Fallout 76 PTS Update Patch Notes and Details
INTRODUCING: EXPEDITIONS
In our latest iteration of the Public Test Server, we’re introducing Expeditions, which offer repeatable Missions that will take you and up to three other teammates beyond the reaches of Appalachia for the first time. While anyone can participate in an Expedition, we currently recommend reaching level 50+ for the best experience.
- Please Note: As this is an early look at the Expeditions feature, you may notice that some of our new NPCs and enemies play “robovoice” for some of their dialogue lines. This is temporary, and all robovoice dialogue will be replaced by full voiceover in upcoming PTS updates.
THE RESPONDERS ARE BACK!
With more and more people returning to Appalachia, some have discovered the Responders of days past and decided to take up their cause to provide aid to anyone who needs it. This new generation of Responders have set up a base of operations inside the spring Resort, called “The spring Refuge.”
- Recently, the Responders have managed to find and restore a Vertibird, and they are hoping to use it to expand their efforts to distant settlements across the Wasteland.
- Visit the spring Refuge to meet members of the Responders team, and to complete the new “Responders Reborn” quest.
- Along the way, you will learn about the Responders’ goals, earn their trust, and gain access to Expeditions.
FUEL UP AND TAKE FLIGHT
- In order to kick off an Expedition, you will need to make the Vertibird flight-ready by charging its Ultracite Battery Cell (Ultracell). Unfortunately, Ultracell charge is in short supply, and the Responders keep theirs tightly rationed.
- After completing the “Responders Reborn” quest, you can visit the spring Refuge every day to automatically start 3 different Refuge Daily Quests.
- In exchange for your help, the Responders will grant you with 25% Ultracell Charge for completing certain Refuge Daily Quests, and 50% charge for others.
- Complete all 3 of your quests for the day, and you will earn enough to charge the Vertibird’s battery up to 100%, which will enable you to lead an Expedition.
- You can hold a maximum of 100% Ultracell Charge at any given time, and all of it will be consumed when you begin an Expedition.
- Visit the Collections tab in the Pip-Boy to view how much Ultracell Charge you currently have.
- Please Note: For playtesting purposes in the PTS, you can lead multiple Expeditions per day. To do this, complete your Refuge Dailies, lead an Expedition to spend your Ultracell Charge, and then repeat.
- Once Expeditions arrive in the live version of the game, players will be able to lead one Expedition per day.
- However, you will be able to take part in Expeditions led by others as often as you would like.
- Additionally, we plan to add an “Expeditions” Public Team to our current list so that you can find teammates more easily. Keep an eye out for this in a future PTS update.
HEAD INTO THE PITT
A recent arrival to the spring Refuge alerted the Responders to a dire situation in a city known as “The Pitt.” There, members of the industrious Union have banded together to drive out a group of Fanatic Raiders from their territory at a local steel mill. Your first Expedition will take you into The Pitt to lend a helping hand to the Union and undermine the Fanatics’ efforts during the “Union Dues” Mission.
- Once you’ve fully charged the Vertibird’s Ultracite Battery Cell, open the Map and click the Expeditions icon to view which Missions are currently available for play.
- Click the arrows on the left and right edges of the screen to select a different Mission.
- Please Note: We’re starting this phase of playtesting with a single Mission, titled “Union Dues.” Even though the second Mission option will appear to be available in the menu, it is disabled. We plan to bring the second Mission online in a future PTS update.
- As you play through a Mission, you will receive 3 randomized objectives from the current pool of 9, which will help keep your experiences feeling fresh from one playthrough to the next.
- In addition, you will receive three optional objectives that you can complete along the way.
- The more optional objectives you complete during your playthrough, the better your rewards will be at the end of the Mission.
- Don’t worry if you need to step away from the game in the middle of a Mission, because the objectives are checkpointed. Even if you close the game, you will be able to pick back up where you left off the next time you log in.
REAP YOUR REWARDS
- Whenever you complete a Mission, you will earn XP, some loot, and a legendary item.
- The Expedition Leader will earn increased rewards in exchange for their efforts to collect and turn in Ultracell Charge.
- Once per week, completing a Mission will earn a random item from the pool of rare Expeditions-themed rewards. You will also receive some S.C.O.R.E. to help you rank-up during your Season journey.
- Rare rewards can include mods for new weapons and Power Armor, new outfits, furnishings for your C.A.M.P., and more!
- With the arrival of Expeditions and The Pitt, we’re introducing the Auto-Axe automatic melee weapon and Union Power Armor to Fallout 76.
- These items cannot currently be earned from the Expeditions reward pool, and must be unlocked in a different way.
- We will have more details to share about how to earn the Auto-Axe and Union Power Armor at a later date. In the PTS, you will be able to craft them by default, so long as you have the needed materials.
- On the end-of-Mission screen, you will also notice that we’re introducing a new currency, called “Stamps.”
- You will earn Stamps every time you complete a Mission, and completing optional objectives will increase the number of Stamps you receive.
- Bring your Stamps to Giuseppe, a new vendor at The spring Refuge, to exchange them for specific rare Expeditions-themed items that you’d like to add to your collection.
- As new rewards are introduced as Expeditions rewards, we plan to move older rewards to Giuseppe to help you unlock the specific items you want.
ADDITIONAL IMPROVEMENTS
In this PTS playtesting phase, we have included some adjustments to the starting experience for Dwellers who are taking their first steps out of the Vault. The following changes should help players feel more prepared as they begin their journeys in Appalachia.
- Dwellers will now receive the following items as they exit Vault 76:
- 1x 10mm Pistol with 200 10mm ammo
- 1x Combat Knife
- 5x Grenades
- 1x Light Leather Torso Armor
- 1x Small Backpack (Players will still need to find and learn the plan in order to craft a Small Backpack.)
- A variety of consumables, including: Stimpaks, Radaway, Antibiotics, food and water, a Vault-Tec Supply Package, and Scrap and Repair Kits.
- In addition, as Dwellers exit the Vault, they will now receive the “Vault Fed” status. This buff will prevent hunger and thirst from increasing for the next 2 hours.
- Finally, we’ve reduced the resistances and damage for many creatures in the Level 1 - 15 range, which should help smooth out early combat for newer players.
PTS UPDATE HIGHLIGHTS: JUNE 1, 2022
MISSION REWARD IMPROVEMENTS
Based on PTS community feedback that the rewards for completing Missions felt like they could use a boost, we’re making a wide variety of improvements with today’s update for the Test Server. Now, whenever you complete a Mission, you will earn more guaranteed legendary items, either Treasury Notes or Scrip, quite a bit more XP, and for the first time ever, Legendary Modules.
- Legendary Items: At the end of a Mission, players will now receive three 1-, 2-, or 3-star legendary items. They can earn up to two more, for a total of five legendary items, by completing optional objectives during a Mission.
- Legendary Modules: Players will now receive one guaranteed Legendary Module when completing a Mission, with an additional chance to earn a second one.
- More Currencies: Players will now receive either Treasury Notes or Legendary Scrip when completing a Mission.
- More XP: Significantly increased the amount of XP players will earn on Mission completion. Additionally, the 50% XP reduction from enemy kills has been removed, meaning more XP overall for taking down enemies in Expeditions.
- Rare Plans: Item plans from the rare rewards pool that an Expedition Leader has learned will no longer drop as the weekly rare reward for that player. This means players will no longer receive duplicate plans for items they’ve already learned how to craft.
- Loot Adjustments: Players will now receive guaranteed Stimpaks at the end of a Mission, and Grenades have been removed from the loot pool.
WORLD
- spring Refuge: Based on community feedback, the log walls within the spring Refuge have been removed.
- The Pitt: Implemented general visual updates for the environment during the Union Dues Mission.
MISSIONS
- Enemies: The level cap for Fanatic Raider enemies has been increased to 100.
- Enemies: Fixed an issue that caused Fanatic Raiders in Power Armor to be weaker than intended.
- Union Dues: As a response to community feedback, a quest target will now appear for the “Locate the Union Supply Cache” optional objective when players are near it.
SOUND
- Conversations: NPC dialogue lines that previously played robovoice now have proper voiceover lines.
USER INTERFACE
- Hotkeys: Following community feedback, the Expeditions Icon on the Map now more clearly indicates that the Expeditions Menu can be accessed by pressing its associated button (“R” on Steam).
BUG FIXES
CHALLENGES
- Daily: The Alien Blaster and V.A.T.S. Unknown now correctly count towards the “Craft or Scrap a Ranged Weapon” Challenge.
GENERAL
- Teams: Fixed an issue that could cause teammates to join an Expedition in a broken state if the Team Leader started an Expedition while in another instance.
ITEMS
- Auto-Melee Weapons: Condition values for the Ripper and Drill have been increased to match other automatic-melee weapons, like the Chainsaw and Auto-Axe.
MISSIONS
- Union Dues: Players can no longer damage the Poison Gas Tanks until the appropriate objective is active.
- Union Dues: When entering The Foundry, Hex’s objective explanation and the Fanatics’ announcement no longer play simultaneously.
- Union Dues: On subsequent Union Dues playthroughs, Wicker no longer addresses the player as if it’s his first time meeting them.
- Union Dues: Addressed an issue that could cause certain objectives to visually disappear after logging out and back in during Union Dues.
- Union Dues: Fixed an issue that could prevent the player from completing the Mission after logging out and back in during the “Speak to Lennox to depart” objective.
- Union Dues: The optional objectives to turn in Steel Ingots and Union Supplies to Wicker will no longer appear until after players have agreed to help him.
- Union Dues: Fixed an issue where some objects, like a section of interactable pipe in The Foundry, would not appear in the world under certain conditions.
- Vertibird: While inside the Vertibird at the start of an Expedition, interacting with a Daily Op menu in the World Activity Tracker and then backing out of the map no longer prevents the player from accessing the Vertibird’s intercom.
- Vertibird: Players can no longer throw grenades while inside the Vertibird.
THE SPRING REFUGE
- Refuge Daily Quests: The first time the player receives a Refuge Daily Quest, it will automatically appear in the quest tracker regardless of the player’s settings for tracking Daily Quests. On subsequent playthroughs, the player’s settings for Daily Quest tracking will apply.
- Code Blue: All entries by Alice Jennings in the Morgantown High School Faculty Records Terminal now each display unique text.
- Code Blue: The Quest description in the Pip-Boy now updates correctly as the player progresses the Code Blue Refuge Daily.
- Mutual Aid: When speaking with Sophie, the Team Leader’s status now correctly changes to “In conversation,” allowing teammates to listen in.
- NPCs: Asking Skippy about The Foundry now correctly moves into dialogue about The Pitt, rather than The Union.
- Recipe for Success: Esme now correctly resumes her cooking animation after the player completes the Recipe for Success Refuge Daily.
- Refuge Encounters: Fixed an issue that could allow the player to complete multiple Refuge random encounters per day.
- Refuge Encounters: Fixed an issue that could cause extra objectives to appear during some Refuge Random Encounters.
- Refuge Encounters: Dialogue options from the Paranoid Refugee NPC now correctly progress the “Imposter Syndrome” Refuge Random Encounter.
USER INTERFACE
- Dialogue: Fixed an issue that could cause dialogue boxes during a conversation to appear on top of subtitles.
- Expeditions Menu: Attempting to start a new Expedition instead of resuming one that is already ongoing, and then selecting “No” from the confirmation dialog, no longer causes the “Confirm” button on the Expeditions Menu to stop working.
