use and give the player a real sense of progression through the world, the gunplay is severely improved and VATS is no longer needed 100% of the time but for all the good the dusty trail of the Mojave is just not as gripping as the scenes of past games. You walk and walk an walk in open desert fund a dusty town crawling with enemies or a faction base and then do it all over again. Unlike DC or Boston the landmarks are the only real part of NV that you go for as the rest is litterally all desert with nothing but billboards in it.
Fallout 4 suffers in almost the complete other way, is the story good? Debatable. The factions while flashy and well implemented into the world can feel one note and bland even to their Fallout 3 counterparts the world is packed full of things to do, stories to find and fringe factions that make fallout 4 a masterclass in world building. Not to mention settlement building if it's your thing can eat up thousands of hours turning the wastes into your personal hotel chain.
Fallout 76 would have not have made this list 2 years ago and that's coming from a BETA player who held onto the project even until this day. But what it lacks in impactful story telling it makes up with a beautiful world with deep lore and a surprising attention to detail in it's storytelling when looking outside of the main story. Despite all these major factions being stuffed into a 5 part story all of them feel well fleshed out the more you look into their deralict strongholds and it really shows the storytellers of the project actually cared alot about what type of story they were trying to tell. Now none of this matters if you don't like MMO RPGs but I think 76 gets alot of flak for what it was rather than what it is (which is by no means perfect there are still many problems but again just the usual bugginess that comes with Bethesda games)
Edit: Never played tactics but I heard it's alright and we don't talk about BoS.
So all in all every fallout game has it's pitfalls and it's triumphs. Is any game the best? It really depends on what you care about but remember that all of them are worth atleast picking up because what's the worst that happens? You don't enjoy a video game that's below $20 at most retailers?

I'm pretty aware that my following post might get me a lot of hate, toxicity and downvotes. Surely everything on the pretext that it's my post being hateful and toxic. But still, i guess it's legit to be a fan of a game, support it, but also criticize, call out things if you feel like they might not seem okay.

When i will criticize some things now, i want to make clear that i'm not criticizing everything, as i'm sure that the developers of this game do their best and that's surely also the case for a lot more people involved in this game. I will just criticize things of which i believe are completely wrong in this game and leave it to anyone judge theirself, where the problem lies.

I'm a Bethesda games player for over a decade. Be it Fallout 3+4, (Obsidian's) NV, or every TES title, i ever enjoyed their beautiful worlds, quests and the depth in nearly everything found in their games. Not only me, but i believe every fan had to deal or is still dealing with a crazy amount of bugs, issues or whatever in their games, but i'm sure we all found a way to live with them, as the positives always did/do outweigh the cons. Well, to me personally, until today.

I'm playing Fallout 76 since release. I've paid full price for it. Spent a lot of my hard earned real money on their atom-shop to support, Fallout 1st member every month since implemented. And although wasn't happy with the introduction of the latter, i still thought that it's okay, as i did believe it will be for the better of the game. PA paints sold for 1800 atoms, a price, that gets you full dlc's in other games, or even more crazy, full dlc's with huge content and new locations on previous fallout titles, but i thought okay, whoever feel like buying just do it. I won't.

A lot of things introduced in the atom-shop, often overpriced, while the main game still had only one endboss for over a year. A second much later. Still no meaningful endgame at all. No meaningful raids, or strikes-like things that Destiny has, dungeons like WoW. No. Just a few new events that are pretty much the same as the ones before. Story missions you can beat in like an hour.

But okay. We all dealt with it. Swallowed that pill.

But what started to annoy me, is how Bethesda labels their new small updates "free".
When in reality they are nowhere free! They are actually a lot more expensive than updates on any other game.
Me alone, thinking about the real money i've spent on atoms, i did pay for 4-5 season passes just in one year. And i doubt i'm the only one. And what did i do get?

No day i log in without
- having to manage my favorite wheel-tab straight away, as the game can't keep the items i put in there for longer than one gaming session. Gone, after every log out.
- half a dozens server dc's, blue screens
- stuck in structures of people's camps, after fast travel to them
- experience a damage lottery on my guns, one time do x amount of damage, the second later another
- fast travel to a certain location and have time to drink a coffee, while waiting for the buildings to fully load in (improvement on here, but still not even beta after 2 years)
- and so on and so on.
The list could be endless.

But okay, we all dealt with it, accepted it. As we all still believe in it! Still had hope the game will become what a true Fallout game can be! Supported you.

And now you pull something that one could go as far as saying it's robbery! Scam!
$30 for the BoS recruitment bundle.
$30 for 6 cosmetic items!
Are you serious?!

Sure, once again i could say, who cares, it's just cosmetics, i don't have to buy. But NO!
I would love to buy it. The backpack completes the spec ops suit, the stash fits perfectly to my BoS styled camp. But is it worth it? Do i have to buy it? No. But i want to. And the truth is you know that!
You know that a lot of people will do!
We all know that you aren't creating games for charity, but that you do mainly for business. But imho, a good business is always a two-sided thing. Good business is, when both parties profit of it.
Having prices that justify the effort being put into it. And to me i simply can't believe that the effort put into creating this bundle can be justified by a $30 price tag!

And if so, why put so much effort into it, when it's the main game that is in desperate need of work? As even after 2 years it feels like being under construction?!
(But want to point out that i do believe more in elves and dragons, rather than in the bundle's price being justified)

$30!!

Imagine visiting a hotel. Doesn't look bad from the outside. You enter it, can see how it promises a beatiful design, stylish, nice, if there were not the walls here and there, no wallpapers on them. Many spots unfinished. You ask to rent a room and being asked to pay a 4-seasons-penthouse-price.
After you paid and move on to use the elevator you have to find out that it's out of order.
You find and enter your room, turn on the lights, but nope, you can't, no electricity.
Well, you get the point.

I'd love to buy the bundle, it's nice, but for $30? I pass.

And if this is the future that is awaiting all of us, i need to consider pass on everything related to this and your future games too.

I love supporting a company and game i love. But what i don't want is being scammed. Being used. Being turned into a cash cow, where only you profit of, and the gamer getting the short end of the stick.
Then i'm out.

To think about how much money i've spent on the game and see where it's heading to, makes me cry. The more as one doesn't even know how long they keep running the show. As on the day they'll decide to turn out the lights, because the game isn't worth running it anymore, the $30 spent on 6 cosmetics will be only one of many reasons that gives you enough for a good outloud cry.

Thanks for reading. Or don't.

Edit:
Thanks to everyone for this very active and very lively discussion! I just logged in and see 123 responses to this post and i'm not sure if i can manage it respond to everyone :) I did never expect that!
Thanks to everyone for sharing your opinions with me and for your time discussing this topic. I'd love Bethesda to read this and see that there are many that aren't very happy with the business they are doing today. Might be that nothing changes. Well, not yet. But i believe with more of us being vocal we can force them to change things to a point, where all of us can be happy again.
Thanks a lot to everyone <3

I've seen a lot of back and forth between veteran players, casuals & newcomers alike about this update, Rockstar and the game in general. Some are against thier actions, some defend them and some are neutral. Personally I love the game I played during BETA and now on PC, but I also despise it for it's issues. This latest update feeling like one big warning to stop playing altogether. For now, I'm taking a break from playing. So I've compiled and left a list of issues, general facts and lack-of for people to better judge & talk about the current situation of the game below:
•Online was first released in BETA November 2018, during BETA they introduced Microtransactions with a very scarce amount of content.
•Online later came out of BETA in May 2019 still scarce in content, and then in September it's first major update introducing 3 core roles.
•As a comparison to GTA Online, RDO lacks the Rockstar Editor, Creator Mode, Private Free Roam, aim locked Free Roam/PVP Modes (Free Aim or Auto Aim) & even text chat on PC.
•There was a 7 month period with no news or any information about an update alongside the community protesting as clowns to garner some communication from Rockstar to no avail.
•The collector role was nerfed/randomized due to how rockstar underestimated the ingenuity of the community, one of the main reasons being it was the best paying and easiest to do with a player guided map. Rather than also balancing other roles to make them equal. Such as bounty targets/target rewarding a measly $2
•Naturalist update releases, a sort of rehash of the collector role that lacks in useful content such as re-skins of the exact same legendary coat, being punished for killing animals despite a separate role & dailies that depend on it, pumping animals full of 20 rounds of sedative ammo just to take a sample, overpriced tonics & gold pamphlets that allow you to become an animal in a limited area for a limited amount of time for seemingly no purpose.
•We get outlaw passes, limited time content that relies solely on purchased or earned Gold along with XP or gold rank ups. This taking up a decent portion of content that people tend to get fixated on. This tactic alongside limited time stock clothing is just to put pressure on the purchase of Gold Bars (If you're running low) and to keep player numbers afloat for a longer period. (Fallout 76 has a similar tactic with Atomic Shop Items only being available for a limited time and the Legendary Run) We even have/had legendary bounties, emotes and legendary animals drip fed to us to drag out the update.
•Most of the new content that is added is either locked behind a Role or the Outlaw pass, hair styles, clothing, skills, horses, weapon styles, even emotes and walking styles. So essentially, we have to pay to unlock content so we can then buy or earn said content in game. Sounds a lot like buying a DLC pack with extra steps (As a comparison to GTA Online they can get 200+ new clothing options, hair styles, multiple vehicles, emotes, weapons, walking styles and tattoos immediately available to purchase or are free such as emotes and walking styles)
•There was a period after a botched update for about 1 to 2 days where the game was utterly broken and couldn't actually be played on consoles, they eventually reverted to a previous patch. People lost hard earned streaks and got no compensation for their screw up unless directly reported on an individual basis.
•There is often rampant hacking with modders even being able to stop themselves from being reported and being able to crash your system or boot you from a session, alongside bad Peer to Peer connection rather than dedicated servers. Hackers have even gotten players banned for tricking people into opening nearby illegitimate spawned treasure chests.
•There are many bugs and glitches that still haven't been patched to this day. Not to mention new bugs that come with new updates. For instance: (Not being rewarded XP & money, gold bar coupons not being rewarded, the infamous hanging gun bug, black screens, crashing, not being rewarded money for sales, NPC's suddenly firing their whole clip at you within less than a second, cloth wraps reverting to a different colour, gun belts floating, UI Errors such as not being able to use coupons or browse the full selection of bar decor and much more)
•Next to no advertising or info about this latest update before it released besides a small paragraph at the end of a social club post about the $5 Sale Of RDO. GTA Online on the other hand getting 3 in-game teases and 2 separate video teasers and a main post introducing a new island to a game that has been around for 7 years and 3 console generations now.
•We now have the daily challenge nerf that not only resets your streak automatically but is also rewarding half as much gold. As an example, with the old system if you did 5 daily challenges a day for 4 weeks you'd end up with 49 gold. If you did the same with the new system you'll get 24 gold. If you were to stay at the same pace and do 5 challenges a day with the new system you'd have to do it for 8 weeks straight or alternatively 10 challenges a day for 4 weeks to earn the same as the old system.
•With this latest update, technically they've added time limited pay-to-win skills/benefits behind an outlaw pass. Standard Ammo Capacity Upgrades, multiple meat cooking and wilderness camp fast travel (Outlaw Pass 5 has also leaked and is in the game files and has further ammo skill upgrades included such as arrows and varmint ammo) That's a slippery slope that could potentially lead to bigger and better things being P2W.
•We have to pay an extra 15 Gold towards the "Prestigious Bounty Hunter License" despite having already bought a license for the role.
This update alongside the standalone sale of RDO is nothing but a way to draw in and nickel & dime new unaware players of thier money. All the new players lured in by a cheap game will most likely know nothing of what the game was previously like. I saw one post of someone on here who bought it and spent £45 on gold bars to get the pass, roles and also advance the pass. And he didn't yet receive his free gold bar benefit tokens back from it. Don't forget that everyone before this had paid upwards of £45 or £89 for the base game or ultimate edition which includes Online benefits.
"It's free content bro, quit complaining" Just because it's technically free does not mean it's exempt from criticism. Especially being a live service game & the way they market and dish out their content. Might as well BE a paid DLC pack.
"You're just entitled gamers who want everything free and easy" At the end of the day it's a game, we play it because we want to have fun or to escape from the realities of day to day life. Not to feel like we're working a minimum wage job to survive. Why would you defend a nerf that makes the game harder not just for veterans but newcomers alike and sucks the general enjoyment out of the experience?
"They need money to give us free content bro" If that's the case, then the online content and live service they're currently providing people is pretty lacking and crap, plain and simple. If anything spending money towards the game in it's current state is only going to encourage them to stick with their new strategy. That being said, not everything they do is terrible. Some changes are good, such as the new $$$ bounties.
At the end of the day, we shouldn't be FORCED into a harder grind experience just to HOPE for some good future content. You can clearly see what title Rockstar & Take Two favor most, GTA Online their cash cow. If the content they put out for RDO was actually decent and bug free there wouldn't be this much uproar from everyone. People might actually be more inclined to buy gold bars if the content was good and consistent. If we're expected to further fund the content online they should at the very least listen and communicate with the community. They're a multi million/billion dollar studio, not a small indie dev team. I'm sure they can afford to produce better content and live services than what's currently available for a AAA experience.
The game is a bit like a slot machine, you can pay little for lesser reward but loose less cash (Grind) or double down for improved reward but bigger loss (Pay for gold) Either way when the wheels stop (Content Update) You're gunna get something, but it doesn't mean it's going to be what you wanted or what you were hoping for no matter what option you choose.

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Summary TLDR
Lat: 48.1
Speed tests: 82 test over 20 days. Using speedtest.net and fast.com.
Average: 96 down, 20 up, 33 ping.
Best: 170 down, 36 up.
Steam download: 20 GB in ~25 minutes, had some good 140+ down during that process.
Bethesda download: 25 GB in ~37 minutes, had 1 or 2 disconnects during that process.
Fallout 76 gaming: It works, but you will have drops. I have played for 1-2 hours with no drops but eventually there is a drop.
Overall Starlink is better than our 50/10 cable internet which is often 47/3 in reality. That 3 up was killing us, the download speed has often been in the 20s now with more students at home due to the pandemic.

[Edit]
For those "going crazy" about someone getting a Starlink when there are other options....
You realize that it is extremely likely someone gets an invite this early in the Starlink beta based on their location, not neediness. It isn't about you or me. No, beta invites are extremely likely given out to strategic positions to help determine how and where they need to adjust/tweak/refine their coverage cells.
So, me getting a Starlink, even with other internet options has nothing to do with fairness or need, it has to do with setting up coverage zones. Starlink likely needed a data point around my lat/lng and no one else was taking it. Heck, I ignored two invite extenions a couple times before rolling the dice on Starlink.
Each invite is very likely just math, cold heartless math.
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Introduction
Hopefully this information may help undecided individuals settle on picking up (or not) the Starlink service. We have been using Starlink for 20 days.
Placement
I was hesitant to pick up Starlink due to the State Park to our north, right behind our house. We cannot cut down any trees because they are on State Park land. When Dishy first arrived I placed it in the front yard pointing back toward the house. The app indicated the house and the trees would be possible obstructions. Initial speed tests from that location were still in the 90s for download.
After picking up a j-arm mount dishy was placed on the roof, but still not at the highest point, due to stud location and the need for a different j-arm setup further up the roof (see image). This roof location is where the 82 speed test have been performed. The app shows some obstructions but we have only 1-20 seconds of obstructions in a 24 hour period and often none.
Does tilt of the dish / app matter for determining obstructions? If I tilt the phone to match dishy there are almost no obstructions (does tilt matter?), if tilt matter that would explain why we have almost no obstructions despite the app showing there would be some.
An easier option may be to add a 1 or 2 foot extension to rise dishy just a bit more.

Would work better higher up... maybe?

Northern state park tree stand

Dishy from ground
Mount
Dishy is mounted to this j-arm (Amazon J-Arm Link). Placement was sort of limited to the location of a stud and making sure the top part of the j-arm was vertical to add additional bracing to the roof fascia. Currently the extra bracing is just a doubled strip of hanger iron but will likely be replaced with the following wall mount (Amazon Wall Mount Link).
Performance has been good enough that I'm not too motivated to move it further up the roof. I may add a 1 or 2 foot extension if obstructions become an issue after Starlink finishes shuffling around their satellite positions.
There is a service loop laying on the lower roof, but I'll have to take off some wire holders to access it.
Users
Our household has 7 people and a stupid amount of phones, tables, and computers. We have 2-3 people that work remotely and a lot of media watchers. I've been playing some Fallout 76 to try out online gaming, I know it is not the best title as it is not a twitch based gameplay FPS.
Speed Test
I've tossed the 82 speed tests, spaced over 20 days, in a spread sheet to get a better idea of our download and upload performance.

Averages and Best

Download percent equal to or greater
Tried downloading a couple of sort of large games on Steam and Bethesda to see how they performed.
Steam: 20 GB in ~25 mins. This download held some great 140+ speeds during the process.
Bethesda: 25 GB in 37 mins. This download had 1 or 2 disconnects during the process.

Connection Stability
We do notice the internet drops but they tend to be 1-4 seconds in length. These don't affect web browsing, remote work, or media viewing very much. You may have to request a web page again or something. Most media player buffers will smooth over those losses.
I don't have a spreadsheet of downtime data from the Starlink app, but I'd ballpark our total No Satellite, Obstructed, and Beta Downtime to an average of 4-8 minutes in a 24 hour period. Of those items Beta Downtime is always the largest with No Satellite almost never shown and obstruction maybe an average of 1-10 seconds.

Conclusion
Overall Starlink is better than our 50/10 cable internet which is more like 47/3 in reality, with 47 being the top speed. That 3 up was killing us, the download speed has often been in the 20s now with more students at home due to the pandemic. Starlink is $30 more than our cable service, $99 vs $69. The local cable service does offer higher speeds at stupid rates.... 125/10 at $109 and 250/10 at $225.
There is also fiber in the area. The fiber costs are $75-80 for 100/100 but require a $1500+ last leg installation. While the fiber could be less expensive in around a year and half, it could take up to 6 months before they could install it.
Starlink felt like a bit of a gamble but so far we have been quite happy with the performance. Connection stability is noticeable but it doesn't really affect our ability to surf, watch, or work. Connection stability will be more noticeable with online gaming but you can still get 1-2 hour play sessions in without a drop.

No, that title is not a typo. Once Frontier came out, I played it... And well, found it to be pretty awful, so I needed a palette cleanser. And so I decided to bring back an old mod that I had deactivated from my mod list on New Vegas for a fresh playthrough: The Fallout 76 experience mod.
You can find it here:
https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/65241/
I also recommend watching this trailer so you know what you're in for with this rant:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koV7ZZB2Ufw&feature=emb_title
So, this rant is my experience going back to this mod and interacting with the new NPCs, since this is Character Rant after all. I have to note that the new characters added in are modeled after players you would find in online games like Fallout 76, so... Prepare for anarchy. First off, I do want to say that I am aware that there is an actual online MMO mod for New Vegas, or at least there was.
It got shut down and I'm not really sure why, but I think it was because it was terrible. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail why, but all I'll say is that the griefing in this game was INSANE. It was probably the worst griefing in any online game ever made. Anyway, onwards to this... Thing.
And now... Our Feature Presentation!
So, the game starts with my meeting everyone's favorite tutorial NPC: Doc Mitchell. After New Vegas' great short tutorial, I leave his house... And am attacked by a pink-haired freak with a flamethrower. This LITERAL flamer is named "NewbPwner". I apologize if I screw up some of these names, they're horribly redundant. Anyway, NewbPwner is trying to kill me with a flamethrower and several NPCs get involved. He's also screaming at me, calling me a "beta", so right away is this the most authentic "online" experience I've ever had in a single player game.
Thankfully, the fight against him isn't too hard. I have another mod installed which adds in an in-game table that lets me tweak other mod settings. Pwner is an idiot and gets stuck on the table, allowing me to easily slash him to death with a machete. Afterwards, I remember the spot of another player and go towards the nearby graveyard.
On my way there, I pass Prospector Saloon and meet "Faze". This guy is blasting a heavily distorted version of the Thomas The Tank Engine song as loud as he can. I'd be mad if I didn't like Thomas The Tank Engine. Sadly, Faze is incredibly bugged. Talking to him destroys that sweet sweet earrape and leaving the area does so as well.
Regardless, I must continue on my quest. So, I make it to the graveyard and there she is... Yiffyfox. I'm serious, that's the name of this "player". Basically, she's got Enclaver Power Armor and a fox hat, along with a Fat Man and infinite ammo. Of course, she starts spamming nukes at me like crazy! I thought I would use Victor as a distraction, since he was also going up that hill for some reason.
Of course, Yiffy immediately started hurling mini-nukes at the poor Securitron, destroying him and sending him flying into the air. With Victor dead and the insane furry on the warpath, it was to me and me along to destroy her and take her Power Armor. But I don't mean in the naughty way, I mean in the... You know what I mean.
Attempt #1: YiffyFox Vs. Faze
My first fight with Yiffy did not go well, but it went better then you would expect. So, Yiffy starts by firing nukes at me, which is her main source of attack. However, I somehow encounter a bug that makes it so the nukes barely deal any damage to me and I heal up right away. Unfortunately, I noticed that I was taking lots of Rads from the nukes regardless. As such, I decided to use the Flamer I pried off Pwner's ugly pink-haired corpse and set the furry ablaze.
This sudden burst of fire knocks the weapon out of Yiffy's hands and she runs into town... And right up to Faze. Yes, it's a furry vs. a memelord! They actually throw down pretty well and get each other down to about three bars of health each. It looked like Faze was about to die first, but I wouldn't let his apparent death be in vain! Once he fell, I'd swoop in and...
...The game crashed.
COUNTRY ROADS, TAKE ME HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOME...
Whoops, almost forgot I was playing New Vegas for a second!
Attempt #2: I use the machete
So, reload the game and I decide to take on Yiffy on my own this time. I couldn't risk the chance of letting Faze die in my game, not after he fought for me before the crash. After all, how could I let the man who both blessed and cursed my ear drums die? I make my way back to the graveyard to take on Yiffy. Of course, she has Enclave Power Armor and I'm barely doing any damage to her at all. I take the Flamer and start cooking her again, but that barely does anything.
So natch, I bring out the machete again. I chase her around the graveyard thrashing her, right after knocking the weapon out of her arm again. I manage to kill her, but at a great cost: Radiation poisoning. I may have defeated the furry wench, but she had laid a curse upon me. Of course, after defeating her, I go to Dr. Mitchell to cure my radioactive AIDs.
Unfortunately, I don't have enough caps. That's where Pwner's Flamer came in handy again, since I ended up selling it to get enough caps to cure myself. Afterwards, I used console commands to give myself Power Armor Training, so I can wear Yiffy's Power Armor. And here I thought furries only wore colorful animal costumes, not powerful sci-fi armor!
With that, I left town and went to Primm. My adventure had begun. I had met three "players" already, and engaged in shenanigans and "pvp"-styled nonsense. My quest had to continue though, so I went to Primm...
AND THE GAME CRASHED AGAIN!
...TO THE PLACE I BELOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG...
Okay, whatever! I head to Primm and get into town, fight some prisoners... And the game crashes again.
...WEST VIRGINIA...
Okay, so I enter the hotel and it crashes AGAIN AGAIN.
...Mountain Mama...
So I'm going through the hotel and it crashes AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN.
...Country roads, take me home!
I had forgotten how painfully unstable this game was, especially cuz I had some additional mods hooked up to fix bugs and add in cut content. Regardless, that was my adventure through this insane mod in New Vegas. I met memelords, furries, and SJWs, making the Wasteland somehow even more hospitable than it was in the vanilla game.
And honestly, I still had more fun with this weird-ass mod than I ever did when I played Fallout 76 during the week it was free. So, will there be a part 2 to this rant? I dunno. If I can find a way to stabilize the game and still have my mods be usable, then it's a given. Until this, is all you get!
tl;DR version: YiffyFox probably worked on Fallout: The Frontier.

Another thread, still it's the same problem : HACKED WEAPONS. (sorry for the long post, I do not have any potato available)
Is anyone here able to do anything against these hackers ? I understand we are not allowed to name and shame. So be it, I mostly agree to that kind of rule... even tho today I have evidences. So... why souldn't I ? (spoiler alert : I will not, because I would be the one who gets banned)
So, as my first point, I would like to say that this (this rule) is unfair to everyone playing legit and who has to endure hacked weapons... Because Bethesda is not doing enough to end this plague. Today, I encountered (again) a hacked-weapons user after only 15 minutes in my game session of the day. And he was not even ashamed of it, as after using his "automatic-15-shots-laser-exploding-gun-rifle" and ruining the event I was doing (alone LOL), he popped the infamous "mini-nuke minigun" out his pocket and started firing me... A real gentleman...
Then, I am having enough of that kind of players. I supported the game since beta, I pre-ordered the collector's edition of the game because I believed in it at that time (oh Lord the fun my friends had when they saw the game I was playing when F 76 was released...) and I am even a F 1st member. But c'mon Bethesda can't you just do something ? After two years ? I still see a lot of hacked weapons users and we, legit players, should be able to enjoy our time in the game !! Not saying to ourselves "Oh I hope today I will not come across another hacker..."
Why is it always to the legit players to cope with that disrespectful behaviour ?
Do you remember the inventory hack ? - Hackers = 1 month and a half of funny thefts - Legit players = 1 month and a half of either not playing the game // either being afraid from any low level players coming from the horizon
Do not let us down and please, do something against them. We are mostly nice people trying to enjoy your game. I am sure you see all the greeting topics about "Thank you who helped me doing this..." or "We have an amazing community because today..." but help us keeping this game great and a place for everyone to enjoy fighting ghouls and scorched...
I mean... I do not even understand how these hackers are having fun ruining everything, to start with...
TL;DR : Hacking is bad and ruining the fun of Fallout 76. Upvote (again) so that Bethesda helps us making this game a nice place to encounter Wastelanders :)

hi all,
Just to start, i love fallout 76 and have been playing since beta. We can all agree the game has changed, although i feel some changes have made the game worse. I really dont like what they did to food, eliminating the negative affects of not eating/ drinking has really lowered the games dificulty. At its core, fallout is a survival/rpg. This change has really taken away a lot of the dificulty as well as the survival aspect. i feel food should important and valued as so. I would also like to see a couple changes to the radio station, new songs, new comentary, this could go a long way as many of my friends who also play have stopped listening to the radio because of its repetativeness, mixing in some fo3/fnv/fo4 would really spice things up. I will commend bethesda on the item shop, it is always new and exciting with new unique skins, i think they should mix in some old exiting skins (ex: nuka shine) and maybe put some development into new events, they dont have to be too important, just new and exciting. Ive been playing a lot of battlefield lately, and a 10v10 tdm of maybe defending a place like foundation/cratefortatlas/whitesping would be a lot of fun, This should be its own gamemode and everyone should have the same health and start with the same guns, when they level up in this pvp gamemode they unlock new guns, fallout has a ton of gun customization, and a gun leveling up system kinda similar to cod would be fun and really show off fallouts deep customization. lastly I think all events should give bullion, it will bring life to dead events. Remember this is just my opinion, id like to see what you have to say about my changes

Not new to the Fallout series, played the main series a bunch. Had been looking forward to 76 but stayed away after trying the BETA...and watching the launch...and the first year after release.
Picked it up recently on a recommendation from a friend (Also a Fallout fan) as well as the price of a physical copy being low. Been having an absolute blast last few days, feels like the game I was hoping for. Not rushing through trying to hit 50, just been wandering around exploring and slowly progressing through the main quest.
But I could use some help.
First, any good beginner guides or advice you would recommend looking at? I can find plenty of videos and such, but not sure what's relevant between the Wastelanders update and other updates since those videos came out.
Second, I'm aware I should be settling on a playstyle or build but it's difficult to do so when I'm not sure what end game is looking like. So far I've fallen back to my usual things as I've explored; non-automatic pistols and rifles, with some melee thrown in to conserve ammo. Are these weapons worth focusing on?

EDIT
Wow! My first review and I'm also trending on the TW subreddit (also a first time experience!); it's been a pleasant surprise to wake up to the comments and discussion. To whomever gave me the award, thank you kind simadame/other, and please have yourself a cake! Thank you all for taking the time to read and for all the interesting comments and discussions I've been able to be a part of!
Original post starts here:
So after having played Troy for a few days now, I'm pleasantly surprised at how good it is, or at the very least, how much better than I thought it was going to be. Back when the Epic exclusive deal was announced, I admittedly was a skeptic. Not necessarily because I have a personal vendetta against Epic, but it seemed like a very odd move, one that made me wonder if CA had given up on Troy and were using the Epic Store deal to prop up what I assumed was going to be a bust, like Thrones of Britannia was at launch.
EDIT: Further elaboration on my initial misgivings and the reasoning behind them
I will admit most of my initial biases stemmed from both YouTubers questioning the current state of the first testing beta and from my own experiences as a gamer. The way the Epic deal was explained along with the aforementioned preview videos and opinions made a part of me seriously wonder if they were sacrificing Troy for more income.
Another thing too is that in recent years, it's become A LOT more common for games to release as broken messes or as customer exploiting products.
Assassin's Creed Unity was a buggy disaster on launch; Anthem and Fallout 76 had so many issues and controversies during and behind their launches that they essentially became memes; and Battlefront II's pay to win model at launch arguably was the reason that politicians became aware of the loot box model, and the negative publicity got so bad that Disney had to step in because of the damage being done to the Star Wars IP's reputation. And for those of us who're long time TW fans, no one's going to ever be able to forget about the "memorable" Rome II launch.
After seeing so many exploitative/misleading/terrible game launches, I admit I've become rather jaded to the idea that a company cares more about delivering an exceptional product and experience than they do about fistfuls of cash. Creative Assembly managed to shatter past any misgivings I had about Troy, and for that I freely give them the credit they deserve.
EDIT ends here
Needless to say, most people will probably agree with me when I say Troy is well-crafted and also well-optimized. The second part is the icing on the cake; no matter what combination of settings I tinker and play with (save Extreme Unit Size and even then, Extreme only drops me down to like 50-ish fps at 1440p), I get a smooth 60 fps at 1440p. Neither Warhammer 2 or Three Kingdoms was able to accomplish that, so my hat's off to the Sofia team for making Troy run as smoothly as it does. Hopefully the blood DLC won't tank performance too much either.
In terms of game thoughts and feedback, I'll start with a classic pro/con list.
Pros

Very well optimized, as aforementioned.
I haven't encountered any major bugs or crashes so far, beyond having to restart the game once because of the turn end bug.
Maps - The maps, both campaign and battle, as many people have exclaimed, are gorgeous. The pottery style skybox in the campaign map is a very unique and tasteful art decision, while the skyboxes and battle maps are absolutely beautiful and evoke every bit of the Mediterranean that they portray. For battle maps in particular, I'm in love with the variety of elevations, layouts, and approaches, whether it's a field or village battle. Walled siege battles are a different story, but I'll get to that in a bit.

Factions - Each faction plays uniquely and has units that feel different from each other. While this might sound like a no-brainer, it's a marked step forward from Three Kingdoms, which was also set in a very focused era (End of Han Dynasty China), but had a (in my opinion) massive problem with unit variety, where each faction (save Bandits and Yellow Turbans) shared almost the entire roster save for 3-4 unique units, more if you were lucky.
- For example, Menelaus is the only faction in the game that gets a form of global recruitment (for an increased price, he can recruit ANY unit that he has at least one building for in all his provinces from ANY of his provinces) that can also recruit his allies' unique units, such as Achilles' Myrmidons or Odysseus' Midnight Runners. His faction also has the ability to remote colonize any razed settlements using resources, and his unique units focus on heavy infantry and 2H Axes.
- On the Trojan side, Sarpedon starts with a chariot and can unlock them fairly early on compared to other factions. He can steal bartering deals from other factions and he can also stockpile unique resources that increase agent action rewards or reduce construction time.
- This is all in addition to the fact that the Achaeans and the Trojans have different base unit rosters before any unique faction units/restricted units. Achaeans focus more prominently on spear units, while Trojans have a focus towards shielded axe users, but some factions don't have access to the entire roster. Odysseus, for example, doesn't normally have easy access to heavy spear infantry.

Unit Roster - Never did I ever think I was ever going to shatter the backbone of an army with cheap militia units, but hey, there's a first time for everything. The relative scarcity of cavalry (and magic, monsters, and Doom-Rockets) allows for a very infantry-focused game, and I have to say, it's surprising how refreshing that is. Having infantry Weight Classes is a genius implementation, and using Menelaus as an example again, his Light Spear Runners are basically shock cavalry with two less legs. I've racked up a disgusting number of kills with them alone, and Troy's infantry focus has led me to finding new and unconventional ways to battle. Never considered using skirmishers/javelin men before in previous TWs (Rome II for example), but after flanking with them into the backside of some Trojan Guards, I think I might have to re-evaluate my biases.

The Resource System - It's a refreshing change of pace from previous TWs, but it too has some cons that will be mentioned later. One of the most interesting aspects is that it forces you to switch up your army comps (for the better in my opinion); having higher tier units require additional costs/upkeep in Wood, Bronze, or Gold.

Enemy Combat AI - The AI's a decent bit smarter. They no longer seem to fall for obvious traps as easily in previous games, in my experience.

The "truth behind the myth" - It's very interesting to me as a mythology nerd, as seeing the team's creative interpretation of Greek monsters is entertaining but also makes you think a little. Everyone's favorite Cyclops, for example, being a huge, buff dude wearing a baby elephant skull, or Harpies being women dressed in leather and decorated with bird feathers and skulls that are master skirmishers.

Cons

The Antagonist System - I wanted to love this system, but I think my major issue with it is how it plays out on a map that's almost 50/50 land and sea. It's really cool to have a big bad to grapple with during the late to endgame, but realistically it's irritating. Having to constantly chase down roving armies showing up in your deepest provinces and diverting resources to new armies is frustrating, not to mention that if you garrison an army too long, you're punished for it with negative traits.

AI Player Bias - I feel like it's especially egregious this time around, how much the AI prioritizes the player over closer enemies/targets. Both of my Menelaus campaigns so far have ended with me throwing in the towel and walking away after Hector declares war on me and my allies around turn 25-30-ish. But instead of going after Achilles or Agamemnon, two hostile factions that are literally closer, Hector instead sends multiple stacks all the way to Sparta. This forced me to either muster a new army I didn't want to constantly chase and eliminate stacks in my home province, or withdraw Menelaus from his conquest of Crete, which his campaign naturally encourages you towards.

Senseless Diplomacy - Most of you will probably know what I'm referring to with this one. Whether it's a weak faction you have barely no contact with demanding you give them free resources, a military ally trying to fleece you out of gold with a bit of wood, or random demands to break alliances/treaties, we've all encountered this in our games at some point. I'm not entirely sure what can be done about this, but I can say I'm eagerly awaiting a mod that allows you to skip all diplomatic proposals after hitting the turn end button. It's that annoying.

Siege Battles - This might be unavoidable due to the nature of the time period, but I've found siege battles to be my bane. It's suicide trying to rush walls with ladders, even with late-game shielded units, and while the Trojan Horse tech is nice, it's a whopping 6000 wood for a siege tower. It might just be me being garbage at siege battles, but when the alternative is having to camp outside the walls for 5-6 turns at least, I'm desperate enough to try. I'd feel less rushed if I didn't have to worry about my antagonist showing up home right after I start the siege, y'know?

Lack of meaningful naval control - I couldn't come up with a decent category name for this one, bear with me. What I mean is that, while a game crafted in the setting of the Iliad would obviously need to include the Aegean Sea and surrounding waters of Greece, there's no meaningful way to establish control or watch over naval regions beyond sending an agent or an army to moving back and forth around your island holdings. This is mainly problematic due to how Trojan factions will often send stacks across the sea to attack Greek holdings (in a stunning reversal of epic poetry that no one saw coming) and there's no easy or reliable way to know when and from where they're coming. One of the absolute worst feelings is finding a 20 stack a turn away from my capital that I had no way of knowing was approaching until it's too late. Which leads me into my next point:

Garrisons - They're pretty bad considering that the only alternative is to consign armies that drain your upkeep and resources to a city/town. Furthermore, the only commonly available building that adds extra troops to garrisons also reduces happiness, which is salt in the wound, and even then, the garrisons are still terrible when you consider the time and resources that go into their upgrades.

Upkeep - My last major con for now is upkeep. It might just be me, but even playing on Normal (let alone higher difficulties), upkeep costs and supply line raises are brutal, especially when you need to play whack-a-Paris or chase Hector around Greece while he blasts Gas, Gas, Gas and therefore need to raise additional troops to corner him. It could just be that the upkeep right now is fine IF you're not having to raise emergency troops because of surprise invasions or cross-country murder Marathons.

EDIT - Special thanks to Velify1 for pointing out one of the key annoyances I missed during my initial write-up (happens when you get filled with the urge to write a mini-review essay at 5 am. The following is their breakdown and thoughts)

AI Army Spam - The big one I'd add is AI army spam. It's an issue that ties strongly into senseless diplomacy, AI player bias, and upkeep issues.
- What the AI likes to do is create armies that are made up of 6-12 units rather than to create full armies that are actually capable of meeting you in the field. Since the AI isn't affected by supply lines they can have as many of these armies as they want, and they'll often send as many as 3-4 heroes with their own tiny armies armies against you rather than consolidating them into full stacks.
- This is bad because it means that the AI isn't giving you challenging battles, instead you end up hunting half-strength armies across your territory. It also goes terribly with supply lines, since you can't split your armies without going bankrupt. The senseless diplomacy and AI biases make it even worse, because when you're at war with 8 factions at once, many of them 1-2 province minors who decided to attack you in spite of non-aggression pacts, there's a ton of small armies you have to deal with at the same time.
- In conclusion: this effectively turns the game into a weird version of whack a mole rather than about epic battles. Due to supply lines and large distances you can't effectively respond to the AI.
- Note that this is probably a problem that grows with AI difficulty, since the higher ones give the AI lots of free resources that they can and will use to create even more armies. Some starts have this worse than the others, the Danaan factions have a worse time with it than the Trojans.

Final Thoughts
The Iliad and Odyssey were some of the first pieces of epic poetry I ever read, and also part of the reason I ended up memorizing the Greek & Norse mythos and then some. Being able to re-enact parts of it through a game is mind-blowing, and it's certainly something I wouldn't have been able to consider back in high school, over 8 years ago. Troy has blasted past every preconception and opinion I had of it before playing, and I'd like to give a round of applause to the CA Sofia team for creating a great game and experience. Few games have ever made me want to read again, but right now I'm hunting for a new copy of the Iliad. While TWS: Troy still needs some polish and such, it's definitely made a strong impact on me and no doubt many others.
If you've made it this far, give yourself a pat on a back and have a cookie. Thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts and feel free to leave a comment or start up a discussion!

...and yet Sony takes CP off the store, while its bugs isn't even making 1% of Fallout 76's bugs after its 2 years.

A list of bugs that are annyoing and frustrating and finally want to see fixed:
- Items on the favorite wheel tab, get removed and needed to put in fresh after every single log in.
- Dying on an event and the game doesn't let you respawn, with reboot being the only option. Great, when you do SBQ, fire all your ammo just to have this happen. Still, after 2 years! Happened twice alone on the last 2 SBQ's.
- Fast travel bug, where the game just doesn't let you fast travel.
- Pet bugs, where your pet dies for no reason. Stuck on an obstacle and the next moment gets catapulted into the air and dies when gravity sets in and your pet hits the ground. One of a million bugs on them. With a new one, that has your pet (and also creatures in the open world), being pushed back, have them do a moonwalk through appalachia now.
- Bullets that do not register, do no damage, but on top do sometimes heal enemies, rather than hurt them.
- The infamous slender man. The PA bug in game since beta, still present after 2 years.
- The skyrim dragon bug. Maybe gets fixed in TES 2076.
- Blue screens. 5 a day seems common on here.
- Trade bug.
- Earl vanish before being able to loot him.
- Spawn on player's camp' structures.
- Constant fire on guns bug
- Friends that you can't join / invite, because they appear offline
- Legendary enemies you can't loot, because they also vanish.
- Events / daily ops you can't finish or fail, because of bugs (Daily ops enemies stuck inside walls, truck's closed doors on AWOL, Protectron horde boss beneath the floor, and so on).
- and so on and so on

End of now, as this list could be endless.

Honestly, i can live with bugs being in a game. But to have the same ridiculous amount of bugs being present in game after 2 years and a bugfixing that is slow like on here is to me unacceptable.

I love playing Fo76. I also love Cp, as it's an amzing game. But when CDPR gets hate for its game, then Bethesda should have been put into jail? Honestly.

I know, this post will get a lot of hate. But i just feel it needs to be said. We can all love a game, but for the money spent, also on atoms or 6 cosmetics for $30, i thinks it's more than legit to also demand some quality, after 2 years!

We really shouldn’t give Sony or Microsoft a pass on this. We have been headed in this direction for a few years now and they have allowed this slide to occur.
The release now, fix later mentality. The game of “let’s release something that bricks consoles, crashes systems, bugs out, and outright has terribly bad physics”. The age of Alpha and Beta testing isn’t really play testing anymore, it’s marketing.
Consumers are tired of this and we now know where the line is, but can anyone honestly say that Cuberpunk 2077 is worse than the following games?
Anthem
Fallout 76
No Man’s Sky
Black Ops Cold War
*** Add yours here ***
Edit: I see a lot of comments from PC players, which is great. What would you do it steam did away with their refund policy?
It’s easy to point the finger at the consumer when you have the option to refund within an hour.
I didn’t buy CyberPunk, but I did preorder Anthem. I was given preorder access to Anthem’s beta. I asked for a refund then. After seeing the states of the game in the “one month til launch” phase, I wanted out.
I asked on more than one occasion, for a refund, before the game even launched. I was denied more than once from Sony on the grounds that “I had used part of the digital benefits”, which was apparently the closed access beta.
So why can’t console users get some solidly here? PC users tend to blame the consumer, but then use a refund option that console users don’t have.

Now let me start of by saying that I'm walking the line between two extremes, either I'm completely the wrong person to say anything, or I am exactly the right one.
I am not a "traditional" Fallout player. I only started playing Fallout with Fallout 4, but considering that is how I'd say most of the modern players started, that is not unusual. I played Fallout 3 and New Vegas after that and started playing Fallout 1 and 2 thereafter. So Fallout 4 is what hooked me into the series, and of course I pre-ordered Fallout 76 and have played since Beta.
I'd also like to say that this is the first "games as a service" type game that I have ever played, since I'm usually more into single-player games. And I feel like this has shown in my behavior and especially in the way I have played Fallout 76, it's like a on-off relationship. There are the good and the bad times, if you will, and it follows a specific pattern. I started to play a lot of Fallout 76 at the start, especially after I got a somewhat decent weapons drop with which I actually felt like I did some damage (Expl. Gatling Plasma), because every other weapon for me felt like a BB gun. And I'm not usually the person to grind for hours / days to get reputation, gold or the "0.01% legendary bloodied explosive 1P weapon". But every time a new major update came out, I'd start playing again, grinding, if you will, for a few weeks. And then I'd loose interest again, and of course you might say "well you're just not hardcore enough for this type of game" and I'd agree. But I don't need the best Weapons handed to me, don't get me wrong. I like working for things, where I can at least see my progress, and where I can actually do things to get where I want. What I don't like is systems, that either make it harder for me to get where I want or systems that completely arbitrarily slow down my progress in the game. I'm not someone that has the time to play every day, sure right now is a pandemic and I'm studying from home, but usually, there is lab time and I play Fallout and other games for a longer time on the weekend, where I can grind and play for hours.
But it feels like this game doesn't really respect the players, that are in the same situation. I takes literal YEARS to get anywhere with reputation, if you're unable to hop on every day and do the dailies. If I want any new weapon / armor to drop, I would have to do the daily ops every day to even have a chance, as tiny is it is. And if I want to farm for scrip or gold that I need to purchase new stuff, well, the same problem exists there too.
And I don't want to be the person to regurgitate the same solutions that have existed since Wastelanders or maybe even Wild Appalachia. Weekly Limits instead of dailies, higher scrip / stash limit and whatever else... But to me that is just frustrating that in terms of solutions, Bethesda never seems to listen. But when they can do something "PR Worthy" like implementing a Wheelchair (Which I have to say I LOVE IT, but it's just... You know? I have a disabled sister and if she did play video games / Fallout, I'm sure she'd be happy about that too, but if just feels like that this is something easy they can archive fast, but when it comes to actual solutions, it never happens), it kinda feels like that has a higher priority than fixing systems that are anti fun.
And I do worry for this game, if I'm being honest. Because I'm getting frustrated, this game is GREAT, there are so many things that are good and fun, and the community is one of the best I've seen. But there are other games coming out that are extremely enticing. Now I don't think Fallout 76 will be going the way of "Marvel's Avengers", there are far too many people already invested in this game and there is a good community in place already. But there are also upcoming games like "Cyberpunk 2077" and I personally, as a more casual player (well as casual as you can be if you follow 3 "Fallout 76 Subreddits") I don't think I'm gonna return soon, and with the frustration I can see in some of the posts, maybe I'm not the only one.

Throughout quarantine, I've been playing a ton of different video games, more than I already was before. I've quickly noticed that I've had a much more enjoyable time playing singleplayer games, whether story-driven or gameplay-driven, than ANY multiplayer game. Now don't get me wrong, when it comes to multiplayer there are some gems out there. But overall, newer MP games coming out have just seemed unfun. The Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War beta has the sweatiest lobbies of any FPS I've ever seen. Among Us is becoming less and less fun to play with unless you happen to have a full group of 10 friends to play with in a Discord call. I dislike battle royale as a whole (I could make a whole other post about battle royale, but whatever).
Saying that I just can't have fun in multiplayer ever is a lie. There are some really fun co-op games, both online and couch co-op, but playing online PvP is becoming more and more of a chore than a hobby. I might just drop PvP games as a whole at some point. You can say "I'm bad, get good" and whatever all you want, but I think the reason why PvP is becoming less and less fun for me is because the gaming community as a whole is getting better and better at multiplayer. Casuals are becoming less casual, and even pro players are saying that public match games are getting tougher and tougher.
Another thing is the developer support for MP games. The sad truth is, there isn't a single triple-A developer or publisher that isn't making games for the players; they're making them for the money. At least, that's how it's been going for multiplayer. The developers aren't put their hearts into their games like they used to, and certain publishers are implementing more and more disgusting anti-consumer business practices into their games (I'm looking at you ATVI and EA). Once their next game comes out, they forget about the previous one and cut support for it without going back to resolve any of the problems people had with it.
Singleplayer games, on the other hand, seem to have a much longer lifespan. The developers actually put their heart and soul into these games, and they often have some of the best gameplay AND story of any games I've played to date. I could name a ton of amazing SP games I've played lately that are far better than all the recent popular MP games. Night in the Woods, Detroit: Become Human (thank God for that PC port), The Walking Dead by TTG, The Dark Pictures Anthology, Resident Evil 2 Remake, Alien: Isolation, Far Cry 5... and not to mention some of the classics like Skyrim, Portal, Half-Life, the Fallout series (we don't talk about 76), and more.
The passion that developers put into some of the best singleplayer games out there is astounding, and they have the best of both worlds: amazing story AND amazing gameplay. Multiplayer games rarely have both, only one or the other (typically the latter). All of my friends are out playing the most popular multiplayer games out there, but I just don't find myself enjoying them anymore. I could go on and on, but this is already the longest post I've ever done on Reddit, so I'll leave it here.

Much has been made of Bethesda's ongoing support and development of Fallout 76 despite its terrible release. In more than one corner of Reddit, I've seen it compared to No Man's Sky, which, wherever you stood on it originally, has unarguably been tremendously improved from launch - and all for free.
This is a very unfair comparison. No Man's Sky is now a functioning, fully-featured video game, and Fallout 76 is not.
I finally bit the bullet and tried Fallout 76 when it had a free weekend on Steam, and bought the game to continue playing co-op with my girlfriend. It is her first excursion into the series, and we have each put in about 40 hours in three weeks. That's a lot of time; it's put me at level 26 with my co-op character and level 16 with my solo character. I feel justified in at least outlining my experience and defending my position on that basis.
Fallout 76 is still, at best, the quality of an early beta from a not-quite-AAA studio. This is true of the infrastructure of the game, including its servers, performance and user experience, and it is also true of its design as a game. At this point (more than a year and a half after its release) we may feel safe concluding that it will never be a genuinely stable and user-friendly experience, and that the issues that I personally have with its in-game systems are unlikely to go away.
First, a technical perspective on the game:

Server performance ranges from irritating to unacceptable. I have only seen two full server crashes in forty hours, but I have been forced to log out and log back in dozens of times to address a whole range of bugs that locked me out of playing the game. These included being stuck at workbenches, quests failing to progress, CAMP blueprints failing to place, and other issues of sufficient severity to compel me to stop playing.
Framerate and in-game fidelity ranges from acceptable to appalling, and often with no clear indicators why. I have tried a variety of settings and concluded that, at some level, the engine is definitely responsible. It is bewildering that my performance in downtown Charleston, in one of the exterior-cell building interiors (an accomplishment of some magnitude in this engine, I won't dispute), is better and more consistent than my performance in many of the game's interior cells, which regularly crash below 15fps in the strangest places (looking into the corner of a dead-end hallway, for example) and border on unplayable in combat situations.
Hit detection is miserable and server lag is obvious. Players nearby will stutter around you ominously. Engaging targets at a distance works either not at all, especially after you first join a server, or semi-competently if they are stationary or moving slowly - deeply problematic in a game that revolves around ranged combat. I am on a stable near-gigabit connection in the American Midwest, so claims of geographic or internet issues are non-starters.
In a similar vein, quests regularly break, fail to advance, or lose progress after logging out. I have had to redo stages on at least ten different quests after logging back in from a crash or just logging in the next day to resume playing. Given that the game in large part revolves around these quests to drive you to new locations and level up your character, this is deeply frustrating and should have been addressed within days of release.
The CAMP system is unacceptably glitchy and opaque to users. Many seemingly obvious snap points are either not defined or so selective that you will stand for minutes trying to place a single wall. Applying a "wallpaper" overlay to a wall moves everything previously hanging on the wall to storage, power distribution is still as frustratingly vague as it was in Fallout 4, foundation supports regularly end up hovering on anything other than perfectly flat terrain (in a game set entirely in the Appalachians), and far more besides. Building anything in a friend's CAMP runs the risk of locking them out of replacing that blueprint, forcing them to break it down and re-place each individual component -in a game that repeatedly encourages you to, and even relies on/forces you to, move your CAMP frequently.
Perhaps most damningly in a purportedly co-operative game, there is no way to complete a quest in an instanced location as a group. You are forced to either each enter a solo instance and complete it alone, or take turns as "team leader" completing the quest. I can barely find the words for how backwards and nonsensical this non-approach to team quest completion is, and it constitutes one of the biggest turn-offs for cooperative play.

There are other, smaller technical issues that I will set aside for now in the interest of brevity, because there are a number of elements of the game's design that bear discussion.

They have committed wholeheartedly to the Fallout 4 core gameplay loop - shoot, loot, craft, repeat. This was a good choice for a multiplayer survival game and is the main thing that kept me playing the game. It is fun to feel your character getting stronger by dint of building better weapons and armor and to see your CAMP expand.
Narrative continues to be a weak point for Bethesda. Voice acting (particularly in elements that I suspect existed prior to the Wastelanders update) is anywhere from competent to abysmal, and the story threads in the main and side quests range from vaguely interesting to absolute tripe. Characters you meet have no arc - they are fixed, static points. You yourself have minimal agency to change anything about the narrative pieces you find. As with Fallout 4, the extent of your roleplaying expression in this game will be how you kill the things with red health bars. Do not go into this game expecting a meaningful RP in your G.
Weapon crafting as a system props up the early hours of the game, but begins to fall flat as issues crop up with the system. Min-maxers especially will find little to like here. Weapon mods are discovered primarily by breaking down weapons at a workbench - one per disassembly, randomly rolled from a table of, in some cases, more than fifty. This means you can spend hours picking up hunting rifles from dead enemies before finally unlocking the mod that you were after. Armor crafting is similarly frustrating. Durability on both weapons and armor that forces regular repairs feels distinctly like a grinding mechanic meant to siphon away your junk (there are never enough screws, never) and provides no sense of benefit or accomplishment in return.
The gameplay loop runs into a jarring brick wall known as the Stash Box. It has an 800-lb limit on contents that doesn't matter right up until it does, around level 20 in my case. That's as a veteran of Fallout 4, who knows exactly what kind of scrap is worth its weight and what is not; who immediately grasped both the necessity and the irony of the "bulk" item crafting category at the tinker's bench; who breaks down every spare weapon immediately, carries only what he needs to get by, and sizes up every loot drop with an eye towards maximizing value and minimizing wasted time in storing and sorting items. I'm getting sick of using this word, but lay it at Bethesda's feet yet again: it is totally unacceptable to build a game around looting items that are required in large quantities to maintain and expand your character's capabilities and CAMP, and then trip players from behind with a pointless, arbitrary, deeply cynical (as Fallout 1st has revealed) limit on what they can store. The entire rhythm of the game screeches to a halt as storage Tetris begins to constantly loom in the back of your mind every time you consider picking up something useful.
The survival mechanics in the game add nothing beyond a bit of flavor (ha ha) and a lot of annoyance. You are never in serious danger of running out of food, water, stimpaks or disease cures if you are even mildly competent at noticing these things in the environment or on dead enemies, and so it becomes an exercise in pressing a long sequence of buttons when the game nags you with a thirst or hunger icon. Open your inventory, tab over to aid, tap Q three times to sort by spoilage, eat from the top down, scroll halfway down a long list to find purified water, done. Some folks may derive particular pleasure from hunting down ingredients for niche recipes, but I'm not sure why as they provide no benefits that could possibly compare to the expenditure of resources required.
Individual locations are often very interesting and have neat self-contained stories. The Hornwright building in Charleston is a sparkling example, and even getting one of the game's power plants back online, while somewhat tedious and repetitive, feels like a neat experience the first time you go through it. While they have once again, and even less excusably, committed the sin of including an amusement park in the game while not letting you ride ANY of the rides, I can overlook that because of the diversity and interest of the other locations they have added to the game. It is consequently that much more of a shame that there are so few compelling narrative beats or characters to tie them together.

This, then, is the burden of my experience with Fallout 76: the core gameplay loop, environment, and location design are all quite good, and prop up a game that would have died a rightful death in oblivion if it had not been so widely promoted and borne up by the juggernaut of a franchise that it purportedly belongs to. I cannot emphasize this enough: it is an unacceptable mess from a technical perspective. Attitudes towards this among the existing community seem to range from a sort of Stockholm Syndrome (it doesn't crash every hour any more!) to a weary resignation to Bethesda's incompetence. Even were it not for the odious business practices that this game has been swathed in from the very get-go, this would not be a game that anybody could advocate paying full price for. Yes, I stand by this statement entirely: 18+ months of continuous development after release, one of the most talked-about AAA publisher releases, in one of the gaming world's most successful franchises, is still not worth its asking price at launch.
Fallout 76 has rightly tarnished Bethesda's reputation and shown exactly how low they will go in pursuit of profit. And that's a damn shame, because there is, and was, a lot of passion put into this game by its designers. But deeper than that, it represents the final abandonment of Fallout as anything more than a shell for Skinner-box gameplay mechanics. Much like in Fallout 4, the world of Fallout is barely a veneer over the surface of this mess; old, familiar, tired enemies are shoehorned in as part of a rote performance. Super Mutants are pulled onstage with a cane for you to shoot at; two-headed radstags beg you with bloodshot, glowing eyes to once again put them out of their horrifically drawn-out misery; hostile robots are hostile because they are something slightly different to shoot at. Deathclaws are here because of course they are. So lacking in confidence in their own creativity, Bethesda continues to trot out the galvanized corpse of the series and ignore the opportunity to create something new, even as they retreat further and further from the meaningful decision-making and deep explorations of the human condition that had previously defined the series.
Fallout 76, in my eyes, remains a failure. It fails as a competent video game and it fails as an entry in the Fallout series. I fully expect someday to return to Fallout 4 or Skyrim yet again as the competent technical platform and pre-built world for modding that they primarily are, and 76 has even failed to rise to that level. We know why: because the open-platform, free-enterprise attitude had to die to make way for microtransactions and season passes. It's been said before, but Bethesda's most meaningful contribution to the lore and philosophy of Fallout may be how they have obliviously become what it was always intended to mock and expose.
I have deliberately avoided certain discussions that are best presented in Joseph Anderson's excellent review of the game. I strongly recommend watching it to get a better feel for why even folks that joined around Fallout 3 are feeling very hard done by with this latest backwards step in the franchise.

COMMUNITY - Official* Ranking of Every Episode

*official in the sense that this is what i_rank_tvshows thinks and that's pretty official

RANK #	EPISODE TITLE	SYNOPSIS	ANALYSIS
#110	"Advanced Introduction to Finality" s4e13	Season 4 finale where Dark Timeline invades	For all the genius the Dark Timeline gives us, this conclusion does not feel earned or entertaining. On paper, the idea seems fine: the Dark Timeline invades. But in execution, the logic is too much of a stretch to genuinely enjoy and it all feels forced.
#109	"Alternative History of the German Invasion" s4e4	German invasion snoozefest	One of the most--if not THE most--forgettable episodes. Centering the episode around the revived German villains (sans what made them funny the first time, Nick Kroll) meant this was doomed from inception. Decent set up of the Changnesia storyline, but even that feels underbaked. Strong argument can be made this is the worst episode, but the one below it gets docked more for the mistreatment of the dark timeline.
#108	"Conventions of Space and Time" s4e3	Inspector Spacetime convention	This episode is a shell of an idea, similar to Season 4 finale. With a promising conceit, the background of the convention could lead anywhere. Ultimately, it leads us on an unlikeable battle for Abed's favor that provides no growth or insight for the characters involved. And other cringe moments help to make this one another easy one to forget.
#107	"Cooperative Escapism and Familial Relations" s4e5	Thanksgiving at Shirley's; Jeff reunites with his father	Season 4 really was the worst, right? In a show known for nailing it's holiday episodes, I was excited to see what they'd do with their only Thanksgiving entry. What we get is the 'Season-four-shell-treatment': they want to connect Shawshank with escaping Shirley's and that's literally all there is. I know others appreciate the Jeff/Father storyline, but it felt too flat for me to feel emotionally invested.
#106	"Advanced Documentary Filmmaking" s4e6	Changnesia documentary	Chang is one of my favorite characters. Had the Changesia angle been more genuine, as the episode leads us to believe until the end tag, then it would rank much higher. Instead, the obvious Chang-betrayal puts us back in well-tread territory, undoing the nicer aspects of this documentary episode. Ultimately, another instance of trying to retroactively make a memorable Community episode, missing the heart that could have made it special--although it comes close.
#105	"Intro to Knots" s4e10	Christmas where they 'kidnap' professor	Another entry in 'Season-four-shell-treatment' made even more apparent with it being a Christmas episode. Great setup, interesting twist, but so much wasted potential. Had they cut the Die Hard stuff entirely, it may rank higher. I found the references repetitive and annoying and it led nowhere. There's just not enough focus to appreciate what's happening. I still get immense joy from the reveal that Chang can't tie knots, but the entire kidnapping storyline is too underdeveloped to be meaningful.
#104	"App Development and Condiments" s5e8	Meow-Meow Beans	HOTTEST TAKE ALERT! People seem to disagree with me on this episode the most. One of the few high-concept episodes that falls flat for me. The more the school is taken over by the app, the less invested I became. Jeff's journey to return everyone to sanity was uninteresting, perhaps due to the aesthetic choices of the world-building. Some funny moments aside, it just doesn't succeed in being much more than a concept. Love the Tim & Eric cameo; should have been featured more.
#103	"Intro to Felt Surrogacy" s4e9	Puppet musical	The puppets, songs and cameos make this one a Season 4 highlight. It's enough to distract you from noticing there's not much beyond that. The storyline itself is absurd in a bad way. If they had embedded the dark secrets in much more straightforward way (and given Abed one even if he didn't end up sharing it) it would have been much more enjoyable. I would have loved to see this idea executed with the real creative team at the helm.
#102	"Economics of Marine Biology" s4e7	Greendale tries to lure rich student	This one surprisingly grows on you. Initially, the prospect of Greendale selling out to lure in 'the whale' seemed like a half-hearted attempt to go zany (and revisit the Abed-college-movie terrain) but rewatching Magnitude lose his identity and remembering the P.E.E. subplot, this one has a lot of laughs and surprising amount of heart.
#101	"Laws of Robotics and Party Rights" s6e5	Convicts attend Greendale using mobile tablets	There are some good jokes in here, but the execution of the main idea of telepresence robots used by criminals doesn't come off all that entertaining. I'm bored more than I'm laughing and it's a decent one to skip in rewatching.
#100	"Heroic Origins" s4e12	Comic book origin stories	They pretty much the nail the conceit in this episode. The comic book interlays and the fun exploration of how it all started are ambitious if not a little forced.The discovery of Chang at the center of it all, clearing the way for him to finally join the group, is a triumph. I'm also not bothered by the yet unmentioned Froyo shop that served as an important landmark in their backstory because it feels at home with the comic cliche.
#99	"History 101" s4e1	Season 4 premiere where Abed goes to his happy place(s)	Abed's imagining of Community as an entirely other sitcom (with Fred Willard as Pierce) is fantastic until you realize the real show is a shell of its former self. That contrast hurts what is actually a really fun episode. It also suffers from too many storylines not really gelling. And they waste Abed; he's just sitting there for the most part. It ranks this high because for better or worse: it sets the tone for gas-leak season.
#98	"The Art of Discourse" s1e22	Annoying high school showdown and Abed's college cliches	If it wasn't for the super annoying feud between Jeff/Britta and high schoolers, this would rank much higher. The fun meta-exploration really finds a home with the college cliche fixation, but so much time is wasted on "Da-Doys!"
#97	"Intro to Recycled Cinema" s6e8	Chang Space Movie	I love the bits of repurposing the old footage of Chang to fit into Abed's new movie, but the rest of the movie scenes were unremarkable. The Steve Guttenberg cameo was great and his reactions to the film are entertaining. I love the "Ham girl!" line rocketing Chang into stardom. Beyond that though, it's all too light and uneventful that it's easy to rank low.
#96	"Football, Feminism, and You" s1e6	Troy used to play football	I'm very glad they dropped this version of Troy early on, but it's really the first dud in its run. It does get points for bonding Shirley and Britta in a fun way. And I suppose there's some merit to fleshing out Troy as someone who'd fake an injury to avoid a football career, but the story's still not aware of Troy's true character. Perhaps the best example of the show trying to find its footing.
#95	"Aerodynamics of Gender" s2e7	Magic trampoline	This one just doesn't do it for me. Sure, the idea of a magically-calming trampoline sounds funny and they execute it well enough, it's just not something I really need to rewatch. I don't get much enjoyment from Abed's mean-girl routine either.
#94	"Basic Genealogy" s1e18	Family day at Greendale	Overall, it's an enjoyable episode. It suffers in rewatching because there's not much memorable entertainment beyond Britta getting spanked by Troy's Nana.
#93	"Celebrity Pharmacology" s2e13	Anti-drug play	I find Pierce extra-annoying in this episode. My main moment of joy comes from Chang taking over the role of drugs. The other storylines don't add much, but there are some good laughs throughout.
#92	"Contemporary Impressionists" s3e11	Jeff's narcissism and celebrity impersonators	I find Jeff extra-annoying in this episode. Sure, that's sort of the point, but it doesn't make his extra-narcissism any easier to enjoy. The group playing celebrity impressionists is enjoyable, but this is the least memorable episode in what may be the best season.
#91	"Herstory of Dance" s4e8	Sophie B. Hawkins dance	This is a Season 4 gem. Beyond the lovely Brie Larson cameo, witnessing Britta's journey to actual pride and satisfaction is one of the great emotional moments in the series. What holds it back is the unnecessary double-date trope that just lets the cliched developments feel a little flimsy. This is helped by the lack of development of Brie Larson's character in the rest of the season.
#90	"Custody Law and European Diplomacy" s2e18	Shirley's baby shower and Britta dates a war criminal	The Chang-may-be-Shirley's-baby's-daddy arc was great and this episode is perhaps the most focused and rewarding concerning it. What drags it down is the unlikeable Lukka and the somewhat boring plot surrounding his being an awful human.
#89	"Advanced Gay" s3e6	Pierce becomes a gay-rights icon	While it was fun to see Pierce embrace some actual character growth, it doesn't really get capitalized on moving forward. This could have been a stepping stone for him; instead, it's a wasted opportunity. Some good laughs and it sets up two important plot points: Pierce's father's death and Troy's induction to the wild world of AC-Repair.
#88	"Advanced Criminal Law" s1e5	Britta's on trial and Abed pranks Troy	I love Abed's elaborate prank, even though real-Troy would have been much more gullible. All the trial stuff is gold, too, especially the setting by the pool. While it suffers from the characters not being themselves quite yet, it's still a fun episode.
#87	"Environmental Science" s1e10	Jeff helps Chang to get out of homework	There's not much to this episode beyond the Jeff/Chang storyline, but it's pretty compelling to push things forward. Humanizing Chang always warms my heart and for this to be our first real dive into his life, it's a decent foundation. The Fievel arc is pretty memorable thanks to Donald Glover's hilarity and the duet sung at the end.
#86	"Paranormal Parentage" s4e2	Pierce's haunted mansion	A Halloween classic that doesn't suffer (much) from the season it's in. It feels like Community and even offers Pierce some great opportunities to shine. Entertaining all around, but would likely be that much greater with Harmon's influence.
#85	"Origins of Vampire Mythology" s3e15	Britta's ex, Blade	I'm always confused when I see the title because I think, "another Halloween episode?" I think that impacts my disappointment in this otherwise fine episode. The Pierce/Chang friendship makes me wish we had more. And Britta's texting/calling from the bedroom is actually pretty funny and there's a sad turn where Troy's kindness breaks the spell.
#84	"VCR Maintenance and Educational Publishing" s5e9	Abed and Annie play TV board game	Another one shaded by my personal disappointment. I was thrilled to hear Vince Gilligan would cameo, but was bummed this was the result. The end tag was funny, though. Decent snapshot of the fallout from Troy leaving, although it's continually frustrating to see Brie Larson underutilized. Oh, yeah, there's something to do with textbooks, too.
#83	"Urban Matrimony and the Sandwich Arts" s3e12	Shirley remarries Andre	This one suffers from being forgettable beyond Troy and Abed's 'weird-down'. Of course, the wedding is a standout plot point, but one that gets shuffled away easily as the season progresses.
#82	"Basic Email Security" s6e6	Greendale is hacked	While being a weaker entry in Season 6, it definitely has some strong moments. The leaked emails leads to a hilarious discussion among the group and the unified purpose for an ultimately unworthy cause is great. The kid cop gag is solid, too.
#81	"Basic Sandwich" s5e13	Part Two of Season 5 finale where Greendale is saved	The episode operates as a treasure hunt and what could have been a series finale if not for Yahoo!. It's successful in its first operation although the solution being a stinky, perverted former teacher with a deus-ex-machina contract is underwhelming. It would have failed as a series finale so thankfully we need not worry about analyzing it as such. Highlight is definitely Richie's brain-robbing ability.
#80	"Basic Story" s5e12	Part One of Season 5 finale where Subway takes over Greendale	Three "Basic"s in a row, wtf? Anyway, this one leaves the breadcrumbs for the eventual treasure hunt with intrigue and the idea of Subway controlling Greendale feels like dire stakes. It's a fun set-up that barely outshines its concluding half.
#79	"The Psychology of Letting Go" s2e3	Pierce's mom in a lava lamp	While the heartfelt drive to get ice cream allows for a touching moment, the rest of the plots don't do much for me. Britta vs Annie seems gratuitous and Jeff's vanity was already worn out this early in Season 2.
#78	"The Politics of Human Sexuality" s1e11	STD Fair	Some great laughs although the subplots don't add much to the enjoyment. Annie's search to see "it" is some good ole Reverse Porky's fun and Abed telling students to not use condoms over the PA is prime Community.
#77	"Basic RV Repair and Palmistry" s6e10	RV road-trip movie with the giant hand	A fun, meta episode that feels surprising considering it's somehow new territory all the way in Season 6. Some good laughs, good heartfelt moments, and sets up the great run of episodes that follow.
#76	"The Science of Illusion" s1e20	Britta's April Fool's joke	A decently funny episode made all the more memorable for being the introduction of Troy and Abed's talkshow. I'd probably rank it higher if not for the fact that I find Annie and Shirley vying to be the bad cop as too much of a 'meh' thing.
#75	"Grifting 101" s6e9	Grifting	An oddball episode made palatable by the hilarious Matt Barry. While a little farfetch'd in execution, it's a fun journey that's fueled by the absurd hijinx.
#74	"Asian Population Studies" s2e12	Who will join the study group?	Perhaps the most normal episode in the series. That's not a knock against it, it's just a little bland in comparison to what's around it. Some solid moments and laughs, although I find Rich perplexing and frustrating just as Jeff does because I don't know how I'm supposed to make sense of his character.
#73	"G.I. Jeff" s5e11	Jeff's animated coma	A lot of people really dislike this one and I think there's decent crossover with that group also disliking G.I. Joe. I could be wrong, but that's the only way this episode is outright bad to anyone in my eyes. Because it's a dead on spoof that subverts the original show in a hilariously effective way. The clincher for me is how well embedded the conceit is with the reality of Jeff being comatose. Being able to nail the logic makes it all more enjoyable for me.
#72	"Competitive Wine Tasting" s2e20	Who's the Boss?	You can pretty much throw out the main storyline of Pierce's new, suspect, love interest. That bit drags the episode down in my opinion. The strength belongs in Abed's storyline where he asserts his pop culture dominance over a professor. We do get an interesting look into Troy and how he continually struggles to have actual struggles compared to the other characters, which rings true throughout the series.
#71	"Applied Anthropology and Culinary Arts" s2e21	Shirley has her baby	An overall fun episode despite the Shirley pregnancy arc already being tired by this point. Britta trying to deliver the baby is gold and Chang being humanized will always please me and this is perhaps his greatest, human moment. Not the biggest fan of Pierce buying Troy/Abed's handshake, but it leads to some fun moments.
#70	"Analysis of Cork-Based Networking" s5e6	Bear Down for Midterms	Being the first episode without Troy, naturally it's gonna suffer. What it does well though is capture the college-based zaniness that works so well for Community, highlighting new and background characters with the singular focus on an attainable goal.
#69	"Ladders" s6e1	Season 6 premiere where Frankie tries to fix Greendale	A great introduction to perhaps the most underrated character, Frankie. While essentially being another 'Repilot' it does a good job in setting the new-ish stage while providing the same amount of laughs we expect from a good Community episode.
#68	"Studies in Modern Movement" s3e7	Annie's move	Troy and Abed are especially grating in this episode and it really makes you sympathize with Annie. There's some redemption with their sweet, shadow-puppet performance. The highlight, though, is the Jeff/Dean karaoke of Kiss From a Rose.
#67	"Interpretive Dance" s1e14	Troy and Britta attempt to hide their dancing from group	The dancing is great and a real chance for Donald Glover to shine with his range. It also offers one of the first instances of Troy being the heart of the group, sacrificing his secret to save Britta. If it wasn't for the bore that is Jeff/Slater romance, this one would rank higher.
#66	"Intro to Political Science" s2e14	Student-body president election	Solid episode whose only crime is its debate setting not being nearly as funny or interesting as the episodes' ranked higher than it.
#65	"Geography of Global Conflict" s3e2	Model-UN showdown	Fun episode with some memorable moments. Not a big fan of the UN showdown as the format but it works for Annie's obsessive passion. I wish Martin Starr would have been used more, his character had potential.
#64	"Basic Crisis Room Decorum" s6e3	Greendale gave a degree to a dog	This episode is when I knew this final season was going to be done the right way. This has the classic feel of a Season 3 episode but with new characters bringing a fresh twist to what we already enjoy on the show.
#63	"Introduction to Finality" s3e22	Season 3 finale where Shirley takes Pierce to court	What could have sadly been a series finale, this episode delivers in all the right areas. It's a satisfying conclusion to the Troy HVAC Messiah arc and ends on a hopeful look into the future.
#62	"Foosball and Nocturnal Vigilantism" s3e9	Foosball	I always enjoy the Jeff/Shirley pairing and the connection in this episode is a strong look into their past and an example of growth. Any time Shirley can show off some unexpected skills that make her into a badass, sign me up. The anime cut of them facing off feels so right and unforced. Sadly, the B plot where Annie breaks Abed's DVD is complete (memorable) filler.
#61	"Biology 101" s3e1	Season 3 premiere where Jeff goes crazy	A fun start to my favorite season. A successful foundation for what is the most ambitious season in terms of narrative connective tissue. This one sets the tone.
#60	"Course Listing Unavailable" s3e18	The group gets expelled from Greendale	The momentum leading to the big gut punch at the end feels meaningful, as if the group could really be seeing its final days.
#59	"Accounting for Lawyers" s2e2	Jeff reunites with lawyer frenemy	First episode where the group leaves the campus is a landmark moment. Very funny episode that gave us some classic moments like the Drew Carey cameo and the chloroform scene.
#58	"Communication Studies" s1e16	Jeff/Britta drunk voicemail	Jeff and Abed's getting drunk montage solidifies this episode's entry this high into the rankings. While I'm not a big Slater fan, this is her most palatable episode by far.
#57	"Early 21st Century Romanticism" s2e15	Valentine's Day	This episode really benefits from all its separate parts working together under the theme of Valentine's. Britta being needlessly defiant in the name of acceptance, Troy/Abed pursuing love only to realize their love matters more, and Jeff accepting Greendale through letting Chang move in is powerful. Even stronger, Pierce overusing his pain meds and seeing a tiny Andy Dick is funny until its made poignant by the dark ending.
#56	"Debate 109" s1e9	Jeff and Annie debate	This episode gets major points for sparking the Jeff/Annie relationship, but it's one of my least favorites in rewatch. I guess it's the debate setting. Not taking away anything from the episode in terms of quality, it's solid.
#55	"Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality" s5e7	Jeff/Britta/Duncan love triangle and Hickey handcuffs Abed	Some good character moments. I really enjoyed seeing Abed express a new emotion while be kept from seeing his movie. The Britta love triangle is interesting, but it doesn't add much beyond showing Duncan has an actual human side.
#54	"Anthropology 101" s2e1	Season 2 premiere with Betty White	This one does a good job capitalizing on the drama generated in the Season 1 finale. We get the tangled mess of Jeff/Britta/Annie to good comedic effect and a maniacal Betty White cameo to boot. While the focus is completely on the romantic plot (and Abed says that can be boring) I felt like this was a good place to start the season.
#53	"Physical Education" s1e17	Jeff plays pool in shorts	Jeff trying to look cool while playing pool is memorable, but it loses its comedic impact the more I rewatch it. Thankfully, everything surrounding it is pretty solid in this one, including Danny Pudi showing his range with impressions and playing his own doppelganger.
#52	"English as a Second Language" s1e24	New Spanish teacher	I applaud this episode on how well it crafted the end of the first year: revealing Chang's a fraud at the risk of losing credit for the class, the tension between the group realizing they still haven't evolved beyond a study group quite yet, and setting up Troy's gifted handyman skills.
#51	"Romantic Expressionism" s1e15	Annie starts dating Vaughn	Vaughn was a fun character and his relationship with Annie is memorable in the best way. The Kickpuncher stuff was solid bonding for the other characters, also allowing Chang time to find his footing within the early group dynamic.
#50	"Introduction to Film" s1e3	Abed takes a film class	The first Abed-film episode that showcases surprising heart with its reveal at the end. This is perhaps the first example of how effortlessly the show is able to combine heartfelt moments with comedic ones while honoring their characters. I would argue this episode sets up the emotional center of Abed's claymation Christmas one in regards to showing the friction with his mother.
#49	"Spanish 101" s1e2	Spanish class	An early outlier in my opinion: the second episode of the series actually showcases the characters well! We get hints of Chang's facade (Italian flags on flashcards/his eccentricity), we get Troy & Abed's iconic rap together, Pierce's focus on bonding with Jeff to fight off loneliness, Britta's being exposed as a lazy activist, and Shirley's baking brownies!
#48	"Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking" s2e16	Pierce in hospital mockumentary	A well executed mockumentary that showcases how Pierce feels about his fellow members of the study group while he attempts to manipulate them for his own means. It's a great conceit that manages to spoof the style of other popular sitcoms (The Office, Parks & Rec, Modern Family) while retaining originality.
#47	"Pascal's Triangle Revisited" s1e25	Season 1 finale where Jeff kisses Annie	This one has some classic moments: Jeff/Annie's kiss, Troy eating the big cookie, Duncan/Chang fight, and Britta/Slater showdown. It's a great end point for the first season.
#46	"Social Psychology" s1e4	Annie's psychology class experiment	Iconic scene where Donald Glover shows off his uncanny ability to cry comedically. The rest around that part of the episode is fine, pretty much building blocks and figuring out what else worked.
#45	"Competitive Ecology" s3e4	Lab partners	A really fun episode where we get different pairings of the characters and some self-aware examining of the group itself. Detective Chang could have been a whole episode unto itself but it shares the space well here.
#44	"Lawnmower Maintenance and Postnatal Care" s6e2	Dean in virtual-reality	AND JESUS WEPT! I mean it's comedic gold: Jim Rash using physical comedy to be a god in a virtual world full of boring features. It's so great and memorable, it outshines the other storylines about Britta's parents and Chang's long journey to see the nurse.
#43	"Advanced Safety Features" s6e7	Dean buys a Honda	Another Dean classic episode. I was happy to see Subway the Person return because I've always shipped Britta and him. It's also chock-full of other greatness: Chang's PowerPoint presentation, Natalie is Freezing, and Billy Zane trying to hide.
#42	"Pilot" s1e1	Series premiere	Where it all started. It has to be honored for that. The episode also has probably the best Jeff speech in the whole series.
#41	"Home Economics" s1e8	Jeff crashes with Abed	The first instance of a dedicated pairing of Jeff and Abed. It allows them to showcase their easy chemistry and they create a bond that propels much of the show for here on out. Pierce's song is kind of annoying though.
#40	"Introduction to Teaching" s5e2	Jeff becomes a teacher at Greendale	Pretty much a feel-good episode for me. It's a return to form after the gas-leak season and establishing re-pilot. We get Buzz Hickey, Abed doing Nick Cage, and Dean thinking in French.
#39	"Queer Studies and Advanced Waxing" s6e4	Chang stars in Karate Kid	One of my most quoted episodes. Besides singing Gay Dean all the time, I also find myself reminding people that Ralph Macchio!...showed up.
#38	"Messianic Myths and Ancient Peoples" s2e5	Abed documentary	Abed going meta for the first time. But it also has the heart to show his vulnerability and Shirley's powerful friendship which saves the day. Pierce hanging with the hipsters also shows some vulnerability and provides some laughs.
#37	"Regional Holiday Music" s3e10	The group joins Glee club	If they had to do another musical episode (and I'm glad they did) at least it was Christmas themed, again. This one is more focused on that as a theme and manages to spoof in fun ways. Baby Boomer Santa, thank you for everything.
#36	"Repilot" s5e1	Season 5 premiere where Jeff forms the Save Greendale Committee	In a similar way to the Pilot, you have to give this one the same type of credit because it brought the show back to life. While its tone is darker than everything before it, Dan Harmon works his magic to make it feel like a part of the story all along.
#35	"Virtual Systems Analysis" s3e16	Annie goes into Dreamatorium	I have a secret hope for the Community movie should it ever come to be: Abed and Annie should be together. There! I said it! Episodes like this where we focus on the pairing really show how well they work together and their chemistry can be magnetic. Beyond my daydreaming, this episode is a fun exploration of the characters in the vein of Abed's other imaginative journeys.
#34	"The First Chang Dynasty" s3e21	Heist to take down Chang	Community does a heist movie. They nail it. We also get another John Goodman cameo and work towards resolving the Troy AC arc.
#33	"Wedding Videography" s6e12	Garrett's marriage mockumentary	The incest episode. Also the episode where Abed doesn't physically appear. Yeah, it's a weird one. But the format makes it work and the group (especially Elroy) keeps us laughing.
#32	"Basic Human Anatomy" s4e11	Troy/Abed body swap	Thanks to Jim Rash, Season 4 managed to crap out a classic. A great concept, some great acting, and a fitting end to the least popular romance in the show's history, SlateJeff included.
#31	"Geothermal Escapism" s5e5	Troy's farewell with a game of 'the floor is hot lava'	A late-series classic showcasing the heartbreak of tearing apart the best pair Community has to offer: Troy and Abed. Of course it's another conceptual episode, but it manages to hold its own among them while relying more on the emotional moments for effect.
#30	"Investigative Journalism" s1e13	Greendale starts a school newspaper	Buddy should have joined the group permanently. His lone entry in the series radiates throughout and it's always a warm fuzzy feeling to return to it.
#29	"Digital Exploration of Interior Design" s3e13	Subway student and set up for Pillow/Blanket war	Arguably John Goodman's funniest appearance. All parts are working well here to make us laugh and care about the characters. Jeff's subplot is a bit boring, but not enough to detract from the overall enjoyment.
#28	"Modern Espionage" s6e11	Underground paintball	Even though they could have never returned to paintball, I'm glad they saved it for near the end of the series run so that it felt nostalgic. I also enjoyed the idea of playing the game in secret, so the whole thing took on an espionage vibe that made it feel fresh.
#27	"Comparative Religion" s1e12	First Christmas episode; Jeff fight	An instant classic. As you can tell (and as I've stated) I love the holiday episodes. This being one of the earliest entries, it's grounded in more reality than those that follow. With that, it still provides all the goods, just in a winter-doodle package.
#26	"Beginner Pottery" s1e19	Pottery and boating classes	Since it's a show about community college, it makes sense there'd be episodes like this: ones where we focus on the group in separate classes. The boating entry is especially hilarious and allows Yvette Nicole Brown room to show off her acting skills. Oh, and hey, look, it's Tony Hale.
#25	"Digital Estate Planning" s3e20	Video game for Pierce's inheritance	Just a genius idea. Executed flawlessly. A great storyline to paint on top of it. Seriously, y'all, great job. This is only number 25?!?
#24	"Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design" s2e9	Night School	Kevin Corrigan really steals the show, doesn't he? It's fun watching the conspiracy unravel and the Dean really shines in the final scene.
#23	"Mixology Certification" s2e10	Troy's 21st birthday	A noticeable tone shift occurs midway through this one and it highlights the ability of the show to get just as 'real' as it can get creatively 'unreal'. Donald Glover showcases his range as well. A poignant episode overall.
#22	"Basic Rocket Science" s2e4	KFC Space Simulator	I credit this one with signaling that the show was going to lean into its conceptual motifs and use them as appropriate vehicles to bring a smile to your face time and time again. To call it a classic would be selling it short.
#21	"Advanced Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" s5e10	D&D with Dean and David Cross	Hard to revisit this well without coming up short, but this one manages to cement its own unique legacy. This one also proves that having the Dean at your table enhances your experience exponentially. Imagine what the first one would have been like with him there?
#20	"Horror Fiction in Seven Spooky Steps" s3e5	Scary stories	[hums Daybreak]
#19	"Cooperative Polygraphy" s5e5	Polygraph for Pierce's wake	Reader, did you know that I admire your dedication to read through my entire list? And also sperm.
#18	"Paradigms of Human Memory" s2e21	Clip episode	Another genius idea: do a clip episode with clips from events that never 'happened.' This is the show operating entirely in its sweet spot.
#17	"For a Few Paintballs More" s2e24	Season 2 finale; Star Wars paintball	The latter half of an incredible finale showcases all the characters having fun playing the game of pretend. Key note on the Annie and Abed watch: hottest kiss in the show.
#16	"A Fistful of Paintballs" s2e23	Western paintball	I prefer this one to the Star Wars one, but only by just a little. A fine Annie episode and one the gets real on the Pierce issue in a satisfying and fitting way.
#15	"Introduction to Statistics" s1e7	First Halloween episode	You can blame this one for getting me hooked on Community does holidays. And you can blame it for the Troy and Abed pairing that would propel the show onward.
#14	"Pillows and Blankets" s3e14	Pillow/Blanket fort war documentary	Do you think Elroy actually does narration work?
#13	"Basic Intergluteal Numismatics" s5e3	Ass Crack Bandit	I'm a firm believer that Annie is the ACB. She alone is able to perform all the acts herself. Agree? Disagree? Let me know in the comments.
#12	"Contemporary American Poultry" s1e21	Chicken finger mafia movie	Probably Scorsese's favorite episode of Community. Let me know in the comments, Marty.
#11	"Epidemiology" s2e6	Zombie Halloween party	I'll watch this one every October until I die. Bet.
#10	"Curriculum Unavailable" s3e19	Greendale Insane asylum	So, I smoke weed, right? And I watched this episode and I'm ashamed to admit but...I fell for it. I said aloud, "this explains everything." I thought (and still do) that it was great fucking twist. So, it sneaks in the top ten even though most will argue it's mid-tier at best.
#9	"Documentary Filmmaking: Redux" s3e8	Dean makes Greendale commercial documentary	God bless Luis Guzmán. That is all.
#8	"Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas" s2e11	Claymation Christmas	It's so satisfying to watch Clay-Abed jump on all those cars at the beginning. And I watched a lot of these types of movies as a kid so it's the most distilled Christmas essence that show could offer me. Appreciate it.
#7	"Cooperative Calligraphy" s2e8	Bottle episode	Man, do I love a bottle episode. I also just saw the monkey steal the pen for the first time last viewing. Pretty freakin' cool if you ask me.
#6	"Emotional Consequences of Broadcast Television" s6e13	Series finale	One final conceptual episode to go out on: pitch me your season 7. It's brilliant, touching, and satisfying. Trust me, it'll keep you coming back just to get that impact after watching all 110 episodes.
#5	"Critical Film Studies" s2e19	My Dinner with Abed; Pulp Fiction surprise party	I only wish this episode were two separate episodes so I could enjoy it that much more. A wonderful meshing of ideas and Danny Pudi's best performance.
#4	"Basic Lupine Urology" s3e17	Law & Order	In my childhood home, it was commonplace to hear the Law & Order theme song at all hours of the day/night. To say this episode affected me in a profound way would not be doing the impact justice. It's fucking beautiful.
#3	"Modern Warfare" s1e23	First paintball	First and best. This episode probably gave the creators all the credit they needed to get the rest of the series done, whether that was at NBC or with Yahoo! (or Netflix in the future?). I'm just in awe every time that I watch it. Feels like it's always existed; hard to imagine someone conceived of the idea.
#2	"Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" s2e14	D&D with Fat Neil	I'm glad I own the DVDs so that I can revisit one of my favorites any time I get the itch to do so. Pity that Chang's portrayal of a drow is misperceived to be something other than agreeing exactly with those who find issue with it. As an avid D&D player, this would had to be near the top of the ranking.
#1	"Remedial Chaos Theory" s3e3	Different timelines; Troy & Abed's housewarming	Surprising no one: this is the best episode of Community. I think most of the Community-Community will agree with me, but if you don't, you best come prepared because I just did a whole list and will do more so yeah pretty official wouldn't ya say?

Anyway, thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed it.
i_rank_tvshows

TL:DR - I just don't get it. Why would we even want the free ones, let alone PAY for these things? Full rant below, but the highlights are: We can't build displays?? Completely unacceptable. We can't plant crops or have sinks? Slightly more understandable, but still dumb. There's less "rules" in regards to placing walls, but...so what? Building a structure within these structures looks so out of place why would you ever do it anyway? And once we have one placed, it changes our large green camp vendor icon to a hard to see shelter icon on the map. Why??

Now, the long version. Back when Fallout 4 came out and I got my first taste of building in a game like this, I fell into a bit of a hole. Seriously, I took like a week off work and during that whole time I don't think I ever fired a bullet unless I needed to go out and get more junk to break down so I could build more. I started small at the Red Rocket, figuring out how everything worked, and by the time I was done, I had learned all the glitches, workarounds and crazy tricks to skirt their building "rules" and make ridiculous, impossible structures all across the Commonwealth. I have a comic book shop built on Jamaica Plains that should not exist, all thanks to glitching a single piece of foundation where it shouldn't go with the bridge trick, and snapping other pieces onto it. Then, mods became a thing, and some mad lads created the glorious Place Anywhere stick and the clutter mod and I built some truly next level shit. I was actually going to make a video of some of my builds to show to the folks at Bethesda because I thought "man, if I can do this with no actual training, sub par tools and tons of placement restrictions, imagine what I could do with access to the actual engine? I bet I could get myself a job!"
Cut to 76, and you can build almost anywhere on the map? And other players can come see your stuff and walk around it?? Hooooo boy! Sadly, almost none of my old FO4 hacks still function, so I'm much more limited by their building rule set, but for a game like this it makes sense, so I worked with it and actually have come up with some pretty cool stuff. Nothing like the entire city I built on Spectacle Island or the Children of the Atom village I built in the Glowing Sea with the workshop anywhere mod, but I still managed to get some nice looking stuff that looked like it belonged where I stuck it and meshed well with the surrounding environment. In fact, one of my very first spots during the beta was so well integrated that a player came thru trying to loot the area, only realizing it was a camp when he went to loot a cooler I had placed, and discovered it was a stash box. He had a mic on, and was audibly confused when he looked in the container...took him a second to realize he was looking at his own stash then he said "oh shit, this is someone's camp?!" I happened to be close enough by to give him the thumbs up before running off to my next adventure.
So, all this backstory is basically to set up one simple statement: I'm a builder, and even with the necessary work arounds and glitches needed to make it work like it already probably should, I LOVE building stuff. I've easily spent more time building than playing the actual game. Choosing a random spot on the map and building my own part of the wasteland on top of it is amazing, so when I first heard about instanced shelters, naturally I was stoked. I couldn't get my happy ass up to vault 51 fast enough when they dropped, as I wanted to see what all could be done with them. Imagine my extreme sadness when the answer to the question of what can we do in these things was "Well...nothing really...lol"
No seriously, I don't get it. What's the bloody point of these things?? No displays. No crops. In fact, no resources of any sort. Limited lighting. Did I mention: NO DISPLAYS???????? I simply cannot wrap my head around that part. The crops I guess I can understand, though I find it pretty shitty that you can place the dirt floor tiles and the dirt filled mine cart/truck beds down there. Dick move Bethesda, you tease...to a certain degree I get why you can't put the ammo maker down there so you can't double up on it, but that could also have been solved by just placing a limit of one unit per player. Limited lighting I guess also makes sense, but 50 seems pretty low for the larger structures. But no weapon racks? No magazine stands? No bobbleheads?? What do you expect me to put down there then, exactly? A weird room inside of a room that sits just high enough off the vault floor to make it look completely out of place? You lifted some of the building restrictions in regards to snapping walls, but why? There are already walls down there, what I want to do is put stuff on them. My Junkie's weapon collection needs a place to hang, my comics need to be displayed, and my hoarded stash of pre-war junk needs to line the shelves of those lovely Thanksgiving display cases. But I literally can't do any of those things, soooo...what is the point? I can, however, place turrets? ...in an instanced interior that enemies cannot access. Because sure, that makes a lot of sense, right? And for the love of Todd, why the hell does placing the entrance to one of these things in your camp change your icon on the world map from a large, easily recognizable green vendor icon to a small, hard to see yellow camp icon with an even smaller yellow shelter widget?? If I do for some reason want to use this silly and mostly useless feature, it comes at the cost of decreased vendor traffic? Wut???
I guess having a mobile crafting station and sleeping area that can move from camp to camp is nice, but it's stuck behind a loading screen, and 9x out of 10 I'm fast traveling to my camp to begin with, so the last thing I want to do is watch a fast travel screen, walk 10 paces to my shelter door, then watch another loading screen before I can fix my gun...I truly don't understand what they thought we were gonna do in these things, and I'm even more baffled that they didn't think we'd want to display our treasures in them...it's infuriating. This is all just from the utility one I got from the initial quest...I claimed my free Lobby one, but I haven't even stepped inside it yet. Why bother, it's just a larger space that I can't really do anything with...and the $18 one? LOLOLOL...gtf outta here, I'm not giving you $20 for a giant, functionally useless interior space, are you out of your mind?? I have to hold out hope that they just pushed them out in a rush for a quick holiday buck, and that at a bare minimum, display items will be allowed in the very near future or I think this whole idea is gonna be a giant flop for them...which sucks, because at it's core, its a fantastic idea, its just implemented unbelievably horribly...I can deal with the insane grind, the glitches, the time gating, the 87,000 layers of RNG, the glitches, the overall lack of end game content, the glitches...but man, the implementation of these shelters really grinds my gears. Roar...

I've been with this game since the Beta. I've endured all the most crazy bugs and glitches from the infinite scorchbeast sonic screams to Armor destroying itself upon reloading weapons and the infamous and rage inducing fast travel bug.
I've stayed with the game despite it's MANY lows and occasional highs and have given the game many passes because of my love for Fallout and my belief in the games long-term potential.
I can no longer do that..
After putting in more than 3,500 hours I'm officially hanging up my Vault-Suit. I've tried to motivate myself to stay with the game but due to the absolute refusal from Bethesda to truly LISTEN to the community and fix the core issues that have plauged this game since launch and have only gotten worse I can no longer keep myself motivated to play more than an hour.
The pointless time gating, The horrendously tedious grind, The lack of communication, The lack of purpose...
This game has genuinely become an unfun chore to play through and what was once a very active dialogue between the community and devs has slowly devolved into complete silence.
The game has clearly shifted towards catering to the many whales you commonly see in the mobile space who have no issues buying whatever bundle or subscription you throw at them. Why have 100 players give you $10 when you could have 10 players giving you $100?
I spent this entire day giving away all my legendary weapons, outfits, ammo, junk etc to anybody who could use it and as I did this I realized this game despite it's shortcomings still to this day has one of the best online community's I've ever seen. The community is what makes 76 so special... Which is why it's such ashame Bethesda doesn't seem to realize that.
I created this Reddit account to engage with the community and trade with other players. Now that I've completely emptied all my character's and took one final look from Vault 76 my journey in Appalachia is complete.
Thank you to everybody in this sub for being genuinely nice and amazing people. Your passion for the game is what kept people like me playing for so long and the valid criticism and feedback you continue to give shows that you continue to care and want change in a game that still has potential to be so much more. I just hope Bethesda comes to realize this as well.
Farewell Dwellers ✌❤

!Wall of text warning!
*Long time reddit lurker and beta player*
PvP has always been a very polarizing topic for this game, and its removal down to just workshops has all but eliminated an entire way to enjoy and play the game and stripped it of many random encounters that made me like the game on release. Its similar to removing all the end game bosses so they could incorporate larger camp budgets, your appealing to one base at the cost of the other when PvE, PvP and building should all have equal weight. Which at first I felt they achieved.
When this game was announced I was concerned about the PvP as I had played Ark and knew survival type games are absolutely brutal. To my surprise, Bethesda actually did a great job of finding the middle ground. There were enough protections to protect PvE players while still adding the threat of other players harming you. This made the wasteland threatening and scary as well as really proving you had to become good at surviving the wasteland. You could either fight, flee or just learn players to avoid them.
The wanted system was perfect in this regard. Bethesda gave us a system to self police the wasteland and with it created 2 playstyles within PvP. One you could be a raider stealing, killing, and destroying property but at a cost of becoming wanted and opening the door to be hunted by the second playstyle, a minute man style neighborhood watch. I remember seeing adds for players grouped together for the sole purpose but to protect PvE players from these raiders. You messaged them for help and they came in full force to push them back and protect you. This happened organically, and that was the beauty of it. Plus the lack of rewards from PvP made it not as appealing thus it was rare to find a PvP player.
My own experience back in the day, My friend, his gf and myself were playing 76. We were out doing our own thing while she was building her camp. Well this was early on so for some reason my friend told her to build right near Poseidon energy plant, which is a high traffic area and to this day idk why he set her up like that it was asking for PvP. So while we were out two players came and started attacking her camp and her. We quickly packed up and headed there to help defend her property. We show up and lay them out, they respawn again and again. So we got more aggressive and pushed them back to one of their camps and killed them and leveled the camp. They stopped and in that moment we just fought off raiders just like any other fallout game, it was just players this time and happened without a script.
That's just one of many moments that would just randomly happen that added so much to the end game. Even my base getting destroyed never really upset me, annoying but it just made me make bases that were more hidden so player could not find it.
I will not argue though that the game did not do a great job at stating the laws of the land when it came to PvP back in the day, I believe that caused a lot of the frustrations of PvE players being able to mostly avoid it as well as hacked or broken weapons. But that was a game balance issue not necessarily a PvP issue as balance effects PvE and PvP. But PvP was hit the hardest because of it and balance should always be worked on to make sure the game operates as intended.
As a beta player, I feel the difference of the wasteland. I am an immoral PA using tank. I can solo the imposter sheepsquatch with ease by only using stimpacks, med-x, Vamp minigun, PA mods and perks. I'm not even using half of the extra buffs I could be because they are just not needed. Without PvP, nothing scares me or challenges me.
Watching what non PvP people have done to this game I can't help but be bitter. Why couldn't we just have a different style game using the fallout universe? Why does it half to just be made into another normal Besthesda game? Why do you hate getting killed by a player when in any of the other games the PvE characters would also randomly come out of know where and kill you without warning? Now my friend can't help me fight unless he gets shot as well so as a stealth character he is forced to die or watch me fight alone?
Nuclear Winter gets thrown around as go there for PvP, but it is not the same nor does it appeal to me. I have no problem with it in the game and think it should stay for those who do enjoy it, I just prefer the more random and natural flow of PvP in Adventure as well as the unbalance nature of potentially biting off more then I can chew. Fights in real life are not fair, a wasteland is no different.
I never was big on PvP, never looked for a fight and was RPing as botherhood of steel. But because of the changes, I switched to a raider. Now I do hunt players, made a trap base because now camps are invincible and I will come for you when you are taking a workshop. I'm not the only one, many player have to much more extreme measures to get even at their playstyle has been almost removed. They say two wrongs don't make a right but it sure makes me feel better watching PvE players have their hero complex questioned and watching the PvP hardcore get angry that they were tricked even if my base gets destroyed by explosive bait because of it lol. But not everyone gets mad, I have had many people complement my trap wanting to learn how I did it and even shared GG's after great workshop fights. I also still from time to time make gear for new players and help out those who are good sports about it as I mean, traps have always been apart of the Fallout universe and I have died to many in the single player games loosing game progress. Here we only loose some junk.
For a wasteland this world and its residents are way too squishy, I know its a game but what did you expect from a wasteland? Idk this trend of games I enjoy being altered or canceled due to gamers raging about it just really is pushing me away from gaming. I just wish gamers would understand not every game is for them and its okay that its not. Others out there are enjoying it. So critic with empathy as you may help ruin the game for others.
This is why its removal slowly is bad for the game a whole. Hopefully this helps PvE players understand why some of us enjoyed the PvP and what it brought to the table as well as show that as a community, we had a good middle ground it was just pushed way to far to the PvE side because of balance issues not necessarily because it was PvP or how it was implemented. Heck I'd be happy if private teams could act like old teams so you can make raiding parties again. Not the public ones though, just private.
Hope you enjoyed and maybe gained insight on the topic.

Cue the Admiral Ackbar gif. Scroll to the bottom for a TL;DR.

This is a really, really long post. As I started typing it just started pouring outa me.

So, yes, this is my first post, hi Reddit! But first, a little background. I'm a huge Fallout series fan and I've played 76 since Beta, but not continuously. I bought it Day 1 and played heavily after launch. I got the Platinum trophy and was the last of my friends playing by a large margin. I had really enjoyed playing with my friends and as the weeks wore on playing solo I began to enjoy it less and less until I set it down for what I thought was possibly for good. Until Wastelanders.

I was sadly the only one of my close friends to come back to 76 for the major DLC expansion, but I wasn't going to miss it. I dived in solo and really enjoyed it. I tried to convince my closest friend (who is also a huge Fallout series fan) to come back with me to no avail. That's how bad of a taste Fallout 76 left in his mouth. I couldn't even convince a huge Fallout fan to come back to play a FREE expansion. Brutal.

So I played the entire expansion story and both significant ally quests solo and overall I enjoyed it. Then, I saw the Bullion system/ Faction Reputation grind after and realized I was in for a long haul. I needed to decide whether or not to go for it. Coming from a Monster Hunter background I'm not shy of a good grind so I decided to go for it. (A small word of advice, I'm a power armor user (yeah oof) and went for T-65. This was a MASSIVE mistake. Plus after missing 2 weeks worth of potential Secret Service armor rolls during the Fasnacht parade I'm KICKING myself even more for it. Definitely go for SS armor if you're reading this late before the grind. T-65 is NOT worth it, even as a PA user.)

Finally, to the topic, sorry for the long winded early story. I had a gift card with an odd amount of $ left on it and decided eh, why not? I'm gonna get Fallout 1st for a month and judge its worth for myself. On May 11th I bought a month and proceeded to grind the absolute living hell out of Fallout 76. By sheer luck, the Fasnacht event fell within this month, to put it in perspective, I legit, no rubber banding involved, grinded it enough to get many multiples of every single item, including the 1% drop masks, nearly 2 full sets of them. Thanks Covid lockdown, my hands hurt now.

Immediately, Fallout 1st completely changed the way I played. First, the stash has doubled in size from launch which was 400 pounds to now 800. Nice. But I easily filled that extra space playing the expansion and ally quest lines. Most of my stash box space was scrap and I remember the number when I emptied it. The stash went down from nearly full at all times to roughly 275. This gave me hundreds of pounds to play with again which felt amazing and I quickly got addicted to filling the scrap box with hordes of scrap I never picked up before...I was pretty selective about scrap before. You HAD to be, but now? I carried EVERYTHING back with me.

To briefly touch on the benefits that I could take or leave, first the private server, it's really not for me...Sorry, gasp, I know. I'm aware some people buy FO 1st simply for this reason, but I barely touched it. 76 is a multiplayer game and that's how I enjoy it. I enjoy doing public events, jumping on Queen runs and especially, vendor hopping. I thoroughly enjoy playing with others in the Wasteland. Even playing with a random group I linked up we rarely used it. To be honest, the most we used it was to double or triple dip during the Fasnacht event. That's really it... The 1650 atoms and exclusive outfits, shrug. I'm an older gamer and cosmetics really don't grab me like the younger gen. I've bought some here and there, but I have literally thousands of Atoms already and barely use them.

Here's the two HUGE game-play changers, the Survival Tent and the Scrapbox, and holy crap, I wish they were free because after having them HOW do you play WITHOUT them again? This is the trap. Let's be honest, they're both just game breaking. IF I HAVE to PAY for them, then I wish I had access to a much cheaper option for just these TWO benefits alone. Man, talk about creating a solution to a problem and then making people pay for it. Where to begin? The sheer, incomparable convenience and even tactical (!) (Queen fights anyone?) benefits of the Survival tent and the huge amount of caps it saves you. Farming an area? Slap it down and go HAM. Having instant access to some of the most important resource items in the game at will AND as a fast travel point is insane. I can't believe it's locked behind a paywall, but it pales in comparison to the almighty scrapbox. Then the scrapbox, the fucking scrapbox...slamming a mountain sized pile of junk into a box (bag) of holding should NOT feel this good, but I swear to God it did, every single time. I must have THOUSANDS of pounds of scrap in there at this point and thank God when your benefits end they just stay there. You can't put anything in the scrap box anymore, but you can leave everything in there thankfully.
After a full weekend of playing without it now, I do miss the Survival tent for sure, but the thing I clearly miss most is the scrapbox. I really don't know how to go back to playing without it. Not only did it completely change my personal playstyle of Fallout 76, but it has ruined it for me without it now. Weight management is an absolute nightmare without it. I sincerely don't know what to do now. $99 for a year is clearly the better deal than paying month to month but it's still ABSURDLY expensive. If it was $50 for a year, I mean ok, maybe? But it's more expensive than Playstation Plus at full price, (even almost TWO years!), a basic Netflix sub, or even almost a year of Amazon Prime. I cannot believe how expensive it actually is. It's insane.
So yeah, Fallout First is a trap and Bethesda knows exactly what they're doing. I'm almost sorry I even got it because going back to playing without it is going to be incredibly difficult. Thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed it. Look forward to the comments.

TL;DR After playing with FO 1st for a full month, it feels nearly impossible to go back to playing without it.

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