I want F76 to score well for the troll lulz.

User reviews are garbage... I just popped over to metacritic after I heard the game had been review bombed before release. My favorite line from one of the reviews was, "porn hub closed because it just can't suck as much as fallout 76"... Great review.

I've got more respect for a wet fart in church than I do idiots who spam review sites with butthurtery before a game even launches... So my hope is that the game gets the type of reviews that cause said people to lose their minds...

So, user reviews, System wars... Completely pointless or just entertainment?

User reviews are such a joke especially when they are posted the very day of release for games like this.

I think user reviews generally do more harm than good these days, and i'm guessing they are one of the reasons so many devs are leaving steam for their own launchers.

I'm all for anything that will antagonise the types of people who review bomb a game without even playing it

I'll occasionally read some user reviews on Steam if I'm unsure about a game. Generally though, I'll only pay attention to anyone who has put some time on to a game and put some thought and effort in to the review.

Having open review scores is just nonsense, heck even "professional" review scores are for people too lazy to read about the game in the first place.

Same. All the hate has been nonsensical.

They know its online and complain its online. They know it's a diff experience and complain it's a diff experience. Same happened to Metal Gear Survive, poor game. Such a deep dive of a game for those who like hardcore survival mixed with base building and tower defense.

To be fair this has been why we get a lot of reviews in progress.

I pity the fool who actually uses those reviews to decide whether or not to play a game.

Review bombing on day one, clearly not having played it, I wish steam would do something about that. Delay reviews for at least 12 hours. Give people a chance to play the thing first.

And these are the same people who claim that gamespot is paid off by devs or don't really play games. But look how they give bad scores just to hurt a dev or publisher. They're as nefarious and worse.

@with_teeth26: what devs are leaving steam?? Also steam reviews are probably the best reviews out there as they require the reviewer to actually own the game before they can write a review..

Then slam the game and return it before the two hours are up.

I BOUGHT DAT GAEM I HATE.

0

TERRIBLE

Well there was a recent beta test and it sucked ass

Bethesda left steam and are using their own launcher going forwards starting with Fallout 76.

Activision removed Call of Duty from steam this year in favour of using their own launcher.

those are the most recent ones... keep in mind that Rockstar, Ubisoft and CD Projekt Red still have their games on steam, but don't require it. EA and MS also don't put most of their games on steam.

so, most major publishers on PC no longer require (or don't even support) Steam anymore for purchasing and playing games.

Would be better if they could check somehow that the player had actually played the game. Like if you could only post the review through PSN or something. And that you needed the trophy for finishing the game, or say having played it for 5h.

Makes sense I suppose. Why pay Valve a cut when you can just sell it yourself.

Steam will just end up a toilet for shitty indie survival and hentai games.

@Sushiglutton:

Yes. Thank you. That was exactly what I wanted to post. Gamers should be forced to prove they have played the game before being able to review it.

Linking accounts to trophies/achievements makes so much sense.

It would get rid of all the troll reviews because most trolls don’t even play the games they give “0” or “1” to.

No it didn't .... there were bugs obviously, but the hate when far beyond that, its just internet circle jerking.

Its far from a bad game.

It could be blessing in disguise so valve can now finally release Half life 3. they have not because they are getting more and more money from steam.

now more developer will abondon steam more likely valve will think of making HL3 because they couldnot suffer loss.

So this is why AAA PC gaming is dead?

I was aware of EA attempting their own thing with Origin, and MS trying the failed "Games Windows Live" Store (and I'm sure they haven't given up on some other replacement). But with very little in the way of physical sales for PC, it just seems a really dumb idea to me to fracture the digital market. Making customers go out of their way to find and buy your game for full price through an online marketplace that might fold at any time = genius level business acumen. Its almost like they don't want people playing the PC version of their games.

nah its because steam isn't that great and as @Bread_or_Decide pointed out steam takes a slice of the profit from games sold on their platform, so why not create a proprietary one and keep all the money? There is a vocal minority that whines about not buying games if they aren't on steam but I doubt it makes much difference, probably the few lost sales would be made up for by the increased profit from each sale made on their own platform. Keep in mind, the most popular games in the world (League of Legends and Fortnite) aren't on steam.

also AAA PC gaming is not dead, not sure where you got that idea from.

hang this in a museum.

At least steam user reviews are far better than Metacritic reviews.

That is a fair enough point about League of Legends and Fortnite.

AAA PC gaming *IS* dead if you look at player volumes of many of the top multi-plat games, although on PC it might simply be that a disproportionate number of people are playing just a few specific games as well as more indie titles.

Obviously the trade-off from being on steam vs. somewhere else is exposure. Some games can make it without Steam and not have to pay that royalty, but for most games, they don't have a chance. Esp if these alternate marketplaces are seen as a nuisance. I don't mind games not being on steam, personally, I was a PC gamer before steam even existed. So it's sort of come full circle in a way.

What lulz? They always overscore Bethesda games. They always get a pass.

Bethesda is not an "AAA" dev, lol.

By-and-large, user reviews suck... That isn't to say that they all suck. F76 has been hit hard, but that has been expected ever since the announcement... It lacks much of what makes Fallout great, and to boot, the engine is shite. The fact they are using the same engine for ES6 and Starfield is just downright astonishing.

If we utilize "AAA" in terms of budget (like the industry,) then Jesus, i'd agree. They re-use the same engine and assets ad nauseam. They've consistently released lower-quality titles in the Fallout series. Shit, Obsidian released the best Fallout title since the originals.

I hope it gets what it deserves. I find it really annoying when a bad game gets good scores and vice versa. Like Destiny 2. A 5 or maybe 6/10. And it gets 8s everywhere. I hope Bethesda's ad money doesn't affect the scores of F76 too much.

Feels like F76 is already too hyped to score anything lower than 7. And that's fucked up, in my opinion, but that's how game journalism works today. If you score a company's game low, that company might stop giving your site ad money. Or you might get fired.

@lundy86_4: "The fact they are using the same engine for ES6 and Starfield is just downright astonishing."

...are you fucking serious?

Sadly. Granted, it's been updated heavily over the years, but it's still outright dated and just a complete mess at this point. They'd be better off just using another engine and paying the licensing fees. It would probably cheaper in terms of actual workload and testing lol... Assuming they don't just re-use assets ad nauseam.

Todd is saying they like the engine, because it's easy to work with, and modders knows it well. So they're basically keeping it because they're lazy, and they want modders having it easy fixing their bugs for them. Cool company.

Hype for Elder Scrolls 6 just fizzled out. :(

People actually take user reviews in general seriously? That's a first.

I never did that thing where you stage jam jar insect fights as a kid, so there's a part of me that's really interested to find out what would happen. :D

I don't think it realistically can, when you look back at something like destiny vanilla launch and it was what a 6/10 technically the game was fine, graphics were polished gunplay was refined movement worked well etc. From what I played of Fallout 76 it reminded me very much of vanilla destiny in that kind of hollow world space feel, but with added technical hiccups, less responsive gun play and generally not a great experience.

At least with user reviews they are more accurate, once they get into the thousands. Sure there are some weird user reviews but you are looking at a minority, that usually has a message even if it's phrased in a funny way.

Destiny 2 on PS4 scored an insanely high 8.5 average from critics. I am way more in line with the 4.9 by users. If you take into account the pricing **** ups and the lootboxes and the ways they lied to the customer? Yeah a 4.9 sounds way more reasonable. In fact imo it was a 3. And that's the problem with many critic reviews: They don't take half the game into account. They don't take into account pricing, options, matchmaking, patching, the way they are treated by the company. Battlefront 2? Got a 6.8 by critics. That's a pretty good game, right? Wrong.

These days critics ONLY review the barebones main gameplay loop (and sometimes add some kind of edgy or controversial comment about their personal opinions on 'minorities' or 'women' to **** up their conclusion (btw thanks for determining what minorities and women want)) and for anything else you will have to look at user reviews.

• Is this game ported well to the PC? Critics won't tell you. Users will tell you.
• Does this game have a server browser? Critics won't tell you. Users will tell you.
• Does this game have a bad microtransaction system? Critics often won't tell you.
• Does this game have odd pricing in different countries? Critics won't tell you.
• Does the company listen to player feedback on this game? Critics won't tell you.
• Is the game unbalanced? Critics won't tell you.
• Does it take long to find a match? Critics won't tell you.
• Are there any bad bugs? Critics don't necessarily catch those.
• The default controls suck but can I change them? Critics will only tell you that the controls suck.
• Is the grind bad in this game? Critics may have been given a reviewer XP boost that they are not made aware of. Etc.

I get that user reviews can be silly but as a PC gamer I find them invaluable and I often trust 10 well written user reviews that explain what they have a problem with, over any critic review. And I have zero problems with review bombing as long as it's not because of some wacko political push (from either side). It's a good way to show potential buyers that there's a problem that critics are likely not talking about. Because that's honestly what critics do a lot: not talk about things that matter to gamers.

Also, a lot of smaller or lesser known games are not even reviewed by critics. Only by users.

The problem with user reviews is that they are not "controlled" in any form. There are many users that rate every exclusive on their system with a 10 and every other exclusive with a 0. As long as those reviews aren't filtered, the number itself is meaningless. However if you actually go in and read the texts of the most helpful reviews, they are usually filled with information that are very interesting and often missing in professional reviews.

@Bread_or_Decide:

I liked MG Survive, but it ran in a great engine.

Putting aside the actual content of F76 for a moment. The game is so technically flawed.

It’s one thing for people to moan that a studio is doing something different.

It’s a whole other issue when the devs knew many fans would be hesitant, but release such a poorly optimised product anyway.

This game is shaping up to be be Sea of Thieves: Fallout edition by the looks of it.

user scores are worthless; but reviews can be insightful...if you read them.

I only take user reviews seriously well after a game has launched and been completed. I always believe that good reviewers after there has been some time to reflect on a game are the most honest ones. Even more honest than professional reviews. I take experience over hype, and professional reviewers are often just the emissaries of hype, themselves.

I do not because it's a lazy copy paste from Fallout 4 without NPCs, coherent story, and with more grinding. Lots of bugs, unpolished mess. This game is not even at top 10 of Steam's best selling games. And it suits it right. Users must vote with their wallets against these quick and lazy cashgrabs. It's one of few times when users are doing a right thing for drowning this game on its release. Stop being corporative cocksuckers. You are killing traditional gaming we knew and loved.

Withot stories and NPCs is just removing 80% of the original game and selling it at full price the parts that we had hated in the previous F4 game. How this shit can be even remotely redeemable in your eyes is beyound me.

EDIT: OMG they haven't even launched it on Steam. They know their game is a pile of horseshit.

i think Modders can bring us a better game than this FO76 , 60$ for this ? hell naw

I hate all the review bombing nowadays. It's just like those yelp reviewers that make up bogus 0-star stories about restaurants because they won't bow down to their every whim. What's the most annoying is you know that a lot of those people didn't actually play it, especially since there's a lot of scores with no written reviews.

It recently happened with the Spyro Reignited Trilogy as well because of having to download the second and third games. I mean, it is dumb that they aren't on disc, but coming from someone who actually played it, it doesn't make the game itself any less fun or enjoyable. Certainly doesn't drag it down to a zero.

Plus you can still talk about not liking it without actually posting a review. I've seen enough gameplay from Fallout 76 to decide that I don't want to buy it, but I'm not posting a fake review acting like I did. If you want to post an actual review, than play the final product: otherwise you're just being manipulative. And people keep claiming that the critics are the ones giving out one-sided opinions based on agendas.

Uh oh. Wonder if this'll set a precedent.

https://www.thesixthaxis.com/2018/11/16/fallout-76-review/

User reviews are an absolute trash fire, but that doesn't mean bad games deserve good scores to spite them. We'll see how this turns out though.

Same here. I cant believe people giving bethesda a pass with using the same freaking engine that is full of bugs. Even modders are asking for a new engine .

Honestly Bethesda is probably the laziest big "AAA" company out there . Even more than Ubisoft

I don't trust any reviews. I cant play games with anyone else's time or tastes. But user reviews? LMAO that's pretty much the bottom of the barrel.

User reviews are to be taken lightly, no doubt about it. But the first official review is in, and Fallout 76 scored 3/10.

https://www.thesixthaxis.com/2018/11/16/fallout-76-review/

I hope this game will flop, so Bethseda will never come up with the horrible idea of releasing an online Fallout again. Imagine if Fallout 76 sells really well and all future Fallout and Elder Scrolls games are online only. That would be a disaster

It wont. The critics previews have been underwhelming aswell thus far. Its another The Elder Scrolls Online. It'll fail

It's actually worse. At least TESO had some end game, a real story, and npcs. Expansions made it a bit better too, so maybe FO76 will one day be playable.

For now FO76 is like an alpha test. Like playing a game before the developers began to add stories, npcs, end game, etc.

There are good user reviews. The problem is that they are hidden in a sea of shit. Wading through said muck isn't always fun.... It usually isn't too hard to spot a troll user review though. Skipping over the 1,2,and 3 scores, and generally the 9's and 10's if the game averaged a 3-6 from paid review sites. Usually within about 3 points MAX either way could be considered a non troll worthy attempt in most cases. The problem is, it's like some people have like 74 accounts just waiting for user reviews to become available so they can start spamming 0's or 10's. Ridiculous... and a sad, pitiful, existence.