izigame.me

I came into this with low expectations but it's a fairly priced game and The Pitt expansion was included in the price so that seemed like value enough to finally make the plunge. Maybe it was my low expectations but I was pleasantly surprised by how much I loved the first 50 levels of game play! I played solo the entire first 50 levels and didn't regret it in the least. I have played every Fallout game in the franchise, including Fallout Shelter AND Fallout Shelter Online (which I do not recommend). I've logged thousands of hours in this franchise, so I'm fairly invested in the series and an admitted fanboy even before Fallout 3.
I don't want to steer you from playing this game, it really is a genuine entry in the Fallout world. Exploring Appalachia is as rewarding as exploring any other place in Fallout's America. And the card system, while not perfect, isn't as bad as it first seems. There's a lot of interesting dynamics and you can change out your cards on the fly. You aren't locked into any build, though you will need to lock yourself in if you want to expand your Legendary cards early on. That's the trade off between choosing to keep your card pool diverse and choosing to exchange your sideboard for points in order to level your Legendary cards. It's give and take and I enjoy that.
I'm a big time CCG player (as well as Blackjack and Poker) so it's appealing to me, even if I prefer the more traditional Fallout SPECIAL, perks, and skills system. Bethesda found an interesting and dynamic way to integrate everything into one system. Kudos for following through on that, but I'd prefer that future Fallout games stick to a more traditional leveling system. Having to open my perk card menu and change out my DPS cards for Lockpicking and Hacking cards every time I come across a terminal or safe and then reopen the perk card menu to change back to my DPS build, while not the worst thing to be forced to do, is still a totally unnecessary task.
Once I got past level 50 I got into a daily challenge routine and started farming the nuke sites for my stable flux, which is the logical progression in the end game; but, it's also a long, long, long grind and you end up just doing the same stuff over and over, hour on end with little to no nuance. How many times do I need to kill this Queen Scorchbeast before I have all the plans and the perfect items set? Obviously well over 1,000 hours, considering I'm already around 300+ hours in and the people farming alongside of me are level 1,000, even 2,000+.
Once I matured past the level 110 mark the game's tedious daily quests, ops, and especially The Pitt expeditions wore me out. I'm just not a fan of The Pitt, which seems like a completely lost opportunity to draw in new players and old Fallout veterans who have waited until now to finally play Fallout 76.
What really gets me is how linear The Pitt is. There's no map, no sandbox exploration; it requires multiple daily quests to fuel a vertibird to entry, not once but every single time you want to play the expansion; the difficulty makes it a grind to solo, but if you want to enjoy it for the first time playing with a group, everyone wants to steam roll it and you're left behind and lose out on that first essential enjoyment of the atmosphere.
I ended up soloing it with a stealth rifle/shotgun/explosives build, but it took me FOREVER and it was not very fun constantly kiting and retreating. I enjoy stealth kiting gameplay, otherwise I wouldn't choose that play style, but not when that's all you're doing in a tedious and linear expedition.
So neither group play, nor solo play of The Pitt is inspiring gameplay. I just don't understand why The Pitt wasn't like the original Fallout 3 expansion with it's own map and nonlinear sandbox to leisurely explore.
I do plan to come back and play Fallout 76 again, but I'm just burnt to a crisp and dreading the hours long, passionless daily grind. I realized the only reason I was playing was for some meaningless costume reward for killing things with an auto-axe -- even though I'm a stealth sniper. Why do I have to be meleeing trogs to get this reward? I don't want to be forced into a play style I don't prefer just to get a reward. I don't want to kill things with a melee weapon and I especially don't want to have to do it in the Pitt.
When I realized I was playing content I didn't enjoy in a play style I didn't prefer for a reward I didn't really even need, and I was required to do this every day for two weeks in a row, I made the decision to stop playing. That was my breaking point.