The fucked up thing was 76 was actually a pretty chill and fun game. My roommate got me to play it for a few weeks...

And then Bethesda decided to change the level scaling so that everything was a bullet sponge.

Now I wont claim it was the best fallout game, but I was having fun exploring the map, figuring out the story, and having super high level players give me gear and ammo as a relative newbie.

In my opinion they broke the game the moment everything scaled to my level and I was forced to feel the grind constantly. A clear money grab to make players spend on in game purchases.

Besides that I'll defend the 76 esthetic and community. When I left, it was because it stopped being fun to scrape for everything. Especially in areas that I had cleared 20 levels ago.

Before the change there was a flow to game play. You would grind, push forward to an area, then retreat to safer areas where your camp would be to relax, explore, and craft. It was a low-stakes ride that had challenging moments you had to prep for. Every so often you'd see some newbie and blow their mind by giving them a ridiculous amount of the cheap bullets and junk armor. You know, typical small scale mmo stuff.

But man, after that scaling change....It's like remembering two different games.