Dominate the Wasteland inside a walking fortress.
Like a lot of folks, I got a nasty case of Fallout Fever thanks to the Fallout TV show, and since I’ve already milked every mainline game dry, I decided to cautiously return to Fallout 76. I immediately regretted my decision. I was totally lost—even more so than Lucy—and pretty much everything that wasn’t your bog standard ghoul or supermutant was kicking my arse. It was enough to make me consider going back into the Vault forever. But I’m glad I persevered.
If you’re a complete newcomer, you might be having an easier go of things. Fallout 76’s early quests ease you in, and while level scaling has been in effect since 2020, at lower levels enemies are still more forgiving. You also won’t be inappropriately geared, like I was, as a level 50+ character walking around with level 45 guns and armour. Even a small disparity like that can spell trouble.
Even after fixing my gear issues, though, Fallout 76 was still a bit of a slog. See, even if you’re geared appropriately, if you’ve not fine-tuned your build, your guns can feel like pea-shooters. And taking a beating costs you a lot more than the time it takes to run back to the site of your death to pick up all of your dropped junk. Repairing armour can be a real time-sink, especially if you don’t have any repair kits, which you have to spend Atoms—Fallout 76’s premium currency—on. While you can gain Atoms from completing challenges, you’ll probably want to save them for neat cosmetic items so you can show off your drip when you bump into other players.
So I ended up spending an inordinate amount of time running around trying to find material to repair my gear, during which I was still getting my arse kicked, adding more crap to my to-do list. I considered packing it in. I have a massive backlog of excellent games to get through, and I don’t really need another live service time-waster. But the desire to get my Fallout fix was just too strong for me to give up. So I decided to learn how to play the game again. And what a shock: actually engaging with the game’s systems and not just winging it helped! Who could have known?
Power armour and a very big gun are the two things that have made my life so much easier, but they wouldn’t have been as much help if I hadn’t spent a while tinkering with my build.
