Month: December 2018

The next big patch for Bethesda’s multiplayer RPG Fallout 76 is coming soon, and now developer Bethesda has posted the full patch notes for the December 4 update.

As announced previously, this patch will increase the maximum stash storage to 600 pounds, and it could expand further down the road, Bethesda said. The update also introduces stability improvements to the Fallout 76 client and servers, which in turn should lead to a better experience overall.

In terms of balance changes, the Fallout 76 patch makes bosses drop 2-4 items per boss (depending on difficulty and level), while weapon damage has been increased by 20 percent “across the board,” so it sounds like you’ll feel more powerful right away with this update.

As for bug fixes, on console Bethesda has fixed an issue that could lead to an infinite loading screen when players signed out of their console while playing the game. And on Xbox One specifically, the patch addresses a crash scenario for a specific situation related to team invites. There are UI, Survival, and Perk changes, too, included in this update. You can see the full patch notes below, as posted by Bethesda on their website.

Fallout 76 launched in mid-November, and while it might not have been a hit with critics, the game quickly reached “millions” of players. The game is underperforming GameStop’s expectations, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the game is doing badly.

The December 4 update for Fallout 76 won’t be the last, as Bethesda is planning another one for December 11, while the developer overall plans to support the game for years to come.

GENERAL

• Performance: PC framerates are once again uncapped. However, reaching very high framerates will no longer cause movement speed to increase. This was originally fixed in the November 19 patch.
• Stability: The Fallout 76 game client and servers have received additional stability improvements.

C.A.M.P., CRAFTING, AND WORKSHOPS

• Stash: Maximum stash storage has been increased by 50%, to 600 pounds. This is a conservative adjustment, and we plan to increase the storage cap further in the future once we’ve verified this change does not impact the stability of the game.

BALANCE

• Enemies: XP rewards for killing high-level creatures have been reduced.
• Bosses: Fixed an issue affecting instanced Boss loot. Players should now correctly receive 2-4 items per boss, depending on the creature’s difficulty and level.
• Weapons: Automatic weapon damage has been increased by approximately 20% across the board.

PVP

• Weapon Effects: Hitting another player with a Cryolator now applies a Chilled, Frosted, or Frozen status based on how many times they are hit. The duration of movement speed reductions applied by these effects have been significantly decreased.

BUG FIXES

STABILITY AND PERFORMANCE

• Console: Fixed an issue that could cause the player to encounter an infinite loading screen when signing out of their console account while playing Fallout 76.
• Xbox: Addressed a crash that could occur when sending multiple team invites immediately after exiting Vault 76 to a player who is not a friend.

GENERAL

• Power Armor: Fixed an issue affecting Power Armor frames that could prevent the player from exiting their Power Armor.
• Nuke Silos: Flipboards inside Nuke Silos no longer display portions of launch codes too soon after the codes were reset for the week.

C.A.M.P., WORKSHOPS, AND CRAFTING

• C.A.M.P.: Moving C.A.M.P. locations will now correctly move standalone items built by the player into the build menu’s Stored tab.
• Workshops: On PS4, wires will no longer appear to float in mid-air when attempting connect two or more objects.
• Turrets: Will no longer become invisible if the player is not present at their C.A.M.P. when their turrets are destroyed.

PERKS

• Perk Cards: Ranking up a Perk Card will no longer cause a duplicate card to appear.

SOCIAL

• Teams: Fixed an issue that could prevent a team from being correctly formed in a game world after creating the team on the Main Menu when both players are using new characters.
• Teams: Display durations for social notification have been reduced when many notifications are pending. This should help address an issue in which players did not see that they successfully joined a team.

SURVIVAL

• Mutations: The Electrically Charged and Unstable Isotope Mutations no longer provide the player with bonus Health.

USER INTERFACE

• AFK: Players will now be disconnected from a game world after 10 minutes of inactivity and will be prompted with a timer 1 minute before being kicked.
• Atomic Shop: On PC, cursor position will no longer be disjointed from clicks in the Atomic Shop while using 16:10 resolutions.
• Enemies: Red crosshairs and enemy health bars will no longer persist on-screen when an enemy is no longer in view.
• Localization: Subtitles will now appear correctly, and English voiceover will play, for game clients in languages that do not have their own localized voiceover when listening to a Holotape or interacting with robots.
• Pip-Boy: Fixed an issue that could cause duplicate data to appear in the Pip-Boy’s Stat and Effects interfaces.
• Respawn: Dying while severely overencumbered will no longer remove all map markers when attempting to respawn. Instead, the player can now respawn at the nearest discovered Map Marker.
• Quest Tracker: Quest objective notifications will no longer appear for inactive Quests immediately upon connecting to a world.

The new Star Wars TV show, The Mandalorian, has added another high-profile cast member. Nick Nolte is joining the cast that already includes Pedro Pascal and Gina Carano.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, which revealed the news, the new show will allow actors to “come and go,” while the nature of the show allows the producers to cast people later in production than normal. Nolte has been acting for decades; he’s been nominated for three Oscars, for the movies The Prince of Tides, Affliction, and Warrior.

Image credit: StarWars.com

The Mandalorian was written by Iron Man director Jon Favreau, and individual episodes will be directed by established Hollywood and TV veterans like Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi and Jurassic World star Bryce Dallas Howard, among others.

Pascal, who starred on Game of Thrones and Narcos, will play the lead role in The Mandalorian. He’ll play a “lone gunfighter,” in a story set after Return of the Jedi.

“After the stories of Jango and Boba Fett, another warrior emerges in the Star Wars universe. The Mandalorian is set after the fall of the Empire and before the emergence of the First Order. We follow the travails of a lone gunfighter in the outer reaches of the galaxy far from the authority of the New Republic,” reads the TV show’s official description.

The program will air on Disney’s new streaming service, Disney+. The service launches in 2019, but it’s unclear when the new Star Wars show may arrive. It is one of “several” Star Wars shows in development.

The Switch may appear to live in the same family as tablets and smartphones at first glance, but Nintendo, perhaps wisely, has kept those comparisons at arm’s length. The Switch OS doesn’t react when you pivot the system from landscape to portrait orientation, and the vast majority of Switch games feature only minimal support for touchscreen interaction. These limitations aren’t generally an issue, but there is a subset of Switch games that may cause you to question Nintendo’s apparent rigid view of the system’s identity.

Thanks to the efforts of developers such as Hamster Corp. and Digital Eclipse, the Switch plays host to numerous arcade ports, a large number of which were designed to be played with the screen rotated 90 degrees. Playing them that way, of course, requires you to disconnect the Switch’s Joycons so you can prop up the system. That’s all well and good if you’re in a suitable environment, but the process is easier said than done on the go. Thankfully, the $12 Flip Grip has arrived to pick up where Nintendo’s design team left off.

Inexpensive, straightforward, and hugely impactful in the right situation, the Flip Grip quickly feels like a must-own accessory once you start using it. Simply disconnect the Joycons, rotate and insert your Switch into the Flip Grip, put your Joycons into the tracks on both sides of the bracket, and you’re basically ready to go.

One caveat of an attachment like Flip Grip in a world where Nintendo isn’t concerned with portrait mode is that navigating the system requires a bit of roundabout thinking on your part. Because the Flip Grip will obstruct access to the power button and the volume toggle, you will have to resort to pressing the Home button and using menus as an alternative means of powering off the system and adjusting your audio. Once in a game, you will also have to enter a menu to rotate the image into portrait mode. There is a bit of an adjustment period while you get these habits down, but once you’re used to the process it’s hard to imagine playing certain games on Switch without Flip Grip.

Arcade ports like Punch-Out and Donkey Kong go from using a small portion of the Switch’s display to filling up the entire screen, and rather than sitting away from your Switch with a controller in hand, you get to be up close and personal with it while you play–the way Nintendo originally intended. It’s not only a more enjoyable experience, but when playing vertical shooters like Ikaruga or Gunbird 2, the larger viewable area makes it easier to navigate complex bullet patterns and live to fight in another level.

While you’re enjoying your newfound appreciation for Switch, it’s easy to take the Flip Grip’s finer details for granted, but they are worth noting both for piece of mind and for the added appreciation of the accessory’s thoughtful nature.

The Flip Grip is a simple yet versatile Switch accessory that, for the right person, is worth far more than the modest asking price.

The inside of the bracket’s support wall features four felt pads that prevent scratches and smooth out the insertion process. Nearby is a flexible plastic tab with a rubber stopper that helps secure your Switch in place by slotting into one of the two speaker grooves on the back of the system. Releasing it requires just a little tug from the backside of the Flip Grip, but not so little that you’d disengage the stopper by accident.

Most important of all, long gaps along the inside edge of the Flip Grip allow for sound and air to move relatively unimpeded. And while you may not realize it at first, you can also slot a plastic card into one side for a makeshift vertical stand.

With adequate safety measures, thoughtful design considerations, and a very modest asking price, there’s almost no reason to think twice about Flip Grip if you have interest in the Switch’s current and upcoming vertically oriented games. The only other minor considerations to keep in mind are that the Joycons won’t be able to charge while you play and that the OS isn’t built to support the Flip Grip the way some games are. These grievances aside, 12 bucks is a trivial cost for an improved gameplay experience. The Flip Grip will make you think twice about what the Switch is capable of–and perhaps wonder why Nintendo hasn’t capitalized on an obvious opportunity.

Click here for an updated list of supported games, and check out Fangamer’s trailer on the Flip Grip’s pre-order page.

Editor’s note: An early production model of the Flip Grip was provided to GameSpot courtesy of Fangamer.

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