Bethesda: No Plans to Add FOV Slider to First Person View, Voice Chat Always On

[Raevenlord]

In what is sure to become a controversial response to player feedback, Bethesda has gone out to clarify some questions users might have regarding particular features in the release of Fallout 76. For one, it seems that the FOV will be limited to the anemic, defaulty 80º - a decision that simply can't be understood in the wake of recent game releases and ultrawide screen support existence. Even if one does not consider that, 80º FOV still remains a very limited view ratio for a good percentage of users.

The other, definitely more... debatable.. decision is the "Always On" feature for voice chat. Instead of the much more private "Push to Talk" option - which allows anyone with a good sense of privacy to not talk to the entire world while using their nose hair trimmer, or eating Pringles, or listening to (insert your favorite kind of music here) - Bethesda says that in order for the world to feel really "alive", an always-on chat will definitely nudge people towards communicating. We'll see how hard that one decision turns out for the game world. It'll be a great immersion experience, I'm sure. You can read the entire Bethesda blog response after the break.

Hi all,

We'd like to extend our sincerest thanks to everyone who played the Fallout 76 B.E.T.A. The stories you've been sharing, the feedback you've provided, and the issues you've made us aware of have been appreciated along this journey.

We've been reading everyone's comments and wanted to share some of what will be addressed on or close to launch and what we're investigating post-launch.

We encourage you to keep sharing it with us whether that's on Reddit, social channels like Twitter and Facebook, and our official forums.

Thank you again for your continued support.

• Ultra-Wide Support: We will support 21:9 post launch. Once available, or shortly before, we'll be sure to post our patch notes that let you know when to expect it.
• Larger Stash Size: We've seen this one come up a lot and understand the frustration. While the Stash size at 400 weight limit can get easier to deal with over time, we do plan on increasing it in the future.
• Push-to-Talk: While we aim to create a consistent experience no matter what platform you're on, we understand that some of you on PC would like the option for Push-to-Talk. Our goal with voice chat being on by default is to highlight that the world is alive with real people, other players like you. We like to start with encouraging player interaction and will look into adding this in the future.
• FOV Slider: We haven't supported FOV sliders in our previous games as it is known to break a lot of animations and causes a lot of clipping to occur onscreen. You do have the option to zoom out in third person on PC by holding View and moving the mousewheel, but we won't be able to have it for first person view.
• Exploits of Various Types: Many exploits we've seen reported have been known and will be addressed in a future update.
• Issues with social menu and inviting friends/making teams/etc.: Those who were experiencing issues with the social components will find that many of these issues have been fixed. We will continue to fix issues as they arise as fast as we're able to, so keep letting us know when you run into them.
• Hunger not being sated: Some were saying their "Hunger bar" wouldn't replenish no matter how much they ate or how cleared of diseases they were. This issue has been addressed and will be in a future update so no more hungry dwellers.
• Loud Gunshot/Noises: The issue of players hearing sudden random gunshot/loud sounds around Appalachia will be addressed in a future update near launch.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[StrayKAT]

Did they ever have a slider? I always edited the ini files.

People don't realize Skyrim was originally set up for 16:10 btw. It needs that adjustment.

 

[Vayra86]

The Division has a public always-on chat feature as well which was active in the Dark Zone. If you used ingame voice chat, you could hear others and it had real positional audio as well. It was awesome in terms of immersion. Groups could be seen using codewords to tell the group to initiate an attack, it made standoffs super tense.

Unfortunately people in premade groups would use a different voice client and simply not use the ingame chat. These days you barely see people use it at all.

 

[EntropyZ]

I'll quote myself right now...

"Whoever @ Bethesda thought this was a good idea with that POS engine, need to rethink their priorities. It's good for large amounts of objects, other data and open worlds, I get it. But the performance cost and other idiosyncrasies doesn't justify any of it. Why do they refuse to simply keep all the naming conventions, remaining similarities and start over... Just hire someone who knows what they are doing, ffs.

What they are doing now is just milking the same old cow. Nobody should give them money under the current circumstances, not until they fix their sluggish/mutated mess.

No DX12 support, no ultrawide aspect ratio, no proper framerate control, no refresh rate control, framepacing issues (worse on AMD cards), no UI scaling options, no true positional audio, using old deprecated Windows/file system functions for slow loading and the list goes on... Do you even program bro?"

I mean you can change most of these in the .ini but that is all backwards to Win 3.1/95 days and its stupid in this decade. You can also do it IN-ENGINE (through console commands) and for some stupid reason they can't just put that on the settings UI. What is wrong with them!? So many quality of life things can be implemented but it never occured to them after they released Morrowind all those years ago? If this is their idea of a joke, I don't get it.

Everyone belonging to Zenimax is a complete tool 'cause they are fine with this.

And by the way you the player are their tester now. Companies releasing these multiplayer only games seem to never have testers of their own, because if they did, so many glaring issues would never fly past the radar.

I think they are making games to make investors happy, not the players. And players are still giving them money, so the companies keep doing the same old crap. Some are exceptions because they know exactly what they are doing... Release a few meh sequels, then release the game that players actually wanted! Profit! Everyone is happy.

My salt levels are at an all time high. Their fault for not even addressing issues that are 10+ years old that can be plainly seen in the engine code once you reverse engineer the executables.

 

[neatfeatguy]

My younger brother wanted me to keep this game on my radar and he tried to tell me why, but I didn't want to hear it and told him I wouldn't get this game, even if it was free.

I wasn't impressed with the Fallout series after Fallout 2. I won't say that I didn't enjoy my time in Fallout Vegas, but I didn't treat the game as Fallout. I just treated is a different game to a different series - I didn't use the VATS during combat, not even once. Straight up shooter with an okay story and decent atmosphere. I didn't enjoy the game engine, though. It felt clunky.... and how people describe Fallout 4 not being improved upon with the Creation Engine didn't really inspire a need for me to run out and play Fallout 4. I can't see why folks would want to play, let alone, support Fallout 76 given the past history of issues from the other games in the series that never seem to be improved upon properly (or at all).

 

[StrayKAT]

I'll quote myself right now...

"Whoever @ Bethesda thought this was a good idea with that POS engine, need to rethink their priorities. It's good for large amounts of objects, other data and open worlds, I get it. But the performance cost and other idiosyncrasies doesn't justify any of it. Why do they refuse to simply keep all the naming conventions, remaining similarities and start over... Just hire someone who knows what they are doing, ffs.

What they are doing now is just milking the same old cow. Nobody should give them money under the current circumstances, not until they fix their sluggish/mutated mess.

No DX12 support, no ultrawide aspect ratio, no proper framerate control, no refresh rate control, framepacing issues (worse on AMD cards), no UI scaling options, no true positional audio, using old deprecated Windows/file system functions for slow loading and the list goes on... Do you even program bro?"

I mean you can change most of these in the .ini but that is all backwards to Win 3.1/95 days and its stupid in this decade. You can also do it IN-ENGINE (through console commands) and for some stupid reason they can't just put that on the settings UI. What is wrong with them!? So many quality of life things can be implemented but it never occured to them after they released Morrowind all those years ago? If this is their idea of a joke, I don't get it.

Everyone belonging to Zenimax is a complete tool 'cause they are fine with this.

And by the way you the player are their tester now. Companies releasing these multiplayer only games seem to never have testers of their own, because if they did, so many glaring issues would never fly past the radar.

I think they are making games to make investors happy, not the players. And players are still giving them money, so the companies keep doing the same old crap. Some are exceptions because they know exactly what they are doing... Release a few meh sequels, then release the game that players actually wanted! Profit! Everyone is happy.

My salt levels are at an all time high. Their fault for not even addressing issues that are 10+ years old that can be plainly seen in the engine code once you reverse engineer the executables.

Oh, so you can still adjust INIs? I was a little confused at first..

I get that you want more convenience, but there is a lot of control in those inis that would just be crazy in a menu. Maybe they should add FOV, but where would you want them to stop? Those files cover a lot. That engine is meant to be tweaked and modded in more ways than one… and it's a good thing imo. Maybe not for this title, but it was a good thing up until this point.

 

[EntropyZ]

My younger brother wanted me to keep this game on my radar and he tried to tell me why, but I didn't want to hear it and told him I wouldn't get this game, even if it was free.

I wasn't impressed with the Fallout series after Fallout 2. I won't say that I didn't enjoy my time in Fallout Vegas, but I didn't treat the game as Fallout. I just treated is a different game to a different series - I didn't use the VATS during combat, not even once. Straight up shooter with an okay story and decent atmosphere. I didn't enjoy the game engine, though. It felt clunky.... and how people describe Fallout 4 not being improved upon with the Creation Engine didn't really inspire a need for me to run out and play Fallout 4. I can't see why folks would want to play, let alone, support Fallout 76 given the past history of issues from the other games in the series that never seem to be improved upon properly (or at all).

If they wanted to play a game that is more "Fallout", 3 and New Vegas do it far better than 4 ever did. There's thing passed around bonfires... Hardcore fans would be completely fine if that game wasn't called "Fallout 4", "Fallout 76" or whatever. Because it really has little to do with the franchise anymore. Most of the things that make a "Fallout" game aren't intact anymore. The story and setting were retconned to apply with the "new" game mechanics easier.

Ghouls need water to survive? Nah, nah, nah. Let's make it so they don't need that stuff...

 

[bug]

Here's the kicker: voice chat is not always on if I stay away from the title. So take that Bethesda.

 

[Tomorrow]

Oh great. So the will be constant buzzing and humming sounds coming from everyone who's mic's pick up their PC noises?
I can't see how this can ever go wrong lol

 

[neatfeatguy]

Oh great. So the will be constant buzzing and humming sounds coming from everyone who's mic's pick up their PC noises?
I can't see how this can ever go wrong lol

Just get some audio loop of Darth Vader's breathing as you walk around in game......never say anything else, just simply let the Darth Vader breathing play over the mic, nonstop:

 

[Venger]

Oh great. So the will be constant buzzing and humming sounds coming from everyone who's mic's pick up their PC noises?
I can't see how this can ever go wrong lol

Well in the beta you can set the voice to All or Team or None. Not sure why they dont add " push to talk"? how hard is that to implement??

 

[Dammeron]

Bethesda: No plans to add FOV slider.

Me: No plans to buy their crap...

 

[Mussels]

Yeah... no.


If i was playing with friends we'd just have to find ways to disable the in game mic and use discord, this is another stupid idea.

 

[windwhirl]

On Half-Life 2 series I always pushed the FOV slider to 90º, and still felt like it wasn't enough. What a pain it must be if you are on ultrawide...

And the always on microphone, yeah, right. My headset, like many others, has a little slider to shut the mic off. And there is a cable I can disconnect, if I'm upset enough about it.

Just get some audio loop of Darth Vader's breathing as you walk around in game......never say anything else, just simply let the Darth Vader breathing play over the mic, nonstop:

I think I'm going to do this, but on Left 4 Dead 2. Will be fun to only hear Lord Vader's breathing on my ears while I walk into a zombie nest or something

 

[Mussels]

muting your mic wont help you mute everyone ELSES mics - even in PUBG where having your mic always on to public is a massive negative, often i catch people camping in buildings by their heavy mouth breathing, smashing cherry blue keyboards, or all the wonderful background noise (chinese internet cafes... ugh)

Mic always on is a bad fucking idea on PC

 

[INSTG8R]

Keep making it more unappealing Bethesda. Big sales! Much hype!
I’ve been fighting wth those issues with every iteration now you’re gonna force it on us?
This really wasn’t on my radar but you’re putting plenty of nails in the coffin for everybody else...

 

[windwhirl]

often i catch people camping in buildings by their heavy mouth breathing, smashing cherry blue keyboards, or all the wonderful background noise (chinese internet cafes... ugh)

That bad? Crap... well, hopefully there will be some setting to control the voice chat volume. Left 4 Dead 2 allows you to control both the transmit and the receive volume levels.

I'm not a multiplayer type, but Bethesda should have known this "feature" could be a terrible idea. Either that or they don't beta-test real-life scenarios (meaning, people with horrible sound setups and noisy environments)

 

[Mussels]

That bad? Crap... well, hopefully there will be some setting to control the voice chat volume. Left 4 Dead 2 allows you to control both the transmit and the receive volume levels.

I'm not a multiplayer type, but Bethesda should have known this "feature" could be a terrible idea. Either that or they don't beta-test real-life scenarios (meaning, people with horrible sound setups and noisy environments)

ported from console where push to talk is impractical (and most players dont even have mics, or headset only)

 

[HimymCZe]

... so I'll buy and play in few month time, then ...
... when Bethesda figure out they made simply a HUGE mistake ...
... if after that time still will be something to get back to ...

 

[FreedomEclipse]

No FoV slider?? Totalbiscuit would of had a field day with this game.

 

[Batou1986]

This is literally a Fallout/TES mod being sold as a FPSMMO with the same busted engine they have used for years.
Currently the game don't even have integrity checks so you can just use the standard Fallout/TES mod tools to do whatever you want.
But hey if people will keep buying garbage why bother making competent games.

more about the zero effort mp mod to the engine

Spoiler

https://www.reddit.com/r/fo76/comments/9u71m1

 

[GoldenX]

Can these people even code?

 

[lexluthermiester]

I mean you can change most of these in the .ini but that is all backwards to Win 3.1/95 days and its stupid in this decade.

No it isn't. There's an old saying and it shines brightly in this instance; If it's not broken, don't fix it. INI and CFG files work very well and make changing in-game parameters which are not found in the games' menu's a breeze.

Totalbiscuit

Yeah, he would have. RIP Mr Bain.

 

[INSTG8R]

No it isn't. There's an old saying and it shines brightly in this instance; If it's not broken, don't fix it. INI and CFG files work very well and make changing in-game parameters which are not found in the games' menu's a breeze.

Except this is now an MP game and this outdated system allows you to do anything you want with zero effort or consequence or maybe you missed Batou1986’s post...They”ve “locked down” what should be a basic option but left the entire back door open for anything and everything else.

 

[Vayra86]

Another clear case of told you so. Except this time everyone told everyone so - and people still went out and paid for a beta test.