Fallout 76’s Fallout 1st gives active subscribers access to a wide variety of additional perks like private servers, a mobile survival tent, free monthly Atomic Shop items including the Atom currency itself, and a couple of bottomless resource containers. The paid items and subscription perks in Fallout 76 are completely optional, although some of the items have sparked players’ fear of introducing “pay-to-win” avenues into the game.
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Pay To Win Mechanics in Fallout 76
As for Fallout 76’s pay-to-win items that give players a boost or shortcut to progression, there are carry-weight boosters, fusion core rechargers, lunchboxes, repair kits, scout banners, Scoreboard levels, and an assortment of resource generators. Some of the more invasive items are Fallout 76’s lunchboxes and scout banners, which offer temporary benefits like repairing armor on kills and doubled experience gains among other effects. Scoreboards are Fallout 76’s themed take on video game Battle Passes, though most of the community is in favor of purchasing Scoreboard levels since it allows players to complete missing levels before the current Scoreboard is retired. Most of the resource generators are just different inventories and skins for the same Collectron robot, so players must choose which inventory set they want the Collectron to generate. However, a few of the newer resource generators exist separately from the Collectron.
Besides having a single Collectron in players’ Camps and an additional Collectron in any captured Workshops in Fallout 76, there is a separate category of resource generators that don’t require purchasing. Depending on where players place their camps or which workshops they claim, they will have access to different Extractors, which generate specific resources from regenerating sources in the ground. These Extractors, unlike the Collectrons, only generate a single resource item (except for the “junk” Extractor), so the advantage of Collectrons is in their variety and unrestricted locations for placement. Not to mention, claimed Workshops can be contested by other players in PvP, likely motivated by attempts to control the resources of the Workshop.
Resource gathering is a major part of the core experience in Fallout’s post-apocalyptic wasteland, especially the universally used adhesive resource in Fallout 76. Everything costs resources, bottlecap currency, or ammunition, though while melee weapons don’t use ammo they still need to be repaired, hence the backlash to repair kits as microtransactions. Last week, Fallout 76 added an item in the Atomic Shop, the Sap Collector, which generates adhesive in camps and workshops. Aside from a recipe that uses crops and boiled water, there was no previously existing method for generating adhesive through any camp items, making it a rarer resource than most others - until the Sap Collector was introduced, that is.
The new surge of players coming from Fallout 76 on subscription services coinciding with the Sap Collector allows waves of new players to jump into the game with a shortcut that significantly and permanently reduces the game’s resource grind. Due to the unique and unprecedented nature of an item that passively generates adhesive, it’s arguably the most impactful inclusion so far in the game’s ongoing pay-to-win fiasco. This is especially clear since the Sap Collector doesn’t interfere with the limit of other resource generators players can have in a single camp or Workshop, ensuring it’s a must-have for all players, so anyone missing out is at a severe disadvantage.
Fallout 76’s recent Sap Collector Atomic Shop item sets a concerning precedent for resource generators in the game by offering such a prominent resource to be generated behind a paywall. The item permanently shortcuts the grinding present in the game, especially for new players. The pay-to-win fiasco is nothing new in Fallout 76, yet until now a single purchase has never been so impactful.
Fallout 76 is available now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
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