There was a pretty big patch over in Fallout 76 a few weeks ago called One Wasteland. It brought a lot of changes to the overall experience – some good, some bad. Sort of like the game overall, really. But honestly, it got me back to playing Fallout 76 somewhat regularly, which was surprising.

Scaling enemies is one major component of the update. This is what it sounds like: instead of being accosted by level 5 Molerats, you will be accosted by level 50 Molerats (sometimes level 100 in events), assuming you are high level yourself. It’s always interesting to me seeing how many times developers add this sort of feature to their game years after the fact. Indeed, has there been a game that was just straight-up released with scaling enemies from Day 1?

While the scaling itself originally annoyed me – I used to swap to more lower-power guns to clear out level 5 mobs when farming mats – it does make certain Events more rewarding. For example, there was a low-level event called Leader of the Pack, which basically involves killing three Legendary wolves. Each Legendary wolf would drop a low-level 1-star Legendary item, which you could scrap for Scrip, which you could later use to purchase a random, high-level 3-star Legendary item if you wanted. Well, now the wolves are level 50, which means they drop level 50 Legendaries, which means sometimes the items are kinda good. Not good good – especially when you are all decked out 2 or 3-star Legendaries already – but some guns are good even with only 1 star. 

Aside from scaling, the other big addition was Daily Ops. These are essentially Mythic+ dungeons ala WoW: timed, instanced group content against enemies with special modifiers. You can actually tackle these solo if you want, but the best rewards happen if you complete it in less than 8 minutes, which can be very tricky solo depending on the modifier. Which are very… Minimum Viable Product-level. Resilient (ranged discouraged), Exploding (melee discouraged), Cloaking (VATS discouraged), and Freezing (decent idea). Oh and the mobs always have Piercing Gaze, so no Sneak Attacks. Resilient is by far the worst, of course, because you can shoot enemies down to 1 HP and then finish them off with a gun bash… if melee hits ever registered more than 40% of the time.

In spite of that, I find myself actually joining a few groups to do these on a daily basis. It helps that no real communication is necessary, even with forming groups, due to UI enhancements. Aside from the exclusive (cosmetic) rewards, you also get some guaranteed, high-star Legendary items from a speedy run, AND all enemies drop the same type of ammo you used to kill them. That last part turned out to be more important than I thought. For one thing, it basically eliminates the friction from the decision as to whether you need to farm ammo prior to running these Daily Ops. For another, depending on the gun you use, these runs can actually result in a net gain of ammo. 

Is everything perfect now? Of course not. For example, Resilient has been the modifier for the past 4 out of 5 days. Fallout 76 is in a much better place than it was a year ago, but it’s hard to say whether someone who hated the game a year ago would love it now. For me though, I’m extremely satisfied with my 2018 purchase and the continued, substantial updates at no extra charge to me. And it looks like we’re getting some Brotherhood of Steel quest content this winter and instanced housing options.