In this week’s edition of Inside the Vault, we’re sharing a look at everything that’s on the way to the Public Test Server (PTS) when we reopen it to begin Night of the Moth Update playtesting a little later today . We’ve also included a revised Community Calendar with updates to our schedule through the end of this year.
PTS RETURNS FOR THE NIGHT OF THE MOTH
As mentioned above, we’re planning to reopen the Public Test Server today to begin playtesting for our Night of the Moth Update. This time, you’ll be able to try out a new Mothman-themed Seasonal Event, Public Event adjustments, and a host of community-requested quality-of-life improvements. We’re currently targeting December to release this update for the live game, and we would greatly appreciate any feedback and bug reports from that you’re able to share with us while the PTS is online. Read on to catch an overview of what’s new in the PTS, and be sure to post your thoughts alongside other playtesters in our PTS channels in the Bethesda Studios Discord server.
MOTHMAN EQUINOX SEASONAL EVENT
The planets are aligning, and a group of the Wise Mothman’s most devoted followers, known as the Enlightened, have traveled from afar to reach Point Pleasant. There, they intend to perform a ritual that will summon the Wise Mothman during the peak of his power. Every hour during this Seasonal Event, you can venture to Point Pleasant to aid the Enlightened in completing this dark ceremony. However, this will be no easy task, as you’ll also need to fend off rival Mothman Cultist groups who seek to stop you. As well, if you’re the curious type, you may find that poking around Point Pleasant during this Seasonal Event may “enlighten” you to the mysterious origins behind our newest Mothman fanatics.
While the Mothman Equinox event is live, you’ll also encounter hostile Cultist High Priests throughout Appalachia who can bend the will of nearby creatures to do their bidding. Stop the Cult from spreading their influence by taking down any High Priests you meet. When you do, you’ll be able to loot them for a chance to earn rare item plans.
PUBLIC EVENT IMPROVEMENTS
We’re bringing a variety of improvements to Public Events with this update. First, we’re streamlining the way that Public Events become available by making the cooldown times between events much more consistent, and preventing the same Public Event from appearing twice in a row in the same World. Next, we’re adding rewards information to the event description that appears after clicking a Public Event on the map, so that you can more easily see the types of loot that you can earn from each event. Finally, we’re making a few balance changes to events that have historically been very difficult, like “Radiation Rumble” and “Project Paradise,” last too long, like “Line in the Sand,” or even end too quickly, like “Tea Time.” We’ve also fixed up several bugs that affected “Swarm of Suitors,” and made some design tweaks to help revitalize the event.
QUALITY-OF-LIFE IMPROVEMENTS
- Corpse Highlights – You’ve just dropped a Legendary Feral Ghoul—but wait, where is its body? Was it over there? No, perhaps it’s over here… We’ve all been there before, hunting through tall grass trying to find a foe’s final resting place so we can get our loot and head back to C.A.M.P. In this update, we’re adding highlights that will help you more easily spot nearby creature corpses, so that you can spend more time adventuring and less time searching for your hard-earned loot. In addition, normal and legendary creatures have different highlight colors so that you can tell them apart more easily.
- Nearby Corpse Looting – Unlike many of the creatures who cross your path in the Wasteland, you’re a born survivor! Whenever corpses start to pile up, you’ll no longer need to pick through each and every one to grab your loot. When viewing a fallen enemy’s inventory, you can now see and collect all the goodies that the creatures around you have dropped by hitting the “Nearby Corpses” button. Happy looting!
- Legendary Loot Sharing – Going forward, if you’re within sight range of a legendary creature when it’s killed, you’ll be able to loot it. With this improvement, the days of trying to hit legendary enemies before they die, as well as waiting for other players to get their hits in before you land the killing blow, are over.
- Team XP Sharing – Sharing is caring, and leveling-up as you adventure with your team is about to get easier than ever. Every enemy that you or a teammate takes down will now grant XP to everyone on the team, so long as they are within sight range of the creature when it dies.
- Build Menu “New” Tab – We’re adding a “New” tab to your C.A.M.P. build menu that will display any new C.A.M.P. item plans you’ve learned during your current play session, as well as new C.A.M.P. items you’ve unlocked in the Atomic Shop.
- Pip-Boy Keyring – Tired of all those keys cluttering up your Pip-Boy? Get organized with the Keyring, which is a new item in your “Misc.” inventory tab that stores all of the keys you’ve collected from your adventures in the Wasteland. Click it to view or access any keys in your collection as needed.
- Pip-Boy Menu Color Customization – Show your true colors by changing the hue of your Pip-Boy menus using a new set of customization sliders that we’ve added to the game’s settings.
- Ammo Everywhere – The contextual ammo system has been a very popular aspect of Daily Ops, and so we’d like to bring it to all of Appalachia. Now, all existing sources of ammo, like containers and creature loot, have a chance to drop a small amount of ammo for your currently equipped weapon.
REVISED COMMUNITY CALENDAR
As we draw nearer to the Night of the Moth Update, we’ve determined that some of the content that we originally announced with our 2021 Roadmap still needs more development and internal testing time before we’re ready to bring it to the live game. As a result, we’re pushing C.A.M.P. Pets, the “Invaders from Beyond” event, and 4-Star Legendary Items into 2022. While we’re sure this news will come as a disappointment to some of you, we appreciate your patience, and believe this additional time will result in higher-quality and more polished features. Despite this scheduling change, there’s still plenty of excitement in store for Fallout 76 this year, including Bomb’s Drop Day festivities, Spooky and Holiday Scorched events, and of course, everything we detailed above for the PTS. Catch all of the need-to-know events and dates in our revised Community Calendar below.
Thanks for joining us to learn about what’s next for the PTS! We’re looking forward to reading all of your thoughts on the new features and improvements during the weeks to come. Until next time, we’ll see you in Appalachia.